 And are there any members of the public there? There are three members of the public. And as always, it's always a good moment to save some lives, so let's get started. This meeting is being recorded and or transcribed. Episode of the Vermont Candidate's Control Board Subcommitting for Social Equity. It's the 21st of October. Meeting is now called to order. Let's take attendance. So for the subcommittee, Nader Hashim. Present. Ashley Reynolds. Present. Julio Thompson. Here. It's not a David. And Gina Cranley-Cole. Present. John O'Donnell. Present. The board, can you tell us who's in the room? Just me from the board. And then three members of the public. All right, welcome to this episode. For the next step, we'd like to approve the minutes of our last meeting. So may I have a motion to approve the minutes, please? I'll make that motion. Oh, I'll second. All right, moved and seconded, minutes have been approved. All right, our next step. So we want to first of all thank members of the Vermont citizenry for submitting some public comments. Here we got a couple this week. So here's the first summarized one from Ben Mervis. Suggested that the subcommittee includes social consumption and their discussion for special licenses and social equity exclusivity. People need a safe place to consume cannabis and some people are not able to consume it at their homes or assisted living slash long-term care facilities. Without a private space where consumption is permitted, they are forced to break the rules or another. Social consumption provides a safe and opportunity for consumers, particularly first-time consumers, to learn about and experience products. Rules and regulations can be created in the State Guard public health and safety such as designated driver to join the group experience or for that same use of ride-sharing service. Other states allow for social consumption, which we can use as examples. We, my friend and business partner, Greg Mitchell, believe consumption lounges will only benefit the state in creating a successful cannabis institute. One is from Francis Wyatt and Francis says, I wholeheartedly support the recommendation to the CCB of the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition. This is a 31-page comment we received at the last session. I would like to see the majority of the cannabis cultivation in Vermont be outdoor grown, small-scale and truly Vermont-based. Please convene a system that prevents large corporations from dominating Vermont cannabis market. Thank you, Francis, for that comment. And next, from Steven Radcliffe. Steven said, I feel the set of structure for whom this eligible slash able to start a small grow is rigged. The fee structure makes fee high if overlapped given the alleged social item. Small home growers, social equity growers, could meet this demand. All of the questions being answered and covered is major topics or general topics, although rightly major within themselves, such as issues of age, use, location, et cetera, et cetera. The major issues are who, when, and where can small growers get licensed. If socially equitable slash affordable for the average Vermonter. So, thank you, Steven and Francis and Ben, for those public comments. You can see the link there. For those of you watching in Vermont that want to submit your feelings and views about the process of the social equity subcommittee, please let your voice be heard. And with that, I will turn this over to Gina for this week's presentation. Thank you all. Thank you, Jeffrey, for that wonderful introduction. And thank you for our public comments. We stopped last week at representatives of the cannabis social equity board. I know we have been going back and forth on this for the last three meetings, well, last two meetings, and this will be our third meeting about this. As we're taking into consideration, a lot of it is, you know, obviously we want to make sure that all of these people will be drawn from diverse backgrounds and geographical locations in order to represent the interest of communities of colors and other marginalized groups throughout the state of Vermont. Last week we were discussing about social equity cannabis representatives. I know Ashley stated that if we were going to have a retail processor or cultivator and cultivator at that time, what you wanted delivery to be included. And then we didn't want to add more people. And then we also spoke about having a social equity candidate that has gotten a job in the cannabis industry as a representative. As our social equity program is not only to help license social equity, but also other social equity candidates who are looking for a career in the cannabis industry. So the changes that were made here is that we included, instead of just having it in every single part of the sector, we changed that to a licensed social equity cannabis representative from one of the following sectors. So for retail, processor, or cultivator, and it would just be one person representing those sectors. And then a licensed social equity cannabis representative from the delivery or cooperative, since those are special unique licenses for this group only at that time. And then putting in a social equity candidate currently working in the cannabis industry. So Nader, I know that you were not on last week's call, so I'm going to, on Monday's call. So I'm going to start off with you. And then the business owner from physical portionally impacted communities. There's just a question about do we want them residing or just disturbing that community? I know we didn't discuss that last week, so it's highlighted in red. So to make sure we discussed it today. So Nader, can you start us off? Yeah, thank you. I admit you all sorry I wasn't here at the last meeting. So, you know, some of my thoughts, I'm happy that we have a strong presence of social equity people on this board potentially. One of my concerns is, you know, if we're, if we end up making this board bigger, I think that the more people you put into this, the slower the process will be. And one of our, one of the many concerns that we've talked about in the past is making this a faster process without losing quality, but a faster process and prioritizing social equity applicants earlier on. So, yeah, I just want to try to minimize the amount of lengthy bureaucracy that we create. So I think we're at 15. Are we at 15 or 13 right now? Was there anything on the last name? 15. Yeah, so those are my initial thoughts. And also, you know, what's highlighted the business owner from a disproportionately impacted community. You know, my thoughts on that couldn't really think, well, I mean, my initial thought is that it could be a business owner who is either residing or serving. I don't have an opinion strongly one way or the other as to whether or not they have to be just residing or just serving exclusively in one of those categories for that community. So, yeah, those are my initial thoughts. Thank you, Nada. Ashley, your thoughts with these updates? Yeah, I think these are great. And I'm with Nader, like, I'm not quite sure, you know, having them exclusively residing or exclusively serving. I like that additional comment. So, yeah, I mean, I think this is good. I'm interested, you know, I understand how our subcommittee is working and how the board is working. I don't know if anybody can speak to being on board that has this many people on them specifically. And I know we've talked about, you know, wanting to get through some of these things quickly. So, I don't want the number to be the hot blood issue. I felt like that's the last two meetings. That's kind of what it's been about. And I just kind of want to put it to the group. If this is a good amount or is it too many not enough and are we making sure that we're not leaving anybody else, too? And if we're not sort of like doubling up in certain areas that would give a similar perspective. Ashley, I'm going to hold off on talking about the number of panelists as another round discussion. And one thing that you mentioned is if we might be missing someone, you know, we can bring in experts if we need more guidance if there is someone that we still isn't representative in this board. Julio, your thoughts? I think Nautra made a good point about whether, you know, having being eligible if you either live or reside in the community, the effect of the community. Because there'll be an application process, presumably, and I would take it that the Canada's control board can make the appropriate distinction. So, if someone, you know, owns a franchise operation but that owner, you know, resides in Montreal or Vancouver, you know, but has a franchise outlet here that might not be the Super Bowl candidate versus another candidate. So, I think opening it up to either, if it's fine. Great, thank you. And how do you fill out the number of candidates? I think it's fine. You know, a couple of days ago, I and also Susanna participated in a meeting of a different Vermont council which has 23 members on it. And so I think it relative to that, 15 is workable. I think 17 is probably more than I'm comfortable with. I think 15 is good, especially as the list is developed, we have an increased voice from, you know, folks in the community. That's where I think we were all really striving to do that and balancing that against having folks on the board who are, you know, who may have technical knowledge. So, I think 15 is the fine number. Thank you. Susanna, your thoughts? Yeah, I agree. I think 15 is really an upper limit of what I would recommend. But, yeah, I think it's less than that. Are you okay? Do you feel that all the people we want represented on the board are there? Yeah, I think so. And, you know, again, this is not the exhaustive list of everyone who can participate in the board's discussions. And I think that's the important key here. Great. Thank you. And so, Ashley, we're going into numbers. How do you feel about that number? Because I know that you just spoke about that. Are you okay with 15? I think I just wanted to put it more out in the world of making sure that we feel that everybody that we think should be there is there and it's not. I'm not married to the number. Many of you probably serve on other boards that maybe understand it a little bit better than I do. So I hope you have a number. If the consensus of the group is okay with the number. Okay, great. And, you know, also, I mean, for a quorum, it would need eight people. So it allows for, you know, some people to be able to be absent with that large of a number. And, Nodder, how do you feel about 15 representatives? Five of 15. Okay, wonderful. So I think we're off to voting time. So, Ashley, yes or no to this recommendation to the Vermont Cataclysm Control Board for representatives for the Academy of Social Equity Board. Yes. Thank you. Nodder? Yes. And Julio? Yes. Wonderful. We know for the record that those are three guesses to the representatives for the Canada Social Equity Board. And you have all done a wonderful job with all different perspectives. I mean, this was very well thought out and planned to ensure, you know, that social equity especially have a huge voice in this process. So thank you. And I am sure the public thinks you as well for that. So we give to our next agenda item, which is consider a reinvestment of cannabis tax revenue into the cannabis disproportionately impacted communities. I know we're spoken many times about giving back to the communities that were burdened. I am making a recommendation of 20% of cannabis tax revenues to this fund. And the fund should be in support of education, legal aid, youth development, fund prevention. I know that there were some public comments raised about land and housing access. I'm not really sure how and what ways that would be addressed as well. And then ask that talking about what are some of these disproportionately impacted communities. So Julio, can I get your thoughts on 20% of cannabis tax revenues going to this fund and what you feel the resources should go towards? As we, I think the second time we've talked about position I think we're all facing a little bit of the challenge of not knowing what the estimated revenues are. Do we have anything updated there you can speak to or are we just going for again as an abstract? This is just as an abstract number. Okay. And the whole idea of reinvesting into the disproportionately impacted areas on cannabis is to get to the root cause of the issue. Creating the social equity program will help a few that decide to join. But we want to help as many people as possible and we can only do that by reinvesting and giving the resources that these communities need to help them to get to the next level as well. And as the industry grows, the amount of money government will grow as well. Julie, do you have any proposed numbers that you can share? We do. I don't. They're on the computer that's serving as a camera right now so I can't access them. They are on our website, I believe, with some of the market structure slides. Jeffery, if you can just look into that for us while we're having this discussion, that would be great. Are you okay with the abstract 20% and it going to education, legal aid, development, and violence prevention? You're asking me. I think the areas where there's a best and I think are good. I think that, I mean, what I would like to be able to see is that there's fun, might change from year to year depending upon what the communities need so it's not confided. Because I can see that there might be grants for a community that may not fit neatly within these categories, but might be like the broader categories. And what I'm thinking about are some communities might need or could benefit from bridge or micro loans for transportation and accessibility issues where it may be that the state of Vermont is going to do long-term investments in public transit or pool transit, but then the community might identify immediate needs that the fund might need and the fund might be able to provide that stopgap, so some things that would be a little broader in that I think would be that would have a basis for having grant programs where people can, the community might put out or submit or have the proposed to the SEB board that they put out a request for proposals to provide extra wide services and that there would be a grant, might be a two to three year grant program for that because I do think there are, I think we can't know ahead of time what all the areas are, so as this is kind of a start of a list I think it's fine and it may be when you're talking about that impact of community funds that might be a subset of what is in the fund that it's a grant that it could be a grant program for different either entrepreneurs or non-profits. So the first, very great point, Julio, the first point that I'm hearing is a grant program for applications for community development and or community needs. Is that correct? Am I hearing that correctly? Yeah. And then the second one that you said about entrepreneurs in that area, is that correct? Or non-profits without community? Yeah, I think that's right. Okay, Gina, I did find it on our website. So the 2022 projection for retail sales for finished products is around $10 million. That's just the first year and then it goes up to about $103 million in 2023. And that's just cannabis tax revenue? Well that's the retail sales. So it's not necessarily a tax projection but that's, so you would assume that, well actually I'm not sure if this is retail sales and tax, but the tax would be I think above that or 20% of, you know. Thank you, Julie. Nana, you're on? One question I had is, what does the education category, what is that covering exactly like, what type of education? Well I think that that would be sort of up to sort of the schools to develop if they need maybe, you know, earlier access or access to school programs or new books or technology for that school that is necessary in those communities or maybe a laptop program, you know, that if there was something that was specific educational-wise due to the community needs that they would be able to apply for funding on that. Okay, yeah, that's great. Or even some helpers or, you know, whatever, you know, the education that is currently being funded but would be beneficial to this group. Right. Yeah, I support the four categories that we have listed there for the 20%. And what about the additional two that Julio mentioned, which is a grant program that a community can submit a proposal for a community need or development that may not be listed here but can be reviewed for approval. I think that's a good idea of an option that's available and to make it an option available for town to address something that's not covered. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. And how do you feel about entrepreneurs or nonprofits that are residing or from those communities to be able to gain access to this account? I think that is something that would be more, I think there's a lot more discussion to be had on that. Have access to this account to do things like youth development and providing legal aid. Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, Julio just mentioned in an abstract way where someone wanted to as an independent person to go into that. But I do like what you're pointing out which is anyone who might help with legal aid or youth development or even violence prevention or education can submit for a grant for those instead of specifically having it as an entrepreneur or as a nonprofit. I think that's also something that should go through the town as well just to make sure that people, that the voters would be in support of it as well. Yeah, I just always have a concern in the back of my mind of some other entity trying to exploit the sort of funds for their own conference. But if it goes to the town to make sure that voters are aware of who is trying to get a grant I think that could be a good preventative measure to avoid any exploitation or anything like that. Yeah, very good concern. Ashley, Julio can go ahead. I saw that his hand went up. Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on Natter's excellent point. I mean, what I had in mind in terms of a grant program is that these would be public competitive grants where every applicant has to be able to demonstrate the need and the ability to deliver that. I would think that the grant process would necessarily indicate that they'd be permitted and supported by the community and then provide an opportunity for the community to either provide support or opposition or a competitive bid if the community government thinks that they are somewhat or an existing contractor can do it better. There are just, I mean, the reason I would like that flexibility is that there are just a number of subject matters that aren't addressed here that could be addressed. Like, I think Oregon allocates some of their funding to mental health services. Washington State I think has a certain percent that's set aside for like emergency funding for people who have catastrophic health care costs that they're facing and I'm not sure what Vermont would do and those might be too legislature or the CCB might think that those two on the road are good. I just like the idea of leaving it open so that the more local and really varied folks can make their own proposal or response to a request for proposal because I think that it's more flexible and again if you're doing it through you know open contract or RP process then I think there's transparency and also there'll be opportunities for people to put what I see for those small grants is that some entities if they want to propose to do something they may team up with another group that carries and brings in another set of skills and then they put in together a joint proposal to deliver some services that again maybe the local government and the state government isn't quite quick enough or nimble enough to address it in the short term so that's the reason that's the reason behind it to give that local feedback and flexibility. I really like the addition of just saying community grants on their needs and offer development purposes so then if a need for the community was counseling or assistance with medical coverage it kind of just they could apply towards just community needs so I really like that addition. Ashley? I think I remember seeing a slide of some of the designated communities is that key? So that's the next slide that we're just going to talk about and these are just wanting to get people's perspectives right now on you know are these the communities we want to target are there other communities we want to include in there do we want to take some of these off none of these are sat in stone but something to discuss so these are the you know maybe we just added as counseling and counseling as its own group here or we just sort of put that into the grant perspective of the community that says you know counseling is really important medical assistance is really important etc you know with that community grants for development or need you know it really encompasses so much involvement and the flexibility of the community to really determine what their own needs are I don't have much more to add than the other two really great points about this program I mean I do share in not wanting this program to be abused I think there's potentially going to be lots of money in there and there's a lot of money and we all know what happened so that's why I was a little bit more concerned about what we're going to designate as disproportionately impacted communities I know this is a concern as far as what would qualify somebody for an empty applicant and there was a worry of people moving to certain communities that they could access applications ahead of time and so I just see that happening in this situation I mean I'd like to you know there's huge you know housing crisis homelessness I mean obviously you know the grants that we're talking about here hypothetically that could fit really well in there but yeah I just I really hope we can do the most good there will potentially be a fair amount of money to go around especially between two percent tax revenue I mean that's going to be a lot yeah good and this would be for the community itself it wouldn't be directed to an individual I mean the community could potentially give a grant to an individual based on medical needs but this is really to help all and not just a few so I think the risk of people moving can decrease in those aspects versus if it was just an individual person and then they could reply then that might create a different forecast of movement but it's a very good point that you bring up Ashley Susanna your thoughts I know that there is some activity in the chat about whether we're talking about projected sales or tax revenue did we get the answer I know I heard the scale of the first year by like what would it be on the first year and then a hundred and some million by twenty three I don't know if we were able to get what the tax revenue would be out of that and it almost it almost doesn't even matter I guess what I'm just thinking about is twenty percent feels like a nice round number and I just want to make sure that we're not anchoring ourselves with a nice round number if there's more that we could be considering in this program so that was not an element whether grants go directly to individuals or to the communities themselves I agree that to reduce the risk of people relocating then it makes sense to get grants to communities I also wonder when I hear from communities around the state a lot of times what I'm told is it's the same handful of people who've been in power for decades and they run everything and if they don't like you then you're out of luck and I just wonder have we thought about a mechanism for making sure that decisions are getting made objectively and fairly for a review process I'm not sure how that gets thought out and then in terms of the types of things the funds that we're looking at on this list I like it and I'd really like us to take an expansive view of what total most agitation could mean and because training in agitation takes many forms and sometimes we legitimize certain formal tracks without acknowledging other ways that people gain expertise and what else people gain in development thank you Susanna what do you think about how much do you think should be given back to these funds because there are the cannabis tax revenue funds are being used in other ways in other places as well and we've already reflected 5% of the cannabis tax revenue to support the social equity program as well and there were 20% here I believe that there was another 7% of marketing 30% another group and 7% of that was going to marketing and educating about cannabis that's alright Gina are you talking about the tax so the on top of sales there's a 6% sales tax and then there's a 14% excise tax so the 6% sales tax is to go to after school and then 30% of that 14% excise tax is to go to prevention programs and so that leaves 70% of the excise tax presently unspoken for or going into general fund and so this 20% then would that be coming out of the excise tax or that it would have to come from the excise tax so that and then another 5% which we've made a recommendation of so 25% maybe that's right maybe that's comfortable I don't know don't look at me I'm thinking and you know all of this is what we're saying to the cannabis you know board is to have the re-look and re-assess it like every 6 months or every year to really make that determination because now we're just dealing with abstract numbers and even the numbers that we're predicting may not be due you know as always we have to just continuously re-evaluate and ensure that what we're our end goal is really being a complex and I think one of the things that I'm struggling with one is that it is very abstract but the other thing is that it's scale right I mean we want to go with recommendations that feel safe and likely but we also want to be able to push as much as we can and you know have Vermont historically been the number one offender in the United States the number one culprit in the United States for perpetuating the war on drugs against historically marginalized people probably not but can Vermont afford to do more to make it right maybe and if that's the case then so I think I'm just kind of struggling with that is like the scale of it and not just what's the minimum that we can do to say we've done a good thing but what what is the maximum that we can do yeah great point I thought Jeffrey you had your hand raised yeah Julie and I are on the same wavelength so she addressed what I was going to bring up and the numbers that Julie mentioned earlier that was based on overall sales protection so it seems like in 2022 you know it's probably the exercise would be less than $2 million and then we're asking for 20% of that and then obviously it'll increase in for the years but that is just a projection you know we really have to see the takeoff and see what happens later down the road landing and housing access I know that there was a mention of this in public comments do you know do we want to add this to potentially for communities and so how would we go about that not or do we just exclude it and just make sure that this just goes to all of that and if the community needed to purchase something they would put in its grant request so I have a couple different thoughts when it comes to land and housing access kind of going off of what you're saying having this potentially be in the grant if there is a need I think that could be good I don't want one thing I worry about is spreading out the money so much that it has a very negligible effect in other areas such as education and violence prevention and so on so if there is an identifiable need for land and housing access and the community wants to develop a grant or a nonprofit wants to develop a grant for it I think that could be a good idea and so have that under the grant category that the community grants need or development purposes correct? yes thanks Ashley I think we've covered it I don't know that I have much more to add these are all really awesome perspectives and additions if there is land are you okay with us just putting any land or housing access needs that goes under the grant need and development request great thanks and Julio what's the question you're asking me are you okay with under the community grant development or needs that if any land or housing access was needed that they can just submit that to the board instead of having it at its own subcategory I don't yeah I think that I think as far as the subcategory I just know that in the last legislative session number two bills to address expressly the issue of increased access to land and housing and so I'm a little skeptical about using rulemaking as a way of achieving things that did not go through the legislature and I think may be taken back up in the legislature in the next session what I envision when you just someone wants to apply for a grant and they have a proposed use for housing I was kind of thinking that that they would be if the board were thought that that you know based on its research of the input it received that that was a subject then the board would put it out for a competitive bid because there may be other people who could deliver the same result in a more equitable way a more efficient way so I don't I think if you leave just community based grants of that language you have I don't think it excludes housing like I said I don't I'm a little skeptical that it would be I mean I read the coalition document which basically have a lot of detail that resembled some of the detail in the proposed legislation and I wouldn't rule it out I would put it in that grant subject but I don't know that we need to specifically mention it because I agree I wouldn't exclude it but for you and for Jeffery's sake who haven't been in Vermont last year in the legislative session this is an active topic and there's a lot more voices who are being heard on that than our subcommittee or even the CCB so I don't want folks to think that we would be using those processes in the way of necessarily closing those circles with that broader that's going on in the legislation I appreciate that bringing back Julia so I'd like to vote on this proposal recommendation a reimbursement of cannabis funds to disproportionately impacted communities that there to be a disproportionately impacted community fund created allocation of 20% of cannabis tax revenue goes to that fund funds are used for purposes of education, legal age development, violence prevention and community grants for needs and development of the communities that will be submitted to the board for approval which can be in any category an open category there not our how do you vote? I'll vote yes thank you Ashley I'll vote yes and Julia I'm not sure 20% is the right number I don't think it's too much but with the expectation that the forthcoming social equity board would be in a position to recognize increasing the number as people identify the needs with a little more input from the community I'll vote yes we can put in a criteria that this be reexamined on an annual basis to ensure that it is needing the needs of the community and then possibly vote for increase would you like that caveat put in Julia? I would like to say at least 20% with revisiting for increasing I'm a little concerned that what might be become a vehicle for scaling back and given the whole nature of the economy that's being built here I wouldn't want to see a couple of 20% okay at least I would like to wrap it in one way percentage okay so at least 20% of campus tax revenue to the fund with annual review. Suzana do you have your hand raised? I like that suggestion and what I might add is that we want to make that recommendation somewhere and again we're not writing a statute here but I would include some language that says how that review should be conducted or what it should entail like what kinds of data and metrics will the reviewers need to be using to determine whether it's serving the community because it's kind of depending on who's reviewing it they may not be in touch with the community so maybe that means like looking at the AQA to take the population level outcome or working with a chief performance officer so we don't have to deal with that now but just to sort of talk about how that review process may be strengthened so you said AQA 164 AQA 186 and I will send you that open to view okay I mean I low consult with the cannabis control board just to see if we're allowed to be in that detail but that there should be some protocol that is followed thank you for that that was important to be up there so Julio just want to make sure that we are voting on this where at least allocating 20% of tax tax revenue to be determined later on an annual basis if there is a need for an increase yeah okay actually are you do a yes to that addition yes and matter yeah wonderful so three yeses with the addition of at least allocating a 20% of tax cannabis tax revenue to the fund okay wonderful and it is public comment time and is there anybody in the room to make public comment that's a take turns yep I think we have two public comments thank you hi everybody it's been thank you for all your work today this was great to see you all just cruised through this and also you know that public comment of mine was the one from weeks ago so just thank you for still sharing it just to put some context as I was back of the pad math around what you all just approved it's a great amount of money for communities if we just keep the rounded number at the 10 to 100 million in retail sales the 20% of the 14% excise tax comes to 280,000 on the low end and 2.8 million on the high end and if the excise tax which I believe is applied to whole sale as well I think it's at every stage of the market I believe it's at every stage of the market which only is worth mentioning because if it is that brings you up to 420,000 to 4.2 million which is just ironic and great but that's a huge amount of money for communities and so just to reflect a little bit of public opinion that we have been hearing in our conversations when the public hears about these allotments of tax when they when it doesn't add up to a hundred often we're hearing well why can't they just lower the tax instead of finding more places to put it I think we hope to reflect your work in terms of this can continue to grow we'll identify more needs one that we do hear about fairly often that I just would want to mention is environmental resiliency there's plans at the general fund level or the state level to address environmental resiliency throughout the state but specifically in disproportionately impacted communities that we know that there tends to be even less environmental justice which in exchange is social justice and that is it for me today thank you so much and I'm going to hand things off to my business partner and friend Craig Mitchell thank you Ben and I know that Vermont Canada Central Board has an IT issue and that's why it was late Ben thought we didn't want to make sure once we got it to have it on for public comment I appreciate it thank you Gina hello everyone my name is Craig Mitchell it's my very first in-person meeting oh my god but Ben it's been as you can tell a worthy stand in for me and a business partner and someone who's been on this stuff as I'm moving towards being a social equity applicant I appreciate all the language and all the hard work that you've been doing but especially today would really struck me which I think is really important is to focus on mental health and so bringing that back and circling back on that at some point would be wonderful as a way to discuss the impact as far as social equity applicants and then how it's been impacting communities family wise and otherwise so again thank you so much for your hard work and I look forward to working with you all again soon thank you thank you I think that's it for public comment okay thank you Julie um so we are now going to discuss the proportionally impacted communities and you know these are some of I know like high BIPOC ratio and high um population rates um but let's just sort of look at these over and you know which ones do you think from this list should be here should they not be here um reorganizing what what should we be adding Julio would you like to start us off? Yeah it's Rotland I'm sorry That's okay My apologies um That's okay um you know I think that you know you've hit the largest communities in the state I would you know I would have to look at some numbers really to get a sense um of the terms of communities that might be disproportionately impacted um a name that I'm not seeing here but that shows up for me at least when I look at recent public health figures is um Barry's the ARRE um but I you know I don't I feel like I don't have enough information really the ones I expected to see on the list I guess are here Thank you um Julio I was just writing that down um not her I think the names on this list are a good start um and you know especially Rotland you know that one from day one of when I was a cop Rotland was considered to be you know quote unquote the hub of drug distribution and you know that it's a location considered an anecdote to be um a hub you're going to have a lot of over-policing in that area um and so I'm just glad that Rotland's on the list um but otherwise uh I think the other town also makes sense um as well as Barrington you know I more recently heard a lot of different horror stories from people of color living in Barrington um so I think the names on this list are good for them actually yeah I agree these are all of the places I would expect um but like Julio I'd like to see a little bit more data um I know like potentially Vergen has been on this list I guess that's included in for a Lulee County I need to look at my counties again that's terrible that's Vermont-er um and then in addition to that my own county we've definitely seen in our own problems so I know from the Moyle County we're adding maybe including so but um it's potentially it's worth opening it up to a couple other counties yes this is not this is just an open conversation right now I don't want you to feel like we're trying to exclude but really just understand and get a better definition of how we can kind of determine that and now Susanna please let your thoughts and questions on that thank you um can you remind me I'm embarrassed to ask but can you remind me what is the impact that we're referencing again is it just impact of the war on drugs or disparities of all time just the impact on the war on drugs because which would be for our definition BIPOC community and communities that have high incarceration rates um due to the war on cannabis so then I might ask to consider making sure that all of the border counties are present or at least the border towns because there's a lot of enforcement there um with at least pre-tech schools stop looking for drugs and you know really it's just ice trying to wrap people up and then along the same lines I would consider areas that have larger bonding communities like um the one Franklin County the ones that are south of changing County maybe Addison because they will also have larger migrant populations and we find that if there are things like decent rates happening that are again pre-tech for drugs then um those are spend communities better it may not and I think also it matters um where the community the community where these things happen versus the community from which people come where these things happen mm-hmm one of the things that I would like everyone to do in the next few days is some research along with me on really trying to ensure that we look into the disproportionately impacted community so on those two references of you know large BIPOC community um and also you know high incarceration or or that uh arrest rates for cannabis um we're also going to look on that one of the things that and I just before we end I just want to go back to the slide of re-investment of cannabis funds mental health which we didn't live as um as its own separate category we just listed under sort of the grants available access but because mental health is so important after you know the trauma that people have suffered to the law on drugs um moved with life to kind of just add that on the own separate category to really ensure that communities focus on getting people the care that they may need to the trauma that they may have suffered and Ashley your thoughts yeah I think that's an excellent addition thanks um so would you vote yes to adding that on as its own separate category yeah thank you Julio uh I think it's fine yeah so is that a yes I'm just getting yes it's a no for the record sorry I don't yeah let's okay thank you Julio and Nara yes okay thank you um so just adding to the record that we are going to add mental health as its own separate category for the disproportionately impacted community funds and there were three answers thank you so much I think we've made really great progress uh I'm happy that we are beyond the representatives and looking really into the communities that these funds are going to go to um and the many challenges that we are recognizing um due to the prohibition of cannabis so this is just a reminder for what we speak about on Monday is talking about these community groups please email me any information that you can help find based on that and then we are going to start after that on our DEI program you know we spoke about this diversity equity and inclusion and this is was you know who have been historically unrepresented in society you know we want to allocate some resources to that as well um so you know what should these groups be and what benefits do they receive so everyone has this uh PowerPoint presentation I'll send it around again just to ensure that everybody is up to date with some of the changes that was made but please think about this so um we can really start well next week and once again next month in November we will be having a two of our social equity program so that is all for the public to come out join us um we will be the we will be there in person um at town hall meetings and we're also are trying to have a virtual aspect of it as well so we can join hear your spirit voices hear your ideas of how the social equity program is going to go um we cannot create a social equity program without everyone's involvement so that is base two for social equity and then base three will be the Vermont cannabis control board getting all of the recommendations from everyone um and hearing everybody's voice to make their final determination so I thank you so much and you know please reach out to us um so we can start having conversations about this can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting motion to adjourn thank you can I have a second Julio Natter I can't let go um I know it's too much fun social equity we really are changing people's lives it's just so so good after these meetings I'm so pumped for the rest of the day knowing we're making a difference in people's lives we like to lay out second motion okay thank you I'm also very sad to go but don't worry next week it's going to be even more fun as we expand on this and try to help as many people as possible so thank you for being with us we really appreciate everyone out there and appreciate all the public comments that we get into we cannot do this without you thank you