 Good morning. You are back with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We did a little bit of work late last week on some bill language that had been set aside last year when the pandemic hit in order to give us time to focus on COVID relief. So we've got a little bit of bill language that we went over last week and it is my hope that we can move through this and get this bill moving on to the floor of the house. And so we have Carol Dawes with us today. The bill as was contemplated last year made some changes to town clerk fees and I just wanted to give you a few moments to chat with us about your thoughts on the fact that we had left those out of the first round of the bill. It's kind of, I've got two different points of view. One is darn it got left out of the bill because in many ways it really is just an administrative fix. We, you know, it was something that when we adopted the fee bill two years ago it was something we overlooked. And it has to do with recording documents associated with tax sales, which are handled the same way as other land documents and so should be charged at the same $15 rate. And so it just was correcting that, that thing that we overlooked. So it was nice to have it as part of this bill. But on the other hand, I certainly can understand that it doesn't really fit into a bill that deals with mausoleums in columbaria and vital records and you know which seems to have sort of a, you know, a theme to it, a bit of a theme to it. So we have shared the language with Ways and Means and are hoping that it's something that they will be able to incorporate into some of their actions this year. Excellent. That is good to know. And I will touch base with the chair of Ways and Means at our weekly meeting and just give her a heads up that, you know, this is something we'd like them to take a look at. And I do believe it allows for a more streamlined path for the language that we have in this bill, if the bill isn't taking a detour to Ways and Means because of that. And Tucker, I guess I would go back to you at this moment and say, have you been made aware of any questions or concerns or flags that we should be aware of here as we look at moving this bill? And those that were raised during the last discussion. The last time you met and discussed the bill, the repeals section from H932 had been inadvertently left out. I added that repeal section back in. I can walk you through that. The question that had come up last time was from Representative Higley, whose hand is up now. And that question was about whether sheriffs could serve process and whether any language would have to be added to allow sheriffs or other authorized law enforcement officers to serve process of a health order or an emergency provider. And the answer is that the statute already provides for that. The statute provides that service can be accomplished, according to the Vermont Rules of Civil Procedure. VRCP rule number four provides that service shall be accomplished through a sheriff, deputy sheriff, constable or other authorized officer. Does that help you? I thought it did, but then I'm still going back to the actual wording. So on line 17, it says an emergency order shall be served in person by a health officer or, okay, it says or. Okay, I'm happy now. I missed the or, I guess. Yep, thanks. And that is for those of you following along at home, that's on page seven of the draft. All right, any other questions from committee members, before we jump in to taking a peek at what Tucker put back in. All right. Tucker, why don't you point us in the right direction, we'll call it up on our secondary devices and scroll to the right page. And if you all go to the very last page, page eight of eight, section nine, there is a new reader assistance heading which reads repeals effective date. And section nine has been updated to repeal 18 VSA section 5574, which related to the inspection of mausoleums and column barrier that was brought up by the Department of Health. And this time this was discussed. Second, it repeals 24 VSA section 2654, which required that the Department of Health record in the Secretary of State or send a record to the Secretary of State. Each time an emergency management district formation was approved and determined by the Department of Health. And that was flagged last time by Tonya Marshall. And those are the only additions here. All right, any questions from committee members. All right, so the next, the next thing that I need to do as chair is, is identify which of you lucky committee members is going to carry this bill through its floor passage. So before I do that, I guess I would pop to David Englander and say, what do the members of this committee need to be focused on as they think about how to explain the value of this bill to their colleagues on the floor of the house. Well, I'd be happy to provide some talking points off the top of my head. I would say that this is in the case of the, the, the mausoleums and the column barrier, this is removing a barrier to municipalities, you know, having the opportunity to make changes to their cemeteries. It's something that is no longer concerned. There's no help. There are no health concerns. I could say this more articulately if given another moment and I'm happy to write something as I said. And so the first thing is that it's an unnecessary, so in terms of the column barrier, it's an unnecessary step. It provides headaches for for towns and provides a burden on the Department of Health that doesn't have value. How about that for more concise and in terms of the vital records. This is really, I would say it's some housekeeping that was necessary as a result of a wholesale shift in how the vital records law was changed in 2017. And in the case of the health orders, this allows for potential of public health hazards to be mitigated more quickly and without without the need and the expense and the time involved in finding a share of the service. Thank you. Tanya Marshall anything else that you would add an answer to the question. All right, so I should have looked it up and I can't recall off the top of my head who who carried this bill in the 2020 session. When it did not pass through to final passage. Anybody remember off the top of their head. I have an answer. So that's actually wonderful because this person happens to still be on the committee. And so I'm going to give Rob LeClaire first dibs at taking this through a second time. You know, I would be so honored and fortunate to do that madam chair thank you for this opportunity. It doesn't come along often. I am just beaming because of your gratitude. Excellent. So the, if the committee doesn't have any other questions, this is fairly straightforward. David Englander has offered to help Rob, you know, jazz up his floor report from last year, which I'm sure he has diligently filed away on his computer somewhere. Oh my gosh, yeah. Exactly. Under under the folder, the most important things I worked on in 2020 and fail that. Oh, the failure wasn't yours. It was a victim of COVID pandemic legislating. I do think that we can probably get this bill moving through the process this year. We have, we have fewer emergency COVID relief bills that we are working on as a house and senate and so I would hope that this can make it through to final passage this year. And so I'm just going to ask. Yeah, let me just in order. Yes, a motion would be in order. Let me just ask how first if he's ready to roll with the, with the committee record sheet. I am ready, madam chair. Excellent. So I believe that Peter Anthony wants to make the motion. He does thank you very much gladly. And I'm just so reassured that the man who knows a mausoleum from a column barrier will be will be reporting it out. And this is an opportunity to plant some really detailed questions with some of your friends out on the floor of the house. All right, Peter Anthony has moved that we pass out draft 1.2 of 21 dash 0448 is that correct Tucker. Yes, I'm getting a nod from Tucker. So draft one point favorably. This is a committee bill and so it will technically have to go to the floor for introduction tomorrow. And so when we get done with our work here today, let's see we'll need Rob and how to team up in order to get this to the clerk's office. So how when you are ready if there's no, I don't see any other hands last call for questions or comments on the bill. There's no, no arcane provision that floor report has to be given from someplace that isn't above 80 degrees. Well, we can certainly talk about that. So anyway, how when you are ready go ahead and call the roll. Okay. I will begin with cannon. Yes. Maricki. Yes. The Claire. Yes. Cooper. Yes. Colston. Yes. Anthony. Yes. The host key. Yes. Lefave. Yes. Piggly. Yes. McCarthy. Yes. Yes. Great. There are 11 yeses and zero nose. And the boat carries. Excellent. Thank you much committee. Thank you, David and Tanya for being with us this morning. And I'm sure Rob will appreciate any thoughts you want to send his way for his invigorating floor report. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you committee members. Great. So that completes our work on this bill, but I do want to take this moment while we have Carol Dawes with us. Of course, many folks heard the news report this morning regarding a lawsuit on the part of some, some title attorneys to compel town clerk's offices in Vermont to resume their pre pandemic office hours in order to allow for the research that's necessary to conduct real estate transactions. And, and so Carol, I just wonder if you have any thoughts on that. If you have any desire to dig deeper into this issue with us. So you have the floor. Thank you. First of all, I have not seen the news today I do believe that there was a was there a status conference yesterday on and I haven't heard what the outcome I've spent all morning in a dentist chair so do we know what the what the outcome of yesterday's hearings were. I didn't catch that in the news report but I was turning my car on as it as it came up to anybody else catch the news report. Okay. I'll try not to let my bias show because other clerks who have let their bias show are now being subpoenaed. So, um, yeah. Um, the, the, the clerks association worked very carefully very closely with the attorney title corporation, the bar association V sorrow we had a group of people that got together two years ago to pass the, the fee change and continued to work together on improving relationships between all the stakeholders. And we actually were working together last year in advance of right when COVID hit. We were in contact with the legislature about the, the funding for the part of the COVID relief funds that helped us with digitization of land records as a grant. And we were working together and, and then the Connecticut attorney title corporation has really taken the stance that we're not going fast enough, we're not getting digital documents up quickly enough. We're not opening our doors to them at any time that they think it should be available to them. And in a nutshell, I think that their concern, what they're looking for is to move Vermont in the same direction that most other states have moved, which is land records are on a more regional level. They're not on the local level like they are here in Vermont. Because they're more regionalized they have less places they have to go to get the information they need they have less people they have to deal with they have less schedules they have to try to work around. And I think that that's their ultimate goal is to try to come up with some uniformity. And that runs counter to what statute is at the moment clerks set their own schedules. The way statute reads is that we're, we set our own schedule to be, you know, whatever seems reasonable. And not every clerk is open 40 hours a week because a lot of the smaller towns the clerks are part time. But we have worked really hard, particularly during COVID to maintain as much access as possible while still protecting ourselves our staff, the people are citizens. And so it's a, it feels like we're being, we're being attacked for trying to walk that fine line between providing service and protecting ourselves our staffs and the public. I'm not sure my guess is there will ultimately be things that come out of this that that will end up in front of the legislature on one of the big pushes of courses for digitization, which is very expensive. We were extremely grateful with the $2 million grant that that we took advantage of and were able to many clerks started digitizing for the first time. We here in Barry City were able to expand our online document access and through grant funds. But there, there certainly is a demand out there from the attorneys from Connecticut attorney title corporation to, to have universal digital access. So Carol for the, for the benefit of folks who may not have ever spent time in one of our small town town clerks offices. Can you just describe a little bit about, you know, the typical layout of a town clerk's office and where these documents are held and why it presents such challenges in this era of this pandemic era of social distancing and safety concerns. We actually here in Barry City have a relatively large clerks office. And so we're able now under the current guidelines we're able to have a number of staff members, but our land records are held in our vault. And the vault is small enough that we cannot have more than one person at a time in there. Again, using a CDC and a CCD guidelines as far as the number of people per square foot. So because of that we have to limit the number of people who can be in the vault to one at a time which means we schedule so that we don't have people showing up and not being able to get in. We work, we work on a schedule that has been really successful for us. I know many other clerks are doing the same thing. Some clerks offices unfortunately are so small that having just the clerk in the office precludes having another person in that office at the same time. And if they under normal circumstances, someone coming in to do research in the land records would come to their office and then into their vault. They now have two people in a space that's less than 200 square feet and they're now in violation of the guidelines. Clerks have been working out all kinds of ways to they've set up tables out in the hallway and they bring books out to researchers so they can do the research out in the hallway and be it safe distances. Some clerks are doing a lot of pulling the documents themselves and scanning and emailing them to people who have who have requested them. But we're, you know, depending on the physical parameters of their office. That really is dictating what the individual circumstances are challenging. Thank you Carol Peter Anthony. What I'm about to ask maybe overly naive I I'm assuming even though the immediately named defendants would be towns that the Connecticut group is targeted. But really it sounds like it's an assault not only on the enabling statute, but also on the health orders that the governor and Levine have issued recently. I assume the state will defend on the behalf of the towns and or the clerks association. If they end up being named. I, I certainly don't know at the, at the moment the, the eight named communities, eight, I think it's a named communities are sharing a lawyer, who is Peter's doing representative Anthony's doing yeah. I'm sorry I'm just shocked out if the burden of this falls on the individual communities I think the least the state can be as an intervener and supply some of the legal horsepower. That's above my pay grade. Carol are the community spread out across the state big towns small towns centered in any geographic area. How did they choose eight. They're, they're pretty well spread out on, I believe that the, the choice and they range from Lincoln to South Burlington. As far as size is concerned, I do believe that every one of the ones named does not have any online land records access. I believe that that's, and that's kind of their baseline of determining my guess is that's what they use to determine which, which towns to name. They do, they do say that these towns are representative of a more statewide problem so that they seem to intimate that they could have picked pretty much any eight towns. I think that's what they need to communicate. Rob LaClaire. Thank you madam chair. I guess I'm going to come at this from a little bit of a different perspective as somebody who has had to avail myself of town records. Over the years in particular last year. It has created a really hard hardship for a lot of town residents to not be able to even get into the town clerk's offices. They do need to get in there and do title searches, and they can't aren't even allowed in say nothing about schedule, a time to get in. And I recognize that some of the clerks have tried to get them the information that they want, but there's a high level of discomfort around that because title searches can be very complicated, can be very cumbersome. And it just seems like if there's some clerks out there who aren't looking for a path forward to make this work. I had to get some death certificates here, not that long ago, wasn't even allowed in the office I had to do the exchange through the door, and when it was convenient for them. Recognizing we got into this thing very quickly. I'm not going to go into it slowly, but I have to say that I think that there's some clerks out there that could do better at making their offices and what they do more accessible to the end users. I, I agree completely. Unfortunately, there, there are instances where, where we, the association are aware of clerks who have been less than helpful. The, the challenge of course is that most of us are elected officials and unfortunately there are clerks out there whose attitude is, you can't tell me what to do. And that is a challenge for their community members for the people who need to use their, their vaults and for those of us clerks who are trying really hard to, to educate them on providing service to, to their citizens. But I, I would hope that we wouldn't all be painted with the same brush. Thanks Carol mark Higley. Thank you madam chair. I have to echo what representative of Claire was talking about. I'm sorry that it has come to a, a legal challenge, but I've been contacted by a number of constituents and, and this is this is a life changing issue for them when it comes to selling a piece and I can only say that my tongue clerks up this way have been more than helpful after conversations to make that happen to make it work to get the people in the office, however, they can. And so that's been a big help but these are these are critical issues for for folks across Vermont and, and I really feel for them and and I'm hoping that all town clerks can work out something in the event of these very important requests from constituents. Thank you. John Gannon. Thank you. So, I was just reading through the complaint, and it is based on statute that and I'm not going to quote the statute but it seems that clerks office have to be open for reasonable hours. So, given that much the law, the complaint is based on statute. Is there Carol a potential legislative fix to put some guard rails that that would give the clerks protection but still encourage them to be open. Actually, there's a couple things and and it's, it's prudent, not prudent, but it's nice to have Tanya is still on this call because one of the things that that she has been trying to move forward this year is the adoption of you para which is and I can't remember what the acronym stands for but essentially it's enabling language associated with electric recording of documents land records and would provide some some additional assistance in creating some uniformity across the state with regards to digital records access to records. And one of the nice things included in that particular language is the creation of standards committee or some kind of standards body that would that would work together clerks working very closely with them to develop some standardization for practice best practices recording practices across the board and the hope would be that that that would help address some of these issues. We still will always run into the few clerks who just aren't going to do what they should be. And they're a challenge for all of us to deal with. I was thinking more along the lines of a coven 19 piece of legislation, which might give some better guidance than current statute is to the hours that clerks need to be open. Do you think that would help at all. There, there has been talk amongst the members of the VMC TA members on their listserv about on what would happen if clerks were designated as essential workers, and perhaps had some guidelines associated with that. And at the moment, we're not considered essential workers and yet if you read through the ACCD guidelines, our work is considered essential and and it's a little, it's, it's, it isn't really clear. The guideline isn't really clear as to what we should or shouldn't be doing. I actually had several email exchanges with Ted Brady. You know, eight, 10 years ago, months ago about needing some more specific city with regards to the guidelines for access to land records on and, and that would certainly be helpful for clerks to hold on to to, you know, if it were more black and white. That would be helpful. Thank you. All right, thank you so much, Carol Tanya anything you want to offer for thoughts on this conundrum. Thank you, Madam Chair. As Carol mentioned, and I believe Deputy Secretary Chris Winters has reached out to you regarding a possible bill related to the uniform real property recording act. So the revised uniform law on notorial acts, the secretaries of states in all the states have been watching federal bill come through that would kind of push all this through within all the states in Vermont is one of the ones that does not have some this overlay law that can support the town clerks when it comes to land recordings and also remote online notarization so I think that's the overlap that Carol was mentioning as some possibilities to start providing some assistance to towns and also modernization were applicable for land records. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, committee. Right well we'll keep an eye on this and john if you have thoughts on on prompting a further conversation about about COVID clarification you and I can certainly chat about getting that put together. Thank you for being with us today. Good job committee this morning. We are now into the lunch hour so I think we will sign off and I will see you all on the floor at 115. And then back in committee 15 minutes after the