 Thank you. Good evening, three-dimensional humans. Welcome to the, what is it, July 2021, meaning of the advisory panel on racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Let us start with introductions, which is going to be kind of an interesting affair. It took me forever to figure out how to do it on a screen and now I get to do it in both real-time and out-of-time. So let's start with the screen. Dr. Crocker. Hi, everybody. This is like very cool. So I'm Abby Crocker. I'm at UVM and also at the National Center on Restorative Justice. Great. Thank you. Chief Stevens. Hi, I'm Don Stevens, Chief of the Nolhegan Abenaki Tribe. Thank you. Mo West. Good evening, everyone. My name is Mo West. I'm from search. I think you'll be hearing a little bit more from me in the very near future of who I am and why I'm here. Great. Thank you. Pepper. Hey, it's James Pepper. I'm the chair of the cannabis control board. Congratulations on coming out the physical and remote meeting setting. Not easy to do. Dude, this was the grace of the divine. Okay. I mean, thank you. But this was, this was beyond human intervention. Oh, Captain Scribner, my partner. Hi, I am Captain Julie Scribner. I am here representing Commissioner Chiron in the Department of Public Safety. Great. Ah, my eyes. Alana Tate. I'm Alana Tate. I'm here from DCF Adolescent Services Unit. Great. Thank you. Julio Thompson. Hi, sorry, I'm not on video tonight. Julio Thompson, Civil Rights Unit Attorney General's Office. Great. Thanks. David, does that go down so I can see if there are more people? Scroll on that channel. Thank you. Rebecca, you're the last person on the screen. Hi, everyone. Rebecca Turner, panel member and representing the Office of the Defender General. Great. Thank you. And then we'll just go around the room. Evan. Evan Meadon from the Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs. I'm the Vice Racial Equity Director. I am over here. Good evening, everyone. Tyler Allen. I'm Nick Misher, Designated Appointee from Department of Children and Families. I work with Alana Tate in Adolescent Services Unit. I'm Jessica Brown. I'm one of the Attorney General at-large community member appointees. I used to work at the Public Defender Office, but now I work with them from a law school. Professor Brown. I'm Aitah Nassred and Longo, Attorney General appointee and chair of the panel. Sheila Linton. She, her panel member at-large and representing the Root Social Justice Center. Karen Ganat with Crime Research Group, and we're one of the consultants named in the statute. Ian Loris. I'm Aitah Nassred and Longo, Attorney General appointee and chair of the panel. Sheila Linton. She, her panel member at-large Helen Miller. I think Robin is on the phone, actually. Oh, Robinות, are you there? I am. Hi, Robin Zachary Эcrane Research Group. Appreciate that. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Robin 듪, Robin Вот, Robin. I'm sorry? See you in community? Martin Lalone, representative of the Apologies from, I mean, Monica Liebers on her, oh, no, wait, there's Jen from Gotham City. Oh, God, everything's everywhere here. Christmas. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Hey, I'm Jen Furpo. I'm a trainee coordinator with the Vermont Police Academy. I coordinate domestic violence response and fair and impartial policing. Um, Judge Grierson sends regrets. He will not be able to be with us tonight. Um, I'm trying to remember, Monica Lieber is on her way, but of course, given this hybrid form, I don't know what that means, but she's on her way. She's running late. Those are the two that I know of. Uh, and we're going to just sort of launch in, um, I, yeah, we're just going to launch in. I would start with the minutes. I made a mistake, which Dr. Brown has pointed out to me. She's like, okay, like, stop now, um, she, but just pointed out to me, I, we met on the 11th of May and those minutes are somewhere in this box. They did not make it to you for that. I apologize and we'll send them out as soon as I can. Um, the 13th of April and the fourth of May, however, remain outstanding according to my, I have a list that I keep of minutes that pass and votes and stuff and we talked, but we didn't vote on them, which I don't quite understand. So it would be really helpful to me if we could do that and get that in so that those T's and I's are appropriately marked. Um, so I'd like to turn our attention to the approval of the minutes from 13 April to begin with. I move to approve and adopt the minutes from Tuesday, April 13th, 2021. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second that. Okay. All in favor of approving the minutes from the 13th of April, I, I, anybody opposed? Anybody abstaining? Um, I'll abstain simply because I wasn't there. We have one abstention because he wasn't there. Minutes are approved. Thank you. Fourth of May now, if we can turn our attention to those minutes, um, are there corrections? Amendments, I'll move to approve them. We have a motion to approve the minutes. Are they, is that seconded? Seconded. Okay. Seconded. Seconded. All in favor say, I, I, I, I, all opposed say, something, something, no, I'm just kidding. Okay. I'm all abstaining. I'll abstain. I was not. Tyler was abstaining because he wasn't present. It carries. We approve those minutes as well. Thank you very much. All right. Uh, announcements. I basically gave you those, um, well, not all of them, uh, as you're going to know, we're spending an enormous amount of time really tonight on Act 65 and the working group that the act, um, allows us to put together, um, actually directs us to put together. Um, there are a couple of things that I wanted to put out there before we get going that you need to know, um, the first is, and I think in a certain way, it's kind of important that the $50,000 appropriation went through. It did not, however, cover the increased ask for the community members. Um, I feel badly about that. Uh, I know that both Representative Lalonde and Coach Christie fought very hard for it, but it did not happen. So that for people who choose to be in on the working group, that will be at the same rate that we were working at last summer. Um, there's still mileage, of course. Those things will be covered, but the, there, there's no bump up that we were hoping for. That's another issue that will have to be taken up. Another day that, uh, the state doesn't just get labor for, uh, rather low wages, I might add. However, we do have the money in order to enable us to partner with the people that the act covers. So Prime Research Group, National Center, and I always get this wrong, for or of restorative justice. For. For. Pardon? It's actually National Center on restorative justice. On. Well, I've got it totally wrong. I'm going to like try to mark that, forgive me, National Center on restorative justice, UVM, um, and so it should be able to, to cover those expenses. Um, I just wanted to point that out before we got going, because when we get to the moment of, um, actually trying to put the working group together, um, we're going to, that's just an issue. It's going to be an issue for the community members. And I wanted to put that out front before we got going. The other thing that I want to do is Act 55 has swelled us to some extent, um, formally, legitimately, legally. Senator Davis is now a voting member of the panel and now we're in trouble and then she will also be appointing two community members, um, in due course, um, when you get there. But that will be happening, but I wanted to just, uh, mark that so that we all know that there have been some changes. Um, and that's about all that I had to say in, in, in introduction. Are there any other announcements people want to make or need to make or feel they'd like to make? And I guess that would be a no. So, onto the regular part of the agenda, um, Mo West, who will introduce himself in due course, um, remember when, remember when we were looking at our report from, um, last December, December 2019, I guess it was. And I know I forgot there was a year in there, but remember that report and there was that really fetching drawing that was started by, um, the data office at Kristen McClure and Pepper had a bit of a hand in that as well. And that drawing initially started out, I'm fixated on that drawing. It started out very, very simple, very, very clean. There were little boxes and little discreet, appropriate lines between the boxes that the data flows from here to here and it looked fine. And then we were meeting with all of the IT people among various parts of the criminal justice system and by the end of the meeting, we came up with that horror that is at the bottom of page 25 or page five of the report, which as you'll know, and I've been telling people the legislature looks like Escher, um, it's truly evil. Now, I met with Mo and Karen and Robin actually on Friday and Mo said that he didn't find that drawing all that daunting. You'll also remember that there was a moment at which, which was a big part of the report. We talked about how we needed experts in order to make that drawing, which makes people crazy, um, makes sense. So Mo, thinking that this is not a particularly complicated drawing, like he's seen worse, which tells you something, right, um, actually is someone who does data integration, which seems to me certainly given our earlier report and what we're being asked to do now an important issue. And he thought he'd have some thoughts to deliver on that. So I invited him and figured we'd listen to him and then afterward do the nuts and bolts of putting together the working group. So Mo, take it away and make that drawing like less terrifying. Well, actually, I don't know if I'm going to make it less terrifying. I'm saying that's a really good start and it's going to become even more complicated and increasingly level of detail. There's going to be multiple pages of iterations of that drawing. But thank you for that introduction. I hope to not disappoint after that. But a couple of caveats. This is our number nine for me on Zoom calls today. I might be a little brain fried right now. And I'm just hoping that my headset doesn't die before the next 20 minutes or so. But like, like, like you, Tom said, my name is Mo West and I'm from search. And just to give you a little bit of background and context on, on who I am and what we do at search, search is a national nonprofit technical assistance organization. We started about 50 years ago with this concept of taking criminal history records and making them electronic and sharing them across state lines with the FBI. And actually, I was just telling Karen and Robin and a ton earlier this week that I've been working for search for about 12 years now and just realized a couple of years ago that search actually is an acronym for the systematic electronic access and retrieval of criminal histories. And it's been going on for a long time. And after 50 years, I think we get the criminal history part mostly sorted out. But we've expanded beyond there to broader aspects of criminal justice administration and particularly technology application to criminal justice business process. And so when Ethan referenced that, that drawing, I said, that's actually a pretty straightforward, high level data flow of what generally happens, not just in Vermont, but across the country. So we all do the same thing just a little bit differently. And, and my early involvement or I guess my more recent involvement with Vermont is that we've been doing some work with the National Criminal Justice Reform Project. And for the folks that are on this committee and that committee, I apologize in advance. You're going to hear a similar message from what I delivered to them, you know, probably over the last 18 months or so. But Ethan and Karen in particular, they thought it might be helpful to kind of share some of the same messages that I was trying to explain to them and how this could be applicable to the our debt initiative because there's similar conversations going on in Vermont in terms of we need access to data and how do we go back to establish an interoperable system that can provide this data, knowing that there's lots of pieces and silos of information scattered across, not just criminal justice, which is more, you know, my area of expertise, but then what are the additional data sets when we're talking about racial disparities? There's a lot of other components that are involved there. But even just within the sphere of criminal justice, you have state stakeholders, you have federal stakeholders, you have local stakeholders, you have lots of different partners that are involved in this. And the message, I think, was very similar or common among these two initiatives with NCJRP and RDAP is that we need access to information and we don't necessarily know all the components of where this information resides and we don't even know all the questions that we're looking to ask. And so my approach to this is that, you know, when you're talking about you need access to data for a particular reason and you don't necessarily know the entire landscape, which you've already done some work in the report that I've seen from the conversations that I've had earlier, it seems like you have done a fair amount of work. You have an idea of what kind of data that you're looking for in the high level and where that could potentially exist or where that could come from. And one of the things or the messages that I try to share with folks is that Vermont's not alone and that even though it could be frustrating and almost seem like it's an impossible task to begin this process, that it is possible and other states are working on the same types of initiatives, same types of access to data and they come into the same challenges that you are, but that we really need to start with something that I've, after I looked at the report and had these conversations, that the scope of this could potentially be enormous in terms of just a technical challenge and how do you coordinate all of these various pieces or data sources that you're looking at. And so one of the first things that came to mind as we were having this discussion is that really starting with a scoping process, identifying or establishing some consensus with the stakeholders that are around this table and having those other discussions, what makes the most sense in terms of a short-term realistic achievable process can we start and then build from that to be scalable and to include other data sets as you identify those and those become more important and necessary for what you're looking to do. And the way that we typically do this in establishing a governance structure around this is going to sound very consultancy, but we establish an enterprise architecture and that's just a fancy way of saying that we all come to an agreement on what the scope is, what the rules of engagement are, what the process is for approaching different stakeholders that have data that you need access to and how do we set up a process for sharing that information? And that's basically what it is, but it gets much, much more involved when you talk about the policies, the practices, the technologies that are involved, who sees what and when and you get into a very granular level of detail that will eventually need to happen, but I would think that right now we don't necessarily want to get into that level of detail and I don't want to scare you off with that discussion, but that's basically what the message that I had shared with the folks for the criminal justice reform program is establishing those roles and responsibilities and I hate to say it, Etan, but everyone here is going to have a role in that process. We're not going to necessarily be designing interfaces from one system to the next, but as the token technology guy here, and I confess I am not a subject matter expert in any kind of racial justice policies or kind of understanding what the policies are that go into this, but from the technology standpoint, we need very clear and explicit direction on what it is that you're looking for. And so you don't want to leave it to just the tech guys to figure out, okay, let's just go and design some interfaces and we're going to pull in all this data from all sorts of places and we're going to be enlightened with all the information that we have. In fact, it would be quite the opposite that you might get a whole lot of data that makes no sense and is not useful for you at all and that's I think precisely what we try to want to avoid. And so the message that I shared earlier with the NCJRP folks is to really establish that governance structure and that governance and direction comes from policy subject matter experts that are sitting around this table right here and being very concise and specific on what direction that you're looking to go and then we can get into another level of detail, kind of peel that onion back a layer and work on specific requirements, what are the data elements that you're looking for? How do we want to structure those? And then taking those requirements, building that into some software and some logic to have the technology systems interact with each other but I don't want to go on forever and wax poetic about this stuff, I can for a while but again, like I said, this is hour nine and so I don't want to get into a level of detail but that's going to bore you guys to death knowing it's a later hour there than it is in the Pacific Northwest here. But I do want to share with you that there is expertise in Vermont, in state government that can help guide you through this process. The folks at ADF, the ones who originally did the data flow, that terrible drawing, they understand that stuff and they can help facilitate some of these discussions that we're talking about here and that it is involved and it is complex and it's going to take time and resources and dedication and effort among all the folks here but also from the other individuals that are involved to establish and document this enterprise architecture, so there is a document that I was referring to but not only will it take involvement and expertise from the folks that are in Vermont, in particular ADS because they do have that skill set, I can't speak to whether or not they have the bandwidth or the capacity to take this on anytime in the near future but at least that is an option available to you that they can help guide you through this process. But then also it's not just an ADS issue that can help design this enterprise architecture but when you're talking about creating a bureau of racial justice statistics, that's gonna require a whole lot of resources in and of itself and if it's going to be kind of this standalone entity, which it may or may not be, I think that's subject to further discussion and decisions but there's going to need to be some staffing and dedicated resources to making this a priority when you're growing out and talking about collecting data that someone's going to have to coordinate this, there's gonna have to be someone sitting at meetings taking notes, doing after-action items, managing a project among many different stakeholders and being held accountable not only to the folks sitting around this table but also to the legislature making sure that whatever it is that you're designing, if that's a series of data dashboards or if you're providing information to a crime research group to make sure that they have the necessary information that they have so that they can do analysis on that, it could be a significant undertaking and I just wanted to share that in my previous experience working with the state of Washington when I managed a statewide information sharing program that we had a staff of six people that were dedicated to just doing criminal justice administration, we were really just focused on e-citations and criminal history or disposition reporting from the courts to the criminal history repository. Those were two big initiatives but this has the potential to even be much broader than that and evolve many, many more stakeholders. So I just want to share that, not in terms of trying to dissuade anyone from this but being realistic about the level of effort that it can take to get this going here. So I will pause there for any questions or comments or reactions, thoughts, things along those lines if you do want some more detail about anything that I said, I'd be happy to follow up here but I thought that might be a good point to say. Any questions? I just wanted to add something. So I'm on the NCJRP committee with Mo. Mo is one of the technical assistance providers on the committee. We're working with the National Governors Association and the National Criminal Justice Association and a grant we received is funding that project. And so when this whole data integration initiative started with ARDAP, I asked them because it's so similar to the work we've been doing at NCJRP, I asked the national TA providers if we could use Mo's expertise for this project and they said yes and they will fund it because it's so similar to what we're already doing. So I wanted to make sure folks know that there's not additional money needed for Mo's expertise. Was my. You can't pay for it though, if it's free, yeah. That was a good thing. And I was just gonna ask you, Mo, could you talk a little bit about some of the work you've done in Vermont and your familiarity with criminal justice data in Vermont? Yeah, and I could say that from the organization's perspective my direct involvement has been pretty limited but I would say 10 years ago and Robin you can feel free to chime in on this as well that we started working with the folks with VGIS to work on kind of an enterprise architecture type solution for sharing incident level information. And I think we created a portal so that particularly law enforcement agencies could quickly access information that was contained in another agency's records management system. And I think that's grown over the course of the years and I think the original idea with VGIS was to kind of do this coordinating role that I was describing in terms of establishing a true enterprise architecture. I think things have kind of gone in a slightly different direction but for the past, yeah, I would say 10 years at least we've been working with stakeholders in Vermont and primarily the folks at DPS and VGIS to kind of create this infrastructure that's still there, it's available. The same process that we had set up there applies to lots of different scenarios and contexts. It's not just necessarily limited to criminal justice and law enforcement. Chief Stevens, you had your hand up. Yeah, I just wanna say I appreciate your insights Mo as a director of IT and project manager myself I understand a lot of these pitfalls. And I think one advantage Vermont has even though it might be separate but similar is Vermont took a huge undertaking for the Vermont Information Health Exchange where they had to get information from a lot of different places and have a Vermont repository with a lot of HIPAA security and all kinds of other things. So I think there's some expertise out there that have done this before that people could learn the pitfalls that they might run into or maybe use it as a model even though it's coming from different places, different data, but the architecture is the same and the access and getting data to a centralized repository is similar. And maybe not everything has to be reinvented. So I just wanted to throw that out there to the committee that Vermont has had to work out a lot of bugs and it cost them millions of dollars. So they have a lot of expertise. I think Vital helped with that the Vermont Information Technology Leaders. So there is some people that could be tapped into. I just wanted to say that and I appreciate your insights, Mo. Thank you. Thank you. Rebecca. And Rebecca, you're on mute. Thank you. Before I get to my question and I just wanted to sit on Chief Stevens point in terms of really the criticalness of identifying who else agencies within state government that have already tried to do integrative data work. I was just recently, well, I knew about it, but need to explore further the AHS effort on this similar sort of data collection aggregation analysis role. So I think when you talk, Mo, about not needing to worry about reinventing the wheel for our specific project, we need not even look very far and see, and I know there are lots of efforts in. But my question here, and I appreciate you speaking with us and sharing your expertise. And you talked about the importance of establishing a governance structure as a key starting point. Sure, we stay grounded. Everyone in this effort stays grounded. Who do you think are critical? Because you sort of quickly identified stakeholders. Who do you see are critical stakeholders in that governance body? I would defer to Etan on that one. I don't know the stakeholders well enough and kind of what your objectives are to really make an informed comment about that. But certainly I would say, aside from the policy decisions that you're looking at, looking at those project management IT resources who need to be in the room to understand the context of what it is that you're trying to accomplish so that they're aware of it. That would be the only kind of perspective that I have and say who should or needs to be in their room just to give them that foundation of the kind of the business or the policy concerns that you have. But I would defer to the folks around the table to say who else needs to be in here. Well, that was sort of a question that I would actually ask it with Sheila in a way. I know you're not in my head, but I mean that when we wrote the report, there was a lot of concern about community involvement in defining not merely the governing body for this bureau, but also defining what data do those communities see as important themselves? And that being part of, am I getting this right? That that was part of what we thought would be important. And this would sort of lead to a question I had for you, Mel, I just wanna get this really clearly on the record. Your point would be that that kind of sorting should happen before the data technical stuff, right? Is that correct? I'm sorry, I lost you for a second there, that sort of. Okay, the sort of sorting that communities would do, that historically stigmatized communities would wanna sit and talk about what kind of data they might feel are important. There's been a lot written on this about how the data that communities might themselves feel are important are not always considered important by policy makers. So what I'm saying is would you just make that clear again, that sorting that communities would be doing needs to happen if I'm understanding you correctly before the technical part that you're involved in? 100%. I will say that in my world, as a technology person, we call those requirements. And what it is that you need is dependent upon what you need. The IT folks really shouldn't have a whole lot of insight on trying to tell you what it is that you need. The flip side of that equation is that you can ask for anything under the sun, but there's gonna be a negotiation probably based on what's realistically available. And that's gonna be, I can't speak to that at all if you're asking for a step that just sometimes doesn't exist in administrative data, which is what we're basically talking about. Not everything is captured, but I think going through that requirement, identification process, especially kind of building upon what you had done before with identifying those kind of high level, yeah, this kind of information about courts or charges or interpreters being available, some of those things. Some of that stuff will certainly be there. In the criminal justice world, there's a lot of really good historical sets of information that are there. Certainly not everything that anybody could possibly dream up, but that's part of that discussion with not even the technical folks, but really understanding the subject matter experts who are understand what the business is on how they operate their respective organizations that they know what data they have and that they know what data they don't have. So those two groups, kind of identifying those requirements, understanding what's potential or what's possible, marrying those two up and saying, okay, here's what we have and here's what we want. That's when you tell the technology folks, okay, we know this data exists here, here's what we want and when. And Hey, Tom, I'd like to answer Rebecca's question who should be on the governance committee. Usually a governance committee is those people in charge of different systems that has the authority to make the changes or make the data consistent because like, just because someone might be collecting it as X, Y, Z and somebody may be collecting as John Smith, you can't put those in the same fields because they don't work together. So everything has to be X, Y, Z or it has to be something else to be consistent so that way you can sort and analyze and understand the data. So data governance means that the people who can make those decisions to make that consistent, to agree on what that consistency is, that's the people that you need in the room because you can have somebody that can say, yes, I want this, but if they don't have the authority to make those changes, then you're running into trouble or at least someone those stakeholders can appoint to represent them and bring the information back, but you have to have consistent data or the data won't be any good. So that's the only, I just want to throw the data governance is different than what you need or what the policy is. Once you find out what you need, then you got to make it consistent so you can actually look at it in the same manner. That was the point that Tyler, you were making earlier on to working about the authority to... Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Other questions, Wichee, Wichee, introduce yourself. You came on after we had done all that. So just briefly, just let us know who you are. Sure. So my name is Wichee Artu, pronouncing him, his name there, I live in Athens, Vermont. That's in Wyndham County. I wear a lot of hats right now. I'm just a community person. And also, I'm a data engineer, very specifically, I do data warehouse technology, which is sort of what you all are talking about. I just wanted to add one aspect that I think hasn't been named yet. And that is time. And it's like, how soon do you want this? Cause that's really going to tell you like how much resource you're going to have to put into it, what it is realistically that you're going to be able to put together. So just want to also put that on the table as a consideration. Okay. I just had a comment since you called me in. So I wrote down what I think Moe basically said and tell me if I'm wrong and anybody else here on the group is that what I heard you say is we are the experts. And what that meant to me is people like me who are in the community on the ground who are most impacted people who have had lived experiences are really the experts in terms of the information that needs to be developed in order to create the data. And so what I also heard or think I heard was we need to agree on it, on what it is, what kind of data we want to get. And then we have to agree on the why. So I think where I think often maybe even this group might get tripped up is like we might agree on something but if we're not explaining the why then it leaves out that part and that's what leaves out the technology part is that if we're able to explain not only to ourselves but to the communities that we're accountable to that hey, you've had this experience so you have this idea of what data needs to be collected. We agree on that data definitely needs to be collected but then we discover the why is because of this but the why isn't possible or the why needs to be in a different form or in a different way. And I think it's really helpful for me and I think for people that I know who are interested in this subject is if we were able to create really an issue dump where we address the issue, people dump in the issues, dump in their concerns of where they want these data points and research be done and then capture that information and then really figure out how to figure out the why amongst this table and to understand from the technology experts of like, okay, this is what the communities are saying needs to be collected and for them this part of the experts to tell us well, we can only collect it this way or we would have to do this or this isn't really possible and you have to integrate these things like the chief is saying. So for me, I think we have to agree on who are the experts and remind ourselves again that it's not necessarily people who are from the state or people who are the technology people that they are a piece of the experts that we're talking about in this conversation. Thank you. Others, Rebecca. Hi, so I also wanted to throw in my reaction to my own questions. But also jumping off from where Sheila left it, I think, and I want to make this a centered focus because we aren't here just collecting government data of the criminal and juvenile justice systems, right? There was a reason why our DAP brought this up to a forefront and why the legislature continues to look to this panel to draft this creature. And again, what I'm trying to bring this to is that the issue for us is the racial equities concerns, the disparities in racial equities in these systems. And I think that what I haven't heard you talk about, Moe, but it's absolutely critical. It's certainly critical throughout our report and themes throughout every meeting of our DAP is that everything we do is through this lens of ensuring racial equities in these systems and correcting the disparities and racism. And specifically, and most challenging for us is how to ensure that whatever system we are suggesting the legislature adopt does not inherit the structural racism problems that we are trying to understand better and then correct. And so to unpackage that further, I think that any governance structure and anything we do throughout the planning process should remain totally centered on ensuring racial equity, whether or not it's ensuring that we have voices from the community. And I think we need to be even more specific and clear in these meetings what we mean by community. We talked about it here as members of historically marginalized communities. I think we need to be even more specific of who those marginalized communities are. We also should be specific and clear that we're not just including those voices in at the initial, let's identify the key narrow questions to make this sizable and bring it up to start it off. It's actually integrating this position and this lens inherently, not just from building a structure from the operationalization of this. So the data tech making sure that algorithms that are being employed to analyze this data isn't inheriting flaws that perpetuate whatever racial biases. Along with this, and again speaking from the Office of the Defender General where we represent people whose stories are so impartially told that we build a data collection system to ultimately give a full story of the whole person. And so that we do not distort the historic disparities of what is really the underlying issues involved with the people who are trying to actually help. And so again, bringing this center to ensuring that the data we're collecting because I haven't heard this spoken here but ensuring that whoever's on this governance body community members, key stakeholders who control the information. I all agree with that, that those guys with all of these people should be there. We have to ensure that the data of the people themselves that we're collecting is still going to protect them and not be used against them. I understand your history or this organization's history that you're part of comes from and please correct me if I'm wrong but I think full disclosure and transparency is critical here. But if data collection is coming from a pro law enforcement use historically, right? And you introduced yourself as sort of going back to building data collection sets for use of the FBI. That puts me initially on guard. So I wanna make sure that we as a panel just make sure we are moving forward, ensuring the protection of these people's data that we are going to be, even though protecting in terms of making it anonymous and ensuring that we're not further exploiting or not telling the full story. Thank you. I have a comment to the comment. Thank you, Rebecca. We often play off from each other in our comments but I actually wrote down something very similar too in a very one sentence short hand is about that integration being about racial justice and what a racial justice lens and further than even equity lens like just really naming racial justice. And so I was kind of curious from looking at systems in that way. We can look at systems all different types of ways with all different types of lenses. And so for me, the work that I do and how I lived my life is through a racial justice lens. So that is how I encounter and try to either dismantle or lift up systems. So I'm kind of curious of your thoughts around that. And I agree with you, Rebecca, is that that needs to be the focus. And I wanted to put out something today which I don't think is necessarily a term that we've used here or we've used it very rarely. And I'm going to put this out. We're going to say the term that we used to have a really hard time with which is white supremacy. We used to really, I don't know if people remember back in the day when we couldn't, you know, if we could just have some snaps. People could not even say the word. Some people at the table might still be in that space right now. And that's okay, we'll work on that. But the point is we could not say white supremacy nor write it in anything. And we got to the point to where it was in our briefs, it was in our reports, it was being set around the table. And now I'm hoping that we actively are able to engage in that conversation and have that culture. And so I'm going to offer when you start dismantling that white supremacy, what are we doing? And what I believe that we're doing or what I would like us to do and to name it because when you name it, you might do it and it creates the culture that you want is to be centering blackness. Because that's what we're really talking about here today. And some people might not be familiar with that term or what that really means but when we're dismantling that system and when we're looking at systems through a lens of racial justice, specifically centering the black and brown people who are most impacted. And blackness is a spectrum, just to be clear for those of you don't understand that, that we need to center that blackness. And so I would like as we move forward with the meeting, I'll be bringing this back up when everybody gets off and we're just having a more larger discussion of bringing that term into this space and figuring out what does that mean for all of us and can we get on board with that? Because if we can get on board with how we decided that white supremacy is an issue and is the cause of these systems and structures to be harming us as black and brown and other people. And if we can get on board to affirm that in the direction that we want to move forward in and agree on these terms to make an act of it, I think we'll be in a really good place. So I would like to explore blackness with you all. And if I could just respond to those questions. These are absolutely essential issues that you're bringing up. And in terms of the governance structure, again, I'm a tech guy. I don't get involved in the policies behind this, but you're absolutely right to accomplish what your goals are, whatever they may be. You are the ones defining what it is that needs to occur in terms of establishing requirements for a technology system. And this is a data collection process of reviewing existing data sets that are out there in the criminal justice field. And then other fields outside of that may be education and social services and beyond. But I would just reiterate the fact that everything that you're doing, you're doing all of this for purpose and being mindful of that purpose when you define those requirements should absolutely be the driving force behind anything that happens subsequent to that. So that's all I would say in terms of how do you direct this stuff that's totally up to you and whatever your objectives are that needs to be reinforced as you're defining those requirements and then turn that into a technical specification. You start collecting data and then you do analysis on data and then you'll find discoveries on or confirmations of. And that's hopefully that if your requirements are correct and your purposes has been kind of viewed through that lens, you should be able to find some information that would kind of support what you guys are trying to do. So I would say, yes, 100% that that needs to be the focus of kind of the government structure or maybe even considered like the board of directors something along those models that you're establishing kind of the parameters and then asking other folks to be participant and involved in and provide the data that you're looking for. Okay. Wishing. Still on mute. You're muted. Every meeting, every meeting happens. So, yeah, I'm really happy that we're having sort of like this, like why are we doing this and really centering that and being mindful of our biases are gonna play into how we look at data and analyze it. I, something else that I wanna bring into this conversation is the limitations of data and the limitations of data collection and then sort of what we do with that because it's never gonna tell you the full story. And it's important that when we, as we're developing this bureau of like, please tell us all this data you will never be able to have a complete profile of what it is that's happening in our people's lives. And whenever you do this type of quantitative analysis it also, it always needs to be informed by the qualitative, by people's experiences, by going in and together you're able to tell the story and through that you're able to dismantle the biases because no matter what you do your biases will be in there. So you need to be consistently looking at how do we keep dismantling these biases as we construct the system and that it's not only gonna come from the data that we have with the numbers. Anybody else or can we let Mo unplug? I was just waiting to see if it's gonna be from the stuff. Let him out of the matrix as it were. Or let me out of my cave that I'm in right now. Yes, I might have just not been good in my office. Let's go to our next part. Mo, thank you very much. That was, you'll certainly be back if you, you know, we could just come kidnap him, but I mean, but no, definitely thank you so much for this. I will volunteer to come back now. Well, thank you, that's a lot. I hope it was informative. And that, but that was really helpful in getting us sort of focused on where, where we need to go for this working group. Perfect. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Take care, everyone. I had a number of thoughts and every time I didn't say it, someone else did, which was really helpful, but I just have one more. It didn't require Mo, so I didn't want to keep him any longer, but I'm just, I know I'm not the only one here who gets really tempted with data, right? It's like, oh, you can give me race. What else can you give me? I want it all, right? And I think that, and I agree very much with Rebecca's point, and I'm glad she recentered us on the fact that this is a panel that's specifically looking at racial disparities. And I agree with that and that should be our focus. And I can't help but think about the importance of intersection and about how much richer our data will be when we say, well, these are the outcomes for black people in Vermont in the system. And if you're black and a trans woman, these are your outcomes. And if you're black and experiencing socioeconomic disparity, these are your outcomes. And if you're black and under the age of 16. So I just, I don't even know what my comment is, except to say that I foresee that we may want to take a peek at things beyond race in as much as they compound outcomes when combined with race. And I don't know if this system will be designed for that or if even the group agrees with that. But I would just put that up there. Well, I haven't gone on after you. Yeah, I do agree with that. And if I heard Moe correctly, I think he hinted at that because something that I've been thinking about when it relates to the Bureau is we may know what data we want now, but if we're gonna be building this entity, what data are we gonna want tomorrow or the next day? And at a minimum, and it was a little overwhelming to hear how big a task like this can be. So what my mind instantly went to with something Moe said was, at least make sure that the entity has the capacity to grow. Even if you can't cover it all today, don't build it in a way where it's not gonna be able to function to meet tomorrow's needs. Make sure it's sufficiently nimble. And I think one of the things that we're gonna have to focus on when we make our recommendations in November, which is very close, very close is, how do we make sure that we convey that appropriately for any legislators who might be thinking about immediately obtaining objectives as opposed to, we need to think about objectives in the long term as well. So I agree, I agree. Let me point out just from, they weren't actually hearings with the legislature. They called them discussions. With links that were recorded on YouTube, but they were discussions. And there was a lot of discussion about, in some feeling, behind people who you would think would are very much in favor of such a bureau, that this was too narrow, that they were initially, they were saying this is great, we're gonna have all this data around the criminal and juvenile justice systems. What about housing? What about education? What about, and that there was some frustration because people were feeling like this was too narrow. I kept sort of going, but if we start, it's better than not starting. And also, we're not even addressing what this panel was put together for. Why are you gonna start adding things, brief? And there was some of that. There were a few people who were going, hi, this is called the racial criminal, juvenile justice. And they got that, but they were, yes. But there was this moment of like, and I think that that fits in really well with what you got. I mean, but making something that is supple enough that it grows as needs grow, as understandings of human diversity grow. Someone, Chief Stevens. I just wanna say, I appreciate all the comments. I just wanna circle back around to Rebecca again and say, I agree when you say racial disparities, that's plural. We have been left behind before just because people focus on one ethnicity. I think we need to focus on all kinds. I mean, even in the health is an emergency, you know, the health emergency bill, we weren't even thought of. So I just wanna make sure that we do not lose sight, even though the black population is very important and they have a large, they're affected a lot by criminal and juvenile justice issues. I'm just saying, let's just make sure we don't forget the other ethnic minorities, whether it be Asian or, you know, the immigrant population or anything else. So I just wanna make sure because we started talking about that. So I just wanted to be clear to put that out there. Thank you. Can I just respond? Yeah, thank you. So I'll just say this in the case for again, those understanding, because I wanna make sure that when I say blackness and especially as identifying as a black indigenous person myself is that it's when we center blackness, we are including indigenous people, native people and all people of color. And again, it's a spectrum and it's like as we really center blackness, then we're centering those people and the priorities and the needs of those people. So I just wanna make sure that it's clear for those here in the audience and we can unpack that more if we need to, but centering blackness means not centering whiteness, which is part of the white supremacy system that we've all been indoctrated in in this culture and in our, at least in this country's culture. And so that's what I mean by that. And so I just want people to understand that as we move forward in that conversation. Okay. I, thank you. I would like if there's no objection to move on to a more nuts and bolts moment, which I think we have to do. And that would be, we gotta figure out the working group. We absolutely have to figure it out. And I think I kept trying to make you not say the N word, which is November. I know you were all nervous and I knew that was gonna happen. I had to say it. I had to have fun. But yeah. But you know, the November word, because it's like, I don't wanna think about that either. But we got to. And I think what we need to do, if there's no objection, is we really need to start putting this working group together, the nuts and bolts, literally talk about when we're meeting, who's on it, who wants to be on it, what it's gonna require. I mean, that sort of, I think we need to sort of jump in. Particularly, I feel after that discussion that we just had, this is so much larger than some may have thought, two hours ago. Can I ask slash comment as pulmonary, and pulmonarily to this moving into this nuts and bolts? I didn't wanna ask this with Moe, because it's not anything he was gonna be able to answer or speak to. I'm looking at you, and I'm looking at you. Or is this gonna work? I feel like a lot of what we've been talking about, who we want input from, there may be some overlap with these two additional members in addition to Susanna, who are now statutorily going to be brought onto the panel, who are supposed to be drawn from diverse backgrounds to represent the interest of communities of color throughout the state, which is one thing we've been talking about. And who have had experience working in information technology or data collection systems, which is also what we want, and are gonna be appointed by the executive director of Rich Landry. So where does that fit in? Because I feel like if we're talking about this working group, it makes sense to, I just would like an understanding of what the plan is for bringing those people on. Me too. Can I add to the complication? Yeah, let's get a little... Yes. There is a strikingly similar process that will be happening simultaneously in AHS, Agency of Human Services, because they are slash we are creating a dashboard that will be publicly accessible. And then there's a third dashboard that was also authorized, but we're trying to combine those two because that makes sense. So I'm saying this adds to the complication here because we're also gonna be having a public engagement process around the creation of that dashboard. And I wonder if, you know, one, you don't wanna create fatigue among communities by saying, we're gonna do all these focus groups for all these different things. You're home. I think it makes sense to sort of combine these efforts, especially because again, we're talking about the upstream and downstream impacts of health and justice and whatever else. It almost makes sense, but maybe that's a little too much sharing. But I just wanted you all to know that a similar process is gonna happen in a different space. And so we will be engaging a lot of the same stakeholders and communities that that other process will be engaging. And we may wanna figure out a way to relay that so that it's not confusing, exhausting, or inefficient. What are you doing, Les? Who even knows? Okay. I mean, so this is, it's a grant funded project with CDC money that's supposed to take place over two years. I think we're trying to get this done as quickly as possible. So I can foresee it happening in the autumn, but I might be way wrong. And I can find, I will find out. Okay, let's note that. I feel like I shouldn't talk, but I had a thought. And if we're gonna just put complication out, let's just do it. I was reading Wong and I'm page 20 of Act 65. It says, the report shall address one, where the bureau should be situated, taking into account the necessity for independence, and the advantages and disadvantages of being a standalone body, or being housed in state government, like we haven't talked about that before. Fine. Two, how and to what extent the bureau should be staffed, like we haven't talked about that before. Three, what should be the scope of the bureau's mission? And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's pretty much what we've been discussing, since about 10 past six, is the scope of the bureau's mission. And not merely the scope, but also the character. What my point is going to be, is that question points four and five for the report. Four, how the bureau should conduct data collection and analysis. And five, the best methods for the bureau to enforce its data collection and analysis responsibilities, is in some ways a separate issue. What I was getting at here was that these earlier questions that have been amplified, made more nuanced, by Rebecca, by Sheila, by Susanna, by Jessica, by Evan, that all of those need to really be defined first, because as most as those more technical questions are 100% dependent upon those first questions being answered. So what I would recommend is whatever this working group comes out being, that it starts out with these initial questions of, in a sense, policy. And then we move on to those more technical ones later, and I don't wanna pretend that there's a hard separation between the two. But I'm just trying to put some, I'm being a little bit like Carpenter here on sequencing. Let's do, we need to do this, and then we need to do this, and then we need to do this in order to get to this result by the 15th of November. And I'm suggesting that the working group, however we're putting that together, because as you're pointing out, we've gotta worry about the, think about the two new people, three new people. And then of course, these communities that we want to address, to embrace. But that seems to me a first step, and that the next step around the more technical stuff around the architecture of the data dashboards and the public facing data dashboards is a second place that we kinda put off for the moment and really then clear our minds for focusing on these preliminary huge and frankly central questions. So I'm putting that out there for discussion. I will commit to picking people as soon as possible without rushing it. Well, I thank you, director. I'm kinda curious what the process is for that, like what goes into your process. Yeah, so initially, I have had the great pleasure of meeting slash being introduced to a lot of people around the state. And one of the things that's always sort of irked me is that whenever we have a new committee or a panel or a working group or what have you, it's like the same 12 brown people always on it. And so a goal for me is to have people who don't necessarily have a direct line to government or people who aren't necessarily part of that regular rotation. And then of course, I mean, it calls for people who represent the interests of communities of color and who have experience with data. So that kinda just narrows it for us. So I think a lot of it is going to be the networks, if you know anybody, send them my way. Given our timing for our other projects, I don't know if it's prudent to put out a call. And I don't think an application process will be appropriate. So I really am just looking to people I have known or people known to people I have known. I think it would be useful if there was something like a call put out to a call just because of the communities that I'm connected to, we could blast it out to our communities and our networks and it would be easier than me putting together a blurb or something or word of mouth than it would be to be like, hey, I vouch for this or this is my involvement with this, can you, or are you interested in this and we can put it out to our communities and maybe there are other people. I mean, I have a network throughout the state and so I would love to be able to actually just do that last call out to see if there are any interested people because I think giving that opportunity might have people come your way. I will write something out. The other thing I forgot. It could be real simple, real simple. The other thing I forgot to mention was when we created the racial equity task force, there was a record number of applicants for that. It was 164 people and they gave such thoughtful answers and reflections in their applications that I retained those and created a spreadsheet of people's interests and was also going to cross-reference that to see if any of them would be interested as well. But I will write something up and send it and you all should really, I'd be grateful if you'd share it. Thank you. Thank you. Chief, oh, I'm sorry. Chief, do you want Chief Stevens and then Chief? I just wanted to say it would be helpful, Xana and Paton, that if we can define what is paid, what isn't, what time commitment it is and what it's not, because it's really hard because we had also mentioned, you said earlier, A-Town, some things are funded, some things aren't, then Xana mentioned the CDC or some other grant through AHS. So if we can kind of define what it is you're looking for, how much time commitment that you feel it's gonna be and what that cost is, because I know what hinders a lot of us because we see the same native people on the same committees and commissions because everybody works and most of the stuff that's held during the day instead of in the evenings or time where people could actually do, could participate because they have to take time off from work or lose vacation or whatever. So I think that part of this structure, there might be some off hours work needed potentially or at least be able to compensate people for losing the time that they're at work. So it'd be nice to define that if you could, if you're looking for people, so we can at least try to go out and say, hey, here's an opportunity, this is what it looks like and contact people if you need it. So thank you. The first thing that I was, oh, Rebecca, wait a minute, representative Mulan. Just back to the comment you had made before, just a couple of things. Certainly the thinking on that number four and five was more technical issues as far as how to collect the data and enforce the data collection. Those are closely tied to number one as far as whether it's independent or if it's within the state. True. And you're right, that four and five follows primarily from number one and number three in there and that was the thinking as well behind that. So it may be much, well, I won't go into whether it's easy or not if it's independent, but that's a consideration, those number four and five. The other thing I just want to make sure is that this is building on the good work that was in the December report and was in the bill as introduced that laid out. These are all the data points we believe that our data believe we should be gathering and this should be building on that as well. So. Okay. Separately real quickly, I mean, if there's, I mean, we really struggled with trying to figure out how to appropriately compensate and we were hamstrung by that. It's something that you and I have talked about. We're gonna take up again next year. But there is the $50,000 that can be used to contract with somebody. If there's somebody who hits all those points and isn't available to join but has a business that we can contract with to help us out with the data and the input with the communities, that's an option that's out there because of the money that we managed to get. So. Thank you. I thought, yes, Rebecca. Hi, thanks. And thank you for sharing your thought process in selecting the next two community members for the panel and we do look forward to having them join. But I appreciate you taking your time and what you're doing, which is you're trying to just find the ones who would not necessarily rise to the top in terms of readily known names. And I very much appreciate that. I wanted to throw out a specific consideration to add to your basket. I think a further complication possibly is that I'd like to prefer a critical insight that we could benefit from. Someone who has been supervised by the Vermont state government system, corrections, law enforcement, been experienced with Vermont law enforcement or a family member who has, again, so that we have someone to provide that perspective. Yeah. That's an excellent point. Thank you for that. I wanted sort of back to where you were, Chief. I'm thinking back to last summer when we were doing something very similar. And I'm gonna use that as a model or at least that's where my thinking is. I think to your point, Chief, this should be something that meets in the evening around this time. I think initially we should agree, as we did last summer, to meet once a week. And if we need to meet more frequently as things go on, because we can't know, we will jump off that bridge as I'd like to say when we get to it. But that would be my proposal that it is an evening meeting and that it meets from, you know, what? We can argue that five to seven, five, 30 to seven, 30, six to eight, whatever, something in there. The other thing that I think is really critical here, it's troubling to say that there was anything good that came out of that pandemic, which is still not over in most of the world. Pardon? It's not over here. Not even over here. In Missouri and Tennessee, for instance. But that one of the things that I think came out of that that was useful were remote meetings. I say without any question the work that the subcommittee did last year to prepare that report for December would not have happened had that subcommittee had to meet person. I just, it would not have happened. No way. The voting process itself was, it would not have happened if we had to all be together. Not everybody could be together. We did that electronically, you may remember. It worked brilliantly. So I'm going to suggest also not only that we meet once a week but that we do it as we did last year. Given that there are open meeting laws, we do need to have a space that is available for people to come. However, we can be doing what we're doing right now because there are a bunch of you who aren't actually sitting here who I still think are two-dimensional. So those are my recommendations. Once a week to begin in the evenings and that it's a hybrid model. In other words, if you don't want to show up but you want to be on the subcommittee, you don't need to show up. We'll figure this out. I mean, we figured this out. I show up, you need to show up physically. Physically show up. Yeah, I know that one that had a lot of it. You know where I was going. But yeah, physically show up. But those are my thoughts on putting this together. The compensation question I'm going to throw to the attorney general's office because the money went to them. Yeah, so it went in accordance with the standard statute which we currently operate on there which is exactly what this group had proposed that we not do. But that is what the appropriations committee has decided to do ultimately. So it is the standard compensation which if I remember correctly is $50 per meeting and mileage should you accrue mileage and that's at the standard rate which is like 56 cents or something. Yeah, I can't remember something. So that's what it is. You know, that's right there in the law. We are, our office is down by that. And that, yeah, so that's where we are in that. Hey, Tom, can I also pass the AG to check into things like what the, I think the legislator was mentioning about where it was housed and like, what was that four or five or whatever the report. Can we have the AG look at if there's any legal constraints of where that data can be housed since a lot of it is collected through the courts and also police and other types of, like I don't know if there's any restraints or restrictions about that data where it can be housed or it has to statutorily be housed just before we start going down that road about like in other words, we may not be able to give all the court records to a nonprofit that isn't associated with the court system or the state. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that but somebody should check in before we start deciding where it's gonna house and we find out later that we can't do it legally or we can't do it statutorily or whatever. So that's something they can do behind the scenes without even being part of this discussion at least. Is that that? Certainly we will look into that. I mean, I think that will have to be part of the discussion that the subcommittee has. The only thing I can think of right off the top of my head is that there are federal constraints around criminal record retention but that's all stuff that we will work on on the subcommittee and figure out what the limitations might be there. Okay, I didn't know if that was something that there were some known or unknowns that could be done outside of the committee and that would help guide the subcommittee where that might go. That's all I was saying. And some of that can be checked. Yeah, and that's a good, no, it's a good point. I can try to do some preliminary work which I actually have our office has done in dealing with diversion pretrial services issues. So this issue is not unknown to me and I can do a little work on summing up my knowledge. I actually don't think it'd be too hard to cure any problems because the state already does it and we have buildings that comply with federal regulations right now. My guess is that this is something we can do but it's a good point and I will look into what we might need to consider there. Yeah, you're talking all of everyone moving into one repository and I didn't remember if there were some issues when some of the, I don't know if this is, who was the data collector that was giving us all the reports from the state police or whatever? Didn't they have some constraints of getting data from certain organizations that they were working with that there was some, anyway, it doesn't matter. I just didn't know if there were some rules around this. So I'll drop it there and I'm just saying we should think about it or have something. I can't even walk into it, yeah. Okay, that's a good question. So I have a friendly amendment to what I had just proposed out here. Of course it's friendly. Of course. Is that, I feel comfortable with what you suggested but I think how long would the group be meeting for if we're meeting for months until November? I would definitely like our first meeting to be together so we can know each other. Maybe get to know each other, be in physical space together. I think that that might be important and maybe even on a monthly basis but I don't necessarily, if we're meeting weekly, feel the need to have to meet weekly in person but at least sort of a soft requirement to meet at the first time and at the last time whenever we have the decisions. Sounds great. Sounds great. I guess what I would propose, if anyone doesn't have a better idea is that by Friday, Ian, remember that I'm saying this because I'll need your help because I'm old. A doodle pole to figure out times that are good for all of us, for people who wanna be on it. I am not, one of the things that I thought was very interesting about this act, I was expecting it to be very clear about the composition of the subcommittee. Like a quorum will be X number of people. It's not. So if y'all wanna be on it, it's cool. It means, we're gonna be doing this once a week, folks. We're gonna be seeing each other initially all together and then we can all go wherever we're gonna go as long as we have a computer and then at the end, the same sort of thing. So I'm not gonna get worried about who's on it. I'm really not. The statute says not to. The statute's pretty clear. One question I have is, what do we want the subcommittee's relationship to be with the full panel? Or what do we want the product to be that the subcommittee is going to be presenting to the panel and when do we want that done so that the full panel can work on this report? Which I also, I mean, in addition to the five points you raised, it's supposed to contain draft legislation which will take time to put together. I mean, we're gonna need time after we get the subcommittee's report. Oh, don't be silly. David's gonna look into that, too. We'll let David do that. Just give it, that's our new phrase. Just give it to David. They got big, big bucks for this, come on. Maybe we'll consider the report the draft. Just give it to David. What we did last year was the subcommittee which was not the full panel. The subcommittee, the panel met every month as usual and the subcommittee brought its work to the panel, presented it to the panel, got feedback from the panel and then scurried off and did subcommittee things based on what the panel had said. So it was like a monthly progress report. Correct. And correction. And it was a process of correction as well because we got a lot of, I mean, we got a panel. There's a reason for that. People who weren't on the subcommittee for whatever reason were just really good about, we met every month. There were certain occasions where there were documents I had to remember to send out so people would have them. That actually worked really well. That worked really well. We were really in a lot of good communication around that. There was a lot of good back and forth. That doesn't worry me so much. So I will offer as you're getting close to the legislation drafting to work with somebody from the committee because I have access to the legislative council who can help put it into draft. Less you. I'm happy to do that. Bless you. Thank you. Okay. I too am old and don't retain information. So forgive me if I should know this and don't. But who is, I'm just looking at who this subcommittee is supposed to consult with. Who is the Vermont Chief Performance Officer and who is the Vermont Chief Data Officer? I can say that. The Chief Performance Officer was Sue Zeller. She retired I think last month, May. She is, that role sits in secret in agency of administration. Currently Justin Kenney is standing in as the Interim Chief Performance Officer. Who couldn't make it tonight by the way. I'm sorry, I should have. And who is generally excellent. And the Chief Data Officer is Kristen McCourt. I actually don't know what agency she's from. ADS. Okay, great. And I didn't hear from her, but I should have said in the announcements that I had invited the Chief Performance, the Interim Chief Performance Officer. And he wasn't sure he'd be able to make it. He knew it would have to be remote. We sent him the link, but I gather. No, that's, it's just, it's even helpful to know that you have already kind of reached out to to make that connection. What is ADS, the agency for? Agency of Digital Services. I just wanted to point out too, because we're now learning about this hybrid model of meeting in person and the teams that people have been putting comments in the teams comments feature. But folks, folks participating remotely, not everyone has their computers and their teams apps up. So some folks might not be seeing your comments. I propose that for our meetings going forward, we designate somebody who will monitor that activity. I agree, I agree. And volunteer to be that person too, if I'm here. Thank you, thank you, okay, great. Do we wanna see if we need to address anything in the comments? Yes, I'm reading. You are, really? Yeah. Can you see that? I can, I can't see what's here, but you know, over there. It's great. You know, sometimes it's great to leave me out, not for people who are watching. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, if you're gonna read it any way, you can read it out loud. If you didn't make a good point. Thank you, Sheila, for making me feel like an idiot. I can read it, what the hell's wrong with the rest of you? He didn't wanna brag about it. No. The first comment is from Julie Scrivner, and it says, excellent point, A-ton. If we can do it remotely slash hybrid, I think that is a way to get better participation and commitment. I assume that that is in response to the plans for the subcommittee. And then Chief Stevens, also commenting on the plans for the subcommittees, says, I just wanna say that once a week is a large commitment and an ask of people, not saying that is good or bad, just making a statement, will these subcommittees be open to people outside of this panel or only panel members? That's excellent. Because what ended up happening with the subcommittee last year was it was kind of open, kind of not, which doesn't really answer any question in any substantive way. Because we have a lot of people coming in who were helping us draft the report, but who were not voting members of the panel. And it's kind of vague, it just says, for purposes of developing the report required by subsection A of this section of the panel, so I guess that's voting members of this panel shall create a subcommittee working group. Right. But as you pointed out, it could be whatever we want. It could be whatever we want. Well, and that goes back to, if there's other people part of the subcommittee, then would the AG be able to pay them for being on that subcommittee? Because, I mean, I mean, if I'm the only native person, that kind of limits this. And if there's a whole bunch of other community members that might be able to do it that have expertise, it would be nice to say, hey, why don't you join the subcommittee? And it's 50 bucks once a week, if you can do it, great. But I just wanna know if there's limitations because it sounds like if Xana, you're gonna be bringing in a couple of people as well, right, that they're gonna be part of the panel. So anyway, yeah. So that's the two questions. Will they get paid from the AG for attending and can there be people outside of this panel on the subcommittee? The only thing I'm gonna put forth here, just in terms of consistency with what this body has done long as I've been on it, voting members, however, are voting members and not everybody gets to vote. So that's it, you can't, in other words, community members and I'm not disparaging community members, but it can't just be, oh, I'm gonna come to the subcommittee and you get to vote. Well, consultants too. Consultants too. We're not on the panel. You're not on the panel. So with regard to compensation to Chief Stevens's question, this section about compensation says, members of the panel who are neither state employees nor otherwise paid to participate in the working group in their professional capacity shall be entitled to per diem pursuant to the statute. So it says members of the panel who are not otherwise paid to me to participate in the working group. So I take that to mean that if it was community members who are not members of the panel but who wanted to participate in the working group, they would not be eligible for the per diem. I agree that the same way. You caught that, yeah. Unless they're established a performance-based contract with them. Yeah, that's true. So if there's particular expertise of somebody who would meet whatever the AG's requirements are for a performance-based contract, that's what that $50,000 is available for. And I bet that Chief Stevens has people in mind who would be. Right, yeah. Maybe to Chief Stevens' point was that if there are people in various communities who are in particular expertise, and frankly, just being a member of the committee is expertise to Sheila's earlier point. So that's an interesting way to do that. I also, just for instance, like the reason I'm saying that is one, I don't want to be the only person representing the Habanaki community because I'm not the sole entity. So it would be nice to have other people representing us. And like going back to what Exano was saying, it's nice to have different faces who might, I mean, I know, I'm not saying that I know people, but I mean, just the old, just say for instance, the old Chief of Police, I mean, who, I'm not Chief of Police. The old Chief of Miss Escoy, Eugene Rich, was a patrol officer for a lot of years. So he has the native side, but he also knows the criminal justice side. I mean, that might be a great person that potentially might give insight from both directions. I don't know, but I'm not volunteering him. I'm just saying there are other expertise out there that maybe could be tapped into if they were able to be compensated for doing it instead of them doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Because yeah, I just want to say that because a lot of people, they're afraid of sticking their neck out and creating policies because they're gonna become, well, why'd you do that? And you know how it all goes, right? Oh yeah. So it's nice to be able to have that other voice, other than the same people that you see all the time. I'd like to echo that. Thank you, Chief Stevens. I'd like to echo that as a person, like sitting here in my black body and often being the person who comes to the table and I'm thankful that I'm able to come to the table and thankful that I'm able to be here as a representative of some of my BIPOC peers. But I want to be able to not have just me at these tables and want to create access to more people who have varying levels of interest and expertise to come to the table. And without money at all, especially for this community candidate, like this is almost off the table now. I feel like for most of the people that reach out to because already I agree with Chief Stevens as well that weekly is huge. Even for me who's here and been in this capacity for years is huge for me. And somebody who is not at the speed, who did all the things that must happen to get to the table, I don't, I feel like we're perpetuating the same system that we're trying to undo. That's the bottom line. And it's frustrating for me to sit here and to acknowledge that we've created or have not moved beyond really understanding the need of certain things in order to do what we need to do. And fundamentally that's paying people what they need and what they're worth to be at the table as the experts that they are. And so it is going to, either people are gonna give that out of their warmness of their hearts or it's going to continue to look similar to the way that we're trying to dismantle. And I, yes, on the other hand, I am bound by what I'm looking at. Yeah, and I totally understand what we're bound by and making a point that I'm disappointed that we've gone so far on this panel that it hasn't been justified. Like I don't understand what state statue has to be like that way or we can't go outside of that and a different fund to create something else. And maybe that's my own ignorance in the space and maybe that's also a question I'll put out to those who could answer that. But we're talking about, okay, fine, that's the state statue, but okay, fine. Where's another part of money that isn't state statue that we can give these people to be at the table? I guess it would be my creative solution from there. Or is there a grant funder or somebody else within or outside of the state that funds and that's looking at racial equity and maybe I don't know, maybe in your good house that's looking at racial equity and looking to fund actually racial equity, that's what I would call grassroots in most impacted people and getting them at the table and part of that getting people at the table, compensating them for being at the table, which is money, mileage, sometimes food, et cetera, whatever. So I'm just wondering, like not to close the door that, oh, the state just said we have this, but that's not all we have. The state is not the only resources we have, that's just what's being discussed right now. Well, that's just there. Maybe I'm not the only way around this, too, is that you keep mentioning that you can create a contract for expertise, but maybe the Humanities Council could be that person that the contracts with and then they allow people through them to come on to the community members, like what Sheila was saying, because we have so much of our community who do stuff for nothing and sit on all these things which take away their time and their money from their families. Maybe that contract with, I think the legislature was talking about, I'm sorry, I can't, I don't remember who that was, but. Marshall Allant. Right, part of the statute was allowing to contract with someone to pay for that expertise. Maybe we find someone who can be that contracted entity that they could bring on those people that we're talking about as the subject matter experts or something, not necessarily those employees of that company, and I don't know if that would be a non-profit or a Humanities Council or something, something that could be that contracted person to bring on the expertise. I don't know, maybe that's a weird way around things, but maybe that's not the way it should be done either, but I don't know what's legal and what's not, and it comes to that definition, so. Well, I'll take this discussion as an assignment, figure out what we can possibly do. Actually, I think Chief Stevens, your idea might work. I like it. Yeah, so have a physical conduit and then. Basically contract with a non-state government entity that can provide the sort of paperwork that's needed to cover and then have that person, have that entity bring in people. So anyway, we'll think about what could be workable. So just a couple real quick things. There are limitations on what those performance-based contracts can cover, so it can't cover just any kind of expertise, and a lot of it's technical. But I also know that through the social equity caucus last year, we had a working group that we were able to fund much more reasonably, but it was through the Vermont Community Foundation, and I know that Representative Christie, actually represented Christine and Representative Colson helped us set that up, so that would be another possible approach to get some broader input. I'll leave that to David to touch base with Coach Christie because I'm gonna be- That sounds good, and it came weeks. As Martin said to be clear, we are gonna run in all of the limitations, but I think there's some creative thinking going on and I'll see what we can figure out. And actually, I appreciate that you said that, Representative, because it speaks to a bigger issue that we need to address, not we, this panel, but we state government, about what is considered real work or soft work or technical work or expertise, and that equity work is often treated like padding. Padding on real work. Right, soft work. And so when we think about performance-based contracts going forward, I think we need to redefine what counts as skill, knowledge, expertise, technicality, et cetera. So there's, I mean, it's tangent somewhat. I already spoke a little bit with Baton about this and Representative Christie and I, when we ran into this issue in the appropriations with the per diem, kind of committed ourselves to try to take a run at trying to change that per diem and maybe I can chat with you about some of your ideas as well, to have a compensation that's more appropriate. Particularly for these communities, you keep on going back to it and asking for free time and then that's ridiculous. And we're gonna have Sheila come and testify for it as well. For free. That's what we called it. That's my test job, good point, good point. That was so easy. I got a high rate, I got a high rate. That was great. That was great. We had two good videos today. That was really good. So, we're getting close to the witching hour and people got a, well, at least here we have to go home. Not casting aspersions. I will, by Friday, if everyone nods their head, I don't think we need to vote on this. I'll put a doodle poll out to the panel about what's a good night. Did we ever settle the question about whether non-panel members could be participants? I think they're going to be. I don't think there's any way around it because all of our consultants are non-panel members. I think it's just the decision, oh, sorry. So, it's basically gonna be the same structure where people advise, opinionate, give us expertise, whatever, and then ultimately the panel makes the decision. Correct. So, these subcommittees will bring recommendations to the panel. Correct. But won't be actual voting people in the actual final decision making. What she said. Not voting at the point of panel, but if there is a vote, I'm assuming an informal voting procedure that goes on within the subcommittee. It's also. I would expect voices to be equal in a subcommittee in my opinion. So, yeah. We did. No, you're right. That's what we did. I was speaking from the approach because I was on the subcommittee. I think it was, right? You were on the subcommittee. Yes, we had full rein decision making in the way we chose to do that was by consensus. And it doesn't mean we just agree on everything. I wanna make that clear, but we came to a consensus on what the points were we gonna do and made those recommendations to the whole panel as the time expressed before. Then the panel gave us feedback, critiques, all the things, and then we went back and did again and kept going back until we were at a place to where I feel like we were in consensus mode as a whole because we did that process in a way that I feel was a little bit more authentic in terms of allowing this subgroup to take on this body of work but making sure that we weren't leaving the voices out of not only the panel people, but the community people who showed up and showed up to be able to add to that as we structured that in the subcommittee. So I'm assuming that's the way it would go again because it was a fairly effective. It worked well, I felt. I felt. And again, whoever was talking earlier, I think it was Rebecca. Let's not reinvent the wheel. Mo was saying it too. Let's not reinvent the wheel. We got a really good report done with this process last year and I feel like first of all it worked and it worked well. And secondly, we ain't got a lot of time to reinvent the wheel. Just saying. So the comment on your scheduling, I'm just wondering as, and again, this doesn't have to revolve around me and not to necessarily say I'm gonna be that high person on the subcommittee, but again, going back to what Chief Steven said and what I said about wanting to have that representation and being concerned that if I'm not and there isn't that ability, especially as a voting person and that capacity to be on there, it makes me go like this in terms of my involvement. So basically what I'm getting at is by choosing a day of the week that might be hard for some of us because I know there are certain nights that I have but it's not necessary that I have all Tuesdays for the month. And so I'm wondering if the days can be flexible when we have, because you said this is just a good day, which I love having a day where it's just that thing. And I wanna acknowledge that maybe people have things that are like this and maybe picking a day every single week may not work for people. And if that's a variable on your duty pool that you could accept. Okay, figure it out. I'll figure out how to put it in. Like it could be like the first Tuesday and the third Tuesday and the second Wednesday and the fourth Wednesday. Like, you know something to where it doesn't necessarily for those of us who, I know you looked at the little puzzle of what I was trying to communicate. So for those of us who, again, my, again, I know like if we would pick Tuesdays, I'd be, that's all I'm saying because I have other serious commitments on Tuesday nights. Well, it's good to know that now. Thank you. It's not gonna be Tuesdays. Okay, I will figure out how to do this with your help. We will figure out how to do this. Yeah, I was wondering if the duty pool is going to be distributed by Friday, will that mean that we need to have a solid idea of who is going to want to be on the subcommittee before Friday? No, because I think people will vote and I think we'll get a sense of it from there. Okay. And does that include, the contract people where we can't, there's gonna come a point where we cannot take everybody into account. So I guess that's my question. We just take into account panel numbers when we're doing the doorbell, not community, not contracted, not. There's gotta be a line because otherwise we'll never get anything done. And the subcommittee in my mind can consult with really whoever they want. I mean, and if it's gonna be working on a consensus basis and they can take the input of anyone they consult with into consideration to a certain degree, people can have their voice without officially being in the subcommittee. Hopefully. And we did that last time. We did that last time, so. So I will get this going. I got work to do between now and the end of the week. Great. Anybody else got stuff they need to bring up or a new business? Business? We're looking for more business. And that does seem a little perverse, doesn't it? It's a business. Got business, 30 seconds, go. Okay. Now that you mentioned it. Sounds good. I'd like to ask you to do that. I have a mask on this time. At the last minute. Okay, so then the next meeting of the full panel, which is not to say the subcommittee, the next meeting of the full body will be the 10th of August, which is the second Tuesday of the month, which is when we always meet, second Tuesday of the month between six and eight PM. And we will be obviously sending out a lot of emails in the, I mean, David's got stuff he's researching. He'll keep us abreast about the due to poll will come out and we will start putting together when the subcommittee's gonna start getting together to start doing this. Not all right? Good. Anybody wanna say let's go home? I motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor of adjourning. Bye. Bye. Bye.