 Wednesday, October 18th, 2023, regular meeting for the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. Are there any changes to the agenda? Okay. Is there any public comment for items that are not on the agenda? Let's hear from our staff. Charlie, you have Brian and Pam who would like to go first. We'll go according to the agenda. Brian is up first. Hi, Brian. How are you? Brian Davis. How are you? If Pam is here, I know that she has another meeting. Okay. Well, then let's defer to Pam. I'm looking for Pam. I don't think she is here, right? And so, all right. Yeah, I don't know if she may, she may not be able to make it. So, yeah, Brian, why don't you go ahead and if Pam comes, she can hop in. Awesome. Let's jump right in. Hi, everybody. How are you? My name is Brian Davis. I am one of the senior transportation planners on staff. I started a few weeks apart from Jason's Charest 16 years ago in 2007. Well, let's see. I graduated from Texas A&M with a Bachelor of Science in Recreation Park and Tourism Sciences. That was in Texas, of course, and I moved to Colorado, goofed around a bit, worked for the Forest Service, did some biking, gained some nonprofit experience with the Land Conservation Land Trust, worked for an affordable housing nonprofit for a little while, did some writing and some editing for a paper, came to Vermont to get a Master of Science in Natural Resource Planning. At the same time was doing some Forest Service work here. They were updating the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes Master Plan for that, and then hired on by then the MPO, now RPC, of course. Much of my work here focuses on walking and biking, whether that is creating comprehensive master plans for our municipalities or whether that's scoping studies or corridor studies. I also work on transportation demand management, which is trying to get people to change their behavior and use other modes instead of driving loans. The past couple years, I've been one of the staff that's focused on doing some of that internal equity work, which we've hired Ann Ellison-Stoner. She's doing great work. Also working with Melanie on a health equity grant that is something that all RPCs statewide are working on through funding from the Vermont Department of Health. So some different things besides transportation planning, and of course, responding to all the different requests that we get from our cities and towns outside of the work program. That's terrific. I think you sound like a real renaissance man. Great. A lot of great experience. Does anybody have any questions or for Brian? Brian, were you ever a Yale leader at Texas A&M? I was not. These days I'm what you call a two presenter. Awesome. Thank you very much, Brian. Pam, I understand you're heading off to a meeting and maybe can give us your elevator talk. Thank you. Sure. Yeah, I'm actually right in between meetings. I just did a food shelf board orientation for our new board members and our board meeting has just started and my vice chair is running things till I get back. Please lead with the food shelf. Where is the food shelf? Oh, I'm sorry. Shelburne food shelf. Actually, I'm standing in the stock room right now. Awesome. Good for you. Hi, everyone. My name is Pam Brangen. I've been with Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission since 1999. So almost 25 years will be 25 in May of this coming year. Prior to coming to the RPC, like Brian, I had a little bit of time with the Forest Service. I worked out in Idaho on the Clearwater National Forest and then in West Virginia on the Monongahila National Forest. Idaho was actually where I got my start in doing GIS work, which is what my main job is here at the RPC. My title at the RPC is GIS Data and IT Manager. So I am responsible for data development, map making, both paper maps and online maps, and I do a lot of analysis work. And I also help out with the IT stuff in the office. We do have the tech group as our primary IT support, but I'm sort of the front line, and if I can't quickly solve a problem, I usually direct folks to call the tech group because I don't have formal training in IT. It's just sort of been a part of my job that I've been doing through the years. Let's see. Is our tech group SimQuest or how do we? No, it's actually the tech group. Oh, very good. Thank you. So over my time at the RPC, I started in 99 and GIS was around, but it certainly has changed a lot just in the 24 plus years I've been here. I started out doing a lot of just paper maps, printing them out on big on the plotter, big wall size maps to today where the majority of my work is online. I've made map viewers for almost all of our towns. And those map viewers contain like the town zoning data, their parcel data, natural resources, information, transportation, roads and bridges, sidewalk data. I've also done a lot of dashboards. I was just working on one today for ash trees, identifying where ash trees are along roadways in a town, and the town is working to remove some of their ash trees. And so they're documenting which trees have been removed and which are still there. So updating the dashboard for them. Analysis wise, I've just recently been working with the city of Essex Junction to help them figure out their impervious surface based single family home impervious surface average so that they can start to develop a storm water impact fee. And let's see. I don't know. There's the amount of work that I do with GIS is just quite ranging. I can imagine. I think the layers that I see in the applications for GIS are just innumerable as you just described. The ash trees alone is just one overlay and then you can do so much else with it. And we use it for obviously our energy mapping, planning with the wind versus the solar versus the natural resource protection and all that other stuff that goes with it. So it's pretty giddying and overwhelming at the same time. If anything by numbers. Well, thank you. Does anybody have questions for Pam or comments? If not, Pam, I'm going to let you get back to your other business and equally important, if not more so, because it's much more specific than our wide ranging stuff. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. You're welcome. Have a good evening, everyone. You too. All right, folks, we're going to move on to item four, which is the Consent Agenda. We're looking for action from the cities and towns and a vote from the cities and towns. So we're going to ask the representative from Buell's Gore and all our regional members to sit this vote out. But the representatives from the cities and towns where you have a need for a motion to approve the Consent Agenda in a second. Move to approve the Consent Agenda. Thank you, Andy. Yep. Second. Second. And thank you, Mike O'Brien. All those in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed, please speak up. Okay. All right, we're going to move on to the minutes. We have two sets of minutes. Let's deal with them one at a time. We have the first one from July of 19 of 2023, which we had tabled in the last session, if you'd remembered. And so I'll need a motion to approve that set of minutes in a second for that. Motion to approve. Thank you, Catherine. Second. Thank you, Benjamin. Any discussion or further look at the minutes from July? All the errors that I had logged, as well as some of the other folks, to my eyes, have now been ameliorated. Great. And thank you for making the motion, Catherine. Yes, again, the minutes are going to reflect that which was said, not often of what we think should have been said, but I think it was clear and we worked that out. Thank you. Please, all those in favor for July's minutes, please say aye, raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed or abstaining, please speak up. I'll abstain. Garrett. I'll abstain, too. Mike. I'll abstain. And Joe Segali abstaining, so we have three moves. And I will abstain, as well. All right. So we're going to have John Zaccone, Joe Segali, Garrett, and Mike O'Brien. All right. Thank you very much. Let's move on to the minutes for September 20th. I'll need a motion for that. Move to approve with the corrections. Thank you, Andy. And a second. Benjamin, thank you for the second. Is any discussion now of the minutes for September? Anyone find any errors? Chris, yeah, Mike O'Brien. Go ahead. Christine Lott was there, but so was I. So the attendance, the attendance needs to be tweaked, huh? Yeah, just to add my name someplace, it doesn't matter where. Since my name was mentioned in the minutes that I made a couple motions that I probably should be in attendance. Yes, indeed you should. Okay, so noted. Any other corrections, adjustments? Yeah, you were in September. Joe, go ahead. Yeah, I have on page seven, line 39. Page seven, line 39. Said Joe Segali, Huntington. Joe Segali said Huntington is working to expanded the center. Maybe I did say that, but it's we're not actually working on it. We're just discussing it. It's a little bit different. We just discussed it briefly. So you're saying it was is discussing. You can just say is discussing the village center. Okay. I think that would be fine. All right. You have that, Amy. Thank you. And Albrecht was also at the meeting. So the attendance will be modified to reflect everything that Mike said, as well as Dan being at our meeting. Okay. Are we talking about the minutes of September 20th? We are, Catherine. Well, Mike and Christine are on the agenda are in the present for the September 20th. Okay. Thank you. That's cool. According to my draft. So I'll just add Dan. I thought that I had, you know, taken some print screen. So that's good that you verified that. Thank you. Double check because my, my copy doesn't have me down. It has two columns. Your first column is Winooski. Second column is Winooski, Christine Lott. I'm sorry. I missed, I missed that. Yeah. It sort of reads a little, you know, column across. Yeah. And then Dan Albrecht, I think, as Amy points out, is not listed, but should be. So my apologies for not reading that closely. Okay. So we have those corrections as noted. Are there any other corrections? Anyone else? If not, everyone in favor, please raise your hand to say aye. Anyone opposed or abstaining, please speak up. Garrett and Jackie are abstaining. Anyone else? Okay. Those are some quick action items. Thank you. We're going to move on to municipal dues for fiscal year 2025. Is this Forrest, Charlie? Forrest, do you want to address it or? It is a money item. It is a money item. I will start. How's that? Sounds good. Are folks looking at the memo? Excellent. Okay. So as usual, a little context and background about what we use the dues for, how we divvy up the county using the Equalized Education Grand List, the EEGL, and also noting that we use the Employment Cost Index for state and local government employee compensation, a lot of syllables, to just gauge how much of an increase we may or may not be asking for. The 12-month period last year was relatively high, probably reflecting broader economic situation in the country. So that was 4.9%. In years past, it's been probably half that, if not lower. So that was quite a bit higher. And I also usually include a little history about what we've done with the dues over the last five years or so. And we held them level in 21 and 22 and then increased by 2% and then again by 3% in 23 and 24 for a 5% increase over those four years. And we are at an assessment of $263,070 for this fiscal year. So during the executive committee meeting, we discussed all this and looked at this table. And we noted that the ECI was relatively high and that the RPC's compensation costs have also increased relatively dramatically over the last year or two, again reflecting the broader inflation in the country. And also noted that there is a lot more state dollars flowing through our budget so the thought process was maybe we should share some of that increase with the state revenue and the towns and proposed roughly half of that 4.9% increase, a 2.5% increase on the overall dues. And after some discussion, that's where the executive committee landed. So that's what the suggested increase for FY25 is coming from the executive committee to new the board tonight. And that is a fairly accurate summary of what we discussed two weeks ago at the executive board. Thank you. It was always a percent concern for the cities and towns as we raise the rates. And we've done fairly well over the last five years. So the executive committee took a look at it, thought about 3% settled at 2.5%. The research that Forrest put in here as you see in the memo in the packet is pretty comprehensive. So we feel quite solid with where we land on it. The individual percentages can be eyebrow raising for the various cities and towns as you can see for Buells Gore and for Richmond and for Shelburne, you know, you get 7, 8 and 23%. But the overall change for CCRPC is $6,000. So it really is a drop in the bucket. And the percentages really belie the true impact of how we use these dollars to leverage federal dollars and state dollars. So this is a solid investment. And certainly with the amount of money that we were bonus over the last year, I think we've been able to keep it to a level where we thought this would be appropriate and keep our powder dry for the potential one of lean times ahead. So any further questions for Forrest, myself or Charlie on this concerns? If not, this is an action item and we're looking for a motion to approve as you can see in your packet. Also move. This is Garrett. Okay. Thank you, Garrett. And the second? Second. I think Mike O'Brien I saw or Jackie. We'll go with Jackie. We've been the. Thank you, Jackie. So any further discussion? If not, all those in favor of this 2.5 increase, please raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Anyone staining or opposed, please speak up. Okay. Thank you. I believe that's the end of our action items. So we'll move on to the equity update. The code of conduct initial discussion is Ann Nelson here tonight for that. Yes, she is. Okay. Can you all hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Let me share my screen. Okay. You all see that? All right. So again, many of you have already seen this, but we are now that we're kind of through the equity statement process. We are working on developing a set of organizational core values and a code of conduct. So you've seen this slide before, but we already have a mission statement. The why do we exist and the vision statement? What's our goal? We now have an equity statement. And now we're working on this core values code of conduct. So in order to kind of uphold that equity statement to work towards that and our mission and vision, how do we need to behave along the way? Following this will come some more details on the equity action plan, which is the nitty-gritty of what the work actually looks like. So CCRPC currently has an administrative and operating policies and procedures document for staff. In this document, we have kind of general conditions for working, like, you know, I think dress code hours of work, pets at work, things like that, telephone use. We have language around conflict of interest and then general conduct. Oh, dress codes there, smoking, drug use, things like that, packages getting sent to work. And we have language around harassment and discrimination that it just got updated through the use of an HR consultant. And we have substance abuse language. And that's that's pretty much it. And then we have a board member handbook that I assume you all have already seen that does have some kind of code of conduct delanguage as well. The hope is to kind of develop one set of one document, one code of conduct that applies to anybody who represents CCRPC. So whether it's staff, committee members, board members, everybody should be upholding this code of conduct. So the way I slash we are thinking about is developing the core values ideally three to seven a number that we can remember to guide the behaviors. What are the values that we want to uphold? What is our kind of desired culture? The code of conduct, which is the behavioral expectation, the how of the values. And then a policy plan for operationalizing and upholding this code of conduct. So how do we hold each other accountable? What does discipline look like dialogue conflict resolution? What does that process look like when something when somebody feels harmed something goes wrong? Why this update? Even when it's not spoken, there is an established culture culture is cultivated. So let's be intentional about the culture we cultivate if we're trying to work towards certain goals. It's helpful for everybody representing CCRPC to know what is expected of us. It gives us structure and it allows to hold each other accountable and hold ourselves accountable. It fills in gray space between right now we have language around harassment and discrimination, a lot of the like legally mandated and framed language, but there's a lot of gray space of okay well what happens when there's a little bit of conflict or somebody feels harmed but doesn't want to take legal action. So providing some clarity in that gray space assurance for folks that poor conduct will be addressed. And then lastly it provides us with a backbone so that we can make value driven decisions. So some of the questions that have come up these came from staff. We had a harassment and discrimination training that kind of went through the legal process. But there were a lot of remaining questions that we're hoping to kind of start to address with this code of conduct. So again like how do we define unacceptable behavior? How does it differ from harassment and discrimination? What do we want to do or what do we do if we want to address an issue but not take legal action? How do we handle inappropriate behavior by board members, committee members, other staff members, others outside the organization such as contractors we hire or maybe even the public during a public meeting. What's our personal responsibility for reporting behavior that doesn't directly involve us? What options do we have for handling conflict that exists outside the kind of formal process? How do we talk about and handle intent versus impact? How do we support others who have experienced workplace harassment and discrimination? How can we feel comfortable bringing up issues and also create a space for people to grow and learn? So similar to the equity statement process, this kind of started by meeting with staff in small groups to think about values. What are the values that we currently strive to uphold in our work? Where is their area for improvement? What values encompass what we think we're doing? What we hope to be doing in these communities we're working in? Last month I did a similar workshop with the equity advisory committee to think about values. So what values do they hope that we uphold in our work? This third one should also be bolded, that's what's already happened, but I just met with staff again a couple weeks ago to kind of keep digging into these values and then start to think about actual behavioral expectations that come with those values and implementation strategies and conflict resolution processes. This will go back to the equity advisory committee next week and then back to staff and then to the executive committee hopefully in December and to you all in January. So Ann Nelson, remind us again I'm trying to fit the core values, I'm sorry the code of conduct is the second step. The mission as the first one and then the third step again, this was one of the very first slides you showed. Yeah, the third, the step that comes after the code of conduct, is that what you're asking about? It's the equity action plan. So it's the, what does the work actually look like? This is all about our behavior as representatives of CCRPC and then after this and this is already in the we're working on this now is the equity action plan. So what is it, what do we actually do in our work? So that will come to you all. This slide just has an example of some of the values on the left are values that came out of, is my summary so it might, you know, I might have gaps here but it's my summary of values that came out of staff meetings and then on the right is a list of values ideas that came from meeting with the equity advisory committee. So we're hoping to turn this list into I hope five, no more than five values. And then let's see some other equity updates, other things I'm working on, the equity action plan. I have an intern working with me to kind of flesh that out. We are updating the Ecos plan so digging into that document and starting to plan community engagement for the spring and summer. Equity advisory committee meetings are still happening once a month, still lots of just connecting, relationship building, getting to know people in the area, working with the creative discourse for mentorship still and project support for other staff as I have time and can. So I'm sorry to jump in but we have the equity statement then we have the code of conduct and then can I foresee in the equity action plan that we're going to have some way of reinforcing the code of conduct at intervals as we get new board members every year. I believe staff on board in their training but it's the type of thing that I think obviously needs to be rehearsed more than once and then maybe more than once a year, correct? Yes, definitely correct. Some of that is also happening in these these code of conduct discussions of how do we actually how do we actualize the code of conduct? How do we not just have it be words or a document that lives on our website or that's handed out to staff that nobody reads or board members. So yes, it's very much we're thinking about that now Chris and how do we make these aspirations public and revisit them frequently so that others can help keep us accountable and we can help hold each other accountable to them. It is rather wide ranging so it seems that having examples from the many different areas and because it's on a scale obviously of you know that's egregious and oh that's you know incidental but they're all illustrative and they're all capable of helping us figure out what's appropriate and what isn't appropriate in different contexts with the contractors as you point out board members you know and then within the workplace versus social media or you know I get off on my high horse and write letters to the editor and you know as a representative on the board it might be taking a broad swing or swath at something that isn't entirely acceptable. So yeah that question of when do we represent CCRPC? When do we not? If we're trying to foster an inclusive environment here then are we always a representative of CCRPC? And yeah that quite behavior is always on a spectrum it's not clear. This document's not going to be able to outline everything but to add some language around a process of working through conflict before we get to you know formal written I think right now it's like oral reprimand written reprimand suspension and that you're asked to leave and what you know where can there's so much room for growth before we get to those steps how can we kind of dig into that and create space for that. Excellent. Anyone have comments or questions for Ann Nelson? Yeah I see Bruce. Hi I'm Marcia. I go ahead. So let's go closer. Thank you Ann Nelson for your presentation. Appreciate it. So when you say mentorship with this group what does that mean? Yeah that's you do you remember Sue McCormick and Nadia DeBose from the Creative Discourse Group who did the organizational equity assessment of CCRPC? I still meet with Sue every other week for just like mentorship kind of guidance collaboration just to check in with her about my work. Has it been decided to continue with their contract? Yeah it's a good question. It's coming up their contract ends I think at the end of November so that's a conversation that we're currently having right now. So we can talk about that too at the equity advisory committee meeting next week Bruce if that's of interest. I don't know yet is the answer. Melanie? Hi just have a question about the code of conduct and how it applies to committee members that represent CCRPC. I mean you know given the Israeli Hamas conflict that's happening and that it's kind of playing out in our community you know there's a rally downtown today. I'm wondering if somebody who represents CCRPC attending a protest that is anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic and they're at the rallies or protests that are that way in nature are they violating CCRPC's code of conduct? Yeah it's a good question Melanie. I this is a tricky issue with no clear answer. I think that for committee members I think most of the time there needs to be a line between what you're doing as an individual in your own life. You're choosing to show up as an individual to that protest based on your own beliefs and your own positionality and experience in the world. I think we have control over how that shows up in committee spaces or in spaces that are explicitly CCRPC and my hope is that we would be able to have if somebody if anybody feels like the fact that people are showing up to protests on either side is creating a non-inclusive environment just in its nature that we would be able to have a dialogue around that and figure out some way forward because I don't know yeah I don't have a clear answer to that but I'm open to other thoughts Charlie. I see your hand is up and Dana I see your hand is up. Yeah just back to the values. I know you want to whittle that down but I really like forgiveness and that's not something that you usually see on something like this. I sort of celebrate that and I think it's really important in the workplace so that you can move on from conflict in a meaningful way and not hold grudges like secret grudges that you really haven't gotten over and that still kind of eat away you so I think forgiveness I put a vote for that one to stay. Thank you for saying that that actually that came from the equity advisory committee members saying like we really want CCRPC to like be a leader and be an innovator and take risks and also like forgiveness is really important because we know people will make mistakes and yeah I agree it was a beautiful it's a beautiful value to hold. Charlie. Yeah thank you Dana were you done? Yeah okay um I just uh kind of want to know a couple things one is you know we don't have a code of conduct right now you know except for kind of very the the pieces that Ann Nelson kind of talked about but in particular you know and even what we do have is almost all staff oriented and so I just want you to kind of think you know Melanie raised a question but just as you think about you know your role as a board member if you have any specific reactions or things and you know how we deal with those things as board members and committee members you know in the community if you have thoughts that we ought to be thinking about in this code of conduct drafting this is a great time or if you want to email follow up later on or call you know me or Ann Nelson or something I'm happy to get any more feedback because we are kind of going into some territory we haven't really been in before you know we've been like I said the policy is very staff-centric right now but we know that you know there's also the potential for negative things to happen in different committee meetings or other forums where it could be perceived as CCRPC's position or CCRPC is you know a representative of CCRPC said X you know so just this is kind of new ground for us so if you have reactions or thoughts or or cautions things we should watch out for please please speak up thank you Benjamin you have a hand up yeah I'm a little concerned because if it's a staff members who are of CCRPC and they're engaged in activity where they're identified there's a certain element of agency and I think that that's of concern um you know the enormity of the attack by Hamas and murder in the homes of some 1400 civilians and in particular whether it's the Bedouin and Rahat in their town or the people who are attending a peace concert in fact um and really just they are speakable horrors um and you know there's there's certainly room for concern for Palestinian civilians but to be identified as somebody coming from the CCRPC I think that that's uh and you say well there are things to be said but there's a terror organization that engaged in horrific terrorism and has been hiding behind its own uh civilian population which in and of itself is a major war crime um so it's a horrific situation but identifying in particular with it the aims or buffering or excusing they um what's taken place by and perpetrated by a terrorist organization um is really disconcerting it also has a chilling effect on other people as well and um I think we need to be very careful in people who are full-time employees or with CCRPC and the impact that may have um in intimidation in fact uh towards those who are relatives or as a family who've uh been killed thank you thank you Benjamin and and certainly that uh go ahead uh Bruce I'm sorry so uh I'm Benjamin and Dana I like your answers and you know you know just present it um I'm one of the founding members of the community justice centers around the state of Vermont starting in Burlington and we have this process that we created called restorative justice process and restorative justice process is what was it called how did it affect someone and so I think um the person who go against the court of conduct we probably should use we could use the restorative justice process what was the harm and how did it affect someone and then from that point uh we go to um how do you make amends to the individual the community person who will interfere thank you I like it I haven't uh dived into the restorative justice process as much as I'd like to I've always um marbled at the one that we have in our town and I wished I've gained the knowledge that you have Bruce on that because I do think it's wide widely applicable so uh in that situation and you know a lot of the incidences that we run up against seem very uh strangely specific so other questions or comments for Ann Nelson on the work well great I'm gonna look forward to our next update Ann Nelson will be uh out your meeting next week and then uh is anything coming to us in November or is it more December wait we'll see yeah we'll see it'll depend on kind of how these you know they're these are hard conversations they're these answers are not clear and what we decide to put into policy and what we decide not to put into policy it'll depend on how feedback continues to evolve and um so November December January stay tuned all right yeah there it does move from the very large to the very small as we can see so I mean everything from microaggressions to uh as I mentioned as my example letters to the editor showing up at the protests and being broadcast on the front page of the New York Times or something so um let's move on to the Ecos plan update Ecos people review um who is going to be taking uh that I'm gonna guess Taylor yes sorry I was sharing so I couldn't unmute but yes Chris it is it is I um so hi folks last month can you guys see the present presenter view or the presentation view presentation we're good excellent I have two screens and one's on one and one's on the other so I want to make sure you guys see the presentation uh so last month I we talked about the Ecos plan and we talked about Ecos prosperity um one of the three themes we've organized this Ecos plan under uh today I'm here to talk to you about Ecos people before we jump into the people section I wanted to provide a quick update on timeline uh this slide last month had a starting engagement in January 2024 and wrapping up in August September 2024 with a planned adoption in February 2025 staffs been talking this whole month and we really feel like we need more time to do engagement uh and so we we've pushed it back adoption to June 2025 June is typically when we've adopted Ecos plans in the past at your annual meeting um so we know how to do it meet all those timelines between January and June um but just wanted to note that that we have pushed back timeline again internally um but one other thing I'll mention here in regards to timeline um you know we're still going to deal with our three main topics this next year which is engagement with underrepresented or marginalized communities um we're going to talk about our regional municipal housing targets and we're going to talk about the original future land use map but we also may look at restructuring the plan a bit um that's also been something our Ecos plan uh committee um has been talking about over the past month um something we haven't brought to LRPC yet the long-range planning committee something we may talk about with them in in November but there may be some restructuring of the plan too that we'll be working on of this next year any questions on timeline before we delve into the details of the Ecos people okay hearing none as I said before we've the current structure of the Ecos plan is really divided into three different parts prosperity people in place today we'll talk about people which is centered on the goals for a health social connectedness and emergency management just a reminder to the board that uh edits as part of this second draft because if you remember we started way back in 2022 with the first draft are really focused on data and focused on addressing or threading equity throughout all chapters of the Ecos plan um and to directly address LRPC and PAC comments that happened during the first draft in 2022 and so the the intent of your reviews here tonight is just to get a general sense of additions, deletions and provide any questions or comments that you have to me so we can think about it as a part of the third draft I'm first going to talk about goals and so the health goal in the Ecos plan has been pretty substantially revamped we wrote it in collaboration with uh with staff at the Vermont Department of Health one other one substantial change in that section is we've added quite a few indicators where we've tried to disaggregate data by population type particularly around race um or around sexual identity to get a better sense of of disparate health outcomes across different types of population um Melanie uh Needle has really been coordinating with Department of Health on on amending this section of working on this section uh Melanie do you have anything to add on on changes to the health goal? I don't think so I think you you covered it well and it was also uh covered pretty well in the memo so I don't have anything to add thank you okay uh moving on to emergency management um this section in the current Ecos plan is emergency management um public safety and criminal justice I believe is is its title on staff discuss the criminal justice justice part of the goal um and one recognize that that addressing criminal justice isn't a require statutory requirement for a regional plan but then to recognize that we didn't quite feel like we had the time or expertise to have a substantial or adequate discussion about criminal justice within the confines of the Ecos plan um and so our our decision currently is to remove language related to criminal justice um from the Ecos plan and instead restructure this this goal to be exclusively related to emergency management and to talk about emergency management uh within hazard mitigation and in connection to public safety which CCRPC does have some connection with in terms of our work um this section has been totally reframed around uh uh the phases of emergency management according to FEMA which are prevention preparedness mitigation response and recovery um so in that chapter we talk about how CCRPC works within those five phases any questions on the health or the emergency management uh goals first uh yes um thank you thanks Taylor um so I think it's all very important and we should be included within everything um primary health I have to offer and one way to do that many as I said on the epidemiology work group and it covers everything that entails with department health um that will work and I think maybe um we should look into that on the epidemiology work group from the department helping and we can get a lot of answers they got a lot of statistical information about what it is and about health and about the Bible and cultures and um you know um universities you know equity you know and basicities and so I think um we should look into the epidemiology work group um okay the epidemiology work group at the department okay Melanie and I can follow up with our contact at the department of health and make a fresh link and see if there's anything that working group can provide us that that fits within groups that's fine I think we have a policy you know procedure manual or how they operate and exactly what they do uh maybe that's the first thing we should try to acquire from them so we can actually want to see what's the topic errors that we might want to look into how we want to work and collaborate with them sanitize okay any other comments or questions on health and emergency management okay hearing none I'll I'll move on to uh civic engagement and social connectedness um this is Garrett I guess he didn't see my hand I do have a question okay go ahead if I may um I noticed in the notes that it said uh the following indicators will be retired I understand the crime rate and stuff like that but I would think that for emergency management that possibly property crime but definitely emergency service calls and fire calls would be key to understand uh what's happening now and what the trends are because you know if there's an upward or downward trend that makes for very different reactions so I was wondering you know it said you couldn't get the data but don't fire departments have number of calls available and that sort of thing Melanie is unmuted so I'm going to defer to Melanie first yeah I can take that one thanks Garrett good question um so when we first developed that indicator in 2013 um the data was available from the department of fire safety at the state level it was published in their annual report um very nicely disaggregated by county and um you know we were able to obtain the data on that no problem but the last few years the data has not been available by county it's by municipality and then it's broken up by every type of fire or EMS call possible possible and then um it's also in a PDF I've tried numerous times to get it in a different way um because it's hard to manipulate data that's in a PDF and it's just been very challenging um so that was the rationale for retiring the indicator and you know happy to hear um feedback about that I certainly understand that I just if there is any way they can be pressured or whatever to get you the data may be in a spreadsheet or at least in an editable document you know I would think it'd be pretty important for for this aspect of the plan but you know what you can do and what you can't do we haven't tried to have Charlie send a mean letter yet so we can try to do that next he's good at this uh no good good point Garrett and and yeah maybe we'll try the mean letter approach but uh yeah we'll do it we can there all right uh moving on to civic engagement and social connectedness um these sections are pretty light in the current plan uh or sorry these goals are pretty light in the current plan in terms of key issues that that are talked about um in the civic engagement section we really tried to stress the the importance of building public trust in local and regional government within that section um to encourage the folks to feel comfortable engaging with uh their local governments um and we also talked about the work that we're trying to do to overcome barriers to public participation in the social connectedness goal we talked about the importance of social connected connectedness talk about the negative consequences helping most health related uh to social isolation and loneliness and Nelson took the biggest crack at these two goals and Nelson anything to add here not really i think there's going to end up being a fair amount of overlap between like some equity action plan content will get pulled into these sections and i'm sure through community engagement they will change but no that's it right now any comments or questions from the board okay uh moving on to the strategies and actions there are three strategies and their actions in the packet the first strategy is the health and safety strategy that current strategy in the 2018 ECOS plan was not very action-oriented and had a lot of just blocked text about health impact assessments and health community design we moved a lot of that up to the key issues section up to the to the goal um and so we try to make this section or this strategy more action-oriented and also wanted to acknowledge within those actions so that we are really reliant upon partner organizations to do a lot of these actions they're not necessarily ccrpc uh in the governance uh strategy this is probably the strategy that's that's been edited the least amount so really just trying to provide some clarity um and uh try to add some language here related to equity um but more substantially we've added a new equity strategy um and we've directly linked that strategy to the draft equity action plan um so really trying to take the work that you heard about from Ann Nelson today or that she's working on with EAC in terms of how we're going to actualize our equity work and then fold it here into our ECOS plan our our our comprehensive plan that guides all our work any questions on these strategies and actions let's look at the governance which seems to be the one least examined Taylor um do we presently track um you know I know as the chair of our local party in town uh the national party the state party tracks the leaning of the governing officials in town both on the school board and on the city council in our case but I'm wondering if uh you know region-wide as a county whether we're keeping an eye on what is the makeup of our select boards what is the makeup of our school boards and how are we doing in that regard uh and and publicizing that and I don't know if that's an effective way to create change but at least it's the beginning of a monitoring process I know certainly in south burlington situation right now the council is looking at a charter change which has charter change committee recommendations that include expanding the school board and include expanding the city council both of which would be great opportunities to increase representation uh from a five-member board to a seven-member board uh and their opportunities in that regard and then we have again a larger city we have uh many subsidiary committees and boards um and how are they made up and uh what what is the um vacancy rate or what is the um the fill rate on those I think things of that sort because they all have impact and you know it's a great example as I say in south burlington because we stand at the point where the charter change committee may well recommend expansion but the council or the school board might say no we don't want to do that even though the wise elders that they appointed would be voting in that regard I don't have a quick answer for you Chris but I know that that topic is something we talk about a lot here as staff in terms of of age race gender you know size of board income right exactly income you know um and so you know Melanie check me if I'm wrong here but you know we don't have an indicator about that currently just because that that data would take a long time to collect we can't get it in a systematic way um you know if the board feels strongly we can we can talk about it and maybe add it as an indicator um I'm not sure how we I don't know if we start with just select board makeup or if we talk about select board and planning commission or what we do there but um now Melanie anything to add there as someone who's been around for the last couple of years plans I'm sure this this topic's come up before for Charlie yeah I'm here so sorry I was a little distracted with stuff going on in the background can you repeat the question please yeah just asking about um if this topic of board representation has come up before and and tracking um things like age gender income uh in terms of board makeup as an indicator in the eco's plan has that been talked about in the past I I mean we talked about so much when eco's was first established so I mean it sounds familiar and I think that if we were to do that we would have to do primary data collection um so you know it's possible and it I'm also reminded that like the city of Burlington um you know in some of their racial equity work I think they were more interested in collecting demographic information about employees so I think there's been like initiatives and sort of fits and spurts kind of asking this question but it would be a primary data collection exercise okay I saw Bruce offering his hand thank you thank you I'm chairman um so um you know my degree in psychology so we use the word equity which I have heard like you know I really haven't heard the word equity you know maybe I should have you know in a lot of parts of my life you know coming on graduate I don't know question university but I'm gonna start hearing it you know lately it's because I was in like university equity inclusion and so when I see it um when people use this word like like forever like crazy you know not here forever I wonder if it's part of the university equity inclusion you know people are like me um actually it doesn't mean money um so you know I mean I guess somebody if somebody can explain to me a little tiny funny what what does it actually why was the word me um how the word ways we're using it um I mean yeah so you know governance clarity and equity um and you know the equity is the new strategy the line would drive equity action I understand with equity action plan that's what we we're trying to create that but still and so we so okay so let me say so governance clarity equity which remains money right there and then you say you're gonna put it with the action plan which means a lot of things like really POC by far um it means a lot so um I can be clear and I can be I can be clear here versus you like Taylor let me say it's uh it's it's an incredible buzzword to use like I'm not talking about you I'm gonna say but it isn't for the but so it confuses me you know what I mean because a lot of people around the world or at least the United States are using those words and they own course where there's diversity equity and justice equity diversity and inclusion and so to me those are incredible buzzwords you know but so I'm trying to go ahead tell me no yeah no it's a good point um I'll be clear about what I'm saying there in terms of specifically for governance um you know for governance versus um there's an action related under that under that strategy there's an action related to civic engagement where we talk about um ensuring that we're providing equity-oriented leadership training to all civic leaders um to increase knowledge about and encourage service on boards and commissions and so um there it's about our role um to provide that kind of training throughout the county to leaders um and then in terms of the equity strategy itself um there we're saying that we're going to ensure that equity is prioritized in the design and development of all programs policies and initiatives in Shetland County and then we specifically refer to implementing the equity action plan that EAC is working on does that help clarify things? Can I jump in for a second too? Sure thing. Yeah so you're Bruce is right this word like really does get thrown around and we don't we infrequently know what we're talking about but with ECOS like we've I've been thinking about this Bruce and I think like to be clear equity will be and is integrated in every part of the plan like there are strategies and there is content that is equity related meaning it's intended to help close the gaps in disparate access to resources and opportunities based on identity and that is woven throughout this entire plan the equity strategy itself I think we're actually kind of leaning towards renaming like planning practices and it's like our methodology of planning how do we do it in a way that helps redesign how resources are allocated to different communities based on identity so it is um planning practice specific and then different equity actions equity related actions are woven throughout every chapter in this plan you know I like to see the world step you on and you know that's that's where I like to see the word inclusion more because if you're included in something and we'll talk about a little bit you're included and then there's equity and automatic you know I mean I can understand what equity means if I'm included yourself so I think we like I would like to see some of our presentations inclusion thank you thank you Bruce any other comments or questions on these strategies and actions GICSE your your comment no vlcp does not have that data we've asked them for it in terms of board makeup you know and to be frank we have a hard enough time just getting managed email addresses sometimes in terms of who's on what board and sitting and counting so getting getting more detailed information may be difficult is there any chance they would be willing to uh cooperate to help get that data we we certainly can ask I don't know trella has thoughts on that I know they're advertising right now for a seat on their equity advisory committee so you know there may be a chance to participate and get them to go in that direction but I haven't heard that I haven't heard them wanting to do that that primary data collection either but I I'm curious as to whether they are talking about it within their equity advisory committee so I'll I'll talk some more to Ted about that to see if they are just an idea yep first that's all I had on eco's plan I'll be back with eco's place which is the meat of the plan next month that's land use transportation trying to think what else off the top my head infrastructure facilities is there right now climate energy so a lot to talk about in November okay great and it sounds like we pushed the our own personal deadline ahead by at least two months did we not from when we last talked this last month so we're now into january of 2025 and thank you christine lot in chat I do notice that you had a very apt comment that each town is best positioned to collect that data themselves and then distribute it back to us it would be great and perhaps even vlct be wonderful great great idea um item number nine the s100 studies is that going to be you charlie yeah yep I got that um so included in your packet um and I guess I will share my screen um is kind of the latest draft and sorry give me one second here while I make sure I can see all of your faces um I'm going to kind of walk through this and as I'm walking through this just to give you some context the legislature has asked the rpcs to look at coming up with common land use areas and common definitions and criteria for them for them to consider making you know some more detail changes in statute um why are they asking us to do that um you know because this conversation always starts off with well the rpcs you know they all kind of do similar stuff but it's not the same um and in particular there's conversations going on in the act 250 study and the designation study that would likely have the state rely more on our regional future land use map like behind me here um and I know you can't see the detail on that but um you know so we are having conversations about trying to get to more consistent terminology and and this is where we are right now and if you have feedback or questions about like some part of your municipality where would it fit like please bring it up because I think the more the more um scenarios that we think about and think through the better these new areas will be um there is one other thing I'll say about this is um the rpcs collectively or maybe I should more precisely say the rpc directors um are really only interested in amending our future land use maps in our regional plans if they are going to be used for some real purpose by the state you know if they're going to be used for uh assigning designations or act 250 exemptions or some other purpose uh you know infrastructure investments you know then there's an openness to doing this but uh nobody wants to do this just just to make our maps pretty or use the same colors right like that's um we're only want to do it if there's some policy purpose to it um so with that any questions kind of about context or background before I launch in uh Garrett your is that are you applauding or raising your hand both um no it seemed to me in reading through this that I wondered if I don't know what other rpcs have but this seemed very similar to ours yeah I mean and honestly right I mean you know all the people doing these plans you know got some sort of planning education along the way whether they did in college or through uh through work experience but yeah we're we're not singing from radically different um books of music you know it's similar right we're always talking about the same kinds of areas but we don't use the same terminology you know but it did seem pretty close to ours to where at least for us it wouldn't be a major adaptation and you know for example the hamlet area not to steal any thunder or anything but you know that that seems like a reasonable addition right but but still that I just wanted to point out that the basics are very very close to what we're doing now yeah and I think that's fairly true for the rest of the rpcs around the state um so I'll walk through this um sorry there's eight of these so that's why I scheduled this for 30 minutes so this will take a few minutes to walk through um but I do one at a time the plan growth area um just kind of what it says um with a couple nuances you know note that we're talking about not just where um development is now but also where planned growth is you know um sorry I'm trying not to you use the word planned over and over but uh so forgive me if I do who where growth is planned in your community um and typically because we're talking about the densest parts of our communities if you scroll down you know I look down here in the bottom I'm hoping you can see my cursor here you know community water and community sewer so you either have you know water or sewer or it's planned all right we have some communities that are working on getting water wastewater into their villages etc um and this is the highest density area and as Garrett said this might be a combination of land use areas we have now like our metro our suburban our centers but it's conceptually the same that's where we're trying to have growth happen any feedback on this one please don't try to be nice to me um tell me what you're thinking um Garrett say and I won't be all right thank you um village area um so this is kind of um we're using the term area on purpose because we have a village center designation right now right those village center designations have been very tight you know to just like the commercial core of our villages one of the conversations that's going on in the designation study is that they're too tight they need to incorporate the residential area around those village centers so um hence the term village area um and this would be you know maybe you're you're you don't quite have the ability to get to like five dms per acre because maybe you don't have wastewater or maybe you don't have zoning um who knows uh but you're missing like at least one of those elements um and so these are these are probably important centers in our towns but they're not fully ready to have a lot of growth happen any feedback on this one I have a question Charlie yeah um I guess it's here that last point in what in the bolded area I just when I first read it I thought I found it a little confusing but I think after you just explained it makes a little more sense to me but it is possible that there could be a village area that has um water and wastewater um and zoning right and so I don't know if this is meant to be like would those areas be excluded from a village area or would those just be considered a planned area or and um I think the way it's been getting talked about amongst the rpcs is is if it has all those pieces then it bumps up to the planned growth area like that area is is assuming the town wants that right um there's um there's some conversation about um you know we're talking about this and it sounds a little top down like the regions imposing these things but I think we're intending that this is a more municipally driven um process you know there's more bottoms up so if the town wants growth and they have all those pieces and they want to be a planned growth area great if they really they might have the pieces but they don't want to have growth maybe they stay as a village area right I guess maybe they keep part of that as the zoning piece of it which it may um you know because you know the planning area has a I think it was you said it was five dwelling units per acre right and it's maybe it's not zoning per se that is defining characteristic maybe it's the density um that is yeah well and that's what 100 has now required if you have water and sewer you have to allow at least five d u's per acre right so um really okay yep so yeah so there are some other dynamics going on here um yeah so anyway that's yeah other thoughts on that oh Catherine yeah having you know having uh village centers and village areas around the village centers you know so the village area would uh you're talking about encompassing both of those now rather than just the really tight village centers because technically you know we might have some some have water nobody really has sewer in Jericho in Jericho but at the same time we are zoning has uh for years allowed for dwelling units per acre in in in the village centers yeah so adding you know an additional one isn't an issue it's just how um you know eventually we'd like to get maybe some you know community septic but it's never because we have three different village centers it's never going to be a nice tight minute uh area like Richmond or something like that yeah right yeah not having that wastewater makes a lot of difference in how things play out right yeah yeah so I think you know I think your your villages um and Jackie probably Colchester you know like where you don't have that centralized sewer system I think we'll have to have some conversation about you know what is your zoning what what's available on your um I think most of them have some public water uh system so can you get to the 5 d use with just water and your zoning like if you can maybe you're maybe you're a growth area um if you can't or you don't want to maybe you just stay as a village area and they're trying to like thread the needle here there's still there's still probably some growth here it's just at a different density right okay any other thoughts on this thank you um all right now now the now the real tough one the third area we have on here um right now at least we're calling it a transition area and what kind of came up out of our conversations was a few different things um one one was the most recent part of the conversation had to do with how villages or or frankly even maybe some of our larger municipalities um you know think Montpelier um think berry like evolve away from flood prone areas and so they may transition upslope if they can um so that was one part of the use of transition area that was getting discussed the other the more majority of what is in this definition talks more about commercial strip development uh which you know almost every village and city has that commercial strip down the state highway typically you know into and out of town um is a town trying to redevelop that in a dense way with a mix of uses and you know getting housing there then maybe it's a transition area if it's going to stay strip commercial you probably um wouldn't be identified this way unless the town is intending for it to change and evolve but that was kind of the basic thinking here thoughts this is kind of a tough one to wrap your head around but for me not not for you so what happens if it if it's strip commercial and there's no plans to you know push it in in a you know more dense direction it just remains in limbo what does it consider yeah I think it probably um depending on the density yeah it might either be you know if it's part of your village area fine but it might just be a part of the rural you know uh area um and you know yeah I don't know but that's that's a good question maybe there yeah you're pointing out like maybe there needs to be something in between to kind of identify those areas as a different kind of land use pattern um even if they're not trying to get denser or yes yeah I mean they're all over the place right and you think about I mean every so many towns have them even small towns like us like Huntington has them yeah um thanks um all the rpc staff are getting together this Friday so this conversation is really useful uh in preparing for that it's oh Dana well I was just thinking that Shelburne might be a good example of a transition area yeah it's got a whole lot of stuff going on uh Route 7 north right now um with housing and um it but it's not in it's not in the village is further up and it could um be a good example yeah thanks any other thoughts on this one thank you folks um this one is pretty short right now most of the regions uh have identified ski areas as kind of a specific type of land use area right it's involving a lot of you know slope recreation area and you know the lodge and the housing and stuff um as its own kind of land use area um and obviously you know when you think about act 250 this is these areas are a lot of why act 250 even got started so um that's this is pretty basic right now um but you know for us it'd be Bolton Valley would end up in this category any other thoughts on resource based recreation and we're kind of being purposefully a little vague there just in case there was some sort of waterfront like basin harbor club maybe might be something like that um in Addison County um this next one enterprise so uh this was noting that outside of the planned growth areas in some communities there might be a business park industrial park it's kind of down the road not really not really adjacent to anything but kind of out there on its own so having a way to identify those um yeah I don't have too much more to say on this one any feedback concerns okay um and then uh Hamlet yeah thanks Garrett for reading this um that we don't have this particular land use area in our region right now but there are most of the regions do identify these kind of crossroad locations where there's a small cluster of activity that happened historically um but they don't have any of those public utilities and maybe they don't have zoning even um and the kind of the thought is that it may be identified there's they're pretty small on a regional scale they may just be a point on the map uh or some sort of symbol say hey there there is this kind of a small settlement here let's just acknowledge it and um identify it any reaction to that one yeah yeah can't you just basically identify him by the speed limit dropping could be if they if the speed limit does drop yeah well you just described Jericho center I mean that's the oh come on you're more than a hamlet no Jericho center because we have Jericho quarters which has the water and that's why I said we have three different areas got you but there is a tiny section that we did push through to become it's considered you know uh with state designation of village center but it's very tiny because it really is it's got a school it's got a church it's got a store it's got a library and just historic homes it's a historic district but it has no water and it has no septic you know other than individual one thing we do have a drop in the in the speed limit oh there you go carrots gotcha um one thing that we were thinking is that if you've gone through the process of getting a village center designation then you're probably in the village category um just to say you've done a little bit more work um so the hamlet is really those places where none of that's happened um but that's uh that's a good example Catherine I think I'll I'll take a look at that more closely my thought was more along the lines of Hanksville yeah I think that's right yeah I was gonna I was gonna mention that and you know we there's been a like very minor controversy about whether or not Hanksville is we would consider that a village or not and our zoning regulations and we we decided not to but yet it is a place you know that there is a little bit of a cluster of buildings there and there's some history there and everything and I think having some kind of designation that recognizes that and then you know again it depends on how this is all used but if it becomes something that in support policies whatever to address whatever needs might be in those areas I think that I think it's great yeah I like this idea yeah thanks um and then the rural areas there's really kind of three different types of areas combined up here um well I guess subbed um the first one is just I don't know I'm not sure this is the right term right now but we just call it rural general I've been thinking this is more like rural residential you know the large lot residential areas that we have in our towns um and then kind of going up the rural spectrum if you will um farms and forest land so um the productive lands identified specifically and then finally the lands that are intended for conservation um we don't have a ton of definition here yet um in part because the Act 250 study is talking about um what they want to do in terms of protecting natural resources and important resource areas and so there may be if they're they're coming up with an idea about what exactly those resources are we might be mirroring that at least for this conservation perspective but um but it hasn't been cooked up yet so we're being a little bit vague here right now but the other thing that we have been talking about is the RPCs for those of you that are a little bit familiar with enhanced energy planning you may remember a possible constraints and known constraints that we talked about back then um and how those constraint areas that were done as part of that planning process um we need some way to figure out how how do they relate to these rural areas um so that's a lot of the conversation I think we're having next Friday as well for this coming Friday um any other feedback on rural areas oh and I think the third issue kind of going on here is um the 50 by 50 30 by 30 law I'm sorry it has a better name than that um but the legislature uh passed a law this past session with the objective of getting to 50 percent of the land conserved in Vermont by the year 2050 somehow they're going to need to prioritize that um and it may be somehow connected to these maps um but uh I've kind of kept counseling them with with a lot of guidance and direction from DEC right like the environmental agency's got to identify or maybe A&R more generally got to identify what they want to have protected Garrett um wondering where agricultural fits into this yeah that's middle category of rural yeah just because it certainly needs to be separated out whether it be I I in reading through it missed that second one um so rural general is undeveloped rural ag in forestry is farms and triggering operations and the like yeah I think rural general I don't know that it's undeveloped as much as it might be real low density residential okay right and we have a lot of you know 10 acre lots out there 25 acre lots although a lot of the 25 acre lots of you know doing it for current use so they're farming or or forestry but we have a lot of large lot residential sorry where did Dana go sorry it's just like Charlotte thanks Dana for we have a lot of that too yeah and we still have five acres zoning in our village well I live on one so I can't throw any stones all right you're rural general I know yeah we often like name our name our land use area yeah um so I think yeah and then the other part there's a little section at the end here I don't know if anybody got down to this but but there's also probably some process changes that are going to occur if if the state is really going to put more weight on our planting maps then there's going to also be more review you know more specific criteria probably and there's even some conversation about appealing like or how our plans get approved and might they get appealed you know someone's disagreeing with our planning work so there's some you know early thoughts here you know maybe the regional plans might go to some group kind of like the downtown board where all the state agencies are there but also the natural resources board chair vnrc has a seat there the state historic preservation officer has a seat there it's a pretty well-rounded board maybe they're the ones that kind of review and make sure we're complying with state statute and if there needs to be an appeal process you know maybe that goes to the natural resources board I don't know so any if anybody has any thoughts please let me know or email me later whatever makes sense to you but it's definitely I just kind of I guess building the expectation if our plans become more important there's going to be more process around them to review and approve stop sharing here any more thoughts reactions to the general direction things are going okay thank you thanks chris all right would you like to continue with item 10 I guess um one side note I sent to you all this afternoon a message that I sent to the staff just about the times we kind of touched on earlier so I'm not going to revisit all of that but but just let me know if you have any feedback you know it's it's hard right now not having kind of an official code of conduct where you are like in a little bit of a weird place but really we're just asking you know people to be sensitive to each other and be caring for each other and also try to express you know that we don't support any kind of form of enforcement sorry Joe is that you okay sorry so just yeah happy to get feedback on that item a thank you for those of you that have joined me already at your select board or city council and I think I'm I have finished all of the towns north of the Winooski I'm not sure what this dynamic was this year but the town south of the dynamic of the Winooski have been slower to get on my calendar for one reason or another and a whole variety of reasons but and and I just really appreciate all of your participation and I want to take the opportunity I think to thank the staff and all of you for all the work that you do because I've been it's just really kind of been heartwarming to be honest some of the conversations have been so positive and select boards have been so appreciative of our work and so thank you you know I think you know just last week you know Brad and Benjamin you're being in under hill and westford like those are really positive conversations really positive feedback I appreciate it and Andy last night and in Williston as well right so thank you for that and this was all before we armed you with the 2.5 increase that you can now bring with you to all the towns south of Winooski yeah they won't be as happy for sure oh Dana yeah Charlie I just wanted to thank you for circulating such a thoughtful piece today oh no because you know it's playing out on such a global scale and it's easy to feel kind of disconnected in our we're going around on our daily lives here and just turning on the news and and it's easy to not feel connected to the atrocity of it all and what you wrote kind of pulled it all together for me on a on a Vermonter level I just wanted to thank you yeah no no thanks for that and real credit to Ann Nelson and Emma who really put a lot of well a lot of work and thought and effort into that it went through many many iterations so thank you yeah legislator breakfast topics this is kind of on the agenda just to you know kind of get your thinking about things we should talk about if you flip to the second page or the after your agenda I've tried to capture things I've heard about already under that December 5th meeting we'll certainly talk about the S100 studies and what the legislature might do for the housing crisis that might be a big part of the conversation we're talking about the broadband communications union district update maybe an update on the the west central Vermont SEDS or economic development district transit finance that's continued to come up local making it easier for municipalities to get local options tax Michael did you want to weigh in there hope you're muted you stole my thunder you stole my thunder so well go ahead that's fine I just want to make sure no that's fine yeah thank you though yeah no thank you flood rate flood regulation we're anticipating there's going to be a lot of legislators interested in doing some policy improvement on you know being more flood protective in Vermont so you know I'm already hearing you know there was a bill like that got introduced at the beginning of this biennium so you know in January that would have the state take a stronger role in river corridor permitting and also possibly taking over floodplain regulation from municipalities so I don't know where that'll go I don't know exactly what we want to say about that if anything but it's definitely a topic that we're hearing from a number of legislators and the other policy issues that we expect to be in front of the legislature's renewable energy standard there's a lot of detail in there that I'm not going to pretend to understand so I'm not I'm not sure how much or how what we will if we need to say something about that any other issues we should at least kick the tires on about discussing in December all right you want to get done early got it Chris back to you all right well thank you and we'll look forward to a I think that's a rather full agenda for talking to our legislators and getting their ear before they disappear into the night over in Montpelier and we have our November 15th meeting next month so for the rest of us if you're interested in deeper dive on committee liaison activities and reports they're in your packet for the executive finance committee the TAC the PAC the quack the MS4 subcommittee and the equity advisory committee um other than that I will look for a motion to adjourn Garrett thank you and a second nobody's in my second thank you I'll take Benjamin thank you and then all those in favor please say aye and anyone opposed or abstaining please hit the leave meeting button all right thanks everyone thank you everybody thank you