 Good morning. You are with the House Government Operations Committee in what is one of the final days of the 2020 marathon legislative session. We have a bill that has come over to us from the Senate that contains various emergency provisions. And I just want to spend a few minutes orienting ourselves here this morning because as we went through the bill the first time yesterday there were a number of places in the bill where members of the committee had questions or concerns and so I just want to level set our expectations here that we are going to strip out any part of the bill that is not critical to happen before January because in reality if we have parts of the bill that aren't time sensitive and that we could do when we get back into session in January I would rather do it then and make sure we take the time to get it right while we are fresh in the beginning of a legislative session instead of rushing it here at the end of a legislative session. So anything that's not time sensitive I would aim to remove from the bill and things that are time sensitive we will concentrate on and take the time to get right. And so what we have in front of us this morning is a proposed draft of the things that at first blush seem to be time sensitive and I am willing to let anyone who would like to make the case that their issue that was contained in previous drafts should be added into this draft but it needs to be things that are already pretty well formulated things that don't have major concerns or flaws that we are going to have to spend a bunch of committee time correcting because we are in the waning hours and need to get only the critical stuff moving towards the floor. So I think what I'll do first is have Betsy Ann run us or I'm not sure if it's Betsy Ann or Tucker given the area of law that we're in but have you run us through what our assessment was of the things that are time sensitive and then we can hear from the folks who are here with us in committee if they have a pitch to make about anything that they would like to see added to the bill and then I believe what makes the most sense is for us to not vote on this this morning but to maybe come back 15 minutes before the floor this afternoon because it makes me a little uncomfortable that we don't have that long list of witnesses who were with us yesterday here today to see what changes we're making and I just want to make sure that we give anyone the opportunity to make a pitch for their for their things to be included if they have a fully baked concept. So who's running us through the language? I can start and Tucker and I are handling this bill together because we each have different subject areas that are in this bill. So for the record, Betsy Ann Rask, Legislative Council and Madam Chair with your direction, I went through the bill and of my subjects that are the local elections, professional regulation and sheriff provisions. That's the second half of the bill and I went through and I looked at those provisions that appear to already be addressed due to laws that the General Assembly already enacted. So I'll come back to local elections, but in the professional regulation sections, it appears that all but one of the sections are already addressed pursuant to Act 91, which allowed for these same provisions to be in effect during the covid state of emergency. I'm the only one that is not currently addressed is section nine, which allows OPR to extend license terms in the sheriff funding section. That is already being covered right now pursuant to Act 100, which allowed sheriffs to use the county's reserve funds during the covid-19 state of emergency. So that sheriff emergency funding section is already in effect now. Tucker, do you want to address your sections and what it may be addressed right now? Sure. The open meeting law provisions are currently in effect and will stay in effect throughout the covid-19 state of emergency. So as long as that state of emergency continues, the provisions you reviewed are available right now and will continue to be. The quasi-judicial proceeding section, section two and three are also currently in effect and will continue during the state of emergency. The moratoria on water and sewer service disconnections is in effect and will continue. The last piece, excuse me, the municipal deadline extensions is in effect and will continue. And the last piece concerning the co-mingling or borrowing from town highway funds, that was made a use it or lose it by December 31st provision, and it is set to expire after calendar year 2020. However, the provision that you were looking at in this bill in front of you didn't change that. It set out the effective date of the repeal until July 1st 2021. So there was no pickup on January 1st in the bill in front of you anyway. So sections one through six are either currently in effect and will continue into 2021 potentially. Or there was no urgency to get this done by January 1st. Thanks. So that left you with the S 354 provisions regarding local elections and those begin on page nine in section seven of the bill as past the Senate. And those two sections, there's section seven and section eight. Section seven was allowing during a state of emergency, the legislative body to move the date and time of an annual or special meeting. And then section eight addressed the ability of the legislative body to apply Australian ballots to annual or special meetings during a state of emergency. If those meetings are 60 days out for meeting 60 days out. So those provisions are not currently addressed or won't be addressed for next year because pursuant to act 92, the first gov ops act, the one local elections provision that was in regard to Australian ballot that allows a legislative body to vote to apply the Australian ballot system to an annual or special meeting in the municipality is only limited to the year 2020. They municipal legislative bodies only have that authority to do that in the year 2020 and only for municipal elections held in the year 2020. So when you were reviewing this bill yesterday, one of the concerns was what's going to happen for town meeting. This committee was discussing whether there needs to be some safety measures in place to allow town meeting to be conducted in a different manner in the year 2021. So if you go to your committee page, Tucker and I put together this draft one point one for your committee consideration or discussion today to this this language right now is put together as a strike all of S 354 so that the only thing that would remain of S 354 would be municipal meetings next year. There's two sections of it. There are two subsections of it. The first one would be in regard to the annual meetings of towns and school districts next year in the year 2021. The language would provide for something other than the floor meetings where everybody gets together. The language would provide in subsection a for only for annual meetings of a town or school district that said it provides that notwithstanding any provision of the law to the contrary due to the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2021. Each annual town meeting or representative annual town meeting. And each annual town school district meeting shall shall be held pursuant to the Australian ballot system a requirement that all each town meeting be held pursuant to the Australian ballot system unless the town can meet one of two conditions. Condition one is that the town or school district will hold its annual or representative annual meeting through electronic means in which the municipality uses technology technology that permits the legal voters the municipality to attend and participate in the meeting and the public to access it. So that's potential one condition. Or secondly, by the end of this year, the town or school district determines that it will hold its annual meeting or representative annual meeting in a manner that is consistent with the state guidance on indoor meetings that is an effect on the date of its determination. A couple of things on this. Why the December 31st meeting that's the 60 days in advance of the March 2nd, I believe, annual town meeting date. So that's that's that's the 60 day window that was discussed on the Senate side that towns need to be able to decide whether they're going to should be able to hold their meetings by Australian ballot. Secondly, they would have to be and sure that by the end of this year, they're going to be able to hold their annual meeting in a manner consistent with state guidance on indoor meetings that's an effect on the date of that determination just because they're going to have to plan to hold if they're going to be able to hold a floor vote where all the voters come in, they're going to have to ensure that the that annual meeting can be held in a safe manner consistent with state guidance. It's possible that state guidance is could change after the end of this year. But it seems at least in this first draft for planning purposes that there's got to be some sort of variable that they have to base their decision on. So this is just a first draft of this. You can talk more about the logistics of what is workable. But big picture, this would say every town and school district has to hold their annual meeting by Australian ballot unless they're going to be able unless they're going to do it electronically or unless they're going to be able to meet state guidelines for holding a regular floor meeting at that annual town meeting. The subsection B is in regard to special meetings because subsection A is only in regard to annual. I don't know if you want to address this, but if there's any other special meetings, this language would allow the municipal legislative body during the COVID-19 state of emergency to vote to apply the Australian ballot system to an upcoming special meeting 60 days in advance of that meeting. If the legislative body determines it's necessary to do so in order to protect the public. That's the same language or similar language to what appears in S-354 as past Senate. It would apply only to special meetings. I don't know if you wanted to address special meetings. If you did, that language is there as a potential solution for that. And then because the bill would be only about town and school district meetings, you could have a title change on page two in lines 14 and 14, 14 and 15. OK, questions from committee members. Thank you. Thank you. So just if you recall, Suzanne Young testified yesterday with respect to Australian ballots and recommended an amendment to what was then Section 8 of the bill to allow all towns to basically default to Australian ballots. As a first initiative, she testified that there under had set aside $2 million to allow towns to vote by Australian ballots. And so that's what subsection A does is default to an Australian ballot. But then in subsection one and two, it does give the legislative body two options. One is a recommendation from BLCT to hold an electronic town meeting. And the second one is, and this would really apply to probably only small towns, is allow them to hold a town regular town meeting with people if they can comply with this, the state guidance that's in existence for indoor meetings on December 31st, 2020, or whenever they choose to take a vote with respect to that. So I just I just want to explain where this language came from. I think the benefit of just defaulting to the Australian ballot right away is that you don't need 200 plus towns taking action between now and December 31st of the year. There gives more certainty to what could happen. And then for those towns that want to choose to go a different course, which I think will be only a few towns, it gives them two options for how to hold a town meeting. Thanks, John. Rob. Thank you, Madam Chair and the member from Wilmington took most of my. Questions. So one question I do have is that the two million dollars that was initially there. I can see I support this for sure. But my concern is, is that we're putting an additional cost on the towns and municipalities, is there that two million dollars? Is it still going to be available as a resource for them? And I don't exactly know who I'm asking this question of. Anybody want to unmute if they know the answer to that question? That that was my understanding from. Susan Young's testimony yesterday. I mean, we may just want to confirm that with her. I think that's a fair question, Rob. But that appeared to be her commitment and there's also her suggestion to modify the language similar to what you see in the. Well, I do recall that the money was in the governor's proposed budget, but I thought somehow it got moved around and reallocated. But I will ask that question. Thank you. That's the end. And maybe we could have one of you can have a check in with House Appropes to see what the status is of that funding recommendation is. OK, other committee questions on. What remains so Karen Horne? I'm wondering if anyone in your shop has been tracking the issue of the governor's recommend for municipal voting. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I just got booted from one office room to another. OK, thank you. We we did just look at the draft that Betsy and has up on the committee web page. We would urge you to to include the other provisions that were in the bill as it came over from the Senate. It just provides some certainty to municipalities in the event that there's a different disaster declared by the governor or emergency declared by the governor going forward. And 2020 seems to be the year of never ending disaster. So we do think those provisions would be very helpful. I think that the way that you've proposed the language regarding Australian ballot for town meeting 2021 is helpful. It does leave municipalities a way to hold an in person meeting if they think that they can do that in compliance with the governor's guidance. And there will be some smaller municipalities I'm thinking particularly up in the kingdom that will be very interested in holding in person town meetings. I think down on the in the southern part of the state also in some of those very small towns there looking forward to holding in person meetings. So in summary, we we think that the language that you're proposing in the amendment is helpful. But we would urge you to consider including the other sections that are in the bill that came over from the Senate. Thank you. And by that, you mean the quasi judicial boards and sewer disconnects and municipal deadline extension? Yes. Yeah. Sections one through seven, I believe it is in that I don't have the bill in front of me anymore. I apologize. So has anyone in your shop been tracking the appropriations negotiations with respect to the two million dollars that was in the governor's budget for municipal elections? Well, I have to say I've temporarily temporarily lost track of that in in light of the other legislation you were dealing with yesterday, but I can find out for you and and let you know if that two million dollars is is still in there. I can send you an email, Madam Chair. Thank you. I appreciate it. Any questions from committee members for Karen? All right. So next, I would like to hear from Chris and or Lauren with respect to the proposal that you have in in front of you. And also, was there anything that you felt was very time critical out of the sections of the bill that are not contained in this draft? Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll I'll go first and appreciate the time in front of the committee today. For the record, this is Chris Winters, Deputy Secretary of State. And we do appreciate the legislature's attention to these issues in your foresight and in thinking about which emergency powers might be necessary. We followed this on the Senate side and have no objection to the open meeting law provisions with a few changes that I think were suggested by the Press Association. We were also fine with section seven and eight on local elections, moving date and time and going to Australian ballot. I won't speak for Lauren Hibbert here, Director of OPR, but I believe that we were all good with the professional licensing provisions that are in the bill. But the one thing that I that I would bring up that's not in the bill and is a question that we keep getting is petition signature requirements for local elections. We've waived that requirement for the 2020 under the temporary directive that we have. But for local elections, there there have been some issues, some questions about signature requirements for petitions for town meeting. And and we've been getting them in two categories. One, our petitions to place an article on the ballot like social service appropriations are the most common, but there are all sorts of questions that can be petitioned to place on the ballot for those the select board or the school board always and already has the authority not to require a petition. And I think there's a VLCT policy on that. Maybe Karen can speak to that that they can just put the article on the ballot by request. So for an appropriation, they could say they can adopt a policy that says as long as they're not asking for more than they did the previous year, it can automatically go on the ballot without a petition. And so that will alleviate any need for gathering signatures on those. So that's one way to approach it, or you might consider either waiving or reducing the number of signatures needed to get onto the ballot. But the other kind of petition is for candidates running for local office. And you can't just waive those. Those are statutory. And so the board can't waive that requirements on its own. But you could consider waiving or relaxing the signature gathering requirements for local candidates. So that's that's one issue that we keep hearing about in our office and is not addressed in this bill, but with respect to everything else, we were fine with the Senate past version. And I will say just seeing the the one point one draft just now and taking a very quick look at it, I do think I need to talk to Will Senate about and we need to put our heads together on electronic town meetings and maybe kind of security and access issues around that. Not entirely certain how that would work. I'm not sure that's been totally figured out yet. So to us, I think we would say that feels a little bit rushed. And I know it's really critical that you address this, but I don't feel prepared to say at this point, draft one point one with the electronic town meeting is something we're entirely comfortable with. But we could try to get an answer back to you just just as quick as possible. I'd want to talk to Secretary Condos and Director of Elections while sending about that. That would be very helpful. Thank you for doing that. Committee questions for Chris Winters. John Gannon. Thank you, Chris. So would it be your recommendation for us to either waive the petition requirement for local candidates? Or would that be your recommendation? I think there are two ways you could go about that. I think waiving the signature requirement would certainly alleviate any concerns about having to gather signatures. We did that previously under the Temporary Elections Directive. We did see some additional candidates hopping on that I think maybe otherwise would not have. Not, it wasn't the Wild West, the total Wild West, like some people feared that it would be, but we do have a few more candidates on the ballot now, I think because of that. Another request and possibility is to require some sort of electronic signature. So now whether that's a picture of a signature or an online petition, some other form of signature gathering requirement. And that also has some access issues with it. And then I guess a third option would be to reduce the number of signatures. So instead of a 5% of the registered voters or whatever the requirement might be, you could reduce that percentage or that number of signatures to be able to get on the ballot thereby reducing the number of in-person contacts for signatures. So following up on the electronic signature thing, could that be for example, which would be the simplest technology an email from a voter saying, I support this petition and I'm a registered voter and for example, my town of Wilmington. I think that's a possibility. We just wanna define what electronic signature means. Thank you. Thanks, Ian. And I just wanna confirm that when we're talking about voter signatures, we're talking not only about for candidate petitions, but petitions for a public question on a local election ballot. Well, I guess then I have a follow-up question for Chris on that. My understanding of what Chris said is that towns already have the ability to waive that requirement. Is that correct, Chris? Yes, that's correct. So I think that's probably less of an issue for you if you didn't wanna address that one. All right, Karen, did you have a response to that? Yes, thank you. Not having seen language on this, but in the Senate Government Operations Committee, we urge them to not change the requirements for signatures for petitions of questions on the ballot because that if anybody can put any item on the ballot, you might end up with some very bizarre and not necessarily related to local government questions. So I would ask that the committee leave the petition language as it is right now, the signatures on petition language as it is. I think that we could talk a little bit about the signatures for candidates for local office. It would be helpful to see some language there. Okay, thanks. Rob. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanna make sure I'm clear when we're talking about signatures for petitions. If you have an entity out there that says, the committee to reelect John Gannon as dog catcher and they want to petition to get on the ballot for funding this year or next year, is that who we're talking about here when we talk about a public question or is the public question something that's more related to the town issues? It could be either. The public questions, the select boards have the ability to put those on of their own accord without a petition from the public. So with respect to appropriations, I think very easily they could say, Vermont Food Bank was on for $1,000 last year. We will put them on again this year for $1,000. But as Karen pointed out, any other public question, if you say there's no petition requirement at all, any other public question could be put on by the public. So with respect to that category, you're probably fine leaving it alone as long as the towns are aware. And I think the LCT has been making them aware that they can put those nonprofit appropriations onto the ballot. It's with respect to candidates that I think you still have an issue with people having to go out and collect signatures on petitions in order to get on the ballot for local candidates. That helps. Thank you for the clarification, Chris. I appreciate it. Thank you. That's Ian. Just for my own clarification. So when I hear the Secretary of State's office, when you had mentioned earlier that the town has the authority to waive voter signatures for petitions for public questions, it's not that they would be waiving the requirements, just that the town legislative body would be adding that language on the ballot on the voter's behalf, not that they were waiving the requirement too. Yeah, that's correct. It's not a waiver, it's them putting it on of their own accord. Okay, thank you. Do they understand that that's how you read that language? I mean, it's sort of a backdoor way of achieving that. Not sure. I would have understood that the select board's ability to put that on, on behalf of the voters means we can set our own rules about that. Karen, do you have your hand up? Yeah, thank you. So I believe select boards do understand that. And for quite a few towns around the state, they generally put on the list of nonprofits that are asking for funding without petitions because they know that the select board has that authority. So if you've asked in previous years, they'll just put you on the next ballot. Okay, thank you. Other questions? Well, I do have, yeah. I should know this, but I don't. Has the select boards always had that authority or is there anything unique about this time that they were in that gives them that authority? As we understand that they have always had that authority. Okay, along with any agency could go out and get petitions signed. And if you meet a certain threshold, then it has to be placed on the ballot as well. Yeah, 5% of the registered voters in the town. Okay. Okay, thank you. Chris. Madam chair, if I could just to give the committee a little bit more to think about on the electronic town meeting. Some of the things that we're thinking through are how you would verify that voters are who they say they are in an electronic town meeting. And what about people without computers being able to access in a different way? And a lot of towns have figured that out for regular meetings, but those are a couple of the issues that we would raise as concerns on an electronic town meeting. Okay, so committee, can we have a discussion about that right now so that we can try to get a sense of how we wanna move forward with this? Anyone have a strong preference or thought on Rob? Well, I don't know if I have a strong preference or thought madam chair, but it does seem that those are fairly valid questions and if timing is of the essence, I'm not sure we're gonna be able to address those as quickly as we'd like. So if that is a concern, then it would be, I guess you just automatically default Australian ballot. I don't know. Not that I'm advocating. Other questions. Warren, hi. Welcome. I just got the message. I don't know whether it was you or Andrea that sent me a text saying we were meeting. It's maybe a surprise to some of you, but I don't live on my electronic devices when I'm not anticipating being in a meetings. I just found out that we were meeting. Sorry about that. No worries. Just to orient you, we are looking at a draft 1.1 of a highly pared down version of 354, the bill that we walked through yesterday. Our intention is to find the provisions that are critical to move forward, time sensitive to move forward right now and the ones that are fully baked enough that we feel we can put them forward right now without unintended consequences. I can find that on our committee page probably who sure can because Andrea has popped that right up there. Draft 1.1, not edited. Is that the one? That's the one. Okay. All right, Jim Harrison. Yeah, I'm totally fine with going the direction of the new amendment today and doing what gets in place for town meeting and then come January to look at the longer term picture. And I think the league certainly raises some good points. Do we have to go through all this for the next emergency, especially if it's out of session, but in all likelihood, we're still under the same state of emergency come January. So I don't think any of the laws we put into place earlier provisions need to be adjusted right now. So I would concur with moving forward on the amendment and I'm not still not sure I understand all the petition issues, but as long as the select board has the ability to waive them, I think it gives them their flexibility. If they don't, then we got to tweak it though. Thank you. Well, it sounds like they do for ballot measures and possibly not for candidates running for local offices. So I think we are hearing some consensus around needing to needing to specify that well, I guess, do we want to allow the local legislative body to lessen the requirement or waive the requirement or do we want to just waive it ourselves knowing that it could open up the Wild Wild West and Yeah, Madam chair, I mean, I guess, you know, we might err on lessening them for candidates. I only say that in that if you have a couple of people that are looking to run for office, the ones making the decisions are the ones, the incumbents. So there is a potential conflict that so I just throw that out there. I mean, we did have more candidates file without the petitions, but it wasn't that many more perhaps. So some of us were surprised on that. So. All right, Bob Hooper is very patiently holding up his real hand. I agree on the first part with everybody else. The second part, I think that although we didn't see the Wild West, it'll become more accessible to people, I think, and we might very well see the Wild West. So we might be well positioned to look to get a sheriff in town if we stick with that stupid analogy. Mike Murwicky. Well, we didn't see the Wild West. I had a primary this August and for two seats, there were five candidates who showed up. One is someone who has been politically opposed to me and his organization has run candidates against me, the gun owners of Vermont. And on their web, their Facebook page, they were giving the advice that people should run in democratic primaries to make it harder for Democrats to win. As it turned out, they didn't get very many votes, but, and then another person, or actually two other people, signed up to be on the ballot and basically never even campaign. So not that we want to limit, but I think making people go out and get some signatures whether they're electronic or in some way doesn't diminish who's actually going to run. So committee, how would you like to try to achieve that? Give that some thought. Do we want to say that a candidate needs to have 25 people either sign or a test on their behalf that they would like to see them added to the ballot? Rob. You know, listening to my esteemed friend from Northern Mass there, I'm just wondering, there's something that doesn't quite seem fair here that we're going to hold candidates running for a local office to a higher standard, especially if this state of emergency is still in effect, why would we hold them to a higher and a different standard than what we held those for statewide or, you know, local representative office? There's something about that that just doesn't seem quite fair. Mike. Perish the thought that I would disagree with my committee state house seatmate. I'm, I don't know that I'm looking to change that. I thought we should have had some sort of signatures for the primary. And not that Republicans can't run as Democrats or Democrats run as Republicans, but I think what we did was be opened. For instance, the person I spoke to been a lifelong Republican and then all of a sudden decided to run in a Democratic primary. Yeah, I'm not going to push one way or the other, but I think that we might be careful about opening the gates to people who aren't necessarily maybe respecting the process. Bob Hooper. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't want to seem to be pushing either, but the reality is that in the world of business and electronic signature is not an unusual thing. An email is hard to clone, maybe not, but everybody statewide on down should have access to soliciting from people in their constituencies, 25, 50, whatever signatures. I sort of thought it was a mistake to just throw it wide open. And I continue to. Doesn't have anything to do really with party. It has more to do with support amongst your local constituencies. So I lean towards saying 25 emails, we made that same sort of change to our union elections things. You have to go out and do something you can't just fall into a race. Karen has her actual hand up. Thank you. I'd just like to make two points that may be helpful. The first is that the median size town in Vermont is 1200 population. And so 5% of the registered voters is not actually that many people. And secondly, we do have the ability at the local level to use electronic signatures. I believe you've given electronic signature authority for wills in advanced directives since COVID started. So it does seem that there are a lot of instances where electronic signatures are safe enough to be used. And this would seem to be another such instance. All right. Any other committee discussion on this, right? Claire is mud. So what I'd like to do is give Lauren Hibbert an opportunity to weigh in on the OPR sections of the bill that came over from the Senate and tell us if any of those are time sensitive and critical to move now. So welcome, Lauren. Hi, good afternoon for the record. Lauren Hibbert, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation. Crucial, perhaps not because we do have ACT 91, which is in effect until March 31st of 2021. I think that each one of those sections that are related to OPR are necessary in the long term. I think there was a lot of good and hasty work done when COVID came to Vermont and I've done some reflecting both in testifying on the Senate side related to this bill, but also just in a quiet moments, how lucky we were that the legislature was in session. If the legislature were not in session and we were hit similarly, OPR would have really struggled to maintain its daily function and I'm very grateful for the timing. So are all of those sections absolutely necessary today? I think the answer logically is no because ACT 91 provisions are valid through March, but I would strongly urge this committee if those sections are taken out of this bill to contemplate moving those in the next legislative session because I think for me what I've learned is we just don't know what's gonna happen in the next week, month, year. And I think this bill is proactive and smart for the future emergency. Okay, thank you. Questions from committee members? Thank you. Anyone else wanna jump in on OPR or go back to municipal petitions or special meetings or annual meetings? All right, so we have Ross Connolly with us. Ross, I wanted to welcome you to share any thoughts that you have with us either with respect to the version of the bill that came over from the Senate or this pared down version that is before us now. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Ross Connolly, I live in Hardwick. I'm in support of the bill that you have under review, that came from the Senate. I'm speaking from my experience, it's 30 plus years as the co-publisher and editor of the Hardwick Gazette and as well as my current service as an elected member of the Judavine Memorial Library Board of Trustees in Hardwick. And having seen public meetings from two perspectives, I just emphasize the public's right to know is as important to citizens as it is to those who represent them on boards and commissions and whatever. And in light of that, I just wanna emphasize my support of the requiring access information, keeping the requirement in the current bill of the requirement that access information be made available as part of any meetings agenda. I think it's just critically important that for a member of the public to attend a public meeting, I should be at the discretion of the individual and not dependent on obtaining that information from a member of the public body. I think the location in quotes of a meeting is as important to public participation is the date and time of the meeting and thus the access needs to be there. And it is in the bill as they should or shall. And I just think that's critically important to maintain keep. There have been concerns raised that if providing that information on an agenda is done it could lead expose a meeting to Zoom bombing. I think that's legitimate, although I think it's fairly uncommon. And I think the solution to that is a technological problem that the any meeting whether in person or by electronic means it's up to the chair to control the decorum of any meeting and there are technical ways to maintain order. And so I don't think that a denial of the ability of the public to obtain direct access should be eliminated when there is a technical solution to a problem that does occur occasionally. And I also wanted to say I'd support the section that deletes the release of meeting minutes from five to 10 days. In this day and age, I think it's pretty fair to say that most meeting minutes are taken on a computer or a tablet or by some electronic means and because of that, a keystroke is really all that's needed to release meeting minutes. And if there's concern that the meeting minutes might have mistakes in them, well, meeting minutes from my experience are never approved minutes until the next meeting anyway. If one of the first orders of a business is always additions and corrections to the meetings, minutes from the previous meeting and particularly at times of emergency, I think getting information out to the public is important to one, give the public the confidence that the public officials are in fact acting in behalf of the public interest and so delaying minutes is kind of undermining the ability of public bodies to address the emergency. So those are the two areas that I wanted to speak of and I just appreciate the work the committee's doing and you're going in the right direction and thank you. Thank you, Ross, for being with us. I appreciate your perspective on that. Any questions for Mr. Connolly? All right, who's got a strong preference to push us in a direction here? We need not to be spending all day in committee even though I love hanging out with you guys in the little Zoom room and it would be my goal that we have a sense of where we're going and then we push pause until just before the floor this afternoon to give anyone else who needs to speak to us on this, the opportunity to react to what we're doing. So, John Gannon. Thank you, I mean, I think given the amount of time left in the session and making sure we educate our fellow members about this bill, streamlining the bill to what is absolutely necessary, I think it is important because, and I think dealing with the ballot issues for town meeting and special meeting are what's critical. I think we should try to tackle or at least come to a decision about what we should do for petitions for local candidates. You know, electronic signatures would be fine with me. I mean, I do understand Mike's concerns and some other concerns voiced by people, but I also understand Rob's pushback to that is we allowed ourselves as candidates for office not to have to file petitions. And I think, you know, that's a very, very fair comment. Why should we hold local candidates to a higher standard than we held ourselves? And I think we need to think carefully about that. But I think, you know, given the amount of time we have, you know, streamlining the bill is important. Thank you. Okay, other perspectives? Jim. I'm good with that approach. Time is short and January is like really not very far away and we can take up the other measures for future emergencies. And I'm sorry if that disappoints anybody that worked hard in the Senate version, but time is really, really short. All right, any other? You're breaking up, Madam Chair. You're frozen. Did someone take a picture of that? So I'm, for clarification here, so where are we on this? We've sort of debated a lot this morning. Are we going to circle back to the we're talking primarily about communities voting by Australian ballot that would normally vote in person? It appears that the chair is out. So Betsy Ann, you just raised your hand. Do you want to answer Rob's question? I just kind of want to answer that. Rob's question? I just kind of want, I'm also trying to get a feel for where you're at. Here's what I'm hearing is that so far, it sounds like committee members are wanting to just focus on what's necessary to do. Right now, the issue that's on the table is this strike all that would apply to town and school district annual meetings. Let's also the special meetings, I have a question as to whether you need to put any, or you want to put any time constraints on the, or otherwise amend the special meeting language. But if you are going to focus just on annual and special meetings in this bill, the issues that I have that are hanging out here so far are whether you're going to allow the electronic meetings in light of the secretary of state's office's concerns about how to confirm the voters. You've got the issue of whether candidates need to get voter petitions. And if so, whether they're electronic. And then you've got the funding question for requiring Australian ballot. Right, so Karen Hordes said she'd get back to us with the funding question. So we'll have an answer by 2.30 this afternoon when we're going to meet again. Okay. So Rob, Bob, sorry. So it might be an inane point, but when I was talking about electronic signatures, I have no desire to require that formal electronic signature and email is fine. So Les, what do people want to do on the petitions for local candidates? I mean, even to our level, it's only 50, right? Senator, is how much, if we even bumped it up, is that under consideration also? No, no, you're just focused on local elections. Candidate petitions for local elections. So the general law for local elections municipal elections is 30 signatures or 1% of the town. Okay. Which have 30 valid signatures of the voters or 1% of the legal voters of the municipality, whichever is less. Now that's the general municipal law. Charters might require more signatures for some of our bigger municipalities. John. Rob. Okay. I have to confess, I'm very conflicted about this. I really am, but I struggle with holding local officials to a higher standard than what was, than we were held to earlier, especially if the same conditions exist. In other words, we're under state of emergency. I do struggle with that. But I also recognize timings of the essence. If we allow this to go through as what's initially proposed here, realistically, is there time to go back and visit this in early January with that 60 day window in place? Betsy Ann, can you answer that? Well, moving to Australian ballot, it sounds like that needs to, you would need to have that figured out for, before you adjourn because as I understand it was speaking to VLCT, there are deadlines in place that require at least 60 days for a town to move to Australian ballot. So it sounds like you have to decide this question of whether to require Australian ballots before you adjourn. I think that, let's see, for in general law for candidate petitions for the annual meeting, the general municipal law is that they have to be filed not later than the sixth Monday, preceding the day of the election. So I haven't counted back yet to see what that is. Right. So it sounds like we have, there is some time for the candidates for petitions, but it does sound like that we'd have to make a decision, I guess, today. Around the Australian ballot question. And for me, a fair amount of that will be. The funding. If we can get that answered, then I, I think I know where I am, but. So just so you all saw, you know, Sarah put in the sixth Monday is January 19th. So that would leave us very little time. He addressed the petition thing. I mean, because we'd have to get through both the house and the Senate. And be signed by the governor. Yeah. I'm not sure it's possible. To do that. By January 19th. So this. This bill is boiling down to these two issues. Is that what you, you gather, John? The. Yes. The candidates. And the Australian ballot. Right. And I agree with you. We need to wait. To hear back from Karen horn about the money. Issue. But just putting that aside for now. I mean. Are people okay with streamlining the bill? Just thumbs up or. Okay. Is anybody not comfortable with it? Okay. Ross. I just have a question in streamlining it. Would you keep the requirement that. Public access be a shell on the agenda. The information so that the public can have direct access to any public meeting. No. The sections that would be in the streamline bill would deal with the Australian ballot. Issue. And potentially the petition. For local candidates. Since most of the other sections can be delayed until January. And we can address it in January. I mean, we can actually get a bill in right now. And, you know, have it ready to go. When we first meet again, Mike, you had a comment. Yeah, I just want to say, I saw the draft. That. That's the end put together. And I'm good to go with that. Let's just. Keep it simple and move it out. Okay. Anybody feel strongly about the petition issue? Jim. Sorry. I, you know, I, I think, as been mentioned before, I don't want to belabor it. I do think we, I was not a fan of. Doing away with the petition for state office. But we did it. And I don't know why we would hold ourselves to a different standard. You know, our local transfer station is where. You know, you generally go to get petitions. And worse. I can't even do my dump and donuts this fall. So. You know, it's, it's, it's now called dump and go. You know, they don't want you hanging around. So. I think, you know, we just make a one time exception. That's just my two cents. I'm not hung up either way. I do think as a rule. I agree with Mike, you know, people ought to put some effort into running rather than just put your name on it. But this is a very strange time. So. JP. I guess I agree with some of those comments and I could go along with that. Okay. I'm not wild over it, but. I could go along with that. Safety thinking safety first, but. I think it's probably a good move for us to do that. Okay. So. I guess a number of people have spoken to the petition issue. Oh, Marsha. I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. Okay. I guess a number of people have spoken to the petition issue. Oh, Marsha. I'm sorry. I didn't see your hand up. Go right ahead. Thank you. Just a question. When does this waiver on the petition signatures? And I know it's part of the. COVID emergency language, but do we have a date on that? That's right. I think. You could have it's just so it applies to the annual meetings. You would put it in this subsection a, if, if I'm understanding where you're wanting to go with this. So it would be a suspension of the requirement to obtain voter signatures to have a candidate's name placed on the ballot for the. Annual. Meeting. Is that where the committee is going? Thumbs up. On this. Yeah, I'm, I'm thinking that we can, you know, the next legislature can come back and take a look at this. With more time to. To really debate it. Okay. Mr. Chair. I'm okay with that. I just, I'm trying to think through this. If, if let's say that the state of emergency was lifted. The end of January. Are we running into any issues where somehow people get caught. In kind of a catch 22 where. They don't have the time to do it. They could possibly be required to do, you know what I mean? The draft amendment does not reference the state of emergency. And my thought on that is even if we are not in a state of emergency in March of 2021. It is unlikely. That there'll be a COVID-19 vaccine available and that there'll still be potential issues with people getting together. You know, for a petition drive or anything like that. So I mean, I didn't want to tie this. I didn't want to tie this draft amendment to the state of emergency because. Decisions are going to have to be made before. Or in December for some of the stuff. And I just think. I just think there we're still going to be in an abnormal situation in March. Until there is community. Immunity through a vaccine, which, you know, from what I'm reading is not going to be in March of 2021. Okay. So I'm not going to be in a state of emergency. Okay. Cause so am I interpreting part B here in, in correct there? What it refers to the COVID-19 state of emergency. Yeah. And that's for special meetings. And that was my next question is whether you want or need to address special meetings. A is only about the annual meeting, the 2021 annual meeting of a town or school district. And I'm. I'm not sure if that's a question. I'm not sure. But I'm not sure. But I'm not sure that's a question. I'm not sure if that's a question. But I'm not sure if that's a question. But I'm not sure if that's a question. And I do wonder whether you want to pursue that. Okay. That's where my confusion was. Jim, you have a question. Yeah. On the special meeting. If your. Budget goes down or your school board. Budget goes down. Then you schedule a special meeting. How. Do you have time between those and. Tucker, do you have that info offhand? I do not, but I can find it momentarily. Yeah. I mean, if it's, if it's shortly thereafter. Which sometimes they seem to be. You know, the, maybe you need to have the same provisions in place. That's a good point, Jim. She does make one occasional. You know, I'm really impressed that the vice chair lowers your hand for you. Thank you. I just stopped raising. Yeah. I'm looking to agree with Jim. I think we need. The B paragraph as well. Okay. And I'm looking at the. Well, this is about. I don't know if this is the right provision, but I don't know if this is the right one. I don't know if this is the right one. I don't know if this is the right one. I don't know if this is the right one. I'm looking at 17 BSA 2680. This is about the budget being rejected, but that's only for an Australian ballot budget. That just says if it's rejected. The budgets are voted. The budget voted on by Australian ballot is rejected. Which would apply, right? Because everybody's going to be using Australian ballot. The legislative body shall establish a date for the vote on the ballot. So everybody under a would be doing Australian ballot. Unless you're, they're going to be able to have that authority to do it by electronic means, which is still an open question or unless they're going to be able to hold their floor vote safely in accordance with state guidance. So. And Betsy, looking at that language, I would assume that that date that the legislative body is going to choose for the revote is still going to be a special meeting. Because it's falling outside of the annual meeting. Yep. And under. 17 BSA section 2643. Special meeting shall be warned 60 days in advance of the. Receive. Yeah. Okay. So there's still that 60 day requirement for. Warning. A special meeting. I'm sorry on application of 5% of the voters. But it's yeah, otherwise legislative body warns a special meeting when it deems it necessary. So it seems like that special meeting language. In the amendment. Could work, but it's only if they're there. We're still in a state of emergency. Under subsection B. Rob. So. So if we remove anything that is relating to the state of emergency and just say that during this. Time period referring to the COVID-19 concerns. Then we could go through and authorize Australian ballot. And then if there's any special meetings or anything like that, that could still be done. Through Australian ballot as well. And give. So we don't have to worry about the state of emergency. It gives the authorization that's needed to be given. To allow to carry out. The elections. And the votes correct. I think we'll need a revision to the language. If you don't want to have the special meetings contingent. The special meeting Australian ballot authority contingent on. Us still being in a state of emergency. Maybe you could craft the language to say any budget revotes. Necessary as a result of the annual meeting. If you don't want to have the special meetings contingent on. The budget revotes. Shall be held by Australian ballot. That would get to the heart of Jim's question, wouldn't it? I think so. Representative Harrison, if you were just focused on the budget revotes that were necessary. Yes, that's all I was thinking of. Cause those are the ones that come quickly afterwards. Okay. So. Unless you're seeing it. Another need for. A budget revote. A budget revote. So. Generally. Maybe you could change that to just be limited to. Australian ballots. Being used for a. Budget revote. After the annual meeting. I don't see VLCT with us anymore. They're probably chasing $2 million. Yeah. Just so Tucker and Betsy Ann, could you just clarify? I mean, even if there's a special meeting, it has to be worn 60 days out, correct? Is that where you were saying Tucker? Just till we understand. I think Betsy had called out that the 60 day requirement is actually for special meetings that are called in response to voter petition. Otherwise the default and Betsy, please feel free to correct me here is. Not less than 30 or more than 40 days. You got it. So 30 day minimum, unless it's upon petition of the voters and then 60 days. And that's just the warning. So. That the, that the meeting has to be held, not less than 30, nor more than 40 days. After the warning. So otherwise it's, I think it's that. If it's not by a voter. Voter application for a special meeting, it's the legislative body may warn a special meeting when it deems it necessary. Maybe you can have subsection B just there as is. As. Belts and suspenders, but then. I have a special provision for budget revotes having to be held by Australian ballot. So there's no question about that. Okay. Other people. Feel about that. Anybody opposed to that. All right. We've got those two issues. I think your other issue you need to have to figure out is the elect, whether to allow electronic annual meetings. Secretary of State winners did have concerns about that. I do know that Brattleboro held a representative town meeting electronically. I believe via zoom. I'm not aware of any towns that have attempted that. I'm obviously a representative town meetings different because you know exactly how many people are going to be there versus a regular town meeting. You have no idea whether one or. 500 people will show up. But I mean, I'm, you know, if the Secretary of State's office is concerned about this, I mean, I think. It might be wise to delete it from the proposed amendment. Anybody else have thoughts. I agree with you, John. I think that. While the intention is good, I think that there's some logistics concerns that need to be worked out. So would everybody be happy if we took that language out? Just thumbs up. Yep. We're going to have a question. Just that if we delete the possibility of holding an annual meeting through electronic means. If you're going to hold an annual meeting. Australian ballot. The other option is that the legislative body to select board on our before December 31st of this year. Can hold can determine a hold a meeting. Consistent with state guidance on indoor meetings. So there are two ways. One's by Australian ballot. And the other one is by just following state protocol with respect to indoor meetings. Okay. I don't know. Marsha. So what would happen with rather girls representative. Form of town meeting. They've already had one by zoom. Would this include them? Would it eliminate that possibility for them? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how they were authorized to do that. If it was in their charter. Perhaps you could. Make an exception for towns that are able to. Hold their meeting through electronic means pursuant to. Provisions authorized in law. Otherwise authorized in law. Assuming that they use the temporary open meeting law provisions because technically the representatives are a public body. They could take advantage of that, but. I cannot give a definitive legal opinion on that. Not knowing how they carried out that meeting. I thought we passed something just for Brattleboro. That was to allow their legislative body to adopt a tax rate because they were not capable of holding their budget in tax meeting because it fell later than the state of emergency declaration. Thank you. So that's the end. Open meeting provisions may or may not apply. Next. They wouldn't apply with their. The current open meeting law provisions will continue through the declared state of emergency in response to COVID-19. Okay. So they could still hold a representative town meeting in March as long as we were still in a state of emergency. If that is where they are gaining their authority to do so. From. Yeah. If that's the case, maybe in this amendment, you just remove reference to representative annual town meeting. Does that make sense? Everyone. I'm seeing anyone object to that. Because Brattleboro is the only town that has a representative annual town meeting. Okay. I think you're getting there. You do need an effective date. I forgot to include that. That would be on passage. Unless you want to extend it out for some reason. But I don't know why there be a reason to do that. And then there's just, you know, the funding I'm inferring would be included in the budget anyway. Right. I don't think it would be. Before we can vote on this, we need to answer that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So here's what I'm hearing. Let me let's just recap. You're going to go with this. Annual meeting language. You're going to eliminate. The requirement for local candidates to get voter signatures in order to have the candidates name placed on the local. On the annual town meeting ballot. You're going to provide that any necessary budget revotes shall be held by Australian ballot. You're going to delete reference to. Town, annual town meeting authority to be held by electronic means. I'm going to remove reference to representative annual town meetings so that they can be held by the local. You're going to be able to use the open meeting law authority to meet electronically. And add an effective date. And I think. Keep the special meeting language as is, but that special meeting authority for a legislative body to use the Australian ballot system for a special meeting. Only applies. During the COVID. State of emergency. I think that's covers it. Does anybody have any. Questions or concerns. Nope. Okay. Then I think. We can adjourn the meeting and. Get back together at two 30 right before floor starts. Okay. So, Andrew. Okay. I think that covers it. Does anybody have any questions or concerns? Nope. Okay. Then I think. We can adjourn the meeting and. Get back together at two 30 right before floor starts. Okay.