 All right. Hello, everybody. Can everybody hear me? Yes. Great, yeah. My name is Alex McLean. I work at Lia 9 Public Affairs, right down to Montpelier, right next to this. We are here to make sure everyone's in the right room. We're talking about financial recovery and resilience. So a couple of round rules just before we dive into things. So we've been in crisis and in tragedy. And I know there's a lot of high emotions, tough, really tough heartbreaking heart-breaking stuff. And I just want to make sure that in all of this, please share your emotions, your thoughts, but please be respectful and kind to one another. Also, we want folks to think about a little bit of self-regulation. If you're somebody who tends to like to talk a lot, think about that a little bit. Love to keep comments to one to two minutes just so we can get to everybody. Similarly, if you're someone who doesn't like to talk in public, really encourage you to stretch yourself a little bit. We do really want to hear from everybody. And then the big thing is we are here to try and identify ideas and solutions. Obviously, the inverse of that are the challenges and the problems. And we need to understand those. But we don't want to come out of here with just a list of problems. We want to come out of here with a list of ideas and actionable, impactful, and hopefully unifying solutions. The goal is to come out with one to three. So we'll see how well we do. As Paul described a little bit, we'll spend the first 15 minutes doing just a landscape analysis of what exists now, what financial resources exist for folks, what don't. We'll then spend the bulk of the time on ideas. And then the remaining 15 minutes on trying to get those ideas that we have down to one to three priorities. I'm at Leonite Public Affairs. As I said, I am an expert on communicating. I am not an expert on finance. So luckily, we do have some subject area experts here. These folks are here to hear your ideas, to add their wisdom, their knowledge, their advice. They're not here to lecture any of us or give big speeches, but they're really here to kind of take the ideas that we have and make sure that they add their knowledge and their expertise to that. So we'll just have you two introduce yourselves. Sure, I'm Mike Pitchek. I'm the State Treasurer here in Vermont. I live in Winooski, but I have worked in Montpellier the last decade or so and our offices at the pavilion were impacted as well, but I'm happy to be here and happy to provide any type of advice and direction that I can to the discussions. I'm Melissa Bowney. I'm the Director of Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation, which is one of the 12 regional nonprofits, RDCs that cover the state. My organization provides free business support for Washington County in three towns in orange. We have a flood recovery center set up at 89 Main Street, which is where Labrio, she used to be, so business owners can drop in to complete paperwork or meet with a counselor about best next steps for their business. Can I get a clarification? Is the focus of the discussion businesses and homeowners or is it finance or is the focus more macro funding for the necessary broader measures that might be taken to prepare? Good question. I think that is not predetermined. I think we need to learn, the hope is in the first 15 minutes during that situation analysis, what is the most pressing things that you all feel in terms of that question and if it's all coming from businesses or all coming from individuals, then that's the answer. If it's a larger macro discussion about this is what we need to go to the future for a better resilience then. We would go there. And it could also be a mix of both, right? Thank you. Do we have Sam Buckley here? Okay, perfect. All right, Sam Buckley, I'm the director of energy and broadband lending at Vermont Economic Development Authority, also a colloquially known as VEDA. I'm also a Montpelier resident for the last 20. Yeah, mostly I have experience in the areas of commercial lending with the focus on economics. All right, so let's dive in. We're gonna do our first piece again on the current landscape. So what financial resources are available right now for immediate recovery? And I want folks to think about both financing options available from city, from the government, but also from the land. What's available to folks now? As I understand it, FEMA money is in grant form to residents and in loan form and at 8% rate? It's 4% to 8%. 4% to 8% rate to businesses. I don't know what state money is available. I think so the small business association has the loans for businesses, but FEMA doesn't do the loans. They have the individual assistance for residents impacted and then the towns and municipalities and access is called public assistance. And so that's not grants, it's reimbursement money for whatever it is. I can speak to what's been available to businesses. So I am positive pie. So so far we've gotten $4,000 from Montpelier Live as a grant that was given to us pretty quickly, which was great. We've been offered $20,000 from the state, but not one business has gotten it yet. Their applications mostly have been denied. They've been very difficult to get. We are re-applying. I think businesses hopefully will get it, but no one I know has gotten it yet. The SBA, I think only one business in town has received yet. They're also mostly denying the applications for very picky things that have been very challenging. Just today, a new application went in from Montpelier Live that we've been offered another grant, I think from the funding that's come in, and it's between 1,000 and 20,000, depending on need. And that's, and then our own personal go fund piece. But I mean, for a business our size and many other restaurants, we need like three to 500,000 and it's very minimal what we're getting. I didn't hear the name either. How's it impact? Good, thank you. Thank you. If folks also would be willing just to say their name, that would be great. And I am terribly remiss in not introducing Maggie. So Maggie Lenz is going to be the note taker this evening. And then she will, all of the ideas that come up, whether or not they get to that top three or not, will be shared with Paul and the larger group. But she will often be helping towards the end, kind of narrowing down many ideas, hopefully that come out of this discussion. My name's Melissa. And Carlo is my partner that also is positive, hi. Thank you, Melissa. As someone that has seen about 200 businesses, I just want to echo what Melissa said, in terms of its accuracy and the really difficult reality that many business owners, I think Melissa, every single point that Melissa just said is something we hear multiple times a day every day for many businesses as their reality. Bob Jones, my failure, is the struggle because it's digital, you know, the applications have to be, you know, scroll down and many of this, and they're prone to potential mistakes. You're my digital guy here. I share your frustration, I guess, with both the state and the feds, but is there such a thing as to take with applications anymore? No. And I think the reason every business is denied is different. It's just very nitpicky. But even getting the $20,000 that's in that, and it's just not enough. And taking the SBA loan for most businesses isn't exciting. Well, it's not exciting because it's alone. I guess alone, and it has interest, but low where it's still 20-year mortgage, I mean. 30. And back. Yeah, hi, my name's Scott Cameron. I own the building at 126 Main Street. I've got four apartments upstairs in the Grand Cale space on the first floor. And my son and I also own another business that ran Yankee Wine and Spirits on the first floor. And so we've got, you know, the WM is trying to restore the building and then to rebuild the store, which is totally wrecked, and all our coolers, all our shelving, our town spaces, our electric. Quick thing on the, what they call the VGAP grants, which are the, from the state, it is an electronic process. It's not bad. But if you don't have the skills, for example, if you don't have your tax returns in electronic form, if you don't have your profit and loss, your insurance policies in electronic form, it's tough for them. I mean, I have it, so we can do it. But the other thing was that, you know, we're all being told that if you don't have it done right, you're gonna be rejected. You're gonna have to come back and do it again. The rumors are back in the end, the line too. The problem is, so on the one hand, you're being told to get it in as quick as you can. But in many cases, you couldn't get estimates of the things that you wanted to do. So you're trying to ballpark it. We have no idea of what the agency's gonna accept. The bids, I mean, I had some bids, and with the building, it was really quite easy to quantify $100,000 or more. And pluses, that was a no-brainer with the business. I'll give you just an example. I probably lost about $60,000 in inventory. As part of my cleanup, I had the inventory haul of wine, beer, all the other things that got thrown away. That inventory was too big to download into the b-gaps. So I couldn't, it was, so, you know, so I told them what it was, but I don't know if it'll be accepted. And there doesn't seem to be any real way to communicate. There's no way to call and talk to a person. And I'm not criticizing this. I think that it's an enormous task that the agency took on on very short notice. And so I'm sure it's doing the best it can. But as we sit here, none of us know. I guess some people have already been told it. They didn't have enough information. So I guess I'm feeling good because no one's contacted me to throw me out of the team. But we don't know. And so there's that kind of adds to the trauma to the truth. We're trying to make plans to restore it. You know, in my case, I got to think about the building first. Tenants would build electricity for two weeks, no hot water for another week. I don't have heating systems for them right now. The wind is coming on. I can't put my furnace back in the basement for the oil burns. So we have to come up with all new systems. We have to bring all the electric up to above the, you know, the flood. So these things are, and I have to do that all before I even think about trying to restore the store. And so I think, you know, one of the problems, again, with that VGEP is that we just, as we sit here, we just don't know where we stand. And it's, I don't think it's been a month yet, but it's probably been 20 days. And, you know, you get, we're getting no feedback. Yeah, and I get it. It's not saying that. It's criticism. I think that the city on clear alive, very strong and state have really done a really good job under tremendous stress. But I think that the delay is going to cause more and more people to fall by the wayside, which is. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that story. Holds on to understand. No point of clarification. VGEP or B? B, G, A, B. B, E, G, A, B. It's an acronym. Thank you. Yes. I don't have anything to say about, let me base, about funding sources, but I am here because my husband and I have been writing grant proposals for 30 years. And I know all of you businesses have so much to, that you're dealing with. And I'm here to offer help for people who might need help grant writing. Because all those details, I've never applied for this grant, but after one or two, we would know how to do it. And all of you are doing it once. So that's why I'm here. Thank you. Thank you. That's wonderful. Yes. Hi, Rebecca Bojici. I am not in the financial space for a business owner, but I want to see my community thrive. I've heard that in the Inflation Reduction Act that there's a lot of money that can go into resiliency, but it needs a place to land. And green banks are an opportunity for that money to land in a place. And from what I understand, that the legislature will be studying, or you can speak to that perhaps, will be studying it over the next year. But my concern is that a long period of study will lose valuable time for our community that that money can be applied in meaningful and impactful ways. So I just want to put that out there as a potential source of funding, but from what I've heard, it needs a place to land. I can speak to that a little bit, and granted it's going to come from somewhat organizational self-interest, but economic development authority, Vermont Housing Finance Agency, and the Vermont Bond Bank can all serve as, and do serve as de facto green banks in terms of accessing funds that will be coming down from Inflation Reduction Act. And those will, they're going to take a long time, regardless of what the state does and is studying or setting things up, not to get too far into the weeds, but like the NOFO for the national organizations to accessing those funds is due at the end of September, and the funds won't start flowing through the system until the middle of next year to agencies like ours who would be, and possibly a new green bank, if at all. So there are places for those funding and the funds to land. At the state of the landscape, so, sorry, Children's Campbell, at the Federal Montlear, I also worked with the Agency of Education and I was in the Emergency Operations Center to, I'm going to try not to happen when you have to. So thinking about support for individuals available is the FEMA Individual Assistance, which has like an alphabet soup of programs underneath it. But I think that sometimes because of past experiences, like Irene or just from the general reputation of FEMA, I think folks are skeptical of FEMA and engaging with individual assistance if they don't see a penny for 10 years or whatever it may be. But there are really immediate financial resources that are available for individual assistance. So things like immediate rental assistance, like check and bank for a thing, you know, $700 to replace the loss of belongings and clothing, $300 for cleanup supplies. And now in Washington County, just as a few days ago, we've now qualified for something that's called the FEMA Direct Housing Assistance. And those are those like big, sort of what we think it was in the big long term, re-housing of folks if they're living in a place that's no longer going to be safe. You know, what we think of as like the FEMA trailers and those temporary housing or the new houses or new units being built. So I think it's really, really important. I know that folks can be skeptical of FEMA, but to what extent can we identify barriers? I think our community probably is doing a better job than in almost anywhere else. But what are the barriers that prevent people who would qualify and are in need from signing up for doing the individual assistance and then helping them in whatever way we can as a community to get them through that process and access those resources? Critically with the housing piece, if they're not signed up for FEMA and individual assistance, which as of right now has a September 12th deadline to do and we're protecting the states of important extension on that we probably get. So that's one really critical piece. And then the other piece that's maybe also a little bit more long term is the Vermont Poverty Fund. There's discussion about signing up to your local recovery and resilience or committees that can help individuals a year from now or 18 months from now or two years from now if they have those long term flood impacts after the big dogs are out of the picture, right? And those local resilience and committees can have the potential access that is Vermont Community Effect and resources. So those are some of the things that are in conversation, that's a whole lot to understand. Can I get started to go for them in the last? I think I can do this in five or six sentences. After the banking crisis, I think it was 2008. And I progressively learned that that I wasn't able to pay my employees and they hung on, was doing in this paper, they hung on without being paid, and they hung on. And eventually they came to me and said, we can't hang on any longer. And when I added up the damages against the business, the papers, that's, we had $30,000 that we owed, which seemed an impossible sum of money. The key thing I learned from that experience, by the way we paid back all that money over time, and we re-employed people, and we got back on our feet, but the key thing I learned was that it's important for a business to be able to hang in there and keep some of its employees and pay off some of its debts and have a debt repayment plan and come back. But if you, like an organism, like a living organism, if the organism dies, there's no coming back. And what happened in this period, it was about a three to five year period of paying back. My staff agreed to be paid back over time, and they got a small check every month. I think that lasted for five years. And other people saw that we weren't quitting and they forgave debt, and we were able to keep the paper alive, pay back our debt, and get back on top of it. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's important to figure out how to keep businesses alive in the short term and have a plan for paying back debt so that they can come out of it. And in fact, as I've been listening, I have one more sentence. As I've been listening here, I've been thinking, if we bring our efforts together with all of their problems and all of their insufficiencies and fears, if we bring ourselves together to deal with this emergency, we could become a bit of a case study for other jurisdictions who are likely to be facing the same kinds of problems. I don't think what we're facing is insurmountable, but I do think our intelligence and imagination needs to be plugged in in a very positive way. End of comment. Well, thank you. Yeah. I just wanna say, I don't wanna, like my own specific plans, I don't have one, but I think that there's just absolutely no way that any of us can get done without the fence, and it really is important that we identify what's together an advocacy plan that has leadership and we have a plan of action to really lean on our congressional delegation. I just wanna quickly say, we have been kind of forming a downtown Montpelier Business Advocacy Group. We've met Matt a few times on Zoom. We've met with a few lobbyists. We met this morning with Rebecca Amos. Amos. Ramos. Ramos, Ramos. Okay, yes. And I've met with Kevin Alice. Your name actually came up. And that's what our purpose is, is to really try to formulate the needs of businesses and get it to the feds through our politicians. They were saying it might be helpful to go through you as being a financial person already plugged in. But we really have needs in order to keep it viable. Every, I mean, most businesses really need more help than we're getting to be able to survive. And so we're trying to form a group that really pushes the agenda to people that need to. And that's what, and Rebecca is really helping us. And Kevin said he'll help us too. And we need to write some kind of like a two page quick document. And they actually wanted to maybe come to you for some help. I think you are coming to me. I think you're coming to me. So they wanna find out what businesses need, what the costs are, how much we're short, get together a plan and put it out there. So it is kind of formulating through the businesses, but we definitely need a lot of help. That's great. So, Harry. Nope. One second. So I'm just talking a bit of time and heard a fair amount about the business plight of business owners and the vibrancy of the downtown. Is that, am I getting consensus moving forward as we move into the next kind of section of this, which is ideas that help with that challenge, that that's the pressing challenge here? Yes. Where do you go somewhere else? Not for me at all in answer to your question. And what I wanted to say was, it's great that there's advocacy for businesses and great that there's so much support and great that there's a lot of attention we paid to it. But the individual assistance and the individual support is really lacking. I think there's this idea out there that, well, FEMA's got people, non-business people covered and it's not true. A lot of people aren't getting money from FEMA, but FEMA doesn't cover the cost of moving all of your stuff up out of the basement, which we all have to do. Those of us who were flooded in downtown Montpelier have found out in many cases after already starting work that no, you can't just put your furnace back in the basement. You have to put it in your living room or I don't know where, we don't know where. And so FEMA doesn't cover that. And then also if you have flood insurance, FEMA doesn't give you any money, which is a lovely whammy of someone who has flood insurance and hasn't gotten any money from flood insurance yet. Probably flood insurance isn't gonna cover getting things up out of the basement either. So there are options for small business association loans for individuals. It's not just for businesses. So we're finding ourselves in the position of possibly having to take on debt to be able to fix this that we can't actually afford to do. But then also there are people who, and I don't know if I've got the details right, but back in Irene took money from FEMA and it was conditional as my understanding on maintaining flood insurance, but flood insurance is thousands of dollars. And so low income people who could not afford flood insurance continued not to be able to afford it. Now they can't get FEMA money again because they got it once before and they can get flood insurance. And so I've got a neighbor who has no heat and no hot water and no money at all. And so I don't know where the resources for those folks are. And I'm really, I love the idea of the downtown businesses of organizing and to be happy on behalf of businesses. What's the equivalent for lower income people who aren't gonna be able to pay to fix their heating systems, their electrical systems, their hot water? I mean, we don't have heat. Many of us in our house and we thought this happened in July. We've got plenty of time. Actually, we live in Vermont. We don't have plenty of time. It's already getting cold. So, so I think that's top. Let's talk about our understanding of that too. Yes, please. Ann Watson, I just wanna make sure that I put out a source of funds that is relatively small, but I wanna get it on the record. So the Vermont Association of Realtors has a disaster relief fund that can provide up to $500 grants for individuals that were impacted by the floods. And then they also have a relief foundation and that is up to $2,000. And it can go for one of three things, monthly mortgage expenses for primary residences that were damaged by flooding, rental costs that are due for folks that were displaced from their primary residence. And then if folks had to stay at a hotel, they can get reimbursed for some of those expenses. Again, up to $2,000. So just wanna make sure that folks are aware of that resources. I have not heard a lot of people talking about that. I just ask a question, which is, is there, there has to be a place right where there's confidence in the list of all these resources for businesses and individuals? Theoretically, the state has a comprehensive list. I have not checked to see if this one is on it. It does just feel like it's very disquieted and nobody is aware of everything. It's also hard because a lot of them, a lot of these sources have very specific things that they will fund. And so, you know, the people on my street, their basements were flooded. They didn't have them in their houses. So none of that funds. Right, they wouldn't have them. But they don't have a furnace and they have no way to get a furnace. And so. I just want to make sure everyone in. Hi, I'm Eric Jacobs. I'm the resident of Montreal. One of the things I was hoping to find out about a little bit more was the state funding for the capital as a capital. At least we had opportunity to be in Albany. Albany is a very poor city. And one can be certain here at Albany that the residents of Albany are not paying for the infrastructure of their capital city. National, I think, is the same. The reason why I raised this is because I think there's been a chronic underfunding of infrastructure, such as roads or deceptive water systems that disaster in the city. And it's very important that the federal agencies attribute to get our congressional team to focus on it. But I think there's been a chronic underfunding of the downtown area. The fact that we ask our business people to, you know, at the time of crisis, to come up with the funds to do it. It's really unconscionable. And we've had empty buildings in storefronts for a long time in the downtown area. Part of that is because it's just so incredibly expensive, I believe, for these small businesses to operate in one pier. The economy is changing. You know, we will not be able to attract people to our state if we have abandoned downtown. So I'm really confused, and I really don't understand how the city is so underfunded and therefore partially unprepared for the crisis. So perhaps there's more information to understand how we can change, and we can have this be the capital, say, of the modern, noticeable town. See you. Yes, thank you. Yes. I'm Sally Smith, and I live uphill on Murray Hill, which was not effective and feel guilty. Anyway, two things. Historically, Montpelier has shouldered the burden as a city for the capital. It shouldered the burden for financing the first capital, the second capital, and the third capital. And so there's a historic habit embedded in the financing of the city. And that would change. That would take real change. And that would take real change. The second thing is I am interested. I've been paying attention to who funds some of the things that human services have done, and that the Vermont Community Foundation has been funding a lot of things, but especially the nonprofits around. And I know in the macro sense that there's not a lot of funding for what to do about the flooding and the infrastructure. And so I'd like to suggest that asking the Community Foundation to create an RFP to help us solve these problems and asking, you know, making it a big deal. I mean, here we are in what planners call the bathtub, but it's also a state capital. There's got to be a lot of creative engineers and architects who want to think about this stuff. And to make it a national kind of project. And ask the Community Foundation to fund that, because there's not a lot of money in the state or the federal government for dreaming and creating solutions. And so when you say put that out to RFP to solve that, are you saying solve the financing challenges or solve the infrastructure challenges? I'm saying the infrastructure and the water problems, because that's the essence of the long-term problem. OK, so before we move on to new ideas, I just want to hear from our subject matter experts and see if there's any thoughts, any thing that you haven't heard or have heard that you want to respond to. Are there any funding sources out there for businesses, individuals, or others that you're aware of that people should know about before we move on to the idea section? I think Efficience Evenmont is setting up a $10 million program for, just don't know if it's limited to appliances, or I think it's also heating sources as well. So that is, I think, still currently stages. But the idea is to come back with greener, yeah, exactly right, and to support that for this $10 million. Also, will they be doing that because people are going to start in the place? Yeah, two weeks. OK, that's great. I've been thinking about E-Post as opposed to appropriate. I think that's exactly why this program was created, right, for that exact conversation. So the work that I do at the Plenary Recovery Center is one-on-one counseling. And I really recommend anyone, even if they're not a business owner, to honestly come in. We have five people. We don't usually have a weight. And I think what we find is going through steps, kind of methodically, can be a way to address gaps in funding. The first question we often ask is, do you have a mortgage as an individual? Do you own the property? Have you talked to your lender? Have you talked to who you pay a car payment to? Have you told them you were in a flood? When you feel 37 bills going past you, or three bills going past you, or whatever it is, just starting the conversation, sometimes we sit with people, they make those phone calls. And it's okay to come in and do that, especially if you're living in a flooded space and working in a flooded space. It's really chaotic to internalize that every day and breaking it into steps and just addressing each thing. The same way you would if you were 22 and took out a bunch of credit cards and maxed them out, or whatever thing you wound up with, where you're feeling this is out of control, sitting down with someone and breaking it apart can be a really helpful first step. It doesn't bring you money, but it can bring you relief. Okay, so, ideas. So we want to spend the next 30 minutes or so talking about ideas. Heard a few, some that it sounds like they're already starting downtown business advocacy. Essentially, is there an opportunity for an individual, potentially low-income organization that would do something similar? Yes. My name is Jeff Squires, I'm a student. And a couple of thoughts. One is that as I'm listening, it sounds like not enough money and not fast enough. Nowhere near enough money, nowhere near fast enough. And the federal government will be a great source of financing for the macro level, the mediations. If we build new things or buy a bunch of property, we get a plenty of freedom and so forth. And there's periodic pieces of legislation that we can plug into. We have a very good congressional delegation. But, you know, is there a special session to be called by the state legislature? Is there the ability of Mr. Treasurer for the state of Vermont to bond an emergency fund in some other manner? Self-help, so that people aren't waiting to fill out forms and nobody calls you back. But rather it's something that's being done here in Vermont and being done in real time to Nat's point about enough so that, you know, liquor store can reopen, we're all going crazy. You're a wine sale. You're a wine sale. Yeah. You're a wine sale. So that's an idea. And I don't know. I heard there was some legislative conversation scheduled for later in the week. But, you know, this is gigantic. And, Lawrence, a full-blown response, not observing how little towns are doing, because I share your view that it's tough to just do this all on your bootstraps here. Do you want to respond immediately to that one in terms of the, you know, is it possible to bond an emergency fund? Well, I mean, I guess I have two thoughts. One is on the emergency fund or bonding, generally. I mean, when you're bonding, right, those are things that have to get paid back. So you just want to think, is there a funding source for it to get paid back? Or is there not? And it's just something you want to think about. And then what's the impact of taking out more debt? And the state's generally been moving in the direction of less debt over time, which has been giving us more cash to spend. But we're in a unique situation where we do have a lot of cash as a state. There's a lot of money that's been appropriated, but not yet spent. I think our cash on hand in the office this morning was $2.3 billion or something in that regard, which is way larger than historically it normally is. So it's not to say there's not resources there. And then from a revenue side, the revenues have been really strong in Vermont. You know, that $30 million, the $10 million for the appliance and heat pump program and the $20 million for the business program, that was sort of redirected from, you know, excess revenue rather during the midpoint consensus forecast. So there are opportunities for the state to redirect money in the meantime before the legislature comes in. The other thought I have is like whether it's bonding or whether it's putting together a program or whatever it is, it's really helpful to get a sense of like, what is the ultimate number that we need to hit? And that, because you could say, let's bond for $20 million or $70 million, but what is that going to do relative to what the need is? I mean, the full need, like what's the unmet need of the individuals, what's the unmet need of the city and the businesses? May I ask, is there a process underway? You know, I think there's a ton of baseline analysis that's required really before you make any big decisions. But actually, there's nothing in the way of initiating that. And I don't know how many communities are in the same boat, it's not a pillar here, but I gotta believe somebody here has an order of magnitude sense. So yeah, I agree with you, there should be a big number in that number ought to be in gold and there ought to be the action taken by this body and the governor to act on it because if, you know, everybody's forgotten about Montpelier because now we're all thinking about Hawaii, and that's when we'll forget about Hawaii. So if we just wait, and don't sell help, a lot of businesses are gonna fail and a lot of people are gonna have the hardships that my friend here was talking about. Yeah, thank you. So I'm one of your three senators from Washington County. So you had a question about a special session. And so we have already had some conversation about basically a relief bill or flood-related bill or set of bills. And we anticipate that there's a very good chance that we're going to have a special session anyway because of the potential impeachments. And while that is going on, we may be able to do some other business. And so then the question is, if we're able to pass some flood relief bill or bills during that time, what should be in it? And I think that comes to this question of like, what is the number? It also, you know, if there are specifics, like how do we divide up, you know, what the need is or what not? That's another question. I'm gonna pick on the city of Montpelier, like the city for a second because one of the ideas that came from them, which I think is a good one, is diverting some of the housing money that was already allocated to particularly buildings that, according to FEMA, either need to be bought out because they're substantially damaged or they need to be elevated. And for a lot of those homes that were substantially damaged, a lot of them are affordable housing. And so we're looking at, you know, the potential displacement of a number of folks. So that's one thing that's on my radar to ask for. So, but other ideas, welcome. And you're just a clarification. You say that money for housing, you mean the money that was in the state budget for housing that passed? I believe so, the right that passed, exactly, yeah. Well, so we're talking about some time in like the October, September, October timeframe, but we don't really know. And it's not even totally certain that it is gonna happen. It's just, I think it's likely, but I don't know. Who calls a special session? That's a great question. I think the governor does, too. The governor calls a special session, the governor does. Okay, yeah, we'll back that for a second, so I guess. So one would be, could we both see it up here and the state with large, take a look at the fund that has started acting as a bill, the ARBA, SFROF funds. And so those are part of the big federal relief and a lot of them have infrastructure uses and anything I believe, correct me, continue to be a little bit undersubscribed for an awful big debt. So because we've got a little bit of a long tail on that, would it be possible for the city to look at some of the places that it has made prioritize funds and pivot for some of the larger state projects, which the language is super awesome ideas before the July flood, but maybe included is that to address some of the infrastructure needs. So that was fine. And then the second was thinking about, again, individual needs and how we connect individuals with specific needs, with resources and take the burden off of individuals to have to like go for the efficiency of the law grant. Could us, like the collective we set up, essentially a small group of folks who probably do this in the day to day life on the fabulous side, but to essentially serve as that kind of advocacy but to collect specific needs from individuals who have been impacted, identified. And we're actually trying to do this as well in Barry and up in like Harvick as well. So I'm on the individual and family needs recovery task force, of course, I'll come in forever. And one of the things we're constantly saying is like, we don't know, we don't know what's happening at 127 on the street and what that family is experiencing. And trying to talk to the schools and like, what do you know? What are you hearing? Capstone, what have you thought? But if you have a local group that can, Candice, go to the door, they know that person, they can call their neighbor, they can say what exactly do you need and be able to start to collect that data. Because I think what we are hearing is like, we need to identify the need. And in order to do that, we have to collect specific data and then we have to send that data up to the state, up to female women in a specific class. So in, and also by having that kind of, as we did brilliantly with the immediate flood volunteer effort, like, y'all, it was incredible. There was a lot of challenges and like, nobody did it better than we did. But also usually, right? So again, to continue to try to identify the specific needs and then my hope, you know, that you either, I can help you solve that, whatever it is you mentioned, whatever it may be, or we can help you, you've got a bunch of brilliant grant writers, which is a really key skill set. We can help these four people apply for the efficiency from our grant and make it a constant solve. So can we do that to treat all of us and also to start to back with that? Great idea. Thank you. Scott? This is kind of an infrastructure issue too, but I think the basic of financing on, I've been a building owner now for 11 years and then a business owner down there too. But on return, I don't know much about restoring buildings and learning a lot. So one of the things we've talked about, sperm cells, they can't be down in the basement. We've talked about efficiency in Vermont. You can do any splits of different things. But here in the company, for example, what I found is I just had someone go in and assess my building for it. See if I could put these B pumps in every unit. Well, the real problem is I can't put them in the front unit because I'm in a skirt district and I can't hang them all in the front of the building. We have something in this city which is a great idea which has not really come to fruition and that is the city, okay? And the reason it hasn't come to fruition is because it costs so much to put that infrastructure in to extend it that people, none of the people signed up for it cost, they're all, they're all, they get it on the bond when they're paying for the heat. So their costs are much more than they were at oil or gas. But we talked about this infrastructure bill. If that infrastructure bill would fund the extension of city heat and the installation of that every building in the downtown, that takes care of the home or furnaces basically. It's just a pipe. The heat is changing. That's more long term, but that's an idea that I can throw out there. People like myself, the U72 now, they talk about having a plan and I think that's really great. But if you're 35, it's a little easier to say, okay, I can do something over 20 years and if you're 72. So if you can take some of that burden off, I really do believe that nobody should be putting furnace down in their basement. Everybody should be bringing the electricity on. I think those make sense, those kind of ideas. But let's say someone can't hang a minstrel off the front of the building because it's a story and I'm not sure that makes the same thing in the same amount of sense. And the city heat is an opportunity we have here that most people don't have. And I do think it's the kind of project that would come onto that completion reduction act infrastructure building. So it's more long term, but if you can do that with federal money so that you had, instead of 19 businesses who have done it, you had 100 who have done it with most of the capital costs to freight or taking care of, that would work, that would work. And it's just that people are going to, and people are going to stare and taking on debt because the 800 pound gorilla in the room is the north bank, the branch and the Ducey River. So I want to know something that comes back and take on that couple hundred thousand debt and it flows again and it won't happen again. All right, if this is some hands that I haven't seen before. Sure, my name's Chris Campbell. I live in Gallison Hill. Think about the financing in three parts, right? There's sort of the bridge to help get people over the me and me. There's the paying for refurbishment that needs to be made and it doesn't have a business case that for buildings that can't or shouldn't be brought back, I can't replace that. I think there's an important third part too and I think that there are some additional financing options and funding options on that piece. And that is the long-term development of commercial, residential and certain types of infrastructure. And we had needs before what happened. We had an aging and insufficient housing stock. We had a declining downtown workforce that wasn't had fully come back yet from the pandemic. We have an energy infrastructure that needs to be made more sustainable. And I think that there's an opportunity to invest at scale in more housing that can support businesses in a compact area that has a lower energy footprint. And a lot of that, if you can do it if you can do it in a comprehensive way, substantial portions of that do have a revenue stream. People pay for housing. Businesses have a space that they can be in. They ordinarily help contribute to that. I think what's really needed is the vehicle to get us there in a comprehensive way and to do it much faster than it will happen. And that's where I think that in addition to some financial support, but in addition there are some just organizational structural supports that I think the state especially could provide the city and or the region to help those kinds of things happen. I think if you create something, the thing that comes to my mind and maybe it's not exactly this is some sort of development authority that has the ability to build things and borrow and deal with counterparties and deal with existing finance agencies and deal with federal programs and deal with state programs and can create some impetus and some action and some mission and has is empowered with some of the financing and funding tools to make that happen. That doesn't help the first two faces a whole lot, right? But I think that that third phase is going to be a hugely expensive and necessary phase, but it's also a phase that I think has the potential to generate some of its own revenue and create something new out of this that is long-term more sustainable and can be an important part of Montpelier's future. Thank you. Okay, so yes, we're gonna go here and then we need to prioritize the ideas we want to have. That's right. We're gonna prioritize really quickly. Okay, let's keep going everyone. Josh Drone, Montpelier resident and community and economic health specialist from the city. Just a follow-up with that gentleman who was saying about the district heat. It is a strategy and our local hazard mitigation plan and it is something that the state will be looking at to do a scoping study on with its advanced FEMA funding in addition to two other scoping studies. And so the goal would be to identify, do the scoping, see what the overall project would cost, feasibility to lift as many commercial, to get as many commercial buildings on the district heating system. So that's already in the works. That's what our intention is to access that funding system. Absolutely. What are the other two? The other two are individual structures, residential structures. And then the third one is the riverine corridor. What additional measures could be done in the watershed to prevent flows. So thank you. And then one more thing, just because I tried to pitch this in 2020 during COVID and I'm trying to pitch it again in 2023. How many here have mutual funds, stocks, rebounds? Raise your hand. How many are nested local? Raise your hand. It's very hard to do. Exactly. We need to make it less hard to do and we need to move 23% of our retirement accounts to our local community. Right. You know? 2020 was a better thing during COVID. You know, 23, 23, it doesn't fly up the table. And where are the banks? Okay, okay, hold on. So there are banks? Totally. But I'm on the business side, you know? All right, so we just have a couple of minutes. Yes, thank you. So I just want folks to know about a bill that I put in, that I requested already. I'm sure a lot of you are aware that the state of Vermont is suing big oil for consumer protection, unfair and deceptive practices. That is a judicial way to get big oil to pay, but there is actually a legislative way to go after big oil. Specifically, super funds were created through legislation. And so I'm having conversations already with folks about creating a climate super fund. Right, like this is big oil's mess. They need to pay a substantial portion of what we are all paying right now. And so this is not gonna be an immediate solution. Like this is gonna take some time. But I just want folks to know that this is on my radar and I am gonna chase this down because they need to pay. And it's not just about them lying, it's about this is your mess, you need to pay for it. Just quickly, Christine Zaki, I'm on Foster Street, my pillar, and I'm in the budget throughout that private philanthropy is to the puzzle, certainly the dollars behind private philanthropy are dwarfed by government dollars, but rather than making health film and caps for projects, et cetera, et cetera. And so I wanna put it on the radar screen, there are local funders and also if we were to come off with interesting, innovative ways to demonstrate climate resiliency, there were international funders that are interested. Absolutely. And the community foundation is there. Absolutely an important piece of the puzzle. I'm not saying anything, we're gonna fire with us. Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on Ann's statement because I'm a big proponent of holding the oil companies responsible. I just wanted to say that over 40 municipalities and states have filed suits to hold the major oil companies responsible. And the one that is in the state court now for the month versus Exxon, as she said, that was filed in 2021 under T.J. And it's now in the state court, which is a good case to be. And so there's hope that, so they're not asking for payment of environmental damages, but they're asking for a certain amount for each violation of the Consumer Protection Act, but also, and I have to say that I love this term, they're being asked to discourage their profits, their profits from the entire time that they have known about this, that their own scientists have known about the harm they were causing to the extent that they adapted their own projects using their own scientists' results that showed that there was going to be harm. Okay, so yes, so the distortion would be from the time they knew, which could be traced back to 1960-something, to currently. And I mean that is such a spastic amount of money. But in the meantime, I think that this idea of modeling our super fund after New York State, there also is a way of, there are people who can look in the future and really zero in on the future cost of remediation. This has been done in Oregon and it's been done in terms of Philadelphia and it can be done. One of this thing is about the philanthropy. There's a possibility of a city suing on a specific amount. These precedents have happened. The problem is on clearance now, any money, the state has limited resources. Philanthropy can come in and provide seed money to the first stages of a lawsuit. Just, I can talk to you about that. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Eight minutes. All right, yep. Okay, so in our eight minutes, what we are tasked with here, is taking all of the various ideas that everyone has had and trying to prioritize the top wage that have the most consensus, that have the most excitement, that folks feel, again, are could be the most impactful, actionable community. So, we'll just quickly run through what it wants to be heard and we can have folks respond. So, do you want to do it? Can you try this and if the sales don't go there? Okay, so the first one, I think to Jess's point, not enough money, not getting it soon enough. So I need a special session to redirect current resources sooner. Could be ARPA, SRF funds, or potentially going to new funds like bonding or an emergency fund. Piece of that, we must identify the need. So, we have a lot of the need out there. And under that, we can create a task force to identify individuals and business needs. So, we've got... I'm just going to add to that one that it also included, I heard the idea to set up a small group to campus and go through the door to collect data and identify me. And that invariably is a task force called the Individual Need and Families Task Force. It's a state, it's a state. A state, okay. Thank you. We're going to do these in the middle of the air. Got it. Great. In addition to that, just your teeth sounds like we're beginning that. And under development authority, again, this is kind of long, hard resilience. So, we develop an authority with the empowered with financial authority and potentially be able to also be able to create money of its own. Federal advocacy, and then big oil. And big oil is going after big oil, making sure that oil pays the super fund that sounds like Anne's potentially looking at. I just want to say one sentence, which is that I think it's really important to come up with funding right now, like he said, but also funding for infrastructure, flood mitigation, so that as business owners, as homeowners, if we rebuild, it doesn't just keep flooding, flooding, flooding, flooding. So, there's stage one, we need help now to even stay in business and come back. Stage two, we need funding to be able to make sure we don't keep flooding, we keep not being able to come back. Yeah. When you come up with that price tag, I feel like that goes into the big price tag. Right. Like, how much is it gonna cost to do that? Well, when I heard you say there's $2.3 billion sitting there. That's a whole lot of money. It's public information, but it's been appropriated for things that just hasn't been spent yet. So, it's money that's been spent. And you're gonna hang out with the stage, right? Yeah. It is earning interest income for homeowners, so it's earning us money. But the task here should not have to pay to do all of this in bonds and through the federal one. Yeah. Get the work done. Right. We need to have the price tag and make sure they know that we have a Eugene. Some of that $2.3 billion has to come for this or we aren't gonna have a downtown. So, it sounds as if, or you guys call me here, is there a consensus with one of the biggest coming out is you must first identify. Whether you have a task force, whether you do it in your hands or in your hands. Yeah. This is an individual's and it needs to be done in a sustainable way. And infrastructure. So, I hope every group has that. Yeah. We need to find, we need to know the facts and data to make any set of decisions in the right county to recognize when you're not just all the time out there. Right. I put it under the category of recovery and resiliency. Like that's what we're trying to get the price tag for is both the recovery aspect of it and then the resiliency aspect of it in the future. Exactly. Okay. So, what is the year when you said I think it's important? Just, I would call it recovering resiliency, quantifying recovering resiliency costs. It's both the individual and business recovery but it's more of the public resiliency in the future. And how do those need to be? But those have sort of separate timeline. Yes. Yes, they do. We need everything, we need it. Resiliency, we've got a little bit of time but we need to be thoughtful as we define that set of numbers. Okay. And then is there a agreement that once those needs are identified that there should be both federal and state advocacy to redirect or potentially raise additional funds? Yes. I think you could put it in that. I forgot you had about the brilliant which is to re-prioritize to look at municipal funds and maybe state as well. You don't want the, just the different funds as you prior to that. And the state as well. Yes. So, at all levels, state, state, and federal level. Could we get a list of all the things people have talked about here? The possible. Yes. The private, the land, the state, the like. Yes. So, can I use, and definitely taking a strap of all the ideas. And I'm gonna make sure that we're up so that we have all the ideas and resources. All right, so that's two. Can I just, are there any bankers here? Any people that represent the banks? Oh, none. What part are they in this discussion? With the credit unions. What are the credit unions? I mean, North of Sydney's Banks is a pretty game local bank. It's those the credit unions. So, I mean, part of my comments were, but you know, you need to have somebody who can talk that language to that. I think that is a resource. That is a resource. You need to be able to talk the language of finance to them. And you need somebody who can do that on behalf of the community. Good question. Yes. Specific question. Do you think we're gonna go? Very specific. So, the downtown is in a flood plain. It's predicted and it's assured that it's going to be flooded again. We want small businesses to come back into the downtown area. What can the state do? What can the city do? I'm assuming that most small businesses do not have flood insurance because it's not affordable for most businesses. What can the state do to underbind a flood policy for the downtown flood area among there? What can it do to collectively bargain for an affordable flood insurance for the downtown area? That's what I'd like to see because this is inevitable and we're not going to change that. And the small shopkeepers shouldn't be asked to burden this motion of the taxpayer, the resident taxpayer. Okay, thank you for everybody. Paul's here too. Yeah, there was one in the house chamber. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great, so for you, that's a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.