 To start, I want to thank our partners here today for the third annual downtown day, including legislators, AARP, efficiency Vermont, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, Vermont Housing Finance Agency, and Vermont mayors, municipal officials, downtown board members, executive directors, volunteers, and business owners who work every day to keep our downtowns and villages strong. And considering we're here today to announce recipients of the Main Street Grants, I'd also like to thank Beth Rosnack from the National Life Group Foundation, as well as Dan Smith and Liz Gamache, from the Vermont Community Foundation for their hard work and investment in this new program. Finally, I want to give special thanks to the Preservation Trust of Vermont, Paul Bruin, and his staff for all the work they've done to strengthen Vermont's downtown and villages for over 30 years. Public-private partnerships like the Main Street Grants give a big boost to our work to grow the economy, strengthen and strengthen our downtowns and villages. And I think we can all agree the work to revitalize these areas is much more productive and effective when we work together as a team. Before we announce the grant winners, here are a few stats that show the impact of our downtowns. In the last year, the 23 state-designated downtown communities have documented nearly $59 million in public and private investment, 127 new housing units, 47 new and expanded businesses, and more than 200 new jobs were created within the downtown districts. So thank you for your hard work and to transform Vermont's downtowns and villages across the state. It's really impressive to see these achievements. I also want to talk briefly about H766, a bill that achieves many items I proposed in my budget. It will help build and grow stronger communities and make housing ownership and renovation affordable for our workforce. A major goal of myself and my administration, H766 does three things. First, it helps more first-time home buyers by increasing funding for VHFAs, down payment assistance program, 600 first-time home buyers across every county have already used the program, with each buyer generating about $40,000 in economic benefit to Vermont. Studies have shown that the lack of a down payment is a significant barrier to home ownership. And without this proposed increase, VHFA will need to cut this important program in half. Second, it increases the amount of downtown and village center tax credits, which are proven to be one of the most effective revitalization tools in helping renovate commercial buildings in our downtowns and village centers. Based on an analysis by the Vermont Agency of Commerce, on average, every $1 of credit brings in an additional $18 in investments. Third, H766 proposes a new homeowner tax credit, built on the proven framework for the downtown and village credits. After listening to hundreds of employers in Vermont across the state, what I consistently heard was that one of the barriers to attracting more families and young professionals is decent affordable housing. But a challenge that we have is that in many communities, the cost to repair and update existing housing stock exceeds the value of the building. Without tools or funding to close that gap, property values decline in many communities. Despite the $37 million housing bond and work of many partners to improve and increase the supply of housing in Vermont, there continues to be a gap between the need and availability of housing. Without an increased investment in housing, this gap will only grow. The homeowner tax credit will create more and better housing options close to where people work, go to school, and shop. This innovation and this investment will support good paying construction and renovation jobs, and is key to attracting the young families and workforce needed for businesses and communities to thrive. I want to thank representatives Baser, Batsau, Marcock, and Kimball, as well as members of House Commerce Committee for their work on these initiatives. And thanks to representatives Ansel, Toll, and Kenan for their help to ensure this bill makes it to the House floor and into the Senate. Back in November, I was pleased to join with National Life CEO to announce the inaugural Main Street Grant program. These grants are another example of National Life's commitment to supporting its community. I'm proud and thankful for the growing state, local, and private and public partnerships working to build stronger, more vibrant communities. And I now like to introduce Beth Russnock, President of the National Life Group Foundation, who will announce the seven community sharing over $85,000 in Main Street grants. Thank you, Governor. Good morning. Late in 2017, we opened an enrollment for a pilot program through the National Life Group Foundation. This program, as the Governor mentioned, is called Main Street Grants, and it's intended to support the good work that's happening in so many of our Vermont communities. We reached out to see if our friends at the Vermont Community Foundation, the Preservation Trust of Vermont, and the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development would like to partner with us, and fortunately they said yes. It's an ongoing testament to the collaborative spirit of funders in this state. After carefully reviewing 29 applications that were submitted, we whittled it down to seven, and this morning we're pleased to announce the recipients of our first Main Street grants. It's worth noting that National Life started with a budget of $50,000, but after consideration we actually upped it to $70,500. The Vermont Community Foundation then provided an additional $15,000 to sweeten the deal, and we're very appreciative of that as well. So in all, $85,500 in grants will be awarded to the following Vermont communities in alphabetical order, Berry, Bennington, Montpelier, St. Albans, St. Johnsbury, Waterbury, and Wilmington. So congratulations to all these communities. This money will support projects that range from the restoration of a much needed community center to bike racks, to lighting, and things like wave finding signage. It's been a humbling and gratifying experience to not only work with Dan Smith and his team at VCF as well as Paul Baroon, but also to learn about the many creative projects that serve as a reminder that Vermont is definitely the place to live and work. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dan Smith from the Vermont Community Foundation. Well, let me pause there and just I think we should give Beth and the National Life Group a round of applause for their commitment to start. I will say just real quickly, I think that the infrastructure of the next decade is really about partnership and finding ways to work together. And so the National Life's vision for this downtown program and the Main Street Grants program is really an opportunity for public, private, and then corporate philanthropy to work together in an objective that we all share. And that is strong and healthy and dynamic and vital communities. The mission of the Vermont Community Foundation is to inspire philanthropy and bring people and resources together to make a difference in Vermont. We believe that Vermont's at its best when Vermonters are at their best. That means they have access to equal access to opportunity and that when they walk down the streets of their communities, they're inspired and they feel a sense of potential. And the work of everybody in this room who's part of the Downtown Association is contributing to that end. Regardless of whether they saw funding in this program today, their work goes on in building healthy and vital communities that offer people inspiration and a sense of potential. So we as a foundation are humbled to partner with National Life and to help these folks pursue these objectives because doing so will level the playing field across the state and allow young people in that next generation of Vermonters to see a future here in this state that inspires them and connects them to place. So we're excited to partner. We're excited about the path forward and we're humbled to work alongside you all in terms of changing the dynamics in Vermont communities. So thank you very much for the day and thank you very much for your leadership. Thank you very much Dan. We'll open up to questions if we could maybe focus on the the topic at hand first and then we can excuse a few people if you want to go into other areas. There might even be some people here that can answer the questions for you. That's a great question. So it was determined by need. There was a criteria that we actually followed. So it was the need in the community, the project itself, when it would be finished, so on and so forth. So the grants in size range from over $20,000 to a little over $5,000. Has the money been distributed yet? It should be arriving in people's offices, probably as we speak. Is there anything in age 766 that's not there right now that you're going to ask legislators to include in it? I can't think of anything. You know it'll be interesting to see how it goes through the legislative process and if anything gets dropped off but at this point in time I think we're in good shape. Is 766 still in committee or has it been voted out? I believe it's been voted out of committee and it's going to hide in the house and then it would go to the floor. I mean maybe appropriations first. It's in ways of means. Okay and then it'll make it way to the floor then of course over the Senate. Well thanks for coming in. At this point if you want to ask any other questions. Oh sure. We have a question for Beth. Absolutely. Big thanks for being 20 minutes in the morning. You're personally the CEO that announced that the last press conference about the main street grant said he was going to launch a campaign against time back. That's correct. Can you tell us any more about where he is from that process please? Yes I'd be happy to. So we are diligently working on that and again in collaboration with a number of different non-profits, businesses, government organizations in the state of Vermont because our goal hopefully would be to see no children hungry in the state over the course of to be determined frankly. So there's a lot of work to be done but there's a lot of good work that's already happening here what we've learned so at this point we're in discussions and I would just say stay tuned because we hope to make an announcement within the next month or two about the status of that. You're welcome. With that if you agree to leave or you can stay right here if you'd like. You still think it's prudent to ask the legislature to do more on human content in terms of success last week at Halifax? Absolutely. First of all I just want to say how grateful I am to all the school boards out there that did tremendous work in all the communities that voted for their budgets we came in it exceeded my expectations as you know I'd ask them to keep growth under the growth rate calculation we thought it was around two and a half percent at that time and they came in well below that so we're halfway there we're almost halfway there from the nine cents we started with at this point in time I still believe there's areas that we can save for the future it's not just about this year it's about savings in the future so that we don't find ourselves in the same position we're in today having again having said that there are a number of initiatives that we put on the table that could be I think beneficial for the future whether it's a statewide healthcare contract for teachers and as well as those ratios I've talked about they're working on as I understand it maybe some special ed provisions that could be helpful in the future and my goal is to come up with a plan where we don't have an increase in statewide property taxes this year I believe it's achievable and I again we're halfway there the school boards and I've done their job and the communities have done their job now we need to find ways to to lower the cost for future future budgets what about the argument that the that the voters have looked at these budgets approved them and they don't want you or lawmakers or anyone else in Montpelier tinkering with them anymore well I think I can for every person you find there I can find someone who doesn't want their property taxes to increase either so I think there is a balance and I think that that with the budgets that were presented they did again remarkable work I'm very grateful to them for doing so but there are other savings in this inefficient system where we can we can be more effective more efficient so that again it seems like every year we're in the same position where they say it's too late to do anything here because all the budgets have been baked so to counter that we need to do something now in order to save money for next year and if it's something like the statewide healthcare contract if that would be helpful in future years then we should do it now so that we can we can save that money in years to come there's some lawmakers who are worried about a replay of what happened at the end of the last legislative session are you willing to again use the budget as a leverage point to get what you want on education spending well again I think I've been clear that we are going to get through this session without increasing taxes and fees and I would consider property taxes as being one of them 40 plus million you'd have to share from what was passed on tap meeting day well again there are other ways other approaches other ways to get to the to the end result 40 40 million dollars well as I said statewide healthcare contracts for the future you all estimated three million dollars for FY 19 if you did that right but for future years when we go back I said 26.2 million dollars last year and we didn't we didn't assume those savings as a result so had we done that last year we would we would be almost home right now so if we take that initiative and some of the special ed issues that they're they're working on the pikes report pointed out a new a number of hundreds of million or a hundred million dollars I believe and in special ed maybe I may have that figure wrong but but there are substantial savings to be had in special education so maybe it can't be done for this year but it could be done in future years so we'll take a take a look I mean there's other ways to approach this I want to be sure that we would get out here I don't believe Vermont is going to afford a tax increase so I believe that there's a there's a way to do that when you consider a six billion dollar budget for 40 million dollars away governor what do you think of the way that lawmakers have have adapted or changed your plan for responding to the federal tax bill yeah I I think I obviously believe our approach is better I don't they merge two totally different subjects together that's concerning but as well the way they they dealt with the formula so to speak I don't believe is is fair to Vermonters and I believe that our approach is better we'll make our case it's still I just came out of one committee it's going through multiple other committees before it gets the house floor and then we'll go over to the to the senate and we'll we'll continue along the way to make our case what about you think isn't fair well it's just the way we thought we had an approach that would give the most benefit to all categories and leave people harmless and we worked very hard on that the tax commission commissioner and some of the folks at the the tax department worked very hard to come up with a formula that was really would leave people harmless and we just think it's a better approach so they're they're playing with farms I believe so I believe it's not it doesn't treat them the same as what we had to contemplate there are a lot of students across the state that are planning tomorrow to leave the classroom walk out to call for new gun legislation do you support those demonstrations on behalf of our students I think it should be done on a case-by-case basis I believe that the schools have done that it appears from what I've seen taking different approaches school safety obviously is important to us and in all kinds of different ways and certainly on that day as well so I would leave it to the to the schools themselves in the districts too so what's your message to the use of Vermont that we I believe that their message has been incredibly important throughout the nation in this regard and had it not been for them we not might not be in the position where we're even talking about this at this point in time so I think it's important that they exercise their right and their and their thoughts because they're the future and we need to listen to them so I I believe again on a case-by-case basis they should be be exercising their rights those rights are universal though I'm sorry those rights are universal then you're saying that exercise your rights as long as your principal is okay with well I just think that it's it's an obligation every school to determine what's the safest manner in the most appropriate manner to do that so I I'm going to leave it to the schools and districts to figure that out obviously you didn't get to sign a gun bill of any sort before the break now we've seen you starting over what's what are your hopes right now I wouldn't say we're starting over obviously their bills have gone from both the senate to the house and the house of the senate so they're continuing it may not have been as quick as I'd hoped but there's some point in time we're still having the conversation so I think it's important the residents well you know I I've I've agreed with both bills that have initiatives that came out of the house I think the the senate provision on 221 came out a 30-0 vote it has a wide amount of support and I would be okay with that version as well so I hope the senate will take a look at the 442 and the second provision of that and move forward with some initiative there as well the president seems to be moving forward with this idea of arming teachers will you take any steps here in Vermont to prevent that from happening I'm not sure that we need to prevent it from happening I just don't think it makes a lot of sense for us to move in that direction there are other initiatives we can take to make schools safer we've moved forward with asking the state police and local law enforcement to assess the schools we should have something back by the end of the month and have a report by mid april that would point to areas that where we could take immediate steps to make schools safer so I in terms of that I'm not sure that we need to because as I as I read the president's statement I believe it's something something to the effect that for those willing so if there's some federal provision that allows teachers to carry guns on public school campuses you won't do anything in Vermont to intervene well I'm not sure that that would hold I'm not sure that we would do that in Vermont I just don't I just don't think it would work here in Vermont but that's my opinion we'll work through the legislative process so but if there is some provision in federal I'm not sure I'm not sure that again they can just unilaterally do that without some acceptance by by the districts and so forth so I just don't see it happening in Vermont to be honest with you the department labor just released some new statistics about job growth shows that there are jobs being added to the Vermont economy but not enough workforce to fill all of these new positions that are coming into the state so what do you plan on doing to address that well we hope again we have an initiative the think Vermont initiative that we've put forward we're hoping is still hoping that the the legislature will will look favorably upon that because it's important and again as I've said there now seems to be jobs available we have a workforce shortage we need more people here we need more workers to fill those jobs so so we need to take some steps in order to do that and we think the think Vermont initiative is valuable in in moving forward with that a year ago around this time there were people who were anxious about the new car inspection system the AVIP system do you have any indication of how that's going those concerns died down or how's that going in your view no I think we need to make some improvements and we're working on that we're working on a simplification of the inspection manual itself I'm trying to condense that we're working with the the legislature in that regard and and so it still needs some work so we're we should be finalizing that very soon and hopefully either work its way through the legislative process or go through rules in order to do that but we have a plan that we're putting forth to try and alleviate some of the some of the problem areas would it alleviate any of the costs either to the inspectors themselves or to the customers I I believe that it will it'll be more cost effective for the automobile owners and will the changes relate to what you have to get fixed in order to get your car a sticker yes but you don't have to get there yeah we're looking at different approaches in terms of of what is real safety measures from a safety standpoint what really needs to be fixed and and what might be advisable as well so the manual tries to clear some of that and an update what has been historic in some some respect so it simplifies the manual do you have any examples of things on your vehicle you wouldn't have to worry about as much and I'm not going to get into that right now but I will have very soon tire pressure sensors will tire pressure so that's on the on the on the table check engine line that's on the table as well good there on prisons a few weeks ago you mentioned starting up an RFP process for the out-of-state inmates um house in Pennsylvania currently wondering if there's any update on that if you have a tentative plan for the future of those yeah I don't have an update uh at this point in time but I know we move forward on that so I'd be happy to look into it and get that to you on the firearms package have you had conversations with the House of Senate leaders during the break about keeping this on track not during the break I did meet with the Senate leadership this morning I will be meeting with House leadership as well and continuing to have ongoing conversations with all the stakeholders and S-55 with background checks slash 21-year-olds buying in still support well it's again I said I would I would take a look at anything that passes the Legislature and I believe that there should be some mechanism to close whatever loopholes there are but we'll see how it goes through it wasn't as a it was a 17-13 vote in the Senate we'll see what happens in the House but look forward to the debate you think we'd be going too far for Vermont we'll we'll see I'm not seeing anything at this point that goes too far that I've I've seen put in the legislation but we'll see what what that might be so S-55 doesn't go too far you know I haven't looked into the exact details of S-55 but but just from trying to to do whatever we can to strengthen background checks I think is is is a point that we need to move forward with you're still open to discussing magazine size yeah I'm not seeing anything any bills that have have contemplated that I'm not sure that that is something that's going to be considered this year but we'll see what comes out of the legislature you reached out to any Republican lawmakers to try and encourage them to vote in favor of some of these measures that is currently been imposed on it I'm trying to educate as many of the stakeholders as possible about what what I view as important steps to take I hope that they see the merit in that the common-sense approach that doesn't infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of anyone I don't believe and I would I guess I would ask that we take a look at that with an open mind to be objective and so I've been talking one-on-one with different lawmakers of both parties as well as people outside of the legislature that that might see misinformation about what my stance is or is or isn't so that that I can have a conversation about what I'm seeing as the issues and I think that the steps the action plan that we put forward makes a lot of sense if we can assess the schools that the school safety is important assess the schools the five million dollar grant process as well as putting together this commission that I think is going to be important we'll we'll be doing that over the next few days and then work on that throughout the year to see if there's any other opportunities they make our school safe or make our community safe as well because as we saw in Las Vegas that wasn't in a school but left 59 debt so we need to to strengthen our communities and strengthen the process to make sure things of that nature don't happen in Vermont and I just want to be clear you're you are not discouraging students from walking out of class as a manner of expressing their opinion on it. I'm not discouraging them but I am encouraging them to work with their schools in order to do it in a thoughtful manner. Would you like to see the suite of gun stuff be as pipe artisans? Absolutely and I think that again from my perspective and nothing we're asking for contemplating at this point in time infringes upon the second amendment. I think it's just a common sense approach that fits Vermont and I believe that that a bipartisan support would be important to me in order to move forward. Do you have guns? I do. All kinds. I've hunted and fished my entire life I have a gun safe full of guns and so I'm a believer in the second amendment and I've and I will fiercely protect that but again anything that we're putting forward I don't believe infringes upon that right. Have you ever sold a gun to anybody privately with a background check? I have never sold a gun in my life. I seem to just collect them. I remember receiving some from family members. I got my dad's first gun. I remember buying my first shotgun at Wilson's support for the sports on the Berry Mob Tillier Road before it burned down and it's just something that I just keep collecting. I like shotguns. I like bird hunting so I've just been doing that over the years. Looks like you're going to have to shovel again. Are you tired of it? No I mean we like to see some of that revenue coming in. I mean this is like winter savings times here. We have a another opportunity to bring people into Vermont and utilize our slopes and I heard the other day I think it was Sunday that at 10 o'clock I think Mount Snow shut down the sails which I thought was interesting. They probably haven't done that for a while. So that's revenue falling from the sky? Yeah. I mean I know it puts a lot of pressure obviously on v-trans and there all the workers that we have there and all the hours they have to put in to clear it but again we can't control the weather but we can take advantage of the good fortune and bringing more snow to the state and try and bring in more revenue. Are your indications so far that it's having that effect? I believe so. I think that it is having that effect and we'll continue. I mean this snowstorm this week looks like it's going to be a beautiful weekend. We hope to get the word out that we're a place that folks from Boston and others who want to get away from their snow can come up here and have some fun with it. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.