 A motion to adopt the agenda. Is there a motion? Thank you. Now, we're going to move on to item 2, which is the introduction of the committee members. I can go first. My name is Taisha Green. I am the Director of Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging for the City of Burlington. I report directly to the mayor, and I am excited to be here and get this started. Anyone can jump in. I can point people out. How about you, Representative Colston? Sure. Hal Colston. Livin Wynuski, I serve as a State Representative, as well as a City Councilor. Thank you. Pablo? Hi. My name is Pablo Bose. I'm a Professor of Geography at the University of Vermont. I live in Burlington, and I also serve on the Public Works Commission. Thank you. Rebecca? Hi. I'm Rebecca Zitlow, and I live in Burlington, although I'm a professor at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. I'm a Professor of Constitutional Law, and I specialize in Reconstruction, the 13th Amendment, and the impact on slavery on our society, especially on workers' rights. So I'm very excited to be part of this commission. Thank you, Rebecca. Christine? Hi, everyone. I'm Christine Hughes. I'm joining you as a representative of the Racial Justice Alliance and Foundation. I'm glad to be here. I'm actually in transit, so I'll turn my video on in about five or 10, maybe 15 minutes. Thanks. Thank you, Christine. Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. To the task force members, I'm really mostly here to say thank you for agreeing to serve on this really critical and important body. I think you've signed up for a big job, and it is a job that is made bigger by how unique it is and really something of a pioneering effort, I think you have before you. My understanding is that we are, Burlington is with the commencement of this meeting, the first city and only the second governmental jurisdiction in the country to be taking on the task of really trying to understand what our city's relationship was with the institution of slavery and to grapple with what implications that has for us today, given just the horror that the institution was, and the fact that when it was ended, it was ended in such a incomplete and unjust way without recognition of the damage that had been done and the duties that any institution, any organization that had an association with it without any recognition of any duties or obligations on those organizations. I think it may strike some people that they may have questions about this exercise and wonder, I think in the popular imagination, Burlington seems geographically distant from the states that are so infamous for the forced slavery. I think the fact that Vermont did take early steps is widely known as the first day to abolish slavery may, in some people's minds, raise questions about why this exercise is necessary. I think there's been a couple of events recently that really, in contrast, show the importance and the why our comfort with that history might be inconsistent and out of whack with our understanding of what our understanding of history should be. We just a couple of months ago had a remarkable event on Main Street where we put in place two markers to note that the daughter of Ethan Allen lived in this community, just blocks from where City Hall now lies and owned slaves in this community well after the institution had been abolished in the state. Similarly, just this week, I was struck with the new reporting about the life of Alexander Hamilton and the new information that has come to light that has made clear that his, as really called into question and serious doubt is the understanding of him as an abolitionist and this recent study suggests he did own slaves, concludes that he owned slaves. And one of the reasons that that has remained obscure for so long is that very little is known about Northern slavery. It's not a topic that has been studied. The way in which slavery was phased out in the North is not well understood and it was incremental and gradual. And so I think you may well uncover surprises and real new information that has not been part of our understanding of this city's history. I don't know what you're going to find. I do know that we have to do this work and we have to really reckon with what our connections as a city were to slavery and what our responsibility is for that today if we are ever going to move past this wound at the heart of this country. And if we're ever going to really fully advance I think this is an exercise that we need to do. So I'm deeply appreciative that you have taken this on. I will be doing my best as you conduct your work to stay in touch with what you are finding. Taisha does report directly to me and we speak frequently and you are in very capable hands with her leadership as part of this task force. And I'm very much looking forward to you completing your work and the recommendations that you make to me and the council and the public when you're done. So thank you and good luck. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right, so we're going to move on to public forum. Is there, if there is anyone here from the public who would like to speak if you would just raise your hand and I will call on you to speak. And another thing, thank you for everyone for muting yourselves. We don't have this in a webinar form. Our next one will be such, but this one is not. So thank you for muting yourselves. If you have anything that you'd like to say or speak during the public forum, please raise your hand. Okay, seeing none. Oh, it says we can't. Okay, with the racial justice alliance would you like to speak? And if so, you can feel free to unmute yourself and for it. Thanks, Director Green. Thank you. And thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak. I just want to just express my appreciation for the work that the task force is undertaking and the mayor's willingness to lean into it and as well as the administration's work towards these efforts in the wake of Operation Phoenix Rise, the proposition that we put forward and as well as the right high tower council or high towers work on the June 29th resolution. And also the budget that was set forth the following day on the 30th of June. So I want to just thank the mayor for that and also charge the, charge the group as well. I want to just give a shout out to Representative Colson, I know who's been working at the statewide level on H-478, which was a statewide bill that died a quiet death in house government operations. This last biennium, it was reflective of HR 40, which has died 31 quiet deaths at the national level the task force. So yeah, I think the work would be good. It'll be exciting. I just want to also point out for clarification our work with PR2, the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery from the state constitution of Vermont state constitution. Despite rumors of abolition of slavery, we do indeed 30 seconds read into our constitution, allows slavery for the punishment of crimes and debts and fines and the like and also under the age of 21, we are halfway through that process and getting our constitution amended. So I'm looking forward to this next biennium, Representative Colson, to move that policy further down the road so we can get it as a general referendum on the ballot for November of 2022 again. Thank you all for your work in this effort. It is truly historic and I appreciate that you are here and I'm sure that you are all up to the task. Thank you. If anyone else would like to speak for public forum, please do what the Racial Justice Alliance did and put it in the chat and then feel free to unmute yourself at that time. Seeing none, we're gonna move on. Like I said before, I am Tyisha Green. I do want to thank the Racial Justice Alliance for their work, their intellectual work and their physical work on ensuring that this resolution was pushed forward. I want to thank all of the city counselors who were involved in making sure that this resolution came to pass, specifically the sponsors of the resolution, Counselor Freeman, Hightower, Stromberg, Tracey, Hansen and Pine, this resolution did pass unanimously by the council and it did have a lot of input put into it from Counselor Karen Paul as well. So I do want to say thank you for that. I know that this work would not have been done without the council and without the Racial Justice Alliance. So I will feel remiss if I didn't acknowledge that. So what I would like to do now, I know we have two professors on the panel here. What I would like to do now is to go through the resolution and if either of you would like to read the resolution for our audience here, that will be great or we can split it up however you decide to do it. I wouldn't mind taking a page if you didn't want to read the whole thing or if you didn't want to split it up between you two but I feel like having professors on the task force might as well have them read. So I see Rebecca has grabbed hers already. So I will share my screen with the resolution on it and I will follow along as Rebecca reads it. All right, I'll get started. And then someone maybe you can jump in or Pablo you can jump in whenever you want. City of Burlington in the year 2020 resolved by the city council of the city of Burlington as follows that whereas each year since 1989 and up to on June 19th, 2019 a bill known as HR 40 commissioned to study and develop reparation proposals for African-Americans Act was introduced in the United States House of Representatives and whereas on February 27th, 2019 bill H 478 relating to establishing of a task force to study and consider a state apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery was introduced in the Vermont legislature and whereas in both HR 40 and H 478 it is stated that approximately 4 million Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 1865. The institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned by the government of the United States from 1789 through 1865. The slavery that flourished in the United States constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans life, liberty, African citizenship rights and cultural heritage and denied them the fruits of their own labor. A preponderance of scholarly legal community evidentiary documentation and popular culture markers constitute the basis for inquiry into the ongoing effects of the institution of slavery and its legacy of persistent systemic structures of discrimination on living African-Americans and society in the United States. And following the abolition of slavery the United States government at the federal, state and local level continued to perpetuate condone and often profit from practices that continued to brutalize and disadvantage African-Americans including sharecropping, convict leasing, Jim Crow, redlining, unequal education and disproportionate treatment at the hands of the criminal justice system. And as a result of the historic and continued discrimination African-Americans continue to suffer debilitating economic, educational and health hardships including but not limited to having nearly one million black people incarcerated yearly. And whereas the Vermont Senate and House approved into law 2020 PR2, Declaration of Rights clarifying the prohibition on slavery and indentured servitude, a constitutional amendment replacing exceptions whereby slavery is permitted for persons under 21 years of age and in instances where persons are bound by the owner's consent, own consent after arriving to such age or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs or the like with language stating that slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited. And whereas black generation exers born after April of 1968 were the first generation of blacks of African-American descent to be born free in the United States with the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 giving African-Americans the right to education, patronize public facilities and places, apply for jobs, act as a juror in state courts and voting, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 also made hate crimes based on race, a federal offense. And whereas systemic racism is at the heart of our economy and continues to adversely impact BIPOC people but most strikingly black Americans across all systems of society including employment, housing, education, access to health services, the justice system, economic development and across all systems of government and whereas the medium wealth of a black family is one-thirteenth the medium wealth of a white family and according to a report by the Public Assets and Institute and Burlington African-American people and families are most disproportionately impacted by poverty with an estimated 32.5% living in poverty. And whereas unemployment rates for African-Americans have averaged twice those of whites since data has been on record, the turn of a rate for the state of Vermont is three times that of whites and blacks are underrepresented in leadership positions and whereas black students are disciplined at far higher rates in our schools are far more likely to come in contact with the school resource officers and numerous reports speak to the racial disparities in schools in disproportionate police contact with black children. And whereas black Burlingtonians are exponentially far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested and be the target of police use of force, incident and their white counterparts and whereas per the council resolution, racial justice through economic and criminal justice which passed on June 29th, 2020 that declares racism a citywide health crisis and the city's declaration in conjunction with the Racial Justice Alliance that racism is a public health emergency. We remain mindful that stark and persistent health inequities exist in the United States based on race which are caused by systemic racism and whereas systemic racism is a principle social determinant of individual and public health impacting economic and employment, education, housing, justice and health opportunities and outcomes all of which further adversely impact the health of blacks and whereas the coronavirus is now exacerbating these disparities and black and Latino people in the US have been nearly three times as likely as white people to become infected with the virus and nearly two times as likely to die and those disparities are even more marked among younger age groups and whereas these same disparities exist in Vermont and during the current pandemic though black residents comprised just over 1% of Vermont's population they account for approximately 10% of the total confirmed COVID-19 cases as of July 8th, 2020 and whereas in housing only 4% of homes in Burlington are owned by blacks though people of color comprise 18% of Burlington's population and potential home applicants who are black are four and a half times more likely than white applicants to be denied for a home loan 83.3% to 18.2% and whereas in Chattenden County 26% of black residents are in poverty compared to 10.6% of white residents 8.1% of black residents are unemployed compared with 4.3% of white residents and 39.6% of black residents have a bachelor's degree or higher compared to 49.9% of white residents whereas the resolution racial justice through economic and criminal justice resolved that the city established a task for us to consider an apology and our reparations for the role that Burlington has played in chattel slavery and this council is committed to carrying through on the directives of this historic resolution. I think someone else maybe could take over now. Taisha or Pablo or anybody? Yes. I can take over. I was going to have you stop at 109 but I will take over now. Oh, okay. Do you want me to keep going to 109? I'm happy to do that if you want me to. Sure. Okay. Thank you, Rebecca. All right, sure. Now therefore be it resolved that a task force is established to study reparations and consider a proposal for reparations and consider a city apology for the institution of slavery and be it further resolved that the task force shall consist of five members. One member shall be appointed by the mayor or designee. One member shall be appointed by the president of the city council or designee. One member shall be appointed by the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. One member shall be appointed by the Vermont Human Rights Commission and the final member shall be the racial equity, inclusion and belonging director or designee and be it further resolved that members shall be drawn from diverse backgrounds to represent the interests of communities of color throughout the city, have experience working to implement racial justice reform to the extent possible, represent geographically diverse areas and shall serve as members for the life of the task force. Vacancies in the task force shall not affect the powers of the task force and shall be filled in the same manner that the original appointment was made and be it further resolved that the task force may consistent with all city procurement and other policies and all applicable laws and rules, recommend to the administration and the council the appointment of such personnel as the task force considers appropriate to carry out its mission, request that the REIB director procure supplies, services and property by contract in accordance with the task force budget below and the city's procurement policy and may recommend to the administration and the council that the city enter into contracts with departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the United States, agencies, private firms, institutions and agencies for the conduct of research or surveys, the preparation of reports and other activities necessary for the discharge of the duties of the task force and be it further resolved that any subcommittee member I'm sorry, any subcommittee or member of the task force may, if authorized by the task force, acquire directly from the head of any department agency or instrumentality of the city, available information that the task force considers useful in the discharge of its duties and all departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the city shall cooperate with the task force with respect to such information and shall furnish all information requested by the task force to the extent permitted by law. The task force shall keep confidential. Any information received from a public agency that is confidential or exempt from the Public Records Act and it further resolved. Rebecca, I wanna stop you right there. Okay, good. Thank you so much. Sure. I know that that was a lot to listen to and to hear. I'm gonna stop sharing. But I thought that it was important that everyone understands, everyone on the call understands why we're here and what the history, historical context of chattel slavery has been in this country and specifically here in Vermont. I had Rebecca stop at that point because the be it further resolved that the task force shall is what we're gonna be kind of delineating together and trying to figure out together what that means. As far as I understand this resolution, this portion of the resolution would be for persons or a person who is going to actually perform the work, who is actually going to perform the study itself. And that is something that we will have to discuss as a team, how do we create an RFP for that process? How do we select? What are the guidelines that we're looking for to select those people to perform these tasks? These are a lot of tasks. It's not something for the light at heart. It's definitely something that academic professionals would have to undertake. It's not something that someone randomly can do. And because of what the study is based on, that person or persons will have to have research backgrounds, research studies in chattel slavery, reconstruction, even as far as like the civil rights era that often looks back to the slavery era for answers to what was happening in the 60s. So that's where I am on that. I know that you probably haven't had a lot of time to read through the resolution, but does anyone have any other ideas about what Rebecca just read to us and any ideas about how do we push this work forward? Taysha, I have a question. So with what you were just talking about about people that we would consider qualified to do that work, if by some reason we're not able to find somebody or people who fit the bill locally, would we look outside of Burlington or Vermont or what are your thoughts about that? Definitely. There has been a lot of interest in this from academics from the Boston area, from where I am from, the University of Minnesota, from another town here in Vermont that's not in Burlington. Some from Maine. There's been academic professionals reaching out from Washington, D.C. So there's a lot of academic professionals who are interested in engaging on this work and have the resources, the time, which is most important, not only the resources, but the time to put in to ensure that we are conducting a sound study. I would also say that the Vermont Law School normally has a lot of really brilliant, young black law students that for some reason we never see in Burlington, but they are there. So... Yes, and they were very interested as well. So I have been in contact with black lawyers from the Vermont Law School who are interested in throwing their name in to be a part of this study. Oh, good. I think it's a great thing. That's good to hear. Thank you. Representative Colston? Yes, thank you. I think it would be interesting if we look outside the state to seek potential contractors who are in a community where they're undergoing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and there are a number of them around the country. Many of them are funded by the Kellogg Foundation. So that could be an interesting mix. I agree. I agree with not just having academics from this area. We did try early on in the process to reach out to academics in this area to see if they were interested or if they had the time. Most of them did not have the time to do a task as big as this. And so we started looking outside of Burlington at that point. I mean, I think you've probably already reached out to him and he may be one of the people who didn't have the time, but the first person who came to mind for me is one of my colleagues, Amani Whitfield, in the Department of History here at UVM who has worked extensively on this question in Vermont. And I hope we can twist his arm a little bit to at least get him to contribute in some way. I will reach out to him as well and hopefully get him, just given his expertise, I would hope we could get some kind of input from him. We can see if that's possible. I know that two people have reached out to him already and the mayor being one of them and the Racial Justice Alliance being the other. So he said no both times. But yeah, I would love to have him contribute in any way possible. I just know that that's something that he said no to. So I know. Fair enough, I'll throw my encouragement to him as well, but I hear you. Thank you, thank you. I wonder if Professor Whitfield or other professors have graduate students, but he might not have time to do this work, but they might be interested in it and have the time and it might be relevant to their research. Yeah, for sure. I want this process to be a little different than the regular RFP process. And if anyone else has any ideas, I mean, I'm not the only person on this committee. Everybody has equal weight here. But the RFP process, I didn't want it to be the similar type of RFP processes that we typically go through when you get like a thick stack of, you know, all of this, all the answers that you would need. I'm really just interested in what are your academic literature publications in regards to this topic? What are your focus areas as an academic? What is your interest level? Like a cover letter, a CV and just showing us with the work that they've already done how that applies here. And I think that that's an easier way to pick the people instead of going through, you know, 30 or 40 page decks depending on how popular this is and how many applicants we get. I would rather us to have something a little bit more limited to choose from. They're all academics so they're all going to be strong. I would go to you next Pablo, Representative Colston raises hand first. I'm sorry, I thought I lowered it. Okay. All right, okay, Pablo. The question I had was just looking at, I mean, you've already sort of said this, that the be it resolves, the actual work that is meant to be undertaken is extensive and to some degree, it's different kinds of work. There's part of it that's really looking at the specific history, the specific sort of evidence around Burlington. There's the other work that as Representative Colston pointed out is really more about looking at models of reparations of different mechanisms, things like that. So are we thinking also of potentially, I know this sounds like more work but breaking it into sort of sub RFPs that there might be different parts of this work that could be taken on by different consultants? I mean, we definitely could do sub RFPs. I was thinking of doing one RFP and having people explain their point of view and how they will contribute. So I was thinking definitely qualitative and quantitative researchers, definitely economists, definitely constitutional law, definitely those things. And so you're not gonna find all of that in one person. I mean, you could, but that's kind of crazy but you're not really gonna find all that in one person. So I was thinking that it would definitely be more than one person that is doing this work. There's no way that one person can do it. And there's no way that we should have one genre of academia focusing on the work either. I think it'll do an injustice to the project as a whole. And so having all those different points of view and coming at it in different ways to build a cohesive living document is what I was envisioning. Rebecca? Can you explain a little more sort of what our role is as our commission in relationship to this work that these people, you know, that we are anticipating people doing? You know, it took me a while to understand it myself. So as far as I understand, the way that we will be doing this work is overseeing the work that's being done and giving our input as to, hey, have you thought about this? Getting frequent reports from the people who are being paid to do the work and being able, like I said, to give a different lens to the work and asking for different things of the researchers and the academics. So as far as I understand, we will get that report ourselves. We will speak as a group about what it is we have read and what would our recommendations be based on the recommendations that are in that report. And we will be the ones that will be presenting that information to the mayor and to the city council. So I would also say that one of the ways that I envision my role being like useful and relevant is that I'll be bringing, you know, reports back to the Racial Justice Alliance, you know, as, you know, as I can. Okay. So would it, oh, I'm sorry. Would it be appropriate for me? So I'm thinking of kind of two groups of people that I know that maybe might be interested in doing some of this work. And one would be legal scholars who are critical race theorists who've written about issues of reparations. And the other would be historians who, I have some contacts in the society, with the Society of Civil War historians, which I know have been very, very interested in sort of both public education and sort of working on the, how does the history affect the now? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Okay, definitely. I think that, you know, to limit ourselves would be a disservice. So historians for sure, you know, constitutional law scholars for sure. Like I think that we need to have all hands on deck in order to make this happen and make this not believable, but sound. And so I never envisioned this being done by one person or one entity since it first landed on my desk, not one time have I thought, yeah, this is gonna be just one person. This is a lot of work. This is, you know, kind of like, and I don't have my PhD, but it is kind of like doing a dissertation in a year. And that's a lot of work. And I would not expect one, even an academic who has gone through that process to be able to do that by themselves. So, Pablo? So would it be helpful? I mean, we've already started to mention people who are coming to mind that we either know or that we know of, you know, I was thinking about William Garrity's work in North Carolina on reparations. And we've had him here at UVM before William Garrity. I'm sorry? Yeah, yeah. Before William Garrity. Right, right, right, fair enough. But I mean, there's, you know, you can even think of some of his students who've done some of this work, right? I mean, I'm just thinking, would it be helpful for us to just start listing people that we either know or that we know of? And we can then start to whittle down, like thinking about reaching into those networks and seeing, you know, whose expertise we can draw on. So just as sort of an initial step. I think that's a good idea, but we do have to follow the rules of our procurement process. So it does have to be RFP. They do have to like submit themselves. And it's nice to have names and it's nice for us to be able to reach out to those people and say, hey, this is what we're doing, but you have to like do this section, send this in, send it to any of us at this point. And then we'll come together as a group and we'll decide which team of people would be best to push forward the work. We do have a budget that will be limiting in our efforts here. And that's something that we could possibly go back to council and say, hey, we need more money. Or, you know, cause right now we have $50,000 and that is not a lot of money to do this type of work. So if you're looking at the younger PhDs that might be good, I know that there's a person I have in mind from University of Minnesota that is all, is he's ready to do this work? He's like, this is his life work that he wants to jump in and be a part of. So I don't think the pay will be issued for him. A person like William Dr. Darity, who I followed intensely during my graduate degree. I would love to have him. I just don't think that that is possible. But if he can come and speak or do something like that, that will be great as well. I would love that. That would be a dream come true actually. So, but yeah, I think that we have to keep in mind that there is only $50,000 and if we can have five people and divvy it up in that way and say, okay, there's a $10,000 maximum for each person or submit another proposal to the city council to get additional funds to make sure that this happens properly. Christine. Can we use other sources? I mean, what if there was somebody else outside of the city that wanted to contribute to this effort? Fund-wise, you know, funding for funding, for a funding source? I would have to check into that. I don't know if that's okay or not. And so on our next meeting, I'll make sure I have someone from legal to answer these questions from the city standpoint to make sure that we're doing, following the city's procurement policies. And so are we as a group gonna be meeting once a month? I'm not sure if I might have missed that or how are we working together? You have not missed it. We are, that's the next agenda item to talk about what our meeting schedule is gonna look like for us as a group. I think that the most important thing is making sure that we get this RFP going and get that posted and having people that we know will be interested, apply to that. And then coming back as a group and looking at those. So we can discuss that. And then after we get the RFP going and we select that person, maybe we don't have to meet as often. But that's something that we can decide together. Okay. I also need to decide picking a chair for this task force as well. So that's something that I would like you all to think about as we go forward in this process, we should have a chair before our next meeting or have chair nominations, at least before our next meeting as well. Okay. All right. Any other questions surrounding the, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead, Representative Costa. Sure. Just another potential resource. I've been doing some work recently with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. And they're actually doing our deep dive around the racial wealth gap in our region. So they have a lot of data and it could be a free resource just to tap into in terms of how we pull together the kind of data we need to look at. Oh, fabulous. That'll be great. And I have the name of a contact if you wanna connect offline. So. Awesome. Thank you. Sure. All right. Any other comments, questions? I know that I stopped us before we got to the be it further resolved. And I did that because I want us to really like just digest the the whereas clauses and understand that in these be it further resolved, it's not going to be us that's doing it. It's going to be the people we bring about to do this work. So without any objections, I will move on to the next agenda item, which is committee meeting schedule. How often would we like to meet and does anyone have any thoughts on that? I mean, I'm kind of curious, Taisha and I can see that you're not trying to, you know, set that forth as like, you know, exactly what our schedule should be. But I am curious to think what, I mean, to hear what your thoughts are about how often, what's your recommendation about how often we would meet? Well, I think that it solely depends on who's writing the RFP and are we gonna be able to collaborate on that together? I'm gonna assign that to someone. If you want me to take the first crack at it and send it out to people to readjust, I'm happy to do that as well. But once we have that RFP and we have that posted, I think that we could meet a little less often. So going forward, I would say for the first month or two until we are actually bring the people on, which I would hope would be in December sometime. So I want this to go really quickly. Like by the second week of December, we have our team, we have our research team and they have been, you know, operationalized to do the work. And then we can meet less often at that point. That's what, but I think, but I think bi-weekly maybe until we get to that point. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Okay. I agree. You don't want to agrees with that? All right. So we're gonna meet bi-weekly. I will have my staff with me at the next meeting and they will be able to help us out with anything that we need. And I will say that by our next meeting, so if we do this bi-weekly, I will have to at least by next Friday a first draft of this RFP. And then by the time we meet the next time, we can, you know, decide together that we have a solid draft to post and then we can enjoy Thanksgiving or maybe it'll be after Thanksgiving. And then we can post it and have our responses and choose at that point. Does that sound like a good timeline to everyone? Okay. So the discussion of selecting a task force chair. Does anyone have any thoughts? Do you want to do it? Do you want to nominate someone to do it? I'd like to nominate Hal. Okay. Hal, are you prepared to chair this task force? I will consider it. And certainly, you know, the floor has opened any other thoughts. So, but thank you, Christine. Absolutely. Any other thoughts on who can be the chair? Hal said he will consider it and then we can either vote today or we can vote next time we meet. Yeah, let's give Hal a chance to think about it. Okay. Hal and I, we used to, we did some work the way back in the day with the Uncommon Alliance and trying to get some data. That's right. So Hal and I have great history. Awesome. You're the pioneer, Christine. You're the pioneer. I was going to say you are Hal. Great. All right. So let's take it from there. And the next time we meet, we'll have another discussion. I'll make sure that that's on the agenda to nominate and select a chair of this group. And it will move forward from there. How does that sound? Sounds great. Good. All right. Are there any questions? And I do want to give, I know that this is not something that other committees typically do. I do want to give the people who have joined us and an opportunity to ask any questions or make any, have us clarify something. If you would like, just put it in the chat and then I will call on your name if you want to do that. Here's the next meeting on the 25th. Isn't that Thanksgiving? It's the day before. It's the day before Thanksgiving? I don't know about that. What does everyone think about that? I mean, it's not like we're going anywhere, but I'm going to be here. It's not like we're going to be anywhere. So it could be the 25th, yes, RJA. Marsha Johnson asked, just wondering if there's a link to the document you all were reading from earlier. Yes, that document should be on board docs. It was a resolution that was passed. Let's see if there's a date on here. August or something? Yeah, sometime, August 4th. So it is on board docs and I can make sure that it's also on this page on board docs as well. Stand up a web presence with updates. Yes, as soon as I get my, the question was, can you stand up a web presence with updates? As soon as I have my staff on board, which will happen on November 16th, one of their first tasks would be to set up a website including a web presence for this group as well. No problem. Okay. Any other questions before we adjourn for the evening? Any comments or questions from the task force or from the audience? Are you feeling better, Taysha? I am. Good. You know, antibiotics work. They kill everything though. They kill the good stuff and the bad stuff. Right. But yeah, I'm feeling okay. I was gonna say, I love how you run a meeting. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Whoever said that. Me too. Oh, thank you. Thank you. RJA, you have your hand raised. Just wanna thank everybody again for what y'all are doing. This is a really big deal. A really big deal. I see that it's being recorded. I'm hoping that maybe there will be some place where that'll be posted. I see that. Tom meeting is here. So it'll be on television, but I'd like to know, hopefully we can get it put somewhere where folks can pull it down so they can show their grandchildren because it's a really big deal. So again, I just wanna thank everybody for signing up because I know it's a huge commitment. It's a sacrifice that you're making to do the work. So I just personally appreciate it. And I just wanted to twist Representative Colson's arm just a little bit and let him know that it would be awesome if he was the chair, but I'm just meddling now, Hal. It's good to see you. Guys, have a good evening. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all Marsha Johnson as well. All right. Well, I appreciate everyone coming. I guess I have to ask for a motion to adjourn. Is there a motion to adjourn? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming. We'll see you on the 25th. See you soon. Okay. Thank you. Great to meet y'all. You too. I'm hard to working with you.