Bismillah, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen Wa Salatu Wa Salam Al-Rusul Al-Kareem Wa Al-Alihi Wa Sahbihi Wa Min Tabiat Sunnah Tahu Ilayyumuddin As-Salaamu Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh Welcome again to another episode of your weekly Islamic chat show Lift by Islam And today inshallah we'll talk about something that in theory everybody has generally speaking and that is some kind of friends or some kind of companions and we want to focus today on the effect of having bad friends or bad companions and to do that with me is Ustad Abdur-Rahman Hassan As-Salaamu Alaykum Wa Alaykum As-Salaam Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh Zakhirullah for coming on again Now like I said, I mean in theory everyone has at least a few friends if not more and friends are something that in many a time we see that the kind of companions that someone has can either lead them to a good way or leave them to a bad way so we want to kind of talk today on the importance of having good friends and the effects that bad friends can have on your in your religion as you as a Muslim Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen Lahu Alhamdulillahi Hassan Wa Al-Thana'u Al-Jameel Wa Shadu Allah Illa Allah Wa Hdahu La Shariqa La Yaqulul Haqqa Wa Hu Wahdil Sabeel Wa Shadu Anna Sayyidina Wa Nabina Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Alaa Ali Wa As-Shaabihi Wa Al-Tabi'ina Lohun Bi-Hasanin Ila Yawmi Dina Ma Baad Friends no doubt as Allah SWT when he brought us into this world he made inside us the desire of wanting to live with one another we can't generally live without each other humans we are nature is to be around each other so what the Shari'a did was the Shari'a here has to work with our essence and how Allah created us so Allah SWT so our well-being and the way we are is good Allah SWT he told us who we should be in their company and whose company we shouldn't be in and that is why our messenger SAW was commanded in one verse who he should be with and who he shouldn't hang around with this is the prophet of Allah Wa Sbir Nafsaka Wa Sbir Nafsaka Ma Al-Ladina Yad'una Rabbuhum Bil Ghadati Wa Al-Ashi Yuriduna Wajah Wa La Ta'adu Ainaka Anhum Yuridu Zina Ta'a Hayati Dunya Wa La Ta'adu Ainaka Anhum Wa La Ta'adu Ainaka Anhum Yuridu Zina Ta'a Hayati Dunya Wa La Ta'adu Ainaka Anhum Wa Ta'a Hawa Hawa Kana Amruhu Furrao Ta Allah SWT be patient with the righteous people Wa Sbir Nafsaka Ma Al-Ladina Yuriduna Rabbuhum Bil Ghadati Wa Al-Ashi Yuriduna Wajah Those people who supplicate into Allah who are hoping for paradise and jannah be patient with them and stay with them Mohamed Then Allah says in the same verse Wa La Tut'a Man Adhafana Qalbahu An Diqlina and do not obey nor should you be with those who are evil those who are the oppressors Also Allah says in another ayah And from this point onwards When the reminder has come to you Don't be in the surrounding of the wrongdoers The criminals So the person has to stay away from it If our prophet was told Stay away from the evil people To be with the righteous people And he's the best who ever walked on this earth He is Aleyhi Salatu Wasalaam Guided by the book of Allah And he was told Be with the righteous ones And don't be with those who are Those who are evil in the wrongdoers Not only that The Sahab has realized That the effect that it has on them Who they are around You know the famous hadith of When he said When we're with you Our Eman creases We're righteous It's like we can see the Jannah and the Nahr But when we are With our wives and our children Our Eman, it decreases The Prophet SAW said If you are The way you are with me In your houses The angels will come down And they will shake your hands In the path on the roads In other words Your Eman increases in my gathering They admitted that So when you're with the righteous person An obedient individual You as an individual deserve So your Eman increases Your Eman increases And the fear of Allah SWT The conscious of him If you read Surah Tulkaf Allah SWT He mentioned to us The young kids The youth who were in the cave The youth who were in the cave Allah told us about them But Allah mentioned something else with them And what is it that he mentioned He mentioned the dog The scholars of Tafsir they said The dog got mentioned Because he was with the righteous people So Allah mentioned them Mentioned the dog Because the dog was in a company Of righteous people And now the dog deserves to be spoken about And he deserves to be mentioned In verses that are going to be Read till the day of judgment So imagine if a person is hanging around With the righteous You're a human You're not a dog You're a human And you're in the gathering of righteous people Then it benefits Your Eman is going to increase But it's like you know The famous Hadith of the Prophet Allah SWT Which is in Sahi'ah That the Prophet SAW He said About a person who goes by a gathering He's not sitting in the gathering He's not here to listen to the lecture He's just going by So the angels are told Write every one of them In the book of the righteous They write his deeds for them And Allah has forgiven each and every one of them Angels they say Allah there is a person in that gathering Who isn't from them He's just a bypass He's just bypassing by And he wants to leave What did the Prophet SAW say? He said They are a people The one who sits with them Is never going to lose out Just by being with these righteous people now And being in their gathering He's got a reward with it And that's something I always say to people You know Even if you say to yourself You know I'm not a student of knowledge I'm never going to be At least try to attend these gatherings Even if you're sitting in the back somewhere Because inshallah you'll fall under this thing And you know Yomul Qiyamah When you need something And your sins have mounted up And your bad deeds Overwear your good deeds This could be what takes you out Just because Like you said You happen to be someone Who's like passing by Who just happens to go That doesn't maybe make notes Doesn't But you're in that good environment Therefore You know you're affected by I mean that kind of reminds me Of that famous hadith Where Prophet SAW said I mentioned that the good companion Is having a good companion Is like the person who's Like the perfume seller And if you go to this perfume seller You're at least going to get You know you're going to Either he's going to give you A perfume as a gift Or you're going to leave with that smell And then he gave the comparison Of the bad friend Or the evil friend Being like the blacksmith That either your clothes Will be completely burned From the sparks Or the very minimum You'll leave having a bad smell Of this burn And that's the problem So you know It's important that we Look who we're going to be Hanging around with Because it's no doubt That you're affected And as you know The Prophet SAW said The person is on the religion Or the way of his companion So let each one of you look Who he takes as a companion So there's no doubt And I think any of us From true life experience When you start to hang out With a certain group of people No matter how honest you are Or how pious you are And you hang out If you start to accompany Those who are less pious Or truthful Or they do certain things It ends up affecting you There's no way you don't leave Like Hadith says At least with that bad smell For example Some bad trace Will be on you from that I remember one time The Hadith that you mentioned Which is in Sahihain From Haditha In Musa Al-Asha'ali In the Mammatah Al-Jalees Al-Sadiha Al-Jalees Al-Suq Al-Qahamin Al-Miski Al-Nafiq Al-Qir The Prophet SAW In that Hadith When I read it to a group Of youngsters one time I remember One of the youngsters I've always wanted to pray the Salah And I've always been stopped From praying Because of a group of people I was with They ridiculed me When I put my head on the floor They laughed at me Are you going to pray now Look how young you are And he said I missed a lot of my righteous deeds Because of the people I was with And of course I said to him Alhamdulillah You've at least realized it now Because you could have been From those who Allah says You might regret the day of Jinn When you come That you're hanging around With the people who've Diverted you from the path Of the Prophet SAW And you cry about it And so Your friends don't just Benefit you here This is the thing that Many people don't understand That the friendship Is one that carries The righteous friend It goes on with you To the hereafter as well And so You might regret The day of Jinn When you come That you're hanging around With the people who've Diverted you from the path Of the Prophet SAW And you cry about it And so To the hereafter as well Allah tells us The two people The believers And the disbelievers Allah says about the believers He says That the Brothers that day The day of Jinn Who are very close With one another Who are caring For one another The righteous ones And it's funny Because Your mother's going to Run away from you that day Your children are Going to run away from you Your relatives are Going to run away from you But the ayah here Is to be together that day The righteous friends Who are together in good You see Another thing is The disbelievers They're going to wish When they go to the hellfire If they only had a good friend They say We don't have No intercessor today No we have A caring friend Who could really care for us So the disbelievers Are going to regret The fact that They don't have good friends That Could have brought them here And not even friends Are going to care for them Rather The evil friend that you take Is going to free himself From you the day of judgment That day The friend that you were Hanging around with Who's evil Who took you away from The straight path Not only is he Not going to help you But he's also Going to free himself From you He'll abandon you there And he's going to Walk away on you that day So As you said Also the prophet Said Don't be a friend Except a righteous person When you're friending somebody Make sure that it's a righteous person That you're with Who you are around And Today If you think about it Any person Who hangs around with a person Who's not righteous You realize that That there's a reason Why you chose this person Because you never see A pigeon fly with a duck The poet would say Don't ask about him Ask about his friend For verily the friend Follows what his friend does If I really want to know Who you are Ismail I just have to ask What type of people are you around Who are around you Who's around you Are they people who are good Righteous Or are you around wrongdoers And criminals If you're around wrongdoers And criminals It's funny because I had nowadays When they interview people And they're taking it from companies They look at their Facebook friends And who they hang around with And how they share And how they share It gives the people an understanding That's how you think And this is who you are And I will lie in the UK We've learned this principle Truly and it's a reality Which is That a friend drags you down He takes you down with him A lot of youngsters we've seen Who went in prison Some of them who were in prison You know He's taking a crime Of another friend of his So are you going to switch Are you going to tell me What will happen But he's taking a sentence For a person that Does really even care about you And if you actually sit With a lot of them And you ask them Why have you ended up in where you are It's just His friends pushed him Pushed him to a level That made him so evil And so bad So La Shaka wa Al-Araib An evil friend Is what destroys a person And a good friend Is what uplifts you And makes you And that's what Imam Shafiq said He said If it wasn't for two things I would never have wished I would never have chosen To live in this world The first one is He said Standing up in light And he said And the companionship Of righteous people He said With these two Imam Shafiq said Is why I wished And I loved to live here It's because of the friends That I have The righteous people around And also The Qiyamul-Lil And the praying at night So the daytime When you wake up You have those people Who you could Who would increase your Eman There's a story I'm going to mention Which is What I read is called Fiqhul-Adriyati What I've written by Sheikh Abdul-Razaq Ibn Abdul-Mahsin Al-Abad Al-Badr Hafidahullah Wata'ana I read this book I finished it And I read it once Not twice Not three times I even summarized the Kitab And all the benefits I needed from it I wrote a content page For it I benefited from this I'd book I'd done it I gave my mind to it It's a Kitab Which is very comprehensive By the Sheikh He summarized All of the works And Ibn al-Qayyim In this Kitab In this book of his Sheikh Abdul-Razaq This book Increased my Eman Without a shadow of it That And it made me really admire The dua and the adhkar But it didn't touch me As much as When I met him He Came a visit to us In a city In which I was at Which is In Saudi Arabia I was in Ha'il At this particular time The Sheikh came over To Ha'il And he had a lecture To give for us Which was called At Tawakul And before he started the lecture He prayed Salatul Maghrib And I ended up praying Right next to him Maghrib On the front row I prayed right next to him He was right next to me On my right And when the adhan went off Before the iqama The shikh lifted his hands up And he made dua And I could hear What he's saying I could hear The words that were coming Out of his mouth Number one Seeing him The way he was Begging Allah Supplicated It really touched me It truly touched me I was amazed It really made me Honor the concept of dua The second thing is One of the du'as That he was saying The sheikh I heard Is that Allahumma inni Ya'udu bika minyum su Oh Allah I see Refugee in you From an evil day And from that same Du'a hadith Hadith in the Imam of Tabarani In writing this Du'a In it is that Wa min sahib Su Two things I left with Number one Is the sheikh's action Just by being Around his Perfume shop I benefited Knowing the importance of it The second thing is The du'a that he made He would seek refuge From Allah From a bad friend Which the Prophet used to do A.S. So it's amazing that With being Sometimes reading Volumes of books But hanging around With the righteous person It could be more beneficial for you I think on that point We'll just We've got about Three or four minutes left So we've obviously discussed The importance of Having good friends We mentioned different hadith About the effect of Having good friends And we've mentioned The effect of having Evil friends So maybe in the next Three minutes Just to end the show Do you have any tips For people Who On how to Try and stay away From bad friends And some advice You would give them For those who keep Making bad friends Or keep going back To that old group Of friends That they're trying to Stay away from Without a doubt A bad friend Is always found In bad places So a bad friend Is always found In a bad place And if you're looking For a righteous friend You're always going to Find the righteous friend In a good place That's why The Sahabas They knew that It was the masjid And we mentioned the hadith That these people Who were going through The circle Who were sitting down Just to listen to the lecture But they're not from it They gained the reward Of being forgiven Because they came To the righteous people's hub The righteous people The masjids And so they came there And then they got The reward with it They accompanied The righteous people In their place So this is the truth This is the reality A lot of people say I always tend to fall In the hands of the wrong People The reality is that You're probably going To the wrong places If you come to the masjid If you come to the circles Of knowledge You'll always find The righteous people If you connect yourself To the masjid You're going to find The righteous people And as a prophet He said to us in the hadith Allah is with the Jama'a Where the Muslims are And the devil eats The wolf eats The goat that is alone Or the sheep that is alone If you ever want To know if A shaitan is going to get you He's going to first Take you from the Jama'at Of the muslims He's going to take you From the masjid If you look at every person Who became deviated Whether in their beliefs Whether they became Sinners You'll always find That they're not connected To the masjids They can't So that's why I say That if you want to attain Or want to have good friends Around you You have to go to the right places You have to hang around With the righteous people Another thing is that A lot of us have In a fiority complex We feel like We're low We look down at ourselves And anyone who's Out there is better than us And because you have that in you You always can be influenced By others But if you're a strong minded person You have You respect your religion And no one can really Like if you want to go to Salah You say I want to go to Salah If you want to Read Quran I want to read the Quran And I feel like Because you have Peer pressure You feel You look down at your own name And your deen A lot of these people They feel like Without even bad friends They go to school But they think They have to change their name Just have to change it They just don't let people say Mohamed They say Mo There's no friends there Nothing But they have the fiority complex So where does this all come from? Coming to the masajids Where you feel honour in your deen You feel honour in your religion And Allah SWT He gives us good friends And makes us righteous JazakAllah JazakAllah for coming on the show And also to the viewers InshaAllah we've given Some good points there On the importance of having good friends And the effects Of having bad friends And some tips inshaAllah So inshaAllah until I'm in the same place Within the next week I'll leave you as always With the greetings of As-salam As-salamu alaikum Warahmatullahi wabarakatuh


Hey, good evening, and welcome to an extremely special edition of Montpellier Civic Forum, which as all of you know, who've watched the show, it's normally done in the winter. It's done after January, after people have declared as candidates, and we're preparing for town meeting day. And this is going to be really special because in the reopening, I wanted to get an assessment from the people who know as to what in the world is going on. So we're going to have a couple of really good shows. Bill Fraser will be here, in fact he's here right now with me, and Watson will be here with the overview from the mayor's seat. We're going to have Libby and Jim from the schools to talk about what is going on, what has gone on with the schools, what is the planning, and what their projection on the fall is. And then hopefully this one hasn't been firmed up, but I believe it will happen. We're going to have a really good one with the two police chiefs. The outgoing chief and the new chief, where they'll discuss 21st century policing, and you'll get some sense of how the baton is being passed from one police chief who's been working on this issue to the next police chief. That's going to be a very good one. As I said, tonight I have Bill Fraser, and I'm really pleased, and I want to tell you that yes indeed, I do have the mask. And the mask is right here, and Bill has his mask over there. We're 10 feet apart. I just thought you wanted to see us talking. So we are following the protocols when we leave. We'll have the masks on. And Bill, I want to thank you for being here. My pleasure. I'm always happy to talk to you. You notice I haven't dropped in your office in City Hall for a while? That's because we've been closed and locked. Well, not for once, I'm trying. That's right. The last that we spoke was the COVID was here. We didn't address it at all. It wasn't at all. It just was not on the horizon of Vermont in early February. And then I have to do the corny joke now. And how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? It's been a wild ride for you. It sure has. We're in our 14th week.  I mean, it feels, you know, I just, you know, I was kidding, but we, our city hall is locked and we don't have public coming in. And that's for a safety precaution. But for, you know, our business is to work with our people and to be accessible. So it's strange. It feels odd in there.  And it's, but that's the least of our problems. I mean, there are people out of work. There are, you know, people who are hurting and suffering. And we're just trying to figure out how to provide the most basic essential services to people. And at the same time balance our budget because we've taken a lot of financial hit ourselves. We're the public. Yeah. And so we obviously don't want to run up a deficit on behalf of the public, nor do we want to have to raise additional revenues that people are, you know, having a hard enough time paying the ones they're expected to pay. So it's, it's been challenging in that regard. And, and then obviously other events have just added to, to our level of activity. Now I hope again, this is another one of those shows. John Odom has said he'll come in to speak about delinquent property taxes and the like. Moving on with that. So we just, the taxes were just due on the 15th. So two days ago, as we're filming this, right now it appears we're about on our normal target, maybe just a shade behind. I'm getting a full report tomorrow actually, but got the snapshot today and it was, you know, about where we normally are. So, so far so good. But again, it's hard to say because people have been getting, they've been getting the additional unemployment, you know, I worry about what might actually happen for the next quarter's installment when, when people don't necessarily, maybe don't have those benefits if work isn't back. So we're, you know, this is not a one-off. This is, this is the one time we're going to have this problem. We're concerned, but it's going to have a big impact going into the future. Now people are learning in city hall, people have always known this, the importance of the parking fund. Could you discuss? Well, you know, parking first and foremost is designed to manage parking downtown. And I think that is important that people understand, you know, we're, we're trying to make sure that there's turnover to make sure that there's, you know, parking is allocated in a way so that people can get to businesses, but not stay all day and employees aren't parking on, on the street all day. But that includes costs for the employees. That includes the costs of leasing parking spaces. It includes costs of maintaining parking spaces. And all of that comes from the revenues either from the meters or parking lot permits or from fines. And that includes offsets to some of our police departments work because they deal with some of that and some of our DPW and that kind of thing. How long have the beaters been free at this point? Well, so we turned them off the very first meeting in March after the pandemic hit. Once the governor's orders came to basically close down businesses, there was, you know, at that point there was no parking demand and it seemed cruel to charge people to park to come to an empty downtown for the one or two things that they might be able to legally do or take out or whatever. And the policy need wasn't there. There was no need to manage parking. So we turned off the meters at that point and, you know, we were now having regular conversations. We do see a lot of people parking, but we don't know how many of them are all day, you know, business owners or people at how many more shoppers. So we're trying to keep, you know, work with Montpelier alive to talk to the businesses to get a sense of when they feel it's needed again. But in the meantime, it's costing us this money. What's a rough estimate of how much we've lost in parking? In parking? Three or $400,000 probably, yeah. Just in a quarter. Well, no, that's high, $200,000 in a quarter. Which sizable hit? Yeah, it's a very sizable hit, sure. Is there any other revenue at the senior center? I think we've lost revenue there. Where else have we lost revenue? So, yeah, that's a great question because a lot of people ask, including our own employees, you know, gee, we've passed our budget. What's the problem? Well, our budget was passed on, you know, so much coming from property taxes and so much from water and sewer, but it also included, you know, parking revenues, program revenues, user revenues, user fees. So all the rec programs, all the senior center programs, rooms, meals and alcohol taxes, you know, we have a 1% local options tax for those items.  So that basically went away. We have our payment lieu of taxes. We haven't got it. Would you explain what that is? Sure. So the state pays... That's known as pilot? Pilot, correct. So the state pays a pilot payment to communities that have state properties and it's based on the value of those state properties. We, of course, have the highest pilot payment of anybody in the state because of all of our downtown. And all told, it's about $900,000. It's, you know, they're up to a sizable payment. But that money comes from local options tax including local sales taxes from towns and cities all around the state. So when a town like Montpelier enacts a local options tax in our case rooms, meals and alcohol, we keep 70% and the rest of the 30% goes to the state. I think they keep five for administration and then the remaining 25 goes into the pilot fund. And then all that money is pooled and then redistributed to towns and cities that own state land. So the more the parking in with it too. So in order to... But we don't know and we don't know what kind of comeback there will be. We don't know when we're going to start parking. We don't know when local options will start coming in. We don't know... There's so many unknowns. So basically we've taken what we hope is a worst case scenario but we also don't know that. It could get lower. And we've said, all right, we're going to review this recorder and see how we're doing. Are we doing better? Can we put some things back? Or do we need to hold? Or should we be cutting... What if we take it away? Going to get to that. So I'm just trying to explain how we're approaching the problem. So what we tried to look at were what could be deferred or delayed. And I think this is really... And I will talk specifically. I'm not trying to talk around but I think it's important for people to understand if this were going to be a permanent one and a half million dollar reduction. Like never coming back. We would look at our budget entirely differently. I think we'd be saying, okay, we've got to reduce programs. We've got to reduce staff. We've got to ratchet down to this new level. Because we think it's a one to one and a half year issue, the question is how can we continue providing the services that people expect from us and put things on hold? So we've got a fair amount of street projects. We're still going to do three this summer, but we've deferred three or four of them. And again, when we say deferred, it doesn't mean canceled because maybe by springtime we'll be back in a position to do them. That's still in the same fiscal year. So we've got capital budget. We've got about 300,000 in equipment out of our 500,000 that we're again, we're putting off. Like I said, maybe next spring, still in the same fiscal year. Revenues are better. We can get caught up again. We've furloughed 25 employees that we have since March. What's the denominator? 25 or... Out of about 110. Okay. Some, about 11 of those will come back on July 1 just because of summer needs. The remainder will stay through until August 1, and then we'll, we're planning to have them come back unless the bottom has fallen out. We're freezing about five or six positions that are open right now that we think we can keep open at least for some we're going to freeze for the whole year. Some we're just going to freeze for the first quarter. So for example, there's a couple of vacant public works positions and we think we can get to October without them. We know we need them for the winter. It's going to snow whether we're having a pandemic or not and we need to clear the road. So we need to be prepared for that. So we're really trying to look at all the different ways that we can hold the line without completely reshaping our government until we know that that's something that we have to do. So it's a challenge but our staff has been great from the working people to the management folks really have been thinking and offering suggestions and most of our departments with the exception of the public safety departments have been running short because of the furloughs and they're just making it work. They're really, they're just doing what they can. DPW has really, I think they've got six or eight people out and they're just making it happen as best as they can.  Yes, the lines haven't been painted in the streets yet. Those are kinds of things that we might normally have done by now but we're on it. We're working. We're trying to, we have to still have to respond to water leaks or whatever other emergencies you have. Our rec department has been almost completely furloughed so people see that grass hasn't been... What is going on with recreation in terms of the summer camps? The mountaineers have been canceled. The mountaineers have been canceled. The pool is not going to open just because we can't manage the close proximity of people and the costs. There are going to be summer camps. They're going to have to be managed completely differently. They're going to be in more locations with smaller groups and there are some guidance now from the state about how to do them. So I think last year we had about 130, 140 camp slots. We might have about 80 this year. So, you know, significant reduction in opportunities for people. And the information on that, the up-to-date information is on the recreation department site? Yes, and as they're developing it. And again, they're just going to be bringing back some of their program people after July 1. When do you think that will begin the summer camp? I think in July once they get the folks on board. Yeah, that is really one of their number one, you know, planning things. And the same with the senior center. Well, I'm going to come to that in a second. Same issue. If there's a reduction in slots from 120 to 80, will Montpelier residents have priority for those 80 slots? I believe that's correct. Yeah, I think that's right. That's usually the way it works anyway. What about the casual pickup softball game? As I understand it from the governor, softball, well, so the problem that we have with city facilities. So as I understand it, softball is apparently okay because that's inherently as long as you don't stand too close in the dugout. If you're going to catch her in the bathroom. Right, exactly. So, you know, there's some guidance there, but we're not running our leagues and part of the problem we have with playgrounds is the city only has two playgrounds that it manages. The rest are under the school. So the school is following their own protocols as they're getting from Department of Ed, which are slightly different than ours. Olivia and Jim will speak to that. Yeah, exactly. But we have not opened our playgrounds because we can't, we don't have people clean them. So we can't go in and sterilize them. Which playgrounds are you speaking of? So there's the one on Elm Street by the pool. And then the one behind the senior center on Berry Street. Those two are the city's playgrounds in our school. What about Tom River? That's not really a playground. It's a baseball field. Right, yeah. But I was specifically talking about playgrounds because we can't, we can't go in and sterilize and say that this is safe to use. Are people using them? They probably are. Well, not really. They're signs up. You know, there may be people using them, but we're not actively supporting that. The same thing with the fields. We haven't had the people to mow them. So we're just starting to get, you know, doing the field maintenance and those kinds of things that four people who are going to use them, you know, spread out, play frisbee or something like that. But most of the organized activities that we normally have won't occur because of the safety. We just can't guarantee. Which brings us to the Berry Street facility. Is that closed? The one across from the senior center? Yes. It is closed. How do you anticipate? Now, again, when you and I spoke about that facility in February, we were talking about possibly replacing that facility. I'm going to zig and zag for this. What are the plans on that? The city council took a formal vote. You know, they had been on track, as I think we talked about in February, they had that as a bond vote in November. They said no earlier than next March and it's really going to depend on the economy and people, you know, they don't see that. Now, what was the plan that would have been as we're zigging and zagging? So the plan was it was about a $5 million, $5 to $6 million renovation of that building to more modern use, handicapped accessible, better lighting, better HVAC. You know, and there's a huge amount of space in the basement that's really unusable that would free them in the arm. Right, but in the basement of the gym. Yeah, exactly. So open up a lot more space for public use, make it more accessible, and then we would also be able to run camps and things in it. And other programs right now, you can't really have any formal programming in there because it's not ADA accessible. So the plan is was to invest money to renovate that building. That may still be the plan in the future, but it will certainly won't be in the short term because of until people's financial. But in the short term, we plan to open that building again when appropriate. We'll open it to the extent that it was open before. At some point. That will not close waiting for the new building. No, I don't believe so. Let's cross the street to the senior center. So they've been closed and that makes sense. You know, that's one of the more vulnerable populations. They are still serving their meals and the meals on wheels. And then there's a, I couldn't explain exactly how it works, but you can go and I think get a meal and do take out. And that's been still a successful program and delivering meals. But in terms of regular programming, they're trying to do some online and they are working with the state to try to come up with protocols to reopen senior centers. But really, if we're going to be cautious, like that's the place we're going to be the most cautious because the elder population is the highest risk. So again, it would have to be, we have to really pay attention to our cleaning protocols and our distancing and what kind of programs we offer. And so they're trying to get creative. You know, can you do an exercise class on zoom where you to try to maintain the community? Yeah. And also the services that people, you know, people like and use. And so could someone teach you how to do yoga when you watch them on the screen and do it at your own home? And you know, how does that work? So we're, we're trying to figure that all out. Yes. Again, there's, we've reduced most of the staff there, but the couple of folks that are still there are trying to figure out how to retool the place to. Let's stay on social services. The city has about a hundred thousand dollars that it subcontracts for social services. What's going on with that funding that's external now? Right. The community fund you're talking about. Yes. We have, so that is not on our cut list for this, for our projected cuts for a couple of reasons. One, I think social issues are critical. There are services there that the city can't provide, you know, battered women's shelters and all those kinds of things, you know, services for addictions, services for, you know, health and hospice. These are all things that are just needs in the community. So we have this fund. And so that's number one. And then number two, those awards were made earlier in the year, so those agencies have been told how much they were getting from the city. But the services are still being delivered. Yes, they are. Correct. Correct. And, you know, some of that, just some of the funding for some of those agencies is actually pretty small. They get a couple thousand dollars from the city. You know, take 500 bucks from that. It just seemed like that wasn't a good practice. So we left that as is. So that's still happening. You know, it's interesting with social services.  I think that the policy practice of the federal and state government really since the 80s, to systematically roll back funding and programming and social services and push it down, push it down, push it down, is really in some sense coming to ruse now. And I'm not saying this excuses some of the misbehavior in police department in the country, but to the extent to which local governments now are having to deal with homelessness, having to deal with addiction, having to deal with, you know, families in crisis, having to deal with mental illness. It's because the resources just aren't there other places, not because, you know, in Vermont, if you look at the way local governments are set up in Vermont, it's not intended for the local governments to be dealing with social services. The state is supposed to be taking care of it. There's a department of human services. That's who's supposed to be doing with it. They're supposed to be adequately funded with state and federal dollars. We're supposed to help where we could. And the way back in the day, you know, there were overseers of the poor in each town at a town poor farm. And those all were done away with in favor of professionalized practices, you know, mental health services, those kinds of regional Washington County mental health, Howard Center in Burlington. These were set up to provide these models and communities. And they're being overwhelmed. That system is being overwhelmed. And so by nature falls to us. So we found ourselves in the last year or so starting to put money in, in addition to the community fund for the nonprofits, to actually, you know, we've funded money to the homelessness task force. We've funded some money to our social equity people to talk about racism in the community. We funded, we're funding money along with the city of Berry and the Washington County mental health to embed a social worker in our police departments to help assist with those non-emergency calls when we need someone who's not necessarily an officer. So this is, you know, and this is, this was before things kind of blew up. It's just, it's a need that's coming on us and it's going to require us to either push back and have the state and feds take back some of the support that they used to provide or the cities and towns, not just Montpelier, to either put more money in or reallocate funds to deal with these problems. And the issue with that is we don't really right now have the expertise. Like, you know, local government folks, especially Vermont, we don't have social workers. We don't have a human services department. We don't have, because... We're too small. Well, and it's not, if you look even in the statutes we're supposed to sort of provide a police fire, public works, you know, water sewer, plow the roads, wrecks, like that's what local governments do. They don't do homeless services. They don't do mental health services. They don't do social work. They don't do... So what they can do is give some money to the nonprofits that do that work. And I've always believed that that money is preventive money, that if there weren't those services, they would end up at our doorstep. They would end up in police calls. They would end up in dangerous situations. That $100,000, whatever it is, is a good investment in the communities for as I'm concerned, to meet people's needs. But I think we're just out of crossroads here in Vermont and in Montpelier as to where and how we handle these things. When you talk about defunding the place, you know, in favor of that, do you really have enough police to do all the shifts as it is right now and keep police in those cars moving around the city? If you were to eliminate three police slots, would we be hard-pressed to keep that number of cars on the streets? Well, something would change. So we currently have 17 police officers. One's the chief, and so while they're out in the community, they can occasionally fill in a shift, but that's not their active role. And then you've got the captain who really oversees the day-to-day operations. There's two detectives, the school resource officer. What about the cop on the bike? Well, those, that's only seasonal. So that leaves basically 12 officers to shift to staff 24, 7, 365, including bike shifts, those kind of things. So at any given time, there's two to four officers on duty, depending on the day of the week, the time of the day, and those kind of things. You know, if we were to take three positions, you know, either we're going to stop doing detective work and solving crimes, or we're not going to have a presence in the schools, and I know that's one of the things that people have raised, but I think there's a lot of preventive work. So that's a conversation that needs to be had is what's the value of that. And with Diane there, what is she handling in terms of violence in classes and things like that that wouldn't have been handled by school staff? Well, I think we'd have to get some more data on that, but I know anecdotally there have been cases, even elementary school kids throwing desks, throwing chairs, you know. So a teacher, teacher's number one responsibility is to protect the rest of the kids. And so they're going to try to get removed from the other kids from safety. A teacher may or may not be trained and they're not really supposed to go hands on with students. So sometimes it's just an assistance to, you know, help settle the child down. In other cases it could be, it could be a bullying case or an incident of, you know, kids threatening somebody on the playground, those kinds of things, or at the school, at the lockers, those sorts of things. Drugs, of course. I was just about to say, you've been here 25 years and you've seen drug policy in this city. Wasn't that physician somewhat there because of concern by the parents? Amongst other reasons, yes. Sure. If there's, you know, heavy-duty drugs being traded and sold or used, it's again, it's a chance to intercept that and maybe get someone on the right track rather than, you know, two years ago. There's a human approach rather than a cop-son approach. Correct. Yeah. You know, it's interesting and I can appreciate the perspective, you know, you've got an armed police officer in the school and we think of it as we have a person there who's there to try to intercept problems and help and be more human, but I can understand the other perspective and so maybe we need to think about how they present and all those kinds of things. So, you know, we're open to those kinds of conversations. But again, could you explain 21st century policing? This was a discussion that you and I had in February in the context of Tony's upcoming retirement. Correct. And 21st century policing. If you watch that, which that show is in archive and Orca online and basically it was a new notion to me then. It's probably a new notion to most people but it's got a lot of publicity. How is 21st century policing different than community policing? Is there a difference? They're similar. So community policing is an aspect of 21st, a strong aspect of 21st century policing. But during the Obama administration there were incidents of police violence Ferguson and others that we can think of. And so President Obama pulled together a group of sort of police people and social people and created this task force on 21st century policing. What does policing look like in the future? What's going to make it successful? What's going to reduce these violent incidents? What's going to create better connections? And there's a very long report on it but basically it outlines six pillars of 21st century policing and I'm not going to remember all of them but they're very easily found. So it's like trust with the community open transparency, officer health and wellness community policing clear policies and clear missions that are available to all and expectations. So there's these six areas and basically then long explanations of best practices in all of those areas. So we adopted that as policy by the council and by the police department by Chief Fakis. He went to training actually in Washington on implementing this. But we had already started in that direction. This was shortly after 2015 or 60 we've been implementing trying to implement those for some time. But and as we were looking for a new chief that was a very strong requirement with someone who is familiar with and embrace the principles of 21st century policing the six pillars and Chief Peed is a leader and it includes so basically it includes partnerships like with mental health and again we have a very strong partnership in Washington County mental health. We've created what we call team two which is an officer training and working together and how they can help a person and when to call and Montpelier was really on the forefront of that not only in Vermont but in the country to the point where our police department in Washington County mental health actually present on national levels of sort of best practice here and we're proud of that and it was definitely forward-looking. There's this Act 80 training that was required by the legislature for police officers again to recognize mental health situations and you know we are very proud that we were the first department in the entire state to be 100% Act 80 trained and certified and have maintained that. Could you give me an incident just a hypothetical police incident where that Act 80 training would play in? It's recognizing the circumstance right so you know just an example, a hypothetical example you show up and you see a person who's struggling and yeah maybe they did something wrong but you know do you just arrest them for doing something wrong or do you say whoa this person needs some help like they're either gonna they've got a drug issue right now or they've just got they're not all together and so let me call such more holistic what's the actual problem going on what's the best path to solving this problem at hand right now and you know you can't you don't always have that opportunity to recognize because you're not as close to a situation or it's dangerous but the idea is to get the right resources on hand and address the person's needs where they're at as opposed to just treating it as a law enforcement issue. I want to go through a few Montpelier specifics as to how 21st century policing would relate to them we were a sanctuary I suppose we still are a sanctuary city how does that relate? undocumented people? it's called in our relationship with ICE it's a relationship with the community it's a relationship with people people who are undocumented are also victims of crime they're not just they are often reluctant to report a crime or to get engaged with the police department because they're afraid they're going to be found out and deported if they believe if they are have a confidence and a trust in the police department that the chiefs could maybe describe them better than I can but a domestic violence situation where they call it come in and attention's high and somebody's got a weapon our officers are there to face that so are there we do have the pepper ball launchers and those kinds of things which are considered less than lethal but that can disarm somebody and you know I think the issue with tasers the big concern with tasers and again we find ourselves in a situation where misbehavior by other folks creates suspicion understandably this isn't people meant some department some individual police officers that use tasers just for compliance tools come with me shear you won't I'll tase you well that's painful that's not the proper use of a taser right the proper use of a taser if you're coming at me with a knife and maybe I can tase you instead of shoot you or hit you with a club well if you have a knife I hope you're not close enough that I can use a club I want to keep my distance yeah yeah I don't know they try not to well if they do they use them for wrestling anyway I'm not expert enough to talk about that we've opted not to have tasers the issue to but to your question 21st century policing one of the pillars is about proper training proper policy and so it's not it's not just what you have it's not just what you have I mean they have guns it's what's the appropriate time to use them you know they have peppers but what's we do not have bodycams we have plans for bodycams we'll talk quickly about bodycams we would love to have bodycams cell phones glory to right right and you know we've actually had incidents where our officers got involved in some kind of tussle and people were videoing and thinking they were going to have the latest youtube sensation of officers and at the end of it said oh my gosh that guy was so out of line here here's my video for evidence you guys handle this what's the reluctance to get bodycams is it is it budgetary yes and and well there's a couple of things that are really important that need to be resolved before in particularly and some of this is Vermont specific number one storage of all that digital data I mean if you have every officer on every eight or ten hour shift running bodycam all the time that's a huge amount of storage so to keep it and to keep it for the amount of period of time what are the proper protocols for when you erase it because obviously if you if you can think of the abuse that could happen if you you don't store it for you know see it has to be very clear so storage is extremely expensive is there Vermont city that's extensively using bodycams uh Burlington was I don't know if they still are here's the issue so there's a there was a supreme court case that has really put a chill I think on bodycams in Vermont for now until there's a legislative solution I think philosophically I know philosophically our department would like them our officers would like them we you know we just think if you're behaving well and doing things the right way let's we have carcams we have carcams and those are usually those are very good they're very helpful to us and we would like the bodycams but here's here's what happened you know you have to balance a lot of needs so we also have the right and the in in Vermont for public records requests right and open meeting and all the kind of things so and then in the public records law there's a that says you know you can assess a fee for providing the records if necessary so in Burlington an individual requested a full shift of an officer's body cam I want the whole 8 hours or 10 hours I want to have a copy of this or I want to be able to see it well you have to when you're doing this you have to go through because there are certain protected things that are on there maybe they're talking to an informant maybe they're doing an investigation there are things that you can't just release and the public records law protects those so basically Burlington had to take a shift supervisor a higher paid person they had to review the entire 8 hour shift and redact it and all this stuff so that was very expensive so they assessed the cost of that officer a lot you know for it and the individual objected went to the Supreme Court the Supreme Court said right they can't charge for this so because of the way the law is written and so the Supreme Court was clear we're not saying this isn't necessarily constitutional we're saying the way the law is written right now you don't have the right to charge for that so most people said you know if people are going to ask for these because they just want to see what a cop is doing all day every day we're going to have to review them all this becomes a ridiculously untenable situation we can't spend the time and effort to do that and so I think maybe even Burlington stopped using them and so this is a Vermont specific version of this problem but it needs to be dealt with by the legislature somehow I don't know what the right answer is but obviously there's a line where public transparency is really important and public access to records is important but also not overburdening the taxpayers in the communities with this inordinate burden I want to play a hypothetical my son's been roughed up by the place and I just don't think that's right what what is my son's right to file a complaint against that police person what is the process that that complaint goes through in Montpelier so absolute right can file a complaint we have an internal investigations policy depending on the nature of the complaint it might be referred to an outside agency state police or another police department so that we're not investigating ourselves depending I mean the first thing we would look is is there video is there car video are there witnesses what are the circumstances we can verify and obviously if the officer is wrong they're dealt with how are they dealt with is there a police union in Montpelier does the police union have the kind of sway that it has in large cities concerned about the power of police unions you're in a small town you've been working with these people so first thing I want to say is we have an excellent police department and we have an excellent police union we have really good relations with them I think we've been able to reach good agreements on contracts they represent good people I don't think they want bad actors anymore than we do but we need to prove our case just like any cop needs to prove their case right so well so we have a just cause standard if we issue discipline and the officer or the union feels it's not justified they can grieve it so it goes from the supervisor to the chief to me and then ultimately to an arbitrator a neutral third party so that's when you have to prove your case we have very very few if any cases that go I would say only termination cases really go to an arbitrator otherwise it just gets resolved and you know it forces management to do its homework and make sure it's not our the flip side of it is we could just say right shear up because we don't like him you know pick on him we want to get rid of him so let's start giving him warnings and so the union is here to say wait a minute no you can't just pick on an employee so you know we have a responsibility to be good management they have a responsibility to protect employees but I wouldn't say they're more powerful I'd say if anything the ability to go to arbitration which is something that the citizens here voted for and we have that in all of our unions not just police sets of a strong standard I mean that's a legal proceeding you have to make sure you've got your ducks lined up so taking a step to go to arbitration is a big deal and you really want to make sure you've got a solid case a civilian police review board has that been discussed been discussed what are your views on a civilian police review board I don't know what so I think transparency is important I don't know what their scope would be you know we have a pretty clear governmental structure well in Montpelier it would be talk to death before it actually happens true but I think so we have you know the there's a police chief who has the oversight of the department they're my employee my job is to oversee all departments so they're accountable to me and we set certain standards for police and then I work for the city council who are the civilian review board for the entire city the elected city council right so they are it's really their job to provide that sort of oversight and you know if you you're a follower of city council to some extent you know that when issues when there are issues of dissatisfaction in the community those are what takes up the council's time right so if people are upset about something or they want something or there's a you know a problem police just haven't been one I think in part here so you know there hasn't shown in Montpelier I don't think the data shows that there is misbehavior by the police or that they in fact we've talked about many of their forward thinking efforts that we've described the 21st century and the social worker and all this have all been presented to the city council and approved so I you know is a civilian review board just going to are they going to have management say in the department are they just to meet and understand you so I think there's what does this mean what's their role and how can they be useful and not just something else and how are they selective are they people that have access to grind with the police or they are people that are supporting the police you know they're all backers you know I think that's one of the concerns you know when you create a special agency you get people that are only interested in that one thing whereas our council has to balance the needs of the community across the elephant in this studio is black lives matter what do the pullover data look like in terms of of ethnic minorities being pulled over for traffic offenses ours are very good they really mirror the population of the city pretty much I think it's like 3% pullover for african-american it's like 2.5% population so it's very very close and the same well the only place where it's not matching is men versus women a lot more men get pulled over but I think that may have to do driving habits more than why would imagine much more men get pulled over in any case but I mean I think that could be because of the way they drive not necessarily the just that we're going to help pull this man over but yeah now we are very good we train our folks train on implicit bias they train on all those kinds of you know cultural competency they try to deal all the stuff and we do track that what was the process that led us to a huge thing you can see from airplanes in front of the state capital the painting exactly well I think just you know the country's at a boiling point right now and over these issues and what we've seen from police department so I'm here I will speak and defend our Montpelier police department because I think they're great but that's a larger statement than the Montpelier police department right what we've seen from some police officers and departments around this country is just abhorrent it's it's criminal and you have a population that's born the brunt of that for many many years and in the cell phone era you know we watched a man get murdered on television and it was wrong and there was you know for bouncing a check and I think that coupled with everything else and plus the fact that we're in an economic depression we're in this pandemic I think people just exploded and it became important you know we had this rally which was amazing I don't know if you were able to attend that rally and listen to people of color in our state in our city talk about their pain and anger in ways that most of us just can't understand I know we can't understand it because we don't live it and and I feel that while action is the most important the city council felt that making statement of where our beliefs were and you know the governor supported this this is where we are we believe that black folks have been marginalized we believe that they've been systematically oppressed and they do matter and yes all lives matter but you know I've heard a good example recently if you're the doctor with a broken arm and they say well all bones matter you know like no I want my arm fixed and I think in this case we've got one segment of our society that's been bearing a lot more burden than the rest of it and so yes they matter we need to pay attention to this we need to get this right and so the council saw this as more beyond a city issue well I mean racism exists in Montpelier you know you and I are racist even though we don't want to admit it we are because there's certain inherent things that happen we do our best to avoid it but we have a perspective that we can't understand because we didn't grow up black and so the council said yes this is a symbol of what's going on in the country and it's a symbol of how we as our community and I think the governor agreed that we do better I mean look we just had a legislator resigned from the legislature because she was being systematically harassed for being black I mean it's here you know the fact that our painting was vandalized that night I mean there are people that are angry and hatred over this thing and we have to do better the schools have long had black lives matter flags flying on the flag poles the city is the city going to take that move yep so the schools did it two years ago in 2018 led by some of the same folks that led the rally and the painting and they're just wonderful community young community leaders and very proud of them and the school took the lead and was the first public school in the country to do that and something Montpelier can and is rightfully should be proud of I think the middle school has since followed suit so the city council when they approved the painting on the street and mind you that's a federal aid street so the state also had to approve it the city doesn't have unilateral right to do that but the governor approved it and made sure that VTRIans approved it so we had some in record time most of the time there's a reason for a process and for playing things out is to allow for a lot of sometimes there's urgency and I think people felt a sense of urgency here so this council at the same time did vote to raise the flag we're discussing a flag policy at the next meeting so that there's clear parameters around which this is done and we've ordered flag so when we get it we'll raise it what's coming up at the council meetings of the next couple of weeks what's on the agenda and then after that could you discuss the reopening of city hall possibility well this coming week we will be finalizing our budget plan for the next year we'll be talking about Langdon street there's a proposal to close half of Langdon street and we'll be trying to go through the logistics of how that might work would you explain the closing of Langdon? well so we've just recently approved an ordinance amendment that would basically allow any business to have a parklet downtown for this year to use parking spaces and kind of eschewed the normal requirements that we have for the more permanent parklets so if the quirky pet for instance wanted to put a table out in a couple of parking spots they could get approval to do that said because as most of you know that's my wife for a long time just picking that happened to choose that business but so the idea you know people have long talked about closing Langdon street just making a pedestrian mall kind of thing we are not really able right now to in fact we're prohibited from creating public gathering spaces because it's really we don't want people to just gather aimlessly right you want but there was a sense that this is a chance to try what closing the street might look like however two of those are liquor establishments are bars and restaurants and so part of it was yes they could put seating out in the street some of these other but it would have to be so it would close right from about Union River sports across and then the big opening would become two-way we're working out the logistics now fire truck can get through that fire truck can get through that would be one of the requirements so so what the council said is we would like to try this configuration you staff DPW engineers fire you come up with a plan that could work so we're supposed to be presenting a plan next week for them to review so that's on the agenda every meeting now we do an update on what's going on with covid and you know this kind of thing so that's on couple of appointments it'll be chief fake assessment what's going on with the committees the committees are basically on hold because again partly because so much staff is gone so a lot of the committee staff is on furlough people you know it's all being done by zoom done by remote process if somebody really I think there's a couple of things like if there's an emergency or something that really needs to be dealt with like a grant opportunity then they can request and we what's going on with zoning so those so those are still happening so that when the council did the committee policy they said anything that's required by statute or rule or law to happen will continue to happen so DRB is still meeting DRC is still meeting planning commission is still meeting remotely but they're still meeting and what about actually getting into city hall to the city clerk to you so we can do that by appointment although mostly we've been able to do it by zoom or by things for the city clerk there he has got a if you were have to do a title search your attorney he'll set up an appointment there's only can be like one of them or two of them at a time in district rooms and everyone's notified we are planning a slow reopening once our staff comes back so it will be after July 1 probably at first just two days a week and again masks are required distancing and again trying to urge people to use remote services as much as possible the theater upstairs the theater has cancelled their seas the mask ordinance downtown that's an important one would you explain the mask ordinance well you know there's a lot of debate about masks but it seems that the experts are recommending them so the department of state department of health the world health organization other places like that are calling for masks many businesses felt uneasy about opening without they wanted to require people to have masks which is also possible for businesses to do it on their own there had been some but then there was a sense well some will some won't and it was it provided some backup for everybody if the city just said if you're going to be inside a place of commerce then you need to have a mask on we haven't restricted to the sidewalks or outdoor running you know people like that because some of the harder hit communities have said you can have them all the time but certainly if you're going inside to a commercial establishment or business establishment you have to be wearing them out so what that is going right now what about meetings like gatherings and Hubbard Park in the shelter houses yeah this is where it gets this is where it gets interesting right because there's no real clear guidance about a lot of this so if you're one family and you all live together and you decide to have a picnic at Hubbard Park sure I mean you don't really need a mask if you're a bunch of strangers in theory you should be six feet apart probably masked you know the rally at the state house they required masks and I did not see a single person at that rally without a mask it was very impressive actually and even on the lawn I noticed that people seemed to be sitting kind of in I was there with my family and then there was a little distance in another part people seemed to be trying once they got marching in the street there was no distancing but people could opt out of that if they didn't want to do it you know a lot of this can be done through regulation a lot of this has to be done out of kindness for your fellow person right you know you've got to I mean the most important thing about the mask is it's preventing you from infecting somebody else it's also showing collective concern for the community right that's what I mean is so people have to to some extent people have to want to do these things and if people it's counterintuitive in some way but if people use the proper caution then that will allow things to reopen quicker because it will be safe if people as we've seen in other states and other cities where people have rushed to get rid of these requirements and open too soon now they're all seeing spikes and they're going to have to figure out what they're going to do I'm going to talk to John Odom about this but I'm going to assume that people aren't going to watch that show the election that's coming the primary election in August it will be in city hall I believe that's correct but also it will be mail in but there will be a live presence in city hall I think that's right and John will talk to you about how that works and then of course we have November so anything that I've missed I mean you and I have covered so much turf today and I do appreciate your being here and talking to you it's always my pleasure I'm happy to talk to you and to the public about matters of city interests so I appreciate it and I think I'm glad you're going to have Chief Fakus and Chief Pete on Chief Pete's going to be a wonderful addition to the community he's a great person and we're looking forward to having him and of course Chief Fakus now just for an aside when that happens Chief Fakus and Chief Pete will be seated I will be a disembodied voice for that particular show so get used to it and several of these shows I will be a disembodied voice to figure it out but I think some they will be able to address some of the questions you had about policing and those kind of things much more and certainly 21st century community policing and Leslie all those kind of you know examples of cases much better than I can again I asked the public to watch all of these shows these are exemplary shows very special the times are special the shows will be very special and I thank you for watching this they will be archived on Orca Online the Yahoo Channel they'll also be showing on the Orca channels and thank you to Orca for making this possible good evening


conferences like being back with with a great big family it's been great to finally see all of us now face-to-face this is the new venue this is amazing all the rooms and just that people can walk around and interact and there's a lot of positivity I get to put faces and conversations with the developers that I only usually work with over the internet and they get to interact with the users of the software which you know there's really no point in working on the software unless there's users people here are so talented it's an incredible pool of unique people from all different types of industries I've been developing for Blender for about 10 years lately I've been working on a new bevel node for geometry nodes I'm a 3d modeler I'm dedicated to create go see and cute isometric scenes in Blender I always use a lot of details in my sleeve like pile of leaves, pumpkins, mushrooms I gave a talk on the add-on I'm working on which is a crowd simulation add-on I hosted the education meeting and I just finished the podcast about the silent forces behind Blender I use Blender for all my artworks I did a talk yesterday about my journey with Christmas Hill how this tool changed my whole career Blender is allowing me to do absolutely everything in one software play with it on the entire way through the beginning of my pipeline to the end of it it does everything we needed to do it also allows us to add things that we need so in our studio we have a custom build of Blender that we've actually been building because Blender makes it possible Blender means freedom you we have access to the code we can add against and digging into the code they are already doing all the good stuff I love Blender how often things get shared in the Blender community is I feel like unique compared to other communities with 3d software and I can actually meet them and shake their hand and say congratulations you've changed my life because you've released a plugin that made my life easier I sort of see it as a conversation between users like me you know nothing about programming and then the developers who see how people are using it and they're very good at pivoting and saying oh maybe we should make a tool about this and that backwards and forwards just improves the software very very quickly we just grow together and I think it's amazing and important about this kind of meetings in real life also sometimes when you see something on internet and people said this was made of Blender the people are really proud of Blender as if it was their own creation the community is the reason that Blender is growing we are currently not the follower anymore or the little kid on the block Blender is leading in ways and people always try to pinpoint and say hey that moment is when Blender finally became mainstream well honestly people were seeing is already every you know part of the way eventually I think it will become the standard it's something that is way too powerful to ignore I love the fact that Blender grows and becomes more and more standard but I also still like the fact that Blender is like an outsider so it's it's two opposite things that co-exist it wouldn't be for Blender I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today it's been with me since the beginning of my artistic career I'm a 22-year-old girl so Blender has 20 years so it's half of my life so a lot is happening in the world of education a lot of schools are picking up Blender as their main tool for teaching imagine right now the kids who are 15 now what they're gonna do in five years really gonna catch all of us by surprise I'm excited about the idea that we can and we have the possibility to do something to leap into the future and think of what is it if we want to make a tool for the next decade we have the passion right for this we really care and there is no money business there's no shareholder there's nobody with a hidden agenda apart from the passionate people who want to make amazing things for other people and that makes it that we are trusted by the industry thank you all for coming and see you next year


We are the City of Fort Worth. We come from everywhere, from different backgrounds, cultures, and religions. We are different ages, races, and ethnicities with different abilities and identities. In a word, we are diverse. I'm Alexandra Thurston. I work in Neighborhood Services and chair the City's Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Our committee works to foster a culture of compassion, open-mindedness, and inclusiveness among City of Fort Worth employees and the community as a whole. Over the last year and a half, our Diversity Matters program has hosted films, TED Talks, panel discussions, music, and other activities. Here's a look back at some of the fun ways we've celebrated our Fort Worth diversity. Diversity Matters. We organized this global potluck lunch to give City of Fort Worth employees a chance to share their culture and their heritage. It rocks and it rolls. It was all very different. They're delicious. Everything is good. Oh, I grabbed everything. I went all the way around and grabbed everything. And I'm liking everything that I picked, believe me. It's all good. I think it's a great event. I love that all this came together to allow us the options to sample one of all these dishes. Diversity Matters. To recognize the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., City employees and Fort Worth residents are signing the Love for Humanity campaign pledge. The goal is to complete 51 acts of kindness or community service by the end of the summer. I really have to brainstorm some things, but for starters, maybe go to the nursing home and read to the patients. I plan to go to the elementary school, to read to the children at the elementary school, and I also plan to work with the high school in their clothes closet. I help seniors. I volunteer at the food bank. I volunteer at Como Academy. I'm going to do an act of kindness by teaching a diabetic class. What will you do? It's not too late to sign the Love for Humanity campaign pledge. Visit Fort Worth Texas dot gov slash human relations. Welcome to the City of Fort Worth's MLK Employee Celebration. I'm honored to share with you the meaning of the King Holiday by Coretta Scott King. The Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America. On this holiday, we commemorate the universal unconditional love, forgiveness and non-violence that empowered his revolutionary spirit. It's essential for every organization to embrace diversity and inclusion. This month we have celebration of Asian culture because this is Asian Heritage Month and just show people different aspects of Asian culture, whether it be food. We've got little cute origami and also calligraphy from these two are from the Japanese garden. Sometimes we have different values so if you have this opportunity more often we can share the values with each other. We have very people who work for the City of Fort Worth and it's important for us to come out and celebrate our differences. Our lifestyle is just so accelerated but being out here just for a moment you can forget about the pressures of life. We're at the lovely Fort Worth Botanic Garden inside the Japanese garden today for our diversity and inclusion monthly program. It makes me feel very calm. It has like a soothing effect. You can feel the coolness, the evaporative effect of the large trees. I think the first word that came to my mind was peace, tranquility, relaxation, leave your carers at the door. It's sort of like coming to a sacred area. They gave us a tour as I came in that the Japanese culture they connect with nature and the sounds of the wind, the trees and how we become part of that. It's different, it's interesting and you can open your mind to other things. I noticed the different crafts, the different music, the artistic expressions. It's something that sometimes we're not exposed to only on TV and when you're exposed to it in person it's different. Today's event was for city employees. It's about sharing the American experience. Basically we're all immigrants. We asked them to come in and basically put on the board where they're from, where they're family immigrated from. So we had employees do that so you can see from the board they're from all over the world. It's kind of amazing because I have the opportunity to show where I am from. I'm from Mexico, from Colima. And I can see from all other places where the people is from that maybe I work with so I didn't know. The purpose of the event is to bring us together as employees and make us aware of our differences that we have. So we have some events we're doing to try and raise some funds for the Tehran area food bank, dunk police officers, pie in the face. The diversity is one of the core values of the city and through these events we try and emphasize that into the other employees that we have. My favorite thing about Hispanic culture is food and family and they always go together. All the food, no doubt. Dancing and some of the music. I did some sugar skull painting which is really cool. I also did the tasting contest of the hot sauce. We work in an environment with tons of diverse people from the community. So really embracing and understanding their culture, their background. It really will help us understand and help them. Everything is so good about our culture that I think other people need to know about it. Of course we also have to learn about other communities but I'm just happy that we have lots of people from other communities coming to learn what we have to offer. Texas celebrates more than one Independence Day. June 19th, 1865 was the day news of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Texas. The holiday is known as Juneteenth. The official Juneteenth flag is red, white and blue symbolizing the slaves and the descendants were Americans. The design of the Juneteenth flag represents a star of Texas bursting with new freedom throughout the land over a new horizon. This celebration at City Hall also included a look at traditional braids and other hairstyles that women of African descent were once forbidden to wear in this country. Plus more recent hairstyles that reflected the younger generations' pride in their cultural roots. Along with pushing for civil rights, African Americans had a major reawakening of their cultural roots that was reflected in song, fashion and hairstyles and headwear. The African American younger generation of this time period came on the scene with a bold, unapologetic attitude about their Afro-cultural roots. The Juneteenth holiday is observed in most states across the U.S. It celebrates the triumph of the human spirit over slavery, African American freedom and achievement as well as the respect for all cultures. We hope you'll make diversity matters a priority in your work life by participating in our events and activities.


May 40 here, and as I was saying in Judaism, when you change your place, you think different thoughts. I'm thinking different thoughts than I did in Los Angeles. The most superficial example is that I'm not thinking about Los Angeles sports teams. I'm not thinking nearly as much as I did when I was living in America. You change your place and you start thinking different thoughts. So from my time in landscaping, I had everything draining.  I ask about drainage because of my time in landscaping. Because of my background in journalism, I'm pretty good at who, what, when, where, why. So you give me any month of my life and I can pretty much tell you what I was doing there. So that journalistic emphasis on the particular, right, that continues to shape me. And I spent years as a legal assistant, as a paralegal. So that legal background has affected me. So I spent about 20, 24 years as a blogger. That's affected me. I'm always looking for interesting content. Like if here I am on holiday and I'm thinking, oh, this will be a good angle. Everything we do in Texas and then the place that we're at, you hang out here. You're going to have different thoughts than if you're stuck on public transport in Los Angeles. You hang out here, you're going to have different thoughts than if you're living here. So our position in life, our social group and our geographic location. So my dad often said you never take the same thoughts out of a cold shower that you take into a cold shower. It's like rebooting your system.  And when you shift location, you don't tend to bring the same thoughts. I don't think it goes much about the same goals. There were goals in Los Angeles who I thought a bit about. And now that I'm in Aladala, I'm not thinking about those goals nearly as much. My friends in Los Angeles, God forbid, I'm not thinking about them as much as when I was in Los Angeles. If I can't trust my friends in Australia, my friends in Sydney, I'm thinking about them a lot more. Now that I'm physically around my family, I'm thinking about my family a lot more. So shifting your place, it's like a big cold shower. It's like resetting, rebooting your computer. All the mental habits and all those thousands of thoughts that we have each day. About 80 to 90% of them, I think 95% of them are the same every day. Well, they change when you change your place. How could you be here and not just feel all the possibilities? Life seems filled with new possibilities right now. So change my place. And then everything starts opening up.  So you get to have more empathy for a different point of view. You get to see things from a different point of view. You get to have different encounters, different situations, different interactions. Where do we go from here? I can't go anywhere. It's a little tight here. View, beauty. Good on you, mate. No worries.