City of Essex Junction annual meeting six o'clock. So we'll get started on the moderator for your for this meeting today and First I'd like to do some Get the introductions going and so I'm going to introduce the City Council president Raj Chala and he'll introduce other members of the council and so I'm Raj Chala city council president for the city of Essex Junction Thank you for joining us tonight I'd like to introduce the city council Council, maybe you can wave in your zoom window vice president Amber Tebow Marcus Serta our clerk Andrew Brown and Elaine Haney and we have I think don't have Everybody in view here, but city department heads are here with us to this evening Regina Mahoney is our city manager Colleen Dwyer is our HR director Chris Caborio is our fire chief Police chief Ron Hogue the Essex police department Wendy Hisco our light our director of libraries Rick Jones public works Karen Lemna our assessor from the town of Essex Brad Luck director of EGRP Chelsea Mandigo wastewater department She's our water quality superintendent Susan McNamara Hill our clerk and treasurer Jess Morris director of finance Ashley Snellenberger communications and strategic initiatives director and Chris Uen our community development director I don't see any of our representatives on the call right now. So I'm I will Call them out if they show up tonight. So thanks for joining us. All right. Thank you Raj So this meeting is an informational meeting and as such we are not going to have motions or voting All all the motion all the voting will take place by Australian ballot, which we'll talk about later in the meeting So today is the opportunity to go over each of the articles that will be voting on next Tuesday on the 9th or early if you're voting your ballot ahead of time and give the city council a chance to Give a quick overview of each article and then for people to ask questions So all the questions you'll want to raise your hand the button at the bottom of the zoom and we'll just take people in order and So all the questions will go through me and I'll direct them over to the city council president and to whoever might be needed to answer Answer your question at that point in time and then We're all going to be you know, we might all have different opinions and such and we're all going to be respectful to each other As we ask questions, that's always important that we're all a community working together And one thing I wanted to read just based on some past events So the city council previously had a meeting disrupted by any Semitic and racist hate speech The city council does not tolerate such actions and strongly condemns them Well, it may not always be possible to prevent hate speech from occurring during public comments Council will continue to take measures to make it more difficult to express such views. So again Trying to be all respectful and and friendly here. So all right With that Let's get into the part of the meeting so the first article is article one and It is read this way shall the voters approve an annual general fund budget in the amount of 12,000,004,124 Dollars for fiscal year July 1 2024 to June 30 2025 11,110,000 and 346 dollars of which is to be levied in taxes against the city grand list So that is the article and Raj got a presentation on the screen here for you to take people through Great. Thanks, Steve So this is the second budget for the city. We're currently in our first full city budget about nine months in Primary expense increases in this budget include salary and health insurance rate increases The addition of a new x76 childcare tax The transition from part-time to full-time of a finance billion coordinator and Increases in our general liability property and casualty insurance an increase to our IT contract and Costs associated with setting up a stormwater utility This budget is a 5% increase from FY 24 the current year And the impact on a home assessed at $280,000 is 170 $170 increase over your property tax bill from last year This moves the general fund tax rate 6.6% which is a six point six so excuse me Little over a six cent increase And again repeating that the impact on an average Assessed home of $208,000 is $170 this good Property tax revenue makes up 91% of I'm sorry property taxes make up 91% of the Revenues for the city budget global Foundry's property is 6% of that number City businesses represent 11% of property tax revenues and miscellaneous revenues from Community development fees and the clerk's office make up the remaining 9% This is a rather busy pie chart It's intended to point out the big players in the budget this year first and foremost among them health and human services which are Essex rescue and our contract with Essex police This is a little over three million dollars and 25% of our budget The next largest expenditure By department is our streets department at 13% our recreation department at 9% and the Browning library at 8% Okay, I am gonna stop sharing the slides there Steve because We next go on to the perfect If I can get my mouse to the right start Well, you can leave them shared for now case there's a specific question on one of the pages So does anyone in the audience Would anyone like to ask questions on Article one in the budget and you can hit the raise hand button at the bottom of the screen, okay I'm not seeing any questions So let's go on to article two Shell the voters of the city of Essex Junction set the property tax exemption for disabled veterans at $40,000 as allowed in state statue Set exemption to remain in effect for future taxable years until amended or repealed by the voters All right Anything you'd like to say on this rock? Sure, this is Something that was in place when we were part of the town We had as a community voted to have this level at $40,000 and now that we're a city We need to take this step to raise it from the base Potential $10,000 and then I'll say that this is a Reduction in the assessed value not in the tax bill. So this discount Available to qualified disabled veterans would come off of their assessed value of their home $40,000 property tax exemption. I'm sorry got that part all clear Veterans do need to apply for this program and This is something the community has been Participating in for for quite some time So we're this is largely a housekeeping measure to continue what we've been used to doing in the past years Okay, thank you. Does anyone have any questions on article two and this exemption? Okay, I'm not seeing any questions. So I'm going to move on to article three Shell the voters approve extending the one cent capital improvement tax also known as the economic development tax as Established in 2016 to be reconsidered at annual meeting in 2027 Right Go ahead, Roch Sure, as you mentioned, this was first started in 2016. This extension will take us for three years to FY 26 This fund has been used for All kinds of things in the community public parking improvements Signage bike racks We are currently planning on using the balance and future funds for our match To a rather large federal grant to renovate the Amtrak station in town as well as amenities such as I think benches bike racks charging stations for the soon-to-be completed crescent connector project The impact of this on an in-home value to two hundred and eight thousand dollars is twenty eight dollars a year if this is approved Okay Thank you. Does anyone have questions on article three and the one cent capital improvement tax? All right, lots of questions tonight So we're going to move on to article four So shall the voters approve holding the 2025 annual meeting on Tuesday April 8th 2025 at which time the voters shall vote by Australian ballot for the election of officers the voting on the city budget and any other business Included in the warning for the meeting Go ahead, Raj So we've done this every year. We this time of year we vote on the date to hold our meeting the following year Last election last April we all approved for charter changes that have since been signed by the governor They were signed by the governor after We needed to warn this election. So we are back in the position of Participating in the selection now by voting on the date for next year In subsequent years the city council will decide based on input in the calendar When to set voting For the subsequent April for the subsequent voting day which could be April it could be time meeting day in March But this year this is where we are right now having to set the date by ballot Okay Thank you for that description Does anyone have question on article four and when we're holding the annual meeting at 2020 So let's move on to article five Which is to elect city officers required by law Including moderator two city council members and two library trustees So as a reminder for article five The voting is by australian ballot, which we've mailed. I believe we've mailed one out to everyone ahead of time Which people can turn in To the clerk's office to the polling location or to Work to mail Or just vote in person All those options exist the voting in person will be tuesday from seven to seven seven a.m To seven p.m at the champlain valley exposition in the blue ribbon billion 105 pearl street And if you have any questions on that you can certainly contact the city clerk And then the those running for officers For those slots so for moderator. It's a one-year term And i'm the only person on the ballot and you can write in For city council, there's two positions for a three-year term and there's four people Plus right in but we have a gton codka Timothy miller jason struthers and amber tibault On the ballot for that For library trustee three-year term We have caron hergen schmeyer And also the ability to write in And then for library trustee five-year term. We have no name on the ballot, but you can write in someone for that position So that is um The details about article five Does anybody have any questions about logistics on article five? Okay We're doing real well tonight Okay, i'm going to stop sharing Okay, so uh the next thing up Um Is a public to be heard And i know we had a couple things the city council wanted to share first and then people can Talk about anything on their mind regarding Business in the city of s6 junction so uh raj did you want to go first on that and introduce Well, I just want to remind folks. I think you you've already took uh You already kind of gave the information for annual meeting and voting next tuesday Um Folks should have received a ballot in the mail it's getting uh to the point where It might be a little tricky to put your ballot back in the mail at this point and better to Bring it to to lincoln and either bring it into building or leave it in our drop box Uh near the entrance door You can also bring it to the cve On tuesday april 9th between 7 a.m. And 7 p.m Um Ashley selenberger can give us an update on the strategic planning process we've been under what we've had underway Sure, we are in the final stages of our strategic plan and we are asking residents to give us um some feedback We have our second stakeholder survey, which is currently live right now and it will be available till april the 12th So please go out and take that survey you can go to our website and find the link to the survey And we hope to get your responses from that and then we will share the final report to the city council towards the end of may Thank you Thank you, ash And one more thing, um, I don't believe councillor brown is with us this evening I think he had a conflict, but I just wanted to recognize his service to the community Um I've prepared something I can I can read so forgive me because I'll probably forget something if I don't read it um Andrew brown was first elected to the village trustees in april 2012 He began his term as chair of the newly formed capital review committee and he served on that board for six years Looking back to 2012's annual meeting. Um, that meeting featured a presentation and discussion Regarding the newly proposed crescent connector project um, that project will be completed this fall it Featured exploration of emerged services the beginnings of the conversations around consolidating services with the town And it as well as the beginning of the heart and soul effort with a presentation by summa corbec There were also discussions of the rent beginnings of the renovation for the amtrak station some of which have been completed Most of those renovations will be coming in the next Year or two we hope Um Andrew Andrew served as a trustee and counselor for 12 years Was elected trustee president in 2019 and was the city's first council president He led the board through coven Our successful push for independence and the hiring of our city's first municipal manager virginia mahogany I deeply appreciate andrew's patience and mentorship. We had some serious issues to contend with and separation advantage There were disagreements and I appreciate the regardless of the result of those disagreements respect and friendship remained We will miss his deep knowledge of municipal budgeting his insight Institutional knowledge of the community and most of all the sense of humor We look forward to honoring him later this month. Um At a future city council meeting That's it steve. All right. Thank you rush And certainly congratulations to andrew brown on his time serving the city Um, all right. Is there any anyone that would like to bring up any questions about anything dealing with the city of s extraction Andy sent up. You've got your hand up. So unmute and go ahead Hi, um back when we voted to have these information meetings It was before the days of zoom and I don't think any of us really expected that we would be watching This meeting on a device not getting together in person. Um, you know continuing our Building a share of feeling of community Is there any way that we can bring a live meeting back again? The town does it and it just seems So good to have everybody together the different organizations In the town show up at that meeting like we used to have and It's a good way to to see people talk to people Yeah, thank you for your concern. Andy. Um, rosh. Did you want to respond? Sure I agree andy and I we we moved that meeting up for a couple reasons We had that meeting. I believe it was january 10th. I don't have that date right in front of me With a brunch Uh and a presentation of the budget in its draft form And one of the biggest reasons we did it then Was it provided an opportunity to present the work we've done to date on that budget? Take input from the community so that we still had time to make changes to it And take that input and put it to use so Because we're voting by austrian ballot now We knew that when we did this meeting people would have already voted And the budget would have been set and the opportunity to have input on a draft budget while it could still be changed would have been over So we opted to do ours early When we had a decent draft document to present to the community So that's that's sort of where we're at. We are I think very open to Modifying this process. Um, but in the age of I'll say in the age of mail ballots and And voting by voting by ballot instead of in person at annual meeting Where where we can still change the budget Um, we're still trying to figure out how the community can have get together And have input in a setting like we're used to To offer ideas on changes to the budget or or thoughts so that's sort of we ended up here Are we going to continue those meetings? I believe we are and as I say, you know, well, we're constantly looking at How things are working and and is there an improvement to be made there? Um Yeah Andy I'll just add in briefly that that meeting that roge is referring to Was a moderated meeting So it kind of had the look and feel of the type of meeting we used to have other than you weren't actually voting on anything but I thought that was going to be specifically on You know going over the budget and Going that was strategic planning. I didn't know it was going to be an open type of meeting And you know, I'm looking here and I see 23 participants the bulk of which Our city council and staff Um, it's not bringing the community in unfortunately That's actually precisely why we wanted to do this in january. Um, where we had far far more Uh folks show up. Um I think, um Many have already voted including myself. Um, you know, so we're Hoping to build on the Meeting we had this year. Um, when we do it again next year Thought we had a pretty good turnout. We didn't have the kind of turnout that we would have in a On a wednesday night at the high school years ago But we're working on that And It didn't include a meal one of the so I think we're You know, we're we're trying to trying to get the participation while accommodating statute which this meeting does And um Like I said earlier make sure folks have an opportunity to make comments on the budget while it can still be changed While those comments and while that input can still be put to use Understood. Thank you Thank you, andy, uh for your for your question Other Questions or comments anyone would like to make? Okay Well any last chance? You know Steve we uh, we glossed over or something on the very first slide of the presentation for today, which which was kind of cool And not a lot of members of the public, but they might enjoy this But I think staff will also enjoy seeing this or get a little kick out of it I don't know. Regina if you can share the first. Oh, yeah, I remember now. Yeah, we flipped through it. Yeah, let's bring that up Um Since we're through the business we can might as well talk about this So this um document from 1978 was found by a resident when they were going through their Parents home Are you bringing that up Regina? I can't remember who shared the first time You're muted Uh, sorry. Okay. Let me try it again. It's been I know I'm calling an audible here Let me do this How about now? Nope Nothing No Uh Sorry Well, at least it's just for this right? I mean It's making me crazy because once I turn to presentation slide I everything I can't see anything Uh There we go. It's coming up. There we go. Perfect So this is a document the village sent out to residents on the potential savings They would see from a separation in uh, november of 1978 One of my favorite lines in this. I don't know if you can see it. It's kind of in the middle um According to our computer I guess computers at that point were Pretty dang novel I think if you scroll down First of all, the assessment blew my mind at $35,000, but um, the budget was all of um 100 and 159 thousand This has been going on a long time Uh, the separation Want me to go to the next slide? Yeah, sure Did it change? Yes, yep. Okay Yeah, so we just thought folks would get a kick out of uh Seeing how long this process has played out Um And what the numbers were from 1978 Yeah, very nice And that is all I have Yep, nice little bit of history. All right Anybody have anything else to share? Looks like uh, we can uh Entertain a motion to adjourn the uh annual informational meeting at 628 So moved Second right All right. Thank you everybody


What's up everybody Jason here from jazby's case breaks calm. It's a new release day. Happy new release of the highly anticipated 2020 panini mosaic football. This is a hobby six box half case break pick your teams number one Remember all-card ship insers and parallels should be going nuts Basketball this year was just a such a killer release. I'm so happy to create a football version of mosaic So some very nice stuff popping out of here. Remember six box half case break So here you go here all the customers that bought in my Eagles last Bob Mojo Right there to John. Good luck and then again six box half case breaks, so This master case will be for pick your team number one and two so if you bought a team in number one and They're still available number two go out and grab them. I know a lot of us though Just to play it safe got both teams in both your team So that way in case you know Don't get any big hits in the first half. Definitely the second half may have some All right, so what we'll do here is the top half six will be one break All right and the bottom half Will be a break as well So let's see which Brad I don't know man. I'm so excited though. This is my first look at it like you guys Unless you're already seen it elsewhere All right, one two three for the left side four five six for the right Six one two three four five six, so these will be for pick your team number two, which is already down to like two left So if you guys like this after that one box cup hockey break We can run it back and do some more of these mosaic mosaic football Yeah, it's good. Yeah exactly the stages with helmets. You're right. It's just gonna be fire Just gonna be fire All right, there you go Mosaic but football though gives you two autographs obviously much bigger league more players So only right to give you at least two again guys the color in this stuff is gonna be amazing Gonna sell for a lot And that's how people always if you have a chance to get some Eagles You had a nice Mount Sanders or McNabb actually has a base card is one of my favorite I'll definitely be a buyer on that Still happy. I'm kind of mad that it's not rookie. I'm all centers for me But my wallet will be a little happy that it's not so that way. It's a little cheaper Jalen hurts Jalen hurts actually so it's pretty well Jalen Rigor as well Nice yeah, McNabb is only actually in the in the base no autographs on it that but You know, it'd be nice to get like a McNabb Genesis or something Yeah, Bradley, it's about 800 bucks, but Guess what Bradley? You want to see what our prices? For now obviously For now You want to see? See what price we have it at. Alrighty guys. Good luck. All right. Well, like I said, I'm just expecting it to be just as fire as All right, we got a silver to start us off Justin Jefferson NFL debut silver There you go and a Staphon digs Two out of 49. Oh people are gonna love this and his new bills uniform There you go. That's gonna go to Archie stage Broncos Levisco Clyde Edwards Allaire MVP Brady stuff's gonna sell Joe Burrell NFL debut paid Manning very nice Anna DeSean Jackson little red This car looks sharp guys.  I mean We already know how bass how hot basketball is but This is something different when you have a football on it. There's Jalen fight out of words Whoo Man, it was only a sign guys the Eagles were last spot mojo Man, I wish I could have got them guys I almost wanted to buy the Eagles and break the rule. There you go.  No way one of the Eagles And then all of a sudden they start hitting I'm sorry, right? I mean they were sitting there for so long I wish I could have got them But hey, I'm sure they could still be some fire in the second half remember, you know We don't know how this is gonna be All right, am I bad guys? I was stuck for like a second. I think Like I was saying the Eagles are sitting there for so long I mean, you know, we can buy boxes here Joshua and stuff But it just looks a little wrong when like let's say I buy the Eagles, right? And then what if I hit that Jalen hurts people would have said it was rigged You know, so it's best to just stay out of the group breaks when you're When you work for the place for some way that happens imagine I thought it was rigged for me in it to win it you like manning, but it's okay though. I like to I Like to buy Eagle stuff from customers. I honestly don't really I mean I should be collecting Jalen hurts I think he's a good investment, but I'm actually just sticking to my saddish from last year rookie stuff and second year stuff honestly Just Herbert Rookie stuff Oregon Ducks Edition Jubilee's and Joshua Kelly well if someone just whoo, man Already a stained glass of the Super Bowl MVP Super Bowl champion NFL MVP. What a great first three-year resume Little Patrick Mahomes Jesus what a first box and Matthew with V With the chiefs Justin Herbert, I think Matthew has the chiefs in all four. So He definitely secured his chiefs hits regardless Darrington Evans Gabriel Davis men of mastery little Brady I To a NFL debut Jerry Judy Silver and AJ Brown number 299 for the Titans We got Center stage What's up, Matt? Well, you know, I love working here, man And I don't mind breaking Morning day whatever I need to do and we got Carlos Rogers is the second autograph Yeah, they're not numbered, but they're nice little inserts. I'm sure we'll sell well 49ers though. There you go. That's gonna go to Joseph Tyler Boyd and Christian Kurt Yeah, well, like I said initially released stuff is always gonna sell for a lot. I Don't know if they're all gonna go for a thousand. That'd be pretty nuts But they're gonna drop down eventually if there is some and again People are just listing up crazy amounts right now adding a home silver Man, what a great break for the chiefs in box one. I'm sure those will not be going for a thousand Yeah, this is just box one honestly, I mean killer box two player cards, which ones oh These ones are here looks like they're just cardinals. I don't know if it's two players All right, so we'll also an interest of time guys I mean obviously I'm in a penny-saving top load everything for you, but I might just put the base rookies except for like burrow and to a Herbert I'll penny-save those right away But I'll put them in a little stack here to the left or to the right at the end of the break We'll penny-save and top load them Just to get the break moving, but that was that was very exciting and fun What a great first box to kick off mosaic Here with us at Jatsby's face brace That's right Jopie this is straight-up garbage garbage I tell you Charles Woodson silver Eli Manny Jeff Acuta Tom Brady base Chase young prism silver and Justin Jefferson red Josh Allen Little Herbert Michael Pittman Jr. Silver you got Jordy Nelson Herbert NFL debut Tyrone Matthew and Howie long And Jeff Ocuda Detroit Lions was number three overall pick right autograph Therefore the Lions been a Jeremy Moller Jordy Nelson silver and Philip Lindsay number two ninety nine and it's a win it Levy on Bell Brian Ehrlacher to a blue chips prism silver Little Brian Dawkins silver Julius Pepper red Henry rugs Kenny Galladay Ooh, there's some red Donovan McNabb Let me know if you're interested in selling any of your McNabb and Miles Sanders John Overdrive Joe Nixon. Ooh very nice Justin Herbert silver NFL debut and a red Prism back-to-back very nice for the Chargers. It's going to mark. I'm sure there is Sure, there's some great veteran autos It should be a pretty big checklist though, so I expect it to be some good ones Darryl LaMonica for the Radis Ryan Anderson with that one Emmett Smith Boy Freeman Introductions Joe Burrell, all right. He has some Magnabra against Patricia. Oh nice Well, if you want to email me some stuff, I'll see if I have it or I don't have it It's my work email right there Yeah, Donovan McNabb Spam, I know people are gonna start spamming me It's okay though. I could just put you guys in spam mail. I don't really have too many McNabb rookies, but Miles Sanders, I want to say I have a good one. I have a good amount, so it just depends on if I have it or not All right, next one guys Nick Bosa Ed Reeve Introductions Justin Herbert Clyde Edwards Hilaire base Clyde Edwards Cameron Jordan some D'Shawn Jackson Jalen Rookie and we got Chase Claypole Autographed there for the Steelers going to Michael Guluchi We got Erlacher Hall of Fame silver and Aaron Jones number to 49 for the Packers Matthew with that one as well. Wow Two stained glass in a case Russell Wilson Going to Oliver Maybe you get more than one since this football That's why I can see it being one per case. Maybe football is more or a hot case. You're right Jalen Brady base Hey Manning MVP DeAndre Swift Rookie You got Christian McCaffrey. I Mean it says it tells you the odds of a lot of things, but I don't know what you consider But I mean obviously it's always on average too, right? There's no guarantees on anything now Hey Manning Herman Moore Also guys, we also posted a more pick your teams back on the website So five and six are up your team is there go grab it. I'm sure that'll break at some point tonight. If not tomorrow You said more mosaic has been posted and we have the choice edition remember Forget about the regular veteran based stuff and the choice edition yours. You can still get rookies colors You'll get autographs inserts and numbered cards So again, you forget about all the vet base and you get everything else and You know, we're pretty much halfway there on there Choice pick your team number one and if you buy two or more teams You have a chance to Win some money back just for buying in So go check out choice see what teams are there if you like them grab them If not, like I said more pick your teams have been posted Warren sap chase play pool Jerry rice blue I'm Matthew. Well, hey man. I'm glad I'm glad that I got you that stained glass man. I swear to God Matthew. I swear either either Yes, they're a myth or What's going on there? I swear we did so many of that stuff and we didn't get any rubber. It's like so frustrating So I feel for you man, but hey that Patty Mahomes is awesome, man And I'm sure a lot more coming your way man, and we got Darrington Evans for the Titans Tennessee Titans that's going to Rhea and Colt Matt Troy Aikman Lou Keekley Max Crosby Honestly, I would love to see mosaic baseball. Just do mosaic everything Come on if football it basketball did so well and they created football They'll eventually make baseball. Why wouldn't they just do it all? Just do it all License baseball is overrated JLP. That's garbage man.  Don't even mention that. Jesus. Oh Yeah, no, Matt, you don't get me wrong I Think for not you not getting any autos unfortunately You did great when it came to the base and the the prisms and the refractor stuff And if you did hit any color because I think at one point man Remember those base cards and refractors and stuff at one point was pretty much pain for the pain really for the spot Obviously you got the auto you were you weren't the clear, but yeah, you grade those man I'm sure you'll get a good chunk of that stuff back and obviously a good investment because White talks are just really really good right now. Robert's doing well just in general. So if anything, that's the good thing, you know That's awesome, man. It's just obviously out of all those cases You know should I at least got one for you, man. I wish we did Amen The thing is that you make it up on another break. You know what I mean? That's the good thing Is that there's always something else to pick up the slack But what but did you get it on Matthew?  Because if you did great? I mean, I'm not saying I don't want the other person to get it But I thought I thought uh, you mean that oh you got it. Oh, thank God. Okay, I Thought you were frustrated that you didn't get it that one and we finally hit one.  I think you already sold out of the case Kenny Gallaudet Patty my home's insert delvin cook Henry rugs and Jk Dobbins, so this must be a little image variation. It was flipped backwards Remember that sometimes these flip backwards must be image variations So there you go. That's a nice one there for the Baltimore Ravens Going to Matt. Oh, JR. No, did you really? Now to do that man. I was actually wanted to See if you want to sell me some of your base of McNabb and and Miles if you get any in this one Trying to get as much as I can with those guys here You need to do that man Jerry Rice Oh, we got a redemption who's a redemption? I'll go through that now Barry Sanders What's not sure the Tuesday Yeah, Chase young was one of the rookies that hardly ever signed so Maybe chase could be Justin Jefferson. I feel like he hasn't signed much either In a few products Are you serious Matthew? He said he didn't answer. That's funny. No, I think about it. I mean Obviously with prospects and stuff like that, especially in baseball You could like legit Have had imagine think about it if the White Sox never traded Tate's you'd have Tate's on there You have e-law you'd have you know Robert all those guys just how loaded even more the White Sox would have been Down Marino. That's crazy Joe Burrell just a clean little base right there What do people say the base cards are up like 65 bucks already? That's just raw. Just imagine what they'll be like with their graded Liz Campbell. Oh 160 sorry, I'm like a hundred fifty dollars off Michael Thomas Remember the the like NFL debuts and stuff like that. Those will always suffer a little less Than the true base, but I'm sure it'll be really nice though Bigger mayfield silver all we really need is just a color borough or a base like silver And I think we're in the clear and it comes to the bangles. I mean obviously we want an autograph, but That's how hot this mosaic is gonna be So you'll really just need that and Anthony McFarland. There you go like and if I leave yeah, that's what I'm saying That's crazy another one for my glitching the Steelers Odell Beckham jr. You got Juju Smith Schuster Jalen Ramsey nice little Don the McNabb Silver Love me something now love Denzel Mims George Kittle. Whoo. Oh, that Joe makes it actually I thought I seen burl Thought that was a burl there for a second because I seen Joe That's a mix and though. It just got paid to I think Jordan Love Henry Ruggs I think a Miles Sanders cards PC that ever yeah, I think that's the one out. Yeah Once you type in Miles Sanders cards, I think I'm the only one that little jet has that one Made it very obvious Yeah, well, you know honestly, I kind of wanted the Eagles to draft Mims, but they kind of passed up on him And I want to say that wasn't men's the one saying that Philly was like Nasty place to live or something like that. I heard someone say that when they got passed up Or was it Justin Dierbison? I remember but I thought Mims was really good in college You know big time receiver So good for the jet so I hope I hope he does well there You need to get Sam Darnold Sam Darnold some weapons over there. All right. We got ourselves rookie autographs mosaic card number 35 It's an L Is it Levisca? La Michael P ride that damn Michael There you go Jets Chris Maxwell, I hope Michael P Ryan just kills it though because I feel like he's in everything Think we'd all have a Michael P run by them. I Know someone said that yesterday one. It was so funny every time you pull a Michael P Ryan An angel gets its wing Well, I think he was doing good for the Jetson training camp and I believe you got injured. All right two more boxes guys So Maddy broke his racket. I mean his yeah, it's right. All right guys. Good luck Tyler Boyd Come on Joey. You just need a silver some ink Or just a numbered card and we're good Brad and I you grab CD line KJ and learn Tyler Murray George with the Cardinals Mara Cooper And the overdrive Joe Nixon Another redemption Ryan Tannehill silver We got Julie Nettleman blue chips Leonard for Nats We ship every three to five business days usually our shipping days are Mondays and Thursdays So like breaks today on Friday, we'll get sorted out over the weekend and Probably most likely shipped out Monday night If we don't finish everybody usually we kind of go overboard than it goes Tuesday But it's usually three to five business days So obviously people breaking Friday might get their stuff in less than a business day or at least one or two business days And then you know, like I said, if it's a heavy base release like this depending if it takes a little longer probably on the most four to five business days, but usually With shipping twice a week kind of helps out so Like I said, you can look out for this by Monday night Tuesday morning to go out and then however long it takes to get to you Darnell Hunter. Oh Yeah, Josh I feel you man. Like I said, we do our best we ship out twice a week And like I said, three to five business days So however long it takes to get to you after that We're in Los Angeles. So If you're in the West Coast, it must it might get there to you quicker Big Rick and it's sold out. It'll be after It'll be after cup hockey. So if you want to here's the link and nightbot drops the break schedule If you don't see it on there's probably could just have just sold out I wasn't able to add it, but it should be there after Well, if you remember correctly, right? There was no there was no NFL here for well over like 20 years So I'm a 90s baby. So I grew up with no football here in LA So it forced me to look elsewhere Jerry Judy, Sony, Michelle Yeah, Jar, this is really nice, right? Jordan Love NFL debut rep Keenan Allen But my my nephew's dad when I was a kid I Mean my my sister obviously Helped out my parents a lot when I was a kid. So He used to love the round of Cunningham. So that's why I became an Eagles fan But Don would bring that in the early 90s. I mean late 90s early 2000s Colt Matt Marcus Mariota and DJ Moore Yes, JR Brady is in the Bucks here and it looks like he's also in the Patriots So you get best of both Whoo, nice Justin Herbert Silver. It's a very nice one Allen Robinson number 299 Your Cunningham while we see I mean I was a little baby When he played with the Eagles until he got to the Vikings in the late 90s, but You know watching him on tape and film. He was something else, right? Wish he would have thrown more With his Eagles tenure I would have been more effective Still a really really good quarterback and exciting to watch too I Am a Herbert magnet I must say but there has been a lot of Herbert's That I do not know there might be some Philip Rivers on both. I Know Brady for sure, but I Don't know if if he's on both for Rivers. I mean, he'll always be a charges legend at the end of the day, right? So I'm sure they'll have them eventually on both. All right. Thank you Tiki Barbara We have another redemption is Ricky autographs mosaic card number two this time. Oh, this might be a big player. Oh Is it Clyde? No It's not Chase young There you go. Very nice Washington football team Chris Maxwell. There you go All right, you guys last box and like I said, we have that one box cup break sold out We'll squeeze that in really quick about a 10 minute break and then it looks like Mosaic pick a team number two is also sold out. So we're running back. And like I said, I'm here for the next at least What three hours until Joe gets here at one o'clock. So Whatever breaks you guys want to break early you can't with me Like I said, if not, they'll break with Joe from one to nine and then Sean. I believe we're going after that You know, so plenty of time to get bricks into that Nice. Yeah. Yeah.  They couldn't work anything out You know In San Diego, but the good thing is that you know, they don't move too far And I believe technically then the Chargers have one year first when they started here in LA. So San Diego LA is not too bad of a drive if anything You know, it would have been different is like the Chargers left, California and went to like a different state or something So, but yeah, obviously, I'm sure being a Chargers fan you want to root for for Philip Rivers Jets like in class watching there you go Have the have the zoom on you or if you're in person class then you're said definitely a rebel AJ Terrell silver Falcons and we got a Henry rugs blue Mosaic number to 99 Marshall Fault Overdrive Jalen Hurts rookie John Taylor Patrick Mahomes Jordan Love Jalen regor silver mosaic and a Mark Andrews I Know that's true. I mean honestly You know how Ali is right? There's all about winners. They want winners. So if for some reason, yeah The Chargers were to win before the Rams You can definitely see a shift.  I'm serious 400 points guys And it's been silver. So that someone will get that at the end of the break and Tredavious white You'll see a lot of more Charger fans for sure We are Matt Jude on Joey Boso Center stage drew lock You are Richard Sherman silver and Patrick Queen Joe girl NFL debut. I know honestly Pat seriously. I mean I get it though They want people to come to their points website You know pen any points of anything the good thing I like about them is they're like exclusive packs They make that stuff ends up selling so well, but I Feel you Pat nice to a talk below a Christopher with the dolphins. That's a nice one right there Little prism silver NFL debut Michael Vick Stairmasters Tyrone Matthew Kevin Byer CJ Henderson drew lock pretty much. Yeah, it's Each pile like I'm having a little Probably are of the bigger rookies at least of what's gonna get sleeved in top loader And what isn't obviously we can't top load every single card, but For the most part the bigger rookies usually We get panty see the top loader whether it's a base or a number card And then the rest obviously everything shipping, but These are rookies that I'm gonna sleep in top building Darius Slater and all colors are definitely being top-loaded Kenny holiday Marshall folk and Tiki Barber Justin Jefferson Jerry Judy and an awful little Joe Burrow face Alrighty guys. Well, there you go. What a great first six boxes of mosaic football. I'll do a little recap right now But like I said a ton of stuff Bigger rookies that are just base Will be penny-sleeved and top-loaded All colors whether it's silvers prism silvers reds numbered cards and autographs would be top-loaded But uh Some very nice stuff here guys, this was just a half case break the other half is already sold out So we'll be doing that after Cup hockey, but Just show you a good glimpse of how this looks so ton of nice stuff Top of the auto right now All right, a ton of nice stuff So there's a lot And the good thing is that of course everything shipping we know there's a lot of value everywhere So everything will be shipping like I said, it's just a ton of this So hey little added bonus guys when you break With us at least of course A lot of stuff will be top-loaded for you guys And Then here were like the autos and the bigger stuff CJ Henderson Joe Burrell base NFL debut to a talk by Loa Silver Prism Henry rugs blue Joe Burrell NFL debut chase young redemption Justin Herbert silver Colt Matt the Michael P. Ryan redemption I'm doing McFarland Joe Burrell base Can he go all day blue NFL debut? Oh, sorry not probal. Sorry JK Dobbins. I believe this was an image variation That's why it was Top-loader already Justin Herbert NFL debut silver Lamar Jackson MVP's red Darrington Evans chase Claypool Darrell Amanica Herbert red Herbert NFL debut silver was a lot of Herbert Akuta Carlos Rogers a stained glass of Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson And a Jalen Hertz autograph for my eagles So there you go guys and again everybody's gonna have a shot at that 400 points. I was pulled here So let's give away that really quick and again more mosaic in the store at Jasper's case breaks calm like I said the next picker team. I believe is already sold out Pikachu number two and looks like Pikachu number three is already down to one and Number four is already down to four. So I'm definitely gonna be doing these three at least 12 left in choice edition and 26 left in random teams remember I'm breaking here from nine to one Joe comes in from one to nine And then Sean will come in from nine to probably the early morning hours I'm sure to try to get as much done of mosaic. So big release day guys I appreciate it. So let's copy and paste the customer names here in a dice roller randomizer and Let's give away this 400 points and I'll watch it be like 24 hours, right? Probably could be if you if you actually sell everything out and there's a lot of breaks left over for Sean I'm sure he would all right two times one Two Aaron M. Who has the Houston Texans? Congratulations 400 points going your way appreciate it. Jasper's case break stuck


So with that, I'd like to welcome and thank today's presenters. On the line, we have Susan Mulkey, she's a manager of communication and extension for the Canadian-based British Columbia Community Forest Association. Susan has a background in community development, planning and advocacy for rural communities. She's worked as a consultant, a mediator, a facilitator with an emphasis on projects involving citizen engagement, strategic planning, policy development and change management. Susan lives with her family and garden on Kootenai Lake in Caslow. In addition, we have Ron Kresner, who graduated from UBC with a degree in forestry in 1981 and since then has worked in various locations and capacities with the Ministry of Forest, mostly in civil culture and timber-tenures. Ron's been in his current position as a senior timber-tenure forester involved with community forest and wood lot licenses since 2004. His main function is to develop policy, legislation and regulations for these programs and provide guidance to ministry staff and licensees. So we're going to move to the next slide and just going to overview the agenda. These are the two presenters that we just talked about. So we've had some introductions. We're going to move to the formal presentation components of the webinar where we've allowed lots of time for discussion and conversation and then just five minutes for closure. So with that, I'd like to hand it over to Susan. Susan, could you please hit star seven to unmute your audio? There you are. We can hear you now. Great. Thanks very much. Well, thank you and thank you to everyone for managing the technical difficulties. It's my congratulations to Darby and to Kerry and staff there for navigating what's probably one of the most challenging presenters issues ever, which is the technical one. So kudos to you guys and here we go. I'd like to just welcome you and thank you for joining in. This was the last minute on the Committee of Forestry filling the space for someone else who had canceled. So I thank you for being interested enough to join in at the last minute. And it's my pleasure to tell you a bit about Community Forestry. I hear that you can change the slides yourself. So if you're doing that, I will be knowing that you want me to hassle along. So my slides have a lot of pictures in it because I think that the visual aspect of Community Forest really tells our story. And this is the first page has a picture of where I live in the middle there. That's Cootley Lake. We've got some kids and old folks and young folks from here at Proctor and some scenes from Seashell. Just to give you a little bit of an overview of what I'm going to talk about here, just what really is Community Forestry. And to tell you a little bit about Community Forestry around the world, to get a context, I'm going to talk about the Community Forest Agreement, which is what the tenure is we have here in British Columbia. I'm going to tell you about what we see as some of the benefits and talk some about my association, the Community Forest Association, and then what we're up against in the world right now. So a definition, you can see it there. It's really all about not unlike the title of the talk today, it's really about local people having a stay in the management over the local resources for the benefit as they define it. Community Forestry is happening all over the world and it's been going on, BC is a bit of a latecomer to it, it's been going on in Nepal and India for almost 40 years. And governments really recognize that particularly in developing countries as a tool for reclaiming degraded ecosystems, recognizing that it's local people who have the greatest investment in the stewardship of local land. And it's also seen as an incredible way for local people to find an income and their livelihoods off of the land surrounding their community. I've traveled a bit with Community Forestry down in the states, most of the land is private, but here in the city of Arcada, they've been managing some pieces of land that they've purchased for over 50 years. And you can imagine it's there in California and it's lots of high visibility for the politics around forestry. Nepal, it's a lot about the assistance for local people. I visited a number of places where they're using the Forest Stewardship Council certification to make paper. In the bottom slide there on the right hand side, you can see the Lukabark and that's what they use to make the certified paper. It's just a beautiful product and really makes a difference in people's lives. Here I am in Montenegro where they're using Community Forestry as a tool to repatriate the land that was taken over during the communist area and giving it back to communities. So in BC it's not a new thing even though the program is somewhat new. 1945 there was a Royal Commission and actually I believe there were two actually but started back in 1945 recommending that municipalities should be able to manage the land around their local community. First one started a mission but it wasn't until 1998 that the government of the day said let's give it a try, let's do a pilot program. And there were I think 80 communities that expressed interest. There were 10 communities that were granted the right to have an experimental community forest that really captured quite a range of different approaches and models to what a community forest would be. Then in 2003 there was the Forest Revitalization Plan and a take back of 20% of the allocated annual allowable harvest from the major forest companies which then a portion of that came to Community Forest. I'll show you how the program really did expand at that point. And last year the Round Table on Forestry really recommended more community forest. There's a lot of communities that don't have one but who would like one. Which reminds me Darby I was supposed to ask about the poll. Yeah would you like to do that now or should we? Maybe this is a good segue back to that. Sure, absolutely. Darby has set up a couple of questions just to get a bit of an idea where the participants on this poll come from. Darby do you want to show those now? Simple question. Yeah please attendees if you could just click on the appropriate one for you. Do you have a community forest in your community? Yes, no or not sure. About 11 of us have responded there. It seems you have gone back. I'll go over to the next question. Sorry that's the same one. Here we go. Our next question. If you have a community forest in your community how successful has it been? Yeah please indicate which one is most appropriate, highly, moderately, somewhat, a little or not. About two there. Okay so I can go back. Go back to the presentation. There we are. Okay great. Thanks very much. Next poll. You seem to have moved themselves around. Now audience please, attendees if you could please not touch those arrows at the bottom left hand corner. That's just for our presenters for Susan and Ron. Thanks. Okay so I'd just like to tell you what the province in their wisdom of why they wanted to create more community forests and strengthen the program. What their objectives are. They see that there's a benefit in long-term management of a particular area and that managing for community priorities whatever they may be is a good thing. Diversifying the tenure fabric, the quilt of ten years in British Columbia that there's strength and diversity. There's power in the community being involved in their, in these forest management decisions. Again the wisdom of the environmental stewardship. They think there's some power in communities being forced to be managed by communities that lends to innovation and greater safety in the forest. And certainly strengthening relationships within the community and in quite a, quite a number of our community forests strengthening the relationship between the native and non-native community. Community forests are a renewable forest license, a long-term career license so it means it's renewed on, before the end of that I think it's renewed every ten years. But it goes on in perpetuity. It's area-based which means it's not just like in other forest licenses, it's volume-based. So the licensee would be able to access a particular target of volume but it could be anywhere in the timber supply area. Community forests, it's, it's, there's an area that's designated and it has an annual allowable harvest identified. So it doesn't change over time. If it does, it's with participation of the community. The community forest agreement provides on the, the holder with the exclusive right to harvest there. They're the only ones nobody else can come in. And an opportunity to manage for a full range of values. It still is pretty much a timber tenure but we do have a right to manage for the other values that are within that designated area. And even though we have that right to manage beyond timber, we still follow all of the same rules of the provincial forest management. Here you can see how the program has expanded and the, the, the big leap there where you can't really see the, the dates underneath it. But there, you can see the big leap with 25 and, or 26 and 28 in the blue section of communities that were invited to participate in the program. You can see over time how the, the green area is getting bigger. And then this orange area at the end is a full long-term tenure where the green area still speaks to that probationary status that was in the, the pilot program. It's a bit of a holdover. But you can see how communities are transitioning to the long-term as the program matures. So here we are now. 54 communities are involved in the program at, at some stage of application, still in that probationary period or in the long-term. And still it looks like it's a lot of cubic meters a year, a lot of hectares, but we are still very, very small, being 1.5% of the provincial harvest. There's an application process that's required. The steps are that a community expresses interest. That interest goes to the minister and to his staff. If there's a, an area where, where that can be appropriate for a community forest and there's agreement to move ahead, the minister will invite a community to apply. That means that there is an application process where the community has to really both get organized, sit down together, and identify what it's going to be for them. How do they want it to look? What are the values? What do they want to achieve? And how will they organize themselves? So you can see once again that the pictures try to describe some of the values that that management plan would, would need to incorporate. That picture in the middle there with the tents in the lake, that's the Caslow Jazz Festival. And it, the, our community forest sits right behind looking down on that. So in that management plan, it within the application process, one of the things that a community must decide is how they will be organized. How will their governance, what kind of a governance model will they choose? What we say about community forest is that there's no cookie cutter approach. So there is a full range of structures everywhere from nonprofit societies and cooperatives to limited companies that are in corporations where the license is held by municipality, a holding company is created, and then there's an arms link corporation. There's also some limited partnerships which are the preferred model these days for native, non-native partnerships. It's very complex in the choice that people make around their, their governance model, trying to preserve certain rights and privileges that a municipality may have or a First Nation may have within tax structures, such as. And then there's different board models. Some of them are, some of the community forest boards are represented only by municipal officials. Some of them are from appointees from the municipal officials to sit on the, the board. Some of them just represent chief and council. And then, of course, in a place like CASO, we have a, a, a a society where the members are selected from the membership. However, a seat is set aside for the regional district to appoint someone and one from the village to appoint someone. So the point here is that there's a lot of different options and I get a lot of calls from people saying, so what's the best one? And that's really up for the, the community and their specific situation to make that determination. These logs, these big pumpkins here from Herot Proctor Community Forest just down on Putney Lake. So I'd like to talk just a bit about the benefits. And of course, those benefits are going to vary from community to community. Whoops. Jump in here. Attendees, if you could please not touch the, the audio, video components on the left, including switching the slides. Unfortunately, we've lost Susan's video line that the seat seems to have gone on us. So we're just going to leave it blank at this time. So. I could try again. Sure, if you don't mind there. I just clicked on it. I'll see if it, if it shows up. Great. Thanks Susan. Please keep your seat. Okay. So benefits. You can see that there, that there's a full range of them. As I said, it depends from community to community how an individual community will make their priority. I'll tell you a bit about that range. Or the Cheslotta Carrier First Nation. They have a community forest up by Burns Lake. Unfortunately, they had a huge fire this year. And as to the extent, I know that it hit some of their plantations and to some of their, their standing timbers. So that's going to be something really heartbreaking. I know it's already heartbreaking, but it will be heartbreaking to see what happens up there. The new development. But in the meantime, it's been an incredible opportunity for their people. And you can see what Mike Robertson, who's been somebody who has worked with them for a long time, did at home. The community forest really leveraged a connection for them that they, they had lost out on through politics and, and events of years ago. It's an incredible thing. West Bank First Nation too, they've got people who are going to work and keeping their equipment up to date because they know that the community forest will have work for them. Whereas in the past, maybe they wouldn't keep their truck licensed or in good repair to be able to go to work. It's really made a difference for them. A great story from likely that they're 70 kilometers from Williams Lake and their ambulance, you could see the road going by when you're in it in the back because of the holes in the floor. So some of the profits from their community forest, they bought a first response vehicle. That's quality of life. And then there's down in Harrop, Proctor as I said down here on Cootley Lake. In the mid-1990s there were huge arrests, demonstrations and arrests when Spokane Forest products wanted to put a logging road in. Most of these people there were arrested. I can, I can help you. Next slide please. Keep going. Okay. Just, just if you could show me that hole in there. Okay. And again. And the next one. Okay. So here's the first load of logs coming out of Harrop, Proctor once they got their community forest agreement. Basically they said, if this land is not going to be put into a park, then if it's going to be in the working forest, then we want to be the ones to manage it. And we will manage it for water quality, quantity and timing of flow. That's their priority. If they don't make any other money past that, they're happy if they've been able to put their, their management system in. And they're actually some of the most innovative with the value added part of community forestry as well. So there's their benefit they prioritized, which was water. Here's Burns Lake with some, some students. It's an incredible opportunity for long-term trials. Because of the long-term aspect of the tenure, there's a lot of room for seeing what happens over time, did in some of the area-based tenures. It's more like a research forest in that way, which in a volume-based tenure, it's just not possible in the same way. Burns Lake has also been really a leader in putting in infrastructure for recreation and tourism. And because of some of the liability issues, they couldn't put actual mountain biking trails on the community forest. But what they did with some of their profits was buy some land, which then could be turned into mountain biking trails. But I think these pictures are just from some of the wreck trails right on their community forest. McBride is another one of our, our long-term community forest. That top picture there shows the view from the village that's their community forest. Part of their management plan says that their harvesting plans, their harvesting activities will not negatively impact the tourism visual quality objectives that they have. They rely a lot on tourism, and they want it to look really beautiful. So it's got to be a lighter touch or in some creative, innovative layout so that it doesn't show. And they do quite a bit in the value-added arena as well. The posts and rails out of feeder that otherwise would have been just put on the waste pile, they're putting people to work through these small value-added operations. One of our great stories is what's going on out in seashells on the Sunshine Coast. The community forest there has a partnership with a local log home builder where they let them go out into a new area that will be set for harvest. They hand-picked their trees that they want to turn into their product. They are, you see the sling in the upper left-hand picture there. It's handled very carefully and then pressure washed so that the bark comes off. And it just turns into these beautiful, beautiful high-end homes sold all over the world. But they're using low-grade cedar. They're using a small amount and putting 22 full-time employees to work. And then the community forest for the special handling and that opportunity to go in first get quite a markup from the market-based price. It's really a win-win and quite a partnership that a lot of community forests would like to see come to their town. The picture here is Quinelle Lake where they went to get some beetle. Quinelle Lake is a big area for a likely community forest. And the manager sent the loggers who lived right on the lake there to manage that block saying, go home every night and tell me if you'd like to see. And I think Pat Bell really captured that in his comment that community forests own the principle of social license and have a real opportunity to pilot ideas and innovate. And we really aspire to that. So I'd like to tell you about BCCFA, which is the organization I work for. There's really just two of us who have contract positions. My partner, Jennifer Benchers, she's our executive director, lives here in Caswell as well. The fact that the two of us live here in Caswell means that's the home base for the Community Forest Association. We are a nonprofit society and I get my direction from our members. And we started with 10. We now have 50 members. I'm trying to click again, Darby. I'll help you along. Here we go. There we are. So we have two main functions. We work with Ron Greschner and his colleagues on provincial policy trying to make the best situation for community forests that we absolutely can in collaboration with the provincial government. And then we have a role in education and networking for our members. To put on an annual conference this year, we were in West Bank. It was the first time we were ever hosted on the traditional territory of one of our members. And it was a great opportunity for people to get together. I think some of our best sessions are where we've got a roving mic where people just share stories on a subject. Everybody benefits so much from the experiences of others. One of the things we did last year, we were contacted at the beginning of September to see if Community Forests were interested in contributing wood to the Olympic podium. It was an amazing, unequivocal, yes, by my members. And 14 of the 23 podiums were made out of wood donated by Community Forests. It was an incredible moment of pride for everyone. Those are the kids from likely sending off the wood from the likely Community Forests. What's going on for Community Forests now of what my job to focus on? We're working with the provincial government to see how we can make that recommendation from the working roundtable to create more Community Forests agreements. It's native and non-native communities who are interested in this. As I said before, there were 80 at the beginning who wanted one. I think there's, in my latest estimate, there's at least 40 who have expressed interest, 40 additional communities in BC who have expressed interest to be involved in the program. There's also a point around the size. Economies of scale play a big factor in forestry and really to provide the goals of the community for the benefits, a lot of them could be bigger. They range from 1,000 cubic meters in Banfield to 22 in Herotproctor to, I think, 50 or 60 in McBride. There's some that are larger that are potential that have just come in from transfers from tree farm licenses that belong to First Nations. But I think that everyone would agree that 20,000, which is the average, is just too small to really be efficient. In administrative efficiencies, we describe ourselves as sometimes the square peg in the round hole because we are small and we work under the same legislation that all of the major licensees do and because we're area-based. There's some ways that we're working with the provincial government to see if we can streamline how we have to do our work so that there's some cost benefits through our administrative structure. And also, we're learning more about carbon, about potential in biofuels and potential in value added. Now that the program has been there for over 10 years, people have established a number of communities for us to establish themselves and they're ready for the next stage of exploring opportunities. Some of the projects that we're focusing on right now within BCCFA is a value-added fiber supply trying to connect value-added manufacturers with community forests to just see where the synergies are. This is an exciting project and we hope to be starting this up soon. I talked about the square peg in the round hole, forest management, some of the planning tools and development tools that have been developed for larger 10-year holders. So we're working with the Alex Fraser Research Forest and UBC to adapt those and make some tools that will create some more efficiencies for community forests as we do from the beginning of the application through to subsequent long-term planning for the operating area. Governance, as I said, there's no cookie-cutter approach but there's something that my colleagues, Jen and I, have been trying to do off the corner of our desk since 2003 which is do an analysis, first do a compilation of all of the different models that are being used and the different policies that have been put in place by communities and get them all in one place. Do an analysis over the different governance structures, the organizational models and do a bit of an analysis on them to see where the benefits and challenges are in the different approaches. I get calls and e-mails every week for do you have a template for how to hire a manager or do you have some board development work? It would be nice to have that all in one place. So the Forest Management and Governance is a project we've just started. And then as it's read through all of these three components, we are working with UBC to develop a really proper extension program. In the states with their universities, they have a function where there's an extension person that is attached, it creates a liaison function between the field of the community for us and the university. It's really exciting and there's been lots of take-ups at the universities for this. They just started this week a community and Aboriginal forestry component. So it's very, very exciting and also very long-term that's something we're really thrilled about. I skipped. So Robin Hood, our president says it's probably the best way that we don't just work in community forestry, we live it. You can imagine that if you're on a community forest board or if you're a manager and you live in a rural community that if somebody has an opinion about what's going on in the community forest, they may tell you about that opinion at the grocery store lineup, at the hockey game, at the beach, at the pub. There is no getting away from it and sometimes it'll take you out of the back of your knees. It's not always easy. In fact, one manager said it's the hardest thing he's ever done, but it also is a pretty amazing thing when you stand down and look up and say, hey, this forest surrounding our community is managed by the community. It's a rare opportunity and there's not a single community that has said no when they were offered the opportunity. Everybody has said, yes, we'll take it on, even with those risks. And that's what I have for you today. This picture actually is from Bella Cula, a couple of big brown guys walking on a trail. So Darby, that's it for the presentation. Great, Susan. Thanks very much for an excellent presentation there. Yes, we'd like to turn now to the discussion portion of this presentation. Please, right now, I'd also like to remind you that Ron Greshner is also available here. I'll switch this back over to me in a second here. Ron Greshner is also available here for questions. He's from the Ministry of Forests and Range. There are a few discussion questions here to encourage just that, questions and discussion. If you do have a question, could I ask you right now to please go up to the feedback button that I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation and just please change the indicator from green to what is purple. And at that point, we will address you and the presenter can speak to your question. Does anyone have a question out there? Great, Rick Bromf. Rick, if you could please hit star 7 on your phone line and that should unmute the audio line for you. And please ask your question. Any troubles there? If you just hit star 7 on your phone line, that should get you there. Great, please go ahead. Just on all the pictures that you have on there, it all shows these mostly saw logs except for some of the host logs. But one of the challenges is trying to deal with the non-saw log portion of these licenses. And I'm just wondering what the association, if they're doing marketing in the area of trying to find a home for some of the non-saw log portion. It's a really good question. It's like people just show pictures of their smiling baby and not the one that's crying. Yeah. Within our value-added project, there's a huge component there on the biofuel function. At our conference last year, we had Ken Dave, they asked the research for us who gave a great presentation on some research that they had done on small-scale biofuels and what you needed, how to do it, how far it was economical to transport it, when you should chip, how to chip it, how to transport it. And as far as the community forest, marketing anything, we don't serve nature as a marketer for our members. Everybody does their own marketing. But within our value-added project, we hope to be able to at least get some information on our website to tell us what products people have available. But I will tell you one thing that I heard. From West Bank, they had, Ron, help me if you can remember the numbers, but they had 3,000 piles that would have been flash-burned last year. This year, they had three because they shipped everything down to the coast with chips. So that's a lot about proximity to market and the whole thing, but it does talk about potential. Yeah, and the stuff they were shipping down to the coast was for feeding nurseries down there that grew vegetables and stuff. Well, a lot of times it's not viable, and it's difficult for these community forests to, especially the ones with a lot more non-salog material. Like within the beetle areas? Well, the beetle areas and also in the transitional forests with the hemlock, the poor-quality hemlock.  Yeah, well, it's really a challenge and it's one thing that, within a business plan for a community forest, you're going to have to look at if there's a lot of your volume that is not marketable. Community forests have to run as a viable small business first and foremost. You can have all the dreams you want, but that's an important baseline reality that everybody has to face. So the, you know, I guess what I'd like to say is I think that there's a lot of opportunities to be explored. The Green Heat Initiative on David Dubois has a lot of information about small-scale on heating things. He says, start small, teach your school, heat a municipal building, and maybe there's a partnership for a community forest. At least to reduce some of that stuff that would otherwise go into the CD flash pile. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Thank you, Rick, for your question. Are there any other questions out there? Again, if you could use the feedback indicator to indicate you have a question. That'd be great. The Capital Forge, if you could please hit start seven and ask your question. And also, Susan, if you could please try and re-establish your video. Hope there you are. I can see Ron. Okay, there. It is working again. Kathy, are you at start seven? Are you there? I think I'm there. Great, we can hear you. Please, please. Go ahead. I guess a follow-up on Rick's question. I'm from Vanderhoof, and we definitely are in the heart of the mountain pine beetle issue. We don't have a community forest, and it's something that we've talked about over the years, numerous times, but I'm finding right now that there seems to be a lot of competition between the nature licensees, the First Nations, the woodlot owners, all the various people trying to make a living on the forest. A lot of competition for what wood we really do have out there, and so it seems to me for the municipality to sort of get involved in a community forest, maybe just adding more pressure and perhaps impacting the survival of some of the other folks that are out there. That's possible. It's a fixed land base, so there's only so many trees and so much area, so if a community forest is created, then that volume had to come from someplace else. Whether that be for a First Nations or for a municipality. How does a community forest, in terms of all inner workings of it, how does it compare with woodlot and the responsibilities of a woodlot owner? Ron, do you want to take that one? Yeah, I can handle that one. Yeah, so in essence, they're the same in terms of the way the ministry looks at it, they have to follow the same rules under the Forest Act and under the Forest and Range Practices Act. So all of this is different in size. They're both area-based tenures. A woodlot is maxed out in size in tier of 1200 hectares maximum on the coast, they're 800 hectares maximum. The only difference that we have is some of the planning under FERPA. Woodlots have to do what's called the Woodlot License Plan, the forest has to do what's called a Forest Stewardship Plan, but essentially the content requirements of those plans are more or less the same. So when you look at one verse to the other, they both have the same responsibility. Any area that they harvest, they have to re-forest and bring back to what's called a free-to-grow state. They both have to have management plans.  So are they challenged by the size of their areas as well to make it viable? Woodlots are a community forest. Well, it sounds like community forests need to get larger, and I'm wondering if that's the same concern with the Woodlots. We haven't really had that issue come up from the Woodlot focus. As you can appreciate, Woodlots are typically managed by a family or a person just to support that one or two people in doing so. And also when the Woodlot program was originally initiated, the plan of them was just to be a... It was typically for ranchers to be another source of income in case, you know, when the ranching side of their industry was suffering, they could go towards their Woodlot and garner some extra income, but it was never thought to be their sole source of income. It would just be sort of an added income. So we never looked at it in that light, and I guess because of that, the proponents that got these Woodlot licenses understood that, and so there hasn't been any issue in terms of... At least I haven't heard any issues in terms of that they're not being the proper size for them to be viable for their purposes. Maybe it's, again, more of a local issue, but it seems like some of the Woodlot owners in our area seem to be struggling at the moment. Yeah, unfortunately, you know, our area was hard hit because of predominantly pine up there with the mountain pine beetles, so now for the most part, a lot of those Woodlots that are up there are standing dead trees, and obviously, and because of the world economy too, the market pricing of timber has gone down considerably, so everybody in the logging industry right now is suffering because of that. Thanks. Thank you, Dan, for your report. It's not a great time to be in for us. It's Darby here again. I'm just going to interject here. Please, if you could not use the arrows on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, just for presenters still at this time, that the presentation is available through the handouts in the top right-hand corner. You can download the presentation from there at the PES. Darby, was there anything more? I appreciate your input. Thank you very much. Great. Thanks very much. If you don't mind just changing your indicator back to green, that would be wonderful, and I see that. You have a question. Could you please hit start seven and ask your question? I have a question for Ron. You were mentioning that the primary difference between a community forest and a Woodlot is generally their maximum size, so can you repeat those please? Okay, so for a Woodlot license, they have a maximum size in the forest act. So on the coast, their maximum size is 800 hectares. And in the interior, their maximum size is up to 1200 hectares. And for community forest, there is no maximum size nor minimum. Thank you very much. Are there questions out there? Jim's out. There we are. Sarah, please. Could you hit start seven and ask your question? Hi, Debra. It's Chris. Hi, Chris. I'm in Sarah's office. I had a question just about what is the governance model that seems to work best for local governments? Well, that's a really good question. There's a few different variables that contribute to how best to respond to that. Like I said, we haven't really done the full analysis, but I can tell you a little bit about some of the issues that have come across my desk through the year. It seems to be that the provincial government's preferred model for an invitation is to go have more of a government to government, local government to provincial government relationship with inviting a municipality. So the municipality says we have the license in our name. We need to have control. So a number of them have gone that model. Revelstoke Forest Corporation started up in the early 90s when they bought a tree farm license, a local tree farm license, and they're not in the community forest. You just called. What do you mean what? They're not in the community forest program, but they are one of our members and kind of our grandfather. The point is that they adopted a model that a lot of communities have subsequently adopted where they have a holding company. The municipal government creates a holding company and then an arms length management corporation. It gives the municipality the it's still managed under the the board is appointed by the council but the municipality is protected by any liability. So is that like holding company above sort of like a parent company and then underneath it is the arms length management company? That's right. And then the board is at both levels or just at the parent? As far as I understand it's just I don't know the answer to that. I think sometimes it's the same. Some municipal governments just have the arms length corporation without that holding company as in the case of McBride. I believe Burns Lake has the same model that Revelstoke has. So it's like it's an in Canadian incorporated company or a provincially incorporated company that may have counselors sitting as board members? Yes. Or a council has appointed board members. I think there's some mix and match there. And definitely within Burns Lake they have a seat for the Soaton. They have a seat for the other Burns Lake Indian Band. But it's still the municipal government still holds the license. So it just mitigates some of the liability issues towards the municipality but as for the board members, do you find in your experience do you see them taking out board insurance? As far as I understand most community boards have board insurance. Certainly that's my experience. I haven't heard of anybody not getting it. Okay. And just one last question here. From what you've seen, is there any correlation between the governance of the municipality changing every three years and the board or do they usually keep the same board of directors on the corporation? Or does it change with the political side of things? I would say that that is really up to individual communities. We've seen both. And that's one of the questions. We posted this as one of the discussion questions. You might be seeing it on your screen right now. Do you think the 84th organizations should be governed by local politicians or structured as arms length from politics? And there's some critical questions around that. One of the things is the new trade and investment, the TILMA, the provincial relationships that BC and Alberta have now about municipal governments have to advertise openly on any contracts over $70,000 and I think $200,000 for infrastructure. So if you have a community for us that you're wanting to put local people to work but you're bound by that municipal law or policy that you have to advertise openly, it creates quite a challenge. It's something that in a town or community for us like they have and because they have a society there or CASO has a society, it's not bound by those rules. So that could possibly be a strength to not go with the municipal license. But the other point around politics I think is the likely community for us. It's actually the likely Hatsville community for us. And it's a limited partnership between the photo creeps challenge and the community of likely. And they're structured that the band has their own governance on chief and council where they appoint three people to the limited company board. Then the community of likely has a society where they elect a board for their society and then send three people to the limited partnership board. What happens there is that it's the limited partnership board which is the real management of the community for us. It's separate from politics then. You know that the chief can't come in there and say I want things to go this way. It creates a buffer. The likely community has to work through their own circle first before their voice is then taken to the limited partnership board. And if you would ask those two entities, the photo creeps bands and likely they would say they have the perfect model. When politics are involved you could ask other communities maybe seashells or McBride that it can be a really big challenge. Do you see these community force corporations maybe having a broader mandate in the future for more general economic development activities for communities and first nations? I think that's the goal and it's happening. Burns Lake owns a little sawmill. They once owned a broadband internet company. They've made lots of investments up there. Some good, some that turned out to be not so good. I think there's also different ideas about how to approach that. That's why it's really on a huge campaign to attract some kind of value added manufacturer not unlike that seashells that we have with the log home company. Is that something that should that new company be owned by the community force corporation or should it be something that's separate and independent where a partnership could be set up? I know Herot Proctor is working on buying a kiln and a small mill and to have that just be an arm of their community forest. It's really so much about who sits around the table and has good ideas for their community it seems to me. It's very personal to each community. Thank you. Thanks, Chris, for all your questions there. Can you have another question? Yeah, it's just another point of clarification for Susan. You mentioned that the Likely Board has six participants three are from the Hatchel Band and three from the Likely Community Forest Society. How does that work for voting? They work in a consensus model. They've never voted. They have a fall back to consensus. They've never used it. All right. Thank you very much. I hope we do. We've got a few more there. Angela, please, if you could Yeah, please start seven. If you could hit star seven to unmute your phone and then ask your question. That should work now, I hope. Yes, we can hear you fine. I'm curious to know if any of the community forest folks have worked with an organization called Enterprising Non-profits to help them build board capacity or sort of the whole non-profit enterprise building? To my knowledge, I certainly have worked with Enterprising Non-profits and I have sent information about that network out to them but I don't know if anybody has taken up on that. Thank you. A little bit here and ask a few of the discussion questions. I know one of them was already spoken to shortly and it's what stories of strengths and weaknesses can you tell about community forests in your area? Does anyone in the audience or any of the attendees wish to speak to that? Anybody here? Anything else? Are there any community forests on the call? Please hit star seven to unmute your phone and you can speak Susan and Ron for answering the questions there and Susan for the presentation and for the apologies to the attendees for some of the technical challenges at the beginning with that I'd like to pass it to Karina Prigmore. Just a final reminder that if you wanted to take any of those pathways of presentations, the handouts that are available in the top right corner to the end of this webinar so you may wish to download those now if you haven't already and just really to echo what Derby has already said I want to thank for your patience while we work through the technical which is the beginning of this webinar and thank you to all the participants for joining us and to the presenters for the valuable information that they've shared today. A reminder that we will follow up with a survey and we would really value any feedback that you have on today's webinar but also on future topics that you may find of interest in your community. So with that we're going to say goodbye and thank you. Thanks everyone. Well good work you guys. Okay and again sorry about the challenges there at the beginning. Yeah for you guys that worked out okay. Well thanks a lot. The conference has been muted.


Hi, good morning and welcome to today's products and focus so looking at the US there we had a big reversal last night as Janet Young came out with the Fed statement that remove the word patience and give hints that there'd be a lower trajectory of higher interest rates in the future with most traders now penciling in a September rate hike rather than June based on the rhetoric used. Global equity markets spiked up the dollar massively reversed only then to kind of go back half the distance that I had reversed. Well I will look at GBPUSD and your dollar in a second but most global equity markets during that data US 30 obviously higher, Germany 30 a bit a little bit higher, UK 100 everything else all doing relatively well. So potential resistance at <IP_ADDRESS> upcoming on the US 30 followed by the tip right here on Monday run about 18,278 so moving quickly on to UK 100 which a couple of our clients fast to spend a little bit more time on very strong candle yesterday hitting all-time high ever in this history before dropping off just before the close below potential resistance at 69.64. We've not had a follow-through today but we have been lower we have been that little bit higher. We need to get a close above that level to have a springboard to move that little bit higher you know trying to get above 7,000 right here. The actual high that we reached yesterday we just have a look at that was 69.94 so just a short throw away from that psychological 7,000 level and certainly no time ever on the UK 100. Moving on to the Japan 225 it's been a little bit more volatile last couple of sessions in positive territory right now. It was high yesterday as well again putting into context almost halfway towards our next potential resistance at 28.68 and miles away from the next potential support at 18.648. So moving on to dollar yen. Dollar yen obviously reversed big time following the Fed statement. Most traders were thinking that we're going to be looking at a June rate hike but now almost all the commentators are thinking now that it's going to be September bond yields especially are pointing to that direction. So it came off quite negatively didn't hit quite as low as 119 but reversed most of the way. You know it's not quite halfway back but it managed to reverse a lot of the way back and the dollar is kind of surging back having had such a strong reversal as a lot of dollar longs exited their positions in the short term. So we're in the middle of two ranges right now 121.87 still next potential resistance nevertheless if it does come in September rather than June the entry differential between these countries is still gonna be relatively wide so it's just a timing that makes a big difference. Crude had a bit reversal yesterday. Crude inventories were record levels as ever. It dipped down and then it moved back up again. It'll probably back down below 43.29 over the next couple of days anyway. So we're at the bottom of today's range already almost reached 42 dollars yesterday. I wouldn't be massive surprised if it gets down to 42 again at some point soon. So moving on to gold then obviously gold had a massive reversal yesterday following the Fed statement. We've tried to move higher again today which we call and save the 21 period SMA only to get pushed back down again. So from other technical signals we've got a crossover in the MACD, we've got a cross on the RSI and still stochastic is just about to cross over its 20% level. However we haven't followed through today and that's a little bit strange when you consider the news that came out from the Fed statement last night but the dollar is doing some wild swings right now so maybe people are again positioned themselves for that Fed rate hike whenever it is due to come. So moving on to your dollar you can see that huge massive spike all the way up to almost 111 almost only to get pushed right back down and drop again this morning. So it probably doesn't look that that likely this rally is going that that sudden spike is going to follow through with anything meaningful will probably be back to where we started at some point soon. The same with Cable. Cable had a huge spike went all the way to 151.85 last night which also hit the 21.25 period SMA only to reverse dropping half the distance again and has dropped again this morning as we hit 148.13 which we talked about a number of times in these sessions. I need to dip below that and we'll be very quickly back to where we started. So looking on the day wise today we've got unemployment claims we've got the Philly Fed data due at 2 and the fast-forwarding on to Friday you've got PPI data from Germany, public finance data from the UK and then literally I think you actually have to go into the next week. Monday brings you existing home sales and more a CPI more inflation data from the Eurozone. So I think we've had a whole host of our biggest bits of data last night with FOMC and it'll be interesting to see where the ethics markets and the dollar goes from here considering the huge volatility and the very quick reversals that those spikes higher have been hit by if it's really just being more than just a little bump in the road to the dollar and that dollar strength is here to stay. So as ever keep your eye on the chart 4 and make insights part of your leg going forward and join me again tomorrow to find out what happened next.


Howling wind and drumming of rotors is all that can be heard from the back of a helicopter as it circles U.S. Navy and Japan maritime self-defense force ships, kicking off the 2JA-2016 Mine Countermeasures Exercise, or MCMX, a bilateral exercise where forces learn from each other and improve. I think working with the U.S. Navy contributes not only to strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance, but also strengthens the deterrent. Working with other nations builds our friendship and confidence with each other. From senior officers to junior enlisted, the participants realize that the exercise increases each nation's ability to perform MCM operations and improves interoperability. I'm Simon Aaron Spurly, Masawa Air Base, Japan.