I'm going to call the board of finance, the order at 5.08 p.m. She just can't, it's not a trouble. Okay. First item on the agenda is the agenda. I'm going to call the board of finance, the order at 5.08 p.m. That brings us to the public forum. Is there any member of the board of finance? Do you see and raise GP casino? Go ahead. We should be able to talk to you. Can you guys hear me again now? Yes. Okay. So I'm JP casino. I own North star sports with my family at 100 main street in Burlington. I under the, you know, the guidance of cheap and Spencer thought it would be best to speak today here instead of the city council or just to make it a little bit easier to talk. And that was about the great streets beats, you know, main street redo for parking. So I'm going to talk to you guys about that. And how I wanted to recommend. Waiting on a decision to change the layout of the streets for the parking primarily because I don't think we have not received any, you know, calls. Stop advise visits, like from anyone saying, you know, Hey, this is what's happening. How's it going to affect your business? And we unfortunately are, we sell bikes.   You know, bikes can be, you know, 60 pounds if it's an e-bike. And they have special wraps on them, which would mainly stick out more, which require more space. So I'm a little concerned how quickly and without much notice from anybody, or at least to any of the businesses that the city has decided to make a permanent change to the layout for the streets for parking. And I would love to get first them to meet with us. And other businesses to say, Hey, this is what's going on. And to see what, you know, how it's going to affect us. That is honestly, that's my main concern right now is. The parking and just honestly, the lack of clarification from anybody. About eating or changes that's been going on. I only found out about this just randomly through it.  And that's all I had found out about it. So I kind of just want a little bit more. Help from the city to navigate this and just to let them know, like, Hey, Parking for my customers is a big thing because it is a heavy item. We've been around for 30 years. So I'm just going to make it quick for you folks, but I would say if you can wait, talk to us. Give us some explanations where the parking is going to get lost. If it is going to get lost, that would be a big thing for us so that we can feel better about, can you continue to grow our community of bike years and just our business as well. Thank you. Thank you. We also received an email from you. Yeah. No, I appreciate it. Great. Also, we have an attendance. Sandy. Somebody is keeping madly out there. I don't know if I know that too much, but this is dragging with us. It's not necessarily that. It's a. Oh, see what I'm saying. Thank you for that. I also have a comment on the. The main tree project, which I think is a very exciting opportunity obviously for the city. And I understand the urgency of the funding. And some of the benefits. That are, I think, transformative potentially for the city. Absolutely. And I'm particularly. Excited about the opportunity to. Make some significant headway of the storm water. Control as we're having more intense. Shorter rainfalls that make it very hard to manage the. The. Impact on our sewer treatment plan. And our wastewater. So. A lot of positives. To get to the issue. One thing is going to happen today. Is that there's, it's likely that the amendment. There's an amendment to this. Proposal. This is going to include some. Some shared youth path all the way down. I believe. Six blocks instead of five. And. At the city council meeting. And the impact. And I think that's a good idea. I think it was a little bit of any consistency. Why are we doing, and there was private property. And there was business. And they didn't want to take that land. So I think the intention is good. But I think they're going to eliminate some further parking. And without that change. The six blocks. We're going to lose 67. Spots. And I think that. What I'm interested in. And the reason I'm here at the city council meeting. I'm interested in. I think that. What I'm interested in. And the reason I'm here in finance is because. You want business to succeed. We're part of the picture. And after all the federal money is coming gone. Which we're all benefiting from. And very happy about. But. Some point the rest of us going to have to perform. And continue to. Generate sales tax. And make this place a terrific place to visit. And be. So my, my, my request. And the recommendation is that. We. Ask the city. Well, my goal first is. I think the city and the private sector should work together. To come up with some. Parking options. That. That don't that accommodate. Some people. And it might be two to four blocks. From where people are used to park. They're not going to park. Right outside my front door necessarily. They're not going to do that. And it's not going to be available. But are we going to communicate through excellent signage. Digital communication. And planned. And plan strategies. And we're going to find something. And if I see a really good direction. And I take a right. And I find a place. It looks like this town wants me to be here. And if it's clean. Well, then. And safe. I'm good. And I'm not sure if we have the clear way finding. Or the other characteristics of our parking. I think that's a very consistent basis. So there is in the proposal. Some money for some. Parking study. I believe is going to be in there. And I think that's a. Good start. I'm not interested in the study on a shelf. And I'd like to see a commitment that. The private public sector. Come up with some options. It's not going to be easy for people. Which is right outside my door. But is solid accommodations. From the new parent. That brought somebody to. The UVM or sake mics. Or Champagne. The people that are just visiting the people that are. Used to shopping downtown. Used to getting services. Getting the nails done. The hairdo. This is not going to be easy for people. 67 spots and six boxes. I'm not sure where to go. So that's my request, my encourage. And I know we did this on North Moosky Avenue, do we not? We made some moves for the bike path and then we discovered that the workers at the health center were using a lot of the spaces and then we're like, oh my goodness, we have no spots. Let's be proactive. And let's not be afraid to get us to show some commitment, spend a little money and do some planning and get the public working to think of the private sector working with the city to get the stuff. Great, thank you very much, Sandy and T.P. This isn't really set up, it's like a back and forth. There will be a presentation from Public Works at the home meeting tonight. And I think it will be sticking with the process issues and that idea such as the ones that are raised. And just for those of us who don't know, Andy, can you say who you are? Sandy Miller, I'm one of the owners of the Ski Rack. Great, thank you. Thank you, Jessica. I should have, we don't have public forum comment here for our finance staff, I didn't have my protocols down. All right, so I'm gonna, if there's no one else online or in person we're gonna close the public forum and we'll move to the consent agenda, which is welcome, motion to adopt consent agenda and take the actions that we can. So moved. Thank you, Councilor Hightower. Seconded by Councilor McKee, discussion. Seeing none, we will go to vote. All those who are motion to please say aye. All right. Aye. President Paul, are there any opposed? Motion carries. Are you able to hear me now? We are able to hear you, yes. Okay, great, thank you. You're bringing us clearly. Yep, yep. Okay. We have trouble with applications. The next item, we have two budget items. 4.02 is the tax rate discussion. People, Councilor, if you haven't seen it yet, you did get a communication from us earlier today about you meeting next week for 4.01 or 4.01, please, if I did, I'll start with the question next week. She's going to let us know what effects I might have to be able to join us. 4.02 is the tax rate discussion and the CAO, Catherine Shep's tonight. Yes, thank you, Mayor. In the interest of time, I will keep it brief. If you are interested, there is a quick PowerPoint online, but this is one of the more important and exciting, even though it's taxes part of my job. We talk about the tax rate, which shows up at the bottom here. This is the rate people will be familiar with. A municipal rate last year was just over 67 cents. But as you can see here, it's really made up of these 14 individual rates. And so we'll just go through them very quickly and then see if you have questions. An important component of this worksheet is the value of our grand list that is up here. You can see the value last year was just over 53 million. Now it's 56. And that is because we were conservative last year. We were thinking that we would have to give away more in, why can't I think of the word? When we can. Appeals, thank you. I'm reminded of appeals. Yes, thank you, Mayor. So that has come up about $3 million and we're at 56.3 at this point. So the first two ratings people probably know about, the general city rate and the public safety or police and fire rate. These are what we call revenue neutral rates. And we say that because last year's rate was 19.52 for general city. And so is this year's rate. It's generating a little more income for us because of this grand list issue I talked about. This next group, this rate packed by voters. These are various taxes. I just, I will, I'm concerned people I think at that point I just wanted to make sure. I'm not saying that the revenue neutral, the big revenue to neutral point is going from FY 21 to FY 22, where we did the reappraisal, the grand list went up dramatically, of course because of the reappraisal, but you can see the general city rate, the rate changed dramatically but we basically reduced the rate dramatically. So that there was very little, other than very little change in revenue flowing to the city. FY 22 to FY 23, there is some real growth in the grand list which does generate some additional revenue. That is not, that is development related, new construction related. That does create some increase in revenue but the revenue neutral is marked largely just FY 21 to FY 22. And the reason there's a big jump in police of fire is you will recall that was the tax increase specifically for police of fire for the additional ambulance. That's a perfect point. Thank you. Yes, of course. That's a very important point. Thank you. This next category, rates packed by voters are things by and large that were put into place by various city council resolutions along the way for as you can see here, specific purposes. We have a resolution for parks and then we have one for penny for parks. We have library money, housing trust, I won't go through them all but those of you who were paying attention last year know that in FY 22, we held those rates down because we were still in the midst of COVID and because of the reappraisal, we knew that homeowners and property taxpayers were feeling the effects of that. And so it meant that BPRW and others had less money going to some of those dedicated funds. And so we said last year, we would do everything we could to restore those monies up to their caps this year and that is what you will see in FY 23. Those monies are at the caps allowed by those various resolutions. Then the last category are rates over which it's just the budget is what the budget is. GMT in the county, we have very little control over and then retirement and debt service kind of are what they are and those also get added here when those all get added up. You can see we are proposing a tax rate that would go from about 67 cents to just over 70 cents. So it is a slight tax increase and that comes from the fact that even though no tax increase passed again, it's these rates capped by voters floating up. We don't have exact numbers on the education tax rate yet. As you know, this is just one component of the property taxes, those will be going down to the point of which people should property taxes will see their overall property tax rate go down, but I don't know exactly how much. With that, I'm happy to take questions and I know the payers as well. Thank you, Catherine. The floor is open for any council questions about the current estimated tax rates. Great, no questions on that. Our no questions will close this section and final budget reviewed for the night is also CAO office item which is going to be this, the health retirement workers' comp insurance lines for the budget, which are always interesting and significant lines. So I have three different funds that I'm going to cover. I think I can get to all about 10 minutes of retirement. I'm going to give you five minutes when we get health insurance to read, I'm going to give the insurance of it. So the one I'm presenting here or I'm going to cover is what you've already approved to approve the retirement and health expenditures in the individual budgets. The budgets were built that we're collecting X amount of money from our employees and it summits us to get money from our taxpayers. So I'll start out with the retirement fund, which is fund 125 at a very, very high level.  So it's substantial in nature. The largest expense for the retirement fund is actually coming, what's called the monthly burn. What am I paying my retirees on an annual basis? That's approximately $20 million. In addition to that, we have return of contributions that could range from a half a million to three quarters of a million dollars. The retirement department consists of a one half time FTD, that's it. They were going to be in looking to bring on one full FTD in-house to provide the level of service that's needed. The amount of individuals that the retirement fund provides support to it's larger than any other department in the entire city. It basically provides support to all active employees, all invested employees, and all retirees. And that's 2,300 people. And that's three times the size of our general fund. What you've seen from CDO Schard's presentation, you would know that the dedicated tax for retirement actually dropped by 66 and 2 thirds of a penny, so to say, three quarters of a penny. So that is actually good news to the taxpayers. How did that happen? I'm pleased to state that the retirement fund had its highest return on investment in its history last year. It was 31% phenomenal year. And that basically has driven a dedicated tax down. It also has resulted in our employees paying less that's coming out of the paycheck of this year, 23.5, about three quarters of a penny. One more thing that's worth noting, our investment portfolio, and it's not the end of presentation, but it went from 200 million to 250 million dollars a month. So it was a ban again. So that's 5125. You can see that it's self-balancing. My revenue streams are coming from my employees to departments in our tax base. And they get it self-balancing, period. Any questions on the retirement fund? Good morning. Yes, good morning. When you say now, how pleased would you say this? Nathalie, how pleased would you say this? Yes, so basically that's another piece that a lot of people are unaware of that. The retirement fund basically provides support to the Burlington School District for all non-teachers, administrative staff. So again, that's just another subsection. The amount of Burlington School District individuals that we provide support to is actually equivalent of the Burlington Electric Department. So we're talking about 100 employees are part of that plan. So the school district will benefit as well. The individuals that get paycheck still notice there is a slight reduction in what's being taken from their paycheck for such a service. What is the relationship with the enterprise for companies specific to our understanding of the question? We have employees going to the airport. Yes. And I'm going to talk about that. Yes. What is their relationship with this type? Do they contribute to that space? They're in the front. They do contribute as well. However, the dedicated tax that is paid does not come from the Burlington Electric Department or the resources airport. Their revenue streams pay for the cost of such plan and the dedicated tax that you pay for is only for the general fund. Does not include the school district and all enterprise funds. Thank you very much. Yes. Sorry, I've got a slightly more basic question, which it would be hard to answer and I hope it's quick, but how would it?  How do we balance that with bad years? Is there so much care we have or is it all? So one thing that I didn't mention is that we're required that on our earnings that there's actually we use this called a smoothing method. So the gains that we experienced in fiscal year 2021 was just a foundation of what we used to build a budget fiscal point, right? Basically, there is at least $10 million in gains that we got this year that is going to spread over the next five years. So the beauty is, even though we're having a challenging year for returns, our returns get a date of 7.3% as a loss, you know, the good news is we're sitting on about $10 million. So that's going to result in taking a little bit of the sting of what we're going to see in the future. The other piece that I've noticed is that because of the design of the administration on the retirement plan, it's actually resulting in substantial dividends. So for example, I've seen years when we have zero gains, we're at a great even on the investment portfolio, yet there's little to no change in the amount that our taxpayers pay or our employees. So if we have a good year and we're doing double digit returns or slightly less than 10, what I'm seeing is that the, what's called ADAC, the contributions that are required based on the actual report and basically are in this award point to help you with this. The mayor will get this question, I think, but generally it's in the 70 percentile. Our funded liability. Funded liability is very attractive. It's in the 70 percentile, long-term goals to try to get that to 80 percent. But that's just showing that the retirement plan is very helpful. And one last question on that. What is our spending period? Is it five years? Five years, five years. We recently reduced that smoothing cycle from seven to five. We have also reduced what's called an actuarial assumption for investor returns from 7.5 percentage of 10 basis point, 10 basis point per year and adults to get that to 7 percent so that our funded liability that was showing it's very nice. We'll do the next one. Okay. All right. Please. Thank you. Yeah. So this is three minutes. So self-insurance, fund 150, it says self-insurance because it was self-insured but really it's just a budget for a health and dental expenditures. That budget is $15 million a year. The claims that I'm budgeting for this year is $13.1 million, half a million dollars a dental. Again, that particular department or that particular fund, there are no employees that are in that fund. It's primarily managed by Catherine, our HR director myself on the finance side. And again, what I'm seeing is that the amount of money that our employees are paying this year is actually less than a prior year. So this is the first time in a decade that our employees are paying less for retirement health in one year. It's never happened in a decade. That's just a positive trend that I am seeing any questions on this slide very much. Last one is our insurance fund. This particular fund has one employee that works in it. They have a safety manager, name is Nicole Blow, that individual wants to keep its function. And it's recently retired and will be replaced shortly. I didn't know about that person. Yes. That's new to me, but I built the budget for Nicole. Yes. Fund 175. Again, it's $4.7 million. It is really growing down to two components. One is basic insurance. The other's work is comp. Work is comp is about $2.5 million. Our work is comp has been driven or it's gone up as a direct result of our actual wages that we're budgeting. The only other piece that's worth mentioning, it's very important that the what a finance and city council are well aware of this fact. Fund 175, which is the insurance fund. And Fund 150, which is the health and dental. In the event that they go over budget, it has a direct impact on the general funds on a sign fund balance. So it's really important that we watch this to manage it. We just break up these funds for ease of tracking, but in the consolidated, audited, financial support, those funds are wrapped in, along with the general fund, the determined overall profit development. So we have to be very aggressive and oversight the management of both of those funds. Questions? Thank you, Rick. I'm gonna close the sand unless there are any questions. Great, we will now move to 5.01, which is a council initiative, funds break through the wood from Bartheece Jericho. Let me get on to the local families. Is there a council that wants to speak to this as coming up? It is coming from a councillor's house or stand in this year. A council member of Bartheece. Oh, great, okay. Yeah, good. I can't check. Yeah. We're going to have to use a $1,000 of property from the city, but I don't think we're good to move on to the second piece. I think we're good to move on to the second piece. Great, let's just finish this. Great, is there a second for that motion? Second. Great. Second for President Paul. Discussion, if they would like to say anything more about this. Okay, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, or emotionally say aye. Aye. Any comments? Carries unanimously. And just a thank you to the committee and Councilor Chenow, bring that forward. Bring, this brings us to 5.02, authorization to execute a contract for a Dewey Park project with Humanity Memorial Inc. and transfer funds to the public arts capital budget for this application. Bring in for being here. Anything else? Well, why don't you give a quick update on this part, it's been a while, so let's switch to that discussion, I think. Steve. What's this? Project, a Dewey Park project that PCA and RAV have been working with for almost a year. And we worked together to execute an artist's call that was not nationwide in the Dewey or about to five. And of that five, it got to the Humanity Memorial who is built up a contract with us. We weren't able to execute that contract this fiscal year and $165,000 was allocated for this one-time project, which we want to get approved, a BA from the REID's general fund to the public art capital fund so that it can be executed for next year and also to approve the contract with Humanity Memorial and have the PCA execute that. So those are our two requests. Sarah, Cass is also here with us. We have, Any questions for? I'm going to take the recommended action as it's supposed to work out. It's our second second by Councilor Jang. Discussion, that's right there. Just thank you to Sarah, especially for shuffling us through this process and I appreciate your leadership on that. I appreciate your excellent commentary as a panelist. I thought that Zariah could have had a, had another career as an art historian. First time I went to work with Sarah was when I was the airport commissioner. Yep, yep. Contest for the skylights that are still there. A long time ago. Any further discussion? So let me know about the location. I think she's the specific location of the school. Okay. This is Sarah can best answer this. The, what led to that? Can you repeat that? Oh, what led to the location? Yes. We did a three department tour of the old North Bend. Last summer, so it was Parks and Rec, Burlington City Arts and REIB staff looking at a number of different potential park locations in the old North end. And Dewey Park was ultimately selected for a number of reasons, but largely because it's in a very central location. It is right across from the Integrated Arts Academy, which was appreciated by lots of members of that group. And it seemed to be a project that, or a, it seemed to be a park where a public art project would really enhance the experience of the park, whereas some of the other parks we looked at already had been through other public processes or had other functions that may have not been as easy to integrate a public art piece into. So that was, those were the main reasons that, and the farmer's market was another reason too. We really liked the idea that it was already kind of a community centered space where the piece would experience a lot of engagement through the school and the other activities that were, that the space is used for. Okay, if there are no further questions, we will go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. All right. All right. Okay, post. Motion carries unanimously, and then we move up for the installation, Sarah. Which, Sarah, what should we, like starting next year with the installation, right? Yeah, so we would be, this is about a year long process. Actually, we would, once we execute this contract, we are gonna want to put it into play pretty quickly, thanks to the materials issues that everybody's facing. And so it's about one year from the date of signing the contract to the artist that fabrication and installation will take place. You can see there's also a beauty element that you'll be standing next year. Maybe before two years. Well, keep up the good work. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. The materials can't hear you, man. Yeah, I have a lot to ask, but we'll just wait. Yes, we will definitely plan an event to celebrate. Cool. Yeah. Very good. Thank you, Sarah. All right, thank you, Ben. Yeah, thanks. Thank you, everyone. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you, Chippen. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna, sorry, Chippen, if I get on. Great. It relates to the... Yes, and this is on the deliberative agenda for tonight. So we are happy to answer detailed questions. We have a very short presentation that answers some of the questions that you've heard tonight from my answers. And actually, have Olivia just give a quick synopsis of the action we're seeking the board of finance to recommend approval of the council. I'll keep it brief since I know we're running short on time. But obviously, in October 2021, we kicked off this project bringing our consultant on board, authorizing the start word for the outreach phase, potential design phase. Since then, we've performed various outreach to policies covered through various FBAs, most neighborhood meetings, business outreach meetings, data collection, conceptual design, as outlined in the conceptual scope of the project. As we approach a milestone tonight, as we'll be talking more about at the council, we're seeking authorization to increase our design budget and amend our contract with our consultant to optimize additional scope items, such as pulling additional project meetings, we needed to accommodate high level of coordination and our aggressive schedule, additional outreach work that needs to be administered to meet the needs of our public and business community. Additional data collection required to move into some of the next preliminary phases of engineering design, as well as additional work for the parking and intersection studies, which we'll be talking about in more detail tonight, which of course is designed to address the sort of concerns you've been hearing on our public forum tonight. So again, we're happy to take questions now or during public city council if that works better, as this agenda item will be on the city council as well. Thank you. I'd more like to proceed. Our solicitors. Happy to in the memo towards the end listed four areas that we are working through with this project, once the condition of the subterrain utilities and please let me know if it's better than I do. There's some contaminated soils work associated with a project, again, more of a preach. We've just been finding out more and more outreach throughout this project. So there's various like components that are so kind of like for man unknown state until we get further into the design right away. If you want to kind of find something the right way to say is that we need to require some different rates for potentially slow the product down. So we want to make sure we have that funding available as quickly as possible if we still want something like that. And those things can be can be extensive. Move to approve and to take the record. Second by Councilor McGee discussion. All those are there. And what should we say? Okay, close. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. We'll see you tonight. Later on. See you later. We'll be there. It's not fine too. We'll be there. And whether you'd like to talk a couple of comments. End it over to you there. Sure. Thank you for having me. Good evening, everybody. What you have before you is a five year recommendation of award for contract for the July 3rd fireworks show, which is an annual celebration on the city's waterfront. Our recommendation is that we award the contract to a Vermont local company named North Star. There's some detail in the memo. This is a $40,000 per year contract. What we're seeking is approval for a $40,000 per year contract over the course of five years, which brings the grand total to $200,000. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have or any specifics around the show. That's right. I assume we expect to be getting donations around the level that we have in there. Brett, can I know that all Palma Loaves have stepped up for the second year in a row with an additional 10,000, so they contribute $25,000 towards the show. When I first saw this, for a second I thought it was $200 per year and I almost... Okay, I don't know if I can answer that. There's quite a bit of a show. I think you'd end up with like a neck cramp because it won't do so long. But if there's another thing that I'm happy to do I think we're going to take it off, right? I think I'll try this. I'm sorry, Tara. I think that's Jay. For the discussion. I think like the final is going to be one aspect of the show. You'll see that there's all the ways that we can move on. Partly else, all the details around the show. When that comes out, I'll say, yeah, this contract is basically just for... Correct. Yeah, we have performers at Waterfront Park. They'll be vendors down on the waterfront. So is the question, when will... Okay, so the performers are... I guess we're going to have that in the budget. That's just part of our general fund budget. It's also part of the people who are by the vendors down at the Waterfront too. But there is a... But you're correct in that there's more than a $40,000 budget for the fireworks. I don't, unfortunately, have that total in my head. You're welcome. For the discussion. Certainly, I think it's exciting. Relation with North Star, that's outstanding job. Tom, second generation artists. Yeah, second generation too. I believe it's his father, originally, I think. Every year there's some innovation, so I guess that's pretty good. So I'm going to vote on all those if they're emotionally sad. All right, I'm going to close. She carries unanimously. Thank you very much. We're on five contract extensions for a wastewater testing program. We are looking for extension to this contract for primarily COVID testing in the wastewater. This contract has been in place since fall of 2020 and we're still continuing. The contract will cover, like I said, COVID testing, any variant testing that might come up along with flu and RSV. And we, at this point, we only need extension to the contract. We are still using the ARCA money that was approved last year. So it's not operating new funds just for the year for contract? Yeah, that's correct. In previous council authorizations, you've dedicated the funding and because of the city's receipt of two different grant funding sources, we've been able to pay for the vast majority of the program so far through those grant funds. So I think we've only paid one or two of our monthly invoices using ARCA. So we're anticipating to continue using the already allocated ARCA money. Can you advise some status of testing for other viruses or cold air? So we have been testing for flu and RSV throughout this winter. There has not been a ton of it found and we're gonna scale back that testing over the summer and then probably resume it every other week. And then we did conduct a pilot study to test for drugs, opioids and other substances over using spherical samples and the results were not very conclusive. Our vendor is currently attempting to develop some better methodologies and depending on the results of that, we would test for the second half of the year. Again, thank you. I certainly support this extension still where the future has had respect to COVID. This capacity, especially with the phase now of the state free testing study, it's less peaceful necessarily. Testing data, we want to stay at home, test it, it's been important to ask for that. So we'll get us another year. This gets us to the end of this year. End of 2022. The calendar year. Yes. Okay, okay. Floor's open for the council. All right, thank you. Do we expect to be able to plan for the state-of-the-art program or are we pretty sure that it's going to be our approach to that? That's a great question. The grant funding that we were using before was the local government expense reimbursement grant, which I think we've exhausted. And there was another coronavirus emergency supplemental funding program grant. I'm not sure what the status of that is. So at least through this six month extension, we are anticipating just using PARPA, but the team, Kara, Alma Suarez team, has been really great in helping us identify other funding sources we could use first before spending PARPA money. So if anything else comes up, we will certainly take advantage of it. That's a great question. Councilor Dianna, I think it's worth all sorts of budget passing. There's a bunch. Almost every department, agency or state has new programs, which is a question that the Department of Health does appreciate this data as well. Let's hear it fast, please. Further discussion? I'm back, we're actually just reminded from Councilor Dianna this week about the capacity, so we'll put that in the screen, but it's starting to gear up. That's some capacity now, so more of these there. All right, we'll move on. All those in favor of motion, please say aye. Sorry. Let's go here. Oh, sorry. Let's see that. I hope we'd be glad to take the recommendation of the action of the box. Okay. All those in favor of motion, please say aye. All right. The opposed, motion carries unanimously. I'm sorry, Chris, I thought we got to get you here. It's all right, I just don't want to, like, totally up just from the front. I said, why don't you move down? Yeah, it's all right. I can do that. Thank you. All right. 5.06, spot positions, you execute contract, for the best supply and installation of taxiway, even the marketing and production of our airport, this is my late-end services, LC, but it's going to be a fairly routine item, thank you. Great explanation says us all, it's a fairly routine. We have to do this as a required by FAA, and the price is right there, just over $100,000. All right, for motion, I'll accept. The function will be approved. Second by Chancellor Jenning, discussion. All those in favor, motion, please say aye. Aye. All right, opposed, motion carries unanimously. Princess 2.07, application S2A contract, for the preventive maintenance and servicing of passenger boarding bridges, and conveyor baggage handling system, and I actually have a couple of options left for us. All right, all right. Again, this is an extremely routine maintenance item for the airport. This is a highly recommended contract to help us with our preventive maintenance, jet bridges, and our bagels. Good discussion, motion, motion. Thank you, too, and I take the action as recommended by the panelists. Second by Councillor Jenning, discussion. All those in favor, motion, please say aye. All right, all right, opposed, motion carries unanimously. Princess 2.07, final item of the meeting, for board finance approval, or at least for the long contract for landscape improvements, budget mutual amendments, CFI 22, please.  This is, yeah, this is a required item as part of our terminal integration project, the new portion of the terminal. This is the required South Rowington landscape portion that, of course, we can't fit it on the actual site of the terminal project, so this is going at the gateway of the airport, which is the intersection of Airport Drive and Williston Road. This is stonework, landscape work, and other items associated with that particular area. You're gonna see this come up eventually with time. Is this the actual contract that I'm working on? This is the answer. Correct, yeah, with the pooling program. Right, let's see what we call it. So we actually changed the airport's project right now. Essentially, it's just an effort to make it say SBTB, as I mentioned. Also, we had to initially take out the letters because they didn't consider this culture would go for a separate process for the site. So this is just the landscape. The site needs to go back before. It'll go back before the minute, it might come back before you as well. That is gonna be a separate concept, but we are working on that particular sign and sculpture in front of that gateway area. Sculpture would account towards landscape work, but signs don't. All right, we're ready for our motion here? Present moment. Thank you for making that motion. Take the action. So Councilor Hightower, discuss it. All those in favor of motion, please say aye. All right, we pose motion carries unanimously. We are adjourned without objection. Support of finance, it's at 6.03 PM. I'm going upstairs, staying on the same Zoom. Yeah, I think so.  Yes, stay on the Zoom. See you in a second. It's going to be really awesome.


Chairman and ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I'm delighted to be here, and delighted to welcome you on behalf of ESB to the third lecture in the 2014 ESB Part of the People Lecture Series. As Tom says, we belong in a relationship with the institution. This series lecture provides a very important forum for generating debate and advancing thinking on the complex challenges facing the energy sector today, ac chi'n ddweud nhw'n digwydd am how we can work together and I believe it's really, really important that we do work together on resolving them. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to address you today. I'm pleased also to have Aemin Ryan here, former Minister. Because Aemin and I, we challenge each other on these kind of issues and issues that I'm going to raise. The one thing I'd be really interested in here is having good old debate about it so I might have less to say rather than more in the interest of maybe promoting a bit of a debate. I happen to have the privilege of being chief executive of ESB. I've spent 30-plus years in ESB and I'm very proud of the company, very proud of its heritage and its contribution to development of the energy system and Irish society and the economy in Ireland. ESB is 10 billion plus assets in public ownership. yw eu busredd o unigfyniad, oes eu sredig o'r chi'n maen nhw, efo'r frysglwyd llunio, hwn o'r cyfnodau o'r cyfnodau – o phobl – o'r 60 yma i gyd o dwylo pobl o'r llyfrhysgau o ffyrddiaeth yn cael ei gwzwledd y lleol. Efo'r bwysig mae hynny'n gweithio eisoedd o gyd o hyd ystwyll wedi'i eisiau ar gyfer y cyfnod oedd ymgyrchol erbyn. A dydych chi'n gweithio ar y gweithio i gefnogi'r gyda'i hwn. Efallai'r chaeligau hynny'n eu cymrydau energiol yn cymrydau hynny, a yna yna'r llunio yma, y llunio ymgyrchu yna'r llunio yn cymrydau energiol. Yn gweithio, yna'r cyllidau cymrydau sydd wedi'i fawr cymrydau hynny, y cyrchwyn Ieol, yn cymrydau cymrydau energiol, a'r cymrydau hynny'n cymrydau hynny, ac mae'n meddwl â'n cyfrwys ymlaen ychydigau, Ond y context yma o'r rhan i'w yw ddechrau ei amddangos o'r syniad ymlaen o'r cyffredin yn yrthynod yn ei wneud. Mae'r cyhoedd oedd yn ddechrau i ddweud o'r gwaith, oherwydd, o'r cyfrifodau neu'r cyfrifodau? Wrth gwrs, mae'r cyfrifodau yn fath o gweithredu yn ysgol y bydd hynny'n sefydliad, a mae'r cyfrifodau yn ystod o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r gweithredu. Oherwydd, mae'n ddweud o'r ddweud o'r cyfrifodau. Felly mae'r cychel pethau yn cyd-bynfogol cyflym gyrfa cyshireu. Felly mae fawr yn fawr sach. Yna'r cyd-bynfogol yn cyd-bynfogol y bydd. Mae'r cyd-bynfogol yn cyd-bynfogol mwy beth sydd chi wedi wneud eu decayn dod o'u inviteis ac ydych chi'n dwylo. Yn y cysyfu llawer o'i ddybyd, mae'n gwneud deithas I青. Felly mae'r cyd-bynfogol yma mae'n ddysgu ydymwyngadein ychydig. ar hyn o'r pethau ymgyrch yn y rhaid i'r gwellol ar gyfer oedd y taxidoriaeth a'r rhaglen a'r rhaid i'r blaenol yw? Rhaid i'r cyfleoedd cyffredinol yw unrhyw gyntaf iawn, fel gyda'i arfer o ôl gyntaf, a'r cygeffredinol yn amlwg. Dwi'n rhaid i'r gyflwynymau. Ma'r anhygoel am y dylai cymryd i'r rhaglen a'r anhygoel yn ymgyrch gan hefyd... ym ddylai â'r cyflynyd yma, iechyd i'r cyflwyfan ac yn gweithio i'u gwaith i'u Rhaglen. Rydyn ni β Group byddweithio technology, market regulation policies. And of course in the last 10 or so years the need to decarbonise our electricity system to address the global challenge of climate change. Traditionally and for many many years, you know for the electricity industry is over 100 years old but for most of that has been characterised by very large scale towards the iron scale, centralised, generation plant, feeding into the transmission system and then a radial distribution network, bringing power electricity to customers. Those long term decisions that are necessary for capital intensive projects could be made in an environment of relative certainty in terms of the return on that investment. And that was kind of up to maybe 20-25 years ago, that was how the electricity industry was characterized. But in that from about 1990 onwards and driven mainly by the UK European energy policy focused exclusively on costs and lower prices. So, I was an efficiency driver fwy about 1990 onwards. And the UK has said. led this way by adopting a market-based approach to managing generation and introducing an independent regulator into that piece of yn syniadau y taeth yn ychydigol iawn, y galler y mae'r bobl cyffredinol ar y cwmhwyllt yma. O'r ffordd yma, y Deyrnas Unedigol, ymgylch, ymgylchog, ymgylchog, ac ymgylchog a'r sgwpwysig a'r regolau ar gyfer y cwmhwyllt ymgylch. A'r rhai o'r Unedigol wedi'u cyfle. Ac mae'n drwy'n edrych i'r Unedigol i ddweud, yn ymgylchog, rwy'n edrych yn y cyfle, Rydym yn ydy'r cyfle sydd y clyw 25 oed yn ymweld y gweithio yma yn Y Grif Brith yn y Tethau UK yng Nghymru yw'r gweithio am y ddweud i fyddo'r anghwylo'r gweithio a'r regolau i'r awr, yn y bach o unig o'r problemau sy'n ei ffeydd i ymddangosol yn yr UK, oherwydd yr ymddiad, oherwydd yr ymddiad a'r ond, oherwydd yr ymgweithio sicrhau, oherwydd yr ymddiad a'r ymddiad a'r ymddiad, oherwydd yr ymddiad a'r ymddiad.  Yr cyfnod cyfrifio cyfrifio'r cyfrifio'r gyrraeth, a'r cyfrifio cyfrifio'r cyfrifio'r cyfrifio'r gyrraeth, mae'n gweithio'r gyrraeth yn gwybodol. I'm going to be back. That's an important concept in terms of markets. It standardised a new generation fleet right across Europe, and it effectively made electricity a commodity at the wholesale level, which is one of the desires or the ambitions of the creators of energy markets. Around 2005, the dynamic was changing, but in 2005 it was a critical changing point, I bwysig, y ddweud yn fwyaf ffordd a'r gyfosedau cyfosedau yn y ddweud y cynhyrch, byddwn yn ein tynfod drwy'r cyfosedau cymryd arweithio. Mae'r cyfosedau o'r cyfrifodau o'r 2020, y E 우, yr hyded yn y cyfosedau cyfosedau cyfosedau, y cyfrifod ymddangos cyfosedau, y cyfrifod cyfosedau, a bhwyddiwr, fel cwmgyrch ar gyfer y lleol agfiannwys cyntafol iawn. Ychydig yn yr EU yw bod yn ymddangos gan gyfnod o gwaith o gyrfa, yn y 20% sydd yn raddwyddiadu gwasafol y brinog fadebluenaryn, yn y 1990 sydd fel y boblordeb yn cyfnodig cyffredigol yr llif, ond mae'n cael ei gyffredigol. A dylai dynion sy'n wych yw'r cyffredigol i'r syddolol, fyddwn o'r ffrif o ddoch chi'n iawn, fuel market a Y Cw comparel marked, is failed. The wave with which the carbon market collides with renewable targets were allowed to be set at national levels so individual countries across Europe could set their own renewables targets. That had an impact on how that collided with the carbon market and the effect now that there is a new package that has come from the energy- Rolle year 30. A package that has come from EU Commission, which looks 40% reduction in greenhouse gas right across Europe on a pan-European basis and renewables targets of 27% set on a pan-European basis, but not clear what the in-country component of that is going to be and that piece of how that policy is implemented will be a key driver of the energy system and investments in the energy system in the period beyond 2020. And what we need is certainty and in that particular regard, but we need certainly beyond 2020 if the desire of Europe is to decarbonise electricity industry or an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050, we need certain investment certainty beyond that 2030 horizon. And as back to that long cycle capital investment kind of characteristic of the electricity system that I mentioned, we will invest in technologies today and are investing as all developers and all generators are in technology today that will be around in 2050 or 2060 so we need certainty to actually backstop that investment. But again the electricity system right across Europe and Ireland was no different in regard was identified as a primary vehicle to achieve these 2020 targets and on the base that if you decarbonise electricity you can actually decarbonise the economy and a completely change of the dynamic of the industry so and where we're heading now is away from that large-scale centralised generation system to a very very different type so instead of that centralised generation feeding to broadly passive consumers we're heading now for a combination of centralised large-scale centralised generation and distributed generation and distributed storage but we talk of customers now instead of consumers and customers in the future will be producers so we will have people right out at the end of the electricity system who would be producing their own electricity but also buying electricity and this presents a huge challenge for a holy market-based system. Markets work best when their only job is to match up supply and demand for commoditised products at the appropriate cost. Markets are not so good when they're required to deliver a wide range of outcomes now required by policy makers in a political system which changes every five years so again a long-cycle capital intensive industry does a 20 to 40 year investment cycle but a policy system and a political system where EU commissions and governments change on a five-year basis is a key consideration in terms of future energy policy. The regulatory models for networks by and large have remained unchanged despite there's been massive investment in networks and to support a different kind of mix of generation brick in terms of renewables and in terms of the huge data now that is now needed that be generated by millions of customers who are going to using smart technologies in the future will be interacting proactively with the electricity system. Now from a policy perspective I believe then there are kind of I suppose there's a lot there's many many many consideration but it comes back to I believe three fundamental questions is the current regulatory model fit for purpose to deliver the scale of investment needed in networks and is the market the best means of organising the generation sector and the third piece then is will the penetration of technology at the customer end fundamentally change the electricity value chain. Now looking first at the regulatory framework it's hard to see an alternative to the current model whereby an independent third party regulator regulates costs and outputs for network operators. We have five-year price control periods here similar to most other regulated network asset owners. The regulator determines capital required to invest in the network and benchmarks and determines operating costs and this effectively ensures that customers pay an efficient cost for their network services and the model has worked well here it has given reasonable stability in terms of network investment and ESB has invested about seven billion electricity network over the past decade to a point where Ireland has one of the most advanced electricity networks in Europe and probably indeed in the world. But the task of regulators becoming much more complex as networks develop to meet the changing needs of the sector particularly in terms of the huge investments needed to support the energy system in the future characterised by different forms of generation, renewable generation particularly intermittent generation and new smart technologies and more customer choice particularly as customers now become both consumers and generators of electricity. So the networks of the future will face very very different challenges and they will have to develop a whole range of services that here to forward they didn't have to develop and this has implications for costs and if you look at maybe a couple of scenarios that might materialise traditional networks have been monopoly services but networks will compete in the future with alternative energy sources for example rooftop solar technologies is a local distributed generation source and so what we see and we see this happening in the likes of Germany where network sorry distributed generation at the level of the household through solar technologies subvented by attractive government subventions then means that investment in conventional generation is being stranded and that's required to support or to back up when for example the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow and what that means also for the networks business is that the effectively bypasses the networks business stand or the networks the networks become more a backup service to customers who have their own generation effectively bypassing if you like the networks so what does that mean for society because the networks model charging model is a socialised charging model so that if I have solar on my roof and somebody doesn't then the charge I pay for an intermittent service provided by that network is effectively cross subsidised by the customer who doesn't have solar has all kinds of issues in terms of affordability and in terms of fuel poverty and and and and and and we see this now happening across the world where solar technologies particularly solar technologies are distributed household distributed generation technologies are being deployed if we look at the market and I suppose the key question here is can a market actually deliver the clean generation technologies needed for the future and I suppose it depends on what you're trying to achieve in terms of outcomes market has delivered it has delivered competitive outcomes and significant benefits for customers by driving efficiencies right across Europe but efficiencies now are only one part of the picture and the predominant trend in the last five or six years has been the return of state intervention so as more and more new technologies particularly technologies to drive decarbonisation come on to the power system then you know the role of markets and and and traditional generation technologies and how they interact with renewable technologies which are supported by government by government funding then it creates unintended consequences in terms of you know how can owners and investors in standby or backup technology or traditional technologies kind of compete with true market with technologies that are effectively out of market in traditional cost terms but are needed to actually provide clean technologies so how can traditional technologies in generation compete with supported technologies and and again as I said I gave the German example we we also see the example in Spain of what's called a tariff deficit where the Spanish government drove huge penetration in renewables to a point where there was oversupply of renewables and existing standby you know existing fossil fuel plants which were required for standby were no longer economically viable Spanish government pulled back on its renewable subsidies to a point where there's a huge deficit now that the Spanish government is kind of holding on to because to actually pass that deficit back on to customers would actually raise prices and so markets are good but they can't deliver everything and if we want to decarbonise the economy by 2050 we have to decarbonise the generation sector but I don't believe there's any silver bullet to this there's no single technology that is going to actually deliver a decarbonised electricity system by 2050 the answer is always is going to be a mix the answer is going to be a mix of nuclear of clean fossil fuel generation technologies I believe that fossil fuel technology generation technologies have a role to play in the future they will become increasingly cleaner and of course new technologies in terms of renewables in terms of solar in terms of wind and fuel cells distributed stores there's a whole plethora and a whole host of technologies are going to be required to deliver the electricity system of the future and what are how is the market going to do this is a key question while governments have to intervene to you know decarbonisation and climate change is a policy issue so markets will not solve the decarbonisation issue so how are governments going to intervene in such a way that it makes it feasible for investors in traditional technologies and technologies that are at market to coexist alongside technologies that are immature and not yet at market and of course the issue then about subsidies looms large and all of this how could your subsidies do to start markets and if the role of subsidies is to incubate new investments then at what point do subsidies you know do subsidies fall away we've we've an issue now today you know onshore wind today is probably competitive with traditional generation technologies but is still being subsidised so subsidies should be seen as a way of incubating new technologies but should be time bound at the third point I want to cover was old penetration of technology at the customer end and the customer the connective customer will play a huge role in decarbonisation and this is all about the efficiency and the usage of of end use energy and it's you know it's interesting to look at what has what is happening like Google and Microsoft some years ago entered into the home energy monitoring market but quickly exited and Google recently have bought nest labs for 3.2 billion and that's a clear indication now that Google actually see the customer end of the value chain as being an area that they're interested in but what underpins this actually is the convergence of information telecommunication computing technologies with the traditional power system technologies I do believe that the customer you know the customer has the potential supported by technologies such as smart meeting to dramatically change the whole value chain of the electricity system but you know there are risks associated with this in terms of deploying this technology and how the technology is deployed it has to be seen as more than just the replacement of traditional meters and traditional power system technologies it's about it's about behaviour it's about customer behaviour it's about how the customer actually interacts with their supplier and with their electricity system and you know it's so smart meeting is ultimately the enabler of a very very different customer dynamic in terms of electricity system and then the role that markets will play then at the retail end of the business the retail end of the retail end of the energy value chain is about is about 10% of the total end user price so what's the role that market is going to play in a way that is cost effective and drives the behaviour change that is needed to get customers play a very very significant role in bringing about kind of changes to our energy system I suppose the fundamental question here is is the market going to actually drive customer behaviour and what that means then and as deep implications for society are we prepared to let price be the determinant of of customer behaviour so for example are we prepared to let the price of electricity go to very very high levels at peak to incentivise customers to change behaviour and move to maybe to cheaper times or lower lower electricity consumption this has huge societal implications it has huge implications for policy makers but that's at the pure end of the market however you know what is likely to happen is that we will take a societal view of this and there will be interventions in the market then to lower those kind of implic the impacts the negative impacts on customers particularly in terms of fuel vulnerability and fuel poverty but then of course what does that mean then for market design so again the market back to that core question where does the market sit and where does market design sit alongside government policies alongside government incentives to for things to be done by customers and by developers that are out of market and how does the market actually change the way in which the power system is actually configured and actually works is a key policy issue so I think you know what's very very striking about the environment that we find ourselves in today in terms of energy policy is the scale of uncertainties look like looking I've seen in the last 30 years and it is as the chairman said at the opening it characterised by the need to balance tree conflicting objectives affordability the need for secure supply and the need to rest climate change this is the dilemma as I said earlier but we cannot have a policy environment where at different times we're focusing on different elements so we cannot focus on different elements of that dilemma at different points in time in the cycle whether it's a policy or a political cycle or an economic cycle and what's really required is stable long-term policy regulatory and a market environment and as you're aware the minister has launched a green paper I said this earlier it's an important document given the issues facing not only European but also Irish energy policy right now and a critical role that energy plays in the modernist economy it's a great opportunity for all of us all stakeholders in this industry to engage constructively and setting out a truly long term vision and more importantly a roadmap a roadmap on how we are going to transition to a clean secure and affordable energy future thank you


Hey everybody, welcome to the market update video today is Sunday, August 6th and Looking at the SPX as you can see it's a really bullish time right now And I think a lot of expectation is being built into the SMP 500 I mean into the indexes in general because of the expected at least some something on tax reform so The SMP is fairly richly valued at the moment And at the same time it could go higher, but however I want to just highlight one thing Which is at an all-time high is about 2484 right there, so Okay, so this is the 2485 and so it's approaching a very big round number and that's the 2500 So whenever these major indices approaches big numbers big round numbers You you can expect to see some kind of a battle and so to get an example of what I'm saying is even if you look at 2,400 and of course 2,500 is going to be a bigger round number than 2,400 but if you look at 2,400 level all the way from here So this was what 2395 96 something like that And so you can see that it got rejected at the 2,400 came down and and then it took about two to three to four months actually to completely to clear that level and Even then it sort of came back to that level, but now the 2,400 acted as support right here In the June-July timeframe, so 24 2500 is going to be a big round number. So that is something that may Sort of put a damper to where it's going. However If something like tax reform or something, you know gets underway, then it could go Higher as well, but I would doubt it given the current political environment Not sure that anything can be passed at least not in the next couple of months or so Regardless, let's go look at some stocks. The one that I'm really looking at is Tesla and sort of this is like the trade idea of the week, too Tesla just reported just about two three days ago if anybody was following the results were nice And you can see that it's made a big move. Let me zoom in there All right, so this is a great move here. And so from 320 around 320, let's say moved up to 351 It's probably going to go higher However, you know, you may want to wait for a slightly better entry point even about five six dollars lower I would say would be a entry point because I think you know people are going to be coming into the stock again You can see the all-time highest 386 So it's only a 351 and then for the next until the next earnings report at least given overall market conditions also Cooperate I think Tesla is probably looking to go to 400 So maybe, you know a anything on the long side which is on the long bullish side would be good You know, if you want to go straight out calls or a call spread a call calendar Call condor all of these trades would be good But what I would say is given that it's just gone up the last two days Really nicely. I would wait for a pullback now the risk with that is obviously we may not get a pullback and come Monday Tesla might charge higher, but I I don't think so. I think it's you know, it's okay to wait for Couple of days two three days if you know to get the right entry point now Bear in mind any of these trade ideas are based on a swing trade sort of an environment. So basically You would want to you know, think of it as a good idea for anywhere from three weeks to maybe six weeks Something like that because you know at with all stocks obviously when the next earnings report comes There's an element of speculation there anyway. So you want to be careful of that? So anything I think between that given that it's just released earnings over the next three to six weeks I would I would expect Tesla to sort of go higher and Try to take out this previous high of 387 So you might want to play it according to that but given that it's just gone up Maybe a better entry point would be the thing to wait for so that's the update All of the stocks. I think many stocks are going to report earnings as well So Apple was a blockbuster and so but I think Tesla is going to be a bigger better trade idea than Apple now This is the insiders program if anybody hasn't If you don't know about this can come here on option tiger you'll see the main on the main homepage itself you can see the insiders program and You can take a look at that. I think it's a very Very cost-effective way of accessing everything and including a lot of members only sort of videos Thank you very much. Look forward to seeing you inside. Thank you


Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you some of the major news developments from across the world. Our headlines. The US takes to aggressive measures to procure medical supplies at the cost of other nations in the midst of the pandemic. Morocco begins releasing prisoners as a preventive measure to avoid a coronavirus outbreak in prisons. Palestinian prisoners are on an indefinite hunger strike against auxiliary negligence and blocking of essential sanitation and medical supplies. Hope you are a member, Helen Bollack, dies after 288 days of hunger strike. We begin with a novel coronavirus update. The number of cases in the world continues to increase with over 1.28 million infections reported so far. Of these, over 940,000 cases are still active and close to 70,000 people have died. The United States continues to add the most number of cases. Since the beginning of April, the US is added upwards of 25,000 cases every day, meeting a record high on April 4th with over 34,000 cases in a single day. It currently has over 336,000 cases reported with more than 300,000 active cases. Spain has replaced Italy in terms of the total number of cases with over 131,000 infections so far. As the US grapples with the exponential rise in cases, Barbados accused it of withholding medical equipment yesterday. According to the government of Barbados, the US has withheld an aid shipment of 1.4 million dollars meant for the Caribbean nation. The aid shipment included 20 ventilators donated to the government by various philanthropists and celebrities in the US, including the US-based Barbadian musician, Rihanna. This is not the first case of the US blocking medical aid in supplies to other countries. Over the past few days, US allies France, Germany and Canada have all accused the US of diverting essential medical supplies ordered and paid for by them. Germany alleged that the US intercepted a shipment of medical supplies by a company en route from Thailand and diverted it to the country. The company 3M was apparently directed by the Trump administration to divert the export to the US. President Donald Trump had recently invoked the Defense Production Act of the DPA to push US companies into prioritizing production for the US and to give the government the ability to halt all export of essential supplies. 3M stated that it is also prevented from exporting to Canada and Latin American countries under the DPA, for whom the country's company is a major source of several key bits of equipment such as respirators, 995 masks. In the case of France, the accusation was that the US intercepted a shipment from Shanghai from a private firm by outbidding France at an exorbitant price. This indicated that the US is aggressively pushing out other countries, even the global flow of medical commodities. Meanwhile, South Sudan is reported in its first case. The young country, which had barely gotten out of a six-year-long civil war, was one of the last in the world to be affected by the global pandemic. The infected person is reported to have come back from Ethiopia recently and exhibited symptoms from April 2. Authorities are yet to provide direct information about whether the patient was in contact with others and if so what measures will be taken to contain the spread. South Sudan is anyway facing a crisis because of the lingering effects of the civil war. It is reeling from steep hyperinflation, a severe shortage of food that has pushed several parts of the country into famine and millions of people facing displacement and awaiting rehabilitation. A COVID-19 outbreak would prove to be an even bigger disaster as the public healthcare system stands devastated by decades of conflict. The Moroccan government ordered the release of 5,654 prisoners from different prisons across the country on Sunday. The move was to reduce the number of inmates in the country's overcrowded jail to avoid the spread of coronavirus infection. Prisoners were selected on the basis of age and the number of years spent in prison among other criteria. The Justice Ministry issued a statement according to which the release of the prisoners was due to exceptional circumstances linked to the emergency health situation. Morocco has recorded more than 1,000 cases of COVID-19 infections and 70 deaths. Several human rights groups and organizations had earlier appealed to the king to release all political prisoners and detainees. A large number of political prisoners are still in prison for their participation in the Hirak Reef movement of 2016 and 17. Morocco has more than 85,000 prisoners, which includes under trials. According to the World Prison Brief, most of the Moroccan prisons are overcrowded with an average occupancy rate of more than 136, much beyond the recommended 100. In our In-Focus section, we look at the assault on Shaq dwellers in South Africa. Shaq dwellers have been evicted from many of the settlements they have built on their own with the aid of the movement Abhar Ali Bassa despite the fact that there is a national moratorium on such evictions. Despite a government directive prohibiting evictions during the COVID-19 lockdown, illegal demolitions have become commonplace in South Africa. The Azamiya informal Shaq dwellers settlement of Katho Mainur in Durban was attacked by agents hired by the earthquake-queen municipality authorities on April 2nd. 15 Shaqs were demolished, leaving several people homeless at a time when the country is under lockdown and people have been ordered to stay home. Many Shaq dwellers were also injured in the attack. A private security agency, Calvin Security, was used by the municipality for the demolitions on Thursday. The army and the police ordered to assist in the implementation of the lockdown were also involved in the illegal evictions. This is not the first eviction reported during the lockdown period. The South African government had ordered a moratorium on evictions during the lockdown under enormous pressure from social justice organizations and the country's largest Shaq dwellers movement, Abhashlali Basem Jondolo or the ABM. This moratorium was first mentioned by Justice Minister Ronald Ramola in his address ahead of the lockdown. It was then reiterated in the written directive issued by the ministry under the Disaster Management Act on March 26th, a day before the lockdown began. However, the next afternoon on March 27th, four vehicles of Calvin Security attacked the Ikhupu Mulebi settlement in Durban. Acting at the behest of the earthquake-warning municipality authorities, the private security guards demolished eight Shaqs built by members of the ABM with no support from the government. Another 17 Shaqs were marked ABM for further demolitions. Representing ABM, lawyers from Social Economic Rights Institute of South Africa wrote a letter to the municipality on March 28th, demanding a written undertaking from them and Calvin Security, ensuring they will not evict our clients with or without an order of court, in line with directions issued by the minister of justice and correctional services. No court order was produced for the demolitions on Thursday, making the exercise illegal even without the lockdown in place. However, in a brazen move, Calvin Security was sent by the municipality again the very next day, on March 29th, to demolish five more homes. Arguing that these attacks on informal settlements are part of a broader and systematic assault by the ANC government against the South African working class in the interests of large capitalists, the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa, or NAMSA, has called for class. The next story, Palestinian prisoners in at least two Israeli prisons have launched hunger strikes to protest the inadequate and negligent treatment by prison authorities. The strikes are in response to fears of a possible coronavirus outbreak among the population. Prisoners in Shata and Ofer prisons may soon be joined by those in other jails as well. According to the prison inmates, the Israeli prison service is deliberately withholding supplies of essential medical items and protection equipment such as masks, gloves and hand sanitizers. They have also been complaining of not being provided with supplies to maintain basic hygiene. To add to that, the Israeli prison authorities are reportedly not taking adequate testing measures for prisoners or taking up quarantine measures for those who have come into contact with infected persons. And finally, after 288 days of a hunger strike, Helen Bolik of Group Yoram, a leftist Turkish musical group, died on April 3rd at the age of 28. Helen Bolik, along with her comrades Mustafa Koksak and Ibrahim Gokik of the group to the band Group Yoram, had been on hunger strike, demanding that the government lift the band imposed on their band. The band, formed in 1985, has released 23 albums, but was banned in 2016. After the Turkish authorities accused the members of being affiliated to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front or DHKPC, a band-communist organization operating in Turkey. To know more about these stories, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thanks for watching.


In a learning institution, particularly one as spectacular as an able postgraduate school, they use the engine of high velocity learning, which is very similar to the scientific method. But it's very important that this not be confined just to schools. It has to happen out in the fleet, so we teach the teachers here and then it starts to spread across the fleet.


In terms of, so you're done in April, this happens nine months later, when do you go back to making new music? And all of this doesn't seem like a distraction because it all seems like scheduled, it's all scheduled. So you know when it's coming, do you go right away into music or do you take some time off? How do you navigate what's next? I think for any recording artist, it is then the balance of doing live shows. To spread the word about the album and the music that you just made. Yeah. Right, okay. And to make money. Yeah. And exercise your craft. For me, there's nothing better in this world than performing, being on stage. Like I love recording, but to be honest, I hate the recording process. I don't like being in that room.  How do you do that? You can't. No, you can't. I thrive on like the adrenaline of live performances. Because you can feel the people, their reaction, the energy. Yeah, you feel the people and you're like excited. Recording, I just, I freeze and start to freeze up. And then as you make a mistake and you're like, oh shoot, I need to do that again. And you tense up even more and it just gets worse and worse. How many people are on the other side of the glass watching you? Probably two. Okay. So that's not really the issue. No, no, it's not them. It's an internal thing. It's just me.  They can't deal with the nerves of playing live. But in today's world, that's going to be your bread and butter. Yeah. So that's a very occupational hazard. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But some famous, famous pianists are just, they just can't deal with it because it doesn't matter how good you are. No one knows you, you're not outdated. And that's a big problem. Sitting in your bedroom. It's interesting though. You know, like YouTube, they have that convention, VidCon. Yep. So I went to that a couple of years ago and it was fascinating. They had a live stage for their music influences. People who have their channels, right? Huge followings. But there, they are kids, if I can say kids, like in their teens, they're in their bedroom just with a camera playing guitar covers to the camera and everyone at home is watching. They went up on that stage and they could not hold an audience because there is that much more space now that you need to fill as a performer. So for me, the lesson I learned from that is you need to perform. You need to be out there and performing and doing your craft out there. You can't just sit behind a screen because it's anything that's performing at all. It's so interesting because it is vastly different. Right. You know, there's a comfort there of being in your room. It's just your camera. If you make a mistake, you can just rerecord or whatever. But if you're trying to hold someone's attention, not just one person's but an audience of a hundred or a thousand. You have to be much of a larger persona than you would be in just your bedroom. The other way that comes to mind is consistency. In terms of like discipline or in terms of practice? Practice is obvious. That should be a given but consistency of what you're putting out there. You know, for me, I get antsy that an album comes out once a year. I think that's not enough. But it is enough for me at this point in time because I need to tour it and I need to do my gigs. Then I need to find time to write it and then restart that process again. Like I think for an album to come together takes six to nine months at least. I look at it like momentum. You know, it takes time to build it. Yeah. But then once you have it, you have to keep it going. Yes. And stay in that space. Yes. And if you don't, it's generally so much harder to start again.  Now you've taken three months off and that first week is not ideal for anybody. That's why I feel like I am afraid of taking holidays. It probably is a great thing for me in terms of inspiring me again to write. I love new spaces and I love meeting different types of people and hearing different, smelling different things and hearing different languages. You know, those things always contribute to creating for me. But being away from the piano for three weeks, that's scary.


Yeah, they're taking all your money. I'm sorry. That's that's not funny But how bad is this problem actually, you know, those of us who aren't students were like come on Is it that bad? Yes, it's that bad. It's extremely bad So today think of me as your professor and I'm gonna walk you through exactly why student debt is a major crisis Why it continues to get worse and what we can do to actually fix it. Whoa. Hey Big mysterious number, right? What is that? Well, I'm gonna tell you and You're gonna love it. It's hilarious, but hang on Now this is America's personal debt visualized in 2005 in trillions naturally There's your cars your credit cards and down here is student debt But over time by 2010 student loan debt has eclipsed the others and by 2019 it has skyrocketed past them all Just for comparison. Here's what the increase in wages looks like over that same time period. Yeah, adjusted for inflation. It's flat You're welcome Sorry, I said that wrong.  How much student debt are we actually talking about? Well, the amount is Kind of staggering Think of it this way Here's a briefcase of cash. That's a million bucks Here's a billion dollars and this is the 1.6 trillion in student loan debt to scale One in eight of us are shouldering student debt. That's over 44 million Americans It's forcing young people to move back in with their parents delay buying a house or delay getting married Maybe not even retire until they're 75 That's an entire generation not buying homes not buying cars not saving for their families What's that doing to our economy to our workforce to our country? Not now number. I love you and you're hilarious, but I'm on a roll Look a bachelor's degree can increase your lifetime earnings by a half a million dollars or more and Students need to be able to take out loans But they should be fair the average student leaves college $37,000 in debt at 7% interest over 25 years that costs $78,000 and They're the lucky ones in some cases loans cost more than four times the amount borrowed That's not a good deal No wonder a million people a year default on their student loans And that doesn't mean the loan just goes away It means your life gets worse your wages can be taken tax refunds withheld your credit score shattered Even the IRS can come after you all because banks lenders and special interests have rigged the system to make it functionally Impossible even if you're forced into bankruptcy to get out from under your student loans These are special laws just for student loans Congress could fix these laws and make student loans more like regular loans But they're not gonna do that for a very good reason Congress doesn't work for you They work for them the loan companies Executives from student loan companies flew the chairman of the house education committee four times in their private jet to speak with him Do you know what the chairman told them and this is a quote? Know that I have all of you in my two trusted hands. I Don't know if he actually did this hand gesture, but he said those words That's insane. That's called corruption and right now. It's completely legal It shouldn't be happening You know who doesn't get that kind of access? you So we have two options We do nothing and quietly savor our ramen noodles in a deep state of depression Or we can get pissed off fight back to fix the student debt crisis. We have to fix the corruption crisis and fix in corruption Well, I actually have no idea how to do that, but but Nora does. Hi Nora. Thanks Ed Thank you Do you really like them or are you just saying that? Fine have to make corruption illegal and we can do that with a new law called the American Anti-Corruption Act It puts power back in the hands of the people where it belongs It would ban gifts from lobbyists to politicians as well as close What's commonly called the revolving door the tactic of lobbying firms hiring former congressional representatives and staff? it makes our leaders listen to us the people and Here's the best thing the American Anti-Corruption Act is incredibly popular with both conservatives and progressives But asking Congress to pass it isn't going to work Because right now Congress can't seem to do anything let alone bite the hand that feeds them So we have to go around Congress a tried and true way of moving America forward Throughout American history passing state laws has paved the way for federal laws We have a lot of fixed politics and a proven strategy to get it passed. There's just one more thing we need Professor Helms want to take it from here. Yes, I do. Thank you, Nora, but sorry quick question for you Do you like my shoes or not? Don't worry about it. You could be honest. They're I love them. I love them Okay, okay, don't believe you but Nora and I are part of a movement that believes the government should work for you and your family Not a handful of billionaires and special interests Millions of people are already involved in working across party lines to pass anti-corruption laws together We've racked up more than a hundred victories in cities and states across America and in 2018 We passed the most anti-corruption laws in American history But we have so much more to do and we need millions more people like you to get involved So right now like like right now Go to represent US and sign up to be part of the next anti-corruption victory in your state There are people in your community dedicated to this fight and they need your help If that's not for you join the Commonwealth a community of people giving whatever amount they can every month to support local Anti-corruption campaigns every single dollar goes to the front lines of the fight not to overhead or organizational expenses Sadly, we don't have time to wait Ready for the big reveal that number That's the amount the collective student loan debt has grown just since you started watching this video It's a pretty big number over a million dollars That's the rising crushing debt of everyday people trying to get a better education a better job a better life I told you the number was gonna be funny and Well, that was a lie. I just wanted to get you to stick around and watch the whole video the truth is and I'm very sorry to say this that number is horrifying and it is the direct result of corruption We have to end corruption now Join us


A lot of people have been reaching out to me and asking me, hey, Cody, is there a lot of money in recruiting insurance agents? Okay, let's find out together. Okay, so I'm going to walk through how to earn over a million dollars a year with only 50 producing agents, by the way. Okay, you could apply this to anything. Okay, you could apply this to MAPD, you can apply this to MedCEP, you could apply this to FE, you could apply this to life. Like there's a lot of stuff you could apply this to, but here's what I'm going to do. Okay, so let's just say that you have, let's just say you have 50 people, okay? And when it comes to Medicare, these numbers will be even easier, by the way.  When you put something to comments, not that I can't learn, but I generally like understand what's going on, right? So 50 people may take you a lot of people to get to 50 people. You take that times 200 apps per year, okay? That's 10,000, I know, seems crazy, okay? But it's true, that's 10,000 pieces of business, okay? That's 10,000 apps, right? If you take that just times a $100 override, okay? $100 override, that is literally $1 million per year. Now, I was coaching an insurance agent yesterday that actually gets a $150 override on the product he was selling, I'm not going to get too specific. In his case, all he needed was 50 good producers, and he was going to make $1.5 million per year without actually selling anything himself, okay? So if I was going to jump back in the game of selling insurance, I can tell you, I would get really active on blowing it up. I wouldn't have 50, 50 people. I'd be saying, how do I recruit 100,000 insurance agents in like five years? I'd do something crazy nuts. It may happen later in my life, I don't freaking know, okay? All I know right now is I'm going to help you win. I'm not worried about recruiting anybody, okay? But what happens is most people struggle to get in front of people, right? Which is why we've come out with a new hiring program, okay?  They're good candidates, they're interested in the position, and they are ready to talk to you, okay? We have a couple different levels. There's another level higher that we will actually even literally put interviews on your calendar so you wake up and talk to people and pull this off.  But the thing is, how do you find the people? Well, we're working with an agent right now, okay?  I'm not saying it's always going to be the case, and we've got to manage our expectations, it's not always the exact same. We're working with an agent right now, and literally in the last 45 hours, we've had over 200 agents reach out to join. These are a mix of licensed and unlicensed, by the way, licensed and unlicensed. Reach out and want to talk to this specific agency owner, and we're assigning that owner an actual hiring, what we call an HM, a hiring manager, to actually manage the projects for him and to go find him people, okay? So the thing is, like, is there a question that you, like, what would be the reasons why you couldn't do this, okay? If you don't have a, okay, maybe you don't know, maybe you don't have a pipeline of recruits, okay, like, you don't know how to find good people. Let us do that for you. I've got over 100 staff here. My CEO, Andy, we are phenomenal at adding and finding good people, right? Because then, once you have a pipeline of people, then you've got to, okay, how do we vet them? What should we look for, right? Like, we look at their resume, we look at their social, we look at online criminal background programs, like, we look at all of it. Are they licensed? Are they unlicensed? What's their experience look like? Like, the vetting process is legit. Personality assessments, we put them through the personality assessment, see what type of personality they have, which means if they're going to be good at cells or not good at cells, it's kind of good to know, right? Then after we vet them, okay, then we want to do what? We want to interview them, okay? After the interview, and we make sure that they know about us and they understand everything, and there's a good potential candidate there, then we'll put them through an actual physical assessment, okay? And the assessment will tell us whether we should proceed into a second interview. Then we'll do a second interview, right? Or you'll do a second interview if this is you, okay? When you do the second, first interview is all about us. The second interview is all about them, okay? And then after that, then we will actually meet with the executive team and make sure that this person is a good fit for the team. If they do, we will extend and offer, hire them. Then we will actually put them through a pre-onboarding, which is something they're doing before they even get here, right? But before they even start with our team, we're putting them through pre-onboarding. They're watching a whole video library of me before they even start, before day one. Tell me, this is one of the most valuable videos I've ever put out on like recruiting and hiring and scaling a team and actually onboarding properly. But trust me, our business expansion workshop and our hiring program and a lot of our coaching programs can actually keep you a lot more than this on actually scaling a real freaking branding company. Then we actually have a full onboarding process of what they're going to do for those first 72 hours and then what do they do day to day, right? So we've got all this planned out, it's mapped out. We want to help you with it. And I can tell you that once you start doing some math, you start thinking, okay, how do I do big time numbers? You could say, Cody, I actually typically get like a $300 override on somebody.  Okay, fine. Right? Take 50 times 100, that's 5,000, right?  They do 300 instead of, you know, 100 bucks. Well, hey, that's still $1.5 million per year. Compared to this example, it's a little different because you're doing less apps, but you have a bigger override. Okay, so you can actually start to judge your own numbers of where you want to be, what I'm telling you. You want to grow a seven-figure agency growth operation? This is the answer also. Okay, also, I'm going to lay all this out for only $49 on a workshop, June 25th. Okay, June 25th. Dylan will put the link below. Again, it's in three weeks as of today. It's 49 bucks. We're going to literally walk through all of this. How do you find people? How do you make sure they're the right people?  People are the most important part of this game. Finding the right people can change everything. My question though, my thought is how confident are you that you're the person, you're the leader, you're the right person to really scale this thing? Okay, because growing an agency is not hard if you are the right person. I've coached several, six dozens of six-figure earners. They're trying to get to seven figures. If you're in the insurance industry and you want to get to seven figures, you're going to want to at some point hire me for coaching, training, hiring. You're going to want to hire a marketing company maybe or you're going to want to come to one of our events. Why?  Okay? That's okay. But we can get you there. Easy. People earning six figures right now and actually earn seven figures later. And I know deep down, that's where you want to be. Hey, if you love this, okay, I can promise you. I actually guarantee it. The next one, maybe better. All right, my first investment, I guess our first investment in real estate is a climate-controlled self-storage unit that buildings 10,000 square feet. I've got all the numbers and all the details for anybody that ever wants to own a real estate property.