Good morning, everyone, and thank you for coming. I get to do the day, but I understand there's some snow coming, and thank you for all the good work you've been doing in your local town for plowing and keeping it open. I know the states are busy and trying to keep our highways open, so did everyone have a chance to sign up if they wanna speak? Is there a sign-up sheet somewhere? I thought the league was gonna have a sign-up sheet. Yes, thank you, Mike. Just these people. Oh, okay, we gotta leave. Oh, they do have a, you have a sign-up sheet? Right now I do have a sign-up sheet. Who represents the towns anyway? Do you gotta leave or somebody? Oh, I'm sorry. She's awesome. She's awesome. Okay, so. Okay, you gotta pass that around, or are you gonna do whatever you wanna do? So, if you wanna speak, could you please stop? Okay. You are the main attraction this morning. So, and we do have a few people who are prepared to speak, and I think you're gonna have some time to talk to them. Sure, that's fine. Okay, I think the house. I'm going to the church. Okay. All right. So, I think the chair, I think the house should be along momentarily. So, I'm Dick Mazza, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, and I will have their senators to do so themselves. So, we'll start on the other end. Jim McNeil, Roland Cowan. Thank you. Jim McNeil, Roland Cowan. Jane Kedger, Caledonia Orange. Andrew Perks of Washington County. Okay, and I think Senator Ash should be here momentarily. Oh, okay, with that, the Vice-Chair, would you like to do- I was gonna- I'm Vice-Chair of Transportation, Barbara Murphy. I serve Fairfax here in the State House. Dave Potter, represent Clarendon, West Rutland, Crocker, Wallingford, and West Rutland. I'm represented Beppo White, and I represent the town of Hartford. Name, BLCT. I'm a board member. I'm Molly Burke, and I represent Brattleboro. Yay, Brattleboro! I'm Mike McCarthy, I represent St. Alton's. I'm Connie Cliffey, and I will represent five towns on the Panerica River, and three ill at once. Patty McCoy, representing the Towns of Polkney, and Ira. Brian Savage, I represent Swanton and Shelton. Tim Larkin, and I represent Bennington. Mary Sullivan, I represent the South End Hill section, where I went to. Okay, so, do we have a list that would like to get started? And again, thank you for coming and share your thoughts with us. Don't praise us too much for all the wonderful work we're doing, all right? Okay. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks, everyone, for your time. My name is Charles Safford. I'm the Stiltown Manager. I'm also a BLCT board of directors member. I'd like to thank you again for this opportunity to testify and for your continuing efforts to keep Vermont moving. I particularly want to thank the Vermont Legislature for amending 19 PSA 306 to ensure a town highway formula that being said, today I want to focus on stormwater funding. Stormwater management is a hugely expensive obligation for local governments, even with the assistance from the Clean Water Fund. According to the Vermont Clean Water Initiative 2019 Performing Board, out of a total of 13,000 municipal road miles, only 169 miles of municipal road drainage and erosion control improvements have been implemented. STO in and of itself has 28,000 miles of roadways, of which the initial A&R screen determined that approximately 48 miles of roadways for a total of 800 segments were hydraulically connected. Towns are required to bring all hydraulically connected roadway segments up to the municipal road general permit standard as soon as possible, but no later than December 31, 2036. The connected roadway segments that are considered very high priority permit standards by December 31, 2025. According to a report prepared by engineering consultants, the estimated construction cost for STO to bring its very high priority road segments into compliance is 230,000 per year. Over the next five years, in all of the road segments, 180,000 over the next 16 years. The total estimated construction cost is $4 million. This doesn't include other stormwater such as the 3-8 Urals and the like. The Clean Water Board state FY21 Clean Water Budget recommends an increase in municipal grants and aid from $3.2 to $3.7 million. This is only a $500,000 increase statewide at the time when we're supposed to be ramping up our compliance efforts. In FY17 and 18, STO received 100% reimbursement from the municipal road general permit projects by FY19 that was down to 50%. In FY20 it was down to 21.8%. In its FY21 budget the town of STO has increased its stormwater expenditure budget from $75,000 to $235,000 which is an increase of $160,000. The select board is also seeking approval of an assistant engineer to help with stormwater planning and implementation. Total compensation cost for this position is budgeted at $15,413. Even though STO does not have any impaired waterways along our municipal roadways they are disproportionately impacted by road standards and stormwater regulations due to our steep slopes. Admittedly there are a number of roadways with ditches that do not meet current standard due to our topography, ledge and utilities. Also while the community has been a leader in environmental stewardship with over a third of STO's 72 square miles being conserved the community has resisted widening roadways that may involve taking of trees and diminishing of the community's character. So as a tourism community it has more locally designated scenic roads than the rest of Vermont combined. So our base indicated the number one activity of tourists is to drive around and enjoy her scenic beauty.  While there is a benefit to stormwater improvements there is also a cost. A cost that the state budget does not appear to fully recognize to date. I encourage you to increase municipal grants and aid funding so that state-wide goal of cleaning up the public waters of the state of Vermont does not fall on municipalities and property tax payers. I'd also like to add what I told Bill Fraser the city manager of Montpelier at the last board meeting. When towns like STO start tapping out and saying mercy, there's a problem. We've got a pretty aggressive agenda and it may seem like a long time frame but an accumulation of everything out that's going on. I'm not talking about DEC and perennials, dream environments and turning what used to be culverts into bridges and that's a whole another range of topics we could talk about but I know you folks are feeling the pain. I know the federal government isn't doing its part. Senator Mazanai we're talking part of the meeting. I don't envy your position but we are where the rubber meets the road and the job's not done. We need your help. Thank you very much. Any questions? Comments at this time? Thank you. Thank you. The chair just joined us from the house. I'm Corporal Cormack from Maryland. All right. Next I'll list. Next. Okay. Thank you. Good morning and thank you all for this opportunity. My name is Eric Osgood. I'm chair of the select board in Johnson. I don't have any particular item I just wanted to share with you how important what you do down here impacts the people of my town. Johnson is very prone to flooding. About 40% of our budget is on for the highway department in the town's budget and another 35-ish so we're in them for public safety so we're in the 70-75% of our budget in those two large ticket items so there's very little left to do other things but in our transportation highway department in the budget there isn't a lot of wiggle room just to maintain the highways cost a lot of money as you guys are back on Halloween the flood event we had the rain November 1st it went into November 1st from that event we're into it right now for just over $40,000 hopefully FEMA will reverse this for most of that there is another area that we haven't touched yet it was a complete washout it would be about $20,000 to repair that it's an area that quite often washes out every time we have hauled high water we're not going to probably put it back the way it was for $20,000 it's just a waste of our money to do that we do have some alternatives we had a consultant come in and did a study for us and basically put it in a swale and when the water comes up it goes around the bridge and washes right down through and then when the water goes back down then it goes through the area so it would be like a low water crossing basically and that's when the river comes up the mouth where it goes under the bridge is very narrow it can't take all of the water so it does break the banks and washes out the road around it pretty significantly it is a looped road so it isn't like anyone is locked, isolated in there we're going to look at two options one is to either have that swale put in to the tune about $100,000 if FEMA will grant us that or we're going to remove the bridge the bridge needs a lot of work it's going to cost a lot of money it's it's an option that we will really have to consider whether we keep the bridge or not it's a little bit unfortunate because it's one of only two covered bridges that we have in our town but I would hate to see it go but we've just got to look for places to cut costs and it does require a bunch of work so I just wanted to share with you guys that the money that comes from all clear it is very important to us we're struggling to keep our budgets in line as you do and we've made ways of coverage out of this deal from this latest flood unfortunate any questions? comments? you're working relationship with AOT it's important it's important to us to receive any complaints I thought that was good to work the only issue we had with them was in that particular storm trying to get them there from traffic control we were just impacted all over we couldn't get red cross there because of the storm it was a lot of fun okay thank you very much appreciate it next we have Chad from Killington okay good morning morning are you snowing Killington this morning? just a little bit I just briefly wanted to talk to you about funding mechanisms and how we're going about it one thing about transportation the project dictates the funding it's not a top down methodology and that's why we're in what I consider an unsustainable process of how we're funding infrastructure and to talk to the stoves point of view related to the stormwater it's a very simple math problem when you know how many linear feet of hydraulically connected ditch lines you have to maintain in stormwater and you have 16 years to complete it you know exactly how much that's going to cost in that 16 years there's no reason to be modifying numbers and if the state's going to say we're going to pick up half the cost but whatever that is the project dictates the amount of funding and making sure you can do a complete project when you do it the example I'm going to use is one where route 4 passes through Killington who were three years ago they did a repaving job they did a partial reconstruction on one section but here we are two or three years after the project but we're going to do a major culvert replacement cutting out the road we just finished repaving and then the one part of the culvert that's not happening is right at the base of Killington road we four or five years ago built a parking right when we were doing that we had to extend the stormwater through our to make sure we were discharging beyond where the parking area was going to be so when we did that I approached AOT and we asked them to do the design of what that culvert should be from what crosses the road because it crosses route 4 and we said well we're going to build our structure and our outfall to meet whatever the design standard is that you guys come up with and they told us it was a 36 inch pipe so we proceeded to install a culvert with a 36 inch inlet that had a 15 inch pipe running into it so the speed all they had to do the next time they were going to do a project is replace it to the size that they said it was going to be and that project still hasn't been completed and that's also part of the same paving project that took place that was just completely ignored and we continue to have ice build up and damming and things of that nature overflowing the road onto route 4 right at that intersection so the issue is and that is a perfect example because when I asked the question why aren't you doing this there's a couple of other culverts who aren't doing what we had funding that was originally going to be a complete reconstruction project turned into a mill and eight except for one 60 foot section and that was definitely a product of the case of we're going to give you X amount of dollars and you figure out what you've done with it versus what does the project actually take to do it right and we are constantly throwing money away as far as I'm concerned and we are still dramatically underfunding and as representative McCarthy has seen I've shown him my sustainable funding model that actually will tell you if you actually want to do the math there's a way to do the math over a 40 year cycle of what you should be funding for every mile of road in the state and we're not looking at it from that perspective we're looking at it as how much money do we want to give to it and how we're going to manage the overall budget versus what it should actually mean and we continue to fall further and further behind questions thank you I have two questions one on the culvert is your point that the culvert want to be too small the one that's being replaced is actually because it was deteriorated the new one it's going to be too small the one that was too small was an existing culvert and we were building the extension beyond it and we wanted them to tell us what the size should be what they were supposed to be building it's too small is why it's overflowing it's not a new culvert and you're now replacing the 12 inch so they came in did all the work and not replace any of that infrastructure so we have a 36 inch no it's an outlet of 36 and an inlet of 15 well 15 total it's 15 going into the inner center okay and the parking lot did you say that you built it yeah we had a grant for 80,000 dollars I believe from ART so it was part of that grant project but I just it makes my skin crawl if I cut up the road that we've already paved in the last five years and that's why I always ask what do we have to do underneath the road before we fix the top of the road thank you any questions, comments thank you very much for coming over next is Brian Osberg the Colchester good morning thank you for providing an opportunity for me to come and speak with you today I wanted to comment very briefly on the DMV miscellaneous bill specifically the centralized online permitting system being supposed to be evaluated for the issuance of overweight permits generally the town of Colchester is quite supportive of this approach provided that it doesn't in any way dilute our ability to protect and preserve our public infrastructure transportation system that is our main priority but we actually think that going to some type of a centralized system would be much more efficient and I just wanted to touch upon a couple of things by way of example of what we want to try to preserve with the possible advancement and development of such a process the fees that are collected from overweight permits we would gladly forfeit the 5 and 10 dollar fees if the state were to take the responsibility of issuing overweight permits we're not at all concerned about losing that revenue our administrative time to issue overweight permits far exceeds the revenues that we receive based on the current statutory fees so we gladly forfeit that there does however need to be some recognition of those fees that are put in place by municipalities that aren't intended to address administrative cost but are instead specific to individual roadways where those fees are designed to establish a reserve fund to repair the damage to those roadways caused by overweight loads so there has to be some type of provision in there that the fees are going to potentially be kept by the state to issue with those other types of fees that are referred to need to come back to the municipality they are not administrative fees they are capital reserve fund fees point one point two is more from a liability standpoint this sounds like a online web based portal not sure whether it's fully automated but there's got to be some provision to make sure that these overweight loads that are on our roads are properly insured we would normally in a manual system require insurance certs and review those and approve those concurrent with the issuance of a permit there has to be that capability within this system and I would take that one step further at least from Colchester's perspective we actually require permanent overweight loads on their insurance certs to name the town as an initial insured the underlying insurance from the standpoint that they do damage to our roadways it doesn't necessarily help us if we get sued as a result of something that happens on our roadways relating to an overweight load that we permitted so I would throw that out there point three any permit that the municipality would ordinarily require must be required of the state system to be any a process where the state may not permit particular overweight loads that we would have otherwise permitted on our local roadways so it really needs to mirror anything that the municipalities would have permitted and then lastly we need to preserve the flexibility to in the permitting process address conditions that change rapidly throughout the year and so they do in Vermont sometimes we need to be able to invoke weight restrictions fairly rapidly because of changing conditions on our roadways maybe we have an instability issue on a road or a bridge or something like that and we need to be able to maintain that level of flexibility so again we're quite supportive of this if it's done properly the devils and the details we're happy to work with you and others to see what we can get to thank you I guess the initial thing was all we were trying to do is instead of the town dealing with 150 different requests with different truckers centralize it so it would be easier for everyone but I take your issues in consideration because we don't want to jeopardize anything else other than the fact that it would be easier for trucks to have one instead of filling out like you said 250 or whatever any other questions or comments one of the things that we heard from the bus and truck folks was the level of the fines that the towns can issue if they don't have the local permit which they might not even know about part of the changes and things how do you feel about a change in the fine levels to be more in line with the attraction I don't know that they're necessarily not in line with to be honest with you I don't when I look at this in totality I don't particularly see that as a problematic area I think what's in place now makes sense to me I understand that being able to work for everybody makes sense to everybody but we don't really take the issue with us so you would support it changing the lowering of the fines would or would not any questions or comments thank you very much Brian for coming over appreciate it okay next we'll see the Hoyt from West Fairleigh okay good morning good morning good morning thank you for this opportunity coming to you from the town of West Fairleigh population 675 alright town of West Fairleigh we don't have a road crew we have we contract for all of our services which means that truly the management of our town highways follows the select board we're very fortunate to have a local contractor who lives in town who takes huge pride in the way that our roads are managed he is very forward thinking and it's been a good setup for us we don't own a shovel and our select board has a very diverse bunch and there's just a total commitment to making our communities better and that's what we're working towards we live here in terms of transportation we drive the roads we're checking out the next town's road work even and we're really good at keeping everybody rolling when something goes wrong we hear about it when everything goes right we don't hear from anybody but you can relate but to keep moving forward you gotta count that as a win as well in terms of the recent MRGP road permitting it wasn't new to us those are practices that run the codes and standards it certainly has accelerated that work it has helped us prioritize that work as well it's expensive our budget is going up much further it's going to have to go up every year is a little adventure in that way one of the things that's really important to us and we appreciate are the resources, the people resources it's particularly for us fairly it's essential that we have access to folks who have a practical working knowledge of how to construct them how to manage them and safety one of the disturbing trends that we see is a trend to kind of undermine local governance rather than collaborate to kind of place our towns in the crossfire of some interagency jurisdictional spats that have to do with our highways and I do appreciate that our legislature legislators and these committees have a pretty good nonsense filter for lack of a better word to see that there are a couple things coming down the pipe one of them is has to do with fairly innocuous sounding legislation on updating the tree warden statutes and when you read it it's really more about usurping control town control, local control of our right of ways and we need to have that to maintain that control for safety and just for actually sort of back up is that if anything towns do far too little trimming and cutting in their right of ways it's expensive and particularly in terms of everything else that's coming out it falls into a really low kind of priority in terms of that proposed legislation series of hearings and notifications we talk to the landowners when we we don't want to get the phone call when our work is going to affect somebody's lawn in getting rid of a burn we're talking to those landowners we like our trees we leave trees so this is not an issue another sort of pending or upcoming or proposed bill is H240 which takes fourth class roads out of the better back roads program it doesn't change the fact it doesn't change the standard that we have to meet on that class 4 road it's going after a funding source that is competitive if we feel our fourth class road project is going to beat somebody else's third class road project it should be in there and it should be for the viewers to decide on the merits whether it should be funded as well we are appreciative of the resources that are coming to us through Vermont local roads absolutely essential shout out to district 4 patrons who's very responsive to us and our questions again we're on the front lines we don't have a road commissioner we're trying to navigate some of these new regulations and once again we need to be sure that those regulations are coming at us from those that have through the channels agencies that have practical knowledge and not some sort of other agenda in managing a road so thank you very much and thank you for all that you do thank you too questions? comments? sure the first bill that you referenced about the tree warden is I'm not familiar with it it is a house bill it's H-673 it's because it's forest and parks it's before ag and forest so often legislation has collateral impacts and you're identifying absolutely thank you you said you had 600 miles of roads or 6 in a population how do you fly your roads now? we contract for all road services say we have a local so you don't have a road program of your own? Dallas is also the road commissioner I am the road commissioner it's a great contract and it works well for the town and we do oversee all of the materials separately through the sled board and that sort of thing thank you very much for coming okay let's see Peter from Brattleboro we've already done that and next one is HB from where? sorry that's me HB Valinta I heard you said Peter from Brattleboro I jumped a gun okay okay I'm sorry thank you good morning I'm Peter Alwell I'm the town manager we're here today with two members of our select board Tim Wessel is our vice chair and Elizabeth Lothlin is a member of the select board we're here actually happy to share some good positive feedback with you about V-Trans and what we like to add to the ask about stormwater management thank you we've had a lot of communication with V-Trans in recent years there's a major interstate highway bridge project there's been quite a few different safety issues that have been addressed and some planning to address some bridge replacement and other infrastructure projects that are coming in our area and particularly pedestrian and bicycle safety issues that are really important in our community that we work a lot locally and collaboratively around and need partnership from the state have received really good partnership from the state so we want to let you know from Secretary Flynn Wayne Simmons on down through the entire team it's a pleasure to work with them and we appreciate the degree to which they keep the promise of wanting to be partners with local government addressing these needs and it's in that spirit that we join Colleen Charles and others in asking that that same spirit of partnership extend fully through how we're all working together to improve and protect the waters in the state of Vermont and we completely understand the necessity the federal requirements that the state had to face and come up with a way to address we're not flinching at all at the responsibility to do significantly increased work related to the roadways and other aspects of protecting the waters but we're not getting near enough financial help this is a classic unfunded mandate in that the requirements are requiring exponential increases in the cost of doing this work not just along the roadways but in the entire package of improvements that are required but specifically in the roadways I think each one of us is seeing already doubling and tripling and more and knowing that it's going to increase even further in the years ahead while the state aid has increased it hasn't increased nearly enough and we would ask you to please as the transportation advocates work with all of your colleagues in the legislature to make sure that within the prioritization that has to happen up here that more state funding is made available to municipalities since we are indeed at the point of the spear in implementing the improvements it's a big issue we're trying to work our way through which is a surprise to a lot of us because it is becoming a big issue and one of the factors is we haven't heard much from the federal government at this time of what their plans are for infrastructure over the years and we need to work together so we hope something comes along sooner rather than later any other questions or questions from I have one thank you for being here it's not related to anything that you've mentioned but I'm interested this winter in snow and ice removed from sidewalks especially in places where it seems to happen many hours after the adjacent street is cleared do you guys have a policy or what is your practice so there's a combination of different ways that we address that in the downtown area the building owners are responsible and normally through the merchants who operate downtown businesses they usually take care of the sidewalks directly in front of their buildings they're by ordinance by ordinance really and then moving out from the downtown to into neighborhoods in particular along corridors to schools we do run sidewalks we have a pair of sidewalks that are operated by our public works department we actually only had one for years and struggled to keep up with that need and town meeting a couple of years ago funded a second that's made a huge difference for us in terms of being able to keep safe pedestrian pathways in that developed center of our community further out than that we have a lot of circumstances where it's all dependent on what people choose to do out in the neighborhoods for themselves and in many cases on our more residential streets we have folks walking in the roadways but down where it's more of a public shared space the need to keep sidewalks and crosswalks safe we do that in that combination of ways one particular challenge this may be more detailed than you hoped for when you asked the question that the combination of public and private effort required through the ordinance and through just partnership has worked well for our community but one place where we have fallen down over the years is in the downtown area at the intersections in the access from sidewalks into crosswalks seems like a little thing but it's no man's land in terms of the shared responsibilities that I've described and so we've actually separately contracted now for individuals to go into the downtown area and shuttle those connecting points out we do find that it's not a perfect system there are times when that particular task will lag behind the clearing of the other routes but until we address the issue I actually am interested in those details and I will pursue them with you that'd be great yes Senator Ash question I'm not sure if this is something you've found or through VLCT you've thought about you're probably aware of the transportation climate initiative discussion amongst the number of states while all the details are not fully out the governor and the legislature both wanting to see how it would work for Vermont and I think each of the potential states is doing just wondering if you've had local discussions about the wisdom of the approach or if it was going to happen how the municipalities would want to see those resources utilized sure we've not had local discussions specifically about that initiative so I can't comment substantively on the sharing of that particular those particular resources I would ask just in general that again in the spirit of the partnership the fact that your constituents are our constituents and we're actually in addressing local needs and direct communication all the time around transportation issues and all other issues then when it comes to looking at new responsibilities and new opportunities that we do that as collaboratively as we can we welcome the opportunity to be up here with you as you work through your work we really appreciate continued support for when you identify a way forward that's good for Vermont that's going to rely on municipalities to be out at the front end of implementation that come with the resources to help us succeed are there questions? thank you very much for coming I appreciate it yes, okay what was the name again? I'm sorry thank you good morning, Heidi Bridge-Ballenta from the town of Highgate, town administrator and I appreciate this opportunity very much I had not planned to come but we did several municipalities received a notice from Vast yesterday that who manages the Memorial Valley Rail Trail that this might be an excellent opportunity to just speak about the completion of the Memorial Valley Rail Trail through our communities I did plan to come with the Swanton Economic Coordinator also both of our towns are on a segment of the trail that is languishing has not been completed in the very long time that other towns have been benefiting from their completed segments of the rail trail and this may not be the ideal spot to speak about this but it is a great audience so I wanted to take the opportunity Elizabeth wasn't able to join me but this segment of rail trail is significant to Swanton and Highgate in the significant opportunity that it would open up for us for economic development and tourism and it is really an opportunity that should not be kicked down the road again it is really significant as both of our towns are working so very hard on bringing a focus back to economic development and tourism and what we can do to help ourselves and all of the focus on villages has been a spectacular support for improvements and the rail trail will make a dramatic difference just as we attempt to get light up and revitalize those communities that have been stagnant for a very long time so I won't speak long because I wasn't prepared for this and I don't have a lot of data or facts but it is an impassioned plea to put that money into a project that will make great rewards for our towns our region and the state and what it can benefit that's in a nutshell my message it's more of a statement because I really appreciate you bringing that topic forward and I just want to reiterate that in house transportation it's something we have heard about over the last half dozen years for me I'm sure it's been there longer but it is 90 when completed will be 95 mile trail from east to west of our state so I think that it really is a broader picture for our states I appreciate the communities that are still yet to be connected but the whole picture is really quite exciting yes and I want to add to what Barbara said I think you can be helpful while you're hearing the state house talk to people on the institutions committees where the cap of section budget begins and that's what the governor has proposed to pay for 20% of it the other 80 will come federal dollars federal highway dollars and I want to say that I wrote on it past October wonderful trail and lobby while you're here we're convinced and I'll just say it is one of the worst spectacular segments the whole thing is it is and you're from Swanton Hyde the bridge in Swanton is that one of the recycled highway bridges? yes it was originally a railroad bridge the game of the town great thing so these trusses are no longer worthy for highways but can be a bike pass absolutely and I think it does have one over the hydro dam the truss bridge yes okay thank you very much appreciate it Jeff Weinberg oh good morning how are you? great Jeff's not a stranger here we appreciate it the opportunity that the two committees provide to the lead members on these local government days and it's a bit of a tradition and it's one that is much appreciated not just by myself but by I'm sure everyone else here I'm going to change the subject a little bit here and speak to first of all express thanks particularly to the house transportation committee for taking up the question of the master license agreements that were a source of litigation between the city of Rutland and v-trans last year the railroad the crossing issue and that litigation has been resolved out of court by settlement thankfully and so Rutland is in a good shape right now but the legislature required in the transportation bill a study and the study gave about four charges to v-trans and also required the involvement of the league which is much appreciated I have to say in when we received the study we received it with a significant amount of disappointment in some critical respects the study really does not respond to the legislative questions the questions that were posed and I'd like to I don't want to go through the whole thing and I'm sure there are more important things that others would like to bring up but I'd like to cite a couple of them that are particularly troubling the in the summary of the master license agreement in terms of conditions that is a standard agreement that rail road required municipalities for doing utility infrastructure water sewer storm water infrastructure at rail crossings at roadways there are several things in there that are not fully addressing the concerns that municipalities raise particularly the very first one description of the authorized facilities state first bullet point on page under 1.3 just the summary the state and rail road retain authority to approve or deny approval to the utility for additional facilities first of all from London to my knowledge nobody else has any objection with the state and the railroad having to approve the installation of new water sewer storm water lines at crossings it's only appropriate that they have to review the plans and approve them to make sure that they're in compliance with all the federal and state and other standards that are necessary what that summary doesn't include is what we were objecting to which was the fact that in addition to approval municipalities are required to surrender across all of the crossings within their jurisdiction and for the life of the MLA any right to appeal a decision an adverse decision a denial with which the municipality might object so it's not the approval the approval is perfectly reasonable it's the requirement that we have to basically take whatever answer we get we can't go to another tribunal or court or otherwise and challenge that denial on some reasonable basis and getting to that point down at the bottom of the page under five indemnity and public liability and I'm only hitting like three points so I won't go through the whole thing I promise the very first sentence says and it's reasonable the utility in this case municipality acknowledges that its use its uses meaning the presence of these these pipes and so forth may expose the state in the railroad to additional liability to which they would not otherwise be exposed it's a statement of fact it's perfectly reasonable but that's where it stops and from the municipality standpoint the presence of the railroad across the municipal right of way or over the utilities exposes the municipality to additional liability to which they would not otherwise be exposed in other words there is there is a balance here and there's a tension because commerce and public safety are very much at issue with both roads and railroads and those things need to be harmonized but critical utility infrastructure water wastewater stormwater public health public safety environmental protection infrastructure is equally critical and there needs to be some recognition of a balance and an effort to try to harmonize these things this agreement the one that is currently required makes no attempt to do that and that is our central objection there is there's also the irrespective of negligence on the part of the state of the railroad all liability for anything bad that happens goes to the municipality that's still in there and then there is an opportunity to appeal a decision regarding maintenance of facilities but all the court routes of appeal are all within the agency of transportation all controlled by the agency of transportation there is no independent third party such as the courts and that does not extend to new or proposed facilities only for maintenance or upgrade of existing facilities or utilities that's an issue perhaps most troubling of all is that under two point there's a list here under table one of approximately 50 towns and cities that have master license agreements with the state this is greater to see this list we had requested this previously and it was not forthcoming and we've also requested to actually look at the master license agreements for these 50 and that is not here nor is there a summary in here of the nature or the date that these master license agreements were signed many of them date back to the 90s, 80s and 70s and we've reviewed a few of those and quite frankly we would have signed one of those in a heartbeat it's the more recent ones the ones that require this additional language these new requirements and we don't know how many of these actually contain that language which is not fully responsive I believe to the request finally 4.0 insurance the statement here and again I'm going to go back and actually read what your request was point number three in the legislation whether municipality, municipality operated utility can secure sufficient insurance coverage to enter into the agency's current iteration of the standard conditions to the master license agreement one municipality utility or other person needs to use the right way for the line of the railroad owned by the state and the response can be summed up in a sentence midway through and in the existence of MLAs with non municipalities or municipality operated utilities we listed earlier in this report one that there are over 50 MLAs suggest it is possible for municipalities municipality operated utilities to secure sufficient insurance it is curious that the agency didn't pick up the phone and call any of the 50 that they have on their list to simply ask the question in response to your question did you get insurance to cover this shifting or imposition of liability I don't think they did because I'm quite sure they know the answer to that question which is not contained in their summary or in their report and that is that the insurance doesn't exist you can't get it we tried in fact the railroad Vermont Railway tried diligent to find any product out there in the marketplace that the city of Rutland could secure make it possible for us to sign this agreement and they couldn't find it V-Trans couldn't find it and we couldn't find it so I think it's much safer to assume not that these 50 municipalities have secured insurance but that they have gone ahead and executed these agreements we don't know how many contain this language but some of them have they've gone ahead and executed these agreements without insurance and placing all of that burden on to their residents and taxpayers which is somewhat ironic because in a smaller community in particular in Vermont there's no such thing as municipal bankruptcy under our constitution if the municipality becomes insolvent that burden goes to all the people of the state of Vermont essentially to the legislature so by imposing this requirement on municipalities and in the event that something very expensive and very horrible were to happen and the municipality was insolvent in an attempt in effort to respond to that or to meet that obligation that obligation goes right back to the state it's almost as though the state is shifting this liability onto itself which makes no sense at all so there are a number of other concerns with the report but I would encourage the committees to question this now one other thing as I said our issues resolved we haven't been required to have a master license agreement we went to mediation court ordered mediation with the agency and with the railroad and on the day before the hearing on our second mediation the railroad president whom I personally frankly with and the mayor particularly has a good friendship with him so these were difficult this was difficult litigation because we actually like these people quite a bit got a letter from David Wilson essentially saying okay go ahead build your project you don't need a master license agreement the the process and the litigious process that we were both engaged in was such that it would get in the way of critical public health public safety environmental protection infrastructure that need to be built and since then we've had another project that we've gone to them and we've done another letter so one would hope going forward that the $100,000 that close that we did in legal costs to get to this point has resolved our issue but it does no good for any other municipality in the state and I would add that it was the funding for that came from the drinking water state revolving fund because these are eligible project costs which means that under the 50% subsidy the state of Vermont paid for at least half of our litigation against the state of Vermont those dollars really ought to be spent for drinking water storm water wastewater and CSOs it shouldn't be spent on lawyers fighting over these things and other communities may follow and that would be tragic if there is a way for the legislature to encourage or otherwise find a way to modify some of these requirements in these MLAs so that we can get out of this conflict where we do have potentially conflicting goods and interests safety health etc but there has to be a way to resolve these things short of litigation and that would strongly encourage your efforts whatever you could do to help bring us together on that but you've done a lot in getting this information even though it is disappointing what it doesn't contain Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I guess I would add to say the mayor commissioners we only have one mayor to his comments my disappointment in the report was it seems to rest on the fact that they're common that these agreements are common around the country to me that doesn't mean that they're okay but would you agree that pretty much for the rest on there's a multi-page table in the report for surrounding states and it summarizes some of the key provisions in there if you read that we've studied these things if you read that carefully and I can't say this from knowledge because I haven't read the standard in the way conditions in Connecticut or Massachusetts or whatever but if you read it carefully it would seem to suggest that the more onerous requirements that are here imposed on municipalities, municipal utilities and Vermont are probably not present at least not to the same degree in many of the surrounding states so yes, master license agreements are common actually they're a very good thing the stated purposes but in the front of the report we totally agree with we would love to have one it simplifies and clarifies relationships and responsibilities it is a handful of requirements that are being imposed here that we are objecting to 95% of the content is perfectly reasonable and appropriate okay yes I did read the report and I had a hard time saying what do I do with this and because we were aware that the city of Rutland was really the genesis of the language and the difficulty that you've described you're saying that the legislature really needs to take further action I'm just wondering if there is some kind of written document or whatever that you can go with your oral testimony to help us determine what action you would like to have considered and what legislative remedy would address it because I know the league had expressed its displeasure with the report in terms of helping to guide future decision making and legislative remedy so is there maybe you've already done that in the house transportation Representative Fagin from Rutland City introduced the bill that went into the house transportation committee and that evolved into the study but that bill contained language that we believe would have resolved this now it probably a dozen other ways to do it not the only way to do it I'm sure but that would be a good starting point that legislation which ended up with the study of the law Thank you Thank you very much George Putnam Cambridge Good morning Thank you for this opportunity to meet with both transportation Thanks for coming George Putnam, I'm select board chair of Cambridge First I wanted to add my support for the one on the real trail that was built for Cambridge and when that segment is completed to the north that would be bigger to Cambridge and towns along that so I certainly want to encourage that the main thing I want to talk about is state roads in Cambridge the main state highway in Cambridge is route 15 and I want to thank the state for rebuilding that road from the Grand Marriott out towards the wild county last couple of years reached almost the edge of the wild county that's a very important road for us it sees a lot of cuter traffic it sees a lot of solid waste several trucks a day on that road from assistant county out to the landfill and coventry goes through Cambridge so that's a very separate only separate multiple so I appreciate the resources the state is putting into that road much of the economy in Vermont depends on tourism and I hope the state is also paying attention to all the roads into the ski areas earlier you heard from Killington and you heard from Charles Safer and Stowe route 108 through Smuggler's Notch was recently rebuilt on the Stowe side and my one big ask today is to pay attention to route 108 on the Cambridge side from Jeffersonville up to Smuggler's Notch that road to the top top shape and you can do the speed of rebuilding and that road would be much appreciated that ski area is very important to the economy in our area and that's still a ski area on the other side Any questions? Any questions? I mean prompted because we did look at a map in our committee room of the intent and asset management of our highways and I did notice a discrepancy which side of the mountain 108 happened to be upon and I mentioned that I didn't think that there should be a discrepancy with those colorations We'll see if it goes anywhere The whole road through the Notch is a scenic byway so it seems a lot of summer traffic as well as winter traffic As I said earlier one of the factors is that we have to hope that the congress comes up with some new infrastructure throughout the whole country because it's an issue all over and we're still working with the same amount of money luckily this year but I don't know what the future is going to bring but we certainly would love to give warm money out if we have it and because there's a need all over the state it's infrastructure improvements all over Any other questions? Comments? Thank you very much for coming over Appreciate it Did I hit everyone on the list or did I I thought I got everyone on the list but maybe yes Mayor Lee is staring at the city with a berry I wasn't going to speak but because of everybody else I thought it was going to make a couple of comments One is just take advantage of the other bills that you might see out there There is a bell Peter Anthony introduced for the tress slope to remove it in the city of Berry It's a flood hazard on one end but I just heard there's a Memorial Valley rail trail that could use a trestle to go over and take those opportunities and take action in one place and support another one I think that would be great The other one was about the plowing and the sidewalks before roads One of the things is just the logistics so if you plow a sidewalk first and then you plow the road so part of it is you kind of need to work from the inside out in order to dispose some of the I just wanted to reply to those two comments there's nothing too specific but I just thought it would be something to people's attention AOD put a few hundred people down in town of Berry and we love them there Some of the legislation that was spoken to earlier about having streets maintained by some of the butters I think that is a great way to try to prevent cost savings having to be trans there to help us understand more of our own paths and trails I think is going to be great the more that we can expand the side of a sidewalk on one side of the street versus maybe on both you could use part of that as a storage for the snow in the winter it makes one route to go down some of the plows that we have there are the older plows you can use them because if you go down a narrow intersection you either have to stop so just logistics in general the better you can do those processes it will save costs in the long run Okay, question Thank you very much I think we have to ask you to repeat the sidewalks in the streets because our chair just returned and it's a perennial question Yeah, I'll give a quick overview if you have snow on the sidewalk and in the road the logistics would be if you plow the sidewalk first then you plow the road where does the snow go and it ends up on your sidewalk so if you are able to plow the snow on the road first you can come back through and get that snow along with the snow and the sidewalks that can move it further out Then the sidewalk would go on the highway No, it's not to your lawn Okay, thank you Thank you Anyone else this morning? Yes I wasn't going to but as a conversation earlier and I'm not about money So you like me Two things As you know voter-voter is connected to our voting portal from DMB The two questions I would like to see addressed or the like to see addressed is the application for a driver's license asked for the physical address but people give a physical address as their mailing address it doesn't get to the proper one or they give a physical address that is not coinciding with our 9-1-1 address which is tied to our voter registration so it doesn't match up to addresses in our town so constantly we're getting changes of addresses for voter that really don't meet changes so we're rejecting those because they're not matching up to anything within our town so it would be nice if voter-voter could match up to 9-1-1 so that they wouldn't be rejections or all constant change of address The second thing is Is there a fine question on that? Is it an input issue? Is it a software issue? It's a software issue from voter-voter sending it to our town and when we go to enter it it's telling us there's an address change when really it isn't because for instance in my town in Dorset we have US Route 7 we have Vermont Route 7 we have US Route 30 and people are just putting down Route 30 so it comes in as an address change and I look at it and I'm like oh no they're registered, they're here I'm rejecting it because they're not giving their proper 9-1-1 address and our voter registration is matched up to the 9-1-1 within our towns so that's the problem The second thing is most recently your committees were talking about emojis Don't talk The Senate Committee was not Okay Well I have a couple of constituents in my town that want the American flag but the only way you can get the American flag is if you're a veteran and veterans are very dear to my heart but so are my citizens and they would like to have the American flag as a possibility they're not worried about the swanly faces or anything else the American flag so I called and the American flag is attached to a series so it's the American flag with a V and that but I don't understand why the American flag couldn't be offered to anybody who is proud of being an American with any number or specialty play after it So we actually in the house have several requests for license plate changes and individualizations and I have to say I have now decided that my opinion on this is and it is true the license plate belongs to the state it's actually not yours and so I think that we could maybe start redirecting that to some other process where potentially veterans can supply 3M bumper stickers that people can put on I think that the license plate has a purpose that becomes diluted and they all become from each other and so that's just now my reaction is that it is actually state property it's not ours why is it not ours though you have to return it no you don't you're supposed to you actually are supposed to well people have license plates hanging around their houses plugging holes in their barns okay okay I'm wondering just to throw out as an idea we we got a lot of news attention about the emoji bill which was a short porn bill which we have not spent time discussing there are many many bill proposals that are up on the house committee's wall about specialty plates ideas for specialty plates ways to modify them have vanity stuff on specialty plates it's starting to become the opinion not because of the property issues that representative Murphy referenced but that we should just get rid of specialty plates it would be a lot easier so I take your point that there's a real public desire we're not going to have that discussion here today I just want to throw that out there that I think we may be heading in that direction would you attend it by yourself oh I'm sorry Sandy can stand on the town clerk of dorset and also on the league board thank you appreciate it okay anyone else today without emoji plates we're not going to or any kind of place are we all set? thank you very much for taking the time to come over you've been very informative


Good morning everyone. Good morning to our students online as well. Okay, shall we begin this class with a word of prayer? Let's just pray and then we'll start. Father we thank you so much for this time you've given us once again and Lord even as we come together to study your word Lord we pray that you will speak to our hearts minister to us Lord. Lord we pray that our hearts will be a good ground to receive your word that will bear fruit in our lives of God. We thank you. Thank you for all that you've done and all that you're doing in and through us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Okay, so last class we did quite a few topics and we covered quite a few chapters as well. So we did up to chapter 53 that was walking according to the spirit of life. Right, so let's get into chapter 54. Now as I mentioned I'm gonna go a little quick so that we can try and complete this on time. Okay, chapter 54, be in the Spirit. Right now all through out Apostle Paul's letters you see Paul talking about the Holy Spirit and you see how much emphasis he gives on the Holy Spirit. Right, Romans 8-9 but you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he is not his. Right, so Paul is saying here you are not of the flesh. Now he's doing a word play here. He's writing to believers and they are human beings but Paul is saying you're not of the flesh. So he's not talking about the physical flesh. Right, whenever you hear the word flesh there are there's always two important points like you need to look at it both in the physical, in the natural and also in the spiritual. Look at this about when we say man. Right, it's not just the physical appearance but also the man, the inner man they say. Right, so Paul is exhorting the believers he's saying you are not of the flesh that means you are not anymore living according to the flesh, according to the things of the world but now you have the Spirit and if the Spirit of God dwells in you then you walk in the Spirit. Let's read Galatians 5 16, the very familiar verse, anyone of us can read Galatians 5 16 and also 5 verse 24. I say then walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Okay, I say then walk in the Spirit so then you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. I remember some of us were asking questions in the mentoring hour. Right, one of the questions was how can I overcome? How can I live? I want to live according to God's word but I'm not able to. Remember what the answer was? The answer is it is because sometimes we try to live out of our own strength, our own ability. Now when we try it on our own it's very easy to fail. Paul is saying here walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh because the flesh by nature desires things. Right, you don't have to tell a child, are you feeling hungry? Are you feeling hungry? Are you feeling thirsty?  Regular desires of the flesh but that same child as he's growing up he becomes a teen. Now what's happening? The desires are changing. He's not thinking about water and food and playing in the cycle. He's thinking about other things. He's exposed to the things of this world. Then when he becomes a youth, right, that's a age when you know their hormones are very strong. They want to, the sexual drive is very high. So then the desires of the flesh become small. So what happens? It's very easy if we are trying things on our own to fall into those desires but if you're living in the Spirit you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. What will happen? Say a thought comes, right or say your your body desires something, right? If you're walking in the natural, if you're walking in the flesh, you may be able to overcome once, twice, five times, ten times but after that what happens? It's very easy to give in to those desires but if we walk in the Spirit it is not our strength. The Holy Spirit inside us will empower us to overcome those temptations. Look at Jesus, right? Best example. Was Jesus hungry when he was passing? Forty days he hasn't eaten or drank water. Can you imagine that? Forty days. After the session sometimes we feel like drinking water. We spoke so much. Forty days he hasn't drank water, he hasn't eaten. I'm sure he would have been so weak and hungry but what made him to still be strong? Because what is inside him? The Holy Spirit empowered him to overcome and the same Holy Spirit is in us. Paul writes and he says the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same Spirit that is in you and me. So now I'm walking, I'm doing things in my life. There's a temptation that comes immediately. What do I do? Immediately I say I don't live according to the flesh. I live according to the Spirit. What does the Spirit say? The Spirit is saying the Holy Spirit is strengthening me and saying no, don't go for that. Just stay on. Just overcome that. I'm with you. I will strengthen you on our own. It's very easy to fall. So Paul is writing here, you think walk in the Spirit. The word walk means to live your life in the Spirit. And verse 24, let's read that. Relations 5, 24. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its patience and desires. Those who desire the Lord Jesus have crucified the flesh and the desires of the flesh. So what, if you think of it, what made Apostle Paul so strong? Why was it, what was it about him that he was so brave and so strong even in the midst of these persecutions? You know, I believe that Apostle Paul, you know, he understood that this flesh is nothing. The flesh will go. That's why he writes in Second Corinthians. He said, we do not war against flesh and blood. A war is not against people, but it's against principalities and powers of darkness, against demons and his territory against them. So when you and I are praying, we are not just praying. The supernatural law we have here, something is happening in the spiritual realm.  He's changing us.  So many things he can speak to us. There's something happening in the spiritual realm. After the prayer, do we, do we look something different? The same. There's something happening inside, right? And here Paul is saying, live by the spirit. Overcome the things of the flesh by the spirit. So it's very important that we understand this, right? In every area of our life, when we depend on the Holy Spirit, you'll see victory. If we haven't seen victory, say, for example, we have failed in one place. Don't run away from God. Don't say, Oh God, I made a mistake. I don't feel like coming back to you. I don't feel like, you know, same mistake again and again and again. Why am I doing this mistake? It's a natural tendency. But remember, therefore, now there is no, what's the word? Condemnation, right? So now you can go back to Jesus. Is it okay if I go 100 times back to Jesus for the same sin? It's okay.  But he also wants us to change that. It's not like, okay, he's saying, come to me and I will forgive you and I keep doing the same thing. No. He's given us the Holy Spirit. He's given us the authority. He's given us the power. He expects us to walk in that, right? So how do we get the Holy Spirit to work in our lives? How do we enable him to, you know, take control over every area of our life? Look at chapter 55, yield to the Spirit. The word yield, what is the word yield? Right? So for example, you know, the word yield is to surrender to the Spirit. Right? How many of you have seen a, you know, maybe a parachute jump? Right?  Skydiving.  And then what happens? They're yielding to what is to just what is there. And then there's a time and there's a right maneuver to release that parachute. He can't jump and release the parachute immediately.  There's a certain time when he's coming down, he needs to release that parachute. He yields to the parachute, the wind, he, he's learned all of that. So he understands to yield is to surrender. That means I don't have any authority right now, surrendering the whole thing. Right? And Romans 8 12 and 13 says therefore brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. What is the word debtor?  Can you give me this much money? And he says, okay, take, since you need it for your college fees, you take, you take the money and then he, it's one month now. And when you see him, you know, I'm in debt. I need to pay back I need to pay back this amount to him. Now, if that is not there, please go and pray. But that feeling should be there. I have to give him the money because he helped me. That's called debt. I owe him something. Right? Now, Paul is saying, I'm not a debtor to the flesh. I don't owe my flesh anything. I don't owe the devil anything. Right? It's not like I have to tell the devil, please let me go.  Let me go. No, we don't owe anything to the devil. Right? Not to the flesh, but to live according for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if you if by the spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body and you will live. You put to death the deeds done in the body. Right? Now, why is it important to yield to the spirit? No, in supernatural hour, I always bring this up. I see that we all are, you know, surrendering, we are, we are praying, we are singing. That is good. But it's also very important to yield to the spirit. Right? So the Holy Spirit can speak to us in different ways, and you will learn more in the Holy Spirit class. The Holy Spirit, when we yield, when we surrender to him, he begins to take control. He begins to speak in different ways. He has his own way. But we have to surrender.  Right? What is dove in Hindi? Which one? Oh, okay. So everyone understood that. Right? He's like a dove. He's gentle like a dove. The Holy Spirit can bring conviction, but he'll not hate you and say, you have to do this. Otherwise, I will take you out of this place. And he's not going to do that. Otherwise, you know, danger will come upon you. You have to pray, you have to read your word. You won't say all that. Remember, he's the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. He will bring conviction. He will tell you, do this. Don't do this. Speak this. Don't speak this. He will say, now, if I am not surrendered to him, I will not understand him. I will not understand why he's saying this or why he's telling me to, you know, not to speak or why is the Holy Spirit telling me to, you know, get up in the morning and pray or read the word? Why is he saying, I don't know. Why? Because I'm not surrendered to him. If I'm surrendered to him, and I'll say, okay, God, if you're saying, I'll do it. I don't understand why, but I'll do it. Right? So it's very important that we be surrendered to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, you speak to me. I surrender everything. Don't keep five things with you and then say, I surrender the rest five. Surrender your full self to God. That's when he takes control. Don't say this, you know, there's three things in my life I will handle, Lord. My work and my friends I'll handle. The other things you take care of. No, he wants complete surrender. Every area of our life, surrender it. Then he begins to work in our life. I'm not saying the heavens will open and he'll come and start speaking, but what I'm saying is you will understand and recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit. He will speak very clearly. Now what happens, for example, there's this young boy, right? He becomes a believer and the Holy Spirit is telling him, why don't you pray every day for one hour? Okay, maybe half an hour. But this boy says, oh man, I got to go to meet my friends. They're all playing football. They're all going here. They're doing so many things. But this boy is going to college and after coming back from college, the Holy Spirit is saying, why don't you spend half an hour with me? He knows that God is speaking to him, but he's saying, no, there's so many other things out there. No, not wrong things. Playing cricket and football and these sports is not wrong. But I want to go there. So what happens if he goes and he doesn't give that half an hour which God is speaking to him about? What am I doing? I'm not surrendering to him. Now, if I don't surrender to him, there's no opportunity for the Holy Spirit to speak to me. You understand what I'm saying? I need to give the time to God and God begins to minister. Now, the same person, if he says, okay, God, I'll sacrifice that soccer or football for half an hour, but I'll spend time in your presence. 15 minutes, I'll read the word. 15 minutes, I will pray. What am I doing? I'm surrendering to what the Holy Spirit is saying. Right?  There's an anointing. You will feel strength, you will feel power, you will feel authority. Right? All of a sudden, you will feel that no devil can come near you. You'll feel so strong, like a lion inside. You may be as thin as a stick, but inside, you'll be like a lion roaring. Nothing can stop you. Why? Because you're yielded to the Spirit. When you yield to the Spirit, no work of the devil can overpower you. The devil will be there, but it cannot overpower. The devil will bring temptations, but he cannot overpower. Now, if we say, oh, Lord, why are all these problems coming to me? Why me only? Why me only? Now, what can we do? What can we do? The first thing that a lot of people come for prayer and they ask for prayer. This is going on. This is going on. Can you pray? Sometimes, when I'm led, no, I ask them, how long do you pray? I pray for 10 minutes. You're going through a season in your life. You're going through a challenge. You're asking God, for example, there's a person who doesn't have a job and he's looking out for a job. Just desperately, he needs a job. He has to get a job, but he's praying for 10 minutes. Now, what happened? What's happening here? It's like he's, you know, he's going to the pastor. I'm just giving an example, right? I'm going to the pastor, please pray for me, pastor. I need to get a job. Right? I have to get a job. Pastor will pray. Okay, Jesus, please open the door for him. What is he doing? Nothing. 10 minutes. Now, in 10 minutes, if you want to see a breakthrough in your life, you and I, we have to put our hands to the plow. We have to go through, don't give all the work to the pastors and leaders. You pray and I'll get a job. Doesn't work that way, but still God is faithful. He does it, but he wants to see you and me do the hard work. Right? So, yield to the Spirit. Next one, 814, Romans 814. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God. This is one of the most common verses that we use. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Now, let's reverse that. As many are the sons of God are led by the Spirit of God.   Then automatically, you can write equals led by the Spirit of God. Do you have the Spirit of God? Then you can write equals. I'm a son of God. Very simple. Right? If you are led by the Spirit, you're the son of God.   But where is the Spirit? Nobody is leading me. You have to go and ask. You have to spend time in His presence. How can He speak to you? He can speak to you through the Word of God. He can speak to you through a vision, dream, picture, so many ways. But He needs you to draw your attention to Him. Right? That's why, when it comes to worship, when it comes to spending time in His presence, it's very easy because our mind will have so many things going on. Right? So many things are going on in our mind. It's very easy to lose focus. That's why the psalmist says, I fixed my gaze upon Him. Early in the morning, will I seek Him? What is the Word seek? I'll search. Search for Him. That means there are many things going on. There are hundred things going on in my mind. But I have to search for Him. I have to put all those hundred things aside. Say, Jesus, speak to me. I want to think about You. And then what happens? We are led by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit begins to speak and minister to us. Right? So none of us can say, hey, how come He has the Word of knowledge I don't have? How come He has prophecy, prophetic He speaking, I don't have? None of us can say that. Why? Is it a special spirit for you, this person and the other person? Or is it the same spirit? Same spirit. None of us can say, hey, how come He prays and there's healing and I pray there's no healing? There's no special spirit. It's the same spirit. It's just that, of course, there's a function, there's a calling that God has, but the same spirit works. Right? If you're a believer for two days, you can make somebody who has fourth stage cancer stand in front of you, pray and that person can get healed. Why? Because you believe in the cross. It's not because you're an anointed healer. All of that is there, but it is all because of the Holy Spirit that is working. You get what I'm saying. You're understanding, right? Okay. Listen to the witness of the Holy Spirit, Romans 8, 15 through 17. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out above Father, verse 16. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. This is a powerful, let's look, just break it down, right? We did not receive a spirit of bondage. What is bondage? What's the Hindi word for bondage? Vandan, yeah. In the old covenant, it was a spirit of bondage because they were gripped under the enemy. There was no freedom. But they were still living. They were waiting for, because the cross had not yet happened.  What happened? Why are people going through sickness and all that's happening because of bondages that the devil places on people? It's like this, all of you have seen cattle on the field for farming. They use a cattle in the ox, right? It's like the devil has put a yoke on the neck and he puts you down there. It's like a bondage. Can't get out of it, right? But what does it say here? You did not receive that bondage, the spirit of bondage to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption. What is the word adoption in Hindi? Sorry? Yeah, everyone understood that, right? The spirit of adoption. That means we were orphans. We may have parents, all of that in the national, but in the spiritual we were orphans. We had nobody. Nobody was there for us. For the Lord Jesus, by His blood, He called us His children and now we have the spirit of adoption. Remember that story I told you? The rich man was going and there was a little boy in the slum. So the rich man took this slum boy, took him into the palace. What happened? He's no more a slum boy. What is he now? It's a rich man's son.   He's the son of a rich man. So verse 16, the spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are the children of God. Okay, let me ask you this question. Where is God inside us? Where else? Show me. Can we see? This is normal questions. People are, show me. Right? They say, I can't show you. Why? Because God is spirit. What does it say here? The spirit, the Holy Spirit bears witness to our spirit. So we have a spirit, right? The Holy Spirit, when we become believers, joins with our spirit. How many of you, well, you know, when you're praying, suddenly you'll get a word. God says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You're not thinking of it, but suddenly it came. It's because the Holy Spirit is bearing witness to your spirit. They're together. Right? So what's happening here? The spirit of God is bearing witness with our spirit and they become one. It's united.   But the Holy Spirit is saying, no, you are my child.  Don't listen to the devil. He's bearing witness. So we can say, Holy Spirit, the devil is saying, I'm useless. I'm unworthy. But you're saying I'm a child of God. How is it? He'll bear witness. Holy Spirit will say, open the scriptures. I'll tell you. I'll tell you, you're not coming by your works. You're coming by the grace of God.  I have washed your sins. So He's bearing witness. You know what is witness, no? In the court, you need a witness. You need proof. The Holy Spirit is proof that we are the child of God. Can somebody come and tell you, hey, you know, whenever we look at persecution that is happening around, I say, you don't become a Christian.  Nobody can do that. The Holy Spirit is bearing witness. Nobody can change that. That is why when you look at people, you know, people in North India and people are going through, you know, persecutions, how are they so strong? Right? Now, how many of you have faced persecution, face to face? One, two, yeah, all from North India. Yeah. And it's not easy, right? It is very scary because I've seen it and it's, you know, I've been in that place. You lose your gun. You don't know what they're going to do next. It's scary. But the Holy Spirit bears witness. When He's there, you'll not say, no, I don't believe in Jesus. You'll say, yes, you'll be willing to stand your ground, not because in your spirit, you'll be fearful. What are they going to do? But in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will speak to your spirit and say, you don't worry, I'm with you. Right? That is bearing witness. I'm with you. Will the difficulties come? It will come, but still I'm with you. Bearing witness. Everyone understood that, right? Listen to the witness of the Holy Spirit, right? Verse 17 is good. And if children, then we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Now, look at this picture. You got the, is there a board here? Maybe next time I'll, next class I'll use it. Look at this. Okay, just picture this. The Father, the Son, and we are here. It's like a triangle, right? The Father, Jesus, and we are here. The Father, the Son is heir to everything that the Father has. Heir means everything that belongs to the Father goes to the Son. Yes? If you look at the natural Father, everything goes to the Son. That means he's a heir. Right? So after the Father passes on, the Son will take over the business. He's the heir to the next line of business. Now, in the spiritual, the Father is calling Jesus Son because he says that, right? This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. So everything of the Father is given to the Son. And it says here, we are joint heirs with Christ. So now Jesus is here, we are here, and we all become children of God. So we are joint heirs with Christ. Whatever God is giving Jesus, He's also giving us. Because we are joint heirs with Christ. So when, just think about this, when God, the Father, is looking at you and me, He, the amount of love, how much He loved Jesus, the same way He loves us. Can you, can you picture that? Just as how He loved Jesus, God loves us because we are His children. But Father, Jesus did so much more. No. Jesus did great things. It's okay. The love is the same. I'm not, I know that Jesus died on the cross as a son. He paid the price. He did everything. But the love is the same for all of us. It doesn't change. Right? So just because Jesus is heir, Jesus is heir, we become joint heirs with Christ. When Jesus sees us, He sees Jesus in us. Sorry, when God sees us, He sees Jesus in us. So how much, what a blessing that is. We may be nowhere close to His attributes. We're just growing in Christ. We're still learning so much. But when the Father sees us, He sees us in the same kind of love. Right? So verse 58, everyone following? Yes? Okay. Roman, sorry, praying empowered by the Holy Spirit or by the Spirit of life, Romans 8, 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Right? Look at the first portion. Likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. Everyone say weaknesses. How many of us have weaknesses? All of us have weaknesses. We all go through weaknesses. Right? But what do they say there? The Spirit of God helps us in our weakness. If I keep telling I don't have any weakness, the Spirit of God is not, it's like we're closing the door to the Holy Spirit. We're closing the door and saying, Holy Spirit, don't worry, I will look after. I will look after, don't worry. You think of this, right?   Oh man, now what do we do?  Is the place clean? Outwardly, it's clean. But there is still a mess inside. Nobody knows it. Sometimes we do that, right? Areas in our heart, we'll say, God, this one, this one, this one, this one. But there are certain areas we hide it. It says here, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Whatever your weakness is, my weakness, right? I just go back to God and I say, God, this is my weakness. This is where I feel I should, you know, change.  Learn to walk in love in these areas of my life. This is a weakness that I have. So I surrender it to God. I say, God, you help me. Now remember, it's not, it's not like overnight, you know, everything will be fine. No, it'll take time, right? It'll take time for us to overcome and to, you know, go through those weakness, but the Holy Spirit helps us. And one of the ways that he helps us is he helps us by he himself praying in and through us, right? And here he's talking about praying in the spirit. All of us pray in the spirit. Most of us, okay, praying in the spirit, he makes intercessions with groanings. You know, what's the best part? Anywhere we are, we can pray in the spirit. Is there a location that we cannot pray in the spirit? Is the Holy Spirit limited by place? No. Every time I'm driving, going anywhere, I'm praying in tongues. Just, just praying, right? Sometimes I just play the music while driving, but I'm praying in tongues also. The Holy Spirit speaks. Now, I have a choice. I can think of 100 other things. I can think of many other things, work. All of those things are there. But I intentionally say, no, let me pray in the spirit. That will help me in my weakness. Now, sometimes as pastors, we have so much to do, so many people to meet and tasks to do. It's a lot of work. Sometimes give very tiring, right? And I tell myself, I'm tired, but we are encouraged. They're doing this because the Holy Spirit empowers us. He strengthens us. So, very important, spend time praying in the spirit. It can be, you can start off with 10 minutes, you know, what, so some things that I do personally is, you know, when I wake up early in the morning, obviously, I'm sleepy, right? Obviously, I want to sleep more and I want to rest some more. I want to get some good sleep. Maybe it'll take a day off and till 10 o'clock, just sleep. I feel like doing those things. And when we wake up in the morning for prayer, it's obvious. It's a natural thing. We will be sleepy, but the Holy Spirit helps us. So, one of the things I do is, the moment I wake up, I begin to pray in the spirit. Now, when I'm praying in the spirit, what's happening? I may not be using a lot of my energy, but the spirit inside is uttering words, right? Now, after five minutes, the sleep is gone.   Are you physically tired? Could be, but you're ready. The Holy Spirit has empowered you, right? Section five, sorry, section seven, 59. In him, we have redemption. Right now, we've talked about the word redemption, right? Redemption is what? Jesus paid the price. He took us from a place of slavery and we have been redeemed. Remember the example I gave you?  So, they'll give you a coupon. And the next time when you go, you give the coupon, they'll say, okay, you have redeemed your coupon.  Simple example, redeemed, right? Brought back by paying a price. That's what Jesus did. So, how are we redeemed? One, we are redeemed by his blood, Ephesians 1-7. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Everyone say by his blood. We are redeemed by his blood. We're not redeemed just because of anything that is of our own selves or because Jesus thought about it. We redeemed by his blood. He paid the price. Jesus didn't think and say, okay, the work is done. No, the price was paid. The blood was shed. And the book of Hebrews says, his blood speaks even now. Can you believe that? When we pray in the blood of Jesus, when you and I pray, we say, I cover this place with the blood of Jesus, what are we doing? His blood is speaking. His blood is powerful. I am washed by the blood of Jesus. Nobody is coming and pouring blood. No, it's just not natural, but it's in the spiritual, the blood of Jesus is powerful. Even the devils are scared of the blood of Jesus. They are very scared of it. Think of this. You can have a person in bondage, maybe a person who's possessed by demons. Now, you go there. You're standing there. This person has demons inside him. You're praying.  I command healing.  Now, the blood of Jesus was shed to 2020, two years ago. Where's the blood now? It's there. The devil knows. When you declare the blood of Jesus, the devil knows. He knows the authority. We may not be scholars in the Bible, but if we know the power of his blood, he knows. Demons will have to flee. Right? His blood speaks. Hebrews 12, 22 and 24. But you have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born who are registered in heaven, to the God, the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of able. In the spiritual realm, blood speaks. Let's look at two instances. One is, Cain killed Abel and Cain is trying to hide. God comes to Cain and says, Cain, where's your brother? I don't know. I'm not my brother's keeper. And what does God say? His blood is crying out for justice. He's basically, God is saying you have killed him, but his blood is calling out. His blood is, you know, calling out for me for vengeance. Abel didn't do anything to you. What did he do? He gave what is best from his offering. Why are you so worried? Why did you have to kill him?  The blood speaks. Look at the second example. When we look later on, Jesus, his blood speaks.  Meaning when you will take revenge, Jesus, they have killed us. They shed our blood. The blood of the martyrs is crying out. So it's a spiritual thing. It's not in the physical, but a spiritual thing. The blood speaks. The blood of Abel cried out for justice. The blood of Jesus proclaims God's justice has been fully satisfied. There was not a drop of his blood left in his body. Now, you know, most of us have seen Passion of the Christ. No, you've seen Passion of the Christ. That is maybe 5% of what happened to Jesus. What do you see? 5%.  They could see his heart pumping. There was no flesh. Every time he took a breath, his heart would be, there was pressure on his heart. Jesus died naked on the cross. It was not what we see now. He would have been just one small, just so much. That's it. See, 90% of our body is blood. If there's no blood, what is there? Nothing is there. Right? We'll shrink. Right? We'll become like a stick. Now, not even a drop, every drop in Jesus's body was shed. How would he have been? I'm just trying to get a picture for you. Could have carried him like this. Nothing. Nothing. It is absolutely nothing. It was not like Jesus was, oh, like these, what we see in television. No, no, no, no, no, no. You could have just taken him out, put him like this on a table, one of these tables. That's it. One person can carry. No blood. All the blood gone. The blood, the justice of God was put on Jesus. Every drop of blood there was just his side. Water came out. It was nothing. As the Bible says, he was obedient to death, even death on a cross. The most humiliating, painful death was the cross. There's no other death, more humiliating and painful.  Because God had to put all his justice on Jesus. The price had to be paid. The blood speaks. When you and I declare the blood of Jesus, the blood is speaking.  No. It's the blood of Jesus. It's powerful. Still working, right? We're delivered from Satan's dominion. We, we are right now God's property. First Corinthians 6, 12, for you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which is God. We talked about it, right? About the, being the temple of God. What else we are redeemed from? We are redeemed from the curse of the law. Galatians 3, 13 says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.  Christ became a curse so that we can become the righteousness. He took up all the sins. He became cursed for us. The curse of the law was upon him, sin and sickness and death. Everything was upon him so that we can become the righteousness of God. Then we are redeemed from every lawless deed, from the things that, that take us away from the good works and the good things that God has done for us. We are redeemed from the present evil age. Can I just take two minutes, please? Right? I'll just finish this. Galatians 1, 3 and 4, grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. So let's just look at that. Redeemed from this present evil age right now, the devil has control over regions and dominions in the spiritual realm and also in the natural. But you and I are redeemed from that evil age, from the evil of the devil. We are redeemed from it. It is, it's like this. God has placed two doors and the Lord Jesus is saying, which door do you want to go in? And Jesus himself says, no, there's a narrow path and there's a wide path. It's easy to go to the wide path but it's difficult to go into the narrow path. So the Lord Jesus is saying, I have redeemed you from this present age, from demons. You don't open doors for the devil. Don't let the devil speak into you. You have already, I have paid the price. Jesus is saying, I've paid the price. So you just have to believe in it, right? And we are redeemed. Don't let the devil take control over your life.  Get him out of every area. Say, no, these are certain things. I will get him out of it.  He has no place in my heart. We are redeemed from the present evil world. So when people look at us and they make fun of us and they say, hey, you know, he doesn't do anything wrong, be glad, rejoice, because that means you're in the right path. You're redeemed. You're no longer living in the evils of this world, but you're living free from sin. Amen. All right, so we'll pick up from next class 67 onwards. Maybe we should be able to complete. All right, thank you so much. God bless you. God bless you all. Those who are online.


Hi everyone Sean with jazzy's case breaks comm here doing 2020 2021 Pidini mosaic UEFA Euro soccer hobby two box break two random countries each number five so 12 spots all card ship everyone gets two countries from the list below With each spot they buy not all teams have autographed possibilities. So from Austria down to whales on the team list And that is there Austria down to whales and since every spot gets you to We need to copy this list from Matthew down to Eric's and solid last spot mojo and double it up There's Eric one time with last spot mojo and two times Dice will randomize both lists and pair those up a five and a five ten times 10th and final time From Matthew to spar down to Eric ain't Ten or ten times in the randomizer ten times in the dice Now ten times on the teams countries 10th and final time From Austria down to whales Trade window is open See if there's any trade chatter whatsoever Matthew to spar at Austria David Rizzuto Italy Eric's and solid Turkey Leo core France of a Brian Bourneburg, Croatia Leo core Russia Taylor Dwyer Portugal Brian Bourneburg Czech Republic Leo core England Michael PCora Hungary Taylor Dwyer Spain Robert Ronkel Belgium and Netherlands the Paul Poon Wani with the with Slovakia Michael PCora Sweden Matthew to spar Switzerland Leo core Ukraine Michael PCora North Macedonia Eric's and solid Germany Eric ain't Poland Michael PCora Denmark David Rizzuto Scotland the pole Poon Wani with Finland and Eric ain't with the whales Give another 20 seconds. I don't see any talk of trades whatsoever So if it's all silent on the front, we'll go ahead and print and rip So trade window going once trade window going twice trade we're going three times trade window closed It's print rip So here are our two boxes So one autograph per box So this is my first live look at mosaic Euro this year Those eggs such a good product. So I mean there was no doubt that this is gonna be good, right? Marcus Thurman for France. Where's my list? Little silver prism there France is Leo core and Andy Robertson for Scotland That is David Rizzuto red is non numbered Luca Modric for Croatia Brian Vornberg and Jadon Sancho for England Leo core Kevin de Bruin for Belgium Robert Runkle and Jonas wind for Denmark Michael PCora Mikael or Zabel for Spain Taylor Dwyer and Matisse of Idra for Czech Republic Brian Vornberg Dijon Lovren for Croatia Brian Vornberg and Dominic Calvert Lewin for England Leo core Phil Foden for England Leo core Levandowski for Poland Eric age and autumn triory for Spain Taylor Dwyer I do rex I do Me me me me John Fleck for Scotland David Rizzuto and Harry Maguire for England Leo core Cristiano Ronaldo for Portugal Taylor Dwyer Virgil van Dyke for the Netherlands and Robert Runkle and Yavi Hernandez is your auto that is Spain. I believe correct Yavi Hernandez Did the Spaniard? What does it say? I believe Spain which would be Taylor Dwyer Lyndon Dykes for Scotland David Rizzuto and Christian Erickson for Denmark Michael PCora Peter Pakerick for Slovakia and Vapol Pugwani Lucas Fabianski for Poland and Eric age and Mekola Velasic for Croatia and Brian Vornberg Mateo Kowalski again for Croatian Brian Vornberg Mason Mount for England Leo core Dominic Calvert Lewin for England again and Leo core Thomas Vaslik Czech Republic Brian Vornberg and Matthias Ginter for Germany Erickson Salah Bogdan Milashenko for the Ukraine and Leo core Davi Clausen for the Netherlands Robert Runkle Arcadius Millic for Poland Eric Ainge Yaufie Lesh Portugal Taylor Dwyer Jory Tealmans for Belgium and Robert Runkle and to 99 Ryan Fraser for Scotland David Rizzuto Lorenzo Insignia for Italy David Rizzuto Davi Clausen Netherlands Robert Runkle nice Killian and Bapé Silver there for France Leo core. I know it didn't end the way he wanted it People are just looking for him to screw up so they can jump down his throat They choked a good euro for him Christoph Olsen for Sweden Michael Picora Pione Sisto for Denmark Michael Picora Okay, Yokes Lou for Turkey Eric Sinsala and Tyler Roberts for Wales Eric Ainge Simone Tier for Denmark Michael Picora Igor Karaden for the Ukraine Leo core Igor Daviv for Russia Leo core Stefan wrist of the wrist of ski for North Macedonia Michael Picora Yaufie Lesh Portugal Taylor Dwyer two spots left rex Jason denier Belgium Robert Runkle and Lucas Hernandez for France and Leo core Raheem Sterling England Leo core and Adam Nagy Nagy for Hungary Michael Picora Ryan Graven birch Netherlands Robert Runkle and Diego Jota for Portugal Taylor Dwyer in Bapé for France again base this time Leo core Andy Robertson Scotland David Rizzuto and Gregory Decaya for Russia Leo core Mason Greenwood for England Leo core on Sufati for Spain Taylor Dwyer Okay, last stack should have our auto in it That is David the Haya for Spain Taylor Dwyer Ruben Neves for Portugal Taylor Dwyer and Yaufie Lesh for Portugal also Taylor Dwyer Michael Duris for Slovakia the pole pool wonnie Bukhaj Asaka for England Leo core Sandro Tonali for Italy David Rizzuto and Patrick Eurofsky for Slovakia and the Paul pool wonnie Tim Sparve for Finland The Paul pool wonnie Gareth Bale for Wales Eric Ayn Julian Brant is our auto That is Germany and Eric Sunsala Attila Salai for Hungary Michael Piccora Peter Glossy for Hungary Michael Piccora Sierra Imobile Italy David Rizzuto Eduardo Camavinga nice one for France there. That is Leo core Didn't realize he was a rookie in this Nice Casper Goldberg for Denmark Michael Piccora and Dominic Lika Livakovic for Croatia To finish it off for Brian Vornberg, and there you go guys. That's our two boxes Very nice stuff. That was my first live look at it. That was 2020 2021 Penini mosaic UEFA Euro soccer hobby two box break to random countries each number five from jaspyscasebrakes.com I'm Sean jaspyscasebrakes.com. Thanks for hanging out. We'll see you next time


As an Aboriginal woman who's lived in Canberra and Sydney in cities all my life, I was motivated to pursue a PhD around Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander belonging in urban spaces. I'm also interested in how Indigenous people in Canberra are taking back spaces where they can belong. ANU is a great place to be having these conversations because we have so many amazing visiting academics not just from Australia but from around the world. Doing a PhD can be really tough on a day-to-day basis. I think what keeps me going is looking to the future and having hope about how things could be changing. I'm also motivated by just and inspired by the people around me. The community here at ANU is really important for me being able to stay here as a post grad. Academia has been a really useful tool for me in terms of being able to articulate my understanding of how I exist in the world. Well I think it's really important that Indigenous people are in these spaces in Indigenous studies because for so long we've been misrepresented in this arena. Research can be a powerful tool in taking that story back and getting a voice out there. Long term I'd like to be an academic. I'd love to teach and work on my own research projects and I'd really like to be a part of the future of Indigenous studies here at ANU.


Vascolytis is a condition caused by inflammation and damage to the blood vessels. It can be triggered by several factors including genetic predisposition, environmental exposure, or immune system dysfunction. Inflammatory cells such as neutrophils and macrophages are responsible for the destruction of the vessel walls. There are two main types of antibodies associated with vascolytis, anti-myeloperoxidase, MPO, and anti-proteinase-3-PR-3. These antibodies are found in the blood of patients with vascolytis, but not in healthy individuals. The kidneys are often affected by this condition, and the severity of the disease depends on how quickly it progresses and how well the patient responds to treatment. This article was authored by Chrissy Mir Gale-Sik, Danico Ljubinovic, and Ivica Horvatik.