You're welcome back. It's still the break faster on PLOS TV, Africa, and now we're taking this disturbing trend. Moan Nigerians may join the jackpot train as hardship worsens. That is the topic for discussion this morning. And we're glad to be joined this morning by Mr. Joe Fermi Dagunro, founder, Lagos Forum. Good morning and welcome to the program, Mr. Fermi Dagunro. Good morning. Okay. Well, the JAPA syndrome, it's become a trend now. Everybody wants to go outside, and we're attributing it this, or Nigerians are attributing this JAPA syndrome to the hardships that have become the order of the day in Nigeria. I'd like to get your comment on these predictions that more people are going to try to run away from the country because it is harder and harder. Well, first of all, I don't see it as running away. These are migrants with purpose and migration or emigration or whichever way you call it, or JAPA or JA law or JA song or whatever name you call it. People at some time have to find a better place for their life.  You know, so people migrated from places to places. So it is not new. But why we are attaching it to hardship or whatever you call it. But I know most Nigerians that are living the country right now are living the country for a purpose. Most of them are going to improve on their education. And don't forget, some of them are already having jobs before they leave this country. And it's a phenomenon right now. We should look at it from the positive side of it. You can't be in a company. Let's say, for example, I know a very young lady who has been in a company, in a bank for that matter, for 11 years as a temporary worker. 11 good years as temporary worker. And her salary was not more than $50,000 after 11 years. You know, so you expect that lady to stay there permanently for the rest of her life as temporary worker? No. Even if it is not leaving the country, she has to change her job. She has to find a better career, a better place for her career to grow. So when you see this stagnancy in careers, stagnancy, in lifestyle, in everything, you find a better place for yourself. So migration is a boost in a way as well for the economy. Because these people are living, but they are not living, they are not living without having a purpose. They are living, they have their job, they will remit money to their parents or their families at home. And at the same time, look at what immigration is gaining from it, the immigration services. They are selling their passport like crazy right now. So a lot of advantages we come up during this period as well. So like I said, these are migrants with purpose and it is something that can be encouraged at this point in time. Yeah, my question is that why does it have to be that if you're looking for greener pastures, you have to leave this country. You just gave an example of someone who was stagnant as a temporary staff for 11 years. And I know how that feels, trust me. For 11 years, and this kind of a person will have to leave. Why can't the system be such that those kind of things will never happen and people will not need to have to leave to another country before they can further their education, for instance, and get health care that they need and all that. There was a time people were coming to the University of Ibadan to get help, whether educational, whether health and all that. We were the ones who floated a TV station before even, I think, France and all that. And now we seem to be going back. Is that not a worrisome thing for you that people have to live here because the conditions are not right? Well, there must always be a purpose for living or for doing anything in life. And if the purpose is to have a better life, yes, why not? You see, I keep saying, most of the professors, most of the people you see today, even in the University, they've gone out to improve on their lifestyle, on their education and the comeback. There are chances that this will still come back. I say, give them another five years or 10 years, a decade. Most of them will have been at the age of about 50, 60. Some of them will decide to come back and some of them will decide to stay back there. But the most important thing is that I know one of them. She's a graphic designer. I happen to talk to a lot of all these young men and women. She has an account in Nigeria. So she's still doing the job she was doing here as a self, as an independent graphic designer. And if you pay her, you have to pay her in Naira. And she uses that money to take care of her parents or other things she wants to do. So we should not look at it from the point of negativity. We should look at it that these young men and women, they have to go in abroad to school or to work. It's an added advantage. When you come back, I've seen, I've been privileged to train a couple of doctors in Germany. And this doctor, there's a particular doctor from Emo State. The guy was so good that even they wanted to retain him. He's a medical consultant. And before you know it, the guy got a job in South Africa. You know, when you go abroad to train, you add something to it. You add more to your knowledge. And you are better off in a way because people want to know that you have improved your knowledge. So we cannot say they cannot as well be in Nigeria to do their postgraduate, their trainings and whatever. But somehow there are things we don't still have in this country. And we have to improve on it. I agree with you. We have to improve on our educational system. That's why a lot of all these reforms have to take place. But these reforms cannot just happen overnight. It takes time. And it is within this period that the government, the new government now, the government of Bola Meditium will have to sit back and review all these things and begin to look at how to make it work in a better way. That is the only thing. But to restrict or to say people will not leave, yes, people will leave and they have to find a better way for their life. You can't restrict them. So the more these guys, we have a lot of people, brilliant men and women, all of them cannot and will not leave this country at the same time. Germany right now, they are looking for nurses, thousands of nurses. They are going to come around here and recruit. That means we have done something good. That means our people are better. For Germany to say, look, we want to recruit nurses from Africa, for UK to recruit adopters, for America, Canada to retain our people. We are doing something good. That means despite all this, we still have something good in our people and better off. So India did it. They allowed their people to go and look at what has happened today. China, they did it. All our countries are doing it. So it's an added advantage. But one thing is this, the government of Nigeria, they have to make sure that it's well coordinated. Nigeria in the diaspora organization, they have to make sure that it's a database and they have to convince the people that it's going to be used. It's not going to be used against them because most Nigerians in the diaspora, mind you, I was one of them, right? I schooled there and I stayed there for almost about 30 years. So I know what I'm talking about. Most of them will not go to the Nigerian embassy to register. And it is not enough for us to just say, Nigeria diaspora organization, we go to a UK or America and just have a meeting with some 10 people or 20 people and say, we have met them. No, we have to reach out to these people. We have to get the database to know that these are the people we have in these countries. And it must not be only in UK, in popular countries like UK, Canada, and America. We have people. Before now, we do not know that Nigerians, there are so many in Ukraine until the war started. So we have to encourage the people that are listening there. But unless you do something good at home, these guys will not come. Unless they can be trusted, they can trust you that, look, electricity will work, things will work. I know a doctor who said it cannot come home because the equipment should bring back to Nigeria. They can't function well. Once the electricity is gone, that is the end of the equipment. So there are a lot of things that we have to work on. We can't just compare people to say, go and come, no. But let them go. Let them attain the heights. Let them get to where they want to go. In the military, you have them there. In businesses, in banking sector, you have them all over the place. It's something good for our country. And I think while I'm not encouraging, and I know that not all Nigerians will go anyway, but I know that more will see go and is an advantageous thing because they're not going to seek asylum. They're going to seek a better future for themselves. So that's why I said they are migrants with purpose, migrants with focus. So it's encouraged. I don't know. Let me understand this. People are worried about, when they talk about this Jaguar syndrome, they're worried about brain drain because best of our doctors moving, best of our nurses moving, best of our academia are moving. Everybody that has something to offer Nigeria is almost everybody is moving. Now, does it not worry you when people talk brain drain? You're talking about encouraging these people because they're going to make their lives better. I don't know how to marry this too. You see, brain drain is just what we want to use to scare people. Yes, that would be sort of a vacuum. Yes, you see vacuum.  It's going to be filled because already you have unemployment in this country, even while these people are here. So it is not because there's unemployment. There's a gap and this gap can be filled with those who are at home. You are here. I'm here. A lot of people will come back. They will relocate to Nigeria as well. As people are leaving, probably fewer people because we relocate to Nigeria because they want something of standard. But there will be opportunity for other people who are looking for jobs to get employed. There will be more opportunity for people to get themselves in a better place as well. So yes, it is something that is happening. When you say most of our best doctors are leaving, best nurses are leaving, best professors are leaving, but then you can restrict them. Let's have it straight. It is whether the government likes it or not, whether the government is going to think about it or not, they will still be. But I know that yes, the economy has to be vibrant for people to have what they want. The economy has to be vibrant. Then the economy, if the economy is vibrant, if you have jobs that is worth paying, you know, that people can just work and get, I mean, maybe 100,000, 200,000 they are demanding. I don't know how viable that would be for the government, but it's only not the government. We have the private sector. We have to improve on the private sector. The banks are declaring billions annually. So why can they invest in people as well? Why can they give people the opportunity to have loans without having to break their head every week or every month? You know, when you take a loan and you are supposed to pay 38% or 40% or 20% or something, it's killing. And you want the people to stay here? No. So we have to face the reality. It's not just the government, the private sector. Liberal Congress, that's where the NLC, they have to do something. It's not just about strike. It's just about talking to people. It's just about making people feel comfortable to stay in this country. Yes, the government has a role to play. They have to make, you know, they have to give incentives to the government, to the private sector as well. Sorry. They have to give incentives to the employers so that they can employ more people. You don't tax people carelessly. But now, but don't forget, the government needs to generate funds as well because they are low on their funds right now. So a lot of things have gone bad in this country. A lot of things have gone bad. So now the government of Bola Metinumbu has a lot on his hand to tackle. And I think when you see somebody like Tywo heading the tax force, you know, you see, okay, brilliant people are coming in right now and they are going to do something beautiful. But we have to be cautious as well. The list of the official list of the ministers are not yet out. And but people are speculating that lots of regulations are going on. Oh, who are these to come in to handle this? Do they know what to do? These are the same people that have been handling it before. And the young people don't really want to see all these people to say, oh, is it the same person that has been doing it before that is going to do it now? What changes is he going to make? So for them, look at the newer people coming, look at the new folks coming into the team. And that is why we have to support. We have to be able to say, listen, governments should listen to these people and governments should encourage these people. But then it's something that is fundamental. It's a fundamental human right. You can't stop them. Honestly speaking, you can't stop them. Well, that much is true. You can't stop them. But when the conditions are better, a lot of them wouldn't have to move. But right now you said the present administration needs money and all that. At what expense do we need this money? At the expense of the people, we've just seen that the president administration is trying to get, according to the president himself, that he wants to get 30 trillion in three years. He wants to generate that. We don't see a clear court plan of generating that except taxation, 7.5 percent here, taxation on these, taxation on that. And people are already grumbling now that subsidy has been removed. Well, the political will is there. And it shows that he can take very tough decisions like he promised he was going to do during his campaigns and all that. But all these that we're trying to do, at whose expense? We want to make money. We want to pay our debts and all that. But who is going to bear the brunt? Is it still Nigerians or are there other creative ways that the government can use? I take, for instance, I was talking before this my time with you that I had to make a transaction at some point a few days ago of 10,000 Naira. And the bank collected 250 Naira for that transaction, just like the POS. There's no difference nowadays. In fact, POS might collect 200. And now the bank has collected 250 Naira, which means if I do 10 transactions, it's going to be crazy. And possibly it's because of the taxes that they also are paying to government, the 7.5 percent or any other tax that they are paying. So money is being cut from us here and there and people are not even able to feed well. So aren't we just trying to make things better by killing the people that should enjoy the things that will be made better? That's my worry. So if you were to talk to the government now, let me just break it down. If you want to talk to the government now on more creative ways of making money, what would your advice be? Because we cannot continue to pay tax for everything as high as we are doing right now. In Ghana, it's not done like that. For instance, you pay money to someone to take your money. You collect money from someone to take your money and all that. It's not done. So what are the creative ways that government can do to make this money that they are projecting in three years? Well, you see, sad enough, the people have to pay taxes. The people have to bear the ground, sad enough. Nobody will come from another country to sort this things out for us. But the thing is this, when there is transparency, when there is dialogue, when there is good information to the people of this country, to Nigeria generally, they will understand it. And when they see, when the Nigerians see the sincerity in government, they will understand it. I want the government to be transparent and to be sincere with what they are saying. That's number one. I want the people in the, I mean, the scenic to cut their cost. I want the people, the rep to cut their cost. The state of us, the state assemblies to cut their cost. So if government can show their sincerity and say, look, we are part of you. We are doing this to support ourselves. The people who say, hooray, yes, they are doing it. Then if that is done, then you look at the, you know, the informal sector of the economy.  I mean, some, I think after the COVID or sometime, the past government said, look, don't pay taxes or whatever, if you're a small-scale business owner, if you are not making more than 25 million per annum, so you can increase that. I said, look, don't pay taxes if you are not making 50 million.  Don't pay taxes when you are not making anything. I mean, these are, but if you say, generally, everybody should just pay, pay as you earn. I mean, I know companies, they are not even selling anything. A woman was complaining the other day to herself, look, she has, you know, a loan of about 30 million closer in her shop. She's not selling, nobody's buying. So you still want that woman to pay tax? No, she won't. And she's already having, you know, high blood pressure and stuff like that. So we have to begin to listen to the people, the government have to listen to the people and make the creative way is to encourage the people to do more. If you are fighting inflation with high interest rates, it may not work. These are not things that, you know, because it's a theory, the economic theory says that, that it must work. We have given loans out in the past that people are not even paying anymore. And the farmers are not having the best. Then we have to begin to look at some of these things that have been done in the past that were meant for the people of this country. The ecological fund that was being paid to the governors and all the other state governments and whatever the stakeholder, where this money, you know, has not been accounted for. And we are still having this erosion. We are having this problem. And this government, again, we come back and start dishing out money for the same thing. So let's begin to investigate gradually. I know that may not be the prime thing now, but gradually let people be accountable for what they have done and what they are doing. If people see accountability, you know, the rainy season is here and it's coming more. I mean, we are talking about erosion, we are talking about things that we destroy people's life, it will destroy the farms and then we will have problem with food security. So these are a lot of things that people have to consider.  So the problem, they are carrying it along with them. So it's a problem. So the government has to come and tell us, look, you have taken so much for this month, for instance, if you have X amount of money, what are you going to use this X amount of money for? What have you used it for? So if we are transparent to that point of telling us what you have used the money or what you are using the money for, who are the contractors working on this project? How much have they been paid? Then all these things will be there. How many of these people have declared, you know, that they say, look, there's this, you have to declare your income, your taxes. Are the people in government doing the same thing? What are they earning? Let's just, people keep speculating the salaries of the senators and their allowances. Nobody knows. I mean, to my knowledge, people are speculating nobody has said, look, this is what we earn and these are the allowances we pay. So it cannot be that you and I, the common people, have to be at the brunt always. No. And you see, if companies are saying, look, we are not employing, why are they not employing? Because they cannot afford to, you know, they are struggling. Most companies, especially the small, medium enterprises, they are struggling to make ends meet. Then in the course of it, you want to jack up the price of electricity. No, this thing cannot be done that way. You know, but I think, I think, there too, are the people in government of Bola Medina would be looking at this thing critically to understand that, look, we can do this now. We can do this now. I don't know how well their plan is or what their plans are to say they want to generate so much money in three years. They have their plans and let us wait and see what the plans are.  So even if they are going to come up in the Naira spiritual, but not now, let the people have a breathing space. But they might come up one way or the other, but not now. I know when you read that even the yellow jazz, the people selling bananas and all those people in the market, they have to be paying taxes. You think you can get Kubo out of those guys? They will not. You know, how many people are buying plantain right now? I wonder how many households are eating plantain this month. And they have to plantain to get bad in the market as well. So a lot of things are happening. But then the government has a lot to do. I'm looking at it that between now and October, first of October, let's see what we come up. Let's see how the government is going to, you know, impress the people. It's a hard task. It's a very hard task. We must face it. Because the problem we have right now, it is not just today or yesterday or day before yesterday. The problem has been there even since independence. But nobody has been able to tackle it. Nobody has been able to see. Thank God that we have resources that is really untapped in Nigeria. Thank God we still have them. Otherwise, look at how much has been stashed away in other countries. Look at how much has been stolen by our people. It is not just the foreigner that are stealing our money. We are the people stealing our money ourselves. And we cannot control ourselves to say, look, bring what you have stolen. And that is what is painful to a lot of Nigerians. And that is why these young people, they feel sad about it, you know. Okay. Well, this is where we will wrap it up on this segment. Mr. Joe Femi Dagunro, thank you so much for coming on the program and helping us make sense of all the things that are happening. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Okay. We've been talking with Mr. Joe Femi Dagunro, founder Lagos Forum on the breakfast this morning. We'll take a short break when we return. We were looking at the daily consumption of fuel having dropped by 18.5 million liters after deregulation. Stay with us.


just about 7 o'clock according to my watch and first thing we had to do are the minutes of January 17th 2023 to approve those there is a moment is there a motion move we accept them subject to modification is here a second second page one page two page three and page four no actions or additions to the minutes so those in favor of approving the minutes of January 17th 2023 say aye I care of that this is time for public comment with anyone either in the room or on zoom if you have an issue you'd like to talk about tonight this is the time to do it anyone in the room or anybody on zoom no one on so no one so we can move right on to then to the next item which is reconsideration of the water connection fee motion that we passed on the at the last meeting of a 17th Eric if you give us a little bit of a rundown of the issue we have here yep the board passed the motion at January 17th meeting to add some clarification for the process for assessing water connection fees after discussion at the meeting at the board asked that the motion may have some clarification when referencing the state environmental protection rules to clarify the specific chapter in in the motion I consulted with the town attorney and he's prepared a revised motion for your consideration the leak process would be a reconsideration motion would first need to be passed and then the revised motion could be taken up by the board right so for a motion to be made to be reconsidered it has to be made by a person who voted in the majority which is all of us so that takes care of that problem so once the motion is made and and passed we'll be back to the motion that was on on the floor of the meeting preceding this and then we can take up a motion to amend has been recommended to us so I need a motion to reconsider this point move to reconsider second any discussion on that motion hearing none almost in favor of the motion say aye and so now we're back to the motion that was on the floor that was in the in the minutes that we just passed and there is a another motion that's recommended to be made in the town managers report I move to clarify that water system connection fees are calculated using chapter one of the environmental protection rules for the state of Vermont and further move that when the process or applicant applying has a use not covered by chapter one of the environmental protection rules that the water system connection fee will be based on the use uses estimated maximum daily demand in gallons per day that could be used by the applicant subject to review and approval by the Williston Water Department this year a second second it's your discussion on a motion hearing none almost in favor of the the motion say aye and now we need where since we just amended something we need to make a motion to adopt the motion as amended second discussion on that hearing no discussion all those in favor of the approving the motion as amended say aye I think we have three eyes yes so that takes care of that part of the business and now we move on to the interviews and appointments for the for the two positions that are being discussed tonight one is for the development review board the other one is for the Lake Erick by recreation district so let's do the the DRB first and the Lisa Brayden Hager is here if you come up to the table the microphone doesn't amplify your voice that just records what's going on speak make sure you speak loudly so we do have your application in front of us and we'd like to ask you to give us a brief summary of your background and why you'd like to be on the DRB yes and my background is in business I founded a company in the big data space that grew very quickly we grew from a few employees to hundreds of employees in in four global locations and we took it all the way to IPO about seven years ago so with that background in business and in data I think that what I would bring to the design review board is an appreciation of data and how I can inform decisions and then also from the business side some understanding that to make deals work everybody has to walk away everybody has a win from the it has to be a win-win situation and have everything come together and sometimes that's takes a lot of talking and listening and negotiating to get there so regarding the DRB I think I think we're at a very challenging time in Vermont with the housing crisis I think that Williston is uniquely poised because of our proximity to Burlington because of the jobs that we want to bring in here to be so to address the housing challenges you know I think that we have a community that is exclusive because of our mix of housing stock I think that we exclude a lot of people because of the way that that things have been built out and I think this is a time to think about that and address it you know both so that companies that want to come here can have places for their employees to live so that also so our town employees and our retail workers can live here you know they create value in this town but they're not able to live here and then lastly you know with the racial reckoning that's gone on in the country I think that we could be more welcoming in that way too again through our housing stock so that's why I'm interested it in that you know I think a lot of really important work has gone on here over the last 20 or 30 years with conservation and I think that puts us in a nice position to look forward from here it's it on how to be more inclusive thank you very much questions from the board just a curiosity question where did you start your company in Connecticut but most of our customers are on the West Coast so a lot of time in Seattle in San Francisco we'll let them put their money toward the East Coast that's all thank you since Jeff is not here I'll ask his question so as happens you know in our various rules that we all fill within the town and community how would you recognize a potential conflict of interest if you were serving in the DRB and how would you address that I've actually had a question before with because I was here for the racial equity group but you know I did run a public company so I certainly learned the letter of the law on that I don't really have any connections to businesses or anything like that but I do understand what your question is getting at is as you have conversations with people making sure that you're actually in an ethical way I certainly understand that further questions looking for emotion I've moved to a point Lisa brought Brad Braden Braden the development review board for an unexpired three-year term through June 30 2025 second and sir discussion you're not all those in favor of the motion say aye congratulations and look forward to having you serve on the board thank you very much so now we'll move on to the other candidate for appointment tonight and that's from the Lake Erocar recreation district Kim Colant who's on zoom but I've asked Eric to give us a little primer on what this actually does gonna spend a long time since we've discussed this or had an appointment to make to the district so Eric I'd ask you to do us just a brief overview sure so like your equation district is a separate municipality it's made up of representation from Wilson Richmond St. George and Hinesburg it's it's tasked with overseeing the recreation area at Lake Uracoa so each town appoints a representative to that board as they work to manage the recreation district thank you so it's like Kim Colant is on zoom for us yep Kim I've got you as a panelist you can unmute and share your your video if you'd like I think you were unmuted Kim but you just muted again there we go you're muted again Kim you can't hear you we're gonna hook up a different speaker here in just a second there we can hear you now can you hear us okay can you hear us this is quick yeah we can hear you can you hear us this happens in virtual court hearings we can hear you what is going on here we can hear you can you hear us what is the technology his computer isn't muted on that level guys we can hear us still no we hear we hear you good we're the same system speakers does that work now we can you hear us no I lost sound in everything any luck now we still hear you can you hear us you know so they might be able to hear me but I can't both of you but we can't hear them maybe the volume is real low or something too I can't hear you as soon as I switched over to this I lost the audio from the meeting you folks hear me now yes I apologize for that you can hear us I can hear you fine now yep I apologize for the problem let's do this before we lose you again so we have an application in front of us and just like to have you give us a brief summary of your background regarding the district and why you'd like to be on the district all right well let me see me a little bit of background I used to own the conant farm in Richmond down on the flat so my brother David that's where we grew up I was part of that farm for my whole life until 12 years ago and we my wife and I sold our share of the farm and moved to South Carolina for eight years and moved back up here six years ago because this is where our kids and grandkids are as far as the district we grew up here on B.B. Lane before it was called B.B. Lane it was called Camp Road and mom and dad built a camp here in 57 and my wife and I bought our family camp from my mom in 2000 and when we moved back from South Carolina we tore our camp down and built a year-round house in 2019 so we've lived here full-time and for the last six years and we moved back we lived in our camp until we tore it down to build the house so I've got a lot of history here on on the lake on B.B. Lane we are 300 feet from the beach and very involved in the upkeep of the road here on on B.B. Lane from Labor Day around until Memorial Day B.B. Lane is maintained by Pete Mumford who's one of my neighbors my son and I already Rossi and myself we maintain it during the winter but we also maintain it when the beach is closed from the main road down through and very concerned about the beach moving forward the L.A.R.D. moving forward with our trail system here up in the woods we get a very very valuable resource recreational resource educational resource here on Lake Hero Koi and the surrounding lands that is owned by L.A.R.D. and I'm I've known Jeff and Jack for a long time both of them I have met Sarah a couple times but don't know her real well but I've got a really I think a really unique handle on what goes on over here during the offseason the amount of people that are that are on the road and using the beach and the trail system on a daily basis with the traffic in and out of here and I just think that you know I'm very just very concerned about the future and what happens around here and just hope to keep it help keep it going and and improve it over the years. Good thank you questions from the board. I actually don't have any questions. I can ask the conflict of interest question just in the fairness of asking it out we Jeff Ferris usually asks everybody you know how would you identify a conflict of interest I guess as a resident of the the area and you know I guess the potential has to one could arise and how would you address a conflict of interest. Well I see where you're coming from with that. You know I am I am a resident B.B. Lane so there is a little bit of conflict of interest there because the L.I.R.D. stops responsibility for B.B. Lane at the south end of the beach and we pick up that responsibility year-round. So there is that conflict I guess if you could call it a conflict but it's something that we have dealt with for as long as I've been here and I I don't see it as much of a conflict as as being knowledgeable about what goes on year-round here and and I guess there could be a conflict but I pretty much get along with everybody and I think everybody should be able to use this area and so I don't know if that answered your questions the way the way you wanted answered but I guess that's that's where I come from. Anything else? Thank you very much for your interest in doing this. If the board is willing to make a motion we have one suggested. I'll move to appoint Kim Conant as the town's representative to the Lake Uruguay Recreation District for an unexpired two-year term through June 30th 2024. So what was that date again? 2024 June 30th. June 30th 2024. Is there a second of the motion? Is there any discussion on the motion? If not, I'll let some favor the motion say aye. So you're in business Kim you're now on the district and thank you for your interest in doing this. Well thank you I appreciate it. Thanks. Have a good night. Thank you you too. Thanks. So we're about five minutes early for the public hearing but perhaps we can open the public hearing at this point and have Eric give a description of what we're talking about tonight and then we'll maybe be about on time at 7 30. So the Williston Select Board will hold the public hearing to receive comments on proposed changes to receive comments on proposed changes to the Williston motor vehicle and traffic ordinance. Public hearing will take place on Tuesday February 7th 2023 at 7 30 pm in the Beckett McGuire meeting room at Williston Town Hall with remote participation available using the online platform Zoom. On the purpose of the public hearing to receive public comment on proposed changes to article 10 in the appendices ABC and D of the ordinance. So with that I'll turn it over to Eric to give a description of what we're talking about tonight. Sure thanks Terry. So this is some work on our motor vehicle and traffic ordinance amendments for this hearing specifically some proposals in article 10 relating to general parking rules and then our appendices. So within article 10 it's adding language adding fire lane to an area where parking is prohibited adding construction materials to items not allowed to be stored in towns right of play adding no overnight parking in town owned lots with the exception of on-duty employees without permission. And then some general cleanup in appendix A speed limits appendix B stop yield signs appendix C traffic signals. Then in appendix D this is our no parking areas in town there's additions on Avenue A and Avenue B Governor Chittin Road and Semper Road. Good thank you. So I will at this point I'll open the public hearing to public comment is there anyone in the room who has any public comment regarding the new the ordinance don't see any hands raised here how about online on zoom just asked uh I'll just give a moment here on zoom not seeing any public comments right um the board have any questions while we're in public comment uh well at this point since there's no one either in the room or on zoom who wishes to make it a public comment this that would be a time for the motion for closing the public hearing move we close the public hearing this is your second second this is your discussion of the motion here we go discussion all those in favor of closing the public hearing and say hi hi and now we're on to the ordinance amendments and following the public hearing considering adopting the amendments we have Bruce whore in the room as well if we have any questions regarding the the amendment so we've discussed this at least twice before at that our meetings any questions from the board then we do have a motion suggested for this as well move to adopt amendments to the motor vehicle and traffic ordinance as presented this is your second second any discussion on the motion all those in favor of the motion say hi hi moving right along to the public work standard specifications update and uh Eric and Bruce are here both to discuss this so Eric want to start yep so the uh private public works has prepared amendments to our standard specifications for the board's consideration these are a policy of the select board this update was initiated by public works department to align the specifications to newly adopted form-based code in tap corners you see this as reference as part of the amendments the departments prepared a summary sheet of additional amendments they've suggested while they were reviewing the entire document to include these items for the form-based code i think bruce will walk through these for the board we also have the document online of the the complete language for the specifications the board wants to pull it up at all bruce can bruce will provide an overview answer any questions the board has and you can consider these as presented this evening or ask staff or additional to come back good thank you ruse okay it's just basically what Eric said the biggest changes are adding the form-based code street details to public work specifications and then we also just went through the whole document to make to clean it up for a few things make a few things a little bit clearer protection and repair of existing utilities all we did was add a little language there that just said remind people that you have they have to contact us because we're not a member of dig safe believe it or not we even have big big utility companies in town that we still catch getting ready to do work and it's like well what do you mean we're gonna call you we didn't just get started here anyway another one's just you know some language to for the repair of existing utilities one of the things is working outside the property limits within the right away we're just making sure that people understand we can give them permission to work within our right of way but not outside the right of way so they've got to have easements and show that they have those easements before they do that kind of work our water distribution systems we're just making sure that the language is clear in there that nobody turns our valves or messes with an airbar water system without we're the only ones that can do that we did increase the town engineering fees those are the fees that we get once a plan gets starts in the planning and zoning process so that we can use that money to have plans reviewed by an outside source if we need to and then if we end up doing inspections on the project the fees come from this money we're just telling people now we're trying to join the 21st century here and get record to get digital drawings as well you know wastewater pump stations just cleaning up some language there about what kind of controllers and stuff to have fire hydrants and branch connections the biggest thing we didn't have in our public works back was hydrants are color coded by the gowns per minute that they can put out we just put in there what those colors are so that they know what they've got to be painted stormwater drainage systems just some general language mostly just saying that all this stuff is really just from the state permits a little language about culverts and that's really the uh we've increased the diameter of new trees from two inch to 2.5 inch most of the grants we get uh you got to have a minimum of 2.5 inch anyway so I mean as we just put it right in there one of the things we didn't have in our specs was uh saltwater powered street lights really like to start seeing those you go away from paying electric bills and then the rest of it literally is dealing with a new form base code and putting their details in the specification and removed one of them which is the grid street detail because the form base code basically takes that take care of that detail at this point and that's it thank you roose questions from the board regarding the uh the specs I never knew there were color codes for how much water comes out of the fire hydrant and there's four different ones for 58 years without knowing that I'm wondering how if I wasn't this light of work I wouldn't know what you're saying but uh it it just it's more to help the fire department obviously when they show up they know what kind of water they expect to get so including showing some of them and I actually think it's red I don't remember I'm right off the top of my head we'll show them that even though the hydrant's there it's not really there for fire protection it's at the end of the line so we can flush the line or things like that so the judge fire hydrants now when I walk by them any other questions for roose we do have a motion suggested for this as well move to approve amendments for the public works standards specifications as presented is there a second second discussion on the motion all those in favor of the motion say hi hi all right thank you thank you roose so now we're up to the draft animal trafficking policy overview eric and simon miles will leave the lead us off with this and so we can understand what we're dealing with all the way you've seen this for some time yes this was an item after some initial discussion in late 2021 by the board after some residents brought forth a petition looking to for the town to think about a position on town owned property and animal trapping to develop a policy the board directed the conservation commission to draft the policy for consideration the conservation commission worked on this off and on over the past year simon our conservation planners assisted them as he stepped into the role over last summer worked with town staff to review the policy as well they've transmitted for the board's official read this evening and simon can walk through his memo he's prepared for you and kind of what the draft looks like looking for the board's initial feedback on this this evening do any additional staff work or answer any additional questions the board has and potentially bring this back to you for for an action item at a future meeting here thank you simon like to uh yes so so as eric mentioned it was it was spurred by this petition the town received in 2021 um the uh remont state law doesn't allow us to enact a an ordinance that sort of uh directly bans or trapping or regulates the type of traps used that's all regulated by the department of fish and wildlife however land owner permission is required to trap on someone else's land from on state law so we have drafted this policy which sets out the circumstances in which the town will won't grant planet permission to travel our land and also provides guidance on how that trapping should be carried out if we do decide to approve it so probably the the key thing from the policy is the we will only grant permission to travel our land for essential purposes so that's three things really to manage a threat to public safety to manage a threat to our infrastructure or town property that can't be otherwise addressed and in some rare cases we may choose to grant it for research purposes so those are the three reasons any other reasons the town would not grant land owner permission so what this does is we did get a lot of feedback on this to the conservation commission and this sort of definition of essential aligns with resident feedback that we received at those meetings essentially it it does restrict to those essential purposes and doesn't allow it for things like recreation or gain for or meet or whatever the case may be the second thing that the ordinance the policy does is it sets out that we will expect anyone trapping our land to follow best practice of the association's efficient wildlife agencies so they provide provide some guidance on the types of traps that should be used having regard to things like the welfare of the animals the sensitivity to make sure it traps the type of animal it's seeking to trap and on another one the efficiency and the safety of the trapper as well as providing guidance on preparation and maintenance and how to locate traps will also be requiring the traps provide us with their license and to advise us if they do capture any non target species the town doesn't do a great deal of trapping but when it does it's generally trapping for beavers so one of the things that the policy does is provide guidance for things like when we're designing trails to sort of try and avoid those beaver human conflicts and also provides other guidance for sort of resolving them in non-emergency situations like the use of beaver paint or exclusion devices and the last thing it does is deal with public safety so on those sort of on that town owned land where there is some sort of recreational use our country parks or parks where there is sort of less formal recreational use like brown ale mountain where there may be conflict pedestrians and dogs it does require that we provide signage advising people to stay on the trails in the case of the town right of way where there are no trails and so those sort of conflicts are less likely that requirement to sign does not apply so that was included sort of in response to feedback from DPW that we do need to make sure we can continue to trap they have experienced traps being stolen from the right of way in the past when they're assigned and it's important that we maintain our sort of relationship with licensed trappers that they can contract with us on short notice to deal with critical emergencies the last thing I just want to make make a point is a slight update in my memo a conversation with the resident this afternoon just about section 3c which deals with the signage on reading it back I think that section could be worded slightly better to avoid any confusion about the town permitting trapping on some parcels and a lot others so in the final version we will be revising that just to simplify it remove referenced posting and just list out those parcels where we will be signing so happy to answer any questions questions from the board actually my only question was about that specific thing so yeah no if all of the the properties are going to be included that was yeah yeah so I think that would benefit from simplifying because I can see how someone might read that and take the wrong message from it okay any questions or comments from members of the audience yes tony over the last few years being involved with public campaigns and being able to speak to residents of wilson very few topics have had this as universal support is this almost to a person I had never heard any dissent from moving forward this it's always a little dangerous to set a precedent but in this case I think it absolutely makes sense especially the fact that this does not cost taxpayers a single dollar to do it so I just want to share that center thank you anyone on zoom who has any questions or comments yep by the hand raised on zoom looks like a carmela I'll connect you and if you just want to unmute yeah can you hear me yes again okay great yeah the only thing I want to do is reiterate that these traps are definitely the way they're doing it now anyway without regulation I guess or much of it but is a public safety issue because you have children you have vulnerable adults and and of course pets that could stumble across these I'm not sure where they're set but I did hear about the dog that lost its life because of this so I just wanted to put my words of support out there and reiterate I believe it's a public safety issue thank you you're welcome so I guess the question for us tonight is do we wish to proceed sorry there's one more my name is Beth Volker I do currently reside in Essex Junction I moved there in 2019 because I couldn't find the house I wanted in Williston but previous to that I spent 37 years here in Williston and I love this community and I do want to say congratulations on taking this step it doesn't go as far as I'd like it to go but I think you're probably the only town of the state who has even taken a baby step towards this for the sake of transparency I do want to say that I'm against trapping in any way shape or form I think it's a form of torture but that's not I'm just for discussion tonight but I do want to mention specifically on beavers sometimes the first thing we go to is destroying them and getting rid of them there are other resources in the state I'm a wildlife transporter so I transport injured wildlife from the point of injury to the correct rehab or so I am involved in that community so you need to know that but there is a gentleman whose name is and I don't know if you're aware of him or not Skip Lyle L-I-S-L-E and he runs a company called Beaver Deceivers he has all sorts of humane ways of discouraging them from being where you don't want them and I think the first step should always be to take the humane way first and the other thing is if you're going to trap a nuisance animal why trap it and torture it shoot it there are different ways of getting rid of it but that's neither here nor there at this point but I do think that Williston is taking a tremendous step forward that I wish other communities would follow so anyway that I can support this even not being a Williston resident right now I would like to but thank you for letting me comment tonight Yes sir Hello my name is Bob Galvin I'm a resident of Richmond Oh yeah sorry Hello my name is Bob Galvin I'm a resident of Richmond and I just wanted to say a few words in support of this policy I am a former ornithologist and an amateur bird watcher so just wanted to speak a little bit about these traps and their indiscriminate killing of wildlife including birds within the last few years there have been several species of birds who have been caught in these sorts of traps great blue herons barred owls screech owls crows are just a few of the species who have been caught in traps that were not meant to catch these birds and so yeah just wanted to provide that perspective and say yeah thank you very much for introducing this policy thank you anyone else in the room anyone else on zoom one more and on zoom up Peggy Larson I'm going to connect you on mute here yes hi Eric and hi Terry as you folks know I'm a veterinarian and I've treated these animals that have been caught in traps and I think we should never forget about the amount of pain that these animals go through um this has to always be an underlying factor when we make these decisions and I'm very happy that Williston is is moving forward uh the other thing is like the previous gentleman just said traps are so indiscriminate you just never know which species you're going to going to trap but the science behind the the pain and the fear in animals is very identical to the pain and fear in humans I've seen autopsies of human brains my ex-husband is a neurologist and the um amygdala is the pain center the prefrontal cortex and the hypothalamus are the I'm sorry the prefrontal cortex and the hypothalamus are the pain centers the amygdala is the fear center so I think as we move forward on this we have to always remember what pain that these animals experience sometimes for hours at a time sometimes days and I treated a cat that was in a trap I must have been in there four or five days totally dehydrated couldn't save her so I'm happy to see that Williston is moving forward but I just wanted to make sure that you understood what the animals go through from a veterinarian's point of view thank you very much thank you one more hand terry okay jay patrol I'm gonna connect you right now okay can you hear me yes yes most of this is anecdotal and I don't know if you remember back in 1984 north Williston there was a nasty Amtrak accident where five people were killed and the result of that derailment was due to beaver dams and many states rely on best practices which in addition to a flow device which is skip Lyle the beaver deceiver they also allowed trapping and in massachusetts where they banned trapping the beaver population doubled as well as quadrupled the amount of people complaining about beavers and trapping has been around for centuries and many people it's a culture many people appreciate the meat the meat is very flavorful the meat is highly nutritious so the idea of picking on the beavers as well as to Peggy Lawson to read David Foster Wallace is consider the lobster lobsters feel pain when they're tossed in a pot so in terms of a metric for measuring pain I mean a fish feels pain when you pull it out on a line so I think trapping we need to appreciate the culture of trapping and the people that do trap they follow the guidelines those that do follow the guidelines and you need to be registered you need to be licensed you need to have training so to completely you know blatantly ban it using just as sort of an emotional outcry I think is just wrong because you're completely disregarding the culture that appreciates trapping okay that's all I have to say thank you you should know what the the policy we're looking at would only ban trapping on willisden owned lands not anything else in the town thank you any further comments on zoom no one on zoom terry okay anything else from folks in the yes 20 with all due respect to this controller I get to see blackboard retriever uh holding retrievers legs that will allow you to try any further comments so our next our job tonight is to see whether we want to proceed with this and if we do we will be sending this to legal for review and action at a future meeting any objections to moving forward with it I think it's really well balanced and it does it does say that trapping could be done for essential purposes including the protection of property and public safety right so we will proceed with the with the adoption or getting a policy so that we can take a look at it to adopt and move on then to the mud fond conservation area management plan amendment and simon I'm glad you're staying right there this is something that you've been working on so Eric first and then simon sure so another item the conservation commission is recommended an amendment to the mud pond conservation area management plan this would allow cycling on a small section of trail between the parking lot and the road crossing to the mud pond country park remember the area we have we have a conservation area and we have a country park area that are adjacent to each other this is being referred to as the quiet connector in the amended plan proposal the board has before this evening we've included in the agenda a red line copy of the management plan for the area with the proposed changes and accompanying public comment and stakeholder comment along with a memo that simons prepared the potential action for the board this evening you can consider amending the plan as presented simon can answer any additional questions and kind of outline process for the board and help get to this point thank you so simon you want to talk a little bit about uh yeah sure I think I think Eric's pretty much summarized the change to the the management plan uh but I just wanted to just a moment on why we're doing this uh so you probably know that the the country park has mountain bike trails managed by fellowship of the wheel um the conservation areas used for more passive recreation and wildlife management so the conservation commission has been discussing with fellowship of the wheel a trail project to try and get bikers safely from the parking lot into the country park at the moment you have to park and up on road and then you cycle down south road to get into the country park which is not a great stretch of road it's pretty quick visibility is not great and we've received feedback that um people feel pretty vulnerable using that section of road um so the second thing you probably may recall that the conservation commission spent a lot of time looking for a parking lot uh on the country park side of the road about three or four years ago uh and essentially because of the natural resources and the constraints over there it wasn't deemed feasible and then lastly fellowship of the wheel are actually sort of halfway through a project in the country park now to make the trails suitable for adaptive riders so these are people who are you know on on different types of bicycles or they might be on a regular bike and involves um widening the trail bridges and making changes to the banking all of which is sort of focused uh thought on how to get people safely um from the parking lot to the country park so this does involve um this sort of would involve a trail project for that small section of trail in the conservation area uh important to note that this is not we're not creating a bike trail here we're creating a trail uh that will benefit all users uh and a good you know we will have trail structures that will get up people over sort of wet areas if they're walking uh or if they're on a bike um those of you know the conservation area will know when you come up off the parking lot there's sort of a steep hill that you basically just you go up and down um so we're going to reroute around that that benefits people are less sort of pedestrians are less able on their feet i know um there's a number of birders out there who will benefit from easier access down to the pond um but we're also mindful of maintaining the character of the uh conservation area the conservation commission do feel this something that can be integrated on this small section of trail with the values of the conservation area but we're going to be careful to make sure that uh we maintain pedestrian priority through a careful program of sort of signage on the trail uh messaging to fellowship of the wheels uh user base uh and sort of clear delineation that cycling is restricted to the quiet connector only um and then lastly that sort of all leads us back to the uh management plan which at the moment doesn't allow cycling so we do need to update that to let this trail project proceed and to you know start applying for grants uh in order to fund it um we've done quite a lot of consultation on this um we did have a site walk with local residents and interested parties and then we've also I think it's been three conservation commission meetings where we discussed a lot of the details uh thought carefully about how we're gonna integrate this new use into the conservation area questions our local resident expert is not here tonight uh Jeff who would probably have some questions but didn't indicate any uh questions on email to to us so um there's no questions and there is a motion suggested I'll move to amend the mud pun conservation area management plan as presented is there a second second sort of discussion on the motion hearing none all those in favor of the motion say aye so moving to the catamount community forest stewardship fund requests and reconciling your plan again yep so stacking some of these items this evening so we've got uh a request before the board this evening from the catamount community management committee has requesting use of three thousand dollars from the stewardship fund established for the community forest that was put in place when the town acquired the forest the board adopted a policy for how to utilize those funds and it involves a request either from the committee members of the public you have before you a request from the committee for three thousand dollars to use for invasive plant management coming up this year um this would be something you'll be hearing about in the coming months is some forest management logging um to occur on the property uh later the summer into the fall um simons working working on that in the details right now but the um concept here is using some of this money from the um stewardship fund so we could replenish it with some dollars from from the revenue from that timber harvest as well simon any any other i think that i think that comes as a thing i had an opportunity to do the hat-trick tonight to bring it across any questions regarding the fault then there is a motion moved to allocate three thousand dollars from the catamount community forest stewardship fund to invasive plant management for the recommendation of the forest management committee there's your second second there's your discussion on the motion there is none so all those in favor of the motion say hi hi ministers report all right i had a few things from my written report this evening um pleased to announce the promotion of um anthony samanskas to file lieutenant um i think uh tony served under department for for many years and he's been a great member and uh really uh pleased to support him and moving forward to uh this uh achieving a bank of lieutenant he's um you may recall lieutenant shan stoper retired at the end of last year and this uh culminated the promotion process so tony stepped into that role a couple weeks ago so we're excited to support him in his new leadership role in the department we've uh we've been hiring a few people which has been great to fill some open positions here we've hired uh evan tinker to join our highway department as an equipment operator christy moore as fire department administrative assistant she'll start in a couple weeks and that actually lasat um she was a dispatcher a word for us part time after full time and then she's stepped in to fill our new administrative assistant and records clerk role and she's also a backup dispatcher as well she's been in that role just about two weeks now i believe so that's that's gone well the fill some open positions we have here just a couple we're working to fill right now so we'll hopefully move those along um some other news you might recall we have a grant from vtrans from micro transit study that's looking for um the public transit that's more of an kind of an on-demand ride share model with a you know kind of a van and perhaps an app that if you needed a ride from the village down to taff corners you could request it and get picked up and brought down there so we'll be doing a study with a consultant on that um i think uh we just signed a contract the other day so i'll start in the next few weeks melinda scott will be managing out in the town's behalf you might see um and i can send it around to the board there's an article in vt digger over the weekend about Windsor vermont is running a similar uh they're running a pilot program for micro transit and they're using some federal and state grant funds to get this off the ground so my hope is if this feasibility shows us that there is a real application here which we're anticipating there will be and we might be able to explore some potential uh grant money for pilots needing an initiative like this to really work with some of those kind of connectivity items for additional transit options in the town that's more of this kind of on-demand tailored as opposed to kind of a fixed route model so it's something i know the state is very interested in and looking at applications in towns and i think the way we're set up a will so i think it could be a it could be a good uh good potential model for us move forward so more to come on that so with our engagement consultant on um what that's going to look like for community outreach plans still to launch around town on night before town me or at town meeting in the auditorium for people as they're entering to learn about the project i met with our consultant the other day Greta so we got a couple ideas for next meeting as well but uh plans to kind of shore up that plan the next meeting launch it and then gather that community feedback the next couple of months the architects been working with um some civil engineering consultants on the library assessment we should have that back pretty soon we also had a library um specialist working with director jane carndes on looking at the needs of the library you think about things like how the collection will grow over time and the square footage needed for that accessibility there's a lot of accessibility challenges for the collection right now um then just really coming down to space was a key theme in our last meeting just needing more space in town for pro activities and meetings and and everything so um anything else you you want to add no that was perfect so that i'll keep moving moving forward here um we just i had it in my column in the paper a couple weeks ago but we kind of finalized a column we're calling manager chats for anyone that wants to chat about the budget proposal first has any questions about how local government works in town i'm i've set up some dates over the next and tell between now and town meeting to um i'll be in here a couple evenings will be in the library during lunch time after some story time events that a lot of people tend to go to um i've and i've set up a couple zoom options for folks who might want a virtual option just email me for the link and give people an opportunity to to chat about any anything local government chat about the budget before town meetings so we're going to get the word out on on that we've got on the website and social media so today um also work to try to get out to a couple communities to kind of bring that conversation of them as well over the next few weeks as we well early voting will start uh sarah mason tells me i think about february 15th 20 days before town meeting so i'll ballot in right around then so we're trying to make sure the community has all the information ahead of time as they consider their their votes for town meeting that's all i have this evening okay thank you any other business for tonight quick me then i'll say we're adjourned this is the shortest


I always like to visit my high school after it closed, usually for their courtyards. I played basketball there with a couple friends in the afternoons once the afterschool programs were closed since there were no parks within a couple miles of me like the school was. It was also just a nice way to get outside without feeling unsafe since there were gates around it. Usually I would go pretty late in the afternoon, but would always come back before 11, which is when my mom normally came home from work. Even if she came home late, I usually kept my time anyways just in case, since her schedule was unpredictable sometimes. My best friend, Lana, would always accompany me there, and we would always walk home together since we only lived a couple houses down from each other. We usually spent our time just talking and getting into trouble. Recently though, it's been a little different. A couple nights ago, Lana and some of our other friends went out really late to the school just to mess around and smoke a little, getting in trouble like we always usually like to do. I couldn't go since I had just been grounded for the last outing, but she texted me the whole time and even phased him to me a couple times with all of our friends there. That is, however, until about 12pm, when the messages and calls turned into radio silence. This was really not normal of her, so I tried calling a couple times, but there was no answer. At this point, I started getting worried. Our town wasn't the best, and a kid going missing here and there was no unusual thing. My mom was still awake, so I couldn't sneak out to check on her, and I knew if I called her dad to check on her, it would only cause trouble for her. So I left it alone and decided to check on her in the morning before school and stopped by her house myself, telling myself the whole time that her phone just died. I should have known better. I woke up at 8am, got ready, and ran straight to her house, violently knocking on her door. Her dad opened the door, the smell of whiskey piercing my nose. I held my breath. Have you seen Lana today? Uh, I don't know, I haven't seen her. Probably ditching school with those other jackasses.  Lana never even ditched school, but he wouldn't know that with how little attention he paid to her. Great! Well, thanks, I said, haphazardly, and ran the other direction. Maybe she had already gone to school, and I was just being paranoid. But she wasn't there either. All of the classes we had together resulted in a missing roll call for her, the teachers crossing off her name at the silence of a hear from her. To them, it was just another student missing school, nothing big. For me, I could feel nothing but anxiety. Like I said, Lana rarely ever missed school, the only time she ever did being when she was sick with the flu, and even then, she always shot me a text letting me know she was staying home and how she was. I didn't get any of those this time. The entire day was filled with panic and there was no one to turn to since her dad wouldn't be of any help and I was too terrified to call the police. I went straight home after school, waiting for my mom to get home and I could tell her. Maybe Mad Lana was out late like she'd been warning us about, but she would help, right? I laid in my bed, staring at the ceiling with my thoughts in chaos. I waited for hours, she was going to come home late this time, I could tell. Then I heard the front door open. It was 30 minutes late, but it was better than nothing. Mom! I shouted. I swung the door open and ran to the kitchen, where my mom would usually go when she came home looking for a snack. A slight wave of relief washed over me as I ran, thinking my mom could help me figure something out. Instead, I was met face to face with Lana. Her leg was bloodied, her face covered in dirt and her clothes torn around her legs. My heart dropped. I ran to her, expecting her for any more injuries. Lana! Oh my God! What happened to you? I was so worried! Are you okay? She didn't reply, just blankly stared into the distance. Lana! Are you okay?  Lana? Abby? Yes? Can you come with me? I looked at the time, knowing my mom would be home soon, but I had to know what was going on. I decided to risk it. Uh, okay, sure. We began the walk in silence. I could tell immediately that we were going to the school since she took us through our usual shortcut. Why school? I asked. She only continued the silence. It began to feel eerie walking through such quiet streets. During the day, this walk was as normal as any. We chatted up the whole way there and with little breaks and took in the daytime sun. Right now, however, the streets were shrouded in darkness, the silence almost deafening. Not a single sound, even the usual passing of cars from a distance could be heard. I kept walking, thinking I was just paranoid. Oh, I wish I knew better. Finally we approached the school and we climbed the gate. We began walking through the hallways outside when she finally spoke again. This way. I followed her as she grew faster and faster paced, practically running, until we reached a classroom. The class was brightly lit on the outside, but only shadows could be seen since the window was shaded with blinds. To the left of my vision stood a tall figure, likely the teacher, and in the middle what looked like a couple students. But it was the middle of the night. No class should be running right now. After school programs only ran until about five. Look inside. Lana said, pointing to the window. I became more nervous than before and hesitated. Look! She shouted. I jumped a little, not liking the sound of her yell in these circumstances. I was just about to yell at her back, angry that she was being so vague when I caught a glimpse of the window again. There was another student's shadow in there. I was baffled. When I first looked, there were only four shadows, but now there were five. I was so lost and thought and began to stare, when in an instant, all the shadows whipped their heads around at inhuman speed and looked at me with small, glowing, beady eyes. I let out a small scream, startled by the immediate movement. Lana spoke again. Don't be afraid, Abby. I want you to join us. Join who?  Who are these people? Where have you been for the last two days? Lana began stepping closer to me with every word. Her face grew longer and longer. Her mouth stretching open wide to length no human jaw should ever be able to go.  Stay with us. Her voice sounded deep, inhuman. I screamed with horror. I turned around, putting one foot in front of the other as fast as I could until I was running. I ran, ran faster than I ever thought I could. I crossed the big grass field, not daring to look behind me. I tried not to think about what I just saw, but the image of Lana's contorted face wouldn't leave my head. She wasn't Lana anymore. That thing wasn't human. I went as fast as my feet could take me until finally, finally, I came home. I slammed the door open, seeing all the lights on and my mom frantically speed walking around the house. Abby! She shouted. I assumed for being angry I was home late. Instead of arguing with her, I fell hard to my knees and just began to sob. But she wasn't angry. She was worried. She ran towards me, grabbing my shoulders to inspect me for injuries the same way I had done for Lana just then half an hour before. Abby, what happened? Honey, are you okay? I sobbed into her chest, relieved that she was there but still petrified. Lana. She. Lana? Oh my god. Sweetheart. She hugged me closer, wrapping her arms around my body. So you, you know then, right?  Know what? She paused. They found her body this afternoon. I froze. That, that can't be, I, I just saw her an hour ago. We walked to the school together. My mom's face turned from sad to puzzled. They found her underneath the stage in your guys' cafeteria. That couldn't be. We had just been at the school, there, there wasn't a soul there. I, Abby. What happened? I, I, I couldn't speak. I couldn't hear what she was saying anymore. What was the thing I had just seen? Abby was dead? What's going on? My mind was in shambles. Did I? Did I almost die? I never found out what happened to Lana that day. The police ruled it a homicide, but they could never find the killer. I learned that a couple days later, they also found the bodies of all of our friends that had been with her that day, hidden within various parts of the school, discovered by their rotting smell. Our high school was shut down soon after. No one wanted to be in or send their kids to school where four teenagers had been murdered. What lays there now is a desolate, slowly decaying building that not even squatters their enter. By now and then, when all other routes are closed, I drive by the school, wondering forever what happened to Lana and just who exactly that fifth shadow was.


I want to say thank you and it's wonderful to have this partnership with POSUX after all these years. What's today's date? Excellent. I think you get to keep one, we'll keep one and again, thanks baby, we stand up and get a nice picture. I think we'll hold it like this. Maybe two we can have one holding like this and one shaking hands. Okay, great. Okay, great. We're going to get this on to the website. We're going to try. We're in big competition because the Secretary General's watching the global answer report. Is it? Yeah, so we'll probably catch it just before it gets on it. We'll give it a good publicity on our website. Excellent. Which is very popular.


Good afternoon everybody. So what I'm going to try and do is bring by Gottsky and dialogic learning into the digital age and talk about what we can do with it this year. So the aims and intentions of the session just basically make sure you understand, talk about how the theory helps us understand how making students, we can make students learn. We're going to look at some research informed practice and we'll have a quick look at some theory and then we're going to talk about how we can build it into practice. So I start everything with a great hero of mine Dylan William and this is a table you'll see in his book Embedding Formative Assessment and it's my emboldening. So you think in a classroom the teacher's job is to engineer effective classroom discussions, activities and tasks, the evidence of learning and I love that because it says effective classroom discussions and if you're going to have a discussion there's got to be something social going on. So we then go back to another great hero of mine which is Vygotsky. Anything in the slides and you'll get the slides and gives you a link to one of my blogs in Inspired Ideas in the UK which kind of outlines some of these ideas. There are only 500 words each but if you want to pick up something in depth in a bit more detail they're there. So Vygotsky, he's a Russian theorist, died in 1936 from tuberculosis in Moscow. He was in the Stalin's education department and he had a very different view of Piaget's image. So Piaget believes individuals do things on their own. They're little scientists. They find stuff out on themselves and Vygotsky says on your own you'll find out nothing. You need to be in a social group and he also sees that within the social group you need to be reacting with something, with other people or with tools and the thing I love about his idea of tools is that tools are real things like paper, pens, computers, but they're also symbolic things. Languages, math systems, signs and for me that's something to just remember. He's talking about symbols all the time. So here are some words from him. A couple of quotes from his 1933 work quoted in the 1978 translation. It is through others that we become ourselves. So clearly he believes that all learning is social. Everything is happening with other people. And secondly he says that what you can do in cooperation today you can do alone tomorrow. So let's start by looking at probably one of his more important ideas which is the idea of social development. So he thinks that when you have social learning so there needs to be some, you're in a social situation, things start to be said and you develop by that interaction that you've just experienced doing something inside you. So this is the link between the social learning and cognitive learning and I don't, I love social learning but I do believe that all the cognition stuff is really interesting and it helps explain this theory. We can learn through lots of different communication methods. We can learn through writing and speech obviously but we mustn't forget culture. We learn things through dance, through song, through the people that we meet, the things that our grandparents do. These are all ways in which we learn and they're important things we learn that way. And if we can use some natural tools we can develop those higher thinking skills instead of just the basic ones. And he comes up with a number of big ideas. So the first is social development, I've just covered that. The second is the idea of guided participation. Now guided participation, I've read all sorts of people's explanations of this and they make it sound really complicated. But all guided participation is somebody showing somebody else how to do something. So if I know more about doing something, I show somebody how to do it, I am doing guided participation. If I do it for them, I'm not doing guided participation. So if you're ever watching a class and a teacher grabs the mouse and starts driving the computer, they stop teaching at the moment and their hand touch the mouse. What they should be doing is you need to go on here, then you click on there, put your mouse there, do that, and that way they're guiding the participation of the individual on that social link between the two of them will help that person learn. In order for there to be guided by participation, you need a more knowledgeable other. Simply somebody who knows more about something than the other person. And I always say to teachers when we're talking about this, that just be aware that you aren't necessarily the most knowledgeable, the more knowledgeable other in your classroom. I know that if I want to talk about football, and I'm talking to my son, I basically need to listen to him because he knows loads more about football than I do. He can name every footballer in the Premier League, I can probably name about three. The next idea that again, there's lots of rubbish written about and lots of very complicated descriptions is about the zone of proximal development. Or as the Americans say, the ZPD, which I hate. But the zone of proximal development is simply you can't learn something you don't know enough about. So you start with, you know what you know. There's a whole load of stuff about a subject you don't know. And the zone of proximal development is those things that are close enough to what you currently know, that you can learn them with somebody who's a little more knowledgeable other through guided participation. All that involves scaffolding. And if you read a book that says that Brunner invented scaffolding, the paper he did that in his 1979, which is actually one year after the part of the work of Weigotsky was translated. And interestingly, Weigotsky came up with the idea in 1932. So scaffolding is simply exactly what he says, building giving the more knowledgeable other, giving the person who's learning things to help them extend their knowledge into their zone of proximal development. And then finally, it's all about language. Language is the most important thing we learn. Now, I don't know if you've seen the evidence, but there is evidence that I'm at the age of 16, the average sort of average 16 year old young male in Britain has about 8,500 words vocabulary. Those who've just come out of Eden have 16,000 words. And there's a direct link between the number of words you know at the age of 16 and your life chances. And I think that's a little bit of indication that maybe Weigotsky's got that one right. So why is language so important? Well, first of all, it's a really important part of our mental development. People who can't learn language really struggle to learn anything. And if you think back to Bruno's idea of schema, if you don't have a word to link things to, it's really, really difficult to understand how you would learn learn anything. It's the main means by which we pass information between us and our students. And in itself, it's a very powerful tool of us understanding stuff. We learn stuff through learning words and being able to use words. And that's maybe why those with very high vocabaries have higher life chances. So that's a quick skim through Weigotsky. In the classroom, he says we need to do lots of social learning. We need to be doing harder tasks with somebody else, because we can do though, we can do those in groups, so we need collaborative learning, we need group presentations, we need group work. There's only approximate development means the teacher has to consider how much scaffolding you give a student. And things should be tied to the context they're in that authentic learning is really important. So how do we make all this work? And this is where I bring in dialogic learning, because dialogic learning is Robin Alexander has come up with these five principles. Very simple. Everybody's working together, including the teacher. Everybody listens to each other, shares their ideas and is willing to consider everybody else's viewpoint. Everybody is so very supportive. So everybody's able to kind of say what they want to say, don't feel embarrassed, there are no wrong answers. And there's a kind of general aim to come to some common understanding and common way forward. It's cumulative, things build on each other, and it's purposeful. And that's really the only bit the teacher does is keeping it focused on whatever it is the class is about. So in a digital classroom, here are some ways you can do that. There's an idea Alexander has of talk partners, which in a classroom, you just get the person to talk next to them. But you could get students use chat. So if they were sat in MS teams, they could chat with each other. Or they could chat with an AI. So if you think of somebody who's neurodiverse and finds talking to other people difficult. First of all, the evidence is that they find text chat easier. So they would find it easier to text chat with a fellow student and talk to them. But actually, if they really can't even do that, they might well be happy to talk to an AI. So that is that to consider. We can put them into breakout rooms. So almost all the MS teams or Google or whatever now have the ability to put students to breakout rooms. So we can pull together partner groups, whole group discussion. You can do that online as well as you can do do it in the classroom. The teacher thing about pose, pause, pounce, bounce works beautifully in the digital classroom. You can actually even mute people. So that they can't answer. And you can then pounce by unmuting the one you want to answer. So there's lots and lots of ways of using that. The important thing to remember is the bounce because we want to be social. So we want to teach people to follow up from each other's answers. We want to teach people to do the kind of dialogic learning principles. I think when you're minimizing transition time, so cutting down the wasted time in a lesson, digital makes it easier. You can sit there in class with three or four things open. And when you want something, you just show that screen. And that's much quicker than handing out a handout or whatever. I mean, even better, you can actually have a screen with the YouTube clip open and literally just press go and you get no transition time at all. We need to make students feel their views are taken seriously. Well, that's a matter of you and you in your class. It's not doesn't matter whether that's digital face to face. The same is true for them being able to feel they can be wrong. I think the teacher needs to be able to allow students to dialogue. And again, that doesn't matter where we're doing it. So when we start to think about going back to my original slide about engineering discussions, that is social learning. So we can use dialogic learning, which I've talked about. We can use group work. We can go back and use peer and self assessment. That's something I'm looking at AI about how AI would help with that. I've already worked out that AI could do for criterion marking, it can do work out whether the criteria have been met within a piece of writing. So you could actually teach students to use AI to help them understand if they've met the learning outcomes. As long as they don't then plagiarise. Pre-reading, well, that's incredibly easy digitally. We can give them stuff to do. We can check they've done it. We can even make sure know how many students have looked at the video if we want. And then the whole thing about metacognition, actually teaching people to learn, teaching people to use the digital systems. All of that is very important and we can do it digitally. So my conclusion is, good teaching is good teaching. Being online really doesn't make any difference. We don't have to go back and go all because I'm online. I now have to go back to the teaching methods we used 30 years ago. You sit there and listen to me. We can enhance the ability to create that classroom in which social learning takes place. I've then given you some references and I'll make sure Chloe's got the slides at the end and comments views, etc. And I'll stop sharing so I can see you. That's it, Chloe. Apart from questions.


Item Number, SCP-795 Object Class, Euclid Special Containment Procedures SCP-795 is to be contained in a 75 meter by 5 meter area, divided and secured with clear plexiglass walls, containing locked doors as follows. A. One wall or door at 5 meters from the far end of the room. SCP-795 lives in the 5 meter by 5 meter space thus created. B. One wall or door at 35 meters. This defines the outer limit of the area that SCP-795 can affect while contained in area A. C. One wall or door at 65 meters. Area C may be used safely for observation while SCP-795 is contained in area A, but must be cleared if an interaction is taking place in area B. D. A standard containment door at 75 meters. This creates a 10 by 5 meter area where SCP-795 can be safely observed while released into area B. Two level one guards are to be posted in area C. They should move to area D if SCP-795 is in area B for an experiment. Due to injury potential, non-D class personnel are not permitted to interact directly with SCP-795. An automated food and water dispenser and litter changer have been installed in area A to limit unnecessary contact with SCP-795. If necessary, SCP-795 may be tranquilized from a distance and then safely handled. Additional cats exposed to SCP-795 must be contained in an identical manner for a period of 3 hours. Description SCP-795 is a large 8.2 kilogram black long-haired domestic cat Phyllis catus of indeterminate breed exhibiting two major anomalous abilities. SCP-795 can change the physical form of any living creature it is able to observe within a range of 30 meters. SCP-795 can make telepathic suggestions to humans within the above range of effect. SCP-795 can transfer its abilities to other cats within its range of effect. But this effect on the other cat is temporary and dissipates within 3 hours of separation from SCP-795. SCP-795 does not otherwise exhibit any unusual physical or mental abilities. Typically, it will transform anything it considers friendly into another cat in order to play with it. Anything considered unfriendly or dangerous is transformed into a prey animal and then killed and eaten. Use of SCP-795 to terminate recalcitrant D-class personnel approved 054. Telepathic suggestions have consisted of desires typical of cats. More or better food, softer bedding, toys, and to be let out of its enclosure. Staff may purchase appropriate items for SCP-795 at their own expense. Dr. R- SCP-795's transformations revert after a period of one hour after removal from SCP-795's presence. SCP-795 has proven unable to transform itself. Inanimate objects, or objects that it cannot see. Addendum. SCP-795 was originally contained on R-2000 at the R-Animal Control Center in R- According to records found there, SCP-795 is named Jr. was approximately 2 years old upon containment and had been surrendered by a relative of a deceased prior owner. Note from Dr. R- We have no idea how she got Jr. into the cat carrier and down to R- A number of unusual conditions were found at the Animal Control Center. A. All dogs had been euthanized. B. Cats were roaming the facility freely. C. The center was $1 over budget for cat care and supplies. D. Three center staff were missing and presumed victims of SCP-795. The cats were contained by use of tranquilizing gas. Initially, all of the cats in the center exhibited the abilities of SCP-795 but lost their anomalous powers within three hours of being contained and separated. Lesson complete. If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-794, Desert Shipwreck, right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.