Welcome. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We're relieved to see that our zoom to YouTube connection is is functional and speedy as as we have grown accustomed to it being so that folks can follow along with our committee work. We are gathered again this afternoon to do some more work on S 25. And I think the first perspective that I'd like to hear is from the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. So we have Nick Grimley with us. He's the director of entrepreneurship and tech commercialization and he is going to help us understand what what language we might need to add to the bill to to clarify a CCD's role with respect to business supports for the new cannabis industry so Welcome Nick and would love to have you fill us in on the work that you've been doing. Thank you for the record Nick Grimley director of entrepreneurship and tech commercialization with the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. Hi there members of the Governor Government Operations Committee. Thank you for allowing a CCD time to testify on S 25, which specifically calls on the agency to administer a social equity loan and grant program. Overall we're supportive of taking steps to support those who have historically been disproportionately impacted by the cannabis prohibition. We want to suggest some language changes that would help a CCD achieve the goals of this specific program and address the technical and staffing issues based by the agency. Others in the administration such as the Chief Prevention Officer will likely offer feedback on other portions of the bill as it's drafted. To frame this, a CCD does not have the technical expertise to underwrite and service loans. Typically we would work with Vita to execute a program like this. But they can't make loans to cannabis related businesses at this time I believe that has to do with some federal programs from which they draw down funds from Treasury. We want to suggest the following language that would allow us to contract with an organization capable of providing the financial assistance loans grants and outreach outlined in the bill. And we have submitted a suggested revision for the committee's consideration. Would you like me to read that language or would you like me to have the ability to call up the language from our committee page and we usually do that on a secondary device so I think if you want to just generally describe what it is you have brought to us. Okay. Sure. So we've added language to the current bill or suggested language to add that the agency may procure by contract all are part of the necessary underwriting execution and administrative services required for loans and grants to be made from the cannabis develop cannabis business development fund to eligible social equity applicants as allowed under this chapter. Should the agency be unable to do so, the program shall not move forward until the legislature appropriates the operational resources necessary for a CCD to make loans and provide financial assistance to social equity applicants. And I think I can elaborate on that a little bit more. That's based on a couple of conversations I've had with the Vermont State Employees Credit Union which is really kind of on the leading edge of working with this industry. And, and then conversations with DFR. And I would actually recommend that you may want to have both of those groups in to provide their insight on the, the banking considerations and issues that face this industry. In that respect. The SECU was, was generally, you know, they thought that this was a great idea and may in concept be able to help the agency out in a program like this but it would certainly have to better understand the details as the cannabis control board defines that program. And we'd also like to suggest that the cannabis control board work and consultation with a CCD and the executive director for racial equity and determining the eligibility requirements for this program. And I think that's I that's pretty much what I have for today I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have at this time. Here committee members any questions must be crystal clear. All right. I appreciate you submitting some recommended language and we appreciate your flagging this and helping us to work through some of the details about what we need in the bill to make this system work so thank you. Yeah we'd like to see it be successful and we think this is a good path towards that. Thank you. Thanks have a good afternoon. You're welcome to stick around and listen if you'd like I think next we're going to hear from Jordan Wellington, who's a partner at the strategies with a recommendation on on an issue with respect to the cannabis system so welcome Jordan. Thank you very much representative really honored to be here today my name is Jordan Wellington I'm a partner in the firm via strategies we are a public policy consulting firm specializing in cannabis regulation, having worked with regulators, policymakers, industry members from really all over the world, ever since being the point person and policy person that helped implement Colorado's legalization. I want to talk about the amendment that going to mention and discuss a little bit and hopefully answer some questions about I just want to mention how much of a privilege it is to be able to speak here today I actually grew up in New Jersey on the East Coast, spent a tremendous time in Vermont and have a ton of love for your state my brother, Corey actually attended the University of Vermont many moons ago unfortunately we're older than in our early 20s and my youngest brother David actually just moved back from Colorado to Vermont and is actually living in Vermont now and so absolutely love your state and thrilled anytime I get a chance to help out and answer some questions about public policy. Today I'm going to be speaking to, I believe, what's a proposed amendment. This is really just a technical change from the bill last year. In Vermont legalization bill a potency cap of 60% was imposed upon final cannabis products. I believe that, you know, unfortunately some unintended consequences of that language is that that cap is not only being applied to products that are being sold to consumers to help protect public health and safety, but also to intermediary products that would be sold business to business only not to a consumer. So basically what's going on here is that when a licensee needs to produce an infused product whether that be a topical and edible a lotion of any kind. They are going to buy a cannabis extract from another manufacturer. To comply with the law that extract would actually have to be diluted down through additives that are not necessary to the production process down to meet the 60% threshold, then transferred to another business, refined and purified to either remove those additives or just stick them in the product as well. And then a final product would be produced that would be subject to that threshold and so really the idea here is that this wouldn't alter the 60% cap for products sold to consumers. Business is to operate a little bit more efficiently on a business to business transfer by exempting only those products those intermediary business to business products from the cap. Well, whereas retaining it for any products that would be sold to a consumer. This kind of gets into the technical extraction and production process I'd be happy to answer any questions about that but figure. I'm for me to just stop talking and answer questions from y'all as opposed to just continuing to ramble about technical production aspects in the cannabis industry. Thank you so much for joining us and I'm sorry that we couldn't give you an excuse to jet to the Green Mountain State in order to share your testimony with us today but this is a little more efficient I suppose committee members any questions about the concepts that Mr Wellington has just presented representative Leclerc. Thank you madam chair. Good afternoon Mr Wellington. What is the percent of tetra hydrone cannabinole. Generally, in the concept of what you're talking about. Is it usually 100% 80% representative committee share thank you for the question. So I think that it depends on the type of extraction and refinement method. And, you know it really just depends on whether you're trying to make what's commonly referred to as distillate so you're removing all chemicals constituents of the plant other than THC, or whether you're trying to leave terpenes and other cannabinoids in there. On average you're probably talking about between 70 and 90, 90 ish percent. And again, these are not products that will be sold to consumers. It's just about an efficiency measure between operations and not needing to say something okay well it's 30 it's 90% THC. We're actually going to put 30% of God knows what in there to get it down to 60 transfer it over to the topical manufacturer who's been going to have to figure out how to get it out of there so they can put it into a bomb or a lotion or an edible or. Any, I mean the number of products kind of tend to move with time so anything else. Thank you. Other questions from committee members. All right, well you, you must have made your ask crystal clear and we will certainly take a look at the suggestion and welcome you to stick around we've got a few more witnesses with us this afternoon, but thank you for being here today. Thank you very much appreciate it. Next up we have Pietro Lynn, who is with Vermont CBD labs of Williston. Welcome Pietro and welcome you to share share your thoughts with the committee. Thank you madam chair. First of all, let me introduce myself my name is Pietro Lynn. I'm a lawyer I in Burlington and I represent Vermont CBD labs. And the reason we're here is because we're faced with a quandary. Vermont CBD labs has a proprietary technology that it's developed that will allow it to process hemp that is CBD oil hemp products into delta nine THC at about 80 or 90% period. So that that is for Vermont I think an exciting prospect because it means that those of us who have worked for companies in the hemp industry, and I've seen our clients suffer terribly because of the, the decline in the hemp market or in the CBD market have certainly hope farmers in Vermont who don't have a market for their hemp hemp processors in Vermont who don't have a market for their isolate or distillate may very soon, if we're successful have an ability to create a product that will be filling a void in the cannabis space. And so what is what is the process and then what is the problem. The process looks like this. We're very comfortable with the concept that Vermont already has a statutory scheme that governs the growing and processing of hemp into CBD oil. And there's a there's regulation that governs that and it's, we're very content with that. We're also content with a concept that Vermont has a statutory scheme that's going to govern cannabis and the processing of cannabis into THC. The, the rub, the area where there is a gap statutorily that cannot be filled by regulation is what happens when you have cannabis, and you are, I'm sorry, what happens when you have to when you have CBD oil, and you want to turn it into THC, because under the hemp regulations, you can't process your hemp product into something that has less than 0.3% THC. With cannabis statute, you cannot process something that is based on hemp that is CBD oil. And we've got this gap where we want to use as an ingredient to turn it into delta nine THC, a processed hemp isolate or distilled. And we must have a change in the statute if we're going to be able to do that. And that's why we're here. And that's why we suggested some language that would modify the present statute that would allow people who purchase CBD oil to process it as an ingredient with cannabis into delta nine THC. We're not looking to expand the reach or the scope of the hemp statutes. We're not seeking somehow to find a way to undermine the scope of the hemp statutes. What we'd like is something that specifically and statutorily contemplates taking CBD oil, using it as an ingredient in a process that chemically transforms the CBD oil into delta nine THC, something that is not presently doable under either set of statutes. And we're looking to you to create the bridge between the two. Let's see. Representative Anthony has a question. How would this thank you by the way, Madam Chair and thank you for coming to testify. Mr Lynn. How would this if at all, disturb our sort of charting a course for the cannabis market and you you can say it doesn't affect it at all. But if you think it does, I want to know now. Oh, I think it's an outstanding question. So let me let me answer it this way. If this committee isn't is focused on creating a set of rules of the road when it comes to cannabis, there is nothing about what we're asking for that would change it in any way. All we're asking for is an ability for people who have obtained the correct licenses to include CBD oil in a chemical process that includes cannabis and transforms the CBD oil as part of that process into delta nine THC. So if you're asking me is there's something about what what would be done in this process that is fundamentally different than what is contemplated by the cannabis statute. The answer is no, it isn't. It's just by cork by the way that we have drafted these two sets of statutes in the cannabis statute, we say, Oh, you can't do anything that with with what might be covered under the hemstatute. And in the hemstatute, we say, Oh, you can't do anything that might be covered by the cannabis statute. And what we're doing what we're asking for is something that specifically recognizes and contemplates a process that that takes the delta nine. I'm sorry that takes the CBD oil and turns it into delta nine THC. And that can't happen, and it can't even be part of regulations under the current statutory scheme. The reason I say that is because the current statute for cannabis says you may not process anything that fits under the hemstatute. And, and if that is so, there is never a regulation that can fix that statutory exemption. And I just because hemp folks and cannabis folks will be subject both to licensure for better or for worse by different, if you will, overseers, I just want to be sure I'm clear as to what that may introduce in terms of either complexity or policies that we hadn't or tendencies for market pressures that we had not contemplated. That's why I have. Okay, no, it's a good question. So let me see if I can answer it a little better than I did last time. What's going to happen is there's going to be a bigger market for hemp and for hemp farmers, and that market is going to be to create CBD oil that will then be used in this process. And so, yeah, you're going to increase the number of farmers or increase the number of acres that can be used to grow hemp. And that that is likely to happen. And if we ever reach a time in the United States where federally cannabis becomes legal. I think that the possibilities for a Vermont company that has proprietary technology that will be appealing nationwide is very exciting as an economic development project. And so representative, in terms of what happens in the cannabis space, you know, all we're saying is that is that somebody who is licensed to process cannabis can buy from a licensed hemp processor, the CBD oil added into the hemp or I'm sorry the cannabis product, process it, turning all of it into THC. And that so in terms of license, we're not asking you to do anything that's that's any different than what I think you conceptualize. Good. Thank you. Thank you chair. Madam chair. Thank you, Mr. Lynn. I think I mentioned this the other day and committee but I'm a little confused. There was a story on the news regarding delta eight. Is there a difference between delta eight and delta nine. So, so look, I'm not an expert when it comes to delta eight or delta nine, but this is what I understand to be the distinction delta nine has psychogenic properties meaning it affects your mind delta eight, which is technically legal right it's not against the law. It has not been federally outlawed in any way, but it has a more, you know, body based consequence right it relaxes you in a way that, as I understand it I've never used it is quite significant, but it does not affect your mind. Okay, thank you. Representative Ganon. Thank you. Have any other states regulated this process. So, the, the, the answer is that, for example, in Colorado, they have regulated the process but, but the reason representative Dan and that I'm sort of here on hands and knees, asking the committee to make statutory changes is because I don't think our statute allows you because the language in our statute specifically says that you as if you are a cannabis licensee, you may not process hemp or hemp, hemp oils and extracts, and that's where we run into problems. So, I mean, there are states that have gone that route, but, but given the current statutory scheme. I don't know that we can, because specifically hemp products are exempted from processing under the cannabis license. So, no, I understand that that's what Act 164 does. I was just trying to understand what, what if any other state, what any other state may have done as to right, how they're regulating this process, just so I can educate myself. Yeah, I know that it's a great question. So, as I understand it, there, there have been regulatory changes in Colorado, regular regulatory changes in Michigan that would reflect this process. I don't quite know the status in Illinois, but I understand there's been movement in that direction. It's not like you're the first ones to address this problem. It's just that we, you know, we have a statutory scheme in Vermont that requires legislative intervention. Can you explain the process a little more and what I'm specifically interested in is, is, you know, compared to, you know, taking cannabis and converting it into a THC concentrate. I mean, is there more energy used in converting CBD oil into a THC product?  So I'm just trying to figure out, is there a different environmental impact to the process you're describing versus, you know, converting cannabis flower to some other cannabis product? So let me answer it as best I can. And the disclaimer up front is that I'm not a technician. So it's not my area of expertise, but it's been explained to me. And what I've heard is this, is that it does not require any more energy. The process just is different. And what is, I think if we're considering energy related issues, one of the things we know is that hemp can be grown outside and that hemp can be grown more easily with less effort than cannabis. And so in some ways if we're looking to diminish the impact on the environment, this is one way to do it. Because of course if the product is at least in part hemp, then we are using less resources to get from point A to point B. Okay. And so I'm just trying to understand the intersection between, you know, Vermont's hemp regulation and it's cannabis regulation. So if you have the CBD oil would be regulated by the agency of agriculture, right? That's right. And then at some point you're taking it through a process that converts it to Delta 9 THC. And so I guess it's that conversion process where the cannabis regulatory realm would take over. So the issue here is going to be, we don't want to undermine the hemp regulatory scheme in any way. And the Department of Agriculture is understandably wants to make sure that whatever work I'm trying to have you do here that it doesn't undermine what it seems to be a very successful and good program. And this doesn't, right? You have to operate under a hemp license to take the dried hemp and process it into isolated soil. And what we are contemplating then is that if there is somebody with a cannabis license who wants to create a cannabis-like product that this is, and it's part of that conversion process. This isn't sprinkling CBD oil into something and saying, drink it, it's good for you. This is fundamentally changing its chemical composition. And so what we're saying is for that transition, we think, first of all, we can't do it now. But if we're going to be able to do it, we think it ought to come under the cannabis license. Understood. So have you spoken with the agency of agriculture about this process at all? We have indeed. And they were comfortable with it so long as it did not in any way diminish the effectiveness of their program. And we understand and support that. And we propose changes that leave them wholly undisturbed. And who did you speak with? Oh, forgive me. You know, it's one of those things. I'm an old man and I forgot the name, but it was the person at the department. Kevin Ellis was with me. And I know this, that it was the person who was responsible in the first instance where they have program. Carrie Jigar. That's the name. Thank you. Small state. We know Carrie. All right. Representative Bihowski. Thank you. I recognize that you might not actually know the answer to my question, but I'm hoping that if you don't, you can point me in the direction of who would in that. It's kind of a multi-parter, but the beginning part is what are the fundamental differences between this chemically created THC and naturally occurring THC? Okay, so that's that I do know the answer to. And the answer is it's indistinguishable. Okay. And so we're certain that there wouldn't be additional adverse effects. And the reason I ask is because we've kind of gone down the road before of sort of laboratory recreating something naturally occurring with sometimes catastrophic outcomes. So I want to make sure if we're going down that road, we really know what we're getting into. Absolutely. And so, yeah, the process creates a compound that is indistinguishable. You know, it is, it is THC, delta nine THC, and there are no, you cannot distinguish it from natural products. Thank you. And remember, so representative the other pieces that cannabis is part of this process, right? It's just, it's one of the other ingredients that is used in the process. Wonderful. Thank you. I just want to make sure we're not going down the road of creating something synthetic that is going to create huge problems like we've seen in other areas. Yeah, no, totally understand. Thank you for the question. Thank you. And representative look there. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Mr. Lynn. Hi. There's something about this that just seems a little unsettling to me. One, it sounds like we're trying to come up with a use for hemp that we hadn't intended before. And is there some sort of demand out there or need that this is trying to meet? In other words, do we have a supply side issue that now all of a sudden we're turning to hemp for the delta nine for rather than just the straight up cannabis. Well, so, so look, it is, it is less expensive to produce delta nine THC from hemp in through this process than it is to, you know, indoors grow cannabis, it takes less resources. It's something where you can rely on nature to water and for sun. And that's all to the positive. There's no, there's no market for it now in Vermont because it's not legal and we can't sell it now. But what we're trying to do, Vermont CBB Labs, as the name suggests, is a CBB company, is a hemp company. And we, this industry has suffered mightily over the last two years. And I don't know how much all of you know about, you know, sort of the fortunes or misfortunes of the hemp industry. But over the course of the last two years, we've seen a price collapse.  And this is one, forgive me, golden opportunity for Vermont farmers in the long term. So representative with Claire I don't know if that answers your question I hope it does, but that's that's the perspective of my club. Could you elaborate a little bit more on the other uses of delta nine. I've heard you talked about the what the hallucinogenic. Yeah, so it's delta nine THC is that is that part of a cannabis that has that gets people for giving me high right like that's that's what it is. And so the the the THC, the oil the distillate that's going to be made is something that would be used in, for example, you could use it in drinks or you could use it in food products, or you could use it if you were vaping like a like a jewel or something like that. Those are, you know, those are the kinds of things that cannabis processors were going to do anyway. This is just another way to fulfill that function. Very good. Okay. Thank you, sir. All right, thank you very much. Representative murwiki. Thank you madam chair. I'm curious if there's something going on with the market that I that I wasn't aware of that you might shed some light on what I saw was lots of growers got into this thinking, here's the gold in the hills. And what happened was the markets got flooded and we what we saw was a market correction supply and demand move the prices so that was there something else that was happening there that that I'm not aware of. I don't think so, although I don't know what you're aware of. I would say this it wasn't just an oversupply at the same time. What we saw was the, the federal government was starting to crack down on any claims made by retailers around health benefits with CBD, and that depressed the market also a lot of manufacturers which who intended to pick up CBD oil as part of their product declined to do it, and the market collapsed and all of it and many of these farmers who got into it. We're doing it with the assumption that these national manufacturers are actually going to go forward with their CBD based products, they didn't. So, yeah, there was an oversupply there remains an oversupply it as I'm, as I understand it, you can buy CBD oil for much less than it takes to actually grow it and process it. And it's so bad that there is virtually no market for Vermont grown him, unless you are going to process it yourself and sell it yourself online. I'm totally open to the concept that we, you know, maybe Vermont farmers need to live with the market but what I'm suggesting to you is that is that there is a market, and what I'm talking about may create a fabulous market for Vermont farmers representative Thank you. So I understand that hemp is used for the production of CBD I my understanding is that it's also a relatively environmentally low impact plant to grow that can be used in in place of other fibers cotton paper you know used for paper making and I'm wondering if there's any move to support our farmers to work in that arena as well because I don't want to take away from any way that we can lower our environmental impact. But look, I don't know what what individual farmers are doing. What I do know is that is that there's this glut of dried hemp, and it's just out there, and nobody is, you know what he's doing anything with it to the extent it's getting processed and there's no market at the same time of CBD oil isolate and distill it, and there's just no market for it. I mean the market has collapsed for for process and unprocessed hemp. And so, you know, people may still be growing hemp, but but they do it at their own peril, and it's on the, you know, sort of hope against hope that something changes. But for when I hear from the client, and nothing appears to be changing if anything, it's worsening, not getting better. Thanks. And representative look there. Thank you madam chair, Mr Lincoln, can you speak to the amount of delta nine that you would get say from a head plant versus what you would get from straight up cannabis plant, do you have any idea how you would get it for late. You got you got me there I that that's that's the you've stretched the limits of my technical knowledge I apologize. Okay, thank you. And I can get an answer for you if you like I mean I can get back to the client and get you that information I'm not trying to brush you off I don't want to provide false information. I actually would appreciate that thank you. Okay I will. Hi, thanks madam chair. Mr Lynn, I was just wondering. So, I want to make it clear that yours, you're reading current laws prohibiting a manufacturer from buying hemp, and then processing it so if a licensed manufacturer under AC one 64 bought hemp, and then processed it into THC. I think our current regulation is not allowing that. So, so let me say it back to you a little bit differently, because I want to make sure that, and this is complicated and I'm not the best communicator around complicated ideas so let me try again to make it super clear. Under the hemp statute, the hemp statutory scheme, if you're licensed, you can process dried hemp into CBD or not a problem. Under the cannabis statute, you can you can process cannabis into delta nine THC, but under the cannabis statute, you cannot process CBD oil into delta nine THC, which is what we want to do. It will be an ingredient with a cannabis product and process together to create delta nine THC by altering the chemical composition of the CBD oil. And that's the one thing that you can't do under the cannabis statute, because it says only the people with the CBD license that the hemp license can do that. If you're under the hemp license, you can create delta nine THC in excess of very low limits. That's the gap. Okay, I understand now thank you. Yep, thank you. All right. Thank you very much Mr Lynn for being with us today and being patient with us and and all of our questions. We, we appreciate you sharing your idea with us and we will certainly have some time to have committee discussion about this so. Thank you so much for having me it was great to see all of you have a good evening. Thank you. All right. I think last on our list of witnesses this afternoon is Josh to cater who is the CEO of trace Vermont. Welcome Josh, and we would love to hear your thoughts on S 25. Thank you very much. And I'm chair. Hello everyone. For the record my name is Joshua to cater I'm co founder of trace. And I am a native Vermont or I grew up in the islands. I grew up farming and working at Allen home orchard so Vermont agriculture is near and dear to my heart personally. I'm also a young entrepreneur in the state who understands, you know that the state has an aging population a lot of my friends have not been able to stay in Vermont because of economic difficulties of being a young person here looking for for work in a career. And so you know I, I understand those predicaments on an individual level that people face. And I do think that the cannabis industry can be a wonderful opportunity to create opportunities for local young for monitors and keep those people in the state. So I founded trace a little over three years ago with the goal of building compliant software track and trace software for hemp and cannabis that was set up for 50 state market. A lot of the early programs that were rolled out and I had experience interacting with them as a cultivator in Northern California. So this season, we're not set up for the success of the industry or for the protection of consumers, which, you know, we see is the main goal of tracking trace systems we currently facilitate the tracking trace system for the hemp program in Vermont through the agency of where all hemp permit holders register and this season they will actually track and trace their crop using our software and that's a national first and something that is protective to the hemp industry here in the state. Hopefully, moving forward. Given the difficulties of getting your product to market so you know our company philosophy and our goals are really tied to the industry as a whole, and we want to see these industries be successful here in the state. So I'm here also as a member of the Vermont. Cannabis equity coalition. Join the coalition as an industry participant. We do stand by those other members of the committee in their testimony of our group and their testimony and the policy that they've submitted. And what I'd like to address in my testimony today is a little bit of a high level view to underscore the impacts of the current statutes and act 164. Some of the potential difficulties that are hidden within the way the market is being formulated right now from an economic perspective. I'm also a UVM graduate with economics degree. So, you know, I understand a little bit thanks to my great education at UVM. Some of the market implications of having a few small businesses have price setting abilities in an early stage market. So, a couple notes. I like the Mr. Lynn who testified before I, we also see, you know, hemp businesses playing a big role in having a role to play in a potential market in the cannabis industry that's coming up. And those businesses do have experience track and tracing their products and with statewide track and trace systems. I just wanted to add that to the record, because I do think there's a little lack of awareness that these small farmers do have the sophistication and the abilities to meet statewide compliance for controlled substances in a number of ways. That is actually something that the in the medical program currently there is no statewide system deployed this is kind of left to each individual business so in some ways hemp farmers are even ahead of the game. So, you know, one of the key policy points that was talked about today by members of our coalition were licensing structures and licensing definitions that set production caps and also differentiate between outdoor and indoor growing. And I really want to underscore the importance of that in my testimony. There needs to be a path to a sustainable business for these early craft license holders. And right now because of how they lack definition and licenses and their lacks a definition from legislature about how exactly craft permit holders can get their product to market outside of the vertically integrated permits, you know, without that definition. There's there's a huge risk that's that's being introduced to the whole market right now within the framework of act 164. And that risk has to do with with the cannabis economy being centralized around three dispensaries that are going to have a head start in the program. So what is what does that risk look like. I mean really it can be summed up as cartel like behavior. You know it's very easy for three vertically integrated dispensaries to coordinate on price. And it's very easy for them to because they have access to retail margins while craft growers do not have access to those retail margins to be able to set prices in the wholesale market in a way where it's not viable for cannabis produce craft here cannabis producers to see a return on their investment with their goods that they're producing. And that's a huge risk. It's something that we have seen play out in other states. We have a little bit more to go on now because you know Vermont has has watched what's unfolded you know I think wisely and other states so so we understand how things have gone wrong and states like Massachusetts and a lot of it has to do with too much concentration of those early permits and too much control at the retail level to just a few centralized permit holders. You know really I think there's a, there's a undercurrent here. And I think there's a real opportunity and everyday Vermonters small farmers young people like myself, who want to be entrepreneurs in the state of Vermont in this market. I really need someone to stand up for them in the legislature. There has not really been any type of action yet and the legislation the legislation passed around the emerging cannabis industry that clearly, you know stands up and solves actually solves issues for these for small Vermont businesses, small Vermont businesses that want to join the industry. There's been minor things done like introducing the craft cultivation permits, and the like which are great starts. And I want to commend the legislature, the legislators that that did were able to include those provisions and act 164, but you can't just do a job halfway it needs to be seen through and there has to be a path for development and licensing structures that make sense and enable outdoor cultivation as, as a feasible business and I also want to thank representative again and for expressing concern about energy use with the last testimony we heard that is a key important piece of the, the licensing structure right now, you know it really does favor indoor cultivation which as we know is, you know, very environmentally intensive. We would like to see the possibility for outdoor cultivation to supply a good amount of the product in Vermont. And that's possible with the four to two to one license size ratios that were suggested by by our coalition. So, there's a key opportunity in here and we want to voice our support to use as 25 as a way to start healing the impacts of the war on drugs, and the impacts of the early days of the cannabis industry which we've seen unroll in a way where that 4% of cannabis businesses are currently owned by BIPOC business owners nationwide, which is, you know, a sorry state of affairs. So, you know it's rare I think to find an opportunity where legislation can bring together so many different groups of people from small organic farmers to young entrepreneurial Vermonters to BIPOC communities in the state. It's really weighing the interest of a few permanent companies who have all by the way been able to make decent money over the past few years there was an article recently to outline how the Vermont owned medical permit holder has been able to make $35 million of revenue since 2013. The two other permits in the state are going to be held by you know publicly traded companies, which you know I think all of us would like the primary participants, I would hope in Vermont's local cannabis economy to be Vermonters we want to try to keep that money in state, I would hope. You know, in conclusion. I think it's a wonderful opportunity. That's before the legislature here today with this bill to create a licensing structure that creates a clear path to market for craft licensees which doesn't exist right now to address some other core issues that have been cleaned up, like being able to, you know, bring hemp, you know into the cannabis supply chain. And also to adopt some of the language from H414 with respect to racial and social equity which, you know right now for a state like Vermont, that tries to be so progressive that we are sorely behind other states with respect to their social equity programs built into legislation so I think it's important that Vermont leads and doesn't follow on those issues. And, yeah, I guess I'll end there. We really have an eye towards trying to create an ecosystem and an economy that sets Vermont up for success. And from a 50 state market perspective, with a long term view towards, you know, bring economic development and opportunity and justice and equity to the cannabis market that's going to, you know, emerge and roll out in Vermont over the coming years. So, thank you all for the time. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you for being with us we have a question from representative Higley. Madam Chair and thank you Joshua. I recently read an article from Oregon seems like I've been involved with Oregon and a couple issues lately but. And this was a couple years ago maybe you're aware of it but you know you would just talked about bringing hemp into the supply chain as well. Mr Lynn was talking about it but it seems to me that the article that I read in Oregon was. It was such a oversupply of marijuana out there that folks did go to growing hemp. And then what happened was because so so many farmers were growing hemp again, the marijuana growers moved inside. You know, again, to keep that cross pollination I guess or whatever it is happening. So, isn't there a concern with that if, if, if the same sort of thing happens here and it sounds like, there would definitely be an issue if what Mr Lynn says is that temp is so much easier to grow. There is a way to extract the THC so just your thoughts on that I guess. Yeah. So, although that was a you know a side note a few things there. The production caps within the licensing structure that our coalition proposed go a long way towards addressing the oversupply issues which were really at the heart of what happened in Oregon. In their early days they did not have the correct caps on size and canopy size in place. Which, you know, caused oversupply and then complicated to all these things so I think it was much more their licensing structure than the hemp market that really created that dynamic. Now with respect to, you know, hemp and cannabis permit holders being able to do do business with each other. I think there are distinct use cases and distinct demand for different products. And, you know, hemp has a much lower total percentage of cannabinoids when compared to plants that will be grown for THC under under cannabis permits. So it's not quite so so cut and dry. I think it's really a question of, you know, do we want the ability for hemp licensee products to be able to find their way into the dispensary environment and to be available and dispensary retail outlets. And I think there's every reason to create that that opportunity in the state. And I think if you look at the constituencies. Those who hold hemp permits now those working in the hemp industry now represent a lot of diverse small Vermont businesses the type of businesses that I think should be seen as the heart of the cannabis industry. And I think there's a lot of crossover and a lot of them will end up holding both permits potentially. So thank thank you, Joshua. Representative Anthony. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm interested in pursuing one of the references to a fear you folks have of the coalition. And it had to do with your experience in economics classes called cartelization. And notice you folks have been very good about instructing us how to make sure that there are plenty of small producers by producers I mean growers. The cropping seems to me the easy discussion for you folks and for me. However, as you well know, and you made reference to integrated licensees having an advantage that single license holders wouldn't have you linked it to that concept of cartels. My colleagues on the committee will recall I made a reference to the standard oil business model somewhat earlier in the day. What's your remedy to make sure at the other stages, not cropping, but the other stages are sufficiently atomistic small competitive to avoid cartelization. Thank you. Yeah, great, great question. Thank you representative Anthony. I think the well a great starting point would be just having a legislature defined tiers for craft permit holders at every level of the supply chain from retail to delivery to processing to distribution back up to cultivation. You know that's that's a great start, because right now the only path to market is through a vertically integrated permit and from what I can see there's no economic incentive for a vertically integrated permit holder to sell product that they have a make a smaller margin on. So, if these are you know rational economic agents. Then it's very difficult to see how craft growers right now can find a way to put the choice in the hands of the consumers, rather than put, you know be controlled by those few entities that have access to consumers. So I think that is a great starting point. Now within the specifics of you know the size and scale limitations for the other permits like processing distribution delivery retail. There's more specific language on that that was submitted by our coalition I will yield to, but I think just simply defining it and creating that opportunity on par with the vertically integrated permits will go a long way and will at least put the power in the hands of the people and the consumers, rather than in the hands of the the largest industry participants. And I think that's very important. And the way that these small businesses can compete is by being more in touch with consumer demands by having higher quality products, which is something that Vermont farmers do with everything they do. I'm confident they'll do that. And if they're able to which right now they cannot. I do think there will be elements of the free market that play out where we are able to have a viable small cannabis businesses that are locally owned, make up the bulk of the Vermont cannabis market. Thank you. I just, you've used the phrase are small growers need a path to market. And you also made reference to your hope that other license holders in the supply chain would also have access to market. What are you envisioning because, as I recall, there already are bars to the number of licenses that a single legal entity can possess. And I believe there's also a prohibition about people other than the integrator producers and you're right, they have that advantage. There's a prohibition about, let's say a distributor owning other classes of licenses so what's the remedy there because notice, be careful of what you wish for, if a distributor can own various classes of licenses created another route to cartilization. And I don't think that we're advocating for large companies to be able to buy up five different permits in parallel to the vertically integrated licenses. So really it's size sizes that is the end of the game. Okay, I understand. Thank you. Production caps are key. And also I think there's a big difference when a business is specialized and focused like when we came out of alcohol prohibition right there was a three tier system developed to prevent vertical integration because it was recognized back then that was a potential problem and something that would hurt the economy and businesses on the whole so similarly to that I think it's it's quite different when there is a price incentive for businesses to sell product produced in house versus when you have a specialized business focused solely on distribution or focus solely on processing or solely on retail that is are looking for other businesses to purchase from or to collaborate with to bring product to market so that's another key differentiator. Thank you. All right, thank you. Mr. Decatur for being with us today any other questions from committee members. All right. We appreciate your time this afternoon. And committee members that is a wrap for today. We we've got a couple more witnesses tomorrow morning and then we will have ample time for committee discussion and and getting back into the bill language that that we hope to move out so if committee members want to, you know, send send any thoughts or impressions must have can't have, you know, any feedback that you'd like to send please send them to the vice chair and myself, and we will discuss them tomorrow in committee. Have a wonderful afternoon.


Hello, my talk today will be about application portability and effective orchestration across various platforms. I know it's kind of hard to pick before the lunch, so I will try to be as quick as possible to make it easier for you. But I won't let you leave before the talk is over, so let's make it together, yes? A little bit about me. I am Malaš Komarek, I am a TCP cloud solution architect engineer, I am a technology enthusiast, and I am also OpenStackSoft project ETL. You have already heard about the OpenStackSoft project from the Jacob and Loki's presentation. It's a project aimed to install the OpenStack platform with the Solstack. We recently added support for containers in our solution, so now we are able to orchestrate both virtual machine services and container-based microservices. So, what is this presentation about? We as an IT industry are getting into serious problems lately because there are conflicting demands to the industry. There is a raising ratio of cloud services and container microservices, gaining the production workload in IT industries which cannot or hardly managed by traditional orchestration tools. Also, the complex application stacks make use of multiple clouds, containers and some advanced network function virtualizations like virtual firewalls, virtual load balancing, virtual routing, whatever, yes, which now is becoming the integral part of application stacks. So, you cannot split apart network functions and some software services. And when the service goes down, the impact on the business is getting more serious because now growing number of industries or enterprises is relying entirely on outsourced services for computing. So, they need to have some strategies, some tooling that will help them in case there is some form of regional outage when the connectivity goes down or when there is, let's say, some cybernetic attack that brings down the entire city or makes the site inaccessible. And also, one of the greatest challenges we are facing is that there is much more push on the change from the market. The customers are very demanding and they want to have their applications fit to their needs and they want it now. So, you cannot rely on a deployment cycle that takes four months. You have to have deployment cycle or deployment pipeline that takes days to bring your new feature from development to production. But if you make things wrong and your development pipeline is a little uneasy, you can still put your stuff into production but you don't want to know how the things happen. If you do not have the proper tooling, you can end up like this that you get the job done but it's not in a preferable way. So, to help us with these problems, we have orchestration tools to help us. These tools help us with several areas within the lifecycle of our deployments. It doesn't matter whether the deployed application is an entire open stack or some application running within the open stack. The principles are the same. So, we are able to reuse the same principles we use within the cloud even for the installation of cloud itself. We use it in our open stack or project. So, we focus not just on the installation of the application but also on the operation and maintenance of the thing. You need to set up your monitoring, you need to set up your log collection so you know what's happening in your infrastructure and you can react to it. You want your systems to be as independent as possible so human interaction from operators is not necessary in most of the cases. So, if you are an industry and you want to add an orchestration tool into your application ecosystem, you need to realize two things. The first, you need to align it with your existing configuration or orchestration tools. So, if you are already using something and you want to orchestrate it entirely, you need to check that it's compatible with two solutions. Then, depending on the workload you are having, you can choose the proper operating system. If you are running with those VMs, you will choose some different form of orchestration. Then, when you are running Linux machines and also you need to realize that traditional orchestration focuses mainly on bare metals and virtual machines. But the shift is to using platforms or the containers as the applications are getting to come out and you have more services to run which are mostly independent and can run without the knowledge of the other ones. So, now I will talk briefly about several options we are having for the orchestration. There are several large groups of orchestrations we are having. The first is infrastructure as a service, orchestration in this case. You are orchestrating virtual resources you would normally find in your physical data centers. You are orchestrating virtual networks, network functions, virtualizations, storages, servers. So, all these kinds of hardware resources. The example is the OpenSeckey, which comes originally from Amazon CloudFormation. These tools orchestrate the resources in a declarative way. I will talk about this a little later. The next large family of orchestrators is the platform orchestration. These tools focus on a single platform of some concrete programming language by RubyPHP. And it lets developers not to care about the infrastructure database sketches as these are provided as a service to these environments. So, you just leave the platform to the developers and they can work and they have all the services provided for them. Then you have the container orchestration. For the example, it's a Kubernetes mess also. These orchestrate multiple servers on which the containers run. One of the major advantages is that if one service fails, you can always reschedule this failed server to another host. Also, the containers are artifacts, so it has minimal time for deployment. As you have seen, you can run the entire OpenStacks from containers within a few minutes compared to running it from virtual machines which take several minutes to configure and run. Also, the scalability in your normal system, you would have hundreds of VMs running and compared to this, you can have thousands of containers within your infrastructure. The next family of orchestrators is software orchestration, more commonly known as configuration management. From this family, Solstack, Puppet, Chef or Ansible are the most well-known examples. This orchestration provides software resources in the sense of software applications and this orchestration makes sure it gets installed, it gets configured and run in the correct order and you have all the software services running on your infrastructure. This helps tame the tribal knowledge, as Jacob said in his presentation, and put it on the paper or put it into some discrete process that can be repeated again and again or can be improved in some auditable way. So we don't have the need for the domain experts that much, their knowledge is put into the orchestrating tool which can repeat the steps over and over again. This was the brief summary of the options for the orchestration for specifics platforms we have. Now we'll talk a little bit more about how do orchestrators do their job. There are two main approaches to orchestration, the first is how to do it or what to do. So to make it a little clearer, the decorative approach do what. I have prepared the sample, I hope the goulash is not too sensitive right now, but we have a dinner goulash that's set on the table and it has three to five dumplings according to the hunger. Yes, as you can see this is a nice example of auto scaling topology which can react to your user demand and scale properly according to the need. So the decorative approach is the representation of your infrastructure model which models each pieces, so I know I have some dumplings, I know I have some great way and I know I have it on plate on my table. This approach provides some configuration management database functionality. So it has some items, some resources, it has some well-defined sample properties and can serve as CFDB in some way. On the other hand you have the imperative approach, so it's how you do it. So instead of saying there is a goulash on the table, you give the more direct order. So it's cut dumplings to slices, cook the goulash and serve it on the table with three dumplings and I will take more if I am angry. So this is just a consequent flow of actions. You don't define your final state but you define the steps that will lead you to the final state. And this is how you describe various auto-prefix processes as auto-healing, auto-scaling. All these are imperative, just set of steps which needs to be followed. Okay, so we are back to square one because neither of these approaches works for the entire lifecycle of the applications, for long-running application stacks, the declarative approach is appropriate. As you define your desired topology, you can do this model, you can do this topology, you then define the monitoring, the log collection, the documentation which is tailored to fit exact model you have for your application. And on the other hand, you have the processes which are required to deliver the change. So let's say for the updates, for the healing processes, so something that is not long-running but individual processes that are required to set up the infrastructure in the right order. So the big question is how do I choose the proper orchestration tools? Well, it pretty much depends on what application workload you are having. If your infrastructure is container only, you can use tools like Kubernetes or Mesos. If you use virtual machines in your infrastructure, then you can go to OpenStack or EVS, but if your application gets distributed across various regions or countries, continents, or even some project within your cloud, you need to go further and select some tools that does not rely on the single service provider. Sometimes even the licensing may be issued, so you need to keep some of your workload on the bare metals. So you need to make sure that your orchestration tool does all the pieces you need to define your application infrastructure. So you need to choose your tool wisely because if you don't, things can get a little unpredictable as well. So sometimes magic can happen and you end up with things you are not entirely expecting. So for this reason, there is another large family of orchestrators. It's a platform agnostic orchestration which does not care what resources it orchestrates and it actually reuses the other existing orchestration tools to enforce the states and the processes of the orchestrated resources. So we can call this family of orchestrators the orchestration of orchestration. So you reuse various cloud platforms or container platforms with the configuration management tools to solve all problems of the lifecycle of the application states. So to do an example, services that are platform agnostic orchestrators is the Terraform for Mashiko, Clarify, and even Heat can be in some way seen as a platform agnostic as it has support for multiple backends, not just the open stack, but it can now with proper plugins orchestrate pretty much everything. And so is there any standard way how to describe our topology and the processes? Well, what would be the point of this slide if there wasn't? Yes, so of course there is. It's called a TOSCA. TOSCA is an abbreviation. It stands for Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications rather long description, but it's a standard in which you can define both aspects of your infrastructure, the topology as well as the processes. It's a domain-specific language, originally it was XML, but now it's just the unknown soul. It pretty much looks like heat orchestrated templates, but it has more power to express your software resources as well as your virtual infrastructure. You can use it to describe container micro-services, virtual machines, services around the virtual machines, all infrastructure elements. And for the definition or for the description of VIRS tags, you can even add some built artifacts along the text description, all some binaries, images of VMs, of the containers. These all are tied with the model, with the topology and the processes that drive it. Okay, so this is the architecture of how this orchestration tool looks like. You need all these services to make sure that your infrastructure is operational in the way you expect. So at one place you have your model data, which is your topology you want to create. Then you have some workflow engine that makes sure that the basic workflow is to install the service. So you basically start with the model, then you run the first workflow which will install the topology into the reality. So when your application gets installed, it begins to send the feedback data so your orchestrator knows all the time what is the state of your orchestrated service. So when we take our example of the goulash and the cooking, the orchestrator here is the cook, who does the goulash, and the orchestrated service is the plate with the goulash. You are the consumer of the service, so cook always see if there is enough toppings on your table, on your plate, so when you run out, you get asked if you want more or not, depending on your demand. And if you want more, the cook makes sure that you get your resume. So how do the orchestrator perform the long-time maintenance of all the systems? It always observes the orchestrated infrastructure and reacts if some policies are breached. So my policy is if I'm still hungry, I won't pour dumplings, so it will happen. So now let's talk about some of the major use cases the orchestration engines are having. One of the biggest issues it's solving is to create complete CIC pipelines. In this case you need to create multiple environments of your applications. You need to create multiple development environments. Then you need to create several staging environments where you test your new features. And then of course you need the production environment, one or more depending on your architecture. And you need to be able to create, to destroy, to work with these environments in a rapid fashion. So if a new developer comes into your company, it means to take at most a few hours to get up and running, not a few weeks or months. Also you need to make sure your system is ready to respond for the outage or let's say some unexpected load peaks. So you need to feed it with the proper data from the system itself so it knows when to react. We are using this approach to implement cloud service brokerage platform which does nothing more than put some UI in front of our orchestration engine and it does the job. Yes, so this is one of the last slides. This shows how some example of what complete orchestrator services have. It cannot utilize just one service. It's always a collection of multiple services as in the Linux world each service does its job and it does it well. But for this reason you need to have more services each doing its job well to have the complete system up and running. So for the open stack sort, the orchestrator is the sole stack. We use Reclass to store the data, go like this, send to HECA for the monitoring part of the gathering data and graphite elastic search for the storing the data. And compared to this, there is an Aria Tosca project, a recent one which uses Qualified as orchestrator and uses the Tosca language to describe the topology and some other services similar to ours that make sure that the system is running in the right corner. Okay, now finally we have the demo. Okay, so I will try to, where do I click here? Right, let me go. So we have our demo. Wow. Well, I might have accidentally deleted it instead of the deployment. Shit. So I think the live demo is kind of dead today. So let's skip this part and head right to the questions I think. I will skip the boring part. Well, so much for the preparations. So let's skip to the next slide which is questions. So do you have a question? No questions? Can you pass the mic please? The question is for this kind of orchestration I'm also hearing about Yang as a data description language. So can you highlight the benefits of Tosca as of Yang with this model? What is the Yang? The Yang is to define the network functionality more than the Tosca is more to define the service oriented architecture. These two can work together but you can model your stuff in Tosca and then you have some tools which will translate or transform the definition from Tosca to Yang. Yes, so these can coexist together with the one solution. Okay, thank you. So is it a lunch time? Aleš, can you please compare Tosca and for example the compose files for the Docker or for the Kubernetes or even with heat stuff. What are the features? What is promising for the future? The Tosca is just the way how to model things. It doesn't care whether it's VM or microservice. It's completely technology acoustic so it's just a basic set of rules to describe virtually anything. You just have some guidelines how to use it but the implementation is up to you so you can have it to define your Docker compose files or your heat templates. It provides the same functionality which can then be used for other orchestrating tools to use. So Tosca is a standard being led by committee. It seems to be not necessarily as fast moving as many of the technologies in this space. Do you think it's going to be able to keep up? Tosca is just a specification. It's not an orchestrator. It's just the way how you define your application stacks both from the topological angle of process view. So you can reuse this data from any software you want and I think it's a standard which has been evolved. The new version is coming this summer which is solving some metadata and policy issues or things that were not covered well in the current standard. So I think it has good place on the market because it's standard on which major players agreed upon and it can be implemented by anyone. You just have your application described in this language and there is a good chance that you will be able to take these definitions and move it across orchestrating providers in the future as the support for this specification, the reading or parsing these definitions is getting larger. So you have more tools with support reading Tosca topologies and I think it will be growing in the future as the standard is alive and actively evolving. So thank you and have a good lunch.


I'd like to call the 9th regular meeting of the 2020-21 Common Council to order. Would the clerk please read the quote for the day? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change. Thank you very much. Next would the clerk please call the roll. Alderperson Ackley? Here. Alderperson Bourne? Here. Alderperson Decker? Here. Alderperson Donahue? Here. Alderperson Feldy? Here. Alderperson Mitchell? Here. Alderperson Phillips? Here. Alderperson Savaglio? Here. Alderperson Sorenson? Here. Alderperson Flicky Paneski? Here. There are 10 present. Thank you very much. Next is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand and join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from our regular council meeting held on July 20th. Alderperson Sorenson? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move to approve the minutes from July 20th. Is there a second? Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on those minutes? Seeing none, will all those in favor please signify by seeing aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. As a result of the resignation of Todd Wolfe from the Common Council, the mayor is submitting the following appointments for your confirmation, Roberta Felicky Podeski to the Finance and Personnel Committee, Dean Decker to be Chairperson of the Public Works Committee and Betty Ackley to be on the Public Works Committee, Dean Decker to the Transit Commission, Dean Decker to the Board of Marina Parks and Forestry, Betty Ackley to the Mayor's International Committee and Trey Mitchell to the Redevelopment of the party. Alderperson Sorensen. Thank you, Mayor. I move to confirm the appointments. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. With a clerk, please call the roll for passage. Alderperson Felicky Podeski, 10 ayes. Motion passes. Next we'll move on to Public Forum, City Clerk. There's no one this evening. Thank you. Then we'll have a presentation by our Human Resources, Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations on the Human Resources Update and Strategic Plan by Vicki Schneider. Vicki. Mr. Mayor. So tonight I'm happy to be with you to share some of the updates that have happened since I've come on board as the Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations. I have a really super long title, so we have to always remember all the parts to it. As you are well aware, we had an audit last year that was begun and was presented earlier this year with a lot of recommendations for the department. So I wanted to just share with you a little bit of where we're at. And the vision that I have, and I think I've shared this with you before, is that we would really like the City of Sheboygan to be an employer of choice. I think working for the organization is an awesome experience. I think it is a great opportunity for people to be part of their community and to give back. I think this is a valiant vision for us to have as a department and as an organization. So there's two strategic goals that I was considering and looking at as I studied the CLA report and have entered into that position. First of all, we really need to focus on our folks and our people and have them perform as a team and to be high functioning and serve the organization as professionals. And that is something that I'm really excited about being able to provide that guidance for the team that exists and that I truly believe that we're moving in the right direction. The second part is that the Human Resources Department should really serve as a strategic and operational partner to all the departments for the city and there's processes in place so that we can become able to do that. Part of that is regaining the trust of my fellow colleagues. So again, looking at the action plan, there's really this two-pronged approach to create and nurture this team that I have and they're really good people and they've worked really hard and we're moving together. And we're looking at using the values that the city has. We have awesome values, we have a great mission and to really use that to embed those behaviors and actions into the way that we behave as a team and how we serve our community. I always say that we're the customer service department for the city and we need to look at that and share that viewpoint. And then the other piece and there's a lot of work to the second piece is to build a strong operational foundation for our department. As you have looked at that report, there are a lot of pieces that we need not a lot of opportunities to work on. But we are again moving in the right direction. So just wanted to share where we're at since July actually. So we're looking at team development and having weekly team meetings, one-on-one meetings. We've revised the job purposes. I sat with each of my team members to look at where we're at. There's a lot of things that are happening within each of these elements. But here's my July slide, sorry. Looking at, we hired a new administrative services clerk to kind of a merge of a position from the AP accounts payable clerk that had been in the finance department. We really believe that that could be served by a part-time position and then we could have some of that role be serving human resources. So that position came over to the human resources department and we hired Christina Lepto. She's been a breath of fresh air for the department. She's super engaged. She's got a lot of energy to help with process improvement. That's her background. And so then we had Todd Wolfe as the new city administrator. He certainly has set goals for us and has put us into action a lot with the things that we're doing. One of the things we did within the first week that he was here is we had a team meeting with that was about two and a half hours working on team building, seeing his vision, his opportunity to speak to the team as the administrator rather than as a council member. I think that set a new tone for us. Introduced the team to him and also set a strategy and a vision for how we're going to move ahead. And I think the team itself is very excited about having that sense of direction. So following that we had one-on-one meetings or I did with each of my team members. We reviewed their job purposes. We were gonna make some changes to those as well as then set some goals. That is something that I think is new for them that they hadn't really had an opportunity to dream a little bit. And I think that's exciting as well. And then as far as looking at the second, if you look at the second part of that action plan that there's a lot of foundational things and we needed to pick something to start with. So we're looking at process improvement through the payroll system that causes some conflicts once in a while with accuracy or timeliness and that's something that I know that we can affect change on. So we've had a payroll audit done. We're looking at the payroll change notices. So that's that form that we use to notify payroll when something needs to happen and looking at our pay grades and the schedule for that. So there's been a lot of things that have happened. We're still reorganizing the department. There's still some changes yet that will come as far as what roles will happen. We're expanding roles and the team is excited about that. And we're looking at, I did do a presentation for the department heads so that they also know that we're making progress and what that's going to look like. And so I wanted to share this with you as well. That's all. Any questions? Seeing none, thank you very much for that presentation, Vicki, and for the great work you're doing in the HR department. Next we'll go on to Mayor's announcements. The city is in the beginning stages of the Armory Demolition Project. We signed a contract with Best Enterprises. But we'd like to help the community preserve the memories that the Armory has brought us over the years. So we invite residents to share their stories and memories of the Armory at armorystories.com. Do you ever find memory of special experience or a unique item related to the Armory that you want to preserve? The city's requesting residents submit these stories on the Armory.com website now through September 6th of 2020. The public submissions will be viewable to the public through July of 2021. Our summer street construction schedule is in full swing. We have a number of different types of project. First of all, there's street resurfacing projects that are done by our DPW crew. And then we have contracted street resurfacing projects and then contracted street reconstruction. Some of the projects under the resurfacing projects are the DPW crew, our Seaman Avenue, North 21st to 24th Street, North 10th Street from Erie to Superior, Martin Avenue from North 15th Street to North 18th Street, and North 18th Street from Martin Avenue to Calumet Drive. And if time allows, the DPW is hoping they can still squeeze in a resurfacing project at Park Avenue along Valrath Park. Our contracted street resurfacing project is Gilly Avenue, Calumet Drive to North 23rd Street. And then some of our contracted street reconstruction is around the Cochle Tannery Building that would be Superior Avenue from Taylor Drive to North 29th Street, Maryland Avenue, South 10th Street to South 11th Street, Illinois Avenue, South 10th to South 11th, and South 11th Street, Maryland Avenue to Illinois Avenue. And then we also worked hard on our railroad crossings of the Union Pacific Railroad, and new crossings have been installed at Broadway Avenue, Nyack Road, Martin Avenue, Calumet Avenue, Wildwood Avenue, Indiana Avenue, South 12th Street, Greenfield Avenue, New Jersey Avenue, and South Taylor Drive. The resurfacing plan was financed with road aids funding from the state of Wisconsin, portions of a garbage fee, funding from the city capital improvements program, and Sheboygan County sales tax revenue, and also the vehicle registration fee and some items in the DPW operating budget. And funding from the also, we had funding from the city housing and urban development budget allocation. About one third of the street resurfacing projects will be done by the DPW department staff, having the public works employees using an asphalt paving machine along with purchasing asphalt from Sheboygan County Highway Department, which results in overall lower costs for street repair and ultimately allows the department to repair more miles of streets. You may have noticed that the South Breakwater Repair Project is going on. In December of 2019, Michaels Corporation was subcontracted by the US Army Corps of Engineers to perform the marine construction scopes work on the South Breakwater Repair Project. The breakwater extends into Lake Michigan and is a crucial safeguard for our harbor. Within the scope of phase one, Michaels Construction will install 2,500 feet of internally braced steel sheet piles inside the walls created with the new sheeting. 7,000 tons of fillstone will be added. The outer perimeter of the sheeting will be further protected by another 2,000 tons of scourstone and the new breakwater will receive a concrete cap that is 30 feet wide and one foot taller than the existing structure. Work commenced in April of 2020 and has excellent progress has been made in substantial completion for summer of 2021. Now, this is only gonna do from the harbor entrance to about halfway into the land and then the US Corps of Engineers is expected to soon bid the phase two project then contract for the remaining section of the South Pier reconstruction. This is our COVID update for Monday, July 20th. First of all, let's review the numbers in comparison to last week. So last week we had 566 positive cases. We went up 125 cases to 691 as of today. And that's the highest increase that we've seen in a week since the COVID started. We have 178 active cases. This is down 14 from last week. We have 505 cases that have recovered. That's an increase of 136 cases from last week. We're standing still with three persons in the community that are hospitalized. And unfortunately we had four more deaths in the last week. We went from four deaths up to eight. The negative test count has increased by 1,672 to a total of 20,660 tests. And the percentage of positive tests, the total test went up about a third of a percentage point from 2.89 to 3.2. Sheboygan County Public Health Officials released the Sheboygan County Safe Restart Recommendation Plan to reopen that included strong controls for businesses and residents. We continue to be in phase two of that plan which says that businesses as they open need to follow the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation's best practices and sanctions specific to their sector. The Mead Library and other city buildings including City Hall have instituted a mandatory mask policy to enter public areas of these city buildings. Masks will be provided at the entrances if needed. Now last Friday, Governor Evers declared a public health emergency and signed emergency order number one relating to preventing rather the spread of COVID-19 by requiring them wearing a mask at indoor and outdoor public spaces where people congregate. Sheboygan County law enforcement agencies including the Sheboygan Police Department will utilize this order as an educational tool and they're asking citizens and visitors of the county to voluntarily comply with this order. As the COVID-19 numbers have dramatically increased, the food truck gathering that has taken place at Valrath Park and is an event where little social distancing had taken place and caused concerns. The vendors have approved the plan and how they could address the lack of social distancing at this gathering to make it safer. The food truck vendors have agreed to changes to make this popular event safer for those attending. Their plan includes vendor staff that have direct contact with food preparation and customers will be masked. Signs and cones or markers at order lines to set up six feet apart at each truck to encourage social distancing. Each truck should post instructions on when to return for pickup to discourage people gathering, waiting for their order to be done and hand sanitizer should be available at each truck. It was also welcome to see many of our commercial businesses in the community taking action to require masks while shoppers conduct business at their facilities. It's good to see that they recognize the role they can play to help protect the health and wellbeing of the community they serve by following the evolving guidance of health officials. So remember to wear your mask, slow the spread of coronavirus in Sheboygan. Next, we'll continue with the consent agenda. That'll include items 2.2 through 2.10. All the persons sorenson. Thank you, Mayor. I move to receive and file all ROs, receive all reports of the committee and adopt all resolution and ordinances. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on any of the items in the consent agenda? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll for passage. Alderperson Felicky Paneski. Alderperson Felicky Paneski, are you there? 10 ayes. Motion passes. Under reports of officers item 3.1 is RO number 43 of 2021 by the Board of Water Commissioners request the withdrawal of preliminary resolution under resolution number 157 of 1920, adopted February 17th of 2020, and resolution number 178 of 1920, adopted on March 6th of 2020, due to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission's approval of a lead service line replacement program utilizing grant and loans from the Sheboygan Water Utility rather than assessments. Alderperson Sorenson. Thank you, Mayor. I move to receive and file the RO. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll for passage. Alderperson Felicky Paneski, 10 ayes. Motion passes. Items 3.2 and 3.4 will be referred to various committees under resolutions. Item number 4.1 is resolution number 61 of 2021 by Alderperson Sorenson, Donahue, authorizing entering into a consent and estoppel certificate on behalf of the city of Sheboygan regarding the Oscar Apartments Project. Alderperson Sorenson. Thank you, Mayor. I move to suspend the rules and adopt the resolution. Is there any objection to suspension? Is there a second? Second. Please proceed. I move to adopt the resolution. Second. Is there any discussion on the motion? This is Alderman Bourne. I have a question for either Chad or Attorney Adams. Go ahead. I read over the agreement over the weekend when I was preparing for the meeting and the question I have, it looks like what we're doing here is just assuring the bank of certain things that both parties have to do. One thing I had a question on in the agreement, does this create any more exposure for the city in case of a loan that the loan doesn't get paid back?  To answer your question, Alderman Bourne, it does not. This is a, we have a pay-as-you-go TIF incentive on this project. So if they don't create the increment, that's their issue, I should say. This estoppel is basically us taking a lesser position in their financing order, but unlike a lot of the projects that we've done, this is on private property that they own. So it's not like it's a city-owned property that we're worried about the financing going sour and having to lose out on some future development because they already own that property. Thank you. And then if... There are some minor things that are a little bit different than the previous agreement are really not particularly substantive. It may require us to give extra days of notice for some things, but that's about it. And if I can just add a general comment for the older persons, this is the last piece of the puzzle to try to, they're closing on their funding on August 14th. They've been in our office already, getting ready to pull building permits and they're gonna start construction on this project in September. So this financing is for $31 million to fund that project. Thank you for those comments. Is there any other discussion? Seeing none, would the clerk please call the roll. All other person, Feliki Paneski? 10 ayes. Motion passes. Item 4.2 is resolution number 62 of 2021 by Alderperson Sorenson and Donahue, repealing resolution number 157 of 1920 and resolution number 178 of 1920 regarding assessments for the installation of new water mains and or laterals in Gilea Avenue from Kelley-Mitt Drive to North 23rd Street. Alderperson Sorenson. Thank you, Mayor. I move that we suspend the rules. Is there any objection to suspension? Seeing none, please proceed. Thank you, Mayor. I move for approval of the resolution. Is there a second? Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll. All other person, Feliki Paneski? 10 ayes. Motion passes. Item 4.3 is resolution number 63 of 2021 by Alderperson Sorenson and Phillips, establishing a temporary polling location for the August 11th, 2020 election for awards 15, 20 and 21 in the city of Sheboygan. Alderperson Sorenson. Thank you, Mayor. I move that we suspend the rules. Is there any objection to suspension? Seeing none, please proceed. Thank you, Mayor. I move that we adopt the resolution. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion? Mayor Alderdonahue here. Go ahead. I just wanted to express my appreciation and I expect everyone to merit it for so diligently seeking out another accessible polling location. Again, I think Meredith has gone way above and beyond and the voters are in a better position as a result of that. So just wanted to say thanks. Thank you for those comments. Is there any other discussion? Would the clerk please call the roll? Alderperson Flicky Paneski, 10 ayes. Motion passes. Under reports, rather items 4.4 through 4.8 will be referred to various committees. And under reports of committees, item 5.1 is RC number 102 of 2021 by the Licensing Hearings and Public Safety Committee to whom was referred, RO number 25 of 2021 by the city clerk submitting various license applications and wishes to report that at its meeting on July 29th of 2020, your committee voted to conditionally recommend that the common council not renew the beverage operators license number 7460 held by Stephanie M. Garcia. Alderperson Sorensen. Thank you, Mayor. I move to receive the report of the committee and deny the application. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion? We should determine whether Ms. Garcia appeared at the meeting and wishes to speak if she does have that right. No, she has not appeared. Thank you. So you know discussion with the clerk, please call the roll. Alderperson Flicky Paneski, 10 ayes. Motion passes. Item 5.2 is RC number 103 of 2021 by the Public Works Committee to whom was referred resolution number 59 of 2021 by Alderperson Sorensen and Decker, authorizing the appropriate city officials to execute a memorandum of understanding with advocate Aurora regarding the terms and understandings between the parties with regard to the location, construction and fiscal responsibilities for the infrastructure improvements associated with the development of a new advocate Aurora Hospital located in the parcel Northwest intersection of Taylor Drive and Union Avenue and recommends adopting the resolution with amendments to the memorandum of understanding to insert new section one, which clarifies that Aurora Healthcare Inc. is entering into this agreement on behalf of all related entities to insert an additional sheet to the grave plans and to account for the estimated cost of $110,345 related to that sheet and to make certain grammatical revisions. Alderperson Sorensen, rather, yeah, Sorensen. Thank you, Mayor. I move to receive the RC and adopt the resolution with the amendments to the MOU. Thank you for that motion and support, Mr. Mayor. Go ahead, Alderperson Sorensen. I move to amend the MOU so as to update Exhibit A as to include the most recent and final set of Union Avenue scope breakout drawings, which a copy has been added to board docs and to update Exhibit B as to include the breakdown of project and city costs, but eliminate the quote neighboring property impacts end quote. These claims also eliminate the need as part of the MOU to account for the estimated cost of $110,000 in $345 for the extension of the length of sanitary sewers, which project will be done by the city separately from the larger project provided as in the MOU. Is there a second? Thank you for that amendment. Is there any discussion on the amendment? Alderman Boran.  A question for David Bebel. David, does that $110,345 go on the city's tab or is that on Aurora's tab? I really not clear on that. That's correct, Alderman Boran. That $110,000 was always part of the city's cost contribution towards this project. It was just a matter of how it was going to be constructed and funded as part of the MOU that is before you tonight. And instead of trying to attach it to the larger project, we're just gonna pull that off and still continue it. But it was always necessary and always an expense as part of the project. Any followup, Alderperson Boran? Is there any other discussion on the motion? Seeing none, will vote on the amendment or the clerk, I think I can do roll call. All those in favor? I still need a clarification on that. What's the question? My question is then does that $110,345 is that part of the $607,000 or is that an additional $110,000 above the $600,000? Yeah, it is in addition to that $660,000 because this improvement is actually going to be part of the improvement to extend sanitary sewer for future connection for the acuity, future additions. So it's a necessary as part of that agreement with acuity. I also, Mayor, I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank Director Bebel for this association with Aurora Healthcare for securing Aurora Healthcare, paying that $4.9 million. And it's my understanding from talking to Director Bebel about this last week, prior to that, the city share was going to be in excess of a million dollars but by Director Bebel and the city's team sticking to their guns, the amount is substantially less than it was going to be. So again, I want to thank Director Bebel and his team for his excellent negotiation on this, on behalf of the taxpayers of the city of Sheboygan. Thank you for those comments. Is there any other discussion on the motion or the amendment? Very well. Well, all those in favor of the amendment as presented, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Opposed? Motion, amendment passes. Then I'll need a motion to approve as amended. Move to approve as amended. Is there a second? Okay, we have a motion to approve as amended. Is there any other discussion on that motion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll for passage? Alderperson Feliki Panasky, 10 ayes. Motion passes. Item 5.3 is RC number 104 of 2021 by the Licensing, Hearings and Public Safety Committee to whom was referred General Ordinance number nine of 2021 by Alderperson Sorenson and Decker. Amending section 26 of dash 147 of the municipal code relating to the classifications and license registration fees for contractors. So as to add a classification for carpenter, accessory contractors, remove a classification for registered business owner contractors and make minor modifications to the type of work that may be performed by each contractor classification and recommends adopting the ordinance. Alderperson Sorenson. Thank you, Mayor. I move to receive the report of the committee and adopt the ordinance. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll for passage? Alderperson Feliki Panasky, 10 ayes. Motion passes. Next, we'll go on to General Ordinances, items 6.1 and 6.2, but we refer to various committees. Other matters authorized by law, I'll turn it over to our city attorney, Charles Adams. 7.1 is an RO by the city clerk submitting various license applications for the period ending April 14, 2021, June 30, 2021, and June 30, 2022. That'll be referred to the license hearing and public safety committee. Next is a contemplated closed session. Alderperson Sorenson. Thank you, Mayor. I move to convene into closed session under exemption provided in section 19.851E under Wisconsin State Statutes, where competitive bargaining sessions require a closed session related to the possible financial guarantees for development opportunity in the proposed innovation district adjacent to Indiana Avenue and South Commerce Street. Thank you for that motion and support. Will the clerk please call the roll for closed session? Alderperson Feliki Panasky, 10 ayes. Motion passes. Council will take a short two-minute recess. We will be adjourning in closed session, so this will end our broadcast for this evening. Thank you very much and have a good night.


Whose grandma is that? What is up, everyone? It is scary tiktok time and quick shout out to everybody that was in the live stream yesterday All right, so let's begin with lights are off What's the deer doing and He's dead just like that. That's why I don't go to it was bro holy crap Dude run Okay, wait wait wait it actually says this is actual gameplay from the video game Oh, yeah lights are off has been actually been working on a video game for a long time And apparently this is gameplay from his game some footage As we all know that's like his main character that cat figure and as we've seen he's made it quite horrific All right the next to god reality jump. We're gonna watch some real life stuff right now. Just that let's get these out of the way The heck is this man Why is it so disturbing? Why does the strawberry have an eye? I just want to poke it, you know like squeeze it in Okay, what is this? My god, why is he he's flickering it as fast as the light is bro So it's pretty much like a flicker monster Wait, so if you turn off the light will he just vanish the end is near Yo, that boy hitting it though. He's getting down. Oh Wait, what? Why is he dancing like celebrating that the earth is gonna end Well, okay, we're on horror talk. Let's see. It says how long can you watch? I mean she's like kind of bad, bro. Okay, he's in me or she's getting creepier Dude her eyes and her smile is getting bigger wider Okay, she didn't age very well nevermind don't call me anymore That is creepy Look at her face Looking like a hobo you see outside is 7 11 man. Okay dog dog hit cop movie Oh, no way It kind of does look like a real baby I don't know. I think he was moving it with his arm though. Look I don't know. I don't know man that demonic stuff get out of here Okay, so it's like gazelle escapes hyena and cheetah my plane dead I guess this is the horror The horror side Mother nature dude. He's like nibbled on him. There it goes. See you later sucker And he's out. Hey, that's pretty smart man. Sometimes you just gotta play dead oddly terrifying Wait, what? Oh, it's raccoons But that's so sad, dude. I thought they were like I thought it was a bunch of kids down there trying to reach up for food But apparently it is raccoons and if you look closely in the cracks, you can't you could see a raccoon's face But that's still pretty messed up. Like why do they got them all trapped there bro? What? She seems to be captured as a person running on all fours at three. Yeah Oh, heck no man. He must have had a Long night at the bar if he's walking home like that. All right. Everybody sees me walking. Glitches in real life Okay, it doesn't look like it's moving, but although it seems it is moving. It's just like it's like an optical illusion You let's say You can see the banner clearly moving there bro. Come on. Come on girl I don't think I want to sit anymore Why does the chair have a face that is creepy? Okay, he was hiking when they saw thousands of fish in the middle of nowhere Wait, I think I heard about this I mean, I would collect them bro, and then you know you got plenty of fish to eat for the rest of the year Just like that you ain't gotta waste money on food anymore That is pretty insane Who's there with the freak? It's a freaking grizzly bear Yo, I would I mean It is kind of huggable. I wouldn't be terrified. I would I would slightly be scared Okay, that's terrifying Yo, what? Oh heck no, man Dude imagine you get stung by one of those Like your life is over bro Jeffrey Dahmer be like several killers and saw these glasses and we're like yo Even though I haven't seen that Jeffrey Dahmer. It's like everywhere. There's the memes left and right Just took over Okay, did you know according to some old men's birthmarks show where you got killed in your last life? I've heard about this before But who knows if it's true or not and I don't have any birthmarks. Oh, I haven't died yet This is my first life. I still got two more to go skin walker unsettling videos Bro, he's just vibing bro Man just asking where the heck did the rest of the sheep go And like where the rest of the goats am I the only goat left out here? Okay headless fish walking vibing in the what? Dude the legit has no head What the f*** The patient's bed after they passed away Okay, why is it there's gotta be something under that? I don't believe it I mean it is terrifying, but there has to be something under that sheet That is madness now. We're on real horror talk Bearing me with a bell Okay, I hear like a scream or something bro They just want to get out bro. Just open the door, you know just let them out animals. You don't want to make part three hungry bears Yeah, I don't think anybody would want to cross a hungry bear at all Bro sniffing her leg and everything beefy kangaroos Yo, why is he so buff bro?  Evil neighbors What are those possums?  Heck no Okay, time to move now Oh heck not man. It's some sort of ritual Get the heck out of there, man. Maybe they just feed them. That's how you just go there They look kind of friendly to me Okay, don't look it in the eye Bro, what? Is that NBA young boys dog?  He was just flexing the entire time. She was scared to tip Dude that is creepy He's just dancing What? That's a scary dog That's a scary mask. He's like blends in with his skin and everything I would be terrified to tip him too Imagine he just starts chasing you Heck no, baby. I'm out. I think that means go away. Go away It's gotta be in florida, bro Maybe Ohio Dude, it looks scary Look at his teeth He don't be making them beats though Why did people just record it? That's kind of messed up That was close Wow, they're wilded, bro Remind me not to go to Australia Dude pull the car over open the window so I can fly out No, I think I would have just jumped out the car window myself No way He's getting closer to them Surprised I didn't get a car accident, man The way they were reacting Bees old bub gives his best He tells what bees would have do bro I think they're bees, but there's some sort. Oh my god. He's sweeping them, bro. What the I don't know that he's gotta be the real candy man When you're too good at your job He does look kind of creepy Give that man a raise come on He's very dedicated to his job Well, those were some scary tiktok shout out to all the pages with their amazing content and I'll see you guys in the next one peace