Okay, so we are going to play a little bit of a game. So I'm going to read you a quote and then I want you to guess who said it. Here's the quote. You can never be woke enough. That's the problem. It keeps going. It keeps going further and further and further down the line. And if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it'll eventually get to straight white men who are not allowed to talk. So the question is, who is it that said this? Is it A, Bill O'Reilly, former Fox News host, B, Rush Limbaugh, dead radio show host, or C, Joe Rogan, host of the Joe Rogan Experience on Spotify? I'll give you a few seconds to kind of think it over, guess who said it. And here's the answer. You can never be woke enough. That's the problem. It keeps going. It keeps going further and further and further down the line. If you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it will eventually get to straight white men who are not allowed to talk, because it's your privilege to express yourself when other people of color have been silenced throughout history. It will be you're not allowed to go outside because so many people were imprisoned for so many years. I mean, I'm not joking. No, I know. I know. It really will get there. It's that crazy. Yeah. We just got to be nice to each other, man. And there's a lot of people that are taking advantage of this weirdness in our culture, and then that becomes their thing. Their thing is calling people out for their privilege, calling people out for their position.  I'm sure that the irony is completely lost on him, because as right wing cope on Twitter points out, he's complaining about straight white men eventually not being able to talk while he as a straight white man was paid $100 million from Spotify literally to talk.  It's actually straight white men like Joe Rogan, who are the real victims in American society. Definitely think that Joe Rogan is the victim. I'm sure that every day he cries himself to sleep in his mansion because of how much of a victim he is.  I mean, this is this is clearly idiotic. And the reason why at the beginning of the video, I, you know, made you guess between who actually said this is because Joe Rogan sounds a lot like a lot of right wing ideologues who say the same thing, who propagate this claim that actually it's it's white men who are the victims in America, not marginalized communities, not American workers. So Owen Higgins on Twitter shared two articles that sound eerily similar to what Joe Rogan is saying here. Bill O'Reilly complained that the left, aka the woke mob wants power taken away from the white establishment and now dead radio show host Rush Limbaugh claimed that white privilege is a liberal construct. And now we have Joe Rogan, a supposedly apolitical self identified idiot, saying the same thing basically parroting the same points that right wing ideologues have been making for decades. It's just a new package and a new person saying the same thing that we've been hearing. And honestly, I wasn't necessarily that taken aback by Joe Rogan saying this because I didn't necessarily think that he was being literal, right? And even his guest laughed because he didn't necessarily think that Joe Rogan was being serious as he complained about straight white men not being allowed to talk. But he confirmed he was serious. He said, no, I'm not joking. It really will get there. So he confirmed that his argument was in fact literal. He believes it is literally the case that we'll get to a point where straight white men won't be allowed to talk. You're supposed to cede all of your talking time to marginalized communities. He doesn't even persuasively argue against the straw man that he created. What marginalized communities want, the demands that they're asking for. And I don't know if he had a particular group in mind. He often shits on trans people, so maybe he was talking about them. But what people want isn't to replace white people at the top of the social hierarchy. What they're calling for is the abolition of the social hierarchy altogether so there can be equality.  They don't want to make you a second class citizen. They just want equality. That's literally all that they want. By and large, civil rights movements are always criticized in this way. It's just that the argument changes a little bit. You use synonyms for words that they used before. I mean, do you think that in the civil rights era, conservatives back then or apolitical people were thinking, wow, these black Americans who are calling for an anti-segregation, they seem perfectly reasonable and I don't think that this is going to make me a second class citizen. No. Whites literally argued that if blacks got equal rights, that would be discrimination against them. We still see this argument shrouded out against the LGBTQ community. Just a couple of weeks ago, I covered a segment from Mike Huckabee's program where he claimed that the Equality Act isn't actually about equality. Actually it's about subjugating Christian Americans to second class citizenship because if they're no longer allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ people, they are therefore being discriminated against. They're the new people who are the victims.  But here we are. Joe Rogan is continuing down this path of being just a full-blown conservative right-winger. It's pretty sad, but what's really sad is the fact that he has influence on a lot of people. I don't necessarily care about Joe Rogan's political ideology. He's a multi-millionaire. If you have more than $100 million, then I think you're going to be out of touch that just comes with the money. But what's sad is that people still take Joe Rogan seriously. So people who are apolitical or don't necessarily know better, they might actually be persuaded by Joe Rogan's argument because he's the one making the argument. When Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly makes this argument, people can easily deduce that these are right-wing talking heads. They're hacks. They're not objective. But when Joe Rogan says that, they think, oh, well, Joe Rogan's saying it. So it must be true. And it's pretty sad. All that marginalize people are asking for is to be treated with dignity, be treated with respect and be given equal rights, not more rights than anyone else. Nobody is making this argument. So whatever woke mob he's referring to, again, we don't have the full context. I don't know what group in particular he was referring to. Perhaps he was reacting to an article or a particular protest. I don't know. But still overall, for him to say that it's literally going to be the case that straight white men won't be allowed to talk in this country while he gets paid a hundred million dollars to talk. I mean, how can anyone take him seriously after this? The answer is they should not. And Joe Rogan is a f***ing clown.


which was kind of the popular agile method back then. And over the years now, over the last nine years, we have done over 50 conferences, and the idea has always been to kind of spread the awareness about agile methods and kind of reach out to practitioners and to network with them. And I'm extremely thankful to our friend Vinod, who I can't see anymore. I think he's outside, who actually helped us put this conference together. So I'll quickly run through some of the things that we will give some background about the conference, and then we'll get started with Venkat who's already here, his keynote. How many people here, just so I can get a sense of who's in the audience? How many people here have attended any other agile conference before? Quick show of hands. So that's good to see a lot of new people, which is fantastic. What we'll do is, we'll start with a quick activity so everyone can kind of break the ice a little bit and then warm up. So we are ready for Venkat session. What I want you to do is, talk to your neighbor, any one neighbor and ask them, what is their favorite agile practice? Each of you can share with each other, what's your favorite agile practice and why. All right, that I think is good. So everyone's got to know what your neighbor's favorite agile practices. Next, what I want you to do is turn to the other neighbors. If you spoke to the person who's sitting on the left, now turn to the right and speak to that person and ask them, what is their worst agile practice? Which practice they hate the most? You need to speak to someone else, not the same person. If you spoke to the person on the left, then you need to speak to the person on the right now. If you're sitting in the corner, then you need to go somewhere behind and find someone. I hear daily scrum a lot. If you spoke to the person on the right, they said practice X is their favorite practice. And then you spoke to the person on your left and they said that's the worst practice they experienced. Anyone's experienced polarity here? One person, all right. So what was that? Retrospectives. So one person said retrospective is their favorite, that's the best practice. Another person said that, all right, interesting. Anybody else? Yes, please. So the person on your right said daily stand-up is their favorite practice, while the other person said it's the worst practice. When it's done daily, that's a point, right? Daily stand-ups. We expect about 127 people, at least 127 people have registered for the conference, and from 34 different companies, this is actually fantastic, right? I mean, we have quite a bit of a variety of people who are gonna be coming to this conference, and if you look at the, understand and listen from other people's perspective, other people's experience, what it is to be at the beginning of this agile adoption cycle, right? Let's quickly look at some of our speakers. Do you guys recognize any of these guys in the picture? Some of them are sitting there in the back. We have some people sitting here. So you'll get to meet these speakers, and this is basically our program over the next, so this is today's program. I hope everyone's got the program sheet in your kits. You have a had a look at it. So we'll be starting with Venkat's keynote, and then we will do the agile boot camp, and then split into two rooms. So post lunch, track one will continue here, and track two, we will go to Malabar in a session, where you're not getting value or not contributing value, right? So for example, if you're sitting in this boring session right now, and you don't think you're getting any value out of it, then you need to use your two feet and take yourself to a place where you'll find more value. It is not rude to get up in between a talk and leave. Is that clear? Of course, you don't want to disturb everyone while you leave, so if you can leave silently, that's great. So because we'll be having two tracks, you'll be able to find another track where you can meet other people. If nothing else is happening, you can hang out outside, and maybe you will find other people who have similar thought process that it's a very boring session, right? I want to go, it will exactly match your expectation, which is why we say you are investing two days of your valuable time over here, and it is your responsibility to make sure you get maximum out of it. Is everyone okay with the law of two feet? It's very important that you practice the law of two feet. Every conference we run, and when we take feedback, people say this was the best thing we actually knew about the conference, right? So sometimes you find yourself in a session that might not be exactly what you're looking for, then you go find another session where you get value. Don't sit there and not twiddle your thumbs, because that's not what we are here for. I would quickly like to thank our sponsors, without whom this conference would have not been possible. So we have UVG Tech, and we have Cubust. Both of them have really helped us put this conference together. We also have Macafe and USD, who supported us to run this conference, so we greatly appreciate your support, thank you. This is quickly our team who put together this conference. I guess most of you might have already met Vinod or no Vinod.  So I met Vinod at Agile India 2012 conference, which is our global conference that happens in Bangalore, and Vinod said, you know, why don't we have this conference in Kerala? And 2013, he asked the same question again. And we said, well, if you want to do a conference in Kerala, you need to take an initiative. You need to do something, because we need someone at the ground to take some initiative. Along the way, we also had Manoj, who joined our team, who played, so Vinod is kind of the program chair. He was essentially this conference chair, who was essentially responsible for the whole conference. Last night he was here. I think he's not slept now for a week. Putting a conference like this is a lot of effort. Along the way, we also got Manoj, who joined us as a program chair, and he was essentially responsible for working with the speakers, going through the selection process, which took about two months to select the speakers and all of that stuff, right? So it's a fairly intense process. We have a few volunteers who are present here, helping us with all the logistics. So if you see them, do thank them. We also had a big review team from different companies who essentially reviewed the papers that were put in, and then did the selection of the speakers, spoke to the speakers to make sure they just don't write good stuff, but they also can present stuff. So all of that stuff went in to put this conference together. Because this is the first conference, without folks like these who have actually supported us, who have personally gone and helped us promote this conference inside their companies, outside their companies, without their support, I think this conference would have not been possible. So if you see them here, please do thank them, or if you belong to one of these companies, do thank them. Originally, we did have plans to give conference t-shirts, so probably some of you who have filled in the registration form would have filled in the t-shirt sizes and things like that. But as you understand, this is a non-profit conference that we run privately through people's money, and then the sponsor's money. We were hoping we would get sponsors for the t-shirt we did not, so we apologize, there are no t-shirts. That's pretty much it from my side. So I would hope that the next two days would be a really fruitful time for you to learn and network with people and share your experience as well. And we're all here, so let's make the best out of what we have. Thank you again. And I would call upon Venkat, who is our keynote speaker, who's flown all the way from Chennai and before that Sri Lanka and before that London and before that US, to come here to give this talk. It's an honor to have Venkat. He's one of the best speakers if you've interacted with him, or as you will get to see. So over to you Venkat.


The audience filled the lobby of Saucibo's fleet fitness complex in anticipation of the Sesame Street USO experience. The show introduced Katie, the child of a service member who is moving from Sesame Street to a new home as one of her parents is PCS-ing to a new command. I think it's a great opportunity for families to have something to talk to their kids about, a way to have that conversation. Moving is a pretty regular part of a lot of their lives. So being able to start that conversation when they're young and helping your kids cope with some of the stresses that go and this is presenting a character that they can identify with and relate with. While many of the kids were energized by the song and dance show, everyone in attendance left more prepared to address a difficult aspect of life in a military family. Petty Officer Michael Sanchez, Fleet Activity Saucibo, Japan.


Elmerie asks, hi, I'll just a question, just a question. I want to have learners, so I'm thinking this is teams education sector. I want to have learners complete a questionnaire in a fillable PDF document through teams. What is the best way to do this? Creating an assignment, et cetera, or is there another way? There's always another way. There is. Multiple other ways. Is a fillable PDF ever the right way? I don't think so. You can't do much off the back of it, really. It's like, I always have those questions. We get a question and then I have a question, why? Well, if I just think about that too, to your point, 50 students, let's say, two one or two classes, whatever it is, 50 students and then I have to dig through 50 PDFs to find the responses. Personally, I would be creating a Microsoft form and just dropping a form in and filling out a form. And then on the back end, at least it goes into Excel and it makes it much easier for you to mark and work with. And each one of those can be seen as a, yeah, I don't know, unless they need to be. I think that the downside would be, because with assignments, each one can be individually saved, marked, and then the student can actually draw it down to their desktop as an actual document. So it always comes down to what are they trying to do with it afterwards? Because if that's the case, then doing a form might not be the way to go. So creating an assignment, yes, but a PDF assignment. Yeah, it comes down, but there's also the issue of integration here. I mean, what other systems are they trying to make this work with?  So, but yeah. Yeah. It's clearly it. The products that they have, who knows what they have. And an Adobe would be one, if you don't even have the Adobe functionality, then doing a feelable PDF is not gonna work. Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, my thought is that you're gonna want to aggregate the data, depending on the questions that you have, doing it as a form, be able to look at that. You still have the ability to go in and look at individuals. You can even automate that. You could create that so that you get a notification of all of the people that have not yet completed the form. So there's things that you can do that are pretty simple that are still a lot easier than managing that many PDFs. Well, what about even using OneNote? Because each student can have its own page and they're filling it in on the page and then that can actually still be saved as a document afterwards. It comes down to, I think, the fields. Or are they better off to have a Word document that's got physical fields in it that they have to then fill in that you could put in and maybe do it as a Word document and do it that way. For me, it comes down to the fillable PDF means fields, very specific thing, an area that they want them to drop an answer into. And there's so many other solutions apart from a PDF that might work better. Which is easy. The creation of the form is the easier part. It's what do you want to do with the data afterwards? Yeah, yeah, we'll put it.  Like if I were going to include like an essay question or something, maybe I want the PDF. Maybe I want to have those as a standalone thing. I can print them out, grade them and hand them back or whatever. I mean, there's, again, what is the output? What are you actually trying to achieve? Because there's a number of different ways that you can achieve that, most of which, if it's all going to be electronic, I would never do the PDF, the fillable PDF. I would do a form. Yeah. Ask away, Christian. Okay.


Hello and welcome to CCTV's Channel 17 Town Meeting Television. I'm Matt Kelly with another live candidate forum on today's show. We'll be speaking with Kate Webb and Jessica Bromsted, Democratic State Representatives from Chittenden County Districts 5-1 and 5-2. Welcome to you both. Our forum begins with opening statements from each candidate and then as each candidate is uncontested in their respective races, we're just going to have a conversation over some serious topics that are facing the state of Vermont from water quality of our lakes, rivers and streams, our opiate epidemic and many other issues facing the legislature. So we'll begin with you, Kate, with your opening statement. It's an opportunity for you to say why you're running for reelection and talk about some of the accomplishments you've achieved in your previous run. I have been in the legislature for ten years and during that time I worked on one of my passions which was environmental issues, particularly related to water quality. During my first six to eight years, I was actively involved in the water quality bill that finally came forward in 2014. The following year I decided to switch to my other passion which is children and I decided to bring forth my professional background which is actually in education. I currently serve on the House Education Committee where I am a ranking member. It's my desire to leave behind an environment that is healthy and one in which all children can thrive. I'm very concerned about the conversation at the national level related to public education. I'm a strong believer that public education is at the underpinnings of our democracy and I'm interested in continuing that work. Very good. Kate Webb, thank you so much. Jessica Bromsted, your opening statement as to why you're running for reelection and to speak about some of your accomplishments. So I represent Shelburne and St. George and I've only been in Montpelier for two years so I'm just running for my second session and I'm kind of pleased to not be running against anyone although not having anyone run also means that it erodes a little bit at our democracy. It's nice to have lots of people involved and that's one of the issues that I worked hard on last session was introducing legislation that would improve civics in our country so that we I think there's a lot going on right now that would point to the need for more civics in our schools and even in our family kitchen tables. I know that our family spends a lot of time talking about that. I also worked in the past for Senator Jeffords. I worked for him for 12 years and spent a lot of time working on health care and various other legislative issues and so one of the things that really drew me to running for office is helping people, working with the people in my district and other people throughout Vermont. I enjoy actually going door to door so even though I'm not running against anyone this year I'm already going door to door and learning more from my constituents than really anyone else. It's so interesting to hear all of the things they think are going right and the things they worry about and in my in St. George for example there are four mobile homes and a bunch of those mobile homes are up for sale and so the folks inside of the mobile homes want to form a co-op and participate and be able to really make decisions for their future there and that's been really interesting and so I spent some time last session working with the housing committees on how do we strengthen our laws around housing because this is an affordable housing option that we don't talk a lot about but is happening throughout our country so all of those things I also really am supportive of child care and working hard to find affordable accessible quality child care for zero to three year olds especially we've begun to do a lot of work in three to five but where the zero to three is incredibly important and we know that seventy percent of all Vermont children have parents that both work. Okay you've raised a lot of issues in your opening statement and I want to actually begin with something here that's actually sort of fundamental and you initially touched on it both of you are unchallenged in your respective races does that speak to a candidate apathy that's pervasive in the in the community or is it more that your constituents are very satisfied with the work that you are doing and Kate we'll begin with you I am running my sixth term five of those I've been unopposed so I the first my first one I was opposed I beat an incumbent at that time so I figure either people like what I'm doing they don't feel they can beat me or nobody wants my job and it could be a combination of all of those I stay in close touch with my community I wrote articles for the paper I take I answer my emails the beauty of a small legislative constituency is that I'm accessible and people call me and meet with me. I agree with Kate and I also believe that we have a citizens legislature so we don't pay a lot and so it draws certain people who are able to leave their job for a little while and also represent I think I think that makes a difference there are itself selective because of that to some degree and so it would be nice if we could look closer at why are so many races uncontended and also I think if you have little kids and you live far away you have to essentially move to Montpelier I I think that the weather in Montpelier is shocking to me it seems to always be snowing there even when it isn't back here and for us it's easy to go back and forth but if you live in Wyndham County or all in the Northeast Kingdom you really have to stay there four days a week and so that's a commitment for people so I think it would be interesting to look a little more closely at our citizens legislature do we really have a citizens legislature and what are the things we could do to help? Very good. Just a reminder to our viewers out there we are streaming live online at ch17.tv and you are welcome to dial in and ask a question of either candidate our phone number is 862-3966. Jessica we're going to stick on this topic here and you had talked a little bit about some challenges in the legislature here and one of the things that we had heard earlier was from from some state senators particularly the Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ash has indicated that he thought maybe there should be a four-year term for the governor as a way to sort of change the dynamics of campaigning so that maybe there's an opportunity for a policy to actually get implemented and an opportunity to see if it can work. Your thoughts on that and then we'll follow up with you as well. Yes I think that's a wonderful idea actually and one of the things that I did talk with folks about in my first term when I was running for office and going door to door asking people what are they what would they think about that. People like it they like having a little more continuity in the executive branch a little more ability to really get to know what are the policies that our governor is trying to drive and can he or she have more of an opportunity to push forward things that really matter rather than thinking about what will get me reelected and so I believe that's a good point but the other piece of that I believe is that you also have to look at should we have term limits should we you know in our in our state as far as the governor goes we haven't had long term governors it seems that they are are here it's a hard I think it's a hard job and so maybe that's not necessary but there's a question in general I think about term limits I know in Washington people are talking about it a lot right now and so I think all of that would be a good discussion do you make some parts of the legislative branch or the executive branch have a longer time in between running and then also would we look at whether or not there should be term limits those are those are all really good questions and you hope that the public would be engaged in wanting to talk about it with us. Kate you have been in the legislature a lot longer so I would imagine that you have a different viewpoint or perhaps a little bit more informed of the viewpoint from your years in the legislature a four year term for the governor do you think that's a good idea? I would support a four year term I think it's very much it's a challenge for the governor to set an administration where people are maybe going to be working for 18 months I think it's I think that we saw some of the problems of a four year of a two year term this year in what happened with our budget and education where the governor is coming in at the end of April with cool new ideas and it's really late to come in with that so I am in support of a four year term I do believe that representatives need to remain in a two year term I think it's kind of a mid check that we need if people don't like what the governor is doing then they can often make changes there I would say that I do not necessarily agree with Jessica about term limits I think that voters decide term limits I know every year we have in a body of 150 we can have anywhere from about a quarter of the body will change anyway I think that having the institutional knowledge of people who have been there longer we're losing some institutional knowledge this year that I am really going to be sorry to lose so I think that term limits are set by the voters we're going to continue on that with you Kate and that goes back to legislative priorities and you talked about the governor and the fact that you know he came in with ideas at kind of the last minute maybe too late and what not was that the problem here again that it was a two year term and that it prevented or it caused this funding crisis where was the breakdown that we got you know close to shutting down the state government for the first time in our state's history yeah I think that there are a couple of things one is coming in with a large change very late in the session and the other is just a fundamental difference as to what we do with one time money the legislature and a vote of I think that only there were 17 against it out of 150 agreed that the best thing to do with one time money is you either this is money that's just coming in that one year it's not coming again this is not an increase in revenue this is a one time event that that's best used to pay down debt best used to invest in the future best used to set aside for a rainy day to prepare for a downturn that's what you do in an upterm that's economic 101 and even the conservative Ethan Allen Institute thought that we were correct on that the governor instead chose to stick with his campaign promise of no new taxes no new fees my feeling is that that the property tax is set by voters already in that you vote for your school budget if the budget goes up you're probably going to pay more so I think that he took away that learning that voters needed to have about what it means when they vote for their school budget and what they're seeking for so so Jessica your follow up on this as well the priorities of the governor where was the breakdown and that led us to a near shutdown of the government what were your thoughts I as a new member so I had never had an opportunity to see how it's supposed to work and so it was different that the governor we would we worked pretty hard from January all the way through till spring and then all of a sudden towards the end around late March early April we heard what the budget what the governor had hoped to put forward in the budget and that was that meant a lot of quick learning and the real disappointment for me one of the things I ran on was trying to work together with both parties and we also have the progressive party and the independence and being able to all work together and roll up our sleeves and try and figure out how we're going to do things better and so it was a little disappointing to get it so late that we didn't have that opportunity to really work on things together come up with compromises go back and forth say what do you think about this versus that and really from my work in the past with Senator Jeffords that was one of his biggest pushes always was that he was one of the guys who could work on both sides of the aisle and was always able to come to compromise so it was a disappointing year and even in my first year the same thing happened there was a late budget we were able to pull it together and we didn't end up with such a threat quite as bad of a thrash at the very end but but it was it was difficult and all of my colleagues keep telling me this is never what it's really like honest so I'm going to follow up on that a little bit with you here in that the Democrats in the state legislature are really mounting an effort here to obtain a veto proof majority can you speak to that and in and draw the context to prevent what just happened this past legislative session well I hope that it would be great I would assume to have a super majority I wouldn't know I haven't been there to see how it works how but I understand the concept and I the worry I have is that you don't want to use that if you don't have to you want to be able to work together so that you come up with something that both parties like because it's really not about parties in the end it's about issues and it's about all of the people that we represent and I think most people that you talk to see themselves as an independent for monitor and so we we need to be careful that we don't use that card too easily that we have to be sure that we are getting to a place that works for both for everyone in Vermont and I I believe that that is could be a little more difficult when you know that you have that you have that ability so we will have to be more I hope what it means is we'll work a lot harder to get it right the first time and feel really good about what we do and the Republicans will feel really good about that too so that there won't be a veto because they're what they'll realize that we really did work together on this and we're trying to make this the best we can for Vermont veto proof majority is that the best for Vermont Kate Webb that's a challenging thing to answer I don't think that it's ever good to have it have it such that that is the case unless you have circumstances in which things that are happening are really being forced through and then you need someone to really hold the line and say no bear in mind that the budget we passed was supported by all the leaders Republican leadership in the committees that were working you know very hard on those issues ways and means appropriations education the Republicans were supporting everything that we did and I think there's even a question of how much access they have to the governor there's a question as to they're required to meet instead with his staff and never with him you might have to verify that from them but it was my observation that they didn't have the access to the governor but access to the staff and so I am so concerned I was just reading you know that he's looking at the cradle to grave education that's great but how does that fit into use of the Ed fund our pre-k through 12 education and I stand very concerned about people trying to pick in at that we spent the last year to doing really good work of cleaning up the Ed fund so that really was covering pre-k education it wasn't covering the property taxes not covering adult education it's not covering the community high school of Vermont it's covering pre-k education pre-k through 12 education I stand very concerned about that if we can have a good conversation and don't need to get to that level to the nuclear option that would be everybody's preference so we've talked a lot about state governance here vetoes constitutional amendments if you will let's get now into some of the nuts and bolts here with the remaining time that we have about some of the specific issues that are impacting Vermonters and I want to begin with you Kate because for me personally I echo what you had said that it seems to me that the environment climate change and our lakes waters and streams are the most important thing to the state of Vermont that relies primarily on tourism can you speak to what is going on in the legislature to address water quality not just in the lake Champlain but in the whole water basin of this great state and what you feel needs to be done that isn't being done well it's very clear that we can't keep kicking the can down the road I really feel that's imperative upon us now to deal with the situation's been going on for a hundred years over a hundred years and we have we have a hundred years of negative impacts and we have groups that have built around that our municipalities in the wastewater treatments that were designed agricultural methods that that were put forward development practices our expectations there we aren't going to be able to turn that around on a dime so that's going to require some money we're going to have to help those groups to be able to make the transition to best practices a we've a report that came in in 2011 right around the time of tropical storm Irene came up with 40 different funding mechanisms this has been reviewed pretty intensely by our treasurer and I think that we need to to start work on that and I think the first step is the people that pollute have to pay who are those people it is all of us if you drive on the road you're polluting if you have a roof on your house you're probably polluting unless you have rain gardens if you're a farmer and you're doing conventional agriculture you're probably polluting I think that's the first cut I think the second cut is probably on those industries that are really going to benefit from having a clean environment I live you know right near the banks of Lake Champlain and I get to look out and see beautiful water with sailboats and you know the ferry boats going down it's everybody's happy now turn that into a green slime smelly toxic lake and see what that's going to do to our environment and I bet that the people who have their businesses built on that would be willing to step up so it's a hard conversation and we have to have it and so just to be clear here when you talk about the people are going to have to pay or certain groups are gonna have to pay you're talking about fees and you're talking about taxes whether it be a tax on some sort of fertilizer or something like that is in my understanding we actually a few years ago in the water quality bill tried to pass an excise tax on fertilizer the fertilizer that people are buying that brings phosphorus onto the land that we don't need more of it we need to do something with what we already have and that died that conventional agriculture group just didn't want to do that so so these are hard conversations that we're gonna need to have taxes and fees Jessica to make sure that our water quality is safe for generations to come I think that this is a critical issue as we've just said absolutely and one of the I think that it's not even just the waterways the lakes and the rivers and the tributaries but also our groundwater we're hearing now of people's wells being infected with all kinds of problems so we really this is a huge problem and in some ways we really need to look to the federal government to help us as well and they have been helpful and they're willing to be more helpful if we show that we are willing to put some money in as well so I think it's really important and I know that our delegation in Washington is very attuned to this issue and trying to bring whatever they can to Vermont to help us out and also our treasurer as Kate talked about she identified has identified money to get a jump on cleanup extra dollars in our capital budget last the last couple years it's amounted to about 25 million that has gone to that and we've also had a property transfer tax and about another 10 million from that over the past five years we've captured a little more unclaimed bottle money so we're trying everywhere to get what we can that's already out there and not have to come up with a new tax and or a new fee but this is incredibly important to our state just tourism and even to agriculture because everyone likes to say that this is the farmers problem well it's really all of our problem and we need to help farmers to think about how to get to another maybe doing some different things as well besides just dairy and so that that's also another piece of our the in funding that we need to think about how do we help farmers transition to different different niche type industries agriculture and so we're going to continue on that if you don't mind and we'll begin with you Jessica on that transitioning to other types of crops or other industries does hemp or marijuana cultivation play into that as a potential switch for farmers to get to a more sustainable form of production possibly that's a really good question that I hadn't even thought about actually I know that we need to be looking at our marijuana bill from last session there are a lot of issues around tax and regulate but also growing I mean one of the things I had talked with someone at the CVU at our Champlain Valley Union School about whether or not there should be the way we buy our vegetables through a C is it a CSA or C that could you buy marijuana that way and have it be more controlled that way who know I mean who knows but I think that all of these sorts of issues are important for us to put on the table as we relook at marijuana this coming session I and when I talked about that when I had talked about the new the transition to niche things as well I mean our cheeses are known all over the country I was in Europe this summer yeah and our beer but I'm just thinking about farmers and that's true yeah we they tried in Charlotte and I guess they're moving now to so Kate let me follow up with you on this a transition does marijuana and hemp cultivation here in the state of Vermont represent a potential transition opportunity for farmers to go to a more sustainable crop here I think that hemp actually is very good for water for starters and I would expect they were going to see more in marijuana this coming session but what I would say is the working lands bill that we that we passed many years ago that actually provides small grants to farmers to to use to either study something buy equipment to value added processes that they hadn't done before but I would add another thing that we need to look at our farms to do and that's carbon sequestration my husband was in Austria and they are way ahead of us on this and they actually have ways to pay farmers to sequester carbon in the process guess what else that does it creates a nice spongy soil that's really good for absorbing water so if we can find a way and I think that there's some people that are thinking about this to actually pay farmers for what they're doing would be another way to use our agricultural soils for really good purpose some wonderful ideas and conversations shared here today we'll ask our candidates to wrap up now with their final statements about what they expect and hope to see in the legislature in the following two years and Jessica will begin with you I think that we will see in the coming session a lot of the legislation that was vetoed last year that will probably be talking about again this year things like paid leave and minimum wage that will definitely be talking about I also have been working all summer on the whole child care that zero to three group and is it possible for us to look at ways to help both parents as well as the child care providers that are making such little money that it's hard to keep them in the in the business and yet then parents who really want to be able to work and our kind we know our unemployment rate is very low and businesses are having a hard time hiring good employees but then you know a woman has her first child and cannot find child care and then cannot afford it so you end up losing one of them to staying home with the baby so we really need to seriously look at that this coming session and paid leave to me is a very big deal it's true safety net and I just believe that we've got to we got to go back and look at that again it's super important for Vermonters to know that when either when they get sick or more importantly a friend of mine's daughter who was only two years old found out she had leukemia and she wanted to be able to be at the hospital every day with her baby of course and yet she was worried about keeping her home because of the mortgage so paid leave would really help her out those are some important things I hope we take up in the coming session and Kate what are your hopes and expectations for the next two years in the Legislature I think we'll be seeing something about carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture I know that we will be seeing something about ethnic studies in our schools we have three pre-k studies coming in I expect that to be coming forward not this year but the next the following year I expect the budget to be another thing where we're going to be I'm hoping we aren't going to have the same fight and among and again that the things that were vetoed in the past I would expect to see minimum wage and and paid leave to come forward again well my thanks to you both for joining us here today for a wonderful conversation and I thank you so much for your service as well it takes a lot of courage to actually run for office to put your values up to the voter and then to actually go to the state legislature and try to draw consensus a reminder that you can go to our website CH 17 dot TV to check out a list of all the upcoming candidate forums for the 2018 general election and a reminder that early voting has already begun throughout our great state of Vermont you can easily just call your local town clerk request a ballot complete the ballot and mail the ballot it's that simple for all of us at channel 17 I'm Matt Kelly for town meeting television thank you for watching


Hey Virgo, welcome back to the channel. This is Kelly from House of Virgo. If you're new, please give the video and the reading a like if you enjoy it. We're going to take a look at your weekend love readings, see what messages come out for you. Personal reading link is in the description box below the video. This is going to be a short but sweet reading. So let's just get straight into the reading that your friends help you. Wedding and the situation involves marriage. And one more for Virgo. Give you a whole bunch. Try one more time. Let's see. Okay, codependency. Okay, with make the effort. Okay, that's pretty good. At least there's that. Okay, let your friends help you. Okay, so you've got a situation starting at the beginning of the weekend asking for an accepting support from others. So you've got somebody here who is leaning on their support group, leaning on their friends to help them with a situation. Let's take a look and see. Reaching out to some other people heavily. Okay, so could be a Gemini or another Virgo. There is someone here who is tremendously restless. They are not at peace right now when it comes to love or sorry can't see it when it comes to love or their feelings for you. All right, I'm just going to tell you that there's someone who is like really into you very smitten with you. And I feel like they might be asking their friends. I mean, what are we in high school? I feel like someone here is asking their friends about you or what they I mean, maybe asking for some advice in regards to or about you or about the relationship or if you're seeing anyone or if you're single with this magician energy, like I said, it's a mercury ruled. So it could represent Gemini or another Virgo. So there is an energy here. This person very focused could be let's see. I mean, like somebody is at a podium, I feel like somebody might be at a podium or they're a performer of in some way. But even with that four of sorts, I just get a sense that some someone is not at peace at this time, just ready to act. Somebody is like in a rush, they're in a hurry. And I feel like over the weekend, they're like consoling their friends, not consoling so much as like asking for a relationship advice or a tip, or like asking for support, how to approach you, what to do, what they should do about how they feel. Should they ask you out? Like, I'm also hearing like, but this eight of ones, this is someone like Cuba's arrows, like they are in such a hurry. Like, it's I feel like almost like their friends even might be saying like, calm down, like relax, like, slow your roll.  Look at that.  Possibly even apologize or heal a relationship. Someone is in a hurry over this weekend here, even to possibly apologize, recover a relationship, get back up on the horse from some kind of heartbreak situation, heal something.  But there is just know that somebody's heading your way. They are heading your way to try to try to just like be in your presence. Like there and you might not even know it. You might not even know it. You might get a message or communication over this weekend. You're going to hear from someone. This could be someone that you already connected to. Like I said, it could be a Libra as well. Fire sign doesn't have to be but this person is like in a rush.  They can't. They have to get in contact with you. They have to like try to recoup, recover, talking to their friends, asking them for advice or what they should do. Okay. Now you also have weddings. You might be attending a wedding over the weekend but there is something here, a situation or relationship that involves marriage. So you know that for some of you this person, I do feel like it's kind of segueing into this. This situation involves a marriage or a long-term commitment. I'm telling you guys, this reading is going to be really really short.  So I'm hoping that I don't get it again. Oh my gosh. So please prayers and good thoughts my way for this weekend because I can already feel something going on here. So please forgive me if I make it super super short tonight. I was debating not doing it but then I thought, no, I'll just give you guys something. So I hope you can understand something. I don't even know what's going on. I know I shouldn't even say that word but you know what?  It is what it is. We're used to it now at this point. So there is something here that I don't know this person's like asking their friends, should I propose? Like even with the Knight of Swords there is this lifestyle change you know and with with with justice it's like doing the right thing. Truth coming out. Very passionate about you. Yeah for some of you might get that proposal or that offer or that like come on let's do this. I like I want to do this. Their friends might be advising them you know just look if you want to be with Virgo like just do it just do it but don't I don't know if they're telling them to just like calm down and relax for a second just like take a deep breath but let's say let's see Virgo. Look at that. The fool taking a huge risk. New adventure. I think this person has this has been on their mind. They have weighed the options. They are looking towards a future with you for sure. Reconciliation. They have clarity of purpose. They know what they need to do. Aquarius energy. Scorpio energy here. My gosh Virgo. Stepping out.  They don't even care. They know what they need to do. Getting stable here for sure. I feel like this person might have had might have been on like an emotional roller coaster. Made the decision already. Making plans. Coming your way. I feel like this person might have been on an emotional roller coaster. Very up and down in hot and cold energy. Really balancing things out and looking out on the horizon. Maybe even hoping that you will reach out to them or hoping that you will be able to see a future with them. The way they see looking out into the future with you. Coming clean. Big revelation here with this person. I feel like this person seriously like I don't know what your situation is with this person Virgo but it seriously feels like this person is opening up and coming clean and it's just laying it like they're taking a huge risk.  You know so much so that they are going to their friends and are going to other people and asking them talking to their friends. Maybe not even asking but just talking to their friends or telling their friends what they're about to do or what they're going to do. Now for some of you this may occur over the weekend it could happen throughout the rest of the week but look at this. Ten of cups. I mean this person wants to be with you. Like they want you by their side for the rest of their life. So they're going to definitely make some kind of move. Now look there's also codependency and making the effort. I just feel like this person I don't know if they're addicted to you but no matter what like they see you as their other half. Like they're like they're making some huge efforts.  That's the energy. That's the energy. Okay that makes perfect sense because there's eight of swords. I mean this person is like nothing without you. That's how I feel that they feel like they feel completely trapped. They feel completely lost without you. They can't move. Oh my gosh. I can't I can't sing. I can't live without you. Can't cry. Can't laugh. Can't do. Finding it hard to do anything. You know I feel sad when you're sad. Oh my god where did that come from? What happened to my light? That's a sign. My light just died. Holy holy. Oh my gosh. Okay that's a sign. My light just went out. The light went out. The light's gone out on this person. Sorry if it's like not very bright. So the light's gone out on this person without you around. That is 100% sure. Their life they feel like they are nothing without you. They feel trapped. They have no hope on their own without you being they're like unable to move on. They can't escape. They've they just they just trapped in their thoughts. Okay wow this person's like in a bad way without you. Look at that the star. You are you are my only hope Obi-Wan. You like they really you're like a shining angel shining light to them. Oh my gosh they are so sad without you. This is what's driving this person? Seriously. I mean is it love?  I mean the ten of cups is here. I mean if this I feel like love is involved absolutely. You know you've got cupids arrows but I feel like it's even more than this. I mean like this person just views you. It's like their other half. I mean there's so much sadness here. They're they're in grief. There's a lot of regret and remorse and I think this person is trying to recoup. Trying to bring this relationship back. Look at them. So much reflection. They're all by themselves. Alone. They're lost. Just me, myself and I. That's all I feel like this person's got going on right now. I mean yeah they might have other people around them but they're pretty much in loner mode here.  That's just them and and there's the lovers. Okay that's the answer to the question. So yeah Virgo. I mean Virgo energy again with the Aquarius. You know whoever your person is. It's energies or signs. You know who you if this resonates for you but like I feel like this person this is like a twin flame connection. If you guys are in separation for sure.  This person feels it almost instantly. If you know this person and you are in separation with this person like all I can say is no matter what the situation is they're feeling it. They are feeling it especially over this weekend and I just want you to know also tonight I believe it's tonight or Friday evening is the super full moon and it's in Aries and like I said yesterday the super full moon in Aries is a heavy duty energy. Aries is a go get her energy okay and the moon is all about those hidden dreams and emotions. We're going to take a look. It's all about those illusions those dreams those hidden feelings and Aries is all about going after those wishes and those dreams and those hidden those emotions and okay emotions are running high super moon and emotions are running high this is it. This person's emotions are on full blast over this weekend and it's like I just see them scrambling. I just see this person scrambling to get get with you be with you get get it together with you work some either work something out be back in your energy. I just feel like this person feels lost without you you know I do and then we also have okay so it's a full moon in Aries so a fire v climax approaches with a super moon emotions running high so um Virgo maybe you have a connection to an Aries that's really going to be powerful with um an Aries energy but I don't know I don't know what are you going to do Virgo like what are you going to do I mean the full moon says surrender to the divine so the full moon energy is basically saying you know what will be will be the way the energy is meant to be is the way it's meant to be let me just read the super moon energy card for you because I feel like you might want to know that I wasn't intending to do this tonight I was going to make a video tomorrow but with the way my head is playing out tonight I think um that's not going to happen I'll be all night welled up okay the super moon suggests that the answer to whatever you're asking is writ large like the silvery full moon set against the velvety night sky if you're wondering how successful something is going to be such as a job or a relationship the answer is very to use common parlance the answer to your question if you have one may well be that it's under your nose the super full moon is about being larger than life being special and bursting with energy that you can tune into and work with you can expect plenty of good things and a positive outcome when this card comes up but you may find there's a lot of emotion to deal with too there's also a sense that the opportunities around whatever you're asking about don't come along every day so take action attune to the moon success is close just trust okay so a resolution is closer than you think don't ignore the obvious something exciting is lying ahead make sure you don't blow events out of proportions speak to the gods ask for assistance and this is where the moon is at its closest point to the earth it's known as the paragree this moon is known as a queen of emotions and if you draw the supermoon card which we have you can expect your feelings to be more highly charged and that's crazy because this page right here that i'm reading from is page 111 this is a twin flame thing this is 100% your twin flame is 100% tuned into you right over this weekend starting with this supermoon um burgo i'm just going to leave that there and let you take that this weekend like so let me just tell you this is the beginning of the transit of this energy is starting okay if you don't hear from your person or you don't connect with the twin flame if yet if you don't know who they are um just so you know once it's plugged in the energy now is on and it is lit and that doesn't mean what it means is that now that we have it plugged in now the energy is going to start fusing through your love life okay and that what i'm picking up this message here is that we've put we are plugging in this weekend so it maybe it'll play out throughout the rest of the week but just so you know somebody's coming in the super this super full moon is flipping the switch on in the twin flame connection okay not the karmic not the bad one either in the one that you're in separation with or the new one that's coming in okay so keep that in the back of your mind save this video watch it again or the weekend if you need a reminder i'm gonna leave that there hope you guys have a great weekend and i'll see you all back here hopefully on sunday if not i'll post in the community tab and let you know when i'll be back all right take care