We have Mr. Hughes with us, and anyone else in the room who might wish to talk with us about S281 this morning. So Mark, if you would like to join us, we're glad to hear that you're joining us this morning. And as a committee, we'll be talking about this little Zach and me, committee discussion. Without witnesses getting testimonies, we'll say, but a witness is watching and we'll, you know, obviously always, we'll welcome you to this. But S281, as well as the role that we've been taking, testimony on starting a temporary committee, we've got time for ourselves to try and sort through things, Zach and me. And for the record, I'm Mark Hughes, Executive Director of Justice for all. Well, again, good to see you again. Madam Chair, thank you so much for having me back. Committee, thank you all for not just entertaining me last time and not going to sleep, but having me back this time as well. I brought you a gift and I was going to bring you one scoop from Jerry's yesterday, but it all melted. So I have some other things for you so if you could just pass these around. These are just a little bit of research in the form of education on systemic racism that we put together, some of our research folks put together. Before we have me to bring that last time. And you don't get to read a lot of talking. So I wanted to come back and just offer up a couple of final thoughts because there's a few things that I think that I left out. And also, I believe that I pretty much loaded you down with a lot of information with at least one email that I think included in that email. There was some attachments. I believe one of those attachments was the... It had to go black if I don't touch it once in a while. Oh, I thought you were trying to keep me in on something. No, I wouldn't appreciate it. So one of those attachments was actually the amended version that the Coalition put forward of S-2-81. I think within that, and you have to help me out here, but I think also within there, I think there was some... In the body of the message there was some language surrounding some challenges that we were having with S-868 as it was released from legislative console. Why don't you just talk us through everything because our brains get mushy in regard to all the different bills. Absolutely, absolutely. That would be the most, frankly, the most respectful approach the information might make sure is clear to us. Sure, absolutely. So how about what I do is I will start with that email, with the content of that email, and I will just be crystal clear on what that looks like. And folks, it's on our webpage. Under which date, Denise, do you recall? Yes, it's under today's, I will get it over. Did you go out? Yeah, no, I refreshed it. Our devices have been sitting for a few minutes. They go to sleep. So what I'll do is I just want to start with the content of that email, and I asked you when I was here last time if you would please consider looking at S-868, which is still there, and in comparison in terms of the content that was in me, what you received with S-861, because we noticed some issues there. So let's just talk about S-828, just for a couple of minutes, because what I don't want to create is confusion by you going back to S-828 and looking at it and thinking that what was produced from Legislative Council, although it leaps and bounds ahead of what S-281 was when it first came out of Legislative Council. And it almost contains everything that we were looking for, with the exception of the expansion of the Human Rights Council, Human Rights Commission. There are about 88 things that I wanted to bring to your attention that we had some challenges with in S-868. So hold that thought. Jim has a question about the background. Just a quick question about the background. S-281, as it was introduced, was it a companion bill to H-868? Like, was it just the same, basically the same version initially? That is how it was intended to be introduced, but it was not. So they were two different versions? They were two separate versions, because what we introduced with H-868, because the deadlines in Legislative Council are a little bit beyond that in the Senate, we were able to get more of the language in the bill that we wanted. Plus in the House, you guys being one head of a lot smarter than the Senate, I just had to throw that out there. I got to somehow or another figure out how to get at it. So here's what we're looking at in those eight points. Number one, the Equity Commission should serve as an independent agency, not under the HRC. So you will see in H-68 that it was actually came out of Legislative Council under the HRC. We never intended that to be the case. And I think we had a brief discussion on that last time I was here. The second point was in Title IX, 45-52, what we were looking to introduce was a request for a separation of roles for litigators and investigators in the HRC. So we can come back to that if necessary. And also the third point was in Title IX, If we could ask, if it's okay with you, if we have questions as you go point by point, it might be most efficient if we ask our questions point by point. Noted. And I appreciate that being pointed out. Because I have a tendency of taking off sometimes. So thank you for really making sure we keep up with you. And I also want to make sure that this is productive as well. So are we okay so far? Hang on. So committee, any questions for Mark with regard to point number one regarding equity commission and it's being independent? Okay, so on point number one, the Senate version, is it not funded? It is. So you're just saying keep that portion of the Senate bill and it is independent, right? It is. I want to make sure this isn't asking for something that's not in the Senate bill and one doesn't appear to be. Sure. And just for clarity, the only thing I'm walking through with you right now is 868 as it stands alone. Okay. I'm not even considering 281. Just in the event that you should go and take a look at it, these are just a few things that I'd like you to keep in mind. Okay. If you choose to compare the Senate version of the bill 281 to it just to be able to, you know, if possible or necessary, get some language from it that might be useful. Is that into your question? And then I've got a question with regard to point one also. Sure. Question. I had in my notes from that first day we took time to test them on that Wednesday morning last week. Wednesday morning last week. It was. I had a notation that everyone was in agreement that the word civil rights should be taken out of the title of the chief officer and of the panel. And almost anything would do other than those words. But it was recommended that somehow mitigation and racism, either both terms or at least one or the other be included in the title. So the officer and the panel. So here I'm looking at equity commission. That's this. Selected from January 15th. Okay. But you're not suggesting that equity commission is is a prop. It is a good alternative name. It just happens to be. It could be. We put this forward. We ran into a few questions about the terminology commission and what does commission mean constitutionally. What what what is the governor's authority with with commissions and it should this be a commission. And because there are many commissions. So I think. That we kind of just step back from and let you know let that kind of flesh itself out in terms of what the what you're. What the Senate got us came up with and again as I read last week. Senator White was fully expecting this this body to change the name. And well well it's sort of one and two. I'm a little confused here on one year you're asking that the commission be an independent agency. But then you go on to question two and you're saying that there needs to be a separation role of the litigators and investigators in the Human Rights Commission. That's a good question. Let's just let me just make it very clear that the it was always from day one the intent of this legislation to object to address systemic racism as well as explicit racism. So the main portion of this bill deals with that body that was the panel that that would appoint an officer that would have a responsibility for systemic systemic racism. There's a couple there's a few other things that we try we're trying to get done we're hoping to get done in this bill and they are communicated through clearly in H eight sixty eight. Number one is to address racial profiling with traffic stops and so forth which clearly has nothing to do with systemic racism. The second one has to do with introducing a more concise and unified approach to use of force or should we say appropriate use of force across all seventy nine agencies to include data collection policy and trained. And then the third one was the expansion of the HRC. OK so what you've touched upon is is the third point and that is as we went in and took a look at what the HRC looks like the first thing we determined was is that and I think everyone around the table probably already knows this is that they're underfunded. That they just and they don't and they're understaffed and we wanted to bring that out as a as a very important point because you know as we work through this and address the systemic racism. The same thing we found out with law enforcement is is number one there's a crossover and there's a place in time where you know you stop looking at systemic racism. You start looking at explicit bias you know as the proliferation of and the rollback I should say of civil liberties at the national level have occurred and we thought it to be important for us to be looking at that even more closely at this state. Does that answer your question. I guess. For later. Thank you. So I have a follow up to your question. Well you can't ask it right now. Anyway. So this point number two. Am I. Inferring correctly or incorrectly that this is a suggestion. That you're advocating regardless of whether or not the panel. The mitigation panel for whatever whatever we end up calling it. Whether or not it's housed with HRC that you're asking that this clarification you made HRC separate from whether separate from the question is where the panel's house. Correct. So no matter where the panel's housed and for those in the room who can't see this this is what it's saying is this is separate. There should be a separation of roles within the Human Rights Commission where the investigators and the litigators are not the same people. That was the answer I was looking for. Okay. I'm sorry about that. You're welcome. So no matter where the panel is housed this is a proposal in regard to how HRC is settled. Right. And just in my personal opinion I believe the reason why it doesn't exist today and you'd have to have to call Karen. Richard said for for professional opinion but I think the reason why it doesn't exist today is because there's there's a shortage of staffing. They don't have people to do this. Karen do you want to I see an invitation as it has been during student. Do you want to comment on this point right now or I can if it would be helpful. Sure. Okay. Karen Richards executive director of the Vermont Human Rights Commission. There is actually presently and currently a separation in those two roles within the Human Rights Commission. So the investigators do not litigate their attorneys but they do not do the litigation. Litigation is my responsibility. So what happens is if there's a finding of reasonable grounds and a decision that we should go to court then it is me. That litigates it. I think where Mr. Hughes may be confused as we had some earlier conversations about the fact that given my the breadth and depth of my responsibilities which I've explained to all of you previously that it is very difficult in this position to do litigation at the same time that you're over here and you're doing all the other responsibilities of the job. So having a separate litigator position would be ideal. But it's not because there's not a separation between those two roles presently. Thanks for that. Does that help? I think so. Thank you Karen. The third point is on Title 94554 one of the things that we were looking at in with that particular title and there's conversations that again we've had with Karen on this and maybe we didn't get this one quite so long is that the in our in reviewing is there's there's a clause there that says that there's efforts efforts to resolve the matter by formal means prior to determination of whether there's reasonable grounds to believe that unlawful discrimination has occurred. And as an advocate and working in the community I'm pretty familiar with a lot of folks who finally find some relief. They can't get it through legal aid.  They don't have money. The folks over at the ACL you are not going to take the case up. They spend for a while and it's it's hugely traumatic to have to be deprived of one civil liberties not know where you're going to live where you're going to work and finally make it to the HRC. And then although I know procedurally this typically doesn't happen at the HRC but statutorily it seems to be mandated that these things that these cases could simply be they could be just moved off to the side before determination has been made. Typically I would think that would be at the discretion of the of the of the of the one who's bringing the charges up. And I believe that the current staff over there pretty much does that. But it but this the the statute says but you know if we were to go by the letter we lost it for example we got another executive director. The statute says that this is what needs to happen. I think that language is is is inappropriate. What needs to happen according to existing statute is that there should be efforts to resolve the matter informally. Correct. What's current statute says there should be an effort to resolve it formally before such time as reasonable grounds as they have even been determined. That's the challenge that we're having with that. So you want to strike that way. I do. I should not. I guess I'm a little confused here. So you're looking to address this issue formally before reasonable grounds are found. No we're looking to have reasonable grounds found have a determination made prior to such time as a as it can be resolved. Well I think I misstated that. We're looking to not have statutorily mandated a resolution before a formal determination. You said one more time. We're looking to not have statutorily mandated a resolution before formal determination not statutorily. I think it should be an option but you shouldn't statutorily say you know you must resolve this before such time as it's determined. I guess I'm confused in the sequence of events here. How do you resolve something if you don't know that there's even an issue. That's my point exactly. And your solution would be what Mark? What this statute says is that you would resolve something before you even know it's an issue. That's what the statute says. You asked a very good question. How can you resolve something if you don't even know that there's an issue. So if you read that language once again that language says that you must resolve something before you know that there's an issue. That's why we want this language stricken. I was drawing. Other committee member questions on that. If I put Karen from the perspective of the Human Rights Commission is there any comment you would want to make with regard to point number three. Sure. Again Karen Richards executive director. You never know what's going to be thrown in your direction. That's all right. That's why I'm here. So what the statute says is that attempts should be made to to reach an informal resolution prior to making a determination. That language is based what it basically empowers us to do is work on conciliation as we're continuing to investigate. That's the process and that has always been the process that the Human Rights Commission from I'm the fourth executive director. That's always the way it works. So that's our understanding of the statute which is basically that somebody files a complaint. You start gathering facts about both sides and then you start asking the parties is there some way you want to resolve this matter prior to us completing in a full investigation and writing a report. So there's no way we would we either resolve it or we write a report and then we try to resolve it again but we would never resolve it and then write a report. That makes no sense. So that's not an accurate interpretation. So you're supportive of striking the language. No I'm not partly because our HUD contract requires us to begin trying to conciliate matters from the time that we that their file and it could potentially put our funding in jeopardy if that language were stricken from our statute. It's very important that we have that tool and it's in part to protect parties because a lot of times the parties may have more immediate needs for resolving the matter than they have time to wait. For us to complete a full investigation of the matter. And other times it may be that the complainant filing the complaint is has a weaker case than they may have thought once the evidence starts coming out and they may be better off with the resolution than a no reasonable grounds finding at which point they have nothing. And so that's how we use conciliation is to assist people in reaching a conclusion that is in their best interest and we don't resolve things that the complainant resolved it. The complainant and respondent agree to a settlement. The Human Rights Commission just helps to facilitate that. Which is the way you hope that the whole system works. It makes sense. It's how we run our households. Anyway. Sometimes. We can. Let's get a little more first. Yeah. Who did you say? HUD. The Department of Housing and Urban Development. They provide about a quarter of our funding. Then they pay us to investigate the housing cases. So. And they require that our. State language in our statute be substantially equivalent to what is provided under federal law. So that's why we have that. Right. So if if we were to change our statute in that way it would affect potentially their designation of us as a substantially equivalent agency. Which would mean that they could hold their funding which is in the $85,000 range and is a chunk of my budget. So that would mean laying off an investigator basically. Thank you. Thank you.  Do we have the information we need on point three? I'll just conclude on point three is this discussion, this difference in opinion that Karen and I share is this is not a new development. We've had this conversation before. And the legislature again the statute is quoted here. And what it says is efforts to resolve the matter by formal means prior to determination of whether there's a reasonable ground to believe that unlawful discrimination has occurred. That is what the statute says, which means by law that is what the HRC is required to do. Which means the litigant the person who's found the complaint does not by law have a right to be involved in that decision because the law says that it must be done. Okay. And those are who are in my category my protected category have little patience or time to say that the justification for this laws because the HRC needs an additional $85,000. Okay. Because once again it sounds like the federal government is buying out our civil liberties very much like they're buying it out on the police side when it comes to sanctuary cities and the $500,000 that our state police held out for. Okay. So this happens quite frequently and it's the foundation of much of the systemic racism that I came here to talk to you about. So that's my conclusion point three. Okay. We're gathering the information. So to point four, section four three B should state each government agency and education organization. The original language of this bill when it was put forward was always intended to include education. Okay. That's in 868. And in point five in 868. I'm sorry. Any questions with regards to the job? What do you mean by education organization? Education agencies that exist within the state government. So it would be colleges and the agency themselves. The agency of education. Yeah. And the state colleges. Right. Okay. Thank you. Is the colleges not UVM or any of the projects? We went round and around about this. And the only thing we could come up with is that we could not affect change in institutions that were not under the state agency. Not including UVM. UVM is not a state school. It's not technically. But are receiving state money. So it might be a way to get at that. It's a state school. It's part of the state system. Okay. So UVM would be cool. So we can clarify that. I'm seeing scowls. Any way. Easily enough checked. Yeah. I had thought of it in terms of the state because of the state money, the instrumentality of the state concept and all of that. But moving on. We'll figure this out. Okay. And 0.5 is an additional. Ms. Lee Richards is going to think we're picking on her for after a while here. And an additional litigator and an outreach coordinator should be added to the HRC. And I think, again, I think the deduction of this, this whole two, two additional headcount at the HRC had had a couple of factors, few factors. And this is what we've already discussed. Because what you've noticed is once we got to the end of that conversation, we were at a conclusion that if we were going to do something in another way that we would need additional resources to do it. Okay. So this is the presumption that we would be doing things another way in the HRC. That there would be less time devoted in, say, for example, training directed at implicit bias. And maybe that training at the HRC, that training component that left would be a part of this new role that would be in their responsibility. So that might free some of their time up. But even if that doesn't happen, if we're talking about trying to fill in a litigator and bringing an outreach coordinator, it still comes back to money. And we've spent about as much money as most of you make in about three or four months on this issue in its history. Mark, I'm seeing a lot of recommendations here for staffing. But I have yet to hear anybody totally quantify what the issue is that we're trying to get at as far as just how pervasive is it throughout government. I'd like to know how big the problem is before I talk about staffing up for it. Well, there's two answers to that. I think number one is that if you take a look at the explicit part of the conversation, which is this whole HRC business where we were talking about staffing, I'd have to defer to Karen Richards. A lot of that stuff is in the executive session and there will be stuff, there will be investigations. There will be stuff that's been settled, if you will, prior to the time it was determined. And we're not just talking about systemic racism. There are all protected categories under the HRC. There's a pretty good case load. And I think from what we see on the outside, yeah, I think they stay pretty busy at the HRC. As it pertains to systemic racism, that's what I can qualify to talk to you about. And what we know is that there's only one place where we can measure it and that's part of the issue that we're trying to resolve. The only place we can measure it as I stated in my last testimony is in the criminal justice system, specifically with law enforcement, because we've been collecting data for the last 10 years. And the creation of this dysfunction and this role is explicitly for the purpose of beginning the process of collecting data across the remainder of the criminal justice system as well as housing, education, access to health services, and employment, and economic development. So 10 years ago, sir, they were saying the same thing about law enforcement that you just said. But because we started collecting data, we've determined that there is an issue. And if we believe systemic racism exists one place, then it doesn't exist every place. And if it does, how do we measure it? And that's what we're here to talk about. It seems like based on testimony we heard the other day that people are pointing to law enforcement and others as an example of how it has really, I think the term was used at the glass is three quarters full. And I mean, if we're continuing making steady progress, why is that a bad thing? Well, for the record, I never said it was a bad thing. Just to make sure that we're on the right track here, what I said was it was the only measurable function within the government. And because we're able to measure it, I guess you could extrapolate yourself that it's a bad thing because we discovered not very pleasant information about the numbers that came out of it. But the only reason we were able to do that is because we collected the information. And that's why law enforcement stands as a shining example for this methodology that we're rolling out because they have proven that we can measure it. And as David said, if you can measure it, you can't manage it. Thank you. I'm measuring the last time we spoke on Wednesday. I thought I heard too that we are hearing data from the HR of our state employees that we do have a higher, for people of color, there's a higher turnover rate in our ranks. So that would be another area where we've begun. Maybe we've only just begun. I don't know how long we've been collecting that data. I've heard the same thing. I've heard also things in housing from the legal aid report on 2015 of some of the challenges there and some of the benchmarks that could be measured on a regular basis. But you've hit upon something. And what you've hit upon is part of the key is because as this person or this panel, as we roll this out the expectation is that those key data points that they would be nailed down that we would make a final determination on exactly what those data points were and then begin the process to consistently collect that data on a regular basis and be able to aggregate that data and correlate that data and make it just as meaningful as the data that we get from law enforcement. So Mark, one of the things that's been confusing in the testimony that we've heard is whether the data does not exist or whether it's just not centralized. And I mean, I've heard that there needs to be better centralization and transparency of the data but I've heard a lot testimony that the data exists. And so, I mean, do you disagree with that statement that the data exists? Which data? Well, we have never heard in specific terms what the data is. The only real specifics we've ever had is the data on traffic stops. But we have heard general testimony that the data exists. It's just maybe difficult to find. So you're talking about other data besides traffic stops? Yes, because I mean, those do speak to centralization of data. And so that would make me assume that there is data. Right. And there was a reference in earlier testimony in regard to the Act 54 report. Right, the report, yeah. So I think the answer to the question is yes, the data exists.  So when we start talking about business impact analysis in terms of looking at a business and looking at business processes, looking at systems and networks that support those business processes, those databases and so forth, looking for critical points of failure within those data chains, I am an expert in that area. Okay, so when you look at data processes in terms of the, or the business processes really associated with any business function across the entire organization, what you will find is first of all, what they do. The question is what information do they need in order to get done what they do. The other question is what applications, what systems, what networks and what databases traversing and occupying is that data. And almost every function that occurs across this government, at some point or another, there is a data entry function that occurs. Okay, so yes, I can assure you that there are data and they are there. The question is what data is the first question that I ask you because, you know, when we went to law enforcement, we didn't say bring us the data of what we said in Act 134, 2012, we said bring us this data. Do you stop someone? Do you search them? Did you find anything? Did you arrest them? Did you cite them? We gave specific details, we misused the force, but we gave them specific details on exactly what data they were to be collected and they've been collecting exactly that data for the last ten years, maybe five or six legislatively mandated. And as a result, we've been able to gather that information. So the question is in housing, for example, or in education, what data? What are those critical decisions that have high impact that could potentially adversely impact people that clearly are informed by bias, so there's high levels of discretion, you know, what are two or three of those decision points, if you will, or more that we can identify and mandate, if necessary, that data be collected and then we'll start talking about the aggregation of that data and the correlation of that data across that particular system. But it gets bigger than that because the big data is, is how do we aggregate and correlate all systems? And I think that's part of the function of this role. And the whole, the depth of that question, that's just point six and seven. Sure. So six is general observation. Just going over the legislation itself, again, 868, it just occurred to us that we never really defined at what point agencies were going to begin to collect that data, those data. So I guess I'm, it seems like we got a little bit of cart for a course here. You're talking about collecting data, but sometimes I don't know that we're even, are we asking the right questions to collect the data from? Because you and I, if we're working on an issue together but we're not really talking about that issue, you may have questions that I never even think of. So when we talk about the data that's out there, there doesn't seem to be a general consensus on what even the questions are, does there? I'm going to have to ask you to restate your question because I really don't understand where you're going. Well, you're referring to that there's data out there, but my sense of things is that there's no general consensus as to what's the questions that we should be asking uniformly to get that data from. Say for instance, okay, we're talking about people of color and the turnover in the state government, right? Well, you could just say, okay, you take that one given number, but maybe it's not the work environment that's causing the turnover. It's something more proportional, where in the private sector we have what's called an exit interview where you go through and you spend some time with the employee. I said I'm familiar with the private sector. So you're trying to drill down a little bit to find out where you have that turnover because in Florida I get a lot of money from you and I want to know why you're going. Right. So I think I do understand your question. And again, I think your question, state of the car before a horse is... I don't know. Your question is almost characterized as such because you can't really do an analysis on the data until you get the data. So the state police weren't able to contextualize or to quantify or qualify or challenge anything until they began to collect the data. So now they're at a point to where there's a pushing and pulling of Stephanie Seguino and they're saying, well, you know, maybe it was dark. Well, you know, actually there's a lot of folks coming across the border. So there's a lot of context that has to go into analyzing the data after the data are collected. But first you've got to get the data. So maybe your question is, how do you decide which data? And if that's the question, then again, I think once again, that's totally the car before the horse because what needs to happen is we need to task some type of organization or consulting agency or depend upon this particular function to go in and conduct some type of consultative approach to be able to do a business impact analysis to make a determination as to what types of decisions that are being made that are highly impactful before you determine which data to collect. And hopefully it would be that data that represents those high impact decisions that are typically highly discretionary. Thank you. If I could make perhaps connected to a blue dot form. With regards to point seven, is an example of what you're talking about, Mark? Point seven, speaking specifically about law enforcement, race, traffic, data collection is supposed to start up again. It's not required to start up again until June 30 of 2019. Is that meaning that it's not required to be collected now and the intent is to start collecting use of forced data at that time, meaning the end of June 2019? Madam Chair, I think I can bring some clarity to both seven and eight just at the same time because they are similar in nature. The title 2023-66 often referred to as the fair and impartial policing policy. Also, there is a component of title 2023-66, which is data collection. That's where it lives, data collection. And the original way in which this was written, the proposal to include use of forced data collection was written in such a way where it would be phased in and this is really structural in terms of how it is written in the statute. The manner which is written in H868 seems to suggest that the way because what they did is they just simply changed the date to the main paragraph and then included use of force. Whereas what they should have did was they should have stated that use of force would be integrated at a time in the future. So in short what this does is it makes it seem as though no data collection would have to occur until this date to include the data that's currently being collected. So it just could be phrased in a better way just to make sure it indicates that if we're going to collect use of force data that particular component of data collection would start on this date. And the same thing with the, if you take a look at Section 8 when you're looking at training it was written in the same way. It made it look like training would start in March of 2019, training is already underway. So it's just appropriate use of force, de-escalation and cross-cultural awareness training that would start in 2019. Okay. So I was just asking the committee to be mindful when you read H68 that that particular language could create a problem for us if it was introduced as it was stated. But if you would refer to the amendment that we submitted on S281, which I provided to you in email, that language is closer to where we want to be. So that covers 7 and 8 Madam Chair. You notice there was no user as 111 witnesses and interested parties. Now, you gave us a ton of information. It was very important for you to walk us through this. It put, if you will, clothing on the otherwise unclad. I thank you for an opportunity to appear. I appreciate your coming back to help with that. It's a pleasure. And I also would hold out that if there's anything that the committee or the chair would require in moving forward to make a determination on moving forward, I would avail, I'd make myself available. And a question in that regard, because knowing it, it's not the easiest thing sometimes to trace between the character from here and back again. I made a full day already. Would by telephone be? That would be fine. We must have your phone under somewhere. I'm sure it's on the record. Thank you again. Thank you so much. And be safe today with all of the stuff happening in the building. Really, I do.


Let me start with a question. What is a computer? Today, we typically think of a general-purpose machine that can do just anything. I can read my emails, watch a movie, or calculate the location of the planets on the night sky all with one machine. That's in stark contrast to the anti-kitterer mechanism of the old Greeks. This is also a computing machine, but tailored towards just one question. What is the relative location of sun and moon on the sky? So how does this translate to the quantum world? What is a general-purpose quantum computer? A general-purpose quantum computer takes instructions, operates them on its quantum hardware, and gives us answers. This can be cracking the RSA encryption. This can be sorting large sets of numbers, or just anything someone writes an algorithm for that can be executed on this machine. But we learned today that it might be hard to scale that machine up in the near future. So maybe we should do it like the old Greeks and build a single-purpose machine, a quantum computer that can answer just only one question. Now we need to find the question that is worthy of building a single-purpose machine. Many of today's technologies that will steal our energy hunger for the future produce electricity far away from where we need it. That presents us with the problem of transporting electricity over long distances, which is typically full of losses. And we would like to avoid that. So this is a problem we try to address. Now, luckily, we have a class of materials that do exactly this, that are called superconductors, and can conduct electricity without any loss. So everything is fine. We're done, unfortunately not. After more than 100 years of research on the topic, we do not understand them well enough. We try it hard. We do understand certain classes, not the others. Since 25 years, we're almost there. We almost managed to cast them into a useful everyday technology. But we still fail. Almost seems not to be good enough. So now this is our purpose. This is our question. We build a single-purpose machine for. This quantum machine will give us one answer. How do I cook up a material that can conduct large quantities of electricity without any loss from A to B? So that's what we're going to build. But now we have to ask ourselves, what are we actually trying to understand? What is the task of understanding a superconductor? Superconductors are made from really tiny, complicated quantum systems, billions and billions of them, and they all interact strongly with each other. So understanding this tiny quantum system is our task, and we seem to fail at it. So what we should do, we should take this tiny, complicated quantum system and map it to a much larger quantum system, a large quantum system that we don't understand either. But one, we have under precise control. We let this large quantum system simulate the small quantum system we try to understand. So what is the simulator giving us? The simulator is telling us we think a certain model describes superconductivity. The simulator solves this model for us, and then we can take the next step in engineering new materials. At the heart of such a simulator, as well as at the heart of a multipurpose quantum computer, is the precise control of quantum systems. This includes the almost perfect isolation from their environment because quantum system seems to be terribly susceptible to influences from the outside. So maybe we can turn this sensitivity into a technology for the future. Qnami, a startup from the Swiss quantum ecosphere, is doing exactly this. They provide quantum engineer diamonds for quantum communication or on nano-MRI purposes, and they transferred this technology to the semiconductor industry for the diagnostics of integrated circuits. Luckily, only thinking about quantum systems helps you to engineer totally classical things. In my own group, we devise new mechanical metamaterials that we wouldn't be able to do without our training in thinking quantum, understanding how quantum systems dance together, is at the heart of building a quantum computer. But I hope I convinced you that along the way of trying to solve the problem of getting a quantum computer, we'll have many side paths that will allow us to have equally disruptive technologies. Thank you.


Let's see all the breakfasts and plus TV Africa, let's look at our second conversation quickly. Now the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has scheduled to meet with the Nigerian Communication Commission, NCC, today as part of efforts to consolidate and plan for electronic transmission of results in a 2023 January elections. The meeting would include the chief of executive of four major telecommunication operators in the country on identified blind spots in the country's telecom communication infrastructure. The INEC chairman said the commission was working with the NCC to find a solution for effective transmission of results from every part of the country in real time. The discussion like I mentioned earlier on will be centered around the access or center around access and connectivity. Now since the return to democracy in 1999, Nigerians have continued to hope for a better and more transparent election process that will give them the opportunity to use their votes and ask their voices. Now for the very first time, Nigerians feel that the days of election are largely over with the introduction of the beavers as an electronic device that will be used to electronically accredited registered voters within the polling unit and also transmit election results from polling units to the INEC server. Now there are several questions. Will the beavers prevent the rigging of the elections come 2023? Is access and connection seamless in the 774 local government across the Federation? These are some of the questions that we're asking now. We have our guests joining us this morning to make sense of the conversation. Dr. Chike. Good morning. Dr. Chike, it's good to have you join us. He's a senior lecturer of school of media and communications in Degas. Thank you. Good morning. And thank you for having me today. All right. So I'd like to ask just 81 days from the portal of INEC countdown to the 2023 elections, do you think that we have enough time to solve the issue of access and connectivity across the 774 local governments? So I think the point necessarily, I mean INEC isn't just on the election matters today. They have been on these for many years, so they know that they were going to transmit results using the electronic method rather than the manual method, right? So it's not just the counting from today, but this should be something that they should have prepared towards very well. In fact, they know so well that they would need to do the right things and click the right button. So I think the time in ease isn't short, rather I think it's right. In fact, they have stressed over that they have done some test runs in rural Zanfara as a hit, as that this could be. And even in some part in the west of Nigeria, I think somewhere in Iqiti or Oshun. So they are the right track. I don't think the timeline is a problem whatsoever because they're not just jumping on each now. They've been prepared and they know what to do. Should the electoral empire have a second option, you know, some sort of alternative if the BVAS doesn't work, should they just say, you know what, we're going to have change our style, have some alternative, you know, maybe allow, you know, manual check. I know that you can be checked but accreditation must be done biometrically. Should we just allow room for error, call it that. Yeah, so this is what we should run away from, you know, trying to look for ways to say, OK, if this doesn't work, let's go back to manual. We know how our country is and if that clause is put in, I'm sure every other party, even where the electronic device can even work, they will tell you it can't work and then they'll reverse back to manual. I don't think that should be an option. I mean, in every way in the world, Kenya had their election and then they used the electronic device and then it worked well. Yes, there will be problems but you cannot compare that with the manual voting. There are massive, massive problems with the manual voting, the electronic voting result transmission I should say would reduce these election infractions to a significant level. So I think that issue of, OK, let's have the manual as a backup, shouldn't even be on the table. What INEC is doing now by having a meeting with NCC today to discuss on those issues and see how they can absolutely tidy up those blind spots and those parts where there will be poor or no network, cyber or signal at all, is what we should be talking about rather than saying let's give room for, OK, it should be electronic transmission doesn't work due to data or cyber issues, then we can reverse back to manual. I don't think that should be an option. In fact, the bank itself, there are banks in rural areas. I don't think people walking to banks and the cashier on point there wouldn't even check the system to be sure that the person has exactly the amount of money before doing out such cash to the person. So if the banks can do this, I don't see any reason why INEC should stick to... The banks are in, mostly if you look at them, they are in urban centers and that's what it is. We can't compare the infrastructure that we have in urban centers without in the rural communities. Now we also, I'm sure you want to agree with me that infrastructure, basic infrastructure also aid telecommunications to establish their services in these communities, especially when you look at developed climes and so I don't know, there are some villages that are very remote and very local in the sense that you don't even have motorable roads in 2022, not to even talk about having the infrastructure, basic infrastructure that should be in these communities and then not to also talk about the fact that if you don't have this basic infrastructure then you don't have the telecommunication present in this community 81 days, I'm still asking, are we talking reality here or we're just trying to be very spiritual about it? So I think I understand your concern, I think it's a concern of a couple of persons, but like I said, INEC isn't just jumping on these today, they know these areas where there are connection issues and that is why they have said that they are working with NCC, in fact an association of telecom practitioners or so, I'm also sure what their name is, they have written to INEC to say that they would support them. We've got the infrastructure to ensure that people can absolutely get connected in these places, it's just about the willpower and the push, even if we want to accept that there are some parts in Nigeria where the internet penetration is completely low or not even viable at all, but we would agree that these are just a significant number, and what INEC can do, given this period, working with the NCC is to find ways to ensure that those areas can be connected properly. We have the infrastructure for these, Nigeria has the highest, if not, the mobile penetration in Africa, we've got the size, we know what to do, and if we are ready, we can absolutely do it, and like I said again, it's not a function of looking at it from now, how many days to the elections, INEC isn't just getting on it today, yes they are having a meeting with NCC today, but we know that modalities have been put in place to ensure that real-time results are being released via the internet, even in rural areas, and they did say in one of their press releases that they have tried these in rural areas as deep as Zafara is, and it did work, so if that can work there, I think it's just a little bit of a shake here and here, here and there, and we are at the right place to go. I just think that, go on. Okay, Dr. Nbariji, I mean the government itself, if you look at the the national development plan 2021 to 2025, which was launched last year by the president, Mohamed Buhari, you look at the statistics, it shows that 301 local government areas at the time were without internet access in Nigeria, that's a lot, if you look at the fact that Nigeria has 774 local government areas, even if they were to do anything about it, going by the plan of the federal government, the national development plan 2021 to 2025, and a lot of people don't know Nigeria has a development plan like China does, because they're not seeing the results. If they will hit it, their plan is to ensure they're projecting that 697 local governments will have internet access by 2023, and if you hear government say this, you probably think by the end of 2023 because of how things work in the country, but even if they were to achieve those 697 by the first day in 2023, you still will have 77 local government areas without internet access in 2023. This is a problem, isn't it? How can this amount it if you agree it's a problem? So it is a problem, right?  The point is, I mean, is it just jumping on this bandwagon today? Yes, the government has identified these spots, but I still stress there are some villages where we've got penetrations of mobile signals and internet, right? Even if the government is stressing and saying that the plan is in 2023, these cards would then be connected, right? What has happened since then up to now? There has absolutely been a massive move. There are places you would get to, right, and you would never even believe that you would even have signals there. There are some mobile telcos that have got high-rich penetration. In fact, in the key point there, NCC stuff talked about working with a big four, and this big four do have the infrastructure to tie into these places. I do not think that the absolute need would be now to get us in to some extent electronic stuff and use manuals for these areas. Election is not a day stuff.  If they think that they can do this and transmit results in every part of the country, we cannot sit here and say they cannot because INEC has someone suggested the use of satellite technology. They should provide coverage for these over 300 areas that don't have 3G access. Do you think that is workable use of satellite technology to cover these areas? Of course, that's an option. That's an option. That's why I go back to what I said before. Once the wheel is there, once we are ready to solve this problem and we are ready to transmit these results live, as they call me, it is impossible. It is just about the wheel. What do you get right now, share the politicians and some party people saying, no, no, let's reverse back to the old order. The old order can't take us anywhere. Just quickly, we have to go now. I'd like to just ask this one, maybe in a few seconds, if you can answer, what about the issue of hackers? Do we have a strong firewall against cybercrime and their guns? We're saying that the electronic transmission of results with the beavers and let's not forget that cybercrime has been there for a while, although it seems to be very prominent right now in 2022 or prior 2022. Do you think that we have what it takes to fight against the cyber hackers and crime? Nigeria has the best brains, the internet brains, right? If Nigeria wants to get this right, we can get this right. We have the people to absolutely ensure that firewalls are placed and to ensure that these internet are absolutely safe and that they can transmit results at the right time using the electronic transmission. It's about the wheel power and if they are ready, we can absolutely get this done. We're not saying it's going to work the first time, but it's a fantastic first step in the right direction. In the next election, they would absolutely be viewed on this election to ensure that we move forward. Kenya did, it started in 2013, moved 2017 and had another election now and we can see the progress there and that is why we must ensure that INX sticks to and sticks with their electronic transmission results this time. Well, we have to go now. Thank you so much Dr. Chikebea Deche for being part of the show. We appreciate you. Thank you so much. That's the size of a package on a breakfast on Plus TV Africa. We hope you've enjoyed your time thoroughly. We'll be back soon on the station, but of course don't forget you can follow us on our social media platforms across the various social media sites, Plus TV Africa and of course on YouTube, we have two accounts, Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa, a lifestyle. Don't forget to check out our website as well. My name is Kofi Bartels. Good morning. I am Massey Ibofort. We'll join the newsroom at 9 o'clock for the news. Brief, please stay with us.


Sarah Simmers is with Meadowlark Consulting. Sarah grew up on a family farm and ranch in Grant County, North Dakota. She has a bachelor's degree in biology from Jamestown College and a master's in conservation biology from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul. Her graduate research took place on the Little Missouri National Grasslands in western North Dakota. After grad school, she returned to North Dakota and has worked as an environmental consultant and starting her own company with a coworker in 2020. Sarah has worked on issues related to Dakota Skipper since its listing in 2014 from assessing habitat to figuring out regulatory requirements to surveying for the species itself since 2018. With that, I'm going to pass it over to Sarah for Dakota Skipper Habitat. Well, I was asked to talk about assessing Dakota Skipper habitat and I just couldn't help myself. I wanted to talk a little more broadly about the species and also kind of talk about some of the current things going on with it in our state in particular. So if you have never heard of the Dakota Skipper, you're in the right place. And if you have heard of the Dakota Skipper, it's possible that you wish that you hadn't. But I'd just like to give you a little more background on the biology of the species and perhaps a little more perspective on it as a whole and you can take that information with you and use it as you need to. So here it is. It is a very small butterfly that lives only in higher quality native prairie and we'll talk a little bit more about the details and characteristics of that prairie in a few more slides. But it was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 2014. And so hence a lot of regulatory requirements came about because of that. It's probably why many of you are aware of it and why we're talking about it today. It's not, as you can see, it's not a very colorful, bright, shiny butterfly. Very, very basic. And I have a little story to tell you about this. A couple of years ago I was out on a construction pipeline monitoring project and I was talking to one of the construction guys one day and he was in his equipment, just had his window open and was leaning out talking to me. We were just chit-chatting and this guy's name is Pedro so I'm making assumptions about that. He was a lifelong Montanan and we're just chit-chatting and we ended up talking about Dakota Skipper as you do with pipe liners. And he's asking me questions about it and pretty soon I'm showing him photos on my phone and he just takes a look at it and he's like, simple, practical, straightforward, perfect for North Dakota. And I just, I got a kick out of that. And I will add to that that it is very straightforward but as you get to know it more, it is very beautiful as well. And I think that's similar to North Dakota. You just have to get off the interstate and we have some beautiful, subtle, it's not grand and majestic but it's very subtle beautiful landscapes in this state. So just a couple of things to point out. As you can see, the male and females have different markings and these two photos, part of the difference in coloration here is just a matter of the light and how the light is hitting the critter. The other thing to note is that the markings are different depending on if the butterfly has its wings back where you can see the underside, there's different markings to look for compared to when they have their wings down, then you're going to be looking for different aspects of it there. And the other thing to note is, unlike a lot of butterfly species, the skippers in general, including the Dakota Skipper, hold its wings at two different angles and so they kind of look like a little fighter jet. Now Dakota Skippers are part of a large group of butterflies of skippers in general. It's a whole group of butterflies and this is just a cross-section of some of the skippers that are in our state that fly at a similar time as the Dakota Skipper. We're not going to go through these in any detail but you can just see that there's a whole variety of them and they all have slightly different markings and that's what we're looking for when we're identifying between the different ones and between males and females and that sort of thing. I guess, yeah, I was going to also mention skippers in general, their flight pattern is, as the name suggests, they're not up-fluttering and flying around in the air. They're low to the ground, close to the vegetation and they kind of skip around on the vegetation hence their name. All right, we're going to cover the life cycle of the species. The big thing to note here first is that the Dakota Skipper is only complete one generation per year. You think about a lot of insects and other butterflies there. They have multiple hatches during the growing season. It's not the case for Dakota Skippers. They've got one chance each year to breed and lay their eggs and get larva to the next spring. So their adult flight period is anywhere from mid-June to mid to late July and it's pretty much a two-week timeframe within that period and it depends on the year. It depends on what's going on with the weather that year as to when they will start to emerge and fly around. So it's a fairly limited time period when we can actually see and identify them. The females lay one egg at a time. Now they can lay multiple eggs, but it's just one single egg at a time. They lay primarily at the base of grasses, but they can also lay on forbs or broadleaf plants and those eggs hatch in about 8 to 12 days. Then they enter the stage where they're at the longest, the larval stage. They go through about 6 or 7 instars or stages during that larval development where they molt into the next instar. So just a couple photos here. So you can see a little newly hatched guy there, the final here. And then the other thing I wanted to point out is these little shelters that they build as larvae. So they build these little shelters at the base of grasses and bunch grasses in particular. If you see this kind of darkened area here and just this cluster of material surrounding the base, that is a larval shelter. So before hibernation happens, which is in that fourth or fifth instar, typically those shelters are actually in the upper soil surface, whereas after winter, in the last few instars after hibernation, they are building more at the base of grasses here. And the larvae come out at night, actually, or typically come out at night, clip off the base of a leaf of a blade of grass that they want to eat, and they crawl back into their shelter and just bring the blade of grass in and chomp it down. So it's a pretty good way to protect themselves and get them through the next stage. So as you've already seen, the next stage is the puva. Their final step before then emerging as an adult. So just a step back and think about the bigger picture of the species here. This is the graph or a figure of the current range of the species. There are a few populations in Canada right now. There's now only one remaining population in Minnesota. There's several populations in Northeast South Dakota. And then as you can note here, North Dakota is really the heart of the remaining population. We have multiple known populations in the state, which we'll be talking about more. The other thing I wanted to note is the historical range that we know of used to go down into Iowa. There was a lobe that came down. There were multiple populations throughout Iowa and even a couple populations in Illinois and Wisconsin. So this has retracted the populations in Western Minnesota, which used to be all along the Western Minnesota prairies. There were multiple populations. Those were pretty well studied by the Minnesota DNR over the years through the 70s, 80s. They did fairly regular surveys of those populations, typically in remnant native prairie in Minnesota, which Minnesota has a lot less remnant native prairie than we do. And in the early 2000s is when they noticed that a lot of those populations started to drop out. They weren't finding Dakota skippers there anymore in these prairies. And that was part of the reason for the listing of the species, just that retraction of that eastern edge of the species. So habitat. Habitat has been described in the literature as type A or type B habitat. It's not a clear distinction between the two. There's kind of a gradation between those two habitats. It's all mixed grass to mixed to tall grass, high quality native prairie with bunch grasses and nectar, a nectar source. The type A habitat tends to be more rolling prairie with a little bit drier conditions, whereas the type B habitat, which you'll find in the north central part of North Dakota, is just very very low relief and more of wetland depression areas surrounded by just slightly raised areas with with the bunch grasses and forbs. This photo is a really prime photo that shows bunch grasses. The main one that you can see visually, which is easy to pick out is little blue stem, which is this brownish reddish brown color here on this photo. Just because you have a little blue stem doesn't mean you're going to have to go to Skipper because it's everywhere, I get it, but there's other things to look at. The topography, the other, the quality. We have learned that Dakota Skippers can tolerate more shrubs and policies in grass invasion than we first thought and what's published in the literature. They can tolerate a little bit more than what we originally thought. And then just the other thing to notice on here, just the continuous prairie going on. It's a nice large expanse all together in one area. And I just wanted to give you a visual areally of, this isn't the exact location of that photo, but just to point out when you look at aerial imagery, you can see the little blue stem again is a nice visual indicator. Again, not, it's not totally cut and dry, but it gives you an idea of what to look for if you're looking on aerial imagery where you have this reddish purplish tinge is little blue stem. You might need to flip through to a certain year of your Google Earth imagery to find, to really see that pop. But I'm going to be looking for just nice, gently rolling prairie with, you know, native prairie areas and those that blue stem is a nice indicator. This is just another photo with another site of habitat. This one has a little more woody shrub encroachment in these draws here in between, but you still see these nice hill slopes and ridges of high quality prairie coming back here with nectar sources. And I guess I should mention I forgot that echinacea or purple coneflower is one of the main nectar sources for sure in type A prairie and across the state. Black Eyed Susan tends to be more of a nectar source in some of the Minnesota areas and the north central part of North Dakota. And just an aerial view of that same kind of idea where you do have woody draws in between, but you still, you've got these nice ridges and areas of native prairie. So it's a little more steep here, but still great for Dakota skippers. Okay, now we'll step back and talk about some of the things that have been done for the species as a whole. When the species got listed, Minnesota Zoo got right to it in 2014 and started to try to figure out if they could breed and rear Dakota skipper at the zoo in a captive situation. And sure enough, they were able to. They figured it out. Basically, they collected some in the wild and were able to bring them in and allow, you know, pair them up. They were able to mate, lay eggs, buyable ones. And sure enough, they can get through to the adult stage in the lab. So after that, Minnesota started to look into doing some reintroductions. They started out at Hole in the Mountain Preserve, which is in the southwest part of the state near Lake Benton, Minnesota. The Dakota Skipper was last observed there in 2009. They started doing reintroductions of those captive bred populations from the zoo in 2017 and through 2022, they did releases anywhere from 200 to 1,100 per year. And they did see, as they released individuals, they would see males and females breeding, laying eggs, that kind of thing. So they should have been doing their thing. And they do think they documented some wild individuals in 2020 and 21. However, in the last two seasons, they have not seen any Dakota Skippers at Hole in the Mountain now. That was at the Nature, there's a Nature Conservancy Preserve, but there's also, they also did releases in adjacent DNR WMA areas. In the meantime, they started looking at a second location to do reintroductions at Glacier Lake State Park. Dakota Skipper was last observed there in 2008. And this time around, they decided to try to increase the chances for success by doing a little bit of work on the habitat first. They did not do that at Hole in the Mountain. So they started doing some things like they introduced grazing. They did some woody vegetation removal. And they also, they didn't low it up and plant floral resources, but they kind of overseed it on hilltops and stuff, nectar species, particularly coneflower. Just trying to make sure it was prepared for a reintroduction. And last year, they reintroduced about 1200 adults. So we will see this year if anything survived. And that'll be good information. In North Dakota, there have been a couple of different, few different things going on. One of them being some initiation of more of a comprehensive survey effort for the species in the state by the North Dakota Natural Resources Trust. And we'll talk about that in just a second. I want to point out on this figure here on the top left, this figure of North Dakota represents what we knew about the populations in the state in 2014. So this is when the species was listed. We knew about these areas of Dakota Skipper. And this is an approximation. Okay. It doesn't have every single population on there, but just showing the main areas where we knew that it was in the state. Well, by 2019, we had a little bit more information on that. Big part of finding a lot of new, a lot of the populations here were because of industry-required surveys from its listing. Oil and gas, wind companies were required to be doing some surveys, and indeed more populations of Dakotas were found throughout the state. So that's what you're seeing in this figure. The trust started their surveys in 2019. They'll be year five this year. And they basically started looking across the state, primarily at states and federal-owned lands so far. Just trying to get a good idea of where are places that haven't ever been looked, or that perhaps have been looked at, but haven't been looked at for a while. Over 70 individual sites have been looked at, and four new populations have been found. And then there's also kind of a monitoring of known populations going on with this effort. So this is what's been learned from the period of 2020 to 2022. I also want to point out these brown areas that there's also been kind of an attempt to keep better track of negative surveys. So where we think it could be, and we go out there and then look for it and do not find it. And that is actually critical information that hasn't always been tracked the best in the past. So they're trying to do a better job of that to understand why it's not in some of these places where we think it should be. And then just this final one showed the additional areas that were looked at in 2023. Another big effort that has happened recently is an attempt at a more comprehensive model. Now, there have been many models that have been developed for the Dakota Skipper and Habitat. I guess I should say specifically trying to get a gauge on habitat that's out there for the species. And those other models have worked for other purposes and for their time. But basically with some of the new survey information and just our increasing knowledge about the species and where it's at, this model now that the Fish and Wildlife Service put together is an even better attempt at that. They used, I have to look at my little note here of everything that went into it. So aside from just kind of the updated population information, there's land cover. And again, many of these things were also used in previous models. It's not that these things weren't looked at, but they've tried to bring it together more comprehensively. Land cover, disturbance history, biomass, surface reflectance. So that's like infrared imagery. Native prairie tends to look a little different on infrared compared to really highly invaded areas by cool season grasses. And soil conditions, topography and climate normals. So what you get is this is the output and this is available to anyone. You can go online and you can download this data and ideally it's going to be updated on a regular basis. The big point here is this is a probability of finding Dakota Skipper as an output of this model. The red are the hot spots. So that's over 90% probability of finding that the species and then just going down from there to the light blue 40 to 50% probability of finding Dakota Skipper. So it's a pretty functional tool that we have now. And it's starting to be applied in a few different ways that I will briefly touch on. If you want to just picture it here, this is the model output downloaded into a GIS program. You can see the same coloration here put onto the landscape with an aerial image behind it and then land ownership information. We can really start to pinpoint. And again, this isn't saying for sure Dakota Skippers are going to necessarily be there. We also have the population information, but it just really helps us to focus on areas that have the highest chance and then down from there. So, as I said, a few ways it's being applied. So in the first few things here, these are actually this is through the natural North Dakota Natural Resources Trust. There are different programs going on and some different initiatives basically available for private landowners. And it's basically a way to provide some funding to them for various things. So one thing that's happening is restoring grassland and in particular areas that are have high probabilities of Dakota Skipper. Surrounding or let's just say a farmer wants to reseed a chunk of their fields back into native prairie. They can actually get help with funding specifically. And if they are in a high probability Dakota Skipper area, they can get funding to help pay for that seed, help pay for a higher diversity mix, that kind of thing. Basically, you know, puts grass back on the landscape. And then a couple other options that are just starting to get worked out are for ranchers that basically are doing a great job already. Obviously have Dakota Skippers or potentially have them out there. They can, there's some initiatives to basically get them funding to just do what they've been doing. And if they would like to change their grazing or implement some other practice practices, they can also get funding to help with that. So those, that's what I'm talking about here with these conservation agreements. But again, to be able to focus specific Dakota Skipper conservation efforts in these highest priority areas. Another thing that's going on is the North Dakota Petroleum Council and their participating oil and gas companies are working to develop a Dakota Skipper Habitat Conservation Plan. With a lot of the impacts that have happened, if there's federal, if it's on federal lands or there's a federal permit involved, there's an avenue to go through the regulatory process called Section 7 consultation, where you can actually consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and hopefully end up with an incidental take permit for the species if you're impacting it. This Habitat Conservation Plan is essentially industry's way of trying to be proactive about impacts that they can avoid on private lands. And that avenue is in Section 10 of the Environmental or Endangered Species Act. And that course hasn't been, hasn't been traveled very often. And so getting this plan written up will, the intention is to provide some sort of insurance or assurance, I should say, to industry that as they work with the fish, Fish and Wildlife Service through this plan that they can, if they cannot avoid an impact and it's on private land that they will have a way to then mitigate for it and will get some assurance that the Fish and Wildlife Service will accept that. And so in association with this Habitat Conservation Plan, there are mitigation banks that are getting set up for Dakota Skipper, similar to like a wetland mitigation bank where if there's an impact then there's, then you pay for a certain amount of acreage of Dakota Skipper conservation elsewhere. And all the details of these are getting, nothing's done yet, but it's just going on. And again, these kinds of tools and our, our information now about the species are all being used in a much more pinpointed way, or it can be. So just my final thought on this, you know, a lot of times in life we have something unexpected come our way. And, you know, at first we want to just take it as a problem or a roadblock in what we're doing. And oftentimes it's, we realize later that it's life's way of getting us to just stop, take a moment, step back, look at things a little differently. And oftentimes it's an opportunity for us to apply ourselves differently, step up to the plate a little differently. And I just think that's the case for Dakota Skipper for us in this state. If North Dakota doesn't work to conserve the species, it's just really not going to happen. I mean, I really personally don't want to get to the point of this life support thing that's going on in Minnesota. You know, we've got, we still have a lot of good prairie out there. We have great things going on. We have great people in the agencies and in all sorts of industry and that sort of thing. And it's an opportunity for us. And I think the other thing that the Dakota Skipper has done is give us a little bit of a kick in the pants about looking, thinking more broadly about our grasslands in this state and the other benefits that they give and the other species and importance that they have. So I will take any questions if we have time. Yes, I'll repeat the question. So he's asking, as the populations blinked out in Minnesota, did they have any sense of why? And it's, there are some ideas for sure. And I will say like the monitoring wasn't an annual sort of monitoring. So they'd come back five years later and oh, wait a second, where are these guys, you know. So there was some time in between, but there has been thought of pesticides have been brought up as a possible thing. And actually the Minnesota Zoo is they are, they have some studies going on with with pesticides and not just the Dakota Skipper but other pollinators and such. There were a couple of sites where perhaps the timing of some prescribed burns weren't was questioned. Now that's not an all out thing I don't think range wide but a couple of particular situations pointed to that as a possible reason. And then just in general there's just increasing invasion of cool season grasses is a big problem and brome in particular brome smooth brome grass is a particular problem for the species we think so. And again, in Minnesota, the context of it is corn and soybeans surrounding these little remnants of native prairie it's a little different context here not that we don't have agriculture surrounding this as well but it's a kind of a different system so. Sure Brenda is asking about kind of maybe conflicting things I said about cool season grasses and how how they might influence or impact Dakota Skipper so. I think though the one thing to note. Definitely cool seasons. As they invade more and more they get to a certain point and maybe there's a threshold or depending on the site and exactly how that site is spatially laid out you know whether it could whether it affects a population enough at a certain point. But in general, when when the skipper was listed. A lot of the sites that had been looked at for the skipper and that were known, we're just really like the primus high quality. Native prairie sites and that's what we thought that they needed well, some of these other surveys that were done through industry and other. At other times, we have realized oh they can actually they're out here still now again is there a certain threshold where they blink out is is part of the question but. They can still tolerate a fair amount of shrub encroachment and and especially Kentucky bluegrass is okay I think it's partly because of the structure of that grass compared to smooth brome. Kentucky bluegrass you've got tillers and things that come up that it's not a bunch grass but it does have some more basal cover, whereas smooth brome is a. It's pretty much bear at the base of the stock, and that would not if a female laid an egg on the base of a brome probably wouldn't end up with a larva developing at the end of that so. We just we don't know a lot about it so quite yet, and I think it's an area to look into further.


Good morning, welcome to morning prayer on this beautiful morning that the Lord has made, that we get the pleasure, the honor, the joy of celebrating and rejoicing because we get to be glad in it. This is the day he has made, not our schedules, not our agendas, not the things that we don't even know that are gonna happen, they didn't make this day, the Lord has made this day, so we have the opportunity to rejoice. We have the pleasure in being glad in it. This morning, I wanna open up our time of praise and prayer, intercession and worship by reading out of Psalm 118, starting in verse one. The psalmist says, oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good. The psalmist doesn't say the situation is good, he says the Lord is good. He doesn't say the circumstance is good, he says the Lord is good. And because the Lord is good, we can give thanks. We can give thanks regardless of our circumstance and regardless of our scene in life, regardless of the deficit, we have the honor, we have the privilege, we have the expectation that despite everything else being one way, the Lord is always good. And then he puts an exclamation on the goodness of the Lord by saying, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let Israel say, his steadfast love endures forever. Let the house of Aaron say, his steadfast love endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord say, his steadfast love endures forever. Right now, I want us to engage each of us where we're at, whether we're in this room or we're online, we're in our car, we're at home, maybe we're in our office and I don't know where we are at, but regardless of where we are at and what we are going through and what the schedule, the agenda of the day is, let us say this morning from the depths of our hearts, with the utmost conviction and expectation, the steadfast love endures forever. The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. So with your mouth, from your heart, just begin to lavish the Lord with that decree that Lord, your steadfast love endures forever. My scene does not. My situation does not. My circumstance does not. But Lord, your steadfast love, it does endure forever. Just begin to speak that to the Lord. Begin to speak it out loud. Begin to declare it. Begin to confess it. With your voice, let your lungs spill air over your vocal cords and confess this truth, questions and our feelings. They are fleeting, but your steadfast love endures forever. Lord, our schedules, they come and go, but Lord, your steadfast love endures forever. Our problems and our pain, they come and they go, but Lord, your steadfast love endures forever. Lord, people, they come and they go, but Lord, your steadfast love endures forever. Lord, the foundations of this world, the foundations of the very galaxy above our heads, Lord, all under this truth that your steadfast love endures forever. Overwhelm us this morning, Lord, with your steadfast love. Consume us, Lord, with your steadfast love. Heal us according to your steadfast love. Set us free according to your steadfast love, God. Lord, your steadfast love endures forever. Your steadfast love, God. Your steadfast love endures forever. Faithful you to be on my To the setting of the same To the setting of the same Yarning of the sun To the setting of the same Yarning of the sun To the setting of the same Yarning of the setting of the same To the setting of the same Yarning of the sun To the setting of the same Yarning Return to your, return to your rest This small, return to your rest hours and hours and hours building this Lego Star Wars Lego thing it was the first one that he had completed without my help and he was very proud of it and I remembered him setting it down on the table and our lab walked by and with his tail the lab knocked it over and pieces went everywhere and my son was devastated I mean just pieces everywhere and I remember him picking up pieces and literally throwing them in my lab and he had no words coming from his mouth but just the actions of what he was doing was saying it all Lord he was saying can you put it back together dad can you put it back together the Lord has thrown a couple things on my heart heavy as we were just seeing that that some of us whether we're in this room or we're online right now our life our marriage is literally in pieces and we they're scattered around and we're trying to pick them up and put them back together and we can't we've tried this we've tried that we're weak we're weary we're we're out of tears at this point we're crying dry tears and we're needing the Lord to pick up those pieces and put our life back together and if that is you I just with your mouth the confession of your heart to say Lord that is me I am in pieces would you put me back together Lord I can't do it anymore I don't have what it takes I'm not strong enough I've tried and I failed I can't take it Lord would you put it back together you know my son had to bring it to me in order for me to put it back together would you bring it to the Lord this morning would you bring him the pieces of your life the pieces of your marriage the pieces of your situation the pieces of your circumstance would you bring it to the father and say Lord I can't do it anymore would you pick up the pieces and put it back together as the soul must set rise up and come to our help be deem us for the sake of your steadfast love Lord would you do that marriage is in pieces this morning Lord I address my verses to the king my tongue is like a pen of a ready scribe Lord this is our theme our heart overflows with this pleasing theme that you are our defender you are our deliverer are our great intercessor you are our great high priest and we recognize this morning that you love to pray for us that you love to intercede for us you love to stand on our behalf Lord you love it you love it Lord and so Lord because of that we hand you all the pieces of our fragments of our lives of our hearts of our issues of our problems in our pains and Lord we bring them to you with expectation with holy expectation God holy expectation Lord you are our deliverer you are our defender so Lord would you rise up and come to our help in our lives Lord would you rise up and come to the help of our cities God would you rise up and come to the help of our nation God we are in peril right now Lord and so we come to you our great intercessor asking for you to move in a mighty way would you move in a mighty way would you do mighty works at our midst God our hearts overflow with this pleasing theme you are defender you are deliverer Jesus it is you it is you Lord it is you Lord would you defend Lord would you deliver would you set people free would you heal hearts would you heal minds would you move would you move God thank you that you are to Moses the Lord will fight for you all you have to do is keep still despite the Israelites complaining and groaning you continued to deliver them you continued to fulfill your promises you parted the Red Sea you gave them bread from heaven you made water come out of the rock Lord all we have to do is be still to be silent and listen to what it is that you are calling us to do listen to the voice of the Lord calling and our wildernesses and our despair God we know that you hear us we know that you can free us from our despair we know that you can deliver us if we would just listen to your still small voice like you said to Elijah in Kings it's a still small voice another translation says a low whisper God we're listening for your low whisper to drown out the sounds of this world the the volume that this world says you have to live by the decision that this world says are the right things to do God we want deliverance from those things we know that you will transform us that you will free us that you said that you will not leave us as orphans but that you will come to us and so Lord we're saying right now in Jesus name come speak to us as we silence the world speak to us as we silence our own motives as we silence our own thoughts and we say Lord take them captive and make us obedient to you God you are our deliver you are our defender that you are our strong tower and our fortress Lord if you did all of those things for the Israelites when you brought them out of Egypt we know that you can do them for us right now in this moment when we call in the name of your son Jesus Christ your one and only son we know that this world is not gonna be without problems you told us that in this world you will have trouble but take heart you have overcome them so Lord in your strength and in your overcoming power and ability we just say deliver us from addiction deliver us from sin deliver us from sickness and pain and spiritual battles that have plagued us for so long we ask in Jesus name we're seeking so that we can find God you're knocking at the door and saying I am here will you open the door will you let me in I alone can free you I alone can deliver you from whatever's been holding you back and so in Jesus name we are asking we are bleeding we're on our knees praying for intercession God deliver us set us free from the snares that entangle us catch us set us free from pride set us free from the division and the polarization that we tend to gravitate toward my side versus their side us versus them set us free Lord set us free set us free Lord I want to turn our remaining time into focusing on praying for specific people and I want us to start with praying for Israel starting May 7th we as a church we're joining ministries and churches all around the world approximately 10 million people to spend 21 days to pray and fast for the nation of Israel for the people of Israel and I want us to begin praying into that now there's a great revivalist by the name of Charles Finney and before Charles Finney would go anywhere he sent before him a man by the name of father Nash and father Nash was his great intercessor and father Nash would go to his city before Finney and he would pray for the hearts of people before Finney would even go and that is what we are going to be doing right here right now we are praying before we even come to May 7th that the Lord would begin preparing hearts preparing souls and preparing minds for this great work that is about to be done so in Romans chapter 10 the great apostolic prayer brothers my heart's desire and prayer to God for them this is Israel for them is that they may be saved for I bear them witness that they have zeal for God but not according to knowledge for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own they did not submit to God's righteousness for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to ever up into the law for righteousness to everyone who believes right now I want us to pray for the hearts of Israel Lord when you begin to soften hearts in Israel even now Lord even as pastor Lee taught this week we know that you have done a partial hardening of hearts Lord God we ask that right now Lord as May 7th approaches as we draw near to this time where your people are going to be gathering all around this world to pray for Israel God Lord I ask that you begin to soften hearts that you begin to loosen chains that have kept them tied down to righteousness of their own Lord I pray that you would begin to give dreams to the people of Israel that they would have prophetic dreams God that you would wake them up in the middle of the night with imagery of your son that they may see Jesus high and lifted up that they may see Jesus Yeshua Messiah Lord God and they would turn to Him Lord would you awaken them Lord Lord would you awaken them would you awaken them to Jesus God in Jesus name their defender in this hour that you be their deliverer in this hour Lord as enemies encroach upon all sides of them God would you be their defender would you be their deliverer God in this time would you deliver them would you defend them Lord would you would you show yourself to them through your mighty hand would you show yourself would you reveal yourself to them in a mighty way Lord with old men of Israel dream dreams with young men of Israel see visions with young girls and young women of Israel Lord God prophesy Lord God awaken them be their defender be their deliverer God or would you move in Israel Lord would you begin to move even now as we are gathered thousands of miles away God would you move would you move would you move Lord would you move Lord would you defend them would you deliver them Lord and Lord I even ask that right now as Paul said my heart's desire and prayer to God is for them Lord I pray that you would give us a heart your heart for Israel God would you give us your heart would you give us a heart transplant today God for a heart for Israel your heart for your chosen people God would you give us your heart for your people would you give us your heart for Jerusalem for God just as you wrote into Jerusalem in Luke 19 and you looked across it and you wept God Lord I pray that even done here that as we pray over Jerusalem but not only would we we've over Jerusalem God that we would hear for playing well and out Sego and Battle Creek and Grand Rapids and Grand Haven God Lord would you give us tears God because you've given us your heart for your people God give us tears Lord give us tears God you give us your heart for your people for the land for this land for Jerusalem for Israel Lord we ask that we pray and as we intercede for Israel that there will be a broad sweep of salvation that goes across that land Lord would there be a broad sweep of salvation across Israel Lord I pray that as we come toward May 7th that all of us would take a stand on the wall that we would be watchmen that we would be like Father Nash Lord God to Charles Finney be intercessors for Israel Lord give us your heart thank you for this day Lord you are our defender you are our deliverer so we go into this day with confidence and boldness and courage knowing that you are so good Lord and we give you thanks in Jesus name thank you for joining us this morning for prayer we will be back in the prayer room at noon and at 6 30 otherwise we'll see you on the live stream tomorrow morning have a blessed day


Welcome to JSA TV and JSA podcast the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals I'm Laura Noland at JSA We are getting to know the Hellman Electric family and today We are featuring Jerry Dolek vice president of the power division at Hellman Electric Jerry welcome to JSA TV Good afternoon If you could let's start about talking about the primary Responsibilities of the power division at Hellman Electric. Can you talk about that? sure so I'm relatively new here been here about a year and a half and We're we have started this power division and part of the responsibilities and what the power division is going to be doing is We're going to get involved in building and constructing electrically new services, so this would be services for large infrastructures buildings and so forth Including the tie-in from the utilities to the various buildings So large services on both low voltage side medium voltage side So it would involve the build out of Con Edison network volts things like that Generator facilities start up of generator facilities and basically start up in commissioning of a gear of power systems of Generator systems for buildings and facilities for campuses and so forth. So that's I Had that experience prior I owned a was a owner of a company that did that and now I'm at Hellman and we're going to try to do the same thing here Wonderful. Well, you mentioned some of the different projects and and tasks that you work on in the power division So do you have any other projects that you'd like to mention that you handle and then how do you work in tandem with the other divisions at Hellman? Okay, so There are a number of divisions here at Hellman the Hellman electric does heavy construction interiors a lot of involvement with governmental type facilities and What we're going to hopefully bring to that is some Additional level of technical expertise where we do say for example medium voltage cable splicing where we are familiar with utility requirements and bringing facilities and buildings and infrastructure and also basically testing and commissioning some of these Facilities and and gear and equipment and so forth As they are installed in infrastructure. So Basically, if we could help with the large power Coming into a building or facility Then so and basically interface with some of the other Hellman divisions like the interior divisions Who would then take over and complete the rest of the building or the heavy construction division? Which would take over then and complete some of the other levels of the projects going further into the facility Jerry we're almost halfway through 2020. Do you have any projects that really stood out to you this year over the past year? Maybe even working across the different divisions at Hellman yes We just assisted in with Hellman Electric and Completing the generator installation for the Manhattan psychiatric Center So we brought that online With Hellman Electric interior division It was a quite a complex project that involved the paralleling of two generators to back up the facility In case of power failure at the Manhattan psychiatric Center. We worked with the heavy division the heavy power division at Hellman in Helping them commission and test the switch gear relating to the Manhattan lift bridge and some of the other projects that I brought in and involved in now are the Power distributions for the New York Aquarium in Pony Island in Brooklyn We are close to completing that job right now We have worked on the main power installation for the Pier 55 Park on the west side of lower Manhattan So that was you know quite an interesting project also We have quite a number of projects that are Interesting also that are on the books that have been somewhat delayed as you know because of the covert experience but they're coming back on track and things like Columbia University power distribution were working with another electrical contractor on that to Do all the cables splicing and terminations on their medium voltage 15,000 volt system there So number of very interesting projects that are that are have either Been online have been completed here so far and are coming online now Excellent excellent. Well, let's talk a little bit about Innovation so how have advancements in technology played a role in your power division Well power in general for for many many years since Say the early 1900s to you know rather recently until the advent of electronics It's been quite a static field that we were in Not that many developments, but since say the 80s With the advent of electronics things have changed a lot We do now protective relaying That used to be done with electromechanical relays are now all electronic computer control There are things that monitor substations skata systems that control substations That monitor processes that have advanced things like variable speed drive for motors that now you can control motors very easily Alternated current motors that was a little harder to do Before so there's quite a bit of development with with process with communication with monitoring When something goes wrong a lot of these systems can go back to and they record Problems and issues that have occurred on the power systems and you can help you back go back and analyze These power systems and you could then determine, you know, what happened and how are we going to fix it? Well as you move forward and with that innovation, how do you see the power division in Helman growing over the next few years? Well, we are participating in a lot of that, you know doing protective relay Settings things like that. We are looking at the overall power system in general and Making recommendations one of the key things that we do here and we have brought and are getting involved in is when There's a problem on a power system when the building goes down or a facility goes down Or when there's a short circuit and a feeder somewhere and the feeder goes down so a lot of that troubleshooting and Restoration of the facility is what we are involved in and a lot of customers are calling us to help them in Restoration to determine where the fault was to make recommendations and make repairs on where some of these faults are So this is a lot of what we're doing in the power division and what we're getting involved in Sometimes leads to additional work that we can help the customer with not only solving the immediate problem but potentially maybe coming up with a solution and Avoiding some of these problems in general Wonderful. Well, we thank you so much Jerry for joining us It was great to learn about the the power division at Hellman and we certainly look forward to hearing more news developments from Hellman Thank you And thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA podcast. Happy networking


I did not know about him. He said he was fast Oh, hey, he said he was fast and he said to himself if this plane gets on the ground where we're going I'm never getting on a plane again He didn't know it didn't I've said that what probably four flights a week. Oh, yeah John Madden said I'm actually not doing it. Then he changes the entire game says I don't give a I'll drive across Wyoming Get to this game and in doing so he starts meeting people at restaurants and like kind of getting the feel of the people that he's Covering and the fans of the game and he was an actual Lim an actual branch of the NFL was out on tour basically for six months meeting people.