Okay, very good morning to you. Hope you're well. Had a great weekend. Just a quick heads-up then before I start the briefing, look ahead for the week. If you haven't already joined us on Amplify Live, check out the link below if you're watching this on YouTube. Not only do we have things like the live stream, daily research put out, but we also have our masterclass happening this coming Wednesday. And this is our guest speaker from industry this week. We've got Hanny Redar, who's a portfolio manager at Pinebridge Investments. And he's part of the team responsible for around $15 billion of assets under management. So he chairs their team's multi-asset strategy process. So can't wait to have him on board. He's going to be in a kind of interactive Q&A with the community. So it'd be great to have everyone on board and get your questions ready. But otherwise, let's get stuck into it and what exactly is happening to kick off this week. And first of all, don't forget, it is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the US, which means that most of the major markets in the US are closed and we have reduced electronic trade on Globex as well. So no trade on the NAISI or the CME today in terms of the cash markets. But just looking across the major asset classes, it's relatively quiet. A few things going on. So overall, from a kind of sentiment point of view, perhaps slightly dampened and a few things are going to talk about obviously to get you up to speed on the weekend's news before we talk about the week ahead. But we've got slightly lower index futures. Dax down about 64 here in early European trade. US indices also see marginally lower elsewhere in the FX market. The dollar index is basically flat. But don't forget it's coming off a pretty resurgent performance that we saw at the end of last week. And consequently, then in the major pairs, euro, dollar and cable trading a little lower. Minor underperformance seen in cable at the moment. We'll talk about what the latest situation is there with COVID and the lockdown with the latter looking more likely to be extended beyond the government's current target of the middle of February for loosening of restrictions. Otherwise, elsewhere, the US 10 year then some of the slight softness seen in equity space up about three ticks. And gold did see a little bit of volatility here in the initial reopening of trade overnight. You can see here there's quite extreme red wick or candlestick here, looking at 30 minute candlesticks, not triggered by one specific headline. But if you put it on a daily continuation, you can see here, just move that ellipse, support points that were seen on the 7th to the 14th again on the 11th of jam and then the 15th of jam last week. And a breakthrough there just in some fairly illiquid markets and quite extreme selling. We got down to pretty much to the tick, the $1800 level before we've seen then a strong 35 buck reversal on that now. So more, I would say, byproducts of technical breaches, reflection of the market conditions at that time, and then target down 1800 before a bit of a bounce back. With gold still remaining a little heavy of late, albeit it's now up about five bucks in a session. You know, this idea that real yields will start rising, inflation expectations picking up under the Biden kind of stimulus view and that reflation trade and therefore as well just adding to some of that allure back to yields rather than just typically looking at gold, which was held in support prices just a number of months ago. All right, well, in terms of a technical perspective, the guys as ever will go through that in full and the kind of set ups on each chart. But I'm just going to get you up speed on the news and what we're looking out for this week. So starting with the overnight session, we did have some Chinese figures. We had the Chinese economy show that they've now exceeded its pre pandemic growth levels. The number for fourth quarter, this is to the end of last year, came in at 6.5 percent above the expected 6.2 percent. IP came in during the year at 7.3 against 6.9 percent and retail sales 4.6. So a touch soft and expected 5.5 percent. But all in all, a fast and expected rebound seen at the end of last year. I think most analysts are of the view that throughout the rest of this year, we're going to see growth rates in excess of 8 percent for the country as it continues to outperform that of the larger kind of global picture. How much of an influence has this had in terms of the market open here in Europe? None at all, I would say. So it's kind of a point just to be aware of. Otherwise, one of the things I thought was quite interesting that came out late last night, emanating from the Wall Street Journal, was this obviously a very familiar character to you. I'm sure Janet Yellen, she's expected to affirm the US's commitment to market determined dollar value and give assurances that the US will not seek a weaker dollar for competitive trade advantages. This is according to the Wall Street Journal, citing Biden transition officials familiar with her preparation for her confirmation hearing, which is happening on Tuesday. Obviously, she's the incoming new Treasury Secretary. So I thought that was quite an interesting one, particularly with the idea then that, you know, Trump administration obviously was very much talking down the dollar, talking about other foreign governments manipulating their currency, which was an unfair trade advantage to them. Trump was pretty well known for that. And so what this does mean, then, is that, you know, just given how short the dollar market had been, we've seen a bit of a bounce back of the Dixie's trade in close proximity back to 91 now. So pretty strong reversal that we have had on some of this reflation trade since the blue wave confirmation. But what it does mean, then, is that the ending is not indicating that she would want to step in, even if we did see that pick up.  The other thing, then, is looking at COVID. So this is the latest situation looking at coronavirus in the UK. The UK PM said on Friday that they're seeing some tentative early signs of the pressure may be slightly easing on London hospitals. Our Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, said he hopes peak infections have passed in London, but noted the death peak is in the future and peaks are approaching in the next week or 10 days regarding new hospital admissions. So you can see here, if I go down the... There's early signs that daily cases may be falling. You can see that here, the seven-day average has dropped now to around the 46,000 level, having got peaked up at around 60,000. However, if you have a look at daily deaths, they continue to increase quite a alarming rate for the time being, and hospital admissions on the seven-day average is still pretty much at their peak. So it's still another week or two to go, according to Whitty on that front. Now, what this has led to then, this is looking now at lockdown. COVID-19 restrictions will not start to ease until March. Only if Britain's vaccination program stays on track, that was according to the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who obviously has been fairly well-aligned with Boris Johnson. That, of course, is a different timeline to what the government's self-imposed dates are, which is for the middle of February, where they'll look to have vaccinated 40 million people by essentially the 15th of February. That's looking very unlikely then, given the fact that this seed now has been implanted by the foreign secretary. So as we've been anticipating here on the channel for some time, kind of the end of March, or perhaps even Easter in early April, is when we could see some loosening of those restrictions. But again, depends very much on the vaccination rates. The UK government has also said to be considering all possibilities to enforce COVID-19 rules for travellers and won't rule out setting up quarantine hotels and using GPS trackers in order to fight the spread, that's what's being spoken about at the moment. On the actual vaccine side of things, the Telegraph newspaper reported the government aims to vaccinate four to five million people a week within months with shots from Moderna and J&J helping it inoculate all 54 million adults by the end of June. That's what the government is saying. However, again, RAB sounding more cautious, stating that the government aims to vaccinate the adult population of the UK by September and thus then lifting England's lockdown will not be a big bang event, but we'll see the reintroduction on the tiering system to give you context as well. The moment vaccinations have now exceeded around 3.8 million. So again, the government officially saying X, but senior government officials saying Y, definitely I think the Y is probably more sensible to follow. So perhaps late March then for the current restrictions of the national lockdown, which is a little bit longer a couple of weeks beyond what they've currently tabled so far. And then in terms of the full more adult population being inoculated, they're saying end of June, we're probably looking more towards September or October time. All things raining equal at this point in time on targets being met. In the US, Biden having unveiled his fiscal policies last week, he's also now unveiled his COVID-19 plan, which includes increasing vaccine availability at pharmacies and reduced a defense production act in order to boost supplies as well as launching mobile clinics. Now his target is to deliver 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine within the first 100 days of his presidency, something which the health advisor, Anthony Fauci has said is more than doable. So that's the target. So it'd be interesting to see them continue to track these US numbers as well as in the UK and elsewhere to see how things are going. And the interesting read this morning was talking about the divergence that is happening at the moment, basically built upon the fluency of the country in question where the developed world has access to these more expensive products or vaccines that we've had from Madonna in particular, but also Pfizer, AstraZeneca is a little bit more affordable in that respect. But the idea being that actually this is a global led problem because without the entire world having some kind of coordinated solution then we could see a prolonged period of mutation of this virus if there are other countries who have less ability to be able to purchase these more expensive drugs, which is fine for the likes of the UK and the US, but what about these other nations in Africa, for example. So quite an interesting point on the bigger picture. Otherwise just moving on, the other headlines get up to speed on European politics, Italy, the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conti faces a confidence vote in the Lower House of Parliament. Today he is likely to win that, but then he could face a similar vote on the Senate in Italy on Tuesday, where he has less room for maneuver after the former ally Matteo Renzi, the former Premier, withdrew his backing what we saw last week. Conti needs about a dozen more votes in the Senate to restore an outright majority in the 321 strong upper chamber after the defection of Renzi's parties. So, BTPs this morning, slight uptick in Italian yours once again, so still a degree of uncertainty. As we were talking about last week, snap elections still seem unlikely, but it could be that this one of the scenarios here is that Conti actually resigns, that doesn't mean necessarily he leaves, he just gets given the mandate from the President, Matteo Renzi to go ahead and try to form a new government which might buy him another few weeks, but again, that just increases the longevity of the political instability being witnessed at the moment and that could be reflective in some marginal sensitivity to Italian yields, I would say. Meanwhile in Germany, just very quickly, Armin Laschet, PM of the German state of Norfheim, Visfalia has been elected leader of the governing CDU on a promise of continuity with the centrist course of Angela Merkel. I guess that's the most important point because this victory now puts him in the poll position to succeed Merkel as Chancellor after the September elections to take place in the Bundestag. On the oil front, I did think it was worth noting that we continue to get fairly aggressive rhetoric coming out of, and behavior coming out of Iran at the moment, head of the inauguration of course of the Biden and the new US administration coming in. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards, as you can see here, tested a long range missile and drones against land to sea targets in their fourth large-scale military share of force in just two weeks at this present point in time. Does this constitute something to be worried about? I'd say no, it's more a flexing of muscle from a political point coming into quite a sensitive timing with the Biden administration coming in, as I said. However, one mistake here or there on a test or a drone going into different disputed areas, for example, geographically, could be met with a response from military, which is obviously quite a crowded space at that particular area in the Middle East around the Straits of Hormuz, so any supply shock, of course, would be very meaningful for price. Separately elsewhere, Libya's oil output has dropped by about 200,000 barrels per day after a closure of a leaking pipeline. It's something to be aware of that happened at the weekend on Saturday. Output has fallen to around one million barrels per day in the wake of the Wahar oil company's decision to shut the pipeline, taking crew to the eastern oil port of Essaida, which is the largest, of course, in Libya. At the moment, though, I mean, is that Libyan news that important for oil? I'd say no, not particularly. I'd say the oil dynamic's still very much being driven by the kind of demand implications from tracking things like the virus, from the developments of cases, restrictions, and then also vaccines. Okay, quick look elsewhere. This is something I thought I'd mention not so much because of Trump, but more so because of Intel, perhaps, that the market opened later. Not today, but I guess we're looking ahead to Tuesday, given the market holiday today, but the Trump administration have notified Huawei suppliers, including chipmaker Intel, that it is revoking certain licenses to sell the Chinese company and intends to reject dozens of other applications to supply the technical communications firm according to people familiar with the matter that told Reuters. So it'd be interesting to see how Intel fair when they do reopen later on this week. From an earnings perspective, then talking about single stocks, it does pick up pace a little bit. There are 40 S&P 500 companies reporting this week. Here's a look at some of the highlights. There are six of the Dow 30 components as well, too. So just giving you a bit of a flavor. Again, we continue to get a number of the big bank stocks in pre-markets, the Tuesday Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. You've also got Netflix, which is always a keen one to watch after Market on Tuesday, pre-market Wednesday, Procter and Gamble, Morgan Stanley, some of the standouts, some of the airline firms United after the close on Wednesday, Thursday after market. You've got Intel and IBM. And then on Friday, probably Chambuchet is the most notable in terms of market cap perspective there. So no one particularly huge, I would say, but certainly earnings season started to pick up a bit of pace before we get into the full swing and the big multi-hundred kind of number drop then for next week. Looking at the calendar, it is a fairly kind of back-ended week, I would say. Not only do we have the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday today, but tomorrow is pretty spare of any major macroeconomic data releases. So really we look ahead to Wednesday. And just to give you a bit of a flavor then, starting with the U.S. first, obviously we've got Janet Yellen having her confirmation hearing on Tuesday as a Treasury Secretary. We've then got Biden's inauguration, of course, happening on Wednesday. A lot of talk over the weekend in mainstream media about the potential for violent protests happening on Capitol Hill anytime really from now up until that event. I would say that as much as that would generate a lot of media retention and there could well be some trouble that might emanate from that event in itself, I don't think it's gonna be particularly market moving from a market perspective. Nonetheless, though, where are we at with the whole execution of the Biden fiscal plan? Well, interesting commentary coming out of Fox's Charlie Gasparino. Now, anyone who was around during the financial crisis will recognize his name, Charlie Gasparino, back then I think he was with CNBC, but he was particularly hot with a lot of the good scoops that were coming out for the whole subprime crisis. So he's now at Fox and what he was saying at the weekend was Wall Street Democrat sources believe that Biden will be forced to scale back spending plans and increases the minimum wage because of divided government and opposition from more moderate Democrats. So again, this is one of those things that we were discussing last week about the blue ripple rather than the blue wave, given the kind of mathematics that defined the Senate being particularly close run and certain proposals require 60 Senate seats to vote in favor of certain policies, which is probably a bit of a big ask. So, you know, just worth bearing that in mind. Otherwise, US data-wise, it is pretty quiet. We'll get the flash PMI on Friday, but other than that, that's pretty much it. So flipping over to what we've got from mainland Europe and the UK. So starting with Europe, Thursday, you can see you've got the ECB policy decision. So extended COVID-19 lockdowns, the pace of vaccinations, the impact that prolonged restrictions in terms of lockdowns are having in various European economies on the overall Eurozone and then Italian politics. These are all gonna be probably the four key subjects that we'll be discussing with Christine Lagarde and the press conference. Not expecting any policy changes at all here, but there's obviously quite a few updates that'll be interesting to hear what she has to say when she goes into that Q&A event. So that's on Thursday for the ECB. You've also got, from a central bank perspective, the Bank of Canada on Wednesday, and you've got the BOJ policy decision coming in that. I think it's Thursday night into Friday morning as well, but not expecting anything really from the latter two central banks. You will see here that on Friday against the community Eurozone, but also relevant for the UK as well as the US, the flash PMI. So these are ways that the most interesting, of course, they'll be important to see the impact of rising COVID cases has had on general sentiment, particularly in the likes of Germany and the Netherlands in mainland Europe, for example, restrictions now are even more onerous than what they were back in the spring. So how is that impacting those harsher restrictions, the overall general sentiment? The German Central Bank's Weekly Economic Activity Index, this is something I was reading about the weekend, is an experimental measure that draws on high frequency indicators. Remember, through this whole pandemic, this has been a kind of buzzword that people have looked at for data readings to get a bit more of a real-time sentiment of rather than looking at slow, traditional, macroeconomic indicators, what's actually happening right here, right now, measuring things like mobility because that gives you a good idea of what is then the overall activity happening and the overall economic impact from a lockdown. And basically this German Central Bank Activity Index was showing that having drawn upon indicators such as pollution, Google searches, consumer confidence, it fell last week for the first time since the summer. So definitely starting to bite this ongoing kind of continuous rollover of lockdowns like what we've seen in Germany. So again, be used to see the read across for the PMIs. Going back then to the UK, you can see here we've got inflation data on Wednesday, you've got UK retail sales happening on Friday. So UK PMIs on Friday will reveal the impact of post-Brexit trade disruptions on sentiment and activity since the country left the European Union's custom arrangements at the start of the month. It will also reflect the impacts to what degree from the continuation of ongoing lockdowns. Again, public finance data and inflation data also drew out this week. So that's pretty much everything. So as far as the market opened this morning, perhaps a little bit, slightly risk off. Equity next features a touch heavy gold after that slight overnight technical move has rebounded, Tino is a little higher. I guess overall, there's a little bit of, I guess, kind of the fanfare around the Biden pump kind of just fading a little bit as it did at the end of last week as kind of the attention turns more to the practicalities of what he can achieve and how fast he can achieve it. The COVID situation is still resulting and the talk of pretty much then ongoing lockdowns, irrespective of the fact that vaccine programs are starting to pick up a bit of pace. So generally speaking then, equity is a little lower, oil a little lower with big reflection of that. US tenure, a touch higher and then Italian yields also moving up, pressuring BTPs on the ongoing political uncertainty there. So that is your wrap for the week ahead. Any questions at all? Just feel free to drop me a comment. I'm absolutely happy to help as always. Thanks very much, guys.


I'm Kristen Cantu with Well-Told Films in Montpelier, Vermont. I'm here today talking with Amy Cunningham of the Vermont Arts Council about the Vermont Creative Futures Grant. Hi, Amy. Hi, Kristen. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So, yes, I'm Amy Cunningham. I'm the Deputy Director at the Vermont Arts Council. And the Vermont Arts Council has been around since the 1960s, where the state, the designated state arts agency, and that means that we help support artists, arts organizations, and arts projects all around the state with federal and state funding and other kinds of promotion and support. And I'm really excited. This is an unprecedented opportunity we have with this Creative Futures program. Amy, can you talk to us about what the aim is of the Vermont Creative Futures Grant? Yes. So, this is a program that was established by the state, by the state legislature, to support creative economy enterprises who've been suffered extensive losses from the pandemic. This is $9 million in support, which is on a scale that we've never, the arts sector in Vermont has never seen before. And this is, we're really grateful, this is support for the creative economy as a whole. So, not just artists and arts organizations, but creative businesses of many different sorts. So, it's a really, it's a new opportunity for us and it's a new opportunity for the field. So, who is the grant open to? So, we define the creative sector as the collective organizations, businesses, and individuals whose services and products are rooted in artistic and creative content. And that, I realize that's kind of a broad statement. But in our kind of research and understanding of the creative economy in Vermont, we've divided it up into seven key segments. So, that's film and media, which you're in. The literary arts, so writers and publishers, performing arts, which is a pretty broad category, visual arts and crafts. The specialty foods, let's see if I can remember, the other six, the other two. Culture and heritage, of course, so that's museums, libraries, and then design, which is actually a big portion of the creative economy. So, architects, graphic designers, that whole area. Amy, is this grant just for businesses or can sole proprietors take advantage of it as well? Sole proprietors are, we consider businesses for this grant. And so, yes, they are eligible for this program. For this program, sole proprietors are individuals who have an unincorporated business. And so, that would be most commonly defined as someone who has a schedule C as a part of their tax, not to get too specific. But that's how we define sole proprietors. And for this grant, sole proprietors will need to have had creative economy income that comprises at least 30 percent of their total income and is a minimum of $12,000 in 2019. I'm getting really specific with some of these details, but folks should know that our website, Vermont Arts Council, will have all of the specific guidelines and application details there. The sole proprietor grants will be flat grants of $4,000. And are there any eligibility requirements for businesses? The eligibility requirements in general is that you have to be Vermont based. You have to be, you know, within the creative economy. And we've got more information on our website that goes through those segments I just talked about and has a list of kind of different kinds of codes and more specific information about who's in the creative economy. Also, eligible applicants have to be fewer than 500 employees, which isn't easy. We know that most of our creative economy businesses and organizations are much smaller than that. And for this grant, because it is focused on pandemic harm, the business or entity or sole proprietor needs to have been in operation or taken substantial steps towards being in operation prior to the pandemic. So prior to or as of March 13, 2020, when everything shut down. And so you said that the grant is open to everyone in the creative sector. And you went over what all of those are. And will those be listed on the website for anyone who may? Yes. So we'll have the website currently has the complete guidelines and eligibility requirements. And folks can also take a look at the entire application preview before they go into the portal and try to apply. You can see all of the questions and all of the documentation needed in advance. Amy, if grant applicants have any questions about eligibility, who should they get in touch with? We have a variety of different ways for applicants to seek help from us. First of all, we're going to have a series of grant seeker workshops so folks can sign up for virtual zoom session and get an overview of the grant and they can ask questions during those sessions. All of those sessions are being recorded and will be posted on the website. But in addition, folks are welcome to email us directly creative futures at Vermont Arts Council dot org. And then we also have set up on our website away for interested applicants to sign up for a one on one meeting with myself or one of my colleagues. And we can answer any specific questions. So we're hopeful that all of those things will make it really easy for applicants to get the answers they need. Can you tell us who isn't eligible for this grant? So if you're an individual but not operating as a sole proprietor, then you would not be eligible for this grant. This is for businesses owned by folks who are 18 years of age or older. In addition, businesses that are franchises or chains would not be eligible for this funding. And nor are religious political or advocacy organizations, government agencies or schools for this particular grant requirement. Okay. And are there any exceptions within that? There is an exception. If if an arts and cultural organization operates under the umbrella of a university, then they would be eligible to to come in for the program. Are there any special considerations to be aware of with this grant? Yes, for this grant program and for several other Vermont Arts Council grant programs, we do have special consideration for organizations or businesses that are either owned by, led by, or primarily serving under resourced organizations, communities. And so that means communities who have traditionally been under resourced by Vermont Arts Council from other other funding sources. And so that would include people of color or indigenous people, people who identify as LGBTQ and people with disabilities, folks who are immigrants or refugees, were really committed to special consideration for those communities to make sure there's equitable access to these funds. And what can the grant funds be used for? Well, this program is for the legislation states it's for regular operating expenses. So in that sense, this is a really flexible grant.  So really, you know, your mortgage, your rent, your utilities, like those kinds of like basic regular regular operating costs that so many other grant funds won't support. This is what this grant is for. Are there any restrictions on what the grant funds cannot be used for? So these are federal ARPA funds designated from the state. And so there are a few restrictions that come from the federal government. And the key piece is avoiding duplication of benefits. And so the funding cannot be used for overlapping project costs that are being covered by other federal funds. So if your entity is receiving federal funds of some sort, these can't overlap and double dip. The other, again, if you have other federal funds and if you happen to have another federal grant that requires matching of some sort, you just have to check with that other federal grant on whether or not this funding can be a part of that match. But those are those are really the primary restrictions. And what's the criteria for the grant awards? We're going to be assessing the grant applications based on three key criteria. One is the severity of pandemic harm. And that's just really rooted in the intention of this funding. Like I said before, this is really about making whole the many organizations and entities, excuse me, who have continuing losses from COVID. So that's a primary criteria as is community and cultural impact. So an entity or business's mission, cultural significance, the community served, that's going to be taken into account. And then the third criteria is around the organization or business's economic impact. So your role in local economic recovery, ability to retain or hire jobs, the likelihood of kind of post pandemic resilience, those are all a piece of the criteria as well. I think unlike some of the early pandemic relief that or that folks might be familiar with like PPP and other things that came out of the Small Business Administration. This program is meant to be a little bit more flexible and not just based on like strict formulas. And that's why we have these questions and kind of allow people to explain their particular circumstances because we're aware that there are a lot of special circumstances and people fell through the cracks in past rounds of relief. So we're hoping that this will help to mitigate those issues. And can you talk to us about what the grant level awards are based on? Yes. So these are flat grant amounts based on a tiered system. And so on the website you can you can look at the chart and you take your 2019 operating revenue and then look at the chart and find out what your grant amount would be. Like I mentioned before, sole proprietors all receive a flat grant of $4,000 for other nonprofits or for-profit businesses. It will be it's roughly 10% of your 2019 operating income with a maximum of $200,000. So in other words organizations or businesses whose operating revenue in 2019 was more than 2 million, you'll be capped at a $200,000 grant. What is the timeline for grant applications? So this grant program has three different rounds. The first round opens on September 15th, 2022 and the deadline will be November 1st, 2022 and folks will be notified of their award status in mid December. The second round will open at the beginning of 2023 and then there will be a third round that will open in the spring of 2023. If your application is not approved for funding in one round it will automatically be moved over into the next round for consideration. Amy if you get approved for funding in the first or second round are you allowed to apply in another round for additional funding? No, we want to make room for for everyone so we're not open to multiple grants. And Amy can you tell us how applications are reviewed and selected? Yes, so we will do an initial screening internally for eligibility. We'll take a look and make sure all of the financial documentation that you need that everything's all there and then we'll have a large team of outside reviewers who will all read and score and provide comments based on that criteria those three criteria I just explained and then from there we'll take a look and evaluate and make the final decisions based on the funding we have available. Amy how does an individual or a business in the creative sector apply for this grant? First step is to take a look at our website and look at the eligibility requirements and take a look at all the documentation needed and make sure that that's all going to work for you. I encourage everyone to you know either attend one of the grant seeker workshops which will be on zoom folks can register on our website or watch the grant seeker workshop video after they've been recorded and follow up with us with any questions. Like I mentioned before you can take a look at our application preview before you go into the online portal to apply and that way you can make sure that all of the questions make sense and you've got you know the answers you need you're able to to gather the information you need to apply and then from there applications go through an online portal which is right on our website. Are there any specific documents that are required for this grant? So there is a fair amount of financial documentation that we do need for this grant and that's because part of the grant eligibility is about documenting your continuing losses from COVID. So we will need the last three years of your tax returns that's the that's the big piece because again the grant award is based on your 2019 operating revenue so we need to look at how things were for you before the pandemic and then through the pandemic. In addition we'll need a profit and loss statement and balance sheets from the current year that you haven't filed taxes for yet and again this is all the documentation we need to assess that you have continuing unmet need from the pandemic and then related to that we'll also need within the application you'll need to provide a full accounting of all other relief that you may have received throughout the pandemic it's it's fine that you've gotten other relief we know a lot of folks have but we also know that in many cases the past relief hasn't been enough and so we just need a full accounting of you know whether it was PPP or EIDL or some creative sector specific grants that you may have gotten from through the arts council of remote humanities there'll be a table in the application you just need to list all of those items there will be again this is federal funds coming through the state and so there's a list of attestations meaning you just have to kind of read and agree to some certain conditions that you're you know eligible to receive this money and not debarred from receiving federal funds things like that that again you can read through all of those things in advance of applying Amy is there anything else you'd like to share about the Vermont creative futures grant well this investment is a recognition by the state legislature and the state administration that the creative economy not only has suffered through the pandemic we're all aware of theaters and musicians folks whose you know entire livelihood was really on the line during COVID but this is also an acknowledgement this is really a transformational investment for the creative economy in Vermont and it's a real acknowledgement that the creative sector is vital for the future of Vermont so this is the result of a lot of great advocacy the part of the Vermont creative network and folks involved in the creative sector and it really is has the potential to be a transformational investment for the state well thank you Amy thank you for having me


So the first thing on our agenda is this mask mandate discussion, but I actually want to flip that around with item four, the discussion regarding proposed council resolution condemning racism and police brutality. So if there's no objection to that, I'd love to do that first and any objection to that? No. Okay, great. So I'm going to turn that over to Lauren to talk about. Yeah, and so I had been working on a resolution, you know, as the name states condemning police brutality and racism. And, you know, I know this is an issue top of mind for our community. Really important and really, you know, hope that as the city council, we can make a statement on this. I ended up I was trying to pull it together quickly and was getting some input from some important stakeholders and ended up not having enough time to incorporate and try to get the language right so that it really kind of reflects what I hope to put forward to you all to consider. So I'm hoping we can consider that next week. And apologies for the kind of coming in last minute but would, you know, rather get it right than try to rush it. Knowing it's a really important statement that I hope we can make together. So that's the short update. And that will give more time for you all to look at it and consider it then trying to rush it and rush it out to you. Sorry, thank you for working on that. Dan. Yeah, just a quick question as to, you know, is this a resolution that would, you know, obviously condemn these racism and brutality. But is there any type of action that's attached to it. What I'm just speaking to is our is effectively affirming our commitment to, you know, continuously be working as a community to ensure that, you know, our city and working with our police department to make sure we're implementing, you know, the best possible practices, and that we're kind of convening community conversations on this topic as we've previously kind of enshrined in our social and economic justice advisory committee. So that's, that's but that those are the pieces that I'm working to make sure that I can really refine and make sure they are the right next steps, or the right kind of what we're resolving to do from here. And along those lines. I received a call. I mean, email from a constituent asking, you know, if there was any sort of formal committee that has ever sort of a channel of feedback to the police not saying that necessarily we have a problem here but you know and it just made me realize and maybe bill you know the answer to this. It has there ever been any type of sort of formal conduit to the police as a citizen advisory panel or something something similar because it strikes me that you know it's one thing for this resolution. I mean, it doesn't seem like it's going to end down and but it raises an interesting question of, you know, how do we as citizens give feedback to the police. I can tell you that every time you know it's occasionally come up, not actually that often. When it has the city council has actually said pretty much repeatedly, we feel that we're the elected representatives and we have a pretty good connection with the police department we can see them whenever we want higher manager to receive them. And that is the avenue for people out of control we're not so big that that the police is out of our sight. And that said, groups like the Community Justice Center have interactions with them the Social Economic Justice Committee have interactions or offer suggestions and look at things you know various groups have come up over the years to talk about specific issues committees but typically whenever any kind of police advisory or oversight or whatever committees come up, at least in the past Council has said, we got this. I guess my own opinion is it's worked really well we haven't had you know we've got an excellent police department. We don't have a lot of costs for concern, push for high standards they've delivered high standards. Council's been a great reflection of the community for the police department. Neither comments on this particular topic. Okay. Sorry, I feel like I heard someone there. Yeah, I want to speak on this this is Steve Whitaker. Oh hi. Good Steve. I want to take. I want to differ with Bill that we don't have problems here. I want to remind you that when after Mark Johnson was shot, we agreed to have a another session where the public. There's many concerned people who talk to me regularly that we're not given an opportunity to speak about the impact that has had on our community. Instead, it was brushed under the rug at seven seventh on the menu of the next meeting and considered finished. And I recently wrote city counselors and I believe I copied the city manager of one of the homeless guys who is his unopened beers were stolen and he can't make it make any sense out of, you know, why he could go get arrested for stealing his unopened beers from the store but the cops can steal his unopened beers. And we do have problems that we do need an oversight committee with teeth. I'll leave it there. Okay. Thank you Steven. Mayor if you're taking public comment on this we have two folks raised in their hands currently and Aaron Oh and then someone who's calling. All things LGBTQ. Great yes. Let's go with Aaron first. Let's go. Thanks. So I was curious if there are scheduled trainings education, etc. For emergency response teams in general, not just the police department, but all teams. And are they open for the public to review and to provide feedback to my question. That's a great question and Aaron, I'm sorry to interrupt. Would you mind also just telling us where you live. Awesome. And John, do you need anything else for the record. There. I'm going to go with no, it would be, I'm sorry, it would be great to have your, your full names. Well, I'm not just putting Aaron Oh, sure. It's Aaron last name is O'Connell O'Connell and NEL. Yeah, great. Thank you. Thank you. So I would say we have a whole lot of trainings that a lot of departments participate in fire police some of them are physical training some of them are situation training. Please do anything from they certainly do implicit bias training they do mental health training they do. They were the first department in the state to be fully certified in, I want to call it the team to training there's a different name for it. They do tactical training they do, you know, emergency response training they do interaction so all sorts of training the chief usually reviews those with the council during budget time or other times to go over and be happy to go through and provide a list of what the types of You know, it's pretty ongoing I think the same the fire department and DPW we have all sorts of things as a city we specifically to speak to this point we try to do annually implicit bias and those types of training for all of the folks that, that can interact with the public in any way. And obviously we just announced a new police chief today so he will probably bring his own training regimen in, you know, reflecting those priorities. You don't know what that will be. Okay. Thank you and all things LGBTQ. Yes, first of all I'd like to identify myself by name is and Charles and my zoom account is under the name of a table access show we have what I'm not calling from all things LGBTQ I'm calling this a private citizen. And my second point is, I had originally planned to just listen to the mass discussion, but since this has come up I. And I don't want to be confrontational but I was a little concerned by Mr Frazier, had answer, everything is fine. The other caller member of the public mentioned that shooting in the round table in the roundabout in Montpelier that many citizens found very disturbing. And, you know, as a citizen who's been following, I've lived here 12 years in Montpelier, you know, when that young man was shot in the high school that he was shot 14 times. I mean, a lot of these things raise concerns, and the public has them, but I, you know, so I was disturbed by Mr Frazier saying everything's fine it's all good. We've got training we've got everything in place, because I would argue that everything isn't necessarily in place. That's all. Yeah, I'd like to apologize if if if I said that I didn't mean to say quite that whether everything was fine what I meant to say what what I was trying to say was the interactions between the police and the public and the council have been working fine obviously there are things of great concern. The mayor did hold a forum despite what you heard earlier, inviting people to come to talk about that and very few people participated. And obviously when when the findings were released we did a full press release live broadcast live with the state's attorney we released all the videos. There are very disturbing things nobody wants to be involved in these things I can understand why anybody would be be understood about that. I do think when you said someone was shot 14 times. I'm not sure that's correct and second of all, that implies 14 separate shootings, you know, there were a lot of people and folks that defy all fired at the same time wasn't not to make light of it, but that implies repeated action was it was very spontaneous the person lifted a gun at a police officer, and those on site responded. Again, as much videos could be released from that and information from that could be presented so I appreciate the concern. We take this all very seriously and try to release as much as we can as publicly as we can at all times. And if I may just say one more response. I think there is. I wouldn't say widespread but there is active distrust of the police in Montpelier and in Vermont. And so I just like to present a counter narrative, although, you know, I'm not an expert on these things, either. Thank you. I think there's always some distrust of police everywhere. And it's something we try to work all the time to break down and I probably didn't hear the new chief today talk about that's his top priorities to reach out to the community and build as much trust as possible. Very good thank you. And. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry there's a another another person has raised their hands but go ahead and you go ahead to unmute yourself. I'm the person that wrote the letters this morning to most of the council members and to you the mayor and I did write a letter to the current police chief, although I had heard about the new police chief and first of all I want to thank you for all the work that you do. I've been to Montpelier before a number of years now and I call it home and I love Montpelier. It's my favorite city in the world. And I spent a lot of time in Philly and New York City and Boston and that's where we go for fun and museums, but I did write a letter about citizen. This is a citizen oversight committee because, well, I feel very safe in this town, most of the time and I feel like everything that's happening in the world. We do a great job at a lot of things, and I think like to sort of intercept this at a time where where it's advantageous because we have a new police chief coming in that we could really like, I love reading the police law because it's like we closed down the tourism shack and we walk these people to the bank and I'm just like, oh, that's so cute. And that's always the wonderful thing about Montpelier is that there's community policing and I've never had a run in. I've had a run in with police in other places, but never here and as a person of color I'm always like on edge about things but Montpelier is my home I grew up in Marshfield, I lived in Montreal I came back here because I couldn't quite move back to Marshfield but I love Montpelier and it is my home and I'm just like, this is a place that is wonderful, and we can make it better, and I'm hoping like, I think about like how we can make it better before it gets worse, and how we can be a shining example because my daughter lives here and I want her to be like, I want to live in Montpelier when I grow up. We have so many friends here and it's a great place and I just want to keep it a great place and that's why I wrote you guys and that's why I really really hope that we can do something I know there's been efforts in the past. I know there's been people involved that sort of like the urgency is here and who the people that want to participate on their own level where they say we have to address white supremacy we have to do this we have to do that. I mean, even if it's just simple questions it doesn't have to be a stat com meeting it doesn't have to be morbidity and mortality, it can be just a community meeting where we're like, hey, we love the fact you closed down the tourism thing and hey like, you know when I say the police, I'm not afraid I like, love walking down the street I don't have any fears about walking down the street here whereas in other places I do, and I think that like that community feeling is what makes this a great town, but I also feel like I would like to see more people of color in this town and say that it's a great place and I know my friend Kaia, she has a legislator here and she works here every now and again and I'm like you can come stay at my house and bring your kid and my daughter will babysit for you. And that's what I want like everybody to feel welcome here and if we have a history of doing the right thing, then that's what's important not just like we tried this we can do it. We don't need to do it because it's addressed. We just do it because we meet as community members and we talk about things.  And there's no like amount of work that I won't put in an hours I won't put in, but this is really important because I think this town deserves it and I think it's important because this is our capital city and do lots of great things like not letting Donaldson so we can do more great things. And I really believe in this. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad that I don't think I think we would be delighted and I'm certain that both present chief and the new chief would be happy to have community forums and group meetings. I think that's a great suggestion. I think it goes up a regular basis. I think it's a wonderful idea. You know, I, if this was during normal time I feel like something that could that would be really neat would be even just like an introductory meeting, like just to say, Hey, Montpelier. Here's our new police chief come and and meet our new chief and ask him all the questions you have almost as like an initial meeting as to like what you're suggesting that's not exactly the same as an oversight board but it's an interesting, it could be a first step towards that. Anyway, I'm open to that and let's, let's talk more about it. Thank you so much. Oh, and john, do you actually so and or on I just, I'm, it would be great if we knew your full name and where you live. Oh, you're still muted. My name is on to charm, and I live on Berry Street 191 Berry Street 202. And, and Charles, I just, I know, I think I know where you live but if you could tell just for the record where you're at. I'm currently 58 Berry Street apartment 302. Goodness Berry Street representing today. Yeah. Also, also very straight right here. Anyway. Okay, cool anyone else. Okay. Thank you all thanks for your thoughtful comments and I hope this is the beginning of the discussion and not the end of it so let's let's keep talking. So, we'll move on to the mask discussion the mask mandate. So there've been, well so there was a draft that was attached and I know there's a couple of different edits that have been floating around. I'm going to turn this over to either bill or Cameron to introduce and we'll go from there. So, I'll do a quick intro then slide it to camera and after your last meeting, we did research the issue of a health order, and we're basically told by the health department they did not think that was an appropriate use of a health order and that they wanted to keep health orders consistent around the state. They urged us to do this under the authority of the governor's executive order, which is what we've cited which also expressly granted the authority to cities and towns. That's as far as we can tell is what the other communities of an active these have used as their authority. And Cameron did the drafting based primarily on Brattleboro I think we had last meeting when we talked about this people liked their approach so we use that as our primary basis, but I'll turn that over to her for the details. Yes, so in the order, we did make sure to cite your legislative power to do this and the instructions from the governor to that he wants legislative bodies of each municipality to enact fees. Also based on your feedback from last week, we added a more robust exceptions section and made sure that that language was consistent with what the state's guidance is. So that does include an age limit. The state recommended in this health department recommended anyone under the age of two to not wear a mask. So that was very clear, and that if somebody does have a medical condition that prevents them from wearing a facial covering they should not be held to the standard of wearing one if they have a disability, or are differently abled and cannot wear a mask. So I do want to make a note about the effective period because of right now the state of emergency in Vermont is set to be lifted June 15, unless the governor extends it. So I'm going to go through either y'all amending, resending or suspending this order if you do enact it, or until the state of emergency is ended the way it's written. So, because that is the thing that gives the power to your body to enact this sort of measure so right now that's the 15th or that could change. Okay. And I just want to clarify there's on this draft, the on the draft that has been posted there are a couple of edits that people will that that came up one was just removing the reference to airports. And the other was adding some specificity to other locations to post signs. So that's in the queue for for amendments. Before we get too, too deep in. Dan, do you want to add anything about or, you know, say anything about this. I'm a former executive director of Montpelier alive and resident Liberty Street. I, first of all, I want to express gratitude to the city council for considering this representing more than 65 businesses downtown who have already pledged to require a mass to their customers. So thank you so much for being here in step for the health and safety of our community. So thank you so much. I also want to express gratitude for your thoughtfulness and considering the exceptions for people with health issues that there's been a lot of discussion of that on on our Facebook page certainly as we discussed that city council was considering that. Thank you for including that. The only thing I would add and I emailed the mayor and bill about this this morning is some concern about face shields being allowed in place of a face mask or covering. As of the last we heard from the agency of commerce and community development fish shields are not an acceptable substitution for face masks, except if there's an underlying health condition that prevents the mass from being worn. And there was some concern among businesses that if there was an alternative presented that then this whole sort of unified front that we're trying to present by having a city ordinance might get impacted by having some, some businesses that were affected and allowing the shields and others that were so I I'm encouraging the council to remove the masks or perhaps to move that into the section about exceptions and maybe say that that could be an acceptable alternative if there's an underlying condition that prevents the use of a mask. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Jack. I'm unmuted. Yeah, I'm unmuted. Thank you. I emailed the council proposal of amendment. I wasn't sure exactly how to manage this given that we're not going to be here in person so I thought this would be an easy way to get it in front of people. And I would share, share the screen share this document to the screen except I'm not to do it, but the part of my takeaway from a meeting we had last week was that because we talked about the fact that right now businesses have the authority to refuse entry to anyone that doesn't wear a mask if they choose to do that and I had a sense that businesses didn't want to be the heavies didn't want to be the one that was telling people you can't come in if you don't wear a mask and but when the way the language is drafted. It still puts that burden on the business of requiring customers, staff and visitors to wear a mask. So my proposed amendment that the highlighted language would be to require be basically saying, as a matter of the city ordinance, the city itself is telling people you are required to wear a mask when you enter an establishment located in the city of Monty.  And then it just makes clear that this is a general requirement imposed by the city on everyone entering a business in the city. I have a question on that. Sorry, Mayor. I just address what Dan just said about moving the face shields to the exceptions section, stating it like if anyone has a medical condition that is complicated by facial coverings like a cloth mask face shield is an appropriate alternative, maybe taking it out of that section. I agree with that idea. Connor and then Dan. I'll second the motions with Cameron suggested edit there. And just say I, you know, I think when we do this we don't do it lately. They spoke to a couple of business owners today who, you know, it's very real for them as they're started back up. They've been through the mill already with the Corona virus. And just the thought of, you know, this may be preventing them from having a couple of customers is very anxiety inducing to them. But, you know, government government like municipal government that including really is operating at the apex of its power during the Corona virus. And I think every meeting we go through there are things we try to decide that might be outside our comfort level a bit. I still think this should have been a state initiative but it's not. And when you talk to workers when it comes back. I think it is a workers issue. We spoke about this last time. I spoke to a couple retail workers who said, you know, my boss isn't requiring this. And every day when I go to work, I go to work with a pit in my stomach. I can see people going in and out. And I don't want this to happen to my family and myself. I see this as a way just like OSHA, anything just kind of leveling the playing field for businesses a month earlier to make sure employees don't have that anxiety when they go to work each day. And I think it does relieve business owners a bit. So, you know, it's not something we like to do as city council. But I think it's important that we do it. And so again, I second jack's motion here. I just want to be clear. So you're in Jack. So your motion is about. I understand Jack's motion to be about the portion about all employees and removing the bit later about require both staff and customers were visitors to. But is it also including Dan suggestion about moving the section about face shields. My motion doesn't include that we would need to add language. I suggest we we deal with my motion, then add language to do that other suggestion. Okay. And just want to flag also the thing about airports, not that it's a big deal. I saw Dan and then Donna. Well, it may make sense to go forward with jack's motion I have additional change, or at least a question about the term establishment. I didn't see any definition of it. And the problem that I have is that establishment under the dictionary includes both public businesses, as well as places of residence. And I don't think we intend to include that. And I also don't think we intend to include, you know, any, any place of business where the public doesn't necessarily enter. And this is really for public entrances, you know, places where the workers or customers or people are being in a general flow. So, you know, either, I think it might make sense to just define establishment for to be a place of a place of business where the public regularly. enters and exits. And that way it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't accidentally include residences and it doesn't accidentally include, you know, businesses where there is no public visitor, the sort of sole office kind of place. Okay, point is well taken. Just because there was a motion on this. I'm willing to, that's why I say I'm willing to, sorry, I went a little too far. I'm going to sort of read the statement allowed again sort of with tax amendments so that we can get the understanding because I think the way it's written underlines what Dan is talking about so I just want to read it out loud one more time and sort of get the understanding of what the motion is. If that's okay, Mayor. That is. Are you going to take public comment on this. We will, but I think Donna is actually next let's hear from Donna and then we'll have a reading of the statements and then we'll see if there's further discussion, but we will take comment on even just this amendment so Donna go ahead. Do you want me to go before Cameron or after her. Before is it on this topic. I mean I do agree with Cameron that the whole statement makes it very clear that it's not a private resident. And you could add the word public in front of establishment. I would hope that Jack will be willing maybe either we have a lot of motions, or we could add public in front of establishment take out face shields and accept his proposal. Open to that Jack, or do we need to make several motions. Oh sure that's fine with me. All good to. So that it would read who enters a public establishment, and just further defines what is later said, the establishment purpose of receiving services purchasing products or otherwise conducting business.  Is that clear John. John Odom. Oh, yes. I'll have the language for him as well. Yeah, I can. Okay. So, so Jack and Connor we're feeling clear about that language then. Okay. Yes. And, okay, so any other comments from the council on this particular amendment and then we'll go to comments from the public. Okay. Any comments from the public on this. Somebody muted me just after I asked that last question so now I had to mute myself this time. This is Steve Whitaker for the record. Okay. So I'm going to go back to the reference to proposed amendments to the amendments, all of which have not been seen and can't be seen by someone over a telephone. Tell me that this is this like the other proposal that Lauren Earl has offered should be postponed to a subsequent meeting and put forth properly on paper ahead of time. I think the absurdity or the hypocrisy of when you've been made aware that people are crapping in the streets for lack of public bathrooms and you're not worried about health that health problem is is kind of absurd that we're going to use this. I don't mind being told I can't go into books feeler without a mask on and I went and found a mask and went back staying with all of Vita. I think the merchants can handle this at their own discretion to kind of be the big brother and say we're going to absolve you of the need to be the heavy is really badly absurd when you got bigger problems on your plate, like lack of public restrooms and a lot of people making real public health hazards out of that, which is contagious. So, I think I would ask that you consider properly presenting this in full written form and dealing with it as subsequent it may be moved in two weeks anyway so you're really going through the motions you know, and deal with some of the bigger problems. Thank you. Thank you, Stephen. Any further comment from the public. We have two hands raised on Dan Groberg and and Charles. Okay, let's. Let's go with the and Charles first and we'll go to Dan that's all right. Go ahead and. Thank you. Became concerned about this for several reasons that I think are obvious to most of the members of this committee. I told I couldn't come last week, but I listened to most of your session, and it seemed like we were all on the same page. The reason I was originally concerned is that there's so much backlash on from porch forum and elsewhere in the public to a modest measure of require of requiring customers to wear masks that I'm really appalled and I agree with all of the speakers I can remember Connor, and one other person who spoke with merchants in rural air, you know, outside of Montpelier who said that it's unfair to put the burden on them. I think of, I think of several merchants who are my friends who I mean we hear around the country of violence against people trying to enforce this very modest measure. So, you know, and Dan Groberg I didn't realize about his initiative of, you know, what is it, 84 businesses signed on to it I learned about it last time I'd like to applaud that. And I'd like to applaud all your efforts and I hope cooler heads are prevailing in this body and they seem to be. So that's all I have to say really. Thank you and Dan, go ahead. Thank you. I realized while we're, while we're already amending things that as, as I understand the order as written. There are not any exceptions for businesses in which it would be impossible to wear a mask wall. For instance, I can think of indoor dining which is going to be allowed shortly. I can also think of closed contact businesses like hairstylists are currently allowed to do like beard trims or things like that that might require you to remove a mask. And I'm not sure that that's progressed in this order. I don't have any suggestions regarding that, or that we just revisit it once the rules have changed. I mean I think it, there are businesses that it would impact already so I would be concerned about revisiting it subsequently. I wonder if there's some way to put it in the exceptions like it's hard to say like where state guidance has accepted it because state guidance is not requiring it to begin with but perhaps there's some way to say like in specific circumstances where state guidance allows allows. I don't know, I know. I, there are, there are brighter minds who aren't judge writing these things on the call. So, there is an exceptions section. Perhaps we can call out some businesses that we know will like it doesn't make sense for them to do business while wearing masks. Let's let's revisit that. So, because right now we have a motion and it's been seconded on some specific language changes. Any further discussion about that. Okay, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay, did not see anyone there so motion carries. So we've changed it a bit. I want to come back to actually Lauren did you have something you wanted to add I feel like you've been kind of raising your hand. I just had to really care things which apologies for not getting the chance to email. One is is just at the top of page two it says in accordance the state of Vermont executive firm I think it's supposed to be in accordance with the state of Vermont so just make sure that reads okay. And then we've got people can see where that is. And then we have on the paragraph right above that the very bottom of page one. It says starting June 3rd all establishments. I'm wondering if we'd like pass this now if there's businesses open this evening. I don't know if there are but like, should we do it tomorrow at least so people could get the word out. Some kind of notice to our businesses especially since we're going to, they're going to have to figure out signage and that kind of stuff, just a little bit of cushion there might be good. Would you suggest tomorrow, Friday, Monday, Saturday. Dan Groberg might have thought that people feel like immediately is good so people can just start referring to us if you know so maybe even as soon as tomorrow and we can post it tonight up publicly and stuff and then can send message to the members and I don't want to delay this because it seems like it's helpful to the businesses from what we're hearing. I just more. It seems like until we can put the word out it's hard to say. I think we could suggest a compromise in which the signage is not required until Monday, perhaps but the ordinance goes into effect tomorrow. That makes sense to me. Sorry so you're saying the signage isn't required until perhaps Monday. Correct. Lauren are you making a motion to make these changes. I can unless I don't have anyone else has any other simple ones that could be lumped or if it's easier to just. I would include in that the removal of or airports, airports, yes, airports, yes. And then there is one other line that I would like to potentially include, and it's going to take me a second to get there. I want to come back to Dan, you had made a comment earlier about public establish establishments or establishments in general how are you feeling about that with the modifications we've made so far. Well actually, you know I'm comfortable with the public establishments and the con and read within the context of that I think that helps to clarify. It's just the establishment because the establishment word was repeated several times throughout, I think adding that public is satisfies that. I think my other concern, you know, dovetails a little bit with Dan Groberg's concern, which is that I don't think we want this mask requirement to apply where it would. It would thwart the activity such as a restaurant, or where it would serve no public purpose such as a single occupant office where there isn't a flow of traffic. As I sit here in my office alone. I wonder if this ordinance would require me to wear a mask in those circumstances and I think it's just something that I want to make be satisfied that either we have an exception or the language can be read, not to apply in such a such a case. So, let's revisit the exceptions part in a minute I feel like we're kind of in like perfunctory sort of front or you know, easiest changes right now. That's not a problem. Yeah, cool. So there's one other line that I think is probably not that controversial, which is under the posting of requirements that paragraph, just to add a sentence at the end that said other locations can be alternative entrances parentheses like back doors, comma etc, or at transaction locations such as registers parentheses. So it's just trying to give a little a little specificity to what other locations might be appropriate. Any other sort of perfunctory stuff. On that posting requirement I just went back and looked at it as you were talking about it. It might be better instead of saying each individual each establishment is individually responsible. It might be better just say chat, each individual each establishment shall post signage. That makes sense to me. So as as we're keeping track here we have in accordance with the state of Vermont removal of airports. The line about other locations, changing the posting requirement to shell and then also an effective date. That's what we say for Monday for the posting requirements. I think that's five changes is, is there anything else that's relatively perfunctory here. Donna, I just wondered if in the exceptions, could you put except while eating. Well, let's let's deal with the exceptions in a minute because I think that's going to be a little bit. Okay. Yeah, go ahead Dan. Oh, sorry. I don't know which day I was talking about but I was going to suggest language to help the other Dan so adding the language while in the presence of others. That's language that's appeared in other state sector. Another piece is like, I'm thinking about my, you know, employees who are in their stores by themselves. You know, maybe they want to break from their mask between customers, because they're annoying to wear, or, you know, you know, maybe they're not actually open they're just preparing orders or doing other things do they need to be wearing a mask so perhaps while in the presence of others where, where would be, I think we're still going to need to revisit the exceptions are probably because of salons but where. So it could be. Sorry, I have so many windows open while inside the establishment and in the presence of others. Which paragraph is that under that's requirement paragraph under requirements where face covering. Okay, great. Okay. So is there a motion regarding these changes. I'll make that motion. Second. Okay, any further discussion about these changes are we do I need to list them again are we feeling pretty clear. As long as we're including the dam suggestion which I think does hit exactly on the nail head the concern that I had. Okay. While in the presence of others, and then these minor edits as well as what I understand my motion to include. Yeah. Okay, any further discussion on this. Okay, all in favor please say aye. Okay. Okay. Dan, Dan first and then Jack. Okay. I have, I've taken a stab at possible language to dance concern. Which is we could, if you're ready to talk about exceptions. Yes, that would be the time. So, I would suggest this sentence in the exceptions, just at the end of the current exception saying this ordinance shall not strictly apply. If it would frustrate the primary purpose of the business such as a restaurant or salon. Please repeat that for me. I'm keeping track of it's for John. The ordinance shall not strictly apply if it would frustrate the primary purpose of the business, such as a restaurant or salon. Cool. Okay. And then Jack then Lauren. It's exactly where I was going. I have a slightly different formulation. So what we, which one of them we like better. And might we go on the same space at the end of exceptions. And it would say masks will not be required for healthcare, health and beauty, close contact food service, or other business establishments in which the nature of the service provided is incompatible with the way I think you want to be careful about food service because during the preparation of food and that kind of stuff. Good point. Okay, so Lauren and then Donna. I'm hearing those two iterations. I mean I might be more inclined towards Dan not getting into naming because I mean I'm thinking, Jacks would cover some of this but you know, you can start thinking of, you know, dentistry, I don't know gyms open things like that where wearing a mask might be difficult. So I like that, you know would frustrate the primary purpose of it or however it was exactly worded. I might not say salons as one of the examples maybe something else because I think we're getting a haircut. You could wear a mask, but some services like a beard trim you couldn't so I'd rather not fully exempt salons use as an example that would be accepted I think we could come up with another, you know, kind of business that the nature is more clearly always dentistry. And I'm happy to even remove the examples because you know that just may be the cleanest way and just leave the language frustrate the primary purpose of the business. Okay. Donna. And my question for that example is, when you go into a restaurant I would still expect people to wear a mask, except when they're seated at their table with their group and they're eating. How do you get. So is that the assumption they're going to have their mask in between their munching. And that that's actually so I guess I would add this this cause and I, as a refinement on that is it this ordinance shall not strictly apply to the extent it would frustrate the primary purpose of the business. So that way it's, you know, it's carving out this limited exception to the extent that it frustrates the primary purpose so like in the restaurant example, you wear the mask while you're walking in but you know, you're going to be interpreted as preventing you from drinking or eating. And same thing with the haircut hair salon. So, you know, if you're getting a beard trimmed you're going to have to lift up the mask but if you're just getting the neck hair removed. You know, you can keep the mask on. And the assumption would be that if indeed it doesn't impact the employee with their duties they would keep theirs on even though they might not. Okay, thank you. That makes sense to me. Jack did you have something else you wanted to add. No, I'm happy with where we're going. Okay. Connor. Just a follow up on that like, how would we see like a coffee shop playing out right. You go in you buy a coffee maybe have a couple sips on the way out or something. How would that fall into something like this. Well, at least I would think you know, the way the coffee shops are being formulated right now. They're not on premises consumption their takeout so you're not that's not the primary purpose to sit there and drink coffee. Presumably if they did. Yeah, you would be able to to sip the coffee but if you're just walking out and you can't wait to get that caffeine I don't think you're frustrating. It wouldn't frustrate the primary purpose for you to sit to either the shop owner or who was ever enforcing this to say just wait and go out and I wouldn't interpret this exception exception to apply to that situation. I would imagine as well that if you're actually in the establishment, getting coffee then there maybe that would be at such a time that other people are able to dine. And so you're effectively, you know, dining in a certain sense at that point. And we also have to understand that, you know, this is a whole new territory of regulation and practice for everybody and we're probably not going to cover every detail and explicit, you know, explicitly. And some of this we may have to learn as we go but the message is where your masks and public place in any establishment. We're going to get two into the weeds that's where we were. That's where you all wanted to head in here we probably want to go. Yeah. So, um, Lauren, just wanted to circle back did we in the in Jack's amendment, fix the issue that Dan Groberg had raised about face shields, I'm just trying to remember, had we removed that and then did we want to add did we add that language to the exception language or did we want to. We did not add it in the exceptions, as an alternative people could wear with, you know, health or other challenges we had talked about maybe doing that so I wanted to just erase that. I think we removed it from the previous section of we did not add it into the exceptions. Is that correct Cameron. Donna go ahead. A bit of your concern I would rather not have face shields to the exceptions, because I feel it's a heavier burden to find them for one thing, and that people may have still had the same health issues. Well, I think I just want to put that out there that if you say something like if anyone has a medical condition that's complicated by facial covering like a cloth mask. A face shield is an appropriate alternative if they feel safe like, so it makes that if they have that they know that it's an alternative that they can wear inside that building. Okay, an alternative versus a requirement you mean. Right. Okay, thank you. So it's feeling like we may be at the point of another motion to amend this language, either with Dan's or with Jack's language, and then possibly also plus adding in the face mask alternative thoughts on that anyone want to make a motion. And then can you take a comment. Oh, yeah. Here go for Stephen. Okay, I just, I, I, I'm trying to look at this from a point of view of both a customer and a merchant and it's unclear who's responsible for enforcing this and what the penalties are. You know, if it's going to be so complex that the merchants are going to be nervous whether they need a lawyer to interpret it and whether or not they're on the hook for a fine for not understanding it versus the, or is the, or is there even a penalty in this at all. But I'm just the concern is that this is a possibly more for show than anything else. And that it isn't really workable at the current way we're proceeding to do it. And I'll just again, ask you to table it until you can really figure out whether, you know, maybe you want to require $195 masks because they're effective, you know, I enough. Thank you. Well, you raise a good point about consequences with we've not actually I think this is the first emergency order I've ever been a part of issuing. So I'm not, I don't know what's normal necessarily for consequences any comment about that either bill. We did speak with Chief Fakus about this, you know, this is operating the same way as the, as all of the state's orders, which is that expectation is that there will be voluntary compliance and that has generally been the case here in Vermont. You know, certainly someone can volunteer, can violate this order, we'd have to look exactly what happened to them. But there's a secondary if someone's in one of these establishments and are being asked to leave because they're in violation, they're also trespassing. And that I think the police are more interested in eliminating the problem as it exists at the time, rather than necessarily finding people that you know the idea is if someone's not being doing something healthy, get them out of the situation. So I, you know, chief is on the call that I would be happy to check in with him again but that was what my understanding camera am I right about that. My understanding is the same is that this is a voluntary compliance but it would be the same as like an ordinance violation it's a simple ticket if I understand it correctly, unless you, but that's not something we'd be actively policing from what we've been told. It's just a voluntary compliance and if a business asks you to leave and you do not leave then it is a trespass. So coming back to the idea about or the paragraph on exceptions is there a motion regarding exceptions. I'll make a motion that we adopt the language that I proposed, as well as the face shield alternative language and exceptions. Okay, we've got a couple seconds on do we need that language read again or do you feel clear. I would love to read it out loud just to make sure everyone is on the same page with what I wrote down. Make sure I captured everything. So I wrote at the end of the paragraph on exception. If anyone has a medical condition that is located by facial coverings like the cloth mask, a face shield is an appropriate alternative. And then in a new paragraph, this ordinance shall not strictly apply to the extent that it frustrates the primary purpose of the business. Jack. May I notice that someone else had her hand up and I don't remember your last name. Before Charles. Okay. I apologize. And Charles go ahead thank you. Thank you jackford. I would just suggest in terms of enforcement that the perfect is the enemy of the good. I mean here we are in the midst of, you know, a health crisis as we all know, and people are running around and grocery stores without masks. Tribalism is arising. People are getting mad at people not wearing masks. And so I think any measure that any ordinance like the one you're talking about would be a deterrent and would help. I mean it just seems like a no brainer it would help merchants it would help customers it would diminish friction in the community.  One of my conversions on this issue said a fine penalizes the poor and so forth. But I think to focus on enforcement gets us off the, I mean, it's voluntary and in certain circumstances it may need to be enforced but I think passing it and I would like to underscore this and I think it needs to be kind of expeditious because here people are running around in supermarkets and have for the last couple of weeks, and you know, my end total observation mask use as increased but there are several people who, you know, we know who refused to wear a mask and would diminish friction and if we got caught up in concerns, if we, if you become deterred by concerns about enforcement that would slow it down and I think, you know, expedition action might be the best course here. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, I think there is a motion and a second. Any further discussion. Anyone from the public. Okay. All right, all in favor, please say aye. Opposed. Okay. So, we've got some lots of refinements this document anything further that people see that they would like to amend bill did you have something. Oh, sorry. I thought you just passed it so sorry. No, it's okay my understanding is that you've amended the proposal we haven't actually passed it yet. You're right. Okay. Yeah, I'll be happy to put that on the table for discussion by making a motion that we adopt the ordinance as amended under our emergency powers as outlined within the ordinance. Okay, for the discussion on this. I'll offer, you know, I think there's been a lot of and I've heard from some constituents as well concerns on both both sides. I'm comfortable with this ordinance because I think it's narrowly drawn. It's focused on the emergency powers that we have and the issues. And mentioned in her comments this and Dan as well. This takes the issue off of people to make these decisions and leading to conflict. And it's for a very limited purpose. I don't think we go into this loosely, or, you know, rashly, I think we have discussed this at past meetings. And what we're doing right now, you know, is is exercising this emergency powers so that we don't have disputes about this that people feel safe going into the places of business. And that when the need for it is done, the power goes away, and the ordinance does as well. And so for those reasons, you know, I do feel comfortable, I think it's a nice balance between civil liberties, public health. And our general desire to have, you know, these kind of disputes this is where city government can really be effective in stepping in.  This is the rule we all follow, so that people don't have to get into these disputes and squabble so that for those reasons I'm voting for it and support it. Super. Any other comments from the council or from the public. Okay. All right, so I'm going to motion in a second. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed. Okay. All right, well, thanks everyone for for that. Before we take our meeting to Langdon street. I see that we are joined tonight by our newly hired police chief chief Pete. So, Bill, do you want to do you want to say anything? I'd love to like, give you an opportunity to say to introduce yourself anyway, but go ahead, Bill. Sure, so we as we had a press conference this morning introducing Brian Pete is our next police chief he'll begin he's quarantining now although I think he's going to walk Langdon street with us tonight. I'm going to get a sense of how we all operate. And he will begin working with us on June 15, which we're very excited about along with Tony fakers and then when Tony finally says farewell to us on June 30 the chief will chief people take over for real on on July 1. Although I say for real we do have to wait for you to get through. So, this is nothing to do with the chief. This has to everything to do with Vermont certification process which is archaic. It takes forever so until he completes all the certification required to come in from another state, you won't have police authority but will certainly be the chief in charge of the department. I don't be out issuing tickets or arresting people for a week or two or a month or two until that time comes but we're delighted to have him. He was most recently the chief and I'll have ordered in Mexico he's from Chicago so he says the cold doesn't scare him. And he and his lovely wife Natalie and their adorable daughter Gabriella age six have already moved to Montpelier. I think I've got a house to buy right. I'm going to let Brian say hi. And most of you city councilors were on the call this morning but I wanted to also catch some members of the public here so Brian put you on the spot. Yes sir. I just good evening. Thank you all it's a pleasure and honor to be here. And I'm very much looking forward to working for the citizens of this great city and doing my best to continue on the legacies and the foundations that have already been set by chief fakers and they continue our culture of inclusivity transparency and accountability so thank you all for your trust thank you for this amazing outstanding opportunity. And again I'm very much looking forward to to being here. Thank you chief you did miss actually a longer than expected conversation earlier in the meeting about police and transparency. So I think we may have promised you a couple for a couple of community forums at least. But I don't understand and I ready for it and ready to get out there and talk to folks and and do my civic duty and service. Thank you. Thank you sir. I think I will just introduce you to everybody in person. Okay, so in anticipation of discussion about the possible closure of Langdon street to traffic partially or temporarily or something like that. Next week's meeting. We are going to take this meeting to Langdon street and a socially distanced way for a walk, just to get a visual so we meet Langdon in Maine. Sure. Okay. Got it. What's that. Okay, great. Well, so I want to meet me here at City Hall we can walk over together. Cool. If you want to meet me here at City Hall we can walk over together. Yes, sir, I'll be there. Or if he comes down State Street I'm on East State Street I can wait outside. Yeah, there you go. Okay, well I'll be coming down from Betsy's BNB. There you go. All right, we'll see you all in a few. Okay, see you soon and we will not be taking up any business after that so that is a public meeting if anyone wants to attend. Yeah. Okay, we'll see you all there soon. I'm going to adjourn, yes. No, not technically. Okay, we don't adjourn until we get there. Okay, fine. And until that walk is done. Okay. Okay, thanks to you all soon.