So do we have any additions or modifications to the agenda? Then would somebody move to approve? To approve. Right. Seconded. By questioner, so we know, significant questioner. Lush, all those, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. And the minutes from August 12th. Somebody puts ahead a chance to review those. Move to approve. Move to approve by commissioner Seguino. Seconded. Professor, commissioner Kovash, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Great. And then I think we're ready to move on to public forum, but also want to say, I think this is maybe, and I can be wrong because I missed the August 12th meeting. I'm not mistaken, but I think that this is the first one where we've got Kevin on. Is that true? So I know you've been on the police mission for a while, but welcome to the joint commission, right? So I'm not sure if it's presumably maybe ending, but it's here. And with that, we move to public forum. And the way that we do this, because it's committee, as opposed to city council meeting, folks can speak either now or if they have any particular questions or comments on any of the specific items they can also speak on those items. So happy to do public forum now if any of the attendees are wishing to speak. I do see one hand raised. Jeff, I'll go ahead and allow you to talk. Great. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can. OK, yes. Thanks for putting this meeting on. I'm the chair of the Church Street Marketplace Commission, and I'm not sure if I should speak now or later, but I'll speak now. You know, I think you all know that we continue to deal with many issues on the marketplace. They get worse and worse. The shoplifting is absolutely out of control down here. Merchants reporting daily thefts. It's really disconcerting. The open alcohol containers continue to march up and down the street, even in the cold weather. For some reason, we can't get our arms around how to eliminate that. We clearly need a greater police presence on the marketplace. I mean, when this whole effort started, where everybody was a little timid to say we need the police on the street, I'm not timid at all. We need law enforcement to down here. 10 years ago, we had an officer assigned to downtown and it was great. And everybody knew the officer and everybody wonders, well, why didn't we continue that? It makes life feel much safer. And this is not just Church Street, it's all downtown. I mean, I think we could all admit that City Hall Park, if you looked around, you would find people drinking constantly all summer long.  It's more and more and more you hear that. So I think I'd really like to see the marketplace involved with your committee. I'm not sure if that's doable the way you're set up, but clearly our voice needs to be heard as you figure out how to police in the future. So with that, I'll sit back and listen. Thank you. Thank you, Jack. I don't see any other films. We will turn to Item 4, which is the future of the joint committee discussion. And I think that this also specifically involves how to move forward with the report that was commissioned by the joint committee, which was completed a couple of months ago, which is the CNA report. And at our last public safety meeting, Jane, Karen, and I had a discussion on how we would like to move that work forward. And I don't know knowing that we need to do it in line with the police commission because a lot of the work is revolving around too well, but also not necessarily wanting to use just this forum, especially because if you wouldn't invite any other kind of person that's to be part of that conversation, we thought it would get a little bit unfeelty if we could have it in the room. So I don't know how many of you know, but the proposal that we came up with was to have this discussion in public safety, but to have two representatives from the police commission join. And then in addition to that, to have one representative of the Market Place Commission, I think we said, and then two representatives of local activist groups, which we thought we'd have one more focused on racial justice, the Montvichel Justice Alliance, and then one on focused on mutual aid. So food, not violence, or one of those organizations. And then potentially, and I'm actually remember, an apology isn't looking a bit Karen and Jane. We said maybe also one representative from the fire board. Yeah, that was great. So that's our proposal for how to move this forward. And we'd be happy to hear thoughts and feedback. The second thing that we already delivered and also that's the composition. The second thing we deliberated on was meeting weekly kind of on a semi-weekly basis starting in January. And again, looking at Karen, I didn't take notes. Karen, can you tell us when? Thank you. Sure, sure. Well, you've done a great job of laying it out. We decided that we wanted, of course, I wanted to bring this to the Joint Committee to all of you police commissioners and see how you felt about it. What we had agreed to, the three of us was to have the meetings to, there are nine sections in the CNA report and to try, although we know it is a laudable and fairly maybe a little bit of an overwhelming goal, but we had thought of trying to be able to accomplish one section at each meeting, trying to keep within the resolution of being able to have an interim report to the council by the end of January and the last meeting of the council in January is on January 31. So nothing like the last possible day, which is great. And to have go in a linear fashion of sections 1, 2, 3, and 4, and do those on January 4, the 11th, the 18th, and the 25th. There are Tuesdays in January. Our staff person, who's Jared Pellerin, has secured a space for us on those days. And as Zariah said, we're hoping to get to police commissioners and certainly have heard from Jeff Nick about the desire for the marketplace to be involved and wanted to have a marketplace commissioner at those meetings, as well as the others that Zariah had mentioned as well. And regarding the administration, because the resolution says that we're working in collaboration as well with the administration, is to have, depending on which week we're talking about and which area of the report that we're talking about would be to have an expert from the administration, whether they're from BPD, or HR, or some other area of the city, to talk with us and gain input on their perspective on the recommendations and the report. Thank you. And if Jane or Zariah, please fill in the blanks of whatever I've left out. Now, I think we've talked enough and hopefully talked also long enough that folks have had a chance to reflect and happy to take any feedback from any of the commissioners. That sounds really interesting. Really sounds very useful. The one thing I would mention is that the police commission meetings were on Tuesday nights and it's the fourth Tuesday of the month. And so perhaps for that week, you could have the meeting on a different day. It's funny. We were hoping to avoid having to do that. And I clearly did not know that you're, so in other words, what you're saying is that your last meeting or that your meeting in January is on the 25th? Yes. That's funny because I think we even looked up when your meetings weren't so close to slip bias. So I think either skipping that week or then continuing on in February or finding another date. I mean, as I might just say, I'm going to ask the chair of the commission, but what do you think would be a huge hassle to change the fourth week for the Public Safety Committee that we would change the police commission meeting to Wednesday night that would be something like that? I was wrong about that. I know I was on the meetings. My schedule is about three years. I've been booked out two years. I thought that we had as what time per year? 6 to 8. Well, I guess we were thinking, I don't know if we were thinking of starting at 5. Karen, is that true? I think we had compromised, Ryan. And although we certainly could make it 5, I think we compromised and planned on 5.15. 5.15, yeah. Yeah, to like 7.15. I'm glad I wrote down all of these decision points so that I can report back on that. We are very big. The three of us are very big on finding common ground and compromising. And that was a good example. Are we settling on that Wednesday then? So 29? Two of them. You could move in our potential to make data at 6.30 and then just close our meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Any other thoughts other than that come on Tuesday? So what did you decide? Which one do you think we should change? Oh, sorry. Djibout said that he thinks that they can potentially change the meeting or just make it a little later that night. So they will get back to us, but it should work out that we have it up to every two months we stay. OK, great. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. Can I ask what would be done with these meetings? We would discuss the report and then talk about a timeline for implementation of recommendations. What would be exactly the focus of the meetings? Yeah, and I can look at your answer as well. But I think we assume that because we're doing one a week that we would both get to anything that we thought was missed or have any context for the meeting, which is also part of the purpose of the administration. But then I think getting to like, what is the timeline for one of the recommendations which are responsible for reporting back and so forth? Karen, I don't know if you have a different vision. No, I think that's true. I mean, and quite honestly, there may be some recommendations in the report that for whatever reason we either feel or not really right size for Burlington or something that just may not be a priority for us at the time. And I think that's what the council is looking for us to discuss and bet these and figure out whether or not there's something that we really do want to move forward with. I mean, the other thing just to mention and not to scare anyone off, because we hope that there will be two commissioners that certainly will want to do this, is that it is going to require a certain amount of homework, reading, really, really reading the information in advance so that we can come forward with real substantive work in the two hours that we have, because some of these sections are pretty lengthy. Are you looking for volunteers now? I, up to you, I feel like I'm looking at Chabu and Sherin on how they want to do it. If you want to do this via email or if you want to do this now, as long as we don't need to know now, I think as long as folks have decided by the next two or three weeks, that works for us. I'm happy to volunteer. We have one volunteer right there. I thought you said. I think she said, I'm happy to volunteer. I was going to give a question about what's going on within the January meeting, so I can tie this all together and get back to you in the next couple of days. Great. Happy great. We don't need to decide anything this evening. We'll leave that to you. So could I ask a detailed question? Apologies if I understand it. So I see 10 sections. It's skipped nine. I think number one through 10, but there's one nine. I'm not mistaken. So I don't know. I'm looking at it in actually nine is community engagement. 10 is the implementation part of that. So I see 10 of page six of the report. Oh, it says there are nine sections, but we're actually 10. So just curious, are you going to do two sections a week, something like that? We were planning on doing one section a week. I was under the impression that there were nine. It sounds like we need to speak for an extra week. Another week. And also, if we end up not finishing a section in one week, we might have to have another meeting. So yeah, we had this debate for a little bit, but it seems to still have got to be a conclusive answer. There are two questions and also just want to be ended on scheduling, but also on composition of books. I don't mean to be back happy to give up. We can do it right along. So, Raya, I was just going to say, I wasn't on the committee, but it seems like a similar format to the committee that I know Commissioner Grant was on. And I suspect others and apologize. I don't know exactly. And Chair Gommage. And that seemed to work well. But they can correct me if I'm wrong. So it sounds like a good plan for getting through it. Oh, you mean the committee to review policing policies? Right. That's sort of how you attacked it, right? Was going topic by topic, meeting by meeting. Yes, but I would not use that as a guide. I personally felt that long story, anyone who wants to know can shout out to me. But I felt there were things that could have worked better and provided more meaningful work. Thank you. Yeah, I second what Commissioner Grant said. Yeah, I actually came up with a little bit following the model that I realized did not include a place in which I retrospect, but the school resource officer task force, which meant we played for quite a few months. I thought was very effective. There was more homework associated with it than I typically see on committees. But I think that model worked very well. I think Karen's a great person to chair that. I think he was living along and assigned us to do things. So yeah, I'm hoping this will be a productive piece of everyone's time. And the last thing that I want to say about this kind of speaking to the wider future of the joint committee is that I'm hoping I feel like one of the things that came out of this that was good was that the city council and the police commission started having more conversations, which I think had been lacking because I feel like. And I mean, I think some of this has been self determined now that the police commission with you before was unclear what your role was. And I just move forward on forging defy redefining your role without us. But I think continue to keep that conversation open will be good. So I'm hoping to some extent that the two, whatever we call those liaisons, volunteers that that will be more permanent and that even afterwards through this report, they can continue to have that quarterly, whatever it is, meetings with the police commission along with somebody from the choir board to have a continued dialogue about collaboration as opposed to just on this report. Then unless any other questions, I'm going to assume that this will be the last meeting of the joint committee unless I hear dissent. Great. Then the only thing that we didn't address that the city council assigned to us was the equitable sharing program, which I know we just had a very difficult time. But just to summarize where I think we left things off is we got kind of a little bit more of an understanding of equitable sharing and what it is, where is it and how that fits to the Vermont context from my staff member at the time, Audrey. And we also got some data that Sherin found for us in collaboration with the acting police chief and someone else whose name I don't remember, what agency they work from. It's with the US Attorney's Office, the federal government. Great. And it seems like since then this, I think the city council also got an update of this year's equitable sharing program that did have a little bit more information in it. And so I guess if this is the last meeting, do we want to have any other discussion on this today? And if it's not, do we want to have another discussion at another time? And if it is, I guess what do we want to report back to the city council? Do we have a recommendation? We just want to say this is a bigger thing that we're not going to make a decision on our folks' thoughts. But, Sherin. My sense is, but I can't say I spent a lot of time with it, but my sense is that the report that the chief submitted this year filled in some of the gaps in our information, right? Of knowledge that we had, questions about what the case is where I could be mistaken as a city councilor, you'd be in a better position to judge that. But my sense was to having more information about the individual cases would help individuals. And so maybe the thought is that if there is an issue with the data that he's providing the cases where it's being applied, then it can be back on the table. I agree with that because I know that I had a lot of questions and it just wasn't clear. Like there were some specific cases that were brought up as examples. And they were, I guess, valid examples for lack of a better word to say, well, this is things that we've actually did or we've shared as a result of these cases, but they couldn't eliminate the possibility of certain types of other cases being eliminated where people were either found not guilty or in some cases not even charged with the crime, which we know at a national level is an ongoing issue where people have to fight to get money back because it was improperly taken. I think we are in this moment of reform of policing. And so I think it's important to consider this more in more depth. And if I might, I'd just like to share with you an experience that I was involved in with this equitable sharing. And that was a case in St. Albans in which the defense attorney called me because her client had been involved in a drug case and the St. Albans police had seized $8,000. And so in the plea agreement, she proposed, the attorney proposed that that $8,000 be used for training on racial bias. And she called me to ask me how that might be used. And I called Brandon Del Pozzo. And in fact, at that time, Chief Del Pozzo put together an implicit bias training that included Chittenden County police. So I think it's an interesting way to think about equitable sharing about actually having some say about how those funds are actually applied, for example. I am new to this topic. So if I'm incorrect at understanding it, feel free to correct me, but assuming that I am clear about what it is, I would just say, I think it's important for us to think about and that there are some innovative things we might do with interventions of the program like that. Those are all excellent points. I think one of the things that we struggled with while we were discussing equitable sharing is that none of us really had one the information that we needed, which to Sherry's point, I think we got a little bit more with the Chief's last report. And then two, the expertise to propose the alternative because it also seemed, you know, folks didn't like the idea of just stepping out of it and this program continuing, and that's just not getting kind of Burlington share, but then also didn't like the potential misaligned incentives, things like that. So I think I don't know how we feel about maybe just adding, seeing that it's a deeper conversation, adding this to something the police commissioner looks on later on or that, you know, with this joint body, if we want to add that to week 11, where we maybe got time to align with somebody who knows more about it than any of us do. But so I'll basically say, if you don't have any findings on this and either public safety or joint or sorry, where the police commission should take this up in the future, if someone with the resources needed to make kind of the forum decision on it. Hi, this is Milo. I think I'd like it to stay with the new committee formation. We're dealing with a lot on the police commission right now. So I don't, I'm curious to hear what the other commissioners think. Thank you. I agree with that. Oh, sorry. I agree with that. I was Milo. I know right now we're kind of undertaking a review of a lot of our directives right now as it is. And that's where we're being pushed back a little bit too. So that's on our plate. I think that'd be like a bit more than true. See how we won't be once in a month right now. Great. Karen, I assume this is chair of the Public Safety Committee for that question. My apologies. We have a racial equity training that's starting in about one minute. And I'm trying to get on to that. I apologize. What did you say? That I think police commission of the police commission has noted a preference for the Public Safety Committee being the ones to look into this. OK, well, do the other two members are the other two members OK with that? Yeah, I think either doing it potentially was later on after the CNI reporters a week after that. I'm fine with that. OK, all right. Great. Sure. Of course. There's no deadlines on it. OK, all right. I don't have anything else. So unless you mentioned any members of the public that wanted to speak on any of those topics or if anybody has anything else. So can I just ask, is this the last official like drum roll? Is this the last official meeting of the Joint Committee? Is that a yes? Yes, it is. OK. So given the fact that that is the case and I'm assuming that no one is going to object. Just want to all that. I'm one of the Jane and I are the two newer members of the Joint Committee because we came on because of public safety. You know, there are there are lots of things that are asked of city councillors. Usually one of them is not to chair a committee. They're first a committee of this nature. They're first year on the council, but just wanted to acknowledge the amazing work that Soraya and that many of the police commissioners who have been and gone the distance on this have committed to this effort. And you all did a great job. Thank you all so much. And thank you very, very much for your time. Thank you, Karen. And really, yeah, it's been great to work with these commissions. I really do hope I hope that becomes a regular conversation. Thank you all so much for bearing with me through my learning curve. Thanks, everyone. So unless there is any dissent ever would have said that I would turn the meeting at six thirty four. Thank you. Have a good evening, everyone. Hi, everybody. Take care, everybody.


Part of our jobs all of us out there involves doing things that we don't like to do or Doing things that we're not so comfortable doing Today's video is one of those things that I don't really like to do and I'm not so comfortable doing at the same time However, it is critical. It is important And if I do not tell you or if you don't hear about it Then you may turn around and blame me for why you're not prepared or why you're not ready Today we are discussing the new cybersecurity Protocol that's coming down in 2020 that the government the DOD is going to start requiring on some contracts Yeah, I know cybersecurity, right? We've all heard about cybersecurity. We've heard about bots and people meddling our elections and things like that, but The reason why I have to tell you this information is because like I said, this is 2020 is around the corner I mean as the time of this recording We are only a few weeks away from the new year So if I don't tell you about this new requirement this de farce requirement and Hopefully you've already heard about it somewhere. You may not know exactly what it is and what it means But I'm sure somewhere along the lines if you're registering Sam Somebody sent you an email or message and told you you have to get ready The reason why I've held off on this as long as I have is because one the government set this ruling out at the beginning around somewhere around 2017 and Until now they still haven't figured out what they want to do. So there's been different ways in which the government has Classified how they want to start doing cyber and they haven't come to a unified agreement I have personally been to offices of some of my fellow podcast guests and associates who Have implemented these new cyber protocol and some of these new procedures, but for the most part I Would imagine it's been a challenge specifically For small businesses mom and pop businesses Businesses with no employees.  Give me a chance. I promise you we're gonna get to the good part of this soon Because I had the privilege to speak with someone who does Cybersecurity they do the certifications for contractors in this space His podcast episode is going to be released coming up in January I may push it make it sooner just because of the importance of it. Nevertheless, Jonathan Hart I had a privilege of speaking with him recently on my show Gulfconn Giants podcast about Cybersecurity requirements and trust me folks. I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking about myself. I want to do Things that do not impact us Severely so again, whether it's impacting us monetarily or it's impacting us with time or it's impacting us Our our company in some other way that may be harmful So you as you will see and hear in this upcoming Clip that I take I specifically said look what can we do for small businesses because they don't have $25,000 to give no one so you're gonna hear what Jonathan responses What do you tell you what stuff to advise people to start doing now? If any?  They're not they're not right. They can't afford $25,000 You know, one of the things I said is again No one wants to be the leader, right and spend this money make a commitment And then the government decides to change the policy later, which we know happens So that's that is for for us. That's our fear, right?  Go ahead, right? So this is my advice. So don't worry about CMC. It's not even the law yet What is the law that 7012 clause that 7012 ruling what that there's three requirements to that one You have to have adequate security to you have to report to the to the div net within 72 hours of a compromise or an incident three You have to flow that clause down if you're primed all your subcontractors the adequate security requirement is the myth 871 so go ahead download the next day or 171 all the hundred ten security controls and start implementing those CMC is going to take those into consideration. They're taking those into there They're taking those into their Level one through five process and if you implement all those Subsecurity requirements in the next year or once everyone you're gonna be roughly a level three at CMC So it's not money that you're wasting and it is law right now that you have to implement that the those security standards So you might there might be a little percentage of a change from a left to a right to be officially a level three But you'd be sitting pretty good if you take those nist error 171 controls and go ahead and holistically Implement those in your IT infrastructure of your company. I Like that now you said the 7012 policy What's that? Yeah That's the that's the default that's the sense there was this 252.204 I got it the defaults clause. Okay. Yep. I'm familiar with that one. Okay. Yeah, I just we and again for me If I'm confused, maybe someone listening might be as well. All right, so the defaults clause. That's the one where okay adequate security report any type of Breach within a certain frame and then a flow Here's my offer that I give to everybody if you want to know more email me call me go to our website type You know email info, dude, we'll explain all this for free. No charge all this for free We are all about spreading Knowledge because of the more people that know about this the More prepared they can say they can get their company, right? And we'll even we'll even say listen, you don't have to use us There's this company that's I'll name competitors because it doesn't matter to me whether we get your business I would love to have your business what matters to me is that your network is secure so that you can continue to do business with the government so that we Can protect our fellow warfighters downrange so whenever our weapons are firing the actual fire when we push our Buttons to make missiles go go off. They don't just fall the sky. It's important.   I'll make sure we vet even our competitors I will give you good cybersecurity companies that I know that you use you'll be doing just as well if you use that Now by no way shape or form am I? endorsing Jonathan I just wanted to share the information put it out there because he has Already done this for hundreds of businesses and you hear the full clip in our podcast when it's released but he's he Seems to be the leader and actually helping Certified companies and businesses and getting prepared for the new upcoming requirements again I've already if you haven't got his information. I'll make sure I'll leave it in the notes page You can reach out to him for free as he said to talk about what you need to do or how you can start getting prepared To meet these new upcoming requirements I don't want anyone to get caught with their pants down and be surprised when their Opportunities taken away because they're not prepared again with we're gonna have more Information and insight as we get closer to the dates But at the same time I did want to prepare everyone and let people know the ones who are interested in learning who are interested in Getting the information they need so that they're ready and not caught like I said before which are pan-taken out So again, thank you so much for tuning in I hope this video helps some people like I said for me This is a not so fun subject and it's not something that I'm particularly an expert in But just like the rest of you be out there I'm going to have to get myself prepared and get the companies that I represent prepare as well for these new rules and Regulations again as they come down a pipe. I'll be letting everyone know. Thank you so much as always for tuning in


Hi, welcome to the All Things LGBTQ interview show where we interview LGBTQ guests who are making important contributions to our communities. All Things LGBTQ is taped at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which we recognize as being unceded indigenous land. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show. So summers coming, COVID restrictions are being lifted. June, some of us remember that as Pride Month. Might there be something happening in your backyard that you would like to take part in? And we have two guests today to talk about exactly what might be planned and how you can join in. So please welcome Elaine Ball and Kel Arbor. Thanks for having us. I was going to say if either of you say something, your face could show up on the screen. Okay, so Elaine, we're going to start with you because it's my understanding that the effort to put together a Central Vermont Pride Festival started with you and actually started about a year ago. I did start reaching out to people last June about a Montpelier Pride specifically. And I think more has grown out of that. That is totally outside of my purview and I'm thrilled to see more things in Central Vermont being planned. But Montpelier Pride specifically as a location was really important to me as it being the state capitol and having it take place during Pride Month. So the dates are the first weekend in June, the third through the fifth of June. And there's events being planned throughout that weekend. But the main big Pride event draw a focus of the weekend is going to be at the State House lawn on Saturday, the fifth. We're planning for it to be really a day of performances and music and celebration. We are looking to get the local GSAs involved from the middle school and the high school and have the youth there. Tucson, St. Negritude is we hope planning to be the emcee of the day and leading the festivities. And so people can start arriving around 10 a.m. and it'll be going all day long. There will be booths representing local nonprofits, a food truck at least from Woodbelly Pizza and probably other food vendors as well. We are coordinating with the farmer's market that is happening that same morning just a few minutes away, a couple like less than a block, I don't know, really close to the State House lawn. The farmer's market will be that morning. And so that's kind of the main draw event of the weekend is Saturday, June 4th. And it's traditionally been the critical mass, queer critical mass bike ride. So definitely we're going to have a Friday night bike ride. And then the Shakespeare performance sort of popped on top as did the Vermont Symphony Orchestra has been chomping to do a little performance. And that might be, for me, the highlight in the downtown. Is it the Episcopalian, the Stone Church, the beautiful Stone Church? So do we know what night that is yet, Elaine? Is that Friday or Saturday? It's going to be Friday the 3rd, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. Yeah. What time? I'm pretty sure it's going to be six or seven. I need, I'm still waiting for confirmation on the time. And I'm also pretty sure it's going to be at Christ Church, like you said, that beautiful stone downtown building. But we're also waiting on confirmation for that. So awesome. This is sounding as though this started out as is essentially a fairly simple, let's recognize Pride at Montpelier. And other people have stood up and said, wait a minute, we want to be involved as well. So, Kel, you made a reference to Shakespeare. And I know that on Front Porch Forum, there has been an appeal saying, can you help us with costumes and props? We're looking at doing a performance in Montpelier. Could you share a little bit about what you know about who Shakespeare, Vermont are and exactly what are they planning? Yes. And Keith, even though this is the kickoff of organizing a formal Pride Fest on the Statehouse Lawn, we did a Queer Field Day a couple of years ago on the Statehouse Lawn. This arts community has been burgeoning, especially over the last few years of the pandemic and creating more and more space to be together. So, Shakespeare has risen out of some of those community performers that have done our cabarets out around town. And also some folks that are involved with the playback theater troupe. That's been a newer crew that's arisen. That's a storytelling project. So they have this incredible endeavor. They're doing four performances over the 345 and then one on the 10th, the night before the Central Vermont Drag Ball and the Berry Pride Fest. So we're going to kick June off with a saturation. Shakespeare is Romeo and Juliet is going to be their show. They are locking down their venues right now. They have an incredible, gigantic cast. They have needs for prop help and customry, like you said.  It is going to be such a treat to have a local Shakespeare. Troops pop up and do this where they either like queer up the script or the actors or the scenery. So they've shortened it. It's not going to be a three-hour play. Nobody but the real. It lasts that long. And I know that they're going to do an outdoor Hubbard Park is on their radar for that Sunday afternoon, the June 5th. And then I'm not sure where we'll do a Bar Hill or like a closing party, but maybe at Bar Hill or another spot to do like an early evening Sunday rap coming out of Shakespeare that we can have a little like dance party hang out. So there's going to be an incredible performance. The crew that has gathered is in Croyabla. The people that are building sets are, they've drawn out woodworkers, these amazing writers, these incredible orators and these beautifully gender and sexually diverse critters from the woodlands. I'm like, Sandra, Vermont, you've just been waiting. They've been waiting for people like Elaine to step up and say, great, I'll help organize a time and a date. And then a person like me that's like, what else can we put in one weekend to really build it up? How do we coordinate and collaborate? And then we all meet together. The Pride Center is definitely supporting and figuring out how we're going to participate and involve to make this something sustainable for Montpelier. Organizers come and go. We know that. But to embed something like this, we can get together and have a field day. I'll bring my badman. I got bocce ball. We'll bring some cornhole. Before it totally escapes me, you made a reference to a central Vermont drag ball on the weekend of June 10th, 11th in Berry. Now, I know that you have helped organize this in the past. What could we expect this year? And you also mentioned a Berry Pride. Yes, it's a very exciting. And the Berry Rainbow Bridge is doing a grand opening ribbon cutting on June 4th at 11 a.m. So we are just burgeoning in June month, which feels really awesome. And it feels right for the Berry Montpelier area. We are a cultural and political hub, central Vermont. So it just makes sense that we welcome the month. I actually haven't been involved with organizing the drag ball before. I had to cancel it to start the pandemic. The old labor hall in Berry has been the location for the last several years. It just really fits with who we are as a drag community to host it in the anarchist labor hall. And it's been a community-organized event. And I feel really passionate about, as an organizer, how do I help keep that space going and use it as a space to have access to tips and tricks and a drag closet? So Pride Center staff will be there from five to seven on June 11th. We'll open the old labor hall for a little get-together, a little get-ready party. We'll have drag tips with Richard and Justin, my coworkers. We have a drag closet, a by-donation drag closet so you can come and sift around. We've got wigs and just to get together and get ready and get into our confident gender, beautiful selves. And then we've got an incredible stage show lining up with some performers. I am looking for community performers. I am looking for people that drag is not. I'm an X presenting as a Y. Drag is a gender performative expression. Very open. And I think Central Vermont loves that. And I really encourage people to reach out if they're interested in performing. We're happy to meet with folks and help you figure it out. You've got an idea. Great. Let's work it out. So the show will set at about eight o'clock. The stage show, Babe's Bar will be there, Tending Bar, Woodbelly. We're still trying to figure out a pizza option. And then Barry reached out. They heard about Montpelier Pride and they were like, we want a pride. I'm like, pride for everybody, baby. I'm like Oprah. You'll get a pride. But I do truly feel like every town in Vermont should have a pride. There's 12 months. There's 13 counties. I have a dream. And I love when it's community organized because I know that Barry has the organizers already there to sustain a festival like this. They have great downtown queer supported businesses. So I'm really excited to see Barry's Pride Fest come together. Lisa Loretta and Erica, whose last name I do not know. Real. Real. Thank you from another way, chatting with them. And they're going to do that during the day on June 11th. So Shakespeare will end their run June 10th, Friday night at the old labor hall. June 11th downtown Barry pride festival. And that evening, Barry old labor hall center Montdrag ball, baby. You mentioned that it was also the grand opening of Rainbow Bridge. What's Rainbow Bridge? Rainbow Bridge is our new downtown community center for LGBTQ plus folks in Barry. Greg Forbis, a community member has rented out the old Barry senior center that's next to the Made in Brazil restaurant. Beautiful space. It's already set up as a community center. I think it's a short term commitment, but long term potentials for Barry. Greg is looking for queer and LGBTQ plus board members. He would love to get more folks on the board and involve that are part of our LGBTQ plus community. It's partially why he's opening the center, the lack of community connection. So I'm excited to have a venue that I can pop up HIV testing and game nights and come out and just, you know, hang out and not have to run the space all the time that he's there to help refer people and have computers like we have. And teams are already popping in off the streets. Drag ball center Montpry, we're reaching out to the team networks to try to get more teen performers. And we are all ages friendly spaces. Like I organize outside of bars because of the alcohol issues. And like there's a few bars that feel safer, but nothing feels as safer as an open park where we're all together and can be accountable in a large group and hold each other. And it sounds as though Rainbow Bridge is something that's being created from within and specifically for the LGBTQ plus communities.  Or we were an afterthought. We were in the forefront. Right. And it also sounds like all of these activities are a true opportunity for Central Vermont's LGBTQ plus communities, members to meet each other and start doing our own little informal organizing.  We have people, you know, who are interested in activism, we have people who are interested in doing drag. We finally get to spend time with people who share our sense of identities. Okay, before we started taping, Cal and Elaine, you were both telling me about all of the other pride organizing that was happening across the state and my jaw just dropped. I've been in contact with the people at Queer Connect in Bennington that are planning an event for Sunday, June 26. But, Cal, you were talking about a People's Pride in Burlington, an event at Castleton, Bethel, which is the Babes parking lot. Yeah. Can you share a little bit about who else is doing organizing and where people might be able to get access to information about them? Totally. And I was just thinking, this is why I put everything on the Pride Center of Vermont website on the events page. The events tab at the pridecentervt.org website is an events calendar. So for LGBT community happenings of any sort, I like a one-stop spot. It's one small thing we can do for the community. Having the Juneteenth events too, I don't want to miss that June 17th. There's a Black Joy show that my drag friend Red Rum is organizing in Burlington and then the 18th of June, we will see Juneteenth events. I don't have details, but I know they will happen. Saturday, June 25th, traditional Pride. We don't use this weekend all the time because it traditionally has been Boston, New York. We compete. So for folks to really like be here, I think early June will be great because folks haven't left for the summer yet. So for me, the first weekend in June actually feels more akin to Montpelier Pride. But I love seeing these June 25th traditional Saturdays. So Bethel Babes Bar and Bethel is hosting June 25th an event, the People's Pride in Burlington that popped up last year. That is an awesome community event that will be happening again. And then Castleton is doing a Pride Fest, Anita Cocktail. It's like the Browns Farmland. I forget that. Is that the, they have a great outdoor venue that was a beautiful Fest. I am so here for Rutland to have a downtown Pride Fest and I'm like, they're on my shortlist as is Hardwick. But White River Junction's Pride date is set for July 30th. July 30th or June 30th. July 30th, White River Junction's late July. And then Burlington Pride actually is pushing back. We're moving back to the waterfront. I am so excited to see us go back to the waterfront and we're going to be Sunday, June 18th, Saturday, June, sorry, September 18th, 17th, 18th weekend of September. So we'll be a little later in the fall, but I love coming off that Labor Day weekend. It's beautiful in September. We can't rely on weather in June. It's actually a crapshoot. So for something in Burlington, September is a more likely dry, less rainy time. Students are here. It's a quarter of our community. It's just like, and people haven't traveled, they're not traveling for the summer. So I'm actually, I've sold myself on, but I want to see June Pride too. I want to see Pride every month of the year. I'm not going to argue with you on those points. Okay, so you will both be sending me all of the contact information so that, you know, people who are interested in becoming actively involved have that opportunity. Elaine, you said that for the Central Vermont Pride Festival, the beginning of June, that you've already been doing Saturday Zoom meetings. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you. So we have a planning committee that is around 30 people right now, and not all of them show up all the time, but that's like my list of contacts that I send out messages to. And so if you'd like to be added to my list of planning committee people to help us with this event, you can email me at elaineballbt at gmail.com. And I'll add you to that list. And you can join us for planning committee meetings. So online planning committee meetings over Zoom are happening every Saturday at 11. There's like a recurring Zoom link I can share with you. But we're also starting to meet in person sometimes at local restaurants, different places. So the next meeting in person is going to be at Fox Market in East Montpelier this coming Tuesday the 19th. And I can, you know, share more information. We're thinking 430 in the afternoon. Join us at Fox Market. It's an adorable, wonderful, new, queer-owned space. And they are blessedly donating all of their tips for the month of April to Montpelier Pride. So we're really excited to be partnering with them and having our next planning committee meeting there. Okay. Are there some specific things that you're looking for people to help with, specific aspects of Pride? Definitely. There are things that, you know, individuals are welcome to take on that are really of interest to them. There's a few organizations already that we've started collaborating with. And if someone wants to take on that relationship and continue those collaborations, that would be really helpful. For example, the Kellogg Hubbard Library and Art Walk are just a couple that we're in conversation with. But if you would like to come in and say, oh, I want to talk to all of the artists of the Art Walk community, I want to go and talk with them about Pride. Or if you want to take on Kellogg Hubbard Library and their partnership without Right Vermont and plan some poetry readings or whatever else is going to be exciting to you that weekend, we would love to see people take those on. Another big thing that a few people have expressed interest in, but we don't have officially organized yet is an actual parade. So we're organizing this event on the State House lawn, but we don't have a parade actually planned yet. So if you're interested in helping us plan a parade, we know of a few organizations that would love to create a float to be in the parade. And I think people would really love doing that. Alrighty. And with that, it sounds as though my social activity schedule is calendar is filling up fast. So thank you so much for spending this time. Thank you so much for the work you're doing. And I look forward to inviting you both back for the next events. Thanks so much, Keith. Thanks so much, Elaine. Yeah, thank you for having us. And thank you so much, Cal, for everything that the Pride Center is doing too. On a recent episode of All Things LGBTQ, I shared that I had received a phone call from Sage Main. And the message was we're just checking in. How you doing? Okay, that got my attention. So I thought it's been a while since we've talked with the people at Sage Main. What prompted them to make those phone calls? And what did they hear? So joining me today is Rem Knight, who is the program coordinator at Equality Main working on the Sage Main project. Welcome to All Things LGBTQ. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. So I want to start with how did you happen to come to Equality Main and why the Sage Main project? And I understand there might be a bit of a Vermont connection in there. Yeah, I don't know where you get your intel, actually. So my Vermont connection, which is maybe what you're talking about, I went to college in Vermont. Did you know that? Like maybe Marlboro College? Maybe Marlboro College, yes. Marlboro College. To be a preschool teacher? Yes, yes, yes. Well, preschool, I actually majored in theater performance and directing at Marlboro. I taught preschool because my mother was a teacher. I think so often we do what our parents do. So my mother was a teacher. I grew up with teaching. My first jobs were as an assistant preschool teacher. And then I majored in theater. I taught theater. So yeah, a long education background. And at some point, I ended up, I thought, oh, maybe I want to be a nurse. I don't know where that thought came from. But the first step at the time I was living in Colorado, the first step to go to nursing school is that you have to become a CNA. And so I became a certified nurse's assistant and ended up working in an assisted living community and loved working with an older community. Was like, oh, maybe this is actually where I want to be. So I spent the next 10 years actually working in senior care. I started as a CNA and stayed in different assisted livings and nursing homes for about 10 years and ended up working as the program director, the activities director for different assisted livings. And of course, doing theater on the side and teaching. I taught some kids acting classes. And I am also part of the LGBTQ community. My wife and I live on the West End in Portland, Maine. We have two kids. And so when this job posting came up at a quality name that was specifically looking for someone to work with older LGBTQ adults, I thought, I just can't imagine a more perfect job. It's sort of a community that I love working with. I love working with older adults to begin with. And then to have the added benefit of working with queer older adults, it was like this job was made for me. I couldn't, I wasn't even looking for a job at that point, but I had to apply. So that's how I ended up coming to a quality name as a program coordinator who is specifically focused on our SAGE programs, which I think you, you're all familiar with, but we provide advocacy and services for older LGBTQ adults living throughout the state of Maine. So that's where I came from. That's my Vermont connection. You didn't even mention that you knew that. You're sneaky. Well, people who watch our interview show on an ongoing basis know that every now and then I'll pull a rabbit out of my hat, such as when I was talking with Speaker Ryan Fecto, it made a comment about an initiative that didn't pass in Maine because people had overlooked the bear trap initiative that was on the same ballot. But so other than advocacy, are there very specific programs that if I were an elder living in Maine, I would approach saying Maine, SAGE Maine, saying, can you help with? Yes. So we do, it's sort of threefold. We do advocacy. So anytime that there's sort of something legislative that we think really impacts the community, equality, Maine works to pass whatever legislation that might be. We do programming in the form of connection. So we have, during COVID right now, we have bi-monthly happy hours that happen the second and fourth Wednesday of every month. I'm looking at my calendar up here. Second and fourth Wednesday of every month is a virtual happy hour. We have a speaker series that I think you've attended. So those are ways to provide connection during obviously COVID times, which is a tough thing to come by. And then we do outreach. So you mentioned the SAGE Calling program. So we ran, if anyone's watching and doesn't know what that was, we ran a volunteer phone bank and called every person that we had in our database as being a part of the SAGE community and just called to check in and said, you know, how are you? How are things going? And then this last round, this is the second time we've done it actually, this last round we also specifically focused on, do you, have you had any trouble getting vaccinated or boosted? Do you need any resources to get there? And we were, our volunteers were sort of armed with, if you're having a hard time finding a location here, I can help you find somewhere that has a vaccine. I can help you make an appointment. Do you need help getting transportation? And then we asked about, try anything, we asked about boosters, oh, masks. Do you need masks? Can we mail you masks? We have N95 masks, is that helpful? And then COVID tests. So this call was really, it was like a wellness check. And also, do you need any help accessing things to stay healthy right now during the pandemic? This is actually the second round of calls we did. We did another at the beginning, I think February of 2020, before I was here. And that was also sort of a wellness check of how are you doing? What needs do you have that kind of art being met? And it was, it was really cool, the conversations that we had, a lot of people were like, I'm doing fine, but thanks for checking in. Thanks for calling. It's good to know that you're paying attention. Thanks for having my, you know, those, those kinds of responses. All the way to some people who said, you know, I don't know how I'm going to pay my heat next month. Do you have any resources? And so then, or I had a really bad fall and I think I might have to go into an assisted living and I don't know how to navigate that. Do you have anyone who can help me? So there were a few things that popped out of that that then we could take and really say, you know, how can we help these individuals within our community? And what resources can we provide to these people who are really needing some extra help right now? And then there was a whole group that we're just like, no, I'm good, but thanks for checking in. And also let me know if I can help you in the future. So another cool thing that came out of it is so many people who were like, I am glad that you're doing this. And also I'm happy to help do this in the future because one of the best things for me about the LGBTQ community in general is how much we support each other. And one of my favorite things about working with Sage is that the people who are a part of Sage are so focused on how can we look out for each other? How can we be each other's family? How can we be each other's support? So many of the people making those phone calls were also members of the Sage community. And we had several people who were like, add me to your volunteer list, I'd like to help you in the future. So it was a really cool program. I'm glad that we did round two of it and we'll bring it back in the future for sure. It sounds as though just the phone call in it of itself had a very positive outcome. So is this something that Sage Main might consider doing on an ongoing basis? You know, once a year, every six months, just phone banking saying, hi, just checking in to say, hi, anything we should know? I think so. I think that there's always going, it's always nice to have an excuse to just check in, you know, to just check in. And I do think that you hear from people who wouldn't have reached out otherwise, but who got that phone call and were like, I don't need a mask, but I need fuel for heat. I need help getting an assisted living, you know, and who didn't have somebody to reach out to. So yeah, those calls were cool. And I think we'll definitely keep those going because the benefit was huge. And the interest, I had so many people who were willing to volunteer, so many people within the Sage community who were very interested in making phone calls to each other, you know. And the volunteer group itself, because it was comprised of many older adults and many younger adults, I think there were even some, we did it all on Zoom. So we all showed up one afternoon on Zoom and I gave everybody some instructions and they went out and made phone calls and then they came check back in at the end. But there was one day where even after calls had ended and everybody left, I had two women who were in their 70s and one younger woman who was probably in her 20s who stayed after just to chat and just to share experiences. And the younger one was showing the older women the dating app that she was using that was specifically for lesbians. And the older women were so excited to hear about this. There were just cool connections formed all the way around through the Sage Calling program. So yeah, I can't imagine that we won't keep that going. So if I'm remembering correctly from my conversation with John Hennessey a while ago, SageMain has chapters around the state, but you also work collaboratively with other organizations so that it's not either EqualityMain or SageMain who is shouldering all of the responsibility, you can get people to work together. Yeah. So Sage, there's Sage Nationals or Sage USA and then there are affiliate chapters throughout the country and our affiliate chapter right before COVID came to EqualityMain and was like, can you absorb us so that we have sort of the strength behind EqualityMain? And so that's one of our advantages now is that like when I send out a volunteer call instead of it just going to SageMembers, it's going across all of EqualityMain. So yeah, I do think that it really opens up the opportunity for more intergenerational events, which is something that is also in my opinion pretty important right now and also something that people are really looking for. I think older LGBTQ folks and the younger LGBTQ folks are both looking for that connection with the other group and trying to find ways to reach out. So that's one of the biggest advantages that I think EqualityMain has in sort of like housing Sage, which is now a program of EqualityMain. That's going to I need to say thank you for doing that because if we are not talking with other people from within our communities, nobody else is sharing that information or that history. So could you talk a little bit about your speaker series? Who are the types of people that you invite to come and present and how the decision is made about which speakers to invite? Yeah, our speakers are people. So the speaker series happens on the second Friday of every month and it's open to anybody. It's all virtual. And we just look for people who can speak to issues that directly impact older adults in Maine but from an angle that is LGBTQ friendly or aware or adjacent at least because there are like for example next month I have someone who's going to talk about advanced directives, creating advanced directives. But to have that conversation with the LGBTQ community, you have to be very aware that many of these people are not married, don't have children, don't have the sort of traditional heteronormative like a line of succession or hierarchy whatever you want to call it to assign those things to. So you want to for that conversation it was important because we all need to make advanced directives but I want to have somebody who can talk to this group about it with that awareness that they're not coming with the same sort of preordained again heteronormative understanding of what creates a family and can help us have that conversation about how you can make those advanced directives with whatever your family looks like. So that's that's how those are the considerations we make when we're putting together the speaker series or asking people if they'd like to speak because can they talk to something that's relevant from an angle that is aware of the specific needs of this community. So are there any other programs that Sage main is looking at developing or potentially offering in the future? Yes I have a secret one that's not official yet but I can tell you a little bit about it because I'm really excited. So maybe I don't know I think it's going to happen it's like 90 percent certain. So Sage is partnering with main senior farm share which is an organization that teams with local farmers to get seniors living in Maine sort of a discounted or a free farm box of a free share of produce from that farm. So we're partnering with them to do a program hopefully towards the end of the summer where we'll have main based chefs do a one hour virtual cooking class but registrants who sign up and it'll be a capped size will get a box of the ingredients that they need for that recipe and as much of it as possible from whatever their local nearby farm is so they have all those ingredients to complete the recipe that's them being taught by some some pretty I'm really excited about some of the chefs we have aside on and that's I can't exactly give that away yet because we haven't written anything in stone but we have some really incredible chefs in Maine who are interested in working with this program. So that's an upcoming event that we're looking at that's not we don't even have a name for it yet but I'm very excited about that and that's virtual some of our things some of some of what we found during the pandemic especially is that there are so many people in Maine who are living rurally that that all of a sudden had accessibility and connection to other people within the LGBTQ community that they didn't have pre-pandemic. So our we actually gained a lot of new people during COVID who wouldn't have been able to come to a lot of in-person events prior to COVID so we're maintaining all of our virtual programming and then also adding in-person things so one of the big things that was happening prior to COVID that people are just itching to get back is monthly community dinners and that I think will be the first thing that comes back hopefully we'll have one in Bangor and one in Portland coming up within the next couple months and those are events where we typically partner in the past I know we've partnered with the different local area agencies on aging to provide catering and food so that there's I mean all of our events really have a low barrier for attendance because we don't want anyone to have to like stand at the door of a restaurant and say I can't pay this bill can you cover me you know like that nobody wants to do that so all of our events are free if possible or really really low barrier for attendance and so yeah that hopefully will be will be going here I'm again looking up on my calendar within the next couple months we'll have our first meal scheduled again and then we also tend to have speakers at those events. Thank you so much for spending this time with us and thank you so much for the work you're doing. So people may be looking at the image over my shoulder and thinking that looks kind of familiar but not quite right that might be because this is not Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier this is Maine's Statehouse in Augusta and joining me today is Representative Laurie Osher welcome to all things LGBTQ. Thank you so much glad to be here. So I know your schedule is very busy so why don't we start with a little bit from you about how someone from Philadelphia ends up with a doctorate in soil science and then ends up in the main legislature. Thank you so much for asking I loved to be outside as a kid I was a Girl Scout when I went for my master's degree in soil science one of the I was the one of the only women in the program and there were no women professors and one of my teachers asked me so how did you get interested because they had all had a background in agriculture came from rural parts of the country and I said I was a Girl Scout which to me made a perfect sense that was the way a person who lived I grew up on a town just on the edge of the Philadelphia city line and the way to get out and explore the outdoors was to be in Girl Scouts and I went to alternative high school because I wasn't sure that there was anything in regular high school that was attractive to me because I wanted to be a farmer or somehow related to agriculture and I specifically was interested in international agriculture because I'd had been enough privilege that my family took up me to do a bit of traveling and it seemed clear that there were people who were not eating I also saw people in Philadelphia that were not correctly not well housed and I didn't at that time see how connected all that was but I went to ag school first I went when I was a teenager I lived in Israel for a year between high school and college I lived on a kibbutz and then I went met a soil scientist while I was working on the kibbutz and I helped him with his research I was a research assistant and so I actually went to college I made had already made the jump that it wasn't just agriculture that I was specifically interested in soils I think they're fascinating and so important and so I studied agronomy which was crops and soils as an undergraduate and then I did my masters in soil soils and land use actually soils and geomorphology so it became a soil mapper for the federal government worked for the USDA soil conservation service and then for the forest service over then for USAID I mapped soils in Peru and then for the forest service I mapped soils in Alaska and in Colorado and then when I moved to California for the forest service I was a watershed staffer staff officer which means I not only was in charge of soil mapping but also watershed issues input to land use plans so you know if you do this particular plan what how will impact the soil and the water and then I went to get a PhD at Berkeley because I was very interested in how soils can mitigate CO2 in the atmosphere so plants naturally pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and if we partnered with plants to make sure that the CO2 that they grabbed and turned into biomass when more of it went down into the soil and got stored a soil organic matter we would be able to address the atmospheric CO2 problem so I went to do a PhD and that's what I studied I studied land use and soil carbon sequestration and so with the PhD in hand I've got uh did a postdoc with with the EPA and then I got a job at University of Maine teaching soil science and that's what brought me to Orlando. And somehow in the midst of all of that you became a solo parent of a musical and dance twins. Yes so yeah I always wanted to be a parent actually so it actually impacted my thinking about whether I was a lesbian because at my age or at least my experience uh I was a fit competitive figure skater as a kid and my coach was gay and my parents were very pleasant to him and there wasn't a lot of homophobia but it also was assumed that that people who had kids were straight and so I always knew I wanted to have kids and uh so so when in my 20s I was became very sure that I was a lesbian I was actually wondering how that was going to work out how would I have kids and uh and it was a big science project to make to find how I was going to do that and uh I uh so I have singing dancing twins I gave birth after I got to U of Maine I was 41 and uh as I said then if all of my academic pursuits turned out to have double the the uh the productivity that would be great as an academic if you go to work on a research project and you get one you get one paper out of it that's great but if you could get two that would be better so I uh so and and I have found lots of lots of talented uh the thespians in my family but that's not my my heart has not been in performing myself but my kids are are performers one is in theater in college for theater and the other is for music composition and music production and uh I keep saying that I'm not doing global climate change for my day job anymore and so I rely on them to write the great climate change musical hopefully it'll be about soil carbon storage musical and like as Hamilton did for um excuse me as Lin-Manuel Miranda did for Hamilton then my my kids could do for uh soil carbon storage but we'll see okay I hear what you're doing for the debut so as as a professor at the University of Maine I understand that you're offered some time on the Orono Town Council but what made you decide to run for the Maine legislature well I so I was at the University of Maine from 1999 to 2008 and uh we had an irreconcilable differences divorce which from my perspective was very clearly a active homophobia and other things that caused me to no longer be in their employ and but I really loved Orono I actually chose the job because I thought Orono would be a fabulous place to raise kids and as I said since I was a kid I always knew I was going to be a mom I was just trying to figure out how it was going to work and uh when I interviewed at Orono I thought this is the most fabulous place to raise children and so when the or the university and I were um had our irreconcilable differences I stayed in Orono which meant I had to come up with another way to make a living and uh I I've always been interested in how individual people can take action to address our climate change problem there's certainly a lot that's out of our control but certainly there's a lot we could do and so I had already been as a hobby fixing houses to make them more energy efficient and so that's I launched a business where I make buildings more energy efficient and I've been doing that since 2009 I guess and I I thought that when my kids were 18 they would fled into a music musical theater career and they'd be in New York and I would follow them and there's certainly plenty more jobs for a person with a PhD in global change science with a specialty in soils the closer you get to New York or Washington DC or other uh bigger bigger venues for people who discuss climate change so that's I thought I'd leave town but they they made it clear that they they love Maine and they love Orono and uh they thought that wasn't the greatest idea and of course I want to be close to them so I came up with something I could do that would use all of my skills I've been an advocate for the environment for my whole life and so I'm used to talking going to DC or going to Augusta um being on picket lines and uh and writing writing op-eds and uh so I already had a lot of training as an advocate and it became clear to me that I could also take all of the skills that I had and maybe help make a policy because my hope my PhD was actually thinking that we needed to have policy about carbon storage but to make that policy we'd have to have research and uh I started my PhD 30 years ago and only now is it really topical that the that the government might pay people to do the right thing in land management uh so so I guess I was a bit ahead of my time for my PhD but I anyway so how how did I do the I looked around uh we have term limits in Maine and so fabulous legislators or any legislature legislator legislators can only serve for four terms in in each house and so that meant that we would be having an opening in orno because the the fabulous legislator we had an orno could only serve for eight years and so I look like when my kids were graduating high school would be about the time to run for to represent orno in the legislature so I took emerge main class in 2017 with the idea that I would be running for office in 2020 and uh and my friend local friend said oh please run for town council there's an open spot someone who was an academic just took a different job and if you're going to be an emerge why don't you run for town council so I ran for town council uh actually even before the emerge class started and won and with a 70% of the vote and then uh I ran for reelection a year and a half later and so I just actually today is the end of my four and a half years on the council and I've been in the legislature a little over a year so uh doing both at the same time is a lot of work and in Maine we are not um remunerated very well and so it's been a lot of work for not much money I saw a similar to academia and uh or at least being a graduate student in academia and uh anyway so I I am very glad that that I decided to do it because even though I've been an advocate for so much of my life I have the chance to really introduce policy and then advocate it for it with the other people who make the votes and and I love the job so as a first term legislator you did something that's sort of out of the tradition you helped establish Maine's LGBTQ plus equality caucus what did you see as being the need for an LGBTQ plus equality caucus were there issues that you were looking at promoting or things that you wanted to ensure didn't happen uh good question I uh let's see one one reason was last year which was when I got the idea uh they I'm right for forgetting her name but uh Rachel Levine when Rachel Levine was um nominated to be the assistant health secretary she had been in Pennsylvania I'm a Pennsylvanian and she um was nominated by Biden and legislators in Pennsylvania were were saying terrible transphobic things about this woman who was so talented and just such a doing a fabulous job in Pennsylvania would do a fabulous job for us at the national level and I immediately and I have a friend Brian Sims who's in Pennsylvania and he made some public statements and he made those statements on behalf of the Pennsylvania legislature's LGBTQ equality caucus and I thought that is that is important you need to have a group that's there if something terrible happens so they can quickly get together and say we as a group think this is not acceptable behavior and I have been in experienced uh being the target of unacceptable behavior without having a group behind me and it's it's really hard it's hard to be a target and it's hard to be a target and be uh out on your own and so I thought immediately well no one's attacking Ryan Fecto but we have a leader right here in our state that uh with the wrong person with somebody who's going to be a bully like that like that had been a bullying like the person who'd been bullying uh Rachel Levine it seemed really important that we would get together uh so that if anything any target any any one of us any one of us was targeted we would be a group united uh our state because of Ryan Fecto and he had already the year before in the previous session he had um he had put in the conversion therapy bill which passed in Maine one of the first states in the nation uh we of course uh had marriage equality before the rest of the country had marriage equality uh we have a lot going for us and we have right now we have a democratic governor and democratic leadership democratic majorities in the house and the senate so it wasn't that we were in a defensive mode certainly there were uh trans anti trans children bills uh you know trans rights for children in schools bills that were introduced in our legislature which we defeated uh in this last session uh this present session but I just thought it was important that we would get together and I there were nine of us so in a legislature with 185 people that may not be you know full representation because we are we have no trans members uh but we you know there were nine of us and actually some some one stepped down because it didn't it couldn't do his the job that a new job that he got and also being a legislature uh because we're term limited several are not able to run and others others who are not term limited out have decided not to run so actually we'll probably have fewer next term than we have now and so I call it the LGBTQ equality caucus and in in the legislature this is new to me I always thought of being an outsider that a caucus was like there was a democratic caucus and there was a republican caucus and there might be um yes I didn't think of a caucus as being a group of of people who teach each other but in in the main legislature each smaller caucus like the housing caucus or the children's caucus uh or the mental health the behavioral health caucus they're actually a place that as as a former academic I would call a seminar series they host seminars uh where where the legislators can learn about issues some of them the issues we learn about are specific bills and others are just informative about issues and so uh I started the LGBTQ equality caucus specifically so that we could become we the nine of us could learn together be there in case we needed to support someone who is being attacked that's part of our community and also so that we could inform others the original idea is that we would be the honorary chairs and then we would invite other people to join unlike the federal level legislative LGBTQ equality caucus we don't have a web page where people put their names that they're members so it's same with in main our housing caucus that we have weekly meetings where we learn about the issues of housing in our state and there's no membership lists so when I say I'm part of the housing caucus you can't go to a web page and see that I paid my dues or signed up and that's the way our equality LGBTQ equality caucus is I have many people who contact me say I want to be part of it you know my daughter's a lesbian or I of course I want to be uh supporting whatever you're doing uh but it's it's less formal than that part of that is we have we get paid very little and we have very little support from staff and those staff because so many of us create these caucuses the staff has been told that they're not supposed to staff our caucuses so each what I would call a seminar series that's developed by the legislator and if I would have a web page that I have to build my own web page I have no funding or staff to build it and so that's part of what keeps it a bit informal in main thank you for joining us and until next time remember resist