So hi everyone, thanks for coming to the second lecture and the MS CDP conversations of practitioners lecture series for those of us joining for the first time Computational design practices an MS program in its second year They introduce the students to a range of possibilities for design work at the intersection of architecture urbanism and computation My name is Adam Vosberg. I am the assistant director of computational design practices along with Laura Kurgan Who is the director of the program? This lecture series is designed to introduce students to Practitioners who are working with computation on various media and subject matters at a wide variety of scales last week We welcomed on curry hack it who spoke about his work in place making and recent experiments of generative AI All of which was kind of oriented more or less the scale the individual today's speaker on the other hand It's typically worked in much larger scales those of cities and urban systems to find broadly Define it broadly It is in that context which I introduced Seeky zoo a new York City based urbanist technologist whose work leaders urban development strategic design and urban technologies Seeky's professional work underpins his critical interests how urban technologies and real-estate development shape and are in turn shaped by the political economic regime of the contemporary city legibility and governance of emerging cyber physical technology being deployed in urban space technology controversies and technology Counterfactuals and evolving demands on it on the design professions to respond to these issues effectively He was formerly director of planning and delivery for sidewalk labs Where his work imagined how technology transforms the design of implementation of urban streets and public realms Before sidewalk Seeky had a lot of product design and envelope a New York City based startup that visualizes development opportunities under New York City zoning I don't know fully what he's doing these days But as I understand it he is back working at Saki associates and he can tell us a little bit more about that in the lecture Seeky also teaches at Harvard semester of design engineering program where he works with students to design and prototype speculative technologies for societal good He holds a bachelor's degree in engineering science from the University of Toronto and a master's in urban planning from Harvard University GSD and has led research projects at MIT sensible city lab Both a brief Q&A afterwards so make sure to take the opportunity to ask some questions or share thoughts about Seeky's work Thanks again for coming everyone enjoy me and welcoming Seeky soon Thank you so much. Can folks hear me clearly great Yeah, thank you so much for having me I was here in this program last year for reviews And I think I overlapped with some of you and I was really impressed by the work and thought the conversations were really good So happy to be back here and continue some of the conversations. We're having so Like Adam said, I'm currently a partner and director of a nascent urban technologies Design practice within a firm called Sasaki, which is a global planning landscape architecture firm Based in Boston now with an office in New York. I can talk more about that but I think what I'd love to do today is to You know follow the spirit of this lecture series and talk a little bit about my practice my history of my practice more generally And also talk about like what motivates me and why it's interesting and why that might might be relevant to you I think it's really interesting, you know, just given my interest in Like many of you the intersection between urban urbanism the build environment and technology Given that I'm at GSAP and CDP in particular, which is, you know, really at the productive intersection between urbanism and technology I think the question that's really interesting to me and hopefully we can talk about later is just what exactly is the role of the designer in shaping the Directionality of technology and technology change in our cities, right? if you believe The discourse which is, you know, technology has dramatically shifted our cities and will continue to do so Which, you know, I believe for the most part What is our role within that and what is the opportunity space for us as designers and graduates of this program? So I think that's the underpinning of what I'll be talking about today To give a kind of brief Background of my history my professional history So I have to say I'm a bit of an imposter in the school because I'm actually not an architect I train as an urban planner With an engineering background, but weirdly in school over 10 years ago now at this point I became really interested in the use of visual information To communicate complex issues of urban design or urban policy and that maybe was my entryway drug into this intersection of urbanism and technology so Luckily one of the first projects I got coming out of grad school was working with the city of Boston to develop a set of guidelines for their Emerging complete streets program, which at the time was new for Boston certainly new for Boston and you know new for the North American context So my job was Developing a set of a visual system a set of visual material that Communicates all of the complex issues that underpin what makes a complete street who operates it who makes it possible? What does it look like and how does it function? So these are some examples of the work that came out of that that job And as you can see it really spans a huge range of scales from the level of the design of individual tree pits to the larger more zoomed out questions of you know, what makes for a Complete and smart intersection Urban streetscape and what are the design and operational and technology technological elements of that? so this is my you know my sort of the start of this whole story and then Luckily, you know with the same client a few years later. I undertook the City-wide transportation planning effort go Boston 2030 a huge part of which was actually data visualization data design specifically with the idea that Through data visualization and visual and design we can pinpoint and untangle Truly the most critical issues facing Boston's mobility in the years to come and that Unsurprisingly is the intersection between transportation planning and equity and how you know like most Actually deeply segregated North American Northeastern American cities Where and how you get to move around is to a great extent determined by your socio-economic and racial status in the city, so These are some of the work I did, you know with with a very enlightened public official actually, you know, they were very Where he I should say was very encouraging and open to me working with Data as a medium to really tell pretty complex stories about how people commute how they move around and How unequal that situation is actually across the city, so I looked at issues around How people commute I looked at walkability as a luxury asset in a city like New York So one of the things we looked at in particular was You know where how walkable you your neighborhood is And to what extent you walk to work to shop to leisure is largely a product of Your Economic standing socio-economic standing in the city. So these are some examples and then finally I also worked at MIT For a year working on some of their Emerging urban big data initiatives one of the longest running ones very prominent one was Working with the government of Singapore where the government of Singapore being the kind of government It is has a lot of data readily available about how people travel through the city How people use the telecommunication networks how these systems and dynamics intersect with natural phenomenon like weather patterns rain events and so on so forth and This is some of the outcome of that work and One of the things I worked on and this also influenced my later work is to think about how we can take these large urban data sets and make them perhaps a point of discussion and Nucleus of consensus among the many citizens of Singapore, you know these this is really the first time Most people in the city average people in the city have seen any of these data sets and how their city works So the design brief that I worked on was how do you turn this data set inside out? And how do you make it a? sort of a Thing in front of which people can discuss, you know, how does the city work and how might we change it? so this resulted in a number of design prototypes Including museum exhibits Interactive exhibitions so this thing you looked at was sort of a giant data interface that we designed and implemented and put in the museum in the National Museum of Singapore and You can sort of imagine people making composite data visualizations Using this interface and kind of curating their own stories and that was the aspiration anyway in reality, you know It was a little complicated, but we can talk about that So These kind of things I worked on on and off for seven to eight years You know, I would broadly call this what I in my mind I call it the sort of technology of urban social Epistemology and the idea here really is this is a set of technologies with which people Make sense of how their cities work They understand the key issues facing their cities and they can collectively construct and perhaps form Some sort of common understanding and perhaps even consensus about how the city should work So this is one broad bucket of my work And I should also point out that I I've never seen this kind of work this kind of technology work as being fundamentally separate from planning They're extremely intertwining my mind so for example the work I did in Boston around the mobility plan 2030 was to Make those visualizations, but put them in the context of a public forum so the whole purpose of creating those visualizations Helping people understand the relationship between walkability and socioeconomics is to put those questions in front of people and illicit reactions illicit reactions and Maybe even you know surface some disagreements about how the city should be right so I'll just say To me it's never been a kind of static beautiful object It's always been there to do something and have performed some kind of political effect and This is something that's quite important to me and I'd love to talk about that later Yeah, some other examples, you know these this sort of data Practice has always been a core part of many different kinds of planning projects I worked on so I work a lot with cities and municipalities and I still do and This kind of making sense of the city through data and design visualization has always been a core part of it And this is just another example of that Um Like many of you, I'm also interested in technologies of design process I've worked on a couple of these products some of which you might know One of those from actually this is now defunct I've worked on this five years ago. The product is called amalope. It's a digital product and the idea is for New York City in particular Every development site is subject to many many many Constraining factors that determines what in the end the development might look like so you probably know about F. A. R.'s you know about lock coverage maximum height and Through the complex interaction of these rules you get a building that's shaped a certain way so the contention of this software is that It's really hard to do this and it's there is a lot of professional gatekeepers that benefit from the zoning code being so hard to interpret and the the founder of the start of actually who used to be at G-Saps are Williams her idea was let's encode those zoning rules as algorithmic rules and Develop a software that parses all the rules and also visualizes the outcome So the idea eventually became a piece of software that you know, you can kind of imagine how it works You pick a site you click on You gen you provide a few small in number of inputs and the software essentially Through those zoning rules generates the final outcome for you Kind of complicated because You know one of the reasons it failed is because it was hard to imagine how to make money with the software and who is actually paying for it You know we thought about Architects buying this because this is a lot of what architects do they do this as a matter of fact they do this often times for free for their developer clients because this is a way of Getting in their good favors and be on the ground floor Literally a metaphorically of a potential new architecture and design project. So it was really hard to extract additional economic value from what is already a essentially Economically challenging situation, right? So if you are already doing this for free, would you pay additional money to this software to do it for you? Again, you know, we come back to this entanglement between technology and economics, which You know in some small way was very influential for me and in thinking about you know, just how we should work in this fear I want to quickly show. Oh, okay. Well, of course something doesn't work the the other The other product I worked on and this is something that violet Another faculty here in this program and I worked on together is a software called delve and this is maybe The idea of this is perhaps familiar to you it is a computational design software that generates automatically generates a large number of Urban design options based on some small number of inputs you provide your draw site you specify the high level parameters of what you want I want 50% Resi 25% commercial and I wanted to be you know, I Wanted to have this amount of open space and voila you put in these inputs and this goes in the machine essentially generates 50 options 100 options 200 options, which then allows you to pick You know, what is the best one? So I worked on this actually I only worked on this for one year This was a much longer ongoing pro project before I even started in it but You can I think I think for all of us It's easy to see both the promise and hopefully what the problem might be with the with a project like this, right? The product that one of the problems just to go back to what I was saying before is again the question of economics, right? Who is paying for this and who's really? Extracting value from the deployment of this technology where in the design and development process is this Solutioning fact valuable. So this is you know yet again Like there are certain questions that you can't escape from right when you're working on developing technologies and using technologies And lastly I want to talk about a third kind of technology work I've been doing where I have done a happy is doing right now, which is what I call the technology of digital physical governance Adam didn't mention this before Just a couple years ago. I was working at sidewalk labs, which was as some of you might know a The urban innovation Startup within alphabet funded by Google but separate from it that broadly was looking at how to Develop cities differently, right? so one of the projects I worked on and one of the key projects I worked on really is a ambitious Blackship demonstration project urban development project in Toronto So if you look up Keyside on Google, you can probably find a thousand hits of you know think pieces pro con a lot of con That talks about what this project is fundamentally, this is a Real estate development project, right? This is like anything you see walking down the streets of New York This is a project that is you know converting financial capital into physical capital is a design project. It's a It's a it's a experimental technology project in the sense that Within these buildings you have a lot of new systems that We were hoping to bring into the world. So one of those examples we're looking at is Revolutionizing urban logistics, you know instead of Amazon driving up to your door dropping things off at your doorstep and then getting packages stolen This is a different way of organizing and rationalizing urban logistics such that it takes up less space It's easier. It's more sustainable efficient, etc, etc, right? It's all of those things But I but I argue that This is also a sort of governance project a project of thinking about a different way of governing cities in which instead of the complex and Messy logic of individuals doing different things. We abstract all of that away Into data and algorithms, right? So if you look at a diagram like this, it's all extremely kind of smooth running everything moving silently governed by the underlying infrastructure of data and technology and sensors and I would say this is kind of the fundamental underpinning of this project and And my job actually interestingly was to think about how these systems Actually can come to life because as you can imagine to get all of these things to work It depends on the orchestration of many many different pieces both physical and digital Everything has to work together and as a matter of fact, none of these things have previously worked in the world so part of the work and part of the big risk is Proofing it right making sure that this thing actually have a Any kind of chance of working in the real world. So that was a big part of my work and You know, for example taking ideas of modular technology Embedding sensors into some version of a real-world prototype that was kind of the kind of work I did and you know what to me illustrates this logic of Data government data driven governance of cities is the idea of managing urban curbside spaces, right this idea that Instead of static parking signs and parking meters. We have a system that tells people this is exactly What you can use the curbside space for during what time and this is how much you pay for it So this was actually a project. I spent a lot of time working on Developing a system to experiment and test this idea of managing the curbside flexibly I think this is a maybe interesting test case to think about how a designer within this room might fit in to work like this Because it truly cuts across a whole spectrum of design capabilities from the digital to the physical, right? You first have to imagine Thinking like a UX designer a service designer what the experience of this space actually is What does it become throughout the time of the day? Whether it's for loading, you know, public realm trucks pick up drop-off You have to think about the experience of that You have to think about all of the different sort of technical affordances of the system, right? these are all the things that it can do and You'll have to think about how it all comes together as a physical object and a physical space, right? We come back to the space of architecture and then you also need to know what are the individual kinds of enabling technologies that makes all of these things possible and work together so you need to be a engineer a technologist someone who can Understand how these individual components work But then also put them together in the context of a system that talks to each other, you know Sensor a talking to sensor B actually reading, you know element C so and so forth And even a bit of software development So one of my jobs is actually thinking about what the back end of the system needs to look like who needs to monitor This and make what decisions and all of this comes together in the context of a pilot which I put together In Brooklyn ABR which only wrapped up last year So this all of this as simple as it looks took way longer than you think what then you think it did So I think this is a good example of again what I call the technology of digital physical governance But what was really interesting to me also is We think Technologies like this eliminate difficult questions about how to run cities But in fact what it actually does is it displaces one set of questions and raises other kinds of questions, right? To make it to put it most prosaically We built this prototype and we really had to think who the hell is gonna run this thing in the 12 month in which no one's gonna be around this this thing. What if something goes wrong? Who fixes it and I guess most importantly who's actually setting the rules in terms of who gets to use the curb during what time? For what purposes right so technologies like this actually again instead of eliminating and abstracting away a lot of the questions of urban governance simply produces new questions and these questions maybe in a way is a bit more hidden and and Let's talked about and for me that was maybe the biggest sort of central insight of my work in the last few years is who thinks about these questions and Where does one work if one wants to help think about those questions, right? So So yeah, so so that brings me to I guess, you know, just some maybe some observations about About the contemporary moment the inner the intersection between technology and urbanism and you know, what what we should what we should be thinking about today I think What something like the flexible curb tells us is Technologies like that. They have very explicit Functions and uses right. I'm building this thing to manage urban curbside spaces to make them more efficient More sustainable etc etc, but they also perform a more implicit set of political economic agendas, right and These agendas just to give an example of that, you know, when we go back to Everything I did around data visualization urban data. These technologies are not really just about Visualizing data and making them beautiful and understandable presentable, right? we create these technologies with an explicit purpose of Forming opinions forming consensus Making sure that people understand urban issues in a way that we want them to understand understand those issues and I would say These technologies is a way of creating a kind of common sense, right around how cities should be This kind of common sense can be Democratic in the case of you know us using data visualization to talk to the citizens of Boston Talk about the futures of city. It can obviously also be very Technocratic and even autopratic, right? I you know, I just I can't help it You know, I bring up an image of the the smart city Control center in Rio, which is the case that everybody shits on as what smart cities shouldn't be But I think it illustrates my point right you can use data to Illuminate how the city works, but that knowledge can serve very different purposes, right? I think this also illustrates the second important point, which I really want to hit home, which is the Political value valence of these technologies isn't fixed, right? You can take almost the same technology Put it in two different contexts and they can perform radically different political functions and economic functions, right? To give one example back to the curbs curbside spaces again, right? If you look at a technology that many people were looking at a few years ago, which is codifying every single inch of urban curbside spaces Having that information as a way to put a price on it You can argue that it is about making urban streets more efficient But you can also argue that it's about monetizing what is otherwise just the public asset, right? and these two outcomes are entirely possible and I argue that there is Space and in fact a sort of obligation for us to think about what what what is that future outcome that we want and want to shape I Want to just show some other examples and maybe get us all to think about kind of what an alternative arrangement of this technology might be, right? So from curbside spaces to using curbs as the loading zones for urban logistics companies networks You know We kind of walk by this every day. We kind of take it for granted now, but it's not sort of It's not a given, right? It's this is the way the the way that Delivery companies use urban curbside public assets as a way to unload as a place to unload their their goods is Not a natural state of affairs. This is highly contingent. This happened for a whole set of reasons and Things happening and things not happening, right? I talked to Laura about this briefly a few months ago this idea that we have a technology infrastructure to for gig work for getting food delivered getting laundry delivered and You know getting your knees taken care of getting someone to come and fix your door but it's the same technology infrastructure with which you can imagine a different way of organizing Municipal services and the municipal mutual aid and I don't think these two technology Infrastructures are that different, but I think it just illustrates the point that with the same technology In two different side a lot of economic context. They can do very different things. I Want to pose these oppositions in terms of what those different things might look like You know when we talk about urban spaces and Urban streets and curbside spaces are we creating common spaces are we creating commons? Or are we creating a market out of those spaces, right? What kind of relationship do we put people in relation to each other? You know, are we creating relationships of mutuality or relationships of exchange, right? And are we at the end of the day creating public value or private value? Kind of complicated, but actually it's really simple I think it's an argument that people have been making for a very long time Which is any kind of technology encodes a certain set of social relations and social assumptions and political assumptions And these technologies in turn affect those relations, right? So looking forward to some of the incoming Technological transformations of the city just to take eb charging for example, right? We take eb's as a Uncomplicated good, right? It's a good thing. We're turning fossil fuel burning cars into eb into electric cars but this technology infrastructure also embeds a lot of values in What it does and what it doesn't do and one of the things it does do right now is it excludes people it doesn't include a lot of people in this infrastructure deployment and When you look at how they're actually built in the street even at the level of Design minute design at the level of individual streetscapes. You also see choices between What is important and what isn't important and You know like for example, this is LA a couple years ago just eb charging cables across Across bike lanes. I mean I could I you know you can argue that this is there's maybe a just a much more innocent mistake here But in a way like no mistakes are innocent like, you know, like every every every Every innocent mistake has something better as assumptions behind it that I think is worth interrogating so these are the questions that really motivate me and You know if I pose it back to Designers in this room and designers like myself, you know broadly speaking what technologies get made and how right? Importantly, how are these technologies deployed operated and managed right who makes these decisions and then ultimately To what and and for whose benefit You know, and I think it's maybe worth making a small digression here about generative AI I think a lot of the conversations today Opposes You know artificial intelligence Against humanity which is sort of a very kind of romantic humanist way of looking at technology But there are much more mundane questions you can ask about generative AI Which is like who's making these things for what purposes and what kind of relationships do generative AI creates between people and is that a You know equitable good relationship that we want to perpetuate so anyway raising these questions But then you know the big question for us, which is you know What are our what are our vectors of influencing these questions because a lot of those questions are Frankly decided outside of this fear of technology and design per se, right? We don't really we're not really in the room Deciding on these things right Mentor capital does to a to a great extent, you know in terms of what technologies get made and how so So this brings me back to What I'm doing now. I actually started my job only three months ago, but there was a much longer incubation period behind that I thought it was very important for me to get back into planning, but Also still work on technology questions, but work on these technology questions in particular questions of You know How to deploy how to operate how to manage, you know, how to turn these into a sort of political conversation so So the practice I'm running right now is you know what I call this urban design urban technology design practice and broadly speaking, you know The mission statement is helping to shape purposeful value add technology applications in cities aligning technology applications with purpose with public value and really think about the questions of Deployment operation management, which is where a lot of those values actually get reflected and come in To give just a super short rundown of what I'm doing right now to kind of make those things reality I would say broadly speaking. It's kind of three buckets of work making shaping and critiquing I think it's important for all of us to still be making technologies, right to because we're interested in it because it's interesting It's fun and But I think what I've been trying to be very conscious about is Making technologies to what and and giving it giving that technology to whom and what do they do with it? And what kind of outcome is that producing so to give one example one of one of the projects I started since I joined is Working with the chief heat officer of LA So it's a new position that was created in the city that deals specifically with Climate change and extreme heat in the city So my work is working with her to develop a set of technology solutions that specifically helps her address the challenges of her work and Those challenges are actually really mundane it goes back to a lot of the things we talked about earlier, right? It is data geospatial analysis data visualization overlaying remote sensing of you know Urban heat island with socioeconomic indicators that Indicates extreme stress right so that's one vector of work and the other vector is honestly even simpler which is that she is one bureaucrat within the larger city and her influence on Other city departments to do what she needs them to do is Limited by her ability to communicate and coordinate and organize So we're really just looking at creating technologies for her where she can say well I need this done by the department of transportation, which I don't have formal influence over but this is a Technology that can help us coordinate efforts better. So one example In terms of shaping technologies I want to just give two examples of things that I've seen out there as potential examples I haven't I this is something I'm honestly going to think about what it looks like because if you're shaping technologies You have to think about you know what with what power you're shaping them, right? today the the most important power shaping technology development in this country anyway is a Private investment system of which venture capital is that at its very heart, right? Venture capital decides what we collectively as a society invest in technology development a versus B, right? What I'm interested in is is there is some kind of public power that allows us to shape the directionality of Those technologies if not how to make them then at least how they're being deployed and used in the real world So I think that work is beginning to happen one of the things I looked at in building the business case for my work is Work such as the one on the right of the alley lighting plant So this is a city department. That's literally working with communities to decide if Our city has a capital budget to buy new technologies by light poles that can do XYZ What exactly do we want to buy and for what purpose, right? so this is Not even so much in the realm of making like technology as we commonly think of it But it's firmly in the realm of planning and that's why I Think doing this working planning with in a planning context is really important I talk I want to talk a little bit about the fun stuff. I do which is the critiquing part of it I don't do this as a professional practice, but my partner who's an artist and I have been developing a set of Projects, I would say around technology counterfactuals, which is this idea that let's construct a Alternative history of how some technology might have developed and let's just play that out And let's just see what the outcome of that Counterfactual of that different history might have been and the purpose of it is not necessarily to Be known the present as much as it is to understand what is Malleable and contingent about our present moment and what can actually change right because the moment you start thinking about Alternative histories you realize nothing was supposed to have nothing was Predetermined about the way things developed and things can still change right so one of the ones we worked on was a Different history of the internet right so many people have written histories of internet And what we did was just you know just played out like what if what if The internet evolved in a different way What if it remained the sort of academic communication network that it was intended That it that it initially developed as and what are the sort of societal Economic and political outcomes of that so this is more just a fun exercise to kind of keep my brain engaged but Something that we're hoping to develop further So that's it for my presentation. I do want to just spend the last couple minutes zooming out About like thinking about our present moment and why it might be interesting for us to think about this kind of work I think You know a couple of things I'll observe Technologies have gotten much more sophisticated much more complicated, but also much simpler in a way right there are as you all of you Who play with chat GBT in the last few months? No There is a way in which those technologies are actually much very friendly to beginners novices right the barrier to entry of Testing new ideas and making new ideas actually in a weird way is lower lower now than it You know for a much longer time previously So so I think there might be more creativity coming in to this space and the other big driver is a Different larger political context in which you know the federal government is actually making industrial policy again It's doling out like billions and billions and billions of dollars in to local governments to combat climate change grow green economies and so on and so forth and what that translates into is greater public power and Greater public power through which we can affect many of the changes that you know I've been thinking about so, you know, I want to end on a sort of optimistic note I think like this work obviously is very challenging, but at the same time I think it's happening at a funny and interesting and kind of exciting moment and And so yeah, so that's what I want to leave you with and I know I talked about a lot of about a lot of things We can you know continue this conversation during the Q&A. So Thank you Thanks a mutsuki. That's great. And it's like in some ways your career We mentioned I thought we talked I talked with you about this before but it's some way your career is followed So many things going on in urban tech in a way that you are like uniquely kind of positioned as an interesting person to talk about this I'm sure all of y'all have questions Same as last time. I have a couple of mics that I can dole out So, please just raise a hand if you have a question, and I'll come over and give you one Thank you for this great lecture I'm not from the CDP program. I'm from AAD and it's actually pretty funny that I attend this lecture today Because we're I just read Bruno Latour before coming into this Bruno Latour. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I was just reading about exactly how Technologies are not political, but they do create social interactions or They organize social interactions based on who governs technologies in a way, and that's something you talked about a lot On this age where like we're all interconnected through Internet and all these kinds of things What do you say is our responsibility towards creating technology which can be Actively relocated globally on different places different contexts because the politics of the technology changes depending on which context it is So would you say our role is to make technology? infinitely abusable and perhaps open-source Oh, that's wow, that's a great question But kind of hard to answer but you might have to repeat the second part of your question a little bit because I don't think I'd like totally caught it Maybe just break it down a little bit for me. I mean, I guess I'm just saying Since technologies are abusable and changeable, right? Is it our role to make allow them to be abusable so that they're not politically streamlined to just well I guess I would Put the question back to you like what does it look like to make These technologies of communication abusable in your word Maybe just to clarify that a little bit and we can kind of riff riff on that. Yeah, what does that look like? to you Well, I would hope so something that your project did There was a technology I would say in New York City Laws to our technology that shape how buildings become and your project Was in a way anti-technology or technology against that technology, right? Yeah, like the zoning code is a sort of social technology like the 1961 zoning code is right and our technology is sort of a way of Taking the fangs out of that you're right, but indecipherable attacks. Yeah, if it is Employed by someone else it is still abusable, right? Hmm. So how do you liberate technology from being? Users of weapon for tinnary tyranny do. Oh, wow Great question I think there is a more I think there is a more pessimist school here, which is to say that in a way Like we get exactly the technologies we deserve like, you know a certain capitalist order produce is is destined to produce certain technologies of oppression and Those technologies like it's our redeemably going to be harmful and do all these terrible things that like the larger System conditions to do. I don't I'm not so sure from that. I'm not I'm not pessimistic actually because I don't think There's always I mean if you you know if you read more like a lot more of these The sort of like social construction this the side of technology The science technology studies they'll argue that like especially in early days of any technology the meaning the valence the value the use of that technology is very much open to shaping and debate and And I think that's true like I think you know you look at something like the Early Internet for example like it does it still does perform like what I would say is like a very Libertory function, right? So, I don't know. I I guess I'm trying to say that I'm not so like deterministic in terms of like Technologies going to do this because we live in a certain society and it's destined to do that Like I don't think I believe that I think there is a role to shape it And that's why even do what I do in the first place at all But I think you ask a more important question is how do we actually do that? How do we shape the valence and effect of Technologies as they're deployed in the real world and I think I don't know I mean, I can't give you a generic like blanket answer do this and everything will be great. I don't know I do think I do think Public power is an important ingredient. I think having like a certain FTC person in the federal government who regulates these technologies that's sympathetic that makes a huge difference I think I do think organizing makes it makes it makes a difference Depending on the context. I do think designers like us have a have a have a role But it's not so much us designing in the vacuum Like it's not just about us sitting in our bedrooms Speculating what a different technology future might look like we really have to be thoughtful about what kind of power we leverage to achieve that outcome whether that's some kind of public power or Organizing power or something else. I don't know hope that answer the question partly But it's kind of a it's a big question and hard to answer Yeah Hi, that was really really fascinating, so thank you I have a question for that's very specific to someone who's interested in kind of this Field whether you call it urban technology is strategic design so I'm from South Africa and This is something I've been really fascinated with for a long time And I work more like economic commons and that sort of thing But I've often found that Conversations around urban technology Seem to be very centered in places where there is some kind of tradition or culture around urban design That's the fact that you get to work with these partners and do some really really cool projects I'm sitting here thinking like how on earth do I do that in a place like Kili fee in Kenya where There's no chief of heat If you want to speak to anyone in a bureaucratic position, you probably have to bribe them So it's like what is your advice? for Practicing this in a way that is meaningful. Do you have examples perhaps of where you've seen this done really well at a grassroots level? Like how do you take this and you know apply it in other places? That's such a great question. I mean, I think my answer is going to disappoint you Which is I really feel like it's outside my realm of experience here. Maybe you know, maybe we can like Found some ideas off the podium. I almost feel irresponsible just to be like, oh, I think we can do this to I don't know. I'm trying to think like What's a good entry way to thinking about that? Yeah Yeah, yeah, please Yeah I'd walk. Yeah, I'm alone. Yeah, yeah, yeah I think the the platform the platform labor platform thing was what we talked about right like What what would it take to instantiate a municipal platform that is not, you know, Over eats, right? Yeah, I think it might have been the counterfactuals or yeah, or untangle it or something. Yeah But sorry the question was how do I? Yeah Um Well, I think I think Yeah, I'm trying to be specific in my answer, I guess why I remain optimistic about it I mean, I'm not sure if I'm like optimist. I don't know if often optimistic Like I think it's very interesting. I Don't I Have no illusions about a lot of this work being really hard, right? because Because we I would say we still live in a pretty I would say like political adversarial environment for like a collect like a truly collective Reimagining of what technologies can do like we're not in our world, right? This is still a world in which Basic research gets spun out of certain university labs get picked up as startups And then go through venture capital and becomes a thing that like makes a bajillion dollars And only those things get funded right and only those things that have a sort of like Let's scale potential are favored with the kinds of capital needs to grow into it into a real technology We look at the thing we're doing for the city of LA It's not fundable. It's by nature like not fundable by venture capital No one will touch that because who wants to invest in technology development that is by definition limited to like 2,000 users in the in the country and no more than that. So I think it's gonna be really hard but I think maybe one source of optimism to your question Laura is I do think there is a bit of a Context context shift in in terms of like the US thinking about industrial policy and thinking about like robust public investment in some of these things So I do think that context is important You know in addition to technology, I also just do planning planning work You know I work my partner Susanna Drake is a well-known landscape architect that does a lot of climate resilience work and we do work together and That work has really dramatically been accelerated in the last couple years just because of IRA like we see it We see it every day that like federal funding of You know Millions and millions dollars for planning projects around the country. So I you know that that's one source of optimism I think is this idea of this feeling that the context is changing beneath our feet a little bit And I also just think like I think Yeah, maybe it's not optimism is just like a conviction that like The full story of some of these technologies haven't been written yet, right? Like there is still a weighing which You know Maybe like the full potential benefits of some of these ideas that are being developed Like they just need to be on earth somehow and that just takes creativity and hard work and I don't know like all of the platitudes that That that that comes with that. Sorry. I'm not that's not a super clear answer, but That's an A answer I think you've largely answered my question, but I really appreciate the presentation and I really like how honest you are about the Back that currently does sort of technocracy and increasingly so autocracy is in the hands of the private Predominantly and you know and then you really highlight your aspirations towards certain values that the society should be heading towards this direction instead of this, but you know at the end of the day the private Has a very clear set of goals that is against whatever that aspiration is And I guess, you know, you talked a lot about like what could support that like that the fact that you know, perhaps DTO and the in the government that that you know supports a certain thing may help but I am curious from your personal experience as someone who's worked in You know Google and in or sidewalk labs and and other like private urban planning companies what like what are the sort of current like Temperature around these attitudes are people within these private firms. Are they pushing do people do they really do You know they really do like I would say You know when I was at delve within Google, we're in a partner. We're like a partner team to Google Earth engines, which is a It's not a it's not a profit-making team, right? It's like completely it's kind of like a residual Artifact of an earlier Google or something where this team literally is just making a sort of environmental data catalog of all the cities in the world and working with cities to make this available and Help them do carbon inventories plan for you know, do kind of trip planning All with the purpose of reducing carbon, right? So that that stuff exists And I think there are other pockets of that You know, you can't separate that from the fact that it's otherwise situated in a extremely profitable firm that derives its money from How computing and advertising like those two things are inseparable I Think you also just can't overlook the contradictions of a team like that because you know every time there is a Corporate restructuring those teams are always like really at risk, right and There is also in this particular moment some drive towards Making Google look good greenwashing right so like obviously those the presence of that those things within Google has valued now that doesn't exist before but you can't count on that as The permanent foundation for those kind of team to exist in Google So I think the situation is very complicated like those things do exist for sure But it's it co-exists with all of these other Stuff, you know, yeah, so would you say like aligning those valleys would not be possible that if we really do want the type of technology Well, I don't I mean, I you know, it's maybe maybe what I'm trying to say here is like Maybe we just all need to be operators, you know, we need to like yeah like actually Oh, Google wants to greenwash great Then let's just leverage Google resources do this thing and build this thing and Google might not support it forever But that's fine, you know, like we you know my metaphors like you're like the satellite that's trying to like Navigate the planets and try to get in various orbits and get a little boost, you know, I think another major source of Resources I haven't talked about is foundations, right? There are a lot of major foundations that are funding Civic technology work and and Climate resilience work and these two things are more and more overlapping. So that's really a huge Set of resources that I'm very interested in looking at tapping into but it's not uncomplicated, right? I mean these foundations Oftentimes have very ambiguous roles in many places in context, but but again, it's finding the kind of Impermanent temporary Alignments of interest between you and these powerful actors and find a way to like make the thing happen to the best extent you can if that makes sense Yeah Mm-hmm. Okay. This might be a little better And I think like data Like data is very kind of opaque and I think like, you know You're one of the people that like work on these teams to make it approachable to you know A venture capitalist in a sense or you know the head of heat for example in LA and You know, you were starting to like speak about how You know you work to make Data more accessible and less opaque, you know to people in Singapore With that data set and I guess like one question is like I'm curious like what are some successful methods that you You know used to you know create not just like an open sandbox that people can get lost in with data Which we see kind of happening a lot with With machine learning and all this kind of stuff of like just this the sandbox of exploration that like we don't know We can get out of it and it's unclear of how people, you know People are sort of figuring out how to interpret it like how can you what are some successful like successful methods that you have? Encountered in projects like that that people have understood it in a way that like they can almost action on to influence That's a really good question You know the the dirty secret of like the data visualization practice field is It's Pretty hermetic like people do beautiful cool things and it's not really It's not it's not clear how applications effective. They are in Doing what it purports to do. So it's true like I think your point is completely right Trying to think like what are some really really amazing examples of like this kind of thing being extremely useful and producing real What effects I Don't know. I'm actually I'm drawing a blank at the moment. I You know, this is not a perfect example I've I've always really liked just locally like the work that Center for Urban Pedagogy does it's called making policy public. I've always really loved it. It's not a data project. It's more using information design to untangle complex issues for the audience that These complex urban policies questions are really affecting. So I think that's a good as a good example. It has a very clear purpose around public teaching public pedagogy So I think that's a good example Trying to think I mean I were like less Sleep deprived I can probably tell you but but I can you know, I can I can we can hang around a little bit I can you know, I can I have some some other ideas. I can I can show you so and I think like another piece to that is when sort of collecting more data to You know to help make these issues like more accessible and stuff like You know, I saw you had an example about You know creating sort of additional sensors in the environment, you know, like within the sidewalk or whatever but I think like like data synonymous with like surveillance in a sense, you know, how like how have you sort of Navigated that like public conversation of like or maybe maybe it's just like it's an unknown thing like, you know We're we're being surveilled. Yeah, I know I wouldn't say like I wouldn't say that pavement example was like such a great example of like how to deal with this issue in the public realm, right like like 70% of the air around sidewalk Toronto was sucked up by Questions of surveillance and privacy, which I would argue is like to the detriment of other Worthball things to discuss around that project, but it doesn't anyway. That's not a cure in there I mean one thing I didn't show I worked on was set of public Data public technology transparency standards So essentially like a bunch of like standardized Information stickers that you put on things to explain to people. Oh, like this sensors collecting this data to use it for XYZ purpose And that's also like a super limited response, right Because it Assumes that the only thing that people can do in a situation like that is to consent We're not consent, right when in fact there are other ways of people getting involved in We're not involved in data collection and surveillance I mean, there are just so many things we can talk about here. One thing I also didn't talk about is Along with the heat project in LA. We're also trying to develop a low-cost solution that are that community groups can use to do Kind of crowdsource measurement that their quality and heat issues in their communities, so it's sort of Not saying no to the idea of measurement and surveillance, but really to like give The surveilled the historically surveilled the ability to measure what matters in their particular environment So that might be a different way of responding to it and that's Not again, that's not really new work That's happened a lot in various settings in here in New York But what we're trying to do is to like systematize that knowledge and make that knowledge open source and like as Easy as possible to deploy and use so that Any community group that gets a three thousand dollar grant to do this can deploy Ten sensors and measure the presence of extreme heat spots in a particular neighborhood So that's that's another example Do I have time for one more? Okay, sorry, and then the like the last in that is How do you How do you account for sort of Like Not like bad actors, but I guess like sort of darker like user experience Issues like at like a governmental like municipal level with you know, particularly like your like the parking project where you know Parking is Yeah, you know Like how do you navigate that conversation to get you know For something like that to be beneficial at like a city level where that's a big money maker for a city and there's you know Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it's an issue of it being a big money maker for the city I think you know a few years ago.  I do think a lot of cities are becoming much much much much more sophisticated about these things and Part of my hope is to work directly with city governments that make procurement and operational decisions around these things to Help them set the parameters for what they actually need and what is good. I do think community engagement slash organization is a key part of this like Developing some kind of public voice around What technologies people in a given city actually wants and needs and how What the parameters are for using those like that is again like a question of planning and community engagement so it's sort of no surprising answers here, but It's yeah, it's it's it's helping cities and communities develop a point of view about What they need and don't need and what is harmful and what is not? I guess to sorry to refine though It was I think the question is more about when a city benefits from ambiguity in like Practices and like systems and stuff and how do you oh like when? Yeah, I Actually, I don't know if I've actually come across many world like real-world examples of the city's Benefiting from that ambiguity like I think we really have to talk about specifics here and like what what kind of technologies? we're talking about and What the cities are that deploys these to do what like Like the only example I can think of is like policing technologies that police departments Cure certain sensors that disproportionately target certain communities But you might be thinking of something else. I'm not parking in this instance parking in this instance parking. Yeah, I mean the cities by parking solutions mostly out of a Technocratic sense of like this is gonna help us manage parking spaces better. I don't know if there is like a lot of Like Necessarily a lot of batting tensions in there from day one. It can be kind of naive, but it's not to me. It's not like Batting tensions if that makes sense. So Yeah, I don't know. Sorry. This is not not a not a super clear answer, but maybe I can understand the questions a bit better too. Yeah Yeah Thank you again for such a Fascinating presentation. I think my question is quite busy because I might not be around to you know talk after the exercise I was just curious. Where can we learn more about you your background and some of the work? You know you do beyond your email address. Oh, okay, so I have a website My name is pretty Googleable. So that's where Adam found my file because I didn't send him one and And the work I'll be doing I mean I'm getting things set up on the Suzuki website right now. So that's you know that's coming and Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm in New York and you know, I'm around the program I'll probably be coming for reviews in the future. There. There are more conversations to be had Yeah The intro to architecture program would you see it for summer? Yeah Interest architecture. Oh, there is one last question. Do we see you do time for one? Yeah, that's fine That's fine. Yeah, we can we can talk as long as folks are okay with it. Yeah. Hi. Thank you That was actually really interesting because just yesterday in Violet's class We had a guest lecture by Dan B Lee who's part of Google Yeah, but nevertheless, I think it was super interesting how you really highlighted Dan B Lee No, yeah, okay. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Okay. Yeah, she was also really yeah She was just also very interested like Honestly critical about the new tools that Google Street Raps now allows to actually have all like 3d Visualizations and how many data is now accessible and the responsibilities of Google as well, but I didn't want to talk about this I'm sorry. I was just thinking especially in terms of governance of digital and Physical infrastructures that I think it's interesting. Maybe now to look I think that's also what you suggested with the LA project It's kind of drawing ideas from decentralization on how governance can actually be more realizable and really also more focus on particular I guess groups and their needs and desires Yeah, and I think it's maybe also a parallel transfer from issues and web 2 to web 3 Realizing how we have to decentralize also governance models and I was just thinking if you if you have maybe also other examples in mind Maybe then referring to digital Ministries for example in Taiwan or like there are the examples. I think that could be applied to the yes ideally as well I've Try to stay away from web 3 mostly because I don't I don't find myself all that knowledgeable about it. Frankly. I think you know Like I wouldn't say I wouldn't say decentralization is like Like for me, it's not a Political program or like a set of an end in itself, right? Like I don't I don't think that decentralization is intrinsically better or good. I Think in a particular context for a particular problem. It can make a lot of sense i.e. in the case of a community coming together to identify what the particular areas of climate vulnerabilities might be in a given Geographical area for a given population. I think that makes a lot of sense I think there is a limit to How much you can understand what's happening on the ground by using top-down analytical methods. I think that's just true So that that is where you know where I agree with you in terms of the value decentralization I look at Yeah, I don't know. I'm almost afraid to say too much about why three because I'm like I don't know what you know, it's so big and I'm not that knowledgeable. What do I even get into? I Think for Yeah, I mean, you know as a both the technologies and the technologies and the planner planner who works on larger City-scale problems of climate adaptation and looking at some of the infrastructure that's actually needed to Address these issues coastal infrastructure, for example It's hard to imagine how decentralization plays into that because that literally is like the state deploying billions of dollars and legal powers and financial powers and technical powers to like make all those things come together and build a Levy system right like it's hard to imagine how decentralization plays into that and I don't know if that's a good thing We're patting but that's just the fact right Anyway, I just I'm rambling all a little bit now, but yeah Okay, sweet. I think that's all we have time for but thanks everyone for coming. Thanks for the conversation and thanks for the lecture


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You know, it's so funny that a lot of people, I feel sorry for Dwight because there's so many people that's locked, that's locked inside of themselves and living for other people.  Me neither. You know what I mean? Like I've probably, you know, telling my truth and speaking how I speak. You know what I mean?  Don't care.  But have you always been like that? Have you always? That's what I was about to ask. Yeah, have you always been like that because? Was it vocal? Yeah, because, you know, because in the beginning. You might've been vocal, but they're like, okay, and I'm saying this, like Dwight Howell right now going through his situation. He ain't able to speak, he's all these innuendos. You ain't able to say it. But think about it, you would, when you first started coming. Well, when it came to my sexuality. You was.  There you go, okay, okay. That's the only thing, like, as far as to be worried about what a nigga think. Yeah. I didn't never hold it because what a nigga think of? Because man, people are nasty. You think I'm worried about what somebody think about.  But when I think about politics and you trying to, you know, escalate your career, a lot of people tend to hold their tongues because they don't want to get on nobody's mind. You know what I mean? So you've never been like that. No, no, like I've been in trouble since I was little. Like, now that I be looking at some of the things that like. That you did.  Don't say that. Like I try to tell myself, but, you know, this was stuff that I remember the principal telling me.  And if it ain't real and ain't right, I'm not going to listen to that. Or if I believe something in my heart, even as a kid, I'm getting a whooping and I'm still saying, that's not right. I get it.  It's wrong. So when you talk about the sexuality and how you came out and everything like that, and it's so, everything is so bold now, especially with everybody, but then why are there still some people in the shoot? The white Howard. Not just, you can say him, you can say him, but not only him, but there's a lot of other people that are, people are guessing about and there's nothing. Well, you know, some people. Why people don't come out about it? You know, some people kind of take a stance.  Which is cool. That's what he said. I'm thinking about what I heard. I didn't, I shared it. You know, out of, again, out of something that happened on social media, I was sneaking around with someone. He committed suicide. Oh, that's crazy, man. Sorry to hear that. At this time, thank you. I was working in a church. And the stuff that the church people said to me in my comments is what kind of made me come out.   Then I got them in order.  Wow. It's very uncomfortable in our community. You know what I mean? Especially for a man, you know, we're looked at as a less of a man. I guess everybody think you want them. You know what I mean? You become this monster. You know what I mean?   And it is okay, you know. We, our community is so judgmental. And, you know, it's so funny that a lot of people, I feel sorry for Dwight because there's so many people that's locked, that's locked inside of themselves and living for other people. That's what I was just about to ask. Did you see the sense of freedom? Yeah, oh my God, I got my skin changed, my tone of my skin. I felt like my life, I got a lighter. Like sneaking in hotels and like, okay, you meet me here and I'll meet you there and I'm running and I'm grown out of hard work money that I work for. I've never asked anybody to, can you help me get a room?  And in the midst of that, I've lost great people that wanted to be dated out loud, that wanted people to know that, you know, they was with this guy or awesome guy. I wanted them to know and I'm like, no, I can't do this. You know, who wants to live that kind of life? Did you lose friends or family who feel, who said that, well, I don't agree with? Oh yeah, a lot of people changed on me in a lot of those relationships, some of those relationships, you know, haven't been rekindled. And the ones is some of them been rekindled and it ain't the same. I used to be close to people in the family and now it's like I'm not, but it don't bother me. You know, I'm also grateful to one of my aunts that I always say, consider the resource.  If your mom was here, what do you think she would have told you? My mama knew, I think. You think she knew? Absolutely. Yeah, my mama knew me.  Your mama know you.  And quite frankly, I think my daddy knew. You know, he passed before I came. But my dad, my dad, I think he knew. He would always say every time he met a girl with me. Man, she pretty.  That's what he was saying. He telling me, take me and the, I used to take him in the stairs and get him a suit and the girl tried to put his suit on me, crying. Crying on the floor of my suit. Wow. That's crazy.  He telling the girl I'm gay.  My daddy was born December the 25th, 1926. So maybe you took married fast. That's what it was. You, it was you. It was me. I was a grown man in the snow. So he had a whole song.  When you decided to open up about that, you knew it was gonna cause some, it was gonna ruffle something. I mean, you know some people got mad, but I don't know, did it really ruffle things? Well, you told your truth. Yeah. That's all that matters. You know what I mean?  Yeah.  I did it too fast. Okay. But I wanna talk about it. Cause back then it wasn't. I came out, I had to fight for this. But do you think when you were early on, you was messing with Mary? Well, okay. How did you think about that? About that time I was.  That's what I'm saying. How did you think? What did you feel like? Okay. Yeah. I like Mary. Or you just was like, was she taking advantage of you? Cause you were young.  Cause she was young too. She was young too. And that was Mary J. Blodging. When I bought that story up because a lot of people thought that I was like trying to meet you. I mean, I wouldn't use her. Got somebody I could meet to if I wanted to. But it wouldn't be Mary. It wouldn't be Mary.  And I was like, whoa, wait a minute. No, what? No, it was my girl. It was my girl, right? And I was kind of just talking too fast. And I didn't mean to say, I got fucking. You know, I didn't mean to say it like that, but I did.  I'm waiting for them to come back and be like, he's lying. No, you hadn't heard that, but did. Oh, you won't. Yeah, we on boss talk one on one. One on one. Yeah, we going to talk.


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hesitate to reach out and happy to come back and share with the committee. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. So committee, we are pivoting now and welcome Representative Brady. We are moving into S16, creation of a task force on school exclusionary discipline reform and going from there. And I think you're joined by Ms. Parker. And I thought that Mr. Demeray was coming in, but perhaps not. He may be on his way. They were just wrapping up in house at a couple of things. Got you. Would you like to kick us off or would you prefer to wait for him? I'm all, I'm new to all of this. So I'm happy to give it a shot and correct me or direct me in the right direction at any point. I will not be offended. And I have my wonderful mentor in the room here. So Representative Townsend will certainly help steer me in the right direction. Very good. I understand you want just a very high level overview of the bill and it has just a tiny amount of money in it. Yes, yes. I did notice that it had a tiny as tiny as under $10,000. So I'm not holding the exact amount. I think it's like 6850, but I might be wrong. Yep, yep. So, so this bill came to us from- Please introduce yourself first. Okay. Morning. I am Representative Brady from the house education committee and I will be reporting this bill on the floor next week. Very good. This bill came to us from the Senate and work that had been done in previous sessions as well to try to make some improvements to our disciplinary processes and schools. There's sort of three big things that stand out as the reasons for this bill. One, there's a lot of research to show that exclusionary discipline. And when we say that we mean suspensions and expulsions tend to be highly inequitable in terms of what students are put under exclusionary discipline most often. It has exclusionary discipline has a lot of short-term and long ranging impacts on students and families that can be quite negative. And perhaps most importantly, it's not educational. It doesn't actually change behavior or teach students something different. So in looking at the bill, section one is the findings. Section two is the meat of the bill which is to create a task force in order to do two things essentially. The task force will need to come up with recommendations to end suspensions and expulsions for all but the most serious student behaviors. So part of their work will be defining what are the most serious student behaviors. It's not to say that there aren't sometimes when exclusion is necessary and we know that. And also to do quite a bit of work around better data collection information gathering from what's happening in schools and sharing of best practices across schools because there is some really great work happening in some pockets of Vermont. We're pretty proud of the task force membership. It's a diverse membership with a lot of expertise in the field on it. And we took a lot of testimony that is then tied to the appropriation which is per diems for the task force. Section three is the appropriation, the piece that's in your purview. And section four directs the secretary of education to essentially help the task force with data and making available what's already there. So the task force does not recreate work that has already been done. Section five deals with the reports that will come back to the House and the Senate. Section six is recommending that suspensions and expulsions end completely for students under the age of eight. And section seven gets into trying to better understand cases of truancy. There's some inconsistency across the state of how often truancy is referred to state's attorneys. And section eight is your effective date. So the appropriation is simply for per diems for the members of the task force who would qualify for it. Several of them it would be part of their regular job so they would not. But for those who would, Brianna has a fiscal note for us that I believe is posted on your page today. Yes, and before I go to Ms. Parker I just wanna say that was outstanding. Thank you. Well, that was the short version of my floor report. That's okay. That's okay. You kind of give you a little bit of practice but that was just outstanding. That was exactly what we needed. So thank you. Ms. Parker. Thank you. That might well be the shortest fiscal note I've ever read, but I'll let you kind of just tell us in one whole sentence. But you know what, that's. Thank you very much, Brianna Parker from the Joint Fiscal Office for the Record. And we're really just looking at per DM compensation for this task force. There are nine members that are eligible under statute for this reimbursement and our kind of standard is $126 per DM. And so the committee will meet no more than six times. So that factors out to about $6,800. And the appropriation is $6,750 in the bill. So that does seem appropriate. And that is coming from the general fund for FY22. And that will go through the agency of education. Thank you. And we have a couple of questions and I'm sorry, I didn't see which went first. So I will defer to Madam Chair first. Thank you. And Rep Brady, I just want to add that was an excellent report. Thank you for being clear, concise and to the point. We really appreciate it. I am curious if you all had a conversation and I know this isn't in your typical purview but this bill is requesting that we pay for this work with out of the general fund. Did you have a conversation about using the Ed fund to support this work? I do not recall us having that conversation. I would be surprised. I mean, and truly that is in our purview but this is going to be kind of a question that I'm going to be asking. Why one fund rather than another fund? That's not your problem. I'm now off into the committee. In just FYI committee, this whole need was of a large source of discussion with the Joint Justice Oversight Committee during the past couple of years. There was a considerable amount of work and concern around what is going on with particular communities and the kind of disproportionate burden or focus on them for expulsion and loss of school services. I personally was delighted to see this coming forward. It's clearly an area of need and so I appreciate the House Ed committee working on it. So thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So one of the, just a quick comment and obviously this is not every school district is the same but having been on my school board for 13 years we saw one suspension and no expulsions. And so you just, and that was for the Rutland City School District. So you have to, because we had a very robust in school mechanism that could help a student that was just having issues that day. But that's just one, there's sort of a whole bunch out there. So there appears to be a pretty big difference across the state in terms of even school by school within a district of how things are handled. And there's also a lot of very short-term a student can be sent home halfway through the day and that may not be counted as exclusionary discipline. So there, but expulsions are, we have in the last couple of years under 11 expulsions statewide. So it is really more a matter of suspensions. Yeah. Sure, it still hurts. Representative Helm. Thank you. Mr. Vice Chair, I guess, thank you. Just quickly. So why you mentioned on suspensions wanting to, it sounded to me like all but eliminate them, everything, but the worst, whatever those might be for. Now, I realized the times have changed, but when I was in school, you didn't want to get in a suspension. If the threat was getting close, most of the kids would smarten up because they had to go home and break the news to dad and mom, which was not fun. Is that changing today? And if that's changing, maybe we've got another problem. That's a big, difficult question. A part of me, I come to this also as a high school teacher. So I have a lot of experience in the field with this. Generally research does not show that exclusionary discipline helps change behavior. So whether it's the fear of it or actually having it happen, it doesn't tend to lead to a different outcome or change in student behavior. It's removing the student from the situation where they most need probably support and may need to actually deal with that sort of stressor in the moment instead of be removed from it. It's hard for me to speculate, I think on, you know, like the, whether the possibility of suspension impact student behaviors, but certainly my experience in the classroom would be, would be no that often we're talking about students who are very dysregulated, students who face a lot of challenges, students who often are low income students. So there's a lot of compounding factors often in the students who are hit hardest by it. And again, so much testimony we got was really compelling that it just doesn't, it doesn't change behavior and it often puts those students in a worse position. They may be out of school where they have no food, where they have no services, where they have no support. Their education is further interrupted. And I certainly saw that in my classroom that the kids where it was, whether it was two days in school or 10 days out of school, it was always a sinking feeling of, this is the last kid I need to not be in class. He's going to get, he or she is going to get further behind and we're going to struggle to make that up. I don't know if that really answers your question, but. Well, yeah, and I'll be done with this statement. But, you know, so you just answered my question and that they are non, at home, non-managed kids very much. And so just send them home, they come back and then you've got the problem back. If you keep them in school, you've got the problem all the time. So I don't see a win either way really, but that's all right. You know, I'm not against the bill or anything. Go ahead and take a shot at it, but I think that's all it's going to be. Thank you. There are a lot of members of the task force who are doing really good work about what preventative things we can do in schools, like to help students learn moderating behaviors, to help students face stressors. So, you know, I think what we were most excited about as a committee is not the things, the suspension and expulsion stuff, but the way this could amplify some work around trauma-informed practices, restorative practices. There's something called PBIS that if you have kids in elementary schools, you're familiar with where it's sort of trying to really train kids and reinforcing constantly positive behaviors. And there's a lot of success around that, that that's probably where more investment in that is going to help us than sending certain kids home. Thank you, Representative Brady. I think another portion of, not to testify on your bill, but another portion of this look is that these disciplines tend to fall disproportionately on different types of kids, kids that you're seeing as being different. And that is troubling and that we need to understand what's going on. So this is a way of also bringing resources to not financial resources, but the helping schools begin to learn about how they should be handling these approaches. I assume that that will be one of the outcomes of the task force. Represent, I'm not sure who was first. So we'll go with Rep Harrison. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to follow up on your question about where the money comes from. And the scheme of things, obviously this is relatively minor request, but if it's an education related expense, I guess, unless we've done otherwise in the past, I think it should be an educated fund related expense as well, and in either case, it won't have a big, but if someone can, whether it's joint fiscal or whether a ledge council can give us some insight as to these types of studies. I know the last one we did, I think was ESSER funds or something. So that was different, but that does probably not available in this case. There is generally a great deal of reluctance to allocate these sort of costs to the Ed fund. And I think this is an interesting area of discussion. Mr. Demeray, you came on, are there practices or principles that you're aware of in terms of our decision-making process for determining which fund should support these costs? So I'm not sure what principles, but there are processes I have seen in my time here, which has been five years, which is the per DM and reimbursement for task forces or secondaries if they're, and if they're education related, always come from their own funds as far as I've seen. Yeah, that is my experience. And I am challenging the status quo. I'm not asking the committee to think about this differently, but I'm asking us to think differently for this particular bill. I mean, we can have a conversation about that, but I am questioning the status quo and I'll get in trouble for this, but I think this is a conversation we need to have about how we allocate monies to different funds. So thank you, Mr. Demeray. Rep, can you then go ahead? Yeah, just as a follow-up, again, this is not, I'm not looking to upset the apple cart either in terms of what we've typically done, but it's easy for, it seems and I didn't count them, but it seems like we have more task force and committees coming up than we've had in a while. And it's easy for policy committees to just push it onto the general fund rather than the fund that they are in fact responsible for. So again, I'm not at all suggesting that this is not a worthwhile endeavor and it's not a lot of money, but as a matter of policy, it seems like if we were going to have a transportation study, the transportation fund should pay for that study. And this is an education fund, hopefully to improve our educational outcomes. So, I think it's a legitimate question that you raise. And so what if it changes the status quo? Maybe that's what should be done. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Shai? Yes, thank you. And I agree Madam Chair that this is a subject of a longer conversation, but I think it's a conversation we need to have about where the funding comes from. So I'll look forward to that happening whenever we're able to do so. But just secondly, I just wanna say that I think this is a great bill. I'm really glad we're finally doing this. And I think it's been said by Rev Brady, the kids who are getting disciplined are often the ones that need more support than ever before, not less. So kicking them out doesn't solve a problem. And in fact, if we don't work to solve it at the student level, they're gonna have problems throughout the rest of their lives that they're gonna be much more expensive than what we're talking about in school. So I see this as a win all the way around. And I'm really excited that it's finally coming to the floor and to our committee. So thank you. Thank you. Representative Fagan, you're muted, Peter. Yes, I was. I'm just gonna pile on a little bit here and I will let Ditto what Representative Shai just said. And what I'm gonna pile on about is that if you look at the ED fund, as I understand it, it is educational processes that are for all the schools in the state, the public schools in the state, not for the administrative piece that the agency of education provides. So we cannot tap the ED fund for that. This study is for the non-administrative, but it is for the educational processes of all public schools statewide. So while, yeah, we probably shouldn't change it on this bill, I think this is definitely a conversation that must be had in the future. So thanks. Thank you. So Fagan, did you go back and look, is there a statute that describes the, I should know this, I feel like. Is there a statute that describes the use of the ED fund? There must be, of course. I know there is and it's, I didn't go back and look, this is based upon something else that a few years ago, I or someone attempted to do, and I did some research on it and realized, no, we would have to not withstand the statutory use of the ED fund to be able to do whatever it was we were gonna do. So we didn't. Okay, interesting.  We'll organize that. So we'll have a conversation about who we should hear from. But in the meantime, let us come back to this bill and see if there are any more questions for rep rating Mr. Demeray or Ms. Parker. Representative Schye. Yes, would this be an appropriate moment? Let's make a motion. Yes, except I am curious if we are done with the conversation about the funds source. Are we content with as it is now? Or do you wanna think about that a wee bit more? Rep Harrison. Yeah, I just think we ought to know what the law says. If we're handcuffed by the law and we should pass it out with the general fund, but if we're not, I mean, if the law needs to be changed we can have that discussion later and not hold up this bill. But if the law doesn't need to be changed and I think it's a legitimate question that's why the bill goes to appropriations. Yeah, I think maybe we're gonna get some guidance here. Ms. Parker. Yes, thank you. I've been in communication with Mark who has much more experience. So he has informed this discussion that there is an allowable uses section and statute under title 16, BSA 4025B. And so if you wanted to change that appropriation source to the education fund you would have to change the law to be an allowable use for this particular appropriation. There's Mark, I'm so glad he's here to help this conversation. Thank you and go ahead. If I could jump in, you also, you might wanna do it in session law and talk to the drafters. So rather than changing the green books, the statute for something that's this small and this temporary. This has precisely answered the question of no, we should not touch it here. We're more interested I think in the general conversation of why isn't it an allowable use which is now clearly a much larger conversation since there, I am assuming is no gray area having not read that portion of the statute is it in fact, is this use not an allowable use? And it's better than me, but I think that the way the statute reads it enumerates the allowable uses. So it doesn't disallow uses and tells you what you can spend on the fund. Ah, okay. Just to point out that there's a very dangerous clause there that says if you spend money outside these permitted uses, the whole education funding system goes poof. So it's quite dramatic actually how this section works with law. Having said that though, you can not withstand this to appropriate money from the education fund. So you can either go in and amend the statute to create a new use or you can not withstand it in session law. So you could do, you could do, you could change it now if you want for this point of ruin purpose by not standing that provision. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the clarity. Yeah, Representative Townsend. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would advocate that we the committee have a conversation about what we think might be an appropriate use of the ed fund in our own time in a different timeframe, not in regards to this particular bill only or as a trigger for making a change potentially in use of the ed fund. Point one, point two, I think if indeed following such discussion, we wanted to pursue a change in potential use of the ed fund that it should be done in a way that allows for consistency across the board, not sort of, I mean, we're almost at the end of this session. And I honestly can't remember if we've had other ed related bills that had some sort of committee established earlier in the session. I'm just looking at the whole matter of consistency of application. I think that's it for the moment. Thank you. Thank you. I think that is excellent advice. I am assuming with what we just learned from Mr. DeMaris as well as Mr. Perl and Ms. Parker that we're not interested in making a one time exception in this area. I am not. Rep Giacoboni? I am, but I won't. If there were ever a case, if how we best manage for one of a better word, student behavior, if that's not germane to education as opposed to the administration of education, I don't know what is. So I was all prepared in Gung Ho to do a notwithstanding the amount is de minimis. That's not the issue. But to send a message that it's time to do this. However, my good friend, Representative Townsend who always makes so much sense has persuaded me. Gosh darn it. So I'll just sit back. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Helm? Yes, very briefly. I've made a set and a whole bunch of words that I'm not going to repeat, but I'm with Maita. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. So perhaps Rep Shy, you would like to offer. May I make a motion that we accept or approve or whatever the correct verb is S16 as passed by the committee, House Committee on Education. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Representative Townsend, whenever you are ready, please go ahead and call the roll. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am ready and the motion before us is to approve S16 as recommended by House Education. Representative Fagan? Yes. Representative Feltas? Yes. Representative Harrison? Yes. Representative Helm? Yes. Representative Jessa? Yes. Representative Shy? Yes. Representative Squirrel? Yes. Representative Tolino? Yes. Representative Townsend? Yes. Representative Yacoboni? Yes. And representative Hooper. Yes. And there we have 11, 00 and the reporter will be Robin representative shy. Thank you. So, Brett Brady, thank you very much for joining us. I hope we didn't worry you with our little antics over the use of the different funds. I know that we worried other people in that conversation. But, you know, this is this is what happens upstairs. Yeah, so thank you for joining us also. Thank you, Mr. Demeray, Ms Parker and Mr. Perl. So, committee March. Yeah, yeah, we'll see you around. Our next agenda item is at 11. So do you want to take a break until 11 and then we've got what is it as s 115 before us then but before we go, Robin. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is another education bill and we have. I know that some of the folks that are here from Fudge Council and JFO or probably swamped unless they're going to something else for this next half hour but maybe we take a shorter break and then come back and see them. See it earlier. I don't know if that's more helpful for them or whether that matters with the problem is the reporter of the bill. Oh yes, that's true. So, everybody else. Yeah, yeah, I wish we could be more efficient but I'm not sure we can be. Okay. Okay, so Teresa why don't you take us off live until 11.


At 11 o'clock last night, detectives from the Gold Coast executed a search warrant on a resort here on the Gold Coast. They searched a room and took into custody three men. Police will allege that the three men taken into custody are members of a criminal motorcycle gang. They've been arrested and charged under the new legislation in relation to criminal organisations insofar as more than two of them in a public place. Police will also allege that a sum of money was found approximately $7,700 and that's the subject of additional charges for tainted property and also a quantity of dangerous drugs. The men will appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court today. What's the significance of the arrest? This is the first arrest under the new legislation here in Queensland as far as criminal organisations go. Have you been waiting to use these charges? I don't know if I've been waiting to use the charges. The legislation's been there. They've been well aware of the legislation there and of course police will allege that they disregarded the legislation and moved together in a public place in a group of more than two. Can you elaborate on how you discovered the three men in the same hotel room? Yeah I won't disclose the source of the information but I can indicate that police will allege that two of them belong to the criminal motorcycle gang the Mongols, the third person belonging to the criminal motorcycle gang the things. Whereabouts did they actually meet? In the FOIA. How long was the actual meeting? Was it a chat? Were they drinking together? What were the circumstances? No they were talking together in the FOIA whilst being attended to by an employee of the resort. Was it perhaps as they were checking in or something? That's right. Were they wearing the Mongols caps in the paraphernalia at the time? That's right. Two of them were wearing paraphernalia clearly linked into a criminal motorcycle gang and that will certainly form part of the case insofar as the criminal organisation goes but we'll also look at further charges under the provisions of the liquor act which forbid the wearing of criminal motorcycle gang paraphernalia on licensed premises. Police will allege that that area of the resort is in fact licensed. That's pretty sort of legal. I mean they're just turning their noses up and they'll thought they were doing it aren't they? That's right. It's a very public resort. They obviously had little regard for the law and perhaps we'll pay the penalty. And were these guys locals? Where were they from? Yeah two were from Southport, one from Western Australia. Were they surprised that they had breached? Were they perhaps unaware that that area was licensed? They may be unaware the area was licensed but certainly like I say it was a reasonably popular resort and I think there should have been an expectation that they shouldn't have been doing what they were doing to get caught. What do you think they were there for? Were they staying there for a while? There wasn't a holiday? I mean there was a lot of cash and they're much drugs now? Well I think you could draw a conclusion that it was a business type gathering by the way of the money that was found and certainly people of the like mind as far as criminal motorcycle gang goes. Whilst they don't have anything specific to indicate while they were there I think you could draw your own conclusions. You know three people associating together given that two of them are from one club and one's from another club is there a loophole there potentially that they're all from the same club and that they could associate into club work? No the clubs are clearly listed under the criminal organisations. Can you confirm which resort it was? No. What types of drugs? They haven't been analysed yet. They're just pills at this stage until we get something back from the government analyst. There's a lot of bikies or members of criminal outlaw gangs are going underground and you know moving to other states and sort of staying low. So is it a surprise I guess to you guys that they were in that sort of resort that is quite public and sort of making an appearance like that? Yeah it is a surprise but police will allege that they booked into that resort very early in the morning before there was a lot of people going through the main square of the hotel and of course when the police attended it was 11.30 last night. Can we just clear up who is the member of which club after a 26 year old from Western Australia is he a thinker or a mongrel?  Can you explain the process now? They'll appear and no doubt make a bail application when they go to Brisbane and from there they'll be either granted bail or reminded in custody pending no doubt a hearing. Is this a message now or do you think this message might actually get through to other criminal motorcycle gang members? I think the message should get through to other criminal motorcycle gang members. Heaven forbid we've certainly put it out there on a number of occasions not simply for major resorts or the glitter strip but also for the suburban hotels indicating that we would be going through the legislation as far as the criminal organizations go. But on this particular occasion they thought perhaps they would fly under the radar. What sort of penalties can they face? Probably not appropriate for me to comment on penalties I'd suggest perhaps is upwards of six months of imprisonment. Do they fall under that banner of 10 years or 15 years potentially as well? Do these charges come under that? They do come under mandatory sentencing which I believe is in excess of six months jar. What do you mean? With the paraphernalia there guys is it only the hats that are logoed or is the logos on our stuff? Look I haven't really looked closely at it certainly the hats display the wording of Mongols. And the other shoes, what would they have been taken to the police to take all these shoes? Look I haven't looked closely at them to see if they do actually display any logo of a criminal motorcycle gang. Given that there are three caps that say Mongols I think causing the process of patching over as the rest of the gang has done. Yeah we're highly likely we're not seeing too many things remaining with the Finks Club as such especially with the younger people. Maybe some of the more senior members may remain with Finks but the rest are patching over to Mongols. Can you confirm the reports that it's as much as 90% of the club? That's what we are hearing here. Always look good.