And so you're good to go. Hey, I want to call the finance committee meeting of July 6, 2021. Doerter at 2pm pursuant to Governor Baker's. March. Well, actually, this has now changed some reading the wrong thing, but pursuant to the statute that was recently passed allowing remote meetings. This meeting is being held remotely. And the agenda is limited. We do have public comment if there are public comment public wishes to comment later. But this is all about our performance with two parts. One is to propose a process to the council to allocate our performance and include within that discussion of the use of our performance. For town government needs. And with that, I want to go through the usual process of just making every sure that all members of the committee can hear and be heard. So, Kathy. Yes, I can. Yes. Bernie. Yes. And Dorothy. Yes. See, Pat. Yes. And Lynn. Yes. I think I've got everyone. So we can proceed. There were two documents that we sent to you. And since one was, and I think they were both once in the packet now and the other should go into the packet, but it's a just a draft of the report that is all will become finance committee report to the council regarding the subject that we're talking about it is solely on the last meeting in this meeting about our performance. And So. The other is about the proposed outline and I was wondering if it would might be better to start with the outline, but I'm welcome to comments or suggestions otherwise. But if not, let's start with the outline and Sean, you want to put it up or So it's in word two. So if we want to, if there's any provisions to it as we go, I can make them on the screen. Do you have it on the screen, Andy? Yes. Okay. So everybody has it. So are there any general comments about the proposed process? And does it seem consistent with what we discussed last time? And I have some thoughts on that subject that I'm going to want to go first, Kathy. Yeah, I had a question. I, I generally like this so on number four, the creation of an ARPA action plan. It's side by side with what's in the report. And a question of Bob, who came up with this wonderful idea. Does the town manager need to have a team to do the ARPA action plan?  And if yes, I would like Bob to be on it, but, you know, that's just an aside. So does, you know, it doesn't have any mention of that in the report later we talk about an advisory group, having multiple people but we don't on the action plan we don't talk about a team. And I think it should have one. And I didn't have specific ideas for that. So, so that was my general on one through four that was my only comment on one through four. It's a common question. Yeah. Bob, do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, yeah, I, I agree. I think that I think the town manager should be, there should be some. I mean, I'm not an advisory group, but, but more than one more than just the town manager sitting down with his staff to kind of make sure that all of the impacts are at least, you know, generally identified in the action plan because you know, not mentioned something in the action plan and say, Oh, by the way, in January or whatever. You say, Oh, by the way, we forgot to put this and I mean you can always go back and amend the action plan. It's not like the end of the world, but it's sort of better to try to get as comprehensive a list of impacts at the start. So my question would this be, you know, you know, bill at one be assemble a team of town staff and at least, you know, two others, three others, something like that.  I mean one one option would be to have the town manager consult with other staff in town that would be able to identify needs or unmet needs and you know impacts on unmet need something like that. That way you're not kind of being prescriptive and but you're sort of saying it should be more than just town manager and a couple of people. So Dorothy. Well I'm most interested in that phrase unmet needs and trying to find out what they are. And obviously that needs finance people and people very deep into the budgets of departments who have found that they needed money for something. Whatever that our budget or the other money that came in. It doesn't qualify for it and you can't use it for that. And then of course you'd have to find out whether this new money could be used for that. I mean, an example I come up with is one that we probably can't even do. Because we don't do school budget, right. It's sort of a separate process entirely because that's within the school realm. Because they get their own funds they get their own ARPA funds. Right, Andy can I say one quick response to that. You know it's very possible that maybe the schools are part of the unmet or the assessing the current situation but when we talk about other sources of funds, we would also note that the schools potentially have other sources of funds. That's what we've done for some of their needs. I just I just find unmet needs is complicated because they've been unmet for a variety of reasons. Some, you know, it's something to do with different financial rules and whatever. And I know that you need the town people and the budget people very much but you that may be the area where you do want some people who are citizens. I'm not sure. Yeah, I am in terms of the in terms of the town manager and the team the two things I have one else, the current topic and time manager teams. I really think that the town manager in doing the assessment current assessment should rely on his department heads. He also should build a list of key stakeholders in the community to consult with. So to talk to the bid to talk to the housing authority to talk to the social service folks in the area. So you're getting a broader sweep of what's what what the needs are but really relying on the on the on the department heads to both provide him with information but also provide him with with other stakeholders to to to consult with. The other thing that's not in here is something I think that Sean raised the last time we talked, which is in which I notice I think the Commonwealth is doing and dividing and deciding how it's going to dispense its 5 billion. There should be some notice in here that there's going to be a initial set of expenditures that are aimed at known revenue shortfalls that we can make up expenditures that might be needed to stabilize the town workforce. And to, to better meet an ongoing response to the COVID situation and where we need we might need to to make some expenditures in terms of technology or infrastructure that impacts on service delivery. And these would be things that would come up I think fairly short term and be kind of obvious. We know where we've missed. We know where we were running short of money. We know where we can improve communications. We also. So there's that piece and then the, the, the peace under under unmet needs. I really want to make it clear that there needs to be an assessment of the towns, both the town's fiscal and infrastructure needs, including, and I'll use infrastructure to broad sense, including equipping say the community responder program that's planned in those. Those needs are going to will automatically take some level of priority because they will have lasting impacts on the community and make life easier, not just simply this year but in 2324 25. So that, so that we're, we're looking down the road in terms of what the town is. What the town's facing. Can I just ask you the typing in said towns fiscal impact but would you put towns fiscal impact, including staffing and infrastructure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's one. We're broad on this. Yeah. And then the addition of up above where I get department heads, key staff including department heads before. Oh, somewhere work with department heads and key stakeholders. Yeah, that's good. Anything else Kathy before. No, the only the other words Bernie put in and it's something I edited in the main document is unmet need can be revenue shortfall. You know so, you know or revenue losses or treasure wording, as long as we in the main report we were already saying that so I don't think it has to be said here. Okay. Sean thinks of a way to put it in but I'm going to go ahead and see you have your hands up. Oh, I just wanted to Bernie said most of it in the beginning of his, his time is, it will be. It's not just going to be the finance people in the town manager will be all the department heads and they'll reach out to all their. The chamber and the bid and social services housing authority. Each department head in charge of a functional area will definitely reach out to the community, and then kind of have a brainstorming thing to bring back. I just didn't want anybody to think it's just going to be me, Sean and Paul sitting here running numbers. We assume that. Well that's all we need right. So, it should be, it should be staff and you know department heads and reaching out to. Yeah, I, I'm glad that Bernie added in these things. And I think, because I think it's critical it goes back to that discussion we had last week that if we do stuff for the town we're benefiting everyone, and we're benefiting everyone long term. So when it gets down to pull it for three and four, particularly for, I think they need he needs to come back with a prioritized needs and spending plan. Because that's where the multiple year and the percentage or whatever he's going to say comes in because that is to me, you know, there's people are lining up already to apply for these funds. We need to be clear what is going to be allocated for what purposes, both for the town or for beyond the town. And a little bit lower on the just so we can see it for a second on the outline. And lower my hand against right. Yeah. I just want to make sure that you're looking at the entire thing as we respond. So the evaluating funding allocations. It's not under seven, but it's sort of implicit in the action plan that we are going to start with the town, looking at its own revenue needs. Yeah, Andy seven is referring to if, if in this action plan it's determined that there's going to be a certain amount. We talked about last time that specifically opened up for public proposals. That's what seven would be if there was a, you know, an allocation of a certain amount for public proposals for for that. For ideas. Okay, Bob. Yeah, I just wanted to, you know, agree with the prioritizing needs and spending plans the action plan, you know, a typical action plan will include where are the programs we're going to propose and here's how much money we're going to put into each program. So that's that's part of the action plan itself. And again that can be amended over time, but you know you would you would say okay we've got all these needs, you know we've got, you know, 75 million dollars worth of needs we only have 12 million dollars with funding. So here's what we're going to do. Andy, can I ask a follow up question to Bob just because he's one of our experts on the action plan. So one of the things I've talked about the town manager is that, you know, these funds, you know, part of it is for responding to the emergency, but part of it is around economic recovery as well. So would you change at all how you think about it in terms of the steps or would you just apply sort of the same rubric, whether it's an economic recovery type expenditure versus sort of a mitigation type expenditure. I would have, I would just follow the, the general outline of the action plan, but obviously, you know, what the, what CDB GDR funding really is for is for hurricanes and tornadoes and things like that, where there's a lot of physical damage. Right. And it's not so much for, you know, health needs or, you know, you can, you can do economic, well you can do economic development. There is a whole section of economic development. But you wouldn't typically look at health impacts in a CDB GDR program but that doesn't mean you can do that in this action plan. I sort of followed the same general idea of, you know, identify the impact, you know, what else, what sources of funds are there and, you know, the state funds may be there for that. Right. And then, you know, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to address that or not? So, so yeah, I don't think it's, I mean, again, you don't want to literally take the wording from the pool kits, because that's really focused on the disaster recovery for hurricanes and tornadoes and things. But following the general idea of it, I think you can construct similar types of documentation or, you know, scoring sheets or things like that, however you want to use in order to come up with the spending plan, really. No, that's good. That's how I was looking to confirm was that we, you know, we probably have to make some slight modification, like follow the process with some modifications to make sure it makes sense for what we're doing. Yeah, and it goes through much more than you probably want to go through.   And it can be based on expert opinion. It can be based on what people observe.  You know, that would tell you something about the economic impact. Yeah, just things like that is what you want to use. You don't have to go out and do research and, you know, you know, there may be studies out there that you can that you can rely on and I think the rule had some references to studies of potential impacts of COVID so you might be able to take some of that stuff as well. Okay, thank you. So to follow up on that one. You just muted yourself, Andy. Andy, you hit mute. Didn't even intend to do that. It was nefarious computer. But anyway, looking at the fourth bullet under number four, which is right on the screen determine capacity. There was fairly clear understanding I thought in the last discussion that when once you've identified the needs that you first look to see what capacity exists within the community and town and state already from other sources. Before you get then to identifying the unmet needs. And I didn't know that the third bullet of the under number four was quite explicit enough to capture that thought which is kind of what Bob was just talking about. That would be a different issue on determining you'd need to say, you know, identify alternative resources and possible partners with additional, you know, that that's a different concept. You're right, Andy, I think then what bullet three now says. Yeah. So should that be an additional name step then. Can I ask you on that, Sean, would it be. If the state we're going to make part of its distribution, fixing our bridges and fixing our roads, we could take that off our list. Right. So I view that again unmet needs and Bernie or not Bernie Bob can correct us if we're interpreting this wrong. I view unmet needs as needs that don't have another funding source somewhere at the state level. So if they're like, again, rental assistance is one we can look into we know there's funding at the state level. Whether or not there's a difference between the amount of funding at the state level and what the need is in town is something we'd have to look at. So say, for example, there's plenty of state funding for rental assistance and that might not go on the list we might talk about it to say, you know, we identified it but there's a source of funds for that. But that wouldn't be on the unmet needs list. Yeah, that's correct. Yes, it's sort of, I think you want to kind of like, you kind of want to merge those two bullets there because it's really you, you, you know, you identify the impacts and related needs but then the unmet is something that is not met by some other source of funding. It could be state funding and could be maybe the bid has access to grant money or something. I mean, it could be other sources of funding that are out there that can be used to address the impact. And I almost view determined capacity is almost like non financial, like it. If money was on issue, do we have the sort of the structure, the the staffing or whatever it may be to to address that unmet need. Maybe that's the one that's confusing people is what is how does determine capacity differ from other sources of funds. Yeah, it would be helpful if you defined in the statement of defined there's capacity there's fiscal capacity financial capacity availability of money. And whether it's something to undertake or existing existing programs or programs that the state's going to pass out of its $5 billion share and capacity which I think we may actually be able to spend some money on where we need to bring someone in to help or develop the ability to meet some needs. Yeah, I mean like a good example that we've talked about is like mental health. You know the town itself does not necessarily have the capacity to do mental health services but we could fund some initiative that would bring in that capacity to meet that need. Maybe just need to change the word will to might. This one right here. Yep. Yep. Kathy do you have anything else I'm going back to the list. No, no, I, well, what I was going to say as we're doing this is this interacts with my comments on both what we did last week but what we're reporting out because we're doing a to make this clear. There's this first step prioritized needs and spending plan so I was going to thank you Lynn for adding that because then this this assemble a group. By the time we get to January 1. We will have decided whether there is an allocation for a broader community or not. So I just want to make it clear in the report we write that this step seven is contingent on if the first set of money that we get released to 6 million do we say, you know, 5 million is town and 1 million is something else or, but we will have made that decision. So it, we need to say that in the report, Andy is all I'm saying because someone looking at this would think now we've got a community group distributing funds but we are, it says, if community if called for in the action plan is kind of code words for maybe not, right. So I just think this is fine, but I would want to write the report to make it really clear what our recommendations are. I don't know whether I was clear just then but you know if we decided the first launch all of it needs to go to the town. There isn't an outside group, a group form to distribute the money. If we're doing 5050 7580 20. So that step in seven is contingent on decisions that are made up until that point. So I, this is fine. I just think the report needs to explain what that means that's, you know, I wasn't suggesting rewording this. You'd have to be really be an insider to know what the words in seven meant otherwise. Dorothy. I was interested in the time frame, which seems to me to be kind of drawn out. Again, it's not that clear to me when the first bit of money comes but I thought it was coming soon. And not even getting the plan until the middle of October. I guess I thought some of this money was like emergency money to help us where we had needs. Like state Lee progress is what I'm seeing here. And as Kathy was just talking by the time you get to advisory group or in January of 22. So I guess I'm of the mind to spend money quicker. Because then if there's more money around we can say we need it.  So I'm just asking, can the timeframe be tightened moved up a little bit. Andy, can I respond to that one. Yeah. First off, never been called stately, but I'm not sure if it's a bad thing or a good thing but. So actually after we reviewed this plan, we have there's was one other agenda item I believe which is, we were going to review with you the things that we want to spend the money on right away. There, there's a little over a million dollars worth of things that are sort of time sensitive were called for in the FY 22 budget. And I'm sorry they didn't make it to the packet so that's probably why one of the reasons why you're asking that question. And so, after this we want to review those things with you because those are things that again, if we wait till this is done. We'll sort of hinder, you know, we'll kind of defeat the purpose of why we want to do them. So the other than the reason for the rest of this because we think this creation of an action plan is going to be sort of time consuming. If we want to do it right and really work with everybody and think about all the different different needs out there and how we may fund them and really prioritize them against each other we think that this piece could take. You know it's already July so if it took a month, a month and a half or into September already. So you know we might go to shorten it up a little bit but I don't think we could shorten it up a ton. If we want to put in, you know the right amount of time and to develop in this plan. Right. Yeah, just a couple of things I, I think I mentioned the last time that we want to see what our colleagues on the state level are doing. So we don't end up duplicating their efforts we want to make sure that we, we might want to supplement their efforts but not supplant them. I think at some point, probably in the report, there has to be a mention that there, there are rules around how this money gets spent in the, there is the interim final. So that will at some point need to be summarized explained or referenced. So people understand what what the manager and his staff are up against when they start to build a spending plan. And again emphasize that I think the, the two things we're looking at is one is recovery. The more immediate impacts and two is is to use it horrible buzzword sustainable sustainability, you know, ensuring the town and in the community are be able to grow from this going forward, looking at 2024 2526. I just wanted to point out that some of the time that people such as Sean and son and and Paul, and the department had spend on the planning should be a reimbursable expense.  As I recall the documentation is not onerous for that but just just so we do know that that is a, it is an eligible expense as far as I can tell, reading the reading thing it might be something to clarify. The other thing about, you know, capacity you know we talked about what we might have to, you know, hire mental health professionals or something but the other thing is, it's conceivable that there could be a state program where we need to dedicate some time for somebody in the in the government to help implement that program locally. So we don't want to forget about that aspect of things so again we won't we won't know that until the state really defines what they're doing. But, you know, we don't want to not be able to take advantage of state money because we don't have, you know, we don't have somewhere in this budget, or somewhere in the town budget time for somebody to actually work with the state to implement that program. And Bobby right administrative costs are allowable in this grant so we'll be keeping track of what we'll, what we spend on it. Yeah. I'll probably make that clear somewhere in the written report, just so that it doesn't get lost and people that, and I say why are you doing that. Since no one has hands up now I was wondering Sean, did you have a list of immediately identified town expenses or ones that you anticipate. Hold on I'll bring that in one second I just want to put out one more thing that I was, I don't know if we need to change this but I just want to get feedback on. So when the town manager presents the initial action plan a council we were thinking this would also be a time where we might do like a listening session, or something for the community, so that we get direct community input on the action plan as well. We'll get it, you know the council will obviously weigh in but this also if there's a big portion of the grant that's sort of allocated in the spending plan we'd want to get their feedback before it's finalized. That would be another opportunity for if there's suggestions or ideas to come in, but it would be reacting to the to the action plan. Number seven repeat the part where you say if called for in the action plan and parentheses at the end. We anticipate that the plan wouldn't have that in there or might not. So we've started gathering ideas and people submitted things and different department heads have, you know started digging into the ground and reading how you know what's allowable what's not allowable. So I don't know for sure yet. I think it's going to be up to the town manager and how he prioritizes, you know what he hears from the department heads we hear from key stakeholders. I guess if this group feels that there should definitely be a piece allocated to that process that portion of the process, then you want to include that in the report. One other question I have is you've gone through this. We've mentioned several times last meeting in this meeting about schools having some funds of their own coming as a part of our book. Is there any other segment of the town government that's receiving direct funds library or emergency services whatever. I'm sure there will be I haven't heard of any yet Sony have you seen any other grants that have come in. I haven't heard of any specifically yet but just knowing how much money is out there in the broad range of programs that it can be used for. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other smaller grants that are made to departments, whether it be public safety or the health department, maybe the library. But there's been some talk of since the legislature is now largely controlling the state funds and not the governor. Well, it'll take longer to see what's going on there but there's there's already been a proposal out there that something like $574 million comes off the $5 billion and goes directly to arts organizations. So you will have to wait and see what the legislature does with their chunk of change. I think that's probably adequately covered in these way we've described the action plan so we don't really need to call it out. Anything else and then for Sean turns to the next topic which I think is to identifying immediate needs. This, this is new right Sean. Yeah, it's new to it's new to you I mean you've seen it, except for this last one. Revenue replacement for sewer and parking fund you've seen these things in different forms previously. But this is the first time it's sort of all pulled together into a single list is okay if I run through these Andy. Okay. So these ones here were part of the FY 22 budget document. So when the FY 22 budget was being assembled, we identified some spelling mistakes in there that we identified as parts of the FY 22 budget that we wanted to fund from this grant. There was a 50% of a position diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator staff transition report these are a lot of these things are pretty much all these things are things we would have been in the general fund budget had we had funds to do so. And our revenues being down we didn't have those funds staff transition report because we have a number of key retirements in FY 22. A capital projects manager was to help with a couple infrastructure projects going on an enterprise funds and we also have the four building projects that are starting up. So it was a position to help manage all the logistics of those various projects. And then Jerry Hill extra help this was actually a cut from the general fund budget and FY 21 that we wanted to fund out of our prefer FY 22 and then restore it into the general fund budget the next year. Sustainability in turn was a recommendation that we had heard from the ECAC at a previous meeting, and then some additional funding for community participation officers around outreach, whether it be supplies or supplies, where different things they might be doing for the year. So this first group again was where all things that were laid out in the FY 22 budget that was presented. And then this next one the community responder program was discussed and presented at the May 27 meeting when we came back with a revised sort of budget for the community responder program and we talked about using some ARPA funds for some of the one time costs of getting that funds established, whether it be vehicles or outfitting space training and consulting things of that nature. And then the last one which is the newer one is funding for the sewer enterprise fund and the parking enterprise fund for revenue replacement both of those funds have revenue deficits coming in much below what was budgeted and so these funds would help make those those programs whole for the for FY 21. So we want to move on relatively quickly because if you know if we wait till the fall then we if we wait till the fall for revenue replacement might be too late to use it for FY 21 at that point. And these are other things that will have to get started before the fall. So I have a quick question because Sean mentioned vehicles for the community responder program can funding from the ARPA funds be used to replace the ladder truck. And is there because we certainly have unmet needs in the fire department. So I'd have to fit under. I'd have to look and see if it would fit under any other eligibility criteria the one that we were thinking this would fit under for the community responder program was the revenue replacement and lost revenue. But in reading the interim final rule, there's a couple other criteria that potentially the community responder program could be eligible under. So there's some eligibility around mental health programs and things of that nature. The ladder truck. Again, if we were going to do that have to be probably the revenue replacement or I'd have to see if there's some first responder categories that might that it might be eligible for I'm not sure. Thank you. I have a couple questions. Can any of these funds be used to fund the additional four positions of community responders. Potentially again under the sort of governmental services. Again, the way I'm, there's still some guidance to be received on these types of things. We've been working with our auditors to try to understand how they're going to interpret these rules. But the way I'm interpreting them so far as if they're things that if we had the funds to do, we would have done them, then it should be eligible under that revenue replacement category, because we theoretically could have cut something else to fund these positions and then those other things that we cut would have been eligible, because you can use ARPA funds to restore reductions in your, in your governmental services. So, yes, I guess that's the quick answer. Can any of this be used. Excuse me, does parking fund mean, is that also the transportation fund. Yeah, yeah, sorry, I should call it transportation fund. And then another question is, can any of this be used toward any of the capital, smaller capital projects. I know that we've been trying for other funds to help fund the water plant. But I just wondered about any of the other smaller capital projects, you know, Pat already asked about the fire truck. Yeah. Yeah, we'd have to know what it is and then try to see how it would fit so like water and sewer infrastructure is an eligible use provided it meets certain criteria, which Gilbert is already starting looking at what that criteria is. So we can evaluate projects there. And so if there's another capital project we'd have to see if there's a, we sort of want to use the revenue replacement category is like the last resort if there's a specific eligibility criteria, other than that we want to you kind of label that one first. Yeah. Can any of this be used to fund additional fire fighter positions. I think one of the, you know, one of the things we, you know, the advisor group was going to do is whatever we find out of this we want to make sure it's sustainable and things that we can fold into our operating budget before these funds run out. And so, you know, any of the things that are operational that are going to be recurring costs we really want to sort of do that analysis to make sure that they can be absorbed into the operating budget within three years or so. Right. So I mean I'm almost thinking like you have a three year plan and the first year, you know, the funds would be used to fund for then by the second time the town would have to pick up to but the funds would be used for two and, you know, some kind of graduated plan where the town takes it over and then is this truly reflective of other staffing needs that we have not been able to fund. You know, so this list again this list isn't everything that you've mentioned I think those things would have to go through that sort of action plan process we talked about this is, these are things that we identified again as part of the FY 22 budget process that were priorities, or in the case of the revenue replacement again a true revenue deficit. This list isn't reflective of sort of all staffing needs that have that have occurred in town. I just want to clarify the capital project manager, would only be in relationship to DBW fire and library. Well, we're thinking it could, I mean depending on what their capacity is and how the projects are timed we're thinking it could, you know, help with the four building projects and then other big infrastructure projects. And that position we're thinking would be a temporary position which is one of the reasons why we proposed it could sort of be a two or three year position that could go away when the grant funds and. Okay, thank you. I'm probably just building on the what it could be used for when I look at fire. I'm pretty sure there's been a file fall off in the ambulance fund because the ambulance wasn't making as many runs and reimbursable by insurance. And so rather than thinking of refund, you know, funding of position. If you looked at what our flow of money would normally have been whatever the normal year is, you could do an estimate of how much more, because we'd be returning to that level in terms of the whole fire theory. So it's a, you know, you may not have that calculation but I was thinking on the ambulance fund side, not the whole fire department side. And that might help pay for some overtime help pay for some other kinds of things that there's stress to do within their current budget. So we can look at that. The funny thing about ambulance funds is that they sort of don't have a good history right now with the new system that's in place because they they change their. We lost the Hadley routes and so you know that sort of impacts the revenue history but then they also change the fee structure they increased fees. And they actually don't have a ton of history on what the new normal is for sort of the ambulance fund pre COVID. But I think, but I think your point in general is looking at the ambulance fund is a good place to look at and couldn't you. I work with numbers all the time to create the number when I need it, you know, not a fictitious number but if you know the fee went up. And you know the number of the time see ambulance had a billable amount. You could adjust what the old rate it's like an inflation adjuster you could do how much you would have gotten under the old use rate compared to you know and you have to do it pre COVID but that I mean we can work with our billing. So we don't, we have a third party billing companies so we'd have to ask them to sort of go in, look at a year before pull out the Hadley claims and then adjust all the other claims to the new billing rates we can see if that's something that they can do for us. And so it may be what you're saying is it may be part of this action plan analysis that you can't, you can't give me another line right now in this because it. And again, I guess I mean, some of the things that have been talked about our staffing issues that we've heard of but this list of things that we're viewing we have to do it. We want to fund them sort of now or in the next month or so because they were part of the actual budget proposal for f y 22 or their time sensitive like the revenue replacement for sewer and parking where we have to do that before we close out the year. Otherwise it would be. I'm not sure what the mechanics would be after that point if we'd be able to do it. Okay, so then just staying with this list then, which is a clear list. If we all agree, great. All of these make sense. And in the report rewrite. I've never been sure whether the two tranches that are being released, are they equal, like 50% comes to us so we're doing. It's supposed to be yeah, it's supposed to be 50% and then another 50%. So the 6 million minus the 1.4 we're working with the three and 3.6 or whatever. But so, in our report, we should say, I think, Andy that there already is an immediate need to spend this amount of money and we recommend doing that. And then the action plan would be looking at the, you know, just make it very clear to address Dorothy's concern that what, you know, the money's coming and we're not doing anything with it so then we've got the other amount that the action planned on first thing and then action plan we also talked about in the wording of the report that whatever the action plan is for tranche one it doesn't have to be exactly the same for the second period so that we're making an initial phase and a second phase but I think we should. I think this is really good to say that we're not sitting around waiting and to specifically recommend approval of this if we have to do it as a council or we just we do it but we do it in a report we make it clear. Right. So, I'm done. To continue with the piling on here technology would be part of this as well I think so where we can improve our data management or improve our communications. Usually, I don't recall if the fire department police department are looking for new radios or they always seem to be but that's another thing that can go in here. And I'm really sort of expect this is pretty much what I was talking about earlier, and I'm really expecting another, another round of this, where we can drill down and do what Kathy suggested about, you know, looking at the ambulance fees and looking at some other equipment that can be replaced looking at other certain other water and sort of projects that might fit under this whole thing so this is, I think this is a good start in. There certainly should be more to come where we can begin to patch some of these, patch some of these holes and then take care of some, some spending that will benefit us for the long term. I always pause and take time to ask Sean a question. We have during this past year, the fire department brought on some of the call force students and regular call force to assist the fire department staffing. During this period, and we're using some temporary funds for that. Do we need any temporary funds to continue that or can we even continue it. Um, potentially so we're thinking about continuing it in the fall with cares money still. And then doing a sermon evaluation in the fall once we see what it looks the town looks like when all the students come back to see if it, you know how long it would need to continue. Again, I think to lens earlier point additional firefighters. Depending how we classify it could probably not probably could be a use of ARPA funds at the town will prioritize is that that way. So we're going to put a placeholder in the list with with without an amount of money, just so that it's obvious. Yeah, I mean I think that's we. I guess the questions is that supposed to be part of the action plan that's developed over the summer. Okay, these were these are all on here for a specific reason because they've all been either presented previously or there's in this particular case there's a time sensitive time sensitivity around it. With that with the cares funds not expiring until the end of the year we theoretically have time for that the action plan to happen first. Okay, thank you. Dorothy. I just wanted to suggest that one keep an imagination that what is promised doesn't come that things change, and that you have to do the most important first because the whole thing can be yanked. I'm thinking about this program I may have some of the facts wrong but a federal program to help businesses, restaurants, and it was supposed to help minority and maybe women owned businesses first and then the ruling changed and people who are told they had the grant were told Nope, you're not getting anything. So, I don't know if all of this process of giving money out is going to be smooth and rational. I just want to say think about what has to be done, and make sure you do that first. Yeah, I want to go back to Kathy's statement about making these a priority and wonder if we need a motion from us for the town council, or do we just see this as advisory to the manager. But again, it's sort of advisor to the manager, because it's an allocation from the ARPA grants so. So I think, you know, either a vote or sentiment and then that being reflected in the report would be good. I'm willing to make that motion that we, we endorse the proposal to use these funds immediately for the following. We're not going to endorse it, even if we don't have to endorse it. I don't know if they're wording it a perfect way since we seem not to have to propose that it be used. We're being asked to endorse it. I think it's important because I do the math and right away we're down to 4.6, you know, once we do this, I think it's an important piece to include in our report and to affirm that we discussed it and we confirm it. We affirm it, affirm, right, not confirm, affirm. Someone can word my motion for me but you've got what I'm trying to do. I move that we affirm the proposal to spend one point on the items listed below that the town manager and staff have identified as immediate needs. I will second but I'm waiting for Sonia because she may. I wouldn't put a dollar amount near a lot of these are estimates so you put a dollar amount in there and then it seems like an appropriation. Okay, so give me the, give me the wording to to affirm the list that was presented to us. That would work. Okay. And I second that. Okay. Just make sure that Scott has the wording satisfactorily. Do you feel comfortable with the wording Scott. Yes, I do. I'm good over here. I'll just start everybody and post it to the packet after the meeting so that you have everyone has the list. Okay, so this motion that's been made by Kathy and seconded by Lynn. Any further discussion on the motion. Because if not, let's just vote on it. Pat. Hi. Bernie support. I'm new. I support it. Yes. Hi. Dorothy. Yes. I support it. Yes. Yes. So it is five zero and two members present members of the committee who are present support the motion. So anything else we want to talk about about the the outline because then we should turn briefly. To the report. And see if we can. Maybe I should pause. Just just say that we do have public comment and I know there are two attendees. If either attendee would like to offer any comment. Please raise your hand so that we know in if I don't see any hands raised. I'll know that we asked the question and there was no comment offered. And Andy I'm just going to sign off because I have to head out it. But I've made Linda co-host so you should be all set. Okay. Great. And it doesn't appear that there's any request for public comment. So the one thing that's left is that he had done a marked up version of the report itself. And rather than parts out every word, I think it would be worth just talking about what you feel to be the key concepts that you want to do in the field would be better to share screen. I should just do a share screen and put it on this up on the screen so that you can point to sections as you talk about it, but just let people know what you were thinking. Okay. Let me see whether I can do this. I of course have way too many things open. I think this is it. Can people see that. You may need to, if you can enlarge the. Okay, well, I'm going to make it larger, but first I have to move all your faces away. Okay, so I made, I made just a couple of summer purely additions. The first is if we know it and Sean will know it that we say that schools are going to get direct recipient be direct recipients. I think it would be helpful if we anticipate we know what that amount is so that people just know it that's just a blank that we either know. And I wanted to put in some of the information we had that when we were looking at Sean's original memo that was I thought missing from here that you can replace loss revenue for vital services. Then I copied and pasted this list from Treasury. So I thought in our report back it would be useful to have this information in and and that is not my wording those bullets that's just right from the Treasury advisory, and I did a link to it. They also say that provides substantial flexibility for each government to make local needs. And so I just dropped that all in. So that's one main thing. And then the second was in the next paragraphs, saying, and I realized Sean keeps telling us that we can't do all enterprise funds but this includes replacing revenue loss for enterprise funds. So, and meeting town's priority capital needs that support public services. So we, we talked about the sentence that funding stat funding the town, approves everybody in town. And speaking that point that one of the reasons the town is in the mix is everybody gets it when the town and I might not have worded it well but Sonya was quite eloquent last time in the meeting on that and Lynn did it. And then, then I have a but we don't have to use it all for this purpose and that first we would determine the share, and then the share for the broader community so those are my major changes. I dropped in otherwise I just do I'm a fan of headers. So the need for an action plan, I made a header the community composition, I made a header. And the one thing I didn't see in this report Andy is last time several people, several finance committee members said they would recommend that the committee not have counselors on it, and that sentence was missing. So I don't know whether there was consensus on that that but that was, it was just purely for the record. So those are what I did otherwise. I didn't do anything. You know, I, I'd like, I like the framework but so the big thing was to drop in what it can be used for very specifically, and then to do this two step that we'd make this division, and then we'd set up the committee to talk about the community side. That's it. The one thing that I was just going to comment on both all the things and then turned other people is that question that we talked about a little bit last time about the wisdom of having counselors on it with the election coming sitting on the advisory committee. The way that we put the timing together at the end the advisory committee wouldn't be formed until after the election. And so we're talking about then people who are not facing election and also it could be people who are not even currently on the council, who might be elected and will be sworn in in January. So I'm not, I think that we may need to revisit that question because the premise changed with the timeline clarification. That'd be fine. You know, Andy and I wasn't looking at the timeline when I did this. So I have no problem taking that out but Lynn and Pat had both endorsed this so if they're fine with not having that sentence and I'm fine with it. So if we're, if, you know, so Pat, I think you were the original person that said you didn't take a counselor should be on this advisory group. So anyway, I'm, and certainly election cycle doesn't need to be there anymore, because you're right. I'll stop. Okay. And then let me go back to the list. Sonia, did you have something. Yeah, I just wanted to comment on cutting and pasting from the state sites, a list or anything like that. I'd caution doing that specifically because things have been changing all the time from these lists and everything if you want to put a link to it I would do that but when you memorialize it in a report. If things change down the road then we're, we're trying to defend something that was put in a report and trying to find all the information going forward to show what changed. So I, I would caution putting in cutting and pasting from any state website. Yeah, this was the US Department of Treasury, explaining what, so even you think even, because it was Treasury statement that there's this amount of money, right and then the state and the department division of local services will take that and they'll interpret it the way they interpret it. So, I mean, you can do it but I'm just cautioning. Okay, that approach. I don't know if they're there, or tell people where they can go to find the information. If we might be able to mess the wording on that too but I think the point is that we, it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to be a direct list it can be we and Sean and Sean's original memo had just paraphrased each thing to be. Okay, I did a copy and paste. Thank you, Lynn.  Thank you, going back to the point Andy made. If it's not like if it's, if it's after the election, then I don't feel we need to make that statement about counselors. And then up above. I think it's one of the people that totally agreed with Pat on that up above. One of the ways to handle the issue of enterprise funds is to just say revenue revenue loss from qualified enterprise funds. Those are other than that and anything else I say would be Scribner comments. Thank you. Bob. Just a couple of points one is, if you did want to copy and paste. You could copy and paste from the actual statute, because that is done. You can copy and paste and that won't change. But I think linking is fine. I did want to just go and revise one sentence in the, the Bob Hagner paragraph. If you could put that up. I think it's below there. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I would, I would go back to the header there and I would just call it need for the action plan or need for an action plan to distribute funds or something like that. I don't think we need to worry about the advisory committee at that point. In the Bob Hagner paragraph, the, the sentence that's on the fourth line they advise recipients to develop an action plan. Actually recipients are required to develop an action plan. I would, I would, I would just say recipients are required because the they sort of refers back to the toolkit, which isn't really. Yeah, that's a that's a requirement from HUD. And I don't know if we want to say this or not and I don't think I'm not sure I could come up with a good way of saying it, but it's what I said. I think the response to the question from Sean earlier that, you know, this, this toolkit is not designed expressively, you know, specifically for a pandemic response, but it's useful is helpful as a as a as a, an example of how to develop an action plan. And maybe we don't need to say that. But, you know, I don't want people to feel that we have to follow the CDBG DR guidelines directly. That's all. Okay. I think, you know, I think the way it's, it's worried. Someone doesn't. Yeah, which as long as someone doesn't say, oh, do we really have to follow this CDBG, because it goes into housing and it goes into things that we're not going to go into. So, that's it. Thanks. Thank you, Lynn. I forgot to take my hand down. Okay. So, is it okay if Sean and I were with Kathy to get a final written report done that addresses these needs will try and circulate it with a little bit of time before the 12th. Quickly enough, I might be able to at least let you see a draft of it before it goes out, even though I'm not suggesting by any means that we have any further meetings. But that works for me. Okay. Works for me too. Okay, so is there anything else that people want to bring up in this discussion before we call it a wrap for the day. Okay. So seeing none, I think that we've actually done a monumental amount of work in record time considering when the council referred it to us in the timeline they gave us to respond to it. So, it was really a team effort and I appreciate this patient of the entire team. Great group. We'll work with Sean and Kathy, trying to get the last the final documents in order, consistent with the motion that was passed and the plan, as we've discussed and if we can we will get the drafts out to you before they have to go to the council, just so that there's one last chance for people to comment. Unless I hear request otherwise we will not plan on meeting again on the subject. Kathy, I just have one question of Sonya as we turn to the draft you said Sonya don't use the numbers, you know, that add up to the one point whatever. Can we use the list of items. I wouldn't use the numbers because like most of those numbers that Sean put in there are estimates of what we're going to need. I'm just saying that we've got a motion to to affirm this list and so we're going to have to put a list in so we'll put a list in without numbers, correct. That's fine. Okay. Thanks. Anything else. Looking for waving hands or anything else. Okay. So, with that point that. What do we have 10 after three we'll call it. We'll declare that the meeting is adjourned and I thank all of you. Thank you, Andy. Thank you. Thank you. All of you. Take care. Bye bye.


Coming up on DTNS, why Colonial Pipeline paid the $4.4 million ransom to Darkside, the scoop on Atlanta's Godfather of Tech, and why you might just want to digitally record your loved ones right now. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, May 19th, 2021 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. In Salt Lake City, I'm Scott Johnson. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. We were just talking about electricity. We were having an electric conversation about Sarah's Generator on Good Day Internet. If you want that wider conversation to become a member, patreon.com slash DTNS, let's start with a few tech things you should know. Google's experimenting with a follow button in its Chrome browser that acts like an RS reader of sorts for websites. So if a user follows or subscribes to a website that uses RSS, new content from that publisher will appear in the new tab page as part of a following category that includes cover images, headlines, publishing time stamps, etc. Chrome already has a for you feature, which is topic based, but a follow lets a user actively choose which sites they want to see. Although no word on when this experiment might become a standard Chrome feature. Oh, and then they could let you categorize them by topics. And then they got Google reader back. Friends, it won't be long now. So say your goodbyes because Microsoft will officially retire Internet Explorer on June 15th, 2022. You've got just more than a year on on that day. I said I wouldn't do this. IE will go out of support gone gone. Unless you're a customer of the long-term servicing channel, you'll start to notice it slipping away this year on August 17th when IE will no longer be supported for online services like Office 365 and OneDrive. So prepare yourselves. But remember, a little part of IE will continue to live on in IE mode in Microsoft Edge. India wrote a letter to WhatsApp asking it to withdraw its newly rolled out privacy policy, which according to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, or METI, violates several laws and rules. METI gave WhatsApp seven days to respond and it added that if the response from WhatsApp was not satisfactory, the government could take lawful actions against both WhatsApp and parent company Facebook. I guess if they didn't want to dispute it, they could just say hi, METI. Yep. Wow. Qualcomm announced the new Snapdragon 778G5G mobile chip featuring a Cryo 670 CPU and an Adreno 642L GPU with Qualcomm claiming it gets 40% better CPU performance and 40% faster graphics rendering compared to the previous gen, supporting sub six gigahertz and millimeter wave 5G. Thanks to its Snapdragon X53 5G modem, the new chip will be used by a large number of smartphone makers. You're going to find it in phones from Motorola, Oppo, Realme, Xiaomi, Honor and more. EFA Berlin is canceled for 2021 with the organizer citing the emergency of COVID-19 variants and concerns around the speed and consistency from which vaccines have been rolled out globally as the main causes. The event was initially planned for September 3rd at the Mesa Berlin Convention Center, which continues to be used as an emergency medical facility in a vaccination center. All right. Let's talk about that colonial pipeline ransomware. They have admitted that, yes, they did pay the ransom almost immediately. The Wall Street Journal talked to the CEO of colonial pipeline, Joseph Blunt, who, by the way, says, we liked no one knowing who we were back then. He says that at one point in the article, which I found rather sad. But Blunt was talking to Wall Street Journal about why the company authorized the payment of 4.4 million. You've heard it described as five, but if you're rounding it would just be four, 4.4 million to attempt to resolve the ransomware that infected its business systems. The ransom notice was first discovered at 5.30 a.m. May 7th on a control room computer, which caused some concern. It wasn't in the control system, but it was on one of the business system computers in the control room. And Blunt became aware of it within a half hour. Everybody got on the phone, started calling everybody else. He was six in the morning. He wasn't even at work yet. And he got the call.  They sent out about 300 employees to start inspecting the pipeline, to augment the sensors they already had just to take an extra look. And other employees were advised not to log into the corporate network. The FBI and the CISA here in the US were notified. The company did not know how extensive the breach was or how long it would take to come back online without paying. Now, standard recommendations from security professionals, including the US FBI, is not to pay because that supports the criminals and encourages more attacks. Blunt says he consulted with his own set of experts who he says are experts on dark side itself. And the organization believed it was best to go ahead and pay. He did not say who those experts were, though. Blunt did tell the Wall Street Journal, quote, I know that's a highly controversial decision. I didn't make it lightly. I will admit that I wasn't comfortable seeing money go out the door to people like this, but it was the right thing to do for the country. At least it felt that way at the time, I guess, because a payment was made in Bitcoin on May 7th, and Colonial received a decryption tool to unlock any systems encrypted by the malware. However, the tool only worked in part and did not fully restore systems. In fact, it still hasn't fully restored systems. They turned the pipeline back up because they felt comfortable that it wasn't going to spread anymore, but the billing system still is not working according to Blunt. There was a lot of scuddle bit out there that maybe they were keeping the pipeline shut down because the billing system was down and they didn't want to send fuel with that, the billing system being down, but the billing system is still down and they have turned it back on. Colonial estimates full restoration of all of its IT systems will take months and cost them tens of millions of dollars. So I guess one wonders if it was worth the 4.4 million at all when it's going to take that long and that much work, but maybe it's sped it along enough that they feel like it was worth it. I don't know. Yeah, what an intense thing.  And I know plenty of people who were hitting that way, but none of them that I know have paid. They found other ways around or they got IT involved or whatever they had to do to do what they had to do. But I guess I understand his position. I just, I just blew me away. Like, I guess I'm not really judging it one direction or the other. I just, I was a little bit aghast that they just said, okay, here you go. Also treating that as if it's a transaction between a customer and a provider of some sort is an odd thing too. Like you said, not everything's back up. It didn't only worked in part there into the deal, but we're dealing with people who's her holding you hostage. Like, what do we expect that meant on our pillow? Like, I don't know that whole thing is just, it feels like there's a movie under there somewhere and we're probably going to get it one day and that'll be interesting. So I feel the same way, Scott. It's, you know, you think to yourself, okay, well blunt and the colonial pipeline company is like, okay, we got to scramble here. How bad is this? And is it going to get a lot worse if we don't play ball, you know, with the people who are asking for, for this money? And so I understand the decision, but you have to assume it's like, we're just going to hope that they give us back some power that they've since, you know, that they're holding an hostage and you don't know them. This is criminal activity. There is no reason at all to believe that everything goes back to normal if you can just cough up these millions of dollars and turns out that, yeah, I mean, they're back on track somewhat, but there's still a lot of work to be done and they didn't get the system back as it was previously. So this whole thing is like, sure, pay the ransom if you really feel like you have no other choice, but what a mess. I mean, that's the way people are going to think about it now. If you are Darkside, which Darkside runs a very professional service oriented ransomware business, they prided themselves, Scott, in providing good customers. You were joking, joking, but that was Darkside's thing was like, yeah, we'll have a chat open to help you restore your stuff. This is a bad thing for people who do ransomware. Ransomware people don't want you to pay and then their stuff keeps getting locked up because that will further the narrative of don't pay them. What ransomware people want, especially sophisticated organizations like Darkside, is you pay and then everything is solved and it goes away and you don't pay any more attention. Colonial pipeline doesn't get shut down and the news goes away. So it's actually against the ransomware operator's interests for it not to work because now the story is what Sarah was saying, which is like, why would you pay the ransom? It's not even going to work anyway. Look what happened to Colonial Pipeline and that's bad for the ransomware folks. I suppose it's good in general for criminal activity to be reduced potentially. We'll see. That's so skevy. Everything that you just said is just like, you're right. You're 100% right about all of it and I'm glad they're running a ship shaped deal over there, but you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. It's so weird. Researchers from blockchain analysis firm Elliptic estimated that the Darkside ransomware gang has made more than $90 million from ransomware payments from its victims since October 2020. Average payment was around 1.9 million. So the 4.4 million was quite high. The researchers examined the Bitcoin wall is used by Darkside to receive ransom payments from victims over the past nine months and determine how ransom money got cashed out. Of course, those accounts have now been drained. So Darkside doesn't have any of that money now.  He's also a really great villain in the DC universe. Anyway, moving on, speaking of DC owned by Warner Brothers and HBO, let's talk about them. Warner media announced that an ad supported version of HBO Max will launch in the first week of June for $9.99 a month. Ads will not run against HBO original programming though. Only Max originals and other content. Still have some questions about that. We'll get to that in a second. The cheaper ad supported version won't get the day in date movie releases that HBO Max gets for $14.99 a month, what you're all getting now if you're buying the service. But all the same content will still be there. Even at $9.99 a month, HBO Max is more expensive than similar ad supported offerings from Hulu, Paramount Plus and others, which cost $5.99 cents or Peacock, which is either free or $4.99 with ads. I guess that's without ads, right? That takes ads out the $4.99, I would assume. Anyway, not super. No, $4.99 with ads. You pay $9.99 for no ads on Peacock. So there's a free Peacock that's limited content with ads, $4.99 all the content with ads, and then $9.99 no ads. All right, well, Peacock and I haven't been very good friends. But anyway, the point is back to this whole day in date thing and well, mostly about the way that the commercials are going to work. I was saying pre-show that I don't like the idea of content that was constructed to not have natural commercial breaks are going to be super annoying in this way. And I still feel that way about some of these max originals because some of those are also not formatted to have natural breaking points like you would commercial TV. They are formatted for breaks. Some aren't though. I've seen stuff like, I don't know. I've definitely like the flight attendant definitely like stopped down for a quick pause and came right back. You'd almost not notice it, but I'm like, oh, that's where an ad break will go. I guess I have to do that for two reasons. One is they probably knew this was coming, but also they want to be able to take those max originals and Aram on TNT and Turner, which they announced they're going to do. They're going to take a bunch of those max originals and Aram on broadcast TV. So I think they all have them in there. You just may not have noticed it. Maybe I didn't notice and maybe that's to their credit. Like what raised by Wolves was one that I thought didn't seem like it had very good breaks. But anyway, it is still a premium compared to other services. And I think that's just kind of our expectation for HBO. You know, they, I think they know that people will pay for a premium cable, you know, high end content sort of experience and they're probably right. I mean, I'm already paying 15 and probably will still. So yeah, but I think that there are, there are the people who say 15. What?  So 999 little psychological there, but that makes a lot more sense. And if you are used to ads, if you're subscribed to Hulu, for example, and you're not the end of the world, I mean, a lot of people do that with, with podcasts as well with all sorts of content. It's like you, you feel like you're saving a lot if you really want that content and you get the benefit of HBO original programming is exempt and I don't know. I, I know that the, the conversation is always like, well, how much is too much? You know, at what point does HBO Max or any of these services turn the consumer off? Well, make the consumer turn them off by, by, you know, keeping the price point just slightly too high. And I don't think anyone totally knows what the sweet spot is. I know that Disney Plus is always, it's kind of the barometer because it's like, well, Disney Plus, this is doing pretty well. I know they missed their numbers slightly in the last earnings report, but you know, pretty, pretty, pretty a great success out of the gate. And obviously that has a lot to do with the content that's on Disney Plus, but something like HBO can get away with a little bit more because it's the cachet of, you know, HBO, you know, exclusive movies and really hot TV shows you can't find anywhere else. Yeah. If you're out there saying like, well, I would never pay $9.99 a month for something with ads, then that's fine. You won't. That's not the same thing as saying no one will and this is not going to be successful. Everyone thought $14.99 a month was too much for HBO Max compared to $7.99 for a no ads version of Disney Plus, which I think was $6.99 when HBO Max launched. But HBO alone was $14.99 a month, even with your cable package in a lot of cases, which is why they had to price it at $14.99. So if you're wanting to keep HBO Max, but you can't afford $15 a month, you might be able to afford $10 a month. And we'll see how many people do that or they might not care. Jason Collar was saying in the announcement of this, he's like, we make the same amount of money whether there's an ad supported subscriber or a non ad supported subscriber. So they don't care. They just want to be able to expand that tent to people who are like, I don't have 15, but I might be able to swing 10 because I really want to watch that content. That's what they're banking on. Well, we are very happy to have Nika Monford from Snap OS back with us for another edition of Teching While Black where she highlights innovative voices in the black community. Take it away, Nika. Hi, this is Nika Monford, AKA tech savvy diva of the Snap OS show. In the Teching While Black segment, I will bring awareness to a black technology leader who is advancing the tech community through their innovations across the spectrum of industries. Today in Teching While Black, let's highlight Atlanta's godfather of tech, Dr. Paul Judge, entrepreneur, investor, inventor. As an entrepreneur, he is the co-founder and partner of Tech Square Labs, co-founder and executive chairman of Pin Drop, partner of AC3, Atlanta's hip hop centric music festival and partner of Judge Ventures. As an investor between both Tech Square Labs and Judge Ventures, Paul has invested in over 60 technology startups. Let's say that again, over 60 technology startups. Also, he was either a founder and or CTO of multiple companies, including Luma Home, a now acquired consumer Wi-Fi company, Pure Wire, a now acquired leading web security company and Cypher Trust, a now acquired leader in email security company. As an inventor, he holds approximately 30 patented or patent pending technologies all in the computer security space. Whew, that's a lot. Let me take a quick breather before we go on. Okay, let's keep going. In addition to being an entrepreneur, investor and inventor, he is a noted speaker and scholar, having given talks at events such as platform 2014 and writings in both Tech Crunch and Pando Daily. Most recently, he was a commencement speaker for the Georgia Institute of Technology's class of 2021 ceremony where he is a two-time alumnus holding a master's in network security and a PhD in cybersecurity.  Paul is a fierce advocate of cultivating the tech talent and bridging the gap between founders and inventors in Atlanta, which has been made abundantly clear based on his involvement in the startup culture. All which have earned him the moniker as Atlanta's godfather of tech. To find out more about Paul and his innovative work, be sure to check him out on Twitter at Paul Judge or on his website pjudge.com. History is being made in real time every single day. So let's celebrate it now. When we are aware of all innovative voices, especially those in underrepresented groups, the tech community thrives. Be sure to tune into the next Tech in While Black where we highlight a black tech innovator from around the globe. Thank you, Nika, for introducing us to Dr. Paul Judge. We look forward to next month's segment as well. You can hear Nika every week on snobos at snoboscast.com. Hey, folks, don't forget if you want an ad-free version of DTNS, support us on Patreon. Get your own personal RSS feed supported directly by you. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash Patreon. First, Bitcoin always goes in cycles. So it's always going to have a downturn no matter what happens. Then you get Tesla adding and then polling support for Bitcoin, Elon Musk making jokes about it, and Dogecoin on Saturday Night Live, then implying on Twitter that maybe you'll sell all this Bitcoin on, but maybe not. None of that's going to fuel a surge. However, Tuesday, the National Internet Finance Association of China, the China Banking Association, and the Payment and Clearing Association of China all issued a warning that consumers would get no protection from losses related to cryptocurrency investment transactions and financial and payment institutions are advised not to use virtual currency for most purposes. You'll see this being called a ban because it's essentially the same as if you're like, you really shouldn't do this because it's, you know, you're not going to get any of our support. And these are major organizations. It's just short of a ban and is effectively going to end up being as if there was a ban. And that's important because about three-quarters of Bitcoin mining happens in China. So if you're mining all that Bitcoin and suddenly you can't use it for anything inside your own country, it doesn't mean you can't make money off it at all, but it makes it more difficult. Wednesday, the price of Bitcoin fell below $34,000 for the first time in three months. Other currencies like Ethereum, Dogecoin, and more dropped as well. And CoinMarketCap estimates the entire crypto market shrank by 20% between Tuesday and Wednesday. Now, it has come back since then to be a more, well, it was 17% earlier. It's 19% at recording. This is why we don't like covering these kinds of things because it changes from minute to minute, but it's a big drop. And we normally wouldn't cover these kind of fluctuations except that everybody was talking about this, I guess because it was so high and it had been starting to get more attention. Well, my welcome to a new segment called Scott's Uninformed Commentary on Bitcoin. But I'm gonna make a statement here that maybe, I don't know if it's controversial or not. We are to the point as you illustrated well that Bitcoin is no longer just a weird side thing that we can sort of ignore, but also it's interesting and fun to pay attention to, but now it's like a bigger part of the bigger financial discussion and it will probably continue to be so. As a result, when people like Elon Musk or anybody else heavily invested in that world says anything, these fluctuations seem to just come crashing up or down whatever direction. So the minute somebody says, ah, yeah, Bitcoin's awesome. And they're in a position of serious influence. The whole world goes burnt and it happens so quickly and so fast and those fluctuations happen so fast that you're just kind of blindsided by it. I don't know if that's sustainable. So my commentary is this concerns me that if this is truly the future, if cryptocurrency is the future of the financial backbone of the world, then my gosh, we got to figure out a way to make it a little less volatile.  There's that in the regular financial market. There's always panic. There are always buttons that get pushed, but this just feels unsustainable. That's my segment. Yeah, I see a lot of, I am very much an observer. I don't dabble a lot, but I know a lot of people who do. And one of my big takeaways is I am very risk averse. So again, I'm happy on the sidelines for now, for the most part, but I see so many folks saying the tools are easier than ever. It's the future. I want to be part of this wave. It's get rich quick, but it's different. It's not a Ponzi scheme. It's different. This time we're going to have figure it out. And the folks who were left out of stock market and Wall Street and money and banks and all of that stuff, this is a new era. And a lot of that is fluff and some of that is true. And I think that these wide fluctuations are just inevitable when anything is sort of new and exciting and confusing. What I hate are hearing this sort of like, this is going to be the answer for all of the folks who have been held down by the small amount of people who had all of the wealth in the past. And now we have these so much more accessibility and tools to be able to level the playing field. And then you have exchanges that go down for hours, sometimes days at a time, because they can't handle all of the massive traffic, good and bad. And it's such a mess and people do lose real money.  It's all very real. And so the memification of it, if that's even a word, I think it is, is it's troubling to me because it's like, this is only funny to a point. I mean, sure, if you have some money to burn, throw in the garbage, have as much money as you want. But yeah, it's sort of, it's going to be a roller coaster for the foreseeable future. I don't know any other way around it. Don't believe the hype and this will all make much more sense. Everybody out there, this is something where you have to not look at all of the things that Sarah and Scott have been referencing and not that they shouldn't have been referencing them. Those are real things out there, right? But if you ignore all that, ignore all the people saying this is the future, ignore all the people saying this is the end or this is stupid, Bitcoin makes a lot more sense. I look at Bitcoin as like, oh, it's this interesting thing that's sort of finding its feet and figuring out what it's good for. It's probably never going to be a currency. So the criticisms were people like, yeah, but when can I go down to the corner store and buy something with it? I'm like, you never will. You probably never will. That's really not what it's for. It's a store of value. It's a commodity probably. That seems to be where it's going. And what's happening this time is less dramatic than what happened the last time it crashed. Three or four years ago, it went up to 20,000 and everybody thought, oh my gosh, it's hitting the sky and then it crashed back down. Well, way down, like more like four or 5,000. So this is just another cycle and it's honestly a little bit of a less dramatic cycle with a lot more tension and hype around it than the last crash. From where I sit, I look at this as like, oh, Bitcoin's growing up, Bitcoin's maturing. Not there yet, but it's starting to learn how to ride a wave instead of just go sky high and then crash. So I actually am weirdly made optimistic by this. I'm 100% with you, Sarah, that this is not something for people to play around with. This is not a way for you to get rich quick easily. You might look into it, but this is not a safe thing to toy around with unless you've got money to lose. I agree with you about the hype thing real quick. Do you think it's possible that the reason it feels a little more intense this time, even though it's less losses is because there's more people who have a stake now than there were four years ago because it does feel like that's true. Not a stake. I would say not a stake because it doesn't feel more intense to me. I'd say the intensity comes from more coverage. I get you. All right. When two people are talking about something, it's interesting. When three people are talking, it's a lot of people talking. When four people are talking, it's a trend, but it only has to be four people. So, you know, we got a lot more people talking about it. That's that's where I sit. Well, talking about a whole different thing. Addressa Simmons has an article out on Wired called the mother or excuse me, my mother is gone, but her digital voice helps keep me well. Three years ago, a few months before her mother died of colon cancer, she recorded a conversation between her mother and aunt during lockdown this last year. She started using the recordings as her alarm sound and for things throughout the day. So different tasks or whatever. Simmons notes that a 2020 study published in plus one found that melodic sounds made people more alert after waking to an alarm. She's taken to using other recordings as alarms, including singing happy birthday to her nieces and recordings of her children talking to each other and so on. I think this is so cool and it makes me happy that I've got audio ranging from when I was two and my dad recorded me on an old tape recorder to me recording my kids when they were little and pretty soon here doing an interview with my 82 year old mother. The therapeutic effects of that weren't necessarily known, but this seems like a very interesting look at that side of it. And also I know more than a couple people who have had loved ones that have died or for some other reason they can't talk to anymore and they will go back to voicemails and just listen to them and I go, I can't even believe you saved it. Well, you know, I did and this is something that I returned to for comfort, but that's sort of a different context, right? You go and you kind of listen to whatever it was that the voicemail was about, but I get it. And I actually frankly wish I had a lot more of those for some people in my life as well, but I do have old recordings and I actually use audio cues for certain alarms that I set for myself during the day with Amazon's assistant. She sometimes says things to me, you know, and it's she's telling me to do something or to remember to do something. And if I could actually customize it that much more to hear a voice that would fill me with joy or soothe me or otherwise just, I don't know, be kind of weird yet positive. I would totally do that. Yeah, I'm pretty jealous of people now because most of my older family is gone. My mom's still alive, but otherwise it's all brothers, sisters, cousins. aunts and uncles are almost all gone except for one. So there's not a chance for me to do this. I have a cassette recording of my dad doing a talk on evaporated milk, not the most personal situation, but even just digitizing that and listening to it a couple of years ago, I was like, oh man, it's just so great to hear his voice again. So yeah, I think this is fantastic as far as like, hey, take advantage of this and think about what you can use it for. And I thought it was fascinating that she was using it as an alarm to promote her own wellness where she was trying to remind herself to eat better and exercise and things like that and having her mom's voice being the thing that was the alarm. But when the alarm went off, it was a positive for her. Yeah, it's a good trigger. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And not to get all forecasty here, but it feels like there's a future where we can take some of this accumulated content audio in this case of family members and replace our digital assistants with modulated versions of the way that they spoke. And it may be, some may find that creepy, I don't know. Like the photos you saw on heritage.com recently where a past away relative would come to life again and their eyes would move and they would smile and kind of be in a little bit of a pseudo 3D. There's a lot of comfort for a lot of people in that sort of thing. So if we can also find that there's, you know, therapeutic reasons why this is helpful, I could see a future where we get to choose who talks to us and maybe it's my mom and not some random lady at Amazon. It should be okay. Hey, mom, it turns on your smart speaker. All right, let's check out the mail bag, Sarah. What do we got in there today? We got an email from Christos. This is a conversation we had a few days ago with Jen Cutter about replacing captures and the idea that physical key was something that Cloudflare was looking into. Christos says, as a totally blind user, since the mid-80s, captures have always been a problem for screen reader software. Yes, it would be a great day. The day that they were are replaced were better yet killed off. I get why they exist. Yes, there are audio solutions for entering captures. However, these have a high failure rate since you can usually only play the audio version once and many of them were created with a light background noise value which wakes them non-usable. Yeah, I think captures may have been a necessary evil at one point, but hopefully we're getting to a situation where they aren't as necessary and they don't have to be evil. That'd be great. Yeah, and thank you, Christos, by the way. It's always great to hear from somebody who's like, this is a situation that I have with captures and I look forward to a better solution. So it makes a lot of sense. If you have feedback for us, you have anecdotes, you have questions, you have comments, feedback at dailytechnewshow.com is where to send that email. Shout out to patrons at our master and grandmaster levels. Today, they include John and Becky Johnston, Chris Benito, and Dan Colback. Also, thank you to our brand new boss.  Matt McConnell just started backing us on Patreon. So thank you, Matt. You're already a very excellent boss. I don't know how you do it. Thank you. Yeah, we know we need more mats in this world. We do. Yeah, mats are great. Thanks to Scott Johnson also, also great. Can't forget the Scots out there. Scott, what's been going on with you? Well, I'm going to put that on my gravestone. Also great. I'll put on there. 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