August 1st marks World Lung Cancer Day spreading awareness on causes and prevention. Pike County currently is ranked not tinked out of 120 counties in Kentucky for lung cancer prevalence so we're still fairly high on the list. This day serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of early detection and ongoing research efforts of this daily disease. Know what the signs and symptoms are at the American Lung Association recommends knowing the signs and symptoms and then getting regular checkups but the sign and symptoms are there's seven major signs and symptoms to watch for and they are chest pain, persistent cough, bone pain or if you have reoccurring or persistent or chronic emphysema bronchitis pneumonia. There's also shortness of breath or persistent hoarseness or sudden weight loss so look for those signs and symptoms and be going to your doctor on a regular basis. When my baby was born it was magical and as she grew having a hospital close to home with advanced healthcare and specialized physicians being there along the journey was important and along that journey many special doctors touched our lives and then one day my baby became a woman and a mother herself. Pikeville Medical Center caring for every moment in life. To support the community's health the Pike County Health Department offers free services to combat lung cancer. So there's a variety of resources that the Pike County Health Department has for Pike County residents that are at no cost to the individual. There is the American Lung Association approved smoking cessation program called Freedom from Smoking. That program includes free nicotine replacement products. Also there is a program through the Kentucky Department of Public Health for free rate on test kits. To take advantage of these free services or to learn more about lung cancer prevention and checkups contact the Pike County Health Department at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Reporting from Mountain Top News, I'm Ethan Miller.


officially open the meeting with the script that explains that this is a meeting of the Central Vermont Public Safety Authority. This meeting will come to order. This meeting is a remote only meeting, which means the public body is meeting electronically only and consistent with the temporary provision of Act 78. There is no designated physical meeting space where the public may attend. Please note that while we will strive to provide means of those attending remotely to participate in the public comment period, there may be technical difficulties or reason that otherwise prevent or disrupt remote public participation. Please note that all votes taken during this meeting that are not unanimous will be done by roll call vote and according to the law. Also as required by the only meeting law will begin by a roll call attendance of all members participating in the meeting and all those attending remotely will identify themselves with their name and where they live. All participants must be recognized by the chair before speaking and please if comments are not on topic the speaker will be disrupted interrupted and asked to adjust their comments accordingly. Please try to keep comments at two to three minutes and remember all of us to start with our name. So I would first put before the group approval of the agenda. I have two additions. One is good news under discussion after the minutes. I would like to insert Bev Hill discussion as treasurer and ask the board to consider extending her for a year. She's willing to do that and also that I want to add an executive session under number six with the open meeting law discussion so we can discuss what we've received as legal advice. So those are my two adjustments. Anyone else? Okay. All in favor of those two adjustments to the agenda. If there's no dissent will be accepted by unanimous consent. Thank you. A public comment? Anyone have a comment not just from the public but anything that's not on the agenda that you want to announce or talk about? Cool. This could be quick. How are you feeling, Justin? Okay. The minutes of April 14th, Justin sent you out a copy but I didn't find any difference in that than the one I sent out. So it was the April 14th minutes. There were no differences. Any comments or adjustments to it? Otherwise the chair will entertain a motion to accept the minutes. Donna, can I just make sure that those are the minutes that I put on the website?  That's interesting. Hi, Doug. Are my headphones not on? Donna, if I talk louder like this, can you hear me better? I just wanted to talk, Justin. I am talking. I can see my... Well, that's very interesting. Hold on. Oh, it was my computer. Okay. You could hear me. I had it off her city council. Yeah, I could hear you fine. I want to make sure that the ones that you sent, you said there weren't any changes. I thought there were. I compare them by sentence. Hold on. I know at a minimum that I changed my name on one of them because where are you? The draft minutes are not up there. Hold on. I just want to take a look at the ones that I posted on the website and let me see the ones. So you compare them sentence by sentence. Let me pull the ones that you sent via email. I mean, I literally printed them both. I may have attached the wrong document to the emails, the issue. So I may have attached the wrong document. When I replied, I may have attached the wrong document. Give me 10 seconds here. Sure. Sure. And why you're... We can talk about comments while you're doing that. Sure. Also, I'll just remind Doug, we went through all the remote meeting-ish elements to remind people to say their name when they speak. And I've done it myself. We'll do roll call. Well, Justin is hunting for that. I mentioned that we needed to do it and then I didn't do it. So I'm Donna Bate. I'm an at-large member of this board. I live in Montpelier. Mel, you want to introduce yourself? Yep. I'm Mel Chambel. I live in Berry City. I'm on the city council. Jim? Jim Ward, living in Berry City, appointed by the city council. Doug Hoyt? Doug Hoyt. You're appointed? I am. By whom and where do you live? By the city council. I live in Montpelier. Okay. Jim? Yeah, I thought I just spoke. Jim Ward. Oh, sorry. Okay. I think you changed positions on my screen. And I was going across the row. There you were again. Okay. Justin, would you introduce yourself? Yep. Justin Dreschler, appointed by Montpelier, the CVPSA secretary. Okay. And then if the other members of our group would introduce themselves, that would be good. Joe, you're next to my screen. Berry City Fire Department. Okay. And then we have Doug, David Delcor. Yeah. I'm sorry. Can you hear me? Not quite. Try it again. Can you hear me? You're real soft, David. I'm sorry. Can you hear me? Yeah. All right. Yeah. Dave Delcor from the Times, August. Thank you. Doug Brent? Can you hear me, Donna? Yes. Doug Brent from Berry City Fire Department. Okay. Steve McKenzie? Yep. Steve McKenzie, Berry City Manager. Sorry. I'm late. Did I miss anyone? Okay. So we were discussing the minutes of April 14th, and I had sent out one in the packet, and then Justin sent out another one. And when I compared the two, they were the same. And Justin said they weren't meant to be. So he was looking for the copy he meant to send out. So they were marginally different. There were just a couple of minor typos that were corrected. But in large part, they were the same. Well, we can still correct that even with the motion. They don't make any increment changes. Okay. Is that all right with you? Yeah. If you look at the... Yeah. The copy that I sent out is different by like a couple of words. Okay. Terrific. Entertain a motion to accept the minutes. Mel, are you going to make that motion? Sure. So moved. Thank you. Second. Second. Jim, I need further comments on the minutes. Thank you. Justin was very thorough. And we'll keep reducing... There'll be less there this time. There'll be much less there this time. I know. We all get used to it being a diary versus the Robert's Rules of Orders. Motions are the important thing. And then just general overview of the discussion. All in favor of the motions? Passing? Wave your hand or say aye. Aye. And the opposed? Terrific. Passed. I don't see Rick Burt and he had an intention of being here. I know that he had sent out a draft of the RFP to the Twin City team that they're working with. And they're making progress. The biggest actually stumbling block right now is getting the attention of the Twin City team personnel. They're all busy as always, but they're marching on and they're sending us updates. I attached one to the agenda. It was April 18th. I don't know of any questions about that. If Rick comes on later, we'll go back to him answering questions. Doug, I don't know if you can fill in any questions. Having you've read the RFP draft or Joe or Doug Brent, you're on that team.  Yeah, Donna, I can assure you that I've been in contact with old Rick and Dom on a regular basis the last few days, though. You know, myself and Keith back and the other two are looking at it. We do have a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, I believe. An interview with them. Good. Good. All right. So, so far you're satisfied with the work? Yeah, nothing that we can't work together to work through, so. Good. Doug Brent, you want to make a comment? I think Joe has pretty much summed it up, but things are going well. Like Joe said, good. Dom and Rick have called us a lot with some questions and they've assembled a group of other questions and they're going to interview us and get the answers. Join me from us. Joe, myself, and Brian Pete and Paul Saruti, I believe are the group they're going to be talking to as they solicit more input for their final report to you guys. Okay. And Doug Hoyt, I put you on the spot there. You or Kerry's just joined us. Anyone part of that team would like to speak? Raise your hand or? I was invited for a meeting on Tuesday, and I assume that's the meeting that Doug and Joe are talking about. And I think that'll be a good opportunity for me to get up to speed with what they're saying. I'll just wait for Tuesday. Okay. Good. Can I just dug a joke? Am I correct that I should be attending, even though I didn't get mentioned by either one of you? I don't think you got mentioned by us because I'm not sure we knew who we was inviting for the interview. That makes perfectly good sense. Yeah, with all due respect, Steve, I think you should probably plan on attending, just to see where the questions are at. Okay. Yeah, the focus was, as Joe mentioned, a sort of an opportunity to interview some of the public safety staff and get their input. And you're certainly want to be there, Doug, if you can. I will. Okay. Okay. I don't know if there are any further questions on that. It's a good work on progress. Steve McKenzie. Just a curiosity question. What's their timeframe for pulling together the RFQ, and it's probably been mentioned a dozen times, and I'm sorry for asking again. No, it hasn't, not since actually, it's been the last meeting that was touched on. They were talking about June, so it's, they're aiming for June 12th right now. Okay, great. Thanks. So if, and then they would, and that's one of the things that's going to come up when we talk about this board's next meeting, is whether or not we could push it back a week, because if it's done on the 12th, then they could present it to us. See, in June, our, oops, come on, I'll enter. Our meeting in June would be the 9th. If we push it back to the third Thursday, the 16th, then we'd be right in the sink with after they released it. But that's their tentative release date right now. It's June 12th. Okay, moving right along. Statehouse update. I think, Adana? Yes. I'm sorry. It would, it would seem to make sense to just slide the regular meeting a week. That's what I'm, we're going to propose when we talk about our next meeting date. Okay, I'm sorry. That's what I meant to say, is that since they're aiming for the 12th, we would, I would be asking to push our meeting off to the third Thursday. Yeah. Good. Okay. Yep. I mean, we can make that decision now that would help people keep it in order. Them doing their report as indicated with their schedule being done on June 12th, it would behoove us to move our regular meeting in June to June 7th, 16th, the third Thursday. Not that it matters. The 12th is a Sunday. I'm not sure that that matters, but it's it's still before the 19th, obviously. So, yes, or the 16th, whatever that Thursday. 16th is a Thursday. And I just chose a Thursday because hopefully people who can meet maybe on the second Thursday can meet on the third Thursday with the 16th of June work for people as best they can figure out for now. Thumbs up. Okay. Good consensus. I'll put that new date out. Thank you. Statehouse update. I was told that indeed 6.5 million is in the budget for regional dispatch. Not quite sure exactly how it's going to be distributed. So I would say we're still negotiating with the commissioner. What is the other parties? I know Doug Brandt, you were there. Steve McKenzie, you might have heard. Do you feel that's a right interpretation? I haven't heard anything. So I'll defer to Doug or Joe. So it's Doug Donna. We've gotten word from chief Pete, who's kind of been our contact person, as I know that manager Frazier and the lobbyists that's employed by the city of Montpelier have worked very hard on this. And so we've heard that 6.6 figure like you mentioned. And it all had to do with the legislature wrapping up and the governor putting a signature on the budget all over with the shouting from that point. But we still have not been prized of what the final application process will be, if you will, to apply for that money. And so we're hoping that our allotment or Montpelier and Berry's allotment that we put in for the 3.2 million is in that 6.6 million dollar number. But until we know, we've got to stay alert and keep talking to the commissioner for sure. I'm glad you mentioned the lobbyist. I can remember her first name is Maggie. She was most helpful. She got reached out to me and I passed on some more letters to our Washington County representatives to get support for it. I was really glad she was on board. A lot of crazy stuff happens around the budget and these numbers kept changing and not for the better. So I feel she was very much needed. That's for sure. Yeah, you can be sure that we're keeping the commissioner and his assistant, his captain there that's been in charge of this. We're trying to keep them in the loop so that we are in the loop as well. Yes. Okay. Anyone else want to comment on that before we move along? Donna. Yes. Justin Drescher. I just have a question not about this, but about the change of the next meeting date. Was there a motion and a second for that or can we just do that by unanimous consent? I just got a general consent. The chair can change the date. Okay. Without quote permission, I always tried to refer because I want people there to if I can bring it up to the whole body. But we can always do a motion if whatever you'd like. No, I just want to make sure the notes are feeling like taking minutes. So I've been dotting things down here. So no, I'm ripping them off. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't taking minutes. Okay. I've COVID everybody. I'm not lazy. Yeah. The mayor's got it too. She's down with COVID with a new baby. It's much like a challenge. You've got little kids. It's hard. Okay. So yes, we've made the date change. We now know we have some money there. We still have to keep hustling forward to make sure we get what we need. The next element on the agenda is the open meeting law challenges and public record requests. And there can be some discussion now, but I do I do want us to go into executive session before we talk any specifics about any legal opinions. One thing we could talk out loud is Justin, we have some outstanding record request. Do we have any open meeting law violations outstanding? No, as far as I know, there are no open meeting law violations. So Mr. Whitaker requested that that while he has his standing request for a copy of the meeting, that one has been answered. But he requested a copy of all communications from VLCT to the CVPSA regarding a legal opinion regarding this legal opinion on what was the specific matter done. I have cloudy brain. The legal opinion was about what kind of format we had to provide and whether or not or qualified and whether we had to do zoom. Yes. And so what Mr. Whitaker is looking for is those communications. And the question is whether those communications were protected by the attorney client privilege or when Mr. Whitaker's claim is that when the chair had mentioned the legal advice in at a public meeting, whether the attorney client privilege is waived and that opened up the records to for disclosure. Yes. I would tend to I'm no lawyer, but I would certainly tend to doubt that. Just a mere mention that that there's been a legal opinion requested or or delivered. I don't believe open opens it up to public record. The opinion itself is a confidential legal document. If it's protected. Okay, I mean, I do sense. I'm not a lawyer, but yep. No, I think opinions can be shared here. I do think I'm wanting an executive session because that's what got me in trouble in the first place. Is that maybe we talk? I talked too freely about the opinion that was given us. So that's helpful to know, Steve. Is anyone else? Well, let me let me let me I'm sorry. I thought if there if there was discussion about specific elements of the opinion in public, I think that might open it up. I thought you were just making a general reference to the fact that you had sought and or received a legal opinion. I don't think the latter opens it up to exposure. But if you discussed aspects of the legal opinion in public session, I think that might be a good point. But again, my advice is free and it's worth what it's Okay, but we'll take it. We can that's what we need to do. Just take it all in. We're dealing with another records request from Steve of again, asking for any any records or whatever, dealing with the Barry teams, communications on the telecommunications proposal, the funding and so on and so forth, most of which has been discussions at the committee level. I think there are some emails that we will disclose. But I think he's looking for a treasure trove of information that doesn't exist. Treasure trove of documents that doesn't exist. But right. What I realized, and I can't believe it, I just thought of it. I needed to send you all an executive session Zoom link. Honestly, I know that it's like So, well, Donna, you can you could create a breakout room off of this link and then just invite in those members of the board as opposed to having to set up a separate link. If, if I know it can be done and I participated in it. I mean, I totally until I go through something, I am totally tech challenged. Yeah, no, I understand. I'm the same way. You know, I don't know what I've ever done it. I think I could because I've been through enough of them, but I'm no expert either. I just know that it can be done. So I mean, Justin, you're the the one law you're here. We can have this discussion in general. I can try to send a link or we can say we're like sometimes at city council will say that we're not going to depends if we come out of session to make a decision or not. But all our other business, I believe, has been discussed.  And if you can do it, I think you're better off calling for an executive session in this meeting and breaking out to do it rather than setting up another link because then you could be accused of setting up an unwarranted meeting or something like that. If you could do it as a breakout in this meeting, that might be the best way to do it. And particularly if you don't expect any action to come out of the executive session, everybody who's not invited could just leave if that's the last item of the evening. I don't know what you all saw, but I went to the Zoom link and tried to find some language of breakout sessions and nothing jumps out at me. Anybody here set up breakout sessions themselves on Zoom? I think if you hit the participants button, that's where it is. I can't see it because only the host can set up the breakout room. So when you click the little carrot on participants, do you see something about breakout rooms? Invite people to join meeting. No, that's just. That's just right. Do you have something that down below that says breakout rooms? Down there because you're the only one who has. Video security, whoops. Participants share screen apps, whiteboard and emotions or reactions. Chat. If you've got nothing there, that's interesting. If you want, I can go offline and maybe try to find out real quick how to do it. Okay, let me. And there is if I have any luck. Okay, there is one thing we could discuss under that same heading when I look through the requirements of timing a response for record requests and open media law violations, they refer to business days. And we don't have any business office or business days. And I was had been thinking before that it would be good that I felt the need to put some boundaries on the work for the public safety authority without staff, it becomes overwhelming at times. And there are many small towns with city clerks offices that are only open two or three days a week. And we could set our hours, we could post them on our website, we could be consistent with them. And those are the times that we respond to these kinds of requests. But it's more than just that I guess I feel it's a way to contain and maintain the public safety authority and still not having an overwhelm any of our lives, particularly the officers. Does that appeal to anyone besides me of putting some boundaries on and saying we have office hours Tuesday, Thursday, 12 to three or something? I think it would be great. And right now it's our, yeah.  A couple of afternoons a week, Jim? I just have a clarification question. I agree in principle 100% with limiting it because of the nature of how much everyone gets paid. Well, what would actually happen during those business hours? I think that's a huge help there. Okay. So that's when you would sit down and deal with record requests. And that's when your clock would time. So if you have three business days and you're only open two this week, that means you have one, two days this week and one day next week to do it. What I mean is that mean that he's open for emails those days? There's no office that anyone's going to go visit. So those are the days that he is required. Oh, I see from the standpoint of statutory response. Yes. Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. I think it's crazy that we're responding to, for me, and I know I'm the older generation, but, you know, Saturdays, Sundays, 9 p.m. and the clock starts. I get an email at 9 p.m. at night. I don't think that's fair. If it says five business days, that would be five weeks for us because we have one business day a week. Well, or whatever it is. I mean, if it's one day a day. Yeah, but calendar days are calendar days. Now I see you. Now I see where you're going with it. I agree with that 100%. Well, I also think it would help to make the volunteers, especially the officers less onerous, unless invading of our own work and personal lives. But what's a reasonable amount of time to have business hours? I see you, Steve, I'll get back to you after we deal with this. Right now, Justin, you're like me, one of those affected the most. What do you think? Yeah, for me, so like if we say that 10 business days is how long you have to respond, if we pretend that we work two full, not pretend, I'm sorry, assume that we say that we're open for two full business days a week, that goes as five weeks to respond. I think that's more than enough time to respond. Okay. I think it's reasonable on both sides. I suppose is where I'm at. I think two days a week, saying nine to five, two days a week are the times that we will conduct business in this specific way are, I think it's totally reasonable. And then you shouldn't expect to respond outside those windows. I think we should be very clear about that type of thing. Mm-hmm. And we need to work on language so we can post it on our website to make that clear. Is it Tuesday and Thursdays make sense? Jim? Just to clarify again, has there been a precedent set on this with the small towns that are only open one or two days a week? Yes, there's city clerks all over Vermont that are open two or three days a week. I understand that, but has that been adjudicated that that extends their response time to... Yes, it's to their business hours. Okay. So the response... And the legislation uses that term, Jim, it uses that term business hours. And they define business hours, whatever are your normal posted business hours. And some of those aren't open nine to five. They're like 10 to 30. Oh, I know. Yeah, they're very... Some of them are extremely limited. So for instance, say 95, that's... Yeah. Worcesters open very short period of time to pay the water bill, my son phoned out. Yeah.  So it counts the same. So do you really want to post nine to five? Do we want to post nine to five? Does it... In one way, it doesn't matter, I guess, because we're not truly answering the phone. I do get some phone calls on our Google number and I respond to them as best I can. Most are looking for an estate agency. They totally don't understand what we are. So entertain a motion of us to set our business hours. I can make it. Excuse me? I will move that we set specific business hours no more than two days a week and to be set by the secretary at their pleasure. Okay. Two days a week? I second it. All right. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed. Perfect. Okay. Steve McKenzie, what can you tell us? Yeah. Hey, there's just one other observation and I'm making these constructively because I know you get attacked every meeting you attend. One thing I think that was missing from your agenda this evening is the adjustments to the agenda item. That's intended to be a very, I think, a standard, essentially the first item after you open the meeting. We did. I adjusted the agenda. No, no, no. But your agenda doesn't list that action item. In other words, your agenda says... It's usually done under approve agenda. Any adjustments are done there? Yeah, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think adjustments to the agenda, for instance, on the Berry City Council, and I think maybe on yours, Donna, the Montpellier, adjustments to the agenda is a second item. No, but never mind. Okay. But essentially what Teddy was that told me is who is the host? Is it you, Donna, or Josh? Yes, I am. So on your menu bar, you should have, I think something that says breakout room or down where it says share screen on that same line. I have a shared screen. Yeah, but on that line, not in that icon, but in that line, do you see another where it says record reactions? Do you see something that says breakout room? No, no, I looked within all of the... No, I don't. I think you have to have it enabled. Just a little while ago, and it said what you have to do is you have to enable it in your account. Yeah, so if you're for a meeting, you've got to enable it, and then it'll be at the bottom for you to do it. So I don't know, to do the executive session tonight, I don't know how you have any... Just because of what Steve said about not having warned or having an official warning of the executive session separate meeting, that if everybody just leaves and make an executive session that way, I don't know if that's legal, but... Well, I mean, at City Council, we've had executive sessions when they haven't been worn, but it's helpful sometimes to say they may possibly be an executive session, but the executive session link is never posted. It's only given to the council. Yeah, but I think Mel is right. I mean, the Zoom version of having an executive session in an in-person meeting is if the council goes into executive session in the in-person meeting, everybody else has to clear the room. So in this case, the clearing of the room is everybody leaves, and you can monitor who's here by monitoring the screen. And it's a question of whether you anticipate... I don't know how you would communicate other than by phone call. For instance, the only... David would be interested in staying around if you were going to come out of executive session and have some kind of action. If you anticipate no action, then I think David would generally leave along with the rest of us. Well, yes, that's why at Montpeer City Council, we have a separate Zoom that's for executive sessions, a totally separate connection. But doing this, I feel like we are going to come out hopefully with some action because we want to give our custodian of records guidance of how to respond to Stephen's request. Yeah, actually, Justin has a good point. If this meeting is being recorded, then having everybody leave and continuing with the meeting won't work because you'll have your executive session recorded. Well, we'd have work and leave, too. Yeah, okay. Can I make a quick suggestion, Donna? Yeah. So I think that my position on this is going to be similar to Steve's. I think this specific language used during the meeting is going to be key to our discussion. And so I wonder if we should kick this to the next meeting and I'll just transcribe because it's going to be like one line. I'll find the line that you said and we'll just transcribe it and I'll transcribe it and then everyone can look at it before then and we can have the executive session at the next meeting. Sure, sure. What I remember is just referring to the statutory references in the legal opinion, not, yeah. And if that's the case, then I think we're in the clear, but I think let's just try to make it as clean as possible. That's probably the best move. Okay, so you're going to get some more notices from Stephen because our next meeting is June 16th. I'll speak to Stephen, no problem. Okay, okay. We are not ignoring him. We're trying to come to some. I've actually already spoken to Stephen specifically about this and I've told him that this is something that we're taking very seriously, that I personally take very seriously. And so he is aware that it's something that is getting our full attention. Great. That's really helpful. The next item on the agenda is other business. Anything we haven't talked about that's come up since we started, except adding executive Zoom link, I may put one in every meeting agenda just in case we need it. Okay, very good. Swift but purposeful. I do feel we're I do feel we're encouraged by the motion going forward with the RFP and with the state house funding that took a group effort. Thank everybody who testified, sent letters. Otherwise, yes, Jim. I thought I'd just take this opportunity to update the purchase of Barry City. The first full entry prop has been ordered. Unfortunately, they're like three months behind because the federal government ordered 10 of them last month or something to that effect for the army. So it's underway and they're looking forward to it. And I'm so glad you brought that up because next week by next Friday, we'll have a warrant on the Barry Farman's Club check. I had to we need people to sign. I'll send you an email reminding you. We just need four board members to sign it. And we have four of us in Montpelier to save the Barry people from driving if if indeed by next week, Justin, you're able to go in and sign as Doug Kim and I and we also have a warrant dealing with the Televate payment that you can sign at the same time. So we have two warrants for two checks that we already approved. But four people can sign that so the Barry folks don't come over. Right, right. You just need to you need a quorum. You need a minimum of four. Yeah. And we did that because we haven't yet got the dock signature thing going. Grant was doing a good job with that. We just haven't quite got everything transferred.  Yes, Doug Hoyt. Despite what I told you earlier today or yesterday, I did not stop at the police department. I do not understand how I could possibly drive right by it and not stop, but I didn't. Must be I'm retired. At any rate, can I hold off on doing that first signing until I guess you can do both on Friday. Okay, I'm good. I won't forget as long as Justin tells me that it's where I need to go. I'll send everybody a reminder out as soon as I know Chris Christine, Halbert, who does our checks for us is out this week. So it'll get every the new the new warrant couldn't be done until next week. So we'll have them both together. Okay. All right. Anything else before we adjourn by unanimous consent, we are gone, done. 743 that is a record. We barely end on time, let alone early. God bless all of you. I hope you feel better. Yes, Justin. Take care. I'll do. Okay. Bye everybody. You used to talk about the treasurer, buddy. I'm glad somebody's got a thinking mind. Yay, Joe. Yes, because that does need a motion. All right. That does need a motion. I'll take back the adjournment. I am so sorry. Bev Hill has agreed to extend her treasurer being treasurer for one more year. She verbally told me she was resigning. I acted on it. She never wrote it out. But I would, we still need to appoint her as our treasurer if indeed she's going to continue. Entertain a motion. I move that we appoint Bev Hill the treasurer for the next year. Thank you. I'll second it. Thank you, Mel. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes. Thank you. Thanks to her for stepping forward again. Yes. Yes. She's totally willing as long as she can you know do so with respectful treatment and I'm very much hoping that we'll go forward that way. Okay. Thank you very much. I will now adjourn at 745. Good night, everybody. Good night. Take care.


Each road has its own character. The personality of this road, this is a John Wayne road. Adventure some. I'd kind of describe it as very low-key, very kind of a personality of being very subtle. This one was basically a big drag strip through the sagebrush. It's kind of the stairway to some wonderful place that you don't even expect to be within your reach. We call this the parkway that lies lightly on the land. Much like people, every road, every highway has its own personality, its own character. Understanding that character, connecting with it, respecting it, that is at the heart of the work of federal highway partnerships. Since the founding of the National Park Service in 1916, there has been a need for roads to and through national parks and other federal lands to give access to the public that is really the owner of these lands. The first director of the National Park Service knew that if you don't have access, environmentally appropriate access to the parks, that people will not be able to appreciate them as well. Roads provide that access. When you put a road in, you have to make sure that you're doing so in a sensitive way. Federal highways works with us to lay them lightly on the land so that we're not doing any impairment of the resource. These are the people's lands. And by devoting a significant number of our resources to the preservation of those lands and the roadway systems that serve those lands, we help make those lands available to the Americans. National parks and other federal lands often protect historical and cultural landmarks. So the process of constructing highways demands a special sensitivity to these cultural issues. Guard walls were very much a character-defining element of that road. But they were hand-laid, mortared, unreinforced stone walls on here that had no structural capability to them. You couldn't effectively rebuild that rock wall and meet the crash standards required at this point. And so the challenge was, if we rebuild a steel and concrete core and then rock face it, it was going to be, I think, an extra $5 to $7 million. The National Park Service and Federal Highways solution was to have the contractor take molds of selected walls representing the character they wanted to preserve. That texture was recreated in concrete and then enhanced through a three-step process of spray painting and application of mica chips, adding coloration and sparkle as realistic as Mother Nature's own granite. I still get calls from people saying, oh, thank you, thank you so much for rebuilding that rock wall. Well, in effect, we didn't. That's a pretty good testimony for it. One of the real benefits of Federal Highways is a commitment to preserving this place and the integrity of the visitor's experience. A similar problem with the different solution faced highway planners at Mount Rainier. Driving this highway is like being on top of the world. Aging guardrails here needed to be brought to modern safety standards by reconstructing hardier concrete walls. And we replaced it with a concrete core wall. And we faced it with the native stone, so it would at least match up with the intent of the original walls. The technique enhanced safety while respecting the culture of this unique highway's history. These examples involve preservation of artifacts from 20th century history. In other cases, even prehistoric artifacts affect construction planning. This road on Arizona's Hopi Reservation is a road paved with history and tradition. The road project partnership involves the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Hopi tribe, and the Federal Highway. There was that big boulder that was sitting here. And there were some rocks underneath it. Below it, they were sitting on it. Each time it rained, it moved. And some of those boulders were wedged in here. They were like 8, 10 tons. These were about like 48 tons. They were about 50 feet above the roadway. The main concern was that the boulder falling down and injuring or killing someone. That's the main road, only road going up to the mesa. Like the federal lands they lie on, these roads have a history, sometimes predating the history of the United States. Sensitivities to that history and the culture it represents make many highway projects more than just a construction job. We thought about what archeological sites there may be up there in Petroglyphs. We got some people up there, our elders, and they found approximately 45 burial sites and a number of Petroglyphs. We were getting pressure from the clan leaders and the people to remove that rock as quick as we can. And we told them, well, we can't do it alone. It's going to take the agency's help working with us. And so they contacted federal highways to be involved in this project. We work with the tribe archeologists to help as well as our region archeologists. Blasting technology had to be developed to protect ancient graves of children. To preserve the Petroglyphs, federal highway identified ways of bolting this rock to the mesa's side rather than blasting. It was a team effort. The people were very happy about it. And thankful that the project went successfully. Protecting the resource and improving the visitor experience are the primary focuses of these project partnerships. The roads run through environments that are themselves national treasures. Sensitivity to these national environments is as significant as sensitivity to the culture. The general Hitchcock Highway climbs like a staircase to the stars in the Coronado National Forest of Arizona. Several species of cactus would have been displaced and destroyed by the construction. The Forest Service and Federal Highway had the cacti dug up, housed them in a nursery, and then it replanted them back alongside the newly widened highway. Federal Highway and its partners recognized that any road is an invasion of the environment created by centuries of nature's own work. Grand Teton National Park is one of the most beautiful parks, I think, in the Western US. And we're here to talk about road construction in a place you don't want to build anything. So we forged a partnership with federal highways to provide the roadway design and safety engineering portions of road design. What we're trying to do is give people a way to interact with the park while they're still in their car. It's so much nicer to go up the bluffs and get views of the mountains and back down and through the trees as opposed to driving down a straight road at 60 miles an hour in the sagebrush. To meet the challenge, cures were designed to blend the road with the topography and to aim the visitor's attention at the land and the mountains. Yet this posed the problem of hiding the scar left by the abandoned roadway. We saved the topsoil from where the new alignment was. And then when traffic was on the new road, we took that topsoil and used that to heal in the scar of the old road. We actually collected seed along the road, took it to a nursery, and so we actually used seed from this site to reveget. In a few more years, you won't know that there was ever a road out here. This primitive highway traverses the Elk Refuge in Wyoming. Its personality is a subtle one. Here, the Fish and Wildlife Service partnered with Federal Highway to improve mobility within the refuge while not impacting its residents. The Elk Refuge is basically a winter range that was established for elk in 1912. We wanted to rebuild the road but not make it a big, fancy, gaudy highway. We wanted to keep the real, kind of the rural primitive character of the road. Keeping it rudimentary and natural was the challenge. Fences, even asphalt paving, would have been counterproductive, changing the lay of the land and impeding the movement of the elk. While many federal lands projects have required cutting edge technology, in this case, a low-tech dirt road was needed. The federal highway folks brought the technical highway construction expertise and the ability to work effectively with the contractor to get the job done in a way that met everybody's needs. When the federal lands highway program takes on a project, they take it from the very beginning, from the planning stages, from developing the environmental studies, working with the other federal resource agencies, to really understand what it is we want to accomplish at the end of the day with the project and what the long-range plans for the park are. We actually involve them from the outset. We actually bring the construction people in as part of the preliminary planning and design team, and federal highways and park staff are involved throughout the life of the project. We do the environmental analysis, working closely with the park, and we do the design work and meld it all together into a set of plans and specifications for the construction and hire a contractor and the federal highways and the park service have staff on the ground working with the contractor through the construction process to get the project built. This is not the kind of construction you see on state roads or on highways anywhere across the nation. It's very complicated ecologically. It's very complicated culturally. It's very complicated in terms of management. I mean, how many places in the world do you have bison moving through or grizzly bears or erupting plumes of smoke and hot water, bubbling mud? And how do you design a bridge to go over a steaming, heated thermal area that's probably one of the hottest in the whole park? What kinds of technology can you use? They manage the entire country. It's a huge responsibility. And on these roads, we're talking about 100-year decisions in a lot of respect. The federal highways, by being our partner and involved with those long-term decisions, are really helping from cradle to grave. So I think they will always be involved with Yellowstone. Federal highway and its partners know well that building a highway means more than just the contract and the construction. When we initiate at Federal Lands any project, we begin what's called a social economic and environmental team. And that's a partnership of all of the agencies that are stakeholders in the project that have an interest in it from either a monetary or resource advantage point. This is the primary access road to Yellowstone National Park. And they have been key players in this. I know that their interests have been listened to and accommodated. The people at Federal Highway and their partners make this happen. They've held public meetings. They've captured the concerns of the communities in this area. I think they're bringing the glue for putting all the different agencies with the local communities and trying to come up with a plan that we can all be proud of and will work for the Beartooth Highway. The tunnels were built. Vehicles were not as high as they are today. We now have a lot of SUVs on the road. We also have a lot of RVs coming through the park. And a lot of vehicles were hitting the sides of the tunnels. And we had even had a couple of accidents in the tunnels because people were hugging the center line. And then you'd have opposing traffic coming on the other side and it caused problems. We had been looking at the tunnels for a long time with Eastern Federal Lands Highway. We knew that to do the work on the tunnels, it was going to require us to close the road for a certain period of time. The initial reaction from the public was negative. We had some major concerns over the construction because our livelihood depends on tourism. And we didn't want tourism interrupted because the main flow of revenue for my child. Federal highways worked within the local communities. We've had several meetings, not only with public, the members of the public, but also with officials from the local communities. The park designed a plan to do the construction on the tunnels with minimum impact on the flow of traffic and interruption to our tourism industry. The construction was designed so that there would be 10-minute delays through the tunnels. My people were grateful and I'm glad it was done. We have access to what the newest technology is in terms of road building, whether it's making the road safer or more efficient for people to use or getting information to motorists that need to use that roadway system. The Cumberland Gap National Historic Park stands on the shoulders of the junction of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. It faced the preservation challenge of adding tunnels to divert traffic from the more historic areas of the park. America's historic gateway to the West would be the best description of the Cumberland Gap. The project itself has been a monumental partnership between the Federal Highway Administration and the National Park Service, encompassing multiple contracts to ultimately build the tunnels, relocate to US highways, construct several bridge overpasses, and highway interchanges as well if it's one of a kind. One of the features of the Cumberland Gap Tunnels is the ventilation system. It's the first of its kind in the United States. We have 75 horsepower jet fans in pairs mounted every 600 feet within the tunnel. We also have cross passages that gives access to fresh ventilation at any point of the tunnel. What formed into a partnership with the National Park Service and the Federal Highway Administration became a real design and engineering marvel that to this day is looked at by others all around the world. Just last week, we had Russian transportation officials here studying how this tunnel was built. Chair Haley Skyway is a scenic highway that rivals any in the United States. During construction, the contractor encountered an acid-producing rock called Anakista, whose runoff was polluting trout streams. Steep side slopes challenged their ability to fill. Federal Highway and the Forest Service had to develop new methods to overcome both these technical challenges. They came up with a design to encapsulate the Anakista to eliminate that acid runoff into the stream. They used a variety of things such as nylon roving, to line the ditch lines, and to prevent erosion. FHWA was probably on the cutting edge of a lot of different techniques on this project. Natchez Trace, one of the original highways of our nation, forged by the footsteps of Native Americans, trappers, and traders. The parkway here parallels and criss-crosses the original trace. It offers a unique case as one of the few national parks where the roadway is actually the park. Like each of the federal highways we have been visiting, the Natchez Trace Parkway stands as a symbol of all the virtues embraced by federal highways partners. Sensitivity to the environment and culture. Involvement from beginning to the end of the project. Coalition building with local communities and other agencies. Sophisticated technical knowledge of safety, mobility, and convenience. One of the main objectives of building a modern parkway is to design a roadway that lies lightly on the land. When we're building a road, we need to know what the fabric of that location is about, so that we can provide a transportation system that fits in with the very fabric of the location that we're trying to serve. We work with the federal highways administration so well, because they do work with laying lightly on the land the roads, because of the fact that the resources are absolutely important. And the visual experience that you have from being on those roads are critical. If it weren't for us and the work that we do, Americans wouldn't be able to enjoy the vast amounts of public lands that we have in this nation.


Lo and behold, Tommy Lahren is not really impressed with it. Y'all can keep your feet meat trash. Why am I not surprised? Okay, some huge news out of Spain here. This is causing division, like massive division. Now you've got farmers and the conservative crowd on one side of the fence. Then you've got people who are more progressive, pro the environment, pro animals on one, another side who are for this. JBS, the world's top beef supply. They actually own Pilgrims, which is the company that exposed their gas chambers a few weeks back, is building a lab-grown meat plant. Let's have a little read of this. Top global beef producer, JBS, is building the world's biggest plant for lab-grown meat in Spain. Now this is the part that made my eyes tear a little bit in a good way. The facility will produce about 1,000 metric tons of cultivated meat per year, with the capacity to expand output to 4,000 tons. I'm going to use the help of ChatGBT to look at how many cows 4,000 tons is.  So to calculate the number of cows and 4,000 metric tons of meat, we'd use a following calculation. 4,000 tons, approximately 7,353 cows. Wow. So one of these plants could save 7,353 cows a year. That's crazy. What about chickens? Oh my God, let's do it for chickens. Let's assume a weight of 2.5 kilograms, ChatGBT's saying. One metric ton is 1,000 kilograms. So ChatGBT seems to think that 4,000 metric tons of chicken flesh is equal to 1.6 million chickens, if we assume 2.5 kilograms of chicken. I don't know if those stats are right. Now, people often ask me, do I support lab grown meat? And the answer should be very clear. If it saves animals from being mass enslaved and murdered, tortured in most cases and killed, the answer is an emphatic yes. Now, JBS said they'll invest $41 million into the Spanish facility, which is expected to be finished next year. The company plans to spend $60 million on building a research institute in Southern Brazil to develop technology to make protein from animal cells. Wow. So they're investing $100 million into this. I think they know that cultivated meat is the future and exploiting and murdering animals is not a very sustainable business model. There are caveats to this though. Let's check out biotech foods of which is 51% owned by JBS. We want to be part of the solution. So let's have a look. What do they do here? What is our proposal? They want to make tasty meat, no animal sacrifice. The reason I'm looking into the company here, I encourage everyone to look into companies that say that they are doing lab grown meat. How do they cultivate the cells? So basically they take the cells, they put it in some type of medium, providing the temperature, basic nutrients, water, proteins, carbohydrates, fats and vitamins to produce some meat. So they're basically just doing what a body does, but in a petri dish or in some type of reactor. The sample is where I would be a little bit concerned. So where do they get the sample from? The starting point for the elaboration of cultivated meat is the extraction of a small sample of meat from an animal without causing them suffering. Now they called the animal it, so that's not a good start. But if they take a small biopsy of an animal, take pluck of feather from a chicken, a small biopsy from a cow, and they save 7,000 cows a year or 1.6 million chickens a year, that is completely morally justified. If you think that's not, then you have got a screw loose. All right, a biopsy, take my biopsy, go on. I know I can consent, but even if a chicken cannot consent to a biopsy, it's completely justified at that point to save 1.6 million chickens. And these chickens aren't even going to be harmed. I've seen a company called Supermeat do this. They take one cell, one biopsy from a chicken, a fallen feather. They can take a fallen feather and they can cultivate a bunch of flesh from that one fallen feather.  But I don't think that that's the case and I don't think they have to do that. Once they've started cultivating these cells, they've got an infinite amount of cells at that point. So do I support it? Now, of course I support it with these caveats. They're not harming, exploiting, violating the rights of some animals to save other animals. But here it just seems completely benign, small biopsy or whatever. Is everyone going to be for this? Let's have a look on Twitter. Lo and behold, Tommy Lahren is not really impressed with it. And who is she? She's a Fox News commentator. Well, why am I not surprised? Most people from Fox News are just absolutely so conservative. They don't want to see anything change, even if it's the mass murder of billions of animals being abolished for a lab-grown meat alternative. Giving animals rights is a very progressive movement. So you're going to see a lot of conservatives who are anti-vegan, who are anti-change. You actually see them being quite anti other topics, progressive topics as well. And they lump veganism and animal rights in as this far left movement. So they just immediately oppose it. Here's her comment on Twitter. The world's largest meat processing company, JBS, says plans to construct the world's largest lab-grown meat plant in Spain. No, thank you. I'll stick with American beef from American ranchers with good ranchers. Y'all can keep your fake meat trash. It's not actually fake meat. It's just, it's animal cells cultivated. And you know, Tommy Lawrence probably doesn't have a, have a clue what what cultivated meat is, but she probably also doesn't care that animals are decapitated so she can eat their body parts. Because she's probably so disconnected from the slaughter process and what the animals have to go through that she lives in a delusional world of humane happy slaughter and good ranchers. Look at this. Wow. Look at their insignia on their Twitter page. 85% of grass-fed beef is imported from overseas. 100% of our products come from local American farms. We are American meat delivered. Good old American conservative chopped up body parts. Sounds horrifying. Do they have any images from the slaughterhouse in here? Oh, no MRA and A vaccines or antibiotics. Wow. That's always positive, isn't it? No vaccines in their cows. Oh, it's sourced sustainably and locally. And we all know that if the slaughterhouse is local, then the decapitation of the animals is completely justified. And look, they even got bacon. They even got bacon. Do they gas those pigs? Or do they just stab them in the neck? Wow. I'd rather not have meat cultivated in a dish.  You see how evil, I'm going to use the word evil it is to oppose a system that makes the slaughter of animals obsolete. Now we're talking exactly the same meat, flesh, that people are used to, that taste they like. I personally won't be eating it. I don't know about you. Leave your comments down below. Will you be eating lab grown meat? I definitely, definitely will not. But I will support anyone, including vegans, if they want to eat lab grown meat because it's ethically vegan at that point. It is ethically vegan and I will be up there promoting it lab grown meat to people because if it tastes more like meat than plant-based meat does and it helps save animals, then I'll be promoting it. You can count on me to promote it. Even if JBS are producing it, I would still promote their lab grown meat just so that they see it as a good business move to shift over to just completely lab grown meat. That would be massive for animals. Now you can see the other people that appear stuff about this one is we're going to the UK now. What have we got in the UK? I like my meat to have been grazing in a field, not grown in a lab. I like my flesh to come off of sentient beings stabbed in the neck, not grown in a lab. They automatically assume because it's grown in a lab or cultivated in a dish that it's less clean or it's going to mess you up. What do you think flesh is? What do you think happens to animals in the UK in America? They grow in factory farms most of the time.  I just don't get it. Like what is your problem? You'd rather murder animals than eat lab grown meat. It's just illogical. It's cruel and it's psychotic. Farmers will have a fight on their hands to stop this or it will be lab meat in the future. Oh my God, could you imagine man? Could you imagine getting rid of slaughterhouses?  If you had to walk down the kill floor like a cow did, you'd be happy with the decision for lab grown meat in the future. But you know, human supremacists, they don't see it from the animals position.  I, for one, support lab grown meat.  That's my position on lab grown meat. There's a bunch of other things you could talk about when it comes to lab grown meat. But I want to hear your opinion. What do you think about this? Do you think it's fake like these people are saying? Or do you think this is good for the environment, good for the animals and something that you would actually eat even as a vegan? It's not dietary vegan, but it is ethically vegan. And yeah, what do you think about Tommy Lauren? Do you think she's going to hold the world back? Or do you think we should just, she should just shut her mouth and let things progress? I'd like to hear your thoughts down below and I'll see you all in the next video.


We're going to walk through how to reset your page's metrics on Mighty Cause. Once you're logged into your account, go to your avatar on the upper right-hand side of the screen and then click on your non-profits dashboard. Once you're on your non-profits page, find your Mighty Cause manager on the left side of the screen and click Profile and then click Page Settings from the submenu. Your metrics are your top option on the page settings screen and here you can customize what's displayed on your page. You can include dollars raised and then include offline donations if you'd like those reflected on your page as well. If you would like to turn that off, you can just unclick the box. Your donor account, which is the number of individuals who've made a donation to your page and you can also add a goal and progress bar, which is really handy if you're participating in a giving event or launching a new campaign and you can toggle these buttons on and off just by clicking on them. To reset your page's metrics, you want to choose a different calculation method. By default, we will calculate the number of dollars and donors since the creation of your page on Mighty Cause, but to reset it, click starting on a specific date and then click into this field and simply choose the date and time from which you would like to count donors and dollars raised. So we'll choose the 24th and typically you'll want to choose midnight so you capture all of the donations made on that day, but if there's a specific time that your event starts, you can also choose that time and that will zero out your donations on your page. So click on live page and you can see that those are either removed or only reflect donations that were made after the date you'd set. If you have any questions, you can always email us at support at mightycause.com for additional assistance.


When it comes to diet and cognitive decline, I've talked previously about glycotoxins, which are created when high-fat, high-protein foods are exposed to high dry heat like broiling or roasting. In this video, we look at endotoxins, which are inflammatory components of bacteria that can end up in our bloodstream. How might the presence of these toxins relate to Alzheimer's? Watch to find out. Having a high cholesterol level in your early 40s is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia decades later. And your cholesterol doesn't have to be that high to increase dementia risk. A 57% higher risk of developing Alzheimer's than a total cholesterol of 240 compared to under 200.  This may be why higher saturated fat intake was found to be associated with the development of worse global cognitive function and memory decline and apparent acceleration of brain aging as if you were six years older. How can we cut down on saturated fat by cutting down on cheese, cake, ice cream, and chicken, essentially atop sources in the American diet, but also pork, burgers, and beef in general? In my video on the role of glycotoxins in cognitive decline, I profiled this study showing that just five days of a high-fat low-carb diet impairs energy metabolism in the heart as well as cognitive function, concluding such diets are detrimental to the heart and brain. Now they were thinking the impaired energy production may have accounted for the brain dysfunction as well, but high levels of dietary glycotoxin, so-called AGEs, are also associated with cognitive decline, so we may want to cut down our intake of baked broiled or grilled meat to chicken or fish, as well as certain dairy products, but there's another possibility. Metabolic endotoxemia, a potential underlying mechanism of the relationship between dietary fat intake and risk of cognitive impairments. Endotoxins are highly pro-inflammatory components of certain types of bacteria like E. coli that are released when bacteria die and can end up being absorbed through our gut wall and end up in our bloodstream resulting in what's called endotoxemia. The highest levels of these endotoxins are found, not surprisingly, in foods like meat that are contaminated with bacteria, both bread meat and white meat, and having elevated levels of endotoxins circulating your bloodstream may be detrimental for healthy aging associated with a large range of diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and depression. Put people on a high fat, low carb diet for five days and endotoxin levels in the bloodstream roughly double. Endotoxin levels before and after a few days on a high fat diet. In fact, even a single meal can do it. Give people some sausage and egg McMuffins with hash browns and you can get a significant increase within hours after the meal. How do we know it wasn't the refined carbs in the muffin or something?  In fact, you can have people chug straight sugar water, no change in endotoxin levels, whereas there was a big jump within hours drinking straight cream, which is pretty much straight fat, and not just any kind of fat, but mostly saturated fat. A double-blind randomized crossover trial demonstrated that a single meal high in saturated fat can impede attention, meaning the cognitive ability to distinguish target stimuli from distractors in a computer game, compared with an identical meal high in the kind of fat found in nuts, seeds, and avocados. And this cognitive deficit was present five hours after the meal, and who knows how much longer after that. There are two ways to cut down on endotoxin bursts after meals. One is to not eat so many in the first place, but if you do eat meat and dairy, the addition of fiber-rich foods can blunt the endotoxin surge. Same sausage and egg McMuffin endotoxin bomb, but with or without fiber-1 cereal, which would be like 30 grams of fiber. And it seemed to glom on to the endotoxins preventing the bump of endotoxemia three hours after the meal. The fiber also reduced the oxidative stress the free radicals generated by such a meal, showing clearly that the addition of fiber to the high-fat, high-calorie meal had profound effects on metabolic and inflammatory events after the meal. And over time, meal after meal, this could have long-term implications. Recent investigations reported higher abundance of endotoxins in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease on autopsy. Endotoxins building up in the memory center of the brain, the region of the brain that develops the earliest and most profound neuropathology in Alzheimer's. Some advanced Alzheimer's patients had up to a 26-fold increase in endotoxin levels over age-managed controls without dementia. And where were the endotoxins concentrated? Smack dab in the middle of the amyloid plaques, a pathology characteristic of Alzheimer's. The endotoxins are standing red here, and the amyloid standing green. You can see how they superimpose right over each other, suggesting endotoxins may be playing a role in the formation of these plaques like cappins in the brains of other animals. For these and other reasons, proper nutrition has been proposed as a promising non-medical strategy to prevent cognitive decline and subsequent dementia.


So, as I wait for the OERU, our real core business is wanting access to more affordable education for all learners worldwide using OER. It's an innovative model and it's a low cost, low risk but high impact model. We can move on to the next slide. The OERU concept is a simple but a powerful model. We assemble open online courses based entirely on OER, which makes it possible for learners to access these courses at no cost. And our partner institutions from around the world offer assessment services on a fee for service basis with pathways to achieving transcript credit towards designated credentials. The next slide there. So basically how this works, our OERU contributing partners, each assemble two online courses as I mentioned based entirely on OVR and open access materials. They offer assessment services and our model is a transfer credit model. So each of our individual partners who assess these courses for formal credit will issue transcript credit which then articulates across the network to our designated credentials. Moving on to the next slide. We are just about to launch our first year of study which will have two exit credentials, a certificate in general studies that will be conferred by Thompson Rivers University in Canada. As well as a certificate of high education business which will be conferred through the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland. I'd also like to highlight a foundation for what's learning in a digital age has really been set up to build the competencies and skills for our learners in the digital and learning literacies for the 21st century. En enabling our learners to engage and participate more meaningfully in the OERU program. Moving on then to the next slide. I do want to acknowledge that a number of our courses have been proudly remixed from at least eight of the Sailor Foundation courses. I think this is a good example of how we collectively in the OERR space are building on the ecosystem. We have converted and remixed these courses for the OERU delivery platform. But in return Sailor will be getting benefit as well because they would be able to list more tertiary education institutions around the world who would be able to assess Sailor courses for formal credit. But in addition to that the courses that we have assembled that are perhaps not on the books of the Sailor Foundation could easily be converted for the Sailor delivery platform and integrated. That's building the ecosystem together using open approaches. The next slide. I think I should say something about our delivery platform. We do not use a learning management system. This is not a philosophical decision to rid the shackles of learning management systems, but rather a pragmatic approach in dealing with version control and collaborative course development. We assemble and author all our courses using a wiki, using the popular media wiki's open source software that you'll be familiar with that runs Wikipedia, which provides us with version control. We have the mechanisms to generate published websites which at the moment are running on WordPress, which gives the ability for any educator, any education institution in the world to publish and host their own OERU online courses. Our interaction technologies are component based and we have some smart ways of connecting these courses together. Moving on to the next slide there. As I indicated in the beginning we are an international consortium of some 30 institutions with a footprint in 12 countries. This presents a number of unique challenges and opportunities for the network that typically national based institutions aren't having to grapple with. One of course is the differences in course sizes in different parts of the world. So for example in North America a typically created course would equate to 120 notional learning hours, whereas in Australia it's 160 notional learning hours, in New Zealand it's 150 notional learning hours. In the United Kingdom a typical module which is there equivalent of a course would be 200 notional learning hours. How we manage to deal with this challenge is to assemble all OERU courses as micro courses which equate roughly to 40 notional learning hours. So this then becomes an international currency if you will for figuring out articulation across international boundaries. In North America for example a learner would have to complete 3 of the OERU micro courses to equate to roughly 2 to 3 credits whereas in our part of the world they would have to perform micro courses. So this creates additional opportunities. Onto the next slide. Some of our partners will be offering micro credentials. I have a picture there of a slide of the etiquette which will be launched by a talk about the technique in the next couple of weeks. We learners will be able to earn digital badges for our micro courses. I bring this together in thinking about articulation into the formal education sector. The next slide there which I think is slide number 10. For example the Great Sustainable Futures course which is a first year level course comprises 4 micro courses in the New Zealand system. If a learner can take each of these micro courses individually and only if they want they can apply or assess learning to earn a digital badge and if the learners have completed 4 digital badges that are mapped to the full credit bearing course they will qualify for credit which they are articulating to our exit qualifications. The next slide and this will be my last slide. The OERU model is a philanthropic model. No new money is required. Our recurrent costs or assessment services are guaranteed. We are targeting underserved markets so we are not aiming to cannibalise the existing costs of the formal sector and the circuit has provided opportunities for generating new revenue streams. We have done quite a bit of work in the ground open business model which you are licensed to which you are free to download to have a thing to see how these approaches and support and help your own institution. So given my late arrival due to technical difficulties I will leave it there. Thank you very much for your kind attention. Thank you very much Wayne.


Hello everyone, I thought this graph was super interesting. So the blue line represents the cases of the illness and the red line indicates the cases of complaints to the Yankee candle company. This correlation can only mean one thing. Correlation isn't the same as causation.


So you want to use flat cars or Anki Deck in medical school, but you want to make sure you're using them effectively and quickly. How do you do it? That's exactly what we'll talk about in this video. Let's get into it. Hi guys, welcome to the MD Journey, a channel completely dedicated to helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. If you're new here, my name is Laksh. I am an internal medicine physician and resident in training, and this channel is all about putting two videos per week at least to help you succeed on your medical journey with studying, productivity, you name it. So if you're new here, hit that like button and consider hitting that subscribe button. Today, we are talking about Anki cards and flash cards and how to do them more effectively, how to do them more efficiently. And I've made a lot of videos on the channel below of my specific unique method of how I use Anki. And I'll link down below my five hour kind of study method in medical school. But I will be sharing my screen, basically what I want to show is a few different techniques that I use when I'm doing flash cards. One, how I make them and two, how I try to review them as well as think about them. So the first process is how I make them. Now really there's one or two ways. One, I just don't make them and I use pre-made Anki decks. And so we'll talk about a few of the options or two, if I'm trying to do something from class and I use a very kind of efficient method, which again, I'll link down below, but I'll kind of allude to a little bit in this video. And finally, I want to give you my recommended way of getting through flash cards quicker as well as examples of what your study schedule would look like if you chose to use Anki decks as your study method. Now, first things first, let's talk about different options that you have for Anki decks. So those I mentioned, you can either use some that other people have created. And so, for example, here I have some Anki decks. And so this is probably the biggest library as a making of this video, with different resources from Patelma, from First Aid for studying for step one, as well as your classes of essentially countless amounts of material on every different topic. So immunology, MSK, neurology, psych, you name it. But there's also other different Anki decks such as Brolin, Cephalons, Peppers, and I forget the names of all the other ones. So you guys can put in the comments if you have your own personal favorite. But essentially, what you'll see is that it's going to ask you a very kind of short one fact question that may refer to a piece of information shared on First Aid or something that's important to learn for step one. And so as you can see, they're pretty quick and easy to get through. And you can choose if you want to see them in a minute or two minutes. Now, pre-made Anki decks are great because it saves you a lot of time of not having to make them yourself as well as it's very quick and easy to actually do them just because it's either you know them or you don't in terms of information. But in terms of how to make flashcards for your classes using lecture slides or lecture material, here's the method that I like to use. And I'll link down below again, my five hour study technique. But here's a lecture or PowerPoint I have on my computer for osteomyelitis. And normally what people would do is that they would try to make multiple flashcards per slide and try to find a little bit of details they find that even for a slide deck that's 15 slides, which most lectures are much longer, they'll probably end up with 20, 30 or 40 different flashcard questions. And it just takes forever to make them. And so you never really have to time to actually do the review. So what I do is actually pull up them next to each other actually have a dual monitor so it's a little bit easier. But I create a new deck for whatever that lecture is. So you can go down here, create a deck. So we'll just call this osteomyelitis. And you can basically open this up and click add and then you can make your own flashcards that most people type in something for the front and the back of the flashcards but that's not my desired cup of tea just gonna takes forever. So here's an example of the imaging modalities that you can use to diagnose osteomyelitis. Some people may ask, you know, a question from this or they may ask a specific question for radiography for CT for MRI. What I like to do is just best imaging for diagnosis. So this is just the best way to diagnose. And then what I can do is I can go ahead and screenshot that specific slide and I can just copy that and add it in. Now, whenever I see that specific flashcard, the real question is, do I one know the best imaging for around diagnosis? But also then I can test myself on all the different elements of this specific slide like how useful as an MRI versus a CT versus, you know, a PET scan. And so it helps me understand all the information in one place has both the details as well as the big ideas and making that flashcard took, you know, 10 seconds. So before I show kind of how to review it, I'm just gonna make one more. So here's one antibiotic therapy. And if you're feeling really, really easy, then you can do just copy and paste the title of the slide itself. And then you can go ahead and just like I did in the last one, you can go ahead and just copy the whole slide. Now, everything doesn't have to be important. And if you want to add more notes, what you can do is you can open up the same slide and add your notes. So it's not completely limited to this one option. What I'm doing is I'm basically knowing that it's important for me to know the antibiotic therapy to treat OM, but I don't want to spend 20 minutes making multiple flashcards on this topic. So I'm going to take 20 seconds to make this. And then let's just say that I've finished all my flashcards, only two, but you know, we're going to say we have like 20 or plus more. And you go to study. The first thing that's going to show up is the best imaging for OM diagnosis. I'm going to ask myself, what's the sensitivity or specificity because I knew that I was on the slide for a CT scan versus a radiography. And let's say I remembered one piece of information, like I remember to CT scans were like, kind of 50 50 MI is a little bit better. Then I can say, okay, well, like that's the piece of information I learned. And then I need to learn all the rest of it. So I'm just going to click one minute. It's going to show it to me again. Now antibiotic therapy, you know, I know that bank is kind of your empiric choice, but I don't really remember the other ones. So I'm just going to give myself 10 seconds. And that's going to be a principle that we'll talk about to see if I know as much information, we give myself 10 seconds to say, what do I know? What do I don't know? And then I'm going to review this slide as quickly as possible and try to grasp one additional piece of information that I didn't know before, and then click one minute again. And then again, I would go, okay, I have a question again about that imaging. So CT scans was like 67% sensitivity, I believe. And then I was like almost 90% for MRI. So there you go. And now I'm going to say, okay, well, the sensitivity for radiography is like pretty terrible. So it's useful to rule out. So that's the one piece of information I'm going to take away. And I'm going to go ahead and show it again. So every time I'm doing this, my goal is to say how much of this information do I remember? And then what piece of information can I add on to my collection of knowledge for this big topic, which is antibiotic therapy in this situation? And then ask myself to do it again in one minute. So I find that this method specifically helps me get into the review phase very quickly. It does get a little overwhelming for students who do it for the first time, because they're not really sure how they can get away from having one fact for flashcards and now having a whole slide. But the big key, and this isn't going to be moving into the next portion of this video, is how do we do them faster? Now, the best tip that I have for you, regardless of you use this method to make your flashcards quicker, or if you use pre-made Anki decks, or if you use your own kind of personalized way of making flashcards, is to give yourself a timer for each Anki card that you do. And usually for me, I give myself five to 10 seconds. Basically, I say, when I see that question in five to 10 seconds, how much do I really know? And it's basically whatever comes to mind. Now, for example, in this situation, when I'm talking about imaging, I know in five to 10 seconds, I'm not going to know everything. In fact, I'm also going to know the things that felt uncomfortable about that slide. For example, I don't even remember looking anything about PET scan when I was reviewing this, but I know it's on there. So what I can say is I'm going to, five to 10 seconds, I know the sensitivity you have x-rays, I know the sensitivity of CTs and MRIs, but let's actually learn something about PET scans. It looks like PET scans are actually pretty good, but they're expensive. That's the one piece of information I'm going to take away in my 10 seconds of review. So 10 seconds to answer the question, 10 seconds to review, and then I'm going to click one minute again. And each time I'm doing this, I'm actually going to probably be saying this flashcard 10 plus times, but I'm going to be seeing it multiple times during my study session. And I'm going to be able to take away one extra piece of information and feel more comfortable with the entire slide, which is imaging modalities for osteomyelitis. So now if someone asks you a question, what are the best sources you're like, well, I know about x-rays, I know about CTs, I know about PET scans. I can tell you how all of them work together.  It's going to take multiple repetitions, but since you can make your flashcards quicker, you can also get to the review part and take longer and still be able to understand it much, much more. And I want to give an example for somebody who's using Zonkidex or pre-med decks, even when the questions are short, you should still give yourself five to 10 seconds to answer them. It's either you know it or you don't. But when you're in these situations where as an image or something where you can find yourself spending a lot of time in, again, give yourself only 10 seconds to really grasp, for example, in this figure. I'm going to say, well, I know there's a lot of things that could probably try to spend a minute or two trying to rewrite or remember. I'm just going to say, OK, but in this example, as I'm trying to learn the figure, I'm going to say, OK, let's try to understand the proteins for gap junction right now and desmosomes. And then I'm going to click one minute again, and it's going to show those to me again. So not only will I be able to answer the question for gap junction, which is what the slide was asking, but also be able to remember one or two more different things from the table without spending an excess amount of time. You can see how if you're doing 40 or 50 flashcards in a session, you'll be able to get through them much quicker if you're spending only 10 to 20 seconds per flashcard, giving yourself multiple flashcards per minute versus multiple minutes per flashcard. So of course yourself to have a timer to answer the question and to move on from the question again, because Anki is so awesome, you can show yourself in a minute or 10 minutes, depending on your comfort level, you pick when you think it should be a 10 minute versus a one minute review, and you just go from there. So to give one more example, here's a flashcard talking about the different layers of the epidermis. You know, I may not be able to remember all of the different phases in this figure, but if I can remember maybe the first two and call them the corneum and granulosum, I'm going to say, OK, those are the first two that I need to remember when I'm reshown this question again. And you go from there. And so every time again, the whole idea is about grasping a little bit piece of more knowledge than you had before. So far we've talked about how to make flashcards quicker, even how to do them more quickly. But I want to finally kind of leave you with study schedule or study plan you could use to actually make flashcards, your only kind of former resource to review and study and still be able to do quite well. So the first part of your study plan is going to be creating your actual flashcards that you have to do. And after using a pre-made deck like Zanky, you actually won't have to make the flashcards. But what I do recommend is maybe creating a separate deck in Anki where you can go ahead and create it for all your class material. So for example, if you're learning cardiology, you can create cardiology here. And then as you're going through class material, if you have a class such as about VCS or about murmurs, then you can create a deck about specifically murmurs under cardiology. Now what you can do is you can go into the frow section in Anki and you can find the cardiovascular section and find any question that you think may work for the murmur section. So here we have a question specifically we're talking about F2 sound and mitral stenosis. So you actually right click on them and then change the deck and make them into your murmurs deck for your lectures. Now you have a specific Anki deck using Zanky for the lecture you're about to have the next day. You can go ahead and test yourself. Now if you were to use my method of using screenshots to make your own lectures, simply you would make yourself spend about 30 to 40 minutes doing the three lectures that you may have the next day and not really very much else. Then what I like to do is go into class and whether you're using Zanky or your own made flashcards, I again go into the browse section and then find the flashcard that I had just made. And then if I have to add any piece of detail from lecture, I'll basically add them into Anki myself. Again, the whole idea here is to only make it high yield. So if it's not very pertinent or relevant, I try not to add it. But if I do think it's high yield or they say intent, it's going to be on the test. Definitely make sure it's going to be on there. Now after lecture, I give myself roughly about 30 to 40 minutes per lecture to review the 20 to 30 or 40 flashcards for that lecture. So roughly it's going to be if I had three lectures, then it'll take me about an hour and a half to review all of them. And again, the whole goal is to give myself 10 seconds to review or answer the question and then 10 seconds to review any other piece of information on that slide or for that flashcard to make sure I can answer it even better the next time. And then the whole process repeats itself that evening, you're going to go ahead and create flashcards for your next day. And if a test is coming, then you just have to give yourself an extra session in that evening or the day or the afternoon, anytime you have free to do some more flashcards from some of the old lectures that may also show up on the exam. That's coming. But this guy's is meant to be a video to help summarize how to use on key and do a little bit more effectively. If you do enjoy and make sure you hit that like button and that subscribe button. If you want more tips on how to use on key effectively one, you can check out my five hours study technique method on YouTube here as well as a full kind of free video course and how I studied in medical school, which I'll link down below. And that's part of just one of the many resources of the free library that we call an empty journey, the med vault. And so that'll be linked down below. And if you want more of our step by step resource on how to study as well to be more productive, I'll link all of those down below, including our books and our courses, hopefully you'll find some of them helpful. But with that being said, guys, thank you so much for watching. If you did find this helpful again, please support the channel by hitting that like button, hitting that subscribe button and also dropping your comments down below so I can make sure I can answer and help you as best as possible. Thank you for being a part of my journey. Hopefully I've been a little hope to you on yours. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.


Thank you. Without further ado, hopefully our next governor of the state of Vermont, James Ellers. Thank you for joining us today. This legislative session had enormous potential. Both chambers of the legislature were ready to make progress on the most pressing issues affecting working people. So first, I must thank and I will congratulate my legislative colleagues for a job well done, especially those of you that are here in attendance right now. Thank you very much for your leadership this session. You've served your fellow Vermonters honorably and your efforts deserve every Vermonner's appreciation. Thanks to the good work of the House and Senate legislative staff, particularly the Joint Fiscal Office, our state workers, and the countless Vermonters engaged in our unique and special legislative process. We had the opportunity to make our state more fair and just for all. But yesterday, Governor Phil Scott vetoed some of the most important legislation of this session. He vetoed paid family leave, H-196, a bill that would have made Vermont more affordable, not more expensive as he has just done. He vetoed a minimum wage increase. It too would have made Vermont more affordable for working Vermonters. But instead he chose to protect special interests. He vetoed the toxic chemical protection bills, particularly S-197, toxic substance exposure, choosing polluters over our fellow Vermonters. He vetoed, and I wish I could speed this up, but I didn't select how many bills he was going to veto. He vetoed a consumer protection bill that would protect Vermonters from unjust arbitration clauses, S-105. And we all know that's not all. He's threatened to veto the budget, a tribe partisan budget that passed nearly unanimously. He's threatened to veto tax reforms that would make our state more fair and dignified. And stunningly, he's even threatened to veto H-764, a bill to regulate companies that profit off of our data as consumers. Because it charges companies like Equifax in annual registration fee. Yes, the same Equifax that exposed the personal information of 150 million Americans. At the same time, H-764 would save Vermonters up to $8 million each year by eliminating the fee to freeze their credit. But this is how little Governor Scott prioritizes the needs of everyday Vermonters over big corporate interests. Let's be clear, Governor Scott would rather sell out Vermonters on protecting their personal information, which would save us $8 million annually in order to save large corporations like Equifax, $100. Think about that. And still, we don't know exactly when this session is going to end. One thing is certain, though. With a Governor who works with the legislature instead of against them to make life more fair and dignified for working Vermonters, there is no telling, no limit to what we can accomplish. That's why I'm running for Governor. To return the people's voice to the Governor's office. To see true progress in our state. No matter what happens in Washington, D.C. To ensure for every Vermonter we live up to the promise of our state motto, freedom and unity. In my administration, we will pass a people's budget that invests in our children and our most vulnerable instead of cutting school services and disability assistance. A budget that ensures the wealthiest among us pay their fair share. Some things that we're looking at. A luxury tax on homes could bring in $25 million annually. Just like going to eat at a nice restaurant costs more, living in a nice state costs more. Luxury homeowners can do more. We're going to govern honestly and transparently instead of putting taxes on a credit card for your kids and my kids to pay later. We're going to pass paid sick leave so no one ever has to choose between caring for a loved one and a job, a job that we have to have to survive. We're going to raise the wage so hardworking Vermonters can have the basics. The basics, the minimum necessary. A warm home, food on the table. We're going to protect our communities from toxic chemicals, both industrial and organic. Sanobacteria is ravaging communities throughout Franklin, Addison County, and we know how to stop it. Governor Scott has indicated he has no interest in doing that. After we saw the tragic contamination of drinking water in Bennington and Rutland that has had such harsh economic consequences in those areas and beyond, it is unconscionable that we are not acting swiftly. We're going to invest in public schools as the very basis for a good and just and economically sound society. And we're going to invest in the most fundamental necessity for life, clean water, and put an end to the poisoning and destruction of our drinking water supply. We're going to regulate companies that profit off of Vermonters data, like Equifax. These are bills I will champion and promote and sign as governor. These are bills for which it is unconscionable to wait any longer when our people, the House, the Senate, are demanding progress for a fair and just society now. Recently I read an article in Seven Days about a dad, Francis, who was caring for a 22-year-old son, Simon, who has severe disabilities. In response to extreme challenges faced by families like this one every day, Governor Phil Scott proposed a $4.3 million cut to the developmental disabilities services. This demonstrates just how incredibly out of touch Phil Scott is with the needs of ordinary Vermonters. He is willing to do anything to protect a small amount of corporate profits at the expense of families who are working tirelessly every single day to make ends meet. This blind faith in the religion of trickle-down economics to solve our problems is an empirically documented failed approach. It just doesn't work. It has never worked. It is only a smokescreen to side with wealthy and powerful interests for political convenience and expedience. We stand for fairness and dignity for every single Vermont man, woman, and child. And we won't rest until we see it happen, until we see a change in the Governor's office next year that stands for fairness and justice. And as a U.S. Navy officer, I served our country and I'm ready now to serve as our state's governor. And when I do, we will pass paid family leave, we will raise the minimum wage, and we will protect Vermonters and our water from toxins. Thank you to everyone who is here with us today, as we all know this is about we, not me. I think, despite my campaign manager's insistence, I'll make myself available for questions. Good. So how do you distinguish yourself from what you have been from your primary? It's pretty clear. I think even some of the interviews for your outlet, John, I've spoken candidly about the need for those who are the most well-off in this state to pay their share. The data is very clear. Those in the top 20% in the top quintile are paying roughly 8% of their income in taxes, while the rest of us are paying 12% to 13%. My primary opponent has said that there's absolutely no reason to raise taxes. She's even said at times to cop out. But in order for us to ensure that Vermonters have the opportunity, the freedom to live up to each of our own potential, then either corporations, for example, have to pay, or we wind up putting the subsidy on the taxpayer. And I think for corporations that are profiting off of Vermonters, the Vermont landscape, Vermont labor, they can do more, and I think the folks that live here who enjoy the highest quality of life can do more as well. So fundamentally, there's some major differences between myself and my primary opponent. First is I work to help Lex Sue Minner. She voted for Phil Scott. And I think that about sums it up. So you're using the deadlock that we're seeing today as a campaign opportunity. But what specifically, I mean, how would you resolve the impact? Except by agreeing to everything that the... So what you refer to as a campaign opportunity, I refer to as a leadership opportunity. So I would be in this building anyway, I think you know, leading on issues that remain specifically to the environment. I chose to run because the environment and the economy are interwoven. So some of the things that we're dealing with right now, because of this special session, well, for starters, we'd be saving taxpayers money, something this governor says he wants to do, without having had the need to bring everyone back into this building when we should be hiking or fly fishing or canoeing or trolling for lake trout. I don't know, pick something. But that's what I've heard from the vast majority of legislators in the building today is, there's absolutely no reason for a budget that passed with the overwhelming tripartisan support and the unanimous support in the Senate that we should be here today in this building, except for when we have a governor dedicated to politics instead of process. Thank you very much.