meeting to order. The first thing is to review and approve the agenda. And I don't think there are any changes to the posted agenda. Does anyone have any information different than that? Okay. Great. All right. So moving on to general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to comment on any topic that is otherwise not on our agenda. And if you would try to keep your comments to about two minutes that would be great. Also say your name and where you're from. And so I'm going to look at Cameron here and see if anyone is raising their hand or otherwise indicating they'd like to speak. So if you would like to speak you can either unmute yourself and start talking because you don't really have a queue right now or you can use your raised hand or a reaction emoji and I will I will find you and call on you. Oh Bill. Just quickly I know we're gonna have a formal conversation with our legislative delegation and we will welcome them all as that but I thought it'd be fun to welcome two former mayors to our meeting tonight.  It's so it's delightful to have you. All right. Anyone else? Jack? Jack I think you are muted. Still can't hear you there Jack. I'm gonna assume that we should probably move on unless Jack you can jump in later with whatever comment you want to make. He just said he asked me he asked a call and he thinks he's having he's having some trouble there. Okay great thank you. Okay well whatever he needs to do. He's working on it. He'll try. Okay. Alright so anyone else? Okay. Alright so moving on. So we are on to the consent agenda for today. Is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda. I'll second it. For the discussion. Well in favor please say aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay so the consent agenda passes and so now we are up to welcoming our legislative delegation. So thank you each for joining us here. I know your names are displayed here but I wonder if we could take just a second to have you each introduce yourselves and then I'm gonna turn things over to our committee our legislative committee and let them take it away but if we can start with some introductions that would be great. Maybe I'll just I'm just gonna call on folks in the order that you all appear on my screen. So I apologize if that's not the same order that it shows up for you but so I guess we'll start with Senator Ann Cummings. You're on. Been out of practice. It's been a whole week since I've been on zoom. It's a privilege to be here and thank you for having us. I'm one of the former mayor so it's always good to come home and see how the city is running seems to be doing well but looking forward to an update. Thank you. All right next up I have Representative Mary Hooper. Hi all. It is great to see you. Like Ann I'm feeling a little rusty after we were looking at our zoom statistics the other day and I hate to tell you how many thousands of hours we have we have logged in the past couple of months. So anyway it's good to see you. I'm not sure what you're looking for in terms of of an introduction other than a hearty hi. Just as a reminder I serve on the House Appropriations Committee and I'm also on the Joint Fiscal Committee and in the off session. Well I'm not sure when that is. I'm on the Joint Justice Oversight Committee and I know that you all have some interest in some justice related issues so I look forward to talking with you all about those interests. Thanks. Thank you. And actually I think that's really helpful to have that context of what committees you're on. So I'm going to back check and yeah Ann would you tell us what committee you're on. Yeah I chair finance which deals with property taxes which may be of interest and then I'm on health and welfare. Those with the two longest most hours in the Senate logged on Zoom so I now know why I was tired. I also chair Joint Fiscal and we're doing a lot more than normal this year in the way of approving COVID grants and staying on top of things. Great thank you. All right so next up I have Senator Anthony Polina. Welcome. Thanks for having me appreciate it. So it's nice to see you folks. I look forward to actually seeing you in real life with these days. I serve on government operations and agriculture so government operations as you know it doesn't have to do with local communities municipalities and we did a lot of dancing around to try to make it easier for local government to function during the pandemic but it's nice to have the opportunity to talk with you guys for a while. Thank you so much and so next I have Senator Andy Perchlich. Hi thanks for for having us here. I'm the newest senator just finished my my first term. I was served on transportation and we can talk about some transportation projects in the city and then also I'm on education. I have to say that it's pretty good for Montpelier to have two former mayors Montpelierites on the Joint Fiscal Committee. It's almost as good as Danville having each chair of the Appropriations Committee but that Montpelier will now have its own. They've got an even tighter connection than our former mayor. Thank you. Thank you and thanks again all for being here. I'm going to turn it over to either Connor or Lauren or Dan yes so yeah take it away. Great well I can kick it off and it's great to see everybody. Thanks so much for coming tonight. You know it's weird seeing you on Zoom instead of at the State House. We started we started this legislative committee just a few weeks ago had our first meeting and I think really we want this partially just to be an introduction and hopefully the first of many opportunities we can invite to the council just get an update on what's going on and try to keep our thumb on the pulse of the State House as much as possible. You know certainly I think the big things we want to talk about are you've seen yourself we recently cut 1.2 million dollars out of our city budget there with a rescission plan some very difficult choices we had to make and I think you know we see the big numbers coming out from state government of you know where's the money going what's going to businesses what's going to workers and I was hoping you know maybe we could have a bit of a discussion about what opportunities exist for maybe Montpelier to tap into some of these resources and what we should be doing to advocate at this level in the State House just with the last few weeks of the session coming up here so I think an update would be great of what's on the table what's common. The other thing I'd love to hear is you know the one thing I think we have a responsibility to advocate for is the charter changes and the one that comes to mind is you know the non-us citizen voting we had citizens in our town knocking doors getting petition signatures really working at a grassroots level to get this over the finish line get it on the ballot we had some success in the house getting it passed we really feel like you know it might be a small number of people this impacts but it's very real and very meaningful to the non-us citizens in town to feel that connection to their community and we heard from a few of them so I guess we'd love maybe Senator Polina to touch base on that too and so that's what I would love to hear I'll turn it over to Lauren and Dan if there's anything else I'm missing for tonight. For my part and I think that's the big things and really excited that you're here and as Connor said hope this is really an ongoing conversation and we can kind of reignite more regular contact with you all and be in better touch moving forward so appreciate your time and being here I know you've been so busy I think just one other issue that I know Representative Hooper mentioned was racial justice issues as well which have been obviously top of mind for a lot of our community have been an issue of a lot of discussion in City Council meetings in recent weeks so if there's an update of what the state's doing and if there's to be to be playing in advocating for any of that or in how we're moving forward with our own look at the police department and other systemic racism issues.  I'm just to add on a couple things to that one specifically to do with policing we know there was some discussion on where it ended up about requiring body worn cameras and I think generally our city has been very supportive of that but there are some pretty significant costs associated with that and also Supreme Court case about public records they're just wondering where that was at and what thought was given to dealing with those obstacles for local governments to adopt this curious where TIF legislation is and I think you know we've got an article coming on one of the very next items is a street closure for some rail work rail siding I think Senator Perchlich in particular had been involved in this and now it's happening and and we may be incurred with some costs so I don't know what we can do about that but it just seems like sometimes you wonder who's looking out for the local interests and the public interests on some of these rail projects so I don't know how we can talk through them and last is talking about funding you know every I would be I would lose my municipal government membership if I didn't ask about you know highway funding structures and grants because that is the lifeblood not only for us but lots of other municipalities so we won't get kicked off the league board this week. Before we jump into responses Dan did you want to add anything from the committee? The only the only other thing I would add is you know and I'm sure Representative Hooper and Senator Cummings you remember this from your days in the council we did come up with a legislative priorities list earlier on this year and if we haven't shared it with you we would certainly like to share it with you it does sort of encapsulate a lot of what we've discussed between the the four of us as well as sort of the overall points that the city has as as far as it's legislative priorities no big surprises you know funding I think can't be emphasized given the sort of circumstances of where we are in the city and the need you know as we face these budget shortfalls based on lots of new and and increased needs in some respects but I won't I won't belabor any other points but I I will echo the gratitude for the the four of you coming tonight it it's really great to have an opportunity to connect with you as our representatives and I think it's a great start to continuing this relationship so thank you all for coming. Great so and we can start with anyone who would like to jump in with a response or thoughts. Anthony go ahead. Yeah I guess I'll go back to what Colin said because it's it's an issue that the non-citizen voting issue charter change was for me a major disappointment it was really hard to like see the senate hesitate to do that I mean it's it's ungoverned operations we get charter changes all the time and generally the feeling has been amongst the members of the committee that if a community decides to do something who are we to tell them not to do it you know they want they voted on it they've discussed it they have meetings on it who are we to tell them they can't do a charter changes so we they're almost a given that they're going to pass this one just really got stuck in the senate we discussed it numerous times we actually discussed it informally and formally we talked about it at two different caucuses went back had a lot of back and forth about it there were members of the senate who felt that I think what it came down to was that they felt that voting was a privilege that you get when you become a citizen and you shouldn't be given it away because people are not citizens it was just I mean I don't want to go on about it it was just really frustrating but we never we did the vote counting on it a couple of times we I asked everybody how they were going to vote on it we were a couple votes short we talked about that another caucus a couple of days later and they did the vote count again and we just wasn't going to pass we always turned out to be two or three votes short of passing it on the floor of the senate so rather than bring it up and have it be killed in the senate floor we never really voted out of the committee it was really I was definitely disappointed and as an aside to that what it makes me think and I think it's something that you folks are also thinking about which is you know more home rule or local control for communities we did actually pass the bill it might be s106 I forget the number but it set up a pilot pilot program where 10 10 municipalities would be given the ability to do more of their own decision making for lack of a better way of putting it there were still hoops to jump through but it would allow you to make decisions without coming to the legislature all the time for charter changes and that bill passed the senate um and it had strong support in the senate pretty strong support certainly strong support on government operations committee but it is now stuck in the house government operations committee there has to move it forward so it's just interesting how these things how do you split these hairs I mean on the one hand the house government operations committee said yes to non-citizen voting but no to giving local communities more power in the senate than the opposite so I just want to mention that there is this bill out there which is still in the house which would allow communities to make more decisions without coming through the legislature as often as they do now um Connor Anthony that bill would be great if we got that over the finish line I think that would give us a lot of flexibility is that is there still an opportunity would it make sense for us as a council to send a letter to Jeanette White there to ask for a vote on this and in the next few weeks actually pressure if it's just two or three votes with the senate to try to try to get a vote on us you're talking about the government the non-citizen voting I mean I mean I don't know what to say I mean it's six or one half a dozen I think if you are inspired to write a letter to the committee and ask you to bring it to the floor I'd say sure go for it I think it's a long shot because the leadership so members of the leadership don't want to bring it don't don't want to come up on the floor so it depends on how you want to spend your energy I mean I was prepared to present it on the floor I thought we were pretty close but close doesn't necessarily mean you win so I don't want to discourage you from writing a letter or making a statement but I guess I'm just saying realistically I don't know if that would make a difference be quite honest you may want to think about that strategically I think it's worse to have something voted down than to just be right on the wall and picked up again next next year right which is why we didn't we never brought it to a floor vote because we thought we would lose and once you lose the floor vote it makes it harder to bring it up again later Andy did you want to jump into that I was going to say the same thing that Mary just came in great again well I just say I think this is this is where building a better relationship with with you as the legislative delegation because certainly if there's anything we can do to move the needle with members you know to have conversations with them I know on this particular bill I actually gave testimony in part because an early issue about constitutionality and Peter Teachout and I were able to testify about you know the constitutional qualifications and why this didn't offend the Vermont Constitution you know so if there is you know especially something like this where there is something we would certainly welcome the opportunity to make the case for these type of things even if it's you know obviously as a city we can't expend money on it but we're certainly here and available to have conversations with people and it's I think it's a great thing that we could do given the strong relationship that you know we have with all of you to be able to have some of those conversations with other other members who may not be fully on board yeah we and we heard good testimony and also there are some citizens of Montpelier who came in and talked to us and made a strong case we also talked to I forget a community in Maryland I forget which one it was but who have done it for a while and they voiced no problems with it so we we had what we needed in a sense what we didn't have was the commitment from enough senators we had enough information I think and I think you guys did a good job of coming in and making the case but there were just some people who just really got stuck they weren't they weren't going to move so you all asked a couple other questions that maybe I can just tick off on the highway funding we put in a hundred percent funding for local height for highway budgets in the quarter one bill knowing that the that that that money needed to get out the door so rather than doing it in you know a quarter and a quarter and a quarter we pushed it all out for you um on the body camera question and Anthony maybe you know this better but I'm pretty sure that the that the only issue with body cameras was for the state police and we did not make them everybody's nodding on that so that's not an issue we didn't press that push that burden back down on you um there was um some money that we put also put in the quarter one budget for community justice centers and I'm expecting because Montpelier CJC runs a transitional housing helps with transitional housing I think you'll see the way it was set up you should see an extra about 22,000 for that as well as 250,000 divided 14 ways just to help with some um 14 way 18 ways being the number of CJCs in the state so 18 divided into 250 for kind of what we called COVID related issues um so we tried I tried to figure out how to push some money down in that way and we also did and I think this was in the supplemental budget adjustment um 600,000 for community based programs like diversion and CJCs um the Department of Corrections may use a little of that money for some to supplement some work they're doing they're still sorting that out but we generally tried to figure out a way to move some money down into the community the one thing that I need to check on is and we had funding for the police social worker that we were going to share between Barry and Montpelier that was set up in the original budget that we were ready to vote on on March 13th um it was part of a federal grant and it should still be there but I need to confirm that with the Department of Mental Health um so no promises on that a question I had for you all is given I mean Connor and I believe me I understand this budget cutting pain um the notion behind the police social worker was that the Barry and Montpelier would add a bit of money to that if the money is still there from the state is the money still there from you all yes it is great okay so I'll I'll track that down and I fingers crossed that it's still there um I really am looking forward to kind of figuring out how to continue to enhance those sort of services I'm anticipating an interest growing interest in alternative sort of services instead of traditional police and and I I hope you all can give me give us some guidance on what you would like to see there so to be a push to put more social workers in the state police barracks and that's good but I don't know if that's the best way to try to put those services in place so any advice and insight you have on that will be welcomed because I do expect that will there'll be somewhat of a push to consider that when we do the rest of the budget in so bill yeah go ahead on that topic and Mary you and I had this conversation I think earlier this year but for everyone's benefit um and I I think this actually relates a lot at least to the local conversations about policing you know I some of the national stuff's just pretty abhorrent but you know a lot of our police departments here in the state have become the de facto social service agencies and this isn't happened overnight this has been since the 80s that the gradual cutback or from the state and federal funding of social services so we're dealing with substance abuse is on the street we're dealing with homelessness we're dealing with family issues we're dealing with kids in crisis so you know whatever can be done to to to increase and help you know those are those traditionally were state provided services and the locals you know we just kind of got what was left over and more and more and more that's being pushed on us because there just aren't the resources to deal with them so whatever you all can do to actually support the state human services efforts is going to help local governments here in Montpelier certainly but all across the state and and take some of this pressure off policing because there there certainly are plenty of times when they're dealing with things that another agency could could handle a lot more directly than than they can but at three in the morning they're the only ones out there and so that's who's getting the call of someone's flipping out or someone's abusing someone or someone's intoxicated or whatever that's who's skittling and then they're trying to get them to into the social service network and yes can our social social worker help absolutely but you know we're still it's it's a pebble in an ocean um and go ahead oh i'm sorry uh uh Mary did you have anything to follow up on that no let let an go but i one thing that we should talk about is housing money which is related to try you know the pebble in the ocean but let's let an go okay i was just i was just gonna say doesn't sound like things have changed in the last 20 plus years i used to say you needed an msw to be a member of the Montpelier police department and that was when we the state had closed the state hospital and we knew where an awful lot of the former residents had gone and the Montpelier police department was left to deal with it and to the best of my knowledge when i was there i was always very proud of how they did are we still called the Montpelier polite department i know we will call that at one point and i think we do you know it is easy to to kind of kick the problem down the road no one wants to raise money it's a painful thing to do what you're not picking up the schools are picking up and we have a crisis in both areas and the question gets to be um how do we fund it and you know and what do we cut or what do we raise and it's it's a hard issue and right now while we're talking the state is looking at Mary correct me i think the general fund is it something like a 200 million dollar deficit the property the education fund we were at 150 million looks like people ran out and bought big appliances with online with their bonuses so we're down to just a hundred million but that's somewhere between a 10 and a 12 cent property tax increase to cover um we know we can't do that we know people can't handle that but when we go back we're going to have to cover the deficits in both funds in both funds and right now you know it's been like Christmas we've had federal money to hand out uh but it's almost all hot handed out and it's um it it's going to be a rough few months in starting in august because we have essentially kicked that painful can down the road so if i can continue one of the questions was what can we use from you and i think i've been fielding questions for the last couple days from sole proprietors who are not happy with the lack of funding that they're getting um you know we're trying to figure out how do you give money to tenants or do you give money to landlords and how how is it working out and you're the ones that are really in touch with downtown and what's happening in downtown who's coming who's going what it would take to make them stay um and let us know so then we have some actual data to be making decisions on i think that would be very helpful other than we're saying well it must be like this so getting some really concise information from you would be very helpful so before um we keep going i'm just keeping track of uh comments that you are questions that you all brought to us so uh so mary just thinking about your question about um social worker uh embedded in a police department and potentially in with uh state police i i guess i would just say on that point i mean we're still learning we think this is going to be on a value add to the community and i think that it makes sense for us anyway i think you're probably checking about that in in another year after we've had some experience with that but and you're probably aware of this um but uh just in case um you know anyone out there is not we also did uh hire a street outreach person to work specifically with our homeless population and so that um that's also new this this fiscal year and i i i think is have some um again some real value and it'll be interesting to see what the kind of impacts um both of those positions make so something to follow up about in the future um and then um coming back to your your question ann about uh having specific data about how is who who still is in trouble and who's um uh whose needs are not being met uh you know it makes me want to connect you with um uh our the mob appeal your lives uh recovery coordinator uh gene is it kissner something again um who would be able to i think provide some specific data met with the downtown development people sure maybe two weeks ago yeah okay not quite the same yeah sorry go ahead Dil yeah so it's a different entity and there's i think they well they may be tracking similar things but uh be good to get both perspectives i think they the uh recovery coordinators uh that role is really intended to help uh connect businesses with all the resources that are out there and so presumably any business that is still struggling uh to you know make make it all work is hopefully going to be in touch with that uh that person so uh j did you have a comment yeah i'll just uh throw in there and just so you know mob appeal your live actually put out a survey this morning all their member um businesses downtown and otherwise looking for specific data um you know what grants have you've gotten what loans have you've gotten how many employees do you have are you breaking even when do you expect to break even so like it's a very data driven survey so it just went out i don't know probably nine o'clock this morning so i think that so i can connect you with dan groberg i think they're they're putting together a lot of those specific that those data points to help you know guide some of these bigger decisions that would be very helpful to get a copy of once it's done yeah well i'll be sure to connect you thank you um super other um thoughts from uh from folks uh let's go uh snare polina and then Lauren just to jump around a little bit i want to go back to the police thing just for a minute because there's another angle that we've been looking at it from as well where we've added members to the law enforcement training council group to try to create more diversity and change some of the operations of the law enforcement training councils that our officers who come out of the council come out of the training program are better equipped to deal with some of the social issues we're talking about adding members who represent the human rights commission organizations such that the racial equity director to the law enforcement training council board but also to encourage them to come up with a program that would require prospective police officers to actually do internships and work with the mental health agency or some other street agency before they become police officers so that they get that there's that you know that way of experiencing what's going on on the streets as well so i think that's just something to keep in mind um with there also i think we put in there this was in a miscellaneous law enforcement field i think we put in there as well requiring a group to come up with a way to um cooperatively buy bodycams so that they can reduce the cost for communities who are going to use them so that's that's another thing the other thing i want to mention and i'm not sure where this is going to come from where you're going to go to get this but we did allocate 13 million dollars for municipalities to try to recoup some of the money that was lost due to COVID-19 so i'm not sure exactly what that will cover but there's 13 million dollars there that is going to go to local communities municipalities i'm not sure yet where you know what agency is going to come from and what the guidelines are going to be but that's something to keep in mind as well 13 million dollars say we we allocated it then it got cut back in the house we were able to put the money back in again in the senate so that's something to keep an eye on and that specifically could potentially be used for lost revenue i mean that's something that no okay that's that's kind of what i had i had a better sticker and all this stuff okay just thought i'd clear by that go ahead they're not making it easy yeah that's the beds nice try mayor what you should always be trying to do if you can make an argument that you um are that is covering business disruption sometimes you can back into it and and that's also part of the reason the the money for the local governments was structured the way it was is because it was being organized in a way that you could you could take advantage of it that the feds wouldn't make you pay it back that's our big big fear is being forced to pay this money back so they're giving you money but they're making it hard to spend the money yeah it's very frustrating so mary if it's not for deficit what's it for do you have some i guess i didn't hear clearly what you said you could spend it on business disruption and and so i i i've not heard that phrase used around local government but certainly all of the economic recovery monies have been used have been framed as business disruption the reason that we the the money that we are trying that we have allocated for the community justice centers and um the those other local efforts we have framed as um needing to do cleaning or to buy tablets or you know trying to make it fit into that framework of how you're having to reimagine how you're providing services so the CJC have to um you know reorganize how they're working with clients and so that's how we justify that so going forward if you can think about how to you know the services that you need to be providing if they're different services and maybe there's an argument that therefore they could be covered by crf sorts of money um there's a 140 million that we left on the table in anticipation of of different guidelines are needing or are different needs um the best part of the world would be if the feds would send us another pot of money if they do it will happen really rapidly so if you i mean and none of us know what the guidelines are going to be or the limitation so we're we all need to be really ready to kind of thank creative lake and smart lake an example of something that would not be approved i talked with the barry city council and they were looking at the money they've lost because they could not rent out the bor building and you know others other lost revenue that they were trying to recoup and they were pretty much told that that would not be appropriate that's a helpful analogy thank you or comparison um lauren i know you've been waiting here a little bit and then andi yeah i was just hoping to hear a little bit more about we've touched on homelessness a couple times but i know that some really kind of creative and impressive work happened um to house people and we just love an update on kind of where things stand and what you see coming up and you know the city has been allocated for homelessness services or the street outreach worker that we that an mentioned um and some other kind of flexible dollars so just getting a sense of what what the city's role might be and what the state is doing right now would be really helpful so i i can jump in on that maybe yeah so we um the total housing package was about 83 was 83 million dollars 23 million went to the vermont housing conservation board to and that was their estimate of what they would be able to push out the door and have expended by december 30th which is the deadline they had 56 million dollars of applications and they're i can't imagine how hard they're having to work to push that out there um is i i'm not remembering the dollar amount but a good deal of money um to help with rental assistance and you know kind of doing first and last for people or covering some rental loss that was another sorry to interrupt that's 25 million dollars yeah yeah i mean it was really impressive yeah so thanks for that um anthony um helping with utility arrearages so anthony mentioned what we put in and they increased it on the utility arrearages we put in i think 20 million and the senate reduced it um to about 13 and that's just the give and take between the two bodies but we were trying to pay attention there and then we also did and i think it was 13 million for um rehabbing uh homeless shelters it's not that's a wrong number it's not 13 13 was something else um maybe it was eight or nine million to help out specifically with rehabbing um some homeless shelters and you know enabling them to take clients again uh and then finally a package that was put together that will enable the state to wrap some services around people needing how in needing more of the ongoing housing services um and that will last for beyond this you know december 30th and i'm particularly excited about that because that's what it's going to take to make that sort of fundamental shift and housing and and and providing homes for all vermonters um i haven't asked had an update recently from the department of children and families which is kind of the locus of of this work but i know that they were preparing to um become go back to their more prescriptive guidelines and expectations in terms of people's behavior in in housing that they were providing um and uh you know during the height of the pandemic there it was a pretty open-ended um um set of of rules that there weren't any rules really they were just trying to keep people housed which i'm thrilled that they did i think we're all thrilled but but they are um beginning to come back to and have expectations of meeting certain standards if if people are receiving services um so you may begin to see and maybe have already begun to see some disruption there you know changing in the way services are being provided and and the way housing is being provided and i think that huge kudos to dcf for how hard they have worked to make this work 2000 people were housed um during the height of the pandemic and if everything falls in place at least a thousand people should be seeing how opportunities to have homes as a result of this money that that has come down the pike may maybe even more but just adding up what people were saying that they were creating it's it's it's close to a thousand and there was no covid positive homeless people during the whole time which i think vermont was the only state or one of the few states because of the quick action of dcf to get them all into hotels and things like that um andy anything um uh you had your hand raised earlier and i don't have anything else on the homeless effect if anthony ran want to talk about that well i just wanted to say i think it is great that we are talking about it it would be good to do it at the beginning of the session obviously i hadn't seen the legislative agenda did it send it out for this meeting so that was interesting to read of course it would be maybe more helpful to read earlier and then have discussions how how it goes along so i hope we can if we're all still you know senators next year and representatives we can uh we can do this again in january and follow it along um but i wanted to answer a couple things that have happened so far on the on what it's donna's question about what it can be used for i mean my understanding is like anything that you can really tie to a covid experience not lost revenue but you can say that this was an expense you wouldn't have had if it wasn't for covid starting back in in march then you you can account that so you can be creative kind of like representative hooper was saying about what you call for and what you put it in there but uh there's an opportunity there to pace this all even like your the mental health worker in the police maybe that's needed because of covid you know there's there might be ways of trying to make an argument for expenses it can't be that because it can't be a thing that was budgeted prior um but anything that's coming out new you can put you can you can use that money for it but i think it's going to be like the business grants there's going to be more need from all the towns across the state than there is money to meet all those needs unfortunately but we do have that money that representative hooper talked about that was left on the table so we do have some time left to talk about new things and how we could maybe get more money for municipalities or direct it in a certain way that's going to help municipalities and and specifically those in washington county but one thing i did notice on your legislative agenda number one which i don't know if this is prioritized by the list but was support for microtransit and we did get support for microtransit so we've met your number one priority i want to put on the record so we got four hundred thousand dollars for microtransit and in samatha you know v-transit is committed to that and that money is going to help i hopefully kind of do some promoting and other work so i think we're looking pretty good at making sure that that popular pilot project will happen on the ray road i would call it i don't know if you're talking about the siding or you're talking about the new runaround they call it i think you're talking about the new runaround and so but i think there's going to be issues with the siding in the future that it would be good for the city and myself to talk more about about how we can work with the trans problems with siding and if there's uses for the siding that we don't want to see happen or that we do want to see happen and i don't know exactly what the issues are with the costs of closing the road well so the issue is you know the runaround i guess we were thinking of that as the siding and the current you know is the main rail and and we've known that they were talking about this and you know you remember we had a meeting with the state and it was well we're designing we're going to come back in and seek money and you know we'll see what happens we don't have a specific schedule and then it you know we we understood that the the states from what i understood the state gave the bridges to they had some money to repair the bridges and they gave the bridges to the railroad so now the state doesn't have to worry about them and they're using that money to do build the siding this runaround so they just started building it and you know i think it was a complete shock to all of us and as part of the the deal is anything that's going underneath that water sewer lines at least have to be dug up and sleeved and all these things and here we are in the middle of the pandemic cutting things and they're like oh yeah and you have to do this you've got you've got to incur these costs to so we can build a rail line that you know we didn't know certainly was coming this year and aren't aren't totally convinced of the need of but that's not really our our place so it's you know this has happened and we've now worked out a deal with them and the street closure forward is on on the thing so you know um but it's to me it's kind of and when we met with them and had a talk with them in v-trans it just felt like you know v-trans is really sort of actively advocating for the railroad and not the public interest and and so the question is how do these things happen without oversight and and what role is there if any i mean i realize the rail has a lot of flexibility and they provide a lot of great services you know we're not anti-real but it certainly impacts you know savings, pasture development, potential you know all those kinds of things so my suspicion is that they because of that meeting because we were starting asking questions about it that given the opportunity they just started building it so to to avoid that frankly um and we'd have some conversations with the mayor of Rutland about the uh underground utilities under railroad crossings they've had some battles yeah I mean it just seems like if that's their project and this has to be done it ought to be part of the cost of the project not you know not dumped off to somebody else who's unexpected and I mean that seems at the minimum but also it is troubling because it one way or another it's public money whether you know I mean I there's whatever money v-trans has already paid them they're now using to build this thing so now it's their money so I get that but yeah and I had heard that about the bridges so well maybe Bill you and I can talk uh yeah I don't want to get I get more detail and I can reach out to my contacts there are there are others here that can explain it more detail than I okay well let me know who I should talk to and I'll um or I think I had seen a hand from Dan yeah I just had a quick question on not on the railroad but on the issue before you know when we talk about the the funding or um monies that are available you know how open is the legislature going to be when you reconvene to if a municipality has a special project that clearly fits in to the COVID related if we want to bring you know sort of an individual project as opposed to the the block funding that has been given so far um you know so just as a stocking horse for this conversation um you know we've faced as an issue a reduction in public restrooms downtown Montpelier the city hall has been closed businesses have been closed and so you know we're reevaluating I think as a city you know what are our public facilities and which we wouldn't have had to prior to the COVID outbreak but of course in the post world so if we came to the legislature and said hey we need this is a funding project for something that other but for COVID we wouldn't have needed um how receptive do you expect the the your committees to be in when you come back in August and September to those type of requests? So as you guys know the appropriations bills begin in the house um our modus operandi is to ask our policy committees for the appropriations committee asks the policy committees what's your advice on what we should be doing so if you are interested in a particular issue you need to be having conversations with that policy committee and you know so that's that that's a great project that audit is with it yeah I I think that's cool um and you're probably the only we are probably the only town that's going to suggest it so it's a little hard to see how how that could work I honestly was disappointed that we did not do more for towns and kind of a general block grant way um and I and so Bill can put his league of cities and towns hat on and think about what the opportunities are there to maybe position yourselves better um generally we tried not to do the very specific allocations because it becomes a feeding frenzy at that point and we wanted to broadly say housing health care you know broadband these broad areas and then trust the folks within the executive branch to put it out there but let's talk about those sort of opportunities and figure out how to fit them in go ahead Bill yeah I just want to talk toward that end about funding because I don't pretend to speak for every town and city but certainly the folks that I'm in contact with I think this is pretty consistent is that most of the municipalities did not see a huge amount of direct expenses from COVID I think most of us were expecting to we were expecting that our police and fire folks were all going to get sick and and you know be out in waves and we were going to have tons of overtime filling shifts and trying to deal with medical things and and that just didn't happen we didn't actually have anybody out um so you know we had a handful you know we've kept track of our expenses but they're in the tens of thousands they're not massive you know we put up the plastic things in the offices and those kinds of things um and and and we are tracking them but I understand that the lost revenue is a hard sell and I realized a lot of that's federal thing but what that really means is that's roads that aren't going to get you know fixed and and I mean deferred maintenance deferred things programs aren't getting done because that's which is the same as what you're doing at the state but it's it's so there are extent there are costs but they're not out of pocket we just didn't have to buy that much and I think that is across the board you know we didn't have a lot of payroll you know absurdities in fact if anything we reduced our payroll because we furloughed everything so I don't know what you can do about it but then I think that is a common theme with local governments you know to be reverse I was hoping that we'd see more for the downtown organizations you know so kind of the the ancillary work you're you're right I I I totally understand the core services for municipalities but I you know I I'm always going to be a fan and promoter of downtown and those sorts of issues and I just didn't hear a strong voice for them being core to the recovery that our our communities interesting um any further thoughts or anybody I one other question I had just for somebody I can talk to later also on your list was about dispatch and as a former volunteer firefighter I'm somewhat interested in dispatch so if people I know it's a constant issue about the the regional dispatch thing but but there might be an opportunity because the COVID and and costs to to finally do something about it so if there is somebody particular on the council or in the city that wants to talk to me about what the city wants to see as far as dispatch then let me know no I feel like sorry go ahead I was gonna say to me we're all in this together none of us have enough money to cover the costs and and do what our businesses need and catch up and it's going to take some creative work and some creative thinking and I think the more we talk if we could set up a way um you know so that I know I used to be up at the state house at eight o'clock and anyone that knows me knows I hate eight o'clock meetings but we were there for coffee every Tuesday morning to talk to people when we were trying to get payment in lieu of taxes which was probably as difficult as trying to get your non resident or non citizen voting but some some way so that there is regular because I am pulling a blank on railroad sightings and it's not in any of my committees I have no idea that there's an issue there for the city so it would be helpful just because you know well if we ever get back to normal we have lunch and we talk in the halls and um you know to be able to put in a good word or to to do some work there person to person would be helpful but need to know what's going on and I think the more we talk the more we talk with the businesses we all want to do everything but we're all looking at very limited resources right now and a very unknown future we haven't even talked about the schools we also haven't talked about how long it might be before state employees really come back to Montpelier oh at the post of working at home remotely from now on so I mean I really worry about restaurants more than I mean worry about businesses but restaurants I don't see how they're gonna I just don't see how they're gonna do it I mean if we could find some ways to support them particularly because they're so much part of the culture as well as the economy it's just really horrible to think about the amount of debt they've they're racking up and how hard it's going to be for them to come back online you know before I before we I want to go back to Conor's been very quiet since we had that initial conversation about the non-resident vote non-citizen voting I don't want to bum them out or anything but when you said something if you feel like writing a letter Conor I was gonna say is write it to the president pro tem not to the committee because to move a bill added to the floor of the senate is has to go through the rules committee these days and so the rules committee has to say yes it's okay for gov ops to vote this this bill added committee bring it to the floor so and it's really the president pro tem that is you'd have to address if you were gonna don't pick on jenette white tonight we'll sit we'll support it but the president pro tem is where the sticking point is and I really appreciate the strategy on all this and I understand losing a vote could actually be detrimental uh but I look at the possibility of going back to the advocates advocates who went door to door on this and started early beginning after going through all these committee hearings and I think you know if two people vote against it I'd like to know who they are so we can talk to them for next time around if that's that's the way we go sure I hear you um just getting back to uh senator pritchley's question about dispatch Donna can I um that nominate you here just as the person who'd be a good connection to talk about dispatch yeah he's on he's on my list to be in touch with okay great super okay well uh anything else here team okay well thank you again all for uh taking the time oh sorry bill did you want to say something no I I just wanted I don't want to be the dead horse I get too into the weeds and I really appreciate it senator senator polina mentioning that there was a thought of sort of groups going in together uh to purchase bodycams you know to get some savings I will tell you and you've probably heard this but there are two really big costs or hurdles and it's not really purchasing the cameras it's the digital storage of all the data right after after you buy them is really expensive and now um and and of course everyone you know we're all in favor of public transparency and access to public records but if you're familiar with the case in burlington where you know somebody asked for a full eight hour shift of video from a police officer which then required a supervisor to watch the full eight hours to figure out if they were active investigations if they were juveniles but you know things that needed to be redacted and burlington sought to bill for that time and the Supreme Court said that's not billable under the way the public records law is currently written and so frankly that put a stop to body cameras in from i uh from local police departments because of of that cost in the sense that you know people could just want to I want every officer's shift because I want to put it on YouTube and and the cost of processing that and looking at that so I you know whether that can be addressed in the public records law or somehow but those are those are the funding costs that we're most afraid of I think the cost of purchasing the cameras is fine and the philosophy behind them and the policies we're in 100 agreement so those are not insignificant hurdles for local departments and if the state is going to mandate body cameras for all police departments those are going to be huge issues and costs for local governments which we may not be prepared for across the board you know you're right we are we that has come up we are thinking about that we don't have the answer yet but the cost of the visitation and the how long it has to be stored all that kind of stuff is on the list of things that we're trying to figure out appreciate it just to be clear s219 doesn't mandate the city right at one point that was being talked about yeah yeah it only it's only state police that'll have them now well in anticipating that it may just be a matter of time before it is sure or even yeah that just that there are these are the things that I'm sure you're all you all are already considering some of these things for the the state police as you you know way wade through that but certainly those are things that we were thinking about right because it's a good practice we'd like to do it yeah uh jack you are muted even though his thing doesn't so muted yeah no someone your microphone have you and while while jack's trying to unmute himself um I was concerned about the cost of storage and heard when we required the state police to do the cameras that it's come way down and so if you haven't investigated lately something has changed still hear you on all of the on the other issue but the storage issue something's changed and could be worth looking into that's really good to know thank you um my understanding was that it it's really the review time and that's in the supreme court case that uh burlington uh fought against that that sort of free access it was not so much the storage as the review because you are talking about lengthy amounts of time and involvement and because you're dealing with law enforcement exemptions as well as any other exemptions at play that becomes that becomes a cost and it's it's baked into the law um you know and I think this is one of those things that you know public records law is a tricky balance and you start to start to change some of those things I know the AG's office has talked about some of those changes and it has ramifications well beyond that that simple issue of you know can we can we charge for this particular video redaction um because it deals with the inspection of public records but those are um those are obviously concerns that we have as a local municipality is to who pays for this if there's a mandate that does come down that would be a huge huge amount of resources on our part and and and and maybe this is a pitch for uh you know greater uh funding for public records um you know having a public records officer for municipalities to to use so that somebody could be uh funded to to do that not just for the city of Montpelier but for any any municipality um you know some states have that where they fund those type of public records officers so that you know people can have free and easy access to these records and inspections um and the state just builds into its process that cost of reviewing it uh Donna go ahead oh and then Connor I mean I don't know how you have the state requirement you said you are requiring the state police but yet have you dealt with these issues with the state police as far as their cost and their time for public records and for me one of the other issues is once you give it to somebody as a public record do you really want all that on YouTube so I I feel like there's a privacy issue on both sides that we have just not dealt with I think that really has to be dealt with before we start putting more body cameras on people yeah yeah that's a great question uh go ahead Connor just asking if uh Cameron could unmute the phone number seven three four three eight five one that might be the culprit okay thank you with regard to the storage but I've been thinking I would like to see all municipal police have to have the bodycams and I was thinking that a good uh bargain might be to require the police to purchase the cameras and have all the data storage be at the state level the way to add the costs um just an idea to think about yep any further comments or questions to your team all right thank you all again for taking the time for meeting with us and I think I mean so this is the first time since oh gosh well since I've been mayor anyway that we've done had a legislative agenda and so I anticipate that we'll probably put together our agenda again prior to the next session and hopefully meet with you sooner I Andy I think mentioned January is that sort of the right time or is sooner better to meet with you all and to chat about our our what would be our on our agenda well it's good to do it before we reconvene so January is okay but January would be better to do it in like early December right that's the way people can think on it or if you want to introduce a bill you know that kind of there's deadlines so to January is January is not too late but it's it's ideally it would be before that the senate deadline hits in November on a lot of years so but it really you know other than giving us an agenda just talking with us and helping us to understand the issues like oh yeah you've got to pay someone and I'm thinking sitting here thinking well if I call the police because there's somebody in my backyard that shouldn't be there I don't know if I want myself in my nightgown at two o'clock in the morning on YouTube I mean there are some privacy issues there um you know do I get to have a say if I get to be on YouTube or not you can't put my picture you know you can't take your picture for the newspaper under for certain circumstances without a sign-off so uh it's it's an interesting one and we haven't caught up with technology um boots yeah well so well that's a good call am I being heard oh um uh Alice hi hi it sounded as if you were about to secure the meeting I I came in because I did want to uh comment on something that was posted uh related to John Clark and oh we have not yet taken up that that wonderful oh thank you so much I didn't want to have this happen and you go away and I not have an opportunity so I'm going to mute myself again okay super okay um great well thank you all and I hear you about having just uh more informal conversations uh particularly as the next session approaches so um thanks again for your time and thanks for all your hard work the local level stuff is so important thanks for all the time you put in at the legislature it's really you know this is really in particular not an easy time to be a policymaker these days yeah pretty bizarre but Vermont is one of the few that has figured out how to do it and I believe we were the first yeah so uh yeah and we were just voted the number one state to live in um by uh poll and cps or cnbc so we're doing it right it was good okay thank you everybody thanks a lot thank you all all right so we're gonna take up uh the next item which is the Vermont rail systems uh berry street closure um and uh to that I I think I'm gonna turn it over to bill probably to explain this and we were sort of just talking about it a little bit but a little bit um although the good news is I think it is figured out but Tom McCartle is on and he's really leading this effort so I'm gonna I'm gonna pop it to Tom there he is and uh he can explain what what we need but so so you know I think the general issue that I was concerned about is that these things can happen and suddenly we have to respond finances the good news is we've worked out a plan that doesn't hurt us too badly and take it away Tom hello everybody hopping in all right welcome back this is part time project manager Tom McCartle for those that you don't know I thought my uh abbreviation after my name is JT now just Tom so I'm just project manager helping out um and Kurt I believe Kurt Monica is on still city engineer deputy director so Kurt handles our um utilities um for us um engineering side of things the technical side of things and um I'm helping on more of the administrative piece and with this um agenda item the traditional usually a traditional request for a street closure approval under the under the ordinance and I thought this would be uh so there's a public hearing if people want to want to speak to this issue and and the request is on behalf of Vermont rail systems but it's not purely for their project we are compelled under the the master license agreement that the city has in place with the state and signed on by the railroad and a master license agreement is allows all the our utilities to pass through a rail right-of-way and includes water sewer um sure if we have a district heat line um and storm systems so with all of those utilities we pay an annual fee um for the right to pass through those through those rights of way um the passing through the right-of-way requires that we comply with ARIMA standards um that abbreviation is America Railway American Railway Engineering Maintenance of Way Association um and those standards are quite rigid um because of the rail traffic and the heavy live loads that pass over them so the city is compelled to upgrade our utilities and that was the um unforeseen costs that that bill spoke about and is in the agenda as the expenditure required portion so the couple of things on updates on this the the request for closure has been amended I'm not sure if you saw that but we received an update um related to the delivery of materials um that is delayed so the closure is now expected to be um on July 20th and then would continue for seven consecutive days after that um one of the other updates is um thanks to Kurt's good work um we were looking at um a project one that was uh we were actually being told we had two options to use for the improving upgrading our utilities um typically we would put our utility work out to bid receive competitive pricing Kurt was able to scurry around and get another price so we we have a significantly less cost hopefully hoping that will be uh less than 100,000 but nonetheless it's a project that we weren't anticipating uh these are water sewer utility funds the enterprise funds you know we have a 50-year plan to bring our water sewer systems up to snuff um current standards uh the water supply rules um our aging infrastructures so this is not really where we wanted to spend our money um I suspect most of you would agree with that so you understand where we are with with particularly our water systems but also our sewers and our and our combined sewer overflow efforts um so this will take a hit um to those to those funds um and that's probably the the biggest issue besides the lack of real staff time available um to support this project they're going full steam have been since um they showed up in I think March um and uh so we're trying to catch up and keep up with them and so I won't go on any further than to say that um that project will um will go um first do the utility work using our contractor um and then they'll complete it with putting the new tracks in um and then complete the connection um right in front of Caledonia Spirits and that will become the active rail for moving these heavy heavy cars um they're their contracts um we've told is to move grout the granite waste from um Graniteville and elsewhere where they have it stored um the bridges are um not structurally sound to support those heavy loads and so that's um the idea I guess they'll use that they'll call that Washington County rail as the exciting uh what becomes of that rail um they're not clear um what what will be done will they walk away from that abandon it we don't know that yet so this this track along in front of savings pasture and um and on the north side of the Winnuski River avoids both rail um river crossing so that's the the benefit of it um I believe this track was last in use in the 50s there was a lot of litigation over it um whether it was abandoned I think it was finally settled by the courts with the Pioneer Street Bridge project um and that's another story but um so we certainly weren't anticipating this and um but we're gonna keep up and get the work done and um seek your approval take any questions if you have any okay um well so I'm gonna officially open the public hearing before I forget to do that uh and uh I do have one other question that I see Dan um has a hand raised uh but I'm curious if there is any representative here for Vermont rail systems um they wouldn't mind just giving a quick shout out to say hey not seeing anybody I didn't think they're going to be uh attending I'm gonna speak for Kurt here because he's uh texted me said that he has wireless internet service and it's it's spotty so um he will cut out and as you can tell his voice wasn't real clear there but I think what he said is that they were invited there we're aware of this meeting but um but chose not to attend or not able to attend okay great thank you um Dan go ahead so a couple questions Tom um one is is this something where we have to follow their timeline there's no ability for us to push back or extend times if we want to um maybe delay you know some of this work for budget purposes uh no uh we did ask that question and um they are moving forward um to paraphrase them but um essentially don't need our approval to do what they're doing um and that's why I included the legal uh clause in there the references um the the unfortunate part of that is if we wanted to delay and budget for this um that we certainly have that option uh we could defer bringing our utilities up to Arima's standards but it would be much more costly once the rail is active uh we would have to jack and more and and so there's there's a lot more effort to this um we are actually and I should have pointed this out probably was gonna mention this but we are actually only doing the sleeves and putting the lines in place um the so I should back up it probably will ultimately be that closer to the 150 we're putting the sleeves in and the utilities but we're not actually connecting them right now because of the rush we really that would be a bigger project we've got to shut down the water main test it do all that other work with it so um so to answer your question yes we could delay it but it would be a lot more money okay do it while the road is closed um it would be uh it will go much quicker this way so we thought if we're gonna feel the pain we feel the least amount of pain okay and then um I think you partially answered my next question which was are we talking about you know just in this very street area um are we just and are we just talking about electrical utilities and water and sewer um or are there any other sort of structural issues that the city has to address say like the culvert um no it's a good question um the culvert um the big culvert on berry street was uh replaced after iran event and the end of the culvert that passes on through the railroad right of way was designed to meet um rail standards so that was because it's in the right of way that was a requirement for our municipal utilities we have uh two sewer lines one is a gravity main and the other is a force main and we also have a uh a water main the water mains uh probably the oldest of the utilities the electrical is aerial um there is a buried telephone but I don't think very the buried section of that passes through this this portion of the railroad line um from a from a bigger picture perspective um it's not that this work wasn't entirely not envisioned we had included this area and the TIF projects as identified need to support future development so we had planned as bill pointed out the utility work would actually be funded through the TIF program and when we come back we're asking for five years before we actually have to occupy that the new steel sleeves that we're putting in to give us time to actually fund that um to support the development whatever that might be um savings or elsewhere in that area in the TIF district and that's my my last question is that that these utilities are are for the areas along either side of berry street to serve them just yeah there's the pump station um oh just to describe it if you know that the the burlin veterinary clinic is right across the street um it's a little station it's it's quite deep but um we can't carry all the the wastewater from that that section of berry street uh by gravity so it actually has to flow back to that pump station and then is pumped back that's why there is a gravity line under the railroad track and then a force main go in the other direction um those those utilities will be we will upgrade those through this real project again with our crystal ball thinking what our what our future needs will be for for development of that area uh Donna I just want to make sure I understood Tom that this money is coming from the utility fund is sort of being redirected to do this now instead of other things or versus there is a utility reserve fund um looks looks like we lost Kurt so I hope I get this right Kurt but um the enterprise funds has a um reserve for this type of of work of utility work and and as I said we had a 50 year plan so we're expending some of those funds like Clarenna Avenue and other utility work that we're doing we have projects identified um every year for foreseeable future so we'll have to tap into that with the existing rates that we already have set monthly or it's not the general fund it is the those enterprise funds that will pay for this so we're out of order okay so Bill would we be authorizing tonight to spend this so this is just an information of oh this is going to be spending I mean we have to do it so whether we authorize it or not but I mean essentially we're the real thing you're doing is closing the street I mean you're you're authorizing the street closure for this work but because of all the other implications we felt was important to brief you on everything and to answer your question you know more briefly I mean yes this is money that we're spending on this now we would have spent at some point but we probably would have spent it on something else right now yeah thank you great any further questions from council any comments from the public since this is a public hearing uh yes I see a hand from Charlie go ahead uh you're gonna want to unmute yourself though I have a couple of questions and I don't know if they're to Tom or to Bill but my question is Tom keeps talking about the right of way was there a right of way rail right away from the call of the brewery over across Berry Street onto the portion of the right of way rail right of way that was there during the Pioneer Street um bridge decision 20 years ago yes uh the this portion of the of the track was um there are three rails in in the Montpellier area is Montpellier Chelsea Montpellier Wells River and I think the other was Montpellier Berry Railroad there are actually three crossings at one time on Granite Street see only one there today stone cutters way if you go back give you a little history for stone cutters way there are three active rails lines there Montpellier was able to consolidate that to a single rail line but the right of ways still exist they don't go away so the Montpellier Wells River Railroad is the line that they are reactivating and what the court found is that they did not abandon it they they kind of cannibalized the the steel the rail lines and moved it to another track they discontinued use we were we were instructed to treat it as an active rail our bike path design was was built with uh with instructions from the attorney general that to treat it as an active rail so the the right of way still existed and that was finally settled after a lot of challenges that the state or the rail abandoned it was finally settled with the Pioneer Bridge project because you may recall that the Pioneer Bridge is a curved has a curved approach prior to the construction it was a kind of a right angle and it relocated that rail right of way put it up on the hill where where that right of way is today so it begs the question when the state bought the Washington County Railroad back in the early 80s did it buy the land and and or the property that that right of way is on and if not who owns it if you know well I'm not sure I entirely know I'm familiar with the 80s acquisition by the state was actually a court decision and we do have the decision in our in our office because I'm not there I want to check to see if it did include them up here in Wells they say it does I haven't seen it though in that court decision I didn't think it did but I so I don't know the answer to that if it was if it came in the court decision when the state actually took ownership of the right of way so that the state actually leases the rail to Vermont rail and pays the rail to operate yeah I know that but the question is who owns the land that the council is currently being asked to close the street on you say it's a right away from the Wells River line but who owns that line and who owns the property and therefore who owns the right away and I would think I would think notwithstanding Tom what you just said that before the city council would have proceed it ought to do its homework and pull out the title and find out who owns the land I can go by what the attorney general John Dunleavy tells us and that the state actually owns the land so and work was done by the Zorzi family the Zorzi Asia family through years and years of litigation and Charlie just for the record would you also state your last name and what town you're you're from I'm sorry last name is Dickerson I'm from this I'm from the city of Montpellier okay great thank you so much used to be in district three but somebody moved me so okay so I was kind of curious because the part that bothers me as a citizen goes back to something Bill said earlier the city apparently was unaware of this project and it started now not only is that rude but I think the state has an obligation to coordinate with municipalities if it's going to start construction and at the very least and I appreciate Tom that John Dunleavy who does work in the attorney general's office and is assigned to transportation made probably that comment or that his observation back 20 30 years ago but I think it's worth doing a little bit more homework and my other question is though the portion of Berry Street that's going to be used or the quote-unquote rail has that rail line been surveyed and does the state have a copy of the survey and its file and if not why not I believe the the rail line is being resurveyed I think for the third time since I've been here by the state it was done by bike path engineer then by I forget the name of the survey or for agency of transportation and now Vermont survey and engineering has been tasked with resurveying and again I'm not sure why but we've been feeding them all of our records and helping with that effort so yeah so as you imagine a rail line laid out in the late 1800s kind of difficult to follow they use they use you know bearings and distances that don't really match a lot of things that use rail standard lines so it's it's not it's not real easy to survey so they they they have a survey they're they're redoing it to check it okay all right well thank you and so anyone else have comments or questions about this I think john I don't have his last name john are you raising your hand no sorry I know ma'am sorry I'm the bad guy at the auction I just bought okay sorry no worries thank you okay anyone else then and by the way charlie your point is well taken um you know we wish that we had had more notice for sure need to do some more okay so uh any other comments okay all right so I'm gonna close and Cameron you're not seeing anyone else right ma'am okay so I'm gonna close the public hearing on this um we have a proposal here would anyone like to make a motion uh jack I move that we approve the proposal to then will we approve prove the proposal to close uh various streets through traffic as uh proposed in the uh department of public works memorandum for the time uh set forth starting on may 20th and going through seven consecutive days or longer if necessary july 20th I thought jack did may all right I meant to say July if I didn't okay I'll second okay so there's a motion in a second any further discussion on this okay um all in favor please say aye aye and opposed okay uh all right so we uh so the motion passes um and so that we don't need to do any roll call because it was not unanimous right we're still just a part of the record right it was not unanimous you should probably do a real call if it's not unanimous to me okay um okay so I'm just gonna go in the order that I that you appear on my screen uh so for for me that is uh Dan jack hi loren hi connor hi donna hi and jay okay so I'll leave the eyes have it the so the motion passes and um so we are gonna move on so um the next uh item is uh the proposed street closure for state street for um a justice for all um or I'm sorry liberty and justice for all uh neural um so for this just to explain how this item is gonna go um I assume john who has his uh uh video on that that's uh are you john clarr yes okay great um and I think I saw eric uh a reddick on as well I don't know if um either of you would like to um speak but we'll um so what the way we're gonna we're gonna do this is um we'll hear from either of you or both of you and then um uh I've got a just a clarifying background uh comment to make and then we will hear from the public and uh and then we as the council will have our discussion um hopefully that makes sense to everybody um so that's just just to frame it up here and uh so either uh john or uh erica would you like to um uh tell us about this proposal go ahead john that would be me sorry I thought you would unmute me now I can buy the cow um erica good evening everyone john clarr how are you john clarr from brookfield vermont clarr2020.com erica I don't believe we'll be speaking though she is a candidate uh it was part of my group alice flanders I believe is still on and she had jumped in earlier uh jumping the gun a little she's uh got a lot of them in bigger so she she may uh I I'm hoping we'll be able to speak briefly as you all know this was um an application we put in rather short notice before the fourth of july celebration this was ancillary to an event that I had been asked to speak at um celebrating the declaration of independence and the constitution and other documents and in which I did specifically address many citizens concerns about the legislature in the state uh government taking steps that compromise certain constitutional rights uh this this uh application was denied either through this board or administratively it didn't I don't know that it was acted upon as a group um and so we refiled so um the application explains its intent uh there should be no need to defend the flag or the pledge of allegiance or our police officers who we also were celebrating the good police officers that we rely upon uh procedurally I'd like to point out that now that july fourth has passed uh this council if it wishes to delay our event until after the BLM project is complete uh that's certainly within your uh your discretion and uh you know time place and manner restrictions um our urgency originally in planning was for fourth of july uh but we shouldn't be deprived uh or restricted from our celebration of our constitution um because you know our heritage is very important for many of us and we shouldn't be restricted because a public space was preempted by a social or political movement of any variety um but now I would like to point out because it's clearly done a lot of public attention here but a city counselor has weighed in on this rather recklessly and maligned my intentions and those of the other people who are behind this application and it's very concerning because that's rather rather inflammatory to impose a toxic invective on my motives and my credentials and my abilities I don't really care about my campaign but I have a lot of people running with me and we really don't need to be inflaming the conflict over race in Vermont especially but anywhere uh by imputing motives to people that you have no business as a as a public servant to do it's really a violation so I hope he's not stoking conflict on purpose this is our state capital you guys know that I'm sure and so even though I'm out of town it is it is the state capital and the the symbol of our laws and our rule but Connor Casey has actually said that this application is an act of white fragility I submit that he should recuse himself from consideration of this hearing at this hearing since he's already indicated how he's going to vote itself a rather rather blatant violation of due process and we are entitled to that even though this is a privilege constitutionally a public entity is prohibited from favoring one political ethnic or social group over others it's called the content neutrality principle and whether in law or as applied it does apply to this situation this has been utterly disregarded by mr. Casey he did me and my people a favor by showing his blatant bias there are many Vermonters who who wished and continue to wish to celebrate our liberty and our historical documents there is a general complaint by many against our government's overreach as I explained again in my speech on Saturday so I speak for a lot of Vermonters in trying to secure our constitution as the middle ground between perhaps different perspectives on how to proceed to solve a problem that we all agree needs to be addressed no one is supporting police brutality no one wishes to see people impoverished or compromised or oppressed because of their race but I also speak for about as I say 32,020 candidates for state office and they have joined me and are running on a specific policy list which includes holding government accountable not only with money as you folks are talking about tonight but also with our rights in our constitution and I expected all of those candidates support this application but since white people like Connor Casey tell white people like me that my words must be dismissed because of my white skin I have invited just one of our many fine candidates Alice Flanders to briefly address as a person of color the motive behind this application which she is a party to and why it must be approved you really have to approve it because you have to maintain content neutrality so that would be my submission in summary again ask the council to perhaps reread the original application and I'm hoping that Alice might speak briefly because she also has some information to share about this day Alice Flanders I hope you're still with us so I think probably the probably the appropriate thing to have happen would be to have Alice speak as a part of the public I mean unless unless she's sort of a part of your presentation which I mean I suppose she could be well she is as I specifically referenced I think she has a very strong voice and she is a candidate and John Clarver governor really is a collective will actually be announcing a number of new candidates on the 16th at the state house a lot of people running behind three policy issues and she's been along with our team since day one so she I think is well qualified as a veteran and as a person of color to to counter the potential toxicity planted in the public by open public comments maligning me and this motive here I think that her testimony is particularly cogent to undo the potential cause more friction rather than comedy and reconciliation so I I hope she's still there but I would I would love to hear what she asks and I think also the council may want to hear something she found research she's still with us all right Alice if you are here oh you've unmuted yourself great go ahead Alice I unmuted myself but can you see my wonderful face no oh too bad all in glamorous glorious color I am a person of color that has never are hardly ever played any part in my professional certainly never in my professional career and even in business or personal issues it's never really come up as being important you should understand first of all that I'm not new to the concept of having been a person who may have been part of a group that was not allowed certain liberties and then later given that three opportunity I grew up during the time and I remember the time when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated he wore he on his assassination time I remember people like this Black Lives Matter and look can I be honest with you I want I don't want anybody to say anything I just want you to nod your head if you want to hear the perspective of this grandmother just nod your head I'm not going to be long can you can I be honest the party line all right well and I will honestly tell you I'm a 65 year old grandmother even though I don't even look like I'm that old believe me I keep healthy but I was around when integration became the law of the land in this country I was around when Martin Luther King was assassinated I have been well read and I have I was part of the forefront when I was allowed at the at great cost of my parents to enter me into government into a non-government school private schools all girls schools and I had to work as they say twice as hard to get the same grade because look at math if it's not all right you could mark it all wrong even if most of the people get partial credit I got none well no problem I was motivated to work a little bit harder till I got them all right and you can't argue with that but that only made me stronger and you know when the girls I went to school with found that I was a viable candidate for their math team as a sophomore they appointed me the captain of the junior math team and I was the only person of color there then and it and these girls came from traditional families that were not black I promise you and then uh continuing with that same um spirit uh because I am very competitive in my junior year I was appointed captain of the senior math team and all of the girls we won we beat those guys we beat those girls we beat everybody and I had a number of things including going to uh university I eventually became a physics major turned math major I was accepted at an MIT Lincoln lab work study worked in a group that had just launched two communications satellites I had to prove that I had the capability of doing the work against part of that Lincoln lab uh MIT Lincoln lab group the guy explained to me some probably you know cyclotomic polynomials and you know programming yep I've had basic and FORTRAN and some assembly language and if you want um that's I can show you he said well if I can write a program within the week I came back with the program to generate the coefficients of the cyclotomic polynomial that was explained to me in concept and if I hadn't been able to do that then I probably would have been made part of the clerical staff uh during that program when I was there but I was capable and you know once people understood that I did have that capability the doors were wide open why would you why wouldn't you if you have and later I enjoy in the military after I after I had competed successfully and studied for a year as a physics student I studied in France under a scholarship at a prestigious university Montpellier University where only perhaps 12% of those who matriculate from their secondary education in France have the privilege of going on to further studies unlike a lot of kids here who think that everybody has the right to go to college at the expense of the taxpayers the French did not look at it that way you had to demonstrate that you could contribute to the national effort to make it worth the taxpayers effort to pay for you not for your party and later I joined the military I was able I was successfully able to compete or at least to join uh the the group that had they had just started Navy space and I was a space systems engineering and space systems operations student at the graduate level but I promise you if I had not been capable of working with my group that was designing the deployment of the antenna on the on a satellite in that group where I was working I wouldn't have been there I would say that such groups now given that and also my father by the way was a freedom rider before he married he was one of the he put his life on the line and he went in and helped people in Mississippi earned their right to to register to vote I see I don't want to say I'm not saying why privilege because I have been on both sides believe it or not and the the ceiling was and is broken I have been to hear in Vermont to the Constitution House where it says Constitution House and there's a I should say if I could send you an email and you could send it to everybody else but very quickly I'll tell you it's a marquee there at the Constitution House here in Vermont that says Windsor settled 1764 became the political center of the upper constant upper Connecticut River Valley here the Constitution of the free and independent state of Vermont was adopted at the tavern of Elijah West on July 8 17 1777 today is the birthday of the of the free and independent state of Vermont Constitution happy birthday to you okay was adopted at the tavern of Elijah West on July 8 1777 this Constitution was the first to prohibit slavery and establish universal manhood suffrage Vermont was an independent republic until 1791 when it was admitted into the union as the 14th state I don't believe as a military officer in solving problems that are already fixed I don't believe in fixing problems that are not broken we here in the state of Vermont do not have a problem I wanted to I'm telling you honestly look you're not looking at my face but I'm looking at yours and I want to take off our masks of red and blue because when you are in that position where you are right now you're representing all of us if you're not please step down okay so here we are here we are dear people black lives matter I'm not saying that don't but I'm telling you that all lives matter now I know that that's anathema to some people but if you could see a picture of my wonderful family because you know what I did believe what Dr. Martin Luther King said take a deep breath and swallow hard I want you to know that when I went to MIT Lincoln lab I met a young man from Vermont his name was Jeffrey Flanders his father was James Hartness Flanders who wasn't was a MIT engineering graduate graduate level graduate he became and he was the chairman of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics when he died that was my father-in-law Jeff's grandfather was senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont you may not know your history but I'm going to I'm going to teach a little bit right now when McCarthy stood up and was bullying everybody into a particular perspective that brave Vermont-er that brave Vermont-er was not afraid to stand up respectfully but very clearly articulate what the problems were as he saw it and you know McCarthyism came to an end because of that loan that first step of the loan rider that man Jeff's great grandfather was Governor James Hartness Springfield Vermont has a telescope the Hartness house telescope if you all don't know it because in addition to being governor he was also an avid scientist and engineer look people I met Jeff when I was after my first year as a physics student when I was accepted to MIT Lincoln Lab it took me five years to to okay so I will and we got married we have a daughter we have grandchildren if you want to look at my grandchildren I don't know my first two oldest have red hair and their eyes and their fair skin because our daughter married a Brit and you couldn't end there and Jake it freckles and burns very readily I believed Dr. Martin Luther King are you all going to tell me that he lied to have such a dream that someday he will be judged by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin I am suspicious of black lives matter I'm going on the record to tell you so I'm telling you because I have been there and you have not I have been there and you know what for all these years that people have judged me as an engineer as a mathematician just based on my personal and my professional qualifications now when you look at me you dare not overlook the fact that my skin has a lot of melanin we are stepping backwards am I saying black lives don't matter no but you want to know something I have seen the academic scores of our young people here in Vermont and I know COVID is going to put a good cover on all of this but it doesn't override what's happened in the last few years and our academic scores have been below the national average and yet with all of that we have time and we have resources to perpetrate upon our population the next generation of Vermont citizens our resources we have time and money and resources to tell them about how black lives matter we're taking a step back people I want you to hold up to liberty and justice for can we all say that we could at least stand to that why do we have to genuflect in order to say it I do not I suspect black lives matter because if you you look at where the money goes if you donate there okay because I was the money guy at the Pentagon I managed about a billion dollars a year and I was especially good at it so as Alice I'm going to interrupt you here real quick it's been about 10 minutes um and do you understand what I've been saying though oh yeah no and but if you have any like just final like thoughts okay my final thoughts are this you can go ahead and preferentially approve of black lives matter and then turn your back on liberty and justice for all but history will judge it I want you to stand and support Connor I want you to say all right John I'm sorry I jumped the gun liberty and justice for all of course I'm for that like lives matter brown lives matter pink and purple polka dot lives matter to my chicken's lives matter but yes liberty and justice for all we Vermonters can all rally behind that I want to stand with you I want you to stand with me can we put it into it there sounds great thank you Alice thank you for sharing welcome I'm going to put myself back on mute okay just so I won't be attempted to say something more okay well thank you um all right so um I'm gonna take a step back and share something that our lawyers shared with us uh today actually uh just to give us a little bit of context and some clarity around some of the questions that have actually already been um that have come up and then uh we're gonna open it up to the public and and so because Alice was a part of the presentation we gave her some additional time but for other folks who speak just a reminder please try to keep your comments to two minutes or less and um and actually um uh at some point uh we should get Alice's last name and what town she lives in uh well we can do that probably later um Bill that wasn't a hand was it no thought I saw a hand okay just checking same as Flanders oh Flanders that's right yes yes she said that thank you uh great all right so um so we sort of anticipated that there'd be a question about whether or not the city was obligated to approve the request um uh you know either uh sort of as a as a street closure or based on the content um but mostly folks I think there's this um actually what I would call a misunderstanding uh floating around that we are obligated to approve this uh based on the First Amendment um and the reason I can say that is because so we got clarity from our uh lawyer earlier today and I just want to um just um read part of the the excerpt from our lawyer just so that everybody has the same information um so it's gonna take me a little bit to read it here but I think it's probably worth doing so um underlying the potential First Amendment argument is the notion that the street is a public forum which the city has opened up for private citizens to convey their messages to the world in the context of a public forum for example when the city allows climate change activists to protest on uh in a city park the First Amendment generally requires the city to give equal opportunity to all who want to use that public forum to voice their own message uh the city must give citizens uh of all viewpoints their time on the public soapbox regardless of whether the city agrees with the citizens viewpoints in these examples um and I skipped a couple of cases but there are some cases cited um in these in these examples it is clear who is speaking a private citizen is holding a sign or audibly chanting they just happen to be standing on government property generally in such cases the government can within reason restrict the time place and manner of protests demonstrations or other expressive content conduct conduct but the government cannot deny a request to speak or demonstrate in the public forum based on the content or viewpoint of the requester's message in other words the government cannot give preferential treatment to certain points of view in certain uh citizens over or certain citizens over others the display of a mural monument or other expressive symbol on government property is legally different unless circumstances clearly indicate that such displays reflect solely the viewpoint of a private citizen courts typically consider these displays to be government speech the U.S. Supreme Court has explained when government speaks it is not barred by the free speech clause from determining the content of what it says that freedom in part reflects the fact that it is the democratic electoral process that first and foremost provides a check on government speech thus government statements and government actions and programs that take the form of speech do not normally trigger the first amendment rules designed to protect the marketplace of ideas instead the free speech clause helps produce informed opinions among members of the public who are then able to influence the choices of a government that through through words and deeds will reflect its electoral mandate so i hope that that just shed some light for folks on what we are obligated to do or not but the question still remains what what we will do so at this point i would open up the floor to public comment so is there i'd just love to get a cue here folks who would like to comment Cameron i have um Maggie has raised her hand and then we had um Tracy and you know and i'm very fine between y'all's names i'm just saying uh phonetically um had asked us to speak via email and i saw that she was on the line okay so those are the two so far and then i saw uh john you have uh something that you would like to say as well uh so i may i may go uh john sure sure i'll i'll have you go first and then we'll go um Maggie and then Tracy and there's no one else so far yet Cameron is that right no and so i saw someone Connor not Connor Casey came on and looked like they were waving their hand too they just raised it again so we have Connor as well okay okay great thank you um all right uh john go ahead so as an attorney who has worked in free speech law for years i would just uh point out that i would rather not have litigation on the matter because i think we all would rather not have that um whatever you've just read from your attorneys you clearly do have the power also to grant this and it's a gray area about what's a mural and other forms of speech this is core political speech so if you what you've done though what you've just read to me is an opinion of counsel that was solicited for the specific purpose of finding legal grounds to deny this application which i would say also shows a bias but moreover in the very words you read it said um undermining the free speech argument so i i would hope that this council would not be out to undermine our free speech argument but to embrace our free speech argument especially when what's in the balance is something as highly visible as the u.s flag and the pledge of allegiance and our police so i you know legally i don't agree with your council i don't really want to fight it out in court i just want to have the opportunity when black lives matter is done to display our nation's heritage in a proud way to affirm it for all of us as the middle road but anyway thanks that's uh i appreciate you allowing me to just add that for the record thank you bill go ahead yep if i may because um we did talk earlier or there was talk earlier about not imputing people's intentions um the city council did not ask for an opinion i did um and this question was specifically asked are there any legal barriers to them approving or denying the question it was not asked um find a way to deny it so i just would appreciate um you made a good point about not presupposing other people's intentions and um and i think maybe you just did that on my behalf so well just to be clear though there was nothing in the opinion to suggest any reason why the why you would not be able to deny it so it's one sided whether or not that's what you specifically solicited forgive me to impute that but it but that's what it looks like and that's part of it if we were required to if we were required to approve it it would have said that and so he's saying here's the argument for why you might approve it here's the argument for why you don't i could i'll be happy to send you the full opinion yep i and i did not read the whole right well i'll have to work yeah i'll have to work let's look at it if there if the lawyers are wrong but anyway sorry go ahead so i'm i'm just saying there are different views and it's not that clear it's a big area of law but so thank you thank you so i don't mean to impute your integrity bill okay uh maggie one video for this hi guys maggie lens i'm in a district one resident i really um want to keep this short um i hope that we're all going to stop the spending disbelief pretend that this is anything for mr car rather than a political move i think it's clear to all of us that that's what this is this is a struggling campaign that's trying to get attention um i don't think that he needs any assistance by mr kring that um this is um this time for the black lives matter movement i appreciate the well and that the council did on this as a volunteer resident that sign is extremely important that's a reminder of the work to do um alice thank you so much for your point of view i certainly can't speak from personal experience and disagree with your experience i'm glad but i do have a number of friends of color have not had an experience here and i think just by virtue of being states we have a lot of work to do um to write um any message um to add an addendum to the black lives matter mural will dilute message and will take away from the work that we need it's been pointed out to the council numerous times this isn't a stand-in for real meaningful work but it is a reminder and it's important by begging you to please deny this application don't dilute this message for a political stunt thank you for all your work um tracy yes we can hear you but it's a little tough to hear you uh say a little bit more i uh just one uh tracy i'm so sorry it's very hard to hear y'all if you turn your um camera off it's sometimes easier to hear the audio as it improves the connection i wonder if she's live streaming if if you're live streaming the meeting we had this problem earlier on whoa that's right yeah you may want to like you if you're watching it in a different window or something you may want to close that or she may want to call us yeah it's about the same okay but yeah go i mean if you want to go for it we will do our best to to hear you um tracy i'm actually going to interrupt you i i think it might make uh maybe you can call in on a cell phone or so um what do you think about that hold on and i will read it to you i'm sorry i don't have it in front of me me two seconds okay so the number is area code<PHONE_NUMBER> and then they're going to ask you for a meeting id um the meeting id is<PHONE_NUMBER> zero and if it asks you for a password it's 090953 did you get that Cameron i cannot figure out which number you're asking me to repeat that number is it a two or zero two or zero i'm not sure okay i got you it's 9292 okay okay sorry guys we're all getting this together um and so we're gonna skip to Connor and then um hopefully tracy will be back on the line with us and we can um hear from them um next uh Connor uh go ahead thank you all uh Connor Kennedy for the Montpelier um as much as there's been quite a few things that have been said tonight that i would love to dissect and uh understand the actual factual nature of some of the comments i'm gonna leave it to the issue at hand which is the uh matter of whether or not liberty and justice for all should be placed in front of the state house i think the premise on why it should be there is problematic in itself in that when that was first stated it was all white men that decided that it was liberty and justice for all it was clearly not a diverse group of individuals that were making that decision we've seen throughout our history that people have been disproportionately affected by those that have created it i think we have a great country i agree with mr claire that you know we should celebrate this but we also have to understand that it is not equally great for every individual in this country uh i like to equate it i saw this uh in a video if someone's house is on fire this is what black lives matter is saying and then you say well what about my house that's the all lives or liberty and justice for all fire you're trying to make the fact that someone's house on fire is not important in that moment everyone's life might be important but in this moment there is a huge need to support these individuals that are crying for help they've been crying for help for centuries and if we take this moment to try to paint over literally paint over this important message i just think it's incredibly problematic i would encourage people to look at the public messages and commentaries that are out there from mr claire i think it speaks for themselves i have a hard time believing that this is genuine on its face um i think we all uh can appreciate that this is a country that we wish to be great but in this moment it is certainly not great for every u.s citizen i uh i understand that one of the speakers said that she feels that they have had a great life here i've had friends that are people of color that have moved from the state because of the interactions that they've had here and it is just so unfortunate i know we like to think that we are this great progressive place but we have so much work to do in the state across the country and i think it would be uh a terrible disservice to try to literally bracket the message of black lives matter with this other message uh it just seems so incredibly uh disingenuous in this time um the one thing i will say i saw before um to the mr car that proposed this about his character being attacked um you are running for public officer i ran for public office myself i hope you're ready for it because it does not stop um you have to stand behind the messages that you put out there so uh thank you for your time i hope that you do not support this proposal it's incredibly disingenuous and we need to do focus our work on the issue at hand which is making sure vermont in this country has equal access for everyone thank you thank you um so just checking in uh tracy and i didn't see the the other person's name but um tracy are you on didn't see a new phone number but i also just emailed her um so while we're waiting we did have another um uh person raise their hand um um can you hear me yes um sorry is this this is meg yes okay go go for it meg my name is meg wall yeah and say where you're from and i'm from montpelier i can't remember my district number sorry um but i'm gonna keep this very brief i i echo everything that maggie and connor said before and i am opposed to this proposal thank you okay thank you thank you um i need to mute herself on her camera there you go all right did tracy did y'all call in hey can you hear me now yes yes and we can hear you well even okay go ahead technology yes so i'm i'm also here uh we're in district one um uh tracy canino scott roberton and adam roberton is also here with me so there's three of us in the household um and i just wanted to say that i agree with the the other montpelier citizen uh who's spoken this evening um it's not that there can be that much disagreement about the wonderful phrase um the quality you know justice for all but that the timing of this is very inappropriate we need to sit with the uncomfortableness that we have with the black lives matter uh saying that is in our city um because that is what we need to be reflecting on right now so that we can work upon ourselves and improve ourselves um and so that we can move forward with trying to find the equity and the equality that that needs to be there um and that the timing of trying to add something to that would be would be to dilute dilute the message that is already there not that it can't be there uh at some point and not that it shouldn't be there at some point but it's exceptionally unfortunate that people would feel so strongly to try to force that to be in the conversation at this point to dilute the message that is already part of the conversation now that that we need to do because we need to do the work um not just in saying that kind of a phrase but in showing up for our neighbors and doing things in our community and changing our policies to make that happen um and you know Alice gave an exceptionally passionate speech she's such a wonderful speaker um and she has so many great qualifications and certainly I don't have any of that but I do feel very strongly that I think that you know even in my ordinariness that you know we need to have the first conversation first um before we we dilute it and and and get back to this red white and blue uh phrase from the constitution uh that perhaps it's not yet time to have that conversation because we're not there yet and I don't know if Scott wants to say anything Adam Adam and Scott agree with that statement thank you okay thank you very much okay thank you I have to say something at this point because the the conversations that we're having right now the the topics seem to be well we have a oppressing pressure problem on us and we have to address it but you want to know something I'm 65 years old and I've been doing this for a while isn't it convenient that this comes up just around the time when we have elections and isn't it convenient that when you donate money to Black Lives Matter it goes to go blue or wherever that thing is and no it doesn't go to the DNC directly but they contributed hundreds of thousands to the democratic candidates isn't it convenient that for decades that there's there have been there's been violence in Black communities across the country and yet nobody speaks about that what about the little eight-year-old girl who was shot in the back of her mother's car what about the six-year-old girl whose father was shot nobody's talking about that because it does not fit the narrative now I want you to know I don't think we have a problem here in Vermont and I'm not saying that your friends your friend I'm not even saying this talk offense because I lived my life and I have been working very hard in support of issues of equality for all people all of my students have always felt they get a fair shake from Mrs. Blanders Black White or Grizzly Gray but isn't it just convenient that it comes up at the time of elections more than other times and isn't it so disappointing that these issues that I did mention never get any space in the in the media thank you um Cameron do we have anyone else um in the queue um Erica Reddick has raised her hand okay uh Erica are you ready to go I am thank you and I apologize my video will not turn on I'm not sure what my technical difficulty is so I apologize okay um and I just want to say I understand for the record I am not a mobiliar resident and so I understand that my uh perspective does not have as much weight um but the reason I support John's sorry before you get uh get into it um where do you live I oh yes I live in Burlington I'm a resident of Burlington thank you all right go ahead um uh the reason that my husband and I support this um this mural proposal is because we are in an interracial couple or we are in an interracial marriage and so we've had these conversations we've been having these conversations about racial reconciliation and what that looks like and what's required for many many years um and so we're very glad that the Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted areas where um Black people have legitimate grievances against certain systems certain cities um certain people uh he's a filmmaker so we understand he's we've dealt with discrimination issues as a dark-skinned Black man with him getting um you know the roles for a couple years all he got from his agent were thug number one drug dealer number two and stuff like that and that's and that's so so we know very personally what it looks like to be championing these causes and moving the Black uh movement or pushing the Black excellence moving forward we work with at-risk youth we donate our time and our energy we are also very proud Americans who believe very much in the founding promise that all men are created equal and while this country has not always lived up to its founding ideals it has with every success successive generation done better and better and better the United States is the story of progressive sanctification this is the greatest country on earth and while we are not perfect we are always looking to get better and i love that what concerns me is that the BLM messaging is very divisive it is very very divisive and as an interracial couple and the things that we're dealing with and the way that people are talking is so in many ways very much profoundly missing the point of moving this country forward and so it is in our opinion that with liberty and justice for all is not a response to the BLM it's not in addition to it's not trying to cover up it is an affirmation that this country is created for everyone and that everyone has equal rights equal justice equal under the law and so i appreciate you taking the time to listen to me this evening thank you thank you uh camera and anyone else um i do not see anyone now would be time to throw up a blue hand or emoji or a physical wave okay all right so i'm not seeing anyone else either so i have i have my own thoughts but i'm sure you all do as well um so i'm happy to have other folks start if you would like or i'll jump in uh connor go ahead well i uh i feel the need to respond a bit since my name was brought up by john claire in the beginning um and i'll say like a few weeks ago when we painted the black lives matter mural um that was a beautiful day we had 300 people come from all over the states uh new americans families you know everybody was adding and and paint in that mural um and it was just a very basic affirmation of the values we hold and was a message to elected officials that you know when you drive down state streets and i'll please keep that in mind as you make policy it was a message to us too um it didn't say black lives are the best it didn't say black lives are the only lives that matter but the amount of angst this has caused with being vandalized within 24 hours of being painted vandalized again a couple days later um just shows i think need to paint at the begin with and how far we have to come um i'm not i'm not against the concept of liberty and justice for all i think it's a great aspirational statement but right now it's a farce in america and uh you know i i think you know maybe something to aspire to but until we can recognize that black lives matter um i don't think liberty and justice for all is alive and well in america so i apologize mr claire if i am doubting your intentions with coming in here with this request but i i've read some of your commentary pieces and you know i find them offensive uh commentary pieces called reverse racism um where you talk about um black culture is rife with anti-white references and themes and this has been tolerated presumably because of white guilt um you have other pieces where you say you're a victim because of your dark complexion you've been a victim in brahmant because of this you've questioned whether systemic racism even exist in brahmant um and i think worst of all you know you have a bit of a history with us in montpellier too john uh when the black lives matter flag was flown you wrote a commentary piece come out against this uh using a quote from audra lord who i'm sure would love that you're using the quote at the end of this uh where you say expecting a marginalized group to educate the oppressors is the continuation of racist patriarchal thoughts and then you add by that measure the schools that permitted the blm flag assisted their black students to become uncle tom's those students john were the same ones who graduated montpellier high school who are the ones who organized this event in a beautiful organic display of unity um and when i hear you say that i don't want a drop of your paint going next to the mural that they worked on you say we're trying to politicize this but i don't think there's any center with racism i'm not interested in meeting somebody in the center as they're shown of unity if they don't believe black lives matter and sure enough i don't think all conservatives are racist either john but but i definitely think you are so i'll absolutely oppose this i'll oppose this this is government speech um and i don't want to be a part of your political spunt and honestly i've been on the record way too much already giving you the press that you're desperately craving for um and i i don't i think it's sad i won't say anymore um that's it you know where i stand thank you uh jack thank you um i've been struggling with this issue because when uh you know i've someone for many years is consider myself a first amendment freedom of speech absolutists and i think there's a certain appeal to the idea that uh content the the rule of content neutral regulation should apply here um and that is the standard that mr clarr uh brought before us in his uh is in his remarks however i went beyond that to do do some legal research and in fact the standard that uh mr clarr stated is not the legal standard that applies to uh to this situation and uh and the legal standard that i believe is the correct legal standard is the principle enunciated leslie bro versus summum uh supreme court decision from 2009 which says that in fact if uh if a municipality uh makes a decision to give over public property for uh monuments that uh those that choice to dedicate that public property is a policy determination by the municipal government and it is uh speech by the government i think it's clear that the painting mural on on public streets is the same as erecting a monument in a city park in that uh the people who observe that monument or the sign will see it and conclude that it is not the opinion of whoever might have painted it there but the opinion of the municipality um it's also a painting of the sign on the public street is different from allowing a march because of the supreme court pointed out the march ends the leaflets uh are given away and and then they leave whereas the monument or the painting on the public street endures as a statement of that public policy so um i've said many times in this council that i believe that we should listen to the legal advice we receive from our attorney and i i believe that today too and i'm happy to see that the legal advice we get from the attorney is the same advice that i would be given giving if i were giving legal advice to the city that leads me to the conclusion that we are not required to provide an opportunity for a different private organization to to paint their message to stand in contrast to the message of black lives matter and it's clear to me that although we the resolution adopted by the by the city council at our meeting was to close state street for the purpose of allowing someone else to paint black lives matter on the road it's clear to me that when we took that action we were expressing unanimously the view of the city council that we adopt a value of black lives matter that's all going to is it permissible for us to deny the application and i would say that it clearly is the next question then is is it the right thing to do to deny the application and i again think it is contrary to what the speaker said the message of black lives matter is not divisive it is the principle that in my view our city council the great majority of the residents of our city uh and uh and most of the residents of this state i think uh strongly uh strongly believe it and i think the person who's being divisive in fact is mr claire in his uh on his uh campaign web page his commentary today uh bears the headline the lm versus the united states flag in brunette capital i do not believe that the black lives matter is challenging or standing up against the united states flag i fly a united states flag in front of my house but i oppose the message i do not believe that the is complementary to the black lives matter message i do not believe it's intended to be complementary to the black lives matter message and i also oppose the uh the request thank you uh thank you uh lord yeah thanks um i just wanted to start out by acknowledging that i have heard from no constituents who wanted this painting i only heard from people in not pelier who opposed it um in the application the claire campaign claimed they were proposing this to create unity and in fact the entire reason we need to say black lives matter and big bold yellow letters is because far too often we don't focus on black lives in the state and in this country and the message they're putting forward seems entirely aimed at distracting from and undermining the message black lives matter and it's using different words but essentially conveys uh all lives matter sentiment which alice confirmed earlier is a sentiment that they really wanted to get across through this project and as connor mentioned you know seeing the vandalism on mont pelier street painting the very first night uh people have torn down a black lives matter flag in another vermont community recently there's been vandalism vandalizing happening in other black lives matter street paintings across vermont in the past few weeks so seeing the reaction that this painting and this message is provoking um you know just really underscores how much work we have to do as a state to address systemic racism and the white supremacy on which our society is built um i wholeheartedly agree that striving for liberty and justice for all is a great aspiration um as a woman who wasn't part of that all men are created equal in our constitution we have a lot of work to do in a lot of regards but i think at this moment in our nation's history the path in striving for liberty and justice for all demands that we affirm that black lives matter i believe we don't need to approve this i strongly oppose it i think it only serves to underscore the importance of the message black lives matter and i just want to once again reiterate my appreciation for my fellow counselors and the community members who came together to approve the black lives matter painting um i think it was a great project um and again this whole conversation we're having tonight i think just reminds us all how much work we have to do and how important that message is to be putting out there um in a big bold yellow message to our uh our community members thanks thank you uh dan go ahead thank you um so first i want to say um that i very much believe in the statement liberty and justice for all i believe in the pledge of allegiance i believe in the constitution of the united states and the declaration of independence and our founding documents and i i would echo um is reddick's um sentiment in large part that the united states has been a beacon of hope in the world and it is a wonderful country and it is an exceptional one in many many ways um but that's not the issue that's before us um the issue before us is a specific application to put that phrase that doesn't appear in the constitution but appears in the pledge of allegiance next to another statement um that was painted uh on that street already and the question is one of context um and i think it's important you know i agree with with jack uh i did some research as well i also believe agree with the city attorney's analysis you know if we are to believe in these documents the constitution and the declaration of independence then we have to believe that they have some meaning and that they don't warp to fit our own opinions and in this case the first amendment protects in open form but it doesn't protect government speech it allows governments to speak um as as they wish just as we pass resolutions for particular people you know if we pass a resolution praising chief fecos we don't have to pass a resolution praising bob gallans the fire department chief uh because he wants to be recognized if we choose to paint hockey sticks on the street to recognize a team uh nor which having a great victory um we don't have to paint basketballs on the street because the basketball fans want equal representation these are things that we get to do as a government to express our our voice our uh as a community um and the constitution and the u.s supreme court do protect that um or do not require um equal time uh such as a public forum might have such as often happens on the state house lawn where competing uh private views are aired openly and equally so if mr car wants to have a rally on july 3rd he can but if somebody else wants to have a rally counter case he wants to have a rally on july 4th he can as well and these expressions can be voiced so if we look at this question as one of should we approve of this particular design in this particular place in this particular time i don't think it's a close question i think it is something that ultimately tries to bracket um and mixes a number of different messages we have approved the black lives matter it has been installed um and that is the i think that is the statement if we want liberty and justice for all um which i think there's general support for as a philosophic content um in another area you know i think that might be a different question but that's not the question before us either it's a question of if black lives matter is on the street and liberty and justice for all does that detract from the black lives matter statement that we've made and i think it does i i think it causes um some context confusion uh i think it mixes the messages i think it detracts from the liberty and justice for all message which is a aspirational message and should not be seen as a rejoinder to the black lives matter statement it is a higher principle uh that we found this country on and to cause it to be put in that context to serve as a statement against that