It is now 6 p.m. On Wednesday, February 28, 2024. We have a quorum present, so I'd like to call to order this regularly scheduled hybrid meeting of the Chittin, the Board of Commissioners of the Chittin and solid waste district. First item on the agenda is the agenda itself. Are there any requests for additions or changes to the agenda? I'm hearing none and I'm seeing none. Therefore, the agenda will be followed and accepted as presented in the board packet. Item number two on the agenda is the public comment period. Are there any members of the public present either in the CSWD office conference room via phone or via zoom who wish to make an address to the board of commissioners. I am seeing none via zoom. I believe there are none in the office. And I believe there's no one on the phone, so I will go ahead and close the public comment period. Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda, which unless a commissioner asks for something to be removed. Will be accepted and approved as presented in the packet. Consent agenda consists of the minutes of the January 24, 2024 board meeting. Program update memo executive director update memo. Finance report. A approval of a contract award for hazardous waste hauling. Your authorization to include the new mirth that is will soon be under construction in the district's solid waste implementation plan. Also an item to approve a contract for the Williston drop off center on the to build a maintenance lean to. And also to approve a contract extension for the Burlington electric department, McNeil would waste depot. Any requests to pull an item in that list on the consent agenda for further discussion or questions. I am hearing none for the consent agenda will be accepted. As presented in the board packet, and we're ready to already to move on to item number four, which is the main event of the evening. We have a discussion on the solid waste management fee. This is an important part of our overall district revenue. It's an important part and some, some commissioners, including myself took a long time to really get our heads my head around the, what the solid waste management fee is all about so this is a great opportunity for us all to have some education and also learn more about it and potentially have some discussion. So with that, I'll turn it over to Sarah to lead us through this conversation. Very good. Great. Thank you. This is a bit of a continuation from the solid waste management fee review that we did back in October. So we have updated that. We have some information that are requested by some folks, both at the executive, sorry, the finance committee and just having some conversations with some newer commissioners. Just a few of the questions and actually one of them. Keep doing research on and I'm going to rely on some of the longer 10 year board members to help me out on, but just again review of what it is and what we use for how are we authorized what are we authorized to charge a management fee. How do we turn it, how do we change it, what do other sister districts do, and who, who's charged the fee who pays the fee and how are they charged. So essentially what the fee is. It is a fee that is used to fund district activities that are necessary to ensure our efficient economical environmentally sound management and regulation of the waste generated within the district. And the fee does not fund all of our activities any longer used to when we were first starting out and before we had facilities that generated user fees or produce materials that we could sell for for revenue. It did fund all of our activities and that is in our charter. So right now, it currently fully funds all the items that you see on that list, and the components contain their end so for example, the fee fully funds, the finance department, and and within the finance department are the funds for the community cleanup fund. So the community cleanup fund is fully funded through solid waste management fees, compliance and safety activities, all of our outreach and communication activities are funded through this fee, as is all of our systems are our information systems our technology, our maintenance roll off division and our administrative functions. And so this is an update from October. So I put in the unaudited revenue from fiscal 23 so you could get a sense for kind of what the, the component of our overall revenue is the solid waste management fee. And what it is is charged on each ton of trash that's generated in Chittenden County, that is then sent to the landfill for disposal. So it is not charged on recycling that goes to the market is not charged on food scraps that are sent to the organics recycling facility. It is just on that material that is disposed of in the landfill or there's much that goes out to incineration there used to be occasionally some that went out to incineration but it is most of the material goes to the Coventry landfill. So currently we are charging $27 per ton. And in doing some historical research, we've only increased this fee twice in our history. And so since we started the district. We had to determine the 27 and last time we increased it was in fiscal 13 up from $22 to 27. At the time, we had intended that to be a five year fee so we were intending to take another look at it and possibly raise it again in fiscal 18 and 19. And what we do is we do take a look each year and see if the revenues are sufficient to meet the needs. And we did that in each year. And we determined that we did not need to increase the fee that the fee was sufficient for what we needed to be doing. And the, the makeup of the fee as a percentage of our overall revenue changes each year. So, and it is very much related to the component of the whole. So it's a portion of again our fees are a revenue from user fees which are tipping fees so fees that are charged at drop off centers or at the materials recycling facility or at the organics recycling facility. That is you can see is the largest component. And then it's not always been the case. In some years the solid waste management fee portion has been over 30%. What we see in fiscal 22 is down around 21%. The big swing tends to come in that material and product sales piece of pie. So in fiscal 22 we were coming off a, a roaring year at the Murph where we made more money than we had expected in the sale of commodities. This past year that, that re leveled itself out so it was not as large a wedge of the pie. We have not set as far as I know recently a goal for what the portion of solace management fee as a component of the entire pie should be. We've been talking about it over the years every now and then saying we want to make sure that it's no more than X. But I think the reality is that we don't control to large extent what we can receive, particularly for the recycling, because it's sold on the market we just don't control that portion of our revenue. We're at the mercy of, of the general market. So it's not, it's not a clear science with that respect, but that is last year's an unaudited version. And again, why, how can we do this, what is, what is our authority, and the authority first stems in our charter, the charter was established back in 1987. And it rests in these essentially these two sections section five powers and section 12 management fees. So, I highlighted in a part of the management fees section because I think it's important that we remember that. You know, sometimes you'll hear out in the world wise and this should all be free, you shouldn't have to pay anything for this. And yet in statute and that is what our charter is it is essentially functioning as a law, it says that, and further references from our statutes, the generators of waste, all of us should pay disposal costs to reflect the real cost to society of management and disposal. And that is what we are attempting to do in, in how we approach the, how we set our fees and why we set them the way we do. We also have language in our own local ordinance. So as a municipality, we are able to to and required to set an ordinance to describe how we do our business and how the entities that we regulate are to be regulated. So we have sections in our local ordinance, article eight and article nine, so always management fee and then payment of fees to the district. And this is where the fees are established. Article nine, so article eight states the fee specifically, it says this always management fee is $27 per ton. That is, is how or where that fee is set. Because the fees are specifically named in the ordinance, they can only be changed as part of a formal ordinance amendment or ordinance change process, and we'll be talking more about that over the next month or so. Other districts do have this fee in or have a mechanism in the ordinance some have a theme in the ordinance others don't. And one of the questions that was asked recently was, well what does the fee pay for. And this is again based on kind of unaudited numbers from last year and it's a it's a rough kind of amalgamation of where the fees went to. And you can see, hopefully you can see that, hopefully it's large enough. But the bulk of the Solwis management fees will be flowing into reserves from last year, and the board a couple of years ago authorized establishment of a priority funding of our reserves and a maximum to some of those funds so the Solwis management reserve has a cap. And that cap is has been reached so the excess revenue that is not used for the other programs is then going to flow into the next reserve down which is also kept. So we'll flow to the next reserve down, and so on. And that is usually done at the end of the fiscal year after all of the bills are paid. And after we've been, I think it's prior to us being audited but then we get the final resolution of how much goes into each each reserve flow. So but of what was generated. This is kind of where the fees were used. So, you know, as you can imagine it was designed to be used for administrative purposes, that is where the bulk, aside from reserve, where the fees are used. So and again, you know, who pays all generators of solid waste into an accounting pay some form. So it is essentially can be seen as a tax, although we don't call it tax we call it a fee but because there is no escaping this fee. So you can consider it a tax, and the fee is generally all the time actually not in generally incorporated into the bills that haulers charge their customers. So it's a component of that fee. The haulers are charged or charged the fee at the point of disposal whether it's directly at the landfill or transfer station. And then generally is Kasella who is remitting those fees to us because they run both the landfill and the transfer station. And then we also pay this fee so former materials the trash that is collected at our drop off centers for example, we pay Kasella to dispose it at the transfer station so the bill the Kasella sense to us incorporates our own fee into that bill. And as part of Kasella's contract for operating the materials recycling facility, they are responsible for paying for the disposal of the residue is generated at the facility so that fee is incorporated into that processing fee. And this is an example of some of other sister districts and kind of what what they do. Okay, so in Addison County. They charge $35 a ton. They do have one of the largest always mentioned fee. Unless you combine the per capita, but they don't charge a per capita fee and their fees established through their budget process each year. Central Vermont has two fees and administrative fee which is essentially their solid waste management fee. And their fee is currently $30 a ton but they also add an additional per capita fee of $1.43 a ton Northwest similarly they call there's a franchise tax. So they have that base tax in their ordinance at $15 a ton but that has been amended over the years is currently $25 a ton and they also charge a per capita fee as well. And greater prevailing has two fees they're calling it a waste generation fee essentially a solid waste management fee at $23 a ton and that one has not changed, but their tipping fee, what they're calling it tipping fee has changed and that's currently at $15 and 71 cents a ton. And they set that through their budget, and that is functioning essentially as a per capita fee. Yep, that is the end, I'm going to stop my share. That was a very, I'm sorry, I apologize, quick run through of kind of what the solid waste management fee is, how it functions, where it currently goes. One of the things that as I mentioned, Amy and I have been doing some research on is how the fee was initially determined. I think I mean this predates you, Ellen. And we're having difficulty finding out how it was initially established back in 1992. So we're still looking to kind of just for historical purposes, and because a question arose at our latest staff training well how, how do we set that solid waste management fee. And really what we do is we look at the needs in our budget. And one of the things that we're proposing in this upcoming fiscal year budget is to increase the fee from $27 a ton to $30 a ton. And the need this time around, in prior years, the need was due to a decrease in revenue from recycling, it was, there were a couple of crashes back in 08. And then again in 111213 that precipitated an increase. So what we're looking at now is needing to, to beef up our reserves that don't have another source of revenue to generate specifically the closed landfill reserve. We know we need to to beef that reserve up. So we're looking at supplementing that reserve with this additional solid waste management fee revenues, and also looking at ways to supplement our capital reserve as well. So that's why and how, what percentage, I'm still looking into that and I will, I will continue to read past packets. So, questions, thoughts, comments on the fee itself. So I just wanted to jump in before we open up conversation on it. I'm just going to take privilege to do it. You know, you talk about $27 a ton. I just wanted to share with the commissioners like, if you take $27 a ton and you divide it by 2000 pounds in a ton current solid waste management fee is 1.35 cents per pound. I'm a typical homeowner and I'm just a homeowner I go to a drop off center but if my bag of trash weighs 30 pounds, which I think is actually rather heavy, that equates to 40 and a half cents of the fee that I pay to dispose of that bag of trash. To me, you know, that puts it into a context, we may get talking about 27 versus 30 and it's kind of an abstract number but I just, I just wanted to get out in front of everybody was personally I think it's helpful. To bring it down to the personal level. I don't know I'm not I don't use a hauler so I don't know what people pay for their weekly or bi weekly pickup. But again, if you're picking up, or if you're putting out 30 pounds of trash to be picked up and you've been the cost, you saw the waste management to use right now in the 40 to 41 cents. If if you're disposing of 30 pounds could be higher could be lower but again I think that's a helpful number to just kind of have in the back of your mind. Thanks Paul. Thank you very much for giving me that privilege to point that out. Margie, you're up and then Ken, and you're muted Marty. Sorry. So, I hope this isn't a stupid question but can you explain Sarah how a per capita fee works or would work. So per capita fee is essentially, you know again the two districts that I called out charge $1 and 43 cents, and it's per person in the district. So that dollar 43 and multiplied by the members, the population of the town, and then that town would be sent to bill for the total of their members in their town. And that fee is built probably through property taxes. Exactly. Thanks. That's what I imagined but I just wanted to be sure. And we paid the first three years there was a per capita charge for the members of those communities. But we got away from it and the select boards, at least when I was on the select board are very glad that there isn't that additional charge. That they have to raise to general funds. And it's interesting. Thank you all and you're exactly right and it's interesting when I go to present our budget to our member town cities. Every now and then because obviously folks change off the boards, you know, fairly regularly they'll say, I've been looking in our budget and I can't find your bill. And I say, yes, you won't. You won't find a bill from us, because here's how we generate our revenue and is through other other means, and that tends to ease the conversation. But to Paul's point, you know, it's what we do, we do very well and we do very affordably and economically and I think our member towns appreciate that.  Great. So it's kind of a two part question. So, Sarah, did I understand that you were saying that you, we increase the fee. Then we have this excess money, the reserve is captain and it flows down to where you want it to be flowed down. Okay. The second part is that you described what the fee is for. And it was things administrative it and finance blah, blah, blah. And it didn't include things like clothes landfill and your description of what it's for. But your description of our ordinance it says we're supposed to it's we're allowed to charge to pay for the cost of trash seems to include things like helping the clothes landfill so I just want to make sure that we're not sending the wrong impression that we're like using this fund. It seems like it's totally appropriate but we kind of made it sound like we're using it to pay for something we don't normally use it for. That's a really good clarifying question. Thank you, Ken. We, we also have the ability so no one and I can direct excess revenue to specific funds. And that's what we would be doing with with a portion of the always measure a few revenues raised. So, you know, again, because the clothes landfill. Is not generating revenue. And that one does have the need to be directing more of the excess revenue from the salaries management fees not needed for administrative functions to that close landfill reserve for that specific purpose. You know, again, the, you know, we'll most likely for the next couple of years, rearrange that order. We have capital reserve above that cell that closed landfill reserve, but we will want to, for the first few years of this increase to rearrange that order. So we hit what we think should be a comfortable, comfortable amount in that that reserve. We've landed on a million dollars as a, as a, we think will be enough to manage what we need to manage for the next five to seven years, not knowing what may be coming down the line for leachate treatment. And then, and then once we hit that cap, we'll go back to again flowing through the waterfall as initially described. Thank you. It's a good distinction. Thank you. You're all set Ken with your questions. Okay. Hi there. I'm the alternate in Williston, if people don't know because I'm not here all the time. This is a helpful presentation. I am wondering if, like how much of a factor the unfunded reserves are in this decision and if other ways to fund them have been considered before this. And then maybe I'll pause at the second question. Yeah, so this past year we did flow the bulk of the interest revenue that we made from the interest invest the reserve fund investments into the closed landfill fund. So we, we had a good, I think a pretty good year made over just over $150,000. So we were able to put a good chunk into the closed landfill to kind of jumpstart that. But as, as interest rates, we'll start to decline that's going to be less of a reliable source of additional revenue will we're we are still investing those funds. So we will see generating that revenue but that will be going down so we're looking for a steadier, more reliable source of revenue for that unfunded reserve fund. And this was so that's a, is it fair to say that that's a significant factor in pursuing the increase and this was identified as the best way to do that. Because generally for so generally land post closure funds for landfills are are pre funded. So they're funded during the course of operation of the landfill is is a piece of what you have to do. It's a federal requirement is the state requirement and it's just best practice for managing that landfill. So you have to, you're supposed to put enough money into that closure fund that post closure fund to provide for 30 years of care. So we were doing pretty well. And any landfill manager will tell you can never have enough money in that post closure fund. And the, the new factor is PFAS, and having not knowing what that treatment is going to look like. And we'll find out very soon in the next year, I would assume. But we know in year 28 of a 30 year plan. We're pretty sure we're not going to have enough. So, you know, the alternative would be to move money from the undesignated fund, which is our basically our rainy day emergency fund. So that would that's always an option. We don't really want to move it out of operating fund that needs, I think to be for our facilities. We couldn't move it just out of just the general saw always management reserve, but we like to try to keep that there and as a, as a hedge against increasing unnecessarily. So, the fact that we haven't increased this fee since you know fiscal 13. We felt that this was a reasonable approach. Great. That's really helpful. And it definitely seems appropriate and the, you know, the way it's written of capturing the full cost of managing waste, which the long term closed landfill is part of that. So, from Kelton's perspective, I just wanted to share. It sounds like we're really talking about the raising the amount of the fee, and not necessarily the process for it being raised in an ongoing way but could you clarify that because he had some concerns about the process for raising the fee. Kind of long term. So we discussed this at the executive board and we'll be bringing a proposal back to the full board next month. The way we raise it now is through ordinance change. And we had a good conversation at the executive board about the kind of pros and cons. The, the proposals that we will be bringing to the full board is to take a look at going forward how we want to, you know, what's the mechanism that want to continue to employ to change that fee. And we're staff is proposing that we look at changing the mechanism to similar to what Addison County does, and similar to greater upper valley, where their fee is a part of their annual budget process. So we'll be bringing that information to the full board for conversation discussion. Next month we bring the budget. Can I just interrupt Sarah, if you could just kind of walk through the steps. If we follow through on the proposed $3 per ton increase. Can you just walk us through the ordinance change process that will kick off soon. Yeah, so currently, we regard this will need to have an ordinance change request we brought to the full board, whether we change the mechanism by which we change the, the, or just change the fee. As I mentioned, right now the fee is stated in the ordinance as the fee is $27 ton. So if we want to change the feed to $30, we would still need to go through an ordnance ordinance change process to say, change that language to say this, change that fee is $30. So that requires us to go to the board, the board has to authorize language to go out to public comment, it would authorize the public hearing, we would hold a public hearing, and then the board would the next month. We would take the responses from that public hearing under advisement, and that either would authorize the ordinance change or, or not authorize the ordinance change. If the change is authorized then our process internally has been that we allow for another 45 days before the change takes effect. So we're hoping that any changes that changes that if they are approved would take effect for July one. I hope that was clear the process we will have an ordinance change process that we will go through no matter what comes forward with a potential change that the board might entertain. Thanks for the clarification. Bryn, your hand was up and then after that I just want to go back to the meeting room to see if anybody in the conference room has has any questions or comments. Thanks. I might have missed this in your presentation, Sarah. Was there any review of how much inflation is increased since 2013 and how that compares to the proposed $3 increase. I did not include that in there we have included that in the past and I will look at that because, as we know the past several years couple of years anyway, the CPI has been pretty out of control. So, when we did the increases the last time, they were in the 20% there was the last increases about 25%. And this increase is so going from $27 to $33 it's just over 10%. So it's a smaller increase than has been proposed in the past. As far as accumulative inflation over the past, you know, X number of years 13 years. I don't have that handy back and certainly find out. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Bryn. But to that point, I wish I had it in front of me but I did some back of the envelope calculations and certainly not reliable but I think that $27 per ton that we're still charging would be in 2013 dollars, probably down around $21 that we'd be if we were collecting that fee in 2013 dollars right now would be about 21 bucks a ton. Yeah, I asked purely for context so that, you know, when we're looking at like, what, what would comparatively if we were to raise based off CPI. How much of an increase would that be like year over year. Like would that be $35 so again it's just it's just for some point of it's a data point, a reference point. So following up on that. I mentioned at the beginning of your presentation that the 2013 increase had been intended for a five year plan. Are you also intending this for a five year plan. Well, so that's a great question. And that actually gets at kind of the pros and cons over. Do we include this in our annual budget or do we continue with keeping the fee in the ordinance. If we were to look at it annually to our annual budget process. We would be looking at it from the perspective of certainly is there a need. And because we already utilize the CPI for our wages and benefits to determine the cost of living adjustment. We would then look at using that the same that same index or there's also a garbage and trash index that the Bureau of Labor Statistics produces looking at that index. The index talks about any increase or decrease of the costs involved with managing trash and recycling. So we would propose if we move to the budget process, using those two indices to basically say if we were to raise this fee. This would be how much we would recommend we not exceed the increase by it still, we would not necessarily guarantee an increase it still would have to be what are the needs in this next. fiscal year. So, I think going 1012 years is is excessive we most likely, you know, should have done a deeper dive back in 18 or 19 and really taken a harder look at it. If very likely could be satisfactory for a number of years, but I wouldn't want to guarantee that. Again, we saw what happened over the past couple of years with the, the large swings in the cost of living and in the consumer price index so I like having a mechanism and automatic mechanism that we can, you know we know we're going to look at this every single year. There's also nothing stopping us from looking at every single year as part of the ordinance process. So, either way, I think we're going to want you to go through that exercise, regardless of which mechanism we choose. Okay, thank you. I can't see everybody in the conference room but is there anybody there who would like to ask a question. So, we have a number of a fact Paul in 13 when we did raise the fee. It was a very, it was probably the most input that we've had at any hearing, but it was the intent of the board to raise it. So that there was money put aside in years one and two that would be able to pay the required increases for the other things that we fund with it in years three, four and five. And the haulers, even though it seems like it's a very small number of the haulers felt that they like that proposal because we were going to keep it fairly steady or we were going to keep it steady for five years. And they would not have to go out to their clientele and get a raise every year to match what whatever it was but it, it worked out really well for us because we've kept it constant for much longer than that almost twice that long. Thanks for that bit of history Alan Leslie, can I see your hand up was up first but I want to give Leslie a chance to ask her first question and then we'll go back to you can. I'm, I know this is probably premature because we will be having a conversation the board is as Sarah just said but building in annual reviews or annual increases makes me a little nervous, because it, it's a disincentive to efficiency. If you think all your costs increases are going to be covered. You know, all you have to do is change the ordinance every year. That that is a concern of mine. We need to be looking at building an incentives to cost management. Thanks for that comment Leslie I think keep that in reserve when we get to the discussion. I guess it'll be at our next board meeting. I think that's an important point to bring up. This goes to Brits. Brins question sorry. I just plugged in, I just pulled up the consumer price index inflation calculator from the Bureau of Labor statistics and if you plug in $27 in 2013. That has the same buying power as $36 in 2024. So I hope that makes everyone feel a little bit better we're way under that. Yeah, I was kind of anticipating. Thanks for looking that up. Yeah. Marty. Yeah. So, Sarah I was interested, you know, in your point and I agree. People often think, you know, well why are we paying for this? It should all be free but you know we're producing this trash. I'm wondering whether there's, and I didn't know whether any of your presentation focused on the, you know, food scraps versus trash. I mean this is being paid on every ton of trash that goes to the landfill and 30% of that tonnage is, if I have it right, material that could be diverted to, you know, organics recycling. And I'm just wondering whether there's any possible incentive effect of raising it to encourage more use more diversion of food waste. And I get this question a lot. And I struggle with a good way to explain it so if it's not making sense, definitely give me some feedback because I want to keep trying to find better ways to explain this. It's, if you get your trash picked up or food scraps picked up at the curb, it's not a linear reduction, right? So you're going to pay $27 a ton, kind of regardless of your efforts to reduce.  So just where there's an incentive is at our drop off centers where you are controlling how many bags that you're bringing in. So customer who goes to our drop off center pays for one bag $8. If they can reduce the amount of food scraps are in that $8 bag and can pay for the $3 bag, they have effectively reduced their portion of the solid waste management fee. So at the drop off center, no, not really. At the drop off center, better chance, yes. Well, except, at least my hauler charges a separate fee for the food waste.   This might need some help in explaining this so. We're less full over time, because I put more in the food waste. Yeah. And that night has possibly another day. Say, say hello to the board and thank you my name's Matt Wallace. I'm the alternate from Shelburne, new to the time of entry job here last summer. So I have the fresh new resident perspective figuring all this out and setting it up. And I see a couple things. First is that this is much lower than I thought it would be. Um, and you coming from the South Virginia and North Carolina. I'm used to landfill tipping fees being substantially higher than this. So I, this is a very example of Vermont cost of living being surprisingly low. So I, it doesn't feel offensive to me to increase it and certainly keep up with inflation. There's a lot of money of that going on in other service fee adjustments that we've done as a, as a new resident, I saw exactly that calculation that you described that I signed up for a curbside service because it was reasonably affordable and convenient. But I thought about it, and I looked at where your convenience centers were and I thought, okay, that could be my lifestyle, and it was close. But I chose the convenience. If that price went up because the hauler passed through the cross that you're describing, I could reevaluate that and I would, I would do it and save a buck and people do respond to those choices. And I think it's, it's well within your original policy mission to express that and try to note those choices. So the need you've been describing the uses of these funds as driven by your budget, when the original policy intent in the law was to capture the total social costs of all of these ways management impacts. So you're, you're not yet measuring or capturing overall societal impacts and trying to offset them. So I commend you by all means pay the bills build up reserves but it's okay to send a stronger social signal to and you'll change behavior of people like me. Thanks for that perspective Matt. Margie are you satisfied with your. Yeah, I think I thank you Matt that's a, that's a very good point and I guess what I was, you know, wondering was whether, you know whether this is, you know, part of can be part of a communications effort to make the point that the fewer tons we send to the landfill. The less the haulers are going to have to pay. It's a larger, you know, fee. I'm not saying that very well but I agree. I think I was trying to get at the point that Matt stated much better is that there's we need to be cognizant of the total social cost of this stuff that we are throwing out. And just one observation should this if disposal of material at the landfill goes way down, then so does CSWD's revenue from the solid waste management thing, which is a good thing. It's a good thing we're in a bit of an upside down business model in that sense that we want that fee to go down. Lee your hands up. Yeah, just listening to Matt's comments he referred to the tipping fee that in the solid waste management fee or two different fees correct that would be baked into the tipping fee. I'm looking at my bills when I bring roadside trash to Kasella, the tipping fee is $170 a ton doesn't specifically say in the invoice. You know that there is that solid waste management fee in there it refers to it but doesn't give you an amount because you're paying based on tonnage that you're dropping off. It's similar to our solid waste generation tax that we have in the city of Burlington that we use to fund our recycling program. So all the local haulers that pick up trash that residential units in Burlington pay the city a solid waste generation tax per residential unit per month. And a lot of our residents don't know they have that tax because it's not seen in their bill. So it's kind of similar to the solid waste management fee I think. Yeah, just wanted to get that out there to see if maybe it helped clarify, you know, retract my previous praise what 110 is not a good price. Yeah, it is it is wrapped into the overall fees. Yeah, it's not called on separately. And the state franchise is also in the tipping fee. Yeah, there's an additional $6 a ton that has not changed ever ever. So, and that $6 a ton that is charged on on all tons going to landfill that is admitted to the agency of natural resources. And that is, you know, used for grants and for agency support but that is also not called out on the bill. I can also use an increase. More questions folks. Rick has a question. He doesn't actually. It's a proactive request because the purpose tonight is to discuss the solid waste management fee and not how much it is. But at the point that we bring the perspective increase to the board. Okay, seeing a projection of what will at what point we would get the closed landfill reserve to a million dollars at $27 versus $30. I have a philosophical question that I continue to be confused about and it may be a sneak preview of a further discussion on on increasing the rate or how we would do about it but you know we've talked about the solid waste management fee as you've said it's a fee or a tax. We have a tip fees, which we've also used that word we have a tip fee at the mirf when you bring in materials. We have a tip fee at the organics recycling facility when you bring in materials there. It's really a two part question when my first questions why we call some a tip fee and some would you know in the solid waste management fee is not a tip because it seems to me you pay a certain rate based on the volume. You pay a certain rate basically that you take to these different facilities so why aren't they all tip fees is one question. And then the second question which is really for down the road. Why are we, we raise our tip fees through the budgeting process at the mirf or or even outside of the budgeting process I believe it's possible to raise some of our tip fees at the or at the mirf. So we're in an ordinance change process for the solid waste management fee. But my first question is, why are some called tip fees and some aren't. Well it's interesting to in. And the charter doesn't help us out here, because it says though that the, the district is allowed to charge a either stat to establish a management fee and then in parentheses says tipping fees. Even in the charter it's equating the two. But in practice, we do not equate the two, as you said so tipping fees are charged by the immediate user or generator of the material at the location where they are bringing their material so you know if you are not a, a customer of the doc. You're not charged a tip fee. If you are not a customer of the mirf you're not charged to be in the or. You cannot escape the solid waste management fee. So it is, it is charged to all generators as part of some fee. Thank you man. They are charged by either their hollers or by us. So you can choose to not pay a fee associated with food scraps at the or or at our drop off center by composting at home. So that fee is not automatic. The solid waste management fee is automatic. A holler can choose to bring the recycling down to the Murph and Rutland. They're not required to bring their material here. So I think that there is that that option of moving movement of the material, but once material is designated for disposal in the landfill that is the only place it's going to go. And that material is charged that that essentially tax on trash. I think I got it. Yeah, a comment, Paul. At one point, we were trying to ensure that those activities that had tipping fees, the tipping fees paid for the service that we were paying for them to have, and that the management fee was paying for those other activities that didn't have, you know, money making capabilities like administration. So that was the specific difference and we've blended those a little bit, but we do have a tipping fee for trash. And then on addition to that, we have the solid waste management fee that goes on top of that cost. We do pay. So our customers are paying that $27 to turn the portion of it in their tipping fee to us at a drop off center center. Yeah. And I want to be clear the tipping fee at Coventry is established by Kasella, not WD. That's right. And how often do they change their tipping fee. That's a good question and we have a contract. We pay them for what we pay at the transfer station. So if you're, if you don't have a contract with Kasella presumably they could change the tip fee really whenever they, they need to. We know that they tend to change the tip fee at the Murph in Rutland, which they own an operate on a monthly basis. I'm guessing unless you have a contract with them. So it's a privately held facility in Coventry so they can change prices whenever they need to. Thank you. More question and discussion on the solid waste management fee. I think there's been a. A quick clarifying question based on what Alan said. By extension, it would be counter to our way of doing business. If we said, we're going to raise the tipping fee on trash in order to fund the closed landfill reserve, because that's crossing boundaries. So we just have historically not done that. As a matter of practice, right. If there was a surplus in. The money that we collected. Yes. That could go at the end of the year into a lump sum that right that they would transfer into that reserve. Right or into the waterfall. Any other discussion. I hope for all commissioners. This has been beneficial and illuminating perhaps a bit confusing at times, but it's a complex. Complex part of our operation. I think then we're ready to move on to the next item in the on the agenda, which is other business. Is there any other business to bring before the board tonight. Yes, Alan. I have asked this question before. I can't remember the answer. But the construction debris that Myers disposes of. We have to double check with Josh to see if Kasella is reporting. You've talked about the deep packaging facility. If they're reporting those numbers. I'm not sure, but we do get the numbers from Kasella from Myers further. We would help our exact next of our recycling efforts. Yep. We definitely to make sure that we have the total picture of diversion out of the landfill. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Really. Yeah. We get the numbers from Myers. I'd have to double check with Josh to see if Kasella is reporting. You've talked about the deep packaging facility. If they're reporting those numbers. I'm not sure, but we do get the numbers from Kasella from Myers further. Thank you, Paul. Really, Alan. Paul, I have another item to for other business. If you could go ahead. So you'll be, the board will be receiving from either me or from Jen holiday, a request for if you are feeling comfortable to send out a, an email or to call your local senators regarding the extended producer responsibility law for batteries. That bill is mostly going to be voted out of committee. The Senate committee this week and then it'll head over to the house. Jen has prepared an excellent fact sheet on that. And what it will do is it will expand the current extend producer responsibility law. And then it will also expand to, and Jenny should probably be talking about this to, to include. Lithium ion batteries or chargeables, et cetera. So expanding that to include the really very dangerous batteries that can wreak a lot of havoc. Lithium ion batteries are one of the leading causes of fires at recycling facilities across the country. And then we have the news. The fires that are happening for batteries. That have overheated into damage from e-bikes and other kinds of electronic. Scooters and things of that nature. So we would love for you again, if you feel comfortable. Sending a short email and we can provide you with some, certainly information and there are three key points. And I think that's the first one. So we would like to thank the commissioners to pay attention to the bill when it comes to the floor. And to please do support that. So that will be coming to you. This week. Again, that's a heads up that something's coming, but we're on, we're not under an obligation to do it. Correct. Each commissioner can exercise their own judgment. in community, but the hope is that it wouldn't. And Paul in the chat, Lee put in some info saying that for them, Kasella's tip fee increased $12.35 a ton from last year to this year. So sizable, 10%. And we saw the same as well. And 10% the previous year. Nothing else, then I take it under other business. If that's the case, then we're open to a motion to adjourn. Some moved, Essex. Second, Hinesburg. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded that we adjourn for the evening. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, Seine? We are adjourned. Good night, everyone. Good job that you've already checked. It's 7 o'clock.


The World Bank promoted your appointment as a chief economist as someone uniquely suited to help client countries with evidence-based solutions and advice. And what does this mean in practice? Well, that is the World Bank's description of me. I hope that is right. It simply means that when you formulate policy, you do it with the best of scientific evidence in hand. And indeed, I believe in that. I mean, it's a combination of using the best evidence and best kind of reasoning, bringing the two together and crafting policy. Because in development, it's very easy to be taken up by standard things that people say with no attempt to verify as to whether those things really work or not. And I like to believe that when the World Bank made that description, gave that description of me, it was stressing the fact that I'm a firm believer in the use of scientific evidence as well as possible. Someone said that the foreign aid industry is a fashion industry because trends come and go and everybody seems to form the same trends. Do you agree with that? There's a bit of a tendency of that in every walk of life because for human beings, once a trend comes in, you get onto that. It's costly to change after that. And so the trend tends to persist for a while even after the evidence suggests that you have to move away from this. So the aid industry is a bit like that, but life itself is a bit like that. What experiences a safe economic advisor to the Indian government are you bringing with you to the World Bank? You know, I am bringing quite a bit from my experience in India. One is a recognition that economics has to be thought of as a discipline that is situated or embedded in other disciplines, in sociology, in politics, in anthropology. If you don't understand these essential structures, broader structures of society, you don't understand economics. This became very, very clear to me in my life as a chief economic advisor in India, and I would like to bring this lesson here. Another thing I do want to bring is that good economic policy requires two things. It requires passion and determination, true, but it also needs scientific dispassion and inquiry. And I'd like to bring this lesson also to my job in the bank. So as a researcher, as an academic, how hard do you find it to sort of teach official bureaucrats the foundations of science? They are tough students in the sense that most of them have very set views. So unlike students who are fresh into college and ready to take in new ideas, bureaucrats are people who have already been in the College of Life for a long time and have their set ideas, it takes time. At the same time, and this I can't talk about, my current job when I'm just starting out from my nearly three years in India, you also meet people who are just remarkable at the top level of the profession. So it makes a difference that you're talking to some people who are extremely deeply committed, but there are all kinds. Could you tell us something about the work you've done for you and you wider, and how did you come here in the first place? You know, in 1988, it was Amartya Sen, who I think played a role in my visiting here for a month. In fact, I remembered that last night because I had stayed on a street called Mekon Kattu and I had forgotten about that till I was taking a stroll last evening and suddenly saw Mekon Kattu and felt very nostalgic about 1988 when I had visited. So I visited here, worked with a bunch of people, importantly with, interacted a lot with Siddique Osmani and several other people.   I've visited wider several times over the years. I've given the wider annual lecture and it's one of my more cherished academic interactions is the interaction with wider.


It's 2017 and the Cuban national team is about to lose to the Rockland Boulders and that play ruled safe and the shortstopper second man says he knocked it out of my hands, he knocked it out of my hands. It's Cespidus' step brother or half brother is the Cuban runner. Here's another look. I don't think he knocked it out of his hands. He's clearly safe and then he kind of braces up against him. I don't think there's direct, it's not like A-Rod and Bronson and Royo. I think the Tice dude on Rockland just loses the ball but they convinced the ump that this runner, Cespidus, knocked it out of his hands. So the Rockland coach comes up and he's like, my player says he knocked it out of his hands. Ump says no. His foe was on the bag before he caught the ball but he didn't knock it out of his hands but I'll go check and he does a lot of this stuff. He's doing a lot of hand motions, very expressive.  So I zoomed in here on the umps because the head ump or the home plate ump doesn't talk at all. He just kind of touches his mouth and touches his chin making sure it's still there. There's a younger ump, big looking dude, young looking dude. He's talking, one of them overrules this call and I don't understand how or where they would do that or why, I don't understand why you do that. And neither does the Cuban national team. They're like, you called him safe. You called him safe. What's he got to do with it? He goes puppy dog, crooked head, look at him, very sad. And he's just like, that's horrible. You called him safe. You called him safe. What's he got to do with it? Cause he thinks the home plate umpire overruled it. Maybe, but he didn't. Anyway, it's about to get pretty crazy because the Cuban national team is upset and they're gonna put on a show. So Machado comes out and says he is safe. Gonzalez says something, ump right away, throws them out of the game cause they're still arguing. Cespedes is still out in second base cause he thinks he's safe and now he's gonna kick dirt on him. I think he made contact and I got you running away from the dirt which is a little funny because it's just dirt dude. And then they're gonna go after him. Look at this little, oh helmet. That's contact. That's contact. Just scary man. This guy's getting ganged up on so I understand why he's scared of the ump.  We're out, you guys lost.  You're scaring us. You're ganging up on us. They leave. He's like, yep, I'm out. Crew and then that's contact. That's contact. That's contact. Just go. Let it go. So a lot of contact was made with this ump and he made sure to put it in his memory bank and just say it, you know. A lot of contact was made. In case those guys didn't know they were contacting him, he let it known. They run away. I don't blame them for being scared or for running away. They basically got flanked on all sides. So much contact too. Unreal. And they get escorted out of the stadium and they get escorted out of the stadium and they get escorted out of the stadium the Cuban team. They get escorted away for a little bit. Rockland, they just do some high fives because they've won. Great call. And then they high five each other because it is a game of sportsmanship after all.


I am an old man, not as old as the sea, but old enough. I can hear the surf hammering at the beach near my house on the coast of France. Can you hear it? No, of course not. You are far away. That's an old man's joke. But it's there. The sound is there. It's the sound of a people who are waiting for you. The Nazis cannot hear anything in the silence of the sea, nor do they understand what this silence means. They do not understand what the surf says to us as it comes into the beach over and over again. No, they do not understand that it says to us, be patient, be silent, be of good heart. We in America are coming to help you. America is coming to help you. America is coming to help you. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Council on Books and Wartime, presents the 45th in its series Words at War. Tonight we bring you a radio adaptation of a novel that was written in Nazi-occupied France. It is entitled The Silence of the Sea, the story of an old Frenchman and his niece, and of the German officer billeted in their house. The old man tells the story, starting from the day the Nazi officer comes to occupy a room in his house. I remember it was night, but not very cold. All that November it was never very cold. My niece had just brought me my coffee. Coffee helps me to sleep, as she did every evening. I was sitting in the back of the room in comparative darkness facing the door. My niece looked at me and put down her cup. I kept mine in my house. My niece went to the door. The Nazi officer, tall, massive, stood in the doorway. He seemed to be gauging the depth of the silence that awaited him. Then he came in. My name is Werner von Ebrannach. I'm extremely sorry. My niece was leaning against the wall looking straight in front of her. I didn't get up. The silence deepened like a live thing between us. It had to be done, of course. I would have avoided it if I could. I would do my best not to disturb you. The silence was unbroken. It grew closer and closer like the morning mist. It was thick and motionless. The immobility of my niece and for that matter my own made it even heavier. Turned it to lead. The officer stood without moving till at last I saw the beginning of a smile on his lips. I could go up to my room now, but I don't know the way. My niece turned and went up the stairs and the officer followed her. I noticed that he was lame in one leg. I heard him going up the stairs. Then my niece came back. She picked up her cup and went on drinking her coffee. The next evening he came back at the same time as before. I'm afraid I'm disturbing you. If you would rather I will come in from the kitchen then you can keep the door locked. I wish you a very good night. The surf pounded into the beach again and again eternally, relentlessly, silently. Like the sea we would not compromise. We would not give in. So when the officer asked us to lock our door, well we never did. By a silent agreement my niece and I had decided to make no changes in our life. Not even in the smallest detail as if the officer didn't exist. As if he had been a ghost. A long time for more than a month the officer came back at the same time and the same scene would take place. He would talk. We would sit there in our living room as if he were not there. Then he would bow and say, I wish you a very good night. But one evening there was a change. Everything changed abruptly. Outside a fine snow mixed with rain was falling, terribly cold and damping. On the hearth I was burning the heavy logs which I kept especially for nights like this. Then he came. Excuse me, I'm feeling cold. I got wet through and my room was very chilly. I would warm myself at your fire for a few minutes.  He looked at her for a long time. Then he looked away. I'm a musician. My niece went on with her knitting. Another performer. I'm a composer. That's my whole life. And so it's comical for me to see myself as a man of war. Yet I don't regret this war. No, I think that great things will come of it. Oh, forgive me, I may have said something to hurt you. But I will say what I think. And it's a sincere good feeling. I feel it because of my love of France. Great things will come of it for Germany and for France. I think that the sun is going to shine over Europe. I wish you a very good night. From that day his visits took on a new shape. Very rarely indeed did we see him in uniform. He used to change first and then knock on our door. Then he would come in without waiting for the answer which he knew he would not give. He would warm himself for the fire. Then he would talk of all the things that obsessed his mind. Then he would be silent, bow to us, wish us a good night. One day he said, What is the difference between the fire and my home, this one here, and the books and the shelves there? Why am I so fond of this room? It's not particularly beautiful. Excuse me, I mean to say it's not particularly beautiful. Oh, excuse me, I mean to say it's not a museum piece. But take your furniture. It does not take one's say what lovely things. No. And yet this room has a soul. All this house has a soul. Yes, Vener von Ebrannach. This house has a soul.  Can you not hear them in our silence? Listen. Excuse me, Vener von Ebrannach. Are you thinking that they were written by men like me, men who are now dead at your hands, men who love the books you caress now? Yes. Look at those books and name their names. Balzac, Bomache, Cornet, Descartes, Flaubert, Hugo, what a roll call. And there will be other names, other books. Kill us all. No, von Ebrannach.  Did you think you destroyed us when you burned the books that day in May in 1933 in Germany? You cannot destroy our work. Know the work of any man who has written in good faith. Think of that, von Ebrannach, as you caress the books. Ghosts. Don't you hear them, von Ebrannach? You only hear the sound of your own voice in our silence. When it comes to music, then it's our turn. Machhende, Deton, Wagner, Mozart. Which name comes first? Which name comes first? There are ghosts in this house von Ebrannach. Don't you hear them? Which name comes first? Can you forget Bisey, Offenbach, Meier Bayer, who studied and worked in France? Can you forget Maurice Revelle and Milo and Sasson, Debussy, Mahler and Mendelssohn? Or do you remember only the ugly voice snarling? The button! The button! You can stop the music. Which name comes first? Does it matter? You think you can take the culture of a nation by the throat and choke it to death? Choke it into silence? Don't you see? We are here all around you. Our writers, our musicians. You're living in the dead, but silence has spore... Around you, von Ebrannach. But all you can hear in the silence is the sound of your own voice. Now we have war, but this is the last time. We won't fight each other anymore. We'll get married, Germany and France. Here's when we entered Saint. I was happy that the population received us well. I was very happy. I thought, this is going to be easy. Then I saw that it was not that at all. It was cowardice. Oh, I despise these people. And for France's sake, I was afraid. I thought, has she really got like that? Oh, no. I have seen her since. Now I'm happy at her stern expression. He was looking at my niece at her closed obstinate delicate profile. She continued knitting, and he continued his monologue. I'm happy to have found here an elderly man with some dignity. And a young lady who knows how to be silent. We've got to conquer the silence. We've got to conquer the silence of all France. I'm glad of that. Conquer this silence? Perhaps you have forgotten the day when the hostages were ordered to the square to listen to a speech. But we have not forgotten. Dad, they hurt you. No, we have not forgotten. When the hostages were lined up and the speech turned out to be. Conquer such a silence? The next day, and many days like them, at the funeral, everyone looked at the woman who was crying alone. And when she saw that she was alone in her crying, she stopped. And she was no longer alone in the silence of that graveyard. Conquer such a silence? I looked deep into the eyes of Fenebrenach into the eyes of this refined, cultured gentleman who was now smiling at my niece and said, We've got to conquer the silence of all France. I wish you a very good night. One evening, Fenebrenach played the piano. Perhaps it's an accompaniment to his interminable monologues. Perhaps with the thought that we could meet on this common ground that for once we would answer, that for once we would speak. There's nothing greater than that music. Yes, it's in human music. He could only be a German. Our country has the character. That inhuman character. I mean by inhuman, that which is on a different scale to man. I thought to myself, inhuman, yes. And I do what I meant by inhuman. That kind of music. I love it, I admire it. It overwhelms me. It's like the presence of God in me, but it's not my own. For my part, I would like to compose music which is on the scale of man. That also is a road by which one can reach the truth. That's my road. I don't want to follow any other. Besides, I couldn't. That I know now. I know it to the full. Since when? Since I have lived here. I ask a great deal. I ask a welcome from her. I looked at my niece. She pulled her eyes away from him as if with a great effort and busied herself with her knitting. Sincertives bound to overcome all obstacles. I wish you a very good night. I can't remember today everything that was said during the course of more than a hundred winter evenings, but the theme hardly ever varied. It was the long rhapsody of his discovery of France. How he had loved her from afar before he came to know her and how his love had grown every day since he had had the luck to live here. He would often talk about the politicians of the Nazi party. He would say that they were gross, cruel, sadistic, hard. Then he would say... But they aren't France now. France will cure them. I'm going to tell you the truth. They know it. They know that France will teach them how to be really great and pure and hard. And we must have love. He held the door open for a moment and looking over his shoulder, he gazed at my niece's neck as she leaned over her work. At the pale, fragile nape of her neck where the hair went up in coils of dark mahogany. Then he added in a tone of quiet determination. Yes. But that we must have love. Love which has returned. Then he turned his head on him as he rapidly uttered his evening formula. Long spring days came at last. Always in the background we could hear the surf booming on the beach. And always in the background of our silence, Fonabrena could hear something he couldn't understand. Sometimes he played the piano when he talked. Sometimes he would pause cocky's head like a dog when he hears something strange and far away as if he were trying to hear something in that room in which the three of us sat night after night. One night he said, I feel sorry for the men of this sheen. A leader who has not his people's love is a very miserable little puppet. There had to be someone who would agree to sell his country. Because today, today and for a long time to come, France cannot fall willingly into our open arms without losing a dignity in our own eyes. Often the most sordid go-between is thus at the bottom of the happiest union. A go-between is nonetheless contemptible for that. Nor is the union less happy. I'm going away to Paris for a few weeks. Expect to see my friends there. I'm sure that many of them will be there for the negotiations which we are conducting with your politicians to prepare for the wonderful union of our two countries. So I shall be in a way a witness to the marriage. I want to tell you that I'm happy for the sake of France, whose wounds will thus be so quickly healed. But I'm even happier for Germany than for myself. No one will ever have gained so much from a good deed as will Germany giving back the France of greatness and her liberty. I wish you a very good night. He came back a few weeks later and we saw immediately that something had happened to him. His eyes were wide open like a sleepwalkers. They rested on my knees and never left her. I have something very serious to say to you. Everything I've said in these six months, everything that the walls of this room have heard, you must, you must, you must forget it all. I've seen those men, victors. They laughed at me. They said to me, What do you think we went to war for? For the sake of their old marshal. We have the chance to destroy France and destroy how we will. Not only our material power, but so is the greatest danger. We're at this our job at the moment. Make no mistake about it, my dear fellow. We'll turn it rotten with our smiles and our consideration. We'll destroy, run. There's no hope. No hope, no hope, no hope. There you are. You see? You see how infatuated you are with her, with this France. They are the real danger. But we'll rid Europe of this pest. We'll purge it of this poison. They've explained everything to me. Oh, they've not left me in the dark about anything. They're flattering your writers. But at the same time, in Belgium, in Holland, in all the countries occupied by our troops, they've already put the bars up. No French book can go through any more except technical publications. Manuals on refraction of formulas for cementation. Words of general culture. Not one, none, whatever. Nothing, nothing, nobody. They're just the backs of the audience. Yes. They will put out the light altogether. Never again will Europe be lit up by that flame. Never. They've applied to be transferred to a fighting unit. Authorised to set off tomorrow. I wish you a very good night. I thought he was going to leave us and go to his room. But not at all. I was looking at my niece. He looked at her and whispered, Adieu. Goodbye. He did not move. He remained quite motionless. And in his strained and motionless face, his eyes were the most strained and motionless things of all. For they were bound to other eyes. Too wide open, too pale. The eyes of my niece. That look between them lasted and lasted. How long lasted right up to the moment when it linked the girl moved her lips? Vayner's eyes glittered. I heard that at last I did hear it. Von Hebronak heard it too and he drew himself up. And his face and his whole body seemed to relax as if they'd taken a soothing bath. He smiled. And in such a way that the last picture I had of him was a smiling one. Then he continued up the stairs and his steps died away in the depths of the house. Better than the Nazis! The surf booms in. It is no longer silent. Listen carefully and you will see that it is like the sound of the whispering of people. And that whisper will grow larger, louder. Listen carefully. Do you hear? The surf is a crowd, the voice of the people speaking. It is a wind. A storm. A tempest. A hurricane that will sweep across France when the Americans come. For we are waiting. We are waiting. And when we will come we will be silent. As the 45th program of the Words at War series, we have presented The Silence of the Sea by Vercor. Translated from the French by Cyril Conley. The radio adaptation was made by Lawrence Menken. Rod Hendrickson played the old man. Peter Cappell was Verner von Eberenach. And Charlotte Holland played the niece. Others in the cast included Eleanor Sherman, Jay Wesley, Barry Kroger and Martin Brandt. The music was arranged and played by William Meader at the organ and Artur Balsam at the piano. The entire production was under the direction of Anton M. Lieder. Next week we will present Robert Sherrod's Words at War is brought to you in cooperation with the Council on Books at Wartime, the National Broadcasting Company and the Independent Stations affiliated with the NBC Network. Jack Costello speaking, this is the National Broadcasting Company.


Hidetaka Miyazaki is a game designer who is as enigmatic as he is exceptional. Responsible for the lineage of games that extend from Demon's Souls to Sekiro, Miyazaki's design sensibilities have inspired new ways of thinking about games. The Souls series has reignited difficulty as a core aesthetic in design, used as subtle forms of storytelling that has inspired countless people to obsess over its lore, and has effectively inspired a new sub-genre, Souls Likes, that share in the game's lust for tragedy and hardship. Despite his undeniable influence, Miyazaki very rarely speaks in public about his games and how he goes about designing them, which makes him as elusive as the worlds that he crafts. From Dark Souls and Demon's Souls' high fantasy medieval nightmares, to the love crafty and madness of Bloodborne's Gothic Streets, Miyazaki and FromSoftware's world get us to confront our deepest anxieties and revel in the cyclical nature of death and rebirth. Much effort has been shed trying to piece together the worlds and systems of Dark Souls, but the focus in this video will be on Miyazaki himself, and his philosophy when crafting games. It all started with Demon's Souls in 2009, a project that Miyazaki entered in the middle of and was by all accounts destined for failure. Maybe it was this backdrop that allowed for the experimentation we see in the game, but regardless, Demon's Souls broke the mold in more ways than there are to count. The game has very deliberate combat that requires precise movement, stamina management, and intentional action. Any mistakes are punished severely, and this is where the game's foundational identity comes from. Death in Souls games is an event. You lose all your accumulated souls, and are set back right to the start of the level. Coming out at a time when casual games and accessibility concessions to new gamers was becoming more common, Demon's Souls was a shock to the system. It was a game that wanted you to feel punished. Except, this was never the intention of Miyazaki. In an interview with Wired Magazine, Miyazaki stated, I have no intention to make the games more difficult than other titles on purpose. Ever since Demon's Souls, I've really been pursuing making games that give players a sense of accomplishment. In essence, the use of difficulty in his games was never meant to be arbitrary or punishing, but give players a real challenge. However, this idea of difficulty can only be understood in light of Miyazaki's views on the relationship between a game's theme and their mechanics. He states, I think my philosophy towards game development is first, set a certain game system and then apply a worldview that matches that. When it comes to Souls, first of all I came up with the Action RPG game system and then applied the mythology. The other way around doesn't work for me. I couldn't start from a worldview, like Souls, and then make another type of game fit that mold. Miyazaki started with the gameplay system, one rooted in giving players a sense of accomplishment and agency, and then crafted a fictional world where the themes made sense in it. This is why there is such a tight coupling between gameplay and story, system and fiction. Demon's Souls story is set in Boletaria, a kingdom that was attacked by a being called the Old One due to the abuse of forbidden soul art magic, casting the world in a magical deep fog. This sounds like a quintessential hero's journey, but much like the mechanics of the game, the themes are more subversive, tragic, and mired in futility. More importantly, it respects the difficult gameplay with the world equally as challenging. With Miyazaki's fictional worlds, we get themes that reflect the many patterns of play we adopt in the game, and this is done in different ways in each of his games. In Dark Souls, the narrative justification for a continuous rebirth is hollowing, where the will that depletes every time you die is met with a corresponding loss in humanity. The overarching story of Dark Souls is about resisting the end of the world through sheer will, crafting a fiction that makes sense for the gameplay. We die, lose some of ourselves, and then respawn, and so does our avatar. Thematic alignment happens with the core gameplay as well, which is mainly inspired by the King's Fields series of games. Dark Souls and Demon's Souls are very methodical combat, but you can choose from a variety of classes, each of which makes the game either more or less difficult to play tacitly. And this aligns with Miyazaki's desire to let players come up with their own solution to conquer the environments. In Bloodborne though, you had a much more aggressive, frenzied form of play, owing to quicker weapons and movement, as well as a mechanic that allows you to reclaim some of your health by striking an opponent after you hit. What's interesting again is that this fits with the themes of the world.  The mechanics get you to feel this bloodlust that humanity's insatiable curiosity pushed us towards, by making the gameplay system more frenetic. In Sekiro, Miyazaki was exploring ideas of being a shinobi and a fighting style informed by the Bushido Code. The posture system in the game, where you have to break an opponent's defense before you can strike, plays like a dynamic tango between offense and defense. There is a decidedly Buddhist motif that runs through the game. One where transcendence from the cycles of futility explored in Dark Souls and Bloodborne can be overcome by finding a way to achieve nirvana. The gameplay system attempts to strike that balance, even though Sekiro didn't have the agency of class choice the other games had. It's stealth elements, inspired by the tango series of games, where you can use the verticality of the environment to stalk your prey, preserved his desire for player agency. Iko awoke me to the possibilities of the medium. This is what Miyazaki said in an interview with The Guardian. Iko is known for its somber melancholy world and incredibly immersive sense of place. It is after all a game about a girl and a boy escaping persecution. However, the DNA it shares most with Miyazaki's approach to storytelling is intentional ambiguity. The reason for why Miyazaki gravitated to cryptic forms of storytelling are quite fascinating. He claims to have grown up reasonably poor, and so his parents couldn't afford books or manga. So instead he borrowed books from the library. That's how he ended up with works beyond his reading capabilities. Despite being a keen reader, he'd often read passages of texts he couldn't understand, whether it be because it was too difficult or in English, and so it would allow his imagination to fill in the blanks. In this way, he felt he was co-writing the fictions of the worlds he was making. This is a beautifully convenient explanation for the origins of his storytelling method, but Miyazaki is also extremely humble. In another interview, he states, First of all, I don't dislike direct storytelling. Actually, the truth is, I'm just not good at implementing direct narrative in my games. Another side is, I want to leave the interpretation of the world's stories to the player. That's actually my biggest reason for focusing on environmental and subtle storytelling. Rather than the game itself automatically telling the story, the player gets more value from it when they themselves find out hints they encounter in the world. Another fascinating thing of note of Miyazaki is that he didn't play video games when he was younger. He only started in college. Instead, he read books, which is where his familiarity with Bram Stoker and Lovecraft came from, authors that inspired Bloodborne, and how George R. R. Martin's dark fantasy writing inspired Dark Souls. In essence, his foundational storytelling influences came from other mediums. The narratives of each of his games seem simple enough at first glance. They are quintessential hero's journeys that task you at destroying some level in force. However, each of his games subverts expectations in different ways. Piecing together the stories of each of his games requires us to scavenge for items, listen for obscure dialogue, and draw connections between people and places. We are effectively entering a world where things have already happened, and it's the mise-en-scene or environmental storytelling cues that clue us into what is going on. Not only are the themes of the game subversive, but so too are its methods of delivery. Dark Souls sets us up on a quest to reignite the world, to assume our mantle as the chosen undead to link the flame and stave off the death of the universe. However, as you meet more characters and slay more demons, it becomes apparent that what you are doing may not be so noble. Characters you meet, like Knights Solare, are all plagued with a pervasive sense of purgatory. They are trapped between being alive and dead. Other entirely optional things you can do in the game, which I won't spoil, reveal how there are forces beyond your control, perhaps manipulating you from the start. There is a subtle element of meta-fiction here, and the player is left to figure out for themselves the many mysteries of Lordran. The overarching narrative is about cycles coming and going, and there is a tangible sense of futility embedded in the story. The titular Dark Souls refers to humanity, and the game is subverting our understanding of good and evil, light and dark. There is a Nietzschean sense of eternal recurrence, a Sisyphean sense of futility, and a general sense that no matter what we choose, damnation is abound. As Miyazaki claimed, he builds a world to fit the mechanics, and in this case, the mechanics of challenge, futility, and tragedy are most intrinsically built into gaming were made manifest in a fictional world. Jesper Ewell calls games the art of failure, saying it is an art form that creates an aesthetic out of suffering. Miyazaki seems to have caught wind of this intrinsic sensibility of games, and built it into his narrative. If Dark Souls is about questioning our purpose and our morality, Bloodborne interrogates our very capacity to seek truth. Bloodborne takes place in Yharnam, a decrepit gothic city known for the practice of blood administration. Over the years, many journey to the city seeking to cure their afflictions with this practice, but deal with the proverbial devil. The city now is plagued with an endemic illness that has transformed most of its citizens into bestial creatures, and we must navigate the night of the hunt, stop the source of the plague, and escape unscathed. On the surface, the game pays homage to the hero's journey with a Lovecraftian twist, but once more it's the implicit and embedded narrative that subverts what this all means. A mechanic called insight is granted to you after every boss you encounter, and as you make progress in the game, but this actually reveals truths about the world around you that are better left unknown. It's an homage to Lovecraft's famous quote, The most merciful thing in the world is the inability for the human mind to correlate all its contents, but delivered in mechanical form. Also, many of the scholars in the game, whether from the College of Bergenwerth or the School of Mensis, are obsessed with immortality and ascension, and will stop at nothing to attain this. However, the core of the game revolves around how this pursuit may reveal things that might drive us to madness. The pieces of this narrative are scattered about for us to figure out, and there is no guarantee we will have done this by game's end. We have seen this theme play out in Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Our Bloodborne, the idea that there is a sense of decay, and it is the folly of sentient beings that has contributed to this. It is a tragic rhetoric that seeks to highlight the liabilities of one's desire for power, truth, and godhood, and the games are both celebrating our capacity for triumph and empowerment, as well as the absurdity of such vulgar pursuits. We are meant to feel at a loss, both at the meaning of the themes that exist, as well as the supposed distillation of their disparate elements. Again though, this was intentional. In an interview in Rolling Stones Magazine, Miyazaki states, Our goal was to allow players to do what they want, define their own goals, make their own discoveries, embrace their own values. Core to that was the importance of getting lost. This gives value and meaning to finding one's way. Much like how the difficulty of the games were instrumental towards creating a sense of accomplishment, the ambiguity and confusion in the game is instrumental towards getting the player to find their own meaning. There are multiple endings in the games, as well as different ways for character substories to transpire, but it's more in the sense of what the themes of the game mean to people that this form of storytelling truly shines. Getting lost also applies to playing the game, both navigationally and systemically. Very little is explained to us as we play, and we are expected to uncover the many interweaving systems in the game for ourselves. Demon's Souls Nexus allows us to choose from one of five opening areas, establishing a non-linear template, and Dark Souls introduced us to an interconnected world with a quasi-metroidvania feel, as well as bonfires that serve as periodic checkpoints. Dark Souls' world map is an astonishingly vertical and integrated map that somehow manages to host a series of embedded narratives, while still feeling consistent in tone. Locations are not just levels with obstacles, they tell the story of the game as well. When you are first whisked towards Anor Londo and Dark Souls, you are met with the fictional equivalent of the Vatican, as blinding rays of light change the complexion of your quest thus far. Although it may seem easy to get lost in these games, difficult areas are often segmented implicitly, whether it be because the enemies are too difficult, or the shape of the narrative or the design of the levels don't guide you in that direction. With Sekiro though, the game is both more linear as well as more dynamic. You have genuine opportunities for stealth, but unlike the other games, it lacks classes and leveling up systems, opting for a more action oriented feel. What's interesting is that the overarching narrative of the game is also constrained, it features a defined character and a more coherent explicit story. Red is a game that comes after Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne. Sekiro has a more optimistic message about how we address the problem of eternal cycles. Without spoiling anything in particular, it is both Buddhist and existential, uniting themes from the east and west. Although the world Miyazaki creates engender a startling sense of isolation, one of the most revolutionary features of his games are the multiplayer features. Starting from Demon's Souls, players all occupy a shared universe where they could leave messages for one another, as well as summon people into their world for a bout of jolly cooperation. As stark and as abject as these worlds might be, these mechanics manage to create a sense of connection and allow people to rely on one another for assistance when things seem absurdly difficult. In an interview with Eurogamer, Miyazaki explains the origins of the multiplayer systems in his games. The origin of that idea is actually due to a personal experience where a car suddenly stopped on the hillside after some heavy snowfall. The car following me also got stuck, and then the one behind it spontaneously bumped into it and started pushing it up the hill. That's it. That's how everyone can get home. But I couldn't stop the car to say thank you to the people who gave me a shove. On the way back home, I wondered whether the last person in the line had made it home and thought that I would probably never meet the people who had helped me. I thought that maybe if we'd met in another place we'd become friends, or maybe we'd just fight. You could probably call it a connection of mutual assistance between transient people. Oddly, that incident will probably linger in my heart for a long time, simply because it's fleeting, like the cherry blossoms we Japanese love so much. We're all dead, so let's help each other out. We could talk about the many influences of Miyazaki's design, whether it be the entire souls-like genre, atmospheric games like Inside and Little Nightmares, social elements in games like Journey and Death Stranding, or the resurgence of difficulty we see in all kinds of games. We can also talk about the masterful execution of implicit narratives that both leverage the forms of storytelling inherent to our medium and reflect themes about the medium itself. However, the enduring message of his design philosophy, at least in my estimation, is that meaning needs to be handed to the players themselves, which is why I shall turn it back on itself and state my opinion on the lasting legacy of Miyazaki. To highlight that which is beautiful, we need to contrast it with the ugly, the profane, by being unapologetically debased, horrific, and intimidating. Miyazaki's games create a space where beauty can be appreciated in the smallest of things. Miyazaki, despite being considered an auteur, is by almost everyone's account an exceptionally humble human being. A humility his games ask us to exhibit in the face of the many incomprehensible forces of our universe. Dark Souls, by many a person's personal testimony, has helped people overcome depression, forge communities and bonds, and define their identities they're in. There is a reason why humanity's greatest stories remain tragedies, whether Hamlet or Oedipus, they force humility, reflection, and understanding, and the Souls games are our medium's equivalent of tragic catharsis. If video games are the art of failure, then Hidetaka Miyazaki is undeniably our greatest artist.


It will be just very nice, slow, willing. It doesn't have to be fast forward motion. It can be slow. There. Maybe I'll say step ahead, lengthen up, step under. Oh, that's not it.  So in other words, if she stops and puts weight on the front legs, think about that. But she'd probably be in a position to physically buck mentally, they might think about bucking or kicking, same sort of thing. But if I could keep her walking forward, she probably wouldn't even think about bucking. It's so important. I'm just going to bring that pad up.  And see here, she's sort of coming back a little bit. But maybe I'll just put it up just to adjust and modify what I'm doing a little bit, walk her forward. I don't want to make a big deal of it. She was flinchy. But we'll see what we can do. We'll see if we can improve that a little bit. Forward on, stand tall, lead ahead. It's nice.  Another way to present the idea might be direct connection to the halter. Lead, lift, bump with the pad a little. Lead, lift, bump, see her park out. What that meant is she was slightly stuck. She was so flinchy that her hind legs couldn't work. Her abdomen got tight and she couldn't move the hind legs forward. It's funny. It's not really funny, but it's just funny to think that a horse is so flinchy that they can't operate correctly with their hind end. Ready? That was better, pad up, walk away. I still get a little mini hind quarters arc or cross or disengage. You see that? But it's not fast. I'm not necessarily trying to go quickly with the hind quarters. Slow hind quarter stepping across, offsetting. Here we go, one more time. And maybe I'll just put a little nice contact on her and just let her carry that pad. See, she wants to stop because she's tense and she's tight. I can't go forward because I'm flinching. But in reality, what will get her to stop flinching? Forward and relaxation or vice versa. She's got to get there. Forward's the answer. This forward is the answer. The reason we work so hard, that was fine. Got became softer, wasn't finished, wasn't perfect. I'll take it. The reason we work on horses hind quarters and crossing the hind quarters so much is because it gives you the potential to go forward. See, when they cross the hind legs, they're loading up the hind end. See, they're going to load it up. So it's easy for me to then say, come forward. Even though they're turning and they're putting some weight on the front legs, they're still getting under in the rear and loading up the hind. Now think about this. If I could cross that right hind leg, ready, up and over, well, it'd be easy to take that and say, keep going forward. Whoops, right there, forward. There we go. It'd be easy to say, keep going, cross the hind end, cross the hind end, and keep coming up and forward. And so crossing the hind legs, offsetting the haunch, disengaging the rear, it's all the same thing. Some people even say, hind quarters under. All the same. What's important about that is it causes the horse to realize, OK, you've got my feet. But because you can do this, it's easy to come forward out of it. One last thing on that note of crossing the hind quarters, it's pretty interesting to think about this. We could also take a horse that's quite nervous. That's up and nervous. And I could cross the hind quarters. I want to get smoother. And I could cross the hind quarters. And I could end at a halt. Why? Brought my life down. You could use the hind quarters. You can use the hind legs to access a halt or to access forward motion, depending on are you asking for, are you lifting, are you leading, are you active, are you moving your feet? Hope that makes sense. But I can use it for both purposes.  And she's looking and chewing as well.  Saddling a horse, it's really important that you can do this without having to tie your horse up. Let's come up to out to the middle here. It's really important you can sell your horse without somebody else holding your horse. Oh, I know what she sees. As she sees my daughter going to catch her pony. And so it's important that you don't need to tie the horse. Tying is great. It's a skill you should all have, but you shouldn't depend on it. You should be able to saddle up your horse, lead ropes over my arm, third hand elbow. If I need it, I can drop it. It's right there. I know she's looking past me. Because she's a horse that I've worked with before, I'll still put the saddle on. I've worked with her before. This was the first saddling. Perhaps you would be ready right there. In this instance, she was fine. Now, let me come over to the other side. In fact, let me back up a second here. Let me show you something else. It's good to put that saddle on and off a few times with a horse anyway. Let me show you something. You practice saddling, especially Western saddle. English saddle, not so much. And I'm just going to see if I can encourage her to find me more interesting. I need to impress her a little more in order for her to think that I'm interesting. What if I step over here? Let's put a little pressure there. Come forward. There it is again. And she can look. She can look, but she also needs to keep me in mind. If she can look at me with her right eye and ear right there. See that? Right there. I've got the right eye and ear. Her good job. Lost it. Watch. Watch this ear. Watch. There it is. I need that. If I have that, she can look to her left. Notice the head comes down because I'm redirecting the mind back to a point. She can look, but she can't forget about me. Keep me in mind. If I were riding in something scarier, I wouldn't want her to forget I was on top of her. We can practice saddling with our saddle pad. Notice how I'm holding it. Notice how I'm holding the pad under my underarm. She's got to keep me in mind as well, as I give my saddling demo. I've got to think about a few things at once. I can do it. I might jump around. Just like she is. Let's go for a little walk. At the same time, I could be more interesting by, ready? Open that up. Notice how I go like this. Can you see how I laid that on there? Now, honestly, sometimes we'll go like this. Sometimes we'll go like this. Get them used to all that, but hold it like this once. And just notice how it's easy to have it. And I can reach up, look at her in the eye, place it on her back. It might blow off of her. Should make more of an interesting video for you anyway. Ready? Now, when I take the saddle, hold it. Like this, a Western saddle. You hold it like this. And you can grab the straps here, like when you're carrying it, or just grab it here by the skirt. I put my left leg near her shoulder. So I'm in line with the shoulder. When I put the saddle up, I'm still looking at her out of my left eye. The other thing is I might offer her a chance to smell it. By the way, I'm still able to tip her to me. See that? Very important. If I reach back here, she could smell it. There it is. Ready? Use a nice swing and set it down. See that? Wasn't so bad. You can walk around to the other side. And you'd be doing it for the horse. You could also back them up, watch my feet. Watch how much movement I do. I've just put it on her. I watch my feet. Stay where I'm at. Move her over. Now I moved a little bit there. But did you see how I moved her? I drop my rear cinch front cinch, lift up, and pull the pad off of the neck, the wither, to get airspace in there. And then notice this. I don't have to walk around to her other side. I can just back her up. I'll back her up and bring the forehand through and bring the cinch to me. Why would I do that? Look at she's looking and chewing. Take note of that. Why would I present it that way? I'd present it that way because she's doing the work for me. She's feeling for me. If I just walk around my horse, time up and walk around, they have no say in the matter. They don't really feel like they're contributing this way. She's feeling for me. And I'm getting some groundwork school done as I'm saddling. Now, as I reach down, I rub. I look at her eye out of my left eye. I rub. I use my left hand to grab the cinch. I do not go like this. Why? What do you think? Look, it makes sense, right? Eventually, you might not care. But I do care with this horse because I don't know her as well. Ready? So I rub. I look. Look at my rope. Look at how it's laying here. But check this out. I can go to my rope multiple ways. I can get to the rope. I can get to her head. All right, so here we go. Reach under with my left hand. And kind of look up. All right? Give her a little more rope. I'll leave my stirrup. It's fine to put the stirrup up over the saddle. It's sort of a Guadalama style horn. It's big, and the stirrup won't even fit on this big horn. So that's quite all right. At least when I put my saddle away last time, I put it away properly. So it's very easy for me to re-cinch the horse. We'll talk about that later when we put her saddle away. Here we go. I'll loop it through.  But I don't know if you can quite see. But I'm just going to loop it through, and I'll go snug. I love that I don't have to tie her up to put the saddle on. If you have to tie your horse up, see if we can encourage forward a little. Why? Because remember her history.  So I'll ask her to come forward a little bit. She feels it on her, right? And that's OK. I want her to be aware of it. I don't want her to get triggered anyway. So I want her to be consciously aware of it. I'll go a little more snug. And we'll loop it through. Kind of giving her a moment. Everyone's in a hurry. If you don't need to be at this point, we've got the cinch on her. So you're not going anywhere. Hang in there for a little bit. Sometimes you have to rub on them a little bit. Make sure you're looking at them. Sure you're looking at their face. Ready? Here we go. Reaching under. Back cinch. I'll just go loose for now. This is what I want to do next. I'm off to the side slightly forward, forward a little, and cross the hind legs a little. Let her think. Just give her a little time to think. She's relaxing. Look at that. And I'll say, come on now. Come on now. Always trying to draw them in. So long as I can drive them back equally as well as I can draw them in.  They draw in, but they don't drive back. That's not good. She drives back. I have a balance. I have a pretty good balance with her. Forward, move the hind. Oh, you lost. There's the hind leg. All right, here we go. Let's bring her up here. Now, I'd like to tighten up that saddle one more time here right now. And I actually like three, if I can do it in three increments, that's great. Now, probably hard to see this. Sometimes I'll just sort of real lightly just put a little. I don't just pull up a little. Sometimes I'll just kind of wiggle it up. Another technique is to watch their breathing. And when they exhale, you lift a little. It works too. Sometimes through feel, you'll naturally do that anyway. You'll get smoother working on horses. The cinch strap on this saddle is quite long, so use your keeper up here. I will tighten up the back cinch a little bit more on her. Now, word of caution, FYI, sometimes a snug back cinch. Oh, let's go forward, not backwards. Sometimes a snug back cinch feels better to a horse. Or a looser back cinch. We don't want the back cinch hanging down so loose that if they were to take their hind legs and kick at flies that they'd put a hind leg through. But for some horses, it's much better to have it loose at first. Now, obviously she's a training horse. It's sort of at a place where it's not really that long. It's not hanging down that far, but it's not really snug either. Be careful of that, because all of a sudden, if they jump and they breathe in, they expand the rib cage, they hit the back cinch, and guess what? You might trigger bucking. Let's go forward. Keep my mind in the game here. Forward on. Good, and now bring her back to me, changing direction. Now, I'll tell you, that saddle's not fully tightened. Remember, we want at least three increments, three adjustments, and not as hard as you can each time. You're just spacing out the saddle very good right here. Look at how nice she's stopping and she's feeling for me. We're just trying to space out the adjustments in at least three or even four increments.  I will go more snug on the front cinch. Encourage, step forward. I'm tall, I'm leading. Let's put a little more motion. What about bringing her life up and down? I'm gonna think about moving over here a little bit and moving my feet, bring her life up and down, and up, I'll get tall. I watched the whole horse, but watched.