All right. Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the City of Essex Junction City Council regular meeting for Wednesday, March 22, 2023. Call the meeting to order. Do we have any agenda additions or changes for tonight? We do not other than this is a revised agenda because we pulled the community advisory board conversation until the 12th when those folks can come to the meeting. Right. Thank you for that. Anything from the council? Good. All right, then with no changes, no need to approve of the agenda. And let's just dive into the fun one of a record of a resolution for appreciation for Christine Packard. And just sorry, one second. Looks like Amber can't see the video. Do we need to do audience? It's after this. Oh, yeah. There. Oh, right. So, Amber, what is it you see? Ending. It's loading the video right now. All right. Sounds good. Regina want to take it away. Yeah, so let me get down here to the resolution. So you've got a resolution here for Christine Packard, who has put in an amazing amount of effort into the library over lots of years and thankfully not going away from the library just stepping down from the chair position, but it's been 17 years, I think. 17 as chair and 22 on the board. So, seemed like some recognition was due. Hands down. And not even just as a member of the board, but also a member as a volunteer, somebody who spends a significant amount of time, they're helping to ensure that the library programming happens. And I would add that Christine has always been above the entire village town, city town situation has risen above that down through the years and has always ascended down from the town to bless us. Exactly right. And George was on the board, I think, how long ago?  Well, we can, I remember watching being preparing a Brown L library budget. Yes. And it was interrupted by a plane hitting the World Trade Center. Oh, wow. We were over at, I can't remember, you remember, Dottie. One of the former board member lived over on Mansfield. Yeah. Yeah, it was. I think it wasn't Mansfield. Maybe it was Mansfield. Yeah. It was Manfield Street. Yeah, we were working on a budget meeting that morning. And that brought it to an abrupt halt. Yep. So, that was 2001. Right. Just a couple years. Yeah, just flew right by. Right. Right. George, would you like to read the resolution that we have? Absolutely. Let me go here. Resolution of appreciation for service of Christine Packard. Whereas Christine Packard has served as chair of the Brown L Library Board of Trustees from January 2006. Whereas after 17 years of leading the Brown L Library Board of Trustees, Christine Packard has stepped down as chair but will continue as a member of the board. Whereas Christine Packard's thoughtful leadership, calm demeanor, attention to detail, and deep appreciation for the Brown L Library and former village and now city of Essex Junction will be missed. Whereas Christine Packard led the Brown L Library Board and library through many years of work and issues including two-town village merger municipal discussions, three long-range plans, one major overhaul of Brown L Library policies, significant library security improvements including a panic button system and security camera system, the departure of longtime library director and hiring of her successor and a worldwide pandemic. Whereas, if that's not enough, the staff of the Brown L Library and Brown L Library Board of Trustees cannot thank Christine enough for her leadership and dedication over the past 17 years. Now therefore be it resolved that on this day, Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023, the Essex Junction City Council expresses its appreciation to Christine Packard for your many years of service to the Brown L Library in the city of Essex Junction. We thank you for your time and leadership in our community. Well done. The best things I've ever done and been involved in and I'm not just step aside. Gotcha. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anything else that anybody would like to add? It's like to say it's difficult to encompass the meaning of the 17 years of service in less than 17 years of talk. There's nothing else and I would entertain the motion to approve the resolution of appreciation for service of Christine Packard. I'll second that. George will move it. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, say nay. Fast unanimously. Thank you all. Christine, thank you very much. Thank you Christine. You've come to the library. Absolutely. And so going back to the agenda, we will now move into 5a, which is public to be heard. So this is the portion of tonight's meeting where if there are any members of the public who wish to bring something to the board's attention that is not on the agenda. Now is the time to do so. And so if you are in your zoom land, please raise your hand there. Start off with those in the room. If anybody in the room would like to bring something to our attention that is not on the agenda.  Marcus. Thanks. It'll be short and sweet. Looking at the, at the sx junction.org website under the under budgets. The current budget that's listed that's loaded there for 2024 appears to be the one that has the 1.4% increase, not the 0.4. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention. And reading it. That's what it looks like. So I just want to make sure that we have the right one loaded up on the city website. Greatly appreciate that, Marcus. I assume staff will get the right one up. Shortly. Yeah, I appreciate that. We've noticed some of that. About 10 o'clock today. Yeah. Working on. Yeah. Thank you, Marcus. It's in a very important detail that people are informed in our community what they're voting on, what impacts of their vote are going to be. They get the right information. Thank you. Anybody out in zoom worlds. I'm not seeing any hands up. So we will move off of public to be heard and jump into business item five a department head conversation with Wendy his school library director. Hi, Wendy. Nice. Nice to see you. Thank you. Christine. It's a little hard writing. She's not going to hit a chair. Jean Grant and Christine is going to stand on the board. It'll all be good. Absolutely.  Yeah. Not looking anywhere. 14 years. And we're about to change our to dance. Scary for some of us. Exciting for others. Fun. It's a moment to thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So how's the library going? It's busy. We are back. I think nearly full strength after struggling terrible for years of. We're still looking at the replacement projects. We're having occasional trouble staffing between sick people and turnover. But in general, like I said, great. We have a great team. Hopefully we can continue having the team together. We have a lot of people coming in. A lot of new faces, which is kind of cool to see after you get used to the same faces. And since we've reopened fully, there's a lot of old faces and a lot of new faces. So it's been good. Things are great really. They'll be back. Nice. With the new people that you're seeing. Are there any demographics that are new and appearing? Or are there significant chunks of demographics that you're seeing? Yes, we're seeing. I think the new housing departments in the area have brought in a little different. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think the new housing departments in the area have brought in a little different demographic. I think we've had a lot of homeowners. That have really utilized the library. We're seeing a lot more people who are new to the new cards, a lot of new cards. So then a lot of them are coming. Or a little and other new buildings. So. So that's been kind of. I think a lot of people grow up, if people grow up using libraries, they go back, they find them just an important resource. And I think at this point we are, we're a safe place for a lot of people who don't have places to go during the day. So we do see a lot of people who are sort of in crisis that we really appreciate having every team available. We have an amazing police department that really handles things very passionately. So we appreciate them. We appreciate their efforts to get the average workers embedded into our municipalities. So, so yeah, there's some, some new faces. Next generations. And so it's been a pretty, it's, it's nice that the, we have a regular flow of people coming in and out. And it's people using computers. We're back to having a lot of our computers on again, trying to keep the things moving forward and save as possible, but for security and so contagions. So. If we haven't taken general plexiglass, we don't know when we're able to come through. But it's been really nice to connect with more people at the library. And our youth department has been really ranging. With people fully back programs, very active adult programs are a little bit slower for people to come back because a lot of, we're working, we're offering everything in hybrid, which not everybody is because we want to have that flexibility. It's not everybody's really comfortable being together in the public space. So. Is that it's just, yeah, it's a bit of where we are today. They're really trying to be cautious and take care of as much safety as possible between. Security and safety and the public safety. So it's been good. And just, yeah, we have the kids after school. We have the kids after school. We have the kids after school. We have the kids after school. We have the kids after school. We have the kids after school are back in. And they're more involved in the programs. We had some significant problems with journalism. I have to build a, even though we were open. But that was mostly after hours. So. So yeah, but they're building in a busy place. Absolutely. And, and as you were talking about it being a, a building that people can just come to also recognizing that it's not just a building. It's a building. It's a building. It's a building. It's a building. It's a building on the very hot days and on the very cold days. It can function as the, the de facto warming or cooling area. For the community as well. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't see. I was surprised when we had old snap. I was expecting more people to make more people were home for down on it. But it was Friday or Saturday. Because I was putting on the fireplace. But we do not have a digital resource. So people are able to act with library services that way, but it also requires internet connection. Which nobody has. Yeah. So. Keep a balance. We can serve. Great. My, my only other question. The other day someone had come in and mentioned that the library had been closed on a day that they had anticipated it being open. Does that happen often? And how do, how are, how could people be notified of when the library is closed? Um, it doesn't. It hasn't happened. We've had several situations with illness that we have not been able to get. So sit in for. And we, we, we put it on our doors. We put notices on Facebook. We, we have a whole procedure. Let's spend, I think those are the big ones. And then we sent out email, but if you're not connected to those digital resources, then. You know, like they say it when you hit the door. Gotcha. Yeah. We previously tried to. Media. Yeah. But that doesn't work out. And that time that we need it when we closed in the past for similar. Gotcha. I assume by the time media picks it up, the events largely over with, by that point in time. Yes. If not even into the next day or two. Yes. Yeah. And we do have a great, like limitations on who we have to accept when we have illness. We try to staff our staff are very thoughtful and trying to light a head. If people are scratching the day before, I don't usually have us a heads up. And so we try to get people in line ahead of time. That doesn't just happen. Okay. George Dan amber. Yeah. Wendy, I, I, I probably, you've probably described this to us already, but you got to forgive me on that. But I had very high praise for what someone described as your locker system. Your, your, and can you, can you maybe describe that and what that, how would the, what the impetus of that is. Yeah. So. I can't, but just break Andrew's question when we are closed. People like we've kept staff on the answer phone and fill the lockers. So even if our main building is closed, we do keep the lockers open than regular hours. Cause we, we, well, we can't be stopped with, we can't be safe with just two staff in it because of, if we need to respond to anything we do, but we can't. So we just have the locker system. So the locker system, we had the department of vibrate offer grant money that they got through our last summer. Yeah.  So one of the things that I was, I walked away out of our COVID experience was going down deep. And just scanning a barcode and having a locker open and not have to be to go. And then have to wait and have somebody retrieve something when you order something online. So I was like, is that something? And it turned out, it can be. So we got a few quotes and a quote that one of the quotes was much more affordable. So we went with that. Not me. The other quotes were way beyond the grant money that we had. And so the lockers, Hannah trace the, our assistant director. Works a lot to get it to communicate with our software system. So now if we have locker, if somebody places the whole, we will check out the item to them. We still need to get, we don't have to go to the locker system. So we have to go to the locker system. And if we have the lockers, we will check out the item to them. We still need to get rid of the capacity with the lockers we have. So we still have to work on a book card for people to pick up priors with the lockers. We had sort of a self-serve hold system that people could come in and grab their bag. And we always kept it in a bag to keep their privacy of what further materials they checked out. So the lockers allow that privately to be at fold. And so the lockers communicate with our ILS, the integrated library system. And it will send out a text, I think the text message or at least an email, I think it might just be an email with a barcode. So if somebody can go into the, just the front desk, the bill and scan their barcode and the locker opens up. So, okay. We're, we're to that. And our hope and we'll, we'll testing where we're trying to do longer hours on certain days. But the, our hope is to just have 24 seven pickup. If the, if we can keep that area not tampered with. So that's what we're aiming for in the future. So even if people, because I think one of my concerns with people working people is we did change our hours when we reopened. So we're now open after five. So we shortened the hours on the days we used to be open till nine because we looked at the door character stuff. And we really were not getting a lot of traffic between eight and nine. And we felt like it was a better use of hours to be open. The evenings that we used to be open until five on Tuesday and Thursday, we're now open to six thirties. So we can have people be able to stop by after work, which I feel like was limiting. Of course. So, um, so yeah. So we'll see, we're slowly going to try to roll out more access to the lockers. We're trying to find the balance because we need to look into getting an additional set of lockers to be able to fully, um, we have, I think there's 21 lockers right now. And we need more than that for, um, for operation. It's very clever. It's very clever. Wendy, you mentioned the, uh, problem with vandalism, um, outside of the building. But anyhow, with the vestibule with the lockers are, is there a way to integrate the, um, The code or whatever that you scan so that the door will only unlock for that individual, the heads of code to go into the vestibule. That way you're preventing vagrants just wandering into hang out, smoke, do whatever they're going to. Yeah. There is not the technology that exists for that. I think it was 15,000 lockers. What did we do with it? That was something that's, that was not in technology within our reach. Um, we had a digital console with the police department and not that. Um, they said that they, um, they had to look at the space and they said that they, uh, when there are vagrants, people generally will report it the right way. I did ATM. So it's kind of similar to them, uh, like open door. Um, and then police would respond to that. And they were even thoughtful enough to say, like, like out of bed, we might address past them right away, but we wouldn't want to cut them off from library access. It would be really up to you how you want to handle it. So I appreciate it that they really did think about, um, um, use our space at times. Um, so we're looking at adding another security camera just in case anything happens. We will have, um, because our current security cameras don't have a, um, we have some view of the best to be able to be, um, or looking into adding another one in case there is anything. Um, we're also looking at part of the rear view. Um, we're also looking at, um, we'd like to move the door because I continually aware of the roots connect of the library. Um, ice regularly drips off the building and then creates a sort of sheet of ice right in front of the door. So if we can move the door over to, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but the next window over, if we did the roofing project and changed that, that would probably be safer for everybody. Because at this point, with the way that the storms have been, um, we have to go nearly hourly to salt the sidewalks because the water just washes the salt away and then it free freezes. So it's kind of a bad intersection right there. Oh, and John's there. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Not bad as well. Um, we need to talk to John about this issue because of the, it's really a river of water to come off of our building. Oh yeah. Thanks. Any other questions for Wendy? I'm good for you. Wendy, any questions for us? I can't think of any right now. Um, I just wanted to send my appreciation for all of the work you've been doing. It has not been the straightforward process to get all of our city stuff moving. And I look forward to Lincoln Hall reopening when we can get that renovated. Um, and I think we, we, we tend to be the library tends to be the place where people show up when they can't get into Lincoln Hall. So we will appreciate when they can. Yes. Yes, it would. Great. The library roof project is we did that is going ahead this year. Right. Isn't that. I think it was a patch. I think we were going to do a patch. It was a short term patch. I think it was a, I think we were going to do a patch that was a short term patch until the whole thing could be done. Okay. Right. They were too varied to, um, we got two, I think two minutes and they, it was just too much different between the two minutes to really make a decision between the two. Um, so. We'll keep our fingers crossed. Collectively as a community will keep our fingers crossed. All right. Well, thank you, Wendy. We appreciate all that you're doing as well. Thank you. Very understandable. Completely understandable. Thank you, Wendy. And next we have an update from the tree advisory committee and Arbor Day proclamation. And I see that we have Nick and Warren here.  Get a nice comfy seat. Yeah, we'll just. Yeah. So thank you for inviting us, Andrew. Yeah. And it was, I think last January when I approached Andrew about doing our annual proclamation letter for our tree city USA application. And it's always kind of after the fact and he brilliantly said, well, why don't we try and do it in March ahead of time? So good advice. And also signing the last year's one. And I think I sent sort of an overview of what we've done in the past year and a lot's been going on and pretty exciting. I think for the future, you know, what are the highlights I want to share? I think we're trying to be much more proactive in reaching out to the community now of doing educational announcements. We're going to be. And I have to say that the new board member on our committee, Nicole is great. And she's just jumped right in with a lot of past experience with publicity. And having Ashley on board has been wonderful where she's been very receptive to some of the things we've been doing. So we're trying to get things out on a more regular basis. And we're going to be doing a, Tim German is coming back into town for a tree historic walk. We're going to do on, I think it's May 3rd, and we're going to do an awesome tree contest later on. And those are sort of the new things we're trying to do. But at the same time, what's amazing now is that the partnership that we have with Branch Out Burlington is really reaping tremendous benefits. And just to remind you again that they and Warren was instrumental in starting Branch Out Burlington 26 years ago or so. Yeah. And I've been involved for a while and the organizations, the volunteer organization that plants what you take it for. They've done a lot of good work and invite you to, if you're not familiar with them to check out their website, branchoutburlington.org. They just do a tremendous amount of things for the community of Burlington and now beyond. And they invited us to start participating in their nursery. And we're now growing trees and at the nursery and bringing them back into the city of Essex Junction to plant and can help beautify our village center and our, some of our other neighborhoods, which is nice. So it's been really good for us as a community to partner with them, very welcoming, which is nice. And we work together with them. We do work at the nursery with them, help them out. So it's been good. Yeah. Great relationship. We purchase the trees and plant them in early May. And then we have a group of volunteers that go over really right through September and take care of them once a week. And the end product usually is two years later, we've got beautiful trees with a cost to us to the village of about $50 a tree as opposed to spending $325. Wow. And this year we will be planting 37 trees from the nursery. So they're really starting to come in now. So extending our budget greatly. So, and it's fun. You know, it's a fun group of people and it's very tangible what you see and what we get. Absolutely. Yeah. And we'll do some workshops together. We're doing a tree training workshop that Essex is going to be involved in in Burlington in April 6. I think it is. Yep. And we just found out today we got tree city USA award. So for the eighth year in a row and we're only we're one of 10 communities in Vermont that I've granted this. So. And I was able to put city of. That's great. That's great. That's our first one. Yeah. Yeah. Better than what I have to do at home. We'll just cross out village and write with a black sharpie. Yeah. And we're hoping to be able to contribute to the two big projects coming up because we're sort of on the pulses some other grant money for perhaps the Crescent connector or one main street that may come available. So. Yeah. We'll keep you posted on that. And that is state and federal money. Great. And it's it's rolling. Finally. So we'll keep you abreast of that so that. If it applies to the projects and some of the projects that we're doing it will. So it will help offset costs, which is a bonus to the city. Yeah. Yeah. Which is the cost offset is always appreciated, but especially then when it means that we get more, more trees, we get more oxygen and that can be in our, in our air and. Yeah.  I really do appreciate that. And I also appreciate how you talk about educational opportunities for the broader community, but how in past years working with our area schools in the, the update you talk about ADL, I think last year. Right. And I recall up at summit in other years. Yeah. Tomorrow I go to Hiawatha to make plans for our Arbor Day celebration. May 6 May 5th. Yeah. Somewhere. Yeah. That's what I was going to ask is so my next was going to be for Arbor Day. What's the, what are you guys thinking? Well, that's that's sort of what we're, we're doing. It's part of the requirement, but we always want to do it. We've mostly just been focusing on schools throughout and we've done every school, the high school we've done in the park and Hiawatha has a real need for some trees being planted there. It's pretty void of, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're actually working closely with the school department and they've been very open to us working with them to help them with any tree things. A lot of, but a lot of things we do with them is planting, but they've been, they've been good to work with very good. Yeah. And I really want to shout out to Ricky and Public Works. They've been so supportive and I think it's been a good relationship because we're able to offer them a lot of advice and manage problem calls that they get. And yeah, we wouldn't be able to do it. We're doing without their work. Yeah. Absolutely. And one of the things that I talk about when people ask me about getting involved in the community, they generally ask, with the tree committee, what do they do? And my general response is, well, they do. They don't just sit in a room and talk about trees. Yeah.  They have strategic plans for things like the Emerald Ash 4. And so it's a committee that does and not just sit and talk. Yeah. I also greatly appreciate and have seen quite a bit. Appreciate all of you. The committee and YouTube are leading it. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate it. Can I just ask what, what has the Emerald Ash 4 are infestation? Is that sort of plateaued? We haven't heard anything about it. I mean, it doesn't seem it's a sort of plateaued and or what's the feeling about it? No, it has not plateaued. It is still moving. It is basically almost all the way around. Essex Junction. We're an island now. Not having it yet. The fortunate thing for us here in the village is that on public land and private property, we don't have a lot of existing ash trees that were here. The only place I can think of is down by the Winooski River off Cascade down behind Cascade Park in along that area. You'll find some native ash trees. Most of the other ash trees in the village have been planted. And we're working, as you know, on managing those trees by removing and replanting and talking to the residents in the educational process, which we're, Nick and I are very surprised because we're the ones knocking on doors and talking to the folks. And now in your, this is like year four that we're doing this, they know they're, oh yeah, we're familiar with that. Yeah, we see what's going on and they understand. So it's, it's, it's been, it's been good. And often they kind of wish they lived on the other side of the street. That's the street that the village owns that right away. And they have to deal with their own right now. And we offer advice to them and they'll have conversations with us, but it's not really in our hard stuff. Yeah. Plant all those. Yeah. Yeah. Does anybody have any other questions for Nick and Warren? And of course needing to recognize Tim Kermer and his. Yes. And his stepping down from the. Not completely. He's a worker. Okay. He doesn't like the meetings. That's not surprising. Yeah. He'll help us in the branch out Burlington with our trees. We ask he'll be there. Yeah. Great. Great. And so as a part of this, we have the celebrate Arbor Day proclamation. Would somebody like to make a motion to approve of the celebrate Arbor Day? So. I'll second. Any further discussion. In the days, right? Correct. Yes. Okay. Great. So then even though it says April 28, 2023. That's the national Arbor Day. Okay. That's not. And I don't, I have to see the resolution. I don't know if it really matters. I really. I don't think it does. Okay. Because we have a Vermont Arbor Day and we celebrated a week later, but we can celebrate the national. I don't care what day. Yeah. I really don't. Okay. As long as we do it. Yeah. So we had the motion on the table. It's been seconded. Any further discussion? Good. Hearing none. All in favor. Please signify by saying aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Say nay. Great. So that passed unanimously. Anything else that you guys want from us? Or we can do to help you? Yeah. Well, thank you for. Your support. Your support.  It's been. Nine, 10, nine years, I think. We've. First came well, 13. 14 was when the committee was formed, but you've been supporting us with a budget for a while. I think it shows. Oh yeah. Yeah. Hands down the. Yep. The neighborhoods where I've seen the trees just literally growing and significantly. Yeah. They feel like neighborhood streets. Yeah. Yeah. They feel like they're just walking on walkable streets and not just necessarily a sidewalk that happens to be next with fairly busy road. Right. They're starting to make an impact in the community. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. See you, Dottie. And next on our agenda, we have. See the Chittenden solid waste district budget presentation with Sarah reads and I see our representative Mike Sullivan as well. We have a budget, but they don't have the budget because they. Have gone to you all. And each of our are members of the account. Is.  And so. So. So. So we have an actual. I can let this. Start with who we are. They don't know who we are. So we are returned by. The legislature to manage. Celebration is generated by. Dependent is our budget. And if you. Come in on where we do. This is our revenue. And where we up. They can see. This is our. Revenue. And. Focus on this. The bottom line. It says. You know. Any. The rest. Or. For services from. On our account. Our revenues. Provided. In the name. To me. And. So. The sale of. Zero. Like. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. focus on having those plantations of their material that have been growing away and just feel effective. Is this something that actually should be the sample of their batteries that should go for batteries? Do I have some extra organics that I think we should move up up the hill or something like that? I think that is just to find the material that can go for it. So the bottom line, I think we all need to get a zero or maybe a zero. We're 50,000,000 dollars and we're at what's the expenses and it's supposed to be $400,000. And that leaves us pretty to do a different type of operation. It's supposed to be $900,000 and from there the people at Watergall, they put the ecosystem into a series of reserve plants that are on reserve. And they established a primary focus for that business store that the reserve plants were on reserve plants. And where there is any access out after the individual reserve is funded, that access is better than the other reserve plants. And if you remember comparing this year to the next year and the first year to the next year time, the revenue change is about just under 10% to the positive. The spend is just under 9% higher than in the current year. We are seeing a fairly significant increase by the percentages in terms of administrative costs and some challenge increases. Administrative cost increases is because we are moving. We've been in our second row building for 25 years and we are moving to a public suite and then we share the funds and fees on the department. And we were in anticipation of building our own store. But that brings two things. It is to report from the library and yes, we can have it. I mentioned that it's a free set of funds for revenue, our additional fee, free cell waste management fees, and the sale material. That's how we fund all of our operations and our programs. And it's still needed to close out our centers, material, technical facility, the government, the skew boat, the mechanics of the virtual facility. Those are all funded free to feed the community. And it's the sales of those products out of that program. And that is important because that is one of the chargers in each of the work we currently do for the facility. That facilities just need to cover support as opposed to charging state barbers out of the store. Again, I mentioned that it could be that it was $27 per fund that it charged the hauler for and some of the town trusts that the program had. And we have not increased that rate in about 10 years. And I have, I would like to more know that we do need to engage in conversations here about, you know, the donations and the gaming. The same fee over 10 years, nothing has been presented to anyone for over 10 years. And, you know, really, how we want to minimize those costs is one way that I can continue to ask into that. This fee is going up. We are currently charging $80 per fund to be distributed to state barbers starting July 1. And then there is a direct response to a beginning phase in our processing contract that we have with the seller, our manager, the day-to-day operation customer, and those costs are going out by about $50. So, of course, it covers some of the additional costs and against the facilities of supporting and increasing that. We are bushing the tarot sales and sales of site ones. And we see pretty much the same as this year. So, the markets are stable in fact. So, we don't want people who are up to speed to centralize themselves. Our organics, the results are really complicated for you. There are also some things that you can do there. And this is also a result of a decrease in the amount of money that is going up.  And so, it was this up there, the large organic facility in Millington, which was designed to manage material that is contained in packaging that can't be used, sold, can't be distributed at any speed or room from the package. So, you have to have a lot of talent and talent, for example, of venture does mean that it's not going to fail. So, now it all has to go through the school. They didn't all lose their work on the software computer.  Wherever you came from, sometimes back, but we are not anywhere near where we were. So, that's where the bottom line, the negative number for that program is going to stop the computer. So, it should develop a speed at a distance of 22. And then, you just don't want to do that with the software. Our job contractors are like-minded also in the WIC. They were, and then, socializing facilities requires a lot of time. And so, we are closing Ravenback Crimson to avoid that. So, it did not raise that, like, the drug center system would have in the company a lot of stuff. And for some, for reference, pre-COVID, small ad worth $2.25, so we're looking to increase that small ad to $3. And that's for up to $2.25. The median bag will be up to $33.25. The trash in the lower bag is up to $25.25. The drug center system represents almost all of those are curfew coughs or residential coughs. The curfew of managing coughs and the deforestation has become a global theme. So, we came to Bella and others are up to $1. And, yeah, one of the things that we're looking to do as well, one of the things that we're going to be doing is we are changing our products in a scalable way. This is going to be a big step just for other people to find things. But, two things are Saturday and we'll have up to $2.25. So, that's where it will be. We're just going to require a bit more service for being able to do something. We need to be able to do anything that we want to go then. And it should release some of the stress on people who are in the community. And, I mentioned some staffing and considerations. We are threatening to play with everyone else. So, I'm going to speak with Julie for me. We, for example, rely on both a native physician for a lot of the year right now. It's very difficult to find trainers that are a female physician as well.  Right now, it's a point 3. We started off a 12% forward. So, it is to my our, I suppose, the quality of the client on the client. And, yeah, that's what we're going to do. So, the 7% is as of you know, that will get in place for like one. Then it is also one of the community. So, what we do there is we drill those hospital plans. That's what we get on January 1st. We're using our flow of physicians to do the same thing. Right now, we have to go through the recent department of hospitality for hospital bills. And that will be so those two people alone help to offset the flow through where the full competition comes forward. Okay, thank you. How about a plan? It seems to be robust. At the end of this term, the best thing for you for this one, we should still have about 3.35 million dollars. And that is the result again of that water falling effect. We've had a very robust material sale here last year. So, that extra revenue and expenses of hospitals is broken into the capital crisis. Which is great because that means that at least we'll have an extra money to make for this in the coming years. We're going to build a drop off center and we're going to expand the growth drop off center. And then in the next 3 to 5 we're going to have the investment savings. And here is the one reserve that we are going to find a way to eradicate our postpones. We are attempting for maintaining the growth like most we are a lot of future families. And now 3 years All we can move to the next stage, which is called the Spoodle Cairn. We have to show a stage that we're not familiar with. Each stage is a little bit different. There's a little info about the fields of gray. There's no issues, especially with the soil. So the first one is the Spoodle Cairn. We are right now in the... I think that we will not be familiar with the field. We need to find ways to increase the amount of that soil we find. To make sure that... So it's only enough for a couple of years. And coming up, we ran into the Spoodle Cairn. So we're typically living in another 35 years of soil. So how can we do that? And is that a, you know, a lot more solid than what we think? I think that is one of the very appropriate uses for that field, to increase that to be able to find the soil closure. And the next step, we do ask each of our members how they do about our budget. Great. Thank you, Sarah. Before we get into questions, Mike or Amber, is there anything that you'd like to add from your perspectives? I haven't just begun. I've been impressed at how rigorous and how amazing this whole process is. It's just one of those things where, oh yeah, I didn't understand that stuff. So, Sarah, I think the place I think it's doing really good and I'm really looking forward to the new Murph. I'm very excited about that. As I asked, I see Sarah most of the time. Great. And I think I saw Amber shake her head that she didn't have anything else to add either. Just to start off, piggybacking off of Mike, congratulations on that vote for the Murph. That's exciting. It was wonderful to have that facility being modernized. Yeah. It has been a long time for me. The old Murph did a great job for a very long time, but I would support 80% for the support of that part. And I think that it says in the memo here that the goal is to break ground in the spring of 2024. So, just about a year from now. Just exciting. Yeah. You mentioned the 7% cost of living increase. We had a similar question here about that. And what we talked about doing was instead of just adding that to the base, having it be a one-time payment, especially who knows if the cost of living is then going to come back down and then we wouldn't be faced with potentially taking money away from our staff. Is that a topic that came up with your board? Yeah. We actually had to be able to make sure that we wouldn't be looked at a variety of approaches. Because your last year also was higher than your normal year. And that wasn't certain of our board. We would be doing these kinds of things this year. And that option was really good to start. And it didn't really get too much traction. I think they don't really recall why it didn't. It just came off. But before the supplementing of the board, also we felt that sticking with the later week on that managing main pieces for now would work. But I think that now that we're another year on the very high solar, will something we want to take a look at down again? And we'll just take another look at some of the expectations now that we're facing. We don't really like to evaluate about every step of the year. But it's a kind of still impressive response. So then something we'll have to take another look at the next week. Okay. The last thing that I had is you were talking about half of what goes in the trash could have been recycled. Which makes me wonder, we're about to print, or we have printed our annual report. Makes me wonder about in a future year, could there be some kind of an informational sheet that we might be able to include? Which, well, we don't mail out our annual report to our entire community. It's at least something where it could be on the digital version. And for those who do request a paper copy would be there that way. This is a way to try and help spread that message. We do provide presentations to the A&M public. Any other questions? Very thorough job, Sarah. Thank you. All right. Well, Sarah, thank you as always. We appreciate you being here. Oh, we need to do a vote. Just got to get to that. I don't have a motion for you. I'm sorry. Let's go with I would entertain the motion that the city council approve of the fiscal year 2024 budget for Chittin's Hall of Waste District. How second? Sarah, in your judgment, is that what you need? Great. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Great. So that passed unanimously. Now, thank you, Sarah. Have a good evening. And next, I believe we have the Department of Energy grant support letter. And I see John here as well. Not sure if that's him or you taking this. Yeah, I can just start that. So John reached out that I've been working on this project with a group of folks to try to work through some code changes in Vermont. And I know at CCRPC, we thought about this a little bit too, just in the sense that we have very sort of hard system to work in in Vermont without building codes. The energy codes are operated by somebody different. We've got a number of small residential construction that doesn't. There's nobody really enforcing the energy code. And so there's lots of world of improvement for these kinds of things. And at the time, the architects were very much interested in trying to help solve this problem and we're an excellent group to do that. And so I'll leave it to John to talk about how this effort has taken off. Thank you, Regina. Hello, everyone. So it's been kind of frustrating that architects are kind of less than new processes in that we have to follow the rules for commercial and residential energy code construction. And yet once the rules are written, there's only no support network. Other than efficiency in Vermont, which has resources through the energy utility rates, but the state itself actually has little to no ability to administer the regulations. And in fact, there's some discussion about compliance and how have they done and essentially it's an audit system where the designers, professional, design professionals will sign a certificate that states that we are sure that the plans and specifications meet the required codes and the contractors sign a similar certificate saying that they believe that they've built it to those same codes. So that's the deal. You file the certificate away and it's presumably they're on file somewhere, but there's only no follow-up, there's no training, there's no real back and forth with the contractors or the design professionals that work with building codes by contracts. All the rest of the building codes for life safety, fire safety, plumbing, heating, all of that is regulated and dealt with through the Department of Public Safety Division of Fire Safety in what we know as the Vermont Fire and Building Code. So we're simply saying, look, we enjoy that process. There are people to talk to, they're intelligent, they can train, they have systems throughout the state to handle these things. Buildings are getting more and more complex, wouldn't it be great if we were all pulling this together in one package instead of having this stray energy code sitting on the side without the same resources available to all of us. And as the state rackets up the energy code requirements based on trying to achieve certain goals by 2030 and so on, it gets more and more difficult. We would love to help the state figure out a way to really do this properly and maybe get all the codes in one place and properly administered. So there are two things going on. There was the bill H332 that asked in the legislature for them to provide $125,000 to help us start a study committee that would review this and come up with a recommendation. In a parallel effort, there was this Richard Phasey in the Energy Futures Group going after a department of energy grant for almost $5 million to do a similar thing, which is come up with this study group that all of the state codes at the table all the different administration components and bodies and people in Vermont and just talk through it and see if we can do come up with a plan that works for Vermont. And then there was a number of other stages and steps along the way for them and I think we send you an overview of what they're proposing. So what we're trying to do as the AIA Vermont is get communities and other people to sign on as supporters of this grant application effort in hopes of having the grant be successful and letting us have access to that $4 or $5 million instead of having the state of Vermont pay $125,000 to maybe do a certain amount of that but obviously not all of the work that would be included under the grant application. So that's what we're trying to do. There are a number of people that have signed on a number of entities and state of Vermont people signed on as supporters. It's a probably a heavy lift. There's a lot of various talks around the state about how this is going to happen and nobody agrees. So we know that we need to do this compliance with our own energy regulations which are young books is required yet we're not really achieving those goals or achieving compliance with the information stated in the regulations. So we would like to see ourselves do a better job and we're asking for your support of the grant application. Great. Thank you, John. Just to make sure for everybody watching basically the ask here is for us to sign on to a letter that commits us to just signing the letter and hoping that this moves forward. There's not a request for money there's not really a request for us to do anything else, right? It's really to say that you support the grant application and you are kind of on board with the effort that should be achieved by in some ways they reform. We don't know what the answer is yet but the grant is going to help us figure out so there's no outcome yet. There's no commitment to spend any money, there's no idea that it's going to end up with the process comes out with a recommendation. The recommendation in order for it to actually happen in Vermont will have to go through the legislative process and become you know codified or adopted so really we're saying help us get everyone to the table so we can at least start solving this problem. Sounds good and it sounds like there's really only forward progress that could happen. It doesn't seem like you can really get back to this. It could go sideways for a long time. We haven't managed to kind of come to terms with this oddity of our code into twice again but we're all hopeful that we'll be able to work through this. Great. George, Dan and I John I applaud and appreciate on behalf of I guess just about everybody your altruism in taking this on and the rest of you who are going after this so it seems like it's very necessary and it's great you're doing it. Appreciate it. Thank you John. My comments echo what George and Andrew have already said but also it just feels somewhat similar to the issue we're dealing with the TMDL and phosphorus in the lake and that the EPA sets standards and the target is not fixed it's a moving target so these things down the road who knows what but I applaud you for going after this and totally supported. I would be happy to have you on board with us. Something to think about. Well, AIA Vermont has already signed up as an advocate and we think the grant application will be more favorably viewed if municipalities are those who are on so that's talented earlier this week to join the list of supporters and so we're hoping that you can as well. Absolutely. So on that no I would entertain the motion at the city council authorized the city council president to sign the support letter. Yeah I will move that the city council authorized the council president to sign the support letter. I'll second then. Thank you both. Any further discussion? Hearing done all in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. I suppose passed unanimously. Thank you all. John thank you for bringing this to our attention. Happy to be a part. Very much and we appreciate your support. Yeah. Any other questions for me by any other they're probably even longer you're gentle. Not tonight. I'm sure that we could have a great long conversation but yeah. Enjoy your night. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. So next on our agenda is one that we would have an executive session so we will move from that into that. Do you want me to do that? Before we get there let's just do the consent agenda. Oh yeah. Move your consent agenda. I'll second. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Everybody opposed say nay. Great. And into the reading file and council member comments. Anything anybody else wants to talk about? Oh I'm good. For those who missed it Regina and I had a nice dog and pony show twice today. We were on WVMT's morning drive at 8 and then town meeting TV at 10. So for people who have questions about if you've missed any of our or budget 5 budget meetings and or two of our public hearings these are also other opportunities where you could hear about the budget the what that 0.4% tax increase would mean. Why it is what it is as well as the 7 articles 8 articles that we have on the ballot if you have questions as to what those mean. Where can people see those? Oh yeah I kind of left that part out most important part right. Yes. So WVMT has their websites which if you just google WVMT Vermont and morning drive you'll find it as well as town meeting TV has that recorded is on their website and I'm assuming that Regina might be writing down putting these links on the city's website. Well even easier. Very good. Thank you for doing that guys. Thanks for closing that communication loop that people could actually do that instead of me just bragging that we got to go do this. Yes. We were on TV. Yes we've had a long day. Any councillors of anything else? I'm good. Then if someone does have that motion right up. I haven't right here. Great. I will move that the city council make the specific finding that general public knowledge of pending or probable civil litigation or a prosecution to which the public body is or maybe a party would place the city at a substantial disadvantage. Is there a second? Very good. Any further discussion? Hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All say nay. Great. And now I will move that the city council enter into an executive session to discuss pending or probable civil litigation or prosecution to which the public body is or maybe a party pursuant to one VSA 3131E to include the city council and city manager. Second. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those say nay. Also pass unanimously. We will not be coming back from this with a decision so we will just adjourn outside of the TV land so bid you all to do. Have a good night. We'll catch you.


Good morning First of all, I'm very excited to be here. It's my first time in Adelaide and Yesterday evening. I had the pleasure to taste some of your wine. So hopefully today. I'll be okay in the presentation But I really felt the warmth of the of the South Australia people, which I really like and I want to see also if you guys have been to Israel before I start talking a lot about the country So maybe can I have just a raise of hands whoever has been in Israel? Okay, we need to work on that, but it's a good start. Thank you okay, so What I'll do is I'll start with a presentation about the Israeli start-up mission and how we got to where we where we are now and I'll also try and see a little bit how it works in a specific model Which is the incubator model which we run which we as terror run it and also at the end I'll try to give a little bit of a Agro focus we are in an agro Conference and maybe give some tips about you know what we learn from all this process. So I'll try to be brief But please bear with me. So I'll start a little bit with the numbers. I mean, you know, many of you don't know Israel By the way, Israel is about 9 million people. I Understand is about 2% of South Australia in terms of In terms of space so quite dense and in this density, we have a lot of itic happening So you can see here some of the numbers We have about 350 multinational that have set up shop as R&D shop in Israel We have about 8,000 startups. So you can do the math is about one per a thousand population More than 100 vcs. I think that the latest numbers I have is 200 vcs, which of course, it's a great help for the ecosystem and About 8 billion dollar is invested every year in startup in Israel The good thing is the number grows every year So in the last five years, we had about 30% growth rate in this number Which is great for the economy and the most important for us VCs for us investors Is that we have also about 11 billion dollar of exit? So the model works you have about 8 billion dollar coming in even I mean last year was 6 billion dollar and about almost double it Actually goes back to as a return to investors and founders, which is a very important thing to continue the loop We're one of the highest number of companies on the NASDAQ after China are very good at patents and of course we have a very sophisticated and talented workforce with number one In the world in terms of engineers and scientists per capita So that's a little bit about the Israeli startup nation And here you see some of the companies that have taken shop in Israel How does it work in terms of the impact on the economy? Well, it's actually not that many people It's only about 8% of the population working there. We're trying to increase this number is a key Issue for the government really to try and expand this number to as many people as possible It's about 12% of business GDP, but most importantly is about 43% of experts Which means that most of the value add that is produced in Israel is actually in the high tech world And of course being such a small country experts are really critical for the growth and the well-being of the nation If you look at it on a on a global base, of course, Israel is number one in terms of VC dollars per capita So you see on the left. This is actually a European Focus, but you can see the the US as well is there. So we're about I would say two three times Higher than the US, which is the second in terms of dollar per capita on the right side You actually see it in absolute value and I made also a piece for Australia Sorry, my my graphics are not great, but I added it there. So my calculation was that you were about You had about $80 per person For 25 million people. So as you can see Israelis, it has a pretty much similar size of Germany UK and France, which of course are about six seven times as big. So there's a very nice Ecosystem One of the other thing that you might not know is that Israeli technologies are really being used on an everyday life Almost by everybody. Yeah, you have some examples. I won't go into all of them Might be familiar. We of course would have antivirus the firewall that you have in the computer These were started in Israel the automotive mobili, which is the system to To find if there is a car around you a little system Voice over IP was invented in Israel. So all the Skype and chat and Started actually by an Israeli company vocal tech about 30 years ago and the chatting was started by Mirabilis, which is a company in the 90s that was then sold to AOL And the discount key, of course, we have a lot of medical technologies. It's, you know, the slide is too short to make it to make it To see all the companies and that a thing which is very important Especially important for you is the what we call the clinic angle or the agriculture Angle most of you know drip irrigation, which of course is a technology started in Israel about 60 years ago And it's still now about 80 90 percent of market share is still with Israeli companies Salination where one of the country with the highest the salination In the world we now have about 50 percent of our water needs done by the salination And by the way, it basically solved the the water problem of Israel. I mean now is just a matter of cost I mean we could actually use all the water from the salination if we just we just have to pay for the water and for the energy and and of course the money to bring it The other thing we do waste water treatment I understand you also do a lot of waste water here in Israel We have about 85 percent of our wastewater is recycled into agriculture Which of course is a big issue for Israel and for you guys as well So that's a good point to start and solo terminal. It was also invented in Israel and it's quite well-known now So the PV has taken over but it's a was an interesting start One of the things that is really very important For the Israeli ecosystem is that it has attracted in the years a big number of multinationals So you see here from the 60s where Motorola IBM Intel came came to us and in the last 20 years You see really the exponential growth We have about 350 almost 400 now Multinationals that came to to do their R&D in Israel most of them started by buying a startup So it's really a full system with the startup system and as you can see on the right side You know most of the first companies were us companies because of the great relationship. We've had the US But in the last few years we really have a lot of Asian companies as well coming to Israel And that's a really big trend which is really growing in the next In the last few years and hopefully going to continue in the next time the next few years So I started to and all people ask me how come why Israel such a small country You know such a so many problems actually managed to do it And then the first question the first answer I give is that it's a little bit about the culture I mean Israel has been in some some tough situations and this has really created an interesting Combination of factors that made it a very good place to do a startup nation. So first of all, it's a very informal place I mean the ones you've been there. No, we call our Prime Minister BB They are former of Minister of Defense boogie. So all the sneak names. So this is really and this is really not just in politics It's really all around it's very very informal place and this helps a lot to bring up innovation We have great international network great experience meaning that a lot of the Israelis go out Globally and they return to bring their own expertise back to the country. That's a critical factor of success We have risk-taking is endemic. Unfortunately, we have some risks around the Nation and so we are quite prepared to take risk also in business There's still a pioneering at us. I mean we've been there for 70 years But still a lot of the new immigrants that come have still this will to change the world and do some things And so we have still this this idea, you know used to be that they were going oranges The pioneers or the immigrants when they came and now they are going into high-tech It's a small country. So everyone we just make two phone calls and you get pretty much everyone including the Prime Minister and and others a little bit more culture, so As you've been if you've been there, you know Authority is not really an important thing in Israel. It's a very very flat Everybody speaks his mind and this is a great great way to Bring new ideas into the into the place So an open an open place where everybody can say from the small worker to the CEO Pretty much at the same level. It's a great way to bring new innovation in most startups The big ideas come from the team and not from the top management. Sorry Marcus The other thing which is very important That's why I put it in black is you always get a second chance that I think it's you know If it's one thing that I really try to push the other countries to to try and get into their minds It's really the way to give you know people have to be able to fail If we'll be able to come back from the failure learn and then go to the next Opportunity that's a critical critical point for the success of of any company and definitely for a startup and And you know for us, it's much more important to have an entrepreneur that has done it a few times Even if it failed the first time then a person that is just the first time that is doing it Because of course you have to learn from your mistakes and hopefully you don't make them again in the next startup The other thing is because of the there's so many now entrepreneurs It has become really like a national sport. So I would say like your rugby, you know people are really Excited to be an entrepreneur. There's a lot of you know, the moms are happy that the kids be an entrepreneur And that's very important to continue the So beyond the the culture That I think which is you know, it's it's not just one factor. There are many factors that create a full ecosystem What I mentioned before the number of a scientist and engineer to have a really good Talented and educated population is critical. We had in the 90s about a million Russian immigrants Formal Soviet Union immigrants that came to Israel. That was a big boost to the economy But in general to have a strong talented Educated young people is critical to to running a start a startup nation. We have a really good universities With a lot of links we discussed actually with many of you yesterday now how to bring the link between Very good ideas coming from academia into becoming a high-tech company startup It's not easy. Also. We took a long time to develop this process But I think you have a good very good chance to do it if you make it well As I mentioned multinational is a very important the multinational role is double So first of all, it creates a full ecosystem in Israel. So whenever we need to partner with another company We don't need to be go very far. We have the company here We don't have to travel to the US all the time and the second thing is for training for our Young students so once a young student finishes college. He usually goes to the multinational. He learns how the How the business is done and then he starts his own company. It's important Of course that then they leave the multinational to start a company, but it is a very entrepreneurial There's a full financial ecosystem. So pretty much at any stage of a startup you have money available From the beginning you have angels accelerators incubators venture funds and a lot of grants from the government That's really critical because then at the at each stage entrepreneur can grow And of course, we have also banker lawyers accountant So anybody that is in the field can really have the help the expertise on the specific needs they have there is a unique role of the army, of course the army is a key part of Israel society and Beyond the fact that a lot of the top Entrepreneurs come from the elite units in the army. There's a lot of technology also that Started in the army and then got into the civil war. So that's a critical Component and of course the government has been extremely helpful. I like to touch a little bit more on this topic I think here we have a Few people that might be interested so let's see how the government helped in In Israel to push the ecosystem The first program was Yosemah, which was basically the seeding of VC funds in 94 So they were able to just by putting about a hundred million dollar into the economy Which by the way, they all recouped so the government invested and then return all the money They managed to set up 10 VC funds for with external help and that really created the whole VC Venture capital ecosystem in Israel, which is very critical We have the incubator program will tell we'll talk about it a little bit later We have grants pretty much a tennis stage so an entrepreneur that comes It can be from from a university. You can be alone any time of the of the Of his life. He'll have a potential to apply for a grant from the government and that's very critical There's also grants R&D grants for traditional companies that want to innovate Which is also very important to try and push this technology not just in the high-tech world But also in the low-tech world And one of the thing which is very important is the bilateral so we have we've quite a few Countries in the world and states in Australia. I don't know if we have it with South Australia if we do Okay, so bilateral grants were basically a company here and the company in Israel can do a joint project and get about 50% matching of the of the money The other thing which is very important And I think it could be useful for one of the issues we discussed here is the pilot matching program Which is basically in specific sector the government will give you 50% of the Investment in doing a new beta site a new pilot and I think for agriculture This could be very very interesting because it reduces significantly the the the cost for the Buyer and of course it brings a big incentive for the two to work together even if technology is not yet ripe The other thing we have of course is no taxation for for an investor in Israeli startups and we see which is very very important Maybe I'm not sure you see this this properly, but it just to show you that it takes time I mean we started all this process in 69 in 84 we had the R&D low and 91 was the start of the incubator 93 was Yosemite So there is really a process that has taken about 30 years So it's not it doesn't happen overnight, but it's a really good way to to see how The government can help and also can change the process in time So every every five ten years they actually change a program to become more suitable to the to the space And these are some of the criteria for a good management intervention the the top management of this innovation authority, which is the one leading the The help of the government comes actually from the industry They don't come from the government and our politician the industry people that came into the government That's very critical because they really understand how the industry works The matching that the government does goes down with risk So at the beginning they can go to even hundred percent of the matching up to 30 percent down to 30 percent of the matching as soon as the risk goes down. It's as I mentioned it encourages partnership between International groups it lets the private sector choose the winners It's not the government decides who the best companies are they select groups that then select the winners in the industry There's a very very focus on innovation They don't want to crowd at the market So they look at what is the gap they have to bridge and they focus on bridging the specific gap Where the risk is higher? They don't want to just invest money when there's no when there is no risk And the other thing which is very important is they they leave the upside to investors They understand that for investors to come into things like that They have to keep the upside to the investor not touch it and they give some time downside protection For the investor so that's a really great way on how to incentivize investors to come in and keep them there the upside So this is a little bit about the government I won't go into details here. Just to show you that it's pretty complicated process they have money for a lot of different Groups they invest about 400 million dollars every year in the In in the Israeli economy by the way, that's not such a huge number for a population of 9 million people But it's very very significant and it brings a lot of outcome out of it So you see here some of the technology so it's very very Very variegated for each sector they have a different program And it's really a matter of evolving so it evolves every time they see a need They bring up a new program which I think is very important so I want to to take our example to give you a little bit of of a Taste of how it works and how it can help the economy. So we are a venture fund early-stage venture fund We have for this unique approach Which is a six to one matching that we get from the government 85% and we have 25 companies in our portfolio mostly in digitalization Clean energy healthcare IoT and big data And About seven years ago. We were selected by the Israeli innovation authority by the government to run one of our incubators It's a very very competitive process. You can see at the bottom there Some of the other companies that want the process so you can see we have Phyllis boss of scientific IBM Metronic nil centave that is a huge Conglomerates that decided to come to Israel to make investment and they were very very attracted by this great matching mechanism that government put up How does it work? So it's it's quite simple. I mean basically the government takes out all the risk in the early stage We put up only a hundred thousand dollar plus some of the expenses of the incubator The government matches that with 600 K for every company every investment We do and the beauty of the system is that we get all the upside so we get Usually 20 to 25 percent of the company just for the hundred K because of course the company sees the whole 700 So it's like a typical city investment And and then the government will only get repaid through a three percent royalties out of sales So only if and when the company is successful and start selling the product They'll start giving back three percent of the sales to the government So it's a great way really to reduce significantly our risk at the beginning and get paid only If and when the company successful So it's a really partnership between the private and the public sector We're actually in this case the public sector takes most of the risk of the initial stage investment Which is very brave, but it's a model that works very well What does it do to our model? So we see this is Israel. We see about six seven hundred deals Per year from only from Israel in our fields What we do is we do the first selection we select about four or five companies after the six seven hundred So less than one percent of the companies that come to us were selected to go into the incubator and Again at this stage we put very little money. We put just a hundred K plus some expenses That's where the government bring us the big funding and then we work with them for 18 months So it's a real incubator. It's a place where our team sits with We've all the all the companies and we really help them bring the product to development to the bit to the market So it's a really very intense program But by doing that we also really know the company very well Usually when you do any seed investment, you know, you maybe you come to the board It's not a very intense process and you don't get a lot of I would say quality time with entrepreneurs In our case we actually leave with them 18 months with the good days the bad days of the entrepreneurs So you really get to know the people you're investing in and then the second stage is much easier Because then you really know if the company is good or bad and that's where we put most of the money so basically the idea is you know we The government helps us in investing in many companies in early stage. Thanks to them We were putting much more money in the initial much more Sorry, we invested many more companies at the initial stage and we help them a lot so the success rate of The first companies is much higher because we bring a lot of value into the process and also in terms of our investors You know the money that is invested in the companies most of the money is actually invested only after We see them for 18 months So it's a really good way to get to know the entrepreneurs and understand where to invest Most of the money that we put in by the way the government continues with the matching But as I mentioned before the matching goes down. So in the second stage, it's one-to-one matching First stage is 6 to 1 the second one is 50-50 because of course the risk has gone down And so there's less need for the government to intervene So that's how the model works by the way just to give you an idea in terms of what is the impact on the economy of this program? So in the last four years, we got about 12 million dollars from the government in the early stage So we we invested in 20 companies Those 20 companies in the last four years have raised more than hundred million dollars So the company invested 12 million dollars and our companies raised hundred million dollars Which of course all went into the economy So just in the last four and by the way these companies are still growing so they'll raise much more money So just in terms of the of the multiple They had a multiple eight to ten times of the money that was invested by the government So it's a really good investment because of course most of this money goes back to the government through taxes and payroll Exige you can see here that basically because of the system we get really nice Upsic for our value So this investor view in the second stage you see we continue to invest in the company So the gray goes up But the value that was created for our part was big So you see all the blue is basically the valuation of our stake in all the companies goes up a lot Which brought us to have a net IRR or more than 30% for investors, which is of course pretty good achievement a Little bit about the sectors we invest in so I think that some of them are very very suitable here What we do is really we try to Use some of the best technologies that we have in Israel IOT big data AI robotics and to use them in a little bit more conservative industries So we take in them sometimes from other sectors and Apply them in all the sectors you see here, you know, agritek transportation Construction retail, etc. And the idea is really that we believe all these sectors and this is a great example in this conference All the sectors are really ripe for innovation. It's if you make it well You can these are huge markets So if you can make it well, you can really become a very big company by focusing on them But it's still early stage So we the valuations are not very high because most of the investors are not yet focused on these Companies but we believe that by taking them at the right moment We're a bit at the inflection point and that's really where the value will come up And I have to say we see it in our company fielding for example that you know Investing at the right time the company now is growing much faster than most of the other companies which are much more IT based So if you if you have the right product into the market then you can really sell it very quickly even in a conservative industry like agriculture and This is the rest of the portfolio So as you can see we invested in digitalization what I mentioned before we have quite a lot of energy and Clintek companies in our portfolio and also a few healthcare Companies so that's a quite a diversified portfolio And it's very important to have a diversified portfolio because at any given time, you know One of the markets can be in distress. So it's good to have a good diversification also on the portfolio level So I actually after yesterday night Chat we had with some of some of you guys I put up some some sorts of things that could be done here in South Australia or could be learned from the Israeli model Etc. And and I think as you might have understood by now It's it's not about one thing. I mean there has to be quite a few factors to make Full ecosystem work. I think government can really play a big role into it But it has to be a role not just money. I mean it has to be more of a role of education You know to you probably won't get the same culture as we have in Israel This comes from many many different factors, but it's very important to try and and put even in the school level An idea of entrepreneurship of bringing new ideas, etc So it's really comes from the very early stage in Israel We have a lot of programs for young kids from the age of 12 to 16 to make their own idea Make their own startup. So I think it's something that can be also used here to increase the the level of entrepreneurship And so that's one side and of course What I mentioned before give the people a chance to to fail I don't know how you do it on a government level, but that's very important You know to to let the people really try as many time as possible and give them then a second chance That's critical for a startup ecosystem to be built and of course money I mean I described in what Israel is doing for the Israeli government is doing for the ecosystem It's not a lot of money by the way as I mentioned is four hundred million dollars out of the budget Which is I think a hundred billion dollar So it's maybe you know four percent of the budget or something like that No less than that. Sorry. It's half a percent of the budget So not much money and of course the return as I mentioned can be ten times the money Invested into the economy. So it's very very important to do it Of course and do it properly and one of the things to do it properly is really to learn from the experience of others There are many many different countries that tried all kinds of different models So it's great to see to learn from what all the others have done and of course apply it in the in the best way For selling Australia the other thing which is important and was critical for the For the Israeli model was attracting international experience, you know attracting the multinational companies Attracting experts and also bringing back your expert I understand a lot of Australians go out to the US or other places and not all of them come back That's a really critical way to bring back The best talent and because they bring all the expertise from the foreign country and they're bringing back to really enrich The way the country here is done. So again, we also Israel tries to do it It's not easy We also have a lot of people moving out to to the US but most of them then come back because of family because of Opportunities, etc. That's a critical point to really improve the way we do it Lastly, you know, it's a long process. It's not also in Israel. It hasn't come overnight You have to start somewhere to you know, hopefully in the next 10 years 15 years to become also Maybe a small startup nation, but we have to start in order to for the process to to be I just want to finish with a little bit of a few words about agriculture Hopefully some of you will will be interested So it is a little bit about the the ecosystem in Israel We have about 400 companies that are working in the ecosystem as you can see quite different Applications and between them also there's a lot of diversification on pretty much any topic touched by agriculture the money that goes into the field is about 200 million dollar So compared to the 80 billion dollars that I mentioned is not high So, you know if people are complaining here does not enough money in Israel also in agriculture does not that much money And really people have to struggle a bit to find the money because most of the money goes to you know AI automotive Cyber, etc. So it's a fight also in Israel That is a really nice ecosystem that is building up In our specific fund we have two companies that are in the field one is presenting here So I won't go too much into detail. It's filled in But I think an important part of building is that it was started by farmers. So we had Basically two one farmer that connected to his friend was an entrepreneur So they brought both a really good deep technology deep industry expertise with the entrepreneurship and the IT on the other side and the Combination of the two was really a big success because they could really produce a product which is really suitable for their Final customers create a great relationship with farmers and then improve the products all the time And now they're selling into the US most in California in Israel and from last year here in Australia So we're very happy to be here, and I think it's growing very nicely The other one we have it's much earlier stage. It's called a ruga. They actually built a robot for pollination pruning and monitoring of tomatoes in greenhouses Also this company by the way started in Israel But because you have here in Australia a big problem of importing animals including bees We decided to actually have a second market here in Australia So actually out of the two companies in agriculture we have both are working here Which I think it's a good sign because it means that the market here even where if we are quite far from you guys It's it's such an interesting market such nice and good people and good partners that we can bring a lot of people here to again With the expertise to really build the ecosystem also here And lastly I just want to share some of the lessons and I mentioned, you know We make a lot of mistakes. We try not to make new mistakes. Well, sorry We try to make new mistakes not all mistakes So we try to teach, you know, everybody what all the mistake we did so that you don't do it yourself So lesson learned from working in agriculture The first one as I mentioned is you really need to know the industry well You really need to know the farmer as well to talk to the farmers all the time because at the end of the day They are the the buyers of your product It's even more important than in other industry where you might imagine what the customer will know in this case It's very important to know what they really want and it's not obvious sometimes Bring a simple solution to a current product. There's a lot of companies doing, you know, amazing AI big data drones, but you know things that might have an impact on the farmer three years from now or maybe on some Some niche thing that it doesn't really care So it's very important to understand from the farmer. What is the specific pain? He has now and find a good and simple solution for this product and make it simple meaning extremely extremely Friendly user friendly with a really good user interface user experience. That's critical By the way, you know the guy that's building at the beginning they made a product Which was not really rocket science, but it was so well produced so well packaged for the farming industry that it was selling it like You know extremely fast The other thing which is important is you have to create value for all stakeholders You know, sometimes when you sell a product you focus on one of the I don't know the farmer or the worker or the Agronomist is very important to understand what each of these stakeholders Can bring can get value out of it talk to them to understand how to make the product as good as possible For all of them and not just for the for the key buyer And the other thing we learned is that you want to get to if you have many crops that you're working on It's best to focus on the crop with the highest relative value for the customer You know, you might have crops that are much much bigger, but you might be only I don't know half a percent Impacting half a percent of their cost structure Not interesting enough if you can actually impact 30% of its cost structure or increase significantly yield even if it's a smaller market It's much better to start with that because then it's much easier to penetrate the market And then you probably can go and and conquer also the other crops But it's very important to find the crop that has the much the highest value for specific product You're building as I mentioned build the product with the customers You know sometimes it's a bit tricky because you talk to a lot of customers and they want everything, you know 25 different features so at the end of course you have to focus select the features that you want to develop in your product and Build those and then, you know, maybe the others build with time But you have to really talk to all the customers to understand what it's really needed in the product And by the way sometimes what you think is the killer app is definitely not a killer app And they will tell you what is the killer app because they you know, you're thinking and I think it's different They leave the the farm every day So it's very important to understand and sometimes it's really simple thing Which you haven't thought about but by talking to customers you understand that that's a really good thing And they'll buy the product for that. I mean all the other things are good, but they'll buy it just for this specific Application another thing which we found very important is to create key references Really invest in your customer build a strong relationship with them. That will be the best reference for for the other Customers, but it has to be per geography. It's very difficult to get, you know A farmer from the US talking to an Israeli farmer Forget it in each country in each geography You have to build a really good one or two customers that will talk to the other customers Build your brand and they will be your best marketing guys I mean once you've done that you're you're in good shape the other thing is once you get into a custom Which you know, it's a very difficult process to really win a customer But once you are in you meaning that you sold to him and you create this relationship You haven't you have to not to stop the relationship invest a lot in the relationship Because again, they are great reference But you can also upsell and cross out to them and build the new products That you want to build together with them once you're in it's much easier to sell them new products to build with them The right new products, so it's very very important to invest in the customers also after they signed with you So that's the thing so I think I'm done I hope it was interesting enough for you, and I'll be happy to answer any question if you have thank you very much


You got one for us, John Todd has one for us here This is a site that is built personally by Paul Bowden Principal program manager office for Mac crazy details like Microsoft Mac teams slack usernames. He was on his zoom presentation and shared the site which is at Mac admins dot software It's kind of neat I didn't know that software was a valid completer Evidently, yeah He started the site to assist himself in his job a lot of useful info on the main page and in the header links Very cool. If you use Microsoft Office on the Mac Yo, for sure. Yeah, his numbers all that Yeah, this resource is killer like if you're using office in your and especially if you're in charge of trouble shooting office Having all of these things at your fingertips is huge


so much worse. So it's short term rather than long term. It's emotion rather than thinking. And I'm saying if you really value your life, if you want to live a good life, think, don't just feel, long term, not just short term. That's the recipe for living a good, long successful, I'll give you an example of a business. If you lie in business, what will happen? If somebody will expose you and then you think other people want to do business with you? No. They'll go to your competitors and they'll do business with your competitors.  They'll hire somebody else who's not going to lie. If you lie to your wife or to your husband often enough, they're going to get rid of you, right? You're going to get divorced. Lying is an awful strategy for living a good life. If you lie to your best friend, how long are they going to be your best friend? Not very long. So yes, it sometimes feels like it's easy. Sometimes it's a way to get around things, but it almost always backfires. It almost always at the end. So it's good in life to have principles, to have things that I just don't do those things. So for example, lying, I just don't lie, right? It's much easier for me to tell the truth. It's cleaner. I don't have to worry about getting caught. And yeah, sometimes it's uncomfortable. And sometimes people don't like what I say because I'm telling the truth. But you know what? That's still easier than the alternative. Two minutes. Any other questions? So that same thing is true about stealing, about cheating, about all these shortcuts that people have. It doesn't actually serve your own life. So let me just say in summary, because we have two minutes, two things. One, your life is what matters. You got to make the most of it. You got to live the best life that you can live to do that. You need two things. You need to use your mind. And you need people to leave you alone. You need freedom. You need to be free. You need to be able to act on your own mind without other people forcing themselves on you, telling you what to do and how to do it. The most valuable thing we still have in this country today is at least in many realms, freedom. Freedom to speak. So if you believe in something, speak. Don't stay silent. If you have an idea, express it. Go do it. Act on it. We still have the freedom to do this. Our ancestors did not. You know, before the founding of this country and even for some people during the founding of this country, right, where it's slavery for a long time, where people were free. So the fact that we have freedom is so incredibly valuable. And businessmen are taking advantage of that freedom to produce stuff and goods and material and wealth that everybody benefits from. It makes us all richer and, you know, and better at the end of the day. Questions?