Welcome to the Monday August 19th meeting of the Montpelier Design Review Committee. I will let staff and members introduce themselves. Hannah Smith. Liz Bridget. Meredith Crandall. Staff. Stephen Everett. Eric Gilbertson. Sir. Benjamin Jean. We are an advisory committee to the Development Review Board. We will listen to the applications and move them forward. Does anybody have anything to offer ahead of time? Otherwise, do I hear a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor of the agenda, raise your hand. We'll go forward to the first application for 535 Stonecutters Way. Reverse station properties. You want to come up and have a seat? Sure. And you represent Reverse Station or Sun Commons? Sun Commons. And give us your names. Make sure you talk into the microphone. It doesn't pick up very well otherwise. Sean Fitch. Montpelier resident and employee of Sun Commons. I'm a commercial project engineer for all the commercial work that they do. I'm designing commercial systems for them. Fitch. Yep. FITCH. Yep. I've been designing commercial solar arrays for them for about 5 years and designed residential systems for them previous to that. My name is Jesse Clink and I work at Sun Commons as well as the commercial project assistant. And spelled your last name. K-L-I-N-C-K. And describe your installation, reposed installation for the rooftop at Reverse Station. Sure. It's a 64 kilowatt DC, 43.2 kilowatt AC solar portable tech system. It'll be connected directly to the grid. That's about it. 162 modules on the roof. There's not much else to see beyond what you see in sort of our first cover image. It's just modules on the roof. And then all of the service equipment will be down in the service enclosure that's existing on the side of the building where there are other meters and entrance section are. Would you do this one? Yes. Yep. Sign that as well. For this one? Nope. The panels flat on the roof flush to the roof? Yeah. They're flush to the roof. They sit about 5 inches above the roof surface or something like that. So they look pretty well blended into the roof. They'll look about like the skylights do that are on that roof now. Those pop sit up a little bit above the roof surface. Are they different colors in the roof? Yeah. So the roof is a corrugated steel that's a gray in color and those modules will have the typical solar panel look which is a sort of deep blueish color. Yeah. Yep. So this is on rails? Or is it clipped together? Does it have a stainless steel roof? It's not. It's a sinusoidal wave corrugated steel roof. And so, yeah, there are some attachment points that will attach into that roofing. And then we put horizontal rails that sit on top of those attachments. And then the modules sit on top of the rail and are clamped onto the rail. And that's a permanent installation? Yeah, I guess you could say that. At any point in time if something needed to be serviced, you can pull the modules up. You know, bolt it in place so you can undo things. But yeah, we would consider that it would stay up there for the life expectancy of the panels. Quick question just for my own information. Where is the wiring? Where does that enter the building either on the outside or inside or through the roof or under the roof? In the case of this project, the wiring from the modules is routed and connected to one another underneath the modules. So within the array itself where there are panels on the roof, you don't see any wiring there. The modules are very close to one another, so you really, if you were sitting on top of a module, you could probably look in between and see a wire, but from any more than a few feet away you can't see. And then the wiring will exit the array through one conduit that drops over the roof edge and would be blended in and run down the side of the building down to where the service equipment is on what would be the north side of the building. So they have an existing service fence or area that's over here where their meters and main entrance section are and main disconnect. That's where we'd put our equipment as well, and so we would run our single conduit down into that area to connect to our equipment. The conduit will come over the gable and wrap around the patient and down the side. That's the plan as of right now, yep. Although, yeah, exactly, yeah, that's a representation of it. Though, you know, something I'm thinking of right now actually is that is a large overhang right there and we easily penetrate to so that we're not wrapping that. Yeah. Because that again, that's like a, you want to see the underside of the roofing. Oh, you can, yeah. Yeah, it's a good overhang there, yeah. And now that I think about it, it'd be pretty easy for us to come down through that. I imagine our electricians, when they see it, would probably prefer to do it that way, so. Yeah, just come straight down. Yeah, yeah. So, snow loads back up onto the skylight, those considerations. Yeah, we deal with that a lot. And so, as you can see, there are some cutouts below those skylights. We try to maintain some space around the skylights, and we have enough experience with roofs like this and, you know, the general snow loads that we get in the area. And that's usually enough that the snow will kind of, as you get it, it'll sit for a little while, and then it tends to kind of slough down into those cutouts that we left there. And, thus far, we haven't had any issues with the skylight leaves. What's the pitch on that roof? It's about 18 degrees, as soon as out of 412. Probably be visible from across the river. It will be. It will be. Yeah, absolutely. I imagine it's similar to what this is. I guess that probably is visible too. Yeah, though, that's a little bit of a steeper pitch roof. Yeah. So, it's, you know, when you're looking, I drove by today to take a look at it. And, of course, stone cutters, it's a little higher than Caledonia, is certainly in relation to where you are when you're driving by on River Street. And then, of course, the pitch of the roof is a little less too. So, the actual, you know, view of what you'd see from modules will sort of be flattened a bit more than it is at Caledonia. But you certainly can still see them. What was the pitch on Caledonia's? Again, just to... Ooh, that's a good question. I'm not sure I remember. That might have been, like, a 612. That's sort of... Yeah, as you can see. There. There. There. All the power that that building is made out of. That's a different angle. Oh, that's a good question. I'm not sure how that was sold. I designed it. I don't know what their real usage there was. It'll tell you. So, it's covering the tenants, the stone environmental. So, stone is the main off-tape. Yeah. And it's at least covering their usage. I don't know if it's covering others. They're the main tenant. They're the ones who want to install it. So, if there were excess credits, I assume they'll, you know, allow those to be absorbed by another meter or another account someplace. If they have an O&M contract with us, then we would. I think we are monitoring, right? Will they be getting an O&M? Yeah. So, yeah, that would be us. Yeah. So, we monitor the system for performance. That's done just about daily by somebody who follows up on all of the systems that we put in. They check for performance. Both commercial and residential, you follow up on? Well, commercial, we certainly monitor the system's residential. We don't, because it's thousands of systems. And the homeowners are the ones who tend to. They keep track of that stuff a little more closely. They want to know what their production's doing. So, you know, there's an app that all of our customers get to use that's associated with the inverter manufacturer that was on their project. They all have great monitoring platforms. So, yeah, the residential customers are usually just checking their own monitoring. They let us know if anything's going wrong.  So, most of the time, we see an issue if there is an issue before they do. But, yeah, it would be us. We do all that sort of maintenance. The panel needs to be replaced. That's rare. We don't see that a lot, but optimizers go out sometimes. There's not a whole lot else that goes wrong. Not a lot of moving parts. You don't really see many issues. Are you going to have to install any safety equipment to accommodate? The install? We won't have to. There happens to be D-rings already up on the ridge of that roof, so we didn't eval of the roof surface and sent a couple guys up there to get some measurements and check stuff out. And there's already some D-rings that are mounted up on that ridge line. So that's what we would... No, no. During installation, that's what we would do is just tie off here. So, ropes. So, safety ropes. Anybody have any other questions, as far as the design review aspects of the application? Industrial use of an industrial building. Yes. As far as I'm concerned. I'll read through there's a section of criteria because it is in the district. Evaluation criteria. Preservation of reconstruction of the appropriate historic style of the proposed projects in the historic district involves an historic structure. I wouldn't call it preservation. So I would just say not applicable here. Harmony of exterior design with other properties in the district. Acceptable. Compatibility of proposed exterior materials with other properties in the district. Acceptable. Compatibility of proposed landscaping. Non-proposed in this application. Prevention of the use of incompatible designs, buildings, color schemes, or exterior materials. Acceptable. Location and appearance of all utilities. Acceptable. Recognition of and respect for view quarters and significant vistas including gateway views of the city and state house. Acceptable. All in favor of the application as proposed. Raise your hand. And if you can sign that on the lower left right above my name. Can you just start working? What do we say? September 3rd. We're going to try to be about two weeks worth of construction. Keep things moving.  It gets slick. I'm sure it'll come sooner than we want it to. And this will move forward to administrative. Administrative. Administrative approval. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And so what after that it goes to administrative approval? Yeah. So it'll go back down to the planning office and it's in Audra's queue to just issue the permit. Okay. But there's no, I don't think we had any other issues with this. This was just here because of design review. It's not a fixing state plan or anything like that. Great. All right. Thank you. So give it a couple of days. If you haven't heard anything in a couple of days, give us a call. Okay. We'll do. Yeah. If anybody thinks of any other questions, you can always call them and ask. We're happy to chat. You work out of the Waterbury location? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's us. Thank you. Thank you. The next application is for Bailey Avenue, Vermont State Employees Credit Union. Come forward and tell us about your rain garden. And you are from the Conservation Commission? I'm not. My name is Sarah Hoffmeyer, local landscape designer. I am on the tree board. Spell your last name for the records. I took my husband's last name. That was a mistake. My name is Mitchell. I got to go into it. It's Hoffmeyer H-O-F-F-M-E-I-E-R. Chairman. I brought, I only brought one copy. I should have brought more. This was the final presentation that we gave to the Vermont Credit Union. So we have the small. We have the small one. Yeah. Everything came in. So we have the small version in the packet. So everybody has it. Okay. Lovely. We're referencing anything. This is a little larger so we can hold it up. Awesome. This is a little backwards. I apologize. The timing was, we partnered with VYCC on this project. And they had one window to help us. And it was August 12th to 16th. So we've already started construction. And here's a picture of the construction that I'd bring it along just to show. Hardworking group of kids. Crew members. Sorry. I'm not supposed to call them kids. But a great group. And the crew leaders, Justin Geibel and Adam was the on-site crew leader we're fabulous to work with. But we did have to take advantage of using them that week. So we did already start. But it's not finished just yet. The planting is done. But we're still constructing the forebay and the filter strip, which are really important components of the rain garden. So that'll happen this week. It's a big haul. Yeah. I think we did. One of the drawbacks. We'll just be very frank about it. I really love VYCC. But one of the drawbacks was they didn't quite finish in time. And so we didn't crush their morale. My husband would go in at night. He might have seen him. Yeah. And he came with his machine. And dug out a little more. Poor guy. Neither party was happy about that. But don't tell VYCC. I don't think they actually knew. But yeah, it was a huge haul. We removed 35 yards of material. Wow. And then brought in with Vermont Compost Company about 28 yards of the planting medium. Because the main purpose is to filter in slow water. And then the plants actually, and just nerd out for one second, just in case you haven't heard of this. The plants do something called phytoremediation. Some of the plants. And that's where the storm water is coming from the parking lot. And it can pick up oil and gasoline from the cars, the breakdown of asphalt tires.  It's such a cool thing. Phytoremediation, psyched about it. And we'll go any further. If you want to know more, I will nerd out with you more. But anyway, the main purpose of the rain garden, so is to slow, filter, but also clean the water. And so far, it's so far so good. We haven't had anything that was a surprise. We didn't find any varied propane tanks or anything crazy when we dug our hole. No dinosaurs. It was. The top 18 inches were basic construction fill. Pretty gravelly. And then we hit our clay. And just so you know, you cannot construct a rain garden on clay alone. But we lucked out in having that 18 inches of construction fill because we have horizontal infiltration. So if it was all clay, it would have been a swimming pool. That's not a rain garden. But it's OK to have the bottom be impermeable, essentially. Yeah. What are your top three plants for breaking down? I'll tell you, yes. So the big one is Indian grass. Super hard to find. I had to go down to Massachusetts to get it. It looks like a weed, but it is a powerhouse of a plant. It's usually, you find them mainly in prairie areas. But it's actually native to Vermont, more southern Vermont, not really Montpelier. Let's see. Goldenrod, oddly enough, is a great plant. A lot of people look at it as a weed. Something to note, too, about weeds, you see them growing in places where other plants can't grow because they can deal with really tough situations and pollutants. So a lot of what we call weeds are really good plants that can break down. And if they're not breaking it down, they're at least trapping it. Something like sunflower. It's a bio accumulator where it traps the pollutants, so you have to harvest it at the end of the year. Or as it dies, it'll just put it right back into the soil again. There are a couple of cat tails. That's another example of that. But no matter what, it's slowing it and trapping it, so it's not going in the water. So it's still very useful. A little blue stem is in there. That's another one. I could go on. But then we have a lot of just great natives for pollinators. So we put in butterfly weed, which is an orange blooming, and that's the main host for monarch butterflies, the caterpillar. There's a bunch of others that we put in for wildlife. There was one non-native that I put in that's from Europe. It's one of my favorites, but it's a sage. But it re-blooms continuously throughout the year, so I had to put it. It's a beautiful, brilliant purple. And it's well-behaved. It does not move. It really isn't a spreader. So I had to put it in throughout the year. Or throughout the growing season. That's my year. Yeah, I'm asleep in the winter. How much of the water off the fracking line that you actually captured in my head looks like you're adding this curving? Yes. Yeah, Amy McCrellis from Stone Environmental did the major calculations for it. There are four or five actually storm drains on site that capture different areas throughout the property. This one, and I don't know the volume of water that it can take, but she calculated it so that it had to be 420 square feet. The reason why we called curbing in was a lot of water comes out of that last drive-through closest to the river, and it was going right into the storm drain. So we had to direct it into our forebay to get it so we can clean it up and slow it down before hopefully we never even have to use the storm drain. That's like the overflow, but the goal is everything is dealt with in the rain garden. Unfortunately, it's in the flood plain so that eventually in 100 years we'll have maybe not 100 people last month. Five. Yeah, five. Two. I just want the place to be established by the time we get our flood. But that's the only downside to the rain garden is that when it floods, we'll have to do some major reconstruction. Yeah, four. I think there's five. Five. It's only doing the work of about one-fifth. Right. So there's an opportunity for them to put in four more rain gardens, or it could be something else. It could be a bioswale or a retention pond. We would have to be site-specific. Yeah. I think that is the refludge. It's not really a refludge. No? It's just enough higher than it is. Yeah, I hope. I hope I want those plants to stay. The water got to the underside of the bridge in 93, or 92, when it was. Yeah, they closed that bridge. 3-1-1-92. They closed the bridge, and the water got to the bottom of the structure, but it didn't go over the bridge. And I'm not sure if it got up into the corner of that lot or not. I don't think it got into the corner of that lot. It was at Bayley and... Yeah. Paris. Bayley and State. Yeah, Bayley and State. They got it. This is quite a bit lower. Right. So that is lower. Right. Autocross in that area. I think that flooded. Yeah. I was living in the corner of Bayley and Baldwin, so... Oh, yeah. I don't know about the information that's signed, so it's... Is that here, or is that somebody else? Yeah, VSECU is leading the charge with the informational sign. They're hoping to put up something permanent, but it's still in the works. I haven't seen any... It'll need to come here before the sign goes up. Make sure they label the... Tell us a little bit about the plans. Yes. Yes, I will. Yeah. Yeah. This... And this, because this isn't... There isn't actually a structure really going on here. This probably wouldn't have come before Design Review, except that in Western Gateway, there's some sort of landscape-specific things that catch it. So, that's why the rain garden is a hole this year. Yeah. So, this is another fair question. Well, it is a fair question. Hit me with that. Due to our process, like... Yeah. What prevented you from being able to get this to us before? Was it a surprise that, when VYCC was available, or was it scheduled differently? No. I actually didn't know that it, for what you were saying, that it needed to come here, until a week and a half ago. Yeah, well, that's... Yeah. Audra... Neither Audra nor I caught it first, that... Because we were like, oh, it's not a structure. Right. It doesn't need anything. Yeah. And then it was like, oh, wait. Let's look a little more carefully at the Western Gateway District's specific guidelines. Yeah. And it's not actually, like, what you have in here for landscaping. In large part, it still seems to relate to when you're building a structure, but there's some language that's a little iffy. Mm-hmm. And so we figured better safe than sorry and bring it here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't seem like something we normally... Mm-hmm. And we did... I feel pretty confident about it because I did consult with so many experts in the field. So, Mark Companion from the Lake Champlain Basin Sea Grant. I worked with the UNH Stormwater Center to the Vermont specs for stormwater management are actually not quite right and they're being redone. And so I went with UNH. I went with the latest information. Amy has been fantastic. I've asked her a bunch of questions. So even if I didn't know them, I'm surrounded by people that do. So it was, yeah, a well thought-through process by a lot of other people that are good at what they do. Really just play a person. Any other comments, questions, suggestions? We'll run down through the criteria. Same criteria. Preservation or reconstruction of the appropriate historic style if the proposed projects in the historic district or involves an historic structure. I would say that the plantings are acceptable under that criteria. Harmony of exterior design with other properties in the district. Acceptable. Compatibility of proposed exterior materials with other properties in the district. Acceptable. Compatibility of proposed landscaping. Acceptable. Prevention of the use of incompatible designs. Billings, color schemes or exterior materials. Acceptable. Location and appearance of all utilities. No lighting or utilities involved, I assume. No. Okay, not applicable. Recognition of and respect for view quarters and significant vistas including gateway views of the city and state house. Acceptable. All in favor of the application as proposed. Raise your hand. Spirit of use is absolvable. But it would be easy to reverse. Yes. One dump truck flood. One flood. And again, if you would sign above my name and the lower left there. Do you have a pen? Good. We can add that, but I meant it's a separate sign application. I can just make a note. I can remind the SECO. I see. I just said that we'd make a notation that an information sign will be proposed and submitted for approval at a later date when final details are determined. Is that okay? Thank you. Sure. That way we can get written and verbal notice. Do you want to change the ratio of the sign? I would just do something that's a credit union. Okay. You know, signs are good. Yeah, it's out of my area of expertise. I didn't say everything. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good luck with your project. Thanks. And reviewing the minutes for the first meeting for July the 8th. Myself Eric Steff. We were here. Any questions, comments, suggestions on that one or do I hear a motion to approve? All in favor of approval of the July the 8th. That one is approved. And how about July the 22nd? Myself Seth Liz Ben. Any changes or notations on that one? Do I hear a motion to approve the July the 22nd? So moved. All in favor of the July 22nd. And the last one for August the 5th. Steve Hannah Benton. The 29th College Street on the second page just says an option would be to add a light at the door. It doesn't actually talk about the project. Yep, I didn't even, honestly, I didn't even look at these because I wasn't here. So I will fix. We gave them an option under the optional to add a, they hadn't proposed but we gave them the option. The application was for them. Yeah, there's nothing in here saying what the application was for. No, I see what you're, I see exactly what you're saying.  Just, your application was for the door. Yeah, oh I looked at what the, I know what this application is for because it's also having to go to DRB today. But I didn't prove these because I wasn't there. So while they were in, we just, if they had any intention of adding lighting for the door away in the back corner for the parking lot, we gave them the option. It said to add a light at the door, change the light at the other door, and then they also had an option on the back corner of the building near the parking area to put a motion to protect the light. I read the actual form that you filled out because it could be brass or black. Yes. And I had that in there so I, because I had to have a report on it for the DRB staff report. So I know what happened, I just didn't prove the minutes because. That's okay. I wasn't, I wasn't part of my routine because I wasn't there at the meeting. So with that notification. I'll fix that. Yep. Don't hear a motion to approve those minutes. Okay. All in favor. So that one is approved. Yes. With edits. Any other business or anything, anybody has to suggest or offer? With updates. With. Oh. No. I have, I have nothing on that. There's, we're supposed to be getting a decision from the court on all of the various motions, motions for summary judgment and to, to get rid of appellants. I think next month, I think it was supposed to be by the end of this August this month, but likely it wouldn't come out until at least September, just with the way the court has been a little slow on things. So hopefully we'll, hopefully by the second meeting of September we'll know something. What about the building that's going next to Shaw's? I don't think that they're going to decide on that until they know what's going on with the parking garage. Well, just because if, if the parking garage doesn't happen, then they might apply to do something else on that parcel. Yeah, they don't have to, they don't have to build the building that they got the permit for, if that's what you're talking about. Well, no, I just thought I didn't know anything about it. They're, they're trying to keep their options open, I think. That's my understanding. So. And technically who's doing that? I know that the trust backed out. Yeah, I don't even know, because I, I don't. What do I do? The, my. Last, last time that the trust backed out, I think it was Ribilini and I'm not sure who else had some options or a part of that, but I'm not sure who has the rights on the property at this point. Same design? Hi. I don't know. Last I heard was, was that, what was it Moat Family Trust or whatever it was called, it backed out. So, then you know more than I do. And unless it comes down to my office for a zoning permit or I hear rumors about that, I tend to stay out of that and leave that to Mike Miller, who lets me know if there's something that I need to know about. I don't even know who owns the property now. If they sold out their interest in the property or. It's too bad. This could have been. Yeah. You had to figure out how to get the trucks behind there for the designers, I guess, designed it to be. Attractive, but not necessarily they might have thought about involving a attractor-trailer driver in the design process. I'm so impressed with those guys who do over to the shots that pull in by. Oh, they swing around it. Back, get across. Quickly. Yes. Nobody has anything else to have a motion to adjourn. Why not? You're second. All in favor of adjournment, raise your hand. Meeting is adjourned.


In the past few sessions, we have been talking about the role of different committees, the different reports, the combined report, how we see that there is a little bit of difference between the systems and the processes and the procedures which are prevalent in the UK and the USA, and how the implementation of the combined code can be ensured and enforced within a particular organization. So what we see ladies and gentlemen is that another very important aspect in all of the sessions that we've been conducting is the role of the audit committee. And again, this audit committee becomes a very powerful institution within a corporate structure and its role basically is very fundamental in the rollout and the assurance and insurance of the corporate governance, tribulations. So this audit committee has a pivotal role in the whole corporate governance structure which exists within organizations. Now what we see is is that ladies and gentlemen that the audit committee, all members are independent non-executive directors, INEDs. And most importantly, the chairman of the audit committee should be an INED, that means an independent non-executive director. There can be one member of the committee at least should have financial expertise and outside professionals can also be hired if necessary, if we see that the members of the audit committee do not have the level of professionalism, do not have the exposure or do not have the accounting and the auditing regimen or understanding within them. So those outside professional experts could also be hired to ensure that the functioning of the audit committee is done in a proper way without compromising upon accountability and transparency. Now, responsibilities basically include oversights of financial reporting, liaison with external auditors, ensuring regulatory compliance, monitoring the internal control processes and oversight of risk management. So again, like we have been talking in the previous sessions that there are various aspects of the corporation or the corporate body or institution which need to be regulated and also reviewed on a regular basis. So the most important thing is the financial reporting which is seen by the committee. Also the fact that the internal auditors cannot work in total isolation but they can liaison with the external auditors with the help of the committee, ensuring regulatory compliance across the board in all the segments and amongst all of the stakeholders, monitoring internal control processes, very important not only financial but like earlier said, all internal control processes have to be monitored by the committee and then an oversight of risk management to ensure that the future of the organization is more stable and more predictable. The terms of reference basically that are stipulated are that there should be measures for protecting the assets of the organization, there should be review on a quarterly, half yearly and annual financial basis. The external auditors should be facilitated by the audit committee, there should be assessment of management letters and also guaranteeing three communications. So all of these things have to be ensured by the committee to ensure better functioning, better working, better performance, better productivity of the organization on a long term basis by again minimizing risk and optimizing performance. Another thing that we see is that there are certain best practices and that basically is about managing its own agenda, the frequency of interaction between the management, regular executive sessions and regular evaluation. So these different best practices ensure that the audit committee works in a better way and that it is further strengthened and reinforced in these key areas. The best practices have been established in different regions and based upon those best practices these are the areas which the company and the board and the audit committee must be functioning in the most optimal way so that there is longevity of the organization that it is looking after. Thank you so much.


Welcome to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm your host, Jacques Henson Compton, and we are again talking about the National Social Protection Policy and a little bit about its legislative framework. My guests today are Deputy Director of Research at the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment, Dr. Uraliz Dele, and Program Officer, Yulampius Frederick, who side-notes was actually my classmate from the St. Mary's College, we're Class of 1999. Welcome to the programme. Thank you very much. So I wanted to speak a little bit, first of all, about what the Social Protection Legislation is. What is its purpose? Well, the Social Protection Legislation is basically an embodiment for, well, the legal framework for all social protection programmes that is being delivered in St. Lucia. We have currently a very fragmented institutional and policy framework. So the main purpose of that is to pull everything together and to have a coordinated approach to have one focal agency as the main implementer. Is it an existing legislation that has been revised? Well, yes. There was an original draft Social Protection Bill that was prepared by a previous consultancy funded by UNICEF in 2016. So the current revision of that Social Protection draft bill is building on that previous document. Okay, and either of you can speak on this. How will the... What have you decided to address specifically with this new legislation? What are the changes that we made to the national social protection policy? Dr. Dile? Well, I must admit that the legislation is pretty much in its embryonic stages right now. We just looked at the gap analysis. So in terms of exactly what is going to come out, we have not reached that area as yet. But as the PS indicated, the contents of the policy. So basically we expect the legislation to speak to all the areas of the policy. Every single aspect. We're just looking at the gaps, what I'm missing, the information that is missing. And so we could have a comprehensive legislation. And do you have any idea of who the vulnerable groups are that the legislation might... I mean, as you said, it's very early in the development. But do you have an idea of who it might... Well, we know the vulnerable groups in St. Lucia, persons who are disabled or persons with disabilities. We have children looking at the entire life cycle approach and persons in St. Lucia from children. It looks at gender issues, particularly women. We're also looking at the homeless as well. We're trying to incorporate that vulnerable group into the revised document. And of course the poor and vulnerable. So the other thing I want to speak on is something that I understand is called the adaptive shock reform. I don't know, Yulam Piers, if you want to speak on this a little bit. Yes, well shock responsive social protection. That is a special form of social protection where by you are adapting your current social protection programmes to be able to both prepare for, mitigate and respond to covariate shocks. And that is shocks that affect large sections of the population, perhaps even an entire region. So we have things like hurricanes, natural disasters, or even the recent COVID-19 pandemic. So has COVID-19 affected your work in any way? Of course, COVID-19 has changed, well not so much now, but in last year and year before we operated from home. And it was difficult and also challenging for the persons that we represent, the vulnerable groups who come in to us. A lot of our we were reforming and doing our papry certification. And this is a survey that we are doing with our vulnerable people. And we could not go to their homes, we had to be doing that recertification via the phone and so on. There are certain things that you want to see and verify for yourself, but we could not have done that because our interviews were done via the telephone and this is a very important exercise for the ministry because these are the people we represent and we do not want them to be on public assistance all their lives. So we have to recertify and put them through a process of graduation and so on. I'm sure P.S. spoke about earlier. She did speak about that on our last programme discussing the social protection policy. And she mentioned that she doesn't want, well obviously the government does not want everyone to be on the programme forever. We cannot afford it and there are new people we have to onboard and if we have people there all the time and it doesn't speak well for our country, we have to make people productive and in terms of their dignity, people feel better knowing that they can provide for themselves and their families. So if you provide the avenues for them to do that, you'll find that they appreciate whatever it is that they earn better. But specifically, how has COVID-19 affected those same vulnerable groups that you're meant to help? For example, the homeless as you said, the disabled. Well, we have a social assistance programme, a public assistance programme where we give cash transfers to persons and with inflation and the high prices, the amount that we give them obviously is going to bring homeless groceries and food for the family. So I think that is the major issue we have now, groceries. Well, I must say that COVID-19 really turned the spotlight on the Ministry of Equity and Social Justice because this is the only government agency that has the mandate of providing public assistance by under the Public Assistance Act, so you could well imagine that our workload really increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic because we now had to introduce vertical and horizontal expansion of our current programmes, vertical expansion in that we increase the amount of the benefit that we gave to our beneficiaries and horizontal expansion in that we brought in a thousand more clients because they were impacted by the effects of COVID, perhaps temporary job loss and different things like that. We also had to spearhead the rollout of the income support programme for non-NIC contributors. We had to spearhead the rollout of the Electricity Assistance programme. We also recently did a second version of the income support programme targeting specifically the bus drivers and liquor licensed COVID holders. So, Ministry of Equity, we became a very, very bustling place of activity, rolling out those different programmes just to be able to reach out to groups of persons who were not necessarily vulnerable prior to COVID-19 but became vulnerable because of the exigencies of the pandemic. We also saw an increase in the request for food items.  Just give me some food and some, especially mothers with little children, milk and pampers and so on. So, our Ministry, we had food packages prepared. We had 400 food packages prepared that we distributed to the vulnerable persons. We also did food boxes where we had an arrangement of the local farmers where we didn't give people rice and so on but we gave them provision and chicken and dashi, niam and so on, vegetables. I think that was, I mean, we had them to eat very healthy. And we also had the Hot Meals programme. We had the Hot Meals programme where we went, I think every Sunday, during the lockdown, we went around giving cooked meal to persons who could not help themselves. And I think that's where we reached the largest number of persons because we had thousands of people during that time period. We also assisted by providing hygiene care packages to our vulnerable groups. We used to protect themselves and their families while, even on the lockdown and while, you know, in their normal day-to-day activities. So, some of these activities were sponsored by the government and some in collaboration with donor agencies. And I think the Chamber of Commerce came together to assist with the food boxes. We had the Korean government and so on, the whole food programme. So, UNICEF. So, we were able to, you know, put some packages together to present to those vulnerable people and they really appreciated it. And not forgetting our children's homes. Yes. They were also able to benefit St. Lucie's home, Cornerstone. We were able to present them with some of those hygiene care packages as well. Yes, we gave the homes. And are some of those programmes that you mentioned, like the Hot Meal programme, are those still ongoing or are they finished for now? For now, they are finished. We just finished the income support for legal licence owners and the Ministers operators, the ribbon owners. So, these are projects. We call them programmes where they are projects. They have a start and a finish time. But they keep coming on. We are doing the flow bundle now. We're rolling out the flow bundle where we're giving a package to vulnerable people again for the course of only 20 EC dollars.  Internet Wi-Fi and cable, sorry. They get 10 local channels, including religious channels, for only 20 dollars. So the government is going to provide that bundle to 5,000 households around the island. Yes. And the coming week, next week, I think the 100 persons will receive the bundle. So that is ongoing. That's quite interesting. So how can one apply or where can they get information for programmes? For the flow. Okay. So the bundle is being operated in the various constituencies by the councils, so persons can go to the office to apply. But within our ministry, we also will be providing, still identifying, 400 households. Households with children especially, who will be returning to school and who need that type of connectivity for them to do their school work and research. But they can go to the constituencies, to their parliamentary rep offices and just apply through there. Now I want to speak specifically on, there's a disability component of the social protection policy from what I understand. Can either of you speak specifically to that? Any one of us. Okay. Well, our Honourable Minister, Minister Joachim Henry, felt inspired by the work of an agency within the region by the name of Mustard Seed Communities. They have established a residential home for persons with disabilities long-term and chronic disabilities that really do not receive support from their own family, from their own relatives. So they have built this community and it's actually established by the Roman Catholic Church. So it's run by a group of persons and they have specialised care for those individuals. So recently Dr Dile and the Minister did a study tour to Jamaica, which is the headquarters of that organisation and they returned to St Lucia to see how can something to that effect be implemented on Ireland. And currently we have begun having consultations with both faith-based organisations and disability sector NGOs, such as the St Lucia Blind Welfare Association and also the National Council for Persons with Disabilities. And we are basically discussing the establishment of a similar establishment. You know how can we put it together and you know we're trying to embrace the concept of inclusion, including those groups so that their voice would be in the entire process. Nothing for them without them. So this is where we are at right now in that process. You did mention consultation with stakeholders. I want to know what sort of information came out, came about as a result of those consultations. And as well I also understand that the Caribbean Development Bank and the CDB conducted a sort of situational analysis of persons with disabilities in St Lucia. Can you also speak about what has come about as a result of that analysis? But I want you to speak on that after the break because we're due for our break. So as soon as we come back, I will pose the question to you again. You're watching Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. Please stay tuned. We'll be back in a moment. Pamela, I noticed that you built your retaining wall on my property. You'll have to give me my land back or compensate me for that. My contractor isn't dumb. I trust that he will not build anything on your property. Where is your proof? Let's go to court. This situation does not require you to go to court. Looks like we have to go through mediation here. Mediation is a way people resolve conflicts like this. Someone, a third party, comes to speak to both parties. This person is called the mediator. The mediator is impartial. He or she makes sure that communication between both parties is effective and efficient. So the mediator is a judge? No. The mediator is not a judge. Mediators, unlike judges, do not decide cases or impose settlements. Let me get a mediator to handle this retaining wall and that kitchen. Kitchen? Yes. Your kitchen also falls on my land. Let me call the mediator. Welcome back to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm Jacques Inston Compton. I'm here with Deputy Director of Research at the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment, as well as Dr... you released the lair? Sorry about that. And Policy and Program Officer, Mr Eulampia Frederick. So before we went on the break, I did ask Mr Frederick a question. I specifically wanted to know about the work of the Caribbean Development Bank or the CDB and their situational analysis of persons with disabilities in St. Lucia. What came about as a result of that analysis? What have you learned? Thank you. Well, yes, the Caribbean Development Bank did sanction disability assessments within borrowing member countries. And St. Lucia was included among the four target countries for that assessment. It started in 2019 and unfortunately COVID kind of put a halt on that. But basically there was a survey instrument administered to get a feel of the number of persons on island with disabilities. And there was a sample population of roughly 4,300 persons island wide. And from that, projections were able to be made. They also noted Senator Morris from Jamaica. He prepared a report and a disability ranking for the different islands. St. Lucia actually ranked 5 in that and they were taking a look at various aspects of infrastructure in place for persons with disabilities, access to concessions and other allowances. A number of different indicators is included in that report. I don't remember too much of the details of the top of my head, but St. Lucia was ranked fair. Number 5 was a ranking of fair in its performance. And there was also 5 out of 10. And St. Lucia likewise there was an examination of the various policy instruments that we have in place from both a gender lens and a disability lens. And again ranks were given for actions taken whether there was some action taken, no action taken at all or excellent action. And you know it was really interesting to know that St. Lucia has no gender policy and likewise St. Lucia has no disability policy. So that is these things are going to become priority even with the whole reform process. And I guess even in looking at your faith-based organizations and the disability sector NGOs that we are currently engaged with in trying to establish a home for persons with disabilities, I know some of these issues are going to come up as well. But I think the information from there, I think they also had focus group meetings with persons with disabilities. So you're able to get first hand information from the persons themselves who the report is speaking to and I think that from the core of information that of that report from CDB. And I also wanted to speak on the stakeholder consultations that you have had. Just speak very briefly on that maybe what you've learned. I wouldn't call them stakeholder consultations but we've realized that in those countries it's really the church that does that kind of humanitarian work when it comes to persons with disabilities, with the elderly and so on. If you look at the Merion Home in St. Lucia and St. Lucia's home and some of the homes, Villa St. Joseph in Denry and so on, you'll realize is the Catholic Church that's really, you know, handling operating those areas. So we decided that and also in Jamaica as Mr. Frederick said, the Catholic community is really a Catholic based community that speaks to the spirituality of individuals and so on. Because they believe that even the most critical or severe disability that person has some sensory skills that can be improved and so on. So when the minister and I returned, we decided that we're going to have meetings with religious groups and as Mr. Frederick said, the council for persons of and for disabilities, we also had the Blind Welfare Association. We've had one meeting. Our next meeting is on Monday, Tuesday, next week. What dates? Tuesday would be the 23rd. Yes, so we had a healthy discussion on what we should do, where we should go and I think minister is very concerned about the abandoned persons with disabilities and persons with chronic disabilities because what we've noticed is that if you are chronically disabled, they just have you laid on a bed all day every day and no rehabilitative activities and so on for these persons. So he's really concerned about those persons in particular. And so we're holding, we're still in his embryonic stages. So we're holding discussions as to where we go, what can the church do or what can civil society do to assist those persons, especially if they're chronically disabled. And there are a lot of parents who do not want their disabled children and they are being abused and so on and we need to care for those persons who cannot speak for themselves. Do we have a high prevalence of abuse of the disabled community? Well again, our research is very poor and limited in that area but when you go to the communities, you would hear instances of those things happening. You see them on the streets, even some of our homeless people on the streets, you see how they are being treated and so on and just feeding somebody doesn't mean that you're taking care of them. They need more than just food, clothing and shelter. They need the love and the care and so on and their attention. And psychosocial support is that also something that you are thinking about? For the parents also and we know that taking care of a person with disabilities is very expensive and so we have to think of ways that we can support those parents. We have a child disability grant that our ministry gives two persons well not everybody but it's the number is limited to about 312 persons that we support every month until the children get to age 21. But then we have so many on the waiting list that we cannot support. And this is as far as it goes in terms of assisting persons with disability. So we really hoping that we can go beyond just having assistance for children but expanding it to persons in St. Lucia with disability. How can one apply for the child disability? Yes. Well it's a grant and the child has to be well I think it's from moderate to severe have a moderate to severe disability and the doctor. There is an assessment that is done by a doctor but right now we have reached the limit and we have a lot of people on the waiting list, over 100 persons, parents with children who are waiting to come in and our funds are limited and this is why we really trying to do something else. We hoping that the policy and the legislation can guide us in terms of how we either increase the number and move beyond just children. And you've mentioned as well that you're looking to provide support to the parents of persons with disabilities. Is that just parents with caregivers in general? Caregivers, yes. And in some countries they are provided with shadows. These are persons who come to assist them. There are WhatsApp groups and so on that is formed for persons, parents or caregivers for persons with disabilities and you have power, house meetings, you have different the sessions are not based on one particular topic but you recognize, you do a needs analysis, so you recognize the areas that they are weak in. Some children with disabilities have special feeding needs, feeding tubes and so on, so maybe one session might just be on how do you feed those children, how do you care for them, or just normal psychosocial support, encouraging the caregivers and so on. So it's a range of topics that will be addressed but we hoping to have all of them in groups and organize using media, maybe even through GIS have those power house sessions for them. As you mentioned us actually, either of you can speak to this question. Do you have any sensitization campaigns? Not yet, as I said we're still in the planning. This is one area. A lot of the religious leaders have agreed to go take communion to some of those persons to sing to them, have prayer sessions with them also and this is one of the areas they have identified that and I think there is a special day that the Catholic Church takes all those disabled people to church and they feed them and have a special mass for them also. So we hoping we could make a big event out of that. I think it's coming in November? Yes. Later this year. So the churches will be going out to the communities, provide some form of counseling, a lot of the religious leaders are counselors themselves and I'm counseling for the caregivers, have little prayer sessions little motivational talks with them and you know sometimes just the fact that somebody visits your home and shows that somebody or she cares, it helps a lot. It brings some comfort to you. I'm sure. We're very close to the end of the program. So is there anything else that both of you want to address before we go off air? Well I could say that another great suggestion that came out of our initial consultations with the faith based groups and the disability sector and NGOs was how do we forge a partnership with mustard seed communities. You know at the moment mustard seed communities is not really able to establish a franchise establishment in St. Lucia because they recently established in Africa and some other Latin America countries. So at the moment what was suggested was that our St. Lucia caregivers could go over to Jamaica and to get some type of training some kind of internship to learn and to observe and to understand the special care that is needed and so return to the island with that specialized skill set and applied here. Also they were welcome, they agreed to the idea of visiting St. Lucia, visiting our plant and seeing our operations, making any suggestions, taking a look and analyzing our systems to give suggestions as to how we can also improve. And another point I wanted to raise going back to the legislative reform is that we want to have the establishment of a social information system and also a technical committee. Now that technical committee would provide the guidance and the advice and the support needed so that we could basically tie loose ends between social protection programs and that there would be better synergy between the different programs. So these are some of the next steps for those different interventions that we are looking at. And we have a few seconds left. For me Mr. Federico and I are actually doing a course on social protection and for persons with disabilities for university in Germany and actually the final product is a formulation of a policy for persons with disabilities for me the sore point is that we do not have a registry of persons with disabilities and I'm hoping that we have a national registry where we know all the persons with some form of disability in St. Lucia so that we can better care for them. Coming out of the CDB report I think they estimated about 20,000 persons in St. Lucia with some form of disability. I have not done any research but I rather suspect that there may be more because I don't think they looked at the elderly and persons new amputees and so on. So a huge area, there was a huge gap so on every day by day we have all these accidents and so on taking place. So we're hoping that we can put that policy together by September, October that's our final assignment that we'll be working on together. The university has agreed for us to produce that document together given the size and so on of St. Lucia. So something good is coming out of it and I'm hoping that persons with disabilities will be better off next year around this time. We'll at least have more information on them and make them a priority among our vulnerable people in St. Lucia. Well that's good to know and I'm sure a lot of persons in vulnerable groups are waiting with bated breath for this to be rolled out. So I want to thank you very much Mr. Frederick, Dr. Delay for coming on the program and I hope you come again when there are more developments with the framework and the upcoming policy. Thank you. You're watching Issues and Answers a production of the government's information service. Thank you for watching. We'll be back on another day.


know to really, we're here being very transparent to say we're joined with the Holy Spirit in calling forth an experience of glee and joy and happiness that you are entitled to, that you deserve, that we all deserve, and to do it in the most practical way possible. So I thought what we would do is open the floor up for everything and then around four o'clock if somebody has a watch and they're looking at it. You can let us know. We'll take a little break with the refreshments and then we'll come back for more time. The important question that I've been looking at is if it's sold that the truth is that we are one in God right now is very second and that we never let the God hit and that perhaps there was a wrinkle in time or a split second where we consider separation to feel what it would be feeling like to be separate from all beingness and we did that adventure. I'm wondering who made that decision and if it really ever happened or if there is no wrinkle in time and that we are right now sitting in the unified field of being our total divinity and why are we having this ridiculous movie reel playing where we're happy some of the time and we're sad some of the time and we're enjoying and we're caught up in depth of loved ones and we're on a journey that's sometimes easy and sometimes difficult. What is this odd movie reel that's going on? If the truth is we are connected to being God at all moments. You've asked and my travels for the last 18 years I get many many questions and I call that the number one question. I've heard that asked in many different languages and many different countries. I've been in 22 countries and I would say that's like the basic I call that the number one question and variations of it is when you say who was that being that made that decision that's one version of it how could this even happen in the first place if everything is one and everything is perfect how could this dream or any concept of separateness or like you said happy day sad day the duality of joy and love and happiness and peace and freedom and guilt pain shame envy and anxiety how could that ever occur and actually as a course of miracles was being scribed taken down from Jesus that was the first question that the scribes asked the scribe and the scribe's partner who was they were taking it down built that furt and Helen Shuckman after so many chapters they were kind of like Jesus before we go on with your book we just have one question how does happen in the first place I mean they've done enough chapters of some of the ideas I'm sharing and they just ask that question and Jesus said well it's a good question and this is the way that he addressed it this is the way Jesus Christ addressed your question to them which is really to everyone to all of us he said he said you can tell by your daily emotions almost roller coaster ride of emotions that you believe that the separation happened you believe it in reality it did not it's like the Christ speaking from the oneness and he's saying I am giving you this book I am giving you this course these exercises I'm giving you this practice as a means of realizing the state of mind that I am in and all his first answer was you can tell by your emotional roller coaster ride that you believe in very much like in this world we talk about pig mail you we talk about self-fulfilling prophecies you know how how powerful the mind is that somebody can believe their their limited wheat frail and so forth and it does seem to be a self-fulfilling prophecy in their awareness not in reality but just in awareness it seems that way so then there's a part in the course too where it's it's called the clarification of terms initially when it came through it was at the very beginning but it got put at the end when you have the published version you have to go to the back of the book of course I went right to the clarification terms at the beginning what's this clarification of terms I'm not reading this book I find out what the terms mean but anyway I went back there and he said he said an experience will come that will end your doubting and he said an experience in other words he was saying at the end he said it's not going to be a theology that will come that will end your doubting and we certainly have a lot of theology in this world and he wasn't saying that there's a conceptual belief system that will come that will end your doubting he's saying there's an actual experience and it kind of reminds me of like when I was in psychology I would read all about Freud and B.F. Skinner and all the different theories you know the neo-Froideans and on and on and I remember reading Abraham Maslow's stuff where he had hierarchy of needs and it reminded me a little bit of when Darlene was talking today when she was talking about survival survival is down at the bottom of the hierarchy of needs you know you need you know you need to feed the body you need to clothing shelter survival mechanisms is there and then when you work your way up you work your way up to higher quarters of needs including his pinnacle at the very top of his triangle was self actualization being needs he called him just just to know what you were saying to know that you you are it's simply you you exist as a pure being and so I thought well that's a pretty good system when I was in psychology I thought that sounds somewhat reasonable but we have to work our way through levels of needs and that's really what what Jesus is saying with this course he's saying in reality you're at home in heaven dreaming of exile just like when we go to sleep at night and you have a dream the dream can seem very real it's like you know you're it's like you can have a lot of emotional reactions if there's a monster chasing you if you fall off a cliff and are plummeting down into the valley or falling from an airplane or whatever you know those emotions can seem very real even with children when they have them they're being chased by a monster it could be like you know the heart the heart is pounding because it seems very real and now we have a branch in psychology we could say a transpersonal psychology we have a branch called lucid dreaming where it's basically teaching that you can be aware of your dreams you could be actually aware that's your dreaming and it's a very empowered state of mind imagine that you're aware that you're dreaming and a monster comes up it's a it's a big difference from being aware that you're dreaming the monster and then it's just a dream and feeling like you're a figure in the dream that's now facing a dragon or a monster it could be quite terrifying in that position that you're just a figure you're a person and there's a monster in front of you so so basically the answer to your question is in reality it is a fact that our essence and our being is one with God and has never left and that there is no such thing as a separation or a fall from grace that that is impossible and what this is called in the course of miracles in the path that I used in my own awakening to the lucid dream or to the happy dream this is called atonement and sounds like a very christian word you know there's a lot of things associated with atonement like you have to pay something like Jesus was here to atone for the sins of men and you know like a sacrifice or whatever but actually what atonement means is it means correction that that this silly tiny man idea was just an error and that it has been corrected and that our one responsibility is to accept the correction