Welcome back. It's still Ways and Means and it's Thursday, the 20th something. Thanks. I think we are going to now hear from Jim and Abby. Jim and Abby, I don't know which order you two want to go in to talk through these findings. Look how you appeared. It's so exciting. Welcome. We have the Supreme Court decision. And we have the Supreme Court decision. And we have the Supreme Court decision. And we have the Supreme Court decision. And we have the Supreme Court decision. Posted and, but I don't think any of us have read it yet. And we are trusting you to take us through it in whatever way it works for you. Great. I can start us off. Can the committee hear me? Okay. I know I had some issues with my headphone yesterday. That's good. Okay. Perfectly. And we actually, we only have 21 minutes with you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Solid overview of this case. So for the record, Abby shepherd office of legislative council, I'm going to go through the claims, the facts, and the judicial history of the case. I will talk so that we're not jumping back and forth between Jim and myself too much. I will talk about the two major tax constitutional issues. And then Jim will talk about equal education opportunity and that. The two main issues of the case would apply to the people waiting discussion. So the, there were three main claims made in this case. There were three plaintiffs. There was a student a homestead property taxpayer and the town of Weddingham. The students claim was that the education property tax system was unconstitutional because it deprived the student of an equal education opportunity. And that's the piece that Jim will walk you through. said property taxpayer claimed that the system is unconstitutional because it required that taxpayer to contribute disproportionately to education funding. And then the town claimed that because of those prior two claims, the town was being compelled to collect an unconstitutional tax and therefore was being and what's additionally being deprived of its own taxing capacity for its local taxes because all taxing capacity is being used up by the education tax and deterring voters from approving higher local taxes. The case was brought in October of 2017 before the Civil Division and the Wyndham Superior Court, which granted the state's motion for summary judgment and claimed or decided that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate any of the alleged inequities that those were caused by the statutes by the education property tax system and the Supreme Court affirmed that decision, which was given by Justice Carroll. So I will go into more detail about what what the legal and constitutional principles are, but first I wanted to walk you through the facts of the case. The procedural history is pretty straightforward. The case was brought in the Superior Court and then it was appealed by the plaintiffs to the Supreme Court. So the school district in question is Twin Valley, which has a joint. So I've summarized the facts based on the case. If you do want to read the case, it's fairly straightforward and well written plain language, especially for the facts. So the Twin Valley School District had a joint contract is a joint contract district created by Wydingham and the Wilmington School Districts. In 2019, Twin Valley became a unified union school district and Wydingham and Wilmington ceased to exist as school districts. Twin Valley has operated all schools within the district and its school board proposes its budgets, which is, you know, are rejected or approved by voters. The town of Wydingham did not operate or fund any schools. In fiscal years 2016 through 2019, the twin valley district had between 400 and 500 equalized pupils. Its education spending per equalized people did exceed the statewide average by between 19 to 30 percent over those three fiscal years. Its average district spending was about $3,600 more per equalized pupil than the overall statewide average. Again, still in that same three year period, other districts similar to Twin Valley's with that number of students between 300 and 550 pupils that operated schools for all grades did spend less than the statewide average per pupil. Twin Valley spent an average of about $4,000 more per pupil than those similarly sized districts. In general, a few notes that the court made in its facts, listing of the facts is that Twin Valley had a socio-economic makeup that is generally in the lower portion of the districts, but its home values were near or slightly above average for home values across the state. And according to one of the plaintiff's experts, the spending in Twin Valley was not driven by demographics and that Twin Valley was spending more per student than other districts with similar demographics. Compared to Vermont's statewide education spending on a whole, Vermont spends more of its, and I'm reading directly from the case, Vermont spends more of its total economic output as measured by GDP on public education than any other state. It has some of the highest overall levels of per pupil spending in the country, and education spending in Vermont is not highly associated with student achievement. These are direct quotes from the case. The plaintiff's expert opined that education spending in Vermont and at Twin Valley specifically is above the threshold at which increases in spending are associated with increases in student performance, and the expert agreed that at the current level of spending in Vermont, more education spending did not create higher levels of educational opportunity. In the 2017 to 2018 school year, this is looking at what was offered at Twin Valley. The school district offered fewer than 100 high school level courses compared to the largest high school in Vermont, which is Champlain Valley Union High School, CVU's population has over 1200 students. That school offered more than 150 courses. Twin Valley students did and do have access to other courses both online in person and through dual enrollment and early college class options. The plaintiff that was the student was at the middle school when the case was filed, and she testified that she would have preferred to have more options for courses, especially in person and different sport options. Overall, Twin Valley students achievement is in terms of taking college preparatory tests was lower than average for Vermont high schools, and they received lower than average scores on college tests. The high school dropout rate at Twin Valley is also somewhat higher than the statewide average. A school board member and the designated representative from the town testified that the district's relatively high per people spending was attributable to student needs, demographic, special education costs, facility bond payments, and transportation costs, and claimed that there was a need for additional opportunities, additional opportunity for Twin Valley students, and testified that the districts of similar size to Twin Valley did not have the benefit of the economies of scale, such as in schools and school districts like CVU, because of the cost of maintaining staff spread over fewer students. This individual from the school board asserted that Twin Valley incurred higher costs for transportation than many schools due to geography and other factors. I don't know if you want to go into the detail. I'm going to skip over the exact data that AOE, the AOE data that was provided in the case, but I can point you to where that is. It talks about the equalized tax rate and equalized peoples, but I'll skip over that. It's relevant, but not directly. It's a hard discussion. The final... Abby, what page is that on it? What page is it on for if we want to look at it later? It's actually by, I've taken my notes by paragraph number, so it's paragraph 16 in the case. Thank you. Absolutely. So that was fiscal year 2018. With regards to the Homestead Property Taxpayer, that plaintiff owns a home and 41 acres of land in Whitingham. The property's assessed value did increase over $100,000 from around $240,000 to almost $380,000 between 2010 and 2015, then decreased slightly in 2016 and 2017. The property tax ranged from the assessed property tax ranged from $3,500 to $5,300. However, this individual was eligible for the property tax credit, which reduced the actual tax liability to an approximate end bill of about $3,000 and up to $4,200 per year, and the plaintiff testified that she struggled each year to pay her taxes. So that summarizes the facts. I hope I'm moving quickly enough, but not speaking too quickly. The Civil Division did grant the state's motion for summary judgment, including that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate any of their claims. They did not provide enough evidence to show that the education property tax system created these inequalities and that it lacked rational basis. The Supreme Court affirmed that decision. So if there aren't any questions about the facts, I will move on to the tax constitutional challenges, and then Jim will address the Equal Educational Opportunity challenges. Thanks, Abby. Go ahead. Great. Starting with the Proportional Contribution Clause, Jim will address the plaintiff's claim. I will address the town and the property taxpayers' claims. So the Proportional Contribution Clause is what the taxpayer based their claim on. The Proportional Contribution Clause is in the Vermont Constitution, and it provides that every member of society has a right to be protected in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and therefore is bound to contribute the member's proportion toward the expense of that protection. And that's in Chapter 1, Article 9 of Vermont Constitution. The clause establishes fundamental requirements for the valid imposition of taxes in Vermont. One is that a legislative classification of taxpayers must bear a reasonable relation to the purpose for which it is established, and that the classification scheme must be fairly and equitably applied among like classes of taxpayers. And the Supreme Court has recognized that reasonable schemes of taxation must have flexibility and some difference of treatment between citizens is virtually inevitable. In assessing the validity of a tax scheme under this clause, the standard review is a rational basis. So it's not the most stringent standard. It means that only a scheme that's shown to be arbitrary will be overturned as invalid. So the court, both the lower court and the Supreme Court, dismissed this claim under the Proportional Contribution Clause because the plaintiffs did not show unequal treatment compared to similarly situated taxpayers. Quoting directly from the case, the fact that a town has a high tax rate does not necessarily mean that a particular resident pays more taxes and dollar terms than similarly situated residents in other towns. The amount of education tax paid depends on the value of the property, the income level of the owner, the local poor people spending amount, and other factors. The court found that the plaintiffs did not meet the burden to show that the state tax was imposed arbitrarily or that every conceivable basis for the legislative classification is invalid. On the contrary, the court stated that the taxation schemes of education property tax was enacted based on legitimate governmental interests that support the disparate treatment of residents in high spending districts. So in slightly more plain language... Sorry, what paragraph are you on? In the decision, those citations are between paragraph 30 and paragraph 32. Thank you. Absolutely. That's where a lot of them meet for the tax issues. It is laid out very well. What the court did was really restate these constitutional principles and then explain how they apply to this particular case. I don't really see any particularly newer groundbreaking precedent being set here. It's really applying existing principles. So the court did find that the education property tax system has legitimate governmental interests in mind. Again, the court really emphasized the lack of evidence and stated that it was left to speculate about how the plaintiff's property tax burden compared to similarly situated individuals. Given the complexity of the property tax system, they concluded it would not be reasonable to simply infer from the evidence that the plaintiff was treated differently than others like her. Due to that lack of evidence, the Supreme Court found in favor of the state on the proportional contribution clause claim. So I will pause there and then I will go into the town's claims and the law on that, on those issues. I think we're good. Okay. So the town claimed that it was being compelled to collect an unconstitutional tax, unconstitutional because it violated the proportional contribution clause and equal educational opportunity. And it further stated it was being harmed by being deprived of revenue by the state tax because Whitingham taxpayers are unwilling to pay more for town services on top of their existing education tax burden. And that's in paragraph 34 of the case. The trial court included that the town's claims failed because again the plaintiff's failed to establish sufficient evidence that the property tax statutes were unconstitutional. And they found that the town otherwise lacked capacity to sue the state. Again, the Supreme Court agreed because those other two claims had failed, the town's claims necessarily failed as well. The court did get into discussion of capacity, which isn't really as much of a tax issue as more of a town's right to sue the state. Capacity is defined as the party's personal right to come into court and is usually conceived of as a procedural issue dealing with the personal qualifications of a party to litigate. But traditionally the general rule throughout the U.S. is that municipalities and other local governmental entities lack capacity to mount constitutional challenges against the state and state legislation. That said the Vermont Supreme Court has recognized an exception to that general rule where municipalities assert that compliance with the state statute will force them to violate the Constitution. So it was under that exception to the general rule that the town of Whitingham was bringing its claim. Both the civil and the civil division, the Superior Court and the Supreme Court found that the plaintiff's failure to make their claims that the taxes unconstitutional meant the town also did not succeed in its claims. The town claimed that it would be subject to liability for allegedly imposing an unconstitutional or collecting an unconstitutional tax. Interestingly enough the plaintiffs did make the tax capacity argument that the town was being harmed because the state education tax was deterring local taxpayers from spending more to pay for town services on top of their education tax burden. The court did not really get to that issue because the the town's claim had already failed under the constitutional claims. And that I hope I went quickly enough to give Jim enough time. I don't know if there are any questions about everything I just said. That was really helpful, Abby. Thank you. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Okay, sure. Shall I go? Yes, please. Thank you. Okay, so for the right time, Jim, Dan, we're at the council. I'll cut to the trace initially and then go through some background. I don't think that this case has any application to your conversation about people weighing. It did not break new ground. The part that I'll talk about is the challenge by a student that she was being denied equal educational opportunity under Brigham. And just to remind the committee that under Brigham, the state must ensure substantial equality of educational opportunity throughout Vermont. But the court also said that in so holding, we emphasized absolute quality of funding as neither a necessary or a practical requirement to satisfy the constitutional command of equal educational opportunity. This is the Brigham case. As plaintiffs rightly concede, differences amongst school districts in terms of size, especially education needs, transportation costs, and other factors will invariably create unavoidable differences in poor people or expenditures. Equal opportunities if they're not necessarily required precisely equal per capita expenditures, nor does it necessarily prohibit season times from spending more on education if they choose, but it does not allow a system in which education opportunity is necessarily a function of district wealth. So that quote was in this case, it's on paragraph four from Brigham. As Abby went through the facts that were omitted were that there were sex course offerings, there are lower overall results for the school than for other schools. It's spent more for people than the statewide average in schools of its size. And going to the course analysis, the court said that the plaintiffs to the student failed to provide evidence sufficient to show that the existing statewide education funding and taxation scheme is to blame for the number of courses and sports offered at Twin Valley for its students relatively poor performance in testing in attendance. That's in paragraph 22. Court wanted to say that plaintiff's own expert testified that education spending at Twin Valley is above the threshold at which increases in spending are associated with increases in student performance. He agreed that at the current level of spending, more spending would not create higher levels of educational opportunity. And therefore the court found there's no care of it. He's doing the way the state currently funds public education in Twin Valley of other circumstances. So in conclusion, this claim was dismissed to the absence of a causal link between the state education funding system and the alleged unequal educational opportunities and did not sustainably further or change the program analysis or hold. Thank you. And with that, I appreciate you both jumping in and speeding through that really important decision. And I appreciate your work on it. And I believe we are now all going to head to a joint session for judicial retention.


as the commander of troops for today's arrival ceremony. Colonel James H. Hewitt, commander, Third United States Infantry Regiment, the old guard. The viewing stand is the revealing official for today's ceremony. General Andika Perkasa, chief of staff, Indonesian Army, accompanied by the host, General James C. Maconville, chief of staff, United States Army. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand as honors are rendered and revenue smeared sergeants. C. Maconville was the Consulate of the Army's Inspector General and witnessed the Consulate of the Army's first reveal on 6 May 1778 at Valley Forge. During that period, a review consisted of four stages, a formation of troops.


mpelling or where someone said something like it can be easily like this trust can be easily fixed by bringing more transparency or more so anywhere where people showed it as a black and white like this is this can be easily and not seeing the complexity. So that's what I was looking at is people who are able to see the situation for the complexity, the multiple stakeholders. And so thank you. Pam. Thanks. I would like to just back up what Dorothy said. And if we could come to some conclusion about that before we move on, I think that would be very helpful. I too agree that we have some outstanding people running for office. And I look forward to supporting them. But there are lots of really fresh and wonderful voices that we just heard from. Can we come to some conclusion? Thank you. Are there any other comments from counselors? Pat, are you trying to raise your hand? Yes. Okay, I'm going to call on people who haven't spoken. I think it's important to try to do that and perhaps not return to people that have. So, Pat, thank you. I want to say that I agree with Jennifer about her three categories for three, but I wanted to add a couple of things. One was a sense of the timeframe that what they were the length of time that they had and what could be accomplished in that period. And the other thing was it was important to me whether they were focused on setting goals or metrics that they could hold themselves accountable to, as well as some of the interviewing process, which they won't be involved in, but they will be involved in developing the metrics for the superintendent. Are there other counselors besides Shalini? Shalini, one more quick comment and then we're going to go on. Okay, it's a long way. Yeah, very quick comment, but I forgot to say that, that I was just, if either I'm jet lagged or whatever, but just listening to Roger Wallace was like such a bomb. It was like so healing and I could listen to you sir all day. And so, I think that's another way that I feel a town could really benefit from is that level of depth and wisdom, that's all. Jennifer, one more quick comment. Yeah, I'm not really considering whether someone is running for election in my decision making process. Like being a school committee member is being a school committee member and I'm looking for the best person for the job and it might be for a short period. It might be as herbs at only six meetings, but you know what, a lot happened in a short period of time recently and every single meeting was important and every single school committee member was important so I'm just putting that out there. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move to the voting process. Okay, the tough part. Based upon the process, the clerk of the town council will call on the two school committee members asking them to name their three preferred candidates. As with the candidates that we just interviewed, the clerk of the town council has randomized the order in which she will call upon counselors asking them to name three preferred candidates in no ranked order. The clerk of the town council will show the tally on the screen and announce the results. If there are not three top candidates, we may engage in another round of discussion before the next roll call for the top three candidates. Once it appears that we have identified three top candidates, again, following the process, there will be a motion and a vote to elect the three members. We will call on the school committee members first and then the town counselors in their usual order for the actual election. So with that, we're going to start. I'm sorry, Jennifer, you still your hand up. Yes. No, you are not to say it's not required that you say them in ranked order. Thank you. That's what I need to clarify. We're not going to be waiting them. Okay, Jennifer. If we do require more than one vote, can Athena vary which school committee members she calls on first and re-sort town council members? Thank you. You would rather have the school committee members integrated in with the rest of the group? I mean, I would, but that's not what our process is. I was just asking if she calls on Irv and I first, can she vary which one of us she calls on first to make it sure? Sure. And then like you did, Lynn, randomly order the rest. Yes, we can certainly do that. Thank you. All right, Jenna, Athena. All right, Irv, can you list your three top candidates, please? Andy, Barry, and Roger. I'm sorry, the last one. Roger. Roger Wallace. Jennifer Shaw. Laura, Katie, Amy. I'm sorry, I have their last name. Thank you. Lesdowski, DeCaprio. Thank you. Okay, Anna. Oh, for the love of God. Okay, Carrie Spitzer, Andy Church Hill, Katie Lesdowski. Hold on one second. I was Andy Church Hill. Katie Lesdowski, Carrie Spitzer, and who was the other one? Katie Lesdowski. Okay. Shalini, you're next, please. Roger Wallace, Gabriela Weaver, and Andy Church Hill. Okay. I'm sorry, what was the last one? Andy Church Hill. Andy Church Hill. Thank you. Okay. Michelle. Wallace, Weaver, and Spitzer. Thank you. Alicia. Roger Wallace, Katie Lesdowski, and Amy DeCaprio. Thank you. Andy Steinberg. Andy Church Hill, Roger Wallace, Gabriela Weaver. Kathy Shane. Katie, can you hear me okay? Yes, I can. Katie Lesdowski, Gabriela Weaver, and Carrie Spitzer. Thank you. Dorothy Pamp. DeCaprio, Wallace Lesdowski. Thank you. Pam Rooney. Lesdowski, Conan DeCaprio, and Weaver. Thank you. Anika Loops. Okay, this is really hard. Wallace Weaver. Church Hill. Okay. Thank you. Pat D'Angeles. Roger Wallace, Katie Lesdowski, and Gabrielle Buenaehover Weaver. Andy Johanke. Andy Church Hill, Roger Wallace, Gabriela Weaver. Thank you. Lynn Griezmer. Andy Church Hill. Roger Wallace, Harry Spitzer. And Jennifer Tom. Katie Lesdowski, Roger Wallace, and Gabriela Weaver. So we have seven for Andy Church Hill, four for Amy Cronin DeCaprio, one for Hunter, eight for Lesdowski, five for Spitzer, eleven for Roger Wallace, and nine for Gabriela Weaver. Gabriela Weaver. Eight. Eight for Lesdowski. They're all on the screen. Okay. So we have three candidates. There's actually four that are seven, although three of them have a majority. That is eight for Lesdowski, nine for Weaver, and eleven for Wallace. Okay. Is there anybody who would like to challenge that? Then I'm going to make the following motion. To elect Roger Wallace, Gabriella Weaver, and Katie Lesdowski, registered voters in the town of Amherst to perform the duties of a member of a members of the Amherst School Committee until newly elected members of the Amherst School Committee are sworn in. Is there a second? Second, Angela? Okay.  Just a quick question about the timing. Was there one school committee member that resigned earlier than the others? Or does that not impact? So they're just all going to come on immediately at this point. It was all done within a couple days of each other. And early on, we defined this as being the time when we would go all three. Got it. Thank you. Okay. So I'm sorry. Andy, go ahead. I'm sorry. My hand function is not working. I guess that I would, given the fact that it's closed on two of them at the end, I think it'd be worth having a little bit of discussion on the motion that's on the floor. I don't agree. I think it's very clear. I don't agree either. Okay. Let's hold on. There is a motion on the floor and motion's been made and seconded. And there's always an opportunity to have discussion before a vote. We don't ever not have that opportunity. So, Dorothy, we had the vote. We had the opportunity to discuss. We voted, but now we're voting the actual slate. Well, I would think any attempt to do redo is really not playing fair. Okay. That's my comment. Jennifer. Yeah, I votes are close. But, you know, 50% plus one is still 50% plus one. Okay. Andy. The reason I say that is because we didn't really have much discussion about candidates, but we did have a little bit of discussion about the question of the value of at least one person who has prior experience on the school committee. And I somewhat surprised, and that's not a question of who I voted for, but of the fact that we ended up with nobody with prior experience for a very short period of time. And I guess I wonder about whether it would be beneficial for the committee as a whole. And think about this from a process standpoint to have at least one of the three be somebody who has had prior experience. Jennifer. I mean, I think we, you know, just we all voted. We each selected our, you know, top three. And I would say that we must have felt that the experience that the three people each of us voted for that they brought the experience that was necessary to the, you know, this nine meeting. I'm not under, I'm not saying it doesn't matter really how many meetings, but that we all made the individual decision. I think we took very seriously before we cast our vote that the individuals that we voted for brought the experience that we feel they need to carry out their duties for the rest of the year. Irv. I mean, yes, we know one of the candidates that I voted for had extremely great experience and I would have loved to have served with him. However, the candidates that we finally chose are stellar candidates and have incredible backgrounds. And anyone coming into a new situation, of course, there's a learning curve. However, I will try to remind myself of this is that it is incumbent upon the school committee to provide an onboarding process, which we are going to have to do. Okay. Are there any other comments from people before we move to a vote? Andy? Just real quickly. I want to also say that I think that all the candidates that have received the most votes are all very well qualified people. And so I was not meaning to imply otherwise. And I want to just have that be known that it was really about the one criteria that I was talking about, not the quality of the candidates. And I appreciate the opportunity to have had this discussion and I'm ready to go forward. Okay. Athena, could you read the motion, please? I'm sorry, Dorothy? I wanted to say that the fact that I did not vote for people who are running for office did not mean that I will not be very excited to vote for some of them. But it just seemed to be we had a really full house of talent and that we didn't need to muddy the waters. So I wanted to clarify the same way that Andy is clarifying his point. Okay. The motion on the floor is to elect Roger Wallace, Gabriela Weaver and Katie Lasdowski, registered voters in the town of Amherst to perform the duties of a member of the Amherst School Committee until newly elected members of the Amherst School Committee are sworn in. Motion has been made in second. We'll move to a roll call vote and we'll begin with the school committee members in reverse order, Jennifer. Shall Jennifer? Yes. Irv Rhodes? Yes. Shalini Balmille? Yes. Patty Angeles? Aye. Anna Devon-Gothier? Aye. Lynn Griezmer is an aye. Mandy Jo Hanicky? Aye. Me and Anika Lopes? Aye. Michelle Miller? Aye. Dorothy Pam? Yes. Pam Rooney? Yes. Kathy Shane? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Aye. Jennifer Taub? Yes. Alicia Walker? Yes. It is unanimous. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all the candidates that submitted statements of interest and those that participated in the interviews. If you're listening and if you're not, somebody else, make sure they do hear this, please go to the town clerk's office tomorrow and get sworn in. We can have a full Amherst School Committee. Irv has just announced that that meeting will be on October 3rd. Would you like to say more, Irv, about what's coming up? I'm looking forward to that meeting because there's a full meeting and it'll be separate from the regional school committee so that we can reorganize. Thank you. Before I adjourn, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of our counselors and school committee members who have devoted many hours to this process and I want to thank Athena O'Keefe, our clerk of the town council for her many efforts to organize this process. It is 9.25 and the meeting is adjourned.


Hey guys and welcome back to the average if you're new here, I'm Steph I'm the average artist and I make illustrations, comics, graphic design, stories, I'm a writer I do loads of different stuff, so you're gonna have a well-wind packed full of content if you stick around. Also if you are not new here and you've been here since the beginning Hi, welcome back. I love you guys. You're the best. Thank you And today I'm gonna be doing something that I haven't done in a while which I've done previously a couple of times Which is the paper art cut out illustration and I love doing these So I thought it was about time that I started doing another one Because I've been so consumed with all the comic work over the last two months I haven't really been able to branch out and do videos like I used to just because I've been so busy But now that everything is coming to a sort of end and climax with that The Kickstarter is going. I thought I would some time to breathe and Still work on an illustration from the comic But you know do it in a different style and watercolor instead of Copic markers and do paper cut out work If you couldn't tell already by what I was saying This is a scene from my latest comic Emily is Burning. If you don't know what Emily is Burning is It's a horror comic a short horror comic that I've been working on for the last couple of months And it's currently on Kickstarter. It's been fully funded and we've reached a couple of the stretch goals So that means free stuff for people who just banked the physical reward tiers. It's still going. It's got like 18 days left So I'm very excited and I wanted to make an illustration to celebrate that and I'm thinking I might make this one of the prints That is available as a reward, but I'm not sure yet It depends how I can scan it and stuff It might not look as cool once it's all flattened is what I'm saying But anyway, my point is the horror comic This is a scene from that and I thought what I would do is do the lighthouse because I thought that would be really cool to play with the layers of the waves and the rocks and different things And it was funny because I had to use this cheap sort of watercolor paper Which I've used before and I've complained about before but I had to use it because obviously I'm not going to cut up and use lots of expensive watercolor paper when it's you know One bit is going to be used on a tiny bit of wave and then the rest is discarded for a different purpose You know, it's an expensive project if I use like 10 sheets of expensive watercolor paper So this is that kind of cheap watercolor paper So you have to kind of work it and the way that the paint settles isn't very nice sometimes So you have to keep rearranging it and working it with different layers of color and different things So that was a bit of a struggle But you know, I've worked with this stuff a couple of times before I've used this paper on my other paper cutout art So I knew that it would turn out okay in the end My favorite part has to be cutting out all the pieces and then arranging them So here you can see that I just used this Um scalpel cutter tool I don't really know what everybody calls them in their own countries But I think we call them scalpel over here and then I'm also not sure I feel like the the real word of this will come to me, but please don't at me in the comments So I was using this and I realized that the blade was so dull and It was a real struggle and I was contemplating like, hmm Should I get up and get like the extra blades or should I just It's just one okay for now because I didn't know where the other blades were So if I if I got up and searched for them, that would be a good while I thought but actually I found them quite quickly So it was fine I got up and I got the new blade and then it was so much nicer and easier to cut out these pieces But for now, I think I'm still struggling with it slightly Oh, no, I think I've got the new blade by now because you can see that I'm doing some intricate stuff now This was really fun. I thought I wanted to play with more intricate Details in this one because it is kind of a simple illustration at the base of it But then as I go on I do like little tricks and things to make it more Have more energy and be more fun and more visually interesting So we have little things like these this grating or gate. I don't know what to call them these poles of the Lighthouse outside the balcony area All being cut out so you'll be able to see into the background slightly I mean, it's only a small thing and you probably have to really Look at the paper closely to see it But I think it's really nice and it was quite fun to do And I think in the future when I do more paper cut out stuff I'm going to do more intricate work Maybe and see if I can play around with that because that was quite, you know, enjoyable and it looked good And it just added a little bit of something special to it As you do the paper cut out challenge if you do it, you need to keep checking like how the layers fit with each other I always do this thing where I use the bottom end of the paper and then just Kind of work up in layers when I do my comic in the waves I usually just leave it blank to sort of show the whiteness of the waves But with the watercolor, I couldn't really do that. I don't know why I couldn't like foresee it working So I wanted to just use a Posca pens over the top to kind of cheat that look a little bit Then I went in with some pencils and I was just Adding texture and depth and different things because this watercolor paper is so Crummy that it just leaves blotches or paint everywhere. You need to I like to make these Illustrations a little bit mixed media if you're going to be gluing down different stuff You might as well throw in some pencils poscas whatever you want in there This layer I added pencils and stuff and then I started twisting like you see these shadowy figures I twisted them to make them look more Unnatural and curved and a bit creepier and I hope that that has that effect And I think it does obviously the color scheme is the same as the comic in the beginning Which is kind of pastels and relaxed and pretty But as the story goes on in the comic book it does get darker But I thought it would be fun to try to use the similar color scheme as it is in the beginning of all the pastels And the lightness because I always I've said this before but I think it's a good like Contrast to the story where it's creepy and spooky and what people are saying is kind of scary And I just want to build suspense and have subtlety within the comic and I hope I hope that I've achieved that I I'm having that thing where you make something and then you have a thousand percent self-doubt and you think everything you're making is awful But I'm trying to push through that because now people have bought the comic I'm excited to share it, but I'm also apprehensive so I'm like Please like it and obviously I think people will like it because you know, I've worked hard on it And I am proud of it It's just that that nagging feeling that all artists get of like I I don't know if I can do this It's scary, but you know you have to push through I always say this to myself with like my writing and anything that I share with people What would I do if I didn't share it? It would just be sat here on my desk and that would be it so even if it's not perfect You should share it and the world will probably like it more than you think I always find that this is the case the stuff that I don't like very much always does quite well and people respond well to it When I did this sketchbook in a day video some of the images that I didn't like at all I was like everyone's gonna hate this and I gave it away for free on my patreon all those pages So like my patrons picked the pages that they wanted and they everybody picked like things that I didn't think would go And I found that really like pesto do you mind? shush and I found that very odd and It was quite surprising but also Reassuring to know that even though I don't like it. Maybe other people do like it I'm not saying that I don't like my comic because I do like it But it just shows you that we're so hard on ourselves. I think Whereas people probably Respond well to stuff that you think wouldn't do so well So it's interesting and I think it helps that I have an audience and I can share the stuff with you guys And you can tell me like no, that's good or you can critique it or give me little tips And it's been really great to be able to have you guys And I think you've really all pushed me through making this comic and I'm so happy for your help and Some of you say that I helped inspire you and it's such a nice thing to hear honestly because I've been watching other youtubers before I became a youtuber and those guys inspired me and I know that feeling And it just I can't believe that I've managed to do that to some people and for me It's like the feeling is reversed Definitely you guys have inspired me to continue and make and finish these products So thanks for sticking around and commenting and and honestly anybody who backed the project Thank you so much. I'm so excited to share the comic with you guys and can't wait to see everybody's reactions Or if they're reading it or when they receive it, you know, it's also exciting And I'm honestly so excited for the day where I send the files off to the printer and then all the stuff comes back So we've got comics and now we've reached a stretch goal of a second print So people who got a print will get an extra print and people who just got the comic will get a print and then We've got the pocket mirrors, which are going to be really pretty I think and I'm so excited And I'm not sure we'll reach the stretch goal of the pins But I'm hoping so because that will be so nice to have these little lighthouse pins and yeah, that's That's basically it guys. I'm I'm really excited and I hope you're excited and thank you for sticking around and everything So here's the final illustration I really like the way that it turned out and I love as always the depth in these Paper illustrations and the way that you can play with the different layers and cut out different things and twist different pieces of paper And I used the moon in the background like I cut out the shapes of the moon and the stars And I just think it all works really well. Let me know what you think If you would like to grab a copy of emily is burning the link for the Kickstarter is down in the description below And I really appreciate any support you can give even if you can't afford it And you just want to share it with people that would be magnificent of you Thanks for watching guys. Please like and subscribe for more content and I will see you next time I'd just like to take a moment to thank my patrons who are the 12 dollar tier patrons Thanks so much to babbit, erica, saseel, james, Steph and lee, megan, tim and tom You guys are the best and if anybody wants to shout out at the end of my videos then go check out my patreon down below Thanks