Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good morning, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. Again, it's Thursday, 01/08/2026, seven ninety three, Monday morning. We're back from a short break. And so now we're here to receive the report of the sister state task force that's been looking into this. We have Tim Tierney with us from the Agency of Commerce. Tim, good to see you again. Good to

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: see everybody. Good morning, everybody. Happy New Year.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. So,

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: well, thank you for having me here today to talk about what you By the way, I want to say that this working group, I just want to say this right out first, was one of the most enjoyable things I've done as a state employee and working and collaborating. Was such a thoughtful, thorough group that were really committed to doing a really great job. And I know other people said the same. Like, wow, this was people it wasn't just two people showing up for meetings. Almost it was full almost every time and people talking and basically collaborating and working together. So I think we've done a really great job of really looking at what a sister state program could be and also looking at what it was and what it is, and then looking around the country at where other people do as examples to actually put together a really quality program if we ever decide to have a program. So yeah, so I also want to introduce someone here. I have Nathan Davidson here. He's on our team. And he's done a lot of work. He's behind us too. And kudos also to Sam Koonan, who was Alan Koonan grandson, who was an intern for us, actually started some initial work and did some great job once there as well. And Jess Vittenden, might be online watching, has been a great help as So the background, this was put together by the twenty twenty four legislative session. And the working group, we put together in August 2024. And we met every month until last November, I believe, when we made this report. So every month, we did meet. And basically, this is the working group. There's a lot of people in and out of this group. But again, you can see it was very diverse with a lot of great input from people that have experience in international realms, as well as from basically the the National Guard was very helpful with their partner program and how they operate things there, as well as the council, Vermont Council on World Affairs, where this is what they do on a day to day basis, through the Arts Council. And, obviously, we we went through at least Verano and our which is the sister city programs that we have. She's with Burlington. But yeah. So overall, we decided how we were gonna move forward with creating the process and what kind of information we can get to determine what a sister state program can look like. And I think the easiest one was for us to look at other states. Now the Peter Lynch, some might be familiar with, he was the executive director of Green Across the World. And he's kind of really the he was the impetus behind this from the beginning because he runs this really we have a one sister state currently with the Prefecture of Pottery. And I think that's all started because there was a student exchange program in the Burlington area that's been going over there quite a bit and together quite a bit. And I actually attend a lot of their student meetings once in a while. And we send them gifts back from Vermont. And I believe they've been here twice visiting Vermont. So we now have this long term relationship, and it's working. And but we looked at other ones. There was another sister state with Karelia in in Russia, which obviously stopped when after they invaded Ukraine. But it really was defunct years ago, and it was started in the early '90s. And it was basically almost a one way sister state. We were helping them with, I think, judicial process. It was a pet project of someone. But it lasted a few years. But other than that, we do not have any other official sister state official, like governor signs off executive relationships. I believe that we have some relationships with Taiwan, which I think we have a reciprocal license, which then came out of this committee, but not an official sister state program. We have the state partnership program with the National Guard, which they have North Macedonia, Senegal, and Austria. So that that's not a true sister state program, but we do have that tie. So we decided to go look at some states. Maryland has the most and found out that Maryland said, don't have as many as us. And, basically, they said it's because they're so close to Washington DC, a lot of delegations will go there. And then someone will sign an MOU. But after a while, they weren't even looking at how how what what kind of quality exists in these relationships and what is both parties getting out of it. And then we talked to Hawaii, which is a very strong program. We utilized their application a lot to create our application. They were asking the really good questions like, who's going to be there to keep this relationship going when not government to government? What are all the ramifications economically, culturally? And what kind of exchange and it has to be on both sides. It can't just be a one way street. So I think that was something that we utilized a lot, was what Hawaii did. We did find that a lot of these states have a diaspora that really is the catalyst behind a lot of these sister state programs. Like, say, in Hawaii, there's a large Japanese American population, and therefore, they're the ones kind of, like, nongovernmental group that's working to keep their relationship going with that perfectional region of Japan that they've created their program with. So there's this cultural. And then other parts have been exchange groups. Artists has been a very big tie green people. Sometimes it's economy. We found in Iowa has a lot of MOUs with regions of China. And it's all basically about the fact that they purchase a lot of soybeans and commodities from that. So overall, we really looked at all the different relationships and tried to, how can we put together a quality program? And I think overall, I think our recommendation and I believe that there is a draft bill that might be proposed here. That's think there it is. Basically, we think it's a very good program where someone would apply here, that we were proposing a selection committee put together, almost comprised of the same group of people, that we can do the administrative piece up at ACCD and DED, Department of Economic Development. And we also can go and work with other departments to vet these applications, but also put them together, organize it, and then organize the group to actually see if this is something to move forward. And obviously, grade, basically creating scoring criteria on the application of why this would be a good thing to actually commit to it. So I think that's the big thing. It's a commitment. And then once you do that, how do you keep it strong? And then do you evaluate it down the road to see if this is still a strong relationship? And I think that's what Marilyn was saying. They had these. And it falls off. You need to, every five years, do a review or so to make sure that these are still continuing relationships. Basically, I mean, that's that's it. What the importance of a sister state relationship, has so many levels. And then the question is, does it need to be a sister state? I think that's another one. We need to make someone a sister state, or can it remain school to school? Can it remain so bringing up to that level

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: is great.

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: Let's get paid. My daughter was a patient. So I don't have any questions. Obviously, there was so much to it. I think we did a really thorough job of putting it all together. We did submit the report, which I think is thanks to Nathan, did a lot of lion's share of work on pulling that all together. So we appreciate that. But basically, we just want to establish a formal internal review process about Sister State. And I think it's a great way to go down the road. Really vet this program and make sure that it's going be a quality program for Vermont and for the whomever. For me, I think, on personal, I think we have this relationship with a region in Austria and encourage them to apply. I think we have very a lot of similarities. We have economic, cultural, so many different reasons why we could do that. But at least let's go and port it through application and see if this is something that would be a worthwhile relationship for us to enter. Put it in a nutshell. So

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: a few years ago, the upstream ambassador was in Vermont. Ambassador Schneebar. Yeah. Yeah.

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: I'm going there in a few weeks to do a foreign direct investment recruitment with the US Commercial Services arranged for companies over there. But we went a few years ago as well. So So but so many things. For one thing is they almost all of our biomass wood heat furnaces and boilers are made in Austria. All all of them. Not not most of them. They all are. And so and here, we are such a great user of it and proponent of it. Why not? Let's convince them maybe we can get some components made here, manufactured here in Vermont. Let's work on those relationships. Such the similarities, it can help us both benefit us both.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: SPEAKER Are you on the task force?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I did serve on the task force. So I spent a day a month with Tim for the last eighteen months, which was fun. What I will say is, at the beginning, there was a lot of question from the group as to whether we needed it, because we have so many nonprofits in the state that are And about halfway through, everybody was like, well, wait, it does make sense to do this. Because then there's an official channel, and there's a way for these states to have a real tie. And it's not so tenuous as to whether this nonprofit has a really it was a little bit almost not exactly a turf war, but a little bit of a turf war where it's like, well, this is my group. And then they're like, but wait, my group can get a better benefit by being part of this. And we can actually deepen this relationship. And it might be a relationship based in education, we can add the arts and we can add the economic development. And so folks started looking at it as additive rather than as something that they needed to protect. And I thought that was a it's the kind of thing that happens when you have the time to have conversations with people and develop them and really deepen everyone's understanding of what is possible. So I really appreciated that aspect of it. The National Guard was, my gosh, the biggest champion of this from the beginning, I think. They were very much in the how do we deepen the relationships that we've had because we have good relationships and we see the benefit from them every single day. And so how do we do that for the state? Because it works with the guard. We train them. They train us. The guard folks get all kinds of benefit from it. And why would we limit that just to the guard? Why wouldn't we have that benefit available to the state in terms of the different regions of the state? And so I really appreciated that. People were skeptical, and then they were not anymore. And it was a neat transition and transformation.

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: And then on the other hand, too, is sometimes there's a lot of people out there that will put pressure on the state to join a sister state for their own political reasons or justifications. And so now there's a process where we can have a very vetted, thoughtful response. It's a good thing too.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And I think it's great. In the report, it's very clearly well thought out.

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: We think there's going be much controversy here with this. Hopefully. Yeah, so we're excited about it. Like I said, I think we're excited about it even in D and D. I think it is a great, way to, move forward with these relationships. And, you know, we're right. We can even talk to, you know, it can be region to region too, and that's what doesn't have to be our state. Like, we can actually say convince the Northeast Kingdom region to have sister state relationship with the Eastern townships and formalize it. Maybe using this process to help them create that. It doesn't have to be that kind of thing, right? And at least it formalizes something. I think that's what it does. It formalizes and it kind of creates us, now we've got to play together. I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: mean, also, think for the nonprofit organizations that are involved in this work, it gives them a little bit more of a plate underneath the work that they do. So it'll give them something that they can bounce off, especially if they're looking for things like funding that they know that the state is involved and they're working hand in hand. I think that would be helpful and beneficial overall.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It strengthens it, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Questions for Kim? Edye said she has the bill, so

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Anybody that wants to co sponsor, I'm happy to send it around. It's almost the report for word in two of them.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We'll get that in then. As soon as it's read for the first time, we'll put it on the agenda and see if we can get it out of here.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Just one question. In addition to the Sister State programs that we have mentioned here, were there other ones that you had particular eye on? Or just get this in place and see how it goes and recruit

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: for people? Are there other states, you mean? I think everyone did it so differently, like Hawaii.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Oh, not the states, actually. There are other international communities and states of international partners that you have any particular eye on.

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: Oh, well, Senegal would have been a great one. But now there's issues there now. I think if that was a place in Western Africa, that would be a place. But again, just because I think we had that partnership program with the Guard there. I think that yeah. And what's neat about the Guard, usually talking to other states, the Guard, their partnership programs are so military to military that they were actually blown away that our military has actually moved on to culture and economics. And actually was trying to raise up those sectors and those partner countries. Actually inviting a few years ago, brought Secretary Pebbitts and Secretary Kerley to North Macedonia. And it was all about economy and tourism and ag. That's unique that the military's helping make that happen. It's just One

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: of the features of the program as we've developed it, though, is that it's not on Tim's shoulders to go and find places for us to partner with. There has to be someone in the state, a group that wants to sponsor it and that wants to take on that role. It's Tim's job to vet it and make sure that it's a good partner for world, I don't know, all the different issues, the risks. What are the risks associated with it? What are the benefits associated with it? And the committee to do that, too. But this doesn't add a big burden to the agency because you have to have somebody locally who wants to foster that relationship and build it and grow.

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: And I think a lot of times, there's a and when it comes to other states, money came up all the time. Funding came up all the time. And it really did come from mostly private groups. There really wasn't so many governments putting money into the relationships, but knowing that there is a cost of diplomacy. Someone comes over and they're visiting and they want there's some kind of function. Someone has to organize. Someone has to pay. And usually, that's another reality that someone needs to be aware of, that there's a cost to it.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Which ties back to our convention center conversation yesterday. If we're going to host events, if we're going to have different things like that, it would be nice to have more opportunities and places to do that. Not sure how big this will ever get or how big any delegation will ever be, but thinking about that, everybody who has sister state programs, everyone who's doing it well has events that people come in and travel to your place for when it's working from home.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Anything else?

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: Good work, Edye.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Oh, thank you, Kevin.

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: Committee. Thank you. There's the committee and Nathan over there too. Yeah. And that was a

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: said it was a true work group. Really well. So thank you. So if we have the bill out, then we'll invite you back in for testimony.

[Tim Tierney (Agency of Commerce and Community Development)]: I can share a quick anecdote. The keyboardist at our church in Fairhaven is Army National Guard and in the band, and they've played in Austria. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're getting ready to go again in the next few months. Well,

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: you all. Thank you for all your work. Nathan, thank you so much.