Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Good time here to reconnect as a committee, given all of the testimony we've heard to talk about initial, you don't have to commit to being this is how I stand, but initial thoughts on who else we may or may not wanna hear from, next steps here in the committee room, sort of that big question of, okay, what point do we sort of stop taking testimony and start making a plan and making decisions. So, that's basically the idea of this conversation and just sort of take a temperature of where folks are at. Sort of coming up, the secretary, when we were listening to her presentation over at the pavilion, mentioned that the agency had created some maps for the redistricting task force. Chris has asked that we take a look at those. So we are going to in that sort of everything's on the table philosophy, probably Thursday afternoon, if we can schedule it.

[Emily Long]: Before we move on, can I ask a question on that? I'm trying to remember, did she say she shared those with the redistricting task force? Yes. So they're not part of the redistricting task force material? Or were they?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Honestly, I don't know. I didn't see much

[Emily Long]: of the research.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Was curious about it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: By sort of taking what it was that they asked for, though. I'm not sure they I don't know what they're delivering. Anyway, so The engine truck jet scene. So that sort of, you know, so to me, the vice chair's request for that makes me think, are there other, we may need to sort of put the call out to anybody who's like got something, but that's to me is also, we need to keep ourselves relatively focused and not have every concept coming here. So anyway, the Senate has also expressed interest in that presentation, so that'll probably be a joint presentation tomorrow. After that, I may, to the extent possible, scale back some of the joint things because there's something about all of us being together in this room that is a little more conducive to, I think, thoughtful discussion as opposed to formal testimony. So the question is, let me ask this question first. What more do folks want to hear or feel they need to hear? Yeah, go ahead, Emily.

[Emily Long]: So I want to thank you for that. This is nothing against having joint hearings with the Senate. I think it's really important to be able to do that work. But I really appreciate the granular level we get. So thank you for that. One of the things that I feel like I don't have a good enough grasp on from my own perspective, and I have read it, but it's complicated, that is the redistricting task force and especially Appendix eight. Because there's a ton of data in there that I feel is critical for us to unpack. And so maybe hearing a little bit more at a granular level on the work done there. And it

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: was a while, but already we've heard,

[Emily Long]: they came in and gave us a high level and

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, I wanna hear all right, that sounds good. And just, yeah, think there's a lot there. We also probably at some point, maybe not right away, but we'll have to hear from legislative council about appendix E.

[Emily Long]: Yeah. So

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: who would you say is the person or people to bring in on the Appendix E work? More from Jay Adams, for example?

[Emily Long]: Sure. I mean, Jay certainly was a big part of writing all that, I guess. And any of our representatives on there, I think, could come in and talk to us about that. Know we had Edie and Rebecca were both on there, served on there.

[Leanne Harple]: But who else was on there? Jen.

[Emily Long]: Oh, Jan, that's the other one I just forgot. Maybe Jana.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's gonna be hard, she's on another continent, so that may be a little Oh,

[Leanne Harple]: I did not know that, okay.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: That won't help. Maybe Zoom.

[Emily Long]: But if, yeah, maybe. Anyway.

[Beth Quimby]: Yeah, I was on the task force,

[Emily Long]: so. Absolutely Beth, I don't want to minimize that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you. Josh, I see you have your hand up. Go right ahead.

[Joshua Dobrovich]: Regarding the task force and who would present, I think Jay would be the right person. And I don't know that we like, it sounds great to have a bunch of people, but I think one person directing all the information and summarizing it would be more clarifying than having multiple people, because then it might get muddy with the way one person thinks about it and another person thinks about it. I think just hearing the data and how it's presented from one unified source would be great.

[Emily Long]: Okay. I would not suggest multiple. Thank you, John. I think it's

[Leanne Harple]: because if she could do it, you know, Rebecca Holcomb is an incredible resource. She was one that our Secretary of Education, she knows so much about the education landscape in Vermont and so like I hear sort of the point for efficiency in one person, but I think Rebecca would be a really good person to comment like that as well.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: There are areas aside from appendix E of the task force. Do folks feel like we've heard sufficiently from superintendents, school boards association, school board members? I mean, we will obviously hear in public comments and we've got lots of public comments if you wanna read them all out there.

[Leanne Harple]: Mean, I do think it would be great to hear from some of the schools that sort of are going to be the most effective. Like I've been in touch at times throughout this process with Casey Allen, who's the board for Cracksbury Academy, chair of the board, if he would be willing to testify. I mean, they have a huge interest in some very strong thoughts about this.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: When you say most affected, in what way are they most affected?

[Leanne Harple]: I think, well, at risk of potentially never meeting those numbers and having the corrective action start to take place and feeling very strongly about wanting to keep their schools open.

[Emily Long]: That's true. Rural in general, I would just say too.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I might pick up on that and I think we've been requested by the testimony yesterday to get a better understanding and lean in on how the state board is doing on the sparsity and small life necessity stuff. That seems to be something we really should understand.

[Leanne Harple]: Or an alternative to Casey Allen is also the chair of the Dan Mill or the Cabot School, also both bring on to me about this.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I think we could hear more from experts on both these are cooperative education service areas, specifically in the rural context. And I'm sure that's, can pull that out of the task force materials, but I think for us to hear about that more collectively would be really helpful. If

[Emily Long]: I could follow on that, because I'm one of the districts that are part of the new policy status group by the secretary who said she just approved it. It would be great to have somebody on the ground in that area. I actually shared quite a bit from that yesterday, I thought that was, I wanted to explore it a little bit more, because I know there's a lot of dynamics between overloading our systems. The feedback I'm getting locally, because I'm a part of one, has been really positive. It's still early days, but really positive in the potential, and I want to know more about that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: When we're talking about appendix C, think where I need to do more reading, of course, as well, but it's to understand the difference between Yeah. CISA and BOCES. Yeah. You know, there is, so, big picture here, we have a clock that's ticking. We have political pressure. We have a committee of 11 people, all of whom probably have a different view of how we should proceed. We probably have a very big question of go, no go on apps of some kind, and how we respond to that. And so, just put that out there that these are the things that we're wrestling with. The more everybody feels comfortable with the information they need and have, the better, but we also at some point are gonna have to just start grinding on the hard decisions, real challenging. Josh, I see your hands Assuming up again, go that's a new hand.

[Joshua Dobrovich]: Yes, it is. I'm happy you said clock ticking and grinding, because I think that's actually where we need to be starting now. I mean, we can still hear all of this testimony, but one of the not simple, but simple things to tackle in front of us is the maps, which is where everything comes from. So, I mean, start, like Chris requested those maps from the AOE, I think we should start really digging in there while we're listening to testimony. I feel like the more testimony we listen to and the longer we wait to get to work, the further into session we're going to get, and it's going get harder and harder. So I do think the clock, like you said, the clock is ticking, and we've got to start grinding at the hard stuff.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And I think probably what we're going to need to do is, and we'll have more time like this as well, and it's hopefully with more people here in the committee room. Maybe set up sort of a hierarchy of decision making tables like, okay, what about this, what about this, what about this, based on what we've heard. Yeah, think we definitely have to do some work on maps. I think Act 73 was passed with the idea that there

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: was going to be maps for us all to look at. This session I think would be doing a disservice if we didn't have some forms of maps to look at. We also have been testimony it's been all over the place, but we have heard lot of discussion. I think we've heard equal discussion of some that say that governance needs to come first, which would be the past.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That would be a decision on our hierarchy. Number one is, okay, governance, what are we going do about it?

[Leanne Harple]: As we look at the maps, which I will remain open minded to, I also want us to remain open minded to thinking about why the task force recommended that we proceed with the seesaws instead of the maps and not assume that the given outcome at the end of this is that we're gonna choose the maps since they didn't. Like maybe that isn't the right direction to go, so I hope that we will consider why they said what they said.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm sure we already have been.

[Leanne Harple]: Okay.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Sorry, I totally agree. We can't go in this, we need to go in this open minded, everybody does. I do want to just reiterate the governor's message the other day that he is not going to sign anything that maybe it's from. That's on the table.

[Robert Hunter]: That's also on my mind. And after really digesting Appendix E, you get done with that and go, oh, it's pretty reasonable. And then you listen to the superintendents in there and the DPA, and they're all ready to roll up their sleeves and help out. And it is kind of a an interesting path to find here. Maybe it is about figuring the priorities and then the governor's message, which was, don't become doctors, don't ask. This you

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: know, this is a big test. Welcome, Leland, to the House of Education. We're really glad to have you here.

[Emily Long]: I've got all the solutions. I'm

[Leland Morgan]: an open book. I'm ready to listen to anything and everything.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Have there been things that have struck you that you wanna know more about or that your feelings are underprepared to discuss? I'm very underprepared to discuss.

[Leland Morgan]: No, I'm just taking it all in and I'm willing to listen to everybody and everything. I know nothing as Sergeant Schultz.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, I

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: was gonna say, yeah, I appreciate Representative Harple's last comment. I do think we have a really tough task ahead of us. I really am committed to coming at this with an all options on the table, open minded kind of approach. But I do have to confess, after hearing our recent testimony, for me, the idea of going to map drawing is sort of largely academic at this point. I think it's a discussion I'm interested in engaging in. I think we all have to be willing to have those discussions. But I think for me, we heard some really clear testimony from the task force and from our education leaders. And so I'm feeling like the overwhelming weight of that testimony says that drawing maps in four months is not the logical next step. But I think it's worthy of discussion. Maybe it happens on a different timeline. I don't know.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We can have the council come in here and actually talk about timeline because it's a big factor here because you can't have all of the election law changes if you don't have maps. And if you look at sort of the layout of Act 73, in order to have everything sort of fall into place and a schedule that sort of works, you gotta hit that schedule, frankly, or not. But it's just that, it's how much gets pushed to the next legislature.

[Emily Long]: Yeah, and I can make this quicker because I agree with what you both just said. You have all heard from me for a year and a half now or whatever about how I am much less concerned about the actual maps. And I think in many ways, there are diversion from the hard work we need to do to make sure that maps are the accurate maps. And so I'm not opposed to any of the work we're going to do in this committee, and I'm going go in this with an open mind. But I really want us to think about our long term goals on the work we're doing here. What are the cost drivers? What is the data that we need to make good decisions around a future state in what we're all, I think, collectively pretty closely agree on all of us, what our future state needs to be and the high level goals. I just want to touch also on the timeline again. There was one message that I have heard nonstop from the time we left in June to today, and that is we're doing way too much in a very tight timeframe. And that means we're not doing due diligence on the things that we need to do. I'm not trying to say that that's not how we do all of our work that we do, but I'm very mindful of not rushing forward because there's a timeline or a threat from somewhere telling us we've got to get it done. We get to decide in this general assembly what we think is the right thing to do. And I want to make sure that we're taking the time to do it right. And that means long days and hard nights and all of that.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Agree that we should be looking at the timeline, but I think really the pressure of the timeline, what some perceive to be an accelerated timeline, is factual because we're not going to always have money to buy down our property taxes. I think that's the real thing that we're working on. Something needs to get done.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We're having a very polite conversation here right now without telling how we really feel about things based on what we've heard. That's going to change, and we're going to have to really dive in, because I could easily say, yeah, the testimony I heard yesterday was, yeah, we need fewer central offices. Yeah, we could do that. It's hard to do it without going to maps. Think as we sort of put our views on the table, some of us are going pull them back after hearing more discussion, which is great, but to put them out there. So, for example, the idea of sort of voluntary mergers or saying, hey, we're all already talking, that's not a strategic way of looking at the state. That's like letting things evolve organically. I don't know who brought it up yesterday, but you end up with orphans. And maybe that's not the best sort of strategy to go forward. And at some point somebody's got to say, Williamstown at Northfield joining with Barry may not be the right way to go from a larger statewide strategic look as opposed to Barry going with Montpelier thirty two. Somebody's got to make the call or we just sort of say, okay, the threat's out there, everybody's starting to talk, we'll let them figure it out. As a long time school board member, I personally don't see that happening for many reasons. We had the testimony from Patrick Green, who's been through this, ultimately gets voted down. But really, for me, it's like school board members and volunteers who are really busy don't have time to do the stuff as our superintendents. And so at a certain point, I personally can't help but wonder, can we get this done with the state stepping in? Anyway, so that's sort of where my head is at right now, a lot more to it than that. Rob Quimby, go ahead please.

[Beth Quimby]: Yeah, I appreciate what you just said, Conlon, because that has been my concern throughout my work on the task force, redistricting task force and others is if it's not done, if we don't look at this as a statewide strategic plan and it's done piecemeal, there will be what we've just called orphan areas that are left out in the cold. And I think that's part of what happened the last time we tried this under the voluntary merger. So looking strategically as a whole, what's good for the state as a whole, think is very important, which means maps to some degree.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Put out there, everything we're discussing are things over which reasonable people can disagree. We are reasonable people, we are going to disagree.

[Leland Morgan]: Go ahead, Leanne.

[Leanne Harple]: I think that for me, the idea of essentially disenfranchising Vermont communities feels like a huge overreach of the Vermont legislature. And I think that that is one of the two biggest concerns that I'm hearing from communities in all of this. One is that they lose their community input and the other is that their small schools are going to get closed. And we keep trying to sell this message that there's nothing about closing schools in Act 73, but it's all a path to closing small schools. And so I wonder if as we move towards maps, if there's some middle ground here, if we could do something to dial back the threat that schools themselves are going to close, if people might be more amenable to looking at combining some overhead and some administration. If we can do something to let them know that this is not, as we say, a path to closing small schools and get that in writing.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So as a general comment about our discussion, I think we're going to find lots to criticize, but maybe we can find a path forward. We're going have to do better than that. We're all going have to come up with suggestions as to specifically how we can address those concerns.

[Leanne Harple]: Well, I'm happy to come up with suggestions. I would just like to know that that's a door that's open that we could take closing small schools off the table.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, I guess here's the challenge with that. The fact is there's nothing in Act 73 talks about closing small schools. So it's hard to take something that doesn't exist off the table and it's declining enrollment that is causing small schools to close and we can't change that.

[Leanne Harple]: Can I respond to that? So we keep saying that there's nothing about closing small schools, but we have these minimum class sizes that are followed by a strategy to close small schools if the schools don't meet the minimum

[Emily Long]: class size. And not have

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: a school that's actually using the x-seventeen,

[Emily Long]: because they can't meet minimum class.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, I guess, we've kind of agreed to those standards as an important policy decision. We've provided a slow path to get there. And we are also saying, if you are small or sparse by necessity, you got a pass. Because perception. Yes, right. It's really important.

[Leland Morgan]: I represent one of the 14 counties, Grand Isle County. And all I've heard from them is don't close my small schools. That's their biggest, the biggest comment. And I hear that all the time. Don't close our little schools. We love our little schools. And yet there's nothing that says we're going to. But that's the mindset of a lot of people.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Especially in Grand Isle where they've had to close small schools because of declining enrollment.

[Leland Morgan]: There's five schools there. They've already closed two. That's right. Five. Yeah.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I guess my point is, A, nothing in Act 73 says that small schools must close. There are standards about class size minimums, can be met other ways by combining two schools, but one school does one group of grades, one group does the other. But the fact is, when you go from 123,000 kids to 83,000 kids over forty years, and that trend shows no sign of changing, stuff happens.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I was just gonna comment. I think a lot of the discomfort and concern we're hearing from our communities around the small schools issue is the fact that we really yet dove into the conversation about small by necessity. And I think once, My hope is once we really start digging into that, that maybe it'll be easier to have these conversations. Well, somewhat easier, not easy.

[Robert Hunter]: Well, if we could set some folks at ease and say, we've spoken with whoever's in charge of that, and that's pretty much where you guys are at.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You're 50 miles from anybody else. Right. I

[Leanne Harple]: think it's more of an unease. Think oh, sorry. Did

[Emily Long]: you go?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No. I

[Leanne Harple]: I think that we're losing the public trust here. And I think that it's because of this ambiguous language that we keep saying is not there, that they know is there. So like, what if we adjust the language to say that if you don't meet the minimum class sizes, instead we'll put you on a path to keeping your schools open rather than I mean, I don't know. Like, let's Yes. Right? Whatever the question is.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, we're not, we don't have testimony here. This is Yeah, just laid it out

[Leanne Harple]: I mean, like, think that we need to convince schools that if that's how we feel, that we truly mean it. We're looking to keep their schools open if we can, rather than set on a path that has a lack of involvement in closure. If we want to get people on board, we've got to build back that public trust, and we've lost it.

[Emily Long]: Go ahead, Emily. The public trust is a really important term. And it was sort of the direction I was going a little bit more nuanced. I actually believe that there is a way for us to engage our communities in a decision making process that gets them behind the future state. We need to really say what we value and what is important We to know right now, Leanne, you know it, you know it clearly, I know it, schools are closing and they're closing because of no other choice. They don't have any other choice. I want us to be able to have a process set in place where we are hearing from our communities and understanding what their concerns are about when their school is closing. And I think people are ready to buy in. I absolutely disagree that if you don't support the law that was passed, then you want status quo. I don't believe that's true. I think all of our communities are looking to be heard and looking for support and help in what their next steps are going to be. Whether that's keeping the school open or closing it is not at the top of the decision making. What they care about is that they want a voice and they want to be heard. And we can't minimize that. I just don't believe we should because we want to abide. And then we execute whatever we have to push and force on because it's not going to happen voluntarily. We're not going to get good outcomes beyond that unless we get abide.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We're all gonna have to, as we have these conversations, move from concepts to specifics. So, like when you say we, I actually don't know if you're referring to the legislature or the school board or like who is the vehicle that receives that? To me, we sort of put policies in place and fund things. I think having a voice and all that is really important. But if that decision making is left at the school board level.

[Emily Long]: That's what I was saying. When I say we, I'm literally talking about the general assembly who's going to make these decisions. What I'm trying to say is that if we are unable to get a voluntary process in place, we still can get support for the decisions that we, as a legislature, need to make as long as we engage in what we're doing and try to listen and find out what exactly communities need to support that. I would assume this will work longer than probably anybody in this room. And I've been listening to people. I know how they feel. They want to see change too. And it's not just we don't want to close our small school. We want to know what's going to happen when we do close our small schools.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Just a clarifying question, when you say a voluntary process in

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: place, different than what

[Emily Long]: we have now? It's current. We currently have a voluntary process

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: in place, right? Act 46

[Emily Long]: is still part of our

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: just don't

[Emily Long]: can think voluntarily close our schools today. I just don't know

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: if we're talking about incentives or some of the volatility Can

[Emily Long]: we make it easier? I'll go back to something we talked about last year when we were developing this. Again, over and over I've been hearing from communities, what are we going to do with that school? We can't even hire an attorney. The municipality doesn't want to hire an attorney to find out what they need to do to put it on a warning. They want to know what engineering costs are significant in a small municipality. What are they going to do with that building, without engineering assessment of the building? Again, these are all things that are holding us back and keeping in mind our long term goals of what our outcome will be, needs to be for our future state, has to frame everything specifically. If we can come up with incentives, we should be, right? Ease the process. It's a hard one. We know our enrollment is still going down.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would, just to respond, as somebody who supported Act 73, I feel that it does lay out a path toward our goals of being economically stable, providing a predictable funding mechanism that school districts can count on, and with a goal of making sure that every school or frankly student has the resources needed to provide them with a high quality education. I mean, are brought goals I think we can all agree with. And I guess I would ask to think about what's lacking in Act 73 in terms of getting us to these goals and what do we need to do to sort of make that happen? And, you know, and then also thinking about what's there that could be improved on to meet that. You know, it's a it's a. These are we are a state. That is in a challenging position because of our demographics, and it's these are all. Hard to do, to the extent that we can put a positive, make a negative a positive, absolutely. We just need to have ideas on the table of how to do that.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Earlier we were talking about maybe who we should hear from again. Should we have legislative council come in and run through Act 73 again to give us all of I know we're having there's a meeting that's supposed to happen at lunchtime that Jill has sent out, but I mean, especially those last There were some new ones. That last week of conference committee, there was a lot of Let me know if that would be Yes, please.

[Leanne Harple]: I think that Beth has a whole presentation on that, right? Yeah,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: so what you're saying is should we just

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: have a rebound of what we had? Where Act 73 actually stands right now, can we dive into it? I wouldn't let him.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, that's great. And maybe just frankly, a pledge council Q and A free for all in the committee room. You can ask any question. We'll put some, Josh was that, you sounded like you were.

[Joshua Dobrovich]: Was agreeing with Chris.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We've got space in the calendar, so we can make that happen.

[Joshua Dobrovich]: It's just hard to say it when you're not in the room.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And I'll be, go ahead, Beth. I see your hand is up.

[Beth Quimby]: I'm gonna mute myself on this iPad. I agree with rep Taylor's suggestion too, because I think, you know, the original age 54, 54 down to act '73 went through many different revisions. I mean, there's a public perception out there in some places that we're still talking about the five district proposal that started in the first place. So having a very clear, this is exactly what the current form or Act 73 still has in it, I think would be good for all of us.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: One of the challenges of course, that in the absence of having no districts, people are sort of falling back to that five district thing. I agree with you, it's a real misconception. On the other hand, we currently have no districts. So, to go back over this in terms of scheduling. I've heard some ask for a little more time on Appendix E. A little more time potentially on OCs and CSA. We're going to hear from the agency. A little more alleged counsel time. I would also say, just remember, everything is recorded. You've got some free time and wanna go back and look at that. I would also say, go back and listen to the secretary and her considerations of how Act 73 lays out a map toward a future state. Yeah, so, that's just a little taste of the hard conversations ahead of us, but I think you all can come to me or Chris or Erin sort of separately and say, hey, I'd like to get this on the table. I'd like to get this on the table. Not necessarily as testimony, but just as a point of discussion to see if we can reach some consensus. We are not gonna be anywhere near unanimous on much of this as the votes have on four fifty four and then 73 have shown and that those votes can switch. We've seen from the various associations, school boards, superintendents especially, you know that even within their own organizations, they're torn. But at a certain point we say, okay, we've got the information, we need to make the best decisions that we can't look at. I'll try to be as inspirational as I can in terms of getting us together, but this is a really tough task. It was obviously a tough task when we said, why don't we create a couple of different groups to deal with these issues? We can see the level to which they have all struggled on these. I can tell you on the Commission on the Future of Public Education, even though on our task was reduced significantly, a lot of discussion, a lot of disagreement.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: So anyway, yeah, please. So now that we've actually started having these hard discussions again with this beginning one, I just want to reiterate, like last session, I think we were very respectful of each other. We had disagreements, we got emotional at times, but we all respected each other. I have no doubt that that's going to happen again this session with some of the discussions that we're going to have at the table. I just wanted to kind of

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: name it there. Thank you. I would have walked away a long time ago if I didn't respect how well this committee has functioned in having these conversations, but it's gonna be hard stuff, hard stuff.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I was just gonna say, maybe we can take some small comfort in the fact that we're all very publicly struggling through this together. That's right. The task forces, bees, all of us. And we are going to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: have things that we're not going to talk about that are going be in the back of our minds, our own politics, our own community situation, the governor's threat to veto the budget, all of that. We all need to do and all the public comments that's going to come in. I would recommend, especially those of us who have been here a while and have heard so much, to the extent possible, to tune out a lot of the noise and really focus on, okay, I need to make this decision. How am I gonna, you know, what do I need to make that decision? What sort of don't I need?

[Leanne Harple]: I was just thinking about sort of like, which is harder, is it to be, to have the privilege of having the decision for my community fall on me and know that that's really emotional, I have to be respectful and will be respectful about it? Or is it harder to be in the community and not have the privilege of being able to influence the discussion at the end, like not get to have a vote. And so one of the things I'm just trying to think about that I'm also putting out there is if it's hard for us to have the privilege to make this decision, in some ways it may be harder on our communities to watch this happen and feel like they can say and do as much as they can to try and influence me, in the end they don't get a vote, and that's hard too on them.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Representative democracy for those of us who have to make good decisions are very easy. I always come back to this and it's so simplistic. There's no great insight here. But I remember I was talking with the president of Middlebury College during COVID. And I said, well, how do you know you're not making the wrong decision? That was life and death stuff, really. She's like, all you can do is listen to the best people and then make the call. She said, that's the definition of leadership. But, you know, it sure sucked. It's tough to make it easy. All right, we'll close there. We're back at two at this point. I'm not gonna change that. It's a little too late to call it audible. Thanks for