Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Great. Good afternoon, and welcome to the House Environment Committee. We are going to be hearing from about Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Dana Davis and Jennifer Burke.

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: Thank you. So for the record, Susana Davis, Office of Racial Equity and member of the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee and Interagency Council.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: So, yeah, that's good news.

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: So I understand that I am asked to talk a little bit about the core principles of community engagement that were developed by the councils. And what I'd like to do actually is ask the committee what your preference is. Would you like me to go through our core principles document highlighting things of note and giving an overview of those principles? Or if you've reviewed them already, are there things that you'd like me to focus on? What particular questions

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: you have? Since is the former. Okay,

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: great. So the document that I'm reading from is available, I think, on the Agency of Natural Resources website somewhere. And this is a document titled The Core Principles of Community Engagement under the Vermont Environmental Justice Law. It's a pretty comprehensive document, some 57 ish pages, and it contains some front matter, some references at the end, and then of course, the core principles divided into two sections. So I think that it's laid out in a way that's easy to understand and to search for. So I'm not going to read the front matter, but I do think it's really worth reviewing when you have time to do so. I'll just jump right in and talk a little bit about the first principle in section one. This one states utilize existing guidance for equitable community engagement. And so this principle is centered around leveraging what works, looking at things that have already been produced, particularly if they are specific to that community or whatever region that you're looking at and working from there. I want to highlight one excerpt that states it overburdens local communities when their prior input on how to do engagement effectively is not used or shared across state agencies. You all have likely had similar experiences, everything from the micro level when you call customer service and you give all this identifying information and you get transferred to someone and you have to give all that identifying identifying information again. It's frustrating. And when you stretch that out at a broader level and you have community members who have been engaged and reengaged and reengaged over the course of weeks, months, years by the same state government or the same agency or the same individuals, and they don't see meaningful progress or they see themselves repeating the same things, it triggers that same level of frustration, but at kind of a deeper level. So looking at what works, looking at existing guidance and not just from that community in particular, right, but also from other similarly situated constituency groups or perhaps guidance from other jurisdictions that have been able to do a project successfully. I should note actually in terms of the format of this document, it's very thoughtfully laid out. It contains not only excerpts from the environmental justice law that are relevant to each principle, but also in each principle, there's an overview of the principle and then recommendations on how to implement it. And then each one specifically has its own list of resources and tools that speak to the points made in that. So in terms of recommendations for how we can utilize this first principle on using existing guidance, one of the ones that I wanted to highlight was setting aside dedicated time to review and reflect on how to incorporate those findings. It's one thing to say we've we've collected and collated information from communities. We're just going to put that right here and continue doing our work over here. It's another thing for us to really go through home through it, understand it, cross reference it against perhaps other things we've heard from that community. Hey, you know what? This theme or this talking point has been repeated three times over the last decade that we've been doing this with this community. Clearly, this town wants X, Y, Z. Or you know what? The tenor has changed on this thing. What could have it been? Perhaps the floods. Maybe this community has now changed its mind on something that works for it because of some outside force that has that has changed circumstances. So being able to compare with what's happened in the past requires that we set aside that dedicated time to really review it and understand what we're receiving. Representative Logan.

[Rep. Kate Logan]: Just want to let everybody know that the core principles community engagement, Kat has posted them under Ms. Davis's name.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you. I was just wondering what the date was because the one I found online was 03/09/2823. Is that the document?

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: Yeah. '23 '24 is when they were being finalized. That's the first one, and I encourage you all I I can be long winded. So I encourage you all to stop me with questions or to slow

[Rep. Kate Logan]: down or speed up as needed.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt]: We have till six. I

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: have till four. I'm going to the unveil light. So okay. Principle number two. For those of you following along, I'm on page 11 of the document. Value and integrate community input at every stage of agency action. This is really key. It's so often the case that large organizations, particularly government, when they do make efforts to do community engagement, they tend to do it at later stages of things when decisions have already been made or at least well baked. And then the exercise ends up being kind of farcical because we already know what we're going to do. And what I wanna I wanna point your attention to one particular document or the a concept. It's called they call it the ladder of citizen participation. I don't love the word citizen. Not everybody has citizenship and they're still members of our community. But the concept of the ladder of citizen participation really discusses the spectrum on which we place community members when we are coming to them. And there's one iteration of that ladder that I love so much, and I'm so glad that they put it in here. Actually, the spectrum of community engagement to ownership is exactly it, but the one I really, oh, no, that's the one. The spectrum of community engagement to ownership. It's referenced in this document. You'll find a link to it on page 12 and also in the references at the end. And this one is really great. It's a really comprehensive document and it talks about the levels of engagement when you're talking about community engagement. And it starts at the level of say informing, hey community, we just want to let you know that we're making this decision that impacts you. Okay, thanks. Right? That's one end of the spectrum. And then on the other end of the spectrum is, hey community, it looks like there's an issue that needs a solution. What do you need? How do you view this issue? What solutions do you see as possible? What's going to work for you? How can we support? That really is more toward an eye of co ownership, co governance, people being able to participate in determining their own fates and futures. And so all along the way in that spectrum, are different ways that you can engage community and at different levels. The earlier stages are a little bit more paternalistic because you're not really giving people a chance to participate actively and meaningfully in decision making. Those later stages really are where we talk about sharing and seeding power. I'll talk a little bit more about that momentarily because sometimes those terms can seem vague or scary.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative Hoyt.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt]: Thank you. Just a question because what I'm looking at, it says a draft four, principle two is on page seven.

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: Oh gosh. Then ignore my page numbers.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Okay. What draft are you looking at, though, is the question. I feel like there might be one more current on the one

[Rep. Michael Hoyt]: The one I have doesn't have, like, the color codes.

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: Yeah. Oh, that's my highlight.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt]: Oh, is that yeah. Okay.

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: So the version that I'm looking at does not have a draft number because it is written as final. And what I'm gonna do, I this may not be great in the moment, but I can follow-up with a link for you all to have this version that I'm looking at.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yeah. Representative Logan? Yeah. So just

[Rep. Kate Logan]: a note that this is the version that's that's published on the ANR's website. It's just draft four.

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: Okay. From

[Rep. Michael Hoyt]: 2023. That's why I asked.

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: Yeah. We've got a few drafts then that we've got publicly posted, which tells me that this is a quick, hopefully quick administrative thing that we're going to have to clean up so that we don't cause confusion for other people. Thank you for letting me know. So I'm going to just ignore page numbers, and then we can all just kind of hop along together and find our way. All right. Principle two, value and integrate community input at every stage of agency action. So yes, consulting with community, not just at the end stage, but really early and often is really key. I want to highlight a couple of excerpts here. Number one, the importance of recognizing that meaningful community engagement is worth the effort. Number two, the one that states later down the page that I'm on, this requires a culture change driven by dedicated time and commitment. And that while ensuring meaningful community engagement typically requires longer timeframes, outcomes will be improved. Putting in this work matters. It isn't just a sort of check the box exercise. Our office can attest to the fact that when we engage people directly and seek their own input on what solutions are going to work for them, they have a sense of ownership in the work. And that's not just for people who support the action that you're thinking about taking. A really great piece of advice that I once received prior to coming to Vermont was when naysayers throw rocks at the house, put them in the house. So creating a shared sense of ownership over our shared and interconnected fates is really important. And when it's done well, then you can build really strong coalitions, not just for this project, but longer term. And we'll come to that too, in terms of sustained relationship building. A good recommendation here to note is that when you're reviewing the program priorities or figuring out the budget for this project, you want to make sure that you're accounting for the capacity that it's going to take to do that meaningful engagement. We have very often been the voices on a working group of some sort, a study committee, an advisory board, and we say, hey, this is great. We're going to change a law. Let's talk to the people about it. And we are met with a lot of responses that we don't love. But one of them that we get so often is, well, we'd love to, but there's no budget for that. We don't have time for that. This deadline is coming up. And so thinking about and then there are some times where even in statements of legislative intent that are well written, well drafted, well meaning, they may omit any kind of real guidance about, well, you want us to do community engagement, but we don't have a line item for that. And we usually end up kind of cobbling it together to try to come up with something that can be satisfactory. So being really intentional about that upfront and recognizing that this kind of work is work and it does carry some costs and may be small or it may be less small. But again, if what we want is quality engagement from community, we have to demonstrate that we value it. And the way that government institutions demonstrate value is by what they budget for. Another really important piece of this is the note that public comment shouldn't be treated as a one off interaction, but really that it's part of an ongoing dialogue. And that's key. So having multiple touch points with communities or representatives from communities, having active follow-up is key. Those are the kinds of things that help with relationship building and that can make the difference between saying, yeah, some guy in Chinos and loafers came to me and they talked a little bit about planning and made some promises and we never saw them again versus saying, oh yeah, we know Greg from the Department of Such and Such. He comes every so often, checks on us, understands what we're going through here, and we know that we can reach him or a colleague if we need something. I'll move to principle three, which is build your agency's internal capacity for meaningful engagement, which is kind of an extension of the one we just talked about. Again, building that internal capacity means things like budgeting appropriately, staffing yourselves appropriately for community engagement work. One of the things that I wanna note that's written here is community engagement should be prioritized in annual agency budgets and adjust reporting and programmatic timelines to accommodate community engagement efforts. That part is really key. I recognize that a lot of times the work that we do, especially if it's driven by legislation, tends to center the legislative calendar in terms of due dates or other timelines. And I think that if we're going to operate at that kind of a schedule, we want to make it thoughtful so that a, the information that the legislature gets back is really actionable by the time it's due. Because if I give you a report on January 15 and that's past your drafting deadline, that doesn't help you much. So number one, making sure that these timelines and due dates make sense, but then also making sure that we're creating a runway that really is sufficient and that sufficiently supports the work. So if we want to do meaningful community engagement and that is set forth in a signed bill in May, and let's say the deliverable is for October, it doesn't give a long runway for us to really understand what are the staffing and other resource needs that are going to be required to do this correctly. I do want to note one thing here that states community engagement plans are effective only if they're well implemented by staff who understand the central role of meaningful community engagement. This starts at the hiring phase, set expectations for community engagement and equity considerations in job descriptions and value knowledge of these areas when selecting candidates. Big yes from the Office of Racial Equity, but I would add that relationship management and public facing work is itself a whole job for some people. So if we're going to include that as in a set of job duties for somebody, we've got to make sure that we're compensating appropriately for it. I'm acutely aware being a woman and being a person of color that oftentimes a lot of the work that we're asked to do tends to be seen as soft work. And so it's not valued in the same way that other types of work are. Things like community engagement, things like equity and inclusion efforts. We see them as sort of intangible add ons. But if there's one thing that corporations know how to do in this country, it's make things tangible and add a dollar figure to them. So it can be done. And so being able to not just make sure that this is included in job descriptions, which further adds that layer of accountability, but also making sure that we're compensating people appropriately for it. Another good recommendation on this principle is making sure that staff who are doing engagement work understand how it connects to their specific areas of work. And I'll say here that strategic plans and partner mapping can be really key to that. Sometimes we get things assigned to us and we don't quite know why we're doing it, but we're doing it because I'm not going be that guy who asked too many questions. And really, don't know how this is helpful to you or how how it it works with your other duties. So creating a shared understanding by saying, listen, this is what our team looks like. This is the body of work that we're trying to do, and this is how community engagement is gonna be key to that body of work, and this is why it matters to you. Being able to demonstrate those relationships helps staff understand why they're being asked to participate in these activities, why it's valuable, and to know that it's not just busy work that they're asked to do or work to check a box. Another recommendation here is to consider creative ways to incentivize community engagement. And I really do want to lean on the word creative here because it's often the case that people think, well, you know, we can incentivize people in two ways, money or pizza. And that's not really how it always has to go. Sometimes the barrier to everyday people being able to participate in stuff is something like childcare. Do you have a meeting at 01:25 in the afternoon on a day when people can't take time off work? Perhaps, in which case maybe they can't do that. So then we say, well, what if we do something more inclusive and do an evening meeting? Right? Great. What am I going to do with these kids in the meantime? So one thing that we've seen work really successfully is, hey, we're having a community meeting. It's going to be here at this building and in the adjacent room, we're going to have a childcare professional offering childcare. So you can just have your children in the next room. And that way you can participate wholly and meaningfully. Or maybe that means, hey, we're going to incentive. I mean, you know, when I went before I came to Vermont, I lived and worked in the city of New York. And I remember that one of the things we used to do often was just give people a MetroCard. Hey, you're coming to a community event. You've got to pay to Ben $2.50 each way to get to us. We're just going to give you a $5 MetroCard. And then that way, at least it can be as if you didn't have to pay that cost. Sure, it's small. Sure, not everybody necessarily has use for that particular benefit, but it demonstrates that we're trying to reduce barriers and obstacles to your being able to participate. And sometimes you are surprised to discover that the thing that's holding a person back is so solvable, is so solvable if we're just willing to be human and flexible. The next principle, number four, is coordinate with other agencies to de silo policy conversations and share resources. This is something I think Vermont does extraordinarily well, particularly compared to other jurisdictions where I've been. I think that the size of this state and the size of the state government is an asset because it means that people talk to each other, and you can assign a name to a face. I will highlight one excerpt here. Vermonters do not experience environmental injustices in the silos that government operates within. This is important. Some of you have constituents who say, I live on the border. My sewer is, you know, handled by this town. My mail is this zip code. I don't know who to call because I'm having a pipe burst or something like that. Right? For government, local and state, there are clear bureaucratic and administrative lanes. Right? We got to go to this town for that, this town for that. But this is a person living in a home experiencing a situation. They're not operating in those silos, right? So similarly recognizing the more broadly encompassing nature of environmental injustice, and you all know this of course, but you you may have an issue that touches the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Transportation, And how do we triage a multifaceted issue effectively across state government without overwhelming impacted parties with so many government contacts that it requires them to basically treat it like a part time job just to deal with us. A recommendation here, and there are many, I'm just highlighting a few that I wanted to touch on, but a recommendation on this one is to identify cross cutting policy issues that you could collaborate with other state agencies on when seeking input from local communities. I want to share a quick anecdote about this one. I was going to mention it later on, but I'll mention it now. In a previous life, I worked at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. And one of the things that they tried very hard to do was to do some de siloing. Vermont state government is about 9,000 employees. The Department of Health in that city was 8,000 employees and change. Large organization, lot of people. And one of the things that they discovered was that they had a lot of repeated touch points with the same families. So for example, you would have one member of the community who was getting home visits for IPM, Integrated Pest Management, because maybe she had a child who had asthma and they were doing Integrated Pest Management in the apartment. Then you'd have somebody else who was coming in also from the health department because they were part of the visiting nurses program because she just had a baby. And so now we're discovering you're getting multiple visits from the same department in the same week. Why aren't we talking to each other? Not only does this create a logistical burden for you to manage all of that, but also it's probably not efficient for us to be sending out different people, probably in fleet cars to be able to talk to you in really siloed conversations. So again, I think that's something that Vermont really can address well. And so the recommendation there is making sure that we're coordinating effectively. I think I have a lot to say about principle five, because I made a lot of highlights and notes here. So the next one is build resilience and trust by building ongoing and reciprocal relationships. This is so key and it is ongoing work. This is not one that we can accomplish quickly. And I really want to highlight this, the very first sentence here, which is communities are equal partners who know best what their needs are. One of the things that I appreciate about Vermont is that its legislators are regular people. Most of you. And what that means is that you perhaps yesterday or last year, you were an average community member, and now you're a person in a position of authority. You're a policymaker. That change didn't really happen overnight. You're still a member of your community. You still know what works as a resident, as a neighbor, as a person living in Vermont. Right? The same is true for your other friends, neighbors, and other residents. Right? They may not be in the same seat you're in, but they can share experiences and they can get good ideas just like you can. And so treating them with that understanding is key. Begin building these critical connections with community members to engage early and often. So this principle discusses using two way communication methods that partners and community members are familiar with using. I recognize that there are still in many jurisdictions laws on the books that say things like, you've got to have this piece of paper prominently posted on a bulletin board outside of the local grocery or in the town square. I get it. I do. And also, how many of our friends and neighbors are we realistically reaching when we do that? I remember that in a previous job, I worked in a municipal legislative body and they had a rule that a certain bills had to be on the member's desk, physically on the desk by a certain time of day on the day of the vote. And I used to laugh about that because the member the members I served were rarely even in their offices. They're not gonna know if it's on their desk. They don't go to their desks. This is a rule that's killing the Amazon. It is not actually effectively communicating with members. Similarly, thinking about how we're interacting with people and not just through one directional communication, but really having that back and forth. Collaborate and co create engagement processes with existing community based organizations that have built trust over time. But I really need to put a huge asterisk on this. I see this a lot with our office. A lot of times people like to say, oh, well, we're working with Susana. Well, we're working with Susana's team. Oh, we have the Office of Racial Equity. And they like to do that sometimes as a way to deflect from legitimate critique of shortcomings in their work or their processes. As if somehow invoking our name stamps whatever they're doing as certified not racist. And that's not quite how it works. So one of the things that is important for us and important for community based organizations with whom we work is that if we are going to build those partnerships and if we are going to co create, if we are going to collaborate, please, please be judicious in the ways in which you ask us to leverage our built trust with communities to vouch for you on work. Because if you betray the work, then it damages not only your relationship to that community, but ours too. I'm going to say it much more bluntly, Don't ask people to use their street cred and then bail because these relationships are precious. So collaborate and co create with community based organizations who have built up that trust over time, but recognize that that trust is still delicate and deserves to be treated with value the that you recognize it has. Another recommendation here is to develop and to clearly document those relationships and collaborations to ensure that there's continuity in case there's staff turnover, which is, I think, a great idea. I will say that in this day and age, our federal government, I do sometimes raise an eyebrow at the notion of documenting touch points with communities and making sure that that documentation is used for good, not for not good. So I would say documentation of those relationships is important, but not at the expense of anybody who may be made vulnerable by the dissemination or disclosure of that documentation. Another one that I really want to highlight here is that state agencies must ensure that the relationships they've built with community partners are not foundationally extractive. That's really important because it's often the case that we go to groups or communities and say, hey, we need something, we need information. And they do all of this legwork for us. And then we say, all right, cool, thanks. And then we're on our way. Not just seeking a one way flow of information or labor or resources, but really making sure that that relationship is mutually beneficial. And again, think creatively about what mutual benefit really means. It doesn't always have to mean that you're paying people in money or food, even though many people appreciate both. But sometimes that mutual benefit may look differently based on what people's needs are. So being able to be flexible and think creatively is important. Another one that's important here is to support community members taking action without having to rely on you as government, as an intermediary. We wanna make sure that we are permitting people to be empowered instead of gatekeeping. And obviously, I mean, it's government. There's a lot of gatekeeping that happens. It is the law that some things must be gate kept, including literal physical gates. I get it. But there are a lot of things that we can also encourage members of the public and members of the community to be able to do. And theoretically, if we're giving them appropriate tools and resources, then we should trust that they can be able to take action without having to go through you for every little thing. Mapping community partnerships is a great idea here. And then also just being aware of which communities we might be overburdening with outreach and which communities are being excluded entirely. Next one, this is six of twelve. I want to make sure that I don't take up all of your time.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: We do need to be a little bit aware of the time. So actually, though, is Michael still available at three? Yes. Just later if he's still got flexibility. But we should

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: yeah. Okay. Number six is prior oh, sorry.

[Rep. Kate Logan]: I know Eric is waiting at 02:15.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Oh, yeah, we will

[Rep. Kate Logan]: At 02:15?

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yes, but yeah. So did you all coordinate your speaking at all, you and Jennifer?

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: No. Well, you're

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: trying to get through all of them. All

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: right. They're all important.

[Jennifer Byrne (White River NRCD; EJ Advisory Council)]: I can hustle.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: They are. Okay.

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: All right. Number six, prioritize voices most impacted by environmental injustice and address systemic barriers to participation. The idea here is that, gosh, there's so many. So systemic barriers to participation are many. And when we start to talk about systemic things and systemic oppression, people start to clam up because they start to take it personally and feel like we're calling people individually bigots or discriminatory or what have you. Recognizing that systemic means that it's embedded in our systems is important here. It means that regardless of individual intent, we may still be doing things just as part of regular course of business that may be hampering our ability to engage meaningfully with other people. And so that means just acknowledging those things and doing something. Use plain language and plain language is actually a term of art. There is a definition section in the back of this document. Plain language, I have heard it discussed at different levels. Generally speaking, I have heard that plain language is if it conforms to an eighth grade reading level, then it's considered plain language. I have heard as much as fifth or third grade reading level. So I think it depends on perhaps who you ask. And I always send people to the Developmental Disabilities Council because I think they're wonderful and they have a lot of insight about that. There's also a link in this document to Green Mountain Self Advocates and their accessibility checklist as well. So plain language is important. Language access is really important and our office is heavily involved in that. I'll come back to that later on. Number seven, show up on the ground and work toward equitable solutions alongside community members. Don't expect the most impacted community members to come to you. Right? Again, as government, we tend to say, well, we've made things available in the following places. You can come to us if you need us. And that's really not the way that most people actually engage. Right? Sometimes an actual metaphorical extension of the hand and pulling the person in is how you get that engagement. It talks a little bit about the right to comfort. I would love to discuss that more. We don't have the time for it today, but it's an important concept that I think should be handled candidly and delicately. So if you all are ever interested and have some spare time at the end of the session, then I'd be happy to come back and talk a little bit more about how that tends to show up in the workplace. An important point on this one is as a representative of state government, don't take the posture of an automatic no, simply because an idea from a community member can't be immediately put into place or if there are significant barriers to implementation. I'll also note here, I have this as a note for later, but there's a difference between something that can't be done and something that won't be done. And think that it's really important for government to acknowledge that because we are limited only by our imaginations. Don't tokenize community members. I can tell you the same 12 black people in Vermont who get put on every working group because they slash we are expected to speak on behalf of all Vermont's people of color. And I always joke, I don't speak on behalf of all Vermont's people of color. I don't even speak on behalf of all the people of color in my household. So making sure that we're not typecasting or tokenizing is important. Being willing to advocate for necessary changes in government to accomplish these actions is also important. Again, not expecting the universe of solutions to conform to what state government says we can or are allowed to do, but being able to say, here's a solution, how do we get there? Number eight, do your homework and adapt engagement to community specific needs. There's a lot here. Learning about the prior history of engagement with that community is important. So asking yourself, do I really understand the historical context of the demographic or geographic community I'm looking at? Avoid defensiveness, recognize that people may experience frustration because of past interactions with government or with agencies. Each community is different, so engagement strategies should be adaptive and they should be place based, but I want to put an asterisk here because sometimes saying things should be place based or we should really tailor it to what this community needs, that's also an easy way for some people to mask general xenophobia. Well, that's not going to work here. We are different. We have a certain set of values. These sometimes can be used as ways to reject things that come from people viewed as other. So recognize that things need to be placed specific, but not so much so that we're isolating people. Adapt your approach to specifically center the needs of community members who may be low income, people of color, or have language access needs. Even if that approach is not preferred by community members who've historically held more power and influence over policymaking. And here's the gag, If nothing else you take from my testimony today, there's a collective benefit to equity. There's a collective benefit to inclusion. And the truth is that members of dominant groups are still going to be significant beneficiaries of things that center equity. This is the curb cut effect. We all know this. So it doesn't have to be something that you're resentful of or afraid of when we say we're going to center vulnerable and marginalized communities because that benefit tends always to spread as far as I understand American history. Number nine, conduct accessible and inclusive outreach and engagement. Don't make this effort an afterthought. So again, we've talked about things like language access. We talked about things like using plain language or the accessibility checklist. I remember once in a previous role, was working with our department of buildings. I was at the health department and they said, hey, we're doing this thing on fair housing and zoning. Can we hold it in your offices? Because we have someone using a motorized wheelchair and we need an accessible space. And I said, Oh yeah, sure. Our building is LEED certified. Our doorways are 42 inches. We've got the whole The works, right? We can do it here. And as I'm having this conversation on the phone when we used to use telephones, I'm looking out the window and I see the seven train pulling in and I realize, actually, no, we can't do it here. Because even though our building is accessible, this subway stop is not. And so a person in a wheelchair in a city that uses almost exclusively public transportation cannot actually get to our building, even if they can get around our building. And so recognizing that systems have to be able to work together. And if you're doing outreach like that and you want to make it accessible, not just thinking about the small points, like can we fit this person in this conference room, But how's this person gonna get here in the first place? Number 10, be transparent and accountable from start to finish. I'm just gonna highlight one thing here, which is an excerpt. Transparency must include a recognition of historical and ongoing barriers to equitable community engagement. We can't just pretend stuff didn't happen, but we can make stuff better. The chief performance officer would appreciate if I mentioned this one, identify specific data and metric collection methods that you're going to use when you do your evaluations. Number 11, commit enough time to do engagement well. This is a process that takes time. Some people like to talk about this as extra work or ancillary work. It is not. It really is the bare meat. This is the floor we're talking about. And we also hear this a lot when we talk about things like language access. Sometimes, oh, you want us to translate this into 14 languages. This is so much extra work. How are we going to pay for this? And I have to find gentle ways to remind people this has been federal law for sixty years. The fact that we've gotten away with not doing it for this long is a heck of a thing. But we can't call something that's been the standard for so long, new and extra. And it's kind of the same thing here, right? If we really are going to be bi for enough people, let's demonstrate that. Put the time out. A couple of years ago, our office participated on a working group and we had to make some recommendations on how to update one of the statutes. And our office, I had four of us represent from our office on the group. And we said, let's do community engagement. We drew up a whole plan with timelines, estimated budget, long runway. We gave ourselves maybe just under a year to be able to do that. But some of the other entities with which we were working pushed back and said no, and we couldn't get agreement. And we kept working on it, working on it, working on it until finally towards the end, they said, okay, let's do it. By then, we had maybe two months before the report was due. We had already sought an extension to the deadline. It was rushed. It was poorly conducted because we didn't have enough time. And as a result, they were very poorly attended. We didn't get meaningful participation. Now, the narrow minded cynic might say, you see, we told you this doesn't work. When in reality, if you plan it properly, if you give yourself the time and the space and the resources, then it can work. And we know that because we've done it. But it's all about whether you are really thinking of this as a built in part of your process or as an afterthought. Consider the cultural calendar. It may be the case that you'd like to say, going to do some community outreach and we're going to do it in April and it's going to be a huge potluck. And are you doing this during Ramadan? Because maybe you don't want to do a potluck during a fasting observance, right? One example of the ways in which you want to consult a cultural calendar to make sure that if you're doing outreach to particular communities, that you're doing so in a way that observes all of the other things that they have going on in their demo and geographic communities. Number 12, last one, compensate community members for their expertise. I'm going to read directly from this an excerpt. We should never expect community members from environmental justice focused populations to volunteer their time, expertise and efforts to advise state agencies, just like we wouldn't expect a consultant to work for free. It's often the case that we as government or as large institutions tend to undervalue lived experience and also non lived, like professional experience gained from people who may not be employees among us. But the fact is that there's a lot to be learned from everyday community members. We know that because you all are everyday community members and you all are great. So recognizing that the time and the expertise and the consultation and the administrative legwork of people participating in these things that are helping us shape policy, specifically conducting work of the state, it's necessary to demonstrate that we value that. Otherwise, we're going to keep losing people left and right. That's one of the things that we see often on the working groups on which we participate is a steady churn of the members who are not paid as part of their jobs to be in these meetings. So if I'm on an RDAP call until 08:30 at night, I get paid to be there, and I'm sure I'll also be rewarded in the afterlife. But for a member of the community who actually has a day job, that that may not be the case. I'm going to cut it there. I know that you all are short for time, and I hope I didn't step on the testimony of my peer on the group as well. But I welcome any questions you all may have. Thank you for your time.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you for that. The irony of not having enough time is not lost on me. So you said you were here till four. I don't know if you have other engagements, but it's it's quite possible that we I know I have a few questions for you, but I don't know if you could come back or we could be in touch with you. If you do you have plans for your afternoon before four? I'll be

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: right next door. Okay. So I'll I'll look out for a communication from from you or from the committee, and I'm happy to come back on over. Okay.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you so much.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: Thank you. Thanks, Ed.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Michael, we still have one more witness. We're gonna see how much time she needs. Welcome, Jennifer Byrne.

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Hello. Thank you so much for the invitation.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: I guess I just want to start by acknowledging that you

[Rep. Michael Hoyt]: I'm wondering how much time do you need.

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: I could take fifteen minutes if you don't mind me speaking fast. I did prepare some notes to share.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Okay, great. That would

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: be great. But, you know, fifteen, twenty is really what I planned for. All right.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Go ahead.

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Great. Well, wonderful. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Chair Sheldon and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to be here today. And thank you, miss Davis, for your comments. I really appreciated a lot of the concrete examples. It made me think of a lot of the work that me and my staff do and especially around desiloing and and efficiency and making sure we're, you know, providing good service to members of the community. So for the record, my name is Jennifer Byrne. I serve as the district manager of the White River Natural Resources Conservation District, one of Vermont's 14 conservation districts. Conservation districts are a long standing infrastructure for natural resource and land use decision making at the local level. I think we're best described as decentralized, democratically organized watershed governments. I also in this role, I serve on the Environmental Justice Advisory Council as the representative of the Natural Resources Conservation Council, the district's overarching state agency. And I was invited here today for a status update on the community engagement deliverables associated with the environmental justice law of Vermont. I do want to begin with just a little bit of background on what NRCC is and why its inclusion in Vermont's environmental justice, or I might say EJ throughout this, advisory council is both intentional and important. The Vermont Natural Resources Conservation Council, the NRCC, is defined in state statute as an agency of the state. Was established. Yeah.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yeah. Your sound is kind of getting garbled. I'm not sure if your mic is

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: What if I take my headphones off? Is that better?

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: That might be better. Yes. Let's try that. Okay. Wonderful.

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Yeah. Just let me know. I'm I'm my district is cohosting the Virgin Islands Envirothon. So we're down here, my Internet's a little bit spotty. You're all invited. If ever wanna come down, we

[Susana Davis (Vermont Office of Racial Equity)]: we host a workforce

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: development program between our districts.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Once. Yeah. We're out there. Like to be there with you. Maybe we'll do a field trip.

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Yeah. Next year, we'll be back for sure. So so great. So just please let me know. Maybe, like, wave if my Internet goes out, and I'll I'll try to notice or interrupt me, please. And so just a little bit about NRCC, our state agency. We're really we've been established through the 1939 Soil Conservation Act in Vermont, and it's composed of representatives from Vermont's conservation districts who are locally elected officials, my bosses, alongside state and federal agency and educational partners. That structure is unique. It's one of the only places in state government where locally elected, place based leadership and agency decision makers are consistently sitting at the same table as peers, working through natural resource priorities together. And that structure is grounded in more than eighty five years of practice. Conservation districts were created to lead what is known as the locally led conservation process, a model based on the idea that communities themselves are best positioned to identify their natural resource concerns, set priorities, and shape solutions. So this isn't new work for us. It is our statutory purpose. And under federal guidance and state law, conservation districts coordinate broad based community participation annually in conservation planning, bringing together farmers, landowners, municipalities, agencies, and community members, and translating that input into actionable plans, priorities, and program delivery. I've included our federal guidance document with my testimony today for your reference, and I find it really helpful in my job. In many ways, this is one of the state's most established systems for ongoing place based community engagement tied directly to decision making milestone in that ongoing work, this year, for the first time in eighty five years, NRCC was approved to launch a state website, weare conservation.vermont.gov, to make the work of conservation districts and NRCC more visible and accessible to Vermonters. So thank you for that. At the same time, the Environmental Justice Advisory Council serves a critical and distinct role. The EJ Advisory Council was created by the legislature to ensure that the voices of environmental justice focused populations, communities who are most impacted by environmental and public health burdens, are not just included but meaningfully shaped state decision making. Its composition reflects that purpose, bringing together individuals with lived experience, advocates, and representatives who can speak directly to the barriers, burdens, and realities facing communities across Vermont. And that perspective is essential. It ensures that the state is not making decisions about communities without meaningful input from those communities. The inclusion of NRCC within that structure matters because it connects that work to an existing democratically organized statewide and nationwide system that is already engaging communities on the ground and translating that input into local, state, and federal action. So when Vermont's EJ Law included NRCC in the districts on the advisory council, it recognized something important, that meaningful participation requires both intentional representation of environmental justice voices at the state level and locally led structures that are embedded in communities and connected to implementation. And so with that context, I'll turn to what I was asked to speak about today, which is an overview of the core principles of community engagement and an update on the work underway to implement them across Vermont agencies and communities. I'll try not to duplicate too much of what was already shared. So at a high level, Vermont's EJ law codified under three VSA chapter 72 establishes a statewide policy and implementation framework to ensure that environmental decisions reduce disparities and include meaningful participation, particularly for environmental justice focused populations. The law does several things simultaneously. First, it establishes a state policy on environmental justice, making clear that no segment of the population should bear a disproportionate share of environmental burdens or be denied environmental benefits and that all individuals must have the opportunity for meaningful participation in the development, implementation, and enforcement of laws, regulations, and policies. Second, it creates the core implementation structure. The Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which provides independent advice and evaluates how state actions may create or reduce environmental burdens, and the Interagency Environmental Justice Committee, which coordinates implementation across 11 agencies and guides consistency in our approach. Third, it requires all covered state agencies to integrate environmental justice into their work, including evaluating how their actions may impact environmental justice populations, ensuring meaningful participation in decision making processes, and reporting on complaints and outcomes related to EJ issues. Fourth, the law requires agencies to consider both environmental benefits and cumulative environmental burdens when making decisions about environmental and public health programs, energy and climate initiatives, infrastructure, facility citing, and any associated funding and investments. This is actually a major shift. It explicitly recognized that impacts are not isolated, that communities experience layered cumulative effects over time, and that decision making must account for that reality. Fifth, the law includes rulemaking requirements. It directs ANR to adopt rules to define cumulative environmental burdens, to establish how those burdens will be considered in decision making, and provide transparency to the public about how those determinations are made. It also requires the advisory council review and provide feedback on proposed rules implementing the chapter, embedding community informed oversight directly into the rulemaking process. Sixth, the law requires the development of community engagement plans by all covered agencies. These plans must describe how agencies will engage with environmental justice populations, be used when evaluating new and existing programs and activities, and support meaningful participation consistent with title six of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Under the law, the advisory council was required to develop and publish the core principles of community engagement, which are intended to guide the development of these plans across agencies and inform how they carry out engagement in practice. They translate the requirements of the law into clear expectations, providing a shared framework for what meaningful, effective engagement should look like across agencies. And then seventh, the law calls for the development of a statewide environmental justice mapping tool, which must identify environmental justice populations and help measure environmental burdens at a meaningful geographic scale to inform decision making. And then finally, there are accountability mechanisms in the law, which include annual reporting by agencies on environmental justice and civil rights complaints and actions taken, ongoing review of definitions and thresholds, and legislative reporting on whether investments are equitably distributed. So what this means in practice, this law is not just about engagement. It's about requiring the state to adjust how decisions are made, to consider cumulative impacts, not just individual actions, to integrate iterative community input into rulemaking and policy development, and to ensure that benefits and burdens are more equitably distributed. Community engagement is one piece, and it sits within a much broader structure that ties together data, decision making, rule making, and accountability. I will you you got a a nice in-depth version of the community, the core principles of community engagement, which were published by ANR and the EJ Advisory Council in 2023. The 12 principles. I was going to name them, but I I understand you have them in front of you, and and they have been named already. So taken together, though, these principles are asking agencies to fundamentally rethink how engagement happens. At a deeper level, they set an expectation that engagement must be ongoing, not one time, relational, not transactional, and capable of shaping outcomes. Importantly, they acknowledged something many communities already know, that when engagement is late, unclear, duplicative, or extractive, it doesn't just fail to help. It can actively cause harm. So right now, the advisory council and the interagency committee are working on guidance to support the agency community engagement plans, which must be published by each agency by 07/01/2027. So the this work right now is being carried out through a joint community engagement subgroup, which has members of the advisory council and the interagency committee, and we meet regularly to develop and refine the guidance. Our charge is to translate the core principles into something usable, not just aspirational, but practical and implementable across agency. The guidance is expected to include recommended plan structures, suggested language that the agencies can use directly in their plans, clear expectations for what meaningful engagement looks like, examples of effective engagement processes, and frameworks for when engagement is required, particularly in decision making contexts. At the same time, through both the subgroup and broader advisory council and interagency committee discussions, several consistent themes are emerging. First, this is a cultural shift, not just a technical one. Agencies are recognizing that implementing these principles requires changing how decisions are made, not simply adding a step. Second, capacity and resources are real constraints. There are ongoing concerns about the time, staffing, and funding required to do this work well. Third, there is a need for practical tools and training. Agency staff are looking for clear guidance on how to design engagement processes, budget for them, and communicate effectively. Fourth, there's fear of getting it wrong, and that fear can slow progress, which is why clear and supportive guidance and leadership buy in is so important. And finally, coordination is critical. Without it, we risk over engaging the same communities in uncoordinated ways, which can erode trust rather than build it. So what's coming next? The next joint meeting of the Advisory Council and Interagency Committee is scheduled for May 13 from ten to noon, and it will be a focus specifically on advancing this community engagement work. Interested members of this committee are more than welcome to attend this public meeting to learn more if you're not otherwise engaged at that time. And an exciting recent development in our shared work between the two councils is that the members of the advisory council and interagency committee have been paired up in what we're calling working on excellence or WOE partnerships. And these are essentially a buddy system that's designed to strengthen collaboration between the two bodies, build shared understanding of agency and community work, and support implementation across agencies. So to conclude, I I'd love to turn to the question of alignment between what this law requires and how we are pacing and investing in related work. Vermont is moving quickly on land use, environmental, and conservation frameworks, new plans, new programs, new expectations. And at the same time, the environmental justice law, the law that sets the foundation for how these decisions should be made, is still in the process of being implemented and resourced. We are several years in. Key deliverables are still in development. Rule making is ongoing. Community engagement is still being built, and deadlines are approaching. There is real risk in continuing to build new systems while the poor laws that govern how decisions should be made are still being put in place. If we move forward without fully implementing this law, we risk making decisions without meaningful participation, reinforcing existing disparities, and needing to revisit decisions later with more conflict, more delay, and less trust. There's urgency here. No doubt. Climate, water quality, and land use pressures are real, but this law is asking us to do something different. It's asking us to move at the speed of communities, not at just at the speed of policy, and those aren't the same. Building trust and ensuring that community input can shape decisions takes time, coordination, and resources. And right now, one of the clearest gaps is resourcing. Over the past four years, there has been no dedicated funding for the advisory council to conduct community engagement in the communities it represents and very limited compensation for council members themselves despite being tasked with significant responsibilities, including informing rulemaking, guiding agency engagement, and representing community perspectives at the state level. Advocates for the passage of this law were clear that resources should support direct community based engagement through the council. Instead, the primary investment has been approximately $500,000 for the mapping tool without with any community engagement tied specifically to its development. That is not the same thing as ongoing community led engagement. And at the same time, we are underutilizing and underinvesting in systems that already exist, like NRCC and the conservation districts, which are actively engaging communities and translating input into action. And it's worth noting this is not a new pattern. The locally led conservation system established under the 1939 Vermont Soil Conservation Act has never been fully resourced to carry out its statutory purposes at the scale envisioned despite being designed to do exactly this type of community based engagement and decision making. So we have this mismatch. We're investing in new frameworks and under investing in the advisory council's ability to engage environmental justice communities and the locally led democratic systems already doing this work. And so if we expect meaningful participation to shape decisions, we have to resource it. The question is not whether the work is urgent. It is. The question is how we balance that urgency with the time and investment required to build trust and do this well. Because if we move too fast without that foundation, we risk recreating the very patterns this law is meant to change. But if we align timelines, resource the advisory council, and invest in locally led systems, we can make better decisions from the start and avoid conflict and delay down the line. So thank you for your time and invitation today, and I'm happy to answer any questions and continue the conversation moving forward.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you for your testimony. Do members have questions? We do have witness waiting, I think.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: None of us. Yep. I'm just wondering, does this work outside of state agencies? Just if a town or municipality, like in Colchester, we're developing our town plan, and this sounds like a really good process to use with our communities since no one at all ever comes to our meeting. And I'm just wondering, is there who who could we possibly hire to create this process for our citizens to get them engaged, which they're not.

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Is that is that a question to me? Yes. Who could we hire? I don't think we need to hire new people. I think we need to invest in the structures that we have. Yeah. I think that the structures are there to do this work, and the processes are there as well. But they've never really been, like, sequenced. Just for example, our our locally led conservation action planning that our district is tasked with doing annually, we've never been directly funded for that. And we estimate that it costs between 20 to $50,000 a year. We do it out of our overhead because it's what we're statutorily and federally told to do. So, yeah, I do I don't think that I think that it actually is I don't know. The word hire maybe is not how I think of it in terms of the community engagement has to come from who's already, you know, doing the work as opposed to hiring outside, you know, consultants.

[Rep. Kate Logan]: Representative. I'm just gonna respond to that. One of the bills of mine that's on the wall this year is would add the regional planning commissions to the environmental justice law. And so to follow-up on Jennifer's point, that it seems to me like there are organizations, quasi public or public agencies that could provide those services in our communities if we plan for it. We resourced the RPCs to be able to help municipalities do community engagement processes around planning, for example, that seems like it would be a good choice.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: Training. I just none of us are I don't have the capacity to do volunteers.

[Rep. Kate Logan]: Would Right. Yeah.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: And no one I mean, I just we've started the process and I'm just wondering for others as well that are gonna have to redevelop our plans. Who can we work with that could implement this process with our communities?

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: I think that's a great question. I feel like we have to move on. Sorry. Thank you so much for your testimony. Sorry if it was a little pinched. And we will, if folks have questions, I'll be in touch with you.

[Rep. Kate Logan]: Thanks. Thanks, Jennifer. Yes,

[Jennifer Byrne (White River Natural Resources Conservation District)]: have a good day. Thank

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Alright. We're gonna take a five minute break, and then we do have to

[Rep. Michael Hoyt]: hear from.