Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome back to House General Housing, and it is still February 20. We are on our final two items today. The first is we are considering H. Seven seventy five, which is about rural housing, and we may take a vote. Second is, we approved our letter to appropriations, but there's an addendum I wish to discuss, will go up or down. So, you want to share your screen?

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sir.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And then the committee just needs a decision and then we will have a vote. That sounds really easy.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The record, Cameron Woods, Office of Legislative Counsels. Based on the conversation we were just having roughly an hour ago, we have a new draft 3.1, pure strike all amendment to seven seventy five, dated today at 01:05PM. We are in the same section, section regarding municipal plans. What I've changed it to is, you can see here, so no longer referencing to the plan, it's just a municipality shall include within the housing element of a municipal plan an identification and analysis of existing and projected housing needs for the projected population of the jurisdiction, including the housing needs for individuals with a disability, and provide same language there. Or so they shall include within the housing element of the municipal plan. Municipality if and this is in the sub two if the municipality cannot meet the regional housing targets, develop pursuant subdivision 4348A A9 of this title, provide to the Department of Housing and Community Development an analysis of regulatory and fiscal constraints, then there's

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: all of the remaining information that has not changed. Okay, so my question is, what? Did you say blah, blah, blah? Blah, blah, blah. Right, So my question is, how do people feel about this? You wanna go with this today, or do you wanna take it out?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Thank you for adding this. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome. Every little bit at a time. How do people feel? Good. Wow. Alright. I'll tell you what. Let's take a vote. Alright? On July as amended, do we have a motion to

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I move to adopt draft number 3.1 of H seven seventy five.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I second.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Clerk, you wanna call the roll? Acting clerk or acting clerk. Mary?

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: I can act like a clerk.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you have anything you wanted to say that we didn't say? No. No. K. Alright. I just wanna make sure. Thank you. Appreciate it. The clerk?

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Call the Call the roll? K. Try to make try to make Mary proud. Ashley Bartley.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, is Ashley She

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: was trying to join the Zoom, then Lamoille was on that call outside.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Wait. Wait. Did we want to get Ashley? Just a second. Yeah. She is trying. Is Ashley trying to get on?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: She joined, like, phone dropped off, and now she's trying.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: She is? Okay. Okay. I would go go ahead, but we'll come back. Ashley?

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I won't mark anything there. Elizabeth Burrows?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yes.

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: Tom Charlton votes yes. Leonora Dodge?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Yes.

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: Deborah Dolgin?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yes.

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: Mary E. Howard?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yes.

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: Emilie Krasnow?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yes.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Where's Saudia?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, yeah.

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: Her water bottle's here.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Ashley, is Saudia yours?

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: She's an owl. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You know what? Can go to Ashley. Oh, here's Ashley. Call her name quick.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Ashley Bartley.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Ashley, sorry.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is that a yes?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yes, it's a yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Hey, you made it.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I made it. On a wing and a prayer.

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: Okay, Joseph Parsons. Absolute. Absolute.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is it Marc? We know that. Well, it's not the state of vote. No. Yes. Marc Mihaly. Yes. Now I do think we have the power of counsel to hold the vote open for the session for this I mean, as long as we're here. That's my understanding. Yeah. So we can you can announce the vote, and we'll just hold it. We cannot adjourn an avert. We can't

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: After we

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: vote by proxy and all that kind

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: of stuff.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Did you ever find it?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: If you can just text her and say, we're gonna give her fifteen minutes to add her vote if she wants. You can announce the vote so far.

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: Okay. That would put us at it'd be nine zero one ending Saudia's.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. Or eight zero two. No. Nine zero one if Saudia is not here. Nine zero two if she's not here. Mhmm. There's a lemon on this.

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: So far. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just left I didn't count her on.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Do you have any do you need to fill out any other information?

[Miriam (Committee Assistant, acting clerk)]: She's got three point one and today's date.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. The 20.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will sit here and get you a clean copy.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. And while he's doing that, I want to now raise one more issue with you guys. My apologies, and then I'd like you to speak. Okay? This is my apologies. I dropped an issue. Now I'm going back to the letter that we're sending. The letter that we are sending to appropriations, which we approved by Strawpole. There's one more item that is proposed, and that is a request to for mobile resident services coordinator and or statewide manufactured home resident organizers. And hey, before we do anything else, So, I'm going give her a the Clerk has called the roll of seven seventy five as amended, as we discussed, and proposed thus far is 901 Avenue.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Which version is this? 3.1.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But what it says, Saudia, what it does, paragraph one is as before, with the amended to include Elizabeth's suggestion. Paragraph number two is now a report.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Okay. So, conversation, yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's a yes. Okay. Hey, thank you. By the way, congratulations everybody. I realize this world is an imperfect world, shall we say. We'll see what happens. We're a long way to go. You need to do one more thing. You need to send an email to Emilie Kornheiser. Okay. Actually, you know what? I'll tell you this after the meeting. You have to send an email to Emilie and to and to the head of appropriations and just just all it says is eight seven seventy five voted out of committee, today's date, the vote. That's it. Okay? Okay. That way, it's a text, and you do a text. I can? Yeah. Good. It's a text to them. I'll give you the information. Okay. The reason is is then they can always reply to the texts when they send it's just

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: a tracking device. Okay. I think email is probably better. No, text.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's very definitely text. No, we do an email, but this is something else. We'll deal with it. Okay. What we're doing now is we're revisiting the letter that we approved earlier because I made the mistake of omitting an item that I have gotten mixed up about, and what I'm about to do is describe the item, ask to start with, ask I guess I'm gonna ask you to just just make whatever argument you want, and then the committee should just let me know, do I include it in the letter or not? What did you need?

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm so sorry, I have a quick question and then I'm gonna vacate if it's okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Clean copy, everybody who's gonna report the bill? He's gonna report the bill. And we don't need, give us one clean copy and send it to Miriam. It's Miriam and Rutland.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah, perfect. Well,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: but it was revised. It's a new three. Oh, that's right, because it's not two point, it's 3.1.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 3.1 is the one you just voted on.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It was highlighted, so I'm giving you a clean copy. Yeah. Okay. Will you send me a copy too? Okay. So here's the deal. We are now on just one more item on our letter. Okay? And then we can everyone can rush home to avoid the snow. The request is for a mobile home, that's what it's called, we'll call it a manufactured home. A manufactured home resident services coordinator, and four statewide manufactured home resident organizers, and this is the description. The services coordinator position would be housed at CVOEO in Burlington, and it oversees manufactured home support for operations, data collection and analysis. The four full time resident organizer positions are placed in the four other remaining community action services agencies serving the state of Vermont, that is BROC, Capstone, SEVCA, and Northeast Kingdom Community Action. That's what it is. I have already drafted. That's already drafted, and it's it's waiting our decision one way or another. Is that snowfall?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Snow just came up. Yeah. Once everybody was outside. Hopefully. Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Wow. So all we need to decide is, yes, I put it in the letter. I put it at the end of tier the high priority, not the highest priority, non housing tier. Okay. Do you

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: want to comment on this? So just in the event that people are not aware, CVOEO works with 7,000 of the residents that live in Lamoille home parks, manufactured home parks, of the two thirty eight parks there are in Vermont and they are severely understaffed to the point when you try to make a call, leave a message and they will get back to you, but it takes really a long time. This is really needed, this is what helps any of the homeowners when they run into problems, no matter what the problems are, whether it's being behind in their rent, having infrastructure. They help with referring people, it's a much needed program, which is also the MER program.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Should caution the committee, I'm not going to express my opinion until the end here, but just I should caution you, putting this in does not mean they will get the money. Fact, I think it is very likely.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Same with everything else.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, same as everything else. I put it at the end of Schnon House. I don't know how, I cannot even begin to guess exactly how the Appropriations Committee will utilize our letter, which is we owe them our thoughts. So, Emilie.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I agree with the rep from Colchester. In my time in the legislature, I have seen this program be extremely effective. And in my part of the state, I've seen the work that they've done with folks Burlington and others. And, again, yeah, this is our value statement, and we don't make the final call, but very supportive of of the work that they do and very needed and important and underfunded agency. So I vote yay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And we don't need you know, again, this is just sense of the committee. I wanna get a sense of where people are.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, yeah. I know it's not a real vote.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I was just you know? Any who else would like to comment? Like, I mean, I have my own comment, but would others like to comment?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Just on this funding?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. The rest is done.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Can you verify just where in the draft with what page?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I put it to page

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Three, just before proposed legislation for your information. Okay, so like, Land Access Opportunity Board, Vermont Labor Relations Board, and then CVOEO liaison for manufactured parts. Is this some Yeah. Have we talked about Medicare issue yet? No. It's still because it's still under it's in the proposed

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. No. It's not under

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: the Are you gonna Oh, oh, I Yes. It's different. This is

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: different. Under The statewide landlord tenant education program. No. No.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Not that. No. Not that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Which one?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: The landlord liaison. Oh, that's at on the for page four. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was saying. That's what I was

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: referring to. That's what you were referring to.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yes, the landlord liaison. That

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Has that been a

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: That was current So, that was a former program. I'll forward you the email.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, but that's okay.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Wait. Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just tell me.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: They lost funding. So, the cap agency lost funding for the email or the emails. Alright. So, those roles have been on

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the Okay. So, what we need to do, Miriam, is to move don't move it, copy it. You're going make two changes. The last bullet under landlord tenant reform elements on page four. Okay? Move that to page don't move it. Copy it to page three right after Home Share Vermont.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: But it's mostly the landlord I'm just gonna read the I'll go over it, but it said she was trying to review the landlord VA position and it focused mostly on landlords with the VA expanding partnerships for housing case management support, working with private landlords to expand the horizons to rent to non profit clients. She said that the position, she wishes someone was still in that position, because that position is gone. So, that is where we

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The landlord liaisons and cap agencies to work directly with private landlords. We're gonna I'll have to work with you.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I'm gonna forward this to you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: To navigate difficult situations and assist with that, but why is this $600,000?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: It must be several facilities. Because that was historically this is for the there were two programs. There's another program for the regular cap agencies that has also been that is also born. That was to work with landlords. You know how we were always on a rental registry? So, the local agencies were doing that work. I don't know if you remember, we've had conversations about that historically in community. The local agencies were working with landlords and tenants that were at risk and they were supporting them through that. Those landlord liaisons no longer aid those goals. I got that. Yeah. So how many liaisons does $600,000 get us? That I do not know.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Alright. I know what I gotta do. I I just what I've done is I've said in the letter, there's a few of the items that are under legislation I've said are also listed. But I think the big thing is that wasn't in this all of that is in the letter. It's just where it is. Is the letter should the letter include the manufactured home people or not? Yep. Yes. Yes. Okay. Alright. That's all I need to know. I can I can redraft this and send it out? I'll work with Miriam now. Is there any other business? Everybody wanna feed the snow? Yes. For those of you who are home. And also, Emilie, will you get yourselves better? And and Elizabeth Yeah. Don't get sicker. Get a lot of sleep.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yes. Doing it. And, Mary, I have to do it. What am I? I guess to let best to I I knew you did. Love I love I

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: love