Meetings
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[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright, we're live. Alright, everyone. It is shortly after 2PM on Friday, March 13, the six year anniversary when we closed government for voting.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: That's right.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I just wanna say that for those of us who served through that one.
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Wow. March 13. So
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: on that note, emergency response, a lot of the work has actually been a nexus of those lived experiences. So we're gonna have a quick committee discussion before reviewing our latest draft of this. Conversations around, a voting member on one of the disabilities portions of the bill. And the conversation I wanted to have, it was meeting up to today, it was in and around having a voting member, non voting member, and who to represent. In conversation with the sponsor of the bill where we had that languages origin or concepts origin, I wanted to open up a little conversation about thoughts on allowing or crafting language to have to be a voting member. There's the ability to access and vote remotely so it can be more sec it is section four twenty BSA six subdivision Page 18. Line 15.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Page 18.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Page 18. Excuse me. Wow. Thank you. Sorry about that. On the fly. I didn't think. Yep. So that's what I wanted to open up the table because we need to make a decision for the larger will. So
[Unidentified Committee Member]: thoughts representative? I am wondering a couple of things. First of all, did we discuss with the folks from that community and from those organizations that testified about what was preferable. Like, did they weigh in the position on that? Because I remember hearing that someone thought that it should be I remember hearing testimony kind of reporting voting member, non voting member. So, who gets who Okay.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I think we heard a concern that a voting member may have to be there in person or would need to somehow have accommodation to vote, but did not the sponsor of the bill a response? Yes,
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: and that was a one on one
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: conversation with representative Burrows, and her position is for it to be a voting member with the ability to engage in the meetings and vote remotely, so that a broader swath of that demographic could participate.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: And counsel, is that a body that is allowed to have allowable remote voting? Okay, perfect. Because if you all remember back to last year, open meeting law, non advisory and advisory bodies, I'm still confused about that. So thank you. Well, recall that the hybrid meeting requirements apply only to state level bodies,
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: and these are local Right. So they are capable of having electronic, meeting and voting. And also, even before any of those amendments in the open meeting law, members could still attend and vote electronically if the changes were only about having a majority of your public body meet and vote electronically?
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Quorum or more?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: So, you say that adding this remote capability kind of satisfies the balance between not wanting to be disrespectful and have people be nonvoting members, but still ask them to participate and allowing them to participate in a way that's accessible? Is this balancing it, you think, the remote? I think so. I didn't speak to
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: the bill sponsor about the intent, I feel like it would, and we don't have to add the capability because it already exists.
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Any other concerns? Any other hands on this one?
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Questions? So, we agreeable to insert that?
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Yeah. And
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: do we need some time for you to do your thing, counsel?
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Can I just
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Oh, absolutely?
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: So if we allot, I mean, we put that in there, is it up to them to be able to or an interpreter to get to translate for them? The sign and the deaf and the is there going be money that's going be needed for that position? It up to the third board to figure out how they're going pay for that person? That person that they appoint onto that committee that needs special services to help them be an active participant. There's money involved.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I understand where you're coming from, and that's not something I thought about in-depth. So, I wasn't sure which way the committee was going to go with this. But, are these regional emergency management committees purely voluntary and not paid a per diem? And that's what I don't have a good grasp on at this moment in time.
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Good question. So, is there a way to word it that the person could be? I just lost my word, had it in my head, but not obligated, I mean the membership can include but not limited to a person of what was the word they used the word person of a person with lived experience that we allow them to be on. It's an option for them, it's not limited to that they must have somebody that's that range. So, it's
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: a voluntary position, is what you're saying?
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Yeah, but I wouldn't want them to, I wouldn't want to say that they have to have somebody with
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: It's an a very Okay. Capacity for them to reach out to and request participation from a larger demographic within the demographic. Yes, they
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: have to have somebody with experience, but then not have any funds for them to figure out how that person's going to participate. On funded mandates. Okay, hold on, I
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: had Coffin, unless you wanted to respond to Coffin.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Well, I did want to respond Then to
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: we'll go Hango to Pinsonault to the question, and then Coffin.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so thank you. Here's a suggestion then, that there be a voting member nominated by a disability led organization. And in that case, I would feel pretty confident that the disability led organization would have a way to accommodate that individual's participation on the committee. Does that help? Who
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: appoints the position right now?
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Nobody, because there's nobody from there's nobody with lived experience as a voting member.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Correct, but who nominates the rest of the
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: the council? Council. There are two members from each of the member municipalities on the voting part of these committees. There is an ex officio member, which is the local emergency management director from each town. And then there is a designee or excuse me, a representative from each town that is within the jurisdiction of that emergency management committee. So you have one ex officio member from each town, and then the town also nominates a member. And there's a requirement for that nomination that the representative be from the emergency services community and is appointed by the municipality's executive or legislative branch.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: And I think there also is an outstanding question, would we want this individual with lived experience to be separate from those who are already on this committee?
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: As far as the appointment?
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yes, be an additional member. So, we have the asaficio and then however many members from however many towns, one member from however many towns, and then do we want it to be an additional person, or do we want one of those towns? I think that would be difficult. One of those towns would have to nominate somebody from somebody with lived experience, and I think it would be hard to make that decision, which town was going to have that person.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I was thinking of your patience.
[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault (Member)]: It should be one additional for us not. And to, as far as saying, when we're talking about lived experience, not every town would have someone that needs an ASL interpreter. Right. So, it would be dependent on who was chosen by the organization to represent lived experience.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: So, do we have some kind of agreement that we keep the voting members the way they are and add one additional voting member who is chosen by an organization, a disability led organization. And that individual will have lived experience.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Does everyone feel about that for the this is our last notable hanging question before the final edit?
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Do we want the person that has the lived experience have a disability? That's what lived experience means.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: This is what you're thinking, remember?
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Very non
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: property term. You remember from the non profit sector. That clarification, to its own clarity. Jaganese. No.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: No. Okay. I'm fine with
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: that. Okay.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Counsel, did you catch all of that? Or should I repeat that? No, you did. Great. I don't know if we need to go line by line because much of this has not changed since yesterday.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So we are going to give them time to get this cleaner.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: No, I have two. The awful lot of highlights from
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: this one. Thank you.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. So I have two questions for counsel and one statement for the committee that the fire statute, the All Hazards Fireland statute, has been rearranged. So you're going to see a lot of yellow highlighting on here. It doesn't change the intent or anything. We've had the ANR people review this before it got rearranged and renumbered, and they were good with it. So Tucker, I have two questions for you. Page seven, and I'm hoping it's the same on your draft as it was on the original draft. Page seven, right at the bottom of section three, where you have highlighted on line 13B, that was something that was recommended for removal, because it is already being done by the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program, which is a federal program. So, I'm not sure why it's highlighted, but did you have a question about it? Or did you want to ask me if it needed to?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I did not. So, the committee sent specific instructions on what to remove from this section? Yes. That was not one of the number of lines. The proceeding there used to be three additional Right. Subdivisions here, and they were all highlighted for deletion. So I removed them and left this in just based on the instructions. So it was an inadvertent omission. And I highlighted it to show the committee what had been taken away and what was left.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Great. So that was my omission, because I typed that memo to you. So my apologies to the committee. And just
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I will remove that B.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I need to refer to it. I'm not sure he has it, but we'll give it to him. So, reason for the removal and the reason we know that this is already being done and it's a redundant activity is we have a memo from the Vermont Emergency Management Division's director, and it specifically states that federal program that already does this activity. And we will post the memo momentarily. In the very, I hope, the next question I have is on the voting to non voting members, and that will be resolved. And then, I think the very last thing for you, Tucker, is to go over with the committee the grant language, which is in section 12 on page maybe 28 ish.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: It is on page twenty six?
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Twenty six.
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: That's 28 ish.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: It was on 28.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I just forwarded it to him.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: All right. On page 26 in section 12, you're already familiar with the language in subsection A that authorizes the use of funds that were appropriated through two past budget acts and that have been held in reserve. Some funds have been released by JFC for purposes associated with this public safety communications system. You are authorizing the continued use of those funds. And in the new language in subdivisions one through three, you are articulating specific amounts and benchmarks for the use of the monies that will be released from the reserve.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: you're authorizing the use of these monies subject to the following. 2,250,000.00 shall be available for immediate costs associated with establishing the multidisciplinary computer aided dispatch system and five years of software licensing provided that the department, and within this entire set, I'm talking about the Department of Public Safety, issues requests for proposal and signs contracts for services on or before January. So not only are you subjecting this portion of those funds to specific requirements, you have a proviso for the total use of it. And all of this is contingent on RFPs and contracts being executed prior to the start of the next year. On page 27, subdivision two, dollars 190,000 shall be immediately available for cybersecurity expanded use of rapid SOS and GIS systems. Third, 4,500,000.0 shall be available incrementally over two years to implement and expand the land mobile radio network to include a statewide conceptual design. So those are the boundaries you've put around the authorization of use of these funds. Something that I'll note is that as this makes stops in money committees, some of this language might be tightened up. The example I can give you is around the requirement for the incremental use of that $4,500,000 chunk of what is held in reserve might be more specific. The entity that is dispersing the funds might shift, but the underlying benchmarks will likely stay the same.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: And I want the committee to know that this came from another memo, which I'm going to have Nick post from Deputy Commissioner Batesy, who also is the co chair of the Public Safety Communications Task Force.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: This was the language we discussed yesterday. He said he was going to send this
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: to you. Yes, and we got This is a
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: reflection of that
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: conversation. And I'm going send it to Nick momentarily as soon as I get two sentences that I'm not scanning copies of this bill. But you may not have it.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Fire that over then. I
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: will. Okay, if you can just hold for just a second. I
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: think it's section for Cheapo. She wants me. Mango.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: There is a typo, a mathematical error in his memo, which he later corrected in a message to me. His memo will say $2,000,000 and it should be $2,500,000 if you add up the five years of $250,000 fees, and the $1,000,000 it's $2,500,000 So, we're going to have to put a disclaimer on that when it gets posted, and that's letter 2A of his memo to us. And, Chelper, I'm not looking at a copy of the bill right now, because I somehow lost it. Is there a part in there that specifically calls out that the task force is the advisory entity or DPS when expending these funds? It's in letter form, so it's going to be hard to, it's in email form, it's going to
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: be hard to
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: use with an error. It does say that you could check also to make sure that we got some charts on past money spent also. That was from his DPS's financial person. So,
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: it was here,
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Sandy, you want to? It's
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: in the paragraph under B. I'm on page 28, 29. Perfect.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Correct? Yes, although to clarify, so this states that the task force shall meet as necessary to advise the department on executing the recommendations and final design plan for, this is within the universe of the multidisciplinary CAD. If the desire is to make the use of this money contingent on the task force's advice, that's a more arduous, strenuous requirement.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: This is fine. I thought I saw it somewhere. I just couldn't remember where I saw it. So apologies that I've had too many drafts to work. And then one last thing, Tucker, that I just tried to do, and it's about a
[Rep. VL Coffin IV (Member)]: week. And
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: it was back towards the beginning. Could you please explain to the committee the change that's made on page four, I think it is, about the chair of USAR? Absolutely. Thank you so much. So, I think we're on page four. Yes. Page four, this is within section two, which relates to the Technical Rescue Grant Program. And within the grant program, there's a working group that is formed, and it is there to review applications and recommend awards in the grant program.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: And originally, the proposal was that the manager of Urban Search and Rescue Team would be the chair of this working group by just virtue of their office. That has been removed, and instead, you'll see a new subset of PC that states that the manager of USAR calls the first meeting, because you have to have someone call the meeting, the very first one, before they organize, because you don't have a chair yet. And at that first meeting, the working group shall elect a chair and a vice chair, and at some point, adopt procedures to govern the proceedings of the working group.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: So, any questions for Tucker or any pieces of this? Hearing no questions, Tucker, you can do your thing.