Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, yes. Jessica, I have totally apologized. Jessica is on her. My my apologies, Jessica. Come join us at the table. And We are live. Great. Welcome, Jessica. Thank you. So grateful to have you here. Yeah. Of course. We're turning to I just have it. We're gonna get my bill. We're we are addressed 2.1. Oh, thank you. We're section 10, I believe, or 11. I think it's section 11. It's section 11 after the After the repeal. Yeah. After the repeal. And so we are at section 10, which is the enhanced, veggie on page seven. And

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Jessica, we would appreciate your input on this. Sure. So for the record, I'm Jessica Hartleben. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Economic Progress Council. And I'm here today to talk to you about the current legislation, which is for the Veggie Enhancement for ESOP and worker cooperatives. Just first, Pepsi does support and acknowledge the intent behind this proposal, which would be to strengthen and expand employee owned businesses in Vermont. However, after speaking with Matt Cropp at the Vermont Employee Ownership Center, and gaining a better understanding of the needs of his membership base, and also for Matt to gain a better understanding of the Veggie Program in general, we both agree that the proposed Veggie enhancement is not the right legislative request today. Right. Based on the review of the VEOC's data, a limited number of businesses would realistically meet the VEGI eligibility requirements and would potentially actually utilize the VEGI program.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: Sorry, did you say? Only

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: about five, maybe

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Maybe less less than

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: And that would be at the high level, just because of the other requirements of the veggie program. After talking with Matt Kropp, the core challenge of his membership is to find ways to access upfront capital for equipment and other operating needs without assuming additional debt. VEGI program does not provide upfront capital funding, and therefore does not offer a solution to the problem that is trying to be solved. Because the needs identified by the Vermont Employee Ownership Center are currently access to capital, not a post performance incentive, an enhancement to the VEGI program at this time does not address the primary barriers that these businesses are currently facing. Just as a reminder, the VEGI program is a performance based program that only pays incentives once the company has earned them by meeting their payroll targets. Those incentives are then paid through a rebate through the company's payroll withholding taxes. So at this time, it's recommended that this committee consider striking the current language in the section,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I believe In section 10.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: In section 10. We have it now. Okay. So 10 of the bill, and after speaking with the Commissioner of Economic Development and the Deputy Commissioner of Economic Development, both have ensured that the Vermont Employee Ownership Center would be a stakeholder in the process to review business development and business stage growth studies that are being proposed this summer and that are currently part of another

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's part another task force that's in the bill. Correct.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: This discussion and work would provide an opportunity to evaluate what schools would best support these businesses, and frankly all Vermont businesses, in future legislative sessions to come.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That is very helpful. Thank you. You're welcome. And I appreciate that. And I would without, I would propose that we strike section 10 from this draft. The entire section, not an element in there.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm I'm just asking. It was

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: really just that other bill

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: from It's just the enhanced. So I also have come to understand that this bill was anyway, well, I I I think this this is a good way to proceed. If in fact this is a resource for some of our larger ESOPs there, there's nothing that If King Arthur Bacon wanted to apply for Veggie They could. They could right now.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: They could right now and they would be also given their Their labor market. Would be eligible for another labor Correct, market

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: exactly. So I think without much further discussion, I would propose that we strike section 10 for this bill and come and look forward to a recommendation from the study group this summer on what we can additionally do to help our ESOPs, which are such an important part of our economy. Okay? Great. Thank you, Jessica. And do you have a quick update for us on CHIP? And we still have the veggie sunset reveal. So that is there and give

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: us an update on CHIP. Sure. So just to provide the committee with an update on CHIP, on February 19, our team participated in a webinar with the Vermont League for Cities and Towns to kick off VLCT's technical assistance program. Their program is entitled CHIP in Vermont. It was well attended by the VLCT membership. It had over 170 attendees, with over two fifty folks signed up to review the materials after. We have received pre application interest forms from six municipalities, with an additional inquiry from over 20 municipalities and or developers. We holding office hours for online portal requests. Our last one is scheduled for today, and then we're going to take a break to allow for town meeting and municipalities to kind

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: of

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: regroup and then may consider doing more later this spring. So, we are continuing to do reach out and are seeking in patients as they come about but the interest is still there and municipalities are So you

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: have six pre applications and any applications actually in hand yet?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: No, not yet. It's still way early then. It's still early. We launched the program, the portal launched on January 30, so we're not, you know, quite a month out.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: What it's very exciting. Any any questions? That's great. Think update. Thank you for that update. We're very proud of our chip work in this committee. Just to go back to the enhanced veggie opportunities, I think I would ask as chair of this committee, it would be really helpful if actually, Pepsi itself asked us for the next set of enhanced veggie incentives. I think it would be from what we from the research Rick has done and what we've looked at, they mostly come from legislature, the enhancements. Is that correct? And I think it would be you look at these industries, you look at their needs based on the work of this summer study committee that Lyle is convening. I it would be great if we had recommendations if there were to be any enhanced incentives. But it would be great if Pepsi itself would ask us for those. And there may be some that come out of summer study and some but I think it would be I mean, it's a natural thing to ask Vepsie to see what would be what might work for the businesses they see that might encourage them to apply where they're not applying, where they're appropriate.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Sure. We can take a look at that. I don't know that BEPST is the vehicle subject orally to make those recommendations. Typically, recommendations come through the administration, but we definitely work with the administration and we'll provide that data to the administration. So I do think that

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So while is really probably the place for us to so I think that that would be because I think it's it's great when legislators have any. They need to have vetted them through the, you know, the whole arena, I think, we it would be anyway.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: So I I'm happy to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. If you chat about when you Absolutely. It would be it would be and I think it would be great to have a we're gonna include ESOPs. I think one of the things I hear you saying is to make sure we include the ESOPs as

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: stakeholders in the summer study work this summer. Yes. ESOPs, when I when I spoke with commissioner Jeff Finn and deputy commissioner Brinley this morning, they were they have assured they asked me to assure you Yeah. That they would include ESOPs and worker cooperatives in the process. Yeah. As stakeholders in that process. Perfect.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And I think that that's that's that's great. Yeah. Any other questions for Jessica? Well, thank you, my dear. You're welcome. Great. Really terrific. Much appreciated. Yeah. And we shall see you soon.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Yep. Happy to come back anytime. Yep. Take care.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, after crossover and later in the session as we get we'd love to have a a chip update.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Yeah. Happy to come back anytime.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. So I think, Nick Bennett, we are going to turn to you. Thanks. Welcome. Thank you. We last saw you at our Chittenden and I, I think, were the only people there, but it was a terrific full rec day. And that meeting was terrific. And Nick, you led the beginning of that meeting as I recall. Yes. And you did touch on this impact study in that, which was helpful. It was important for us. I think, as you know, money is very tight this year, and we are looking at this as a very important sector and a growing sector in our economy, which we appreciate about and wanna support. But we need to understand why this 200,000 couldn't be from Forest Park. It's racked. You know? Why is this 200,000 needed to do this impact study? What are you hoping to get out of it? And who are you possibly partnering with? So introduce yourself Yeah. Great. And and inspire us.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Great. So thank you very much. I'm Nick Bennett. I am the chair of the Vermont Dressed Greenways Council, and I'm also the executive director of the Vermont Flat Life Association. I know there's some great questions I hope to cover as much as I can today. Great. Just quickly, the two organizations I represent. I mentioned one is the Trails and Green Waste Council. This is really the organization of organ trail organizations in Vermont. So we represent everyone from the motorized recreation to non motorized. We're five zero one c three. We're officially designated in statute as an advisory body to an agency of natural gas. Sort of the the aggregate organizations. And then my my day job, my my paid gig is for as the executive director of the Vermont Mountain Life Association. We're an organization that is a member of the Trails and Greenways Council, but we're one of the active stewardship organizations so I can provide that perspective as one of the trails stewardship organizations on the ground responsible for managing, developing, and providing these assets. So kind big picture, Trails of Greenwich Councils, everybody, and then I specifically also represent one of those organizations.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: May I just ask? This is under the umbrella of ANR and specifically under the umbrella of Forest Parks and Rec.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: That's a great question. So Trails and Greenways Council is a private five zero one c three. And so Vermont, as we'll talk about in a minute, 70% of the outdoor rec assets in Vermont are maintained by our on private land, maintained by organizations like the Vermont Mount Legis Association and not maintained by the city. We work very closely with ANR and with Forest Parks and Recs specifically. As I mentioned, the Trails and Green Race Council is a designated advisory body to that group, but it's very much a collaborative public private partnership. And so when we think about the overall outdoor rec economy and Vermont, part of it is absolutely maintained and and sort of developed and steered by the state through things like the Boren grant that we'll touch on. And then a huge portion, the exemptive portion, which I couldn't tell you because we don't have that data, is is on the backs of private landowners and is supported by organizations like mine. So I'm not here speaking for the state. I work closely with AR and FBR specifically and benefits certainly from the grand runners and things like that in the state of things.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And it's I was reminded of this on Vermont edition of a week or two ago when they were doing the piece on the on Alberg and the importance of the snowmobile trails and, again, the public private partnership. This is true with our horse races. It's true with our mountain bike associations. It's true with hiking.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have sold But these public private agreements are so critical to the success of this outdoor business and outdoor recreation industry.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Totally. Because without these, you can't do a 100 mile trail ride if you don't have a lot of private landowners who are willing to share their land.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: And one of the really nice things that's fun because of the fact, just prevalence of private land and the number of organizations from the Green Mountain Club, that's sponsored senior snow travelers to the groups, Commonwealth we are all part of the Commonwealth Council, Trails and Greenness Council, which is a really, in some ways, a unique coalition of groups that work together to try and pursue those outcomes. You don't see that in a lot of other states, and groups tend to How bickering each other.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I mean, you talk about individuals.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: How many groups I mean, like, Mountain Horse Association, I assume a member of the this. So how many groups are actually involved?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: We have I believe when we wrapped, like, last year, it was 50 have we 50 organizational members of the council. So that includes everything from the big organizations like Vimba, like Vast, down to the local county trail organizations. And and that membership is ebb and flow over time. But the council is is set up and the bylaws are set up to represent everybody from Catamount Trail, Green Mountain Club, Bass down to those five person town trail groups that are working with Stewart Trails. Right.

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: Sorry. I No. Those are

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: really great questions. Do want give a little background?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: We talked about this in outdoor rec, David. Thought you'd help with the ground in some numbers. As you've probably heard many times, outdoor rec economy is responsible for over $2,000,000,000 of Vermont's overall state GDP. That's close to 5%. Move Forward Together Vermont, which is the statewide conference the comprehensive outdoor rec plan that was published last year, estimated over 16,000 outdoor recreation jobs specifically in the state. And then we have over and as you've heard on the tourist side, there's over 16,000,000 this last year, 16,000,000 visitor visits in Vermont. They just completed I only heard about an outdoor rec day. This year long study estimated just about 40% of those visits were driven by outdoor recreation. That's 6,000,000 people coming to Vermont for the primary purpose of recreating the site. So this is a huge bedrock to Vermont economy.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: The numbers on the right, I

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: just put two graphs. These are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis data, which is where that 4.8 number comes from. That puts Vermont second in the nation behind opening Hawaii. As we talked about, we don't have volcanoes. We don't have beaches, but we still managed to keep almost pace with with Hawaii. One thing I would note too is that if we look at the growth in that, in this data, should mention, is from 2023. This is federal data. That's the last that's the data we have. I if I pull those same top 10 states, we're actually right in the middle in terms of the growth in that past year of our economy, we're actually twenty first nationally in terms of the growth after recreation. So we're still at the top, but if we look at sort of how we compare and growth over time, we're we're more in the middle.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's that's exciting. It would be interesting to have a historic market to see how we've grown because that's we've always had these things, but how we again, how we package and market them and promote them to the outside world, Go back to the Heather things that we're gonna wanna see. That reflects I mean, just so that we're all putting the pieces together, this reflects a lot of Heather Pelham's work here too.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: And absolutely, and we work very closely with part of tourism. I think it's twofold. Part of it is 100% packaging and the promotion. The other piece that we'll talk about today is the investment in the assets themselves to make sure we are keeping pace or climate resilient. We're protecting those things on private land. When you when you book, it's absolutely a combination of marketing and a combination of quality of those assets too.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And he yes. Because and we just had friends who were here recently staying in Woodstock because of the proximity to Killington, but also the proximity to over 30 miles of trails to snowshoe on in a cross country ski. So it's that packaging and marketing really successfully that things that happen.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Certainly. Right. And I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: did wanna give because you

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: hear that number a lot. We we we shout from the rooftops. It's 2.1% there are two point one billion five almost 5%. I wanted to highlight where those numbers actually come from. This is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, their data sets. They have many data that they collect on sort of I can't see the Vermont photo. Oh, yeah. This is yeah. That's this is the map up on the right corner is state by state. That just highlights that 4.8% on the color coding is kind of how the state compete. And I just included a snapshot of the sort of pie chart on the right, which is how they break up

[Michael Taylor]: and Yeah. I've got

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it on this, shape without the little black thing.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yeah. And the specific data there was more representative. So what I wanted to highlight is that this is purely they take all the existing data that they have from their, their national level data by sector, and it s purely estimate what proportion of of Outdoor Rec is responsible for each sort of segment of that economy, whether it's wholesale trade, transportation warehousing, and makes an estimate. So this is called a satellite account. There's no additional data collected on OutgoRec. There's no surveys done. It's purely top down estimating fractional impact of OutgoRec on these different segments of the economy, and it gives a GPS. It's directional. It's it's important. It does give a really good comparison across states, but it excludes things like I have a bottom, the multiplier effects about direct spending. You mentioned your friends, they have a wood cell. Right. This might look at did they rent snow strip snowshoe care? It doesn't look then where did they stay for lodging and then did the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And where did they eat for dinner?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: 100%. It doesn't catch

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: because they had no chefs because there wasn't coloring.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Well, fair enough. That. Those are those indirect and multiplier facts that are really important to capture that this data in no way, shape, or form can. So, again, this is and this is where we're gonna also note that, as I mentioned, we don't have 2024 data even. This this data usually takes a year to analyze given the the furloughs and the backlog or the shutdown, and federal side, delayed the most recent release to next month. So we'll have new data for 2024 at least, but another challenge to work with pretty pretty delayed data. I wanna highlight what other states are doing. So many other states across the country are conducting their own economic impact studies of various shapes and flavors, and I highlighted some here. Western North Carolina, they actually conducted an intercept survey that's similar in some ways to the work that tourism has done where they interviewed specific people, got data on what they spent, where they came from, and what was driving them in terms of different different outdoor recreation pursuits. So that's kind the most comprehensive study, but it gave them a chance to really connect the dots on where outdoor rec was having an impact, what people were spending money on, and then some of those knock on effects.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: When was the last time Vermont did such a survey?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Great question. The short answer is never. The longer answer is 2016. The Trails and Greenwich Council back in 2016 had some EDR, it was economic development authority, or federal money to do a security grant study that looked purely at four providers. So that study looked at VAST, with the Green Mountain Club, with the Catanaut Trail Association, looked at Kingdom Trails, and said, is their the of those four pieces. I mentioned you asked about the Trailing Green Mountain Club. We have 50 organizational programs. That study looked at four and estimated impacts based on based on those four organizations and and impacts they provide to Vermont. So in terms of providing this more comprehensive look at where is the impact, how is it cascading through Vermont, the economy we have simply not written.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So who were the four providers done in 'sixteen?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yeah. So in that, we looked at Bound. Club, FAST, KT King and Trail Association and I'm sorry. FAST at the ATV Association. We looked at the two motorized main motorized groups Oh, that's clear. Three bounder club.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: Okay.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: And again, so that those four trail systems, and this was their estimate simply in that study, I'm pulling point 16 numbers. I didn't put it here, but they that study estimated the out of state visitors whose primary reason for being in Vermont for trail access, generated approximately 15,000,000 in direct new spending to produce 22,400,000.0 in total economic output, so when you factor in those sort of cascade effects.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So it was 15,000,000 in new spending in 'sixteen?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: In 2016, yeah. And that was those four organizations' direct spending, as I mentioned, on the passes on the equipment, those type of things, and and they and they bumped that estimate up to 23,000,000 when they factored in those. Where do they where do they stay? Those kind of

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And Vemba was one of them.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: We were not part of that. So King Group Sorry.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I have to miss you. Went to Green Mountain Club, Fast.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yeah. Was sorry. Green Mountain Club, Kingdom Trails Association.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Kingdom Trails. Yes. Yeah. And who was before?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: That was in Cabinet.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: I think I And Cabinet.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's amazing just since then what what significant That was bananas.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yes. That's pre pandemic. I think the purpose of here is that really just to highlight many states are looking at this, and many states have acknowledged the value of this as an economic driver and are trying to tease out how do we tune this engine to generate more economic output, how to make sure that it's going to be sufficient to keep doing so in the future. Right. I thought I'd mention once there are less the request or what we've suggested being 03/27 regarding the Vermont study you mentioned before. Was last time we've done it, but this is what we would propose doing or believe makes sense to do. The study that we think is necessary is to focus first and foremost on the benefit to Vermont's economy. That's we need to understand how this is having impacts, which way and and which sectors, and a lot of those can direct. We also think it's really important speaking from a stewardship standpoint, what are the risks based on the sector? Because I mentioned I'll talk about some of this in a minute. We had catastrophic historical flight in 2023, and we had a a replay in a smaller scale in 2024. We solved sector sectors they did. But, again, climate change, we know, is a huge threat that could significantly disrupt the economic output of this sector. We know landowners, they're bearing the brunt of a lot of this increased tourism. That's not a secure, stable access to land. So understanding those risks. The real importance here and the focus of the study emphasize, and then we respect wholeheartedly that challenging physical time, this is it's difficult to and if there's a need to pinch pennies, this is about investing in something that will ultimately generate and does generate billions of dollars. Is that 2.1? Could that be 2.5? Could that be $3,000,000,000? Yeah. But what do you need to both grow and sustainably grow that economic output and to think about how we where those investments make the most sense? And I think that's we think about it particularly important. One of the things that I mentioned before, we talked about a little bit Outdoor Rec Day, this is the fourth bullet on the statewide comprehensive outdoor recreation plan, which is part of Move Forward Together Come On. That plan lays out a whole bunch of priority actions that the Outdoor Rec community led by Board Rec have identified as supports. We have no framework to support where are those investments gonna be most valuable, which should rise to the top from an economic standpoint. There's gonna be a lot of asks, a lot of requests, a lot of opportunities to make investments. This ideally, the study would provide also the tools to say, and that if we invest a $100,000 in this, we'll generate 200,000 over the next two or three or five years. So that's really the focus of it's called think we understand it's the parlance of the study. We really think about this as an investment tool for the state and for the partners that are working here. The specific aims that are called out or the groups suggest to be called out, one is on the stewardship side. As I mentioned before, you know, that there is the part of tourism is promotion and marketing. We also have assets that as usage has doubled and tripled over the past decade have not been kept up in terms of it's often on the back of the volunteers. The budgets haven't changed. The RTP program has remained the same since per in perpetuity in terms of those grants. So the the understanding where we expose the and where do we need to invest in stewardship and maintenance those pieces. The other goals, one is the the value of risk provided by our on banks of private landowners. We had a bill that we proposed last year that would dig deeply on this, but this study would at least provide that understanding to what extent are we essentially leveraged on the generosity of those landowners, where are we at risk, what type of investments are necessary to help secure for access to private money. So other than the final two that I've noted, one is the the value of directing the direct outdoor recreation business. We don't actually have a good sense of how the business is represented by the Vermont economy. We have a decent sense, but again, the data we have comes from the top down federal level. We don't have a survey around something that's gone out and assessed at the individual business level. A lot of those have both the direct spend those businesses are making, but also spend, the sort of, again, the knock on effects of their economic activity, their jobs, what their employees are spending money on, they're bringing people to live on, meaning that better understanding of business sector itself here in the state. And the last one, again, I mentioned before, we've seen tremendous impacts of climate change in the past couple years, understanding putting ourselves in a position where, and I'll speak specifically in an example in a minute, where we're not reacting to, oh, no. These assets were taken out by another severe storm. Now we're gonna spend months or years or what have you where we can't host visitors, and we're gonna see the implications of the loss of economic activity because we didn't proactively upgrade or or invest in that infrastructure. We don't have a good tool to think about what are the most economically productive right assets, where do we need to focus our climate mitigation expenses. It's very reactive of this great washout, this great all means to prevent these culverts, let's fix what's broken broken, and that doesn't prepare us well for the future to continue to generate economic benefits here.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Sure. If I could.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So so as a as a Bass member or an Green Mountain club member, the outdoor rec industry is one of the best marketing and branding tools we have to attract folks for whether it's academic reasons, business reasons, for the long term. Is our

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Quality of life. Quality of

[Michael Taylor]: life is a big plus.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So I agree with everything you have here. The thing that I think is missing is a focus on the growth potential. You need to know, are you saturated? You have room add additional visitors into a variety of different assets that you're talking about, or how can the state help to expand these networks, businesses, etcetera, for the benefit of of Vermont's economy. Yes. K? Totally. But that's not on there.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yeah. That's a good point. I think we that's a really good point.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We think energy loss say it, though. So as you said, think of this as an investment tool. I would say an investment guide, how to guide further investment in

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the What I read is sustainment.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: I get that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. But we want to grow it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: We want to see your points. Grow it without wounding the benefit that it's providing hard for.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, I think you asked that also, I mean, agree, it's not there, but you said it, which is what would it take to grow this And I think, you know, is it saturated or what wound do we have to grow? Where can we grow?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: But it's important to call it specifically. We think about it as there's value at risk. And I think from a from putting my bimba hat on from an organization that's responsible for maintaining this, we think a lot about we're already behind in terms of what we need in stewardship. So But you're absolutely right. Think a combination of where we need to shore up and where can that then leverage and lead to new growth. Absolutely. Good

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: point. Yeah. Thanks.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: To talk, and I wanted to highlight a couple things on those points that are in that language currently. One is we have seen growth, tremendous growth over the past ten years. Just noting that Vermont is an outlier in terms of the percentage of our population. Just if it's not correct, Overall, Americans have continued to increase every year for the past twelve years, and now we're up to almost 60 of Americans who participate in outdoor rec. Move forward, Vermont, that was 93%. Vermont is a state where people get outside in one way, shape, or form, and that should come as No surprise. That study also found that over half of Vermonters are getting out to state parks, forest, wildlife management areas, truly outdoor kind of trail based or wood space recreation. A third of them are recreating on privately held lands. So, again, this touches of what the landowner importance could be, but we don't have to remember. And going out specifically, we're seeing now of just almost a quarter of monitors at least once a year getting out of Mountain Bike Trail, and that's a brand new you know, that's a sector that didn't really exist in a significant way ten, fifteen years ago. I mentioned before, we're seeing over 6,000,000 visitors now for recreation. When we could look across our trail organizations, we've seen since pre pandemic, those usage numbers have doubled and, in some cases, tripled where trails are seeing just the number of visitors in use. So that's where and I think kind of my own example, the state did have a grant program back in 2021. There were some one time funds that came into this enhanced recreation stewardship and access grant program specifically focused on access with stewardship. We did a quick survey of this is going to specifically of our of our chapters. We represent 28 chapters across the state and cataloged in a very quick set over $1,000,000 in deferred maintenance that we needed to to to put that opportunity to invest in. That's just not like That's the amount of the same thing. And that was and we put together a request for almost half $1,000,000 in support, and unfortunately, didn't see any funding come through that program. Highly subscribed. That's many, many organizations saw that as an important opportunity to catch up on the deferred maintenance.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: We talked about ROI. This is where it's at. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where what of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the rubber meets the road? And, actually, this is a big key in in attracting people because this is the the secret the wonderful addition in in in looking at attracting people to come to Vermont. Obviously, we need housing for them. Obviously, we have we have the some of the jobs, and we don't get the housing. They go away. But one of the reasons people love moving here is this quality of life and their access to the outdoors. Access to government and access to bigger?

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: I've been cheering because of that. I mean,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I moved

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: to five. Yeah.

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: I know. It's a good

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. People are moving here.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: It was the reason why I moved here. I think I've been in state five years ago, and and the proximity access out of the recreation was a major driver

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: of Okay. Let's keep ourselves moving here.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: So I I will squeeze you this quickly. I mentioned private lands before. A couple of highlights. A few years ago, in Kingdom Trails, we saw a Citland owner withdraw access to three major parcels that significantly disrupted that network. We don't have a good estimate of what that impact was in economic loss for FERC because of that landowner Do you know why they withdrew it? Combination yes. Combination of perception of user behaviors, a lot of visitation. We saw the pain points of growth, and particularly visitors coming from outside our borders that didn't necessarily know how to read signs and and treat private land like private land.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Which system? Which troop?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: King and treads. But we need to get to the mountain bike system. But mountain bike and and winter cross country skiing and the vast the vast system goes through there. And but we have the one one of the fundamental challenges is we at stewardship organizations have nothing to offer them. We can offer them limited liability. They can't get sued. That's something. It's neutral. But we can't begin to appraise value reduction on the property for hosting public access recreation. In some cases, it's has to weave into current use if they're already in that program. So one of the things that is super challenging is that over nearly three quarters of public access recreation trails are on private land, landowners are purely offering that out of the really the goodness of the harvesting moving pieces for the economy. That feels extremely at at risk and unstable. And in some of these specific examples we've seen, all it takes is, in some cases, larger than understanding the value

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We've of the seen that in our neck of the woods. We have lost access to trails, but with Green Mountain Horse Association and with our own desire to have a link from the Appalachian Trail to into Woodstock. We have a landowner that went through there. David?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So does the state offer any incentives to landowners for public access for

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: beach trails. It's something to consider.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: No.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay, so

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But they offer nothing now, but it's something for us Yes, to

[Unidentified Committee Member]: right. I think maybe one of your elements of your study should address that. So here we are, we're trying to conserve, you know, there's big movement to conserve land, no roads, etcetera, etcetera. The counterbalance is we do it to our benefit, to the benefit of the state treasury, to the benefit of quality of life, and I think it just needs to be, you know, we need to somehow incentivize landowners so they don't just pull off because they've got, you know, a couple grown consumables. Thank you. Great.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: And to your earlier point about growth, part of this study can help understand which outgo rent assets are provided, or where is the greatest value to provide. A land owner, if they're gonna offer a trail that two people, you're gonna use out in the middle of nowhere, that maybe has shouldn't have the same level of investment or support as a critical connection in a town that's gonna generate significant economic output. This one of the things that the study will focus on is that differential. One of the really high value rec assets, the vast trail that goes right through the town, and one of the ones that are lower that don't necessarily meet that same level, and to encourage future participation in the hosting of trails as well because that, again, will help grow the rec economy. Right. To touch briefly, I mentioned the climate change. We saw 2023 huge impacts on our trail systems across the state. As we look ahead, we want to rehand the state of the train, things like the RIZ and thinking about how we're gonna make these investments. We do not have a framework for where should we start. What are the what are it it goes back to what are the assets providing the greatest value and thinking about those are the ones we need to show up first from an economic stand, the bridges that need to be proactively replaced, the columns, the rebuilding of drainage and things like that. Another thing that this study, simply by focusing on that, understanding the value of these assets will help us will help frame for us. And so one thing I do wanna highlight is sort of where would we do we start question. There are hundreds of prior projects on outdoor recreation we can look at. The Bora community grants up until 2023, those projects have provided over $11,000,000 in total investment. This study would be a fantastic opportunity to use those as a data set and say, well, how much value did

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: it generate?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Where should we look at future investments in that program from an economic lens? Those are projects that most of them have not been completed, and and this study can provide an opportunity to to look at those impacts. We similarly have years of the recreation trail trail program. That's federal highway money that comes in and supports stewardship and maintenance of new construction of trails. Those provide a great, again, place to start in terms of gathering data on economic output. Land and Water Conservation Fund, more federal money that has come in and put over almost $11,000,000 for recreation since 2016. This is part and parcel of conservation effort. Those fund those investments and projects must be on permanently conserved lands for health to conserve them, but, again, a lot of the projects we can look at there. I mentioned the IRSA program that BIVA applied for but didn't receive a grant. We have a dozen projects for that program. Can also kind of say, if those could be part of this study to say if we invested $100,000 to what degree did that lead to economic benefit. And then the last one on as I mentioned before, I just highlight on the on the right, this is the sort of summary graphic for Move Forward Together Vermont. It highlights these five year priority actions. You know, number one on stewardship. Invest in stewarding and upgrading existing recreational infrastructure. That's a great action. Where do we start? Which of those will provide the greatest economic value? How do we think about it from a lens when we come? And part of this is really, we hope for the legislature to have a filter and a guide to think about where should we be prioritizing investments in how go rent can think about economic potential.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And who's conducting this study?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: It would be through the through Vorak. So the funding would go through the the Vorak program, and it would be conducted by a third party. You know, there are many experts that have there are several firms that have had water economics, but I The firm that did our or the VGDCs ten years ago was Camelon and Associates. SC Group has done this work. I should mention as well, there was a recent study. This was conducted by CRO. This is a planning and analysis organization based in Vermont that conducted one for Vermont Adaptive. This study was funded specific boron crimes, and they looked at solely targeting the impact of adaptive recreation. So kind of a microcosm, wasn't a study to look at. Similar, I found not only these included some of the highlights in terms of total economic input or output, jobs, tax revenue that's been generated, but also a series of recommendations that are focused around where computer investment in adaptive recreation generate the greatest benefit. The the study itself would be overseen by the state conducted by a third party expert that has done these analyses elsewhere for others.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So what's the total cost of the study going in with your Impenza?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: So the what's put in the budget is 200,000. What's in it?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You're asking us to cover the entire cost of it?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yes. To go through for our cap.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And if we were not able to fund the entire cost of the study, where would you see it's making up the difference to make ensure that this happens?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: It's a it's a good question. I think we've already spoken at length with Forest, Parks, and and about looking elsewhere for some of the data that looking for as much funding as possible outside. This is sort of envisioned as the bare bones to get these targeted questions answered around investment opportunity, growth, things like that. We're looking at organizations like the Northern Border's Regional Commission applying for grants to help support and expand that analysis. In terms of other funding sources, it would likely be a question of reducing scope. It'd be limiting, okay, where do we find the greatest value in this rather than future funding most marginal?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So if if if, you know, given what a tight year it is that we were you know, that that we ended up with last Yeah. You will do you have a plan for how to try and raise the rest?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: We have a plan for where we would go to and, again, this I should say, this isn't money coming to the council. This isn't the money coming to none of this will go to I think Yeah. Appreciate it. Sorry. But it would go but to support Borek in the in the pursuit of this. And and I would say as well, this is, like, another example of the benefit of the public private partnership. The trail organizations and and organizations stewarding these assets are lined up to help in data collection, providing everything we have to help support. So part of this is a participation, I think, in terms of making the economics of it work by being part of that team that's responsible for collecting.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And how quickly would this study be done?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: It would need a year to to be completed. So I believe the the date that is in there now is mid twenty seven, which is pretty typical for her to get to try to conduct a

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So your hope is you'd have something by the June or for the beginning of the new state fiscal year?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: We would hope to have something in mid twenty twenty seven, you

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: know, would be available. Okay. Right. Terrific.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Any other questions before we turn to our next Nick? Because we have two questions for Nick Gremler who's right behind you. Okay. So, Nick, we're gonna ask you to address the Taiwan piece. I think you would have. Okay. Any other questions for Nick Bennett? Good presentation. Thank you. I could yeah. It's exciting. And we appreciate your work. I think you know that. And we're proud of your work. And, it's just this is, it's the key sectors that I think we're all wanting to support as best we can. Yeah.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: I I deeply wanna appreciate the committee taking the time and viewing this as an economic driver for the state. So

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's a huge economic driver for the state. So thank you very much.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Thank you all. And thank you for our directive to hand over to this call. We actually have a legislative ski night tonight. Hopefully, you all heard about that whole finale. Hopefully, that has gotten you around.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have. And, sadly, there's too many other things. It's such We're trying to get a night that there's parker's night. Oh. But you did choose a nice reasonably mild evening.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: That's fair. Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And the NCA offered that we we love lunches, little ski night, and have had lots of fun at it before. Right, Kesha? We've we've enjoyed it. Remember when we I mean,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I I I go to Bolton. I don't know if that was a legislative

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I thought you went to anyway.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Thank you very much. This correct. Appreciate it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you. Nick Brimley, would you be kind enough to join us? Because you were before we get to I the have a bug out. Sections on the housing bill, we wanted to talk to you about the additional proposal of adding $75,000 for a presence in Taiwan to really help build our relationships with both Taiwan companies looking for investment in Vermont and for Vermont to have more presence in Taiwan. I teed that up by saying we had a very productive, Kim and I, meeting with the Taiwan delegation that came up from Boston where they informed us of this $250,000,000,000 allocation or appropriation that Taiwanese have made in investing in the in US businesses. And, obviously, ours our New England sector is very keen on attracting some of that, but and this additional proposal for trade representation came out of that. So would you be kind enough to speak for the $75,000 in that?

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: Absolutely. For the record, Nick Grimley, deputy commissioner of the Department of Economic Development. Thank you Section having me here

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: five on page four. I'll give you a memory drop. Right.

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: Well, we greatly appreciate your interest in foreign direct investment. Sort of as a table setter, we currently enjoy a about a $200,000,000,000 trade surplus with Taiwan, which is, which is great for great for Vermont. Although at this time, hiring a representative in Taiwan is, not in the governor's budget asking, and we can therefore not support this budget request. We do think that, you know, with the informal sister state programs, with the goal of promoting cultural exchange, economic development, educational cooperation, and diplomatic collaboration, which is a company working its way through this body. It's designed to evaluate informal relations between Vermont and other countries. I think that this might be an ideal process for investigating such an investment of personnel into Taiwan. One of the other things that I wanted to address is that, you know, foreign firms looking to choose locations overseas and invest, are driven by a number of different factors, workforce, costs, taxes, infrastructure. As you know, is currently facing a work workforce and housing shortages.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: We have

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: to put in industrial sites, high regulatory and operating costs, and relatively high tax burden. We're currently working to improve these conditions here in Grebonnet. Certainly thankful that, you know, to be able to incentivize housing development through getting governor's executive order on permitting reform and reforming our education funding structure. We think these are all things that will help to improve the the situation and how foreign direct investment comes to, say, Vermont. We currently have funding available for international trade and development. We think that rather than hiring someone full time to represent Vermont in Taiwan, we do have the ability to contract with someone on an as needed basis to represent us in that market, And we feel that we could start there and really determine what the appetite is for Vermont going forward.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: There plans to do that?

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: We can certainly look at it and determine, you know, based on events that are coming up in Taiwan foreign direct investment to the journey is currently at USA in Washington, DC right now, which is a foreign direct investment event that is being held there where you're having representatives from other countries around the world that are coming into The US to talk about any opportunities they're currently looking for. And these types of events are also held in other markets around the world. We'll be taking part of it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So this specific appropriation that the Taiwan has just made, how do you propose to put our hand up in the air and say these three or four companies are actually at a stage that are ready for that kind of significant development? How proactive are you being now with that new information?

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: Yeah, so as I said, Tim Tierney is down in Washington, DC at the SelectUSA Fed right now. I know that he had a meeting on scheduled to meet with representatives from Taiwan during his time down there. So I think we're gonna gain some more information based off of those meetings. And I think that's gonna also, you know, help inform us on where we choose to contract representation going forward. What what seems like the best return on investment. Thank you. Thank you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And I would just like to acknowledge that we have, Jackie O'Donga here in the room who is our, council of state government's eastern trade director. Director. Director of of our Eastern Trade Association. And Tim works closely with Jackie. Yes.

[Jackie O'Donga (CSG East, Trade Director)]: Know. It's just within yesterday, actually. Right. Terrific.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's good to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. And well, thank you for joining us. Right. Your your time is perfect. Briefly. Yep. Nick, thank you very much. That's helpful as we weigh what we're gonna choose to invest in. It sounds like your recommendation is to let the sister state be the funnel for making some of those decisions along with the Department of Economic Development.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yeah. I think it's

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: a good way to look at any sort of formal, you know, long term investment in an area.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And I guess and then I would just ask quickly, Jackie, do other states have that kind of sister state program set up that uses that that that is the sort of sim for reviewing requests like this, like that a country would have a trading partnership Yes,

[Jackie O'Donga (CSG East, Trade Director)]: and one of the benefits of trade council that we have is we can get experiences, shared experiences from the other states. There's a good 11 states, including, of course, provinces from Canada. So there's always an opportunity to get the reviews done and also to share costs when it comes to doing assessments and research.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. And I think one of the hopes in Taiwan was that because no one in New England has we used to have, an office in Taiwan, which we don't any longer. But but but to to think about doing a regionally financed, representative for all of them. Yeah. We we talked about that. Great. Thank you very much. We, I don't think you were gonna weigh in on the housing bill on sections because the transit corridors in the municipality.

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: No. I think so.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think you were just we we needed you on Taiwan. So that that was great. Thank you very

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: much. Before

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we leave economic development and shift to housing, I don't see Charlie Baker here. And are you Bob Clark? I am Bob Clark. Hello, Bob Clark. Good day. I would just like to as we look and think and just think about how we feel about elements in our economic development bill, I would really urge us to look at the all the stuff we've been given on each section. So we have a great piece on the downtown and village tax credit, the legal services, the micro business, the brownfields. I have we have great stuff on on the Vermont professionals of color and on the strengthening our small business technical assistance front of me. I just wanna remind us we've had very good, strong testimony just like we did on the OREC economic impact study. That was great. So just remind us that we have us, I'd love to ask you to review it as we go into the discussions about book financing priorities. So Bob Clark, welcome. Come join us. Introduce yourself, And we would love to chat with you about two seconds in our housing bill. Is Charlie Baker online? Yeah. Is he planning to be online? He's my big person, but I will. I

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: mean, it's not 11:15 yet,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: but It's not 11:15 I did just set her up.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Here it

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is. Here's Charlie Baker. As we live and breathe, there comes Charlie Baker.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: And this is Matt Wallet, our manager.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Hello, Matt Wallet. Development every month of it. So we're shifting to housing. We're shifting to s three twenty eight, and we're looking at sections ten and eleven of the municipal zoning piece and the transit what I'm I think we're calling the transit corridors. Bob Clark. Introduce yourself. So I'm Bob Clark along with

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: my wife, Becky Castle. I own Fisher Brothers Farm, which is located in Shelburne. I think we're flipping the state house with our products. So you may have seen it around. And if you haven't tried it yet, you should try it because it's fantastic. Your ice cream.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. So Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream. Very. Very.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: We purchased the land we have back in 2013. We have been in fourteen year running battle with the town of Shelburne about anything we happen to be doing. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, sometimes we just kinda work it out, but it has been a bit exhausting. And a big piece of right now in that relationship is dealing with house crews, and both from the standpoint of business where we need housing to have access to workers. Right now, I have to import from out of the country most of my crew because there's no one in Chittenden County that wants to come up with workforce or the people that do want to work for us can't find any housing.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm sorry. What have you described your farm? Are you primarily dairy? No. We are not dairy at all. But what We make ice cream. What kind of farm are you?

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: So, well, the best part is we're a relatively successful farm, and one of the reasons is I grew up in a dairy family. Most, almost my entire extended family was dairy in Upstate New York, and then one generation later, I'm in. So it went from probably 75 people to five. And also, I grew up working on dairy farm and learned all about that cows eat you every day, twice a day, weather, vacation, doesn't matter. And so when we bought this land and started this farm, I said, they're not gonna be dairy, because I already know there are a lot of great dairy producers in the state of Vermont, why fix something that's not broken? So we grow all the flavor elements, that's our specialty. So we have about 40,000 row feet of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, pecoronio berry, elderberry, etcetera, and that's our primary crop. We do a few other things also, but that's what our business is.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And how many acres do you have?

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: We have 75 acres, so that was another reason to do what we're doing, because there's not that most, there are very few really big farms in Vermont, but in particular, for doing dairy or something like that, need acreage. Whereas the crops we chose to grow are all very dense, you get a lot of output from an acre, So we use less than half of our 75 acres right now to produce holding a for our business. We are I don't want to get caught No, no, up in the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: no, no, It's like the Secular. Talking about transit corridors and the development, whether it's So a corner of an acre from the transit

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: we are surrounded by mostly great neighbors. We don't have any neighbor problems. We do have neighbors with a $5,000,000 house, with a $13,000,000 house, with a $2,000,000 house, and we are right in the middle of that as that's a bit far.

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Right on Spear Street. Right on Spear Street.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: So

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Is that off of Route 7?

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: No. So it's parallel with Route 7. So if you go up from Route 7, the first parallel road is Spear Street, then the next parallel road is Dorset. So we're one of our neighbors is the driving range of the golf course. We're right in Nagoon. And the sewer hookup is 35 feet away from our property on the other side of the road, and we have had a never ending scuffle with the town, not Matt, other people from the town, in terms of ever being able to do anything with our property other than what we're already doing. And I bring that up, and this is really important to us because we also are huge advocates of having appropriate housing and available housing for more than the people that have $5,000,000 to $13,000,000 to $10,000,000 and so forth. And our land, it it I've got pictures here. I'll give it to everybody. It's right on Speer Street. It's flat. There's no forest. You know, if you're gonna build affordable housing where there's almost no problems involved in building housing, we're like the poster child, and yet adamantly opposed from the many people in the town of Shelburne to do anything. And so that's one of the reasons I'm here. It concerns us greatly that the cheapest house, which is probably the house we live in, in the town of Shelburne, we bought our house for $250,000 I think was the price, thirteen, fourteen years ago, And now, at least if you ask Google and other various things, we're worth $600,000 and we are a tiny 1970s ranch house, nothing special, urban acre lot, etcetera. Cheapest house, I think the average price in Shelburne is now $2,000,000 and the median is $850 or 9 So thousand you don't have any, you're missing a huge part of the community. I grew up in Upstate New York, I went back to remember Where? I grew up in Canisota and then in Cassinavia. So Canisota's where the Boxing Hall of Fame is on the Trudeau Way, and then Cassinavia is kind of right on the Eastern edge of the Fingerhooks. And when I grew up, the janitor lived down the street, I knew all the teachers, they all lived in the town, the police officers all lived in the town, and it was completely normal, that's what you assumed. And now I live in a town, Kjellberg, where

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The new of Vermont, right.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: The new canon of where my wife grew up.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I live I have a in Nordstock.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: So you know you know what I mean. Right. Yeah. It's very upsetting to us because we're willing to do it. We're willing

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So how many acres of your sub let's get to

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: this Sure.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Where you have a bunch people. We have to do Taiwan resolution at at at 11:50. The you are this is incredibly generous. You are wanting to build some affordable housing, it sounds like.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: I don't even wanna build the housing. I wanna make sure that it's available to be built on.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Got And then how many acre oh, so are you not talking about your own land?

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: No. I'm talking about own land, but I'm saying my my hands are full. I'm running my business.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: I'm doing what I'm doing.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But you wanna make some of your land available. Right.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: I interject most fairly. We're also the economic development committee, and I I think I've tried to tell you all about Bob and Becky's story. They've been spending a lot of time in agriculture, but they're just trying to have a small kitchen to produce their pies and have their on farm business. And this water hookup would have solved a lot of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: those It would certainly help in terms of

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: because they've spent now tens of thousands of dollars trying to work with ANR on a system that is likely to be overbilled because they can't get the water

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to look up as well.

[Michael Taylor]: And

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that is your that is what you are hoping that section 11 will accomplish? That's what I'm hoping.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: I'm hoping Section 11 will convince enough of the town of Shelburne to relax and let people build housing that's going to be less expensive than $2,000,000 And we're in a position, like I said, we don't use, we use less than half of our land. We take care of all the land, but we, as far as our business purpose, we don't need any of that, and we'd really like to see somebody that's gonna come in and not only take advantage and use our property for that purpose, but also to build something that's truly affordable and not, I guess, affordable. Yeah, Thomas?

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: So I

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: was about a

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: mile from there, my soil is all vergence clay. Is this the same for you, which is prime for housing?

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: So long story short, yeah, any number of people told us, oh, it's not gonna work, you can't plant stuff there, you got too much for a chance to play. Mean, we got, it's like 17 varieties. Untrue, we did it because we know how to farm, and we did, and we have no problem with it being productive for now. But yeah, it is mostly for ginormous clay, and if you haven't worked it and prepped it, yeah, it's hard. Super happy.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Great furnace. So, this is great. You're our illustration of the need, for housing and for economic development, minus a sewer hookup. And the sewer hookup is on the other side of the road So,

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: and I'm sure the roof ends. Yeah, he's right in. So, I'm sure Matt will maybe choose to give more detail about that. But, essentially the sewer and water supply are right on the other side of the sewage.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: And if you drove, you should be able to build housing along water and sewer.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. And so that is that's that that you are a great illustration of the of this challenge. You have two needs. You have an economic development growth need, it sounds like, with this kitchen Yeah. And a housing wanting to use some of your land for affordable housing in Shelburne. In Shelburne. And, yeah, I could spend hours with you. Right, I wish we had that.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: It's not something

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: you wanna do, specific to the legislation. Yes. And I've already said this to Kesha, and it's been a long time since I was a writer for the State Assembly in New York, but I was, so I understand the process. It's a long drive from Kesha to Hollywood.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I am

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: concerned that some of the language is vague, and that we're gonna be right back where we started with another five year battle of weaving our way through the legislation to make this happen. And right now, I'm up to my neck with the ANR, with the F-two 50 And the four AMR. And

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: And the And four

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No, this is great. And I'm hoping that we'll have some help from our RPCs and others to improve the language. Thank you, Bob. Any questions for Bob before he And you're welcome. Once we start this conversation- I'm gonna stand and Yeah, get you're welcome to participate. Right.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: And I wanted people to have their farm as a touch point because there are a handful of folks in my community, maybe like yours, that keep in touch with every new map and every new ruling and every new bill. I mean, this was in mind for me when I went to the select board and the planning commission in Shelburne, and I said, wherever we our determination about a lot, water and sewer was wherever you are saying a single family home could be built, probably at the cost of $2,000,000 price tag, you could also build multifamily housing without discrimination.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Exactly. Period. Exactly. Period. How do we write that? That's the question. And I I had another

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: I just wanna say

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: that this

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: is not a surprising story for me, sadly. Is what

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: I hear all the time.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: So I I feel your pain, and it's what we need to fix.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yep. And that's what we're trying to fix with this. And we we we're gonna need some help to improve it, but we don't seem to

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: have a blood to get

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the person here. Question for you. How many farms are left in Shelburne other

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: than Shelburne? Well

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I mean, real farms.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: Yeah. Real farms, what you're putting on a good spot. Making that Okay. Us, us, Jim Maley, who has the last dairy farm into the area, wonderful guy who just loves his cows, loves what he's doing, and is just trying to navigate this. There are

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: Are we counting sheltering farms?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, sure. Okay.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: You've seen it? The word of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I I would say, mean,

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: I hate not how much ballpark. We're

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: independent The of sheltering farms. Independent of, you mean a for profit operation?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. A for profit operation.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: Jim Nelly, us, bread and butter, but they're controlled and owned by the land trust, so that's always like, is it really a commercial farm, or is it just a vehicle? I'm not, I'm just saying, it's a question. And then Makayla, that's the farm between, she just got access to the water sewer.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, good.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: But it's very, it's mostly educational.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's mostly Yeah, four or five.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Three or five. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you, Bob. I think what the Charlie and Matt, who would like to go first? Matt, Follow-up. While we're in Shelburne, let's keep our heads in Shelburne. Thank you, Bob.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: Nerd to see you

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: in a suit.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: But Matt is an incredible gentleman. I excelled in my hero, our

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: city rich a lot of them. Right. Evidence of what

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: a town manager can't do, which is proactive. That was true.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's great. Matt, introduce yourself. Director, and

[Michael Taylor]: Jeez. Go for it. So

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: good morning, senators and colleagues. Thank you. I appreciate the invitation and opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Matt Wallace. I serve as town manager in Chelburn. I live in Winooski and moved to Vermont three years ago when hired by the town of Chelburn. My prior public service was all in Virginia, where for ten years, I worked for several city, county, and town governments. I'm also pursuing a PhD at UVM, studying state So and rate development the complex issues before your committee are of great professional and personal interest to me. The town of Shelburne places a high priority on quality of life, cost of living, environmental stewardship, economic development, and related issues, and we want to be part of Vermont's economic development solutions. Our community has enjoyed its reach and growth and increased diversity, which we celebrate, and we work to invest in a thriving economy for our whole community while also responding to the challenges of affordability we face every time we see. Sheltering progress on housing issues reversed some general hurdles. We faced a serious slowdown in construction from the previous decade, which caused housing costs to rise to unaffordable levels for too many. Some of this problem was self inflicted, as we made it too hard to build the necessary homes. Lately, we've scored some wins. Last year, Champlain Housing Trust dedicated Bay Ridge, a community of 94 homes on a formerly blighted hotel site. Those homes used the full spectrum of funding sources from congressional directed funds to waivers of town fees, and now they're nearly fully occupied with a mix of income levels, including one of my town office coworkers and his growing. Other housing successes in Shelburne include the completion of a 12 unit supportive building for Howard Center, the completion of another 12 unit market rate apartment building on Route 7, the settlement of a litigated development approval for 63 homes, and our select board's consent to extend Sewer Circuit Fairy up to three fifty homes. There's also the active construction of another 30 unit apartment building calendar that. I'm also proud to be explaining the CHIP program to multiple developers, and we expect to use CHIP to solve infrastructure funding gaps in build homes faster. Right. Most notably, just last month, our select board voted final passage for a complete overhaul of our zoning bylaws after a three year project of research in. The bylaws have a suite of changes which exceed the mandates of act 47 and act one eighty one. We allow fourplexes by administrative approval, abolish parking minimums, and provide several options for inclusionary housing to assure affordability without deterring investment. Our select board seats a practical balance of market solutions, which advance a clearly defined public interest. This context brings us to the sewer service area, the subject of your invitation and your bill as we pointed out. Right. Bill reduces Sewer and water. That's right. Yeah. The bill reduces the town's power, an important area of lending policy. The sewer service area closely links to zoning and allowable density. The clause at 42A reduces our board's authority to define the edge of the growth area and plan the transition from urban to rural spaces. These are meaningful discussions with strong local opinions. In this room, we all recognize the trade offs between state and local authority, consistent statewide policy, and tailored local solutions. On this point, I lean towards local control because of the sensitivity and nuance in place. Local governments are creations and creatures of the state. If you see a market failure and policy failure in housing, restricting local authority is within its hours. My caution to you is practical, not ideologically. This clause at 42A would cause significant controversy, harm the efficiency of local service delivery, and likely produce worse outcomes in the bulk environment compared to the alternative. Better, I think, to keep this authority with localities, allow partnership conversations to happen. You can trust us to make wise decisions on sewer service areas. In the past fourteen months, I've supported Shelburne Select Boarding two decisions to expand our sewer service area. He wants to support home building and he wants to help a family farm business. Mister Clark has not yet prepared a detailed proposal for us to discuss, but I look forward to that dialogue. To conclude, the town of Chelburne is a proud partner of the state's housing and economic development policies. We are increasing supply, building at every price point, and supporting businesses small and large. Our staff and board are wisely considering the balance of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. I commend the effort to clarify and strengthen state level housing policies, but I caution a careful balance between system statewide policy and site specific local problems. Thank you. I hope you discuss it for her.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. So, actually, I just misnamed the numbers of the bill. We're looking at the new draft 1.1. It it sections. We're looking at sections 11 today and sections 12. Okay.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: But you're talking about the quarter mile. Yes. Okay. Talking We don't deal as much at, like, section 42 a South.

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: So Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's another that's another thing. Okay. But what we're looking at right now is the proposal to enable housing a quarter of a mile from a road with water and sewer. What we're calling transit transit corridor. Yes. Would that how many roads in Shelburne would this would qualify as a transit corridor under this with that have both water and sewer? It says How many nature? Oh. Road.

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: How how many roads? Yeah. I mean, how how many The edges of that area are you know, Speer Street is one edge. Runs It north and south, and one side is in the area

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: that's And Severn.

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Severn is thoroughly in the heart of it. So Severn is fully covered in Valhall's Edge. The other important boundary is Irish Hill Road on the South, and that was the subject of the other major amendment that we made last year where the select board chose to move over that line. Right. It's sort of fundamental to these utilities that the pipes often brought with the roads, and you end up with one side on, one side off. But that's how you create the visual transition and not to have development on both sides with the transition that only happens beyond your vital site. So if you wanna see that urban to rural transition happen, gotta you use it as a vaccine.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So in your experience in Shelburne of the the major transit corridors that we're talking about that are served by water and sewer, is a quarter of a mile the right length? I mean, is that a a do you think that's a workable amount? We are assuming, and it's not identified in the bill, but it's assuming that it's a quarter of an acre on e a quarter of mile on either side of the road. So it's actually half a mile Mhmm.

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Total. Yeah. Practicality And for us is only the only the one side matters because the other side is already empty.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Got it. And it's one particular part,

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: but your other trend at quarters? Same thing. One side is in the area, the other side's not. Oh, interesting. And and the quarter mile depth, it's pretty far. That creates a It it is. That's why a thousand feet of development area off the road. So, you know, think about if you had 20 units per acre, if that old depth Both. Looking both up.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: Yeah. So okay. Let's go back to the the bigger question is two two years ago I mean, we tried to refine this language again, but it was Homax. So three years ago, we wrote anywhere along water and sewer, you can have a quadplex by right. That was agreed to by the Natural Resources Committees. That was almost never that contentious, honestly. So when we say 20 units per acre, etcetera, etcetera, that I mean, that comes into play in the other section that we wrote, which was where you have green space development, a developer is allowed to do five units per acre if they're along water and sewer. We made sure in the next bill that those were distinguished from each other a little bit because we were trying to get infill along water and sewer on less than an acre and have some some more promotion of multifamily housing in in green space development. And we tried very carefully to say, if you don't wanna build anything, fine. But you can't discriminate against a quad flag in favor of a single family. Thank you, Mayor Loris.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Rest, you've got my back.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: And we sat on this committee and I said this to you, Matt, and we said, that's if you have five units even, that's a house and a barn. You can design this in a way that looks rural for Shelburne, at least. I mean, right? That we can't treat these definitions of rural as saying only single family zoning along water and sewer. That's just not negotiable Mhmm. Anymore. So then when Shelburne's had all these debates about what do we mean by along water and sewer, I was hoping you could come and say, like, where did you land as to what because I went to the slick work and I said, you tell us what you think a long water and sewer means, but where you'd allow a single family home, you can't say QuadFlex can't exist. The question is, why wouldn't so we're trying to then go back pretty much after my conversations with towns like Shelburne and say, here's what we meant by you could you're entitled to a point to exit law, water, and sewer. Mhmm. And that's a quarter of mile from the water and sewer.

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Sure. And there's also on on farm mixed use rights and things that you can do on any property in town Mhmm. Within our base zoning. So I think there there's some there's some flexibility on this parcel without getting into parcel level planning in in committing them like this.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: So what's the problem with the quarter mile from water and sewer you're allowed to develop a multifamily property instead of single family?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm not sure he said there was, but

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: It's the process.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I don't think you said it.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: I thought you said you want to reserve the right to have one side of the street be rural, and I didn't know if you meant no housing, which we've accepted. You know, we've talked to other communities in Chittenden County that have said, well, we extended the water and sewer out to this new neighborhood, but we always meant for this to be like a forest byway or some scenic But view or that argument doesn't hold up if you'd allow a single family home there.

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Right. So maybe the distinction is sewer service area has multiple layers of policy attached to it now, and it has a further upzoning that comes with. So if we accept it in the sewer service area, twenty minutes break is the result. We have to further up submit. So it's difficult to take one and not the other. And that's that's been our posture on the two extensions that we've done, is to negotiate those with the property owner and try to like in the case of the other farm, acknowledge that their conservation easement is perpetual. They're not gonna be multi family developers. They just want a small connection for their business. And so that's there's some nuance that that piece of that.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: So are you saying you don't have a problem with our language?

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: A language about automatic expansion removes the ability to negotiate the details of projects because you're automatically including the service area, and And then you're if it comes through seventh time.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: I guess you're only automatically completing them if you'd allow a single family home there. So, I mean, I don't see the leap between four and twenty units. I'm missing that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So maybe we could bring Charlie up to to to and let's stay in the conversation, but let's bring Charlie up because we we what this might help clarify things.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Charlie Clear all out.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah. Charlie. Our regional planner.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Architect is. Architect of bunch of what we Architect. Wow. Okay. A lot of our work. And you talk to us about these two sections, what they do, and how we can make them work better.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah. The former, I'm Lee Baker, director of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. I'm not here on behalf of BAPTA this time, our state association. Just speaking for myself. Yeah, so there's two sections that you asked for feedback on.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Sections now, sections eleven and twelve. Yep. It's the municipal zoning piece and this transit corridor piece. And

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: what you were doing in the first section, the new section 11, was that looked fine, and you were kind of raising the inclusion of duplexes as a permitted use rather than That just an allowed makes sense. I think it's going in the policy direction that you've been trying to do to encourage housing.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: And can we say that for a second, Charlie? Because we, up until this year, we've been saying buy right.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And then we were told, kind of like

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: the game of whack a mole, we're always playing that buy right doesn't mean the same thing, that's a permitted use. Right. So it's not appealable if it's a permitted use.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: That's in the town zoning as permitted use. Right. They already have a right to do that.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: Right. And we are struggling with the we said buy right for quadplexes along water and sewer, and we have people who are ending

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: up in environmental court in Montpelier or trying to do a quadplex. So permanent is not appealable.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Means it's really as a property owner, the zoning is saying that you can do this. It's already permitted. Right. Permit

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is There's

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: not no amending for appeal.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yes, sir.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: You don't We write that in.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And you're not going through a discretionary process with the tenant. It's already Right. Already decided you can do that use there Right. As opposed to, like, a conditional use where you gotta go through some additional hearings or something. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So I appreciate that on page 22. There was concern from David, I think, on lines eleven and twelve.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: Sorry.

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: We'll copy it for you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. No. It's the same language.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yep. And sadly, Ellen wasn't able to join us. Yep. But it's This this language with affirmative use, as I'm reading it, just applies to the duplexes, which are outside of That's right. Apply basically Yeah. Outside of the growth area.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: But we might need to I'm trying to achieve the same thing with quadplexing.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Okay. Yeah, and the next sentence feels like it's getting there, where it says that where you have water and sewer, you can do multi unit dwellings with four impurities. Shall be permitted views on a

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: same size lot, right? Sorry.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Sorry, say It's that

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: the same,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: this is not

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: a I'm just reading the next sentence, which is the complex, the four pewter shall be permitted use on the same size lot as a single unit, which I think is what Rutland District was saying. It should be treated the same as a single family home. You can get to up to four units. You took out some language that gave some space to restrict that. I think

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that section of Okay. You're you're fine with that section what of we have to understand is this means that it's not appeal. It's, again, sort of what we had had originally

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: we have to get judge and donate.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Appeal is a little different than permitted.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: Right?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Because just because the town issues a permit doesn't mean somebody can't file an appeal. Okay. So it just

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: Is there almost nothing Right. That this this can't be

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: religious society. Everybody

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: have a date in court.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: Well, they get a lot of dates in court.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But and

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: It'd be a few glasses.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: When we said by right, originally, we thought we were limiting appeals. But because remember Right. Ellen has said there's almost nothing actually fully by right that it is all. So, Charlie, it sounds, yeah. Sorry.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: You finish your thoughts. Well, the appeals issue is, there's different layers of decisions here, There's what the town is allowing, their zoning, this is addressing that. The appeal thing, sorry, and you didn't really ask me about appeals, but I have testified in other committees, and maybe here also, I do think there's some space to improve, and by that I mean kind of reduce the grounds and also the way the appeal works. We're still doing, by now, de novo appeals. There's still things we took out character of the area, a lot of appeals, but I just saw a decision happen in one of our towns lately where the town denied a permit over character of the area. There's some other things in the system that could be adjusted to get closer to what

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: I want to This check the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: moves it from allowable to per Permitted. Permitted, which is a stronger bar. Yep. And That's helpful. Doesn't doesn't eliminate appeals, but certainly might have reduced them given that the town permits it.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: It's a huge help at the town level. Yeah. Because it's saying it's permitted already. You don't need to go through additional hearings. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I just before we go further into the transit first, I just want to address an area that I know David had some concerns about, which is in the in in just go back up into section 11, which is the second piece in section 11 in terms of any district that allows year round residential development would have to do what?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Honestly, I've read this a few times and I'm struggling to understand the intent because it looks to me like it's saying you cannot exclude mobile homes, modular homes, but so let's prefab homes from any district that allows year round. It sounds like you can exclude them from seasonal areas.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. And I'm sorry about this too because we actually have other places in the wrong word. Says very clearly you cannot go to blah blah blah.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Right. That's and so this is kinda

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: this was supposed to be I mean, what I let your counsel was to look at Hughes research and others and end discrimination against manufactured housing. Yeah. So that's, you know, it's harder to get a loan. It's I had I had wanted like, manufactured housing in my mind is different than mobile homes. Those are mean, if we have mobile homes that

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: are really got a lot more housing, have built

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: our housing crisis. But we once they have to be tethered and piped in and have a water system, etcetera, of their own, we get into a manufactured home that would be connected to the ground. Right. And the question is, and this has not come up yet in Vermont, it's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: coming up in a lot

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: of other states, how do you make sure there is no discrimination against a prefabricated home. Right.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah, my one suggestion for you is take out the phrase year round. Yeah. That's really the phrase that is something Something that that is is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And I see issues. Right.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: That Because any district that allows residential development, yeah, to get to your point, should allow manufactured

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. And I have no oh, yeah. And I've encouraged us

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: to hear from Pew because they have policy language. They have model policy language. Right.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: But to reiterate a point from this earlier is the dis the communities still have requirements over setbacks and driveways This and everything is

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: like eight zero two office.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And they also decide where to allow residences, correct? Correct. So we clearly have zoning districts, industrial zoning districts where towns don't allow any residential. That's right. This is clear. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. Now, private quarters, please share with us the impact of this proposal as you see it as a planner because we are coming to our decision points on this, and we need to really either understand how we need to refine it a bit and language that would refine it, or how can we what did you think?

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: So we're on the bottom of page 22.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. We're bottom at of page 22 on to yeah. 12, right?

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: Yeah. 4,303.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: I get before I get into the specific language, there there is an issue in act 21 that has from my perspective, been coming up with as we're bringing those four growth areas to the LERB to approve for Act two fifty partial exemptions and for designations, there isn't enough weight provided to the LERB to say, Include water and sewer service areas. We've been getting some commentary back from them where they are asking us to justify why that water and sewer service area. I do think there is something here, some direction, this concept. I'm not sure if this is the right place because this isn't necessarily directing the lurb to do anything in how they're making those decisions. So there is an issue related

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: to It's a boat's hand. I mean, there this is being fought at the town

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: level and the state level, unfortunately. So, where, I mean, if this isn't the right place, where should we be putting this?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah, that would be in Act 181 revisions,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you know Which is right now Anne's committee is considering. So, how can we because this isn't our bill. How can we refine it so that it's because I've heard allusion to the fact that it isn't as specific as it might be. Is there something Two fifty four. Woman Ellen could work on that would make this I love your optimism. I have some deadline of 03/13 to get this girl,

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: just need to Well, I'm sorry, I just want your optimism about my ability to give you a solution to what I'm calling it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm optimistic, Charlie Baker,

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: you're Thank you, I appreciate that. Having said that, this language, and maybe I didn't look back at the underlying statute, doesn't tie to the transit service areas that I can see. Yeah. So it's really about the water and sewer

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: service Whole water and sewer service here.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: So just to follow-up on the point for mister Lawless, I do have some concerns just that this is kinda overriding this this new clause. It's kinda overriding the the following two Quite a bit. Definitions that kind of provide some clarity that were added to provide clarity to municipalities about what the service area is, because states actually never really talked about service areas very well before the last few years.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Before housing became such an important thing.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: I mean, we poured over this for a long time.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah, so I really appreciate that there is more focus on this because there wasn't really much focus on supporting the towns like, yeah, map the area where you're planning to grow, but that is a big decision because it's a big fiscal year, right? Children's combining their sewer plants, like they're spending a lot of time thinking about how big should that sewer plant be so that Right. We could buy two those new Service area. The question is how to deal with these properties that are on the boundaries, and I will follow-up with some language that maybe actually fits better in some paragraphs one and two that would deal with this issue of kind of the next parcel without going, and I'm sure if you haven't heard from more of the planners, there is a kind of We're great planner at the moment,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: so we need to hear from somebody else. We need

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: to know ASM. I'm sure the Vermont Planners Association are very concerned about this because, I'm sorry, the center left right at this point, but this kind of pushing the sewer service boundaries by quarter mile increments, like once one parcel's in, then it's another quarter mile, right? Yeah. There's no, how does a town control it in a way that is fiscally sustainable for them? I am concerned with this general phrasing of way it is right now, and maybe there's something that could be a little easier in some definition. Oh, right. So how, one would you,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: how can we move that forward? You need to do that with the other, with that, with the rest of your planners. Yeah. Could we charge you with doing that and coming back to us with some language to instead? And Allen, include Allen in it.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Tom meeting desk? No, not a desk, sorry. Following Tuesday? Whatever. I like that. Happy to do that. Yeah, and I can marshal some other folks that have been concerned about Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So we, at the moment, I would suggest and get rid of your RAM, that helps. And let's, yeah. I think you know what our intent is. Our intent is to be able to take advantage of any Yeah. Properties that are long, water, and sewer, which is

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: a huge community investment. Heck no. Well and I like, I

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: keep once upon a time, I used to think people actually went back and listened to our intent with things as they were litigated. But people would know that this is what we meant. Right? And I'm I'm being so specific because I'm now chair of the ethics panel. We've had a public case where, you know, somebody was asked to interpret the intent of the legislature. And I'm asked to go to so many housing discussions and hearings because we're all alive if we wrote this. And if we can't explain if if our language doesn't match what's on the page, people ask us to explain our intent. And I want everyone to confirm. We meant that along water and sewer, that's federal, state, and local tax investment in infrastructure. And it is meant to be used for the public good, not for a six veteran, you know, single family homes. Yep. Oh. And have 10 acres. That's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: okay. I think you're correct.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: I totally hear you, Senator, and I will also note that

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: like, does everyone clear, like, that's what we meant? That was the intent of publicity?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: I, Having been in multiple rooms in this building, I do, I 100% believe that is I what this committee will also note that there were some other committees involved in crafting Act 181, and just to bring it to Chittenden, and I think watching the Rutland Regional Planning Commission go through the LERB review in Killington, that's your poster child for this. Sure. There's $80,000,000 Sorry, I mean to Nope. But $80,000,000 goes into that water sewer service area, and there's other language in Act 181 that may be prohibiting that from being in So

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: we have to align it with what we have.

[Nick Grimley (Deputy Commissioner, VT Department of Economic Development)]: What the

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: problem I just, I do wanna still go back to, because there were fewer people who were here for the, The natural resources committee at the time said, we'll leave your municipal stuff alone. In fact, they took the four units and said, five. So, like, if anyone ever went to care to go back to the record, we never argued about this section. They agreed that our water and sewer areas, which make up 41 square miles of the state, are our most precious resource to build multifamily. Yep. That Period.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I agree

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: with We were very strongly supportive of this Yeah. Ability. So you are clear on that. We need to pivot to someone. But if you could stand Okay. If you could You're putting that up. Luke's element with that language and the official language. Would welcome some clarity of those language.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: Work with sound planners as well.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Good words. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks. Great.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Well, thank you very much.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Bob, thank you. Matt, thank you.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And we

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: need to fix that. But

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: they're in the they're in the process. Yep. And if you're in SNR 80 and you feel like you mentioned this is an additional base of PAC one eighty one Thank for

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: that opportunity.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you. I thought you both had up. Charlie Baker, thank you very much.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Very much. Sorry.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And we will we're scheduling the following week shortly. Matt, thank you. Bob, lovely to meet you. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Matt. Matt. Matt. Thank you very much. Who would like to be in the chair? Tanya and Michael Taylor. What's your name? That would be great. Michael, pick up. Perfect. I

[Michael Taylor]: am literally sticking the thing together. Bear with me for about ten seconds or so. I'm gonna start distributing these. Committing.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: How much?

[Michael Taylor]: Giving. Thank you. $3.02, 4, equals 5. And I how old do do all of you have one at this point?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think do you wanna look at the or the edit? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: Okay.

[Michael Taylor]: It is a little hectic.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Some of the numbers that were asked for require for the record, Senator Kesha Hinsdale. Some of the numbers that were asked for demanded that I worked with for the focus in you for a significant time difference.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We're just we're pivoting back to, yesterday's conversation about the Ukrainian resolution, and Michael and Tanya were sent off to do further work and and with different emphasis in the resolution. And they have done a lot of good work, and and, you know, we have pets. Have a seat, Michael. On in. And so I mean, I can

[Michael Taylor]: go. I think this time you do want me to go put my body We have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: very I would urge the committee to stay with us as we go through this, but we do all have

[Michael Taylor]: I realize. Okay. I want to tell you that I worked on this yesterday. Chittenden, legislative council. I worked on this yesterday, last night, through Senator Bahuski and the recording this morning, and she worked with the Guardians and they're printing literally over its ninth and our ninth. Folks who keep putting together some numbers and said it wrong and asked for more specificity. And I now have that in here. All sorts of cross referencing. But I'd like to go through this because while it's somewhat similar, there are differences. Not in the overall tone, but I split some sentences up, I've put into more details, and it it reads a little bit differently. So here we go. We are entitled to say, where is the large scale Russian Federation in May, Ukraine on 02/24/2021, which is essentially extended. It's already 5,100 pages. That's the same. Whereas the occupation was initiated in the February 2014 invasion of Khmer, which the Russians threatened the adnexed Tredis on could be its election in Mayor and they were and control. And later in 2014, Russia invaded the top the Rafas region of Ukraine. That's also the same. Now we agree with things start to change. Whereas, these illegal invasions are violated the article two four natural rights citation of the United Nations Charter that provides all members shall refrain from their international in in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nation. Whereas according to the Brookings institutions, these Russian actions also violated the agreement among the post Soviet states in 1991 to accept then existing republic borders, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances for Ukraine, and the 1997 Ukraine Ukrainian Russian Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership, And where is the continuing presence and reinforcement of Russian military personnel, the ongoing land based warfare, and the unrelenting onslaught of missiles and drones on civilian infrastructure, which have brought havoc and law and I changed that from has. Havoc and loss of life on Ukrainians located far from the front lines of brutal combat, including leaving millions of civilians without regular heating and power for months during Ukraine's sarchem under have all severely and negatively impacted daily life in Ukraine. And whereas the war's effect on Ukrainian children has been devastating, I took that out of the prior I've made that a second sentence. Yep. Whereas on 03/09/2022, Russian forces attacked the maternity hospital in Mariko, Ukraine, the key event in in a multi month siege on that city, and an atlas commission fee thereafter. According to the mayor of Mariupol, which a number that Senator Vahubsky found was secured overnight, According to the mayor of Maripolt, over 20,000 Ukrainians perished due to this attack. And whereas the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab, the lab, has identified at least two ten sites where Russians have relocated Ukrainian children, are located in either Russian occupied areas of Ukraine or within Russia's internationally recognized borders. And they include camps or centers dedicated to the systematic reeducation attempting to change children's language and cultural heritage or militarization of Ukrainian children, and in some instances, service facilitator, the involuntary Russian family of Americans. And whereas lab, again, referring to the Yale lab, lab research assessed there is a substantial basis, and here's our specific reference, a substantial basis for violations of the 1949 Geneva Convention and the 1979 Additional Protocol and Rome Statute of the International Court, Rome Statute that amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity. And where and this clause we've seen before about the rear, so we're gonna skip over that. And whereas on 06/16/2022, that clause is the same, so I'm gonna skip over that. And now this is new. Whereas according to the office of Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelenskyy, and I have all of

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: this from His name is spelled correctly.

[Michael Taylor]: It is. I will correct that. Ukrainian military carriage fleets now exceed 390,000 wounded and five fifty and that's supposed to be fifteen thousand I'm sorry. That's not the right number. It's fifty five thousand dead. My apologies. Fifty five thousand dead, I've so noted. The nation's ministry yes. The nation Ministry of Internal Affairs and Collaboration from on the ground. Second? From on the ground, nongovernmental organizations reports that between 80,090 Ukrainian soldiers are missing, and the vast majority are presumed deaths. The United Nations reports verifiable civilian casualties exceeding forty one thousand wounded and 15,000 dead communities of Russians who did not occupy quickly in 2022. And therefore, for example, not including the separate estimated bar of smoke casualty sounds. I wanna make that clear that if you start adding up numbers, the Maripol is separate. That the and and then the resolve, as the general assembly presents the Russian Federation to legalization of sovereign internationally recognized Ukrainian territory. The second resolve is the same, except it now states condemned and not deplores. Otherwise, it reads the same. The third resolve reads the same. The last resolve on the new page five does read a little bit differently because I've extended the distribution not only to its new ambassadors, but to president to Donald Trump and to provide constructive accountability.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Michael, it's kind of good work. Well, I think it's a thing hear what Michael says. I think this in large measure satisfies, I think, the concerns that we wanted to really underscore how many children and individuals were

[Michael Taylor]: And you have better verification of both of of all the comments exactly. So let's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: get on with same term. Having verified these numbers. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Khan, do you have anything you wanna add? I just wanna thank the committee for taking this up and moving quickly. Thanks. Yeah, I'm a little tired. I was up late and and had people on the ground in Ukraine up in the middle of the night tracking numbers and verification for us.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: But

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: so we really appreciate you all. Thank you very much.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And they appreciate it. It's a testament to how important the people in Ukraine feel that these solidary actions are, that they took my call at 03:00 in the morning their time while air raids were going on and spent all night tracking this information down throughout the system.

[Unidentified Local Official (likely from Shelburne)]: Please thank them. Yeah.

[Nick Bennett (Chair, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council; Executive Director, VMBA)]: It's the emotion sheet.

[Bob Clark (Co-owner, Fisher Brothers Farm / Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream)]: You ready for a motion, madam chair?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think I think we need to fix a couple commas and things.

[Michael Taylor]: Could you if we do a motion subject to by directing one comma the spelling of the president of Ukraine's last name and changing 05/5000.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: '55. And then I think I'd be, comma. So I would I would entertain a motion. That's our clerk.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: That's right.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Oh, it drops 1.2.

[Michael Taylor]: No. I'm not Oh. It's 1.1 right now then. But what will it be? It will be 21. Let's make

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it clean, 2.1. 2.1. Right.

[Michael Taylor]: And I will make those last changes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. Terrific. So I'd entertain a motion with 2.1.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Senator Brock? Yes. That's your best.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes. Let me see

[Matt Wallace (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: if I see Clarkson.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You have to feed. And, actually, given that Randy and Tanya have worked on this, Randy, would you be willing to report this on the blog?

[Michael Taylor]: Sure. Great. Now, I'm going to go back to my office right now under corrections. Whom am I sending? Do you want me to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: bring it manually or the original from the editors or whoever provides the original.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: I have the original, and then I need

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a tea coffee of the Yeah. We need coffee. Randy needs

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: to sign it and send it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Out the ranch everywhere. That's How

[Michael Taylor]: about within the deck? Forty minutes? If I can just walk back across the way. I wanna talk to Sarah Vahausen for just a second, please.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We're not gone. We're offline. Thank you, everybody. Good work. Oh, that's all I gave