Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Hello. Alright. This is the h nine fifty five conference meeting. We're back after a break. Talk or thereabouts. We're I mean, I think to go back to maps. Right?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yes. With? John Adams. So,

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: you know, one of the just to say it. One of the differences in approaches is that we focused on you focused on SUs and maintaining SU boundaries. We focused on districts. That's just the fundamental difference approach to this. Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: I would say that SU boundaries were one of the things we focused on. And keeping those structures intact, including districts within those SU boundaries. The other thing was ABI and trying not to make these merger groupings too large. We also focused on where kids go to CTE, and we focused on just geographic issues.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So we focused on districts taking testimony, getting a sense of where people wanted to be, and that was kind of what it was.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: We spoke

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: about Mr. S. I'm curious, how do you- I'm not arguing the point, we just did that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: How do you determine where somebody wants to be without doing like a full survey of the people who

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: were What we did was we put we offered opportunity to testify for months, and we actually had the school board solicitation twice send out an email blast, and we got a lot in. That's out. Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Alright. I mean and I would just say I I would just say same. We had our maps up and available for quite some time to look at, and also we got input as well. But we also use the other criteria. We've talked about how we don't want school districts of a certain size that are too big. And there are just some geographic challenges, such as where the lake is, such as the size of the Northeast Region. Was only offering it to say

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: that's what we did. Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Okay. So do we wanna just put up the senate groupings and look at ADM? Is that a worthwhile venture for folks to sort of see? Oh, didn't realize that that made that, or which we can do. I've got a few specific questions. I have a few specific suggestions that are relatively easy. Based off the Senate map? Yeah, well, it's easier though.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, potentially.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: I would say just a couple of fall things. The Wells and Middletown Springs change that you have there, I think that probably makes some sense. And I think in the spirit of everybody really should be looking at merging, I think it would be worthwhile on our map and on yours to have both Champlain Valley and Mount Mansfield at least have a discussion. I realize that is a huge ADM number. And we sort of don't have them either one of us have them with anybody merging. But it just seems like they are neighbors. They're pretty high functioning school system. And they should we should at least put them in one group to rather than two, just to say, hey. At least have a conversation. It may be a very short conversation that says we are way too big to merge into one district. Just a an idea I wanted to put out there.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Chimpanzelli and? And

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: then the belly Okay. And Yeah. On our map, that is group 13 and group 14. Fifteen and seventeen. I'll accept that. Hold on. You 17. Do we have your map, or could you? I don't have a all I have for Senate maps is this, which doesn't have any Oh, the difference.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Senate doesn't have

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Ed Guidance.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: You don't have this? Is there a version? No. It's this one.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, that's the one I've been living at.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I thought we all got some, but maybe not. You

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: don't have that one?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: That one?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Don't know if it's posted. Not.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It's the final posting of just for it. The guidance ones are posted. You do want to do numbers next to that, so you know which ones are on this, I can tell you. One. Here, if you want to mark your maps.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: The other ones. Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Thank you.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: This, however, doesn't add your change for pain map.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No. I I think we did that only in the Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I don't think we changed it on the map.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: It's just in the bill. The map. Yeah. Payne Mountain is Northfield and Williamstown. Right? Yeah. K. Is that correct? A nine, which you moved? Is it just those two panels? Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Going into the

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: green. Into the green.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: That would be moved to. To the green screen. The green. That's right. Okay. Is this Northfield and Limestone?

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yep. Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Alright. So then just some questions that I had as I was going through kind of the Southeast portion. Searsburg. We had Searsburg in our group five, and you moved them to your group one, which aligns them with sort of the Bennington, Arlington, Town Hall areas. And again, this is they're already in a CISA on they're already within the current existing CISA, and they're already within that current SU. So I guess I'm just curious as to why that

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I don't remember, Frank. I think it was only that that's the way that Searsburg looks and everything is connected to Bennington from Searsburg, one of the mountain towns next to I'll look for it. Thanks. So you've got them where?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: With their SU and with their subset in allo group five.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: In group five? In group two?

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. It's in our group two. I I I don't think that's a

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: no. That's Oh, I see. You put it It should be in a two, I'm saying. I I was just asking why they put that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Our group too is essentially the Southeast the Southeast and Windham Southwest together.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We moved we we moved over at their request over at Bruceborough and Stanford into the kind of Wyndham area. That was a request we had. We don't know which towns they are, but we moved into our group two. From, we initially had them in group one, we moved Woodsboro and Stamford into the Windham District.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah, it's just that Searsburg is left out of that, I think, is

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: We can talk about that. Yeah, they were already in that CISA, they were already in that trial. Yeah, school's fine.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Searsburg. Same sort of question with Stratton. You've moved them out of their SU and out of their currently existing. Yes.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We got a very specific request from the Stratton School Board to be moved. Okay. Alright.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Wardsborough and Dover.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Kind of mountain towns directed in that direction. I think also that, you know, if you put Woodsboro and Dover into a different group, they're just gonna vote no. This gives them a chance to actually, perhaps, vote yes because of the construct. I don't quite follow. They are both beta-eight operating. They're operating. They're all single districts now. We're trying to get them home.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Doesn't Dover have a backup, quite a bit an IB program? Aren't they operating an IB program? No. Dover doesn't. Dover is not operating.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: RISE Corp.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Can I ask a question about because I wasn't involved in these conversations because I'm not on the ed committee? Yeah. But I'm just looking at Act 73 and the task force that you were on, Beth. And that was or I'm sorry, Rep. Quinby. There were criteria that were supposed to be looked at. And I'm assuming you all looked at them when you were working on your maps. And I'm wondering what criteria you mentioned a few. There are very specific criteria about how to consider moving districts. And I'm wondering if you both could just walk through what criteria you used.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: So I wasn't on the redistricting task

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No, in your committees. So you were making the math.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yes. It was ADM, where kids went to CTE, what current school system they're in, whether it's a district or a SU. And then we also included where kids go to CTE. And then there was just some basic geography that's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Geography, yeah. What about UK?

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Everything except worry about SU boundaries. Same thing, except we didn't pay attention. We didn't if the we thought more about districts than SU boundaries.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I don't understand what you mean by that.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We if the district wanted to move out of an SU or it made sense for them to be somewhere else, we thought about it as districts, not SUs. Where the district wanted to be. That's just what we we used those criteria, but we thought more about except we didn't focus as much on current SU boundaries as the House did.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I see. Okay. But do you looked at where kids went at? CTE?

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We considered both.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: You looked at the ADM count? Yes. You looked at

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We were aware of, for instance, that we knew a few were high.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And geographic Absolutely. Constructs.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Okay. I would add one more factor that we felt very strongly about, and that pertains to this area, is that there was an existing CISA that was providing services to these school systems already. Yeah. And the ones that we have within that remaining of that space.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And we thought about the fact that, again, not just for the point of putting everything on the table, we thought about this as being kind of a point for a new beginning, because we're looking at things differently and wanting to give districts an opportunity to not be necessarily locked into where they are and be able to meet. That's what made sense for them.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Did you use a criteria of some kind to sort of how you classify because they asked? Like, who is they? Like, that work

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: was from school board members. So school board school board chairs in particular, school boards asking this. Like, in the case of Stratton, school board asked us.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Were there other cases where it was

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: school board asking? Yes. Instance, when we just I remember, in particular, Hancock and Greenville wanted to be in the area that we put them in. And they wanted to maintain the options that they have now. And there were others. Yeah. Now our map reflects, I can't remember all of the times when and where, but our map reflects a lot of testimony that we received after we put out the request to the School Boards Association.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yeah. I mean, handcuff and grammar are the

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: same. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. They're obvious.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So no sort of formalness? We did not have formal criteria, although we talked about all of those things.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Guess I'm a little challenged by how we resolve some of these differences in this region, especially in areas that are already within an existing CISA and that have membership there and maybe getting services from it and then sort of pulling them out and putting them in a different SU and a different CISA. I think there's some challenge there, even legally.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: There may be a challenge, but again, we looked at this as not letting ourselves get locked into the existing, in the context of the fact that we're moving, that we are making changes.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Right. And no one's locked in. We are sitting here talking about something where nobody is locked into anything. But again, we were really looking at some sort of hard lines that are preexisting that are there.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: What is the town that's in a different on the senate map? Is it Sears?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: So in the proposal from the senate, Searsburg, Dover, Wardsborough, Stratton, would all be moved to the left and into the, I guess, the Yeah, you can see in the Senate map, that green that's reaching down into the blue. So the ones that make up that, which

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: is

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Stratton, Somerset, Wardsborough, and Dover are in the existing operating CSA currently.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, they're in the one that already exists, not one that's proposed?

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Correct.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, well, we shouldn't I'm sorry.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, we've got to focus a lot on what what community wanted.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I wonder if since John is here, we can focus on ADM for Does a that make sense, Peter?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: So, yep, John, could you put up the Senate guidance map? And if you could kind of walk us through some of the groupings, and what I think what we'd like to know is perhaps ADM in those groupings.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Yes. I should be able to do that through the record. I'm John Adams, director of center for geographic information.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Let me

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: see if I can screen share here. Can you all see my screen now?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: We can. It's not colored in with groupings.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Okay. I just wanted to point out before opening up the school district builder here, we've added this is in the school explorer map. There's now a conference committee grouping where we have put the senate draft and the house draft as well as outlines if you wanted to compare one with the other and pull in any of the other layers with different criteria. So if that's of interest to anyone and or if there are other layers or proposals, this is where we would likely add them in the School Explorer.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Where is the School Explorer link?

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: It is if you go to it looks like I can't can I add anything in the chat here?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Probably not. We're not on the chat either.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Okay, so that wouldn't help. If you go to map.vermont.gov/education. In terms of the senate ADM numbers, These I don't know how best to to make this helpful or useful for you all, but

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Oh, because we we can't really see that that well. It may be easier for just us us to ask you questions based on groupings. So Okay. For example, upper left gray, otherwise known as number 12, grouping number 12.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yes.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: What's the ABM there?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: 9122.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: And then I don't know if this does not add your cleanup switch in this. But if you could tell us what the current ADM is on number 18, which is the bright light blue.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: 6855.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: So that's Central Vermont minus Payton, without Payton Mountain and Northfield Avenue.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: 6000.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: How about number 11, upper right hand corner?

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: 4 Thousand 113.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Size. What about pink and purple, CBU and MMBN? Oh, yeah. Groups Oh, you guys do have them. Is that 16?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And 15? 15 and 17?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: It's fifteen and sixteen. Yeah. 1516. 15 is

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: $2,005.99.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: How much? 16?

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Is $4,001.26.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: What did you have for 'fifteen again?

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: 2,599.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: And now could you I don't I don't wanna drive the train here, but people have more questions. I was just trying to think how to put up the house guidance map that we could ask about some of the same areas.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: The house guidance map, I don't actually have the builder configuration for it, so

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I can't give you the

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: ADM numbers like I am with the senate one, unless someone emails me a link to the latest house version.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I think Peter's figuring out how to do that right now.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Okay. First, I may be sending you just a PDF. Right? Yeah. It's what I which is what we've had posted. But you must have created the PDF for us. Anyway, I just sent the the the link to the PDF that we had.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: I do have the the PDF, and I have that up on the screen. I do not have it in the indirect builder app.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Okay. I guess I would just say, Beth, you can correct me wrong, but we we really try to sort of stick to that 2 to 4,000 range, to creating these, seeing that, and in some areas, it's more like two, especially up in the Northeast Kingdom, because you just can't build the borders without building a huge geographic region.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I wonder, Rep Quimby, because you're from up in the Northeast Kingdom area. Did you have conversations about the Senate versus the House map up there, which is preferable or? I have not had a lot of input received on comparing those two at this point.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: I will say that We also started off very similar to what the Senate had and the feedback we got was that just simply the geographic distance between Newport, which is the main hub to everywhere else was a long, long distance and very different operating systems to put together in such a huge geographic region. So you can sort of look at the upper right on the hours, you've got, Canaan, which is a pre K-twelve, you've got all the kingdom choice, not operating those schools anywhere there. We kept them within the grouping that also has Linden and students, that's where most of them send their nine through 12 students to.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I will say we did have this configuration, the senate configuration from my own school district putting in the Cal Co op at one point. But it didn't take

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: it out. That's right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: We did go back. Because if we then made a decision to own our super pay, you need boundaries.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Got it, okay. Yeah, and I

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: guess that's just geographically and operationally challenging swath of land. And I'd say that the Franklin County one is geographically challenging because you got the lake in the way, but also at 9,000, that's a pretty high number.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I don't think it's a problem to be built by this one. I think we were just trying to get fewer. Yeah, appreciate that. So

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: you're okay with the Senate or the House of Origin group twelve and eleven out there? I

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: wonder if we can John, back on the Senate maps, is that somewhat still interactive? I hope it's gonna make a big enough difference, but I was wondering if we pull the islands out of that Franklin County part that you guys have put together, could it get us down to a better number? But there's just not that many kids up there.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: I'd say just let's see what the AVM is

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: for 12.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: The 887 for the islands.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yeah. So it keeps at about 8,000.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: And 8,235 for grouping 12.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Still really big.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Is there any reason within those groupings that they can't look at, I don't know, also, it's not that they'll have to, the point isn't always that they're all in one group at the end. They can divide themselves, if that makes sense as well.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yes, the fact is this is all guidance, which I keep saying. I would just say, however, the level to which we can focus the facilitators, they're gonna get a sense on the ground and say, actually these lines should be adjusted slightly this way or that way, but to sort of say, here's a giant region with eight, nine thousand kids.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Just getting all those folks around the table and then having them figure out how to separate could be quite chaotic and lengthy, right?

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It might be, it also might be good, also might be healthy. But I'm not,

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: once again, not arguing the point right now.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I would just say we just shortened the timeline in the Senate proposal, means that they're not gonna have a lot of time to have these initial conversations. They need to literally and figuratively hit the ground running because they're not gonna have time to do it unless they're set up to succeed.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And, you know Which also cuts both ways, so just to clear, because if we put them in place, it doesn't make sense to them, that's gonna create its own problem. So I'm not again, there's challenges around the whole thing, the whole concept. And

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: the Paine Mountain thing will bump up that Central Vermont area. So you could sort of,

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: know, we could we could sort of experiment there with a larger number. That's a little tricky because we had we had two senators approach us. Oh, yeah. No, I'm not opposing. I'm saying that maybe we do do that there. Okay.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: That's sort of a lot of tech.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Alright. Maybe the group can't remember.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: I think I have my questions answered. But if other people have other questions about the map and the ABM and all of that. So I see if there's any other area that

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I was sort of

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: let's see.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Can I just ask about this? There's Norwich, Fairleigh, Berkshire, and West Fairleigh. Those are both those two white areas are both interstate districts? Okay. Are they the same interstate districts? No, they're two different ones. And then in between is that herd?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And so is that on both maps, they're going with the group above fairly?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: That is their SU.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Just like the same as we have. Okay. Yeah. I I get started. I appreciate the the help, John. And maybe we might leave a link, the interactive link, to the Senate map posted, although it's up there now, the ones that I sent along. So I'm good. Don't know if anybody else has questions for John.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, can you actually you had the question, Brett Conlin, about CBU and Mount Mansfield being in a group. I'm wondering, since CBU is quite big, it's 4,100 about, what what is the Essex High School number that's the Essex West Westford District? How many is the ADM there?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: That'd be a question for John.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Seven thousand four seventeen.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, wow.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: For just the just the Essex Westford School. Oh, this is the the grouping.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, yeah. No. I'm just asking for Essex Westford

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Alone. How how big is that school?

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Just the school district. Let's see. 1,800.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: 1,800. Essex Westford total?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Essex and Westford, do get it?

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Sorry, sorry. Yeah. District 30 3621, if that's that sound right.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: So I think that's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: That does sound right.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Essex. Okay. That includes Essex Junction, Essex Town, and Westford?

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. Mhmm.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: 3621 for that district?

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Yes.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: We currently have them both. We have them just solo probably.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No, they're not solo. And I don't think in either map they're solo.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Who is group fifteen? Evening at six Westford and Yes? A lot of other games in the way. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: John, who is in the group?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Include? In the

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: senate form or only the

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Gina is in Champaign Valley District.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Not in the That's in the senate now. I'm looking at the Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Alright. So the house is group fifteen is the question.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That's the question. In

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: the house group fifteen, I just can't there's a lot of superfluous stuff in the way of in the PDF.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, maybe it is just I

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: think it's probably is.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: In the house one. I think it's just The lieutenant one is. That one. Next, we've got a couple other pages. Yes.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: It is with Colchester and Hilton PDS report. We're a minute. Sorry. That's number

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: That's number 13. K. Okay. Last is also I can see. It doesn't

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Seven kids, 7,000, 7,000, 400 kids.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I just wonder about Yes? I'm not sure exactly how to say that, but think you had mentioned, should we put these districts together and make everybody have a conversation about merging and proposed CBU and MMU? And I just wonder if it's I, on one hand, think, oh, it's fair to have everybody have these conversations. And on the other hand, we don't want to waste anybody's time. And I wonder so then I was thinking, since CVU is so big, maybe we move MMU to with Essex Westberg. But they're also quite big. So I just

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Geographically, MMU and CBU, there's a lot of hosts in the way going in any direction. I'm not quite sure what the best option is.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. I mean, I don't

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: They're all sort of at scale. Probably, we should have a conversation anyway. We could put the three of them together in a group for for a a conversation.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, I mean, there's The whole new Colchester and the islands all go together geographically. Don't know about Does that make sense to you?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yeah. Wow.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: He really brought the coolest slave.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I know.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: What is that? That's where people draw. That's where they go.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Travels, traffic patterns. I just think whatever map we determine, just will say this again. We have to set everybody up for the easiest start possible. Have taken away a year and the timeline in the proposal in the Senate, and we need to make sure that they can hit the ground running and are within groupings that make sense for them with already established relationships.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The groupings aren't necessarily the same things, so we have to just keep that in mind.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And that are going to lead to the greatest highest percentage of success of the mergers. Because otherwise, we're just gonna waste everybody's time. If they have to to spend three months getting to know each other, they're never going to be able to. And if you're already in a SU, you're already in a CISA, you're already in a community that travels together and does sports together and kids went to daycare together and all those things, it's going to be a lot easier than if we create lines. That's one of the reasons, looking at the Northeast Kingdom, it's a huge geographic area. I don't know what the relationship you live there, not me, but the relationships across that span are. I think it's just we want to and need to set these conversations up for success. Otherwise, people are not gonna merge in the timeline, especially the timeline that we've given them, that we're proposing in our map.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think, regularly, setting up for success is good. Yeah,

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: to start I would say, you you talk about proposals, I would say our proposal would be to not move the boundaries as proposed by the house in the southern part of the state where there is an existing CISA boundary that would be pulling people out of that already sort of legally obligated arrangement. And I would just say for the time being, it's all guidance. If the guidance person gets down there and says and these people say, that's not the way we wanna go, but they can do that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And then you're also proposing splitting the kingdom up because it's too big for relationship.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yeah. Would say I'm trying to find room for compromise over something that is guidance anyway. But because it's basically These are just sort of inescapable facts, that is the distance of the Northeast Kingdom. That is that the proposed group up in Franklin County at 9,100 is probably too many, that there is the existing CISA boundary that is a sort of a legal entity there. Wells Middletown Springs thing, I think sounds fine. I think if you've got sort of strong on boardness with Payne Mountain, give it a shot. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And then we already had some agreement on the islands, right?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: Yeah. From there? Yeah.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We'll take that all in. Okay. Got it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. You don't need that written?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: It's a Okay. Great. I'll then go with a little bit of insurance. It would

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: be helpful if you can write it up. Okay. Do you want to take a two minute break, do you want to jump in with your mouse?

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: I can take a two minute break, frankly. Set up myself. Sure. We'll take a we'll go up. Stay live, but go off.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Thanks, John. I guess we're live, but go off.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So does that mean If

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: you do if you do want the house numbers now, I do have a have them pulled up in

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: the builder.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, okay.

[Rep. Peter Conlon]: I don't have any questions about ours, but we do. Happy to look at it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. We can look at it. If it's if we can look at it on the password, that's Thank you.

[John Adams (Director, VT Center for Geographic Information)]: Grace, I'll just follow-up with the links.

[Rep. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: One of