Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Good afternoon once again. Welcome in to the Senate Government Operations Committee meeting of Tuesday, 04/07/2026. And the other item up for our consideration today is H seven sixty two, which is an aggravated county and regional governance study committee. And this was one that is near and dear to quite a few people in the general assembly. I was not part of the study committee when some of the work was done. In fact, I don't know if there's anybody on this committee that was. Senator Morris was on it, senator Harrison, and senator party, I think, from our side. And I don't remember the the house members, but think

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: two of them are gone.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: That's why there was such a delay is that the speaker didn't get a chance to control those Grenadian positions. So my suggestion is that and senator White has provided us with a draft, 1.1, of this bill, which did come over from the house earlier this year. And Peter Anthony, who had suggested these changes, we're gonna have him admit at some point further down and hopefully vote this out, because again, this has significant interest from a lot of the folks in the general assembly. Yeah. So Tim, if you'd like to walk us through the, I don't think we've-

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: have I don't have we done earlier. We did?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Because I have another sheet that we had. But anyway

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I'm trying to

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: find I'll go back. Becca, I don't

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: think he ever left.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: That's right. Well, thank you for having me back. I'm sure Collamore is the committee members. For the record, my name is Tim Devlin, legislative council. I'd be happy to give the committee a refresher Sure. On the. So let's see. H seven six two is session law that will amend act one eighteen from 2014, and that was an act that created the county regional governance study committee. This was a committee that was generally tasked with expanding the current state of county and regional governance, also offering various recommendations on whether to expand, rework, or leave alone, essentially, exactly what county and regional government should look like to the state. The committee, after undergoing the recomposition of membership, issued its inter kind of, Lyndal report in including some recommendations that really, although they didn't get to the charge of the committee, recommended essentially extending the life of the committee, as well as making some minor changes to the skill, power, and duties and replacing the co chairs with just one chair as well. Yep. We did. The One down. And then also in that version that was passed by the house, stand some legislative intent and, again, somewhat adjusted some of the powers and duties of that committee. The now jumping over to the proposed amendment, which is draft all of one day or two per day. This is framed as a committee amendment and the strike all was offered there. And I should just note that even though was a strike all, it doesn't mend everything that was in the original act one eighteen, just the, post that are coming over the house. So

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I'm sorry. It was act one eighteen from 2,024. Right? Yes.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So the adjustments to the house language have been highlighted for his reference and can, in essence, be summarized by the removal of references to counties. So what was once the county and regional governance study committee, now it'll be just the regional governance study committee, well as, some parts of the scope that have been adjusted to. So we can see sort of powers and duties began halfway through page two on live 13, and then

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: we can see some of

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: the highlights there. You will probably have to go and open up them because there's one of some of the duties. I'll just kinda point those out. We have let's see. A is see. Looks like So We have the committee shall sit in to make recommendations to general assembly on how to improve the structure and organization of county and regional governance, which is highlighted there, including old language that, a, coordination and optimization of regional government provided by state, regional, and local agencies, including, and this is what's been removed, for public safety, emergency management, and public health purposes. That's been replaced with just for the provisional services. Then moving on We talked at all services. I mean, you know, we have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: a history of looking at all the services to just looking at our pilots or the sheriffs or just law enforcement, but, we've had a whole history of discussing all sorts of specific things.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: C removes a reference to county governmental agencies. Then let's see. E is struck through here. This is in the visual one eighteen. So this will be clarification, removal, oversight of the likely pathing admissions departments that is being removed. Then we have let's see, g, h removing county again. And then the paperwork in the house was going to add a subdivision k, which stated the role of of the Department of Public Safety and Vermont and Risk Management responding to all hazard events that has been approached. So then we have let's see. Under that, meetings. Actually, this is something I inserted. It was an error that we forgot to remove one of the reference to codeshares, yep, up in the bill, so that's being adjusted here. We're turning now to the outside of recommendations we have on page four, section two. This is section two of act one eighteen. It was not amended, by the house, but that this has to do with the county and regional government's technical, advice, like the technical advisory group that would was acting essentially as on call advisory body, in service to the all legislator, committee. And there are various references to county and regional governance. I assumed that those would likewise be adjusted with the. So that has been accurate and then references to county and. And

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I just wanted to say, I had previously guessed that the reason that Peter Gregory had made

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: that recommendation, who's from Two Rivers Ai Peechy, and he can testify to it.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: The reason I thought was because there was something to do with the regional county versus regional conversation, And he did quickly provide to me information. I was wrong. It's that counties have no capacity to gear up and help deliver those services. So it's kind of

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: a move, I think based on his framing, like, not really serving the purpose of.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Critical I I just wanna I just got an email from Peter.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, great.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: If you have time, I'd like to request time to provide my thoughts and changes. If you and I see he copied you on that one. Let him know that he's welcome to join us right now if he can Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: If he has time to email at this at this very moment, maybe he can try it. But I'm a little am I understanding that that this bill from the house gets rid of all the other participants and it just has legislators on this study? Are The two parallel

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: committee created by one act one eighteen was always just legislators, half house, half senators, and then there's a technical advisory group in parallel

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, that's it.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: There's this And that was kind of an open door of Allstate's it was aspirational, who it was to like to have, and then it was catch all that says, other relevant stakeholders identified by the advisory group could be invited to join.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Well, they have a way of self identifying, so I'm not worried about that. I guess I worried about just anything that's all legislators who may or may not have any experience on regional in a regional corporation. Anyway, I just have problems with any legislators. Thank you. Thank you.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. If we hear back from him, we can Yep. Include him in our discussions.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I'll just text him and ask him if he can join us. Did. Good. Oh, you did? Yeah. There we are, see. Was just all the two.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I just wondered, Tim. Yes. I know you're just sort of updating his changes, but He is jumping on now. Okay. Line 13 on that has a date that's already gone by. Line 13 upon Page I'm sorry. Page four of the proposed amendment. Yeah. A hundred and 09/01/2024. Right. That's when they

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: shall first meet. So indeed, they have already begun meeting a while ago. Right.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: But you include that only to take out the commie reference. Exactly. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: And also, it's you know, for

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: me senator Clarkson's point later, page five, following individuals, many shall be invited to participate.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: Yeah. Indeed, they have already begun meeting a while ago. Right. But you include that only to Oh,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: you may need to mute Peter. Yeah.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Another talking point later.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, it's you. In the background. Oh. To you on delay. Participate. I mean, YouTube seems to be You need to mute. Maybe turn us off because you're now with us. Peter,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: need to mute. I'm so sorry, my friends.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Stay on pretty soon.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: You'll hear yourself go. Peter, need

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: to mute.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: There you go. Okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Hi, Peter. Welcome in. We're just at the end of the proposed changes. So maybe we can just start by asking you what prompted you to remove county and just make it a regional study and and a committee instead? Because I think there are important differences.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: We're just at the end of the proposed changes, so maybe we

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: can just Here, can you hear us? What prompted you to He has to shut off his feet.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Turn off the other turn.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: To the regional setting.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Okay. There we go.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Can he hear us? Can you hear us?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yes. He can. We can talk.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: But we need to hear you. We got Because we just asked you a question.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: You

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: have to turn off the other Zoom.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Turn the other Zoom. No. Not the Zoom. The the YouTube.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I mean, the YouTube. Turn off the YouTube. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Right.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I'm so sorry. It's just

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I can't count the time.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Hard to be as long.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: I'm sorry. I apologize.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Cuyahoga County.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Okay. So Brian asked you a question.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Yeah. And that was why did I want to take out the word county? Yes. I don't believe that the counties are in any position to deal with the issues that our communities want. I know that there are sheriff issues that remain that can't be fixed solely by statutes but potentially constitutional issues. But the bill as written is way too broad, I think for a group of legislators with a technical advisory committee to deal with in six months. Now, the background that I have here that I'm bringing is that I think the regional planning commissions are best suited to be more engaged in regional service delivery, sub state service delivery. And I think clouding the issue and the needs up with discussing how counties could better serve communities is a distraction.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Right. Actually, that makes You pretty good do? Yes.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: The whole point of the study was to look at how to build up that county capacity and look at the places where counties should be stepping in versus or places where regional groups should be stepping in. I mean, it was to sort of dismantle our patchwork of solutions. And under federal law, there are certain things that we actually need the county county governance to deal with. We've missed out on federal money because we don't have county governance. So taking that aspect out is gonna not solve all the problems we were asking that we're

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: gonna solve. Because one of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: the problems we were wanting to solve is king first came to us through trial storm Irene when we were ineligible to get a bunch of money because it was going to counties. That happened again in the flooding of twenty three, which is when this bill got crafted at that time.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Right. I'm aware of that. And the first issue that came to my attention where counties were in the mix with federal funding was under the efficiency block grant program back that Senator Sanders initiated long ago. And we had to go to each of the county side judges and get them to sign off and allowing regional planning commissions to access the money to do the energy efficiency work at different locations. The state of Connecticut has gone away obviously from counties and they had the federal government designate regional planning commissions or essentially councils of government as county equivalents so that they would never ever have any kind of loss of federal fund access or any extra steps or paperwork to go through to access funds that Congress has designated the counties. So there's a clear workaround that is working in Connecticut on that specific issue center. And I would suspect that, you know, Vermont, if we were to move in that direction, would do the same thing. So county government for general governmental services, I think is not necessary. I mean, sheriffs, another issue entirely, and other county services like judges and things like that. That I don't think should be part of the purview of this group.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I don't agree. I mean, I don't think one person should we tasked this group to determine what the best way forward is. I don't think one person should come in and say, this is the best way. I mean, that's the very question we ask the group to answer is what is the best way forward? How do we bolster county governance if necessary? So it completely changes what the purpose is.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Good enough. So everyone, I I kind of agree too. I I just we talked about it last time with a with sheriff, and and I'm looking to handle difficult situations of providing services for EMS, fire Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Things. Well, that's what we're talking about.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I know. It's been more regional than it has been by county.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yeah. Well, I I think looking at deploying resources in a more effective way, up my ways, the the wave of the future, it's not gonna stay with the towns. I I'm not I'm not saying NVDA, which is the Northeast Vermont Development Association up our way. They're already overburdened as it is anyways far as I'm concerned, although you would be asking more from the county government. I I I would like to explore it more.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Senator Clause. Peter, you were, I think, head of the Regional Planning Association at that point before Charlie took over, think, weren't you?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Yes, I think I was a couple of times over my career one of the times, I think was during the twenty fifteen-sixteen period when this committee expanded shared services enabling statutes to better help towns work together.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. So, I guess my question is, did you participate in the summer, in initial task force? Did you participate when Ruth shared it with Mike McCarthy?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Yes, yes. And then obviously it was suspended, but yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: All sort of regional and county options were on the table? I

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: think so. I don't think they completed their work, but yes, I mean, was on the table, but the word county and the potential for counties to take a new and expanded governmental role was never one that I saw being formulated by those participating either the technical advisory committee level or the legislative level.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: I respect what you're saying senators about not precluding potential outcomes, but I think I just, in my humble opinion, I've been doing this long enough to know, to feel that another layer of new government, which would be the county for service provision is not what would play well in my region. And I can't imagine it would in most regions. Again, you'd be ramping up an entirely new level of government to provide services that are not provided now. I worked in other states where counties did provide services much like municipalities and they were certainly staffed and very capable of doing that. It's just not a

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: New England option in my opinion.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Bill in 2024, did it use the term county? Yes.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That's what the suggesting is about getting rid of county throughout the bill.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I wonder if the solution is to say county and or regional.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I think that's what we did. No. It wasn't and or, I

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: don't think. No. It just says and.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh. Right.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: But in other words, I see your point, Peter, and I also understand what Senator Morley might have been getting at. There's probably places in Vermont where a regional approach, which takes over county designations is a better and more efficient way to provide services. But there are other places in Vermont where it's strictly a county function, and you don't have to do a regional thing. If if I'm Yeah. Stand

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: there. I I agree.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay. I I would say at least in Chittenden County, a lot of people actually think there already is a layer of county government

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That doesn't really exist, and then they're shocked to learn that it doesn't exist. So I I don't think there's a one size fits all, and I don't feel comfortable with pulling county out as a possibility.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Would you be okay with the conjunction or?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: What do you wanna say about

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: this? This stuff. I mean, I'm more comfortable with that than striking it from the study.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: If I may, I, you know,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I think I also want to hear from Senator Harney, who was the one that sort of had this concept came from. Okay.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Yeah, I think I appreciate, just the opportunity to peer before the committee and talk about these issues a little bit more. We will participate in the study, committee regardless of what it's called. I'm confident that what the committee will come forward with is what works for our communities and we will help kind of shape those outcomes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So Peter, while you're on, given that you run one of our most important regional planning commissions, how are the planning commissions created? They were created regionally. What was the criteria for creating them?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: They were enabled they're enabled under title 24. They're in the social there.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: But but how were how were were they I guess what I'm trying to get at is they weren't created by county, they were created by region. So I guess my question to you was how were regions determined and as we were already thinking regionally at that point when they were created when the RPCs were created?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Well, they weren't all created simultaneously. My region is, you know, 30 towns. I've got one town in the Chairs County, two in Addison County and a lot of Orange in Northern Windsor. My commission was the Two Rivers Commission and Sharon, Vermont and the Atacoochee Commission located in Woodstock that merged in 1980. So it was not a top down giving up this, carving up the state. It was enabled under statute, they grew up together organically And now they covered the state, but the boundaries are strange.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, geography, whether it's watersheds or mountains, is unique in the sense maybe not unique because I think there's other states that that have that same situation. It's not like Florida where everything's flat, and you can pretty much, on a map, decide where the county's gonna be, and that's where you're gonna provide services for the people that live in that county. Vermont's tough because you don't have the ability even though two towns may be 10 miles apart, if there's a mountain in between them, it's really hard to provide services for both of them even though they might still be in the same county. So Right. It's yeah.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: This is the plus. It's like Sheffield Heights. It separates everyone on one side of it stays on that side, everyone on the other side stays on that side. One goes towards Lyndon Gold St. Johnsbury, one goes towards Barton in Newport.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Well, that's sort

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: of why I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: was asking how the regional planning commissions were created, if they were created with geography in mind or if they were created

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: don't know.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: It's a little of both. Mine was more geography because Pittsfield is obviously

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yes, Pittsfield is part of the White River Valley.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Right. So I think the parting thought I want to leave with you is that this bill and the discussion around substate service delivery is a sleeper issue. Maybe this committee fully understands it, but it's one that we see on the ground every single day and have never, and I've been doing this thirty seven years. I have never felt our communities were more under stress right now. Yeah. And anything the legislature can do to make it easier for us to either provide a fair level of service to all of our communities or potentially a cheaper level of service, a less expensive one is where we're headed. So if it's not the next session, it's a couple of sessions from now, but it definitely has to happen. I've been on national boards, worked with regional organizations all around the country and we're not set up statutorily in the state to serve our towns as well as we could. Forward to working with you this summer and next year and the coming years.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Samuels?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I think that point is why feel strongly about sort of looking at the whole scope of the issue because I think, you know, we've heard repeatedly this session, and I know when we were talking about recovery, that Vermont's sort of solution has often been let's fix this problem, and then let's fix this problem. And so we have this piecemeal. The the regions don't align for the same services. You know, you look at dispatch versus EMS versus it's a mess. And that's why I really wanna broadly look at it and figure out how we do exactly what you're talking about and create a more universal system that really works and delivers those services in a way that makes sense. I mean, I I wish I could go find the copy of the interactive map that senator Watson made us that laid all the different regional services and county services on our roofs off of each other because it was yeah. I mean, it was chaos.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It was very pretty. It it it must be on our website from 2000

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I'm sure that it is. But when you started, it was, like, 12 different overlays and none of them lined up. So I don't know. Am I calling this the county for this thing or the regional thing for that thing, or am I gonna end up in New Hampshire when I call for this thing? And that's why I really wanna look at the whole picture and figure out how we create a system. So I know that if it's regional, this is my region. Everything that happens and is delivered is within but if it's and if it's county, then it's like, okay. This is my county. But I don't wanna have to guess based on what service I'm asking for or which system I'd have to to jump into. So I agree.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: No. That makes it makes perfect sense. Many have had that wish or that goal over the years only to be thwarted with the complexity of trying to deal with, organizations and bylaws and things. But it's worthy of a discussion always because there is a better way and I'm just thankful that this committee is thinking about these issues.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: We would like to have you back and I'm thinking that perhaps Senator Hardy would be a very good person to add to this committee because she did work on this back in 'twenty four, but we'll see. But Peter, thank you very much, and was great to have you jump on today and not have to have you come back.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Well, thank you. Sorry about my my chaos with the with the sound

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: it. It

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: was it was very amusing, and we needed a little levity in our day.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: If I look like a fool to help move things along, I'll

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: do it.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Peter, you never look like a fool.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: You aren't terrific. Thank you so much.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: And your suggestions has engendered a whole good conversation, so that's good.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: That was my goal. Thank you very much.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay, Peter.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: Bye bye.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So this is just a historical fact, but Vermont at one time was governed by the mountain rule. For a hundred and fifty years, the governor of Vermont came from either the western side of the state or the Eastern side, and it rotated back and forth voluntarily. So if you lived on the Western Side of Vermont, you were the governor for two years, Then the Eastern side of the state got represented for the next two years. It kinda fell out of favor in maybe the mid twenties. But it was there for one hundred and fifty years. And I'm not sure what that has to do with the governance study, but Well, was regional. It was regional. Yeah. No, it was. Very regional. And it followed the pattern of the mountains. That's why it was called a mountain.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: But it is kinda interesting because we have

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: as Alison said earlier, you have the town plan, and then you have the regional plan. Yeah.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: And then there's a state plan, and everything's supposed to tie together to work through with each other, and it is tough. It all need to be approved, and you need to update all this stuff all the time.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: There's the SEDS plan over the SEDS. So It's but it's all good. But I think to go to your point that you made, one of the reasons we're here is the the crisis that began with that Brian and I experienced in this committee in 02/1718, the crisis in our emergency management. Oh, it's huge. And And it's it has a lot

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: of legs. Spurred a lot of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: our initial conversations to our people.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yeah. It's still there. And and

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, it's it's been improved

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: a bit.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: On and on and on on it. But But

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: and then now we're having the same challenge with our law enforcement and with fire.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: I mean And the mutual mutual aid system's breaking, and so if we don't start fixing some of these things, you're coming right up, we're all gonna be in lot of trouble and people are gonna get hurt. Trying to keep up with the codes of firemen now and ambulance is extremely difficult and a lot of them aren't doing it.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: And so now that you're exposing the individuals, the towns, and everybody, and so, something's gonna have to get done here at some point, but it's just my hope in 2¢.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Great.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, those were the two items we have for the day. Again, I'm gonna try to come up with a plan to move certain bills by the end of the week.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: How many bills did we get from the house other than charters? Nice work on your charts.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. That was great.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Phil had me so confused.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: The way we presented it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh. Oh, because no no one ever said we're passing over these other two bills.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, he he had me confused, but he also presented it as if I was not already presenting the work that we did. Because then he was like, you have an amendment.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I was

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: like, what are

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: you talking about?

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Oh, they just put

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: it in there. Yeah.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I was I told you about it. I still didn't report. I

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: know there's a charge for Panton, which according to Matt I wrote this morning on the map is not gonna be controversial. There is one for Stowe, which could be problematic because they we have given them permission, all the municipalities with Bill's Law in mind, put the 1%. All

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: the towns.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Wanna have a 2% bonus. And they wanna be able to do that without a charter change. Or going forward, if they needed to change it

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: We have given away too much of our taxi authority, in my humble opinion.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I don't know. Anyways, we'll have I think it's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Did it pass or that? I think it did. What? We need Or or maybe it's a different Maybe

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: it's on this calendar. It could be on this.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Because it's giving away the taxing authority of the state. It's it's incremental. Oh, they had a heart attack. You know, with f 1668, this was the thing they gave the gold that were losing giving up so much. And this is what they gave us is this local option. Auditicity.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: It to all was just creating equity between the times and not Yeah. And I Allowing them to just adjust the percentage as much as they want.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. I don't think I have anything to Well, then

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: we should raise revenue so they can pay for I agree.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Then we we should be honest and raise revenue. Yeah.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Because they're trying to fund transportation projects.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. But that's not gonna happen at Lacrosse. It is. Yeah. It's total patchwork. Well, you

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: know I

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: have a a different question.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Recalling we're still on.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: Yeah. And

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: there's rules surrounding charter. As an example,

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: the building of Orleans has a charter,

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: it's going to do us by the legislature to all of operate, you know, certain types of departments and things of that nature. And then there's a process, which I haven't ever gone through, but you have to have a village of all, right, and to approve whichever charge changes you want to make, and you'd have a study committee or whatever on what you want to manage and change. And then it comes here. Why does it need the legislature's approval?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Is it due to Who are Dylan's from? Because we're a Dylan state. Explain. That means It's named after someone who Named Dylan?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. He was a governor.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I don't know. We We'll get an update. Governor. He's gonna No.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: No. Constitution. Not president's real estate. So municipalities can't have any authority that we don't give them. We give them. All

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: we wanted to do is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: All the authority.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: That's why. So it's through the constitution. Yep.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yes. We have

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: to give the municipalities the authority to do what whatever we have. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: All we ask them to do is vote to let us know sort of, well, how they're feeling. Sometimes we just ignore them, but a lot of them are, we ignore it. But,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: yeah, it's if constitutional, most states are actually Dillon's or hybrid Dillon state. There are very few home rule states which don't have that constitutional bound. Right. And your home rule states, you'll sometimes see, like it Maine is a home rule state. And years back, they petitioned to have ranked choice voting. So so it was just a vote for the people, and then the legislature had to implement it, but the governor refused to fund it. It created chaos because Cut. Because they had to by their constitution. It was

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: home rule. The people voted.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: And I I imagine, as you

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: promised, can imagine things

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: that you'd giving yourself in the so that was just a question that someone posed to me just behind it.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Just the constitution.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And I realized if you're in the municipality and you're a select board member or whatever, there's a little bit of a constriction there and an intention because you can't do sort of what you know you really wanna do. I don't think it reaches a level of being able to not put a stop sign up on a particular row. Right. Right. Right. Right. You don't need to get a charter change.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: No. No. No. No. You need get a commission from AOT. For many

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: things, a select board composition change, you do need to go through the general assembly to well, first, you gotta do town meeting Right. Right. Charter, and then send it out. I I was just curious. That's that's why.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Was named after an idle judge, John F. Dillon. That that I needed

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: to look up. I I

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: made some pretty deep dives into the the And what the baseball?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Remind me what his taste was.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I don't know. Hold on. I'll tell you momentarily. We joke it's always stones are over my house.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: It's You do? Oh, yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It's just d y l l, and she's d y.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: John Morley III was alive from 1831 to 1914, but

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I don't know when he gets to judge him.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And he's D I L L O N? Yes.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But the sort of general concept is that municipalities are creatures of the state.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: There we are. Thus,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: ruled by the state. We do sometimes like, I know we did a Burlington charter change years back that granted the city the ability to make ordinance around a certain issue. So we didn't explicitly say, like, you have to do it

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: this way. We're like, yeah. You can

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: do that. But we have to tell them.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: That they have that they can.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That they have that authority. And we did that with the local option tax. We said y'all can do a 1% local option tax without passing the charter. Okay? We granted them the authority. Yes.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Because for years, it was year, there'd be another town that wanted to do it. We'd have to vote for it. We finally said, Everybody can do it if you want them. Alison,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: he was a judge from 1869 to 1879. He was appointed by president who was his

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: grand chief. Interesting.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: But I'm also kinda intrigued with other states. Oh. That they get to vote on a I don't know what you

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: can call it, but I think California may do that. Citizen referendums?

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yeah. Where they can actually do a referendum, and then that forces the legislature. I'm not sure they're all in those state.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, so there's some there's some states that Yeah. Are some weird

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So California Dillon's rule applies to certain local governments. That makes it work.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yes. Well, thank you. That's what we did today, that's what we did. But, again, we're probably gonna have to tap the accelerator a little bit more, which might mean a little bit later afternoons, but we need to get our work done and get bills out.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So by this time, almost all our bills from the house have been presented to us here. Maybe we should look at them and see which ones are priorities for us and which

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: ones Well, we have been right along.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: Tanya and meet every week.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I mean, charters are Charters. Charters are in the sense. There's no time limit on them. They could come in pretty much a day.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: I didn't know that either.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. They're

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: They've given

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: artificially. No. You guys sent it

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: the other day. Was like,

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: we gotta make it for a crossover. No.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: On the house side, charters are not subject to crossover rules, which is why they usually start over there and then we just release them when they make it to our side. Because if they were subject to crossover rules, most charters would have to wait at least a full year. Right. Exactly. Because Exactly. Crossover's the week after pound meeting weeks.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Charters come to the senate to die. Some of them stay in the House and die. Yes, that's true.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Anything else today? Me see.

[Unidentified speaker (likely committee member; brief crosstalk/echo)]: I want to

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: draw in two numbers. Die in

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: the House. The sun is out. It looks like the snow

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: is out. Look at that. And it's gone off the lawn, and it's dry.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So sometimes there's bad people

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: actually eat. Put