Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: We are live.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, great. Welcome back. This is Senate Institutions. It is 01/29/2026. And our next item is to look at section 16 of the capital bill and that's the Vermont Historical Society section and Steve Perkins, the executive director is here. And welcome, thank you for being here. And I think you know who we are. I do. Okay, wonderful. So if you just wanna give us your presentation. Wonderful, thank you very much. So it's good to be

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: back here again and we're grateful that we're included in the investment act here. This really is the last piece of critical HVAC equipment, on the history center in Barrie. So through both private fund, federal fund, their combination of state funds over the past five years, we've upgraded all of the HVAC system. This is probably the most critical, unit. It doesn't look that critical. That's the best picture I could get of it, for you. We call it a Munters unit. That's similar to how we used to call photocopier Xerox machines. So the technology was created by the Munters corporation in Germany. They still make the best units, but that that's what this is. So it's a combination climate control unit that does heat, cooling, and very precise dehumidification and dehumidification all at the same time. I thought when

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I first saw it, it was

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: the Munsters guy. That's how I turned off. I was thinking for clarification. That's great. Had the rough He

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: asked me the lunch.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: And I honestly don't know if there's really supposed to be an apostrophe in there or the last name was Munters or Munter with apostrophe s, but is on the 13 Mockford Lane. Okay. This is this is what the the machine does. It protects a portion of the storage facilities, within the history center that we call the vault. That's another piece of, extraneous history of this very old organization. As I think you all know, we're in the museum as in the pavilion, but up until about 2000, all of our operations were in the pavilion. They were in the basement and the entire 1st Floor. What happened in 1992? With Montpelier flooded, the entire basement flooded. Actually, a a bucket or gate as it were of legislators went down. Wow. The general assembly was adjourned, and everybody went down and helped bring all of the artifacts and papers and everything out of the basement, and nothing was lost to that floor. It's why we located our storage facilities and library to bury after that.

[Unidentified committee member]: No. As a side effect, no, I did study on all the state buildings, I told them that's what was gonna happen to the archives.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: So we're not there, which is good, and with the flooding a couple of years ago, the building looked horrible, but we received no damage in the museum as we were above the blood level and not in the basement. That basement, if you're still to go in there today, has a vault, like a huge bank vault, big door. It's where we kept our most sensitive documents. They chose to keep the name. So as I use the word vault, it's it's really the most sensitive area of our collection storage, and it relates back to when we actually had a vault.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: So the again, the the pictures aren't great.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: What I wanna talk about is what is what is housed in in that vault. It actually used to be the cafeteria of the old Spaulding High School, and it's that's compressible shelving, so the the shelving slides together. And it houses, as I said here, a a whole bunch of things, added some highlights to my written testimony, of what is in there just to give you an idea. It also oh,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I think I went one too many slides. Nope.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: It's in there. It does also house, the most sensitive items of the state library, and the state library is collocated with us in this facility, so, utilizes this machine. Just in relation to some of the lists of collections in here, Coolidge family papers, those are a couple boxes. I believe there's 17 boxes of Coolidge family papers within the collection and some of the historical film that we have in our collection, original prints of some of the earliest, film and audio, done in in Vermont. Your opinion?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yeah. Most sensitive document that you have that. So Most Everybody's gonna have different opinions. What's your opinion?

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: So there's kind of two answers to that. One is what is the most important document that I would grab in a in a natural disaster and get out of there, is actually a box of documents that I brought here today, to show you a few of those documents. They're acts and resolves from 1775 to 1791, and there's some of the remaining documents that we have relating to the republic period of Vermont because in 1856, this building burned down. Guess where our archives were?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Mhmm.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: This building. Mhmm. And so these documents are what could be yeah. These buildings these documents are what could be cobbled together. You know, they were in personal collections or whatnot. They could come back in the from my historical site, collecting them in the mid nineteenth century. Now most sensitive are some of our earliest film prints. Those are the most sensitive because they're on a type of film where if it gets too hot, it'll actually catch on fire. And so from a climate standpoint, that's actually the most sensitive item in there. I I forgot. You're welcome. A few pictures of some of the items that I I talked about. So this on the left, the Chambers Atlas, and so this is, by a a British naval officer with the last by the last name of Chambers in the fifth seventeen fifties charted Lake Champlain for the Royal Navy, and he created two atlases. This is one of them. So it's hand drawn with hand lettered information, and and it's a navigational atlas for the entire length of Lake Champlaints. It's just open to a page. And so he he gives his soundings and and drawings of the lake and then actually navigation advice on the following page. That's one of the items. It's in the seventeen fifties. The daguerreotype on the right is the only known image of the second state house, the one that burned. So you can see the saucer shaped dome on the top. Really, the whole central core of that structure burned, and then it was replaced with what we have today. The Vermont Historical Society and the State Library, which together housed all of the documents of the state, were colocated in that dome, and almost all of the documents were were lost to that in that fire. So much of what we have, what state library has, and then later on, archives had to be collected from external repositories or private collectors, that sort of thing. Let me share with you. So I brought with me a couple of items that I I find fascinating and they're exceedingly rare. So I'm gonna pass this one around. Feel free to it's private library collection. You can look through it. It's Bennington served, so it's in fairly good condition. This is a slave narrative of Jeffrey Brace. Jeffrey Brace was kidnapped from Africa as a teenager. He was enslaved in Connecticut. He was an enslaved soldier in the French and Indian War. He served in the continental navy in the American Revolution, which gave him his his freedom, and he went to Vermont. And he settled Southern Vermont, holding Vermont, and then ultimately moved to Georgia and Georgia, Vermont. Are those his words? They're his words.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Where can we find that outside of the book? Is it somewhere where you can read the text of that?

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: There there are transcripts that you can find, so you can do that. There are two original of that printing left, and that's only that's one of two. You know, I would love to come to

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: it now. If you if there was a transcript, if you could direct us to your

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: I can send that to you. Well, we have it in our library. There was a scholar from the University of Wisconsin who did their dissertation on Jeffrey Brace and his words. Jeffrey Brace? Jeffrey Brace. B r a c e b r a z. That's the easiest thing to look up. You can read on the cap of Boi Waru Wrench is what he said his actual name was.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: So if we were to go on there, we could probably find it

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: on your domain name. Find it. Yeah. Excellent.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Thank you. Yep. No. I'll find it.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: It's a great book published by the University of Wisconsin. It has her analysis and kind of in modern words, what he said, and then a full transcript of his words. So, yeah, two of those. But just kinda talking about the rarity of what we're protecting here. And but we do allow people to use it. So that's the other piece is that we provide access to it, that we allow people to look through it. Right? Wow. And then the other piece, that I brought in to take a look at, we were here a few weeks ago. I saw some of you up in the card room, and we did have the act of from the US Congress admitting Vermont to the union as fourteenth state signed by Thomas Jefferson. What we had to do as a republic is we had to move in convention and accept the United States constitution. So this here is that document of the Republic of Vermont meeting at convention at Bennington and accepting the constitution of The United States in 1791 and assigned by the convention members. Wow. So two just just two examples. I thought it it's helpful to bring the actual things

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: To talk about what we're preserving with this piece of equipment.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Can you have us you try it carefully when you have this in your pocket.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: I do. Write it over as a pay. It's in its special box, and it'll go right back That is amazing. When we're done, Mary.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Can I take a picture?

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: But like I said, these these these these artifacts are available to the public. So if take a time to visit the history center, come to our library, and our librarians will make these available.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: This could be something to have at the Bennington Monument at some point when we're doing fundraising. Mhmm. And

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: and that's also another thing that sets apart from archives. We all operate slightly different ways. So state archives is not allowed to lend artifacts. Oh. We will lend artifacts to other suitably vetted institutions, and we do lend to the Bennington Museum on a regular basis.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Oh, okay. Very cool. That's what I've

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: got on the Munters unit. If there are

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: any questions about the machine, how it works, it's a pretty straightforward

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: How much money do need?

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: And you know what's what's amusing? It is like a super precise number because we took the bid process, and then we submitted the bid to the budget office. And they put the exact amount in. So that's what representative and commenting on. That's $566.07 24.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So you've already gone out to bid

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: for it. We have. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, that's good. And is it a Munters? Is it the actual

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: It is a Munters. Yeah. What came in the best was the Munters because there are a couple of the units that are in the country and they came in before tariffs. So we will be able to get one of those if we can move ahead quickly on the project, which was another piece of trying to push it forward. The unit that's there now is So all of this stuff is protected, but it's so far out of date. We can't get parts for it. So if it were to break, you don't really have backup. So this will be installed as we could do spar piping around it as well. Wonderful.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Now there's some other agency that's trying to get funding earlier than what happened in this bill, but are you comfortable with the schedule of this bill?

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: I'm very happy that it's in this bill because it was in for next biennial.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, okay. Good.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: And so the sooner we can get it done, the better, and also being able to secure one of those units.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Perfect. Any other questions? No. No. Thank you very much. Show your thought was really

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: Do you wanna see Munter's unit or do you wanna save time and move to the next or Munter's unit, the water mitigation?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Since you're here, let's just see

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: a little Figure next show. Yeah. Yeah.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: I mean, you funded this last year and we're very grateful for it. So as you know, were water issues in Barrie a couple years ago, and, we were affected. We weren't in aerial flooding, so we didn't you know, the water didn't rise into our building. We're on a hill. We're on the side of a hill, but there was issues with water We're on the side at

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: the top. Yeah.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: Water coming down. We had issues with water in the basement, penetrating the, foundation, and then the whole drainage system that saw the mud. That's if anything that Barry did. So we've been working, on this project right now. So anyone who drove to Barry, the building is under construction. So we, mobilized in, the November. That's the scaffolding that's starting to go up for the masonry work. What we actually started with first was the foundation. We wanted to get all of that work done before the frost came in. This is the back of the building. I'm gonna refer to the front and the back just it's easier than cardinal directions for us. And this shows they're starting to do the trenching back here. It was very difficult to go down terribly deep behind the building because you can see the hillside right behind us, which is part of the problem with the water, but also it's unsafe to do trenches too big without retaining walls. The guys did a great job. Here's the front of the building.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: It's

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: a close-up, but it showed you some of the foundation

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: and some of the, drains. The drains do date to 2,000. Those were new twenty five years ago, but some of them did fail, and we couldn't clean them. Just, you know, sending word of a referral, for lack of a better term in there to clean them out. And so this is the excavation in the front. It's a it's a granite rough cut granite foundation as one would expect to find in Berry, and they used a spray on, waterproofing material when the the work is. Some of that waterproofing material did fail. So we we found areas of failure as they trenched the building on out of the buildings. Just kind of per scale, how deep they had to go to get to the drainage. That's a normal normal sized man.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: Here's a picture of some of the piping. We were we were able to ultimately clean out most of the existing drain pipe once we were able to uncover it, which was great. We did replace what needed to be replaced. That's a it's hard to get the camera in there. It's where one of the pipes was cut, and you could see the solidified mud down in the corner, which is what we were running into in that in in the drainage. They put in, rather than going with a spray on, they put a solid barrier, that's EPEM, rubber roof, basically, and it's put on kinda like shingles, to to cover the foundation and then back built. In the in the rear of the building, we cleaned out the existing drain. They couldn't get all the way down to it, but we were able to clear it out. So they put a secondary French drain on top of that drain. So a little bit higher up, and then filled with a material called flowable fill that allows allows the water to flow around it and also regraded that entire section. Yeah. So it all flows in one direction. It used to flow in two directions. And that was a a benefit that we didn't know until we got into the project. Thank you. Just some pictures of them filling it back in. There's the gravel on the back, and and then the front, you can see how they, I call it shingling, but it's kind of two layers of EPDM layered on top of each other there. That is about where it is now. Landscaping will be done in spring, obviously, when we can do that, a little bit of decorative gravel. Roofing was the next piece that was phased in. So as they finished up with the the foundation work, the roofers came in. God bless them. I yeah. They were doing this the week after Christmas and the January up on the roof, replacing the worst of the shingles. The front half of the building is 7 that's 1892. Back half of the building is 1914. First half of '92 is where most of the problems are. The construction is just different. They removed outdated shingles that were put on, I think, as an emergency in the in the nineteen nineties before we moved in, but after the school district moved out. And so we removed those, and it turned out there was no ice guard or anything under them. So we put in Ice. Ice guard, proper sheathing, and new commercial grade shingles, about two thirds of that roof. They're doing the turret right there, which I think is a little spectacular.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So it's not a slate.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: It is not slate. It was slate in 1892, and I'm I don't know when it ceased being slate. At some point, while it was a slate, and my guess is as a slate, could they afford to replace the slate? Probably not. It it might so the back part of the building is just a flat roof. It looks like it's not from a distance. It looks like it's all peaked. It's actually a flat roof. And there's the decorative turret roof being covered with ice guard now and then the shingles so we don't get the the leaking. And this is finished. That's a finished turret now, and then you could see where the roof has been replaced around those turrets at the front of the building. Beautiful Richardsonian Romanesque building, lots of turrets, lots of cremulations. Nobody likes to maintain them. Lots of crooks and crannies for water, and so a lot of flashing. They were able to reuse most of the copper flashing because it was a nice thickness. There was a small flat roof on the building. There used to be a a light look at atrium in between the two buildings, the old building, the new building, that had been subsumed within within it with a skylight on it. The skylight was removed at some point before we moved in, and a flat roof was put on it. And I think if anyone who's ever worked covered up with skylights, they always leak, and that was a problem there. So this was completely removed all the way down to that's actually the interior decking of that space and then rebuilt up, and then the new roof, insulated roof. And what I didn't get on was the final layer of EPDM because they were rushing to get it on before it started snowing. And they did, and it's all sealed in, and it doesn't leak. The last piece, that is ongoing right now is the masonry work, which is also an ongoing will be an ongoing issue for us over the years. Bricks are high maintenance fast. This building is not a masonry building. This building is a wood frame structure that is covered with bricks. And so you can see a picture of it there with one brick removed. You can see the sheet the just the wooden wall. It's brick, wood, plaster. That's it. No insulation. So the offices are a little chilly.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yeah.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: And so that causes problems. Bricks will fall down, and I don't if anyone saw that wall fell down in Manusky a few weeks ago. I saw that, and I was like, how beautiful that could happen to us because it's just, the bricks are on there, and the bricks are held on with iron nails that are through the mortar joints into the wood behind there. And, course, what happens to iron that was put in in 1892, it rusts away, so there's nothing holding the bricks on, and also the whole thing can come down. This is the peak of the building where they've removed all of the decorative bricks. You can see a few of the iron nails above the top force of of bricks. So they're all being placed with, stainless steel fasteners, and there's the mason working, removing damaged bricks, and, cutting out ground lines to do a replacement on that. They've finished they've finished that part of the work, and they're now starting with pointing. Like, two days ago, just started with pointing. That's wet. That's wet water lines, and that's where they are now. They plan to be another two to three weeks finishing up that. And then everybody, they are demobilized, everybody comes back in April. They'll do they'll do a bit more brickwork on the towers themselves, and we'll have landscaping in to, you know, put the plantings back, the gardens back, and make the building look beautiful. So just thought I'd give you an update on that. I know we only had, like, ten minutes to pop last year, so it's going well and it's on budget.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Good. It's a big project.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: It's huge project. Really big in Michigan. Yeah. And a lot more. I mean, that's the bricks that that we're just doing a small piece of the front. The whole building's gotta be done at some point.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: But all the drainage and everything, that's really important.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: Drainage is done, systems are done. I'm very happy with that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: You have a good maintenance program,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I suspect.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: We do now. We do now. We're developing a good maintenance program now, and I just you know, the the organization is always, physically stressed, has always has been

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Always will be.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: And the first thing to go, right, is is regular maintenance, and then you're talking about deferred maintenance. So, we have a plan. We have a ten year plan. Part of what you're seeing here is on that plan. Great.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Any questions or comments? You're welcome. A great deal trip.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: You send me the dates that came in and where the the pub Pub trivia, I will send that off. That'd be awesome. Like I said, I'll list of link to the Jeffrey Grace. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to have a community, you know, when you have a time. What do you Yeah. Out and visit?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yeah. We have a do you have much history, written history, or recreated written history of Abernathy? Okay. Much was that. Well, I I guess the hardest thing to find is to find an Indian's working, no matter where you're at, no matter what part of the country, a written history of what it was like in the times when they were here, almost first person narrated. There are some up on the St. Lawrence Seaway white people's version of what they saw, but again, the version of the Abernathy.

[Unidentified committee member]: You do have a little bit of that in the

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: In museum. I mean, we we have this published, so, you know, we have the the work done by anthropologists. So, yeah, we have a great perspective on a lot of it Right. That's been done over the years. We have copies that are in the Canadian the Canadian National Archives have a fair amount of early French material, and so that French material, it's not it's not it's not an Abenaki telling, you know, their their life story. It's a a French voyager telling what they see.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: French saw what they saw. The best of their corn. Yeah. About as

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: close as we can get. I mean, we also we we do have kind of oral history books that are written in an oral history tradition. So they're written by an author, say, forty years ago, but, you know, it's like my grandmother's grandmother's, you know, and that those that oral history that's passed down and then was put on in the on paper, but in a like this. Right. Right? Nobody nobody, as far as I know, interviewed an abnegie who lived in this area and and transcribed it into a book like this. So so but the best we can do. It's certainly scholarship that needs to be done

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: in in a whole in in the scholarship. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Well, now you have a safe place to put the book. Thank you. You very much.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Thank you, Steve. You're welcome. Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So we find you start us a little bit early if you always like

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: We we actually can be helpful to our person. Okay. We're doing a 200 this summer, and we have a Supreme Court Gallery, we have a traveling exhibit from the Library of Congress, but it would be great to have her vote. Perfect. Wonderful. That would be great.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And then having this institution. Right.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: That's it.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Two, four, two. Alright.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: So, are we ready? Everyone good? Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So, now, we will look up to section 14, judiciary. We have Terry Perstones and Fred Benson. You.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Our chief of finance and administration. Yes. Thank you for letting us appear out. If you will. As I explained to Ken yesterday, we were hearing house crunches in these conclusions yesterday where representative Evans suggested that we kind of to you about one aspect of the budget adjustment bill that we testified about. This has to do with the Episcopal Courthouse.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I shared with the chair about where it was on the bill and showed her where that was. Yeah, so very nice to have you in.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, great. We just did wanna give a brief hold of you because it was unrespected and that's where it's been the adjustment adjustment phase. If you recall, 3.609 was approved for the overall project and it was anticipated to commence in the fall and actually finish up in the spring. But in the course of designing the sprinkler system, which is required with the expansion, there's no sprinkler system that's required. They did testing to just confirm that the local water system in Gil Hall would accommodate the sprinkler system And learned from the pressure test results that there was big question as to whether or not that was the case. Whether it would support it or not. And we met with drill call slip board to try to get confirmation for the wood B. And it appeared that it would not support the pressure needed. So, there was a design for an alternate system which consists of a whole intake basically with a pump to properly the event that fire suppression measures are necessary. And the cost for that is $500,000 which is above and beyond the original estimate for the overall project. And when we explained that to representative feminists, She suggested that we notify you of that sooner rather than later. And one related issue is the contractors were lined up to begin last fall. It's unclear whether they'll be able to stay unless there's some kind of assurance that yes, this is going to go forward. So, mentioned a letter of intent possibly. Yes. So, that's why we're here, just to explain that to you. Then, we're happy to come back with BGS for the usual concourse, but she just suggested we ask if it was possible to at least alert you to this situation with that found. And so, that's why we're here today.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Right. And so, just, we don't have our elected council here, but my understanding, a letter of intent would be from the two committees saying that we expect that the 500,000 will be available at next time. And actually, you have a format that you would prefer, it would be helpful to send that to us.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: That's great, we'd be happy to do that. And we can consult with the director of the project to find out exactly what's needed and very similar entertainment.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yes, please. It's very helpful to talk about the

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: recommended that I had the money in there. Chair and I were talking years past. You have to go kind of describe it without. Yeah. It's a little bit tough. Yeah. So I just want to put a plug in for the Essex County Courthouse. Of course, it's in my district. I've been here for a while. I've seen massive amounts of dollars being spent on courthouses. And I'm proud about the alludement amount that we're spending up there to bring this courthouse and not changing character, because if you walk into this courthouse, you would thought that you were walking in to the 1940s or 1950s or 1960s. Greek care has been brought into this design to keep it in that way so it doesn't dominate the surrounding areas of where it's at. But it also, in my opinion, and I don't know the exact number, but I can see that they're springing this up to date of thirty, forty, fifty years or whatever, making it modern for a small amount of dollars. I'm proud about that, being frugal and being in an area that that's where it's at. The amount of cases that go through this little place is amazing, but anytime you're talking about dispensing justice and that there's a lot of justice to be dispensed, I don't know if that's the bragging way or not, but a lot goes on there in a small community, and I'm proud of, I'm proud that it's not an exorbitant amount of money, it's not, but it's not an exorbitant amount of money to continue on, so thank you.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: It is really important, and I say, especially from a security perspective, It's lacking any kind of a holding cell or something.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: It just is.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: So this would be really heads and shoulders above growing up.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: It's better than acute design. It's a very efficient design that will actually grow with the community as the community is there. I'm very proud of what's going on there.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: One example of this new space is the connector with an adjoining property that's available. Right now when jurors come for a jury panel and they have to have a large number to draw upon, they are down the road at a town office and then walk through whatever the weather is to get to the clubhouse because there's no space.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Right. And I remember they had enough restrooms and things. But the project is still going forward. Right?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Well This money makes the project Right.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: We're not oh, go ahead.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Oh, well, we're in this design phase with that that project. We did some work in the Swing State, which is a town in the online store and the shark supply. We had to do some work there in order to

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That might be what I'm thinking of.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yeah. But we we couldn't really break ground on the connector part unless we knew we could finish the project. And there were sprinkler systems part of their requirement. Because you wouldn't be getting an occupancy permit. Right. Right. Right.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. And so what will be your schedule now that it looks like this will, you know, finance the

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: It's goal of this with a lot of intent. They could start work on the interior and then when the money's available in terms of the actual, I guess, tank and pump house.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Actually, it's really dependent on whether when the ground defrauds, that's when they can start the excavation work on a tank. But they could start earlier than that inside and do the renovations.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. So you're mostly on target or schedule?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: We're hoping to get this done last fall. Okay. And we were racing a little bit against the weather and kind of bumping into things, so we did slip into the spring.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Alright, but that's not your fault because

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: the sprinkler issue is huge. Alright. The water system comes from here, she'll cross the road, there were just kind of complicating factor upon complicating factor.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, okay.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Prevented that original plan to work out. Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So anybody else's chat sheets? And thank you, Senator Ingalls, for your

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Well, thank the committee, very much so. Kind of important piece, in the Northeast Kingdom and, yeah, I'm very proud of what's going on here, so thanks. Good.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, so I think we'll take a vote for this one just so that, well, I mean, will get the letter. Actually, I'd like to see the language. So, so we'll have a straw poll, but I don't see a problem.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Okay. And I will, I should be able to get you that language tomorrow. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Great.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: All right. Well, thank you very much.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Thank you. Thank for coming in to see you, Greg.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator, Vermont Judiciary)]: Hi for the time. We are adjourned. Hi for having you should.

[Steve Perkins (Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society)]: Oh my god. I was just wondering about the. Oh, there we are.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Are we done? Are we off?