Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: We're live. Okay. We're back in Senate judiciary after a fire alarm on April 23, still

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: on Route 772. And we have Chris Donnelly here.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: If could introduce yourself and we represent

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: the floor is yours. Thank you. Good morning. Chris Donnelly, the Champlain Housing Trust, of you here, also representing a series of other nonprofits around the state of Maryland, so it's a whole state of mental health. We collectively manage around 8,300 apartments, which is around 11 health centers, the housing stock rental housing stock had to stay. And my organization, the Chittenden House Trust, we serve the city in the West West Condos. And we have about 2,000 apartments. So I don't know if we are the biggest landlord in the state. Organizations have been tasked to create some of vulnerable groups. In recent years, that's meant increasing number of people that are living out of homelessness, people with disabilities, people that are most vulnerable, people are talking about protecting folks disabilities or addressing all of these issues. That's our mission. That's what we do. In the last five years alone, a third of any new vacancy we've had in turnover, we've served so many other agencies. We've been asked by the state to help address the over usage of hotel rooms and the most driving partners to try to address those issues. We're privileged to see it that way. We're also taking on working more of this that way. Our organization actually practice much of what I think a lot of the tenant advocates look at Ascension Fielder. So when you have a lease with us, you have a security or tender. Means at the end of the lease, if and you've been paying your you are abiding by the terms of lease, stay there as long as you want. Are on average for staying with us six years in our department. So they'll have that end security and stability in their lives. We also operate in a form of rent stabilization and we increase our rules to make possible food choices which means whether the tax property taxes going up or statin going up but those laws are regulated because of the federal government and state funding heavy government. All of our housing is permanently affordable, which means we can't just sell it for the market. Some people have stability in that market too. So we're doing a lot of different things that we think a lot of feminists do in exchange for the public resources we receive to build the house on the business. And it's our mission. In recent years we have increased our resident service staff to support people when they hit bumps in the road. There's financial or health challenges. So we've been increasing the number of people in all of our organizations that reach out to clients and board tenants when they need it. Our non profits, even though we operate under different rules, we're not immune to a lot of pressures that any landlord is facing these days. Things have changed over the last five, six years since the pandemic. And I think there is prevalence of fentanyl and maybe more sophisticated drug operations. Setting up shops in people's homes. Understand and agree that there's a power dynamic between the property owner and the tenant. That's why we have loss. That's why we have lease loss that will protect that balance. And you heard loudly from somebody that his lungs go out to the of Roosh and so. Think that's good to know the history but I think times have changed. Because of the are changed. Over the past twelve weeks or so of when they got burned, we read the film, told us a pretty simple word that's in Venezuela. And then I also heard each pro tem yesterday talk about how there's only been a conduct in the session to do the offense. I've been around this world for twenty years. I've seen some big things happen for a long time. I was here when the housing bond was passed about ten years ago. You guys did the infrastructure chip fill. I've seen some big things happen that have succeeded. I've seen some big things that failed. Number one, I wouldn't call this a big deal. I'd call this a meaningful deal. I also think that there's a way to make it. Appropriately sized if you have a comment on something that's meaningful. On year, we've opened this financial gap. Number one, that when we sell these drugs, you know, criminal activity, that we need to have in the body. Asking shots. Heard the play in the horror story, I'm sure. An obsession by hand, but I know one of our board members since you all know about her experience with living next to her in the San Jose for two years. So that the vulnerable tenants are at risk. We just need to buy ways to get passive because that's our job. We have also seen an increase in our rental ordinance over the past several years pre pandemic. We would carry, when we have to write off each year, about $200,000 for rental ordinance. The last two years, it's been a nightly cashed out in one shot. Those are resources that were not able not able to put forward our mission. In the last three years, we've increased our spending on security. And we have a staff person now, that's a director of security. We spent 44 or $500,000 last year hiring sheriffs that would walk the halls at night in some buildings, one that's been going to. There would be poles that's on our properties. We purchased one of those blue lights that they could park in parking lots to just deter some of the activity that's going on. So it's a real cost to us. But what keeps us going on is not going be an attempt to file, then hopefully they get it out of our buildings, all alone from public victims. In PowerCloud alone, we have 60 of units.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I'm just wondering, are the units you have primarily sort of buildings of all low income people with disabilities or are they more scattered around? Do you know what I'm asking?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Most of the departments that we have are income restricted. So people have to earn a certain income a little less. About half of our practice, public subsidies, they're very low income people. About half of our practice people are gonna work and just not be able to raise their incentive to find a profitable environment.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Okay, so it's a building full of people either in poverty or, so it's not mixed income or mixed ability?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: There will be always some mix of income in building on a small number. So say 20 unit building, there will be three units that will be unrestricted but of any then the rest will be some kind of restrictions. So we try this. In our portfolio we have about 60 or 70 that we flagged as a concern in terms of safety of our staff. And so we, if we need to go in fix the sink, do a regular inspection that we needed to do or paperwork to build out in those departments, we will bring along two people. All the organizations out of the state have a similar list. In addition to that we have 12 to 15 that we will not go in. We will not allow staff to go into the house of the safety and services. Whether it's drug dealing with guns or some other kind of violent behavior. And again we offer, we provide a lot of sorts of services to folks so it's not mental health. That's the challenge. I mean it's a challenge but that's not what's keeping us from providing support to other tenants. We are providing that support to tenants for connected to other services based on things that are violating for them. There are invitations on our staff retention and recruitment. This is the law from the birth of the law from the diagnosis. Under the current law, this gets to the notice period in the court process. This is why this is under law. If you are living in apartments, you don't pay your rent. There's a fourteen day notice period. It's under law. And then if the standing probably after the notice period, you get a hearing date, the injection process, and that has a part of it. 80% of the time, 40% of the time, various reasons. If you're in the apartment next door, and you are making a referral of activity, being adverse, what have you, you get this from your card model, you get this fourteen day notice. And then we go through court process, if you stay there, then you have the same sectional of the courts. There's no distinction between the behavior of trauma and sexuality and that's what the New York Police. That's what keeps us up to date. Because those are if you're not angry, we'll work with you. We'll try to figure it out. We'll access resources. We'll do whatever we can. If you're engaging with internal activity, we need to connect the other people in the we're the thing is important, and then what Brad just talked earlier is the trust pass provision. Often times people that are vulnerable are more susceptible to being created harm by others and people that we have found that have taken over folks' apartments and to actually take action. Or they are substitution to go against satisfying and deceptive. And so for us to be able to step in and assess that people that are causing panic, sort of building, breaking doors, breaking the locks and doors, letting anybody in and out. It's really not much to be able to take advantage. Effective date? Listed out three months. Listed out, you know, a lot of recent start ups September 1. Listed out to physiotherapy test. Totally normal to moderate patients, but I also understand narrowing the bill to make sure that it really focuses on those things that are clinically condemned is our number one priority. Chris, I heard numbers about security and

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: also not being able to

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: get into a unit and, you know, that's violent activity.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you have like a total between security, maybe repairs that have been done due to damage or even in the, you know, in the unit itself, say you had a shower valve leaking and you're not allowed to access the unit and it affects two other units below. Do you have an idea of Last how

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: year we wrote off about $900,000 in not just that rent but also damages everything just moved without a clear. And so that's a number for the property but it's debt on the home. And the securities in separate, we try to share that across our portfolio. And that's been up between 4 and 500,000. You

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: know, maybe a million damages. Not including the right part, but

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: we can dig, if I can go back there, I'll just dig back into the distinction between those summits. Someone said this to me in my office, and I want to verify that this was just going to come passing, but they said, We know these are an addiction case. We don't give these leggings. We only pursue a hit with small bit over the wind, but that doesn't mean that he collects the damages or the damage. Any other questions?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: My question, I might have two questions, but the timelines for some of the other processes in this bill that's passed by the House, can you describe your opinions on the I know you talked about the expedited hearing and I get that, but there's some other changes in other areas of the law regarding notice

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: and all the different timelines. Are your thoughts? So for nonpayments, current state laws, courts and opinions, public spoke two months ago. All the nonprofits under federal law had to wait thirty days because of the federal CARES Act. And so we were even doing fourteen day notices up until a couple months ago and the Trump administration would rule that back. So for us to go from thirty days to fourteen days, okay, know, we don't need to go all the way down to ten. That's just our position is that's not a big change for us. It's already been changed for us recently. Notice for the breach of contracts between thirty and twenty one days. Again, I really feel the thing that keeps us up at night is the violent behavior. And I love it with my money on the movie class from those six napkins. I love energy use that and we need to focus off that. The other beach, hopefully you can deal with some of those things with more than a fence. So I don't have a strong opinion on North Dakota, because twenty one days. Going from fourteen to five for the violent activity and I think there's no language that we can learn about, a specific mental and actually what we're talking about, that will be helpful. So this, a lesson from the notice on the court process. I heard Karen Cortez when she said they can do the expedited process for the EEE, certain key area, that they can meet that for one day process with the existing structure that they have. That made me feel comfortable saying yes, let's do that because that makes us be able to address issues faster. I also heard her when she said ninety days and eighty days requires because then we're kind of competing with other things that the Civil War does. And so if that's too difficult, I prefer to make some cheese. Don't, I'm not a lawyer, don't like food courts. I just don't want other mistakes with. And I think this was mentioned before, if we can think about a different process so that it's rare for tenants and pass it for landlords, we should do that.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: And the ninety days, just to respect everyone's background, that would apply, that would be the ninety days notice if you're selling the property.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Oh, I'm sorry, yes. That's the other, I didn't mention that one. Sorry, was talking about the court process. Ninety days for a year. Yeah. So the ninety days for, I think that's a great tenant protection. Right now the biggest barriers to finding housing for people is time and money. And so if you are being asked to leave at the end of your lease, not at one of our jobs, but at just mid market, you have thirty days in some cases, that's a really short time to get a turnaround time first month to last month on security deposit. And then sometimes within thirty days. So I think standardizing those, that LEAs, I think it's good public policy. Know, you're the public and say that's too much. From my perspective, I will go pay that. That's

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: the, that's when the final, I just want to make sure. So if you're talking about non payment of rent and bereaved contract, you got the notice and then if the tenant stayed in there, this would propose to have that final hearing within ninety days.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: That's an age I think, boss, I've been going back and forth, I'm sorry, and they both say ninety days. It's the termination of a lease. So at the end of your lease, the landlord says, Actually, I think I want a rent to do it. This is the no cause ownership, right? Or I'm selling the property or I'm renting from my landlord. Has a ninety day notice period in the bill right now. That's a notice that the ninety days for the rejected process was a for the court process. And I think that's what I needed to for the court process. I would refer to the courts to say what's possible. And maybe find the public resources. We did get a course that's fascinating. And for the termination notice that needs termination. I think that's a good case.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think my So we are getting, actually, Emma, give you the dates that Terry sent along. Where did you send along? Well, were getting some information from Terry about different disposition

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: timelines. I

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: hesitate on putting, on making the final hearing requirements and setting timelines for those, not because I think cases should take a long time, but rather, everybody's case is very important to them. And the person that gets hit by a car and they have negligent suit, sure they want their case every ninety days or sooner as well than other contract violations and so on. So I

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just worry about opening a door, creating

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: strict timelines in which the court shall hear a certain case if that case doesn't necessarily involve violence or anything like TROs, RFAs and so on. So that's just my end of the take on the

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: And I think I've been in something really rigorous with that. Okay. I heard what the court said. If somebody's in a violent situation, let's move quicker. And if not, then it's with the rest of the document. Thank you.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: And one last question. This might be more important for Legg Council, but on the trespass piece, One second, I'll just find my prints here. So I'm looking at page 25 and subsection C, an invitee or licensee is violated state federal law along the premises of the dwelling unit. And when considering the definition of dwelling unit, if the invitee or licensee is in a common area or the parking lot of the building, but not necessarily in the dwelling, and they're violating state or federal law, how

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: would that work?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: And I'm happy to hang out here too if you have questions while you listen to Markup and if you want to follow me in the sun and I had been following the stones.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: One last question that I have from the expedited hearing. If a to the neighbors

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yes.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think, I understand what it's getting at. What I would hope for clarity on is what is the definition of a neighbor. I mean, live on a dirt road and I consider somebody a quarter mile up the road to be my neighbor. But is somebody in a neighboring building also a neighbor? Or is it an apartment building that is adjacent or maybe on another floor? And so I wonder about the clarity or lack of clarity in that definition. So I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that or we could also

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yeah, my thoughts are just the experience that we've had. In fact one of our partners in Berlin last week had someone take a telephonage to poke the window and windows of an assisted living facility that was in our neighboring building. And in a person. That person had been younger in the eviction process already. So that's actually interesting. When we think about threats to neighbors, we had a street in Burlington where there was a woman that moved from us all the time to the point where they didn't feel safe being on the street. Because those folks' violence, I think, belated. So I agree, maybe there's a higher definition. I think they can probably rely on a couple of cases in the courts. Laurie, if you can, Any other questions?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Well thank you very much and yeah you're welcome to stick around. All right it's a few slides. So we're going go ahead through MARCA now and for the sake of transparency, I met with the chair of economic development center of Clarkson and well as a few stakeholders, pledge counsel, Chris and Chad. And you know, the realistic we'll try to be realistic with this bill and focus on the priorities. At least personally and from what I've heard, it would seem that the priorities for this bill are being expedited here and the no president has And so what we discussed were a list of amendments, all of which are included in this new draft. And it is with the purpose to to narrow things down and keep the bill focused on those two important components that I've been prescribed and that we've been hearing about this morning. And so that's that's what this draft 1.2 contains. And so it's it is a strike hole,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yes. Yes, sir. And I wanna make sure that we're going through all those different changes that senator Clarkson and I discussed and, you know, getting the committee's opinions on them. And of course, this does not prevent anybody else from providing any other amendments or any other input that they want to provide. That is yeah. That's that's where we're at. So if you walk through all the amendments and Yes,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: sir. For the record, Cameron Wood, the office of Woodford Council, as the chair mentioned, they have a draft amendment from the committee. It is drafted as a strike all. What I've done is I've highlighted areas in the bill where things have changed. However, there are some deletions as well, and so I'll point those out as we as we've walked through. So, So the first change is actually gonna be right on page one under the definition section. The changes to the definition of actual notice has been removed. If you all recall, when you're terminating a rental agreement, so we're not in the court process yet, we're not in the objectment, we're just talking about when you terminate a rental agreement, the parties have to provide actual notice and actual notice is currently defined as hand delivered or mailed to the last known address. And if it's mailed to the last known address by certified mail, then it comes with third certified or first class then it comes with a revocable presumption that the person has received it after three days.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Senator Melissa? In the instance, I know this has certainly happened to me. I mailed a bill to

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: the clients and it was

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: approved later, it proponents to me because How it was not

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: would that

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So at that point I would say the landlord, I'm just gonna use the landlord, know this example is supposedly going to be a landlord. The landlord would know that the individual hasn't received actual notice because the definition of actual notice requires receipt And so if it comes back undelivered, the landlord knows at that point that you haven't received the actual notice, and the landlord would then need to go about trying to effectuate that service in a different way. So the landlord would know they wouldn't be able to proceed with an ejecta at that point.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Okay. And I'm just trying to understand the sort of the timing of it. I imagine the way Paul heard from his appearance about the slowness of the mail at times. And so there's this presumption that it's been received within three days. But if it doesn't make it to be undeliverable for a week and that doesn't make it back to the landlord for another week, are there proceedings that can happen in there under the presumption that it has been received? Because it's not in the landlord's hand in that three day window that they didn't receive. Do you Yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Absolutely. So, the landlord wouldn't be able to proceed with an ejectment until after the notice period that's required in statute And so currently the shortest notice period in statute is fourteen days. So you can't proceed with the ejectment until the notice period is through and then the person remains in the property after the termination notice. So as the current statute is structured, you provide the notice and keep in mind you have to give them the fourteen day period from the day they've received it because that's the requirement.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: So it's seven days after mailing?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes ma'am. If you mail it you have to build time frame then. And so if you had received something back as undelivable within that notice period time frame, you would then you'd be aware that the person hadn't received it, and you would have to move forward with trying to provide a notice again. If you move forward with an ejectment let's say you haven't received that information back and then you move forward with an ejectment and then later on you become aware that the person hasn't received notice then they already get an officerial version. Okay,

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: sure. Two questions. First one, I'm losing track of what the three day rebuttal presumption what is that three day shift?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So when you look at the definition again, it requires the person to receive it, and so when you hand deliver something to someone, you obviously know that they've received it. Yeah. If you mail it, you're not, you know they're not going to receive it the day that you put it in the mail. And so you all, as the body here, have built into your statute that we're going to create a rebuttable presumption that the person's going to receive it three days after you failed it. How would you rebut that presumption? The individual defendant would have to come in to court and assume it's got all the way to the court and they would have to demonstrate and provide evidence to the court that they did not

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: in fact So how do you prove the negative? How do you prove they didn't receive something? There

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: might be a better question for the advocate that they could give you examples that they've gone through but that you know we're able to demonstrate that the landlord mailed it to the wrong address because it's being sent via certified mail and we're able to show that you actually mailed it to the wrong location?

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: No. That that would be easy enough. I'm thinking somebody gets it within three days, they throw it on their kitchen sink, and then they deny that it was seated. They say it changed.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it's on the defendant. It's a rebuttable presumption. So the presumption is that the person received it. So the tenant or the defendant in that case is the one who's going to have to provide the evidence to the court that they did not receive it.

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: I just don't see how you what what evidence is that they didn't receive it?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Perhaps you could show evidence that you were hospitalized during that time and so

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: there was no way that

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: you could have received it because you weren't there?

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: Right. I mean, you can think of like extreme cases, but in the vein, somebody doesn't, they don't get them. They go into court, they just say, I didn't get it. There's no evidence brought forward, right? So I think it's odd that they have to reflect some things that are, it's hard to imagine in most cases, I mean, evidence. Yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, again, you have the evidence that the person is going to receive the receipt or the notice when they put something in the mail certified, your landlord, need to even Best practice of ensuring that you had some sort of return receipt requested back. If you have even further evidence that someone at the location had actually received the document that could be something you could demonstrate or prove in court. But it's not the landlord who has to produce evidence. It's the person receiving it. Correct. It's the person, if they're arguing that they didn't receive it, then

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: it would have to. But I mean, there's no incentive for the landlord to get the receipt because they have the revocable presumption and the gun. So you have to come up with evidence that didn't get it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So your best entrance of the landlord to ensure that you can prove an actual receipt when you get to court process because if, let's say, for argument's sake, that the defendant is able to demonstrate that they didn't receive it, well, now you haven't provided notice in court.

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: I just don't understand how somebody proves they did for this investigation. Other than saying I didn't get it, what evidence is there that you didn't receive?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Again, I haven't practiced in this area so I'm not familiar with what unique circumstances, how it exists.

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: I've seen Chris's face. I'm sorry, this is what the current law is. This is how we operate right now. So if anyone wants to come and try to make that case in court, they can. But this is how we operate under the current law. Just to circle back

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: around, the amendment is proposing to not change anything with the current system. Do you have questions about the amendment to keep things the way they are?

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: I just have questions about why the revocable presumption is on the person who didn't receive it when the person sending can easily create evidence that they sent it. The person who didn't receive it can't create evidence that they can't see it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think the issue is you're requiring that the individual receive it and so when I put something in the mail I know that the person hasn't received it so if you're going to allow that if you're going to allow the mailing of the notice you then need to determine okay we have to assume based on that structure we're creating, if the person receives it at some point and at what point are they gonna draw that line. Because you're assuming, right, that you put something in the mail, the postal service is going to get it to where it's supposed to be. Or or we have to require notice of the You you could remove mailing and just require hand delivery, sir. You could do that. Yeah. Something else.

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: Yeah. Possibly. This is very interesting. I'm kind of leaning toward the first class mailing because I don't know how you approve that you as a sender actually mailed it unless you asked for a return receipt. And here's the reality, they're going to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: avoid that. Okay, believe me, they're going to avoid that.

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: So it's first class middle 800 Republica Levis. I love it. I like that standard of I love that you believe that, Vince. Because as a landlord,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you're gonna send it and get a receipt back maybe to make sure on your end because if somebody comes in and just

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: says I never got it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And the courts go well I never got it so we're gonna assume they didn't get it. Landlord go actually they did on this exact thing.

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: And I agree with you, the law doesn't require them to ask for a receipt. And it puts the evidentiary version on to the person if they didn't get the notes. It's better about all of the same thing. Yeah.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I love this conversation. My question, knowing this is underlying law, is do you have do you know when this was put into underlying law and three days was chosen?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I do not off the top of my head.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I'll find out.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: That would be great. My concern with the sort of three days is the current state of additional service and whether or it is reasonable to assume something actually has been received in three days at this point. So I'd love to sort of get a sense of what that history is and perhaps what sort of average time of delivery is. And I also would imagine that it's different if someone mails, you know, I live in Burlington and my was in Shelburne versus if I live in Burlington and

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: my landlord goes in Florida.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So, okay. So, I suppose just keeping things the way they are. Sense somewhat of what I'm getting from the committee is potentially requiring first class mail rather than just putting a stamp on an envelope and sending it off. So, and go into the five days? Is that Okay, so you don't want it to personalize?

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: No, obviously, the was taking place,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: but part of people were in

[Unidentified committee member (identity unclear)]: the medicine. To go along with that, I think it's I don't think it makes sense, but we're in the process of trying to limit what we're doing to current law for time and other reasons. So I'm not I'm not suggesting that we redo the existing law. I was trying to point out what I think is an unfair aspect of it. Yes, might suggest expanding eight to three to five days

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: based on the information I get about when this was written about aligns with the sort of average amount of time it actually takes for mail.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: You still have fourteen days after that as well, so it's seventeen. Then the amendment of striking section one, how does the committee is committing yes or no on striking section one and the bill has passed by the House.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great. So just a question about revocable presumption, I'll get you some recommendation back on that. Okay. Next piece is going to be in the definition of actual imminent threat. And this is to change serious bodily harm to serious bodily injury and then to refer to potential injury throughout the remainder of that section. I believe that was raised by Judge Zonnay, makes sense that the phrasing of that aligns more with what you have in the federal statutes.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any opposition to this?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: This to is the definition that will apply to the later section where it talks about the sort of expedited.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Next change is gonna be on page four where there's actually been some pieces that have been removed. So you're not gonna see any highlighted language here. This is about the residential rental applications. It's gonna be on page three now of what you're looking at. It's page four of the bill that was passed by the House. Sorry, Read my notes together. Okay. Residential rental application.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Current

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: law is that the landlord cannot charge an application fee, and then this provides a definition of an application fee, and then if you all remember there were two sections in there that a landlord could charge the actual cost to conduct a background or a credit check and if they charged for it they had to provide the applicant with a copy and unless the applicant provided the landlord with a copy of a credit check and then the landlord couldn't charge for it, those two provisions have been removed from this section. In addition, there was some language in there that stated that a person violates this section submits an unfair practice of commerce and then referenced the fact that it's a Civil Convention Act. There's actually been some case law in Vermont that the landlord tenant relationship under Title violations of that could be already a violation under Consumer Protection Act, so I don't think you need a specific call out there because the courts have already determined that they fall or that they've argued that those protections already apply. So we just removed those three sections. One comment I will make to you as you want to move forward, I was thinking about this while I was sitting here this morning, I think one of the biggest issues with this section is the fact that application fee wasn't defined and so now you have a definition but I still think the underlying disconnect may exist. Is a background check or a credit check an application fee or is it something else? I think individuals will argue, well if you're charging me to be able to file the application, then anything should be considered a fee. And I think other people would argue, I'm not charging you a fee to submit the application, I'm charging you a fee at the next step to do the background check or the credit check-in order to determine whether or not I want the rent to do. I'm bringing that up to say, if you want to ensure that people are not charging for a background grade credit check, then I think it may be worth it to add it into that definition to be explicit.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any comments or questions?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So being explicit, does it mean you can charge for, like a background check?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: If you what I

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: would say is it's the background check or credit check is not used in that definition because the way it came over in the house the bill specifically authorized charge And so my point is if you're going to remove that authorization, the language that specifically said you can charge costs for this, if you're removing that, I think the ambiguity still exists now to say, is a background check or a credit check an application fee or is it something else? And if you want to be explicit that we don't want people charging for a background check or a credit check because we consider that to be an application fee, then you may want to add that specifically to the public.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any other

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: questions or comments? I

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: would certainly support that sort of more explicit language, but I do have a question that's about this section, but in sub two, which is a little out of our wheelhouse, but I'm just kind of noticing there is this language that says you can't charge a security deposit exceeding two months. There are some municipalities like Burlington that actually have stuff in their charters that say you can't charge a security deposit exceeding one month. Yes ma'am. Would their charter hold that protection or would this override any?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah so I've mentioned this in the Senate Economic Development Committee and I don't think we got into security deposits when I did my initial walkthrough of the bill so I didn't mention it here. There is a section in the security, there's a subsection in the security law section that says that a municipality can enact ordinances related to security deposits as long as you know they essentially don't remember the exact words they don't conflict with the minimal protections that you put in. Think an argument could be made that by putting in the state statute that a landlord cannot charge more than two months from people, that a municipal ordinance that says you can't charge more than one month rent may be in conflict. The court could make that determination. So one thing that may be worth adding is some clarification in that section to say that a municipality that has more greater protections for tenants when it comes to security deposits would not be a violation of that section.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Let's put it again in this section so we can get some more substantive pieces and then

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we can circle back around to it. The next chain is going to Is it page seven? I believe. Yes, sir.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yes, sir. Thank you. I'm sorry, I'm looking

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: at this number. Okay, this is the termination notice section. So this is where we talked in the past. You have subsection A, which is where you own a notice requirement if you're terminating for non bankrupt rent, subsection B is when you're providing notice and or breach of the rental agreements and then the changes here are on sub two. So the proposal here is to keep criminal activity, keep the strike through for illegal drug activity, keep the inclusion of damage to the dwelling unit, but then it removes the phrase that the house went with, which was other activity, which threatened the health and safety of others, so you've removed that. So you're really keeping with the current statutory language, you're removing drug activity, you're adding damage to the dwelling unit, and then it would have to be an act of violence that is an ongoing or repeated threat to the safety of other residents. So as you can see here, have a few other, tweaks to the language there. It would have to be ongoing or repeated, It couldn't be one instance. And then you removed health, so it would have to be the safety of other residents, the landlord, landlord's agents or neighbors. Quick clarifying question about existing law.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I was going back up to line eight and nine. Currently, can you, when you say there's a breach of a rental agreement,

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: if

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: the tenant is late once in a twelve month period or late or late once in any time period and then move forward with?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Haven't found a case that makes that argument that late payment of rent is the breach of a residential rental agreement. I think the issue that you potentially run into is the language in subsection A, language is the objective chapter that says that if a tenant pays through a rental period, you can't terminate for nonpayment of rent at that point. So let's say I'm extremely late in paying rent, I'm fourteen days late, I'm twenty days late, and then the landlord wants to move forward with the termination because you have paid rent, and then I subsequently pay rent, then it cancels out that termination. And you can't move forward.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So Sorry, being legal aid, I didn't know you raised the hand.

[Jean Murray (Vermont Legal Aid)]: For the record, Jean Murray from Vermont Legal Aid, your question was, does current law allow a landlord to terminate an agreement for late payment of rent? So one of the things about the Residential Rental Agreements Act is it it says in itself that everything in the rental in the RRAA is imposed in every rental agreement. And one of the provisions of the Residential Rental Agreements Act nine BSA forty four fifty five,

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: I

[Jean Murray (Vermont Legal Aid)]: think, requires rent to be paid without demand at the time and place agreed upon by the parties. So if a tenant doesn't pay at the time and place agreed upon by the parties, that's a violation of the act, and a tenant could technically be evicted for cause for that. So

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I just want to be super clear with what I'm trying to understand. Currently the tenant misses one month, the eviction process can start. This would change it so that if a tenant misses at least three payments in a twelve month period, then the eviction process can start for not paying the rent. Am I Just to wait. No. This is

[Jean Murray (Vermont Legal Aid)]: two waiving. Okay. Two different things. Whether or not the tenant abided by the agreement and paid on time. And then the second thing is whether or not the tenant is behind on rent. And in that way, it's sort of the landlord's choice. If the if the landlord is gonna send a termination, it gives the tenant a right to cure non payment. That means what the landlord is basically after is to get paid. Where if the landlord is trying to terminate because the rent is paid late, landlords, that's what they're trying to do. So it's two different things.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I'll I don't wanna derail this too much with the question that I thought of.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I agree with Jeanne 100%. I would say that by putting this language in the sub two into statutes, you all would be indicating that a landlord wouldn't be able to move forward under me for a late payment of rent unless it was more than three times in the 12 period. I think I don't mean to speak for Jean, but as I'm hearing her, as I would agree, the landlord could, in theory, move forward under B for late payment of rent once because you've breached your obligations under the chapter. And by putting this language in, I think you would be signaling to the courts, hey, if you can't do that anymore, it has to be three times during a twelve month period for you to move forward under B. You may be moving forward subsequently or at the same time under A to say you have paid rent. That's why I want the termination. That makes more sense. By

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: law, is the lateness determined by when the check was put in the mail or when the check was received? So if I mail my landlord my rent, do I also get a rebuttable presumption that it arrives within a certain Do you know what I mean? Like, I might have mailed it on the first of the month, but that doesn't mean it arrives. Right.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I do know what you're saying and I don't believe the statute says anything in relation to that. In fact, I'll go double check. I don't think the section I was being referred to because you have to pay rent on demand says anything about tax that was family actually see.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Okay, so there's nothing sort of indicating that rent is on time and was postmarked on the due date?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Not to my knowledge, definitely. That works. I'm looking at page seven, line eight. A peninsula payment is a reason to terminate. Peninsula payment was done more than three times, so that's gonna be four times at least.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That may

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: be at no fault of the tenant if they put it in the mail every time on the March 1, And it goes on six weeks to get there.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Let's

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: go back to the change that he's

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, yes. Please. Back to the sub two, you would be keeping criminal activity which was struck in the house version. You've removed other activity. So now it would be, based on this amendment, there has to be criminal activity, damage to the dwelling unit, or an act of violence, which is an ongoing or immediate threat to the safety of those residents, the landlord, landlord agent, or neighbors.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any Yes.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I'm just trying to understand the sort of logistics of this. So if any one of these things happens and it is an ongoing or repeated threat. Correct. Okay. So it can't just be that, I don't know, I accidentally ruined the carpet. It has to be damage that is also an ongoing and repeated threat to the safety. And then how is that sort of threat to safety defined? What does that mean?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's not defined in the statute currently. And so it would be, you know, a court would have to make that. Let me back up. I mean, the landlord is making the initial assessment of whether something is a threat to the safety of others because the landlord is making the initial determination of under which statutory section they're choosing to terminate the rental agreement. So the landlord has to make the initial point to say, I'm terminating the rental agreement under B2. Then they have to, the landlord ultimately is the one who would have to prove that in court if it gets to an effect on that. And a court would have to make a binding that yes, the activity in question was a threat to the health or safety of other residents since the Constitution should.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any other comments or questions? Aaron. One of my questions that I raised earlier, the phrase or the term neighbors using this, can we take a deeper dive into that, but also just a note for our witnesses for our next bill. We are running a bit behind because of the fire alarm,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so we're running a divine so you're aware. Yeah, similar. Similarly neighbor is not defined so our courts are probably just going to look at a plain language reading of that and I think it would be a challenge for a landlord to be able to argue that something that the individual is doing is threatening the safety of a neighbor who is half a mile away. Again, it's going to depend on what activity are we talking about. Is the tenant making bombs in their apartment? To use the examples provided is the tenant firing some sort of weapon at the location of some neighbor that is a neighbor mile away, that is, you know, getting the property and some bad. I do think it's going be pretty fact specific, but it's not defined.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I'm wondering, and this is really a question for you, who would be the right person to come in and sort of walk through some of the ways those facts might come together? Because it seems like there's a lot of questions in here.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: What's a threat? How does it all play together?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Would that Well, be the state of mean, threat, I mean, whatever is being alleged will ultimately have to be determined if it is actually a threat by a judge. Somebody spills coffee and ruins a carpet and the landlord says, this was a damage to the property, and they said that affidavit to the court, I'd probably like to say that's And I would say keep

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in mind, mean, are two conditions that the landlord has to prove under current statute. It has to be criminal activity, it has to be illegal drug activity, or it has to be an act of violence. It has to be one of those things. And then you have to demonstrate that it is threatening the over safety of other residents. So those are kind of the two separate conditions that would have to be demonstrated and same thing here would be criminal activity, damage to the dwelling unit, or acts of violence any of which based on this amendment you would have to demonstrate that it's an ongoing or repeated threat to the safety of other residents.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Yeah, and I know that I used the sort of spilling the coffee and ruining the carpet, and that was when I was trying to sort of understand how the things inched together, which I do now. But I also know that there is behavior that is not dangerous that people at times perceive as a safety issue when really it is making them uncomfortable. One of the examples that I used earlier was if someone is in their apartment and they may be screaming and they are maybe not existing within consensual reality, so they may be screaming things that make people really uncomfortable, but in no way is their safety impacted. And that but they make people like, oh, this makes me unsafe. When you know? Like, okay. Or I used the example earlier of, you know, an individual whose existence makes people perhaps feel unsafe. But I understand that the courts are there to determine that. I'm just trying to understand sort of how that plays together and make sure that we're protecting people from bias. And so what I

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: would say is, the house version when it had other activities, I think that obviously more open to more subjective interpretation of what activity are we talking about. In this version of the amendment you're going back to how the language is currently which would require it to be criminal or an act

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: of violence first, right? Or damaging to the dwelling or Correct, yes. Yes.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so I do think this language is going to be more restrained in addressing some of those possible scenarios that you've identified that others have identified based on that house language. Know, if someone is just making others uncomfortable is a criminal activity.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: It might be disorderly conduct, which is very vague and open to subjectiveness.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Straying into eras and not mine. But, you know, it would have to be a criminal act or an act of violence source. Okay.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any other questions or comments on the second and third? So is there support for opposition?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Does that make you want to?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I think I support this thing with more than working to us, but I do still have some questions as to whether or not it's time to adopt or might need some additional definition or clarity.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Perfect. So just as a heads up, I think we'll spend another five minutes on this, and then we'll shift gears to our foot assessment in this way as well. Perfect.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will try to be quick and succinct with the rubric of your finger. The next page is gonna be on the bottom of page 15, moving to page 16. There was a you see there's a section two deleted. There was a section in the as passed by House Bill, and it stated that when a motion for alternate service of process is filed, so keep in mind now we're in the court system, know, ejectment action has been filed. There was a section here that said when a motion for an alternate service of process, so you're not able to effectuate service on the individual, you're asking the court to allow you to do some sort of alternate service, potentially attack order. It said that the court had to rule on the motion properly. You had some feedback from judge Zone about, you know, what does that mean? Concerns about putting the word properly in this situation. Words, you know, should have a meaning. And if it's prompt in this instance, does that mean it doesn't have to be prompt in other instances, etcetera? So I removed that section. And then for the next pieces here, the House Pass version created an entirely new subchapter for bringing an ejectment based on nonpayment of rent or or, you know, the kind of threatening acts that we were just talking about. This amendment removes that new subchapter. It takes all of that new subchapter out. If you remember when I did my walk through, I highlighted for you all that probably 85% of the language in that new subchapter was simply copy and pasted over from the existing subchapter. And so if you want to duplicate and create entirely new subchapter for potentially very minor changes for a few sections only. So I removed the old subchapter and what you have here is I've amended current section 4,852 to add in the language on line 13 where if the landlord brings an object and under the current sub chapter the landlord has to include the affidavit that the landlord provides to the tenant for the justifications as to why they're terminating the regular payment. So because that affidavit requirement is new, it's being added here, that has to be included with the complaint. Then we get to the next change, which is payment of rent into court, and this is gonna be on page 17. If you all remember, the House version struck the ability of the court to order partial payments, requires full payment, so that's back end. So it's giving the court the discretion to order full payment of rent into court, or partial payment of rent into court as the case may deem. So it's just removing those new words that were struck. The other thing in the lease is because the House Virgin was removing the ability of the court to order partial payment, They wanted to add in language to authorize the parties to come to an agreement for a reduction of full payment and that's being removed here. Because you're allowing the court to order partial payments, you also have subsection sheets which allow the tenant to request a reduction of the amount paid at any time the parties come to an agreement at any time and I imagine the court incentivizes or tries to get parties to come to the energy event so that has been improved as well. The next change is here on the threatening behavior expedited hearings. So as I mentioned, I've removed the creation of this new subchapter, but you kept this the amendment keeps this expedited process for the threatening behavior. And instead of putting it in a new subchapter, it puts it in a new section within the existing subchapter that's already governing the Jackman Act notes. So if you go under Moray five three c, all of the language here is kept as it was in the house except for the removed threatening the health or safety of other residents. So as you can see there on lines eight and nine, it's threatening the safety of other residents to coincide with the change above the termination section. In sub b here, it said that a hearing on the motion shall be held promptly at any time after ten days. I removed the word promptly because it didn't really seem relevant because you're specifically saying that the hearing has to be held after ten days and no later than twenty one days, that's the window. So I removed the word prompting. I think there is only one other change. And it's all the way down on page twenty seventh. There's a section here because you've capped security deposits above, and this section said a landlord may retain a security deposit that exceeds an amount equal to two months' rent provided that the agreement was in effect prior to July 1. I was somewhat concerned about the word pain. I didn't want it to be interpreted that a landlord could just keep it. The concept here was if you've accepted more than two months of security deposit, when the two month cap goes into place, You can keep that. You don't need to immediately give some of that security deposit back. You can retain that amount until the termination of the rental agreement, in which case you need to comply with that section and give the money back to the tenant or deduct if there are legal deductions that are authorized. So just really more cleanup to make sure that section is clean.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank you. So, Minnie, if we have any other questions, know, I get the question again, but we're gonna be working on this first thing next week as well. You know, there are other changes that everybody wants and everybody's to be to do that. But we are on a pretty tight timeline for everything. So we're gonna have enough to thank you. We'll switch gears now. We have Haley no. I'm sorry. We have from a from services. We're switching to the.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Good morning. For the record, my name is Jennifer Pullman. I'm the director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services, and I appreciate your time on H 937 today, and also appreciate your flexibility during school vacation week. I will be brief. I understand that there's a particular interest in hearing about VIC notification and I believe legislative council has drafted some language for inclusion in H937, so I'll be very brief in giving background to that. As you may recall, the Victim Notification Task Group was established last legislative session to look at ways to improve victim notification. Particularly, we're looking at post conviction and also the use of the automated victim notification system, but we did look at post detention and victim notification in other areas as well. I do want to say that the group was comprised of the center, the network, the state's attorneys, the Vermont State Police, two members from the Department of Corrections, and two survivors. But we had a lot of active participation from non task force members, including disability rights, many advocates from the State's Attorney's Office, from VSP, and also other DOC staff members. It was a really robust group. One of the areas of focus, I'm just going to get right to it, was looking to bring back what we referred to colloquially as a menu of options. The VINE system can provide a number of different notifications and Corrections does engage in a lot of different activity with those who are in their care. Several years ago, there used to be more of a menu approach to those notifications, wherein victim a survivor could choose which notifications they were interested in and which they weren't. And maybe they weren't interested in any at all because some of the different notifications speak to release of someone, any kind of transfer, either to court or a different facility, parole notification, current time. And some victims don't want anything, other victims want every single thing. And the system used to accommodate for that, but we went away from that as a state, and it became more of an all or nothing. So the hope was that we would be in a position to return to that approach. We heard from victims and survivors and from advocates that it was really important to restore some level of agency and choice and control of the information that was received.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: We were

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: working, or I should say the DOC staff were working with the vendor to get this option back in place, and the last update was that it would be available potentially the end of this calendar year. But we came across a stumbling block, hence the recommendation, the language that you see that Legislative Council has put together. That stumbling block was currently in Title 28, which speaks to DOC's obligations. They don't have any ability to not provide the rights therein. So those rights have to be provided. Whereas in Title 13, which speaks more to the state's attorney's victim advocates obligations, there's a blanket statement in 13 VSA 5,304 B, which allows a victim to decline any service that a victim advocate offers. DOC was of the position and we agreed and understood that if they don't have that option to not provide the right, that it would put them liable if they were not providing it without change, in statute. So we all agreed as a group that it felt important to put in title 28 a statutory provision that would mirror what's in 5,304 B, Title thirteen five thousand three hundred four B, giving victims that choice to be able to opt out of certain notifications. And really felt like an important way that we could support DOC staff and their victim services unit in meeting victims where they're at and having a more individual approach to providing support. So, again, the language that was drafted by legislative council perfectly encapsulates our consensus collective recommendation for change, without which we cannot move forward, and DOC could not move forward with instituting something that has been identified by victims and survivors from across the state as a really important piece for them in terms of being able to best utilize victim notification to support their needs. Also, House practices and institutions and House judiciary are both aware of this and they are supportive and essentially told us to chase down the judiciary bill and see if we could get it added in, but those committees are both supportive of this recommendation.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Okay. You.

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Good morning, everyone. My name

[Haley Sommer (Director of Communications, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: is Yod Summer. I'm the Director of Communications for the Department of Corrections. Jen provided a very good overview of the process in which we followed to come to this language, which the Notification Task Force agreed upon. For a little bit more context on DOC's victim services, we provide services to victims and survivors after adjudication and throughout an offender's sentence. We're also responsible for information pertaining to release from custody. Our services for victims are overseen by a victim services unit, but it is a responsibility of all staff to provide services to victims, so including our probation of parole officers and caseworkers. All of the, nearly all of the notifications that DOC currently provides through both in person contact and our automated notification service, which is called Vines, are statutorily obligated. And so when the task force was having discussions around bringing back a menu of options so that victims could opt out of notifications, DOC was concerned that if victims to opt out of notifications that DOC was statutorily mandated to provide, then we would not be meeting our statutory mandate. So we wanted to ensure that there was language that made it clear that victims could opt out of some of the notifications that were currently outlined in the statute, which is what this language achieves. I will note just one thing that I noticed upon receiving it is that on lines eleven and twelve, it states a victim may decline any service provided to the department and just wanted to ensure that the word service also encompassed notifications. Bringing that as a kind of point of consideration for the committee and Legis Council, but that is the only piece of feedback that I wanted to provide and wanted to reiterate our support over this language and the ability to provide victims with more autonomy over which notifications that they seem to receive and would not just they don't.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank you. That's pretty straightforward. Mean, I think, please correct me if I'm wrong, what I'm understanding is we need this so that if a victim doesn't want notifications, DOC isn't inadvertently breaking the law.

[Haley Sommer (Director of Communications, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yes, that and Yeah, there are several notifications that we provide. So a victim would have the ability to choose, you know, they're looking for notifications around rural ordinaries, but they're not interested in notifications around someone's release from custody, like just for example. Okay.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Got it. Seems pretty straightforward to make that. Any questions? Any issues with adding this to Miss Amazebill? No. Great. Thank you. And then we have the Leg Council on next. You're here on this. Justice language. Justice language.

[Legislative Counsel (name unclear)]: So this is the land of corrections to some extent. That means I'm pitching in on the miscellaneous future of those. So I think Jen and Haley have already laid out why they're coming to the committee with this proposal. I'll just run through the language. Title 28 does not have a single provision about victims, unlike Title 15.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: If you

[Legislative Counsel (name unclear)]: go to Title 13, you go to one chapter and get all the victim related information. Title 28, it's spread out all over the place. So to add and the provisions related to victim notification are in a number of different places. So to put in one single place, this clarity that victims can opt out of any notification or other services, The best place to do that is in this kind of early section of title 28 that spells out the powers and responsibilities of the commissioner of corrections, basically saying here's what DOC has the power to do and here's what DOC has to do. So this would add so on page one, lines nine through 12, this would add a new responsibility that is essentially describing existing responsibilities in the title, but it would add it to this section or specify it in the section. But the commissioner would have the responsibility to provide notification and other services to victims. Notwithstanding any other provision of law requiring the department to provide notification or other services to victims, a victim may decline any service provided by the department. The suggestion I heard from Haley was for kind of peak clarity on line 11, where the victim may decline any service provided by the department. The way the sentence is structured, notification or other services, it's saying that notification is like one of the services we're talking about here. But there's also no reason not to be really clear. And so I think I heard from Haley the suggestion to say, on lines 11 through 12, a victim may decline any notification or other service provided by the department.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I don't think it should.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Sarah, I was thinking.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I'm wondering if the way this is worded makes this an opt in or an opt out. Like by default is the victim going to get all of the notifications and have to opt out of what they don't want? Or will they opt in to what they do want?

[Legislative Counsel (name unclear)]: My understanding, well, Jennifer Cohen can pop in and correct me if I'm missing anything, is that the request from the Eviction Notification Passforce Group was to provide office navigation as the default. So, I think that's the way this would be structured. If, Jennifer Coleman,

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: if you'd like to correct

[Legislative Counsel (name unclear)]: anything I said, please do.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: No, just happy to provide some clarity. It was intended as an opt out, especially hearing from survivors that there's so much information that they're getting at different points in time that it felt safer for them to have that as already built in and then to give them the chance to opt out versus the opt in. Again, with the process being really overwhelming, post sentence you get a big stack of papers, victims and survivors do, but it just felt that it was safer to land as an opt out than an opt in.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Okay. And

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: you said oh.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: You said there were two victims or survivors on that task force. Was there any other conversation with a wider network? And I asked this as a victim of violent crime myself, I would absolutely hate to have to opt out of a flood of notifications. So I wonder how broad this sort of information gathering was from the sort of network of people you were talking to, and I imagine there wasn't consensus.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Well, we have you know, the the Vermont Center has its own advisory council comprised of victims and survivors of various crimes. I know that the network, and I see that Charlie's in the room, reached out to their member programs as well. And I know that the Vermont State Police advocates reached out to the clients that they have worked with and those were also included in terms of feedback.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any other questions? Thank you. Charlie, would you have an amendment on this bill as well? Were you I don't see it on the agenda and it's entirely possible I may have missed something.

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: I'm happy to hop in there.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Okay.

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: If that would be helpful.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Would five minutes is five minutes okay? Five minutes is great. And do we have the language? I feel like

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: I did email the language to you and cc Emery and I'm happy to forward that email to the top of Emery's inbox if he wants to print it out.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Will just take one quick moment to do that.

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Emory, is it on the website?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: It is.

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: It is? It's up on the website?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Okay, perfect. Yeah, would it be easier to just share your screen? Yes,

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: I don't have my If Emory would able to send the Zoom link, I'm happy to pull it up.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Thank you.

[Haley Sommer (Director of Communications, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Let's hope the fire alarm is gone.

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Well, I can get started with a high level overview as I'm getting that Zoom link up. So, Glosserman, I'm the policy director at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. And we did send a memo to the chair requesting two updates to Vermont's Civil Relief and Refuse Order statute and have those be considered as an addition to the Miscellaneous Judiciary Bill. These were issues that were identified by attorneys working with survivors through the Vermont Network's pro bono legal clinic, and they were considered by the House Judiciary Committee within H-six 28. We proposed that they be added to the miscellaneous judiciary bill on that end, and unfortunately there just wasn't time to do so. So we wanted to bring this request to your committee. I think this is an example of really good policy and that practitioners who are working with these laws every day notify us of these two tweaks that they would really like to see. So I will bring up that language now as I'm hopping into the Zoom room. So the first is relevant to RFA access when a defendant is under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. So, as you all know, relief from abuse orders, also known as domestic violence prevention orders, are a critical legal tool for survivors of domestic violence. They're civil court orders that a survivor can request directly from the court to check their safety. Now let me bring up the language that is relevant to this so we can follow along together. How's that precise?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Great.

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Perfect. So, to obtain a RFA, a court must find that the defendant has abused the plaintiff and that there is either a danger of future abuse or that the defendant has been convicted of one of a list of serious offenses that are in the statute and is currently incarcerated. Examples of those offenses are domestic assault, murder, and L and L of the child. We propose updating this language by replacing currently incarcerated because of one of those offenses to currently under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. So this proposed amendment would capture those who have committed one of those serious offenses and is incarcerated as well as those who have shorter periods of incarceration and then subsequently live in the community on probation or parole. As a result of the agreements, it is common for individuals to serve very short sentences or even no jail time for domestic assault. This revision would ensure that these victims can avail themselves of civil protection orders. Even if a defendant is under DOC supervision, the risk of harm and the survivor's fear can remain very real. But in these situations, it may be difficult for a survivor to meet the threshold of proving danger of future abuse because they are under that supervision. Even though underlying conduct was severe and recent, it is important to make this update to the statute and close this gap to ensure RFAs are accessible to survivors who need them. And as I noted at the top, this is the gap that we see in our legal clinic and one that we would like to close. I would be happy to answer any questions before I move on to the next week.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I don't think we're gonna be able to do questions, but we can definitely find that you would come in next week as well, just so we can take a deeper dive into it. Perfect. Yeah, do you wanna highlight the next section? Yes.

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Thank you. So through an RFA, survivors can seek a range of conditions of release. They are listed in the statute. They include protective measures like a stay away or do not contact. And then when appropriate, RFAs can also include some time limited conditions related to divisions of shared property, finances, or dependents. These can look like interrupting issues around parent contact, child support, or determining who can remain in a formerly cared residence, which we were discussing earlier on in committee this morning. These protections are essential to protect survivors and ensure that they can have the basic resources to lead independent lives when they separate from a former abusive partner. Our legal clinics see many gaps in how these financial responsibilities are addressed in RFAs. Once the order is filed, payments on shared household bills between a survivor and a perpetrator of harm can often stop. These lead survivors suddenly fully responsible for rent or utilities on their own when they were previously shared, and often survivors are not able to afford to stay in their current living situation. So, we propose adding an optional form of relief that a defendant be ordered to continue paying household bills that they were responsible for at the time of the RFA filing. This will permit survivors to make the request for relief, and as with all conditions in an RFA, a judge may or may not grant it at their discretion. But we would support adding this as an option for survivors with low incomes especially. This abrupt financial burden can be very harmful. It can lead to missed payments, damaged credit, or the loss of utilities or their housing, all at a time when survivors are working to regain their stability. So I really appreciate you making the quick time for me to propose these amendments. I'm happy to come back another time and discuss them more.

[Haley Sommer (Director of Communications, Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think we will have to have more of a discussion. It seemed a little more than technical changes. Not that I'm opposed to that, but yeah, but we'll revisit.

[Charlie Glosserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Perfect. And I do think that if you look at these changes in the context of the statute, it's I think, easier to see how, like, there are similar provisions already, and this is just kind of cleaning up and tweaking some language in there. When I come back, I'm happy to look at the statute with that context. Thank

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you.