December 1, 2023

Agenda

1. Welcome

2. Bill Introductions (See Reference Document)

3. Logistics: Room + Meeting Time

4. Intern

5. Process for Meeting Discussions/Speakers

1. Discussion: Reminding everyone (including advocates/community) that anyone can raise their hand.

2. Speakers: Caucus Priorities & Emergent Issues (Recommendation)

I. Bill Introductions

1. Each person who had submitted ideas gave a 1 minute overview. You can view the idea document here.

2. We'll follow up with a form for legislative caucus members to vote to rank and prioritize ideas. In the past, as with omnibuses, we can all collectively help lift up a rural caucus platform ideas.

3. Floor was opened up for discussion:

1. Rep. Dolan added a topic: Post-Irene, some communities benefitted by having the capacity to create a local resilience plans (ex. Waterbury, Barre). This proposal recogonizes that there's not a lot of local capacity, but that local voices are important in identifying needs and creating a plan. This propsoal takes the ACCD municipal planning grants and "puts it on steroids". It adds resilience to the planning grants, adds more money, maintains the planning functionality, and adds more resources for municipalities to seek resilience funds in order to identify priorities and create a plan. It also adds funding for regional planning commissions in order to boost capacity so they can help with response, recovery, hazard mitigation, and resilience.

2. Sen. Harrison added a topic: A storm water bill encourages communities to create CUD-like entities for storm water. This gives towns a dedicated source of revenue for doing storm water mitigation. 

3. Rep Sims encouraged everyone with questions to reach out to folks individually, particularly with co-sponsoring interest.

II. Future Meetings

1. We will meet 8:00am on Thursday mornings. We will be back in the Pavilion Building in Room 270 (one exception of Jan 18th when we'll be in Room 267). We will have a hybrid option with Zoom.

III. Intern

1. We have an intern from UVM, Lauren McCain. Lauren will join us during Rural Caucus meeting to assist with minutes, bill research, priority tracking, etc.

IV. Process of Future Meetings

1. Laura shared celebratory remarks regarding the Legislative Service award that VLCT gave to all Rural Caucus members this summer.

2. The leadership team meets to discuss agendas weekly. If you have something urgent come up, please see one of the members of the leadership to share if you would like to see something discussed at a Rural Caucus meeting.

3. This year, the focus will be mainly placed on Rural Caucus priorities. We have a lot of advocates and community members participating from around the state. we would love to have you pariticpate in conversations. Please feel free to raise your hand to ask questions and be active in conversations during meetings. 

V. Potential Agenda for January 4th Meeting

1. Hearing an overview of Act 250 reports.

2. Hearing an overview of Education Task Forces in progress (education school construction aid and CTE were specifically mentioned).