 All right. So you're being recorded now. So, okay. This is the disability access advisory committee meeting on January 10, 2023. And we're starting 1154. Okay. So I know that our full committee is here. You want to announce yourselves quickly. That would be good. I guess that's not, I'm torn and I'm here by phone. And Marty Smith is here. And Sarah and Darren is here. Yes, she is. Okay. Cool. All right. We're going to have to cut things out of this agenda. So what I, what I suggest we cut is the discussion of becoming a commission. I'm working on that. I think what we need to do is Chris Breastrof here. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Cool. Okay. Yay. What we need to do is hear about the, the two projects because one of them is nearing that critical stage, which is Pomeroy. And they're in the earlier stage, I believe with the North common. So we need to hear about both of those. And we need to talk about the snow and ice removal bylaw. And we need to talk about the snow and ice removal bylaw. And we need to talk about the tech meeting last week. So I think it would be great to talk about that. And hopefully in this conversation, something will emerge about the $50,000 capital. Although. Yeah. If we could just get proposals for that from different committees from different town departments, that would be great. But Chris. You have stuff to tell us, I think. Right. Okay. So I'm going to talk about the North common project. I'm not as conversant about the Pomeroy village. Interchange project or intersection project. And I had suggested that Guilford be, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, not only did he would have like, partnered with the commission on project or intersection project. And I had suggested that Guilford be, um, invited to a meeting to talk to you about that. If you want to show a drawing of it and I'm still here in the meeting, I can talk about it, but I am not as conversant as Gilford is. So why don't we start off with North common. Yes. We get, okay. Can you just tell us what percentage stage of development this is, do you think? This is pretty far along. This is going into construction drawings, I believe that Gilford mooring the superintendent of Public Works intends to put this out to bid either January or February. Oh, wow. So very soon. Okay. He doesn't have a full set of construction drawings yet that he has shown to me. But we have a conceptual plan and then we have a rendering. So. Okay, we should have heard about this before. Okay. Hopefully we. All right. Let's go on with it. Yeah. I'm, I am. I'm having difficulty here while I. I'm not seeing my screen. Let me see if I can share a screen. Who knows, maybe I could actually do it for once. Let's see. So Chris, I think I have them on as well. If you'll tell it. Is this the, which drawing is it of the two that you sent me that you want to share? The one that's labeled concept. Okay. I will also attempt to share. And while I'm unmuted, I'll just say that Gilford had another meeting, but he's hoping to join this meeting later on. He did receive an invitation. Oh, we got it. Yeah. Right. Okay. So this is the latest concept plan for the North common project. The North common project has been. In conversation being worked on since 2013. So it's now been 10 years that we've been working on this project. The town council did approve a plan. Which is virtually what you're looking at now. So we're going to, um, Take away the parking garage parking lot in front of town hall and turn it into a green lawn area. Um, and then combine that with the plaza area in front of town hall to provide a really expensive gathering space. So that's something that the town council has, um, voted on and has agreed to. Um, essentially what we're doing here is we're renovating the North common project. Um, and then we're going to move on to, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, we're turning it into a lawn and green area for people to gather for events or just for passive recreation. We're making the the roadway in front of town hall that also goes past the Grace Church one way southbound so you'll no longer be able to drive north on that portion of Boltwood Avenue. You can only drive south. You turn in from Main Street and you drive south. Once you get to Spring Street it's going to be two ways again but in front of town hall and Grace Church it will just be one way south. One of the reasons for that was to eliminate the amount of traffic and the speeding of traffic in front of town hall because we want to have this be kind of a pedestrian or you know a place where people can gather and we don't want to have cars zooming through here so by having one way traffic we thought we could control the amount of traffic. The second thing is we wanted to be able to replace some of the car space the parking spaces that are eliminated from this big parking lot in front of town hall. We wanted to be able to replace them somehow so we've added let's see one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen so we've added fourteen parallel parking spaces along Boltwood Ave and those would be accessible via driving south along Boltwood Ave. On the west side there are some on the west side and some on the east side. Ah okay okay there's one van accessible parking space on the west side and one regular accessible parking space on the east side and those both have access aisles that someone can disembark from the vehicle and gain access to the rest of the North Common. Let's see the grade of the Boltwood Avenue as it goes south is a little bit over four percent but we're trying to keep the grades right in front of town hall and where the handicap parking is to less than two percent so that would be of interest to you. The walkways we have walkways crisscrossing the North Common and they've been designed to be all less than five percent so some of them are as much as four point seven five percent but they're less steep than what is there now so that all of the North Common would then be accessible to someone in a wheelchair. I'm sorry Chris can you tell me where the walkways are are they around the perimeter and then where do they go? There is a walkway on the east side along Boltwood Avenue that's I believe a six foot wide sidewalk essentially right and then on the west side we've expanded the walk the sidewalk along South Pleasant Street so I think it's an eight foot sidewalk there so then we also have a walkway that starts at the northwest corner and comes down to a middle point and then extends to the southeast corner and then we have another walkway that starts at the southwest corner and goes north towards the plaza which would be in front of Town Hall so essentially it's almost like a cross but then there's a kind of a gathering space in the middle with chairs and tables. Where's the bus stop? The bus stop is on the north side the bus stop is essentially where it is now and there would be a bus shelter but the bus shelter rather than being parallel with Main Street is going to be perpendicular with Main Street and there will also be an expanded walkway up there it'll be wider and there will be more seating spaces provided and some trees that are planted in the ground not in elevated boxes so the trees will be there for you know time to come there won't be you know just there temporarily. Okay so I just misunderstand the bus stop on the north side south side I'm talking about the south side one there yeah there is a bus stop that is the one that goes toward the east where the bus goes toward the east that's on the north side it's on the north side it's on the south side of Main Street but it's the north side of the north common yeah is that what you're talking about yes yeah where is that one that will work terribly remain in the same place and it has walkways to it yes bad ones that's the question bad one go go for it at least that's my main bitch is that walking that sidewalk is terrible yeah crack it's it's in bad condition and so we're going to be replacing that sidewalk that's there now oh good thank you yeah there won't be any meters and stuff in the middle of it because there's no parking no so you'll be able to get you'll be able to go so you'll be able to go from Town Hall to South Pleasant Street along the side of the common on a sidewalk yes okay dear that's what I okay that's what I need to know and there aren't going to be any obstructions in the middle of it for people who have because like now you can't even use that with a wheelchair there's too many obstructions and it's too there is a clear route there will be a bike share station about about at the same horizontal space as the bus stop in other words the bus stop will be on Main Street and then on the opposite side of the sidewalk there will be a bike share station but there is ample space between the bike share and the benches and trees on the north side to have a passageway it looks like it's probably about five feet wide and one quick question I'm sorry it's Elise um if you're having a bike share right near the bus stop are people waiting for the bus going to get hit by bicyclists coming to and from no no they're not allowed to ride on the sidewalk in downtown well people do it maybe they do it but that's against law I know but I've gotten I almost got hit several times I'm just letting you know that that could be a issue one of the reasons for having a bike share near the bus stop is the thought is that someone can ride the bus to this location and then take one of the bikes in the bike share and walk and drive ride it to a place that is not accessible by bus so that's kind of extending the you know public transportation of the area yeah there's a good logic to it it's just the the logic is good the question is the question is how safe is the juxtaposition of those two Marty do you want to give it an idea it looks like um I think it'll work what they've done is they've put a a I don't know how to explain this between the bike share and the bus drop off there is what looks to be about five feet by I don't know how many feet that is Chris looks like it could be 40 or 50 feet with three areas for trees three five by five sections for trees with adjacent benches and so this this sort of tree planting and bench area is separating standing and waiting for the bus and the bike share if that makes sense yeah so that's about 40 feet wide do you think um the bike share itself I think is 40 feet long if the bike fair shares 40 feet long then this planter area is close to 80 or at least 60 okay so there isn't a direct juxtaposition there's really quite a separation yeah I think there is okay that's a relief okay Alisa and I hear bikes and we go oh god I mean yeah yeah yeah so may I say one thing um there is a walkway that goes from the bike from the bus stop to town hall and that particular walkway is going to be a little bit steeper than the other walkways in the north common it's going to be I think six percent but there will be a handrail all along one side and it is six percent because it it follows the grade of the roadway that's just north of it um but we did accommodate people by putting in a handrail there and then at the east end of that is a ramp going down to the plaza a ramp like a curb cut a curb cut ramp how does that work for you sarin and tori I I'm not quite clear on what we're talking about like for example somebody disabled parks on the west side of that uh the old place and then is trying to go up the hill say they need to go and stop at bank of america is that the one they are going to use that route with the rail they could use a route that would go into the plaza and then turn left and go along the walkway that's what 4.7 percent and then turn right and go up to the northern walkway and then cross over to the bank of america so that's one route that would be less than six percent or a person could get out of the car in the space that you talked about sarin and cross the plaza and then go to the to this walkway that I described as being six percent that has the handrail along it and take that walkway up towards the northwest corner of this north common and cross over to the bank of america so there are two routes one is steeper than the other one is longer than yeah so it is going to make it much more cumbersome before um I remember we used to park right across from bank of america on the common and then just go very easily across the street to bank of america for example but now that is not going to be there so it's well bank of america does have spaces behind oh I know I know I'm just telling bank of america it could be a fresh side or it could be the old pastings you know to get on the other side of the street so which was we really use those hp spots on the town common so now they're no longer there and the other alternative is a steeper route well so I guess you win some and you lose some right I'd like to ask a couple of things one is you did a good job in solving the accessible parking spaces um because originally you had the van space opening into the street which was right not good um you still haven't solved the issue of there is no path that is accessible from any accessible parking to the town hall yes that's one of the major problems that still needs to be addressed you cannot get from any of the accessible parking to the accessible entrance to the town hall the one the parking spaces in the back are actually islanded there is no accessible way from those parking spaces so you can't get to the street even legally on those because there's no sidewalk there's no path that's safe and separated from the vehicular traffic many months ago we sent a letter about this project and I believe Marty um and I know it was in the letter talked about a bump out of some kind of a bump out I forget what it's called Marty that needed to be on main street yeah there needs to be a loading zone adjacent to the the north entrance to town hall and we put that in the letter a while ago the code requires either accessible parking with an accessible path or alternatively you can put a loading zone but right now none of it's accessible the other thing I'd like to say I agree with siren on the lack of a location of an accessible space on the northwest corner yep that is a real I mean I've been by there and I've watched that space a lot and it's almost always full it's almost always used it's used more than the one that's on the east side I would recommend it as part of this project that you make the first parallel parking space on south pleasant street on the common side an accessible parking space van accessible van accessible yes van accessible so it'll be on the right side for van you're going to have to adjust the sidewalk a little bit yeah but I think you need to do that yeah because there just is no center accessible parking until you go all the way across to the library yep yes and I have to say it's too bad that bank of america has two accessible parking spaces because you can't leave your vehicle there unless you're at bank of america it's not like it's it's not accessible parking for people who are just going downtown yes so I'm I'm sort of standing in for the DPW who really did this design and clearly I know is that there is a bike path bike bike lane I guess it is that goes north along south pleasant street along the east side of south pleasant street so I'm wondering how that might be compatible with or not compatible with a handicap parking space up it shouldn't bother it at all because you've already got parking spaces there you just need to take the first of those spaces and make a loading area so you're going to have to widen the sidewalk at that point just like that was done on the other side just like on the east side okay I will talk I will talk to the DPW about that it's a critical um do we uh we need a motion somebody make a motion because this is a really critical issue we are moving some really useful um handicap parking and yeah not replacing it and this is sort of why we got involved in this in the first place and I'm sorry to say that it was not considered so we need a motion and I think uh I wish Pat DeAngelis was here because I think the town council needs to insist on this um so a motion to the town council might be useful to the town council regarding this who's going to make it I'll make a motion okay go ahead as Mark the committee makes a motion to the town council um to replace the um existing northwest accessible parking space on the west side of the common as close to the to main street as possible so it'd be the first space for van accessible okay so um Pamela are you able to take notes about this Pamela Young yes I am taking notes okay okay there's two Pamela's I'm taking notes too so right okay not so many Pamela's to have two in one room it's almost like having two Myras um not not as bad okay um so um we have a motion to replace the northwest common parking uh handicap parking space with another one and and this is a motion I hope to what's the word that you use the verb you use for the town council that would be at the beginning of the motion so that they get the motion so recommendation from okay recommend to the town council that they replace okay that they replicate the space right at the northwest corner of the common yes okay we have a second a second Elise I'll second that okay all right so we need a vote Marty yes Elise yes Tori yeah sarin yes and me yes okay so we're five to zero on that and I think we've taken a bunch of votes in the past this is a really really really important issue and um and this is why we needed to have been approached earlier we can't be told that this is too late in the process this has to be done because it really does compromise quality of life and accessibility to into to the town for a number of people um and so I think it's a really critical issue not everything we do is as critical as this but I somebody needs to hear it um okay I just want to make sure that the wordage in there includes the van accessible like Marty said yeah an accessible thing yep okay um all right so do we have any other questions or concerns about the the uh about the the uh the plant well uh uh Marty raised a concern like if the handicapped parking places is on the um west side then there has to be walkways safe walkways to take the person across the street to reach the town hall so let me explain how that works um there's the van accessible unloading area that's the striped area and then there's a walkway or a sidewalk right next to that and that's what someone's pointing at now and then that would lead right into the plaza which is uh level with that walkway and the plaza um is has a has a crosswalk at the top of it at the northern end of it that um would lead someone across the road to the sidewalk and then from there you can get to the north um entry to town hall so if you went north from where that arrow is the steps steps you couldn't do the steps but you can't do it can't because the the grading between the corner the northwest corner of town hall down to the entry plaza for town hall is too steep unless you put a ramp there that's why I say there is no accessible entrance to town hall as it currently stands yes so marty would would you if you go down the ramp then you end up on the landing area there is a ramp there is a ramp there's a curb cut a curb cut going north and I see what you're saying that there's no where that you can kind of land there's no five foot by five foot landing space up there that you could then make a right and go um to the accessible place into the northern entrance to town hall there's it's not um easily navigable and we've actually been complaining about that but dpw has felt that this scenario seems to work best for their plan but I understand what you're saying yeah that's why it doesn't work but it's that time doesn't work you know christine that's what I have to come back and say to you is we've been and this was also in the letter there is no accessible entrance to town hall because accessible entrances mean that you have an accessible code compliant passageway path to either a drop-off zone or a parking space and you do not have that here there is no accessible path from a an accessible parking space to that entrance so the only solution that you have is to create a drop-off zone there so someone can be dropped off and enter the town hall so you're saying create a drop-off zone on the north side of town hall yes adjacent to where the handicapped space um there were hand entrance entrance is now there is a 15 minute parking space there now yeah but that's too steep that is too steep so it would have to be it would have to be right in front right before you turn into the alleyway and it'd have to be right there I think you might be able to do it they might have to regrade it a little bit but it's got to be done I mean what would ideally be great is if they regraded that section and made a handicap van accept or make at least a handicapped space along main street yes along main street adjacent to the entrance that's because there simply is no way you can get in and I'd get rid of those accessible quote-unquote parking spaces behind down all because they're useless that's right that's right there is absolutely no way you can get out of that parking lot that meets code that's right I don't know if that's part of this project but it certainly is well overdue and I I think I'm hearing that Chris understands the issue um I think it's not been our experience that other people cared to understand the issue so I don't know how to get from here to there with that um but I think it's pretty critical that that problem be solved and I don't know because it's on main street and it's not part of the common I don't know if they got if they even have funding that they could legally use to do this um and $50,000 in the capital project I don't think is going to do it do you Marty it'll go a long way to helping it okay well maybe that's what we should suggest but you know I think you can't do this project without solving the town hall accessibility you're fixing everything else and so Marty it might help um to have you and me meet with the team at DPW who is working on this design and I'm going to suggest that and see if we can make sure that your meeting happened that's excellent yeah thank you we probably ought to meet at the site yeah I agree even better yeah yeah because I think they need to be pointed out the people who are doing this need to see it in person that's right because they're not realizing they're not realizing how this affects people with disabilities that's right okay um are there any other things about this plan that we need to communicate um how is there going to be a road between the north and south common or pathway or something or is it just going to be continuous green spring street is still there spring street is still there okay and the parking is still there they're only going to the north edge of the spring street parking actually okay they're not affecting that sidewalk that goes across on the north side of spring street okay so that's okay I'd like to say I think this is a really nice plan I okay I think the the bisecting the common in sort of a cross I liken it to a cross rather than a T because it really almost bisects the corner to the corner and um I think it'll it'll really be a nice um improvement and especially in front of town hall the plaza that plaza area I think will give it a real sense of a sense of place you know the how big is the plaza oh let's see I'd say it's it's it's at least 40 feet wide and it's got sort of a semicircular bump off on the west side so it's it's really good 40 feet wide and what's it going to be made of it's we think right now it's going to be made of that kind of asphalt that you can stamp and then color because we want something that's you know within our budget but we also want something that looks different from an asphalt path or an asphalt roadway so it's going to be something similar to that crosswalk that's in front of the library which people seem to like stamped with some kind of a brick pattern but we haven't exactly okay worked on the detail yet does um is there a snow and ice problem in the stamps no no run into that okay okay that's cool and I assume that the drainage is going to be really good yeah that was one of the things that we wanted to address here was drainage it's a very difficult situation now yep yep okay is this project going to take place before that what was it that music booth that they were going to install on the south part of the common I don't really know about that music shed it seems that that has slowed down a bit I don't think they have money probably yeah um so right now it looks like this project is going to go ahead starting this summer um possibly starting in May so okay well I'm glad you came to us now um and and I'm glad you heard the the handicap you know and made the made the west east side sidewalk bigger and put the vans there that's great I mean that what those were those were great additions and now if we can put the other van side on the other side it's probably good as long as we can make sure that people understand about those bikes and I don't know this is nothing to do with this now but there must be a bylaw or something that has to do with e-bikes I wonder if anybody knows that there have been any additions made to the bylaw since e-bikes okay we okay we need to have who does that who comes up with that is that the TAC or it could be the TAC it could be the TAC it could be the sustainability coordinator Stephanie Ciccarello because she's really been in charge of the bike share um okay you could approach her or the TAC about it Tracy Sathion yeah because I think those bikes and you know to make sure people understand the law that we need to have a law and that we need to make sure people understand it because they are very dangerous in terms of going on the sidewalk is that what you're doing yeah yeah they're often misused and they're often just left lying around to not necessarily parked in the station so that's not necessarily been our experience yet but it is experience in a lot of towns and cities that e-bikes are just like left in the street like left on the sidewalk yep so we understand it's a vehicle and it does not belong on a sidewalk at all but yeah okay Guilford is here we were just talking about we just passed a motion about needing to replace the handicap van accessible handicap spot on the northwest corner of the common that's on that was by south pleasant street because that's the one that people really use and so we need to there has to be a wider sidewalk there so people can get out of the van and I'm not sure where that van accessible site should be I think Marty suggested that it should be right close to the corner but we passed a motion about that it's pretty critical we believe that you figure out how to add a van accessible spot to that part of the common that's really been our main our main topic of discussion and also I guess it has nothing to do with you but we need a bylaw about e-bikes so we need to talk to somebody about that but anyway I just wondered um if you um well I think does anyone have questions for Guilford directly about this project I think it might make more sense to meet for me and Marty and Guilford to meet offline about this issue and we will um describe it to him and then we'll see if there's a reasonable solution okay cool thank you right okay Guilford where are we with Pomeroy as far as the design documents what stage are we at do you know what the plan is and I last time we met we had the input from the woman at the commission for the blind about the about the accessible rapid flashing beacons and um I think she was pretty pleased with what the original plan was and I I don't know if you've made you know where you are with that project so if you could just give us a quick discussion that would be great so we added what we could for recommendations and we're purchasing those little rapid rectangular flashing beacons I'm not really sure how well they're gonna work um but that's where we are so the project is out um we've kind of started construction we have some little things we have to finish up um we're supposed to be done with it sometime next year um and that's where we're going but we did put the the beacons in um what's your concern about them working um I'm not sure people are really gonna use them um that's gonna cause a problem um but they put them in at the roundabout in Northampton but there doesn't seem to be as much people actually crossing those sidewalks in Northampton at root nine and 91 so you gotta take your heart and your mouth to cross there yeah people not crossing there is a pretty smart move so I mean but that's all in them that's all in the plan we'll see how it goes okay uh all right um oh question about the rapid flashing beacons for since you're here for near Garcia's and around the um what's the name of prairie street yeah they're in the works they um I imagine they'll be up sometime the weather actually stays the way it is I might go up before before the students come back but otherwise they'll be put in probably in April okay and actually one more question about the status of the repair of all of the stop lights since you're here um oh yeah so what what's the situation with those 13 stop lights so I wasn't involved in any of that um Maureen just came up with it based on your recommendation and I have been trying and I did finally get the capital request from Sean Mangano and we're trying to figure out really what the request is um and then we'll go from there as far as ordering the parts um there's not really a delay um the delays and streets traffic signal stuff has kind of gone away so if everything figure out what's going on and we'll probably be able to get most of the parts for the summer and put them in over the summer what do you mean if they can figure out what's going on I'm not clear what you're so the request says say that again please I'm sorry so the request is there are numerous audible pedestrian signals throughout the town that are either broken or inaudible these traffic signals need to be fixed and brought into compliance so that's all it is there was no and there was no like analysis of which ones to do yeah you've got a home you've got a spreadsheet it's not in the request well you were sent in July of 2021 yes so if it's not two months old it's dead it's not somewhere back in the pile hold on oh my god July of 2000 Marty went out because we had been requesting an inventory of those lights in the conditions and we for months from close to a year and Marty finally went out in July of 2021 and did the inventory herself and because she's an architect and because she's very skilled and knowledgeable about these things she present she wrote up a spreadsheet she talked about each of the lights and it was sent to you by the time you got it it might have been August of 2021 hey they're inaudible for one thing hold on well maybe if you just want to send it to me again because I was hoping it was all together in the project request it's and I don't think they're all gonna get fixed for the price you asked that was asked for we didn't ask for a price we just asked that they get fixed yeah with the capital request is only a certain amount of money safety who put when you're talking about they who is they um I came from Maureen Maureen put the request together and planning actually Chris and Maureen put it together I guess that's the name on it this is a safety issue it has to be done you know Amherst wants to do this whole thing about aging in place and making it more friendly and all that stuff and I'm telling you you know people trying to cross the street who can't see a traffic light or can't hear what you know it has to be done has to be dealt with yeah I'm sick of this I'm sick of feeling unsafe crossing a freaking street as a blind person I'm I'm really angry all right I've said my bit I'll shut up um I'm really sort of astounded because I know these requests were sent to you I know we asked you to inventory these no you didn't make the request you received a request you received a request for information about the lights you received requests for information about when they could be repaired based on what's wrong with them we got nothing back ever and now now you're saying oh I don't know it's like two months two it's more than two months old I don't know anything about it I never saw this and never saw that they made a request I mean you're the implementer of these requests and so I'm not really clear who's there and the funds didn't come up until this budget was approved so no it was not done immediately because there's no funds appropriate with it so I do have your list and I do have the funds and I got the project request now so I will go through it and I just sent you the report that we did two years ago yeah I found the spreadsheet yeah well it's got the whole report that explains what all the nomenclature means and of course that's two years old so it probably ought to be resurveyed again well I know we've replaced some of the buttons in the last two years but a lot of them don't make a sound when at the cross when you get a green light no they're not holding up it says wait you know I hear that very clearly but I never I often don't hear especially if there's like a lot of traffic or a lot of talking and noise you don't hear the the audible for crossing no they don't yeah they're supposed to be audible to the center of the road so when you when you step off the curb that one that's closest to you is supposed to be audible to the center of the road and it's supposed to be picked up by the one across the street when you get from the center of the road so you're supposed to hear it the entire time I never happen and so for me you just said well they don't hold up they need to be maintained there is I mean like you have a car you maintain it you have traffic lights you maintain it you have a furnace you maintain it so it has to be maintained and they seem to work in other places so it's not really clear to me why the specific hammer's ones don't they don't not prioritized no they need to be prioritized yeah exactly and also uh gilford we don't really have any say in how the funds are used but when there is a chunk of money that is going to be used safety and priority issues should be at the top of the list and we have no say in it you know we just know what is affecting people with disabilities right I mean I get a say but if I don't have money I don't have a way to do it so if you want to make then you want to make the if you can make a comment that there needs to be more money put aside for just maintaining these I'm fine but a lot of the money from traffic signals gets put other places because school zones and school zone lights actually end up being the ones that get more of the money because when they break they're almost fixed almost immediately the wildwood the middle school they don't have any lights anywhere near them fort river does but why would not really I don't see the lights there where's a light there's a flashing light on strong street there's two flashing lights on east pleasant street for wildwood um the middle school and high school do not because they until they don't need them until recently they weren't allowed to have them but that's been changed so I imagine they're going to get lights soon okay but I won't say but you know gilford is there anyway you can respond to our request and say you need to go through these channels there are no funds available at at the present situation and then what happens is months go by and months go by years go by and then it gets forgotten so one of the other things that just come to my mind is that the park what is the name of the park I mill river mill river and one woman fell and in front of our eyes when Amherst neighbors were holding their annual meeting there and you know yeah they it's just become kind of talk and we we need to see some action the building inspector went there after the accident and the building inspector said that the whole thing is inaccessible and really should be shut down and then that's it they don't have the money for the whole thing so they get it gets forgotten until another person falls or anyone or a man you know with visual impairment and an elderly person and hospitalized is that what we're waiting to raise concern so I guess my question is we can go around and around the block it seems like you say if we get if you get money you implement you feel like you're only an implementer other people have to give you money you don't advocate for anything you just you do what you're told you don't make any decisions is that right we make recommendations and a lot of stuff we recommend is cost more than our budget allows us to repair right away if we can repair it right away we take care of it right away other stuff there needs to be more money put into it so it's a cross it's kind of a hybrid situation I'm not going to if someone falls on a sidewalk and someone someone then says all the sidewalks need to be repaired there's not money for that and I can't do it if someone says there's a problem with a sidewalk and it needs to be fixed in a small area the guys will go out and fix that little piece of sidewalk so that that's kind of uh that's kind of how it goes it's not that I if there's not enough money to do the whole thing and someone says the whole thing has to be done then it needs to get prioritized in another boat and money needs to be put towards it there's no money put towards doing anything else at mill river for sidewalks parking lot either okay parking lot needs to be resurfaced you cannot yeah you cannot walk from the handicap spaces to the sidewalks it's not it just needs to be redone okay so excuse me I go ahead Chris I just wanted to say I need to leave now but I appreciate all the things that you said about the north common and I will relay those and thank you we can get them resolved thank you thank you for coming thank you for listening thank you okay so I guess what we're hearing is somehow we need to I don't even know it's not clear to me who needs to have the information about the stop lights well I got the stop light stuff and I got that well you got it today but you've had it for a year and a half so what what do we need to do in order to make that happen so we'll probably take your list and go back through and do a new survey and then we'll come up with our order for the parts supplier and we'll order the parts if you as a group want to talk to other communities and see what they're using and pull together the different signals they're using I mean our supplier is telling us they're the best that he has on the market that he's supplying us with what is basically the best he does tell us they do need to be sometimes I need a little more maintenance than they should but it's only every once in a while okay so we need to I Marty I don't know this but it would seem to me that certain stop lights cannot be retrofitted for other kinds of sounds they do what they do is that right um some stop lights cannot be retrofitted because of the type of controller it is and we have right those left um beyond that just about anyone you want to put a different sound on the button is separate from the controllers so if there's no controller issue you can pretty much put any type of system that they sell to make the noise and do all that stuff on it okay so yeah uh it um okay so we need to find out more about stop lights I think there are people at UMass who actually know a lot about all these stop lights and what the options are and I have a way to find out about them I think um okay so if you are going to buy parts for the ones that cannot be retrofitted does that seem like the way to start folks and then we I do the ones we can route to fit you do the ones we can retrofit yeah okay okay and then we have to figure out what we want some of the lights in certain places actually have information about what street you're crossing and all that I don't know that we need that but I I mean sometimes they even say safe to cross or cross main street or whatever you know I've heard some of them that are too noisy um and are too disruptive um but some of them are very helpful so um I guess you can make it say whatever you want is that right like you plan that or they put it in when you order it it depends on the style you may buy some have preset messages other have messages you can program in it depends on what you're buying it would probably be good if you would come back and let us know what the options are that you are able to get and at the same time that we find out what would work well the cuckoo's don't work so well um but I think if you could come to us and say okay this or send us information from your stoplight catalogs that that that show us what the options are that you could get that would be helpful I think what do you think folks yes I like that idea I agree so do you have I mean you could even send us links if you can't you know copy and paste you could send us links to what you think we could logically afford um if we had reasonable money um or what you could put into our existing stoplights without much of an expense so I think that that would be really important for us to have um and I'm glad you're here and I'm glad we finally have some communication direct communication on this issue it might know what's going in at pomeroy what's going on those ordered now we thought we did but now we have it so what's going to what's going to go in is a r r r fb which will have the same beeping so you can locate the button and then it will have a button that you push it'll say wait supposedly and then when they start flashing it'll say the lights are flashing okay because it doesn't stop traffic so I can't tell you to walk okay it's not it's not a stoplight okay so that's why it is and then they talk to each other but it'll only activate on one road at a time so if you're crossing the south side of west street you push that button to cross to the across that part of the road those two lights will light up for the northbound and southbound traffic on west street that are on that side of the intersection and then when you work as you work your way around you'll have to push other buttons so it's not like that oh yeah well no we know that yeah okay yeah that we expect okay yeah yeah yeah myra yes I don't think our committee has to be involved with the financing of projects these are not big projects that we are saying we just want fixes to do actually think I'm sorry I have to say I disagree a little bit I think that we ought to be advocating for more funding I think that's one of our best roles is a funding advocacy so like if gilford needs more money to fix these things then this is the committee that should be advocating for additional funds right and explaining why it is so important because it is a liability to the town if someone gets hurt is this joint capital planning or is this regular old maintenance for your budget most most of the big big changes have come out of capital and the rest is out of the regular budget so you have a budget line that has to do with traffic signals I do and it has $4,000 in it for my god wow that's you can't call it a technician for that oh my god well there it there in lies the rug folks yeah I have my money in that category I'd like to know I have I do have my own people well I did have them um we have our own staff that does maintenance on them um so that doesn't isn't part of the budget but there's four thousand for equipment maintenance and then for supplies it's another three thousand dollars okay so how much money do you need do you think well multiply by ten I mean what do you think we need to advocate for well sometimes I think we ought to ask gilford to come back and tell us what it's going to cost to to fix all of those and then let's advocate for that budget okay all right so could partner in this are we allowed to ask you to get that information for us and bring it back to us next month how much money do you need to fix the the accessible traffic signals so that they do what they're supposed to do well why don't you give me two months I'll have someone go inspect them all again um and then we'll talk to our supplier and get the prices from him if we make it in a month we will if not it'll be in two months okay but we really we really need this because I don't know where we are in the budget I mean march is enough time I suppose for us to have some impact on the budget but I think at some point we need to talk about a placeholder in the budget for this because four thousand dollars is ludicrous joke yeah I mean they probably pay more than that for a consultant to look and do the uh you know look at the cost of it wow okay but I'm just asking about the where you are in the budget when you have to you have to have a budget plan in by when November okay so all right but there are I mean I was on the school committee I know budgets change I know things get moved I know things are deleted I know things are added so realistically the town budget gets voted in March April it gets voted it's actually the final dose don't really happen now until June usually okay so we need to talk to somebody or you do about how there is a need for additional funds that will be advocated for but that they ought to anticipate it right I mean I'm not sure how else to do this because we don't want to wait till next November for the FY 25 budget cycle right we don't want to do that I mean I'll give you the information I'll have it and you guys can take it and we can bring it back and I mean I was supposed to have my budget hearings today actually and I actually put it off the next week if you come up with the numbers that we need prior to our March meeting but after what would be February if you let Pamela Young know or let me know we can have a special meeting to discuss this with you in a timely fashion so if you need six weeks and we wouldn't meet until eight or nine weeks then you know as quick as possible so that we can really have some impact on the budget cycle would be really good so we will we will have an emergency meeting to deal with this topic if you know if you can get it to us sooner than the March meeting we'll see what we can do I mean I have my I have one person I can send out to maybe just do it and go from there okay great one more topic one more topic for you while you're here since we're out running out of time snow and ice removal you said to the GOL that your people could be responsible for enforcement is that we just got a we got a letter like that that you had sent to them and I guess the problem with the snow and ice removal isn't particularly the bylaw itself it's the enforcement of the bylaw and so because right now it's a police task according to the right written bylaw that doesn't seem to be the best course for so many reasons and I guess they said something about maybe building inspector maybe dpw and I guess from it's it's an issue that's very important to us so can you tell us how you could envision having any role in enforcement way back in the beginning life before I got here we actually used to actually write tickets for those violations I have the book here somewhere I have the ticket book so you're talking 20 years ago yeah and somehow that ended up police job after that well what happened before I got here was it was dpw could write tickets the police would write tickets and sometimes the building inspector would write tickets depending on who saw a lot when and then it just kind of slowly went to just being the police doing it so if people really wanted more enforcement I mean there's the parking people they write tickets now I believe or they give warnings out and the police write tickets we could write tickets again if we if that was so desired and building inspections could continue to write tickets it's right now it's only the police usually write the tickets and the parking guys go around and give warnings okay so this is like an issue for the there's a g ol meeting next Wednesday morning but whatever day that is 11 18th and I think they're probably finally going to get to this issue so I'm glad to hear you say that they might have to write that into the live by law that the enforcement can be done by anybody but I think from our perspective as long the only other issue we ever had about it is the sidewalk isn't enough it's the exit from the sidewalk to the street the curb cut the you know what I mean like I used to be able to walk this is a long time ago but it's just illustrative sidewalk is plowed all the way to the middle school parking lot that I used to have to walk to to get to work and it was all piled up on the sidewalk entrance to the street so you couldn't you could walk on the sidewalk but you couldn't get from the sidewalk to the street without climbing through a two foot snow drift and you know so that is that's something that was done by whoever plowed the school parking lot but it is also done by people who have property you know they piled the street up they piled the snow up in the way of the exit and I guess that's another thing that isn't necessarily in the bylaw because it only talks about sidewalks it doesn't talk about ramps to streets yeah doesn't talk about stops doesn't talk about what I'm sorry Gilbert crosswalks crosswalks yeah so and bus stops okay bus stops yeah so we need to yeah bus stops is a big issue who's supposed to clean those is that this is the great fight we have pvp a the town bylaw says the property owner is responsible for cleaning the sidewalks in front of their property there's no special rule that says dpw cleans bus stops there's no and then pvta and umass transit says there's no other regulations to say they're responsible for cleaning sidewalks and they fall back to the town rule which says the adjacent resident supposed to clear it um sometimes pvta and umass transit will go out and clean them we clean them when we do downtown cleanup we don't do a lot outside of downtown but when we pick up snow in the center of town we'll clean all the buses stops as well so it's kind of a head hodge podge or who does it mostly it doesn't get done mostly it really doesn't know like the the one that's closest to me on main street by uh what is that east of north whitney south east of north whitney street uh it's not you're not going to clean that nobody else does either no because it's not in the center of town so we but there are lots of students who live across the street in that apartment thing and some people use the bus all right so this is okay so we're going to hear from you specifically next month hopefully at some time in late february maybe about what uh what we can do about the stop lights and how much it's going to cost yes right okay fabulous i'm very glad you came thank you and um learning about the four thousand dollars explain a lot and i'm really really i apologize for losing it back there i didn't mean to come on so you know it's just a hot topic i'm but i apologize for that outburst it's okay there's lots of hot topics in town okay thank you so much thank you thank you i hope we'll hear from you next month really in february we will have an emergency meeting to deal with this as soon as you get us information okay all right thank you hi thank you all right so the only thing we actually covered a lot of of our agenda items with that maybe the fifty thousand dollars has to be well we have two possibilities for it right to fix the parking situation at town hall and to add somehow to the traffic light thing how much will it cost to fix the parking thing marty i don't know it depends on how much they have to regrade and resurface i i would not hazard a guess on that it needs to be engineered okay well fifty thousand dollars we could put toward that because i think that's pretty critical and we could put some of it or all of it or whatever toward the stop lights so that's what we need to share i think with joint capital planning i don't know what other town departments have involved have have in mind but um pamela but these seem to be two critical projects my recommendation is to meet with the finance committee and tell them about our frustrations because we have no say i have no idea of the money they have that they're playing with and how it should be our needs should be prioritized because we go with the ADA regulations and what from our experiences the challenges we are facing so okay maybe we should recommend they might just say okay so maybe they should create a new pool of money that could be used for any immediate access needs even from the new ones or to fix the existing ones so i think we should okay good idea i don't feel comfortable we're making decisions of this is going to cost this much should we spend that money on this project or this project because we know so little about the finances of the town yeah i tell you there is no money i have no idea okay so pamela can you i don't even know pet pat isn't here today right can you i don't know who the finance committee people are from the town council i don't even know who's in charge of it so i can um send you the information about the finance committee and it uh i think that it just dawned on me when you mentioned pat de angelis that uh that angel and i did not send her the link to join this meeting where i'm still trying to get all the protocol uh so i will take responsibility for that i don't think she oh don't yeah no she knows when we meet okay she sent a note out saying that she knows when we meet appointment today and if she couldn't make it and she's also not going to be here for the next month or so okay all right oh i didn't get that yeah i did oh she's got a lot on her plate yeah she's got a lot of things going on so don't oh it's not your fault camo all right well i didn't even i didn't even get that so i didn't know wow so um i i do unfortunately have to leave for another meeting yep but i didn't want to before i do that i want to go over my to-do list which includes checking on a few things so one is the accessibility of the packet and i i mean maureen has been gracious enough to say that i could reach out to her to ask questions so i will ask her what we did differently we meaning angel and i then how she posted information because we angel and i did assume that the way in which we posted everything it would be accessible so i need to check on that i also need to get you minutes from this meeting and the prior meeting because you haven't had any minutes um and so those are the two things on my to-do list to check on the accessibility of the information i'm not sure maire why your link didn't work because it did work for elise and for marty um um but you know i'll in the link okay i think it possibly didn't work because tori asked me to send the her the link and at the bottom of the page it says do not share this link and it's possible that she couldn't get in with my link because she wasn't me and i couldn't get in with my link because i had already given it to her it is possible yeah i'm not so i don't know i don't know how to what what the protocol is but tori couldn't get in and i couldn't get in and it was all about the same link so i don't know i have to go actually so i'm going to i think we all do i think we just need to follow up with gilford to make sure that he's um be going to be able to bring us what we need um and i think um we need to well marty and chris and gilford are going to meet and i think we learned a lot today that we can't really talk about right in a public okay so uh okay motion to to uh suspend yeah adjourned adjourned yes okay okay marty made a motion okay tori or somebody seconded it and okay anybody opposed to adjournment no hearing no hearing none congress hearings see you next month pam you've done a great job for your first time absolutely thank you thank you great job pam pamela this was quite the meeting um we've not had we've not had access uh to what we had access to ever so i think i think you saw something very interesting i assume thank you yeah thank you and thanks for being patient with me i will definitely try to um smooth out the rough edges okay well thank you until next time we're all laughing bye bye bye bye bye