 You're going to tell me when you've pressed the zoom recording button. Yes, it has been. Okay, thanks. The appointed hour five o'clock, having been reached, I welcome everyone to the meeting of the Amherst Design Review Board. My name is Catherine Porter as chair of the Amherst Design Review Board. I call this meeting to order pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12 to 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. I will see 30 a section eight section 18 and the governor's March 15 2020 order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather at one place. This public hearing of the town of Amherst Design Review Board is being conducted via remote participation. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can attend tonight's virtual meeting by using the zoom log in information provided on the meeting agenda listed on the meeting calendar, which provided on the town of Amherst website. We'll begin with a roll call of the members of the Design Review Board who have been impaneled for the consideration of the items on tonight's agenda. Board members please indicate I when I call your name. Lindsey Schnarr. Hi. Okay. Erica Zekos is not here. Janet Markward will be here soon. And so we have Tom long. Are you here Tom. Also in attendance is Marine Pollock planner and staff liaison to the design review board. The design review board and the accompanying zoning regulations were created by town meeting in October 1983. The charge and purpose of the design review board under section 3.2 of the zoning bylaw is to preserve and enhance the town's cultural, economic and historical resources by providing for a detailed review of all changes in land use, the appearance of structures and the appearance of sites, which may affect these resources. The design review board exercises this responsibility by providing design review and recommendations to private applicants and permit granting boards within specific overlay zoning districts in the town center. The design review overlay district and the town common design review overlay district. The design review is also provided for town departments and permit granting boards with respect to town projects anywhere in Amherst, which will result in substantial alteration to the form of appearance or of a structure or site. The design review board meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. Each meeting recorded will be uploaded to the town of Amherst YouTube channel for public viewing. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the meeting after which the board will ask questions for clarification or additional information. Also, the board has completed its, after the board has completed its questions, the board will deliberate. If the board feels it has enough information and time, it will decide upon recommendations for each respective application. The board has voted on its recommendations. The staff liaison will type up the recommendations for distribution to the applicant board applicable land use board and building commissioners. Okay, so tonight we have two applications. And marine shall we just go ahead and Okay. Yeah, so the, the first application is for the proposal shelters and we have been Berber, how do you say your last name, Breger, Breger, thank you. I haven't had a chance to say your last name a lot. Yeah. I believe the DRB members have met Ben. Yeah. So, yeah, so Ben is going to talk to you guys about the, the locations and the aesthetics related to the bus shelters. Take it away, Ben. Great. Thanks, Maureen. Yeah, and thank you all for short taking the time to have this meeting. I know the short notice, but I'm appreciate it being able to organize quickly so I'm going to share my screen here. I'm going to take another short little presentation. So, just a little bit of background on this project. The town. We applied for a grant from mass DOT, and that was, it's called the shared streets and spaces grant and that was a grant really focused on, you know, COVID-19 related impacts to the street and allowing towns to, you know, do quick implementation projects where they could create more space for pedestrians for people to eat outside and be able to enjoy, you know, a town center with social distancing and being able to kind of just, you know, I mean renewed commerce was one of the focuses so like with this grant we were able to, we slightly realigned North Pleasant Street and were able to bump out some of the Jersey barriers. We got more heaters for downtown, but also part of this grant was money for new bus shelters, because that's something that DOT really wants to fund. And also, you know, we noticed how there were a few bus, pretty high ridership bus stops in the center of town that don't have shelters at the moment. They don't have conversations with PVTA, you know, they've been trying to fill every stop they have with shut with the shelter because you know, it's a place where people congregate and wait for a bus and it's, you know, we do live in New England and there's a lot of harsh weather and so having the opportunity to stay out of the rain or wind or snow, while you're waiting for the bus is important. So, that's a little bit of background. This is, and I will know. This is typically not how bus shelters are procured for the town, typically it's something that PVTA and DPW really take care of. And so, you know, I'm in the planning department with Maureen and so because we got the grant, you know, PVTA, they have their hands full right now so at first we offered like oh can we just give you the money and then you can do what you do and just get the get the bus shelters but because of the quick deadline and the time and the timeline for this grant, you know, the DOT is going to, we have to spend the money by the end of the year, essentially so PVTA was just like, you know, we can help you, we're there for you, any questions you have but we'd like for you as the town to be the ones to get the bus shelters and so that then came back to me and so I'm working with PVTA to find the specs for the shelters that they typically put in Amherst and so I'm coming to you today because basically I have noticed that there's multiple different types of bus shelters in downtown Amherst. They're all kind of a variation on the same theme of like this Victorian shelter but I think there's a lot of different details that you know should need to be worked out and I'll talk about what those kind of different specs are so that's the sorry that was a long long story short is that that's kind of why I'm why I'm coming to you today so um let me make this full screen or do you guys see this okay let me just um so um whoops. So yeah the existing bus shelters in downtown Amherst, I got the specs from PVTA so the next three slides are all like the actual documents drawings themselves and then I have actual pictures but just to give you a sense of the details. So this is all this kind of Victorian style. This version has like a lattice like grill kind of thing metalwork on the bottom, which is kind of differentiates it from the other ones. The shelter kind of has that same lattice grill but the glass itself is has some pattern to it and is I think a little bit darker in color you'll see an example of this shelter. And then this is the same thing but without the grill so there's kind of these different details. So yeah this is this is the shelter that has the window or sorry the glad the kind of pattern on the glass and it's a little bit less transparent. This is across from the Commons. And so one of the proposed shelters is going to be on the other side of the street kind of at the on the Commons where there's a Peter Pan bus stop but no shelter. The next one this is at the post office downtown a high ridership shelter or bus stop with a shelter and so this has the lattice metalwork on the bottom. And then this is kind of across from Kendrick Park downtown and this is kind of just a standard shelter this one has like a map insert the windows open for some reason but you know this can close and PVT I likes to put information in these little display cases. And then this picture this is actually way down in South Amherst and crock near Crocker farm. And I just drove by this and I was like oh I knew a new type of bus shelter downtown or sorry a new bus type of bus shelter in town. And what was different about this one is it actually has a solar panel on it. And a small LED light in the mid in the center of the shelter somewhere here. And so that's something that PVT I mentioned was like an add on that that we could include in our new shelters. This is not this is I think one of the only ones in Amherst that has the solar panel and the light you know it's not hooked up to the grid at all so the light is powered by the solar panel here, but it's a neat way to kind of have light in the shelter, which we think is important so just a consideration I think I would have to look closely at the proposed locations in downtown, and whether there would actually be a night enough light to power the light that's in here. So, but I just wanted to give you a visual of what that solar panel might look like if we decide to go that route. And then this is the one town hall kind of this is main street right here and this is as PVT I told me this shelter is at least 25 years old and has not been replaced in a while. So, we're proposing, you know, to, if we have enough money to get, you know, three shelters that this would be a priority to replace, because it's pretty worn down and is also at the center of town. So, I just want to I think this is this is the old model it has this kind of bubble roof to it. And then I just included this to show you guys a visual of kind of the contemporary model that is dotted around mostly around the UMass campus and this is something that, you know, for what when a new shelters placed, placed in like the town center centers PVTA usually lets us decide that they defer to us what we want to decide, but the shelters that are in and around the UMass campus typically they go with this more contemporary design. But I just so I just wanted to show you that this is not what we're proposing for the town center but just as an example of the different types of shelters. And then I wanted to present this idea, which hopefully this doesn't complicate things too much but PVTA wants to include a display case within the shelter. This would be like a custom made item. So what you're seeing here this is actually at Pulaski Park in North Hampton. And so, you know this is a different style shelter different sides but all I really wanted to show you was the display case that you see this is within the shelter. And this is what it looks like from the back. And so I got the specs from PVTA about actually this would this would what this is what it would look like if it was in portrait orientation. And it kind of just like goes up against the shelter and fits within one of the pains on the side and so this is a opportunity for you know PVTA to have a digital display that they can change in real time and it provides real time bus, you know information about one to expect certain, you know, buses coming in and out. And so but it does have a visual impact because it protrudes out the side of the shelter ever so slightly. And but you know it would be painted black and kind of blend in with the, with the profile as well so we might propose this for the high ridership shell bus shelter that's at St. Bridges church, which is one of the locations that we're looking at so just wanted to give you that details. And finally, I realized I probably should have started with this, but just to give you a sense of the our priority areas for for for bus shelters. So number one is Coles Lane where St. Bridges churches. Number two is on the town commons at the intersection of like the spring street parking lot and the commons. And then three is the town hall main street kind of parking lot. And so number one and two. There is there's a bus stop there but no shelter. Number three is the one I showed you where it's there, there's a bus stop there and the shelter but it's in poor condition so we're proposing to replace that. And so I went I made some site plans for what how we think we could put a shelter fit a shelter into the various locations. So the standard PVTA shelter that Victorian model is 11 feet long by, like, just under five feet deep so that's what you see here in the kind of turquoise color can zoom in on this, whoops. And just to orient whoops, just to orient you you know St. Bridges churches over here. And so you know you'd go this way towards town and up towards UMass. You know, Maureen and I actually, we, you know, we want, we also wanted to make sure these things were, the shelters and the stops and the whole site plan they were they were ADA compliant. So one of the things we looked at was, you know, making sure there was a six foot clearance from the unloading area of the bus to the sidewalk so that's something we wanted to make sure of. And so what you see here is kind of you that six foot wide. Just pathway. There's nothing there. And then the shelter could fit here. And you know we also there also needs to be at least five feet between the shelter and the road, which is what you see here. And so this is the sidewalk as well. So there'd be a little bit of site work required here these bike racks would need to be removed. You can see that here. So this is, you know, St. Bridges churches here. These are the bike racks that would need to be removed. And then I went ahead and use PowerPoint just to kind of show what it looks like to have like that Victorian style shelter there and it would be somewhere. It would kind of be in start in between these bike racks and move to where that recycling is and so there's a parking spot right here. So typically, you know, there could very well be a car here, and the PVTA bus would stop where the sign is and they would have the room for people to come in and out of the bus, and then wait over here. I'm trying to think if there's anything else for this area. You know that this is this is where there's at least three different kind of bus systems that come through here so there's there's the B 43 bus which goes from North Hampton to Amherst and Northampton. There's a bus that goes to and from Holyoke that stops here and then there's like at least like five different local buses that come through here so this is a very busy bus stop and it's, you know, it's really important that there's a shelter here. You know, for all the people that wait here. And so because it's like one of the highest highest ridership bus stops in Amherst, this is where PVTA would want to see that display case. And so I proposed it you know it makes sense to be on the facing away from the direction of traffic so if you're waiting for the bus here the bus is coming this way. That's that sign to like block your view of the oncoming bus so I'm saying it should be on this side. And so, yeah I'll just, I'm going to talk now about the other one on the commons and then we can maybe just discuss the details of each bus stop separately but this is just to orient you are on the other side of downtown. And this is the Spring Street parking lot, you know, Hastings is somewhere over here. And so this bus stop this is, again, you know, the Peter Pan this is the inbound stop for the Peter Pan bus. So this is where people get dropped off as they're coming into town. And this is also a bus stop for the B 43, as well as multiple local buses. And, and so there's, there's, oh, I meant to include a picture of this but for those of you who have lived in Amherst for a while there used to be a yellow information booth here that was run by what like the Chamber of Commerce or the visitor center. There is kind of a history of there being a structure at the corner here and there's actually some evidence of like a concrete pad still being there. I think that was removed maybe in the early 2010s it's been it's been a while. Yeah, I remember when that was removed. Yeah, big to do. Yeah, yeah, certainly and it's actually it's currently at the Gillin farm in or sunset farm, I think which is in near the center of town they use it as their farm. They use it as their farm stand now just a fun fact. So, yeah, similar to before you know there, there's an area for people to get in on on and off the bus from the sidewalk. The this would involve the construction, basically or more more so the extension of the concrete pad to fit the, you know this would be an 11 by five shelter. I'm giving you a little bit of a sneak preview of the next presentation with Brianna and because Brianna is proposing these informational signs, and one of her proposed locations is at this corner. And so you'll get more details from Brianna about what those signs are and what they look like but I just wanted to say like you know we're working together. And in conjunction and if we decide to put one of Brianna is there called Sufa signs here, then we could extend this concrete pad and it could fit right here. So, again, I also did a quick little PowerPoint rendering of what the shelter might look like this is. You know the concrete pad would extend back here and down a little bit. And so I made sure to still leave this corner, you know, if I'm, you know, if people I do this to if you're going to the farmers market you might cut through this corner, so I made sure to leave this corner open. And so, kind of pushing the concrete pad further south south that would be yeah. And then again it would be something like that. And so this is just my quick little mock up of what the informational sign looks like you'll get more details about that. And so, yeah, I think my kind of questions for you guys are, you know, I'm assuming we want to stick with this Victorian theme for the bus shelters downtown. And so I was just looking for some help on, you know, what makes sense in terms of different features and variations on this theme whether there's that lattice metal work whether we want the glass to be more transparent less transparent. So, you know, solar panel sticking off here is that going to look too cluttered or is that the right idea so. Yeah, and I guess, you know, to a certain extent at both locations were limited on location, you know, specifically within here, because of, you know, site furniture and trees but if you have any questions for, you know, slight adjustments for the locations within these areas that would be helpful as well. So, yeah, let me know if anything was unclear or if you need clarification for anything so. A number of questions. Yeah. On the map you show this on the other side of the street but there is one on that side of the street. So you just have the dot off slightly right. Yep. Yeah, so it's on the side of the street. Yeah. Also, why sometimes does the shelter face out and sometimes it faces the other way. If you've ever waited for a bus, you want to have it being like this you can see whether the bus is coming. There's all these ones that are turned the other way and you have to like crane your crane your Yeah, yeah, this is coming and that's the way you had the one in front of St. Bridges set. Oh, well that wasn't my intention. That wasn't my intention. At least your drawing looked like that. Maybe not. But you're planning to have them like this open to the street, right? Yeah, yeah, certainly. Yeah, I think it's probably usually an ADA type thing where like you need hard surface like a sidewalk or something in front of the shelter and sometimes there's not enough room on the street facing side. In these instances, yeah, it's available. One in South Amherst on West is has the solar panel because that's the only area that isn't already lit by lights this area here. There's lights in town. Yeah, that is so you can find the shelter and you're lit while you're in there. Yeah, I don't think we really need more light in these areas downtown. Yeah, that's true. There's a there's a light pole like right here right off the screen. And across the street. Yeah. In fact, it's very light there because I've met the Peter Pan bus many times and it's it's quite light. Yeah, right there. As far as the design goes, it seems to me that this style roof is smarter with snow, the more pitch than those flat, flatter ones. Great. They're the grid at the bottom. I don't know how attractive it is but it certainly reinforces the structure. Yeah, way that this doesn't and any number of things can happen to these structures. Yeah, so the better reinforcement they have seems to me make sense. And then in the summer, or at a time when the sun is coming low, having that glass that's etched in those that helps a lot if you're in a bus shelter and the sun is pouring in the window either you're trying to look the direction the sun is coming or it's just hot. And these are more comfortable to weigh in. So those are all my points. Yeah. Are there going to be benches? Do I see a bench in this one here? Yeah. Yeah, we would, we would include a bench inside. Yeah. And I think, yeah, another thing Maureen and I were conscious of for ADA is to have like a, I think it's like a 30 by 48 rectangle kind of next to the bench for a wheelchair. So it's, it wouldn't kind of like you see here. Yeah, it wouldn't extend all the way. But yeah. How would you power those graphic signs that they want? So that's like a detail I haven't fully worked out with DPW. I'm sorry. At Pulaski Park in Northampton, it's hardwired into the street, kind of like the same conduit that the street lights use. So there would be some electrical work and connection to get it into the street as well. I hate to have the view in front of St. Bridget's cluttered up too much because that's one of our real architectural beauties in town. Yeah, it really is. A lot of people photograph that and it just, it's a really attractive view downtown. And the bus shelter already is going to mess up that view. And then if we start having, you know, things wired into the street and I don't know, there's a lot. It just adds more and more and more stuff in front of that. Do you possibly slide it just a little bit further down toward the tree box? Because you had kind of shown it just taking up the one spot of the bike rack. Maybe it shifts all the way down and then the bike racks. Was there an intention to relocate the bike racks? Yeah, yeah, this whole area between, there's like a tree pit here and then one further south. And there's really no street furniture there. So, you know, the bike racks could move there or, you know, somewhere else. Yeah, certainly. So the width further away from the facade, Lindsay, is the idea. Yeah. So the width between the bus shelter and the tree pits there is at three, that's three feet. And so that that's considered an aisle. You have to have both sides. Not just one side. Well, you know, so some of these buses are double buses. I don't know. Yeah. There are, there's people coming out. Yeah. Yeah. And actually, yeah, Maureen, remember we have that picture, or when we were here, we saw, as it currently is now, like the back door of the bus just like lets people out into the tree pit. Like it's not a great situation. Yeah, further north and beyond the other side of that tree pit. Well, no, because there's parking spots here. So really the driveways. Yeah, that's south. I'm talking about north. Oh yeah, well, Coles Lane is also right here. It's a, yeah, it's a tough spot. Like already, when there's like one of the double buses there, it blocked it, that alone blocks Coles Lane. Like they're, you know, this is maybe a conversation for another time, but, you know, but, you know, if we were to remove a parking spot or two, it could move everything south and allow better queuing of the buses and, you know, right in the front of the church. Yeah, yeah, we're not ready to go there yet. And also if you put that graphic thing in with the lit screen. I mean, that's even worse in terms of clutter in front of that building. Mm hmm. You know, that seems to be on all the time, right. Yeah. So what are your thoughts about, although it'd be kind of weird if you had a different bus shelter type in downtown, but how about the contemporary bus shelter. Would that blend in better instead of the black. No. Okay, good. Because I think it would be kind of odd. Yeah. I think there should be a tribe if the shelters across from one another and maybe. Yeah, but to be the same rather than you've got a gabled building behind it so it'd be kind of weird. Yeah. Yeah, I will say that Ben Ben has spent a lot of time out here and and and I went out with him once of we became sort of like boss people. And then to you start, and I'm starting paying the attention to the, the street furniture and then each bus has their each bus driver has their own solitude of where they stop. And then the different types of buses. I do think that while I hear your point Janet is a very beautiful location and we don't want to disturb that. There are often a lot of people that gather at this location, as it is, because it's such a heavily used bus stop and having a kind of a contained shelter as long as it's shifted as far toward that tree on the right side of this picture as possible. Given the size that it is I think that there's still adequate space to photograph to get kind of behind it to get nice angles. I personally have taken photographs of that church to and I'm imagining that even with that shelter there, as long as it shifted toward the right as far as possible that there would still be plenty of vantage points to be able to capture and take in that lovely site and actually think it might in some ways kind of clean it up just giving people a place to gather. So, now I don't have any problem with that I'm just saying to have that lighted information. Yeah, I think would be, I don't know just sort of glaringly. Yeah, I mean that that's something that we could always add on to the post office shelter across the street because that's just as yeah, as this one. And at the very least, we might add like an embedded like map like display. That's like you know flush with the glass and you know is just shows all the different routes. Yeah, schedules. I want to make a pitch for the information screen now because I think that there's something that Erica. Yes sorry I'm late. Nice. Have you had the conversation already so forgive me if I'm because of my weakness I've missed an important point but the information screen is something that's updatable so if there's emergency information or changes to the bus route because of snow right like there's a way to communicate that's timely and accessible and it doesn't rely as heavily on the taped up flyers that you know we see our old and out of date or there's tape all over the surface or there. Somebody's like pin something up and it's all a skew and somebody else has to come and take it down like this is a way to streamline information delivery in a timely way for residents of Amherst and bus users. And is it also a way to gather and organize the kind of information that people tend to look for when they're in the bus. And is it going to control all those flyers because those flyers say absolutely everything from us dog to you know rummage sale. So I don't know that that. Yeah, at the examples that we've shown a lot of those flyers are from the town or from TV. Yeah, yeah, and things like that and. And you're only planning on putting one in that location on one side of the street. Um, the display case. Yeah. Yeah, it would be it would probably be one or one or the other. Yeah. That's kind of weird. It's like, if you're going north, you get it, but not if you're going south. Yeah, well, I think it's easier to do when you're getting a new shelter because they would be a fabricator would kind of just do do both at once. PBTA maintains that right. It's up to them then to their they pro they program it. Yeah, yeah. Now when you say you really mean glass or is it plexiglass those shelters aren't really glass. Are they. Yes, it's tempered glass tempered glass. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, plexiglass. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, uh, yeah, one thing they said was like, you know, whatever shelter you get, you can order order like order a extra window paint paints. You know, already made the same size because they just like to have them. Yeah, ready to go for. There's any. I like Dan's suggestion about having the lower grid. I think that. Yep. Yeah. A sense. Yeah, and that's sorry. I'm just going to go to the post office one. This is across the street. Yeah. Yeah. The patterned glass, I think is a good idea myself. And a lot of time waiting for buses in Europe. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's for the patterned glass on the common, but I think here you're covered by a lot of trees. And if you want to minimize the impact on the view of, of, that's true building to keep it transparent would work in that particular case. So. We match. Be getting self light and be covered a lot of the time. I don't know. You know, the trees are doing a pretty good job. Yeah, good point. So maybe here and I'll have that. Right. Yeah. Well, I definitely think they should be identical if they're across the street. Yeah. Yeah. Just because we've got already enough hodgepodge in this town. Yeah. Yeah. What is everyone's thoughts about a patterned glass for the. Spring street location and then main street. Yeah, just as a reminder. And, and yeah, to Tom's point, this is across the street from the one that we would put on the comments. So that would also match. Yeah. But I still think that the lower grid thing is a reinforcement that makes sense. And so I believe sorry, I'm just going to scroll around a little bit. One of the specs I had. Yeah, this one. I didn't have an actual picture of this. I don't think, I don't know if it has the pattern glass and the. Metal work on the bottom. So. It does seem possible. Yes. So if I hear everyone. So for the mate for the spring street self pleasant. One. It would be a pattern like this, but you guys still would prefer to have the lower grid. I would. But my only word of caution around that is that it kind. It's, it's a design feature that's very. We are talking about. That we already have quite a variety of designs and that adds a layer of specificity to the design. It's not that I have anything against that particular design. It's just that. It. It's, it's a design feature that's very. Noticable and specific. And so if there's an interest in trying to. Make these as consistent as possible. So maybe leave these two. Similar. And then the one across in the post office. Maybe the grid could go there because the post office has a grid, or you're saying let's eliminate as many grids as possible. Yeah. I don't, yeah. Well, just. From a construction standpoint, I think they are a good idea. And Ben, this is an example of one that's turned back. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I don't understand it. I mean, I've dropped my daughter. There are many times and I don't see why a person has to face away from the street. I'm going to come back to the three foot clearance on the street. Yeah. We actually talked to. Oh, cause it would be on the sidewalk if it were. Yeah. And so that the width of that sidewalk probably just doesn't meet is not wide enough to provide. The entryway to the shelter to face the roadway. We actually spoke to Ben and I spoke to an ADA consultant about this. And I, he briefly talked about this, about how you see entrances to bus. Bus shelters. As seen here. Versus the other way. It has to do with the width and meeting ADA. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Which, yeah, which made sense. But before that, I always wondered why, why, why are, why are there these sort of variations here and then on main street? Yeah, well, yeah, I will say for the town hall one, like if, if this was facing the other way, you'd be, you know, you'd be exiting screen off the curb off the curb onto the street. So when they do that, they ought to move the bench forward. Yeah. I do do that. My knees. But I mean, yeah. Yeah. No, it's true. Yeah. I mean, I, I used to wait a lot at this bus stop when I was going, when I was at UMass, and I would often just sit on the planter over here because I like couldn't stand sitting under there facing the wrong way. Yeah. So what is a member's view about. This in regards of. Do you support this to be. Trans clear glass or pattern glass. I, you know, my feelings. Yeah. What pattern. Pattern. Yeah. I mean, it would be visible. You would, you would see across the town common to see the other too, which also would be. Yeah. And this is a highlight area too. So you'd be getting a lot of sun. Yeah. You'd really be glaring facing south. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I'm not trying to be like doubles advocate on every point. I just, my only thought that counters that is to make sure that it's still visible through the, through the glass, such that if someone is waiting inside and the bus approaches. I mean, presumably no matter what they'd be able to seek out or hear it, but just to make that, you know, just to make sure that it's still visible. Without having an actual pattern, just to make sure that the visibility, there's all different kinds of pattern glass. So. Yeah. Ben, what would happen if we go forward with the. North common redesign. Yep. Yeah. I was talking to Chris about that and Maureen. I mean, there's still, there's, there's a bus shelter in that redesign. And I actually think it's a. This would be a good opportunity to get a shelter that matches the rest of downtown for that. For that. So we would just maybe move it if we had to, but at least we have the shelter. Yeah. Move once it's in. Yeah, exactly. Okay. And I think. Yeah, it's pretty much in the same location. If my memory. I think it's down just lightly. Yeah, yeah, but. You can move it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because the pavement is going to be changed and everything. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So yeah, maybe this is one less budget item that we have to include in the North Commons. Yeah. Application is the introduction of this new shelter with a new bench on a nice concrete platform. Suggested that. Rickety bench that's. 15 feet away is going to be. Torn out. Of the, the one on the common. If you scroll. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. That thing. Yeah. Get rid of that. Yeah. Yeah. Or put the shelter there. Yeah, I wonder if. You know, there can be sort of a negotiation of how long the concrete pad could go. And if it can include, you know, covering over where those. Boxes and the trash and, and maybe a new. Bench. Maybe Ben could look into whether. The DOT could. Cover a new bench or maybe. WRE has a bench. The bus stop. So this, this bus stop would replace that bench. Yeah. We don't have to have another bench after the bus stop because this is the bus stop. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It would, you know, it'd be nice to maybe push it to the south from the pad on also. I don't think this is where the little yellow structure was. It was on the other side. It was down further down. It was right. It was right here. Parking lot. No. North. Oh, it was right there. Sorry. Right by the fire hydrant. I'm pretty sure it was north of the spring street parking lot. No, it was right there by the fire hydrant. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's a direction there for a minute. But yeah, I mean, we could place it approximately where the bench is now and get rid of that bench or even move it where he had it, but get rid of the bench. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's something we can work out. A lot of clutter there. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This project would really clean up all, all three locations to the, to the extent. Yeah. That this grant covers. Right. And you have enough money for all three. Yeah. So, um, we have money. Very likely we have money for all three. I think part of this process is that I need to get updated quotes for the shelters. Um, but I said, yeah, uh, I should be able to cover all three. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments before the board makes a motion? So we're going to, uh, make something on a specific motion about the nature of the glass. Is that, or would that be helpful? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. As a recommendation. Okay. Yeah. So, um, if I, if I go through my notes. Yeah. It was mostly about, um, just the pattern glass for the. The two locations around town. And then, um, And then make it clear at the same bridge. It's location and. Um, Add the lower grid. Lower grid. And then what about the, uh, the, the signage you're proposing that they don't use the, uh, uh, information bulletin board. Is that right? By saying. He wants to put one. I mean, if he can put it on this side and this one, great. If you can do it on both, I think it'd be even better. Although I don't like the look of it. I think it's true that it's useful and it would make sense. Yeah. Both sides of the street. That's for sure. You can. You can supplement from your pocket right then. I don't think so. All right. Okay. So that was for same bridge. It's a clear glass with lower grid with display at St. Bridges location and if possible across the street. Right. Post office. And then for spring street, it would be the patterned glass. Um, and to clean it up. Um, patterned glass and then no grid, right? No, no grid. Yep. And, um, either replace the bench or remove the existing bench and place this there. If we can move itself, but you'll have to look at that again for your measurements. Um, and then let's see here. And then for the other one, which is on main street, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, I guess Lindsay, you didn't want to see them both. I think you should have the grid personally. Again, that's a, that one really needs to be strong because it could get hit by any number of things going through there. Okay. So with. Is everyone on. With. It's a stylized. Design and that it's just specific. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know that. Um, as, as kind of the next layer of design. Embellishment going forward, then I'm fine with it. I know issues with it. Otherwise. Okay. All right. Right. My belief would be that that is not structural in any way though. The frame that those diagonals are just more aesthetic. And they're, they're probably not. All that. Structure worthy. But the horizontals, I mean, maybe the diagonals, the horizontals aren't there on the ones without it. And that looks to me like it would be structural. Right. It's more, it's more like a decorative. Yeah. It doesn't. I guess to a certain extent, if someone like, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. It doesn't look that. I would generally say that if they wouldn't. Probably manufacture this. If it wasn't. You know, without that. Peace. If it wasn't structurally sound. So. But again, I have no real issue with that. It's just a. It's almost like the. It doesn't even look like it's very thick. Almost looks like somebody took tape and put a bunch of grids on it. I don't know. You all would know better house. Have you noticed whether they're metal or plastic? It's metal. Is it okay? Yeah. Maybe I have a proposal. Maybe if Ben wants to talk to the fabricator. And ask if there is, you know, if there is a structure. Yeah. And if it's not, it's just an aesthetic. Maybe to be consistent with the other ones in the vicinity to not have the grid. Yeah. But the pattern. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if structural. Sure. Yes. Yes. Yes. For the grid. If not the no, no, no, no, thanks. Okay. So are you okay, Jan moves? Is there a second? I second. Okay. Tom is seconded all in favor. And they for the discussion, if not all in favor. Say aye. You're technically a roll call. Yeah. I'll have to do a roll call. Okay. Sorry. Okay. All right. Jan. Yes. Okay. Lindsey. Hi. Erica. Hi. Tom. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you all so much. Thanks so much. Advice. I appreciate it. Okay. Now I'm going to make. And I'll, I'll, I'll hang on, hang out for, for Brianna's presentation too. Cool. Can you unshare? Thank you. So that's five zero. Okay. All right, Brianna. Hi, everybody. I just learned a lot from that, that presentation. So I'll preface what I'm about to say is that I'm not a planner. I am in the communications manager and community participation officer for the town. So my background is in communications and technology, but I luckily have some very talented colleagues, Marine and Ben who have been helping me through this process. So thank you both. And thank you all the board members for being here for our presentation tonight. Thank you. Thank you. So, Marine, should I just launch into the, the presentation and pull up the slides and we can. Yeah. Go through there. Okay. Just give me one. Please. So while she's pulling that up, this is being funded through the cares act. And I don't know if you officially ordered it or you're, you're going to. And it needs to be purchased by the end of. This. Calendar year. Yeah. I don't know about that. I'm just trying to get my screen up here. So hopefully in just a moment. Is everybody able to see my screen? Yeah. And I do want to acknowledge to the board that we have our partner from Sufa on this call as well. Her name is Lyra and I'm probably going to butcher her last name. So when, when she comes up, I'll let her introduce herself. So she is here to ask, to be able to answer any, you know, questions you might have. And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Great. And thank you, Lyra, for being here. You get to learn a little bit about. The inner workings of Amherst government. Exactly. I'm wanting a lot already. All right. So I'll just. Start by introducing this project. We're calling it a one year pilot program. And I'll talk a little bit more about the flexibility of this project in a future slide. And I know that we have several architects and other. You know, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Great. And thank you, Lyra, for being here. You get to learn a little bit about the inner workings of Amherst government. Exactly. I'm wanting a lot already. All right. So I'll just start by introducing this project. And I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the projects and other design oriented board members. So I welcome, we welcome your feedback and your advice on this process. So let me just kind of lunch in here. A little bit about Sufa signs, what they are. Also referred to as. You know, digital information signs. Basically how, how we're approaching this project. Is we were looking for another way for. We were looking for ways to engage in digital information. We were looking for ways to engage in digital information. In a real time. In a regular year, that would be, you know, on upcoming events, ways to get engaged, public works updates and just general information. In this, this year specifically. We found the need to be able to engage with. Particularly our digitally unbanked community members or visitors to the town who aren't connected to us through regular. Social media pages. So the signs will allow us to have an instant, flexible messaging tool to push out important information, COVID related or otherwise. Another thing, and I think it was board member. Zico, so I'm sorry if I'm saying that wrong. Erica Zico's who mentioned. The desire to have a digital display for transit times. This is another thing that this, the solar powered signs can accommodate and we'll talk a little bit more about that. Just specifically about working with Sufa. It's a company that's based in Massachusetts. Lyra and her team have actually been out to Amherst and walked the site. So we feel really confident in. Seeing these signs coming up in other communities in eastern Massachusetts, but also starting to come out here in western mass. Neighboring communities have also been potentially looking at. This sign. Solution. So. I will also mention that the company's female owned and led everybody who had come out to visit us. And that I've dealt with in the company has. You know, indicated that. So. I'm going to say just a little bit more about. Oh, just some example communities. And we'll see some visuals of the signs. In place, but Boston, Maldon, Somerville, Everett Lyra can tell you probably her list of other customers. And just a quick takeaway. It's a 30 minute. Four bolt installation. There's no wires. There's no excavation. The signs themselves will be managed and maintained entirely by Sufa. And the content will be managed. By the town. So I'm just going to. Show this example here. Of the signs themselves. So the, the, the, the first image Maldon map is, as well as the second in the furthest image on the far right. Are of the back of the signs. And that's a customizable. Vinyl overlay that Sufa designers will work with us to create something specific for Amherst. I will say that we will be trying to be coming in line with the wayfinding sign so that there's not some visual disruption. We'll stick to the style guide. I'm just going to show you a little bit of what's going on here. I'm just going to show you a little bit of what's going on here. And it's divided by the local designer. I believe it was Seth Gregory who's working on the way finding signs, which I'm sure board members have already seen. The, the third image where you see. Neighborhood news feed. Is it basically an E ink screen similar to what you would see. On a kindle. And the different squares allow for us to manage and present things. So I'm just going to say a little bit more about this. I don't know if Lyra, if you want to pop in in terms of, I've heard, I've heard board members concern about extra. Lighting in town. So could you talk a little bit about. The visual or light impact of the, of the screen. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for bringing that up. So as Brian already mentioned, the sign screen is made out of E ink. So it's great about that is that it's not backlit at all. But it's really great to be able to contribute to any kind of light pollution in the town for all of you guys have used a kindle. I'm sure you know, you know, you need to have a light in order to read it. So that's a little bit about the actual hardware. And then in terms of, you know, what's showing on the screen itself, it actually was really important to us when we were designing the product that it was a black and white screen. So that it wouldn't be this kind of like flashing LED commercial billboards that you might see in some other cities, but it's really important to us to be able to see the signs. And so we have a lot of paper for whatever neighborhood it's in. And for that reason, we have different content blocks with different types of information. So under local updates, that'll be information showing from Amherst at all times. So whenever people walk by the sign, they'll see something that's been posted by the town. We also have a box for local business advertising. And then we have customizable tweets on the right hand side of the screen there where Brianna sort of showing her arrow. And then we also have a website that can be, you know, either real time transit updates, if it's near a bus stop, it can show tweets from the town. It can have an events calendar. You can have a polling feature where, you know, people can submit questions to citizens and you can text in responses. So there's a lot of different applets we have, and it is just heavily customizable to whatever place in the town it is. Thank you, Lyra. I'm going to take a little bit of a look at the structural plan of the signs themselves. And I apologize if this is not. Super clear. I'm not sure if you've received this in your packet, but I can make sure it's available. But here you're seeing the display that Lyra just described. As well as you get a view of from the side, which we don't see in those earlier pictures. And where the solar panel itself sits is at the top of the, the sign. And this is a four bolt 30 minute or so installation. And that, that would actually be done by Sufa themselves, but overseen by our inspections team, our planners and our public works director. So, I mean, this is a little bit more context. Let me just a little bit about why we are looking to have these signs for Amherst right now. I think that's a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more context. More and mentioned earlier. About the cares opportunity. We do see this as an opportunity to keep our community members informed whether they're already keyed into our other. Avenues of information or their visitors to the town or they perhaps. Are utilizing our human services or something. Of that. So, I'll draw your attention to is in support of local business. So the signs. We see the signs as an asset to our local business community and economy right now, especially who are being drastically impacted by COVID-19 by offering free advertising for local businesses, local restaurants in the dedicated portion of the screen. You did see a little bit of a view there in the bottom left corner of the, of one of the signs that's going to be a dedicated portion for local businesses to utilize. And we were looking at this as kind of a pilot approach. To see if it's the right fit for our community. And I mentioned this earlier, but the, the custom, the back design is entirely customizable. I'll talk a little bit more about how many signs we're looking at, but each sign could have a different. Design, not in terms of style, but in terms of content. So we can have different ones for different locations as an option. And we, we haven't gotten to that point yet, but we, we are planning to have them in line with the way finding style guide. All right. Forgive me because I can't see my screen. So I talked a little bit about this project being flexible for us. We would be entering into a license agreement for one year for the signs to test them out. At any point that we felt that they weren't working out or we love them and we want more, we have that opportunity. The easy install allows us to relocate or to a more desirable location. If the initial decision that we made isn't appropriate or remove them all together if needed. We've also been talking about a staggered installation option. Maureen mentioned that we'd have to be able to spend the money before the end of the year. It doesn't mean that we have to have the signs cited and in place before the end of the year. So it allows us more time to show you what the back designs would look like. It also gives us time to fine tune the locations. And today we will look a little bit about some of the locations that we propose for both the signs and the charging cores, which you'll learn a little bit more about next. And either way, the solar charging cores, which you're about to see will be ours to keep. They're also very easy to remove and move around in different areas based on demand or need. So a little bit about the charging cores and I will show you an actual visual of that coming up next. But if you see in the top right of your screen, you've got some dimensions of the charging core. Here is the actual solar panel. And here are the USB charging points, ports where community members or visitors could connect and charge their device. And we find that this is really important, particularly with the shelter this year coming down to the, the UU church. There's a high congregation area there of our community members. And you'll see in later slides why we've tried to propose a location close to that particular church. So we hope to offer our community members access to, to, you know, this charging points to keep their devices charged, stay connected to important information, whether that's public health information or just online resources for them to go about their day. Especially this has become especially important with the closure of our public buildings. Specifically the library was in town hall. Often people would come in there to use the Wi-Fi or to charge their device and they're no longer an option. Another, another way, another reason for this, this particular project is we're hoping to bridge that digital divide and provide more equitable access to power sources to some of our more vulnerable community members. And it gets cut off here. So I just want to mention that if you see on the bottom here about the finish, you'll see the actual charging core in just a moment. But the fasteners, stainless steel, the finish, zinc and polyester powder coated. So I will show you what that actually looks like. Lyra can probably say where this photo was taken, but I think it was somewhere in maybe Boston. So you see that there's a bench element to the, the charging core that we will not be getting. We will just be focusing on the charging core itself. So that's what it looks like in place. And our hopes are to have it, the adjacent to existing benches in town. Send it here. I suppose we franchise for that. Send it here. Send it here. Send it here. I don't know who's that is. It's not. Catherine, could you mute? I think yours is making sound. It's already done. It's okay. Sorry. Okay. All right, so I'm going to zoom to the next slide where we can, the series of slides where we talk about potential locations. So we're focusing on downtown air moist. We are looking at potentially three solar signs and three charging cores. Throughout this process, we're trying to be mindful of the existing signage in town. And I think some of you referred to lovingly as the hodgepodge, but I'm not sure if you're aware of that. I'm not sure if you're aware of that. I also feel I'm. Also live in air moist. For, for almost 17 years. So I'm very mindful of the. Pollution extra hodgepodge. We're, we're looking to not. Contribute to that. And I've also been working with, you know, planning and inspection services, DPW to keep, be in mind of infrastructure, ADA and other standards. So we're working on that. We're also working on some of the, some of the upcoming wayfinding signs, and their locations and their designs. Brianna, were these some of the ones we saw in the original proposal for wayfinding? There were some lighted signs that I'm information. Is that part of it? Or is this additional to that? I, these are, these are different. But that was, I think, years ago. And that's gone. Yeah, that would be like that would be phase two of the way finding system. This might help for a while. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Thanks. Thank you, Ben. I'm glad you stuck around. So at first have an overview of locations, which I think we can refer back to that might be helpful to see everything plotted out. I have some images of the locations that I've walked with Sufa. And then after that, rewatched with planning with planning staff and have some slight tweaks to the original proposed location. So I'd love to launch into those now. So we'll be seeing several potential locations for science and several potential locations for cores. They are not necessarily need to be together. They're separate elements. So I'll just launch into that first. One of the first proposed locations. And again, it's not exactly specific. You'll see a heart here. But we, again, we'll be citing them for optimal compliance with ADA and other, another obstruction consideration. So this is just a general idea of where we would have one of the signs. And here on the right side, you see. Here on the right side, you see a little bit. Better of where we would potentially cite that. The, the other location that we offered is diagonally adjacent from the one that you just saw at Amity street on the corner there. Again, there, Ben could say more about this there. We were conscious of way finding signs that are also planned for this location when we discuss this as a potential option. The other two locations, one of them Ben mentioned in his presentation, you'll see that on the right hand side, although I'm not sure I have the same view as him and the same fancy PowerPoint skills. But the idea was to, you know, hopefully have these adjacent to transit locations whenever possible just to have that integration of scheduling for the PBTA, especially at sites that don't, that aren't planning to have the display sign as part of the project that's coming on board. On the left, going back to the hodgepodge of some elements downtown, you probably are all familiar with this. I don't know if it's a modern art installation or what is actually going on, but we've got this concrete block with a steel post coming out of it. We've all scratched our heads over this one at one point and another, but that is also a potential location that would be well suited for the signs in terms of traffic, but would also mean that we'd get to remove that. I mean, that's the idea. And we'd be working with public works to determine if that's a possibility. So those are the four general locations that we've proposed for the, for the sign. Again, they, they do not need, they don't require any, you know, electrical needs or if there are any, you know, site optimization or site improvements, small site improvements that need to be made. An adjustment of a concrete pad. Public works is also a partner in this project and will be able to, to make the necessary improvements. If needed. So a little bit about the cores. Again, this is going to be in downtown Amherst. We're trying to look to keep them in proximity to those high ridership transit stops that. That Ben mentioned in his presentation as well as, as well as the outside of the Jones library, which you'll see in just a moment. And similar to the signs. It's an easy four bolt installation, highly movable. If the need arises. So one of the locations that we've identified for the same reason that, you know, it's a contender for a new boat, bus shelter is out front of St. Bridget's parish. We've identified a space in between the benches where the core would actually sit between. And I believe Ben actually went out and measured it to make sure that it wasn't considered a loss of space for, for a wheelchair and the space is too narrow to be considered an appropriate space for a wheelchair to go. So the next location we have, you'll see this picture is a little dated. A couple of weeks ago, those planters are no longer there. But the other location that we propose is out front of Jones library, especially talking with library director Sharon Sherry, who identified, you know, how many community members use the library as their touch point to both technology and to, to charge their devices. We thought it might be appropriate to cite one of them there. And these next two photos are actually of two adjacent bench sets. Sort of across from, I guess, the Greenfield savings bank, you can see in the left picture in front of what used to be Barts, which I'm told is no longer Barts. So, but we've been calling them the BART bench location. The idea would be that this would be the closest optimal spot in terms of access to appropriate solar capacity, but also nearing the UU church, which is another high congregation point of community members, particularly in the daytime. And now we'll be host to the 24 seven shelter for this season. Okay, so I, myself and Lyra and both Ben and Maureen, thankfully enough will be available to hear your feedback, any questions or comments? Not yet. I'm working with, I hope to be working with Ben on getting access to some of those. Style elements. I know the way finding signs are still being finalized, which is why we, we propose for this project a kind of a staggered, a staggered implementation, so to speak, where we would move forward with the cores, ideally for this season. And then that would allow us more time for the, the back design of the signs for installation in early spring. So I would imagine at some point, we would probably be coming back to you for specifically to look at the proposed designs for the back, the back vinyl overlays that, that'll be made for Amherst. I'm sure we could come up with like a mockup based off of that style guide that, that we could show. Or we could actually show you the real designs when we're in that process that's based off of the style guide and come back to, come back to the board. So that blue graphic, it's sort of like a folded sheet behind the news feed section. That's not pre-screened on the, that's not required. My run. Okay. Oh no, that's not. So that's fully customizable. So that's the front. It's like a sticker basically. Okay. That's the figure that matched the model. But I thought, you know, maybe they all come out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's the front and the back. That's exactly right. So that doesn't match our way of finding system. So, okay. Great. Thanks. Your colors. Yeah. And we, that would be one of our main goals for consistency with those, with those signs. The other, you see on the far right here, there's something that's a little bit, and I don't know how well this plays in with their, their style guidelines, because I'm not sure which community it is, but they've chosen to put up, you know, more topical information related to the pandemic. I mean, so that's also an option, but still being in line in line with the style guide that's presented with the way of finding signs. The, the side panel also it can be customized, I believe, Lyra. Right. Yeah. And, or it could be left with, with no color on it. So. Yeah, that's right. So that skin can be replaced as many times as necessary. Like the one on the far right is temporarily over whatever they usually have. Yeah. That's, that's right. We usually update it. We can update it around once every three months, just to make sure it's timely and relevant and also matching with the season that we're in. And then. Oh, go ahead, please. Oh, I was just going to say, I have a couple of questions. If I could. I'm appreciative that you. First of all, gave a really nice and thorough presentation. Thank you. I feel like I have a good sense of what these look like and how they'll be maintained. But I also recognize that we're all feeling that there's a lot of. Your, your hodgepodge comment, kind of an aesthetic chaos. Downtown. And these, you know, we've just made a decision to go with a Victorian style plus shelter. And we're introducing a whole new signage system. That's aiming to. To provide some consistency throughout town. And this is introducing something very contemporary. And normally this would be my go-to. It's clean. It's efficient. I, I rather like its form, but I'm not sure that it's going to find the home here in Amherst. Just because of the everything else. I'm not sure that it's going to find the home here. But I'm not sure that it's going to find the home here. I'm not really contributing to the aesthetic of downtown. That said, I do wonder if. If the cores. Can we do just the cores? Provide that service. To people downtown, a charging station. And not do the signs. Is that a possibility in the contract? Curious about that. Is the cost to the town for an ongoing contract? Something that. Justifies. The information that people could get. We've just introduced a whole new signage system. That's about way finding. Do we need another set of maps, for example? And then my last question for now is. With regards to the, the newspaper. Information on the front. I don't know. You mentioned that like the tweets are customizable, but do we have to go with that language? Like, do we run the risk of. Not being timely. You're not feeling appropriate for. The town if we're calling things. Official information tweets. I don't. I'm. A little concerned about that. Okay. No, thank you. So I'm just going to go back to the, I don't know. If we can get more information. Yeah. I think that's a great question. Before I explain Morian clash. I wonder if it'd be helpful for us to maybe. Put an example of the sign, but in place with Amerson, the background to kind of. Get a sense of how. How, how jarring that might actually be when it's when, when you see it with, with. With in the context of downtown Amherst, question about just purchasing the cores. You know, I think that that's certainly one way for us to go. I think it would change the nature of the project. And I don't know if that would preclude us from being eligible for the CARES funding that we've been approved by the state to use. It's something we can certainly certainly explore. And you know, the idea, the way that we hope to implement this is, you know, charging cores first, just based off of necessity and need and season, and then be able to be more thoughtful about the sign placements, you know, giving a little bit of buffer time for the fact that we probably won't want to install these as the snow has already started to fly, but maybe start that back in in early spring, but give us the buffer through this board and as well as town council to be able to review those kind of bigger questions that might not be able to be resolved in terms of the design, the contemporary feel of the signs. And the last question. Customizability about the newsfeed. Is there a fixed template that we have to abide or can all of the text on that newsfeed be? So that might be a time for Lyra to come in about the way that that's managed. Definitely. So the everything you see on the screen is basically totally customizable by the town. So if you don't want tweets showing, for example, we could take out the Twitter applet. It can shoot, you know, the updates box there is for the town to upload on our online platform. And the whole idea is like it's, you know, it's the same ease of putting in new information into the world as social media or Facebook, for example, but it's then showing in the outdoors, which is great for people who might not be following this town otherwise on social media channels. So really the extent to which the content is fresh depends a little bit on how much the town is posting. And because of that, we try to include some other applets that also automate and pull other sources of local up-to-date town information. So it's not as reliant on the town, you know, uploading information, but certainly if there's concerns about that, we can, you know, not have certain apps showing. And I will say that I haven't gotten too much of a look at it yet, but I mentioned earlier my background being technology and the communications. They offer us, you know, a cloud-based platform for be able to be able to go in and push those local updates. You see it now. I imagine that we'd be able to call that something else through the solution and be able to push out timely alerts. Let's say, you know, that something was an emergency, we have a great emergency communication platform that people can subscribe to. But again, for those people who aren't subscribed, we'd be able to use that as, you know, an information push, especially in emergency situations. And we can, our team, our engineering team is really nimble. So we build a lot of custom apps for towns. So for example, if you have this emergency alert, that's already a texting thing, we can take that text usually and have it showing on the sign. It's just another place to show automatically. And if you don't mind as well, I'm happy to speak a little bit to your concern about the historic feel and maybe feeling a bit out of place. This definitely something we've encountered before in other towns and cities we work with. You know, the most recent example being we have been installed now in Brookline Massachusetts for about a year. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Brookline or not, but it's also a very historic town, where people care a lot about the aesthetic. And you know, there were some concerns before the signs went in. And for your reference, we have 24 signs in Brookline. So it really is high impact in the town. And it's actually I think why it's our most engaged town, you know, people use the signs a lot. But what we did is we basically took the feedback from the community and we created design that was super Brookline, like we have sketches of some of their most historic landmarks on the vinyl. We have historic facts about Brookline Incorporated. So we can really make it look I know it's hard to visualize now, but we can certainly try to mock up something to just help you visualize like it can be cohesive. And there's a lot of room to play with the sort of vinyl branding there. I want to just kind of add to that that I don't I think that there's a lot of potential from what you're describing what we're seeing to make it make this type of aesthetic work in downtown but part of what I'm sensing and perhaps kind of following up on Erica's point is that we've seen a number of different types of signage come before the board over the last couple of years. And so it's difficult to respond specifically to this in isolation when there's been these other points of proposals that have been made that have very different aesthetics. And so without knowing where those went, I think it's difficult for the board, or at least for myself to be able to advise on taking a very different approach to something that we've seen another version of that looks very different and really haven't gotten updates on where that went. And kind of coming back to Erica's point that it not only have we seen kind of other versions of this in the past that are very different aesthetically. There's also proposals of wayfinding signage and I guess mainly that wayfinding signage that's just this very that will be throughout the town as well that will be a very, very different aesthetic. And so while I think this in isolation could be adapted to work in downtown, it's this with all the other pieces that have kind of come before the board. And it's a question of how those get kind of synchronized or brought together that I think is kind of beyond perhaps what you can address is more of a discussion that the town needs to respond to perhaps or guide us in. Definitely. Thanks for that context. Yes, thank you, Lindsay. And I again, I hate to rely on the fact that I'm not a planner, but that is definitely something that I could work with the planning department and trying to pull together together a more cohesive look of what's been presented to you in the past because I just don't have that information or that history myself. I think it's kind of like a master plan type of view that we'd be looking to gain. I think Tom had a question. Did you Tom? Tom needs to leave for his planning board meeting. He's still here. He might have just left. Oh, did he? I thought maybe. Yeah, I actually apologies to him. I'll send him an email. I meant to mention the beginning of the meeting that he had a planning board meeting at 630. I also need to leave at 630. Yeah, yeah, and you as well. So, Brianna, one of the questions I asked you first was whether we could see these mocked up with our way, way finding style. And I think that's pretty much what everybody's saying is we just can't imagine how they're going to fit and we want to know where the way finding signs are in planning. So perhaps come back to us with these with the way finding design mocked onto them. And I would say that just from what the bus things we did, they should be the plain black, the simplest, you know, so that they look the most like the bus shelters. But so we have some sense because none of these look like they would they would look good in our town. And and we just need that context in order to make a decision. I think I would agree. But one of the major concerns that I hear from people is just a lot of stuff in downtown Amherst, you know, we paint the transformer boxes. We've got the way finding. We have the welcome to Amherst signs. And there's just a lot going on. And so I think we personally, I think we need to see something that would look more in keeping and fit into the personality of Amherst. And maybe you can do that. But I think we need more, more time. I would need more, more developed presentation personally. Anybody else have any comments on this? Erica, I do. I guess I am wondering what the my colleagues on the board feel about the cores. I am curious about. I'm assuming that the color is customizable. We saw an image of one that was bright red. But if the cores can be contractually disaggregated from the signs and that's something that could move ahead before the snow flies, so to speak, is that something that we'd be willing to support? Or is, yeah. So I mean, I can put my, you know, perspective on this is it would probably it would probably be hard for us to separate the two projects and have it still be viable under what the contract is now and what the the approval that we received for the funds was in large part due to the the fact that we'd be able to have this additional method of communicating emergent or changing, evolving information, public health information in our community. So I think that would certainly impact the viability of the project moving forward. Customizable. So the the color is a standard color. The the for the for the charging core I'd welcome Lyra she has anything to add to that. But as far as I understand that the the color itself is is just one color that it is currently one color. That being said, I can definitely ask our operations team if it's possible to to customize it. So what's the pleasure of the group? Shall we? Well, I really hate to do this, Brianna, because I know you put a lot of work into this presentation, but I'd love you to go back to Chris and talk to her about the way finding system and coordinate a presentation to us that incorporates what that's going to be into this. I'm certainly happy to do that as far as I and I'd have to get a sense from the planner. So Maureen or Ben, feel free to chime in here. I don't know what that timeline and what that process is and where where they're at, if it's possible for us to do something like that and then in relative short order. Sure. Well, we can certainly set up a meeting with the Chris, Ben, myself and and you, Brianna, to strategize and take a take a look at what what the where we're at with the way finding science. I know Seth and Ben have been working to update it based on the DRB comments from the last meeting. Yeah. And I'm sorry if I may, Brianna, I'm just curious the end for Lyra as well. Like if we need to spend the money ASAP, like the the the branding on the back, the core, the coordination we do with the way finding signs, like that's a sticker that that just gets put on the sign itself. So, you know, I think if the board is OK with the idea of the signs themselves and you need to purchase them, like we're going to be able to do that. So, like we could spend time designing the sticker and the design after the fact, just just to separate those steps as well. But I don't mean to introduce too many new ideas, but just just that came to mind. And thank you for clarifying, Ben. I'm sorry if I cut out before my my internet for some reason is is not stable at the moment yet. So the the idea is obviously there. We have a deadline to use this money. You know, I hate to say use it or lose it, and that shouldn't be driving our, you know, design choices. However, the the whole the crux of the projects is to kind of meet an immediate need. And and that's how we're we're trying to approach that, but also be conscious of the time and, you know, effort it takes to make sure that it's something that fits in our community. So with our staggered approach, that would allow us many, many months to kind of work and tweak the design so that it's appropriate for Amherst and appropriate to the standards that we've set with existing signage coming through. What was the date for your you have to start spending? Well, you know, if your CARES funding must be, you know, anything that's going to be attributed to CARES funding needs to be used up by the end of December. OK, and we've been working on this, you know, in terms of the specifics for a while now, you know, waiting for the approval from the state to even say that we could use the funds, which then we were able to start the the process of discovery. But we are able to, you know, purchase that both the cores and the signs and then stagger them and have that extra time to focus on the design. And here's a question. When you talk about it as a pilot, what are we piloting public opinion usage? Like, what's the metric for success here? If, you know, if a few people show up at town hall and say, we think they're not very good looking or if you don't observe people using them, like, how do we know that it's a successful pilot? Are there measures in place? Because I presume that there is a cost to the town after the pilot period can continue the contract for maintenance and and digital upkeep and things like that. So how do we know? Yeah, I'm happy to speak to that. So we have a lot of metrics, actually, that we use to evaluate success of the pilot and whether, you know, it's a good idea to renew on both sides, both for the town and for Sufa. A few things that we look at in terms of engagement with the signs as we look at how many people are texting and responses to the polls, how many different organizations and local businesses are signing up to the signs, how many times are they posting? A lot of times we have quite qualitative feedback as well. Exactly, as you said, we take in account of feedback from multiple different stakeholders in the city. You know, whether it's a design review board or if you have a pedestrian committee or the Chamber of Commerce is usually a really active partner of ours, as well as businesses getting some data in terms of like did posting on the sign lead to lift for them to events or to their storefronts? And then, you know, we kind of evaluate on the townside, like was this an effective mode of communication for them? How many different departments are using the signs regularly to post? How many times are the content being seen? We also, one thing that, you know, we didn't go into too much detail in this meeting is that we do have a pedestrian data with a sensor that can sort of also provide data on how many people are walking by the sign and the activity levels around that. So those are some of the metrics we look at. And then in terms of cost, that's a good question, because we are advertising supported usually beyond the pilot. We don't have to have any costs again, but that would again be something we would look at, like how much advertising are we able to make on the signs? And then that's another metric that we use to evaluate, like what would the cost of the pilot extension be? I don't like the idea of having business advertising on them myself. So I mean, if that's required in order to maintain, I don't know. No, I agree. Yeah, actually, we would have to talk with the building commissioner about about that as well. I think that would a QR code be readable on that because of the way that the text is ink? Yep. Yeah. A lot of people use QR codes on our signs. OK, I was just thinking of something like we're about to install our writer's walk and it'd be nice to advertise on those that it exists, but you wouldn't want to put the map and all the information. So if there were QR code to go with it, somebody could then get the information off of the. Yeah, absolutely. And we can also tell you how many times it's been scanned and things like that. So what is the board's sense of, you know, doing a mock up based on the way finding signs could take some time just as the holidays are approaching? It feels like, sure, you know, it's just the beginning of November. Maybe maybe there could be a mock up done in the next month or so. You know, do it in a couple of days, right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it depends on everyone's workload and other deadlines. But yeah, I think that a very poleminal mock up could be done by the end of by probably by December, the beginning of December for the board's review with that. Do you think that would work with your timeline, Brianna, to ensure that? That these can be. Sorry to interrupt, Maureen. Do you, I apologize for any, Angelique, but do you need anything from me before I go? OK, thank you very much. And good luck with everything. Thanks. So one thing, I mean, if we're already working and again, I don't know what stage or process planning is at with with a designer, Seth Gregory, I mean, it could be something that we ask the designer to do. We provide him with maybe an image of the sign and ask a designer to mock it up since then we know that it will be consistent with silo guide and wayfinding. We've worked with Seth Gregory in the past. So again, I don't want to be able to say that is an option without discussing it, maybe with Ben or the planners, but it could be something that because he's already actively working on the science already has, you know, the what were they? The kiosks that were part of the design proposal. It seems to me he could practically just lay one of those over and start to show us what they look like. He's really quick and good. Yeah, I mean, I'm curious if the if the board supports the idea of like a map on the back or would you rather just a straight just like, you know, some sort of design with like maybe the town seal or something? Oh, I think it should be usable space. Otherwise, why stick that big thing in the middle of the road if it's not going to both sides be usable? Right. I definitely agree. I have a question. Does the board feel that you need to see a mock up in order to provide your recommendations or do you feel at this point that you could say, Brianna, order the signs and we'll we'll develop the these designs together with with consultation from Seth and the planners and and other departments. Is there I still here? Did she leave? Who? Oh, yeah, I don't think you know that way. Do you? I'm sorry, I think I missed the question. So do you feel like you just can't make any recommendations tonight, whether? Obviously, you would for the design, you would need to see a mock up. But for this as a overall project, do you feel that you are supportive of the signs to be purchased? Or do you feel like you need to just take a pause until a mock up is shown? Well, for me, as Jan mentioned this, if this becomes a commercial bulletin board for businesses, that's a no go for me. And I don't I doubt if the select board would prove of it either if we're going to have something that noticeable I think it should be fully newsworthy. On the other hand, you're talking about that supporting it means advertising. And I don't I can't personally support that concept. Maybe others do, but I can't imagine that the town would go for that. Yeah, we would have to take a look at the zoning bylaw to see if that's allowed. As a start as a starting point, right? And then and then talk to I think you really need to run this by a few people that have some authority and voice in how we would have something like that all over the place. Sure. All right. So Catherine makes a good point. And I also think that if putting a pause on this to work on the design of the adhesive information on the opposite side, if putting a pause on it essentially means it's not going forward. And it's not really it's not really a decision that we're making if it's pausing means no, because we're not going to make the December deadline. I am very reluctant to ask a designer to do work for free in a hurry. It just doesn't seem fair to Seth Gregory, who is a professional because he has the information kind of at the ready, doesn't mean that he has the time and it doesn't mean that he should be compensated for doing the work. Well, I thought you said you were already working with him. I did. Is he not contracted for this already? He's working on the way finding signs. What there could certainly be a conversation with Chris Brestrup with Seth regarding the their established contract. I don't know if this would be an added fee or those sorts of conversations of whether this could be included in his scope. I mean, these are all very valid comments and concerns. You know, it sounds like. What here's my suggestion is that staff have an internal meeting and see what is feasible time wise, money wise and cares act wise. And if we are able to move forward with providing a mock design, we'll go ahead and do that and schedule a DRB meeting as quickly as possible. Does that does that satisfy everyone's needs? Yeah, that's better. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, maybe, maybe staff could take, you know, Seth's vision and maybe we could internally work on it if there is a sort of time constraint or, you know, or what have you with Seth. So it would be interesting if we all sort of took a look at the family of signs and taking a look at the font and the coloring and the layout. See what we could, what we could cook up or maybe Seth cooks up. And maybe refer to the original way finding family of signs for the informational signs. So maybe that could be a sort of inspiration as well. But I strongly urge that you see if this is even yeah, a permit possible because of the commercial nature of the sign. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we're going to do it. We're going to do it right. So it's all there to do after the pilot year by having advertising that I would really have problems with that. Yeah. Mm hmm. All right. Well, Brianna, sorry. So what are your thoughts on this sort of evolving plan? No, I think it's valid to want to see it consistently with with what the designs are going to be for the way finding. And I was in by by no means suggesting that we ask someone to do work for free. And so if I can be I can be helpful in mocking something up, I'm not a graphic designer by trade. But if we have access to those assets for the the paid work that we are receiving, then maybe we can have something to at least get a sense of what that would look like. Yeah, so I think that that makes sense. And then I will I want to just reiterate to the the fact about the local business and how, you know, for this because of covid that they would be this would be a tool for local businesses to support the local economy. Again, after that first year, we would have a point where we would assess whether or not we would move forward with the science. And again, if we can think about this as more of a I know that this is a design review board, but our approach is really how we can what we can do in this next year to support both proper communication with various populations in our town, while also supporting local businesses. And then we have that decision point to come in at the end of the year to say, did this work? Is this a good fit? And, you know, if it's not, then then we will not have hopefully not have done, you know, permanent damage to the street that it's bolted into or things like that, something that's not fixable. And I know that this at least has has support of our town manager, who's really conscious of being able to have another tool for for local business. And it is, I can't tell you what the percentage of the screen is that's dedicated to the business piece. So I I know that, you know, bids and chambers who work with these signs. It's it's been something that's very, very beneficial to them and hasn't. And maybe maybe if you if you've seen one in person, it doesn't seem as commercial, but there's a, you know, a small business element to it. So I'll just say that, but I am conscious of that concern as well. OK, Maureen, do you think you have enough from us to move on? OK, yes. OK. So let me just continue with the agenda and to see if it over the minute. I didn't do them. Sorry. Right. If anybody from the public that wanted to make a comment. I don't think there are. All right. So can I hear a motion that we adjourn? Do we need next meeting date? Well, we'll wait to hear from you when you wait to see. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to see. That being said, I know time we're kind of running late and we could handle this via email. I was kind of wondering if we could. We do meet as needed. So maybe we could just keep with that. But I was kind of thinking, did we kind of want to develop a standard? We talked about that, but then we decided that. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, we have to respond to proposals to say come. Yeah, I move to adjourn. OK, thank you. Starving game. OK, all right. I'll see you all next year. Bye. Thank you all for your time and thank you, Ira. OK, thank you. Bye, everybody. Bye. Thanks, everybody.