 Okay, welcome everybody to our Thursday community chat for June 11th. Thank you all for joining us. So as a reminder, this webinar is being recorded. So please refrain from asking any personal health questions. If you want to ask a question, raise your hand by pressing star nine from your phone or raising your hand in the Zoom application. So I want to welcome today Amherst Leisure Services Director, Barb Bills, as well as your Amherst Town Manager, Paul Bachmann. Nice to see you both. Hey, nice to be here. So before we launch into questions that have been asked, do you have any general updates for our viewers? Let's see. I think, you know, we have been really focused on a number of things in town. One is the budget and there's so many different different pieces of the budget that are moving forward. We're looking at a lot of reappointments that we're going through because this is the time of year for reappointments. And then moving forward, we've had a lot of conversations. And one of the reasons why I wanted Barb on the show today was there's so many conversations going on about what's happening during the summer. And that ranges from the opening of restaurants downtown to a lot of our recreational things. And that's where we've received a lot of our questions. So that's that's where we're going to focus our conversation today. Look, you're muted. You're muted. Any general statements or kind of information before we launch into questions that you that you want to catch folks up on? As for me, no, I think Paul's pretty much covered it. We'll we'll go ahead with questions. And if there's more, we can add to it. How's that? Sounds great. So I'll preface some of our questions by, you know, what a lot of people have been searching and emailing, at least me about. And we'll touch on some of these with some questions that we have. But, you know, puffers, playgrounds, pools, all things summer. So I guess that this question is for both of you. Can can you tell us exactly what is open and what's not open as we look into the summer? I can start, Paul. And then you can fill in the blanks if I miss something. But basically, at this point, what's open is Cherry Hill Golf Course, the Mill River tennis courts, all of our playgrounds are open and all of our public restrooms at the parks are going to be open if they are not open already. The outdoor pools are scheduled to open on June 27th. Both outdoor pools, Mill River Recreation Center and War Memorial Pool will be open with a limited schedule this year, which we'll get into later. But in addition, the waiting pool at Mill River will also be open. So Puffers Pond is scheduled to open next week and will have some restrictive activities with sports programs at the various fields. But those will be quite limited to only 10 participants and there will need to be prior approval for anything that's organized. The pavilions we're looking to open around July 4th. So that's sort of the updates in terms of what's coming. What's closed is basically our day camps. Our Fourth of July celebration, unfortunately, has been canceled. And anything that takes place or was scheduled to take place, I should say, in their indoor facilities. So that's just something to keep in mind if you were looking for activities in those areas. On a positive note, although the basketball courts at Mill River are closed right now, the reason they are closed is because they're going to be renovated. So we're going to have really nice basketball courts, hopefully ready by the fall. And we'll also have, they'll be expanded to include section for kids to play basketball on, not just the the two courts for the adult regulation basketball courts. So that's going to be a great addition. So we're looking forward to that. Paul, do you have anything else to add? Did I miss anything? No, I think I think that you nailed it. I think one of the things that we want to emphasize is that we have been aligning our decision making with the state's decision making because we want to be as best as we can aligned with the governor's directives that come out from the the state. I think Barb, you know, and there's an enormous number of them that have come out and they're so detailed. And it's it's it's sector by sector. And so Barb has done a really terrific job of trying to align ourselves. And sometimes we can't, you know, the the directives are so specific and we can't really carry out our programs. But I think all the other things we've been walking in lockstep with the with the rest of the state. And that's a that's a good point, Paul, because a couple of times I've been asked since we announced that the LSE wouldn't have camps. Some people have questioned, well, we thought the governor said that summer camps were OK. So why can't we run ours? Yeah, Paul's right. The the in relationship to the day camps. What we found out and other recreation departments throughout the state is that the the restrictions are are such that it just would really inhibit our ability to run quality programming for the kids. The kids would wouldn't be able to allow be allowed to go swimming at the swimming pool, for instance. There wouldn't be any field trips. There wouldn't be any group play. And they'd have to. There would be no shared toys or shared sports equipment. So you're somewhat limited. The other issue was space where the state was requiring one hundred and forty four square feet per child, which would mean we could serve a very, very, very few amount of children in the program. So we are very sorry. It's one of our strongest programs, a great program, but we'll be back next year better than ever. We do, by the way, we are planning alternative programs to sort of fill that void. So maybe I can just speak a little bit about that. We will be offering a program called Camp in a Bag. And so it's going to be cool with activities for kids that they can do at home. And then they can link on to our website and our other social media sites to get feedback, construction, what have you. And then we're going to try to do some on site programming once we get hopefully into phase three at Gruff Park. When that opens, when the place structures are open there and and the spray park. So we'll have a presence there and we're looking forward to that and be to be able to serve the communities in South Amherst that desperately need things for kids to do as they do all over Amherst. That's great. That sounds exciting. My little one, it was sad about not getting to do her LSSC camps with all our friends this year, but she'll be excited to hear that there is something coming. So thank you for sharing that. The staff sends their regards that they miss the kids so much and they're going to miss this summer. But we'll we'll try to reinvent ourselves and evolve and and provide activities this summer and some other type of form. So one of the things you mentioned, Barb, it's your staff. And so you've done a tremendous job of reallocating your staff to, you know, if they're not able to do the job as they normally are hired to do, say for summer camps, they are still doing the camp in a bag stuff. But they we are also having them work at Cherry Hill at Puffer's Pond and different locations to help offset some of the staff that we normally bring on in the summer. So I really appreciate it that you've allocated staff to where we've needed it. And that that's an ongoing project as we keep repush positioning people in other departments have done this, too. The senior center has dedicated one of their employees up to Puffer's Pond because we know that's going to require staffing. You know, I know I know we're I know we're working on having an actual presence at at Groff Park for the Spray Park to help manage it and educate people about what's what's to expect, what what they should expect. It's not a place that's monitored, so you just don't go and drop your kids. And then it's not daycare, but it is somebody who's going to help if people have concerns about social distancing and things like that. That we someone there to be in a position of authority in essence. Right. Exactly. So we'll be when that we're hoping to have that open in mid July. So that's going to be very, very exciting, a very exciting addition to the recreational facilities that we have in town. So, yeah, we'll have one or two attendants up there or people up there, one may be providing programming and other moderate monitoring the social distancing requirements and so forth. Boy, I was up there over the weekend and it's big and it's exciting looking. And I'm not sure if you swung by there, Brianna, but you should. It's you go like, wow, this is going to be a real attraction for folks that the Spray Park in particular. But the entire facility looks really top notch. So kudos to your team for helping to make that happen. I think we need to get over there and do a little virtual tour to let people know what's coming to them. It's a great idea. Yeah. So maybe you'll see that coming soon. I just want to remind our attendees, feel free to hop in by raising your hand in Zoom, star nine from the phone or use the Q&A function if you're in Zoom. We'd love to hear from you live. Another thing to and always I'm always looking at what people are searching for on our website so that we can make it easier to find. And every year leading up to summer pools is our number pools and fireworks are our number one and two searches. So we know that pools are going to be reopening. Could you talk a little bit more again, specifically on the date? And then what that process will look like? What's going to be different for people this year? We're looking to open on our regularly scheduled opening day, which was June 27. We seem to have all our staff in place. I've been meeting regularly with the managers and the coordinator for that program. So we're ready to get it rolling. We've also worked with DPW and the Health Department because there are, of course, many, many regulations that are new this year that we'll be implementing. So our schedule tentatively will be a 10 o'clock to 7.30 p.m. So 10 to 10 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. on weekdays and 11 to six on weekends. We'll devote three hours of lap swim from 11 to I'm from 10 to one on weekend weekdays and 11 to one on weekends. So that's sort of the lap swim time that will be available. And, you know, it will be a very different experience than swimmers in the public have been used to in past years. You'll need to arrive in your swimsuit. You'll shower. You won't have access to any of the changing rooms. Those will be blocked off. You will have access to the restrooms, but you'll be required to arrive and leave in your swimsuit. And there won't be a lot of sunbathing time, that kind of thing. And people will be socially distanced on the deck. And so and we'll have actually dedicate one of the requirements is that we have a dedicated staff member that their their role is basically to oversee social distancing while we're open. So we'll have a lot of that posted. Like I say, we're working with the health inspector, Susan and some other and and Julie Fetterman, the health director and DPW to implement all the changes, not only that we're making structurally, but just in terms of regulations and so forth. So it will look different, but it will be open. That's a good news news. Yeah, people were very concerned about that leading up to that announcement. And if all of those details are not there yet, I'm sure they will be soon. But amherstma.gov slash pools is usually where you can find the pool schedule and requirements and information. So as that gets added, you can use that site to find out some of that important information. I would imagine I'm anticipating we'll have something completely firmed up by Monday. Good. Great. So one of the other things that we've gotten a lot of question on is and you mentioned it briefly about Puffer's pond reopening. People have been asking or hearing that there's going to be staff there. Can you talk a little bit about what that staff will be doing? Are they lifeguarding? Are they charging? Or what is it going to look like? They will not. And you can jump in, Paul, they won't be lifeguarding at Puffer's pond, but what it will look again, very different. We're going to have parking attendants this year who will basically be at the base of State Street on that one way entrance. And they'll ask people, are you there to fish? Are you there to hike? Are you there to swim? If you're there to fish or hike, go ahead, find a parking place, keep going. If you're there to swim, it's going to be looking a little different. So that individual will have a walkie talkie. They'll communicate with someone on the beach who will be a staff member. And there will be basically designated 25 to 30 spots on the beach, which will be marked by numbers. We're still working on what that's going to look like. And that person in the car will say, the attendant will say, OK, spot number 25 is open. Go ahead and head down and someone will greet you at the entrance. So that's sort of the plan. And they'll go to their designated spot, maintain their social distancing and enjoy Puffer's Pond. So that's the plan we're hoping next week to be able to pull all that off. And that'll be, as Paul alluded to earlier, that'll be staffed by town staff that are serving in different functions than they normally would. But we're going to we'll be there to help you out. So that's I know you had a meeting up there in the rain this morning right before you came here, Barb, but that's interesting. So you're going to have a sign spot. So you have sites at 25, like a campground. And so I assume that this will be something that you'll keep monitoring and adjusting as the, you know, terms of feedback from the public and how it works. And sometimes these things work the way you have it on paper. And sometimes I think our our byword has been change, adjust, change, you know, and just keep tweaking it so we get better. It's too hard to figure it all out right up front. And get it right. You just don't count on it getting it right the right first time. So that's been our experience, at least for this whole crisis. Definitely, this is an evolving, you know, year for everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll we'll evolve as necessary. And we'll we'll we'll set it up initially so that hopefully it's it's a functioning system that works well for everyone. Good. And just to clarify, this also came up when people heard that there might be staff additional staff there. Is there an admission fee for the use of the the pond because of this extra staff or no, no, no admission fee. It's just a way to monitor the COVID-19 social distancing that were required to put in place. And again, aligned with the governor's guidance on this as well. So so one thing I've gotten and I don't have a very specific questions on this, but I've gotten a lot of hits people searching for this. And I have a very fond place in my heart for this event, which is the Amherst Fourth of July and fireworks. That was how I came to working in local government. That was one of the first things I worked on. So and that was, oh, gosh, I won't say say how many years ago because I don't want to date us. But so it's a beloved Amherst event, anything you can walk us through about the decision or, you know, how you how you came to decide that that wasn't going to happen or just anything about that process. I can speak, I guess, a little bit to this. Obviously, you everywhere across the United States, these large events are being discouraged because of the inability to keep people from, you know, properly so socially distancing. And we wouldn't it's a, you know, it's a public health issue. We would never want to bring that many people together and have them potentially exposed to the virus in a way that might might get them sick and so forth. So it was a decision reached not only by us, but by UMass and consultation with them and the health and safety folks that are involved in the event as well. But we're very sorry, again, we'll be back bigger than better and better than ever next year, hopefully. Yeah, we hope so. And I'd love to put it out there to folks. I mean, obviously, it's an important holiday. If there's any suggestions from the community about how we could still do something virtually or to honor to honor the day, then we'd be please send me your suggestions at info at AmherstMA.gov. I also heard this morning that the South Amherst celebration has been postponed by the organizers. That's a privately organized celebration, which is so iconic and it's a sort of sad to see that go by the wayside this year as well. Yeah, that event's been going on for, I think, over 100 years. It's, yeah, and run by, it's a private, you know, group. Volunteers. Yeah. Volunteers, right. I do have one suggestion and I'm doing this live so that you guys can't say no. I think the department heads in the town of Amherst, we should still do the Atkins Blueberry Pie Eating Contest just on Zoom. Get everybody in the room, take bets. So I'm putting that out there. If you'd like to see that happen, folks who are listening, let me know. I'm glad to assign that to different people. Yes. So I'm going to put it to the room again. If you have any questions, we're coming up to our 12, 30 time shortly. So if you had anything you wanted to say, even just hello, doesn't have to be a question. Now's your chance to raise your hand, star nine, if you're on the phone. Otherwise, are there things that we didn't ask you, Barb, that you wanted to get out there that people have been asking your staff or things that you wanted to just share with our community? Sure. I think I would like to share that we've just completed for our department, a strategic planning process. So we're really, we've worked with the New Mass Donahue Institute, who was our consultant for this project and facilitators. And they just did a marvelous job. We have probably about seven different priorities that we've identified for the next three years that we'll be addressing. So look for some changes in our department and I won't go into detail because we'll be unveiling them once the plan is complete, which will probably be sometime in mid July. So it was a great process and it will certainly provide us with direction going forward for at least the next three years. And we did take into account these last three months as well. So, and what kind of impact that had on our department and what we might be doing going forward as well. So that was good. It was a good exercise, good experience, just a super group. I got to give my props to the staff and the commission members who really came together and the public who came to all the sessions and gave some really, really valuable input and through surveys as well. So just great, lots of responses on those surveys, which really help to guide our decision-making through the process. So thank you. And I think you mentioned your commission I think there's maybe at least one, if not several vacancies on the LSSE commission. So for those folks who are interested in all the things that leisure services does through their programming and you want to volunteer to serve, there are vacancies on that commission and we would encourage you to go online and express your interest if that's for you. And you can do that at amherstma.gov slash CAF, which stands for community activity form. There's other vacancies on different boards and committees as well. Yeah, LSSE is a fun one though. They get to talk about the fun stuff. But there is one vacancy on that that we're looking for someone who uses the LSSE services or have kids who use it, that's where you bring high value because you have that direct experience and you talk to your friends and you can bring that to the commission meetings and really inform staff in how we do our jobs better. Absolutely. You might be hearing from me then, Barb. Okay, so I don't see any questions or hands in the room at this point. Paul, do you have any, we've got a few minutes left, do you have any kind of parting words you want to leave everybody with? Let's see, so we are a department, everybody's been working throughout this pandemic but we are beginning to bring more and more people back into town hall, looking to fully staff up with social distancing as best we can. There's some limitations on what, due to the oddball shape of our building in the cramped spaces and stuff, but we're trying to social distance people. So we'll have more and more people in the building working still not ready to open the building to the public. We have a strict guideline for anybody, IE staff who walk into the building, they'll be given a card that we recorded in because if someone does get tested positive for COVID-19, then we want to do strict contract tracing within our building and there's one door you can enter. There's lots of details to this that a team has been working on, which is really good. So but not quite ready to do that because we would have to do the same thing for anybody coming into the building. We've been incredibly successful at meeting the needs of the public this way. The other big thing that's happening is just the opening of restaurants downtown, which is really exciting and we're looking to establish some open areas where you can have picnic tables, you can go get takeout. If you don't want to sit down and be served, which you will be able to do downtown, you can also just get takeout from any establishment and then sit down at a picnic table that we're putting up in various locations downtown over the next couple of days. So it'll start to have some visible life downtown. So that's, I'm really excited about seeing that. Boy, sometimes in March it was so desolate because there were just no cars and now it's really picked up a lot. So it's kind of, it's good to see and our restaurants really need your business. Absolutely. In fact, I think I'm gonna go to one after we're done here. Sounds good. Do you know, do we know or can we talk about yet where those locations of the picnic tables are gonna be? Yeah. So we're looking at carving out some space on the Bolwood garage and some areas on Sweetser Park and we're looking at Cushman Common as well. Great. And maybe once they're up, we'll release that information about exactly where they are and where you can find those. Well, yeah. So it's just, we're redeploying existing picnic tables that we have that we can't have as many picnic tables say at Mill River Pavilion. So we're taking some of those out. Just depends how many we actually have. It's, we've got some additional things on order for us to help do this. And sometimes we need to create fencing. So if that's not in place, we can't really do it. So there's lots of pieces to this puzzle, but really DPW is moving very quickly on this. Some more details to come on those. Okay, well, I want to thank you both. I wanna thank Barb especially for joining us. People are asking lots of questions and a lot of those programs have a lot to do with your team. And so we thank you for all your hard work and joining us today. And I wanna thank everyone who is watching. So we will be back next Thursday at noon, same link, same phone number, new special guest, which we probably don't know who that is yet, but we will let you know. Well, thank you, Brianna and Paul. Really appreciate being here. Yep, it's fun. All right, thanks everyone. Have a great day. Thanks here, bye-bye. Bye.