 I want to remind everybody that in order to participate, please raise your hand from Zoom or press star nine. You can also use the q&a function at the bottom of your zoom screen to put your questions in. So I want to welcome town Amherstown clerk, Shavina Martin to our chat today. As well as your town manager Paul Bachman, Shavina is in the throws of election, but also is the co chair for the Amherst Complete Count Committee with myself and doing a lot of work around that. So before we launch into q&a I'm going to give Paul the chance to offer any updates he might have. Sure, thanks Brianna. So there are two things that we're really focused on this week one is the FY 21 budget, which is going through the finance committee at this point their finance committee will have about three times on the budget this week alone. Their goal is to make a recommendation to the town council so the town council can consider the budget on Monday, July 20. There's interest in this budget more than I've ever seen, and a lot of comments and public comments which has been very engaging. And so it's really presented a lot of food for thought for the council as they start to consider it. So and then the second thing has been the welcoming back the students to from the university in the colleges, and I just was on a call with representatives from all five colleges. As they start to work through their plans and trying to make sure that everybody is coordinated and that the five colleges are communicating together which they always do. And talking about the impacts on the town both through the business community and through the general public and the public health for the town so those are the big focuses that we've been spending a lot of time on the last week since we since we last talked. All right, thanks for the update Paul, I am going to give Shavina a quick chance to just give an update with all of the things happening in her department right now and then we're going to launch into Q&A so take it away Shavina. Good afternoon, everyone. So here in the town clerk's office have a lot of new and exciting things to report to everyone. As of July 1, we were able to launch our payments. So now you're able to request the vital records, which are birth, death and marriage certificates of right online pay form and then it'll come to us electronically and we'll mail out to you the next day. And also you can now renew your dog license right online as well. Well, same process, you can go right up to details right from the town page. And so we're excited about that many residents have already been utilizing it so I'd like to encourage everyone to continue that. And then we are moving into our election season. And without holding up a lot of time. I just want to notify everyone that as of yesterday the Secretary of State began, well, they began mailing out 2020 vote by mail applications. So anyone who would like to vote by mail can do so. No reason is required. And all you have to do is fill out the application and send it back. It's pre-postage to be addressed right here at the town hall. And then if you have any questions surrounding it, you can always give us a call with your Monday through Friday. Okay, thank you, Shavina. So we've got some questions here that we have on deck that involve just town clerk operations, election information as well as census. And just want to remind everybody who's joining us live to use the Q&A function to put your question to the room. Although we would prefer if you raise your hand and came into the room and asked your question live, we'd love to hear from you. So that's always an option as well. So the first question I have kind of relates to some of the things Shavina just said. We've gotten this question a couple times a week. I can attest to. I want to get married. How do I get that done now with town hall closed. So right now with town hall being closed, completing a marriage intention is a multi-step process. It requires both parties to be present. And there's a lot of documents that you have to fill out. And so right now we are not processing marriage intentions. And the reason we're not doing it is just to minimize the exposure to possible contaminants of the virus. And the thing to know that I would like everyone to know is that in the state of Massachusetts, you can complete the marriage intention with any community because you're getting married in the state. So you don't have to file your intention in the town where you're going to have your marriage ceremony. I didn't know that. So I got my marriage license from the town of Amherst. So I have fond memories of that. Now we've a question from the room. Sarah asks, you may receive thousands of ballots by mail. Will you need additional volunteers to handle these? We will. And we do have, we've always had our election worker job hosting up on the town's website. Anyone who is interested and anyone who is healthy, I am encouraging to go on and fill out the application. And then those get sent right over to me and we will begin reviewing all of those. We've had about eight people already apply. And the Secretary of State is also doing an update. So if you are interested, please apply. It is that application on our career portal. It is. Okay. And that web address is amherstma.gov slash jobs where you can find that and all of our other current job postings as well. So I have a question here. Is it too late to answer my census? The quick and easy answer, I guess I'll take, I'll take that one is no, it's not too late. You can still answer online by mail or by phone. Several different options there. It's not too late. However, for those who have not responded, there will be census workers and new raters coming out in the community. Following safety protocols with masks and whatnot starting August 11. So if you'd prefer not to have a visitor at your door. While they are going to be practicing safe protocols. It's probably a good, good time to answer if you haven't yet so that you can not show up on that list of non-response. And that's going to start here in August 11. And so you'll start seeing people with identification. They will have census badges. They will not ask to enter your home. They will not ask any of those types of questions about social security numbers or anything like that they're going to be simply asking the questions that are on the questionnaire. So, please don't give out any of that information if you have concerns about that you can you can definitely let us know. And we have another question that kind of was a follow up to that. And this has been a big, a big topic of conversation for us. I'm a student and got sent home due to COVID. Where do I count do my parents count me. That's a question we get, we get a lot. No, your parents should not count you if you live in Amherst for the majority of the year. And if you split your time equally it's where you live on April 1. However, this year that's a little different and the census clarified that you should be counted where you live when you're at school. So for those students who lived on campus you have been counted by your university. And for those who lived, who live or lived off campus or coming back into off campus housing you should be counted where you live. When you live at school, if that's Amherst then you would get counted here in Amherst. Alright, so I've got another question. If we served as election workers in the past, do we need to reapply for this fall. No, we will not. We will begin the, everyone here in the office we're going to start reviewing all of our election workers next week. Many have already notified us if they are available if they're unavailable, but if you worked last year, or if you worked for the March 3 presidential primary, then you're already considered on our activists, and so you'll get a notification. Okay, I've got this question to hear that I have probably gotten at least 20 times since the building's been closed to the public. So this person needs to get something notarized, but everywhere seems closed. Does the clerk's office do this during this time or is there a recommendation of where they can get this done. I have not been performing our notary service and I do know that the banks have been doing it. So any of our community banks in the area in town have been doing them and some attorneys offices have been doing them as well. We get that question a lot as well because anyone who has to renew their business certificate this year, it requires a notary seal. Okay, thank you. This question kind of references the mailing that you mentioned a little bit earlier. Is everyone getting mailed a ballot now? Do I still need to ask for an absentee ballot separately? So just to clarify, it's not a ballot that everyone is going to receive. It's a request for an absentee or early voting ballot that every registered voter in the state will receive. And so you won't get a ballot unless you return that form requesting a ballot. And you can fill that form out for the whole year or if you want just the ballot for the September vote primary, you can indicate that on the form. If you want one just for the November 3rd election, you can indicate that as well. Also, if you are an independent or what we call in the state of Massachusetts an unenrolled voter, there will be directions on how to choose which ballot you want. Because you have to choose. Hey, Shavina, what's the difference between early voting and absentee voting? And how would I know which one I want to use? This seat, well, okay, so that's a great question. So historically, an absentee ballot is a ballot that you cast because you're not going to be your requested because you're not going to be available on election day, whether it's your way. No, you're not required to give a reason you can or if you're not just not early voting just allows you the ability to catch your vote in advance of election day. This year when the legislation that governor Baker passed and signed on July 6, you need no reason. And the ballot actually says so the ballot says absentee. So this year, it's kind of the same. Exactly. You would need a reason in the past. If someone was admitted in the hospital. Right before the election, we could have, we could have a relative bring a ballot to the hospital if they're admitted. And those laws have been relaxed this year. Those are temporary changes. Sorry. Yeah. So, so if I wanted, if I get this thing in the mail, and I want to vote and not have to go to the polls. I just say yes, give me something, give me either one. It doesn't really matter and you'll send them the same. It'll be whether I asked for absentee or early voting, I'll get the same packet from you. Yes. So how you'll do it. It's going to be, it'll be pre populated. The application is going to be pre populated with your name, your address. And if you have an mailing address with us, then you're mailing address. And you can indicate where you'd like to have your ballot and mail. And then it'll have your birth date. I mean, your year, not your birth date, but just your birth on there. So like for me to have 1979, and then you just sign it and mail it back. So then the, and can at the same time, I think you said this, and maybe I wasn't listening clearly. I can ask for both the September primary and the November general election at the same time. I'm not going to get a second mailing. Great. That is correct. Good. That's really important to clarify those things. I think there's been a lot of confusion and in the media and even locally that people would be just automatically getting getting a ballot. You're getting an invitation to ask for a ballot. Correct. That's good to understand that. All right, now I've got a another question coming in. I'm moving to Amherst in two weeks. How do I update my voting address? Do I have to come into town hall? So there's a number of ways you can do it. You can do it right online on the second case website and that comes over to us electronically, or you can contact our office and we can mail you out a hard copy form in order for there to be any changes to anyone's voter profile, your signature. And what's the deadline for the next election in order to be registered to vote or to update your registration. The legislation changed that. So originally it was going to be August 12th, which is why we were going to collaborate and do a big thing with census, which, you know, we know since this day was going to be August 11th. That's now been moved to August 22nd, which is a stat. August 22nd, 2-2, is that what you said? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yep, 2-2. So 8-2-2, 2020. To last day to register to vote for the primary? Yep, for September 1st. Okay. Another census question here. That's a Saturday, right? It is a Saturday. That's also the first day of early voting in person. Oh my gosh. The town clerk's office never sleeps. Oh my God, you guys. It's going to be a long time. Send them lots of love and coffee. Yeah. So I'm going to go ahead and give this a little bit of a pivot real quick to another census question. And I've actually got this a bunch of times and I just got clarification on this from them a couple of days ago. So someone asks, I made a mistake and I didn't count my youngest child on my census. What do I do? That's a really good question. And I think one of the things that I really like to see is this a lot of people who respond online. Was to go right back into the, um, the 2020, whoops, this way, 2020 census stuff of, um, and start another questionnaire with your, with your address and your information. And, um, they will knock out your other response and take the newer response. your younger children, which actually happens quite frequently. It's a huge concern nationally, but also an Amherst has been designated as being at a high to very high risk for undercounting our youngest children. So if you did answer and you forgot, you can go back in. If you haven't answered yet, be sure to count everybody in your household, even if it's, if you're not the parent of the child, but they're living there predominantly with you, they still count. So we're doing a lot of programming as the complete count committee targeting families with young children starting Friday and for the rest of the summer, the Amherst Complete Count Committee is sponsoring additional meals on Fridays through the schools in collaboration with the school's meal distribution. So they'll be getting additional meals to go home for over the weekend and the meals will have stickers and information similar to what you can see behind my head in different languages and those will be affixed to the meals to just prompt and remind and give the web address for people to answer and we have other programming also coming out tailored at families with young children and hopefully off-campus students as well. It looks like I have another question here in the room. Another voting question. So if there is in person early voting, where will that happen? That information will be revealed in the weeks to come. And once that's ready, we will have that pretty prominently on our homepage. Also there's a voting page AmherstMA.gov slash vote where we'll have everything that you do need to know and we'll put that out there once we have the details. So and just to put that in context, I think it's a complex question that Savina has been managing with our talking to public health, public safety folks in terms of whether it can be inside, whether it's going to be intense outside, where's a good location to manage traffic. So multiple locations are being examined but we will settle in on that pretty soon. And I just want to remind the people who might have just joined us, please feel free to put your questions in the Q&A, raise your hand via Zoom, or star nine for those of you who are calling in. We'd love to hear your voice. I'm tired of hearing my voice so please feel free to pop in. Otherwise, while we wait for another question to come in, I've got some more here. This one kind of hopefully we've touched on but I'm living in another state now, but I need access to my birth records. How can I do this? Okay, so you can do a number of ways. You can use our EPAY online. When people are out, when you're an out of state resident, I always ask you to call us first just to ensure we have your record. If you go online and you just request it and you pay for it, it's a multi-step process to refund your money if we don't have your record. So give us a call first so we can locate your record. And then you can request it either by mail or through the EPAY system. And the same goes for death records and copies of marriage certificates as well as should be explained. They're all up there and online, amrisimay.gov slash payments or if you hit our homepage, there's a big button that says E-payments. And we've been steadily adding different categories to that with more to come. So feel free to check that out. Yes, that's been a really great initiative that Brianna really led and with the pandemic actually drove us saying we got to move on this right now and make it easier for people to access our services electronically. So great work on that. Yes, absolutely. And I think that one of the first times I met Shavina and we talked, she said let's get all this stuff online. And of course things take a little longer and I'm glad we got it done but she came in with wanting that to be to improve her services for the community. So I have to say that. Okay, I've got a question here that's directed towards Paul. Paul, does the university seem responsive to the concerns you outlined in your letter? We have not heard a response back from the university at this point in time. I think the concerns that were expressed in that letter are shared by lots of people in the community and they take them very seriously. I know and I think they're trying to figure out how to address them. The scale that they're talking about that thousands of students in terms of testing and protocols is pretty gigantic. But they have a lot of resources at their disposal as well so I expect that they will be addressing them at some point in the future. And will when they do get addressed is that something that we will make available? It depends how they want it. We've asked for a number of things, actions on their part and even just a meeting basically. And so it's at a fairly high level and so that's what we're waiting to hear from. And you mentioned this but I will echo the fact that there has been a lot of activity and conversation through our multiple different channels from the community members expressing opinions and concerns about that. So we hope to keep everybody people's comments in mind and to keep the information flowing. But feel free to reach out to us if there's something. One thing we should all expect is when the university and the college is open that there will be an increase in COVID-19 cases because they will be doing a lot of testing. They really I think their intent at least for on-campus students is to test twice a week. So they'll be doing a lot of testing. We know a lot of young people are asymptomatic and those cases will be recorded so people should expect to see an increase in cases in Amherst. We need to sort of gauge what's the expected increase, what that should look like, so we can inform the public to say, yeah this has been within the norms of what we expect. So the one thing we have that's really good is that they're public health officials and in a lot of ways UMass is its own entity in terms of handling cases. The cases on campus are managed by the university and then the cases in Amherst are managed by the Amherst public health department. So but there's a lot of communication between the two health departments so that's a really good thing for us. Absolutely. I'm going to ask one more census question that I've gotten. I can't even count how many times but basically is my data safe? Are my responses safe? And I think we can come at this from a couple of different lenses in our community primarily people can have a mistrust of government or the administration and don't feel comfortable sharing their information or are concerned about an immigration or a citizenship status. On the other hand of that we have many off-campus students who may have more than four people living in a unit so there's concern about that. But by law the Census Bureau cannot release any of identifiable information about you, your home, your business even to law enforcement agencies. They certainly can't release that to the to the town and we wouldn't be looking for that so in the case for students living off campus they should feel confident to answer if there are five people living in your unit even though that is not technically allowed in our town due to zoning information. We will not be seeking that information we will not get that information so we encourage people to answer as accurately as possible and make sure everybody is counted. And that that's protected under Title 13 in federal law so it's not something we're seeking to do and even if we were we wouldn't be able to access that. That might not alleviate everybody's concerns about privacy and data but it is certainly something to mention that it's very protected information. So hopefully that helps some people feel better about answering and we've spoken a lot about you know we want to get a complete count and we need we need this but it's really we didn't talk so much about why we need it and I'll just say quickly as far as Amherst is concerned it's really about representation in our in our House of Representatives making sure we're adequately represented we did lose a seat in Massachusetts based off of the census response in 2010 so we don't want that to happen of course and it really is about funding for almost everything in our community schools roads grant programs federal funding it's it's going to impact us for the next 10 years and we will we will feel it if we're we're under counted so that's my spiel on that one. We are coming up close to our times I'm going to say one more time to the room to please pop in if you have a question or a comment you can use q&a raise your hand or star nine from the phone so while we give people another chance are there any things Shabina that you wanted to share that you didn't get asked directly today? there will be we will be putting out a lot of information that'll be forthcoming and the weeks to come surrounding elections so I just would like to encourage everyone to you know stay tuned we're gonna put it in all the news media outlets up on our website and things like that and it's one of my desires is to keep all of our residents well informed and that way you all can have confident conversations and be well informed and make good decisions and I try to give you the information as soon as it comes to me. And I'll mention too that we just put up on our our social media channels on Facebook and Twitter and we'll add it to our YouTube channel but Shabina did a great informational video about voting in the 2020 election with Dr. Demetria Shabazz so that video is out there so feel free to check that out if you wanted to get some additional info and resources. All right I don't see any other questions from the room Paul did you have any last pieces you wanted to share before we close up? I think we're good to go on this thank you. All right thank you everybody we'll see you next week and if you have follow-up questions please email us at info at amherstma.gov and we will get you the information that you need. Thank you Shabina. Yeah thanks Shabina. Bye everyone. Bye guys. Bye bye. Thank you.