 Hi everyone, this is Angela Mills from Town Hall in Amherst and we are recording this meeting of the Public Art Commission. And at this time I would like to recognize that a special guest Maureen Pollock is here Maureen you want to introduce yourself. Hi everyone, my name is Maureen Pollock I am a staff planner with the town of Amherst and I'm here to talk about a temporary art projects. The town has been awarded $10,000 to do a call to artists for a temporary art installation. The call to artists needs to go out the end of this calendar year and the event or installation needs should occur next year so in 2023. Thank you and so I've just made Terry hold the host Terry are you okay with that. I will do my best. Now that you're host you can let people in from the attendee room if you notice that there are people hanging out there that should be in here, and you can also make Maureen a co host if you'd like. Alright. So thanks everyone for all the hard work and have a great meeting. Thank you very much. See you well. You too thanks. Hey Maureen you are now a co host. You know I could call. I could call Shoshona if you want to see what's going on. I think she said she was traveling and could maybe come in by phone but I think that's where. Okay, is often about I think doing some traveling. She's gonna be here but. Okay. I was just going to add that she sent an email. To me and others I didn't check to really see who else was on the email list that she was traveling and she may have tech technology issues. Oh, try her best to attend. Okay. Well in the meantime, Maureen if you would kind of walk us through what you've done I thank you so much for what you've written up here it's, it's actually caused me to sleep a little bit better. It's great to have this kind of written out so that we have an idea. I will add this is, I decided to put the draft in red to make it very clear so this is a starting point and I spoke to other staff members in the planning department. It's a very well-located and, you know, I think the town town staff is open to maybe open, opening this up to other possible locations such that for you to consider so Kendrick park or sweets or park, or town, the town common, or it's the East along there as as possible locations for the artists for you to consider do you just want one location or do you want to suggest, you know, put it on the artists of where would they like to choose their art, and then they would indicate in their proposal. So I think that's a good question. Lori what do you think you thoughts about that I think narrowing it down is probably a good idea but I'm not really sure. I guess what I was stepping back a little from the details and going big picture I was, you know before we started recording I was curious about some of the things that I haven't had access to either the Google Drive that has background from the commission and then. Also the minutes that I haven't been able to look at if there's anything sort of, you know that's already been done. So we're not reinventing the wheel. So, or are we starting sort of from, you know, is there anything that we already, you know has already been laid out. I just want to make sure we're not missing anything as we start in tonight and then other thing is. I'm assuming that we're trying to go through this tonight to come up with kind of an agenda to bring to the next meeting so that we can be efficient in terms of, you know, bringing our ideas in a way that can be very much narrow down and within an hour or or more at the next meeting you can go forward from there with the call to artists. Right, so I just want to make sure I'm on track because the first I've heard of this was at the last meeting. Yeah, we usually do have we usually do have an agenda I don't know what happened this time. Okay, so I think maybe for this time the agenda would be to get as much kind of outlined for it for the next meeting so obviously place is important I don't. I think in my feeling is, since there isn't a lot of time between now and putting this call to artists out that the more we narrow things down the better. I guess, you know, obviously one place is place and reading this I saw Kendrick Park. I suppose if there's just a very small number of places that we know one option would be to either narrow it down to one, or give them the list, you know, or include the list of places in the open call. So that list would be Kendrick, and you just named them all up but I didn't get them all Kendrick sweet sir. What were the others of where it could be a sweet surprise town, common or the East common. Which one is the East common. That's a long southeast street. So like the South Amherst what I think of as a South Amherst common. Yeah, so that's between route nine and Main Street. I think that's right that stretches southeast street it might be northeast street. That's where the Amherst glass is located. Oh that corner there. Yeah, that little thing that kind of goes in front of the school. Yeah, I see. Well, I mean my opinion, my feeling is that it's downtown would get the most visibility and so I think that staying in the downtown area. Yeah, narrowing it down and I don't know the town common is nice and that you know there's activities going on in the town common often, but I'm not sure where and there's what plans to make changes to the town common but that's not anytime soon right. Well, those could be in the next year or two. So it might be nice just to, you know, the town common is sort of the primary open space and downtown and sort of the secondary public spaces or greens is Kendrick and sweet sir. So maybe it would be nice just to put focus on those. Well, there there may be part of the town common maybe redesigned for the next year or two so. Okay, just to sort of separate the projects and sweet sir has the, you know, one of the one of the few public art pieces that the town that the commission has been responsible for right the one that's missing one of its people missing. What is it, what, not Emily but Robert frost. And then this and sweet sir. No one I'm thinking about the space Kendrick. Kendrick used to have a sculpture there right and now it's more with their two cultures there. There was on the list that she gave Maureen gave us there was there was a link did you happen to take a look at that link that had the, like the tour of all the public art that we've done, because there was a beautiful sculpture in Kendrick Park that I don't, I don't think is there any longer. Yeah they were having some troubles with it. But the location lens itself really nicely to sculpture. Yep. Right. Yeah. This is the link. Yeah, that's interesting. I did have a comment about the link. Because a lot of I think that was developed that was put together I think it was by the town of the town. I don't know it's it's outdated. Yeah, whoever put it together it's outdated yeah there's that one that's not there anymore right now, which I think was part that was, I think installed through you mass right. And then there was one and there was another one that kind of looked like tree limbs, but I think that's gone to that actually one that is still there. Well, actually, that one has been removed. It's by the playground. And it's been replaced with something similar. Okay. Oh, okay coloring of the tree limbs is different it's almost like charcoal by the tree limb, but it's back to another one. Yeah, yeah. And is that on loan. Is that on loan. Um, I, um, What is it on like loan like soil. Do you mean no loan L O A M. Oh, you know, that's a good question. I don't know. I noticed it and I informed. Yeah, these are kind of the things that I'm curious about just as background and we don't have to get into it. But I think it's really important coming into this to understand like, what are the ones that we're responsible. How do things get on that list, you know, like we just, I feel like we definitely have to, as soon as we get through this we really need to work on that list, and make it really up to date and clear. I know that sculpture that looks like trees is by Harold Grinsbone, and he has put a lot of those throughout. He's now in the Pioneer Valley, and probably it's on loan to the town but who's managing that who says that could be there who, you know, that seems like this commission should really know what's happening with anything that's public art. reason I'm thinking about it this way is in terms of this call for artists, it's kind of in the context of what's already here. You know it's going to sit somewhere in relationship to what else is here. And so in Kendrick then that would be one that would I'm assuming still be there then. And so maybe the spot would be more towards the end where that other one used to be but isn't there anymore. But I think I think Kendrick is nice. There's the playground there. You drive past it and I mean we're kind of talking about sculpture but it sounds like there were possibilities in the draft for it to be not sculpture for it to be like a weekend happening event or something. That would be a great place to have performances and festivals too I think. So I think when we go in front of the entire commission we should ask to vote for the location. That should be one of the first things that we do so that we narrow that down so that we can put that right into our draft here. And since we've already kind of said these that you know these places might not work the best this isn't this is making this is just you know in our when our talking and discussion about it these two places kind of stood out as it looked like the best places to have this these things located and then let's decide on those things. So narrowing down that list of possibilities is probably useful in this right now if you think that's something we can do in this meeting. Yeah Kendrick or Sweets are yeah what do you think so I'll put a I'll put in both face we need to vote early on location so it sends out people can start thinking about it. Great because I think you know the location will also help us figure out if you want to have some kind of a theme. Maureen you've written this so lovely and gives us so much so much potential for creativity and I love that and I don't know if you want to if you want to continue keeping it quite as open if we want to maybe narrow it down to a little bit more you know more of a theme maybe something as Laurie talked about going going with the same kind of artist already in place and Kendrick would be you know a conservation theme or a nature theme you know and how that will how that brings the community together it's something so it might be that we quickly choose a location and maybe talk about some ideas for themes and then vote as fast as we can or we'll leave it open I'm not really sure which way to go but I don't know the history of Kendrick Park. I don't either to be honest but there must be some it'd be interesting even just for our knowledge to hear about it and and then Sweetser Park and just so the artist has a better understanding and and maybe like this or the site and then maybe the surrounding properties just so I can do that I can let it um yeah yeah I mean I do remember that there used to be a house on in Kendrick Park that was owned by an Amherst resident and they then gifted it to the town so I don't know you know that property and then it became a park but it had a house on it for many years so it may have been that that property wasn't always obviously not all of it was owned by the town um yeah you're you're making me uh ring you're ringing a bell I think there might have been a variety of houses located there I think so something yeah so yeah so I find that kind of interesting so what you know what's the historic background or like how has the space been used in in the past and currently um and anything else that's sort of unique that we would want to sort of capture yeah so maybe we research that and bring that information to the meeting on the 14th and say this is the history of Kendrick this is the history of Sweetser and so that we have that information we need to put it in the draft here in the in the rp yeah and um so I could reach out to my colleague uh Nate uh uh in uh fellow planner uh Nate Molloy he uh works closely with the historic commission um and so he probably um has that sort of information um documented somewhere so I could reach out to him to see if we can sort of uh if you need any help with uh history of art there's probably no better person to talk to than my wife who is presently the president of the emmerist part of history huh we have an end so is there a way we can get this information sent out to our commissioners before the next meeting so we can all kind of read up on it and be prepared yeah um well before I I say yes or no what I forget when's the next meeting um the 14th the 14th yeah I think yeah like let me talk to Nate at least and see how uh quickly I can get this information he might say tomorrow here you go so it might be as quick as of uh as an email or maybe maybe I'll have to do some research and and perhaps reach out to James's to Jim's wife okay if if you need any help with that let me know I'm happy to help put something together so our commissioners to have like an idea of what we're looking at maybe so so our next meeting is when I believe it's November 14th am I correct on that this is interesting somehow I'm not getting emails because I didn't know that uh Shoshona sent an email earlier today um just letting you know the people who could not make this meeting know that we'll be meeting our our our regular meeting will be on the 14th I'm hoping I'm correct I probably need to take a look well I it is the 14th and I think that from last time in my date book um that we agreed but I don't know um if I I didn't see the email come today but I can check that right now just to see Jim if you're on there um well it may go into spam or something that happens um let me just I haven't been in my office very much okay well in terms of theme I mean in some ways it is very open-ended I don't I mean I guess that would be a question either do we leave it open-ended or do we narrow down to the theme and if so what are the things we would want to choose from have there been any that were previously recommended that were do we really need a theme I mean I'm a contrarian on theme I was just thinking it would be nice to have some cross-collaboration but I think on this project in particular we're not going to have time for that I think in future projects I'd really like to bring in some other organizations and commissions when we do when we think about our public art going forward but with the timeline on this we may need to just leave it open-ended as Jim said because of practicality you know I hate that I really would love to I wish we could narrow and focus more but I don't think we have the time what do you think Laurie um I think it makes judging it a little more challenging but we might get some really interesting things leaving it wide open might get a lot more entries if we leave it wide open and if we narrow it down we'll have fewer so that might be more interesting right to leave it open what do you think and Maureen? Yeah I see the pros and cons I don't think there's a I don't think there's a bad answer or a bad approach I think they're just choices so we could you could take this project and go with the no theme and then I'm sure yeah you'll get such a diverse range of proposals in regards of content and yeah I think it might be helpful for artists to have it open-ended and leave it up to them and then and then it's it's your response you know you would be reviewing all of them so you could obviously pick the the the winning one and then and then hopefully be inspired for future themes or project ideas. One of the things that I did but when I was sort of feeling overwhelmed and lost about this whole project and I sent it to Terry as I looked at all the other towns that had this were given this training or you know while we're able to participate in the training and and get this access to these funds and I was looking at well what did they do so you know some of them have had called they one of them is to create summer outdoor reading rooms and then two of them are connected to river art walks and working with you know art art for these river art walks in their areas and then there were a few others so they were they were narrowed down and they were interesting and then I tried to think about the art that we do have which tends to be so far what we have tends to speak to Amherst's history in terms of the writers who the important writers who have been here and they're you know the quotes and quotes on the the ceramic tiles and you know sort of speaking to Amherst the arts and the history of Amherst and arts and so I think you know when I was thinking about I was like well what's important here in Amherst there's you know if you look at Amherst history I don't know what we would narrow down to or if there was I think you mentioned at one point there was something on I don't know was there an outdoor walking path or something that you may have mentioned last time I can't remember that someone recommended from a meeting you had with a different group um was it the Robert Frost trail and having art along oh sure yeah so is that was something yeah I remember reading about that so that you know that kind of thing I think could be interesting if we wanted to narrow it down on you know some like I'm sorry if one of the things I like the idea of if we did do it like along the Robert Frost trail or something path that it gets people out there you know it gets people in it to other spaces so that's one idea but it doesn't have to be for this one yeah I know I was just thinking I like your perspective Laurie if you were to consider making this sort of open-ended and leave it up to the artist since this is a temporary nature you know that you could you know allow a little flexibility and whimsy and imagination for the artist knowing that this won't be a permanent fixture so folks that may be like oh that you know art is so subjective that someone is going to love this someone's not gonna like it so much and it will be helpful to remind all that this is temporary in nature and you know perhaps if residents in the town of Amherst really loves it perhaps there could be a continued conversation of figuring out a way to make it permanent it's a really good perspective Laurie um they're like uh in Concord they have who's a Concord they have an art ramble and um the Barnhill Conservancy site I think I'm trying to remember but but it's an art ramble so it's it's temporary by nature and um it's basically inviting artists to create a work of art based on natural surroundings something that would sit in um and it would be um and their kickoff was basically almost like a festival I come out on the trails and and visit the art and you know um knowing that it wouldn't be surviving more than a season or two you know and that is the nature of this kind of installation I really invited a lot of creativity and and people really loved as you said getting out there in nature and and finding art in interesting places and that cross-conversation that you have of you know people with art and where they encounter it and what it's how it speaks to them um that's a really neat idea I like the idea of the Robert Frost Trail a lot um for practical purposes would that be something that will be really challenging Maureen um well it would be a conversation with the Conservation Commission if it's within the town of Amherst okay um so um I would have to see if that's something that would be entertained by by the Conservation Commission it might be that that might be better for a future yeah so maybe maybe to keep the future we stick with you know the the Kendrick Park we keep its temporary nature it there's um it could be as you you know lay out here it could be an installation it could be a sculpture it could be an event it could be whatever the artist wants it to be but I think in I do like keeping in that it that it needs to sort of pay attention to the land that it's on right you know the history of the land that it's on yeah I agree with that it's very important so maybe having a generic call very generic you know it wouldn't be quite as open-ended as this maybe maybe give a little bit more parameters very keywords you know bringing community together you know something very very that invites a lot of opportunity and creativity um but and it's not like a theme it's just people would have to kind of fit their ideas into this very general thing that might be a good way to go so as far as an event is concerned the history since I've been on the commission was small and poorly recognized in the media so I think something that is like on along the Robert Frost trail actually might get more attention because then it draws both from art and the Robert Frost trail and it lasts longer I mean an event lasts an hour and the art along the trail would be there for a long time so those are two ideas that we can bring in front of the whole commission we can say you know here are the you know these two parks um here's here's some things we could do and here are the history um or we could decide to do something along the Robert Frost trail although we do we recognize that that's going to be a little bit more tricky and we haven't really thought you know thought of that yet and that might be something we may need to do in a future time but we can propose it to commission and see what what folks say I've seen art pieces that were just so powerful it was one in um Central Park in the New York City and you went on a walk through the park but you first went and you got your headphones and then you wore your headphones as you walked along hearing this story and the whole park came alive in a completely different way and it was fabulous so I mean someone could do something like with sound or you know but there's there's a lot of opportunities to take in the history of the surroundings or just the experience of the place that artists can do with sound so you just having having said I didn't want a theme I'm going to like say you could have a really cool theme if it was nature or the Robert Frost trail or something really broad and then I like that that's a really good idea if we could really come up with an outdoor art exhibition with headphones and a nice recorded I mean that would be really cool have you guys ever heard about the New York City Theater they Linda McInerney of Eggtooth Productions this is probably five years ago she did a Venn and Amherst and I believe I went to it I believe I had to wear headphones and it brought me around downtown to various stops and you interacted with either an actor or perhaps there was dancing or there was like an art piece that you had to find it was pretty neat I've been to a few of them and it could certainly it's just another idea but it could be certainly something along a trail I wonder if there's a way to create like it's something that something that in terms of a theme and I don't know the language but some some theme that engages that invites the artist to create something that invites our community to engage with our surroundings whether it's on a public you know trail like the Robert Frost trail or various important sites in town you know I don't know that that's kind of a theme but I don't know how to put that in terms of the right language but the other thing it might do which we could use is publicize Amherst public art commission more because it doesn't it doesn't have a budget doesn't get a whole lot of attention in the press I don't think I would like to see more people be aware of that it's here and it's valuable and do you sometimes we just discussed might have that additional benefit well I definitely think once we figure out what this call to artist is we should do a big press release letting you know that we've been that you you know that you were chosen the town was chosen that marine you did participate in this whole program and at the end of it we have this call to artist with the funding for ten thousand dollars to do this project and here's our call for artists and you know we should do a whole big you know PR thing on that so marina is part of the um this process is there somebody who is part of the Amherst like town council is do we have use of anybody who writes press releases or anybody who does marketing for the town that we would use or we would do that ourselves I can assist you with writing a press release and we have like a communications manager that works within our IT department Brianna Sonnerd and she will does the is in charge of like social media posts and updating the website and she meets with the local newspapers and I think every Tuesday so the town definitely has a lot of strategies of how to go about this and and I know at the last meeting some you guys had mentioned a variety of other places like there's the valley the valley art newsletter it comes out every Tuesday I definitely recommend it if you aren't on that listserv yet and it shows you different calls to art so actually just doing the call to artists could be posted there and then when there's an actual event or there's the ribbon cutting the opening reception and then you know for all that that can be posted there um and then I think it was you terry that mentioned like boss there's like a boston art website yeah art boston yeah and then I will say that um which could be the same thing but um the funding sources new england foundation for the art they're wonderful you see and the forecast forecast public art will help promote this as well yeah I don't know those the last one but I do this is the work I do for the town of Arlington so um I would do the communications of marketing some I have some awareness of how they do it um so if we talk to will be on Sonnerd so in an ard s uh how do you spell her last name paul incident um s u n r y d sorry s u n r y d yep okay thank you okay great I'm glad we have something we can work with for that that's great yeah definitely there website work with her for like other for other projects to doing this sort of stuff okay the MAPC and the NEFA will put will put whatever we do on their websites too so we'll get publicity from from that as well uh do does amherst public art have any kind of um banner or um signage uh logo is anything like that so that we can have a temporary installation just saying this is you know this comes from funds you know etc this is from your town commission kind of thing is there any do we have anything like that I'm not aware of it I've been on the commission for over a year okay all right since I think we got some homework to do I really want to figure out what our assets are and what our you know marketing assets are and if we don't have them we should maybe work on developing them but that's a whole other conversation sorry I could call the former chairman and see if he can bill I can see if he's comes up with anything on if you want if you think a logo is worth it I'll I'll go chase it and see if we got anything I think maybe we as a commission could get there and talk about you know what our plans are for for promoting the future but as part of this project I think I hope that we can put aside a little bit of the funding here to develop at least a sign that says this is you know this is the work of your your amherst public art commission I hope that can be part of it because that's Jim said so that we can you know get our name out there a little bit so do you mean like a like a fabricated sign is that easy yeah absolutely there could be like a wayfinding or right whatever whatever the word would be but yeah a sign that would be erected yeah the project and and and then say all the the you know your committee and then perhaps even the funders or or not whatever you want it to say I know a really good graphic artist that might be able to come up with a logo I think that more the more the more talk we can get about our projects going forward we'll have more fodder for when we go in front of the Fincom and ask for funds for next year you know I think it's really important for us to have these kind of things well documented and marketed so that we have some you know another thing if you start a little buzz like that going on it would attract business to downtown Amherst so I mean it could be good for the community if we had you know if we had a reputation for having good art good public art goals okay Maureen so we've got some ideas here what is the next step here Lori do you want to think is there anything else you wanted to talk about I guess I'm on I'm still not stuck on the theme I made some notes so you know it could it could be this very open-ended thing it it it's could you know so it could range from someone submitting a project for a sculpture you know in Kendrick Park to something you know where either we we're suggesting I'm thinking about and I don't really have the language for this I you know someone could think about maybe writing something up but if we go with something where we're calling for something it's temporary in nature but that is related to to the town of Amherst through its natural surroundings the history and or the history of the town and its inhabitants its history the community you know sort of some way to say like this whatever it is to take into consideration these things so it could be something you know incorporating like that if we want to say the Robert Frost trail I don't know so I guess we could bring this to our our something to to vote on at the November meeting of who's going to get that done to get what we want voted on on the agenda who's gonna be responsible I'm sorry I would say Jim I didn't hear that I said like somebody needs to be responsible for getting what we want on the agenda actually showing up and I was wondering who is going to do that how does that work we propose it to you just all you got to do is come up with it and ask Shoshona to put it on the agenda and we'll show up on the agenda and we're kind of new to this Lori and I well if you want just can leave what you want on the agenda I'll take care of it okay so just tell me what you want and well I think so number one is to vote for the location and we have Kendrick and sweet there and then we also if it works with the town I forget who you said marine town the the people who are responsible for the parks or the Robert Frost trail oh I'll have to talk to Dave Zomac he's the assistant town manager and he's the the rector of conservation so I'll tell you I think it's the conservation commission but most likely so I'll I'll check with him and then he's like step one and then based on what he says then step two would be approaching the conservation commission okay so the conservation commission so the other piece of it would also be can we include a place like the Robert Frost trail and that would need to go through the conservation commission so that that would be the location agenda right and then the theme is either to bring it it's either a very open ended or something more specific with focus with particular focus to and I think my suggestion is with particular focus to that to the town of Amherst either on its natural you know the natural surroundings of the town the history the people who've lived here you know whatever creates our town and makes it uniquely the town of Amherst I like like something like you know intersections nature and history and Amherst kind of something something of that nature it's all about it's all about verbiage right I like that so intersections what did you say intersections intersections colon nature plus history and Amherst kind of how those two intersect in our town that could be something you know it could be it's a very generic kind of a theme and it lends itself to and there's a lot of creativity you can you could take that anywhere um as long as you're kind of and as we talk about the history of at least these well these of these three locations we're considering um a little you know this work into one of the history of these places that's something we would publicize maybe and um and and say how do these these this history the history of these locations interact with the nature all around you and invite you to encounter it in a certain way that's yeah something like that maybe so it's very generic I don't know we could maybe we come up with a few themes of that nature and put those on the agenda and then we have something to vote for does that sound what do you think for me that sounds yeah I think that's great yeah um perhaps um I would suggest you don't try to put the themes on the agenda because you'll throw freeze great activity that way I would suggest that we put develop theme on the agenda and then we come prepared with whatever we have come up with in the meantime okay okay and you might want to just say because we really want you to review and approve the open call for artists so um so you know it may cover items that you might not at this exact moment be thinking of so you may want to just put on the agenda for the review and approval of the call for artists for the temporary public art project and just at least every one minute yeah that is the most important thing right now at this point is to get this open draft call for artists approved that we can move on to the next phase because November you know that's it let me have December yeah that's the most important number one on on this well probably three actually or two is is actually calling for some kind of vote to approve the open call okay so uh Laurie will you send me what your notes are please on the theme issue okay yeah I just would help just in case I missed something okay okay and you're um I'm I'll find your email but what is it well the easiest one is james.barnhill.post.harvard.edu james.barnhill.post you know dumb as a post.harvard.edu Harvard like the beat .post I don't know if I have that but it's probably in our post post.harvard.edu james.barnhill.post at post.harvard.edu .harvard.edu okay that's where I went to school okay I'll I'll send my notes as well Jim so we can right but that's helpful and if you want to just kind of reply to us so that we kind of agree on what we're going to present I'm going to send you a draft agenda great and here's the thing draft agenda you can send me alterations that you want do not discuss it with anyone else or you will be possibly violating the open meeting well now that said since we don't have it a forum you're probably not so you know two people can discuss something when you got a forum of four okay right and so on this open call there was one part in that marine where I read I just read it briefly something about like a slab or putting I there if you maybe we should go just scroll down and see if there's some things on here that we need to discuss so this is the project overview and scope context and background and then it gets into what the I think this should say receive up to ten thousand dollars just because if we were to get a sign that might that that would have to be part of that ten thousand dollars and right sort of administrative fees like if we wanted to put something in like a some sort of special advertisement and the paper that we would hopefully not have to pay for but god forbid or that hopefully would be covered but anyways it would cover costs including design fee materials fabrication transportation and installation so I will add that a lot of this or this this call here is really geared towards a physical like installment and it does it I don't get into great detail about if it's an event right so I think I would want to add like another sentence that's specific to an event and let Shoshona is and here I'm a letter in what she said here she is so the other thing is if we're going to vote for a call we need to have that distributed in advance so we'll have something to vote on like a draft call are we to the point where we can get one I'm not sure we are what do you think well that makes sense if you have a that you know this needs to be kind of hi Shoshona oh there's Shoshona hi guys sorry I'm having a giant life crisis right now yeah but the good thing is that I it brought me back into town so I'm actually able to join you on the computer so I can actually see this stuff so that's good I'm sorry and I'm also kind of see you yeah I don't know what's wrong with my computer I can't everything is whatever computers are finicky yeah I'll just mute myself if I start sobbing uncontrollably oh I'm so sorry I'm sorry but anyways I don't want to just drop anymore okay okay Laura you were saying I'm sorry I Jim have brought up that this call as it stands now which is a draft would need to be revised into more of a final form for us to actually vote on it next at the next meeting okay or if we still have it in draft form then revised during the meeting so that I mean we're going to have to have some some kind of final thing to be able to vote on right right I think that's what Jim's speaking to and I think yeah yes I agree that's probably true so as far as putting this on the agenda this would be probably last on the agenda for this particular subcommittee kind of I know there's other things to talk about in our meetings but this is pretty priority you know this is priority so maybe we start with hey location and then let's talk about generic theme and number three is okay now we have those things voted on I hope can we approve the final the final open call then hopefully we'll get yeses and move forward yeah and then we can move on with the other business that we have on the commission yeah um there was oh this is what I wanted to ask about marine on the screen now is this four by four concrete pad what's the story with that oh I was referencing um other uh called artists and um I sort of just cut and pasted that um that was um particular to an RFP for sculpture so that's where I put these little um squiggly oh yeah so I should have made a note but um so I like I like the wording of it and so I kind of just didn't want to forget about it um I wanted to get this specific maybe in um the proposal we put in front of the commission we put a little you know parentheses you know if if this is a sculptural installation these are the parameters for those you know for those for that choice I personally think you're better off if you we figure out what we want and be very specific about it and not give them a tentative thing it just has a mean I teach persuasion theory it just has more punch you know if you come across saying we know exactly what we want we know how we're going to get it now please approve it yeah um the question is how do we get from where we are now to there before the next meeting right before the next meeting yeah if we want this to be cool on the agenda that's a good question um if you want you could individually email me um any suggestions that you may have you could either just put it in an email or perhaps if you want to put uh do some track changes in the word document um so on the theme and location and anything else that uh that you notice that should be reworked that would be really helpful if you could email it to me in advance in the meeting so then I could incorporate it uh in in the document we could have a we could have a two person subcommittee whose job it is to put a proposal together or if we did that it would be something to help the meeting law however yeah so if you were to individually just email me any suggestions or questions that you may have okay um and then I can incorporate that all in one document and then redistribute it to you as information that doesn't violate the open meeting yeah that sounds great marina let's let's do that as long as you don't discuss it just sending it for a agenda item isn't it you're right um on this selected temporary the four by four concrete foot pad we don't have that right we don't have the concrete foot pad no so like let's just say that that it is a sculpture we would we would want to put it I talked to the building commissioner about this actually um because I was like oh would they need a concrete pad and he he seems to think that they would want to put on some sort of um you know levels hard surface for a sculpture for instance so it's it's you know properly installed so maybe we should do wording more like that the you know if if you know if the proposed you know guidelines and specifications for for sculpture I know for temporary art it it would need to be um securely anchored for example to a four by four concrete because they need to I think they need to pay for the concrete foot pad right they would so maybe change changing that language a little bit yeah to something to a secured hard surface right secure attached to the ground with a hard surface yeah yeah I like yeah that's a good suggestion yep so any suggestions we have we're going to send to Maureen she's going to incorporate into this proposal and we'll talk about it in the next meeting um Lori um and Jim and Maureen too if we want to just is it okay to email back and forth our ideas so we can kind of hone these things down so before we put things on the agenda no okay you can't really discuss things like that because that's fine if you discuss it with me and I discuss it with somebody else and then two more people that's a quorum and I just I leave that to me gotcha okay all right um I'm being aware of the time and Maureen I see it's it's after seven so um I want to see if we're going to wrap this up so we're really appreciative of your time thank you so much is there any more as we like scroll that we need to that oh again so this is guidelines and uh specifications um again this is uh this is all really geared towards um like a physical installation right so this last one I uh I ran out of time but um I would say that we should and I can talk to um we should come up with guidelines and for submissions related to um like a van performance uh or festival and I can reach out to Gabrielle Gould from the uh Amherst bid in cultural districts and who also is part of the Drake I'm sure she should have um a lot of good suggestions that we can incorporate great thank you so much yep um I think the other area that I remember from reading at would be the selection process um and again I think that's like thinking about everything going on in our town right now and we're a committee of I think we're all white right so I want to make sure that we um embrace diversity somehow in our selection committee committee well that's I think that's beyond our scope it's town staff it's you know I don't know can we invite someone to be on our on the selection on on the not on the committee but can we invite someone in terms of the reviewers the people who are going to choose this I don't know that's town politics thing it was a good idea in my opinion but I don't know the answer the great idea I don't I don't I know I can I can um reach out to our new uh diversity equity inclusion uh director Pamela Young about that that would be great yeah that would be great just a particular committee maybe it could be like with additional representation from the Amherst disability access advisory committee and the diversity committee right yeah that would be good it would be good to not have a repeat of what happened in Northampton happened to us oh yes I think we maybe should run this by Mr. Vrocklman before we conclude anything I think that's Laura that's a really good idea thank you and Maureen if we could if we could do that add some more people to the selection committee um I think that's really really smart yeah and Jim um Paul Vrocklman will um review this good okay yeah because this has some uh significant political consequences and that's why I've suggested that it does and I think we really need to be mindful and as aware as we can yeah and I know Paul obviously I know Paul and he would be very supportive of of being as inclusive as possible and um making sure that um you know um all um demographics are part of this selection process good and we have committees set up for that now from my understanding of the little that I listened to from the meeting last night so that we should be able to do it by including one of these other committees that's already formed right yeah great and then eligibility um they get into just uh the type of sort of um background we would we would desire to to apply okay and then will you will you figure out kind of the applications will be accepted through question mark website yeah that was the best I could do um yeah and I'll talk to Brianna who I said who's our communication manager um to see if she has what her suggestions would be um we have a really robust website that the town the Amherst MA.gov and then we also have it's called Engage Amherst um which is very robust and I um I've used with some uh another project I'm working on so I'm sure either the websites could handle this well um and then we can of course do it the old snail mail way of of mailing it in or or just uh even just accepting it by email right okay Shona what did you join the meeting did you happen to notice the time I did not say it was before seven by uh right around six fifty five yeah okay thanks and then the timeline um these are all sort of I think actually pretty good guesstimates but um does the committee tend to meet monthly is that generally the yes okay so I think if we could then we're going to meet November then if we could meet in December um that first week of December so that all the final approvals could go before this gets launched in December so maybe yeah that's a good idea I may be that December night 12th might end up changing to December 19th right yeah that first date might need to be have a little wiggle room do you want another subcommittee meeting um before we have our next uh our December meeting um or I guess it depends on what we get done in the next meeting in the next monthly what's the subcommittee I would be available I think on my schedule to meet another time as this committee if we need to not just the whoever's everyone's invited of course but so are you talking about having a subcommittee which I don't have in the minutes at this point I think there's a suggestion of a subcommittee that I think we decided not to yeah that's what plus we can't form one now that I think about how we have a forum doing finger quotes I don't really mean subcommittee I mean uh we people who are here right now and whoever else wants to join if we want to talk again before the December meeting right we have to get any other details together to find to have a final vote on December 12 or 19th thank you um well we do have the meeting on the 14th yeah right but after we come out of that meeting it's if we have not come to all the details we needed to finalize this open call um maybe we maybe we kind of possibly plan a meeting before December yeah yeah we can just to kind of wiggle room well I think we need to have I think we need to have a full meeting um in December and I'm guessing that that would be the first week of December for the full committee in that case we're probably fine I'm just warning about this talk about a subcommittee just I know we've already said it but I'm gonna say it again which is if you get four people either it discussing the same thing either in series or together at one time you have an open meeting problem okay so I think we're I think what we're talking about is uh or let me reiterate but I think I heard I think I have uh has happened so far and maybe Shoshana this is helpful for you but um so we have um agenda items that we are going to be proposing for the next meeting which will be on November 14th for those items we will send them um and we'll send our notes to you Jim from what we've what we've come up with from this meeting so to make sure that you know everything kind of gets in there right of all the things we talked about Terry and I will send you our notes and then we will um from their uh agenda items will be proposed for the 14th and then at the 14th we will want to set up a date for our December meeting right hopefully the first week so that we can then do the final approvals if we haven't already done it which you can imagine we will at the next meeting um and then have the final proposal approved and the December meeting to then go out either on the 12th or the 19th and if in the meantime from the November meeting we we really feel like we need to meet in between then we could propose to maybe do another one of these meetings or a full meeting depending on who can attend I want to also add that Maureen has asked us to send any changes and suggestions to this document so that we can incorporate those into the document when we're when we go to November 14th meeting yes so on our list to do Lori and Jim is to kind of put together our thoughts and send those off to Maureen and also to send us we'll all send our notes about this meeting to Jim so he can get those agenda items correct yeah so to wrap up is there anything else we need to cover regarding this Maureen I'm so appreciative that you're here and thank you for all the work you've done it's it's really made by just reading this really gave me a lot of peace thank you you're not the only one actually this yeah so I'm glad thank you um and yeah I'll I'll keep working on this and and send everyone a copy as soon as I'm able to and then I'll reach out to Dave Zomac about the Robert Frost trail right and um and I'll I'll certainly talk to Paul Buckleman about this as well and yeah so send me your comments and suggestions and I'll try to package them together and I can email them out before the November 14th meeting great yeah fantastic all right so did you have anything you wanted to add no I'm so sorry I'm so sorry thanks guys so I move we adjourned in okay thank you so much all right thank you everybody I should show on and I'll talk to you later bye bye bye okay I'm I'm gonna end