 Welcome to the Amherst Historical Commission public hearing public meeting, excuse me, on Wednesday, September 8 2021 at 6pm. Based on Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law signed Thursday, March 12 2020 this hearing and meeting is being held virtually using the zoom platform. Public can listen to the proceedings by visiting the town's homepage and navigating to the town calendar toward the bottom of that page. Click on the meeting schedule for this date September 8 for the zoom link and telephone connections can be found. My name is Jane Walden as chair of the Amherst Historical Commission and calling this meeting to order at 610pm. The meeting is being recorded as usual. I'll now take attendance by roll call and board members as you hear your name called. Please answer affirmatively. And then place yourselves back on mute. Patricia all present Robin Fordham. President Janet Marquard. Not present. Eddie startup. Not present. Jane walled. I'm present, and we welcome new members Becky Lockwood. Present. And Catherine Davis present. Let's see. Close of this. Public meeting there'll be an opportunity for public comment. And any members of the public present wish to make a comment, please raise your hand and you'll be recognized to make your comment for a period of up to three minutes. Please be aware that the commission will take note of your comments but will not necessarily be in a position to respond to them during during that public comment period. For the public and called upon please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. So we thank you for that. So let's have a, maybe a first order of businesses introductions. So I'm, I'll help again. I'm Jane walled. I'm currently the chair of the historical commission. And there he is. I, other parts of my life I'm executive director of the defense and museum, or then for about 20 years, and this is serving on that historical commission is just a real pleasure, real delight. And Pat, would you like to introduce yourself. I've always had an interest in architecture and historical timelines for architecture. I once oversaw preservation building in New York City as deputy director of the social service agency. I moved in verse 30 years ago and love the ambience of the town and part of my interest in being on the historical commission is that well we need to have progress and development. We also need to preserve the character of the town. And so in my professional life I'm a psychotherapist. I'm an education administrator, and I am now happily retired. Robin likes to go next. Hi, I'm Robin Fordham, I have been serving on the commission since I think 2018. I took a couple of classes and preservation at UMass, which piqued my interest in being on the commission. And I am currently in my second week of my first year of graduate studies at the University of Vermont and start preservation program. So if I look exhausted that's why. Catherine, welcome. Glad to have you with us this evening. Thank you. Where you're from and what you're doing. Sure. So my name is Catherine Davis, and I moved back to the Amherst area from Boston. Actually during COVID with my partner and I was interested in joining some part of a town committee. And you know the historical commission made the most sense for me because I have a background in design and architecture historic preservation, public history. And I wanted to be involved in the community in which I live. Currently, I am actually a director for a social justice urban farming nonprofit out in the eastern part of the state, but due to COVID I am working remotely. And that's what I do in my professional world right now. But I'm so excited to be able to be a part of, you know, my Amherst community as part of the commission. So thank you. Thanks, Catherine. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. I'm so thrilled to be part of this mission. I am a resident of Amherst, and have been for seven years since I moved here from Pennsylvania. I am a guide at the Emily Dickinson Museum as well as a professional librarian with a real passion for history. Especially the 19th century history, because it was part of Emily's life but I have also gone back and looked at the history of the town. A new interest is, is looking into the indigenous people that lived here. And so I hope that, you know, my my passions I have much to learn but I hope that my passions will help the work of the committee. Thank you so much, Becky. And welcome to you and our other members have joined us so for the record, he started this is present and so is Jen Marport and Eddie and Jen we are introducing ourselves to new members, Becky Lockwood and Catherine Davis and would you like to introduce yourself and Yes, and apologize for being late I had it in my head it was at 630 like always. Like always. Yeah, thank you bad for that. I was just going on to look at the minutes when I saw your email. Let's see what should I say I've been on this committee since the beginning of time. I'm an art historian, art and architectural historian. I was retired, but I just started teaching again. And I don't know. It's, it's been a great way to get to know the town, and I came in 2014 to Amherst and I feel like I've gotten to know people and places and streets I would never have driven down it's, it's a, it's a wonderful opportunity. So welcome. Wonderful, thank you. Eddie, are you in a position to introduce yourself. I know that you're probably double double duty. This is completely nutty I'm sitting in an Indian restaurant in Northampton but here I am Hello everybody. It's very nice to see you all and welcome to our new panelists and members and commissioners. So I live in Amherst. I work as a sorority house mum, and I am in my third year on the MS Historical Commission. I'm learning a lot. And kind of what you should know is I guess that I used to teach architectural history at UNH. And I was the sort of curatorial site manager for a Frank Lloyd Wright house, owned by the Korean Museum of Arts so that's my public hat hats declaration. Thank you, Eddie. So maybe before we move on to the sort of the main piece of our business I wonder that Catherine you would have any general questions up to this point. There'll be another chance questions. No, I'm. No, I'm in the position of listening and learning at our first meeting so. Okay, well. So, the sort of main purpose of this special meeting is to nominate a new representative to the community preservation committee. The community preservation act has enabled towns within the Commonwealth to vote a percentage of let's see a percentage of fees associated with real estate transfers above. And it's $2,000 to go into a fund to support for principal purposes on kind of a grant making basis. And they are historic preservation, open space recreation and housing. So, with the intake of these funds, every fiscal year, there, there is this pot of money that that the community preservation committee. That's the body that's responsible for making the recommendations to the town council for those grant funds to be approved. The, there are certain members of the community preservation committee that are representatives of other town boards, and the historical commission has a delegate to the community preservation committee. And in other instances where this is the case Jan for examples on the design review board is in historical commissions representative and Robin has been the representative for the historical commission up to now and finds with her. Three full time lives that maybe, maybe that's possible now. So that's a little bit of the general context, and before we sort of get to the business piece of it, Robin is there. Would you like to describe a little more intelligently than I have anything about the CPA. Yeah, let's see so the CPA committee, or the CPAC, which in other places is called the CPC meets for about, I'd say, for four months for about a four month period here for four or five month period to review applications for CPA funds. And so we review the applications, we rank them, and we make decisions based on. Well actually before we go to the CPA committee, the historic commission itself will take a look at those applications that are specific to historic preservation and give their recommendations. And the CPAC reviews ranks, and in some cases changes the recommendation of funds. And then once all of those decisions are final forwards or recommendation to Town Council. And if I have this part right. The CPAC can not recommend to fund something. And if that is the case, then the town cannot go ahead and fund it. But we can recommend the town to fund something and they can not fund it. Is that right then. Yeah, I think so. So if we say no, they can't go against us but if we say yes it doesn't necessarily the Town Council will approve it. The historical commission representative is just there to provide more context for things like what does restoration mean what does rehabilitation mean. What is the recommendation of the historical permission. So arguing for the appropriateness or not appropriateness of the project and I think that's pretty good overview. Can we prioritize the projects that come to us so that the member who goes to the committee already knows. Well, we've already done a pretty thorough discussion and analysis of what we think about it so that the representative isn't having to sort of hang out on her own, you know, making decisions about what would be best we've already kind of come up with the amount we think is appropriate if it's too much or if sometimes it's too little we think they're going to need more. And we also list in priority order the ones we think should be funded the most and the least. Another kind of interesting bit about the legislation and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the legislation provides that 10% of the funds available in any given year is allocated to each of the four areas of support, which then leaves 60% as sort of sort of floating and that's where that's where the priority rankings are very important to be able to allocate that final 60%. So I would just add a little bit more context like see the CPA is really the engine that drives a lot of really cool projects in town. It's really special to have to be a CPA community just because you know a lot of other grants that we're getting that we're looking for our state or federal, which which come with all sorts of, you know requirements. You know it's all done locally so there's a lot of, you know, buy in from the community, and over oversight but more importantly the funds are just already with the town so it's easier it's just way easier to get things done I find the CPA. And I should add too so like the town itself is often an applicant for projects like last year we looked at you know historic preservation for town hall, you know some some repairs to the slate roof and the steps outside. You know but there can also be private instant private or like nonprofit type things like the goodwin church has applied for money for historic preservation the strong house the Jones library, the Jewish community of Amherst building. And then, not only that but the historical commission itself can kind of apply for money for projects such as the writer's walk. You know it's kind of that was a kind of a town slash historical commission project but the, you know, the West Cemetery headstone restoration that's that's going to be CPA funded so it's really a way to just get get get things done you know we were, you know, to be guided by the preservation plan I think we do a good job of that but it's just a way to kind of go through that plan and be like all right this this is how we're going to get this done and more often than not it's just CPA is the answer for all those things so. In the spring the members of the committee put out a call for more private homeowners and well in town to apply to for work they wanted to do to preserve their homes are fine, whatever so there may be more of those this year we don't get very Unfortunately, people tend to let things deteriorate until they ask for demolition permit. But we would like to have them apply ahead when it's still possible to say things. And then there's also the kinds of things like, what's the farm up in Northam community farm they house and. You know came over a number of years as they did this project and so there's those kinds of. You know larger projects but not public entities to. So that's. There's, there will be a lot more to. So I'm going to turn until and in particular go through this fall because the application period is just opened and the proposals will come in. I guess the review will begin at the beginning of October is that right from. That's right yeah. Perhaps at this point we can open the floor for nominations for a representative from the historical commission to the community preservation committee. Self nominations are encouraged. I'm willing to nominate heady. I don't know if she's willing to accept. I second that. I second that as well. I just sent an email. That said count me in so heady are we reading you correctly. Let me unmute myself because I need to go and eat dinner and be a participant in my one of my best friend's birthdays. So I am willing to accept your nomination and I'm very honored. I look forward to representing the historical commission in very important moment in our history, I think, for all of these four topics. Thank you, heady. That's fantastic. And so let's take a formal. Do I get to vote Jane or not. Yes. Yeah, I think so. Patricia off. I'm in the affirmative to a point heady. Catherine Davis. I support that. Robin Fordham. I. Becky Lockwood. I. Jen Mark court. Yes. I think so. I'm sure so. I'm going to go okay. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Bye. I was just going to add. I don't know if you wanted to talk about DRB tonight. That kind of came at me towards the end of the day today was realizing that, you know, the historical commission also has a representative to the design review board, who's and Jan is currently serving in that position. I don't know if that needs to also be re voted on each year. Or maybe Jan's term is up. I wasn't totally sure, but I got an email from the town manager asking to look at that today. Okay, is that are we able to do that with that without having that public. Having that announced prior to the agenda. If folks are comfortable, I mean, I think it can be under like unanticipated items. As far as the agenda posted agenda goes, but I understand it also didn't give anyone notice to kind of think about. Think about it. And I don't know, I know it's CPA obviously it's there on a timeline that they need someone as soon as possible. I don't know if that's the case with DRB. I don't think so, but I think it could wait until next meeting, but I just wanted to make everyone aware of that as well. Okay. I was just appointed, but I think that was retroactively from last year. Remember that was just a month or two ago and I think it's because we had sort of let it last so I have been on it as long as I've been on the commission and I would be happy to have somebody else do it partly just for experience and variety, but also I am I am super busy right now with this course and commuting to Boston so it would take a load off of me if somebody were interested it's a committee that meets maybe once a month sometimes twice if something comes in and it's time sensitive. We review within a narrow confine of town borders mostly just downtown and the BID I think. And we review visual changes so new restaurants that are putting up signs, buildings that are going to be renovated or built a new things that are going to be added to a building that might affect its appearance like say an air conditioning unit that's going to stick up on the roof or something like that. Anything else. We look at a lot of signs on doors and windows that restaurants want to put up and that sort of thing. The other people on the on the board are architects, designers. I don't know what the chair is but it's not something that really takes a lot of expertise it's more kind of common sense and we only make recommendations and I have to say there are a lot of times when we go to great places to explain why it would be better to have a different font or change the color or put it in a different place and we are completely ignored so. You know, but sometimes people are very grateful and they do make adjustments and it certainly helps to have a lot of committee looking at what you're posing. So, that's really helpful Jan thanks for that explanation and if you think that there is kind of urgent DRB business before the next historical commission meeting because I would, I would be inclined to let, let members think about it, especially our new members, kind of figure, really figure out what DRB, you know whether it's something that's of interest or within their time capacity. I think you think the next few weeks or. It's fine I mean I'll continue to do it I'm just looking to see if there's even a meeting coming up. I don't think so. Yeah, I don't, I don't think so I mean we're going to meet in about a month right and I mean, I never know because the coordinator she tends to get things in and then we quickly do a doodle poll and see when people are available if it's available and I don't see anything right now. So, so, but yeah I'll do it until we find somebody. Okay, thank you. So, for the meetings kind of ad hoc, or they. Yeah we don't, we sort of have a preferred. We had a preferred date but then you know every fall things change just people's schedules change and we have one person out for maternity leave. It's not really ad hoc but they, they are not regularly scheduled because it depends totally upon applications and then the time, you know like we have where Ben has to have like a 30 day thing before we, you know that has to happen within that it's similar there's a deadline, we have to meet by a certain time. Okay. Thank you. Any, any questions from her to members about the point. I would be interested. If there are no other senior members of the commission who would like to take jam spot. Well it doesn't need to be a senior member I can tell you that because I walked in fresh as, you know, the day it's young but, but if you're, I understand that you're just saying, you know somebody wants to try it hasn't had a chance it's that's very nice. Yeah. Thank you. So, thank you Catherine and I sort of for protocol. I think I'm going to say will dominate you at the next meeting. That sounds good. And I can, I can let the board know that there may be a new rep coming. Thank you again, and thanks for all your. Have you been on DRB ever since you've been on historical permission. Yeah, six years. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and I noticed that I seem to suddenly have two more on the commission I'm not quite sure how that happened but I guess it's the staggering of. Yeah, and I just don't know if I can do both. All the way up to eight years. I'm kind of ready to let one go and I prefer the commission. Also, I can't, I mean, I'm the rep so I can't do it without that. Yeah. All right, well thanks for all that double duty all that time. And triple duty because of the riders long, which is sure in itself. Let's see. All right. Meeting minutes we have two sets of minutes. We've got one, two, three, four of us. So we still have enough. We have a quorum enough to vote on accepting the minutes. You kind of have three of you because I hadn't, I was just sitting down to look at them. Okay. We haven't seen them before now, right. They were in the packet for our. Our August meeting. Oh, well, then I did see them. Yeah. I just have to look and see which ones they are, you know. Yeah, so it's the, it's the June meeting where we reviewed the, the West Cemetery impacts of the new, the new building. When we did the site visit and everything. And it was over zoom, but when the Kyle Wilson joined the meeting and we talked about making recommendations to the planning board. Right. About like the trees and this fence. And the other one was the July meeting where we talked about Bruce from North Amherst community farm joined us. And we talked about a little bit about Mill River recreation project, the Jones library preservation restriction. Okay, I remember those. Yeah, I didn't have any problem with either one of them. Then. I'd like to make a motion to accept. Yeah, I moved to accept the minutes from whatever the dates again June and July meetings. I second. Thank you discussion. And we'll take a vote. By roll call. Patricia. I accept the minutes as stated. Thank you. Catherine Davis. I accept the minutes as stated. You can also abstain if you wish, but I did read them. Wow. Robin Fordham. I affirm. Becky locking. I accept the minutes as stated. Jen Markworth. Yes. And Jane Wald. Yes. So it is. It's hard to count numbers in a zoom that doesn't have even columns anymore. That looks like six. And with one absence so that they are passed. Thank you. Now we come to the public comment period if there are. Nope, they're no, no members of the present. Nope. Any unanticipated items. Not that, not that I think can think of. I think. We'll talk about. At our next meeting, some of the CPA applications that are coming in from. Both the. Town and from. The community and. I was a. I have been in touch with someone at the conchie house, which is our conchie house for, for Becky and Catherine, if you don't know, it's, I think it's like four or 46 main street. It's a three story, just beautiful old house that's current. It's part of the sale in place condos. Right now, but it's, it's a commercial building. They have offices in there. And it's one of seven, I think individually listed. There's a lot of. Buildings on the national register. In Amherst. And there's been a lot of deferred maintenance over the years. And I think. Myself and my predecessors have been encouraging them to apply for CPA. And I think they're. Putting together pretty extensive application, including the fence reconstruction and. The, the. Lots of stuff. So I encourage them to come talk to us at our next meeting, but just wanted to let you all know. And. There's a strong, the strong house I haven't heard from George since our last meeting. And I think I, I, I talked to. My colleagues in town hall and we're definitely on board with. And there's also, I think there's, there's been previous applications for, to replace the fence at West Cemetery. It's currently like a chain-length fence. And I think we, we've always intended to restore it to something, something more historically appropriate. And I think we'd like to try to apply for that as well this year. So more cemetery work. And where do we stand with that? What was it, the town fair or something where we were going to staff a table about the writer's walk or something? Yeah, so the block party unfortunately was canceled, which is definitely a bummer. I assume it's because of COVID, it was supposed to be on September 17th on Friday. And it's, you know, it's always a really fun event. They closed down North Pleasant Street to traffic. And, but yeah, they just, they, I think it was earlier this week, they announced it was, it was going to be canceled. So I know we had talked about a writer's walk event. I personally just been too busy to think about it. It's one of those things that's just been easier to put off unfortunately, but I was also, Jane, congratulations. The Dickinson Museum sign was installed. I saw it today. I wasn't sure exactly when it was installed. I hope you like it. It's a good spot. I mean, I think that's it. Yeah. Is that the last one? That's the last one. So that's the other thing I've been trying to make sure that was in the ground before anything. So should we let the bookstores know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think it's a really exciting event. I mean, I think or just exciting that they're all installed finally. And the rack cards are in the chamber of commerce. Yep. Yeah, they're at the visitor center, the library, the bookstores, town hall. Oh, good. Yeah. So, you know, we could, yeah, we could have planned to do a launch event. We had talked about the last week in September. At the very least, I definitely wanted to just put together a press release and, you know, try to get the Gazette and Mass Live to write something up about it. I had kind of promised a lot of people they'd be invited to something, you know, like John Olson at UMass and the people, the students who wrote some of the initial pieces and the home owners and. Yeah. Well, it might be good to start with a press release. And with COVID, it's hard to know how we can gather people, Jan. Yeah. But I know one of our conversations either in email or in a meeting was if not, we talked about the Emily Dickinson House, but on the common, maybe. Yeah, in front of Boltwood, that was. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of the houses. So, I don't think it precludes having a gathering. Right. It just needs to be carefully orchestrated to keep people safe under circumstances. But I think a press release, even if you have to say there will be a celebration walk of planned in the future. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the press release could explain that we're not getting together for obvious reasons right now. And that would kind of take us off the hook. Right. Right. But I think a press release, now that they're all in place, would be true. Yeah. Because of whether or not people might want to take a walk. Yeah. I had our communications person, Brianna, like do some stuff on, like post some stuff on social media when the first like few were installed. But I purposely told her like don't do a press release yet because I want to wait until they're all installed. And like I don't want the Gazette to like run something without, because sometimes they run things when we send them a press release. Other times they just run stories out of nowhere. And I was like, I want to make sure we have control over. Yeah. That's one of the addresses. There is a sign there. Yeah. And the press release should include the map with a list of locations. And also quotes maybe from Jane and Jan who have been involved with this from the start. Yeah. So that it's just not a freelance article. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean you'll word it carefully but I think it's important that if you're contacted, whoever's contacted that Jane and Jan get to frame it. Good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Especially Jan. Yeah. I was thinking especially Jane. But yeah. Yeah. Especially Jan. Okay. I'll think about this. All right. So, oh yes. I have one other unanticipated item and that is a shift in assignment of the generous library historic structure report. So that is moving on to its third team. But I think it'll get done smartly. It's probably, I don't know 75% there with the kind of, technical conditions assessment that's a missing piece. And I think a more formal inventory of the historic significance of various elements of the structure. So that's in the hands of another team in whom I have great confidence. So. Yeah. It's still affiliated with the university. So it was an easy just like agreement to change the PI on the project, but it's still in the UMS architecture department. So yeah, that's hopefully done in the near future. Maybe that could, well, I don't think it'll, I don't think it'll beat the referendum, but it should be done. I think it was beginning of the year. Is that it? Yeah. Okay. I guess while I have folks to just think about agenda items for next meeting, I think it'll be primarily CPA heavy. We can talk about the next steps for the bylaw which I promise is still moving along. And It's still on the 22nd? Correct. Yeah. Sorry, I'm looking at October. I just got confused. Yep. September 22nd on Wednesday. And that's back to 630. Yep. Okay. Do you have any feedback from the attorney on the Mill River project? No, we first sent that email like a month ago and then we did another little nudge of an email a week ago and it's been radio silence, which is kind of frustrating because I did a lot of work to put together like a packet of information for them to comment on about what is and what is not CPA eligible. So yeah, I know that's going to be really important for a few different CPA projects. So yeah, essentially for Becky and Catherine, like there's this vagueness around whether certain activities are eligible for historic preservation you know, like interpretive signage, archeological work, you know, it's not it's not you know, because sometimes they might just want to see, oh, like these dollars are being spent to restore the house or something like it, it's not always that simple. You know, like interpretive signage can help help help the public understand a resource and then help them preserve it. And it's like the town has funded those types of projects in the past and other towns do it all the time. And our accounting department just, you know, they want they get audited so they need to make sure they're doing everything by the book. So they are asking us to get this legal opinion about whether just a set in stone like these activities are or not eligible. So well, that will make the CPA meeting go a lot more smoothly to yeah, yeah, from the lawyer, which is really yeah. We'll save time. I did have a oh, sorry, I'm sorry, Robin. No, I'm done. I know what Ben brought up was something was on my mind. Are there guidelines for us written guidelines about our work that I could take a look at as a new person or something that we should look at, I guess. I was just going to ask about where the bylaws are with town council. And I think that's the document one should look at. Yes. So we have we have for four or five years. We have a current article article 13 in the zoning bylaw is the demolition delay bylaw. But we're very close to adopting a new version of that bylaw and something we've been working on for a while. So I guess I could send you both. Yeah. And perhaps you could also send the reference to the authorizing legislation in the general laws. Yeah. And and the preservation plan. That would help. Yeah. That would really. Yes. Thank you. I was going to ask about the preservation plan. Yeah. Great. You know, the preservation plan is a little getting a little long in the tooth. But it should should be renewed. Yeah. Yeah. What's that booklet? The Massachusetts Historical Commission booklet about how we should function. What's that called? I always forget. Which is why I think there's a handbook. I think that M.H.C. What's that? Yeah, it's very useful. Is that online? Yes, I believe so. Yeah. And I just want to make a plug for the Massachusetts Historical Commission training programs, which they've been doing more online now since covid. I know Chris Kelly left his position and his replacement has been in contact. But when those come up, those are really, really useful overviews for serving on this commission. And I hope they continue to do them hopefully because it makes it so much more sense. Yeah. Yeah. And there's just an intro. I think it's an intro to preservation planning. And then there's people from the great thing is there's people from commissions all over the state. So there's a lot of questions and answers and and you it really gives you a great sense of what it is we do here, which is not just providing demolition. Good. Thank you. And the. Past agendas and minutes are on the town. Yeah. OK. And for Catherine and Becky, if you have any questions between now and the next meeting, let me know and I'll send you these various documents. And then Catherine, especially if you have questions about DRB between now and next meeting, I can answer them or my colleague Maureen is a planner and she's the staff liaison to the DRB and knows the ins and outs a little bit better than I do for what to expect. So. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Ben, and thank you, everyone, for the suggestions. So let's see our next meeting is scheduled September 22nd at six thirty p.m. So I think we've completed our agenda. I move we adjourn. I second. Thank you so much. All in favor. Hi. Hi. That's great to see you all. Sorry, I was late again, everybody. Oh, no, we we got it was a perfect meeting. We did. OK, nice to see you all. Bye, everyone. Good night. Thanks, Ben. Bye. Bye.