 We're open to attendees and I'm recording. I'm going to go ahead and make Lynn host. Okay, well, if everybody's ready. I'm going to call this meeting of governance, organization and legislation to order at 1030. Exactly. And pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of open meeting law. This meeting of GOL governance organization legislation is being conducted by a remote participation. And we're being recorded. And just, we have one attendee. So just letting people know that later in the meeting there will be opportunity for public comment. And at that point, I will read out the instructions. They're necessary. And at that point, the public may offer a comment. Everyone's had a chance hopefully to take a look at our packet. We've got an agenda in front of us. Pretty much going to follow the order that it has. It is here. The first item on the agenda is to review the single use plastic ban prohibition. That is by law 3.2. And I invited a counselor Darcy Dumont to attend. Since she is the sponsor. And I'm going to ask her to present the item. And we will review it with her. So. Lynn, if you're able to bring that up. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. On the screen. There, there are two versions there. The, the most recent one is the one that. Starts with purpose and does not include findings. I updated it after counselors made comments at the first reading. Okay. And which one is the one that. Hold on. Does a purpose be definitions. I have it. Get back to this. Screen sharing. Are we set? Not yet. We're getting there though. Is that it? Let's see. Wait a minute. What am I doing here? I'm looking at something else. Yes. Yes. All right. Okay. So. I, I understand that the reason that. The bylaw review committee made some of the changes that they did was because they. We're trying to eliminate wordiness and background information that was given to us. But before that, I went back and. And amended my first proposal. I actually took out. A whole lot of, I took out the whole finding section. That included a lot of whereas type language about the, the data about plastic pollution and so on. So I took all that out and just left one sentence. I replaced the former purpose section, which was very generic and simply said for public health and welfare, and replaced it with the actual purpose of the bylaw, which had previously been in the finding section. And so I just put the one sentence, which is the primary purpose of this bylaw is to reduce the negative effects of single-use plastic bags on the environment, reduce contamination of plastic bags in residential recycling streams, and most importantly to encourage consumers to bring reusable bags while shopping, eliminating the environmental impacts of any single-use bags. So this is sort of the crux of the whole bylaw, and I think it's extremely important for business owners and people who are looking at the bylaw to see this as being the actual reason for the bylaw, is that we want to change people's habits and going to be something that will be probably doing a lot going forward, and that we do all the time with other things like the Complete Streets program. We're trying to change people's habits, how they shop, how they use transportation, and so on. So this is just stating it. And as far as section four, the bylaw had suggested removing the definitions of the different types of bags that are going to be encouraged to be used, but that suggestion would be moot if 5.2 remained because it references those types of bags. There was a suggestion that the definitions be removed because they weren't being referred to, so that would have made sense, but I am suggesting that we keep the definitions in because the language in the 5.2 is true, that it's aspirational, but again, it's necessary so that businesses can understand that the purpose of the bylaw is to change customer shopping habits, and they are being encouraged to contribute to that effort. And encouraging residents and businesses to voluntarily change their habits is what the town is going to be doing in many ways, as I said, in the upcoming months and years to meet both zero waste and zero energy goals. So that section states, customers are encouraged to bring their own reusable and biodegradable shopping bags to stores, retail establishments may provide, and then they list biodegradable bags, reusable bags, compostable bags, or recyclable paper bags for free or for a fee as they so desire. So that's giving businesses the ideas. Okay, so this is what the purpose of the of the bylaw is. So I would like to contribute, so I'm going to do this. Retail establishments are strongly encouraged to make reusable bags available for sale to customers at a reasonable price. So it's just stating the purpose, stating what businesses can do to encourage this. And I, of course, know that there is an executive order in place right now. So the bands like this have been lifted temporarily until the COVID-19 crisis is over. I'm hoping that businesses find other alternatives so that they don't have to use plastic bags, but this would be for the period of time after the band is, the lifting of the band is removed. Okay. Darcy, any more comments? I'm going to, otherwise, going to turn over to just that I'm asking that the current, the existing language be replaced with this language. Okay. Mandy Jo. Yeah, I just want to clarify, because normally when we have bylaws, we get a sort of a track changes of what would change. So I just want to clarify with Darcy, I went to what we passed in January and then looked at this and I'm trying to clarify exactly what essentially is changing. You're adding, looking at the one we've got in front of us that you just described, you're adding section A. And then you're adding definitions two, three, four and five. Five is sort of in the middle of the paragraph of four, which can be fixed, but you're adding definitions two, three, four and five, and you're adding use regulation three. Is that the only changes? I'm adding them to the current bylaw. The current bylaw. They are what existed in the former bylaw. Right, but I'm just trying to clarify that's what we're considering is the addition of A, B2, B3, B4, B5 and C3 to the bylaw that was passed in January. I understand that they were in the bylaw before that. Yes. Without the track changes in front of us, do people feel comfortable proceeding with this? That may be the fault of the chair, but making sure that you have a document in front of you that you can actually follow. Mandy's obviously gone through it and pointed out the specific changes. I had a slightly different understanding of what this document was asking. Now I have a better understanding. Do people feel comfortable doing this without track changes in front of them? It's a question. Anyone? In other words, do you wish to proceed? It would be easier with track changes, but I was trying to get a sense of given what the bylaw is, whether it's really necessary for this particular one. I think it's good practice, because it makes it obvious to us and explain it to the council as a whole. Yes. I think it's important to get the bylaw clarified because to get it before the council, so that when the governor lifts the temporary exemption, that we have the bylaw in shape that the council wishes to have it and to get the council. It would be good. So not to delay it until after it's back in force. There was one formatting problem in definitions section. When you go up there, Lynn, you'll see that four and five got put together in one paragraph. You need to be divided back out. That's an editing question. I'll need the word document to be able to do that. Yeah. I just, if you want track changes, I could absolutely do that, but I think that that the track changes need to show, they also need to show the original bylaw, which, and then the existing bylaw and then the proposal. So I don't know if that can be done in one set of track changes, but it's basically what I'm proposing is that most of it remain the way it was originally before it was amended by the bylaw review committee, except for the purpose section. So just if you are going to ask me to do something, it makes sense to me to somehow include the whole, you know, it's like three step process rather than two. George, Mandy, Joe has her hand up. Still, yes, Mandy. Go ahead. Yeah. So it was a new hand. I'll respond to that. And then I'll state my comments on these changes. The charter and our rules require track changes to be shown, or the changes to be shown to be made to the current bylaw. So a three step process is not what our charter requires. I understand Darcy that the changes you're asking for, many of them were in the bylaw at some point, but they are not currently in the bylaw. So the charter, in terms of presentation to the council would require us to show the current bylaw that is in effect and the changes to be made to that. I think any memo to the council could indicate what you're wanting to indicate in sort of a track changes, which is that the changes being requested were in a previous version of the adopted bylaw, but not the current version. But in terms of what gets presented to the council per the charter, a language and requirements of the charter and our rules of procedure, that would not be part of it. As to the changes being requested, I'm okay with adding the purpose, but I don't think I can support adding the definitions in section C3, the use, the new use regulations. Regulations are things that need to be done. Section C3 is nothing that could be enforced by the Board of Health at all. It's not a requirement, it's not a law, it's a suggestion. And the whole thing of purpose I thought of the bylaw review committee was to get rid of the suggestions out of the bylaws because they're not enforceable. It's a suggestion to charge for money. It's a suggestion to make them available. It's a suggestion for customers to bring their own. But nothing in that can be enforced. And so I don't think, I cannot support adding section C3 back into the bylaw because it's not anything legally enforceable. And so I see no reason to put it in the bylaw. And if that section is not added into the bylaw, you do not need to add definitions 2, 3, 4, and 5 back into the bylaw. But I am totally okay with adding that short purpose in. I think it's nice for bylaws to state a purpose right in there as long as it's brief and not pages long. And brief and not something that goes out of date, the original one that you had, the findings and all of that is something that 20 years from now is not going to be accurate. But this purpose to reduce negative effects, to reduce contamination, to encourage bringing of reusable bags, you know, is something that is not going to change in 20 years, the reasons for it. So I'm okay with the purpose, but I can't support B2 through 5 or C. Okay, I see Pat's hand up, Pat. Yeah, I'm looking at your deferment section. And I'm wondering why there hasn't been some kind of limit put on the number of deferments an establishment could have. This one looks like they could file year after year. And I would like to see some kind of limitations set in that. And that's true of the phone bylaw too. Andy? I guess the history of this, I was the select board liaison to the Recycling and Refuse Management Committee. When that committee decided to propose this original bylaw to the town meeting. And the discussion that happened around the deferment section that was in the original bylaw had to do with transition concerns. But it also had to do with sort of if there was a unique circumstance around a business that the business should be able to go to the Board of Health, which has fairly good track record of being a good enforcement agency and a good regulatory body. And that it would not be giving deferments lightly. But if there was good reason to give deferments because of the uniqueness of a particular type of business, the product that was selling the health nature of the product and the use of the bags, the feeling was to give something to the Board of Health that would give them the ability to do what was in the health of the community's interest. Andy? Pat brings up a good point. Should we ask the Board of Health whether any deferments are still currently in existence in either this one or the EPS bylaw? We've had this one on the books for a while. I know there was much more concern with the EPS styrofoam bylaw and deferments versus plastic bags in terms of cost. Is this something that maybe if we go to the Board of Health and see if they've granted any in the last year say for this one or EPS and if they haven't, can we just delete the deferments and say, you know, the transition's over. We don't need a deferment anymore. It hasn't been used for a certain amount of time. Let's remove it. Seems like a good idea. Andy, your hand is still up. Do you have a comment? No. As Chair, I want to raise a process question. Our job is to determine this is clear, consistent and actionable. And it just seems to me quite understandably, but that we're straying into other areas of what we think about the bylaw as a bylaw in general and whether we would vote for it or not vote for it. And my understanding is our job is really just to make sure that this is in a form that and some of the concerns have been raised, definitely address this. But I don't know where the line is. And I think there is a line. So we may not even agree on that, but that our primary job is just to make sure that this is in the form that can then be sent to the Council for the kinds of discussion, some of the discussion we're having right now. So I don't know where that line is. And maybe none of you agree with me that we might start. We're starting to cross it. But I think we should have this in the back of our minds. Are we here to discuss the merits of this bylaw from the perspective of, you know, when we're finally on the Council voting on it, we like this or don't like that? Are we looking at it strictly as a issue of, is this clear, consistent, actionable? Mandy's raised the Charter. She's raised the Rules of Procedure. That those seem appropriate, obviously. But with deferments and some of these other things, I wonder if we're not getting into territory that's really not what we're supposed to be doing. That's a question. But that's my feeling. So before I recognize Darcy, I'm going to recognize Mandy. And I'd also like to hear from my colleagues as to just whether this is a concern to them. And if it's not, that's fine. We'll just proceed. But that's one question I have. Mandy? So, you know, I'm always willing to connect this back to clear, consistent, and actionable. I do think some of this does relate to that. C3, the use regulations, I would argue is not an actionable part of a bylaw because there's no actionable part. And you and Leon bylaws are seeking actionable. And if it's not actionable, we shouldn't have a recommendation to put it through and enact it. And then that that goes back to the B parts that I argued. In terms of deferments, I think we could make an argument that it would be at any request for deleting could potentially, while you could argue it's substantive, it's also a clarity and consistency issue of once transitional provisions are no longer needed for consistency basis or clarity basis on our bylaws, we aim to remove them. So we could make that argument if this committee is okay with that. But I do think it could, we could find that it falls into that, especially if it has not been used in the last year. Okay. All right. Andy? No, I guess that the question on the deferment section is it was the idea of going to the Board of Health and the Health Department and asking them whether they've ever been any problems with enforcement or request for deferment deferral for any reason whatsoever. And what their general comment is about it from the health perspective, just to get an understanding, I don't think that in the end, it does more than provide information to it. It seems what we need to do is if we're not thinking that it has to do with actionability, that if we observe something, we can include our observations in the report, but it ought to not be part of our standard. Our standard is clear, consistent, and actionable. And anything else we observe is just reportable, but isn't Darcy, you had your hand up there for a minute. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that my initial suggestion to amend this was, to some extent, based on the fact that I felt that the By-law Review Committee was also straying into content and that the effort and work that the original creators of this By-law put into it needs to be honored. And a lot of that is around the purpose to change people's habits and to not just to change residents' habits, but to change business habits. And so the section where customers are encouraged to bring their own reusable or biodegradable bags and retail establishments are strongly encouraged to make reusable bags available, that really goes to the original intent of the original authors. And I really feel like that was straying into content as opposed to just looking at the form of the By-laws. So I would argue that we need to leave in the areas that suggest how we want to change people's behavior going forward in order to make us more environmentally friendly as a town. Georgia. Pat? I'm sorry, Lynn. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead, Lynn. So I, first of all, I would like to defer action on this until we have pulled the following pieces together. And I'm sorry to prove maybe I'm a little anal on this, but I want to see the original By-law, I want to see the red-lined By-law, and I want to see what's proposed. I want to see all three. And when we bring it to the council, even though our procedures do not require that, I want them to have all three just because I think it's better and easier to make people understand what they're voting on. Second of all, on the issue of the deferment, while I do think that's beyond what this committee is charged with doing, it does seem to me that there are some reasons to consider it. I want to raise a couple issues there. And when we bring it back to the council, we could bring it back with a recommendation, but, and even for that matter, we could even say, and if you change it, it's actionable, but the council still needs to look at that piece. However, I do want to raise the issue of that. Many businesses have been forced to go back after investing in a lot of different kinds of carrier, carry bags, et cetera, et cetera, in the last six, you know, six to eight, three months, whatever. And now they have a stockpile of those. And so I think we may have to see people going all through a whole nother one-year deferment here just to use up all of the stuff they've now invested in because of COVID and because we may have a return in the fall, hopefully not, but looks like it, that we may be a year or so in this process. And I think that the word hardship here is extremely important because these businesses are on the hairy edge to begin with. So I want to be careful what we do with the deferments issue. Okay. Pat. Thank you, Lynn. That was a very good point. I am concerned about suggestions. There are a lot of things that I would like to see residents in Amherst do, and a lot of them, I think, are really wonderful, but I don't think they belong in bylaws. And so I'm really uncomfortable with suggestions because they are not part of a bylaw. They should not be part of a bylaw. Okay. I'm hearing a couple of things here from the committee. I guess the first is, well, I'm hearing that, and please correct me, but people seem to be okay with the purpose section. I'm not spoken, but in fact, I would assent to that myself. And I'm hearing that. But again, if you disagree, please raise your hand or speak up. I'm hearing a movement towards a consensus about removing suggestions of language that is suggested that is not actually enforceable as a general principle of how we like our bylaws to be written. And that then has, if that were to move forward, that would also take out certain definitions. So that's not a very precise description of what we've been hearing, but that's the general sense I'm getting is that there's some desire to make some changes to this along those two along the line of suggestive language shouldn't be in here. And we would have to agree on what language is suggestive, and it sounds like we might be able to. And if we were to agree that that should be removed, then I take it certain definitions would no longer be appropriate. That would also be removed. Is that a fairly broad but accurate description of where we're at at the moment? Pat, your hand is still up. I'm not sure if that is. Yes. No, no, I have it up for one minor point in section A, the purpose. There is a, it says on single use plastic bags, it should say effects of single use plastic bags, very minor. Good. And I think your summation was good. Well, then that raises the question of, sorry, Andy, go ahead. Andy, unmute. Andy, unmute. Lynn, could you go back down a little bit on section C to the section we were talking about, which is suggestive. I think that the question, and this goes partly to the sponsor Darcy, I think that the point is well taken that customers being encouraged is not really a part of a bylaw because they are not subject to the regulatory authority that's being put forward. If it was intended that it be that retail establishments shall encourage their customers to use reusable or biodegradable shopping bags and provide such bags at a reasonable cost or something like that, then it would become a part of the bylaw because it would be something that was being expected of the retail establishment. And so there's a thought that that type of change should be considered that ought to be put into the process before we get too far down the line here and get it back to the council. But if it stays as it is worded now, I think that Mandy's points are well taken that it is not something that is enforceable and therefore it really is not, doesn't belong as a part of the bylaw. Darcy. Just a question for Andy. Are you suggesting that if we change that section to make it a requirement that then it would belong there? Retail establishments are Shellmake. Shellmake reusable bags available for sale to customers at a reasonable price. And then it could say retail establishments may provide biodegradable bags, reusable bags, compostable bags, or recyclable bags for free or for a fee? I think that I would, you know, as a counselor in general, if other communities have a provision like you just described and that I certainly would think that we would want to talk about it, whether we want to be the first community to do it if nobody else has done it, that would be information that we would want to know too, because we're putting an unusual then requirement on our business community. But it is certainly quite the piece that it could be explored as to how to go about strengthening the bylaw to do it you were thinking should be done. So it needs some work, I think, to do some research to figure that out. Okay, Mandy. Yeah, so from a GOL point of view, if use regulation C3, if the first line was deleted, the first sentence was deleted and the next two used Shell, instead of are strongly encouraged or may, then probably from an action ability point of view on a GOL review point of view, it would meet that test. I would go at that point I think echo Andy of then it becomes is this something, then you become into the substantive review and at that point maybe the council needs to weigh in whether they want that to send off to another committee for that review or whether they can make that decision without that review at a council meeting. George. Yes, Lynn. I have, I like the idea of dropping that first line in three in C3 and making the others mandatory, but I want to make it an option that it does not have to be for a price. So in other words, the last sentence would mean something like retail establishments are strongly encouraged to make reusable bags available, free or for sale. So that if, you know, for instance, you've got a whole foods now, they'll give you a paper bag technically that's reusable, and they don't charge me, but you go to big Y and they do charge you. So I don't want to eliminate the possibility that they don't charge you. Okay. I'd like to bring this to a conclusion for the moment. When I'm hearing and I'm speaking now to the sponsor and she can weigh in as to what she would like to do, but it looks like some suggestions are made as to C3 that if she were willing to make them, this would at least pass the GOL test. And whether counselors ultimately were supported or not a different question, but it would then be something that, and I assume then the definitions would still be appropriate. Yeah. It sounds like the committee is satisfied with the statement of purpose. There's a minor edit there that could be made, that should be made, but I'm not hearing any concerns about that. And I think Andy had a comment about an edit at some point that I've lost now, but it's right. I'm sorry. It's right here. Is it B4? Here, this needs to be brought out as a separate paragraph. Okay. That's just it right. So that those are, that's a very minor point, but my suggestion would be, but this is open to obviously my colleague's thoughts that this go back to the sponsor to make those decisions. And also it sounds like, again, people need to weigh in that this committee would like to see at least the track change version before we sign off on this. But again, that you may say that we're satisfied with what we've done today, but that would be the other request. And I could work with Darcy on that, but perhaps you don't need it. That's a question really. Do you also want to see a track change version? Lynn has made it clear, I think Lynn, maybe also Mandy, both of you made it clear that this, when it goes to the council, should that should be involved. That should be my point is that I think for the council to really understand what they're doing, to go back to the original bylaw, show what the recommendation was, and now show where we are. Right. For this committee. Yeah, go ahead, Mandy. I would add that this committee should never ship anything back to the council after clarity, consistency and actionability review that is not in the form required by the charter or our rules of procedure for presentation to the council. Which means track changes. I mean, you'd have to go back to the rules, but it's like striking and lining out those that would be deleted and putting in bold or a different color, those words that would be added. I think that the charter has it specifically. I can look up the wording. Is this something that could be covered in the chair's report? Would that be Lynn? Would that be sufficient? I mean, it sounds like there's a little difference here between your view and Mandy's pointing out that we were bound by charter provisions, but this could be addressed in the chair's report. I don't think we're disagreeing. I just think I'm trying to just be, I'm trying to make sure that when things come to the council, I would prefer in addition to that that it come as one memo and explain what the three attachments are and how they differ so that people are not sitting there trying to say, oh, is it this one, this one, or this one? I can help Darcy put that together, but in whatever format it needs to go, and that's fine, Mandy. What does this committee want to do? Are you satisfied with sending it back to the sponsor, and then she would come back to us at a subsequent perhaps the next meeting with the changes that she we assume will have made or whatever changes she's made, and we will look at it one last time. What are your thoughts there? I'm asking anyone. That sounds good to me. Darcy, how do you feel about that? In other words, do you have a clear sense of what the committee is looking for or suggesting and what we're asking you to do for the next time, which I believe would also include a track changed copy. Yes, when is your next meeting? It is May 20th. I'm not getting the sense of a real time pressure here, so if you felt that was you given all the other duties you have, I can put this on the agenda at your pleasure. If you wanted to delay it further, you could. If you wanted to go on May 20, assuming that our agenda suddenly has become, and I don't think it will, but so May 20 is the next meeting, but you have freedom to. I might ask for the meeting after that because of what's going on with TSO and because there's no urgency right now with this because of the fact that the COVID effort is lifted, but if I could be on the agenda of two meetings from now, that would be good. What date would that be? For a second, I can tell you. It would be June 3rd. Okay, that's good for you all. All right, then I'm going to, it sounds like Darcy is clear on what, anything people want to add, anything else they would like her to do that I have not touched on or you feel this unclear. She's going to make some changes to C3, a couple of minor edits that would, and then the track changes. All right. Okay, seeing anyone? Thank you very much. Darcy, thank you. And we look forward to seeing you in the next next meeting. Next item on our agenda is the sponsored by Mandy Joe on noise by law. And first of all, I guess question for Mandy is whether she needs to have this up on the screen or whether what she needs to say is something she, I'm going to bring it up myself. So I'm going to share my screen with it. Thank you. So there should be it. I marked up the one you put in our packet with what the change would be. It's very simple. I actually think it's probably outside of GOL's purview to discuss this change in any substantive way. So I think what GOL might want to decide is a recommendation on whether to refer this back to whether to ask the council to refer it to another committee or whether it believes that it could just be discussed in a council meeting itself. My section four, the red line section down here was added by the bylaw review committee to the bylaw when it got passed in January. It was not in the one that was in effect at the time the charter switched forms of government. And so essentially I believed that we shouldn't add those in without an actual discussion of whether we want voices prohibited. Because it has no, you know, allowed and disturbed, you know, there's no time limits. Many of us are home now when we hear leaf blowers all the time and lawnmowers all the time. But I didn't think we should tuck the addition of that for someone being able to call the cops on their neighbor using a leaf lawn service with a leaf blower into a wholesale revise and replace of bylaws. So I wanted a specific conversation on it. I don't actually believe that conversation probably belongs in this committee. But it in passing all these bylaws got referred to this committee. But if this committee thinks they can discuss whether this section should be in or out, that's fine with me. Thoughts on this? Let me get my lost my participants window here. Pat has our hand up. Yeah. Sorry, Pat, go ahead. Um, I think four should stay in. There is a time limit if you read the section of the unlawful noise prohibited, it says very clearly between the hours of 11 and 7 a.m. And there are exemptions for DPW vehicles and things who would be coming into snow plow and things like that. I don't even know any landscape company that comes before 8 a.m. So I don't agree that this should be removed, which isn't really part of this discussion for our committee. It does need to come from another committee, which is bad. Okay. I can't reach over and smack your hand. So Andy. Yeah. As I've looked at this bylaw, the word especially in a unlawful noise is prohibited. Kind of an interesting word because what does that mean? What does that add to it? And so I think that that's what you get into also because if the noise limit was saying you can't use lawn mowers or leaf blowers after 11 and before 7 a.m., it would be quite different. But it does really say that the way it's worded. Andy, that was exactly my concern was the especially is only that's more important than a 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., but it doesn't say a neighbor can't call the cops for the use of a snow blower at 8 a.m. in the morning or a lawn leaf blower at 2 p.m. And so that's why I wanted an actual discussion, but I still believe it probably belongs in a different committee that discussion. So Andy, your hand's still up. Do you have further comment? Lynn's hand is up. Lynn's hand. Sorry, Lynn. I can't see you. Lynn, go ahead. I actually would like this to be referred to another committee and open it up for further discussion as well because this relates to rentals and Pat and I, I don't know about others, are dealing with unbelievable problems in our district over noise violations and so forth to the point that I really just I want to do whatever we can to clamp down on some of this because people are now in a situation where they can't even sell their homes because of the neighborhood they live in. So it's, I want the whole thing referred back, whether it's lawn mowers or whatever else. I'm hearing a somewhat of a consensus towards, well, it doesn't really belong here, though we could certainly talk about it. I'm sure for hours, but that it should be referred. Question now is referred where my initial thought was maybe just send it to the council and we could all sit around all 13 of us and discuss this, but perhaps it would be wiser to have five of us talk about it first. And so I would suggest TSO, but what do people think? It's CRC. CRC. I hesitate to say as chair, but I do think it's community resources and not town services. This has nothing to do with town services. I'm thinking neighborhoods, but okay, fine. I have no strong feeling, Andy. And now I agree with the provision, the idea of sending it to another committee that can talk about the substantive pieces that we've been discussing. There is one other noise issue. I just wanted to at least make sure that as we send it along that it doesn't get lost towards the end of existence of town meeting. There was a petition article before one of the town meetings about doing something to regulate, if possible, the gun fire noises that affect Southamers residents near that gun range that exists on as you go up the notch. And there was quite a vocal statements from residents, including as far as Bird Applewood, about that particular issue. There was also some legal problems that had to do with the state legislation that may make local regulation illegal. But as we're getting back into noise, I think we owe it to the original petitioner of that article and the people who were supportive of it at the time in town meeting to make sure at least somebody follows through on that thread. So I just add that as a note to whatever committee this gets referred to. Okay. My understanding of process, and I know be corrected promptly and rightly, is that this then goes back to the council and it's the council's job to refer it somewhere else. In other words, it would be our recommendation to the council. They refer this to CRC. We do not have the authority to refer anything to anybody. Is that correct? That is correct. So it should go back to the council, but I would like to make sure that it goes back with the essence of this conversation, including the firearms. Thank you, Andy. And what brought it to us originally and what additionally have we discussed? And then when we put it on the calendar or when we put it on the agenda, we'll probably put it on it as a consent item. It's just going to be a quick referral. May I agree? Yeah, as a sponsor of the one that was trying to get rid of long leaf flowers and all, it might be nice if we vote to recommend it go back. I mean, I guess it stays in this committee for clarity consistency, depending on what they're, but a vote, a recommendation that, you know, a vote from this committee that recommends that this bylaw be considered by whichever committee I think would be helpful to have, since it was just referred to us with everything Lynn said. I'm going to read, because we might want that vote to include which committee. So town services has review and make recommendations to the town council on measures that may affect the provision of services to the community by a town department and review and make recommendations to the town council on measures related to public ways. Everything else is sort of participation in community events. The CRC charge is review and make recommendations related to there's community sustainability initiatives, housing and homelessness, planning, zoning, land use, master plan, support the local economy of Amherst. You know, it does arts and cultures, neighborhoods and housings. The purpose for CRC is long term economic vitality and quality of life in Amherst, including neighborhoods and housing. So I think CRC is probably given those the more appropriate committee. TSO's purpose is day to day provision of services by government and relations between the town and the community. Everything on with everything on TSO's plate. I don't think they're going to argue for it. No, I think Mandy makes a good point. So what I'm hearing and perhaps we do want to have a motion then the motion would be that this committee is what recommending to the town council that they refer this matter to community resources committee. That would be the motion. Okay, I'll move that. Okay, so Mandy, Mandy has moved it. Lynn has seconded it. And so is there any further discussion? Questions, comments? Okay. So we need to do a roll call vote. So we'll begin. Andy has his hand up. Andy has his hand up. Put your hand down, Andy. What's your question, sir? I don't. So go ahead. Oh, I'm certain. Okay. No, I'm just. All right. So I'm going to proceed then to vote on this motion. Pat D'Angelo's. Yes. Lynn Grissimer. Yes. Mandy Johanna King. Yes. Chair is yes. George Ryan. Andy Steinberg. Yes. All right. So the vote is five to zero with right unanimous that we will recommend to the council that they refer this to CRC and that the chair is instructed to put in his report for the next council meeting or at least when this will be on the agenda, a brief description of this discussion and how this matter came to us. Okay. It can go on the 18th. The 18th. Okay. Mandy, you're still up if you would be kind enough. I'd like to go to item four. We have a proposal which Mandy has kindly put together and can be up on the screen. I hope to make it up there now. It is. Thank you. And change to the rules of procedure related to consent agenda. And again, Mandy, if you take on this. Yep. So I was, I agreed to draft potential rules regarding the consent agenda to put into our rules of procedure. And so right now we're looking at the change in the agenda item order that would specifically put consent agenda as a separate agenda item instead of thrown into action items where it's been now. That would move it in front of resolutions and proclamations so that any all consent agenda action items are dealt with before you get to them on the agenda so that if they're then removed from the consent agenda, they can just be plugged right into where they are without having to skip an item like we've been doing sometimes when resolutions were on a consent agenda, we kind of skip over it and then maybe go back to it. So that's 4.2. And then I'm adding, I suggest adding a completely new section 4.6 entitled consent agenda to explain it. And so that's what this one does. And it talks about different councils that I could tell and different sets of rules had different lengths of this descriptive section. Some put it directly under the agenda item and what would be our 4.2. They described what certain agenda items would be in the list of agenda items. But we haven't really done that. So I put it out as 4.6. Some were more extensive than others. Most all included sort of what is in the first paragraph, what the point of a consent agenda is and what should be on there in terms of routine non-controversial. That was nearly in everything I could find. The second large paragraph, which is the examples, was in some, was in others, was different in each one. I tried to combine it because I thought it might be nice to have examples. I think some of the important things that are in this one is the ineligible items. The things that can't go on a consent agenda. And those are basically the ones I put there. And there's sort of a mirror to the in addition appropriate items include these things. But that anything with high amounts of public interest or controversy do not belong on a consent agenda even if they came out of the council committee with a unanimous vote. And any item that comes out of a council committee without a unanimous vote does not belong on a consent agenda. And I think it's important to state that somewhere. Because a consent agenda is supposed to be something that all voting members want to vote yes on. And so then I described a couple of other things about discussion and debate. Some included this, some didn't. I included it because I thought it was nice to say, hey, if you have a simple question, you don't have to pull it off the consent agenda in order to ask that question. The whole purpose of consent agenda is to move things forward quicker. A quick question, if you're pulling it off consent agenda actually slows down the meeting if it can be answered quickly. So those things can stay on the consent agenda for that short clarification question. And then it repeats the voted and adopted as a single motion. And then it talks about how you remove, which I think is important. It's similar. It kind of follows Robert's rules that only one person needs to ask to remove. But I did explicitly put in here that it must be removed if someone wants to vote no on an item. That, you know, I think it serves two purposes that way. To clarify that, yeah, we're not, if you want to vote no, that's what you should do. But to clarify to the councillors and the public from the, from my vice president and maybe even Lynn's president point of view, the goal of the consent agenda is not to push through things that we think might not get unanimous vote if they're not on the consent agenda, but to give them unanimous vote, it's to try and speed up the meeting. And we're only guessing at what we think might have a unanimous vote. And if it's not going to, it should be removed. So that, that was sort of what I was thinking as I wrote these rules. Okay. All right. First of all, thank you, Mandy, very much for doing this. I think it's important that it be done. Any thoughts, first of all, on the first suggestion, which is at the top name of its place in the order of the agenda? Any thoughts on this? Any objections, concerns, questions? That seems okay. So we're all right with that. As for the addition 4.6, why do paragraph by paragraph? What are people's thoughts? Might be simplest. First paragraph. Any concerns about the wording or the intent? Hearing none. I'm going to move on to the next larger paragraph. Give you a moment to look at it. But again, any concerns about wording, language, intent? Seeing and hearing none, I'm willing to move on to the next paragraph. The next paragraph is just one sentence. And then the final paragraph. That's where I have my hand up. Please, Andy, go ahead. It was interesting when you had the presentation, Mandy, and by the way, I think you did a great job. It's obvious because we're not saying much. At the very end of your comment, you got to my concern, which is why are we using the word must in that last sentence as opposed to should? As I was explaining it, I realized it said must and it probably said it should be shall. Yeah, because when I read it, my notes on it would have changed it to should. With that, I'm going to take my hand, lower my hand. I'm going to recommend at some point in the future, we have a in another world, we have a GOL retreat, perhaps in a really nice location where we discuss shall, must, should, may, we'll have series of speakers from philosophy, English, linguistics, so that we can finally figure out, then we'll publish a dictionary. My guess is that's the only one I missed when I was copying from other rules of procedures. The problem is, actually, you can't enforce it because if somebody really wanted to vote against, you can't have forced them to say it. It's really an encouraging statement. So that's why I changed it to should because I felt that that really gets to what it is that you're saying to the counselors that, hey guys, if you want to vote against this, do something about it. This is where you should do something. So I was deliberate when I picked the word that I was recommending. So I've moved it to should. Good, thank you. Any other changes, comments, concerns? I think this is terrific. Good. I move that we recommend that the town, you tell me how you make your motions, George. I'm sorry. Exactly. No, that's a good question, and that's why I'm glad Mandy is on this committee and still is on this committee. But my understanding is we first have to declare this clear consistent and actionable. Is that true? And then secondly, we would then recommend to the council that they adopt it or can we just do it as a single motion? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for rules motions, we've rules amendments that originate from GOL, we've never done the declare them clear consistent and actionable. I think we've just recommended the adoption of I assume we follow our own right. They assume that we look at it with that keen eye, which is who we do. All right, so somebody word the motion and I'll make it. The motion would be that GOL recommends that the town council adopt the amendment. How are we going to put this adopt? There are visions to rules 4.2 and 4.6 regarding consent agenda. So amended this day. Yeah. So and then on the May 18, I make that motion. So the motion has been made. Second. And Pat has seconded. And the motion is that we are recommending to the town council that they adopt. Again, if we had our we were face to face, it would be easier to do. I just like the motion read out in full, but we're recommending that the town council adopt. How'd you put it, Mandy? Changes to just to. Yeah, the revisions to I guess it's the revisions to section 4.2 and addition of section 4.6 to the rules of procedure as amended on this date. And Nancy, do you have all of that? Nancy, you need to unmute. Tell us if you have all of that. Okay, I unmuted you. Nancy, do you have all of that? Let's assume somebody, one of us has it then. So the motion, go ahead, George. Yeah, I'm trying to write it as I speak. I will word it. Get the wording correct in a moment, but the motion is before us. It's been seconded. And I would like to move to vote. So I'm going to ask roll call vote. Pat, how do you vote? Yes. Lynn? Yes. Andy, Joe? Yes. The chair votes yes. Andy? Yes. All right. So the vote is 5-0 to recommend the town council, and I will get the language corrected. All right. We'll decide later today whether we're going to put this one on this consent agenda or for the purposes of making councils understand it, we feel it needs to go on the regular agenda. Yeah. But May 18th, definitely. Okay. May 18th. Okay. All right. We're on to item 6. I'm sorry, item 5. JL process to fill upcoming vacancy for non-voting members of the finance committee. There is a document in your packet. That's your point. Yeah. It is entitled proposed process for GOL recommendations. Okay. Okay. I'd like to go through this with you section by section. Hopefully fairly quickly, my feeling, and this is just the chair speaking with his own opinion, is that OKA has established a fairly robust and successful process. I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel. On the other hand, the process is up to us. So if the committee members feel differently, we can reinvent the wheel or design something totally new. But what I have suggested and what we're following at the moment is the process that OKA used to fill this position the first time out. And it occurred to me upon reflection that while it is cumbersome and labor intensive, the only position that this document really refers to and is relevant to, in my understanding, is resident appointments to the finance committee. All the other recommendations of appointments involve staff or town council and don't seem to really fall into this sort of detailed process. And right now, I have no idea what the process would be for many of those, but there certainly wouldn't be this elaborate or this public. So my thought right from the start, if we go to the title page, is that this document, if we do agree to adopt it or some version of it, would be specifically for recommend appointments of non-voting residents to the town council finance committee. So that is the first. That's the only thing this is about. It has to be a date problem here. Yeah. In what sense? Oh, you mean the date here? Yeah. Yeah. That will be changed when we finally do, if we do agree to adopt this document, the, I will say based on local process and then adopted by GOL on whatever date. Okay. That's what I would suggest. So that's the first question. Are people comfortable with that? In other words, this process really is just for one kind of appointment. And so we just, the wording should reflect that. Yes. Okay. All right. Vacancy. Again, what the only change I would suggest is it's here. When a vacancy or impending vacancy occurs on the finance committee for a non-voting resident member. So that's good. Otherwise, I have no changes to this section if people are happy with it. It seems to me it's, I mean, maybe this is just how we refer to terms ending, but it's a term, the vacancy may occur because someone resigns or it may occur because someone's term is up. Right. That was the impending vacancy last sentence. Right. That's the last sentence. I see. Okay. Got it. Yeah. That's all right. Thank you. Yeah. So the language OK used and that would be the vacancy section. People okay with that? Yes. The reason I did is it struck me as I was going through this that may not belong in this particular document, but I think that there ought to be some consideration given is somewhere as to whether there's a requirement to serve on the finance committee. You need to be a resident of the town of Amherst and there is no such provision that I can find anywhere. It was not included in the charter. Charter doesn't require that, but I think that that may have been an oversight and I think the council could make that requirement. And where would that go if we were going to have that discussion and decided it should be a resident? Then where does it go? And if somebody leaves the town, then they no longer would qualify. Good question. This document is pretty much assumes that it does assume that any member would be a resident of Amherst and if they did in fact leave the town, they could no longer serve on the committee. But Andy's point is that's nowhere actually said explicitly. Mandy, Joe, do you have access to your charter real quick? I can pull up the charter. I just pulled up our rules of procedure. They don't say anything about resident. I can pull up the charter too. Yeah, I thought it did. So the rules of procedure relating to non-voting members was the finance committee may include members of the public who shall have a voice but no vote in the finance committee's deliberation. Per charter section 5.5, the council, not the president, is the appointing authority. And section 5.5 says finance committee. This part is where is it? The finance committee may include members of the public who shall have a voice but no vote in the finance committee's deliberation. Council rule shall address the appointment of such members. So if we wanted to limit it to residents, we would do it in our rules, in the council rules, not the GOL rules. So it sounds like just a minor change to the rules of this is the council rules of procedure, correct? Yeah, it would have to be in the council rules of procedure. But that wouldn't be very difficult to do and we could we could even propose that change as GOL. Exactly. In our free time, we could just slip it in. But Andy, were you advocating for it to be residents only or were you advocating for that restriction to not be there? I actually thought it should be there. So I would welcome other discussion about that. I think it was an assumption that we made in the last round, but it was never really, it's never really been explicitly discussed or stated anywhere. In the charter, other multi-member bodies that are appointed by the town manager, there has to be a specific vote of the council to acknowledge that you're having a non-resident member of a committee. As I recall, I don't have it right in front of me, but the charter doesn't do that for this particular provision. I think that the I would I would think it ought to be there, but it's not even alone. Well, certainly the language of this document just simply assumes that they must be residents and your point is that that's actually nowhere said. So either we take the language out of this document, which I'm not keen to do, or we take some time either this meeting or perhaps better a subsequent meeting, but soon and suggest a change to the rules of procedure that would then solve that problem. Yeah, I mean, or the vacancies ceases to be a member or ceases to be a resident. You could just some way to address it. We don't need to do it for this particular round if our goal is to recognize that we have a position that expires on June 30 and we want to go ahead and have a reappointment process. We need to do whatever we can to move that along. Okay. All right. Can we move on to item two, which is going to create a little bit of its own challenge. So why are we having a requirement members seeking reappointment must also submit a new CAF? Well, actually, Oka is revisiting that issue. Right. I'm sorry. Oka at the last Monday's meeting presented an entirely new section to that they approved, right? Right. So I would advocate for keeping that section, which was they're good for three years and reappointments don't have to reapply. That's why I was right. No, exactly. So yeah, that makes sense. Yes, I think that does make sense. So we're substituting this whole section. Yes. Yes. It was the new language, right, George? I'm sorry. Section two was pretty much fully rewritten, right? Pretty much. So what I can, I mean, again, I wasn't comfortable with inserting it because it's A, it's hot off the presses and B, we can do whatever we want. We could keep this language. We could come up, you know, we are not bound to follow, you know, what Oka does and knowing the members of Oka as I do quite well, you know, that's something you should give serious thought to. Do you really want to follow these people? I think what I can do is... The consistency across every committee in terms of CAFs. Exactly. I agree. That makes the most sense. It would be three years and I could insert the language of Oka's suggested change. Just as a sidebar, it turns out that the current member I have reached out to is planning to submit a new CAF anyway because having had, she said, some experience on the body, she has more thoughts on it. However, she's not decided if she's going to actually submit whether she's going to continue. But she said, I'm going to submit a new CAF anyway. I didn't have the heart to tell her that Oka's also considering another change that we'll get to in just a moment. So I just left it, let it lie. So I will insert the language of Oka here. Sounds like people are happy with that three years and not requiring someone to resubmit within that three-year period, though not forbidding them either, obviously. Okay. Three, sufficiency that can pool? I think it just needs updated because of number two's changes. Number three does? Yeah. So number three refers to Oka had a few changes in number three that directly related to the changes in number two. And so I would support those changes. Yeah. All right. So again, we would follow the Oka process here. Is that hearing that that's consensus? Yeah. Okay. Selection guidance. Again, this is Oka's language with GOL inserted. Any concerns, problems with this language? Notice it does have language on term limits. Oka, of course, went back and forth on this great deal. And this was the compromise language that I think most of us were satisfied with. It didn't rule out term limits, but it set certain expectations. Are people happy with that? George, I had concerns about section A, the healthy multi-member body. It's not planning board or ZBA. It's the finance committee, five of whom are fellow counselors. So reading that we're appointing non-voting members, many of the sections here, one, two, and three, to me seemed very strange from that point of view. You know, I don't know what healthy means in regard to a body that were five of us or I don't know how to word it here, but you know, I just didn't know how it really truly applies to finance committee. My inclination was to scrap section A completely and just rely on input from the body's chair, from finance's chair. Including term limits. Including term limits. The counselors may not have term limits. You could have a counselor that serves on the council for 30 years and they might be on finance for all 30 years. But this document only refers to the resident non-voting members. It says nothing about counselors. The language I think is pretty clear that this is just right. I'm not arguing for against, but I'm just saying this language is not applied to counselors at all. No, I know. It just seems strange that it would apply to only a portion of the committee. No, when you talk about entire body. Right. So George, the things that also I think he's even brought into this, and that is the way we have it set up now. Somebody can be appointed in this next term and that person will succeed into the next council. Right. And which, you know, the next council may or may not want to continue the practice and they may or may not want to continue the person. So as we look at this section, there's a whole part of me that feels like we're tying the hands of the future councils and the future finance committees, but that is the council. And I mean, in many ways, the charge are the whole portion of the charge that refers to resident members of finance ties the hands of future councils. So there's a part of me that I don't like that. It actually was discussed at the, because the finance committee when it had its discussion about changes to the committee charge at Ocas request. Right. We, one of the members of the committee who is actually a resident member brought up the thing about the terms and the benefit of longer terms. And I think the discussion that ended up having it all goes just right along the lines that Lynn was suggesting. It would require that we actually go back and relook at the charge. So again, what I'm hearing here is correct me if I'm wrong. And I may be that a whole section a you would like removed like Mandy. I'm understanding that. Yeah, I would. And I, and I'm also going to just voice my opinion. I feel that the terms of people on the finance committee, not the resident non voting members, right to be coterminous with councils. So the charge, the charge is term of appointment was two years for non voting members. I think we've got the problem because we're kind of off cycle. But I think to be coterminous. There was an argument made for the opposite view in the sense that to give some continuity from one finance committee to the next that would be some people around, I mean, hopefully there will be continuity, but it's perfectly possible you could have an entirely new finance committee. And the thought was by making at least some of the resident members not coterminous, you would have at least some institutional memory and some expertise. So that was the argument against having them. And in that sense, tying the hands of a future council, in a sense, is true, but we might actually kind of like that idea. I like that idea. In the sense that, you know, especially for committee, where expertise, you know, some kind of background experience. So anyway, that's the argument for not coterminous. So there are two very different views on this one. This is one of those situations where I could argue both ways. I'm not sure it applies to this question, though, about selected selection guidance. It's a different question. That's a different issue. Well, except for the fact that in here it says, well, that person will be given preference. Right. And again, there's an argument that's been made, and I've resisted it, but I'm beginning to weaken a bit, is that there is a good case to be made for not letting people serve on a body, you know, basically indefinitely. And that six years seems like a reasonable period of time. And beyond that, while it's not forbidden, there is a sense of a preference for. This is just guidance. It doesn't say you can't do it. And I certainly made the case in another context that based on this description, I said, no, I think this is still a mistake. We should not follow the guidance here in this case for good reason, but I was outvoted. So this is just guidance. It doesn't say you have to. It just says this is, but again, we may decide, the five of us that we just don't want to provide any kind of guidance in terms of term limits at all, just leave it unstated, which would be the case if we take it out. I'm a little uncomfortable with that, but I'm sorry. Sorry, Pat, go ahead. Yeah, I'm uncomfortable with removing everything in this section. I don't think it should be called criteria for helping multiple member body, but the term limit three is, I think, an important one, particularly for finance. So I agree with you, George. Andy, did the finance committee of the town of town meeting have term limits, didn't they? Never very strictly enforced. So if it stays then, and I still don't want it to, but if it does, it should not, it needs updated because they're not three years in length for finance. And since it only applies to finance, they're two years in length. And we could probably delete the special training or expertise language. Was that put in for finance, or is that really ZBA and planning? ZBA and planning. Well, it's true for finance. Yeah, really. I mean, again, it's just guidance, but I hear you that this language needs to be revised substantially to fit the particular committee, the one and only committee that we are dealing with. So if we're going to keep A3, yeah, I would propose that the length of service is normally limited to three two year terms, two years in length, so that a person can actually be there for six years. This is accepting your term, your argument, George, and that is that, you know, we may end up with a town council with limited financial expertise. And in many ways, these members may be helpful in smoothing through that process. Lynn, do you want to make this a hard and fast rule? In other words, six years and out, or do you want to keep the line? No, this is generally it's it's in this it's in the normally limited to. Yeah. It's in the spirit of general guidance. Yeah, we're it's sort of in a very peculiar place right now in the firm because we're going through this first time. As I've thought about it, if a member of the finance committee who's a counselor was not running for reelection to the council for whatever reason or was not reelected to the council, that's the voters decision, but was willing to continue on the finance committee that might be a reason to that person in as a resident member because of their expertise that person's expertise. So, you know, that could be a future consideration of a future council and how to use these positions. It's true. Remember the point of this document is simply to give us guidance and future committee members guidance in how to go about this recommendation process. And so there's going to be a fair amount of latitude that obviously this should be in here. I'm hearing one and two people would maybe like that removed and three revised but but have some direct have some acknowledgement of the idea of term limits and the language revised to reflect the reality with a thought that six years would be normally considered to be the limit, though it's not impossible to go beyond that. What about one and two? Mandy I think feels that they's both really not appropriate. Do you want me to try and construct some language that would be particularly appropriate to finance? Do you feel that that we just don't need this? Because obviously input from the chair, we've also gotten input from the committee on what they're looking for and some of that language I could easily incorporate into this as generic language. It is part of A and I agree the title of A needs to be changed but I could incorporate some of that language in there along with the revision of three and then B would be input from the finance committee chair. Would that be, I mean what people feel about one and two? They want them out, they want I'm sorry I just screwed up there. So I'm the one that said delete I'm not going to if everyone else is okay with them I'm not going to put up a big fight. Well the question is how helpful is this to us? A strong base of seasoned members who have completed or nearly completed one term as a member. These members bring an understanding process institutional knowledge can mentor new members take on leadership roles. That's actually not appropriate to this body. They're not being asked to take on a leadership role. They don't even have a vote so that language has to come out. Do you feel it's important? I mean is that something that you would have in your mind choosing someone for this committee? Is that helpful guidance? If it is we should leave it in but with some changes or should maybe we should just take it out? And then so it's a stage between I mean here we're thinking of multiple member bodies where obviously the individuals will play a leadership role. That's not the case in this body. Newer versus older members. How important is that? Maybe this needs some more work and we can't do it at this point because it's that really criteria for a healthy multi-member body. We're talking about criteria for resident members of the finance committee. Right right so I need to give this right. And I would work the criteria then go back and look at it because what we really were saying at the beginning was people who have in this elsewhere in it people who have experienced a municipal finance or experience with our town's budget process who can contribute to the understanding of the committee and the process that we had in the last round selected three people who have that criteria because two of the prior members of the prior finance committee and the third person is somebody who had exceptional experience in municipal finance issues but not within town. And I have language to that effect which came from your committee Andy that I could put into this section that we could then review next time and and do with it what we will but it would seem to be far more useful to us language like that rather than one and two three I think I feel still needs to stay in some form and then we would certainly seek input from the body's chair and maybe that's all it would say. Right and three you also have to change the word if a person is completing a third term. Right we change that. Okay well I'm hearing here is that they clearly this is going to need a little bit of work by the chair and then put back in the packet for your review at the next meeting. Are there other areas however George we'd like to discuss now? With this I think we do need to say if we have a moment to talk about interviews and whether we want them or not. Oka again added a statement of interest. Yes part I think it's important personally I would like to see that added to this one and given that I'm not sure I'm I'm indifferent about actual interviews if we do a solid strong statement of interest with potentially questions attached to that statement of interest so it's not just a freeform essay it's directed questions to answer specific questions we might be able to skip the interview completely. I I have to also say when giving somebody a non-voting position putting them through an interview seems a little pompous. Yeah yeah good. I actually wrote the same thing since these are non-voting members I'm less likely less inclined to need an interview for it. At the same time I do like the idea of a statement of interest and you know along with revisions to the CAF on the other hand you know having not been engaged in these interviews the last time I guess in fact the last time they were only done by one person weren't they they weren't done as a group interview. That's right right right and even the OCA process the interview is the questions are asked by one person and there's no back and forth there's no follow-up again we we don't have to follow that process but right now I'm hearing at least some thought that we don't need them at all a statement of interest where we have given them a sense of what we expected to contain might be sufficient for our task and that would certainly ease the burden on the applicant and also on the committee. I guess the only question is just from the political perspective and Manny makes a good point about these are non-voting members how important is it that there be some kind of public process other than the committee's public meeting. It does it having a public process removes the accusation of politics. Removes part of it excuse me it doesn't remove all of it and I have to say given the three people that we ended up with the fact that I did not know one of them at all um would he have emerged in a statement of interest I don't know. His big good of interest probably would have enabled him to say the same things that he said during the interview that impressed uh I know who it was it was Darcy Darcy but you know she was impressed by his statements about what he could contribute. As this flashes back to me the whole last process I was feeling that it would be very helpful once Darcy had recommendations to have a conversation with the with me and finance committee chair at that time about um just you have any questions about how the committee functions and what the role of a resident member is envisioned to be and what you can contribute in sort of those expectations kinds of questions and I ended up with a process that was sort of understood and agreed to that I would attempt to talk to the people. I talked to two out of three members uh two out of three of the people and um it was a very healthy and good conversation third person was uncomfortable with the idea of having such a conversation and we just went ahead and um elected that person that third person at the council level and it all worked out fine so but if that kind of conversation is helpful but it's not an interview you know maybe we want to make interviews optional so that if for example you know suppose we get seven and you know some members of the committee know more of them than others and then we begin to start seeing partisanship or something like that so maybe we at least want to have the option of interviewing but also not a requirement and Andy I think that some of the issues that you then wanted to ask the nominees um I think we can make sure that those are more in the questions um than maybe they were and if it's a group interview you know it's um there's more people listening I'm going completely opposite than what I was saying before no I know it's all right maybe this is the time to maybe this is an important seen as an important position by people in town a place to kind of test their wings as potentially future council people yeah I can give you an example of the question that I applied with the two people that I did speak with and that was um this is very heavy burden during the month of May um under normal circumstances this year not being one of them when because that's when we uh you have the town manager's budget they have to make the decision on it is there anything in your life that happens during the month of May that would limit your participation at the busiest period for the committee um and uh the answer came back from the two people that I did speak with no it's not a problem and I felt like the third person was likely to have said the same thing you had your hand up taking it down I'm not I don't need to comment right now okay um I want us to move on but um this uh let's be honest here I think part of the reason for the public interview is because it was I don't think it's part it was because it was planning board in ZBA and so we are dealing with a very different body um for instance I don't see why we if we had interviews why we couldn't have a back and forth there were reasons uh that that was not a good idea for ZBA in planning but here I I don't see why they do have interviews I don't see why they have to be um as as you know we also could just designate one member of this committee to to speak and it could be different members you know Mandy could speak to one I could speak to one da da da and just you know informally talk interview them in that sense I don't see why that's a problem um the current process the yoga process for two bodies that are highly contentious and political in our town and this is the fact um and so that's why we ended up with the process we ended up with um it was felt as a compromise that this was uh the best way to have to for something to be transparent and public blah blah blah fine is that necessary for this do we need to go through the entire nine yards of creating interview we're gonna have to you know do the interviews uh public interviews everybody has to be present at the same time da da da that seems overkill to the max um we don't want to drive people away um we have to decide whether we want interviews at all and if we want them to they have to be formal kind of structured the way okay does it or can we make it somewhat more informal um those are the issues we have to to resolve um and I don't I'm not hearing a consensus yet um I'm leaning personally toward a more informal process either without interviews at all or with interviews that could be done one individual member and then reporting back to the committee but that's just me George yep pat um I um I don't I don't feel comfortable having only one person interviewing the perspective people um I I think that anytime I've served on any kind of committee in my other life um there have always been more than one person and I think that becomes a critical issue and speaks to transparency um I'm wondering I and this was earlier wonder I think the SOIs in this situation yeah it would be good and if if we are reviewing where this committee is reviewing the SOIs we can pull a pull together and speak to the reasons why we are interested in this person or that person I don't see the need for formal interviews okay so I'm that sounds like two people at least Mandy and Pat are not that it would be perfectly okay with no formal interview at all um and relying on the SOIs I have suggested that we retain the option and Lynn has suggested an option okay I think I'm sort of like where Lynn is is that it's probably not necessary but we should reserve the option that makes sense all right so some language okay so some language that would be provided for the next discussion would um make interview optional now that still means that we would then have to do all the other things with you know in terms of coming up with interview questions setting all right all that stuff but that we want to have the option at least for doing that we could put all of that after the SOIs are submitted I mean the process but once we see the SOIs then we as a committee could decide do we need interviews and if so then we can tailor the questions to what we feel the SOIs didn't provide us mm-hmm so that takes us back to the CAF briefly quickly because right now there's the thought that we might this has not been decided by the council so it's wide open maybe we could just make it we still need CAFs maybe we have CAFs and SOI in addition and if in the end the CAFs do get changed by the council that would would then be fine but at the moment it seems like CAF is required and we're also going to require a statement of interest and we'll figure out how that's going to work eventually when it finally becomes real but so after the SOI we hold we reserve the option for interviews and then we have this final step recommendation so it sounds like I have some changes to make here and bring it back to you at the next meeting and hopefully at that point we can sign off on it yeah okay very quickly I have the vacancy notice has been published and a copy of it is in your packet after having done it I realized that it would have been better if I had incorporated some of the language that had been available I mean if I just didn't look for it that I've gotten from the committee so in going forward in the future I might have made some of the descriptors in that vacancy notice a little bit more precise but I think it's still adequate you can look at it and decide for yourself I felt as important that we get the word out there though I think from my experience and from what I've learned from Evan the best way of getting the word out there is for us to spread the word ourselves I have not heard back from the town managers offices to CAFs so I and I don't think there would be many but so I have no at the moment there are no applicants that I'm aware of except those that applied last year right well I don't even have those because maybe offline you can help me there maybe there's a way I can search for these on my own very easily I can reach out to Evan he'll tell me right away but my understanding is I have to go through as I assume Angela and say Angela will you find these for me but if there's a way I can find them myself I'd be happy to do it I've done it you've done it Lynn I would go to Angela yeah I did and I haven't heard anything so I'll go back to her again and just say you know Angela could you uh just give me the CA you know let me know where I don't think there are many but I don't know I'm not sure we've received any since we started getting our own CAFs no I don't think we have no so it might be all from the old right the old set which might all be that Evan might have them all I don't remember when the finance committee was appointed versus when we flipped the system to get emails let me reach out to Evan on that and see if I can get the old set because that would obviously be the place we would start and I was chair start reaching out to these people I have reached out to the current member and as I said she is undecided but for all of you and anyone else you know we need to get the word out urge people to apply if they're interested so and I think it's important to under for any new members to understand the really strange of this year's budget and the extent to which this summer is not going to be a resting period right right right so I didn't have Andy's face in view but I can only imagine what always got a big smile on his face we have in front item seven first of all very much thanks to Pat for what you did she's created a document that has certainly helped me I worked on that together so great well thank you both the chair will eventually return to real life but not until not for a couple more weeks but I've already started working my way through it I don't think in the interest of time in fact in the interest of time I'm going to not going to suggest that we look at it now but I'm willing to be overruled we're almost reached our to our point but I've begun to make my way through it there's some things the chair can obviously do and should have done and should do but I think it would be useful for us next time early on in the agenda hopefully to actually work our way through it and and and talk about it but a fair number of the items in priority one and this was quite helpful to me my understanding from Evan was was a little different this at least gives me some clear sense of where things are at we could go through this next time yeah I would like to go through it next time I have some additions to the information that I can put in a fresh copy before our next meeting okay so I wanted to also mention I went to the bylaw review committee's document that was bylaw's future considerations and I actually threw the little descriptive from that document for each bylaw into the notes section that was you okay well I haven't sent that to anyone um okay I could um I did that this morning for my own so I didn't have multiple documents I was looking at um if no one else has done that I can ship that off to everyone it's it's why don't you ship it off to all of us and then I'll look at it and see if there's anything I still want to add okay that'd be great the only concern I have is that at some point we do need to be working from the same document um yeah I don't have about five versions so I can send that to Pat and Pat can add whatever she wants from hers and then it can come out yeah okay and then you will send it to me put on SharePoint I knew Pat wanted to review this what I really needed was to just understand all of the nuances of the review process because Pat had served on that committee yes and that was useful all right um so that will be our next agenda item and I wait with bated breath um here from both Mandy and Pat but really thank you all of you all three of you um that's really appreciated and uh we now come wonderfully to the public comment section and once again we have managed to drive the public away we had an attendee briefly but let me just look again I don't think um yeah I don't think we have attendee now um no public present so I will we will not have public comment I do not have the minutes I will reach out to uh to the council clerk um but that and future agenda items we've gotten two notices once the pollinator resolution and my recollection quickly is that that concerned some financial had some financial implications that really GL couldn't so um or do you want I mean I can dig it up I have it and I can put it on the agenda for next time and we can look at it and then decide what we want to do with it I thought Mandy my memory vague as it is is that we looked at it and said this really looks like it needs to be looked at by somebody with more financial uh implications of this resolution for the town yeah there were concerns by the prior GL committee the prior membership that it actually enacted town policy um in and would change the way town services and town things operate so it might need a referral I think the concern was of GL that it might actually need discussed by what would be TSL PSL right so maybe put it on the agenda and then we'll decide what we want to do with it um we actually could bring it to the council and on the consent agenda refer to TSL and GL automatic referral to GL but uh refer to TSL did either of you that have looked at it more carefully think it should also go to finance that wasn't my my impression I thought it was just TSL so so the it was the I think it was the now therefore clause pretty much said town will not use certain pesticides or this or that in maintaining lawns and fields and stuff so I should put a better one than GL than finance George why don't we do this since it's not been officially referred but just recognize that it's coming right you wait until I get it and then I'll I'll put it on the consent and do the referral to TSL and automatic to GL okay okay good um I had one other thing what was it my mind what was the other the anti-Asian there was an anti-Asian I have no idea what this is but apparently it's from Darcy um but I don't there's no I have no copy there's nothing so it's just that was what was mentioned in your email the other one was the LGBTQ Pat you and Evan you know that needs to come up okay did you finish your review Pat of that proclamation yes okay just get me the final one now I'll refer to GL okay right it needs to come up because LGBTQ yeah right we're gonna run out of letters someday but yeah I it'll have to I guess go on the June 1st council meeting agenda so we have to do it next GL yeah we need that okay so that should be on the agenda I can do it as a yeah I can refer it on the 18th it's an automatic once it's submitted it's automatic to GL so it should come to the GL meeting on the 20th okay all right that right we should have acted on it today sorry we have a meeting the 18th but then June 1st June 1st is the first day of the month it would do so I think that's okay right Pat yeah I mean at this point yeah especially since we can't even meet to especially what we can't meet to do it gather to raise a flag well we might have that point we might be a little least good yeah we might raise the flag right we can do something right I don't have to re accuse myself because I'm queer do I um not that I'm aware of no we'll discuss that at the next meeting something just last thought last thought legal review this is something we really and we're not going to talk about now but you put it back here ahead every bylaw that we look at right eventually at some point according to the town manager needs to go to the attorneys and so part of our process at some point is to make a decision whether we think we want to do that or not bakerman has been clear to me he thinks everything should go to the attorneys um involving bylaws changes amendments new obviously a new bylaw but even changes now I think there's some reluctance in some cases where something's been on the books and the change is minor but think of Darcy's bylaw whatever it you know we didn't discuss it today but I think normally with any kind of change the final step or some step in the process is me sending it to Paul and asking the lawyers to look at it we don't want to send it to them until we think it's ready um and we also have to decide whether we want to send it to them and that's a discussion for a future date maybe I'll put it on the agenda next time if we have time but in the back of your mind think about you know when you do when we do get a point with a bylaw um normal sort of best practices is have the lawyers take a look at it but that takes time a lot of time because it comes back with changes and we don't understand the changes um so I can address that with Paul and you know we'll see changing lawyers behavior is perhaps impossible but we could at least ask um but just for the future part of the process we have to follow or decide not to follow is legal is have the lawyers look at and in some cases two lawyers on this committee are now laughing well I know but uh they need work let's face it they're like everybody else they need work so the problem that we have is is that once you have a bylaw and the the plastic the bag one plastic example doesn't serve a purpose to have a bylaw if you're not going to be able to enforce it and uh to have somebody who has the experience of uh of municipal law and can really advise us is it worded in a way and is the mechanism established in a way that makes it enforceable uh is important information fair good um by the way this for the public this falls under items not anticipated by the chair that's because the chair's memory lapse but that's that's we'll put that on the next times agenda too george I thought that we also were going to be having Kathy come to our next meeting on the condo bylaw at some point I think given all the things we're doing right now I don't use any real yes we are going to invite her but it was left open as to when um if Kathy would really like to come if she's expressed that desire I'm perhaps we can we can put her in but it is on my list to invite her but right now I'm looking at an agenda that we still have the process to resolve um I assume we'll be looking at well no we won't be looking at the uh the plastic bag at least but we'll have the the LGBTQ I don't know we'll see but um if there's space I might reach out to her and see if she wants to join us but I do you're right she's going to be invited at some point I'd like to make some headway with the uh what we've been referred to now for months that the chair has been sitting on and now it's actually we've got a document we can actually work on um so I hope the next meeting will spend some time at least maybe substantial time working a way through that and deciding what needs to be worked on now and what doesn't and who's going to do what um so that will take up I hope a good bit of our time what I learned by talking with Pat a lot of them need consultation with outside people outside our group yes that is correct and that's the right process exactly and I'm looking at that and and I will be ready to make some suggestions and I assume that's the chair the chair would reach out to whatever con con com or whatever and say here's the deal you know please look at it and then get back to us right all right okay all right another two hours you've successfully you know click and clack right Evan never liked this part of my speech so we have spent excellent two hours here um but I think it's time for us to move on so I'm going to declare this meeting adjourned and uh wish you all a good day stay healthy stay well and I'll be seeing you all too soon I'm sure so thank you wherever you are Nancy thank you for putting up with us