 Let's just give them a moment to come in. Wow, we got a lot of attendees. We do. We have five. I love that we say five is like. I think after about 15 or counselors, they don't count. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing the presence of a quorum, I'm going to call. I try to call this meeting. To order. It is actually 1033. On May 5th. And this meeting is being recorded. And pursuant to governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. I'm going to just take a moment to make sure everybody can be heard. And so, and I believe we have at least one. Guest attendee. I see Rabia here. I don't see Corey. But let's start. Shawnee are in the attendees. All right. So if we could bring a Corey and Shawnee in. Because we're going to start with them in just a moment. But let me begin by talking to the committee. I'm going to take a moment to make sure that everybody can be heard. Because we're going to start with them in just a moment. But let me begin by just making sure my colleagues can be heard. So Mandy. Present. And Pat. I'm here. And Darcy. Here. And the chair is here. I don't see Sarah at the moment. So if she comes in, we will. Check with her. We haven't, I think Pat, you're going to text her, but you haven't gotten a response. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, we're going to get started. So I just don't want to check and make sure that our guests, so we have a number of guests this morning who are here for a very particular item. We're going to start with that item in just a moment. So let me just touch on the agenda briefly. And then I'm going to make sure our guests can be heard. And then we'll get started. So let me just put the agenda up on the screen. That should be this guy. Bear with me for a second. So you should see. The agenda here. I can move it. There we go. Can everybody see that? Should be bigger. Okay. We're going to start with the, the, the Gorse Children's Center resolution. And our guests are here for that. Then we're going to turn to race. Amity day that I don't think should take too long. Also. I'm going to move the item under. Not anticipated. We've gotten the audit review committee charge. Again, that should not take long, but we, this is time sensitive. And then we're going to turn to the DAB, which also is time sensitive. And we'll probably skip the proclamation calendar draft, though I'm happy to share it. I'm so proud of it. But it still has work. And then we're going to turn to, in the second hour, the hope is to get immediately to the OCA process that we're working on. So that's the agenda. There is a set of minutes that we can review if we have time. I'm not sure that any of you have seen them though. But we'll check on that later. So that's the agenda. So without further ado, I'm going to stop sharing that. And I'm going to close it. And I'm going to put up the. Resolution. And just a second. Share screen. So the resolution should be visible on your screen. And I'm going to just. Bear with me. So I see Corey, can you be heard? And can you speak? Thank you. So I was checking in and Rabia. Everyone. Good. Thank you. And Shalini. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. Is there anyone in the audience? I guess that's a question for. My colleagues who can check that easier than I can. Is there anyone in the audience that. Would like to participate in this discussion. There was the thought that one or two parents might. Be present. Can anyone see if they raise their hands. Under share screen. I have a hard time finding that sort of thing. I don't know if anybody else is better at it than I am. There's just, there are three people in the audience. One person has just raised their hand. So Katia. If we could. Katia, one of the parents that you. Tonya also just raised her hand. All right. So we, if with permission of my colleagues, these are parents apparently who have. Children at the gorse. And so I thought. That we could bring them in. If they wish to speak or have any questions. We could bring them both in. Thank you very much. So Katia and Tonya welcome. Ask everyone to stay muted for the moment. But then once we open it up. We usually have everybody unmuted unless things get. Get too wild. The way we proceed is that we go through this. Pretty much whereas by whereas. And then if there are any questions from the committee. Or any suggested changes, we talk to the sponsors and make sure they're okay with it. So that's how we're going to proceed. So. Let's take a look at this is resolution opposing the closure of the Gorse Children's Center at Mount Holyoke college. And I have a general question. And here my colleagues can weigh in. If they'd like to how they'd like to proceed. I'm. Normally we just look at what we look at is whether this is clear, consistent and actionable. That's our remit. That's what we do. But there is some leeway here, especially for the only body who looks at it before it goes to the council. And the question I have is really not about the clarity, consistency. Or really action ability. It's about the appropriateness of this. For the council. So I don't know if that's where people want to start or where they want to go through this. First, and then come back to that question. I'd like to address that first. And hear from the sponsors and hear from my colleagues. First, if they have any concerns, but my first question is just a broad one. Why should the Amherstown council be weighing in on this. So. Yeah. I'm just wondering why. The hand raised hand function. Is as available to you. But I kind of just prefer people raising their hands. I think I see one of my colleagues. I see two of my colleagues and we'll start with Darcy Darcy, if you would go ahead. Yeah. I'm just wondering why we would look at the. Substance of the issue as GOL. I do. You know, there is a question of like. Like, if this resolution is sponsored by a counselor. It automatically gets referred to GOL. We're only supposed to look at clarity, consistency and action ability. So. If you like. Then we send it to the council, then they could. Ask for. The, I mean, obviously we will see what the substance is as we go along, but I, I guess. I don't know why we would be specifically asking about. That as a, as a threshold issue. If that's not our charge. You're muted. Sorry. Apologies. I think George's question is a reasonable one. And it is. This is actually, I, I will say that I am in support of this. 100%. But I still think George's question is important. And I would like to hear not from a counselor, even Chalene, who's one of the sponsors, but from the other Corey or. Or Robia. About this. Why they feel. The other thing, Darcy, I'm going to take issue with you about substantive. You bring it up when it's convenient for you. But you don't mind making substantive. Changes or decisions. As I said, when they're good for you. You don't like it when you think something you want isn't going to happen. We're not changing anything. We're asking a question about appropriateness. I've been asked this question about a resolution. I'm hoping to bring before the council, because it's a national issue. Not even local. And to me, Mount Holyoke is local. And I'm hoping to bring it up when it's convenient for you. To talk about why you interject with that only when it's convenient to you. I'm just putting forward what the charge of this. This. Committee is, and I'd appreciate it. Pat, if you did not. Attack me all the time. Darcy, I hear you, but. There is some wiggle room here as we've experienced over the years on this committee. And it does seem to me. That. You know, when these matters come before us, it's not an unreasonable question to ask. Whether this is something that is appropriate for the council. Just, and I happen to think that it, that it is, but I really, it is an honest question. Imagine if this were about the closure of a children's center in Newton. Or, you know, in brain, in brain tree or whatever. We'd probably say, well, we're very sympathetic, but it's not hard to see how the Amherst town council should be weighing in on this. We're going to weigh in on every, you know, closure of a child's children's center throughout the state. I think in this case, there's a good answer to this, but I think it's a question needs to be asked. And just why I asked it. I understand that our charge is fairly specific. But in our experience, we've often found the line is not a clear one. And certainly we are sort of the, you know, the, not necessarily the barrier, but just where the place where, you know, it seems a reasonable place for us to ask for any resolution, proclamation, whatever is this appropriate for the council. And so that's why I raised it. So I'd like to, sorry, Mandy. I agree with Darcy. I agree with that. That whether we think this is an appropriate. Resolution for a council to act on or not is not necessarily within our charge unless we believe it is unactionable. And that's sometimes where that line gets. Fuzzy is, is something actionable. And I will say on this one. I don't see anything. Unactionable about it. And so our council has made a decision that we look for clarity, consistency and action ability without regard to whether or not we support such a resolution and whether or not that means we, as a committee, believe it is a resolution that the council should or should not act upon as long as the council, whether or not we support such a resolution or, you know, citation or whatever has a council or sponsor, we are looking at clarity, consistency and action ability. And so I would in some sense say we should move on to clarity, consistency and action ability and maybe put in the report, which we've done in the past that such a vote has no bearing on. The resolution or not. All right. I don't see any of my colleagues. So one of our guests. Please, I can't. This computer is going to drive me crazy. Cory, I'm sorry, please, if you'd go ahead. I'm not sure if, if it would be appropriate now to speak to the question of, of relevance or whether we, we can wait on that, but we, we believe it's relevant. I can talk to that if that's helpful. I realize you've heard two different views here. So I put you in an awkward position. Let's go through this line by line and then we'll see where we stand at that point. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if you've touched his hand raised, but that may be from the previous thank you. And at the moment, that's the only other hand I see. And it's also Tanya, if you could take your hand down, I would be appreciated it unless you wish to speak. You can be recognized. Tony, do you wish to speak? No. Okay. But thank you. All right. I've read through this. I don't have any particular issues with this. I don't know if it does. We'll go through it. Whereas by whereas Mount Holyoke has decided to suspend childcare and of course. Children's center. And whereas the college has reevaluated the plan and extended their current contract through June, 2022. Again, people should speak up. And at this point, I think my colleagues should just speak up because. Please go ahead. First one is there's one counselor sponsor. So we should. Singularize. Counselor. And then I'm going to be bringing this up. When referencing the college or the center, I think college and center should be capitalized because it's a specific. Location, not college in general. So that would be the second whereas. And then the third whereas for center, I'm going to be bringing this up. And that's all I have till the fifth one. Okay. Was there any other change there? That was it. The third whereas the center. Center. Thank you. Again, to my colleagues who are present in the committee, just speak up because I can't. See our hands and type at the same time. I'm doing the many things I can't do at the same time. Whereas the decision to close. Gorse came at a time when childcare in the valley has become increasingly scarce. Okay. And whereas Gorse is one of the only local programs that provides full year extended day coverage that includes infant care. It has provided critical. It has proved critical. Sorry. To essential workers during the pandemic. Right there. Yep. I found that sentence. Kind of strange. I would replace it with and. It's almost two sentences sort of. Okay. Let me read it again and see what the sponsors think with the change. Gorse is one of the only local programs that provides full year extended day coverage. That includes infant care. And it has proved critical to essential workers during the pandemic. That could be a separate whereas. It could be. But instead of doing that, I just put and in there. Any thoughts from the sponsors at all. Just pick up. Please don't. Okay. I'm going to make that change. Okay. Whereas it appears that there are not enough full time slots at other centers to accommodate the 80 plus families that will lose their care. And instead of comma. I'm going to make that change. Okay. Thank you. Whereas the center employs more than two dozen skilled childcare providers from our community whose careers will be endangered by the closure. And whereas. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that women are disproportionately affected. By the closure of daycare accounting for 80% of the 1.1 million Americans were dropped out of the workforce since COVID began. And so we're making that change. And so we're going to make that change at least once a week. And so that's what we're going to do. And so that's the final comment after whereas. Whereas based on current data, we believe that. Are you all seeing that. Irritating. Probably. Whereas based on current data, we believe that the consequences of closing Gorse even another year hence we'll have an ordinate impact on women. And therefore constitute an issue of equity that impacts the difficult. So far so good. Now therefore be it resolved that the Amherstown Council strongly urges Mount Holyoke College to collaborate with stakeholders in the interim extension year, be it further resolved that the Amherstown Council calls on Mount Holyoke College to not remove children and child care options from the women and families of the broader community, be it further resolved the Amherstown Council urges Mount Holyoke College to develop a sustainable plan for the poorest children's center beyond June 2022. Be it further resolved that the clerk of the Amherstown Council shall cause a copy of this resolution to be sent to Governor Charlie Baker, State Senator Joanne Cumberford, State Representative Mindy Dom and President of Mount Holyoke College, Sonia Stevens. Any other concerns, questions with that, Victoria, with that sections? CNA from anyone? All right. In my experience with these kinds of resolutions, we are now going to be at least reading part of this at the next Council meeting. For our sponsors sake, in case they've not attended a Council meeting, these usually go on the consent agenda. And that's where they get approved. And there is no public recognition or statement made. And we on GOL have asked that be changed and that for every proclamation, at least every resolution, proclamation, citation, commemoration, there'd be a brief, we would not read the entire document, but we would introduce it briefly and read the resolved section. And we normally would ask the Council sponsor to do that. In this case, Shalini would be invited to do that. And I hope she would do that. I guess that's one of the reasons I raised my question is that because of that's been our practice and because this is not usually these are not usually discussed by the Council. I would like to address the issue of relevance in my report. So at the moment, I cannot and I will not unless it's raised in discussion. I've asked the question, we've gotten a somewhat inflicting response, the committee's not on one mind here. So I'm not going to force the issue. But again, I just would restate that if I were a counselor, and I can imagine one or two from my experience, who might wonder why we're acting on this, I think the document actually gives good reasons in it, why we are. But I was hoping that we would have a chance to talk about that. So unless there's any further thought on this, I'm going to go take a motion, entertain a motion to approve this. My colleagues have any thoughts? Shalini, how's her hand raised? Shalini, please go ahead. Couple of thoughts. So I have to say that even I'm confused now about the discussion. And I think it's important to clarify whether that question of relevance will be dealt here at GOL in my mind with the GOL actually, and now I'm Mandy, Joe and Darcy clarify that it's not. So and then we're not going to discuss it even in counsel probably, or maybe they will, I don't think they will. But I think it's important to for somewhere for it to be said, why this is an important issue. And I think it's also an opportunity for, you know, like it's not our job to dictate what Mount Holyoke decides. But I think it we are seeing that we're all interconnected and interdependent and it's important for the Council, the government and the local institutions, the colleges and universities to be working together with our constituents. So I think it's an important place the GOL discussion today, where we listen to the parents of why they are asking for this, and it's documented and hopefully someone at Mount Holyoke will read it. And so it does get communicated. This is what we are thinking. This is why this is so important for how it's impacting women and therefore children and our communities and how it's impacting families of color or people with lower means or and how it's impacting the jobs in our town. So it is impacting Amherst, of course, because of families who live here and work there and their kids and it's impacting people who will lose their jobs who are also probably living in our community. And so it is all very interconnected. And I think we need to highlight that and bring the institutions and colleges into that conversation. So I would love to hear the parents and why would they have to say about it, if that's okay. Again, just begging the guess, indulgence here. As I said, just because a counselor sponsors an item like this by itself, in my mind doesn't resolve the question of relevance. I think that there are very good reasons for why we should be weighing in on this. But we will not actually have them articulated here unless we talk about it. And so Shalini has said something that I could include in my report. But I'd like to hear very much from the parents. But what I'm basically asking them is at this point, no longer about the language of this, which is, you know, perfectly beautifully written, we've made a few minor changes, which is the sort of thing we usually do. But I really want to hear from them about my question of why we, the Amherstown Council should be weighing in on this. And I don't know any other place where that can be raised. Shalini is correct, it would not be raised to council unless and maybe what happened. Maybe one of our colleagues would pull this out of the consent agenda. And then during the discussion would raise that question. And that's one way it could be raised. But it does seem to me that, and here there may be just a disagreement amongst members of the committee, that this is a question that GOL should should talk about. The fact that an individual counselor has sponsored something by itself, in my mind, is not sufficient to settle the issue of relevance. So I would like to hear from the parents. I've invited them here. And but I need to hear from my colleagues first. Mandy. Yeah, so in some sense, I agree with everything you're saying, George, but I don't think GOL is the place to have that conversation. I think that's the council or some other committee we've in the past, dealt with resolutions or proclamations that we thought were doing binding decisions that we've potentially recommended that the council send to another committee to deal with the substantive matter of it of whether that is a binding decision the council should be doing. And such such a concern has been noted in a report. Um, so I, I can tell you that I am still unsure whether I'd let this go through on consent. It is something that I might myself pull off of consent because I have concerns. I just, I'm not sure this is the committee to air those concerns because of what our charge is. You don't think that actually ability covers this in the broader sense, as I said, imagine that for whatever reason, a counselor is well, there's nothing in this charge that we can't act on. That's that's the thing. It's it's this is where I'm struggling because I think you could argue it goes to action ability, but I think you could also argue that there's nothing that there's nothing written here that the council can't take a vote on because it would be illegal to take a vote on. And when you look at our guidance on action ability, it's generally does it conflict with some other policy we've enacted or does it conflict with our own laws or does it conflict with the state laws or some federal laws that would create something that we can't actually act on. And I see nothing in this that would do that. It's more of, to me, each individual counselors and the council as a whole as to whether they as a body or an individual believe this is something that council should act on and should is different than can. And it seems that that we're the place where that conversation can start. And in the report from GOL, it gives the council some sense of what we have discussed and may either encourage them to pull it off the consent agenda. Or in this case, I think it would probably convince them that given the discussion and the report, there's no reason to pull it off the consent agenda. I mean, again, give the example of say this were Newton or, you know, where or someplace, you know, it seems a not unreasonable question for this committee to ask, why is this before us? And so I guess I really am struggling here with the idea that somehow we can't even ask that question. I think it actually, well, anyway, that's right. Obviously, we disagree. So, so your hand is up. So many things. But I think we've invited parents of our response and cospons and the resident sponsors here to share their perspective. And I think they deserve that whether you can do anything about it or not is fine. But we have to extend the courtesy of listening to what or do we say no, because it's not related to our charge, we're not going to listen to you. I don't think that makes any sense. I'm sorry, this is happening. So as you all can see, we're still figuring things out over here. And that's fine. And that's the diversity of perspective helps. And you can see everyone does a very thorough job here. It takes a job really good thing. We need to at least hear and you don't do anything about it as just write it down. So we are agendas is so packed in counsel that relying on the possibility that someone will pull it out. And we will have the discussion is doing a disfavor to the people who put this forward and to our goal of letting Mount Holyoke know and build this that conversation have this conversation. So I don't think we should think of it being pulled out and then the parents will speak then. I think we should ask them to speak here and you don't have to do anything. It will be at least documented. And then yeah. And this of course begs the question at a later point, maybe DOL and council need to decide where it should this conversation be happening because clearly this is not clear. It is not clear. Okay. All right. Thank you, Sean. So I'm going to, unless my colleagues object and I may raise their hands and check, I'm going to invite the guests that we have invited to this meeting to speak briefly to this resolution in whatever way they wish. Since almost certainly they will not have the opportunity to do that at council meeting. And so I'm looking for any hands or yeah. So but also first for my colleagues, because I'm basically taking advantage of my authority as the chair to invite our guests to speak. In Korea, hand up. Yes, I see that I'm just making sure that that my colleagues are willing to indulge me, which they don't have to do. All right. Seeing no objections, I've been supported from the beginning of their understanding. Appreciate that. Yeah. Okay. Corey, thank you. Would you please go ahead and speak? Thank you so much. And we understand that the conversation. I appreciate the chance to just speak briefly. I'll just come at that question from kind of the micro and macro perspective. The micro is that my family is directly impacted by this closure. I live at 44 Dennis Drive. I have two children who both attended Gorse. My daughter is three and she's currently attending and my son is at Crocker Farm now in kindergarten. And I grew up here and I'm a graduate of the public schools here. This center has been around for, I believe, like half a century, a very long time and various iterations. And it serves approximately 80 or more families who are currently served. And then there's also I would have mentioned a very extensive wait list. So we know, represented here are four families that currently have kids at the center who live in Amherst. There are also at least four more who are actively involved in this group, who are of parents organizing to save the center, who either work or live in Amherst. And we know there are there are many more. Unfortunately, the the company that runs the center can't provide us with the full list. But there are a number of families impacted directly in Amherst in the surrounding area. And that's for a couple of reasons. When I became pregnant with my first child, I was full working full time as was my partner. And we needed a place where we could get full time year round infant care. And Gors was one of the few options for that, which is why we ended up there. And that's the case for I think a lot of families. You'll see now, you know, so going to the macro, you'll see now, there's a major shortage of childcare across the board in the Valley. On the Amherst parent list serve almost every week, there's someone particularly looking for infant care. And it's really hard to find. Since the pandemic hit, as you know, centers have closed, centers have had to reduce capacity due to the CDC guidelines. And so when when the college announced in February that they were going to be closing the center in June, like many parents, I panicked and went looking for care for my daughter. And I approached all of the childcare centers in Amherst and in the surrounding area. And there were zero spots available for her for that time in June when the center was going to close. So we know that this impacts not just the families that are currently in care, but also the families out there looking for care. And we know that the childcare shortage goes way beyond just this moment in the pandemic, but continues will continue after the pandemic. So also on the macro side, I just wanted to mention, we believe this this issue disproportionately impacts women. We know as as stated in the resolution that more many more women have had to lose their jobs or come out of the workforce during the pandemic. And we know that this center in particular serves a large number of essential workers. Just in our group of parents, we have firefighters, we have EMTs, we have military, we have teachers, we have just a number of folks who had to work through the pandemic and needed this type of full day, full year care. So it's a real issue of equity for both essential workers and women. And as such, the town of Hadley recently approved through their diversity equity and inclusion committee a similar letter which was sent to the college. So we believe it is locally irrelevant. And we just think that this is a really important way that the town can can weigh in on behalf of some of us who are really struggling to find care. Thank you, Corey. Robya. Thank you. Thank you all so much for making time for us today. I know there's a lot happening in Amherst right now. So really appreciate the time to hear from us and giving us a sense. So similar to Corey, I have a very personal story with the center and as well as with sort of the condition of how our child care is right now, we moved to the the the area about five years ago when my daughter was six months old and my husband took a position at Mount Holyoke College. We were able to move here as a family because the Gorse Children's Center had early childhood infant care for my six month old. Otherwise, we were planning to remain in New Jersey and he would commute both ways. But it was very specific to our decision to move here. When we moved here, we knew very early on that if we were to settle in the area, we wanted to settle in Amherst. There's really no other town that we considered because of the high quality child care, sort of educational system in the schools here, as well as the focus on diversity and equity within this town. So Gorse was very central to our decision to move and now stay in the area. My husband, as I mentioned, is a professor at Mount Holyoke College and and because he's a faculty there, the center has relationship with the college in which they offer full full time care for any day that school is in session. It follows the same sort of guidance for any faculty meetings. It'll be open late. It has extended care during spring breaks for school age children. It has care for summer camps for children who need that support. So it really is extremely supportive of the working family. And it is one of the only centers I have found in the area that provides that. And although I work in Amherst and my husband works in Mount Holyoke, we are willing to travel to the center and back to drop off our children because the quality is so so strong. The teachers, the director, the curriculum is is really like unlike any others that that we have found. When the center, when the note was sent out that it was closing in February, when the note was sent out in February that it would close in June, it caused a major panic amongst families. As as Cori mentioned, a lot of working families and working mothers have been disproportionately effective and still are affected by the pandemic with our children just like Cori and our kids just going back to elementary school three weeks ago. And so having the center open gives us a lifeline to continue with our careers, continue to support our families and literally drop drop off our six month olds in a place that is so supportive and welcoming. And we feel very really comfortable doing that. And I think it's relevant for Amherst for mainly because a lot of families live in Amherst and rely on on care there. And I know there are a lot of families who are affiliated with the college there right now that are planning to move to Amherst in the future and will continue to keep young children there because of the quality of care because it's a spot that's available for them when so many centers in the area have closed during the pandemic. So thank you so much for taking time to hear from us and for your time on this topic. Thank you. Any questions from my colleagues about anything that has been said? I was wondering whether Tanya or Katia wanted to say anything. They're certainly welcome to speak if they wish. Just need to raise your hand and unmute, actually. Just unmute. Katia, please go ahead. Thank you for having us. Corey and Rabia said it very well that infant care and the extended hours are really were a lifeline for me when I went back to work. I now live in Amherst and I've actually lived in Amherst the whole time that I've had a child and he's gone to Gorse because of the quality of care and the extended hours. I also want to say that I think Gorse is a very diverse for the area because of its affiliation with the college because the faculty bring diversity to the area. And during COVID we took my son out of Gorse first completely and we're just having him at home because my parents were here and then we put him in a small center very close to our house because I wasn't going to work and because they only had nine kids and two teachers. So I was worried about the virus. So I took him out during that time and a big cost was with the diversity that he would have had. He would have been in classes with families that were from different races, from different cultures and also from different economic areas. So I just wanted to mention that as a real strength and something that we've walked to the center for. Thank you. Thank you Katia. Tonya, please go ahead. Tonya, you need to unmute yourself. Please go ahead. Okay, sorry. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Okay, good. Actually, so I just basically want to add something to the relevance issue. My son was sent to Amherst Montessori School when he was 15 months old. But he stayed there for a year and later we found out that the philosophy and culture there didn't fit him very well. So we started to look for a new daycare center for him. We've lost you. We've lost the audio. Tonya, we can't hear you. Anything of your endothena that you can do here? No, I'm sorry. There's no way for me to look and see what's going on with her computer. Okay. All right. Well, I'm sorry. Again, I appreciate very much the opportunity to hear you, your voices. And I'm prepared to go immediately to a motion to declare the resolution opposing the closure of the Gorse Children Center at Mount Royal College to be clear, consistent and actionable. Is there a second? Second. Seconds. Thank you, Darcy. And I'm going to go immediately to vote. And I'm going to begin with Pat. Yes, but I'd like the opportunity to talk about appropriateness after the guests leave. Okay, we can certainly just discuss that. I think they've probably heard enough about that already. So, Pat, if you were. I said yes. Thank you. Sorry, Mandy. I Darcy. Yes. And the chair is yes. And Sarah, I believe is still absent. So the vote is four zero with one absent. Again, our thanks to our guests for coming. This is took a little longer than it usually does. But it raised a very important question that I think has advocates and both sides. I think it's a strong case for both. So I appreciate your patience. And I very much personally appreciate your testimony. My colleagues and I will talk about that in just a moment. So thank you. This will be acted on at the next council meeting. I believe Shalini will read it. I hope she will. And you're certainly welcome to be in the audience. And this is done early in the meeting. So you have to sit through a few minutes of bureaucratic stuff. But we do do proclamations and such at the top of the meeting. And if you're in the audience, Shalini can certainly acknowledge you. And which is also something we'd like to do. But there's no obligation to attend. But it will be at the. What is the day? Colleagues help me. 17. Thank you. Thank you for 17. This witness will be acted on. All right. Thank you all. To quick question, George. Go ahead. Do you think it's going to be helpful for the parents to speak? Or do they not need to speak at the public comment in the council? I think that's perfectly appropriate. And if it does get pulled off the agenda and become an issue for the council, that would certainly be bad. But so yes, I think it's an excellent suggestion, Shalini. You're certainly free during public comment, which again comes even before proclamations is to just acknowledge that it's on the agenda and state briefly why you think that's an excellent suggestion. That will be an opportunity for you simply to state what you stated very eloquently here. So that's another consideration to come and speak during public comment. Okay. So since the guests have left, should I then write, I'll just write to them and let them know to do that. Okay. All right. Should I leave so you all can discuss but I'm also not clear about this. So do let me know what what you all decided or Shalini, I can just move you to the to the attendees if that's okay. Perfect. Right, Pat, you had raised your hand and you wanted to say something. Yes. Well, first of all, I do owe Darcy an apology for attacking. And I had some difficulty with when I notice what I consider hypocrisy, but I should not have done that publicly. I feel like the speakers showed us why their statements of appropriateness were needed by this group of counselors. And why it was not inappropriate to have them share those things. We are not making a substantive decision. We are looking at time and efficiency. And it is incredibly inefficient to ask sponsors and parents, resident sponsors to attend more than one meeting, unless JOL can't reach some kind of resolution. Yet both Mandy and Darcy were willing to say, Oh, well, we are going to make this motion. We're going to decide this on action, ability, consistency and clarity. But you have to go to another committee. That's a waste of time. It's a waste of energy. Why should a person who is presenting a resolution not be allowed to speak to why they feel like it's appropriate and important? That's what they're there for. That's what we need to hear. We would not have if we sat here and every one of us thought it was inappropriate to bring to the council, but it was actionable. It was consistent and it was clear we would not have stopped it. And I'm very, very frustrated by the way this committee gets attacked. And I'm frustrated by the need to make a simple process more complex than is needed. There is no committee that needed to hear that those stories and facts and information before JOL looked at this. For now, that's what I have to say. So I basically agree with you, Pat, except we've got a charge. This is the struggle I think many of us, especially George, you and I have had for the last three years or two and a half years since this committee was formed. No, I've been in that struggle too. What can we talk about? What can't we? And that's why I say I basically agree with you because I'd love our charge to be able to talk about relevancy. I'd love the charge to be changed. And so I struggle with it because, yes, I want our council meetings to be succinct and efficient, whatever you want to call it. I don't want residents to have to go to multiple committees. I don't think this needed to go to a different committee. But when the council has repeatedly told this committee that we're not supposed to be talking about that, which to me is a very frustrating thing to begin with, then I struggle with should we be talking about it or will we, when this comes to council and George writes his report, will we face more concerns of why were you talking about relevancy because that's not part of your charge? And so maybe the issue is we need to just propose an amendment to our charge. I can agree with amending the charge. However, I can imagine the GOL, which I've been on from the beginning and struggling with this from the beginning, will be criticized for doing something that it's not supposed to do by the very people who I don't know. I'm really kind of sick and tired of the baloney. Well, I think no, Darcy raised and yes, I support changing the charge. We'll see what happens. No, Darcy raised it really before the point. So it's not, it's not easily resolved. Darcy. Yeah, I, I, I was under the impression that we just generally didn't invite the, the, well, invited this, I've seen in the past that we invite sponsors to be able to respond to our questions as we go through looking at consistency, clarity and actionability. But we have specifically said to those sponsors, you're not presenting. This is not a time to present. That'll be for another committee. You know, that'll be when you go to one of this goes to the, to the council. So it'd be good for us to be consistent with what we tell the sponsors of these things because we just spent almost an hour on a resolution where we, I think we, we may have given the sponsors the wrong impression of what our job is. And, and, and Pat, you're apologizing to me and accusing me of a hypocrite in the same sentence does not really fly. So I would appreciate if you really did stop attacking me when I'm just putting forward what the charge of this committee is. That's what the charge is. We don't look at the substance. Well, it's actually not that simple. But for those of us who've been on this committee since the beginning, there have been a number of occasions where that line has been not, is not clear. And we have certainly crossed it. And but you raised a good question. I guess just a question for you Darcy is where do you think this should, should this have gone to TSO? Where should this kind of thing go? Might, you know, we just, we just said that the sponsor, the sponsors are going to come to the town council meeting, they're going to give public comment. They'll be if it, if it gets taken off the consent agenda, they'll be there for questions, if necessary. To me, that's the place. Not in, in GOL, at least not if we don't have an amended charge. If our charge gets amended, then that's a different thing. Yeah, let me ask you one other question. I think you're right. We need to move on. If this had been for some, you know, where, or some place where clearly, arguably, it doesn't really impact the community of Amherst directly, but the council sponsored, the councilor has sponsored it. And it's in front of GOL. What would you suggest? Basically, we just look at it from clear clarity, consistency and so called action, even though any reasonable person other than the council sponsor would think that this is really has nothing to do with Amherst and is not appropriate thing to council to address. I'm sorry, we might be able to say it wasn't actionable then. Well, that's why I raised it here because and I think I knew the answer, but I wanted the answer to be made public and I wanted to give. But anyway, Mandy, I'm sorry, you raise your hand. Yeah, so I would say we would do exactly what we did this time, which is declare clear, consistent and actionable because it is actionable because there's nothing stopping us from weighing in on something in Newton, something, you know, we've we've done resolutions about President Trump, former President Trump, we've we did a Springfield resolution on biomass, we've done stuff way out. And that's my point of it's not our committee's job to make that decision. It's each individual counselors at the time of the vote at the council to decide whether it's relevant enough for that counselor to vote yes, vote no or abstain because they don't want to muck up the process, but them they themselves don't feel that it's relevant for a vote. All right, all right, we'll come back to this, I think that it's going to need further discussion. But I hear both Darcy and Mandy that I've probably had a step over our boundaries today. So those are grounds for removing the chair. And so just put George, but that's not going to happen. Oh, I just a suggestion. Well, I keep I'm keep trying. All right, we just let's move ahead. Appreciate your patience. We have a race amity day proclamation. This has been before us on numerous occasions. This I think we should be able to deal with fairly quickly. But maybe I shouldn't say anything. Let me just get it up on the screen. And I share screen that this ready for if we need track changes, it's ready. So Council sponsor is a counselor, Alyssa Brewer. It's race amity day annual proclamation. Community sponsors as Hartwell, Amherst citizens for racial equity now. Could you make it a little bigger? Sure. I mean, I've read it, but I know absolutely, absolutely. So 150. How's that? You can do 200. Not okay. Whereas the greatest asset of the town of Amherst is its people. And whereas the town of Amherst holds dear the motto of the United States of America, he purged this unum out of many one. Recognizing the principal whoops. Recognizing the principal of the oneness of human of the humankind. I would assume that would be of humankind. Care. Indifferent. And the rich cultural, ethnic and racial diversity of its inhabitants. I would take that out. Any thoughts? Take what out. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Whereas civility, respect, kindness and friendship are commonly shared values of the collective citizenship of the town of Amherst and whereas the town of Amherst invites communities and neighborhoods to join in reflection on the beauty and richness of our diverse cultures and ethnicities while reaching out with the spirit of amity toward one another and whereas chapter 163 of acts of 2015 of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts establishes the second Sunday in June annually as race amity day. And whereas Amherst town meeting voted article 29. Of the May, 2015 session of the end of town meeting to establish the second Sunday of June is race amity day and urge all the people of Amherst to recognize this event and to celebrate its annual observance period. Now therefore the Amherst town council hereby proclaim Sunday June 13 2021 to be raised amity day a celebration and oneness of the human family. Any other concerns with the language of this proclamation seeing none I'm going to move directly to a motion to declare race amity day annual proclamation to be clear, consistent, and actionable as amended. Second. Thank you. Pat has seconded. I've seen no further discussion. I'm going to directly to vote. I'll start with Mandy. Hi. Darcy. Hi. Pat. Hi. Chair is yes and Sarah is absent. So the vote is four zero with one absent. This is so. Move. Right. Just say that. Next item. What what what. We're moving on to another. This is under the 48 hour rule. This was sent to me and asked to be acted on by the council president. Again, I think it should go fairly quickly, but let's see. This is a committee charge part of our. Our charges to review. Council committee charges. So this is on the screen. If I can get it to be a little bit bigger. I check this against our template. And. But we should probably look at the specific language briefly. This is the art request for proposals review committee. That's a mouthful. And that how council committee. It is a point of authority is charter section to review. Five point eight. It will have three town council is chosen by the council and two town staff members is chosen by the town manager. Term of appointment is to July 30. 2021. Mandy of your handrails. Council committees under charter section 2.2 are appointed by the president, not the town council. So this is 2.6. It should be. It should be changed. What is your change here? 2.6 is exercise of powers. Quorum adoption of measures, rules of procedure. And the town council determines its own standing or ad hoc committees. If this is a committee, it's a council committee. And under 2.2. The president. The president shall appoint members of and oversee all committees of the committee. So 2.6 is how we create the committee. But 2.2. B says the council president is the one who appoints all members of committees of all committees of the town council, whether standing or ad hoc. But this has them chosen by the council. Right. Which I believe is in violation of the charter. The president shall appoint members of and oversee all committees of the town council, whether standing or ad hoc. But 2.6 is in violation of the charter. So what it should read is three town councils as chosen by the council president. Well, I think it should just read three town councilors and three town staff members. And they're all appointed by the council president. Two staff members. The number of voting members would be five. Actually, number of voting members should be just say five because composition down below says how you compose it. I think it should say five. The suggestion is to delete this. Excuse me. Where did the charge come from? It came from the council president and also from, I believe Andy had a hand in it. And just track changes on. Yeah, normally we would just put five there. Right. So bear with me. That should say five. The appointing authority is the town council president. The one above. Technically. And so. The references are correct. Yes. The appointing authority should be town council president. And then if you want to reference charter section 2.2 B. So 2.6 E. 2.2. B. B. 5.8. Thank you. There are no non voting members. There are no liaisons. The term of appointment is July 30 or until evaluation of applications and report to the town manager is complete. Staff support town manager designee and clerk of the town council. Composition three members of the town council to town staff members. And it is. Our rules of procedure, Mandy, or the charter that dictates. So the charter is what dictates the appointing authority, which is the town council president because it's an ad hoc council committee. Right. So that we don't need to get into that. That's already been taken care of. And it's not stated here. Charter section five purpose. The town council shall adopt procedures for a selection of such. Accountant or front. The purpose is really to. To select. Or to recommend a. Accounting for. Accountant or audit audit firm. Right. As really the purpose is to recommend to the town council and audit firm. Not your best work. Mandy. It wasn't me. No, no, no, this many had nothing to do. I had nothing to do with this one. That's why it comes to us. It's me. I'm sorry, folks. It's just from the memo. I'm just. But I'm, I'm sorry to interrupt. I think it's to recommend to the town manager. Because the town manager is the only one who can, who can sign the contract. Okay. So please continue Mandy to recommend to the town manager. An accountant for or firm. Or firm audit firm. Or I think I can just say firm. I just took it from the charter section below. And so that is just, which word do you want? You want firm or audit firm. Just do firm. Thank you. Or firm and. For the purposes of audit. Annual audit or something. Strike this. You couldn't leave it in. Just period. Yeah. Okay. All right. Charge the audit or P review committee shall receive applications and qualified auditing firms, evaluate applications, utilize the criteria in the RFP document. And deliver evaluations to the chief procurement officer. Manager. We'll consider the qualitative rankings of each firm along with their price proposals. Report due to, sorry, report due to chief procurement officer by July 30, 2021. Given those references should the, what we just added in purpose, say chief procurement officer parentheses, town manager. Just. And see, yeah. Chief. There's a phrase I don't use too often. Chief procurement officer. Okay. Changes, observations, comments. So we have added a legal reference. We have. Got the correct appointing authority. We have the five. Sorting members. And we haven't made a slight change of the purpose. I think since you tracked everything just. So that when things are accepted, you should actually highlight. Okay. Everything after five, the stuff that you wind through and actually just hit delete. So I'm going to delete. That's it. That's the only thing that's been deleted. Yep. Okay. All right. I'm going to. I'm prepared to entertain a motion to declare the audit request to be clear, consistent and actionable. Second. I'm going to move directly to vote this time. I'm going to start with Mandy. Hi. Darcy. Yeah. Hi. Chair is a yes. So it's four again, four zero with one absent. Thank you very much. We do a time check George. It is 1143 and we still have the DAB. To do, which is extremely pressing. So I'm sorry, but. Things went off the rails in that first. Review. I apologize. My fault. But. I think we did still accomplish something important in that rather lengthy discussion, but it has taken us. Much longer than I hoped. We had, we had had an objective of trying to get through the appointment process in two meetings. That's not going to, I don't think that's going to happen. I understand that, but we also have to deal with the business that we have. And right now we have. We get up on the screen. We have DAB to deal with. We have a timeline we need to resolve. We have some questions about the process and timeline. The. Charge has gone up. The official vacancy notice has gone up. The town council CAF form has been amended. So now anyone who is interested can. Submit a CAF. And they can also, and they're directed to. They can find the charge. And. We now need to establish a timeline and we need to. Make some decisions about the process. Made a Joe had provided some. Thoughts which were in the packet. I then took the process for GOL that's used for finance. And made some changes to it. So we're going to go through the process. We're going to go through the process in theory as we go through it. In the next half hour or so. Any changes we come to agree on. Could be entered directly into that document. And then we would have. An actual public document. We could share both obviously with the council, but also with the public as to what the process is going to be. But we're going to need to. Decide on a process. We're also going to need. To decide on, or at least review the timeline. And then we're going to go through the process. So what I'm going to suggest. And, but I'm open to your thoughts. Is to put. The document. That will be hopefully the final process document up on the screen for me to amend as we go through it. And hope that you all can access. Mandy's. Document. As we go. Her comments and suggestions. The other option is to put hers up on the screen. And then we'll go back and forth constantly to the master document. So let me just put that up for a moment. And share the screen with you. And if necessary, I'll take it down and we will. We'll do it differently. Hang on for a second. Got. Tied. Your screen. What I've done is prepare what could potentially become the process document and could guide our discussion. So the town council committee on government services legislation process to recommend appointments of voting members. To the district thing advisory board. And based on charter section 7.4. And I just put the date here. We'll see if that actually happens. And then. I'm using my, my head. I have a mouse issue. Again, could you enlarge George? If possible. Thank you. Much better. Thank you. So now I'm hoping you have access to Mandy's document. If not, I might be able to put both documents up on the screen and we can go back and forth. Okay. I can just read through mine as we hit each section. Some of which are irrelevant right now. I understand. And so I'd like to use this as the. And just go through it step by step. And see where there are concerns or problems and see if we can resolve them. As I've said, the sort of preliminaries have been taken care of. So everyone's clear on that. So the, the charges up. The links are available through the charge. And we've actually had one submission already. And every CAF will go directly to all counselors. So you all should have received that. I think it's the only one we've gotten so far. And also the, the news and announcements. We'll have an entry and also the bullets put on the bulletin board. So we've begun the clock. So in theory, within two weeks after two weeks are up. We could then go to sufficiency of the pool. So that clock has started. This is pretty much boilerplate. The chair of GOL show right and submit to the town clerk for publication on the town bulletin board of vacancy notice done. In accordance with charters section 9.12 E. The church will also notify the board of registrars in the IT department that they need to recommend an appointment. I've actually reached out to the town manager. He is a recall at the meeting at the council meeting said he would take care of it. I'm not sure if he would take care of it. I'm not sure if he would take care of it. I'm not sure if he would send him an email. He's not responding to that particular one yet. But reminding him that he is, has agreed to do this. And I also offered to do it myself. And so far I haven't heard anything back, but I'm sure it will take care. But I will keep up on this. Well, when you say that they need to recommend an appointment. Do you mean like that they need to. Advertise it. No, this is a member that there are. Members of the board of registrars, which is what we're focused on, but three non voting members. We will recommend them to the council, but the, they will be. The names will be given to us. By, well, Sue, our dad's name is. She's the time she is the clerk. So her name is given. She will, I assume. Reach out to the board of registrars. And one of them will step forward, hopefully. And then the IT person will be chosen by. The board of registrars. They will send in or whoever. So they will send us the three names and we will add them to our recommendation, but we'll have nothing to do with choosing those names. Yeah, maybe I should say. Recommend an appointment of a non voting. Member. Sure. So let's notify the board of registrars and the department. Do they need to recommend an appointment. Of the relevant on voting member. Right. How's that? Oh, I do this all the time. We totally need track changes here. Okay. All right. We put them in here anyway, just for the sake of. I'm so unused to doing this. It's good though. It's kind of like, you know, being chair of a committee is like life. When you finally figure out how to do it, right. It's over. It's my word for wisdom for today. Community action to deform CAF. It is interested in serving as voting members of the district rising board shall fill out CF to express their interest in service. The CF for this body is separate from the CS for town manager appointed multiple member bodies is automatically distributed to all counselors. GOL chair shall reach out to all applicants to confirm receipt of their CAO. Do you want to say GOL chair or does it mean. I think that's a very good idea. That's another word I don't use too often. Designee or designee. Thank you. And I appreciate that Darcy because there may very well be a large number. And I would be a help to the chair if necessary. Okay. So that's item two. I am three specific to see the pool. According to the searcher section 912 E the vacancy notice must be published on the town bulletin board for a period not less than 14 days. Any time after which GOL may assess the efficiency of the applicant pool and making a determination regardless of the efficiency of the applicant pool. GOL should consider the following factors. The number of applicants relative to the number of vacancies or impending vacancies. GOL strives for more applicants than vacancies. The demographic diversity of the applicant pool. GOL strives for diverse applicant pool, including racial economic gender and generational diversity. So I would add. A bullet point about. So what I had recommended is determined by district and can be done and voted at different times because we have to have. At least one and not more than two from any district. And so you can imagine we might get 20 applications. CAFs, for example, and none are from say district five. I'll just, you know, to pick something. And so we could move forward with all the other districts. While still dealing with district five issues, say. So I think we need to evaluate it with respect to residential diversity separately. So how again, I know you put this in your document. I didn't actually write language for it. All right. So we need to. You could just say the demographic diversity of the applicant pool comma, including residential diversity due to. The charge requirements or something like that. Or at a separate bullet point that says the residential diversity of the applicant pool. Or the locational diversity. District diversity. I don't know why that's not, that should do both points. That's not. Just start typing. So again, give me some wording. The location of the diversity of the location of residents. Of the applicant pool. Okay. And down in the next paragraph where it says declare the applicable sufficient, I would just add a sentence that says. Applicant. This declaration may be made on a district by district basis. I'm not there. The end of the next paragraph. I'll have to go play with this. I'm sorry. End of this paragraph. I'm sorry. This declaration may be made on a district by district basis. We're made on a district basis. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll just get rid of this. Especially since I can't seem to get the full points to work. Okay. People okay with this? Again, we're going to do this. We're trying to move through it quickly, but we need to be in agreement because if we can, then we do have this and we can. Move ahead. Is there a deadline? How does the. How does the declaration. Relate to. The deadline. So the deadline is what the submission of statement of interests. Typically. And so the declaration says we are moving forward. And so now there will be a hard deadline. Coming up. So it comes after the. Yes. The declaration of sufficiency of the pool. And then we still say. You still have this much time left. Okay. Okay. Selection guidance. Selection voting members shall be based on the following. Diversity of residency. That's. Experience on past redistricting committees. Now I took out the oars here. So I don't know if that bothers anybody. I don't know if that bothers anybody. I consider these not, you know, These are, these are, you know, things we consider, but they're not. You don't get rejected because you're not experienced on a past redistricting committee. I entered consistent availability for meetings, particularly in light of tight timeline and summer vacations. I think that's going to be crucial. Because of the amount of time commitment and that it's immediate. And it's focused. And so somebody might very much want to be on this and we might very much like them to be on it. But they're going to be away for three weeks in the middle of the summer. So that would be a serious problem. I don't think we want nine people in which every so often two or three of them just disappear to go to the beach for a couple of weeks. So that's just, so I thought it would include. Availability. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Darcy. Some reason why we wouldn't have the same. Diversity criteria for selection guidance that we have. For the sufficiency of the pool. Yeah. Why are we looking for diversity and, and all those categories that are in sufficiency of the pool. Why aren't we. I mean, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. But what are, isn't that something that we would at least look for. In our selection guidance. I'd be fine with pulling it down from the. Pool, the demographic diversity. Yeah. I thought if you try, we try to get a pool that's diverse. But in the actual selection. I know really that Darcy raises a good point in the actual selection. This is a factor that we consider. So it's more than just the pool. It's something that we would, you know, it's a consideration. So not mentioning it. Seems not. It seems it should be mentioned. Again, even though it's up above. It should be mentioned under selection criteria. Do you want to just cut and just copy this. I think it's copy, paste, and then delete some stuff. Okay. I don't want to simplify it to read it properly. And we'll add it at the end here. Sure. Okay. Now it works. The demographic diversity of the applicant pool. I think it's just demographic diversity. And then move all the way to including. Right. Exactly. Including racial economic gender and generation. Good. I think that makes good sense. Okay. Okay. We're seeing. You're going for consistency in the third bullet point. Get rid of the end and then the fourth one out of semi colon. At the end. In addition to church UL or designee shall solicit from the town clerk input as to whether there is any preferred knowledge expertise perspectives or qualifications that the board might require to better assist it in its work. All right. Now things are going to get a little bit more interesting. Statement of interest. You heard me at the council meeting. I think I've been persuaded that. The state of interest is not an unreasonable thing to request. So it sounds like there's a general sense from the council. They would like something like an SOI at least. Not the CFs by themselves are not adequate. So after geo declares the pool sufficient and adopts selection guidance. The geo chair or designee shall contact each individual in the committee. The committee will then be able to access the applicant pool. To solicit a statement of interest. The geo chair design shall include in their solicitation. A copy of the committee charge. A link to the relevant MGL section. So some of this is taken from Mandy's language as you, as you will see. Because I would never would have thought of that. And we're going to ask about that, but I'll link to the relevant MGL section. The charter reference. I think the rest of this is boilerplate from. Our usual process. Maybe 700 word seems too long. But. So I shall describe why the applicant is interested in serving on the body and the relevant skills and experiences they will bring to the body that align with the adopted selection guidance. It shall include an explicit. This is my decision. It shall include an explicit acknowledgement of the timeline. And their availability. Where is that? Yeah, that's, that's me and I'm asking myself what, what I wanted to try to. To. Request in the SOI. Is that the individual actually acknowledge. In their SOI. That they understand the timeframe. And that they are available during that timeframe. And maybe that's too much. Maybe that's something we can do. In another way. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. I liked it, but I think we should. In, you know, the committee charge and all, when we're sending stuff to them. Add the timeline then. So we would send them. So including a test. I just said up here. Here, just add timeline of work or something. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just pick a. I don't want to call it committee timeline or. Or, or, or. Yeah. Timeline of committee work or something. No, I can more Smith it, but really it's. Okay. Okay. Okay. So let me see if that wording is so. Okay. Shall include. What's the it here? I guess is my question for myself. It shall include. The statement of interest shall include. Yeah. And that that's really going to be hard to enforce. I mean, you know, we get an SOI from somebody and it's fine, but nowhere in the SOI do they actually say. That they are available for that timeframe. Are we going to throw it out? Probably not. So. You could write applicants. Shall include. Yeah. What's the it here? I guess is my question for myself. It shall include the statement of interest shall include. Yeah. And then you could write applicants shall explicitly acknowledge. The time committee timeline and their availability. And that would allow you if it does, if it's not included in the SOI to go back and ask them to. Do so. Well, maybe then that sentence doesn't really it shall include an explicit acknowledgement of the timeline and their availability. And your point is that if we don't find it in the document, that's an opportunity for us to reach out to them and just confirm. That's an opportunity for us to reach out to them. Yeah. Resumes and attachments will not be accepted. We do not take resumes. We don't take attachments. It's just the SOI. Joe chair doesn't need to establish a deadline for submission. Any applicant who does not submit their SOI by the established deadline. Shall be considered withdrawn from the applicant pool. So we are considering the SOI. A requirement. Along with the CAF. Okay. I think that raises the question of interviews and whether we're going to do formal interviews. And that's a question that I think there's a lot of, there's disagreement about. At the moment it says all applicants. Shall be posted. To the meeting packet on the time website. At the same time. At least one week in advance of the date for interviews. We are, I don't think. Maybe wrong on this, but I don't think we're going to be interviewing all these folks. So I think that's a good question. Thank you. You know, I, I, I, I feel swoop. One thought was that given the rest of eyes. We could give ourselves the flexibility. To reach out to people individually. To follow up if we thought it was necessary. Or do you as a committee. Want to interview. In some fashion. Every single applicant. Do you want to reach out to them. group meeting or a committee meeting and interview every single one of them. Or do you want to have a situation where, if we feel it's needed, we can reach out to an individual as a follow-up to an SOI if we had a question. Now that creates an uneven playing field. That's a concern. On the other hand, well, so that's the issue. I've already spoken, I think, in public to my reluctance to say the least, that we formally interview everyone. But I need to hear your thoughts. Nandi. Commentary. I don't know what that was, is that? You're crickets. You're hearing crickets. So I heard fairly clearly, at least I think, I interpreted what I heard on Monday night that interviews were not necessary. So I think, I would move to deleting the interview section completely and having the statements of interest posted five days or pick a time period before the meeting GOL will discuss recommendations at. Okay, I mean, I would be personally sympathetic to that, but I am concerned about the question of, since it applies to everybody, in that sense, it's everyone's on the same level playing field. It's strictly the SOIs. But what if a question arises? I guess we just, the SOIs, the SOI, we just deal with it. We just do our best to interpret it. We do have the authority, at least it sounds like you're giving me or my doesn't need the authority to reach out to someone who doesn't acknowledge the time law to simply reach out to them and say, we just want to confirm that you understand, because you didn't say in your SOI, that you understand that this is X month, X month, and that you will be available. And the person will say either, oh my God, I didn't realize that or they'll say, absolutely, yes. And then that's the end of the discussion. Right. So I'm understanding you to say that's permissible, but me calling up somebody and just saying, and I saw you submitted an SOI, tell me more about yourself and da, da, da, da. That is not permissible. We're not going to be doing selective follow-up interviews of individuals for whatever reason, we're simply going to rely on the SOIs. And if necessary, for the sake of the timeline alone, we would reach out to them. Darcy. Yeah, I expressed this at the town council meeting, but I guess I feel like if someone applies and nobody, none of us have ever heard of the person and they look reasonably good on paper, but we don't know anything about them. And it seems to me that it makes sense. This is why I prefer having telephone interviews than just like assigning each one of us to call 10 people and ask them exactly the same questions and then report back to all of us what they all said and what our impression was, because there's some things that you can pick up in a phone call that you definitely can't pick up from a paper application that are either great or they're like a red flag. So I guess I feel like it's, I don't want it to be that, these are all people that we all know. I'm assuming there'll be a bunch of people that we don't know that are applying. So what do we do with them? I think one concern I have Darcy is that obviously a phone call, say I call someone and have a conversation. And then I report back to you what I heard. That's no longer in the public domain. The SOIs in the public domain, our conversations about the SOIs in the public domain, it's something anyone can access. They can see the video, they could read the SOI. But my conversation with X, Y or Z, getting to quote unquote know them better is ultimately my conversation. It's not recorded and you're just gonna get my version of it. So I think that the fact that maybe somebody we don't know could be maybe even a plus in their favor, especially if the SOI is strong. I think also, if I may say this, we all have context in the community. And there's nothing that prevents an individual council or a member of this committee from talking to their friends and associates and say, do you know X? And they say, yeah. And they say, well, what do you know about them? And they say, you know, they're great or whatever. So I don't think there's anything that prohibits or should prohibit you from using your own personal network to learn about someone. But when we're doing interviews, the field now gets uneven. So Smith and Jones and Riley got personal phone calls from members of the committee, but a whole bunch of other people didn't. So I hear you, what you're saying is then we need to do everybody. And that means that all those conversations then need to be reported to the committee at a committee meeting and pretty soon we are just up. We're just buried. And in the end, the conversations are only what I tell you. Now, maybe we spend most of the time talking about the Red Sox, but at the end we talked about, so I'm worried about the load on the committee. I'm worried about the even playing field. I hear that you're saying, none of us have heard of X before, but we have the SOI and we have our own ability to reach out into community through our friends and neighbors. I think that's sufficient. Yeah, I guess I'm just saying that the person who none of us know, and we may not even know people who know that person, does that person have a chance of ever getting appointed if nobody knows them and we only see what they have on paper? I don't know. I think that's always a challenge. And that's why interviews matter. And I think normally if this were a normal situation, where we're not under a time constraint, but here we have some, and we're also under geographical constraints here. There might have 30 excellent candidates from district three and we only get to pick two. And we may have no or very few candidates from district say, I don't know, one, but we still have to find two, at least one. So we may be forced to make some decisions that in the best of all possible worlds, we'd prefer not to, but so the constraints here, the time constraints, the geographical constraints, the most important is not to over formalize this. As I said, Tasinari, when she saw what we had, she was just blown away, not in necessarily good sense, but just like I've never seen anything so formal in 30 years in the secretary of state's office for this kind of thing. She's been through three senses. I like Mandy's idea of no interviews with the exception of if we have an SOI where it's not clear the person understands the time commitment that we would then authorize the chair and probably should just be the chair to reach out to them and just confirm, perhaps by email would be the best way to do it, to reach out and just confirm that they understand the time commitment. And if we don't get that confirmation back, that would be an important consideration in choosing them. Namely would be a very negative one. But other than that, I think it would be unwise, person speaking for us to engage in one-on-one interviews and then reporting that back to the committee. And also we have to come up with a set of questions. So we have to come up with four or five questions. And really the only question, well, I mean, the question you asked them is tell me about yourself. You know, who are you? What do you, you know, and that's what the SOI is for. The SOI says, you know, and I'll try, we'll try to make it clear when we reach out to everybody. It basically, where does it say describe why you're interested and what skills or experiences you bring to the body that align with what this body is doing. So that's ample opportunity for them to articulate where they are, from our particular perspective. So I think we've covered here. What about the rest of you? Interviews or no, we're facing these paths. Any thoughts on that at all? Do you wanna have interviews? I don't wanna do interviews in this. I think that we can learn a lot from the SOIs. I think it's gonna be, this is not, yeah, that's enough. I don't think we need direct interviews. So that means if we go this route, and I'm saying we haven't decided yet, if we go this route, then once we have the SOIs and we've declared a particular, maybe we'll do all of them at once, but let's say we've got three districts where we can go ahead as a committee and review the SOIs and choose people, make recommendations for those districts while we continue to work on other districts and hopefully meet the deadline of June 21. And so I'm going to, for the moment, just put a strike through here. I'm not going to delete it yet, but we're suggesting that interviews. Okay. You have to look above and says, because at least one week in advance of the date or interview. So we have to clarify that if we're not having interviews. Yeah, it should be one week in advance of the meeting. GOL will consider recommendations at. And where is that guys? I'm sorry, I can't. In your yellow highlight under state of interest. Yeah, just above. Any applicants that submit their SOIs by the established deadline? Well, that deadline is just. It's not down low or is it yellow? Yellow. I was going to take out all, yeah, I was going to say that whole yellow goes out. No. No. It's about poking in on the website. Okay. So it just needs modified. Okay. So maybe that's all applicants. Okay, let's do it. All applicants, SOIs shall be posted to the meeting packet on the town website at the same time. Period. That's what I would suggest. You don't want to establish a deadline. I think we need a deadline. Okay. I'll be posted at the same time by the deadline as established by the GOL chair. So if you didn't delete, if you undelete what you just deleted. Okay. Thank you. At least one week in advance of the date for the meeting they are to be considered at. So all of these SOIs shall be posted to the meeting packet on the town website at the same time, at least one week in advance of the date for the meeting they are to be considered at. Let's think about that quickly. What I'm concerned is that SOIs be publicly available and people can read them. And obviously, you know, and one week perhaps is not a reasonable period of time, but let's say somebody's just late on that. Is that again, basically means they're out of the running? Yeah. You sent the deadline for two days or a day before when they have to be posted and if they're not, they don't make it, they're out. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. That's why I shall be attached to the meeting posting provided additional access by the public. I assume that's still applicable. GOL chair or designation of the town council of SOIs have been posted. Now this will be done. It sounds like in state, it may be done in stages. So yeah. So we might want to modify that at the same time to purge or all something about districts or something. Yeah. We posted all applicants SOIs shall be posted in packet. Okay. With SOIs. Or the meeting where district. Where their district will be considered or from their district will be considered. Yeah. The route of the app. Yeah. The eighth grade English teacher, we just, she's so unhappy. Did you thrilled that you got rid of the hanging? So I should finally, finally Ryan learned something in this class. Really, I didn't like that one either. All right. So that is statement of interest. We are going to eliminate interviews is what we're suggesting. We'll still come back to that. Recommendation at the meeting or the next regular special GOL meeting. Okay. Let's see at that meeting. Okay. This is, this is confusing. Oh, so just at the meet. So there's no interviews. So I think you can get rid of the whole first sentence. Yeah. Joe, I shall seek to minimize the time between interviews and the town council vote. Joe may choose not to. No, that's not going to happen. So it's between statement of interest publication. This GOL shall seek to minimize the time between, sorry, between recommendation and expected town council vote. No, I think delete the first sentence. Right. And in the second sentence, change interviews to recommendation. Between. Recommendations and expected town vote. Joe may choose not to make, no, that's going to come out. Well, if we don't have a, but we have to get nine people on that body. No, but it's say we don't have a applicant pool. For district two, I'm going to pick on two this time. We might be making recommendations for eight of nine. Right. All right. Because we need at least one person from every district. I think we're going to have that in spades, but. That's my guess, but. So maybe it just dragged us down. GOL may recommend fewer appointments than vacancies are impending. Well, this again is, is we're trying to fit this to another. Maybe we can strike the fewer appointments or maybe. Yeah. I would just leave it. I mean, you know. Yeah, we can't really recommend fewer appointments. We have to have one. We have to write. Yeah. I think it's just what do we, what shall we, let's just name the applicant. Dates of appointment. I think we should put district. District. Residents of district or district residing in or something. Since that's a requirement. So why this is not automatically doing a. When you want demographic. Okay. I have to fix this later. Okay. Sorry. And then demographic information on the overall applicant pool. And. And I had one other thing to add and I'm not sure how we would add it. We should somehow add. To the GOL will essentially pass through the recommended appointments from the board and the IT department. I don't know how to put that in there. Do we need to. Do we need to as the question. I'm not sure. I mean, essentially when we submit our recommendations, we'll also include the name of sewer debt. The name of somebody from it. And one of the three, hopefully, I mean, it's possible that all three members of the board registrar, I'm just not here. I'm just not available. And so at that point, we won't be recommending any one of them. We don't know that, that any one of them is available. We assume obviously the town clerk will be available. We assume that the IT person will show up because they, they're an employee of the town. But the board of registrars, it could be that the three, all three of them are saying, look, I'm going to be away during that period. Or I just don't want to do it. So. I don't know. I think we're just going to, we'll give them what we've got. I don't think we need to have that in here. This document is really concerned about the appointment of voting members. And I'm not. And the process for selecting those voting members. And what you're saying here is that. I think the first sentence is not really needed, but it's, you know, okay, we're going to try to minimize time. We may choose not to make a recommendation. We may choose not to. We may choose not to make a recommendation. That means something like, you know, at a particular moment, we may still have a district. We haven't been able to get enough volunteers for it. I guess. I also recommend fewer appointments than vacancies or pending vacancies. Again, I'm not sure where the point of any of this languages. But what is important is that you will include. The name of the applicant. Dates of appointment. I assume that a sentence or two, right? Just like we expect from Paul, some kind of, you know, justification. Okay. And then demographic information on the overall applicant pool. So. Okay, so the report would also say there were 30 applicants. And in the broad terms that we use, you know, they fell into these age categories. They self identified in these racial categories. That kind of thing. George, a very minor thing. I think. The district that the applicant is from. Should be go up with name dates, not be between reasons for the recommendation and then. Demographic information. I think it should be name of applicant. And name and district of the applicant. Name and district of applicant recommended. That solves my problem with this as well. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Okay. So what we have. Is I still think this is overkill, but I think it's not worth arguing about. The main point is this. I think really, I think that's all that needs to be here, but I'm going to leave it. That's okay. We are suggesting to do away with interviews. I will get rid of the yellow because that's no longer needed. Okay. Okay. All right. Can I make a motion? I'm willing to entertain a motion. Yes. I move to adopt the town council committee on governance, organization, legislation, process to recommend appointments of voting members. To the district, the district and advisory board as amended on May 5th, 2021. Second. There's a motion made and seconded. Any further discussion, questions, comments. Yeah, I just have a question for the group. And that is. We as a group open to appointing someone. Who no one knows. Of course. Yes. Based on the SOI. Absolutely. I mean, I do it all the time. Yeah, right. So sight unseen, we have never spoken to the person known. Don't know them otherwise, but we're open to appointing them based on their SOI. Yeah. I hear you Darcy, but I think the answer is yes. Okay. Just wanted to check. No, I know. I know it's, it's not ideal. I agree with you. So part of the reason for doing this is simply because of the time pressures. And maybe that's not a very, I think it's a good reason, but. So yes. All right. I'm going to give him at the chair this time, the chair votes. Yes. Mandy. Yes. Okay. So again, the vote is four zero with one absent to. So I'm going to stop this. All right. We need to do a time check. It is 1230. I do want to look at the timeline with you. I really, but I understand that you have other commitments. And as far as the minutes, we don't have to worry about that. We. I've gotten to something very important and I apologize, but I don't, and certainly we'll be leading the list again in two weeks time. But you see what happens. We get, you know, a charge that suddenly has to be dealt with right away. And of course we sell what happened with the first item, but I will do everything in my power to get that addressed at the next meeting. But I don't think we have time to deal with it today, but I'm, if people want to stay longer. I don't think we have the time. It's going to take a good hour to work through that document. We do need to look at the timeline just briefly. And because I would like to get that out. Mandy. Oh, I just wanted to, to comment as chair of CRC that draft selection guidance, including input from. The chairs will be posted later this week for CRC to be considering. And it might. You know, I would encourage people to look at that draft when the, when the. Posting the packet goes up later this week for CRC's meeting next week. So maybe that could be included in the. GOL packet for. It's a draft, you know, we'll, we're going to be adopting it next week, but it will be a public document as of when the packet goes up and that may ease some concerns. But it could send us when it goes up, Mandy. Yeah. All right. So if you will bear with me, and again, I understand that people have to go, but this should take about 10 minutes at the most. And then I'm going to pretty much adjourn us. But. Stop at 1245. Okay. All right. So really do. So let me just get the open here quickly. I'm sorry. Wrong file. Right file. Okay. I'm sorry. We've had a four, four DAB applications this morning. Good. Now I think that this is encouraging. I mean, the fear is of course less. The chair will be done in, but. All right. Now I can't find it. That's really bad. I take it back. It is here. Okay. Let me just open this. Share screen. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't see that visible. All right. So. At the most 10 minutes and I just need your thoughts and suggestions. I'd like to start sharing this with people, but finalized process timeline for recruiting, interviewing, recommending appointees. We have, I think done that. We have now process. The timeline actually I feel going to do. We have a process. The vacancy notice has been posted at the council meeting and all of you obviously been doing this urging people to reach out to cancel their district and encourage them to apply. I'm suggesting may 19th. As so that is literally two weeks from today, the next meeting. That we could begin to declare specific pools sufficient. So, let's say three of the five districts. Have enough applicants, we could declare those three sufficient, and we could proceed to beginning to review the. Actually, let's think for a second. We have to set. I'm sorry, I'm thinking out loud and apologize. We have to give people time. We have to notify people that they need to submit an SOI, because now we've agreed they need to submit an SLI. Do you want me to do that. When I reach out to them to say we've gotten their CAFs. I would, in other words, give them all the information that you've asked me to give them at that point, because that would get the process started, Mandy. I think we work back from make recommendation to the council on June 16th, given what we just adopted the SOIs need posted on June 9th. On the meeting packet, which means they should probably be due June 7th. Yeah, time to collect them and, and give Athena time to get them posted assuming there's a lot so post SOIs on June 9th. The deadline would be June 7th. And sorry, I had to do this for two different appointments. So it's just like all in my head about how to figure this out. No, this is not. I apologize. This is great. June 7th or so then. We have to watch our committee. I'm sorry. Somebody needs to watch our committee dates. I've got them here somewhere. So we have May 19th, June 2nd. June 2nd, the other meeting. So as SOIs due to the chair, June 7th. SOIs do the chair. So this is submission deadline for SOIs. That's the submission deadline, June 7th. And you can pick a time on June 7. So you can start declaring the pool sufficient on May 19th. The last date to declare the pool sufficient would be June 2nd. And both of those days, depending on how we've declared the pool should be adoption of selection guidance. The selection guidance needs sent to the candidates when soliciting the SOIs. Yeah. So the same day we declare pool sufficient, we should, we should just adopt the selection guidance on May 19th, whether or not we've declared the pool sufficient. Okay, let's do it this way. Good job, George. It's working with this one. Which means today or something you should give. Sue asks Sue to provide some input. For the selection guidance. Because we'll need her input in order to adopt the selection guidance. So that's today. And then you can always add in all the other stuff once the pools declared sufficient is when you send everything out but that's just your sort of stuff. Right. We don't need to get into that. This is just helpful reminder for me that's not really necessary either but it's just there because I need a reminder of the rest of that I can weigh so let's look at this just briefly. So, because our goal eventually June 21 is when the council appoints. So our meeting is June 16. And at that meeting, we may have already made some preliminary recommendations but or maybe we'll do them all at once. But the thought is we would prepare. And then I would have a few days to prepare a memo or report that we have all these names in it and all the stuff that you've asked me to do. And that goes to the council on the 21st and hopefully they say. Yes, they approve it. Now the rest of this is pure speculation. And we don't we're not going to decide here but the thinking is, within a week or two weeks the AB could begin meeting. They, according to Sue I did there was some training that I think they do undergo. And that could take place in the month of July. Maybe it's only one meeting I don't know. The legacy files become available on August 15 census numbers are available so they can start doing actual work as with real numbers or numbers at least by August 15. Then they do tweaking once they get the official numbers on the 30th. They have to have basically their report, I guess, right so their report to the town council. Is that what we're at what are we asking them to do. They do this redistricting for all the districts and we have to adopt them. But they submit something to us that submit their, their report a map. So, So, and that would also come to us. All right. So our voters on the 18th. They have to be there has to report has to be completed. Completed by when certainly not October 18. But it has to be completed in time to be submitted to the council for the council to read and ponder. And for people to see it too because if we're only getting one shot at a vote. Yes, that's a concern. I don't know how I mean, my hope is this won't be there. I mean, terribly complicated, but you know who knows if people are unhappy about it if there's need for a further meeting. We don't have one. But our meeting is, what is it the fourth of October. We have one on the fourth and one on the 18th, the 11th is indigenous people's day. Right. So, in theory, by the eighth, potentially. But that would not allow us to look at it on the still only have one meeting we could be, but it would allow the public a week. Let's just put it in here for the sake of argument for the moment. I mean, again, look, look how little time that gives them. You know, September 30th to October 4th. I don't see how they could possibly, I mean, we're going to be having another council meeting in October. Okay. All right, so I'm not going to put that date that dates unrealistic. I think I'm just going to leave it blank. The only fixed deadline that I understand is the 30th. Right. And this just again just the final note. This is from Sue a debt. This is her mail basically just copy for you to see. These are her words. All right. I appreciate any other thoughts on the timeline. So I'm going to be using this for the moment in communication with Sue. In communication with Paul and with the public, at least with the parts that relate to the applications. So it might be, and this is slightly unrelated, but it probably would be helpful to the chair and others. If the CAF were modified so that you're asking the question, what district so that you don't have to look up everybody's address. Yeah, that's true to you, but that, you know, you're going to have to look up all the addresses to see what district they're in. Yeah, if you don't already know. If I can interject, there's not an easy way of doing that in our system in our website. There's, there's not an easy way of inserting a field that allows somebody to look up their district and then insert it into that form field. You know, or else go to a different page to look it up and then insert it. So it's, it would be a multi step kind of thing. And the CFs, as you mentioned are already coming in. That's true. Again, the chair can handle it. I mean one option. I mean, I have to reach out to everybody anyway and say thank you got your CAF. Stay tuned. I could ask them to just, could you please send back an email, just tell me what district you're in. And if they don't then I'll look it up but I could do that. Let me just take one last. Okay, just on this document when am I sending out on May 19 is when I would be sending out. No, between second. Once the pool is declared sufficient and you have selection guidance you, you send the solicitation for statement of interests to the applicants. So it would be May 19 after the meeting it could be it could end up being June 2nd after the meeting it might be different times depending on different districts. Okay, so what I want to do and this is for me and I apologize but just for my sake for my sanity. We call this what just elicit SLIs solicit. And I apologize I need to leave. That's all right no apology necessary. Thank you for hanging in there. George, I would suggest including when you solicit the SOI is just send a link I can send it to you to the map page so that if they don't have their districts they can look it up and send it included in the SOIs that way. Okay, so solicit SOIs. And again, I'll put May 19 put the question mark, but around then. All right, any others. These are very helpful for the chair I appreciate it. At the moment I'm thinking I can handle this. Thank you for some help but I think it's easier if one person is responsible. So then goes wrong. We know who to go to. So, any final thoughts or any additions. It's very appreciated thank you all Darcy Mandy and Pat now and of course Athena. If you can reach out to me if you find something's not happening as far as be happening. But I'm going to stop sharing we just save this stop sharing so I can see your faces. So obviously we did not get to the Council appointment policy that we will very much work. So I'm going to get to it next meeting Mandy's also mentioned that there's a document that we can consult that may address some concerns but we'll see how that works out in two weeks. And I will get busy finance I was going to put up the finance committee notice remember we also have a finance appointment to make. I was just going to put out the finance committee notice. Which has not changed the only thing is changing the vacancy notices that Mandy enters in the CRC notices she reminds people that if your CAF has been out there for less than three years you don't need to submit another CAF so I added that. But other than that I did not touch it so I'm just alerting you that I was going to do that. We're not under any super rush. But I just want to do it so I don't forget. We will need it's at the next meeting or soon to go through our own process for finance and come to an agreement about it so we can adopt it. So that tentatively would be on the agenda for next time, but it would take second place to the appointments policies since that's been put off for today, but I hope to get to it next time. So we're in agreement and we're not see if we can come to some consensus so that we know what that's going to be. No objection to putting up the finance vacancy notice. Okay. Any other items for next the next agenda essentially would be, as I just said those two items. And then obviously whatever comes our way hopefully nothing hopefully we'll have just those two things, plus it's a minutes. I just declared this meeting adjourned. Thank you all for your patience. Thank you Emily as always and Athena, of course. Go away.