 We will wait to see if any attendees pop in. You're good to go. Have a nice meeting everyone. Have a nice day. Have a happy day. Bye. It's looking like we might not have anyone watching. Let's get it done. Move to approve everything. I second that. It is, it is. We have a, I'm going to start now. Seeing that we have a corner of the community. Community resources committee. Too many things going on in my mind. I'm calling the June 16th, 2020 regular meeting of the community resources committee to order at two 05 PM. The meeting is being recorded for future broadcast and all votes will be by roll call. This time I will call upon each committee member by name so that we can confirm that each of us can hear everyone. Please remember to mute and like after saying present. Shalini Balmillan. Yes. Mandy. Joe. Hanna key is president present. Ross. It gives a little peek to some ambitions there. I'm present. Call your office. I had a meeting yesterday. And Steve Shriver. The public doesn't show up and we go crazy. I'm here. And Sarah has just texted me that she cut her finger trying to make a sandwich and she will be joining us momentarily as she cleans herself up. So we will. We will go through some other things as she gets on, but we will expect her soon and acknowledge her when she arrives. There is no chat room for the meeting. If you have technical difficulties, please contact me. Committee member. And we will work on figuring out how to correct that. If that happens. For the members of the public, we are going to soon move into public comment. Actually, I think we are going to do that now. Let me look at my agenda. Yes, we are going to move into public comment now. So if there are any members of the public who wish to express their thoughts, and make a public comment, they have three minutes to do so. And we will not engage in dialogue or comment on a matter raised during this, this public comment period to participate in public comment. If you joined through the internet, please click to the raise hand button. If you joined by the telephone, please, please press star nine on your phone. And I will, if there's anyone that wishes to make public comment, we'll recognize them in turn and we'll work on unmuting and muting as appropriate. There are currently no attendees as far as I can see. So we do not have public comment. So I'm not going to wait to see if zero attendees raise any of their hands. If attendees happen to join at a later time and reserve the chair's right to come back to public comment. Just in case they were not right on time today. At this time, we will move to presentation and discussion items. And the noise by-law is up first. And let me pull up the noise by-law. And I'm going to share this with everyone. So that we all are looking at the same document. So this should be a public comment. And I'm going to move to the next slide. And I'm going to bring it up to everyone. So that we all are looking at the same document. So this should be shared now. This is our current noise by-law. There is at least one thing on the second page. Penalties are on the second page. This was referred to us. Specifically for item A four, which was from me, but also for noise issues in general. So we're going to look at some of the, some of the noise issues related to gun shots, particularly as it applies to the gun range. Down in South Amherst. The packet included some history on potential revisions to this relating to the gun. Issue in South Amherst. And beyond that, I'm going to go through the C. R. C. Process for evaluating these. I will mention as we work our way through that, this referral was four. Was, was for report and recommendation. And we had 90 days, technically to do that. Given that I, I will say, I don't even know what is going on here. Are you still seeing the noise by law? Okay. My screen just looked like it might have shared something else. And the first thing we always want to do is clarify the, and clear, clearly identify the purpose of our review. And right now it is for specific recommendations on that item, a four, but also for items potentially to the whole noise by law, including the issues that particularly district two have, counselors have been seeing in their district regarding just general party noise in the neighborhoods and how this is, or is not enforceable. I want to take the time right now to say that Sarah Swartz has just joined us when her audio is up and running. Please just indicate you can hear everyone, Sarah. I should be able to, can you hear me? I can hear you. We can. Welcome Sarah. And we hope your fingers. Okay. We have moved into noise by law and right now we are just identifying the purpose of our review, which I believe on the referral is, um, report and recommendation. So that could include modifications to the by law itself, recommending modifications or not. Uh, it does anyone else have anything they'd like to say regarding the, uh, what the purpose of our review is. I am not seeing any, so we will move on. Um, the next question under that review is whether we. And, or should we recommend an interim action if we can't, or just that recommendation would be, let us continue review. Any thoughts on that? I am not seeing any. I will state that we can probably finish in 90 days. And if not, I would like to say regarding what the purpose of our review is. I am not seeing any, so we will move on. Um, The next question under that review is whether we. Responsible. And, or should we recommend an interim action if we can't, or just that recommendation would be, let us continue review. Um, I'm not seeing any, I'm not seeing any, I'm not seeing any, I'm not seeing any in 90 days. And if not, it's not so urgent that we would need an. It's not. Seeing that no one else was indicating they might want an interim action. I will. Assume that that. Um, Next up is identification of stakeholders. Um, and, and this is the part where I thought we'd spend our time here, but I am not sure. By law itself in terms of its substantive changes at this time. Um, I suspect we may want to talk to people. That have to enforce the by law. And I did not arrange that today. Um, because I wanted to hear from the committee who we might want to talk to. So, um, Evan. So I don't, I don't know where. I don't, if this doesn't fit here, you can tell me to hold my comment later, but having served on the by law review committee, I wanted to just provide a little bit of background context about some of the discussion that occurred on that committee around this by law. And I can hold that because that's not really stakeholders, but it might inform that. Um, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. Um, I think that stakeholders information needed and prior recommendations. So it falls under the prior recommendations and conversations. So that we background of what's been done and what's not been. So. Perfect time, Evan. So, so I want to. Zoom out a little bit because that's actually, um, where by law review committee started when we looked at this. Um, I think that's a good point. Um, I think that's a good point, but I think that's a good point. Um, generally and how different communities implement them. Um, because I think that that might be useful to thinking about any recommendations and revisions. And, um, also it's going to be part of my defensive number four. Um, so, um, essentially for those of you who aren't familiar with this, and I was not until this by law review discussion, there's essentially three types of noise bylaws or the same type of noise. Um, and the first type of noise is the decibel. Um, the decibel is much more rigid and standardized. And so on this end of the coin, you have ones that are decibel based. And a lot of communities have these, they're decibel based. And they say a noise is unlawful if it is above this decibel. Um, and obviously the decibel threshold varies by district or neighborhood, you know, higher decibel for commercial lower for residential, but it's, it's decibel based. Um, it's, it requires police departments to have decibel readers and require some training of police departments because they actually, when they get a call for a noise by-law, they go to that site, they take out their decibel reader and they see, does it exceed that decibel limit? And if it does, it's unlawful. And if it doesn't, it's not. So it's very similar. If you get pulled over for a speeding ticket, right? They have a radar gun and they say, you, the speed limit is 75 and you were going 80. It's the same concept. It requires, um, Equipment and training. Now then there's what they call the, um, The, uh, audible standard, which is in the middle, which is you define a noise as unlawful if it's audible within a certain distance. And so a police officer gets a call. They go to that site. They have to stand, say 50 feet away. And they say, can I hear this noise at 50 feet away? And if I can, then it's unlawful. Um, obviously there's a little, there's some numerical specificity there with distance. It varies, you know, commercial, maybe it's a hundred feet. Rural residential, maybe it's 50 feet. Um, but there's also some discretion because, you know, maybe a different people hear different things, right? And so maybe one officer would be able to hear it at 50 feet. Maybe everyone. And then on this side of the equation is what we have, which is what's called the nuisance standard, which is basically complete police discretion. The police go to the call and they just determine, is this a nuisance? This is what we have. And in, in, when the bylaw review committee, the previous version, not the version that Alyssa and Pat and I served on, talk to the police. They brought up, you know, do you like having a nuisance standard as opposed to an audible standard or a decimal standard? We said, yes, we like it because it's, it's easiest for us, right? We don't need any equipment. We don't need to buy decibel readers. We don't need to train people. We don't need to have a conversation of what constitutes audible. It's just use your best judgment. There was so that the police department likes that. There was some discomfort on the committee itself. With the nuisance thing, because who determines that something's in nuisance, right? And, and it's really open to interpretation. So I made the point, as I will always make that I lived in a neighborhood where two houses down was a student rental and two houses down was grandparents. And on the same days, I often had the students blaring rap music. And the grandparents, grandkids yelling and screaming and that high-pitched child scream. And to me, because I enjoyed the music, that wasn't a nuisance, but the screaming children was a hundred percent in nuisance, right? But the students got the cops called on them all the time. And the children wouldn't, right? Because no officer is going to show up and respond to children and declare that a nuisance, even if with like a decibel gun, it might be just as loud, right? So it introduces a lot of discretion. And so I wanted to give this context because if we're looking at the noise of viola, I think we have to understand that the way we do things is one of three ways. And there are other ways to do things. And there are benefits and that it's the easiest and cheapest method for the police department to implement. There's also downsides. And so one of the members of viola review, and I won't name her, but I'm sure you can guess who was worried that if you instill all of the discretion in the police, then of course there's potential for racial bias, right? Maybe it's a nuisance if it's rap music that's being played loud, but not a nuisance if it's country music that's being played loud. So when you input all the discretion to police, you know, there's something there as opposed to it has to be above this decibel. Viola review committee talked about this. We said police like how this works. It works well for them. They like this. So we're just going to make some minor changes. But I did want to introduce to this committee since it's before us that there was a discussion about all of these different approaches. And it's also worth recognizing that not every community has one, right? East Hampton, I think doesn't have a noise by law at all. North Hampton only has one for vehicles. It only applies if the noise is emanating from a vehicle. So there's lots of different ways to do this. Obviously as a college community, this is something that I think the community wants. So anyways, I just wanted to give that backdrop because there was a very lengthy discussion in by law review committee about this. They did consult with our law enforcement professionals. Sarah. And thank you, Evan, for that. Yeah, thank you, Evan. And I'm going to, so. I have wondered about this many times living on a street. That's me and my family. And then until we get all the way to the end of metal street, it's all student rentals, right? We have townhouse. We have a rental that's about maybe 70 feet away from us. And there's just a huge parking lot. And so I try to cut people slack because I was young, right? This is mostly a, you know, student rentals and, but when I'm sitting awake still at like one 30. In the morning or 2 a.m. and it is so loud that I literally can hear entire conversations or like a mob screaming from just laying in my bed, even with my window closed. Like sometimes I feel like a crank, like just a cranky old woman calling the police. Like I think this party is too loud. But then I thought if there was a way to measure the sound, literally I think people would be registering on if they would be, the decibels would be very high. Perhaps even more surprisingly high than if we call that old lady calls the police and says this party is really loud. You think, well, it's an old lady. She's not thinking any party is really loud. But like literally sometimes it is. It's like a leaf blower loud 70 feet away from you. So I wondered about having something that actually is measurable in some ways that it would, I think it would make things. Easier when you're trying to decide whether or not you should call a police. So maybe that's not relevant. The other thing is, is that in the age of COVID. So now everybody honks for everything, right? It's somebody's birthday and you can't go to their party. And so there's a sign in front of the house that says honking because it's Dave's birthday. But then frequently in the summer, there are signs that party years will hold up to say, you honk, we drink. And I literally, and it sounds funny, except if you're close to a house and they have that sign up for, for five hours, which sometimes happens here. And so. I don't know what I'm trying to say is that I guess it's sometimes it's not totally cut and dry. Like Evan says, sometimes I wish that we could actually have. Something that measures how loud. I know it actually is. That sounds very rambling. So just one anecdote. So I just had a zoom reunion, 40th zoom reunion of 14 people that I lived with in an off-campus house when I was in college. And one of them said, do you remember Mrs. So-and-so should call the cops every night at 955 in anticipation that we were going to be noisy at 10. So they had a 10 o'clock noise. But in the world of construction, there's a thing called the prescriptive spec specification versus a performance specification. So prescriptive is kind of what Evan was describing about decibels and so forth that or speed limits. Performance is based on. That it's not. It's, it's a different form of measurement measurement. So basically a nuisance is a nuisance if I say it is, or a reasonable person considers it to be a nuisance rather than something that's 15 or something like that. So my, my, uh, having lived in communities that had a prescriptive measurement for noise, the problem is that if there is something on nuisance, this has already been said, but if there is something that a nuisance that it doesn't show up on the decibel meter, then there's no remedy. So if it's performance based, then there is a remedy. And I completely understand to me, it's like a problem that this isn't, I've never had a problem with this particular bylaw. And we live right in the midst of a lot of student rentals in sort of tight lots. But so I wouldn't be an advocate for changing this, but I can definitely see what the issues are with. Like the type of music, the type of music that we're talking about, the type of music that we're talking about. Live music versus like if it's live music versus. Um, recorded music. Does that make a difference? So anyway, I, I, I'm okay with the bylaw the way it is. So I want to say before we get really into discussing potential changes to the bylaw or not, I want to know, you know, I want to work through whether we actually want to talk to the public about the changes to the bylaw or not. Um, and I think that sounds like bylaw review did an extensive discussion with them. Are we content with what we've heard from Evan on the previous work that they've done in speaking with. Town staff. Um, or would we want to bring them in again? To be able to ask our own questions and all. Um, would be a, a, a, a answer. I would want to know for obviously scheduling purposes. I think that's a good point. Okay. Thank you. Shani. I think Evan provided a really good, uh, review of this. So thank you, Evan. And as far as at least the police is concerned, I think we, we know where they stand on it and. There's so much going on and. To take away the staff time to come and repeat the same things. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I'm thinking also that. Do we want to get a sense of how many calls they get related to noise? Is that important? But then from what I'm hearing, Sarah says that even though it's noisy, many people may not be calling the cops. So it wouldn't be an accurate reflection of how big a problem this is. So I'm leaning towards not involving the police anyways. Sarah. I don't feel like I would need to head this to how the police come in again. If I don't hear any other objections to that position, that is what we will operate under. It sounds like Evans in support of that position of, of moving on without trying to bring the police in. So I will make a note of that. Are there any other. You know, we call them stakeholders, but any other sort of groups or interests or individuals or town committees that we can think of that we may want to ask for their thoughts, whether that's bring them in, or if we have specific questions for them, you know, Shalini was mentioning something about number of calls or something that could potentially be answered by an email. If there's anything like that, we should get that out now. If we know of it so that we can work on getting that information back or scheduling someone to come in if we want someone to come in. So if anyone has any other people or. You know, like groups or anything or staff members, they think we should talk to raise your hand and. Let us know. Shawnee. I'm sorry I didn't read up enough about the background about this by law. So if someone can tell me like what. How this came about, like where these stakeholders who. Talked about this, like why did someone push for this change or. I mean, are there already people who have a problem with noise and what are their concerns. So I'm the one that actually brought this one in the recodification of the bylaws came through. Section a four. About lawn mowers and snowblowers was in addition to the previous bylaw. And my beef was it was not necessarily that it was added. But that it was seeming to be added that it was a substantive change that was being included in a wholesale revision of the bylaws that people may not know. And so I was the one that was pushing for the council to at least talk specifically about that addition. And whether what that does to the bylaw, whether it's needed, what's its purpose and all of that. So that, that's sort of the background. And then it got referred to GOL when every future bylaw for the bylaw issue. And it got referred to GOL and GOL said, this really isn't what we should be discussing. It's more of a substantive matter. And so it shipped it off to CRC. So that's the background of why it's there. But while it was in GOL, some GOL members brought up things about other issues in potential noise. Bylaw issues. District two is having, there's a couple of neighborhoods in district two where there are a couple of neighborhoods where there's a lot of noise. And particularly some sort of party noise. Large gathering noise. And so that was sort of added into this referral. While you're looking at it. Look at that. And then. Another GOL member also brought up the, the prior issue back in spring of 2018, where a petition article was filed to amend. There was not specifics. And this is where I just linked to stuff. And so that was the, the commission was able to amend the noise by law to prohibit like gun firing or something, but they didn't have actual language for what that amendment would be. And buried in a KP law. Memo about whether town meetings should even act on that because that was the town meeting after the charter was adopted. So buried inside that KP law memo was an indication that. You know, you know, noises related to gunfire after certain times say, you know, I think their proposal was something like five or six at night, September, May to November or something. Say that KP law's memo came through and said, because that gun range already exists in town under state law, their grandfather into their current operations. So changing the bylaw would have no effect on that particular bylaw. And so that was the, that was the, that was the, that was the noise issue in South Amherst. So that information is included in there because a counselor, GOL said, well, while you've got the noise by law, maybe you should look at that too. And make a determination on that one. So that's sort of the three things we have here in the history. You know, I, I see Evans hand. So I will pass to Evan for comment or question. If we're looking at this in terms of a four, I don't actually think we need to talk to any stakeholders, which sounds bad, but it's just by law review, talk to law enforcement. And that's sort of, I mean, the other stakeholders would be the entire Amherst community, which we could do. But if we're looking at the gun range, you know, there are a number of stakeholders, but my, my interpretation, not interpretation, my reading of the opinion was the same as yours, which is this wouldn't actually affect that. So I feel like it's not personally, I feel like it's not worth our time to even debate that because we already know that we actually can't solve that problem. It seems. And so if we did want to deal with that, then we'd want to bring in the Norwada fishing game club. We'd want to bring in the residents of Applewood, who were very supportive of, of that petition, but if we can't do anything, it's not worth it. The district to the parties, I'm not quite sure what the, I don't know what, what we're supposed to do with that. And if we're going to, and so that lends itself to a broader review of the noise by law. And if we were going to do that, there are a lot of things that we're going to have to do with that. And so I think that there's, and honestly, the ones that we should be reaching out to are both people who live in the neighborhoods that they feel have problems, but also the people who live in the houses that get called on all the time, which of course right now, probably they aren't there. So I think it really depends on where we want to focus our review. If we're just doing a four, I think we could probably even bang this up today. If we want to do the complaints from district two, I think it would be a great idea to have a broader review and reflection on the, the effectiveness of our noise by law, which I think is a bigger and a little bit more amorphous effort, but I think also would include bringing in community stakeholders. Great summary, Evan. So let me ask three questions. And we will potentially go to a consensus on each question. I think we will just get into that. So we'll start by looking at the questions on the agenda for now. Regarding the gun range. Issue. Do we want to tackle that? Or do we want to say. Given the KP law opinion. Any modification wouldn't relate to that. And so at this point, we're not going to look into modifications related to that. Welcome, Dave. point out, and this much I don't know, if we changed the bylaw, it would not apply to the neurotic gun range, but if we changed it to relate to that issue, it would not apply to the neurotic gun range, but it would apply to any gun ranges that might come into town in the future. And so I think a weighing of that possibility as we discuss this question, at least should be hanging out there. So thoughts on whether we want to deal with the gun range issue or report back on that one and say the KP law opinion is what it is and at this time CRC, I assume the recommendation be at this time based on the KP law opinion, CRC recommends not modifying the bylaw regarding that issue. Thoughts? Shalini just gave me a thumbs up with whatever I just said. So I think that would be a don't deal with the issue and recommend the town council not modify the bylaw based on the KP law opinion. Any other thoughts on that? Do I get nod heads or thumbs up or I'm getting a lot of nods nodding, Evan nodded his head. I somehow lost Sarah in the view. I didn't lose Sarah, Sarah lost us. There's no longer listed in the panelists section. I will text her. Mandy, can I ask one question. Yeah, sure. So sorry to be a few minutes late here just some things kind of built up around town here and was dealing with them. But under just under a the the introductory paragraph. What. It seems pretty squishy where it says comfort with those or the health or safety of others, especially during the hours of 11 to seven. What does that. So we haven't gotten to the substance of the bylaw yet. So I'm sure that that's one thing I will be bringing up we're trying to figure out what the length of our the breadth of our review is and who we need to talk to, if we need to talk to. If we need to, if we need to talk to someone. Okay. Sorry to have to have. Nope. Nope. Nope. Perfectly reasonable question. So, so should Sarah, we lost you for a minute where we are is Shalini and Evan are of the opinion that we don't want to deal with the gun range issue now. We want to hang our hats on the KP law. Memo that says. If we don't deal with it. Well, even if we change the bylaw to try and deal with gun range noise, we're not going to take a formal vote on that. I will just report a consensus based on KP law. By law opinion, I guess it was. So the second question is. I have three. Now do I remember them? Was. Um, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I don't remember them. Was, um, the, the second one, I guess is the. General review of the bylaw. Do we want to embark on a general review of this bylaw in whole or stick our review, you know, based on the two's concerns about party noise or stick or bylaw. I think that the area of a four that I actually do believe relates to the prologue of a two. Of a in general, not a two. That I had brought up that originally ended up at GOL before everything came to us. So general review of the noise bylaw or not, Sarah. Sorry. So yeah, I would say just to stick with the addition because. I think that was the first question. I think that was the first question. I think that we necessarily want to get into without, like Evan said, being able to call on all the stakeholders because this has been really very carefully. Well, this has been crafted over a really long time. My husband was on the peace and quiet commission back in the. Maybe the later. Well, maybe early. Nineteen nineties. I think we have to make a conscious decision if we want to get into. Totally redoing it. I would be happy just to stay with the addition, which is four. Other thoughts. Thank you, Sarah. Shalini gave me a thumbs up again. Evan is giving me a thumbs up. Steve has given me a thumbs up. So it seems to me that the consensus is too. As to party noise. So I think we have to make a conscious decision. I think we have to get into Evan's report about things and. What we've heard and the length of crafting of, and history of the bylaw at this time, we don't want to get into a full rewrite or full investigation of stuff. Did I summarize that well? Okay. Which leaves us to the third question was going to be if we wanted to get into a full rewrite or full rewrite. I think we have to get into the reason I had this referred to GOL. And really it was the addition of four. I was concerned. And so now we will just move into the substantive discussions. See if in the next 10 to 15 minutes we can, we can resolve it or reach some sort of vote or something. So I'm just going to take. Hopefully less than a minute to explain my thing. So I'm going to take a look at some of the, some of the responses are very prevalent spring, fall, mainly fall with mainly spring and fall and summer, winter, not so much. That's more of a discrete time period. And I thought it was really given the wording in the sort of prelude to a that first paragraph that Dave actually mentioned, the, especially during the hours of 11 to seven, doesn't actually say only during the hours of 11 to seven, which means. So if you're in the fall, you can actually run seven hours a day and in Amherst Woods in the fall, they sometimes run seven hours a day. With all the landscapers coming through. Could technically be found in violation of this bylaw. And I thought we needed to have a substantive discussion as to what extent do we want things like that to actually be able to be called on. And I will actually give you a very recent example from the Amherst Woods listserv that is now new. The other day someone wrote, what can we do about the noise? There's no peace and quiet in our neighborhood. There is constant mowing, mowing, mowing going on. I can't get away from the mechanical sounds because of all the land care, you know, going on. And I will say the first response was by some noise canceling headphones. And the response to that was, you know, the response to that was, but shouldn't the noise not exceed your property? You know, like it was not, but, but it really is constant. And I think he was saying at home, how much noise they create. My other concern with this was. Some lawnmowers and leaf blowers and snow blowers are louder than others. And I was concerned that the addition of a four was actually a weird attempt to outlaw, even though it doesn't technically outlaw and improve air quality in town by trying to have people called on for using really nasty polluting two stroke engines that are the loudest of all of these devices. And I don't, I'm more of, if you don't want those types of devices in use in town, you don't put it into a noise bylaw. You just come out and say, we don't want to use two stroke engines in town and we're going to ban it or something. And I don't think that was necessarily this, but I, I, I would be more direct. If that was really the goal was to reduce people's use of certain really polluting mechanical devices for lawn care. So, so that's why I was there. I'm okay with leaving a four in if we maybe do something with the intro paragraph. Evan. Right. So, so again, providing a little bit of context as to the discussion of bylaw review committee and why I don't share Mandy's concerns. The first thing I will say is in the sort of lengthy discussion that bylaw review committee had about this never was the idea of trying to get people to transition to different types of lawn equipment even brought up. I hadn't even thought and now I'm like, oh, I wish I thought of that, but I like it hadn't even crossed my mind until you literally just said it. So while certainly this maybe could be misused for that purpose, I can tell you there wasn't a single member bylaw review committee that raised that as a possibility. So to give you a little bit of context, and this relates to what I said earlier about how our noise bylaw is all is completely discretion based is that this list could be deleted completely. And actually that was one of the things that bylaw review committee considered because what this list does is it doesn't outline the types of noise that are potentially unlawful. It gives examples because what's actually important is that paragraph that Dave referenced, which is basically that paragraph under a says we are giving we're instilling in the police the discretion to determine whether something is excessive, unusually loud, disturbing or injurious. We never define what any of those words mean, right? We're giving the complete discretion to the police department and we're saying we especially want them to think about this between the hours of 11 and 7 a.m. That's not saying those are the only hours they can enforce this. It's just saying especially during those hours. But really that paragraph defines the structure of the entire bylaw, which is we're going to throw out a bunch of words that could be interpreted a bunch of different ways and we're leaving it up to our law enforcement officials to interpret those and apply those. We're giving them complete discretion. So bylaw review committee at one point actually talked about and even decided just getting rid of that list altogether because that's all you need is that paragraph. And really in the first part of the new bylaws we made clear that the words include are not meant to be exhaustive, right? Include isn't these are examples. So at one point we had actually said let's get rid of the list altogether and just say, look, if the police officer determines that it is a nuisance or injurious or excessive, that's all we need to know. And then we said, you know what, for the sake of the public who might be reading this, we might want to give them an idea of some examples of noise. And so in some cases we just updated things. So for instance, we took phonograph out of number one because those don't seem to be that big of an issue anymore. We got rid of, this is, I'm looking at the original bylaw that we worked with. My favorite one was originally we had what was then four, which is devices to attract attention, whatever that means, right? So in some ways we cleaned it up. And then we said, you know what, this came a lot from Bernie Kubiak, who as a town administrator had said that disputes over noise from leaf blowers and lawnmowers, often were things that came to him as town administrator. And he said, you know what, this is something that people do get called on. So why don't we put it in there to forecast that this is a noise that people should be mindful of. Cause that's really what this list is doing is saying, be mindful of these noises. Now, if a police officer gets called for a leaf blower at 3 p.m. on a Sunday, they're not good. My assumption is they're not going to write up a ticket. They're not going to take that seriously. And this bylaw doesn't require them to, because you could delete that list altogether. And the bylaw still stands because the most important part is that first paragraph, which says police, interpret and apply this. And the examples are almost really for the public. Thank you. Steve. Yeah. So. So number four is one of my favorite subjects. And it's just a little lecture that it's an architectural issue that. So we lived in Tampa, Florida, where we almost never heard a lawnmower because everyone had small yards and lots of gardens. So here in Amherst, people tend to fill up their space. They have bigger yards and they need, therefore they have grass and therefore they need lawnmowers and oftentimes lawn services. So it's, it's a, in many ways it's a built environment issue, but that's. So people in my household say that why don't you have a bylaw that says you could only run your lawnmower at these exact hours. So, which actually some communities do. So that way you don't have lawnmowers going all the time out. You're describing in Amherst Woods. So, and the other thing is that these lawn services tend to come in with three people, right? Or two or three people, like a little small army. So is it better to have three people with, with two lawnmowers going in a leaf blower or extended over a period of time. So my feeling is, it's my personal feeling on it. It's just the sound of a community and it's not, you know, I like the way that it's written. And I think that 11 to seven to me seems like, you know, I appreciate the description of why that is. There are just one other story here is that at some point the garbage collection in our area started moving earlier and earlier to as early as 530 in the morning. So I had no, this is before I went on town council, I had no idea who the contact regarding that because it's all private companies. And it wasn't our company that was doing this. So I wrote to somebody in DPW solid waste. And the next thing I knew, I got a call from the police department is like, can you tell us exactly who it is? And, you know, they go to the police. Why are the police involved in this? This doesn't seem like a, you know, a police issue, but they were very nice and the problem stopped, you know, the trash company. So that makes it very reluctant for somebody like me to ever make a noise complaint because I don't think it should be a police issue. So I think it's kind of a, I think it's a different kind of an issue. It goes directly to some of the other things we've been talking about what is police, what is. What is police. What is police. Yeah, exactly. Sarah, you had your hand up and then. Unraised it. So, so I'm going to say something, but I'm going to word it very carefully because I don't mean it in a way that would be confrontational in, in any sense. But I think that so. You know, I think it's a good thing that we're just giving explanations of noise because. I hear everything that you guys are saying about lawn service. But in my neighborhood and probably in my district, we don't see a lot of lawn. Service, you know, I have a good friend down the street who does something, some stuff by himself, but we, this is so not a problem for us. So, you know, I think it's a good thing. You know, it's a good thing to have the devices that bring attention. So there are a lot of signs that go up with, with college parties and a lot of them are like, yeah, if you like, I don't know, peanut butter. And so people will like go by and they'll just be lots of screaming or again, like that. You honk and we drink, which is fun for the first three hours and not so fun after the fourth. So I totally and completely understand what you're saying, but I don't know what you're saying. I don't know what you're saying. I don't know what you're saying. I don't know what it does at the constant noise all the time that doesn't stop until. And I think that's where the probably the 11 until 7 a.m. because I think all human beings, if they're not working night shift, that 11 to seven is kind of like your refresh time and your time to sort of. Get yourself together for the next day. So any noise that's going to hurt your. If you, I can't think of a physical reason other than just, just driving you crazy, but any noise is going to do that. Whether you live in North Amherst and it's a lot of honking and yelling and singing in rounds, or if it's maybe an Amherst was, where it's just a constant barrage of mechanical noise. I think that we're basically talking about the same thing. So what I have heard is from some people. There's no, there are recommendations would be to not touch it at all. And what I think I just heard from Sarah is there's still concerned that it might, whatever's written might not be enough for whatever it is, which goes to the bigger argument of should we look at the bigger argument instead of just that list. So what do people want? How do we want to move forward? I'm in some sense looking to you, Sarah, since you seem to have some concerns about. Not just the timing, but sort of the implementation, the enforcement of it and how to. Get it to work better for that constant noise, not the one-off noises. Does that make sense? Yeah. So actually made a joke. I thought in some ways that that's what you were also saying is that it's, it's the constant noise that becomes a wearing. Or am I not hearing you correctly? Certainly for, for the instance I gave of the one neighbor who just sent it, that, that, that was their issue is there is no peace and quiet at all during the day because of all the lawn issues. I was just concerned we were throwing this in as an additional without any talk at all about what that means. So I don't know how good this is, how well you can even enforce this bylaw. That's the thing is that I'm not sure. I guess I was trying to say that I guess I was trying to agree with Evan in the fact that, you know, we give a lot of examples, but really we're talking about when we talk in that first paragraph, we're really talking about any noise that's going to disturb someone's wellbeing. So I was just, I guess I was agreeing with Evan is that we could have a, have a huge list, right? Because if we're going to do a huge list, then I want to bring back the devices that call attention because those are the ones that I find really, really horribly annoying. So, so I guess I don't know, I guess what I'm saying. I guess keep it the way it is unless we want to, unless we really want to attack this later. And I would say it's when students are back because I would want to include them in this conversation because they are constituents, right? So we want to respect everyone. So, so I wasn't as the way it is for now saying that we, we're all basically talking about the same problem I think, which is continual noise and bringing it to 11 to seven, which is at some point you have to say, people need a rest from noise. Like I can say, you know, like Steve said, so it's neighborhood noise. If it's kids partying, if it's, you know, leaf blowers, you think, well, people have to do their thing. And, and you can normally stand that until, and I think the 11 to seven is just a conventional time when people wind down and try to sleep. I guess that's what I was trying to say. Dave, do you have anything to add to this conversation since, since you had some questions about the first paragraph? I think, I think Evan might have alluded to it earlier. I'm just trying to wrap my head around that first paragraph. Because by adding the word, especially to me, I read that as, you know, you could, you could not be in compliance with this at any time of the day. Right. By adding the word, especially it puts emphasis on 11 to seven. And it, but it, you know, at three o'clock in the afternoon, if I'm playing, you know, Alexa too loud in my living room in my neighbor doesn't like, you know, I was trying to be funny and think of some pop music, but I couldn't think of it that quickly. Christina Aguilera, or no, she's old now. Anyway, but you get my drift, then my neighbor could call at three o'clock in the afternoon and say, I'm not in, not in compliance with this bylaw. So, and the other point I wanted to make is that in general, when I've heard this reference, when I've heard noise complaints referenced in Amherst, I do know that seven a.m. is kind of that magic time. So construction can, should not start before seven a.m. Steve referenced or somebody referenced trash collection is now happening at five 30 in the morning. We've had a number of noise complaints about trash collection. And what's happened there is when one of the local companies got bought up by USA trucking, USA trucking is starting earlier and earlier in the morning. So there's been quite a few noise complaints about that starting so early. So I'm just, you know, I'm kind of struggling a little bit with the wording in that first paragraph, but these are just ramblings of a tire tired guy on a Tuesday afternoon, I guess. You got a full tired committee too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's been a while. We're up late. I was listening to your meeting, but I think I left at about 10 30 and you kept going. I have a question for Evan. And then I think we can actually. Almost make a vote. The issue of constant noise, not this. You know, one, not even like a half an hour of noise or a truck going by, or I know one time I walked into a construction site, and I walked into a construction site. And I walked into a construction site. And I walked into a construction site or tailgate banging as they were dropping rocks at five in the morning. In the building of a athletic field. And I was across the street and I walked in and I said, the next time you will get a police response, not a community response as I walked my kid over to the construction site. But that's like one off sort of discreet noises. Did you guys in by law review talk about the types of noises that are going on in the building? I mean, the noise in Amherst Woods, because the landscaping just moves around, but it's pretty much on, on some weekdays from like 10 a.m. to three or four in the afternoon. You know, as the landscaping companies go, did you guys talk about that and how this bylaw, whether it's written to be able to address those issues too? Yeah, I mean, so I'm going to sound a little bit like a broken record here, but the way this bylaw is structured. Essentially puts all of the responsibility in the police officer to determine whether a new, a noise is excessive, loud, disturbing or injurious, right? And so we don't, we don't, it doesn't really necessarily differentiate between this. So, and notice that the first sentence is also to create, assist in creating, continue or allow to continue, which is really, actually, think about it really broad. So in Sarah's example, right? Of, of the, the you honk, we drink, which I always honk and now I feel a little guilty, but, but, but, you know, in that case, she could call the police and say, this has been going on for three hours and they, they could go. And if they determine that three hours of causing people to honk, that's, that is sort of assisting creating or, or creating itself. Noise that is a noise, certainly it's annoying Sarah, or you could say, dangerous but reasonable quiet, they can interpret that to fit that, right? And so I think, you know, Dave's confusion was a little bit about this wording is like, kind of vague and really broad. And I think that's intentional because it's, it's meant to cast the widest net possible and say to the police, you determine what fits into these categories. And again, that, that's, that's a big, that's a big responsibility put on the police department. And there were members of file or review committee that, that were slightly uncomfortable with the fact that we, we give so much discretion to the police to determine what is and what is not injurious or nuisance. But every, everything that I've heard, given in his example, I think that's, is covered in that paragraph because if it's, if the police could, could say this is excessive, this is an injurious to the quiet. This is disrupting the quiet and you are creating or assisting and creating or allowing to continue. You can be held liable. I that, that, that really gives them a lot of power to apply this in, oh, and I'm honestly to, you know, for me any circumstance that's imaginable, even if it's not outlined in that list, which is why again, we almost debated getting rid of the list because you don't need it. And you could even argue that the list feels as though it defines those as the types of things when in reality, what Sarah is describing could easily be implemented by this noise by law. If she called the police and they felt that it was injurious, right? Thank you. Your question. Yes. Steve. So the you hunk we drink seems like another kind of a problem with the social decorum. So, so weirdly there are the noise is actually not happening on the property. It's happening in the public way. But I would assume that there's some kind of a motor vehicle. Code that you shall not honk, you know, you shall not use your horn except under certain circumstances. So I assume that we then get into the motor vehicle. Code. But to me, it seems like a single instance of we honk you drink. Should be shut down because of the decorum issue. But my, just my daughter, having been on the property, she's been on the property for a long time. She's been on the property for a long time because of the decorum issue. But my, just my daughter, having been on zoom way too long, said the solution is obviously to have. Give everyone a mute button. So if your neighbor is too loud, you just click the mute button. And shut them up. Sarah. So I just have to follow up the story with something that I think is actually kind of hysterical. Also annoying, but way more hysterical is that so that was happening during, you know, the last couple of months, you know, you know, you know, the end of school college and COVID was just starting to really, you know, get up and off the ground. And so normally at that time of year, anybody that's on my street is very, very tolerant of party noise, right? Because people are happy, you know, and so I actually waited four and a half hours of constant honking, which again, if you're driving by, it's no big. It's terrible if you're not drinking. So maybe I should have started drinking, but instead I did call the police and I did say, you know, I hate to be, you know, annoying, but this is four and a half hours. So it did stop shortly after that. So I'm assuming that the police were like, Hey, you know, maybe just called and said, maybe not, don't do that sign. But what's funny is that ever since that happened, especially as students are coming back, they're like, Hey, you know, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. People still come by that house. And just randomly honk. So it's still happening. So that's just a random. Anno. It's. We still honk. So am I, this is where I'm going to ask for a formal motion. I think what I'm hearing. Is a. Motion to. Not modify the bylaw. Is, is that the motion I'm hearing? I need someone to actually make that motion. If that's the motion I'm hearing. Evan. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'll make that motion since I was part of the team that wrote this. So I'm not going to do that. I just want to recommend the town council not modify. General bylaw 3.24 on lawful noise. Do I hear a second? Second. Shalini seconds. We ready for a vote? I think so. So. We'll go through. Shalini. Yes. Mandy will be a yes. Who's next? Evan. Yes. Steve. Yes. Sarah. Yes. That's a unanimous by roll call. I will add that to the report. And I think we just met. Made a decision that doesn't add an agenda item onto the council agenda. So yay for that. And this is the action item adopting a process for recommending appointments to the town council for the zoning board of appeals and planning board. So. As Evan indicated at last night's meeting, the packet for last night's meeting included a big process and huge. Setting forth, not just the process, I had, but also a whole lot of input. Implementation help. I went through it today. I have two members from OCA here. And then the three of us have not been on OCA. I'm going to bring that. Process up for now. But actually what I'm going to bring up instead of the process there, what I'm actually going to bring up. Is a different document. I had Evan send me. The word document. So that we could. You know, easily modify it to CRC's needs. So my plan is to go through this document. You will see. Right now, the modifications, except in, I think, one instance and two comments. Include changing the words. Outreach appointments and communications or the abbreviation of the process. And. Planning board and specifying it's planning board and ZBA not finance. So getting, you know, getting a little more specific on that. I deleted in this one, as you're seeing the charter reference to the finance committee, because that is not within us. So I thought we would take this section by section. As a committee. And I believe this is something that OCA did when they were first approved. We had to vote, but work towards a consensus on each individual section. Before we vote the whole document. We'll see how far we get today. We have almost an hour. And I'm hoping we can get through nearly the whole thing, or at least reach down to if there's any disagreements on any particular sections. Well, those are and have some nice conversations. So that's the first page. I don't think we need to have any consensus on the title. I'm just going to move to. Vacancy. And at this time, are there any. Questions. Regarding vacancy. At all in terms of. Requested changes or thoughts or anything that people might want to talk about. So I'm, I. Yeah, Evan. Right. So this, this is going to be sort of a weird process for Sarah and I, because we've been through this document. 433 times. And it's also going to be a weird process. I think for the members on this committee who aren't part of OCA, because you don't necessarily, you weren't there for the discussions that led into this. And I'm going to go back to the slide. And I just want to make sure that we're going to be, you're going to be sick of hearing my voice. I just want to make sure I point out things that maybe you wouldn't have thought about that are significant that were parts of discussion. And so the first one I want to make sure we know is that. Even though this seems really standard. The definition of a vacancy. Is actually something that we discussed as a committee. And especially the word in impending vacancy occurs. And so the first thing that I want to make sure that we know is that if a member wants to resign or a member's term is expiring, regardless of whether that member may be reappointed. And this is, this is actually an important distinction because this differs a little bit, I think, from the way the town manager approaches appointments, which is if there is a member in a seat. Whose term is expiring. And that member wants to be reappointed. OCA still treated that seat as if it's a vacancy. And so that's different in many ways than what the town manager does. He does not. Interview reappointments. And so for, for example, what's ahead of us. Michael Burt whistle. Is on the board. He is interested in reappointment. Even so. OCA treated. Our planning board appointment process as if we had three vacancies, three seats up for grads, even though there was an incumbent member. And so I want to make sure people understand that that definition actually has some weight behind it. And it was actually a decision that OCA made that does differ from what the time manager does. Thank you for that. I do want to point out, I simplified the scent, the very first sentence to just state planning board or ZBA, not multiple member body and then defining it to, because those are the only two we have. Given what you're seeing here on the screen. Are there any members that would request any changes to what is here, including. Potentially the definition of impending vacancy as, as Evan just, you know, clarified what that means in this definition. I am not seeing any. So I am going to move on to the calf. And in this one, we're just going to move on. So I'm going to move on to the calf. And in this one, we're just going to pull up this section. I deleted beyond. Deleting the reference to the finance committee and fixing the sentence because of that reference. I just deleted the word three bodies, the word three. So it's just the calf for these bodies is a separate form because it seemed weird to say three or two when, and also I just made it even more generic. And I just wanted to point that out. Any, anything Sarah, Evan want to say about the history of that, or I know this one was just sort of discussed in some sense in the council because we modified the calf form or anything. Evan, not Evan, Steve or Shalini might. Have comments on. At all before we move on to the next one. Not seeing any. I will move on. If someone is reading up and wants to go back, raise your hand and we can go back. At this point. So the next is the sufficiency of the applicant pool. Beyond the changes of OCA to CRC. I added this phrase in here. I wanted to clarify that I'm not going to collect them for finance committee. I'm going to ignore them if they just indicated an interest in finance committee as CRC chair. So that was the whole intention of. Putting that extra language in it was not intended to change sort of the, the intent or the application of this other than to specify that I don't have to keep track of people who want to participate. So I'm going to move on to the next one. I'm going to move on to the next one. I'm going to move on to finance committee too. As chair. So I will page down to the next page too. And then I had a question on one thing. But there were the other changes. I will get to my question. Well, my question was proceed to interviews. Is it, is it supposed to be interviews or statement of interest? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Okay. Was that, I know because your statements of interest were just added. Are you saying we can now request the statement of interest or we now interview. And so I had that question of which sort of item should be. Referenced here. So. The way I viewed this insert. I'm hoping you'll play benefit. So. So I'm going to be doing the stages of where we are in the process. And stage one is like recruit. Collect. Grow the pool. And then stage two is interview the pool. And so everything up until this point. Three is part of that stage one. Stage two is interviews. And so developing the interview questions, the selection guidance, and the SOIs are all sort of triggered when you decide we are ready to go from collecting applicants to interviewing applicants. And so that's why the word interviews is used. Okay. That helps me. I was just just reading it, but I'm like, it seems to be missing a step. So that's why I had that question. Any other questions, requests for changes on this section, which is sufficiency of the applicant pool? Steve? Can you scroll right there? Do we ask, do we ask, what questions do we ask about economics? What? Here? Do we ask about economics like household income or salary or? On the calf? Yeah. Because we ask about race, we ask about gender, we ask about age, but do we ask about household income or? Do we ask rent or own at this point? So we do not. And the reason that's in there, even though we don't ask for it, is the idea that this process can be used sort of in perpetuity. And there have been discussions, certainly where there were discussions in OCA about trying to capture economic or socioeconomic diversity on the calf. Certainly it used to be on there whether you rent or own, which is obviously perhaps one marker. So our calf does not currently collect that information. There have been discussions about ways we could modify it to collect that information, but it was never determined what the best way to do was. But the thought was put that in there so if the calf is modified at some point, it would capture that. Okay. Thank you. Actually another one would be geographic. So like where you live in town would be another one, but is that just too much? What are people's thoughts on adding geographic to this? And we don't say profession either, do we? Or occupation or? What's on it and what's not? Yeah. Well, in other words, it's all kinds of diversity. That's where. Right. And I think that at least my intention in writing this was to try to keep it to what we traditionally think of as protected classes. People who might be covered under like a non-discrimination law. One fight that OCA had over and over and over again was whether to include diversity of opinions or diversity of perspectives, which was a, which sounds great until you figure out how you could assess that. And so we sort of just said, let's keep it to what we typically think of as diversity in terms of sort of protected classes and non-discrimination. Steve. So can we just say that because economics is not protected and age is sweet, but then we should just say age. So race, color, creed, I forgot what the ones, but we should just keep it to the protected classes then is my opinion. I think with what Steve's saying, he would be asking to remove the word economic and potentially. And then substituting the word generational for age, put age in there instead of generational. Do people have any concerns about doing that? So I mean, I haven't thought about this, so I'm trying to, sorry. You know, the other, the other way, if there's a feeling that you do want to change this is it could technically also be tied to the CAF. So if the CAF does, if someone says, you know, I really want socioeconomic diversity on the CAF, and then this should capture that, right? It's not there now, but it has been in the past and could be again. So this could be tied to a diverse applicant. As represented on the CAF. You could delete the second sentence potentially and write the demographic diversity of the applicant pool as represented on the CAF or as indicated on the CAF. That might be one way to, if there's a feeling in this committee that this needs to be changed, that might be one way to at least keep it tied to the diversity information we're actually collecting. Thoughts? You might consider including the protected, I don't know what the official tournaments, but including protected classes and other types of diversity. But it's like the noise by-law, right? Like once we start listing things, then we have snowblowers, lawnblowers, what about electric skateboard? Preference for any of the options that have been suggested. One option obviously is to leave it alone. One option is to add sort of that, that clause at the end of the first sentence and delete the second sentence. Any other option is to delete economic and replace generational with age. Sarah, you're muted. Thank you. So even though right on the stage does not include language because we couldn't figure it out, as Evan said, about economic status, I would hesitate to just get rid of that. And I don't think I would keep it the way it is because if you say as indicated on the CAF, then we're saying that we want to stand behind the CAF as it is right now. And I think that it's still something that maybe we want to look at or that any committee would want to look at again. And I just, I would leave it the way it is. Other thoughts? I saw a slight nod from Evan that might indicate agreement with Sarah. Yeah. And Shalini, what are your thoughts? I agree with Sarah and Evan. Okay, Steve. I was just out voting so I'll be quiet. Are you okay with leaving it the same at this point? Okay. So we will move on. Selection guidance. So I had one question about this in terms of just logistics here and then I want to bring up something of my own thoughts and I have to, I can't see. The criteria for a healthy multiple member body, the question I had was should we focus, since we're no longer doing, you know, Oka was looking at three multiple member bodies, two sort of focused on planning and land use, and one focused on finances, which have two very different sort of issues, including one that didn't have any voting members on it. You weren't putting in the voting members. Now this committee is focused on planning and ZBA. So I was wondering whether as we're looking at one, two and three, we want to contemplate focusing it more towards the committees that are being appointed now. So planning and ZBA and specifically as I was reading number one, and this also goes to term limits number two, we have heard from many people that planning board members have a long, long sort of get up to speed issue, and that it takes nearly one full term to get up to speed. And so seasoned members are almost not considered seasoned until the middle of their second term potentially. And I didn't know, I wanted to have a discussion as to whether we wanted to modify these criteria because of the specific bodies we know this committee is now appointing. Steve was that a question for me? Or was it a question for the committee? Yeah. Whether or not we should have an exception for planning board. Well, you had your hand up. Maybe that was a legacy hand. It was a legacy hand. I'm sorry, but that's why I call on you as a legacy hand. I would actually ask Sarah and Evan what their thoughts are that were what the history behind, I know this was probably one of the more controversial sections or more discussed sections of this process, was there a discussion as it specifically related to planning board and ZBA versus finance? Because I know you guys were trying to make it as generic as possible because you had three different committees you were doing. And I just don't know the history of that or what the thoughts were behind number one specifically as it relates to planning and zoning. So you are correct that this was one of the most controversial sections of the process. It was not a one, it was a three that was the most controversial, which is all carried over from the current appointed committee handbook. One and two actually came out of Sarah's recommendation for our first round of planning board and ZBA appointments to ground our decisions and what we're looking for in the composition of the body outside of just expertise. But there was no feeling that on the committee that one or two themselves were controversial. I, my personal opinion, this is not the opinion of OKA, but of me is that there is even though there is a real difference between finance committee ZBA and planning board, they all involve very complex and technical subject matter for which there is a learning curve. I mean certainly zoning has a huge learning curve, but I so does in my opinion municipal finance and so even though this was written sort of broadly, I don't think it was written broadly to accommodate three separate bodies because I think they actually, I think all three actually meet all of these because even though there's voting versus non-voting and all of that, they all involve pretty complicated subject matter. But I think I'd rather have Sarah speak to one to two because those came out of her initial report. Sarah? Yeah, so these are near and dear to me because, you know, this was the first time that we went through planning board and ZBA. I was the original designee, right? And so I had to make a lot of decisions the way the first process worked. I had to make a lot of decisions that I would then have to defend the rest of Town Council. And when I sat down to do that, I felt like I needed to write out why I picked the people that I did and what reasoning. If you don't have like a list of rules of things that you are looking for in people and also the, for me, term limits were important and also how a body worked together. So it's not just the individual, it's also how the individual works within a healthy multi-member body, which I think even as Town Councilors, you know, if we were to handpick people to work with people to make things run smoothly or have the new ideas and still have, you know, we talk all the time about institutional knowledge. So these were, for me, it was really planning board and ZBA and I mean it applied to finance, but I feel like this is very important for how the ZBA and the planning board work. Term limits were something, as Evan said, that's, that was very, very contentious and I'm not surprised that it's coming back up in this committee. One thing I will say though is that, you know, it's generally, you know, lots of times planning board, you know, that's saying, well, we, you know, it takes us a long time. We, one of the things that we also discussed is that the town could pay for, there is training out there for people who are on planning or zoning to actually go through a short training that would actually bring them up to speed. I think there was also some feeling that there were enough constituents in Amherst that felt like there wasn't enough turnover in these two boards and so I tried to craft this in a way that would show what you're looking for in an entire committee and why you would keep someone on longer or why you should look at someone every single time their term comes up to say is this person still constructive to the group. So this is something I feel very strongly about and I would like to keep this idea with term limits and I fight me. It's just something I feel strongly about. So, I mean, but I'm not surprised that we're taking this up again at all. I'm not surprised. Steve. Yeah, so I don't have a conceptual problem with terms or you call it term limits, but in a way it's not exactly limits because it's, again, it's like the noise by law that we're giving parameters but we're not being specific about it. So quite frankly the only part that I have a problem with is a one about the incumbents. The people in the first term should not expect that there will be a second term and so I think that they should go for through a full review process. So this to me it sounds like you'll be given preference if, yeah, in fact it actually says that. I don't think we should say that. I think that you should just assume that you're up for re-election just like if you're a president that you're not given preference to be in the president just because you happen to be the president. So in terms of how long it takes to get up to speed on the planning board, I was on for nine years, no, 10 years and honestly I don't feel even after 10 years that I knew enough but I think that after a year you should know enough to, you should know 80% of what you need to know. There's staff there, there's training that Sarah was mentioning, there's the other planning board members. So a year is about right to go through a full cycle of the types of things that you encounter but also importantly in two years or a year and two years the other planning board members or we at the town council watching the planning board will also have a good sense as to who is working well on the planning board. So in other words that's also a very important perspective is the ability to be an effective planning board member. So in short the part that I would get rid of is the part that says that you're given preference for a second term but the rest I'm okay with. Spentence? Yeah that part right there. Or is it the first sentence because the conversely doesn't work if you get rid of the first sentence it would be? No I think we should just be silent enough after your first term you're reviewed and maybe you'll make it, maybe you won't. Just like I don't think we're given preference, town councillors aren't given preference for a second term. So yeah. I obviously haven't thought enough about this as much as Evan and Sarah so I'm really relying on hearing from you all sides of the discussion and pros and cons but what's just coming up for me is that you know our goal is to make the this committee the planning board or whatever we're rooting for strong and and hopefully with the rehire to be stronger. So the end goal is always how to make this committee continue to be strong and stronger and that should be the criteria. So if someone is new but not as you know visibly we will never know or we have some ideas maybe that based on what we've seen in the past about. So what I'm saying is we don't really let's say no 100% whether the new person is going to be better than the existing person but we do know the the existing person and how they've been performing and if we feel that that person has been performing really well and has some expertise and then given the context of where that situation is or what it is like I feel like we need to give weight to the to the context the individual person but and to have a blanket preference that any new person is going to be given preference over the person who's already completed two years is not necessarily going to strengthen. So I want to push back against that unless right mate what were the reasons what were you all thinking and what was your reasoning to put that in. Evan? So I can I can try to address some of these things I do and Sarah's probably experiencing this too I think it's funny because the things that were non-controversial on OCA seem to be the things that are controversial here and the things that were controversial on OCA seem to be not as controversial so this my mind is trying to adjust to this weird reality. So I mean again A3 is all verbatim from the existing appointed committee handbook and it's almost funny that we ended up just adopting language that was verbatim from the handbook because we spent probably four hours debating pretty much just A3 I'm not joking I think it was two full meetings of two hours to land on sort of what already existed and the reason we landed on what already existed is because the language itself is sort of compromised language in that it affords us a great deal of flexibility and so on OCA we had some people who said no term limits of any length at all and some people that said six years and you're gone and then people going back and forth in between and what I think we came to with A3 is that the language is soft enough to allow us to do what we think is best and so you know when you say in that first sentence that Steve takes us with generally if a person is surfing a first term they are giving a preference for a first term this does not say that we always have to give a preference for a second term it does not say that we have to reappoint it says look if you served a full term and you showed up and you did your job and you are interested in continuing to serve our community you have some preference over the other candidates because you've already put some time in but that's a general statement if there is someone who did their first term and they have worked hard and done and really done a good job as a member of course we want to give them a preference for a second term but if there is someone who showed up every meeting and just said I don't like all y'all and was just causing problems every time well that that generally gives us that flexibility to say we're not good at generally we would give a preference for a second term but in this instance we wouldn't same thing if a person is completing a second term and there are other qualified applicants so that's an important clause right there that I don't want us to gloss over this isn't saying if someone's completing a second term and there's someone in the pool we give that someone preference if that person's not qualified this is if there's someone who completed a second term and someone comes along who possesses everything we're looking for they have expertise and they fit exactly what the needs of the body are at that time then we're going to give that someone a preference but if the newcomer in the pool comes in and they're like so what's the planning board again of course we're not going to give that person preference because they wouldn't fit that um qualified applicant and again it's just a preference right it's not saying we should do so and the final thing is although there is no fixed term limit normally limited so again these words are important here and I feel like I'm teaching my students right the the reddit the actual word choice is important here normally limited which is to say more times than not we're probably going to say two terms but there are exceptions and that next one comes into place where special training or expertise is required longer periods of service may be appropriate all of this language gives enough flexibility that the council can interpret it I think to meet what the needs of the body are at that time and so um that's the cliff notes version of a four hour debate um but that is where we kind of came down on that language was it permitted the flexibility to allow the council to operate within a number of circumstances it and what we're really looking for is we had people who sort of wanted one side or this side and this this sort of uh didn't have any of that rigidity sorry if I mischaracterized please let me know no because you raised your hand and nods down you're confusing me Sarah I'm sorry so I think that the Evan pretty I guess I just wanted to strengthen what Evan said although he explained it beautifully um is that is exactly what he said is it's giving the council a lot of flexibility and still compromising to two sides that felt very strongly about um no term limits or absolutely term limits or if you're on for one year you should automatically be one term you should automatically be you know renewed for another term so that basically just what this is saying like Evan said is that um this is not I don't want any way to feel like this is making your choices smaller as Evan said they're expanding them but still keeping enough of a gel of an idea that um it it's holding you to some rules without um making them very narrow one of the things um I'll just I'll leave it there I think Evan did a good job so I I have a concern about this I I've already been through this process once in GOL adopting a modified form of this for finance committee and and in there I said I don't really like number three but I wasn't going to force its removal as I think what I said in there that I could live with it even though I don't like it we did though in GOL delete the the references to the appointed committee handbook and I want to bring that up again um the appointed committee handbook is an executive side handbook in a sense it's not really a council handbook on our council appointed committees we haven't as a council even adopted it at all um so I I I don't like the reference to the handbook itself even if the language is directly out of it and I get why you would reference it because the language is directly out of it I just don't like that because we as a council haven't really adopted that book um and that's also I think one of the things I've got concern about this number even though I'm not going to push for its removal um is the council hasn't expressed one way or another its desire for term limits and so it gives me pause for our committee to put some sort of language in there even how and the more I hear Evan speak about it and George speak about it and Sarah speak about it I get how flexible it is it still gives me pause that a committee is almost adopting what could be considered a policy of the council and I know that brings in awful thoughts to you Sarah in terms of what's a policy um in that and and maybe I'm thinking about this wrong each person on the council as Evan alluded to will have their different view of whether we should have term limits and so I almost feel like this language is trying to codify too many people's views when that issue is almost something that should be left to any individual council or to decide for themselves um I think is where I stand on that but I am not going to stand here and fight for four hours on this language if this committee is leaning towards keeping it in I'm gonna go with that but I did want to put out my thoughts on that Shalini very convincing arguments and I still want to what I'm still not getting is that well why are we not basing it on just the qualifications of the people just by seeing that we're giving a preference to someone who's new is already putting extra giving extra weight to the person who's new what if you remove that preference and just see two people for who they are and who's going to be best for this committee and base it on that I think it removes that extra even though it's meant to be flexible but language is such that the words we use give extra focus to certain things over other things so even though your intentions in creating this was flexibility because you went through four hours of that conversation so in your mind you're coming with a pure intention that we want it to be as flexible as possible and we want to invite new people and not just have stagnant committees but to the public and everyone else who is watching and participating it comes across as without knowing all of that discussion it comes across as oh the preference is to the new person and so I'm still not convinced why we need to have that I mean if you're trying to get new people and recruit new people we should be doing that but by inserting this we're weakening our own I feel like it's weakening the choices I'm gonna make because of that preference I'm gonna give to the new person. Sarah then Steve unmute please Sarah. Thank you Manny Jo so this was um this was the committee sort of you know we were split on this and there were people who felt one of them is a chair of another committee that it was completely disrespectful to if someone had served and put their time in on a committee and had shown up and done a good job that it was completely disrespectful to not give them preference in having a second term because they had already put their time in. It was also compromised between people who said we should you know maybe always be looking at things you completely shake them up and people who are saying I don't even think you should pay attention to term limits if somebody's doing a good job then they just keep coming back and back. I in a lot of ways agree with you Shalini that that I Oka was split on this a lot of us said yeah no it should be on the value of the person and how they work with the committee and why would we ever give preference. What I'm going to say to you after hours and hours and hours and hours of discussion is that if we take this out and we bring this to the rest of town council there will be a very strong part of town council who will then start this argument up again and then you will be arguing again about why would you be so disrespectful of someone who came serve their time and did a great job so I just I think you're opening yourself up for this entire conversation all over again and I'm sorry if I just sound exhausted about it but it's it's so exhausting and I can just see it all coming back right now so but I mean I know what you're saying and I technically I agree with you. I'm Steven and Dave. So that discussion at town council doesn't concern me but I prefer this one where it's still daylight as opposed to I you know I really see both sides but I think I what Shalini said really beautifully that your second time you're applying you have that body of knowledge that you can put on your CAF that this is the experience that I'm bringing to this and so that by itself is should give you a leg up but I don't I don't know I'm always really concerned about preferences because to me that's almost like a anti-affirmative action kind of a coding so like we get preference to legacies we get preference you know if you've already you know done this or if you've already done that so you know there've been very controversial times where people have not been reappointed after one term on the planning board and you know 10 years later that's still sending shockwaves through everything we do but that person in my opinion that's like not being reelected that's like being as serving up as a president for one term of the United States and then not you know not being elected for a second term because there's other better candidates so so my preference is to get rid of preference Dave I'm gonna wondering whether I should chime in here or not I've not been involved in in this at all but just a couple of quick comments and again I I don't have a horse in this race if you will but um you know this is a fascinating conversation and and I haven't been a part of or kind of you know focused in on on the earlier conversations but a couple of things that struck me one is that um you know through the years if you actually look at who has had the most experience working with committees and boards and their chairs in town I might argue that it's actually department heads that have the most overlap with if you think about planning board zba finance committee you know the department head who is staff or staff under that department head who is a staff to that committee or board actually has seen the seasons of those committees the ebbs and flows the ups and downs the sometimes the good and bad sometimes you know all of those things so it's interesting I mean I you know if I had a a time machine I might suggest maybe talking to department heads about what what kind of things have worked in the past and what haven't I will know from my own experience of working with the zba the planning board uh and the conservation commission those regulatory boards um you know there is no substitute for that experience I see the word seasoned um it takes time I think Evan and others alluded to that it can take a long time to feel comfortable with the zoning bylaw I don't care if it's amazon bylaw or anyone in the commonwealth it and it getting used to being on a regulatory board where you might tell somebody no or you might have them adjust their project and it just costs them a tremendous amount of money your time to do that it takes time to feel comfortable in those shoes so that that's kind of interesting to me um I was also intrigued by criteria under a criteria for a healthy multi-member body um the one word that kind of jumped out at me there was healthy um and and I wondered you know again I'm not suggesting this but I you know I'd look at effectiveness too what does it mean to have an effective multi-member body a healthy and effective multi-member body because we've talked about that so much through the years as you all were talking it also made me think about you know Amherst the perception of Amherst as anti-business and through the years I can tell you how many conversations I've had about about that with business owners and developers and not all the time but a fair number of times through my 15 years on you know working for the town it has come down to a border committee not working effectively together so that might fall under healthy if you will having a good mix of of qualified people and people who are collaborative and get along and are good listeners and all of those things but there are times when it's not and it's no one thing that results in I believe it's no one thing that results in that image of Amherst as sometimes being anti-business but there have been boards through the years that clearly some members express very strong views that were anti anti development or anti-progress so I guess I wanted to focus on knowledge and experience is critical zoning board planning board conservation commission um and training is so key too I know you all have talked about that but I think there's an assumption that there's a lot more mentoring that goes on in committees and boards I have to be honest I don't see a lot of mentoring I think what what we need to do is commit in the future to more training more cross training and we need to encourage boards and committee members to train together and and either bring training to us or go where the training is because I think that's how you're going to create a healthy multi-member body whether it's finance committee or or concom um so anyway those are my kind of random thoughts all over the map but um now this is I understand why you've grappled with all of these I've been through so many changes in boards and committees where you know under three you know two terms is up and somebody has to leave or maybe they get an extra year etc etc I will say also I do want to emphasize the importance of the chair people of committees there there's no absolutely no substitute for a chair who can move particularly the regulatory boards and committees and that's where I spend most of my time in the last 15 years and having a chair who can move a meeting forward can move a process forward regardless of what the outcome might be whether the applicant likes it or not the the committee or board must move through the regulatory process in many many cases there's there's a there's a regulatory there's a statutory reasons they must move through that because they must be done in 30 days or 25 days or whatever so so anyway those are my random thoughts thinking a lot about training mentoring what does that really mean and then lastly how is it that the council evaluates members when there when a member is done their first term what is the evaluation that you all use to say they should get another term or not who what's the criteria for evaluating somebody so anyway you guys have probably covered a lot of that stuff in many many hours of discussion so I apologize if that's repetitive as Sarah mute just naturally think everybody can hear me all the time so um I think it's interesting the things that Dave brought up so one of the things that I I want to say is that planning board and zoning board of appeals are appointed and they are not elected and if you want them to have the say the perks of an elected office then we should start working on changing the charter because if you if that's what you want then that's what it should be and they're very different they're very different positions elected versus appointed and so that's something to really um to think about um the other is is that when it came to talking about how long should you be on planning board or zoning board because it takes so long to learn these are things that we talked about and one of the things that I argued very strenuously for was professional training once somebody's on that that somehow and I know we have no money right now right so blood from a stone as the town goes but I think that if someone has the the brains to be on and has the the interest to be on then they should have professional training because just expecting that you're going to have people who have been on planning or zoning for a long enough time you know that can teach or teach effectively or teach with a completely open mind and heart or have the time to do it that's I think that's asking a lot of people I think it's a more level playing field for all of the people on planning board and zoning board of appeals if they have had professional training be you know provided by the town you know there we say yep we think you should do it then the town provides in that training and then everybody is on um a level playing field and when it comes to how does town council like why town council how do we decide that's why the okah has grappled with quite a bit and one of the most important things that the designee does is to speak to the chair right away and say how do you feel your your board or committee is doing and what are the special things that you're looking for in a person to help balance out your board or committee do you you know not have someone who is an architect and it looks like all the big projects you're coming up on you know you really need a person who has that experience then we follow that so we definitely take into consideration what a chair says we we don't think that we know how many times somebody showed up to a meeting or if they've done their homework when we get there so um that's that's something that we do um and then working with what the chair gives us then we we have a discussion together about qualifications um so that is something that's that's uh that's taken into account and is healthy as opposed to effective i use the word healthy um because for me it means that um something that healthy is healthy is um working well uh running well also has a great attitude right because you can be effective but also maybe be um not bringing in new ideas or people feeling good about each other and able to you know even if they have different ideas be able to work well together so effective or healthy i don't think that i to me i guess that doesn't really matter i think they were sort of getting at the the same thing serif i could and and i meant like i was just saying healthy and effective right right because they mean one or the other yeah yeah absolutely so um so for the most part i completely agree with what you're saying yeah i want to do a time check we're four minutes till four we have some minutes to do i do see two hands um i'll call on both of them and then we might just we will start sort of at b i have made a note unless we can agree that b is kind of fine i've made a note that we might have to come back to the term limit discussion at all but but let me hear from shalini and steve and then i will move on on the agenda and summarize this shalini oh i just wanted to say that i personally found uh what davie shared was very very helpful and clarifying and so some of the things that i heard were i like the use of healthy and effective because they do have two very different meanings and because i can have a healthy body but if my but i may not be taking actions and doing things that i should be doing so i could be healthy and not effective so i would encourage us considering using the word healthy and effective and that really sets the touch point for us and intention for the committee that it's not about just getting together and being getting along but we have certain goals and we're going to do that in a open spacious healthy way but our purpose here is for this intention so i think adding effective is really good i also heard you talk about the value of experience and that again that makes me think we're putting a person who has experience at a disadvantage by adding that language so that was really helpful in me clarifying that in my head why i was resisting this and then i like the idea of mentoring a lot so even if you're not getting the trainings but if there's a way to mentor and that's all for now thank you thank you really appreciate that thank you shalini um steve um hi yeah so i was the part that i like the healthy and effective i think that works well so the training part there is no training like being on the actual planning board so i've been to all the train there's a thing called the citizen planning training collaborative cp tc and they do training for all the massachusetts planning board and i've been to all of their sessions i even taught a course from them once it's all theoretical so there's no there's nothing that that will ever substitute for actual practice so it really needs to be both of those but in a way what sarah the one way to solve this is the associate member so that was that's in the parking lot that should there be associate members to the planning board but that's the perfect sort of internship for planning is is that associate membership category which we don't have a discussion for another time so i'm going to leave this comment that we need to come back to the term limits thing i to summarize i think i've heard at least two maybe three members thinking about wanting to delete the paragraph completely um i think that's what i've heard right now we're not going to vote on that right now we can mull things over members can think about things we can think about what jave said about some other things um we will come back to it at a later meeting i am curious whether anyone has any issue with anything in b at this time and then we will move on raise your hand if you do um or whether you'd want changes to that um what the plan is for this is we will continue working our way through at the next meeting um we will not come back to the term limits thing at the very beginning of the next meeting i want to push our way through the rest of things and see where are um where our agreements are in getting to consensus for this plan um and this process and where any requests for potential changes might lie um so that we can start planning we might be able to start moving ahead with appointments to planning board while we still work out later parts of the process if that makes sense um i do encourage um everyone to continue i know this is new for shallony myself and steve it is not new for evan and sarah we need to work on finding a sufficient applicant pool one of the first steps that of the three that were sort of there um evan i want to confirm number one is technically continued and complete in terms of posting on the bulletin board at this time yeah so um it was posted to the bulletin board i don't have the exact date in front of me but it was um posted sometime in april that doesn't mean it wouldn't be useful potentially to repost okay certainly with when we did zba we posted at least twice um but also recognizing that the posting on the bulletin board uh typically yields us zero candidates it's uh believe it or not the public is not flocking to the bulletin board to see what's up um okay i just wanted to confirm cif we don't have to do anything with it this time um i i would things are being passed and all but we we can start moving forward i would encourage all committee members to continue reaching out and trying to recruit or find people to apply and fill out a cif um as we go forward with this process i will actually put in addition to discussion of the process discussion of where we are on the actual appointments at our next meeting so that we can discuss do we want another bulletin board posting where the CAFs stand things like that um so that this committee um can especially shallony myself and steve can be brought into where that stands and potentially why um or reasons that um oca would not and could not declare the pool sufficient um so i will make sure that is on our next agenda and we will as i said continue working through the rest of this process to see um what where potential changes or not are sought or not and how much agreement we might have for this to try and get it adopted as soon as we can i'm going to stop the share for now um we have let me look at my agenda um so next meeting more process i'm sure evan and sarah are thrilled at that at that concept but um at this time we have minutes i at this point i believe only have the may 19th minutes um i haven't myself gone and figured out what's going on with the other two so that's me um i haven't even paid attention to whether i got them or not um or where they might be in existence in terms of stuff so i fell through on that but we have the may 19th minutes to adopt um i believe i have um let me pull up the minutes um i had some recommended changes to them i believe um so let me pull them up and go through my requested changes um very quickly before we can adjourn here um um let me find out what they were did i pull up the wrong document oh look at this um it looks like there might only be one for me which is very minor it was a misspelling of a word um should it was show act as agent of the council instead of should act as agent of the council um so it was just a misspelling that spell check could not find um that was my only requested change to the may 19th minutes i put it on the agenda wrong apparently um as may 18th any other requested changes to these minutes seeing none i will myself make the motion to adopt the may 19 minutes as amended um so i'm making that motion is there a second second shalini seconds it all those in favor to what i can't gotta do roll call i will start with myself um mandy is a yes uh evan yes uh steve yes uh sarah yes and shalini yes that is an unanimous adoption we will move the b and c to the next meeting my only announcement is um that we have a meeting tomorrow night i want to thank you all for working through five meetings in about 15 days this one will begin will operate similar to the last one but it is a normal planning board meeting night so they actually have a much more extensive agenda than just this hearing last last week it was just the hearing in general for both of us they added one thing in really quick at the beginning so they'll they'll call to order they'll do their minutes then i'll call to order then we'll go into the hearing we'll go into the joint hearing the goal is to after that hearing hopefully closes um to to vote a recommendation um both wait for planning board if they're ready to vote a recommendation if they vote one if we're ready to vote after that we would we would vote that night so we don't have to bring it back to a next meeting and we can be done with that that amendment potentially so so be ready for a potential motion and vote after hearing that would only i would only ask for that if we're ready only if planning board also makes a vote that night on a recommendation um our goal is always to not vote before we hear the planning board recommendation um so that is the plan any questions about announcements or future agenda items or anything else at this time no i do think we have we're trying to get some of the wild animal act people back for the meeting in two weeks right shallony we don't have confirmation that they're available yet though right all right yeah so if they are with them this week we'll probably try to fit that in for no more than an hour maybe even a little less oh do we want them yet or do we want to focus on this thing that that is a question um should we spend all of our meeting next week on this i'm seeing a knot from evan do we want to try and add wild animal into it or should we push them off for another two weeks or so push them off you can take it from sara night the process is going to take the whole meeting okay yeah let's go right right just gonna be disagree yeah let's focus on that and i think they're done early year to us we deserve i will then ask shallony um to contact the wild animal act folks and see if they're available in mid july to late july one of those meetings um and and you know it will if we have to put anything else on the next meeting that is referred to us for some reason that's important we'll add that in um otherwise we'll focus on process and planning board to get plans going and see if we can meet our 60-day deadline on that one which is gonna be tough so thank you all um sorry for running a little bit over uh any other items or announcements or anything not seeing any we're adjourned at 4 o'clock yeah thank you thank you thank you angela thank you