 There are 246 town meeting members. 124 constitutes a quorum. The constable informs me that a quorum is present. The April 30th, 2018 special now town meeting will now come to order. The clerk being absent, this meeting must elect a temporary clerk until such time as the clerk returns. I recognize Mr. Slaughter for a nomination. I nominate Sue Audette as temporary clerk. Second. I've heard a motion and a second. Hearing no other nominations, I declare that the nominations closed and request that Mr. Slaughter cast a single ballot for Ms. Audette. On behalf of town meeting, I cast a single ballot for Sue Audette. So Audette has been elected temporary clerk for the April 30th, 2018 and special town meeting until such time. I'm sorry, I'm reading the wrong one. I was tricked. My apologies. Here's what I meant to say. Sue Audette has been elected temporary clerk for the April 30th, 2018 special town meeting. Ms. Audette, do you swear that you will faithfully and impartially perform the duties of town clerk? Say I do. Before I call on the clerk to read the call and return to the meeting, I just wanna apologize. Their clip on microphones weren't working. So I'm gonna be dealing with this microphone. I'm gonna try and keep the sound levels good and be heard or when appropriate. If there's issues with it, it's okay to call a point of order to say you can't hear, it's too loud, but I also ask everybody to even more so than usual, be quiet and don't talk amongst yourselves and make sure you can hear me. I don't wanna have to yell, but it's gonna be tricky keeping my distance just right. Enough of that. The clerk will now read the call and return of the meeting. Test, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Special town meeting, April 30th, 2018, Amherst, Massachusetts, Hampshire SS, to one of the constables of the town of Amherst, Inset County Greetings. In the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you are hereby directed to notify the registered voters of the town of Amherst of the special town meeting to be held in the auditorium of the Amherst Pellum Regional Middle School. Inset Amherst at 6.59 o'clock on Monday, the 30th day of April, 2018, when the following articles will be acted upon by town meeting members. You are hereby directed to serve this call by posting attested copies thereof at the usual places. Hear of, fill not, and make return of this warrant with your doings thereon at the time and place of said meeting. Given under our hands the second day of April, 2018, Douglas Wesley Slaughter, Constance E. Kruger, Andrew J. Steinberg, Alyssa V. Brewer, James J. Wald, Select Board. April 4th, 2018, Hampshire SS, in obedience to the within warrant, I have this day as directed, posted true and attested copies thereof at the designated places to wit. Tom Sarna, Constable, town of Amherst. Thank you. I have already been sworn in as moderator at the town clerk's office. At this point I would like to ask all newly elected town meeting members to rise and be sworn in. Do you swear that you will faithfully and impartially perform the duties of town meeting member? Please answer I do. Thank you and congratulations. I'd also like to congratulate those elected to town wide offices on the school committee, Allison McDonald and Kerry Spitzer, Select Board Doug Slaughter, Jones Library Trustees, Tamsen Eli and Austin Serrat, Housing Authority David Williams, Redevelopment Authority Jeff Lee. Thank you in advance for your service. It is a tradition to remember former town meeting members who have passed away since the last town meeting. There was no comprehensive list of former members, so if I've forgotten someone, please let me know and I will remember them in a subsequent session. Since we met last fall, we have lost Mary Matthews and Dick Mudget. In addition, this spring, former moderator Harrison Gregg passed away. Mr. Gregg served as Amherst moderator for 19 years from 1994 through 2012. He also served as president of the Massachusetts Moderators Association and was a highly respected figure throughout the state. On a personal note, Harrison was my mentor, supporter and friend. Please rise if you are able and let's have a moment of silence to remember our friends, neighbors and public servants. At this point, I usually give a schedule review of future scheduled sessions, but I'm gonna hold off and give that when we begin the annual town meeting. For now, all you need to know is that the annual town meeting will begin as soon as the special town meeting is dissolved. Now some reminders from the moderator. League of Women Voters and Town Meeting Coordinating Committee provide publications which are particularly useful for us and they should be available on the back table if you don't already have a copy. They are your Amherst government town meeting handbook. They represent UBRO SURE and a zoning primer, although I've heard that there are very few copies of that left. Please be sure to pick up the legal-sized unfolded printed sheet from a table in the back of the room. This is the first draft of the League of Women Voters publication they represent you. It is a list of elected officials in Amherst. Also pick up the sheet from the League of Women Voters that tells you how to make corrections. The League needs to know whether the information for each person is correct before final publication. If there is an error or omission in your listing, you can correct it online at the League website or fill out a correction slip and put it in the box that League of Women Voters of Amherst put it a box that has League of Women Voters of Amherst written on the back table. Please have your corrections in by Monday, May 7th. Seating on the floor of the auditorium may be occupied only by town meeting members except for the front row which may be used by members of the press and by members of town committees and town staff participating in the presentation or discussion of articles. Such persons must wear non-voter stickers which are available at the check-in table. The seats in front of me on the right are occupied by the five select board members, town manager, assistant to the town manager, the finance director, the assistance town manager, the finance director, the assistant to the town manager and IT staff. Finance committee is seated to my left. Spectators and town residents who are not town meeting members may be seated in the bleachers at the rear of the auditorium. New information for town meeting members can be found on the back table to my left over that way. Old information can be found on the back table to my right. The finance committee report which you have all received in the mail is a valuable resource that you should take advantage of. It includes the complete town meeting schedule inside the front cover and an excellent glossary in the back. Amherst media provides gavel to gavel coverage of our proceedings on Public Access Channel 17. I'd like to thank their staff and volunteers. Videos of town meeting sessions are replayed frequently and can also be viewed on the Amherst media website. If you wish to speak, you must raise your hand and be recognized. As per our bylaw change from the fall, you must hold up a card to indicate your position. Green indicates yes, red indicates no and a white card indicates they wish to speak without advocacy or ask a question. However, I've also been informed that they ran out of green cards. So, do I have a volunteer who has a red and white card and wants to volunteer? See if you can hold up your red and white card together so I can see both colors. Yeah. Go, hold it up so it faces me. If I see a red and a white card together, oh, two hands is even better. If I see a red card in one hand and a white card in the other hand or side by side together, I'm going to interpret that as green. Okay. I will also continue to interpret green as green. And hopefully that'll get us through this. It's a little frustrating because I found the color coding has been a valuable tool to use, but I think we'll get by. No, the whole point was there were no more green cards. Yes, you can absolutely share. So that's a great idea. Make friends with your neighbors and share. Okay, let's get back to this stuff here now. When you're a call done, you must first state your name in precinct. If you forget, I will interrupt and ask you to do so. If you need more than three minutes or more than five when you were speaking to your motion, you must request additional time before speaking and town meeting will vote on your request. If you're speaking from the floor, please speak into a microphone that will be provided once you are recognized. I assume I have my two microphone wranglers out here. I see one, I see the other, good. So you must wait until the microphone shows up before you speak. This will allow viewers outside the auditorium to hear you. The microphone will be on when it is handed to you. Please hold it close to your mouth when you speak. Non-members who wish to speak should stand at the rear of the right hand aisle, which is the aisle in front of me. Any registered voter of the town of Amherst who is recognized by the moderator may speak without special permission. Others may speak with the permission of a majority. Assisted listening devices are available for town meeting members at the sound board in the back of the auditorium. If you're making an amendment to a motion, the amendment must be presented in writing with copies for the town clerk, the moderator, town manager and staff, and the chair of the finance committee or whichever board is seated to my left. Procedural motions such as a motion to refer or a motion to dismiss do not need to be presented in writing. If you're making, I'll talk about the operating budget later since we're not doing that now. If you've not already done so, please check your cell phone and make sure it is silenced or off now. I will be reasonably strict on time limits and I always will try to call on people who have not yet spoken. If at any point you are confused about the proceedings, it is appropriate to call a point of order and ask for a clarification. It's also always okay to phone me or send me an email or see me prior to town meeting if you need an explanation of any kind. I will not call on members by name even if I know perfectly well who you are. I will stop speakers when your time is up and ask you to finish your current sentence. I will attempt to be consistent with all speakers and equally fair or unfair to all, but I will be inclined to give some deference to board and committee members, petitioners and town employees. We're now gonna test our electronic voting devices and hang on, I've got a script for that if I can find it. I hope I can find it. I actually don't have a script for that so I'm gonna make it up as I go along. So your devices should already be turned on which means you should see some numbers displayed in the little L-D-E-D display. I see the number of my device, mine happens to be 253. If your device is not turned on, press the bottom right button just once and release it and your device should turn on. Is there anybody who does not see a readout in the LED screen? Good, everybody's okay. When we come to votes, there will be a window, there will be a time when I say it is time to vote and you will have 30 seconds to enter your vote. You can enter either a one, a two or a three. One is yes, two is no, three is abstain. Abstains are not counted in the final vote so if we need two thirds to pass something or a majority, the abstentions are not actually counted. We just count the yeses and the noes. Again, one is yes, two is no, three is abstain. During the 30 second window, you can change your vote and you will see a readout on your screen saying what the last vote you pressed is. Sometimes at the very beginning of the voting window, it takes a couple seconds for the readout to appear on the screen but I will always ask before the end, is everybody see their vote on their screen? So if I vote no, it should say no on my screen. Sean, can you think of anything else I need to be telling them? Cause I forgot my notes on this. I think that's pretty much it. One is yes, two is no, three is abstain. We are now gonna have a test vote and I will tell you when the voting window opens and you will see a timer up on the screen as well. So here's our question, yes nor abstain and you have 26 seconds left to vote. If you can't read it, I think you need to move closer to the front of the auditorium. Then perhaps, I mean, my eyesight isn't that great but I don't know, yes, I mean, okay. So we had 58 yeses, 87 noes, abstains 29. Is there anybody who did not see a readout on their screen saying that their vote was received? Anybody who did not see that readout? I mean, I don't have much to say if you can't read it from where you are then you're also not gonna be able to read motions that are on the screen and you're gonna just have to make do. We can't make things bigger sometimes because it wouldn't fit on the screen. So we'll do our best to make things readable but there definitely will be times that are frustrated. So here's the explanation. Okay, we're gonna move on now. I hear a point of order. Why don't you wait for a microphone, please? Okay, so mine says received but there's no yes or no. I'm sorry. Mine says received but there's no yes or no above it. It would be really. Yeah. Can we, yeah, we're gonna run it again to see if yours works. And somebody who is working, why don't you watch her and see if you're, so wait, can't vote. Yeah, you gotta wait until you see the clock starting. Okay, try it now. And wait, you have to wait a couple seconds. Okay now, good, we're all set. Why don't you just kill this off? So I have one other small statement I'm gonna read. Then we're gonna hear some comments from town council and then we're gonna dive into article one. It's been a difficult year for Amherst politics. For some it is now an optimistic time of new beginnings. For others it is a disappointing time of sad endings. I would like to remind all of you that the responsibility of town meeting is still to do what we were elected to do, which is to discuss and vote on the articles that are before us. As we debate and vote, I urge all town meeting members to remember that all parties have the best interest of the town at heart and all opinions and all speakers must be listened to with respect. I now call on town council, Mr. Bard to make some comments to the meeting. Sure. Mr. Moderator, Joel Bard, town council. Good evening, everyone. I'm going to speak briefly about the transition period that we are in. Stating the obvious, the new charter is now in effect. During this transition, town officials will be governed principally by section 10.7 of the charter. The section is called time of taking effect. There are two principles at work. One is that the town or the city, if you will, must continue to function. Its day-to-day operations must be carried out. In other words, regardless of how one views larger policy questions, there need to be decisions made every day to keep the town running. However, section 10.7b places clear and substantial constraints on town government, specifically on the legislative branch, which is town meeting, and on the executive branch, the select board and the town manager. I assume that most, if not all of you, have read our nine page, it was an April 17, 2018 memo regarding transition. I will not read all nine pages now or belabor the points there. But I do want to discuss section 10.7b. I imagine most, if not all of you have read it. But I'm going to read it now, or at least a section of it, because I believe it's important to read again. And in this section b, starting in the second line, it says the select board, town manager, and town meeting shall limit their respective actions during this transition period to those matters essential and necessary to the current operations of the town, such as the annual budget, taking no actions contrary to, or that frustrate the purpose of, this charter. Special town meetings shall be held only to address matters not admitting of delay of which the select board shall be the sole judge. So to some extent that section, our nine page memo, essentially is trying to explain that language and to reconcile it with general town meeting practices and the other language in the charter. Section 10.13 also provides some important guidance saying that during this transition period, the select board and town council, in there it's not referring to me, but referring to the future elected body, that the select board and town council are authorized to adopt measures that clarify, confirm, or extend any of the transition provisions. Meaning that until there is a town council, the select board will have that authority. The purpose of that being to assure, and this is in the language of the charter, to assure that the transition will be accomplished in quote, the most expeditious and least contentious manner possible. In other words, during this period, which will last either until December 3rd, 2018, or February 4th, 2019, per the provisions of the charter, the select board will be charged with making these important determinations. So at this annual town meeting, members should be guided by these principles to the greatest extent possible. That's what the charter, what the charter states. It's therefore our opinion that the town meeting stays close to this guidance in pursuant to the terms that were voted by the town earlier this year. Thank you. Thank you. I now call on Mr. Slaughter to make a motion under article one of the special town meeting. Mr. moderator, I presume you would like me to read the entirety of it. Yes, I believe you need to. Bear with me. This will be fairly lengthy. I move that the town vote to authorize the select board to petition the general court for special legislation set forth below, establishing a schedule for the election and general of members of the town council. I think that's for the preliminary and general election of members of the town council provided, however, that the general court may make clerical or editorial changes of form only to the bill unless the select board approves amendments to the bill before enactment by the general court and to authorize the select board to approve amendments within the scope of the general public objectives of the petition and the new town charter and act authorizing the city known as the town of Amherst to hold a special election on November 6th, 2018. Whereas the city known as the town of Amherst has changed its form of government and desires to elect its first town council as soon as practicable, being enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in general court assembled and by the authority of the same as follows, section one, notwithstanding any general or special law or charter provision of the city known as the town of Amherst to the contrary, the city known as the town of Amherst shall hold a special election for the office of town council on November 6th, 2018 and a preliminary election for the office of town council on September 4th, 2018. Section two, notwithstanding section seven of chapter 53 of the Massachusetts general laws or any other general or special law or charter provision to the contrary, nomination papers for the office of town council members shall be filed with the board of registrars of the city known as the town of Amherst for certification of signatures on or before 5 p.m. on June 29th, 2018. Section three, notwithstanding any other general or special law or charter provision to the contrary, the board of registrars shall complete certification of signatures on these nomination papers on or before 5 p.m. on July 10th, 2018. Section four, notwithstanding section 10 of chapter 53 of the Massachusetts general laws or any other general or special law or charter provision to the contrary, certified nomination papers shall be filed with the town clerk on or before 5 p.m. on July 13th, 2018. Section five, notwithstanding section 11 of chapter 53 of the Massachusetts general laws or any other general or special law or charter provision to the contrary, a candidate who has filed nomination papers to fill the vacancy of the office of town council member may withdraw his or her nomination by filing a notarized withdrawal no later than 5 p.m. on July 17, 2018. Section six, the town clerk shall take all actions necessary to conduct the special election for the town council on November 6th, 2018 as provided in section 10.7 of the charter as adopted on March 27th, 2018. Section seven, notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the issuance by the town clerk of nomination papers for the office of town council member and the filing of such nomination. Hang on, there's a little more to that paragraph. Did I miss something or did he not finish all of section seven? He did not finish. Yeah. So try section seven again or you can borrow my script if you want. Perhaps I should borrow your script because I believe I read all of the words on mine. Evidently. You kind of ended right in the middle. Right, read off section seven again. So let me reread section seven. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the issuance by the town clerk of nomination papers for the office of town council member and the filing of such nomination papers with the board of registrars and town clerk prior to the effective date of this act but otherwise in conformance with this act and applicable law are hereby ratified, validated and confirmed as though this act had then been in effect. Shall I read eight as well? Yeah. Section eight. This act shall take effect upon its passage. Okay, I heard a second before Mr. Slaughter speaks to it. I just want to point out the significant changes between what he read and what's in the warrant are some date changes. And I assume Mr. Slaughter is going to be explaining why there are differences. I just want to point out that I've already looked at it carefully and I have ruled that his motion is in scope of the article. Mr. Slaughter, you have five minutes. Hang on, I hear a point of order. Wait for a microphone, please. Felicity Callahan, precinct nine. I don't even have a section eight in the motion sheet. So it got truncated. Yeah, can we somehow find a copy that has a complete section seven and it has section eight and projected on the screen. So poor Mr. Slaughter wasn't the only one, huh? Yeah, there's a point of order, but you still need a small microphone, so wait for a microphone. Rob Custner, precinct three district, I have no idea. At the beginning there was also some confusion on the part of the speaker. I'm just wondering if in addition to these sections that are being projected, we could get a clarification to what the initial part of the motion is. Mr. Slaughter. Well, he'll be speaking to, being confused about the motion isn't a point of order. He will be speaking to his motion. So you should just be patient and wait. Excuse me, it's not a, the grammar was wrong. He inserted things that aren't in the text. Right. I don't believe it was in order, thank you. So I can reread that, it's kind of a clean text. I can reread that section. Yeah, I think the words and general just should be stricken. So what he should have read is set forth below establishing a schedule for the election of members of the town council. That's all we're doing. And there were a couple extra words in there. Sorry about the confusion and that's a perfectly valid point of order. Mr. Slaughter, you now, when you are ready, have five minutes to speak to your motion. Okay. So now that I think we have ourselves organized a little bit, what you'll notice mostly in this, thank you. What you'll notice mostly from what was in the charter itself to what we moved this evening are a change in several dates. There's a couple of reasons for that. One of which was some questions that were raised at a select board meeting relative to the ability of people to participate in the nomination process. And as a result of that, we asked town council to opine upon that and whether or not there were changes that could be made or not. They additionally sought council from the secretary of state's office and the elections division relative to that and a few things were brought to light relative to those questions. One of which was that although the charter states that June 1st is the date of nomination papers being made available, actually it says shall be available. It doesn't preclude having them be available earlier than that. Secondly, and this was from the secretary of state's office, in order to comport with the state law and state nomination process, the end dates for nomination papers have been moved up. And that is so that people who are overseas or serving in the military have a full ability to participate in the election process. Given the time at which those ballots are made available to those individuals, the nomination papers are due sooner. As a result, if town meeting moves ahead with the article as presented, the select board will meet tomorrow and set the election dates presuming that the state house will concur with us. But that will allow us to make nomination papers available late tomorrow afternoon. That should help with regard to having people have plenty of time to access the nomination process and to acquire the nomination papers and have some time, even if they're leaving for a good chunk of the summer, they should have time to be able to participate in the nomination process. Does it really a point of order that warrants interruption of the speaker? Okay. So one of the other pieces of this, and this was something that has been in the document and has not changed with this motion is the election dates, the recommended election dates of September 4th and November 6th. The charter commission spent a fair amount of time putting this together and wanting to coincide with the state primary and general elections because we get a lot larger voter turnout just in general. And that enfranchises more people and more people take advantage of the franchise of voting. And so that opportunity to vote is one we wanted to take advantage of and the fact that people will be coming to the polls for that purpose and that voting for town councilor will be an additional opportunity for those folks as well as their state legislators and national legislators. The additional factor with regard to having the elections concurrent with the state and federal elections is that running full, separate elections on dates different than the state election is more expensive than running them concurrently. Even though there is some additional difficulty with that, it is far more difficult and far more expensive to operate those elections as separate dates. Additionally, that means if we were to have dates other than those proposed, we would have four elections in a span of four months, basically. A couple of other points I'll make, one of which, and we spoke at our previous to town meetings, Slapboard was meeting, we spoke with town council and we were discussing the nature of changes to the election dates. Given that those were spelled out expressly within the charter that passed, we have no ability to predict whether or not the legislature would accept any other dates than those that were in the charter. Given that the entire town voted on those dates as part and parcel of the charter, those would be likely the ones that they would find acceptable, any other dates they may or may not find consistent with the charter and the intention of the voters as they spoke on March 27th. The select board recommends this to unanimously and we hope that you will pass this request for special legislation and that we can set our elections for September and November. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there still a point of order? Then wait for the microphone please and identify yourself. It helps if you stand up, yeah. Meg Gage, precinct one. I first of all apologize to Mr. Slaughter for interrupting. A large number of us don't have that language. Could somebody just go through and tell us what the dates are in the amended proposal? Just. I agree that it might be helpful to review all of the dates and explain what they mean. I'm not the only one. Is there anybody who's prepared to do that? I'm asking is there anybody who wants to speak and explain the dates? Thank you, Mr. Bart. Mr. Moderator Joel Bart, so you all weren't the only ones who were confused so I made myself a chart. So I'll just give the key dates. And one of the points if I may Mr. Moderator to explain if I may be, while I'm up here, to explain the language in article seven that may not be self-explanatory. Yes, in section seven, yes. In section seven, thank you. So where the charter has a date of June 1st for nomination papers being available, as you heard the chair say the select board is prepared to make the nomination papers available tomorrow. And so what this language that you're looking at up here on in section seven is stating, let me make sure. So it refers to the possibility of the town clerk issuing nomination papers well in advance. And so that language would have the legislature ratify that early, if you will, the early issuance of nomination papers. So that's the first change is where the charter says June 1st, it will be some earlier date and perhaps as early as May 1st. Then the date in the charter for filing nomination papers is August 1 and the motion you just heard moves that up to June 29th. The date by which the registrars then certify the signatures has moves up from August 8th to July 10th. The date when the certified papers are filed by the registrars with the town clerk that moves from August 10th to July 13th. There's a deadline for nominees to withdraw their papers that was moved from August 13th to July 17th. And this is an important change. And this actually is what triggers this whole motion before you. The charter referred to the September election primary. In other words, the charter didn't have a specific date. And as many of you may be aware, that date had to be moved because the primary would have fallen on a Jewish holiday and so it got moved up to the date of September 4th. So this date now in the motion you just heard is the date of the primary, whereas originally that date was a date about 10 days later or a little more than that. And then finally, the date of the special election hasn't changed. That continues to be November 6th. Thank you, that's appreciated. Yes, wait for a microphone please. Thank you, Juan. Can we please see the beginning of it so we can see where all these dates fit in? Because I'm looking at the finance committee report and it's the old date. So I'd like to see beginning with section one. Yeah, I believe the motion script on the back table had all the beginning session, it's just section. So wasn't there a motion script on the back table? I didn't see it. I picked up everything and I didn't get a motion sheet. Do any neighbors have a motion sheet that they can show it because it's easier than showing it on the screen? The whole thing doesn't fit on the screen. So if we put the beginning up, some people will be sad that they can't see the end. So I'd say share your motion sheets with your neighbors. I hear a point of order. Felicity Callahan, precinct nine. I think the difficulty is that precincts that signed in over there didn't come over to this table where there was a huge stack of the motion sheet. You had to come to this table to get that motion sheet. Yes, as is always the case and as new members learned in their orientation, new information is always on that table and old information on that table. If there's anybody who would like to get up now and get a motion from the new information table, motion sheet can do so. Or like I said, you can share with your friends. Oh, if there's somebody handing some out, great, thank you. Anybody else need one? Just stand up or raise your hand. There's one, some couple in the third row there. Down in the front, Asian. Yeah, I did say that before on my notes but no one really listens to me. But always, always check the new information table when you come here and new town meeting members know this experienced town meeting members should know it also. Not to be mean. The motion sheet does truncate the end but it is now in nice big print on the screen in front of you. So you can see the complete section seven and you can see the section eight. As I was about to say after thanking Mr. Slaughter is that the finance committee has no recommendation on this and this will require a majority vote for passage. If it passes, then this special act request will be made. If it doesn't pass, it won't be made. I am now calling on Jerry Weiss to make an amended motion and after he, actually before he makes it, I'm gonna explain what's going on because it's tricky. Mr. Weiss is going to make a motion to amend the motion that's on the floor. The motion that's on the floor is the select board motion. Mr. Weiss's motion has different dates. What we're gonna vote on first is whether or not we want to accept Mr. Weiss's motion as the new main motion or not. So we're gonna discuss the pros and cons of Mr. Weiss's dates. We can also discuss the pros and cons of the select board dates at the same time. Eventually we'll come to a vote and that'll be a vote on whether to accept Mr. Weiss's dates as the ones we will eventually be submitting. If we vote yes on that, then we come to a final vote on Mr. Weiss's dates whether to submit them or not. If we vote no on Mr. Weiss's substitute amendment, then we're back to the select board amendment and we'll vote yes or no on that. Questions on the process before we continue? I see a hand raised, so get the microphone there. It's not precisely a question, but I wanted to share information that was just shared with me. No thank you, that's not a point of order. It's about the problem with the motion sheet and how you can see the proper motion sheet in print. Is available. Okay, sure, you can talk about that. So one of the memos that was distributed from Mr. Bard's office, labeled number three, that was found on the back table there, has on the last page the correct unabridged version of the motion. Thank you, that was very helpful. With no further ado, Mr. Weiss, you may make your motion. Are you trying to project Mr. Weiss's, yeah, I mean it's not all gonna fit, so I'd say get the first half of it up on the screen if you can. That's good for now and you can scroll as he reads, that would be great. Mr. Weiss, you may proceed. It should have had this struck out language, I don't know what happened, I'm sorry. This just has the clean version. Not sure what happened, technology. Okay, so bear with me, because I'm gonna read the whole thing. I moved to amend the motion by replacing the struck through language with the underlying language, but there is no struck through or underlying. Okay, an act authorizing the city known as the town of Amherst to hold a special election on December 4th, 2018, whereas the city known as the town of Amherst has changed its form of government and desires to elect its first town council as soon as practicable, be it enacted by the state and house of representatives and general court assembled and by the authority of the same as follows, section one. Notwithstanding any general or special law or charter provision of the city known as the town of Amherst to the contrary, the city known as the town of Amherst shall hold a special election for the office of town council on December 4th, 2018, and a preliminary election for the office of town councilor on October 16th, 2018. I'm hearing a point of order. That screen is not showing what Mr. Weiss is reading. Yeah, we need to see Mr. Weiss is amended. Okay, then let's take a hard copy and project it. Can we do that? I'm presuming that once Mr. Weiss is through reading, he's gonna carefully go through all of the changes that he's proposing. I'm sure he will do that. Sorry about that, I don't know what happened. Okay, so Sean, you might wanna stay there and then scroll it as he reads. Okay, my apologies. So just, you know, in red, you will see his substitute dates. Why don't you start with section one? Okay, not with section one, notwithstanding any general or special law or charter provision of the city known as the town of Amherst to the contrary, the city known as the town of Amherst shall hold a special election for the office of town counselor on December 4th, 2018, and a preliminary election for the office of town counselor on October 16, 2018. Section two, notwithstanding section seven of chapter 53 of the Massachusetts general laws or any other general or special law or charter provision to the contrary, nomination papers for the office of town council member shall be filed with the board of registrars of the city known as the town of Amherst for certification of signatures on or before 5 p.m. on August 28th, 2018. Section three, notwithstanding any other general or special law or charter provision to the contrary, the board of registrars shall complete certification of signatures on these nomination papers on or before 5 p.m. on September 4th, 2018. Section four, notwithstanding section 10 of chapter 53 of the Massachusetts general laws or any other general or special law or charter provision to the contrary, certified nomination papers shall be filed with the town clerk on or before 5 p.m. on September 11th, 2018. Section five, notwithstanding section 11 of chapter 53 of the Massachusetts general laws or any other general or special law or charter provision to the contrary, a candidate who has filed nomination papers to fill the vacancy in the office of town council member may withdraw his or her nomination by filing a notarized withdrawal no later than 5 p.m. on September 13th, 2018. Section six, the town clerk shall take all necessary actions necessary to conduct the special election for the town council on December 4th, 2018. Section seven, notwithstanding, there's no change in section seven from before. That's acceptable to say, or in section eight. Or in section eight. Do we have a second? Mr. Weiss, you may speak to your motion. Well, thank you. I am Mr. Weiss, formally a precinct date. I don't know what district I'm in. Five, thank you. For the purpose of introductions, we're still using town meeting precincts, thank you. Eight. The select board motion that you just heard before me does fix the June 1st date problem to take out papers, petition papers to run for office. But it does not fix the problem of the September 4th primary. As we've drawn closer to tonight's special town meeting, it's become clear that our body is once again divided. The conversations have grown rankerous and seem guaranteed to continue into the night. We could spend an hour or two, or God forbid three, debating the constitutionality, or lack thereof of the article, of the possibility of disenfranchisement or not of students, of whether the charter commission realized or not when they created this calendar of such potential problems. I see such a fight getting us nowhere, but more divided, with only a vote at the end to decide the outcome and anger left all around. A group of us have been working on a solution to this dilemma for the past few days and came up with the motion I just read. If this motion passes, it may be a solution that more of us can agree on than what we have before us without it. That's my hope. I'd like to offer up some of the words from Koppelman and Page that I think speaks to this. You can find it in section C of their written opinion to the town on the matter of the charter transition provisions, and I am going to excerpt the relevant passages. C, authority to interpret the transition provisions. Section 10.13 of the charter provides further that quote, the town council and select board shall have authority to adopt measures that clarify, confirm, or extend any of the transition provisions in order that the transition may be made in the most expeditious and least contentious manner possible, unquote. In turn, the section further requires that such measures be calculated to ensure transition is efficient, and according to Miriam Webster, quote, the least likely to cause disagreement or argument, unquote. One could argue that my amendment will cause as much contention, disagreement, and argument as the amendment, as the motion made before me. However, I'd like to point out that while that amendment, that motion, I'm sorry, I keep calling it amendment because it's an amended motion, that motion does fix the problem of the timing of the taking out of petition papers. It does not fix the problem of students not being able to campaign on campus should there be a primary election. Currently, the primary is scheduled for September 4th, the first day of classes for all three institutions of higher learning and Amherst. This motion attempts to fix that problem, as well as providing the same earlier date for the taking out of petition papers. I'm asking why not delay the election one month to give students a closer approximation of the same opportunities to run and campaign as everyone else? That one month delay can go a long way in providing the democratic and representative government intended in the creation of this new home rule charter. I understand this amendment does not perfect the calendar, but neither does the select board motion. Consider this, if town meeting votes down this amendment, we will be left with two other options. The select board amendment accomplishes slightly less than this one. The original article much less. Vote down all three and we end up with the fallback provision in the charter that will have a January 24th general election, which nearly replicates the same problem as September 4th. And that provision in the charter is not debatable. It becomes the election calendar, barring a lawsuit. I want to apologize to the select board for not having had time to consult with them about this motion. You know that I would have preferred to do this, but we were literally working on it until game time. That's now. And despite this lack of consultation, it's my hope that the select board will support the motion. This is a hard decision we have to make tonight, and we cannot achieve perfection. I understand that there are likely people here who believe the select version is best and others who believe the fallback calendar spelled out in the charter is best. All options are flawed, and I believe this option is the least flawed. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to clarify a process thing that was stated incorrectly inadvertently, which is that the motion on the floor now is Mr. Weiss's motion. I'm going to open discussion to both sets of dates, both Mr. Weiss's and the select boards. If Mr. Weiss's motion is voted in, then it becomes the main motion. If it fails, we fall back to the motion of the select board, but then we will come to a vote on the motion of the select board, and a yes means the select board dates are what's used in what we submit to the state. If the main motion, which is the select board motion fails, we do not fall back to the charter language. It simply fails and we fall back to the default January date if there's no request to the state. Is that understood? There's no motion with the dates that are in the chart. The main motion is, I mean, the warrant, the main motion from the select board is their proposed dates. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Moderator, could we- Identify yourself, please. Jane Wald, precinct one. Could we please see the dates in the amended motion on the earlier sections? That requires, going back on the screen, Mr. Hannon. When we need Mr. Weises. Here, I have a copy of it. Oh, sorry. Here. So the gist of it is, the special election would be on December 4th, and the primary would be on, what's the day of the primary? October 16th. October 16th. And then all of the other dates fall into that framework for when nominations are due, et cetera. And again, what we will eventually be voting on is whether to accept Mr. Weises' substitute as the main motion. But I'm opening this up to discussion now, and you can talk about the pros and cons of either motion or of doing neither motion. Yes, I see a white card, third row there. Chris Riddle, precinct two. What I need is a three column chart. One that shows the charter, one that shows the select board, and one that shows Mr. Weises' amendment. I'm really having trouble getting my mind around this. While we continue with our discussions, is there a volunteer who thinks they can come up with a one-page chart that could be readable on the front screen? Give it a try. Does that include Mr. Weises' dates as well? Okay, it's handwritten, but I actually think it's very helpful. Yes, I see a white card in the center. By the way, just before I'm gonna call on you, but who still doesn't have red cards? Raise your hand. I don't know, but I heard red, so a couple of people don't have red. Who doesn't have green cards? But, so we'll still work on that combination of red and white means green. Everybody has white cards, we have white pieces of paper, so we're good. Okay, let's continue, my apologies. Please identify yourself. Alex Lefebvre, precinct 10. I just have a quick question. Mr. Bard commented that we were changing the Select Board Article nomination papers to be due June 29th so that we could have end dates that were moved up for overseas and military to participate. And the timeframe between when nomination papers are due and the election is a longer time span, so I'm curious if, in Mr. Weises' amendment, are we meeting those same longer deadlines that we need for military and overseas? Mr. Weis, if you want, you can respond to that. I think the question is the timeframe between nominations and the preliminary, is that correct? I think I tried to, we tried to make this the same amount of time. Could I ask Mr. Boniface, who really helped make, draw, write this, could he comment on the dates? Yes, you may be recognized. Are you a registered voter and amourist? John Boniface, I'm a constitutional attorney living here in Amherst, and I live in Pre-Sync 3. I spoke with Michelle Tassenari, the legal counsel and director of the Elections Division at the Secretary of State's office. It was her view that it was not necessary with this alternative election calendar to satisfy that 45-day window given that it was not coming before a regularly scheduled election. And in fact, she commented in her email back to me that this was a calendar that gave more time, as Mr. Weis has indicated, to allow for the campaign process to occur. Thank you. Yes, I see a green card right in the center there. Meg Gage, Pre-Sync 1. I'm in support of this. I see it as a very creative win-win solution that has the potential to bring many of us together who otherwise are gonna have a very difficult time. I think give this select board a lot of credit for being flexible and proposing dates that I think have less constitutional challenge, and thank you very much for that. There's another issue which is important to me, which some have argued is a constitutional issue, but I don't actually personally think it reaches the bar, which is participating in campaigns. The problem I have with the select board proposal is that we would have a campaign period between July 13th and September 4th for the very first election of council members when we're trying so hard to get new people to run, and the entire debate forums, the candidates, the letters to the editor, will happen between July 13th and September 4th. Again, I don't see this as literally a constitutional issue, although I've heard people argue that if you can't participate in learning about the candidates because you're not there, it's not just students, but many of us aren't here during that time. The problem with the proposal that many people have supported, which is to defeat the select board proposal means that we have an election in January, which is very late, so I feel that this is a creative proposal that gives us an opportunity to have the election in early December, I'm looking at it correctly, rather than late January, and it's only a little bit less than a month later than November 6th, and I think that what the opportunity it gives candidates we're trying to encourage to run from these different districts who are not perhaps well known, who are gonna have a challenge raising the money that we should vote for this amended proposal, which is frankly very, very similar to the one that the select board is proposing. And I think, I know there are people who I often am allied with who wanna vote the whole thing down and aren't gonna like what Mr. Weiss has proposed and what I'm supporting, but I think it's time to try to find some middle grounds where everybody wins, where we move this council, implement this charter and do haste as well as we can, but with respect for people who are gonna run for office and people who are gonna vote and are gonna have to make decisions. We really need to be sure that this election is not the same people that have been holding office forever. I'm sure there will be some of those that we need those people, these are our leaders here, but we need to have some new faces and we need to help make this campaign as democratic as possible. Thank you. I see a red card, second row from the back. I hear a point of order. Wait for microphone, please. Page Wilder, precinct 10. I simply have a question and if you're gonna ignore my white card so I can't ask the question, I guess it's a point of order. Hang on, hang on, hang on. I would like to know if that date is correct in the last column. Okay, that's a point of order, that's not a question. My understanding is that would be an even year and it should be 2020. No, we're simply talking about the very first election, I think, so I believe the dates up there are, no, I believe the dates up there are correct. And if anyone doesn't have a white card, hold up any white piece of paper and it will do. And there's plenty more white cards back there. And now the speaker that I recognize, please identify yourself. Thank you, Mandy Jo Hanneke, precinct five. Mr. Moderator, may I have an extra minute due to having to address the amended, the WICE amendment too? All those in favor of granting an extra minute to Ms. Hanneke, please say aye. Oppose no. You may proceed, four minutes. Thank you. First, full disclosure, as I said, I'm Mandy Jo Hanneke from precinct five. I was Vice Chair of the Charter Commission but I'm not speaking tonight on behalf of the Charter Commission. I'm speaking on my own behalf. I thought town meeting members would benefit from hearing how the Charter Commission reached consensus on the September and November election dates proposed in the motion made tonight by the select board. On June 22nd, 2017, the Charter Commission discussed an initial transition schedule proposed by our transition working group. Yes, I went back and watched that video and it took a while to have that discussion. That schedule would have had 15 months and two annual town meetings between the adoption of the charter and the seating of the town council. The commission reached consensus that this proposed schedule would drag out the transition too long. Should the charter be adopted, it seemed unfair to the residents of Amherst and to the functioning of the town to keep things in limbo for 15 months. So we began discussing alternatives. We were constrained by the state elections being held this September and November. Any local elections scheduled within 30 days of either of these elections would need a special act from the state legislature. So any local election between August and December 6th required a special act. But elections at other times also had their problems. Holding elections in Amherst while colleges are out of session was unacceptable. In fact, fellow commissioner Nick Grabe was emphatic that we could not and should not do it as there had been lawsuits surrounding such timing. So elections between mid-May and late August were out. We also wanted to ensure that the budget process for next year was not compromised. Doing so required seating the town council no later than mid-February which is still a compressed budget process. But if we placed the general election in late January the entire general election campaign would be during the winter break and the holidays. And the preliminary campaign would be in early December. None of this was very attractive. The schedule proposed by Mr. Weiss presents problems too with the budgeting because under the charter, if the special act is adopted, with the November election the council would be seated December 3rd. But with Mr. Weiss's amendment the council could not be seated December 3rd because the election would not happen until December 4th. Which means the council would fall back to a seating on February 4th again, a timeline that compresses the budget process under the new charter and that is not ideal or very attractive at all. So the commission reached consensus that holding the election of the town council on the same dates as the state elections is our best option even though it required seeking the special act. It gave us the highest turnout we could hope for in the town council election during the transition period and it did not require voters to go to the polls four times in 13 weeks as setting the elections at the time that Mr. Weiss has proposed and moved does. The special act schedule is pragmatic and sensible the one that's proposed by the select board. It puts the council in place with enough time to adequately and ably consider the budget under the timeline set forth in the charter. It doesn't unduly delay the transition to a new form of government as later dates for council elections including those Mr. Weiss has proposed does. And it puts the main part of the campaign at a time in the calendar that doesn't interfere with the holidays or breaks including Thanksgiving holiday. Further choosing now to hold the election on any date other than September 4th and November 6th is an active choice to reduce turnout for the first town council election and burden Amherst's residents with going to the polls four times in 13 weeks. Please vote in favor of the special act as moved by the select board and against Mr. Weiss's amendment to that special act. As my fellow charter commissioner Julia Ruchemeyer stated at that June 22nd meeting where we set those original dates we all seem to be basically in agreement. Thank you. I see a white card all by itself way in the back there. Bonnie McCracken precinct six. So it might be a point of order. I just need some clarification. Is this will be our regular election or just for this one year? Is this only this year? And then what do we fall back on in three years? A regular election? Anybody in, anybody who wants to explain what will happen after the charters in place in the first year? Mr. Weiss? Well, I'll probably get this wrong. I'm sure somebody will correct me. This is aimed at this first election. The provisions are that we are going to be having elections after that in odd number of years. I think there is still be a problem though with if there are going to be primaries and that they know I'm here. I'm seeing no, there won't be a problem. Okay, there's no problems. And this is just for this year or 2000. Yeah, just for this year. Yes, I believe he's correct. And I'm seeing no problems. People shaking. Third row on the aisle here. Dianne Stein, Pre-State nine and former member, well, I guess is still a member of the Charter Commission. So first, the Charter Commission wanted us to go to rank choice voting in the future so that we would no longer have preliminary elections and our elections would fall on election day but in odd years so that we wouldn't have them when governors or presidents are running. So that's that. I would like to speak if I may as a separate thing which would be supporting Mr. Weist's motion and I'd like to have a full three minutes for that. No, you can't add on in the middle. Well, can I speak to that? Sure, you've got whatever you have left in your three minutes. I don't see the timer on some. Okay, well, it's on, but I'll be quick. The first election of this under the Charter is going to be extremely significant because we will be electing the first town council. This council will serve longer than future town councils because of the nature of when the election is. Moreover, they will be setting rules in place which future town councils will be following and they will have the ability to run as incumbents in the future and whereas it's an absolute even playing field for this first election. SAR is the dreadful time for us to be having a campaign with the preliminary election on September 4th. People are away, they're barely getting back into town and that isn't just the students, that's all of us. And we need to be able to have some time in which candidates can go door knocking. Candidates can meet, have a chance to speak to us in forums and to be questioned and all of that will be precluded by a September 4th preliminary election. So I had nothing to do with writing this proposal. My own was not going to work, I was going to come up with one. I hoped we could have our preliminary election closer to the actual election, that doesn't work as lawyer Bard explained. But I think this is a very good solution. More for giving us the kind of government we want in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Steinberg. That one works. Okay, thank you. There's an additional problem that we've sort of identified just in the course of the discussion tonight and that is that there's another provision in the charter that is totally unrelated or not unrelated but is different from the election provision and that is the date of transfer of authority between the current provided select board and town meeting and the newly provided town council, specifically 10.7 A. And I'm reading from the town charter. So this is town charter 10.7 A. All town officers and employees shall continue to perform the duties in the same manner and to the same extent as they have performed prior to the adoption by the voters of the homeroom charter but being mindful that on December 3, 2018 or February 4, 2019 under section 10.9, the authority, the executive authority shall thereafter be vested in the town manager as determined by the charter and the policy leadership and legislative authority shall be vested in a town council. I won't go into the other section but the point is obvious that with Mr. Weiss's motion there is no other date that reflects it in this other section of the transition provision and therefore there's a frustration and an inability to actually implement the transition. Excuse me, Mr. Steinberg, I hear a point of order. Rob Custner precinct three, we heard earlier from town council that his section C of his memorandum. Nope, I'm sorry, this is not a point of order. It is, Mr. Custner. Mr. Custner, I am the sole arbiter and we will now let Mr. Steinberg finish his statement. There's really nothing else. I understand the point. I don't know if we would have that authority to change that provision and we have no advice on the subject. Yes, now I'll recognize you in the front row. Rob Custner, precinct three. Mr. Steinberg wisely understood the point I was trying to make. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, for recognizing me afterwards. The town council provided for exactly this situation. His memorandum specifies its section C of his most recent memorandum that the select board has the authority to make minor changes like this. If this body is concerned that the new city council, town council, whatever it's called, is not gonna be ceded until February 4th, the select board and that council, I guess the council would have to wait until they're actually ceded, but the select board can authorize under that provision of the charter that they be ceded earlier. I hope that's clear to people here. I think this issue of the 4th of February is a specious argument. Under the current proposal that Mr. Weiss has made, anytime between completion of the election and I suppose that date February 4th, any of those times would be eligible under that provision of the charter. Since I have another minute or so, I wanna make another point. People have raised the issue about the cost of a special election. I don't know what the additional cost would be, but remember the incoming city council will also be paid a salary. You can do your calculations there. I believe that a month of savings in their salary would go some way towards paying for that special election. I'm glad you appreciate the humor in that. I stop now, thank you. Yes, I see a red card back there, but I wonder why you're standing in that ceded, okay. Yeah, but I really need to know that your town meeting members and not members of the audience and it's really hard to tell if you're back there. But actually the red card I was going to recognize was the other one there. But I would ask you if you wanna be recognized to be in a seat and not stand in the back from this point forward. You can also stand on the sides, people of back problems sometimes stand there and that would be okay. Yes, please identify yourself. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Bear Turkel precinct four. I think we're all in favor of trying to enfranchise as many voters in this first election as possible. It's a new town council we want as many people involved in the process and able to vote. We don't want an unprecedented challenge to our democracy to happen. We really want to get voters out there. We took a look and looked using the current voter rolls back on September 2016 and November 2016 looking at the turnouts. And I'm not sure, I wasn't knowledgeable about how dramatic it was, but in September of 2016, 21 18 to 24 year olds voted that are on the current voter rolls. In November of 2016, 2,814 voted. And I think that makes the point pretty strongly that it's hard to get people to get out and vote. And by having our town council elections on the same day as the state primary and the same day as the general election brings thousands, thousands of more voters, of Amherst voters, students, non students to the polls to weigh in and be enfranchised in this democracy. And by moving it to dates that are off cycle, not only costs money, I don't, again, Mr. Kustner didn't know how much it cost. I remember the last time that was asked in this chamber a few years ago, it was around $15,000 per election. So in addition to costing an extra $30,000, which is half of a teacher salary, it brings out thousands, thousands of more voters. So I will be voting no on Mr. Weiss's proposal and will be supporting the select board and the secretary of state that felt it was important that we hold our election on the same days as those state general and primaries. Thank you. Yes, way over in the corner with a white card. Hi, I'm Tim Skolona, precinct 10. I'm just curious, generally, what forms of student outreach have been used for any of the proposals set forth before us today? I'm not sure that's really pertinent to this discussion. If somebody from the front table wants to try and answer that, you can, but otherwise I think we're gonna move on. We're gonna move on. Yes, right there in the second row with the green card. Hi, I'm Jen. And if people are able to stand up, I think it's helpful for other people to see and know who's speaking. Obviously, if you can't stand up, you don't have to. I'm Janet McGowan from precinct eight. I just wanted to present some information and perspectives. We have 22,000 registered voters in Amherst. 11,000 of them are between the ages of 18 and 21 years old. UMass has 22,000 undergraduates. 23% of those people are from out of state. A lot of the people who are in state go out of state in the summer. There's 7,000 grad students in that we're sure where they're from. Amherst College has almost 2,000 students. Many, many of them are not from Massachusetts. Same is true for Hampshire College. Filing for papers and the primary will take place, like right now Amherst College students are studying for exams as are UMass students and Hampshire colleges are completing their work in portfolios and then they leave town and they'll all be out of town probably or the exams are over by the 10th or the 11th and somehow they're supposed to be getting nomination papers, finding out about this election, finding out whether they wanna run for town council, collecting 25 signatures, finishing up their work. I think this is just a fantasy. I mean I have two college students and they arrive haggard and exhausted and haven't eaten or slept for three days. I don't think this is a realistic schedule for the participation of college students who might wanna run for town council even to learn about it. And then part of the right to vote is the right to participate in an election either by running or by learning about the vote and engaging in election activities. This would all take place in the summer when many of us are gone. That would include campaigning if there is a primary. We won't know if there's a primary till mid July. Gathering supporters and signatures in a campaign group that helps you contacting voters, mailing literature, putting up signs, meeting voters face to face, debating candidates, meeting with community and campus groups, writing to local and college papers. The college papers don't publish in the summer. Knocking on doors and there's a lot of empty doors or sublet apartments, empty dorms in Amherst in the summer and also attending local events and doing kinda meet and greets. The voters also during this primary season would be learning about candidates, issues and positions, hearing speeches and debates, reading the local and not reading the college papers, also meeting candidates and registering to vote, registering to vote absentee and voting absentee on time. And then the actual primary vote is on the day classes start at Amherst College in UMass and the day before Hampshire College. This is not a process that will engage and encourage students to vote and bring them into electoral process and you may or may not think that's a constitutional right to protect. I actually do and I think we put ourselves at a risk if we don't. And here we don't, this is Amherstown meeting. We shouldn't do this, we should just pick a right, I'm sorry, do the right thing and pick a calendar that works for everybody in our community, just a few. I see a gentleman standing at the front of the back aisle there, are you a registered voter in Amherst? Then you may either stay there or come forward, identify yourself and speak. Good evening. Oh, hang on, I hear a point of order. Sorry, Jennifer Page, Precinct 8, could someone just tilt that light bulb that's just like kind of blinding, this one right here, it's like right in my eye, thank you. Okay, I'm sorry, you may start over again. Thank you. My name is John Page, I went to this middle school, graduated from Amherst Regional High School and now I'm a junior at UMass Amherst and hope to run in the fall. I think that the assertion that this timetable will disenfranchise students, simply underestimates what we're capable of. Political advocacy organizations on campus have already formed a coalition to get students out to vote in November for state and national elections and have begun helping students register to vote. Of course there are obstacles, of course, but having election coincide with November midterms will only bolster student engagement and student turnout. So I encourage everyone to heed the recommendation of the select board, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, right there on the aisle with the red card. Hi, I'm Lexie Monison Olson, precinct five. My objections to Mr. Weiss's proposal are pretty much threefold. I echo kind of the sentiment that several people have expressed as far as voter turnout goes, I think that we're gonna have a much higher rate of voter turnout if we hold the elections in November. I also echo what Mr. Page just said. The idea that these obstacles in the way of students voting should mean that we transition our entire election schedule is just kind of frustrating. There are always obstacles involved, whether it's that you have work or you have class or you have children or you haven't slept and people who wanna vote are gonna turn out to vote and we're going to have a much higher rate of people doing that if it coincides with these other general elections. And finally, I think that this is just another example of taking a calendar that has been thoroughly researched by people who have been looking at this from many different angles for many, many months and trying to change it in favor of dates that may or may not make certain people happy. Which- Excuse me, we don't talk about motives of people, we just talk about the issues before us. Okay. It's clear that the alternative calendar that was presented by Mr. Weiss was done kind of in haste. He admitted that it was something that they were working on right up until we came in to discuss this and to choose that in favor of an election calendar that was thoroughly researched for many months just seems irresponsible to me. Yes, Mr. Weiss. Yeah. A, it was done in some haste, although with a lot of deliberation and it was done so because we were working on it and we had to respond to the select board motion which was recently changed. As far as how hard the commission worked on it, I was on the commission. And as Ms. Heneke said, we did discuss this at length. However, I don't recall ever part of that discussion being the drawbacks of a September 4th primary. If she can point to the exact time of that happening, I listened to it too, it's long and boring. It's my second time through. We didn't talk about the problem of that September 4th primary and how it would affect students running for office. So there is no effort here to just willy-nilly change dates because we didn't like it. We're trying to come up with something that we can agree on, although the arguments happening now suggest this isn't gonna be any better than without it. So I'm trying to avoid this, but. Thank you. I see a green hard card for a draw from the back there. Jim Oldham, piece in five. I wanna make several points. First, the deeply, the long-planned schedule doesn't exist. The motion from the select board is not what's in the charter. It's not, it's brand new as of two days ago. It has changes in the calendar from the charter. You can see that I believe the charter is on the left. The select board is the second one down on the column. So totally different, brand new. No more well thought than anything else on the table. The second point, this isn't just about who turns out for elections. It's about the process that we use to get for elections. And whether you're a student or a professor or any other resident of Amherst, a special election, a preliminary election taking place in August is not the ideal time to have the voters engaged. Beyond that, one of the changes that came under the select board's motion is that the deadline for having nominations is two months from today. That's a very short window for the public to even find out. We're just discussing about it. It's brand new news to us. The public doesn't know this. The public, the people out there who aren't select board members, who've already decided perhaps to run for city council or anyone else who might have decided to run for city council. Anyone who might be an established political voice in town has a head start. But for the citizen who thinks, well, finally they got rid of town meeting and now I can be on a sensible committee. That person doesn't know and has two months to figure out, do I have the funding available? Do I have the support available? Is my spouse gonna support me? Is my boss gonna be okay with this? There's a lot to put into it and we've just pushed that. We would just push that up if the select board passes. So there are a lot of problems with the schedule. The fall schedule that Mr. Weiss has proposed does not conflict with Thanksgiving as was implied. It does not push the seating of the council back any later than is contemplated in the charter because the charter actually has two options and we're within the options that are contemplated in the charter. And it allows for an election that takes place when people are on campus and when people aren't on their summer vacations or taking their kids' places or whatever. So we're looking at two last-minute ideas that are both trying to improve on a flawed calendar that was unfortunately presented to us in the charter that the citizens passed. Thank you. I'm gonna take another person from the aisle here. Are you a registered voter or an Amherst? I'm not. In that case, we need a vote. All in favor of hearing a non-registered voter speak. Please say aye. Opposed, please say no. You may speak. You can identify yourself, wait for a microphone and then speak. Hi everyone. My name is Sonia Guglani and thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. I'm a junior marketing major at UMass Amherst and like my fellow students at UMass, I recently became involved within Amherst government. I was involved in the charter election because I wanted to see more student representation in Amherst. Not only does Amherst have a responsibility to its students but the students have a responsibility to ensure that the government is advocating for them. We believe that November is the best day to hold the general election as it is proven to increase turnout. The 2018 election will consist of a challenge governor's race, attorney general's race and a Senate race. Because of these major elections, turnout will be high and students are more likely to engage. Every vote is important and due to the momentum of midterm elections, students will find this state more accessible and convenient. Under our new charter, we will have a council that meets regularly and year round. Despite what some of my peers may perceive, Amherst still exists between the months of May and August. If a student candidate for council approached me and told me that they wouldn't be complete, that they would be completely out of town from May until July, I would recommend against their candidacy because we cannot afford representatives that are not present to address our town's issues. Year round representation requires year round commitment. Our town council success is Amherst success. It would be truly inspirational to a young person for a transition from old to new to be done in good faith by a show of unity from all sides of the charter debate. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. I see a white card there, right in the middle, close to the aisle. Nope, nope, nope. I'm sorry, the one close to the aisle here. Marilyn Blastine, precinct six. I just have a question about the Weiss amendment. Is January 24th an absolute date or is it possible to move that up to an earlier date for seating of the town council? Mr. Weiss, would you like to answer that? I think we'd have to hear from town council, but I believe that date is fixed. Somebody can, the January 24th date is the fallback. Should this be defeated? Should the select board motion be defeated? January 24th will be the primary, I mean, will be the election date. Does that answer your question? Could you restate your question? Microphone. What date is the February date? I guess it was February that you specified. February 4th, date for seating of the town council. Is that an absolute date or can that be moved, pushed back, pushed forward? I believe it can be a move, but again, town council would have to weigh in on that. There's been some debate already tonight about that. We've heard different opinions. Mr. Barr, do you have an opinion that you want to express or any on the select board have an opinion on that? Yes, Ms. Brewer. So since of course this wasn't provided to us ahead of time, we are wondering if it means that it defaults to February 4th and despite the comment made earlier that we were making an inaccurate argument, actually we haven't been advised by KP law that we can change that date. So we don't know if it just automatically defaults to February 4th or if we do have power that a previous speaker alleged that we've not been advised that we have. So I'd say the answer as of this moment is uncertain. Some people seem to think the select board can change that date, others aren't as sure. I think that's as close an answer as you're gonna get. Yeah, the red card gentleman in the hat there. Not anymore. I'll have some respect and take it off before I speak. Andrew Parker in a precinct five. I just want to bring up one point that I think maybe perhaps lost on us. It isn't that people aren't gonna have candidates to choose from in November. We're talking about a primary election which means that we have more people that are gonna be running specific seats. Now I understand that that will eliminate people from being able to narrow down that field, but people are still gonna have choices when they go in on November and they're able to choose from someone. It's not that whoever is chosen in September 4th is not gonna be the candidates that are gonna end up being counsel. So to suggest that there's not gonna be a full election cycle for people to engage is just not true. People are gonna be able to engage with those counselors that are selected from the primary. They're gonna be able to speak with them, ask some questions so they can make their correct choice. They're not gonna have choice of the original lot of all the people that are gonna go up, but it isn't that we're not gonna have engagement or conversation with these people. And I think it's really important for us to consider that because it kinda feels like we're changing this calendar somehow to allow us to have choices for the primary, to have more choices for more people to run for the primary, which seems to be counterintuitive to actually get people to come out and vote for those people. So I'm gonna vote no on this because I think that it makes absolute sense and I hope you'll listen to some of the students that came here and spoke as well. Thanks. I personally think we've heard some really interesting arguments on all sides and I think people might start thinking about coming to a vote soon. Having said that, are there other hands? Yeah, I see a white card in that aisle right there, third from the aisle. Alex Lefebvre, precinct 10, I call the question. Motion of the previous question has been made and seconded. We will now come to an immediate vote to determine if we wanna end debate. If that vote passes by two thirds, we would then come to an immediate vote on Mr. Weiss's substitute amendment. Everybody clear? Now voting in the motion for the previous question. All those in favor of the motion of the previous question, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. No. I think we'll have an electronic vote on this. I'm not sure what I heard there. So we're gonna have an electronic vote on the motion for the previous question. Yes means you're ready to end debate, no means you're not. No, no, no, you'll see on the screen when you see the clock start to count down. Hang on, hold on a second, Sean. I hear a point of order. Someone confused with the process? I am confused. If we vote yes for Mr. Weiss's, I'm confused. Okay, let me explain the whole thing then. So we're now coming to a vote to decide if we wanna stop this section of the debate. If two thirds vote yes, we would then vote whether or not to have Mr. Weiss's motion become the main motion. If that vote passes, then we will have one more vote yes or no on Mr. Weiss. If that vote fails, we go back to the select board motion. Yes, motion previous question and then we'll determine whether we wanna accept Mr. Weiss's amended motion. If we accept it, it becomes the motion on the floor and then we still have to have one more vote. If it fails, the select board's motion is the one that's on the floor and we still have to have one more vote. Yes. Rudy Perkins precinct two. Will we then, if Mr. Weiss's motion fails, will we then have an immediate vote on the select board's motion or will there be an opportunity to discuss that motion further? In other words, this effectively- Technically, there is an opportunity to discuss. I would hope that I would think that if we come to vote on that, we'll be ready very, very soon to come to a vote on the other one. Since we've been discussing- Okay, so this isn't automatically meaning a vote to immediately vote on that. Correct, that's correct. Okay, we are now gonna vote on the motion for the previous question and the window is now open. If there's anybody who thinks their device isn't working, let me know. Right, Sean, who said their device? Because we've got, yes, 140, no, 59, we clearly have two thirds by a substantial margin, so I'm gonna accept this vote. Do we, is there a problem with that device? I'm sorry, I can't hear that. Okay, so Sean, Mr. Hannah will check your device next after he checks that one. And maybe we'll try and get them both working and we're gonna vote this again, even though, well, does it say no on your device? Does it say anything? Well, hang on, he's gonna come look. Okay, I'd say, so I'm aware of two people who feel that their vote wasn't counted. Are there any others besides those two? I'm gonna rule that we still have a two thirds because regardless of how they would have voted, we would have clearly passed by two thirds. So I'm considering this a successful two thirds vote and we are now going to have an immediate vote that's a majority vote on whether to accept Mr. Weiss's motion as the main motion on the floor. Does everybody understand that? It's not a final vote yet. It's whether or not to accept Mr. Weiss's motion as the main motion. All those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed, please say no. And we definitely need an electronic vote on this one as well. Mr. Hannon, do we think we've addressed both of the device issues? Yeah. Okay. So we're now having a majority vote using your electronic. Okay, hang on, I hear a point of order so I don't start it yet, yes. We're voting on whether or not his motion becomes the main motion on the floor. Most likely people who agree with it will vote yes and people who don't agree will vote no but I can't predict that completely. But we're voting on whether or not it should be the main motion replacing the select board's motion. If this vote passes, there won't be an opportunity or will there? No, if this vote passes, it becomes the main motion. If this vote fails, the select board motion is the main motion. And there won't be another opportunity if this passes to vote on the select board motion. Which, but I'm thinking about that still. Hang on a second, I'm gonna stop and ponder this before we vote. Well there's one now to accept it as the main motion and then there's a second vote, but that second vote is yes or no on the whole thing. The vice. Yeah, un-pondering art, amend article one. The vice. Yes, you're correct. You're saying you're Mr. Weiss or nothing. The vice. Okay, we all agree, so let me explain and I may have misstated earlier in which case I apologize. So what's happening now, we're about to vote on whether Mr. Weiss's motion should replace the select board motion as the main motion. It's a majority vote, if you vote yes, then Mr. Weiss's motion is the main motion. If you vote no, then the select board motion is still the main motion. Following this vote, one or the other will be the motion on the floor and there will be one more vote. A yes vote passes that schedule of dates, either Mr. Weiss's or the select board, a no vote passes neither and we've disposed of article one without having any change or any request to the legislature or to the state. So this vote is saying either it's Mr. Weiss's vote that we're gonna finally vote on or a no means it's the select board's motion that we're gonna vote on. But in either case, all that's left after that is one vote yes or no on a request for a change in the date schedule. Is that clear? Point of order. Yeah, point of order over there. Rob, does that mean that you will not accept any further amendments? No, a further amendment would be an order. I would really hope not to because it couldn't be something that's been very well thought out. But yes, there's gonna be a new main motion on the floor and technically another amendment could be accepted. I would strongly discourage it. Okay, we are now coming to a vote on having Mr. Weiss's motion replace the select board motion. Let me figure it finish as the main motion and I hear another point of order. That's precinct four. I just want it to be to clarify. If we change the main motion to Mr. Weiss's then we vote it if we voted it down. That's it. We go to the default calendar. That's correct. Very good. No, if Mr. Weiss's motion becomes the main motion and then we come to a vote, we're now voting yes or no on article one with Mr. Weiss's dates. A yes means Mr. Weiss's dates are what we're gonna propose. A no means we don't send anything to anybody for a special act and we go with the default January date that's in the charter. If somebody disagrees with me, I'd love to hear why. Yes, Ms. Stein, wait for a microphone please. I think there are three options. The first one is Mr. Weiss's motion. The second is a select board motion and the default motion is the one that switches the dates to January. That's not correct. So here's what's happened and let me explain why. Mr. Weiss has made a motion to amend. The main motion is what the select board proposed. What's in the original wording of the article is neither here nor there. That's not been proposed. It's never been on the floor. It's never what we're voting on. The main motion is the select board set of dates. Mr. Weiss has proposed an amended main motion which we're gonna either accept at which point in time it becomes the new main motion or we fail it in which point in time the select board motion is still the main motion. In either case we have a main motion on the floor. Passage means we're gonna send a request for that set of dates. Failure means we do nothing if article one has failed. I'm pretty confident about this but sure, who has a point of order? I see one there. Thank you, Jane Wald, precinct one. If I understand your interpretation correctly then the second line on the screen is incorrect. Mr. Weiss is moving his motion is to amend the motion by replacing language. Then the second line on the screen says if there is a no vote then we go to the select board motion. Yes, if Mr. Weiss's motion fails then the main motion on the floor is still the select board motion and then we'll have to vote that up or down. But if Mr. Weiss's motion succeeds it is the main motion that we vote up or down. I hear another point of order. Who's got it, who said point of order? Please stand up, that helps the microphone people. Stand up if you have a point of order, okay. Hello, I'm sorry I just had my knee replaced. Would you mind if I sat down? That's fine. Thank you. I'm thinking about the chart that was up there of four different schedules. There was the... Right, so that chart wasn't saying all the things that we get to vote on, it was just saying all the things that were in writing at some point to the other. One of those was the schedule in the warrant article but we don't get to vote on that, we just get to a motion, get to vote on a motion under that article. Another set of dates was the default fallback if all article one fails and then the other two were the select board set of dates and Mr. Weiss's set of dates. Any other questions? Perfectly clear to me. Okay, we are now coming to a vote on whether or not we accept Mr. Weiss's motion as the new main motion, this is a majority vote. And we see yes 100, no 105. Mr. Weiss's substitute motion has failed. The motion before us is now the select board original motion. Is there further discussion before we come to a vote? I see a red card on the aisle there. Yes, Ken Tharp, precinct one. And all these motions including the flawed motion from the charter, obviously we wouldn't be having this discussion if the charter wasn't flawed and what it put out forth in the first place, now we're trying to fix that. And so my feeling, I would have voted for this if Mr. Weiss's motion had passed because I believe at least it's a little bit better. And I also wanna make the point about cost of election and student turnout or not. We live in the United States of America which part of the laws of the Constitution of the United States is protecting rights of people to vote. And that includes paying for elections in whatever way we need to. So I'm just sorry that we would even concentrate on the idea that we have to pay for democracy. So I'm gonna vote no against this because it is more flawed than Mr. Weiss's and it may be not, I think it's just as flawed as the original charter proposal which they're trying to fix. So none of this seems right. So I would just encourage people to vote no. Thank you. I didn't interrupt you but I would encourage people not to think in terms of this is flawed and that is flawed. There's lots of times and lots of situations where motions are made that change something in the warrant and it doesn't, by default, indicate that there was a flaw in the process. So making motions that change the warrant is part of the process and needs to be accepted as such. Yeah, I see a green card, fourth row there. Okay, Moran, precinct four. The proposed charter was developed over many months with lots of public input, lots of opportunity for people to make suggest changes. I know the Charter Commission worked very hard on it and talked about it many meetings. I don't know how many meetings. The full text was sent to Registered Amherst Voters in September of 2017. That text included the plan to hold a preliminary election in September, 2018 and the election itself on November 4th, 2018. Yeah, it was sent to us in September, 2017. On March 27th, 3,502 people voted to adopt this charter with just 2,491 voting no. That's a margin of more than 1,000. Town meeting owes it to the voters to respect their clearly expressed will. We will do that by approving the motion before us so that we can move forward with our new government in January. Thank you. We should be coming to a vote pretty soon here. I see a white card, third row there on the aisle. Well, Captain Pre-66, maybe I'm tense, but I'd really like to know what happens if this fails. Okay, I'll answer first, which is that there's no request for a special earlier election and the election is on January. What's the date? The election is on January 24th. That's what happens if this fails. Yeah, I hear a point of order. That last point of order was a valid and good one, by the way. Amy Middleton, P.C. 5, could we have that chart up again? Yes, so the far right hand column shows you the dates if this motion before us fails, the January 24th date. I hear another point of order. Wait for a microphone, please. Stand up, please, and so the microphone can find you. There you go. You didn't have to press in three. I believe it's the middle column that the one goes, it's going forward, right? It's the, the white, the far right column was white. The second column from the left is what we're voting yes or no on, but if we vote no on it, then the far right hand column. Yes, the second column from the left is the select board motion. That's the main motion on the floor. The far left column is really irrelevant. That was the language in the warrant, but it's not the motion that's on the floor. The second column from the left, if you vote yes, that's our date schedule. If you vote no, we use the date schedule way over on the far right with the January 24th election. Yes, gentlemen, way over against the wall there, standing up. Leo Maley, Precinct 5. I'm gonna be voting with great enthusiasm for this new and improved select board motion. I would vote for it even if it weren't improved, but let me do this step by step. The November election is 186 days from today. 186 days gives everyone who might wanna run for office a considerable amount of time to do so. 186 days. There will be very large turnout that day, as has already been mentioned, when you have statewide candidates like Elizabeth Warren, who will face a Republican opponent for United States Senate, people will vote that election. 186 days to do that. The preliminary election, if there even is one, depends on how many candidates there are, right? That is in 127 days. I know that because that is the date of the state primary election. The state primary election will have massive participation. There are statewide contested primaries for three of the statewide Democratic offices. There are statewide primaries for Republican governor as well that will turn out significant votes on that day. 127 days. Plenty of time to run a campaign and fully participate in this process. Trust me, students will be voting that day. Those elections matter to them. The other thing and why this is new and improved is that question of when you have to pull papers. In the United States, the state law varies. It's just like everything else. We do it in a really weird way. There's a different law in every state, every territory, and everything else. In some states, you buy your way on the ballot. And I mean that literally, you pay a fee. In some cases, it's small. In some cases, it's quite large. That puts you on the ballot. Massachusetts has a different approach. You get a number of signatures of certified registered voters. That puts you on the ballot. That's what we do from the top of the ticket, whether you're running for governor to local elections, I won't call that the bottom of a ticket, because they matter a lot. So 50 or 25 registered signatures. That is one heck of a low threshold. Someone can do that, even if they've never done it before, whether they're running townwide or whether they're running in one of these new doubled up precincts in three or four or five hours if you've really never done it before and you like to chat with people. Since we're told that the town hall can have these signature sheets ready tomorrow, somebody can be on the ballot by tomorrow evening. That's plenty of time. Will this disenfranchise students who might go away? No more than it would disenfranchise other residents who might summer in France or do research abroad or whatever they do. Finish it up, please. Yes, and plenty of time there's this thing called the internet, which people are capable of using, I'm told, and the telephone. Plenty of ways to campaign. See a white card third row there? Gordon Fried precinct six, I call the question. Motion for the previous, yes, you can only call it on a white, not on a red or a green. Motion of the previous question has been made and seconded. We will now come to immediate vote. If two thirds of you vote yes, we then come to an immediate vote on the original select board motion. And again, if that passes, it passes, we're done. If that fails, we're also done. But we go to the fallback January date for the election. All those in favor of the motion for the previous question, please say aye. Opposed, please say no. Moderator, here's two thirds. I hear a request for electronic vote, so we'll do an electronic vote. This is the motion of the previous question, and you may vote. And there's 144, yes, 52, no. Motion of the previous question has passed. We now come to an immediate vote on the original select board motion made a long time ago. Is there anybody who is not clear on what we're voting on now? This requires a majority vote. Yes, identify yourself. Question is, if this passes, there will be no fall town meeting, is that correct? I have no idea, and that's not something to answer as a point of order, which is the only kind of conversation we can have now because a motion for the previous question has passed. Okay, we are now voting on the select board motion. This requires a majority. All in favor of the select board motion for article one, please say aye. Opposed, please say no. No. Moderator hears a majority vote. But there, we want electronic vote, so let's proceed to electronic. This requires a majority vote. We have 127, yes, 72, no. A majority has been achieved. The select board motion has passed. We now move on to article two of the special town meeting, and I call on Mr. Slaughter to make a motion under the article. Excuse me, we're not done yet, folks. Mr. Slaughter. I move to dismiss the article. Motion to dismiss the article has been made and seconded. Mr. Slaughter, you may speak to your motion. So we placed this article on the special town meeting warrant as a placeholder in case the town meeting coordinating committee and its subcommittee on policies and procedures wanted to potentially not move forward with the town meeting advisory committee. They however met after we put this on the warrant and decided that they would like to move ahead with the TMAC and therefore we are moving to dismiss the select board of unanimous and recommending dismissal. Thank you. And I now call on Mr. Riddle speaking for the TMCC. Chris Riddle precinct two and a member of the TMCC. I simply wish to confirm Mr. Slaughter's position that the TMCC, the town meeting coordinating committee and its subcommittee wish to, we think that we believe that the TMAC, the town meeting advisory committee is still a good idea. We will probably have more town meetings or at least one. And we think this advisory committee would be very useful. So we recommend dismissal of this, we recommend a positive vote on the motion to dismiss. Thank you. The finance committee has no position and this requires a majority vote and the motion again is to dismiss article two of special town meeting. Is there discussion before we come to a vote? I see no hands. So we will now come to a vote. All those in favor of the motion to dismiss article two, please say aye. Opposed please say no. The ayes have it. Motion is dismissed. The next thing that's going to happen is I'm going to call on the select board to make a motion to dissolve the special town meeting but that does not mean we are going home yet because we will then dive right into the annual town meeting. It's only 9-11, it's not even close to 10 o'clock. So hang into your seats folks, we have work to do. Mr. Slaughter, am I calling on you? Mr. Slaughter. I move to dissolve the April 30th, 2018 special town meeting. Motion's been made and seconded. We will now come to a vote. There's no discussion on this. All those in favor of dissolving the special town meeting of April 30th, 2018, please say aye. Opposed please say no. Special town meeting is dissolved.