 Hello, I'm Charlene Behl-Mill and I'm running for Town Council from District 5 that includes precinct 7 and 8 and you probably know it as South Amherst. As a resident of South Amherst, there's so many things that I absolutely love about living here, but I also see several challenges that our town is facing. Even with a budget of 92 million dollars, we have two failing school facilities, an obsolete, deeply building. We don't have adequate fire services in South Amherst and our library needs major renovations. Two other things that I hear from people all the time are potholes and increasing property taxes. With my background as a chartered accountant working with complex financial scenarios and auditing at Pricewaterhouse, a doctoral degree in business and running a local business teaching mindfulness and collaborative skills, I believe I can make a difference. Also, women and people of color are currently underrepresented in our government. I'm ready to step into this role of representing South Amherst on our Town Council. I can be a fresh voice and I have the skills in business, research and collaborative problem solving and we need people to be able to work together to solve our problems, to reach goals. I also believe that it's really important to include the diverse voices to set a common vision and then to go out and reach those goals. So let me tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in India. I grew up in the Middle East and went back to India to complete my undergraduate degree in chartered accountancy, which is equal equivalent of a CPA here. My son and I moved to Amherst 17 years ago when he was just six years old. He got his full education here in the excellent public school systems and I got my doctoral degree in the Eisenberg School of Management. So I'm now married to George Mellon who's also a professor at the Eisenberg School of Management and we love our lives here in Amherst. We're so grateful for the wonderful town that this is and we especially love the outdoors. Now some of you probably already know me as the founder of Downtown Mindfulness. I started this business to help people develop skills to make their lives in the communities better. In this capacity, I have worked with thousands of individuals, schools including our regional high school and all the way up to Fortune 500 companies. So now as your district counselor, I'll be representing South Amherst on townwide issues. Here are two priorities. One, providing quality services to all of Amherst residents including income eligible families and and our immigrants with a special focus on rebuilding our schools, the two school buildings and providing universal pre-K and also free after school programs to income eligible kids. Secondly, we have several capital intensive projects coming up and we need to be able to make those investments without increasing the tax burden on the residential homeowners. How we can do that is by diversifying our tax base. Now these are townwide issues. As a district counselor, here's what I'd like to do. One, makes South Amherst safe with adequate fire services and roads that are safe for cars, pedestrians and bikers. I'd also like to build a wholesome community, especially focusing on outdoors, maintaining our outdoor facilities like Groff Park and the Market Pond. And I'd like to work with our local businesses to revitalize the South Amherst Village Centers. I'd like to do this in an open, transparent way and include all the different populations that generally don't participate in our government like our seniors or immigrants, low income families. To summarize, I'm a woman, I'm an immigrant and I have the qualifications. I'd like my voice to be part of the town council. If you'd like to learn more about the issues I'm running for or to be part of my campaign to support me, please visit my website at shalini4district5.org and connect with me on Facebook. I'd love to hear what you're thinking. Thank you for listening.