 Good evening everyone. I'm going to call to order the select board meeting of March 23rd at 6 34 p.m. April what I say March. Oh Yeah, I'm it's a wonder. I didn't say May But it's April 23rd And it was 6 34 p.m. That we called me to order. We'll start with opening remarks announcements an agenda review Is there anything that my colleagues had to? announce for mention relative to the agenda This evening I did mr. Slaughter Since we worked on this charge last Wednesday, and then it was published on Friday One of the things I didn't notice but one of our prospective candidates pointed out to me Is that in the middle of the paragraph? We added a sentence and so that confused them because they were thinking that you know We were quoting directly from the charter right and then we had that extra sentence at the end and Honestly when I glanced at it on Friday before I sent it to them I was just thinking I knew what we talked about But I didn't think about the fact that that ended up in the middle of that Versus at the end and so then when they read that more carefully they got concerned about shall consult meaning Public hearings might be required, etc. And I said wow that's not what we talked about That's not what we meant But they were so it was kind of a two-fold thing one was they noticed that it was inserted Right and the other which I hadn't myself noticed and then which was my bad and then the part about shall So it's not specifically tonight. It's on our agenda to appoint members, but I wonder if we might also talk a little bit about That confusion I think so because I think we did this you know we sort of made the sausage as I was joking earlier On the last Wednesday night and So I think to to take a review of that as just to make sure it is all of what we intended and then potentially to To revoke the charge might be a wise choice Because I think you know we probably all reflected on it a little bit Over the weekend and may have a little bit more and of course if the public wants to comment on that It's sort of subtle changes, but I think if we get to where we Were as far as our conversation about it Then I think we're still in keeping with what our intent was So yes, we'll take that up under that that section of the agenda tonight The other thing that I'll mention regarding the the Agenda this evening's I know that article we're going to take up several position We're gonna hear about several position several Amherstown annual town meeting war I can't get the words out Look at several warrent articles this evening And given that I know that article 39 is Is I think being brought to us by a younger group of folks we're gonna bring we're gonna move them up right after public comment Which is gonna start in just about a minute So we'll probably take article 39 as the as the sort of first thing on our agenda Immediately following public comment So I did want to make that point just to not keep younger folks here later and let them be able to Get home and do their homework and those kinds of things And other than that, I think we'll take our agenda, you know, largely in order the way we usually do So the first question is is there anyone here for public comment? If you were here to comment about anything on the agenda any particular article on the agenda We'll take those public comments at the time of those agenda items You know allow for a section of public comment during those times But if there's anyone here for other public comment that's not related to an agenda item now is the time we hear those We usually spend about we let you have about three minutes We generally don't respond just to let you know that So we do have someone that's here to talk about One yes, so come forward you have to sit Mike if you would please Tell us who you are because there's a TV audience that is theoretically sort of viewing this and curious about who's coming to talk But again, we may not react in any way We'll probably take in what you have to we will take in what you have to say and consider the advice to us and we'll go from there All right, my name is John Page. I'm a local and I'm a student at the Honors College at UMass Amherst And I want to speak today concerning the transition plan So I prepared a statement here. I cannot underscore enough the importance of student voices in the Amherst government In times of unprecedented division and cynicism young people have led the way in advocacy activism and voting their conscience When students in full-time residents come together we can solve Amherst challenges But the assertion that the current 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 in local state and National elections and begun the work of helping students to register to vote while the potential primary dates are Inconvenient for student voters having the election coincide with November midterms will only bolster student engagement Thank you Thank you Alright, please come forward. Hi. My name is Jack Eccles. I'm not a local, but I'm a junior at UMass here in Amherst I've also prepared a statement about the transition plan Last month the people of Amherst students and lifelong residents alike voted by a large margin for a council manager form of government With a town council election in November I find it strange that the concern of an untimely election and student suppression has only surfaced now Students do feel underrepresented in Amherst especially when people make claims on our behalf without consulting the students on campus who truly care about these issues such as John Lucas and myself Trust that if we found fault or an equal protection violation with the election structure and time of the town council election You'd be hearing from us and you probably would have heard from us at the appropriate time when the Charter Commission was debating the charter structure The election timeline is not unprecedented and an accusation of student suppression can be refuted by our attendance and advocacy here today I personally personally believe that if any student wanted to run for town council But could not find the time to collect 25 signatures over two months in the summer They are not worthy of being a town council member While looking for student candidates. We are not just looking for any student We are looking for the right student and the right student would be able to perform 25 signatures in two months November elections will ensure we follow the will of the voters boost turnout and Create the student representation that has been lacking in our town government Is there further public comment Not related to an agenda item Just on the the issue that was just brought to the board's attention Carol Gray 815 South East Street I think it's critical that we allow elections at a time when the maximum number of students can participate if they choose to It's not just a matter of students who may already have a connection to town government or town committees in some way This is about any student having the right to run for office to participate and John Boniface wrote a memo about this. He got the MacArthur award for his work on voter rights We definitely don't want to run afoul of voter rights and and candidate participation There's no reason to rush this There's no reason to set the town up for a potential lawsuit based on voter suppression There's just no reason to rush this. Why would we want to go against having the maximum number of people be involved with politics? I urge you to follow the recommendation of John Boniface We happen to be very lucky to have an expert in our town on voter rights And he laid out the arguments right there in his letter to the board. We would be foolhardied to ignore that Is there an additional public comment? Seeing no hands, I believe we'll head into our agenda. Thank you all for that Although we don't react we do appreciate hearing from the public and and it does help inform our work So as I mentioned earlier, we're going to Bring one of the articles forward first just to sort of not keep our younger members Of the audience here too late So we're going to actually start under action discussion items and we're going to start with taking position or at least hearing about Articles from town meetings. So we're going to start with article 39 So those folks that are here for article 39 come on up Hi, my name is Cameron Grayley and I'm Marlena Yeah, and we thank you for making this a timed article so we don't have to stay here too late And we're part of the team Jaguar takes on climate change committee, which is a committee of seventh graders that's focused on Taking action against climate change in Amherst and article 39 focuses on the Paris climate agreement of 2016 Which would focus on a number of things but primarily keeping global temperature rise under two degrees Celsius reducing carbon emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 and adopting the goal of trying to have zero carbon emissions by 2060 and President Trump unfortunately withdrew from the Paris climate agreement the US being the only country that has withdrawn and Nicaragua and Syria being the only countries that have did not originally sign the agreement and One-third of the US population has come out to support the Paris climate agreement and we have a New York Times article and Our petition is about trying to Get Amherst to support the Paris climate agreement and to reduce our carbon emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 and 14 states including Massachusetts have come out saying that they will support the Paris climate agreement and We think that this is important in Amherst because Amherst has had a rich history of climate action in the past like the carbon-definition dividend program and The resolution to operate on a hundred percent renewable energy by 2050 and other towns are also trying to become renewable Like Burlington, Vermont the largest city in Vermont already operates on 100 percent renewable energy and Georgetown, Texas has zero carbon emissions And anyway our petition is focusing on getting Amherst back into the Paris climate agreement Like I said, and we hope you'll vote to recommend this to town meeting. Thank you Thank you So you may want to stay up front in case we have questions for you, but You can just if we don't ask you any questions, then you're just sitting quietly, I guess So do any of my colleagues have questions for the petitioners with regard to this particular article I just Want to test Marlene If you had Marlene, did you have anything you wanted to add? I think that Cameron pretty well summarized it Anyone else with questions for them? So what I will tell you is this and I don't know how the select word will Act this evening, but generally under under petition articles like this one, which are resolutions Often we don't feel that we should be giving advice to town meeting about how they feel And so we'll often take no position and the way to think of no position is it's neither positive nor negative is Truly we may individually have very strong feelings about the article But we will likely if keeping with our history take no position, which isn't like I said a Recommendation against it's not a recommendation for it's just a statement that we Allow town meeting to make its decision based on its own Research and interest in the in the particular question. So we may take that as a potential position on this article But I do want to sort of it's unusual to say when you say no position it has the lead word of no and that tends to Imply a certain bias against something and that's not the case at all. It's just we Take a hands-off approach on these kind of resolutions generally Do my colleagues have any questions for the petitioners? All right. Well, thank you very much. Does anyone else in the audience have a comment on that on this article if not? Thank you. I Think at this point, we'll head back to the to the beginning of Yes, I was wondering while The presenters are here. They might want to hear our discussion. Okay, just which may be brief, but Since they've taken the initiative and done a really thorough job presenting Then I might want to see it to conclusion if that makes sense No, no, that's I'm perfectly fine with that and appreciate the suggestion Do any of my colleagues have any particular comment or Feedback with regard to this article You Explained very well what has been our recent habit associated with this and we talked a long Wednesday about how and I spoke about the fact that Many things in addition to the fact that it says in the town government act that we're supposed to make recommendations to town meaning we do so beyond because it says that in town government act but on items that we know we're working with all year round and While obviously the this is this is an issue that we are all affected by all the time It's not something the select board per se works on all year round and just like the resolution to prevent nuclear war Last Wednesday where we again may individually hold very strong feelings associated with it But did not feel that as a select board. We brought something special to the conversation We chose not to take a position on that and I see it in keeping to not take a position on this as well I Agree with what my colleagues just said While I do actually appreciate the sentiments Behind this and I'm wondering and I wasn't here last week But I'm wondering if as we go through each of these if we will also Review where we stand in regards to the transition Kind of regime that we're under if we would say why This is going to go forward or not and I think For me it falls in because it's a resolution it would then allow us to us being town meaning to take an action on this is sort of not finding it's an expression of kind of political sentiment or But lack of a better word so I don't know We're going to do that with each of these but maybe be helpful to include that Well, I think we will to some extent and that's part of One of the things about rearranging the agenda that One of the things we're going to talk about really quickly well soon after we finish with this is is some of those For those who weren't at our last meeting although several of people here were there We have received a memo from our town attorney on Tuesday and therefore Immediately before when Wednesday meeting and therefore not officially on the agenda in that regard We did mention the fact that we got in it a Miranda from our town attorney relative to How to interpret the provisions of the Charter relative to the phrasing of necessary and essential as well as not to Frustrate the implementation of the of the new Council and and government and so we Got the memo last week. We're going to talk about it. I think in more detail there and so it will You know influence our conversations about all these I think I think that just in short Relative to this because it is a petition article and again because It is a resolution therefore not Something that would prevent the council from doing what it normally does so it doesn't kind of meet the criteria as it were To be problematic for the for the new Form of government, so I think that's you know the advice from our council. Yes I'm sorry. Mr. Slaughter if you don't mind if I could just add that at the sentence that they put in here about this issue Saying it's a non-binding resolution and in our opinion whether the town takes action on these articles is ultimately of no legal consequence And therefore whether to permit action there under is within the discretion of the moderator So I know that you had reported to us that you were going to be in addition to all the other things you do in preparation for town meaning having a particular special session with the moderator associated with this memo and the Charter Transition provisions which I know we aren't quite talking about yet But has the moderator said anything about this particular article and 38 which we talked about last week that are You know this sort of separate category of non-binding resolutions I think he was in concurrence with the with the town attorney with relative to the you know He saw the logic of what the attorney was implying and so he had no issues or concerns relative to those two articles so I think You know his take on it was to follow the advice of council relative to those two Meaning that it will be moved as normally is it's correct associated with resolutions. Yes. Yes, okay, and at motion review We then that's how it was presented this morning motion review as well We did that this morning And so the the both of these were we're taking in terms of the article Obviously any particular changes to the motion would be something that to go with my you know to the moderator for Judgment on whether it's within scope of the article, but as they stand now It was was reviewed and considered all right for us to move ahead on those Confuse it by bringing out a word. Well, it's all right way. We can be consistent. Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, so if there's not anything further relative to this if we wanted to take our vote on this particular Item it's on the second page of our motion sheet. I believe I think we may have to Fill in the blank because the options are presented to us or not There's one that we We don't have which is the no position which I think is the intention but That we move to not take a position relative to article 39 I'm not sure how I'm not remembering how we phrased it last week. We did these Yes, I sort of remember what I said last Wednesday Which was I moved to take no position on article 39 petition resolution a resolution in support of the Paris climate agreement at April 30th 2018 annual town meeting motion in a second and Further I suggested at that time since it was a no position that that was something the chair would mention and we Yes, I'm happy to I'm actually happy to speak to this one because of that so you can mark me down as the person to speak to this Is there further discussion? Hearing none all those in favor, please say aye. I Opposed so that's four to zero with one person absent. Thank you So thank you all so returning back to our For regular order of things on our action discussion items were under For a which has two parts, which is the charter transition We have the transition committee appointment and then chart transition provisions under chart the committee appointment I think it's an appropriate time to talk about the charge and so there was Do you want to sort of more plainly state that piece? Out of this pile of paper it will magically appear. No. No, it has to be the one without my notes all over it It will magically reappear in my hand in just a moment Because I wrote in red all over it so of course it will the Charge that we came up with that we talked about whether or not we needed to act to beef it up a little for a variety of reasons and Then by doing that on the fly as we always know is not our most amazing best work Although mr. Steinberg did a Herculean effort and trying to pull it together I wasn't quite aware that we were ending up inserting in the middle of the charter language the portion about Consulting with appropriate staff boards committees and members of the public and reviewing the bylaws to determine whether they're serving their intended purpose making recommendations to the council elect as appropriate and Without repeating our entire conversation of last week my concern in being up And I think as we continue to discuss it back then when none of those words were on here We're associated with things like the now infamous since I've talked about it several times 1939 sign bob bylaw that says that the select board can give permits for political signs on the common Which is obviously not something anybody remembers us doing certainly not in the last 20 or so years at least But so what we didn't want is we didn't want somebody to just go through and say oh well If the select board can do that now that it must be that the council or the town manager should be allowed to do that in the future It's like well actually we just don't do that at all so part of the point of Appointing experienced Amherst residents who had seen many things unfold and served in various positions over The years is that they would look at that and say what nobody does that and put it aside or Talk to the town manager and say we'd like to talk to mr. Moore or more about this Is there a peak do we just cross that piece out or do we just put the whole thing aside? For a future thing because we had a rather extended conversation about if this was simply a clerical task of saying find and replace Every time you see town meeting turn it into either a town manager or be town council That a paralegal could do that as opposed to a committee of town residents So we wanted to give them the feeling that they could and should go ask Rather than just make up an answer But on the other hand we did not have the intention as one pointed out to us of insisting that they would go and have a public hearing about 80-year-old by-law that no one's used anyway at this time the intention I believe based on our conversation last night was more that something would be noticed Perhaps asked about of staff and then said oh this goes in this pile over here This is one that's going to be dealt with later and that would be part of the future report Which isn't that far away to the new town council where they said here's this so what we often say low-hanging fruit Here's the easy ones that you might address first. Here's things that need more research Good luck assigning someone to do that because there is an ongoing committee That does not necessarily have to be the same people who are working on it now Although certainly I'm sure the council would appreciate their experience in getting this kicked off So at this point having not realized when I was in discussions with that individual earlier today that in fact the reason They were so confused as that was in the middle of the paragraph That would be part of the issue and because they were looking for changing a Shall to a may to make it clear that there was not an obligation to suddenly start having extensive hearings around Things that may or may not be particularly relevant to their work Should we think that No, no, I'm fine Miss Bruce point I was away and working remotely and I kept hearing that this had changed and it changed them because it was embedded in the part That I thought was a direct quote from the charter document. I couldn't find it I spent about 40 minutes today comparing and it was only when Miss Pupple sent me the red line that I figured out what it was That people were talking about so I Agree with that. I agree that shall Should be may but I had another issue that I had noticed and I'm sorry. I wasn't able to participate in the discussion last week but The part that I was clear had been added where it says a Member it's the last sentence a member of the Charter Commission and a member of the select board Will assist the committee is needed as appropriate And I was wondering if that could be changed to may instead of will and where I got hung up is I didn't see how we were authorized to mandate the participation of another independent body Being the Charter Commission whether they were you know individually had said they were willing to do that or not It seemed awkward to me that we would put in our own charge something that mandated another Committee to do something but if we say may Some of the problem up above it opens that up a little bit Certainly the we had an extended discussion about the We talked about whether to make associate members or not what you know sort of requirements that placed on Select board members and or Charter Commission members etc. Etc. So I think again the intention was not to make them sort of full members of the of the Committee because that was a higher level of commitment than than really is necessary or appropriate But at the same time to provide their expertise was really the intention And so To my reading we have two places where we are substituting the word may force either shall or will and Do we need to change the Phrasing in the first sentence that in accordance with the town Charter approved on March 27th the select board You know sort of that still implies that this is a direct quote from the from the Charter itself Which it is not any longer. Yeah, well, yeah, especially the way it's laid out, but I didn't know if we wanted to change that In some in some way or put some phrase that Modifies it so that people recognize it's not a direct quote So all did you have a comment or suggestion relative to that? I mean my record again, this should have been like a 42nd conversation not a five minute one, but my recollection is we were very Aware of the fact that it was a quote from the language and it's just a mistake that the light that the sentence slipped in there That's also we specify general by the review committee up here. We want to make changes above the paragraph, you know to the To the framing of the document not this actual quote I don't I mean, I don't have a real You know life and death issue about may and will and shall I think mays a little bit weak though We put the language in for a reason that says as appropriate. So I don't think will is binding us to do something I think it's reiterating our Desire to be of help for the reasons that Miss Brewer stated that it might be people on the Charter Commission and select board Are aware of issues that people who are appointed this may not be so I mean, I don't think will is going to hurt anything But I would defer to the will of the group It's very perhaps one way we could deal with that and I'm reminded again of conversation I sometimes have with my family just what I wanted to be when I grow up the person who argues about shall and will and may But at any rate, that's where we are in our lives right now. So is that It could also be will be available Will be made available Which was the intention and so we asked some Charter Commissioners who would be the right person because they're not planning to meet again and They all usually refer to the same individual and so he said well that person Will you be willing to be available if they ask you questions come to some meetings and they say yes And we were looking at the select board member the same way carefully none of us volunteering for that task Wednesday night I think the other thing is just in terms of layout because you know it's a charge But it's a brand new thing yada yada is that we just didn't notice that at the top where it says in accordance with that Should just be gone that that whole sentence should just be gone We already said what the legal reference was We should say the exact quote which is within 30 days The 30 days got dropped out of here for no apparent reason It should just have the little you next to it and the exact thing section 10.7 you and It should just say quote boom 10.7 you it doesn't have to say in accordance with they can just say 10.7 you and then put our Probably man modified middle sentence the committee shall consult to become the committee may consult just above or below the Outdented praise about the town manager, which is not a direct quote So the layouts just you know, we were we were working on wording and what our intent was we weren't looking so much at oh Once this is done now. It's gonna confuse for other reasons so So just to recap that I think we're to it. We're almost to a place to make a motion to change so it is The sentence in the middle that says the committee currently says the committee shall appoint and with Consult with appropriate staff boards committees and members of the public and also review by law's book It's there etc. That comes into the lower section. The shall be comes a may and then This look board will be Will it be available to assist the committee as needed and appropriate? So if someone wanted to make that motion We'd take a so moved. I think that works Is there a second all right, and it here it should have the little 10.7 you here with the 30 days Just to be super clear. We already cleaned up the top part since last time Don't have that rather bald until terminated It is what it is So is is there further discussion Hearing none all those in favor, please say aye Hi Okay, so that's four zero with one absent for a modified charge ever so slightly But I'll hopefully capturing I'm gonna step out for one moment mr. Slaughter because we've received a text that the people at home Can't hear us. Okay? Okay, so we'll take moments recess while technical difficulties are For section what's that? We're not there yet, but we will okay good to know Just to be precise Media is aware of the problem is unable to address the problem Understands that the folks at home may have their TVs turned up all the way to max and still may not work And they're really not sure what the volume is gonna be like on the tape either. Okay, so Maybe you none see Sure Don't speak like this cases, you know So just just to make sure that on the on the First line of this yes, you want to just take out in accordance with? Yeah, yeah, exactly because that's right. It is there Rather. Yeah, that works Yeah, there was no point in crossing it out and then adding it back in thank you Yes, okay, so I think we can just start with the town charter section to prove I think that'll work. Okay fixed. Thank you now that we've Find tuned that a little bit more. I Am so we need to appoint some people to this actual group to go and carry on And so do we have any Nominees I guess is the best way to phrase it for that You can take them all or one at a time or do you want to say them together? Okay, so I'm distracted by reading our motion which as usual. I don't read over the weekend which is flawed but We'll fix that one. We get to it, but it has a nice big line that we can fill in names on so I like that and so We the names that I have are Robert Richie our itch IE also known as Bob Kay Moran Formerly of our finance committee and Bernie Kubiak Currently of our finance committee. Those are the names that I'm aware of. I don't know if any other people have any additional names. I Do not I'm not aware of any from Mr. Steinberg as well, so So I think at this point I think You could probably take a motion if you can craft it Because you gave a teeny bit of background on this Moran and I just said that Attorney Richie used to serve as Amherst town council and then worked for the was ahead of the municipal Division at the Attorney General's office, so he's extremely Experienced in municipal law, and so I just wanted to give a little back on people who didn't know him from back in the day Thank you. I forget that not everyone knows some of these infamous names Thank you, so if I take a motion I Could argue that I made the motion that looks almost like this move to a point a three-member committee to include Robert Richie became Moran burning Kubiak in Accordance with section 10.7 subsection you of the Amherst home rule Charter adopted March 27th 2018 no one cares when it was written it matters that when it was adopted maybe an attorney does but Figure that out later. Do we have a second? So we have a motion a second is there further discussion on the appointees yes, so in terms of the logistics Which is always the fun part of this right? We have to work out the shouts and maze in a charge And then we find the people which we recruited based on their long Experiences with Amherst and also knowing it was potentially a relatively short-term committee because the council will reevaluate What they wish to do do they want to expand the committee? Well, they ask people to continue to serve etc And we heard from one of the charter commissioners that in another commit in another community That went through a similar change it took them a year to review all their bylaws So I we didn't want to scare these people off by making them think they would all have to serve for a year And that's convenient because it says in the charter that the council will reevaluate what it's happening once they get Their initial report In addition to that since in terms of like how does this have its first meeting? So when we normally set up a new committee or the town manager normally sets up a new committee He calls together the people that he appointed or the select board a Design of the select board typically the chair or if somebody else is already known as a liaison to it Helps work with staff to set up that first meeting in terms of we always depend on staff or posting and Meaning logistics etc because this will be subject to open meaning law But then the other portion of that that's just slightly more complicated is because the Charter Commission is not as I mentioned earlier Intending at this point to meet again. We just need to make sure we have appropriate people noticed on the meeting notices Internally, I mean legally you only have to do the external 48 hours notice But internally to make sure people are aware and it's my understanding That Charter Commissioner Mandy Joe Hanakie is willing to be that point person associated with that So whichever of us is calling this meeting together the first time just to sort of get them started Should be aware of that even though we're not as we talked about on Wednesday We're not really appointing just like we're not really appointing a select board member But that does mean they need to know you know sort of how the process is unfolding And that also means that at some point probably we need to talk about a select board member is for the time being anyway Well to that point, I've been thinking about this a little bit I think that I'm happy to serve in that role certainly short-term and then if I think you know, we left it intentionally flexible enough that if I Can't for a certain period of time then someone else might be able to step up for a little bit and come back Yeah, I think it Some aspects are fairly straightforward, but what others will require more intense review and so I think in you know Barring someone else really really having a strong passion for this. I'm happy to do it. So I Can serve in that role unless there's someone else that would like to So that no but that makes sense to me. Yes, just to be clear. I'm what a question. I was answering That makes sense to me It is frequently the chair that starts off a new committee and you know and then steps back that were Alongside however may be necessary and we did talk about different areas of expertise, etc And so as they get into a particular area you may call on We will be willing to be called upon just as we always are when you look to us But I think that we should just be clear in the minutes with I always have to say at least once a meeting Most expensive minutes taker in Commonwealth of Massachusetts should include Then those two names your name is to slaughter and his hand he's name but not be part of the motion of the appointment Is there further discussions as we do have a motion on on the floor as it were? Hearing none all those in favor, please say aye So I'll say that unanimous with one member absent And if I may just ask one further follow-up question again when this gets edited Which we really appreciate Ms. Pupple pulling together our notes every time we do something like this if it could be recent to us so that as people continue to Ask us about it and of course, I know she'll send it to the members that just got appointed But just so that we all have it as a reference that would be helpful There's an idea Oh, and I've just realized as you mentioned that thank you We did not we said on the charge that special municipal employee status applied We did not have a separate motion that said that and so I would move that special municipal employee status applies to this committee Okay, so we have a motion in a second relative to special municipal employee status being granted to the Members of this committee is there further discussion Hearing done all those in favor, please say aye That's unanimous with one member absent Does it seem like noting that all the things Trying to get that going So I think we've actually That's right a lot of that all right That's why I think Thank you've satisfied that aspect of the new charter. We met our first deadline. We didn't meet your first Check all right So the second part of this particular agenda item is a charter transition provisions and we left this intentionally a little bit open-ended for The purpose of Allowing some broad-ranging conversations at this point and so I think we discussed in Theoretical terms whether or not we want to potentially form another group to review and think about transition provisions and What needs to happen or what we think might be wise? to make The transition from our current form of government Well, our current form of government because our current form of government is the charter, but our select board town meeting form of government To our council form of government proceed Well So I didn't know if any of you had particular things that you wanted to bring up or raise at this point relative to that topic You know, we have someone in public that wants to talk, but I want to give us a chance to go first Yes, so And and mr. Steinberg was really sorry He couldn't be here tonight because this is something we've all been wanting to talk about as soon as we got the document Which as you indicated was just a little last week And so it is long and complex and trying to figure out and although they laid it out in a very straightforward way it's Despite what people might say we don't in fact always follow what KP law suggests to us in terms of interpretation And so trying to make sense of it for each of us to be able to have that conversation And I guess to a large degree it will simply be based on what the actual articles are But they're recommending it toward as opposed to the theoretical and the theoretical example They gave was really helpful, but it's not What's actually in front of us so it makes it in terms of the grant application was it was a really good theoretical example a Practical application that's not yet in front of us. And so it feels a little harder to be entirely Confident of I understand their logic But I'm not sure given the concerns people have expressed about the various articles If I feel like it really fits within the framework they say so for example simply to respect the work of boards That have been working on something for a long time You know that has gone back and forth to town meeting several times and town meeting has said keep working on this And they keep working on it and then a change occurs. And so then I'm not sure Not supposed to be talking about feelings so much as facts, but it feels a little odd to say no stop We know we told you to work on this many times But we want you to stop working on it for now or just on the other hand There are the issues around people's feelings toward the form of government and whether or not it was Appropriate to continue to do more than say keep the lights on Make sure the budgets funded so I'm not convinced. This is quite as easy as it looks in terms of the Interpretation, and I'm not sure that we will necessarily all agree on all the articles, but that's okay So I think that what I would suggest is one thing that is clear is that generally the the ruling of what is or is not Allowable is ours to make as a select board. I think that's that's one area that that is Someone has to make that determination and so, you know, the select board is a natural executive branch To make that executive decision about that and I think we will face over the ensuing months You know a number of questions that come up where we'll have to use that authority to make a decision about Whether we should or should not move forward with some particular thing whether it be a special town meeting or Whatever that happens to be So I think we will have our work cut out for us, I guess Did you have a comment? I'd like to hear from people and then have some more discussion. Okay Anybody else if not if you would like to come forward and share your thoughts with us, please Thank you Mandy Joe Mandy Joe Hanneke I'm at 52 Archer Street I am currently a charter commissioner, but I am not speaking on behalf of the Charter Commission So I just wanted to make that clear. This is my own personal opinion since it is something that is in the Charter I am speaking to urge the select board to vote to dismiss Articles 33 34 35 36 and 37 based upon the transition language in the Charter And they were all zoning articles that are not Necessary and essential to the current operations of the town and I believe action on them Would be potentially frustrating the purpose of the charter as a Charter Commission. We heard a lot about zoning and These are all zoning articles that while they have to by law go back to the planning board The Charter itself has adopted that's been adopted requires that The town council adopt a master plan with or without changes and that all Articles whether they be zoning or not that affect the master plan or potentially affect the master plan go through a specific process of going back to the planning board for a review and recommendations and indication as to whether they are not inconsistent with the Town council adopted master plan and to now consider zoning articles that are not time sensitive Unlike the marijuana articles that one could argue or towns and time sensitive without those determinations and the Adoption of a master plan by the town council I think would frustrate the purpose of the Charter which is to have better discussions in the legislative branch on Zoning and planning and all of these especially inclusionary zoning are things that Specifically inclusionary zoning are things that have been tried in town meeting for quite some time inclusionary zoning It's been up in front of town meeting for the last five years almost once a year And it's been a problem to have those discussions in town meeting. So I would urge the select board to vote to Recommend dismissal or to move to dismiss those articles based upon those transition provisions of not frustrating The purpose of the Charter. Thank you Thank you Marianne Adams the town meeting member and member of various town committees and boards I hadn't been prepared to speak on this issue But I moved by the previous speaker to do so Unfortunately, I didn't bring a copy of the coupleman page memo with me. I wish I had because I I did lots of things there one of the things that struck me about that memo is that this is a transition and not a takeover in other words, there are issues that have been before town meeting for many years including inclusionary zoning and So we were working on this mr. Weiss will be talking about this later on with the planning board as A collaborative fix that we were all very happy with My understanding is that we're dealing with a transition and not a stop and wait My understanding also is that the council once it is set up and becomes the government of Amherst We'll be able to do what it wants With various bylaws that have been passed But meanwhile we have a government in place with issues that have been before us for quite some time and I think it is inappropriate I don't want to use a stronger word To disenfranchise the current government on behalf of a free totally free hand for the new government When indeed the new government will have a free hand to decide what it wants to do There's been a great deal of thought time over many years The fact that inclusionary zoning although we'll get back to that later again in the agenda But it was brought up by the previous speaker The fact that it has been discussed for so many years by the planning board of the town meeting Is not a weakness, but a strength of the collaboration between the two parts of government We now think that we have a fix. I think it should come to town meeting for a vote If town meeting approves it great if town meeting doesn't I'll be sad But the council if it thinks it's a bad idea can deal with that later on To put a stop on things that we have been discussing for years as Part of a government that is in place Until it is no longer in place. I think is Inappropriate for the work put in by members of the current government. Thank you. I'm Andy Churchill Serving for four more days as chair of the charter Commission, but again, I am not speaking as in that role I'm speaking in as an individual I Think it's fairly traditional in these transitions to identify What the outgoing form of government will will do and be allowed to do and what should wait for the new incoming form of government and so when we wrote the the Charter section 10.7 subsection B was fairly specific and clear that During the period between the adoption of the Charter and the date of the election of the new council the select word town manager and town meetings to 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 So this notion or this this language that says those matters essential and necessary to the current operations of the town I Think is pretty clear The current operations of the town are what we're doing now It doesn't necessarily take into account what we're thinking about doing or what we've talked about a number of times It's the current operations of the town so You know my my perspective or my opinion is that the town's people voted For a body that would be able to deliberate at length whatever length is necessary and be accountable for whatever decisions they make on Issues of zoning which are particularly problematic For a town meeting because of its size and its inability to deliberate at length and so to to put matters of great import in in terms of zoning in the hand of this you know outgoing body To me seems like it is frustrating the purpose of the Charter and the purpose of what people voted for in the recent election so, you know, I I think we need to figure out how to do Affordable housing and how to do development downtown, but if we don't get it right We're not going to have either affordable housing or development downtown, and I think The danger is that we do it wrong because we want to get something done Now rather than have a deliberative process as specified in the context of a master plan and with the time to deliberate and By people who are going to be held accountable So my sense was that this was going to be a fairly quick town meeting with only those things that couldn't wait And I think you know if there's any doubt I would say if it can wait let it wait So for the public comment relative to Mr. Weiss Jerry Weiss precinct eight. I am also a member of the Commission and I Guess I'm not speaking as a commissioner, but I am aren't I and so are they We spent in my memory we spent very little time on this topic And the main issue that I remember us discussing is the frustration the frustrating of the charter itself such as Trying to pass a law that the new council couldn't Pass any zoning measures for two years that would Definitely frustrate the the charter I'm going to argue when I speak to 36 Specifically why it's essential. I won't do that now But to disparage the town current town meeting is unincapable of discussing fully zoning articles I don't think that has any place in this decision Town meeting has been doing that for many many years and we still the town meeting still exists And should take up the business of the town until there is a new government in place So I'll speak more specifically as did Buckleman and Page speaks very specifically to Not Buckleman and Page. Thank you Yeah, better money They spoke pretty specifically on on all the articles and I think what they had to say is it's quite relevant. Thank you Hi, I'm Carla rash precinct six newly minted town meeting member I Also was not going to comment, but I feel compelled to do so To say two things one just to remind everyone That the election I believe Showed a real clear mandate from the people of Amherst that they wanted a change and the change they chose The change that is now our government and was as of March 27th, 2018 is the charter And that charter included these transition provisions, which we're discussing right now One of the many reasons that people supported the new charter was because they had felt that Amherst had grown beyond Amherst's representative town meeting was not able to address these complex issues including some of these issues like these zoning issues And so I think that That speaks to what the people of Amherst want and shows In a free and democratic election. The other thing I would say is That I believe We hear a lot, you know when people are trying to interpret These old documents, what would the founding fathers want and we have our you know, we have founding fathers and mothers here today that are speaking to what they intended and meant and I think Andy and Mandy Joe had some strong points to make on that and what the intent was in terms of the transition provisions And I would urge you to Consider seriously what they had to say. Thank you anyone else We should know if we're public comment on on this if not then I'll turn back to my colleagues for their thoughts Well, I have a couple of things and probably more than I can remember to say I think we've kind of gotten down to the nub of what is going to be our challenge Which is transition and what transition means and you know, I'm probably many of us But for me, you know, I read this whole thing a couple times back when and it was only when the vote happened And it became real that I was like, oh now what do we do and I read it again and Would I have wanted more detail and more clarity perhaps so but I think I'm trying to read This language holistically and understand what our job is and what I'm I Guess not really struggling but kind of understanding is the select board that we were before and What we are now in our role now is different what town meeting was before and what town meeting is during the transition is different But appreciate miss Adams Her comments, I don't see transition meaning takeover I think we're in a different in between hybrid place where we're a caretaker of something until the new comes in that's not the same as is Takeover, but I'm trying to understand my role Select board's role and this sort of caretaker town meeting role in the context of the language. I appreciate we have Members who are on the charter commission speaking as individuals with different opinions And so while that can help inform us, I'm trying to interpret this for myself and doing the best job I can and it's hard Because our role is different too, and I read the compliment page Kpila memo and I agree with some of it and some of it seems like it's a gray area where they might have fallen Leaned on one interpretation. I might go the other way and well I'm used to the old way where we get to just recommend. I'm leaning myself towards a pretty strict Not Wanting to take positions or not wanting to support actions on things that can wait and that's hard That's still a gray area and earlier you heard me ask would we be Looking at this issue when we look at each of these Articles that we're going to be talking about tonight And I think we're going to have to have that discussion on all of them because It isn't cut and dry, and I think it's all of our jobs to try to figure out Whether it's appropriate to act or not and we're gonna have different we're gonna have different opinions about that and Hopefully we can do that in a Spirit of civil discourse because it's not going to be easy We're kind of in a birthing process and I think I've been struggling with it and I'm trying to figure it out So I think I appreciate everyone's comments because we're all in this together What what what does this language mean? What is the KP law memo mean and where do we land? Mr. Wolf Without getting the specifics, I think my feelings are similar to my colleagues in that I too was realizing I'm sort of caught in the language because we have this essential and necessary and we know what those mean But as Miss Bruce said does it mean just keeping the lights on and paying the bills It doesn't mean more than that and then what does it mean to frustrate the purpose of the charter? Obviously, mr. Weiss gave an example of something egregious that would Or something that would subvert the new form of government in some ways But there are things that go on that don't seem absolutely essential or to frustrate the purpose of the charter I think that's what we're caught with these zoning articles and this but you know I take all these arguments seriously both the fact that there's a continuity of things have been doing so it's not radically new on the other hand, they don't You know what a question of urgency is as a matter of some subjective debate also I Think in most these cases a lot would not the marijuana's example again If something it has to get done or to be very smart to get done now and not later The other ones are in a kind of a gray area and that's where I'm wrestling with that because I also you know We have we hire a council or attorney as we call them that way For a reason and They are the experts and I'm not and part of the debate about all the things we do in select board in town Meaning is when we defer to expertise and when we second guess or criticize that judgment Not to say we shouldn't so I take that seriously. I did notice though in the conclusion of the KP law statement You know they make the point that we should understand these things in terms of common language and common sense meaning We've had those debates before about zoning as well The intent of the transition provision is in our further opinion To ensure that the town moves to diligently prepare for the upcoming transition so far so good and avoids commitments I would undermine the town council or commit the town council in ways that are unnecessary or inappropriate You know, that's a little bit of further gloss on the issue I don't know if that applying those phrases to the issues under consideration make a difference or not as a Side note as my colleagues know I'm always puzzled by the talk of the town council Adopting a master plan because interstate law has nothing to do with that. It's a planning board issue The town council can speak to the master plan and can offer opinions and so forth But we think we should be clear about who's legal authorities there So I would also be puzzled or curious as to how that process would work and relate to this What the town council thinks zoning would be doing while waiting for this master plan to be adopted though It is I we can also put in a plug and say it's time to review the master plan and update it Which is at least an appropriate thing to do. So I'm hoping that's what the conversation will be about But I don't want to digress too much on that This bro, you don't offer coming Having already framed many of my concerns at the beginning And this is one of those ways where I feel not only like I could argue both sides of the issue But maybe three or four different sides of this issue. So I'm not tonight. Let's not but It's rather fascinating that Unlike many things This is not It's obvious to some people. It's not obvious to me sitting in this seat And I really appreciate it in particular in addition to all these comments Including from the audience and hearing all the different nuances that they've all brought to it Miss Krueger's comment about This isn't the same select board So it's the same people But we're actually in a different role now and town meeting actually is new people in it, too But the ones that are continuing as many of them are are in a different role than they have been up until now And so what does that mean exactly? so the things that I still hope we'll have some time to discuss is When we talk about and you very pointedly said mr. Slaughter about The select board being the arbiter as as KP law has said That's all well and good for this conversation, but when we get to the Floratown meeting Again, I know I like to talk about very specific things that bore other people But when we get there, so what happens so say we decide This group that we're gonna say We don't recommend this article because we think it is not in the spirit of the charter transition Not because we think it's a good or bad article But because we think it's not in the spirit of the charter transition and we'll pull out the exact words again and We can say that but if the moderator says The motion was made in terms of the article and we're gonna talk for three hours about this I'm just trying to understand how that fits together. So is there any point in us saying? Should we be having a debate here? Should we have how many how many different positions should we have? Should we have a position on an article that says we think this article does or does not pass the test according to the test the KP laws laid out for us and our various interpretations of that test and separately from that if You're gonna go ahead and vote on this article and if people are gonna vote in favor of it Then it should be amended to say x y z or it should be referred or something like that because you know We couldn't keep it off as opposed to what some people tried to tell us they were like just don't put it on the warrants Like no, we have to put stuff on the warrant because it's required to do that But then after that what happens to it? So how has the moderator sort of so I can tell you how we talk this through a little bit today and so I think for articles which For which we have as a select ward Decided they're outside sort of action by town town meeting And he suggested he would not take a motion in the affirmative for that so you couldn't like To pick one that's let's say 37. I'm just picking two but if we had said No, we don't think that's appropriate at this town meeting because it isn't necessary and essential or it's not you know, it somehow binds the You know frustrates purpose of the of the new of the new charter if we were to rule in that way He would not take a motion if someone made the motion I move in terms of the article He'd say I'm not allowing that motion And then he probably turned to us to offer an alternative motion either referral dismissal, etc I think though the Particularly related zoning one thing I will mention is the notion of dismissal versus referral is pretty considerable because dismissal does have the same Rampifications it's always had in that regard. So if we dismiss an article that does Have that sort of two-year window and all the associated and tenured Components of that so that is a distinct consideration as far as if we opt to to head in that direction And so I think in that regard, I think it's it's critical for us in going into town meeting to to have a clear point of view on any and all articles as we know them Coming into to the meeting because that frames How the moderator will interact with with the body as well? I think I Think that would does that capture what you think we yes, we sort of talked it through today a little bit Yes, I mean, I think the first thing is to remember that this is our charter as of March 27th. This is our charter We're not waiting for anything. There is an interregnum now while we while the council gets formed But the charter, you know, this document is what we're operating under the old town government act is gone This is the charter and we're working under the transition provisions I think it was like board members Identified and talked about new roles for town meeting for town manager and for for the select board So now we're into the in the business of trying to interpret what the words on the paper are is what and that's what town council did When they drafted their memo, which is a very carefully reasoned memo with identifying who makes decisions How do you interpret it and they while there are certain phrases that get repeated? They say you look at the entire transition provision as a whole not just essential and necessary or frustrate the purpose You look at the entire thing in their in their interpretation of this Then they list under guidance they get less guidance for current and future issues You know that they list criteria for that you could use or in terms of what you how you would judge whether something Meets the purpose of the charter and I think that one of the challenges on that is that you're the deciders and you're Making decisions and while you can do it case by case you are going to be setting precedents for yourself And so you need to be pretty alert to What is going to come down the pike because we don't know what's going to come down? Zoning was not explicitly Excluded and in fact, you know people are saying there are some zoning that need that can happen So it's not like you can't do zoning you can do some zoning. It's what zoning can you do? What can't you do and so there are Challenges and I you know, I think town council, you know, I think There are a lot of things that could have come down either way It's pretty close call on the inclusionary zoning the supplemental apartments. Those are pretty clear Pretty close votes and that's why I think you're struggling with those ones those in particular They put their logic on paper as to why they think you can act on those But it really is up to the five members of the board to make that call in terms of the logistics at town meeting when We talked with town council and town moderator today the chair pretty much summed it up the Moderator has his own responsibility as well in terms of how he will manage certain things He was working under the guidance of the town council or the town attorney memo When he was we were going through the motion review if that were to change and the select board would just were to say Actually and that the only article that was the two articles that town town attorney said we could not act on were the rezoning Caner proposal and then the noise proposal the other ones were deemed to be actionable He was comfortable with moving forward with those under the normal terms so It really is I mean the balls in the select board's court in terms of what's going to be permitted at town meeting And then how that gets managed by the town moderator Thank you that last part was what I wanted to be clear on because this is unfolding in real time and so Obviously all he had to work with was what was here We hadn't been able to discuss these articles in light of this and so therefore He will have to look at he has agreed that if we do not follow the Exact same rules that KP law has lined out for us or or we should we say perhaps the rules are the same But we're interpreting where the gray zone is differently than they are that he is then willing to do what? Mr. Slater mentioned earlier is that he would look he would not accept a motion on something So even though today he might be assuming that we are going to do the things that KP law suggested We may tonight decide we're not doing the things KP law suggested and he will then follow through on the conversation that you had The other question I had I don't know if you would have discussed had a chance to discuss this with KP law is around the idea of And I know I've brought this up already in a more casual way And one should never joke about litigation because it does happen all the time is who gets sued so if we choose if we say We appreciate what KP law wrote here, but given what we Feel about our community and our interpretation of it. We think it actually Falls more on this side of the line. So we don't want to act on this So that's the absence of action so to speak Which feels a little safer then for example if we pass some zoning and We encourage the passage of some zoning some that we might feel very strongly about personally and as a board associated with affordable housing What are we what's our exposure? litigation-wise to People who would say you shouldn't have passed the zoning does it is it you know Can we rely on I guess I'm saying kind of we rely on KP law to say you're the arbiters even if you don't agree with what we told you or you know, and obviously they'll back us up because that's what they do they're our attorneys, but You know, we're not necessarily looking for the safest thing to do But in terms of being aware of what the ramifications of our decisions are, you know, it's one thing to say well You know, we aren't going to pass this particular zoning article because Council can deal with it someday and let them deal with it someday So that has ramifications in terms of which we'll talk about as each of these articles come up There might be things we lose out on because we haven't done that It's hard a little hard to envision who would sue us for missing out on something that doesn't exist But I can also see us being sued by property owners for example who say you shouldn't have done this But maybe some KP laws interpretation of our role as arbiter based on what the way the charter Transition provisions are written feels comfortable in that way. I guess I'm looking for I have a question mark at the end of that I would say there's no comfort in being sued or anybody can do it anytime, but I think I think there is a lot of weight given to a Elected board making a Informed decision and I think that usually courts pretty much give some credence to that if you've done it in a careful way Just something about litigation because we're in uncharted waters I think that might be bandied about a lot. We heard it But we we third we heard that mentioned earlier this evening I'm willing to go ahead with what we collectively this board thinks is the right thing and you know if we're doing something Foolish and we bring on litigation unnecessarily because the whole town money. So Of course, I care about that, but I I don't think that charge that that you're going to be sued of this or that is Really going to guide the path that we're going to need to take so I appreciate being cautious in doing things and with the liberation as an elected board And just like a permacranting authority the courts will give that a lot of weight and I'm still going to struggle with some of these as Individual articles as we get to them I think for me the the thing I would suggest this point is that what I've been trying to think about is sort of In any case regardless of what it is You know sort of what's the rationale that I'm going to apply in a case and so, you know For example, I think for all of us You know when we talk about these The three relative to marijuana medical marijuana recreational marijuana, etc. Those those have an urgency because You know, it's a very fluid situation in the moment now and the licenses will be, you know granted, you know well very soon and You know, but I think that as we think about that, you know the others, you know, obviously some of these For example supplementary dwelling units. We haven't allowed We haven't a Current zoning by-law relative to supplementary. We're changing that to And so as we think about that where it's a modification of an existing What was our intention when we originally passed that what's our intention now? Does it fit within that is that necessary and essential or is it what's you know and then what's the I think that What's the Negative of delay I think is also an important question in determining, you know, it's necessity or essentiality and and And so I think that that's it's not necessarily that we worked on a long time per se But I think that the conversations around the topics related to these things You know Do they follow an intent introductory the town has been pursuing for a long time is it consistent with You know for values of the town therefore would be considered Necessary I think how we articulate that and in what precedence we set early will influence and you know and impact our ability You know later You know saying no to everything is the simplest, but may not be the wisest But I think you know I agree. I have my struggles with all with these in different ways, but I'm trying in my own mind to sort of Think about what is one of those frames that I'm trying to apply regardless of particular topic and You know, I think I've settled to a spot just yet on those Are we ready to dive in? So do we do we have any other comments or suggestions relative to this at the moment to It's a shame our colleague. Mr. Steinberg can't be here because it will be something I think the five of us all have to to grapple with over the ensuing few weeks actually Well with mr. Steinberg not here if we get to a real Kind of thorny point. We don't have to fight act tonight. Although our time is running out I Guess I know we have people here who want to present their articles and so some of this is going to sort out I think when we try to apply are yet articulated right, right? So I think unless we have other Either specific or broad things we want to say particularly about the memo from from KP law I think that we should probably get into hearing from the the We're hearing about the different articles that are on our agenda this evening, so Unless that's problematic for any of my member my colleagues on the on the board will All right, so why don't we take a small? Risa recess and we'll come back and take up article 29 All right, so the board's back So I think that we'll we'll get back into our sort of Stepwise approach to each of the articles We'll take them in the order. We have them. Hopefully that will we have a number of people waiting to do these and they're a Number of them to do so we'll we'll take article 29 The general by law amendment zero energy town buildings screw. Did you want to introduce this or? We have a guest that wants to maybe introduce this or I'll just start, but I'm Miss. Grease Mears here also and I Think as we've talked about it a couple of our prior meetings The zero energy town buildings Bylaw is a replacement bylaw for the bylaw that was passed at the special town meeting last fall and we we being Mr. Steinberg myself, Mr. Backelman and Miss Grease Mears who's the chair of the DPW fire advisory committee and for representatives from mothers out front for the petitioners of the Original article who Chris riddle Andrew Rose and Perkins and Rudy Perkins the two Perkins is they're not related And we entered into a pretty intensive Collaborative process starting I think at the beginning of February and it's in the it's in the report to town meeting that was in the Second mailing We worked together because we found some problem some challenges with the version that was passed and We worked together to come up with something that We could all agree on which was which took a huge number of hours and brain cells so I'm not It wasn't really prepared to present the article But maybe Miss Grease Mears would want to go over some of the highlights if that's what you came to do I want to put you on the spot, but If you'd be so kind that would be great. You don't have to read the entirety to us because it's several pages I didn't even bring my computer with me Which is pretty much how I operate first of all I do want to just say this was a very outstanding collaborative process Where not only did the if you will two sides on the issue Come to respect what each of the groups had to bring I think the group from mothers out front Embrace the opportunity to learn more about what the town really needed in a bylaw to make it work and those of us representing quote the town Also embraced the opportunity to learn more about what we really mean by zero energy and Each of us had the opportunity then to go back and consult with various others that represent similar Sides if you will I really hate to say size because I think what has come out of this is a bylaw That all of us strongly support Going forward to town meeting it is a replacement of the bylaw your handout gives you a seven different points on which The bylaw really does change we've added a purpose we've added definitions and done some cleaning up of language But most important and since I chair of the DPW fire station advisory committee And we will probably we hope be one of the first Or if not near the first buildings to come forward under this new bylaw I felt it was really important that I Understand it so that I could help cheer and guide the committee But the real issue that I saw from the very beginning was cost containment and we achieved that In a way that respects the bylaw, but understands that these kinds of buildings can cost the town more And at the same time we also came up with a way in which the town manager Can actually then go ahead and authorize moving forward Whereas in the past it was really not until after a building was built that we would actually Certify that it was zero energy So these were some of the biggest stumbling blocks in the whole process and Connie or Paul You may want to speak to some of the other key issues that we were able to address No, I think There are a lot more definitions people will notice and that was really important because we're using terms that are relatively new And have different meanings to different people. So agreeing on a set of definitions the sort of cap economic cap was important and It raises the threshold from one million to two million dollars was an important thing for some members On the the other side they wanted to raise the cap and I was important for them and I was agreed to But I think the biggest thing is that it Was an educational process for both sides as people grappled with what this really means and I think no one believes This is the end product that is likely to change going going forward But this is something that we can actually start to work work with right I actually have to say I compare my thinking about it to the same way You just had your discussion about the charter when you now that you have to actually be the custodians of the transition to move forward you have to look at the words will Even sharper eyes and I'm sure we will have to do that with a by-law and come back to the governing body of the town Discuss potential changes over time So I hope I hope that this will go forward and To town meeting and I respect the fact that town meeting passed the first by-law and should have the opportunity to look Thank you So having worked on this and being pretty committed to the result I'm trying to apply the same standard that Been thinking about in regards to some of the ones that we're gonna have in a little bit, but I know that the KP law Opinion said yes, we could act on this I Would like some help articulating really clearly why we need to Do this replacement by-law now Rather than offering this to the future council. We do have something on the books that I actually believe is in Would be we might might Prohibit us from going forward with a building project building projects in general So there's a possible time issue This is Written to go into effect prior to schematic design phase in a new town building So we may actually get to schematic design on a project being TPW or fire prior to the council being seated so That may be the reason but I want a sort of comfort level that Really need to replace the spy law now as we're going to start applying some standards You read my mind, I think I had the exact same questions So one of my questions was timeline because that could be urgency right You know if we have to get something in place before we're putting in bids and buying property and doing schematics and all that And then I thought also about the parallelism or at least possible comparisons between the two because when I read What kp law says about this one? On page nine, I'm sorry Gotta find the page here Second paragraph page eight. I mean Although the proposed amendment addresses matters that are more broad-ranging than that proposed in article 28 Which was the ag commission the intent of this amendment? Sorry, I'm worse today the intent of this amendment is similarly to ensure that the goals of the town and so forth so If I can remember to be valid, so they're saying it's it's working on something. We've already been doing And that's one of the questions too because you're presented with a very poorly crafted bylaw that was having unintended consequences So extrapolating from this without bringing up new issues entirely, you know, I could see that if we are acting On an existing to improve an existing bylaw here That's one factor because certainly that would apply to supplemental housing units Submental dwelling units and the inclusionary zoning which are much longer standing in town legislation and planning board policy So I guess part of my question here comes down to the urgency of time Those are those the two issues. I see here. There's the continuity of policy in which case They may not be urgent, but they're appropriate And then there's a question of the time factor So if time is not a factor here, I wonder if that would affect our decisions about others And I don't know I just you mentioned the schematic phase perhaps being reached Thanks for helping articulate because I want to apply Something pretty consistently. I think that that's one one thing to your point That wasn't mentioned in the memo from KB law, but I do think is Another point to be made is that I do think the timeliness of this is important because I think the current bylaws it is currently written does If not completely keep us from moving ahead on any building And even some renovations of existing buildings It it certainly we have things that we've discussed for several years relative to large capital projects that you know Are poised to be acted on as? And I think that this is You know falls within that urgency sort of Category as well as as I think it meets the other criteria that you know, but I think it also meets that question So I'm surprised they didn't raise that issue here Top of our conversation they may not be as familiar with the timelines We've been working under relative to those Capital projects, so but they knew the need for the revision arose because of impossibility of moving forward, sir Where did you have comment on this? He wouldn't thank you mr. Slaughter. I appreciate that So I'm not sure miss Krueger paid enough credit to Mr. Steinberg staff members and all the members of the community who who spent 100 or more hours on this To do this oh work on the work through this over and over again And and so that's really important and as you as we've talked about you know How do we judge where things fall within these criteria? And we're clearly going to face criticism no matter what we do So we're used to that we have thick skin and broad shoulders But in terms of our own consistency for ourselves is and I really appreciate that we're trying to sort through that Originally when the town manager had sort of broadly outlined the conversations He was having with KP law about which things might which wings might not we took you know One puny little article off the warrant before we signed it associated with recycling and refuse management just to not muddy the waters with something that wasn't Absolutely timely and essential but we put lots other things on the warrant because we felt we had either we either did have a legal Obligation or we felt an obligation to do so I'm not sure I can come up with as bright a line as as might be easier to defend I believe that because this article was Relatively quickly embraced by town meeting in terms of its spirit Versus its technicalities. I think that it actually had quite broad support in terms of what it was intending to do And what it was intending to do was not prevent buildings from being built and that was what it actually did so it And that was why we recommended against it when it was in front of town meeting because we could see that it wasn't Ready to be able to do the things it wanted to do and I felt comfortable though that the entire Community basically was saying this is great But let's work out the logistics as to how that happens and that's where all those many hours came in after the fact So it does feel like the timeliness is essential on this one And there will be people who when I argue a different way on a later article Say well why isn't it the same and I guess I'm Don't not gonna have as bright a line as I might like to have or at least that I haven't been able to articulate yet But this one feels like we have all agreed that buildings need to be built We have all agreed that we hold certain values about those buildings What we have on the books now is not good enough to make those things happen and we've seen with You know knowing we had at least four major projects We've seen that even though we all knew that for years until meeting knew that for years that various things happened Like grants became available and so things had to start proceeding in certain areas Unfortunately, there don't seem to be a pool of grants out there. So say with dpw's and fires But again, we need to be able to move forward on those schematic things so that when the right financing is available To do things will be prepared to do that. It's not like it's a new idea So it feels I feel I don't know that I can articulate it beautifully But I feel confident that this is one that falls on the side of the line that says We have to move forward because if we don't we not only don't do the spirit of what we wanted to do But we logistically can't do the things we say we want to do And I think that the community as a whole has agreed on both those issues So that's why I feel comfortable with this one moving forward and this one being hopefully passed by town meeting So that we can follow through on what town meeting said was its desire In the discussion I can certainly take a motion relative to this one if you'd like to You've persuaded me Thank thank you for sharing because I wanted to put something I had worked on to the test because it wasn't Absolutely clear to met the test Whatever the test is I move to recommend to the april 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 29 general bylaw amendment zero energy town buildings and Krueger to speak to the article on behalf of the select board There's a second. So is it for the discussion? Hearing none all those in favor, please say aye aye So that's unanimous of one absent All right, so moving to the next article which is article 30 She has medical marijuana treatment center and offsite dispensary So mr. Craner Right ahead. I'm rob Craner. I'm Chair of the zoning subcommittee of the planning board and I'm here to present the zoning articles that we have So the first article article 30 is is a minor tweak to the definitions for the medical marijuana uses that we currently have in the in the use chart When when the medical when medical marijuana was legalized a few years ago Um, the law required that Operators of medical marijuana establishments be nonprofit. That is no longer the case So in order to um be consistent with state law, we we need to drop references to nonprofit From the definitions of of our medical marijuana uses. That's all this does Okay, thank you. So My colleagues, what should we take this up as? So I think that um for me just to sort of get back to our conversation about Sort of necessary and essential this falls into that category for me clearly because uh, again As we spoke earlier the timeliness of this is because this is a new industry coming into You know into reality as we you know as we speak literally, um, but also, um, we want to be Not in conflict Not in conflict with state law and so that makes this To my mind an essential step that we have to take. Um, that's how I interpret this so It it seems very clear to me Hey, it's a good idea and b it satisfies the criteria for us to take action on in this transition But I'm willing to your other opinions obviously Or motion I move to mechamentry I move to recommend to the april 30th 2018 annual town meaning article 30 zoning by-law medical marijuana treatment center and off-site dispensary No Someone to speak to it on behalf of the select board. All right, so there's a second as well Did you volunteer to do it? Oh, no Okay, I was just he's So there is a second without a speaker at this point, we'll design that later if we need to yes, miss bro So as everyone who's been watching our meetings is well aware There is an internal marijuana working group and we have Been working on a number of issues as this all continues to unfold over the past year And this is obviously one of the articles that we supported There in in having discussions between the different bodies that are associated with regulating Marijuana which could potentially be the born of health could potentially be the select board and a future local licensing authority and which we currently serve as and of course the zoning so Yes, this is something we supported in terms of just cleaning up its housekeeping But yes, it it is essential that we be as close to whatever the current reality is As it continues to change Out from under us and it would not be at all surprising if we needed to do more tweaking In a couple of months or in six or eight months And because it's just the nature as you indicated of a new industry Also, as miss kruger may not be aware Because she wasn't able to be here last week as we actually haven't picked assignments for a lot of these articles Although we assigned her a bunch last week and so Yeah And so I think that we may decide perhaps at the end of a section or something or at the end of the evening Which ones make sense to group together, and I won't lean on you now So yes, I'm not leaning on me now would be good. I think it was capital. Yeah, I'll you all it's just the capital your say Just a short footnote Really taking me too long Um in a sense, this is housekeeping It does bring us into compliance with the latest version of The state law and regulations But I want to note that a lot of communities have sort of punted on this and done moratorium Moratorium moratorium moratoriums because they just couldn't cope and we're in our third third round of zoning to keep pace with the marijuana Regulations so I'm actually very proud of the work. We've all been doing it's taken a huge amount of Time and energy miss breast strip. Mr. Crowner and others who you know are really thinking about zoning And as land use, and this is like about marijuana, and there is a land use component, but they've had to turn their attention to it, and I think it's actually put Amherst kind of on the leading edge of what municipalities can do with their local regulations. So this kind of suite of articles is part of our effort to really stay abreast and use the capacity that we have with our great staff and our really engaged boards to kind of stay out in front of this as much as we can, where I like playing catch-up. I would also suggest, you know, when we talk about sort of transition and, you know, sort of necessary kind of things, I think this, for this community falls into the category of something necessary we have to do. Because it's going to land on us. Exactly. This is, I think other communities can take the, you know, they can take the approach of a moratorium, and that works for them, and it's functional for them. I don't think that was, I don't think any of us have over the last, seems like forever, but a couple years have thought that from at any point in time. So I think we're following in the footsteps of the necessity that we saw of it early on. We do have a motion, and so is there further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, so that's unanimous, if one member absent. We'll go on to Article 31, please. Okay, Article 31 is in response to the Cannabis Control Commission promulgating actual regulations for recreational marijuana uses. When we brought an article in the fall to establish a use for retail marijuana sales for a storefront marijuana store. But the, since then the Cannabis Control Commission has defined a whole bunch of other marijuana uses, from cultivators to transporters to research and testing labs, product manufacturing. So all of these things are things that might happen in Amherst, and some of them we might actually want to happen in Amherst, their economic development opportunities. But we need to make a place for them in the bylaw if you want to regulate them under the marijuana uses section of the use chart. They will, they will, they would be assigned somewhere anyway if we don't pass this article. But this gets them in place with definitions, with standards and conditions that we think should apply to all kinds of marijuana uses. So, so what this article does is it adopts a number of, or all of the definitions of the state has established, the Cannabis Control Commission has established for different kinds of marijuana uses. It also establishes definitions for some uses that the state did not establish at this point. Those being social marijuana clubs and marijuana delivery services. So we're putting those definitions into the bylaw and then also putting them into the use chart so that we can establish permitting standards for them in the zones that we want them for. When we, when we did that, we, we tried to match the kinds of uses that were described by the definitions with the kinds of uses that we already have in our use chart and to make permitting standards similar. But put them under the marijuana use section so that we could, we could apply the standards and conditions that we already have for marijuana uses to those uses as well. And the primary standard condition that, that we have is, is the buffer zone around certain kinds of protected uses, schools, residences, libraries. But also, it also makes reference to the Cannabis Control Commission to the appropriate state regulations. And, and so all of those things should, should also apply to these new marijuana uses or potential new marijuana uses. So the, the uses that, that are being proposed or the new uses that are being established include a cultivator, a, a micro business, a craft cooperative research facility, independent testing laboratory, and product manufacturer, marijuana transporter. The, the independent testing laboratory and the research facility, we are proposing standards that are similar to existing research and development uses. That is special permits in the, in the more intense business areas. And then site plan review in, in some of the other business zones. Calm office park, light industrial and professional research park. Those are, these are uses that are not in general open to the public. They have behind closed doors. They're just, they're just another business that happens to deal with marijuana. Similarly, the product manufacturer and micro business are proposed for to be similar to existing light industrial uses that we have. Similar permitting, special permit in, in business zones and site plan review in, in other business zones. The marijuana transporter, which is an entity that would transport marijuana between one use and another, not a delivery service. Marijuana cultivator and marijuana craft cultivator cooperative are ones that we don't have a good sense of, of where they should go yet. We're proposing a special permit in, in, in most of the business zones. Even though it may be appropriate or may be desirable to have a cultivator, for instance, on, on farming parcels, farming parcels for the most part are in residential zones. And so we weren't, we weren't ready yet to, to propose permitting for, for residential zones. But we want to, we wanted to allow those things to happen if someone wanted to do them in our existing business zones. The other uses of the state has not adopted yet social clubs and delivery services. We are proposing to put in the use chart with no's on all the business zones. We would like to have those in place so, so that we are not caught off guard when the state does establish regulations for those and, and stars accepting applications for, for licensing. I expect that the planning will, will in the future when the Cannabis Control Commission issues regulations for those uses will come back and say, well, okay, now we need to put them in, in the right zones. So the, this article also amends the standards and conditions for marijuana uses. For the most part it generalizes references to marijuana establishments where now there are references to medical marijuana or to retail marijuana. It's just generalizes them to all kinds of marijuana establishments. It, it establishes references to the Cannabis Control Commission and to state law. And importantly it also puts a new buffer or changes the buffer around schools. The state regulations are, are recommending or, or, or allowing communities to, to buffer schools by 500 feet measured from property line to property line. That's a much stricter standard than what we have now. Our current buffer around marijuana uses is 300 feet measure essentially from building to building. So we are proposing to adopt the state recommendations for schools expanding the school buffer to 500 feet, property line to property line, and leaving in place the 300 foot buffer for all the other protected uses, libraries, residences, other places other than schools where children gather. The last thing that, the last important thing that this article does is it clarifies the restriction that we proposed last time for the number of retail locations. It was the intent last time to limit the number of locations to eight. The way we worded it though was we, we call them the number of retailers. A retailer could have more than one location and so we could end up with more than eight and it was clearly the intent to limit it to eight and so we're, we're just clarifying that language. That language is also duplicated in article 32. If article 31 does not pass article 32, we'll go forward to clarify that language. Excuse me, thank you. Questions from the board or comments? Article 31. I mean just go ahead and thank Mr. Crowner for all those details. It's a complex and long issue that we worked through a lot of different scenarios around and we appreciate all the work that was transmitted back and forth through staff and through individual members of bodies who were able to attend internal meetings and continue to talk about it. And when we were talking about Shell and May and Will earlier, you have no idea how long we talked about how to measure things and how they're in fact measured two different ways depending on if it's a 500 foot buffer or a 300 foot buffer, which might seem odd on the face of it, but makes sense because of what we're trying to accomplish. And so Mr. Morrow worked very carefully with everyone to try and set that out in a way that people could understand that if someone called and asked, how would, how will I interpret this? It will be very clear because one of the things we always run into, of course, when there are state regulations is we don't want to have to take every word in the regulations and put them in our laws, but we want to reflect the things that we think are essential to bring into that. And it was not necessarily the easiest conversation around some of those buffers and we did hear rather late in the game from the schools associated with that. And I think that the maps are incredibly helpful. I know that this breast strip was really concerned about what will the maps look like and how can we make really clear maps. And I think that this was accomplished and I very much appreciate that because it does show the differences between the 500 and 300 foot buffer and what a difference that, in fact, makes in the circumstances. I also think it's really important that people, as they, as they look at this article and, you know, sometimes people are not as interested in the details of this as some of us who've been working on this at some like, but it actually does matter if this passes. And I appreciate that we have the backup article just to clarify on that one particular statement because we need to make the job of our inspections and building commissioner straightforward, but that article can be dismissed when article 31 passes, which it needs to because, as was pointed out, if you have a moratorium in your community, that's one thing. But if you don't have a moratorium and you don't have these kind of rules, then the building commissioner has to make assumptions of what's marijuana most like? Is it most like a pharmacy? What kind of store is it most like? And that's not a conversation we wanted to let get away from us. So that's why we worked so hard on this over the last many months. And I think that that's covered quite clearly on page 4 of the Planning Board reports. Not having these guidelines wouldn't mean that marijuana establishments couldn't locate in Amherst. It would mean that the places and ways that they do start to operate in Amherst would become the de facto standards. And we end up having to tailor regulations around existing businesses rather than requiring businesses to conform to regulations we establish. I think that is so important. Thank you so much for including that phrasing in there, because it does make a big difference as to being open to interpretation and then the consistency and professionalism that, of course, we know we would have from our building commissioner, but so that everyone understands what we are trying to accomplish with this and the separate 500 and 300 foot buffers in order to be sensitive to use by underage users. One, of course, there are all kinds of regulations about what kind of signage you're allowed to use, how you let people in the door, et cetera, which the state covers. But that doesn't change the fact that the basic locations themselves need to be buffered away. I do have a question about the report from the standpoint, and I'm sure this won't surprise you. It's mentioned here that there were two members abstaining on page five of both and on page one, and that's rather unusual for planning board. And, of course, when people abstain, it doesn't mean that they have to say why they're abstaining. But I wondered if there was a particular characterization that you thought would be useful to us to understand that work. It was just unspoken. Oh, yeah, I don't remember exactly. One of the members who abstained was a new member, and so he hadn't really been part of previous conversations. And the other member who abstained hadn't been at the first session of the planning board public hearing, which lasted two sessions. That's very helpful to know that that's what it was. Thank you. Thank you. Other comments by colleagues on this? So I'll offer the following. I think there are, when we talk about how to put this in the context of the transition and setting our frame for how we determine things, I think the lion's share of things that are within this are in that necessary and essential sort of category. I think there are a few things that could be argued are not. But at the same time, it may be wise to take care of them while we're doing this. So I think it's reasonable to have them included as part and parcelists. And for example, that is the sort of social clubs piece. I mean, is that absolutely necessary? No, because they're not allowed right now by virtue of the regulation doesn't exist for it. But to have this in place, I think is, to my mind, a wise choice. And therefore, I don't think that therefore would be sufficient to disqualify it for action by town being, I guess is one way to put it. So I think that the lion, like I said, the lion's share of what's in here as I think falls into the categories of the same conversations we had on previous articles around this is really necessary at this point in time. Two quick points. I understand what you're trying to say about the social consumption, but I think the reason it's in here with the nose is because if, and I forget the date when the state is going to go back and reconsider it, if they do that, and I forget, September, October, whatever, but and they say, okay, now you can do it. And we haven't addressed it as no, it could happen and we may not have a body that's ready to jump and say, let's change this to add social consumption. So we're trying to prevent it from happening until we're ready to decide how to allow it. So there is actually a logic to putting it in as all those, even though it's no for the state that could change before we're ready to re-legislate. The other thing is, oh, when I was at the league, warrant review, we have all of our zoning districts, which I have the advantage of just knowing and we still walk around my zoning by law all the time. Thankfully, not as wedded to, but people were sitting there going, what is, what are these? What do these letters mean? And I forgot that, and somebody else said, well, this is the, you know, the codex of town meaning have to figure out. And I just want to caution us with so much of this, some people are going to really have trouble managing what these mean. And I don't know how you'll unpack that when you present, but to just remember that BL, DVC are like a code for people and they don't have that kind of background to be able to get, and this, they look at this and it's just like, you know, like Suduko or something. So, it just, I forget. If you haven't seen it before, you're not sure which is about setting a definition of what is or is not allowed or how it's allowed from the definition of the area in which it's allowed or not allowed. So it's... SB, BBL, you know what I'm saying. Is the top row, especially when it's only like two rows, is the top row place of what's allowed and the bottom row is the place of the allowed. And so it's top row as defines the zone and the bottom row is what is allowed or not allowed or what's required. So we're used to it, but... Right. Mr. Wall? I just wanted to thank Ms. Krueger for the explanation about the timing because that's useful. But also, my thinking was the same as Mr. Slaughter is about the comprehensiveness. You know, to me, that's part of the efficiency of town government to be foolish having these things ready not to go ahead because it's not a life or death matter. And, you know, we often complain about the fact that it's hard to get things done comprehensively. So that's one of the nice things about this whole process, you know, from beginning to end, maybe in part because the state law kept changing. But we've been working on this thing to get it really down in all aspects and think ahead of the time for the future. So as you said, we are really well ahead of the game and I think there's every reason to go ahead with this now. And to again reiterate things that have been said but if people are only listening to little bits of this because they spaced out during the Sudoku comment is that we may well have differing opinions on whether or not there should be such a thing as a marijuana delivery only retailer. In fact, I guarantee you we have differing opinions because I have one and I know some other people have another. But at this point, the state has not allowed that. By putting this in here, we're ready for it when we say no and that's fine. And as soon as they put something together, then the bodies can then start working on something. But if you don't put it in there, it's a problem. You will not be in control of the situation. And so it is important to have it there. And also along with that particular issue, some people are familiar with the fact that in Worcester there was a private smoking club where you could basically smoke anything you brought. And that is forbidden in Amherst for a couple of different reasons, one of which because our Board of Health has not permitted smoking private clubs, that's why we don't have any hookah bars in Amherst that do exist elsewhere in the Commonwealth. And so that isn't permitted already. And this also ensures that for the time being, until people are ready to have a different conversation, there will not be a way of a club opening up and saying, oh, well, we're just a marijuana club and that's okay because we kind of fit in around the edges of something. And this just makes it simple, no. But that doesn't mean we won't discuss it. We just need to have it there until we have more information. Are we ready for a motion? Would someone like to make one? We're in Article 31, right? 31, that is correct. I move to recommend to the April 30th, 2018 annual town meeting, Article 31, Zoning bylaw, marijuana uses. Someone, some person. All right, is there a second? All right, we have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? So it's just before to zero with one absolute. So if you would continue on with Article 32, please. Article 32 is just the one item that clarifies that we're talking about eight marijuana retail locations rather than eight marijuana retailers. It's the Belt and Suspenders approach. So this is actually, like you said before, this is contained within 31 if 31 fails. Because again, of course, it requires a two-thirds. And you bring this forward as at least a definitional change to clarify the bylaw. Correct? Is there further comment or question on this? I think it falls into the same arguments around essentiality. So if anyone would like to make a motion on 32. You want to make a motion? I don't have that piece of paper. Oh, I'll do it. I mean, it looked like you were raising your hand. I don't have that piece of paper. All right, I move to recommend to the April 30th, 2018 annual town meeting, Article 32, Zoning Bylaw Recreational Marijuana Retailer Locations. So we'll get a second, yes. And so is it my understanding then that assuming Article 31 passes because we all know it's a wonderful idea that you will then ask to have Article 2 dismissed? Yes, yes. And so that should somehow be reflected in our minutes that our alternate position is if Article 31 passes, we support dismissal. We vote this. I'm prepared to make another motion to that effect. And we could just have it. Okay, that's fine. So we'll take up the recommendation if necessary. And then we can take up a dismissal motion if we want. But is there further discussion on the recommendation position? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. So let me try one. I move that if Article 31 passes, we recommend dismissal of Article 32. Is there a second? There is. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? So that's unanimous with one absent. Four to zero. Now we're covered. We don't have to do that. That's right. Alternate things. Making notes here in one moment. Okay, Article 33. Article 33 is a tweak to the supplemental dwelling units part of the bylaw. Supplemental dwelling units are accessory uses allowing small scale infill attached to single family homes. Supplemental apartments are often called inlaw apartments or garage apartments. They, when we passed a revision of this section a couple of years ago to allow supplemental dwelling units to be more possible. We listened up the regulations to allow some kinds to be by site plan review. Those that are contained within the main structure. And then to allow other kinds to be allowed by site plan or to be allowed by special permit that we hadn't previously allowed. Attached units that that involve some alteration to the building or detached units that are not that are separate from the building in the same parcel. All of those uses, all of those kinds of uses are limited to three adults. They require owner occupancy of one of the units either the main unit or the accessory unit. And they were all limited to 800 square feet of habitable space. Feedback that planning department has received since that by a lot went into effect a couple years ago is that 800 feet is not quite large enough for a detached unit. It doesn't allow for accurately sized two bedroom unit for instance or for a full size kitchen. So we are proposing to change that limit on detached supplemental units only to 1,000 square feet of habitable space or 1,100 square feet if the unit is ADA accessible. That's all it does. It's just an attempt to make this supplemental dwelling units by law more functional. Comment or suggestion? Let's do a question. I mean I think I know the answer but just to be safe. When obviously our job is different than yours in this time of transition. Did you think at all about the question of urgency when the planning board developed its time for these articles? I mean obviously there's the argument that you're updating things and the finance committee thought it was a no-brainer because it was increasing the possibility of revenue and so forth. Not so much. We didn't really discuss urgency or necessity. This article is something that we have been working on for many years or not the specific article but a way of increasing infill and increasing affordable housing. Supplemental units are considered often affordable housing. They allow either affordable place to rent or to own or they allow someone who is outgrowing there or downsizing from a single family home to move into a supplemental unit and rent the main house for income. We've been looking at many options for increasing housing in town. This is just one and it's something that like I said we introduced a couple years ago. We found it wasn't quite working like we wanted to and so this is a fix to make it work better. So now I feel like things are starting to get interesting. So full disclaimer. It's not really a disclosure but disclaimer. So having worked on the comprehensive planning committee that put together the master plan that eventually was adopted by the planning board which as Mr. Weld has pointed out is about time to update that too. And we never fully implemented the implementation committee associated with the master plan because in theory we could have required via practice through the implementation committee what is now pressed into our permanent charter about comparing all things that are brought forward to the master plan. We just never got around to doing that. So it's not like a crazy new idea. It's just not something that's been part of our structure. Although we frequently refer to the master plan associated with all of this and it's often included in detail in the planning board reports. And I am huge on infill and I also pointed out to Mr. Backelman when we were first getting you know what as KP law was looking over this that this to me even though it's not affordable housing for a subsidized housing index it is definitely a variety of housing choices again something we talk about all the time in our community. But you can hear the butt coming associated with all this. And as a little side note to that I'm really concerned that four members of the planning board were absent during this recommendation. And I know that things happen but it's a nine member board and almost half of them not being concerns me it concerns me that one public comment was received. And I so I have two issues. One is that I'm not sure it meets the timeliness test even as much as I do want additional infill and I do want additional apartments. Even if that was not the case that we now have this new thing we have to apply to our views is that I'm not really comfortable that everyone understands what the result of this could be in their community. And I embrace it but I'm not sure that it's had the community vetting that I would want it to have before this change took place. But that I'm kind of separate I'm trying not to have that concern influence our bright line that we're trying to determine on things but I'm not sure I can fully separate them except that I feel like associated with the energy by law with their buildings. I thought it was clear that everybody was going the same direction. You know we had we had some different logistical ways of getting there that needed to be addressed because practically speaking they weren't going to get there without that but that I felt like the community and certainly town meeting embraced where we were trying to go. I'm not confident this article does that and I'm a little less easy in my mind about acting on this article now. I'm going to forget what I was going to say. I it may be that as in the previous case Ms. Brest, Mr. Crainer can speak to the issue of people not being there which would make sense. I mean that doesn't particularly bother me frankly again I think because this is such a well established in the infill again I'm a big infill fan as you know we work together on the master plan too and you've been writing about smart growth for years so I don't have a problem with that. I think everyone endorses the principle they just don't like it when it happens near them but I think that again given it's a fix to a law that's been around for a while I don't see there's something new that requires new public buy-in. We have raised interesting question unfortunately to what extent people understand what they're voting for. Ms. Krueger raised the question of the tables of different zoning districts and now Ms. Brewer raises this one. I would submit though in the case of the zero energy by-law they understood very little of it either I wouldn't have voted for it so they embraced a principle there and a field-good gesture but not the details of the law. I'm not sure where that leaves us but I think like Ms. Brewer I'm caught between my very strong endorsement of this as a principle and my trying to be respectful of the issues that the transition clause asked us to consider here so I'm interested to see what my colleagues think also. I will offer one small thing at this point and just that the you know one of the things with with supplemental dwelling units is that the idea that more affordable units small a not definitional affordable units would be built as a result of sort of loosening the rules as it were and so the affordable house Amherst municipal affordable housing trust is certainly in support of this sort of thing so I'll just sort of report that out because it does generate more housing which is one of the things that they recognize in our various consultants who've you know helped us out with housing production plans and things like that have also stated that we're in need of building a variety of housing so you could probably make some arguments around urgency in that regard because it does allow for that but I think that you know there might be counter arguments to be made that it's is this the right tool at this moment is it is it need to be done yes it necessary to do it right now or can we can await I'm grappling with that as we sit here actually to be honest so I can unequivocally say I support the concept of supplemental dwellings accessory dwelling units I personally would like to see accessory dwelling units by right use however I'm going to not support this because I think the change the tweak from the 800 to 1000 well it may generate some new development over time I also think that that can wait that this isn't a critical piece it does support affordable housing in two ways small supplemental units tend to be more affordable and it allows people to be homeowners with in an affordable way if they can have the other unit so it may be more marketable at a thousand than the current bylaw but I just feel this is one that can wait you know we were all working on many things before we knew the outcome of the vote so I don't fall people for having invested or taking votes in support because it's been less than 30 days since we knew the outcome of the charter vote and so I'm using that lens I think this is one that can wait even though I I absolutely support doing it Sprester Chris Brester planning director I just wanted to explain why four members were absent the normal planning board meetings were on April 4th and April 18th we had to hold one between the fourth and the 18th because of a glitch with advertising the legal ad and so four members weren't expecting weren't expecting to attend the planning board meeting that night and I also want to fill in the planning board discusses zoning at every meeting and so all the members were well aware of this article and and and were in support of it and the discussions came out of of a series of discussions of the planning board held over the winter about housing issues and so we thought of we were thinking of different ways of attacking the issue and this is one of the ones that rose as something we can act on now so so I think the the five zero load is is a little misleading it's I think it's safe to say that it's that we were all in support of it so I one thing I know it was I was going to say and we'll offer as a suggestion as a select board if we decide that we think an article should not be acted on we may want to take a different motion relative to it again in the sense that we spoke earlier to the to the Article 39 about a no position is not really for against it but it allows us to not as a board take a position so I think they're in the same sense we don't want to it may be wise to sort of offer that as a as its own independent motion as opposed to or in concert with a motion to refer to dismiss whatever so I'm misunderstanding the technicalities of what you talked about earlier today then because in reality this is a planning board motion but we're not going to let them make it if if we decide that we decide that this can't be acted on so there won't be any motion may there would be a statement I was thinking potentially a statement from the select depending on if Mr. Strang would entertain such a thing there would potentially be a statement from Mr. Strang as to why he wasn't taking motions on this article but there would be no we would be preventing the planning board from moving their article if this was going the direction that I'm believing it's going realize I'm commingling things that I shouldn't so on petition articles would be a little different than and on then on this which is a planning board article so forgive me for that but but I do think a distinct motion if we decide that we shouldn't that tell me shouldn't take action because of the transition provisions I think that should be a distinct motion from recommend not recommend dismissal etc because I think those are distinct from each other that's that's my thinking about it about I'm open to interpretation about what I'm trying to say is there wouldn't be a select board motion there's nobody's making that's not going to get great our motion not to commingle things okay so we're gonna we make motions tonight that's what we do right our motion tonight would have to be along the lines of for example and I'm completely making this up because I have no idea what the language should say that the select board has determined this article cannot be acted upon by annual town meeting right and then the moderator would say therefore I'm not turning to the planning board for a motion or anyone else's position and no matter how hard they worked on it and then the question would be is he willing to particularly the first time we do it depending on what art because we never know what order things are necessarily going to be in because people could move things around to different nights we could even ask to have things moved around to different nights but at least the first time this happens if it happens associated with this article that there would be a statement made probably referring back to any statement the KP law had already given the first night of town meeting etc or arguably maybe the first night of town meeting we go ahead and we just lay it out and we say if we determine tonight that there are any number of articles that this is true for we say town meeting won't be acting on these articles and rather than waiting till they come up in order so I mean I think we have I didn't know how deeply you delved into those details with all the other things you had to do associated with logistics for town meeting but that would be another possibility is that we would simply have an announcement near the very beginning of annual town meeting which of course follows special town meeting come to special town meeting at 659 is that these are articles that will not be acted upon period right I think we can still determine how we want to approach that but I think as far as just our actions tonight I think if we're deciding that an article should not be acted on we need to take action relative to that is all I was saying so we should have a motion in to express that sort of on an article article basis I think to just to be clear in our minutes about we decided independent of merits or not of the article that we decided it was outside the realm of actionable under the transition provision so I think we just need to make that clear and I think you you know essentially said that right there but I just that's the only distinction I was trying to draw is that it's that's a different motion for our function tonight and would be what we normally do on these which is recommend or not recommend the articles so just an idea this is the first one we've come to it's also counter to the guidance that we got from KP law I saw it in the gray area we have the ability to make that decision and one because Mr Steinberg's not here and because this is the first one and we don't have motion language which we may use for this and others we I want to test with you would this be one we might want to postpone a vote on till a soon future meeting I know we're getting into our short meetings but it gives us some time to think through some of the stuff we've you know to digest all that we've talked about tonight and people want to lobby us for whatever but we do have the option to not vote on this tonight go ahead well I was having and not quite similar thought but not and not totally dissimilar either I was wondering about the absence of Mr Steinberg but I've got the other articles didn't raise these kind of questions one thought I had you know is that we're on the one hand I was a little bit frustrated that KP law talked about 33 and 35 together by their hand they go together and it seems to me if we're set you know my other thought is we're setting a precedent if we vote against this one you almost have to vote the same way on 35 unless there's some compelling reason to see it differently so one thing I was thinking about is which is not irreconcilable with Ms Krueger's suggestion is maybe it would be good if it's not inappropriate to discuss 35 before voting on 33 to see whether we see an actual difference between the two you know I was a little bit surprised frankly that KP law was so generous in allowing things to go on the warrant I'd expect the different ruling in some areas and you know they've been I've sometimes I've disagreed with them and sometimes I think they're outright wrong so but I do want to respect what they're saying because I know that KP law's logic here is that because these are existing bylaws modification of existing bylaws they talk about creating affordable housing and the gender missed opportunities but they say failure to take action is not just this lost opportunity but they talk about it as harming our ability to enforce existing bylaws which is interesting way of putting it. I'm not sure I'd put it quite that way you know so I'm wondering if that's how they saw this as somehow necessary that failure to to change the zoning would hamper the current policy but anyway I'm wondering if we maybe shouldn't discuss 35 as well if you wouldn't I don't know it's just a suggestion well since that's the other planning board article yes so I think the council or town attorney believe that affordable housing is a long-held goal of the town that's a given that these articles were in alignment with that long held goal of the town and that because if we talked about the inclusionary or the supplemental dwelling unit or if you get to look at the agricultural commission too that same agricultural committee the same thing that they were not being able to achieve what they were intended to achieve therefore it was appropriate for the town meeting to act on that I think that's basically their logic on this so if we could go back to my ever tiresome logistics I'm going to stop saying that because I'm really fascinated by logistics I don't think we can wait till Monday I'm really upset that mr. Steinberg is not here I think we can reconsider if we need to but what I if I believe we should talk about 35 next I agree with that and I believe that if we end up as the four of us five believe that this is not something we think town meeting should act on I think we should be making that very clear now not waiting until Monday not waiting until article 33 comes up in order that would be one way of doing it but I don't see any purpose to that if we are thinking that probably unless mr. Steinberg says something completely differently brilliant that which he says many brilliant things to get just to think about this otherwise or we hear from a lot of the public and they say no no no how you didn't think of this so we should act on it won't change whether or not people show up for town meeting but there are right now as we speak there's a warrant review going on there are three more warrant reviews going on over the course of the week if we believe this for example isn't actionable then and we make that determination people should know that before next Monday they should not know have to know it when article 33 comes up in order they should be able to plan their lives around that at the beginning of the night much like and I'm completely thinking of this on the fly tonight by the way much like when we time articles when we say we move to consider articles such and such at such and such time we usually do at the beginning or the end of the night I believe that were we to do make this decision about any of these articles that we would say that the first night and then people would know we're not doing those articles and that would be the end of the story not what will they decide to do two weeks from now when we get to article 33 that doesn't make sense to me of course another option if we want to include our colleague is potentially schedule another select board meeting between now and Monday that obviously there's a 48 hour notice sort of thing and that's a viable choice what's that yeah it's not very likely it's not certain he would be able to join us I think my point was we have the option to wait I might land in a different part of the spectrum than Miss Brewer less concerned about how quickly we need to act it's going to be difficult and I might made maybe by the end of tonight as we've heard the other ones that where we're going to make that kind of determination we come back and make that decision where we really kind of articulated but I just I feel like it is okay if we want to wait we may not want to often one person is absent I was absent last week and we do have to go ahead and I get that but if we're really struggling this is going to be the precedent in some sense this group that we do tonight for how we're going to make this determination and I agree that once we decide and we can let time meaning know them all together but it may not be the first night ideally it could be it might not be and I think we may also revisit some we've already looked at to sort of bring this lens to them as well and so that may cause us to think about that I think for the the sake of you know my colleagues and sort of thinking about planning board articles then perhaps we should take up 35 I know that it's so intimately tied with 36 and of course that leaves our other petition article kind of upside down time wise but I hopefully that's all right you'll indulge us to have this conversation but if you would like to tell us about 35 at this point because I think we're not in ready we're not ready to take an action on 33 getting the numbers right right or 34 33 and 35 33 33 but if you take us through 35 sort of paint that picture for us and given that there's a very similar but not exactly the same petition article you may take that up separately or together I'm not sure we'll see as for how my colleagues feel about that but if you want to go into 35 force a little bit and sir I think 35 is pretty urgent and I think it's different a little bit different than 33 because it has been worked on for so long and there has been a significant interest in it on the part of town meeting and the planning department and the planning board for so long we have been trying to make this work in the way that we all thought it was going to work when it was first adopted 13 years ago it's not working the way we thought it was going to work it was supposed to inclusionary zoning is a way of leveraging development to get affordable housing built alongside of market unit housing and and we have wanted to direct most new development into our centers our mixed use centers the problem is that those centers do not call for the kind or do not trip the inclusionary zoning bylaw in most cases and hardly any cases so because the way the planning board has interpreted the way the bylaw is written it it only applies to residential uses that require special permit for the use although it does make reference to special permits that are you know required for the development and and so we have not counted special permits that that are requested for dimensional modifications or other reasons when when the use itself is allowed my right or with site plan review so so as a result we're not getting inclusionary zoning in our centers we're not getting it triggered we're not getting any units built as as new development happens in our centers and it's happening in the downtown it's happened in and Pomeroy center it could have happened in North Amherst so so we're trying we've been trying to figure out a way to make this bylaw work but not have the unintended effect of of depressing development in which case we don't get any units market or affordable so so we've tried a number of ways over the years members of town meeting about petitions to try and make it work to try and make it apply more broadly so we've finally come to a place working with people who have been critics of the planning board in the past to to shape an interpretation or a crafting of of the inclusionary zoning bylaw that we think will actually deliver some units and not have negative effects or two or too many negative effects we think the balance is appropriate so what we're doing is is proposing a two pronged change one that would expand the the special permit trigger to those dimensions that that speak to a larger building lot size increase in lot size increase in building coverage increase in height increase in stories but not for other kinds of special permit requests setbacks which don't necessarily lead to a larger building signage other things like that so it would apply to more buildings potentially we're also suggesting that a way of making the fulfillment of that mandate for affordable housing easier to accomplish for for a developer or or a more flexible way of of fulfilling the mandate by introducing two alternate means of compliance one either payment in lieu of providing the affordable units or by allowing developers to provide those units offsite the in both those cases fulfillment of that unit fulfillment of the affordable unit requirement could be fulfilled by by either of those choices for small developers saw saw developments of less than 30 units these are the units that seem to have the most trouble fulfilling the mandate when you have to only when you're only required to provide one or two units it's harder to go through the expense and the effort to to to provide those units so we're we're offering an alternate way of doing that for for units for developer for developments that that require for we're requiring that half of the units be provided on site and the other half can be fulfilled by one of the alternate means so so again we're hoping that with these two prongs together the who's rezoning by will actually be functional in the way that that we all thought it was going to be all those years ago and that hasn't so far the article 35 also includes a few revisions to existing language to clear it up no no major changes there the only thing that that I think is somewhat significant is is inclusionary bylaw currently requires affordable units to match the market rate units that they're developed with in certain kinds of qualities we're adding size of the unit and bedroom count to that list those are those are pretty important characteristics of any kind of housing but we're not making it we're allowing a little bit of a waiver for the permanent body to vary the size or bedroom count if if it makes sense to to allow it that way so again introducing a mandate but but also providing flexibility so that mandate can be more easily achieved so that's what article 35 does article 36 is is similar except it does include the the flexibility part Mr. Wolm thank you that's a very long and thorough explanation and good on the detail and helpful even if one has read this you know it's obvious this is obviously the most controversial article I think that'll become before us as you saw there's some concern among members the charter commission the public and developers and so forth and that's not my problem it's part of a you know a national debate too about these things every time you pick up the news the news on planning there's a discussion whether inclusion or zoning is works to whether towns are going back on it there's talk about elsewhere increasing a decreasing land prices because people anticipate that they'll have to make a better deal on something and that has an effect down the market so I see that I mean as I understand it part of the problem of course is that downtown we have a lot of lots that are non-conforming so you're by definition there's not a lot you can do in the way of expanding things and you're going to give special permits for dimensions at the very least on certain things from the whole conversation we've been having for years and years so I get that I guess I was curious if it's not going too deep into the weeds here again because it's controversial if you could explain how you came to this compromise where neither side got exactly what it wanted you just beat each other into exhaustion because the whole fight before was often about special permit with a small letters and special permit with capital letters meaning uses so for example I seem to recall in one of the discussions of the archipelago buildings they got some extra building height it wasn't a great deal it was 18 inches or something I don't know because they want to have a taller ground floor that could fit vehicles and so forth so it didn't change the number of floors the building it didn't change the number of units it was simply an accommodation for their design vision and one function one aspect of the functionality so it seems to be the basic principle here is and which is a logic that you've resisted for the planning what you resisted for ages and ages and ages can you explain just very briefly how you got to this compromise and why you think it makes sense since it didn't make sense to you before sure so before we were concerned A about potentially depressing development and B potentially inviting a takings claim takings meaning withdrawing value from the property without without compensation so since since we first introduced inclusionary zoning we have we have had some some development we've had some experience with development and we haven't it hasn't you know when people saw development coming they they thought well okay great we're gonna get we're gonna get some inclusionary along with it it hasn't happened and and and we were you know we we wanted it to happen in fact planning board one of the things that we attempted to do a few years ago was was make inclusionary zoning applied to all kinds of development so that we would get it regardless and and when we did that it was it was it was a complicated article that involved offsetting the costs in various ways so so when when we when our current work on on this article actually started last fall when when a we were approached by critics to say you know we'd like to try this again but how can we how can we do it in a collaborative way how can we how can how can we propose something that you will support and so we talked over a period of weeks about what the issues were that people were concerned about disappointed about and and where are the areas that we can find common ground and so I think you'll hear again from the petitioner if you allow him to speak but but people are concerned about inclusionary zoning and not applying in in centers despite the fact that the master plan and and inclusionary zoning by-law itself asked for that asked for affordable housing to be available throughout town wherever housing takes place and with in response to the takings concern we we uh settled on not plan where it's been concerned that that just requiring any special permit even though it's it's ancillary or or or secondary to to the main purpose of the building permanent permit to be the trigger so so so we we agreed that a limited set of special permits might be appropriate and and those permits speak to dimensions that or or a building that is not currently envisioned by the dimensional table the national table describes the size and massing of the building and and something more than that is is a concession to a developer and so those kinds of of special permits seemed or we were persuaded that those were appropriate to to ask for something in return so we think that the takings argument is I mean it was noted before anyone can bring it I lost it at any time for anything but we think that we think that the argument is is much less strong when when when you're not talking about a special permit for signage requiring something as significant as as the cost and and profit loss of an affordable unit and we think that introducing flexibility and compliance also serves to balance the the detrimental effects or that's potentially detrimental effects of of acquiring affordable housing so we talked about it over a number of weeks with with petitioners and petitioner supporters about finding common ground and and we think we have we we we battered things back and forth we we adjusted language we we worked on or for quite a while to figure out where we can come to agreement and this is what we arrived at and I just thought real briefly but so that makes sense and I guess if you figured the city's figured distinction between the special use for building size versus mere dimensional other things was enough but is it what about the concern of those who think that this would still be an obstacle to development and a lot of us were disappointed that with all the new construction downtown there were zero affordable units included and I guess why you're confident this would produce a better result given that obviously some are skeptical the flexibility is that part of the flexibility and I and and you know as as we wrote in the report any mandate is is going to cause people concerned if we want inclusionary zoning it has it has to we have to establish it and and if we want it to work we have to we have to we have to put the provisions in place so that it will actually apply to certain kinds of buildings and right now it doesn't that's the main strength captures things that escape before I think so yeah thank you I'm going to recognize Mr. Weiss in a moment I'm going to get screw her first and then I was going to say I would like to hear from the petitioner okay and then bring those together have our own discussions we've all waited a really long time so so Mr. Weiss if you'd join us and I guess we were he was like paint a bit of a picture if he was his day in court or whatever thank you for your patience you're welcome I am still Jerry Weiss I'm a precinct date there's a lot of questions and thoughts going on so I I'm going to try to address Weiss add some things to what Mr. Kroener has said one thing you you should know is that inclusionary zoning in most towns and cities is mandatory it's mandatory in Cambridge it's mandatory in Newton it's mandatory in Brookline it's not well if you do the if you if you need a special permit for this or that it's mandatory if you build a certain number of units so this is this is a generous offer for inclusionary zoning and it's and it makes it a bit weak because there's a way out and in those other cities there's no way out if you build the units you will you will provide inclusionary zoning and yes builders could say fine we won't ask for special permits we'll just build what we can and we'll end up back at zero which is where we are now so to make inclusionary zoning really work you have to make it mandatory and maybe someday Amherst will see its way to do that that's not what we're doing this time as Mr. Backelman knows I met with him last year said I wanted to try to repair this law which I think is flawed because it allowed for an interpretation that is so controversial and he advised me to go to you no to go to the planning board and work it out and I have to say it's been a pretty remarkable a collaboration a very iterative iterative process of several weeks of back and forth and a compromise that we came up with so I feel like it's a really good one even though it's got this kind of sword hanging over it of there is a way out one of the things hasn't been mentioned at all is that we passed a tax incentive law in town and if you remember when Mr. Musanti and Mr. Poole thank you it's getting late they said this should make builders hold that the loss of income from the lower rents will be made up by tax incentives what you may hear on the floor of town meeting because I heard this at a planning board meeting by the director of the bid is that developers will not use the incentive tax law because they would have to open their books and I say okay don't use it it's there it's there to to give you money and if they don't if they end up having to supply these units and don't choose it well then I thank them for their generosity to the town that would come out of town tax money so I don't think that should be a drawback that they don't want to use it but it's there along with these new flexibilities that the planning board has built into to 36 which was really first and then came 35 but you understand that so you've read KP law and they seem pretty clear the amendments have been proposed and vetted through work by staff and the public hearing process and approval thereof will allow the town to more easily facilitate the creation of affordable housing and to enforce the existing bylaws failure to take action on these bylaws now will mean that the town will continue to face challenges in implementing the current bylaws and in light of the number of months before such matters can be addressed by the town council may well result in the loss of potential units in the meantime frustrating a long recognized goal of the town that seems pretty powerful just for the numbers on what's happened since 2005 when the first inclusionary zoning law was passed seven projects have been completed or permitted one of those projects is supplying affordable units and that would be the Amherst Motel Aspen Heights project the others zero as you know so instead of somewhere in the fifties of units we're ending up with 16 so Did I get the wrong one? Did I say six I'm sorry which one six presidential is that on here 950 North pleasant excuse me two units two projects have resulted in 22 units I want to point out something else article 15 inclusionary zoning section 15 ensuring that new residential development generates affordable housing as defined in section 12.2 we are not ensuring new residential development generating affordable housing section 15.02 maintaining a full mix of housing types and unrestricted geographic distribution we are not doing that because downtown has now been eliminated by the interpretation being used I would be more worried about a lawsuit if more buildings are built downtown that don't provide affordable units than taking in which there is an out as far as I know the cities in towns in Massachusetts that have mandatory inclusionary zoning have never been challenged in court so why we would be challenged with an out is kind of odd but maybe they have been maybe you know of some town that has been challenged and and as far as it not working it seems to be working I've talked to planners and in those cities they seem pretty happy with it so those are I think the comments I wanted to make as I heard earlier tonight somebody say that what we have on the books now is not good enough it is not good enough we agree that the town the town has agreed that affordable housing is a goal of ours I believe it's in the master plan and we are frustrating that plan with the current interpretation and this article can fix that and can partially fix that interpretation and if all the time that goes by and more buildings are permitted without it we will continue to frustrate the goal of affordable housing thank you I'd be glad to answer any other questions I may have missed some some things that you brought up Mr. Kruger did you have that? You want the board to comment first or something else or something like that I think so make sure you do sure I actually agree with pretty much everything that Mr. Weiss said about inclusionary zoning I think I cut my teeth on studying Newton and they've had many iterations of their inclusionary zoning since it started they're changing it again but I agree that mandatory is better than voluntary I agree that we haven't yielded much created much affordable housing from what's on the books I've actually supported a lot of the inclusionary zoning that failed at town meeting so there's and I really applaud the process the collaborative process and I think this is a very difficult kind of nut to crack for the downtown in Amherst and I I agree that we have the tax incentive as an offset and so this is the one I'm kind of struggling the most with because I if we weren't under the transition kind of lens I support the content of this kind of enthusiastically where I'm having trouble with is whether it's essential and necessary and the timeliness I think I I'm on the fence and I think if I were going to go ahead and say yes we should keep this on the warrant it would be because of the lost opportunity I think the lost opportunity is much more significant with this than with the supplemental dwelling and so and it really pains me that we lost the opportunity to have affordable units in the two major downtown developments that that we've you know recently once occupied and one will be occupied probably next fall and I hate to let any more get away so I I'm less worried about the suppression of development than others I have expressed maybe in the development community but I but I long supported inclusionary zoning and wish that we had a stronger bylaw it for I won't repeat all the reasons been said but where I'm struggling is whether we should act on this now at annual town meeting or not so that's where that's where I'm struggling not the content of the bylaw elements yes so with absolutely no criticism of the current people involved intended finally we have something that a lot of people agree on associated with alternatives because this is something that we have struggled with that many other places throughout the United States have no trouble with but Massachusetts has a huge amount of trouble with struggling with things like being able to do it off-site or to be able to put money into a fund and for whatever reason we have not sufficiently addressed that here in Amherst and in much of the Commonwealth before and so I'm very pleased that we are finally offering that alternative I know it's not ideal I know that there are in many cases we really want it to be on-site but to offer that alternative I think makes a really big difference and I wish that we emphasize that even more because I'm proud that people were able to come up with something and of course that you know it had there are concerns associated with it is that too much is it too little you know et cetera I get that and I understand that was discussed in depth but I have not understood since the day I joined the Comprehensive Planning Committee in 2000 why we weren't doing that already and so I'm very pleased to see there be some widespread agreement on that potential alternative so in terms of our test right our KP law test I am willing to look at this one and I believe that I can justify looking at this one differently than supplemental units supplemental units has been on the books for a number of years has been referred back for additional study has just in not dissimilar ways and to some extent it just kind of limps along and doesn't accomplish much but is a good theory that I personally support I don't see it as time sensitive in the same way that I see this and although yes downtown feels like wow now it's all done with building we never know what's going to happen next and I know that people often ask the question is there anything on the pipeline I don't know if that's something anybody can viably answer we see obviously from this chart for example that spring street's been already gotten its permit and we obviously haven't seen anything yet you know people don't people don't remember that that's actually already happened because they haven't seen anything associated with it yet so in terms of the obvious pipeline we don't know but there are many things that you know people had not imagined years ago would happen either and so I don't know unless there's something somebody wants to volunteer as a project they know that's happening in a very timely fashion that's always an unknown but nonetheless even without that threat I think we've established that it's not going to get built if we don't require it so and what we have now doesn't work so as effectively as we'd like it to I mean it works in some little places in those little bits here and there so I do think that this is timely in the same way that in very much the same way as the energy by law for our buildings we agree we need buildings we agree we need to do the right things associated with energy for them we agree we need affordable housing and this seems like a compromise that finally multiple people can live with unlike again this board is repeatedly supported inclusionary zoning over the years but it's failed at town meeting in terms of various concerns so now that there seems to be a compromise in the offing I think we should take it Mr. Wall One more question Mr. Kroner I think again the here KP law does make explicitly the urgency argument as Mr. Weiss explained to I've thought I heard Mr. Kroner say that there was more urgency in a practical sense maybe not big scale but in supplemental units generating affordable housing if we go with 33 is that correct what I heard you say or I feel like 35 is more urgent than 33 I mean sorry not to compare them but I mean that I thought you were saying because 33 was simple and can be done by the individual homeowner it's likely to happen more rapidly as opposed to big projects like this that's probably true actually yes right not not a value judgment just a question of sequencing and what happens in your life this restroom I just wanted to point out that the affordable units that would be provided by inclusionary zoning would be capital A affordable they'd be able to be counted on the state inventory whereas the affordable units provided by the supplemental dwelling unit would not be able to be counted would would be unlikely to be able to be counted organized as Adams so I'm still Maureen Adams and I really want to thank you for this discussion it's been very encouraging I know I understand your concerns about the two I I see them as kind of book ends of guidance for the select board as the authorizing body for what goes on to the warrant so on one side of the book end is the necessary and essential and I think you've heard and yourselves made arguments that this is necessary and essential it's in keeping with our values we've been working on it since 2005 parties that have been divided about it have now come together in the collaboration which I think is a model collaboration the other side of the book end is in the memo from KP Law where they talk about section 10.2 and they say the town agencies and officials shall continue to perform their duties until their successors are duly appointed and assume their agency now that's an argument that I was making a little bit earlier but I think it is the other side of the book end and since this is an issue that we have been working on passionately for so long and this seems to be a suitable completion to that I think that this is the correct opportunity in town meeting to take it up I do want to say just a couple of comments in line with what Ms. Brewer was saying about the fees in lieu I think that what makes this so opportune now is that there is now a municipal trust to receive those funds and a municipal trust in need of those funds and funds that would be put very soon to use as they began coming in so that for me is another issue of the timeliness not only knowing that the bid and other developers are looking toward a northward push for the development of the downtown up the Triangle Street at least which means that there's going to be a lot of area I think that will be developed or you know the property owners there I think have been waiting for the good time to develop those and the council will clearly have so much work to do that I am concerned that this would be at the top of their pile of business so that I'm then concerned about the lapse of time until they would get back to inclusionary zoning so and I think a final issue it's not technically part of the law but this has been a very divisive issue in town as you know and I think that the collaboration that we're able to bring to town meeting is a very satisfaction conclusion to town meeting this will likely be our last town meeting and it will be a way of including people who did not support the charter as well as people who did show I mean it would be part of the bridge building that I know that various groups are interested in doing so for all of those reasons I I hope that you approve this part of the warrant I could just add one statistic is that if this law had been in effect and the buildings had been built as they are built big caveat we would have and and the and the developers chose to use the maximum amount of payment in lieu that was possible we would have 2.6 million dollars in the coppers for affordable housing along with something like 23 more units already built so it's it's not insignificant I I just want to say one more thing that I don't envy your position on having to decide these matters but I think the charter obviously isn't perfect it's got flaws and I think 10.2 is in opposition to 10.7 b it says let town let let everybody continue until they've been replaced to do their job I'm not sure how you reconcile 10.2 with 10.7 b I think it's an error that that is in the charter I urge you to study that and I don't envy your having to figure out what to do with it I just want to point out that while I think the planning board and the petitioners and some people who were opposed to previous iterations of inclusion have come to an agreement I don't think it's fair to say that everyone concerned with this issue is in agreement and and and so and I agree I I support this but I'm just saying I think it would be a mistake to say just you know Kumbaya we we've come together and we're jointly supporting this because it's still controversial there's still people we heard some tonight who say don't do this now whether it was this specifically or or zoning where there has been a division in the past I think people have made persuasive arguments to me about why we should act on this at the annual town meeting but it could be fair to represent there is still going to be contention around this that and people who don't yeah well yeah the whole spectrum but this isn't because you've come together that's great and you have but that's not the whole body of people who are going to be deciding and that's that's okay that we aren't all in the same place but I think unbalanced after listening to my colleagues others I can go ahead with this but again not about the content my struggle is with you know this long conversation we've been having all night other comments or questions regarding articles 35 and 36 as far as I think what I may want us to do is look at article 34 and then right apply the poor suffering petitioner has been patiently waiting all evening and I want to give him an opportunity before he gets much later to sort of paint the picture of what that article is about and I think I think that will actually help help inform us a little bit about how to distinguish some of these include exclude sort of arguments I think as well so Mr. Canner if you would be so kind as to join us and appreciate your patience this evening with us as we wrestle through some things so tell us about your article and thank you for your time I know you've got lots on your plate so and I'm sorry I wasn't able to meet earlier today I'm looking forward to dinner later so I was hoping to present my article and is that what you want me to do or yeah go ahead and just lay it out as you see independent of this conversation about you know whether you know what is or isn't allowable under the transition provisions of the charter just lay it out what you're trying to do and where you're at with your motion and all of those things if you would be so kind and then we may delvins and mother aspects of it as we get into it but sure so I don't need to repeat everything if you've read what's going to town meeting members are you aware of that I mean I'll I'll briefly go over some of those points so I've narrowed my article significantly since submitting it and the town attorney did not refer to the revised article so I would hope there might be an opinion given to the intended motion not the original article in relation to the impact on the town so I've narrowed the article significantly mostly by changing the RO areas in town that are above a certain elevation and the reasoning for that is that the areas above a certain elevation of 425 feet will not be able to be served by town water without the construction of either a system of pumping stations or a new water tower so there is significant expense to the town if these areas are to be quite are are enough enough pressure is put on the town to sewer these areas so the areas above 425 feet in town are in brown here I don't know if you've all seen this map but there are some areas near the Holyoke range of course that gets above 425 feet and then the main area other than that is the northeast corner which is where I live on market hill road and some some on east Levitt road but mostly it's in the high point drive area flat hills road area and market hill road area this area is currently zoned RO and RO zoning seems to me and to my neighbors to be not in keeping with the character of the area which is more farms up here we actually have several farms in the market hill flat hills road area and the lots are fairly large there was a development at high point drive in the late 60s or about that time that allowed the density shown in here however that density has proven to be a problem and now subdivisions are not allowed to do this this is an error this was a subdivision that had wells and and septic systems which is not now allowed and I think part of the reason for that is that problems arise 27 percent of the houses as of 2005 I don't know the current statistics at 20 27 percent of the septic systems have failed in the high point drive area and the zoning the RO would allow in the whole rest of our area is if you wanted to see an example is down here at Orchard Valley where we have three-quarter acre lots which is what RO is owning allows so this kind of density seen seems not appropriate for the outlying areas of town especially based on our master plan which talks about preserving viewscapes and characters of neighborhoods so I believe and my neighbors believe that creating very the density that RO allows is not in keeping with the intent of our master plan and so that's where this issue got thrown in our face because of a development proposal near us at the router property which is a whirlwind farm which was a veterinary business and kennel for years and they had horses and beef cattle and other animals when I was a child growing up near here opposite at 460 Market Hill Road where I've lived since 1959 so we've seen growth in this area for sure but the density of the growth of the RO our zoning seems inappropriate so that's it was a seed for this article and it felt very important to deal with it now because if this development happens it's changes the character of the area then we have other farmland that is going to be sold it's it's the intent of the owners to sell the land across the street from this proposed development which is four and a half acres of field hayfield also a router property and it will then have the precedent of a denser development and we see this as changing the character of the whole area pretty dramatically so this feels important to do right now the reasons are threefold and I'll briefly say to save the town money by perhaps delaying or even preventing the need to sewer and water this area it's quite expensive to build a new water tower all of the infrastructure related easements as well as the actual water tower and then the maintenance of the water tower I mean we're talking about many millions of dollars same with soaring this area the town has a matrix which has a point system for where should be sewered next in town the trouble with our area is it cannot be sewered without also providing water because if you provide a sewer system you take water away from those wells and it goes downtown or wherever our treatment plant is and it doesn't recharge the aquifer so we have problems more problems with wells so our area has well problems and this is not known about in town because people who have well problems do not call the town it's our own business we have if someone has a problem with a well they drill another well they don't have to get a permit to do that they can do that there is very very inadequate data about wells and so here I am a citizen calling Dilford mooring talking to residents finding out that there are now seven wells I know about that have problems some of them during the drought two years ago some of them currently where I grew up for instance the well is 220 feet down the pump is 30 feet above that and the standing water in that well in 1994 was 30 feet below the surface now it's 80 feet below the surface so 50 feet of water have disappeared I don't know if that's a problem or not but we feel that this should be looked at I would think a moratorium on drilling any wells in the area would be appropriate this seems like a compromise to reduce the chance of problems and just to tell you that this is not an outlandish idea in the town's matrix about septic about need to sewer an area it's there's a quote about how lot size is a factor in their point system and if smaller the lot size the more the fewer I'm sorry the more points the more chance there is a failure of septic systems so I could go on and on I just will leave it at that for now and I'd love to answer any questions great thank you we'd like to go planning board yeah would either of Ms. Brestover Mr. Crowner would want to offer some feedback from the planning board so the petitioner raises some some very good points things that that we really should take a look at the issue of what is the appropriate pattern of development in that area what should we do to head off for or anticipate a call for for extending water and sewer to that area and and and really how do we reconcile the master plans call for directing development to centers but but protecting outline areas what what is the appropriate response all those issues so so so I think we're we're sympathetic to to what he's bringing these are these are things that we really should look at I think we would prefer to not focus or not limit our our investigation of of these issues to specific areas that he's talking about but but to think of it to think of it in terms of of a planning process for the northeast corner of Amherst Cushman village area and and surrounding areas which this is a big part of and so our recommendation or our request whatever is is is that this article be referred to the planning for further study you know unfortunately it it it wouldn't have you know we couldn't possibly get it done in time to to prevent the development if it should be prevented that he's talking about but but this kind of of of significant zoning change is best done with with a lot of of public input and a lot of thought and and a you know a time to consider the consequences and and the implications of it so we're not necessarily opposed to the article but but we don't think it's ready at this time to question for my colleagues sure can you remind me on the lot size in RO is it 40,000? RO is 30,000 30,000 and RLD is 80,000 square feet so 80 the difference between 30 and 80 is and also the frontage is is 150 to 200 thank you for including that chart in the report that you don't have which I don't have because I understand I didn't get the packet from last time yes one minute I have some I have some comments so this is one I am both opposed to the content and opposed to letting it go forward at this time and my problem with the content is a couple things I don't think this is science-based I think people are having well problems there's nothing that tells me that the additional development is proposed or could be proposed in the future is going to harm that or not Mr. Crowner's idea of a comprehensive study makes some sense but I'm I don't see the causal link to talk about failed septic I don't know if those septics were pre title the new title five or post we pretty strict regulations on on-site septic I've worked in a lot of rural communities I'm not afraid of on-site septic can be done right so I don't to me that's on an argument for changing the density out of hand if we have a study to back that up farmers have their equity in their land their ability to sell the land is important to them and I take down zoning really seriously changing the density and making the requirement larger instead of smaller and in the master plan you can look in a lot of sections so it talks about the rural landscape but it also talks about housing opportunities and to go from 30,000 to 80,000 probably prevent some housing opportunities and impacts affordability adversely so for both the transition lens and the content of this which I think is is kind of a reaction to a development proposal which I think is a large lot proposal I think I think of 30,000 as a relatively large lot and yes as we grow and develop some of the characters of areas are going to change but this is still quite to me a low you know an adequate density I don't see this as high density in any way so I have problems with what this is trying to accomplish and I don't think it's appropriate for us to take this kind of extreme action at this point given the constraints that we've talked about earlier throughout the night so that's that's my opinion Mr. Brestrup I have several concerns about this proposal but I think the two that I would like to mention are that many properties in this area would become non-conforming the properties in the in the High Point Drive neighborhood would all become non-conforming they're all built at the regular requirement which is 30,000 square feet and they would be anytime someone wanted to add to his home build a garage or anything like that he would be considered non-conforming and have to get a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals and the other thing is that this really hasn't had much public input I know Mr. Caner has made an effort to get in touch with the landowners in the area but I I really think that many of the landowners in would be affected by this and I believe there may be up to 150 of them may not be aware of this proposal to change the zoning on their properties so I think that's a real significant issue and the town as a whole hasn't really had a chance to weigh in on it and the Planning Board hasn't had a chance to study it so those are several things that I find problematic about this proposal thank you so just to respond to a few comments starting from the last one my original article was more dramatic in that I thought we should change the zoning map and have this area shown as RLD as we have RLD in many other places in town it actually seems to make some sense to me that at the outlying areas of town we have RLD all over the place so why is this RO and this RLD it's to me it's kind of a mystery how these how the zoning happened without looking at the outlying area here Schuetsbury has 300 feet requirement for for building lots throughout town this would be 200 feet as you come into Amherst as you go down the hill you reach 425 feet it becomes 150 feet if my proposal passed then you have RN down George Krushman which is more appropriate for a village center the other comment about my article is I've tried to be open to suggestion and the building commissioner suggested changing the language of this article to not change the zoning map even though I resisted that suggestion for a couple weeks because I felt like that was a little bit maybe unintentionally deceptive like why would you have zoning that's really RLD but the map still says RO so that bothered me but I got convinced that that was going to be helpful for my article so I changed the wording so the wording now is as I think you see in your so it has to do with changing a zoning bylaw not the zoning and one of the reasons to do that is that when the town water and sewer does come to an area in in our neck of the woods the zoning would would go back to RO in other words as soon as you have town water and sewer the RO zoning would be allowed so I just want didn't know I've been doing my best to accommodate people's concerns I have not run into resistance except through the planning board except from two developers and those are the only two people two individuals who have had civil discussion with and I don't have any personal thing against these people and I as a matter of fact I'm quite admire Peter Jessup one of the developer he I think he's given his business to his workers I mean he's done wonderful things I'm not at all complaining about these people and my neighbor who's in partner with Peter Jessup is the reason this article is here I talked to him on the phone in February or January and I invited him to a neighborhood meeting where we were discussing this issue with 22 neighbors that signed our letter to these people saying could you downsize this to be more appropriate for our area and there is and he said he couldn't come to the meeting but he did talk to me and in his talk he said then I hate the zoning and Amherst I wish they required three acres then I wouldn't need to do this so that was quote unquote what he told me so and I said yeah that's you're right the zoning is inappropriate he said but you know we have unintended consequences when we try to do these things however that's to me the purpose of town meeting is to weigh these options like what is the what are the pros and what are the cons I know it's not simple however I think we're eight years late in doing this if you look at what the master plan says it's extremely clear I just have to read after hearing Miss Kruger say this this land use chapter represents the fundamental element of the town this is a direct quote from the master plan the land use chapter represents the fundamental element of the town of Amherst master plan policy decisions about the communities in the land use including zoning code revisions will directly impact all other elements of this plan several key issues recur throughout this chapter including the protection of Amherst's unique landscape through the preservation of significant natural scenic and agricultural lands the importance of directing future growth towards existing built up areas such as the downtown and village centers improving the town's fiscal health through strategic land development and the need to guide new development in a manner that respects the town's history and existing community character I mean that's the beginning of the land use overview how clear could you be land use priorities preservation of the community's unique rural landscape is a key priority in Amherst I'll continue just a little bit more reduce the energy use this is LU 1.g by encouraging new residences near supporting goods and services and transit a better integration of land use can help to reduce the need for car travel when residences are in close proximity to shopping services jobs parks public transportation facilities and other public amenities residents spend less time driving consume fewer energy resources energy consumption is further reduced when streets are designed to be more pedestrian bicycle friendly and finally LU 3.e revise growth management regulations zoning subdivision regulations health regulations etc to protect environmental resources and scenic viewsheds the town should comprehensively review and revise its zoning and subdivision ordinances to ensure that growth management regulations are aligned with the growth needs and land preservation priorities regulations should seek to preserve the environmental and scenic value of Amherst's significant rural landscapes this is eight years old we were told to revise this every five years and that was one of the planning sorry the select board's you know charges along with the planning board that was three years ago have we done anything in eight years to make this happen I don't believe so and I think this is urgent I grew up in this town it is changing in character in the outskirts some places and that's not appropriate according to our document thank you for listening it's wool yes sir I appreciate the petitioner's attempt to revise this and to engage in dialogue and I appreciate Mr. Crowner's attempt to be open-minded and see pros as well as cons since the petitioner mentioned the master plan there are three people in the room who actually wrote it so we kind of know what it means and I think we're talking about not building in virgin forest or agricultural prime agricultural land there are a lot of houses up there you know I know market hill I know whirlwind there are plenty of houses there's nothing less scenic than whirlwind as it stands right now to be honest for that place is a dump but I think we don't have to talk about the marriage so I think it's a very you know the fact that it's 10 o'clock it's very clear the planning board said this is not ready for prime time KP law singles I was one of two articles that should not go forward for a number of reasons having to do with lack of public input controversy and lack of urgency so it seems to me it's a it's a it's a simple it's a simple no so thank you for coming and sharing your your article with us and thank you for being patient with us this evening any other questions for the presentation here so at this point we've we've heard regarding well let's see was 33 through 36 correct and so I think that there's sort of two tests to pass here one is whether to really think things meet the transition provisions of the of the charter and then the second question is if they do then do we or do we not recommend not recommend etc to any given article I will say this as far as talking about 35 36 in comparison to to 33 you know I I find it harder if we allow 35 36 I find it hard to not allow 33 personally I just think that the distinctions there are not as great for me as far as you know when we talk about necessary and essential I mean I it is certainly around the inclusionary zoning I you know we have extensively talked about that over a number of years I think that we have if we feel that that is necessary to take action on to bring to town meeting to to take action on then I think that we might also I just think we have a hard time in my mind anyway distinguishing how that's we're so necessary than 33 with the supplemental units because we've had that a long time it doesn't have quite the controversy associated with it but nonetheless I think it there are lots of aspects of that that you see the parallels that that essentially can't be law true that said well you should move forward on these I think they you know it may be a distinction we do want to articulate and help us using that to be a defining point for us as we move ahead and and consider these but for me I'm struggling with with seeing those two we should either bring I guess it's all three of those board or none of them would be my suggestion at this point I just have a hard time sort of sorting 33 out differently from 35 slash 36 Spru I have no problem throwing 33 out so again I said before I like the idea of it I don't believe that the majority of the community understands that two to three bedroom apartments are potentially available on a lot with a homeowner occupied I don't think that discussion has been held at all I think we talked about it a lot when we were working on the master plan I don't think there's been a comprehensive discussion of it since I don't believe that a single legally noticed thanks to the newspaper publishers zoning board that did all the things that they were supposed to do people are not engaged in this conversation and it will change the face of neighborhoods there is no question I'm very uncomfortable with something that does not have the same trajectory whereas for the inclusionary zoning has been talked about at nearly every town meeting and as to getting closer and closer and closer to what are things we can do supplemental has been referred back numerous times that people get bored with it because it's not as exciting as other things I would like to see and as Mr. Crowner pointed out you know you could in fact immediately start having additional housing units that way which is certainly something I want but I don't see that it meets the test of needing to happen now it hasn't happened appropriate it hasn't been better for years it hasn't been brought back to us for a few years because it hasn't been high on the list and it is not immediately essential whereas I do believe the inclusionary zoning is and of course you know it's not really three articles because we believe that and everyone seems to agree that supports the articles that 35 is the one to pass and that 36 can then be dismissed because 36 is petitioner agrees with 35 and I do see a way to easily separate out 33 I'm just it doesn't feel like it has the same kind of oomph that the energy by-law with the buildings that the inclusionary zoning do it just seems in a separate class of things even though it's near and dear to my heart as an as a type of housing that can be provided yeah I would say that the you know the municipal housing trust is certainly had conversations about infill development as one of the tools to get more housing built in town and in looking at trying to you know set us which which will come back at some point to select for a series of goals and targets you know that they'll come back and ask us to endorse so it is one of those things that's been in that view definitely been discussed in some significant way I think that perhaps we're regarding inclusionary zoning given the let's say controversy necessarily but the but the interpretation that we've been using around special permit being a critical one to make it more of a necessary step I can kind of see where that that's been the ongoing conversation regarding that particular piece of the zoning by-law is that that interpretation of you know special permit in which kinds you know has been a focal point of conversation for a number of years until meeting particularly but also I think it has you know that potentially I could see that as an argument for for making it necessary and the fact that it lends clarity that hasn't been there before that people have argued both ways as far as how it should be interpreted I can see where that carries a little more weight relative to any argument you can make around secondary dwelling units and like I said I don't think it's been a because it's supplementary dwelling units hasn't been as openly discussed in public that that notion of 200 more square feet that's a pretty considerable size difference I mean they're you know you know 800 to 1000 is a pretty significant change in how big a unit is and it does you know I think it does provide a lot more viability to a lot of construction I mean it's it's kind of like the conversations we had when we changed to allow another floor in downtown we went from no development for 30 years to suddenly multiple developments and in the last few years so it's one of those kind of tipping point conversations but I'm not sure we've as publicly held those conversations but I'm interested in other people's opinion about how sharply they see the difference between those two as far as you know the town meeting action and transition provisions but Mr. Wall yeah I think I mean my my gut feeling I think it's the same as Mr. Slaughter's as I said before I think in some way these are parallel if you I mean if we'd gone the other way if we'd said yes to 33 I think we'd have to say yes to 35 and by the same token if we'd said no I could see you know I think there is more urgent to 35 obviously because of the reasons that have been stated on the other hand again this is a law that's been on the books we're changing the dimensions but not the not the practice that's allowed under this law and I was interested in this rule was concerned about the impact on neighbors and reactions and so forth though the planning board report says this difference of 200 square feet would not be perceptible at the scale of the town's overall density so you know I think I would like to consider that issue too to see whether that's what what the difference is there you know again if we had to make a choice I would follow my colleagues in choosing 35 over 33 but what are my inclinations as Mr. Slaughter's to to think of them as similar not least because again found logic Kp law they fall into the same category but urgency seems well I think Kp law gave us a sort of broad umbrella to function and I do see a difference between the supplemental and inclusionary although I could even it was on the fence on inclusionary I think the last opportunities significantly different with the inclusionary zoning I'm not even convinced that going from 800 to a thousand will make that much difference it might I mean I think it's a valid argument but we don't we don't know you can do supplemental drawings now so we're not you know we have that and it's those will be more affordable because they're small units and they're rental units and we need those but it's not the loss of affordable units with rents that are controlled as a as a function of people's income so it's a really different category for me I know it's desirable I'm less concerned about whether people understand or not because they probably you know I don't know but the planning board did the appropriate process and had the public hearing and noticed it and it's been discussed and to me that's adequate for public participation and comment and that's often what happens with a lot of zoning changes so it's not I'm not sure the same concerns but I do differentiate the compelling this lost opportunity I think it's much greater and more significant with the inclusionary zoning than with the supplemental and I'm trying to actually be pretty strict about what goes ahead at this point what we can let go for now and let another group take it up again so well I can wait too much for that making up for the last time yeah I mean I completely agree about that and the question of urgency and so forth too I guess it makes this philosophical question almost of how you interpret this sense of what the that clause means because which clause sorry the the famous transition clause the whole the whole thing right because I mean if we're talking about urgency urgency in the sense of time sensitive and clear things to be lost that's one standard but there's the other idea of town government continue to function and this Ms. Adam said not shutting down and bodies continue to exist and so is if the planning board is working to revise existing bylaws and you know KP law again that's why I was saying it's interesting at KP law put those two together in one sentence saying that we're not able well to enforce the existing bylaws and housing so I think that's partly where the difference turns not just whether one is more urgent than the other which I think is fairly clear but whether urgency alone is a standard or whether normal operation of the government is subsumed under with this transition clause and again it's not a matter for great controversy but since we're already exhausted but since at least three times somebody has referenced this and it I didn't like it the first time it was written so somebody trying to explain it to me a different way because I think it's entirely inappropriate that it says here failure to take action on these bylaws now will mean that the town will continue to face challenges in implementing the current bylaws what bull that's not an actual thing what's an actual thing is that we haven't had gotten enough housing affordable little a or affordable big there is no such thing as a challenge in implementing the current bylaws except the continuous argument at town meeting as to what inclusionary zoning actually means so arguably that's what they're referring to but they're not referring to the fact that we're having difficulty implementing our existing bylaws we're not that's gibberish and so I love you K.P. law but no that didn't make sense they're a lot a little gibberish and so that's not why we would act or not act in this case except it is in that with I'm so tired I'm so tired the flu is a real thing we can't effectively implement the bylaw we have around energy and buildings that's why we fixed it we can continue to apply the inclusionary zoning bylaw except it doesn't work the way we want it to and so it just won't produce anything but yeah it doesn't mean that we have trouble with it it's just that it doesn't do what it's supposed to do and the bylaw for energy doesn't do what we intended it to do in that it's stopping us from building and we don't want that to happen the supplement zoning bylaw isn't perfect it could use some perfection hopefully if it's simple it's something that the town council can work with the planning board on fairly quickly it's not essential in the other way that these things are and I do prefer a stricter interpretation because everyone we decide is happening is a precedent for something else and so I am able to separate those right are there any so I think we've exhausted ourselves whether we've exhausted the topics or not it's a different question but nonetheless are we ready to take any motions on any of these and and I think that you know there's obviously if if we're deciding to not move forward with it on the warrant then that's a slightly different action that we're going to move forward particularly but I'm happy to listen yes I am making this up on the fly so somebody's going to fix it I move that we that tau meaning is not no how am I doing this because we always say I move right yeah right I move that tau meaning will not consider but you could say that I would see this thing I move that article 33 on the warrant is not compliant with the transition provisions of yes of the charter see that sounds really good I like that yeah that works perfectly because we are the ones who judge whether or not it's compliant got it that works very well thank you so it'll be her motion is there a second okay article that was 33 you said right I just guess that one because I'm starting with this up yes all right is there for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say I I I I so that's unanimous with one absent you've convinced me I thought we meant it was with it was close but I've I've been persuaded you fell off the fence or worn down Mr. Weiss yes sure okay you know who I am can I can you explain for all the people where it says you can do that but you just did I'm just I'm confused I don't see that in the charter and I don't see that in K.P. Law so I'm just curious how you came up with the idea that you could just do what you just did I just like to see where where it comes from where what you read that says yeah we have that power there are multiple references one includes the fact that we can determine whether or not special town meetings are to be held based on special town meetings I know the special town so this is part of the context for this conversation there is not a black and white sentence that says X but there is the larger context of that that point of whether or not we can call special town we should call special town meetings for certain topics therefore we have a we have judgment on topics that we don't normally have this is something that we it's in addition to but more importantly it's talked about in other areas right so in in on page six of the K.P. Law see authority to interpret the transition provisions it says as discussed in section ten points and B it poses limits to on the extent of town action including by select board town manager and town meeting over the next several months to those matters that are necessary to current operations section ten point one three of the charter provides further that 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 I don't know if we're going to satisfy the latter part of that but thank you for saying that but nonetheless I think that in that regard the question measures which I think is defined in the charter which is and I don't have it right in front of me but this was part of the conversation today so measures essentially allows us a broad level of authority because measures is I mean bylaw order resolution or other vote or proceeding adopted or that the town council might adopt so it really is sort of any sort of action I think that can you just give that citation again and you're pointing to it which so even his force measure what's the section what 10.7 b and 10.13 okay that's what I thought paragraph c in the law kp page six I don't have the memo that's what he's reading right so in the second paragraph of that section has the authorization in section 10.13 for the board adopt measures clarifying the transition provisions in our opinion best in the select board ultimately authority to determine whether particular actions of the select board town manager and town meeting are consistent with transition provisions and that's essentially what we're doing by saying we can't act on this is we're saying that the particular actions aren't consistent with transition provisions so I think that's the way to yeah I just think you've got a problem with least likely to cause disagreement or argument either way you're going to get it either way hard one to call yeah I think this is what we've been struggling with we were waiting for opinion from count from town attorney and our own discussion because it's our understanding as clarified tonight that we are the arbiter of that decision and people will disagree about that for sure and we're going to take the heat for that but I think we're owning that it rests on our shoulders and we're going to go for it but I just Sir Slaughter, you said consistent in the language of the motion said compliant is there a difference between consistent with the transition rules or compliant because I before we got into that I was thinking maybe compliant is strong or maybe maybe consistent is better word I just it probably isn't that different but I mean I will the word of the motion is compliant right right change it is your question yeah it's consistent better I would say consistent I mean I'm I'm open with the word it doesn't matter I don't want to be nitpicking at this point no I think that for commonality of language it probably is wise to move it to consistent if that's I agree since it was sort of almost my motion except it wasn't really and I would be very happy to have consistent debate than just consistent is that fine to the seconder of the motion yeah I was going to say but now we're causing disagreement so we're not allowed to do that apparently I was wondering if Ms. Krueger you have the copy of the charter in front of you or I do have the charter but I don't have a hard copy of the KP law thing right because I mean I was wanting because and I was wanting whether KP law is taking language from the charter or simply using consistent if there's a if there's a word compliant or consistent in 10.2 or 10.7 I don't know Mr. Bachmann also was was looking at it I mean 10.13 and 10.7 well 10.13 it doesn't have it just says clarify confirm or extend any transition provisions in the most expeditious but then in the 7B famous 7B it's claiming 10.13 it says the select board tell manager and tell me shall limit their respective actions during this time it doesn't really it doesn't really it doesn't it doesn't I can't find that sort of a little bit different again it's it's a little 7B is a little vague but we have a gut interpretation from council we were waiting for that they seem to decide 10.13 as the authority but you know because this is the team well that's the that's the kind of anything or anything else you need to do yeah so 10 this one seems good to me it's okay the second one I think it's a little less contentious can by consensus change our motions say consistent as opposed to compliant if that's I mean we can actually take a vote on it if we want to but I think everyone's nodding and so the agreement is that that's the intention minus skill change but it's a little less less argumentative word okay so that's 33 we didn't vote yet oh we did oh we did oh and we changed it after we voted okay I'm sorry I missed that we changed it after we voted that's all right we're not bound by we voted so we're not rather than that we'll just fix it so if someone would like to offer another motion for one of the other remaining articles in no particular order what all words did you end up including in I mean what was the very beginning of that original motion what you said I moved that article 33 I moved that article number is not consistent with the trend consistent this is a transition to the Charter that's where my problem is so I'm so what I mean like what does that mean I mean we always say that we're recommending to town meetings so is it that we're we we find we are we report to town meeting that do you understand what I'm saying there's not an action in there it's like we say no frowny face like so what I mean what do we do with that it's implicit we are advising the normally we have to read out every time you know to the April 30th 28th annual town meeting so what we are doing is we have determined that article 23 isn't we are advising town meet we're preventing town meeting from action we're doing something right so I would suggest that we are it's not just when we get to because again we'll come back to this of course but it's as to what order we're going to do this in but we could say that article three is not consistent with the transition provisions of the Charter and therefore cannot be acted on by town meeting yes that yes the action part cannot be acted on that's the declaration simple declarative statement or we have a verb like we find I didn't catch the the wording I just sure now asked me to recall what I said 30 seconds ago find or determine yeah we find that the select board has to rewrite this again so maybe you should do a substitute motion so it's clear yeah let's let's start again might say something like I move that the select board finds article 33 is not compliant or not consistent with the transition provisions of the Charter and therefore cannot be acted upon by town meeting of the Amherst Home Rule Charter or Home Rule Charter or something we don't just call it Charter April 30th yeah we could say April yeah we could say like we do article 33 of the yeah of the April 30th I mean just like we had to flip it around when we said that we were right um not acting not getting moves right not the whole that we were taking no position to since we're going to use this as a template maybe Mr. Buck yeah one more time a template that he's good with would be good that the select board finds article 33 of the April 30th town meeting is not consistent with the transition provisions of the Home Rule Charter there's a little Charter Amherst Home Rule Charter we want to give the section references and therefore cannot be acted upon by town meeting by the by town meeting so is that substitute motion agreeable to the so totally good so we'll say that third time's a charm is Brewer made that substitute motion Mr. Waller are you seconding that motion all right all the any further discussion on article 33 all right hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye it's unanimous with one person absent so carrying forward we have 343536 remaining I believe if I'm serves on where we're at I I would like to move the same thing for article 34 that we just moved for article 33 and I wonder if we might have it read out for us again rather than me messing it up for which article 34 okay so you'd move that the select board finds that article 34 of the April 30th town meeting is not consistent with the transition provisions of the Amherst Home Rule Charter and therefore cannot be acted upon by town meeting so moved your second all right is there further discussion I will say one thing I think in in this regard I'd you know again not necessarily unsympathetic to the concerns raised and and echoed by the planning board relative to article 34 but I I do think you know it is too broad a change relative to the transition provisions it really is I think so I think we should not act on it at this town meeting is there further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye that's unanimous with one absent bring forward I move to recommend to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 35 zoning by-law inclusionary zoning amendment the recommendation for article 35 is there further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that's four zero with an absent just when we thought we were almost done we're not going to ask a question so I know the intention is to pass 35 and then dismiss 36 but if for some reason article 35 doesn't pass then I believe article 36 was still going to get moved so I'm a little confused as to because I'm we didn't really talk about article 36 on its own per se because we were so happy that things were coming together in article 35 so I think yeah the one that had to go in the warrant if article 35 fails the planning board recommends article 36 so I think the the difference memory serves is that the provisions for offsite the provisions for payment in lieu are not there otherwise it's identical so it's really it loses that aspect of it is all yes so that's what I need to clarify and I'm sorry I didn't wasn't locating that easily in the report which I know it must be in here because it's an excellent report but I'm just not finding that section so if Ms. Brestrup happens to recall where that is in the planning board report because to me that is a vital component of this particular thing and so therefore I'm not eager to support article 36 on its own what doesn't include those I think the thing is that the clarification around the question of special permit which has been the most contentious part sure is there it's just the opportunity to have different ways to satisfy the inclusion of zoning it's not that's called trade I'm not going to support is it 36 I think our support I think article 35 works out some of the problems I really think the flexibility of payment in lieu and offsite is critical to making it work and I think if we can't come together and get an affirming two-thirds vote on article 35 then I would want to send 36 back for more work and it can come back to the future council with provision so I don't see them as just a small difference although I appreciate the initiative of getting getting that in as a placeholder and then working with the planning board and making those modifications but I I don't think it's like oh well if you know past this then the other one's okay I really feels really want to weigh in on 35 and not 36 so my sense of the board is that it is actionable by down meeting but that we might want to recommend referral on 36 perhaps as an option yes I'm actually not finding explained at all in the planning board in terms of I think the board of that being well but that's the wonderful planning board report this is the thing people actually I'm not talking about what I can search and find when I compare the two things next to each other I'm talking about the words and I think that because everyone is so happy that 35 came together so well talking about that that they didn't need to line out and say by the way even though we're recommending 36 as a second choice it actually is missing two huge components that you Elissa Brewer think are really important of article 35 huge to you so that that's very problematic for me and I it's a package as far as I'm concerned Mr. Walton how are we going to speak first or I had a question if you get back to that but sir I think that's a reasonable position to take we didn't I don't think the report specifically addresses article 36 except in the very last paragraph or two where it says that we prefer 35 if that doesn't pass where we're okay with 36 I agree it's not ideal but it is it does address it does fix the point of contention that we've had first for so many years Ms. Preston the first paragraph of the planning board report under recommendations the planning board recommends the town meeting approve article 35 the planning board version of this zoning amendment if article 35 does not pass then the planning board recommends approval of article 36 the petition version of the two versions the planning board's preferences article 35 planning board's vote was six to zero with three members absent that wasn't my question Ms. Preston my question was the fact that the part about about alternate means is not expressed in here as being missing from article 36 because that was not originally what had to get put in in terms of getting the place holder in et cetera but to me it may not be important to the planning board but it's important to me and so that is why I want to make sure that I in fact am arguing for us to take a position on referral for article 36 if 35 fails which I certainly hope it does not I think Mr. Croner partly answered my question not to excavate the whole thing but I guess my question is if you if you fought too long to get this compromised why couldn't you just take the but you know if you didn't care about all these tradeoffs and incentives and payment in lieu and offsite why didn't you just take 36 and save yourself a lot of trouble that's the rhetorical question I'm asking myself in my head and I think we're all asking that you know if if the wanted advantage of 35 is this sweet spot of requirements plus incentives why is 36 suddenly acceptable now and I think that's a difficulty we're having here sorry this happens like if it's brief please okay I'm still Maureen Adams and I mean you know the history of this that the 35 that 36 came before 35 I speaking for myself and others we certainly prefer 35 because we like the idea of the flexibility and I really like the idea of the money going to the municipal trust those are two compelling things however I do want to see inclusionary zoning in the new development that I expect to be taking place as downtown moves northwards and I think there is a time issue here and although I absolutely hope the 35 passes there may be people who feel as strongly as they did in the past that they don't want to do fees and loon they don't want to have flexibility and in that case I would rather solve the problem of the interpretation of special permit and leave further fixes to the council than not to do anything at all are you ready for a motion to recommend referral to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 36 petitions owning by law inclusionary zoning amendment if the article is not dismissed for the discussion yes rest of them sorry you want to mention to whom you want to make the referral oh yeah you know just because I'm writing it on the paper doesn't mean I was supposed to say it out loud in this restaurant thank you yes I thought we would send it to the board of health just to see what they do with it yes LCC commission perhaps you know what's funny is they put words in front of you and they don't put a blank there and so you just spit out what the words say yeah recommend referral to the planning board it should have a blank there but that would take up a lot of space okay yes Mr. Walton the vice also wanted to speak or to same question could you double checking us at this late hour all right is there another comment or all right hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye and opposed such unanimous with one person absent to recommend to hear I mean okay thank you all thank you being so patient I mean tonight or in general all right so we have a couple of things left on our agenda for those diligently watching at home good night and express for thank you for helping thank you for saying thank you all so I think first off we'll take the section seven which is licenses public way and mirrored parking reservations which we have a consent calendar which includes two components for the taste and then top of campus several dates and times I'm happy to make that motion but if someone has a correction or once it pulled out then I won't it's gruer every year we have this problem where we have the motion well it's just a fact checking so we have the motion the thing that's not ever made clear to us that needs to be made clear is one if there's any change from last year we don't know that without looking it up ourselves and sorry that the requester didn't mention that and two that the requester always mentions in the letter that they're requesting a suspension of food truck vendors and we aren't that was not provided to us and is not apparently being discussed which I'm fine with because I don't have any intention of doing it but it seems unfortunate that it's not mentioned here so I'm not sure what's happening so this is the first time that the bid is submitting this as an application previously it's always been the chamber the bid is taking on this piece of it I believe it's the same words understood but I'm just saying it's different people you're right so we can research this and come back to that next meeting if you'd like and I think we could act on it unless we find out that there's a change that we just didn't understand that there's a whole another section of parking that they need more permission than this so I'll have to come back to that next position so right they didn't write the letter themselves last year they're copying the letter from last year which last year's letter also didn't indicate whether or not it was a change so it's one of those mimeographed sort of deals but at any rate but this is the transition like this is always a chamber event right this has never been involved before bid is now involved because of the chambers situation so I would suggest I would like to go ahead and move the consent calendar and if if there's something in what they submitted that doesn't accomplish what they need they will come back and ask for that so we're actually voting the words that are in the consent calendar not second guessing if they left something out and I actually not concerned about whether it's a change or not because when I'm granting is what's asked for here so I'm going to try this move to approve the items listed on the consent calendar for the April 18 2018 agenda as presented is there a second second for news hash this board we don't have a map if I had a map I could probably guess if it was the same because we go to the taste every year and we know so am I well it's we shouldn't not have a map I mean I mean we should also know if it's changed and so all I'm saying is we can go ahead and approve it but I'd like someone to please make a note to compare it to last year's and if there's a change to bring it back to us or to go ahead and let the town manager administratively decide that it's fine but I don't know off the top of my head if these words are identical to last year's and I don't think it's my responsibility as a select board member to figure that out I think that should be brought to our attention and I think a map which is always in here but it wasn't in here I agree about we should have a map for these items and we could hold off for that or have it submitted after I don't really care if it's changed or not because what I'm approving is what they're asking for if it's different it doesn't matter if I if I agree that they get this why would I care if it's different point is I don't know if I agree if they do this because I don't know if it's different because I don't have the map in front of me to see what these spaces are I agree we should see them on a map I don't care if it's different but let's get through this maybe we should postpone I think there's time to do this next time when we get more material we can pull it out of the Consent Calendar so I think the we could pull that out of the Consent Calendar on the other half of the Consent Calendar however there are some things that are occurring before our next meeting so we can't not do anything so I guess the question is just do we want to just pull it out of the Consent Calendar okay so we'll pull out one so as amended Consent Calendar as amended I change my motion if the seconder agrees okay so for the things happening at UMass which is what we have remaining is it for the discussion the one thing is a several things several things is it is it for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed that's four zero with one absent and we've skipped over that we'll get a map right so that's section seven yes please I would be fine with moving this if somebody is willing to tell us next time or just give us the map next time and say oh here's last year's map but here's this year's map I don't need somebody to reprint all these details for us for Monday that's I just want to know we're suddenly giving away more parking that we didn't do before I think why don't we wait I don't think it'll be that difficult it'll be quick so Ken so given that I want to map and I want to know if it's different right we'll sort those both pieces yep that group is different all right so now we are to the town managers report no long report oh yeah update you on a number of things so we have two major searches going on right now one for the town clerk and one for the assistant to the town manager we have two search committees that I've established for the town clerk we have Jeff Kravitz Cindy Harbison from the library Robert Pam who's a member of the board of registrars Joan Rabin from the League of Women Voters and Kay Moran and that's being organized by Joanne Ms. Lozik I can never pronounce her name from the HR department and for the assistant to the town manager we have David Zomek Julie Federman Brianna Sunrid and Deb Radway is organizing that I've also pointed Anthony Delaney to the Fort River building committee who will be replacing Claire McGuinness as a voting member he's been going to all the meetings anyway and with her resignation we had a vacancy there on health insurance we are in the middle we're closing out the 22 open enrollment information meetings so we've got about four more this week and that'll be the end of them we've done them at every workplace every employee's hand up at different times we've had them at 7am we've had them at 7pm at different locations at every school at the police station at the north fire station at the DPW and what typically happens is I do a little information piece about why this is happening and then the health insurance representative goes through and talks about the new plans and people have been pretty receptive generally mostly interested in how this impacts them individually as you would anticipate they want to know if their doctor is still going to be covered which 99% of doctors by Blue Cross are being covered so that's good want to give credit to the Parks Division of the DPW they've been working really hard downtown if you haven't noticed they've been digging out creating larger tree wells and planting today they were actually planting trees this is Arbor Month so they put for the last several weeks they've been pulling out tree stumps and it's a tremendous effort and it looks so good and I just want to give them a lot of credit for taking that on the audit committee is meeting at 9am on Thursday and I think Mr. Steinberg is the representative to that committee and at your desk there's the letter from the building commissioner to the owner of 159 North Pleasant Street which is the old faces building what is anticipated what we have the building commissioner is on vacation at this moment but what I've heard is that the owner will be fencing the property this week and will be applying for a demolition permit in the near future we have put the we have put in our application to be an opportunity zone which is something under the new tax law that allows people who have capital gains to invest in our North Amherst opportunities on their certain sense of tracks that qualify we are one of 135 communities in Massachusetts that have have submitted one tract per community in terms of safety these last weekend and we anticipate this week going to be very busy with the warm or weather large crowds gathering additional staff are being brought on for the police department and for the fire department to respond to the anticipated events that happen usually during the day but also at night and you know it's when you have experienced people like the police chief and fire chief they this is they're non plus by this this is sort of business as usual but for others they get really nervous about it so I think they have their people prepped up we're talking about any kind of changes we can make to help manage it going forward scheduled have a meeting with the chancellor although he's being distracted by a certain Mount Maida college thing so that might have to get rescheduled but still moving forward on that and lastly I sent you the a draft early executive summary of the Donahue study and what I've heard this afternoon is that that's being revised and they'll they'll have a revision out tomorrow so on what they're trying to get the full study out as soon as possible but we we pretty much inform them that they we needed something prior to telling me now what they were talking about so question Mr. Bachmann when you say it's being revised I mean the executive summary that we got is being it can just sketch like what what category of things being revised or what's going to be changed so I don't get too wedded to that I just know that the university had had talked about you know we'll get this out a revision of out tomorrow but it's not like you asked them to add something oh no I that's not no not they're just trying to like clean it up a little or something right there's some things in there that they thought were not what they were intending to say and oh or it's just they had more readers and people said but okay but when we got it I wanted you to get a copy of it so yeah no I but again it's I wouldn't really intend to talk about tonight is other than to alert you because that we haven't had it on the agenda and it will have to go on one of our genders at some point and we've been very interested in it so thank you for getting it out yeah and that's all I have okay other questions for the manager relative to this gruer this might be a question more for you but I'm sure that you have discussed this and of course I missed a meeting because I had the flu have we taken positions on all the articles and what about the position on the noise by law which would seem to comport with the decisions we made tonight I mean in terms of cleaning up our scraps so I think we will have to so actually I'm glad you brought that up because another one that I know we will need to revisit will be article 27 which has to do with east street properties for one thing the municipal formal housing trust met and wanted to if the article moves as it currently is in the warrant they're going to move to dismiss it's too constrained it won't allow the action that they're seeking to happen at all spent some proposed language on that so one of the just to paint the picture a little bit here on that article in particular is there's conveying the property and there's committing to convey and this was a distinction which brought out and so for developers to take action on things if they've got the commitment to convey that's sufficient for them to go and seek financing so it was it was so some suggested alternate motion language that in in sort of a quick first read by the moderating he felt was more in scope than dropping off the last clause of the of the article which is what had been suggested so we'll need to revisit that one for sure and then I think the lens that we discussed tonight will need to be taken back through the articles and then I think just generally I haven't personally gone through everyone to make sure we take a position on every single one we've done most of them but it might be worth a while to kind of tidy up the loose ends as it were so yes so how are we going to post this because we've got I mean I obviously I'm not the chair I'm just trying to understand because Saturday we've got a retreat Monday we've got our meeting Monday we're really into town meeting right away and no doubt some other stuff will come up never not withstanding the taste parking but it's one of those things that's going on at any rate at any rate yeah East street sounds even more complicated than than what I envision in that we need to revisit it period and then noise by law and also ag com right I think those are the only the lens because we didn't have the lens yet when we got right right so we and how how can we do that in time to effectively notify moderator yeah as which also means in town meeting I mean because we could report tomorrow the thing the two we did that way tonight right but well what's the best way of communicating this effectively the script is still in draft form the moderator thought he was hoping to get the his version of the script done by the end of the week as was and so we have the end of the week to get our actions from tonight and from previous meetings the only but we'll we'll have some gaps in terms of what the select board action is but we can put those together and you can do them on Monday because as it turns out it's not just about us and it and an hour script which no one in town meeting gets to see other than us and so it's the those logistics are incredibly important to us but I want town meeting members to know that they're not going to have a debate on these questions because we've determined that they're not going to and so we I don't think we can just decide that right now on those particular articles but are we going to revisit that on Saturday or are we going to revisit on a Monday well I think it's a good question so town town council town attorney will be at the and I can ask him to come early at your six o'clock meeting on Monday just so we can get everybody on the same page he will be making a presentation in advance of article one of the special town meeting to talk about the context context for their interpretation and then I think we decided that the moderator would sort of talk in general terms about what's before the town meeting and how he wants to have business conducted but there wasn't an expectation for the select board to make a comment at that moment in time about what's on the plate and what's not I'm wondering since we I would like to have time for us to look at the East Street School which I still don't understand the difference between knocking those last 11 words off and what the moderator's saying and just the other ones we haven't done the noise and I'm wondering if we could meet earlier I mean like instead of it six if we could meet at you know five and try to finish up what we weren't able to cycle back to tonight and maybe with Benefit of Council then or coming you know talking to us at some point in this but I agreed that it would be good to get our whole sheet together of what we think Oh may I suggest one? You could probably do the noise one right now using the same language Right yeah That's true that hasn't changed Right We could and then we'd have that on our list You could get that one done then you just Number 3937 Is this one on your agenda? No but Oh well it's not on our agenda so it means the petitioner doesn't know we're gonna That's probably one of the questions But while the petitioner already knew chances were right Right based on that KP Lot thing but Petitioner's going to ask for it to be dismissed according to the town moderator So we could That brings us to another Control I was gonna say in that case could we take no position not by voting take no position but by just take no action No I think we have to apply the standard and it's great that the petitioner says they're gonna dismiss what if they have you know they wake up in the middle of the night that the night before and change our mind I mean I'm just saying I would like to use the if we agree that it's not consistent with the transition rules then I I would like us to state that Oh I would too I just Right Yeah I think there's not an agenda I'm gonna putting a quandary here I think you're right I think we can't do it on the agenda tonight I think we I think Monday is probably fine what we what I would suggest is that we notify the moderator first thing tomorrow and perhaps TMCC so they can share out our positions on that tomorrow roll with the ones we've taken action on and that we still have these articles XYC that we would want to apply that lens to but so I think the approach the the moderator was looking at was that the only actions available under these articles is to dismiss or to refer not to approve so you there would be an action taken that it's not like tell me can't act on them so he was he would say that you could take a motion to dismiss or refer dismisses as an unfavorable action on a zoning article for instance which means you can't bring it back for two years refer means refer to planning board or whoever to the future council that he would entertain motions on that but not to entertain a motion to approve so this is why I asked 47 times at the beginning of the meeting about the logistics because that is now different than what the motions were that we made different analysis that's not what we decided we decided that we were saying that taking act that the select board finds that the article is not consistent that's irrelevant if the town if the town moderator is going to take any kind of I was given to understand that which may not have been the intent but I was given to understand this evening that the moderator was not going to entertain motions now I understand the words you're saying now but that's not what I heard earlier tonight and so I don't know if this varies based on petitioner versus a planning board article versus a select board article so if it's a select board article and the select board says this article is not consistent then we didn't make any type of action tonight to say that the select board therefore recommends dismissal or the select board therefore recommends referral we just said no we didn't do the second part as to what we would recommend for that so I think we need to go back and look at the sheet and see which ones are which kind of thing because you know one's a petition article one's a planning board article where we said I sat here and said the planning board cannot make a motion because we are saying that but if the moderator does in fact want a motion to dispose of the article then we go back to that question about dismissal referral and the baggage that those things bring with them which we also touched on so this is what happens when you have a brand new charter transition that you have to deal with can we get guidance from the manager and council so that maybe Monday we can revisit ones if we should have awarded it differently by category or allowing for dismissal or referral so we were kind of doing the best we could but maybe we need to reframe some of these and to have time at either Monday's meeting or soon so that we can get consistent and deal with these plus we have the ones that are a little more complicated to take up that we still have to do so I'm trying to think of a way we can get this done efficiently and and correctly but not tonight because I think we've kind of gone as far as we can because it sounds like my previous idea of hours ago of saying on Monday night aside from what KP law is planning to say and aside from the moderator perhaps not intending to have us speak was that just like the type of motion where we say we're scheduling this particular article for such and such night at 7.02 is that fine with everybody we would have said we are not we believe we can take no action on articles 34 and 37 for example and therefore they're just off the menu gone but if that's not true we can still have to do something with them then are we moving them up and doing them all Monday night are we doing them in numeric order I mean there's so many choices available to us so as much as we'd like to resolve it before Monday I'd like to leave it open and try to come back to it I mean we were in public tonight taking positions but that isn't the technical way we're going to necessarily present it might be that it's not consistent therefore the only actions are referral or dismissal and then we're in line with what I think I understood you explaining the moderator said so you'd adjust it that way I think he felt that if the since they were on the warrant and particularly with regard to petition articles but since they were on the warrant some action was necessary it was just whether he would accept an affirmative in you know in terms of the article or essentially in terms of the article with whatever modifications within scope so perhaps we should have acted differently relative to that but I don't know if that's necessarily absolute and there are different practices in different town meetings in terms of laying on the table which we never do here but some places do if a motion is never made it doesn't actually happen therefore it doesn't get acted on but that's not how we usually do things right well Mr. Bachmann is it realistic that we get enough guidance so if we need to take it correct awarding or have a slightly different approach we could we could do that at a future you know like when we will try to act as quickly as we can but we are and I'm sure of territories right I mean I think you have two that you that you voted on tonight to not to not act on or to say town meetings should could not take a positive action on 33 and 34 right 33 and 34 36 and 34 oh right so there's two that you've said that you've said that to about and you could take one more the noise one because you understand this understanding so that was kind of what we believed was going to be true based on the previous but right so so we could act on the noise one right now and we'd still have to correct the language on all of them when we get right more guidance and then at least we'd have stated that position our opinion whether it's actionable by town meeting a lot yeah I guess when I hear cannot be acted upon by town meeting which is the words we use that means a positive action I wasn't really thinking that yes referral or dismissal is necessarily acting on it but it's a method of disposing of it if I could just add I think it's worth trying to get as precise I think all of these things are going to be contentious just that whether we have that authority or not will will create some disturbance even with back up from the town attorney so I think the more accurate we can be the more helpful and if we have to wait past the first night get our act together then I think we'll be challenged on all of this some verbally right I think I think to Spurge point about getting sort of the word out that in a sense we're taking a slightly different approach than what was recommended by K.P. Law I think we should definitely prepare people that way so that we can message that out to team C.C. and the moderator that we did take action different than that we may have to fine tune what it is we actually did admit I think also just relative to 37 it's not our word I don't think we can take action tonight but we could convey the sense of the board that that's likely we will take the same action as we did on whatever the other two were I can't remember the numbers 33 and 34 so it's a supplemental dwelling and the Caner right right right so 37 will so the probably result in the same action but so let's just to be the the three that you're saying the town can't act on are the two that town council acted plus we added plus the supplemental by-law right right so that's the only change yes or what yes except we still have to revisit East Street and Ag Com right because we can't make the determination not agree with them on that or we may we don't know yet yep and so do we have time is it a realistic amount of time at our meeting on Monday just on East Street I think what the chair said was that the these those words at the back can't be removed those less than 11 words without because that reduces the scope and that's not or broads broads the scope so the moderators felt that that was not within scope that's not allowed because they're working stuff too big and they don't want those words in there right it's too constrained so there's a middle ground and they sort of stage the conveyance right and those are words that town attorney put in even though nobody got to no one really got to analyze that and can't quite figure out why they did that but they may have a reason but so it still has to be determined without with those words still in if I don't know I can't even think but I think that's a that's a tricky issue the holy street school is more complicated than some of these other ones yes and ag comms just weird and separate out there not that they're not wonderful people but they're in their own weird category 33 and 34 are both zoning one motion would have been made by the petitioner one motion well it would have been made by the planning board we are saying the wording we had earlier that we fought so hard to come up with and therefore we recommend referral in both cases because dismissal is something that's more substantial right associated with zoning issues whereas if somebody wants to dismiss their their noise bylaw that's up to them and that doesn't hurt them for future whereas dismissal whereas dismissal hurts a planning issue so we go ahead and we say although planning board brings back its own thing it can do that and it's not really a big deal but we so in both cases is it accurate to say just so you can sort of beef up our new our new script within the script is that we the words that we said earlier saying that it's not consistent and therefore recommend referral that the only action the only appropriate action is referral yes not the Board of Health thank you can we modify those now or do you want to get more guidance so why don't we have a motion to amend our earlier motions on those two articles to add that recommend referral recommend referral to the planning board add that at the end of each motion and therefore we recommend referral to the plan yeah so for both let's just make yes the board is making a motion and is that Mr. Walde's second on that aye and you did make his notes before we vote oh that way you can run that by the moderator and say is this what we agreed to this morning okay then we'll keep going in that vein on Monday with other articles yeah I think that captures it properly any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye aye aye aye this was one absent and so or do we need to fine tune to anything else so I think well just we'll do the agenda setting on Wednesday I believe is right right but and so if for some reason we need to start earlier on Wednesday we'll we'll deal with it then but should we all free up our yeah that's just sort of checking calendars now in case we have to offer the meeting a little earlier time on Monday oh I can't so you really can get there at six yeah six but not earlier than six okay I mean we'll endeavor not to come earlier if we don't have to and I think we'll have to be careful about prioritizing right absolutely maybe there's something that's kind of on the agenda that can be pushed oh like to Wednesday or he's departing sorry all right Monday we have to get ourselves so yes Monday we are meeting it's just it's just yep okay and we're not trying to work any of this stuff into Saturday because Saturday has its own agenda I think it should be separate and we still have the chance of if we have to sometime next week we can always add a meeting but scheduling is really hard I mean adding another select board meeting is not really difficult so are there any select board member reports I'm guessing no don't you dare that's not true that's not true you know I have to read the dates so that you know that tomorrow night is the golf park thing go to go to go to Cracker Farm School at seven o'clock tomorrow night and either go and talk about graph park or go and talk about tau meeting you can do it in the same building and ask for the waiting pool to be reserved space because we left that out on Wednesday night come here for the economic development presentation by Pioneer Valley Planning Commission at six on Thursday at seven go to the professional development center at the middle school for a TMCC warrant discussion on Saturday go to the police station community room for a TMCC warrant discussion on Saturday at two o'clock please check in prior to six fifty nine p.m. on Monday April 30th even if you don't see the select board in the front of the room it would be really special if everybody got there and so that we could actually start at somewhat close to six fifty nine and that was the announcements that I had for this week thank you any other select board my reports I've already reported on the municipal housing trust telling a couple of things so you've heard from me I've been away so no report I'm assuming this is who all this two of my committees were meeting this very evening downstairs so oh okay perfect I have no idea what they did so should I I can move to adjourn I would be happy if you would I move to adjourn I'm channeling him second all right all those in favor say aye aye it's eleven twenty five I knew it was starting to be a long day