 So we're ready, Athena. Go ahead. Good morning. I'm calling the June 15, 2020 meeting of the town service and outreach committee to order at 933. Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the town services and outreach committee. I will now call on each member by name. At that time, I'll confirm that you can hear me and we can hear you. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Looks like Alyssa's not here yet. I'm here, Darcy Dumont, Dorothy Pam. Unmute, Dorothy. I was unmuted. So I said present and then I muted. You didn't hear me? No, we did not hear you, Evan. Do you hear me now? Okay, now I'm gonna unmute again. I'm here. George, Ryan. Present. Okay. And we also have Mandy Jo, Lynn here. Alyssa's just joined. Okay, Alyssa's here. Would you like to let us know that you can... Alyssa? Yep, I can see people and I can hear people. Great, thank you. We can hear you. So there's no chat room for this meeting. Committee members, if you have technical issues, please let staff know to make a comment or ask a question, please click raise hand. Discussion may be suspended if we need to address technical issues. And the minutes will note a technical, if a disconnection occurred. If necessary, we'll pause the meeting if we have any technical difficulties until we're reconnected. We request that everyone be patient with the process. And just for the public's information, the town is looking at how we can make our meetings more people-friendly by making attendees visible and by other means. Okay, so we're moving to public comments. The public may provide public comment at this time on matters within the jurisdiction of the town services and outreach committee. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. Counselors will not respond to questions or engage in a dialogue during public comment. This is the public's time to speak. To participate in public comment, see the instructions at the bottom of the agenda. If you join the council meeting via Zoom teleconferencing to indicate you wish to make a comment, click on participants and then raise hand. If you join the council meeting via telephone to indicate you wish to make a comment, press star nine on your telephone. The chair will now recognize members of the public who wish to speak when called on. Please identify yourself by stating your full name and address. Let's see what we got here. Okay, we have two hands up. Maria Kopicki, can you unmute yourself? Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Thank you. Hi, my name is Maria Kopicki. I live at 65 Country Corners Road. The elementary school building committee is one of the most important groups the town will form. It must navigate the largest capital building project in a town that was ripped apart by the previous one. The process and composition of the committee must be beyond reproach. The people who served will need to dig deeply into the material, demand answers to hard questions, challenge assumptions and opinions, both their own and others, and pivot to reflect new information and emerging concerns. The best chance for a successful conclusion to this project is to make sure that everyone has faith in the ability of the committee that guides it to have these difficult discussions ahead with fair representation of diverging viewpoints participating fully. When the Amherst School Committee formed the Fort River Feasibility Study Committee, it took several months to consider the best way forward, understanding the importance of having community support and participation. They reflected the town's commitment to climate action by requiring the membership of someone with expertise in green building and knit zero design. They understood that individuals who have experienced Amherst Elementary Schools as parents have perspectives that are valuable to creating a building that will serve not just the children who will first enter it, but generations of children to come. They took pains to include not only parents, but also general community members who also have a stake in not only the education of the town's children, but also the overall health of the town and its resources. The town manager's memo notes that, quote, I will be doing additional research for the three other members of the committee in an effort to ensure the committee broadly represents the community. However, the proposed categories of resident committee members are not sufficient to meet this goal and the outreach so far to identify interested persons has been inadequate. We need to be honest and open about our hopefully past divisions and make sure that those who hold differing viewpoints serve together on this committee to create something that can achieve far broader support. If we do not start out and continue together as valued and respected partners in this endeavor, we risk continuing division and ending in failure. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm sorry that I didn't encourage you to turn on your video because I guess you're an actual participant, so that is good. Thank you, Maria. And now Tony Cunningham, can we, oh, there we go. See, I could turn on my video if you want. Yeah. How do I do that? I don't see any option. Oh, maybe, maybe you don't have the option. No, okay. Hi, I'm Tony Cunningham. I live at 16-0 in Drive. The town manager's memo indicated that there will be just two to three spots on the committee for community members. I believe this is too few to include representation of a wide range of stakeholders. It's June 15th, and this is the first look at initial appointments. It's been known since last December that this committee had to be formed by June 30th. With all that time to get this right, it now feels rushed and opaque, and that concerns me. Ideally, this work would have happened in January and February and a list of names ready for May 1st when our eligibility period officially kicked off. The formation of this committee has not been widely advertised. There was no mention made in the superintendent's weekly newsletter that goes to all families in the districts. There was nothing sent through the PGOs, and there was no standalone announcement made through the town's usual channels. In fact, it would be interesting to know how applicants for the resident positions heard about it at all and knew to apply. If they were contacted directly by any town or school employee, that might lend a perception of bias to the selection process. In filling the resident spots, it's vitally important that you consider the constituencies that those individuals can represent, and indeed those of the counselors too, to ensure broad representation, community support, and buy-in from the start. Whoever is appointed to the school building committee will need to be committed to doing the substantial homework and be prepared to speak up in the meetings, asking questions about minute details to get to a fiscally responsible solution that can win broad support among residents. We don't need a committee that's there to rubber stamp a predetermined plan. We need this process to succeed and for it to have credibility all the way through, and that means member selection needs to be fair to create a balanced committee if the process is to instill trust among all residents. Transparency and communication is very important. Every meeting needs to be recorded and available for viewing shortly afterward, as well as comprehensive minutes. Perhaps this committee can advocate that a requirement of videotaping be included in the charge for the ESBC. I hope that town will ensure that happens in this process without needing resident volunteers to cover it as happened for the Fort River Feasibility Study. Thank you. I don't see any other hands up. So we will move on. Why my screen sharing is on? I don't know. Okay, so we're moving on to action items. The first on the agenda is the consideration of town manager appointment. And the first set is consideration of another list of recommendations and other list of recommended reappointments that are set to expire on June 30th. There will be looking at reappointment of members to the Cultural Council, the Board of Health Conservation Commission and the Public Shade Tree Committee. And I just want to mention again that I pulled the members as to what, whether they had any objection to dealing with these reappointments in this bulk manner, that is in one request and in the context of one recommendation from the town manager and one had objections. And as chair, I asked the town manager to provide some information about each person we appointed and how long they've served on the committee. It's possible that if anyone has any questions that they can make separate motions. Alyssa did bring up a problem with the terms listed for each person. I am wondering if that somehow got worked out. And Paul, could you address that and anything else about these applicants or these recommendations? Sure, sure. Thank you. Yeah, so, so these are reappointments for people who I'm recommending to continue to service on the committees that they have previously served on. The one thing that Alyssa noted, which is that Nancy Gilbert for the board of health in my memo, I say from our database that she had been a board member since 2018 and that's not accurate. I have since that since the email on Friday afternoon, I have not gone into what that actual date is, but I think it's longer than that. But in my opinion, what I'm what I, the reason I would have was appointing both Mr. Tobias and Nancy Gilbert, regardless of how long that they served. This is a critical time for the board of health and that we are in the middle of a pandemic. Their skill set is really crucial in terms of their backgrounds through that they bring to the to the board of health and that we'll be searching for a new health director over the coming months. And we will want the board of health to be available to help with the transition and to help bring a new person in. So since Ms. Gilbert and Mr. Tobias and we're both willing to continue service during this period, that's why I have continued to have them be appointments and have you consider them for appointment? Any counselor comments? I'll make a minute here. I'm not seeing Alyssa. Obviously my concern has nothing to do with the impressive service that any of the members on this list, especially the board of health under the circumstances that Paul just described. It has to do with the fact that if you're going to list dates on a memo, which OCA insisted that we wanted and Darcy apparently reinforced associated with the TSO process. Given that we've had numerous conversations around the concept of term limits, given that we have an existing policy that we haven't changed, that we inherited that we haven't changed yet to list dates that are inaccurate means that we don't have any sense of how long we've been having people and how long we would love to have them continue to serve. Based on my limited research, Nancy has served since at least 2012. I think that's fantastic and I'm happy to have her continuing to serve. And that's not the point. The point is that we have inaccurate information in front of us and I have no reason to believe that the inaccurate information is limited only to Nancy Gilbert. I have to assume that it's entirely possible that some of those other original appointment dates are also incorrect. And so we can't have a substantive conversation in any of our bodies about the value of fresh approach versus the value of experience if we don't have accurate information about how long we've been able to retain members. So it's simply a matter of, we had a clunky database back when I knew anything about it. I'm assuming that's still true or this wouldn't have happened. And I hope that can be addressed. Obviously people have a number of higher priorities to deal with, but this is a significant issue. It's just not significant enough to prevent people from getting reappointed because obviously the character of their service is what matters at this particular moment. Thank you, Dorothy. I totally understand what Alyssa is saying. I just wanted to add that Nancy Gilbert is a very proactive person. And I remember just bumping into her in the stacks of the library and I said, Oh, what are you doing down here? She said, Oh, I'm just checking out to see if any high school kids are down here vaping. And I mean, she just really goes out into the field and checks things out whether or not she has been there on the agenda. So I just think she's a very valuable member of the committee. But I do understand what Alyssa is saying about accuracy and a clear record being very important. Okay, so Paul. Yeah, I just want to respond. I, Alyssa is, I think, not talking about the individual, but about the presentation and I totally understand that and respect that. So if you wanted to hold on these, we can go back and clarify that all the start dates. So that the memo becomes more accurate. I can submit a redone memo to you once we go through this again. Again, these, these dates were pulled from our current database. And apparently that is not totally accurate. And there isn't any particular time sensitivity about this because people will just continue to serve. Yes, these are all reappointments. Okay. Do, do we have consensus that we should just get another memo from the town manager? Yeah. I'm going to go back to the chat. Looks like we don't have, oh, Alyssa. As we all know, it's incredibly difficult for the person running the meeting to catch where the hands are. And it's also difficult for people taking notes to catch where to raise their hand at the right moment. So they don't just constantly raising their hand. Yes. As I thought I made clear before the last two comments, we need to have an accurate memo. We need to have an accurate memo. We need to have an accurate memo. We need to have an accurate memo. We need to have an accurate accuracy of information. I do not believe that we need to defer a decision. Unless other people believe that their decision will be based on. How long someone served. So if we were going to have a substantive conversation about. Whether or not someone served a particular length of time. Then yes, we need an accurate memo. We need to have an accurate memo. So if we were going to have an accurate memo, then we don't need an updated memo before we can make the recommendation. Our recommendation could simply be. We have no reason to disagree with these reappointments. Again, these reappointments aren't based on interviews. They're based on contacts, asking people if they're interested in continuing to serve. So there's not like a lot to argue about there. So if I'm perfectly content to say that the memo would be the one that we're going to be working on the next year, we need to have a consistent, consistent, consistent report of the referendum. Just went on top of it to the rest of the town council that just showed the accurate dates for all the people. I don't have a problem with going ahead and saying TSO is part of the process is done. Just saying, as we so often did at OCA, we need the process to reflect certain characteristics. And in this case, those characteristics are accurate pieces of information about term length. I don't want to say that it's totally fine to just ask that an updated piece of paper be added for the town council's benefit because town council wasn't going to act on this tonight, right? Or were they? So if they aren't, if we aren't going to act on it in full tonight, because again, time sensitivity is not an issue. It would just be nice to get it done. Then I think that just, saying that our part of it's done, so we don't have to bring the town manager back again and adding the memo and publishing that, you know, over the next little while before the next town council meeting. So the town council has that information. That they're reading in conjunction with our recommendation. Okay. With that, Paul. Yes. Okay. So if that is the only comment that I have, I don't have to bring the town manager back again and adding the memo and publishing that, you know, over the next little while before the next town council meeting. Okay. Thank you. The only comments and I think we're ready to move on to emotion. I move to recommend that the town council approved the town managers recommendations to appoint the following residents to the following boards and committees. To the cultural council, Robin Thompson and Rachel Wang for terms to expire June 30th, 2023 to the board of health, Nancy Gilbert for a term to expire June 30th, 2023 and John Tobias and for a term to expire June 30th, 2021 to the conservation commission, Fletcher Clark and Jen Fair for terms to expire June 30th, 2023 and to the public shade tree committee, Sarah Lawler for a term to expire June 30th, 2023. Do I have a second? I second it. Any discussion? All those in favor? Elizabeth Brewer. Aye. Darcy Dumont. Aye. Dorothy. Yes. Evan. Aye. George. Aye. That's unanimous. And so the next step is that I will report to the town council. Our recommendation. We also have a list of recommended appointments to the school building committee. Which are required to be submitted to the MSBA by June 30th. We received a memo from the town manager. And which included the charge of the school building committee. And it outlines the county council. And we also have a list of recommended appointments to the county council. And we also have a list of recommended appointments to the county council. And which included the charge of the school building committee. And it outlines the composition of the committee and the roles to be filled. Do you want to speak to that, Paul? Sure. Thank you. So under the MSBA process, which we have been admitted into. The town is required to set up a school building committee. And we're calling it the elementary school building committee. The elementary school building committee. So any completed roles that need to be filled. By the school building committee that we establish, there can be other roles in addition to that. So the roles that must be filled are the town manager, the superintendent of schools, the building principle, the building maintenance official, the finance official. And someone who's certified by the MCP. So what you have here, then there are other sort of functional things that need to be provided as well as someone with background architecture, engineering and construction, which our building maintenance, the person I'm recommending for building maintenance official also fills that slot as well. So what I am proposing and with this appointment list are the requirements that the MSBA would require by June 30. I acknowledge that the outreach hasn't been as robust as it could be and we want this committee to be as broadly represented as it can be. And so that's why we will do additional outreach. I've talked with the MSBA told them that we will be adding additional people from the community, and they fully understood and said, you know that this was not unexpected in the in this type of environment that we're working in. People's weren't haven't really focused that much on the school building committee and we need to do better job of reaching out into the to the public so that that is poised to go. So there are three other positions that to counselors that that are being requested by the president of the council and that the council will consider tonight and the school committee member, which is scheduled to meet I think tomorrow night to designate a member of the school committee. So we will still have three members of the public that will be available that will be soliciting interviewing we interviewed three people so far but the pool wasn't as as robust as we had anticipated so that was the reason for not moving forward with any names on that as well. So I guess what I'm saying is that this will be the first. This is the first slug for you of these are the town officials the town employees who are required to be on this, this committee, and there will be others that come forward to you at a later date. Okay. Thank you, Paul. I think we probably have some counselor questions about the list. And looking over the list, I was quite puzzled by the requirements for which I don't have the text in front of me. But it's how my desk here somewhere of the parent members that it should be people who in five years might have somebody in elementary school. And I really think that's not a good idea. And when, for example, just looking at the people we okayed for the reappointment of committees. When you look at the people on town of Amherst committees, it's the riches of experience and expertise is amazing. And so, if anyone to serve on a town committee, there has to be a sense of confidence that they know what they're talking about. And when you're talking about a parent on a school committee, or a community member on a school committee, the experience that they bring is that I have now or I have recently had children in this system. And I have become an expert because I'm a parent and my kids have been going and interacting. And I've been to the school and I've been to the meetings. And that's their expertise as community members is that they have actually been there as a parent advocating for their child learning about the school thing. I think a parent that has not had that or a community member that has not had that experience would feel so would not be feel free to talk and to make opinions because they're in a room full of people with all have titles professional criteria for why they're on there, which have to do with, you know, building maintenance principle finance director, all of those things. But they do. But if you get somebody who is a parent who has been working with the schools who has children in the schools, then they have expertise that the other people don't have, and they can be equals on the committee. So that's something that troubled me so I do hope that that will be changed. Thank you. Any other comments. I am. So you have no questions for Paul Dorothy. Well, the question is why he made that criteria. I find it startling. I mean, I didn't believe it at first when I read it just seemed strange. Do you can you speak to that. Yes, thank you. So in conversations, it was really important. I felt that that there'd be people with kids who are going to be using the school who are part of the decision making process for the school. And I think that that we will have staff represented who will be using the school but I also thought it was really important for people who had some skin in the game going forward, and that they understood children and understand how their children would react. I felt that it was also important for those parent guardians who might participate in this, who would be able to connect with other parent guardians. So I think having that level of expertise is something that I was trying to recruit for to let parents of younger children know and guardians of younger children know that they were welcome to the committee you didn't have to have any particular set of experts expertise. And that this is what we're we have enough of the sort of, as you said the sort of technical expertise at a different level, but we are trying to get people with younger kids who are interested in participating in this. May I respond to that. Yes. Okay, I think that that's an interesting concept and I have no problem with them being as part of the committee, but I do think you need experienced parents guardians on the committee. I sent three kids to public school, I had no idea what that meant, and it was different with each child and different grades and whatever. I learned so much as a parent that I would not have anticipated. So I do think that if you want to have that category of people who have, are hoping to be in the new school when it gets finished and I do understand that you know the timeframe is interesting. I think you should also have parents who have been experienced with it so if you want to expand that pool that would be fine with me, but to exclude people who have actual experience means I think to to remove important voices from the discussion. Thank you, Alyssa. Having been a school committee member having been involved in those parent organizations and thinking about just some recent comments that have been made when people applied for school committee appointment, for example, to fill the vacancy and we're encouraged to have a school building committee. And I, I have to say that, not dissimilarly from what Dorothy said that kind of clanged with me that somebody was being encouraged to serve on this body at this time, who literally had never had a child in our schools, and didn't bring a different kind of expertise right like we wish everybody had everything they all had kids they all had green building experience they all had a county experience. And that's why that's why you have lots of different kinds of committee members. I agree that there is going to be homework associated with this particular committee, and I'm not clear on what somebody as a voting member of the committee. Again, I'm not talking about whose opinions valuable. As a voting member of a committee, a committee that is not deciding the educational program. This is not about what grades are in there this is not about how big the class sizes are. This is not about how we're reacting to the pandemic versus the way we used to do school. This is purely about executing the educational program that's decided by other parties, the elected school committee. A person who has a nine month old child and three year old twins right now. You know, on the one hand brings the benefit of never having done school therefore not having an opinion as to what school is like except based on their own personal experiences, because we all know that we've all been to some kind of school so we all have experiences that way. But I don't see how they're bringing a valuable voice versus somebody who's a green building expert versus somebody who's been in a PGO and has had kids go through different levels of the school versus the other types of experiences we're bringing to the table. I feel it puts that person in an incredibly weak position that they actually have relatively little to add that they would not just add as a regular community member, like knowing they're going to have kids in school at some point probably is no different than saying let's pick somebody who's never had kids in school just to get their perspective. It feels a little clanging to me given the role of this committee which again is not to establish the educational program, but also given the limited number of seats so I don't want to see a committee where a whole bunch of people are doing work in outreach saying, oh, I need to talk to the PGO, I need to talk to the school council who's talked to the teachers, and then this person says well, those sound like good ideas. But I'm not sure what they're bringing to the table. Now, finding ways to reach out to those folks as part of this process, absolutely. But as a voting seat at the table, that emphasis doesn't make sense to me either. It would be great I suppose if it was somebody who like had kids over a long period of time and so their kids were going to be using it as kids had been using it, but to say that it's people who will be using in the future who potentially haven't used it at all yet I think puts them in a very weak position and kind of waste a seat at the table. Other comments? I would just add that I agree with Dorothy and Alyssa on the issue of especially looking for parents of children under five doesn't really make that much sense to me to separate that out as a class and exclude other parents that have had much experience in the school system. And, you know, if you chose someone who is a parent of one year old and a three year old, where's the guarantee that they'll even end up going to the Amherst public schools? Maybe they'll move away. Maybe they'll send their kids to a private school. They may have the intention and then change. So anyway, I am concerned about that category. I'm also concerned that there isn't specifically a zero energy, a person that has experience in zero energy building. Since we do have a zero energy bylaw, we're on the forefront of municipalities in that respect, and to not even mention zero energy in the qualifications is concerning. So I'm wondering, Paul, if you can, can add that in? Are you still there, Paul? Yes, so add in zero energy. I think I'd reference it. Zero energy is not referenced. You say. Energy efficient, yeah. So we do have a bylaw that requires that. So to, I felt that was a little bit redundant since our bylaw requires that the building be zero energy. And that we will, but when we choose an architect, they're going to have to build towards the zero energy. And I think also my guess is that we will have other groups that are going to be involved with this. So I didn't want to, again, limit that too much if someone didn't have listed zero energy experience and were residents of the town of Amherst. I didn't, you know, having gone through the energy and climate action committee appointment process, I thought that would really limit it because we're also talking about public architecture as well. So I just don't know that that would just limit the pool so dramatically. Well, aren't we talking about building a zero energy building? Why would we not have someone on there that's an expert in zero energy building? I don't know if we have that many experts in public architecture with zero energy in the town of Amherst who are residents. And that's why I'd rather leave the door a little bit broad or more broadly open to people who may not have explicit zero energy experience because that's the expertise that we'll be purchasing because that is our bylaw. It's going to be in the RFP when we go to build this building. It'll have to be zero energy. Okay. I have more questions but I will save them and let Evan ask a question next. So I actually didn't have a question I was wondering so what we're tasked with doing right now my understanding was reviewing and making a recommendation to the council about the appointment center before us there are names before us. All of the conversation that we've had so far has not been about the actual people that Paul has put forward in front of us to be appointed. It's about these other criteria, and so I'm just wondering if this is an appropriate conversation. And if we can just dispense with the appointments that are in front of us and move on to what I think is going to be a more substantive conversation in this committee which is our review process. I agree that we need to get to that Evan, but I think that this this is relevant because these are appointments that are are coming to us. Next, and so we, we can put in our two cents about the who we, how we would like to shape that process. Dorothy. So my question is, I understand Evan's question, but if this is not the time to discuss that when is because you know, I just want to make sure that we have a chance to express ourselves. We feel strong on this issue, and we would like to have it resolved. But if this isn't the right place to do it, then somebody who's more familiar with the process than I please tell me when it is because it just looked like a good time for me but you know, I'm not as into process as many of you are, many of you are. And I guess I would just also like to make the comment that I, that it feels that the charge was so late in coming the actual creation of the charge, and that it the creation of the charge after announcing the, the openings. Right, because, you know, you can, you can create a charge to fit the applicants that have applied. So, I guess I just, I am concerned that that it was that the charge was so late and being created just really at the last minute. So anyway, there are no more comments, we can move on to the vote. And so I move to recommend that the town council recommend to recommend that the town to the town council, the town managers recommendations to point the following people to the school building committee. For terms that last the length of the MSBA process. Town manager Paul Bachleman superintendent of schools Michael Morris, Fort River School Principal Diane Chamberlain, Wildwood School Principal Ellen Allison Estes, building maintenance official Rupert Roy Clark, finance director Sean Mungano, and MCPPO certified staff member Anthony Delaney. All those in favor. Oh, second, sorry. Okay. Do you second George. I second. All those in favor, Alyssa Brewer. Hi. I'm Dorothy Pam. No. Evan Ross. Hi. George Ryan. Hi. So it's four, one, zero. And these appointments will be forward. Actually, I'm not sure. I think they'll all probably be acted on a week from Monday. Is there for two weeks from today? Yes. The 29th, I think. Okay. We'll be getting at least three more appointments for the next recommended appointments for the next meeting. And I guess I would really urge you to constitute the full committee as soon as possible. It's good to have the residents involved and on board. At the outset. When the, when the committee is first being constituted so that to the extent that you can do that, I'm, I would put in a pitch for that. Yeah, I agree with that. Okay. So moving on. Here. All right. So the presentation and discussion items, we're going to talk mainly just about one thing, which is our review process. And I had the intention today to discuss both the review process and our charge to provide outreach. They were both on the agenda, but I quickly realized that we would probably. Certainly not get to the outreach issue. So I'm guessing that we'll, we'll discuss the review process, the review process rubric and the outreach, our outreach function over a fairly long period of time. At the first few TSO meetings, we've had a brief discussion of the possibilities for a TSO review process and rubric based on the fact that CRC forward to us. A recommended process. CRC does still use this process in a customized fashion in reviewing topics. So I've heard CRC has done some good work to research how to have comprehensive review process and how to get input from relevant parties to assist in making a recommendation. For example, CRC had a retreat to discuss the review process. The minutes from that retreat are in our packet. CRC also has made a start at looking at best practices. It invited Jim Nash, the chair of the Northampton CRC to a Zoom meeting on May 5th, which you can all watch to hear about how Northampton does stakeholder outreach to review how we got here. And the review process that the CRC has recommended to us based on a proposal made very early on by the town meeting advisory committee to create a citizen board to look at and report on impacts, benefits and drawbacks of proposed measures. CRC removed the element of a citizen board but kept the requirement of broad outreach to potentially impacted residents. In the last meeting, TSO requested that we look at our review process next. I put together the document in your packet entitled TSO review process, a framework for discussion and consultation with George. It was it was actually good that we consulted because my understanding of review process was whether or not we were going to adopt the rubric put forward by CRC. George, on the other hand, review process as the steps TSO will take from referral of a measure to our final vote. So I attempted to combine those two in the discussion framework. One big issue, which isn't dealt with very fully on the framework is how an item is put on the agenda. There's a few things I'd like to say about that. We'll probably have about an hour of each meeting to deal with larger issues that are not time sensitive. I suggest we take our calendar and plug our topics into meetings over the next year. I have a document we can look at later in the meeting that we can use to make a tentative schedule for upcoming meetings. It's just a visual aid that was not in the packet that we're going to be looking at. I want to note that this process has allowed me to see some errors of the first few TSO meetings. One of the biggest was on the wage theft issue. If anybody brought up the need to hear from staff and from the business community, I should have taken that as my cue to reach out on behalf of the TSO. In fact, if done correctly, I would have simply done that on my own without prompting. I see that as the way I should operate in the future. And I agree that I should not not have put the surveillance technology bylaw on the agenda before a discussion. And this is a revelation that I got from George. I get that members of this committee want to make sure that they have time to do their homework and carefully study a topic, which requires more than 48 hours. The proposed process would allow for more time. And if we come up with a long-term calendar of agenda items, that would provide even more notice. The last thing I wanted to bring up is the idea that agenda items can emanate from citizen or counselor sponsors. For example, TSO may be able to ask the town for answers to questions about, for example, transportation issues, and then come up with recommendations where we haven't really had a good way of doing that in the past. I invited Mandy Joe to this meeting to give more feedback on the CRC proposal and also on her perspective as a counselor sponsor of two bylaw proposals that have come up before this committee. I know she has some other business to care of this morning, so I'd like to ask her to speak on the merits of the review process recommended just briefly before we get started with looking at it. So, Mandy Joe, are you still with us? I am. And I want to thank you. As to my other thing, I got my husband to do that. So, he is dealing with my daughter and last day of school things. I ran into similar problems that I believe Darcy sort of mentioned is to sort of growing pains with TSO too. We had some stuff before us that while I was chair, I was like, I don't think things are working well in terms of getting to the review and doing a review. So, I, in talking with, you know, I took the TMAC process, and I tried to modify it and add stuff. And before it went to the retreat, Dorothy and I talked and we made some changes to it. And what we felt impetus for was we get, at that time, we were getting a whole lot of stuff that had different things. We had parking, we had, you know, we had parking, we had housing, we had bylaws, we had all sorts of things. And they were all requiring a different type of review, but we didn't have a standard process for doing that. We're determining which type of review would be the most logical. So it was sort of impetus for coming up with what was forwarded to TSO. It was largely based on the TMAC proposal. It has not, CRC is working on trying to incorporate its use into its review of bylaws. It is definitely not a strict process in any sense, but the goal of it is to make sure all the committee members are on the same page with what the report back to the council should look like. You know, is it for a recommendation? Is it for just a study? What's the report? What are we actually supposed to be looking at and reporting back on? Trying to figure out, we were presented with so many housing policies, so many transportation policies. You know, what should we be looking at as we look at whatever this new proposal is, make sure we're all on the same page with that, and make sure we know who's been talked to and who hasn't and whether we think more people should be talked to because we realized many proposals coming to us come from different avenues, some from councilors, some from staff, some from other committees, and we don't know what work they've done. And so trying to figure out what pre-work that has happened and getting all of that information before we start delving into our own research was something the committee thought was essential, and then only after you've done that and talked to everyone, can you then start discussing the merits and a recommendation and going through. And then we found there's so many things to consider, it helps to have a cheat sheet. A cheat sheet of should we be, you know, what big areas should we be considering because we come in with our own thoughts and all, but having a list in front of you of, okay, let's talk about historical impacts or economic impacts or what's this going to have on neighborhoods and all that cheat sheet helps trigger questions. And I can give an example of that for the temporary zoning bylaw that's coming up at the council tonight in CRC, as we were going through that list, it helped trigger a question about how does this impact the historical commission reviews. Because we hadn't thought about that, but then when it's sitting there in front of you, you're like, oh, we should ask about this. So it's mainly a goal to sort of help the discussion move forward, help us stay on track and make sure we don't forget any large category of item to discuss so that we can report back to the council on many different stakeholder views or even just subject matter review. And so we've adopted it, we're working our way through we adopted it as a prior committee before the committee names, you know, members changed, we never had an opportunity to use it after adoption there before the committee is changed so we're, we're working our way through it again as a new membership and figuring out how best to utilize this. But so far I would say it's at least helping us, you know, solidify and, you know, form the conversation and get to making sure sort of most of the areas of concern have at least been thought about and discussed. And that discussion for some things means, no, this isn't going to have an impact on X, because it won't, you know, depending on the proposal but at least we've stated that as an actual affirmative. So, so I think, I think I'll stop there for, for people. Do people have questions or comments for Mandy Joe. Okay, so what I thought we could do next is just Evan had suggested that we, that we look at the charge first. I did actually look at the charge in formulating the discussion framework. And I found it. I tried to plug it in and I found it unhelpful, but we can look at it for a minute to see. And just because of the categories in the charge, just, I didn't find them helpful as far as Okay, if we can scroll down a little bit. Okay, just right there. So the main, the main points would be the first two bullet points under town services. And then there are review and make recommendation to the town council on measures that may affect the provision of services to the community by a town department. And then review and make recommendations to the town council on measures related to public ways including transportation and parking public lands and town facilities. So, yeah, the problem with using these is. The problem in mentioning them it's just that they don't differentiate between large townwide policies and goals and so on and smaller requests. So, and I found that to be the more relevant differentiation. But if anyone else has anything to say about the charge. I don't know. Otherwise we'll move on. Evan. Right. So I'm trying to obviously remember what I said like two weeks ago. And I think my point was our first, our first step for any measure should be to recognize why it's in our committee in the context of the charge and so I guess that's what I when I was trying to say is so when we have the wage theft by law, our first committee, so why do we have the wage theft by law and not CRC or not, you know, finance committee. And in that case it would be under that first bullet because what I think maybe would have been different if we had done that is we would have looked at that first bullet and said, Oh we have this because it affects the provision of services to the community by a town department. And I think that would have sparked us to go. Okay, then what department does it affect the provision of services from. That's the department we need to talk to and so I guess what I was thinking in terms of is our starting point should always be that first question of, Why do we as a committee have this because that can help spark who we need to talk to and so if we have something because it's a public ways that's one thing, but if we have something like surveillance like wage theft, where we have it because of that first bullet, then that immediately triggers the question. Okay, so what is the town department that this affects. And then that triggers us to say, Okay, who do we need to talk to for that department when do we bring them in so I guess that's that sort of where I was thinking of. Yes, and I, I agree totally I think that we should put that right in to when we get into the to the document, just add that in is sort of a checklist of what, you know, which one of these things, which one of these does it fulfill, if any, you know, just checking to make sure that it does that that's really good idea. So if we could go to the actual discussion framework Lynn, unless anyone wants to say anything else about the charge. And again, I'm not looking at the list of we go. Okay, so. I think I think what what Evan was suggesting would go right into step two one but we're not there yet so the referral and so my plan is to take notes on everything that we're saying today about this and come back with a revised version. And I'm hoping to do a time check at about 1120. And if I forget that someone could remind me that would be good. So, just to start on step one would be the referral. I'm not a referral. Although the rules indicate that we can also take up other matters within our domain, which we have no idea what that means, but it is there for possible use at a later time. So if anyone have thoughts on, I mean, we don't have to discuss that now, unless people want to, or we could just move on that is pretty straight. Oh, you are. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I just wanted to say step one, why do I like really plain language. Why is this item before our committee, number one and two, what kind of action is the committee asked to take slash, or what kind of action should the kids should the committee take just right up there step one, because if you don't come up with good answers for both of those, then you don't go on. Step two, so step one is just the actual act of the referral. Or the, or whatever type of measure it is. So, unless. So, I mean, we could conceivably is the phrase, or take up other matters within its domain, which is so broad that I don't know what it means. It's in our rules. And basically I put it there because we aren't restricted to referrals under our rules. So we, in other words, we just need to be open to the fact that maybe at some point, someone will want to ask a question of Gilford mooring about something. And that isn't, that isn't a referral. Maybe George has an issue in his district and he wants to get an answer about something. Whatever. But we, and, you know, we may decide that that we aren't going to do that, but it's in our rules to put it in there. Is it okay. No, I absolutely agree with Dorothy, I understand what you're saying Darcy but it doesn't make any sense to me. The, the first step is to determine why we have this it isn't to say whether or not the rules that's the preamble is that this is how we can possibly get things. The first step is a step. It's not a preamble. So it's really just a matter of all these processes are new to us. We know what we mean laying out framework that makes sense to other people is difficult. So yeah, what you're saying about other matters and what our charge says that's part of the what might arguably called a preamble. What we're talking about is the first step, then after that so you move what's in step one now to the preamble step is where does this fall is this one of those things you just talked about is this something that was referred by the town council is this for exit and bear in mind this process is going to also be informed by the referral we're probably going to get from the town council about public ways and a process for those and so obviously that's going to make this longer or it's going to be seen as an attachment, but you know that's one of the more obvious ones that we need a process for as the public ways. I don't have any idea what we mean by saying, if someone wants to ask a question of Guilford mooring they come to TSO to do that but I'll put that to the side for a moment, and just say that our steps need to be action steps, and if it's, you know, stuff can come to us that's like the preamble, so to speak, but we we should cover something in a step, not just say that the step is that somebody expresses an initial interest that could be that that's a leader that what Dorothy said makes sense to me, let me say it that way. Okay, so we're we want to fold one into two and or or not even necessarily mentioned the referral piece. So that's that's absolutely fine me. So there, I'm sorry begging your pardon it's there it needs to be there there's no question I understand that the difference that you and George had in your approach and I get that. There's a million different ways to do this, but if we're looking at actual steps than a step is, where's the fit within our charge. It is, where did this come from. The idea that step is just saying that we get that that's not a step, but it definitely does need to elaborate on where did this come from so now where does it go next and isn't even ours right now. Okay, sounds good. I actually. So this is George's idea of a preliminary presentation which I think is a good idea. Which is just the pre meeting before the first presentation. But we're looking at step two here. So the, it's, it's a way of getting and getting a measure on the agenda. And actually when we look at the, the document that that I have added that sort of a visual aid you'll get more of an idea what we're talking about here. Because if we can, if we can deal with our agenda on a long term basis, then we won't really have to do this, except occasionally, the, the language and under step to So does anybody have any thoughts about if we're just say we're just reading down to the bottom of of the ABC DE here for now. Any thoughts about any of that. Dorothy. This is just about numbering, I guess, step to the preliminary presentation of a member of a measure. That was something that was brought up people wanted to say the item should be brought up so that we at least know it's coming up. But then all the details below it clearly identify the purpose report on whether and then the ABC DEF. Very an awful lot of specific stuff to give in the preliminary presentation. Well, of course you have pre preliminary presentation of a measure. What what about preliminary presentation of a topic. For example, somebody says, I think that we should talk about policing in Amherst. And that doesn't mean that we have all the answers that we've talked to everybody that we know all those stakeholders things. First we agree. Yes. I think we should talk about it. Then the next meeting, those all those items could be done. But if, if you're going to have to have all of that information together before you even bring up the fact that you want the committee to talk about something. I think it seems onerous. I thought people were saying, we don't want to come to a meeting and find something popped on us. We want to have notice that something's going to come on the agenda. So we can think about it. And then people think about it and then maybe do these things and then come to the next meeting with those steps. So it's really time order that I'm talking about. I like all the steps. I think all of that's good. I think the first thing that we need to have to come in as a full blown creature, the first time you're mentioned is I think a bit of a burden. I'd love to hear George answer on this one. Are you with us George. I'm certainly with you. My whole approach to this and in my conversation with Garcy. I'm focused on actual concrete things that we have to deal with. I didn't really give much thought to larger issues of, you know, let's have a conversation about X. I really like to set that aside for a moment and focus on what seems to me the reality at least at the moment, which is we get a public ways request we get a bylaw we get a town policy. We are asked to review it and provide some kind of input to the town council. So my focus has been on dealing with specific measures that come to us. And I take it that we can't then, you know, if we have a referral, we can't then meet and say, well, we're not interested, send it back. We're being asked to do something about a public ways request for being asked to do something about a bylaw. In other words, make some kind of recommendation. What we decide to recommend is up to us obviously, but the idea that well, we're not interested or this doesn't fit our charge. You know, that doesn't seem relevant to the kinds of things we've been dealing with. I agree that maybe at some point, someone might have some topic that they want to discuss blah, blah, blah, and then we might have a discussion about whether this is relevant to what we do. But I thought we were trying to come up with a process that is related to actual things we have been asked to do. And how are we going to do them. So that was my focus. But maybe we want to refocus this. I don't know. But how do we deal with things like a public ways request? How do we deal with a, you know, a town policy that we've been asked to weigh in on by the town council. And this is a process we're trying to agree on. Why don't we just first hear from Alyssa. Okay. So, I have a, I think one of the reasons, you know, we knew that we had a lot of pent up demand for this particular process and so I really appreciate the different approaches that that Darcy and George brought to it to try and address the different issues that we've been raising over these last, you know, this is our only our sixth meeting to figure out how it is that we're approaching things. I think it's also important for the public to understand that we didn't even see this document until Saturday and so it's not like we've had a lot of time to think about it in our own brains. And of course we wouldn't discuss it outside of our meeting because that would be a violation of open meeting law. But we just haven't had a lot of time to actually think it through ourselves as and compare it to the to the comments we've been making so appreciate that no one was expecting we'd finish it today. So the first things that struck me in terms of, I think a lot of it's going to again come down to language like I was talking about a preamble and an actual step. When we're talking about a preliminary presentation I hear what what Dorothy saying about, you know, how big of a project does this have to be to even get on our agenda in the first place, and you know I've expressed some significant opinions about that that we'll talk about more later in the process but I understand that there probably does need to be a place in addition to the formal referrals that we've received. There probably also needs to be a place here to say okay there we haven't had a formal referral from town council, but this bubbled up out of the community. What's a, what does that look like is that even a preliminary presentation like what is that called right so it might do no matter of labeling, but then it's also important that whatever that is it has to be brief. And so I'm not saying that our process should put a definite time limit on something, but it should definitely say something because I was, as you know, chagrined by the idea that we had time in an agenda which turned out to be a 45 minute agenda item that none of us were expecting aside from the 48 hours notice. So that to me would not be something we'd want to do we wouldn't want to just say well it's just a preliminary presentation but it might go on for two hours. We just need to, you know, as we work this through refine what that actually means. If you want to talk about the actual letters a through E. I have comments on that but I will hold that in case people have conversations about other parts of this. I actually would like to focus on just the first two sentences and and in response to that I would like to show this visual aid of a possible calendar. That would be a way for us to do our agenda setting. Um, so, Lynn, do you have that, or would you like me to pull it up claims that I was going to do some of this at this meeting. Hold on, I have it. I made it. It's on a an Excel spreadsheet. Oh, darn the reason I wanted to do it was so I could. I could put stuff on it. Why don't you let me do it, Lynn. Okay. Here we go. Do we see it. Yes. Okay, so this is on the far left. A list of all of our upcoming meetings. The next column represents the first hour of our meetings where we would deal with appointments or things that are time sensitive. The third column deals with the second hour of our meetings where we would have time to deal with things that are not time sensitive. And the fourth D column D is our list of topics as they stand right now. And column E is to be filled in what what are estimated number of meeting days that they might take up. So I did run this by George because we were talking about the framework and all of this. George, do you have something you want to add? Excuse me. I don't know how my hand got raised. All right, it's not your fault. There are lots of things going on. I just want to point out that that, you know, again, some of these are things that are referrals to us that we have been asked to deal with. And some are internal processes, things that we are trying to work our way through. And I think that's at the moment covers the list. So I think the outreach process, I think is the one that in our review process, obviously in our rubrics are things that we internally are trying to sort of way through. Then we have items that we have been given that we are expected to do something with. So Dorothy. Well, I wanted to go back just a second. I think this is a very helpful thing that you brought up, but I want to go back to a second to say that the process that we were discussing. I would have no problem with it if we took off the word etc in step one. This process for referrals is excellent. I was addressing the fact that there'd been big discussion about items which had come to before this committee at our last meeting that the committee didn't know was coming or that came from different places or whatever. Or that we as members of the committee wanted to bring up. So just make that document. Easier for me to understand it because referrals that means somebody else has worked on it somebody else has started it. And we get it and we look at it and see what else do we think we need to do. But because I thought you were being challenged for having brought up some other items in reference to this grid. I see this truthfully. I mean, things never go as we expect. Things come out of nowhere. Here we are living a completely different life than we would have anticipated when we ran for town council. I think this is a kind of document like my to do lists that the chair keeps and other people can keep and come to the chair with which will be changing constantly. I can in no way see making a plan for what we're going to deal with when we're going to deal with it and how much time it's going to take. Because that assumes a stability in the world that I don't think exists now. But I see it as something that is going to be constantly being revised as things shift and change and useful in that sense. So I would like, you know, make it, I would make a bunch of print a bunch of blank copies, I would date them, and then I would work with them from there. But I don't think we I really don't think we can plan to the extent that you're thinking we can in this document. There's a plan but we can't we can't keep to the plan. The plan will constantly have to be changed and adjusted. I think that that's assumed. I just thought it would be. You know, it's something that has come up in the town council that people want to have input into the agenda. And, you know, I think that that. I, you know, I did fill out the whole thing with sort of like a sample of what could look like, but then I thought, no, I'll just, you know, let the committee figure out what you want to do with it. I put it, I did an estimated numbers of days, but then, you know, I'm a new counselor. So how do I know how many days it will be. So do people have ideas about how we could, how we could fill this out. George. I'm going to make a suggestion for what's worth that we set this this is a valuable document and it's something that as Dorothy pointed out we're going to need but whether we should discuss it now I think seems premature. I think we should set it aside. That's my suggestion, and keep our focus on the process itself. And then at that point we can go back and look at what we actually have to deal with. It's good to have this in mind I think partly because it reminds us of how many things we have to deal with which are in fact referrals, and we do have to do something with them. I encourage everyone to keep in mind as we go through the process. Who's doing what so the preamble as we describing it now it's good to have that statement to remind us of what it actually is we do and and that's fine. But in the next step, who's who's going to. I assume the chair would start to initiate the discussion. Where did this come from. How does it relate to our charge, and now who is going to be assigned to do something with it in a preliminary way. So people need to ask also the question not only what the step is but who is responsible for carrying it out. It seems like step one would be the responsibility of the chair. And then the idea is that then someone gets assigned to do some kind of preliminary presentation based on a discussion by the committee and awareness of what the issue is how it relates to our charge. And then they would come back at some future date and hopefully the next meeting but whenever and make some kind of preliminary presentation to the committee. So that's the understanding of the initial process. So I guess we need to hear from everyone whether they think that's a terrible idea whether they think that it can be done differently. But we also need to ask who's doing what as we also identify what needs to be done. And my other thought again is I think we should leave this document that's on the screen right now, put it aside and focus on process. Well, before we do that. I, I would like people to weigh in about this. I am not completely clear as to whether this is housekeeping or not. But this is something that if you if you had opinions about how things should be organized on this calendar. I would be very interested in hearing about it so I will. I'll see your input on this. In between the meetings. So if, if an on, on the topic that George was talking about Lynn, if you could bring up actually I'll bring it up. I'll bring it up. Now that I know how to do this. So this is another visual aid. Because Evan brought up the possibility. He suggested that we use the surveillance technology by law as example, how this process would work. And so I just plugged it in to the just, just the, the two steps, the readiness steps and the outreach steps. This would be an example of and somewhere or other, we would want to put in what George suggested. Maybe a separate category of who's, who's doing what or assigning it to a person. I think you want to show a different slide. No, this is it. Oh, unless it's, is it say TSO readiness for review. No, we're seeing the same. We're still seeing the list of topics. Oh, oh, I know why, because I didn't stop sharing. That's why. Okay. There we go. Tell me if I'm right. Yes. So this is just the, on the left, the list of the questions about, are we ready for review. And in the middle, it has the information about the surveillance technology by law. And then, oh, then I did put in a category for who's doing what. So this would just be a very quick checklist just that would, we would use on the, at the preliminary presentation. So we just, if you look at it. For the surveillance technology by law, what action is required review and recommendation. And we might want to go to the charge. And then we'll use this question so that it asks specifically what in the charge it responds to. What's the report back time. There's no time given with it. Actually, there is a time given that. No. Andy Joe, do we know the answer to that? Are you still there Mandy Joe. I was just going to look up the motion I believe all motions have a time time given and I think this one was 90 days. It's already quite great. There are two hands raised and been raised for a while you might want to. Sorry. Alyssa. I was simply going to state that I appreciate you brought the these excels to us because that really starts helping frame it in our minds. I do not believe it's housekeeping housekeeping is something you can express to a quorum house. This is not housekeeping adding columns and decision points is not housekeeping, but it's certainly something that we can send you individually. So you can tell us that during this meeting, you need to send me more feedback on which columns are missing or which things need to be added. And I think that partly again it's going to be a stylistic thing between these two Excel documents. The column has to include the column of the data was referred the actual data is referred from the town council and the deadline for report back to the town council. I don't care which one of the documents includes that, but those are the kinds of things we can send you individually but just to be clear they're not housekeeping. So these lay these are actually based on items. What is it a through E in step two, before we get too far into using this Excel, I'd like us to be sure that's those a through. Sorry, flipping between all these different things a through e are the a through e that we want because whatever is in our process is what's going to get transferred over to the left most column. No, this is just just an example of how we might, you know, something like what we might do that conditional enough. So, is sponsor ready to present. I guess that's the opinion of the sponsor, you know, go to the sponsor and say are you ready to present. And having a conversation about a through ear we having a conversation about the Excel, the Excel. Well, how can we talk about the Excel if we haven't actually talked about a through in the process, or are you talking about generally. Yeah, just just we can go back to that I'm just, I'm, I just wanted you to see this. It would relate to an actual bylaw proposal. And, and so it should bring up questions as to how the questions should change. When you're looking at the actual proposal so that's something different than going to the sponsor and asking them if they're ready to present is, you know, is the information or statement from staff needed planned for, for example with with the surveillance technology that meant just that I had gone to the town manager and asked him if he could present the next meeting on how this impacts the town and staff financially or in other any other way, you know, and is stakeholder input likely to be needed so it's just that that's not a that's not a specific that's not a question of what is, you know, have you done all the stakeholder output or do you know everything it's just is it likely. What are the likely people that would be needed to be reached out to and question about best practices and importantly what is the relevant legislation plans goals to be identified Dorothy you have a question. Well, yes, I am still on previous issues. Okay, we are going too fast for me today. When you're talking about the big spreadsheet which had dates and where one way we do things and I was saying it had to be changed a lot. Before we got into this topic. I looked at the you had public ways and you had street survey or something like that. And I said, yes, that's an area where the big schedule really makes a difference, because for example, we can't bring up Lincoln Avenue, until we have, we were told from that they would do, you know, we said we can't do one street without understanding how it affects all the other streets. And there was something that the town works going to have to do, which was to do a big survey. We have not discussed exactly what we want them to do or any of those things, but we can't put Lincoln Avenue back on the calendar, until we have actually gone through those steps, which, you know, that take time. So many of the issues that come to us or referred to us will regard input from town departments. We have to give discuss with the committee and the town departments what it is we're asking. They have to tell us when they think they can do it. And then we get a timeframe from that. So we can't just we can't just put our items on, because we have to do it in concert with some of the people are giving us the information that we need in order to make the decision, because it's really frustrating to sit there to committee talk about an issue and then say, Oh, but we can't do anything because we don't have this information. So I do think there is a place for a long term calendar. But we've got so many steps to go before we're there, where we say what it is we want different people what information we're seeking, and we have to get their statement back when they think they can give it to us. And then we just pop over and, you know, do it in a casual way. So right now I just feel there's so many things coming together. It's moving too fast. And I think that we need to talk about something and get it straightened, then make a decision of the order of the items that we're going to talk about and talk about what outreach we have to do to town committees, before we even think about making a schedule of when we're going to talk about things. So that that's, I'm getting a little frustrated because all these there's a lot of good stuff here, but we don't seem to be finishing a before you're on to be getting on to see, and I'm not sure what I'm going to come. I'm going to come up with at the end of the meeting, except that sometimes somebody's going to ask me do I want to do something, do some research. I also when you say the word sponsor, it's not clear what you mean by that it's the word sponsor changes a lot of the time so I need clarification on that as well. Yes, I am. If just to go back to the calendar for a minute. I feel like if we had a long term calendar, say, for example, Dorothy and George were in charge of the parking study and link Avenue. If you knew that we wanted it to come up in September or October. You have this long lead time to things in. And that would be advantage of knowing at a time when things are going to come up or when when we're hoping they come up. So that is all I have to say about that. So does anyone else have anything to say about this little comparison using the surveillance technology by law. And these are these are a few of the possible stakeholders that might be interested out listed here at the bottom. All right. So back to the document. I will, I will be seeking input from all of you on both of those are on the calendar document. Are you there Lynn. Thank you. Okay, so the alternative to having a long term calendar like that is this other method which is in the in the first paragraph here that any of us can ask to have something put on the agenda. at a preliminary presentation. So, does anyone have any problems with that, or any thoughts about it. Okay. And so now this list of the list of you have some comments about the list. So now that we're getting down into the nitty gritty, we're going to start finding some areas of disagreement and items a through e aside from a and e, which are indeed weather. The operative word for BC and D is not whether it is which or what there is absolutely always a need from relevant town staff always, or it's not a TSO item. So it's what information or statement from relevant town staff would be needed. What's town stakeholder opinions are likely to be needed, and what relevant policies because literally everything we work on will have those things associated with them. It's not a matter of weather. So if you're referring to weather in terms of a much more preliminary type presentation of a measure which is what I think you just referred to as a bucket of any of us can ask to have anything put on the agenda at any given time which obviously makes me really uneasy. But that would be a thing where that might be one of the things that would cause you to decide yourself whether or not you were ready to bring it to the to the TSO. But when it comes to the TSO evaluating things which this appears to be the place that we do that. So are you going to say well are the sponsors ready to talk and what best practices do we need because it's technically possible we wouldn't need the best practices and we can't read the sponsors mind, but there will absolutely always be information so it isn't whether it's what. So are you maybe thinking that this is actually two separate steps because anything that's coming to us should in my opinion unless it's a very vaguely formed. Hey this is a cool idea let's spend five minutes on the agenda. I'm going to spend more than 15 minutes. I want to know what information from town staff is needed what town stakeholders are likely to be needed and what relevant policies are likely to be affected. I'm not saying a deep dive analysis will be done, but that all those things will have been identified. Yeah, so I agree somewhat with Alyssa. One thing and I want to apologize because I haven't fully formed this thought yet so if it's not completely cogent excuse me on that. But you know one of the things I was trying to think of a lot since our last meeting which is built off of some comments that Dorothy made at our last meeting about us not being, you know, university researchers who are going to who have the time or capacity to do really deep dive research. One of the things I've been thinking about is who's responsible for doing a lot of this. So if we're saying research best practices, whose responsibility is it to actually research those best practices, is it staff, is it this committee or is it the sponsor. And the more I've been thinking the more I think it's the sponsor I think it's the person who's bringing forth a proposal, who is the one who is responsible for doing this and so I guess I'm thinking. I don't know where I haven't fully thought this out that this step to almost it needs to be two steps in a way that the first step is sort of what and who has the sponsor already talked to like what has already been done by the sponsor. What if any stakeholders town staff best practices, do we see that have not been done. That we think need to so if we're using the wage steps bylaw as an example, we could say okay one of the stakeholders would be perhaps organizations working for workers and we know that the sponsors have already talked to the Pioneer Valley worker center right so we could check that off. But then we would say another stakeholder is the Chamber of Commerce and then we'd say oh they haven't talked to them yet. And so that would be something we would give back to them and say okay we want an opinion from the chamber, can you get one. And so again haven't fully thought this out but I think my two thoughts here are one. This is the obligation or the responsibility for research lie and I feel like it lies more with the sponsors then with the members of this committee who are there to review, and then to figuring out first, who have they already talked to, and then the second step is who is missing that we want to tell them to go talk to. So I would respond to that with. I think that you're referring mainly to bylaw proposals that have counselor sponsors, and we're, you know, we have a lot of other things in front of us that don't have sponsors, say, like Lincoln have. In that case, the sponsors the town there's always a sponsor. You're saying that. Well, yeah, I'm not sure how that would work. And if it's a say it's a citizen sponsor like the speed limit issue. I think that that then that was sort of taken by the town council and referred to us anyway, what my point is that we're not always going to have sponsors that are are necessarily able. And I actually disagree with the with with telling the sponsors as they have to do all the work. Because I believe that the sponsors should be able to maintain their position as advocates, and it will have done. And the reason I said whether there's a need to research best practices because usually best practices will already be done by sponsors, at least for bylaw proposals. And so, yes, that if I would, I would have no problem with asking sponsors to provide best practices but as far as all the other information. I don't think that they're responsible for that I think we are responsible for getting feedback from the town because we're we're the entity of the town. And, and we're we should be responsible for figuring out relevant policies plans and goals. So, and I presumably the town will show them to us when we asked for their input. So, I don't know that I can disagree strenuously enough. And so I don't know how much further we can get in this process until we have a majority opinion on this, because we, it, we have a split opinion on this, I send to agree with Evans opinion as stated so far, not with yours. And so it isn't just one way it's what this committee decides is true. I served in town meeting since 1999. We voted down presentations that were not well thought out that people hadn't bothered to shop around to different stakeholders that people hadn't done the research on beyond best practices, or if they were, if they were relatively minor resolutions we could just go with the spirit of it and not worry about the fact that the legwork hadn't been done. I have no idea how you imagine that we have the staffing available to do the research for us to decide what we're going to do. Next, it is the absolute responsibility of the sponsors who want to do something to find out from us what we say we will need for the town council to pass their very good idea. We want their very good idea to pass. We do not want it to fail. I am not responsible as a part time counselor for doing the research that the sponsors should have done. I'm not saying they have to have it all done before they get to us. That's I think part of where we're trying to figure out like at what point, do they decide that they have to do this, but I absolutely disagree with the concept that you just ask the town manager to come in to send in staff some other time to talk about wage theft or to come in to talk about some other time about the surveillance bylaw. That needs to be done in a preliminary fashion before it gets to us, and then we can say, oh, well that's really interesting. And have you talked to these other three people, oh, maybe those three people aren't necessary, but it is not my job to go try and get the town manager to find out more about the surveillance bylaw and other possible policies the town council or select board or town meeting might have passed in the past. That's not actually my job. I consider it to be my job, but George. I think my job is keep an eye on the clock. I have some sympathy with Evan and Alyssa in terms of what we can reasonably expect a part time counselors. But that's a discussion that we may have to have another date in more detail, but right now I'd like us to again focus on ABCD and E, I think Alyssa makes an excellent point that BC and D should be worded what information right that's that's excellent. Are we missing anything here to people see something else that should be added. These seem to be relevant questions that we should be asking in a preliminary fashion, whoever in the end has to get the answers will have to sort out I tend to lean more towards the sponsor than towards the committee. But there are clearly things that the committee will have to do to get answers to at least one or two of these I think. I agree that these five are the touch the core, so that we can then proceed to the next step, or are they not happy with them or do they think something should be added something missing. I can would like to keep our focus on the process and also point out that it's 1115. Yes, thank you George. Yes, I also agree with Alyssa suggestions. Alyssa you have something else to say. So, um, I said this and the conversation took half of what I said, but the other half was that my belief that to might need to be split into two sections which is what information do we have on these things and then what additional information. I think the first step is to take inventory of what information did the sponsor already present to us regarding stakeholder opinions, because maybe they I don't you like when when Mandy Joe and I came forth with the campaign finance by law which would have come to this that existed at that time, you know we had already gone to the town clerk and said, we want your opinion we had already gone to town attorney and said can you render opinion on this so we, if, you know, if we could go back in time we were coming we would have come to this committee with that stuff already. And so I think the first step is to take stock of what information what stakeholders what of these we already have and then the second piece is do you know what do we need additional information from additional stakeholders or something like that. So I guess that's my follow on this. Yeah, um, I would hesitate to divide it that way, just because it lends itself to making sponsors do both, but can do, do we at least have consensus on the questions. Maybe a through a. I think we might have a difference on the other and, you know, my opinion is sort of based on that we want sponsors to an advocate for a proposal should not have to present the negatives. But it's our job, we're the, we are the town services committee, I do understand the issue about not having enough time and staff and so on. And looking at the calendar at the numbers did not add up. So that is an issue that we have to deal with whether whether we can get help or, you know, how we're how we are going to be able to do it but I don't think that it's fair to, to require an advocate to, to seek out negatives, negative opinions. That's just my opinion. That's just in my opinion common sense. Dorothy. I'm still having trouble when you use the word sponsor. Are you talking about things from outside groups like surveillance and wage theft, or are you talking about something that has been referred to us by a council committee, when you say sponsor. Everything on our plate has been referred to us. First of all, okay, so. Right. Although we have our internal issues of process that that has not. So let's take Lincoln Avenue. All right. The spot if the sponsor is the town. Then we'd say we check up on what the town has done on this issue, what studies and reports have been done. Then we would say what questions I do agree with making two into number two into two parts. I agree with Evan on that. Then we would say, okay, we've got a lot of information. We also have some work that has been done by citizens. And we have opinions. Then we would say, what do we need to do yet what other opinions expert advice or whatever do we need to do before we can move forward on this. So the sponsor there is the town. That means when we have to go to the town to ask for this traffic study or this parking study that they mentioned that they were willing to do. Then we're asking them to do it. I'm not going to go out and because I went and did my own study of street parking. It would not be taken seriously. Because only something that is done by somebody who is an expert in the field. I can give you, we had a lot of citizen report. It was not taken that seriously. So it turns out the only thing that is taken seriously is that which is done by experts or people who work for the town. I have no problem asking them to do those things because that's what's going to help get something done. If when you say sponsor, you mean you're thinking of the wage theft thing. I think that if somebody comes in. In other words, things we have certain things that are given to us that are on our plate by virtue of being town counselors. Then there is the other world that wants to bring things to us. I want to take care of what we've been brought to to do as town counselors from other council committees business which has been floating around at our meeting in our town council meetings for a long time before I get too deep into things brought in from other groups. Because I can just see us being diverted from our basic tax. Our basic task is to do the things that have to do with the governance of this town and ours. Our committee is to do with town services and community outreach so town services to me comes first. We've got a lot that we have to do. So I'm just not seeing the problem that you're seeing with asking sponsors since most of it has to do with town departments to do the work because we know they have to do the work in order for us to get a scent to change something or to do something. Okay, George. I think George is probably going to say why don't we wrap this up now. I'll speak for myself. But we have reached the 1122 mark. Again, I do feel like that we've made some progress. There are, we have a series of questions that it sounds like if I'm reading the room right. Most of you feel are important questions that need to be answered. Who will provide those answers is still something maybe we have some disagreement about. But it seems like what I'm hearing is that there is a need for a kind of preliminary discussion presentation where these questions are addressed and answered. And if they're not, if we don't have the answers as Evan pointed out, what do we have? What do we need? Obviously, we're going to have to come back to it. Who's going to make that presentation? People, first of all, again, are they agreed that these are the right kinds of questions that should be being asked? And is this at the right point in the process? And then who's going to make this presentation? I'm not just going to sit all five of us and bounce these around. I think we want someone who will make a presentation answering these questions and then we discuss that with them. And then we decide where to proceed next with the idea that eventually we'll go to a formal presentation where the information has and the questions have been answered the information is presented. And then we move finally to deliberation where then we apply the rubric or rubrics and discuss the merits or dismerits or whatever, and then hopefully then we move to a vote. Our people, again, maybe it's preliminary for that larger question or you satisfied with the general process, but again back just to step two. I'm happy with these questions. Are there the kinds of questions you want answered? And then the question becomes who is going to lead this discussion. Do you expect the chair, each for each and every item to make that preliminary presentation. And then we have our discussion and so forth and we move on. Or are we going to farm this out and say, okay, Ryan Ross Brewer you've got X and you will make this presentation to us at some specific date where you will address issues or questions that we presented here in step two. Are people happy with that? That's my question. And you know, George, that it does say the chair chairs designate or committee member sponsoring the measure. I just need to hear from people whether they're okay with that. I mean, maybe the answer is obvious. Everybody is no problem. So when someone gets this assigned to them, they're not going to have a hissy fit. So if that's okay, fine. Then we move to the other question, which is, are they satisfied? Are we satisfied with these questions and the need to get answers to them before we move on to the next step. I was hearing consensus that people agreed that Alyssa suggested. And I suggest that I just come back with a marked up version of this for our next meeting. And we can just go from there. I'd also, I think I will also send out the calendar and ask you to individually respond as to whether you have thoughts about how we should organize the upcoming agenda items. I just would like to get some of that out as far as who is prioritizing what and when you would like to have things heard. I would like to, I'm going to assume that we had had had the agreement that I just said, and I'll put those into the changes. That's not, we haven't, we haven't accomplished that much, but hopefully we'll move on from there. And also, I would like us to look at the rubric at the next meeting to the CRC rubric and the smart rubric if we could. So I'm going to close this part of the meeting then unless anybody has any final thoughts. Alyssa. I don't think George's question was answered by your very comprehensive answer and other respects which, which as I understood that question was whether or not we expect the chair to make the preliminary presentation or farm it out now I understand that you told us what the printed words but that doesn't mean that we agree with those printed words. And so I would ask that as you're continuing to work on this that my answer to George's question had he asked me point blank is do I expect the chair to make the preliminary presentation or farm it out as you've allowed for in this process I would have said the answer is it depends. And so if you're since you indicated you're going to be making some alterations to this document. If you could also address that issue under what conditions would you think it was not appropriate for the chair to make the most preliminary presentation which might be even more preliminary to what we've already been talking about. What conditions do you think it's appropriate to assign because I'm trying to think through an example of when a an idea arises and you just decide outside of a meeting that someone's going to be assigned to something that the committee hasn't discussed at all yet. And that's why I would tend to go with the idea of the chair presenting the most preliminary presentation. But if there's rationale for not doing it that way if there's a rationale for doing something outside of a posted meeting in terms of an assignment, then that would be worth knowing. You have a language that you think would be good there Alyssa. I will think about it a little more since we haven't had this for very long, I will certainly do that. And I'm open to what people would like there. I mean, I would be glad to make the presentation or if there is someone who has expressed an interest in a particular issue and wants to be that the committee sponsoring it, then they can do it. If it would make more sense for another person to do it, then that would be good. So, if you want to thank me language or something, Alyssa, I will sure try thank you. All right, so I'm going to wrap up this section. And I really want people to think about this next paragraph. Before the next meeting, because that's going to be a big discussion of how we're going to apply the, the different rubrics. All right, so minutes. We have the minutes of the May 4 and the June 1. To approve tonight. And when are people generally ready to approve them already. Dorothy. I'm ready to approve them I read them over they seemed fine. I'm ready to approve the minutes that were submitted. Good. And I think they both are slightly amended. So we need to say as amended as amended. And we would need a second to that motion. All right. Does anybody need time to be reading or anything? Okay. All right, so I moved to approve the. Yes, so minutes for May. Orth 2020. And June 1, 2020. As amended. As each, each of them are amended. Second. Second. All in favor. Alyssa. Stain. Darcy. Yes. Dorothy. Yes. Evan. Yes. George. Yes. Okay. So, um, great. And. Moving on. Uh, to something. Uh, announcements just, I just wanted to mention that, um, our next meeting is on June 29th rather than July 2nd. As it had originally been scheduled. Um, and then we're taking our summer break during July. Um, Not coming back until August 6th. When we're starting our evening hours on Thursday evenings at 630. Um, and. Um, I guess there's some possibility that we might be called into duty for some. Meeting during July, but I haven't heard that. Something like that would happen. It's, it's a long stretch to go without a meeting. But we're going to try. Darcy, I got confused there. And then you said July 6th, but I, the paper says August 6th. I said July 6th. Well, I, that's what I heard. You may not have said it, but that's what I heard. So it is from June 29th to August. Is that correct? Okay. Great. Thank you. Um, and then at our next meeting on the 29th. Um, we're going to have the school building committee. Um, appointments. Um, we are going to have, um, The public. Uh, the public way policy. Memo that's going to be referred probably to us tonight. Um, it's possible that we will get the wage theft issue back. Although. Unclear. What's happening with that. Um, so, um, Um, We, we started with the surveillance technology by law at the last meeting. Um, I am interested to know from the committee whether. It makes sense to contact the, for me to contact the town manager to, um, to set up. The town staff. Um, I'm interested to know from the committee. Um, I'm interested to know what about the surveillance technology by law for either that meeting or the August 6th. Listen. We already have too many items on the 29th. The appointments to the elementary school building committee should go relatively quickly. Although obviously it didn't this morning. The public way policy memo is a substantial process issue that needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. So all of that is in favor of today. Right. So I don't see how we can. I don't see any time sensitivity to the surveillance presentation. By staff, which is, you know, completely disjointed from the actual presentation. By the. Sponsors would be appropriate to schedule at that point. For both a timely and a standpoint and what else is on our agenda. So I did put another general public comment on here. Don't see any. Raised for. Public comments. So, um, and I added. Counselor comments at the end, because at each meeting, I have just had the instinct to ask people if they had any final comments. So I thought I would just put it on the agenda. Um, so if you have any final comments now, it's the time. Um, all right. And there are no items anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance. So, um, we are. The comment and sort of George. Oh. Oh. Was that Lynn? That was Lynn. Yes. Oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry. Uh, Lynn. Dorothy has a comment. Sorry. Okay. I, I don't like to leave so many loose threads and we have an awful lot of them just waving in the wind. The question was who brings up an item first, the chair or whatever. I just want to say that I think that, um, it's probably a good idea if the chair brings it up and that counselors then have the chance in the public meeting to say whether they want to be involved in being the sponsor. I don't think I want to come to a meeting and find out that somebody has been assigned to task. And I didn't even have a chance to, you know, put my name or somebody else's name forward. So I think that might be the most, the smoothest way to go. Hopefully we get some agreement. We just have so many things that are whirling around that it's just very hard to keep track of them. But I thought that made a good process that would be fair to everybody. Thank you. George. I'm sure everyone's going to do this, but I just want to encourage everyone to, um, um, look over the document that Darcy will be sending us a kind of revision of these seven steps and think about it holistically and bring their concerns, questions, disagreements to the next meeting. I'd like us to think big picture. Um, the rubrics, uh, will also be discussed, but I'd like us to try and separate those from the simple question or the larger question of just the steps and whether people are going to be involved. Um, I'm sure you'll do that, but I want to encourage you to do that. And whether you feel the kinds of questions being asked are the right questions. Regardless of who in the end has to answer them. Even regardless of who in the ad in the end has to lead the discussion. We can talk about that next time, but I just ask people to give serious thought to the process and to the seven steps. Um, I'm sure you'll do that, but I want to encourage you to do that. And whether you feel the kinds of questions being asked are the right questions and to the seven steps. Um, and whether they are happy with it or not. And what they'd like to change or whatever. Um, so that's just a plea. Thank you. Um, all right. If there aren't any other comments. Uh, I will adjourn the meeting at 11, 38. Thank you.