 All right, I did mention to them. That's okay. I just pressed record. Word to you, Terry. All right. I wish you all a great meeting. Thank you so much, Angela. Have a good week. Thanks, you too. Thanks. Okay. Welcome everybody to another. Public art commission meeting. This is the January 17th meeting. I'm going to read our. Fun script that we read the beginning of every meeting. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, then Governor Baker issued an emergency order on March 12th, 2020, allowing public bodies greater flexibility and utilizing technology in the conduct of meetings under the open meeting law. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Act of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so in the following manner by clicking on the Zoom link. This recording is uploaded to the town's YouTube channel promptly after the meeting. No in-person attendance by members of the public is permitted, but every effort is made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. And also, this will be posted to the town's YouTube channel shortly after the meeting. So roll call, I see you all on my screen. So Robert is here and Tom is here and Mikey is here and Lori is here and I am here. Jim could I make it? I'm not sure where Dara is. We could wait a few more minutes to see if she's going to be popping up. If anybody wants to chat about anything else. We don't have a lot of time today, so I do want to jump right into it, but I wanted to give her a few more minutes, just in case. Are we a quorum? Well, we're not going to be voting on anything tonight. So we are a quorum yet, because we have more than four. So if we had to, we could. So we actually are. Lori, everything going OK with you? Haven't seen you for a while. Yes, I'm good. Thanks. Good. No basements flooding and furnaces exploding on you? Oh my goodness. No, thank you. Thank goodness. No, Robert, my heart is broken for you. That is so hard. As I said, it could be a lot worse, fortunately. So was it that your basement flooded and the furnace went out? The furnace went out because the basement flooded. Unfortunately, the water reached to a level that destroyed an electrical panel on the furnace. It happened once before a few years ago, that summer, when there was a lot of rain, I think it was 2021. Right. Anyway. Awful. I mean, that beats my problem right now. I've got a bathroom that I thought was just getting a sink repaired, but now I just don't have a bathroom. It's down to the studs. So surprise, you're getting a bathroom renovation. Woohoo. That's fun. Anyway, so let's get started. Since I don't see Darryl popping up, we'll just kind of jump right into it. I've got my agenda here. Do you all have a copy of the agenda? I can share it in front of me. So if you want to share it, that'd be great. I can do that. All right, now I am sharing desktop one. There we go. Thank you. Can you all see? Yes. Great. OK, so our first order of business is approval of the December minutes. Did you all get a chance to take a look at the minutes? I actually did not either. I've had a really busy week. So let's take a moment or two just to kind of see if there's any glaring errors. If there are, we can approve them with changes. Everything here looks correct. Yeah. All right. Everything looks good to me. Anybody see anything wrong? All right, I'm going to hope somebody will make a motion to pass these minutes. Is there a motion? I make a motion. Or is it seconded? I second. I'll second it. Fantastic. All those in favor of approving the December. I. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you so much. OK, what would gallery next steps? Actually, can you see? You can't see my face, can you? This is this is terrible. Yeah, yeah, we can see your face. You can. OK, all right. So what would gallery is the next thing on the list here? And to be quite honest, there's nothing to say here. I have not gotten back the forms from Dominique. I am going to send her an email letting her know I'll be in town in Boston next week. And if she can get those to me, that'd be great. So I might I'll just let that go for now. Since there's no more information to give you. But instead, I would like to turn it over to our treasurer because I believe he has an update on our balance. So Robert, take it away. I do. I just want to ask on the agenda, there's an item, an update regarding for want of a nail. Is there any information or? Yeah, I'll get I'm going to get to that next. Oh, OK. I just passed right by it by mistake. Yes. So our balance in the account with the town is three thousand six eighty four and twenty eight cents. So three thousand six hundred eighty four dollars, twenty eight cents. I did ask about the five thousand dollars that we were allowed to keep from the NIFA make it public grant. And I learned that it is not in our account. It is being managed by the planning department in a separate account. So I asked the follow up question. What is the process for us? Us being the commission requesting those funds to use for a project that haven't gotten a response yet. OK. So was it your understanding that that money was going to the planning department or did you think it was coming to us or had that subject not been discussed? This subject had not been discussed. And to be quite honest, if the planning if the planning the planners had been able to actually walk this project through to its completion, they would that money would have been appropriately in that in that box. Right. That would that would be appropriate. But the planner had to leave town and they couldn't replace the planner. So it feels like those funds need to be redirected to us. So I think I'm going to reach out to Paul and see what he says. I've asked him before. I'm going to ask Paul again about that and see if we can get that adjustment. Yeah, or at least some sort of earmark for a public art project, given that was the original intent. Yes, I think if we can maybe if we can come up, if we if we through through conversation, come up with a project that we think would be would use these funds that I think then we can ask for those in that way. But that seems to be a little bit down the line. I think I'm going to ask the simple question of Tom to Paul to see where, you know, how hard that would be to access those funds, because I really don't understand this process. It's a little confusing to me. Anybody? The one question I forgot to ask, maybe you can answer. I have we paid in full for the repair of the. What? Yes, yeah, yeah. Camel got I will my understanding he taught he called me and asked me if I could expedite things and I said, well, I can't. But, you know, they'll get this usually takes about two weeks. So I believe that has been paid, but I will get back to you about that. If if you don't have any any record of that, do they like give you any kind of like statement when the. Well, I'm going to ask for more detail. I she answered the question I asked, which was what was the balance? And so clearly I need to ask for more. You have to ask the specific questions. I think it should be a payment out of five hundred dollars to Camel. So it looks great. I'm really, really pleased that he did that. And I'm also would love to do more collaborations with Camel. He's a really, really great guy and very talented. So that's something I'd like to think about for the future. Anyway, can I ask a question? If we go back to the. Oh, did it come off? The boat would think what? I just want to circle back. The artist submitted, then kind of disappeared when we met her demands. And well, there was money put aside for that that we were going to access. But then we couldn't. So was there was that followed up? And I'm just not sure where we are. So we were granted a fifteen hundred dollar grant from the Amherst Cultural Council for paying for that project. I don't actually know if money changes hands in that transaction. I believe it's just kind of a year. You're you know, you're given fifteen hundred dollars. Let us know when you need it kind of situation. We didn't use those funds. I told Amherst Cultural Council that our project fell through. So my understanding is that we just don't get those funds. Right. Right. So they they're not added or subtracted. They just they just don't exist is how that usually works out. OK, and the artist has just kind of gone. The artist is ghosting us. Yes. Whatever, you know, I think she. I mean, there is we didn't know what we were doing. When we first got that project together, we didn't really have a contract that was something that we could even use in this scenario. We were also new at this, that we didn't know what we were doing. You know, it's it's it's no surprise that we had lots of missteps. I do take some of that fault, you know, for myself. I still want to reach out to her and see if I can make something happen to get these shadow boxes back. So that's I'm going to try to do that. And then we're going to have talks in the future about doing this right and putting out a call for art the right way and having the contracts prepared in advance and have the DPW ready and on board right away to get the signage done. All those things that we didn't really know we needed to do will be prepared with a little seasoning. I think we're going to come together a lot better. So I look forward to kind of getting into that in the spring. And Tom and I talked about that, of just kind of reigniting this project. I look forward to that. We don't have funds, but we didn't adjust the contract, though, to make it more in line with what she had requested in terms of, you know, periodic payments, etc. I thought we did everything, everything she asked for. I made happen through negotiation with the town and we had to wait for the town lawyer to talk to to get back to Paul. He meets to the town lawyer once a week. So there was a lot of time in between those conversations and he couldn't get it done every week. You know, it took a long time to renew to review and finalize the contract. So the things I'm finding move kind of slowly and amourst. And I'm not used to that. I used to kind of faster turnaround, but that seems to be the way things are. So we didn't get our act together. We should have had the contract ready before we even had the artist. But we were new. None of us knew what we were doing. It was kind of, you know, thrown at us and we were all struggling. So we know better now. We have a good contract now that we can use for the for the project going forward. And what do you have any idea of why she, you know, it's odd that she hasn't responded. I really, I really have no idea. So what I think happened is that she, for reasons I don't know, lost her housing here in Amherst, and I think she had to return to her parents who live in Cape Cod, which is a really long way away. And I think there were some financial challenges that she was facing. And so I think she probably just cut her losses and ran because the drive back out here to bring us everything back would also be expensive and difficult if you're having financial challenges. So I kind of see that she was having some some some challenges. So I'm going to be forgiving and, you know, let her off the hook. Do we have correct contact information for her? I have her email address and she hasn't responded to my emails. I have a PO box that I can send things. But again, it's not a physical address. So I can send a piece of mail and I can email and I even have her phone number and I've also texted her. So there's all the the ways I've tried to communicate with her. She has not responded. So so that's where we are kind of kind of been ghosted. So but I'm going to see this as a learning experience and move on. But she has been what? And let me just be clear. So she has the actual boxes, though, that go to the. She has four. There's one piece of art installed in the window on the other four she has. So if we need to remake those, is that a what are they? They're they're black boxes made out of wood that are custom made for the for the spaces. It's something we could ask DPW to create. But I'd love to get them back instead, because I really don't want the expense, you know. OK, they're wood boxes. Yeah, they're just they're like they're just basic wood boxes made out of wood just to fit right in the window. They slide in and you can put a piece of art in it. So OK, it could be reconstructed. It's not. Yeah. And any other questions about bullwood? Terry, I can't remember. So we didn't or did we make an installment payment to her? We did not know we did not get to that point because she did not get to the point of signing the contract. She started ghosting us before signing the contract. So we actually have a piece of her art that I would like to return to her. And I'm going to ask if I can make that negotiation. Here's your lovely art. Can we please get our stuff back? So that's going to be my conversation. We can meet mid state somewhere for I'll be in Boston next week. So I thought I would offer to, you know, it's a lot closer than than Amherst. So I thought maybe I can make that happen. So we'll see what she says if she if she replies to me, I will let you know. OK, let's move on. That's a back track to for what of a nail. Update. OK. I wish Jim and Derek were here because they are the ones who had the challenges with that. OK, I spoke with Gigi Barnhill of the Amherst Historical Society. She was one of the ones we wanted to contact to make sure this was OK with Mikey's help. I reached out to her and she said that they improve the sculpture. So I said, OK, and I tried to bring up the question of what about these artifacts? As you said, that's really not us. That's a historical that's a historic commission. So, Mikey, I think Mikey is going to follow up with the Historic Commission. I don't know if you have done that yet. Not yet. We're waiting on another meeting. The biggest problem. So the one thing I did talk to the woman and she's not using the artist is not using any of the original horseshoes. No, she's not. Those are going in the library. Yeah, right horseshoes from a local stable that. Right, right. But so that I haven't talked to the Commission yet about it, but there are some red flags with the Historical Society. So the issue that and this is why we need to talk to the Commission is objects that are part of the town should not be taken by individual people. That's what I talked to Gigi about. She didn't seem concerned, which was I was I was wondering about. Well, she did later. Ah, I see. OK, in our meeting, she said, and what we've talked about is objects. You know, if there's a dig, objects are given to the Historic Commission. They're not into an individual home. So interesting. I know a lot of people have given positive thoughts to this whole thing, but I just think there are some issues to it. Right, right. Totally. It's really interesting when the construction went on and this this construction firm just kind of tossed these these horses around and she's there and said, hey, can I have those? And they said, sure. That seems like a strange thing going on with the Amherst construction. There should be some more oversight, right? About, right, absolutely. So in the past, when they when they built the the Bultwood garage, everything that was taken out of that garage came to the Historical Society. Every every yard. What just seems like the town of Amherst kind of dropped the ball when they were doing the construction. It's not the town of Amherst. It's the library in North Amherst. They dropped the ball. OK, so to have a private person go in and take the objects. Yeah, it's not the way you do things. No, I didn't think so. And so I know Gigi doesn't want to get in the middle of it. It's more towards the Historic Commission. They're ruling, but it's it's a sticky situation. Yeah, OK, just say the least. Those are one of us. My horse shoes would have would be her proposal is that the horseshoes that were found there would be exhibited in the library. Right, but she wants credit for it all, right? I think she just wants to build a statue. I don't know about credit, maybe I'm not really sure. I have to look back. Hold on, I have that called up here somewhere. Um, let's see. So it's it's about a blacksmith shop, and it should be about the people that worked at the blacksmith shop, the farms that they worked on. That's what I said. Those people were. I know she loves horses. Right. Can we go back up to the top of that again? Yep. Yep. Right. Yeah, no, just down a little. There you go. Um, OK, so she's gifting the sculpture. Yes, right. But she wants she wants us. What does she want from us? She just wants public art to approve the project. My only concern is that the the stuff that she's taken out of the ground is really historic commission. So that is something that the historical commission needs to kind of rule on and get back to us so that we can pass it on, right? I'm sure that she would be happy to return those to the town. And I think that I think in the long run, what needs to be happened with when objects are dug up is we we need to come up with maybe the Historic Commission and the Historical Society, a policy that might be good. That's something that's on my radar. Tom and I were talking about that. And I'm also talking Angela Mills and I are going to be working on more policy and process documents for for public art because we don't have anything. And right. And it's it's we've experienced the dysfunction of the structure of this commission. I can historical documents on the commission. Tom's done a deep dive into the history. This isn't the first time that there's been public art projects that have dropped or have been public art has been ignored over. And because the reason is that we just don't have a policy. We don't have a process, right? So we need one here. So this is something that I'd like to turn some attention to this year. And I've got Angela working on it. We do have the Electrify Amherst Project is something that actually does follow a process because you have to get the approvals and design board. So it could be kind of a template for what we use going forward. So I'm going to be working with Angela on that. And anybody else who wants to be a part of that process, let me know. OK. At the end of this, my hope is to, of course, leave this commission with with some policies and processes in place so that when we have things like this come along, we can we know how to follow it through from beginning to end. Right. So one of my questions on this on this exhibit was why didn't they come to us in the beginning? Because there isn't a process. Yeah, they went to Amherst Cultural Council and they got an MCC grant. But at that point, why didn't somebody say, hey, you should talk to public art? And it's really because of the dysfunction of this of this whole process and the invisibility of public art. And there's a reason for it, because, you know, we have we have been ineffectual in the past. So I want to fix that. And that's why for one of a nail didn't come to us, too. But that's my guess. I don't have any. I don't have any. I don't know. I can't read into the past. So that's my assumption. OK, Robert. I think at a meeting last year, probably we started to talk about some planning and to your point process and you know, even going so far as to agree on it. And accept the definition of public art and kind of. Shaping the mission so that if a project like this is presented, we have some kind of. criteria, you know, with which to evaluate its appropriateness. I mean, that. This seems obviously like a very personal project for for this person. Yes. But the question is whether it would. Whether it would fit whatever framework we we create to. You know, be obviously. Somewhat broad way. I think we want as inclusive as possible. But again, I think the finding terms more and I know that. I just remembered. I can't remember if it was the last meeting, but you know, the subject of the strategic planning process came up again. And I just remember Dara said something like, you know. I'm paraphrasing her, but something to the effect of, you know, we just have to do our work, our homework, you know, as I have I think we do, if possible, you know, carve out some time maybe every meeting to start the process. It obviously is a big, a big lift, as they say. But I think I think some of the dysfunction, as you described, some of the feeling like we're not really making progress feels like it's because we don't necessarily have direct. I don't think I don't think we necessarily know where we're going. And I don't, you know, we know that there are structures in the town that make it difficult as well. It's a little bit of a disjointed infrastructure, but. Anyway, so I would just advocate for. Making time. Advocate for. Making time. At each meeting to try to at least start to chip away at the bigger issues. That's that is the plan, Robert. Thank you for bringing that up. Where where are we on this? Are we is she waiting for something from us at this point? So let me finish what I was going to the rest of what I've got here. Real quick. Thank you. Petra, who is the head of branch services at North Amherst Library approves it and thinks it's a lovely way to commemorate the history of the location I talked to panel young and Jennifer moistened from the Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. They did not seem to have any opinion at all. And they were also kind of unaware of the project. And they had not as of December 7th heard from Catherine Striker, as I had asked her to to reach out to them. So that's what I have. That's the rest of the information I've got. I've also reached out to Paul Bochleman to get a sense of what town hall is thinking and where they where they are on their thoughts on the project as well and also to find out what at this point, what the role of public art is in this whole process for this particular project. And Paul is incredibly busy and would like to talk to me, but does not have time. So he's going to get back to me as soon as he can. So I'm waiting for that conversation. So that's where that kind of stands right there. So that's why there's really not much else to say until I hear back from Paul. All we can do is kind of talk about it, you know, the progress that we've we've where we've come so far and who's approved it and who hasn't and we don't know what to do going forward. This this project came up when we didn't have a process and that's unfortunate. But, you know, we can't we can't invent the wheel to make this thing to make this thing work to make the the gears turn. So all I can do is wait to hear from Paul and then we'll get back together and talk about it a little more. And in the meantime, Catherine has not reached out to me. I don't even know if it's necessary to have our approval. That's what I'm waiting to hear from Paul. Well, except that it talks about once I have the approval from the Public Art Commission and the Council of Members. So she wants approval so that once you talk to Paul, let me know and auger the Commission. I will at that point, actually go to the Commission. Anyways, if you don't mind, Mikey, because I would like to get their input and we'll have we'll have that and we'll have what Paul has to say. And then when we get together in February or we might need to call another meeting before then we'll see about it then when we have more data. Is that a good plan? Yeah, I just want to note two two points that I'm holding and bringing forward from past discussions about this project. I think one of two of the concerns I have that I think are relevant to the town and how we represent. One is the that I think Dara brought up in terms of kind of the safety, you know, aspect of this sculpture and wherever it's located and who is responsible for making sure that it is you know, not only safely installed, but remains kind of there and is is taken care of as needed. So let me address that real quick. And then you can move on to your second point, if you don't mind. So the legal representatives and Amherst are responsible for making those decisions and raising those concerns and also any kind of insurance that would be necessary for the sculptor to erect the sculpture would also be addressed by the town lawyer. It's not in our charter to be concerned about the legal legality of that situation. That is something that the town would be responsible for. We're not expected to have a lawyer in our we just we happen to have one. But we're not expected to to be able to to speak to that. That is not in our charter. So that's your point. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. For clarifying that. Sure. What was your second point, though? Um, so I think then what to what Robert was saying, then, you know, what is our responsibility and that we can discuss at a later time, but obviously to, you know, weigh in on the artistic, you know, merit of it and does it fit in with whatever our, you know, definition as of public art and, you know, requirements from this commission for what we are expected, you know, what the expectations are. So that's for a later time, but OK. Well, yeah, we'll we'll we'll bring this back. We'll circle back to this when we have a little more information. OK. Tom, do you want to say something? Yes. You know, it it seems to me. From just the way this whole thing has flowed, but also from the wording she has right here on the web page where she says, once I have approvals on the public art commission and the town of Amherst, I will, et cetera, et cetera. I get the feeling that at some point she may have asked, OK, do I have the go ahead and was told, well, gee, have you talked to public art? Yes. And that was that was only as soon as she even knew we existed. So she came to us. So she probably thinks we are the last hurdle to clear on this. The town. Well, what does the town know? Who's the town? You know, we think of Paul. He may be kind of stuck where we are, which is with without a process. How does he know when is the appropriate time to say, OK, you've checked all the boxes. Right. And this is a go. So I think I think as you as you've said, Terry, checking in with Paul is is is the vital next step. Oh, yeah. On this. I've, you know, I started out being, you know, pretty casual about this. Oh, sounds like a good idea. But I'm now squarely in the camp that, wow, there's so many things wrong here. And if we if we let this go by, I don't want to make things sound too dire, but. You know, if don't never waste a good crisis. This is a good time for us to sort out, you know, as we said, to sort out all the things that we've turned up, right, including as you and I discussed last week, Terry, even if we had a flow diagram on a piece of paper that we called sort of the the roadmap to getting your public art project approved, right, that would have things like, you know, if there's anything to do with history, you need to go and talk to the historical. Yes, and the DEI. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and if it's going to be a physical object somewhere in the town, well, then you've got to get with public works. Right. So, you know, we could we have all that on one page. And then maybe maybe your last step in that is then after all this, you come to the public art commission. And we will make our decision. Yeah. And in there somewhere is also the design board because they also need to. I haven't named every everybody. Yeah. But even if we were to say we've checked all the boxes, I think that could be part of the steps that say no, we don't even know. So well, that's why I said flow diagram because there'll be different paths through it. Depending on the nature of what you're doing. If you just want to donate a painting. That's one thing. If you want to build a 50 story structure in the middle of you know, the town common, well, there'll be a few more that you got to talk to. Right. Last question for you, Terry, when you when you spoke with the historical society. And when you spoke with the North Amherst. Library. Had they heard of the project before or were you. Were they just discovering it because you brought it up. So the North. Amherst library. I guess knew about it. They didn't seem to be. They have a lot of information about it. But Petra says that she thought it was cool. And. It didn't seem. They didn't seem to be. Decision makers. You know what I mean? Yeah. She's the head of the library, but I think that this was something that was maybe something the Jones library approved of. And so they did. They did ask me, you know, as a. To like, make sure that they were in approval of this. And that's what I, that's what I went to go check on. As far as historical society now. Gigi had no idea that this existed. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So anything else on this for now, or do we want to table this? And we will talk more about this when we have more information. I'd say table. Okay. Table. Let's move along. Okay. Town Hall gallery plans. Black History Month is on. We are going to be proceeding with our plans to have a quote. And I'm going to read this whole thing. A quote selects local African American history exhibits on display at the beginning of February 1st. We have an assistant with a project who's completed 11 panels. And they're expecting to produce 20 in total. The IT department, I guess of Amherst is going to help with a large scale printing. And we have plans to hang the pains on the 30th and the 31st. Yeah. I'll get you. I know you, I knew you'd have something to say. Yeah. So I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. Angela Mills said that we might be able to help with the hanging. And this is all coming from Pamela. Sorry. She said we would also love it if the commission could attend our opening and provide refreshments. So that's the only information I have so far from Pamela. About this project, but she said, I'll get more information to you soon. And they're meeting again next week. So. Yeah, I'm planning to go to that meeting and. Has some questions to present to them. So. With that, please let me know what information we need to find. And I will bring that to her. Have they looked at this space? I will ask. Because I don't know if there's enough space for 20 panels. Okay. I think there's enough. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because I think there's enough for 17 panels. Sizes. Yeah. Okay. Was she. Is she talking. My recollection is she was talking about. Works being displayed at the, at the library. Right. Some would be at the library. Right. Some would be at the library was my understanding. And some would be at town hall and some would be at Amherst college. But it might be that she's having sculpture at one and some panels at another and some panels with us. That's what I have to find out. It took her a week to get back to me when I asked this question. So. I'm, I'm just going to send her an email. Following up after talking to you with our questions. And then I'll meet. I'm hoping to meet with her next week. She's going to have another meeting with, I guess, all of the people who are involved. So I'm going to bring some questions to her. So I'm going to say, have you looked at the space? There might not be space for 20 here. Maybe 17. Right. No sculpture. No sculpture. Nothing in 3d. Only things hanging on the wall. Okay. Okay. As for getting somebody there. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Okay. As for getting somebody there, the 30th and the 31st to help. When Jim's is coming down. Okay. So it would have to be the 31st. Right. 31st is the, is the earliest. Right. Okay. I can be there to help. If anybody else can. I'll be there. Great. Okay. And then we also heard the next hour is going in for March. I know. For the 28th. We'll have it down on the 28th. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Like, wait, the 28th. It's early, but that's, you know, February. So who's putting up this exhibit? Um, this is, um, I, I really don't know the name of the organization. I know that ancestral bridges. Yes. I think it's part of it and I need to kind of find out. They, they have a gallery space in Amherst. Yeah. And, um, two years ago, they did an exhibit in the, um, Amherst historical society. That was the beginning of the museum or the collecting of objects. So yes, they did a large display in Amherst. Historical. I'm very excited that we're going to be a part of that. Um, I really hope that, um, this will be a collaboration. Um, that I hope will be something that we do more often. Right. Um, So we're going to be providing refreshments and attending the opening. I'm going to find out when that is. I don't know yet. My assumption is the first, but I will have to find out from her. When is the opening and I'll ask her what kind of refreshments. Right. Um, it's usually on a Friday that we do it. Okay. Okay. Well, we'll have to find out what day. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. Yeah. If she has a day in mind, we'll have to kind of probably play loose with that. Right. Um, any other questions? No, no. Okay. So I'll have to get those answers and then we'll talk again. Um, either actually, I think we might have to have a meeting before February 1st so that we can. Make sure we are on the same page. Okay. We've already agreed to this. So I'm not, this isn't anything we need to vote on. This is just the details. So this is already something that's in the works. Um, if you have any other directives or questions you want me to ask, you can send them to me and email. Let me know. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm really excited about that. I have a question about, um, does anybody have any artists in mind after April? We need to hear back from the, I have. I've talked to, uh, what is her first name? I'm waiting to hear back. I'm waiting to hear back from a, an artist. Okay. I'll, I'll get in contact with her again and see if I can get her. To respond. Okay. Mikey is, is the next, is the person whose exhibit starts. In, um, March, March. Is she running two months? March and April. Yes. March and April. They usually do. Yeah. We need somebody for a May, for a May 1st. Right. Right. And have you received any inquiries through our submission on the town website? No. And Angela would let us know if we had gotten any too. She's really all over that. I also hear that the. Our very own Mikey cutting has a exhibition exhibit coming up and a. An opening, you know, Saturday. Saturday. Hello. Yep. Yep. Hello. Anybody has, uh, can, can pop in on, on Pelham public library on Saturday. I'm not sure I can make it. I've got to work. I've got to work that day, but I'm so excited for you. Very exciting. Well, it's going to be up for the rest of January and all of February. Okay. You can see, um, a hanging system that does not work. Uh-huh. That'll be good for us. We'll take a look at that. That's very good. We never want this hanging system. Our hanging system in the town hall is 10 times better. Fantastic. Well, I'm glad to hear that at least. Well, but I look forward to seeing your exhibit. I've seen your stuff at the mill. I think you've got, you've got beautiful stuff. Thank you. I, um, my sister's artworks in the, going in the auction at, um, UMass. Oh. I just delivered two, two of her paintings to that. Very exciting. And that's the auction for the fine arts. Um, auction. Okay. Nice. Well, congratulations. Thanks. Very exciting. Um, okay. Um, I am going to, where are we? We're on cherry port. We are on cherry port. Okay. My chair report. Tom and I will be meeting with Paul Bochum and the co-chairs for the Amherst cultural council on January 24th. Uh, we're going to be having a conversation about merging our organizations. I expect this to be a constructive back and forth sharing of ideas. Uh, to that end, I'd love to hear from you. Any directives or questions you'd like to pose in this process. If you have any. Tom. Yeah. Um, I've been doing some. Some research on how other towns. Organize themselves. For the. Kind of the two. Areas that we're dealing with here. One is. Cultural events. And the other is public art. And there's a big. Overload. Um, Cultural events. And the other is public art. There's a big overlap between the two potential overlap and real overlap. But, um, As I've looked around at other. Uh, towns and cities in the U S, you know, by their websites. Um, almost all. I, what I found is, is that. The towns typically have one organization. That covers everything that we cover. In two organizations. Right. And so that, uh, That I think is kind of a, uh, A fundamental. That we can bring to this conversation. We can also point to. Um, Areas of duplication. So for example. Our. Chartering statement. Um, Says that we will. Seek funds. To promote public art. And of course. Cultural council was all about. Seeking funds. Uh, they. As a. A local. Branch of the Massachusetts. You know, the state cultural council. They've got, you know, some. They've got some of the, Some of the. Um, That piece of the work. But, um, They also have the latitude. To seek other funding. So I think that's one. Point on which we can. Open some conversation to see. How do we rationalize that? And. Um, how. Should the town go about. Having an active, but well coordinated. Um, That means of seeking additional funding beyond that. Of cultural council. Right. Another, another thing that I'm, that we found. You know, I found in just looking at the, uh, the webs, the town websites. Is that the cultural council. Uh, Has. Probably the best. Establish relationship. With the business improvement district. I imagine some other departments of the town do too. But that's, that's something that they. They seem to have in, in their court. Um, they also have a relationship with Amherst media. And seem to be serving as a kind of broker. For other town departments that need. Documentation. Um, or, you know, other things that Amherst media might provide. But that's all fine. But it sort of raises the question, we want to be very careful about this, but it raises the question of, well. Just what is their charter. And is there. Anything more than just what's on their website. Which basically says, Hey, we hand out. Massachusetts cultural. Um, Uh, you know. Money. Um, Doesn't say a whole lot else. And so I think. You know, they kind of fill a certain space. What the boundaries of it are not real clear. Um, but as we start, as we look at, you know, from our own seat at the things that we see being needed. Um, you know. Um, And the basic point there would be. You know, uh, ideally you would think that after Catherine. Got a grant from them. Last fall. Year ago fall. That they would have said, okay. You now have to go talk to public art. Yep. Now, maybe they can other towns. That's how that works. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so I think we've got. Some, uh, We've got some overlap. We have some unclarity. About focus and extent. Of, uh, activity expected. And I think, and this is to a very good point. You've made it several times, Terry. We really need to figure out what we can bring to the table. Right. What we can. So it doesn't look like we're just trying to. Uh, take things. Or point fingers. Um, we want, we want to be able to say, okay, here's what. Here's what we want to be to step up to do. Right. And a easy point there. Is that our chartering. Statement. You know, mentions. Um, DEI. And so that's, that's something. You know, we can talk, we can think about making some program for how do we do more than just have that be a check. Check box. Uh, as, as we, as we look ahead. Yeah. Cause we're supposed to promote it. It's supposed to be something active about that. About, about how we go, how we go about that. And there are other, there are other, uh, phrases in our charter that we should probably discuss in this group. And one of those that comes to mind is. To be working with. Both the town, but also with private developers. To. Look for opportunities to include public art. In projects that come up. Um, unless I've missed it, we don't have a plan for that either. But it's something we can, we can say, you know, it's in our charter. And we as the new gang here at APAC, you know, intend to intend to. You know, build some, some program. And to do these things. So I think that's, that's a way in which we can say. You know, we're not just complaining. That we don't have any space to play. Yeah. That's all good points. I will say, um, for my perspective. Um, One of the reasons that I'm excited about this opportunity is the proximity to the artists and organizations who are making art. Making events happen. Um, I, I, I want to be part of that. That pipeline. I want to help corral that I want to help lead that. I want to make meaningful art. You know, we've got artists who want to say things about climate change. And those things go hand in hand. And I would love to be able to shepherd some of those projects through. Um, and make them a reality and also to build an artist network in town. So that. Um, artists can learn from each other and, and have a community and, and hopefully prospects, you know, like. You know, I think that's a big part of what we do. And I think that's a big part of what we do. Those are all things that I want to do as, you know, as public art is to, is to help there be more art in town and more meaningful art. So that's my hope. But, um, yeah, thank you so much for that, that deep dive, Tom. That's really helpful. And I hope the rest of us can kind of, you know, take a look at this and look at what opportunities could come up here. And also. What we leverage, you know, what we bring to the table. And I think it does give us a lot of, um, Uh, it grants us a lot of opportunity to increase, you know, the diversity of artists in our town and their works. And I think that's a, that's, that's really important. So, um, so yeah, in the, in the coming. Weeks. Yeah. After I mean, I'm having this conversation next week, regardless Tom and I will be in this meeting. But if you have some thoughts to turn toward what this could help, you know, how we can help them and how they can help us. I'd love to hear. I'd love to hear from you. Um, Um, Yeah, I think that was all I had on this subject. Anybody want to add anything else? Uh, Terry, um, going back to Bob's, uh, Suggestion to Robert suggestion. Um, I'd be willing to commit to, um, I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. Um, I think that's a good idea for the agenda of our next regular meeting. To have some materials prepared in advance. You know, I mentioned that, uh, That Matt, I won't call it a flow chart. Forgive me, people. I used to work in it. Okay. Um, that we'll call it a roadmap. Okay. You know, I'll produce a preliminary sketch of that for you to. Uh, I'll be there at the meeting. And I can also pull together some fundamentals on definitions. And things to help us get to bite off just enough. To really get a good. Conversation opened. I think that's true. And I hope to bring some stuff that Angela and I are going to work on as well. There's a lot of good, historical documents about what we've done in the past, what public art projects we have done and what that process looked like. So we have. Have an idea of that as well. So I think those things will inform our next steps. Um, Anything anybody wants to add. I do have an announcement at the end here. No. Okay. Well, then in. Well, okay. Invite public comment. there. So, I'm going to move on to other business not reasonably anticipated. I have to announce, I'm excited to announce that our application for Electrify Amherst was approved and we have been awarded a grant of 850 by the Amherst Cultural Council. So, this is a project that has already been something that we have done before. So, there is a roadmap and Angela is going to share with me what that roadmap looks like. But that'll be interesting too from a learning perspective because we have to get the DPW in here and the design committee. There's a lot of different things that will working parts that come together. So, I'm going to be talking with her about it and I will bring that to our next conversation. Because 850 will pay for putting up a couple of cool utility boxes and I think we'll probably add some from our own funds as well. That seems appropriate. We will give a couple of artists some space, a canvas of a transformer box to make beautiful art in our town. I want those everywhere. I love those. So, that's very exciting and if you have any locations that you have noticed that cry out for beautiful Amherst art then let me know and we will talk about that at our next meeting. So, that's exciting. Yay! Thank you Amherst Cultural Council. Yay! So, the other thing that was in the news today, the other thing that was in the news today is Gabrielle Gould is leaving the bed. Oh, I'm not shocked. She was very, very, very, very worked, very overworked, very, very... That's big news. That's hard for us because we had a good relationship going. But she is going to continue working on one aspect. She isn't going to leave the drake. Okay. She's going to continue with that. But she and somebody else did some work and started some other... Not the bid, but something else. She's not leaving the town and she has something else that she's working on. She's also on the head of the Amherst Cultural District. So, that's also a lot of work that she does. That's all volunteer work. So, it might be there that she's putting her efforts into. She's been a part of that too. So, yeah. Yeah. There's an article in the Amherst Indy today. Thank you for sharing that. I'll have to take a look at it. Because she was one of the people that we had talked to about doing arts night. She was very excited about that. So, we'll have to talk to her, whoever's taking over that position, and see if we can still make that happen. Right. The other thing is hoping Feathers is leaving Amherst. I didn't know that. That's all stuff I did not know. Thank you for sharing. Sure. Would you link that either in the chat or send me an email with that link to the news item inside. I don't think I'd get that. Amherst Indy? Sure. Thank you. All that is all I've got on my list. I think that we've had a lot of good conversation tonight. And I thank you so much for your attention. And thank you always for being part of this with me. I appreciate it. And I hope you all have a good couple of weeks. If we have to meet, we probably need to meet before February if we can make it happen. I will send out a doodle with some dates to have a short meeting to talk about Black History Month so we can get some details together so we can all participate. Okay. Anything else, anybody? All right. I make a motion to end this meeting at 7.01 p.m. Can I get a second? All right. Meeting adjourned. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you, Terry. See you later. Thanks. Bye.