 Thank you very much. Welcome to the January 7, 2013 select board meeting. This is the first meeting of the new year. Happy new year to everyone. We have a blessedly light agenda tonight easing us into the new year. So I shouldn't be too long of a meeting. Famous last words. So we'll start with public comment. Is anyone here would like to make public comment? Please come forward and identify yourself for folks. Well, Melissa Perot precinct one. I don't know whether this is the right venue. But the nuisance house by law. General by law needs some adjustments for the next town meeting. And I wanted to know how to work with you on that. Okay. You can be in touch with me outside of a meeting and we can talk about that. I can email you about it tomorrow. Okay. And the and. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. There's no other public comment. Then we will get to some untimed items. We have a continuous or continuing renewal of annual licenses, a couple of licenses that didn't get renewed as of our last meeting. Miss Stein would you like to make that motion? Oh, I move that the select board approve the renewals for licenses as presented on list entitled quote 2013 license renewals in quote dated January 7th 2013 subject to receipt of documentation noted as pending for the calendar year beginning January 1 2013 through December 31 2013. Second for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. And we had an additional change to the revised motion sheet that folks would find on their desks tonight regarding license renewals. The one in yellow, I assume. Yes, I move that the select board approve a correction regarding the hours of operation of new paradise incorporated doing business as paradise of India located at 87 Main Street. Amherst relative to the renewal of their common victual or light and wine. And malt. Surely have the word licenses in there on premise restaurant. Oh, there it is on premise restaurant liquor license from Monday through Saturday's 1130 am to 3pm and 430pm to 1030pm. And Sundays 12 noon to 10pm to Monday through Sunday 1130 am to 1030pm effective one one 2013. Second for the discussion. I'm just noticing that these hours do not require a special permit there within the normal range of hours that regular permit allows. Thank you. And this is a correction pointed out by the holder of the license to have the license that's been renewed be the same days and hours as has been reflected on past licenses for them. So somehow we made an error with their. Well, that's how it was applied for. And this is a correction that they discovered upon receipt of the approved license. Okay, so there's nothing changing with their license. Okay, very well. For the discussion, Miss Brewer, please talk into your mic. I guess I'm just going to thank the office for following up on this because the piece of paper we have on our desk doesn't really seem to reflect with the motion says but that's okay. What do you mean by that? Well, this says correct the error with the following hours 1130 to 1030. Whereas this has the break in time. I don't really understand, but I'm the correction is eliminating the break in time back to one continuous Monday. Okay, great from to make sure. Okay, good. Got it. All right, further discussion on favor say aye. I and that's unanimous. Next up polling location. We need to make this change because this is where warrants and town meeting results get posted as well as where people actually vote and when the actual town meeting warrant gets posted it says and the select word has to approve what the places are that it gets posted at. And for many, many years, North Congregational Church in North Amherst has been one of those places that is no longer called North Congregational Church. So we're not changing the polling location or anything at all. We're just reflecting the fact that that church now has a new name because it's been sold to a new congregation. So that's what this is about. Miss Stein, would you like to make that motion? I move that the select board approve the North Amherst iron church located at 1193 North Pleasant Street as the designated polling place for precinct one as required under Massachusetts general law chapter 54 section 24. Second. Further discussion. Miss prayer. You have a question. Please come forward. I'm going to be the location because there was a conflict with other activities that were going on at the at the Zion church and that we were going to shift maybe to the newsman church. That's not our information from the town clerk. And we had made a we had, we tried that accident. We did that a couple of years ago. This was directly after as a result of this last election. No, this is this is really a housekeeping change so that the election warrants reflect the proper name of the property. There's no intention from the town clerk of the town to change the location. If we did need to change the location, that would be a separate vote entirely. So we would need to post that anyway. But this is this is only to change the address. Miss Brewer. I have said I've perhaps confused the issue by suggesting in the past that I would prefer that we actually moved that polling place to Emmanuel because I know that we could hold two polling places in my opinion in Emmanuel's large area there. But that way we'd have one and three vote in the same location because parking is better because you don't have a steep slope. But that's not something we've actually happened. And so if you have any information like a contact at the Zion church or know somebody who knows there's a conflict or whatever, they could pass that along to the town clerk. As far as I know, as far as we know, it's still a fine polling place. It's not just that she was changing the label. It's that she actually checked with them to make sure it was still a fine polling place. So if some things come up since then, it would be good for them to know the town clerk's office. And then we'll change again if we need to. At this point, we're changing the name of the church. Okay, any further discussion on this. All in favor say aye. Aye, aye. That's unanimous. Okay, make sure we follow up on that. Any other note to follow for the town clerk. Okay. We have Taxi intro for licenses. I move that the select board approve a new taxi chauffeur license for Gary Burnett, Jr. on behalf of Ambassador Taxicab and Transportation Company for the calendar year 2013. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I move that the select board approve a new taxi slash chauffeur license for Benjamin Mita and Ian Dowling on behalf of Celebrity Taxi Company for the calendar year 2013. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I move that the select board approve a new taxi slash chauffeur license for John Renault on behalf of Aaron's Transportation. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Okay. What have we got? We have special liquor license. Special liquor license. Thank you. I move that the select board approve a special wine and malt liquor license for the town of Amherst doing business as Cherry Hill Golf Club on Saturday, February 9th, 2013 from 1 to 7.30 p.m. in the parking lot area of the Cherry Hill Golf Course for Winterfest 2013 Barber Builds Manager. Second. Further discussion? Mr. Hayden? Sounds like a lot of fun. Indeed. That's always a good event. Everyone should have it on their calendars, February 9th. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I have a couple of appointments. Appointments would be great. I move that the select board approve the appointment of Jim Oldham as an at-large member of the Community Preservation Act Committee for a three-year term ending June 30th, 2015. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I move that the select board confirm the town manager's appointment of Diane Amsterdam to the Board of Health for the remainder of the term ending June 30th, 2013. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I should note that she's a physician and therefore very much needed on the Board of Health. I'm glad to have her. Great. Thank you. Okay. Let's see. We have five more minutes to our first timed item. We have some minutes. Did folks get to look through the various minutes we have? I did. And did anyone have any comments on any of them? Billing a couple of polls that we had from some missing meetings. I had some minor corrections. For example, on the minutes of October 15th, I think it would be good to have the article numbers to go with titles of what they're about. We didn't have at that point the numbers for them because that was the meeting before we signed the warrant. Okay. So that can go out. I thought of that as I was editing the draft. Okay. That makes sense. Let's see. Was there anything else? I thought they were mostly very clean. But then I have some really minor but typo type things for the October 22nd one. Insertion of the word the, some cases where there was verbiage that didn't make sense. But it does not change the meaning. So I would say, let's just let me hand these to Mr. Musanti. And that's the only other. Okay. Did anybody else have any comments, edits for the minutes at all? All right. Then Miss Stein would you like to make the motion? Sure. I move that the select board approve the minutes of October 11th, 2012, October 15th, 2012, October 16th, 2012, October 22nd, 2012, and November 3rd, 2012, as amended. Second. For the discussion, Mr. Aden. I need to abstain from voting on two of these. Okay. You can do that for hot. I don't know how to do that. It's at your option. Yes. Yes, abstain. I don't know. Okay. All right. I don't need to, but I wasn't at two of them. Yeah. I wasn't at one of them, but you know what? I'm sure the minutes are good. I know they're good. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. So that was unanimous, right? Without abstention. Okay. And they do well. So can we do anything else? Mr. Heaton, what can you tell us about the Mount Tom power plant letter? Anything to report? Well, I have a lot more. I've had a chance to spend some time with it. And I'm looking forward to bringing it forward to us for an endorsement. I'm just trying to figure out the legal underpinning for taking a study with lots of assumptions and demanding an action on the part of the EPA as a result. Okay. So you will keep us posted then on that. Absolutely. Very good. Let's see. I think that takes care of all of our untimed items and we're not quite to our timed item yet. So I will mention that on Saturday, just as a reminder to the select board, we have a four towns meeting at the middle school library. We hadn't heard anything about that in a while. So I confirmed it with the folks at the schools today to make sure that that was still on and it is. We're now entering that period where we have a bunch of things to do on weekends. I'm not sure why that happens. I don't know if people realize that this whole select board thing, it's like seven days a week. So that is this Saturday. So in case that's not on your calendar, it should be. And also next week is a funny week rather than having a Monday meeting, we have a Wednesday meeting at four o'clock. That is in this room. That's a joint meeting with the finance committee when the town manager presents his budget proposal for FY 14 to us. So a couple of strange upcoming meetings, not strange, strangely scheduled. Okay. Now it's 645 and our 645 item is upgrades to the downtown Wi-Fi system, which has gotten some great coverage lately. We have IT director Chris Pakunas here to talk to us about this. And for folks who are following along at home, there's a very detailed, very excellent press release in the select board's web packet about this. So welcome. Great. Well, first of all, thank you for having me and I appreciate a little bit of time tonight at your meeting. And the first thing quickly that I'll say is that the network, as you know, went live last week and has already had more clients connecting to it in more use than even we expected. As you know, to give you just a quick brief history on the downtown Wi-Fi, it started in 2007. We received a grant through a relationship we had formed with UMass's Information Technology Department that funded us for close to $200,000 worth of money and equipment to deploy a network. And we deployed that network and it was successful in that a lot of people used it. There was a lot of pieces to the system and some of you may know and definitely some people at home and some people that have tried to use the system would know it had a lot of holes. In the downtown area there was many places that didn't work well and then over the years it started to age and we started to have portions of the system failing. And so last year we asked for some money through the Joint Capital Planning Committee to replace that aging system. And we went out and started to look at companies who were developing and offered outdoor Wi-Fi equipment and started testing that stuff. And we're surprised to find that a lot of it wasn't much better than the stuff we were about to replace other than the fact that it was new and wasn't going to fail. Its reach and its speed and the areas in which it would cover wasn't all that much better and it was really expensive. And so we started to experiment a little in-house and we're really surprised about some of the things we found. It ended up finding that it would be better for us to make some of our own stuff and we did that. And John would tell you in many meetings that I met with John on this that I was stressed out about it to say the least. I was disappointed that there wasn't a lot out there made by larger companies in outdoor Wi-Fi. And then we also started looking at what other communities had done at that time. Prior to that not really caring but expecting that somebody would have built a big network somewhere and found that they hadn't. And in Massachusetts there was no big networks that were outdoor Wi-Fi. And I didn't have a lot of people to look to for guidance for larger networks. The city of Boston has their redevelopment authority had put together a somewhat sizable network but nothing in the lengths of a mile. And so we tested and tested and tested and found that the stuff that we had come up with was really working well. And we're especially excited about the fact that it was like 40% less to buy it. So we did end up putting our own stuff together and we started hanging a mound on streetlights. And myself and Assistant Information Technology Director, Sean Hannan, as well as Fred Hartwell from the Public Works Department, we all kind of went out and not only installed them but we're testing and changing things along the way. And today I can tell you that we have a network we should be proud of. Amherst is no question a leader in many ways, in many ways in terms of technology, but in this way we're the top dog in Massachusetts right now. And we have a network that's very fast. It covers very well and is being used now by a lot of people. We've had over 20,000 different devices connect to the network now, which is a lot. So that could be measured in people, but not so much if somebody has more than one device, which many people do. But 20,000 different people using the device and hundreds at any given time using the system. It's faster than most Wi-Fi networks and especially outdoor Wi-Fi networks. And specifically designed the radios to connect to things like handhelds and tablets, which is really the future of people using Wi-Fi. And as many of you know and definitely many people know in general that the cell phone companies are looking to start to monitor less minutes and less number of text messages you send, but really in general your data. How much data are you using? And so I know that one thing that was appealing to John throughout this process was that if people come to downtown Amherst, they can leave their data plan at home. And certainly people that have done studies and experts in economic development will tell you that people will stay longer at places and choose places to go that have Wi-Fi. So for what we've put together and I think what we've done and what we've been able to accomplish, we've gotten a lot of press, but from varying sources. I mean in the technology realm, we've gotten a lot of people looking to talk to us about what we've done from a technology perspective, including government technology magazine and some other tech magazines. But of course, you know, standard media outlets are looking to us as just an example for communities from the public's perspective. So a lot of residents can now connect that couldn't before and a lot of businesses are already using the system that never could. And so we're excited about it. Naturally, I wanted to be able to give you an update on Channel 17 to give the system another plug. And I was invited to do so by John and you guys. So thank you. Thank you very much. Congratulations on really an excellent system. I use it a lot at Black Sheep on Monday mornings. I do office hours there and the difference is incredible. It used to be difficult to connect to. It was, you know, the signal wasn't that strong. Now it's just fantastic and it's just been a very noticeable difference. And it's wonderful the map, the coverage map of how intensely covered the downtown is. It's really, it's something to be proud of. I think it's real gem for Amherst and so thank you very much. Questions or comments from Mr. Perkunis? Mr. Aden. Yeah, I'm curious. It's a little bit different flavor than the governor's push to bring broadband access to western Massachusetts. But I'm wondering if it somehow fits into that bigger plan that we read about every once in a while. I think in some ways it will fit into some of the things he's looking to do. That will definitely help people that want to provide Wi-Fi have a way to get to the internet very fast for sure. The one major downside to Wi-Fi in general is just that the frequencies that you're using for Wi-Fi, and many people don't know this, are like low bad quality when it comes to signal and frequencies. And the result of that, the government lets you use them for anything you want, whether it's Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or there's a lot of stuff to use the signals that Wi-Fi uses. They're free. You don't have to register them. But the result of having the bad quality signals be given out for this reason is that they don't travel far. So meaning to cover a downtown area, you need 35 of these devices where you can do it with one cell phone tower if you see the difference. So this exact technology may end up as a last mile kind of effort from the governor's perspective. But I think what he's doing now is first getting everybody connected. But like I say, maybe as a last mile component possibly. Thank you. I just wanted to echo something you brought up earlier about data plans, et cetera, because that is one of the things that obviously everybody struggles with that's associated with either getting, if they haven't had one before, if they have one now, and how incredibly expensive that turns out to be. And there are, in fact, at least one company I'm aware of where I said, well, you know, I'm my wireless downtown isn't entirely, I'm not sure I want to be able to count on it, but now I feel like I can. And so therefore I can participate in that plan. And that makes a huge difference in people's lives. So it's not just a nice to do. It can actually make, as the quote from Clark House, and as you mentioned, there are people who will be able to get on, who wouldn't have been able to get on otherwise, who couldn't, wouldn't have found it easy to get to the library, et cetera. So thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Wilde. Yeah, I just wanted to congratulate Mr. Bakunas and the town on this achievement. It was really great. But also to say for the benefit of the viewing audience that it was a, you know, it's a triumph of planning and cooperation too. Because remember when Mr. Bakunas came before the Joint Capital Planning Committee, it was very easy for us as ignorant people to say, let's do this and not this, or, you know, do a piecemeal and be penny wise and pound foolish. And both he and Mr. Muzanti made a very strong case economically and above all technologically for replacing the whole system at once. So that's why we, you know, that's why we have this. And then the in-house effort is great too. That's really a model, which we should be proud of. So thank you. Thank you. That's an excellent point. Any other questions and comments from Mr. Bakunas? Mr. Muzanti. Yeah, I just wanted to echo the public thanks, but really back to Chris as well, leading our IT efforts on this and many other areas along with Sean Hannon on this installation. It was another example where good enough is not, wasn't good enough. And we went from a pretty good system for a relatively small town to what we think is the largest and fastest outdoor municipal Wi-Fi system in the state. And you mentioned Fred Hartwell from DPW who has done Yeoman's work on the installations and tweaking of the, inevitable tweaking of the system and the proof is in the use. And it's across many sectors, residential use, visitors, and a growing number of businesses. So it's another reason to, you know, spend time in downtown Amherst and invest and grow your business here as well. So we want to be leaders in this effort and we have the right people and tools in place. Thank you. Other questions or comments? All right. Well, again, thank you so much for all your work on this and thank you for coming in to tell us on the community more about it. Absolutely. Thank you for the time. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Okay, next up we have announcement of FY14 water and sewer rates. So this is something we've been doing the last few years is we announced so that everybody knows what the new water and sewer rates are at our first January meeting because those rates are essentially baked into the town manager's budget that will come out next week. So he already knows about it. He already knows what those rates will be. And so we announced them now so that people can hear them think about them and then we vote on them at our last meeting in January, which is the 28th. But just to get this out there so people are aware of it, we have the recommendation or the information about it before us tonight and we have the memo in our web packet and I will turn it over to Mr. Mousanti to talk about this. Sure. And again, stability and adequacy of our water and sewer systems, one of the fundamental services that the town provides. We have a very well maintained system and very competitive user rates as a result. And so as Ms. O'Keefe said, I'll be coming in with my proposed budget for next year beginning in July. I'll be bringing that in next week. Part of that budget includes water and sewer. And so we want to give notice for rate adjustments, if any, that would be effective in July of this year. I'm recommending on the water rate no change. So we'd have no increase in the water rate. And what I would describe as a modest increase in the sewer rate of 2.9%. We'd stay at $3.40 per 100 cubic feet on water and go from $3.45 to $3.55 per 100 cubic feet for sewer. The effect on the average customer, the average four-person household on the sewer bill would be an annual increase over the entire year of $12. So $1 a month. And I put into the memo how that stacks up based on survey data from other communities. We remain substantially below the state average water and sewer bills and we're substantially below a number of our neighbors on water and sewer, including Hadley and Northampton. And this is using what's now a couple years old survey data, but that's the most recent that we have is from 2010. So even using 2010 figures for comparison to our proposed rates, we're still at a very competitive water and sewer rate. The second half of the memo I explained briefly. There'll be much more detail about the proposed operating and capital budgets next week in my proposal. But remember, no increase in the water rate. We have a water budget that will go up by quite a substantial amount, 9.6%. We've made some adjustments as we do each year in our assumptions about water consumption and one of our key assumptions and everything's on track for this to play out this way. The Commonwealth Honors College residential community at UMass is scheduled to open in the fall. And so that'll be the lion's share of our fiscal year. That in and of itself will generate a substantial amount of water use basically creates the funding stream for most of that increase. We also have some modest capital investments, additional work on water system improvements and the Centennial Water Treatment Plant. On the sewer side, the budget is going up by about 2.9% as are the proposed rates. The most significant item this year is the beginning of debt service payments for the sewer extensions that you've approved into the Harkness Road and Wildflower Drive neighborhoods and some other ongoing capital replacement for sewer lines. Thank you. Questions or comments about the proposed water and sewer rates? Ms. Brewer. I just appreciate the town manager's inclusion of the comparison from the study that they regularly do and it's always nice to have it right here in the report to remind us that, you know, not everything is cheaper in Hadley. Ms. Stein. And probably the rates are higher now because this is from 2010. That's her numbers. So they could be higher in Hadley and Northampton. So our low rates are really impressive. So anyone else? Comments? Okay. So to recap, then the water rate is going to say the same at $3.40 per 100 cubic feet. The sewer rate will go up 2.9% or 10 cents per 100 cubic feet from $3.45 to $3.55. And that would take effect July 1st. So just so people can kind of chew on that. And the select board will plan to vote on that on our January 28th meeting. Very good. Thank you. Okay. Next up. We have the voting positions on Mass Municipal Association resolutions for the annual meeting. The 25th, I believe it is, of January is the annual Mass Municipal Association meeting. I know that Ms. Brewer, Ms. Stein and myself are attending. Mr. Walden. Mr. Hayden. No. Ms. Moussanti will also be there. Mr. Pooler will probably be there. And so this is an annual thing that we do. And in addition to having seminars and lots of networking and sharing information and experiences with our colleagues from other communities, there is also the Municipal Association's business meeting. And the Mass Municipal Association is the major lobbying group for municipalities in Massachusetts at lobbies for us both at the state level and the federal level. And every year they come up with a number of resolutions for us to consider. And we have those resolutions for this year in our packet. They are long. I will summarize them just briefly. But before I do that, Mr. Moussanti, you are on some kind of fiscal policy committee with Congress. Are you related to these resolutions at all? One of them, the partnership, local federal partnership. So it's really preserving federal funding for a host of needs that support local communities, local economies. So affordable housing, CDBG, infrastructure money, water and sewer. Those types of things. Right. So again, these are in our web packet. So folks can read along at home if they want all of the details. So this first one, as Mr. Moussanti said, is about basically asking the federal government to not forget about municipalities and how their cuts at the federal level trickle down to us at the local level as far as needing to make up the difference in many cases. And so to protect those places where municipalities depend on federal funding. Mr. Moussanti mentioned community development block grant. It's money for schools, Title I and IDEA money, as well as safe drinking water, money, et cetera. So presumably since you're part of the fiscal committee, you endorse this recommendation from them? Yes. Okay. Do folks have any questions about that particular resolution? Okay. We might as well just do them all first and then we'll do the vote. Second one is, oh, I'm sorry, that wasn't the first one. Anyway, so the next one we'll talk about then is the transportation finance crisis. We had actually been hoping that we might get information about this from the governor today, but none came out. He's delayed that one week. He'll be presenting an overview of his proposal next Monday, the 14th. So this is to deal with general transportation issues at the local level, like paving our Chapter 90 money, as well as larger things like infrastructure, bridges and dams and things like that. A lot of that money comes from the federal government, goes to the state government, and then comes to municipalities. And this is obviously a very big question at the federal level. It's something that the state has been spending a great deal of effort on this year. We know from our own meetings with the state transportation secretary that some of us have attended, and from hearing from Senator Rosenberg and Representative Story that the transportation funding is a very big priority for the legislature this session. So MMA is looking to have a resolution on that. I would just add that another key component of that effort is related to public transit, including regional transit authorities such as the PVTA, and that will be a fundamental part. And this will be kind of a main event in the legislature over the next three or four months in particular about what the needs are and what's possible in terms of investing in those transportation needs. Thank you. Questions or comments about that one? Okay. So let's see. Another one is the sustainability of OPEB. Right. So OPEB is something we talk about a lot around here. We are starting to address our OPEB issues, but this resolution is specifically talking about, again, to have the state be considering what a very big burden this is on communities to not impose any unfunded mandates on us that are associated with that, and even to give municipalities some flexibility about eligibility requirements, which was something I wasn't really even that aware of. But it's making sure that the state is cognizant of what a burden this is on the local cities and towns and to not do anything to increase that burden. Is there anything else you'd want to say about that one? No. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot about this at the MMA conference in Boston. This is a brand new study commission report that has just come out from the OPEB looking at defining the issue and the problems and looking at options to address that long-term need to fund those benefits. Thank you. Questions or comments about that one? Ms. Brewer and then Ms. Stein. One other thing that they called out in both the resolution and that they discussed in the OPEB report version of the summary of the report that's in the beak, and I haven't actually looked at the report report yet, is they talk about, and as an example in talking about flexibility, is that in, they say, most communities, an employee can work for 10 years for 20 hours a week, be 55 years of age and get with, you know, generally speaking 75% town payment, 25% person payment, health insurance, which of course we all know here that none of us don't want people to have health insurance. We're just not clear on why individual communities are doing that rather than the state and the federal government. So is that a fact in Amherst? Do we fall under that most? Yes, because we're following state law about what makes you eligible for health benefits when you're vested. And so that's addressed in the study commission report, and I'm sure that will be part of the discussion about how that affects those who are not yet vested. That was the issue I was going to raise also because when you think about the fact that someone can work part-time for 10 years and be covered for health insurance for the rest of their lives, you realize what a financial burden that is for the towns. Incredible. Yeah, that was what jumped out at me, too, and I was thinking, who knew? Although I will follow up on that to say it kind of led in sense to something else that has always kind of troubled us at the same group is the fact that some communities select boards and sometimes library trustees and sometimes just random elected positions are eligible for insurance. And that seems like a really good idea in theory given the weird wacky system we have in the United States, but at the same time, in terms of the taxpayer really watching carefully, it just feels wrong sometimes. So I appreciate that flexibility is one of the things that will be talked about in that report. And also there was apparently some disagreement within the committee about how to address that particular issue. So a lot more to come, obviously, on that. But just as we've made lots of, we want to have the ability to make adjustments like we have been able to with the cooperation of our insurance advisory commission. Anything else on that one? Okay. Then the last one is urging a local state and federal partnership to protect the environment. So it's about how, what a leader Massachusetts is in many ways in environmental issues, green efforts. And I actually can't remember what this one is asking for. This one, it's another partnership. It's again about kind of unfunded mandates, respect the work that the cities and towns are doing and not increase the burdens on us. It also talks about drinking water stuff specifically and not reducing funding for that in ways that that would send clean drinking water issues to the municipalities. Am I missing anything key in this? It's basically environmental stuff. Okay. All right. So yeah, that's the environmental one. Questions or comments about that? Mr. Aden. Well, I have a general question. Do we have any sense how representatives feel about these? Have they had a chance to respond to them at all? And one of the things that I would like to be able to do is support them and their efforts to support us, which they have done so nobly. Well, it's an interesting question because we're, the MMA represents us as municipalities very specifically and the legislative, our legislative representatives represent us as a community, but not so much as a municipality. I mean, they do both. But it is to the legislature that the MMA is asking for this. So yeah, it's a good question whether we would, whether we would want to know ahead of time if they supported this or whether we would just want to make sure that they support it once they. Well, even if we don't know whether they're supporting it or not, but whether or not they have, you know, some issues or some things that they would want us to understand. That's a good point. Mr. Moussanti, would you have any feedback about that? I think it's clear from our local representatives, Senator Rosenberg in representative story that in particular on the transportation finance debate, which it really will be a debate because there's not a huge disagreement on what the needs are. It's, you know, how can they be paid for and how do we avoid even greater costs in the future by making those investments in the near term and putting people back to work now. So I think they would find such a resolution on transportation to be helpful in the harder debate, which is how do you pay for all this stuff? I think the same is true on the environmental article. It's a, it's kind of the current variation on a theme that the communities and Mass Municipal Association have been saying for years that it's great to have, you know, very far reaching and environmental standards, but there's a cost that, there's a cost to comply with those and that we need help. It's not just about passing the tough, strict, new environmental regulations. It's helping rate payers and communities and business mall businesses be able to pay for them. So that's the flavor of the resolution. The debate will be in the detail about what's possible as the state grapples with their version of many more needs than there are available dollars. So I'm comfortable, I'm comfortable that this won't be a adversarial or counterproductive step. Yeah, so maybe that's the question. This is going to help. I mean, these are not issues that, that we're somehow being, taking, being mavericks about. I mean, this is real people needing to, you know, really run a town and not only Amherst, but I mean, but he killed 350 of us. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Other questions or comments before we get to the motion? I will note that MMA is always looking to increase participation on these policy committees and, and in every other possible way. It is, you know, they tend to meet in Boston. It's not terribly convenient for us. So we have not participated lately. We do have a rep out here in Western Mass, which is David. What's his name from Chesterfield? Kielson. Thank you. David Kielson from Chesterfield. So if, if we have particular lobbying concerns, we would like MMA to address. And we can either be directly involved as a community through, through their efforts, or we could be communicating that information to Mr. Kielson and others. So it's something for us to keep in mind. Okay. So now we'll have the motion on these. And the way this works is at the annual meeting, they, the chair is authorized to vote. And I actually forgot to look at the motion, which I hope also mentions discretion about amendments. Good. Yeah. So that would also include authorizing a representative to make that vote on our behalf. So that's what this is all about. Okay. Ms. Stein. I move that the select board authorized the chair to vote on behalf of the camera select board at the January 28, 2013 MMA annual meeting in favor or in office in favor to, sorry, they gave us the choice in favor to the proposed resolution calling for a full local federal partnership to protect the United States economy, preserve essential services for citizens, and ensure the fiscal health of the cities and towns of the Commonwealth as presented. Second. Further discussion. Mr. Musin. Yeah, I just wanted to point out there was a typo on the motion sheet. The business meeting itself is happening Saturday, January 26. So that date for each of these should be January 26. Thank you. Still second. And so I actually want to amend it. I'd like to amend them all to say and for the chair to use discretion as needed for any amendments that might be made from the floor because that always happens. Okay. Okay. Okay. Except second. As a minute. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that the chair to use her discretion. I just want to get this since I have to repeat it. Maybe the chair or the representative. No, in this case, it's chair. Chair. To use her discretion for amendments made from the floor. Yeah, as appropriate for amendments. Any amendments made from the floor or any. Amendments. Correct. Between now and. I was going to say she goes to the rest. Yeah. We use our discretion. She's too conscientious. She wouldn't do that. From the floor. Okay. So we have, we have the first one. Okay. It's been moved. Seconded amendment. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. I move that the select board authorized the chair to vote on behalf of the emmerced select board at the January 26th, 2013 MMA annual meeting in favor of the proposed resolution calling for solutions to transportation to the transportation finance crisis crisis as presented and for the chair to use her discretion for any amendments made from the floor. Second. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I move that the select board authorized the chair to vote on behalf of the emmerced select board at the January 26th, 2013 MMA annual meeting in favor of the proposed resolution on the urgent need to ensure sustainability for other post-employment benefit OPEB costs as presented and for the chair to use her discretion for any amendments made from the floor. Second. For the discussion. Mr. Hayden. So I want to point out the rather appropriate use of the word sustainability in this motion. We often see it misused. Thank you. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I move that the select board authorized the chair to vote on behalf of the emmerced select board at the January 26th, 2013 MMA annual meeting in favor of the proposed resolution supporting a local state federal partnership to protect the environment as presented and for the chair to use her discretion for any amendments made from the floor. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Okay. Thank you very much. Next up, town manager's report. Mr. Musanti. Thank you. And I want to spend the first just briefly couple minutes giving you a really a preview of coming events related to downtown parking changes that are under active development. And I'll run through what's under consideration. And what I would like to do is work with the chair and schedule a public hearing as soon as possible, ideally at one of your February meetings at which per our parking bylaw that calls for public notice and propose changes before discussion and enactment or amendment. And I want to run through a number of them. First is related to Gaylord Street, a small connector street on the edge of the downtown. We've had some active discussion with many of the neighbors of that street related to the narrowness of the street, the congested parking and feeling that at least at times there's inability to have adequate parking for those who live in that neighborhood. I've had staff review the petition, meet with a number of the neighbors. I've talked with multiple neighbors. The recommendation that has come forward is to preserve parking on one side of the street, which is the south side of Gaylord. Parking is allowed on the south side presently and restricted on the north side. There's no other restrictions on parking on the south side. It's just open parking. The recommendation is to change that from unrestricted parking to town center permit parking, where they'd be with the same rules that are in place for other town center parking areas like portions of Spring Street or McClellan and some of the other neighborhood streets. That is effective during the daylight hours, Monday through Friday, during the academic year only and then being open parking other times of the year. So I can tell you that there's quite a bit of support for that, but it's certainly not a unanimous view within the neighborhood. I wanted you to be aware of that. You know, really of the concern I've heard it's the preferences for status quo, which is while the street itself has been improved with the paving and some curbing and some sidewalk improvements desired to not introduce a permit system. So there's some ongoing discussion happening on that, but I wanted you to be aware of that. That would be part of the agenda. We're also looking at Spring Street, you know, that we changed to metered spaces on the block of Spring Street from the Spring Street parking lot to Churchill, where there's parking reserved for the Lord Geoffrey Inn on the inside of the street and then what used to be town center permit parking on the north side of Spring Street next to the church was converted to metered parking. We've been studying the utilization of those spaces since the change. It's been substantially less than before. We've had some discussion with the Lord Geoffrey Inn, for example, about reverting those spaces back to town center permit spaces and preserving the meters for, you know, evening and weekend hours, Saturday hours. So that's another one that you will likely see in the recommendations. We've also been looking at Boltwood Garage and have a staff recommendation to increase the number of reserved monthly spaces in the lower level by eight. So that would be a change. There's an ever-present waiting list for those spaces. We're looking at that as well as looking at doing another modest adjustment to the annual fee for the reserved spaces. Also looking at increasing, possibly increasing the number of 15-minute spaces. We have a handful, I think there's four now. There's been, in my discussions with representatives of the business community, merchants, business improvement districts, representatives, some interest in exploring, increasing the number of very short-term, high turnover, 15-minute spaces. And so we're going to be having a brainstorm session with them later this month where we pull out the downtown map and talk about where we might consider those. And so I think you can expect to see that as part of an overall proposal. We're also looking, again, at loading zone spaces. We have a number of loading zone spaces in the downtown, including three spaces on the main street side of Town Hall. And looking at both the utilization of those spaces, the hours, and how many do we need to meet the needs with both the formal and informal loading zones occur in the downtown. So you can expect to see recommendations on that. And at the same time, we're looking at the location and number of taxi stands, and you'll see recommendations on how we might improve that, that the number of taxi stands and where they're located and how that fits into the overall plan. So I think you can see all of those kind of coming in as a package for consideration. I'm meeting with the Business Improvement District Transportation Subcommittee, of which I'm a member. Later this month, we're also planning to talk through this with the Town Commercial Relations Committee before we come back to you with a finalized formal staff recommendation. And then you would post the public hearing and you'd do your thing. Thank you. Questions or comments about this? Just to, and I'm sure you would have done this anyway, but just to be clear that maps and numbers will be very helpful in terms of, for example, I know of one taxi stand. That doesn't mean there aren't plenty other ones. It's just that I don't have any conception as to where those are at this point. And then in terms of the Boltwood garage also, particularly with the lower level, because we do, you know, irregularly get complaints. There's no place to park in those spaces. They're sitting empty. People want to pay for them. We should be very happy about that. But just to give us a sense of, you know, eight more in addition to X we already have is out of how many are actually there. I mean, we all have in our heads an idea of how many are there. Yes. Yeah, we would have visual as well as the numbers. And how the reserve spaces are even structured has been another conceptual discussion about is there some type of hybrid that might make sense so that evening usage, for example, could be increased by some parkers. So we're going to be we're going to be taking a look at that as well. Other questions or comments? Mr. Walden. I mean, I think the idea of a public hearing or forum would be very welcome because I've heard some complaints from residents to, for example, to the east of Spring Street who are concerned that the meeting there was pushing for a public hearing. So I think they'll be very welcome. Thank you. Mr. I'm wondering just how ambitious we might be about having only one hearing for all of these. There's sort of three separate types of parking issues that are tangled in that. And just I don't know maybe I'm going to ask that you might consider how to make it so Stephanie can actually get us out of here before 11 o'clock that night. Well, conspicuously absent from this consideration list is the notion of adjusting the hourly rates. So that will hopefully directly contribute to the length or the shortening of the hearing length. It sounds like a large number here, but it doesn't have to be overly complicated. I think with more detailed maps and numbers and all that, it can be fairly straightforward. Yeah. My concern maybe is that sort of the two biggest chunks is a commercial sort of adjustments that have one group of people who are involved and one group of issues that are involved. Then there's the residential things. Mr. Wall brings up one concept, but there's a whole bunch of others that it's a different group and a different set of issues. I just just want to be sensitive to that. That's all. Make sure that people have a chance. Thank you. It's also a good point though that they get considered together because downtown parking issues are, you know, they're all related. So you turn one dial and it turns all of them. Right. So it's really good to have the bids transportation committee being a group that's really looking at this. Now obviously that's representing more of the business perspective, not the residential perspective, but the town through Mr. Musanti and then of course through our public hearing we'll also be looking at how all that works with the residential component of it because those permits are both for people who work downtown and for people who live downtown, but really kind of seeing what happens when you squeeze the balloon. Where does it end up? It's important to think of those all in the same context. So I think bring them in as a package will be good, but Mr. Hayden makes a good point. So we'll try and be mindful of how out of control that might be. Ms. Brewer. Speaking of adding more things to it. So making it clear in the report memo, however this is formatted to say hourly rates not being considered, you know, at this point, and enforcement hours as well because you know that's something I have a thing about in terms of the machines versus the meters. And so if we're not discussing that at this point, I'll survive somehow, but it would just be nice to be really clear that that's not currently on the menu. And then the other thing I'm not sure where the feedback comes in on this, but I would like some sense that just because we don't necessarily hear about it a lot at this body that the system that's not so much well it's associated with the fact that you have these permits, right? So there are permits for you know, employees and businesses and there are permits for people who live downtown, but then when they have visitors, there are these things. And that came up associated with the Gaylord thing. I'd like to hear that the daily passes thing is working out well or isn't or needs to be tweaked in some area or whatever because I think there aren't people who appreciate that you know there are people that have to deal with this hassle rather than having to you know just have a job. Thank you. Anyone else like to comment on this now in advance of our meeting future? Okay. Very good. Moving right along. Okay. Next. I want a brief update on taxi regulations and licensing update. No. We're not amending the taxi regulations. That was that was so last year. The I had Deborah pulled together as the we've transitioned out of the new rules and the snapshot of how we're doing in terms of how many taxi companies are renewing and how many vehicles are on the road with the new the meter the meter system with properly inspected vehicles and so you do have a late addition to your packet memo to me from Deborah Roussell and the gist of it is it compares that in two thousand twelve we had twelve taxi companies who had a license for summer all of the year using a total of sixty one licensed and inspected vehicles as of today January 7th in two thousand thirteen we have nine companies have received applied for and been approved for renewal of their business license and as of now we have nineteen vehicles compared to sixty one that are either fully inspected or on the midst of being inspected by the police and the inspection services department there's fourteen that have their inspection stickers in hand there's another five awaiting the last couple steps to do that now so that gives you a sense so I guess not I mean that is a pretty big difference now this is a snapshot in time I think it's not unreasonable to expect that we'll have some additional vehicles because the companies in many cases are licensed to have up to more vehicles than are currently on their active list but I wanted to give you that snapshot I'm sure we'll do this periodically and so you can kind of have a sense of how it's this be one way of showing how it's working and Mr. Moussanti and I were noticing this memo before the meeting and Christian cab which we had just approved at our either the first or second December meeting is not on here so we're going to check the status of that that was a license that came before us right at the end of December that was specifically for a two thousand thirteen business license so I'm assuming that it should also be part of this list for a total of thirteen companies but we're checking on that miss Brewer except this list actually only eleven companies on it so that's worth noting as well when you're in a hurry counting is complicated one of the things that makes this this time of year different beyond the fact that it's licensed renewal time of year is because of these two separate processes where one's the weights and measure inspector inspector like the same guy who does the gas stations I presume and then the safety inspections which is so it's adding in a whole new thing we didn't have before which is what we're really happy about so what I'm wondering is in terms of as a customer as a customer if you want to get in a cab and you see there's no meter then you know for sure forget it I don't want to get in this cab but beyond that once they get to the point where everybody's got a meter or something that looks like a meter or that we assume is an approved meter what is because we don't do medallions and we don't make everybody have the exact same kind of labeling I mean we have suggestions but it's not hard and fast it would be helpful I think after we get past this initial point of whether or not there's an actual perimeter in there is what can I look for as a customer where's the little sticker that I look for that says this has been inspected within the past year that this isn't just some junk on the back of the cab bright yellow sticker that's part of the inspection process the police are putting a bright yellow sticker on saying that this is an approved cab I think it's on the back windshield we should put a picture of that on the website we've talked about that we're going to pursue that as kind of a consumer awareness thing exactly and then we could let you mass and Amherst college and everybody now this is what a real cap we've been in conversations with you mass about that so that they can publicize it once the students come back because you know this this was a lot about health and safety issues and and the lack of regulation really leading to some pretty loose activities out there so we thought that the requiring the meter was going to be a way to professionalize the whole fleet and and be a very obvious thing for the passenger to look for if it doesn't have a meter then it's not a legal cabin Amherst so yeah getting more the word out about that is part of the plan so thank you right and we could you know throw that picture down and then get past that along the other question I have about this and I didn't put out my taxi rags that are sitting here and don't know if we know this off the top of our heads but if there there are surely people out there that have cabs that aren't ready yet that are that are running and so what is what's the penalty in terms of I mean the police obviously know there's only nineteen right now that's pretty easy to keep track of but I mean in terms of them looking out there as they're driving around and saying I don't see the yellow sticker or I mean that the rags do support them being able to say hey you're not registered you know what I'm saying it's it's that there's a proactive thing that's written into the way the rags are written so it isn't just complaint driven it's that they can actively notice just like they can notice if your driver's license has a little sticker you have a little inspection thing they can notice hey I don't see that yellow sticker I can pull that cab over et cetera and move on from there because I can't honestly believe that there aren't cabs running that shouldn't be running right now. Well there are no students here right now. Right so that helps a lot. Business is down but um but they have that ability to do that. Sure there's a there's a way to penalize them. Additionally all of the recommendations that come to us to license a company a license a vehicle or a driver license or a driver license all come with the chief of police's recommendation and if this company has if company X is screwing around with unregistered vehicles they are unlikely to get any registered vehicles or get their their driver and company licenses recommended to us so we're hoping we're hoping we got some safeguards going here other questions or comments about the taxi updates. Great. FY 2014 budget preparation update. This will be a five second update. I'm presenting my recommended budget to you in the finance committee a week from Wednesday on the 16th in accompanying that budget will be hopefully a coherent reasoned transmittal letter and then a couple hundred pages of detail on operating in short and long term performance objectives etc accompanying that the other key thing with the budget again comes back to the mass municipal association annual conference in Boston which is January 25th and 6th the governor Governor Patrick is now scheduled to speak at the opening session on Friday morning which directly impacts the timing of the day that I want to get to Boston but he'll be there Friday morning. He is expected to release his budget proposal for the state budget and his recommendations for state aid to cities and towns and school districts on two days prior Wednesday the 23rd. So I think like past MMA conferences I think we can anticipate the governor giving us some kind of big picture summary of what his recommendations are and quite possibly school district and community specific at least for the big items chapter 70 unrestricted aid things like that. So those are a couple big milestones and over the next few weeks. Questions and comments about FY 14. For our budget presentation will we be able to get some pieces of it beforehand? The plan. Even if it's just the blurbs maybe not all the numbers? At minimum the transmittal letter piece with all the summaries and the key initiatives etc. Ideally the whole book but I'm not going to make that ironclad promise. It's hard to do all that just in one hour so. Other questions or comments the upcoming budget presentation all right next next staff and departmental recognitions wanted to underscore you have pointing out we have so many employees who have done great service for the town for many years and at our annual employee holiday party that we have every December we make a point of recognizing employees who have reached particular milestones in this year we recognized 32 different town employees who are reaching a milestone year years of service anywhere between 10 and 35 years of service and there are a number of them and including our police chief Scott Livingstone 35 years and then I wanted to also point out Kenny Isabel Department of Public Works 35 year employee Kenny in December announced that he was retiring effective January 2nd and he was he joined us at the holiday party and it was a very touching moment for his colleagues to give him a really well-deserved standing ovation he's one of the great kind of workhorses for the town and DPW keeping our roads safe and our crews organized etc there are a number of other folks on here with different milestones we have a number of police officers here and they were well represented at this gathering you know we have one of the finest police departments in the state and it's it's directly a result of the caliber of the people we have working on the force I also wanted to mention what we talked about it earlier that was a great most recent of many examples from our IT staff trying to be leaders in everything we do including downtown Wi-Fi we might be the leader in at least in Massachusetts if not a greater area in terms of really being cutting-edge and service-oriented I just wanted to point that out thank you very much and so again for folks who are paying attention at home the employee recognition list is in the select boards packet it's pretty amazing there's a list at the bottom of all the folks who work for the town who have more than 30 years of service this is I believe it's 14 people on that list I believe there are something like 270 or so well counting the different seasonal and part-timers there's about that number there's about a hundred and ninety permanent full-time employees but all the seasonal folks part-timers it's up around 270 so for 14 of those folks to have been here more than 30 years is pretty amazing and when you look at the longevity of so many people these are just the folks who hit the milestones not counting those 14 that have been here more than 30 years but everybody else listed as folks who are this was marking their milestone year that really shows what a fine place to work the town of Amherst is and I think that that's something for the community to be proud of and certainly for the town manager and other staff that that Amherst is a place that people want to to work and make their careers and that is evident from the amount of time that they spend here and we're incredibly fortunate for that so thanks thanks to all for their for their long and continued service to the town and thank you mr. Miss Antie for bringing this to us today questions or comments about the employee recognitions all right great PVTA advisory board update I'm I am continuing to serve as chair it's only been just under a year now 2012 was a very good year very difficult year but we're on the cusp of really having a needed debate at the state level about transportation infrastructure but also public transit and how it's funded so that we can preserve and enhance our public transportation and offer it in a way that's affordable to people to get them keep them out of their cars and get them to work etc or to class the the big event on that is the there'll be a legislative proposal put forward by the governor and then there'll be a very robust legislative debate the speaker and the senate president the governor are in agreement that this is a priority for this coming legislative session and really over the next three or four months the PVTA has been actively involved in that conversation about public transportation we've met with mass DOT secretary rich Davey our PVTA administrator Mary McGinnis has been actively involved on different study committees on the public transportation piece and we are aggressively pushing that any funding new funding or how the funding is allocated out for regional transit needs be very cognizant of the number of passengers being served and you know we have the second largest transit system in the state PVTA serving a large portion of western mass we have well over a million passengers a year just in the town of Amherst so we're very hopeful that whatever proposal comes forward it provides adequate and sustainable funding for public transportation but also recognizes that the different parts of the state are different and we all have needs and public transportation is a very important and and highly used and could be even higher used mode in our part of the state so we're actively working on that and that's what one of the things will be following on the weeks ahead and that really is a much better solution as we continue to struggle at PVTA and elsewhere about how we fund the service that's being provided in an affordable way and I'm hoping that the transportation funding debate and legislation puts us in a position to forestall any you know severe adjustments that would be needed otherwise on things like fare increases or service reductions so it's going to be a very engaging couple of months and one of the most important discussions will have in trying to put that puzzle together for the long term for regional transit questions or comments about PVTA stuff I'll note for folks at home that Mr. Musanti is the select board's representative to the PVTA advisory board so not only has he had to take on this burden as chair like him but the fact that he's going at all he is going instead of us this is a basically a select board seat but we delegated it to the town manager basically because he gets paid and we don't and there's only so much we can do and going to Springfield every month is just a little bit more than most of us can deal with so we appreciate very much his representing Amherst's interests there it actually makes a lot of sense to have him there because he is so much more tied into kind of the finances and the infrastructure etc of the town then and can be much more well versed about that in that group than than any of us could be one comment I learned recently that the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority is going to be accepting on their buses the Boston's Charlie card and Charlie ticket system and I thought wow that's fantastic and so that's neither here nor there I'm just mentioning it so that that's kind of an interesting way again you know people in the eastern part of the state they think east so I'm not sure how that would tie in with anything out here but the idea that there was a you know a transportation card within the within the state was a little bit interesting as the PVTA is rolling out the I think they're calling it the fast break pass which is the you buy a card and you you buy round trips on the card and it's a swipe instead of fumbling for change every time you get on the bus so I don't know I mean that's a good question for me to follow up on whether it's you know it's like the easy pass on the what was the easy pass on the on the mass term pike being accepted I didn't even realize there was gonna be a card out here so that would work for like Amherst to Northampton troops it will during the times a year when there's a fair being charged and they're rolling that out over over the next 12 months so if you're not a student if you don't have student ID there's always a fair between Amherst and Northampton there's a whole phase that I wouldn't pretend to know that the timing of how they're doing it in the different regions but I know in the in the Springfield Holyoke areas where it's a fair based system that that's in the near term interesting thank you other questions or comments for anything associated with the fair based system as you move forward that can be around I bought so much money on my card and now I can use my card as many times as I need to use it as opposed to the way that PVTA used to sell tickets which I really hope they don't anymore which is you have to know that you're going tomorrow or you have to you only have a 30 day period that it's good for well maybe you don't want to take 13 trips this month but next month you want to and so you end up wasting money and blah blah blah it's just it's messy and so if they could go to something that's more like the Charlie card where you just put on your money and then you use it up as you need to anything they can do to move in that direction would certainly make people's lives easier other questions or comments about PVTA okay next recent upcoming we've talked about a couple of important upcoming activities related to budget but I did want to mention an event that a number of us were able to attend on New Year's Day one of the just more touching events that I've been to an Amherst in a long time New Year's Day at two o'clock Human Rights Commission and others organized an event around the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln there were ringing of bells church bells we had a hundred or so people brave bitter cold weather gather on the front steps of town hall Bob Romer read the governor's proclamation that senator Rosenberg had procured and there was a ringing of bells we had the fire department bell there was just a very moving moving celebration of that fundamental freedom and kind of a recognition of how much progress there's been there's still so much more to do but how far we've come thank you that was a lovely event and kudos to the Human Rights Commission and to Deb Bradway staff liaison to that for putting together a very nice event the ringing of the bells was really pretty amazing alright let's see then remember reports oh I'm sorry question this book managers report for future reference one of the reasons I don't like reading the paper beacon is because then it makes me ask more questions but could cancel your subscription yeah I'm thinking that could work so if they won't put it out like they do put it out electronically eventually but at any rate obviously medical marijuana is a much bigger thing in people's minds in terms of and we know that the state has to put out regulations but just in terms of if you could plan to keep us updated on a regular basis as to which things will be board of health things and then which things will be they're talking you know they're talking about some communities having moratoriums bands zoning bylaw changes associated with this I mean it's like huge in terms of all the different possibilities of things that could happen and of course with no regulations in hand who knows what might happen but I'm thinking that even though Amherst of course they're very open-minded into all these things the pressure from our surrounding communities might cause it forces to kind of act sooner rather than later on some of these things so you just put that on the list of things will have to be updated on and then completely randomly also associated with being updated on new state rules permit electronic billboards I have no idea if Amherst permits electronic I mean if we would have a place that this would apply but they talk in here about to allow prospective applicants time to obtain municipal approvals so just to have a sense so that we're not surprised at some point it's like no we know those are forbidden by local bylaw or blah blah blah because apparently the state has changed its mind as to its willingness to have them and so just so that we have some clue as to if this has any impact on us whatsoever or if it's only along 116 or whatever okay anything else question the comments for Mr. Sandy all right member reports liaison and representative reports anyone sir miss Stein I went to the personnel board on December 19th which was ages ago we discussed exit interviews and Debra Radway would conduct them unless somebody would prefer for a member of the personnel board to do so Mr. Musanti was there and it was his birthday which was very exciting but he also was presenting the fact that Dave so Matt was being promoted to assistant town manager which everybody was very interested in and then they set the meeting for the oil employees meeting with the personnel board and I can't tell you the date because it got shifted since we were originally going to do it on a Thursday and I got shifted so I don't have that in my notes I also was at CPAC and that is their usual meeting where they review the proposals and make a list of further questions to the proposals so that they can have a better sense of the projects that are proposed and that information is necessary for their decision-making which as I mentioned it's going to be hard because there's not enough money for all the good proposals that's my report except that I could talk about the flag I wrote to Mr. Moser our wonderful artist who the most recent flag that I have in my book is the one that you have a small copy of on your desk and ask him about it turns out he has some personal issues so he can do one more tweak which he was going to try to do today actually and then he really would like to have us take the ball and do it from there and I've talked to the flag company and they said they can take the flag and put it into the ready format for an extra hundred dollars and I think we'll just have to distribute that amongst the people who buy the flags and raise the cost a little bit unless people have another solution my husband said maybe the slip word would like to divide up hundred dollars and pay for it but at this point anyway that's the current status and I think things should move along now very quickly because he cannot do any more work on it so it's not a matter of waiting for him it's it's a matter of taking the design and going forward and maybe mr. wall will know this is the last design I had in my folder with your stated color preference etc and I know that in order to send it to the flag company we have to go into this PMS chart and match it as best we can which I think is not a big problem but I know there were tweaks to the interior of the shield and that's what I don't know if that's what he's working on right now I got a message today saying he was going to try to do something today yeah really shouldn't be much of anything what you have here is the version that I put together based on the conversations of the Historical Commission design of you board when they approved the flag that the issue was there was some discrepancy between the electronic file that was sent in the printout and we preferred the version that came in the printout from town hall so what I tried to do is to match the colors here and we just been sending back and forth with mr. Moser to make sure that it made sense to him and that all the details were there so nothing has changed since that time what he did was to design the actual wood engravings of the image of the book and the sheaves and we were thinking that he would then integrate the whole thing into one graphic but as you say under the current circumstances it might be easier to pass it along to the flag company right so we just want it really to give him as the artist the right to sign off on our interpretation but we'd all agreed to but it should be ready to go right because I think this is fine you know I'd like the lettering maybe just a slightly brighter yellow but the rest of it I think is super yeah I think that's an artifact of the printout but again that's the kind of thing we want to check with him because he has a sense for those things yeah okay anyway I just thought you'd be interested in the fact that that's the progress and we will be moving forward great thank you very much questions or comments from a stein on any of her reports all right anyone else is on reports mr. Hayden there's three very brief ones the recycling and refuse management committee are meeting this Thursday to put together the final version of the task group I don't know what to call it yet for trying to figure out zero waste the public transportation bicycle committee are working on and have been last meeting we're working on I guess there are three different designs now for the Pine Street repair and they're working through those to try to figure out which one is the best and the public works committee are getting together a presentation to us well I hope it's presentation on their recommendation for sidewalk repairs coming up stay tuned yeah so per that we got a recommendation from by email from public works committee about recommendations for paving and sidewalks going forward mr. Hayden helpfully suggested that when we get to kind of that point I'm talking more about the budget for next year and what paving is gonna look like to have them come in and actually talk to us about the recommendation in particular to let the the community get a better sense of the the rating system what's it called OCI OCI right just stands for what I can't remember something index the something condition index overall condition index which typically applies to the roadways but here's being used to also work with the nearby sidewalks and there's some other considerations that they mix into the pot but yeah great and I know mr. Mecanti's got the transportation study task force working on related items also so so when we get that whole budget when we get to the budget conversation about public works budget and paving and chapter 90 and all that business then then we'll have kind of we'll ask them for a more detailed recommendation and presentation than we typically receive on that so that was a good idea all right anything else mr. Hinn nope thank you questions for mr. Hinn all right mr. Walth I'm sorry is this a question are you looking to make you Mr. Walth not too much just to show there could be historical controversy even I'm not in charge of the Historical Commission as people have seen for the newspaper there's no ongoing whatever Florida public interest discussion regarding the fate of a barn on Lincoln Avenue that was demolished sometime ago and you know not only in the south where I just was but also an Amherst I guess the past isn't dead it's not even passed what happened was that a new property owner acquired this parcel and proposed to demolish a barn and some residents that is a butters and neighbors thought it had historical significance the Historical Commission decided that it did not using the usual rules of the Arizona bylaw residents wanted to challenge the decision of the demolition they decide not to hold a demolition delay hearing the owner went ahead with a demolition even though he had been informed that some residents might want to appeal some of the process or decision there and to make a long story short that is miss O'Keeffe knows because we sat through this very long meeting not long ago though it seems ages ago of the zoning Board of Appeals wanted to refer the issue back to Historical Commission for review so that'll be coming up in February for coming attractions stay tuned I'm sure you'll be hearing more about it moment okay thank you questions or comments from Mr. Walt all right lovely barn fine for them okay miss I will talk fast disability access advisory committee meets tomorrow at Stavros Center at 1115 and the point I want to make associated with that is one I don't go to their meetings and two is that they are working really hard at getting someone from the schools whether it's from the school committee or an employee of the schools to attend many of their meetings so that there is that integration between the town side and the school side so we just keep making progress in that area so something to look forward to LSE Commission based on the recent changes alterations to Community Preservation Act law is wondering if they can say you know now that you're talking more about recreation within CPAC we'd like to make sure that some money really gets set aside for recreation out of CPAC so I suggested they write a memo because I said you know we really like written memos write a memo to CPAC explain to them why you want XY or Z rather than just talking about it at a meeting so they're working on that so you may hear more from them the housing and sheltering committee is going to get their next look at the housing production plan next week Wednesday the 16th Wednesday the 16th is a wonderful day I think I have five meetings that day I will not be going to all of them but that will be one of them that I will be going to and of course all of these are on the town website regional school district planning board will also be meeting on the 16th but more importantly to everyone is you don't this body does not have to go but the people in the community who are interested we are going to hear from two consultants on Saturday February 2nd from 1 to 3 in the afternoon that again will be on the website if isn't already and note that's a afternoon meeting we're hoping to get past everybody's you know Saturday morning stuff and that will be held at the middle school it will be taped by a CTV available for rebroadcasts and streaming but that's where you will hear directly from the consultants that have been hired to talk about the educational and financial implications of regionalization at the elementary level there will then be follow-up meetings in each of the communities in February Amherst is on Wednesday the 13th so it's best to come here directly from the consultants but if you want to talk more about it after then in order to influence the decision going forward then February 13th is your time. The block grant CDBG advisory committee where that stands right now in terms of their activities is they had a meeting since around the time of our last meeting and they decided they would have a hearing on Thursday which is already of course on the website and it is mainly about capital meaning non-social service because they don't actually call it capital but it's non-social service items because we had some proposals but we like you like everything else with capital art is stuff ready to go and so they were looking to see if there might be any more new proposals out and talk about the proposals they already had because they already did have a hearing in the fall but this is an additional hearing they were holding to have to get more information they also informally gave each of the social service agencies who had applied for a certain amount of money back when we thought that would be more money than it's going then it's likely to end up being that if they wanted to alter their proposal so if they wanted to say let's make this program half as big or let's actually not do this program but a different program etc wanted to give them that option so that they with the understanding of our more realistic view of times now and I'm sure we'll hear from the town manager at our next meeting as to what's going to happen with the actual application going forward but the advisory committee is meeting on Thursday at Bank Center this week the 10th at 6.30 p.m. Thank you. Questions or comments from Ms. Brewer. All right. Let's see I think my only liaison report is for safe and healthy neighborhoods working group. It's going well. We meet a lot. We meet tomorrow we meet next Tuesday we meet the Tuesday after that the Tuesday after that is actually the public the public meeting that is the 22nd January 22nd Tuesday at 7 p.m. in this room and that is where whatever we have at that moment and we're going to present to the public how we got here and what what our status is basically at that time. I think that the work that that committee is being asked to do is very ambitious very detail oriented. It's a very good group to be doing it and I am confident we'll have some sort of recommendations in time for town meeting all of the information that that group works with is on the website under the living tab of the on the front page of the website under living if you go down it says safe and healthy neighborhoods kind of scroll down on that page a little bit and and you have all of the packet material it's arranged very similar to how the select board packets are arranged so folks always have access to exactly the same documents that that the members are working with and that's going well so so I will be keeping you informed about that. Questions or comments about that. Okay. Let's see Miss Brewer. Hope a meeting while opting really really quickly. Those of you who didn't see it in the newspaper there was an editorial associated with it as well as a newspaper article about Southampton select board. Basically the gist of it is in my opinion the takeaway is don't go into executive session unless you're really sure you know what you're doing. Okay. I thought the Gazette was a little generous to them say well they could have called up somebody else. Well one assumes they have town council of some kind who you don't it's so frustrating as volunteers you know to to try and figure out the right thing to do but I've seen this happen in other communities as well that hasn't necessarily gotten the press that they have gotten but it's not a good idea to go into executive session period is what I'm trying to tell all our all our committees and boards out there. Avoid it like the plague if you're sure you have to have one talk to town council at least talk to you and talk to your staff liaison about what you should do next because I have headed off a couple of these myself just going to some committee meetings saying oh we can have an executive session to talk about it that wouldn't be no don't do that really bad idea. So remember no executive session and then the other item was also in the in the beacon how nice is the ethics training that everybody has to do every other year now online that was kind of lame last time around because it wasn't very specific to municipal officials. I haven't actually tried to do it which I'm going to test myself on but it has been altered allegedly they've just put out the new version of it so and in fact there are two after there's some sort of presentation and then they're basically two tests one is whether or not you're an employee or one is an appointed official or some kind. I'm not even clear on all the details but it's changed and so one things that happened because of all this ethics information is of course it increased the amount of things that our town clerk has to do. You've seen that recently she's been following up and through the select board office to say you know we appointed you but you never got sworn in and part of the deal is before you get sworn in you have to take this ethics training. So there's this constant follow-up that we didn't used to have to do that town employees are having to do but that also some of your various committee members might be hearing about oh you haven't done that and they'll say oh it looks different it's not like it was before and that's supposed to be for a good reason so hopefully it will be more useful than it was in the past. Thank you very much. Questions or comments from Ms. Burr? Okay chair's report. I think the only relevant thing I have to mention is just a follow-up on the food truck regulations. I told you at the last meeting that I was going to be meeting with folks from the bid and the chamber soon after and I was hoping to have a recommendation for us or a draft a draft of something in January that meeting got postponed so obviously I don't know anything for this meeting whether I have anything for the meeting on the 28th or not remains to be seen. The renewals on the food carts it turned out that three we had four licensed food carts last year only three renewed the hot dog guy did not renew happy hour hot dogs cart so so we have three renewals those renewals all did receive letters with their licenses I might have mentioned this last time that that we're working on new regulations that we expect to implement in late winter or early spring so that remains the the timeline and as I have more information on that I will give it to you. I think that's about everything anybody missing anything else from this meeting that needs to be spoken about now Ms. Brewer. Saturday is the Martin Luther King Junior Breakfast Saturday the 19th so the weekend of Martin Luther King at the middle school and that is that is the one weekend we don't have the farmers market then they're in the middle school cafeteria because they're in the same place so the for the select board has gotten an email also reminding them of the availability of tickets for that but just to let the general public know that it's on the 19th it's on the website and it will mean that the farmers market doesn't taking place that one Saturday. That starts at eight o'clock in the morning with coffee and then food gets served I think starting at eight thirty or nine o'clock and it goes until about noon time and it's not just the community breakfast it's also a big scholarship program and it's really quite nice. Also happening that weekend is on Monday the 21st Martin Luther King Junior's birthday day is on the front steps of Town Hall. The that woman Michelle is her name Brooks Michelle Brooks who was recently on the television program singing she was some kind of finalist she's going to be singing happy birthday on that day on the front steps and that's at did I say what time it is? I can't remember what time it is. Oh gosh. It's either noon or two. I think it's noon but anyway that there will be more information about that on the town website but folks should be looking forward to that so so that should be lovely. Okay so to review we've got a Saturday meeting for all of us who can make it at the middle school this Saturday at nine o'clock in the morning then Wednesday at four o'clock we meet in this room jointly with finance committee for the town manager's budget then the following Saturday is the Martin Luther King breakfast Monday's the happy birthday and then things get more dramatic the following week we go to MMA etc mr. Hayden then I would move to adjourn all right and without objection this meeting adjourns at 8 15 and we will meet here again for a regular meeting on the 28th of January thank you very much