 I don't see Lauren yet Paul and Pamela Paul and Pamela may or may not make it today. Yeah, no, I know. Lauren yet. Okay, well, that's going to be interesting. Okay, let's go. Yes. Yeah, we're recording yes. Seeing in the presence of a quorum I'm going to call the April 12 2023 governance organization and legislation committee to order. This is a virtual meeting and pursuant to state law which extends the remote meeting provisions pertaining to the open meeting law. This meeting will be held by a remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by a zoom or by telephone. No in person attendance of members or the public will be permitted permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. So to make welcome Lauren. We can all hear and be heard I'm going to call on each member of the committee to state whether they're present. I'm Hannah key. Present. Jennifer top present. And Pat Angelos I'm present and I welcome Lauren Goldberg. I'm sorry Lynn Griezmer present. Thank you. Thank you. Lauren. Good morning everyone. Good morning you sent us a load of trouble. I try to stay out of trouble and I get into it. Well we're very interested in getting any update from you about the public dialogue, dialogue issue and the civility issue. And then I'm sure we have questions for you. If that feels comfortable to for you to begin also, we may have a couple of questions about the proposed flag policy, which I think you as well. Thank you. Thank you and I'm happy to answer if there is an answer. I just want to say one thing I'm getting ready for a medical procedure, and I may have to drift away from the meeting momentary off and on through the meeting I don't know. But Jennifer will take over then as chair. Thank you. Oh, sorry you guys probably don't want to hear my dogs barking. So what happens when you work from not the office. Well, good morning everyone and thank you for inviting me. I have had many opportunities over the past few weeks to discuss this exciting Baron case which I just call Southboro because it's easier. We, we haven't moved much from what our initial kind of thoughts were on this, and that we don't think that exercise by a chair of any meeting of some authority as to conduct of the meeting necessarily is inconsistent with Southboro. However, what I think Southboro has really put a fine point on is that when, when, when we're looking at orderly conduct, it's not just unpleasant conduct is more than that it's disruptive conduct. If the meeting itself is being disrupted because a person won't stop talking when they're asked to stop talking or they won't. You know back up if they're asked to back up if they're in someone's personal space or they, you know they continue to scream after they've been seated. Those are the types of things that will still be able to be regulated. In addition, you know I think there can be some agreement as to. I don't want to say civility because, oh excuse me you guys. The symphony over here. All right. There are, there are still kind of opportunities to, to regulate discourse, but there has to be a significant amount of attention, given to that, that regulation not being content based. I think in the Southboro case what we learned was, you know, I think when I read that I thought wow that person has despicable behavior and I would have told any chair that they could, you know as that person to stop talking and sit down. But the difference it seems from that judges perspective was that the meeting was pause, and then the chair was yelling at the individual. And so the judge got not only some sort of, you know, feeling about the official action, but then also saw, you know that that content of discussion was what was upsetting him. So, you know, again I think some of the kind of guardrails that we've used in the past to assist in running an orderly meeting have definitely moved. And for that reason, you know, I think people need to be more thoughtful as, as a committee as, you know, as a, as a multiple member body about how those limits are going to be imposed in a way that that are content neutral. So, you know, what is content neutral, everyone can speak for three minutes. What is content neutral, nobody can speak again after they've spoken the first time on a particular topic. It's content neutral to say we're going to have 30 minutes of discussion about, you know, 30 minutes of public input on matter x, y and z. So, you know, if you're a person who ever speaking at the 30 minute mark to say, hey, you know, we said 30 minutes we're at 30 minutes thank you for your thoughts you know please feel free to come again next week. So, those, those types of, of controls are appropriate time, place and manner. So how long someone can speak when they can speak, and whether, you know whether we have the ability to say, we're having this meeting under the open meeting law which, by the way, I'm sure people notice that the southboard decision does not mention the open meeting law at all, which many of us found to be perplexing because in fact, the open meeting law, you know, imbues the chair with some authority to run the meeting but neither here nor there for this. I think this focus on what's disruptive behavior, not following the essentially the rules that will apply to everyone, and understanding that making exceptions to the rules so she, you know, Joan is speaking longer than three minutes but we really want to hear what she has to say she's just let's extend the time versus, you know, John, not liking what we have to say and being critical etc and we say, oh, you're three minutes is up you're done now. So, those are those are the types of things that people are going to have to watch out for as chairs. Lauren that sounds like I'm just thinking about that three minute example that you shared. It seems that whoever is chairing the meeting really does need to be consistent. So no matter how insightful or how ranting someone is three minutes is three minutes and that often feels problematic to chairs because they feel like they're doing something. Yes, but I think the issue there for me is consistency. And, you know, so then the public gets really used to that time limit. Absolutely. And I think, you know, I think that's the actual takeaway is that what we kind of see as facilitating an interesting and thoughtful dialogue is bound to lead to, you know, decisions made based upon content. Yeah, because we're much more likely to allow a person or to encourage a person who's calm and, you know, providing, as I said insightful and thoughtful comments even if we don't agree with that. Versus somebody who's really worked up and angry and even if they have legitimate things to say you know we're kind of focused on that on that part of it. So yes, I think as a chair to say these are the rules for this meeting, and these are the rules that will apply throughout the meeting. We're going to have public input, you know, from this time to this time. Everybody can speak once no one can speak for more than three minutes and when time is up. It's up and we're moving on and it's not personal I want to tell everyone right now. It's not about you. It's me, you know, we need to move on I need to be consistent here. Another thing I was wondering and then I want to open it to other counselors but peaceable. How do we define and should it be defined in our rules. Um, so it's really funny because when I read your kind of summary of questions I was like, these are all the, these are all the points these are all the things that are unsettled. We don't really know what peaceable means. But again, I think making threats kind of moving around the room in a way that's menacing. You know, essentially, acting in a manner which can cause a reasonable person to be worried about their safety or the safety of others, but just being mad and gesticulating and saying them not just things is not the equivalent to being non peaceable. Before we move to the next question, can we just confirm that Michelle can hear and be heard she joined a minute ago. Michelle. Yes, my apologies my computer is rebooting so I'll be rejoining when that happens, but I'm on my phone right now. Thank you. Are there questions from either Michelle or Mandy or Jennifer or Lynn. Yeah, I appreciate the peaceable question because that's a lot. So some of my other questions were, you know, I think in our current rules we have residents of Amherst may get get preference over non residents. If we do stuff on zoom. How do we. How do we regulate that in a manner that you don't recognize someone and then maybe cut them off after they've stated where they live and could you then cut them off after they've stated where they live based on the, the rules so that's question number one, And also regarding the civility issues. Can we still regulate sort of decorum for participants in meetings outside of the public comment period. So amongst not just counselors themselves but say amongst staff that are participating or other committees that have been invited into our meetings for you know discussions and all so or, or can we not regulate civility at all. No Mandy Joe let's get to the right to the heart of it right let's not like be around the edges there. Alright, so in terms of what civility, what decorum issues can be regulated again I think to the extent that it's dealing with the conduct of the meeting only and the rules are the same to everyone. Probably a level of regulation that can be applied so for example, we're not going to talk over each other, people aren't going to talk until they're recognized by the chair. When, you know when another person is when you don't have the floor, you can't speak. Those are the types of things that have nothing to do with content. It has to do with time place in manner. So, you know we've been working with a lot of moderators during because it's town meeting season. And a lot of what we've kind of focused on is to say, you know, I have a job here to run a meeting. And my job is for this meeting to run efficiently and effectively. So I'm going to impose some rules that are intended to make that happen. And it doesn't matter what your position is or you know how you approach this or you know whether I agree with you or I don't. So these are the rules that are going to apply. And so, yes, I think you can regulate the quorum, as long as it's not directed at someone's or doesn't have the inadvertent, you know result of restricting the content that restricting them based on the content of what they're saying. You know, should you rush and change your rules right now and define peace of all and things like that. I don't think so. I don't think we know enough yet about how this is going to work and I don't know. Did you guys see the ACLU letter on this topic. After Southboro is that a yes or no, yes, we saw it. No, we didn't. Okay, I'm going to send it along to you because thank you. In some ways, you know, they're saying, this really isn't changing the status quo very much. It's, it's just making, making clear that you can't essentially treat someone differently because of the content of their speech that's always been the rule. It's just that decorum and content, kind of, you know, the edges blur around those things. Again, I think there is an ability to regulate decorum, it just has to be done in a neutral time place and content manner. Thank you place in a manner. Yeah, restrictions yet. John, I'm sorry, I missed it. I know I only answered the second one. What was the first question? The first one was about regulation of potentially who speaks based on where they live or some other or where they work or, you know, right now I think our rules say we give preference to residents of Amherst. On Zoom meeting, can you, if when we ask them to state their name and where they live and they say Hadley, can a person then say, well, no, you can't speak right now. Or once you've recognized them, can you even enforce that since on Zoom, you, you don't have that list sort of that indicates residents. I think that's, that's another good question. I think, you know, it is kind of time and place and manner, like to say, we're going to, we're going to allow residents to speak first we have a limited time here. And, you know, we want to hear from everyone, but if there isn't time, you know, we'd encourage the non residents to send an email or call or contact us in some other way. I do think that, again, back to kind of the the efficiency of the meeting, what you're looking for is to conduct a meeting that's reasonably efficient and effective. If you want to kind of push an envelope and layer on other other restrictions or other criteria. That's going to be, you know, something that we see being tested as we move forward. So I do think that because, you know, town government is for the residents and voters of the town that there is an ability to say, Yeah, we're going to give preference but as you're pointing out, Andy Joe, it's not that easy when you're recognizing people on zoom. So, you know, it may be that that's the, that that's the, I don't know, whatever the aspirational goal, but that, you know, if someone is recognized and there aren't a ton about their comments up that, you know, the chair says something like, you know, this isn't an exception, or we're going to go ahead here because we've already recognized that person. But just remember, the next time someone who's not a resident starts spewing unhappy and in polite comments, you're going to have to let them speak to so again I think it's really thinking about how as a chair. As a committee, there's going to be kind of a consistent approach to, to all of these issues. So, for example, if, if you say, there's no, you know, we're only going to take input during the public portion of the meeting. Maybe it's on the agenda from nine to 930. And after that this is, you know, time for that for the board for the committee to discuss and deliberate. Well, I think that's fine you don't have to recognize anyone after that timeframe. But the issue becomes that someone has something that they think is valuable, and you can't let them provide that information and so I'd stress at that point, there's other ways to be in touch with us. So, you know, we have limited time to do this, and we have a business that we need to get to. So I think it's constantly bringing it back to, what is your role as the chair, what is the meeting about, and understanding that kind of once you draw the line, that is the line and any veering from it could be troublesome or, you know, potentially viewed as, as content based. Jennifer and then Lynn. So, would you agree that like our policy that we have now for public comment, like is complies with the ruling at Southboro. It sounds like what Southboro is really saying is not real it's saying several things but if you're chairing a meeting and a public comment let's say is insulting to someone on the council. Personally, you know it's your instinct to maybe intervene and that you cannot, you cannot do that. You have to bite your tongue, but that if we were like to keep our policy the way we have it, which is we don't have a limit what we limit to three minutes, the we don't have a limit on the number of people who can speak or, you know, we don't say we limited to 30 minutes that that you know we could keep that in place. Because it seems also in our rules that the presiding officer does have a lot of leeway, they can limit comments to one minute that they have a lot of leeway to decide in a particular meeting how they want to handle it. Yeah, so that's I just want to ask what we have now in place complies with Southboro. And so we wouldn't have to change anything if we didn't choose to have civility in our rules so that has to change. So I would say that it's worth looking at your policy but again I think it may be too soon to kind of get a real feel for the way this is going to play out in, you know, in municipalities across the state and to the extent that yes that you have something about civility civility is clearly not a word that we're going to be using so we can talk about efficiency of meetings we can talk about time place and manner restrictions that have nothing to do with content. We can talk about orderly meetings and by orderly I mean we're going to have this half hour for public comment, we're going to go on to, you know, conduct our meeting. At the end of that 30 minutes that's it and we're moving forward. We can tell, you know, staff or persons that are attending the meeting that, you know, they can't just jump in if that's what we want to do. And we can certainly, you know, do things a little differently if we want to by saying, you know, we're going to do this 30 minutes here but every four weeks we're going to do a public listening session, or something of that nature to allow additional opportunities for people to provide public input, but not at a meeting that's scheduled to undertake other business something like that. Or not do that, or not. We're fighting about that. And Pat, oh, I didn't know. I would just add one more thing which is, you know, whenever there are, and all of my open meeting law trainings that I've given, including the ones in Amherst, I basically say, try not. It's spring. Thank goodness. We say try not to go back and forth with the public input because you're much more inclined to be defensive or angry or, you know, disturbed, or, you know, quick and I think, Jennifer, as you just said, like you kind of that's a natural way to respond. And so by by kind of having that internal rule, you know, do you we're not going to respond here to the extent possible. There is a much higher likelihood that the discussion and the cutting off of people are the encouraging people to speak doesn't become content based. And if you think about it, I mean, the council and every committee of the council. It's really, there's, there's a job to be done. And however, the chair, the vice chair has put together that agenda is what that job is for that night. So it, you know, although I know it may feel funny to not encourage everyone to kind of be as as involved as they might want to. But there's a good non, you know, non content based reason for that. And that does allow, you know, it does allow the committee to do its work without getting derailed by, you know, the topic of the day or the, you know, the, you know, hot button issue. Lynn. Can you hear me. Yes. Hi, Lauren. And thank you and thanks committee members for asking your question. I just want to clarify, not because I'm looking for change, but I want to clarify a couple things. First of all, public comment is not required. That is 100% correct. It is not required. The open meeting law does not guarantee any person the right to participate in the meeting. The only thing it does is guarantee the person the right to be able to hear what's going on at the meeting. So, correct. There's no open, there's no public speak period required by the open meeting law. The charter has a has a requirement for public comment at regular meeting. Yes. I just want to be clear about the table. And again, I'm not trying to cut off public comment. I know the average can be in the audience. And I do not want to be misinterpreted here. There is nothing in the open meeting law that says we have to go only 30 minutes to go as long as we want, or we could shorten it if we want. That's correct. Yep, your charter imposes a very general requirement that there be a period at each meeting of public body and it does not set limitations on how that period is regulated or conducted. So, there is one exception in the charter and that's when we call a special meeting of the body. And at that point, you do not have to have public comment. Okay, I just wanted to be clear that there's a difference between regular town council meetings and special town council meetings, even though at the town town town town council meetings can have public comment, but according to our charter, you're not required. Okay. So, and the other thing you keep saying is, you know, not speak again. And again, I don't know of anything in our rules at this time that says you may only speak once during public comment or once on a topic. Correct. And I'm not insinuating and I guess I should watch my words as well I'm not insinuating that there's a right way to handle this. I'm just trying to kind of make make you all aware of the types of limitations that wouldn't be content base so that would be time place in manner. Lynn, there is a rule that thank you the number of public comments it's one per person per comment period. That's general rules. Thank you. Thank you because we just had a public comment period recently where at least two people spoke twice and so basically I could have applied to the wall. Yes. Okay, and then my final question and I just want to mention to the rest of the of the committee that I have a hard stop it. It's not 1020 because of another issue I'm doing. So, I just so I really get the issue of being calling. Okay, and we've had it happen in Amherst. And, you know, it's not been pleasant, but our way of dealing with it has been to just let it happen and not do anything. Because I'm hearing your advice. Somebody wants to call somebody on the council or the cold council or whatever, some fairly uncomplementary name that maybe we don't agree with but the reality is we can't stop it. And it is best for us not to comment about it. Yes. Okay. I think the issue that would be really helpful for me and I noticed that North Hampton has done this is to come up with an additional statement as we move into public comment that is reflective of what is our value versus legally what we can do or not do. And I may be looking for some advice on that. Okay. Yep. I understand that point. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. Mandy. Yeah, thank you. One question about overall time limits. You've mentioned that we can do that Jennifer has said but we don't have to and I recognize that my question is, if our rules don't or if at the beginning of a meeting we don't say 15 minutes 30 minutes an hour. That's a good number right if we don't say we're going to stop this at an hour say, and we have. I guess the question is, can we stop it before everyone who has raised their hand has spoken, if we don't have a limit in the rules or at the beginning of a meeting. Is there a way to content neutrally? Could a counselor make a motion after three hours of public comment say and say, you know, we really need to move on I move to close public comment period, or does that possibility have to be written into the rules somehow. If we're making a meeting by meeting call, if it's not in the rules and not announced at the beginning is, is a precarious place to draw a line, because do we think it's more or less likely that we're going to say we've had enough of this. I mean, in the nicest ways but you know if the meeting is unpleasant versus if everybody's, you know, kind of singing kumbaya so my, my kind of arms length advice and without reaching any value proposition is that it's better to have a rule in place so that the council and its many committees are insulated from a civil rights challenge. And that's, that's really what comes down to. And perhaps Jennifer when I was saying like maybe everyone, you know, four weeks you'll do something a little different. That would also be okay to say, you know, at, at these three meetings, you know, we're not going to, we're going to do a limited event of whatever it is a half an hour, but at meeting for, we are going to, you know, allow a full hour, something like that so that we're able to demonstrate it's not that we're not interested in what people have to say or that we don't want to hear from them. It's really related to the business of the council and what or it subcommittees and what has to be accomplished. But there's still another way to access the council, whether it's that kind of extended period or email or requesting an agenda item, something like that. Oh, hi. Anyway, yeah. Okay, so I was going to say something but I'll let Athena go first and then I'll say. No, please go ahead I was just waiting till members had a chance to ask questions and then I had a couple additional questions. So I remember, I think it was actually before I was on the council that it was, there was a lot of public comment and, you know, public comment and be going on for a while and then Lynn said and I thought this really worked. Okay, I'm going to, you know, she gave like maybe two or three minutes and said, anyone who wants to speak who hasn't spoken. And this was when we were still in COVID so everybody was remote no one was allowed in town hall. She said, she gave it like a two minute time frame and said raise your hand, you know, get in the queue. And then after an hour or more public comment, and I will take everyone whose hands raised in the next two minutes, but not after that and that seemed like a good way for dealing with that particular meeting. You know, instead of saying we're living it to 30 minutes or half hour will do something every four weeks that you could do it on a minute by minute basis, and that was very fair because everyone had fair warning. They were given enough time to raise their hand and then you couldn't raise your hand after that. Okay, right. I think in a vacuum that's fine I think the problem is, you know, again, what, what's going into the judgment that this has been going on long enough, and what's going into the decision of saying, All right, now at this point we're going to have to wrap things up. You know, I do believe that there are, you know, there are implications for trying to be courteous as a council to the people that want to participate. Again, it's, you know, the person that's kind of autocratic about it and says, Oh, we've reached the 30 minute mark everyone stop talking let's move on. They're much less likely to run into a content issue because they have a very particular. They have a very particular, you know, set of rules that they're using versus. Okay, we've been listening to this, you know, people praising X, Y or Z for all this time. And that's really nice but we want to move on does anyone else want to speak. Well that's one thing but to say, you know, this has been going on too long. You know, we've heard from all the people here that we've been hearing the same thing from every person. You know, unless anyone has something new to say and raises their hand in the next few minutes we're done. So, again, I think it, it's more of. You have one set of rules it's easier to follow. And perhaps there is a good way to say, you know, we'll allow a vote of the council to extend the time or something like that. But again, are we more or less likely to extend the time based on what we're hearing than based on, you know, the business of the council and some in some ways having the rule, even though it may seem less inviting to public is more protective of, you know, the built them the meetings business and of the body in general. So what could have maybe an hour public, you know, you could have in your rules a longer public comment so it doesn't feel like you're likely to be cutting people off before everyone's spoken. Certainly. Thank you. Well, a couple quick questions to add. So you talked about the time and manner of public comment but we often, I think, even the, the council and committee agendas include public comment on matters within the council's jurisdiction or on matters within the committee's jurisdiction is that limiting the content of public comment in a way that's going to be problematic. This is one of those things that the ACLU basically said they see that as an appropriate, as an appropriate type of limitation and so I think, you know, we have that kind of backup to to rely on so you know, who's going to change these rules, somebody who feels they were mistreated, and you know, somebody who can get the support of a, of a broader group so if the ACLU is saying hey you can limit these kinds of discussions to, or this kind of input to what the council or committee has jurisdiction over, I think that's fair and it's not limiting positive or negative comments it's saying, we have a, we have a job to do here. The council only has so much authority, or the committee, and so we're happy to hear from you on those matters. Now, that being the case. The tough part is to ensure that you don't make exceptions. If you're the chair during those discussions because let's say someone dogs. I think that someone that someone, you know says, I'm really upset because my street hasn't been paved and I keep asking for it to be paved and the dpw won't call me back and I call the town manager's office and there's no response the only thing there that could be in the jurisdiction of the council is the quote unquote town manager is not a response. So, you know, for you, for you to then kind of veer and have a whole discussion about how streets are prioritized and the program and this and that that you all don't set. You can see that you're kind of opening a door to the next time someone wants to come up and talk about other things that are not squarely within the jurisdiction of the committee. So to repeat back to you what you said to make sure this is the case, if we allow one speaker to speak on a topic outside the jurisdiction of the town council at a meeting, the door is open for any other speaker at that meeting to talk about whatever they like that the case. Yes, and luckily at future meetings as well, because, again, we've set a precedent. Yes, yes. So if we think somebody's completely against something and we say, Oh, you know tonight isn't the night we're not doing that today. Now we've shut them down because of what we think they're going to say, and not because of the rules that we have in place. One more question. We do written public comment there's a form that folks can fill out online that automatically distributes to council members and then we post it. Does this apply to written public comment and and if people submit written public comment on a say racist rant about a council member or something. Can that be redacted or edited or anything we have to post it just as it's been written. Yeah, that's that is that that's that side of the coin. If we're opening a door to to public comment on anything, which kind of sounds like what you're talking about with the written public comment. Yeah, you wind up having to include mostly everything. You do not. I mean, the court in Southboro didn't find it to be hate speech or fighting words for someone to call, you know, for the speaker to call one of the council members and Nazi, and I only bring that up here because, you know, I think there's many of us who might say well that is fighting speech and that that is hate speech. But the court said no they're basically entitled to their opinion. And so I think it's, I think it's, it's more than likely that if you're accepting written public comment about anything that that kind of thing goes up. However, it doesn't mean that we can't put a big disclaimer at the top of that posting page wherever we're putting that some those things saying we neither endorse nor reject the comments that are provided here these are solely the opinions of the public, and I don't take no position whatsoever on on the content. You know, and we could go even further we could say, you know, to the extent that persons may be offended by, you know, the, the rhetoric or the tone or whatever, you know, we expressly, you know, expressly that we don't really have the authority, you know, and we can play with something like that but we don't have the authority to to judge this based on content. And so it's here and it's unvarnished, you know, it's unvarnished manner. And that way we're doing ourselves, you know, we're protecting the town by saying hey just because this person made a racist rant here doesn't mean that that's the position of the town. But it also protects that individuals, you know, First Amendment right to share their positions. Thanks so much. I Jennifer and then I'd like to add Jennifer then Lynn and then I'll ask a question. You're muted Jennifer. I'm sorry, I took down my hand and didn't unmute. In terms of, so we always say with public, I think it's always said before we start public comment that we're not going to be commenting. So if somebody were to say something that might not be the business of the council that night, although it doesn't have to be because you can comment about anything during general public comment. But even if someone were to veer and it's to say something that's not the councils within the council's purview, because we don't respond it seems like we don't, we probably don't want to have to limit that let somebody say what they're going to say for three minutes, you know, even if it's about potholes that may not relate to the council's jurisdiction, because we're not we've said that we're not going to respond so we're not going to deviate and get into a whole discussion. And then I'm just thinking maybe we could have something at the, you know, just maybe a sentence, you know, not a long sort of preamble but before we go into public comment, making the statement, I don't know how we would do it that, whatever somebody says, because it could be seen that if somebody were to say something really terrible and racist that by not calling it out, we're condoning it so some statement, you know, both for the public, the written record but also before a council meeting or committee meeting, why we're not going to rain someone in or cut them off if they say something, you know that would be generally considered offensive. I think that makes sense. I also think, you know that part of that statement could be we encourage people to be respectful of one another, or we encourage civil discourse, you know the people who work in the government, whether as volunteers are doing so because they care about the community just like the people who are going to speak care about the community. And so you encourage it, but it doesn't mean that it could be shut down. So, but I do think you can limit, you know, and this goes back to the ACLU's kind of position I think you can limit the comments to the jurisdiction of the council. I think you could limit the comments to what's on the agenda. I don't think you can limit the comments to what's not on the agenda so I don't think that you could say, you can't say anything about what's on the agenda for the council to think about today. I could say we're going to focus on, you know what the council is talking about today if you have something about that, because again that's a time, place and manner thing that relates to the business of the meeting as compared to, we don't want someone to go on a rant about something unrelated, you know, to this matter so again I think you could say we're going to limit comments to the business of the meeting. If that's what you wanted to do and none of this is mandatory. You could have a free for all where you literally say nothing and you just wait it out. You know, again I do think it's nice to have a disclosure and I think that's a really great point maybe at the beginning and at the end. I heard some interesting things here tonight. Just a reminder, the town doesn't endorse or, you know, or reject the statements made these are solely the opinions of the public who chose to participate. Lauren, is there anything in a published public comment that someone has submitted statements of saying, as with our emails frankly that this is now public record. Is there anything that needs to be redacted, like a child's name, like a phone number, like a health issue. So, in most cases the exemptions of the public records law are not mandatory. So I think there's two ways to handle it. One way to handle it is to say anything you send in will be a public record, and basically that's on you in a more polite way. We intend to publish your comments in full provided however that if one of the exemptions to the, no not that provided however that in cases of extreme import, we reserve the right to make redactions to protect minors and the elderly, you know, people in a susceptible population. Again, every time we put in a caveat. It makes it harder to enforce in a non content based way. Right now we do have a note in when you enter an online public comment that your, your comments will be published as part of the record. And there's a different field to enter your name is it as you wish it to appear and the home address and email address aren't published and those are all. The consent button as well. So, I think it's pretty clear that everything that's entered, but it's an interesting question if someone enters information about somebody else's child or something like that. That gets tricky to filter all those public comments before we post them. Yeah, I'm trying to make sure that we don't have to filter them because it's an extensive job and we only have 30% of our clerk of the council. Thank you so much. I'm actually going to end and meet the meeting. Thank you. Thank you, Lynn. Yeah, I was wondering, because this idea of precedent, we've been doing things for four years in a certain kind of way which sets a precedent how is it possible to make changes to that, whatever they are, you know, time manner place kinds of limiting public comment to what's on the agenda would be a change in precedent for us. What we do now is have general public comment and then we often have additional specific periods of public comment. So what can we change if we've already established a precedent. Yeah, that's a great question Pat and I think that the answer to that is, government is allowed to adapt and respond to new to new positions or to new cases or statutes or whatever it might be. And in fact, I think it's likely expected that in the face of kind of a, you know, like a level shifting kind of decision like the Southboro case is that you take a look at what your current practices and make adjustments to address, you know, potentially, you want to provide more time for public input you want to formalize this, this system that you've been having with specific public input on the matters at hand and then this kind of open ended part at the beginning and so you have, I think a legitimate public interest in taking a look at how it's working and how it could work. And, you know, also being cognizant of what's happening around the state. You know what are other communities doing what are some ideas, and then adopting a new policy or an amended policy to address that and we, we see, we see this issue. We have a lot of times with regard to use of what, you know, form analysis public forum versus limited public forum versus a private forum, where, let's just say for years we've been allowing, you know, nonprofits X, Y and Z to utilize space in our, you know, whatever and, you know, we start getting requests for that space from, you know, a gazillion different groups and you know it's really hard to manage that kind of thing. We can as a as a policy making entity decide, we need to change that policy, because that policy is creating, you know, implementation problems for for the town. And at that point, you know, we have to, we have to explain well why is that well before this one group was using it. Now it's like we need a staff person to manage all of the reservations and the cleaning and all of that stuff. So that would be a legitimate public purpose to take a different position. So again, I think it's tying, tying the changes to legitimate public purposes. It's not, for example, to silence the members of the, of the town, I mean the residents of the town. It's to ensure that, you know, we are able to do our business, you know, that that we have an agenda, and we want to go home before 1am. And those are legitimate public purposes. Thank you. Are there any other questions on this particular topic. Michelle you've been pretty quiet. Do you have anything that you're thinking about? You've covered them all. Thank you. Okay. If it's comfortable, then I'd like to look at the flag policy issue, particularly around making this, you know, I think the policy is basically well designed. And some of the questions we had really had to do with public initiatives. If, if the public comes forward and they're, they have enough signatures according to our charter, they can force an issue. Can they make us fly a flag. And I'm not saying that well so somebody wants to say that's fine. The other thing is very specifically we have some people have concerns, some counselors have concerned about the fact that we fly the Tibetan flag, because each year on the, in March 10th on the Tibetan National Uprising Day, we have a ceremony and a proclamation and speakers and we fly the Tibetan flag. So, but that came up for one of the counselors in terms of the policy that we've created so far. So this is another just area of uncertainty and blurred line so we'll do what we can today to talk about it as though there are answers to these things. Essentially, the, the version of the policy that you have is adopting what we have kind of come to some consensus on as being best practices that the, if, if, if the council says, our flags are for public use for public purposes the flags located here there and there are just, you know, any resident who wants to can file an application and provide us with a flag and we'll fly it for a limited time, you know, on flagpole acts. Then we don't have the ability to choose between flags right we get a group that everybody thinks is terrific they come in they have a flag, we have a group that only some people think are terrific. They come in and have a flag and that's exactly what happened in Boston, right, they've been, they've been allowing their flagpole to be used by anyone who asked. And so, unless and until the policy issue the content of the flag became an issue, it just wasn't an issue. But then the flag, the policy did become an issue, and they didn't want to fly the flag from a group that they saw as you know I don't have the right word is confrontational or distasteful. And so, that's where they ran into trouble. And so what we've been suggesting is that that a, an intentional look at the way flag poles are used is a very good thing to do at this point. I, you know, are we allowing our flag poles to be used for any purpose by any one if they just follow the application process, or are we going to say that as a town, we're only comfortable flying the flags that the town believes reflects the town's position. And that's the whole idea between government speech and free speech so government speech is essentially, we're not required to put up, you know the banners of a group that we think does not, does not speak for the town, and the idea is, you know, this public forum issue. If, if we have a completely open public forum, then we've said, anything can happen there. Right, that's, that's not a regulated use. But we also could say, look, this is the flag poles have a particular location and a particular solemnity about them. And so we want the flags that fly from there to be representative of what this community believes in. This community is prioritizing and as such the council as a legislative, you know, entity can take a position yes we want to fly the flags for X, Y and Z days because we believe that that's what this community stands for. It's like making a proclamation and tying the flag, raising to the proclamation that's been essentially coded as government speech, that speech that the government is saying reflects the government. But again, if you, if you kind of, and this is, I think in most of the policies that we've been seeing there's like, there's an exception for sports teams, and it just there and it's in a lot of policies. So, essentially it's like, you know, if the Red Sox are in the World Series then we as a government think that that's a, an okay thing to, to, you know, promote. Well, I'm just saying as a majority vote majority vote. But anyhow, I think, you know, that's the, that's the same risk that we run into, if it's not government speech, if it can be that a person comes in and files an application, and then we're just, you know, putting up the flag that they request. That is not government speech that is an open forum. So, what we have been suggesting is that there be a tie to government speech if there's going to be some flag that's put up and so we've said in some places that a request can only come from a counselor. Right, so a counselor may be lobbied by constituents to bring forward something for government speech, but it can't come directly from the constituents and I would say, particularly with regard to your charter. The actual flying of a flag as an executive function. And so, even if you know the council voted. Yes, you know we believe this is government speech. You know, making the town fly the flag is a different thing. Because the council isn't going out there and loading the flag onto the flagpole and pulling up the, you know, pulling up the line to make it go up. So, again, I think grounding this grounding the use of a particular flagpole for governmental speech is a way to ensure that it's not just, you know, an open forum for anyone to put their their flag up there regardless of the message. Instead, it's a message that the council in specific has approved as you know standing for its position or standing for the government's position. It's still confusing, because like how is that not making choices based on content, but there's an actual exception in the law for government speech, and it's not subject to, you know, the free speech rights as we think about them. Thank you, Michelle. Government speech comes with government timelines on the end. So that was my question last week. Our last meeting is if there is something emergent that feels really urgent for us as a council to fly the flag today or tomorrow because there's you know something going on in the world or how do we then deal with the fact that we don't have a resolution or something we don't have a council meeting maybe on the agenda. How do we deal with that potentially. I don't know. No, I'm kidding. There's no, there's no real, no real answer. You know, I think if it's, if it feels that important to fly the flag that's not the town's flag or the state's flag or the United States flag or the POW flag. Then you need to have some sort of a process in place and maybe that's, you know, to look at the types of things that might cause the town council to want to fly a flag of some sort. But certainly, the same is true with regard to making a statement, right? So if, if the council feel strongly about something that it wants to release a statement, unless someone's previously been authorized to speak on behalf of the entire council, any statements that are made are either statements of individual people who happen to be counselors, or if it's, you know, a statement that the town manager makes then a statement, you know, of the town's position but it's not the same thing as it being a statement from the council. So you kind of run into that same problem. And, you know, if, if something is percolating, like let's say Ukraine, I know a lot of people were really interested immediately in supporting Ukraine, you know, two days isn't going to the 48 hours isn't going to make a huge difference, although I understand that, you know, the town may want to make a statement before that. And then again, I would say, you know, that would be up to the town manager about whether to make a statement of sorts or individual members of the council making clear that they're only speaking as individuals. And that could happen right away. So. Pat, can I ask Lauren just a quick follow up. Lauren, when you said the 48 hours isn't, you know, that long to wait, do you mean, are you saying that because we could call a meeting, for example, a special meeting or something within 48 hours. Okay. Yeah, so if let's just say let's go back to Ukraine again because it's just a good example of the kind of thing that you know people wanted to wait in on right away. If, if the invasion of Ukraine I mean people would have likely been thinking about what was going on over there we would have heard about it so what it would be on people's minds. And so if you know there was a kind of a event that made it important to speak publicly, then the meeting could be posted. You know, for 48 hours from then, 48 weekday hours. And so, you know, that in itself makes a statement, I think, you know, we're going to have a meeting to talk about this. And in the meantime, as I said, you know, individual members could represent themselves on the matter, or the town manager could make a more general statement, but it's unusual for something to require an immediate response. Obviously, there's like a national tragedy or something like that. Then, you know, maybe it is an emergency that the council has has a meeting and makes a statement. But most of the time that 48 weekday hours timeframe will not negatively impact, you know, the town's kind of responsibilities to the public in my in my view. Jennifer. So right now I think we discussed at the last meeting that the request to fly flag has to come before counselor so, and that's ensuring that then it's government speech. Yes, yeah. And the, so that there was a start I'm sorry Jennifer to interrupt. That's the start of ensuring that it's government speech. Yes. And the, there was a draft policy in our packet for this meeting. And that's something that you that KP law has seen and like that. Yes, they've seen it. Yeah, it was written by the director of the diversity equity. And I have to say, until, like the last meeting I had no idea that a flag was an issue. When it first came up I was like, Oh, who cares. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, and, and it should also be part of the equation you know if you guys have, and I can't remember offhand but I'm guessing that you do you have like banners that you fly from light poles and stuff that's another area to consider. So in my town, for example, it's usually about, you know, shop local and that kind of thing put up by the town. But at some point, you know during 2020 actually, you know, we kind of lobbied me the parents of graduating seniors to have no congratulations seniors go up on those poles, and that was a town use, and they allowed it. They could have said no to us of course, could they have said no to a group that they didn't like or that they weren't comfortable with. Probably, but now we would say there should be a policy, right and that policy should say, you know, has the council taken this on and said this reflects the position of the government on this issue. Okay. Thank you. Hi Paul. Yeah, Mandy. Thank you you bring up a good question with banners but I actually have a different question which is our charter has a of a, it's not petition it's a it's a it's called a group petition I believe that allows 150 residents to sign a petition to ask the council to do something and the council to act it doesn't have to approve it or disapprove it. How does this policy relate to that if you know it says here the town council shall consider the display of a commemorative flag, only if the request is made by a member of the town council. But I don't think our charter is specific as to, could we exclude things from the group petition process under the charter like this policy seems to imply. Or can't we do that so that we have to change this policy to include that group petition process which is different than the initiative which I think excludes things like this in exclusion but the group petition does not. That's right. Thank you. My, my kind of take on that is that the group petition process is to allow a group of constituents to bring forward to the council, things that it thinks are important, right. I think that the council is not dealing with or they don't like it but as soon as it's in front of the council, it's the council's decision as to how to handle it. And so, you know, if the council is hearing from, you know, 150 people who are willing to sign their name to it, and then, as well, you know, people come to a meeting and flood, you know flood the meeting. And then maybe it's something that a counselor decides to sponsor it. Again, acting on it takes different kinds of forms right so acting is listening acting is, you know, whether it's to decide to take no action or to affirm or reject or whatever it may be, but action would also be a counselor deciding to sponsor, you know, a request for a finding on on a flag, or on a cause represented by a flat. I think you have to read them together Mandy Joe and I would say that because you know the charter is going to supersede inconsistent policies. I think because the charter has kind of the supreme position in terms of, of its application so I would say we'd have to read the two of them together. And I think we can in a way that's you know holistically reasonable and appropriate. I think we've just Mandy Joe go ahead. Yeah, I just want to come back to the banner question. Um, does this, you know, I've read this policy as pertaining to our two main flag polls on the town common were the keeper of the public way. That includes the town common but it also includes the public way portions where we do do banners or banners across the public way or those welcome to Amherst things on light polls. So does this policy. And I guess the question is, is this policy written such that now those banners, the town council has not had any historically any thing to do with that I think we might have even in the public way, passed that on to the manager. So does this policy then bring that back to the council or should this policy mentioned that sort of passage of those things on to the town manager for the manager to adopt their own thing I'm just trying to figure out how, how we deal with those types of yeah, flags other than the two on the common that we tend to deal with. So, the policy in particular references the flag polls to which it applies. And so, you know, we are talking about the two main flag polls on the common, and we're talking about the use of those flag polls for purposes other than, you know, the United States flag the town flag is the state flag, and the prisoner of war flag. The banners are something different, and that you have that designated or delegated that town manager to deal with those. And there's a different reason right because those banners are essentially being used to. I don't know what the right word is but to showcase the town in a particular way, and for other purposes so it is not something where a request, you know in general is made to use them, except maybe in specific, you know particular circumstances so the request would come in as a matter of, you know, business basically to the town manager's office and the town manager would need to be thoughtful about. Are we opening this up, and Paul's always thoughtful, but are we opening this up to, you know, to, to resident input or are we doing this based on essentially what we think these these flags are supposed to be or banners are supposed to be telling the people of the town, for example like welcome to Amherst, I think, you know that that there's no, the manager doesn't need a request for that to happen. You know, welcome back students or, you know, whatever, I forget what your holiday or your pumpkin holiday thing is but like, those are things that they are town speech government speech I mean basically your advocating for participation in town issues so again I think that's different than putting a flag of another entity up in an official location that signals that the town approves of that particular cause. Just a quick question. You know, I immediately go to the worst thing. What if a group comes forward and says town manager Paul. I know you're very thoughtful and we want you to put up an anti abortion banner, because Amherst needs to become a community that denies women's their rights. Well, he's going to say no, are we protected. He's going to say no because he doesn't allow those banners to be used to advance the point of view of private positions instead it's the positions of the town and so, you know, could we kind of tie up the ends of that in a bow by having you know, Paul issue a policy about the use of banners or the use of signs are about the yes we can. But I also think that that the, you know, the, if a court were to review that they're going to look at past practice. Have we allow these these banners or these signs to be used to further positions that are not the government's position, or have we only use them for governmental purposes. And if it's only been for governmental purposes, we would say that's not a public forum it's never been treated like a public forum, and we have no obligation to allow those, those, you know, sign areas or banners or whatever to be used for for purposes other than the town's purposes. Thank you. Mandy. I guess my question to Paul is for the banner that runs across South Pleasant Street. Are you going to adopt a similar policy, since we've given you the authority to regulate that one because we have in the past used it for advertising events on the common that are not necessarily town sponsored events and all sorts of things it's been used for a lot of the most government purposes, I would say so are, you know, or does this policy that we're adopting have to include whatever we've also authorized you to do with other flags on on the public way. So, Lauren is right that the policy was written specifically for the two flag poles that we are most obvious. It does raise and we do have the Chamber of Commerce manages those banners, you know, like that currently say, Mary, Mary and bright, it's still Christmas, I guess at the chamber. And also we put flags up the American flags like this this is a select board initiative, prompted by Larry Kelly I think from flag day to the July to fourth of July something like that and I think on other Memorial days they get put on white poles. And then the banner across is just reserved through the DPW I don't think they look at content necessarily. But it has had political content in the past, I, you know, there's a picture of black lives matter type thing so I think that is something, you know, once I see how you sort of settle on your policy, we probably apply the exact same standards to that that it would be for events. People can reserve it they have to pay the cost of putting it up and taking it down and they have to provide the banner. So we'd have to sort of apply some standards to what, what we can say yes to on that. Right, so if we decide, because flying black lives matter that flying that banner is really important at to me as a counselor, would we need then to have a resolution or counselor input to do that. So that might be the way to do something that's not an event to prompt it to allow that something like that that I think I guess learn I missed the beginning so I apologize but is it a council action that that that triggers the governmental speech. Typically, it is. But the other part of it is, you know what the history is of how that space has been used and so, for example, putting up American flags, you know, during Memorial Day to whatever date it is, you know, that that's government speech that that is clearly the town saying, you know, we're supportive of this particular, this particular thing, in terms of if you allowed flags to go up at any time and you didn't, you didn't regulate that at all, then you'd have a hard time saying, Oh, no, you can't put up your, you know, fill in the blank flag. So I think in terms of uses, what's important to consider is are there, you know, are you able to kind of categorize what these different, these different actions or what these different displays are intended for. I think saying, you know, come to the whatever on the town common, you know, that might be one thing, but saying, you know, taking a position that advances a particular, you know, policy or my, you know, thought process or whatever maybe is something different. And so, Paul, I would say it's something that certainly we can talk about and you can analyze, you know, how those things are used and what the rules are. But again, I think, you know, adopting kind of some guidelines protects the town's ability to say no when it when it really feels that it has to because it's inconsistent with the town's position. And that's something we can work on. I did not mean to open a can of worms on that so sorry. Sorry. No, no, it's important. Are there any other questions right now for Lauren or for Paul. With that, I'm going to say Lauren, thank you very much. It's been very productive. Now we have lots of wrestling to do with each other, which is always fun. Absolutely. And just as I said earlier, and I think it's really important to kind of focus on that there aren't easy fixes to this. And so, like just kind of changing the policy today on X, Y or Z thing isn't necessarily the ideal approach because we as you can see basically all of the things we've talked about we've said gosh there's a line but you don't know exactly where it is and it blends and you know maybe this is a governmental speech issue or maybe this is a public form issue and so I think thinking about it in this new context is really valuable and you know you guys always do the hard work so I know that you're not in a rush, but I think this is something to be, you know, intentionally thoughtful about in terms of making big changes. Yeah, and if any other questions arise for us, I'll send them to you via Paul. Thank you very much. Well thank you and thank you for inviting me and there's really nothing I like better than talking about this stuff for an hour or two. Many times. Thank you. Don't charge us. Well, I will be reasonable. Okay, I will be reasonable. Thanks everybody. Have a good rest of your day and we can hopefully I'll talk to you all soon. Take care Lauren. Bye bye. That was a very valuable conversation. Yeah, yeah. Paul, do you have anything that you're going to hang around. You're welcome. If you want me if you if you have something for me otherwise I'll move on whatever you prefer. I feel like we have a lot of stuff to think about and to process individually and as a group so unless there are something that any of you want to share right now after this conversation. I'd like to bring it up again at our next meeting. If you want to make that feel comfortable. Then we, I think we have. We have the Amherst indie in the audience so I don't know whether we need to call for public comment, even with okay. I would like to take just a few moments then and to ask the indie or anyone who hops on in the next couple of minutes of whether they would like to make public comment. If you please raise your hand. Michelle your hand is raised for public comment. No, it's not I just had a quick question last week. Athena had mentioned that we're not supposed to say who is in the audience, potentially and I myself as a chair of HRA was curious about that. Is that what it, what's the feeling on that. I can answer that I don't think we should have a discussion about it today. As long as the public comment period is closed Pat. Okay, and it looks like the public comment is close because we have no hand raised. When questions like this arise I often think of what we do at an in person meeting, and you can't look around the room at an in person meeting and go I can see so and so and so and so and so and so because you don't know everyone's names. And so what when that issue comes up it's, I think it would be inappropriate to say the names of every person. It's an open meeting people don't have to disclose their names. They do have to type in something when they join on zoom, but that may or may not be their name so there's no requirement that people identify themselves when they come to an open meeting anyone can come in and out. And so, in my opinion the body shouldn't. That shouldn't be a practice to name the people unless they raise their hand for a public comment. Anything else Michelle on that. No it just that wasn't a helpful clarification thank you. I think what I'd like to do is. I haven't heard anything from anybody about art week. So we're going to take that off the agenda. The updated Memorial Day the 2023 Memorial Day proclamation has was in the packet. And I, we can look at that and decide whether it's clear consistent and actionable. There are two, I'll call you in a second Mandy, there are two new sponsors to that. Besides Lynn Griezmer Pam Rooney and Dorothy Pam have been have asked to be added yes Mandy. Yeah, there is one change and this just goes to again what the role of a sponsor is versus not the item that was in the packet did not have the correct Memorial Day date in the now therefore it had last And I feel like that's something that should come to us with the correct date. If the sponsors are going to do stuff that we as a GOL should not have to be looking up the correct dates, which is May 29 2023 this year but it came with May 30 2022. Okay, thank you. So that would be changed. And we'll talk about that in a second I want to call you have your hand up. Yeah, I just, we've got I got an email from the Veterans Director this morning, confirming that the Memorial Day celebrate or commemoration and the parade will be on Monday, May 29 with the prey kicking off at 930 10 they haven't put the program together but it will be on Mondays, you know, the actual day. Yeah. Okay, thank you. So, can you make that change. Where would you like me to make a change. Should we have that information in the proclamation I guess, I think we send that information back to the sponsors and ask them if they want to put it in before it comes back to GOL. Oh, that's true because we don't have any of them here. Okay and we have plenty of time so that that's what we will do. And Pat I'm sorry who did you mention where the other sponsors. Dorothy Pam and Pam Rooney. Thanks. Okay. And, and Athena can I ask you to forward that back to the sponsors or is that something I should do. I can do it. I'll send it to you and you can ask the sponsors if they want to make changes. Thank you. Okay. All right. Let me see where I would come up on. I'd like to then go to the adoption of the minutes from March 15 and March 29 and get those out of the way. Jennifer. Yeah, I didn't see those in the packet, or were they in a previous packet. No, they weren't they were then I thought they were. I thought they had been added to the packet because I started to look at them this morning. They were pretty. Yeah. Really, I'm, let me see, maybe I have to refresh. Okay. I'm. Yeah, they're in. They were in there this morning. Yeah. Yeah, I was looking at the public packet. I may have looked at that. Yep. I'm sorry about that. I'm struggling with that. Paul, can you send me the update from the veterans about when and where just in an email so I can get that to the sponsors as well. Yes. Thank you. So do we want to go forward with. Approving the minutes. I can make a motion. Yeah. I read through them so I didn't see anything. Okay. I moved to adopt the minutes of March 15th and March. Well, I moved to adopt the March 15 2023 and March 29 2023 meeting minutes as presented. Is there a second. Second. Thank you. So we'll do a vote. Jennifer. Yeah, so no, my mistake. I just looked in the public packet. So should I abstain if I haven't seen them? It's up to you. If you want to abstain. Yeah, one of the things I learned early on is you don't have to be at the meeting to approve the minutes. You just, you're not going to make any kind of change your amendment because you weren't there, but you can certainly approve them. I didn't even read it. Yeah, that's fine. Michelle. I. Mandy. Hi. I'm an eye. So they are approved. And let me see. We have a half hour, basically, and we can start looking at some of the rules and procedures. Or. And I wouldn't mind this because of what I am what I'm dealing with this morning. I wouldn't mind ending the meeting early. But I did want to get, if we do that, I do want to say that I have been working on the bylaws that were forwarded. By the bylaw review committee and I'll be getting that to you at our next meeting and I need to get some information from Paul and I've been comparing current bylaws with the former bylaw to see if they've been updated. So, I don't know. So where would people like to go. And I think, I think, yes, Mandy. So I think the way the agenda is written, we probably should not talk about the rules of procedures just because it's not very clear on the agenda that that's what we would be doing today. Unless I missed it. You had the discussion regarding the impact on our public comment policies but not the rules. Right, right. So, yes. So that would have been the reflecting on what we just heard in terms of So I'm always happy to end a meeting early. I think I would really like to do that. So that I can stop. I can even sit here. All right, so I see, Michelle is it all right with you if we end early. I think it'll be fine with Erica. Thank you all very much. Take it easy. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I wonder if you could send me the link when you have a moment. Thank you very much.