 We're recording. Thank you. Good evening. It's June 5th, 2023. This is a regular meeting of the Town Council. The open meeting law has been extended. This allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present at the meeting location, while providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting. You are also welcome to attend the meeting in person in the town hall. This meeting is accessible in real time via Zoom by phone and as a live broadcast on Amherst Media Channel 9 and through their live streaming. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I am calling the June 5th, 2023 Town Council meeting to order at 6.31 p.m. I'll call upon each counselor by name. Please let me know if you can hear us and we can hear you, and then make sure you mute your mic again. Shalini Balmilne has informed me that she will be absent today. Pat DeAngelois is absent today. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Present. Lynn Griesper is present. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Present. Anika Lopes is absent today. Michelle Miller is absent today. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney. Here. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taub. Present. And has Alicia joined us. I don't see Alicia yet, but I know people will keep an eye out for her. So we have eight counselors present tonight. Very unusual. There is no chat room. For this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena or me know. And if you want to make a comment, use the raise hand button. If technical difficulties arise, we will try to determine at the time what to do about that. At present, there is no change in the order of the agenda. Very quickly, we're going to go to announcements. And you can see the committees continue to meet, although perhaps not as often. For example, finance committee is done with one of their major responsibilities, which is reviewing the budget. The next page, please. I just want to mention a couple of items coming up. We have a very grand celebration for race amity day on June 11, starting at 10 a.m. at Mill River. And we will do the proclamation reading after the noon lunch. And then there are various items associated with the Juneteenth celebration. And that is Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, June 17, 18, and 19. Mandy Jo? Yeah, I just wanted to update the CRC meeting times and dates and let people know what they're for. There's two special meetings, one of which is not on this calendar yet. June 12 at 4.30 will be interviews for the planning board recommendation appointments. And June 15 at 11.30 a.m. is interviews for the ZBA appointment recommendations. OK. We'll make sure those are all on the next calendar. And will they be virtual? They are Zoom virtual only, although there might be some counselors on that Monday meeting in the town room for it, but there will not be attendance in person of members of the public. There is a council meeting on the night of the 12th at noon. OK, we're moving on to the continuation of a hearing. And I believe the gentleman is here from Eversource. And so why don't you come forward? And Guilford, you are in the room on Zoom. OK. So this is we did not close this hearing. So we're going to pick up where we left off. And where we left off was that you were going to be talking to the residents that was concerned about the poll. And I believe you're bringing us an updated proposal. OK. Yes, that's correct. We met with the resident, Gregory Call, and we worked out a new plan. So we've actually eliminated the poll that was going to be directly across from his driveway. And there's a single poll that's going to be a bit further up than it originally was. But so it's 33 feet southerly of the existing poll at the top there, in line with the existing poll line. So it's going to be a single new 45 foot class one poll along Dickinson Street. So we went from two to one. OK. And Gregory was OK with this proposal. OK. Guilford, do you have anything to add to that? No. No. Dorothy, I'm going to go to Councilor comments. And then I'll see if there's any residents who want to comment. So Alicia is here. I want to make sure Alicia can hear. I didn't see her. Thank you. Alicia. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Mandy, Joe. So Councilor questions or comments, Dorothy? Well, I drove down Dickinson Street today and I counted nine polls, which I thought was an excessive amount. And half of the polls had a big, tall poll and then one of those short stubby polls. And then they had a like a metal container for other wires. And the wires were big and droopy. It was really not a good looking site. This is not a place you're talking about putting it underground. I imagine you were just talking about adding another poll. But it was it did not look good. It looked way too many polls and with droopy, droopy black wires. And it just seemed like if this is what we have to do, I understand we have new demands on power and people want to receive that power at their houses. So I understand what the problem is, but I'm just hoping there's a better solution than what I saw today when I drove down the street. Would you like to speak to that? Sure, I'll try to answer the best I can. So the double polls, I know last meeting that was brought up in operations does go about removing those polls. So there's a process in place where ever or the poll would get set, ever source would do. Typically the electric company goes in first, we'll do our line work, we'll cut the top of the poll. That's why it looks like there's a smaller shorter poll. And then at that point it's the other utilities that would come in. I'm not sure if it's Comcast, Charter, Verizon. So they would come in and do their transfers and then the next utility would come into play. And then at that point we would get notified through a system that we all share in common and that would prompt us to then physically remove that bare poll. I can certainly relay these correspondence to the operations and we can review the droopy wires. I'm not sure if that's electric or communications but we can certainly take a look out there. And just to take a few steps back and refresh this. So the purpose of this poll is there's going to be a new manhole at the intersection of College Street. It's not indicated on this map because it was a separate petition. But if you can see the two storm drains on the left-hand side, those rectangular boxes at the intersection, it's gonna be a manhole approximately at that location. And we're gonna be routing conduit from that manhole up Dickinson Street and we're gonna be connecting to that poll that's going to be set. So the purpose is to the new cables that we're bringing into the area. It's to reconnect to the poll on Dickinson Street. So I... Okay. Guilford, do you have another comment? And then I'm gonna go to Mandy Jo. Yes, I just wanted to say that when you have a dual poll situation and Embersource brought this up, it's mostly the other utilities we're waiting for. Verizon has become very slow to respond because they're phasing out their landline services and going mostly cellular but they do have landlines around but they are very slow to get them off old polls and move them to the new polls. So it's not really... Not everything with a double poll has to do with Embersource. It does have to do with Verizon, Comcast, five colleges and there's a new company in town that's on the polls as well. So just so you know, it's a group of people. Mandy Jo, you have a question? Yeah, I just wanna make sure I understand this. The last time we were here, you were planning on moving poll 34 slash two and then adding the new one that I don't know what number it's got, number 140 or something, but now 34 slash two is not being moved and we're just adding a poll. Is that correct? That's correct. Mandy Jo, any other comment? Are there any other Councilor questions at this time before I go to the audience? Okay. This is a time for public comment about this particular issue. If you are here for that purpose and you're in the room, please make sure that you've signed up with Athena. And if you're in the audience and you would like to make public comment with regard to this particular issue only, please raise your hand. Okay, so we're going to go back. Are there any additional questions from the Council? Seeing none, I'm then going to move to close the public hearing and to close the public hearing. Second. Thank you. Is there any other question about that? We will vote this on the Consent Agenda unless someone indicates they would like it taken off. I'm going to start with Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Grieshmer is an aye. Mandy Jo Hannake. Aye. Annika Lopes is absent. Michelle Miller is absent. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. It's unanimous with nine councillors present and four councillors absent. No caller. Sorry, that's not supposed to happen. Okay. The next item on our agenda is public comment. If you are here to make general public comment, please make sure you've registered with Athena over here. And if you're in the on Zoom and you would like to make general public comment, please raise your hand at this time. We do have one other public comment time. It is specifically in relationship to water and sewer rates and it's later in the agenda. So I think are you going to make public comment together or separately? Together. Well, separate. Sorry. Separate. Okay. Same, same issue, but different comments. Okay. Please introduce yourself and tell us where you live. My name is Marie Ann Zomek and I am the executive director of Cushman Scott Children's Center on Henry Street in Amherst. And I'm here to ask the town council or just to tell the town council that for over 30 years, the residents and Cushman Scott have been working, trying to work with the town to get some sort of mitigation for speed. The posted speed is 25 even though we have a school zone sign, which really the speed should be 20 miles an hour and it's posted as 25. We've had the police do a speed detail and even with the police, their speeds have exceeded 35, 45 miles an hour past the school. We have a parking lot across from the school and my staff and sometimes families have to cross that street to get to the building. And with the traffic, especially at pick up and drop off times, it gets a little dicey and we are really worried that someday there will be a tragedy unless there are some mitigating factors put into it. We would like to propose a three-way stop sign at the end of Pine Street and Henry Street. We'd also love to have speed bumps in front of our school. There's many things that we have suggested and they've gone unheated and I'm just, I don't want to see a tragedy happen and I want people to feel safe and it's scary to see what we see. So many near misses and I'm just here to ask the town to please do something. We've waited long enough. Thank you. Thank you. Please come forward. State your name, where you live. My name is Christopher Killian. I live at 460 Market Hill Road in Amherst. Do you? Kathy had come by my house at one point. We talked and I'm also a parent of Cushman Scott children and have been for eight, almost nine years now. My youngest is about to graduate. And in those nine, eight, nine years, I have witnessed, I should say it's full disclosure, I do work at Cushman Scott now part time, taking care of the facility. But regardless of that, as a parent, and I'm not being dramatic, I have witnessed some real tragedies just avoided. And if you could be there and you could experience it, you wouldn't want to. It really takes your breath away sometimes. I refuse to see a child killed. It really boils down to that for me. Just last week, I was picking up my kid and I was backing out of the parking lot. And I saw a pickup truck coming from the Market Hill Road end at a high rate of speed. This was just another example. And as they approached, I was trying to back out and then get it in gear and get out and into my lane. He hits the brakes because he decides it's finally time to stop or to slow down because there's no place for them to go or him to go. I will respect the committee and not say exactly what he said to me as he drove by, but it starts with the letter F very loudly and so told me to do it to myself in front of my kids. And then he hit the gas and sped up and continued to speed down Henry Street. That's just one example of what happens on a daily basis. I think some of you have read a letter that I sent. I have one minute. That's my time. All right, a letter that I sent. And I stand by that letter passionately because I have seen too many close calls. And I have been trying to be a proactive part of taking care of the situation and addressing the situation in this town as a resident, as a taxpayer, as a parent of children going to the schools. And I'm tired. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of being set back. I'm tired of bureaucracy, quite frankly. And if there are things in the works, actually, thank you. We have corresponded. We have corresponded. There's something I know there's a meeting happened and something is forthcoming with the police department and Ms. Baltimore and Guilford Mooring, I believe, and Jeremy Anderson, another parent, has been also part of trying to solution. So I look forward to that and thank you for your time. Thank you for joining us. I see no other hands for public comment at this time. With that, then we are going to go to the consent agenda. And as Athena is putting it up, I want to just reiterate something I sent to counselors when I sent you the timing. This is a very long consent agenda. And there are two items on it that have multiple parts to those items. One is regarding intergovernmental agreements, and the other is regarding committee appointments. If you would like to take a piece of one of those out, you may. You do not need to take the whole thing out. So that's going to be my first question after we look at the whole. I'm not reading this whole thing. I like to have a voice left at the end of the evening. But in addition to that, if you would like to just say, gee, when we get to that item on the regular agenda, could we just hear a little more about it? You may also do that. So with that, we've chosen these filing items because we considered them to be routine. And it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy. So I'm going to go through the process to remove an item. You have to raise your hand and ask that it be removed using the guidance that just gave you. That doesn't require a second. The first is the adoption of the 2023, Juneteenth proclamation, 6A. 6B is adoption of the citation in recognition of Arwen King. I will mention Arwen is with us tonight, and we are going to actually read the proclamation and join in congratulating her. So even if you approve it on this, there will be something later, as there will be for the others. The 6C is to amend a previously adopted 2023 race amity day proclamation. It's basically to change the time and location. 8A is approval of the ever source petition to install a new pole on Dickinson Street, approximately 33 feet. Southerly of existing pole 35-2, and approximately 16 feet easterly of the Dickinson Street centerline. That is what we just went through. 8E is referral of a council order, FY23-078, in order appropriating the FY20-24 Community Preservation Act budget as required under mass general law, chapter 44B, to the finance committee. That's merely a referral. 8F, I'm going to let you read it for yourself. It includes all 12 intergovernmental agreements. 8G is approval of long-term requests for the use of the public way for the Amherst mobile market. This is, I believe, the third or fourth year they have come to us for this kind of approval. 8H is a waiver of section 8 and 9, sections 8 and 9, of the town council policy, on making recommendations for town council appointments to multiple member bodies to allow follow-up questions of applicants during interviews. This comes from CRC. And 8I is adoption of amendments to town council policy on making recommendations to town council appointments to multiple member bodies. And then finally is 9A, 1 through 15, it's not finally. And that is the approval of committee appointments. I believe there are 15 of them. And then finally, it's the approval of three different sets of minutes that come from May 15th, 2023. Is there any item that people would like to be removed and voted on later? Is there any item that people would like to have a little more discussion about when it comes up on the agenda? Then we're going to move to a vote. You just shortened your evening. You have to make the motion. Right. So I move the following items in the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. And I'm not going to repeat them. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank you. Dorothy, do you have a question? You're muted, Dorothy. That was just a second. I want to offer it a second as well. Thank you. OK. So we're moving to the vote. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Hi. Lynn Griesmorsen. I'm Andy Jophaniki. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. It's unanimous for the nine of us that are here. Thank you. Since Anika is not here, I have asked one of the other sponsors of the proclamation for Juneteenth to read the last paragraph. Alicia. Yes. Thank you, Lynn. Now, therefore, we the Amherstown Council do hereby proclaim June 19, 2023, as Juneteenth in Amherst. And we invite the Amherst community to join us for a weekend full of celebratory events that honor our history and our community. And we encourage the community to view Amherst Civil War tablets located in the Bing Center to honor all our residents who served in the Civil War. Thank you. We also, we would now like to have Arwen King come up and sit in the chair. I was told, Arwen, that last night you were honored at Hopkins Academy for the Hadley Girl Scouts and that Athena O'Keeffe was present at that because she is involved with Girl Scouts and as well as her daughter. So we have a special citation for Arwen King upon receipt of the Gold Award Girl Scout. And it is sponsored by myself and Jennifer Taub. And the community sponsor is the Girl Scouts of Central and Western Mass. So very briefly, what I'd like to do instead of reading the entire thing is just describe that Arwen's project that she did for this highest award in scouting was Free to Be 83. Gold Award Project, it educates the public about type one diabetes, low carb eating and how it can be highly beneficial, a highly beneficial diet that can increase quality of life for diabetics. The project consists of distributing informational pamphlets, developing and publishing instructional videos and on low carb cooking, connecting with local people for workshops and more. And Arwen will also be honored in a region-wide event on June 15th at Mechanics Hall in Worcester. So we conclude this. Jennifer, do you wanna read the final portions of it? I heard she's running for the Girl Scout Gold Award. And further, we instruct the public on the areas of lactation, the model of the pain, and the model of the pregnancy of the Girl Scouts. So I'd like all the counselors that are here if we could just gather and have Arwen with a quick picture. I know. All of you, let's go. Oh, not her. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah, lovely. Good night. We are going to move on to the action items. The first one we've already done, and that's the poll. So we're going to go on to some budget items. Now, let me just mention, we're not voting tonight on the budget, okay? Or any of the following, well, no, we're not voting on the budget. But I do wanna recognize both Sean McGonnell and Paul for the development of this budget and Andy for working through it with the Finance Committee. And actually just recognize that several counselors came to just about every Finance Committee meeting. And you learn a lot when you're there. So I really wanna thank the committee and thank the counselors that were able to attend. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Sean and Andy to talk about the budget. And Sean, do you wanna start or Andy? I don't, I'm a little... I don't have anything formal prepared, but happy to answer any questions or give some highlights of what we talked about. Andy? Yeah, I hadn't prepared anything either because I think that the report was sufficient to cover the issues. And I think that counselors are aware of what the most difficult issues are from just the conversations that have had and from public comment that we've received. When we had the hearing there were really only two topics who were subject to the public comment that was received during the hearing. And those issues were carefully considered and I think explained in the report. So rather than go through it again, just as Sean has indicated, respond to questions. Okay. And we have questions. Dorothy? First of all, the reports were incredible. And really you should congratulate yourself mightily, Andy, and you and your committee in pulling it together. My question is about, I could read here and there about the special COVID funds here and some of that are coming, some of that are going. I'm hearing in the paper about the phrase clawing back COVID funds. Are there any such funds that the town has that we thought we had, which maybe we're gonna lose, that are gonna cause us a problem? This question may be for Paul, more than Andy, I'm not sure. But I hear this phrase a lot and I'm just kind of, hoping it's not gonna cause us a big problem. I'm gonna start with Paul and then whomever else you would like to call on Paul. Thank you, Dorothy. Yes, it's something we've been paying very close attention to and we've been in touch with very daily basis with Congressman McGovern's office as well. The funds that we have are not subject to the clawback provision at this point in time. And if they were to be moving in that direction, we have a backup plan to make sure that they don't get clawed back. Thank you. Sean has taken care of all that. Thank you, I'm glad to hear that. Jennifer. Thank you. So the first thing I did want to acknowledge Andy and the whole committee for the report is I'm not a finance person, but I could really understand it. So I know a lot of work went into that. So thank you. I did have a question, well, on page 13 where you were discussing under public works and the budget and what we could do to really address sidewalks and roads. And you laid out three options very clearly. And the third one would be doing, I guess like almost form a consortium of other municipalities in the county or in the area. You said to incentivize increased asphalt production by forming a regional association with other towns and develop a multi-year plan. How might we, if we want to pursue one of these options, maybe particularly this one happening, how would we do that? So it's not just a suggestion, but we might really be able to move that forward. Andy, do you want to start? I'll briefly do so. And then I don't know if Sean wants to say anything on the subject, but one of the members of the committee was particularly attuned to the subject because we realized that one of the difficulties has been that the cost of road construction has been increasing at a rate faster than we can handle. And so that those suggestions had come from one committee member in particular with some discussion. And it wasn't necessarily that we could get there, but I think that it was a call to be creative and to give examples of what we might think about as far as whether there is another way that could reduce the price and get us a little bit farther with the road for the money we have available. We don't know that it can be done, but it was sort of a call to be creative. And Sean, do you have anything else you want to add? Yeah, so I interpreted this one as sort of scale and partnering with other communities to basically solicit a bigger paving contract in the hopes of maybe attracting more firms to the area. I think one of the things we've been dealing with is that there's limited firms that do this work in the area and the thought was maybe if there's a bigger contract, maybe somebody from a little farther away might be willing to come closer or maybe we'd be more competitive with other areas if we had one big contract as opposed to a bunch of little contracts. So it's certainly something we'll be looking into that requires a coordination and it's something we'll see if it's feasible. Jennifer, please go ahead. So would this be something that, I know staff has, we're always asking staff to put more on your plate. Is this something that council might form a committee to look at or would be counselors and residents, but again, how can we really kind of work to make this or some other option just to explore options since this is kind of the number one priority for a lot of the residents? Let me just jump in and say, having discussed this with the town manager probably more times than he wants to talk about it and I'm not even the counselor that suggested the regional approach. The first thing we need to do is when we develop our financial guidelines for FY25 is make determine if this is going to be a priority at the level that we need it to be. And then my guess at that point is we would turn to the town manager along with the staff and say, come back to us with a proposal for how to move forward. And that the purpose of the report was to just capture some of the essence of that conversations while we were there. Further question? Okay, Kathy. I'll just make one additional comment because I think it's already in the report but if the public is listening there, this came up in the joint capital planning committee discussion that there are only a few suppliers of road and pavement. And so having someone increase the scale, put more teams on would mean they need to be guaranteed work because you don't hire staff and gear up. So if you could get to a bigger scale continuously, the thought was then you might be able to have more responsiveness. We compete, Emerson competes with the state, we compete with other towns for any road we're going out. So my comment was not about this. So I just wanted to make one that I think runs through the report but what has been coming clearer as we do this over the years is we have an amazing staff working for the town of Amherst in all walks, library, schools, including the town staff, DPW, where they're often working short staffed because of turnover. And if people are doing more than one job, very cheerfully I might add. So we potentially face a long-term challenge. We particularly have a long-term challenge in areas like DPW where there's a private market for road engineers, for heavy equipment drivers. So it goes through across the report. So the cost of tar is going up to repair a road but the cost of people and retaining people. So we've got a wage study out to start looking at this but it's quite remarkable how much staff gives to us, the planning department's been down two key people and for many of us it would seem invisible because they seem to still be able to come to all of our meetings to prepare reports. So I just wanted to a shout out for the people who work for all of us. And that becomes clear in this month of May where we get to hear from all of them. Thank you. Pam or Andy, did you want to respond? Yeah, just to add and actually Kathy covered some, a lot of what I was going to say. Guilford is I think still in the audience and I want to really credit from what I know, both Guilford and Jason Skeeling, the town engineer is I really think that they work very hard to try and structure it so that multiple projects that we are bidding for get into a larger pool and make us more competitive. And one of the examples is that when there's an athletic need for paving like the basketball courts in the river, for example, or the upcoming installation with CPA money for the pickleball courts to make sure that those get included in road paving contracts so that everything that we're doing is a town it's bundled together. But in the end, as was explained to us very clearly we're still competing with the Commonwealth. And the mass DOT puts out contracts that are so large that no municipality of our size or even larger size communities can compete with what mass DOT is putting out there. And so it's a difficult problem. And what we're really just asking for is to think about creativity in broadening beyond Amherst to see if we can partner in some way to address that issue. And we don't know that it's possible but it was the one thing that came up in discussion that we thought could be done. Okay, Pam, thank you. And I'm gonna also thank the committee and all the hard work that went into making that report and the decisions. So I was building on Jennifer's question about funding for roads and sidewalks. So it sounds like we have the list of at least a dozen intergovernmental agreements that the town manager has on his plate now to go do. So given that this probably can't happen until the financial guidelines of FY 25 it would also not be able to get on his to-do list until we're closer to that date. Is that correct? Yeah, I think it would take some time to get this communities who are interested in participating to align their procurement processes and their appropriation processes. I think we may be also be looking at this as statewide I'm on the mass MMAs committee on public works. So it's something I'll bring up there as well because I think we're not the only ones in this boat and there are other communities as well who might be exploring this. But yeah, I think the timing is you're accurate on the timing. We're really not talking about this summer at all. Dorothy? I just want to underscore that and I know how hard people are working on this but this is my fifth year in the council and I ran on sidewalks. People are now getting frantic and their comments are more aggressive. They are just running out of patience and they're despairing. And I tell them that the town is working on this issue and there are many, many problems but to the average person who walks and drives around here it seems like it's just all falling apart. And so I just want to stress what you were talking about was a new approach. We need to have, it's a very challenging thing that the rising prices competing with the state but somehow we've got to come up with some way to deal with this because they're questioning the validity of having a town council because our roads are falling apart. I mean, it's getting, I just haven't seen it this bad as it has been recently. So, and I'm sure you have had some of the same reactions but new approaches and new thoughts I think would be really great. Thank you. Are there any other comments with regard to the budget? The budget will come up for a vote at next, at the council meeting next Monday, the 12th and with that, then we will go on to a couple council orders that we have to approve. These came back from the finance committee. And so we'll start with the first one which is council order FY24-11 and order approving the acceptance of optional tax exemptions for FY24. To adopt appropriation and transfer order FY24-11 and order approving the acceptance of optional tax exemptions for FY2024 as recommended by the finance committee report of June 5th, 2023 and shown on page 15 of the motion sheet. Is there a second? Second. Okay, are there any questions or comments? I'm going to just add one piece and that is we do go to the maximum the state allows in these areas. So right now we are legally not allowed to go any higher. Okay, any other questions or comments? Seeing none, we are going to vote on this tonight. I will begin with Anna Devlin-Goth here. Hi, you haven't switched the order up today, you're killing me. Well, it's because I've got several absences. That's okay, that's okay. I'm trying not to rotate as well. Ill and I, still and I. Okay, Lynn Griezmer is in the eye, Mandy Johanicki. Anika Lopes is absent and where's absent? Dorothy Pam? Yes. Pam Rooney? Yes. Kathy Shane? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Yes. Jennifer Tob? Yes. Alicia Walker? Yes. It's unanimous with nine councillors present and four councillors absent. The next council order is regarding our setting our water and sewer rates effective July one. So in this is the motion in accordance with general bylaw 3.62 water use regulations having heard public comment specific to the proposed amendments on June 5th, 2023. Notice of which, whoops, wait a minute. I'm sorry, I'm going to read the motion but we still have to have public comment. Notice of which was posted on the town bulletin board for at least 10 days on May 17th and notice of amendment published in the newspaper on May 22nd, 2023 to amend the water use regulation appendix A as follows. By replacing April 18, 2023 with July 1, 2023, by replacing domestic water rates for 75 per 100 cubic feet with domestic water rates $5 per 100 cubic feet by replacing water rate $4.75 per 100 cubic feet with agricultural water rate $5 per 100 cubic feet. Is there a second and then we're not going to vote yet. Second. Okay, all right. Is there any public comment with regard to water rates? Water and sewer rates, I'm sorry. Are there any councilor questions or comments? Pam Rooney. Yeah, it was unclear to me why the agricultural water rate is the same as the residential if I'm hopefully not mistaken that seems to be given its use and its purpose and its benefits to the community. It doesn't seem that agricultural use should be at the same rate as residential. Sean, do you have a response? I don't, Guilford is not. Yeah, I think the difference is, and I was Guilford was here, I think the difference is the agricultural rate, they don't pay a sewer rate for it, just the water. Generally the way the billing works is if you have the water, there's a certain percentage that automatically is billed as sewer. But for agricultural, there's no sewer component, which is logical, considering it's not going into the sewer system. Pam. Oh, that doesn't answer why their rate should still be higher than residential. It's not higher, is it? It's not higher. It's the same as. Yeah. Andy, go ahead. If I may, we had quite a substantial discussion about this is to actually even creating separate rates back when I was on the select board. So I really have to go spin backwards a little bit in time to fully answer the question. But the sewer is the problem. The concern that was coming from the agricultural community was that we were charging a single rate for agriculture and non-agricultural. And of course, when there's an agricultural use, that water does not go in the sewer. And therefore charging a sewer fee is not, you know, was raised as you're charging for services, not being utilized. And so the division was to try and at least offer the agricultural community a mechanism so that they could have a separate water and sewer system that would allow not paying the sewer rate on that portion of the water that is being used for purely agricultural purposes. And that required an additional step which was that you had to offer those customers the opportunity to divide their water in an acceptable way so that you would meter the water that was going for the residents or other facilities where the water would be going back into the sewers from the water that was being used for purely agricultural purposes. And so the mechanism was established to allow the agricultural community if they wished to do those changes to their system and have two separate meters. And to do that, then we needed to have separate rates for each, but the challenge then was that the cost of producing the water, getting the water from the water source and treating the water ended up being the same because you're still treating the water. So it wasn't about the water rates, it was about whether or not you'd be charging sewer but it became two separate pieces of water delivery but the costs for producing water are the same regardless of which way, what the use of it is. And I think that was the analysis that was going on at the time. And so I hope that helps. Does it help? Okay. Are there any other questions or comments? See none. I'm going to rotate on and get ready. Okay. Lynn Griezmer is an I, Mayday Johanicki. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Burney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Todd. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Anna Devlin-Goth here. Hi. It's unanimous with nine councillors voting and for absence. And then finally, the next one is about the sewer rate. So in accordance with general bylaw 3.61 sewer use regulations having heard public comments specific to the proposed amendments on June 5th, 2023 notice of which was posted on the town bulletin board for at least 10 days on May 17th. And notice of amendments published in the newspaper on May 22nd, 2023 to amend the sewer use regulations appendix A as follows. By replacing April 18th, 2023 with July 1, 2023 by replacing domestic sewer rates, $5.20 per 100 cubic feet with domestic sewer rate, $5.50 per 100 cubic feet. Is there a second? Second. Is there any public comment with regard to the sewer use regulations or sewer rates? Are there any questions from the council? Ah, yes. You have a comment with regard to sewer rates. Please come forward. Please come forward, state your name, where you live and then proceed with your comments. That's all Connor. 175, Summer Street. You have to need, is the green button on? Yeah, the green button is on. Great. The button is green. Since you've opened up your meetings to in-person public comments, what I would like to suggest in order for the public to truly understand and effectively comment on the items on your agenda, I would just urge the board to post in the rear of the meeting a copy of your agenda or whatever meeting takes place where the public is physically present, a copy of the agenda so that the public can read and see what actually is being proposed in writing and make intelligent, effective comments. So the agenda isn't that long. It's hopefully not 20 pages long. And if you post copies back there for the public to read as they come in, I think it would encourage people to participate. Anyway, thank you very much. Thank you for your comment, Vince. Are there any other comments at this time? Are there any questions from counselors? Seeing none, then I'm going to start this time with Mandy Joe Hannake. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Tav. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Anna Devon-Gothier. Yes. And Lynn Griezmer is in the eye. It's unanimous with nine counselors voting in favor and for counselors absent. Let me just take a moment to catch up with my items on the agenda. There's one more motion related to this. Now I read it. Yeah. To adopt approval order. I moved to adopt approval order FY2410 and order setting water and sewer rates to be effective July 1, 2023. Thank you. I'm amended by the finance committee report of June 5, 2023 and shown on page 16 of the motion sheets. Second. Thank you. I realized what I did. Are there any questions or comments? Okay. Then we will move to a vote. Yes. This is actually the rates. So we had to amend the bylaw or the regulations and then we also have to vote the rates because the rates are listed in the regulations too. Does that make sense? Okay. And I... Sorry about that. Okay. We're starting with Dorothy Pam. I had my hand up for a quick comment. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Dorothy. This is for all public viewers. We're not just blindly voting yes to a whole pile of stuff. We have talked over these items individually in committee meetings. And many of them have been talked about in two or three committees and we're not just sitting here saying yes. So I could see somebody who tuned in and think, what the heck? They just all say yes to everything. But this is after many, many, many meetings and many pieces of paper written on it. So my answer is yes. I vote yes. Every one of these has been referred to a committee before it comes back to the council with a recommendation from the committee as to what they feel the council should consider. So your vote was yes. Pam Rooney? Yes. Kathy Shane? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Yes. Jennifer Taub? Yes. Alicia Walker? Yes. Anna Devlin-Gothier? Yes. Lynn Griesmursen? I'm Andy Johanicki. Hi. Okay. Now, am I right? Okay. We have referred the next one. We've approved the intergovernmental agreements. We approved the public way for the mobile market. We approved the changes with regard to multiple member body appointments with CRC is getting ready to do. And we are now moving on to item number nine. We actually already approved all of the appointments in the consent agenda. And item 10 on the agenda is committee and liaison reports. Community resources committee, Mandy Jo. I kind of made it during announcements of the extra special meetings one next Monday at 4.30 p.m. for planning board interviews and one on Thursday, the 15th, 15th, 15th at 11.30 a.m. for ZBA interviews. We're continuing our review of the rental permitting that will be the subject of this week's meeting. We are hoping to have a legal review by tomorrow night to be able to discuss that at the meeting. And on the 22nd is the continued public hearing on the zoning by law amendments. Pam Rooney. Yeah, this is sort of a point of order. I just spoke with the attendee who was hoping to make a public comment and missed the original public comment session due to having to give someone a ride. So I wondered if somewhere in our agenda there's an opportunity for public comment. I know we've passed that time, but I'm just asking. If we do, it will be after we get done with the rest of our items, okay? This is somebody in the audience by Zoom. Oh, okay. So CRC, any other comments or questions? Elementary school building committee, Kath, yes. I also wanted to remind folks that Mandy sent out a request to review the ZBA interview questions and any comments should go back to Mandy since she's the one that sent that email and apologize for the late notice of that. Thank you. Elementary school building committee, Kathy. There will be a meeting at the end of next week, not this week of the full committee on Friday. This week at noon, we have a subcommittee that's focusing on the building and there are a variety of issues including the windows and the gym, a canopy on the outside that are listed on the agenda and all of those are open to anyone to come and listen and send us comments. There will be next week and we haven't scheduled the specific time yet, a site subcommittee meeting that will be a collection of lots of issues that have been raised around the community fields, the athletic fields, the playgrounds. Some of them Pam submitted some questions about the way the parking lot is laid out and the designer team will come in with the collections. The subcommittees are not making decisions. They will bring the issues that have been heard to the full committee. And this is all in just so people understand we're in a phase called, I called it detailed design, but it's, we had the basic schematic but now we're really down to exactly how big is this? Exactly, what is the location? Because the, and anything that has a cost implication we're asking questions about, are there different ways of doing it and what are the cost implications? So those are all posted, but if anyone has questions, I'll be happy to answer them by email, just email me. Okay. Are there any questions at this time? Then finance committee, Andy, anything else at this point? I think that the one thing that I wanted to do is to point out what the agenda is for the meeting that we have scheduled for Friday at one o'clock so that councilors members of the community are aware of it if they haven't seen the posting. There are essentially four items plus the standard types of things that are on agenda in its prior meetings that are ready for approval, public comment in particular, but the four items that I wanted to just alert to are one is councilor compensation. That was a recommendation for discussion by councilors Miller and Walker and it was referred to the finance committee almost exactly the same time the budget was referred and we therefore put it off until after we could complete the work on the budget, but we needed to do it fairly quickly thereafter because as you probably know, the charter has a deadline date that the way that the charter is provided is that any increase in compensation has to be voted by one council during its first 18 months and it would have approved subject to appropriation then be in effect for the next council. And so if this council is to consider it, it has to do it I think July 2nd or 3rd, something like that. And so I just wanted to point that out. There is a piece of the compensation proposal that actually was adopted in the budget and it's not subject to the charter and that was about family care but any other part of it. So that's item one. Item two is a referral it was made today and so I don't need to tell you any more about it because it was in your packet on the CPA committee recommendations to transfer remaining funds into an FY24 reserve. I think that was adequately explained. Item three is something that we get to every three months because it's quarterly reports. So we're going to receive and discuss the third quarter FY23 revenue and expense report which will be in the packet for the committee meeting and then when after we've referred it, we will make sure it's in the packet for the next council meeting also. And then the other is we need to hand address our own scheduling issues for the side when we're scheduling meetings for the remainder of 2023. So those are the four principle discussion items for this week's meeting. Thank you. Are there any questions? The only thing I want to edit is we didn't adopt the budget yet but when it comes up next week, that budget includes a line item for family care. And so that line item would be available as soon as the budget is adopted even for this council. Okay. But starting July one. Not July one. Right, thank you. GOL, Anika's not here, Jennifer. Pat's not here. You mean Pat? Oh, I'm sorry, Pat's not here, Jennifer. Yeah, so brief update that GOL met on May 24th and we've been discussing town policy for flags, for signs and banners, as well as parades. This is a discussion that's in progress. So I have nothing definitive to report at this time. The committee also reviewed the proposed bylaw that was referred to it at the last council meeting for ensuring safe access to legally productive, reproductive and gender affirming healthcare services. And we sent that to the town attorney for legal review. And what I can report in terms of action taken is that GOL has spent several meetings updating the general bylaw 3.40, which is currently called snow and ice removal. And after much discussion and input from the public and some other town committees, we voted at the last meeting to actually repeal and replace. We had so many changes to the recommended changes to the proposed bylaw that we voted to repeal and replace it with new bylaw language for 3.40. And we are now proposing that it be called obstruction of the public ways and snow and ice removal. And the name is proposed to be changed because obstruction of the public ways can among other items include vegetative overgrowth, which can also block sidewalks and other public ways causing pedestrians to have to walk in the street and around the obstruction. And I might just also add as I'm already amazed in terms of emails and inquiries I get from constituents in my district that I've already had to refer to this bylaw several times, I got an email a couple of days ago about broken bottles on the sidewalk and the question was asked, it's been there for a few days, when is the town gonna come and clear it? And referring to the bylaw said that it's, the public way in front of private property that it would be that property owners responsibility to clear the debris. So we had hoped to have, well, we had hoped to have that recommendation for the new language for this general bylaw referred to the council for a first reading next Monday on June 12th, but we did get a couple of comments back from the town council. I'm sorry, no, the town attorney, the council, yes, with a SEL, yes, the town attorney. So I think we can review it at our meeting this Wednesday and then maybe still have it come back if we're ready. Right, yeah. So that's what we're aiming for. And yeah, so that would be, oh, and we also, as part of when we voted on this new language which we'll now have to tweak based on the town attorney's comments, but we are also including that it would be the responsibility of inspection services to enforce obstruction of the public way. And now it's currently being done by the police department. So are there any questions? Thanks, Jennifer. Thank you. Jones Library Building Committee. Anik is not here, Paul. Thank you. So the next meeting of the Jones Library Building Committee is on Thursday at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. It's in person at the Jones Library Woodbury Room. At this meeting, they will be looking at exterior bricks because it's an in-person meeting. They wanna actually show the actual bricks they're talking about. And they'll be talking about the second floor ramp which has been a subjective conversation. The meeting after that will be June 15th at 4.30. That's the following Thursday. Okay. Are there any questions regarding that, Kathy? I have a couple of questions and not specifically, Paul, on the meeting you just described, but I'm wondering whether we can get a fuller committee report in July on the status of the costs and where we are on the building more generally. And I know there's, I've been following the amount of grants that have come in. And so the expanded renovate and also I would like to know how much work we've been able to do on what if we can't go forward looking at failing HVAC systems, leaking roofs and other things. So just, Lynn, I'm trying to find some space just to get a report where there may not be answers. And then my last question, just cause I had a couple of people ask if the larger project goes through the timing of it and thinking of what's gonna happen to Amity Street and what's gonna happen to the center of town and when we're doing the work on the North Commons and what's gonna happen to the center of town. There was a article in the Gazette on the big plan for the North Hampton Main Street and it was a commentary and the commentator said, we're gonna lose businesses for three years at the rate the work on the streets is gonna go on. So just on something on the amount of debris that's gonna have to be taken off, just some comment, again, I'm looking for just a report that would say, has anyone looked at these issues? Where are they? And in that larger package, I know, cause we've seen pieces of it, the terms of the grant or the library has to be operational while it's closed. So you've been searching for space and trying to find space we can afford. So just something that would do a July more refined update before we wait till the bids come back or the new estimates, so that we're more in a path of at least early alert system. So that's just to request Lynn on finding space but also the committee would have to put together 15 minutes or something that could cover a range of issues. Thank you. And actually, we have been trying to determine when the best time to bring that report back to the council should would be. And I took special note of the particular issues you wanna make sure we address. Okay, anything else, Paul? Any other comments or questions? Okay, and then we have TSO and Anna, you're prepared on that one. I am, so TSO one thing of note, especially because it came up today in our last meeting, we had a discussion regarding Cushman Scott and the possible paths forward. And so I wanna appreciate Paul for working to set up meetings with his staff and the folks at Cushman Scott to figure out what are some options for us moving forward. But TSO did have that discussion at our last meeting. We also are continuing to work on the street lights proposal that'll be coming for a vote from the committee at the next meeting. And we received updates on the waste hauler progress from that, that's continuing to move forward as well. And then lastly, we approved, I believe 26 committee appointments. So we are rocking on that front as well. Bless you, Mandi Jo. Sorry, I'm like watching everybody. Kat, Anna, would you just repeat your second item? Cushman Scott street lights. We're planning to bring that forward to a vote next for the TSO committee at our next meeting on the 15th. So you're saying June, for the June 12th agenda? All right, yes. Hang on, I didn't have my calendar. We're looking at doing the, no, it'll come back to TSO on the 15th. It won't come back to the council till after that. Thank you. Okay. All right, are there any liaison? Any questions, Kathy? Kathy? Yeah, this is a looking forward up question, Anna, that I don't think it's on your horizon yet. So we heard earlier comments about the Cushman school and the speed along that street. That came to JCPC as a resident proposal to do some address. And we had two or three others that were around the speed and whether we could do speed humps, bumps, whatever we wanna call them. And we bundled them on saying we would like to have a look. So we've called them cut through streets where if you go this way, you can get to the place you wanna go a little faster. You're avoiding an intersection. So we've got some, there are other places in town. So what I'm wondering is if there's a way of expediting consideration of this as either a package, it is a public way set of issues. Police had already been out to Cushman to talk about at the point we were talking about it in February. So what I'm worried about is that things just sit and residents bring them to us. And we weren't able to deal with it in JCPC because it needed a more uniform set of issues I mean, school is a different one on speed limits. So it's a combination of the speed limit on the road and the ability to go quickly on the road if you don't put a speed hump on it that people just ignore the speed limit cause they're hurrying to get to the next point. So trying to create a way, cause it's not a bylaw change. It's really working with town staff to say, let's orchestrate a way to start looking at some of these issues rather than having them fester. Yeah, and I think one of the things that we had talked about in TSO where the different guiding regulations that are on a level beyond just town, right? That it come from the state or that are national, right? In terms of where things like school zones get placed and those don't apply to early childcare centers that they don't kind of qualify for school zone signage. And so that's something that I know Paul and his staff are bringing forward. But one thing that Kathy, I'm hearing you say is that it would be helpful to maybe ask Paul for a report back to TSO in a couple meetings or once he figures out when that initial meeting with the residents will be, I don't know, Paul, if you're amenable to that but we can discuss it at TSO more formally but I think it would be, that would be helpful to get a report back. Okay, Paul, did you wanna comment? Yeah, I think that, I mean, Kathy's pointing to a more general question about speeding issues throughout the town that people are asking the counselors to be addressing. We don't really have a really terrific way of handling those. And I think you're talking, I think Kathy is saying is there a systemic way, systematic way that we can take them on and process them so people will get satisfactions kind of, instead of them sort of lingering for too long. I think that's the goal. And we made a few suggestions just a way of thinking about it. Paul in the JCPC report was a cluster and we call them cut through streets. Like if I can avoid that street lamp, street light and intersection if I go this way but there were a few others and we addressed them one at a time and the resident proposals just so people know, I mean, we've got a cap on how much a resident proposal can be. These are all within the limits of what we could fund but we don't fund them at JCPC because we don't wanna just do this one and not that one. We're trying to figure out some way of identifying them and then having a schedule that we're gonna do them in the following order. So thank you. Jennifer. So I just want, I guess clarification. So the issue with the Cushman School has been referred to TSO. I mean, is that? It has not been referred to TSO. Okay, so how do we move forward with that? So yeah, so staff is scheduling a meeting with the people here who are here tonight and with others, we as a staff have met because there were some disconnect between what the police were saying and what the town engineer was saying. So we were talking together and now willing to able to meet with them and have a more coherent conversation. So every one of these things that come up there's a, if you say, oh, I'm gonna inhibit people from driving down the street, they move to a different street. And then those people will get upset or something like that. There's always some unintended consequence or maybe it's an intended consequence. So there, and there's also, as Anna said, the town has to comply with the Uniform Manual of Traffic Control Devices in terms of what qualifies for a stop sign, what qualifies for a yield sign. This is a national thing that the Department of Transportation does. If we wanna put up the signs it has to comply with that. And the logic is simple to understand in that we can't have our own set of rules in the town of Amherst and then the town of Hadley has a totally different set of rules. There has to be sort of alignment with what, when you expect to see a stop sign, when you expect to see crosswalks and the notification. So there's a really gigantic document that, you know, a manual that the town engineer looks at and says, does this qualify? And then if you wanna put up a certain sign there are warrants that are required. Like they look at the average speed. They look at, you know, the number of accidents, the number of injuries that happened there. So it's not just people saying, I want this. It's because you have to have some data that supports your decision to do it because when we install things we then have to send it to the state and they say, well, what's your justification? And it can't be, you know, people want it. That's not good enough when you do traffic engineering. So all those things start taken into consideration. There are other things can be do other than traffic control devices, you know, speed humps that are one of those things. But again, that becomes, it can become an issue because then people look for ways around those humps if they don't like them. And so, but it's just something you have to have a coherent conversation about because when you try to address one problem in one neighborhood there's other problems than other. It can, not always, but it can create. Sometimes it just does what you want. It slows down traffic. But I can tell you in, we had a block party in Somerville and there are some streets with speed humps and some who don't and they're even finding that ways directs, you know, because they see that the cars slow down, they put you down other streets. They direct you down other streets and then those people start to get upset. So we just have to think about as a unit how this impacts our town. Pam. Thank you. It's exactly the topic. I really appreciate the explanation from Paul on the considerations that have to be taken. I wrote early in the beginning of the meeting that we had talked about this at JCPC and there were concerns expressed that four or five residents of a particular area had collaborated and had each sent in their individual resident request for road work. And it happened to be addressing speeding. So I'm asking if it's not a JCPC resident request approach, A, why have that? But B, how do we ask the town manager then to direct his staff and the TAC perhaps, probably to develop, you know, by the end of the summer or something develop the cluster of streets that are of real issue and set an agenda for getting them out there to discuss and to get worked on. Because I totally understand the frustration of the people who have asked and asked and asked for a fix and they haven't gotten it and they don't understand why the fix can't happen. So I'm asking from the perspective of someone not on TSO, can we the council ask TSO to please put this on their agenda, talk about it, ask the town manager, what is our process for getting the ball rolling besides just meeting with the residents? And I'd really truly like an answer to that. Paul. So I can talk with the chair of TSO and put that as an agenda item. But I think if I'm understanding you, what you're saying is what is the process? Cause people are frustrated by that they don't understand the process because we don't really have a good process. So people have gone through the JCPC approach, they go to counselors and it's like, we don't really tell you how to do it well. And so that's what you're trying and that's a conversation with TSO can have. I was told that I shouldn't put that on the, or ask to have it put on the TSO agenda. So this is what's frustrating me. It's fine to have it, but I think we need to do it as an actual recognition and referral because when committees start just kind of taking stuff up and then we need to decide, is that our priority or not? I'm not saying it's not, believe me. I'm very sympathetic to this issue, Paul. So maybe we can put something on the council agenda for next week on Monday that has that meets this and that would be a referral to the TSO and just make it official. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Anything further Pam? Okay. Are there any liaison reports? We've approved the minutes. Paul has a written a report in the thing and Paul. Yeah. I have a number of things. So first off, we have a couple of Joe on Friday from 830 to 10. We'll have our DEI director and assistant director. We're going to try it on the town come and I haven't looked at the weather. If it's bad weather, we'll bring it into this room. And there's also a rainbow coffee hour coming up that there'll be the first one they're going to do this at the senior center. They're going to do one a month and we hope that people will attend that on July 1st is when we will be doing our independence day fireworks. That's a Saturday night and it'll be at the same location at the university. The staff is working very hard to organize that and make sure it comes off successfully. We had some glitches last year that we wanted to do better with. The tomorrow night at 6.30, I believe, the community choice aggregation is going to have their presentation. So the, we'll have a little bit of an introduction and then the consultants will be there from the valley, from mass power choice, Paul Gromer and they will talk about community choice aggregation and that's an opportunity to ask questions or anything like that. So that's tomorrow, tomorrow night, Tuesday at 6.30, it's on Zoom, it's on the town's website. As you all know, we had a pretty major fire on Friday around 4.30 lightning struck. Not sure exactly where it struck but it was close enough to a couple of barns on Meadow Street that really caused a significant fire, required a gigantic response from neighboring towns. Police and fire were really terrific, just amazing to watch them organize instantaneously. The outbuildings, the barns and silos are a loss for the family. It was the last dairy farm in Amherst and but they were pretty good at, they were able to save the structure of the main house. The owner, a 93-year-old resident in a wheelchair was able to get out of the house safely and get across the street to shelter. There were 35 cows in the barn at the time. One of the police officers were able to help the farmer there get the cows out and they all were safe and then it became like a neighboring farms from all over the area came with their trucks to help move them to safe locations. So it was really a real community effort both in fighting the fire and in helping the owners. It's a longstanding family in the town of Amherst. There's a GoFundMe page that has been very successful. People want to help the family. It's really a tragic situation to see your whole, your family's legacy go up and smoke. But just kudos to our firefighters who responded really well and the good news is they saved the house but a lot of the barns were filled with hay and things that just went up instantaneously it was a very, very hot fire. And so I think that's all I have. Are there questions of the town manager? I'm sorry, Kathy, did you have your hand up? Oh, okay, thank you. Go ahead. Just following up on the fire, I went over there. We know them and not only to destroy the barn but it melted all their equipment including the stanchions where you milk the cows. So that the cows got saved but the ability to milk them is not there anymore. I mean this and the silos they just put in a hundred bales of hay and guess what burns really quickly? A hundred bales of hay, so the silos are gone. So this is a major disaster. But I had a couple questions and I sent them in ahead to Paul. In the, as usual, fantastic report you gave us on lots of issues. The permanent shelter, I was very surprised and maybe I should have known at a million dollar price tag for design and an eight to 10 million dollar project. I knew I had a sense of what we had paid to acquire the piece but I don't know what the plan is on where that money is coming from is that a regional effort is that state money. So it was a funding issue because this is on our building a major apartment building downtown. When you say eight to 10 million dollars it's no longer a small structure. So that was question number one and then my question number two is more a process in North Amherst, the north part of North Pleasant where it comes up to the intersection of Pine and Meadow. There has suddenly been a lot of work working on a sidewalk relocating a bus station and the residents who live right there asked me, did I know about this? Because they went out and said, what are you doing? Where are you going? And the bus stop got moved. They were actually thankful for the moving of the bus stop because it was in someone's driveway. But I don't remember that coming all the way to the council with a yes, let's go because they're changing and widening a sidewalk that was not as in bad repair as a few other sidewalks are. So I didn't remember that step at the council. And then my question was notification of the butters and these are literally a butters there. So each of them was calling each other and said, I went out and talked to them and they told me they're going to move down here and did you know about this? Where do I found the bids? So it's a process, Paul because I didn't have an answer for them. So I sent it through as a, and you said you would do a background but it seems to, I didn't have a good answer. So I didn't know how to get a good answer. So I provided some generic, some general information to you and to the people who had written to me. This is a project that had been in the works. It's been on the drawing boards for many, many years apparently what I'm told. And they're doing some of this work in sections. So the funds come from a, we put out a bid every year and we sort of can renew it on a year-to-year basis up to three years for asphalt and concrete work throughout town because we have lots of different things that we need contractors to do. And once we get the bid, we can draw from off of that bid. So it's not, we don't, for a small project like this we don't go out for a specific bid. It just doesn't make sense. So this is under that contract. We're actually pretty fortunate that the contractor is abiding by the bid because the prices have increased pretty dramatically since they bid it three years ago. This is the last year for that bid. I was told that they had talked to all the budding residents but if that's not the case then I'll dig into that more. I know that they had multiple conversations with people out there, individuals and along with the tree warden and they were trying to address many of the issues that people had tried to address. So I would need to dig into that a little bit more. In terms of the shelter, it's a big number. I think we're, it's gonna be a big project. It's not expected that the town is going to put all that money into it. We will have to put a certain amount into it probably through their CPA process but we've already talked to state officials about the level of investment that's needed if this is gonna be a shelter which it truly is a regional shelter in terms of the level of expectation of what a project like this will cost. It's always better to be clear that this is not a cheap project. It's going to cost a fair amount of money. Whether eight or $10 million is actual number. We don't have no idea on that at this point in time. We're just sort of ballparking to try and sort of set the standard for what we expect. It might cost by the time we get to the point of actual construction, which is gonna be many years away. It's not gonna happen overnight. There's a lot of fundraising and grant applications to move this forward. Kathy, is there anything else? Yeah. I think I succeeded in taking my hand down. Okay. Cameron? I was gonna follow up on the conversation about the sidewalk in North Amherst. I happened to attend the tree committee meeting at that site and we in fact spoke to a number of the one resident who lived directly behind or adjacent to the existing bus stop. And he actually said, I'm glad it's moving but why this particular project? What established this as a priority? And I guess that given the number of concerns around town about paving and sidewalks, I would have to also ask how did this happen to become a priority? Obviously some grant money was found. And I wonder if follow up on the VFW site in that discussion of cost, can someone give an estimate of the number of bedrooms that will be produced? Sure. Any other comment on that, Paul? No, that's good. Dorothy Pam? A new problem has come to my mind. It's a people have been bringing it up recently, which is we have been working very hard as a town of Amherst in establishing affordable big A apartments. But then the question of are they all occupied has been brought up from two separate sources. And I'm just thinking that perhaps, and I do understand it's very complicated. It's not just like, oh, here's somebody who needs an apartment and pop them in. I know it's a much more complicated system, but when we have our stats on the number of affordable apartments in town, could we also include how many are occupied and how many are unoccupied? And try to get at the question of how do we keep it from having too many unoccupied affordable apartments? Yeah, it's a really good question because I think that question has come up. So what we're finding is that a lot of the new apartment buildings that have affordable units in them, the market rents, rented property units go quickly. But the bandwidth that you have to make a certain amount of money, but you can't make too much money for the affordable ones is a narrower group of people who are seeking that rental. So they can't rent them for anything for anybody else. They can't put them onto the retail market. How many are actually occupied? Or are they affordable ones? We could probably try to collect that information. I'm not sure. I would have to talk to Nate Loi on that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Kathy. I'm just going to follow up on that, Paul, and I'll send you a comment I heard in a contact that a builder who had to put affordable units in found it difficult to fill them because of the way the regulations work. And so it was sitting there with an empty unit, not because they didn't want to. So I'll just forward you. It's not the letter we got from a resident recently. This was from another source. So I didn't know. I wasn't going to follow up on it because I didn't have any power to even give an answer to why that might happen. And it was a red tape issue, I think, at a higher level than the Amherst level. So. Okay, thank you. Dorothy. All right. We're moving on to town council comments. I did not do my written report. I hope to do it by next week. But I'm open to any questions people have to ask. I would like to ask. And then just a glimpse at our next agenda items. Some of these are not. Some of these will be next week on the 12th. Some of them may not be until later and maybe not even till July. But definitely next week, we will be looking, we will be doing a public forum regarding the CPA money that was just referred to finance. We will definitely be doing the budget, the operating, the capital budget, the financial orders for a fire and for the pumps for a fire equipment and a financial order for a pump at pump, number four CPA money. And the rest really is up to whether or not the committees are ready to bring things back. Mandy Jo, am I correct that we are going to be looking at planning board and ZBA or and finance committee appointments. Those will either be this meeting or the following. The late June meeting, June 26th. The late June meeting, okay. Are there any other councilor comments? Vince, it's highly regular for us to allow a digital public comment. And in fact, I have to ask the council if they're willing to have it happen because we've already had public comment. Is there any objection at this time? Then please come forward three minutes. Thank you and thank the council. I'm Vincent O'Connor, I live at 175 Summer Street in Amherst. And so as I see it, the town, the city actually faces three main issues, housing costs, which I will address later with a rent control proposal. There are roads and educational funding. And I believe that the road issue that we should at least try to get a million dollars from the university, from two separate funding sources. One would be a commuter tax on employees of business or enterprise that has more than 500 employees in the town. And that would apply to the university. And where you would exclude the tax where people make below 50, $60,000. The second university related funding source would be that for every parking permit, the university issues, which are in the thousands, more than 10, 10 to 15,000, any vehicle that is not garage registered in the town of Amherst, the university would keep track electronically because they have the information in order to grant the permit and that they would by negotiation, a certain portion of that, either a fixed portion or a percentage would go to the town. The first obviously would require an act of the legislature for a commuter tax. The other large issue is education funding. And we have a entity in town, Amherst College, which is on the low end of helping out the community in which it is located. My view is that jointly the school committee and the council are to appoint two to three members to negotiate with Amherst College. Simultaneously there should be a public organizing efforts completely non-governmentally funded to essentially address the issue to Amherst College. My view is Amherst College should be providing in the order of three quarters of a million to a million dollars both to the elementary schools. You need to wrap up. And to the secondary schools each year. And that should be the negotiating goal of a joint committee of the council and the school committee. Staff, hopefully by Sean Longano who could advise the committee on financial matters and so forth, but unless we do that we are not going to be able to accomplish the municipal goals that we need to accomplish. And we've had a budgetary deficit related to Amherst College since the 1980s when Amherst College went bought out all its fraternities which I agree with. And then took those fraternities off the tax rolls which are all located around the center town and created an enormous budget hole that has never been built. Vince, your time is up. Thank you. Is there any other public comment from the audience on Zoom? Are there any other final councilor comments? Seeing none, the meeting is adjourned.