 Good evening. Okay. We're recording now. Okay. Good evening. It is October 2nd, 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. However, at this point, there are six of us and there will be seven of us in the room. We provide adequate alternative access to this meeting in real time, these by Zoom, by phone, and as a live broadcast on the Amherst Media Channel 9 and live streaming. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the October 2nd town council meeting to order at 6.32. I'll call on each counselor to make sure they can hear us and we can hear them. I'm going to start with Michelle Nebel-Milm, but I want to just note that she is not here this evening. Pat DeAngeles. Present. Anna Devlin-Goth here. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Mandy Johannicki. Present. Anika Lopes. Present. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Maroney. Here. Kathy Shane, I believe is also not going to be here tonight. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taub. Present. Alicia Walker. Just check the audience. Okay. Alicia Walker is not here at the moment, but let's keep an eye out because she did tell me she would be coming. Okay. There is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena and me know to make a comment. Here's the raised hand function. And if we run into technical difficulties and overall with the meeting, we'll decide how to handle them and make note of it in the minutes. There is one significant change to the agenda. And that is at the request of Councillor Miller as chair of the African heritage reparations assembly with concurrence from the town manager and me as president of the council. We are postponing the AHRA presentation discussion and motions to refer until October 16th. This will allow the town manager to be present at the meeting where we have the presentation and initially engage in the discussion of the report. We encourage all who planned to make public comment this evening regarding the report to join us on October 16th, but we will also accept public comment tonight. So we'll move on that to show the screen for the upcoming meetings. We have a regular council meeting on October 16th. During that time, we will have a tax classification hearing. And we have our next regular meeting of the council will be on November 13th. And we will start with the budget coordinating group, which is the schools, the library, and the town council at six o'clock where we do the financial indicators. This is when we officially kick off the next year's budget season, having just started this year's budget. And then at 6.30 or soon after that, we will start the regular town council meeting. You can see a list of the other committee meetings coming up. And I also want to mention that we have received notice from Amherst College that the ancestral bridges exhibit of historical photos and artifacts at the Frost Library has been extended through until summer 2024. Okay. With that, we're going to move to general public comment. This is the only public comment this evening. If you're physically in the audience and you would like to make general public comment, please make sure you have signed in with Athena O'Keefe over here with her hand up. And if you are in the audience at Zoom and you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand now. Right now I'm only seeing two people on Zoom. And Athena, how many people? Two. Okay. Then let's begin with the people in the room. And let me just say, residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. The committee will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment unless we discuss it later in the meeting. Okay. And you'll come forward and make sure that the mic is on, which means the little green light is on. So Athena, the first person? First person is Michael Hutton Woodland. Please state your name and your address before you begin your comment. Microphone is on. Yes. Good evening. My name is Michael Hutton Woodland. I live at 67 Hulse Road. And I want to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you this evening. I want to say a few words about the bylaw to ensure safe access to legally protected reproductive and gender affirming health care services, which is action item 8D. As is stated in the bylaw, access to reproductive and gender affirming health care services is a right recognized by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to interfere or attempt to deny access to these critical health care services is against such laws. This bylaw, as I understand it, will further extend these protections in Amherst. And it makes a critical statement about protecting rights to health care in our town. I strongly urge the town of Amherst counselors to codify protection and affirmation of all individuals' rights to access legally protected health care services. I think this is the time to stand up for women's access to health care services and the right for pregnant women and others to access a full range of health care services. Those of us who are involved in protection of reproductive rights and specifically access to abortion services are very aware that anti-abortion forces are working in many ways to prevent pregnant women from receiving abortion services. There are efforts to criminalize abortion in many states. Fourteen states now have complete restrictions on abortion since Roe versus Wade was overturned at the federal level last year. And efforts are underway to criminalize women from those states who are pursuing abortion services elsewhere, including Massachusetts, and potentially Amherst. This bylaw provides additional protections beyond that that the state offers and solidifies Amherst as a safe place to receive reproductive health care services. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. We're going to go to someone in the audience who has identified themselves with a phone number. Please bring them in. The phone number ending in 1074. Please state your name and where you live. You need to also unmute. There you go. Yes, good evening. Hi, this is Long Mills, 12 Long Metal Drives. I was not sure if I would be available at the next town council meeting, so I would like to make my comment about reparation funding and the town's plans for that. I would like to share my appreciation for the AHRA taking all its time and energy to come back to the table and talk about what can be done to write things in the community and what decisions and what processes will take us to the next level and also bringing forth policies that will address equity and repair. The AHRA was supposed to look at a repair in the community to Black people, and I also feel strongly about this issue because I am a Black American and my family has lived in the U.S. for at least two generations back. I did go up in Roxbury just so you have some background that I probably shared before, but I go up in Roxbury, and this issue is important to me. When we say reparations for Black people in the town of Amherst, that could be Black Americans. We have a large Cape Verdean population, and other ethnic groups put it into the reparation project and program. I would like to express the need for clarity as to who the groups would be that reparations funding would be provided to. I had some other comments, but I'll try to make my public comment a little more brief. I think it's really important also that until project services and programming is identified that there should be a blank base in how much funding will be needed to make repair and will make reparations possible. Also, the Hickory Ridge project that is being talked about under way, I think would be a great space for youth empowerment and environmental education for youth. I hope that as discussions and talks continue that this is a site that is looked at to perhaps place some youth programming. I also would like to say that health is wealth, and I hope that in the future reparations and restorative justice through the town of Amherst addresses health and education and enrichment and youth empowerment. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us. We'll go back to the audience that's in the room. I'm sorry. Russ Vernon Jones, please. Please state your name and address before you make your comment. Hi everybody. I'm Russ Vernon Jones. I live at 17 Gavard Street. With the current situation with the leadership of the Crest Program, I think it's an important time to reaffirm the original mission and purposes of the program and for town council to see that its key principles and features are maintained and built upon regardless of how the current situation is sorted out. Since 2020, when you created the community safety working group to study, quote, alternative ways of providing public safety services to the community, there has been an understanding that sending police is not always the best response to a 911 call. Many 911 calls do not require an officer with a uniform and a gun. Some situations are made worse by someone with a gun showing up. Crest was designed to provide skilled trained responders to 911 calls that did not involve violence, weapons or significant criminal activity. Secondly, the research of the community safety working group confirmed what many of us had known for a long time, that there is a high level of mistrust of police among black and brown members of our Amherst community. Great many law abiding BIPOC members of our community feel less safe or in danger when the police are around. So much so that they often don't call 911 even when they need help because they don't want to risk having to deal with the police. While Crest was designed to serve the entire Amherst community, it was also designed to increase the sense of safety and belonging for BIPOC members in our community by having an alternative to the police when serious criminal activity was not involved. Thirdly, as a part of your commitment to eliminate systemic racism at Amherst, Crest has been an opportunity to create a new town department that was intentionally anti-racist from the start. The Crest department has a more diverse staff than any other town department. The training of the responders kept anti-racism at its center. We need an anti-racism culture in all town departments and the outstanding beginning in Crest must be protected and nourished. So these features are critical to continuing Crest. It must be an alternative public safety program that responds to 911 calls whenever armed police are not required, that builds trust and safety among the BIPOC community and that models what it means to be a town department with anti-racism central to its culture. If it becomes merely a nice way to provide more social services in town, its purpose, vision, and possibilities will be betrayed and many members of our community will feel betrayed. I also encourage you to investigate why despite responders having been fully trained and equipped for 911 calls and policies dispatch protocol since January, Crest has never received 911 calls, apparently because of the refusal of the dispatchers. Crest is doing good work, but the purpose for which you created it is not being realized. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. We'll go back to Jeremy Anderson. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Yeah, hi. Jeremy Anderson, 34 High Point Drive. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Excellent. I'd like to thank the town council for taking the time to discuss the adoption of safety zones in Amherst. Amherst is a beautiful place to live with numerous cultural and recreational activities, fantastic schools, and reaching activities for residents and visitors of all ages. Well, these are all wonderful things. Unfortunately, the incredible number of activities that community members participate in have been causing increased traffic congestion throughout town, leading to cases of road rage and particularly excessive speeding. This is not a problem unique to Amherst. Pedestrian vehicular injuries and fatalities are at a record high in the United States and globally as well, and particularly put our small children, our families, disabled members of our community, and our elderly at increasing risks. To address these safety concerns at the town level, MassDOT grants communities the ability to establish safety zones and to set speed limits at or lower than 20 miles per hour so that individual communities like Amherst have the flexibility to protect their most vulnerable members, particularly their young children at early childhood education centers, families at parks and playgrounds, the disabled members of our community, and our elderly at elder care facilities. Also, at other locations where large numbers of community members might gather and be exposed to speeding vehicles, please adopt the safety zone provision so we can help protect all members of our community and for me personally, help protect my children. Thank you. Jeremy, thank you for joining us. Is there anyone else from the audience? Okay. Please enter the room. Pat, state your name and where you live. Good evening. Can people hear me? We can. Pat, Anani Baku, 28, Tamara Drive, Amherst. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I have three quick issues I want to talk about very briefly. First, I want to echo what Ross Venon Jones said about Cress Program. I only wanted to add that I am concerned that CSO is advertising for a position co-responder to work with the police. So, this ultimately has changed the mission of Cress. Staff are leaving, Cress is crumbling, and I blame some of the issue with you all, the time council for underfunded Cress. It was set up to fail due to recommendation of budget that was made by the finance committee and this body, the time council approved. When CSWG recommended Cress, we were very clear it has to be 24-7 program, and it did not happen. And this is what we get. I also want to mention our H.A. report. I'm very, very grateful for the work that the committee did on this and for the leadership as well. Michelle Miller, a white woman with her privilege and power was able to make a huge difference in black community. I challenge you all and other people, white folks, with power to look around and see how you can uplift marginalized residents in our town. Thank you, Michelle. I'm so grateful. On behalf of BBAA as well, you came out for listening session. I'm so, so grateful. We're very grateful. We're cheering you. Thank you, thank you. And the last thing is our town manager is not here tonight, but last month when I made a public comment, asking the building commissioner to resign, in fact, it should not be a news to our town manager, because when he came to listening session at BBAA in March, most of the members of my group had demanded and called for building commissioner to resign for discrimination. And then after I made my comment, he went on to disparage me, a white man. I just want to say it last night that I am not afraid of anyone in this town. I will continue to speak up and speak true to power and shaming me for putting out the facts isn't going to discourage me. I'm not afraid. I'll continue to push for inclusion, for truth, and to uplift people who are very afraid to speak up. Thank you. I know I went over my time. Pat, thank you. I'm sorry about my phone going off. But thank you for joining us. Brianna, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, my name is Brianna Owen. I live in North Amherst. I wanted to come on here tonight to address similar concerns I had to Mr. Russ Vernon Jones and Ms. Pat. I know from the last CSSJC meeting that at the Crest department their leadership is in flux. And this is including with the police officer heading their department. I'm deeply concerned and disappointed in the town's lack of interest in this. And I hope that this is at some point addressed. The community safety and social justice committee is such an incredible committee with such, but just so much experience and perspective and they should be utilized as an advisory committee to both the council and the Crest leaders and to leaders of the DEI department. And when I'm sitting on meetings as a former CSWG member, I do not see any collaboration. The job posting that Ms. Pat had referenced several people in town have seen and it's regarding a police officer co-responding position with CSO. When the CSWG did their work, several residents came forward and told us how CSO had given them just such awful services and how they were not culturally incompetent. I am deeply concerned about this and I hope at the next CSSJC meeting there will be more information because Crest has been up and working for over a year now on how many 911 calls are actually going to Crest, what the budget to actual is for the Crest department, what the demographic of folks served are, and what is the collaborative way that we can move forward with the Crest department. I can only imagine how difficult this time is with responders leaving and several different leaders leading the department, but this is a pivotal moment where we can come together and collaborate and trust can be built. I hope that as counselors you all lean on the CSSJC as an advisory committee because that is their charge and I do not feel like they're being utilized. Thank you. Brianna, thank you for joining us. That concludes public comment and we're going to go on to the rest of our agenda. The consent agenda which we're going to post on the screen includes items that were assumed to not be controversial. I just want to mention that in many cases those items have already been through committees and at those committees in order to be on the consent agenda they have to be voted on unanimously. There's also an opportunity later in the agenda if somebody wants to ask a question or have a more complete conversation even though we have passed it on the consent agenda. So I'm going to make a motion and then if anybody- Lynn before you do that can we please confirm that Alicia can hear and be heard she's joined us. Thank you. Alicia can you hear us? Yes I can thank you Lynn. Thank you Alicia. So to move the following items in the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. Waiver of Town Council rule of procedure rules of procedure rule 8.6 for agenda item 6a resolution supporting an act establishing Medicare for all in Massachusetts. Waiver of Town Council rules of procedure rule 8.4 for agenda item 8.8 point C acceptance of mass general law chapter 90 paragraph 18b. 6a adoption of resolution supporting an act establishing Medicare for all in Massachusetts. 9a 1-3 approval of the following town manager appointments board of assessors community preservation act committee elementary school building committee 9a 4 approval of extension of temporary police chief appointment 11a to c approval of the following town council meeting minutes august 21 2023 regular town council meeting august 28 2023 special town council meeting with remaining members of the Amherst school committee and september 11 2023 special town council meeting with remaining members of the Amherst school committee. Are there any items that people would like removed? Seeing none I'm looking for a second. Second DeAngelis. Thank you. So we are going to move to the vote on this and the first is Shalini Balmillan who's absent. Pat DeAngelis. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Lynn Griezmer is an I. Mandy Johanicki. I. Anika Lopes. I. Michelle Miller. I. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane is absent. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Jennifer Tob. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. That is 12. It's unanimous with 11 councilors voting in favor and to absent. We're going to move on to the resolution which was just approved as part of the consent agenda and I'm going to specifically ask the Pam Rooney read the last two sections. Now therefore it resolved that the bills currently before the United States Congress establishing improved Medicare for all including in Massachusetts and urge our senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Representative James McGovern who are already cosponsors to work proactively to create a single payer system of universal health care that provides all Massachusetts residents with comprehensive health care coverage including the freedom to choose doctors and other health care professionals facilities and services and eliminates the role of insurance companies in health care by creating an insurance trust fund that is publicly administered. Be it further resolved that the clerk of town council shall cause copies of this resolution to be sent to President Biden secretary of health and human services. Becara Senators Markey and Warren Representative McGovern Massachusetts Governor Healy state Senators Comerford and Eldridge state representatives Dom and Sabadosa and members of the joint committee on health care financing and I would like to give thanks to Barbara Pearson for all the hard work that she has put into creating and recreating and reworking this resolution. Thank you. Barbara has joined us in the audience this evening. Thank you Barbara. We are going to move on to the next item on the agenda. That is a presentation and discussion and in this case we are blessed to have Lori Goldner who is chair of ECAC and I want to recognize at the same time that Stephanie Ciccarello director of sustainability is here and has been part of the serious success of the town in moving forward on our sustainability goals. Hi there. Thank you. Hi Lori. Hi Lynn and hello everyone and thanks for letting me be here today. Here sorry so I'm here today to give a synopsis of the annual report from the Energy and Climate Action Committee. Credit for the report and for the leadership in the last year goes to Vasu Raghavan who was our previous chair. I'm just here to summarize some of the more important points. So there are five areas, two things actually. I'm here to summarize some of the more important points and then provide a list of suggested town manager goals for the following year. So for the first part of this I want to talk about the five different areas that ECAC has been particularly interested in. The first of these is in regional and state policies. So with building emissions a major contributor of greenhouse gas in Amherst the town was a leader in the adoption of a zero energy municipal building by law in 2018 which this year bore fruit in the design and the in the form of a planned net zero school for our kids. Looking toward the future where all buildings have to be greener, ECAC has been advocating for Amherst to join the now at least 20 communities including Buster and Boston in Northampton who have passed the specialized code who have adopted the new specialized code which concerns all new construction and major renovations. This issue is will be before the you town council tonight and so I will stick around and look looking forward to hearing about that. We hope you will support the effort to implement that that standard. ECAC also applies the town for their role in developing an application for a new regional CCA that's a community choice aggregation to provide greener cleaner and hopefully cheaper energy valley green energy and we eagerly await and will continue to monitor progress of that application. The second area of concern to ECAC is building energy or heat pumps. So building energy remains a top contributor of greenhouse gases in our town as I noted a moment ago. The climate emergency and state policy require then that we address their admissions and this means in existing buildings as well as in the new buildings new both municipal and other buildings. The primary methods for doing this are through weatherization and installation of heat pumps which when paired with renewable electricity replace fossil fuels as a primary heat source. In the last year ECAC launched an educational campaign to alert the community about incentives and rebates for energy efficiency and heat pump installation. I myself am getting a $3200 rebate from SA for my heat pump so it's quite a nice program. Recordings of these two meetings dedicated to the topic have generated over 230 views on the town of Amherst YouTube channel. Going forward we applaud efforts towards the implementation of the heat pump of a heat pump program in Amherst for which an RFP is currently in development and we really hope to see that implemented sometime soon. The third area of interest to ECAC is solar power. In the last year the town saw the Long Plan solar landfill project go online generating enough power to cover about half the town's municipal needs. When the town created a solar bylaw working group to address concerns over solar siting ECAC was quick to offer its expertise and membership to support the work of that committee. ECAC also offered suggestions to GZA Geotechnical regarding the content of the solar survey and reviewed the results with GZA. We'll continue to support the town's efforts to develop solar energy or develop or support the development of solar energy with a sense of urgency and an eye toward social justice. We urge the town to find additional ways to support solar development that align with community needs and are inclusive of those who cannot afford to put solar on their roofs. Transportation is our fourth area of concern. This last year ECAC hosted an educational webinar on electric vehicles that has 127 views on the Amherst YouTube channel Town of Amherst. Members engaged with members of ECAC engaged with members of TAC the Transportation Advisory Committee introducing or reintroducing that committee to the CARP the Climate Action Adaptation and Resilience Plan and its transportation related goals and initiating what we hope will begin ongoing collaboration. There's a lot of work remaining to be done in this area with the aim of transitioning the town and the residential fleet to electric vehicles and other green forms of transportation. From the installation of the fast charging station, the re-establishment of an e-bike network, to the implementation of a very much needed bike pedestrian master plan, we urge the town to act quickly and effectively to make green transportation the norm in Amherst. Finally, the last area of concern involves commercial properties. This is through the Property Assessed Clean Energy Program. We would like to bring to your attention the PACE program, which is an innovative program administered by the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency to help property owners finance energy improvements on their property. This pertains specifically to commercial buildings and including the multifamily units that are so typical in our town and that very frequently are in dire need of better weatherization and new HVAC systems. They're perfect PACE candidates. With PACE eligibility guidelines currently under review, though, ECAC has delayed an outreach campaign until we know what those new guidelines are. With your help, we hope to identify and advocate for a first PACE project as soon as those guidelines are available. Now, regarding PACE, with more than half the residents in Amherst renting, it's critical that the town find ways to facilitate the decarbonization of rental units. There are many mass-save incentives and the PACE program, but without good data, it's really hard to know where we should even begin to reach out to try to try to get property owners interested in this. ECAC made an effort last year to advocate for reporting requirements in the new rental property bylaw. Those efforts failed, but we still believe it's important to have this data, so we'll be looking for new ways to try to get that data in the coming year. So that's the synopsis of the report. I'd like to now turn that into some recommendations for the town manager's goals. To reach 2025 climate goals, the town will need to accelerate the level of support for the Department of Sustainability. So this is our first goal, that the addition of an energy manager or officer position that will support the goals of the town by providing ongoing data to the director of sustainability and the facilities manager to help them identify and prioritize specific energy needs and opportunities. We often just don't have enough manpower to do what needs to be done. In regards to building energy, we propose that the town manager take a more active role in promoting energy-efficient retrofits through the institution of a new climate bank to fund retrofits in affordable housing, through the promotion of the PACE program, and through expediting the RFP for the new heat pump program. The residential heat pump program is particularly of interest to ECAC, since it both addresses the climate emergency and climate justice by providing local expertise and funding for installation of heat pumps to low-income residents. The RFP has been developed and it's being finalized through accounting and procurement. We eagerly await its implementation, which really should be a goal for the very near future. In regards to transportation, we hope to see the new DC fast-charging stations installed in station installed shortly and more EV infrastructure developed across town. Improved data on the status of our fleet is also useful and necessary in developing additional goals for the near future. In regards to regional issues, we ask that the town manager prioritize implementation of the CCA and the town's effort to adopt the new specialized code. Finally, we point out that addressing the climate emergency will take every sector of the town to adopt green policies and technologies. Communication and outreach to department heads is key. The town manager should be meeting with the director of sustainability and the department heads to cajole, encourage, and require the use of a climate lens in every decision. ECAC members can be a resource for their particular expertise, as was the case on the solar bylaw working group this year. Just please ask us. In addition to helping gender a green culture in the town going forward, interviews for positions at any level should include questions about sustainability. Specifically, we're asking that the director of sustainability should review and contribute additional interview questions regarding how each position relates to sustainability. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. If there are questions I'm happy to take. We are, first of all, thank you for adjusting your schedule so you could be here with us tonight. I think it was best that you didn't get caught up in all the many meetings we had to have during September anyway, because you might have gotten delayed into giving your report. But I'm sure that there are questions, but I want to just thank the committee for all the work you've been doing and the support of our staff as well and listening to the accomplishments and the goals is pretty much consistent with the kind of thinking we're hearing. Anna, you have your hand up. I do have my hand up. Hi. Thank you for the work of the committee and for being here and all of that. All of that work is meaningful and important. We're grateful for you for doing it. Oh, boy. It's the first time I've spoken tonight, so shaking off a little rest here. I have a question about the idea of a climate bank that's a municipal climate bank. We know that the state has created a state climate bank. First, it's kind. It's very exciting. Is that something that you anticipate would then trickle to communities and then communities would create their own local banks of the climate banks in the same way? Or are you... There's three options. Option B, is it something that you think we would want to develop from scratch? Or option C is you want the town manager to come up with the proposal for that? I believe this is already... Okay. I would have to get back to you on that. This is something that was discussed and I don't recall. I was under the impression that there was already a discussion about it in the town and I believe there is a... I should get back to you on that. Totally fine. Sounds good. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Andy? Yeah. Just so Athena knows too, I'm having problems with my computer. The raise hand function is not working and we'll talk about that later. But let me get to the question. First of all, thank you for the report and for all of the great work you're doing. It's going to be a challenge to add two positions to any department and this is going to be a really tight budget year. One of the things that I've been just curious about is whether you or Stephanie have done any work to see if there are any grants then could get any positions going faster if indeed the town manager concludes that the budget situation is as bleak as I think it is. So that's the question. Yeah. I think I want to also ask Stephanie about this one but I think part of the problem is that there are so many, there's so much money available right now and the town with one director of sustainability does not have the bandwidth to do the applications that even if we did the application, every application has reporting. Every time you get a grant there's reporting, there's goals and milestones, there's all sorts of things that have to be done and so we already have a number of different grants. I mean the heat pump program is funded through ARPA. There's a lot of money coming in already and the question is how do you manage all of that. I think Stephanie if you have anything else you'd like to add. I would say that besides the funding as Lori noted it really does, it's a time commitment to even begin a process of then trying to find the grant funding and then it's a process of trying to hire someone on top of that whole process of trying to find the grant funding and following through with that. Also typically if we get grant funding it's going to be for a very limited period of time and in my mind this is a position that the town needs as an ongoing position, staff position. This shouldn't be just seen as a temporary kind of one-off for a few years. It's something that I think is really going to benefit the town over time. Okay are there other councilor comments? Questions? Thank you very much. Any final comments? Just thank you again for the opportunity to present the report. We appreciate the report and your recommendations for the town manager's goals. Thank you. We're going to move on to action items. Do we need to stop for technical issues? We're just taking a pause for a moment. Okay thank you. We're going to move on to, I mentioned before that we are going to take up the presentation and discussion and motions regarding the African Heritage Reparations Assembly report at our meeting on the 16th. We will now move on to bylaw 3.48 stretch energy code proposed adoption of special energy code. This is a first reading. There will be no action tonight. I want to acknowledge Anna Devlin-Gothier as the councilor who brought this forward and also mentioned that we have building commissioner Rob Mora and Stephanie Checcarello with us this evening as well. We already have had a presentation on this. It was referred at that time to the Community Resources Committee and GOL. I'm going to call on Mandy Jo Hanneke to give the report with regard to CRC. There's a report in the packet so I'm not going to say much other than we held the required hearing that the council delegated to us to hold on September 21st. There was no public comment at that hearing or questions made at that hearing. We closed the hearing and we made a unanimous recommendation to amend the bylaw as shown in the packet I guess right now is what it would be. Anna? I just want to clarify public comment was available. No one made public comment. Yeah. Right. GOL, Pat DeAngelois, please. At its September 27th meeting the GOL committee voted to declare the proposed amendments to the bylaw 3.48 stretch energy code as clear, consistent and actionable as amended and the motion was as I said voted on unanimously. Are there any questions or comments from councillors? I have been and led to believe that both Rob Morrow and Stephanie have been highly supportive of us making this move. Rob, did you have any comment you wanted to make? Yes. I just to mention that inspection services is supportive of adopting the specialized code. We are currently working with the latest version of the stretch energy code and its changes and training for what's proposed in the stretch code anyway for July 1st of 24. I really like that the potential adoption of the specialized code will align with those changes so that we are working with the designers and contractors and ourselves learning the changes at the same time rather than staggered. We are supportive of this effort. Anna, as the sponsor of this you had your hand up earlier. Did you have any additional comments? I was going to thank Jesse Salmon, ECAC and Stephanie for doing a bulk of the legwork. I took my hand down because there seemed to be other questions so I'm going to thank them again later. Okay. Michelle? I just wanted to thank Anna for bringing this forward and I really appreciated the question and answer that the KP law provided. It was helpful for me to kind of understand the whole process and that I hope other communities will be able to learn from what you have led regarding this and the KP law discussion and all of that. So thank you. Thanks. Andy? Yes. I'm very appreciative of the work that's been done on this and very supportive that we move forward when we get to the final vote. One question that I've been hearing a little bit from as I've been hearing from constituents is, gee, I don't understand how this is not costing us in the long run money. Where the balance comes in that you say that it actually is going to save us money. And it's sort of an interesting twist and I'm not the expert to answer the question. So I was wondering if there's anybody who we have today in the audience who can provide some guidance for all of us to be able to answer the question well. Thank you. Okay. Rob or Stephanie? Rob? I'm happy to start a little bit of the discussion. You know, I think the general idea is that in typical construction today there might be one or more systems to provide heating, cooling, safe for a home. And, you know, switching over to electrification will be one system. So right there at the time of construction costs are less. I'm sure Stephanie can talk about the incentives and rebates and everything that is there to support the builder. And then once the construction is completed the benefits for the lower energy demand on the structure, which is really the ultimate goal of this. But I'll let Stephanie continue that discussion. Thank you. Stephanie? Thank you, Rob. The long term benefits of reduced energy use and cost will be realized by the installer, the homeowner. Also, there are many incentives, especially for low income right now. So of the greatest concern for the low income community, I would say that beyond those for the construction costs, there are also incentives for homeowners that are low income as well. And can you go on our website and find those various pieces of information? Or maybe at least direct us to where the state has that information? So one of the best places to go right now would be on the MassSafe site. It's M-A-S-S-A-V-E. So MassSafe.com is the best location to find information right now. I personally would like to see us have a link to that on the town's website. We currently do. Actually, it's under the sustaining Amherst page. But we are also in the development of a community dashboard. It's got a lot of information on it, but it will actually have a lot of those links for homeowners, folks who are looking for electric vehicles, all kinds of information. Then it'll be sort of a one-stop opportunity to find sustainability information. Great. Thank you. Anna? Yeah, I want to grab the last thing Stephanie just said and give a shout out to ECAC for getting that into the town manager goals as well because we're seeing that realized and it's really exciting to know that dashboard's coming. The other place that I've found really helpful, Andy, in terms of looking at rebates that are going to come in the future is rewiring America. They've got a big list of the incentives that are coming through the Inflation Reduction Act. And then the other part, Andy, it's hard to give a clear answer on that because so much depends on what type of house you're building, right? Like the payoff date, right, is going to depend on all of the factors that go into building the house in the first place. And then, you know, I also, I think this is something that Stephanie and Jesse and I talked about is how we often hold energy saving measures to a higher standard than we hold some other building measures, right? We have this idea in our head that anything energy saving needs to come out at zero, right? It needs to pay for itself or beyond that. And so I also think we need to think about the benefits. While we know that this does have long-term cost benefit to the homeowner, we also need to remember that there's this whole other added suite of benefits, which is that we are building and renovating housing that's actually going to be sustainable in the face of our changing climate, right? We're actually going to see things that aren't contributing as terribly to our greenhouse gas emissions as a town. We're going to see more resilient infrastructure, and that's one of the big goals here. And I don't want to lose that in this conversation as well. And thank you for that question. Dorothy? Just a few, what I call comments, comments. Money for low-income people to improve their energy system, if it involves them having to lay the money out and then wait to be reimbursed, tend not to be that successful because people don't feel that they have the money to lay out. And that there's also a lack of trust that they'll ever get it. And the other thing, I think a website called Sustaining Amherst eliminates a lot of people who don't really are not, the word sustainable is just not one of their daily words. But energy efficient, people understand that word just to constantly remind you to speak in words that people who are not thinking about this all the time are familiar with and comfortable with. Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. Are there any other comments or questions at this time? This again is a first reading. It will come back up again on the 16th for a vote for adoption. Anna? As promised, I'm taking my last comment to truly thank you, Stephanie, for all of the work that you're doing. Thank you to ECAC for all of the work that you all are doing. It was such a joy to be your liaison. And then to be able to bring this forward as a sponsor was really exciting. So, Mandy, I just said I wanted to be the last comment on this. You are killing me. I also want to give a special shout out. He's not here, but Jesse Selman was instrumental in this. And as well, Rob Mora, thank you for supporting this work. Mandy, Joe? Sorry, Anna. My comments, a confirmation, I know Athena is very good at her job, but the 16th is two weeks from now and by law changes have to be on. So I just wanted to confirm that it's on the bulletin board. Thank you. That was a technical issue, Anna. Forgive it. Okay. Thank you. All right. With that, we will go on to the proposed acceptance of mass general law chapter 90, paragraph 18b, establishment of designated safety zones for ways in city or town. This, I'm going to pass this to Anna, who chaired the meeting, I believe, at TSO. TSO. Okay. Is that acceptable to you, Anika? Yes, it is. Thank you. Okay. So, Anna, why don't you give us the TSO report on this. Great. So some background on this. This is one of the things that had come up. We talk about speed limits a lot. We are often talking about what are the things that we can do to support safer streets. And one, it all kind of magically came together one day, as some things sometimes rarely do, when we realized that this was actually the provisions that we would like to accept had actually been on TSO's list of outstanding agenda items, as a carryover item from the prior council. So that meant that we were able to move it pretty quickly through TSO. As a reminder, what we are looking to do is adopt certain provisions of mass general law that would allow us to start down a path. And I want to be very clear that doing this today does not automatically change and create safety zones. This is step one of many steps that we need to continue to take. But this is still step one, and we should still take it in my opinion. So TSO discussed this as a carryover item. And we talked about the intention of safety zones and how it's come up. Specifically, the example that's come up most often in recent memory is the Cushman School. So safety zones are used where vulnerable road users are likely to be present. This might include high schools, child cares, senior housing, etc. And once the safety zone is established, speed limits must be set at 20 miles per hour. So what the next steps after this are, because I don't want, again, I want to manage expectations. This does not automatically change those speed limits. What this does is it gets us the first step in the process to determine what a safety zone is in Amherst. So TSO unanimously supported this to come back to the council, unanimous recommendation to come back to the council. Thank you, Anna. So let me just mention that in the consent agenda, we already waived the rule that allows us to act on this tonight. That was rule 8.4 without it being heard twice. I also want to reinforce what Anna just said. This allows us to begin the process. And it is not actually setting the zones, but allows us to get going. This will also remain in TSO so that it's not coming back to the council, but will remain as they, as that committee works through the steps and brings the necessary recommendations to the council as they have them. Okay, with that, I'm going to make a motion to accept the provisions of Massachusetts general law chapter 90 section 18B, or paragraph 18B, establishment of designated safety zones for ways in cities and town violation. Is there a second? Second, Rooney. Don't everybody race to the day? Okay. Are there questions at this point? Pam. Thank you. I just want to say thanks for finding this. We've talked about safety issues a lot. And I didn't realize that it was sitting somewhere on a dusty shelf. So I'm really, really glad that it got pulled off. The question to TSO is are who is who is going to be tasked with following through on this and and actually creating the first list or going to step number two? I think that's as critical as us voting yes tonight is to keep it going because it's, it is a very important thing that needs to get done. Thank you. Can I respond? I believe it will stay with TSO for, for, for right now. And if we need to bring in outside people, we absolutely will, but for now it's in TSO. And it will probably at least pieces of it will have to remain on the carryover memo that we vote on at the end of the council because one of the next steps is a study that has to be done so that then the recommendation about various zones can be made. Athena, was there anything you wanted to add to that since you and I have discussed this several times? No, I think what Anna said about it staying in TSO and TSO continuing to work on it, figuring out the next steps of the process, how the town council wants to decide when and where to establish safety zones and what will need to be done before they establish them, that will stay with TSO. There was also another section of general law that was referred to TSO back in 2021. And that that's also remaining in TSO. It was about that the townwide speed limits, I believe. Right. That's that is that remained in TSO and got carried over. Thank you. So just as a follow up then, could TSO keep us informed on this very important thing? I think that would be for those of us who didn't get to get on TSO, but what would like to be? That would be extremely important to keep us informed and give us some sense of their plan or recommended plan for how we move forward with some timeframe. Jennifer. Yeah. So I'm just wondering with the Cushman Scott School, since this is a long, I mean, it's great we're moving in this direction, but since it's long term, are there, you know, what can we do to, you know, correct the situation or improve it, you know, more immediately? I just want to acknowledge that Jeremy Anderson is still in the audience. He is the person that has been working on this. They have included any number of measures. And my understanding is when they've implemented them, they actually see people slow down and acknowledge the fact that they need to speak. Jeremy, it's very unusual for us to ask somebody from the audience to come back in. But if there's anything you would like to add to that, I am going to allow that at this time. Thank you. I really appreciate all of your efforts on this. And the Cushman Scott facility in particular has been focused for my attention. But the safety zones is something that I'm excited about can be applied across the town, for parks, for elder care facilities. But, you know, Cushman immediately is the question that you've brought up. We've been pursuing a number of avenues with Town Manager, with Public Works, with the police department. Some of those we're waiting for survey results, such as potentially putting speed bumps in, trying to get your speed sign that Amherst Police has provided a temporary trailer, which, as Lynn was saying, has been very effective. I mean, it's really encouraging to see one of these signs, to see cars visibly slow down when the lights start flashing and all of a sudden there's a reaction. So I'm hopeful that we can continue to work to find not just to establish safety zones, but also to have speed bumps. The town has mentioned possibly looking into the lease structure to see if a parking lot could be restructured. But yes, we're actively trying to find some immediate solutions and I'm very grateful for all of your help today. Thank you. And thanks for staying with us long enough to answer that question. Mandy Jo. My questions were, I guess, partially answered. So I'll still ask them, because they weren't fully clear to me the answers. The first one was the part of the townwide or I think it's thickly settled or something like that, the other half of it. It sounded like TSO has not discussed that. So my question was, did they make a recommendation not to pursue it? But it sounds like they did not discuss it. So it's still correct. We did not discuss it. It's still setting TSO. Okay. And then the next question was, has TSO already gathered a list of safety zones or is that going to be or potential safety zones or is that the next step? The next step would be to, well, one of the next steps, I'm sure that there's something before this, but one of the next steps would be to establish our criteria. So it's not a predefined criteria from the state. We need to come up. They give suggestions or they give guidelines, but they have a minimum. We need to decide if we want to go above that in establishing our own criteria for a safety zone and then we'll come up with a list. So there is a step before it. And in the memo, I think there's a handy list of the the second page at the top of the second page has MassDOT's minimum safety criteria, but again, we could go above that. And it would also include an engineering study for every location. Okay. Andy. Speaking both as a member of TSO, mostly as a member of TSO, but also as the one who's the closest neighbor to the Cushman Scott did care of anybody on the council since I'm just a couple of hundred yards from there. And I observe personally the traffic and the speeds that people at times are coming down Henry Street. We may want to consider as a council whether this is something that should be included as a goal for the next year because TSO cannot really perform this work without the support of the executive branch because the town engineer and it's been mentioned also the police department and DPW in general are important partners in both identifying the most likely zones of concern because they have received reports and had observations and they are going to be integral to steps that need to be taken as this proceeds. So well, committee that I'm sitting on is not the one that does the initial draft of the town manager goals. I do encourage that committee to consider this question as it develops potential goals for our consideration as a council. Thank you. And it is GOL that develops the initial set for discussion by the council. Dorothy, you have your hand up. I just want to say how glad I am that the town manager and the town departments are busy doing albeit temporary solutions but immediate to deal with the problem which is very serious while we wait to go through all of the steps that are required to do something legally and permanent with studies and approval and this and that. So I had not known that they were doing all of those things and I think it's very, very good and I'm very happy to hear it. That's it. Thank you. Pam, you have another question or comment? Yeah. I think the reason I asked my question about who is going to take the next step is that I wanted to hear that people were going to be brought in who had the expertise to do it rather than TSO members. So TACC is another group that I would think could almost be assigned this to come up with the initial list of issue areas in town or TACC and DPW but thank you for including those other elements. Very important and so that as two things I just want to do is follow up. When TSO does its carry over issues please make sure that you include anything with that such as a timeline, a work plan and any suggestion in terms of the kind of financial support that might be needed and then GOL, Pat, I saw you take a note for the town manager's goals about this one. So we'll come up with we'll come back to that. Okay. Anika. Yes, I just wanted to say that so all of your all of your recommendations. You need to speak. Sorry, I just wanted to say all of your recommendations are already prepared and we are just waiting for also some feedback from Paul. So it should prepare but I'm happy to resend that report from that that meeting to you so you can be refreshed with the conversation that happened. Great. Would you please make sure that you send that information to the chair of GOL and CC me. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other comments on this? Pam, you still have your hand up but I think you just didn't take it down. So with that we have a motion on the floor and the motion has been made and seconded and it is to accept the provisions of master general law chapter 90 18 be establishment of designated safety zones for ways in city or town violation. I'm going to move to the vote. I'm going to start with Pat D'Angelo's Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Gries-Mersen. Aye. Mindy Johanna. Aye. Anika Lopes. Aye. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane is absent. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. And Shalini Bell Mill is absent. It is unanimous. It's 11 counselors in favor and two counselors absent. The next item on our agenda is the proposed bylaw ensuring safe access to legally protected reproductive and gender affirming healthcare. Again, this is a first reading. We will have the second reading on the 16th. I want to acknowledge Anna Devlin-Gothier and Mindy Johanna Key as sponsors of this bylaw and ask Pat D'Angelo's for the CRC report. How about GOL? GOL. Ask Pat D'Angelo's for the GOL report. How's that one? Got it? Correct. And it's August 30th meeting the GOL unanimously declared the bylaw ensuring safe access to legally protected reproductive and gender affirming healthcare, clear, consistent, and actionable as amended. Are there any questions? Any comments? I have a comment. Okay. I am utterly grateful that this has come forward and I support it wholeheartedly. I'm exceedingly happy as well. All right. Anna. Sorry. I keep forgetting I have a double to raise my hand now. I want to thank Mindy for all of her work on this. I think her expertise in looking for the loopholes was incredibly helpful as we made sure that we were doing everything we could to backstop our state policy. I just wanted to highlight Mindy's expertise and ability to do that. Thank you. I also want to highlight the support we received from Pat, who was also an incredible advocate for this as it moved through GOL. And then I also want to thank, this is a weird thanks, but I want to thank our legal team at KP Law for being willing to work with us. I think that it was something where we were navigating questions about from the first round and we were able to really work together to clarify the intent and to tighten it this up to make sure that it was pretty ironclad. So thank you to all of those folks and to GOL. Thank you. Great. Again, this was the first reading. It will come back on the 16th. And I assume it is posted. I just thought I'd check on that before Mindy Joe did, you know. Okay. The next item is the disposition of bylaws identified for future consideration. I promised Pat I would provide a little bit of history here before we start. Back before the council was seated, one of the provisions of the charter was to conduct a bylaw review. And a very able committee did that. And out of that bylaw review came several recommended bylaws that we should look at. And over the last several years, we've actually done that. Some of those have been referred to committees. Some of those have come back to the council. We have made amendments on any number of those. And this is the final package. The other thing I want to be very clear about, because I see one of my whole committee people on the solar, I mean, on the issue of the zero energy bylaw for municipal buildings. We are not recommending any changes to the zero energy bylaw for municipal buildings. We looked at what was recommended by or what was questioned by the bylaw review committee. And it was not something that needed to be dealt with at this time or necessarily into say on that. It was concerned by the bylaw review committee about definitions. And we went back to the net zero committee to clarify and they supported the definitions. So therefore no action. So with that, Pat, why don't you take over with that's the history and tell us what this long list is about? Okay, we're finally getting down to a few bylaws, many of which we really need no action. And I'm just going to go through them one at a time. And these were voted on in August and also in July, some of them in July. So I'll say bylaw 3.7 licenses, permits, denial, revocation or suspension for failure to pay municipal taxes or charges. It was reviewed by KP law at our request and no action is needed. And we recommended that on August 30. The special Board of Appeals, the it was replaced and repealed and replaced in July 2019. But it kept being carried over. So no action is needed on that and that was decided also at the August 30th meeting. That's 3.23 peaking and peering into the place of habitation. The committee voted on 7 July 12th to recommend referral to town services and outreach committee to consider charges related changes, excuse me, related to drones and the use of drones for surveillance. Bylaw 3.21 regulations relating to animals. There was a question about whether there should be updates about service dogs and service animals. The several, the committee reached out several times to the animal control officer and we got no response. So we are making the assumption that it does not have to be added. So we're recommending on that no action. The nuisance house or 3.26 nuisance house was referred to CRC and it's now being transformed into a nuisance property bylaw and being stronger, which is a good thing. Let me see. 3.36 soliciting and the committee voted on August 30th to recommend no action since the council amended the bylaw in 2022. Bylaw 3.49. We are basically recommending no action. There was a difference in language between the ZBA uses alternates and or might be the other way the historic districts uses associates and so we felt like the original bylaw review committee wanted those to be aligned but there is no problem with them not being aligned basically. So we're not recommending action on that. The zero energy I've already explained at the end of Lynn's sharing and we are we agreed on July 12th that no further action was needed. Make sure you stay with the microphone. No. There were a series of bylaws that were referred by the bylaw review committee and they have been referred to the town manager for a variety of reasons and I'm not going to go into all of them but we're waiting for responses back from the town manager and many of the departments involved. So thank you Pat and I just want to say that I really appreciate Pat's doggedness in getting this through GOL because it's been on and off our agendas to make sure we get it done and we are done as of tonight. So the the issue now is there is one bylaw that GOL voted to have it referred to TSL and it is the bylaw with relation on peaking and peering and it was particularly raised I believe over the issue of drones. Yes I just want I'm going to read the bylaw I'm going to look for a second but I want to just explain that if the council does not feel at this time that it is important for the committee to take it up you would vote no and it would not be referred. If you feel it is important to take it up at TSO then you will vote yes and in that doing that I would like you to think about the criteria that we periodically refer to in a somewhat elusive manner about what is most important what do we have time for and what really needs to get done and do we have the time to get it done okay. So the motion is to refer bylaw 3.23 peaking and peering into the place of habitation to the town services and outreach committee to review and recommend changes related to the use of drones and the governance organization legislation committee to review changes for clarity consistency and actionability with reports of the town council by November 20 23. Is there a second? Second DeAngelo. Okay I also want to make note that November 20 means they just have to come out back and report progress if they have a recommendation to us that's fine but they can also just come back and report progress. So with that I'm looking for questions or comments. I have a question I basically want to ask the chair. Pat please. I'm sorry go ahead. Yeah I want to ask the chairs of TSO whether this feels like an agenda item that you want to take on. Anika or Anna. Two minutes. Sorry. Anna. With all due respect we are still puzzling how we are going to get through what we have on the table and with our especially you know completing our carryover item so we can package up TSO as nicely and clearly and thoroughly as possible for the next council and TSO. Anna you have your hand up. Did we keep asking you to speak for CRC? I don't know why. GOL talk about which state law provisions might apply to drones and property at all. We did them. Okay I was just the reason I asked is I was thinking about how urgent this is right and so I did a quick search for state laws that might cover this. There are some that seem like they might apply while it does seem that eventually it would be good for us to do this. I do not think that TSO can fit this in in this term and I don't think that it is as emergent as some of the other issues that we are facing so I will not support the referral at this time. Pam. Thank you. I understand this list of the bylaw review I believe is a carryover from last council so it I'm having not been involved in that committee or not involved in that process. Do people can people contribute to the list? I'm not looking to drum up more work but can people contribute to that list? What set that list as the list to be reviewed and are there other items that should have been on the list and aren't? I understand the bylaw review committee was set up before the town council was in place as a transition and it reviewed all of the bylaws and the zoning bylaws and these were ones that were seemingly less important in many ways and so they got pushed back and pushed back. There is no bylaw review committee so any current councilor who wanted to look at a bylaw would need to bring it forward to the council. Excellent. Mandy Jo. Mandy Jo. That's just still talking over there. I just wanted to say honest at it perfectly I will not be voting for referral for the reason she said. Dorothy. I just want some clarification review. I remember we talked about surveillance and truthfully I don't remember what we said about it but it seems to me that drones relates to surveillance. I'm trying to figure out is it a town service? I mean that you're you have privacy in your house or that there's not stuff I don't know so I don't I don't know if it really belongs in TSO and I don't remember what we did about surveillance but I think we have to think about it. I do think it's important but to me it's part of an overall thing to do with privacy which you know where would that go? That's my question. That's certainly a debatable issue. The motion on the floor is that it would go to TSO that was based on a previous discussion within GOL and so I believe the surveillance issue that you're speaking to and I'm going to look to Mandy Jo is much more related to police and cameras. It was related to town operated surveillance technologies not non-town operated surveillance. But I still think it's surveillance you know I mean I don't see it as a town service that's why I'm not sure it goes in TSO but I'm not sure where it goes. I think it's important however but we're talking about the end of the season the end of a term and obviously this is only so much people can do but we're going to have to deal with it sometime. I'd like to call the question. Okay the question's been called. That requires a second. Second Devon got here. And we'll vote on whether we're going to call the question and then we'll vote after that. So I'm going to start with Anna Devon got here. Hi. Lynn Griesmars and I. Mandy Jo Hannake. Hi. Anika Lopes. Hi. Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Marouni. Yes. Kathy Shane is absent. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Leisha Walker. Yes. Shalini Belmill is absent and Patty Angelis. It's unanimous. The question's been called. We move immediately to the actual motion. The motion is about referral to TSO for peaking and peering. And I'm going to begin the vote with Lynn Griesmars and I am voting nay. Mandy Jo Hannake. No. Anika Lopes. No. Michelle Miller. No. Dorothy Pam. No. Pam Marouni. No. Kathy Shane is absent. Andy Steinberg. No. Jennifer Taub. No. Alicia Walker. No. Shalini Belmill is absent. Pat DeAngelis. No. Anna Devlin-Gothier. No. That is unanimous. It's 11 councillors in favor of not... Oh, I'm sorry. It's 11 against. I'm sorry. Therefore, it is not referred. There are two councillors absent. Dorothy. I do not like the name of the law. Peaking and peering sounds cute. That sounds like a child playing peek-a-boo with you. It's spying. And I think it should be labeled more accurately. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Are there any other questions or comments with regard to this? Then we're going to move on. We've done appointments by consent agenda. Committee reports, CRC. You heard our... Well, we discussed the most recent item that we dealt with today. But this coming Thursday, CRC has a meeting. We will be taking up the items that finance sent over to us regarding the rental permit, by-law, rental registration, by-law. It is likely the only thing we will take up on the agenda, even though there are other things on the agenda. The committee will not do its usual two-hour meeting. It will probably end around an hour and a half, although I think I've got committee members that wanted to end even earlier, in order to allow everyone to make it to the League of Women Voters. No, UMass's Tuesday League of Women Voters is Thursday. League of Women Voters forum for the election night at 7 p.m. Okay. The elementary school building committee, Kathy, is absent. Alicia, do you have any comments? Thank you, Lynn. There are no updates. We have not had another meeting, but we do have one scheduled for October 13th, where we will be getting the updated cost estimates from the estimators. Thank you. Finance committee, Andy. No report this evening. Okay. G.O.L., Pat. I think you've heard it all. Okay. Jones Library Building Committee, Anika. I'm sorry. I couldn't even. Jones Library Building Committee. Yes, so I was not able to attend the last meeting due to Dr.'s appointments. So I will have a thorough report for our next meeting. Thank you. TSO, Anika. Okay. So our last TSO meeting, we were able to, excuse me, we were able to go through the, I'm so sorry. Excuse me, I have something that was caught in my throat. That was caught in my throat. I apologize. No, no, no, it's okay. I just, I just needed to, to clear my, to clear my. Just taking a moment. Okay. I apologize for that delay. We were able to discuss the North Pleasant Street updates. That was a item that was a carryover item from the last council. So we were able to discuss that plan and receive an update from the, from the town manager. We zeroed in, in talking about one bus stop that is around Old Town Road. This had come to us that this had come to TSO and piece mail through some concerns for residents that were seeing part of this plan be implemented. So in just, in seeing that this was part of an overall plan that had come to the last council and then moved over to TSO and then again went through as a carryover item. We were able to discuss that plan and we will be expecting soon an update from the engineers to see what of that plan has already been initiated. And then we will be able to go forward with having some cost estimates that we hope that we will have some updates for our next meeting. We also went through appointments. We had quite a few appointments that that were made and that came through they're all within the report. And they all went through unanimously. And then we were also able to discuss our upcoming agenda items, which we have, of course, we have universal composting and we have street lights. Our next meeting is the 16th, if I have that correctly, Thursday is a 16th where we will have more of a thorough map out of our remaining items and how we will piece and puzzle them together throughout the remainder of this term and what will go on to be packaged for our carryover report. Thank you. Your next meeting is actually scheduled for October 12th and then the next one is the 26th. Okay. Thank you for that correction. Okay. All right. We are going to take advantage of Dave Zomac, who is our assistant town manager who's here tonight in because he is the acting town manager. And Paul, our town manager, Paul Bachmann, is at a professional conference. So Dave has agreed during this town manager's report to give us a little bit of an update on Hickory Ridge. Sure. Thanks, Lynn, and thanks for having me tonight. I did have maybe three quick updates and I'll end with Hickory Ridge, but excited to welcome our new Public Health Director today. Kiko began service with the town this morning. We had an informal staff reception for her around noon over at the Banks Community Center, so really excited to be working with Kiko. And I hope if you haven't met Kiko, you will in the coming days and weeks. We're also working, staff and I are working on the VFW site just down the road here on Main Street. We are proceeding with some due diligence on the site we did purchase this as the council knows and the community knows using ARPA funds, but we're moving forward with site survey work. We're also looking at the building. There's quite a bit of work to do when you demolish a building. People think it's just kind of simple, but you really need to assess the building. You need to make sure you kind of analyze what's in the building. Are there any hazardous materials in the building, i.e. asbestos, things of that sort. So Rob Mora and his team are working on that right now. We do have ARPA funds to remove that building. So the goal would be to prepare that site for development and present it in the months ahead in 24 and 25 to the community, but also with the hope of attracting a partner like we have at East Street School. So we'll be moving forward in 24 with demo in the building and then we'll also bring on an architect to do some early conceptual renderings to give all of us an idea of what could happen on the site. Obviously we've talked about a shelter and permanent supportive housing above. What might that look like on the site? How many units could fit there? Those kinds of things. And then I anticipate kind of a January, February kicking off a community process to invite you all in, the community in to kind of vision with us what might happen there. And also invite some of our potential partners, obviously like Craig's Doors, Valley CDC, Wayfinders, etc. So I think 24 and 25 is going to be a very exciting time for looking at the VFW site. And really the goal here is always to get projects moving, get them in the pipeline, get them on the tarmac, if you will, so they can get ready to seek funding. So our partners can get ready to seek funding on those projects. Moving along to Hickory Ridge. It's been a busy year at Hickory Ridge, a challenging year a little bit with the weather, I might add. Our partners, you are well aware that amp energy is now pure sky energy. And overall our relationship with pure sky has been very good. I would call it transparent. They have been responsive to our needs, to our demands down there and our requirements, I should say, as part of their multiple permits. This is a highly permitted project. It's permitted at the state level, the local level. The Natural Heritage Program is very involved there because we know it's a very ecologically sensitive site. So what's happened in 23? Going back a few months, there's certainly been, they've experienced some supply chain issues, which I think all building has experienced. They had the change in ownership from amp to pure sky. We've worked with them on building permits. Our inspection services office through Rob Mora has issued building permits for the actual construction of the arrays themselves. And we've had to work with them to adjust their timelines due to some of the weather delays and also the supply chain delays. Their project schedule has really needed to be adjusted quite significantly. That also means their local and state permits need to be adjusted because they're not going to be constructing in the time period we thought they were. So as an example, they spent a couple of months working with the Natural Heritage Program this summer adjusting their natural heritage permits. And these are permits related to rare and endangered species. And construction can only happen in those areas during certain periods of time. So they work through those. And I'm pretty comfortable and confident that those have been resolved. Pure sky also, unfortunately, one of their permits with the local con with our conservation commission, their order of conditions expired. And so they have to come back before the conservation commission to update their order of conditions through a notice of intent. So you'll see that probably, well, you will see it during October and it may make the newspapers and be covered. There's nothing amiss down there. There's nothing wrong. They have been following, as I said, all of the procedures that we laid out for them. They just need to get everything in order and then proceed. So I would anticipate construction beginning again, again, weather permitting this winter and then well into 2024. Let's see. On the town side, what have we been doing? What have staff been doing there? We've been pretty busy. So our goal is to put together a comprehensive plan for the entire site. Keep in mind for the council, just as a reminder, but also for the public, solar came with the project. That was really predetermined before we bought the property. And so the energy for the solar project will be going to Springfield. There'll be an off taker for all of the energy from the project. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It helps green the city of Springfield. It helps the sister city of ours down the road reach their carbon footprint or their carbon goals. And at the time, when this came to us, we actually couldn't take all of the power. We didn't need to be, we didn't have the need to be an off taker of all of the power that's going to come off that project. So good for Springfield. We will get a pilot payment, a payment in lieu of taxes, which will be greater than a pilot that was being paid by Hickory Ridge when it was a golf course. So that'll be income coming into the town. So what has town staff been doing? So we've been, as I said, been pretty busy. We're doing a building assessment there just like with the VFW. Rob Mora, his team working with me and others are assessing that big building, the old clubhouse. We know the clubhouse is a demo. It was in terrible shape for many years. It is, it is a tear down, but we have to go through all of the process to remove it. So we're doing the assessments. We're looking at survey and we'll eventually take that money, excuse me, take that building down. We may need some funding for that in the future because we don't have any funding. Unlike the VFW, which would be ARPA funds. We don't have any funds set aside to remove that big, that big old clubhouse. We've done a full wetlands assessment of all 150 acres. And keep in mind that wasn't done by Pure Sky because they weren't developing on 150 acres. They were developing on 26. So we know where the wetlands, where the wetlands are, the vernal pools, the flood plains, everything is mapped. And that's a huge piece. We've also completed a restoration plan. What needs to be done to the property do in large part to some of the damage that was done. When you have a golf course, golf courses can be detrimental to the land. They can be detrimental to the river, to the wetlands, etc. So we have a full restoration plan for all of the ecology and the ecological specialties on the property. So that's done. We also have a full trails plan. You know that we, through Engage Amherst, we did a lot of outreach in 21 during parts of the pandemic. We got a lot of feedback about trails and trail connectivity. So we have a full draft trails plan for the entire property, which includes connectivity to the neighborhoods to the north and to the south. We're also working on easements because we'll need easements from some private property owners to make those trail connections. The goal here would be someone at enjoying Grawth Park, could walk down the new multi-purpose path of sidewalk along East Adley Road, and then go on an easement all the way by Mill Valley to Brook Renew, make their way onto the Pickery Ridge, I almost said Cherry Hill, the Pickery Ridge property. And then if they wanted to go down to the Village Center to get a bite to eat, pick up some milk, visit with some folks who live down there, and then walk or ride their bike back, they could do that. We've also gotten the $400,000 grant, the park grant, which you all heard about. We are, we have presented that to the Conservation Commission. We have to follow the same rules and procedures that anyone would to develop such a trail. And the Commission, I hope we'll act on that notice of intent at their next meeting. We previewed with that project with them last Wednesday. So if that goes forward, we put the accessible trail out to bid, and we construct that in the spring of 24. As I said, we're securing easements. And then we're also looking at massing studies. We're taking a look at the frontage along West Pomeroy Lane. We know that there are about five, five and a half acres there, including the parking lot and the clubhouse, that could be used for other purposes. Earlier tonight, we heard someone in the public comment reference, perhaps using some of that space for a community center of some type, where we've anticipated that. And we've looked at, I'm getting to Fire Station too. So we could fit some sort of community center there. We can fit a fire station there. We can actually fit both those there. We know that. We've also looked at affordable housing. What kind of massing could work there for affordable housing? While also making sure that a land on West Pomeroy Lane could be the trailhead, the gathering spot for people to be welcome to the site. We've looked at community gardens. We've also looked at an amphitheater, a natural amphitheater there. So a lot of things happening. All of them would need to be permitted. We know a fire station would fit. If that is the direction the town wants to go, then we could proceed in that direction. So I think I'll stop there. Happy to take questions. A lot going on and we're making progress. And I think 24, 25 is going to be pretty exciting at Hickory Ridge. Okay, thank you. Pat. Yeah, I'm wondering we've had very strange and massive rain throughout our spring and summer now into our fall. And I'm interested in whether or not there's work being done with the Wetlands Administrator to review the wetlands at Hickory Ridge and in other properties like the Shootsbury Road property that might be used to the forest there. Whether or not we are looking at what impact all that rain has had on the natural wetlands. Well, I'll try to compartmentalize those a little bit. So certainly at Hickory Ridge, Erin Jock, our Wetlands Administrator, is quite amazing. And in my opinion, one of the best wetlands folks in Massachusetts and we're fortunate to have her on our team and working with us. She has been consistently at the property as recently as last Friday when we had over three inches of rain. There's no question. We know that certain aspects of Hickory Ridge, certain parts of it do flood that was anticipated. The area where solar will go is not in the flood zone, is not in flood plain. It is much higher and drier and topographically different. We also know the area of where the current clubhouse is and the parking lot is higher than the rest of the property. Only 75% of the property is either wetland flood plain and actively floods and with climate change may flood even more. And I have some pictures in my inbox that were taken on Friday. So I know that the site flooded extensively on Friday and Saturday. Interestingly enough, earlier this year, there has not been all that much. The Fort River has not overtopped the banks that much at Hickory Ridge. Regarding other proposed solar projects, no doubt, those will go through the appropriate boards and committees, the Conservation Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals, or both. And I think all projects are going to have to, as we move forward, consider these rains that we're getting that are so intense, whether we look at Vermont earlier this year or what happened in New York and surrounding boroughs over the weekend, seven, eight inches of rain in less than 24 hours. So it's a different world for wetlands. Dorothy? A question and a comment. Will there be any part of any of these paths you're talking about, which will be accessible like at the Silvio Canto Center? And I just want to say, I hope you're going to stay for the long haul because your interest and dedication on this project is amazing. And I have total and absolute faith and trust in you. So keep it up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I intend to finish the project. I like to like to finish where I start. Absolutely, it's your question about Silvio Canto. And I love, I sometimes love the comparisons we get, although people do absolutely adore that trail over in Hadley. So the answer is yes, this trail will be accessible. It'll be a crushed stone trail with kiosks, with benches, with a couple of bridges, a boardwalk. And the goal is for anyone to be able to traverse this. It'll be about three quarters of a mile long and take you through different habitats, like the trail over at Silvio Canto does. And the goal is it must be finished by the end of June in 24. That's as per the grant. So that trail will be done by the end of June 24. Some of the other trails may take a little longer to get built and permitted. You may recall we also have CDBG funds for the north-south trail. So we're permitting all the trails as one package and then we'll build them as funding allows. First to be built will be the accessible trail on the frontage along a spomeroid lane. Second to be built will be the north-south connection and then we'll go from there. Anna. Dave, I apologize if I missed it. How many... I'm really excited about the restoration work and I'm curious roughly how many acres of the parcel are not solar nor wetlands nor buffer zone. Basically how many acres are buildable? I've heard six. Is that... Yeah. So if we start with 150, the parcel is 150, we subtract about 26 for solar, active solar. And then the solar company had to mitigate for their impacts. So subtract another 20 acres of that. And then what is left is mostly wetland, riverfront, floodplain, vernal pools, etc. And then out of that is probably five to seven acres. And the biggest area, if you will, about five acres is along near the clubhouse. Just think clubhouse and parking lot. That is developable. There may be another little sliver over to the east that is also high and dry. Okay. So that's what we're working with. I want to make the point too that although we're talking about a lot of these things, none of them, the trail system, by embarking on that, it does not preclude anything. We've made sure we don't preclude any other things happening by creating a trail system. Trails can be moved slightly. Once you build a building, you want to do that for the long haul. Right. Thank you. And then I also am assuming that you'll have parking for those trails on site versus any way of some trails that don't have parking at trailheads. And so you're in all of the planning that's taking up some of the space as well, right? Yeah. So when, again, I can work through the council as to when we present some of these materials that I've discussed today. But again, another January, February, we could do kind of a comprehensive, get the trail system mapped out to you and you could see. But the trail, the main parking will be in the high dry area off of West Pomeroy Lane. Great. Our goal, and we're already a good way there, is to have a trailhead on East Abbey Road, Jason to, as I said, renew the Brook Mill Valley. And then we'd also have a trailhead on West Street, which gets people out to West Street on the brand new sidewalk, which is going in now. If you've gone by there and then get you to the Village Center, which has now been repaved through the new sidewalks and all of that through the state grant. It's Pomeroy. I just wanted to give you a chance to brag about the new sidewalk. Thank you. Yeah. It's going to be beautiful down there. And we intend to bring people out to the Village Center that way. And that's really, that's not that expensive to do that. Some of these trails will be crushed stone. Some of them will be simply a single track, old cart path, cart path, a golf cart path. Yes. So I have a couple of questions. Let's stick with trails and the property in general. And that is that making sure that future budgets have significant enough maintenance money in them to maintain whatever we do. The second question is on the property, there is also another building that looks much more like a maintenance building. I don't know, maybe it housed golf carts. I have no idea. Will that be demolished or will that building be kept? And maybe you don't have answers to that at this point. And then the third question is really about the solar and whether or not there's going to be any battery storage on site with the solar. And what is being done to protect against the fact that we've seen several of these battery storage sites actually go up in flames? Great, I'll just take those in order. So absolutely on maintenance funding down the road, we certainly will look at that in terms of future capital requests. The deadline for CPA proposals just was last Friday and we did put in four more trail money to see back, so I anticipate that being an annual ask. You are correct Lynn, there are three other buildings. They're called Morton buildings. These are kind of prefab metal buildings. There are two on the east, one on the west, west of the clubhouse. They will stay for now. Two out of three of them are in pretty good shape. One of them is just so-so. But our building department and our facilities department is doing kind of an assessment of those buildings right now. Right now they are housing other equipment and they certainly could be kind of a shared resource as we look at swing space that might be needed for other buildings and equipment. They're not appropriate for housing staff, I will say that. There are no bathrooms and things of that sort. But they could be used for equipment storage. So those will stay for now. Only the clubhouse will be removed. There is also a pump house on the site which provided their huge pumps to pump water to the irrigation system. We're actually working on a state and federal grant right now. When I showed the state and federal folks this pump house and the damage it had done to the Fort River, they were ecstatic to include it in their grant. So I'm trying to get that paid for outside of Amherst. Yeah. And then solar battery storage, excellent question. We are currently working with Pure Sky but also with our fire department and inspection services department to finalize what kind of batteries will be on the site. And that is kind of an ongoing question. We've received quite a bit of feedback and information from folks looking at battery storage across the country. And there have been significant situations with batteries that have caught on fire. And the response of those local municipalities is kind of being studied by our fire department. So we're working with Chris Baskham, our inspector in the fire department. And they're continuing to have conversations with Pure Sky about what batteries will go on the site as well as other sites. And those other batteries on other sites will be discussed at some length during the ZBA process. Great. Thank you. Pam Rooney. Thank you. The conversation about batteries brought to mind the something on the news just not long ago that when a Tesla crashes, some communities actually don't have the capacity to deal with the battery removal and some of the toxins in the cars that are now being produced. So does our community have the resources and the training to deal with batteries in general? I wanted to focus on the easements you talked about and wondered if just given the lay of the land, the solar field is to the north. As are the apartment buildings up there, do we get an easement through their solar field, essentially, to get to the lower part of the property so that they can access the, I'll call it the park. And a comment about the wetlands themselves. So this entire base in this whole Fort River system is actually really, really important for Amherst as a protection measure that when the wetlands do their job, they will help mitigate a lot of these flash flood events that we're seeing by having a rich vegetation, by having a healthy environment to help slow down that water. So I'm really glad that they've studied the wetlands. But going back to the easements, I want to transition just quickly to North Amherst. There's another trail system. It's an informal trail system in North Amherst. And at one point, they were asking, could we get some cooperative agreement or at least some letters of agreement to hold landowners not liable for having an informal trail crossing their land? Can the same thing be done in North Amherst as you're thinking of creating in South, in Hickory Ridge with an actual easement? Go ahead, David. Yeah, there's a couple of things there. So just so folks know on the battery storage, there's really at minimum two issues with battery storage. One is containment. What happens if a battery catches on fire? Does everything in it stay where we want it to stay? And so that relates to conversations and permitting that both our wetlands folks, our fire folks, and our building department had had about pads and containment. The same is true of oil refineries or whether you have a, we all remember when oil tanks were in the ground and what happened there. So containment is important as to any chemicals, but then the issue is can the fire department put out the fire or are there fire suppression systems in the batteries that put them out themselves? I think those are ongoing conversations that our fire department are having with PureSky and with their colleagues across the Northeast. Easements, so we've been very careful with PureSky. Those arrays were designed so that we can have a trail system that goes through and around them. In fact, we heard loud and clear from the Nordic ski community that they wanted a very long ski trail around the Western Array. So there is enough room around the Western Array between the property line and the fence line to have a very long, I don't know off the top of my head now how long that loop is, but there will be a hiking, walking, running loop and that can double as a Nordic trail in the winter. Fort River floodplain, this may sound, I don't want people to get alarmed by this, but to your point about floodplains, some of the grants we're working on actually would allow the Fort River to overtop its banks somewhat more than it is today because the golf course and other activities out there have tried to contain the Fort River within its banks. So some of the work that we may do in future years would allow it to go out and then water to enter back into the main stem of the river, but not impact the buildable areas that we have along East Adley Road. Or excuse me, West Palm Array Lane. Okay. Did I hit all of those? I think so. Pat, just quickly you talked about accessibility for the trails and I wonder if you have been in contact with the Disability Access Advisory Committee about those trails because they're often overlooked when we're designing accessibility, which doesn't make sense. They are definitely on our list, so we are going to hit- They're on your list, but they need to actually be met with. They will be. I was going to finish by saying conservation is first this fall. We then go to DAC, the planning board needs to weigh in, and probably DRB. So all four of those will need to weigh in on the accessible, particularly the accessible trail that we want to get built by June 30th. I appreciate that honestly and truly. However, you're leaving the people who have disabilities and understand accessibility for the trail better than an able-bodied person who studied it. So why are they last? If you're making these plans, you really need input that's going to work. You will be bringing the architect design plans to them and they are still malleable. We can still make changes to those plans. There is nothing set in stone on those plans. So we will be bringing those to the DAC, the DRB and the planning board. No shame or blame, but that's not been their experience. That usually things come to them and what they say really doesn't matter. Is it absolutely? It will. It will matter. This is the first truly accessible trail that I think we will have in the town. So I think that definitely will happen. We will do site visits with them and work with them, particularly on the loop trail. Some of the other trails, honestly, because of topography, creges, wetlands won't be fully accessible, but the one loop trail will absolutely be. I'm going to hold you to that. Yeah. Okay. David, thank you. We did take advantage of your being with us this evening. The with regard to counselor comments, I did submit a president's report. If there are any questions, please raise your hand or if you have other things, we'll get to counselor comments in a moment. Pat, I assume your hand is left over. Anna. My question, Lynn, first off, this is a curiosity question. If you don't have an answer, that's fine. I'm curious what the new solution to the steps is. That was a exciting mystery in the report. I'm sorry, the what? In the president's report, you said that in one of the meetings, there was a new solution to the steps, I believe, of steps of town hall. Oh, I'm just curious. During the meeting with the, in David, you may have much more information about this. During the meeting with the bid and chamber, Paul mentioned that there was a new solution to the steps. Evidently, when they tore them apart, because there were no drawings that ever showed how they were put together, some surprises occurred, and then a new solution on how to put it back together. And now you know everything I know. It's like grown up Legos. I love it. David, you want to talk about it? I can help a little, but I want to stay in my lane. It's okay. This is, I don't want to take up a ton of time. I was mostly just curious. I think there was a refined plan, if you will. It may not have been completely new, but I think the architects got together with the contractor. What happened was the face of the steps that we all use, and people have used for decades, was flat and prepared. It was discovered when those were taken off, and you could see them sitting out on the front lawn here, that the underside was not the same at all, and they were of different widths. And so part of the plan was whether to consider cutting those to make them all four inches wide, or five inches wide, or three inches wide, to make the application and the repositioning of them easier. And I think the architect who designed the steps, working with the building commissioner, working with the contractor, decided that they could be placed in, I don't know what the substrate will be, but there was a way to level them and secure them for the next 100 years without cutting them, which would have been a very time-consuming process and also potentially expensive, and also it could have damaged those original stones. So I think that was a little bit of a jog in the road this summer, and they're back on it. And I think the goal is to have it done in six to eight weeks to have new front steps. That was my next question, was estimated completion data and it will be six to eight weeks. Yeah, we want early voting at Town Hall, and so I wasn't sure how it would coincide with folks easily access one path to that. I have one more question if that's okay, Lynn. Who's attending the meetings with Amherst Media and the absence of a communications director? There has not been another person named, and that is a person that the town manager would name. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Jennifer? Yeah, now this is a question about your report. I just want to make sure. Yeah. Yeah, so I had a question about the legislation on the pilots that was referenced, and it said it's mostly, if I was reading it correctly, pertaining to forested land? Yes. So how would that apply? So it's a specific pilot, payments in lieu of taxes for forested land. Let me step back and say, there is a Massachusetts formula law and so forth passed by the Massachusetts legislature that reimburses cities and towns for state-owned land. The state-owned land that we have in Amherst is, and I'm going to be clear, only part of the University of Massachusetts because some of it was grandfathered because it was part of, I believe, the original land grant, and the rest is what we own, basically with the Holyoke range. Those are the two areas. Coincidentally, the town of Hadley gets more money than we do because acreage-wise, they have more state-owned land. What the formula, there's two issues with the formula from my perspective. The issue that the bill right now is about is trying to even out the fact that if you have state-owned land on the Cape, it is valued at a much higher level and therefore you get much more reimbursement than state-owned land in Western Mass. And so that's the purpose of this bill, however, in my testimony, I personally feel from my own experience of watching the legislature over the years that if they reopen this formula now, and that's all they deal with, it'll probably be 10 more years till they deal with what I think is the most important issue for Amherst and that is what happens on that state-owned land, what is built on that state-owned land and how many people come to that state-owned land and how long are they there for every year? Because for UMass and for Amherst, in late August, early September, our population swells to over 40,000 people and that doesn't even include the people who live in Belcher Town or some place else and commute in. And right now, the state-owned land pilot formula does not allow for any of that and that is the issue. And it's the second pilot thing is really about private institutions and that's a whole different discussion because the moment you get into private nonprofits, the healthcare industry lobbies Beacon Hill and they try to get in your way immediately because they do not want their nonprofits taxed at the level that the formulas would allow. Pilots, I can keep going on and on about pilots it's actually something I knew about and worked with the University of Massachusetts on before I retired. So it's our goal in our legislation in our testimony is to make sure that the while they're looking at pilots they actually look at the real issue and I will just tell you right now there are 29 public higher ed institutions in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and they all would feel the same way. Well, thank you for your testimony and your advocacy. Could I be more clear? That's very good. Thank you for the response. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments on the President's report? Now, let's move to other comments or questions from counselors or future agenda items. Yes, Alicia. Thank you, Lynn. I just wanted to emphasize some of the comments that came in during public comment earlier in terms of what is happening with Cress and I'm hoping that we might be able to add that as a future agenda item and possibly with a joint meeting with the CSSJC because I think it's imperative that we have updates as to, one, what is happening with the director, two, what is happening with the responders because I have also been informed that there are not many left and I would like to see a breakdown of what has been happening with the budget and what our strategic plan is for moving forward and so it would be really helpful if we could have a meeting where we can talk about this more in-depth and where we could have the CSSJC because that is part of their charge to be doing so. I would hope that we could get that on a agenda very soon considering the state of the department right now. I think it needs to be timely and I'm also just concerned because I did also see a job posting looking for a CSO, someone to be contracted through CSO to be a co-responder through the PD and so I'm wondering what that is about and how that came to be and why that's not something that's been brought to our attention if that's something we're looking to do in the place of Cress and if any funding that should have been used for Cress is going to be used for that position I think that that would also be good to know and so again I'm really just hoping that this can be on an agenda very soon so that we can have a more in-depth conversation. Okay thank you I will need to obviously ask the town manager for information and so forth. I think it's probably best for the president to talk to Paul and then have him give an update at your next meeting I think it'd be more comprehensive. Yeah. Alicia you still have your hand up did you have additional things? Yeah sorry yeah I just wanted to add because I think I'm hearing sorry David Zomax I don't know if you prefer to be called Dave or David response and yes I would love an update from Paul I think first and foremost but I would also love for the CSSJC to be involved so I think that if there is a possibility of a joint meeting that that would also be what I'm advocating for at this time. Thank you I made note of it and we'll see what we can do in terms of getting responses and also a schedule meeting. Dorothy? Well I guess I'm hearing news I didn't know and I'm hoping that Amherst did not have its moment in the sun leading in social justice just to have it fade through lack of follow-through and lack of funding and have things just kind of disappear I just hope that's not going to happen and I realize it's a challenge but we got a lot of great publicity for what we were doing and what we're going to do and will we deserve it so I'm concerned thank you. Thank you. Jennifer? Yeah this I was not aware that there had been resignations can I ask how many press responders are currently on staff? I don't have an answer and David I don't know if you do. I actually don't have an answer for that tonight either Lynn. Let me make sure I'm in touch with the town manager of course any of you are also welcome to be in touch with the town manager and ask these various questions okay? I will thank you and I just want to summarize what I heard was director, staff, budget, strategic plan co-responder for PD and request for something including a beating jointly with CSSJC okay? Yes thank you Lynn. Okay I just want to make sure I got all my notes down on that one Andy? Yeah I just want to add to your list one thing to make sure that's there and that is a report on what's happening with dispatch and the cooperation amongst the public safety departments to try and get the protocols established that we anticipated would happen. Hold on Alicia I just want to make sure I'm writing this down okay? Alicia you have your hand up. Yes thank you Andy that that is a really helpful addition. I just wasn't sure if I missed this but also the CSO position is something I would like an update on and why that's being proposed and how it's being funded. That's that's the one with the police department. Yeah they're looking for a clinical co-responder. Yeah absolutely okay are there any other questions comments future agenda items? I apologize for not having a break but with this I'm going to during the meeting and it is 840 849