 All right. So, um, limitless you have the agenda really quick. Because I'm actually slow on it. Go ahead and find it. I won't try and share. So, um, I'm calling the finance committee meeting of, um, July 14. Um, I'm calling the finance committee. Order. 140 PM. And, uh, Meeting. Being held. Electronically by remote participation pursuant to. The governor's, um, order that, um, allows meetings to be held during this period of time. Because of the state of emergency with joint participation. I am. Because we're meeting by joint participation, I'm going to ask each member. Of the finance committee to indicate that, um, they have heard me and can, um, and we can confirm that they can be heard when they say present. At that point, I am going to ask, um, Um, I'm going to ask the president to call the, um, Council to order because there's also a form of council members and she will have to confirm. For, um, the council members that they can also be heard. So have done that, um, Statement to begin with. Um, Yeah. Yes, I'm here and can hear you. Um, Bob Hegner. I'm here. Lynn Grusner. Here. Uh, Pat Tangeles. Here. Rookie Pam. Present. Um, Mary Lou Tomlin. Here. And Sharon Pavanelli. Here. I think that I have, um, all of the members of the finance committee that have confirmed that they, um, would like to participate fully in the meeting. So the meeting is, I called order and, um, Um, Lynn, would you like to call the council to order? Yep. Seen as we have a form of the council at the finance committee meeting on July 14th. I'm calling the council to order at 142. I would like to check with the additional council members that they can hear me and we can hear them. George Ryan. Present. Um, Mary, uh, Manny Johanna. Present. Darcy Dumont. Yes. I believe that was it. Thank you. Okay. So, um, I'm going to, for a moment, put the agenda on the, uh, screen if I'm able to do so and, um, I'm going to go back to the meeting. Um, I'm going to go back to the meeting. Unfortunately, I'm running into problems. So I'm going to go back and, um, Not try and share. And if, uh, Lynn's able to do so, she will put it on the screen briefly. But, um, there are, um, several segments to the meeting. We have, um, Presentations from several departments about their budgets. We are going to start with the, um, The agenda item three fiscal 21 budget. Other matters as determined. We decided that we would, um, Ask the, um, police chief to come back because we have provided several questions for the budget for the police chief. And do we want to get, uh, to them? Then we have presentations on the general budget and debt sections of the budget, which we need to. Consider, um, in order to complete our budget review process. Um, after that, uh, those presentations. We will open it up for period of public comment, um, Of, uh, allowing public to comment from one to three minutes. Um, Uh, of time and number of minutes will depend on the amount of time. And then, um, We will also want to talk about just the budget review and recommendation process that we're on that is underway. Um, so, um, it is the agenda that you see before you. But it is, uh, not, um, Not in order, but since it's all been posted, I think that's appropriate. Um, and, uh, that's how we are going to proceed with the meeting. So Lynn, I think we can go back from to a regular view at the moment. And, um, I, um, thank you chief living stone for, um, Uh, being at the meeting today. And I think that you have, um, At least one other two other officers, uh, To the captains who were with us also to answer questions. And, um, I don't know what time frame they come from the, uh, Committee and the council, but, um, I wanted to first start by, Um, If you have anything that you can comment on the three questions that you had sent to you about. Um, Mostly staffing and patrolling. Sure. So thanks. Thanks, Mr. Steinberg. And thanks to the finance committee for having us back. I just wanted us to withhold or hold to Andy. So if we're going a little long-winded, don't be afraid to interject or tell us to move along, but we'll try to stick to those three specific questions. That you had originally sent to me. Um, one regarding what our staffing, um, It's broken down and who, how it looks on day to day operations. I'm just going to start with a few questions. I'll talk a little bit about the organizations that we've partnered with those consists of, and then I'll follow up with. Vacancies and what our expectations are throughout the F by 21. Um, process. It pertains to manpower and maybe some other things there. And if you have questions, that'll be great. So I'm going to go to the captain Ting and he can talk about some staffing issues. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. I just want to talk a little bit about, um, basically our operations and the structure of the Amherst police department, you know, relative to staffing. Um, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions in terms of, uh, you know, what our roles are for the different police departments that we have within the town of Amherst. And I just want to explain some of those roles. Um, so the jurisdictional boundaries for the different police agencies and Amherst in the differences. For the Amherst police, um, our jurisdictional boundaries include all public ways and private ways that are open to invite T's within the town of Amherst. Um, the university of Massachusetts is their police department's a state entity. Um, so any state property belonging to you mass Amherst or neighboring towns would fall within their authority and also extends to contiguous streets that cross through the campus such as North Pleasant Street. Um, the Amherst college police department is a private entity. Uh, so any property in Amherst as privately owned by Amherst college would be patrolled by them. And Hampshire college no longer has a sworn police force. They are now, um, uh, patrolled by a security team that only patrols Hampshire college property. So just to give you a little bit of an overview of what the differences between each of the police departments. Uh, the Amherst police has 48 budgeted sworn officers. All Amherst police officers must attend a full time municipal police academy or equivalent consisting of the current platform of 26 weeks of instruction and funding for that agency comes from the town of Amherst university police department. They have 62 budgeted sworn police officers in all you mass officers must attend also a full time municipal level police academy or equivalent consisting of the current platform of 26 weeks. Um, funding for that agency comes from the state. Uh, the difference there is they cannot enforce Amherst town bylaws and they don't patrol. They do not patrol, uh, town streets and properties. The Amherst college police department, they have 13 budgeted sworn officers. So all Amherst college police officers must attend a 14 weeks special state police academy or campus. Um, academy. So this academy would not meet the acceptable requirements for a municipal police department. They do not possess chapter 90 authority, which means they don't have the authority to pull cars over and issue a Massachusetts civil motor vehicle citations. Um, So any major felonies such as sexual assaults or death investigations or anything. Um, Any major incidents are investigated by the Amherst police department. So that's an agreement that we have with their agency. They just don't have the resources for it. And they also cannot enforce Amherst town bylaws. Uh, Hampshire college, uh, again, they don't have a police department. So anything of any significance is falls upon our responsibility to handle. So we do, uh, go there when we're called, but we don't actively patrol their campus. So our current staffing levels, uh, again, 48 full time sworn police officers. We currently have one vacancy. So we just had three, uh, recruit officers that just graduated on Friday. Their first day was yesterday. So they are now, uh, in their field training process, which consists of three months of field training. And one year of probationary status. So the current staffing for us is we have one, uh, chief of police, two captains, one administrative, one operational, um, four lieutenants, three of them are patrol lieutenants. And one is a detective lieutenant. And we currently have seven sergeants, seven of them are on patrol. When I say patrol, I mean uniform division. And one detective sergeant. In terms of, uh, patrol officers, we have 28 patrol officers and five detectives. Um, normally we have six, but one was just promoted and moved to the patrol ranks. And we also have two canines. Um, so just to give you a description of what our shifts look like. Uh, we have three traditional shifts, which is a eight to four, eight a.m. to four p.m. four p.m. to midnight and midnight to eight. And usually when we have additional staffing, sometimes we have a swing shift, which is seven p.m. to three a.m. Um, uh, our minimum essential personnel on the streets, uh, essentially is one sergeant and three patrol officers and one station officer. So you have a total of five officers. Um, in total the university police department, for example, they have one supervisor and three patrol officers. Also one station officer. Uh, Amherst college police on a regular basis, they only have one supervisor and one patrol officer for their campus. So we have a system in place that's called no time off weekends. And that specifically catered towards the academic months. Um, so we have a number of patrol officers for, uh, the university. So during the academic months or certain weekends that we determined to be, we call them NTOs. Um, so, uh, regular NTO weekend begins on Thursday from four o'clock p.m. and ends on Sunday at eight a.m. So our NTOs are regulated through collective bargaining agreements between the town and the patrolman, and we've been doing that for the past 25 years or so. Um, uh, certainly been there ever since I've been here and over those years, the academic months sprinkle with holidays and long weekends have produced high level of activity trends. And we're able to forecast engage the activity from these past weekends. We're examined by analyzing past statistics, uh, event plans, whether forecast and after action reports. So these no time off weekends are measured to ensure. That our staffing levels are acceptable to handle all of those activities. Um, so during NTOs, the department will not honor any vacation requests. We don't honor any, uh, compensatory time or personal time off. Uh, however, if there's a hardship, um, and time off is absolutely necessary. Approval is decided by the chief of police. Uh, sick and family sick is certainly allowed. Um, during NTOs, all schedule shifts are mandatory and any open shifts due to sick or family sick or authorized time off will be filled in order to have a full staff. So, you know, we utilize no NTOs to make sure that we have enough staffing every single weekend and our weekends are certainly really busy during the academic year. Um, events that we consistently plan for in the fall or student move in, uh, certainly those first two weeks are extremely busy with, um, college kids not having many classes to go to or, or that many obligations. So it's kind of like party central for the first two weeks. So it's really busy. And that follows us into the Halloween weekend. Um, and during the fostering, we have UMass tailgating and football games and homecoming weekends and town common events and events from the Amherst High School. And certainly when there's large celebratory gatherings, whenever there's a championship from one of our major sports, there's usually some kind of event at the university that we have to assist with. On the springtime, some of the big events that we plan for are the Blarney blowout, the UMass spring concert weekend, UMass and Amherst college graduations, student move out, town common events. And again, Amherst high school events. So our staffing level during NTOs, you know, I mentioned what we have for minimums, but usually during NTOs, we will have probably about six to eight officers at a maximum. So, um, usually we have one supervisor and one OIC and OIC is an officer in charge and that's the rank of a lieutenant for each shift. And generally again, between six to eight patrol officers that we make sure are, are filled during our NTOs. However, the weekends when it's not during the academic months, we just maintain our minimum shift. So just to explain what we have is a discretionary holdovers. So even with our best efforts to try and estimate activity, it's oftentimes very unpredictable on a weekend and weekly basis. So additionally, when there are major incidents that occur, usually each call will consist of at least two officer, two officer response. So when we're at our minimum, if there's two major incidents that are happening at one time, you know, our whole shift depleted really quickly. So a lot of times we'll have to call in backup resources or ask for our mutual aid partners to help out. So common reasons for those holdovers are busy weekend nights, major incidents such as homicides, unattended deaths, assaults, disturbances, large motor vehicle crashes and house fires, or again, multiple incidents in the same time period. Any calls with safety concerns always require two officer response. And of course, with any major incident, you know, we will require a detective bureau response, potentially an administrative staff response or responses from outside agencies such as the district attorney's office or the state police. So there was another question in terms of what type of organizations that we commonly work with. So the most common agency that we work with is the Amherst Fire Department. Since the police department shifts of officers who are considered as first responders, we're already out there patrolling the streets. So it only makes sense that we get to dispatch any medical or fire calls along with the Amherst Fire Department. So we are often the first to arrive on scene to assess the situation, report the findings and request resources. And after determining which agency should be the primary lead depending on the nature of the call, either the Amherst Fire Department or the Amherst Police Department will then move to their train roles given the circumstances. Other agencies that we work with regularly are... Hey Gabe, can I interject and let Ronnie jump in on the specifics of clinical support in those agencies? Absolutely. Thank you. Do you want to mention that or do you want me to continue over that? If Ron's still on. Can you hear me, Ron? Can you hear me now? Yep. Okay, great. I'm sorry about that. I'm having some technical difficulties. Thank you, Gabe, very much for that. I know there were some questions, follow-up questions about some of the various organizations that we work with. We do work with a lot of different municipal organizations, state-level organizations, court-level organizations, but I strike from reading the email that the chief had sent me that we wanted to concentrate more on some of the service-oriented type things. So I'll touch on those and I can always expand further if we need to. As Gabe had just said that we obviously worked with our brothers and sisters up at the fire department, and we do respond to a lot of calls for service with them, and it is really not so much to do their job, but really to be the eyes and ears and maybe assess it very quickly to determine if there's a dangerous situation there, to determine what type of resources we might need. We can give some notification back to the commanding officers back in the fire department and let them know what we're seeing so that they can assess and determine what type of resources we can assess and determine what their response level is going to be, whether it be a traffic accident, a structure fire, medical emergency, something of that nature. As it relates to mental health response, there were some questions the other day or the evening about exactly how our relationship with CSO works. So I just would cover that briefly again. We employ the CIT model here, which is based on the Memphis model. There are various forms of a CIT that are employed by various different police departments across the country. We being a smaller agency, the Memphis model seems to work for us. The way that works is we train 100% of our people here on Mental Health First Aid. There's a requirement by the Department of Mental Health to do that. And then subsequent to that, we train all of our supervisors and about 25% of our staff on the CIT and what BHN or Behavioral Health Network has identified as a 40-hour training session. Again, there was a lot of discussion that was made the other night about my statement that we don't try to be clinicians, and that in fact is the truth. We are not clinicians, and that's not what our response is about. Our response really is about crisis stabilization. We respond for family support reasons to determine whether or not there's some type of safety issues that are there and really just work towards crisis stabilization until we can get some assistance. We work very closely with CSO, Clinical Support Options, which is in North Hampton based in North Hampton, which they in turn have a working relationship with the Department of Mental Health. Of course, the Hampton County version of that is Behavioral Health Network, and again, the two of them work hand in hand. And in fact, our TTAC is based at BHN, and that's where we get all of our training from and get our officers trained up and current. We've also trained our dispatchers up for call response, and that call response looks a lot different and our call taking responsibilities look a lot different than they did even a couple of years ago. When a CIT officer's response, it makes the calls a lot more complex than they used to be. Our departmental directive and our orders here are directed to our sergeants to allow the CIT officers to remain on the scene for a protracted period of time if necessary. Again, we're not looking at solving the problem, we're just looking at harm reduction and stabilizing that person until we get somebody of a higher level of training that can come and assist them. Another thing that I wanted to note about CIT and our response that I probably did not cover the other night was the reasons why we respond to calls like that. Really, we could carve it down to about three different reasons why we respond to whether it be a mental health or mental illness response or somebody who may be suffering from some type of medical problems or relates to overdosing. We either respond because there's an underlying crime that's been reported to the police department, but more frequently we respond because of self-report. The person calls and is looking for assistance or a family member calls. Typically, when we respond down to a call like that, we really don't know what we're going into or the other side of that, it's a call that we've been to more frequently and the officer is recognized or perhaps the patient would ask for a specific officer because they've developed some type of rapport with them over the years or months or weeks or whatnot. Coupled with that, we deal with the Hampshire Hope in Northampton. They are the ones who have assisted us in outlining what our DAR program is, our Drug Addiction Response Team. Again, that is a harm reduction model. We are not responding to those calls for service to try and solve people's problems. We're really there to try and make certain that people get to where they need to be, whether it need to be a hospital to recovery coach to some other type of service that might be available to them. We do, you will note that, and I know the captain had talked about it earlier with some of our calls for service. You're going to note that we do a lot of self-initiated calls in these areas. We do follow up. It's part of our protocol. It's part of the model that we follow. It's part of what our training entails. And it's part of what DMH and Hampshire Hope have required from us as part of our grant funding. So typically what we'll do is we'll contact somebody who has been in contact with us in the past to find out if there are other resources that we can put them in touch with. What are the support options that are available for us? Are there other safety protocols? Lots of times there's some things that are tied in with these calls that go beyond just what may be what their behavioral health or the mental health or the substance disorders have first indicated there might be some safety concerns. Sometimes there's some financial issues. Sometimes they need to clear up warrants, things along those lines. Lastly, I just wanted to touch on as it relates to both these types of calls. The program that we belong to is titled the jail diversion program. The JDP was designed so that we don't arrest people for some of these underlying minor crimes. Or if we're able to divert these crimes to get people to where they need to be short of arresting them, that's what we do. I don't have specific numbers here where I could provide those. Of course, if we looked at going back some eight, nine years ago to calls that we typically respond to low level calls and disturbances and things of that nature where the person may have been charged with a crime or arrested and taken to the House of Corrections, they're now taken to the ED, they're taken to CSO. They're brought to detox. They're hooked up with somebody that could possibly help them even if they're not in crisis but get some things in order so that they possibly could be in a better spot the following day. And I see that as a win from our agency. Clinically, we also deal with the courts. We deal with service net. We deal with safe passages. On the domestic violence level, we deal with the Center for Women and Children. There are rape crisis center here in town. We have partnered with them for the last number of years. As the chief had mentioned the other night during our presentation, we actually have a person who's in bed here in our agency. This civilian advocate is housed here in our department. She is highly trained, very well educated, and is a private and not a public entity. In other words, the things that she deals with us are in terms of sharing information is very limited. She is here and is very clear that she is here for the persons who are victim and survivors of both sexual and domestic violence. She assists those people in being hooked up with various different organizations like Victim Witness Advocacy, Office of Elder Affairs, Safe Passages, Service Net, etc. To try to, again, we're looking at harm reduction, we're looking at stabilization of the family unit, we're looking at trying to prevent difficult situations down the road, and we're looking at safety planning. She is an integral part of who we are as an agency, and a lot of that is grant funded. It comes out of a program that we've partnered with the Department of Justice and we are currently waiting to see whether or not that grant will be refunded in the future. Back to you, Gabe, I'm sorry to interrupt. Actually, I'd like to interrupt. Oh, I'm sorry, sir, no, please. Andy, would it make sense for Julie to weigh in now from the different perspective on this, because Ron had brought up that topic and was a concern of the Council about the interagency interaction? Julie, do you have anything that you wouldn't offer? You're muted, Julie. Yes, thank you for asking me. I have several things I want to talk about, but I'll talk specifically about some of the things Ron was just talking about. Julie, just to introduce, we need to introduce you to any members of the public who are watching, who don't know who you are. Julie Fetterman is the director of the Public Health Department and the director of the Public Health Department of Public Health. Julie, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Thank you, Andy. Paul, should I talk about various things I was going to speak about, or just this issue? Paul. Time is short, so we need to be brief on this. I think. I'm going to jump in here and try and be short. First of all, I'll just talk about some of the things that Ron was talking about. In 1995, as public health nurse, then assistant director, and the director for the past 10 years. And so one of the things I've had the privilege of doing is working with our police department. Because one of the things that we've tried to do for a very long time out of the health department is the concept of bringing health into all matters of the town. And so the police department along with other departments were great about really embracing that concept. So in 2014, I think it was Amherst and four other towns joined together to get grant funding to help create a coalition to address the opioid epidemic, which became the Hope Coalition. I initially served on that executive committee, and then it seemed to make a lot more sense to have someone from the police department. And so they stepped up to the plate and, you know, I think it was the first time that the police department, from almost the beginning, have been deeply embedded into the Hope Coalition. So when Ron is talking about the DART team that was created and the efforts of the police department over overdoses, I kind of wanted to flesh that out for you. So you've got someone who ODs and police officers and they don't, as Ron's saying, we don't know what's going to happen, so maybe an ambulance hasn't been called. So they have the capability of administering Narcan, which prevents a death. They then have developed officers who will go back the next day or whatever is appropriate to where that person lives and check on that person. It's a warm knock. How are you doing? Because we all know that when you get someone has just been given Narcan and it's not really the time to talk about, hey, what's the next step in reducing perhaps the concept of having the next overdose? So I just really applaud the fact that our police department really stepped up to want to be part of this. It was a new role for police departments and I think it's a perfect example of what our police department is willing to do. I'll talk about another way in which we collaborate and that's with our Homeless Systems meeting. Again, we've had Greg's doors in our town now for I want to say nine years. They run a shelter. We also have other entities in town who serve our homeless population as outreach workers. And we decided that it made sense to bring folks together to kind of convene stakeholders, people who work with homeless folks and then town officials to meet once a month and talk about what's coming up in the community, what's coming up at the shelter among our homeless folks and the police have really been integral in that. Again, Captain Ting has been part of that and before him, Jen Gunderson, they're at the table, the communication is happening, it's going back and forth from those serving the homeless to the police and from the police back to them. I've just been so impressed in the ways we've been able to work together like that. Since this may be my only other opportunity to speak, one of the reasons I really wanted to speak was because public health and public safety are crucial during this pandemic. I really urge you to respond to issues that are being brought up as opposed to react. We need our police department. I also want you to know that I am passionate about injustice and its impact on people's health. The Amherst Health Department's had a long history of understanding and seeking to address racial disparities in health access and also addressing biases. Personally, I've sought out training and education around racism and my role as a white American and a government official. Most recently, I was chosen to participate in a statewide training program with the town manager's full support. I've committed to bring the concepts of cultural humility to our town governments, most recently to our hiring practices, along with the town manager's support. I'm now endeavoring to bring the concept of white fragility forward to town leaders that we can all engage in this process that's ongoing. As the speaker said last night, it's not about one single training. And the reason I'm giving you that background about myself is that's who I am and also as a resident of Amherst. So when I'm working with the police department, the fire department, town hall, this is the lens I bring to it. So I care passionately about what's happening to people of color around this country in Massachusetts. But I also know that we have a police department that is above par and who are really committed to serving this community and open to what comes next. And so I just wanted to share that with you and thank you for giving me the time to speak. Thank you, Julie. Chief, do you have anything else? Yeah. Just your last question, Andy. It was specific to where we stand as far as potential vacancies in FY 21. So I think Captain Ting mentioned that we do currently have one vacancy now. We will have a second vacancy as early as July 24th. So basically in a week and we have another vacancy that will be happening on September 1st. Those are all vacancies that we know of. FY 21 we have two officers, two more officers who would qualify for retirement as well. And that's just for retirement purposes. We have had officers leave for other agencies. Most recently we had one leave for the Mass State Police and we had one leave for the Rhode Island State Police. Those occur not as frequently, but that's kind of where we are in a staffing level perspective. I think that covers the three questions you wanted, Andy. If there was additional information. I don't, but the next thing I'm going to do is open it up to questions from members of the finance committee and members of the council and we'll recognize hands as they come from counselors and members of the finance committee. Just so that other counselors who hadn't seen the questions are I mean it's fairly obvious what we were looking for was that question that's always the budget question. We know how much we're spending. What does it essentially provide for the community what we're spending? Those were the focus of the questions. And that's really the focus of the discussion today and I appreciate very much responses that we have received from Chief Livingstone and from Captain Young and Captain Ting. Kathy, I do your hand up and since I said that would be the next segment first. Thank you very much for responding and also for responding to other questions. I will resend the set that I don't think has been answered yet that aren't budget related. I will go up on the vacancy question to make sure I understood. When you said one now one in a few weeks and then another one. Those are vacancies where you don't you haven't currently identified a trainee that you're bringing in. So those are genuine. You would be darting a process to hire people. We often grant the training costs and we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do and pipeline is not maybe the right part but on their way. You haven't started figuring out what you're going to do with those. Other than you know they're going to be vacant. We had started the recruitment process probably last January. We tried to get a head start on anticipated vacancies because it didn't work. That person is actually working. So it's not unusual for us to have one or two vacancies because we're at the liberty or at the state police run academies. The one in western Mass only runs twice a year so if you miss out on that it's another six to eight months before you can get an officer into that academy. So the process to hire just one officer is about a year long process. Can I just follow up on it? In terms of meeting standards for police departments on who you can hire and one of the two if you're sending out a team of two. Does state regs allow you to have someone that didn't come through the police academy but came through a different route. A behavioral health route a crisis management route the kind of person that you've got right now grant funded. Would that be a part of the police force in a team of two where the other person is an officer? I think I kind of know where you're going with they wouldn't have obviously wouldn't have any police powers. I don't know I don't know I don't know how easy it would be just to have them riding along in a cruiser and respond to that type of call certainly if somebody was available to us to respond at some point within that call that would be beneficial. It's a little touchy only because it's the captain young mentioned when we get sent to a call that's a mental health type that could be beneficial. It's one of the issues we're facing with entities like CSO service net one of the reasons the police department is kind of responsible for all of these responses is because we're there 24-7 and they're not. We just had an incident yesterday where we had a mom come to us in the lobby of the police station because she couldn't get hold of anyone at CSO and she needed immediate existence so those are the types of issues that even we have as an agency trying to get the coordination with our partners at CSO and service net and that sort of thing. I think it's somewhere we'd like to be but it's going to be a long process. Thank you. Maybe I'll do a follow-up question on turning it to a second to domestic violence. I know you have often said and I've in from my own experience as a former late attorney, two officers going to a domestic violence call would it be advisable in your estimation in a domestic violence call to bring along somebody from a domestic violence organization including the one you currently work with or is that something that happens later in the process? Absolutely not. Domestic violence calls are one of the more dangerous calls that police officers respond to. There were just two officers murdered at a domestic violence call in southern Texas two days ago. No, I certainly have an advocate available. I mean the process we have in place right now works great. The advocate is here 20 or 24 hours a week. She does all of the follow-up with the victims that sort of thing but for their actual response typical she would get involved when we bring the if there's an arrest made we would start the process there if there's no arrest made if the suspect has fled the scene and we bring the victim back to the police station she would be involved at the police station but not at the residents. Okay, thank you. There's several other counselors who've asked to be recognized. I just should note that when I was in legal aid there were two times when we most frequently were working with police officers one was before we were ever involved when the initial response came in and the other was if there was a violation of a restraining order and violations of restraining orders at that point we were representing victim frequently but police officer interventions and those can be also from what I observed in my legal aid days in equal precarious time for police response. Yeah, and that's kind of why the state changed the law so that when police officers respond to domestic violence type calls the preferred response by law by statute with our district attorney's office is an arrest. So the days of just going to domestic violence calling keeping the peace are kind of long gone. The preferred response is an arrest. I'm going to recognize other members of the council for a few minutes and then I see that Chief Nelson also has something that he'd like to say so I will bring Chief Nelson from the fire department along in a few minutes but Mandy Anarchy you had your hand up. Thank you. I apologize if I missed the answer to this but you know we've been talking about the grant funding that came in 2015 or so for combating domestic violence and sexual violence and stalking and it seemed that in the budget that that paid for a detective or some sort of personnel when is that grant supposed to end and if it ends what's happening to that position that's been paid for is that folded into the budget right now is it not is that position going away can you talk a little bit more about that and like I said I missed the answer to this earlier. No Ashley Mandy Jo your timing on that question is perfect let Ron explain if you still Ron are you still here? I am Sir Chief so that we are in the final months of that grant it expires at the end of the federal fiscal year so September 30 we reapplied back in January for continuation of the grant which would be based on a 36 month model typically we hear back about that somewhere in August or early September right before the federal fiscal year I am waiting on my hands to see whether or not it will come back but if it does it will extend it for either 48 or I scratch that for 24 to 36 months depending on what their award is. So if we don't receive the funding for that grant we expect we're going to receive the funding at least to cover the cost of the officer if we don't that's going to be a discussion we're going to need to have with our manager and the finance committee I'm guessing. Thank you. Anything else Lynn? If not. Okay Lynn I was going to ask Chief Nelson if you had anything and then Dorothy Pam in that order so Lynn. Yes one of the questions that has been out there is what are initiated calls in the little bit you know response on that what I've determined is that not all but some are follow-up calls and I wonder if there is a way you know for example you have one neighborhood that has often has their amount of weekend partying happens to be in my district and the officer Laramie who is working with the university and I'm wondering if there are any issues like that will often then go by the house on the day after maybe the Monday after the party and talk with the people called an initiated call versus follow-up and I'm wondering if there is a way to classify that and if you give us a sense of the initiated calls how many are really follow-up calls where you're checking back last night's council meeting and of all the comments that I heard that was the theme of the misunderstanding of what those officers do was really kind of disheartening because the implication was that we're going and targeting specific neighborhoods and nothing could be further from the truth it is actual officer responsible follow-ups and it's geared by calls so for instance on Phillip Street I should let Gabe answer this as well but you know there's a lot of follow-up on Phillip Street and there's a lot of follow-up at the shelter when it's open and that sort of thing, Gabe where are you are you still there well Gabe you want to jump in on that yeah I'm here I know that there's a lot of questions relative to the areas that we commonly police and why so the structure of our operations is that we follow a sector-based community policing model so we stress proactivity which kind of initiates officer initiated activity so we stress that to prevent problems before they happen to make sure we do a proper job following up with our investigations in efforts to further that prevention the efforts that we make are to target the source of the problems and not based on ethnicity class so our officer initiated activity is really predicated on the problems identified in every neighborhood in Amherst so how do we find out about those problems we learn about the problems when people call in for help or for service really so the self initiation is a responsive measure or follow-up for that effort of problem solving so for example if you were to take a look at some questions in terms of how often do we patrol North Pleasant Street or the apartment complex is comparatively to more affluent neighborhoods so if you were to take a look at statistics for example if you were to take a look at wildflower in Amherst Woods so in 2019 for example there were two total calls from residents off of that street alone one call was for an animal complaint for a medical mental call we often get complaints of speeders and traffic issues there so we have a total five officer initiated calls in that street alone and four of them were for traffic and speed enforcement was for a citizen transport so really what I'm trying to articulate here is that our officer initiated activity is predicated on what type of issues are in that neighborhood so to give you another example Colonial Village is an area that we commonly respond to in 2019 there was a total of 80 calls and if you were to take a look at the makeup of those calls there were 33 medical assists 14 well-being checks, 13 domestics 13 medical mental calls 9 suspicious activity 8 noise complaints and then a variety of other calls so our total officer initiated calls there were 80 calls there so our officers that went there to initiate it consists of 60 security checks 19 follow-ups and one warrant service so again what I'm trying to articulate and illustrate here is that you know we're not targeting any particular neighborhood for the purpose of targeting people our sole response is to target the problems at hand and so our initiated responses are again predicated on what the issues are and the calls for service I hope that answers your question I think it's particularly helpful when you give examples without finger pointing or anything else so I particularly appreciated the colonial village but I want to go back and say you referred to that as 80 calls was that 80 calls you received and then you initiated follow-up let me take a look at my stats here yes we received 80 calls in total I'm just trying to look at my computer system here and then there were roughly 80 initiated responses officer initiated responses okay so and then we got the sense from the various people last night who came forth to talk to the council they felt that there was just more police presence in places like colonial village apartment complexes and so in addition to the calls that you originally responded to and the follow-up would you say that police cars are therefore going into that neighborhood in general to be a presence or are that there is for the calls and the follow-up I would say both ma'am for instance there was a couple months ago there was an incident where there was a UMass student she was of Asian descent and there was some BBs that were shot through her window as well as she had a couple of roommates there and so therefore we were trying to investigate that to determine if that was a targeted crime or if that was of some other type of nature so therefore we did conduct a lot of follow-up we also had a lot of police officers present in that area and B to try and figure out who the perpetrators were and through our investigation we did figure it out and it came to a resolution but we did spend a lot of time there just for that one incident alone so it's kind of both certainly for presence for deterrence and as well as a follow-up to the incident itself so if you were to multiply that by how many calls in that specific area you know we're going to have quite a bit of response so somebody who lives there they're going to see a presence from the police there but we're there for a specific reason I urge that you find a way to classify follow-up calls so that they're not seen only as initiated because if you initiate them you're actually following up on a previous call and they are actually classified within our database and those are statistics that can be produced okay thank you for that further explanation you're very welcome okay so what I was going to do Chief Nelson did you have something that you wanted to offer to the finance committee yes I do I can get this there you go oh you're in person yeah absolutely absolutely good afternoon I'm here really because the railing that's been going on specifically against the Amherst police all of us talk about the funds funding the police and that type of thing I think those folks need to take the time to understand what our police department does where they take the time to find out what they do and how they do it in my mind stuff that the country is going through right now it's not the police it's policing and there's a subtle difference there we believe that policing needs needs to change but the other piece is that the Amherst police department they're part of a team they're part of a public safety team that works well together I came from another room we worked well with the police but nothing like it is taken aback by how close the fire is working for the community and I guess again to those folks that are coming out I asked what has our police department done wrong in comparison what's going on nationally nothing they do it right they're something that should be and they do a great job I mean sure can there be improved? sure and the Amherst PD is not the sort of police Minneapolis police department it's not the Atlanta police department that's not how they are right one of the things that chief said last week they haven't discharged a weapon in 42 years you know and you know that has to be because they have found ways to escalate this situation they they're legal you make main ways to escalate I remember a few years ago one of their officers was confronted by a gentleman with a weapon that could have harmed him or himself in my mind he would have had every just occasion to use this weapon but he didn't he found a way around he found a way to escalate and not hurt anyone the APD is not a threat to this community they're watching up for you they're watching up for your families they're watching up for those you care about and you know what they're watching up for my my people my jobs to make sure that my folks are safe and part of that is our community relationship with the APD they're with with us at most most of the other 5 car cars which can be absolutely dangerous and it's a good feeling for our folks to know when they're going into this situation that could be kind of dangerous or dangerous APD is right there with us watching out for us so we can do our jobs these are good people these are folks that care about these are folks that stretch themselves to a degree to take care of people and that's there they're all you know I've been in the fire service 38 years now about that 39 years so for part of my life I've been but before that I was a black man and once I'm through here I'm still going to be a black man and that is my entire life there the fire is part of it but there's not a day that goes by in my entire life there hasn't been a day that's gone by where someone has not reminded me that I'm different based on race and it's white people who I'm not saying that they're racist or that they're biggest but they do and say racist which is a subtle I've lived all over this country because of my dad's career and one constant has been those racist attitudes and that's from the general public and it's been from some police as well I still get stops every now and then when I'm in my private car I still get followed around in the department department they still see all that stuff but you don't see that from AAPD you just don't they're good people they know what's right they do it they do it right I think there are some groups that are around they're railing against AAPD and in my mind they have solutions that are looking for a problem APD is not the problem and knee-jerk reactions to serious issues are not the way to go it needs to be thoughtful it needs to be reason and again I just want to say this is a good defund funding or those types of measures are not the way to go we need we need to support them we need support what they're trying to do they're an issue this because they're good for this they're watching out for this they're watching out for all I'm going to stand by and allow some folks to try to tear down a group of really great individuals thank you that's all I have well Chief Nelson thank you very much I appreciate your contribution both as your experiences are fire chief and your personal experience and personal comments so thank you very much I have a couple of counselors now I'm going to recognize and then we'll take stock of where we are I want to remind attendees that last night was a time for public hearing and we really enjoyed hearing from the community and we'll value hearing from public comment later in the agenda but this was now the committee has to begin to do its thinking and this is kind of a first step and very important step to take after the hearing so with that I'm who's been very patient thank you Dorothy for being patient well it's really hard to speak after that eloquent remarks of Chief Nelson but I have a couple of comments here accepting the fact and I totally do believe this that the Amherst police department the answers that we've received at many meetings are not doing the things which have brought up the issue of the police officer through the country in terms of weapons in terms of physical force I'm thinking that there might be some small thing they could do at this time restructure some of the follow-up calls they said they work with people from the other agencies but using common sense and consultation with people by one of the public health professionals with whom that they're working and perhaps we would be able to hire another one because so much of this has to do with the feeling of being policed and it sounds like some of these calls they have to make them, they're required to make them, they're legally required it is good for the people that the calls are made I understand that that's really important but I don't think we can just ignore the fact that the feeling of being policed is real even if there's actually a very good reason for everything that the police department is doing we also have to acknowledge that if there are more people in an area such as larger housing developments there are going to be more police calls when he mentioned the case from Wildwood Lane there aren't very many people down there but some places there's going to be more police presence because there are more people and people have different problems but I want to go back to the call that was the ones that Captain Ting was mentioning because I got confused in the terminology with the colonial village the word officer initiated responses it sounded to me like the 80 calls were not made by the police department deciding I'll go visit these people but that people called in for something so I think that maybe maybe maybe I was confused with the terms but all those various things which are just the things that happen with people sounded to me like probably somebody called the police department to come and then if an officer decides to do or has to do follow up then that might be an officer initiated response so I think Lynn was a little confused with some of the terminology there too so I would really like to have some clarification on which calls were initiated by the public calling in saying I've got a problem I need some help or which in fact were initiated by the police department on their own which means nobody called understood Dorothy and thanks for that I'll ask Captain Ting to respond as well the point of his original explanation was almost all of either officer follow up or officer initiated calls are the result of a call for police services the day before a week before or a month before it can be any combination of both so for instance Bill Laramie I think everybody is familiar with Bill you know he may do a follow up on a noise disturbance but what he's been doing up at Grant Wood Drive there's been a lot of officer initiated things so we can certainly try and find a better explanation for characterizing those calls for sure because I don't want there to be confusion but with the community based policing model that we used officers are expected to do both so there are times when it's going to be an officer initiated call when it might be a long term type of thing he's working on or it might be something as Bill stopping by the very next morning for a loud noise response that the officers went to and he wants to speak to these kids when they're sober and say look your behavior is unacceptable that would be follow up so that's probably something we're going to need to work on as an agency about clarifying officer does with those types of calls but I think the important thing is we don't just randomly drive around neighborhoods looking for people to pastor it's the results of calls that we've responded to okay thank you very much I think somebody had their hand up and then took it down again so I'm assuming that that was a purposeful decision and I don't see any more hands from the council so I'm going to take just a moment to see if anybody else from the council would like to say anything and if not I don't know Mr. Bachman did you have any concluding comments before we move the police officer to move on to the next agenda section just a few things Andy so I just want to make sure that people who are on this call are recognized so we've listened to them the chief and his staff were on the meeting last night and listened to the full public hearing and I think we understand people are coming at this from a place of real concern and anger happening at a national level I think that the way I've thought about this is it's how chief Nelson said it's how we do policing and I think that's something we want to engage in that conversation I think that's something that we are very interested in and I think there's a second piece of it which is sort of systemic change and I think that's something that we're also interested in looking at but they're two different things and I think that we have to focus on both of them at the same time I think we can talk philosophically about how change happens but ultimately as a town council and town manager we're responsible for the public health and public safety of our community and that's why I put in a budget that I think meets the needs of the community and I would encourage the council to move forward with that budget because I think cutting the budget of the public health or public safety departments at this moment in time during the middle of a pandemic would just be a big mistake so again that doesn't mean that the folks who have been communicating very with great passion and very very articulate concerns haven't been heard it means that we have to have that conversation but it just and it moves in a different way okay thank you so I'm looking at one last time to see if there's anybody else from the council or the committee who wishes to speak Darcy please don't mute and join us Darcy can you hear me yes we can thank you Darcy hi hi sorry I just wanted to make a comment that it would be it looks like there are 12 people that want to make public comments and that this is a this is an area where we are saying that we really want to listen to and hear people so I guess I would just suggest that we allow people to speak for three minutes instead of two because we want to hear what they have to say knowing full well that most people aren't going to have three minutes of comment so I'm just strongly suggesting that we allow people to speak and be heard thank you for the comment Sean Mangano you know who is here from the general government section was expecting to make presentations on the general government section which is the budget which is what the meeting was originally posted to be so how many people are here from general government right now I think we have six or seven maybe eight people here for the general government section yeah thank you I think that the problem that we have and I'll look to other members of the committee jump in if they have any contribution on this so that it isn't solely my decision on this we originally had this scheduled as the meeting to hear about the general government department sections of the budget and we started an hour earlier in order to have the police be able to respond to what we had posed to the police department and those questions were posed prior to last night's hearing so I think that we sort of have to decide on how we want to balance our time and respect our employees who want to be able to answer questions about their portions to the budget are there other members of the finance committee who want to contribute to what they think we should do here so no one's stepping forward I think that we have two choices that are okay thank you Andy I definitely want to thank the members of the police department who are here for the work that you do I would like to hear some public comments but only if people who spoke last night there are people on that list who haven't spoken and I don't know whether we could sort through them or not but I would be willing and I'd be willing to listen to some of those comments but I'm not sure how you sort them but I think if people have spoken last night that we know what they're going to say today and I don't mean that disrespectfully at all any other comments Mandy I know I'm not on finance but I do think out of respect for our town staff who are sitting in a meeting and not able to do their work until we get to them and ask them their questions we should given that the agenda had public comment on last respect their time and at least maybe that conversation can't be completed maybe at least the presentation portion of general government and any direct questions to staff can be so that they can get on with their day and get their jobs done that's kind of my inclination too and so speaking to members of the public we certainly do plan to have public comment and if there are other things that you need to do and you don't want to hear about the general government sections of the budget why don't we you certainly can leave the meeting and come back on it will be probably about 45 minutes or so at least 45 and probably not more than 60 so I'd say if you leave the meeting please come back in 45 minutes so that we can when we get to public comment we can do so but I think I will follow through and turn it back to Mr. Mangana who's going to indicate to us the order in which we are going to go through the general government sections and make any key or the town manager might make introductory comments about the general government section and for everybody's reminder the budget is available in full on the town website under the government tab and then budgets and then you'll find the town manager's budget in the what's called the post COVID section Sean I think we were just going to go right through the general government section except for the facilities because you heard that at the previous meeting so that would be Mr. Backelman first and then finance and then we'll just keep going through the list and the department heads that are here will speak to each section okay so the general government section of the budget begins I believe around page 20 roughly that's certainly where the our 19 is where the town manager section and the town council section is before so why don't I start with the town manager thank you thank you Andy so the town manager budget shows an increase of 21.5% that's an increase mainly because of a reallocation of two positions one is the position of clerk of the council who is 75% under the town council's budget and 25% under the town manager's budget that position hadn't been budgeted to before previously so that's now plugged into the budget the other is the reallocation of the communications officer position which had previously been in the IT department budget and it's more appropriately in the town manager's budget for 75% of the time 25% of time still in town managers in the IT department we've removed in terms of expenses we've removed travel from the operating budget because there are not going to be conferences and we're not going to be going to conferences this year I don't think so that's the summary of our budget thank you I will note that we did not remove it under town council however I think we can assume that we are going to be seeing a change in that there will probably not be a physical mass municipal association meeting this year and we may also have counselors that just choose not to go and so we may find that as we get closer to January the line of operating expenses which I believe includes MMA will not be as great it still includes things like minute takers for council meetings so I don't want to say that it would be completely gone did you have anything else you wanted to ask about the first two sections of the budget are you talking to me Andy? Yes I submitted a list of about 25 questions and they have since been answered in a document that Sean and others have prepared Sonia and I'm perfectly satisfied with those and to the extent that they need to be discussed that's great and you can see the questions that I asked because this is the section that I have to write up so I have kind of stated my case of questions and people should go ahead with their presentations. Andy I'll just add that the questions on general government are posted on the finance committee page the packet section for today's meeting so if anybody wants to go and look at those questions and the responses that were provided they're available there. Okay and for anybody who can't find that it actually is very easy to find just go to the town website government and the town council section and under the town council section is committees and then the finance committee under finance committee you'll find packets in the packet for today's meeting so that's all the questions and the answers have been posted there and are available to anybody who seeks to go look at them. I also want to say thank you for all the time that it took to answer those questions and Paul I know you jumped in on the human resources side to let us know what training looks like and so forth I think it did help elaborate on the budget document and Sean I look forward to how we can look at ways to tweak the budget in the future. Okay looking at the hands up Kathy do you have questions either about the town council or town manager section? I have a question that is cross cutting so it starts I'm just looking at the page I had a question about why something was done in the budget book on legal services so I can bring it up later just to ask for the rationale and so it was removed as a line item and put within another group so we'll lose the trend so that was I'm assuming it's a town manager decision because you control the legal budget so I'm not sure where it got grouped but it's gotten grouped now that it's no longer a line item and then I had just a cross cutting one so we can come back to it if we want internal staff staff that work for you or in general government to do studies where there's data available so we had a fire EMS staffing question on the old staffing report updating it on different design of North Commons is there a team that's in your office and other general government offices that can come together and do something on staff time so those are my two questions that didn't seem to fit specific to other categories okay Paul so Sunya will address the legal question I believe so on the second one yes I am your staff person so when you have a question that's my job under the charter and I devote a lot of time to helping you find the answers that you want and so I ask you to I've asked why we've always funneled things through the town manager's office because my responsibility is the staff who are hired under the town and if there are questions and things that the council wants to ask and wants to pursue we'll assemble the appropriate people that's our job to serve you like that so Sunya did you want to address the legal thing yeah that was just our attempt to streamline the budget book a little we had like two or three pages dedicated to legal that really said nothing so we just put it under general services right along with the audit and property and casualty insurance and stuff but I see your point and I think in the next year's budget we can just create another line in history okay because it was just we lose the trend I understand that now thank you for bringing it up just purely that at first I thought we didn't need any legal services next year until I found it in the other budget we were trying to be efficient but realized it took away the detail that's important for everybody to see so we will fix that next year okay thank you anything else before we go into finance Sean I guess you might be on for that great thank you so I'm going to speak on behalf of a few different units the overall finance department is comprised of accounting treasury collection and assessing and all of those department heads are here today we have Cheryl who she Jen LeFountain Liz Duffy and someone that not many people know Sonya Aldrich our controller and so they're available to answer any questions but I'm going to do a brief overview of the budget and then just talk about some of the projects and goals that we're working on this year before I get into that too much I did want to acknowledge all the staff that I just mentioned and also some of the staff that they supervised they all worked pretty much straight through the pandemic when people were staying at home they came in to really keep the operations running they did a great job keeping things going and they continue to with their staff help support different areas of the town we have some employees whether it's parking or the front counter who their jobs have changed because that work is no longer really going on and so they've shifted to help other areas of the town like Poffers Pond or Cherry Hill and staff have been super flexible and we really appreciate their ability to adapt and go with the flow on things in terms of things that we're working on so Lynn alluded to this a little bit one of our goals for this year is to update the budget document and we want to get your input on things that you'd like to see and ways we can make it more useful to everybody and all these goals I'm going to mention they're all team goals they're things that either cross departments within finance or they cross departments within the town as a whole we're going to review our finance policy so the document on the website was last put together in 2012 which was pre-charter change so we're going to look at those finance policies, make sure they're up to date see if we want to add anything to them and obviously we'll share that all with you we're going to update our OPEB funding plan which Mr. Hector made sure that I explain what OPEB is so other post employment benefits which is essentially health insurance obligations for retirees there's been a couple changes to the funding plan one our obligation every year valued by an actuary and there are some changes that were pretty significant last year and also the contribution that we made in this year's budget we reduced in half so it's going to be important to look at that funding plan come up with a strategy for the next 5 to 10 years and also take a long view as to how much longer until we fund it we are looking to streamline our benefits process we've collaborated between HR and payroll for many years it's worked out fine but there's ways we can improve that and so that's one area we'll be looking to make some improvements we're going to continue to expand online payments we did a lot during the pandemic and put a lot of things online but there's even more we can do especially with the new software that's in the planning department or on permitting and rental registration there's a lot more we can move online and make it even easier for people to pay bills or purchase services from the town we're going to do a comprehensive review of fees there's some fees in town that haven't been looked at or maybe they haven't looked at but they just haven't changed in a long time so we're going to review all the fees there's hundreds of fees much more than on the school side when I looked at it I got a little nervous at schools we had like 12 fees and we're going to look at those we're going to compare it to our neighbors come back we'll move some recommendations around what our fees look like if they're at the right level we're going to obviously one of the big things for the town is to continue to support the capital improvement program and there's some data that's requested per the charter and also working with the council we want to put together a complete a packet of information every year for all of you and so that's going to be a major goal this year is to get that all together and a couple to more sustainability and a huge initiative of the town we want to on the finance teams really help to support that initiative come up brainstorm identify potential funding strategies that we can maybe they're not good ones maybe they're bad ones but we want to stir up different ideas at the town council and finance committee and others can consider and help us move closer to that goal and then the last one is the one we want to update our website and make it much more user friendly keep the information as accurate as possible and make it easier to access information and the last thing I'll just point out is the finance budget is going down 8.2 percent that's because a couple of the budget reductions in this year's budget were in finance there was a half time budget analyst position that was reduced and there was a half time position in the assessor's office that supports the assessor that was reduced and so it's going to definitely put more stress on the department we are confident that we can work collaboratively within our own teams to cover the everything that needs to be covered but it will require us to collaborate even more than we have in the past and we're up for that challenge and that is it I'm happy to answer any questions and we also have all the specific department heads here that can answer questions as well thank you the one question I have did you indicate that the financial policies themselves are there any revision? on the finance page there's been policies that were posted I think they were created by Sandy Pooler in conjunction with Sonya and other department heads I'm sure Sherry and Jen helped work on it it includes the town's investment policy it's where the guidelines around reserve levels comes from and so that policy manual is dated 2012 and it's something we want to make sure is still up to date, see if there's any references to town meeting or anything like that and also see if there's anything else we think should be in there okay the reason I bring that's the financial policies and objectives I believe I think so and being a member of the finance committee that developed those the history of that was by the original by the old finance committee which was a committee of the town meeting and it was designated as a role of the finance committee and it was done while John Musanti was finance director was the original development though it was amended when Mr. Pooler was the finance director I think that it is now a policy that belongs to the council and so I we will have to get a decision as to how the council will handle it but I assume the council will work through the finance committee to make recommendations on proposed changes and then the changes would probably be out of the council okay that's something we will definitely work with the council on that I don't know if you have anything to add to that no I frankly thank you for that history as well I didn't know that but my question financial policies is if they have any implications for things the council needs to do or approve or look at I don't think there will be implications for bylaws but we have asked other committees to do things that might lead to changes in bylaws to give us plenty of heads up on that the other along with this though in the same manner I don't know honestly what the council's relationship or responsibility is with regard to setting fees but even if we don't have to prove them I'm sure you would like to know about the changes okay and the other comment is it's a very ambitious set of goals they're all projects I'm not saying they'll all be done necessarily but we have a really talented team here and we want to make progress on all of them I appreciate them if you have a few on-goings in the budget book next year that's okay by me okay okay so we're calling some members of the committee and the council Bob Hegner hey thanks I have three questions on page 23 the last long range of objective is to establish property values of all of you mass real estate and I'm wondering why the town is involved with that and whether we're getting reimbursed for our effort I have two questions what is that on page 25 the parking collection rate is significantly lower than like property tax collection rate and is that due to out of state cars and things like that people basically just ignoring the ticket and then I noticed also in 18 and 19 parking permits that were issued increased about 10-12% per year and I'm wondering if that trend is continuing and at what point that becomes a and we start running out of spaces so thanks so why don't we start with your first question and I'll turn it over to Liz to talk about the UMass properties and how that's going good afternoon thanks for having me today basically what we're looking at is just as a rule look at the properties that we receive pilot back from to make sure that we haven't overlooked any options to increase our pilot and it hasn't really been fully looked at from an appraisal standpoint I do apologize for the phone I have no idea how to silence it but anyway I think you get the point obviously the state has a formula and right now we are not getting as much from the UMass pilot as our neighboring town and I did look into it further and the formula doesn't seem to make sense but we have to have a good case to actually question it but if there's any other questions I'm here to answer it no thanks that's very helpful and Bob we'll get back to you on the parking questions we'll get into those a little more the first question was why is our collection rate lower for parking tickets and lower than what we get for property taxes can you restate your second question again it was about the parking permits issued by the town if you look on page 25 the number goes up about 10 or 12% from 17 to 18 and from 18 to 19 each year and it's just a question of whether that's a trend and how much is the amount of pressure on downtown parking okay yeah we'll take into those numbers a little bit and we'll send it out to the whole group sure thank you okay thank you and who's next Bob actually asked one of my questions with the review of the property values for UMass I think you answered this with that though we get pilots from the state as you said if we increase the valuations if redoing these review of property values increases those those valuations will the state reimbursement automatically increase because of how the state figures is out and then would we also have an additional ability to negotiate that separate one under the strategic partnership agreement so I was just trying to figure out how the review of those valuations might affect revenue coming into town for state owned land through the state appropriation not strategic partnership and then the other one was I noticed we're still issuing payroll checks in paper and many employers have moved to requiring EFTs for payroll and I was wondering why we haven't done that yet because I presume that would save money so I'll answer the the second one really quickly Liz and then just talk a little bit about how that formula for UMass properties is put together as a accounting background we definitely want to move towards all direct deposits it does make things easier less time stuffing checks you don't have to worry about checks getting lost all those types of things we haven't yet made it a requirement but it is something that we can consider and I just know that a lot of times there are some people that make an argument why they don't want that going directly to their bank account they like a physical check each week but we do we are seeing more and more move towards direct deposits and we always try to encourage it whenever new people come on Holly correct me if I'm wrong here Holly but I think all new employees are automatically put on direct deposit it's basically the people that have art that were here before you're muted Holly yes that is correct there was some bargaining unit bargaining agreement changes that require all new employees to have direct deposit but there are some older employees who have been around for many years who are grandfathered and are still getting paper checks as well as part time hourly people we encourage we highly encourage them to get direct deposit but there are a few who are still taking paper checks can do anything else if not do you want to weigh in on that you mouse question real quickly yeah be glad to basically the way that the formula works doesn't seems a bit archaic I think in the time that they develop this formula perhaps it made sense at the time but it's time to have it revisited if I can just jump in on that this is just to give us ammunition and knowledge so we can take it to the next level and then we can say you need to revisit the formula right now Hadley gets more money than the town of Amherst has and it's based on sheer acreage the way we understand it it's not based on any improvement to the buildings so which is it doesn't address the impact on the community on what is on that acreage it just looks at the acreage right so that's something we should be lobbying our state rep and senators I think yeah I just wanted to follow up on this because it had come up so I want to ask do we also already have the valuation of Amherst college because one of the things that has been helpful in some communities Paul when you talked about negotiations there have been proposals that I'll suppose we looked at only 20% of the value would the payment be the Northampton mayor used that with Smith college to get their contribution rate up Burlington use it with the University of Vermont to get their so it was an ability to have a valuation of how many millions and what is being paid compared to property and UMass has always been there was no number to even look at it so I think it's you know if we can get a stimulus fix whatever imbalance it is but it's been a you know what does UMass lol pay what does UMass whatever we haven't had that base and it requires doing this kind of valuation so I'm thrilled to see this as as an effort so it's not just someone making a guesstimate thank you Dorothy so I'm going to go back to the parking and I'm going to just mention some complaints that I've received relationship to them the parking permits increased at least most people think because of the building of two new downtown apartment buildings which did not include sufficient parking and so some people were not happy with the fact that out of cars without of state licenses were taking the space in front of their house all the time because the finance committee would think about is the fees that are getting paid are very very low it's almost like a benefit you're giving somebody I mean was it 25 a year or something so if you're going to sell the plots on neighborhood streets to people to park on I think the town should at least make some money and that's just quick follow up that's one of the reasons why we're going to look at all of our fees this year and again we'll compare what it does and what other cities do on that front good anything else because the only other thing that I had thought about and I don't want to give into a very long thing on this because we want to do today but Liz you're also the one who's responsible for looking at our new growth estimates and our new growth of course figures into what our and you were looking at the projection for next year is almost 50% cut which I assume is due to which you're looking at for activity for next year due to what's happened with the economy because of COVID do you have any sense at this point whether that's lower level as something we should be assuming into the future for the next couple of years it's hard to say most folks that I am talking to in the in the now are on a wait and see kind of situation the drivers for this community are obviously the colleges and the actions that colleges take have a direct impact on your financial for all your your feeding businesses so unfortunately it is a kind of wait and see kind of situation to see what your colleges are going to do and how it's going to impact your financials because basically what I'm hearing from the commercial population is you have a number of people that are saying hey let's leave let's read a note I can't make my rent or I can't make my rent I'm going to fold up shop I can't make it through this time but you also have a good contingency of people that have been looking for that opportunity to get in on the MRS market so a lot of things playing rolling we'll really have a latency we have two buildings that the town council has spent a lot of time looking at one on southeast street and the other one on I guess it's university drive extension south are those zoomed into the 21 conditions to new growth yes yes those will be new growth for 21 I believe and we have some new growth for 20 because remember we do do with the percentage that we have we have a lot of buildings that are complete as of June so we have some of those buildings that are partially finished including 26 Spring Street is it 408 North Hampton Road the Aspen Heights we have quite a few new improvements that have been going up around the community on their existing homes and as far as the resale on your homes has not really moved too much you've seen some people that said you know this is too uncertain I'm going to wait I'm going to take my property off the market which reduced the inventory even more than it was already reduced so the supply demand here is still fairly good but I think it's our commercial industrial properties that you know we really have more of a wait and see and not so much in the industrial but obviously in the apartments that fall under believe it or not our residential even though there are multiple units they fall under our residential category which is new for me because usually we would consider those commercial over four units but in the state of Massachusetts it's considered residential okay well thank you very much it's helpful Kathy and then we'll move on to human rights and human resources just a quick follow up on Andy's I asked this last year but I just wanted to try to understand it better up by us I'm in North Amherst we have a huge complex that was already new growth it's been opening if all of the commercial part of it all the square footage remains empty does that change your calculation on what the tax rate is on it or does it not change until they lower the rent you know it's sitting there waiting for somebody to say I want to be in there but so far it's empty and I think one of the big buildings that's just about to open up isn't full either so what happens if people misjudge the market and they open and the apartments aren't full if the rents start coming down does that change what we tax them at it is based on a lot of factors when a building is in a complete we tend to lean more towards the cost approach when it becomes occupied fully occupied or what we call a stabilized rent situation then we lean more towards the income approach to value but saying that you do have to have a certain amount of logic going into it when considering the value and the vacancy especially on environmental impact that would just be ignorant for me to dissuade that from the calculation however it's kind of on the same situation with your own home you may have had four kids when you had a large family there but you still have three bedrooms in your home but you don't have four kids occupying those three bedrooms there's still value in the home as a three bedroom home just as there is still value in our apartment complex that may have more than 20% vacancy or 30% vacancy so there is it's a weighing it's kind of too complicated to give you a conversation but I'd be glad to give you something more in-depth if you want to reach out I will though I'll follow up thank you Annie can I say something yes I wanted to acknowledge Holly Bowser who's here I wanted everyone to know that she plays a huge role in our budget Hi Holly she took on a whole lot of she took on the budget position that we just eliminated she took on most of those duties and without her I would not have survived the last four years and I love her purple hair thanks Holly Holly thank you for all you do and thank you for saving Sonia's sanity I don't know if she did that but she helped a lot she definitely did thank you very much Sonia I think some days they make her more insane but there are also days that I do save it should I turn on human rights and human resources so Paul I don't know if you want to say a few things for this section we obviously have a vacancy there sure so this is a basic budget it calls for a human rights director human resources director and human resources manager we have placed the human rights commission in this position but when we we are prepared to take funds to allocate it for human rights complaints to a outside person if we need to do that at this point in time right now for human rights Jen Royston is coordinating the human rights commission's work I'm doing a tremendous job at that honestly and that's the 0.5 percent the 0.5 position that you see in there that's Jen Royston's position yeah Paul would you just explain what you just said I'll try to say it again in English so we have a human resources the human resources and human rights they're both HR they get confusing for people so I'm going to talk about one first the human resources position is the director of human resources there's a human resources manager and those are the two positions that run human resources operations everything from our trainings to our recruitment to handling collective bargaining grievances all things like that in addition at one point in time the human resources director was placed in that position when Deb Bradway had that position and took on those additional duties of human rights director there weren't a lot of demands on that other than supporting the human rights commission and with Evelyn's departure Jen Royston with actually Evelyn's support has taken on more of a responsibility for the human rights piece and has really actually brought that to a whole new level I think that anybody had anticipated so you know providing a lot of direction actually to the human rights commission and taking a real leadership role with that group thank you and do you have any senses to how long the position might be vacant for human resources director so human resources we have advertised we have I haven't checked lately we had last time I looked we had 26 applications some very good ones we are setting up a team to do the interviews review the applications to the interviews and hopefully get that done as soon as we can we have two major recruiting efforts going on right now the human resources director and health director they are on a parallel path and unfortunately they were both working very much on the COVID-19 and with the human resources director working on policies and practices for our own staff have we been hampered in our COVID-19 responses well obviously the position is needed we had a reopening we had a committee that was set up that included people from IT and human resources and planning and collector's office who are all participating so there is support there but in terms of the day-to-day management we are a little bit hampered but our human resources manager has been here for a while so she's been stepping up and she's the acting human resources director right now and is not a candidate for the position Dorothy question I just wanted to make an obvious comment that it's really too bad and I understand it was really beyond our control that the human rights human resources and health are first of all such small departments in the first place I mean these are areas which I believe the people have been saying they feel they should be increased and I just want to make the statement that I hope in next year's budget we have more resources devoted to this area that's it thank you but as we all know getting more resources is a challenge with all the different areas where we wouldn't put in the resources but that's a discussion to come but thank you there's nothing else we should turn on to employee benefits to keep this moving I can speak to this one briefly so this is primarily health insurance but also has some of the other insurances Sonia feel free to correct me if I misstate anything so most of you know this but we are now with Maya we're no longer self-insured so we have a we have a projected decrease in health insurance which is a combination of rates coming lower than expected and also our enrollment but this is also where we added funds to fill some gaps in our insurance coverage where we were self-insured one of the ads that was highlighted during the presentation last night that's this section here where that can be found and I think between Sonia Paul and I we can answer them are there any questions Bob yeah I had two questions the first one is there's a note on page 31 that says Amherst manages the health and life insurance plans for all employees of the regional schools the elementary schools and the town of Pelham and I'm wondering for the regional schools in Pelham is there some sort of cost-sharing with the other towns and then the amounts shown for health insurance etc on page 32 is that only that Amherst share or is that the total amount including all of these employees that you know of the regional schools etc so I'll take a first crack at it Sonia and then if you want to fill it out so in terms of the health insurance plans so the schools do process their own health insurance and they do all their own balancing and everything really I think that mostly relates to the checks get sent to the town and they eventually all get sent to get other to Maya the town does provide a little support in terms of reconciling if there's any issues but most of that happens at the school level and then to this next page that would be just the town share wouldn't be the combination so that would just be the cost to the town of health insurance and other insurance accounts okay thanks and I just want to on page 31 in that comment it also means our IAC we work with the IAC to manage all of our plans and stuff so we do it for all of the entities since we were all self-insured together one question on this the way it's worded it says towns of town of Pelham are we just doing the school employees of the town of Pelham are we also providing insurance to other employees of the town of Pelham the town of Pelham is also included the regional schools actually do the payroll for the town of Pelham because it's so small and the number of employees with health insurance is very small so it does include but the assistance still comes from the region okay Lynn so Lynn partially a question I asked and I don't think I asked this thoroughly and that is what were we self-insured on before health insurance no so Paul do you want to weigh in on this one a little bit around compensation insurance and injured on duty yes so we had been to health insurance which is the major sign that's the last three years the work we had done to go to a fully insured program there and then we have workers compensation and injured on duty which is basically workers compensation for police and firefighters and call firefighters who are injured on duty and that was a giant liability that we had because if someone gets injured on duty we would have to fund that I'm a big believer in burnt buying insurance to limit our liability so that was the biggest vulnerability I felt we had at this moment in time especially when you enter into a down economy you start to pay attention to that so that was one of the coverages that we obtained okay and that's a whole different question that's actually not related necessarily to this section and that is in terms of our buildings and equipment are we self-insured or do we carry insurance we have insurance for that thank you Kathy Bob focused on page 32 on the costs is that just Amherst is the head count on page 31 everybody so when I look at how many people have family or how many or is that just so that's my question Holly or Sonya do you know if that includes region and Pellum employees or is that just Amherst's town and elementary I think it's just him I believe looking at those numbers that it would be everybody it would include all entities okay I'll double check with Theresa it's not a big issue but it just lets you see how many people are out there with Medicare SUP and that's also linking it to OPEB on things we're paying for so I just think it's useful Kathy you'll see in those numbers when you see from FY17 to FY18 there was a pretty significant drop or realignment I'm pretty sure that's when we switched to Maya we did a full re-enrollment and we saw numbers change quite a bit and I guess on family versus individual I don't actually like these policies but they save the town money do you encourage someone to not take family if their spouse has coverage so that you have a person with a where the kids and the spouse go or is it completely up to the employee some employers give an incentive to opt into the other employer people call it other people's money is another way of thinking about it we don't like verbally encourage them but there is an opt out program where employees if they have health insurance with us and they leave to go to a spouse's plan there's an incentive a financial incentive they get every year for that and that was actually one of the things when we did the full re-enrollment with Maya we saw many people take that incentive and it saved quite a bit of money for the town, or at least for the schools, I don't know what the town but I know that year we saw the school save a lot of money because of that opt out program okay the one place I saw work in reverse for the local public schools Dartmouth University at one point had such a bad plan that all the Dartmouth employees tried to get on the local school system you know I mean people look at their benefit packages but thank you I just want to state that the numbers in the book is for the entire membership the last bill was like 1532 right only memberships okay thank you Sean Hannon is here for information technology hi I'm Sean Hannon the IT director I'll run through my stuff pretty quickly I think so nothing too new or exciting in our budget we have personnel changes we have the communication manager as Paul mentioned was moved three fourths of her was moved from IT to the town manager's budget just to reflect the nature of that position the communication manager some of the big accomplishments for the year we did a lot of cybersecurity training through a state grant that we received we started the implementation of our new application our new permit and license application software it basically takes every pretty much every license permit application that's received in across multiple departments a lot in conservation and development but also down to the town clerk's office the fire department DPW all those departments that will support that we implemented a new application tracking software along with human rights department human resources department and they and IT received state innovation award for that probably the biggest thing that was really boring to most users but exciting to us as we performed a major server migration upgrade that we went from from about six year old infrastructure to really fast new servers all flash storage instead of a lot of spinning parts in them they're all solid state and really the big benefit to that is there are some things that happen within GIS literally a hundred times faster so that's pretty exciting it's also uses a lot less energy so that was pretty exciting the stuff that we have coming up that we start working on for the upcoming current fiscal year continuing the application software the next big thing is the rental permit applications running that through the new system that will save a lot of time and effort in the conservation development department we've got new fiber being installed under the previous Comcast contract we were receiving service over the fiber INET that's going away this calendar year so we have signed a contract to have new fiber installed that's been ordered and it's going to be on its way to us and they're going to put that up on the poles it's pretty exciting we have a new GIS based map so they did a flyover it's the imagery that you see in the GIS system as well as the topographical information that's used across a bunch of departments that happens every ten years that's been updated being updated but major upgrade to our munis financial system moving that onto new virtual servers upgrading that to start with indoor Wi-Fi upgrades we everybody trying to do zoom calls now people moving around in buildings to find Wi-Fi where it works and it's not terrible we're doing that indoor Wi-Fi within town buildings then address the outdoor Wi-Fi after that that's what I've got people with questions Dorothy Lynn and Kathy Dorothy okay so this is Deshaun after you get everything done in the town and everything is automated and upgraded just so you don't feel there's nothing to do I just lay a marker for I think a future movement that I've been on my mind which is I think maybe the town of Amherst is going to need to provide Wi-Fi to the apartment complex and that could be a major social justice movement thing I'm just thinking about how if you can't connect then you can't really participate in any of this so we need a gift from the gods for that I know but I'm just saying that might be something in the future yeah Lynn actually my statement or question was very much along Dorothy's and if this pandemic has taught us anything and that is that we do need to make Wi-Fi much more accessible to certain areas of town I know when we first did the whole decision with replacing the Comcast Inet we looked at that and said no we don't want to become a provider but as we move through issues related to social justice access to learning and just general public access I think we may need to revisit that and look for money to support it great yeah being former select board member who is on the negotiating team for the Comcast and Amherst media contracts I think that we were just trying to figure out since Comcast was insisting that they were no longer going to provide the Inet that we needed to do something and we were just trying to figure out how we could pay for a fairly expensive operation to replace what we were not going to get in the next through the entire term of the next contract and Sean and Paul were also part of that negotiating team and Doug Slaughter so I think they can add anything that they might have to add to it but anyway I'll leave it at that Kathy I think we're building all on the same piece the Inet when you do the downtown area how far does it extend to and a question I have some pieces for example if and when let's say when we build a new elementary school can it extend as far as Wildwood or Fort River can we do direct linkages or is that way beyond I know it's way beyond downtown the way you've defined it so this notion of if you start someone can you build pieces on the social justice side I'm sure energetic town people who are constantly looking for grants have looked to see whether there are any under that label out there and I have no idea whether the Gates Kent Foundation is doing any funding of this but they have the kind of money that if they decided linking low income communities when people and as people probably know Bill Gates gave a Ted talk early on and pandemics before there was one but he's been very active on these issues I just have no idea and it would have to be a very deep pocket big foundation and the Gates Foundation is one of them that has focused in the past on fiber optics computer systems without promising that we will only buy Microsoft for the rest of our lives but you know so I just kind of can we link up at least the people who otherwise wouldn't be linked or that makes sense because there are public buildings so I can jump in on a little bit of that so the school department when they went virtual did have an inventory of all the students and what their internet capacity was they provided hotspots they tried to work with Comcast to a certain extent and Verizon they both came out with programs but they're all each one of them was a rather either you had to have credit in which a lot of folks didn't have or things like that they just had these hoops that some folks just couldn't get through and so but we did the district did buy a whole bunch of hotspots that people could activate to access so no one was left their intention was that no one would be inhibited from connecting to school because of lack of internet access but I think what you guys are talking about is a larger scale approach which would make in essence the town become more of a competitor to Comcast and for that that's a significant investment that would require a revenue source and whether we want to get into that field we've talked about not getting into that field previously and then declined doing it because it's not something that we do we're not in that business but it's certainly something we can explore again so and it's just I know some of the small communities in Vermont have banded together to do fiber optics as a group because no one for the same reason that and they have a central manager and but it took a team organizing to go town to town to town to to do a critical mass before they could then do anything so I realize it's a much bigger project but just trying to think of where we could build on at least some pieces we've started it was a major effort of both Shootsbury and Leverett that set up their own systems and this was something that took years and years of their work to get it going as far as the other quest parts of it the connectivity to elementary schools is already a part of the current dinette, correct Sean? Yeah so the fiber install that we have going up will connect 23 sites which include all the schools and actually includes Groft Park now and Mill River right as well so quickly you know Wi-Fi is great for a relatively small coverage area so if you want to cover a parking lot if you want to cover the parking lot behind Town Hall you want to cover a relatively small area like that it's great it does not travel through trees and most buildings very well so when you start looking at apartment buildings in order to provide coverage there you really you really need to get inside the building to provide adequate coverage it's not to say that it can't be done but we have Wi-Fi on the banks roof and it covers it covers part of Ann Wailin but only one side of Ann Wailin and so it kind of comes a problem because we don't cover the other side of Ann Wailin with that Wi-Fi from the banks on a roof And I guess the other thing I would ask one of the questions of setting up our own system we had the discussion once before Sean about the difficulty of negotiating with the owners of the poles that we're trying to get our lines put up on would be not willing to give us the kind same rate that they're willing to give us as a town for a town on a targeted system if we were also selling services and competition to them correct yeah so we're going we're going on the poles in the municipal communication space which is space that the select board got basically going back to when there were telegraph wires for fire alarms it's been the town has had the right to be up there part of the pole for and we can do that because we're using it for municipal use if we were to start offering paid service over that then we would we would have to go back to the pole owners and we would have to get a license a pole attachment license to be up there so it's not to say that can't be done but it's that part's involved and then the other part I believe on the financial side essentially we'd have to create a municipal light plant which is essentially a fancy enterprise fund and that's a multi-year process so again not to say that it can't be done it's it's not quick or simple the technical part's easy but so there's nothing else then I think we should get on to Chavina and I'm clerk's in elections but Sean thank you very much thank you welcome when you can you unmute hello hello thank you it was a little bit of a delay on unmuting the mic how was everyone good thank you for having me so I'm here just to discuss our budget so both the Town Clerk and our election budget and so the Town Clerk a lot has been going on on both the Town Clerk and the election side when we initially began preparing the budget in the beginning of the year we had a lot of objectives and goals and thanks to COVID some of those we've been able to reach and so those are things that I wanted to highlight first I'd like to start by saying that I have an amazing staff who has been resilient during the shutdown they've been here we've been in office throughout the shutdown we began working a staggered shift so they would come in for half days and I would work opposite of Suragat with our assistive Town Clerk so that we would have management coverage all day so we were here every day Suragat business would be as usual as it took me and so that there would be no laps and services provided to the community we were able to process all of our dog licenses on time we were able to still process all the registrations we were still able to process vital records and part of the reason we had to be in office and for both registration those are state systems that we don't have access to remotely and so we were able to still come in and so it allowed us an opportunity to focus on some of those vital aspects of the Town Clerk's job while we were in shutdown we were able to make progress we partnered with IT and with our clinic and we were able to roll out online e-payment that went in effect on July 1st so now we are able to accept dog license renewals and vital records on line and so that's a great accomplishment it was something that I remember I originally had interviewed for the Town Clerk's position in 2018 and Jen LaFountain was on the recruitment team then and that was a question that she asked me and I remember that question she asked me do you all do online dog license and the municipality that I came from and so I told her I said if I'm offered the position we'll make it happen so we made it happen in 2020 and so that's a great accomplishment that I am proud of now some things that are changing without jumping ahead on the election side as maybe many of you know or you don't know there's been an extensive amount of legislation that was put forth during the spring in response to COVID I was fortunate enough to work alongside state web dome and Senator Cumberford to go over the legislation offer feedback and give some insight on what I felt would be beneficial or detrimental to the town clerk's department in regards to elections and so the bills went into conference committee last week of June and made it to the governor on last weekend so the bill was signed on last Monday so we have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time and so I've been in conversation, Paul and I have been in conversation as well as Sean and I regarding how we're going to move forward to respond with elections in this season and in this climate Okay, questions Mandy and let's start with you and then Mary Lou Thank you, I have two questions they're both related not to elections and one is dog licenses our enforcement of dog licenses sits in the police department I'm curious why the issuance of them sits in the town clerk's office instead of sort of at the public safety office why is there that split between who enforces them and who issues them and then the other one was on page the 37 of the budget book for the town clerk's office where you list your service levels the interest law compliance service levels in FY 18 for 75 and in FY 19 for 584 and I just wanted to why is it so high is that something that was actually enforcing it or what happened So to answer your first question so dog licenses by MGL are a responsibility of the town clerk so that's why and so we have the police enforce it for late and because sometimes you need a little extra to get $5 and as far as the the increase on the conflict of interest all municipal employees state and municipal employees have to do the conflict of interest every other year and so for the town it looks like it was in 2019 so the town does it in odd number of years so no one only new employees would have done it in 2018 versus in 2019 so in 2019 everyone had to go through conflict of interest training and so we retain those records so once you go through it's an online training and you get your certificate you have to submit it to the town clerk okay thank you you're welcome okay Mary Lou okay this is an election question with university and colleges some of them doing all online classes some accommodation we know in a presidential election year that many of these students vote locally register locally is there any plan or thought about about that happening here in Amherst and how you'd handle that and I do know a little bit about the plan that the legislature set up but I guess how are we going to deal with that because it's clear that all these students will not be back as they have been in the past during a presidential election year so it is something that I have thought of it's something that I started planning back in May and so one of the things that I'm advocating for all of our college students as well as anyone who would be in an at-risk population I'm advocating vote by mail because for a number of reasons for safety concerns number one also the part of the change in the legislation is the state is going to pick up the postage bill for being able to mail out the request form so the secretary of state as of July 1st is going to mail out a 2020 vote by mail application to request the ballot to every registered voter statewide and it's going to be posted state so that all they have to do all voters have to complete it and mail it back it'll come to us directly so to be addressed to the town hall we will process it and so when we receive their ballot when we receive their application and we receive the ballot we'll mail it to them and the postage is going to be paid on that as well and so that's an incentive because you hear a lot of times that it costs sometimes depending on the weight of the ballot it can cost anywhere from $1 to $1.50 to mail the ballot out and to receive it back and so that's one of the plans that I have in place some others are forthcoming we will talk about right at this moment out of respect and it will be on your agenda for next week's meeting okay well thank you follow up Andy yes how are we going to know that these students haven't applied not only in their campus residents but in their local home how is that going to be checked so that they can avoid people voting twice so in the state of Massachusetts our voter registration information system is a statewide system that prohibits duplication so when someone registers to vote in one community if they're registered already in another community it'll take them off the roll in the community where they are oh thank you you're welcome I actually want to just re-emphasize our agenda on Monday the 20th to talk about the upcoming election and her plans and so for issues that are not budget related we can take them up then thank you okay anything else? not Dorothy I'll wait for Monday okay sounds fair enough anything else for many members of the committee great Luya hands this down so anything else thank you very much for the presentation and welcome to you know it's really been great to have you and now that you're now you're a veteran of Amherst so thank you so much it's been my pleasure it's been great working with you the continuing to work with you yeah so I think that we're at the end for general government except for one section and that is the facilities maintenance and I guess my question to either Sean do we have anybody maybe Sean do we have anyone here for that section? I thought we did that one quickly last week when Jeremiah and Rob were here I think we did that one quickly so the only thing we have left is debt service yeah general services okay yeah after facilities right there's okay general services and then what I was going to suggest so that we can get to public comment is that we put just continue debt service into the next meeting I had sent the grid that showed the things that we needed to get through today that were Highline and Yellow and on that the retirement assessment in the regional and the OPEB is on there but we had already talked about that and voted that in the one month budget but we have to rescind the one month budget that was in place so I didn't know if you wanted to bring that up again so I highlighted that but there's debt service and there's also the optional tax exemption that we have to accept every year yeah and I sent all that information in my email to everybody I'm just keeping an eye on the on the clock and recognizing that we put in an extra meeting this week and so that we could if there was any last pieces that we could put over for tomorrow we may actually have more time and be able to hear from any members of the public who are still seeking recognition this would be quick of several different topics but anything on general services let's cover that for sure I can run through that one real quick if you want to chime in so that area has our liability insurance our professional insurance property insurance some other general again it is general services so it's things that cover a lot of departments like postage telephones the audit equipment maintenance the big increase you see there we talked about earlier where we moved legal from its own section into this section I think that accounts for just about the majority of that increase right Sonya yeah and so yeah this is sort of a operational section of the budget there's not a lot of goals here in the legal services if I recall I don't have it right in front of me it's not an increase from the prior year it's just moved from section right budgeted yes okay Kathy could you I just had a quick question on on page 45 the vehicles insured is that number of vehicles that are just part of general government you know on whose vehicles are those or are those all the vehicle I mean is that vehicles fire engine and every vehicle we have in town that's just that's all of them and that'll be actually part of the capital improvement program as well that's one area where we pull our vehicle information is from what's insured Holly or Sonya may know it may also include some things that aren't necessarily what you would consider a vehicle as well some equipment that has to be insured that was that was my question so so when Guilford told us that he has 110 he's about half of all the vehicles schools have 20 or 30 of the police and fire that are in that number so it includes all of them okay thank you okay Dorothy just a real quick one since they're all here I want to say that this budget book is absolutely a miracle a regular person can read it and understand it and I have no idea how much work it took to make this book but I really really appreciate it so thank you to you all thank Holly and Sonya Holly's hair was not purple at the beginning of this process and by the end of the budget book there you go okay well thank you to all of you too for the book so you had brought up several topics Sonya and is there really reason why we can't just hold it for tomorrow at this point um are you gonna that's fine I mean debt service is pretty simple it is our debt service and we kind of see that all the time so I don't know if there's a lot of questions on our debt service it's going down until we start building these buildings we borrow money and then it doesn't right no I think the question that one question I had had Lynn asked the other day on it looked like you must have refinanced because the interest rates went down on some of the things compared to last year's budget book and I think you said you had done that we don't refinance but we have a lot of of bands out there right now bond anticipation notes so that changes every year and sometimes we don't have an interest rate when we're putting the budget book together we do so when we're estimating it we we ask our financial advisor and he tells us four or five percent because we don't know where we're going from here so that will fluctuate once they're permanently bonded if we permanently bond all of them which we probably won't then it becomes a permanent number but we don't refinance very often unless there's unless there's going to be savings to a lower which hasn't really been the case for a lot of years because interest rates have been so low okay thank you okay so I think you have something about service you're muted no I hadn't taken my hand down I'm fine thank you all right the other subjects you were going to bring an optional tax I think those were pieces you put into the packet yes it was three it was the attachment three and 3.1 three is the actual order and 3.1 was a memo from our assessor Liz explaining what our exemptions were for last year why don't we hold that for tomorrow does everybody in the since there was some confusion earlier make sure that if you haven't looked into the packet for today's meeting that you do so and look at those documents before we have the discussion because some people had missed the question and the answers because they didn't realize that they were in the posted packet and I will send out a note after the meeting explaining that in order to find the packet if you haven't been able to find it or unless you want to cover it because it looks like Liz is still here I'm here to answer the questions on the local option exemptions that she's discussing if we need to okay actually let me see if I do have it available to show on the screen oops I just think I accidentally ran into a problem do you have it available or shall I look for it I have one that has a question mark with the base for the FYI but I don't know if we ever found the solution but I can share this document but I have it in front of me I believe it's the one that I submitted to you Sonya I have it in front of me but I have the one with the question mark for the base on the fiscal year for the base who has control to share Sean are you looking for the approval order that has the local exemption I can bring that on the screen it would be personal exemptions fiscal year 2020 the reimbursement would be in fiscal 21 these are local additional exemptions I can share the one I have basically it's the same thing it's good to see you mailed you 3 and 3.1 you have a child you said you just emailed it to me Sonya let me pull it out to you and Paul is it it's CO number 3 yeah I can pull that up let me share the first one and then tell me if that's it and then the second one is 3.1 is there a place in particular we're supposed to be looking at for the shared out there it is okay thank you I've been the shareer that's the council order it's the next one Sean well next one thank you there's the documents there was a next document that's labeled 3.1 FY let me get that one that's the one it's the only word document in that email is it up on the screen right now nope don't you guys aren't seeing it on the screen no we're seeing your email let me let me try it again switch screen Sean maybe do you see it now there you go yep that's basically what I'm looking at okay so basically what you're looking at there is the optional exemptions allowed by MGL to add an additional exemption to the existing exemptions they mandate by the state and the town of MRS has an option for additional surviving spouses veteran and disabled and surviving parents of a son or daughter killed in action or a spouse surviving spouse of a husband or wife killed in action legally blind and senior and the senior regulations are pretty in depth so I won't go into them too much but those are available if anybody's interested I hope to get out to some of our local organizations to expand on these exemptions that are offered only in the town of Amherst for these local options to our local organizations for seniors and veterans basically we're looking at a local option exemption of 108971 am I correct Sonya sorry the local options in total are 108971 three sounds and then the state will reimburse us 33,338 of that amount supported by the our local option portion you know we add an additional $39,000 almost $40,000 see if I can explain it correctly just to make it for people who are unfamiliar with the process the base exemption amount is required the optional piece is a local option that we can add to the amount of town meeting over the years is always adopted the local option so that we can provide the benefits to the largest extent permissible even though it does reduce our taxation by that amount it's a valid it has always been deemed to be a valid expenditure and but it has to be voted annually and I think I stated it correctly Sonya so I think that we basically are going to be asked again to do this and this is the assessor's role his value made the estimates of the value of the local exemption that we would have to vote on and continue to offer them to veterans legally blind and seniors who are eligible questions have to go back to the participant list and see if there are any questions and Lynn I assume this is not the same as the program where seniors can work to up to a certain amount of money but I don't think it's going to be the same as the program where the taxes reduced no that is not included in this okay thank you you're welcome I just want to can I say something Andy attachments that's the label number three that is the actual order but the second page of that is the last year's memo from David Burgess so I didn't notice David's attached to it okay so you'll you'll you'll replace the packet I'll replace it with Liz's okay great Dorothy I'm having trouble reading it so let's take the first one does axe is that six people going to get that amount means accounts accounts okay what this stands for is this MGL chapter 53 is the section of the law that allows us to or the chapter of the law that allows us to offer these this is the specific subsection for each of these so I don't know how much it really is then because if six people get a total of $500 so I divide six into that and I come out to about $500 each yes okay so the huge amount for the veterans is that there's 50 people dividing up $58,000 and so they're going to get maybe like $800 or something like that right we're not talking a large amount of money but it is significant to those in this vulnerable population right really use the assistance but it is significant to those in this vulnerable population not at all we would be voting on the optional portion of it right to continue the optional additional exemption okay does that answer your question Dorothy it does so do we want to actually let's hold this but the motion that would be is whether or not to again offer the optional local exemption and whether to recommend that action to the council I'd like to take a minute to recognize my assistant Teresa she's not with me today she's actually having eye surgery it's pretty dramatic for her and she's been administrating those efforts for all those benefit programs for our very needy individuals in the community and she's been really great I gotta say I haven't been here all that long but she's been very patient and she's very efficient I'd like to put a shout out there I wish her well on our behalf thank you thank you thank you so I don't see anything else and let's Dorothy you still have your hand up is that invested to before Mary Lou could we are we off of debt yes we're back to that if you want yes I do have one it's on page 179 and I may not be understanding this correctly it's appendix D school renovations we're still paying on a $700,000 bond and I thought at some point we stopped work on that school because the elevator was going to be expensive and all of the codes and everything and we're still paying on that and it looks like into the future also I can answer that the reason it's labeled east street school is because that's where we originally borrowed the funds under but we had repurposed a lot of that debt for other projects that happened through the town so we used that money that was borrowed for other projects we had revotes at town meaning for it but it's still named east street school just so we can track that debt and that bond that we actually originally borrowed for oh good because I this building is standing there and if it's not a good idea no we never went through with it so other questions those are good questions thank you alright so I think that we're then the general government and we will vote on the whole series of issues at one time including the optional exemptions but we're not going to take the vote today because we have had some very patient attendees who we had notified for public comment Lynn can you put the the agenda back on because it's I think had a statement about the public comment rules and then I was going to just try and go through to the public comment on matters within the jurisdiction of the finance committee are allowed under general public comment they're not limited to subjects that were discussed but we welcome always public comment and there are people who've been very patiently waiting for that opportunity so what I'm going to do is go back in my own section and look at the participant list and at this point we have a fairly large number of people who have indicated that they would like to speak and so I'm going to have to probably try and limit this if I can to let's say a minute and a half is what I'll try and do when I set a timer but I would just ask you to introduce yourself and indicate that you're resident of Amherst by telling us at least what part of town you live in of the council districts and so I'm going to go in order and if you spoke last night and we took very careful notes and so I urge you I can't say I'm not going to interrupt you but please don't try not to repeat from what you said last night anything else from the committee I'm going to start the list if not Brian I believe is correct and if I'm incorrect please correct me Thank you that was close my name is Brian I am a resident of district 5 in South Amherst thank you for letting me speak I'm a parent and an educator in Amherst and I am trying to respond to some of the things that were said by the police department and the fire department and I just want to urge the town council to carry out the demands put forward by Defund 413 and reduce the police budget by 52% police departments are historically racist organizations and they don't meet the needs of our society at this point as illustrated by their own statistics over 90 I think 96% of calls to the police are for nonviolent issues and the police enforce the law with violence or the threat of violence they have been asked continually to do more and more roles that they are not suited for in their training and that has become a progressive problem that we need to address we need to more intelligently distribute our tax dollars to provide the essential services that reduce crime and help communities flourish continued investment in violent law enforcement is backwards and really fails to consider our history or the current moment Amherst has 18 times more police officers employed by the town than public health workers or social workers there was some commentary on that we shouldn't be reducing our police force during a pandemic we should be focused on public health that's the obvious solution here as chief Livingston noted the high frequency of mental health calls stating that it was roughly one-third of calls and he said mental health assistance is often not available from other organizations we need to fix that problem when an officer shows up for a quote-unquote warm knock for someone who has been experiencing a mental health issue or a drug crisis it's really well documented at this point that the presence of a uniformed officer with a gun more often than not is going to escalate that situation we need to take a holistic nonviolent approach to our future that redistributes our money in a way that acknowledges the painful lessons that have shown without a doubt that violent law enforcement is part of the problem and should be a thing of the past I'm proud of Amherst and I believe we can really move forward with a more intelligent and compassionate view of law enforcement and social well-being thank you so please conclude thank you for your attention well thank you Kinga McCraven hi can you hear me yes we can thank you hi I am Kinga McCraven a queer black woman who graduated from Pelham Elementary School Amherst Middle and High School and UMass I'm a local educator and community leader working to improve our culture here because I did not feel safe in any of those spaces I was in awe last night of everyone who was brave enough to name their experiences and how our town upholds racist institutions such as the police department and school district I was heartbroken to watch the council with mostly blank stairs and lifeless expressions especially when folks were sharing devastating examples of the harm they have experienced and witness in Amherst which today I heard questioned and minimized I did not speak last night because I feel unsafe speaking to this council of people who do not display passion or empathy and are not a true representation of our community police and question the voices of their community and protect the racist institutions in our town I feel this harm in my body and spirit and use immense strength to speak to my truth to you today I urge you to reflect on how it is possible that the town can combat systemic racism with 0.1% of the entire budget this is not about whether individuals are inherently good or not but the gross funding to a racist institution who is responding to calls concerning the health and wellness of our community instead of addressing health head-on we need to invest in the general wellness of our community and build up a public health and safety outside of the institutions that uphold systemic racism rather than funding institutions that are not experienced with such issues we suffer from a lack of access to safe spaces mental health services transportation and essential human resources which we I do not see being addressed in this budget there is a health food apartheid in this in this town with no grocery stores that are accessible and inclusive let alone offer affordable quality foods I am board president of common chair food co-op which is working to create a space addressing this lack in Amherst while building an anti-racist community owned and led grocery store I'm founder of counterculture educator where we help creative leaders turn around the culture of their community these are only two examples of projects that truly address the health of our entire community and the town needs to be committed to we need a space owned and operated by black people specifically serving the black community justice this council has paid time to decide how to best uplift and support the town black residents deserve the same treatment there will be a there must be a thorough process to address this issue we need a space owned and operated by black community and the town of Amherst with adequate time to assess and create a legitimate plan asking black community leaders to service this community for free is a continued violation of black livelihood cut the Amherst police department by 52% to directly improve the public health and safety in our town do not give any of this money to any institution such as the police or school district pay black community leaders to establish a task force of black community leaders the authority to direct the town on how to allocate further funds needed to support the plan to combat structural racism be responsible with this money by not rushing into this important decision and put it in an interest bearing account until a plan has been formulated there is no quick fix to structural racism we need to approach this with a long-term change in mind this is absolutely possible but only if the town chooses to be on the right side of history and stand against the law and institutional race institutionalized racism that thrives in Amherst okay please finish okay thank you very much I'm trying to keep make sure we have time for everybody somebody has signed on and is listed as counter culture educator but I assume that there's somebody who's signed on that way who can identify themselves and please spell your last name and tell us where you live in town hello yes yes I'm here my name is DW I'm an Amherst elementary middle and high school graduate I'm also a former employee of the Amherst school district and I was tasked with establishing the inaugural restorative justice program I've created and developed programs in Chicago and in western mass that speak to the power of transformational community approaches I know that we cannot transform what we cannot see looking at this board I have not observed adequate representation of the people that live in Amherst I'm not just talking about race I observed how this group attempted to use one black man's voice as if we are a monolith I agree that we need public safety defunding the police will do just that public safety isn't only police public safety is empowering paying and training the community on transformational justice practices to make sure those around us are also safe I am I am public safety and I take my job seriously as John Manjano he has personally experienced the tenacity and care in which I show up for my community I shouldn't have to join the police force it to be paid to take care of my community when I know there are alternative solutions outside of policing that work in restorative justice we uplift a saying how are the children and if we cannot all unequivocally say in unison that the children are well we have a serious problem racism is a public health crisis structural racism in Amherst is a problem this meeting structure is problematic and is an example of structural racism the police department spoke for over an hour justifying their actions while the general public is policed on the length of our comments comment topics herein lies the problem I know most, if not all of you don't get that that's why you also need community support defund the police by 52% so we can get the work of supporting a community we love thank you for your comment Amelkar Shabazz am I unmuted? yes you are okay yes amelkar shabazz I live in district 5 and I'm a proud employee of the University of Massachusetts where we teach our students to be revolutionary to think critically question power and above all to be ambitious now while I openly identify myself as someone who works and has his check signed by the University of Massachusetts I don't react emotionally because you all had a discussion about actions going on to try to value the property and assess the property value to try to get more out of UMass in terms of payment and lieu of taxes I don't go into a knee-jerk reaction like that because you're doing that as the town of Amherst even though I'm a UMass employee and likewise I thought it very unhelpful and to this conversation and I can understand where he's coming from Scott Livingston is his colleague his fellow chief but Tim who identified himself as a black man and gave his personal focus well I'm a black man as well but I don't want to go into my own personal thing here I want to keep it on topic I want to not go emotional but I have to respond right now to say that to reduce this to people are just acting emotionally because of the 8 minutes and 46 seconds tape of George Floyd or we're reacting emotionally because of some animus for the police that's nowhere in this conversation I like my chief I have chief Livingston as my interactions have been very positive but the real question here is about being revolutionary thinking critically questioning power being ambitious and looking at this moment as an opportunity to begin to reassess and rethink the budget I don't give a particular percentage I'm not going to sign on here to 52% maybe it's 100 but I want to reassess now of thinking about the functions of thinking about where we can involve and validate and create programs like a cahoots or something that can begin to put people in front of unarmed people putting unarmed trained people who are appropriate for those circumstances in front of unarmed people of course where there's a violent threat yes, you need a force that can deal with that but we are too militarized there's too much of a focus on militarism and on a warrior culture in all police departments it's time for us to rethink our dependence on that thank you very much for the opportunity Tom Rick last hello everybody yeah it's really it's really hard after waiting all day and I echo what other people said one and a half minutes to share after so much time was given to the police which seemed to be a lot of the repeat of the earlier town council police call so this whole process seems really wrong kind of antithetical to participation so the defund campaign is about systematic patterns of racism in the Amherst police department you're right no one has been murdered by the police in Amherst but did you really hear the testimonies last night about people's experience does that matter it was a key point made by the speakers and in my opinion was virtually dismissed today miss Friedman called the Amherst police department about power in reference to responses mental and public health but above power I don't know what that means it usually doesn't win any tournaments but still we're going we still need to go back to the statement that Captain Young was talking about we are not clinicians we don't pretend to be this is not our job so if you you listed a great set of resources and they should be used all these social agencies and resources but they should be used at the point of the crisis that only makes sense the crisis is now for these people and the police do not need to show up as so many people said and I'll repeat the statistics from the Kahootz program 17,000 calls were rerouted to Kahootz and one percent less than one percent required any kind of police presence or police calls that is really important to think about so it's our job to do best for the community and that is what's best for the community with the police officer showing up too many things go wrong at the very least pass only a one month budget and spend that month paying a collection of BIPOC folks to give you the answers that you need around the budget especially the police budget let's take a deeper look that's the least thank you very much last number of people had their hands up and all of a sudden that was my fault sorry Sean I hit the lower all hands button by accident so anybody who had their hands up just going to have to raise them again I'm terribly sorry about that okay thank you because unfortunately I take them in order that they were up previously now I'm seeing some hands that had been of people who had been previously I recognized in today's meeting and I ask you if you've been recognized once to please not ask again let's work with a honor system but I Lynn have you been keeping track of the people of the names I do I have but I think you should start with the top of the list it's about all you can do at this point okay if you've identified anyone who's already spoken then please somehow let me know but Zoe Crabtree I know we heard from you last night please unmute okay Zoe I think you can go awesome thank you so much Andrew as you said I did speak last night I live in district 5 I just wanted to share some information I think you'll be very interested in about the officer initiated calls and the follow up calls like I shared yesterday we have all access to the police that we downloaded from the Amherst police website and we were able to put them into a spreadsheet format so that they're very easily queried when I look at the number of police calls that were initiated by the police the initiated calls that you were speaking about earlier there are 4,922 of them total only 769 of them 15% are follow up calls I think that there was some conversation earlier about well maybe most of the calls that are listed as officer initiated are really just follow up and so they're skewing the numbers that doesn't bear out in my analysis of the data it looks like follow up calls at least the way that they're tagged in your system under the call reason not the call type it's only 15% of those officer initiated calls the rest of the officer initiated calls seem to be much more of this active policing that you all as a council a frame as something that's really positive but what you should be hearing from what everyone has been telling you the last night and today is that that active policing is really harmful and when people say violence they don't necessarily mean you know someone taking out a gun and shooting them we mean being watched being perceived as suspicious being overpoliced in everything that you're doing having that be looked at more than anyone else that is violence and that's what everyone is speaking to here and that bears out in the data about officer initiated calls thank you so much thank you Terry Mullen Hi, similar to what Zoe was saying I'm a town resident I live on northeast street I did the maps for the data analysis that you can find at defund 413 Amherst sorry I can't remember I'm nervous the Instagram account that you've all been sent and I just redid the data I dropped all follow-up calls from the data and just looked at the initiated calls in the same exact places are lighting up as being more proactively pleased and please listen to the BIPOC who are saying that being proactively pleased harms them thank you okay thank you so the next person I see is if I don't get your name right pronounced right please speak up Rebellous please join us yep can you hear me yep NJ it stands for Nicole Jessica I live at 36 Hulse Road in Amherst and I teach at Holyoke High School I don't think I've ever noticed a police car or officer in my neighborhood which is precinct 8 which is predominantly white as a teacher of course my bias is for funding schools, school counselors more teachers especially during the pandemic I'm really glad to hear that police are mental health first aid and CIT trained I'm actually a certified trainer with youth mental health first aid it's a great program but I'm not really sure why we're training police to do mental health work instead of hiring psychology specialists to intervene and support in a crisis why can't health care providers be first responders why is a drug addiction response team run by police and not EMTs we need a hiring freeze and general defunding for the Amherst police department I would love to see our tax dollars supporting things like education, food justice, housing access to health care all sorts of non-police town services expanding public internet access sounds like a great place to invest as a town especially municipal fiber which was discussed today I'm really hoping that Amherst will be a leader in solutions for policing and community services thank you for your time and consideration I really hope that you listen to the black people in our community on this issue well thank you very much keeping moving along Andrea Monason Olson she already spoke that's what I thought as well as a couple of other folks who have spoken again today but I did speak last night I believe a partner or someone else in her household may have spoken my partner spoke earlier Brian so you haven't spoken today no I have not so please join us for clarifying that yep so I am Lexie Monason Olson I've lived in Amherst for 13 years I live in District 5 I have two children who go to Crocker farm and a third who will attend when they're old enough I wanted to first clarify in the beginning of my statement that the words you heard last night were absolutely about the local police department and policing situation not a knee-jerk response to the national condition the statements being made are based on facts pulled from your data your budget documents and bolstered by firsthand experience you need to be realistic about the very strong community response that you're seeing to this budget and this police department more specifically I would like to talk about the indication that you work with organizations in the area such as the fire department to determine appropriate services in a given situation when a call comes in only about 12% of calls that are responded to by the police department actually come from a 911 call 44% are initiated by the cops themselves and while you indicated earlier today that what we referred to as patrolling as follow-up according to your own statistics this only accounts for 15% of the police initiated calls this is not problem stabilization this is patrolling and instigating and I do not feel as though this policing helps to keep our town and community safe especially considering that different parts of our community are policed differently you say that 100% of your officers are required to be trained in mental health first aid but you could not possibly handle a mental health crisis as well as a mental health professional why does the town not employ crisis intervention response teams rather than police officers to respond in these situations we budget for 48 officers but only two public health workers and two social workers in fact the social services budget has been reduced from $80,000 in 2018 to $20,000 in 2019 and zero for 2020 I understand that decisions need to be made and the budget is tight this year but clearly social services are not what need to be cut armed officers are generally not needed in a mental health crisis and they often as we heard in public testimony last night scare people, make them anxious and escalate situations I'm also hearing you say that many of the calls you respond to are not service calls but rather harm reduction calls why do we need police officers for these calls at all why are we investing resources in providing trainings for armed officers rather than recruiting and incorporating educators, mental health care workers and others to provide the actual services that are needed I agree that public health and safety are crucial Julie but we do not need harm reduction responses from armed police officers we need community services that support all Amherst residents to live healthy safe lives the police do not provide this above par is not an appropriate standard we need to devote financial resources to services in the town that will actually provide safety and reflect the values we claim to have Mr. Bachlemann if you feel as though the town has not had sufficient time to have these conversations then I challenge the council to pass another one month budget to allow for that time thank you so Michelle hi there can you hear me thank you hi my name is Michelle and I live in district one and thank you for the opportunity to speak I am speaking today to share a personal experience I've been living in Amherst since 1998 I married a man who also lives in Amherst and I'm now divorced from him but he is extremely mentally ill and so I have worked closely with the Amherst police department over the years to manage the situation I do want to be very clear that I believe that systemic racism is alive and well not only globally nationally and in Amherst I also believe that over-policing is harmful but I just want to point out that when it comes to the particulars of these situations and seeing my ex-husband and the father of my two children basically become sick in front of our eyes and I want to say that the Amherst police department has been extremely compassionate and not perfect by any means but I have found them to be extremely compassionate but he was just like in the month of February there were 20 calls just for him for disturbing the peace and you know they go out there and they check in with him and they take him over to Northampton to be evaluated and he comes back the next day and it is a very very difficult for anybody involved my children after George Floyd's brutal murder my children ask me if that was going to happen to their dad and there is nothing in my heart that believes anything like that with the Amherst police department at all but the reality is is that their frustration is extreme and I do very strongly believe that they need the support of specialized mental health professionals to do their job better and to support our community better you know I have been on the other side of things where I have had a restraining order against him and where maybe the police did over police I don't know but maybe they did drive by a bunch to keep their eyes on things and for me that did provide some sense of safety for myself and my children so I think we are kind of all in some ways I think we might be saying some of the same things in that you know the police need more help in these circumstances and they need not you know it is wonderful that they are trained as I think Lexi said but they need specialized professionals if my ex-husband had a professional show up that is basically it I really believe that if some money was if this was frozen until a larger conversation could happen and if there was money that was set aside in some sort of account or something like that instead of you know just rushing into a decision and say thank you okay thank you somebody has signed on with an indication of peace and love and whoever you are please tell us your name and where you live hi can you hear me yes we can first of all I hope I am finding you all in good health and in good spirits my name is Jose Dostra I'm an advocate for your local homeless in Northampton and Amherst. And I lived right on the border of Amherst and Palmer for two and a half years. I have a family of seven and I specifically elected to send my kids out of the Amherst school system when you had police officers in it. And so I just want to say that I'm coming here with the voice of the first people and I want to remind you that you're trying to deny that there's systemic racism in a town that's named after a guy who spreads smallpox and blankets to Native American communities. So I think that it'd be really wise for you to remember that and remember that there's no Native American people here for a reason. It's because you prospered off of their death. And now the people that you have oppressed afterwards are uprising, they're rising. Black people need protection. I would like to really thank the, I believe his name was Tim, Chief Tim Nelson I believe for his testimony. And I would like to say that I have family and even in Amherst their cops and they do a lot of good work. But this is that thing about one or two people that are doing really good work doesn't make up for this system where the roots are corrupted. I want to remind you that most of crime is monitored, knowingly monitored. And I come from a family that suffered from incarceration and oppression. I'm from Puerto Rico and we've been being oppressed for over 500 years. The police there have sold their allegiance to local drug dealers so that not even the inhabitants of the island can have any peace because they're protected by not only the police but the CIA. And this is your drug board. This is what Reagan started and the CIA started. And for some reason you people don't want to take any responsibility for it. But indigenous people all over the world are suffering and you're brushing it off. I need to recommend a couple things to you. The first people. Yes sir, thank you very much. You need to double the amount of meetings that you have and you need to stop making people wait to talk about this. You need to prioritize the racial aspects of all of this because human life is being lost all over the U.S. territories and everyone will remember you as delaying in combating that. I am an educator. I have traveled all over the world to teach art and music and love and healing. And I will teach of you people and I hope that you behave in a way that I can teach positively of you. Please open your ears and your heart to a new future filled with imagination and brilliance that your community is bringing you. And don't turn them down. You should be employing the people that are coming here so they can show you and they can lead the way. God bless you and good health to you. Thank you very much. Somebody who has who's calling in and 4304 is part of their phone number, I believe. And I welcome you and ask you please identify yourself and where you live and then what's in your mind? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Please go ahead and tell us who you are and we live in what you have to say. Yes, thank you. My name is Gazette Coy and I live in District 5 and I'm sharing today after listening last night and this morning. I'm disturbed but not surprised at how public comment has been limited when the police were given over an hour today. The people are asking you as a counsel to do what you agreed to do, to represent our needs. And right now those needs are not a response to the national conversation. It is demeaning and dehumanizing to imply that our sharing is some sort of unfounded hysteria. It is clear that our town residents have experienced police profiling and violence here in Amherst. This local problem is urgent and life-threatening, even more so because of the added impact of COVID. I am asking that the town council act in line with the will of the people rather than to the will of the town manager or police department. In so doing, to answer the people, I ask that the town council create another one-month budget and convene a residence council for racial justice and equity with indigenous and people of color as paid members to advise the council and the town manager on the budget moving forward. There are more than enough community members ready and willing to serve in this capacity as you have seen last night and today. As my eight-year-old has been with me listening last night and today for many hours, I shared that it is not that you all are bad people. It is that you are unable to admit that you've made a mistake and to commit to doing something different. So in the words of my eight-year-old, please admit that you've done something wrong. It's okay. Just do something now about it. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Izzy. Alicia Desharnas, I think I have it right, but if I'm not, please correct me. Yes, hi. My name is Alicia Desharnas. You are very close. I'm a resident of District 2. Someone last night said that cutting the police department budget by 52% would make that budget unbalanced, but we already spend so much more per resident on the police department, almost $136, than the library, $69, public health, only $3.77, a senior center, $5.99 and veteran services, only $7.42. Social services budget has been reduced from $80k in 2018 to $20k in 2019 to $0 for 2020. We need to pay attention to how we're spending our money and make sure we're putting it where our mouth is, what we say that our town stands for. You all have the opportunity to do that. You're in positions of power. You get to make decisions about this budget. The police spent time today making arguments that they are good people. That's not what we're arguing about. We're talking about the budget and where town finances go. Please take that into consideration and hear the voices of people who have spoken today, particularly the people of color who've taken time to share and educate this group. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Kerry Coutts. Yeah. So I'm probably going to be really short. I talked yesterday. I wanted to talk specifically on the mental health thing because that directly affects me as I spent four years prior to living in Amherst in facilities. I have never once seen police involvement that hasn't escalated the situation. There's not perfect solutions to those issues, but there's basically anything but the police is better. I don't see any reason why we should be funding the police to help people when that's not their job. And I am also asking for defunding the police. I'm asking for 52%. And I really hope you listen to the people who are talking and that these people are real. There's been people who are saying that these things don't happen, but we've heard testimonies from people who say there is racial profiling. And to not listen to that is just disrespectful and really proves that you are in a position where you don't have to listen. And I'm just urging you to care. And really that's it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your comments. Lauren, who's identified yourself and we live in the welcome. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. My name is Lauren Reingold. I'm a former resident of Amherst, but I've worked in the center of Amherst for 10 years and maybe a future resident. If I just graduated nursing school and will hopefully be working in the community in that respect, wherever a job will take me. And so that's where I come to you with this from. In nursing school, we learn the code of ethics and what it teaches us is that we have a responsibility to reduce health disparities and address social inequities. And this is right in front of us. Pouring money into the police department is not what makes or keeps our community safe and inclusive and connected and engaged and fulfilled community that can count on having the basics of its hierarchy of needs met is what's going to make Amherst the safest. To that end, I'm asking that you reinvest 52% of the police budget and creating a more community based public safety process. Folks with mental health issues are actually much more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than to commit them. And yet the way that the policing works out, they end up getting hurt by the system that is meant to protect them. I just spent two years, including 72 hours behind a locked ward. And I barely feel confident to serve these most vulnerable members of our community. I can't imagine for the life of me that the police training that they receive and to be fair, I do not know about the exact certification that they receive gives them what they need to do that. I heard something in the call that the police specifically said they felt like they were getting brailed against. It's not what's happening. Again, we're talking about the budget. We're talking about the distribution of services. Massachusetts is having a mental health crisis. We're losing psychiatric fat left and right. So if there's money to be spent, why don't we spend it more directly taking care of these folks that need it instead of spending it on a service that doesn't serve them? And again, to that end, I think that 52% of the budget would be better served directed by the BIPOC community leaders to be invested in their businesses and their community. Thank you so much for your time and your consideration. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. And Casey Owen, do I have that correct? Yes, that's correct. Hi. I did speak last night. Today I'd like to read a statement put forth by a disabled black person who lives in Amherst and wishes to remain anonymous. They asked us to share that they have faced numerous instances of targeted intimidation from members of the Amherst police department. They have faced abuse from an officer in the area who used his ties to APD to gain information and harass people he has abused. For this specific person, the harassment from APD has looked like unfounded wellness checks and officers showing up at their friends' places of residence without clear reason. APD has never taken accountability for this behavior. This person and others who had experiences similar to theirs have been told by officers that they're exaggerated their experiences and only looking to ruin the police department's credibility. But what this anonymous community member wants is safety for their well-being to be taken seriously and for town accountability for their employee's behavior, both on and off the job. As we go through the process of defending APD and reducing our reliance on policing and Amherst, we also have to turn our attention to police accountability to ensure the immediate and present safety of community members with marginalized identities whose experiences need to be taken seriously. This community member has the following questions for the town council and APD to consider. We know that we can't get answers to these questions here, but these questions are aimed at ways for APD to be held accountable to keeping all people in Amherst safe, rather than continuing to inflict violence on the same people it claims to be protecting. What will be put in place to ensure survivors and marginalized people are not being harassed by police? How is the town going to ensure marginalized people and survivors are not treated as the suspect if they need to ask for help from police? Who do who do we as town people get go to when the police are doing illegal things but are big on protecting their own? What types of training and accountability processes are going to ensure police treat people appropriately? How do we get cases involving injustice at the police, especially when it comes to bias and discrimination, looked at by an independent third party to assess and adequately hold APD accountable? I'm asking that you cut the police budget by 52% because the APD targets by BIPOC people in Amherst. This racism cannot be reformed away, which is why we are asking that the ADK set aside in the budget for combating structural racism to the police department, instead be spent in a community-directed way, guided by compensated Black-led organizations and community members, and to place freezes on hiring and funding the APD. At the very least, only pass a one-month budget and spend that month paying a collection of BIPOC folks to give you the answers that you need on the budget. Thank you. And thank you. And so I'm going to, that concludes public comment at this point, and so thank you very much. I'm going to say one thing and then see if the council president has anything to add, but last night we had a budget hearing and the hearing was solely focused except for a couple of minute introduction to set the stage, to hearing comments from the public, and I think that all of us really appreciated the comments we heard. There's, I assure you that I was listening and listened again today to the comments that were received. We're engaged in the process going forward. We're trying to hear from all parties. This was a finance committee hearing and the finance committee has the responsibility of trying to understand the budget as proposed by the departments and what they propose to provide. We then evaluate that information. That was the purpose of today's meeting. Steps going forward on this issue will largely turn back to the full council and not be within the committee, but we really did appreciate having your comments since we will have to make a budget recommendation to the council. The council will make the budget decisions. Lynn, as president, do you have anything to add? A couple of things, yes. Just as we asked last night and several people have followed through. If you would, please share your written comments with us by emailing them to town council at amherstma.gov. They have been insightful. They've been informative. All of us have come to this meeting and have learned a lot in the process. And we want to thank you for making those comments and we would like them in addition to being part of this recorded meeting as well as last night's recorded meeting to be on the record in writing as well. Anything else, Lynn? Otherwise, I think we need to turn back to the committee business really quickly. I think we probably have exhausted ourselves for the day today. Tomorrow we really need to work on my phone timer stop. What we need to be doing tomorrow is trying to concentrate on what our recommendations and report are going to be looking like. We're also going to have to just sort of see where we are in the process moving forward. But we're going to, and I will continue to consult with others in particular, the president and the town manager and report back on tomorrow. But tomorrow's meeting will really be to take all of the information we've received and try and move it along to the next stage. Are there comments or questions now from the committee itself regarding the process that we have going forward and any recommendations from other members of the council? Dorothy? I just want to be clear. I am not able to attend the meeting tomorrow, which is Wednesday. But we have a meeting on Thursday. Do we not at 1.30? Yes. Okay. So we're not going to make a recommendation until Thursday. Is that right? I think we will probably take the votes on Thursday and see if we can then conclude. But I can't be certain. I know that things got pressured because of the complexity of the budget this year. I feel really madly that that has happened and that you ended up having some people have to schedule various things that limited their ability to be present for some of the final meetings. I think that this has been, as said before, an extraordinary unprecedented year. We're doing the best we can. I don't think we'll be doing votes tomorrow, but I can't assure you. Because I, you know, I had down all the meetings listed. And to get here today, we drove four hours, you know, we just drove to Connecticut, did our doctor's appointment, drove back, got here. You know, it's been hard. And I don't want to miss it. But, you know, I could not change tomorrow's event. So I cannot make it. I feel badly about that. We do have a requirement that we have to act on the budget by the end of the month. We want to make sure that there's plenty of time for the council to be able to discuss the budget. And so that we don't want to get the, even though technically we were given 30 days to provide a budget once it was referred to us, because it was referred to us on the 29th of June, we took to the full 30 days, we would be at the very end of the month. And then we would be depriving the council as a whole of having time to discuss the budget. Given the complexity of this year's budget, we didn't, I was trying to avoid doing that, which is why I ended up trying to accelerate the process. And it has created a dilemma. And I apologize for that. And I moved my Thursday appointment, I mean, I finally made doctor's appointments to 815, so I can make it for your 130 meeting, doing the best I can. I appreciate it. I'm hoping that we do not take any votes tomorrow. I just don't want to assure it because I can't stop people from making motions. I will follow up as best I can with emails to follow the meeting. I don't know if anybody else has anything that they want to, oh, I see several hands up. So I should get back to them. Lynn, did you have more? Only that our meeting on Wednesday is at 130 and our meeting on Thursday is at 230. Lynn, are you sure? Because I had it, I had it reversed. That was my question, the exact time for tomorrow. I just checked the posting, but Athena is our best resource here. Because the Andy email had the July 15th at 230 and July 16th at 130. I just, I'm fine with either. I just want to make sure I'm right. Because that's why I changed the doctor's appointment, the dentist appointment on Thursday. Seriously. All I can say is, Athena, could you check the posting? I'll check. Okay. Kathy, was that your comment? The question was that, and Andy, the other thing is we're trying to put a report together and various people have sent you drafts. I know. No, my question is, are you going to try to put them all into one document or share pieces, or are we going to focus just on high level recommendations and then pull the report together? Because I think high level recommendations might be a good place to focus rather than eight people trying to write a report together. So that was just a thought on the pieces can come together with edits to make it flow with all these different people's writing styles. So I think you have, you have about four sections now. And I know Lynn's couldn't be written till after today. So yeah, and they're still missing because section, I was assigned to write, hasn't been written. I admit. Yeah, just a question purely on. Yes. So I think I stated it that there's one set of high level decisions on recommendations. Then there's another set on what this report looks like. And since I tend to be read the first page of a long report and prefer to have the recommendations on that page, you know, then, then I read the rest of it too. But I like, I like the bottom line at top. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's sort of an interesting question because the ultimately the question is, are we going to recommend the budget that was proposed by the town manager? And what is it that, you know, in the end, the high level recommendation, if that's basically what the recommendation is, but we need, you know, it's not complex question in what how to frame it. It's how to answer. It's maybe complex, but no, I do understand that. And I think everyone on the committee knows, I mean, the charter language doesn't allow us to move money around so we can cut, but we can't. And we could write, you know, but we can't say spend more here, spend less there. And it neither can the council. I mean, it's that we can send the budget back. So it's just, we're in that framework. Yeah, so that was my question. You are right that we can either say we love it and say a bit more about all the pieces of it, or we can say something more. And the question is, are we saying more about specific sections? And as we will start to try and frame tomorrow, but not necessarily about tomorrow, but we do have to start that question as to whether there's any sections of the budget. I think we all know that there's one that's been put on the table for us, whether there are others. So give some thought to that question. Bob? Yeah, I was just thinking that, you know, in addition to the obvious recommendation, you know, for the budget to accept it or recommended or not, I think we might want to also include some assessment of risks and areas where we need to monitor going forward because circumstances could change. Risk because of revenue, risk because of cost, or do you haven't defined yet? Well, risks because of uncertainty about both revenue and cost, right? I mean, we don't, there are a lot of risks because of COVID and the economy and everything. And so, I think we just need, I'm just throwing that out as a way to focus the report, not only on do we make a recommendation, but also on where we see areas that need to be monitored. Okay. Should go back and look at our revised guidelines document. We talked about that a little bit net and that would probably be a useful thing to do. Dorothy, did you have additional comment? I guess I am feeling it again, something that we went through before. We get a budget, we go through it, we look at it, and then we report on it and make a few comments. But then we're told, and I'm reminded, yes, of course, we can, and this is what's true for town meeting, we can lower something, but we can't increase it. We can't move it to another place. And part of me says, well, then really, what are we doing? I mean, I'm just expressing a little frustration because accountants can come and check out your budget and they have. So we're looking at things, not do the numbers add up, although we, Cathy is trying to make sure that the numbers are in the right places, and we know why they're there. But we're kind of assuming and trusting that the numbers do add up. So we're here saying, is this the document that we want to run our town on? But yet we're told we can't increase something, we can only take money away. So I'm feeling very hands tied, and I'm sure you know what I mean, Andy, you've been working on this kind of thing for years, but tell me why this is good. Okay, I need to be given some reasons to think why this is a good way to go. I hate to be, I'm not trying to be sarcastic in my answer, though it'll sound like it. State law sets up the process and the charter was adopted to accommodate what the state law provides. And this, so we are following what the statute mass general law indicates is a permissible process for us to adopt the budget. And you know, the charter tracks the statute of we are where we are, and what I've tried to do as chair of the committee is to look to the guidelines document is our opportunity where we can say to the manager at the beginning, this is what we would like you to consider. And I hope that we would engender a healthy discussion both in the finance committee and in the council about what goes in the guidelines document because that's what the manager has to work with as far as his guidance of where the council is when he develops the budget, but processes what it is. So just a quick follow up. So just to be sure, state law then forbids us to do what the the strongest recommendation from some of the speakers was to defund the police department. Well, actually that's not true because you can cut it, but you can't put it anywhere else. In other words, the whole premise was take it from there and not just give it away, but it was supposed to go and be used in more socially constructive ways. So you're actually not allowed to do that. You can make recommendations to the town manager about where you would like money to go. And that is his decision to follow through with that or to just eliminate whatever the figure is that we're reducing something by. So that could be done within the same budget. It would still be called a budget FY 21. Because I was expert on the subject of the charter who's our one council member who is also on the Charter Commission, but I think that there is process within the charter section on finance to ask that a supplemental budget be considered too. And so there are options out there. I think that in the end, the council has the key question as to whether it wants, you know, what it wants to do with the recommendations that we have received from a number of members of the public. And we don't know what other members of the public we might be hearing from yet. I would appreciate it if people would hold their questions until tomorrow so that we can adjourn. I've been sitting here for four hours and I'm really tired and I'm comfortable. I was going to suggest the same thing. Yep. And with that note, is there let me clarify the way the meetings are posted is 130 tomorrow, 230 on Thursday. I'll switch. Thank you. I'm sorry. There was that confusion, but I think that what I was doing was prior conversation. Mary Lou, did you have anything before we adjourn? Mary Lou, I don't hear from Mary Lou that I'm going to call us adjourned. Thank you. All right. So since she hasn't unmuted to unless she needs help on mute, then I will consider us adjourned at 534 p.m. And I appreciate it. It has been a long meeting. Thanks. Thanks, Andy. Can you hear me now, Andy? I just want to make sure tomorrow is a 130 meeting. That's correct. And 230 on Thursday. Right. And I also need to officially, yes, that is correct. And I need to officially adjourn the council. Okay. So thank you very much and see you tomorrow.