 And we are live. Yeah, I'd like to call the Finance Committee meeting to get it to order for November 22, 2022. It's now five minutes after 3 o'clock. And welcome, everybody. This meeting is being held by Zoom pursuant to chapter 20 of the Act of 2021. As extended, this meeting is being conducted by remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No one, there's no in-person attendance of members of the public. And that every effort is being made to assure that the public can adequately access these proceedings in real time at technological means. Also, I want to remind everybody that this meeting is being recorded. So that should be reflected. So I'm going to go through the members of the committee and make sure that members of the committee who are present should be able to hear me and be heard. Kathy? Yes, here. Lynn? Present. Michelle? Present. Bob? Here. Matt? Present. OK, so there are presently four members, four council members, and two resident members present in that constituency forum. So we can keep going, and we will confirm other people as they can participate as they join the meeting since we know that Bernie's trying to get in and we're expecting Michelle in a little bit of time. The agenda for today's meeting after call to order is to review the agenda. And so we were going to spend a couple of minutes reviewing the forum of last night. I did take some notes. I'm going to wait for Bernie to get back because Bernie's the one member of the committee who was not there last night. He may need to review more than anybody else. We will have public comment later in the meeting. The principal topic is the FY24 budget guidelines. We have may want to discuss whether we need an additional meeting to deal with the guidelines and other issues coming forward. Proval of minutes, I have one set of minutes to submit to you for approval. And then under items not anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance, we might want to take a couple of minutes. Bernie, hi, can you hear? Bernie, try again, because we didn't hear you. You're muted at the moment. Here we go. Now I'm completely faded, so it's consistent. I'm present. You're present in the cloud, but you're present. Yes. Some people may have noticed I've been in a fog lately, so it's now literal. OK. We were just reviewing the agenda called the meeting to order, and we're reviewing the agenda as always I've done so far. And I was saying that we might take a couple of minutes to talk about one additional item. All counselors have received a memorandum from the superintendent of schools, the athletic director. And I sent copies to the resident members prior to the meeting so that all members would have a copy of that very brief memo that he sent and follows last night's meeting and the vote that took place in last night's meeting. One of our members, Michelle, has suggested that we need to talk about whether we should be getting that onto a future agenda for the committee. And so I want to recognize her request by adding that as an unanticipated agenda item. So I don't know if anybody else has anything unanticipated. I said that I had taken notes last night. So the first item was the if there's any comments about the public forum section of last night's meeting. And just for Bernie's sake, he was the one person who was not present. I think we had 19 people who spoke to the committee. Six of them were teachers and paralegals who spoke about the salary negotiations and need for funds to assist in dealing with the dilemma that they're in. And the comments were fairly consistent with what we heard at the night of the financial indicators meeting. We had three people who were talking about climate action and were requesting an additional staff position suggesting that given the extent of the climate action plan that just having Stephanie as the ticker yellow is the only staff person who is not sufficient staffing. So that was what three comments were about. There were seven people who were commenting in sub-form with some differences and emphasis. But talking about Cress, does that give it for 24-hour coverage? The question about the BIPOC Cultural Center and Victim Compensation Fund cutting the police department, that combination fit into seven of the comments that we received. We had, and by the way, some people covered more topics and bridged into other things, saying oh, and we also support the teachers of things like that. So it wasn't exactly clean. We had a couple of people who raised other issues. One was that we need more staff at Don Hall to assist getting things done, including the Strategic Partnership Agreement. So that kind of was the summary of what we had I don't know if there's anybody from the committee who has any comments about the forum part of last night's meeting and what we might want to take from that as we go forward and talk about the guidelines. OK, seeing no requests then, I sent you yesterday a piece that I did, which what I did was I went through the guidelines for the current year, FY23, and I tried to go through and identify issues that sort of popped out at me as I was thinking about if I was going to take the guidelines and modify the general format and but make them applicable for this year, what are the kinds of things we need to talk about? And that was the list that I have sent to everybody who's present because it went to the entire finance committee group, which includes our staff. So I wanted to at least start the discussion by finding out whether there were additional issues that people would like to add or whether they think that they would amend or delete anything from the list, because my my list was to start a discussion and not to be the discussion. So let me pause and Michelle saw your hand pop first. Thanks, Andy. The only one that and I'm sorry, there's a little noise in the background, the only one that I didn't that I didn't see on here that stood out to me was the the reparations commitment, which I know we have some criteria on regarding the health of of our, you know, financial situation year to year, but I would like for it to be in the guidelines. And I'm not sure if this was a list of everything that would be in the guidelines or if you were just sort of pulling out highlights. So I just wanted to make sure that makes its way into the guidelines. OK, good, got it. If it was in last year's guidelines, and I missed I could have missed it because it was issues to talk about, but I think it's important that you Bob. Yeah, I just a couple of things. I'm not sure that they couldn't be woven into some of the other discussions, but the first thing is I think we're getting to the point now where we're going to have to start the else is going to have to start making some real difficult choices. I don't see how with eight percent inflation and eight percent, you know, health insurance inflation every year, I don't see how two and a half percent is going to get us to where we want to be. And maybe we can get other sources of revenue, but I'm very concerned. And now Kathy raised this issue a couple of years ago. We're getting to that point in FY 24 25, where we're going to really start seeing stress on the budgets, and I think that it would be important for us to identify that. The second thing I wanted to say is. Based on what I heard last night, I think maybe we've done a disservice to the town in terms of where we've kind of talked about how strong our financial position is and how great we've been in managing things. And don't get me wrong, we have been very good in managing things, but I think we're almost giving the residents a sense of false sense of security in that, you know, we got all these stabilization funds and all this and we we can really do other things. We just have to do it. And the reality is most of these funds are there for a specific purpose and not really fungible into other things. So again, I'm not sure we want to pull this out as a separate thing, but I do worry that we're not communicating to the town how tight the budgets really are going forward. Thanks. Yeah, that's a good point. And I do think that where you're some of those comments, none of them are going to go on is when I talked about underage numbers, I think it's four and five revenue and expenditure plans should be viewed in a multi year context in particular in the effect of one time funding and how we're dealing with that. But I think that this you're you're at what you're suggesting is a larger aerial view of the budget to include in what our report with the guidelines are and that they fit together. Bernie. Thanks, Andy. The list that you generated was was very comprehensive. And I just would note that the reparations commitment was in the letter that we sent last year, but not a separate forgetting which section it was in. But there we certainly have the committee certainly hasn't forgotten about the reparations. I just want to echo some concerns. I think, you know, Bob's statements are well taken. And we always start with some kind of disclaimer that this is going to be a horrible year. And then we go on and tell everybody how much more we're going to do. I think at this point, we need to say this far and no further that we're going to forgo any new efforts, anything that hasn't been currently, we haven't currently actually started until we can get some clarity on the major building projects, our revenue stream. I get concerned, you know, I understand the desire for a cultural center, but the budget that was proposed for one is fiction. And, you know, the here again, it's another program expansion. We have four new firefighters we have to support. We have the Crest Program and we need to look carefully at what the staffing needs of that program really is. And how much it's returning in terms of its value. That's going to take another year to do that. So my concern is that we, you know, we simply draw a line. We say, we're going to just take care of what's on our plate right now. And we will have other surprises coming up, I'm sure. So nothing new for the next fiscal year. The other thing I'd wonder about is if we need to have some kind of equity statement in the guidelines or some kind of statement that points out that when salaries are considered, salaries are considered based on the job description and the department the person works in and what the prevailing wages are for that particular position. I get just, it's not just this town. It's every town I've been in, people will come in and say, well, the cops make so much. How come the teachers can't make this? Or how come, you know, the teachers make this much? How come the, how I guys can't make this much? And so on and so on. We, we have, you know, we, we go through the town goes through great pains to kind of scale the positions and look at what's going on in terms of competing interests for that particular position. And I just would like to tamp down this tendency to pit one group of employees against another in terms of what they make. So that's, those are my, those are my concerns. But otherwise the Indian, I think the, you know, your discussion topics was the red end point. Last for me, it's interesting, Kathy. I completely agree with what both Bob and Bernie just said. And I think, you know, in looking at the list, the list is fine. But I think this is a document that sends is a communication document. It's not just its guidelines, but it's, it's like, where are we and where are we going? So I think these kinds of things should come really early, you know, on whatever the logical order is of the rest of it. Because we and including what Bernie just referenced is we're under market pressure across the board on wages and salaries. You know, it's and, and we, we are likely needing to take a look at where we stand relative to last night. I was kind of shocked because it was all the East Coast towns, but to the surrounding marketplace. I mean, that, you know, if you're, you're living in Greenfield, you don't compare yourself to Wellesley. Usually, but just something that states it, because even with step increases, two and a half percent is tough. If, you know, if they're benefited jobs. So that kind of difficult choices that this isn't mean spirited. Then the other thing on Cress. So Paul, I don't know how and when you'll be able to do this, but I think of Cress is getting up and running. I've always thought personally, we would be figuring out how to do peak load staffing and we won't know what that is until we know what kinds of calls they can handle. And is that on weekends? Is that during the week? Is it ever happened in morning? I actually never envisioned 24 seven unless it turns out that's needed. But some sense of a timeline that after six months, after nine months, after 12 months, we'll have, you know, and I'd just like to put a couple words in here is when we'll have a better sense of how it interacts with the workload of the police, you know, and, and the staffing level that we're paying for. So Bernie's like, let's assess what we've got. So it's somewhere in this kind of mix. So that's just those pieces. And then the other thing we did hear, you know, since other than the schools, everybody and the library, Paul, everybody works for you. We heard one strong request that there should be a two person sustainability department from the public. And I think we just need an assessment. I know at one point you used some grant funds to fund three years worth of a housing person to help with all the housing projects we had, you know, because they were all coming in at once and it stretched the existing staff. So the encouraging, Andy, you don't quite have it in a bullet. Encouraging what I think our town manager has always done, creative approaches to, to filling gaps where we have staff gaps, you know, where we have a series of things we know we want to do over the next 12 months. And, but, and I have no way of judging anybody's workloads. I mean, I don't want people leaving because the only way they can get their job done is evening and weekend hours in addition to full time jobs. So just something about that I see it as a box, two and a half percent. And today's paper talked about what that translates and in terms of housing. And of course, they right away showed Northamptons, you know, on what's happening to our tax base that we don't have a big tax base to spread everything. So just it's a tone of the document, Andy, that I'm looking at, you know, on an introduction statement and an end rather than each of these pieces. So that's it. We had a whole section last time on pilot and either getting strategic partnership or going for legislation at the state level to get us some revenue resources from some some of the wealthy institutions that are here. So I want to want to keep that part of the document and I'll stop. It's, you know, I just feel like we're we're never going to grow ourselves out of the box we're in in a year's time. Period. No, it's a tone and messaging. That's it. Well, thank you. Sorry about the delay. So first, I was thinking the same thing during our presentation that you were Bob in terms of like what we've always said about the strength of the town and that that we didn't put in this or enough of the caveats that we feel that we all recognize. But we didn't do that very publicly. I think that's something we can improve on because that article was wrong. They're going to put a correction in the increase. It's under four hundred dollars. It's not eight hundred dollars. So it's already been corrected to Paul. It's in the because that online article has been corrected. It's in it's in the print edition, but they're going to put a correction in the print edition tomorrow as well. And not just in the correction. It's going to go into a small article in terms of, you know, we looked at the CSWG report as a sort of a starting point and a sort of a roadmap, but not as a Bible. And so we don't I don't look at that as something we have to abide everything they recommend. In fact, I'm really relying on in terms of the Crest program, you know, the just what you said, the experience. What are they going to look like? What are other communities doing in other, you know, in other states? I mean, our reports at no department in any state goes past 10 p.m. So, you know, the idea of 24 seven. I mean, if he comes back and says I really want 24 seven, we would give that serious consideration and then, you know, what we heard last night are some, you know, three different groups of people. We have not, you know, we we have not begun meeting with our department heads and they have a sort of boatload of requests and needs as well. And you're got to if we're going to go, you know, you saw the letter from the superintendent, like if we are going to be maintaining grass, we have to invest in grass and that's going to be a significant investment. So all those things will come into play as we start to build the budget. So that's just what to mention. OK, one just can keep going around. When Alicia gets in, by the way, I think we're going to have to do a little bit of catching her up because we've been talking about issues that we know she cares deeply about. But I believe that Michelle had her hand up before I did. Michelle, do you want to go first? Sure. I really just wanted to build on what Paul was saying. And actually, Andy, what you just said when Alicia is not here and the CSWG report. Something I had in mind after we created a pretty hefty agenda, I think for the DEI department at our meeting, not last night, but the previous meeting, there were a lot of items that we voted in that motion that seemed to require the expertise and the capacity and time and resources of the DEI department. And so this is more a question to Paul or just a curiosity to put out there in terms of whether, especially given that both Pamela and Jennifer play a significant role as liaisons to those committees. And that takes a lot of time. I'm just wondering if we feel that the DEI department has the financial and resources otherwise to manage all of those items that I think have a four month window on them, at least for some reporting back. But just generally speaking, if that department feels it's a department of two and it seems like we're asking a lot of them. So I was just I'm curious what your thoughts were on that. So thank you. So I was just at the Mass Managers Conference on Thursday and Friday. We have the largest department in the state for towns that were at that conference. Everybody else has one person. So we have not gone through that the tick list. And I but I was comfortable with that list because it's stuff that we're already doing is already on our work plan. So I'm not too concerned about meeting that list. And so and I and in terms of and I'm you know, I think we can report back to the council successfully on things that we're able to accomplish and what we're not able to accomplish. So I think, you know, these departments are operating. They, you know, technically under under I mean, legally under the town manager's instruction and direction. And they have a mission to to complete certain things. And, you know, it's not just to manage committees. That's a piece of their job. But the committees are their own functions. They can conduct. They don't need staff there to do their work. So and so it's important for us to recognize what the role of committees are and what the role of our staff are. There's a difference between the two. And can I add to that real quick? Sure. And so this will be Pamela's first budget cycle. I've met with her to walk her through the process, as Paul said, department heads play a very large role in developing the budget. So I'm sure Pamela, I know for a fact, Pamela is identifying sort of what she has currently for resources, what she thinks she will need for next year to accomplish the different goals that she's heard and what comes out in the from the town manager and council. And she'll have an opportunity to submit those for Paul's consideration. And so so I would say there's different angles to come out of Pamela. I know I was thinking about it as well. Yeah, and she and I met on that today, in fact. So she's thinking hard about that. Lou. Thanks, Andy. I appreciate the cautions that people have put up and they're real. They're really real. Um, and the many other points that people have made. The one thing, one of the things that I want to stress is that it's very easy to sit and advocate for a department that you work with. But what about the departments? None of us are working with the end the staffing needs in those departments. So it's, you know, we hear about sustainability. Heaven knows I support the sustainability issue, but they have a committee they're advocating for that committee. So as we look at staffing, it's staffing across the board. And my sense is, and this really goes back to what have we already committed to and therefore what do we need to financially support? And that is where we need to put our money is what we've committed to and we can financially support. We've done some amazing things in Amherst that no other town in Massachusetts, our size is doing. And we need to make sure they're successful. So that does bring me to one question to Paul. And that is, in addition to the rolling out of Cress and all the other things that go with it, have we, in fact, set up an evaluation of Cress so that we have not just statistical feedback, but, you know, evidential, evidentiary feedback, I'm sorry, I can't say it. And really a way of looking at the comparison of what Cress is doing and the way other operations like this are working in other cities and towns across the country that have them. I also I would do want to make sure that the pilot at the state level and strategic partnerships continues to be highlighted in here. This is something that Mindy Dom and Joe Comerford have committed to working on with us and we need to get back to those discussions with them. Because with UMass, it would be increasing pilots at the state level with the strategic partnerships. Those would be for the private institutions. So and I, Paul, I have to just say thank you for being clear that recommendations do not become Bibles. They are, in fact, recommendations. We have more recommendations before us right now than we could ever fund in a million years. And we need to think strategically about what do we have to do and what is the role of town government. I'm glad you said that up, because when I was putting together the list, I was thinking, first of all, about number two as it's on the list, which is the majority of the community values. Current services get an extra word in there. But that observation about current services and the whole range of current services. And then towards the end, new expenditures should be consistent with council goals and goals for the town manager. I sort of have been thinking about those two together because the management goal, one of the management goals always is keep the town running well, essentially, and which is what it goes along with taxpayers valuing what the town provides. And so in some ways, those two pieces are an important core, Matt. I just wanted to, I meant to make a note on number two there, Andy. I would say the talking to folks around town and traveling around town, current services, level services, in my opinion, roads and sidewalks. We do need to invest more in roads and sidewalks. And I really don't talk to many people who are happy with the current level of services there. That's no reflection on the staff. But I would suggest that that's an area of displeasure among most residents of the town. I guess I wasn't thinking of capital when I was doing that development point, because I think that there are a lot in roads and sidewalks has probably been the leader all continuously because it's what people use every day. And given New England weather, it continues to decay as you try and fix it. So it's a never-ending goal. Paul? Oh, I just want to mention, Lynn mentioned about the evaluation of the press program. Yes, we have a manager who's under grant funded who's helping us develop both a database and everything is more complicated than you think, because does a database address HIPAA things or we try to get the one for the fire department, all those types of things. So they're working through all those details. They're hoping to go live on January 7th and then in terms of responding to actual calls. They have a sort of a bunch of individual interactions that have been informative. But yes, we want to be able to evaluate the results of that program. Matt, your hand is still up. I didn't know if that was from before. Lynn? Matt, I assume your comment on sidewalks also includes roads because I hear it. I don't hear them ever decoupled. I just keep hearing them period. And then, Andy, I do want to talk a little bit about capital, the other capital, not just the four major projects of capital, but we have sustainability goals that help dictate some of what we should be looking at in capital purchases. We do have the four major projects. We do have the five-year capital plan. And as we do all of that, I think it's important that we not lose sight of the need to build that into the annual budget so that the 10.5 sounds great, but I'm going to go back to roads and sidewalks. There are people in Amherst who will say that is the fifth capital project. And that's what they would like to see improved and so forth. So the issue of capital comes up for me. So finally, in that area, we are sitting on some pretty dilapidated buildings that either we need to figure out how we're going to demolish, repurpose, reuse or sell. And you're going to hear this with me with the town manager's goals as well. Perhaps it's time that the group of people look at what are we going to do with the town's properties that are vacant and not being utilized and deal with the tug that we're going to hear. And that is you should never give up a piece of town property because you never know when you might need it versus yes, sometimes maintenance is not our highest priority. So that's one piece in that. And then on the other capital front, and that is we are in the verge, we hope of doing some major new buildings and we have some existing buildings that we treasure like town hall. And are we building into our budgets enough to maintain those so that we're not looking at serious additional problems with those buildings down the road. You know, for instance, we're going to put a new roof on the police department. I think maybe we have already. Are we getting there and then we say we're going to put solar on it. That's great. You know, but how are we going to deal with the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of existing buildings and new buildings. And then also the buildings were no longer occupying including ones we anticipate not occupying in the future such as the one elementary school. GOL had that discussion is that would I understand which discussion Andy about access buildings and no, no, no, we didn't have that discussion. I fully support everything Lynn just said, but GOL did not have I just was curious whether it was going to be built into council because I don't want to repeat council goals but I want to incorporate council goals so that I bring the two processes together as way I've been handling it. There was a I don't know if you've talked about this and whatever group has discussed it but the select board as we were tailing out of business as a select board had a developed a policy on access buildings and the staff committee that was assigned to evaluating buildings in proposing what to do with surplus property and a whole procedure for disposal of surplus property. I don't know if anything has come of that since the select board adopted it. And the first Sean or Paul have thoughts. Yes, so that policy and that committee still exists it just hasn't prior it hasn't been prior a priority for that group to get together and start to dispose of properties. The only property is and on a strong street that they've been exploring for affordable housing. They haven't looked at the other properties that the buildings the buildings with buildings at this point in time but they can. I mean I can find that and send it to the finance committee. The Dave Zomek gets a lot of credit for doing a lot of work to help the select board to develop that policy. Lynn back to you since. Nope I'm done for the moment. Okay so I guess Kathy. Bob was before me. I'm just going on the order on my list on the right. Yeah I just wanted to build on what Lynn said I totally agree that we need to really look at all capital projects and we started an inventory and I would like to see the town build up that inventory so that we cover all of the capital issues because quite frankly I don't personally I don't have a good sense of what our capital commitments are your maintenance commitments are for the next 10 years. I think we need to know that and the inventory is one way it's not the only way but it's one way to kind of like put everything out there to say yeah we need a new roof on every building every 25 years. That means 25 years from now we're going to hit with you know whatever $500,000 cost that replace the roof. I think that would be great if we had it. I know people are strapped for time and all that but I think as we look at each individual property or as we you know do different efforts to look at capital I think we should fold that information into the inventory so that we're capturing it and it's we're getting it all together in one place. Would it be unreasonable to put that into the guidelines along the lines of pointing out that the charter provides council give guidance on inventory and would that be a place a way to tie it all together? Yeah I think so. Yeah I think Kathy and Lynn were before me. I think they spoke to our kids I never know who his hands up is. Yeah no I had my hand up I was just waiting to come after so you know I was following up on what Lynn was saying about property and Andy you said select board set up something there is a staff committee. When I think of it and I don't know whether it has a part in guidelines I wrote this in my manager evaluation too that I think it's a bigger process so some of these we might want to just sell them for money and turn them into property tax paying entities and I've watched several towns recently create ad hoc kinds of committees where it had staff on it but it was a get input on possible uses and then come back and make a decision about it and the timing of that so I don't know whether that's in this 12 month period well if the school vote goes one way we will have one more large property we already have Hickory Ridge now I'm not talking about disposing of it but it's got a seven acre potentially developed piece so I'm concerned that we don't immediately jump into something that doesn't produce revenue for us you know as opposed to I totally support affordable housing but if some of these projects were at just the 10 percent level and they had a few other things so I have ideas around this but I don't know whether it could be in guidelines because we have quite a few we have the South Amherst school we have the one on Strong Street I don't have any idea whether the Hickory Center since it's on conservation land once it's gone it's scheduled for demolition whether that but I just a collection of it to give a sense that it's not just going to lay dormant till 10 years from now we remember that we've got these pieces of property so it's it's a liability until we turn it into an asset so somewhere whether it's in this document or some other place I think we need to put it on the radar screen because people notice that we've got things just lying fallow and why aren't we using them that that's just a piece on what you said Lynn I want to just build on it but I don't know whether it's this document that we're talking about that's it okay as I said I will look for and send you the policy it's it is a policy of the town because it has never been amended or repealed by the council and I'm not sure that the counselor that we that I would recommend we do that but I think it's important to we all be aware of it I can send it out to everybody okay I appreciate it Matt Lynn if you're going to talk about capital please go ahead before me yeah I am I am and I just want to recognize that we have some good building blocks because I want to recognize the work that Sean and the staff have already done to really begin a proper inventory I want to recognize the fact that we have hired a person who has been really terrific at assessing our buildings and determining what can be done for them so this is not as if we I don't want this to sound in one in any way at all as if it's critical of what has been done and we've already taken so I just want to say that it's we need to keep building on that in a much more aggressive maybe way yeah and I just want to point out I didn't intend to be critical either I was just pointing out that we needed to expand this keep building on what we built before yeah so Andy I wanted to kind of go in a little different direction so I don't know Sean I was I wanted to talk a little bit about families and first time home buyers and sort of connecting some of the economic vitality I'm looking at last year's budget book and the you know the town council goals and I'm just reflecting on you know the decision last night with the track and you know the some of the big school decisions that are currently being made and then I was looking at some of my notes from last year about the elementary schools and you know I know that school enrollment is not an exact proxy for young families but it's a pretty good one and you know over 20 years you know elementary school enrollment went from 1500 range to 1000 range so you know that's a that's a 33 drop in you know elementary age school enrollment in the schools and I know that's choice and charter and other factors are involved there but I you know I think it's safe to say that you know the young family population has has dwindled and you know when I when I think about what I like living in Amherst you know really I point to the Kendrick Park project first and foremost as like the most you know positive and and honestly net budget neutral pretty much for the town it was a really wonderful project that was put on but but I just I would just like to propose that we and I realize we don't have free funds to allocate towards first time home buyer projects and things like that but but I would like to you know at least sort of articulate a value and a need for the governance of this town to to try to incentivize and just make the town an attractive place for young families to live and I mean obviously I'm biased here in my you know my position and everybody knows that but you know as as I've watched these debates go on and then seen some of the decisions that have come out you know I really do I I do question you know whether this is a town that truly prioritizes you know attracting and retaining young families as residents you know and as home as homeowners and this is actually my first of my thought of this was you know about a year ago a comment that Irv Rhodes made around all the efforts we make towards affordable rental properties and how few efforts we make towards affordable first time home purchases and so you know I realize that's kind of far afield from what we're talking about right now but it's just something that's been on my mind as I've seen the tone and tender of the past few weeks of debate within the town and I wanted to kind of put that on the record here thanks okay thank you Sean thanks Eddie um I was just thinking you may want to go through the list and sort of put them in two buckets some of the things I've heard feel more like town town manager goals than maybe budget guidelines like the the inventory I think is a good one but I don't know necessarily if that's a budget guideline or if that's a something to build into the town manager's goals so you may want to go through the list when you're done and think about which ones would be in which document but I think they're all they're all good it's just where they belong yes and Michelle and I did talk about that a little bit before I don't know how much we're going to be able to do a bit but we wanted to at least give some thought to how we make the two documents fit together because we certainly don't want them to be inconsistent but we don't want them to be unnecessarily crossing paths and duplicating so thank you Lynn yeah I I really want to just echo that because we did not even get to that conversation last night and we it's unclear how we're going to actually have that conversation in a timely way and I think the finance committee brings a certain and important perspective to the realism of goals and what's realistically able to be done in any one year or two or three year period we continue to kind of look at the goals as kind of multi-year I think we also need to look at how we budget in the same kind of way I mean there's some of these projects would not be one year projects okay Michelle um Lynn I had thought to ask you this last night but it was pretty late would having a meeting of the whole at the next GOL meeting on November 30th be one possibility for having the discussion since we'll already be having it and perhaps other counselors may be in the audience but maybe suggesting that it could be a meeting of the whole and we could have I think I'm calling it the right thing a committee of the whole or a meeting of the whole that's that would give us an opportunity if a majority of counselors could be there to have that discussion a bit before we get to the December 5th meeting where we might want to start to get more concrete I need to unmute if they and I can quickly pull people there are some people who just won't be able to attend that meeting because they work and that's but it might be useful to get more counselors into that discussion on on the 30th let me check that out okay okay so this has been helpful to have the list I let's step back for a second and talk about the process and get back to the timeline Lynn you're gonna have to be helping with this original goal was to have the draft ready for discussion on December 5th at the next meeting we've got a lot of work to do and if with the holiday I won't really get to the draft before the weekend with a whole lot of time and so and then the question is whether we need an additional meeting to discuss the draft rather than try and just do it by people sending me comments which then doesn't get any cross discussion given today's discussion I'm a little bit concerned that that might not be the best way for this committee to proceed as a committee Kathy I I think we need another discussion Andy that's what I said last time and I'll stay with that um you know we made some substantive changes on the first draft last year um and it was a really good first draft but we moved some things around we changed some emphasis and and there's just no way of doing that with a track change document where we can't see each other and we can't talk with each other um because ideas bounced off people and they say oh yeah but put it here instead of there um so I don't see a way of just you drafting something and then also sending you comments to get to a draft that we all feel like came out of the our collective thinking that's my view I see Bob's nodding his head I just think it's just because we can't because of the prohibition of chatting on the phone about something that seems to be the only way we can do it you know to actually meet so I think we need another meeting we can do that I probably would suggest that either with help with Tina or Sean or just like am I going online them doing a doodle poll might be the best way to schedule an additional meeting rather than trying to do it in the collective everybody pulling out the calendar Andy I would suggest that we make sure that Alicia can attend because she hasn't been here and she's an important voice we need to hear on this I know I was thinking about that I was because I had been in communication with her about today's meeting a number of times so something was to come up because I thought that she was going to be in by 3 30 but my understanding is that she has actually changed when she has to work and is now working more afternoons or something like that I'm not sure I completely understand but something's changed in her schedule we need to try and reach out to her because I agree that she's an important member of the committee it's unfortunate I had asked her about whether she had an order of agenda kind of quest recommendation so has Michelle left the meeting for the rest of the evening yes which is gonna she said that she had to leave around for yeah so when we met last time I put a tentative hold on the 29th Tuesday the same as the normal time I just put a because we talked about this and so I just penciled it in not knowing if that was the best date Andy but no one said no to that last time and as Lynn said Alicia's schedule I don't actually know what her schedule was because she could she could make the Tuesday morning this morning we met the school building committee but she can't make Friday morning so it seems like she's got different day constraints but I had put a tentative hold on my calendar I'll just keep it until someone tells me it's a different day thanks Andy I just want to suggest that we put together some tentative dates into a poll rather than discussing individual people's schedules while they're not here I feel a little bit uncomfortable about doing that yeah so if Andy and I you and I work together on that or if other members have suggestions for dates that might work then we can we can do that offline that's one of the things that we're allowed to do offline as administrative tasks I totally agree with and if you can get Alicia at least to say what times would work for her so we have at least a slot that we know because at this point I have no idea I have partial knowledge we'll make sure to do that yeah that's for compliance with open meeting law I think it really would be best if we had a full meeting over the draft so that public at least had the opportunity to see the draft and comment on the draft you know continued effort to be good models for how to run on open meetings Andy just to clarify so would the next meeting be to develop the draft well what I'm going to try and do is develop what we did last year develop a first draft which um then as Kathy pointed out we did certain things we moved some things around we decided to create emphasis paragraphs with each section that would sort of summarize what the key points were of the section so that people could read it and you know delve into various levels as they might be interested I think those were the kinds of editorial things we did and there may have been some substantive things we did also yeah that makes sense I think it's easier for people to react to something and then beef it up from there yeah um so I maybe let's see what your thoughts are as a group it might be good to see if there's any desire now for any members of the public in the audience to see if there's public comment and get that in and then come back to minutes and anything else that we need to talk about so we just said if you're in the public remember currently as an attendee and you would like to be recognized to offer public comment to the group please raise your hand because we will recognize you and bring you into the meeting can I see no requests so at this point I think that we're back to where we were and I think that the other question that we're going to have to get to at some point is whether there's follow-up to last night's discussion including the suggestions of the superintendent about issues that we need the schools would like us to be thinking about but I'm not sure that we can we want to make sure we get the guidelines done as our first goal that certainly comes in to some extent it might be a piece of it because addressing the recreation fields around the high school community fields may be an issue that we need to at least put out there in the draft so that we can get council discussion. Bob? Yeah I just had a random thought and that was that if it may have already been done but it would be helpful for someone from DPW I guess to consult with other institutions like UMass that maintain grass fields as athletic fields as a part of what they do you know and you know is there a special grass that they plant is there you know other ways that they grade it so that it can be more easily drained of water I mean it might just be helpful to have some expert expertise that exists in the community you know tap into that that's all. Andy can I respond to that real quick? Yeah I mean we do have somebody in the DPW who has sort of turf management expertise I think again I think some of it may be resources I think as you heard a lot of it may be you know just staffing and time but again I just want to emphasize a key piece of it is just the usage and you know it doesn't matter what you do you know if there's limits on what type of pesticides you can use and what types of treatments you can apply it doesn't matter what you have but the one thing we do have is from that 2019 study it does get into sort of the maintenance costs of fields and how much you should have set aside for maintenance of natural fields versus turf but I but I can bring that back to DPW and see what they think. Okay thanks. That was from the Recreation Area Working Group or whatever the name of it and that was I think staffed by Dave Somack. Yeah Bernie. Just you know side UMass has a international reputation for its turf management program. We may actually want to if we have some interest in that we may actually want to see if the university would be interested in using our athletic fields to maintain and to practice. They you know they have their research facilities out in Deerfield and you know having something closer to home and might be helpful to them. Any other thoughts or topics? Going back to the agenda I think that we don't need to try and prolong this meeting for the sake of prolonging the meeting because we're going to schedule an extra meeting and that might be the best way to handle it. I do want to suggest that I've reviewed one more set of minutes so we're getting closer to the end but we could go ahead and the changes to the June 7th draft which you've previously seen that I suggested were very minor editorial things. They're you know period of ranking some of those long phrases with lots of semicolons into separate sentences and things like that. There were no significant changes so if somebody wants to make a motion to adopt the minutes of June 7, 2022 I think that we're down to three. Lynn? I'm more than willing to make that motion but what is the status on September 13th, October 4 and October 18th? They need review. Okay. That's why I had hope to do it but there's so much that is happening within the past week that it just didn't get done. I just needed clarification so I move that we approve the minutes from June 7th, 2022. Is there a second? Kathy seconds. So we have a motion. We're ready to vote. Bring signal hands. So I'll just call Kathy. Yes. Yes, Lynn. Yes. Bernie. Concur. Bob? I support. So it's voting members. You need to vote, Andy. I did. Oh, okay. You did. That makes it three to zero with two absent and three in support from the resident members. Any other business that people would like to raise today? Because if not, the next meeting will be as scheduled after we get the doodle pulled on and I'll work with Athena as quickly as possible to get that out. Appreciate quick responses and I think otherwise we're adjourned. So I'll call the meeting adjourned to 10 minutes after the forum. Thank you for a very efficient meeting. Okay. Well, have a good holiday. Yeah, everyone have a good holiday. Thanks, giving everyone. Thanks.