 I said, I put it, it's in a setting now that it gets automatically reported to the cloud. Oh, okay. So it looks like I could stop it, but it does start. Where's Heady? Hi, Addy. You're on mute. Now I'm live. I was doing the same thing with Nate talking away. But it's Madeline. Robin said to me, she'd be about 10 minutes late. So, but she is coming. Oh, okay. And Pat isn't coming. So that's us then. But we have a quorum, right? Yeah. Okay. So we won't wait for Robin if it's 10 minutes then. No, go ahead. Yeah, she said to go ahead. Okay. So I had the agenda up. I just want to see. Yeah, that's okay. We don't have anything major to vote on. Okay. Well, I'll go ahead and start the introduction. Nate, you good? Yeah, I'm good. Okay. Welcome to the Amherst Historical Commission's public meeting on Wednesday, December 14th, 2022, based on former Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting loss. I'm Thursday, March 12th, 2020. This meeting is being held virtually using the Zoom platform. My name is Janet Markward and is chair of the Amherst Historical Commission. I'm calling this meeting to order at 6.33 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and minutes are being taken. I'll now take a roll call of commissioners in attendance. As you hear your name called, unmute yourself, answer, and please place yourself back on mute. Patricia Oth is not able to be here. Robin Fordham is going to be late. Madeline Helmer. There she is. Becky Lockwood. President. And heavy startup. President. Great. Opportunity for public comment and questions will be provided during the general public comment period later in the agenda. Okay. Take it away, Nate, for announcements. I don't have any announcements. I did send something later this afternoon. We can pick that up under unanticipated business. Yeah. So really, I guess I can announce that I'm the staff liaison. You know, Ben has officially left the town and I'll be taking over for a bit. It could be a few months. Could be longer. And I staffed the commission a while ago. So I'm back. I'm, you know, I'm getting up to speed and thanks. That's it. Yep. Happy to always have you. Okay. The next thing is the preservation plan with the PVC PVPC plans for working on it. You all received that in an email from, was it today? I guess. With the breakdown of what Shannon wants to cover. And she's going to be here. She is here already. I'm not even looking at the screen. Hello, Shannon. Hi there. How are you? Good. Thank you for having me. Sure. So I just wanted to make sure everybody had that in front of them. You've all had a chance to look at it. I could share the screen if that's, if we'd want that. Is that good, Shannon? Should we do that? Sure. Yep. I, I put my own notes together because I'm not, I'm at home instead of at my work computer with everything in front of me. So, but that's, that's fine. However, you'd like to do it. Okay. Okay. I can enlarge that a bit. No, it's fine. We can just make it bigger on our, well, unless you're using a laptop, I guess. Yeah. Okay. Are you ready for me to take it away? Yes, please. Okay. Well, I will reintroduce myself. I'm Shannon Walsh. I'm the Historic Preservation Planner for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. Happy to be working on the Amherst Historic Preservation Plan and to be here tonight to give you an update on the progress. So I thank you, Nate, for pulling this up. I have, just before I start referencing this, Nate and I had talked a bit about timing. So when this plan was, when it kicked off late last spring, I think May 1st was when we started the contract. We had a pretty set schedule that Ben had, we had worked out. And with staff turnover, this is supposed to be phase two, and it's supposed to finish December 31st. Phase two was supposed to be focused outreach. But just with Ben departing, we actually have not launched that digital survey yet. And we want to make sure that we have enough time to do the outreach. So Nate and I had discussed pushing the plan back a bit. It was, it's scheduled right now to end April 30th and pushing it back to ending June 30th with the end of the fiscal year to give us enough time to properly do the phase two piece and do outreach. So that is the first thing I just wanted to mention. And then I will go on to the document that Nate is sharing. Well, first, does anyone have any questions about the proposed change to timing? We're good? Yeah, it happens. Okay, okay, it does happen. Okay, so I'm going to move on to the next part. So the digital survey, which I believe you have seen and was going through the editing process, my colleague Ken Komiya and I met with Nate and the planning team on November 7th and or right around then, and then we sent the word version a bit revised to the Amherst Planning Department just to get it tweaked a little more. We want to make it as streamlined and straightforward as possible while still having the objective of, you know, being able to gather that information and data from the community. We talked about some of the higher level questions being posed directly to the planning board and municipal staff and removing them from the general public survey. So that is one of the things that Nate was working on. And then once the language and the platform were finalized, we were talking about doing a Google survey or Ken at PVPC. They have another survey that land use uses. And then there was also talk about doing it through the Civic Engage Amherst site. So once that's finalized, we're going to heavily publicize it by the town and PVPC and get it launched. And I think we would hope to get it up and going in January and run through at least March because the more data we can get, the better. And we're going to, we decided to minimize the free answer options because having just done this in Holyoke and we had about 800 responses, which was good. But then someone had to process every one of those free answers, which actually ended up getting a lot of really interesting data. But we have a lot of questions right now in the draft that has, you know, kind of fill in the blanks. So we're going to minimize that or maybe take all of them out and just have one anything else you'd like to add at the end. And then we're going to process all of that data because that I think will be really useful. Does anyone have any questions about the digital survey? No, I assume that you incorporated some of the suggestions we had. Yep. Ben brought those back to us. And then that was the first round of edits before we met with planning. Okay. So for the survey, for instance, like the higher level questions, there was some asking about, you know, if the survey responded new, if their house or property was historic. And, you know, so there's a few things like that, that staff Christine Brestrup, the playing director, and I thought weren't necessarily important. And so there may be, you know, some tweaks there. And then like Shannon said, a lot of questions had in other category or, you know, another, you know, some type of, um, answer that could be then a narrative, even if the question was multiple choice. And so when she said we were going to streamline that, the hope would be to have, you know, one or two questions at the end that could be a long answer that could be a narrative. So as opposed to having that, you know, for seven questions, we could have that as a, you know, one or two final questions. And that way really we're getting at what we want with the multiple choice or the, you know, the question. Someone can't, you know, skip all the multiple choice and then have some, you know, narrative answer that may or may not answer the question we're asking. So that hopefully will help with the data analysis and make the survey a little more, you know, efficient in terms of having people complete it. Exactly. And we really, yeah, we want this to serve its purpose. And I actually just saw a survey for the community of Southwick. They're doing a comprehensive plan right now. And I really liked the way that they showed the data. They even put, they had bar graphs and things, but they even put those other type answers in a really easy to view format. So I want to take a look at that again too. But we really, when we started this, we took the survey almost exactly from the current historic preservation plan. And we wanted to start with that. And I think there's been a lot of feedback about making it, you know, more digestible. So we're tweaking it to get it to where it needs to be. And I'm laughing, Jim, because my cat is also sitting on my lap. There too. I have one in front of me on the desk and one here. They just, they want to be part of the meeting. You know, make your voice. So the digital survey, I think is in good shape. We just have to finalize it. And then it'll be exciting to launch it and promote it and then start getting people engaged in this process. Okay. Anybody have any other questions or comments about the digital survey? Okay. So for the outreach meetings, this is what we brought it down to when we met in early November. We're hoping to have one meeting with the planning board and get on an agenda of an upcoming meeting, probably January or February. And we're going to submit our questions in advance just so that, you know, people have time to kind of think about their answers and everybody knows what our purpose is for being there. So for stakeholder group meetings, we had kind of a long list to begin with of potential stakeholders. So it was thought that it would really be useful to do that as a virtual meeting, finalize the list, choose a date, have the agenda. So again, everybody knows what we're doing, what our purpose is. And then we will process the data from that as well. And then the next category was municipal staff, also virtual. And I can't remember, Nate, was this, this was going to be separate from the stakeholder meeting? Right. Yeah, we were thinking that, you know, staff from different departments would be involved in this. So, you know, planning, conservation, it could be public works, recreation, and just have, you know, a fair amount of perspective here. You know, some of the reasons we did this, when the outreach meetings were proposed, you know, it had Shannon or someone going to like a dozen different meetings. And if we could consolidate and have stakeholder groups and have, you know, 10 to 12, or however many individuals in a stakeholder meeting, there could be a number two, there could be like two stakeholder group meetings. That would help streamline the outreach process. And there's always an opportunity for the survey as well. But this would help, you know, hopefully get people engaged. And so. Yeah, yeah, I think especially the, the, whether the stakeholder group or municipal staff, that's kind of where those partnerships start to form, where people see where their work is kind of crossing over or talk about maybe issues they're having. And it could be a really enlightening in a lot of ways. So that's the third piece, the municipal staff, targeted municipal staff, virtual meeting, really talking about things that concern people in that situation. And then again, we will process the data for that. And then the last Amherst Historical Commission and the Local Historic District Commission. So I already had the opportunity to meet with you all a few months ago and same with the Local Historic District Commission following up with you now. And then I anticipate as the outreach gets underway and maybe even towards the end of that phase two, just coming to another one of your meetings and discussing some of the things that we've found. But with all of this, it would be helpful if there are any specific questions that you feel would should, would be helpful to ask of these types of categories, whether it's stakeholders who are out in the community, working on partnerships and preservation and engagement or municipal staff or the planning department. If there's any questions that you really feel should be targeted questions that would be helpful for us to ask, then you could please share that with me and we'll work it into the agenda. Shannon, do we have still, I mean, I remember some things along these lines, but the form has changed enough to get a sense of how many people are aware of the advantages of preservation, whether it's a homeowner or all the way to municipal staff. I mean, is there a sense of that you're going to get back from these questions on that? That's exactly why I'm asking you to ask this, because that's a good thing that we could try to make sure we're targeting that type of question. I think it'll be important in the future, because we've been misunderstood or underappreciated or people fight us if they, it's become sort of polarized in the town between development and preservation. It doesn't have to be, right? And so it would be nice to sort of know if people understand why preservation is important, even if we also are developing new things. And if there could be some question or questions that sort of teased that out, it might be useful. Okay. And that's something too, I just did this in, it was more of a heritage tourism plan that I was working on, but I had it as a sidebar of all the reasons that historic preservation are important, but it would be very helpful to take the temperature of the community and find out where people are at right now. And to give them that information, they may not have even thought about. So, yeah. Yep. So I'm gonna, I'm typing this now to myself, that that would be a nice thing to have in the plan, even if it's a full page of these are the, and I love going to Place Economics. I'm not sure if you've ever read any of their studies. Donovan Ripkema in Place Economics, they do, it's all about the economics of preservation. He is a historic preservation economist and he does, I want him to come to New England and do something. I think he did something in Rhode Island, for the state of Rhode Island. He does studies about economics and preservation. He's worked for like the city of Savannah and he has all these really, his website has really useful reports that he shares with everyone, once, you know, someone pays them to do it, but that anybody can use that data. And I like to put a lot of that, like he has 24 reasons why historic preservation is good for your community. So that's, I like to add that into wherever I can. I tuck that in there. Yeah. And for the council, town council and everything to see that, I mean, everything. Yeah. Because that is one of the things that comes up a lot and Massachusetts, if you Google historic preservation or economics of preservation in Massachusetts, there's something that came out, but it was like a long time ago, like 30, 40 years ago. That's data that's not easily easy to find except for through place economics. Great. Okay. Super. Anybody else have suggestions? Commission members. Yep. And if anything comes up, you can send it to me or send it through the commission. Again, following up on your, you know, your comment, you know, when we met with staff now at PVPC, we kind of asked that as well. And, you know, what, what do people consider preservation? You know, it's in the survey a little bit, but also kind of getting that, if it can be, you know, expanded on in these meetings, because, you know, some people might think it's only saving, you know, high architecture or maybe it's something else and just trying to get an understanding. It's only 19th century Victorians or something. Right. Right. Yeah. And it's been seen as, which is the word I'm looking for. Or like, I can't think of the word, but it's been seen as something standing in the way of development and it shouldn't be, you know, it should be hand in hand part. It should be a kind of development really preservation should be seen as a kind of development, not as anti-development. Almost like I just wrote rebranding preservation in Amherst. So there's a new understanding of it. And I, the, if Ben, I believe Ben shared the draft with you all a few months ago when I had the very first draft with some of the deliverables and I put a quote on the front page that was kind of tied to preservation. And, but, you know, moving forward, not looking backwards. Right. Yeah. I had, I wrote a little piece for one of the local digital rags about how they can go hand in hand, but it didn't get much notice. But it's something we need to keep kind of pounding the pavement with in town. So great. Okay. Do you have anything else? Does anybody have any concerns about her plans or anything other than the questionnaire? See, I just wanted to hear me ask if like sustainability and environmental sustainability is part of the what you're, what you're asking around. Yeah, I think that that is a very important thing always to talk with related to preservation, because it's the, the ultimate recycling is one of the quotes about it. So that is something I slip into anything whenever I'm talking about community planning. But I'm going to look back at the digital survey and see if there are any questions related to that. Yeah. And just whether Amherst is considering how just the sustainability of preservation is kind of incorporated into their environmental sustainability planning and, yeah. Yeah, good point. If that should ring a lot of bells and Amherst's, they're planning so hard to try to reach goals. Yeah, that's great. Also, I kind of came in late during this process. I just joined a few months ago, the commission, and I was wondering if is there a consideration of kind of municipal owned buildings and kind of like capital planning for. Yes, yeah, yeah, and Ben had given me, which I've never seen this before. There's like a, there's a document or that was put out about the status of municipally owned buildings. That was something he sent me early on in this. But yes, municipal owned buildings, historic buildings, especially because a lot of them also hold archival materials and things like that or are eligible for funding because there may be the criteria as being historic. Yes, that is definitely part of what we're looking at. Okay, great. Next. And that's why part of that municipal staff meeting also is always important to have, understand who in the town is in charge of the buildings, have to do the upkeep, has to, you know, keep doing preventative maintenance and things like that to find all those rules. Thanks Madeline. Anyone else? Okay, well, thank you Shannon for coming and for staying with us throughout this process so we know what's going on. I'm so happy you're doing this. It's going to be really well. Sure, yeah, I've really enjoyed it so far and I look forward to the outreach process because that's when we're really going to get to, you know, kind of know the heartbeat of the town and understand where everybody sits and what people's concerns and things like that are. But there's one more thing on the agenda related to the national register nominations. Yes, that's our next thing. You're on again. Yes, I'm on again. Okay, this is a, this is a funny one. So, and Nate, I don't know if you had a chance to read all the back and forth I was sending you today with Ben Haley. Okay, so to get everybody up to speed, many, many years ago, we submitted a land far, far away named Boston. We submitted three national register nominations. So there was the Dickinson district expansion. Well, before that happened, we had updated or completed area forms, which was my predecessor. So I started in 2017. It was before that probably 2015, 2016. My predecessor submitted area forms and I ended up finishing them. And then Betsy Friedberg, rest in peace because she just passed away and Ben Haley from Mass Historic came to Amherst and we rode around with Brandon. Toupons and we looked at all the different areas and they said, yes, we agree. These should be the boundaries. These, you know, you can do the East Village expansion, the Dickinson district expansion and the depot district. So those national register nominations were completed and submitted. The Dickinson and depot nominations went through one round of edits at Mass Historic and came back and then were resubmitted. And then I submitted the East Village nomination for the first time going off of all of the things that were edited in the Dickinson district expansion because I thought I was very clever and that if I caught it up front, it would be a shorter editing process. So this summer, the East Village nomination edits came back probably in August with feedback. And this is from Ben Haley now. He's the current National Register Director. So he said that the National Park Service Standards had changed and expansions for an area with older documentation now require the entire newly, so there's the East Village in the center and then the expansion was above, below into the left and the right. He is now saying that the entire thing has to be submitted as a new nomination because it was an older submission, even though Betsy Friedberg actually was the one who worked on the original nomination and it was very well done. And I took everything she told me to do with the new expanded nomination. I took photos of every single building in the middle of the district and I described alterations over time and added the building. So he said, sorry, we now have to do a whole new district. So I had talked about this a bit with Ben and Nate and we had emailed back and forth and I was waiting on the Dickinson District Expansion and the Depot District nominations to come back to understand what we were really looking at and to present it to you all and see what you would like to do if you want to proceed because we are out of contract with this project because it was so many years ago. So I wrote Ben today and he said that the Dickinson and Depot nominations, he's hoping to have the edits back to your town and to us at the end of the year, possibly, but that especially they're both going to need more edits and the Dickinson District has to be completely resubmitted as an entirely new district like the East Village. You mean the East Village, not Dickinson? Both of them. Isn't Dickinson also an expansion? It is, yeah. Oh, I see. So both districts that are being proposed for expansion because they were originally placed in the National Register in maybe like the 80s or they're saying that we have to submit it like it's a new district. So I told him that if you decide to proceed, we really need to have a full-blown conversation, virtual meeting with him to understand exactly what is required because a lot of time and money have gone into these. And he said, okay. It sounds like you should be able to use all the documentation you provided for the expansion and just put it into an application, right? Yes, it's just semantics, I guess, but it's frustrating because this has been paid for and a lot of time has gone by and they moved the finish line during the process. But I guess we can blame the National Park Service for it. Some of it is that the East Village was early and Dickinson was as well, the National Register Districts, the forms are old, some of them. And so I mean, I kind of get it, but that's not the information we had when we started this. And so, yeah, Shannon, I was thinking about there might be some CPA money. You know, we have two pots for inventory work. It wasn't necessarily for this, but it was for inventorying properties. And so I don't know, I was thinking about having, right, if this were to move forward, I'd want you and another contract. We're not gonna, the previous contract is done, the work was completed. And so really this would be a new project, new contract. And so I'm a little disappointed it has taken so long. I remember when they came out and it seemed like everything was great. You made the revisions after the site visits and so it really was maybe some editing but more of formality to get through the process, not having to say almost start over again with completing forms and research. So I'm, yeah, I don't know. I was, yeah, I don't know. I was kind of just thinking like, can we move some money around and have that happen or does it wait now and become another CPA request next year or something? Because we wouldn't have the money available otherwise. We have discretionary funds a little bit, right? Or is that the CPA money? That is CPA. So there is some, there is a little bit and then there's some, you know, we have, I think from two years ago, $25,000 for inventory work. So it could be applied here. Yeah, let's do it while it's still fresh enough that it doesn't have to be even more redone. I know, I'm really hoping that they're going to take the photos because it's hundreds of photos. And then he said there were too many photos. So I'm not, I really need to understand what he wants because they did, we were told that they needed photos of all of the existing district buildings to see what they looked like. But then he said there's too many photos. So we have to strike a balance somewhere in the middle. And I just want to be very clear on what he is requiring so that we understand what the funding and time would be. But I do, I do hope that this could proceed because I think that when a new nomination goes in, it sits, it kind of goes really to the back of the pile. But if there's something that is more freshly edited and then you turn it around and get it in, in my mind anyway, because they want to move them, they only meet the commission. I know the next upcoming meeting when they hear nominations is March and then I think they meet in the summer. So it's not, it's, they don't meet very often to even go through that. But I've encouraged him if we, it would be really great. And I sent him also the letter that Betsy had sent in 2018 telling exactly what needed to be done for the district just to remind him that we need some guidance just so that this is as straightforward a process as possible at this point. Shannon, I have a question. You know what's happened with the process of the nomination that was created by I think it's Sharon Malloy or Shannon Malloy for the Bay Road Historic Corridor? I was going to ask that too. That, that one was turned down during the site visit, wasn't it? It was. Well, so I, I did the Bay Road, the Nottingville area, is that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Sorry, I'm, I'm getting my Shannon. No, that's okay. That's okay. That's okay. The, so when I came onto PVPC, Elizabeth Rarrahead was in the middle of a project that was all of Bay Road. And then when Betsy, Friedberg and Ben Haley came and we went to East Village Dickinson District, Depot District, and then down to Bay Road, the MHC thought was, okay, not all of Bay Road. It's the Simeon Smith Farmstead. Yes. And then the, the one that was a, a tavern that's all brick. Right. A little further down the road. Yeah. Those two they felt were potentially individually eligible, especially the Simeon Smith Farmstead. And then the Nottingville area. Which includes a few other houses. Yeah. Yes. So Brandon, I had explained to him that for the individual buildings, they're very particular. It has to be inside and outside unless it's very significant for a person. And we had stopped at the point where I know I spoke with the owner of the, the brick property that was the tavern and sent him information and then didn't hear from him. But we would have required, they would have required interior photos and full cooperation from the owners. But the Nottingville area was, I think the last I had, it had gotten was that I was going back and forth with Brandon about trying to move that. But that's still, it did get that determination of potential eligibility. So, well, that's kind of where it stopped. Something we should keep in mind for once this other thing is resolved, and we can be history straight out, the next thing would be to see if we can then start the Nottingville. Because there's nothing down in the south end of Amherst, other than the South Common, but down to Bay Road. I mean, that was an important historic area. And we have nothing documenting that or keeping it. So, yeah. And I did push, I pushed for Bay Road because Bay Road itself is so historic, but they don't, they don't like doing roads. Yeah. So as I say, yeah, they wouldn't, there was too many, you know, it was too incongruous. And, you know, so there's too many properties between historic homes. So Amherst Historic had initially, you know, they thought maybe and then they, as Shannon said, they came back and said, no, especially after seeing it. So yeah, I didn't, you know, it was disappointing. We were trying to make the case that Bay Road itself is, you know, the trail is a historic resource, but the districts don't really, it's like they're not meant for that type of resource. And so. It's maybe more of like a scenic byway or a heritage. Yeah, there were too many houses in the 60s and 70s. Yeah, I took pictures of all of them. I walked that whole road. But yeah, I'm glad. I think that that definitely should be something on the back burner to consider and potentially move forward. But the other three there, they're so close. We just need clarity, 100% clarity on what they want and what we can use that has already been done to make it, to not, you know, redo things that have already, money and time has already gone into. So, well, Shannon, let Nate put that on, you know, fast forward to try and find funding and we'll try and get that pulled together while it's still fresh enough. All right. That sounds great. Okay. Thanks for coming and yeah, time to meet with us. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Have a good night. Bye. Bye. Thanks. Okay. Right. So next, we should talk about our officers going forward since this is my last meeting. And Robin, are you there and not looking at us or are you not even listening? I'm here and I've been listening. I'm just about to talk to my house so we're good timing. Okay, good. Well, after you get out of the car and before you get in front of the computer, we're going to elect your chair, okay? Madeleine and I were having some discussions. I was encouraging her that she wanted to take chairmanship or chairpersonship. She could and I wouldn't agree to be vice chair, continue as vice chair, but I will let her speak. We'll talk to her while you're getting settled. Okay. Okay, Madeleine, speak to us. Oh, yeah. No, I'm still on the fence and I was going to talk to Robin tomorrow to learn more, but yeah, it seems kind of soon for me to step in because I haven't even attended very many meetings. And especially kind of like a, yeah. If you were to be vice chair and you had sort of an agreement with Robin that either if she couldn't attend, obviously, you'd be there, but also maybe in a year you might be willing to take over something because I know she's got so much on her plate. If there were a way for her to feel like this wasn't a life sentence, she might feel better about taking it off. Robin, are you home yet? Perfectly agreeable for me to take it on until an appropriate summary comes forward, but yeah, that would be great. I mean, I can understand where Valena's coming from. I mean, I feel sort of equally unprepared, but I'm willing to take one for the team. None of us ever feel ready. You just have to dive in. Right. I just haven't attended a hearing yet, so I don't even really know how. I don't think I would be able to take the reins. We can vote on me. Okay, great. Well, that's good. You can now recuse yourself by turning off the car. Oh, so I have to recuse myself on how to get to I thought I got to vote for myself. No, I'm just speaking. I'm teasing. So we need that. But then we're also going to have to talk about, besides that, who is going to be the designee for the significant building consultation with Nate, basically, unless we know, well, actually, whether it's Nate, it is a designee and then the person who consults or whether it's one of us, one of you all. Right. And I think at the previous meeting, you may have, I don't know if you voted me or I think you did, but I just want to make sure, if that's fine, that can work. But just I wanted to have that be also a discussion. And then among yourselves, who do you date? Are you automatically going to talk to Robin or would Robin rather have you go over it with somebody else? It doesn't have to be the chair. It doesn't, right? And it can't, wouldn't we want to vote that? I guess our KP law, the town attorneys recommended kind of having it just be, if someone on the commission or one or two people would be willing to hear from me from time to time without necessarily being designated. But for instance, if Robin said, sure, I can, or if not, she's too busy, then if another member was willing to kind of be an ad hoc you know, ear for me. So, you know, it can't, it can't be a meeting because then it's a public meeting law, but it can be notifying whoever is the commission member what you've decided and then let the commission member say, I don't agree. And if the, if the person doesn't agree, it automatically according to bylaw goes to a hearing then. Right. So this, this step is when we receive an application to demolish a building, we have two weeks to decide if it's a significant building. And so right now I'm the designation, you know, the designate to determine that and there's criteria in the bylaw. And so sometimes it's easy, but it may be, for instance, there's one that just came in last week. And, you know, it could be that I'm not sure and then I would consult with someone and then if there's disagreement, it automatically goes to a hearing. If we're in agreement that it is significant, then it does, if it we're both in agreement that it isn't significant, then it doesn't go to a hearing, but it'd be in those instances where staff, you know, just like to talk through an application. And, you know, I don't think it would be every one, but there, you know, there are a few that would come in that, you know, just be, it'd be good to sometimes talk through it. Yeah. Ben and I had that happen. So, okay. So shall we go to a vote then? Somebody will have to nominate these folks. Oh. Becky, she just gets somebody else to do it. No, nominating Robin as chair. Okay. One at a time then. Do you want to do one at a time? I think it's easy. Yeah, we might as well. Okay. So Robin, are you still with us? She looks signed in. Yeah, muted herself. So it's, I don't know. And, Hedy, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Okay. Robin, if you're there, you can vote. If you're not, you're going to be voted in, I think. Either way. Okay. So I should do a roll call attendance, I think, for this roll. I mean, a roll call of votes, right? Do we need to second it? Or is it just? Oh yeah. Somebody should second it. Hedy, you want a second? Second. Yeah. Okay. Great. Okay. So we will vote on the nomination to make Robin Fordham, the chair from January 23 forward. And I will ask for your vote. Madeleine Helmer. Yes, I vote. Yes. Okay. Becky Lockwood. Yes. Hedy Startup. Yes. Robin Fordham. Yes. And I don't know whether I should vote, but it sounds good to me. I say yes. Okay. It passed unanimously. Congratulations, Robin. Woo-hoo. I'm excited. And now we need a nomination for vice chair. Madeleine Helmer. Anyone want a second? I'll second it. Okay. Becky's seconded. Okay. I'll do a roll call vote. Robin Fordham. Did you vote? Hear me? Aye. No. Oh, did you say yes? I couldn't hear you. Yes. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes. Hedy Startup. Aye. Rebecca Lockwood. Aye. Madeleine Helmer. Aye. Tentative. And I vote yes. Okay. Great. We have officers. And do we want to continue that the designee for significant decisions is Nate with consultation with Robin, or do we want to do it with anybody else? That's what we want. Everybody. If Robin can't do it, I'd be willing to step in for that part of it. Okay. That's great. Yeah. That sounds good for me. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Becky and Robin. Yeah. You know, I talked with the building commissioner and he is, you know, he's more comfortable with even if I, if I'm unsure whether or not I would consult with a commission member, then just to say that it's significant and go to a hearing because often then there could be disagreement. And so when he's looking at things, say for the zoning ward of appeals, if there there's a part in the bylaw where it could be his decision and he's unsure or, you know, something isn't quite the way it needs to be. He always would have the ZBA to make the determination. So it's not, you know, if there's something that is, you know, isn't, isn't, you know, so discernible from the application that either we can ask for more information, which I will, which I do anyways. And if it's still not clear, then, you know, I'm inclined to have a go to a hearing. But okay. Okay. That's good. Good to know too. Super. Yeah. Okay. It's been 41 minutes and we have a bit to do yet. So I'm going to move right on to discussion of the CPA process and projects and the idea is to prioritize the proposal so that when Robin goes to the final battles, she is armed. Right. We are already, well, actually, we, we almost made it through historic preservation last week. So we've got the two, but actually this would be a good opportunity to the two churches, I think, are left. And the, I don't know, I'm trying to remember what the number is for the North Church. I wanted, I guess I wanted some feedback from the committee because the North Church application, you know, through, through nobody's fault, sort of by the nature of our application process has, you know, it came in with a really large number for doing everything. I think right now they're just asking for repairs and a new slate roof. And during discussions when they had Coon Riddle there, I asked if there was possibility that the, the, the basically the, I think the Coon Riddle report was that structurally everything looks pretty good. That's the goodness. But that if there was sort of like, you know, can you button that roof up enough to make it through the winter to give more time to develop a fuller, a fuller scope of work and have more estimates come in. And so I don't know which way this committee wants to go. And I have, I am hoping to introduce, after we vote on everything in terms of the CPA process, to talk about next year, getting some sort of process underway where we can get historic preservation projects in front of the historic commission like in April. Not applying, but discussing it so that people have a lot of time to come to to come to CPA with their application with the right number of estimates and a full understanding of the whole process and, you know, what the restrictions have been made. Well, we tried the North Church. We did see North Church quite a while ago and we tried. They just didn't quite understand. Yeah, and I, yeah, right. But I mean, I think, I think that's the process that needs to be. Yeah, just because some, some maybe in, you know, even tighter hand holding, but, but anyway, matter in hand right now is. Yeah. So the CPA committee meets is just tomorrow night, right? That's, um, yeah, yeah, I'll share a screen. There was a straw poll that was sent out. You know, this, this is visible where it's kind of this, the average over here, the far right column is what's, you know, shows kind of the, you know, the weighted average of votes. And so, you know, the conservation of them, maybe Loomis Todd paintings, you know, is a pretty high vote as do the two church projects. And so, you know, the, you know, what becomes important though is the amount of funding that's available for, you know, for, you know, for, you know, there's a lot of projects. Um, and I just want to know quickly that what's in blue is debt service. And so, uh, you know, the Jones library has yet to, um, call there the borrowing, but, you know, as you can see, there's usually quite a few projects, CPA projects, you know, so if you, if you bond it, then, you know, it's, you know, usually we do a 10 year write down. And so it just, you know, it's future funding that's not available, um, but that's set aside for this. So right now we have a number of projects that's housing and recreation. Um, but, you know, anyways, at some point we've had, we used to have some historic preservation projects there, but we've paid those off. So that's what it would look like. For instance, if we provide a lot of money for, um, say the North church, uh, you know, this could become a 10 year, you know, write down. And so, you know, over the course of 10 years, we'd have a little bit paid off each year. Um, and the fact that our, some of our projects are some of the highest, um, in the poll, does that suggest that besides the historic preservation funds that some of the general funds might be moved to these? I don't click at the question. Isn't there money set aside for each of the areas plus a general one that can be? No, it's there's a, there's an entire amount and you're required to spend, I think it's 10% of the total available in each category. And if for some reason you can't, then you, then you have to set that 10% aside. You can't spend that. If there were no historic preservation project applications, you couldn't spend the 10% that should be allocated to historic preservation. You'd have to, um, reserve it for the following year, which would become dedicated, but that's not an issue to share. Right. So, you know, say there's a million and a half dollars, right? Then there's 150,000. And so, yeah, I think that we would, I don't think there's a problem there. Right. So that's that's what Jan, that's what you meant. Right. So there's a, you know, a portion of CPA funding every year that's not really, you know, doesn't need to be allocated to a specific purpose. It can be go to any, like Robin said, any, uh, any project. That's why I think maybe that could be added to our allocation because we have such high votes for these projects to help. What is the total amount this year? How much is our element of historic preservation? That I don't know. I think the total pot was like, was it like 1.7? And then with the debt service, it's down. But no, I think it, I think it was 1.9 plus, why do we have 500,000 in reserve that's available to us with having factored in debt service? I mean, it was still a good amount of money, but the problem is that we have, I think $13 million asked and won $1.8 million asked. I mean, those two, the affordable housing asks are so huge. Yeah. And then the fields too, it's kind of like skewing everything. Like when I'm looking on this in my chart, as I'm working through it, I've put the fields and, and the, the 1.8 million. Yeah. I'm just assuming those will go to bond and then I'm working off that total. And then it's actually not as dicey, but the problem with the North Church is that they've submitted different numbers. I think right now they're asking for 175,000. Is that what it says there? I'm looking at this on my phone. It's all just 158,000. 158,000. Yeah. That must be just the roof. Right. So that, yeah. So, um, I guess the only thing that I would be negotiating or that the CPA committee might be negotiating is saying, you know, is there a smaller number where we don't replace the roof? We just make sure it doesn't leak for the next year. It's kind of late to do that work, right? I mean, this would be immediate funds. Anyway, this is not, this is emergency funds, not. Well, that, yes. And we would ask for, for this particular project and, um, to go to, I guess, so that would come from the Reserve Fund. So that would mean it would be immediately available so that they could get started right away. But, um, and then I think it was going to, um, the other, the other comment I had was that the South Church did bring up, um, the Mouse Preservation Projects Fund, which, you know, I mean, they're, they're so well organized and they'd be such an excellent candidate for, but they said the normal grant, um, timeline for them wouldn't get them funded until like November and they, due to the nature of the destabilization of the tower, they want to get started earlier. And I suggested that they contact MHC because there are emergency stabilization funds that are supposedly available off cycle. Um, and we all got that questionnaire asking us if we could do with any less, right? So did they answer that? Do we know? Um, we do know and I don't know off the top of my head. Um, I mean, I think the answer, yeah, they had a match. They, I think they said they could put in a little bit more money, but it wasn't like a big, no, it wasn't a big number. Right. Um, right. I mean, my only, my main concern about it is just, I'm just trying to push forward the idea that we really get applicants to aggressively go after other funds that they're eligible for that they're good candidates for. Like that's my frustration. It's not so much how much they're asking for, how much they're putting in, but that if we continue to not have our applicants try to, um, you know, take advantage of, of, you know, to not, not to, not to not get any, any CPA at all, but to see if there are other funds available so that we can stretch our CPA dollars further. It's just kind of late this year. Next year, I know, well that, yeah, we need to really push that. Right. Right. Yeah. Yes, I did look, you know, Robin was right. So yeah, I guess there is about 1.9 available even after a debt service. So that is quite a bit of funding. That's some plus 500,000 I think in reserve. It's yeah. Which I mean, if I could see ours is practically covered then if we just do our portion and our requests. Right. Well, it's one point. So it would be 190,000. The reserve doesn't count because that's from last year. So the, you know, the that's divided in three. Yeah. I mean, Robin, I guess the question would be, you know, if, if the CPA committee really wants to know, you know, what are the priorities if they asked from the store book commission? I mean, is it, you know, um, you know, there, there were some questions about the president, you know, the preparation of the preservation restrictions. And, you know, is that eligible, um, you know, the, the barn building we had mentioned, you know, in your response that we could, you know, have, you know, you know, take, we could take significantly less funding, but still we'd like to have some as a pilot program. And I think that's, you know, to me, that's pretty manageable. I don't know how they feel about it. It's then really, you know, we have these big projects with, you know, the two roofs, you know, for the defensive farmhouse, the church and then the steeple. And so those become really big projects. And so is it that they get partially funded or do we fund one or two in their entirety so they can get done? I'm trying to look at my, let me just look at my spreadsheet for what I tabulated. You know, I always do this spreadsheet and I, um, I play around with the numbers myself, like, you know, what I would vote for. And I think if you take those two big projects out, and they're so big that you can't really, I mean, I suppose you could fund the East Street School anyway, but let's see. Like I put the East Street School into bonding, which means we don't have to think about it this fiscal year. Like the committee will still vote on it, but it will hit other fiscal years, right? And then if you take Fort River out, and then I think, I think you can fund pretty much, well then, then we have, I think there's money, I guess what I'm trying to say is, because I'm looking at this now, I think there's money for the full funding of those churches. The point is, don't we get about a third of the total? Well, we don't, we don't need to. We, you know, we're required to have 10% and then- Right, but I mean, couldn't we have up to a third as our allocation, right? We could have more, but- No, could, yeah, we could have the whole thing, but we're only- I mean, traditionally, I thought it was split basically in three, and then after that, they could pull other stuff. No? There are four categories. I thought there were three. Right? Open space, affordable housing, historic preservation and recreation. Affordable housing has two asks at least. Yeah, there are two large asks, one for 501 for 750 that are these kind of ballpark asks. So those could be dropped pretty significantly. When I'm looking at this, I'm feeling like we can fund, the Dickens and the Dickensett Project moved down to 97,000. The North Amherst Congress Congregational Church moved from 650 to 158, and then the South Congregational Church is 233. I think that we can fund everything, not just in historic preservation, but pretty much everything else, too, if those other projects are bonded. And I don't anticipate getting a lot of pushback from CPA on anything here. I mean, I think that they've all got pretty strong support among the other CPA committee members. My question was just this question about the North Amherst Congregational Church and basically how we feel about going with this one estimate that they got of 158.7 to do the roof repair and put on a new slate roof. Yeah, or look-alike slate. I mean, if it's cheaper, at this point, they need a safe building more than they need. Right. I mean, this is where it gets challenging because they're in a historic district. There are slate roofs all around them. They also have an incredible southern exposure on that south side that could, you know, to really roll with solar. To go for a slate roof at this point is kind of, it just seems throwing money into- Right. That's the question that I had. This kind of gets to the question I have about this project is that it's like, I feel like we're just going to be, you know, I'm ready to support it, but I feel frustrated that we're in this position where we have to make a really snap decision about putting a really large amount of money into a really significant building without sussing out all those questions. Like, should this be an asphalt roof in anticipation of a solar array? Should it be? But what about the Dickinson farmhouse roof material that they've selected? That looks like slate, but it isn't, and it's a lot cheaper. Right, but they're not in an historic district. No, no, no. Not for them. No, I'm saying couldn't that be used on the North Church to help get some of this other really important stuff done? I don't know. I mean, I think that's the conversation that we don't have time for, you know? We're basically just, we've got one estimate. It's 158.7. It's to put a new slate roof on. And that's what I, you know, what I'm going to have to argue for tomorrow. Like, I mean, I think the difficulty is, you know, for instance, the South Congregational Church, they, you know, invested heavily in their building, say the last 10 years, right? So they've done a number of capital improvements, upgrades. And so really the steeple becomes something that is about maintaining the historic, you know, architecture and look of the building. Well, it's also to keep the rest of the building from being destroyed when that falls over. It falls over. I guess with the, you know, now the Zion Church, the 158,000, it's like, is it enough to do anything? And they're going to have to come back. I mean, the question is, are we going, is this going to become a multi-year project? Oh, absolutely. And we told them it should, because we wanted a million bucks at first. You know, we suggested that they phase it. They just didn't understand us. Right. So they didn't apply with that. Yeah. I mean, I know at one point I was hoping that they would have an architecture engineer and then have, you know, fold this into a bigger project and have funding that would do a much better assessment to come in. And, you know, as, right, right. So even now it's just like, oh, we have an estimate, let's go with it. But, you know, Robin, I know you're asking, is that, I mean, is it the right approach or is it enough even? Yeah. I mean, and from a, from a preservation standpoint, and this is why I asked the question of Ken Riddle, and, you know, I'm kind of curious what there is in terms of flexibility to pick this project down the road a little bit. You know, I was like, if we're looking for $20,000 to button, and I asked this question very specifically to just button up the roof so that it doesn't leak anymore. I replaced it, you know, and he said it was in like reasonable shape so that you buy yourself another year to really develop the project in an appropriate way. And what was the answer? I mean, he said yes, but they just, you know, this is the challenge is that you really need a, you know, you need a historic preservation architect, you know, looking at the whole project and doing all its, it's too much to ask the building owners of that particular building to understand things at that level. It, since there looks like there might be pretty much enough money, I wonder if you were to argue for this amount, for this roof, and then if it's granted, come back to them and say, let's look at the best way to use this money now that you have it. Well, that's an interesting perspective. Yeah. I mean, they need so much that this would be a start. You could have, well, rough button up as you say, and then you could also have somebody come and give them a better consultation, maybe. Yeah, right. Now, I think that that's a great suggestion. And we would, I, so I would just need to get the commission's confirmation that that would be, it would be a condition, right, upon the award that we would award them 158.7, but they would, would they come back to the historical commission? I mean, this is, you know, this is kind of the question. Well, does CPA allow something different to be done with the money? They usually recommend a specific project or, yeah, right. I mean, I think it could be, if it's related to the roof, maybe, right, or, you know, slightly differently. Can I just add, I'm all for helping them as much as we can, but I'm slightly uncomfortable because they don't, you could give them the money, but they don't seem to understand what the process should do. And I feel like, you know, I don't know. I'm just putting that out there. Yeah, no, I'm sorry, I didn't want to cut you off. I think you're right. And I think that they're just at a disadvantage. And what they need is the right consultant. And this is my frustration is that they just don't have the right consultant yet who's coming to the table before them, you know, or who could come to the historic commission with them. And, you know, we could ask those questions. And the consultant, you know, could be like, okay, yep, we're going to do this and this and we're going to face that. Because there are all these, these questions. The other piece of it, and I hate to go on and on, but it's, is the fact that whatever they do has to fit with the secretary's standards. But we don't even have anybody any and maybe you can speak to this or we don't have to speak to it. But as far as I know, we don't utilize anyone to make sure that the secretary standards are being followed in a scope of work before the work begins. So I really want to fund the church and I'm just really frustrated with the fact that there isn't that consultant there that we can talk to to say, what if we just button up the roof and then, you know, we get more numbers and we revisit everything in the next round, you know, and the church itself isn't deteriorating. Sort of going off of Becky's point, like the kind of application process is a demonstration of your capability to like to kind of see this through and it doesn't, it doesn't stop once the money is granted, like somebody has to be there to oversee the whole construction or, you know, repair process. Is it possible to take their application and say to CPA, we think we should just grant them some money to have a consultant do a better I would think. Yeah, is that something that we can fund, Nate? Yeah, so that's where I think there's disagreement about the interpretation of historic preservation. And so, you know, I would say it's eligible. I think other staff in the CPA coalition will say no, because it's not directly related to the preservation of a building. But the irony is if you just fold it into, you know, total project costs and you say you have 20% for soft costs or whatever, then it's eligible, but not as a standalone project, which me is, you know, semantics, but you know, that's the way they look at it. So in that case, it's like, yeah, apply for half a million, knowing that 150,000, whatever is going to be the engineering and architecture. And we require that first, right? So it's just, you know, I don't know. I mean, that's, that's kind of how it was looked at for, say, these preservation restriction consultant, like, oh, we can roll it into a project cost, but as a standalone thing, it's not eligible. It's like, well, what's the difference really? Right. And so, but that's just, you know, I don't know what to do. I almost feel like we, Rob, maybe we ask Robin, can we have 150,000 go to the church for architectural engineering and they come back next year? I mean, I looked, I was just looking at the minutes from the meeting when they said 160,000 and they said, yeah, they're not even sure if that's accurate. And, you know, I know Sam had asked some follow up questions. And so it's just I, yeah, I don't, I know they, I know the building needs it. And both buildings, actually, right? So the Parish, all right, but it's just, is it, oh, yeah, we don't know what's a priority, right? Is it the roof? Is it the foundation? Is it parts of the siding is rotting? I mean, we don't, I think that's pretty well determined that the siding and the foundation are because the roof has been leaking. Right. But I mean, I think that point is, is honest that how do you reward a very poor application where they have no idea what they're asking for and then not set a precedent that they can keep doing this and getting money for it in a way? I mean, that's great. You're saying, right? Well, then can the CDA committee say to them, we're going to give you a percentage of this to get a consultant and change, I mean, maybe changing but that's what we're saying. Yes, you can't just do a consultant on its own. It has to be part of a larger project. That's what you were talking about. So my question is, I guess, that my next question is, can we push this particular project off cycle? Can we delay it? You know, because we have, you know, we hold this, and this, you know, I don't quite understand from the town's perspective, but we hold these reserve funds every year. I mean, that's the whole purpose of them, that they're there to draw on when we need to. The town went off cycle for the grant for Kendrick Park, I think, you know, we had a special meeting for that. So, you know, it's this, you know, it's this like conundrum where, you know, you're a big foundation and you've got, you know, 50 different applications for five different plots and, you know, you just pick the five things. But if you're the town and this is such a significant resource, and it's threatened by its current condition, and yet the application itself isn't sufficient enough for, you know, a good, a full, you know, historic preservation award, that's why I wanted an estimate on, just give me an estimate on like how we keep the building from deteriorating until we can figure out what the whole package, you know, for everything it needs them. Maybe it would work though, to go back to my original idea that you say we're going to give them, we want to give them 160,000 and say to them from CPA, this is money to start you on the preservation route. It includes repairing the roof this year so that it no longer leaks for the time being and rolled into that based upon what Nate was saying, a percentage goes to a consultant. And this is part of the larger plan that you have, which is multi-year, and this is the first kind of down payment. But next time you need to come, or off cycle, you need to come with a very clear application, you know, of exactly what's needed and how much it's going to cost with a professional behind it. So my, I don't know how we give them, I mean the proposal that they're asking for is 158,000 is linked to a specific estimate for specific work. So I don't know if we can redirect that to different work. And then the next thing I would say is somebody has to, and I think that this is maybe our job, we have to find a way to give people names of consultants that we can refer them to, to do this kind of work. Because if we say come back next year, they're not going to, they're not going to be working with them. I mean, that's what I, yeah, okay. Of course, yeah. So I think the reserves, I mean Robin, it's interesting, the reserves are usually voted for a category, not for a specific project. So in the past we've done it for housing and then each year the committee, CPA committee has to vote it. So, you know, it could be that we recommend to the committee that they set aside 150,000 for historic projects and they put that in reserve this year. And then it could be that it's available if needed, if say an off-cycle or if a church comes back. And so that's, that's the way it's worked in the past with housing. We've done that twice with housing. So it might be best to just turn them down and then work from scratch as needed. But I want to understand the reserve process here for a second, because right now there's $500,000 in reserve. And I don't think it's allocated to any particular category. And my weak understanding is that that $500,000 if we, if, you know, if we needed to do something tomorrow because, you know, the roof caved in, unless it's caved in on one side, but that we would draw on that $500,000 if we put something in reserve from this year's funds that won't be available until July, right? Like the whole problem is they have that whole section of the roof that's falling apart. That's only going to get worse with the snow. Like that's something, something needs to be done now. Well, even if we did it even now, we wouldn't have, I think the $500,000 is actually for housing. I thought it was just general, but okay. Yeah. So I don't know if the CPA has, right, just general funds available. And even if they did, it wouldn't be necessarily available until July, unless it could somehow be taken from a previous fiscal year. So that's, well, that's what I thought the reserve that we have is from that $500,000 from last fiscal year. So that I thought that was housing. Yeah. So I mean, that's interesting though. We don't think a clarification from Sonia or Sean, I mean, would we be able to do that for the church? I just, yeah, I mean, it'd be nice if we could have, maybe we need to ask them to consult Chris Riddle again and get a, thank you, ask Robin just what is necessary for, for now, you know. Okay. So if I, so essentially I would say if you're prioritizing in the vote, the, the fully realized applications that have specific numbers that are tied to estimates that are genuine would get a priority. And then you work with somebody who's messed up like this, but you don't necessarily support it in the same way. Right. And all I'm trying to do is figure out is to articulate something that the commission supports that I can bring to the committee tomorrow. So, you know, I think that we don't know, we don't really know what the parameters are. I think we've kind of come to the point where we have to ask questions to people. Robin, I have a question. So the CPA doesn't award the, when do they make the decision? They'll make the decision I think around January. Is that right date? It wasn't on last year. Yeah. So the committee, yeah, the committee recommends the funding to the town council and then the town council vote. And so the CPA committee tries to, and then it's not available till July 1. Right. So the council may not vote until April even, March, April on the funding. So it's part of their budget cycle. It depends on, you know, how, when the funding is, you know, if they're, yeah, so I was looking at those Sonia's numbers, it might be that there is the half million in reserve that's unallocated FY 23. So could they actually say it's available now for a project? It has to go kind of quickly to council. So even if the CPA committee were to make recommendations that have council vote, I mean, maybe they would vote early on just one on the reserve funding in February or March, but, you know, that's still not, you know, immediate. But And we're not talking about the church being able to front this money and then reimbursed, right? They don't have it. Yeah. You can't reimburse them. That's the other thing. Like even after town council approves it, you can't start working till July 1. Right. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, I just think that they didn't listen the times that we talked to them. And now we're in this pickle. Right. So let me ask that then what are, what are, what's the, if I came to the meeting tomorrow, because we're not going to vote on the slate tomorrow, I don't think. And we, I think we have done in the past, we've had like a full slate where we took one project, didn't put it on the slate. I think we did that with Jones, right? So it required further deliberation. So, so that we're not pressured into making this, this decision right now that we have, we're in support of supporting the church, but we have just have reservations about the estimates that have come in and we need a better we want to go back to the applicant. And I can, you know, I can talk to the funeral too, you know, if that helps, like I can see on the call. I mean, I think sometimes there's just, you know, there's, there's just not clarity between all the parties. Like I've been trying to do this ever since it came up, trying to get, trying to find the right person who could, who could look at this project and say, okay, here's what we do first, here's what we do second, here's what we do third, here's where we go for the estimates, you know, it's kind of straightforward. But nobody's kind of standing up to, to do that job. So I would suggest that tomorrow I say, we want to put off voting on this one on the, if it comes to a slate vote, we want to leave this one off. We want to continue to confer with funeral and the applicant to see if we can come up with a better plan for what needs to be done now, and then how it can be funded. Like if there is $20,000, they can come out of the FY23 reserve to button up the roof. That could happen really fast. If you can get a contractor, you know, would that be the best, you know, first step to take? And that's good. As long as all the money is then voted away, as long as there's still money. If you come back and you say, okay, that actually is the exact estimate, and that is what needs to be done. And we do have $60,000. Is it still going to be there? What I could do is suggest that we put that $150,000 in reserve, which would be available July 1, and it would be dedicated to historic preservation. I think that would be the way to handle it. And the town can help me, you know, with that. But that's, that would be the other piece. We'd like to do a set aside of the $150,000 so that when we get this vote straight now, that's what needs to happen. As long as the other projects can get funded. But that doesn't happen. No, I don't think that. I don't think it will be an issue. I think there's enough flexibility in housing. I don't know. I mean, it depends on how the other CTA committee may members feel about prioritizing historic preservation over affordable housing. That's really the, the gist of it. But I, that I can't predict. But at least, at least I have a game plan for, for, for the North Church. Hey, Madeline, you okay with that? Yeah. Yeah, sounds good. Does that make sense, Nate? No, it does. Yeah. I mean, I spoke with some staff today. I mean, I think, you know, I know some of the housing proposals just, you know, they can't be funded at the request, but right, you know, I feel like, you know, even partial requests for the housing ones will get you to a million dollars. And then that, you know, that still leaves almost 900,000 left for the rest of the proposal say, you know, I don't know. Yeah, I guess it depends on how the committee, you know, how they really feel about the other proposals. So I think, I think the strategy we came up with for the preservation projects, it sounds good. I like that trying to do the reserve, I guess they're right. The question really is how does the rest of the committee feel about, you know, the other, you know, there's, you know, there's a number of recreation projects and the men housing projects. Well, we can't predict. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, like I said, and I think we've moved in Robin enough direction and we can move on. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Okay. Next is recruiting new members. We're just once again, Nate and I put that on because it's so essential that you all reach out to residents and Amherst. And Paul is going back to that person, Nate, right, that I had recruited who volunteered. So there may be somebody there, but we'll still need somebody else. So please try to think of people. They don't have to be super uber qualified if they're willing to do some work. And, you know, we do have qualified people on the committee. We basically need volunteers who are going to take up projects and follow through. Yeah. And it's not, yeah. And some of this is on the agenda as well, just to let you know, it's not a violation of open meeting law to, right, to meet with people or to contact them and have them, you know, they could reach out to myself or the town or even submit a form. It's not, you know, that's, that's perfectly acceptable to talk to people and say, look, the commission has openings and meet with them. So it's not, you know, it's not nefarious or anything. It's really when I sent emails, I explained what the commission does, why preservation is important for the town, what their responsibilities would be, how often we meet that kind of thing. So they knew right there in writing what the, the deal would be. And then I put, I put a link, a hot link to the form to fill out, you know, for a citizen, what's it called, citizen, something or other. I'd say activity form. I'm not sure if that's what it is anymore. Yeah. Well, it used to be. So I had, I had somebody at my house last night who I know has been interested in joining a committee and I'm pretty sure she's put an application and she doesn't have any historic preservation experience. How do we feel about that? Not everybody on the committee does. Not everybody on the commission does. They're interested and they are supportive and they're willing to do volunteer work and stuff, you know. Okay. Great. I will let her know again. So should she, I know you have to submit the form, Nate, is there any way that, you know, for her, for that not to just get lost and I don't know, whatever the, sorry, is there anything that she, if she, it's a community activity form, I would just remind the person or anyone, if, if you're, if you're asking them, they, I think you, you know, you can check what board or committee you're interested in. And sometimes people will check everything. And sometimes it might be specific to a few. And so I would just have, you know, they could submit more than one to, I would just have them do the, you know, historic commission. And then that way, when we run a report on it or the town manager's office, it's visible that that's their interest. And so, okay. Yeah, I don't think there's any, it doesn't get lost. I think the town manager is aware of the vacancies. And I think in January, we're trying to pull together everyone for interviews. You know, I think there had been an email sent out trying to get people to have availability in the next month or so to interview. Right. Okay. So if everybody could work on that, it would be great if there were a bigger committee, a bigger commission, where more of the work could be divvied out, and we could do more, you all could do more projects. We as a town. Okay. Public outreach and education. This was on there just because Nate and I had talked about some of the things that I've been interested in seeing in the future, and that I would be willing to help with. And one of those is something that Hedy and I had talked about. And that is to try to bring awareness of barn preservation to the level of house. And one of the things that's done by the historical society is, is to give tours of houses so that people think about their own and think about the value of older houses. And you know, all that. And we thought, this was a couple of years ago, we talked about, what about having barn tours? And the historical society does houses, we could do barns, we could ask people to consider submitting their barn for a tour. And, you know, they would spiffy it up. And they could feel pride in their barn. And a lot of people like to talk about the history of their barn or how it's being used or whatever. And then if that kind of thing starts to over the years, you know, people go to them and start seeing them, it'll start to filter down that barns are worth saving. And then if you have one, you might, rather than tearing it down, you might want to fix it up and have it on the tour. And then of course, talk about CPA, possible funding and that kind of thing. So that was just an idea I had. And I'm hoping you all might want to run with it. And I'd be willing to come back and help after, you know, June is over. Yeah, I'm, I just did a whole barn survey for the end of my graduate program in Lebanon, New Hampshire. And I think I sent Jan at you and Nate an email about sponsoring this barn preservation specialist. I went, he was, he was my contact for the survey. He's a UNH retired professor. He's written a book. And I also went to one of his talks and it was great. And I thought that would be a great way to tie things in and we could conceivably invite it, right? Not just for us. Yeah, no, he did the talk at like a little church and a bunch of people came. And so we would have something like that. And conceivably, it could also be co-sponsored by the Western Mass Commission Coalition, whatever they're it to get and would get promoted through the listserv and through preservation mass too. So that that would be a nice start. We could do that in the spring. We covered it all the local media. And yeah, I think that's a great way to start. And then maybe from there, start doing some tours of local barns, because people would be aware then. Yeah, I think it'd be great to do that. And I think we could start next summer, it would be a nice focus. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and maybe, right, maybe we start talking about it now and we plan, you know, two or three public forums, workshops, whatever we want to call them. But, you know, we could have this, you know, Robin, the professor you mentioned. And, you know, maybe we have a second one. And, you know, it would be great just to have, you know, come up with some formatting, you know, an agenda and everything. And then that could lead into something else. But it'd be great to have like a series of one or two meetings that are open to the public, whatever we want to call them. But, you know, the housing trust, I work with them. But, you know, even during COVID, you know, in the course of three months, we had a workshop every month for three months. And we covered, you know, affordable housing and diversity, affordable housing and seniors, affordable housing and transportation. And it was just, you know, we were able to have three or four speakers or two at a meeting. And we tried to advertise it. And it was great. We had anywhere from, you know, 30 to 50 people attend, but it was just, you know, it was really helpful. And after that, I think one of them was also renting to people with vouchers or renting to affordable tenants. And afterward, you know, a few property owners in town emailed me and contacted me and said, Oh, I, you know, I feel more comfortable now renting to someone who's lower moderate income. You know, that, you know, that was, you know, that's great, right? That's one of the benefits of doing this is just trying to get people more aware of the topic. And so, you know, I think one workshop would be great. It'd be great if we could talk about, could we have two or three, and that leads into maybe some, something happening on site over the summer at, you know, different properties. And so, you know, that could become a whole, you know, three to six month program, we started talking about this winner. And maybe we could get New Hampshire. They have a really strong barn. This is a preservation project, right, Heddy? Yeah, we could get that to come. And, you know, we used to do it in the summer and it was sponsored by the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, but New Hampshire Historical Commission would get involved as well. And they would share their lists so that we could invite more and more people. Just wondering if, you know, I attended one of their seminars, if they'd be willing to just say, show us what they're doing, you know, and talk to our people about what they've accomplished, that kind of thing, and give examples, visual examples that could excite our townspeople. The New Hampshire Preservation Alliance is who set me up with my barn survey. So, I know that they have the assessment program, which is what I based our proposal off. And they also have a statewide tax abatement program. But I can get in touch with Beverly Thomas. She's my contact there, Kayo. Great, great. Okay, well, that would be a wonderful thing to do in the near future. I think it would move things along because we've been focusing on outbuildings for a while and it would start to bring some of it to fruition. Okay, do we have anybody in the public waiting to come at Nate? Is anybody out there? There's two members. If you want to speak, you could raise your hand. And let me now let me tell you that we need you to state your full name and address and that you have up to three minutes to make a statement or ask the question. All right, Hilda, you can be allowed to speak. Yeah, I got two questions here. One is for the, and I guess they're both for the indie actually, who are the stakeholders when you were talking about the preservation plan? Can you tell me? Can you answer that question? And then do you have another question you want to ask or do you want to have this one answered first? Well, that's the other question. Yeah, answer that one. I got that one. It's more complicated. Sure. Yeah, the stakeholders, I mean, we talked about having local institutions, whether it's museums or different societies, organizations, property owners. So it's not just a range of even developers, just a range of having two or three stakeholder group meetings with, it could be 10 stakeholders in each group. So having could be 30 different individuals involved. And so we had, and I think I have not my list in front of me, but we had a wide range of different stakeholders that we'd want to pull, just the matter of who's available and willing to come to those meetings. But we try to cast a wide net to get different opinions and perspectives. Okay. And then I'm asking this question on behalf of several people who would like to know that you had Eric Radoya and he was greeted with great acclaim for his report on the historic preservation requirements of Jones Library. So the question that I'm asked to get from you is what is the status of your required review of the possible adverse impacts of the Jones Library renovation project? I didn't understand the question. What is the question is what is the status in, in so far as they're now going forward with plans? And there are certain requirements of mass historical, the, the, and especially from Eric Radoya's report of the interior being preserved as well as the exterior. And you guys have that purview to look at it. When is that going to happen? Oh, that's based upon, yeah, the concern that things haven't been met according to requirements. Right. My understanding is that because everything was slowed down during COVID and during rethinking the funding and revoting and things being held up that we're only now getting when we have the information to send in. And so that's, that's being done by the town. You know, we can't control getting that information and you have to have a certain, have it at a certain point before it can be submitted. But we're not. No, people don't discuss it on a public meeting what the adverse impacts might be. It's not discussed locally. Oh, no. So right now we haven't, there hasn't been that discussion. So the library, as Jen was saying, they're reformulated some of the plans and we were still need certain information to then have this meeting, this discussion. And so it hasn't, you know, you know, you bring it up, I made a note to myself to follow up. But we haven't, you know, last time I, the conversation was, or there was email between Ben and the library, and they said they were going to reach back out to us when they were ready to have this. And so, you know, that they haven't, but there had been communication just a few months ago about this. And so, you know, so my understanding is they just haven't, they don't have the information ready to bring back. It all had to be revised a couple of times. So. But why, why are they continuing to spend money to revise it if they haven't been before your board yet? That's the question I guess. I don't think they're spending money to revise it. They're just because of the change in the funding concerns, the change, they had to wait a long time during that revote and everything. I think I don't think there's more money being spent. I just think it's time passing. My understanding. Can I make, yeah, I think that I had this conversation a while ago and understanding the project notification form process, that the final project needs to reach needs to reach a stage of kind of semi permanence before there's any point in reviewing the any, any, if there are any negative impact, because if the project is going to continue to go through revisions, you're just wasting the time of the commission, and you're addressing things that may or may not be a problem. So there's essentially a kind of tipping point that you reach where the PNF process comes in, and we just haven't reached that the project is not defined enough at this point. And that might sound a little silly, but from the architect architect architect standpoint, it's not defined enough yet to warrant that discussion, and that when it is defined enough, that that is when the PNF process will go through, and it'll come before us and we'll have that so I think we're just not we're not far enough along yet. Thank you for that answer, but I don't find it very enticing or satisfying. I will pass them on. Well, that's pretty much the case we've been waiting and until they give us the material we can't really look at a finished proposal. So thanks for bringing those concerns to us, Hilda. Really? I don't know. It's like a broken record. Well, we always have the same response because that's we're in the same process as we've been all along. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say. Well, some of us are just worried that they get too far and then then you can't backtrack. Yeah, but it has to be at a certain point before we can, you know, look at it as a presentation. If it's still uncertain, then it doesn't do any good. Is it my understanding that there actually aren't a set of presentation drawings for the library renovation and demolition? We've seen schematics. We've seen drawings that suggest changes to the front door and the canopy over the front door related to the new the new proposals by Fine Gold Alexander. But it seems to me that there aren't there isn't yet a proper set of architectural drawings. And when there are, we would have that discussion, Hilda. Or specs drawings or steps. Just not a large project that it has that has to come to that. And, you know, it's a it is very I can see why it would be frustrating from a kind of community perspective. But there are so many other pieces of this that haven't been sorted out to do with financing that I just don't think that it just it just is a question that has to be asked at the at the moment when those drawings are available and the financing is clear. I don't know what else to say. But I can see why you're asking the question. I'm asking it on behalf of somebody else who can't be there. Okay, well, we've we've had letters and we know this is an issue and we, you know, we're waiting to and we're concerned, but we're part of a much bigger process. So as soon as it happens, we'll, you know, you'll be the first to hear it because you're always in our meetings, which is not having come for a while, actually. Well, that's true. You weren't at the last couple, but hopefully you'll be at the others. Okay, thank you very much. Any other we had one other public comment, you said, Nate, or one other member, but not sure if they have a comment. Oh, okay. Anyone else want to make a comment before we close this section of the agenda? Okay. Okay, unanticipated items. You did have one thing. I'm going to give you five minutes to present this and get through it. Yeah, so the North Amherst fire station, you know, had came to the design review board and they are looking to replace siding. The descriptions right here, they have T111 panel siding in certain locations on the building and they're hoping to replace it with metal siding painted red. And the designer review board said, you know, so here's an example of where on the south elevation where they would put this metal siding over the paneling. And it's similar to the paneling in terms of the design, you know, that T111 has, you know, this vertical pattern. And then here's another kind of illustration where on the north elevation where it would be. And these examples show that the shaded areas are where it would be replacing existing siding. It would actually go over the existing siding. So they're not going to remove the paneling. They're going to put the metal on top of it. And it, you know, would have some depth to it then a little bit. So the designer review board... Is the design starting building, Nate? Not necessarily, but the DRB felt that because of the architecture, somewhat unique architecture, would the Historical Commission want to review this more? You know, it's probably about 50 years old. And so the question was, you know, is this, you know, something, it's not a demolition, it wouldn't trigger a demolition review, but is it something that the Commission would want to offer recommendations on a review? And so... Do you have photos of the current status? I, you know, I don't. I could, I could just pull up a Google street view. I should have done that. This came in late and I didn't get to it. Yeah, I know. Right now it's like stone colored. This would be a major contrast, right? Well, the panels were painted, but they since faded. Oh, that's right. So I think, yeah, I think it will look as like a big contrast, but when it was probably actually done, it wasn't, you know, it wouldn't be. It's just, you know, the building wasn't maintained. I'm going to see if I can... Nate, I just emailed you a picture from Wikipedia comments of the entire building. It looks brutalist to me. Right. So that's what it was. It is. Yeah, it's definitely brutalist. Yeah. That's not the definition of brutalism, but that's another story. Well, it's, I said brutalist. So here's the area right here, which is faded. It'll be now the red, you know, vertical metal, you know, this up here, where it's kind of white would be as well. Yikes. They want to paint it red? Well, I want it to be decided. Yeah, this had been painted and obviously it looks like it's just completely faded. Yeah. I mean, the style is a ripoff of what UMass has. They're trying to play with being in the north near UMass, why it's this is. And making it red metal is going to look totally different from the reference to that style. But I'm sorry, was it originally? Oh, go ahead. You know, autistic and out, I was at meeting last night or Monday night, and the boy was very much in favor of the attractiveness of the change. It really does look nice. But the concern was, is it historic and should it remain as it is? Because it's building of the nature of the same point period as many of the UMass buildings. So that's why they decided to bring it here to have us take a look at it. Right. Yes. Too bad it's the sunlight washes it out, but then facing the road, right, this upper banding right here. And then here would be. Can you say it's faded, but what was it? It wasn't red. Yeah, it's funny. It's, they said it was painted. I mean, so it's T11. So it's like a composite material. You know, right now, you know, you can get T11 and now like Home Depot comes like a four by eight sheet. It's often what you see on sheds. You know, it's almost looked like a, as a very narrow, almost like bored and batten look, right? Vertical recesses. And so typically it's painted. I actually wouldn't know. I thought it was, I thought it wasn't someone, I thought Maureen today, I thought she said it would have been painted a color, but that's what it says in the application, doesn't it? Yeah, but it's so faded that looks white. I mean, it's hard to see any color left if it had. Here's from 2009. I love Google Street View and you can do this. I mean, it's faded then. So maybe, I don't know, maybe it was just primed, you know, comes pre-primed. Maybe it was just never painted. Or they've repainted it the same color. I don't know how do people feel. I mean, I think it would definitely take away from the brutalist reference to keep it. Yeah, I actually found a 1975 photo of it from. Oh, did you? The, like, opening ceremony. Can you share the screen? I don't know. Can I, do I have that capability? I think panelists are able to if you have it on the screen. Yeah, it's at the bottom, it's green, shares screen. The image has to be open to be able to then share. I think it says disabled. No, it does. Madeleine, how did you find that? On newspapers.com? I do. It's a black and white photo, but. Oh, that does help us for color. Very light. Maybe it was never painted. Maybe it was just painted light. It was my understanding from the meeting that it was a lighter color. Maybe it was that sort of white drag. And they're just because of the kind of fire engine association. I mean, why red? Because of the U.S.? It looks nice. I mean, like I said, everyone really liked it, but the concern was did it need to remain the same? Let me just share my screen quickly. The metal they're proposing has 24, I don't know how many colors, right? So the gauge metal has a variation in color. So would the commission say find something that matches what's there? Well, it's 50 years old. It's not 50 years, if 75 is when it was open. I don't know exactly when it was built. Well, Madeleine said that her photo was from when it was open and that was 1975. So it's only. So I've got December 5th, 75. It was put into operation. That's the town website. Yeah, technically. Right. Well, even that, even, even that it's not old enough, you know, my, my, I like, I'm interested in the use of the metal siding. Maybe that's being considered for efficiency reasons or extra protection for the building, you know, that, but maybe it should stay the same color. I mean, I don't know. We're just a neutral color. If we could put it on January's agenda, or we could try to have a, you know, something tonight, it is an unanticipated item. So I'm losing focus. Can I ask a question about why are we having a discussion about changing the color? Is it because it's historic? It's blending the environment. And that was the, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but it was the design review board's decision about does it land there? Does it work? And they kicked it to us only from the historical perspective. Well, that's what I'm saying is that from a historical perspective, if this building was meant to conform to the look of the UMass buildings nearby, putting bright red siding is, is going to defeat that. It won't anymore. It won't have that affinity. That's why more of a neutral color would keep that look. So I mean, a gray or a beige or something, and they could use the same material, but maybe what should be done is to look more at the UMass buildings, at least their original look and in 75 or something, and get a better sense of how it might fit that better, you know, and then come back and say, it should be this color or it should, or that would be fine or whatever. But I think Nate's right, let's put it on the next agenda so that there's a little research time. Is everybody feel like that, or do we feel like it doesn't even belong here because it's only 48 years old? Robin agrees. Yeah, I kind of feel like I'm not sure why there's rain until heavily on it, because of the end to the building. Only because the, you know, the Maureen's email had said that, you know, it's pending a review of the Historical Commission. So, you know, if, you know, typically they can ask advice of other boards and committees, and it seems like they have at this, for this project, you know, if they hadn't, then we wouldn't necessarily be involved. The commission wouldn't. Yeah, I mean, Becky, your group decided to send it to us, right? So, they decided because there was a concern of one person about historic values. Everybody likes the design, and they all voted and said, yeah, we really like the color, we like the design, but let's double check and make sure there's not an historic reason to keep it the way it is. Well, that's what I'm suggesting. There is a historic reason if it's supposed to have an affinity with the architecture at UMass. Okay, that's what I would suggest. So, I would say maybe a little research on the buildings, maybe find out a little bit about the design and what the purview was, what the, you know, the plan was, why was it designed to look like that? And then go from there. It's just hard to make a decision out of the blue, you know, with a few minutes notice. Is that good with everybody? Yeah, that's good. Okay, great, because we're, we're, we've gone longer than we ever have under my and I don't like this. People are getting tired. So, we're gonna miss you, Jen. Well, you ever need somebody to come in and say, it's time to stop the meeting, just call me. Next meeting date, there is a public hearing for demolition application, and when is that that firing date? January 11th. And so, you know, there's two, one was just received last week too. So, there's two demolition requests in and they'll both be going to a hearing on January 11th. Okay. There's, you know, there's been a few, a few others. And we have a new permitting software and there's been some building permit applications to remove or demolish parts of buildings. And the applicants have yet to submit, you know, essentially a demolition application. And so it could be that in February two or March, there's another public hearing just it seems like, you know, people are kind of getting projects ready, whether it's for spring or just winter. But, you know, there are. Deadline coming up is January 11th. Yeah. So for these two, January 11th, is it, you know, if we can't meet then, I mean, it seems like everyone, I pulled the commission, it seemed like the fifth and the 11th, the 11th works better for me. I'm now, you know, so Ben's left and then Maureen, the other planner is leaving. So I've been having like three or four meetings a week. And so I have one January 3rd and 4th. And then I have one the 10th, 9th, 10th and the 11th. So I have my share of night meetings. So sometimes it's my availability as well, but the 11th, it works for the timing requirements. And you pulled everybody and everybody could do it. So, okay. So everybody put January 11th down. And then February, you can wait because you want to see what the, if there are any more applications, right? Is that good with everyone? Okay. Well, I wish you well. I hope it's an easy next year. Let me know what happens with the preservation plan. I'm really interested in seeing how they're up. Yep. Thank you, Jen. I enjoyed working with all of you. Thank you for being such a good leader. I'm just on task. Yeah, I'm going to keep your name on the, I'm going to keep your name on my email group. So, you know, you can either read the emails or delete them. Okay, that's fine. I mean, once we get back to summer and I'm over with this insane semester, I'd be happy to help out on projects. So, great. That's great. Good luck with everything. Thank you so much. Well, take care. Oh, wait, we have to move to adjourn. Who wants to move? I move. I make a motion that we move to adjourn. Anyone want a second? Second. All in favor? Show of hands. Have a good holiday, everybody. Have a good holiday, everyone. Bye. Thank you. Bye.