 So I think we're going to have to perhaps have an abbreviated meeting. I was going to obviously try to allow for to hear from the public early, but I'm not seeing anyone in attendance other than the commission members. So I think what I can say is we can call the meeting to order. And I don't know if anyone is set up to take notes. If we're probably going to be having a fairly quick meeting and like fairly quick, I mean, within about an hour, is there anyone who could take notes during that time? This is being recorded, right? So I can try to I'll take notes, but don't don't fault me if I need something. Okay, so other folks, if we can also do some highlights, I haven't taken notes in a while. Well, I mean, one of the things that we need to do in any event is, you know, for the minute meetings, we need to just mark when the meeting is called to order. When we touch on an agenda item, if there's a motion relating to that agenda item, and then how the commission voted on that motion and when we vote to adjourn. So that's that's all we really need to have. For the minute. I think I can do that. That doesn't seem like too difficult. All right. All right. So, then the first thing I want to do is, is to ask if there's any other agenda items. Does everyone have a copy of the agenda up? I can share a share screen. Yeah. That might take. Okay. I have to go. I have it on my phone so I can see it. Yeah, it's, it's pretty simple. Which is looking at the conversations we're going to have fall planning in general, and the role of commissioners to chair and the town staff liaison, which was something that we were asked to discuss in our last meeting. I'll also note that we borrowed at Jennifer's suggestion. Some of the language that Northampton uses to notify the public that, that there are opportunities at the beginning of our meetings to present to make remarks and that unfortunately we can't open up at the end of the meetings again and do that. So that's, that's what we've got on the agenda for right now. I believe I've notified all of you by email that as far as making sure we're up to nine members again, we went through some interviews. There will be some names presented to that within about within the next month that town council will have an opportunity to vote on that. Okay. Okay. So I think that by September, we may have new members. And we may be back up to nine. Because the. Commission. The term on the commission ends as of June 30th. The. We're, we're, we always run into this issue in the July and August meetings that we have fewer members able to attend during the period and with travel and other things. All right. So let me just ask everyone if there was anything else that we need to add to the agenda, because if not, then I think everything can be done within that timeframe. Yeah. Right. So we're going to call the meeting to. To order or. Yes, the meeting was called to order at 605. Okay. That's what I thought. That's what I put down 605. So. Yeah. All right. Cool. As far as approval of the. Okay. June minutes. I haven't looked at the July ones yet. The July ones will probably. Because we haven't been able to talk about the June ones and what shifts. We need to make. You know, I think the July ones may also be a little bit on, on the longer side and more of a report. Of everything that was said. Yeah. As opposed to a, the, the actions of the commission. Yeah. So I think we have a lot of information and. We have a lot of people that. Because we knew that there were presentations going to be made. By the town councilors who are coming and by the shavaz as. And by. Debra snow from bridges for unity. And that was all on our agenda. And because they made certain suggestions. But because we didn't really vote on them, we have on the June minute meetings, we have motions with regard to the actual presentations that we would have, the conversations that we would have as community conversations. And so those would need to be in the minutes, but the other language found throughout would not need to be in there. What I think I'd recommend doing is, I will send around an abbreviated version of the June and July meeting minutes, and then we can compare those two at our next meeting and see whether people feel like there needs to be more in there from what I cut out, or if the shorter version would make sense. Does that seem like a workable plan? Yeah. I think that would also allow, Deb, I see Petra, that would also allow Deb to be here when we're discussing it, which I think would be helpful. All right. So we're going to table the votes on those meeting minutes for right now. Then the next thing would be any reports that needs to be made. I've already made one, I suppose, with regard to looking for other commissioners and the expectation of what will be happening with commissioners coming on. I don't know if others, I know that everybody else is involved in different aspects of town government as well. And so if there's anything that relates back to what we're doing on the commission, I'd love to hear about it if commissioners have anything that they can share. Well, I know I think it was the last meeting, maybe the last one that we were going to look at maybe collaborating with some of these other institutions of higher learning and also the high school and programming, but since everybody's going to go virtual with the exception of Amherst, I'm not sure how that is going to work. And Amherst pretty much the campus is closed to everyone who's not a student, faculty or staff. So I think that that's going to be something that either we have to see what, I know at UMass we're going to put a list of programs in place, but I'm not sure how much of it is going to deal with what we do in here. Let's put it this way. So maybe there will be something to talk around November. I think by that time we'll know exactly what's happening with the other institutions and then we can look at collaborating with some of the groups on Black History Month and other places that we've been able to look at those areas of collaboration. I think right now it's going to be almost impossible to collaborate with some of these groups because they still, I mean, we just, at UMass we just pivoted Thursday. So everybody's just trying to not drop all these balls we have up in the air. Yeah, yeah, I saw it on the news hour. So I think one of the things we need to look at is what groups we can work with within town. So for example, if we're looking at anti-racism and equity issues in education, that is something that perhaps we need to delay because educators are trying their best to figure out what's happening with schools going forward. You know, I think we could probably have a conversation around health and COVID and what is happening in our town and perhaps arrange a way for it to be virtual so that we can have, and you know, we're still working at the technology on having breakout groups so that there can be small groups having conversations. But I think that that's what people are looking for is to be able to have an understanding of what's happening in town and to be able to discuss it and how it's impacting different groups of people within the town of Amherst. You know, that's a good question. Jennifer, do you know if, because I haven't been able to find it, maybe it's me, do we break down our numbers in town based on race, gender, and all this other stuff that we have that break down when it comes to COVID? Oh. Cause I only see whole numbers, so I'm not sure. Yeah, I don't know that would come from the health department and I, and I know they're just, they're not really releasing any information about any person that has COVID, but they might have the demographics of it and that I can check with them tomorrow. Yeah, I think that would be important because I mean, as we know, we all been reading all this stuff. I mean, some communities, black communities is like 30 to 38% infection rate and some Latino communities which I've startled the other day by reading, it can be up to 46% infection rate. So I think based on some of the communities and groups that we have here in town, it would be interesting to see, if there's groups that we need to target with more education, what type of medications are they in English, is it in Vietnamese, is it in Cambodian, in Spanish, Portuguese, whatever, it's, you know what I'm saying? I think they would be better. So not directly related to COVID, but direct at COVID because COVID it's just impacts everything, unfortunately. Correct, correct, absolutely. And so I think that, like I went into the town manager's office today and I was like, oh, what if we do like a, if we have artists go out to, you know, the different complexes and then I was like, oh wait, COVID. So it's like everything that I can possibly think of is not able to happen in the way that I can imagine it because of COVID. So it means you have to think outside the box a little bit for things. So I know that the Jones Library met with Sharon Cherry and they have a lot of money to purchase books. So one of the things that I've heard from some community members is they kind of want groups that are outside of town a little bit, but they were thinking of, I was thinking maybe they could form a book club around African-American authors or they can pick, you know, whatever type diversity, whatever that is. And that would just be through the librarian, whatever, whomever joins that group that's not necessarily associated with anything. And I know that Paul is going to do three community conversations because we've just heard over and over and over again that the community wants to have conversations with the town manager. And so that will happen. And I know, and I'd be interested to hear what people say about this. He was, we were thinking it would be good for him to do one in Spanish as opposed to having a translator with us at that time. And so I guess the question is like the outreach would be really important for that one so that people are aware. And I don't, you know, I think even if it's only three or four people that show that that's still okay. So there's that piece. And then we have the survey which I've given to community members to just kind of get some feedback. So I'm revamping it yet again. And I think another piece which would be good from suggestions from commissioners would be to how to make sure it's outreached properly like that outreach with the survey so that it goes to everyone other than putting it in the United States postal service mail. Yeah, that's not working to all these days. Well, I didn't know. But, well, the other thing is we would like to have it translated in multiple languages. So it makes it difficult if you want to mail it too then it all of a sudden becomes a different issue. So, and I guess that I would look for you if possible for it to translate into Portuguese. Did you say you translated into Portuguese? That would be fantastic. And we have Spanish is covered. And so I think we're looking for Mandarin and Cambodian if anybody knows anybody who could. Or Chinese. I can do Kaver in Rio too. Well, that would be good too. So that's where we are with that. Apparently the survey is a lot harder than I just anticipated because sometimes I get these things in my head. It's like, oh, we'll just ask six, seven questions and send it out. But that's, you know, it takes, you need a lot of thought behind it to make sure you get the correct data that you need. So that's that. That was a lot of rundown. I don't know if you guys are asking for all of that but that's what's going on. Well, that's good to know. So can you remind us which survey you're talking about? Oh yeah. So, you know, the community conversation that wasn't a community conversation. I was trying to get feedback from folks because I think that one of the things that we, I mean, we could do it without the feedback is just to have, you know, like you said different workshops or webinars or focus groups. But, you know, it would be nice to know who needs what but we could just advertise that we were gonna do one on just say redlining, right? And then whomever shows shows but it just seems like it might, so I don't know, we might not need to do the survey now that I think about it but it just seems like it would be good to get community input. This is going to be fine. Oh, sorry. Oh, I was just gonna say, I think the survey is valuable. I think it's really, especially if we get it translated and if we, you know, can support you as commissioners in doing some of the outreach around it because that's the biggest piece of work really is, you know, getting it into people's hands but I think it'd be really valuable because sometimes it's like we can do all the planning in the world but if it's not what people want, then so I'd really love to do the survey. All right. We need to get a sense of what a response rate would look like and what that would mean as far as us actually having information on what the community wants, right? So I don't know if we were looking at something like an online survey, who we lose if we do an online survey. I'm special in everything virtually. Right. So I, for that piece of it right there, any avenue of a way that I could go and outreach, it would go. So it would cover socials, it would be on Facebook, the link to it to the webpage. It would be on our website. It would, I would bring it to the Amherst Survival Center and try and have it in some type of box. So people could, you know, put it back in if they like or even if I have to spend it like a lunch day out there or a couple of lunch days out there, I would go to complexes. I would try and spread it as far as possible and then send it to the commissioners, to the council. So they can send it to their constituents. So, I mean, as many avenues that I can think of, I would use. So if someone has one outside of that, that would be great. I mean, I'm more than willing on a Saturday or the day that the mobile food pantry comes or the day that, you know, I don't know. Yeah, the mobile market would be good. Right. The new mobile market. Yeah, I would, I could go over there and on the day that that comes out and, you know, and hand out the survey and, you know, answer people's questions if they have a have them. I think for your safety, like rather than having people put it in a box, like maybe, maybe we can, you know, do it so that it's like a person is asking someone and helping them fill it out. So that there's not so much like exchange of touching. I don't know. I just feel concerned about you gathering a bunch of papers that have been turned in. Thank you very much, much appreciated. I know. So I think I, I'm just trying to avoid any of it having to fall on the staff at the ASC because they're already and not bred alone because they're already so overwhelmed. Yeah. So which is why it's thinking like I also don't want it to fall all on you either. Like if we as commissioners could. Divvy up some of that. I think that would be really helpful. Yep. And Petra, you have your, the, the link to the youth. So we will hand you a stack and send you out. Or let's do it on text or Facebook or. Oh, right. I see. I'm still so like pre living a pre COVID mind. It's terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Cause everybody's a, you may as well as these kids. That's all they're working on is the Instagram. Instagram and. Can we, can we get it on Tik Tok? Cause everybody would see it if we could do it. Um, so. Yep. And if anybody has any suggestions, I mean, I can either send what I have out of the survey to you well or if anybody has specific. Suggestions about questions to ask on the survey, I welcome that. I mean, so when I first started the survey, it started out with do you or how you, and then I kind of changed it to I've experienced the follow. You know what I mean? Just to make it a little more personable, but even still. There's, you know, some word play to happen. So. It's also hard because we kind of have two different groups of people. We have a group of who are experiencing these issues. And then we have a group that either sees them or doesn't see them, but they're happening. And so. It's. You wouldn't want to send out two separate. And then that makes it hard because then you're. You know, grouping people. Even more. And so it's just a little. I don't know any suggestions are welcome. So I'm assuming. Sorry. Yeah, I was just going to ask, I'm assuming that, you know, without seeing the questions that, that, you know, asking about the demographic information of who's responding will give a real perception difference among groups. If that, if the perception is different among groups, if the people who are living it. Recognize something different from those who are. Reporting to witness it, but are, are witnessing something different than what someone is experiencing. That information would come into, to you. Through the questionnaire as well. Yep. And so not to switch off. Oh, did you want to say something about the survey? No, that's okay. Okay. So. At the D five meeting was a very interesting D five meeting. A couple of weeks back. But. People spoke and they made really valid points about. The policing of the masks in, in town. And so. And keeping. Keeping their name silence or, you know, so that. At the meeting, nothing was going to be. Nobody's name was being used in anything that was going to be forwarded over to the council to review. But, you know, basically she stated that. The community needs to step up, right? So the police have been all are always called when it should be, sometimes it could be handled through the community, right? So if we were all being good community members to each other, we wouldn't have to police in the. In the downtown area. However, getting all of the community on one page is much harder than. It seems right. And then we also have to remember some of our community members and I. Art. Our younger and our students and, and my, and just, you know, I'm not going to wear my mask and then they don't wear it. So, but she raised a good point about community and the police. And how that works. So what's the procedure right now is people call the police. No, they're going to be ambassadors. Oh, okay. So we're going to have investors in town. Okay. Yeah. Actually, I like that. So you're going to do a massive, the students were to come back. I mean, we'll still have some of those. I think that's how you said they're going to be ambassadors. Do you mean there will be ambassadors that are the police officers or are you suggesting that members are agreeing to be ambassadors? I don't, I'm not quite sure who they're hiring, but there will be ambassadors and they will not be uniformed police officers. Yeah, probably have a t-shirt or something because I know they have that concept in New York City where they have, you know, community ambassadors that goes and they have masks and, you know, hand sanitizers and all that stuff. And they just engage people, you know, you know, just giving them information. And of course, sometimes they get cast out, but most of the time they say they're successful and just, and then they obviously trade on the escalation, you know, tactics and all this other stuff. They, I think so. Yes. I'm, I'm imagining them similar to the CSOs room. I don't know who was around when CSOs were in the downtown area, but we still have CSOs here that were like little tan outfits and. Yep. I'm assuming that's community safety officer or something like that. I think that was the idea. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Just trying to make sure we're all on the same page. But something like that where people will be reaching out on, on that issue. And I don't know that that will do away with this notion that some groups of people are being approached more quickly are being told that even if you're distancing, that's not good enough. As opposed to other groups of people. Yeah, that's a, that was, that was spoke of and basically that it would prevent people from going to town because they feel like they will be targeted. Right. So. It's definitely something to think about, like, how do, how do we make this work? So. In our last meeting, we talked about if we had community conversations, ideally, we'd want to bring in an expert who can talk with people who are local and who are managing things here in Amherst and also make sure there's time for community conversation. So in order for us to move forward with that, if that's still what we think is what we would recommend, I guess I have three questions. One. Do we want to continue to say that this is sponsored by us and not do it in concert with the town council, the town manager's office, which, you know, obviously Jen, you would know what's what you could do with that and or with like the library or other groups around town. So that's that's one question. I'm sorry, I just, I didn't quite on. Are you saying not to be co-sponsors with these groups or to be co-sponsors with this? Well, that's the question is whether we would want to always, whatever planning we do, do with those other groups. And if we're going to do that, we probably are going to have to delegate authority between meetings for kind of one person to speak for the commission with that group. And so maybe we'll, we'll take turns. We can figure out how to do that. If we're going to have some kind of partnership for each of these conversations, because we are, we don't purport to be the expert in, in policing or in a health, but you know, we are going to be aware of and thoughtful about equity issues within those areas. So if we're going to have a conversation about anti-racism and health or anti-racism in education, we would want to have someone who is in Amherst focused on that issue. A, they have to agree to the timing of it, because if they're going to be part of a conversation and B, if we're going to suggest that they talk with an expert who we bring in from outside, who can bring up some issues that maybe we're not thinking about in Amherst, but we should be thinking about, then we need to get agreement to have that conversation where they're going to be challenged about the work that they do on a day-to-day basis. So, but so the first question is partnership. The second question is to do something all at one time or to do it on separate days, like have a presentation and a follow-up conversation. And the third question is do we end up with a, I'm sorry, you know, when I couldn't get all three questions out at once, I lost track of the third one, I think. But, you know, just trying to see whether this is actually something that is tenable that we can plan. Do we need two months out, three months out for each of these types of things so that we can work with others to get it done? Would this be before the survey or after the survey? Or during the survey? You don't know. Okay. I think after the survey probably would be best because then we'll have more information to direct that conversation. Again, it all depends. I haven't seen the survey, so it depends what kind of question we ask. And then we could get, if everybody is saying this is, this is what's happening to me, then we can say, okay, this is an area that we definitely need to discuss right away or target right away to, so this type of community conversation. I agree. I think that if we could, we could, I can't remember on the survey, but if we wanted to say like prioritize, you know, the following five topics or add ones that you don't see on here or something like that, so we could get a gauge on what people are wanting to talk about. And the one thought I just had about the partnership idea is that I have heard very consistently that something that makes people uncomfortable coming to talk about some of their concerns and experiences is when there are official people in the room. So I guess it's a two-part question, like, one, are these opportunities that we're going to have these conversations or talks going to have to go under open meeting law? And if, like, can they be confidential? I guess, or can they be a level of confidentiality that's different than our regular meetings? So I can just respond, if we were able to get breakout rooms going, when you record a larger event, it doesn't automatically record the breakout session. I think it usually leaves the host on the screen while people are in breakout rooms. So if we were able to do that, which we would need to do for community conversation in any event, then, you know, they would have conversations in smaller groups that would only be kept as private as the people within that group will keep it private. So I don't think we could guarantee that anything stated would never be repeated. I can't promise that. That's what I was going to say. We'd have to caution because, you know, I know for a fact that some meetings that you must have taken place was supposed to be confidential, but somebody had one of these that was videotaping the screen, right? So we have to make sure that, you know, I don't know how confidential it could be. Because I've seen other people videotaping with it. I mean, I think it depends on the community conversation that's being had, too, right? Because... We just can't guarantee confidentiality. I mean, I think, right, and I, and they would need to be opened up in the same sense of saying like we are asking people to honor the honor system and during this, you know, during this meeting. It's not just an honor system. It would be illegal for someone to record something without getting approval in advance. Right, but you don't have to record it to spread it, right? That's right. You can just be like in the grocery store, like, oh yeah, I saw her, she said this, right? Yeah, I understand that it wouldn't be confidential. I guess I was asking, would it need to become public record, like the comments in our meetings do? No, right. Because you guys won't be voting on anything. So we could say, you know, share at your own risk, knowing that, you know, people, we're going to ask you to be confidential, but we can't control individual people's choices, but that this is going to be different from our regular meetings in that it won't become public record. I feel like that's a pretty big, you know, that's one of the main reasons why people don't feel comfortable sharing at our meetings. Yeah. Okay. I see. And then to the other piece just about like, I hesitate to have like an official from the school or an official from the police department because I've heard so regularly that people don't feel comfortable talking even in front of town counselors. Yeah. And again, sometimes I think that that might just differ depending on what the conversation or the workout or focus group is. Right. Because you'll have those who don't feel that issue, but if they're in a more defined focus group where they're working with the school or something like that, then. Then that would be okay. But a general conversation about like, let's talk about. Like, you know, I think that's a good thing. The academics maybe not. If that makes sense, right? Like it really, I think it depends. To respond to that. I think if you have breakout rooms where if, if part of the partnership were, we are going to have a school official in each breakout group. Then I think it would feel like you're reporting to school officials and they are taking notes on what you're saying. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. And people might feel uncomfortable with that. If they're trying to have a community conversation. So I, I, I don't know. I'd have to give some thought to. What a breakout group would look like. Where you're having first the conversation with school officials and perhaps someone else who's got expertise. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that is separate from them. And then you come back with community concerns. So if you did like. Like a three hour block. And you did a one hour presentation. And then. 30 minute breakout group. Discussing some of the concerns that are arise. Come back, present those concerns. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. Whether which concerns rise to the top for you and then bring that back. And I'm, I'm planning something on the fly here. So this is, you know, but that. That type of thing would, would allow for some level. Of anonymity. For the people who are talking. I'm just checking in because I can't see you guys. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to say I haven't heard from Petua and I would love to. And I was just going to say, I wonder if flipping that order. That you just said Matthew might make sense because like hearing a presentation before you hear about the concerns. I wonder if we need to hear about the concerns first. And then yeah, I just wanted to check in with Petua. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to ask, would the, would the expert like presentation be a separate. Well, like what, so we have, we're having a community conversation and then what's the other conversation that's happening. That's my question. So we haven't planned anything yet. So what I was imagining. I was just wondering what you were saying. And I was just wondering what you were saying. So first getting a report from someone in the town. This is what we're doing. This is what we think is helpful. This is what we think people don't really know that we're doing that we think if they did know, they would be happy with, with, with where we're going. And talking with someone else who would say, okay, this is what we're going to do. We're going to do a, we're going to practice that perhaps you don't have. And then opening up the conversation to community members to talk about like how that presentation speaks to what their actual concerns are. And whether they feel like hearing directly from. Our health department or our education. We're going to be able to, to have slightly different concerns and then bring those back. So the, the concern of having a long period of time where people are discussing what they think are real issues, I think there's a benefit to it because then the person who is coming from the town can say, oh, well, I wouldn't have even thought that that was a main issue for me to think about. And let me respond to you on that. So the difficulty is though that quite often that person isn't necessarily ready to speak to concerns they haven't heard yet. And what you're going to get a lot of is, I hear that I'm so glad you brought that to my attention. And I'm going to give that. That's what we're losing you. Yeah, we're breaking up a little. I think we do and we do what, and this is what. Okay. Sorry. I'm, I'm. Right now on. Repeat that. Okay. So I was just saying that with, there are three other events in my house right now on video. So. So yeah, so that's. But yeah, I mean, I'm not wedded to one way or the other. I'm what I was saying is that if we're planning something, we do need to. To present what we are looking for before we partner with anybody else. One and two before we invite someone else to come in and be a speaker. If particularly the town is willing to pay someone to come in and offer expertise. Quite often. We don't have full control of what they're willing and able to do. So there are some people who just want to facilitate a conversation. There are others who say my expertise is. I can tell you what people have been doing on COVID-19. I have a PowerPoint. You can bring me in to talk about best practices and responses for town this size or something like that. You know, I can think of somebody who's, you know, probably, you guys all know was a great facilitator who could touch on the general points and then bring somebody else. Who's also a townie. Professor Barbara loves right. She actually did something for us at UMass just about a month and a half ago. And she was amazing. Right because she has a way of just. Just an engagement. And the way that she facilitates things are just. You know, amazing. She she's a social justice educator from social justice education program. And again, somebody who's been in town for the past 30 years. So she truly understands. You know, the town. So somebody like I'm not saying it should be by the law. Somebody like her, right? That's been that's been in town understand town and stand on politics. You know, her kids went through. You know, I'm a high school, all the elementary schools all the way and I'm a school and all the services. Would be somebody like her that I would. And trust with a facilitation that would have to be somebody that is in power on official form of the town. Right. I would think that we could also hold some of these community conversations and then report back the vital information to the department head or official. Yeah. They have the chance or the opportunity to. Kind of. What is that come up with the answers. Did anybody hear that noise or no. I don't. I didn't hear anything. Okay. No, I didn't hear it, but. I just wanted to one do it. I wanted to do a time check. Because I know that said has to leave in like 13 minutes. And I just wanted to. Yeah, say that I, I like Jennifer's point. I think that. At this point, we don't need to bring experts in because our goal, it seems like right now is to really hear more from the community and to do it in a very like deliberate way. So I almost think we could have topics. And let people share and then, you know, use the topics that come up within those. To guide if we do want to provide. Further, you know. Education on certain topics, but at this point, I feel like the focus really of what I've been hearing is that people want to talk. I hear that the difficulty I've got is. As a commission, if part of what we're doing is. Is. Educating. Then the question is. Who is getting educated, right? When our bylaw says that we are. Educating the town on certain issues. I don't ever know if that means educating town officials or educating the public more generally or what. And if what we're doing is collecting information about how the community feels. Then I don't know if that's something it seems like it would take time for again. Another meeting where the. Town department then says, here's what we hear. And then they're reframing it for their own meetings. And the issues that they think they're hearing from the town. And then you have a discussion with. People in the town at that point. From them. It's a more drawn out process. Then having the people who are able to affect change sooner. Hearing. Sooner from. The town and being able to respond. Immediately if that's something that we're interested in seeing happen. So I think we've got different roles and I'm trying to figure out the way to make our role as effective as possible for. Not just. Pulling information out. But also. Allowing for departments to make. Changes more quickly. While we're all meeting online and all. We're all talking about. Hearing from, from the public. From one step removed. Yeah, I think. Go ahead. I think that. There's value in. Hearing what other people have to say. Like what people, people's experiences are. Like as education. And, but I do also think that. It would be. It would be important to have. Like people that can make decisions like quickly or. Effectively in like departments or whatever, just to try and create change. But I think. I liked what Jennifer was saying earlier about like having community conversations. And then like using the like summary of what we learned from that conversation, whatever it may be. And sending it to officials or. To the community. To the community. To the community heads to see what they, what they can do and what they can change. And that way it could be more. We could be more honest with each other in the community that we're speaking with. And then the information that we get from that conversation can be used to. Like pressure. Leaders to try and. Listen to the people that they're supposed to be serving. I think the purpose of the community conversations is mostly to just. To find like find where the need is and where the power is within the community community. Like if it's not, if we're talking about businesses, maybe we can bring in like black owned business and have like a Q and a session where we talk about like their struggles and what they, what they are trying to do. To survive in Amherst or if they're thriving, like how are they thriving in this community? And then we can have community conversations that could help like people who want to start businesses of their own or, or just want to support their businesses like the best way to do that. Or we can, if it's with education, we can like have conversations with the younger people or teachers and other people that interact with the education system, just like see what their needs are and what their experiences are and how, how their experience is shaped like the word, the world that they see. And then we can send that to like the superintendent or like the president of the school or whatever. And, and we can just keep like sending information. Like we can have those community conversations that are summarized and like not like they're anonymous, but like because it's not like attached to a specific person, but like the experience that is like collective with everyone in the conversation can be like used to, show like there's this is something that's happening again and again. And so then if you do this, maybe that can help future students or future business owners like feel safe or valued in the community. I think that's what I would see the community conversations being of value. And then maybe later we can have like experts or, or like the officials say, like talking about what they've done since like the beginning of the pandemic and the, since anti-racism became like a big thing, what they've done to like transform their culture and whatever sector they're in. So that's my idea. I love that picture. I'm really, yeah. I'm, I'm like fully supportive of those ideas. And I really agree that like, you know, I'm a speech pathologist for my job and what I have to do before anything else is I have to get a baseline. I have to find out where the kids are at before I do any education or teaching or treatment. And I feel like this is an opportunity for us to get a baseline. You know, why would we teach something to somebody if they already know it or if it's not relevant to them. So the only difficulty, I know that we're now looking at five minutes before Sid turns into a pumpkin. But so last month we came up with the, the kind of other, other way of going, which was, you know, try to have a conversation, maybe even schedule like one a month and, and hit on these different issues. And it seems like we're going in a different direction this month and saying what we'd like to do is, is go back to the original idea of those community conversations about different issues. And then we report it to, to a town department and maybe then we could take further steps down the road. Again, that's a longer term plan. And it is, it's not, it's not bad for us to take a baseline. I just don't know how effective it is for us to collect the information and then share it. I, I, I hear you particularly on this point of people aren't going to want to speak if it's like 20 people on a zoom session, they're talking with like the police chief, you know, any complaints that they're, they have about the policing, they may just not share at all. And so getting the baseline separate from the chief would be helpful. And then we could bring something forward. It just seems like it's a longer term set of steps. If we'd like to do that, then we need to figure out for the fall how we could see that type of thing happening. I do think that if depending on, on us having a small group of people and collecting data from that group, maybe it'll be a large group that others might dismiss it or, or might agree to it depending on whether they want the results that we bring to them. Whereas if they are present, they are subject to responding to the people who are there in the room with them. So I, I, I think that there's some benefit to them getting information and kind of being present. But, but I agree with you that we don't want to stifle the conversation and we don't want it to be purely led by department heads. We don't want people to be focusing on don't mind what's behind the curtain because that's, that's nothing that should concern you. We do want to hear what people are concerned about in the first instance and perhaps educate the town about things that they're not, that they may not be thinking about. How do we do it in the few minutes we have left? I think that late, like the conversations where we like, like collect data would and then send it to like the town hall and then after that's what I was thinking. Like first we have to figure out what people are needing and then the first step is like just to ask the leaders to like follow through. And if they don't, then we can like, we can see if they don't because they feel like they're doing something else that's different that works for them or whatever. We can like bring them in to have like a town hall type thing where we can see how, see we can hear what they have done and what they're doing, but then also see if it's not meeting the needs of the community that they're supposed to serve, like then the community can then have being empowered from the previous conversation. They can then speak their truth and whatever the needs that they want addressed. And then the, then the leader has to respond on the spot, like what he or she's going to be doing to make it happen. And if they don't, then that's when the public decides they want to move forward, I think. So. I think you also kind of put the department head possibly at risk with not know just having anything. Sometimes those can go a couple of different ways when you have department heads there. And so we just, I don't know. I think that reporting the information back might be. An extra step, but it might, I mean, it's not really either. So we have a community conversation on a Saturday. We take that information on Wednesday and forward it to the department ad. And who knows where we are in relation to the meeting, our next HRC meeting. And I also think that. Flowing things down is not a bad thing. Like we don't want these to be rushed decisions. We want the, you know, like Petra was saying, we want. You know, you know, you know, there to be able to be a real consideration about, okay, what are you doing now? Is it working? Is it not working? And. Allow people to have time. To organize around that. So I think slowing it down as a, as an okay thing. And I think also giving space for those who. Giving space for the, like leaders to like say what they're doing and like. Express like, just show what they're doing. I think that's also important. And we can give them that space too. Even if it's after the community conversation, then we could say, okay, this is what the people that are in leadership in this specific sector are doing to change their ways. And that, that conversation, that like presentation can be with like experts or it could be just with them and they just are just presenting what they're doing in the community can then, the community can then understand what exactly they're. What exactly they're doing and how they're changing. I think. So I wish we had another half hour. I know said has a seven o'clock meeting at seven o'clock. And I don't think this puts us in a position to plan a particular. Conversation. Between now and our September meeting. And am I wrong on that? Is there anyone who says, no, absolutely. We can do this because I think we have to take some responsibility for how the meeting is held. And what, how we reach out to the community, how we make sure that the conversation has data that would actually be to be reacted to. Well, by, by department heads or whoever else we'd report back to. So are we in a position to plan something or no. We were waiting for the survey though. Yeah, I was going to say, I think we're waiting for the survey results. And I think tomorrow I might just ask it to, and to help me out a little bit. Everybody send in a couple of questions that would buy certain date and that would be helpful. Absolutely. I missed something, right? Because like, I, it's a, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff to be talked about and asked. And I don't want to miss anything. It's important that this goes out and it's correct. And that we have the feedback. Back for on it. So the support and a few questions would be helpful. Yeah. Please also, um, you know, give us ways to participate with you in making sure that it gets out because I don't want this all to fall on you. And we also have three new members coming in hopefully by September. So hopefully they'll have ideas about having community conversations as well. Like they've been, you know, two of them are have been involved in a lot of the activities that have been going on in town. So like it would be, that would be great to have their input as well. Moving forward. So it sounds like we can, you know, we don't have to vote on anything because we can just say, like, okay, we've done some more thinking on this. We're going to get some more information from the survey. And then our next meeting, we can really get down to the planning. All right. Well, that's, that's fine with me. Um, so we're looking at September. I think currently. Um, let's try and look at a calendar. The September meeting. Uh, would be. Is it a third week, right? 17th of September. At six o'clock. Yep. So I will be, uh, I believe running home from, uh, from Springfield and, and hopefully able to hop on at six. Um, but you know, like other people who are showing up after work, you know, we'll, we'll figure it out. I was actually going to ask, would there be any way that people would be open to doing six 30 on the 17th? I can do it. Six 30 to eight. Yeah. Does that work better for everyone? We just have to check in with Deb and Ben. Yeah. And I'm actually wondering, are we, because the school committee meets quite often, are we going to have a problem where we're. Well, we met early this week, so maybe not. So I was just wondering if there was going to be. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. You want me to send these notes to you, Jennifer? Yes, please. I'll do that. Okay. Yes, please. All right. Cheers. We'll save affordable housing. Yep. All right. So, you know, when I'm in a large meeting and I know that we don't always have to point out when, when we drop below quorum, because if you don't notice, then you can keep having your meeting. When quorum is four and there are three, it's a little bit harder to say that I haven't noticed a lack of quorum. So I, so it sounds like everyone is looking to it to see if we can get some community response on, on what people want to hear about. And hopefully we could arrange to somehow get, get that information prior to our next meetings. So that can be part of the planning. I personally don't think that we, I think that there are some issues that are affecting everybody. And so we might miss the priority, but we are going to need time to arrange with. We're going to have to get that information to get back to the commission. However, we, we want to collect that information. You know, I guess if we're just doing, just to give people notice that we're going to be talking about a particular issue. So, but we can figure that out more in our next meeting. Well, yeah. And hopefully everybody attends the town managers once because there's vital information to be sought out of those. Those will be in September. So we might not be able to have the survey back by the next September meeting. Right. Like that's asking a lot. I think we would have to. I think having it back by October is a more realistic date. But the town manager will go through the month of September, having these community conversations. And then we can go full blast in ours. And so we might be able to just pick up information from some of those meetings as well. Yeah. Thanks. Great. Jennifer. I just want to make one other point, which is. You know, while I'm definitely not trying to rush anything. Cause I think that it's important to let voices be heard. If we're going to do something. Like have a. An impact on something like. Budgeting. You know, I think it's important to let voices be heard. For, for example, the police department, if we're going to have community input on that, because people are putting in budgets and Jennifer, you can tell me what the timeframe is, but I think they're putting it in, usually in February. And, and then they're hammering things out in March. And then they're approving them in May, June. That in order for us to have any impact, we need to be part of the conversation by February, November. So, you know, whatever we think there needs to be action items on. For the town. We kind of have to discuss that by, you know, November so that we can then revisit it and have an idea of what we would suggest or what we think the community would suggest. By that February timeframe. So I just, that's, that's part of the thinking of trying to have more concretized conversations. Yeah. And we, again, we can might be able to just get that. The bulk of that out of Paul's meet the town managers, community conversations. But I'm hoping that we have the survey back by February. So some version of it. Right. So I just wanted to check in. I was just wondering if you had any other, I don't have a forum that you can close now. Is that what you meant, Matthew about having. Dropped. Yeah, we don't have a quorum. And so, um, you know, ideally we should have had that the vote to adjourn and then, but then any other deliberations thereafter would, would be in violation of open meeting laws. So that's, that's the kind of. So we should probably. Motion to adjourn. Right. I don't think you can now, because I don't vote. So I think we have an effective adjournment. Yeah, because we just don't.