 promote them. Okay. I am going to read our little declaration so that we can get started officially. The time is now seven o' three and seen as a quorum of committee members is in attendance. This public hearing is being called to order. Welcome everybody to the November 28th 2023 public meeting not hearing of the Amherst Community Development Block Grant advisory committee pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by the state legislature on July 16 2022 and probably extended again since then but I don't have the date this meeting is being conducted virtually using the zoom platform the meeting is being recorded and minutes are being taken as usual and we'll just do a quick roll call so we have it on camera that we're all here I'm Becky Michaels the chair of the CBBG advisory committee and I'll go just in order Zoey you're next. I'm Zoey Suley, I'm a member of the committee. And Suzanne. Suzanne Schilling committee member. And that. And Matt Larson. Great. And Nate. Hi, name Hawaii a planner with the town. So we have an agenda tonight that has a lot of things on it but that we can probably move through fairly quickly and we will have time for public comments toward the end. And if people raise their hands as we reach that section we will call on you and bring you into the meeting if there's anybody here right now. So we can go ahead and get started just point up the agenda. So I guess first is announcements if anybody has any announcements. Yeah I'll jump in the the state increase the mini entailment grant up to 925 instead of 825,000. Great so what does that look like division wise. Oh I don't know I didn't do any of the math. I almost don't want to believe it because it just came came out of the blue last week and I don't know it just seems you know I know the competitive communities could apply for a higher amount so my guess is that's some many entitlement communities most of complained or made note of that and so they increased the mini award but I was almost I was almost going to I was expecting another notice to say that they were going to take that back and that was a minor percentage wise between non-social service and social service. The percentage would be the same so 20% social service that would go up by bit. Yeah I mean it's just that usually there are plots you know what the state gets is limited and so if there's 11 communities it's a you know over a million dollars now which if they have 24 million a year it's actually a million dollars is a pretty big percentage to go to minis but well great that's a nice announcement well we'll have we'll have no problem allocating it I'm sure exactly exactly great anybody else have any announcements they want to make okay great so we'll move on to a discussion of the 2022-23 grant startups specifically around site visits so Nate I'll let you lead in and then I do have a comment about site visits this week. Yeah you know the social services are getting under contract they started as of November 1st Valley CDC is doing a microenterprise technical assistance program which started December 1st or we'll start you know I usually schedule site visits I haven't yet so I was going to say that we if a committee member wanted to come they could it'll probably be virtually some might be in person but we typically try to have site visits at the beginning middle and end of social services and other activities and so that's where something that'll be should be happening in the next month or so. The one question I had when I was thinking about site visits was and it's probably something that we'll discuss going forward but if everybody recalls what we have now is the opportunity to be giving grants out to organizations that may have already received grants in that 22-23 cycle and I don't know that it would be a conflict necessarily to do a site visit with a place that's already gotten money but to sort of spend more time with that organization and and learn the ins and outs of what they're doing and I was thinking more sort of being on site and whether that would be something that we should wait to do until after we've done the allocation process this time around I think if it's virtual it's maybe less so but it was just something that I don't know if other people have feelings about that well in this cycle's pretty short so that timing probably could work since by the time we get through the applications and the holidays I mean we probably wouldn't unless it is virtual that's easier to schedule but it probably makes sense that that could work out and I agree that probably makes sense to not maybe visit someone that's in the middle of the application period unless it was something vital to the application that we wanted to observe in person a site visit could be beneficial too just in terms of the overall schedule too we got lots going on and you know December and January and February you know maybe some time in the spring yeah yeah we can do that I mean yeah typically I you know my startup visit should be sooner than later but so maybe Nate you should schedule it on your you know do what you would normally do and we'll just hold off and you know maybe do site visits that are more in person and actually seeing programs at work later on in the spring after we finish this round all right okay great um anything else on that in that area no no I mean I think um you know it's a two or one and a half year grant so the activities that are starting now can run through 2025 I think we have an ending in the summer of 25 but it is a longer performance period so the capital projects we have will be started until next summer probably hopefully the next summer plenty of time yeah I don't know the town we you know we like a few years ago we were really successful applying for grants and then we have you know the block grant now but we have two mass works grants and some other infrastructure grants and it's all it's really great to get it all and then all of a sudden you realize well wow we have six big projects we're supposed to be doing at the same time and yeah um all right so why don't we move then to the 2024 application process which um at our last meeting um we sort of talked a little bit about and um it's Zoe's first time Suzanne's second time um and what we want to do tonight is finalize as much as possible what the RFP will look like um and um you know we set the dates last time so we have that set but to look really at the at the actual RFPs and um the community development strategy that you had sent out Nate which is the 2022 is that I just couldn't remember if that was something that we create or that's something that the town does that is given to us can you just remind me yeah I mean it's a staff you know staff developed it but really it's it should be influenced by you know we're gonna have the public hearing on December 12th and then any you know any priorities that the committee comes up with or what we think might want to be changed in it uh so um I mean it's really limited to three pages needs to summarize you know both block ran eligible projects and kind of what the community um you know is invested in and then what are projects or activities that would be undertaken and so yeah I mean the way the the strategy is structured now is it mimics the chapters of the master plan so like housing um you know historic cultural resources and then we have a sustainability piece at the end and then um a few action items and so you know typically in that we have to identify the activities that we will then fund and so it's kind of a funny thing but um you know for instance we have kind of generic I was just gonna open the document we have generic things in the action plan like um support social service programs and we mention a bunch of them and we do that just so then you know and I mean it's not like we're trying to be too broad but really those are um you know what we identified as priorities so I think that the strategy could be updated after the hearing to you know if we hear things that maybe we change but you know I don't expect that it'll change much year to year it's kind of a it's still it's still a pretty current to me the only thing I saw in there that we might want to take out is under the transportation it references the valley bike share program and I think that's at this point kind of defunct or in hiatus yeah let me uh I'll highlight that but this was fairly recent so it's not like we're coming back to it three years later so I know yeah I'll do a quick closer read on it I know if there's anything that really jumps out like that I'll ask Stephanie about the bike share I thought we were trying to find another vendor but it might be that it's not yeah it might actually be kind of dormant for now and then um you know and then we mentioned the target areas and then we have our priority projects and we have you know eight of them and so I mean really what it would be too is we have a public hearing in December we can update the RFPs and this document if we think there's some priority for social service or something that we missed and then we hold the second public hearing to review the recommended activities in February and at that public hearing we also will also include updating the strategy too and so if we need to do a last minute effort and say oh well you know maybe we have to tweak a um a target area we could do that as well so I mean I you know if you want to look at it individually or we talk about it more tonight but I don't I agree it was written just I mean not even a year ago right I think it was finalized less than a year ago so and prior to that one had it been written is it something that does get updated pretty much every year or yeah we I think you know so originally it was um a number of years ago you could it could be six to eight pages and before that I think was longer and so we had an updated one in a few years I think for in the 2000 teens it kind of stayed the same for a number of years and then um probably for the 2020 grant or 21 grant they reduced the pages or and that's when I really um kind of updated it more thoroughly so the document itself has been around but I think probably this version is um I know Ben and I more Ben worked on it and really tried to update every category so I mean we mentioned like 2023 funds and other things so I feel like um it captures quite a bit of what more recent things that town's been doing yeah yeah so I mean it's really I I just kind of laugh I kind of laugh because the state's like oh you should update this every year and oftentimes communities say well you know we have a master plan that's good for 10 years I mean this is supposed to be like a mini master plan are we really going to change it drastically year to year right I think maybe some of the accomplishments can be updated but in terms of the goals like you know did our housing goals change or our transportation goals I typically don't or the activities to be updated you know but pretty much the priorities remain the same if I'm understand okay yeah yeah right so if for instance there's a proposal that comes in and it's like wow okay wow we hadn't really thought about this or it's something in North Amherst and we really want to make North Amherst a target area I think we could justify it you know there's the new library expansion there's work going on around WD Coles there's the mill district and so then you know we could say okay well wow we had a few proposals for North Amherst and let's make North Amherst a target area and we update the strategy accordingly um so the December public hearing is one of the bullets is that just to note that that's sort of where we will hear back from the community yeah and I haven't updated the webpage but I think we talked about you know trying to advertise that and you know committee members can also let people know yeah I'll get a public hearing notice going tomorrow I'll email it around by the end of the week to different organizations and get it online and I think we also talked about you're gonna email it up to the to the schools to the superintendent's office maybe to put it into the their weekly update and let families know yeah and the COSA newsletter and then also I think we were going to send it to the grant recipients and actually I guess anybody who's applied if they have newsletters to send it out to their constituents as well yes yeah great um so the RFP um and the review criteria um knowing that we will hear from people and organizations um at the December public hearing I think we can have kind of an initial conversation right now about um what the RFP looks like did everybody have a chance to take a look at it um against sort of similar to the community development strategy we actually rewrote quite a bit of this last year I believe and and sort of tried to update it by adding in equity adding in environmental issues as part of what we were looking for from the um in the responses that we would get so I didn't see from from my point of view other than you know dates and names changing because now you get to receive them again may not bend um the uh there wasn't a ton to me that looked like it needed changing um the one the one thing that keeps popping up in my mind and I don't know whether now it's the time to talk about it may be an initial conversation now and then it'll be interesting to hear from people at the public hearing is whether we want to make a decision about restricting who we would give grants to um by by sort of at the for at the outset saying we're not going to duplicate 2020 the two-year grant with with this one-year grant and so if somebody has received it received that two-year um grant then and then they would get another year um of money that would be overlapping with the same year so essentially you know two two um allocations going to the same organization in the same year um and whether we would want to make a decision i'm not advocating one way or the other but I think that's something that we could potentially decide and if we were going to decide that I think it's the the kind thing to do is to decide it up front so that we're not asking people to work on applications um and to you know put all that work into something that in the end we would say actually I think we're not going to you know duplicate um allocations so I don't know people have thoughts on that I do agree you know that we need to do this you know ahead of time you know if we if we if we are going to be setting criteria like that um however you know is the idea here that we will be funding um basically you know totally different activities that fall within you know the um you know the priorities or you know um if we are to be funding the same ones you know as long as they have a different you know uh component you know to the program I think we've talked about it before so I can go either way but I do agree that this needs to be you know laid out before I think if we had fully funded the projects that were requested um that would be a different story but I know that we didn't fully fund um the the request that we had so I would um you know some of the needs are very great for some of the applications that we received so I'd hate to cut something off if if it was going to really fill a need among the priorities um okay so yeah yeah the state wrote and said um you know I asked what we should do in terms of overlapping activities and they recommended we have we have our social service um contract start November 1 and then June 30th 2025 and they said oh just have the next year's grant start on July 1st 2025 and just say it's a continuation of the activity that way you could fund it um which which would be fine I think the um what it does is it pushes back the start date so you know the state would say that if you apply this spring they're going to try to get contracts going in the fall and so instead of starting it December 1 like we normally would they would start July 1 for some um I don't think that's a problem it's just you know it does that just sort of push off the problem I mean if then the next round of funding we have the same issue and that we're sort of putting everything ahead six months basically just to keep funding the same I think the next year we'd run the contracts July 1 through June 30th 2026 and then um or we could do shorter and I think it'd probably resolve itself but it might right it might push the problem off a little you know yeah I mean it's a pretty big decision I don't know um you know how you you know if you would say you wouldn't fund you know any of the five organizations if they apply yeah I guess my my concern would be that um you know we've we tend to have funded the strongest applicants so if we kind of take them off the table then we're left with judging by the typical you know prior years a couple stronger applicants that we weren't able to fund and then maybe a number of weaker applicants um so I guess I would hesitate to make that a hard and fast rule up front rather than waiting to see what comes in that's sort of where I fall as well um because I think we just we don't know what's going to come in and I think even though um the sort of general um priority stayed the same the general you know development strategy stays the same I think there are increases that we hear about in need in certain areas that are you know perhaps greater than in others um and I think cutting ourselves off from funding those um I don't think it's necessary to do it I just wanted to have a and I think um if it was we just needed to have the conversation and make sure that we made that decision so yeah and I think some of these organizations are large enough that um they're doing a number of tasks that we may have funded a but they're going to apply for b or c um so I I I would err on the side of um not cutting off any of those prior funded organization okay good it looks like we all agree on that and um and then we can have made that decision intentionally and we can read more the only 10 to 15 pages that's right we do we do limit the uh the page number and to be clear that was clearly not the reason I was raising this so um the types of activities um we had rewritten these and I think added some in last year um does anybody have any thoughts on that's um number five on the on page four of the I'm looking at the social service application um and so that's sort of the the um the list that that um the programs need to fall within and I don't know if anybody has any thoughts about adding anything there or any that wouldn't we wouldn't need to have anymore my recollection is that when we did this last time we didn't actually remove anything I think we sort of um tightened the language or broaden the language where necessary to to um meet more what we were really trying to do with the with the grants um but that they generally have been essentially the same I think for a public decades right I mean if there was anything else that can always fall under other but I think we're capturing what the needs really are still so that was really the only area that I thought we needed to have conversation around for the social service activity application does anybody have any other areas they want to raise in that particular application no that we did a good job last time updating it and it wasn't that long ago so exactly um Nate anything you want to bring up on that no I mean I think we'll um I think we have to update like you said some of the some of the some of the information you know I think the page limit and how we try to word that is important and we you know I know we've got it bold and certain things to really make sure people follow it and other online things um and my recollection is that people really did I is that I mean I don't yeah and I think I think having the you know the 15 pages and then the five for attachments is really helpful and I think it's I think it's important for two reasons one is you know it's less for you know really how can you succinctly submit a proposal in 20 pages less for us to read and then we in the town when we submit our applications to the state they limit our page numbers too so we can't you know we can't submit a 40 page proposal for one activity you know they want to see you know the three page narrative they want to see a budget page or two and a few things so even you know um so what what we incorporate into the request for a proposal really translates into what the state would want to see even in terms of some of the review criteria so we're trying you know we mirror that pretty closely so what the organization provides to you and then how you recommend them is also then what the state looks at so you know I think we get in that way we you know our proposals are ready to be submitted as opposed to having someone write more information you know after they're recommended or something we really I feel like we've created a pretty good process oh yeah I didn't I haven't you know I don't think yeah I don't think the state's changed anything so um I should I I'll make a note to just look at their their proposed changes were really minimal so I think all this would probably holds true and do you um so you'll go in and make the basic changes of dates and and all of that and then I was going to say I would offer to do it but you know those addresses and dates yeah that's fine and then yeah we can have the maximum amount I think you know what we talked about the last meeting is um typically we can recommend up to five social services it doesn't have to be five and then you know we build the budget up to 20% of the grant award so you know there's always a discussion about okay do we fund five is it three and we never have a strict rule of award there and so you know some communities will really say that they have one or two priorities and then that's really all they fund is it you know and we don't do that in Amherst and that's fine um so but some of it would be you know when it's when it is the proposal review time we can just remember that it doesn't have to be five or it could be five and you know sometimes it's difficult when you have to parse the budgets but yeah um but I agree I don't think we need to decide any of that now we'll wait to get see what we get right um for the non-social service activity application I didn't have any recommendations to make or changes and again we redid this one and it's more um yeah we just didn't get proposals I know staff's meeting next week to talk about it and I think I know one or two agencies might submit but I was surprised last year there weren't that many yeah I think that covers number three yeah I mean we I mean we did I said I did send what um the previous funding allocations were the different agencies as an attachment I'm pretty sure I sent that around right for everyone um you may have I also just noted it myself and so that I'll put I can put that online but that is something we can use when we review proposals yeah I think we'll absolutely want that in terms of handling great um all right does anybody have any other questions or comments or topics under the 2024 application process because if not then we'll move into um public comment is there anybody here for uh lab is here okay if you want to raise your hand sure you can unmute yourself thank you so much I do not have a public comment I was just listening into better understand the RFP process and as always just really appreciate the committee's uh deliberation and thoughtfulness so thank you so much thank you I hope giving Tuesday's going well for you watching it anxiously that's for sure thank you so much thanks for coming and yeah love your did your hand raise again or no my apologies I was trying to lower my hand three years and you think we'd all we'd all be experts at that now I'm all set uh have a lovely evening thank you guys you're just giving us high fives that's great but actually so Nate seen um love's still screen photo does remind me can we in the public hearing do what we did toward the end last year and have people come in and actually be able to see them yes yeah yeah we do that okay great yeah the yeah that's usually what we do is sometimes it takes a little bit more you know it's a delay to bring people in but it's way not that hard um and in terms of um people speaking just to sort of look at the the public hearing for just a minute out of order I guess um we have in the past limited people to about three minutes um which I think seems like a a good amount of time and enough for them to get to say what they want to say does anybody have any thoughts about changing that to either fewer minutes or more minutes I think that's pretty consistent with the other committees in town and it seemed appropriate I don't think we were cutting anybody off right yeah no it certainly wasn't like a hard fast no muting yeah I know the the planning board in town council they put the little countdown clock on the screen and then kinder and gentler than that we don't need to do that and then at 10 seconds it like beeps for the next 10 seconds to remind you that you're supposed to end soon so um yeah no I think three minutes is good you know we can we'll put on our notice that you know we always say it anyways that people can always provide comments through phone or email or any you know other correspondence so um and if we do receive that do we need to incorporate it into the meeting by anything about school committee right where they read everything out loud so it's part of that yeah sometimes I'll read it or I'll post it in the packet or I'll send it to you so you all have it so that mean that's as long as it's distributed to the committee um and then you know I think in the past I would have summarized if there was written comments okay great I think we have reached the end of our agenda it's almost too quick though I think we have to know do you want to chat are we getting paid by the hour yeah she did drywall I'll just make a lot of mistakes yeah no I um I was going to share the screen just quickly though I just wanted to um um I don't see yeah maybe it's here the uh so here's the list of what had been funded and you know we don't we don't um you know we don't have any rule about not you know being funded in consecutive years or anything but that's sometimes that's discussed and so I think this was sent around as an email so you can just see you know I went back a few years but I think that would be great if you could send that out I thought I I thought I did maybe you did I apologize yeah I don't think I saw it okay um not in that format I think I saw that and so okay um yeah and I think you know like Nat said usually we fund you know we rank the proposals first then look at the a funding amount but you know there's a pattern of who gets funded and I don't you know sometimes people comment on that and I think you know the response right is that it's a comparative review year to year or application process application process and so um you know sometimes we have you know different organizations apply and sometimes you know we get the same eight or nine or seven or whatever um I think the the um the non-social service activities is something that gets to be more difficult as as we keep doing projects you know the target areas are what we see outlined here and the eligible block groups are in green and so there's really not a large area in town that is considered a majority lower modern income households and to me that becomes the trickier equation is what you know what was what can what can be funded in these areas you know for instance we could fund affordable housing in North Amherst because it's uh directly related to the tenants will be affordable so that could work but you know if it was a road project up here where it's not income eligible then it's really hard to justify it unless we did income surveys for a particular street or something right and I actually remember somebody coming on and asking about sidewalks on Bay Road I think yeah they miss you yeah we've done income surveys before they're difficult you have to have a really high response rate I think it's like 95 of the households have to respond yeah yeah um but yeah I think that's um something we to consider you know you can let anyone know that this is the application process is happening anyway in the review criteria so I think what we had mentioned before this is just from the other year you know individually you would rank every category and then come up with your you can come up with a composite score for each proposal and then you what you would send me is all right here's my order you know one two three and for social services it'd be similar you know I don't need to see your individual scores or this table if for instance family outreach was your first one and this was your second one you would just send me that order and then that's what I would I would show the committee as we review proposals and say okay yeah it looks like you know three of you rank this one in your top two and in that way that just is the beginning of the conversation and so during the proposal review you know it is a public meeting so the committee does you know has to discuss its um you know all that in a public setting so you know most I think the last few years it's actually been done really it's been really good discussions and I think having this review matrix helps and then we you know it um I think everyone takes it pretty seriously so it goes pretty well in years past it wasn't as uh formal it would be like oh yeah I know that organization so oh goodness come on we're supposed to be doing a little more I found that rubric to be really helpful yeah all right Nate you were able to extend the meeting for an additional four minutes there is there anything else you want to say no but while we were talking oh yeah so you said you had it um yeah you guys said you hadn't received that email so let me I'll just send that um I thought I had sent it to the other the other oh no maybe I didn't I might have just printed these out from the website I can't but I'll send that out with all the attachments I think it was an email with a lot of attachments okay yeah I'll send it out again thank you and at least the four of you here could make December 12th yep yeah I know I haven't heard that people can otherwise I just if we don't have a quorum it would be a problem yeah well you Rika and Greg will join and right we'll group together all right great great all right everyone will thank you very much for your preparation and your thoughts today and we will look forward to hearing from the public on December 12th that one probably will be a longer meeting um if the past four tells anything um but always really interesting and and exciting to hear about the work that's being done um and so until then okay so I just one quick note so usually the 12th what we do is we have a public hearing to receive public comment and then that same evening we follow it immediately you know the same zoom meeting at the same meeting with a public meeting to discuss any changes we want to make to the request for proposals so if for instance you know a priority really seems to have um you know bubble to the surface or if we want to change some wording or something and so usually we have the public you know it's a a two-session to the meet to the evening um it doesn't have to be more than two hours necessarily but you know depending on how much comment we receive or discussion there is great all right thank you thanks everyone thank you all right have a good night thank you