 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you Given that we have a quorum of the town council available and on Zoom I'm calling this meeting to order at 6 35 p.m. On mark on May 4 Governor Baker's March 12 order suspending Paul certain provisions of the open meeting law Allows us to hold this virtual town meeting. I'll call upon each councilor by name at that time They should unmute their mic and say present This will indicate that they can hear me and we can hear them Please remember to mute your mic after saying present This is also how we will conduct councilor comments and votes throughout the agenda Similarly at times when we need other people to speak we will check to make sure that you can hear us and we can hear you The meeting includes audio video and is available live on Amherst media It is also being recorded There's no chat room But there are attendees at this point. I'm showing as many as five If there are technical issues, please let Sean or Athena know and they will work with you and for people who are tuning in Some of you will be on Amherst media and some of you will follow the meeting There are instructions on the town website, which will also so show later as to how to make public comment So with that Let me take roll of the councilor's presence And we'll start with Shalini Balmell Alyssa Brewer present Pat D'Angelo's present Darcy Dumont Lynn Griesmer is present Mandy Jo Hanneke present Dorothy Pam present Evan Ross George Ryan present Kathy Shane present Steve Schreiber here Andy Steinberg I see and Sarah Schwartz present Okay, all of us are present. There are no absences So we are going to begin with just a few updates if you'll put the agenda up on the calendar up on the screen I just want to call out a couple of upcoming meetings. These are on your agenda that's posted in the packet Next week, we will do a financial update on the financial indicators That will be a special meeting of the town council school committee and library trustees There will be no public comment But there will be many of opportunities to make public comment on The financial condition of the town and the agenda going forward We will then have a regular town council meeting on May 18th at 6 30 I want to note that the meeting on the 11th next week is at 5 30 There are various upcoming Committee meetings as well community resources committee is meeting on May 5th Tomorrow at 20 at 2 o'clock The governance organization and legislation committee is meeting on May 6th at 10 30 The finance committee is meeting May 12th following that indicators meeting at 2 30 the outreach communications and appointments committee is meeting on May 11th at 9 30 and Town services and outreach committee is meeting on May 18th at 11 30 You know hearings this meeting Hello Darcy. Yeah, it's the the 18th meeting is at 9 30 in the morning Thank you So on the bottom line here town services and outreach committee is May 18th at 9 30 p.m That was an AM. Excuse me. We will make that correction. Thank you Moving on we have no hearings and We do have a couple of upcoming district meetings, but I'll talk about that at the end of the agenda It is time for a general public comment And I'd like people you to show the general instructions on the screen as well as the website people connect. Thank you so doing public comment during Zoom meetings is a little different, but now it's pretty much the same rules. You make pressure viewpoints up to three minutes If there are too many people I might ask people not to speak for that long and The council will not engage in dialogue or comment our matters raised during public comment So I'd like to Exit and go over here and I see that we have one hand up Identify yourself by name and where you live and please adhere to the three-minute rule Peter to res Can you make sure that Peter's mic is available? Hey, can you guys hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah. Hi guys My name is Peter trace. I live at 101 Cherry Lane Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight I'm speaking on behalf of the local restaurants that have been the backbone of our town and a Source of community for all who live here for my entire life I've grown up in Amherst and it hurts to see the local restaurants struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic So I've come up with a plan that could help to alleviate some of the stress on restaurants and provide an outlet for the Amherst community To support their favorite establishments I've spoken with a couple restaurant interests in the interest in the town and so far for Mosa and fresh side are both interested Is there any way that I could use the webcam to show something or We have not made for that provision, but we would invite you to please send it to the Town council at Amherst MA.gov. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah, so I can explain. Um, so basically in the 1950s car hop trade drive-in diners were extremely popular around the United States and My plan would be to designate an area in town that could be used for restaurants to serve customers using the hop tray method Which complies with social distancing while also providing the desired dine-out experience Not only would this provide a new avenue of business for restaurants It would also support the general Amherst community to bring people together For those of you not familiar with car hop trays. It's basically I have an example here, but I'll explain it It's basically an aluminum tray that hooks onto your car window and allows restaurants to serve food to customers Who are able to to have the dine-out experience from the safety of their vehicles? my my plan was to Designate the the parking lot across from Grace Church, which is nearby a bunch of local restaurants as a car hop tray area that restaurants could serve customers there and it would it would provide a way that Customers can have the dine-out experience and support local restaurants And I just wanted to bring this the attention of the council and the public since the administration of the town of Amherst is so critical in making this reality I'll be reaching out to key members of town leadership as well as restaurants in coming days and For anyone who'd like to be in contact My phone number is four one three nine nine two eight four nine two and My email address is P T R E Y Z At gmail.com and I look forward to pursuing this. Thank you very much for your time Thank you for your comment Peter Is there any other public comment at this time? Okay, then we are going to conclude public comment and go back to the agenda We have no proclamations or Commentation commemorations at this time However, we do have both a presentation by the Chamber of Commerce and the bid And then Paul Bachman will present on the COVID update But first we're going to start with bid director Gabrielle Gould and Chamber of Commerce executive director Claudia Tasmani so I believe the slides and Could you please just tell us which set of slides you would like and I want to make sure You can hear us and we can hear you Claudia Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Gabrielle. I can hear me Great. Thank you and please let the Okay, I believe that's those of the slides you want is that correct It's the creating the resilient Amherst package Create resilient Amherst Sean It's gonna take me a second to find that. It'll be up Thank you. I'm sorry for the delay. It's okay. Let me just practice this while we're waiting At the invitation of the community resources committee Claudia and Gabrielle have talked with a good portion of the council's I believe was kind of us were available that day and We are in the process of talking with them on a weekly basis the topic as you might suspect is basically how to reopen Amherst and Tonight we're carrying that conversation just one step further or maybe several steps further with the results of some discussions that Claudia and Gabrielle have had with their constituents and members Lynn I'm John Page sent us a corrected copy of this at around 357. I have in my email and I can forward it to Sean I Assume he has it but I think I'm gonna check with you on all of that. I'm getting a copy of it now. It'll be up shortly Okay. Thank you. I think Gabrielle and Claudia could you could start introducing yourselves because it'll take a minute for this to get up There's been a delay in zoom lately Yeah, great go ahead. I'm Claudia pos money executive director of the Amherst area chamber Gabrielle Gould executive director of the Amherst downtown business improvement district as well as the Amherst downtown foundation And Gabrielle, why don't you give us a little bit of background on the foundations formation? so the foundation was originally started as a Cultural and arts foundation our intention was to raise money to build and donate to the town a performing art structure on the common as well as Give that with a maintenance fund and a programming fund When COVID-19 hit and we started hearing both at the chamber and the bid from local businesses and the hits that they were taking Claudia and I started discussing how we could pivot and We decided that the best way to do that was to take the newly founded downtown Amherst foundation, which is a 501c3 and turn it into a Micro grant making foundation for local brick and mortar businesses in less than two weeks We have raised over a hundred seventy four thousand dollars towards our goal of five hundred thousand We opened our first round of grants on May 1st that grant process will be open from May 1st through May 8th We will then close that window our committee of five who have a lot of experience in grants and Non-profit work as well as for-profit businesses are going to review them and they will allocate the funds from the first hundred and fifty thousand dollars And we will be busy raising the next amount We are calling this a sustaining grant and we are looking forward to our next round of grants being an opening grant Okay, so the slides were up. So let's begin the presentation Thank you. All right next slide And the next slide since we've introduced ourselves So we're really here to talk about a resilient Amherst and I think What's really important for everyone to understand is we come to you a as representatives of our businesses and looking at our economic vitality, but also because of Every everything you're hearing today is a culmination of what we've heard what we've talked about what we've surveyed I mean, this is a real reflection of Boots on the ground and what we have heard and we want to bring to the town council And to policy makers so that we can look at reforming policies procedures and practices to reflect this new reality that we're in And I love the restore rebuild. I feel like we get a chance to redo you know restore a lot of Some of the things that would make us fantastic to rebuild restructure rebrand Becoming this resilient Amherst and really talking about us as a year-round economy Leveraging our unique assets the arts and cultural aspects the natural environment the rich history That are complemented by the university and colleges, but not just those that singularly define us And again, that's part of the redefining and then of course the reopening Everyone is talking about rolling out plans of reopening We want to be and put our businesses and our community in as safe a position as possible But also in as strong a position as possible for us to restart So we just we have an opportunity to kind of look at things a little differently. And so this really speaks to Based on everything we have heard and what we have seen our businesses experience We're coming to you with this as what we see as an incredible step up and For our businesses and for our community So next slide So we thought we'd start with just a quick step and look back pre-covid Unfortunately, we have this pre-covid and post-covid, you know in our new lexicon now But what this demonstrates is you know the 40% piece we're looking at here is healthcare and social assistance Represents as represented all of our businesses free COVID and what's interesting in that is that these are the and this is the piece that's so hit hard hit right now outside of you know, our restaurants and our Tourism and so forth and probably hitting some of their worst Fears and the most challenges structurally and also we're seeing record numbers of folks who need those special services So such as food insecurity is four times the need right now So and you know so that makes sense that those are some of the greatest needs that we're seeing well We also see that 60% of employment was through our educational institutions, right? But that was also before we don't know what it's going to look like Because we don't know what those decisions are yet about whether the university will come back online or not or come back in person And that can really change So these numbers are going to really really look a lot different and our unemployment rate was at like An all-time low of 3% so We had a strong workforce strong number of healthy number of businesses I mean the reality was having a small business was never easy But we certainly had you know, we have anchors We have those favorite places and if anything has come from this is that we've seen such an outpouring of support from the Community to support local and they want them back. So Everybody else going to talk a little bit about now what we're seeing after Next slide please. Oh Am I doing that one? I am doing that one So what's did I miss one? I feel like I missed one, okay One of the things that so we took a survey and I want to thank John Page who so beautifully put together this Presentation he really called so many comments from so many different areas from our surveys from businesses from Gabrielle from myself from our offices and put these beautiful presentations together and really called the data and So we took a survey the bid took a survey early on in this process When would they were just the PPP was just coming out and then we felt like okay The first round had come in and we really felt like we needed to take another pulse on our businesses to see where they were at Because how much how much further could they expand in this, you know limbo area before they're going to face their own Really even harder decisions. So this kind of highlights some of the big ones, you know, it goes down to You know, basically we're seeing a $56,000 loss per month for business That's a huge economic hit. So that affects affects obviously the employees 61% of employees laid off and 36% able to transition partially or fully now some of that Speaks to there was a lot of innovation that came out of this There was some really exciting stuff that came out, but the reality is that What we're really going to see what we really saw was 25% said they are not going to make it to June 1st. We asked this question directly What do you think with PPP with other support that they've reached out for? That's a 25% loss that perhaps and I've seen that and we've seen that in other reports across the country But I there is some good news that we've seen more come more restaurants come online and again There's been a lot of innovation a lot of creativity But and this does not include what may happen with again employment and changes at our big our flagship and at Amherst College And also at our local school system. So we don't know what the fall response is going to be quite yet So this is free that right so This is where we are right now next slide So I'm going to let numbers speak for themselves. This is what we're seeing in all of Massachusetts They're staggering. We all know this Everybody on this call and I believe everybody who is listening in has access to the 60 plus page Economic study that was conducted and put together so nicely by John Page and I'll let this go to the next slide, please Claudia I'll run with this one. Again, these are the things that we have gone to help. We mentioned all of these at the CRC Nothing has changed. We are continuing. We are a center for information at both the chamber and the bid We have a consistently changing and updated Who's open for business and how they are doing business lists again as Claudia said we've had a lot of incredible innovation in our Amherst area people are really looking outside of their normal business plan and those who can Legally be doing business are finding ways to do so I do want to stress that it it is at a much lower percent than any business should run But they're here and they're doing it and they're making headway We also have the tip jar which has been up for several months now this is a way for All of us to get online and say look I had a favorite hairdresser or a bartender or a waiter and a way to tip them while they are suffering this Unemployment. It's a great resource. Again. I already spoke about the Resiliency and micro grant program with the downtown Amherst foundation I do want to stress that although the word downtown is in the name of the foundation This is an Amherst wide initiative And again the applications are open for brick and mortar businesses all across Amherst And those can be found at downtown Amherst foundation dot org the application is live And then we are working with the town of Amherst on a weekly basis as we said in coming to these meetings with you On a long-term economic recovery plan Next slide please Okay, so drumroll. This is really about preparing for reopening and what we see as really important steps And again, they duly preserve the public health While looking at the economic health of our community So anything we're talking about should be prefaced with Keeping in mind the safety of our businesses their employers the employers and their employees and that of our community And also keeping in line with any of our announcements from our From our state, right? So but what can we consider locally? What can we do locally to start leveraging and preparing so that when those You know phases of reopening happen through the state. How can we move that forward? So one of those pieces is leveraging the opportunity to complete physical improvements sidewalk repair Sidewalk repair power wash beautification place making a lot of that has already begun But I think in terms of what we were looking at is consumer confidence and building, you know Health is a big piece how we prepare ourselves and position ourselves as a town is going to be really important And actually you've seen this starting to happen in other towns where we're really Cleaning up. So this is an important piece and then leveraging funding sources We've talked a lot about with the town with Lynn. We talked With our state representatives emergency cdbg funding, which is community development block grant funding Who address food and housing insecurity and social services to support our most honorable And it's both for Workers and residents again. This is just you know to really protect everyone But we'd like to see some of that We know that food insecurity and housing insecurity are probably the largest in terms of social services So we recognize that But also, you know, we also have a lens for we have the micro grants to help the businesses So it's really a nice balance the housing trust and the cpa funds to address housing and security through rental assistance program We have requested that the ag small business relief partnership grant that would be coming to the town to consider Gifting that to the downtown Amherst foundations relief and resiliency fund so that we can Again sustain our small businesses. So this is a big piece of what we're doing And then FEMA and MIMA funds to address public health infrastructure Including hand washing stations ppe Testing rapid testing This is stuff that you know, we saw in our surveys that this was a lot of extra expenditure on our small businesses and anything we can do to You know stop the flow of cash out for them in terms of costs And and this is stuff that's required anyway, right? And this also is so important for us to ensure that That when they come online that everyone feels really confident They are they are confident in our businesses and that we are prepared And so these are the things that are the minimum and that are going to be in a minimum in our state standards And also produce reopening guidance and operating procedures Whatever they are that we have them listed that they're easy to access And that we all work together to create those and get those out to our businesses and business owners Next slide And we really talked about at length leveraging our outdoor and public spaces So we've talked about utilizing public spaces like road sidewalks common space. So peter was right in line our friend our public commenter Was right in line with a lot of the areas that we had in line and a lot of the ideas I feel like our businesses have already begun to innovate let them continue to innovate Let's give them opportunities to Reach out. We've seen some plans that will consist of You know the state may come down with a plan that says no indoor dining, you know, how do we maximize outdoor dining? So a shared space Is exactly the type of thing we're thinking about and how can we how can we make that happen safely? But also let businesses thrive Permit the farmers market and retail market outdoor sales to to again, how can we be adaptive and permit that? They are starting to open up around. We know that there's a lot of produce readily available. We love to support local farms and we're built on agriculture here. Let's Let's continue that and make that happen And expedite permitting for pivot to outdoor again And then adopting a temporary parking policy that encourages visitation So what we shared earlier those statistics are in full format of a survey that we took the first survey results We're not going over today, but we have submitted them and they are will be available after this meeting and you'll see the responses were were either Free parking or no enforcement for 30 days or 45 days after the state emergency is lifted Or extended recovery period that first hour recovery to maybe two hour free parking So there's lots of variations, but again The idea is whatever we can do it to encourage people to come come to our town and come and dine and shop And also that we're all consistent with the open for business messaging town chamber bid that we all work and the town council that we all work on What we're you know, it restores these health guidelines, but restores consumer confidence next slide So again in working with the town or in conversations with the town and then conversations with many of our local businesses Our developers our property owners We have put together a pretty succinct list We feel there is a lot more to back all of this up and we look forward to being Brought to either the crc or the council to go in deeper, but we'll just run through them number one is the hiring of an economic development director for the town That is a position that has been vacated for Um calendar year 2020 and we're looking forward to seeing the efforts to bring that online Come to fruition and investing in public infrastructure We we cannot speak enough to not delaying these capital projects and we say this knowing where the the you know, the funding gaps are going to be and You know, there are ideas around that and I think that those are going to be very important Especially as drivers for people to come and want to be part of our Amherst community Um, again moving forward with that destination Amherst that seems a lifetime ago that we presented at the town council a five-part series that started with the Kendrick park, which we know is going forward moved on to a parking garage behind the cbs, um, which needs some rezoning looking at the performance stage and arts and culture becoming a part of our common on a regular basis and the improvements to the north common Area that the main street parking area and the surrounding and those those are very important and they they shouldn't be put on the back burner Removing the roadblocks some barriers to economic development and adopt an expedited local permitting best practices This is something that is going to include all permitting from around the entire second floor on all the departments The removal of the design review board if we go to form-based code That review board is no longer necessary. It's an antiquated system Move appropriate items from special permits to site plan review Change our marijuana buffer zone to tap into this opportunity for our downtown And adopt staff recommendations to simplify and clarify zoning bylaws. Again, we know we're giving you bullet points We do have More information on all of this, but we don't want to have you here until 2 a.m. Tonight. Next slide, please okay, um There's a lot to discuss about planning and zoning The easiest and number one is to align the zoning bylaws with the master plan goals that have already been created the creation of desk density and mixed use development in our downtown and the village centers across Really looking at bl to bg or putting bg into the footnote b Again utilizing these overlay districts to achieve the density that creates a thriving and vital community and town centers and areas and look at grants for funding and outreach education energy efficiency and carbon footprint assessments for all of the above And the partner where we can with the mass historic preservation and to see what we can do to work with them to retrofit Some of our older buildings and bring them Into a more carbon neutral footprint Also looking for grants from them and implement complete streets models I know that this is a conversation. We all know that this is part of the master plan But now's a great time to start really moving forward with a walk and bikeable community Next slide, please Okay, so that was a lot but I think that the response to this particular era that we're in Is something that can be characterized as a fully cooperative and collaborative effort We have been talking to more partners than ever and you've heard, you know, every department At town hall has been mentioned to you know, this is going to take all of us and our business community Our property owners individuals Our educational institutions every housing advocates social services government all of us working together To think creatively and again, we're coming to you so we can be more proactive So that we can, you know, remove inhibitors and and barriers For the long for the long term economic growth as well. It's not just for tomorrow I think these are also items that we're putting out there because we want to expedite them. We want And we want to put in a practice of thinking big. This is a time You know where again, I said that, you know, we talked about unity and I when we talk about a young person who comes to get in front of town council with this great idea that, you know, Let them innovate I think this is the time and a lot of this is about all of us coming together and thinking about Things that not only will help us reopen but have a really positive long-term impact Next slide So next steps To introduce specific policy proposals to the CRC when we can be invited to meet with them To keep and continue to work collaboratively with our business community the town manager and the staff We look forward to our weekly meetings with Paul Lynn David Those have been invaluable When available inform our stakeholders of Massachusetts reopening task force guidelines We all know that there has been a Delegation and that our neighbor in East Hampton, Mayor Nicole Lechappel is on that We look forward to meeting with her working with her and hearing about what these guidelines are going to look like again, we just want to reiterate that we We believe that our our governor Baker is going to hand down the guidelines and help us You know return to whatever the new normal is as a state What we are hoping is that we are We can get ahead of those and we know what those you know Once we know what those are we can help our entire business community Implement those so that we return to This new normal as safely as possible in line with governor Baker's Requirements and protocols for a new way And we look forward to doing that with the town and we look forward to doing that for and with our businesses Thank you um, i'm going to start by asking counselors who would like to ask a question or make a comment um On this very exciting and somewhat explicit Uh presentation so Andy Steinberg has a hand up Yes, thank you. First of all, I want to thank our two presenters for a very informative and helpful presentation There were some things that I thought about as you were talking and I'm sure that paul is going to have to deal with them at next week's meeting to the extent that there are Financial implications to some of the things that you asked so i'm not going to try and go into any of that today There were two questions that I wanted to pose they may not have any answer today But I think would be helpful at some point to get them one is that um in the survey and in your presentation today There was a lot of discussion about the importance of parking Which is the indication that the feeling of the business community is that using automobiles privately owned automobiles for the most part to Get to uh businesses is an important element to supporting them But no mention was made of public transportation. So I was uh curious Whether there's been any effort to quantify the importance of bus service um to the business community and then the second thing is that you talked about um the importance of moving forward with the Four major capital projects that we've considered and um This is the one that I was thinking is maybe very difficult to answer today If you don't have the survey to back it up now, but it would be helpful At some point to know whether any of the specific projects seem more important um to the business community to stimulate the kind of Recovery that you're talking about. So those are my questions. Thank you Uh, andy, I'll take your second one and then claudia. I'll let you take the first one about transportation um, andy, I've been speaking to a lot of uh office holders Stakeholders in the major cities, namely new york, miami and boston Some contacts that I have there and there is a real feeling that there's going to be a migration Call it pandemic flight if you will and I think amherst is a location that would be well sought after It's been proven unfortunately that not everybody needs a big fancy office And although none of us want to continue working for home because that's also being proven to not be great I think that there's going to be a lot less focus on That capital expense for large businesses I think it's going to allow people to move to places where their quality of life is far better And they'll commute into the city every 10 or 12 days. They'll still need a small office space Which would be great for our area. So I look at these capital projects, especially the school the library when I think about what it is to be a young you know well Financed professional And where I would well, I chose to move here because of that I chose to move here because we had a great community and I think that we can We should continue to try to build on that great community and I think anybody looking at Where their quality of life can be good within a radius of where they can commute on that You know sort of every other week basis is going to be based on what the community has to offer And those five projects are incredible incentive Yeah, and in terms of your first question about parking I have to say that we too were I'm surprised that there was a really prevalent response from our area businesses around the concerns over parking We certainly want a walkable bussable, you know, bikeable downtown. We have valley bikes, but it wasn't really part of our survey But at the same time Certainly something to look forward to in terms of what we can ask in the future. It may not be the last survey But You're right. The jury is out. I don't know Um, we didn't those were just free form answers and we didn't really specifically attack that one issue But it's good to know for future surveys At de angeles, you have your hand up Yes, uh, you know thinking about creating the resilient am amherst and the way that we really need to come together one of the Building blocks or part of this is the educational institutions And I guess, um, I know kind of what the town does to reach out to them But what is bid or the chamber doing to reach out to the institutions, particularly amherst college that is so well funded Um, or UMass in terms of participating with donations to the town donations of land What what are you doing with them? I guess Uh, we speak to both the college and the university I speak to the university on a weekly basis. Um, I speak to the college on a bi weekly basis We had a very positive meeting with amherst college um regarding the the foundation and that Resiliency grant program and we're waiting to hear back from them on a substantial ask from our part Um in terms of that like specifically to land and other items like that And we we have not yet been part of that conversation. It doesn't mean that we would shy away from it I will say that amherst college said where goes the town of amherst goes amherst college And I thought that that was a good sentiment Evan Yeah, um, so I had I had a couple things and it's a little bit tricky because some of these may be for claudia claudia and gabriel And maybe some are more appropriate for the town manager Um, specifically there was a mention of the ag's small business relief partnership and funds that could be coming from that and the possibility of handing that off to the downtown amherst foundation I'm not really sure. I don't know what the status is of those funds or if we have to apply Um, or what the conversations are on that have been like, so I'd be interested to hear More about that One thing that I'm also interested in you know, y'all I've done a lot of work and I think that survey Is is both scary, but I'm glad we have that information But one thing that I was curious about, you know, there's a really interesting article recently in the boston business journal about how um, this pandemic has hit minority owned businesses, especially hard and that black latino and asian owned businesses are Disproportionately likely to be turned away from ppp and whatnot. Um, and so I was curious And I don't expect you'd have this answer now if there was any trends in the survey responses Um with regard to to that I know there was one thing in the document about who had been turned away or not received ppp for different reasons And just wondering if that's also something the downtown amherst foundation could look at and they're looking at who to give grants to And then the last thing I just wanted to do and again, this is probably more for the town manager, but just talking I'm not too sure If people if we're looking at moving dining outside, which just sounds like Might be a good thing For a lot of those businesses that outside is going to be on the sidewalk in a public way. And so I'm not 100% clear on Process wise what that means from both the permitting perspective to be able to permit outside, but also The way which is the realm of the council And if if that's something that we're going to be looking at soon, it would be nice to have some clarification of what that looks like Because I think that might be something we want to move on sooner rather than later I'm going to actually ask Paul to take the two questions that were town manager questions Okay, so, um, yes, we've had some internal conversations about what it would mean to do the outdoor dining but not anything extensive to tell you exactly where the line would be between what could be approved internally by our inspectors and by our building and building commissioner Versus what would have to happen with the council. I think it's a conversation that we'd want to have in terms of Is this a direction we want to go in as a community to support our local businesses? and The in terms of the ag money, you know, again, we haven't had a detailed conversation that that was Raised by the bit in the chamber and something that it's kind of intriguing But we haven't I haven't pursued that with them aggressively at this point in time And I'm going to add Evan just that on the issue of any use of the public way in any permanent or semi permanent way long term way would absolutely come to the council and But it is a combination of both permitting as well as public ways. Okay And Claudia or Gabrielle The trends if you've seen them Uh, we did not ask that specific question on the survey Our grant application does address that very specifically And I will tell you right now that out of the applications We have received one of the questions is also Have they applied for and have they received the ppp and the idle? And I can tell you anecdotally without it in front of me and specific that yes We are hearing it and we are seeing it. There is a disproportionate And I heard it anecdotally Kathy Shane Thank you. Um, I have a Comment that builds on or a question that builds on andes and then something that is uh jumped to a Different topic that was raised in your presentation on the four capital projects. Um If I step back and look at what the town is facing as you talk about a resilient Amherst We have to have a resilient town budget in Amherst Financing the people who work here And we're looking at a coming year That we're going to do well if we could even hold a constant budget and capital the big capital projects Are going to um be on a back burner. Um, just for The type of financing we're going to be able to afford unless people are looking to see tax increases and tax overrides You know, so we've got a reality check of We're a business. We're just um a public business under a lot of stress so the Point of that that randy raised about preferences and rating of priorities when we had the listening sessions on the four Build it projects the schools came out very high and the library came out very low And I don't think it's because people don't value the library. They love the library But they feel like the library is in pretty good shape. Um, you know other than some repairs So I just think, you know being a little bit more nuanced on where The investment dollars by the town as people think about it rather than one large cluster Unless you have success in going to Amherst college the way and william stepped up and said let me help you build your elementary school And help you finance it, you know, we have some deep pockets in town. It's just not the town government. Um And it's not the average businessmen So just it's it's kind of food for thought on differentiating a little bit then also on your your comments on opportunities to think differently And remove barriers but also think of things like complete streets and starting to build that into our design um I think it would be important for some of the businesses to start weighing in When planning or the design review board are faced with A developer that wants to build out to the edge of an already narrow sidewalk Rather than move the space back and allow for outdoor seating Allow for a bike path and trying to think about what the street feels like to people and opportunity for walkable bikeable spaces and we we don't have those in The width of the sidewalk or some of the setbacks and we have one that's coming up with us later today But it's been noticeable to me that we talk about the complete streets But it's not always when it's not already in existing So trying to think about what it takes to get that kind of vibrancy You know around different issues. So again, it's it's uh some support of the developer community and the design community You say, you know, this really makes a difference a place feels very different If it's a big tall building, but it's not right in your face or the second floor moves backwards or there's more outdoor seating And I know you think this way, but I just think bringing that Into a full circle would be important I couldn't agree more. Uh, and I think that that goes back to zoning Those things have to be put in zoning because the fact of the matter is is that if you have an inch that you're allowed to build on Chances are you're going to so those come back to zoning And I think that that's part of the conversation and the action that is desperately needed to move forward with some zoning reform And I'm sorry to answer your first question. I believe I'm going to say that economic development is going to be imperative to moving forward As a town in terms of success and financial success And yes, that includes economic development that works with the college and the university But without that person really fighting for and looking for the opportunities for us, we're going to lose out felony Yeah, so um, just appreciating the different stakeholders you've engaged with The bed and the chamber. So, uh, that's I think giving us a lot of information to work with the town council has a lot of work I can see uh, I was um It was I mean, there's some things that seem very doable and and can be handled like public safety guidance for reopening And that was a little surprising for me and also actually comforting to see that businesses actually want To open gradually and not in a hurry. They want to do it in a good way And I think that's something we can control and provide but the town manager's guidance um I would still like to see more specifics in terms of the permitting streamlining and zoning what businesses are really looking for that would really help us to hone into What we can start working and improving right away And the last piece that I was thinking since we are all Going to have to work together think out of the box is whether one of the things that came out of the survey is the rents And if you've had an opportunity to speak with landlords and what is the sense you're getting From speaking with the landlords with the respect to rents and how they can also work with the businesses right now either Gabrielle or Claudia Any comments on that at this time? uh In terms of specificity uh, shall we we look forward to bringing that to either the crc or Whoever you direct us to paul and lin. Um, we just didn't bring that to this because we'd be here all night In terms of speaking with the landlords There are a lot of conversations going on with So this is where claudia and i differ Technically claudia works for the businesses. Um, I say that I work for the landlords, but I work with the businesses So I probably have more conversations with the landlords than claudia does But trust me. I have I have used terrible low numbers and um, they are frightening and and They're not what anybody thought they'd be going to after the economic success over the past decade But it is on the radar and it is known. Yes And some will and some will not But I'm gonna make sure that claudia's still with us. I'm here. I'm here. Can you hear me? Thank you Yeah, yeah, I just feel like um, those are Such good insights and we don't have all those we didn't again We didn't bring all those details with the meeting But we have them and we will we decided that we thought this would be plenty to start with and for everyone to sort of You know just start to ruminate over and then we we bring in the details um, but the details are going to be as important and You know, we have had lengthy conversations about what permitting could look like downtown to ease You know to ease getting our restaurants as quickly as possible up online Can we do a quick fact sheet for you a quick permitting? Can we do a fast-track permitting type of thing? You know, we've had amazing numerous ideas on how that could look And what form that could take again to make it as easy as possible for them to be as flexible as possible when the day comes Even to the point of you know shutting down a certain portion of the town on on the weekends So that people can and go to their favorite restaurants and and go and stay for a while. So anyway, it's it's a much bigger discussion And how that looks and plays out And also with the landlords, I'll leave that with Gabrielle's comments I think we're just right on that, you know, it's going to be a divide but I think It is going to take all of us to make this work And to be as adaptable as possible Especially early on Alyssa Thank you I ask because my connections been going in and out. Ah, there you go. Thank you We're not hearing you Alyssa Wonderful Um, oh she just went out I'm gonna try again. Does that sound? Go ahead and try we're getting it. It's going in and out with an echo I'm hearing that at your end too, and it says my connections unstable even though I have full bars and I'm sitting in one spot Pretty solid right now. So go ahead, please So quickly, I just want to say in contrast to an earlier statement by one of my colleagues I just want to make it clear that neither the town council nor I am convinced yet that it's financially smart to Large would agree it was smart once they see the full details of the cost to do that If we turn down the mblc grant. So that's another thing in process That's been made and the other thing I wanted to just compliment in addition to all the other compliments to the bid and chamber is We're missing the good part We wanted to hear it Um, Athena, could you please work with Alyssa so that she could come back and we could hear her full statement Okay, and meantime, I'm going to take Dorothy Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. So I'm just going to talk about sometimes we talk about What we want people to do And I want to talk about what people want to do And when it comes to the businesses downtown people want to many people Want to take a car quickly park and dash in because it's when you compare it to the ease of online shopping Um, if it's not easy or convenient Many of us are saying am I really going to go to a parking garage And park there and then walk five blocks to go to a store and check out something And I I don't think so. So I and I think that parking is really key to an active downtown So I want to say that we've got a couple of things going which are working in the wrong direction And I think this is a time for us to rethink it I our present parking zoning saying that people don't need to park downtown because there's a bus I find an idea that is a coercive idea of what you want people to do But I'm you know public transportation is going to have a hard time for a couple of years until covid 19 is gone Gone gone and we hear it's going to be coming back and back So it's this is a problem for new york city a major one and it's a problem for amherst too So what is the safest thing in amherst walking riding a bike or driving your own private vehicle? So And I'm not against a parking garage I can see a need for parking garages particularly for amherst cinema or for other draws I like the ideas of closing streets on a more frequent basis. That's one of your ideas I think that's excellent and will allow us to Interact with a sense of more social distancing But just want to remind you don't forget older people. We're a very large part of the year-round demographic and when you think of amherst as a Survival town. Yeah, that's true after 9 11 many many people including me left new york city And I moved to north at connecticut and I see that in amherst. There are so many new york roots here and There will continue to be people from the big cities to our south and to our east And many of the people who come will be older people who want easy and convenient parking So I don't want to give that away and I'd like if there are buildings that are built I don't like the idea of them not being told you don't need to include parking for your tenants Because that can be done in a very quiet way underneath or in back So that we don't have you know, look at big parking lots as we drive through town I like your research. It's kind of uh, if I had my classes in person instead of on zoom I'd say hey, look at this report the chun page did this is what if you're as a young person You're expected to do when you get hired. It's pretty overwhelming but One thing I would like is if you would do a color key I have trouble telling the difference colors apart So when I look at the graph and see the percentages and I look at the little key I can't match them necessarily and I'm not colorblind, but there were so many different changes Of brown for example, I got very confused But I think there's a lot of fabulous research and evidence there And I I commend all the work that both the bid and the chamber are doing on trying to keep our active friendly financially successful or to restart it again downtown Thank you. Thank you Steve schreiber Hi, um I wish that I could have heard but alisa was saying because she mentioned mblc So I think she was talking about the libraries, but that's what I wanted to talk about also just um One of the grid there's many tragedies in that we in this during this pandemic And for one of the most powerful ones are the closings of the libraries So massachusetts is where the idea of the public library started And the idea that that particular institution so important to massachusetts would be, you know closed Is, you know, is profound and it really is a huge cultural divide between those who have options and those who don't So like a lot of people depend on the library for shelter or for, you know, to stay out of them Out of the weather but also to access wi-fi to access information It's hard for me to imagine You know sort of rebuilding after this pandemic and accepting the jones library the way it is so You know to me that we have this amazing opportunity to rethink the jones and I hope that the architects of the jones and in the trustees of the jones We'll take another look at the scheme and the post pandemic era but I think that the opportunity for Social distancing and the kinds of things that we really need in our public spaces Can happen in this critical Um public building right in the heart of downtown and I hope we seize this opportunity and provide a place for, you know, for everyone using the knowledge of now this new criterion of Of a pandemic Okay, elissa. Have you been able to Connect If you can hear me. Yes, if you can't hear me then the answer's no We can hear you. Would you please go ahead and start from the beginning? Thank you Let me try this again the two comments. I just wanted to make and for a change. They're not questions but I just wanted to to clarify one is Yes, we had the listening sessions about the capital projects, but I'm certainly not convinced it's financially smart to Only repair the jones library and don't believe the community at large would agree It was smart once they see the full details of the cost to do so if we turn down the mblc grant So I don't want anybody listening to this session think that's a done deal And the other is that I'm very excited that you the chamber and bid talked about working with mayor lasha pal Who as they indicated was appointed to the governor's reopening advisory board because it's so rare that we get western massachusetts representation on anything That it's great Thank you, elissa. Are there any other comments at this time? So I want to thank you again Claudia and Gabrielle as well as john page And the other people that have been very much a part of this whole effort Um, your research is critical to Amherst understanding the businesses as you do at this point Is critical to Amherst and we are delighted and pleased to have this kind of partnership at this point in our history as we move forward and we'll look forward to figuring out Where we go with specific things as we map through this. So thank you paul. I believe you're up next Thank you and shan's going to put up our slides and my report is because we spent a lot of time On a piece of our report mine will be relatively quick quick So, um We'll get to the slide quickly, but i'm going to just start because you're probably familiar with what the slides look like The our numbers in massachusetts 69,087 total cases 563 in and hampshire county 57 in amherst 4090 deaths statewide 324,268 people tested Um, I will go through the you know, you should usually give I want to I always thought it's uh important to give you a Update on our staffing staffing continues to be strong. Um, we continue to test Members of our staff who've been exposed or may have been exposed either on the job or not on the job And and we have a very good protocol between our police and fire On that moving forward Um Keep going shan, uh, we'll get to major challenges because i'm we're going to be going through this Because I want to get to a couple things here. We are Um, so I wanted to we already talked about local businesses And that's one of the things that is highlighted here The other thing that we really are going to be talking about and having listening deeply to what the university and the colleges are saying Um is what it's going to look like when the fall comes and they control their destinies They have not made any decisions from our conversations with them But I think for all each of them, um, they will it will be different than it has been in the past Um, we don't know how many people will be We if they open We don't know how many people will be on campus We don't know how if people will be confined to campus. Um, we don't know how many people will be off campus So there's all kinds of scenarios being in models being played rolled out by the the colleges and the university We've asked them to keep us in the loop as they start to to Play these out. It's important for us for a number of different reasons everything from water and sewer usage to the impact on our downtown And um So once they get up and running and again I think for a lot of them until there's an actual vaccine Um, that's going to be the the difference maker But everybody says we will not have a vaccine for a year to a year and a half So we're going to be looking at a new reality coming to fall and uh, that will have a dramatic impact on all of our business in town including the rental market But we don't really know which way it's going to go So you can go to the next slide Sean So this is where we talk about the things that are coming up in terms of communication So we have our our website obviously our call-in shows will be tomorrow at noon I'll be with assistant town manager Dave Zomek. We will be specifically talking about recreation areas hiking trails Puffers pond were prepared for all those areas. If anybody would like to call in or send us a question in advance We will answer them and we also record these and put them on our website So if you can't make it right at noon, you can Watch another time. They last between 20 to 30 minutes. We don't want them to be super long So this is these are on tuesdays and thursdays on thursdays. It's always with our health director, julie fetterman This friday, um, we have a cup of joe with paul, which is a morning at 8 a.m for an hour roughly The special guest on this day is toni morales. Who's The director of community relations at the university of massachusetts It happens to be a commencement day for you mass They will be having a virtual commencement with a lot of surprises. They say that's will be streaming live at 4 30 on that friday, um may 8th So people again, that's a that's an opportunity for people to ask question live You sort of do like tonight you you raise your hand through zoom We had come we invite you into the room. You can ask your question We could have a dialogue a little bit more informal than a lot of the then council meetings in a way that is purposely so So, um, please join us for any of those opportunities Next slide So the these are all the things that are coming up The major thing that we are working on right now is a presentation to the town council the school committee and the Board of library trustees on monday may 11th at 5 30 working with our interim finance director to put together a presentation That will show you actual numbers and what it looks like for us for this fiscal year and for f y 21 Where we think the revenues are going to go and where we think the impacts are going to be And then also identify some of the tools we have at our disposal to help us manage through this Um, there are a lot of assumptions a lot of modeling that will go that we need to do And we're we're just beginning to look at this in terms of is in some assumptions that will be built in and we'll ask Offer that up to you and you can give us some guidance on that as well in terms of whether This is a one-year deal a two-year deal a three-year deal. When do we think we're going to be back to? Um, be a normal whatever that will mean going forward um next slide So I I note that our health director julie fetterman is here, but I want to point two things out to you next slide um Two significant orders from the governor this year I mean this week One was his order to extend the closing of ascent except for essential businesses And to limit gatherings to no more than 10 people He extended that order until may 18th Which is two weeks from Yes, two weeks from tonight so and as part and parcel of that he had um Established the reopening committee that has three members of the of the Municipalities on it the mayor of east Hampton the mayor of laurence and the chief of staff for the city of boston there also a lot of industry representatives on that committee and They've been very active there on meetings, you know five six seven hours a day meeting with different different groups Listening and then their idea is to come up with some principles for reopening um I'm on two different groups One for the mma a small group of about 10 managers and mayors Who are helping to advise our to shape the mma's thinking on this thing? and then there's also a group of a very large group of Managers and mayors that meets weekly on sundays That we were we talked about in many of these same issues So there's a million conversations going around on around about this um And welcome any ideas that you may have the second one is the um his order about face coverings in public Places where social distancing is not possible. So you can go to the next slide um So and julie can speak to this if she wants or there may she may just respond to questions based on it So the order is that if you are in if you're over two years old Um, if you are Inside or outside and you cannot social distance In a public place. Um, you must cover your mouth and your nose Um, you there's an exemption if you have a medical condition There's no requirement for you to carry a certificate to prove your medical condition But if you have a certain any kind of Emphasizing, I don't know what the medical medical conditions would be julie could Let me speculate. I'm terrible on medical stuff. So Won't even try This applies to employees who work in an establishment as well If you are on public transportation, you're required to have a face covering And then there's a $300 fine that's attached to this, but it's totally up to the local jurisdiction to enforce these things Our approach has been to do Education encourage people to do it. Um, it's really just for the opposite people who really want to You know, don't want to cooperate where a fine would ever come into play I haven't really heard of anybody any community issuing fines at this moment in time So, uh, and then I'm going to end if you want to go to the next slide Um And the next slide after so we already had the this so we've talked a lot about resilience and resilient amherst And it's something that we sort of tagged ourselves with It's our ability to recover from Or a misfortune or change and that's what we're talking about We are going to be resilient. We have the capacity If we make smart decisions and that's our mission The way we make smart decision is by having a lot of communication among interested parties And that's why you hear us talking about Meeting weekly with a lot of different groups to make sure communication is strong and next slide And so one of the things that one of my groups that we've been talking about we we talk about what does what does This look like what are the principles that we want to observe When we go to reopening and we want all our decisions and this is something that julie has held us very strongly to accountable In amherst is that we want whatever our decisions are to be grounded in science and most recent research We want any kind of Reopening or plan to be coordinated and regional It doesn't make any sense for amherst to move in one direction to Hadley move into a second direction into north hampton To move in a third direction It's important for the state to articulate guidelines so that there aren't there isn't a mishmash And I think we I think we saw this a little bit with face masks Where different towns had different rules and you could be Within 15 minutes of four different towns around boston and each one had a different rule about face face masks and face coverings So we appreciate That the governor has come out explicitly and said here's what we think everyone should do It makes it clear to the population We want anything like this to be equitable We want to make sure that there are no party that every every party party has Access to the capital and to the things that they need to To return their business to normal to return themselves to getting back on back on their feet and again Basically, we want to prioritize our decision making on health and welfare of our population We often will as we're struggling with different issues And there's a lot of issues that we talk about internally And we often have to reorient ourselves and say what is in the interest of the public health What is the interest of the public safety for the people of amherst and we're always reframing ourselves and Recalibrating ourselves to say that is our mission as public officials paid for by the employee by the people of amherst That's what our mission is and so it's it's always a really good grounding tool for us to be focused on those things And I think julie i'm not sure if you'll want to say something if you just want to respond to questions You're muted Julie you're muted. Thank you. Sorry about that. Um pa. I think very well said and since we've been going on for some time here I think um, it'll probably be best for me to just answer questions Okay, uh, we have a question from melissa brewer and we're going to see if you can hear her ask it. Yes. Thank you. We can I'm concerned about the way the governor's order is being characterized The way I read the part about not distance being able to distance six feet But the next paragraph says all persons are required to wear masks for cloth Face gatherings at all time when inside grocery stores pharmacies and other retail stores And then also talks about public transportation like paul talked about So that's not an if you can't be six feet apart. That is saying you will do it, right? Um, alissa, uh, yes when you're inside The idea is to be wearing a mask. I think the piece where if you can be six feet apart or further You don't have to wear a wet mask is if you're outside and there's no one around you or you're You know Well over six feet away from someone else then you don't have to wear a mask You know, there there have been some areas around the country Where the concept has been the minute you go out your door you put on a mask So I do think the the difference here is just that While it is based on the six foot away when you're inside in a public space You're just kind of a mask on whereas if you're outside, you're supposed to be using your good judgment about that six foot boundary Thank you. I think that's very clear Okay, indigil Yes, I I want to follow up on that. Um, especially the outdoor portion Um There has been a lot of use of the rail trail Um including by myself and my family because we've happened to live nearby and we can walk there Um, I have seen very few masks being worn on the rail trail Despite it's heavy use and the need to pass people and bikes passing in the middle of the lane while people are walking on each side Um, and you just know there's not six feet distance because It's just not a large area. So I I would like um Julie to offer some guidance Regarding the governor's policy the order that he just issued About mandatory mask wearing when you can't necessarily be six feet away and how that actually might look or play out on Say a rail trail or at a public park or at our local Trails at amethyst brook and those locations I think you bring up something really important Mandy joe and we're having our internal discussions about this Certainly the rail trail is a very specific spot because it's we know that it's very crowded That people that if you're going to pass each other, there's not going to be six foot distancing um So we don't have a conclusion yet about how we're going to get the education out to people that if you're going to be going To certain places Like if you're going to be going outside, but it's to a narrow place like a trail or A park that could have a lot of people there or or has a narrow entrance Or the rail trail specifically which by definition is narrow Then you're going to have a mask with you and there's a good chance you're going to need to wear it Because of the way you pass people So we're still looking at how we're going to educate people about that I think I think the governor actually addressed that because One of the examples he used is when he goes outside his home at 5 30 in the morning and there's a Jogger or run someone running He doesn't think that person would need to wear a mask But if he goes out outside his house at 5 30 in the evening There are a lot of people out there then that runner needs to wear a mask So that's not a clear definition But if you're going to be outside exercising or doing what biking or whatever and you're going to be passing someone That's my well again. We're having this conversation So i'm probably going out and on the before Julie would say but you know, that's when you expect people to be wearing something to delay the Stuff coming out of your mouth basically Sean Um, do we have a sense about testing? How is that starting to become more available is what is the trend with respect to testing? And the second question was about lsse camps. Do we have a sense of what's happening with the summer camps? Thank you Two good questions. So in terms of testing There's no indication that we have a particular Large increase in taste testing availability I think one of the ways we would be able to measure that would be by The opening up of drive-thru locations for testing things like that, so We do not specifically have More testing available. I think that that's something that just continues to evolve In terms of leisure services camps and all camps This is certainly one of the really really big questions So twice a week i'm on a call with all other local public health folks with the department of public health at the state and Of course as the warm weather is coming all these warm weather topics are coming up camps pools We're expecting guidance fairly close to may 18th because all of this will be connected to How is massachusetts doing? What are we seeing happening in our hospitals? What are we seeing in terms of people? Um death rates. What are we seeing in terms of a trend downwards? So I think summer camps are linked a little bit to the conversations about child care and and People getting people back to work. So while it's really important for kids to have something to do Camps are often also part of that piece of helping people to get back at work So what i'm hearing is that we're not going to know about that for You know, maybe 10 days or so because we're really seeing in real time. What's happening? so and I just to add on to that the um again That's a common topic for municipal officials Saying that if you're going to open your pool we or if you're going to keep your pool closed Is that mean everybody's going to come to my community if we open our pool? It needs to be coordinated and and regional in terms of the approach Okay, can am I on? Yes. Yes, okay Um, I wanted to uh two points. I wanted to add to the masks You don't have to be on a hiking trail. You just have to live near a sidewalk I live on amity street very well traveled sidewalk and people should be wearing masks all the time There's very difficult. You don't have time to get your six foot distance And people are passing each other within two feet all the time So I I really think we have to be more clear cut on the masks About the leisure services camps I hope that some of the camps are preparing to go online Even though that's not what you necessarily think of as a summer activity But I know that my granddaughter's one of her camps at dammer's college great books is going online They're not going to have their schools right now the kids are going doing their lessons from their schools A certain number of hours a day But they can't just go into a void of activity for the summer. So there I just hope that there is some online children's activity And you know, there could be a lot of wonderful things that could be done online That the leisure services will provide in the summer whether or not they can do outside stuff Thank you for that Dorek. Yeah, I um, yeah, I was not I was referencing You know camps in person camps that are outside So and I don't know if Paul knows if if leisure services is looking at anything virtual. I don't know myself They are great great very good Steve shriver Yeah, so, um, we're at the very beginning of what I call free couch season where Free couch season where people Move out of their apartments and don't know what to do with the couch and put it on the front You know on the curb with a free sign on it. So and most years that's benign So this year it doesn't seem particularly benign. I'm just curious if you thought about Yeah, um, you know thought about that at all It's a good point. We haven't had an explicit conversation about that julie Yeah, I was gonna say no, Steve. I'm glad you brought it up. Yeah, so many years Definitely, I would be thinking about that. We'd all be talking about it and um, No, so thanks for that reminder and I think we should look at that and talk with the schools. Yeah I don't see any more hands and although I hate to prolong the meeting I would like to suggest a five minute break and we will be back at 805 Lynn could I ask a question? Yes, what was the date of the cup of joe? I want to send this message. It's on the eighth the eighth friday friday. That's what my clock I have eight o'clock eight o'clock. I'm sorry. It's eight o'clock friday and that if friday is may what? Eight eight. Okay. Great. Thank you. It's at eight o'clock and the information is on the website I'm trying to text somebody Okay All anything else on that? Okay. Um, it is 805. I'm going to quickly make sure you're back and reconnected um shallony ball mill elissa brewer present uh pat de angeles present darsie demont Lynn greesmer is present mandy jo hannagy present Dorothy pam present Evan ross present George ryan present Kathy shane present Steve schreiber here Andy steinberg present Sarah schwarz present And shallony ball mill Okay, we're going to move on to our actions items the first action item agenda um And I will read the whole motion and then as I've mentioned in the past you need to indicate After I complete that as to whether or not you would like an item removed from the consent agenda On to the regular full agenda The following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy To remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion later in the meeting ask that it be removed When the president lists the consent agenda items the request to remove an item from the consent agenda does not require a second The motion is to move The following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit 7b authorization of town manager to enter inter municipal agreements 7c referral of reservation of public ways Parking the street closure long term request amorce farmers market town services an outreach committee Referral to permanent use of public ways 133 and 143 south east street town services and outreach committee referral of surveillance technology bylaw town services and outreach committee and automatic referral to governance organization and legislation committee The next the need to waive council rule 8.6 is not necessary because the TSO has provided a written report. So that is not part of the consent agenda 8b approval of town manager appointment of town council to energy and climate action committee and 10a approval of minutes April 27th 2020 regular town council meeting minutes. I'm going to pause and alissa brewer Please remove the farmers market from the consent agenda okay And pat de angeles Please remove the inner uh municipal agreement Okay and uh Kathy shane Please remove the permanent use of the public way at 133 143 southeast street Okay So the motion that I need a second to on is To move the following items and the printed motions there under and approve those items as a single unit referral of surveillance technology bylaw town services and outreach committee and automatic referral to governance organization and legislation committee and the approval of town manager appointment of town counselor to energy and climate action committee and the approval of minutes April 27th 2020 regular town council Meeting minutes. Is there a second? Okay, okay, the motion's been made in second to this. We require roll call vote. Is there any further question? Okay, then we will do the roll call vote this time. We will start with alissa brewer I Pat de angeles All right Darcy duMont Hi Lynn greece marism I mandy johanna key I Dorothy pam I Evan ross I George ryan I Kathy shane I Steve schreiber I Andy steinberg I Sarah schwarz I And shallony ball mill. Yes Right the consent agenda as we amended it past Unanimously 13 00 with no unabsence. So we're starting with the intermutant school agreements And uh, this is something that has come before the council once before pat. You asked that it be removed You have a specific question Yes, I uh, it's the same question I brought up last week when it was on the agenda in the Hadley Water agreement there is a missing information in terms of fees Um, I'm trying to see in my notes what the number is but I think And I asked that that they looked into and it's still there as a series of question marks in the agreement Mr. Bachman. Yeah, so we'd have not set those fees yet and these are The specifics of the agreement are Something that we are continuing to work on the question before the council Is if you would allow us to enter into an inter municipal agreement with the town of Hadley or not Um, and because these are this agreement is still being worked on Thank you Okay So the motion is to authorize the town. Are there any other questions? Okay, the motion is to authorize the town manager to enter into Inter municipal agreements under mass general law chapter 40 section 4a as outlined in the town manager memorandum to the town council dated 424 2020 for the following purposes South Deerfield water supply district water agreement through december 31st 2022 Town of Hadley water agreement through december 31st 2020 and town of Hadley wastewater agreement through december 31st 2020 Any further is there a second? I think those Mandy Yes, Mandy Yes, okay Paul, did you have a comment? I think the agreements are through 2022 All three Oh, I'm sorry. Did I said the wrong date? It's written as 2022 on our motions. I must have gotten it right. Thank you And so the motion's been made in seconded Is there any further discussion? Andy Steinberg Yeah, I was just curious if we Don't have a complete agreement with one of the for one of the agreements Hadley Um Can't Complete an agreement without it having been fully negotiated. I would assume What is the need to have a vote on that particular agreement today as opposed to the subsequent meeting? Mr. Brockman So I think well my understanding is that you have to authorize me to enter into an agreement And then that's up to the executive to negotiate the the terms of the agreement It's not up to the council to negotiate the terms of the agreement But if you would like to reserve your action until after the final agreement is negotiated, that's up to you. That's up to the council And so this would be removing which one from the motion The water Andy you asked Alyssa You have your hand up. Yes. Thank you Just following up on what Andy said We had this conversation before and you know that paul and I disagree about the nuance of this And of course it would be possible for us to say sure town manager, just go ahead and negotiate an agreement I just don't think that's what our community wants us to do So given if it's not time sensitive, I would prefer not to have the one that the question marks approved at this time Okay, so would you please make the motion as you want it modified? I'm sorry. We have a motion on the floor Is there an amendment to the motion? Mandy job So i'm not going to move to amend because I think we have the right to Approve this now. I would vote against any amendment to remove the Hadley water one from it. We are the legislature We are not the executive. We are not the people that negotiate the contract I want to remind this council that for the community choice Aggregation motions that we faced a couple months ago We gave our town manager the authority to negotiate those intermunet school agreements Without having any clue what they're actually going to look like we didn't even have a draft in front of us Yet we passed that motion I think it was overwhelmingly. I don't know what the exact Vote was but it was but it passed without having seen a draft at all This is something that paul is perfectly within the right to ask us to do So I won't I'm going to vote for all three to Authorize him to do that. We've done it before with even less information than we have now I don't see any reason to delay this any further The motion has been made and seconded Is there any other discussion at this time? Okay, seeing none, then I'm going to do a roll call vote Uh this time starting with pat de angeles A vote in favor Darcy duMont Yes Lynn greasmer. Yes Uh mandy joe hannacky. Yes Dorothy pamm Yes Evan ross Yes George ryan Yes Kathy shane Yes Steve schreiber Yes Andy steinberg Yes Sarah schwarz Yes Chalene balmone Yes Alyssa brewer No The vote is 13. I mean 12 to 1 Zero abstained no absences We're moving on then to the reservation of the public way regarding parking and street closure long-term request This is regarding the amherst farmers market And because there was a significant amount of interest in this We're going to begin with a presentation of the proposal By mr. Bachman, but let me just preface this by saying the following This is a request by amherst Amherst's very popular farmers market For the use of the public way on saturdays during the coming months And that is why it has come to the council What makes it different from other years are the present and future conditions that define the new normal because of covid In many ways, this is also the first proposal to come before The council relating to the reopening of amherst Under the definition of the new normal The proposal includes the many state guidelines for general health and safety as well as specific guidelines for farmers markets And these have been developed by health and safety experts One of those that is not in here because it was not submitted at the time that it was there was that regarding the masks We have placed we have places the proposed in power point form and are also able to project the proposed layout Our goal tonight is to collect questions and statements that will be forwarded to tso Tso will either meet on may 11th or may 18th To at least begin to address our concerns If they are able to complete their inner their review by april by i'm sorry by may 18 This will return to the council at our meeting that evening For action regarding the present and or revised requests Given the challenges of the zoom meetings. Mr. Bachmann will make a presentation Present with us this evening our farmers market Manager david mckowski and the head of the market john spinetti But paul, please proceed. So thank you One of the big harbingers of spring and amherst has always been the farmers market, but this year it's different Um, as lin mentioned, this is the first time that we will be talking about The council or the town officially taking an action that would open up the town in some ways After the may 18th assuming that whatever happens after may 18th Again, we have present and participating if you would like to hear from them The market manager david mckowski and our long-term member john spinetti who has I think may be the longest serving Farmer attending a farmers market in the country. He's been here since the late 70s Every week. So great. Thanks for being here john The the Under the governor's order farmers markets are considered an essential business. So they are permitted to to operate The goal of tonight is to present present the application at the same site As the location has always been but in introducing social distancing standards so that the Off the the farmers market could open effectively We assisted the farmers market staff assisted the farmers market by putting down Creating a plan based on their sort of sketch that they did so that was a presentable plan that you could actually review And by coming up with some standards that we thought would Allow them to open at their current Current location one of the things that we considered as we were building this was Whether this is a social. This is not a social gathering It's a way to purchase food In an outdoor space much like you would go to a grocery store But in an outdoor space as long as social distancing was was implemented um One of the things that we had envisioned was that as you do a plan There may be things that change once you open up and you learn from it For instance, I went to the greenfield farmers market on saturday And they had sort of they said they had a little rocky start at the beginning And then they changed some things around as they learned how people were going to be standing and together and they Adjusted it by 10 o'clock. They were all up and running But they had to make some changes on the fly, but it was very intense a lot of staff supporting it There were eight stalls there But it but it got started. So next slide In your packet is Was a cover memo that I drafted It's a the plan has dated april 25th that we we prepared based on Some conversations with the farmers market the original application form the farmers market usually comes in much earlier Than this and so because of we didn't know where we were going with the whole covid thing We it's bringing being brought to you today and then the number of state directors that have come out um next slide We structured it based on the request of the market To accommodate the 32 vendors that they typically have on a on a weekly basis The the idea was to maintain their 10 by 10 tent sites that where each vendor would be and and provide A basic amount of social distancing between them In order to do that we we created three different rows instead of two And then also extended some way down boltwood avenue in both directions. Next slide We um There are other ways that uh the farmers market and we could re explore this uh at the council's pleasure Uh in terms of expanding the footprint looking at main street, uh looking at the common looking at other locations The farmers market feels and they can speak to this themselves That being in this location downtown or at least on the common in the common area out of visible site is a high priority for them um I won't go into the logistics, but there would be one entry point The market would be fenced off so you could there would only be one entrance and one exit So that there was proper social distancing when people queued up They would be six feet between each person in line Um And we would want to have them make sure they everything was set up and and and um inspected before they were able to open next slide Uh one of the things that was important that's been a standard is that there'd be plexiglass or some other material That uh would protect the vendors from the customers and vice versa that transactions would happen, uh in a Hands-off way much like in and that the um The the transactions would be handed off in a in a hands-off way and that uh People would not be touching the produce. They would be handed to produce There's the farmers market is preparing and i'm not sure if it's they can david bachowski can address this They are preparing a virtual farmers market so that you can go online Visit the farmers pick the produce that you would like and then have a pickup zone Uh on south pleasant street is what we have proposed Um where you could pick up your food and have contactless Um pick up of of food Next slide um there would be uh Alcohol-based hand sanitizer before you entered the market Everyone would be expected to wash their hands before entering the market. There'd be portable toilets um and available for people who are there or for the vendors That we would that we would view this as a food or essential Farm services to support the local agriculture industry and not necessarily a craft sphere or something like that Um, and this is these are our the farmers market may be recommending something different To be clear that there would be have to be social distancing which which is defined as six feet separation and um and go to the next slide And with the governor's new order everyone would be required to wear a face covering if they were to enter or work at the farmers market Uh, we would not be promoting live music or anything that would encourage social interaction or social gathering Again reusable bags like at most of our grocery stores are not allowed Um, we had suggested that the first hour or so of the market be dedicated to those over 60 years old And that the building commissioner established a maximum load meaning the number the maximum number of people who would be allowed Into the market at any one time and that would be counted and enforced for all of these things we town staff our inspectors would be monitoring and enforcing especially at the beginning to make sure that all the all That whatever provisions the council decides to put on are enforced But in addition We recognize that the building inspector and the health inspector have a different set of rules that they will also be looking at and enforcing on their own So the council And we will go to the strictest rule whoever sets the strictest rule on these things So with that, um, Lynn if I could ask either david or john if they'd like to say a few words Paul I have a few words and I'm here. I think john is here also still no Yes, so this is david machowski the farmers market manager speaking. This is david machowski And I want to thank you paul and everybody for just giving us some airtime tonight. Um, paul I think that was really well put I don't have much to add but I do have a couple points to go further with what you had said First of all just regards to john. I believe he is the oldest attendee at a farmers market If not in the state, maybe the country too The market started in 1972 john was there on day one from my understanding So he has been around and seen it all For many years and watched it grow and really kind of provide a a hub for agricultural commerce in the center of amherst, which has been great. Um You had mentioned that we are essentially setting up an outdoor farmers market And I think that's a or an outdoor grocery store. I think that's a good analogy um I think it's fair to say that we could maintain a lot of the same Protocol as the grocery stores are managing just we won't have a roof But we could provide the distancing and the spacing and everything to Appropriately accommodate the covid restrictions and make sure that everybody is safe both shoppers and vendors alike Which I think we all agree are very important points at this stage um I think that the populace right now is kind of champing at the bit to get back out there And like you said the market is a harbinger of spring and We are dealing with people that are have been cooped up and we are also A provision for people that are dealing with food insecurities. So the market is a way for those that uh For those particularly that are in the center of town and on foot a way that they can shop get things that they need and be able to zing back home and we also have a A fund that we're providing a supplement for those that are in a position of food insecurity that are using ebt that we offer a A supplement to them monthly for use specifically at the farmers market for fresh produce and meats, etc So I would love to see that availed by getting back out there for those people that are in need The the market historically has been a class a farmers market. So The issue of crafts is really not something I think we're gonna have to Jump in terms of many hurdles many of the vendors do have crafts Alongside of their agricultural product, but it is an agriculturally based market almost every vendor To a name has Agricultural products things that are grown things that are produced meats vegetables fruits produce Flowers things that are produced out in the fields of the of the local area So I don't know if we'll be exempting many people or excluding many people from from joining as vendors um On a given day historically We average between 25 and 28 vendors per saturday We've got almost 40 registered, but they come through you know depending on seasonality some are there in the beginning some are there at the end some are Are alternating they'll do once a month twice a month whatever it depends on what their product is and what their timing is So we we try to accommodate all those vendors that are coming through when their product is ready and when they're They're a season really is at their own high point if that makes sense um I think that this is going to be A challenge for sure. I mean we're all kind of learning and having to adjust on the fly and I think your point of Visiting the the greenfield farmers market and seeing that they did have a little rocky start Um, I think we're going to have that too. I think no matter when we get out there We're going to be learning on the fly and we'll be able to accommodate the needs but we will have to be uh flexible adaptable and Plan as best we can but as you know a plan is planned but the reality is the alternate plan And we'll have to address that as it shows try to think ahead of All the possible things that might come up, but um, I think that day one of the market opening will be slightly different than day two and day two might be slightly different than day three and and so on as we evolve with the The needs and the restrictions and how we're going to make this a public service again for the people But safely to do so if that makes sense john You're on mute john Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Uh, I just wanted to thank town manager for your presentation It was core team for helping us set up the plan that they detailed I think david has covered most of the points. I would have mentioned And more and I would like to point out that a lot of our Food offerings to the uh disadvantage and people who are need of locally grown good food Say food I might add Include the wick programs include hip program healthy incentive program As well as the one that david mentioned that we received a grant from blue cost blue shield 35,500 80% of that grant goes directly in the form of food offerings To the uh people in need those people are the ones that are Particularly in need based upon and being eligible for snap um it turns out that people in that category Do not have any other venues in order to buy the food stops that we offer um, and I want to emphasize the safety of the foods over the years in fact that almost all of our foods are in fact organic and Produced by the farm and put in the market I appreciate this opportunity to speak to you and ask for As much help as we can get Thank you May I just add one more pointer? We're still live here Can you hear yes, yes if you are um Paul had mentioned the fact, you know, I I think we can take this covet situation as a slight opportunity for positive change too And it's kind of forced it into thinking about the idea of a virtual farmers market And what we're doing is setting up a an opportunity for the patrons to shop online for all of the Market vendors to put their product up online and have that transaction entirely happening virtually What we would hope to do is maybe in the meantime of Establishing the fully regaled farmers market Is set up in the center of town just for the market tent as a drop-off and pickup point contact free drop-off and pickup point So that all the vendors could have their produce and product ordered Preordered on a thursday or friday Could be dropped off on saturday morning, and then the customers could queue through and pick up their orders Maybe something that is somewhat aligning with standard market operating hours or something like that but A way that we can make a presence for the market but without having any sort of aggregate of people or agglomeration of people in the center of town So we're just trying to accommodate the needs of the market needs of the town's folks The needs of the people purchasing in a way that also works within the covid restrictions for the short term Before we get out there as a full physically regaled market again um i'm going to Take the opportunity to start this conversation By first saying i hope we can make this work I hope we can make it work so that we The town council feel that we have created a safe And healthy environment in our public way I do have some questions. I'm going to ask them at some point if others have not raised them But let's start with um, the people who have raised questions and that first one is andy steinberg Well, thank you I'm going to of course be voting in favor of the motion because it's to refer to The committee that is not going to come back to the council And I want them very much to have the conversation There are two issues that I want to raise however One is that when I was first elected to the select board seven or eight years ago um, I immediately became involved with the agricultural community's concern about the farmers market and the fact that Um, it was using Town resource an extremely valuable town resource which we were gladly giving but it was not um favoring our local taxpayers who are farmers and um as a consequence it was uh To the point where um local growers were really being And producers were being excluded to the favor of Businesses that were coming from outside of the community and were not taxpayers and I am concerned because it's holding the amount of vendor capabilities to the same number and Whether there's we're losing what I think had been a valuable conversation that was started at that time to try and do things to increase participation opportunities and to increase the opportunities on an equal basis with other vendors for our local growers who pay taxes to the town So that's one issue the other issue that um, I hope that the committee has a chance to look at is that the really are the proposal is to suggest masks for Our Participant the people who are coming in as customers but not to required only to require to the vendors Given the way that the pattern is working out In the fact that some people would be stopping at booths that they Are interested in and the others may want to pass by There's going to be a lot of people passing within six feet and I would hope that our public health Folks including Julie have an opportunity To reassess that question as to whether there really is six feet separation as we go through So that's my two points. Thank you I want to point out that the proposal was Submitted before the state required masks with the six feet Just to be clear of that that would be an automatic update to this proposal Darcy Yeah, um, I just was wondering uh, since we collected questions from the counselors over the last couple of days Whether we're going to go through those questions tonight That will be up Up to each individual counselor that's submitted questions as to whether they want to go through theirs But they will also be willing to make them available in writing uh Okay, so um, I do have a couple of questions one is um, how the Calls are going to be monitored and how the town is going to monitor the monitoring um and secondly I picture that there are certain Vendors that are more popular than other vendors And that there will be kind of a backup or a line to visit Certain vendors and I wonder how that's going to be accommodated When there's a number of people waiting to Go, you know, if there's only one customer at a time at a tent Um, how that's kind of work May I jump in? Uh, yes, although I I think what we would really like to accomplish tonight is get all the questions out Maybe have you answer a few of them? But then uh, really the big conversation will take place at the tsl meeting Okay, so hold on david. They might we'll come back. Alyssa So I appreciate That this came off the consent calendar and I appreciate that the town council president solicited comments From the counselors directly to the town manager to see what could be incorporated into tonight's presentation Because I think we kind of lost sight of our timeline here with the farmers market trying to open Having it wait until may 18th for tso to talk about it and then to talk about it town council may 18th Is literally a few days prior to when the farmers market wants to open And so trying to give them as much notice as possible tso has been willing to Have a one-hour meeting next week on the 11th I realize that the night of the 11th at 5 30 there was no intention to do other town council business But depending on where we get tonight We might want to ask the town council to vote on the plan on the 11th rather than waiting until the 18th Simply so the farmers market has more time To comply and as they has their thinking has evolved because of other things that they've been seeing done other places So I think we need to think about that timing tonight before we get out of here. So we all know what we're expecting In terms of my questions that I asked and I appreciate lin that you're saying Let's just get them all out because maybe some will be easy to answer and others will be more appropriate for tso And referring back to what andy said, I mean like I said tso doesn't have a lot of time to talk about this We don't have weeks or hours even to talk about it So the first thing was the mask I was disturbed that even though the governor's order wasn't out yet that it wasn't already being promoted as a thing to do But as lin said, that's an automatic update that will happen The vendors will have to wear them and the customers will have to wear them and that's just that simple That there's no question there as to how that's going to work There is theoretically a question with the governor's order if the farmers market would have to require it But I'm saying the farmers market has to require it for all shoppers um The another that was touched on briefly by paul was the vendor restrooms the way it was written in the proposal Was that that might be required? He mentioned porta potties this time I am adamant that there must be vendor restrooms unless it's strictly a pickup as david suggested might happen at the very beginning Because vendors obviously used to use the lord jeff in boltwood bathrooms. That's obviously not going to be available to I don't care about public having restrooms. They can wait But for vendors they need to have porta potties and so that needs to be set up and obviously that takes just a little bit of time Um, I appreciate what was explained about the scope of the vendors I'm still a little unclear as to whether or not the normal crafters are also being included In this in addition to the food and I know david touched on that, but I somehow missed part of that Um, the plexiglass barrier. I know we all argue over shall Should will and what all those words mean? But I think I heard paul say there either will be a plexiglass barrier or something very similar to that So I guess that's close, you know I'd like people to look at the parking spaces for the curbside pickup. I don't think too is sufficient I think at this time My family for example is ordering groceries at a huge premium because we have at-risk members of the household I want to be able to tell people it's safe to go to this farmers market You can absolutely order online. You can pick it up You don't have to go into a place to get it and I love walking a block to the farmers market But that's not going to be feasible under this situation. So I'm thinking two spaces might not be enough So I'd like us to relook at that. I'm sure town staff could help with that um In the before the governor's order the order that was put out by monica borrell associated with farmers markets Made it clear that there were a variety of different ways you could give that visual to people about what the six feet distance means Obviously, it's way harder to do it outside than it is inside a grocery store where you can put nice little labels on them You can't do that on the ground as easily I'm saying use whatever marking spray paint you have to do that to make it clear And I'd like to see more of a plan as to how that's going to work rather than just an assurance that it's going to work So something that's just you know shown to us on a on a piece of paper would be great I like the fact that it's now perhaps clearer to people that the touching of produce is just prohibited It's not maybe it's not shouldn't it's it's they just don't people don't get to touch produce Sorry, we're not in that role at this time And the other part is just that once all these conditions are worked out I'd like to see some sort of signed agreement between the town manager and the farmers market Just so everyone's clear on what's a must and what's a might be because although of course We're going to have to adjust especially if we start out with just the virtual market I don't think it's at all realistic to say well We don't have to fill the porta potties the first week or well We don't need to worry about the six foot markings as much the first week Obviously we need to worry about all those things from the very beginning And I'd like to be able to encourage people to attend and participate in the farmers market as quickly as possible Because I know that already the farmers are feeling behind so thanks for your patience Sarah Schwartz So I would just like to thank right now into Steinberg who did indeed Speak up for many Amherst farmers and really help try to ease over and rectify a very Difficult situation that we had and I thank him very much Questions that I would have for the market and also for TSO as they are considering this So we talked about stations for alcohol hand sanitizer the plexiglass fencing A virtual market And also extra town staff extra time for them And so I'm just wondering I think all those things are excellent and and absolutely needed But I'm wondering as we talk about this Who is going to be paying for these things? Will it be will the town? Be helping to pay for some of these will it be completely on on the market? um And then the other thing that I want to say is that Having a premium space In the town of Amherst in the center of Amherst and really The town of Amherst giving their their blessing to farmers Now we're talking about perhaps a virtual market. I think Every farmer in Amherst, especially ones who have farm stands Would very much wish that they could have this kind of help Um, this is tremendous help for farmers right now during COVID-19 So I'm also hoping that there will be um a discussion like Andy said about including Other Amherst farmers, especially if if the town of Amherst is going to support them so much and again I would I'm I would hope that that Amherst Wood and Amherst always has. Thanks Yes, uh, Alyssa you're back up again I'm sorry. That's a mistake. Okay, Mandy. Joe Hanneke Thank you. Um, I will try to go through my questions quickly. Um, some of them have been covered. Um, but I am concerned that what was presented to us were pretty much guidelines with a lot of shoulds and not very many shouts Um, and the fact is if we grant this as a town council I kind of want some assurances that they will be shouts and that they must be followed And so the way it's written now really concerns me about them just being guidelines instead of more like musts and shouts Um, and that's in a lot of the areas Um I I do agree we need some sort of nimbleness because things need tested and things are changing So it I think the motion that is sent to us and what it includes has to be thought out very carefully um Based on all of that for what we as a council would be granting and who we might be granting additional modification authority to especially since this Pandemic is changing rapidly. We don't know what november is going to look like and whether things that we institute now for may Are going to need to be instituted in november. So we have to have some of that What I I was concerned about the operating times As it relates to lines and setup and cleanup. This is a lot of additional A setup from what it appears to be to mean on the market staff's point of view Not necessarily on the vendor point of view although with parking limited on the vendor point of view So is there enough time? What are the operating times? What are the reservation times? Is there enough time to get it set up before the market opens? What happens if there's a line at whatever the intended Close time is does that line get finished? What is an absolute max time that everyone has to be cleared out by if the line is going to be finished at Whatever time the market normally closes if there's two hours more people waiting in line because of limited numbers of people being able to go through What's going to happen with all of that? um Fencing hand wash stations port-a-potties. There was no indication totally whether those will be inserted and Removed every saturday um fencing seems like it could be but port-a-potties and hand wash stations seem a little more Costly I and I don't know all of this but clarification to ensure that they will either be removed Every time or what happens to them if they're not um the disposable gloves the guidelines from the state indicated that all Um market vendors should be wearing disposable gloves But nowhere in the memo was indicated anything about the use of disposable gloves by people handling product So i'd like that clarified um face masks we've talked about already um The the costs um as many people know Last year I voted against the use of this public way for the farmers market Solely because not because I don't support the farmers market But because the farmers market pays nothing for saturday morning use of highly trafficked and highly sought-after parking um Andy brought up the fact that it has not always favored Amherst farmers market. Sarah brought that up I am concerned with who is going to shoulder the costs of increased presence of town staff Whether there will need to be a required police presence to monitor lines If so, who's going to shoulder those costs would those costs be reimbursable if the town does that under fema um, so more clarification on that would be Great and the last one. Sorry. This is a long list curbside pickup There wasn't a lot of information about what that actually looks like logistically and who how much of the curb is being blocked by Like where the pre ordered food is being stored and all of that Because there's no good entrance exit from the market on that end given all the fencing What's the storage look like and is that taking up sidewalk space that we've been told would remain Um free and open So a bigger plan on what curbside pickup looks like and how it's going to affect the public way Thank you. I'm sorry. That was so long That's fine Dorothy Dorothy, please mute Unmute Okay, there we go. Okay. The technology changed me. Okay I have a couple of things to add to this and I just want you to understand that Uh, I don't have a conflict of interest because my daughter does not uh use the embers farmers market um, I think Mandy joe had a lot of great questions as to who should pay for it, but um as of this moment I think the town should pay for it just because it would be something Wonderful and live going on in the center of downtown when we've had just really Death down there just no no reason to go down most of the time So, um, I did check on the greenfield farmers market spot and maybe paul can comment on this But it mentioned something about armies of volunteers That's one way to reduce some of the cost and not have all of the recruitment on the shoulders of the vendors Is that to have some way in which people can volunteer and maybe get some training with social distancing To help with the traffic flow My major thought was when I looked at the chart at the The graph whatever of the three lines of of vendors And you may have said this somewhere in your proposal What if the vendors at least on the outside faced outside So that the public is not walking in those narrow pathways, which I just I look at them And I think oh, they're going to be too close to each other, but the public is walking Like in the park or on the parking lot on the other sides And I'm not sure what that would do to the middle, but it would mean that the trucks would be facing inside um and the defenders would be interacting with each other and um, you know, I just think that's a possibility of making it a better social distancing, but um I'm very much in favor of getting this thing going. Um, I gather that one of my old favorites bread euphoria might not be there because it's um It's what we call a value added. It's bakery. Um, is there any clarification? There'd be no fresh bread no baked goods From anybody, but anyway, I think it would be great and as people have pointed out It's not just that that a lot of people love to get the fresh vegetables or we want to support Amherst farmers But this is a way for people with limited finances to get an extra amount of money on their snap cards So it's it's very basic Darcy Yeah, I just have uh one additional question that it would be really nice to be get an answer for tonight and that is uh because the tso committee is trying to figure out whether or not we need to add a special meeting on the 11th whether um, oh it's clear that with all these accommodations that need to be provided Whether we're whether the farmers market is actually very sure that they would be able to be ready by the 23rd um, if we did Decide on on the town council meeting on the 18 So do we need to scramble or do we not? Okay, thank you Darcy. Um, before we move on to uh any response uh, this is Let me just say i'm a i'm a serious farmers market supporter. I show up whenever i'm in town Um, I periodically run into paul who's there checking it out um, so I wanted to just um Mention a few things that rose up for me and also just tell you that I've had two constituents three constituents actually and another person Uh come to me and say well, why don't they just take it outside of downtown? Well, I I don't want that I want to see it downtown. I want to see a part of our reopening. Um I do wonder whether or not we should start out with a smaller number of vendors And grow it so that we can get the kinks out of the effort And I know we normally start out with a smaller number of vendors in the spring anyway But I wonder if we want to provide some guidance on that um I also wonder since we aren't going to be able to use the town common for much of anything else this summer Why we don't just use the town common? Uh, it's a huge area It's what this was meant for And I just wanted us to open up our thinking about that And how we might open it in different ways That um would allow us to reconfigure our thinking about this um The obviously the issue of no no masks is over and then I'm going to just tell you as a senior Because I am one. Um, I wouldn't even bother with senior hours senior hours only jam Everybody of a certain age and do a certain time and the farmer's market is though. It's multi-aged You have some very strong long-time senior supporters and I just let them come whenever and Not bother with your senior hours. Um if people feel they need to because of the governor's guidance I totally accept that but I don't I don't personally want to feel bound by that and I won't feel bound by that um I I really want to say I don't think we want to try to get into solving all of this tonight. We can't There's no way I would also personally be more than glad to continue to work with the farmer's market To get us to a plan for you to reopen and I'm also willing to be one of your volunteers That will be trained to help people social distance. Um, so Paul you might want to answer the first question and then Maybe we have some closing remarks Uh, although I do see one other hand sarah I I just want to say as someone who attempted to be a vendor for the Amherst farmers market. Um It still isn't easy for an Amherst farmer to Be in the market and I think that's something that tso needs to talk about and I will say that uh being in being having a place in that farmers market is a privileged position for farmers and I want to reiterate that This it's not completely nonprofit the manager the longtime manager of the market does Collect a fee from each vendor And I really think that We need to the town of Amherst needs to talk about Um, how we handle it so Okay, Paul So thank you. I think the counselors raised a lot of really good points. I think we would have answers to them I think you're right to not Put your time into this but I think the one that really needs to be answered by the farmers market I don't know the answer to that is the timing for when they Want to when they expect it to be open and how much urgency the council should put on it because Right now that would require if they were really looking at may 23rd It would require the council to have a special committee meeting and whether that's something that's And the after you've heard all the counselors concerns if you think for david or john if you think that that's realistic or if you think that June 1st, which gives the council a little bit more time is more appropriate. Whatever or not june 1st june May 30th, I guess or Marry Saturday is Mary spawn Being asked of the farmers market and they've been there a while Um, I just want to say that there are a couple of things. I wanted to respond to Yes, we can be ready. I've already made arrangements to pick up a lot of the ppe equipment To sisa. In fact, they just sent me an email half an hour or so ago I also want to point out that our market rules Are written so that the town of amherst any farmer in town Is first accepted into the market that rule was written in as mr. Steinberg said Whenever the agricultural commission said that and it's always been open and anyone in amherst whether they be a farmer or a producer Are accepted into that market So no one's been ever turned away and as president of the market Sure you that I have stood behind that rule and in fact have accepted people into the market of amherst before this was was an issue so I I can't say anything else except that we we have written explicitly in our rules The first preference is given to anyone in amherst either as a farmer or as a producer So we are trying to benefit the the farmers of amherst As well as bring safe food to amherst and to accommodate whatever it we've been asked to do And in a very safe fashion So I think that that I want to assure council members and town manager that we can be ready And that we have the ability to do what we say we're going to do May I chime in just real quickly? Yes, please Um, just yeah, I did want to answer Andy's point before I I forgot the question actually but I think Sarah bringing it up and John just echoing it. Um Since I've come back to the farmer's market running it for the last three years There's not been an amherst producer or vendor potential vendor that's been turned away that qualifies I lobby the market requirements So anybody that is an amherst grower or producer is given priority and we've shoehorned people in To make sure that that accommodation has been made. So there's not anybody that I've seen anybody that's applied formally through me That's been turned away Um regards to the start-up date. We were we were really hoping for Mother's Day. Obviously, that's not a possibility So we had pushed it out hoping to get the market open for memorial days. That's a big day for many of the vendors Um, in regards to immediacy, this whole thing is a situation and flux And if we can get out there for memorial day, great if we can't we'll just make do and You know fulfill the accommodations that are required. Well, you know the sooner we can get out there the better but Depending on how it's to be done to be done safely We need to go with the protocols involved and those are ever changing and we want to make sure that everybody is safe And that everybody has the opportunity to get out there and get fresh food fresh produce. Um The fact that we do take up a very public way on saturdays I think is is a is a is a valid question But also we're only doing it during the early part of the day 7 30 to 130 Years ago, we had a study done by UMass don mary and extension services Which did a headcount and the numbers that go through on the market day is a draw of between 34 and 4200 people So I think that while we are an opportunity cost regards to parking maybe for saturday mornings We do draw in a lot of footsteps into the center of town And that is nothing but a benefit I think for the economic gains of all of the merchants not just the market But all of the merchants inclusive And one final point I I have no uh, no reservations at all if we were to be told for this year to deal with the Covid issue to go out under the green under the comet. It's a huge space. It's a lovely space social distancing would be I would say really barely even a challenge out there because we would have so much room to spread out And give every vendor The possibility of a nice radius orbit of safety around them So I think that um aside from stewarding the customers through That sort of opportunity of expanding the market parameters would um Enable a safe opening if you will for an unprecedented time in the market year this year Unless there's any other councilor comments what we're going to do is now Vote to refer this to TSO. That's not an automatic referral Seeing no other comments and So let me just start by the motion is to refer the Amherst farmers market long-term reservations Of the public way's request dated 0309 20 and the town manager's memo dated 04 30 20 To the town services and outreach committee for report and recommendation to the council By may monday may 18 2020 is there a second? second I had several I'll leave it. I think I'll leave it for you to sort out who Alyssa you have your hand up I just wanted to speak to the motion quickly in terms of being clear for everyone who I know some people had more questions than others but if TSO doesn't meet about this at all until the 18th Today's the fourth So if we don't do anything until the 18th that gives no guidance to the farmers market That gives no guidance to town staff And it also means that we're meeting monday morning the 18th and we're expecting you to approve it that night So if you think there's any chance that you don't you won't get what you want out of this conversation Then i'm not sure it's a great idea to say that you don't want to hear back from us until we have a meeting monday morning The 18th and we have a meeting monday night. We're clearly not going to be able to write a long report We're just going to have to give a bunch of it verbally Even if darcy's amazing as chair that's not going to be feasible So I just want to be clear what people's expectations are if people are okay with us waiting until the 18th and literally You know not really doing anything until the 18th and then quickly all doing at the 18th And if people are unhappy with the results of what we provide on the 18th being willing to go Beyond to the 23rd for the first date. Okay. I just want to make sure nobody's confused by that That's correct. If we are not if we do not feel that all the concerns have been answered then we can delay the vote Dorothy Please unmute I want to second what elissa said. I think that to tso should meet on the 11th and Be able to pass on what they conclude For the to the town council meeting that evening and that way if there are any Residual problems they can dealt be dealt with properly I I personally think it's really important for the farmers market to open a memorial day weekend I mean, what are we going to do for memorial day? We've got absolutely nothing planned weekends are the Emptiest time of my calendar. I think it'd be very exciting to have The farmers market open and maybe some other businesses Do some kind of table in the street further up the block. I mean, I think we should open up the town a little bit at least on that day I still see two hands up Alyssa yes, or was that just you didn't take it down Okay, and dorthy's the same any other questions the motion's been made and seconded And it's a roll call vote and we will now Start with pat de angeles This is the motion to refer yes Darcy duMont yes Lynn greece mersey. Yes. I mean mandy joe hannacky. Yes Uh dorthy pam. Yes Evan ross. Yes George ryan. Yes Kathy shane. Yes Steve schreiber. Yes Steve andy steinberg. Yes Sarah schwarz Sarah schwarz. Are you still connected? I'll come back on that. Athena. Could you please check on sarah? Uh, shallony ball mill. Yes Alyssa broer No, okay Uh, so uh, and sarah has not rejoined us All right. So the vote is 11 in favor of referral one against and none abstaining and one absent Okay, we're moving on to the next item which was also on the consent agenda and was pulled off And this is regarding the 133 143 southeast street And before we move on john and david. Thank you for joining us We look forward to working through all of this with you Thank you Thank you all take care. Yep Okay, paul do you want to introduce this? And maybe chris breast strip wants to be part of that Yes, so the um, and i will defer to chris very quickly. Um, so this is an application from, uh, A person and An entity that's seeking to build an apartment building on southeast street It went through the planning board conservation commission and part of their review required Some activity on the town common on the the public way. I won't say the town comments because it's not town common So chris if you'd like to go into that So, um, yes, hello, i'm chris breast strip planning director Um as part of the work on 133 143 southeast street The person who wants to build the building is amir mcchi. I think i'm pronouncing his name correctly and he In order to get out of the wet conditions on the site needed to raise the building path About three or four feet and in order to do that he needed to Well, he wanted to Have the building be as close as possible to the front property line and therefore he needed a great Great into the public Very wide at that point um, and maybe athena could bring up the image of the Of the building that's being proposed to be built And then it shows the the public way. So the building is um 60 no 57 apartment units and three I believe There it is 57 apartment units and three retail spaces on the ground floor. It's a three-story building and it's part of the business village center zoning district and um, you can see oh look at that I can um, I think I can Show you where the public way is it's everything from the building face out to the curb line and Within or excuse me the curb line is here. Yeah within that area mr. McChie would like to create a bus stop and a series of walkways Which are going around like this and then um a sitting space um and his retail spaces in his building are at this southeastern corner So the sitting space would accommodate people in his building as well as people who might You know get a sandwich at cumberland farms and come over here and sit Sit in this nice space. I think the space and the uh plans for What's being proposed in the public way are would be an asset to the town It would take an area that's fairly barren right now And create a place where people might wish to congregate once kovat 19 is No longer part of our lives And he's mr. McChie is proposing to add some street trees And a bike rack And I think this is a bench here. Um, he's got some benches in his uh space in his semicircular space here um, so This was um something that he offered to do In order to be able to work within the town right of way And as I said before the work within the town right of way the minimum amount of work that he needs to do is to grade a slope From the front of his building out into the town right of way here um, and it's probably about a three or four feet Uh Going down from the building pad down to whatever the existing condition would be so that would be the minimal amount of work, but um The planning board thought this was a good idea what he's proposing here um, I think the design review board uh agreed with that and they Did submit some comments, which I think you have And you have copies of the planning board's decisions um, so um I think that's it's probably all I'll say for now, but if you have questions, I'm perfectly happy to answer your questions Matthew Shane you have your hand up Yes, I do. Thank you chris. Um, I look through the various documents and I just want to point out the particular picture you you brought up Um still says 62 units So you just need to fix it because the other ones all say 57 units So my question on the public way is um on the various other diagrams also show what's being proposed there um, it's the cost of maintenance of that both installing it and that over time there's a um a decorative brick patio area. There's some benches. There's uh, uh Disposable a trash can and this would be on the public way But put in by a private developer and I'm assuming that doesn't mean they own the land But they'd be permanently using it. So will we have A concrete agreement with them to keep of upkeep on that on trimming in the trees Keeping the patio in good shape or or could it deteriorate over time? And I saw that there was a special permit granted because of the use of the public way that the setback That would normally have been more from the front Was reduced so it's nearer to the little walkway than it might be because the public way is so deep and so we've given him Some additional space to build on and giving him Giving him giving the developer use of this. So I just want to make sure we're protected Then the other question is less related directly to the public way, but there are going to be Some number of apartments in this. I think it's 12 That will not be allowed to have a parking space And I'm not sure what provisions have been Put in that stop them people from getting a car and packing parking at the bank Or parking along this new public way clogging the street is that Violation enough to lose their lease, but I'm a little worried that What looks like big wide open space could be clogged because there aren't enough parking spaces. So It's both the maintenance costs Seating, you know, the frontage we we let that get narrower than it would have been required We get the specials permit. So it's those are my questions yes So in terms of the maintenance, mr. McChie has stated that he will maintain this area I think he's going to maintain everything except for the Lights the street lights that are going to be put in and those would be maintained by the town But otherwise, you know, he'll mow the grass and he'll maintain the little sitting area and maintain the walkways And the bicycle racks and the benches and everything. So that's I imagine he will have to make some sort of a written agreement with the town But that wasn't really part of the planning board's Review process because the planning board doesn't have jurisdiction over the right of way Maybe mr. Backelman could speak to that issue In terms of the setback. Yes, the planning board did grant mr. Ritchie a Modification of the setback requirement I believe that the setback requirement was 10 feet and I think that the setback that he's actually gotten in this In the final plan was Three feet and that did require a special permit from the planning board and they did grant that I think even if he had had a 10 foot setback, it would have been hard for him to do the grading within the narrow area that he Had available to him So I don't really have too much more to say about that 12 part a 12 apartments would have no parking spaces That would be in the lease for those apartments and Mr. McChie feels that there are people in town who Ride the bus or ride their bicycles or you know Have some alternative forms of transportation so that they don't need parking and that they will be happy to live in this apartment building without parking spaces so that's something that The committee of town council may wish to delve into further I'm sure that mr. McChie and his consultants will be Meeting with the committee when when this is presented to them And then in terms of parking along the new public way Well, there really aren't any parking spaces provided. There are two bus stops provided one on the East side and one on the west side, but there aren't Really parking spaces provided along along the way We did get some comments of concern from Florence savings bank about whether The tenants from this building would park in the Florence savings bank parking lot and mr. McChie Stated that he would monitor His part his tenants and um, you know wouldn't allow them to park over there. So that's kind of a An arrangement or a conversation that would happen between um Florence savings bank and mr. McChie Florence savings bank does have the ability to tow Cars that are parked on their park in their parking lot Without permission So that may be an arrangement that just has to be worked out between the Between the property owners Before we go on with questions, I need clarification from the town manager This is a request regarding public way. So it doesn't seem to me that the issue of Whether there are sufficient parking spaces should be coming before the council at this time Well, yes See this is a request to for the builder to build to build this project with use of the public way by doing the things and And I think what chris is saying is that if you don't grant this approval that he probably cannot move forward on this project But the issue of getting into sufficient parking spaces is normally not Yeah, I think Yeah, so so again this actually with the question before the council is whether you want to refer it to the tso committee or not So yes, that would be it would be your your topic of conversation should be about the public way in the use of that public way permanently And not about whether there's parking or not parking space. Exactly. Yeah, okay. Thank that's clarification Dorothy okay um I have been to many many meetings when this was discussed and yet today is the first time That I realized that the partly public way area the green part in front of the building Is on a deep slope So what I see here in the flat picture looks as if it's grassy space with trees That has some social purpose or can at least have people standing or walking there But if it's a slope then it's really Not what I had thought it was um I find the idea of giving a variance from 10 feet on the sidewalk to three and having the sidewalk right up against the building No space on any side. I think that's um not a good design Mr. Michi would be allowed to continue this project But not as it is presently designed He originally started out as everybody does in town with fewer units Then they come back and double units So this land that he has Does not support a project of this size As far as I'm concerned and I do not think that the town of amherst should give its public way So it ends up we have a sloping piece of of land And we have a narrow sidewalk right up in front of a building where there may be some shops And I think some of them may be residential units So I I I think it's a very bad plan Evan Thank you. Um I'm going to try to say this as uh politely as possible But it does sound like some of my colleagues on the council Seemed to think that they've been appointed to the planning board and not to the town council Issues of parking issues of setbacks These are questions that Lie in the domain of the planning board and we're discussed by the planning board I know that Dorothy was at many of the meetings I don't know if Kathy looked at them But the issue of parking and where people would park and parking spaces was discussed at length In the planning board and so I'm getting very nervous listening to this conversation because this is potentially coming to tso to decide whether we want to allow These modifications of the public way It's not for us to render judgment on the project or the building itself. And and so I don't think that it's our Our uh Responsibility to decide Whether or not this project should go forward or it's to decide the public way request and so That makes me wonder What people expect tso to do and so I've often been an advocate Of more specific referrals on this council I sometimes get uncomfortable with just referring issues To committees without telling those committees what we're looking for from them. Um, and this would be Something that I would want a more specific referral. What do you want tso? To tell you to come back from this because at this point I don't actually see a reason to refer this to tso. We have information before us We have recommendations from the planning board. We have recommendations from the design review board concom has weighed in on this and we're just asked Do you want to allow use of public way for? a bus stop Sidewalks a plaza things that actually align very well with uh, what we were talking about earlier about complete streets and so To me I could vote on this right now Tonight and allow this project to move forward and unless I can hear someone talk about what they what they expect tso to add What the value add is of tso Which I hope would be wrapped into the referral I don't know why we are why we there's a need to refer this to tso as opposed to just saying Every other committee has looked at this Do we think that this is a good use of the public way in this part? But I don't want to hear any discussions about parking requirements or setbacks or things that have already been discussed ad nauseam by the planning board Mandy joe I second everything evan said Uh, the planning board dealt with all of that that is not our job We are asked to look at the improvements to the public way that would become permanent, which is sidewalks plaza some benches a um bus stop bike racks Benches and then potentially a shelter at the bus stop and say are we going to allow those permanent public way changes that under the proposal Aren't even going to cost the town anything other than the maintenance of the street lighting because the developer Mr. Um, I'm not even sure how to say his last name machi Has agreed to pay for all of the improvements in the public way and the maintenance of everything but the street lights We are to render a decision as to whether we agree with those changes to the public way and only the public way Uh, I look at this and I say this is a vast improvement over the current public way It actually shows that it's a public way and not someone's front yard, which the current and Past use looked like I didn't even know the way was this wide um And now we're going to get an actual public use public way sidewalks benches bike racks I'm having a hard time seeing a downside to this number one. Um In terms of what tso could do to answer evan's question the design review board while having a unanimous vote Had some recommendations that are not quite a part of this ban And so given that we would be sort of accepting a plan I think tso could come back as to whether to Add into that plan the design review board's recommendations or not I'm because they specifically said they couldn't mandate it. It's the town council's job So I think that's something that tso could do To to ensure whether we should be accepting the drb's recommendations or going another way with those recommendations and saying the current plan Minus those recommendations is is fine. So that's where I see tso being able to give something to the council that is concrete So mandi joe and evan, I just want to say the reason I asked paul for that earlier clarification Was for exactly the reason you point out Uh, kathy you have your hand up I just want to clarify what I said my beginning comment was about the public way and the cost of maintaining it and chris answered That it could be a requirement that this be in writing rather than verbal So that is one thing that tso could be recommended to the town about the public way I only raised the parking on a concern that there were cars along the street Were places where the bus and chris did answer that there's not going to be any parking around the street So it's not going to spill out over to the street. I wasn't Questioning the planning board. So I was going back to the public way He may the developer may agree to install all this for free But 10 years from now, I would like to know that the developer has agreed in writing to maintain it as well Dorothy I think that um evan raised some good points Um, I what is tso supposed to do? Um, the public way is the public way If we are the keepers of the public way, then I think we have to think about What when we give it away how easily do we give it away? Do we just give it away anytime somebody says I really would like to do put something on that? Um, maybe it looks better than what's there, but it might not look as good as something else that could be there um I enjoyed mandy joe's suggestion that we look at the design review board suggestions But the question remains really what is it? We're supposed to do with the public way Are we the guardians of the people? I mean do we protect it for the people or what are what are we supposed to do? Because the phrase public way sounds like a public trust to me So this this is a larger piece of land because I when we originally saw it It was actually called a a green a town a town common and then they started getting confused as to what to call it But it was a larger piece of land that belonged to the town So that's those are my questions Steve schreiber Hi, so Long time as a longtime playing board member. I think that everything's fair game. So in other words, they're asking for use of the public way therefore their project is subject to Screwed me that I think is our job. So I I actually don't have you know as much of an issue of the counselors sort of weighing in on What they think could possibly be improved because they are asking For something from us and I so I think that that's for a game whether or not that has Standing that's to be seen. So I think my main issue is that I wish I knew what the master plan was for this town public way So your dorthy is absolutely right counselor Pam is absolutely right that at one time this was presented as an extension of the part of the east common And then we were told that it's not part of the east common Whatever it is. It's a much wider right of way that's Elsewhere like just below this the right of way gets much narrower And just above this the florin savings bank. I think really botched they're part of the public right of way So it would be nice to That would be that's my only That's not going to be solved in the time this building's under construction. That's going to be not going to be solved But I wish I knew what the big idea what the plan was for the Entire right of way and that's really the only way that I have to evaluate whether or not this is consistent with that Andy steinberg so I Analogize it to what we did on spring street already because spring street We were looking at changes that were being proposed to how The parking would be used in front of the building and how the spaces would be used in front of the building. We were not Um looking at the building itself that had been a decision made by the planning board Which is appropriately within their Um her purview think that the motion could be strengthened by words to the effect of being referred to solely for a Information regarding the proposal to use the public way But I do think we need to make sure that it is distinguished from the building issues That have already been addressed through the appropriate panel Into hearing processes quite extensive Chris you have your hand up still So I just wanted to address one of miss pams concerns, which had to do with The fact that she thought there might be a big slope within the public way so they're going to be Grading the the area down from you know what I said three or four feet Out into this area But it's going to be a gradual slope So we're not expecting that there's going to be a sudden drop off or anything like that They've done a pretty good grading plan And I hope that when the applicant and his consultant come to the tso or I think it's the tso to Talk about this that they will present their grading plan and talk about what their slope What the level of slope is but I don't feel like It's going to be an abrupt slope at all. I think they've done a pretty good job with grading it Dr. Angeles This is kind of my neighborhood. I go to the pharmacy and the bank on a regular basis Looking at this picture and looking at the public way. I'm I'm quite drawn to it I think it's going to make a positive change. I do not think this should be referred to tso I think and and I'm concerned about how That long term will work anyway And I'm very concerned that it is difficult for me and for other counselors To separate themselves from their opinions and desires to see what the real issues are So I would like to not refer this to tso and accept the design The planning board's proposal and accept the developer's proposal of in terms of using the public way All right. We're at the point now the motion we have drafted is a referral motion Someone would like to make a different motion. Please do so at this time Dorothy okay, um, I would like to follow up with mandy joe's suggestion and say that uh, it be referred to tso For the express purpose of looking at the suggestions from the design review board and deciding whether they were relevant All right, so we'll try to work that into the motion Is there any other comment on that? chris so, um, I think that it's really a more It's a broader discussion than just the Concerns that were raised by the design review board the design review board has some specific things that it's looking at And it's mostly looking at the aesthetics of of an issue But what the town council is? Charged with is figuring out what the use of the land is So I think, you know, miss pam is going in the right direction but I think that the referral should encompass The use of the land it should encompass whether you want these sidewalks here, whether you want the bus stop here Whether you want a public space right in front of this building The grading and all of those things including the issues that the designer view board looks looks at So that would be my recommendation that you really, you know, take a complete look at what's being proposed here And not just focus on the aesthetics issues Um, let me just say that the what the what will be referred is the proposal and With that proposal comes all of that option for people to look at Alyssa As a member of tsa who's not eager to receive this referral I don't really understand. I was trying to reread the drb memo again And I don't really understand what it is that they voted but said they couldn't Mandate and so and then chris is saying well, but that's just design aesthetics And you need to hear from the developer and you need to hear from his consultants And I have no idea why I would need to hear from any of them about any of this so I was thinking along the same lines pat was and I it may be mandy joe could point out to me because i'm just not reading it correctly what it is that We would want to do potentially that drb was not allowed to make a decision on And I think the other thing we're losing sight of here is timeliness if This is an issue before a person can start I have no reason to believe tso even has time to do this anytime in the month of may So You know, it's all well and good to say well the developer can come talk to you but We're again, what is our value add if somebody can be really specific In in the referral that would be helpful to me George tso is Trying to determine its own processes with the various things that are sent to it And here's a classic example A use of the public way which is supposed to come to us and I assume this will come to us And we're going to have to figure out how to deal with it and it seems to me that's just Part of the joy of being a member of that committee um A number of issues been raised tonight that uh tso can certainly sink its teeth into I don't know about the timing issue, but that's something that The chair and the committee will have to resolve in terms of priorities But I don't see how this can avoid Not coming to us and how we can avoid not Dealing with it. Um, Kathy raised a good point about Ensuring that there'd be some kind of written agreement if that's appropriate To make sure that this is maintained The chris's rate may raise a good point about the simple fact that we're dealing with the use Of this space and whatever that entails and I think that's something we need to talk about and think about So I'm in favor of simply having it referred without all kinds of writers and attachments We've had a thorough discussion Many good points have been raised and now it's time for tso whether we like it or not to actually do what Our charge says we're supposed to do Um I'm going to take another comment or two and then we're going to uh move to the motion evan Yeah, I actually had a timing question. I guess this would be for chris, you know One of the reasons Andy brought up the spring street proposal earlier and one of the reasons that we felt comfortable Sort of sending that to a committee and having it kicked on the road as we were told and they don't really need an answer on this until They're finishing up. It sounds to me like they needed an answer on this before they start So I just like to get an idea of what their timeline Is and also, I don't know if they're I don't know how covid has impacted their construction If they're trying to move forward. So just some clarification there Chris, please clarify So, um, yes, mr. McChie wanted to get started on this project last fall and as soon as he received his okay from the planning board he You know started doing some work on the site and the building commissioner shut him down because he Didn't have a building permit and he hadn't gotten permission from town council So he's been waiting for quite a while since you know sometime in late october or november To get started here. So he certainly has You know or had a timeline that indicated that you know, he really needed to know soon I don't know what his situation is now based on um, you know, the covid situation But I assume that he's still Planning to move ahead quickly with this. Otherwise, he wouldn't have submitted something to town council Chris um Chris my question is does he need to have the design? Or does he need to have the permission regarding the public way approved in order to start? Yes, he does because he's filling his site by whatever I said three or four feet And therefore he's going to have to fill within the town right of way in order to build his building Thank you. Mandy joe Mandy joe. You need that. I was working on a meeting. Um, that is I'm trying to look at the record of decision and I'm not seeing it on here. Um That's different than I had gathered from reading the hundred and some pages of documents we got um That you know with the spring street. It was they just had to apply to us for the use Before they could issue the building permit. Um, and this one I guess is slightly different than that. Um But but I wanted to say the I think we need to refer this the design review review board Had a motion that was voted unanimously to recommend the following add a recycling receptacle Provide a bench with arms at the bus location and provide two benches without arms at the puzzle location and optional If the applicant decides to replace the existing acorn light lighting fixture across the street To match the applicants proposed light fixtures, the board would be grateful But this is not an official recommendation. So these are only recommendations that aren't currently a part of the plan And so if we were going to accept this plan and we wanted to accept those recommendations We'd have to change the acceptance of the plan to add those recommendations in as Kathy said We'd have to do stuff. So that's stuff that I would like to see TSA to do. So I I support the referral Um, I'd like further clarification because I'm not seeing anything in the site plan The planning board record of decision That requires them in in my first quick read what I remember reading was That the construction on the public way won't even begin till august of 2021 I think is what it was. Um And so that made me think that we could refer and we would have a little bit of time That wouldn't delay the construction. So more clarification on that would be helpful Paul you have your hand up. Yeah, so um On the site plan review item 13 says site improvements proposed within the town right of way Shall be reviewed and approved by the town council After review and recommendations from the design review board prior to construction So that's the trigger that brings it to the town council I think we need to go ahead with the motion to refer I'm going to put the motion out there and ask for a second Um to refer the 133 and 143 southeast street permanent Use of public way request dated 0305 20 and the town manager memo dated 04 30 20 To the town services and outreach committee for a report and recommendation To the council in 90 days. Is there a second? Second Thank you um Is there any further discussion? Evan So I'm I'm really struggling with this one because We're delaying the start of the construction of this project, which is money for the developer. It's it's it's potential Lost opportunity for us So I'm intending to vote against the motion But I'd be more amenable to voting for it if we could shrink that 90 day requirement because Even though tso might not use the 90 days It'd be great to at least send a message that says we're not going to wait three months to get this back to us Are you wanting to put that in the form of an amendment? I can um, so I would move to amend the motion To reduce it to 30 days Motion's been made is there a second Amendment to the original motion has been made. Is there a second andy? This is andy and I second okay So the motion is to Change the time that you would recommend they report back to the council to 30 days We would vote first on the motion to amend the amendment and then to the original motion Alyssa, do you have your hand up? Yes? Yes, I was just going to say I support because for exactly what Evan said 30 days I'm Rather appalled that they've had this problem since October and we're not hearing about it until the middle of may So I feel like we really need to show that we're trying to do our due diligence and I think 30 days would be good Mandy joe So I was going to make a similar one. I support the 30 days. I do just want to mention that Um This is not that the town delayed this so I'm not sure Despite what people are saying how urgent the developer believes this approval to be because they got a design review review board opinion at some point And had a letter dated march 5th from them from their consultants or Berkshire design group that the town hall didn't even receive till april 21st So they apparently sat on a letter for six weeks Um, and so if it was extremely important to them, they wouldn't have been sitting on that letter for six weeks. Um so, you know, I I question how Important it might be to them given those dates. Um, but I do support the 30 days referral instead of 90 Uh, Darcy, you also have your hand up Darcy I would just say that I think that would be extremely difficult to get it done in 30 days Which is just two meetings Um, uh, and we have a pretty jammed agenda already. So I would find that extremely difficult to do Dorothy Okay, I just uh, I think the dates of the letter and the holding of the letter don't indicate necessarily indicate that uh, he's not In a hurry Those are the dates where people were going crazy figuring out what the heck are we going to have an an epidemic a pandemic? Um, you know march 5th, that's when it really began to hit home And he may have had to stop and think my what am I going to do? So I wouldn't hold that against him. I I do think that um a timely response whether it's 30 days or whether it's Um between 30 and 60 days, but not 90 days. Um, I I do agree with evan that we should move in as As fast as we can reasonably Okay, a motion's been made to amend the original motion The motion to amend is To change the time for reporting back with a recommendation of the council In 30 days, it's been made and seconded. We're going to move to the vote This is the vote on the amendment to change it to 30 days and we'll start with Um Yes, Darcy duMont No Riesmer is a yes panicky Yes Pam Oh, yes Ross Yes Ryan Yes Shane Yes Triber Yes Steinberg Yes Schwartz has Um needed to leave the meeting Uh, shall any ballman? Yes Brewer Yes Andi Angelis Yes The vote is 11 yes one no and no abstentions and one absent We're now going to move on to the main motion The main motion now reads to refer The 133 and 143 southeast street permanent use of public way request dated 0305 20 and town manager's memo dated 04 30 20 To the town services and outreach committee for report and recommendation to the council in 30 days The motion has been made and seconded. Is there any further comment? Darcy, do you have your hand up from before or still? No, I no longer have it up. Thank you Um I'm going to take a roll call vote on that Um, so this time we start with Riesmer and it's a yes Panicky yes Pam yes Ross Yes Ryan Yes Shane Yes Triber Yes Um Steinberg Yes Schwartz is absent Balmille Yes Brewer Yes DeAngelis Yes Humant Yes It's uh, the vote is 12 000 and one absent um We have taken care of the other votes For the evening in our consent and so we move on at this point To the uh community activity forms And I believe Evan this comes out of oka, so we're going to come to you Yeah, um So it's a little later than I expected we'd get to this point. So I I feel a little bad throwing issue somewhat complicated at the council Would you like to refer to that to the 18th? Do well, so what I was going to say is um It comes with a recommendation to the council My expectation was not that we would vote on the recommendation tonight Be in that we because I didn't have so anything to wave rule 8.4 um And so it needs to be read again on the 18th Or it needs to be read again. So um If people really want to talk about this now, I'm fine going through it But if people feel like they have the report, um, I'm also fine just fielding questions or putting this off Hey mandy joe Right mandy joe I will be very quick. Um, I just want I wonder if oka actually does want to consider a second motion I know you guys were just recommending that we adopt the caf as a council the changes to the caf As I was reading section two of your new process Which is this community activity form section um It occurred to me that nearly all of that section Is potentially something that the council could and maybe should adopt Um, it deals with how long the calves are good for Um, that it'll be three year look back instead of a two year look back. Um, and now that the committee appointments planning board zba and finance committee are split between two separate council committees I wonder if we want that to be standardized across the whole council how long people look back and who responds To them when they are submitted Through the town website. So that might be something I ask that oka consider between now and the 18th as to whether maybe the community activity form paragraph in its processes more appropriate for The council as a whole Yeah, uh, if I could just respond very briefly. Um, I think that's a I think that's a good point Um, so if you looked at the sort of line edits of the community activity form Um, the actual form in the thing that they have to check off That's where it says, um, they're kept on file. It currently says two years We were going to replace it to three and so I actually agree with you that that's a council decision But I sort of saw the adoption of the revised caf and striking the two and replacing it with three on the caf Um disclaimer itself was sort of a de facto Rote in support, but I think we could also Separate those out if you feel like that should be in a a separate uh decision Okay Darcy Um, I'm just wondering if we haven't had had, um, suggested that further that we refer this to the next Meeting and I'm just wondering if that's still a possibility because I'd be for doing that and Assuming that this would not be considered the first Meeting and that would be considered the first meeting um, I I Uh, I think you all saw that I sent out an opinion about the vote that we took on this process and, um So I'm just interested to know if we're actually going to discuss that tonight or whether we want to refer this Because it's late I mean, did you I just need to consult with you? that if an counselor makes a motion at this point to just Take this off and refer it for later. What would that motion be? um, I I'm not sure what I don't think there would be a motion This is a first discussion in order to vote in any substance on this matter. We'd have to vote to waive our rules Right We don't have to vote on something on a second reading There's plenty of things we've voted on on a third or fourth and then there's always the charter um, right to postpone If someone doesn't want to vote at a second reading without having would you if that's the case if someone doesn't feel they're ready They can charter right to postpone During the motion at a second reading if the motion does come so i'm not sure there is that's that's what I need Thank you Alyssa you have a comment Yes, I do I realize it's super late But I would like this to count as our first reading as mandy joe says Um, you know second reading is not the required night. We have to make the decision We just have to make sure we have two readings minimally And I think it would be entirely appropriate to make sure see if the council had any Questions about the actual oka report that was provided well ahead of time I think that it's deserved that the council actually took the time to read it and should be able to ask questions Like mandy joe did I also want to state very succinctly That the email that was sent to us tonight at 5 33 was an open meeting law violation and I will not Want to discuss that item tonight Uh, Alyssa you stay okay. Darcy is your hand still up or have you just not taken it down? Yes, it's still up Pardon me I uh, if if this is the first reading then I would like to Talk about my reasons for um senting from the votes that were taken at the oka meeting and Just one second Uh, I did um Evan did include my um My reasons that were stated at the meeting for Descenting in the report that he has submitted but um As is usually the case with me. I have thought of other reasons after the vote I frequently do that um, and I'm sure some of you do also, but um, uh, so I just wanted to go into those reasons which are in the in the um Memo that I sent at the beginning of the meeting and um Yes, I ended a few Darcy. I need to interrupt you The memo that you sent at the beginning of the meeting is not part of the record Nor could it be part of the record because of the deliberation nature I think we need to refer this back to tsl. I mean to oka For a way in which those all of that gets integrated into the report Okay, what I can still orally talk about my reasons for um dissenting Yes, um So basically, uh, the um The process that's being proposed I Object because it doesn't provide Uh a check because of the fact that currently counselors Automatically receive the CAFs Um, they can get a sense of the pool of applicants themselves before the interviews um, and with the proposed process If an applicant has applied within the last three years Which is frequently the case um He or she won't be required to submit a CAF um, and then The sitting counselors this will be a step back for us because currently we get all the CAFs Now there will be a whole block of people that won't ever submit CAFs And so we won't see them They may have uh Applied three years ago But we will not see those we won't be able to look them up in our emails because We only took office a year ago um and um Counselors won't ever have a means of seeing who's applied um For who's who's actually applied for the current positions. They'll only see The pared down pool A week before the interviews Okay, um I'm sorry. Go ahead darson. Um, so currently as I said the applications are automatically sent to all the counselors and under the proposed process Of requiring statements of interest Only the chair or the chair's designee will be receiving them. So that person Will have the discretion to to decide how and how many times the applicants need to be contacted Speak to them off the record and decide when a person can be dropped from the pool So there's nothing preventing that person from pursuing certain applicants further or seeking more applicants if if Depending on what the pool looks like and I would argue that removing the possibility of bias Is isn't possible where there's only one counselor Responsible for finalizing the pool of applicants and where and the main thing that prevents A problem there is that if there's a check On that one person In the form of the whole council receiving CAFs automatically like we do right now So I am Very much opposed to this process Because mainly because It doesn't provide a check on possible bias Uh, I'm going to take a couple comments And then given the hour and the fact that we have not completed the agenda We're going to move on since this is the first reading Dorothy Okay, um, I Did read this but I can't say that I read it well because I got very confused many times So, uh, the thing that's that I'd be interested in reading is what is your SOI because that's where the person writes about Why they're interested in the position and uh, what experience they might have but It's There's just so many sentences here that I'm not quite sure where that what they all mean So would we see all the SOIs of everybody who applied for the job? Or would we only see some of them Evan i'm gonna have to rely on you Yeah, so, um Let me let me provide just uh, let me answer your question, but just provide a brief bit of um context. Um, so Right right now the process that we have um before it was amended The process that we used for planning board in january and the process we used um for zba in april um that whole process was um, I was as chair responsible for figuring out who was interested in being in the pool and so I reached out to anyone who submitted a uh A um community activity forum over the past two years and said hey Remember two years ago when you said you wanted me on the zba. You're still interested now if they said yes I didn't they're not required to submit a new caf. They don't get a new caf They just say yes, I'm still interested. We said okay, and they go into the pool And then the cafs were forwarded to the town council So you didn't get the caf of every person who had ever applied over the past two years Because some of them were no longer interested some of them had moved. Um, you get the cafs of people who were in the pool So under this process What would be different is the chair would reach out to those people and they would say yes, i'm interested No, i'm not interested. We'd collect the pool the people who are in the pool who confirm. They're still interested would say They would be the ones who would submit a statement of interest And then the statement of interest would all be posted publicly and sent to the counselors So you wouldn't necessarily have the statement of interest of every person who applied over the past three years because some of those People might not be interested in they applied at one time, but they're no longer interested in serving or they moved But you would have the statement of interest of every person who applied Who is currently interested in being appointed to that body? So it's not like a pick and choose who so i's every person who's going to be interviewed every person who is confirmed They're interested in being appointed would be required to submit an so i and those so i's would be sent To all counselors and also to the posted for the public Okay Yeah Okay, me and joe let's have a final comment and then we're going to move on just going to be quick Two things one is the whole two-year three-year not everyone's getting it is easily solved at the beginning of every council term The clerk of the council can go back into the cafs that have been submitted under those forms for the last Three years at that point or whatever and forward them all to every new every councillor that is currently sworn in at that term So that concern is something that is easily rectified because there are electronic records and can be distributed at any time to any new um I want to remind the council that we are going to be asked to be voting on the calf amendment And not the process oka adopted Um, and it seems like much of this conversation has resulted It has been around the process and not the calf amendment oka gets its own process We have to decide what the calf says. Thank you Right this will appear on the uh Agenda on the 18th We're moving on to committee reports anything from crc mandy joe Nothing new Andy finance No, nothing tonight george gl Nothing tonight Uh jcpc kathy No, nothing Oka avan Uh, just that we're meeting next week and we're going to start to put it together Uh, the selection. I know it feels like we just did appointments because we did but we're going to start putting together selection guidance Um and talking about the pool for planning board reappointments So you should expect an email from me in the very near future Soliciting questions for interview questions for planning board Okay, tso darcy Um We were supposed to have uh an appointment Before this report. It was done as part of the consent agenda Well, oh it was Yes Okay Great well, congratulations, sarah Um, uh, no, I don't really We we had our second, um Presentation on the wage theft bylaws and um, we haven't finished with that yet and then we'll be We'll have the farmers market on the agenda for the next meeting And that next meeting is when? We don't know. Okay. Thank you. Um Town managers report mr. Bachman Um, I gave a pretty thorough report last week and this is just an update report one week ago. So it's not much to add Um, I want to alert the public to the fact that we are going to be um Having a starting up our district meetings Uh, the very first one is actually going to be on may 11th And that's district four and it will be at 7 30 the information will be on the bulletin board And please watch the bulletin board for others because they will start occurring the week of may 18 um, I With regard to office hours, I think individual counselors should do however they see fit with their own office hours or together They can use personal phone numbers zoom numbers, whatever um The expectations of the calendar for the rest of 2020 Um, I'm still wrestling with this one Uh, and counselors will be part of agenda setting. I still need to get back to you on that Uh, I have no further discussion. Uh, are there counselor comments? Yes, Darcy I just wanted to say that our district five meeting is going to be on may 28th at 6 p.m on say Pat I'd like to wish andy a happy birthday You beat me to it 39 again andy, right? That's absolutely Thank you I get our way. Maybe I should say, um 27 again or something. I have dyslexia, you know, I really don't but that's okay Uh, any items or comments? Andy? No Okay Uh, we have no executive unanticipated issues executive session therefore the meeting is adjourned at 10 minutes 10 o'clock and 11 minutes. Thank you. Bye