 Perfect. All right. So I am going to go ahead and hello, Dr. Shabazz. We're just calling to order now. I'm going to go ahead and call the May 2 meeting of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly to order at 3pm. Sue into chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. And we have Alexis too. Excellent. Welcome. Yay. Nice to see you all. So we've got a we've got a good agenda here and we have a hard stop at four o'clock. We do have another meeting scheduled for next week. And that will be from three to 430. There was a conflict with some of our schedules today to go beyond four. And I don't know if you're leaving even a little sooner than four o'clock, but I'll keep the meeting going until four. So you can. Oh, you might be muted or I have no idea what happened. I'm going to have to do whatever. Okay. Well, I, I know that there's a mingling portion of that event that's going to be a half an hour. I've learned in the front end. So the programming doesn't start until about 430 for that. So just to give you that. Oh, do we lose her? Oh, okay. He's back. All right, so you're back. All right. So, so my problem is, is that I am under a concussion protocol. So my screen time has to be limited. Oh, what happened? You don't want to talk about that right now. I'm sure I hope not right now, but it's one of those things where I listed as stupid mistake number, I think five in my life. I think it's five. I think I'm up to five. Okay, you do what you need to do. Yeah. So with that in mind, let's review the agenda quickly and we'll, I do want to make an announcement in the front end in case you have to leave Dr. Shabazz or Dr. Rhodes because I want you to hear this announcement. But let's look at our agenda. So we're going to today we're going to have an update on the community survey. We're going to talk about an operating and administrative budget for our body. We're going to revisit the black African American census that we haven't actually had a chance to review since it's been presented to us. So having some discussion about how we might use that. And then we have earmarking cannabis funds. So that's going to be a conversation about FY 23 and what we want to do with respect to our asks of the town and specifically related to earmarking cannabis funds. So, and we have minutes to approve. So why don't we go ahead and quickly get the minutes out of the way. I'm going to move that we approve the March 3, March 14, March 21, March 28, April 4, and April 11 meeting minutes. Go Jennifer. Thank you. Is there a second second. Who is that roads. Okay. So I'll start with you, Hala. I was going to voice the unreadiness. Okay. Could we add with any necessary corrections because I haven't had time to read them off. I don't want to pass them if something like blatantly. So could we just say we'll pass them with any necessary corrections. Absolutely. Yes. And that is the case I say I, okay. So we will move then yeah we're moving to approve those minutes with any necessary amendments upon review by assembly members. So we have an I, we have Alexis. How do you vote. Yes. Okay, Dr. Shabazz. I see your hand is up to you're good. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And Miller is a yes to so those pass. Good. I think I got you guys all moved around as I was going through the vote. So. So I did want to make a couple of announcements that are really exciting developments for the assembly and that we'll have an opportunity to talk about at a future meeting when it's actually on the agenda. The first is hang on, I'm just pulling up my notes here. Here we go. So I received an email from Mara keen about a week or two ago now. And Mara is on the Amherst community land trust board. And she wrote an email. I'm just going to actually read a little very quickly what she said. We have as one of our goals to increase home ownership among Amherst's African American residents, although we have helped five lovely families to purchase homes, none have been of African heritage. And so she went on to say she wonders how we might be in collaboration and how the Amherst community land trust may work with us to make that a reality. So we're going to bring Mara and page will do who are both on the board to our next meeting to have a deeper discussion about that but I just wanted to make that announcement today, cool. And then the other announcement, which is really exciting is the completion of Amherst students at Amherst college so essentially the Amherst college student Senate, which is a 33 member elected body comprised of eight senators from each class. They have formed a committee for reparations, and they reached out, and this is a very exciting news I had a meeting with them today. The person who reached out to me is actually the president of the whole AS, but is also on this reparations committee, and I had an excellent conversation with them, they have two primary goals. So, that body is, it basically collects the student activity fees, and then distributes them out into the Amherst college community, and they have what's called a rainy day fund. And they are able to make decisions about how those funds are used. And so they're, they have two primary goals, one of which is to make a donation to the town of Amherst's reparation fund from their rainy day fund, which is amazing. And then two is to work with us to achieve our goals. And there are lots of possibilities that we talked about canvassing, going door to door, educating, getting the community survey out, helping us with research. Ultimately, they want to work with us to be involved with the town's effort. And we're going to bring them back hopefully at our next meeting but maybe depending on how long they need to work out some details to a future meeting. Those are the two exciting announcements, partnerships, and folks are just really, you know, the words getting out in Amherst and beyond, and the support is really beginning to come in. So, I think that's really exciting. Dr. Chabaz, I do see that your hand is still up. I just want to check in with you. Okay. All right, great. So, let's start with the community survey, I have an update for you on that. I have been working, taking some of the input from you all and also looking at some models in to create a draft. And when I was in Washington DC for reparations conference a couple weeks or now, I guess a month or so ago, I met Luan Allen and Luan Allen is the director of policy and partnerships at the city of Providence Rhode Island and was integral in developing their survey, which was very successful from what I can tell they received close to 400 survey responses and they really developed a fantastic survey so Luan has agreed to one review our survey and two to come and speak with you all and with us about what they learned, what was helpful, what wasn't helpful, what would they have done differently if they were to do it over again and what they're still learning from the process. So, I've asked Luan to come back to our next meeting to have that discussion. And in the meantime, he'll have an opportunity to review and then give us feedback so as soon as I'm finished with the draft I'll put it into the packet, and then you'll have an opportunity as well and to weigh in and then of course we'll talk about it in the bigger meeting. Any questions about that before moving on from that? Not seeing any. All right. So, there are two items that before Irv has to leave, I really want to make sure we get to. And the first I think we'll go to is the conversation about earmarking cannabis funds. And this was something that I'm going to pass it to Dr. Shabazz to talk about just for a minute if you wouldn't mind. This came up in a budget forum that the Progressive Coalition of Amherst and Sunrise Amherst put together. It was an excellent forum. I was really happy to be in attendance and really appreciative to be there to observe and listen as a counselor too. But this came up as a point that the AHA that folks would like the AHA to discuss. This has already been something that we've discussed previously and in fact that we've directly asked the town of Amherst to do. So I'm going to go ahead and just open things up and maybe Dr. Shabazz would like to begin and just say a few words about that. Just a very few words because I think more words will come out in a statement that Sunrise, let me tell you the young people are incredible. They really, this is the upshot of beyond the work of the forum or what happened at the forum, although that was completely open and the statement is going to be drawn from conversations that came up at the forum that was held at Hazel's in downtown Amherst. But within it, their voice in particular, looking at our own work of what we sent in in November. They do their homework, they study these things, they follow it up. And so it that was a came out at the forum, but even beyond that they are talking about getting on the road getting knocking on doors going in the streets to get the word out and to say, you know how how are we going to move for for the reparative justice in Amherst they are there on it. So, yes, I think that's the general gist of it that it's in support of our own document that we submitted, we wrote worked on and finished up in October, and put in the hands of the council in November. They are asking, folks are asking, where is the movement on the council toward having an earmarking discussion per the work of the HR a. So that's, that's where we hope then, however, we as a body might want to respond or not I just hope that counselors will hear it when this statement comes out. And as they see the work these that folks are doing that maybe they'll they'll find a way to put it in their calendar, pretty some response to us. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz and just to give a little more framework to this. So, it seems like a long time ago that we made those initial requests, and then we sort of had a reset as a body and determine that we needed another year to work on this because we couldn't sort of catch the wave of the f y 23 and time we haven't done our educational or engagement work yet so we extended our time frame so that we would be part of a second budget cycle for f y 24. So that the f y 23 budget cycle and I was going to pull up the calendar here I did put it into the packet. It's really coming close to being completed so we know that last year they put $206,000 into the reparation fund to seed it, and they base that off of the cannabis dollar amount. So, potentially, we would be asking them to do that again for f y 23 with the knowledge that we're going to be making a much more significant ask for f y 24. When we've done all of our work and and and and educated the community engaged with the community and gone through the process that we're here to do. Yes, or please. I believe we are now in f 22, is that correct. Next year, starting June, starting July one is f y 23. The following year is f y 24. Yes, and it just gets confusing the way that I pull up this calendar it is. It's so confusing but hang on I'm going to do this real quick. It's just confusing, you know, because you what you need to do the way I remind myself that 23 and any the year change a year change comes in January. So that's just a year change. So, and the fiscal year always is one year ahead of that so that when January comes in, then we're on on a schedule so this year is fiscal. 22 next year is fiscal 23. In other words, the budget that they're working on right now is fiscal 23. Right, that's what I mean exactly. Okay. Hang on, let me just also pull this up quickly. I will share screen. Okay. Do you all see that. Yes, awesome. Okay. So I'm on the finance committee and so I can say for sure that we are moving through this budget now. Department by department and I encourage anybody who's interested to come to the meetings and it's going to it's a pretty heavy schedule for the month of May. So what we need to decide and I will tell you I've asked Lynn to place this discussion of whether the town council wants to commit its cannabis funds to Reparatory Justice on our at our next meeting on May 16, not tonight's but May 16. So, we have to, and I just did that as a placeholder if we're not ready. That's totally fine. But I did it so that if we want if we're ready on May 16 to bring that and to ask the town council to have that discussion. It's important to note that cannabis funds have not been earmarked for anything yet. They've just gone into the general budget and I now see that Dr Shabazz has a hand and then Dr Rose. Dr Shabazz, you're muted. I was, I'm having problems trying to pull up our recommendations, all of our recommendations from that that was delivered to the council on November, but I'm also wondering, did we ask that the free cash be whatever is certified be prioritized. I know there were other recommendations besides cannabis that was only one out of a number of other kinds of budget streams we every seem like we left no stone unturned so I'm wondering did we do we have other requests besides the discussion of earmarking that was out of our previous and how are we looking on those in terms of is that somewhere needs to be. Is there some horizon in which they might respond to some of those questions. I know we've put the reset button on the overall time frame of things, but if we at least can have some feedback that yes, we're those recommendations. To be honest, we've never heard back from our recommendations. We worked hard to get that in, you know, in November. I know one of the upshots was not so much an upshot of the recommendations to they were very much related to budget. We did ask that. I mean, there were a number of us that I don't know if if those have been thought through the ARPA the other kinds but I'm really if I find that document I'll just try to condense my points on that because I think that's really also what people are saying. Dr. Shabazz, do you not see it. I just put it up. Can you do people see it. This was what we this was the this was the chart of our original requests. So, to answer your question. My understanding is you're absolutely right we didn't receive a response to this. And so we could frame the town council discussion on May 16 to include a broader discussion about responding and just overall having counselors funding the reparation fund. My understanding was that we were going to make our sort of big ask with the next budget cycle and for this cycle, what we what are we going to ask, given that we've extended our timeframe, but if other folks have a different idea. We should definitely talk about that and herb I see your hand. You're correct about that the the other thing is is if and I'm not sure this in terms of cannabis money. If we were going to ask for that as an age or a airmark or whatever the question have is, is that is that something that the town manager would have to include in his budget. Not the town manager who would who would present that as a part of the budget. And the reason for that is as that at some point in May I can't remember when the town manager will present his budget. Now, and the reason that is important is that when the town manager for presents his budget. The budget cannot be changed in terms of going up, but it can be changed if it was looking to be lowered. So it's critical if we were going to do anything to look at that and say hey, we would like this cannabis money to be airmarked for age our a, and, and how do we go about doing that in an expeditious manner. Yes, exactly. And just so you know, Dr Rhodes my understanding, and so that everyone knows my understanding is that the council has not had that discussion yet about what, or how cannabis funds should be used. I'm sure you're right in that town manager Buckleman is the one that's coming up with the budget and presenting it to the council. But the conversation is a legislative based on my understanding conversation where the counselors have to really talk and discuss how they would like to see that money be spent. I will absolutely clarify that, but that's my understanding so this is where what you're saying or this budget's getting finalized at the end of the month. So if we don't get on that May 16 meeting to have this discussion and to present whatever arguments we want to present that we're going to be too late for this budget cycle to do that. One more thing for all of us to understand it. Fiscal 24 and fiscal 25 are going to be extremely tight years, especially the fiscal 25 24. I project all kind of budget fights happening in fiscal 25. So if we are going if we are going to position ourselves in such a way in terms of for a RA, it's going to have to be done very early in the budget process. Because I guarantee you that every penny that can be siphoned up will be siphoned up by other other departments, especially the municipal department. Yep. And I can say just from being on the finance committee, I can second that it is going to be there are a lot of demands, a lot of, and also, you know, yeah, we have a tight budget, and it's going to take some creativity. And I think on our part to and on the town's part. Dr. Shabazz. Yes, I'd like to make a third on that a third emergence on that point to say that rescue me if I'm wrong. This is really more a conversation of just us now. Um, when we made those recommendations, we made them yes, without thinking that we would then put forward a a change in our time horizon for our planning work. But in my mind, at least that changed environment for our planning work did not change the urgency of building the fund that we work so rapidly and so hard on weekly in September weekly in October to get this integral report, or statutory report I mean this was set up in our charter that we needed to report in. And so we took that urgency on. We made that report we made these that reflect the certification of free cash coming annually. We saw the whole flash up. The point is, I didn't think that our time horizon change for building the reparative justice fund, just because we changed our high, our time horizon for our planning work as a body. We changed our planning, our horizon, but that doesn't mean the town can't continue to do what it did out the gate, which was begin was moving that certified free cash into a stabilization fund. So we were, we were operating from, let's keep doing that. That doesn't change like okay we can put the pause on it. Now until your, your, your, your June 2023 report comes out, then we'll figure out if we, if we know, don't put the pause but not deal with those financial recommendations. Act on incorporate them in this year's budget and the next year's budget and 20, you know, begin to grapple with incorporating them, because when we spend it how we spend it, that may take another year 2023. That may take another year after 2023 to go into what you need the funds building. That's at least was my mindset. Thank you. Dr. Shabazz. Anyone else want to comment. Yeah, I think that absolutely I do not think that our work plan changed or paused the requests that we have made. What I do think however is in terms of our success factor will be much more successful. Once we've completed more of our work. So, I think we should ask for something this fiscal year and we should be very clear about it and if it's cannabis and if we're, if that's a discussion we want to have whatever discussion we want to have it's got to be on May 16. And so, that's really, I think the most important thing here and we will have another meeting before then, so we can sort of, we're not totally pressed. I would be curious what other members think I think our big ask will be most successful. Once we've done more of our work. And I think we should be asking for something this year as well in this year's budget. Yes, earth. You're muted or your point. If we are to have any earmark of that cannabis money for fiscal 23. We need to find out how we what do we need to do to move this forward before the town manager presents his budget. In other words, how can we get it into his budget. And I think, Michelle, you being on the finance committee, you can ask that of of the committee and or of Andy, in terms of how we go about doing that. Because I don't know whether that needs to then go through a whole discussion with the entire council, what the council's timeline will be with acting on that but anyway, that is an issue that we really need to get on now we want to have that cannabis money. Yeah, and that's why I, that's why I asked Linda put it on the May 16 town council meeting agenda because I think that what needs to happen is if it is the will of the council to earmark cannabis funds for cannabis, then the council needs to tell Paul that and it needs to express that to Paul. And that's how I think it will, if it's, if the earmark happens that's, I think, how that will happen. What I would like to do is bring that to my colleagues on the 16th, and at our next meeting really have a solid plan for what it is that we're asking how we're framing it. And then of course the council is going to have its own discussion but we really need to make the case to my counselor colleagues that earmarking cannabis for a territory justice makes sense and is is the place to put the money. And so, and then, and then, if it is the will of the council they will make that clear to town manager Backelman, and, and that's how I see it would be included. And even aside from that, like I said last year the 206,000 that they that they took out of the stabilization it was modeled on the cannabis money. So they were already thinking in that direction, just it the conversation hadn't happened by the council yet so they didn't make that decision final. And Dr. Shabazz please. Final thing just to be clear. I'm in no way do I think the sense of our discussion is that we're, I want to come at the idea of the success factor of our planning work and are hitting our benchmarks to June 2023. You know, there's a lot we got to do there's a lot we got to, you know, solicit from the community feedback there's a lot we didn't have to process in the way of certain certain kinds of frameworks about the eligibility question who is who is the preparatory justice design to impact what are the priority kinds of areas we're hearing from community feedback. I know we've got a lot of. There's a lot between now and June 2023, and a lot of benchmarks we need to be be ticking off to show, you know, to have a really plan backed by compelling evidence. I get that. But I'm really responding to the sense of the council's commitment, as I saw in their pudding, the free cash, like you say whether modeled on cannabis revenue or or or not. I just saw that that step looked as though they weren't waiting for the plan. They were starting some fun. So if you're starting, why stop, why pause to see the success factor of the AHRA keep it coming, build it that incentivizes AHRA to do its work. And to do it hard and to do it fast to hit those benchmarks so that by 2023, as this fund has continued to rise. We've got a compelling plan to present to them for their own discussion. So I'm just saying that's the sense I read in the council's own actions. But if if they're, you know, in more of a pause mode now and more of, you know, let's let's let Paul do whatever he wants to do with the money and, you know, we're going to wait and have a deeper discussion about whether it's cannabis or whether it's next year's free cash or whatever it is. I get it. Take your time, you know, and we'll continue to do our work but if, but if I read it correctly, and the council wasn't waiting on a plan to begin to make this fund, then I say, as far as from the HR rate, keep at it folks, give the town manager, the directive that, hey man, keep as much, begin keep building this pot of money out of whatever we can spare. Relative to everything, because then that sets us up for the hard years. Dr. Rhodes is talking about in 2024 2025. If you don't start making the result to build these funds and prioritize these funds around repair to repair the justice work. Now, how hard much harder is it going to be to have those discussions getting into these tighter years. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. Yeah. Are there any other comments or questions on this just to sort of wrap wrap it up based on what I've heard so far. What I'd like to do is get together some really solid evidence that links cannabis, you know, the cannabis industry with reparative justice, and why those two are coupled and linked and make sense. Get that and potentially, and I'm not sure how successful will be but if I can identify somebody who can offer testimony on that. There are scholars and non scholars alike that are talking about this if you just do a quick Google search, you'll find a lot of great information about why this makes sense what other communities have done. If you look at what I put in the packet that came right from the cannabis, the CCC I think they're called they explicitly say that communities should be using cannabis tax revenue for racial justice initiatives. And so if anything is clear that is clear. And so what I would do proposed to do is to draft a memo to my colleagues on the council to perhaps get somebody who can come and offer testimony that understands this. And then to get that on the May 16 agenda for discussion, and it doesn't have to be limited to that, but it can be focused on that. And so I would bring that all back to you at our next meeting before that so we all actually will have two meetings before that happens so we'll have more time to discuss it. So if that seems like a fair plan and we can move on but if there are any other comments or questions this is, please raise your hand or chime in. All right, so the next thing that I'd like to discuss before Dr. Erv's time limit expires on his concussion is the operating budget and I'm going to share my screen again. So we've been talking over the last few weeks about having an operating budget that we can use to do our work. And let's see here, share screen. Okay, so I haven't put any numbers in here I simply broke down what I thought were the categories that we needed to look at and cover. And of course we can add or subtract from these categories but I really wanted to. We have $206,000 plus I think there may have been some contributions from community members into the gift fund. So I'll have to ask Paul to provide or Sean to provide what the latest is we also received our $500 from the Amherst Cultural Council but that's for a specific project so we need to decide how much we would like to set aside so we can keep things really clean and transparent for the community for our operating budget. And then we need to ask, I think, depending on how we want to do it, anything, sorry anything coming out of the fund needs I think a two thirds vote by the council, but I can I also need to talk to Paul about how to work. But before we do that, I think we just really need to get a sense of what we're thinking for our projected needs in each of these areas so I'm going to go ahead and open it up because my dog's barking anyway. So, so please raise your hand if if you want to speak to this. Dr. Shabazz I think I saw your hand. Actually, let me check even did you have your hand up first. Okay, why don't you go ahead and start. I guess I'm curious about where these categories came from. And, you know, what they mean, and if there's, if we're allocating money for these categories then it for me it doesn't make sense unless we know what they are. What they're for. Are there specific expenses that are already known for these categories. That's a great question. They're very rough. They came from me there. They came off of our plan. So our multi phase plan when I looked through it. So that we'll need money to do community engagement and education, as well as any professional services we may need. But like for instance, you said community engagement with that mean is that hiring someone to do workshops. Is that printing pamphlets is it, you know, is it because I'm saying that those would be, you know, if we hired someone to teach workshops that would be professional services and not community engagement, or for instance, or the same with community education or, you know, honorarium is kind of a professional services thing as well. So I guess I'm saying, you know, it would be nice to know what we're spending money on and how. Yeah, more specifically. Yeah, what I hear you saying is we really need to develop a budget that reflects the actual work that we're going to do. Yes, yes, yes, I agree. I think the purpose for trying to at least have some projected amount like even if it's a lump sum. Right now, the money that's in the fund is for reparation benefits or at least that's the way that people may view it so we had talked and I don't know if you were here for that meeting even but we had talked about setting aside some amount of money that can be transparent to the community that will not be used for reparation benefits but that will be used by our committee to do the work that we need to do. So it doesn't sort of get, you know, messy around that we wanted to kind of pull it out. So perhaps what we need to do is really one way to do it is to sort of try to take some estimates and put them in there and know that we're putting that aside and we're asking our town manager and our council that you know we want to put that aside those are not for benefits, those are for our work. Because right now we don't have any other money to do our work so when this stuff starts to you know when we need it, we're going to, and in fact there was a request a specific request that came from Dr Shabazz and hollow through the black assembly of Amherst mass that we haven't addressed yet, which I'm not sure again even if you were here for that meeting. So maybe we do need to go back to that. And I think did her pop off. I thought his hand was up but maybe did he leave, I can't see. Okay. So, any other comments or questions right now to add to this. Yes, Dr Shabazz. I just want to say I had some more questions to to Yvonne in respect to understanding how you drew the categories from the work plan. And I think that just means kind of when I think about the projected needs in those areas, I just sort of go back to that that trajectory that appeared at least in my mind. A while back that essentially what we're what we're looking for is a way to not only create the evidentiary empirical components of a plan of a of a document we're turning in in January 2023. And so there's certain work steps and there's certain professional services we might need in in crunching some numbers or in putting together the the planning document and its support base. So there's that piece, but then there's also the piece in terms of the development of what from some language we got out of our summit in Evanston of developing the connection with the black stakeholder community. Okay. And the black stakeholder community as it exists here to, at least to where what I've observed that there's some other components out there. I haven't heard from or gotten in touch with or know about, then I'm only speaking from what I know. But I know that emergent stakeholder group are trying to develop that stakeholder group is in a place of do we do this taxing ourselves to develop this community conversation within the African heritage community. We tax ourselves and come out of our money, whatever we have. Okay, or is there forthcoming a way of having a partnership with the town of Amherst that is putting aside funding. But that can't work, because Amherst doesn't roll that way and the home rule legislation, which is going to benefits not going to creating the community stakeholder group, which is a part of getting to benefits. Do we do we just do it on our own, or is there a way to have a partnership between the town of Amherst and members of the African heritage community, wherever and however, they may come together, hopefully in a unified in a kind of organized way. But as we saw in Evanston, there was dive there were divergent constituencies around the plan in Evanston out of the black community. I'm just saying. I just need to know, is there a basis of a partnership, because I do know some, some people in the African heritage community that are trying to get organized, do want to begin to help organize the kinds of, of conversations, the kinds of healing steps, the kinds of activities that can say within the African heritage community. Let's come together on this and share and express our thoughts. Take courage, be courageous, be willing to come forward and build with others who've gone through similar lived experiences to you, maybe some that are not similar. But can we come together and develop an array, a response to this reparative, this call for reparations. All right. And that so we're ready, you know, we can move forward, we can move forward on our own resources. If that's what it comes to, or we can find a way that some of the support and the energies that is happening within the larger town community town members, if there's some way to provide a way that we can partner to get this effort organized to get these opportunities out there. Now, that's just one idea. There's also the idea of mailers, there's the idea of, you know, that presumably we would draft some type of mail out the survey is one step in that, in that conversation in that path. Mailers to everybody mailers particularly to the African heritage community. Other forms of outreach efforts that we AHRA may want to directly personally help to direct and organize. Yes, great. But I always saw there being two, two parts of this support piece that that we were looking at on the screen, community engagement, community education. There were two parts of it. One is the part we as AHRA need to do to produce our report and that be a compelling report. But then secondly, or along with that, there is the work that we may be able to, we want, we may want to support within the African heritage community in some form of partnership or another. But that's that that's how I saw it and within it, I can certainly send notes, send in my thoughts on using the categories you came up with from out of our work plan. I'm Adam chair. So I can certainly begin to put in my thoughts on that under those relative to the workflow in those two areas I envision but somewhere we also need we do the feedback on how does the as the black stakeholder members of the stakeholder can organize. Is there any way to have a partnership and a connection with the town of Amherst and receive some funds army, or that does that only just happen with businesses and developers or you know, does it ever happen, or do we have to wait till the whole rule legislation before it can happen here I'm just saying I, I'm really at a loss, I don't know, but that's the two tracks in which I thought we would we could come up with projected needs on. I've said a lot, I'm sorry. Don't be sorry, Dr. Shabazz. Thank you, even I was just going to ask for some clarification. For each of those categories is this about like we can work on this and then we visited at the next meeting. That would be really wonderful. Yes. So that you know descriptions for each category would would give the answers and make it very transparent for anyone who might look at the budget to know that honoraria means, you know, guest speakers, or, you know, professional services means the graphic designer, or the, you know, whoever whoever it is so just to as much detail as we can get into the categories, and then I think we can start to assign dollar amounts, and the budget's $206,000, as you said. Yeah, I'll get us an exact number before our next meeting of what's in there I think it's more than a little more than that. But I'll make sure I get that and I think you are absolutely right if we could start to detail this a bit and if anyone has thoughts or wants to contribute to that. You can send it to myself and Jennifer and we'll add it into the now that it's been daylighted it's in our packet. We've talked about it we can add to it. And, and so yes, I will make sure that we continue this conversation in our next meeting and are there other committee budgets that are available to us I mean I'm sure everything is public record right so are there budgets that we can kind of look at as a sample. That's a great question and you know that's the other piece that I was going to mention is, I will have a conversation with Paul about how other committees get their work done and what sort of ways they budget. You need that we're a new initiative and so we have to do some things and that that maybe other committees have already figured out and aren't you know so I'll have a conversation with Paul I'll get us our exact number. And then if you all could send me some detailed information that you would want to have added into there. I don't think we need to spend like, you know, weeks and weeks on this and in fact I'd like us to just come to something pretty quickly but I do think that just so that we really transparent with our community about that and that we do have needs, and we do want to compensate, especially members of the African heritage community either here or even outside of our community who are contributing to this so. Dr Shabazz I wanted to also say that I don't think to me personally it would be a real shame to do this work, not in partnership in collaboration with the Black Assembly of Amherst, Massachusetts and to have that work happening with no support from us and separately from doesn't seem. For me I would very much prefer that we were able to be in collaboration and support. That's what we, you know, we're here to do that work and so let's let's let this process and we'll continue this discussion at our next meeting if that works for everyone. All right. Alexis did you or Hala did you want to add anything to that. Okay. All right, it's four o'clock and so I, I know that we have some members of the public so I'm going to. I do have to leave so we're going to have to push the the census off from the next meeting. We've already talked about most of the agenda items for next week as well as the announcements that I made earlier. So let me just do read the public comment statement. During the public comment period the chair will recognize members of the public when called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name, pronouns and residential address. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair based upon the number of people who wish to speak. The AHRA will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment but we will be listening and taking notes. If you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand. We do have four members in our attending and it just want to take this moment to thank you to the four of you who are here. We really appreciate you being here and supporting our work and just really want to share that gratitude out. I see that we have a hand up. So I'm going to move ash part well into the room. Let's see here. Hi ash. I have to unmute myself greens. I just, I just want to say thank you so much to everybody for doing this work. I want to agree more with Dr. Shabazz that building up the principle of an endowment is absolutely key before you can actually move. You know, you don't want to be arguing every year on nickel and diming for the particular activity but you want to build up that endowment that that that body of funds that then can guide the work. That's the basis for the argument. And I thought that I commend you for looking at the research that links the cannabis funds to the need for black reparations. It makes a lot of sense and there's strong arguments for it. I also know that in other other ways that the legal women voters and other groups are looking to try to enhance the quality and the, and the focus of the consultations with the black community and, and basically other people color in this. The reparations are for African Americans but the larger discussion of justice and equity is a larger community and we're going to be working hard with that and. So just I want to commend this and I want to kind of be a whatever we can do to support this work we need to do it. And it's over way overdue so thank you. Thank you so much ash. All right. So, let's see if anyone else would like to make a public comment. Please raise your hand. And yes, we have Lauren Lauren I'm going to move you into the room. I think it looks like you're moving okay you were caught in space for a second. All right. Welcome Lauren. Can you. Oh, oh, sorry. Yes, sometimes I feel like I shouldn't necessarily be commenting because you know, I just, I'm not really sure, you know what the approach is right now for the, the assembly. I'm not sure if I should hold off when you guys have more community outreach but you know I feel like I always feel kind of mixed feelings of should I say something or not but I briefly just wanted to share my thoughts because it's you know it's helpful for me to stay connected and just to, you know, voice some things out loud and to others and I have been following some of the other reparations efforts in Sacramento, California, that have really been enlightening how they are, you know, moving through their work. And I just, you know, was interested in how it was brought up in one of their task force meetings that the term reparations is universal as well as slavery so it's really important for us in, you know, the town of Amherst and communities that exist within Amherst to really understand what the perspective and their approach that reparations will be taking in Amherst that can be like a faith community perspective a historical education perspective, a community enrichment and housing and education which, you know, Amherst is very abundant in as well as land stewardship. There could also be financial literacy perspective. And I just, you know, wanted to put a focus on financial literacy because in the context of slavery, I feel like the black community and its relationship to money is very different of their communities so, you know, this can be very daunting you know, talking about funds and talking about, you know, how you're allocating funds and it just we as when I say we I just mean, you know, those who are following this conversation and your work. We really want to see, you know, some results, some tangible actions. And so I just would just really appreciate, you know, the work that you guys are going to continue to do is that really, you know, specify, because it's more than one thing but really kind of help specify what your approach is and there's more than one community. There's, you know, the larger community but for, you know, African American and black residents who want to be involved in this work, it would really help if there was more specificity and hopefully, you know, that would continue to be revealed. And the last thing I just wanted to say is, you know, when thinking about the faith community perspective. There's the story of Joseph that I'm sure any are familiar with, and how he was actually, you know, sold into slavery. It's a story of him being sold into slavery by his brothers, and how the scripture say that it was done in a work of evil or was it was done for evil but God turned it into something good. And so I just hope that out of everything that comes out of this work is that, you know, African American and black people and all those other communities who are aligned and working to support reparations and reparative justice is that we can see ourselves in a new, like in a new perspective, because this really does affect generations after generations and it would just be, you know, wonderful if we did not pass on these, you know, burdens and, you know, old perspectives to, you know, the upcoming generation so that's all I had to say. Thank you. Thank you, Lauren. All right. If anybody else would like to make public comment let's see. Please raise your hand I'll just give it one more second here. All right. So, are there any member reports or anything that anyone in the membership would like to add before we adjourn the meeting. All right, well thank you. Great meeting. We'll see you all next week I'm adjourning at 410pm Jennifer. And we'll see you next week at three o'clock. Okay, thank you.