 Um, let me just check to make sure that everybody can hear that is here from the council, uh, Dorothy Pam. Everybody probably walks away. I'll move, I'll move on to Kathy Shane. Yes, here present and can hear. Thank you. Alyssa present and can hear. Andy Steinberg. So I can hear. Pat D'Angeles. I can also hear. Mandy Joe. I'm here. Steve Schreiber. Here and can hear. Um, Darcy Dumont. Here. George Ryan. Present. Sarah Schwartz. You're here. Ross. Okay. And Dorothy Pam. Did I miss anybody? Please. Good girls. Okay. Again, this is a virtual meeting allowed by Governor Baker's order of March 12th. And we have already confirmed that all of the counselors are that are here can hear us and we can hear them. So I'm going to call this public forum to order at 601 on June 15th, 2020. And the purpose of a public forum is to hear from the public. And we have not tried this with the zoom aspect or zoom possibilities. And so let me just explain that in addition to having a public forum, we are going to have just a brief recap on case somebody hasn't joined us of the information session, but 50% of the time has to be for the public. Um, we are going to try something that if a person from the public would like to speak. Ask a question. Make a comment. You raise your hand and we're actually going to invite you in temporarily as a panelist and it'll be your choice as to whether or not you would like to be seen through video, or whether you're just going to have your name up there. I'm sure before you bring you in that you unmute and you tell us your name and where you live. So, before we get started on the actual public comment period. I just want to ask Sean to make a very brief presentation that just summarizes what we just looked at. And you're doing your own screens right Sean. Yep, I'll bring it up right now. Thank you. Okay. So again, we're talking about the capital improvement program for FY 21. For FY 21. There are sort of three buckets of capital funding that we allocate projects from the first is cash capital. And that is based on the tax levy. And for this year we're proposing 530,000 firm roads, 170,000 for sidewalks for a total of $700,000 between the two. And then the rest of the cash capital funds will be used, we'll go into a capital reserve account and that capital reserve account would be used to address any urgent needs that arise between July one and the fall. And the reason that's the case between the fall is because we plan to reconvene JCPC in the fall and reevaluate the capital plan at that point based on whatever the economic situation is at the time. The other two funding sources for capital this year are potentially state aid chapter 90 money, we budget 184,841,883 dollars, but that is dependent on whether the state actually approves an allocation and how much they approve. And then the remainder is from Uber money for downtown improvements and that's $62,000. So the top half of these projects are these funding sources are summarized into this chart. The top half of this chart is the funding side of capital improvement plan and the bottom half of this chart is the expenditure side. So for FY 21, the total that we're proposing or total funds available is 3,687,934, which is comprised of the cash capital, the other and the state aid. And down below you'll see how those funds that are available are being allocated so cash capital. In addition to those projects that were just mentioned on the previous slides. It's also used to pay whatever debt has been approved in prior years and so cash capital goes towards the actual debt projected debt and then all those projects that were just identified. And then below that we use the other is the Uber money which is going for downtown improvements and then below that is the state aid, the chapter 90 funds that are going for roads and sidewalks. So all the funds that are available for FY 21 are being allocated, and then FY 22 and beyond. So the plan was left back in March. It hasn't been updated to reflect the new reality of what's happened after COVID-19 and that's something that will be updated for the fall as well. And that's it. I will turn it back for questions. Thank you, Sean. So actually at this point, Serge, who is helping us this evening. I'm going to have you take down the things so that we can all see each other. And I'm going to ask among the attendees first of all, let me restate. If you would like to connect to this meeting by zoom, you can do so using the, the zoom connect on the town website for this meeting. It also appears at the bottom of this agenda. If you are joining by phone, then you need to do a asterisk nine in order to be able to ask a question. If you are joining by zoom, you just need to raise your hand. So is there anybody among the attendees who at this time would like to ask a question or make a comment. If I see some one person, could you please identify yourself. It's a Athena, we need to unmute the person. Hi, my name is Evan O'Neill. And I live at six Smith Street in Amherst. Thank you. Would you like to be seen in in the video or just stay as a whatever works at either way is fine. You don't have to make yourself through the video if you want to or if not, just go ahead and make your statement. I think I'll just make my statements easier that way. I just wanted to. I wrote a letter to the town council. I think earlier in June requesting sidewalk funding. I just wanted to, to say I attended the special town council meeting that a half an hour ago and I was just happy to hear that there's really sounds to be sounds like there's an emphasis on sidewalk funding. And I just wanted to give a specific shout out that in my letter, we live right in downtown and run a very small street but a very heavily traffic street, both by cars and pedestrian traffic. It's really important that this street has a sidewalk. And there's also part of Kellogg Avenue that doesn't have a sidewalk and it's actually I think the most dangerous part of the, of the street that's kind of the windy part. And I specifically asked the council in the town to look at this and see if you could provide, you know, funding for a new sidewalk in these on these streets. So that was my specific shout out for new new sidewalks. I just wanted to say thank you for making sidewalks a priority. I think it's really important. Despite the problems I know the town's going to face in the future with funding but I think for pedestrian safety is just very important and thank you for that. Okay. Is there anything else that anybody that wants to respond to that comment. I don't know that there was a specific question, but we thank you for your comment. We're now going to put you back into the attendee area, but if you'd like to ask a question or make another statement, you can raise your hand again. Tony Cunningham. We're going to bring you in as a temporary panelist. You'd like to be seen. Please make your video available. So search you need to bring her in. Okay. Hope we haven't lost her. I added her as a panelist so she should be joining us. It doesn't take a little while. I could take a few seconds. Okay. We're trying something new because several people have expressed interest in seeing our speakers and seeing who is attending. We're not seeing Tony. There she is. Tony if you'd like to unmute and also be seen you can also show your video or just make your statement. I'm sorry. This is Tony Cunningham. I got cut off there. Is it my turn. Yes, it is. Great. Thank you. We're now showing as a panelist on a temporary basis. And if you'd like to show your video, you may and be live with us or you can just leave it the way it is. Okay, there you are Tony. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to thank the finance committee and the JCPC that have been pushing lately for the reports of unspent capital. And I think that's a vital piece of information when you try to determine how to allocate limited resources. And so I just wanted to thank the members of JCPC and finance committee for asking for the information and Sonya and Sean for providing it and Doug Slaughter also. And I'm glad to see that will be part of the process going forward. Any other comments at this time Tony. That's it for now. Thank you. Well, thank you. We're going to have you go back in as an attendee. We hope we don't lose you in the process. And you may come back at some other time. Are there other comments or questions from our statements from the attendees. We have plenty of time. Yes. I'm going to have Lovah Gilham and you can tell me I pronounced it incorrectly later. Please come into the comment area, and you can both unmute and also make sure we can see you. There is a bit of a time lag. I didn't realize there would be this much time lag. She should be joining us just shortly. Okay. I think we're back to progress of that search. Let me take a look and see what I can tell my end here. Because as we can all see the attendees, they disappear when they're like in this transition limbo. What happens is the person essentially the system exits the person out as an attendee and then they are rejoined as a panelist. We, in our experience, it worked pretty quickly, but it seems like there's a delay when there's a lot of attendees or in this situation. We'll keep waiting for her and make sure that when she comes into the panelist area that we let her know it's her turn. At this time, will there be other people who would like to make public comment? We're going to still wait on her. We have no other public comment at this time. Okay. I was just texted by Tony that when we transferred her, she was cut off and then she had to re log in with the zoom number again to get back into the meeting. Oh boy. Okay. Thank you, Tony for letting us know how that happened. So Lou Miller, if you can hear us, please log back in. That's that's very helpful. I think I think before we transition folks we, I think it'd be good for them to know that that's the normal process of re entering as a panelist. We have, we're going to continue the meeting anyway so hopefully. Miller will hear us if anybody money knows how to contact her, please go ahead. Oh, Lynn, is this a different process from what we used at the TSO meeting today because we're actually trying out a new process which allows us to at least have those people who are attendees who would like to speak to actually be shown come in as a panelist and therefore they can be shown by video as well as speak. This is because several of you have asked that we try to come up with a way to be more, if you will, a neighborhood if you will or a meeting. And so, Bella has come back into the room. We'd like to see if we can successfully transfer her surge. Hi. There we are. I apologize. I don't know whether I did something over there. You did it doesn't really matter. I wanted to ask what is our borrowing capacity, and how far are we along the process I'm sorry if it's out of sync with some of the other things you may have been discussing. I think under capital that's perfectly decent question. Sean or Paul. I don't know the exact number offhand we can get you that number it's pretty high. I think last time I looked at it was in 100 million dollar range. But we'll have to come back with the exact number it's a certain percentage of the, I think of the taxable property in town. They have more of a detail on that if you'd like. So it's about last I looked at was about 113 million. Okay, and I guess my question is actually in concert with some of the other capital projects that we are looking at in terms of planning. I'm not, I'm not very astute in terms of being able to look up meeting information and follow the conversation in town really so I'm sorry if I'm asking these questions out of place almost but I was thinking that we do have a number of projects that are in planning stages. And I was wondering if you had thought about how we might orchestrate being able to actually borrow in order to complete them. The ones that I'm particularly interested is the Jones library and the elementary school. And how we might be able to permit ourselves to actually engage in those projects whole all the way through. Let me start and then I'm going to ask Paul and Sonia and Sean or other counselors to chime in. We did begin very serious process of listening back in December for all four of the major capital projects, which are in fact the library. An elementary school, a fire station and EMS station combined, and also the Department of Public Works. We were proceeding along those lines and then as with so many other things COVID is interrupted. However, back in December we were accepted by the mass school of business authority in school, school building authority excuse me, into their process for planning for a new elementary school. And that process is beginning as we speak. And we'll take about a year to and a half to two years, come up with the curriculum plan, as well as begin to get started on the building plans, and then in the process. If those are all acceptable to the MSBA, then they will proceed with giving us some amount of money that will match what we will put in locally. That is subject to the approval of the town council. And should we choose, I said should, I didn't say we will should we choose to go out and under override we would. So that one is grant dependent. The second one that you mentioned is the Jones library which is also grant dependent. And frankly we don't know where things are with that one at this point and the reason we don't know where things are with that one is because we don't know whether or not the library commission with state level library commission will have the money to give any capital grants to your capital improvement. And if they do whether they will extend the timeline for that one. And again, unlike the fire station DPW those two are grant dependent, but the fire station and the DPW or not. The fire station is best location is still considered to be where DPW is, but we have still not found a suitable location to move DPW to. And so those two projects are further down on the list. The issue is not just borrowing capacity but making sure that we're in sync with what the residents of Amherst are thinking about as well as our ability to pay back all of the loans. So with that. Therefore the council, by the way, has not really returned to this discussion. I do want to ask others if they'd like to add to this conversation at this time. Kathy you have your hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to add to what Lynn just said LaMille that the debt capacity is one number the other one we're looking at or we will have to look at or some numbers Sean put up on how much money can we allocate each year to capital to pay back loans. We have some past that, and going forward if we have enough of an economic recovery to go back anywhere near to 10% of our general property right in will have more for capital in general and that means more so the timing of these matters for not just borrowing the money, but then being able to pay the annual amount back each year so it's, it's all intermingled with what he said about fiscal year 22 through 25. And those are the years that particularly apply to the school and the library in terms of their grant cycles. So we're going to have to be looking at both of those not just the ability to borrow it, but the ability to pay it back. So Sean or Sean or Sonia, any additional? No, I think you nailed it. Lynn and Kathy I appreciate you mentioning that I think it's something that's we've clearly been focused on one of the challenges has been the financing of all four projects, both on the ability for us to take on the debt but also for the taxpayers to take on the payments that are required to do all four and you know that the metrics we're dealing with is the length of time that we do them. We are driven by the grant cycle. And so we are any the two programs that library and schools have the ability to obtain grants the other two pro projects aren't do not have that capacity to get grants. I want to make sure that we give people who are in the audience and an opportunity to ask questions or make statements before I go back to our counselors. Are there other people who would like to make a comment. Okay, Dorothy you have your hand up, please unmute. Yes, I would like to ask something that so many people have asked me. Let's assume that we do the MS that the school grant is going forward. Will we be able to also go forward with the Jones library should that money be there. I mean, everyone this is what they ask me all the time. And I can't answer it it's it's it's way above my pay grade so I'd like to know from Sean whether how that looks given our temporary budget. You know, Dorothy, I'd love to get out my crystal ball. Hey, this is a council decision. It's not an issue. It is an issue of what we have in terms of debt ability to borrow and ability to pay back, but the decision to move forward on either of those projects is a council decision or decision that the council can decide to take to the public. That's correct, but I don't have any that if it's if we're told, it depends upon our ability to pay back. You know, do we have any knowledge of that. I'm going to Sean or Paul are Sonia would like to jump into that one. I'll just, I mean, so when we looked at things before COVID. There was some ability to do all four projects it's just it's all about allocating resources and how many resources you want to allocate to different projects and if you do that then you have to make decisions on other priorities so post COVID it's a little bit of a different story and at least in the short term, the amount of money that we have for capital is, you know, half of what it was last year at this time. So, over the next couple of years and we're doing the economic recovery. Some of those models that we looked at before COVID happened or are not going to be the same picture. So, something that we're going to have to look at again with our new reality at least while we're recovering economically. And Dorothy you know from our conversations and finance that know our hotel and food and restaurant revenues are down. Our parking revenues are down and so a lot's going to depend on the economic recovery and how long it is and how fast it happens. Okay, thank you. Are there other questions from our attendees. First of all, we're glad to see so many of you, but and we appreciate the questions and comments that people have made. We certainly would like to hear from more of you and we are going to end this at 630 unless there's more comments and go on to our regular council meeting. But I do want to urge you that at any time should you care to share with us various comments. Please write us at town council at Amherst MA dot gov. Okay. Any other comments from the audience. And I also want to thank those people who joined us tonight for their patience and being brought in as panelists so we can be seen and so you could be seen and we could hear from you directly. Okay, so that I'm going to adjourn this portion of our meeting.