 Thank you for your patience. Calling to order at 1042 GOL. It is December, what is it to say, December 4th. And we are being recorded by Amherst Media. Everyone, including the chair, has his agenda and her agenda open. And we're going to begin this morning with a series of resolutions. The first resolution is the first church resolution. And we need to review this for consistency, clarity and actionability. So, if we could open this. Comments, problems, Pat? This is a exact duplication with date changes of the initial resolution. When I read through it, I didn't find any editing things that we needed to fix. I could be wrong about that. Especially with Mandy Jo Laff. So there's probably a really big one. And I'm not seeing it, but that's fine. But the content is not different than the previous resolution. And I think, you know, so we, I, so that's that. Present. What are yours, Mandy? So my really picky Scrivener one is when you define something short, like the church, the C should be capitalized. It should be in quotations in the first whereas. And then throughout the rest of the document, the word church should be capitalized just to indicate it's a short, you know, defined term. So that would be one of my changes. The signed on behalf of, we've changed to now voted this day of blank December. So that wording just has to be changed to what we've typically been doing. Those were my two sort of Scrivener ones. I have one question, which is in the first paragraph, it is referenced to a man who was at risk of being separated. And then in the fifth whereas, it is for Mr. Perez's return. I would think maybe we want to leave the person's name out. And so it should be the church continues to work for the return of the man, or the man's return to his family instead of Mr. Perez's. And I think we're putting after the last whereas periods instead of semicolon and I think the last whereas just gets the period with the now therefore, right? Okay, there's no and. So no and and no semicolon, just a period. Okay. I've got them noted in mind for potential changes. If you could thank you. Thank you, Mandy. Evan. She got my two. All right, so. It was a church in the period at the end of the last whereas. Thank you. It's good. I'm glad you guys are on this committee. We're getting good, Evan. So hopefully the rest of us will catch up in time. So we have some Scrivener changes. They've been noted. Mandy has them in her document. I had Ms. Gribble down on my piece of paper. Any other changes, revisions, questions? Evan. I had a process question for both this and the human rights day for our new policy. Is there a sponsor for either of these? Yes, please. Originally a year ago, Lynn and I sponsored the resolution, but Vicki Kepler, the minister contacted Lynn. So perhaps it's Lynn who's sponsoring it. Nobody asked me specifically to sponsor but I can put my name on it with no problem. I don't care. Did the chair receive these directly from the president? Yes. So I think the assumption can be that the president is the sponsor of these then. I appreciated on the agenda for the pollinator resolution that it identified who the sponsor was on the agenda. And so just encouraging, I liked that was something that we had never said to do as a committee that the chair just did, that I appreciated. So I hope that that continues to the future because it is useful. Given that we adopted this process that requires a counselor sponsor, it's nice to know ahead of time who that sponsor is. Now, when this finally is formally turned into what the council will see, the sponsor's name disappears. But so it's really an internal question for us and process question, which I agree with 100%. Good. Anything else? Go ahead, Pat. Well, why do we need to know who the sponsor is when we're looking at it? I'm just curious. I have no objection to it per se, and I might be wasting our time. But if it doesn't go forward to the council, then what difference does it make? Mandy? Under the rules, it doesn't come to us unless it meets one of the requirements of the council hearing it, which would be a counselor sponsor for the 150 signatures. So this is just acknowledging that this resolution has met the council's rules of whichever one that is. I'm willing to entertain a motion. I'll move to declare the resolution in support of First Congregational Amherst United Church of Christ's request to maintain a temporary shelter, clear, consistent, and actionable as amended. So we have a motion and it has been seconded. I'm going to close discussion and then go immediately to a vote. Seconded by Pat. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by raising your hand and saying aye. Aye. See it's unanimous. So item number two, human rights day proclamation. Again, to be viewed by us, reviewed by us for consistency, clarity, and actionability. We'll open up that document. This also came to the chair from the president. So she should be viewed as the sponsor. In the interest of full disclosure, this was looked at and edited by both the chair and by Mandy. I reached out to Mandy for her input. So two of us have already looked at this and it's in the condition that it's in as a result of our laborers for better or worse. There's a history here to this that I don't think I'm all that knowledgeable of. Maybe others can weigh in, but these proclamations have been made by the select board and now it's come to us for the last couple of years. I don't know exactly, maybe somebody knows how long. And there are different versions each year and this is given the timeframe and the request by the president. This is what I put together and I'm responsible for it. So problems, issues, questions, concerns, Evan. So the only obviously very minor thing is this was scheduled to be voted on on Monday. I believe now it's gonna be voted on in like an hour and a half. So we just need to change the voted this second day of December to voted this fourth day of December. Thank you, Mandy. Are we looking at the one that is GER revisions, MJH revisions one or? We're looking at a PDF which is on official town letterhead. The final revised. That is correct, so thank you. Final revised. Yes, that we are looking at the final revised which is in a PDF form, maybe others are too, but I think there are word documents. Mandy? I have a question on the now therefore. It says and invite the residents of Amherst to join us in a communal reading. I think when I sent changes to you, George, I had questioned who the us is. Is that the town council? Is that the human rights commission? Is it the town as a whole? Because the way it reads now, it's joining the town council, but I'm not sure who the sponsor of the reading of the universal declaration is and I think we should make sure that's clear. Last year that was the human rights commission and I think that's the appropriate. The reason it's the way it is at the moment is because of its genesis, which was sent to me by the president with a request that it be looked at because there was gonna be no formal GOL review and that was all I was told. Mandy made the suggestions, I thought about it and I thought given my ignorance of where this is coming from and blah, blah, blah, the only group I know anything about is the town council. So I left it at that, but perhaps when we meet this in the next two hours, whenever it is, that would be a serious question. So it could be changed. But anyway, Mandy made that point. I took it into consideration and I decided finally since I have not, no one has spoken to me from the Human Rights Commission, no one has spoken to me from any about and there's no sponsor other than the president's request. I left it with just the town council but perhaps the final it'll get changed one last time when we meet as a council. I don't wanna change it now. But that's just my opinion. So I think if you feel like we can change it, we could. So good, okay, okay. Evan. Other thing I don't know if this has been mentioned. In the third whereas, the word residence is capitalized. Yep. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. Right. So other than that minor scrivener correction and I realize there is a lot of history to this that I think would benefit from a more thorough SHIOL review, I just don't think we have the time and given what we have on our agenda today and given the fact that we need to vote on this in the next hour and a half or two hours, I'm just gonna have, this is what we've got. Pat. I'm curious and don't have to find out now but I'm curious about what issue, historical issues you're thinking about. There are at least three or four versions of this that have been done over the years. They're all different. This particular version, Mandy I think can attest to this as well, was heavily edited by me and by Mandy on the grounds of consistency clarity. And I think it could thoroughly, it could use a much more thorough review and discussion but Mandy can speak for herself but I took the editor's pen to it pretty seriously and she also did. So that's the kind of background. It's just something that came suddenly, nobody was prepared for it. So you're talking about the historical, the generation of this particular version, not historical facts that we make up anyway but. No, no, just the, and that's also another question. There are a number of claims here that I'm not sure, you know, I'm not sure about. Yeah, I'm not sure about what town meeting did or didn't do about, and some of those were taken out because there were concerns about whether they in fact were correct and I just don't know. Yeah, I think in future years, given that a lot of this still references town meeting and we're now a town council are rewording to maybe do something else. And one of the questions was, one, two, three, four, five. The sixth, where, sixth whereas? No, fourth whereas. About the 2009 bylaw, well we're adopting a whole new one in another two months. That one, that those two, the fourth and the fifth one don't really now comport with the whole new set that we're gonna rescind and revise. And so I think going forward, we need to maybe look at this more seriously for updating it to the new form of government with maybe looking forward, not necessarily always that look. I don't know, it was just things like that, like, well, for example, that list, we remove the word lifestyle because your bylaw review committee has proposed removing the word lifestyle and you're sitting in there going, well it's in there now but it's not probably going to be in there. Do we leave it in, don't we? All of that that I think come next year, if we're given more time, we could update. It was in and it was a recommended deletion. So my thought is that at some future date on the agenda, probably a month or two before this, because this is a yearly event, we would do a much more thorough review. I believe Jennifer Moisten, on behalf of the Human Rights Commission is working on for those proclamations and resolutions that they generally want to support a schedule and when they need to come to the council, how far in advance they need forwarded. So hopefully next year we'll get them in plenty of time. We have two counselors who I esteem highly who are members or were members of the select board and when they see this, there may be, but we'll just have to deal with it. I'm serious, they're gonna, it's not gonna look like what they're solving for us. So we'll deal with that when it happens, if it happens. So what I'm hearing is we've had one minor scrivener change other than that. Any other thoughts, comments? We're all agreed that this in some future date will get a much more thorough review but again, I'm willing to entertain a motion. I'll do the proclamation motion today. Motion, I move to declare the Human Rights Day proclamation for 2019 clear, consistent and actionable as amended. Is there a second? I'll second it. Evan is seconding, Pat's on strike. We have a motion, it's been seconded. Evan was the seconder. I'm gonna close discussion. All those in favor of the proclamation as amended, please signify by raising your hand and saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Again, it's unanimous, that's true. Thank you, with one absent. Also true, the previous resolution, I apologize to the no taker. Item number four is pollinator protection resolution this is sponsored by Darcy Dumont. The sponsor's not present. My suggestion, I put it on here because I wanted to bring it to your attention but my suggestion is that we simply postpone this to a future date, perhaps the next meeting but whenever the sponsor can be present or at least we can get some input from the sponsor because I have nothing other than a resolution and so I would suggest that we simply postpone this. Mandy. I have a question. Yeah. This seems to potentially be a first resolution where it's seeking to actually direct the town to do stuff similar to the climate action goals that were not brought as a resolution or in previous town meeting adoption, the 100% renewable energy resolution that has more policy related stuff to it is this something that should go to another committee to or that should be reviewed for its more policy related items? We've not had one of these sort of come to us yet and before we postpone it to another meeting maybe we should have a discussion whether the recommendation is that it be reviewed on policy grounds by someone. I can. Right, so when I was reading this resolution I had some of similar feeling. Mandy and I are in the same page today. Good. To this, given my students write about this topic quite a bit and everything that they've ever written shows that the research on the relationship between eunuch and noepesticides and B population declines is actually very gray and uncertain. And so my initial reading of this was this might not necessarily adequately represent the science and yet it's directing the town on something specifically avoiding the use of insecticides on the property which is non-binding but is a directive to some extent. And so that was sort of my thought as well. I feel like we're straying into, you know what? Well, but I think, and then that's the, right, so I'm not, and this is not me criticizing what I am criticizing the substance. But my point is when I started to have these feelings I thought if this is something that is going to direct the town should it go somewhere else and I think the only way that that would happen is if GeoWell comes back and says we were sent this but we actually think it needs to be reviewed elsewhere to be refined before it comes here. I don't know where that goes. I mean that would be a nice question. Where would it go? And of course the immediate thought is it goes to CRC which is a terrible idea. No, I mean just for the sake of their sanity. But they're sanity. They're sanity. But that we're back to the issue, you know, we have a disagreement about what this committee is actually charged to do. Or maybe it's not a disagreement which is at the moment we're not supposed to be in the policy area, so that could change but yeah. I think Mandy's point is we shouldn't be looking at the substance of this, but perhaps be recognizing that someone should look at the substance before it comes to us. Because we don't want to touch the substance but recognize that this is not just simply declaring August pollinator month, right? What if we were just too strictly treated as, you know, assuming we have the sponsor in front of us and we're just trying to make sure it's clear, consistent, and actionable. That's all we're concerned about. And the larger issues are left to the council to sort out. And if the council wants to send it to somebody else to Chew-on, fine, but our charge is just, is this clear, is it consistent, and is it actionable? So is the issue over-actionability? In other words, it's asking the council to do something and without some further thought. I mean, the council can do whatever it wants, right? So it doesn't need to think about it, it can just do it. That's not a good idea, but it can do that. So I guess I'm asking why can't we just treat this straight up and then send it to the council and let the council decide what they want to do with it. And what I'm hearing from two of you, at least, maybe three, is that no, we should, I should report to the chair, to the president that we don't think we can treat this, or I can report at the next council meeting, we don't think we can treat this until it gets looked at by somebody else. What are you asking me to do here? So I guess my thoughts are, one, we could not look at this at all. One, another one we could, you know, at this point, or we could declare it something, but I wonder whether it is actionable. Could we, you know, we've talked in the past of saying, well, we would just declare something clear, consistent, and we believe non-actionable, maybe the vote is one to three, or two to three, or whatever it is, is not actionable, and here are the reasons we don't believe it's actionable, because it hasn't received a policy review yet, or it hasn't done this, or it's got things, you know, one of the things I question, is it actionable because can we, as the council, I guess we technically can direct, but we can't direct the town departments, we can direct the town manager to do something, but this is attempting to adopt pollinator-friendly practices below, you know, the town will adopt the pollinator-friendly practices below. Can, what's that doing, and are we, as a council, able to do that through something other than a bylaw? I mean, we might be able to couch some of this as part of the vote in clear, consistent, and actionable with a recommendation to say, hey, we got these real big concerns, maybe it needs to go to a committee that can deal with those concerns before it's voted on. Evan? So my thought is actually slightly different from Andy's, which is actually just that we've always said that GOL is the last stop in the process, right, and we're the last step before it goes to the council, and so if we feel as though this is, if we look at this as GOL and say, this is probably something that the council might wanna review its content before we adopt it, and that content in response to that review might be altered, then it doesn't make sense for us to weigh in on its current clear consistency, clarity, consistency, and action ability to then send it to the council, for the council to then send it to a committee that might then alter it and then have to send it back to GOL. So I think the report to the president would be, GOL discussed this and felt like it is not yet ready for GOL review because it likely requires a substantive review by the council or a council committee and should come to GOL after that. So it's a step in the process, where we are in the process more so than, you know. So what I'm hearing from the three of you is that I should let Lynn know that we're not comfortable acting on this, and I would report that officially at a council meeting and we are expecting the council then to decide where to send it. We feel it needs to be looked at by somebody before it comes to us. Okay, all right. Briefly, I'd like to just spend a moment or two but not too many moments on what has arisen now twice in the last two weeks, which is last minute resolutions that in one case two members of our committee actually did look at and make changes to, totally unofficially and without the consent or the official work of this body because there were these time constraints. And the president did ask me to put this on the agenda and ask us to consider creating some kind of policy for informal review when there is some sort of proclamation or something that normally would come to us but there isn't enough time because our committee doesn't meet before this needs to be done. So it's hurry up, hurry up. This has happened before and now it's happened, would have happened with both of these resolutions but circumstances have changed that. So just some thoughts briefly for the next few minutes if you're willing on the idea of an informal review and if so what process we would follow or would you feel that we either do a formal review or we don't do anything, which in this case we actually have done something but anyway, so thoughts on this. I think we really need to clarify what is an emergency situation and all but I do feel comfortable with an informal review of more than one counselor from this committee looking at a document that has been declared an emergency. I certainly would not have wanted the first church thing to be held until we met if something like that. You'd be open to creating some kind of informal process. Yes, I would for emergency. Mandy. So I think we need to define what an emergency is because the Human Rights Day proclamation, Human Rights Day is the 10th. So if you wanna make that proclamation or declaration you kinda have to do it before the 10th. The first church one, the information the president had was that it would be great to be able to be included in the first packet that the church sends off but that they could amend that packet afterward and so is that an emergency if they can amend and I'm just using that as an example of what an emergency is. We could have heard it for the December 16th then council meeting today and it'd be on December 16th council meeting without sort of, depending on your view, harming the ability of them to actually get it in front of the right board. But my bigger point in this is if we designate more than one person it has to be declared as an open meeting. The only way we could do this is if we say one person has the ability to, because once you've said two, you've created a subcommittee and a subcommittee is done, is subject to open meeting law. So I think if we do something like this we have to be very careful and it's one person. Now one, wait, one person, this is how no one was designated. Lynn went to George and I and said, can you do that? That's less than a quorum of the council. Will you review this for us? She always has that right, right? She has the ability to set the agenda and she said, I want this reviewed beforehand I'm gonna ask these two people too. She could have gone to any two councillors or any two people in town. But if this committee is taking an action that says this is who we're designating, if we designate two people we've created a subcommittee that requires an open meeting, posting and all, if we designate one person, my understanding of open meeting law is that one person can then go to others and say, hey, I'm not comfortable with my review because I'm not familiar enough, can you take a look at it too? And then it still comes from that one person. There's still, I would hope that that one person doesn't consult more than one other because once you get to quorum you might be in real big problems anyway. So I think we're treading on dangerous ice here with potentially even designating one. There's always the, in the rules, the council can always say we're suspending the rules that require GOL review which I had already told in our agenda, if you look at the December 2nd meeting that we didn't have, it had as the first motion to suspend the rules. So do we need this? If the council says it's so important we're gonna suspend the rules and they vote by two thirds to suspend it, do we need to have an informal person? Evan. Exactly what Mandy just said in the past like 45 seconds which is I would strongly prefer not to have an informal process. We have a formal process and if a situation comes where someone thinks of a resolution last minute and they know it won't be able to go through GOL in time, they still have to have a councilor sponsor, right? That doesn't change and that councilor can go to the president and say I want this on the agenda, it's not gonna be able to get through GOL and the president can decide whether to put it on the agenda pairing it with a suspension of 8.2 F. And then I would hope that the president would then say to that councilor, you might want to consult with a member of GOL to have them take a look at it and that can be an informal thing but it's not an informal process sanctioned by GOL, it's just Steve wants a resolution on something and so he reaches out to Pat and says can you just take a look at this because you do that GOL stuff and you'll catch what I, oh I guess Steve's also on GOL. That's embarrassing. And so to me it doesn't make sense to have an informal process, it's just a suspension of the rule. Pat? I do want to clarify one thing about the first church thing. The reason that I would consider an emergency is because the BCAB voted two to three and it is really not clear that they're gonna go forward and extend it for another nine months and having the packet whole, having them see again that the town has this. So individually I happen to know that because I'm doing the Amherst Sanctuary thing and working with them. So we have to be able to get kind of little pieces of critical information somehow, maybe from the sponsor or but not everything is an emergency and I, yeah. And I don't think we want to get into the long and probably fruitless discussion of what constitutes an emergency and what doesn't. Ultimately I guess would be a decision by the president and then the council. And I am in agreement with what I'm hearing from three, if not all of you, is that we really don't need or want an informal process. If something comes up the last minute and the president wants the council to act on it, she can do that. And so I think we're going to, I'll report back to the president that we consider this and our feeling is that an informal process would not be wise and there are other ways that can be handled. Pat? But I'm still discussing, yep. In my head with the idea that it was important that it got looked at by somebody on this committee. Well, I think that's, you know, right. I don't know that you can formalize that. I mean, I think most likely it would happen. It did happen in this case. In the end, GOL was able to do it formally, but I don't think there's any way, I can't think of a way where we can make that formal. I liked Evan's suggestion of maybe communicating with the president that if they're gonna seek a suspension of the rules that if she's the sponsor she go out, but if it's someone else she recommend to that person that they seek out, a counselor on GOL to just review it informally. You know, as long as you keep it under that court, you know, just why don't you have someone from that's used to looking at these, look at them for suggestions. Okay. All right, good. All right, we come to the main item on the menu which is item six. Which was scheduled for 10.55. Oops. We wanna continue the discussion of town council committee reorganization. You have in your packet two documents that were put there for you to look at. One was put there by me. The second was put there also by me, but we came from Evan. And I actually would like to begin with Evan's document if that's okay. I know you may not have had a chance to look at it in great detail. So I'm going to ask Evan to take us through it for a few minutes and then open it up to discussion and try to keep this to 45 minutes. And you'll weigh in on that, but that's what I'd like to do. It's hoping to make it almost an hour, but we're gonna have time for practice. So Evan, if you will take it away. Sure, so last time we discussed restructuring and there was some debate about whether we want to. Actually may interrupt you for a second. Is it possible, given all the expertise present in this room for us to put this up on the screen? Is that possible? Yes. I'm seeing a lot of looks like, don't ask me. I was gonna think we have Athena present and I figure Athena knows all of this. If you were able to put this up on the overhead, it would benefit not only the members of the committee, but also members of our audience and anyone who is viewing this on TV. So I'm gonna let Evan begin to talk about it in the interest of time, but with Athena's help, I'm hoping we can get which document. You should have Evan's name on it. It's like potential council committee restructuring. It's a PDF. It's a PDF and it's the one with Evan's name attached with Ross. So last time we talked about whether we wanted to just recommend maybe some like tweaks to committee charges or whether we actually wanna recommend some restructuring. That was a debate last time. I fell sort of in the camp of we agreed to these council committees within our first month of being seated as a brand new government that has never existed here before. There were largely committees that were put forth by the council that we used as a jumping off point, but now that we have a year of experience, I'm not necessarily opposed to saying, we might wanna restructure because I think it's actually better to do it early in the council's lifetime than later because we'll get complacent with the committees. And I think a lot of us saw this first year is let's figure it out. And so I think we're still figuring it out. And so I recognize that what I put forth here is sort of a pretty dramatic restructuring that would change a lot of things that might make people uncomfortable. But I think that if we are going to do something like that, it makes sense to do it now rather than later. So sort of my thought process on this was that there's essentially three places or three areas where we might wanna have a council committee have some purview. One is sort of the internal operation of the town government. And so that includes the town government, but we both, the town manager and all of that, but also the government being the town council, all of its internal operations. To me, finance committee is one of those. I mean, all of the finances of the town fall within finance. And I agreed with what was Georgia's suggestion as well, which is it doesn't seem to make sense to have a completely separate committee for the audit when that, no offense to our chair of the audit committee, but it seems there's no requirement in the charter that it be its own committee just that an audit happen. And so it seems like we can easily eliminate one of our standing committees and have it absorbed into finance. Right, and so the other one that deals completely with the internal operations is this committee, GOL. And so there are two recommendations that I made to deal with GOL's charge, which is it to me, and I'm putting on my GOL hat and having to take off my OCO chair hat because I know OCO would be displeased with what I'm about to say, but it makes sense to me that the annual review of the town manager coordination would occur from this committee. It also, given that we look at the structure and organization of town government, seems appropriate to me that appointments should lie in this committee. Originally, the reason we had put appointments with outreach and communications was actually something that I suggested in one of our early December meetings, and the reason for that was my thought was that outreach pairs nicely with appointments because outreach, one of the intentions of outreach is to recruit people for appointments. A year in, I think what we've seen is that OCA, including OCA's outreach subcommittee, does not see recruitment as part of its charge. In fact, that's something that lies completely within the CPOs. And so if OCA doesn't see recruitment for committees as part of its outreach scope, there's no reason necessarily to pair outreach and appointments. And so if you think about where appointing people to town committees and the process through which the town council appoints people most reasonably lies, it seems like it lies within this committee because to me it's part of governance and organization. And so one of the things I recommended was to pull review of the town manager and appointments from OCA and put it in this committee. So everything that has to do with the internal governance organization and structure of town government lies within this committee. That of course sort of eviscerates OCA because appointments is a huge part of what OCA does. But what that also did was create some space, I think, to figure out how to split up CRC because there seemed to be some consensus on this committee last time. And I think within the broader council that CRC's charge is very broad and that CRC is overburdened by that charge. And so my thought was that we could then reallocate some of CRC into what is now OCA. And so the way that made most sense to me is anything that has to do with the interface between town government and the public would reasonably lie in, what is then OCA? Well, I renamed CRSC, which shouldn't be the name if we also have CRC, but it was just an idea. Which basically is anything that has to do with community relations or the provision of services from the government to the community could be covered by one committee. And so this would maintain OCA's outreach role and its communication role. It would also have to do with the relationship between Amherst and the higher education institutions, which now lies in CRC. I also thought anything that deals with the back and forth between the public and town government, including the provision of services could lie within this committee. That would then take out things like public ways, public lands, facilities and public resources. So public ways, requests and all of that would then lie within this committee. And I also added in there something new, which is any measure that the town council is considering that may impact the provision of services by a town department. So for example, back in June, Mandy Jo and I put forth an unsuccessful campaign finance by-law that had to do, that would have impacted how the town clerk's office services the community because they would have to deal with that, that would then fall into this committee because it would affect the town clerk's office and how they provide, anyways. CRC then becomes anything that's outside of town government. So, or the provision of services by town government. Everything intersects with town government. But housing, zoning, art, culture, sustainability, economic development, all of that would still lie within CRC. So one of the things I did was I thought of, well, where would some recent referrals have gone under this structure? And so when it comes to parking, to me, the parking coordinator position is really a town staff position and it doesn't belong in CRC because really it's how does our government organize to provide parking services and how do we fund it? So that would be taken out of CRC even though I know CRC literally just talked about it, right? Same thing with the Park and Benefit District, that's really not about economic development or anything like that or even public ways. That's really about how do we fund our provision of parking services and so to me that would fall within this. Well I think, so where I put like the parking study, I think a lot of those things have to do about how we fund our parking services to me is not economic development, right? That's an internal thing. And so I'm not saying this is perfect. I mean, I'm willing for you all to look at this and go, this is garbage. But this was my thought process of internal, external and then sort of the interface between the two. Good. I'm very appreciative of this, Evan. I think that it focuses the issues I think very well and I would like next to hear from, if she's willing, I'd like to hear from the chair of CRC in terms of her understanding of her current role, the current role of the committee and this proposal. What does she like about it? What doesn't she? But I understand you haven't had a chance to really look at this that much and so you're perfectly free to say, not yet. Oh, I always have an opinion. No, I know that, but so I would like to hear now from the current chair of CRC in relation to what's just been proposed. So I think this is, Evans is closer to my thoughts when thinking about how potentially CRC could be split up than what George had proposed. No offense to George, I think you did a great job. So I'll go through some of my all my thoughts instead of just that starting with yes to the audit committee just getting subsumed by finance. Like, yes, let's just do that. I'm all for that. So CRC, when I started thinking about what split seemed logical or could be logical, I started thinking about a lot of different things and I'm gonna start with something that doesn't even relate to CRC particularly. It's the third page of Evans memo about where recent referrals would have gone. I think while we're restructuring this, it would be really good to somehow reword some of these advice the council on to think about what that advising looks like because I would really like to see measures that deal with CPA or this parking or this climate action goals or speed limit, whatever list you come up with percent for art, go to only one committee, unless it's a bylaw and then it comes to GOL at the end or resolutions for clarity, but policy recommendations are advising, go to one committee, not go to two, not go to three. It's really hard to split up which one and so it would take some thought on the council's part to say which one is best able to deal with it and it might require some rewording of committee charges including finance but when finance for example is looking at CPA proposals because they are spending of money, right? They're the allocation of money. They're appropriations. Should we really restrict them to only a recommendation on yes, spend it or not without any discussion on the pros and cons of why we would recommend spending it on these projects? We've seen this with the housing priorities policy when finance started discussing it, I heard this a lot in CRC, they were like we can't discuss the money without discussing the whole thing and so when it sits in CRC too, finance says well we can't discuss the rest of it because that's CRC's role but if we only referred it to finance or only referred, I'm thinking more the CPA provisions, the CPA when it comes, then they would feel like they could discuss all of the impacts and weigh the financial impacts versus the rest say Hickory Ridge's purchase. Are they really only discussing spending money but that discussion really goes along with why spend the money and the impacts and all of that so I think that's sort of where I started looking at how can we broaden what committees feel they can discuss when something is referred to them and with that I started thinking on CRC's along Evan's lines. Our split is actually what I thought very similar Evan. I thought of it differently though. I thought the current CRC can maintain master plan land use zoning and housing and that's about it and how I thought of it as the non day-to-day impacts on residents, the more long-term impacts when a resident doesn't like the look of what's happening in town or doesn't like the long-term effects of taxes increasing what committee hears measures that deal with that. So housing policy is a long-term policy. It's not really about one individual project. It's about forward thinking 10, 15 years in advance. Planning and land use is forward thinking impactful. Yes, that one building has say a lot of impact but it's really that's built based on something that's going to impact for years versus some other committee dealing with what I would call the day-to-day impacts when a resident gets annoyed at the plowing or the potholes or the parking or parking availability, not just the cost. Who do they go to? And so those day-to-days parking transportation, I called it transportation public ways, public infrastructure, town services, transportation public ways, public infrastructure, town services, when they're annoyed, I don't know, the shade tree commission isn't planning enough trees or water is not working right or sewer is not working right. What committee do we have look at that? That's more of the day-to-day really annoyances of residents that will hear more about on discrete complaints versus residents coming and saying, I really don't like the direction of the town instead of this individual policy. And so I think the split is very similar then. From the document Evan had, we need a new name for his first committee, as he said, too close in acronyms, but I would completely put in transportation parking, sort of that type of, add a little more to that public services one, public infrastructure, you know, and to the community resources, I'm not sure I've changed much of it because he kind of kept in there what I would have, my question, one of the questions I have is, where does sustainability lie? And I wonder if it needs to split out discreetly or really does it depend on the policy? You know, we think of the Energy and Climate Action Committee, broad climate action goals might lie in a master plan type committee, the long-term look committee, but a goal of expending and purchasing only electric vehicles, say that one comes, that probably might actually belong better in finance. So, you know, some recommendations on sustainability might go better belong in any of the committees, so maybe incorporate that as part of what you're evaluating. Yeah, this is why I started with what do we allow the committees to evaluate versus topics? I have some other comments on the GOL one and some on the finance one, but those are, so I think Evan's getting to the split. I think a CRC chair seems more natural day-to-day versus long-term. But it does seem to be, I'm sorry. That's all right, go ahead. Transportation is a day-to-day operating issue, but it's also a long-term impactful area for us to look at. So if I go back to where you started from, I think it would occur in both committees for different depending on what was coming forward, of complete streets, the idea of complete streets, that would affect transportation. I don't see it as quite as cut and dry as transportation. I'd like to split what's day-to-day, really clarify what's the bridge. And again, if you go back, I'm sorry, I'm rambling, but if you go back to what you said about finance committee earlier, it isn't just about how much money we're gonna spend, but the reasons that we're spending it. And so, but you ended sort of like, oh, that would go to finance committee. So, and I think only knowing what the one kind of cost is, is a limit that we need to avoid. So I'll try to explain that one a little more. I think we need to allow our committees to broaden what impacts they consider when making their recommendation. So when, let me see if I can come up with one. When this parking, no, we'll just stick with the housing priorities policy. It went to finance and CRC. CRC, it was easy for us to ignore the financial implications as we talked about the policy itself. But when it went in finance, it was hard for them too. And so could we empower one committee to say, consider them both with finance, my comments on finance are, should we limit them to considering appropriations in a sense? So dealing with budget specific proposals to spend money. So like the bridges, the CPA proposals, which we could assume the substance of those proposals has already really been reviewed by the CPA committee. So what CRC's role in that, or some other committees role beyond finance is one of the things I struggle with as CRC chair. Percent for art, that's the one I wanna talk about. Percent for art. Right now it's going to go to CRC and finance. So what does finance do with it? Finance talks about can we afford it in, do they do that in isolation without talking about whether it's worthwhile affording it? Are they really just gonna discuss can it fit in the budget? And is it, without discussing why we might want it to fit in the budget? And then with CRC sees it, are we really going to discuss is this good without any care to how much it's going to cost? And is that a worthwhile split and sort of segregation? Or should we just send it to one committee? And the reason I say send it to one committee and allow them to discuss all of the impacts is maybe then more counselors than just the five on CRC at this point, or finance really do get to discuss the holistic impacts of measures instead of just at the council committee. You've broadened that to 15 counselors, all 13 potentially within three committees. Pat. This goes back to discussions we had early, early on in CRC. And for me, the idea of finding ways to literally collaborate with finance and CRC was critical and didn't happen. I still feel like the idea of collaboration between the two committees is what I would focus on and not having finance committee also look at the other social impacts or accessibility impacts, those things. So I feel like maybe I'm just, I'm, and I'll own it, I'm not feeling that trustful of a finance committee being able to look and not shut down. So it feels like, yeah. Just to have a practical question for Mandy, when you look at what Evan's proposed, how much of a burden has been lifted off your shoulders if any, is it matter more of just a clear and more reasonable way of looking at your task? It's not so much that the burden is any less, but at least now you have a clear sense of what it is that you're being asked to do as a committee or do you feel that, because one of the concerns was that the current setup seems to put just way too much on your plate. To what degree do you feel this, at least less in some of the burden? So I think for the one, two, three, four, five, six current referrals, not counting the housing one that CRC has left, the Spring Street Northside parking would be moved out. The percent for art bylaw I think would be moved out under Evan's proposal, if I remember correctly. The speed limits would be moved out. The parking study would be moved out. So those four of six would be moved out and the planning board zoning bylaw and master plan would stay in. And the housing priorities would have stayed in. So of the seven things that have been referred to the committee so far, since it was opened, three would be in the committee and four would be out, which is about a half 50-50 split, which would mean it would substantially relieve the committee of its current burden. Say, I think is a good idea, but. Evan. Yeah, I mean I think again, a big impetus for all of this was how to lessen the burden on CRC but also try and make it logical. I think it's interesting that Mandy Jo and I have some agreement on where this split should be but completely different reasons. I sort of share actually some of Pat's comfort of how you define what's a day to day versus long term. I think something's in theory could be, it's hard, right? Which is why I sort of came on this like internal versus external of government but even that is not very clean, right? And so when I was thinking about parking and so I think what I'm proposing and I think maybe Mandy Jo agrees with us is sort of that instead of having these broad categories of this broad category always goes to this committee, it's really proposal by proposal. So it isn't that parking always goes to CRC. It's that, you know what? The parking benefit district, that's really about how we fund parking and really it's about whether we're going to reimagine or restructure our transportation enterprise fund and that's a finance thing. That doesn't necessarily belong to CRC and a parking coordinator, that's about staff and a provision of the parking services to our public and so that doesn't go to, right? So that would be a budget item but I think the first recommendation would be from, you know, perhaps to be renamed CRSC, right? Community Relations Committee that would say, you know, how are we best providing parking services? But let's say like a parking garage, like a private parking garage comes to the council. That to me, even though it should actually go to CRC because it's really about sort of, it's tied to sort of economic development and I think it brings in going to sustainability, climate action goals, we didn't refer them to a committee, but if we did, they're very broad, they're long-term, they're community wide. That would go to CRC. When we had the chair of ECAC, Drucker talked to us, she sort of previewed some other things that might be coming, right? So one might be a revision of our efficient vehicles purchasing policy. To me, that would go to this sort of community of relations because it's about the internal government. Maybe it would go to Fincom but maybe from the sustainability aspect to be, do we want electric buses, stuff like that. But then she also talked about the potential of a green lease program and trying to make rentals more efficient. That would go to CRC. So even though they're both sustainability, it's really proposal by proposal. Does this have to do with the broader community or does this have to do with our government and the provision of services? And that's sort of how I thought things down. I will say actually, probably disagree with Mandy Jo about trying to send something to just one committee because I think that gets really tough. And I understand the reason for doing so completely. I also have been actually there and I expressed this in the last meeting, very uncomfortable with the way that finance committee has interpreted its charge. And I saw this especially to me, finance committee is just to look at, here's a proposal for revenue, here's an expenditure, should we do it from a financial perspective? How does this impact the finances of the town? I got really uncomfortable, especially when we were discussing CPA funding for the 1382 Northampton Road Project, that there were all these hypothetical future expenses discussed and economic considerations discussed. And I thought that is really, really broadening what finance was ever intended to be. And so I would actually prefer to narrow finance's scope to just the internal finances and not talk about, well, but in the future, might we have to spend money for street lights? And is this something we have to consider really just actual appropriations that are physically on the table in front of them? Mandy, briefly. I will briefly do these. I wanna talk about my GOL thoughts. I agree with what Evan said about finance, I might not have said it already, but my GOL thoughts and then one other thought that doesn't even relate to the council that makes themselves. That's a bunch of thoughts. GOL, it's the transfer from OCA of all appointments by town council. That has potentially been interpreted as the town manager appointment when the town manager resigns and these other things. I would recommend if we are moving it or even if we decide not to move it or wherever it ends up, that we specify it is planning board, zoning board of appeals and town council committee resident appointments. Council committee's non-counselor appointment. Well, no, because that's the president anyway. So it's not even that one, but the planning board ZBA, but not the clerk, not the town manager, because if we have to hire a town manager, we might wanna create its own committee and not say it's all automatically in whatever committee it is. I'm gonna slow you down just a sec. No rumor is taken from that. And ignore my thought that you should. You want to just repeat please again. You want to remove or take away. I wanna specify that when it says make recommendations to town council regarding all appointments by the town council that it is for planning board and ZBA. Thank you. Somehow remove the manager and the clerk, the town clerk from that provision. I haven't come up with wording yet, but I would remove those from the provision and also make sure it does not include resignations of members of elected bodies. The charter has, when someone on the council or someone on the school committee resigns, it sets forth a procedure for how a new person, there's no election until the next election. So we as the town council are a part of appointing that new member, you could, so I wanna clarify exactly what appointments that would be. That's, that was my GOL question. You're not challenging the basic division here. No, no, I want to make sure we're clear on which appointments we need. And then I wonder whether we should look at the ECAC charge and this is where things right now there are two counselors on it. We have heard, I think as a council that that has been challenging for some of the counselors but also for the residents on that. And while we are looking at stuff, if we're looking to unburden counselor roles, now that we've established the goals from that committee, would we be willing to recommend potential change of that charge to remove the counselors from that charge which would free up some counselor time? Like I said, while we're looking at all of this, it's a question I have for this committee is that something we want to look at if we're trying to make the counselor job doable for people, that might be a way to also free up some time is put two more residents on it instead of counselors. So you would like, I mean, part of what I'm trying to do here as you can imagine is thinking ahead to the next meeting. We're not gonna resolve these today but these are excellent points. We need greater clarification on the GOL and we need to look at the ECAC charge again. Anything else? Those are your main... I would add tax rates into when looking at rates for finance, make sure you mention tax rates as part of the rates they deal with. I mean, in the back of our minds, we all need to be thinking what the next step will be for this body because we have, if we look at the schedule, we have December 18th and we have January 8th and I'm just thinking out loud which I don't do well. What would be the ideal point at which we would, and I'm looking for help here from my colleagues, would wanna make a formal recommendation to the council for a change. Just give me a terminus here. Are we thinking of the end of, obviously January 8th would seem to be a nice point to say here's what we think we should do for the year coming. The year coming has already begun, correct? January 8th, but we'd like to, I mean, we can still do this, right? There's no deadline that makes it impossible for us to make these changes at any point, but we're trying to make them or make, we wanna make recommendations for changes at the beginning of the second year, not in the middle. And so I guess I'm just asking quickly, when would this committee like to be able to come forward with a recommendation to the council as to changes? Mandy? I would love an initial report by the first meeting in January. So initial report, you'd like? Yeah. Would it be possible since we're, it sounds like we might be basing this off of Evan's draft to get Evan to redraft charges? Well, we'll, no, I will see that. We'll have draft charges or something for the next meeting where, in something that might look like what we would actually present to the council, which that's why I say draft charges, because that would be part of what we would present. In the packet, you'll see two sort of crude versions of what I had in mind, so we could start with that. But in other words, I put two potential draft charges in the packet based on my recommendation. So it could be easily done. Whether Evan wants to do it or not is a whole different question. That's his decision, but you're thinking initial report with maybe draft charges by January 8th, the council will then, and then January 6th is the council meeting, right? Yeah, yeah. And then January 27th is the other one. So January 6th, council meeting, thank you. January 6th is the council meeting. I'm looking of course at our schedule, but it's the council meeting we're worried about. So initial report would need to be before the council for the January 6th meeting. And then the hope would be that, at least in the ideal world, the council could make a decision by January 27th. Is that what we're dreaming? Is that even realistic? Or maybe we shouldn't worry about realistic right now. I just need a time, I need some kind of timeline to sort of figure out how we're gonna proceed. Okay. So I was just, I'm trying to think that councilor committee appointments are one year in length with the exception of audit and CRC, which were formed slightly later, all counselors were appointed to the current standing committees on January 7th, 2019. So in theory, the council should do this by the January 6th meeting, which seems completely unreasonable given our timeline, but I'm wondering if we have to grapple with that at all. So I'll put on my vice president hat. Lynn has already, Lynn and I have already been talking about that possibility given my sitting on this committee and all of that. I believe she intends to just extend those appointments as is until, especially if we come up with something and present something in January 6th meeting, she I think intends to extend until the council acts on whatever that is. Evan, please. So the other thing, putting on my OCA chair hat is you all have in your email this morning, a preview of OCA's proposed new process, which unless the council says you are absolutely not doing that, we intend to carry out in January. Given that what I proposed here actually takes appointments completely out of OCA and puts them in this committee and completely reforms OCA, it would be my strong preference that should we adopt something like this, we not do it until after planning board and ZBA appointments are already made, which would, if everything goes according to plan, be the end of January, but just it seems, I think we wanna be cognizant of what committees are doing because we don't want to, for CRC and for OCA and for GOL, potentially really disrupt something major in the mid process. So I guess a motion, I suspect if we propose this in January 6th that the council might not be able to vote the next meeting because we might have to come back with a lot of who knows, right? But what could happen is the motion to adopt if they love it could have a specific start date. Instead of immediate, we could say these will be reformatted as of here, it would potentially also then allow the day that that takes effect to also be the day that president potentially appoints new members to all of it. If we put it two or three weeks in advance, knowing that she could survey and all and they could all take effect, the same day membership takes effect. I think we can work through that with motion. I agree with you. Yeah, good. So what I need from, I think all of you is, I mean we could spend a lot more time looking in more detail at these specific changes that are being requested. But I think I need two things in the next few minutes. And one is to agree if we can, for just a few minutes, what are the goals we're trying to accomplish by this kind of revision? Originally I was skeptical of this kind of radical revision. I was suggesting what I conceived of as a more modest proposal. But I'm seeing a lot of attraction, attractiveness in what I'm a table here. And so I'm less reluctant to consider a more radical kind of change. But I guess I'm asking you all to help me just for a moment. What are we trying to accomplish? I've written a few notes to myself here. We're trying to give greater clarity. Well, first of all, I take it, we're trying to help the council be more efficient. I think the most important thing, by whatever changes we propose, is that it makes the council work better. So that's one that I have in my head, okay? Another is to spread the workload. Clearly people feel that we need to make this a more doable job. So a second criteria would be whatever we finally propose, whether it's modest or whether it's extravagant, is this actually spreading the workload? Is it lessening the burden as it making a more doable job for councilors? Certainly in what Evan has proposed and what I proposed. I'm sorry, the snow just fell, right? So I call it doability, greater clarity in referrals so that if we actually are successful in what we're doing, it should be clear to everybody, all 13 members, relatively speaking, that this should go there or that should go there. If we've made it fairly, obviously there's not an absolutely clear line, but hopefully we give greater clarity in terms of where things should go, leaving aside for the moment whether we should do referrals to more than one committee, but just that there's greater clarity that the job load is lessened to some degree or made more doable. And thirdly, that it truly is assisting in helping the council be more efficient in doing its job. A fourth one I had here, which I prayed may just once again fall by the wayside, is that these changes might assist a little bit in giving councilors more time to think. One of the things that I liked about my proposal was that it created a committee that it's charged kind of like, you have more time to sort of just think a bit about, and so I'm also concerned about that. That may be something we can't deal with right now, but I am worried that we spend so much time on the day to day and process that we really don't have any time to have a group of us sit together. And also I liked the idea of inviting some, having some non-resident members. So the fourth was time to think. So those are four, doability, clarity in referrals, make the council more efficient body and maybe a dream on time to think. What are others that you would add or would you maybe take away, Andy? So I would split the doability into two different doabilities. The first one is lessen the councilor work burden by lessening how many committees we serve on, but also even out the workload between the committees, because right now we've got one committee that's just overly burdened, minimum one, and maybe we can spread that out. So I just split them up. I think the benefit of splitting up CRC is enlarging, I wrote it as enlarging the councilor involvement in substantive reviews. Right now beyond sitting at a council meeting, CRC financed to some extent, but really it's just those five councilors on CRC that really get to delve into, well at this point, everything. And if we split that into two committees, suddenly if you can minimize cross, not contamination, but cross-serving on those two committees, you've then opened that up. You've doubled the number of councilors that really get to delve into some issues. And into that, those meaty issues, and that might help all councilors feel more involved in the really nitty-gritty work of. Encourage them to. Yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. So getting councilors and dealing with more meaty if you wish issues. Anything else? Other, I'm just gonna ask you just briefly, what do you, when this is finally done, whatever we finally decide to do, assuming we decide to do something, what goals do you, what are we trying to accomplish? And maybe we've touched on all the basis, but are there any others that- Yeah, I think actually you all probably hit everything. I mean, my goals in forming this document were twofold, one were to more accurately distribute the workload in front of the council. And then the second thing was to make sure that any measure that comes to the council has a reasonable place. I think GOL has spent like nine months now talking about whether we want to expand our charge to include substantive review. And that has been a really divisive debate in this committee as much as this committee gets divisive. And I think part of that has been that there's things like the campaign finance bylaw, really the climate action goals don't currently neatly sit in the committee. And so one of my goals in doing this is that anything that comes to the council has a committee that we know it to go to. And it doesn't touch GOL's sort of non-substantive review. Okay. The second thing I need your help with is to now take what we have in front of us and decide what we want to do with it over the next two weeks before December 18. It sounds like we still have some things to discuss about finance. Do we want to, how do we want to divide this up? Can you think of a way that would be most useful and time efficient? Certainly creating sample committee charges would be something potentially useful. But we first of all have perhaps just, do we need to clarify the distinction between these two committees in terms of internal short term, day to day versus long term? Is that something we can work on in terms of just clarifying to the degree that we can? And then looking at the way things have been parceled out for each of those two committees and people coming back with either further suggestions or revisions or agreement with the way it stands. I think there's still some discussion on FINCOM that people want to have, I'm hearing. I'm not one of them, but that's okay, that's fine. I think that's something we definitely need to talk about. And then there's GOL. So, how do people want to proceed with this for next meeting? Because I do want us to move on. I was gonna ask a question because I wasn't at the meeting where these changes were initially discussed and going over what you sent out, George, about reducing number of counselors on committees. That's another, exactly. Those are issues that's kind of important and I don't want it to get lost in this. Yeah, so I guess I'm asking you what you want me to do and I will do whatever you ask me to do. Obviously, I'm gonna, if we proceed with Evan's proposal, we're gonna turn to Evan if he's willing to maybe make a few, present a few things. But what do you want me to do to help you get ready for December 18th? Obviously, I have a proposal on the table. I literally set that aside. I will think some more about that and how it fits and doesn't fit with what's here before us. But that's for me to think about. What do you want me to do? I'll bring it up again. Evan, it looks like we're going towards a framework that Evan started if he has the bandwidth to come up with, I think it's four draft charges. I mean, a lot of it's taking our current charges and cutting and pasting. And I can assist him with that. Maybe we can share the burden or maybe I can take that on. But I think between him and myself, we can work that out. With some wording changes, to try and reflect the conversation today, I'm thinking forward to what a presentation to the council would look like. I think it would need to have the four draft charges. I think it needs to have some sort of summary of what the changes between the current system and that are. So the document that Evan created, while not the charges, is a good start to a report, I think, that says here's moving, here's new, here's this. I think the goals that we're accomplishing can get added into something like that. Maybe task someone with starting a draft report, someone with starting the changes to what the charges might look like, because ultimately what we would be doing motion wise is adopting charges and dissolving other committees, I guess, we're changing. We'd be looking at revising four committees with names and all, and dissolving one committee. I think is what we're looking at. Potentially revising five if people want to delve into my devil's proposal of ECIC. But I think that's the motion. So those are the documents we would need in front of the council for the actual vote. I think the report like this is what we need minimum in front of them. So I guess my question right now is what do you want to see for December 18th so we can be more efficient, yes? So as far as bandwidth goes, we're sort of fortunate in that Wednesday the 11th is the last day of classes for UMass, and then my schedule opens up pretty dramatically. So if y'all are okay with getting documents on like Thursday the 12th or Friday the 13th before our, I want, I know you've got this document probably not even enough time to read it. I know. Which reflects the time of the semester it is for me right now. And so I would want you to have enough time to read them. If you feel like getting on the 12th or the 13th is enough time to read it for the 18th, given that we also have a council meeting on the 16th, I would be more than happy to do my best to take these and make them into committee charges that reflect the templates that this committee has adopted. What I would perhaps also ask is that if you have, I'm making sure I, oh I'm all compliant here. What I would also ask is if you have something in particular that you want edited or added that you just email me individually. Because I think what my process has been when I've drafted documents for this committee is to sort of include everything in something that people want to see even if I don't necessarily disagree with it. And then I'd rather start with something big and then take stuff out. And so like if Mandy Jones wants to see transportation in that first committee email, I'll just throw it in and then me and Pat can tell her why we don't think that's a good idea, right? And so that, but as long as you're emailing only me, we should be okay with regard to OML. And if people even want me to do that. No, and what I'm thinking is that I could also produce a beginning at least of a draft report which would first of all address the goals of what we're trying to accomplish and then provide a kind of over a description at the moment at least what things are looking like. And then that would obviously be for, try to get to that to you as well by that point. So that document, which is basically goal setting and a kind of overview of what we're thinking of doing and then specific committee charges would be a good place for us to start next time. Okay. All right, I didn't have anything else to do anyway. So that's good. Public comment. We've had one member of the public stay and dutifully listen to this scintillating conversation and I don't know if he has any thoughts but I would like to invite the public to come forward if they wish and just state their name and push the little green button which hopefully will stay on. And is the light still on? The light is on. I think I'm probably let go. I think if the light stays on, you're good to go. Thank you. And please. Thank you. My name's David Offeld. I live on Blue Hills Road, Precinct Four, a neighbor of George's. I've chatted with George on a number of occasions on these topics and I think he said you've never had a member of the audience in this committee. Not recently. Not recently. In recent memory. My memory is really failing me but in recent memory. I find organization to be an interesting topic and it's quite laudable. The work the council has done so far in organizing itself in this past year and it's a joy to watch as a member of the, as a citizen. So I don't have really much to offer. Maybe a few questions or suggestions about rolling this out. I can imagine the council just being overwhelmed with four new charges and you know, this goes there and you know, is there a way to bring it out a piece at a time? I don't know the, I mean the audit committee seems like the easy one to get started with. And maybe moving the appointments piece is kind of discreet. If it's possible to roll it out in a gradual way and of course what are the implications for committee membership is and the tasks that the committees are involved in. Anyway, the whole transition issue is an interesting challenge. I had seen George's suggestions report. I haven't seen Evans until, well I haven't even really seen it, just pieces of it on the screen. So I'll continue to follow this discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Adoption of minutes. I'm sorry? You wanna do the schedule first? Discussion of proposed schedule. Why see that there Mandy? Why not? Item A, why not do it roughly in order? I haven't skipped it. You've all had a chance to hopefully look at the proposed schedule. We've added in a few dates. I think it's a thing of beauty. But that's just me. Thoughts, concerns, are you ready to vote on it formally? And so I can send it to the town clerk or I'm sorry to the council clerk so she can put it in as the official calendar for next year. How are people on this? Ready to act on it? Pat, okay, we have a motion to adopt the 2020 calendar as currently in our packet. I'll second and then can I just say something? We have a second and now discussion. Mandy. Right now tracks the community resources committee schedule. So four hours of meetings in a row for people who serve on both. But done at request of some counselors and had reluctance of other counselors. But I think we, what community resources committee recognized when we adopted it that I would request that we recognize as GOL is that this may have to change depending on membership in GOL in the coming year. Our terms in theory are up and we can't guarantee we will be the same ones, especially if this reorganization goes. So I just wanted to put that out there that it's there but it may need revisited depending on committee membership. Okay. Any other thoughts on our labors and the futility of it all? Can't help it. Good, so we have a motion, we have a second. No more discussion so I'm gonna go right to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the 2020 calendar that is in our packet, please raise your hands and say aye. Aye. All those opposed? So we have four, zero with one, abstention. Absent. Absent. Adoption in minutes, November 6th and November 20th, item 10 and item 11. If people had a chance to look at them, are they ready to, let's start with November 6th. Any thoughts, changes, concerns? I'm hearing silence. That's all right, I can wait. I'm fine with them. No, Manatee, you have formatting? Is this getting to what we are hoping to see? Yeah. Right. Oh, you're looking at the track changes, yeah. We could probably leave that for another day. So I hear no one with any concerns, so can we just approve these by consent? We can do both if you wish. We can really do both. Well, why don't you look at the second before we do anything? So the first one we've looked at, if you'd look at the second and then if you are open to that, we can do it by consent. This is November 20. Any thoughts, any comments? Okay, then can I, do we need to form a vote? We just say by consent. We approve the minutes of November 6th and November 20. All right, so that's items 10 and 11. Items not anticipated, 48 hours in advance. Really takes us back up to something that's up on the agenda item that we skipped over, which is item number eight. I'm sorry, seven, thank you. Item seven. The president has asked me to ask you to give some thought to how we could construct a process for public ways requests that come to the town council for which the town council must make a decision. And I placed something in your packet. It's been looked at by a number of people, not just yours truly. And we have just a few minutes and I'd like to take a few minutes if we could if you have any thoughts on this. The immediate precipitate cause is the request by some residents on Lincoln to change the parking on their street. And that raised the issue of what is the actual process. And what I've learned is that the process requires a public hearing. And what I've learned is a public hearing is no small matter in terms of just what needs to be done. So what I did was try to take, try to create a step-by-step process and it's in the packet. I've had, I did reach out to the town manager and ask for his input. I have also shared this with the council president because it was her request. But I want you all to look at it and either at this meeting now or at the next meeting, like your input as to the process. And also obviously to the rationale behind it. Mandy, sure. I just have a question about the public hearing requirement. I know it's in our policy that we adopted. So in that sense, it's required. Were you able to get any information from the town manager about whether they're required by law? You know, I know we've done a couple with the ever source but I don't know whether that's because it's utilities versus just public way. I have not been able to get a clear answer. The one person who was absolutely certain was Alyssa. That it was mass general law. I think clarity on that because. But let's say, for instance, that mass general law doesn't require it. It still seems like a good idea, doesn't it? Well, the question is, well, the question would be, I think given the three week publication notice and all, would we move to a public forum versus a public hearing? Is one of the things that have different requirements, different notice requirements, but also different sort of. And it's a very good question. Not implications, but thoughts by the public on what we're seeking or what the reason is. So that's why I asked whether it was required by law because maybe we would think about changing that to public forum instead of public hearing. And I don't know the answer to that. I haven't gotten a clear answer and I will continue to ask that. I had a question on number three in your procedure and you're asking the question as well. Do people have to be registered voters? Residents, can it be? And it seems to me that it needs to be residents, not registered voters because impact happens to anyone who lives on Lincoln Street or whether they're voting certified citizen of Amherst or whether they're a long-term resident of Amherst. So. Well, here it has to do with the actual petition and I would assume that the petitioner, whoever he or she, well, now it doesn't have to be, does it? Because if it's a developer, a business person, they don't have to be a resident of Amherst. See, part of the issue is that this is focused because of the circumstance on parking, but people who are weighing in and thinking of other possible public ways or requests. It could be sidewalks. We've received a lot of sidewalk requests or crosswalks or things. And these have been done and in some cases there was no public hearing, right? So that's also a confusion in my mind. When archipelago came, there was no public hearing. We just had a, right? We had something kind of like this. So yeah, I hear you. So Pat, your thoughts simply is that you would prefer, it should say simply, I'm sorry, repeat, because I'm... Well, I was saying residents, but you brought up that a business or a developer isn't necessarily a resident. Right. It's just going to ask registered voters if that limits the number of people on Amherst who can have impact or share the fact that they have a particular thing they want to see it accomplish. The question, do names really need to be certified? Actually came from the town manager. So there's a fair amount of unclarity at the top as to what is required and what isn't. So that goes to one of my questions is, is this public ways, request form and number one that's referenced a formal petition under the charter for group petitions? Or are we creating a different system where people can say, hey, I want a crosswalk there. Will you consider it without having to have 150 signatures? So what would, this doesn't talk about number of signatures. Like what, similar to what we did with resolutions where it was, we're going to say resolutions and all either counselor sponsor or you have to follow the group petition. For something like this, I think we need to be clear on when it gets in front of a council. If someone wants a crosswalk, you know, wherever, does it, can they mention it to the town manager and then the town staff has to think it's a good idea before the council even sees it or do we want that coming directly to the council for council, as I think Alyssa was saying at the last meeting for the council to say, that's good enough to investigate, go investigate the town staff. What I envision in my naivete is that this has been going on for a long time and it seems generally speaking to work pretty well. So my thought was that this comes to town hall, it's a public ways request and it's going to be vetted by town staff. It's going to write all the nine yards, but at some point, some of these requests require town council to approve, not many, but some. And so I'm just trying to be clear on what has to happen for us when we have to act what the process is and that's why I'm pretty much following what I understand to be the process that is followed in most cases where it doesn't involve us at all. We don't have a say in it and this is what they do. And I'm assuming we're going to do the very same thing except at some point, it will require the council to actually make a decision and so there'll have to be a report and da da da da da and at least in some cases, maybe all, there'll have to be a public meeting of some kind, a public hearing, a public forum. Which is not the case for the vast majority of these things that are handled by the town manager and by the staff. But whether, right, so most of this is done almost, all of it really is done by the folks who work here. But in a few cases, we actually have to make, have to have a vote, right? So with Lincoln Parking, it turns out, we have to actually vote on it. But none of us are gonna go out and do any of the work that is involved and it's a lot of work to, you know, right, that's all done by town staff and they would do that for anything else even if it didn't involve us. So they're still gonna do what they're gonna do, right? And we're not gonna do anything, right? Other than at some point, we need to be informed and then make a decision. So a couple of things, I zoned out for a little bit. Apologies, because I was looking something up. But we're running out of time, so I just wanna make sure I get my two cents in on some of these questions. So the first thing is whether or not we need to do a public hearing. I'm not quite sure on MGL, but I did just look and it is in our bylaws. Yes. And so the ones, I'm not even looking at our old bylaws because we're hopefully about to adopt new ones, but 3.14 and 3.19 both talk about a public hearing for any parking changes. So whether or not it's MGL required doesn't matter necessarily because it's a bylaw requirement. That's only parking-related ones. So when it comes to this is broadly a public ways request, in theory, I believe, sidewalks, stuff like that, or it wouldn't require a public hearing, it's just the public ways requests that have to do with parking. As far as automatic referral, to me, that makes a lot of sense. You're talking about all these questions about interacting with staff and collecting information. To me, it goes to the committee right now, CRC, potentially something different in the future, and they would be the ones charged with doing that. So for this Lincoln thing, what would make the most sense for me would be it would automatically come in, it would automatically get sent to the chair of CRC, and the chair would be involved with the committee in consulting relevant staff, making sure all of that happens. Whether or not we want CRC to do the hearing or whether it's a town council hearing, you know, I think we could, in the same way that we delegated the zoning hearing to CRC, Joint CRC Planning Board, we could do the same thing. But I do want to just make sure before we run out of time, that answer, my answer to question number two at the bottom is none. Okay. I just want to, I think I go back to the conversation we had at like 1130 at night, and I go back to what Alyssa was saying, and I think now that I've been able to think back on it, what her point was, was when does the council get involved? Does, you know, it comes in, these are likely to come into the town manager's office all the time, right? And the Lincoln ones, they came in and the town manager's office said, this has been enough problem for long enough that we're going to try and come up with a solution and then we'll involve the council. And I think Alyssa's point was, is that the actual way it should have gone? Or when they came into the town manager's office, should they have before they tried to come up with a solution, come to the council and said, do you want us to come up with a solution? And then go back to them with the council saying, yeah, work on it. And that's what I guess I feel is missing from this little chart here. Do we as a council want to see them before any solution, sort of be the vetting of, yeah, that one we agree you need to work on, that one ignore, don't let it sit. Let's see how many come in for that one before we put staff time on it. We probably need more discussion time on that. No, if we do, we're gonna have to stop. We have a hard stop at 12.30. And well, thank you for your initial comments. I was hoping to move this down the road a bit, but that's all right. Hello. But yes, Evan. I sit, I have a future agenda item. Future agenda item, please. You know who it's gonna be. Go, LV requests, the ROP. Yes, so again, you have in your email, OKA's proposed process, which involves public interviews. I mentioned this last time that OKA is hoping that those public interviews, which will have to be a posted public meeting of the OKA committee, can be accepted from having public comment. We feel really uncomfortable with having public comment at public interviews. Right now our town council rules procedure 10.5H says committee meetings shall provide for a period of public comment. And so at current, we would have to have public comment at those public interviews. OKA is seeking a revision of that rule to say something along the lines of regular committee meetings in the same way that regular committee meetings for the town council require public comment, but special meetings do not. At this point, we're running up against the clock because we're hoping to do these interviews in mid January. The town council per our rules needs to read a rule twice before we adopt it, which means already we're probably in a situation where we won't have that rule in place when OKA goes forward, which creates I think an uncomfortable situation. Certainly for me as chairs in OKA who does not want to have public comment at interviews. So I'm gonna request that this beyond GOL's agenda at our next meeting to make sure that we get that that hopefully we can do it quickly and send it to the council. And I would also perhaps suggest the council suspend its rule that we read a rule twice to try to get that in place before the interview. I have a suggestion. I was actually gonna suggest could we as GOL, given that the chair of OKA is bringing this and also sits on GOL, have the chair of OKA request that it go on for our first reading on December 16th without potential exact wording with a couple optionals with the caveat that GOL has not made a decision yet as to which of these potential options would be there. So that could count as the first reading. And so that the second reading would be January 6th. Can we figure out maybe a way or to allow that to happen? Okay, all right. Me and the chair of GOL and perhaps the town council president could probably discuss. Yeah, this. Okay, to try and get it. Our first reading is, okay. I hear lots of rustling and noises in the background. We suggest that we're reaching 1230. Actually exactly 1230. So without any further ado, I'm gonna declare this meeting adjourned at exactly, according to my watch, 1230.