 Okay, it doesn't look like anyone's coming out. We're recording. Okay, thank you. Seeing the presence of a quorum, I'm going to call the August 30th meeting of the governance organization and legislation committee to order at 932 a.m. And Athena, if you could throw that thing up and I need to read pursuant to that one. I usually have a hard copy of it near me, but I didn't find it this morning. Okay, thank you very much. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 and 107 of the acts of 2022 and extended by chapter two of the acts of 2023. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. Okay. There are several things on the agenda, but they're going to be where you have several proclamations resolutions to look at. Michelle, I'm not sure if I'm going to put suicide prevention down at the bottom because we just got it. And if we have time we'll get to it today. Otherwise, we'll postpone it to the meeting on the 13th. Yes, my apologies. Just so you know, the only change on that one is just the date from 2022. Okay. And Lynn, I sent you an email asking if you could please forward that as a referral to GOL so everyone has it. Yeah, I did put it in the packet when I got it. Just a little bit ago. I did too, but counselors haven't seen it. I'm doing it right now. Thank you. I'm removing the Pakistan India. It was a special for the 75th anniversary. And if the, if anything changes about that, we'll get information from counselor ball mill and who will get things to us. I do not refer to reconheritage day I do not have an updated version with the events or anything. So we're removing that from the agenda. The, the other thing is I wanted to check I want us to vote on minutes and get that out of the way. But I, I still seem to be missing the minutes for July, August, sorry. August 19th and August, July 19th and August 2nd. I went back to see in other meetings whether we had them. So what is in the packet today are 621 and 712, which I'd like. Can someone make a recommendation that we accept those minutes. I move that we accept the minutes of which states were those in set. June 21st and July 12th of June 21st and July 12th. Is there a second. Thank you, Michelle. Okay. I'm going to call the roll call for the vote and it's Lynn Griezmer. Yes. Mandy. Michelle. Hi. Jennifer. Yes. And I'm an eye. So we have that out of the way. I'm going to call public comment. Since we have nobody here. I guess that's not fair. Somebody shows up. I'll have to do it again, but. All right, I'm trying to look at what else. Okay. I want to get to the bylaws that were referred to us. I've got nothing back from the town manager in quite a while. So there's nothing to do with those right now. But there are several rule. Bylaws that don't need any action. It was either taken previously by the council. Or no action is necessary because after a legal review, they were found to be fine. One of those is 3.7 about licenses and permits. Let me see. The special board of appeals was established. So there's no action. 3.36 soliciting. Again, that was reviewed in 2022 by KP law. And the 3.51, the zero energy, we contacted the relevant people and there was no action required on those. So I would, I don't know exactly whether we have to have a formal removal from that list or we just stop looking at them. So if somebody can fill me in on that. In just a second nuisance house has been sent to CRC and we're working on it. We're going to. Okay, and then there's the historic districts with Nate Malloy and aligning that with the ZBA. It's interesting to me because that feels like so minor and part of me just wants to say, is it important for us to deal with, or can we remove it but I'd like to get the list at least on our end as cleaned up as possible. The animal regulations relating to animal that could be until we hear from Carol. I'd like to keep that in play. How, how are people doing with that with those with that suggestion, those suggestions. Linda Lynn or Mandy Joe need to or Athena need to bring back to council bylaws that we're taking no action on it like the net zero energy, etc, or we just stop looking at them. I'm not sure what the procedure is Mandy and then Jennifer. So in the past, just voted a recommendation that the council take no action and then it gets reported and the council doesn't have to do anything with that if someone disagrees they could ask the president to put it on the agenda but it at least documents. Okay, opinion. Okay. Jennifer did you want to. I can't hear you you're muted. Mandy. Okay, so Mandy, you're going to make a motion. Pat, I'm looking for the solar. Did you put that on the net zero net zero. The solar bylaw. That zero three point one zero energy. And that zero, that's not on the agenda. It's in that group. Maybe I'm calling it the wrong thing. It's in the group that hold on. I think what Athena is saying is you listed specific ones in the on the agenda and that's not listed. poop. It is in the packet is it and it is part of this bylaw review is there we can't deal with it at all really. I will trust your judgment Athena is just annoying not annoying to me that I forgot to put it in there. And that might, you know, I'm trying to see if I've skipped anything else where there was no action. I don't think so. Yeah. So what should I be doing with that. I would not get into a discussion about that one specifically since it's not on the agenda. Okay. Now, here's the thing. I don't think we need to have a discussion about it, but can we vote to recommend that the council take no action. I don't think you should take action on it. Okay. On the agenda. Okay. If you had listed only, you know, review of that. It's the tricky thing about listing things specifically if you leave something out, then it's. Well, then instead of bringing two different rounds to the council, because this does feel. I'd like to postpone then this decision or the vote on a recommendation to our next meeting and so I can have everything included. Does that make sense folks. I would say we just deal with these now and then put on the next meeting the other one you can report them all at once, but we're here. We'll just make the vote. Gotcha. So, Mandy, you want to make a motion. So I think if I heard you right, I'm, I'm going to move that GOL recommends the council take no action. In response to the bylaw review committee recommendations on general bylaws 3.7 licenses and permits. 3.2 special board of appeals and 3.36 soliciting section E. Okay. Second. Okay, let's do a vote on that Mandy. Thanks for stating it so well. Bandy Joe Hanneke. Hi. Lynn Griesmer. Hi. Michelle Miller. Hi. Did I skip you last time. Okay, Jennifer talk. Yes. And I'm an eye. So that passes unanimously. Yeah. All right. So it looks to me. I won't get in touch with the town manager and try to get an update. I know that the eye is working on several of them with the human rights commission so. Okay, I'd like to look at the Medicare for all. I believe that's. Yes. Yeah, I ran into one of the community sponsors and got the sense that they wanted to withdraw this and come back with a different one. Has anybody heard anything about that? I haven't heard from Barbara Pearson at all about that. So I'm one of the council sponsors and she has not contacted me. Yeah. The last I had heard from her, there was yeah, no change that I was aware of. I've got some modifications to the one that is. But I have not heard from Barbara recently. Okay. Well, I'll leave it. Jennifer. She lives down the block. Should I ask her? I mean, yeah, a text or whatever. That's formal. So there are three council sponsors. So if the community sponsor wants to withdraw, they can withdraw their name, but you, you have council sponsors and under our rules, unless all three council sponsors withdraw. And even if it doesn't have a community sponsor, gotcha. But if they wanted to propose changes. Well, then they should talk to the council sponsors at this point to the council sponsors. Okay. Well, I will. I guess we're going to take it off the agenda because. Just ping her and ask her to get in touch with a council sponsor. Yeah, you can do that. Okay. But I don't and I can do that too. I mean, I don't want to mislead you. I'm just saying. I did see her and she mentioned something. About one of the other people. Involved once a whole different motion. So I was actually in the process as we started speaking of sending her an email. And including the rest of GOL on the email. If you would like me to proceed, I'll be glad to. If not, I'm also glad not to. So I'm okay as a sponsor holding off on this one more GOL meeting. But at Lynn, I would caution you including GOL on anything because you're, it's in front of GOL. So that might be an option. Thank you. But yeah, I would say if you spoke to her, that would make sense for you to follow up. Okay. Okay. All right. So let's remove it from today's agenda. Oh, I like this. Only way to hold a meeting. Yeah. Get rid of everything. Well, I do want to hold the time starting at 10 30. So Anna can join us about the reproductive and gender. By law that she and Mandy are proposing. So, and I said, I would do that. So I'm going to do that. And I guess we were ready then to go. Unless there's something on the agenda. I'm missing. We're ready to go back to the rules of procedure. Michelle, I just saw your hand up. I'm sorry. Yes. Would you be willing to take the suicide prevention at this, at this time? Or would you prefer to wait? No, that's fine. If it really is just a date change. It's just the, yeah, that's all, that's all that I. I don't take a minute to look at it. Can we do that? It is on the agenda, but I don't know. I just. Okay. Is that right? Would you just send that email? It's on the agenda. So it's, I think it ought to be sent to counselors as a referral to G. L. Okay. Oh, right. Got it. I sent it to Lynn. Yeah. I got it. Thank you. Yeah. Then go ahead. I'll pull it up. Okay. One question I have. Oh, in 2020. Is there any, Michelle? I have a question on the one to third whereas. Is there any updated figure. In or. Not. I don't know. I mean, potentially I could, I could probably find one. But. I don't know if it's necessary. But I don't know if it's necessary. I don't know. But. I don't know if it's necessary, but. Yeah, it's only three years ago. But. Yeah. I think. I mean, there probably is an updated figure, but when I did it last year, this was the earliest one that I could find. Great. Thank you. Well, unless somebody is seeing something that I'm not noticing, it might very quick read. So. Why is that. Mandy. A couple of questions and. Comments. So it needs the bottom part of. Lynn's signature or whatever voted, whatever. But all of these are resolved clauses at the end, but it's called a proclamation. It sounds like it might be more suited for resolution. It's not a proclamation. It's not a proclamation. It's not a proclamation instead of proclamation. We're actually not. In any of this. Proclaiming any particular month. Suicide. Awareness. Suicide prevention awareness month. We're resolving. To commit to support bills and to send the resolution on. So I think. Retitling at a resolution instead of a proclamation would be more appropriate. Yeah. That's a good question. Just Michelle, you said you updated the dates. Did you update the bill numbers? Yeah, that's right. In the second resolved. Are those last sessions bill numbers or are those the sessions? That's a good question. Can you hear me? Yes. I was looking at my. That's a really great question. I didn't look at that. Mandy. Yeah. I was looking at the bill numbers. They, these would need to be updated. So I'm happy. I'm happy to do that even while I could try to do it while we're here. Otherwise. If it's fine, I think. To bring this to the next meeting as well. So I'm. For me. Whatever people think would be best is fine. It's fine with me. I would say. It's a simple search on, on the. On this website. We wait the 30 seconds to a minute for Michelle. Okay. That's fine. Sure. Michelle. Okay. I'll do that. And if you want to just keep. You want me to do it right now and then. All right. All right. Perfect. Just give me one second. Thank you. Was there a consensus about changing it to a resolution? It's fine with me. How would you like that worded? Do you want to just change this one word or. I guess. Mandy. You're good with that. Should it be a resolution. I think just changing the word is fine. Michelle's got last say as sponsor. Yeah. I hate that it's spam. Actually, I was thinking of suggesting getting rid of the acronym. Yeah, I cause. Yeah. I don't think it's used anywhere else. Yeah. I don't think it's used anywhere else. We'll wait for Michelle on that. Lynn, do you have your hand up? I do. I think in the third, whereas there needs to be a comma after 2020. Yes. Oh, there is a. Oh, no, you just added it. Okay. It's, it looks like there's a lot of commas, but. You need one. I could use a little help here. I'm just, I'm looking at like, for example. I'm looking at the same thing here. Michelle, I'm looking at the same thing here. Michelle's mentioned bill 250. And when I pull it up, I'm not seeing that it just. It just says, um, That bill S 250, no further. It's in the Senate, but like no further action has been taken on it. So. Michelle, let me see if I can help you. up the masslegislature.gov page on this one, but I'm not finding. There are similar bills, you know, that we see here, but they're not. And see, that's a lot of times, let me just keep looking and other people go ahead with what they need to do. And then Bill H-2081. Yeah, I mean, there are many bills in the current session. They're not going to be under that number. You just have to search for the title. Right. The title probably didn't change, but there's a lot that have suicide prevention in their title. I see. I see. OK, I for some reason thought that maybe it would, like, on that history page take you to the next one. But I see what you're saying. Yeah, OK, so. Yeah, you've got a ton in the house and. Yes. So maybe this is worth. I don't know. Maybe this means means a lot to me. And I and I just failed to get it with everything going on and to you to you all. Yeah. Why don't I, if it's OK, just rework, figure that all out, what bills are there and then bring it back for the next meeting, if that's OK. Michelle, just let me mention that the bills that I would look at now. Yeah, house 1548. OK, I'm to again 1548 and Senate 973. OK, because in that, both of them are kind of the broad bills and then the other bills are much are things about things like signage related to public health. So there's a lot there. Yeah. And with what Mandy pointed out about this being more of a resolution, I think I'm even more motivated to like look at that more closely. So thank you, Michelle, for the time. Yeah, Michelle, I'll send you this track change version with the with the edits that the committee has made so far so that you can work from that. That would be awesome. Thanks. And before we leave, is there anything else that anybody saw that is changing like spam or the comma? OK, all right, the signage at the bottom and and the letter. Yeah, I mean, one of the options is, in fact, to wave that we recommend and then put it on the agenda for the 11th. How do people feel about that? Because we don't meet again until I believe the 13th. I mean, I would say it depends on. I don't have a problem waving. I just don't want to put that pressure on Michelle to get it done by the 11th, if she's looking at redoing it. And if it is done by the 11th, you know, I don't think we have to vote to recommend waiver, right? But if it's not, it could come back on the 13th to go out. We don't have to vote to recommend waiver. The council would have to vote to wave. But Lynn does that all the time based on her duty as president to decide whether it should be on or not. I would leave it up to Michelle, not to add pressure of like, we're going to recommend so that it gets on there. But no, I would suggest that, Michelle, if you can find the right bills that you want listed here and you can get it to Athena and I by next Wednesday, we can put the waiver on the consent agenda and the resolution. OK, perfect, perfect. Thank you. Jennifer, I saw your hand pop up. No, I was just thinking that we meet a second time in September. So even if Michelle didn't make the 11th. Right. Yeah, but it's kind of late in September and it's the month of September. So the earlier, I think the better. But yeah, I hear you. Yeah. And I don't think there's that much that's going to be changed. There may be additions or something. But OK, all right. Then I guess we're ready to move on to rules of procedure. And as again, wherever we are in that discussion, I'm going to break it off when Anna joins us and then we'll go to the reproductive care. Mandy, I just have a question. And this is there's also the charter chain, the charter review committee. Oh, right. And I didn't know that first, which one we're giving up today. I don't care which one. But but it was the intention to let's look at the review. Yes, I think that's let's do that. I just had a question. I could just overall, isn't this already? Can we how do we we come about to change this? Because isn't this in the charter, what the charter review committee does? That was just I mean, just for clarification. I was wondering about that. The actual language that's in the charter is in this charge. And basically all it says is they have we have to do it in every year that ends in four and has to be a committee of people that are no longer that are not presently in elected positions. That's so what can we change about it? I guess that's my question. This is where I'm I'm also going to talk with, you know, ask Mandy Joe to chime in. But I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with the man who from the Collins Institute, who advised the Charter Commission when they were doing this. It was an incredibly useful phone call. The reality is that what you cannot change is the form of government, which in this case is a manager council form of government. You cannot change the number of counselors and you can't change the length of our terms. Too bad. Other than that, there's now. And if you wanted to change some of those things, there are one. One of them would require an entire new Charter Commission. But beyond that, there are ways to file certain bills that you can change some things as well. Mandy, Joe, I'm calling on Mandy, Joe, but she she really that's fine. And I don't have any reason that I like working that way. So don't worry about it, Mandy. I think Jennifer's question was what what can we say in a charge, right? Like, is the charge is cut out in the Charter and it's not really set out in the Charter. The background part of this this draft quotes basically the entire Charter section of section nine point six. And as you see, it just says that Council establishes a special committee for a review of the Charter. And so beyond the charge requiring a review of the Charter, we can add stuff of what they want to do or not. But the charge has to require a review of the Charter. But we can say you need to do public outreach. OK, we want it specifically titled in there, but we can't remove review of the Charter. And we can't change the one year deadline. You know, it's not holding an elective office, so we can't allow a composition that would say one current town councilor, because that would violate the Charter. So so we have with that background section. But beyond that, the town council makes the committee so it can do other things. And I just want to say I sent a whole lot of recommended changes off to Athena and Pat. And I will go through them here. But Athena does have a track change version as we talk about it, if she wants to do it. But I understand why it's not in the packet and not put up. If if it's OK with everyone, we can I can bring that up and we can work from that. I just wanted to make sure that that I think that would be most efficient, but before that, Michelle. Yeah, just a quick, more general question. So like these criteria that are listed, like having had previous Amherst Charter commission experience, knowledge of the town of Amherst departments and services. Lynn, did you just add those as criteria? They didn't come from anywhere. OK, so we can either include, not include, we can add to. OK, great. My goal was to get something out so we could start the conversation so we could get it done. The only thing we can't change in composition is that they have to be voters not holding elective office. We're appointed. Right. So unfortunately, because of the way the Charter is written, we can't have non-voters on this committee. And we regularly probably appoint non-voters to committees in town. But this is not one where we can do that. Yeah. And so school committee and town council are off the table, but committee members, say, the Housing Trust or the AHR. You know, Reparations Committee could be on this. That's yeah. And the first under name. Go ahead, Lynn. Just very quick. I didn't catch this before I center off. Under name, it should say Charter Review Committee. That's the word that's used in the. Yeah, yeah, in the rules in our, I mean, in our charter. So we want to do 2024 Charter Review Committee here so that it's. Because there will be future ones. Works for me. Do we want to hand up Jennifer? Sorry, I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, I know, Michelle, two questions. Michelle asked the question during the council meeting. If you're an if you're a current counselor that's not running for re-election, could you be considered? I guess it says it can't be a current office holder. But if you're not going to be an office holder when. It depends when they're appointed. No, so if the appointments happen before the end of this council's term, then a counselor who's currently serving as counselor can't be appointed. But if it's after the new year and the new counselor has been seated, then they could be appointed. But the charter says not currently holding elective office. So even if you were on the council where you'd be voting on it. OK, then my other question is I I don't think you need. I have a uncomfortable with that. You need to have previous Amher Charter Commission experience. I mean, that seems to really limit the pool of who would be eligible. And I think there's people that may have become involved in town government. You know, since we've had this new form of government that weren't involved previously. May I speak to that for a moment? I don't want to say everybody had to have it. It was to only say that among the groups, it would be good to have one of them. Maybe it needs to be wordsmith. And maybe you all just want to eliminate all of that. Thank you. And before we go to that, though, I want to see I want to hear Mandy Joe talk about term of appointment, because I think there's some serious logic to that. Yeah, I'm happy to talk about all obviously everything that is in here. I'll talk about what's on the page first, so through composition. So the legal reference is also the charter. So I added the charter sections in there, the term of appointment. The January one I put the comment in of we could consider a different date. That's that's something that I think we as a GOL need to talk about for exactly what I think Jennifer and Michelle have asked, which is current councillors who may not be elected, whether they're running or not, right, who may not be in the next term. Would we want to be able to consider them for appointment? And if so, the appointment date can't be January one because we're all still there. And then the next question I have that I wanted to talk about with that is, is it better for us as a council to adopt the charge and then leave the next council to actually do the interviewing and appointing? We just have to get those appointed by the end of 2024 and then and so I think it's good for us to adopt a charge, but I'm worried that it might be better for the next council to do the appointments, do the interviews, do the appointments, make the appointments because they'll still that's the council that's getting the report in theory, unless they extend well beyond their own term, right? The they they have the opportunity to extend by the charter. But you know, and so I think we need to talk about that. And then the other half of that term of appointment is we don't know because there's that extension possibility one year is not necessarily. If we put one year in there, the council, if the committee seeks extension of the report deadline, which they have the right to under the charter, we then have to the council would then have to vote to extend their terms. And so if if we put the term of appointment in the charter in this charge as through the presentation of the final report, I think we the council would eliminate a potential need to extend terms and one more vote. And then the composition, I didn't touch the composition. But that doesn't mean I like it as it is. I just thought we would talk about that completely. But that highlight there, the only thing I thought is the members maintain regular attendance. We never put that in charges before. It seems kind of obvious and it's not really a composition part. It's more of a expectation of members. But it seems kind of weird to me to be putting that in a charge when we've never put that in a charge before. Jennifer, and then we'll come back to that, Mandy. Yeah, I was thinking that also if the next council should actually do the interviewing and appointments, I think, and not for this reason, but with the school appointments, do we have time to do this? You know, if there's only like three months left of the. We'll be meeting on weekends. Oh, that's OK. I think that we should change the start date and the term of appointment. ASAP. Lynn, I like the change. I really do. And I think an April 1st is a good. Target. And let's also remember that the next council, even if we adopt this charge, they can always bring it back and change it again before they go out. As long as the work starts in 2024, we're OK. And I'm assuming that's calendar year, not fiscal year. Am I wrong or right about that? Because it's the year ending in four. Yeah, you're right. And does do we want to look at criteria right now in terms of composition? Are there suggestions there? Oh, and let's go back to whether or not we want all members need to maintain regular. I think that should be removed. Let's get there first, because that we brought that up and we didn't talk about it. How do people feel about that? Take it out. Yeah, is that all right with everyone? I was just going to add. So I agree that it it doesn't seem like it's going to be a good idea. It doesn't seem like it's the right place for it. But is there so this meeting is expected to be at least two times per month? Does that come from some expectation in the charter? Or like, could the committee decide they want to meet every day and get it done in a month? So do you just put that then that was. I threw it out there. I will tell you that the gentleman from the Collins Institute did share with me several other charter charges and particularly one that he shared was one that they're consulting with right now. And that's Framingham. And I don't know where I picked up some of this I picked up from them. OK, so I'm fine taking it out. Mandy. Oh, I would be fine. Obviously, I'm fine taking it out. I kind of suggested it. Two times per month is probably likely in order to get this done, the least they'll have to do, given my experience on the 18 month charter commission, although they get extensions. So they might choose to a month and then to just ask the council for an extension. But I actually wanted to bring up something else, which is the number of voting members. I don't think I'm not seeing that that nine is required by the charter. And so do we want to talk about the appropriate number? I I will say nine sounds logical. At the same time, I'm worried that we won't have even nine people apply. But maybe we'll have 20, I don't know. But but I just thought I'd bring that up that we don't have to accept nine. And so I'd love to hear other members and what their thoughts are with nine, seven, eleven, pick a number. Right. What are people's thoughts, Jennifer? I like nine. I think it means there could be a real good cross section of the community. I actually think there are going to be applicants. I think there's a lot of interest in looking at the charter. So I'm optimistic about that, Michelle. Thank you. Is there our could we put in nine or eleven? Like it does it have to be one number now for the charge or could based on, you know, the amount of applicants could it be determined? I I think nine for a committee, it just it feels like a lot of people. But for this, it makes sense that we would have that amount of people. But is there like any limitation on leaving that more open until we have a better sense or does that sort of set up a weird precedent? Did people feel a little odd to me, Michelle? Yeah, because what if what if we have 30 people apply? Do we want all of a sudden to have stick with 11 or go to 27 or? And and I'm really trying to figure out the other thing is, I think that because of what can't be changed, a lot of the energy around the charter has to do with number of counselors and length of terms and and even the form of government. And those are things that this committee cannot deal with. So I don't I don't know. I feel funny about saying nine to eleven. I would rather have nine. And then if there's an intense amount of interest, the new council can say, oh, let's have 12 or 13 or whatever. I don't know. Lynn and then Athena, Athena has her hand up. And I always want to defer to what her wisdom is on this. That's that's scary. So if the committee's intent is to set this charge up for the next council, it doesn't mean that the charge is set in stone. If the next council sees it and they go, you know, we. Feel strongly that we want to change this particular section or these words or the composition and they can go back and do it. They would just go and amend the charge before they make appointments or after they make appointments. So if the intent is to set this up and have it ready for the next council, I would say pick a number. Then my suggestion, I'm going to let you speak, Lynn, but is to stick with mine. Let's make this process for us right now as simple as possible. Lynn, I think I chose nine because the Regional Charter Commission had nine. And I think when you start getting to eleven, it becomes unwieldy to hold meetings, make sure you have quorums. So again, I think Pat, you just said it. Let's make it simple. Put it in as nine, see what the next council does. Is that in people in agreement with that? Yeah. So go, Mandy, or anyone else? You have another issue that you're seeing? I mean, we're going to have to talk about the composition section. So let's do that now. Go ahead, who's Michelle and then Mandy. I just wanted to generally say that I I appreciate having desired experience in a charge, and I feel that it can also be limiting or appear to be limiting. And so I've struggled with that, like if in terms of our DEI goals and things like that, how do we how do we use that lens when we're considering this composition? I'm I'm wondering just very quickly looking at this, and it may not address it. But let me see. In addition, the membership shall reflect the diversity of the town of Amherst population. To me, that should be the first nine residents per charter section, blah, blah, blah. And then immediately go to the membership shall reflect the diversity of the town of Amherst population. I like that. Yeah, I agree. Is that all right with that, because that is something that we have to really. It's not an afterthought. It's the first thing. Right. Right. I think if Athena's wondering, we would delete everything starting with the word among. To the word in addition so that it would just be one sentence. Thank you. That just starts with the membership shall reflect. Yeah, and get rid of in addition. And that that includes a whole. Diversity. Yeah. That in diversities. And we use that for very different. For a wide variety of diversity. Diversity of views, diversity of resident location in town, everything. Right. So. And if people are comfortable with that, let's look at then what we're saying. I'm sitting here thinking. About Amherst youth. This is their charter too. But they're not. They're not voters yet. If they're under 18. Interesting. Yeah. I'm just thinking of a couple of. People that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, diversity could include age. So. Yeah. I think we can leave that with that being the first sentence. So we struck out among the residents there shall be. What part of that, what we struck. Do we want to keep after the statement? It needs to reflect the diversity of the town. Mandy. So. I would almost not put any of it in. And leave it up to the committee to. The next council to. Decide. What's important. Because you can name a whole lot of things. But if I think back to the last charter commission. There were members on there that had no governmental experience whatsoever. And some that had very little. And some that had a lot in various types of. Elected positions. You know, and, and I think. You know, the electorate. Ended up with. Elected positions. You know, and, and I think. You know, the electorate. Ended up electing a very. Diverse. In some, in some manners, diverse. And in others, you could argue, maybe not so diverse, but they did end up electing a diverse set of views and a diverse set of experiences and. Trying to set forth and list which ones are most important. I think is difficult. And so I would just. Keep it out completely. I feel comfortable with that. Anyone else want to speak to that. Lynn. I'm fine with that. Okay. Jennifer. I agree. Yeah. And I saw you nodding, Michelle. So I think that we can do that. I'm going to step away for half a second and Jennifer, can you take over for a minute? I'll be right back. Yes. Okay. So are we moving down to background? Yes. First part can't be changed. It's in the charter. Yeah. So, but there's really the whole first part. Unless you want to change lead in sentences, like periodic review of the charter requires that. It's straight out of the charter. Okay. So let's go down to purpose or do we want to add? I guess we can add anything. It's in the charter. Yeah. So I'm just going to add the quote mark. I'm just going to add the end of the charter quote here. Because you have an open quote here. Yes, it is. Thanks. So I'm just going to add that. Mark. You need a period at where you just added. Yeah. I have a random question. The chart. This committee will have a budget so like they could retain a consultant. From the Collins Institute. Okay. One has to assume that they will. I'm not sure it's in a, in the current fiscal year's budget. So it would be up to the council to recommend that the manager included budget. Or put it into the council's budget for the year or include it in something. The last charter commission had to actually bring. Warrant articles forward to town meeting to get its budget to hire a consultant. So, so whoever's on finance, Lynn is on finance, make a note to Andy to, to make a note for our budget guidelines that. That money money should be provided. It would not be available to July one, but. Things could be in motion to hire or we could extend. We could change the April one date to. May or June one. May or June one. May or June one. I actually think is quite tight for a council that's coming in to organize its committees and then set forth. Advertising and interviews and. Then get a. Appointments done by the end of March. Is there a staff liaison to this or is it's. That's the idea is to be separate. Right now I listed the clerk of the town council. And. So it's the town manager or does it need there has to be a staff liaison. It has to. I thought so. Okay. So I think going back to that one. We could actually either designate town manager or designate. Or ourselves designate clerk of the council because the town council is the hiring authority for the clerk of the council. So we have. We are allowed to add duties to that. So if we wanted it to be the clerk, I think we can just set forth clerk of the town council. Okay. Okay. With you, Athena. Yep. I've already had a conversation with Paul about that. And I consulted her. So. Good. Jennifer, you can keep going. Okay. We had, we were at. Background. No. No, we're at purpose. I'm sorry. Any. We're all good with that. I think so. Yeah. Okay. So now we're at charge. Okay. Sorry, I just wanted to show my, I just explained my. It might be easier to look at the charge changes. In. Simplified form, but basically I tried to just condense stuff. So I, I thought that all of the dates were a little bit too prescriptive that there were too many things. So, so you'll see a lot of condensing of analyzing feedback. So I think that was a little bit more. Prior to X, Y, and Z actions. Taking reporting three times and things like that. So, so there's, there's a lot of deletions and changes, but I tried not to. Delete anything that was actually proposed in the charge, but combine it. So it was a little less prescriptive as to dates and a little more open for choices. So it's really. Yeah. No, no. Go, go Michelle. I was just on the purpose before we get to the charge real quick. I just had a question. I know there are the three things that we, that this body is unable to do. Is that, has that been, do we desire to have that listed upfront anywhere? Or within the purpose to say, or is that. That's why I put an asterisk, which is at the very bottom. Got it. Okay. That's good. Yep. Now, let me just mention. First of all, manager, thank you for, you know, taking on this section. I actually totally agree with everything you've done, but I do want the committee to know that. What drove what I wrote in this section was in fact, the Framingham process. So it reflects what another community. That's a year ahead of us is looking at with regard to their process. So Pat, I mean, I think I like looking at it without. I mean, to look at all the lines. What I really liked about the Framingham process was there is. A number of times that there was specific outreach and. A way in which the, and the, the former charter commission. And I think that was the first time that. That did the charter that we now have did this. They had enormous opportunity for public comment. And consultation with different groups, including the seated body of the select board. So it, it, the fact that counselors that are seated at the time of this. Can't be on the committee doesn't mean they can't speak. And it can't, doesn't mean they won't be consulted. But it also really, really, you know, sets up a mechanism using lots of public input. Yeah, I'm totally comfortable with the dates not being there, because then they'd almost formally have to be changed. And they're not going to be made. Absolutely. Okay. So we should move down to reports. This is picky real quick. I'm going to add a little bit on the committee. Do we need that too. No, we don't. It's really bothering me. It's not taking a right. To be that picky. Michelle. I totally get that. You get, you get the GOL at it. A board for the time. Yeah. For the day. Yeah. I'm fine with that. looks great. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Are we at 10 30 now? Yeah. I don't know on this here but I don't know. I don't see her. Okay. So we can keep going. Oh, and then your asterisk is at the bottom. So we only have one section left of the report section. Yeah, let's finish this up. Yeah, let's finish it. That seems fine. So this should match April 1 2025. And then if the next council wants to change or the appointment date changes, then we do that, correct? Yep. And so if we approve, this goes back to the council with the next meeting. Yes. Okay. And then and based on that, all we would then have to do is approve the charge and then it sits there until the new council is elected, right? The council, the council could also vote on SME status. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, until the new council swore in. The council adopts the charge. Right. Right. Although it's possible. Again, Jennifer, I think you put your finger on it with everything else the council has to get done between now and then the other thing that we possibly could do is begin to set up some kind of process whereby people apply. But frankly, I think we've done our job. I agree. If we get this charge finished. So do we want Mandy? So I was going to say we could recommend that the council at least publish the notice in on the bulletin board of vacancies for it if we adopt the charge so that the other, the next council can immediately move into sort of closing and the rest of the section of appointments, right? On our appointment process on whatever it's doing, but they don't have to wait that 14 or 21 days the whole time, right? Because we'd already have that notice out there. Yeah. And I mean, you don't have to do with that part of it then. Right. And I mean, think about the notice that we just agreed to on Monday night. We could get all of that ready for people and, you know, decide are we going to do statements of interest and, you know, consistent with other policies and so forth. But I, um, anyway, I actually think we are, I'd have to look, but the policy, the council adopted for multiple member bodies might actually apply to these appointments. Yeah, which would be assigning a committee to do the, the recommendation side, but I mean, one of the standing committees of the council. Yeah. And in this case, it would probably be GOL. It would probably be GOL. And so GOL could start the process by getting a notice to the bulletin board and posting the notice, but not, you know, in other processes, we never have a close date of that notice because we wait until the pool is sufficient. So GOL could start collecting stuff and everything, but not move beyond that. If GOL has time, in some sense, potentially to help the next council begin the process quicker. So if we approve this today and it goes to the council, does the council have to then formally ask us to do what Mandy just laid out? Or I mean, do they have to send it back to GOL? They don't have to. But no, can we do that without the council formally authorizing us? That's what I'm asking. It depends on what our charge says. Our charge might cover that one. Okay. Let me look. That's sometimes a question I always have with GOL. Does it always have to go to the council before it comes to GOL? GOL is charged with making recommendations to the town council regarding appointments by the town council for non-voting liaisons, non-voting finance committee. No, it lists the specific bodies the GOL makes recommendations to the council. And this isn't one of the listed ones? No. So we would have to, the council will have to vote to charge a committee with making the recommendations. So I can try and craft a multimodal motion here. That'd be great. That'd be great. Thank you. Because I have at least two things that we're talking about. So go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. So let me try something. I move to recommend the council adopt the 2024 charter review committee charge as amended to recommend the council vote the 2024 charter review committee to have SME status and the council vote to, or recommend the council vote to assign or to charge the GOL committee with making recommendations for appointments to the 2024 charter review committee. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Okay. So we'll move to a vote. I'm just, I should do it alphabetically. Yes. Pat? Aye. Lynn? Aye. Mandy? Aye. Michelle? Aye. And I'm an aye. Yay, we got this done. Yeah. So Athena, we can put this on the agenda for the 11th. And I've made a note, and I hope Athena has too, that FINCOM include in its budget guidelines that the FY 25 budget include money to support the charter review committee. I do have that. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Jennifer, you want to keep going? No, I just have a question. If Anna's not here, and it's along the lines of how, you know, how items of business proceed from other committees to GOL. So if I can ask it, we had a, the sponsors of the Wast taller bylaw had a meeting with Paul this week. And then Shalini had a question. We have a timeline if we have revised bylaw proposed language before the end of the calendar during this council session, can that go directly from TSO to GOL? Or does it have to go to the council to GOL? I know this on the agenda, but she asked if I'd ask this question. So I'd have to go back and look at the charge. I'm look at the referral. And because Athena, I'm looking at you for this because I believe I was the referral to ask TSO to develop a bylaw. And if it was, then generally that bylaw, that should have also been referred to finance committee because of looking at the financial impact of a bylaw. So Athena's looking it up. And then I don't want to go any further because that's not the role of GOL. I also just texted the teller where we're getting ready to work. Jennifer, your question is if GOL, if the council made a referral to TSO and also GOL when TSO's recommendations were complete. GOL's charged with reviewing bylaws before they go to the council. And under our rules, all bylaws are automatically referred to GOL. Okay. Great. Did the motion for waste hauler include finance? Yes, I think so. It will still go to finance. This was just if we have some language, could it go to GOL for review before it goes back to the council? It automatically does. Because the original proposal that sent to TSO was a measure proposing a bylaw change. And so under our rules, it would have automatically also been referred to GOL once it got referred somewhere else. Okay. Good. Thank you. Go ahead or whoever. I said that's the easy part of it. The GOL, it's making sure it also doesn't automatically get referred to finance. Right. But it has been referred to finance. Oh, definitely. Yeah. I just got a text from Anna. She's having trouble. People aren't quite leaving her workshop yet, so she'll be a few minutes. So, so we could sing. Do rules until she can come. It did. The motion did include a referral to GOL. Yeah. And TSO in consultation with finance committee. So everybody's there, except Cersei. Okay. We don't mind being left out of that one. Are you sure? I see no enthusiasm there. So we can continue the rules of procedure until Anna's available. We should probably start looking at where would I put Athena's. So we're going to the chart. Okay. Yeah. No, what do you mean going to the chart? No, no, I'm sorry. I was in the packet. We had, we have clerk of the review by law actions. We're not going. Yeah. No, we're doing rules of procedure. Jennifer. Okay. Oh, I see. Okay. Next item in the packet. Okay. Where did I, I thought I put her packet in, in our packet again. Athena's memo was in it. Didn't we have a discussion? Didn't we start a discussion on this? Yes, we did. That's why I'm trying to, yeah. What we started talking about was the posting of agenda packets. And I don't remember. This is why I, whether we got to the consent agenda or not. No, I don't think so. I'm just, do you want to look at the memo or do you want to look at the rules? Document. So this is what we were discussing and we didn't resolve it. How soon items have to be in the packet. Okay. Oh, you know what? I'm going to, I'm just going to pull up the rules. I think that makes more sense. Okay. And are some of the changes that we made there? This is where the, where the discussion ended, but there was no recommendation at the last meeting. All right. Well, do we want to make a recommendation? Make a recommendation on section 4.5. Because it can I ask a question about how we're doing recommendations? Because Athena, this is the document that's got everything we've sort of talked about, but haven't voted on as a whole yet. Right. Does it? I think I thought I took the most recent because we had been working from an old version of the rules. Right. Oh, okay. There weren't recommendations. So I have a different version of the rules with a bunch of edits. This one just has the ones that we're working with right now. It's up to the committee how you want to, I'm sorry about scrolling all over the place. I just didn't know what our plan as GOL was. Are we going to be voting as a package, everything we've been working on, or are we voting things individually? That's what it seems to be evolving to, but I would love some input on that. And I also want to go back to something that we decided not right now, but I want to go back to public comment. And Anna is here, Pat. I see you. Oh, great. All right. All right, so why don't we move forward with that and come back to this? I'm sorry, I think you just were able to pull it up. So, okay, so, well, bring Anna in, yeah, great. Hey, Anna, not yet. I don't know what's going on. I've tried to, I don't know what's going on. I've tried to, there she is. There she is. Oh, great. Hey, Anna. Welcome. Oh my gosh, doing this from my phone is like a whole other ballgame. Well, I would love to see this slide. You're out in the rain? We, you're muted. You're muted. I'm out in the rain and I hope you enjoy my backdrop, which is my very festive umbrella. I would love to hear where you and Mandy are on this and I would like to get this by law to counsel as soon as possible. So, and go ahead. Well, I was going to say, so I think that my understanding is after the first GOL review, Mandy and I met with the legal team. I'm going to walk away from the road. Sorry. Mandy and I met with the folks at KP Law and talked through where their concerns were with the bylaw. There were some areas that, you know, they're, that we made changes on based on their concerns. And then the other areas they were just pointing out, you know, is this really what you want the scope to be? And the conversation that Mandy and I had was, yes, that we want this bylaw to be broad because we believe that it's important for our town to protect our people, right? And so based on that, we made some changes and I believe it then went back to you. And I apologize that I wasn't able to come to the last conversation about it. I believe Pat, you had said that you had wanted it to go to KP Law again. I didn't say I did, but I thought that was a decision that was made on the committee. The committee did. And so I will now turn it to Mandy because I'm not actually sure where it's coming now. So I guess it's Pat because Pat was going to send it back to KP Law and Paul for, well, ask Paul to send it back to KP Law. And I haven't heard. So I don't know what the status of the next KP Law review is that the committee had asked for. That makes me feel better because I hadn't either. And Lynn, you brought up the issue, I believe. Do you want to speak to it again? I hope I can remember everything I said. I believe that the reason I brought it up was because of some changes, but also because of what North Hampton, I mean East Hampton, the controversy that they have going on there and whether or not it flies in the face of any state laws. That's all. It's not because I don't support it. It's because I just want us to be as consistent as we can, which I think we have been. East Hampton's bylaws is about a completely different topic. So East Hampton's bylaw included elements of this, but their bylaw was really about crisis pregnancy centers. That's at the heart of a lot of the controversy that's happening around the state right now. And ours really intentionally removed that from the initial draft, right? We wanted to pass something and so we separated this out to be about one really important element and I don't want to understate the importance of fighting back against crisis pregnancy centers because I do believe that that is absolutely important and we need to do it, but I don't want that fight to delay really important work on access to reproductive and gender and care. So we divided them into two for that reason. When we spoke with KP law, I believe Mandy, correct me if I'm wrong, we had looked, and by we, I mean Mandy, because I read it and was like, I need a translation. We did not believe that it was in conflict with state law and that we were cleared there. And then the first part you said, is it state law? Were there other changes, I think? Oh, were there other changes? The changes that we made in the version that we sent back to GOL, I believe, had reflected what KP law had recommended. And the changes that we opted not to make, it wasn't that they felt that that was a violation of anything that we had. It was more of just they wanted us to understand that we are creating something that's broad reaching and we know that and that's intentional. We believe that this should apply to folks receiving town money, for example, and that that shouldn't be only, you know, town employees. It should also be grant recipients or things like that. Mandy, did I miss anything? No, you didn't. KP law did have some concerns about the broadness of it and lack of some definition of terms. But in general, I think we were able to explain some of that and in that conversation, some of their concerns of broadness were alleviated. And beyond that, they just said, are you sure you want to do it, basically? So they couldn't identify anything in particular that was in conflict with state law. Other than, I think, some of the, we had some open, no, some public records ones that I think we've reworded. So that was, there was a public records issue and we reworded with, I believe, their recommended language on that. Athena has her hand up. The last time, I just wanted to note the last time the committee spoke about the bylaw, where things were left, where that the chair would send the revised draft to the town manager and also seek input from the schools and library. Right. And we got schools and library had no particular comments on it. So everything had been sent to the town manager. So I, so what I'm feeling like is, given that there's this separation of the Pregnancy Crisis Center out of the bylaw, I would like to see us recommend this to town council without, you know, I'm not sure what it is that we want KP law to look at again. Yeah, I do just want to emphasize. I know that the, I know that the bylaw that I introduced last year and withdrew, and then the bylaws that were recently vetoed in East Hampton and that are being brought forward in Worcester and North Hampton and other areas, that is not this bylaw. That is, and I think that it's a little confusing because it's around the same topic, but they are very different bylaws and this one is not, does not have the same possible. Thank you. Legal implications as the crisis pregnancy center ones. Michelle. This might be, I think we're going to review this for clarity, consistency and actionability at some point. And so I just have a question about the purpose. It, and also I'm trying in my mind to get to the nut of what this bylaw does, you know, and so that it's easy for somebody to look at and understand immediately what the purpose is. And so it seems to me like the lat, like it's almost a little buried, like this last line, the purpose of the spy laws to prohibit the disclosure. Is that what you would say is the nut of this? Like is that the sort of, okay. So for me, just reading it and this being sort of like a kind of heavier document for me to read, like a lot, if there's a lot going with it, it feels like that bringing that up somehow closer to the top would really right off the bat allow people to understand what the purpose of the bylaw is. So I'm not sure, like that would mean we would have to combine a couple things to do that. But for me, that would make it much more clear. The other thing I wanted to ask about is in the title, access to legally protected. Is that like including legally protected? Is that could you share what like the purpose of what is it? How does that differ from something that's not legally protected? I don't know what I'm asking, but I'm just wondering about what that legally protected really is saying. Is there something that's not legally protected? Yeah, like I'm and I don't know enough about this to understand that that piece. So those are just right off the bat kind of mind to trying to wrap my mind around this, bringing the purpose up immediately to is that the sole purpose is to prohibit the disclosure of information or use of town funds to impede the rights that are listed above that or assist abusive litigation. So I think to answer your second point and Mandy, I know will add on or correct me if I'm if I'm misspeaking. That was to demonstrate that we are in compliance with the state law, as well as to emphasize that this care is protected in Massachusetts. So saying that it's, you know, we're not asking for we're not asking to go beyond what state law has protected. It's really to say like we are in we're complying with and creating an additional level of support for what the state has been doing. That's why it says legally protected. Does that clarify? It does. I guess I'm just wondering like from the standpoint of getting it adopted by the council. Like will there be the question like well if this is already in the state law like that kind of line of you know questioning does that sort of I think it's fine. I think you made your point. No, no, I get what you're saying. No, I do. And it's a question that we've gotten before and I think one that we are ready to answer right is why this is necessary if it's already legally protected and I and Mandy has a beautiful answer about how my answer is not as artful. She gets into the specifics but we're closing loopholes right and we're we're we found and our closing loopholes that the state isn't able to do on a local level right so that's that's what we're doing. We're backing up the state law on a local level by eliminating some of the I believe accidental loopholes that existed. And in competition with Michelle for the GL award for at least import and the purpose it says this purpose of this bylaw it should say the purpose of this bylaw and I do like that the information is there before the purpose I think it clarifies things for me anyway. So it's one to one Michelle. All right Richard go ahead. You weren't here for that earlier on. We're we have a little battle going on. I love it. You can find the most the smallest correctly errors yeah. Um yeah so I guess I Pat you said you like having the information before saying the purpose of the bylaw of this bylaw and so is there is this sort of like the standard format of a bylaw or would there ever be another category that would sort of give the background for example and then have the purpose I just that's such an important nugget there that while I do also like having the background I just don't want that to get lost or buried. So just something to consider. And I would if the sponsors would like to respond to that. I believe that what we had the way it's framed the way it is is to be consistent with our other bylaws. Mandy do you have any other am I wrong on that? Um I'd have to look at the other bylaws the purpose statement is supposed to be very short right and so I can work on rewriting it which I'm doing now just in case people want it rewritten so that the purpose is front. The I think the difficult thing is Michelle with rewriting it to put the first three sentences last is that those three sentences sort of define what we're prohibiting disclosure of information on and so rewriting the purpose almost putting that last sentence first almost requires making the sentence like seven clauses long so that it explains that reproductive and gender affirming healthcare so that the purpose sentence would now explain that reproductive and gender affirming healthcare services are rights recognized in the Commonwealth and the interfering in those attempts in order to deny access to them violates those rights and you know and so it might almost get even more unwieldy even though in some sense I agree that putting the that the purpose of as the last sentence of that kind of buries it to put that first then almost means we're in one sentence instead of four. Is there any value in separating the sentence with a space from the rest of the paragraph just visually would that help? That might just putting it as a second paragraph yeah yeah create a little white space to just get it yeah absolutely that I think that would help a lot I'm sorry I had to step away for a moment where do you want the white space yes please the last sentence of the purpose section so the the sentence starts the purpose of this bylaw would just be like a separate paragraph there yeah yeah but a little more space extra space in there too so an extra return yeah and then you want a space after two don't you yeah I thought so how's that Michelle that's really great yeah that was a great a great crafty way to do it now are we going to go through this line by line or have people already noted sections that they want to address and again this is not a substantive review it's for clarity consistency and actionability I apologize I have to jump to an 11 o'clock meeting but please let me know if you need thank you all so much I appreciate your attention on this yeah now we move and does anyone we have looked at this before but I don't know if we went line by line so I did not find anything when I did a read through the other day but that doesn't mean that there's because I missed the this this purpose the purpose thing until just now so Michelle I think number four be should that have a semicolon as the rest have a semicolon or is that it should oh yes oh she's ahead of me you can you can still uh there's still time all right now after D after the semicolon should there be a word and um no because it's not an and okay thank you the subcontractor need to be capitalized or should all uh so contractor is a defined term oh got it thank you I can keep going can you scroll up Athena I don't want to scroll too fast so and I just have a quick question I think I know the answer where it says pay patients location we're uh talking about other people being able to come to Massachusetts to receive care yes what where are you oh heavens could you scroll down a teeny bit uh where was it oh um here in just above seven yeah regardless of the patient's location what is that referring to that's a clarification for me yes so um um yeah um so so the health care activity um the activity needs to occur in the Commonwealth just because of licensing stuff right um but yes that is that is essentially the referral that the referring to the issue that there may be people who live in another state that come to Massachusetts and Amherst to receive some health care okay yeah thank you Michelle oh I'm sorry I didn't my hand is not so so does this mean residence no so so actually rereading it sorry I didn't read the whole thing so so there is the possibility that um if under Massachusetts law and this is where I don't know because the state law is changing all the time and the licensing laws if under Massachusetts law a a health care provider is allowed to provide telehealth to someone that is not actually located in Massachusetts at the time that telehealth is provided um this would cover them even if they weren't located in Massachusetts at the time the health care was provided as long as it was legally as long as it's legally provided right um because it says the provision of health care services by a person duly licensed under ours and physically present in um is legally protected services if it's permitted under the laws of mass of the Commonwealth so so it's just I there there's there's because this is such an active field of of ensuring protection I just don't know the state of our state laws on um providing that um health care active health care services telehealth wise so this is intended if a Massachusetts provider provides telehealth services to someone located in Texas while they're located in Texas but legally received that service because Massachusetts allows that Massachusetts provider to do that it would be covered under our bylaw even though they were located in Texas at the time it was provided but the other situation where they come to Massachusetts is already in here okay yeah okay thank you yeah I don't think there's any value uh regardless of the patient's residence I I don't think I would want that change so it doesn't make sense to do location or residence oh no I think it's location okay so it really covers the the issue of telehealth yes yes do we want to put that word in there somewhere I don't so I would be hesitant to change this definition okay it's been pulled from standard yeah recommended definitions that you can scroll down yeah you can scroll Michelle might not be quite there yet but um down in remedies so violations enforcement and remedies so number two is remedies um I'm a little bit confused by the b one um just in terms of but so in addition to the remedies outlined why isn't it just like a c or something like why is it um it could probably be we reworded better it was it was pulled from our tiff bylaw which I believe had a couple of extra one two and threes or bcd subject directly to contractors um it might be able to let me see um yeah so so what we could do is eliminate the one and eliminate the first clause and start a new sentence right after the end of b that's part of b that says a contractor to the extent would be just fine um you know so it's just part of section b not a separate b one um but it's in there to say the contractor is is liable for violations of subcontractors it's subcontractors um so it can be it can be made part of section b by um eliminating the first clause and starting the sentence with a contractor so are you here or this one that one yeah this this one not the one is part of b so yeah so so yeah where where you are a thing in that cursor just delete everything to the to the word a so delete in addition to the remedies outlined in section e to b above and then just make a capital a as a new sentence yeah and it'll now be part of section two b yeah we've we've tried to adopt the contractor language in that tiff by law as much as possible since that one's already been through legal review and all i also think are we gonna add the counselor sponsors to the top or no does that not happen with a bylaw this is a different animal okay i'm manding and um anna will present a memo through the town council yeah we move down or up however whichever way that's it right no yep well it ends with that c well i move that we recommend and i move that uh i'm not sure of the language that uh declare declare the reproductive the whole title reproductive and gender affirming care i don't have the title in front of me um is clear consistent and actionable as amended second and do we have an idea when this will be on the agenda then uh we'll decide today later on whether we're not whether we're going to put it on the 11th the 18th or wait till october right now with all of the school stuff i'm starting to move things that we're going to come up in september to october that makes sense so lin as sponsor we can't because it's a bylaw vote on it on the 18th even if the first reading is the 11th because it needs two weeks on the bulletin board and we're oh thank you that's right right well we could vote i guess we could if it was posted like tomorrow vote on it on the 18th but um i think anna and i are fine with readings in october or the first one in september 18th and the next one in october i'd appreciate the opportunity to move it to the october meetings you know thank you that would be fine hey thank you for your work on this and on up also we have to vote pat oh no i don't do it that way okay lin greasmer hi andy joe hannacky hi michelle miller hi jennifer tov yes and i'm an i i think this is one of the most important things we're going to do in our term you know okay so we have about uh 15 minutes left of our meeting so i would uh you have a very bizarre look on your face athena like you're in shock rude want to check in before we do anything else i'm i'm trying to save this in the right place so i'm just okay we'll give you a second that's just i'm working hard that's my face when you said october 2 and 16 is when you want to see this yeah thanks i'm just we all know why yep okay also the reason i i really um if bylaws don't come forward until then that's fine if rules of procedure don't come forward till november that's fine i don't think given the pace that we're working at on that i don't think it's going to and in many ways there are the rules and procedures while they do need changes are not that horrible that there's something that yeah all right we are going back to 4.5 posting of the agenda and packets because we made the changes but we didn't vote on the changes if you want to i think mandy suggested um doing them as a group if you okay want to do them like that then you can continue on with these and then make a recommendation on a group of changes uh up to you and if you want me to bring up the changes that the committee had discussed before just let me know well i'd like to i guess then to move on to your issues with the consent agenda is there consensus on four on the changes to 4.5 no i'm sorry thank you athena i'm fine with them yeah i am too me too yeah i'm good okay four six i want to look on on consent where it says in the third paragraph no discussion or any item yes fine it's it's consistent with the practice yeah sort of not really then you say more athena and then i'll call on you michelle um the edit that i had was um i don't think it applied to this part my um oh wait a minute no it's not consistent that's a thing that it was a paragraph one can we deal with that first um so i am proposing to add this and then removing this because it's a little repetitive so that's that was my proposed change that's a very good point athena on that one no i'm fine with this well i'm going to call on michelle first i'm sorry need your wait well it's okay um so i think i just wanted to talk about the word non-controversial um because i think that it's my understanding that what gets put on the consent agenda is decided by the council president and clerk perhaps in combination um depending on what's going on um and so like i i know that that means that it's uh based on the perception of that person or persons and i i think that there have been times where maybe even at our last meeting where there was an item that was placed on the consent agenda that was controversial um and it's difficult i think without talking to each counselor to figure out what is going to be controversial and what is not um so i'm just wondering how uh like routine i'm trying to think of the example of what it was i think we had the compensation limiting public comment went on the consent agenda when we knew that we didn't realize of course that would be controversial got put on basically by accident um so i think that's to me the biggest example um you can continue and then i'll call on mandy joe sure yeah i was just going to say i remembered that last week it was the um i felt that putting the compensation as a referral to finance like that was my perception that that was it did end up being controversial um and it was put on the consent agenda and i think about this a lot in terms of the public if it's you know hard for them to pick up on all of these kinds of things and so if it gets put on the consent agenda it so i'm just wondering um how we might uh take about that i'd like to um respond quickly because uh to me it was not the referral to finance was not controversial but the positive thing is that you pulled it which is exactly how the consent agenda is supposed to work because i think if we have to do some kind of checking in with counselors to see whether they think it's controversial um that's that's not a valuable use of time and i go back to the public comment it was pulled right away and it should have been and so i i think that there is a protection built right in that's my opinion i'm going to go to mandy and then jennifer yeah i i think potentially what lin was getting at with paragraph three might also get there but you know i actually agree with michelle that the use of the word non-controversial might be problematic um but what can we put in there um because paragraph two is where we try to explain what goes on and give the guidance to the president of what goes on and and something you know the the to use the public comment issue it went on because it came out of committee with unanimous recommendation and and i do support putting things that come on out of committee with a unanimous recommendation on consent i also support any counselor removing that from consent um because the whole goal of consent is to try and figure out how much we can do quickly because there's not a need for conversation and it might everyone might vote for it right um and so could we what can we use instead of non-controversial be of routine or potential unanimous votes or or potentially a unanimous vote or or something um figure out some other wording because because that's sort of the point of it and when something comes out of committee with a unanimous recommendation um i don't necessarily think it's the president's job to say well i don't like it so i'm not putting it on consent even though it had unanimous or i do so i am i think it's our as other counselors that aren't on that committee to say you know what i i gotta pull this one because i want to talk about it or not and then i think lin's getting to paragraph three which we haven't actually been following because some of these referrals lin's like let's try and get these motions that have to be by roll call and take a lot of time out we can still discuss what we want to tell x committee before they consider it um paragraph three and this one doesn't quite fit with how lin's been doing it but i actually support how she's been doing it because roll call votes take a lot of time um yeah Jennifer i mean can we just leave it at routine because i do think non-controversial can be in the eyes of the beholder it's just still kind of routine yeah well it seems a little less i mean maybe just routine nature i don't know i i actually googled synonyms for controversial what didn't find any that worked lin i have to honestly say i've been uncomfortable with the word non-controversial i do like the way it's been working and um want to make sure when we get down below that we make that consistent with how i've been doing it in the last probably six months almost um but i don't know what else to say uh besides non-controversial because a simple referral should it can be controversial and it was last week because i'm sorry that doesn't mean somebody can't remove it so um that it works because people do they're forced to look at the stuff on the consent and say is there anything i don't want to vote on under consent and so it is a judgment call and i also want to just add to one of the thing too and that is between the time that a committee votes unanimously and the time the consent agenda gets published something can move from being appearing non-controversial to becoming really controversial and i would say that the issue about public comment was in that category it does i'm going to take a minute and then i'll call on you michelle if you don't mind i i feel like i don't have any problem with the non-controversial i do have some problem with things automatically if a committee votes unanimously which we did uh that it's automatically put on the consent agenda because then to me there's no review wait public comment is always controversial there's no way around that it always will be no matter who's on council who's in the community so i i don't know if i feel as comfortable with if it's past the committee unanimously that it should just be put on consent that's where i'm stuck michelle then jennifer and then mandy i'm thinking about myself as a new counselor um two years ago and uh really not understanding necessarily uh like sort of putting trust in the process that the president went through and not thinking necessarily about um you know i assumed i think for some period of time that if it was on the consent agenda that's where it belonged um and so maybe that's bad on me you know what i mean that i should have been more aware that this is an item that i don't feel comfortable having go through consent and i can pull it off you know but i just i did at least for some period in the beginning of my my term i did not do that so i just want it to be as clear as possible to both the person making that decision about what goes on and to the other counselors you know that there should be no assumption that because the president deemed it to be non-controversial um that it it won't be because the president really has maybe has a sense with with all of our president's experience but not all presidents may uh know what will turn out to be controversial or or not and that can change like lin said um jennifer yes i agree with with you pat i'm more uncomfortable with it i i don't think the fact that it came out of a committee unanimously should necessarily be a criteria for why it's put on the consent calendar mantek so i was going to say i worry about just saying routine nature because bylaw amendments are not necessarily routine um so i would want some sort of other in the first paragraph some sort of other indication in there because we have actually done a lot of bylaws on consent bylaws require two readings and so that gives the council president number one an opportunity after the first reading even if it came out of committee unanimously to say you know what it's clear this is not a consent agenda item right um but it's not necessarily considered a routine item that would fall under that but i think if after the first reading when not a single counselors really had a comment and it came out of committee unanimously it it should at least be attempted on consent right and if someone decides in that week that they've heard something that they don't want it on consent that's fine but i don't see a reason to keep it off of consent i was going to suggest in the second paragraph with the bylaws in in particular or anything that comes out of a committee that it says um with to the full council with unanimous recommendation for approval it says accept any item having a high level of public interest or controversy and then it says as determined by the council president i would actually recommend adding council president or committee chair um because i know there have been times that i've gone to from crc i've gone to the president and said hey this one's out of crc this was its unanimous recommendation but do not put it on consent like where i said you know we made it we made it unanimously but this is not appropriate for consent and and in theory the president could ignore the committee's chair under this rule and say i'm still putting it on consent um and so i i think we should empower our committee chairs also to allow that recommendation to the president to stand just to again say hey um you know we had 20 months of discussion and yes we got to unanimous but i'm positive someone's gonna want to talk about it at the council so don't put it on consent type thing so i would recommend that sort of add to um um actually ethina um it's the sentence before that where or committee chair should go um i think yeah that line oh but i also it would be wonderful if we could suspend the fantasy that any president is doing his or her best to manipulate everything it would be really nice if we just said oh it's on the consent agenda i don't want it there you know and not blame the person who put it there that would be so refreshing lin pat i appreciate that um very much because uh there are times when something has gone on the consent agenda and it's only uh the day of the meeting that i find out there's more of a controversy around it so above where it says of routine and non-controversial nature could we say be of a routine and nature and with limited controversy no i i'm also fine just how do you measure controversy they have to find out um why don't we just leave it the way it is on that one and i like the suggestion that was made uh on committee chairs i i personally would capitalize committee and chair uh down below but i really want to make sure and i i really have a hard stop i should have been off that's fine i really want to make sure that we come back to that third paragraph because i'd like to make it consistent um no and we're not going to do it today but maybe we just highlight it and say begin here i'd like to make it consistent with that please practice just that we've been doing could we just have athena highlight non-controversial nature nature up above i i think we can find another word great i was just actually looking at roberts rules and that's sort of the language but there's some other language that i think we might be able to include here that will help us clarify this so it will be good to come back to it good absolutely all right then i'm going to call for um public comment um since there are no attendees where there's no need for a public comment beyond following the what sorry sorry no i was just no nothing so uh with the grand power of chair of the gol committee i am calling you to meet i'm adjourning this don't let it go to your head thank you take care everyone thank you thank you athena and athena send me the link again i've taken more notes than i usually do but i think uh thank you very much