 We're going to call the meeting to order at 6 30 on September 9th 2019 Our first order of business is to ask two gentlemen to come forward Doug slaughter and craftsman Steve Locke When I sit down and Sit down press the button make sure the green lights on thank you. Yeah. All right, so my name is Steve Locke and I've been doing woodworking for about 25 years and Friend of Dave's omac and when he told me that they had to take down the maple on the top of Montpollocks I told him why don't you set a little wood aside for me? And let me see if I can maybe make something out of it So I gave me a couple of logs maybe this by this around I saw them up into boards put them out in the backyard and forgot about them for a year or so and when I went back to look at them I found that Some of the wood had acquired this beautiful fungus that leads to a condition known as spalting in Maple which is why this has such nice character I mean you think of maple you think of a very blonde wood, but when it gets this spalting it it gets this lovely colorations and Well, it just looks very very nice So I decided I wanted to use that for the head of this and then a nice clear green for the handle of it To contrast and I made the sounding block because I looked up online and that's what you do You don't bang on the table. That's very crude. You bang on the on the sounding block. So anyway, I was very happy with how it came out Dave told me he liked it very much and I'm very pleased and honored to present this to the town for you there you go and quote So I'm gonna share a few remarks about Montpollocks and that the Dave So make sure with me and and just to give the viewing audience as well as the counselors a little bit of background If you haven't been Montpollocks is one of the most popular and well-opped conservation areas in emers It's just off the southeast street. I've personally gone and watch Sunsets there It's a very very very beautiful place Thousands of people visit Montpollocks each year to picnic read paint birdwatch and taking the beautiful views of the Mount Holyoke range And almost 360 degree of views of the valley many weddings and other celebrations take place there each year It was purchased in 1984 from the Atkins family. The area was once an active apple orchard I think may even still see a few apple trees kind of going wild out there For many years there were two stately sugar maples guarding the summit Unfortunately lightning strikes and disease took their toll on one of the trees and for public safety reasons It had to be taken down in 2018 Just when Steve got involved with his his pieces would there have been new trees planted in place to replace those Old one so at some point in our in our future will have stately maples again on on the top of Montpollocks But it's my pleasure tonight with with Steve to present this this gavel to you at the transition event that we had I made a Promise that I get a key which is that we would present the gavel to you this evening for use at the council meetings And hopefully it will keep us in good stead in years to come to have That piece of our history Guiding us through the work that you guys do so We appreciate the work that you do and I appreciate the honor to come and help present this gavel to To the council's whole Thank you Oh Thanks, thank you Yes, it does have a maple leaf signifying the tree came from Thank you That's another example of Amherst having taken an opportunity to buy open land when it became available preserving our outdoors So the next item on our agenda is a hearing and actually the positioner ever source has withdrawn their request Therefore I moved to close the hearing is there a second Any further discussion all those in favor raise your hand and say aye opposed abstain So 13 for none against and no abstentions. All right We are now prepared for general public comment We will take public comment on any matter that you would like to speak to Other than those on the agenda that we have identified and those are in fact 7a 7c and 7d Public comment on those agenda items will occur at the time we have the discussion during the meeting residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes and We ask that you Come up you raise your hand you be recognized you come forward Excuse me you sit at the desk make sure the mic is on and identify your name and where you live So are there people here who would like to make general public comment? Please come forward. I'm Felicia Mednick Anything else? I just just my name you live in Amherst. Yeah, thank you and I would like to comment because I heard there's a pot that we need a new bus in town and That electric buses are very expensive and so there's thought of maybe getting a diesel bus and I would like to speak I'm part of mothers out front and I'm here representing a few of my fellow mothers who would like to encourage the town to not get a another diesel bus and I on my own have started looking on the internet and Seeing that over time you we end up saving money with an electric bus Although the initial outlay is greater. That's a problem From what I've seen some towns are raising another municipal bond and or having a specific Tax for that which may or may not work What I also noticed is that just as early as last year There was lots of money from a Volkswagen settlement and from other Incentive programs that paid for buses or for most of them in Martha's vineyard and a few other places in Massachusetts There was a seven to five million dollar settlement here. So I would Respectfully ask if and when this comes up to Give it to the whatever the Climate Action Committee is called that committee And for them to do the research to see if it is feasible for the town and how it could be feasible for the town Because I think over time. We don't know what's going to happen with gas and how that price might fluctuate But it might get even Even a bigger savings and also be a saving for our environment and we do have the hundred percent renewable Goal in our town. So I don't think it makes sense to get a diesel bus now Thank you. Thank you for your comment We will be taking that up later, but it was not identified as an item for public comment So I appreciate you're coming forward others for public comment Vince Excuse me Vince. If you'd like to give me any handouts you hand them to the town clerk. I mean the clerk of the council. Thank you Thank you. If I can wait while the clerk is circulating So my name is Vincent O'Connor. I live on Summer Street in Amherst and in June I Came forward the council and made a suggestion that the council established a commission a refugee and asylum applicant resettlement commission The chair of the committee of the council Said they were awaiting a written proposal This is the proposal On the front page there's a series of where as is that and the the The proposal that I put in writing for the council's consideration and hopefully somebody will move it and have it sent to committee Is that the 15 member 15 member commission that There be no staffing that the only cost to the To the city would be one postcard inviting people to volunteer housing and That the that the goals of the commission would be to identify Housing that would be made available gratis there's a Numerical goal that I've cited that I think is reasonable and doable within the town I've proposed that the those who volunteer housing be Not identified I've left open the MGL Reference because I think that would be the business of the city attorney to identify what Privacy provision would would be appropriate given the nature of the commission and what it's doing and Make I do make the point that in the in the preface and the whereas prefaces that Affordable housing the existing affordable housing structure stock is not available to house refugees and asylum immigrants applicants because Most of that of housing is available only to citizens or to green card holders And so there really is a need for a Organization of the municipality to solicit gratis offers and And that all so that the those who volunteer housing Both commercial housing and and private accommodations within people's homes Unused mother-in-law apartments things like that Be kept out of the public realm I think that's pretty much it I would really encourage the the council to Someone on the council to make a motion to refer this to the appropriate committee so that The work of of such a commission could begin and be concluded. I think quickly My goal as stated here would be to get a a report on how much housing The commission has determined to be available by December 1st and that the report be Minimal in terms of How many people volunteer housing how many people were interviewed and how much housing has been identified? Leaving out all references to individuals and so forth As I think you might understand is appropriate given the sort of controversial nature of this and the potential of those who Who have very strong feelings about immigrants and asylum refugees? their tendency to Make threats of violence and so forth so I Think that's that's all I have to say you have you have the proposal and writing that was requested by By the chair I'm I'm in the phone book if any member of the of the council Desires to speak with me outside of the committee process. I'd be happy to talk with them. So thank you very much. Thank you Are there additional public comment? Sir, please come forward. I'm Jeff Lee from district 5 of an Amherst and I'm delighted to hear that the Hearing is dismissed tonight Regarding the transformer on the South Common Appreciate whatever discussions led to that. I was wondering I did some research I was prepared to speak on it and I was wondering if I could just share what I I learned certainly I'd like to voice my concern about the request from ever source to locate a six foot by five foot by three foot transformer on the town South Common near the intersection of South Pleasant Street and Spring Street to offer some historical perspective in 1875 Frederick Law Olmstead America's preeminent landscape architect and designer of Central Park Was invited by Austin Dickinson to advise on improvements to the town common One of his proposals was that the telegraph wires and hay scales on the common should be removed and within three years of suggestion was implemented Since then Maintaining the beauty of the common and surrounding area has for the most part been a town priority I'm told that Amherst's first town manager Alan Tory went to great lengths to require that Utility equipment in the downtown be placed underground Since his time we have slid back a little in 2014 regrettably town meeting put up little resistance when Western mass electric asked to relocate an underground Transformer in front of Douglas funeral home To a less than attractive pad mounted four foot by four foot by two foot green box green box just off north present Pleasant Street on The boltwood alley walkway. I see that there are now two large electric boxes there Many communities take the undergrounding of utility equipment quite seriously Shalton and Lemonster have zoning by-laws that require underground utilities in their business enterprise in downtown overlay districts Sutton requires underground utility connections in all condominium complexes with more than 25 units And in 2015 Northampton made the relocation of overhead utility wires to the underground a vital part of its project To renovate Pulaski Park, which is their equivalent of our town common While it carries some cost ever sourced to main transform maintain Transformers underground they have already invested in a vault beneath South Pleasant Street Which could continue to house power distribution hardware and where can it be more important to eliminate the clutter of utility Equipment than on our historic and much-used town common Thank you. Thank you for your comment Additional comments sir. Yes Good evening. I'm David Mullins T. Burri Lane I'm here representing Amherst leisure services community theater Thank you for providing the time to speak to you directly I would like to take this moment to call your attention to the letter I sent to the town council dated August 27th on behalf of Amherst leisure services community theater in that letter I described our needs and the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the proposed demolition of the existing DPW facility Which we have used as a set shop for the past 12 years Where will we build our sets is a real concern for us? We have been a valuable and successful program of LSSE for 27 years now And as the town moves forward with its plans to build a new DPW facility We hope that you will keep the very real needs of AL SCT in mind and Work with us to ensure that our needs are met during this transition and into the future I have spoken with Paul Bachman, Guilford mooring and Barbara Bills about our concerns and our proposal and would welcome the Opportunity to speak with any of you or other town officials in an effort to explore all options and ensure that our needs Receive full consideration. I look forward to working with you to explore what the next steps might be Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment additional comments Please come forward Hi there. Good evening Julian Heinz District 4 and I am commenting on the proposed accessible drop-off area in the right-of-way on 26 Spring Street I'm sorry, but that is an agenda item that we're going to introduce under 7a and at that time We will have public comment my apologies certainly There are any other public comments at this time Okay, then we're going to move on to proclamations and I would like to ask Marta Guevara is that did I get it right who is the Amherst regional public schools director of student and family engagement? Good evening everybody I come to you Well, I live in Amherst and have been here since 1974 So my family and I moved here from Puerto Rico my parents to pursue Their doctoral degrees and we were gonna be here two years and this have been here ever since So we've made this our home and just very proud to be residents of Amherst I come to you with a request To have to change the day that we've historically had And that we've had a proclamation for many years To highlight the Puerto Rican heritage day instead of November 19th, which Was what many like a decade ago? We would celebrate the arrival of Columbus to the island of Puerto Rico Our committee which is comprised of student staff and families We wanted to highlight Rebellion that happened in in lares Puerto Rico in the center of the island on September 23rd 1868 which was a a rebellion at just a cry against colonization at that time the Spaniards And so that that happens on September 23rd, and we wanted to just highlight that Rather than the actual colonization of the island So we look To we did this last year, which we brought together Quite quickly, but it was a lovely event in which Some of you were there, but we had student voices and we had a lot of Speakers and so we want to highlight and strengthen that activity and do it again in the front steps of the town hall We will have dancing and Spoken word and other things and what we hope to do is to Highlight Latino heritage month next year. So, you know that goes from the middle of September to the middle of November So we're starting slow, and we're going, you know, we'd like to just highlight and just extend on what we did last year Thank you as we now do with all proclamations. This was referred and automatically to the Governance Organization and Legislation Committee. There were some changes made to it I think they were generally modest, but Mandy Joe, would you please speak to the review? I will We made a couple of Scrivener stuff, and I'm not gonna adjust to address that But we did two things to the last two paragraphs on the Proclamation the first was to pretty much add the Raising of the flag and the dates of the raising of the flag into the proclamation while GOL has not gotten to Creating a policy yet on flag raisings on the UN poll We have briefly discussed it in passing and this is one of our thoughts is to include any Desire to have a flag raised into the proclamation that is being asked of the council to pass So that's why we added that language and then for consistency sake we decided to go with There's two ways to Sign the proclamation and we went with the one we liked better for consistency state So that's that's why that sentence was crossed out and a new sentence was added at the very end Those were the two changes with those changes that we recommend GOL voted 3-0 with two councillors absent to declare that it would be clear consistent and actionable Oh, and the dates we put in for the flag raising were September 23rd to September 30th Which is a full week that's which conforms with the full week that the to pet Tibetan Day Proclamation was granted So there is a proclamation in your packet and the council I'm sorry needs to find my motions and We need a motion and that is to adopt the proclamation in celebration of Puerto Rican Heritage Month as Presented is there such a motion Pats moved and second Dorothy seconded so various others more than willing to are there any other questions The only question I have is what time will your celebration be so it will be 12 30 to 130 on the 23rd Yes, and we hope to be in front of the town hall if if it's raining. We've secured the space just okay as Many of us can be there will be there. Thank you join you for that event So it's 12 30 to 130. Yes on September 23rd And we have a flyer and and we followed we've shared it and it's on our website And I think in the town as well so great Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good night. All right. All of those in favor. There's a motion and a second any further discussion All those in favor raise your hand and say aye Opposed No, us abstain. No Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good night. Certainly next item Next item on our jeep. I'm sorry Yes, Alyssa So when we looked at motions we did break out a second motion for the actual flag raising to make it clear because Even though the proclamation is very clear on the flag raising most proclamations don't involve flag raisings And so to expect the town staff will automatically Scour through a proclamation to find out if there's a flag raising is asking a little much in my direct experience Therefore there was just going to be a separate motion that also directed that the flag be raised because then that way the town manager could Just send that off to the staff that needed to know that because we appreciate that they do that on our behalf So there is a second motion and is that the town hoist and fly the Puerto Rican flag from September? 23rd 2019 through September 30th 2019. Is there a motion? So move Andy second Mandy Joe Alyssa, I just prefer since I didn't write this that we remove hoist We sorry, we don't do that. We just fly flags. We we fly flies. It doesn't matter raising Okay, I fly this. It's a friendly amendment so that the town fly the Puerto Rican flag. Are there any further comments or questions? All right, all those in favor raise your hand and say aye opposed and Abstain The votes 13 to nothing in favor. Thank you Okay, so we have a presentation tonight This is a presentation that is about the Centennial Water Treatment Facility This presentation was made at the finance committee Meeting just this last Thursday, I guess But the reason we're doing it now is because it will be part of This will be one of the two items that we are doing a public forum on on the 23rd and We will not be repeating the presentation at that time, but just briefly summarizing it. So Mr. Boring Good evening. It's kind of a Flashback, sorry So one quick question Okay So what we talked about for the finance committee It was some people have some question counselors and some public members had questions about Centennial What are treatment plant and why we've chosen to proceed and keep pushing forward to upgrade it and replace it? This is the slide show that was done by Tata and Howard after they finished their 2017 study of water Supply study for the town of Amherst. This was presented to the select board on October 16th in 2017 And I've updated it. There's now three new slides finance committee only had two slides You guys get an extra one. I will try to go quickly and Then you can ask questions So that this is the goals of the study This study came about after the drought in 2016 and in which many people were questioning whether we actually had enough Order to do anything and to make it through another drought like this The study found that we did but the study also found that we needed to work on Building our resources and improving our system next slide So just this is one of the slides I added So just so you know, we have different types of permits from DEP We have under the water management act. We have a withdrawal permit This is how much water the town can use on a daily basis This is the average per day for a year The town DEP feel it says we should use a total of 4.55. That's the most we should use per day It's broken down in the two pieces a registration Which is an older piece of legislation which granted communities an amount of water and some registrations actually granted communities ownership of water bodies and Water resources that were on other people's land. It's kind of a neat thing It's an old piece of legislation Our registration and granted us 3.34 mgd We didn't got a permit and our permit actually grants us another 1.2 mgd and that gives us the total of 4.5 So that's what we're allowed to withdraw Daily as our average drop withdrawal if we go over that over the year and we Consistently are over it then we have to answer the DEP and that's a use issue not a Taken out of the ground issue really it's a we're using too much water in the system is what they're saying next slide so then every one of our sources has a Limit on what can be withdrawn at the source and that's the second part of our thing of our world So this is from from the slide from the consultant and this shows our ground groundwater supplies and our surface water supplies so out of all of our groundwater supplies even though You add up the ground water supplies if you add up the withdrawals It's like seven seven million gallons. We're only allowed to take four point four out per day from the ground water sources That's well one two three four five Well six is up there, but well six is not connected to the system It's not been developed into an operating well because it has an iron and manganese problem And would require us to upgrade baby carriage and do some serious piping to get it from six Well six to baby carriers to actually treat it Surface water supplies we have Atkins which is a allowed to take to treat and release 1.5 Mgd million gallons a day the Pellum reservoirs which is where the centennial water treatment plant treats that water is 1.5 million gallons a day Next so this is a map of the watershed area Everybody at home. I'm trying to point how much is coming out So This is the map of Amherst and the watershed sub basins in Amherst at the very bottom left corner That's the where the wells are it's called the large swamp That's one sub watershed that color indication there means it is in a critical a water a groundwater withdrawal category four Actually, so it's five last time. It's actually four I'm actually sorry. No is five. So it's a groundwater category five That's the worst of the categories that DEP has actually rated the watershed Subbasins so it means we're taking a lot of water out of the ground there It also means that there's a lot of impervious and a lot of runoff in the area a lot of development Which there kind of is and there kind of isn't it's kind of one of those weird things with DEP how they rated this We're not the only people in this sub watershed There's also the Belcher town they have their daggle well in this watershed and then there's a bunch a couple private wells that are large public water systems are my They're large private water systems that just serve low communities They're also in this area Then you have the Pellum reservoirs in the kind of the middle on the right of the map right there That's where Pellum is It's in its own little sub watershed And then you have Atkins above Pellum. It's in its own little sub watershed So as we talk about sub watersheds our new permit is going to talk about how you impact a watershed and In the world of DEP they would like every sub watershed to be a one If you look the Pellum reservoir is a one there's very little development very little impervious and pervious area and Because they didn't include surface water supplies in their Water in their sustainable water management initiative. It's it's rated a one Groundwater supplies They are all part of the sustainable water management initiative, which is what guides our permit If you look that up on the DEP website can tell you more about it It's an interesting way to balance the needs of the environment the fish Aquatic animals other aquatic animals and the plants with the needs of the humans to drink have water to drink That's what they're trying to do is balance it out and they want every place to be a one really But every place is not a one. We don't we haven't been a one for a long time So in our new permit we're going to be required to mitigate and minimize if you read the Tata and Howard study They kind of talked a little bit about mitigation and minimization It means adjusting how you operate your system taking water from one one bowl and letting another bowl which is in a critical Condition rest and relax and recharge the environment around it Most of our watersheds in the state actually have their biggest use periods during August and September July August September We don't our biggest use periods are September October and April I don't know why April but April is a big one I don't know maybe it's because things start warming up and people are outside doing more they use more water But April is a big one. We're a little different So this whole ground water Would ground water with ground water withdrawal category is based on April or August consumptions So we're actually a little bit better because in August we don't consume as much But we're still going to have to have some type of minimization in our system by taking water out of one bowl and the biggest bowl we're taking ground water out of is down at the Lawrence swamp where we have all our wells we have no wells and Pelham and in Akins, so if we actually take more water out of Pelham and Akins during the times We have to rest the other ones. We're in a better shape And that's also why one of the options we looked at was Developing a well in the northwest side of town So there's other sub basins over there. There's other people in those sub basins Sunderlands and one US Fish and Wildlife and one is in the same one Mass fisheries has a well and one of them and there's some private wells the wells for some of the apartments in Sunderland are in these Subwater sheds Hadley's in a subwater shed, which is the yellow one That's where they have the Mount Warner wells near Lake Warner They have their Callahan wells in the kind of the Number four kind of the pinkish one in the bottom left corner of the map That's where they have their Callahan wells, which are their primary operating wells So there we're drawing directly below where we were drawing So as we withdraw they withdraw Belcher Town withdrawals those things are all looked at by DEP to kind of balance out So this is just kind of how the DEP is looking at how people withdraw their water and how they affect the environment next please So again, we don't always use 100% well water. This was the average for 2015 We're allowed to take 4.4 out. We average around 1.6 So we're making up with water from Atkins and Pellum during that time period and balancing our system out Next slide So this is just a summary of our system and we have the Atkins water treatment plant centennial water treatment plant Those are both surface water treatments We have baby carriage water treatment plant which is in the south end of town and that's an iron and manganese treatment facility Well four and well six both have high concentrations of iron and manganese when well four was developed This treatment plant was built to remove the iron and manganese and when it was it was very clunky and cumbersome We've kind of worked on that a bit And then there's three tanks the town owns and one tank you mass owns which is in the system to keep pressure up So next so the study looked at what kind of alternatives we had and then kind of looked at how we might adjust things next These are the eight alternatives Make baby carriage a better facility as I told you it's kind of clunky to operate when it was built It wasn't automated It was a system that was only supposed to be run in August and September when the students came back to make up water So that we had enough water for the students It was kind of a reaction to the 1980s in the students home Issue that came up or a UMass closed down and all the students went home Upgrades centennial water treatment plant replaceable five Develop a well in Sunderland. We were calling at Sunderland at that time because we had two property owners in Sunderland Who had properties they were willing to talk to us about? Connect well six Connect Pellum reservoir to the Atkins water treatment plant dredge Atkins and connect to mass water resources authority MW RA MW RA owns the quabin Next so we've been working on the updating well for for quite a while before the study started As I said, it was a clunky system to operate We had a bunch of chemicals we used to treat the iron and manganese and get it to precipitate out We've gotten rid of almost all those chemicals and we've gone to another way of operating the system Which actually gets the iron out without the chemicals We also have Updated the well the well had a motor on it and you turn the motor on and it ran full blast And you turn the water off well off and it stopped so it's on and off and no in between We have a variable frequency drive on the well now Which actually lets the pump run at different speeds and goes up and down as neat as we need it to run up and down And then what we've done is also since Before this report and during this report we worked on putting backup power They all have backup power to run the facilities now and then we've been Programming and planning to automate well for we have a programmer who we contract with and he's been writing the programming And he's almost done with writing the programming and we'll be installing the mechanisms to make it an automatic facility So you'll actually let it be able to run at night without having a staff member there to change things And it'll send alarms out when things aren't running right so that's where we're going with well for that's moving along quite well And that's all within the budget we have that we we budget every year for upgrades and maintenance on the facilities the next alternative The next alternative was upgrade Centennial Centennial was built in about 81 It's never had anything done to it. We've been talking about doing something to Centennial since about Early 2005 2006 Probably before that actually We came up with a plan and I'll talk a little bit more about that what that plan was in the next slides But we had a plan and we were moving forward, but then we made some decisions this go a different route next slide This is well five Well five is in the very southern end of the town It butts up basically against the very roots of the mountains It's a very shallow aquifer We don't have a lot of information about it We are not as optimistic as our consultant is that you can make more water come out of that well Then already comes out of that well, but this is well five It's a corn as kind of their Bay Road and Holst Road. It's in that area next Develop a well in Sunderland was another option and in here you have the two property owners who were talking to us Nielsen and the Warner property It shows the areas the red and the blue together show you what would flow into the Nielsen well and The blue shows you what would flow into the Warner property well Since we started this process, there's other options which have come up as well So we've been kind of trying to develop our overall how we're going to approach this and how we're going to evaluate Which property is the best property for us? It is moving. We're not at the point yet where we're going to do anything with it The issue with this one in well five are basically the same thing If you want to try to make well five produce more if you want or if you want to try to develop a brand new well Someone else says yes and someone else says no. It's not the town's only just soul decision We have to prove the DEP. We're not Changing the ground water characteristics, which we showed you I showed you in the map that we're not making the water in the area worse for the Aquatic animals and other things that need the water as well as the humans So you may go in and buy a property and try to develop it for a half a million gallons or a million gallons a day And DEP may come back and say no you can not do that You can only get a quarter million gallons out are you going to have and you can only operate during these time periods there's a lot of speculation and how new sites and the new wells will be permitted and how that will work out so this is a little Kind of it's not guaranteed how it come it works out not at all next slide These are the other Choices like we said I said before well six is high nine or manganese You'd have to pipe it to baby carriage And if you wanted to run well four and well six at the same time You actually have to make baby carriage bigger you have to increase the capacity for baby at baby carriage to treat water Connecting Pellum to To Ackens water treatment plant It's a big pipe you have to run a big pipe across a lot of private property Get to the Ackens treatment plant if you want to treat Ackens water and Pellum water at the same time You have to expand the Ackens water treatment plant. It's not that easy Dredge the Ackens reservoir We could dredge the Ackens reservoir, but we're not really going to get that much extra storage out of it It was the numbers actually in the report and we also may break the confining layer when we dredge it And we may not have a bowl the whole water anymore We just may have a big sieve and the water goes in and filters out instead There there is a confining layer that holds that water in and once you break it then you've kind of You have a hole in your cup or your bowl Connecting to MWRA It's very costly the numbers are in the report There's a fee for joining MWRA, and then there's a fee for every million gallons of water you want to take out You're also subject to MWRA's rules So if the commissioners MWRA raise the rates for any reason or put a surcharge on you for any type of improvements to their system We would be subject to the surcharges and rates as well Next so this was the summary of the alternatives Update well for I mean update well for and baby carriage Centennial well 5 and develop a well in Sunderland like I said earlier in the first the slide before the other four weren't that Good next So this is a new slide that was asked sort of to explain the centennial process Why we were moving forward with a centennial process so in tie and bond to the study back in 2007 8 maybe 9 maybe And they were going to repair the centennial water treatment plant and all they were going to do is take the Existing Roberts filters that are in there Roberts is a brand name they want to take those Roberts filters redo them Fix some little structural things here and there with the building fix a little wiring things and then that was it It was all going to be back and do the same thing So they came up with a price of four million dollars We did bond this and we were authorized this in 20 FY 2012 We did as part of this we also had to increase the sewer put a sewer line in because to do that we'd have to use We were looking to use alum to help us treat the water and make it settle better And so we couldn't dump that into the existing system we use for backwash We had to have it dumped into a sewer system So we install the sewer line The estimate for that was 1.5 million. We actually got in a little lower And then the other thing is is Pellum once you get above the fire station at Pellum or the fire station is There has to be a pump the pump water above because it's above our natural grade operating grade line for the water system So we had to pump up and we improved that pumping station The estimate was half a million dollars. We came in a little under two So two of the items were done The big item the treatment plant we stopped and said no look we need to think about this some more We had time bond do a study on dissolved air dissolved air flutation, which is DAF for an actinized acronym it helps you separate out the Organic particulates in the water and then before it goes into the treatment process So We came up with some numbers of DAF and tight Tata and Howard came up and figured Figured out a project and how it would work. This was back in 2017 when this report was made And they were at 7.4 million There was no changes to the filters and no changes to the building We were going to take all this equipment this new equipment and shove it in the existing building and try to make it work You've ever been in the building is pretty tight now and it's not It's very hard to get anything else in there We said well, we can't really do this. We need to do this the correct way because this is the next This is the next plant that's gonna be here for all more than 50 years or more. So we want to do a little better job So and Tata and Howard we asked them to develop the scope of work for designing the plant They developed the scope of work for the design They also came up with a new estimate and then the new estimate changes completely changes the building The building will be made to actually house everything in it appropriately and correctly The whole when the existing building basically will be torn down and we'll move forward from there So that's how we came up with the different prices people were wondering And basically it says we went along we saw that there needed to be a little change The 11 million dollars is not It's not like the locked in stone price We're asking now for the permitting designing and permitting number, which is the 690 to that 692,000 as we move forward with developing the project We'll see the things that we're capable of doing the town staff is capable of doing a lot of the demolition We'll probably be able to do some of the connections to the sewer system We'll definitely be able to do there'll be some things that are in the estimate that the town forces will be able to take off The project and I'll be able to do it a little cheaper So the 11 million is kind of a high end except We have no control over tariffs and steel prices and so forth We have no control over that I keep being reminded of that every time I keep talking that We can make it work a little better when people remind me there's outside forces that act on us as well So that's the history of the centennial project So we've always kind of been working on this always been working towards replacing it The plant is now offline. It was hit by a lightning storm and we some of the mechanics and some of the electronics in the system were broken When we went to start replacing some of these pieces we found out that you could not re get the piece that was burnt or Destroyed you could not get that piece anymore So you had to get another piece and then the piece that you got wasn't compatible with the other pieces that plugged into It's kind of the way America works. I guess So we had to upgrade more in the broken pieces. So the price of just making the facility The price and making the facility work was getting more getting more advanced and we were putting more money just to make The system that didn't work the best work. So we kind of just mothballed the facility. We turned it off It's now and in what DEP calls an active status We have two choices We have the choice to continue on and replace the treatment plant and bring it back into operational status Or it'll be or we will lose the approval to use the source and it'll lose its 1.5 million gallon per day certification And we'll have to if we decide to ever bring it back online We would have to go back through the certification process Which then again gets back into the swimming the sustainable man the sustainable water management Initiative and what they would require us to do or if they'd even agreed to let us have 1.5 million gallons out of that site of that facility again. So that's kind of how this all This is how the price is broke down. This is how the products been going next so those are the recommendations and The top two we've been we've been pursuing for a while. We continue to pursue the third one. We've been working on We have a couple really good leads right now to actually make this work a little cheaper for the town and maybe a little better The town staff is really not sold on well five yet. So we're just concentrating on the top three next And I think that's it and I probably said about a million things I didn't say last time and probably forgot to say a million things I said on Thursday and I apologize, but I'm willing to take questions if anybody has any Okay questions Mandy jump so the Bond that was issued for centennial approximately from that slide About one and a half million of it has been used Is the other two and a half million available for use? I know there was a the Recommendation is to pull this six hundred out of I guess bonded out from something is it to bond it out through the bond That's already been authorized or is it from a different one It's a new the design money will come from a new bond The leftover month from money from Centennial was reauthorized for water system improvements And we've been spending that money to improve water lines throughout the town So that money that we saved and didn't use has been used for other project. What are projects? additional questions Dorothy, I'm sorry Darcy and then Dorothy I Think I asked a question something like this the last time I heard you talk about this The the water treatment in General uses a high percentage of the municipal Electricity is that correct? If you count the wastewater treatment plant the water treatment facilities, we are the we are the lion's share of the town's electrical use So is there Is are any of these upgrades to the centennial plant? aimed at Making it more energy efficient Yes, and actually as an overall practice we work constantly to try and make things more efficient Replacing a steady-state motor which runs a well with a variable speed motor is one of the biggest things we can do to actually save electricity because when you run a motor at Speed you don't really need to run it out just because you can only run out of that speed you're wasting electricity So we routinely work in the wastewater and waterside to put variable speed controllers into our systems for the all the motors throughout All those facilities we have a project. We're getting ready to do at the West Street wastewater pump station Which will take motors that are on or off and replace those with variable speed drives as well So as we go through these we do try to lower our electrical consumption and lower any type of consumption We try to lower the chemical consumption. We try to lower the waste we create We create waste by when the filters get clogged. We have to flush the filters out with clean water The better we can operate the system and reduce the amount of times we have to backwash the system Reduces energy usage and also reduces water waste. So we do we work constantly to try to improve those So if we do this we would be going for the most efficient facility we can do and Would you say that Tata and Howard? is How would they rate as far as a? engineering firm that is knowledgeable about sustainability issues As far as sustainability issues they understand the water and wastewater industry more the water industry with us They know how to make the system work better and how you get the best product you can't the lowest cost you can possibly get it out There's going to be some cost to doing this. There's no way to do it without any cost or without any like power of some type But they have done several plants recently I mean they continuously do plants for other communities and they're continuously working on making it a better process Better meaning more energy efficient energy efficient water efficient all those things less chemicals. They try to reduce everything Okay, Dorothy. Did you have a comment? Yes If you can't if we don't restore centennial to use and we have a big drought Can we get by? So if you stroll up to the numbers at the very top keep going Nope go down to Go down Good that right there. That's it. So that's what we're permitted to use now So right now today are actually third. This is Thursday's number. We were using 3.4 million gallons That's what was their average daily use When the students are not not here. We use about 2.6 when the students are here. It's about 3.4 to 4 So as you see we have 4.4 and we have 7 million gallons if we lose 1.5 million gallons You have less to play with and less to use You have 4.4 out of one bowl and you have 1.5 out of another bowl and you've lost the third bowl so Right now we tend to run well, but since entangles off When centennial was working we actually ran a third of the water from Atkins a third from Centennial and a third from the Large swamp wells is how we ran the system So you'll you'll be missing one of your bowls Shawani So firstly, I appreciate you making the presentation all over again for us. Thank you And I also want to highlight what you said to a share that was shared last time that What happens if you don't invest in this and there's a chance that we lose this investment on this property? Yeah, yes, if we don't invest if we don't upgrade the system the possibility of losing the certification for the Facility is is real DEP has told us in five years I think the clocks started ticking last month They will decertify it and it won't be we can't use it as a source If you think about what we've invested in it, can you scroll down one slide? If you look well, you can't really see the you can kind of see the two reservoirs they're below where it says Pelham reservoir, there's two little big blue spots Those are the reservoirs and we own a lot of land we purchased a lot of land around those reservoirs to protect the source of water as Well, so those are the those are purchases. We would Lose if we lose the source as well. It's not just the actual Water we would have made a lot of investments for nothing Additional questions Alyssa, I'm sorry at the very beginning of this presentation. Did you say we were doing a forum on the 23rd? And if so, what is that all about? Okay? For both this and Hickory Ridge, we are required to have a public forum before we Vote and so the schedule is as follows at the beginning of our regular meeting on the 23rd We will hold two public forums in succession Unless for some reason Hickory Ridge isn't ready But it will be one of them will be on the centennial plant. The other one will be on Hickory Ridge the next day finance committee meeting will be meeting and They will discuss these and be prepared to make a recommendation back to the council and Should we be should they be completed with their work on the 24th? It'll come back to the council on on October 7th Andy I would just add Reference to section 5.6 of the charter. Are there other questions of mr. Moring? Kathy Can you go back to the chart that shows the total costs the that got up to 11? in Trying to read the original report, which is my first time through a report like this at times it indicated that when you're in the construction part of it a Partion of that is engineering and design and then there's an overage of engineering design And I'm just wondering the first one which is the design how much? How many pieces of design are there and they say there's some Flexibility in all of this that it's all wrapped into one So that was one question I have and then in the report itself. It said it gave us an Alternative of not running centennial year-round, but running it just in the cold not in the warm weather months And so I'm assuming This is running it year-round because it said you want to go up to daff this new treatment thing if you're running it So just describe a we need it year-round versus so not closing it down But running it without as much of an upgrade So as I was telling you we got struck by lightning and some of the components inside were broken and destroyed We cannot run the facility at all right now So the facility is totally offline We were running it partially running it before the lightning strike and then That was why the 2017 report was actually before the lightning strike and that's why they talk about it So in the past we had been running it that way and we also we had shut it down Predominantly we shut down centennial in the July August Mostly because those are the stormy see stormy weather season It's amazing what you have to learn when you're you do this Because it's really stormy and the Pellum reservoirs are so small it talks about how the water can be have poor quality Sometimes it's mostly during the season of thunderstorms and rain events because when a big thunderstorm comes in stirs up the bowl You're getting your water out of you have a lot more sediment the treat It's a lot harder to treat so we would shut the facility down in July or August and September when those storms are usually coming through And that's why it was said that way in the report because predominantly There's not a lot of storms in the winter and the water quality in the winter is great That's a very good water quality in the winter when you're not having a lot of storms stirring it up Your other question was about construction Costs design to the extent there we've got a Design and engineering costs of 700,000 then we've got a construction cost in the report It's written and then also one other one and so they were in concept So in the way the report was written it made it seem like the engineering was embedded in the construction costs So I'm just wondering if there are three parts of this Engineering design at the plant. There's there's really two parts of the engineering part There is the design and permitting part which you're seeing which is a 692,000 That's a fixed number not to exceed that the consultant has agreed to 692,000 there will be a part when we start actually constructing the project where we need to bring in the consultant to do Specialized things that we don't do to oversee Some of the kind complex wiring and it's kind of the complex installation of Equipment that's something that they come in and yes, it's a little expensive to have them do it Their estimate for this project is based on a percentage. It's not based on an actual number We won't have an actual number of that until they actually design it and get it through permitting So the placeholder for that number is the 1.1 We're talking about So the building can you go up to the picture of the building right there So the building was built very inexpensively when it was first built. It's a very basic pre-engineered pre-engineered metal building There's beams and columns inside they hold some stringers and then the outside paneling is just attached to it There's insulation on the inside Most of the inside of the bottom the bottom two or three feet that is rusted on the inside because there's a lot of Condensation that stays in the building. So almost none of the siding is really worth saving It's not worth it at all Some of the structural beams could probably be saved and used for something else or for a smaller piece of the new building And that's up for the engineer to look at as they design the new building and what we need for space But most of what you see as the outside cladding is useless. It's pretty much Useless, but then there's not much else inside the building. It's just a big open space inside Actually, it's two open spaces Did not answer your yes and no, I guess I'm still like I'm thinking why can't why not just replace the metal walls why not Are there all and I don't know but are there are there alternatives to creating a whole new building that would work We've looked at it We've tried to fit all this equipment inside and it's not very efficient and not very good You're welcome to come up and we can show you the different things that should have been done differently in the original design Which were not they were kind of just done the way they were because there was space to stick it And they put it there and it's not the best place for it to be The generator is actually in the filter room the filter room like I say sweats a great deal because the temperature of the water is Usually cooler than the outside temperature. So it's there's a lot of condensation in there So you have the electrical generator and the switch gear all sitting in the same room. So that's getting corroded Faster than normal because of that situation. It should be in another room It should be isolated. So it doesn't have those more climate control not just in this wet room So there's things like that and I'm happy to show you if you'd like to come up and look Please wear Sensible shoes and pants if you come Kathy no, no, I forgot to ask when we when you came and presented to finance I asked you whether you could give us a range estimated the likely impact on Water rates not not just for the design phase but along and we're talking maybe two years from now And I don't know whether you have them now, but we were hoping that you would have them in time for the public hearing We will have them for the public hearing. Okay, so there'd be one more chart that would give us I mean we in the draft Report we've done from the finance committee. We got a rough estimate of just the first $700,000 on Okay, so it will be available. So that's what what I thought when Alyssa was saying we're doing this Additional meeting. I think it'll be important for people to know What they can expect? Andy Yeah, just Want to follow up on questions that Darcy was asking much earlier Is it possible during the engineering study work to look at the amount of land? We have up there which is quite a bit whether there's any possibility of solar panels the cost of solar panel installation The amount of electricity that could be generated what the payback might be for doing that approach is a part of the overall engineering work Yes, you we can do that There's one restriction on watershed land for doing solar projects or wind projects Those solar and wind projects must be used by the facility or the water system They're not to be a development just to give solar panel to a neighborhood So if we were able to set it up so that it worked for the actual treatment plan It's something as possible to do under the permitting by DEP This building is under the Water So trust fund right or fund. Oh, yes, what are your price fun? Thank you and that technically that actually is not Subject to the zero energy bylaw Am I correct on that mr. Bachman? I'm not positive about the answer I think we probably should get that answer there is in this and then that zero energy by law the fact that Power to run process equipment is exempt from the net zero energy bylaw Power to run the building Like us that's lights would be probably the only thing that follows under the net zero energy by law But we because we do use such a large amount of power in the process equipment and the process equipment is the process equipment That was exempted in the bylaw Okay, but we still might we still would like to look into putting some Additional energy sources here Okay, everything we save saves on the rate and it keeps things working better for us So water and sewer funds are pretty frugal and pretty we're pretty good We do we we look a lot we have to right Mandy Joe So something Andy said got me thinking how large is the property where Centennial is located? So the actual piece of property the plant sits on is Not that big it's about four Three and a half maybe acres. Okay, it's not very big So it's not big enough to think about putting portions of not I mean I know it wouldn't fit all of DPW Portions of offices or something for DPW up there No, okay, there's a there's other there's better choices if you did that nice try Yes, Dorothy, um, I think you answered this before but When you we you take out a bond and then water rates help pay down that bond So how much would the town of Amherst or the people of Amherst have to pay? Beyond the water rates that we would be paying The enterprise system is totally self-sufficient if this enterprise system bonds this 11 million dollars The rate payers of the water system pay for paying off the bond if you're a taxpayer in town and you're on a well You pay nothing to pay off this bond guilty is charged Mandy just gonna say so then that means that UMass and Amherst College and Hampshire College who get water from our water system Would help pay off this bond because they pay our water rates Everyone who's on our system which includes some houses in Belcher Town some houses in Pellum. I think there's Yeah, Belcher Town Pellum and all the people who were watered in Amherst which includes the colleges and the large Apartment complexes will pay as well. It's not just the resident of Single-family homes it would pay. Are there additional questions? Yes, Dorsey It's wondering if you know of any other municipalities that use their own in-house staff to Put in geothermal I Don't think anybody uses their own in-house staff for actually installing the geothermal wells Just wondering if that would be cost-effective to to Train staff to be able to do that for all of our municipal buildings just Randomly came up with that thought this moment I Can't give you more information on a project. We're working on with a mass center for Mass cleat CEC clean energy center, right? I think is what it's called. I always mess it up We have a grant from mass CEC. We're working with UMass Amherst plus a Business in Rhode Island to actually look at some heat pump heat pumps they use in China and The grant is to install a pilot facility at our wastewater treatment plant and Facility would use the wastewater as the heating source and the process that this company has Takes that energy and uses it for cooling and cooling and heating don't know I mean they say it works in China. It does great job. This will be the first time they do it in America So it's a grant we have like I say we're we're always pushing Water and sewer is always pushing the envelope a little harder Are there other questions from the council at this time? We're going to reserve questions about this for from the General public for the hearing. I mean for the forum But I want to make sure that the council is generally Covered what they need to cover at this time knowing that this will go back to the finance committee and then Come back to the council for a vote. Hey, thank you. Thank you. Yeah We're moving on to the 26th spring Street And I believe we have a couple people here Kyle there we go Dave Williams archipelago Kyle Wilson from archipelago investments Thank you for your time tonight We are here before you to discuss a condition from our 26 spring Street project approvals that were approved last year as it relates to a handicapped drop-off area in The front of the building on the town sidewalk. We've submitted the conditions 33 It is included on the submittal that we sent in That's the second page and then there's a first page if you could pop up So this is a plan that was submitted to the planning board at the end of August and was approved the Handicap drop-off is shown specifically in highlighted in yellow On the top portion of the drawing it shows the pitches associated with that which we reviewed with the planning board Meaning how the slope of the ramps as it comes from sidewalk down to the street surface the the lower portion of the drawing just shows materiality Which is continuing the the existing sidewalk to either side of it and striping in the roadway and The condition reads a final drawing of a proposed accessible drop-off area in front of the building in the town Right-of-way shall be submitted to the planning department for review after review by the planning department The drawing shall then be submitted to the select board. Obviously. This was last year For review prior to the issuance of a building permit the select board may then decide whether to approve or not approve the drop-off area the second slide Shows what is existing so that picture was taken last week and the drop-off area as proposed is essentially right where the current Driveway and drive aisle exists So the sidewalk is almost identical. It would need to be slightly different in terms of pitch, but is Effectively right where the drive aisle currently exists So we will need to be back before you at a future date for other elements including Work in the public right-of-way, but tonight we were before you just for purpose of reviewing condition 33 This is the first time that this project has come before this body So I believe any additional information that you were able to provide and we did receive a Serious package about this would be useful This the reason this comes before us tonight is because it's a request regarding the public way and We are the keepers of the public way and this is a permanent request regarding the public way so If there are any additional things you'd like to Talk about with regard to the entire project that would be welcome Okay, I think that as it relates to the public way Back last year when we when this project was before the planning board we presented a couple different options one of which had looked at having street trees out in the street rather than Parking and I'm working with the planning board And working with the disability access committee the street trees the proposed street trees out in the street were removed parking was maximized and a Drop-off area was integrated into the the public way at the street So I think again what our intent today was to really You know not take too much of your time and just discuss the This with this one condition number 33 rather than reviewing everything that the planning board has gone over and approved up until this point are there questions from the council Steve So I might be able to add a little bit because I was the chair of the planning board at the time that this condition was put in and So the first question to myself is we knew at the time that the select board was going away So I'm not sure exactly why we referred to the I think that we probably Anticipated a more accelerated Schedule, but if we should have said that it shall be submitted to the select board or to the town council So as far as I remember this is not a requirement. So this is basically an amenity so it's not a requirement by the town that this exists and What and the planning board has no authority the reason that it's here now is that the planning board has no authority to Make requirements that go beyond the boundaries of the property that's being developed So if it's something that extends into the public way, then it always got referred to the keepers of the public way So we're here to discuss Whether or not we think it's a good idea to have this drop-off and as far as I understand Because it's not a requirement of the project. We can decide that it's not a good idea. We can decide it's a great idea We can decide it should be somewhere else But that's really what the limit of our discussion is Thank you for that question mean Joe So I have to The first one is the plans that you submitted don't show any signage about the drop-off Is there an intent to put signs up that say This is for drop-off loading active loading only or anything like that. So I'm curious about how you would Define it as a loading zone or a drop-off zone and how you would indicate that On your property or whether you just expect the town to do that and who would pay for it and and number two is The area looks kind of tiny to me for a car when I'm looking at that area right there On that drawing, which is why I tried to get hold of many other drawings It looks very short to me And so one of my concerns is that it's not actually Easily accessible to pull into the spot easily and then pull out of the spot easily without having to back up and actually Parallel park and if that's the case I'm concerned that No one will actually do that and they'll just block the actual driving lane for loading So I'd like you to address the length of that and is it really that short one car length? Sure, and the first question regarding the signage. We are open to any signage that Working with DPW working with whoever manages the signage in town We'd obviously be willing to pay for that signage We wouldn't be looking to have the town pay for that and we'll be open to whatever guidance is given there In regards to the drop-off area the intent was to make it approximately the size of a parking space and in conversations with the planning board when we were before the planning board the conversation was Do we want tree trees or do we want parking and parking was the? the agreed upon Direction and so the intent was to try to make it work within the context of parking spaces in the street this this Drawing shows the parking that extends to the east from that Mazda all the way to Churchill Street, and there's parking that extends to the west from the yellow drop-off area all the way up to boltwood and Would be work willing to work with DPW on restriping to Maximize the spaces not all of these are are maximized in terms of I believe the current standard is a 20-foot parking space I believe some of these are significantly larger than that So if there were some efficiencies that could be had outside of the bounds of this project We'd be willing to to work with us Additional questions. I'm sorry Kathy Um, I know we just heard that we should be focused just on this space But I'm wondering if you could tell us is the sidewalk. I'm looking at the buildings Um, is that sidewalk wide enough for two wheelchairs to pass each other? That sidewalk is five feet wide is that wide enough for two wheelchairs to pass each other in all new construction the Doorways are the the main limiter of that and usually a three-foot opening for Doorways is required for a wheelchair So I don't believe I don't know this if two next to one another can fit on five feet But usually within a building a three-foot door opening is required for so it sounds like it's probably not wide enough I'm just looking at the design the they don't show any telephone poles or utility poles and that those all going under the ground Yes, so one of the things that we have worked on in advance of this project coming for a building permit is working with ever source to Look to bury the power lines on spring and that's the development is paying for the cost of that correct and when when If those go underground is that part of the reason the transformer idea was coming to us So I'm wondering if the back of the building has enough space to put the transformer that they wanted to put above ground on the commons the Transformer For the building is not related to the common in any way the Upgrades to the system that I understand ever source wants to do as part of burying The power lines was the reason for the request that they made On the common but would it is there space behind the building for something six feet wide three feet six feet tall three feet wide Deep and five feet wide No, our transformer will be in the front yours yours will be in front of the building above ground correct So somewhere in this picture there will be a transformer correct So it will not be in the right in the town right away Right, so the the pictures the visuals. I'm looking at Aren't quite the way anything would look right now In terms of where that would be and I think you're telling me that there's not room behind the building To put something that's the system upgrade as a result of things going under the ground There's not enough like five feet behind the building before it comes up against the police station. Yeah, mr. Bachman Yes, I don't think The the location matters for where the transformer is so they're taking a transformer that's in front of Hastings and they wanted to upgrade that transformer In court to create a loop and So putting a transformer at so it wouldn't help it's it wouldn't be a good Location for right because the the need for the transformer is in front of Hastings or somewhere in that proximity Okay, because I thought it was related to them putting everything underground and now they need the extra capacity It's you know, it's my memory from the last time, you know, it's Okay Mr. Maureen to mr. Maureen place so What's going on with the petition you have from ever source is there's an existing Electrical utility system which runs down South Pleasant Street. There's a transformer. That's in front of Hastings It's underground if you're standing Hastings, you'll see the little access vents That transformer needs to be replaced so that they can then do a Loop over to tie into the Spring Street power right now Spring Street gets his power only from the east and it comes up the Spring Street and it stops after the Lord Jeff and the church over Here over there. Sorry at the church and what ever source wants to do is connect that power line to the line on South Pleasant Street, so they have a loop. So if something breaks in there, they'll get power from either direction So the transformer they want to replace as an existing transformer And it's needs to be in the Hastings area needs to be close to Hastings So they can continue to serve the line which runs up and down South Pleasant Street This is so that we're really talking two different transformers one is the transformer associated with the actual building The other one is the transform former associated with ever source. Yes, right? Yes, and if I may this project could proceed without the burial of the power lines While we're on the issue What will be the street lighting if we bury the pole if we get rid of the poles and the power lines? The street lighting currently is Street lights that were installed when Spring Street was regraded back in 05 2005 and 2006 So they were pulled off of the poles and our street lights that are in the grass median to the west and in the grass Median to the east and it's sufficient lighting for security and safety. Yes, I believe so Okay Yes, Dorothy I can't really tell from the drawings how much space there is on the sides of the building, but It seems kind of tight. How do you get rid of trash? Do you have dumpsters? Can a vehicle? service the building on that street Yes, all of all of that was reviewed by the planning board And approved and the trash comes out of the side of the building and out to the street Similar to the word Jeff across the street Alyssa so I don't know how to put this delicately I keep waiting for the light bulb to go off and I don't understand what we're being asked to do We have many beautiful pictures We have a drawing that shows that little accrue thing that has Nothing to do with any of these pictures. None of it's laid out as how it will look against any of these pictures I have no idea why I would make a decision about this based on the drawings We have and I wonder if there's another drawing that can be put up there That can kind of overlay and with the pointer or whatever. He doesn't have to be fancy But I'm sitting here looking at all of you going am I the only one who doesn't get what this looks like is I'm seeing a lot of beautiful pictures of the building and I'm totally fine with all the work the planning board already did I'm just not understanding what this drop-off is gonna look like I'm seeing a yellow stripe in front of a vacant lot That's not telling me anything The question is what where is the drop-off in relationship to the pictures we see of the building? I mean we see this This example a Frontage picture Yes, so I should note that the the applicant submitted the things that you were just looking at this additional Documentation was put into your packet at the request of one of the council members. Yes, so they did not submit these These are grabbed from a different permitting process. Okay You can see the stairs going up Middle there go back to the plan and you'll see those stairs and Right there and I and the drop-off is where the golden area is on the schematic design So what's missing then I guess we're being asked to just allow Restriping of the street is it with some signage that it's a loading zone. Is that essentially what we would vote to do? Yes, so the planning board said in disability access commission said we'd like there to be a drop-off area in front of your building They can't tell them as Steve said they can't tell them to do that And they but they said go ask the town council if you can do that because that would we would like that to happen So they're here before you to say we'd like we've been asked to ask you To put this loading zone in front of the building and so that's why they're here and again It's not a condition of their permit, but they they have to a court condition of their permit is that they have to ask you Okay, got it. Yes Dorothy So if it's marked as a loading zone, then it's not an uber zone. Is that right? I Think the conversations in front of the planning board were related to how could you combine those uses? In one location it's for a Vehicle to stop and either take on or drop off passengers and is it in an accessible manner in an accessible manner correct and then am I looking at the This picture that we have up here is the accessible Accessibility to the building all the way on the far right The accessibility would be approximately from the stair in that stone wall to the end of the rendering Okay, and and probably the best image is Unfortunately, we have not redrawn the the rendering on the existing photograph with that second this image here As you can see it's it's hard even in a photograph to discern the very minimal slopes that will be a part of this Area so and it's effectively almost in the exact same location as the current So another alternative would be you know, we don't want a loading area We'd like it to all be parking and we'd like the Sidewalk to remain at the five or six inches that it is all the way across the site And that's obviously another option. That's that's available and if that's the case. However, there's Really no change in what we presently have There would be a change because it is currently kind of accessible But there would not be a change from From a standard curb installation in front of the building Okay, and they then the accessibility would be at the end of block because it's accessible at boltwood the corner of But wouldn't spring and it's accessible at the corner of Spring and Churchill and so rather than having that be the only accessibility Options the request was can we make it closer? And we said yes, and then we had to come before the keeper of the public way to make have that discussion Listen, so I'm still not seeing how that yellow thing goes up some stairs to be accessible And somebody was talking about to the right to the left. Please help me out here What are we talking about go over a bicyclist go over those plantings because if you're dropping off Then you're not sent. Are you sending right or left? So there's there's two there's two Public spaces in this building that meet the street The lobby is on the right and you can see The lobby entrance there is on the right and it's fully accessible as all New buildings are required to be and then there's a ramp to the left Which is just off this rendering that ramps all the way up and this is a cafe. That's on the first floor That is also fully accessible. So the entire building would be fully accessible from the sidewalk That so the yellow thing we have not updated this rendering But the yellow thing would be it would be a slight slope right in the middle between the two bikers there and there would be a Drop-off with any striping and signage that was deemed appropriate or correct or come from Churchill or come from boltwood or Anywhere else on the public sidewalk out off the site They can do that now So I'm saying if it's gonna be an advantage then it doesn't need to drop off to stairs because that's not an advantage It needs to drop off close to one of those ramps. Otherwise, just go to the corners. What's the difference? Well, I think that the I think the intent was to try to make it work with the existing parking and the existing site and At that point it was undetermined whether or not the Ability to bury the power lines was going to be an option And so we couldn't have proposed it in one of the little Kirby things around the poles that were left over in The street when the town and Amherst college did the all the all the work to regrade the street So it was proposed in the middle of the site so that if the people getting dropped off were going to the cafe They could go to the left if they were going to the apartments They were going to the right and the stairs weren't were not considered because obviously they're not accessible There are second means of access Okay, shall any I? Think this is for Paul from this smart street perspective Is there something we need to be complying with in terms of the sidewalks or? Anything pertaining to that Well smart street is a different or complete streets I think you might be thinking about it's a totally different thing in terms of when you reconstruct a road This is simply Designating a parking location on the street as a drop-off area and whether you would like to see that or if you would like not like to see that So that yeah, I don't think this complete streets would apply to this Are there additional questions from the council? Yes, Evan? So I want to make sure a little closer than expected I want to make sure I'm understanding the debate that we're having so right now there is no parking space there So if we designate this as a drop-off, we don't lose a parking space Right pretty much nothing changes as far as usability of that Physical space if we decide we don't want one there we have the potential to gain a paid parking space And so the decision before us Regardless of all this other conversation we seem to be having is do we want to gain a parking space? Or do we want to keep it as is and designated at a successful drop-off? That's my understanding of the decision we have before us It is not mine Okay, the request before us is that as they Do this construction? Will we accept the fact that they're going to do a drop-off accessible drop-off area in the right-of-way right now? It is actually accessible because of a quirk But is it going to stay that way or are we going to gain a parking space? So that's what you've said, right? Okay Steve. So Now this is a question, but We should also be clear that this is not just for this building, right? So this could be this will not be signed Just for your building correct. Yeah, that's correct Okay Additional questions Darcy My understanding that there there's no parking in the building. Is that correct correct? So it would seem like this would make sense because they're going to be a lot of people living in that building who May not have cars So they might need to be dropped off So more of a need for this building than say other buildings Okay, Dorothy Well, I don't see that we gain a space if you don't use the existing Driveway for where there was a road that could become a parking space. I think it I think the number of parking spaces stays the same The question is Is this going to be accessible and I guess the thing that worries me the most is that I think the sidewalks Seem to be not quite wide enough I'm assuming that however that the planning board has dealt with that issue Well, the the sidewalks are Matching the existing sidewalks that are there on both sides and are they to the standards of the code of the town? Looking at the chair of their planning board. These are these are these are the sidewalks at the town installed in 0506 Okay. Thank you Are there other questions? Yes, Mandy jump. I don't have a question I just I'm concerned that it's not long enough to make it easily Usable as a drop-off pick-up area and we'll still end up with double parking even though there's a big wide space there that can't be used so I I think we're gonna try and refer this maybe tonight if so I would love to Have someone figure out maybe what length is logical for an actual Pull in pull out without having to back up and Essentially parallel park Okay, the options before the council are either to approve this or to refer to CRC And yes, Steve. I think there's a really important step here, which if you read the condition that The they can't get a billing permit until they've gone through this process So I think we need to acknowledge that it has been submitted to the town council so that they can get there You know get their billing permit a lot of this Conversation We're really kind of talking about paint, right? So there's going to be a big construction Site here, you know assuming that you get your billing permit Though this will be a big construction site So I'm wondering if we can't actually have this discussion sort of further in the construction process where there's an actual You know a building to look at because the sidewalk will get damaged there will be a lot of work Well, I guess that's an open question also But there will be a lot of movement across the sidewalk for the construction of the building So do we have to decide this right now or can we? the my understanding is That because of the way this was set up in order to get the permit we have to resolve this issue They will be coming back to us as As they move into construction asking for use of the public way for the purposes of Construction that won't be a permanent use of the public way, but it will be a long-term use of the public way So there is a separate request, but I'm understanding that this request stands between Them and a building permit mr. Backelman The way the condition reads is that the drawing has to be submitted to the to the select board It doesn't say you have to approve it or not approve it It just says they have to submit it and then bring it and meet with you if that's the condition It was check looking at the planning board chair So so we don't need to vote they fulfilled their requirement for this condition Okay However the question is whether or not the council would like to vote I just want to say this is the first time the whole issue of Planning zoning and construction has come to the council Okay, so we're still figuring out what is our role and what is the role of planning and zoning and we appreciate your patients and helping us do that education for ourselves Well, and if I may I think that the the process of the planning board which reviews all of this that then seeks some improvements outside of the bounds of the planning board Seems to work well because then those improvements can outside of the building itself come before the town council now And the town council could shift in priorities from the time the the building is approved till the time it's constructed and Things like the power lines, which could now be buried which could get rid of the little Concrete curb things and could end up Restriping the parking all the way from the Greenway at Grace Church all the way to the east at Churchill could result in Additional parking spaces or the town could decide it's all street trees or the town could decide it's all bike parking or Things outside of the bounds of the project itself, and I think that works well So when the request was made could you show us what drop-off would look like? We said sure and we submitted that with the understanding that we would come before the select board and now town council at some point and begin this conversation and I think as the town manager said I don't think the intent is to resolve all that because there's a lot of other questions that that that have That relate to things outside of the project itself that still need to be resolved and may take months to resolve right so Paul it seems to me that this is really not an action item Well at some point you do have to make a decision about it So I think referral to CRs are we standing between them in a permit? No, okay because if you read the condition It says must submit doesn't say must submit and receive approval Because they couldn't require that okay that way we're having this conversation before the building is complete rather than After it's complete So Yeah Understand that any other comments from the council. Yes Steve. So if we do nothing or if we vote this down Then what happens we get a parking space, but then who who does the drawing showing the Yeah, I think we'd like to work with you to come up with the right solution Whatever that is if it's determined that this should be two street trees or a drop-off area or additional parking We would do that drawing Okay Any other questions or comments at this time we did list this as having public comment I understand we have at least one person who would like to comment Please come forward Don't go away guys Thank you. Good evening. Um, I would like to echo counselor Hanna keys and counselor D'Angelo's is concerned of How wide the parking area is obviously we can see this schematic design isn't completely accurate on how wide the street is itself but if We're gonna have a bus pull in there or like a handicapped school bus For dropping a handicapped student off or if we're gonna end up having a line of cars and all the parking spaces are full then the vehicles are gonna be lining up in the street and that's gonna create a line of sight hazard as You drive around those vehicles and would this being right next to the police department if they're trying to respond to an Emergency through that line of vehicles. It's gonna create a lot more difficulty for them as well as residents trying to drive up that street when you have a bus that's poking it's rear-end out into traffic or having a line of vehicles sort of using the street as a temporary parking area to line up So I just want us to Consider this concern as we move forward. Thank you Thank you for your comment. Are there any other comments on this at this time? Public comment. Oh there back to the council. Alyssa So if we end up referring this or we just agree to it now with the idea that somehow we'll see it again magically Anyway, is I don't I know I'm not I am in some fashion. I suppose responding to public comment I don't believe there was ever any intention that this was going to be long enough for any type of school bus of any kind that this Was only a car length car And so if it was to be a handicap accessible van that is by its nature even a little more difficult to parallel park Then I would something I would want the Body we refer this to to work on a little bit more because that seems like a logical thing that might be doing drop Off is one of those oversized vans But not we would not at this point We've never discussed the idea of it being a bus of any kind whether it's PVTA or another bus But I do appreciate the idea of someone in a wheelchair that may be in a specially equipped van that isn't just a van that has special controls Okay So we have a couple options We can either approve this we can refer it or we can just say thank you for filing Your request with us Is there a wish of the council? Very Andy Andy Joe, I'd move to refer to CRC for I guess relooking at the whole street for Restriping and length of drop-off and all of that Is there a second? We have a motion. This is to refer the proposal by our Capello go investments To the community resource committee with a report back to the town council on a date that will identify Is there yes? So the motion was far more specific than that We're actually asking not just for a report on this drop-off but on the entire street I think that that lane of street needs looked at if we're going to be looking at one drop-off area. Yes Okay, so Would you like to? Word the motion the way you want it then to refer Oh, I'm sorry for your jaw at the motions Move to refer the proposal by archipelago investments and the entire spring the Spring Street Northside parking from Boltwood to Church Hill To the community resources committee with a report to town council by What we got 45 days so? Whatever that is Under the rules that brings us back to the council for October 21st is there a second I would second it with the addition of with new up-to-date drawings Okay, is there and that's an acceptable friendly amendment That's fine. It would have to come back with drawings. All right the motion has been made in second Who would like to speak to the motion anybody or comments about the motion? Yes, Evan this motion has inherent within it the requirement that they Submit within the next 45 days updated drawings to CRC Based on us based on CRC study of an entire street Striping that might change what those drawings would look like I guess my thought on the drawings is you'd have to produce a drawing of Spring Street from Boltwood to Church Hill showing where the new striping would be and what the proposal for all of that Striping and drop-off zone would be that's my thought on the drawings. I don't know what Dorothy's was so not Necessarily archipelago submitting the drawings, but DPW working with CRC to come up with the new striping design, right? I'd like to recognize Guilford morning just a Guilford morning superintendent public works just to kind of You're being very Detailed what you're asking for and what's going on is probably a little less detailed than you think Archipelago has talked about treat street trees has talked about drop-off zones about adding parking Maybe you just want a concept not a fully fledged workout drawing of the whole street But a concept of what can be there, you know If we actually change the spacing and the if we get rid of the power lines We can change the spacing you have this mace Parking spaces or you can have this many parking spaces and maybe two tree planters or you can have the drop-off area Or maybe you can have a larger drop-off area That's you're really asking for a concept not hard fast drawings And that's kind of how I would propose and yes We can take the plans we have and what aqua archipelago has and we can put together something that actually works And you can show you some different things Yes, that's what I want so this is referral to produce. Yes, so would you please read the motion to refer the proposal by Archipelago investments and the strip spring street north side parking from boltwood avenue to Churchill Street to the community Resources committee with a report to the council with updated drawings on October 21 Can we just add in the word conceptual? drawings Thank you Steve October 21 seems a tiny bit ambitious and I know that the report can be that we're still working on it But I wonder if we should have a more realistic just because the CRC itself meets two more times, right? And you won't be meeting during because there's a holiday holiday, right? so maybe But before the end of the year or as long as it's not holding up their permit And I'm hearing that it's not yes Yeah, I don't see why CRC can't have an additional meeting. I think that we're not meeting enough and we Need to get going. We have a lot on our plate So it might be that you we we certainly can say November sometime in Consistent with our meeting schedule. So it would be Here we get into it. We meet on October 7th. We meet on October 21st We are holding October 28th as a tentative. We are not meeting again then until November 18th because of the combination of elections and And veterans stay exactly so November 18th I'd be okay with that. Okay. All right. Yes, we could move as quickly as is Appropriate and also this work is going to be some of the very last work that happens on the project So from a construction standpoint, there's there's time before Decisions are made on procuring whatever needed to procure to do that But for a concept plan, we could have that by the end of this week if needed Okay, and if if it comes back to the council earlier, that's perfectly fine. I can always move it up on the agenda Alyssa I just wanted to say quickly that since I know we have so many experts of various types at the table I want something that looks something like that, but with something in front of it I want it to show a resemblance of the building and some some concepts in front of it not Things like our delightful drawings here that are greatly detailed, but are not going to help me figure that out So thank you for it doesn't have to be fancy, but it does have to show a real building and an idea in front Tell your bikers to wear helmets Okay, so yes Trash pickup and all of that is that going to go around the side of the building or are you going to be on the street picking that up? Yeah, that's that blocks half the street. Yeah, we discussed all that and planning board and it's in the building It's in the trash storage is in the building for pick and and that was settled with the planning board Which is where it is appropriate. So we have a motion before us. Are there any other comments? You want to try reading that emotion again? To refer the proposal by archipelago investments and the spring Street northside parking from boltwood Avenue to Churchill Street To the community resources committee with a report to the council with updated conceptual drawings on November 18 2018 Okay, we have a motion and a second. Are there any further conversations? Then all those in favor raise your hand and say aye opposed Abstain believe it was 13 for none against and none abstain we thank you for working with us Thank you for helping to educate us as well. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Our next item is regarding the school bus and I think Sonya you're you're doing the school bus Sonya Aldrich Comptroller, and I'm here stepping in some very big shoes for Sean and gonna know to explain the school bus the best I can and so the proposal if We could briefly review it is to Put together some funds that already exist and aggregate them They've already been appropriated for something we can aggregate them and then spend them correct we have Repurposed capital for this bus it became an urgent issue when one of the when the backup bus Engine blue and it was going to cost thirty thousand dollars to replace an engine in an almost ten-year-old bus so the facilities director Went to the finance director shaman gunna and asked if there was any way that he could use some of this capital that's used for maintenance of the bus and For repairs of the bus and Some other vehicles if he could use some of that to buy a new bus rather than to try to do repairs to an old bus So they would move the new bus into the rotation and one of the older buses would come down to as a spare And we do have old capital It's still capital that would have been used it would have been used to pay the $30,000 to have the bus fixed and everything we are just repurposing this and I just We could have used we could have bought the bus and just paid the capital with the existing lines because it falls within the purview of a Lot of the articles there we brought it to we wanted to bring it to the council because it's such a large Purchase that we wanted to be as transparent as possible. So we had the funding to buy the bus We just wanted to put it on one article and do it this way And it's off-cycle with the normal it's out there. Yes. Yeah Okay, so the question and the motion before us if you will is To adopt appropriation and Transfer order FY 20 dash 25 in order appropriating funds for a new For a new school bus as recommended by the Finance Committee report dated September 6th 2019 I'm not going to ask for the motion yet, but I am going to ask Andy to report on the Finance Committee the Finance Committee Report was very brief as you note because I think that we were principally looking at the question of what funds are available and What would be the consequence of spending of acquiring more funds for the purchase? As you note on the listing, there's essentially $91,000 and $518 that is available as Sonya has indicated by repurposing previously appropriated unspent funds If we were to go to a More expensive bus such as an electric bus Then we would be in requirement that we allocate additional funds from some source and It does increase capital expenditure for this particular item if it was to come out of FY 21 capital purchase requests it would essentially be in competition With our Continuing effort to do something about roads and sidewalks. So that's just something that to bear in mind. I think the only other thing that I'll add right now and I'll Only I'll add more if there's questions that need response but The question came up about diesel and the mr. Mangano had indicated that the anticipation was that It would be a gasoline bus not a diesel bus Okay, and the estimated cost of that D of that gas bus is $90,000 correct Is there any other information at this point? Yes, there was a new memo that Shawn and gano and Rupert put together today that had some comparisons Prices of what an electric bus would cost versus the gasoline or the diesel buses Also, there was questions about hybrids and they've gone to a couple of different vendors to see if there are hybrids available in this area for that and There are none at the time at this time Everybody's concentrating on electric buses right now We also checked the state bid list to see if there was anything out there for Massachusetts and there was Electric and gasoline and diesel there were no hybrids on that and this memo also addresses the availability of grant funds and other considerations, right Everyone that works for the town is very good at looking looking for grants and other ways to Pay for these things. This is an urgent Purchase that's why we're doing it out of old capital. The need Is really is they want tried wanted to try to get this going as soon as possible because it takes time to get the bus out There so okay Other yes, Evan So I just want to make sure I'm clear in a couple things and first of all is minor sending from what you said that because this is Just repurposing Existing funds you actually didn't need council approval for this but decided to come to the council anyway Oh, maybe I shouldn't even have brought that up But yeah old capital the way capital is is voted for for the town and has been for many years is in a one article For capital so as long as you've got the list of all those items that were voted in that year You can if one project costs less, but another project went over. It's it's practice it's acceptable practice to use What's in one line item to cover the item that went over? So in theory This isn't necessary. It's a step that you all chose to do. Yeah, we chose to and so then my understanding is If we chose to go for a bus such as one of these listed here that is above 91,000 that would be a new appropriation because it goes beyond and then it would trigger 5.6. Is that correct? Yes 5.6 of the Charter. Oh, okay. Thank you That's correct and this and Regarding what we are looking at now. We're not triggering that Okay, so Darcy Are we having general discussion now? Yes, I Think that you all saw the the sample motion that I passed out. I watched the finance the joint finance JCPC meeting and Felt that Basically that there wasn't enough time at the meeting on Friday to really get deeply into some of these questions the committee only had an hour for the actual finance committee part of the meeting and as You can see on this list that I handed out I have 15 questions that go to the cost comparison between electric vehicles and Gas powered vehicles and I think that it's really important for the finance committee to look at How we could potentially save money? By purchasing an electric vehicle, which is pretty clear if you look at the data That over the long run the fact that electric vehicles Don't use gas You say you have a huge huge savings on the fact that you don't use gas and the other savings is the fact that you do not have very much maintenance at all and For those of us who own electric vehicles We really get that because you know, I've had an electric vehicle for five years No maintenance. You don't have to tune it up You know oil changes. You don't have to replace all those parts that that you need to do in an internal combustion engine vehicle and It makes a massive Difference Obviously, it's it's a big stretch to come up with This amount of money Up front for bus, but I think it's really incumbent upon Someone it seemed to me the finance committee to send it back to the finance committee to reconsider All of these different issues because it is actually really clear that over the long run You save money with an electric vehicle So All of these different questions, I think really need to be answered and I did Struggle with who should answer them or where it should be referred to my my first thought was that it should be referred to the ECAC because it's in the ECAC's charge and I think at least in the future We should Think about Sending these kinds of issues to the ECAC. I'm not completely sure that it's ready right now To be able to handle individual substantive issues because we're working on goals and Our outreach in coming back to the council with those goals But I think that we need to keep in mind that we have the 100% renewable resolution we are Transitioning to a more sustainable town. We're in all ways moving from fossil fuels to clean energy electrifying all of our different sectors and We have to figure out when is going to be the cutoff time When are we going to stop having one offs? When are we actually going to be Making a commitment to Moving forward with making all of our purchases all our procurement everything that we're doing in transportation buildings across the board sustainable So I'm interested in hearing from other people If you agree that these are questions that are really valuable to answer Or does it make sense to refer it to the back to the finance committee? Should we be referring it somewhere else? and Yeah, I'm interested in finding out what you think about this. I Understand that there's a time a time question and I think that that's something that we could try to get the answers for Quickly Dorothy Um, what is concerning me is not whether an electric bus is better for the environment or for the students in terms of pollution Nor the cost of running and and The bus I'm very worried about what's written at the bottom of the sheet here I Think that we do want to have electric buses, but it sounds to me that the electric school buses right now Lacks some things that we need so I think we should be moving forward to buying an electric bus in the future But I think that's it has to be better because it says it doesn't have enough range to be used on field trips or for athletic trips and because of that it can't it can only be used for certain things and it would Eliminate the needed resiliency that redundant buses provide so you would think you maybe we'd have to buy an electric bus and a gas engine bus Because right now According to this the electric bus cannot meet some of the needs that the school has and I know from you know I'm driving a hybrid now. I know that the car science is getting much much better It sounds seems to me that electric school buses aren't quite There yet. I want to get to some other questions Shelley You had your hand up. I Did but I was wondering if Darcy wanted to respond to that and then I can come in with the next question Okay, other other questions along this line Darcy We already the majority of our school buses are now gas powered So if we have field trips, we can use the gas powered buses If there's a need to have a longer range I think the day-to-day range is not going to exceed 70 or 80 miles on a on a regular day of school bus driving But what they're saying here is it means that if some of the gas buses Need to be repaired. They can't necessarily put the electric bus into replace them for some things that So it would seem to me that we could be buying a new gas bus and a new electric bus other additional comments Shalini I Feel like it would be If there's a way to anticipate, you know all the buildings and vehicles and all the other areas That the ECAC committee could look start looking so that it's not when we're in emergency that we start You know asking these questions, but could we identify the grants or like have that committee really start looking at it in a very serious way that what are the options we have across the board for buildings and vehicles and Schools libraries what you know what are some grants out there and what are best practices for that? So are you saying not for this but in the long run? Yeah? Okay Are there additional comments? Yes, George Dursy raises I think important questions, but these are difficult questions I don't believe they can be answered that quickly meantime. We need a bus. We have the money for the bus And there is the issue of range So I hope that these questions will be addressed and perhaps in the long term We can come up with a a plan that will begin to move us in the right direction but right now we need a bus and we have the money for the bus and The questions that Dorsey Dorsey is raising cannot I think be answered in in a short time that we have So I would think that this is something we should go ahead and do Are there other yes, Alyssa? I think it's entirely appropriate for following up on what Shalini said with ECAC to look at the upcoming capital plan and say Oh, this is the next time we're doing a bus Well, maybe not this one but this one's definitely going to be electric and this thing will be electric and that should be part of the capital planning process and We should start now in terms of like where do we draw that line in terms of that question? But with this emergency and with it potentially costing three times more at this time then the Emergency bus that seems like it would serve all the needs that we needed to serve for right now The line's not yet, but I would argue for the upcoming capital plan. It should be it should be clearly laid out in the upcoming capital plan When it is that we are going to start doing this as a serious investment on a regular basis Even though it costs more up front because of the payback cost, but on an emergency basis And I don't want us to get into another emergency, which is why I'm saying plan it into the next capital plan Emergencies always arise, but at least start planning it in Additional comments at this time. Yes, Mandy John I don't know whether Darcy's gonna make her motion or not if she did I would support it We need to start figuring out When it's worth spending the extra capital To save on the operational costs and right now. Yes, three times as much sounds crazy But if over the course of 16 or 20 years or however long that bus is gonna last it's gonna save us Another 200 or 300,000 then it's not so crazy and To not ask for the information to figure out whether It would be why a wise spending of our money now to save over 20 years a certain amount of money Why why wouldn't we just say why don't we want that in I think we want that information Which way is it more logical to spend our money? You know, that's that's what the 100% renewable Zero energy know the zero energy bylaw is saying with capital buildings when we build a big building Spend the money now to save the operating over the course of the life of the building This is that in smaller terms yet. We don't know whether it would save it Darcy seems to think it would I I don't know. I think it a lot depends on the price of gas and the price of electric But the maintenance certainly does get saved, but we don't know how much it would save so we can't make a Educated decision without the information. So I think Whether or not she makes the motion whether or not that motion may or may not succeed I think our finance committee in the future when they're looking at this Stuff like this where it is shouldn't ask for just the purchase price difference needs to ask for the operational cost difference too And so I urge no matter what happens with what Darcy wants our finance committee to going forward Always seek the operational cost differences also so that we can have the information to make an educated choice Are there additional comments? Yes, Evan So I have two questions and potentially a comment based on the answer to the second question first question is Following up a little bit. I want many Joe said I don't know what the average lifespan of a school bus is This one that we're looking to replace it says is approximately 10 years old We're not gonna get that answer tonight. Yeah I don't either what most vehicles are like five to ten years So I don't know it's different with an electric bus. I haven't done the research. I believe electric is 15 Again, we're not going to get definitive answers to these questions tonight And I do not want to spend the council's time on that either we go ahead with this bus Are we go ahead with a different motion and get more information? Evan I guess my second question being That we have ninety one point five thousand dollars available and the lowest estimate on this sheet is three hundred twenty five That leaves about two hundred and thirty thousand dollars If the finance committee came back and said that they did want an electric bus That would have to be an additional appropriation would that come from free cash stabilization fund? Yes, and so I think that's so here's my comment then so that's I think my concern is I you know So in January we took two hundred and twelve thousand out of stabilization for station road bridge We're possibly about to take another three hundred thousand out for Hickory Ridge And then if we were to take another two hundred and thirty out Potentially for this these are pretty significant draws from our stabilization fund at a time when I think we're looking to sort of Maintain it as we go into these major capital projects and so I think I support the idea of Having a plan to start transitioning our fleet off of fossil fuels But I think the key word that some people have brought up has been a Plan and it built into a capital plan and built into Something going forward. I would be really worried about having this have to pull from stabilization instead of looking at it And part in a larger context of our capital purchases in the future So I agree with Mandy Joe. I think these questions need to be answered I don't think they need to be answered right now because I don't think that the answer should necessarily Effect the purchase of this vehicle given the time constraints and given our current funding ability But I do think that ECAC working with finance working with capital Should be a part of this conversation going forward to figure out how we can do this won't so we can actually plan for the Funding but I really hate to see us pull You know eight hundred thousand dollars out of stabilization just this year for some of these things that keep popping up Mr. Brockman. Thank you So the only reason this request is before you is because it's an emergency If the bus that they had been using had not failed This would have gone through the normal capital process and the you know the department would have presented JCP PC would have engaged in the conversation and there is a plan of action You know on that, you know the on the vehicle replacement program that we have So the only reason is before you is because the school department determined that they had a bus that was taken out of service It was going to cost thirty thousand dollars to repair It seemed to make more sense to them to spend 75 90 thousand dollars to get a new bus versus repair the bus So I think that that's that's the logic of this and why it's why it's a standalone thing It's because it's they feel that they need a new bus before they get into the winter season for resiliency Very redundancy Darcy I just wanted to to answer Evan in the just saying that we don't have to necessarily take the funds from the stabilization fund one of the questions here on the list is about looking into To grant funding and I know that you have looked at that somewhat. Oh, but one thing I haven't heard about is the VW settlement funds that are available in Massachusetts through more a Healy's office There is supposed to be 75 million dollars specifically set aside for electric vehicle Electric vehicles and she wants to transition all electric vehicles including buses To electric by 2030 so We that's one of the things that I would like to be looked at I have a finance committee and I would like to make a motion All right Please go ahead and make your motion. I Move to refer the matter of the purchase of the school bus back to the finance committee for Reconsideration so that it may obtain the answers to additional questions about the cost comparison between the purchase of a gas or diesel powered school bus and electric school bus and other relevant questions including but not limited to Do I need to read all of them? No, you do know we all we all have the list here So they're 15 questions. So the motion has been made. Is there a second? Okay, any further discussion on this particular motion? Let me just say that this motion puts many of us in an awkward position I'll speak for myself. It's not that I don't think we should answer these questions I just don't think we can answer them in time to Resolve this problem at this time. I definitely want to see these questions answered I don't even know how many school buses we own. I know we rent buses I've never studied the school bus situation for the town of Amherst and the regional school district This requires a whole lot more information in addition to that having spent Close to 50 years of my life in a grant and contract world. They don't show up fast They may not have the funding cycle right now. They may not award for another six months to a year This is something where we need a bus now So I totally support getting the answers to all these questions But I personally cannot support your motion I'm just reading an article written by Scott actually about an electric bus that we bought in Amherst And it does have a number for the savings. So maybe we can answer one of the questions I don't want to get into trying to answer the questions tonight at the council, okay? But just if anyone's curious, it's $96,000 and 14,000 reduction in repairs. So we still, you know Over and this is over a decade the savings would be. So just if anyone was curious But I still do agree that we do have an emergency and we have not planned for this huge expenditure. So We as a as a council, we are very committed and would should be planning and thinking about it It's not it's an issue not just for ECAC but for finance committee and for JCPC where most of those large capital Expenditures on equipment actually are discussed in full Are there other conversations about this particular motion? Kathy, I don't know enough. I don't understand enough about how we amend motions if you In agreeing concept that we should be thinking this way. I mean my preference would be This one goes because it's coming to us as an emergency and we have the money But that no other bus should come to us this way Without this type of analysis and I would like to see I mean Darcy's got a list here But my is it if we need a mix a fleet with the mix do we need? Three electrics and five it's said I don't know how many buses we have which what's the mix look like? So it's not just what next year's bus might be in the capital plan But I'd like a five or ten-year plan if we can rent a bus Can we eat someone you just threw up? We can rent a bus then we don't have to buy a bus right now So I I voted on this in finance because it seemed like a really good idea But now I'm the extent to which I don't have information is quite large if This one can be purchased and there's one available to buy and I'm looking at price tags that actually say $75,000 for a gasoline bus so could we buy it cheaper than 91? I mean it feels like we're in this We have some information. It's an emergency and can we make a Referral back be the next bus has to come in with this kind of information and we need a plan Rather than each time because there will be another emergency. Otherwise, we'll we'll do this same thing again So I don't see quite how out of the concept that we want this information and we would prefer not making this decision without it without a With with us hearing the kids won't have a bus to get on And we can't get a grant. I know that quickly. So that's where I don't know how to amend It to have this not fall on the floor, but have this be an action plan. I Would suggest that we not try to mix the two motions That if you want a motion to buy the bus we buy the bus if you want a motion that Questions like this in the future be answered for capital plans. That's a separate motion And is do I say and for emergencies? We want these questions because if it this is this is the issue That's coming up. This didn't come to us. I think that the question we have a motion on the floor That would refer this back to CRC with I mean I'm sorry finance with a number of questions and the option of adding even more It says including but not limited to more questions that would lead to then a Purchase of a bus at some point when all of these questions have been satisfactorily answered We can either approve this motion and move on or we can Defeat the motion and go back to the original purchase motion and then come back to this and do something that says As you go forward ECAC and as you go forward finance and as you go forward JCPC these are the kinds of in pieces of information we want to make sure you have when we make capital decisions Yes, Darcy and I also think we need to think about like each time the town comes to us with a request to Purchase something that's powered by fossil fuels on an emergency basis, whether it's a boiler or whatever it is that We want to have a cutoff time where From that time on we are going to be transitioning to Non-fossil fuel so that so that that that we're not going to have one off after one off after one off after one off that our urgent These I hear you and I think there's some merit to that I'm not sure we can always adhere to it But I don't want to mix the two items right now We have before us whether we refer this bus purchase back to CRC to answer all of these questions I mean finance. I'm sorry to answer all of these questions or Good or We go forward we defeat this and then go back to whether we purchase the bus So I'm going to call the question the question is on the motion I move to refer the matter of purchase of a school bus back to the finance committee for Reconsideration so that it may obtain the answers to additional questions about the cost comparison between the purchase of a gas or diesel powered school bus and an electric school bus and Other relevant questions including but not limited to the 15 or so questions listed here all those in favor raise your hand and say I Opposed Upstain we're we're down one counselor Okay, did you get all the eyes and the final vote is three in favor eight against and one abstention Okay, all right, so let's go back to the original motion that was on the sheet which I thought you all Downloaded but I guess not and that is to adopt appropriation and transfer order FY 20-25 and order appropriating funds for new school bus as recommended by the finance committee report dated September 6th 2019 is There a second to the motion second Any further discussion at this time? I move to postpone Think she's using her right to postpone Okay under the charter and hopes that the finance committee will still look at those questions No, you cannot you can move to postpone, but you can't put conditions on the postponement Yes, mr. Bachman, I think we need to look at Robert's rules of orders because there's a motion made and seconded And I'm not sure if that has that action has to occur before the right to postpone I think we if you could take a recess so we could examine that. Thank you Let's take a recess anyway. All right, are we ready to reconvene? We're missing one, but I think she She's on her way. Okay. Hi, Alyssa We're ready to reconvene. Okay, according to section 2.10 See in fact this is all Discussion ceases and this will be referred to the next meeting of the town council We are meeting as a town council on September 17th at 6 o'clock p.m. We're meeting jointly with the school committee. I Will be posting a meeting for 5 30 that night for consideration of this question Otherwise it would be referred back to our retreat or not until the 23rd There's no further discussion or debate at this time based on the action okay Moving on we're going to Look at the town manager contract You've received this and then there was a slight need for adjustments to make sure all the dates coincided So you received a second option. This is the option you looked at an executive session It has since been reviewed by the town attorney human resources Paul Backelman Myself and Mandy Johanna key. So all the council has seen it. I'll be it was for a short time It is very consistent with the previous contract and has got pretty much the standard stuff that's in it So are there questions at this time? Yes, Alyssa beyond the fact that we apparently have no public who are interested in speaking to this issue I feel that it's necessary for the president to give a one or two sentence description of How we got to this point because otherwise it looks pro forma that we're just voting in public And so a little bit about more about the contractor about the fact that we had exact session though Thank you. So as Many people know we have had an extensive calendar that began way back in June asking for public input Input from staff and then required input from every one of the 13 town councillors all of that was completed at various deadlines throughout the summer and the town councillors provided me with all of their comments by August 6th and On August 6th I began compiling the draft that you saw of the review of the town manager's Evaluation the final copy of that is in your packet and has now been posted To the website regarding the town manager's evaluation That read that document was reviewed once on August 19th and again on August 26th based on that at the night of the August 26th the town council went into executive session and Discussed among ourselves the compensation Package as well as the renewal of contract with the town manager We then Concluded the evening and did not come back into public session. This is the first time we have been back in public session so What we did do however was Look at a variety of information regarding comparables. We looked at the draft of a contract we looked at the previous contract and We settled on the following main features in this new contract one is to extend the contract until until August 31st 2023 the second was to offer mr. Bachman a Cost of living of two percent plus a three percent based on performance All the rest of the conditions of the contract remain the same as they have been Which include a car allowance and allowance for cell phone and a payment towards his individually held Disability policy Basically the contract you therefore have before you was taken out of that executive session and Done and completed and then went through these various reviews Including the town attorney the Human resource director mr. Bachman myself and Mandy Jo Hanneke Are there questions? Yes, I just have a few questions about benefits. I don't always understand what's written so on Vacation days it says it can be Up to 50 days, which is like two years At the end of any calendar year. Does that mean that when he Retires or takes another job He can get paid for 50 vacation days that he didn't use but no more that is correct Okay, and that is by the way consistent with the personnel policy of the town Okay, and then on I don't understand what it means six sick leave a cruise without limit And there's no buyback of unused sick time. I don't in other words it back when you Retire you cannot cash in your sick leave That's all right different than For instance the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has had the practice of getting 20% of your sick leave, but they've actually rethought that policy and kept that and then the last thing just thinking of different places that I've worked There's and I don't know the right words sometimes there's a fund which the Institute has Where some of the pay is put in a tax deferred account of some sort That there's nothing like that in this one. Okay, there is no tax deferred annuity in this I in studying what other towns have done they do actually offer some tax deferred annuity options at this point that has not been the practice of the town of Amherst and although we discussed it briefly during preliminary conversations with The town manager that is not a direction that we've gone at this time He however can still do his own tax deferred right well sometimes there's even a small match. So yes other questions Yes, Kathy. I just Make it clear at least my understanding is when you went through the decisions we made that the increase in terms of wages was just this The current year increase that is not going to be that for each of the four years That is correct. We'll come back to each year at the beginning again by virtue of the charter and practice of the town We evaluate the town manager annually and based on that we set his compensation annually And then I had a question and I will admit I usually Read contracts really carefully, but I was pretty tired when we were looking at this At the last meeting so on Given the time and I was more focused on the pay side of it than all the clauses The the arrangement for severance here it goes up, you know, this is not for cause that would just end it but if As is highly unlikely Paul just doesn't have the kind of energy that he's got right now But some other reason we do nine months in year one ten in year two Eleven in year three and twelve in year four are there other town manager contracts that go out four years? I mean is this a it's it's a pretty generous I'm not talking about year one or year two, but it's pretty generous toward the end of this that you get a full year After we decide it's not working and I just had a question of comparables for the length of the contract not Not the beginning up not the first couple years. We actually started this Counting going up from where the previous contract was so the previous contract started at nine months or actually started at seven months probably and Then I'd have to look at previous contract to make sure it was six or seven and then we maxed it at 12 this contract My personal experience is that this is normal and the research that we looked at from other towns and our Consultation with our attorney that this is normal. It's also normal to cap it at 12 As I said, I don't know. I mean, I know I know Corporate there are a lot of golden pallet parachutes You know in terms of that they can be extraordinarily generous, but this this is a this is a generous policy Yes, are there other questions Dorothy pension is somewhere else Paul is automatically part of the state or the It's the town pension system, but it is identical to the state and I've not asked Paul how many years he has in that Shaken his head like maybe not enough He doesn't know As you know the state pension very much like that of New York in Massachusetts Years and years of service in age are the golden combination So you get to 80% and then they can't get any more So Okay, any other questions? So the motion that I would like someone to make is that in accordance with the Amherst home rule Charter and Mass General law chapter 41 section 108 and The town council enter into an employment agreement with Paul Bachman to serve as town manager For a four-year term commencing August 22nd 2019. Is there a motion? Dorothy I so move second Pat any further discussion or questions any public comment hearing none, and we're going to move the question and So all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye Opposed No, our absent at abstain. I'm sorry abstain and we have one absent So I've we've made three copies of this. There's a line on which we would like each of you to sign since I didn't want to do this myself and We'll pass it around. Okay so Why don't we start over with Alyssa and We'll fill in the dates and so forth as we go along Okay, policy and publication of candidate statements Yes, Alyssa when when the final version is signed actually I would prefer it not to be that fine Give me whatever but when we're finished with this We should put a readable pdf not an image of a pdf up on the website That shows it was and just right that it was signed on such and such date because otherwise We tend to put things in the scanner and then you know, they're just pictures They're not searchable and we should go ahead and put up the search thing on our town manager evaluation website. Okay. Thank you All right, so we're going to while we're each signing We're going to move on to the policy on publication of candidate statements and This is an in a recommendation coming out of GL so Mandy Joe So can we get this slide show? Thank you Athena While she's pulling that up. We were tasked with Coming up with a policy to conform with the Charter section 7.6 that requires Quote the town council shall establish a process compliant with state campaign and political finance laws for candidates Whose names will appear on the election ballot to publish statements regarding their candidacy on the town bulletin board and quote The council referred this to us on July 1. We are back with a draft policy for your consideration The expectation is that we won't vote on this till our next regular meeting on September 23rd GL has actually not voted on this proposed Policy yet. We've had a couple meetings with very few people and we were pushing it out to get it out for our first reading here For review and comments and all by now so that we could vote by September 23rd So that's why we haven't formally made a recommendation to you, but We came up with something That was included in your packet. It does a couple things one it defines what a candidate statement would be and That would include Essentially three things on the website on the town website would be the candidates name One URL that the candidate supplies hyperlinking oh let one hyperlink to some sort of URL that the candidate Supplies to a web page that is not the town web page I guess they could supply one that is on the town web page, but That they would supply that and that would be attached the hyperlink would be their name And then a statement that is text only that is no longer than 900 characters and those characters would include the spaces to So that's how we defined candidate statement We identified what offices this would apply to and we chose only local offices So town council school committee board of library trustees housing authority and the Oliver Smith will elect her It would not include offices for state or federal office and our election the next slide is We create a timeline for submitting and publishing this We would request that the town IT set up an actual online form for submitting the statements and so that's what this policy envisions and We would allow paper submissions if an individual requests a paper form So it would not have to be submitted online But that would certainly be the preferred method method Late submissions would still be published within five days of being submitted We have a deadline for submitting initially and that is so that then Most of them or whoever submitted by that deadline will all be published at the same time And so there won't be piecemeal unless you miss that deadline, but missing that deadline does not prohibit you from having a statement published We decided how the name order where we're proposing how the names would be listed on the website And and we are proposing essentially ballot order. So by office starting with town council And then however the offices are listed on the ballot and then from there how the names will be listed on the ballot That means the timeline we're proposing has that the website does not get initially published until after Name order is drawn by the Board of Registrar's and clerk's office And and that still allows Approximately a month and I'll show you that on the next slide, but we've got one more required disclaimer We will have a disclaimer on the website We envision working with IT and the town clerk to see how that would look But the goal is to have it shown anywhere and everywhere Can a state candidate statements are published this webpage could be potentially very long as you scroll you still want to see that disclaimer and we Put in the language then maximum visibility and so then here's a proposed This is what the timeline for this year would look like we recognize that this isn't quite allowable since we're seeking a vote on the 23rd and One of the dates is before the 23rd. So our motion would include Fixing that if we vote on the 23rd. So Nomination papers need filed by September 17th. So the town clerk would then email The URL for the online form on how you would submit it on the 18th to all candidates all Individuals who submitted and filed filed papers not just took out papers, but they had to file them Which means they get a URL before they're determined to have potentially determined to have filed enough signatures The deadline for withdrawing or filing objections to signatures is October 3rd The deadline to submit the form to the town to be on the first published day is October 3rd at 5 p.m. The town clerk would draw the names for the ballot on October 4th and the candidate submit Statements that were submitted by October 3rd at 5 p.m. Would go live on October 8th at 5 p.m And I put the last date of register and then candidates of statements submitted after October 3rd at 5 p.m Would be added to the bulletin board within five days of being Business days of being submitted. So that's a proposed timeline Only candidates whose names are on the ballot are included that is a charter and so we stuck with the charter we did not expand out from the charter on that and The reason we picked a deadline for publishing or going live after withdrawal or filing means that hopefully Note the IT department or clerk's office isn't going to have to remove names from what's been published That all the certified signatures will be there. We're going to know who's on the ballot and all of that so that when it goes live We're not missing names, but we're also not including names that won't show up on the ballot one of the goals was to have minimal Extra work for town staff so not to potentially have to have them Revisiting a whole bunch of times redoing stuff reordering stuff That's why we chose an online form. Hopefully then it's easy to cut and paste and everything So that's the basics basics of this policy that we are putting forth to you for discussion But not vote voting tonight. I mean, I guess you could we're not going to stop you but our rules of Procedure in the council generally recommend that we put it forth one night and vote the next So it'll come forth again on the 23rd. Yeah, okay Uh council discussion at this time Yes Yeah My I have a question on how you came up with 900 characters including spaces Um, I I have been subjected to characters before 900 characters I've seen sort of a thousand which ranges from 175 words to 250. So the question is Um, that's a tough thing for people to even understand how to get there. They can understand words. So Was there a rationale? Why not 250 words or 150 words or something in that and Is this a space issue on our website? Um, in terms of How much spatial error so those are my questions on where this came from because my understanding of Is also matters whether I'm using a font type Of 10 11 12 in terms of the amount of space it takes on a line So where did 900 come from so Joe, please so 900 came from it's about the equivalent of 150 words um, and the towns Form database and how you create a form by the on the town's website Cannot limit a submission to number of words, but it can limit a submission to the number of characters and so to attempt to mitigate people submitting statements that are longer than the policy allows that would then require cutting we're hoping to essentially Stop that from happening by if you submit online You're not going to actually be able to hit the submit button if your statement is too long But we had to go to character count instead of word count to do that on the town webpage So that's why we chose characters over words, but it is approximately equivalent to 150 words and that is approximately where The town attorney said is a standard length for this type of statement. It's about where the league of women voters is for their statements It's about where gazette was for some of their statements So it's it's in the standard realm of things that are done for this Alyssa It's actually a lot more words than the league of women voters normally provided over many decades And so they looked at things differently for the first town council race But I appreciate the concept of it being difficult But the reality is that is the way our software works if you've ever posted a meeting you get a thousand characters after that You have to abbreviate that's why you see crazy abbreviations and meeting postings sometimes Because there's literally a limit and it'll tell you nope. You've gone too far Um, and so I appreciate that I'm not sure why the statement was made that we're not going to include things like state rep state senator and amherst democratic town committee Because like I know you didn't mention that one specifically. This is the amherst home rule charter This has nothing to do with I can't believe that it was ever intended and if it was that was a really bizarre idea That we would suddenly start including state senate and state rep races in this I'm very uncomfortable with this whole concept. I'm not thrilled about doing it But I understand the charter says we can do it and we should find a way to do it Um, I want to make sure that when we're talking about distributing a policy It I think we need a more user friendly version of the policy that needs to be distributed when people pull papers And I also believe that after maybe this first time it'll be different because of the because of the timing But that after that we should in fact Not wait until people submit papers to give them the url When people pull papers they could be looking at the user friendly version of the policy And thinking about what they want to write and they should be able to submit it the next day Even if they haven't turned in the papers because it's not going to get published So that gives people more time to think about it And there's literally no reason to make them wait until they turn papers in It's not like there's 80 million more people who pull papers than actually submit papers So I think we should give people that option just because I know we all remember When we were running this was the most number of survey type things we'd ever had to fill out before And being able to space that out over time and also for people to think about over the course of the time That they're getting their signatures would be useful I also think it shouldn't be a problem if they want to submit more than once the software ought to be able to handle Additional submissions and just take the most recent one. I'm confident our people could figure that out So if they want to edit it They submitted a new one I see And yes Dorothy well when I looked at this today, I I thought it was brilliant the idea of having a url But I do have a legal question. I mean this keeps the town from Supporting Or allowing whatever some candidate might want to put on their hyperlink, but on the other hand is the town really Held safe if somebody put a really weird stuff in the url man, did you know So they would be able to submit any url They want that is why there is a disclaimer on the town website portion of this candidate statement We my understanding is that we really can't regulate What they write due to free speech so that's Why the disclaimer is meant for maximum visibility paul might be able to talk a little bit more about Speech issues So sometimes what I'm not sure if we can actually do this They put in what they call an interstitial page So when you click on the link it takes you to a page It says you are leaving leaving the town of amherst website To base and then you're at someplace else so that there's no expectation you could hit back to get You might be able to get back But it's very clear that you're leaving the town of amherst website So in case somebody puts them thought a really bizarre website for whatever reason It protects the town that way But but my question is more What if that website actually goes to something that's obscene and on the borderline of illegal? I mean I'm sorry. That's that's the my biggest concern about the link to anything And we can't state anything on our policy about that link to that URL Well, that's up to you to Decide how you want if you want Want to have editing privileges over what someone submits Can we say something like a Kamek a campaigns personal You know website or whatever. I mean We can't I mean That's the town limiting Speech, which is why this policy attempted to stay away from anything about content and just Here's how many words and you can Submit a url. I mean we could refuse to put a url in there, but um I speaking as a charter commissioner one of the goals was to allow a link So that people candidates could In one place every candidate could Send people to something Their campaign page and it could be found easily on the town website that speaking as a charter commissioner But but if this council doesn't like the idea of a hyperlink, we can take that back at gol this week and discuss whether we Remove that allowance following up on that Again, the free speech issue is the issue. You can't possibly say we'll be allowed to have editing privileges Is that because we're not calling it government speech if it was government speech Then it wouldn't be allowed under office campaign and political finance laws. I mean, that's how we're able to make this separation and so I wonder maybe do I could talk about what if we put in the link, but it wasn't a hyperlink So then you don't have to worry about the interstitial page that we may or I don't remember if we use anymore or not Because you can't get there from here You have to copy and paste it because literally if you're on if you're on the internet You know how to copy and paste and then you're taking it at your risk and that would be part of the disclaimer We don't know what this links to That's your choice to link there, but that way we wouldn't have anybody saying Wow from the town website, I can get to pornography. I mean, right? I mean You'd have to copy and paste it. It wouldn't be a live link and therefore no risk of You know, I was just clicking on the town website. Right. That's that's my concern Okay So they can provide information about a link, but it won't be live Okay Yes, Steve just a question shouldn't redevelopment authority be one of the We have housing authority redevelopment authority is no longer elected do not elect Okay Yes Andy yeah, I'm somewhat confused always every time I read the definition of town bulletin board in the charter because It uses the word or So that it gives three different things that can be the town bulletin board, but the connecting word is or not and Is a consequence If we really mean One thing which is the website Then we should just Say it and not bother to go into great detail about quoting the Charter because I think that the charter definition confuses and doesn't clarify And I'm also concerned that we don't really want to put it on the paper bulletin board that's Outside the clerk's office or wherever because the amount of paper that would have to be up there So is this a matter of saying for the purposes of this? Policy That town bulletin board shall be defined as Yes, I think that under the charter that that's Permissible thing for us to do in this policy and if that's what we mean, then we should just say it. Okay Other comments questions Okay, then we'll be back to vote on this on the 23rd. I'm sorry Yes, so gl is going to be meeting again before that taking an official vote On this and I guess leaving this is one of those discussions where I was hoping to get a lot of input and really didn't and so With the exception it sounds like maybe there's some sense of this idea of Unhyperlinking the hyperlink, but I heard it from a couple people and I don't know if that's a consensus of the council The gl should actually Change and other than that. I'm not hearing any other changes. Is that correct? I want to know what gl is doing with this at our next meeting other than I think that's the only Suggestion that was made any other Yeah, it was to do with when you hand the The paper the the url to the candidate they should get it when they take out their petitions. Yeah, as elissa said, right, right? All right, anything else All right, then we're going to go to the town council rules of procedure clarification of the clerk reference mandy joe So we haven't changed anything from Two weeks ago. This is our second reading on this as required by the rules All of the changes are up there In shorthand It is to add the phrase quote of the council after the word clerk in rules 5.1 point d.1 5.1 point d.5 6.2 point f And 10.6 point j point 3 add the word town before the word clerk in rule 8.2 d And reformat the phrase with the assistance of the clerk of the council and town manager to delete the underlining and change the color And delete the extra space To delete the final s in the word sessions in the first sentence of rule 5.3 And increase the font size to 12 for all of rule 8.2 c those are the three sets of scrivener type changes clerical changes the first two are the Ones that clarify What clerk we're referring to when we refer to the word clerk? And as I said, no changes from the last time we read this Any questions? Okay, so rather than repeat all of the different lines there. Let me just read The motion is to revise the town council rules of procedure as shown On the document titled rules of procedure revised 2019 dash 08-19 Proposed gl revisions clerk clarification and described as follows and all of the things that are in light text up there are 1 through 5 That is the motion. Do I hear a motion? George second Pat any further discussion? Then all those in favor, please raise your hand and say I opposed Abstain And so it's 12 in favor none against No abstentions and one absent Okay Inter municipal agreements. I'm going to ask mr. Brockman to speak to this So annually there are a number of inter municipal agreements that the town council will be asked to approve The town enters into inter inter municipal agreements when there's opportunities to Work with other communities to provide a service that doesn't make sense for one community to provide So the three that are before you tonight are the sealer of weights and measures And that's where we use the city of north hampton sealer for for ours to serve our sealer because we don't have enough scales or things for that person To to test and we pay us 12,367 dollars for that service The municipal hearing officer is A person who will hear cases appeals of decisions by An or a bylaw of the town doesn't get used hardly ever But we utilize the city of north hampton's hearing officer So we don't have to provide for one and that's a cost of 812 dollars and 50 cents to the town And then we are part of a very large consortium of veteran services That Hosted at the city of north hampton and that caught with the number one two three four five six about 10 towns The communities that participate and that cost the town 100 603 dollars And so those are the three that i'm presenting to you Tonight others will come through as we as they get developed We for instance we share kennel services with the city of north hampton Uh, we will we share services Um Some water services with the town of south for the south dearfield water district things like that but as they are Developed and paperwork gets done. I'll be back to you for the request approval of those as well So are there questions about the individual agreements? Yes, shall any I just had a general question about how do how is these prorated across the towns? Like if you're paying hundred thousand, what are the other towns paying and how is that decided? sorry, so the other towns um So north hampton pays 117,418 dollars and uh, For which agreement? This is for the veterans. Okay. So this is based on population. So that's how this formula works Population would include students. I suppose or yes Whatever our population is defined as Under the census that's that was what we work off of So some students would are included in that of course The census population the town of amherst in 2010 was 37,000 plus Just uh For veterans. It's not counting veterans. It's counting population I'm sorry. Kathy. Can you repeat that? I was just question on population counts. So when I look at veterans Is it counting the veterans who live in each of these areas? Or is it counting total population because when paul said what north hampton is paying We have a larger population than north hampton But you gave the north hampton numbers a bigger number. So I was thinking that it might be the veterans population I don't think it's veterans because I would change I think it is It is population and whether not sure exactly what number they pull from for that but I can find out out for you Does the um veteran services include a multiple number of people? Yes, it's a I'm not sure how many people are in the office. There are a number of people in the office. So Okay, it's not just the one person collectively that whole budget across the 10 towns. I think you said yeah is how much Probably about 250 300 000 And north hampton and us paid the vast majority. Yeah, okay Are there other questions? so the motion Is to authorize the town manager to enter into certain Inter municipal agreements under mass general law chapter 40 Section 4a as outlined in the town manager memorandum to town council In this case dated today September 6, thank you 2019 Is there a second? Okay Does this mean you'll come to us with a different memorandum each time you're Okay, so we will authorize these individually Or collectively in a bunch, whatever Alyssa, I just want to clarify that there's it's very specifically says authorized because of what mass general law says We don't approve the content. We authorize him to sign them and you know, obviously We might not keep him authorization if we don't like the content, but you see you don't have the content So um that it's not approval. It's authorization Thank you Any further questions? Okay, then all those in there's motions been made and seconded all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye Opposed okay I abstain Yes, just for the ones that come to us in the future so we can Look at them quickly might be useful to do what shall any ask that if we said you're Getting authorization for this amount. That's out of a total budget of Of whatever so we just have some sense that we're a majority a minority The next action item on our agenda is to discuss and refer probably The town council policy on zoning bylaw hearings and just a little context as we Came up to review the Large group of zoning bylaws Uh, basically the zoning the planning board Had am I correct planning board held their own hearing And publicized it and then we publicized and held our own Own hearing and the question was raised as to whether or not we could just hold a joint hearing And then each of us take the respect of action So that's the purpose of this agenda item and the purpose of this discussion Are there questions Alyssa fine We should do this we should have done this it should have happened the last time I mean We should do this moving forward because it costs money and it takes time to Advertise both hearings and as you say we can act separately. We don't have to decide the same night. They decide etc So this would be something that would go into rules or procedure GOL could make a decision whether to add it to the rules or just create a policy to adopt Okay, okay So the motion is to refer a potential town council policy on zoning bylaw hearings To the governance organization and legislation committee with a report to the town council I'm gonna say on October Whatever that date was October 20 21 2019 Does that work? There's a motion. I'll move that you'll move a second Got it. Anything else? Okay, then all those in favor of that. Please raise your hand and say aye Opposed abstain and one absent So it was 12 for no opposed no abstain one absent We have one memo from me and it's on the appointments of the percent for art ad hoc committee This is a committee that we created at our last meeting and The As soon as I get my paper sorted out I'll find it The motion the Charge that we are the Statement that we passed last time Required that there be two members from the Amherst public arts commission and three members from the town council I did ask bill kason and he suggested Himself and james barnhill and then I solicited from counselors their personal interest I received responses from about seven counselors There were a couple people were interested but more importantly people were interested in making sure that The committee had people knowledgeable about finance about architecture and also Some of the research that have been done and so based on that I have put before you Kathy shane steve schreiber and andy steinberg I don't believe this requires a motion Is that correct? Okay, uh, there are no other committee appointments at this time Right, okay, so we're moving on to committee reports Pat anything on audit nothing new right now we're going to be meeting at the end of october Okay, bylaw review We've gone through animal welfare. We've put the Bylaws on sign bylaws Aside for the council to look at and we're on schedule to bring a final draft. I believe in November I gave the date last time. I don't have it with me right now and those require two readings. Is that correct? Yes, so we need to make sure that If there are ones that we need to discuss in any significance Because we only have one meeting scheduled in november at this time And that's november And I'm not yeah, I'll do a double check on the date. I said it loud at our last meeting But I will email it to you. Okay. Thank you. And then so probably Based on the fact that the next meeting after that is december second We're going to probably want to make sure that we actually introduced them as early as october October 20, huh? No, we probably we can't do that. We're not going to be done So we have a timeline that we can get to you Okay, the the issue isn't I understand your timeline The issue is when do we have council meetings and when we set the calendar because november has Both the election in it right and veterans day We don't have a meeting till november 18 We work to that we will send it to the council in november. It doesn't need be acted on in november I thought we had to act on it by december 3rd We know because you didn't we did not appoint that committee December 3rd We have a year from when that committee was okay. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that I was trying to meet A year deadline that was fictitious in this case Right, and we do have we do have a set of dates and we can get an updated set to you I will get that from jeff gravitz That would be great if we could just get a sense of when that's coming so we can look look at agendas Yes, man. Joe. I just want to The year is submit a report with recommendations not act on it according to the charter So as long as they submit within the year They've They've complied with the charter. We don't have to have them passed within that year So as long as they submit by december 3rd No By the appointment of the following it's creation. Thank you So whenever they were created not appointed whenever they were created They got one year to submit a report with recommendations and then we can act after that I think they have those sometime in january Okay, we'll check on that. But thank you and getting the calendar of that would be useful. Thanks Community resources committee steve so last meeting continued review of master plan We had another meeting scheduled for this coming wednesday morning, but that's canceled because of of a posting glitch so We meet again into On September 25th, let me mention we do have an opening on the crc committee In that sarah has decided she's not able to serve on that committee at this time Excuse me, so I will go back and I'm going to pull the entire council as to people's interest for crc There have been other people who have been continued to be interested and continued to attend Okay, could we have a deadline on when that happens so we can have somebody at our next meeting? Okay, so if we do that then I'd have to bring it forward on the 23rd Okay Yeah Yes, alissa I have a crc question. Sure. I think given the Extensive written reports provided by other council committees crc needs to step it up We're not getting any written reports from crc and I think that You don't have to have made decisions on things But to give us a sense of what we're going to be looking forward to is really useful g ol's done that on numerous occasions oca does that all the time as well And um rules procedure used to do it and I really feel like we need that from crc And I recognize that crc is like a whole bunch of things But to just give us more than the sentence we get at our meetings would be really useful So we can explain to people out in the public too as well as us understanding what's coming up Okay, can I just add to that the particularly where the two things have been referred to two committees So housing policy is one that's sitting with both of us. It's just helpful to know when There's going to be a focus on it and how you're planning on focusing on it so that we don't duplicate I mean, I would come to the meeting to hear the discussion. So just the heads up when it's overlapping The council goals and how committee has not met since I mentioned this the last time however The draft goals will be a topic of discussion at our retreat on the 21st finance committee Andy Yes, I wanted to just take a moment to add a little bit to the written report that We sent to you which was really covering action items, but Had a very brief discussion about that portion of the meeting that was the combined meeting with jcpc around the major capital planning questions And it was a very Rich discussion and if you some of you were there some of you may have seen it on Amherst media it is available on Amherst media and So that you should know that it's available for you We talked about the financial planning tool version 1.3 Which was sent to the committee you received a number of comments and it is still under review based upon the comments received at the meeting So that's still a work in project in progress This is of course as you know about the four projects the four major projects and we recognize that we Can only build them if we scrutinize costs very carefully and we think about the spacing And that's part of what the financial planning tool Helps to visualize both for members of the committee members of the council that also members of the public and the goal still is to Find a way to make it available to the public and we're working Or I shouldn't say we the staff is working with It to develop a web page that will house the tool when it launches To the public so that there's more material available about the projects and about how to use the tool effectively and explains the tool a little Little bit. So that's still being worked on I think that what we really came down to however is That these are going to be very difficult decisions and they're going to be difficult for all of us who are sitting in this room because in the end this is about us making the decisions and that what we Choose to bond What we choose the amount we choose to bond when we choose to bond and when we choose to go out to debt exclusion overrides Are really difficult questions that will be before us and as we do that and I'm Melissa and I were on the select board when we did the last override vote for a debt exclusion override And it was not an easy decision as I said to the joint meeting It takes a lot of thought about what you're asking voters to do What feels justifiable and the amount that you can ask them to tax themselves for a project And also the choice of which projects and why you want to go out there and do that In order to facilitate that Our suggestion as we were as a question evolved was That we really need to find ways that all of us can hear from our constituents and that both district meetings and trying to Have district meetings that are organized on some common basis as well as a forum Are two mechanisms that were discussed. I don't think that they're necessarily exclusive but At a later date, we will want to talk with you about Whether That's something that you think is valuable and what kind of assistance Would should be provided either by the committees that have been working on this or the staff to have effective district meetings that will help you to understand what your constituents want and To make sure that they're it's an informed process and I think that that probably Covers the major points that were there But You know, the other thing that we and we recognized is that part of the process needs to be Helping Those constituents understand What each of the four projects will offer to the community if We go forward we as a community go forward with them and what the consequences are of inaction and not building the projects And that that needs to be a part of it So i'm going to stop there. I don't know if anybody else who is On either of the committees or on the finance committee wishes to add to it But um, I think that summarizes the discussion Dorothy I I have a question about Our district meetings As to what personnel might be available for us I know that we're not to make our own contacts. We have to do it through paul. So their question is There's a lot of districts and we need a plan maybe I mean, we have we have a date for district three of october 20th And george and I we've discussed a variety of things we could make as our focus, but Lynn has suggested Informally that maybe that we need to spend that time on on the capital projects So is it going to be george and me doing it? We decided that neither of us feels comfortable demonstrating the the tool and so It's kind of like I don't think we want to just all go grabbing paul's attention saying can I have this one? Can I have that one? So maybe a plan from you would be helpful Um, this is something paul and I have discussed somewhat But we'll now take up even more it was clear from the conversation with finance and jcpc That we do need to do these kinds of outreach and we need to have some consistency About how those meetings are at least that portion of the meeting Happens so very much like the schools did they had a standard format. They had six meetings spread throughout the town and they had You know standard introduction a way in which people were asked to look at different questions and issues And a way to give feedback and summarize and I think we have to do the same thing for all of our counselors I personally am committed to being at each of the meetings as long as they're not on the same night at the same time Can't do that haven't figured it out yet but I and there are other people Who are on the finance committee and so forth that are probably Maybe a little more comfortable with the model. So it shouldn't fall totally to the town staff You know But yes, we owe you a plan Including dates. Yes As part of that plan one thing I think would be helpful Even though one might argue that since we stalled out planning the capital plans in 15 and 16, maybe it wasn't entirely helpful Is that And I found it a little disturbing that the newspapers are reporting that we have no idea how much things are going to cost Actually, we have a pretty darn good idea of how much things are going to cost and how we're going to roll things off Even though we have to get more specifics and of course all the costs have gone up But in addition to that having a handout Prior to those meetings about each of the projects And I mean one side of a piece of paper finance committee did do this several years ago after Mr. Steinberg was on the select board already But um, and we had to be careful because it was clearly biased in its first draft But beyond that just to explain like that very a brief version of Here's what happens when because we didn't act. Here's where we are now Here are our choices and whether you know It's one page about each project and then something that's a summary that goes with that But to be able to continually send those out to our constituents and to be able to refer to them I find incredibly useful as opposed to just assuming that well if people are interested We can get them to come to some particular district meeting at some particular moment So I would really appreciate it if finance committee felt like I know they have a lot on their plate But they could work on something like that that would describe the project I actually don't feel that this is completely just the responsibility of the finance committee But it starts kind of starts there. So Thank you Other comments about this while we're on the topic Yes, shall any Sean is on here today, but I just wanted to acknowledge the work he did and he really simplified the tool To the extent that I feel really comfortable using it and I wish I'd said that to him last time So please let him know that we really appreciate his work Thank you Any other comments? Yes pat. Yeah while I appreciate the tool It's not going to be as effective for everybody in town And I think that we need to be moving into Parts of our district that we don't know what to narrowly go in So that we're actually getting feedback from people who don't come to district meetings Who don't won't use the tool for whatever reason no judgment And and ultimately How are we going to really listen because if the town is saying something that we don't like Then we have to move they don't And I think we how do we really listen Not just hear what we want to hear Okay Any other comments? Yes, shall any I think it would be really helpful to have a set of questions that the kind of information we want to draw out from the residents in the sense where You know and and also there's certain things that are going to impact them like just the tax I mean the property tax is okay. They may not be able to decipher but we can say this is the impact that's going to have on This so, you know solicit specific questions rather than just a Anyone talk about anything like oh, I don't want library. I want this. I don't I mean So frequently asked questions. Yeah, okay, and and and things that I don't know how to say this but I feel that there are times that We're asking people questions But then we're going to do what we want to do and there is that dissatisfaction then in people that hey We spend all that time we shared our ideas and then Nothing happens with it. So I mean they're having some sort of clarity that What are the kind what is the kind of information we're looking for in terms of how is this how are these projects affecting people's quality of lives and Where is it impacting them and getting that and then using that information to For us to make the decision. So I don't so having a good set of questions to solicit Feedback would be Good. Okay Additional questions or suggestions on that Andy we have a lot to do Okay, uh gl We continue to bring you stuff Hopefully we will bring you Some Changes related to resolutions, proclamations, commemorations and citations soon. We're discussing a policy around them And I think some of those policies will have to come to the council Flag raisings flag flyings We're still working on that and we're going to be discussing revisions to the work groups and At hot committees coming up based on comments. We received last time Okay oka So the content of my report pertains exclusively to what's also listed as agenda item 12c1 the bid block party so May I ask your permission to move that agenda item up to pair with our report? Sure. Thank you. Uh, so This morning, uh the oka Subcommittee on outreach met for the first time. Um in kind of a while Y'all remember our name is outreach communications and appointments and seems like we're always just talking about appointments Um, and so we've refocused a little bit on outreach and one of the first places We saw that an opportunity for for us to weigh in and an outreach capacity Is the upcoming bid block party? And so we do have Space reserved for the block party. Many of us were there last year as town council candidates And there's an expect expectation that will be there again now as town counselors The question that we grappled with is well, why right? What is our role there? What are our objectives? And um, we threw out a couple options Along the lines of sort of we're there just to show some face so that people see us start to recognize us see us in the community But also it's an opportunity one to engage people In the deliberations that we're having as a council to to Perhaps recruit people for boards and committees and three To educate people about what we're doing as a council And so we we're lucky to be joined by two of the cpo's at our meeting this morning So we could hear what they were doing so we wouldn't duplicate what they're doing And had a good discussion about what we're thinking about doing And so you may notice there is a Colorful table set up in the back that alissa was happy enough always kind enough I maybe she wasn't happy it was in the morning, but But she was kind enough to to put together a mock table. And so there's essentially Five things that we came up with for the town council to do at the block party. Um, and so one you'll notice Uh Four jars each labeled with a different capital project. And there was an idea of sort of having um A voting ability we would give people some number of pennies to be determined illicit wants 10 And ask them, you know, how would you prioritize the capital projects? And this is a way to sort of engage people in a big discussion that we're having in the fall in sort of a Fun way of saying well, which of these is most important to you if these 10 pennies are your tax dollars How do you want them spent? Another thing you'll see is the map of the districts That's a map that the cpo's used last year. They are not using it this year. And so we asked if we could borrow it So that people know it's one thing to say you're a district two counselor But if people don't know their district, that's not very useful to them There was some consideration of maybe having people put stars where they live so they can kind of identify that The cpo's also have a a big board that shows all of our committees that we have as a town And Said that they could highlight in some way the ones that we're actively recruiting for So we would also we could also have that so we could say if you want to be involved Here's everything we do and here's the ones that we're really looking for There was some comment about having a handout of some accomplishments Or something so that we could say hey look, here's what we've done so far if people want it There's another idea of having Sticky notes so That would say, you know, what are your priorities for the town or what would you what would you like to see happen in town? Or what would you like to see us do and they could write on the sticky note and put on a post-it board And it could be a visual of of the community's priorities And then there was also a discussion about something to hand out to kids With the idea being that if we can attract kids to the table, then we can talk to their parents Which are really our audience here. And so there's an idea of candy or stickers There's an idea perhaps if we could get firetruck stickers and Library sticker if we could have the stickers sort of mirror the capital projects Alyssa searched for those she's been unsuccessful in the one sort she looked at but we're confident that we could find those Somebody could find them. Um, and so these are sort these are the six things that that we came up with and so Um The subcommittee is willing to sort of take some of the charge on this since it is an outreach opportunity But we wanted to present to you those ideas And then hear back from you whether you love them hate them have other ideas have suggestions You know reasonable suggestions um That we can that we can work on and of course you can look at What it might look like, um, of course, there'll be more so thoughts comments questions The floor is open for suggestions thoughts and comments. Yes, Dorothy Well, I I really like what you've come up with Um, I think that if we're going to ask people to do preferences that we do have to have an early version Of our fact sheet of the projects Yeah, um, it would be nice if there were pictures What the fire ems I read Fire is a verb when I came in So I wasn't sure about that But I think and I think we should give out lollipops I think lollipops are good Oh, shallownie. I saw your hand up earlier. Yeah, I think following Using this as an opportunity to educate people about like dbw is even I think dbw is important But letting them know how important and how how hard these people work and they deserve to have Yeah, so use that as an opportunity and in addition to what up people's priorities Maybe have an appreciation board. What what are you loving about the new town council? We could have a big board up there and hope it doesn't stay blank Um, okay There you go or set a few kids up Um, Andy Yeah, just a little bit concerned about Putting pennies in the jar or whatever about the four major projects because I don't think that we have time to really Make that an educated piece and once you put the Request out there If you get a whole lot of things in one or get very few things in another it could Be information Those to what was the result of that that gets out of hand and I think we could create more havoc and more problems than we would want So I would be very cautious about doing that Additional thoughts, yeah, george in the response to that I hear that but I think part of the real point was just For education it's just to get people talking about these projects give us a chance to Answer questions And also make it clear to them that that choice they're making is Even how you know trivial it seems is the choice we're going to have to make And so I agree We're not I don't no one's going to look at these jars at the end of the night and go. Oh my god This is what we have to do So I think that was the thought behind that I also hope that everyone I was thinking we'd have some kind of just a badge or something It's just town council. So everyone knows our town consular Darcy had a suggestion. She you know had something she put on her back But not a target, but but her name and town council during the campaign But I just think hopefully everyone will be there at least for part of the time And if you are there, it's important that people know that you're a counselor So in some way that we could you know, just a you know, simple thing we could make it would people wear them I assume you would all but That was also something so if you're walking around as I will be doing we're not going to be standing at a table Um, people will see that and maybe they'll just come up to you and ask you a question and you can So that was also a thought Okay Going to work on that one That was actually discussed in to this morning. Georgia's on ochre and the subcommittee. I just I forgot that No, but and just want to make sure that people want you to do that 10 of you say no way am I going to go around with a big badge on me or something saying town consular That we won't bother with it But the thought was it'd be nice that if you are there that people can easily identify you That you are on the comes Shilani I still think the jars is a good idea just to get people interested and excited just as a play It, you know, we can even say it. It's you know Frame it whatever way, but I think it's fun and getting people a good way to get people thinking about it Okay I I just want to add while we have handouts for both dpw and fire we would apps Absolutely have to go to the schools for the one about the schools and to the library for the one about the library And whether or not they could put together A one pager in this time. I just don't know That's my only concern on that one. Yeah, I think that um, austin has one Remember the flyer, but did you have your individual meeting with him? Yes, but I don't know that that constitutes a fact sheet Or a basis upon To do it. I'd have to go look at it. I thought it was again I thought it was interesting and it could it could kind of serve But this yeah, andy Yeah, I think that we need to be very careful about this because there's a need for consistency amongst the statements as far as what they have and the If we give this over without Us as a council or a committee of the council doing some sort of editorial Role in it advocates of a policy you're going to put down all of the positives none of the Concerns and So there's the questions of consistency and the other I I would Think that if you're going to do it It's going to be really done without the benefit of doing anything that's going to be consistent education about each of the projects And that was my concern I understand george's point that it could be a fun thing to do it and You know I didn't think about that aspect of it also I just don't want them to think that the pennies and the jar are going to pay for the projects Um, we did discuss that was one thought That maybe they put $20 in the jars and then Okay There we go. Just don't do anything like the fall river mirror. Um, yes Well, is there any interest in us getting, um t-shirts Uh with town council on the front and our names in the back or vice versa? Oh Great Um Okay, I just want to point out this this event is on the 17th and today is the 9th So it's um, you have eight days to get ready Okay. Yes. So a couple follow-up questions. So first of all, um We weren't sure are y'all gonna be there Yes, okay We will have at least and we know that some people have maybe a business that they have to go attend to as well And some people have other committees who will also our Presence that they have to go back and forth. We want to make sure that there's at least some people At the table at all times Is there any one who wants to Take over one of these aspects and take charge of doing that and making it happen Yeah, right. There you go Um Can I cancel my district office hours for the bf? Oh, yes. Yes, right um You raise a very good question and I one of the things I don't think we've resolved yet is whether or not Is how we talk about the four capital projects of this? I think there's hesitancy about Rolling out something that's not completely thought through And at the same time You know getting people thinking about it Yeah, it's just to get people thinking about it. I mean I absolutely agree that we cannot let the library publish their own statement or the schools publish their own statement And I wouldn't want anybody to rush to try and get that done This is purely for fun And if it turns out that zero people put anything in dpw Then that tells us as a group that we need to educate people better about what's going on out there And it'll just be it'll just be silly. I mean really it's just a way of drawing them over other than candy It is not like the newspaper is going to publish. Well, that jar was twice as full as the other one. I guess you better not do that project Really? So let's not take ourselves too seriously on this But absolutely have those When it comes time for the forums and if we even know like when one of those is we could also be mentioning To publish a full list of dates. I don't know that we'll have them set by then by then But we could at least tell people to look to watch for them. Yeah Yeah, I don't think we want to set up somebody demonstrating the model That seems like a little Tough to do Any other ideas we'd like to shoot down? I'm bringing my role of pennies We're passing out pennies This isn't like a business where everybody votes for their very or schools have done no no We are crowdsourcing pennies. We need pennies. We are going to hand them out to people And if you want to keep track of how many you gave us then I will give them back to you at the end of the night But no, this is not a people can bring their own money. This is here's your 10 pennies figure out how to spend them Do we have to have a two-thirds vote on getting the pennies? And I said no, we are not packaging them specially for each person. We'll just we have a collection of thousands of pennies at home Yes, all right. There you go. I just don't know whether I'm allowed to tap into them. Don't just do it. Don't do it and then apologize Just make sure you don't give away one. That's worth something Those are all those are all separated Lynn. We had those separated into their own category Okay, Kathy's in charge of collecting pennies All right anything else to ask oka to do at this point with regard to this Responding to our outreach, which is terrific. Thank you We appreciate that Yes, Darcy so Oka is does have another outreach project that we've been working on trying to put together A survey of what we're all doing in our district meeting outreach, which we've been trying to get Full participation on for quite a few months now and the two counselors that are Still haven't responded Shall remain unnamed but We already have You know, we have the responses on a google form that has a spreadsheet so That we can share it with all of you and it will be informative Give you some ideas about what other people are doing And we hope to do that very soon anything else Okay, then We're done with committee appointments approval of minutes You have before you the august 26 2019 minutes The motion is To approve the 2000 the august 26 2019 town council meeting minutes As presented um They have already gone out for one set of reviews. Is there a motion? Is there a second any further discussion changes questions? Corrections Okay, then all those in favor of approving the august 26 2019 minutes raise your hand and say aye Aye opposed Abstain mr. Brockman Thank you First I want to thank you for the extension of my contract. I really appreciate it. It's really I feel it it makes I feel it is a vote of confidence and Where we're headed as a as a group It's an exciting historic time to be part of the town And I'm really honored to hold this position and thank you and the people of amherst as well Only a few things I want to mention Fairly lengthy report for you to have read. I'm sure you read it The cup of joe is this friday at the amherst coffee with our director of human services human resources Evelyn Rivera Riffenberg We talked about the bulletin board and we're being more explicit about what the bulletin board means On our website. So if you go to amherst Amherst ma.gov slash bulletin You'll see the bulletin board and we'll make that where everything lives What that the charter requires us to put on the bulletin board You'll also be able to people also be able to sign up to receive notifications if something gets published there and things like that. So They can subscribe to it And so I think that that will help clarify to people What it means when it says it's been posted on the town's bulletin board Uh, I mentioned a number of things that the mass municipal associations is doing They have a legislative breakfast coming up and then we will again coordinate the Registrations for the annual meeting which is in january for the registration part. You will have to take care of your meals and your Accommodations which we you get reimbursed for Um The I mentioned that the amherst pellum regional school district School planning committee has completed their work and they've submitted their report And uh, that will be added to our Packet if it hasn't already Um The parking had a their final forum, uh last two weeks ago Maybe they will be before you on september 23rd with the consultants making their final recommendation There is a draft of the report online. They are working Hard to get the final report. We know that you're going to need it in advance of the 23rd So you have time to read it. You will not be expected to make any decisions on the 23rd But I'm sure it'll be a robust discussion See The strategic partnership agreement with you mass, so I've been we've been working on this for several months now We have a agreement with you mass that calls for certain things and that That agreement ended on june 30th, although we're all we're all biding by it The school superintendent has been involved with the with the school portion of the negotiations But jeff cravitz and davis omec have really taken the lead on the negotiations We are as went to outline for you where the sort of big areas that we're focused on We have four big areas one is town services What the town is doing that we believe the university is benefiting from and that includes schools Public works public safety those types of things. So we have a lot of conversations happening around what does that What what that includes? We have another section we've been talking about in terms of improving communication between the university and the town Both ways so that we are more in sync with their planning and they're in sync with our planning So we're yeah have a better grip on where Both sides are going we we have very good communication with the university now, but we think we can improve it A third Area is an economic development. We want to be able to to Utilize the great Engine that the university has to leverage some additional development within town Either But also to focus on our downtown area as well that this the university will see Things that might benefit the town Based on the work that they're doing And then we have a number of things that we're talking we call one-timers one-time benefits, whatever things that we think We'd like to talk we're in the process of talking to them about things that they could do to benefit the town So that's where we are in the p and the i'm sorry the strategic partnership agreement with the university So I will continue to update Date you on this as we move forward Second item I went to bring about the university was if you saw the notice about their announcement that they Their board of trustees have approved approved a public private partnership p3 Development that would include rehabilitating the housing in north village and building about 900 bedroom dorms on massachusetts avenues Up, you know where their parking lots are right now This type of development is is very large. It's adjacent to a major residential community of our town and our expectation is that they will And be involved in a robust community engagement process as they start to talk about this They have I think the president has invited representatives from the university to come meet with you and Not the next meeting but the meeting after that to update you more formally on What what they have in mind and I know that some of them have been reaching out to some of you To talk more one-on-one on this And thirdly Just congratulations to the university as they have now been rated one of the top 24 the 24th in the country as a university so they that was been one of their Goals and the chancellor has really been pushing for that and they deserve a lot of credit for the Consistently consistently they brought to it and the Push for excellence that they have really brought to the university so Good things for them So that's my report Okay questions Yes, Evan Paul. Yes Participatory budgeting. Yes. We appointed them June 3rd. Yes They have not met yet They I'll have make sure they make they It's on Sonya's plate to do that. So we'll get it done. Yes Okay, thank you Additional questions comments Alyssa food for thought for future town council meeting as opposed to deciding anything tonight because look how early it is is This came up previously when I was on the select board as well Sometimes when we put in electric chargers We the town comes to the elected body and says we're going to put electric chargers in For cars because in that case you can't park in them unless you have a car that uses an electric charger Which means when we did that behind town hall, for example, it removed two spaces from anyone with a car to people with electric cars There was also some discussion as to whether or not people were paying for electricity playing for parking blah blah different conversation but In the town manager's report It talks about having additional car charging stations that are going to take additional spaces out of circulation from the general population And I feel like since we get to we have to have hearings on how much parking is per hour And what the hours of enforcement are etc That it also should fall to us associated with taking parking spaces out of circulation Just like if we recommended that for the north common that we decided We only wanted eight spaces instead of the ones that exist there now So there seems to be a gray area associated with that They are not in the public way in the way that some would be But there was discussion with the select board when we put the charging stations in both in the banks Both in the garage and behind town hall So i'm a little uneasy about the fact that we just put in new charging stations Thus removing parking spaces without it being part of our whole parking discussion even though of course we want more spaces So it may be an issue that we need to decide what our policy is and when When we have to look at this and when we don't And that would be a go well discussion Aren't we happy Okay Anything else at this time on the town manager's report? Okay Yes, um, have you decided on the tree the katalpa? So i'm reviewing the information that the playing board and the um Tree ward have put together. I have not issued a determination on that, but I will this week But I generally observe what the what our professionals would advise on this situation Okay Anything else? um Okay, uh town council comments, um I did automatically refer the celebration of port urecon heritage month to gol I also will just want to call attention to your packet which includes a letter from senate president america harriett chandler recognizing and thanking us for our uh our Proclamation regarding safe legal abortion um the I am working on the Well, I will now begin working on the agenda for the retreat Several of you have given me suggestions unless we plan to be there for three days. We can't address it all So we have to make some tough decisions and then look at when we might also Do some follow-on retreat work as well um And the last item that I've listed here approval of ethics disclosure I'm actually going to take up under the item 13, which is the um not reasonably anticipated And so I'll wait wait until then A future agenda items I just wonder again if we could get to a point of having a list like Yes, we have the list you have a list and we know you have a clean up List is what we need to do and that it's that's one of my goals for our retreat is to have that list um anything else Yes, george just quickly, um call attention to all of you to the article three Part article that's appearing in the gazette on the north hampton downtown Um, if you haven't seen it, I think you should read it. Um There's going to be three pieces. I think the second one was out today It's front page on the front page of the gazette It's just makes for interesting reading. Um, we often compare ourselves to north hampton We think of north hampton in a number of ways. Um, and when we think about our downtown I think you might find this article sobering and it's certainly worth your time It's not that long, but it's going to be three pieces. The second one's already out Thank you. Any other comments at this point Um, we've under counselor comments. Yes Darcy Uh, I just wanted to mention that the ECAC is you know on the verge of Going out into the community to get stakeholder comments on Potential goals climate goals and targets So you may be hearing from people about that because we'll be probably talking to 30 or 40 Different people doing our initial outreach So that's just something that's going to be happening probably during this month Okay anything else Paul I did raise a question. I want to just want to go back the chamber event Uh, I guess in the past the town paid We reserve a table or something. We reserved a table. Sure. Okay, and then if we exceed the Number of people at that table will get a second table We'll get a second table. So what you are the town is planning to pay for people and their spouses significant other Not not spouses just Individual counselors. Okay. Thank you And the date of that event is October 3rd. Thank you Can we just emphasize October 3rd? You don't have to pay you will have to let Angela will probably be the one who will send out a thing You have to let her know if you're coming or not because department heads go to that too If your spouse is coming they can sit somewhere else and they can pay for their own ticket Just to be super clear But this way it's accessible to counselors because we talk about whether or not being a counselor is accessible $80 a ticket is not accessible to some counselors. So that's why the town is covering this. Okay Okay Anything else on that? So let me just mention on this topic is not reasonably anticipated I had never realized that I would get one of these which is a request from a person Who is a teacher at the middle school And they are now requesting approval to also teach for lsse Well, master general law doesn't allow you to get two paychecks from the same employer And that requires therefore a disclosure and a signature for the personnel contract that indicates our approval In my previous world, I saw many of these so I had to You know often sign them for people to do To teach a course for the university So rather than just go ahead and sign this and let you know I did I figured I should bring it forward and either you authorize me to sign it And then the other question is do we need a policy on this? so At this point, I just want to make sure that Margarita Boniface can go ahead with Teaching the class so the motion is to authorize the president to Acknowledge the disclosure statement of margaret bonapas And to sign the contract for personnel services allowing her to be paid by lsse for teaching an acting slash improvisation course Is there a second? Okay, any further discussion? Yes. I don't think you have the option to sign this on your own The way I read the mgl the council. I have to sign it. No. No, I'm saying the council votes to let you sign It wasn't an option for you to just decide to do it. Okay, even though that would be much quicker Okay, so the motion has been made and seconded if I get these in the future. I'll come forward for a vote Yes, bandy joe Is that the correct motion or is the motion that the council approves the exemption for margaret bonapas under mgl chapter 268 a section 20 b I'm sorry, which one the second motion All right, margaret strike the motion Go ahead and make the other motion, please I I move To do I have to say that the town council approve or just to approve To approve I move to approve the exemption well The exemption under mgl chapter 268 a section 20 b for margaret bonapas Is there a second george Yes, do do we I mean the signature says on behalf of the council once we approve it that's kind of automatic That doesn't need to be an ocean that we can always tack on the motion. Should we tack it onto the motion? Yeah Okay, okay, any further questions All those in favor of the motion which has been made and seconded raise your hand and say I I opposed abstain It's 12 000 and one missing Um, is there any other business at this time? Seeing none do I have a motion to adjourn? as their second George come on All those in favor say I I oppose no, thank you