 There it goes. Okay. You're good. So good afternoon. I want to. Call the meeting of the finance committee to order. Today being. June seven and it is three PM and we have. All members of the finance committee. Present. So we'll go ahead and start our meeting. This was to be, and this to be a joint meeting. We're going to start with the. American heritage. Reparations assembly have to get the title exactly right. And I think that we do not have a quorum yet present. From the assembly so that. That will. We'll call that meeting to order. Or. In the meantime, I need to. I think I've lost my agendas. The problem for today's meeting. I'll find it. Do you have it to put up on? I'll get it for you. Yeah. Okay. And because I'll go through the agenda. Quickly now. And then we'll come back to it. In a little bit later and. So what I'm going to do as it's. Getting agenda. I'll tell you a little bit about what the plan is for today's meeting. And then. We will come back. When. Some of us again. In a minute, but we're going to stop the plan originally was to try and start as a combined meeting. And then work on our other agenda items, but. I think I'd like to pick up on one of the other agenda items. If. We need to know probably because we told. Guilford mooring, who was going to be here for the centennial water treatment plant. And Dave, so Mac, who's going to be here for the North common discussion. That they could come a little bit later so that. That was because we had this understanding about the order in which we were going to. Be starting things. And I'll. Explain a little bit about the process as we go along. But in any event, let me finish getting the meeting. Our finance committee meeting called order. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the exit 2021 extended. By chapter 22 of the exit 2022. This meeting is being conducted by a remote means members. Public. Who wished to attend the meeting. And so by zoom by telephone. And. Well, no in person attendance. Members of the public is being permitted. We were making every effort to. Make sure that. The public can adequately. Access the proceedings in real time. By a technological means. And we will have public comment. During the meeting, which is an important part of what we do. But. In any event with that said. What I would like to do is to go ahead. And. Ask each member of the finance committee. To confirm that we can hear. That they can hear me and we can hear them. And then. When we. Actually get to the. Also. Calling the assembly to order. I'll then ask that we go around again to introduce ourselves to. Members of the assembly and we'll be asking them to do the same for us. So. Lynn. Can you hear and. Yes. I'm here. Yeah. Present. Yeah. Bernie. Present. And shell. Here. Kathy. Yes. Here. Okay. So our committee present. At this point. Michelle. Is there anybody else that's joined the, do you know? Alexis just joined us. She was setting up for Amherst media. Irv sends his regrets. He had a dental emergency and is actually unable to. He said it was okay to share that. And I thought that Yvonne and. Dr. Shabazz were going to be joining us, but I don't see them yet. And I've texted both of them. So maybe it would be good to start with something else. And then see if they arrive, if you're okay with that, Andy. And if, if Hala and. Alexis are, and Jennifer are good with that as well. Okay. Yes. And. So we'll save introductions. Until. We see if you have a quorum. We will. Take. We will discuss. Preparations nonetheless. But we want to give this as much time for others from the assembly to join us. Again, so it makes sense. Thank you, Andy. That's perfect. Okay. And. So Sean. Is there an item that you would recommend that we take up first from the agenda? I would assume the capital improvement program, but you may have a different suggestion. No, I think that's a, that's a great idea. That one I think is. We're all here for that one. Okay. And I think that everybody. See, I think that all the two members and finance committee were at the forum last night, which turned out to be pretty much of a non-event on the forum side. There was not a lot of. Comment that was offered. I think that's a great idea. That one I think is. We're all here for that one. Okay. And I think that everybody. See, I think that all the two members and finance committee were at the forum last night, which turned out to be. I think that's a great idea. And I think that's a great idea. And I think that's a great idea. And I think that's a great idea. And I think that's a great idea. And I think that's a great idea. And I think that. Comment that was offered. Regarding the capital improvement plan. And. It has been submitted. We did talk about it at two meetings in the first week in May. And so at this point. It's really just a question. At this point as to whether there are any matters from the. Members of the committee that you have. And I think that's a great idea. And I think that's a great idea. And I think that's a great idea. And the people want to ask about or speak to. And. So why don't we pause and see if there's members of the finance committee who have any. Matters that they want to. Raise Kathy. It's, I don't want to be repetitive because I raised this last year also with. A similar question. The committee in the out years. Starting actually the in the coming year. But the beginning of the four capital projects with. Both the schematic design fire station. DPW and peace. So I just want to have our meeting. This and the modeling that led to that capital plan still needs to be revisited. I'm fine with the capital plan and it is because it doesn't really affect FY 23 FY 23. We've already authorized the library which I guess is still uncertain when we were on JCPC. You said it might start to show up in 23 but might not be till 2024. It sort of depends on the timeline for construction. Is that still correct? Yeah, I think everything you said is right. I think, and I hope I mentioned this during the presentation of the cap improvement program that the number specifically related to the four building projects might will change as we update that model. Obviously, since we developed that model we've seen rapid inflation construction costs and interest rates have started to go back up. So I suspect as we update the model in the next year's capital improvement program you'll see some significant changes to those numbers. And then as it relates to the Jones library. Yeah, some of it's the timing of when that debt hits is related to the timing of when construction starts but it's also related to the timing of when we borrow. And we're, you know, we're working with our financial advisor to identify when the most advantageous time is it's sort of in this area of rising interest rates and a Lumion recession and so trying to trying to get the best rate for the town is what we're what we're trying to do, again, working with our financial advisor to do that. I just wanted to bring that up because fit FY, this will be a theme of the finance committees reports FY 23 looks fine. If you go out a couple years we're in deficit. Although I know there's a lot of uncertainty in those out years and we put in this year we put in this special pool of money, because each piece of equipment we started to buy we would say we wanted to buy it in September and by December it was a different budget. So we've got, we've got a pool of money for volatility that hopefully will get us through FY 23. I mean that's that that is what that is there for so I, I just, I just want to underscore that similar to the operating budget. Right now we're, we're looking at a world that as we get into later years, it's extremely tight budget. The other thing that I'm thinking about is to follow up on what Kathy just said is that really have a couple of new members of the finance committee and the course new members of the Council to who have not had any presentation on the model whatsoever to understand even how it was structured to work and what the theory was behind it. And I'm more and more sensitive to it because we receive some questions as Council level, and I've been writing the report and if you've looked at draft one and I'm now working on draft two. pieces in there that refer back to the model and how were you, how and why we built up to stabilization fund and why we're anticipating now the use of the stabilization fund. I think it might be time even if we just make it clear that this is a sample, an example, but severely outdated and the numbers are relevant to at least to a presentation. So that there's an understanding of how the model developed over time and what kind of decision points getting made within the process. Okay, this is the time Andy, do you mean right now today. Okay. No, I think I've talked to Paul about this, we're going to be working. I would say this month we will be getting the tool updated. And so we're working with our, our estimates of the town share for the school project keep changing pretty widely. And so we're working with our designer and our opm to really nail it down what the range is for the town share. And then we know what the library share is and then with the DPW and the fire station it ultimately comes down to, you know what we can with the town can So we will be working I'd say the next couple weeks and before the end of the month to get a model updated, and then I can work with with the town manager and the chair of the council to figure out how we, you know, we present that updated model. Andy, I just want to, I know I see Lynn's hand is up and I wasn't saying that needs to be done now but really soon in July because the assumption was the school building wouldn't draw it all on reserves and we, depending on what we think we can with the town share is is that startlingly high budget we may need to be taking a look at that again. I, and I'm not saying with a conclusion widget but just that we may need to open the door to that discussion. Okay. Hello car. I see that you're here and just want to say hi. I'm a little bit of finance committee while we're waiting for more members of the assembly to be here but we're going to switch to joint meeting when Michelle indicates it's time. Do you need me to call the meeting to order since I believe that we have a quorum at this point. Yes, probably that if you have a quorum you should do that. Okay, so calling to order the meeting of the African heritage reparation assembly at 316pm. And I can, we can make sure everyone can be heard when we come back to it. If that works. Okay, and we already have made a disclosure for the meeting regarding the open meeting law requirements and the exceptions I don't think you need to repeat that. Lynn, your hands up. I'm sorry. Yeah. Let me just jump back to the model for a moment. I think that Sean and Paul signal that we're ready. The question is whether this should be a presentation to the full council or to the finance committee to begin with the finance, the full council has a meeting on the 27th of June and then again on the 18th of July. The finance committee has not scheduled its meetings. I have a bias about this baby going to the full council, but excuse me, I don't know if that is reasonable. And so that's my one question. And then frankly, I'm ready to make a motion on the capital improvement program. And as far as doing it to, I would say that when Sean is ready. We might consider a joint meeting at a council time. And make it an item that's at a set time so that finance committee members who are resident members who only want to attend that portion of meeting. They know what it is. So Sean and Paul, the real issue is July 18th or because the next one is tentative if we even need to have it and that's August 1. Yeah, I think I mean, I'll talk with the town manager. I think July 18th is reasonable but was at the make if there's any major pieces of information that would withhold would stall is from update and that we can let you know. Okay, great. I'm done with that question. I'm ready to move on to motions for capital improvement. Okay. Actually, don't we have orders. So what we need to do is get the orders on the screen and then have motions to recommend orders specifically. So when Sean gets those available for us. Can you see my screen. Let's got it. Let's go out there. I can see it. Okay. Okay, go ahead then. I move that we recommend to the town council approval of appropriation and transfer order FY 23-05 a second. I second change seconds. I'll just move on to the motion on the floor that's been seconded any discussion. Hearing none. Wait a minute. Lynn, your hand is still up. Is there further more than you want to say. Take it down. I just can't reach it. Okay, that's all right. So I just wanted to check. I think we're doing the same as for our guests at the meeting that since we have resident members of the committee who are non voting members. And which is by the charter. And we have five members who are members of the. We're voting members because the members of the council. The way that we proceed is alphabetically. The resident members indicate whether they. Are in support or not support of the. Motion that's on the floor and members who are counselors vote. So that's what's going to happen next. So. I'll start with. Matt, how, how do I. Yeah, support. Bernie Kubiak support. Michelle Miller. Yes. Get the chain. Yes. And I'm a yes. Lisa Walker. Yes. Yes. Bob. Okay. So we have a motion that carries. Five to zero with all through the resident members in support. Okay. So there's a second one. Which I'll put up on the screen. This is the dead authorization. Correct. Yeah. It's actually going to be three altogether. Is this the correct one? This is the dead authorization. Yeah. Okay. So I move that we recommend to the town council. Okay. Okay. So the death authorization order FY 23. Dash zero six. In seconds. You said there were three, but there are only two. Barring's listed a and B. Sorry, there's three orders. The final orders. Okay. Got it. Okay. So. We have emotions on the floor. Okay. I think we have a motion to add. I've made by the lens. Kathy seconded. Any discussion on the motion that's on the floor, Kathy. Yes, I would just like when, when we do the report, Andy, Lynn read the short title of it. I would like the rest of the words to come in an order, approving alteration. But so people know when they're reading it, that one is for the borrowing and one is for the cash. So it's just a request to add the rest. Okay. I don't read. I actually would take that as a friendly amendment to both motions. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to take her. Also please. Take note of. Change. So. Any further discussion seeing none. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I support the motion. Michelle. Yes. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes. And Lisa. Yes. Lynn. Yes. I'm. Support. And Matt. Support. So it's five to zero. With three members who resident members in support. So. Lynn. You have the third order. For this last order is specifically the stabilization fund. And we put it with capital because it's really intended to. Support the initial debt payment for the. For the Jones library project. Okay. So I move that we recommended the town council. Approval of appropriation and transfer order. FY 23-14 B. Town of Amherst stabilization fund transferred to balance the FY. 23 budget. Second. Shane. Any questions. Or discussion. Andy in, in the write up, is this the one where, when we bring it to the full council, there needs to be two thirds vote to bring the money in. So we would just need to note that when you. Do the report back to the council. Yes. It's on the order itself. Yeah. Just in order appropriating that line. Yeah, I just, I just think that maybe everyone very carefully reads two thirds. I just. I just, you know, I don't doubt that this will get a two third vote, but I just want people to understand that when we do that, it's a two thirds vote because we're bringing money out of the stabilization fund. Yes. And I'm quite confident that if nobody else brings it up with the meeting that Athena will make sure it gets brought up. We also write the motions so that they have the required vote in them. The borrowing one also required two thirds. Thank you. So there's no further discussion. Then we'll go ahead and vote and then we can complete this item. And then I can ask Michelle if she wants to proceed with the next agenda item being the discussion on reparations. So, but Michelle. Yes. Kathy. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Support. Support. And Bernie. Support. So I think that again, we have a five to zero with three members, resident members and support. Kathleen, do you, would you like to move on? Yeah. We have a move on to the next agenda item being the. Discussion and the reparations. If I'm Kathleen. Sorry. Sorry. Yes, that would be, that would be great. I unfortunately, I don't think Yvonne's going to be able to make it. And we know that herb is not. So I think we're, we have everyone here that is going to be here. I don't have a number in the audience. I don't know if. I'll just tell that person to, if you're a member of the AHRA to raise your hand. And I'm not just who knows how to raise your hand on a phone. Star nine isn't hit star nine on your phone. If you are a member and I'll bring you into the, into the room. Thank you, Sean. That's a good call. I think you can go ahead. They haven't raised their hand. Yeah. Okay. So what I'm going to do is. Actually, I have a question for you, Michelle. And that is. Do you have a request as to, or any suggestion as to when you would like to have public comment offered? That's, that's a really good question. I think. Let's, let's start our introductions and discussion. And then maybe move to public comment. Okay. I'm going to move to public comment after that. If that, so work on your end. Yes, that's fine with me. So why don't I ask each of the members of the. Finance committee. To just introduce themselves indicate. You know, just in a sentence or two. I don't know who they are as far as what the relationship is to the committee. And. Anything that they want to say an introduction. And then have you do the same for members of the assembly. So. I'll keep with the alphabetical, but just move down one. Kathy, why don't you go first. Just Andy, I missed what we're doing. Just introduce yourself. Okay, I'm Kathy Shane and I'm a counselor district one counselor and I'm a member of the finance committee. Okay. And I think that we will probably getting to know that I'm Andy Steinberg and I'm the chair of the finance committee. I'm a counselor at large and previous experience on the select board and before that. The old finance committee as it existed in our former, former government. Alicia. Hi everyone, my name is Alicia Walker. I am an at-large counselor and a member of the finance committee. I'm a resident member of the finance committee. I've been in Amherst for 22 years. Okay. Matt. Hey there, everybody. My name is Matt Holloway. I'm a resident member of the finance committee. Fairly new been on for about. Three or four months now. Only been in town for about three years. And I'm also co-chair of the Amherst cultural council. Bernie. Hi, I'm Bernie could be a member of the old finance committee. Now a resident member of the new finance committee. I live down here in South Amherst. So Michelle, you can say whatever you want an introduction, but then take us and make sure that members of the assembly introduce themselves. To the members of the finance committee. Excellent. And I also wanted to mention that Kathy is the chair of the school building committee. And so she didn't mention that. And everyone knows, I think I'm Michelle Miller. I am a town counselor. I am also the chair of the African heritage reparation assembly. So sort of wearing two hats today. I'm on the finance committee and I'm also a member of the GOL committee. And we can just go. I'll start, I guess in the order that I see folks on the screen. So, Hala, do you want to start and introduce yourself? Thank you. My name is Hala Lord. I'm on the African heritage reparations assembly. And I live in district five. And I see you, Dr. Shabazz. Yes. A milk car. Shabazz. I've been living in Africa. Yes. A milk car. Shabazz. I've been living in Amherst since 2007. And right off Bay Road. And I, I'm happy to be serving on the AHA. And Alexis. Hi, I'm Alexis. I live, I'm pretty sure in district, district three. I feel a little embarrassed to say that, but I've been live. Amherst for 30 years. And Jennifer is also here. I am not sure if. Oh, there. Hi everyone. I'm Jen moist and assistant director to diversity, equity, inclusion, and the staff liaison for the AHA. And I've lived in Amherst 40 plus years. I hope all of you know our town manager and our finance director. And so what we want to do is. At least today start with a discussion in which we. The assembly under Michelle's leadership is going to explain. What it is that. The assembly is asking the finance committee and ultimately the council through the finance committee to consider. If they're able to have time for questions from. Members of the finance committee about the request. Questions. Questions from members of the assembly. About what they. Want to know about the town's finances and how. The proposal. Last year was structured and what is envisioned or whatever is there because this is. The goal of this meeting is to make sure that we get to know each other, that we understand what the request is. We understand what the issues are. That. And questions are that. The members of the committee and members of the assembly. Have about the decision in the process. We are limited in time because. Sean and Paul have another meeting. That is coming up, which is the. Library building committee in which they're both members. And that's. That's a really important committee meeting. So we are time limited today and we do have several other. Agenda items that the finance committee has to deal with today. But we wanted to get as far as we can today. If it gets to the, there's a bill, a consensus amongst the finance committee and. Some ability to conclude the discussion. We would do so if not. So that was my introductory piece. And I think that Michelle's introductory piece is going to be. To start by explaining a little bit about the request. And take it from there. So Michelle. Thank you, Andy. And thank you for this opportunity for us to be together and have this discussion. Really appreciate it. And I appreciate the time that you may have taken to read the memos that I've put out. I put one out a couple of weeks ago and then one very late in the day today. So you may not have had a chance to read it. But essentially we are here because our charge, the AHA. And I just wanted to make this a little note that it's the African heritage reparation assembly. There's no S on it. We are charged with identifying an ongoing funding stream. And it is outlined in my memo that. Last year, about $210,000 was moved from free cash. Into the stabilization fund to basically to seed our. To seed the fund. As we were beginning our work. And that was modeled off of the cannabis tax revenue. That was expected or it, you know, I, I don't know if I got this right, Sean, when I put it into the memo, I hope that I did, but I, I think it was modeled off the FY 21 actual cannabis tax revenue. Yeah. I think that's right. Okay. Great. And so our request is actually two fold. We recognize that the budget has already been set for FY 23. And so we're asking that for FY 23, similar to last year, free cash would be moved into the account in the fall when it becomes available. Similar to the model that was used last year off of the cannabis tax revenue. So that's one request. But for FY 24 and going forward from there, we're asking that the town council designate the cannabis tax revenue for reparations. And, you know, it's understandable. I tried to, I tried to address several of the concerns that I heard in the council meeting when this was originally presented. But again, I just want to remind us that our number one goal was to identify an ongoing funding source. And after very careful consideration and research, we determined that the cannabis tax revenue is the best source of revenue for reparations. And in order for us to move forward with our work and to develop a plan. And to be able to consult with members of the black community and engage the community as a whole. Having a sense that there is a stable ongoing revenue stream that is going to be developing this fund. Is really important. And so given that our timeline expires in June, 2023 and given the way that the budget cycle works, we are bringing forward this request now. The cannabis tax revenue is not something that has been really discussed as I understand it in terms of where it should go. And I think that in the memo and in our last council meeting, we've made the case for why we believe that reparations is the right place for it. So I do want to turn it over to any of the HRA members who may want to add to what I've just framed there. And then of course open it up for further discussion. So if hollow or Dr. Shabazz or Lexis. Jennifer, anyone would like to. Add to what I've said, please raise your hand and. Yes, Alexis. I'm going to keep this very brief and like I normally do. So I guess I just wanted to say that I would like to encourage you all to avoid the temptation of pitting marginalized groups. All who are all deserving of reparative justice against each other. I strongly believe that race exclusive. Discrimination deserves, deserves race exclusive reparative programs. And your recommendation is a step towards tangible change. And I think it's a good idea. To recognize that you have a lot of. Rearranging of reparative programs and your recommendation is a step towards tangible change that our African heritage. The community can be very encouraged by so thank you for your consideration. Anyone else on the assembly. Yes, Dr. Shabazz. I see your hand. Thank you. I'll also endeavor to keep this brief. Denver, Colorado led the way in terms of. in terms of collecting revenues from cannabis sales. And if we look at what they've done, they really have taken a look at that revenue stream and try to use at least part of those funds in ways that attempt to rectify or repair the harms that were done, particularly when marijuana was illegal. But even going beyond that in terms of other kinds of social reparative measures beyond fixing potholes and all the other things that come out of our general fund that we do in that. And I think it's something for us to look at here, but in terms of this particular pool of revenues, how to particularly try to use it in ways that encourage our young people, encourage people to avoid marijuana use, encourage our people to have other things to do than to go and smoke marijuana. So there are a lot of different things we can think about both for the community impact fees as well as for the revenues collected from the taxes that ought to be looked at in a reparative way. But I want to say one other thing in terms of where we're at in terms of the assembly or I'll speak specifically for myself. It's really hard to begin to go to the African heritage community in Amherst and start a real consultative process about repair and about confronting the harms that our community has undergone and what kinds of things could happen here in Amherst when we have no idea of any sort of budget for this other than the 200,000 or so that's in the current stabilization fund. And so right now, trying to go out there, we really have an issue in terms of like managing expectations because if that's it, if that's all this council thinks it can do, then we need to know that. And then we're going into the community and say, look, we got 200K, what can we do? But if we're thinking of something larger, something more robust, something tied to perhaps this cannabis tax revenue from which we can plan and we can develop a real plan that goes beyond just 200K to look at years out, the kinds of things that can be done, then that's a totally different message that we can go into the African-American black community and begin to consult with them about the harms and about the repair. So it's very important, I think that this council, that this finance committee recommend to the council to really confront this now, giving us a clear sense of what kinds of revenue possibilities we have to look at in terms of a reparative justice plan. Because otherwise it's very difficult for me to imagine going into the African heritage community to really talk about a plan for addressing the harms that have been experienced in our community without any sense of what kinds of revenue we're committing, we're reserving to put behind this work. Thank you very much. Thanks, Dr. Shabal's. Sorry, yeah, and I too wanna thank both of our recent speakers because I think that it has helped to frame the discussion and increase the understanding. And I don't think that anybody is going to be surprised that finance committee's concern always is the fact that our resources are limited and that we've got a lot of pressures on the town as far as what the expectations are. And then we've actually increased the pressure on ourselves in the last year by creating two new programs that hadn't existed before and trying to fund those programs at the same time that we're trying to maintain what we're doing now. Obviously I'm referring to Crest and TEI. But let me ask what Sonya for one piece of information if it's available, if not, obviously just tell us. And that is, do you have an estimate at this point yet for the years to what we might have in the way of cannabis revenue from excise tax, that portion of it? I do not, not at the moment. It did go down quite a bit because one of the establishments closed down. So I don't have that now, but the timing for, I'm just trying to understand the processes here that everyone's trying to get because we can't do anything with free cash until it's recertified. And that isn't going to happen until October. And it's too late to do it for this year's free cash because you have to have a public forum for this appropriation and it has to go through that whole process. I believe, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm so a little... I don't believe we had a public forum when this was decided last year, but... It's an appropriation. I think we did do a public forum. It was combined with multiple others because we did a road allocation and sidewalks, this transfer. So I think it was all part of one, but because it's an appropriation, we think you still have to do the public forum the way we do further appropriations. So that part of it couldn't happen until after free cash is recertified. Is there anybody who needs an explanation of what we mean in the terms of free cash certification and the history of how we've transferred funds from free cash to stabilization funds in general? Because that's sort of a core understanding of how the timetable works. I don't wanna repeat information that's already available but if there's a request for that answer, then either Sean or I will provide it. Andy, can I just follow up on that real quick? Yes. We'll double check on the hearing. I guess I do wanna double check on that. Sonia, just whether we've done hearings in past years when we just transferred to the regular stabilization fund because it's similar to that. And I just wanna clarify. So the request is to do this in the fall, right? The request is to do this in the fall when free cash is certified. Yes, there's no question on that. We're just looking to get some indication from the finance committee or really from the town council that that will be the decision when the money becomes available in the fall. Andy, I see Paul's hands up. Yeah, Paul. Yeah, so I just wanna be clear what we're asking for. So are we looking at two different things? One is an action in the fall and then from that point forward saying every year the cannabis excise tax is going to be put into the stabilization fund. And I guess a question to Sonia is when do we, this is a money that's collected by the state, when do we know what that number is? Like what time of year would we learn what that number is that we collected in the prior fiscal year? I think a safe timeline would be the end of July. So end of July every year, we'll know what cannabis tax was put into what has been given to the town through the state, right? Yes. And if the council says we want to dedicate those funds to reparations how would you see that working? I think that if there's a vote to dedicate those funds to reparation then they would just automatically get, correct me if I'm wrong, Sean because I just read this once but I think it just gets automatically dedicated to the stabilization fund. Yeah, let me just clarify. So I think we're combining two things. So I think Michelle and anybody else on the AHRA correct me if I'm wrong. So what you want to do is transfer an amount equivalent to what we receive in FY 22 into the stabilization fund. So that would not a dedication but transferring it literally into that fund. And that's the number again, we'll know at the end of July and then the free cash will be certified sometime in October. So that's when that would happen. Then there would be a separate action to dedicate future revenues, future cannabis revenues to go into the stabilization fund beginning with FY 24's cannabis revenues because FY 23 is part of this budget. So that vote theoretically, you wanted that to also be in the fall. So when we do our budget planning and our budget process, before we go and forecast revenues that are gonna support the overall budget we'd wanna know if that revenue was gonna be dedicated to something else so that we wouldn't include it in our budget planning. So I think both of these things would have to be voted in the fall if we wanted to do it in the most sort of planned out way. So it's my understanding there's two actions. One is to take action to put money into the stabilization fund in the fall and we'll know exactly what that number is if we're gonna continue to tie it to cannabis revenue. And the second is to establish a policy of the council to from this day forward dedicate those cannabis funds to go into the reparations. And by this day forward meaning July 1st 2023. Yes, but the council would need to do that in the fall of 2022 so that we know going forward when we prepare our budget that that's what the council wants to do. So there's two separate actions the council would be looking at doing. That's right, that is the request. And whether it's voted now or voted in the fall I'm not sure if it matters from your perspective from our perspective, it does matter in the sense that we would like to have that sense of security that that, you know or at least have some knowing about where we're headed. And so we would prefer and what we're requesting is that this gets back to the council sooner than later to be voted upon. And part of it is we've built a lot of momentum we've worked really hard putting these memos together getting public to come out and to speak to this. There are other demands on the budget and we understand that. And for us, our objective is to secure this stream of revenue and to secure it now. And so that is what we're requesting. Now that doesn't mean that we're not open to having further communication answering questions. I'd be happy to go through some of the items that are here in the memo that I picked up from our last meeting. If folks want me to go through those or perhaps they're a good place to start. I would like to hear from members of the finance committee recognizing that this is a challenging conversation for us to be having. And we're all coming at it from different perspectives that I would like to get the sense while we're here of the committee. So we know what we need to do, how far off we are. As Andy said, if we have some consensus today we may be able to move this forward sooner. And of course, the recommendation from here is a recommendation and ultimately the council will have to decide on these things. So I'm curious if there are members of the committee that would be willing to speak to this at this point. Yeah, I see three hands up from the committee. So we recognize them in order and say if any questions that I have until after we get other questions out of my brilliant committee may ask all the questions. I don't need to ask anything, but start with Bernie. Thanks, Andy and thanks to Michelle for doing a considerable amount of research and writing on this. I'm not gonna be able to add much new to what's already been said, but I would offer my support for pegging reparation funding to the cannabis excise tax. If the town is serious about going forward with reparation, then it makes sense to provide a predictable source of revenue to provide some security and again a tag to hang that promise on. And it'll also I think take us out of the annual discussion of how much and from where, which can pull the focus away from what should be happening in terms of the purpose of the project and reparation project. So I just, again, I can't add anything new it's all been said, but I can add my support. So Kathy. I too thank you for amazingly and wonderfully clear memos, Michelle and then the explanation of what the ask is. I'm uncomfortable about committing now because I would like, I saw in the charge to have a plan for how we might be spending this and even if it's conceptual that we know we can spend it in specific legal ways. I don't need to know X dollars for this and Y dollars for that in terms of an allocation because I think watching you've pointed out Illinois we have a couple of pioneers out there but along the way there have been challenges. So I would like to have a better sense of how we might be spending it. And I very much appreciate Dr. Shabazz saying with $210,000 seed money you have something to begin with. There's something quite real here and I'm not at all saying that might be the end of it but you can do fundraising around it. You can get people excited that Amherst has put itself on the map but I've been watching I'm really worried about the fiscal situation of the town and yes the cannabis tax in the current budget is only $150,000 penciled in but that only is being used and may really be used. FY23 looks pretty good. FY24 looks shaky and FY25 looks really bad as we look just in terms of keeping our schools going keeping the Crest program, the four firefighters are funded by ARPA money right now. There's a hole when we go out a couple of years. So I'd like to be at a more confident level and so I'm thinking pushing this off for a year or six months or eight months where we had kind of a concrete plan we know for sure we can spend the money in these legal ways. And I know we went to the state legislature to try to get special dispensation for this before I as a finance committee member commit to money and I do understand the two asks that in the fall it could be a ask out of free cash and I feel kind of the same way about free cash. It's free before we put it into the stabilization fund but if we as the chair of the school committee I don't know how many of you have been paying attention to what that price tag is coming in at. It's going to be a huge ask residents of the town and to the extent there's money in the stabilization fund to soften it. I mean, we haven't talked about touching it for the school yet. The taxpayers, the town I think need to rest assured that we're both on moral high ground and things we really feel strongly about but we're also supporting the services that people care deeply about. So I'm at a discomfort level of making a decision now meaning the timing doesn't work well for me. And so I know it's a chicken and egg you sort of laid out it's hard to say what you might spend it on till you know how much money you've got but many of us have thought of what's our house and what would we want in the house? We at least lay out the house and then we figure out whether we can afford that house or not but I think more elements and you were due to have one of the tasks or the charges was a specific plan about which things both you might want to spend it on and which things we can legally spend it on. So I have both, I have those two questions and I'll stop at there. So that's both a concern and a financial point of view on the timing of the ask. Thank you, Kathy. If I could, Andy, just quickly clarify that I did outline in the latest memo some possible uses for the money. And these are places that we've identified as areas that would be benefits. And some of them include and I just want to highlight this the possibility of picking up on some of the recommendations from the community safety working group like the BIPOC Cultural Center and the Youth Empowerment Center and looking at those as community benefits. So just thinking about this in the way of a savings account and ways that we may of course any of this and all of this will be reinvested back into the community one way or another. So I do want to point that out for you to look at that. Thank you. I want just to just for the sake of our HRA members who have not been at Finance Committee meetings before. The way we work when we have joint meetings that involve others besides the Finance Committee present is everybody just raises their hand if they have something to say and I recognize hands in order in which they are raised so that if you want to engage in the conversation just please raise your hand and it will be duly noted and proceed from there. Matt. Thanks, Andy. Thank you, Michelle and HRA members really. This has been a tremendous amount of work and I think as Michelle has said, the eyes of the country are kind of on us. This is, we truly are something exciting here. Andy, I had a clarifying question before I kind of make my short thoughts but what possible actions might Finance take as a result of today's discussion, if any? And I would ask that of you or of anybody who wants to help me understand that. What's the charge for the Finance Committee here? The poll was sort of getting at that question a few minutes ago and I would think that the end of Sean can back this up but one is to make a commitment now which we would not normally do about transfer from free cash or at least say that we will transfer, make a transfer in the amount or recommend to transfer at the appropriate time in the amount of the estimated FY22 revenue from cannabis or is it FY23? But anyway, Sean will give you some advice. I think the two possible actions would be to recommend the transfer. You could recommend now the transfer to occur in the fall if you chose to. We don't have orders drafted for those yet. So we don't have orders ready to share but they're sort of the same as they would be last year. And then the other action that the Finance Committee could recommend would be again in the fall to take some action to dedicate the cannabis revenues for FY, beginning of FY24 to the stabilization fund. And that would be a recommendation to the council for, I'm sorry, just as a new member trying to get processed straight. So that would be a recommendation to the council for a vote. Yeah, and then for the council they would both be, I'm pretty sure they would both be required to third, two thirds votes, both for the transfer into the stabilization fund. And then I believe the dedication of a revenue to a stabilization fund is also a two thirds vote. Thank you. And I apologize if that was redundant. It's just, it's been a lot to kind of track the possibilities here. I think this is a really exciting time and a really exciting moment. Certainly I echo Kathy's concerns about overall funding with inflation and the major capital projects and operating budgets being what they are and positions running on ARPA. So I do recognize those things. At the same time, looking at the overall cannabis initiative statewide, looking at some of the required uses that the state has established for its regulation fund, just trying to get my head around sort of what the spirit and intent behind this law is. And as Michelle alluded to in her memo, there are public health questions, I think that are associated with legalization of cannabis that will require funds at some point to address, particularly for the youth, but just across the board. So I think being mindful of, we are so early in the impact of introducing this new factor into our community that I would want to be mindful of some of those other needs that may arise, and that these revenue may be dedicated to. But I did take a lot of guidance, I guess, from looking at the MGL and granted, the state takes 16% or so of revenue versus our 3%. But the MGL does call for programming for restorative justice, jail diversion, workforce development. There is a clear intent behind the state law to use some of these revenues to help redress some of the wrongs for groups who are disproportionately affected by criminalization of cannabis. So I do think that we can take the lead there. And the mechanics of it, I think are beyond me right now. I don't really have a clear picture of what we should specifically do in terms of a funding level. But I would support some degree of earmarking of these funds for the reparations assembly, or the reparations project, simply because that does seem to be one of several key areas of spending in the state program. It's one thing that I just want to make sure that everybody recognizes is that there are actually two revenue streams come in from the sale of marijuana. One is impact fees, and the other is excise tax, the share of the excise tax. And there are different rules about, there's restrictions on use of impact fees, but excise tax is excise tax, and communities are free to use excise tax as revenue in any shape that they feel appropriate. So I just want to make sure that's understood. And Sonia, did you, we usually go to staff to the staff because they may have something in information for us to consider, Sonia. Yeah, I was just a little confused by Sean, what you said about the free cash appropriation to commit to that. We don't have an order, but we wouldn't put an order through until the fall. So I just, maybe I'm too much of an accountant. No, I'm saying we don't have an order. Yeah, we don't have an order yet, is what I said. Yeah, but so we're not recommending here. Well, I think so the decision today and for the finance committee, which is a little bit different than the way the process usually works is when the finance committee makes a recommendation, you typically have an order in front of you to review and to consider. If the finance committee was gonna make that recommendation today, all I'm saying is that you don't have an order to review because we don't have one. Yeah, because normally it would be in the fall. We would have to revisit it in the fall and re-recommend it though for the, because there is no source right now. Right, I think so. I think Sonia's right. I think Sonia's saying that because we don't actually have free cash certified, we can't prepare an order. Put in the cart before the horse here. Well, I think it's, yeah, it's an important distinction to make. So we're asking for the commitment, not for, you know. Actual recommendation. Actual recommendation. And that's exactly what we did last year. Is the commitment actually happened, I think on June 5th and, or whatever it was in my memo there. And then the actual order wasn't voted until the fall. So that's both are true. The, just to clarify one thing, I believe that transfers into stabilization funds require a majority vote and transfers out under current law require two thirds vote. Yeah, no, I might have flipped those. If I said two thirds, they had to go on belt double checkup. Yeah. Alicia? Yeah, thank you. At first, I just wanted to recognize and thank the AHRA for their, the incredible amount of work that they have done and for their dedication and commitment to this committee, which is very important, but also very challenging work. So thank you all for taking this on. And I want to state that I am in complete support of taking some type of action towards this and today. Some of the things that I'm thinking about is that while we would like for there to be a permanent plan or a very like detailed plan as to how the committee thinks that we should use reparation funds that that's extremely difficult to do if there's no realistic sort of, you can't really fathom your realistic fund and your pool and what you have access to. And so that limits the possibilities to narrow down and specify that at all. And so I think that the general list of things that might happen or might be able to happen is I think that is sufficient. And I wouldn't expect them to be able to come up with more if like there's a big difference between giving somebody $210,000 one time and having them know that that is going to be replenished every single year. Those are two incredibly different things and might result into incredibly different outcomes in terms of what can be offered to the community. And I know that as a town our budgets and finances are really tight and we're working on a lot of really important projects but I don't believe that we have any current standing commitments to use these funds for any of those projects nor do I think we necessarily should. I think that the cannabis tax revenue has no better, there's no better reason or source for it to be used for. Like this is exactly the kind of programming, the kinds of restorative justice that those funds should be going to. And so I don't understand the difference between committing now and committing later in the year. I don't understand what things we think would change between now and July in terms of our budget and our finances. I think we have a pretty clear picture as to what we think or expect will happen although we know that there will be some variation and I don't think that those things will change depending on the commitment that we make to the AHRA and to establishing and identifying that fund which we created this committee to do. And so I think delaying and prolonging them also doesn't make sense. And so I would support figuring out some type of commitment today that we could make towards identifying an ongoing revenue stream for AHRA from the cannabis revenue funds and also airmarking or a commitment to airmarking and looking at these funds when it does come to the time for the free cash for this committee as well. Matt, your hand is still up. Did I not get back to you or I don't know if you had anything else to say? Okay. Lynn's hand is up. Yeah, Lynn, since you raised your hand, I was gonna go ahead, Lynn. Please go ahead. No, the only thing that I was going to make sure is understood because it was kind of, I think there's a little bit of confusion in the time and just to remind everyone just, and if everybody knows what I'm gonna report, I'll try and be brief and I apologize. But the way that what happens is that at the end of the year, at the end of the fiscal year, we close books and of course that's June 30th and make a preliminary determination of the, whether there is free cash left at the end of the year. And our policy is that there's a cap on the amount of free cash that we have and we move excess free cash to stabilization. There's always been some level of excess free cash and that Navel says to do that. And we do that after free cash is certified by the Department of Revenue because they have to go over our books and approve what Sonia has been working on and for the entire year make adjustments to it. And then they certify an amount of free cash which then gives us the ability to make the transfer. And we transfer to stabilization fund of any amount that's in excess of the balance that's in town financial policies outputs the maximum amount of free cash. We feel appropriate to hold as free cash. So that's how the process occurs every year. What happened last year, which was our first year where we were operating with the second stabilization fund because we have a general stabilization fund which we've been intentionally building up in order to fund the capital projects including the library and school building elementary school but we established this second stabilization fund for reparation. And that transfer, what we did at about this time or I wanna, Michelle gave us the exact date but doesn't matter the exact date. But at that point, the recommendation was made from the finance committee to the council and the council voted that it had the intention of making a transfer from free cash to reparation stabilization fund in the approximate amount of the prior year's revenue from excise tax for cannabis sales. And so that intention was what was voted and then the actual transfer was voted in the fall. And so that was the process last year and I think that we were kind of working through similar. So Sonia, what did I get wrong? No, you got it right. I'm just gonna throw a little monkey wrench into the whole thing here is our financial policy state that anything over 5% in free cash would get transferred to stabilization funds. So when would this kick in? Because we're gonna be transferring money to the stabilization fund. So what if we don't reach that 5% in free cash? Do you know what I'm saying? So we get our, because our policy states 5% and so we try to keep 5% of free cash at all times and everything else goes into the stabilization funds. So I don't know, that's just one thing to consider. For us accountants that see it in black and white, what do we move here and what do we move here? So... Sonia, are you talking about the dedication of the revenues? We're talking about transfer from free cash. It was in the fall. Yeah, so anything over 5% in some years that was a very small amount. So I know the last few years has been really high but that's not the norm. So I just want everybody to keep that in mind. Yeah, I mean, we do have that actually additional concern which is what happens this year if because of all of the inflation that we have been sitting in our costs for energy and food and other things that have been most particularly affected by inflation. We know that, for example, the departments that run vehicles that have been paying higher costs for fuel for vehicles. So we may end up the year with less free cash than we have in prior years. And so the what if question actually is an relevant traditional question, Sean. And then I'm going to go back to the committee members. Yeah, I mean, I think one reason, I mean, the committee could certainly signal a commitment now if they wanted to. I think one reason to reserve sort of a final decision to the fall is because I think you want to see the revenue projections going forward. There's a long time between now and the fall and we don't know what's going to happen to the economy and all sorts of things along those lines. The way things are headed doesn't always sound great when we read the news. I think that we have enough information now that we can look at it both ways when we do our revenue projections in the fall that might help inform the committee and inform their decision. Okay, Lynn. Andy, can I just jump in and remind AHRA members that if they'd like to speak at any point, as Andy said, please raise your hand and you'll be put in the queue. Okay, the other thing that I need to make clear is that we do need to hear from, to meet with the superintendent of public works regarding a very important decision that needs to be recommended to the council regarding funding for the centennial water treatment plant and the assurance that we have adequate drinking water into the future. And we also have a presentation that we need to hear from the assistant town manager after that regarding the North Common Project and the funding from the North Common Project. So that's why we do need to cap the discussion today whether or not we reach a conclusion. Lynn. So I just wanna look at a couple of things, okay? The first request is around free cash. And I personally have no problem with looking at it once it's certified. And I wanna thank Sonia for bringing up our own fiscal policy, which is the one about the 5%. But we won't know that question. We won't know the answer to that question until October, okay? We also won't know the answer to the question with regard to expected revenues, but let me just stay on the free cash for a moment. If we find out in the fall that above 5%, there is a amount equal to what the revenues would are that we would find out in July for cannabis, then I think that is a very appropriate and considered thing to do at that time. If we find out that our free cash is less than 5%, then we have a bigger problem in that we now haven't followed our own fiscal policy. And that's a problem for me, okay? The second piece, and I wanna just talk to the issue and believe me, I've raised money for all kinds of things over the years. I understand the chicken and the egg problem. You wanna have money so that you can plan for it and you wanna be able to say to people, we have money and therefore these plans are real, okay? I am very reluctant to ever earmark any money anytime. And I'm gonna go back to my own personal experience and I'm gonna go back to one that I think the town probably had as well. Somewhere in the late 80s, early 90s, we hit a rough spot with state revenues. I would get notices from funding agencies of rescissions for the fiscal year we were in right then. They would come in the middle of February and they would say your budget is your grants been cut by half percent and by 50%. This is no lie, it happened again in 2008. The moment you designate anything as an earmark without flexibility, you then cut down your degrees of flexibility in terms of meeting those crises. We're not in one of those crises right now. I'm very concerned about the things we're seeing in the economy that could put us in that. But if the choice is, I can continue to employ two or three people in state and municipal government for the period from February 1st to the end of June and not have to cut their job midterm, then I want as much flexible money as possible. And I'd like to think that the state and the town has all learned how to do this better. But we all thought we had learned how to do it better back in 2008. And Andy lived through that in the finance committee. Bernie, I think you might have been there too. So I really feel first of all, we have to live by our policies and look at our free cash when it's certified. And at that point, knowing what the amount is for this year's cannabis, do that. And I think we can set up a system not unlike what we asked people to do for the percent for art bylaw. And that is there are triggers by which at some point somebody can say, but this year, we're just not able to do it because of X or because of Y. So I want some way in which we don't find a future town administration and a future town council with earmarked funds that don't allow us the flexibility one needs in hard times. And we've seen hard times. We've seen them twice that I can remember in just my period of time in Massachusetts with all kinds of state and federal money. So what I would like is for us to seriously consider that we do make a commitment to look at this with free cash in the moment we have the certification. But I would also like us to look at any discussion about earmarking that allows us some trigger to get out of an earmark in any one year where we might need it. I will even tell you with that, I still am very hesitant to ever earmark. I made the same case when the housing authority, when the housing, I'll think of it, John Hornick's group. Thank you. When they came to us and they wanted to take the Airbnb taxes and they wanted it earmarked. And I just have to say every time you earmark something you have to cut the degrees of freedom that you have in the budget to meet hard times. Now you've seen the fiscal conservative side of me. So what I'm going to do is matter a process for today. And I appreciate that comment as I probably would have offered it but now don't have to. I'm going to recognize Bob that I'm going to turn to public comment for all issues that are on the table. At that point, I think that we do need to draw this conclusion to a conclusion because I want to get to the Centennial plant and I want to get to the North Common because there are real important and substantial fiscal consequences if we don't get that back to the council in a timely fashion as will be explained. Andy, before you move to Bob can I just jump in quickly, please? Yes, but please let us move through the process and get the public comment too. Yeah, I just want to be in collaboration here since it's a shared meeting. And I think that what I've heard is there are members who would like to move forward with an action today. At least Alicia has made herself clear. I have also made myself clear. If that's not going to be the case if we need to have further discussion about this in terms of making the commitment not in terms of the details that everybody's been and I think we need to maybe get into some of those details and get clarification on some of those details like the 5% that Sonia brought forward. But if that's not going to be the case today I want to make sure that we are committed to having a meeting in the very near future with the two committees to bring those actions forward or I am going to bring them forward in a motion today. I'll be brief. I've been thinking about this for quite some time and I do think that reparations is a priority for the town and certainly a personal priority. And I think the cannabis tax is a creative solution. However, I do share Lynn's concerns about earmarks and earmarks can really become problematic if there isn't a sort of a safety valve on them. But what I would suggest or what I would propose consideration is putting reparations as a line item in the budget. And that way we can think about what we can afford every year to put into reparations rather than kind of just saying, well, there's this tax amount. We don't know what it is, but we'll take that. So that's just a consideration. I don't expect anyone to decide on that now but I think that might be a solution that gets around some of the issues with earmarking. Thanks. Okay, I said that I wanted to get to public comment and then come back to the committee but Alicia, I'll leave it to you to decide whether I should go ahead and see if there are public comment before or after you speak. So you're next. If you don't mind, Andy, it's just very quick. I just want to say that I think that it, I think that it would be irresponsible to use the cannabis tax revenue, at least a percentage of it for anything other than restorative justice and investing back into the black and brown community. Okay, thank you. I was pausing because I didn't know. So what I'm going to do is I ask for whether there's anybody who wishes to make public comment who's in the attendee list to please raise their hand and then I will recognize members of the public to make comment. They can make comment on the issue that we've been discussing today or any other matter that should come before the finance committee, the ones that I've identified for today or general, any issue is relevant. So I have one person who has asked to so far in this, so if there's anybody else, please feel free to raise your hand, but please bring Lauren into the room, Lauren Mills and Mills on mute here. Thank you. And why don't you introduce yourself, tell us where you live and please up here, comment. Yes, hi. Good afternoon. We can hear you. Okay, can you hear us? Oh, sorry. My screen just went black. Can you hear me? I can hear you and I can see you. So I don't know what's the problem that's going the other direction, but... Okay, I'll try to make this quick. I'm Lauren Mills, a six-year resident of South Amherst, also a member of the Board of Health and as a person of color, I just wanted to lend my comments and thoughts and show appreciation for the work that the AHRA has done and also the town council and your discussion today. I have a couple of questions just from the discussion as to if there's two stabilization funds, how do you know which one would, the free cash would go into for reparations? Like how would you differentiate that if there's two stabilization funds with the same name? Also, I really feel like the AHRA, if it does not continue as a committee, there really needs to be a nonprofit organization with black stakeholders that have some degree of control over funding for reparations. Also, I would suggest that maybe there should be a fundraising required to access the funds that the town will set aside for reparations and I also call it Repair of Justice initiatives. And I did have a comment prepared, so I'll just shorten it, but I'd like to read it. It says, this comment is in regard to the AHRA proposal to ask for a consistent stream of revenue for Repair of Justice initiatives that would enhance and benefit the black and brown communities of Amherst by setting aside a yearly amount of cannabis tax revenue for the purpose of building a sustainability, stabilization fund that would be the town's responsibility, but would only be allocated for projects, items and other, and that are approved by an appointed committee or group of African heritage stakeholders, aligning organizations and advocates. Going beyond charity, a cannabis tax revenue stream for Repair of Justice could be used in multiple ways to ensure that there are funds available for annual large-scale foundational programming and projects such as black artists and residents, educational scholarships for African heritage residents, economic investment in startup businesses and cultural enrichment activities. And since I would just like to end my comments there and thank you. Okay, well, thank you very much. Is there any other public comment that does to the offer today that anybody else wish to be recognized? Seeing none, then I need to see if there's anybody who's in the meeting who wishes to be recognized at this point. And I wanna actually respond to the question what we did last year was we knew that there was gonna be a large enough amount of free cash at the end of the year that we could transfer the amount that was the estimated cannabis revenue. This year we're not quite as certain. So we've never faced the question of how we would make that division for, I think that that's part of what we're doing. I think that that's part of what's on the table here. If there was going to be a motion today and I've only partly written it out would be something like finance committee recommends that the council request the finance department to prepare in order to transfer an amount of free cash equal to the estimated FY22 cannabis revenue excise tax revenue for consideration after free cash is certified. And Sean. Did you say recommend to town staff? Yes. I mean, I think that works if you want but usually you make recommendations to the council. But usually the finance- Yeah, I think the recommends that the council request. Okay. All right, that makes sense. That was the way that I had phrased it. So the finance committee recommends that the council request that the finance department prepare in order to transfer free cash to the reparation stabilization fund in the amount of the estimated FY22 cannabis revenue 322, right, I'm getting thoughts mixed up on this. It would be the- I think it would be an amount equivalent to the FY22 cannabis taxes that are collected. Yes, excise tax revenue for consideration after free cash is certified. That would seem approximately to be the motion that would close out the substantial portion of the discussion today. Andy, are you making a motion or are you just suggesting language? I'm suggesting language living to somebody says, yep, I make that motion. Then the motion is made. Seconded, we'll then proceed to discuss the motion so we can close this for today. I see Alicia Sand is raised. Alicia. Thank you. I would like to make the motion, but I also just have a question regarding the second portion of it, which was the ongoing commitment for the cannabis tax revenue. And if that will come to another discussion at a later time or if we are looking to also make a separate motion on that part of it. I think that today we probably can only go partway not because of anything other than I see Joe, Dave Zomek is in the attendee group and needs to be brought into the meeting, but also Gilford is here and we have two other agenda items to solve in the minimum time. I think that we need to decide to take that up at our in July meeting at our next whenever we schedule our next meeting, which is not yet scheduled. Okay. I think that sounds okay with me. If there are other members of the finance committee who are also okay with putting that vote off, I would like to move the first motion forward. Andy. Okay, let me just ask if there's a second from a member of the finance committee who is a voting member. Second, Miller. Okay, if there's a motion to second it, Bill, do you need help? Yeah, I have it read to me so I can get it or you can email it to me. Do you have it or do you need it? No, I didn't type it while you were sort of talking through it, so I need it. Do you want to read it back to us as you have it? No, I don't have it, so I need you to read it to me again or email me if what I'm saying. Okay. But again, we can also do it both ways. Mike and email it to you too, but the finance committee recommends that the council request the finance committee to prepare an order that will transfer the amount of free cash to stabilization in the estimated amount of FY23 cannabis excise tax revenue to be considered upon the certification of free cash for FY22. Can I offer two friendly amendments? Yes. I think you wanted to say actual FY22 receipts. Okay, I will, it will have to make sure that the maker and seconder are all in agreement of what we have because we were really trying to work craft their motion. I'm okay with that wording. I was just wondering if Sean, did you have, because you said two friendly suggestions, was there something else or was that the only one? Just I think a changing estimated to actual and changing FY23 to FY22, so that was both of them. Okay, thank you, Sean. Michelle, that's okay with you. That's fine, yes. Yeah. Ellen Karz has his hand up. Can I recognize Michelle? Of course, yeah. Ellen Karz. So just saying thank you for bringing this motion forward today and encouraging the voting members to go ahead and approve it. One of the things, and believe me, I have had to be a fiscal conservative too in my chairing of department at the University of Massachusetts in 2008 when the world went through the Great Recession and we got our rescission scenarios, our budget cutting scenarios. And I really wish then that there might have been a fund set aside for a small department focused on fighting anti-black racism to be able to save it from some of the worst cuts. This is what the fund provides. The fund provides that when you do go into these hard times that some of the most vulnerable sectors of the town have a little cushion, have a little place to go to where some things can be done to save them, to preserve the climate, to help them as they face things in a more drastic way than perhaps some of the less vulnerable and the less harmed sectors of the community. This is what makes the importance of having this little pool of resources that are dedicated. You haven't spent it, you're gonna get the chance to vote when you do decide to spend it at a two-thirds threshold. That power is yours, okay? And that power is yours in the face of whatever the hard time is when the proposals come forward on actually spending. So you'll have the full discretion there. This is just about making the statement that this is a part of the ongoing value, values of this town that we're reserving some of this pool of our funds, okay? Equivalent to the cannabis tax revenues, excise taxes collected, that we are dedicating them for restorative justice, reparative justice measures that help the most harmed members of our community. So, again, just encourage you to pass this forward and to have the conversation going forward about future spending. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Alec Carr. Michelle, I wanna conclude and get to a vote because we have those two other items and it's getting lighter than we expected. Yes, may I make one more comment, please? Just in wrapping this all up and I'd like to just be assured that we can schedule a meeting to complete the discussion on the designation of cannabis tax revenue for reparations. I am not comfortable with letting that go into the fall before we make that decision. And as I said, I ask you from the bottom of my heart to understand that we have a lot of momentum here. We're working really hard and we're trying to work within this system here. And so if we could please come together to settle a meeting time before the end of this meeting for that vote and recommendation to occur, I would very, very much appreciate it. Yeah, I don't know that we will have time but let's also say that we can make a commitment right now that it is likely that next meeting in the July if we don't schedule a July meeting and I tend to doubt we'll have time to schedule a July meeting that it's our understanding that the intent is to put that on the agenda for the July meeting. But I just don't know that we can do more than we can get to scheduling a meeting that always takes time to have everybody go through their calendars and that kind of thing and I don't wanna do that if we can avoid it. Lynn, I wanna keep moving but I do wanna see if you have any. I would like a clarification on the motion. The motion is to prepare the fiscal order but it still has to be voted on either by the finance committee and recommended to the council or for the full council. Well, certainly we'd have to be voted by the full council in the fall and whether it's referred to the back to the finance committee or just or not I think is a decision that this president you would make. Okay, I just wanted to clarify that it was to prepare that but there still had to be a vote of somebody. In this case, it would be the town council ultimately. There has to still has to be a vote because it was to prepare an order it was in. Lynn, does the policy discussion have to come first with a recommendation from this committee or can we bring it as we had planned to do on June 13th to the full town council without a recommendation? They can't vote on June 13th without the purchase order in front of them. I mean, the fiscal order. You can't have the order. This is because the motion is. No, I'm talking about the policy to designate cannabis tax revenue for reparations. Does that need to have a recommendation from this committee or can it be brought to the council on the 13th as we had planned for a vote of the full council without a recommendation from this committee? No, I mean, I guess I can only say that my preference is the committee have more time to conclude that discussion but we do not have time today to have that discussion and we just need to move forward. We wanted to do something. I think that there was a real desire to take a concrete step. And that's why I made the suggestion that we do what we did last year and at least keep pace with what we did last year because I think falling behind last year was just not an acceptable approach. I really am concerned about our timing now. So is it, there's other discussion that affects the motion otherwise let's vote on the motion. I think Bill has his hand up and down. Do you want me to just read to you exactly what I have for the motion so we can be clear about what we're voting on? Yes. I have Walker moved in Miller seconded that the finance committee recommend that the town council prepare an order to transfer an amount of free cash to a stabilization funds in the amount of FY20 in the amount of the FY2022 cannabis tax receipts. Is that correct? That was a staff. Okay. Oh, it was the finance committee recommends that the council request the finance department to prepare an order. Got it. And I think the word actual might have been in there but I'm not sure if I heard you say that Bill. Yeah, I said it. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to call. Did you already vote? One other friendly amendment and again, I defer to you and Lynn on this is do you want the council to direct the finance office or the town manager? I think typically the council directs the town manager. We need to have it be town manager. Is it if that's okay with the big and secondary changes to town manager? That is okay with me. Okay. Hearing no objection. Let's proceed to a vote. And I think Kathy is the limit. I'll start with myself and I'll vote yes. And I move in alphabetical order. Alicia. Yes. Lynn. Yes. Bob. A support. Matt. Support. Bernie. Support. And Michelle. Yes. And Kathy. No, I don't support. So you're voting no. So it's four to zero with three members, resident members in support. Four to one. Four to one. Four to one, I'm sorry. Four to one kind of. I'm sure that Bill would have had it if I didn't. But thank you. It's four to one. So with that said, and I think that we understand what is intended for the July meeting when scheduled. Thank the members of the preparation assembly for being present. Michelle, I think that it would be helpful if you'd turn the meeting and I want to, but Sean direct us as to the order of the two items that we need to absolutely do. So adjourning the AHRA meeting at 4.50. Yeah. Thank you. Members. Okay. Sean, you want to introduce one of the next two items we have Dave and Kilford both here. Yeah, so I'm thinking of maybe the North Common makes sense to go next because I think it's, I'm hoping it's a quicker item and then we can spend the rest of the time on Centennial. Dave, do you, Gilford, are you okay with that if we go with North Common next? Yes. Okay. So I guess I'll turn over to Dave to introduce this. There was a memo put in the packet as put in a little later, but there was a memo in the packet for people who need the background. Or Gilford, are you sure I can wait? I know we had slated Centennial to go first, but. You know, Dave, why don't we go with Centennial first actually just in case because Centennial is the one that has the real time-sensitive piece to it. Yeah, that was the plan and I don't, you know, Gilford was here for that, so. Okay. Gilford, do you want me to introduce this topic or do you want to go ahead? You can go ahead, Sean. Okay. So just building off of last night, the Centennial project has escalated in its cost. A couple of times, we've had different cost estimates provided by, this is Weston and Sampson as our engineer. Gilford, is that correct? No, it's Tate and Howard. Tate and Howard for this one, okay. So they've updated our cost estimates a few different times. It's gotten more expensive each time. The latest and hopefully the final cost estimate is for a little less than $18 million. Fortunately, we were accepted to the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program which provides a 19.8% loan forgiveness and it provides financing at a rate of 1.5%, which is much better than market rates these days. The slight downside is that they're only doing that for $14 million of the project because at the time we submitted, that was the cost estimate. So we will still have to borrow the other $4 million, the way we normally do and pay market rates for that other $4 million unless we have asked the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund if there's any way they could increase the amount that we're in for because the cost estimates went up. They might be able to go another million. I think there's a cap on what they can do. I think that cap's around $15 million. I don't think we can count on that, but we have asked. So what we have asked the council to do is to rescind the previous debt authorization for $11 million for Centennial and to authorize the $18 million and authorize us to essentially accept the entry into this program, which will provide these terms. And the program needs the full amount of the project authorized by June 30th in order for us to proceed. I also described last night that we potentially have another funding source in the forward bill, but that's a long ways off and we can't count on that either. But if there's strong advocacy and that does come to fruition, this program combined with the money in the forward bill, which was $3.5 million would get us back down to actually below our original cost estimates for this project in terms of the impact on the rates and the annual debt payment. So today, if we're happy to answer any questions, I've modeled, I would say these are rough models of the impact on the rates under different scenarios, but I can share those with you if you wanna see them. And then we ask that you make the recommendation today if possible. Okay, and just so now, do you have prepared orders for the new? Yeah, in the memo, there's two orders. There's the order to rescind and the order to authorize the new total amount. Okay, sorry, I'm having something in my throat. Let's have the orders when we get ready, but let's have discussion first. Bob? Yeah, Sean, can you just clarify what the difference in the total cost to the town is with the increase, but with being part of the getting a lower rate and getting some of it forgiven? What's the, where do we stand in terms of what we sort of already thought of as the total cost of this project? Yeah, that's a good question. So I just had to do it on the calculator real quick. So the original project that we authorized was around 11 million. This project, this new, if we go forward with this new amount, or sorry, we have to go for the new amount, but with the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program, they provide the 19.8% forgiveness on $14 million. So if you subtract, multiply those numbers together, subtract it from the 18 million, it brings our new cost in around 15.2. So we'd be looking at around 15.2 million versus versus the 11 million that we originally planned on. What did we assume the interest rate was in the original? So in the original, no, it's a good question. The original, we assumed an interest rate in the high twos at the time. So having the interest rate on the 14 million at 1.5 helps offset the impact of the higher total cost. So the impact on rates, it does impact rates by authorizing the higher amount, but it's not as much as it otherwise would because of that favorable rate. Okay, thanks. Other questions? Kathy. John, did we also get a separate amount that was an absolute allocation, or is it just the loan? So the 19.8% loan forgiveness is almost like a grant portion of this. So once the project is done, we had conversations with them recently. They take that portion off the top and then finance the rest. So that comes out to a little over $2 million that 19.8% of the 14 million that was approved. Okay, at one point I thought there was a two or three million in addition to the loan, but this was part of it. No, yeah, so that was the forward act that if the forward bill, that included a separate three and a half million dollar mass works grant for the specific project. That's the bill that's stuck. That's the bill that's politics that sort of brought it to a halt, yeah. Okay, and our representatives understand that along with Pittsfield and a bunch of other towns where we would like. Yeah, every community, I think had something in that bill that would benefit them, so. Okay, and can I just, building on what Bob, if there's a chance we would still get that, does that just, would that just pre, would be able to prepay down some of the debt we're about to incur to do this or? Yeah, I mean, the timing could be problematic. So that's why I think we wanna push to know about that as soon as possible. I will, you know, I will ask the question of the state revolving fund. A lot of times when you borrow money, you can't sort of prepay or refinance until a certain period of time, so that they get their guaranteed interest over a certain number of years. With the state revolving fund, we will have to check to see if there's the ability for us to maybe pay off some of that loan and or restructure it to get the rates down on an annual basis, because really what we wanna do is borrow the least amount of money as possible to get the annual payments down. Yeah, so I wasn't saying anyway that I was not for this, I was just looking for that, could we actually, you answered my question, thank you. Wilford. You can prepay and pay down your principal if you have money come forward. Remember, this program has so much money and as you spend the money and as people pay it back, that allows them to then give more loans to other people. So there's no restriction on early payments or paying down loans, yeah. Good. Anything else? Because otherwise then the first motion we would need is a motion to recommend to the town council order FY 2213 in order rescinding authorization for unissued bonds. Salute. Sir, second. Jane, seconds. Okay, any further discussion on that motion? Seeing no request for recognition for speaker, then Alicia, and the vote. Yes. Lynn. Yes. Bob. I support. Matt. Support. Bernie. Support. Michelle. Yeah. Kathy. Yes. And I'm a yes. So it's unanimous with support of three resident members. And this second order that we have, you wanna put it on, is it available to put on the screen too? So I know you think there were two orders. So the motion this time would be to recommend to the town council approval of appropriation and borrowing authorization in order FY 2209 A in order approving and authorizing borrowing capital fund projects, bond authorization. So moved. Second. Shane, seconds. Yes, it's been a motion then second any further discussion on the motion? Seeing no request for discussion, I will turn to vote and start this time with Lynn. Yes. And Bob. I support. Matt. Matt. He's still here. He's still here, but he's muted. Okay. All right, I support, Andy, I apologize. Okay, no problem. Bernie. Support. Michelle. Yeah. Kathy. Yes. I mean, yes. And then Alicia. Yes. Okay, so again, it's unanimous with three members. President. Thank you very much. I support. So I think that takes care of that. So do an introduce Dave or just let Dave take over. Dave, go ahead. Thanks for the introduction, Sean. Dave Zomek, our assistant town manager. Anyway, thank you all. I know it's been a long meeting for you and lots of important topics. So I'll try to be brief. What Sean and Sonya and I and others have been working on, of course, is the North Common Project. You've heard a lot about it through the years. I guess I would start out with the great news that we just received a large grant from through the Commonwealth, but from the land, the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. The grant is for $827,000 in change. And this is, you know, to support the renovation, the restoration of the North Common. You may recall, you do recall, I'm sure that the council voted on a concept plan some months ago. Really that plan, that is the plan we are moving forward with. And at the time when we put together the budget, we were talking about some other funds supporting that project, including transportation funds from the transportation fund, which is not doing incredibly well right now. So the good news here is that this federal money can be used to match the already appropriated CPA money. So we will not need any transportation fund money to do this project. And I think I apologize that we got you this memo so with such short time for review before this meeting. But I think we're all trying to get as much done during June as possible. And our goal was to present this to the council at their meeting on Monday night the 13th. The request before you includes an outline of the of the motion and what actions we we are looking for the council to take. Hopefully with your recommendation, it includes a project budget of one point eight one three two one four. It includes a schedule. The goal of this project would be to have this out to bid in the fall of this year and be under construction in May or June of two thousand twenty three. It would be at least a four month construction, maybe five to six months. We really don't know at this point. And then, of course, the memo also includes the concept plan that the council approved some months ago. And let me just quickly go over what the order does. So the order essentially appropriates the sum that I just mentioned one point eight one point eight one three two one four. That's the overall project budget. And keep in mind that we do have to match every dollar one for one eight hundred and twenty seven thousand needs to be matched by CPA dollars. We would be using the full nine hundred and eighty six thousand one hundred and forty eight dollars from CPA. It authorizes the town manager to accept these grand funds and any other grand funds that we might pull into this project. And it authorizes the treasurer to issue a grant anticipation note. And I'll leave this to Sonia or Sean. But my understanding is we we don't go out to bond this project. This is really an internal process. This is a reimbursement grant. So we expend the money to contractor X and then we get reimbursed by the state along the way. And then the final piece of this is that the grant does require us to transfer the care custody and control of that small section of the common, which is outlined in the memo to the Recreation Commission. And keep in mind the common is part of the public way. So this is a rather unique process. We have vetted this. I know Guilford has been around the table as well as the town manager. And we vetted this with the town council as well as the state overseeing this grant program. And this is commonly how they do it. A portion of the of the common would essentially become what's called Article 97 land. This is land dedicated to passive creation, if you will. That will include areas for picnicking, areas of plaza for, you know, the various Memorial Day and Veterans Day and other ceremonies that we have out in front of Town Hall. And then it would include seating areas and other areas for eating and and socializing, as was outlined in the North Cam common presentations that many of you saw months ago. So let me stop there. That's what is on the table. Very excited to be bringing this amount of money and this large grant to the project and not tapping into the to the depleted transportation fund. So thank you. I'll stop there. And if Sonya or Sean wanted to add anything by all means, please do. Yeah, I'll just add that the order for this one was a draft order was put in the packet. We have had a couple small revisions since that draft was put in. But I wouldn't say there anything material. So so there is a draft order to consider. And this is really sort of similar to what you know, we just did with Centennial and what we've done the past with some other projects where we got a grant. We have to authorize the full amount of the of the project in order to receive the grants. It's not changing the amount of town funds that are going towards the project. In fact, it's actually reducing the amount of town funds that are going towards the project. Hey, Dave, my recollection is that there is precedent for transferring to the equivalent of the Recreation Commission, because I think I can remember previous transfers to the LSSC Commission for similar purposes. Yes, that we have done that. And it's a requirement of it's it's a requirement of the state both for CPA, as well as the Land and Land and Water Conservation Fund grant. Cherry Hill Golf Course has this requirement, Mill River Recreation Area, War Memorial Pool and Grove Park. All of those have this requirement, and we did identify a project area. Essentially, the state and federal government want to hold cities and towns accountable to say, we're giving you a large sum of money, and we want you to dedicate these two passive recreation if you will, in this case, it is they do Land and Water Conservation does fund a number of commons projects throughout Massachusetts. And this is kind of unique in that it is the public way. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation, Dave. I have two questions. One, let me start with what was my second. My second question is on this transfer to the recreation. Does that mean that in perpetuity? This is now grass and green. And would it restrict if we needed to shrink it a bit for parking? Say the back end parking didn't work. Well, we've the plan was to add some spaces along Main Street right by the bus stop. Guilford had one point shown a drawing that took a little bit of the edge of the common off. So would we once we take this money? Does that total piece of land have to stay? When you say, what's what's the level of restriction on it? That's question one. And the second one's a little bit easier. I think when I looked at the timeline, it looks like we will still be in construction when UMass and Amherst College come back into session. So I'm just thinking about the disruption of downtown. And probably there isn't any way you can start it when they go home and have it finished before they come back. So that was just a question on the timeline on that. I believe the library, Sean, Sean will know this. When would the library construction start to happen? I'm just thinking of what is downtown look like, you know, when we're we're tearing off half of the library and trying to move stuff out. And we're tearing up the North common. Tours and there may be nothing we can do about that timeline, but it will, it will not make things easy for people to come down and go out to eat. Or I personally will try to avoid downtown when this is going on. I know some roots. It's like root nine right now. I know some roots. So it's, so that's my second question. Yeah, well, let me take the second one first, if I could Kathy through. And that is, yeah, the answer is there's no easy way to do this. You know, whether is a big factor. Supply chain is a big factor. We essentially have. We have from July 1st. Of this year to about June 1st of 2024 to get this done. So it's a, it's a pretty small window given the building season in, in Massachusetts in New England. And yeah, there's going to be some short term pain for what amounts to a 50 to 100 year project. So, but having said that, we're really talking about the area from the sidewalk at spring street. So essentially, you know, the spring street parking lot will be open during this construction. And, and we will working with Guilford. My understanding is that the contractor will likely work from south to north. So yes, it will be fenced. And again, it'll be kind of a short term period of, of, you know, aesthetically unpleasing area, but I think they can work fairly quickly. The rest of this project is earthwork, drainage, then sidewalk work, lighting, those kinds of things. So there's, there's not much vertical construction at all. There's some retaining walls to deal with the water on the site. And the erosion that we now see out there, but it can go fairly quickly. But yeah, it's going to, it's going to make summer, you know, a little aesthetically unpleasing. But I think if, if all other parking is, is retained in town, it should be a short term nuisance for people. And hopefully it'll be, be that on the second, the first question is, is a little more difficult. But I think the short answer Kathy is yes, it does prohibit us from changing the plan. So, and, and frankly, we knew that all along, because if we use CPA dollars to do this project, which was the plan all along, that's the only thing we have to do this project CPA dollars. And now this grant, the CPA dollars come with an assumption that you will not change this project area into something else. Now, 50 years from now, 100 years from now, if we need X, Y or Z and future leaders of the town, to down decide that there may be a way to change that. But in the near term, the, the idea would be to keep it as a park like setting, a common like setting for people to enjoy and, and for us to have celebrations and, and whatnot from the Mary Maple to Veterans Day Memorial Day, Juneteenth and the list goes on and on. So that's, that's the goal of the project. And just adding, adding to what Dave said, one of your questions, Kathy, the library Jones library construction is the latest timeline is October 2023 is when that would start. Okay, the one finishes and the other starts. So just Dave on the CPA one, the original CPA had a picture with the parking lot on it. So that picture got changed after they voted out it, you know, we, I know, I know the sequence of it, but it had parking on the green and that was removed when it went to the council. So they did approve one set of graphics. And we did a different diagram. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the council vote supersedes it. It is ultimately the council did not the council approved a plan with no parking on the common. Not the plan with parking on the common. So I, I, I don't go back to the CPA vote. If I go back to the council vote that included CPA dollars for the project, which would then require that this be green space and walkways and seating and lighting and all of those. Thank you. So. Yeah, I apologize. I had to switch over to my phone. So I may have missed this, but were there some visuals that were presented project and is this the project that was voted by the last council and is now being represented at this time. So, so the short answer there is, is there are many visuals. I'm sure that Sean and Sonya can maybe send the Fincom a link to the visuals. There are. There is a plan developed by DPW Paul death here at DPW and there are have been dozens of public meetings and public presentations on the project, including a illustrations done by Weston and Samson on what again, these are, these are illustrative. They're, they're not exact representations of what will be built, but there are people enjoying the new rehabilitated North common at ceremonies and, and different events that are illustrated in the Weston and Samson images. And then I think your second part of it, Michelle, five of your memo also has a map. Yeah. But I know there are some wonderful illustrations of people using the new renovated common as we envision it. We are not bringing the project back. The design is not coming back to the council, Michelle. We are simply looking for the authorization to move forward. We're using the grant funds that we've just been awarded. Sorry, I'm just trying to place this in my, you know, I, we received something from Paul just the other day and I had inquired about getting more information because it sounded like it was something that had been decided by the previous council. And I don't remember seeing more information. And then of course I had to switch off over into my phone. So I, I want to be able to support this. I just don't feel like I have all of the information and that's no fault of anyone, but I just, that's where I'm at. Indy, I can't raise my hand, but I would like to speak. Yes, please. Michelle. This actually goes to back to the previous select board. Who did it to the town council. So it's been out there for now going on five or six years. I would like to say that I totally support this. I want to compliment our staff. For both this grant and the loan. I would like to say that these are big achievements for our town. And this is particularly allowing us to move forward and perhaps not even use all of our CPA money. So I'm prepared to make a motion at any point. You too. Do you want to frame the motion or do you want me to frame the motion? I'll be glad to frame it. Okay. I'll be glad to do that. I just wanted to make sure that we recommended the town council appropriation transfer and dedication order. FY 22-05. And order authorizing and appropriating funds for the capital improvement. Of the North. Common. Shane seconds. There's motion been made in second. Michelle, your hand is still up, but I. Okay. Any further. Any further discussion questions? If not only big question is Sean, we don't have to rescind anything on this, right? I don't think so. You're already. We're accepting additional money and we're. Yeah. No, it's not rescinded, but just the CPA funds, Sony, is that consolidating it into. It's just repurposing old capital. So it's repurposing all the articles that they voted. Right. Yeah. This order takes care of everything. Okay. Thank you. That was all. And again, just to clarify again, this order may change slightly by the time you see it again at the council level, just because it's, we've been going back and forth with the state on exactly what has to be in it. I'm fine with that. Right. Before you vote, could I just make one clarifying note in the memo in under request. It says to transfer the care custody and control of a portion of the town common. I believe that should say from the town council will clarify this, but it's from the town council to the recreation commission because. The town common. Is in the public way. Which is the purview of the, of the town council. So we will clarify that before this comes on Monday night, but I'm quite sure that should have read town council and I'll, I'll work on that with. With our town attorney Lynn before Monday night. Thank you. He's privileged discussion questions. Seeing none, then I'll proceed to a vote. And. Start with Bob Hegner. I support. Support. Bernie. Support. Michelle. Yeah. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes. Lisa. Yes. And. Kind of think where I started, Lynn. Yes. I think we started with Bob, I believe. So I think we have everybody in it's unanimous. Support of all three members of the committee. We've gone over our. Estimated time for the day, which is unfortunate, but. Those things do happen. And so I'm. Trying to take a quick look. At the agenda myself. That have available. To look at quickly. I'm going to sign off, Andy. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Number seven was financial orders to implement committee recommendations. But I think that we have all of the financial orders. That were available. For consideration. Future meeting planning. What I'm proposing is that. One of us, Sean Athena or I will send out a poll. For July. We will try for one July meeting. That at this point. We do not anticipate the need for another June meeting. We have worked hard as a committee. So that. We. Really deserve the time. And I think we should take it for ourselves. Other than we have a bunch of reports to complete. And those need continued. Continued work. So I will. Do that. It's also understood. And we've talked about further that we will return. To further discussion of the reparations issues. There was one reparation issue that's remaining. Will be an item for the July. Meeting. I will try and schedule the July meeting now because I want to. Consult with staff about what they anticipate is going to be available. And what are needs for summer meetings. And. I think that that pretty much takes. Care of the planning part. The other thing that I'll just mention is, is that. I want to thank. Those of you who sent in comments. On what was labeled as draft one. I have been working this morning on taking those comments and incorporating it into. The beginning of a draft too, and then I'm going to be. Adding the various sections that have been. That I've received from those of you who send me sections for, and I think I have most of them. For the rest of the. The second part of the, the report. If you didn't. Please get me your. What, what you're recommending. If you have questions or concerns about how to proceed. Or having problems. Contact me individually. I don't want to do that in the public meeting. I don't want to do that in the public meeting. But I didn't need to get this report completed. So I can get it for the council. I will try and get a. Draft two out. As quickly as I can, even if it's incomplete, I will get it so that we continue to just get. The chance to review it. And can there it on the amounts that. And to be reviewed. As I proceed. I have no other audience is knowing. Any. Anything that they would like to raise. So I'll. Pause for a moment to make sure that John Sonia have nothing else to raise. And I think the answer is no. So I'm seeing nobody has raised hands for other. In the anticipated business. I will declare the meeting adjourned and thank you. And I appreciate that everybody was able to stay and took longer. But we've accomplished a lot and. Enjoy the rest of the month and the holiday that will follow shortly thereafter and we'll find July date. And we'll be contacting you about drafts as we go along. So thank you. Bye everyone.