 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you. I have a form of the council. I'm going to be calling the meeting to order at 6.30pm. Governor Baker's March 12th order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual town council meeting. I will call on each. And in the process, please unmute. State that you can hear us and we can hear you. And then please make sure you mute again. We're going to start with Alyssa Brewer. Present. Pat D'Angeles. Present. Darcy DeMont. Here. Mr. Brewer is present. Present. Dorothy Pam. Present. Evan Ross. Present. Okay. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. Steve Schreiber. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. And Sarah Schwartz. Present. And Shalini is unable to join us tonight. She had something come up with the work. So there are 12 of us present and we are waiting for Athena to reboot. I can finish the rest of this, however. The meeting includes audio video and is available live on Amherst media is also being recorded. There's no chat room. If you have technical issues, just please do exactly what Athena just did, which was let me know and or let Athena know. And depending on where we are and what the issue is, we'll decide how to address those issues. Sorry for the delay, but we do need Athena because she's running the slides. Although we do have Lindsay and you're taking minutes, right? Yes, correct. Okay. All right. I'm going to continue out. There's Athena. Welcome back Athena. With the meeting to order. There's 12 of us present. Would you please put the announcements up on the screen. And while she's doing that, I just want to encourage all of you to please look around downtown. We are ready for spring and ready for reopening. And for many people to recognize for this from our town government. We want to thank the departments of public works. Cities and planning. And from the town, we want to thank the bid and the chamber. And may I just remind you that the farmers market starts this Saturday. So we start coming alive. And we are going to move on to general public comment. And I'm going to give people a moment. Well, I. Look to see it attendees. And see if we have any people. Who would like to make public comment. I'm not seeing anybody. So we will go on to the consent agenda. If you could put that up on the screen Athena. And sent agendas quite short tonight. It includes only two items. So I'm going to move the following items and the print in motions. They're under and approve those items. As a single unit. Six, a adoption of Arbor month proclamation. And six B adoption. I'm not seeing anybody. So we will go on to the consent agenda. If you could put that up on the screen Athena. And six B adoption of 2021. Children's mental health week proclamation. Are there any changes? Or is there anybody that wants anything removed? Not. We're going to go ahead and vote. Did we second that? Please. Would you second that? Thank you so much. Patty Angelis. Hi. Garcy Demont. Yes. In Greece. Yes. Mandy Johanna key. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Evan Ross. Hi. Ryan. Yes. Matthew Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Hi. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Sarah Schwartz. Hi. Great. We did have one other proclamation under the 48 hour rule. And so we're going to move to that real quickly. And it's a, it's actually a citation. Congratulations. You mass on their win. We're lucky. So could we please put that up in the spring? This did not go to GL's. GL review. However, we did have George take a look at it. And Evan, I believe you're the sponsor. And so. Anything particular you would like to say about this? I wasn't planning on saying anything, but I will say two things. One, I hope everyone on the council. Appreciate the fact that I of all people was in charge of writing a citation about sports. I would like. Commendation for that. But secondly, I think that, you know, this is a significant moment for UMass and Amherst, as many things, but one of the things we are as a college town. And so we as a town should be celebrating along with UMass. And this is a way for us to show our. Celebration or pride and congratulations for the team's hard work. And so would you like to make a motion to adopt? We need to wave 8.6 first. I'm sorry. I will. Go ahead. So I will move that we wave town council rules of procedure 8.6. Is there a second. Okay. Is there any further discussion on that? Seeing none. Then we're moving to. Darcy Demont. Yes. Breeze Mersey. Yes. Andy Johanna key. Thank you. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Evan Ross. Hi. Where's Ryan? Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Hi. Melissa Brewer. Hi. Pat DeAngelis. Okay. Evan, you want to go ahead and make. Hi. Oh, Pat DeAngelis. Right. There's. 12 in favor. None opposed. No abstentions. And. One person absent. We're going to move on to the motion. Evan. So I moved the council. I moved read out the citation and recognition of UMass hockey 2021 NCAA champions as presented. Is there a second. Change seconds. Any further discussion or questions. Dorothy has her hand up. Yes, stars. My question is after you finish this vote. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Then we're going to move to this vote. And we start with Greece. And it's I. Joe Hanneke. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Hi. Evan Ross. Hi. George Ryan. Yes. Matthew Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Hi. Andy Steinberg. All right. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Yes. Okay. It's 1200 and one absent. Okay. Dorothy, you had your hand raised. Yes. This is about proclamations. Are they displayed in a very easily accessible place? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where announcements are on the town website. Or do they just disappear because they're not shown on the screen. They're not read aloud. And yet a lot of effort is put into the proclamations. So we should be sharing them in some easily accessible place. And this may be happening. And I just don't know our website well enough. It actually is happening. Since this was brought up at GOL a couple of weeks ago. They're now being posted within the next day or two. Right. So we're going to move on. There are no presentations. So we're going to move on to the procedures for the selection of audit firm. Let me just point out there is a memo in your packet. We are not going to display the memo. And there is a brief discussion that we might have from. Sonia Aldridge and brief council discussion, but the main motion here is to refer to the finance committee. And the only question. Is there does need to be a draft charge. For this. And the question is whether or not GOL. They'll want. To. Ask the finance committee to either get that started or drafted. Okay. So Sonia, without further ado. Would you like to say a few words? I think Sean was going to talk about this. Okay, Sean. Okay. Thank you. So we bring this forward to you in response to the section of the charter that states that the town council will establish proceed procedures for the selection of a counter auditing firm. So we're going to talk about the process that is consistent with a request for proposals process. Where you want to evaluate the quality of an applicant, but also the price in addition to that. So on the second page of the memo. We put together sort of a step by step of what that RFP process would look like. And some tentative dates of when each action would occur. And it's not set in stone. We just wanted to have some tentative dates in there so you can see how things are progressing. And we tried to work around the budget. Process as much as possible, knowing that finance committee was going to have a heavy load in, in May. And then the council in June. We tried to get this near the end of June and then over the summer would be where most of this process occurs. So I'm happy to go into more detail about the process itself. If anybody has any questions and. Yeah. Let's see if there's any questions at this time. And I start the Pam. So my question is. I have a number of comments about the criteria. Should they be brought up now or should I hold them till the finance committee? You're on finance. You certainly could wait. Meeting meeting. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not on finance. It would be important for us to either hear from you. Tonight or to hear from you in writing to the finance committee, which doesn't meet for a whole mother week. Mandy job. Yes, thank you. I just have one very minor one. Page 10. Section 2.2 of the RFP. I don't know whether it's page 10 of our memo or page 10 of the RFP that talked about a pre. I don't know if it's page 10 or page 10 of the RFP. But it seems to be that it was implying that that would be in person. And so I, I just wanted to bring that up since it's a standard form that maybe we want to. Yeah. Write something that it might not be in person. Yeah. No, that's a good, good catch. We'll make sure that that's clear that it's a, that it would be a virtual conference. Thanks. I want to go back to Dorothy and just say Dorothy, is there anything in the memo that. I just wanted to make sure that we have some additional information brought forward for the finance committee meeting. One was about the point given for length of. Existing firm. And since your cutoff point is 10 years, don't consider anybody with fewer than 10 years. I could certainly see that the points for further. Or years seemed to be too high. In favoring. Just the older and longest established firms. I'm not sure if that is necessary or a good idea in terms of costs. And the. Other issue is that people are asked to submit a sample audit. But I don't think there's points given for that. And the question as to why. Okay. I think those are things that we can take up at the finance committee meeting. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other questions about this? Okay. Seeing none, then. I'm going to make the motion. It's to refer the procedures for selection of the audit firm. To the finance committee with a report to the council by May. Third. 2021. Is there a second. Second. Okay. Is there any further discussion? Okay. Seeing none, then we're going to move forward. Mandy Joe. This is a refer. Hi. Thank you. Dorothy Pam. Hi. Evan Ross. Hi. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Hi. Andy Steinberg. I think I heard. Thank you. Sarah Schwartz. Hi. Alyssa Brewer. Hi. Patty Angeles. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi, chair. Hi. Hi. Hi. Yes. In grease merits. Yes. Zero zero. absent. Okay. We're going to move on now to the water and sewer rates. And I believe Sean, you're making that presentation. Yeah, I'm going to start and I'll probably have some. Help from Gilford and Amy along the way. Can I just begin, Lynn? Please. Thank you. So yet we're talking about the rates for fiscal year 22 tonight. You can go to the next slide. So we're gonna look at what the rates that are proposed, as well as some history. We'll give you some background around why they are increasing and some of the things that we are doing to help mitigate those increases. And then we'll look at some of the, our nearby communities and what their rates look like. So rates, the proposal is to increase the water rate from 420 to 460 per hundred cubic feet. And that is a nine and a half percent increase over the FY21 rate. And for sewer, the proposal is to increase by 30 cents from 460 to $4.90 cents per hundred cubic feet. And that is a six and a half percent increase. And the chart here shows you some of the history of the water and sewer rates, which sort of hovered slightly under $4 for several years and it started to increase in the past couple of years and are projected to continue to increase. And we'll talk about a little bit more detail in a second, the reasons for why we're projecting to continue rising. So there are sort of three general buckets of things that are happening that are causing the rates to increase in the future. The first one is sort of a general decline in consumption over the past several years throughout town. It doesn't sound like a bad thing from a water conservation standpoint. However, the enterprise funds, particularly water and sewer, have lots of fixed costs. And so when there's less to be billed, there's less to spread those costs out over. And so when we see sort of these small annual declines in consumption, the impact can start to add up over time. The second piece are some infrastructure projects that were approved last July, the debt authorizations that took place last July. In the water fund was Centennial, the Centennial Water Treatment Plant, which was authorized at 11 million. And there was a request for an updated estimate, which we put in here at 13.8. However, Gilbert will speak in a second to explain that that number still influx, it's still sort of in the design phase. And so we wouldn't suggest that that's a final number, higher or lower, it's still in progress. And then on the sewer side, there were two separate projects, one to replace the gravity belt thickener and one for reuse water. And the combination of those two projects was authorized at 7.3 million. And so again, those rates that you see rise in the future, this bullet point doesn't impact FY22 rates so much, but it impacts the years after that as we have to increase our revenues to line up with the debt payments for these projects, which are substantial increases to the debt payments of those funds. And then the last one, which, sorry, go after one second. Yeah, the last one, which has the most impact in FY22 rates is the closure of the colleges and the university. So our consumption dropped way off in FY, near the end of FY20, that has continued in FY21. And so even though some of the students have returned, our consumption is still well below normal levels and we're projecting that at least at this point to continue for FY22 to some extent, we don't expect it to be as low as FY21, but we're not projecting it to be all the way back to where it was pre-pandemic. And so in the memo that we provided, there were some financial summaries at the end that projected expenses for a few years and revenues for a few years, where you can see some of that into the future. And those will be discussed in much more detail at the finance committee coming up in May. You can go to the next slide. And so a couple of the things we are currently doing to try to help offset this impact in the future. One is the reuse water program will generate some additional revenue. And we think it's substantial in the six-figure range, however, we don't have exact numbers yet and maybe Guilford can speak to that one as well. And the second thing we are doing is applying to several different locations for grants that can help offset the cost of the infrastructure projects. One is called the sewer rate relief grant, which is due to the state and it specifically helps offset debt payments related to infrastructure projects in the sewer fund. And there are a couple other places that we have also looked to for grant funding. And the American Rescue Plan is another one that we're eagerly awaiting some details about what it can be used for. We've got sort of the general guidelines, but we haven't seen the specific rules. And that's another one that we will consider once we do get those details. And last year, we talked about reviewing some different rate structures in the water and sewer fund. Unclear, you know, this would impact overall revenues, but it could shift the way billing happens. And so this process, we're thinking we'll get started in August where we'll start that analysis. I will note that we recently have started converting our billing software. We're going from sort of a very old billing software to a new cloud-based program. So the new software can do more things around analysis of our billing. So some of that will play into the analysis and the timing of when we get the data. And you can go to the last slide. And so this last one just compares Amherst to some of our neighbors and state averages. I will say that it is not a complete apples-to-apples comparison because this is the latest data available. So for Amherst is based on FY21 rates and for the states, the last time they did this sort of statewide look, it was 2017. So those are 2017 figures. And for some of these other communities, it may not be FY21, it could be a little bit older. So I just want to caution that, but we did want to give some context that while the rates are increasing in town, we are still relative state averages below and below compared to some of our neighbors. I know that doesn't necessarily make things better as we look forward, but we did think it was helpful to provide that context for you to consider. And with that, I think turn it over for questions or feedback unless Guilford or Amy want to add anything? No. Whoops. Guilford or Amy, anything you'd like to add? No, we just take questions. Okay. Questions. Again, I just want to point out this is a referral to the finance committee. Kathy Shane. As you know, Guilford and team, I'm on the finance committee. So I'll just list some questions I'm going to have for when we meet next week and maybe you can address a few of them now. I wanted to know in the memo where we're seeing the out year rates, are you still using, do those still assume 11 million percentennial or are you using the higher centennial rate? So that was my first question. And I didn't go back and compare them to the rates we got last year. So, and I understood, Sean was just saying that that, the potentially, I mean that increase to 13.8 million is a 20%, it's a substantial increase. So I heard it's influx. So you might be able to bring it back down. And I don't know whether you're going to know that by when we meet next week or not. Elaine, can I answer that one real quick? Yeah. So those figures are still based on the 11 million that was authorized. Okay. Okay. Then on, when you got to that last picture, the community averages, are those literally the averages or are they standardized by, if you used some amount of water, this is what you would pay, so we can see the underlying rates. That's my first question. And then some of the communities have a commercial rate different from a residential rate where the residents get a break because commercial pay more. Are we looking at an average that blends the two or we've been looking at residential? So just what lies underneath that comparison? So if you look at the chart, it says, these are the numbers based on what we consider to be average household usage. And average household usage is 120, 100 cubic units. Okay. So it's the same number of units in each of the towns or cities. Okay. Correct. We do not blend the rates. If you have a commercial rate, we didn't use that. We just look at the residential rate. And you also have communities that have stepped rates. So it's an average of that residential rate. It's not one of the residential rates. Okay. Then my last question is more looking into the future. We'd sent a memo that for a couple of us to work with you on some possible scenarios of alternatives. And we didn't actually ask for block rates. We mainly weren't interested in the fixed quarterly and variable. So just a heads up, it sounded like we're not gonna be, we're not gonna be able to start looking at that kind of information till August, as I understood. And we clearly would need to use a robust year. So go back a couple of years, 5th white 19 when UMass was here in all its glory. So we would look at the high use. So I don't know whether you were thinking that we would look at both. And again, we can talk about this at the finance committee, but we had narrowed it down to one because we thought it was simpler. Well, that's probably it. We can look back as far as you want to tell the truth. As I think about it, we're gonna have to look at the future more than looking back because our fixed rates are about to increase substantially with the requirement for lead and copper and the PFOS requirements. Okay. I guess I meant more the use rates. We want to take a year when people, when the consumption is high rather than low, but in any case, we can, again, we can talk about that when we get to it. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna actually, it ends up being a follow-up to a question Kathy had, but I'm curious. I always see this average water bill calculated at 120 hundred cubic feet per household as an average household. And that's like four times or three times more than my household uses. So I'm curious what you base that, how that average is calculated. Is it calculated? Is it a median? Is it a mean? What's included? Our apartments, rentals, colleges, is UMass included in that? How do we get to that average bill? Because we see a lot of people quote that that's how much it's going up. And so I'm trying to figure out where that average is coming from. I'll let Amy answer that one. She actually says it. That's actually, that comes from the state. The state has a goal for residential usage of people using 65 gallons per person per day at a household. And so then if you look at Amherst and you look at the average household size and 65 gallons per person per day and you do all the math, that's where that 120 hundred cubic feet per year comes from. So that's more a state average. And so that's not even necessarily what an average Amherst household would be. I guess we haven't necessarily gotten that granular with it in our town. I guess my follow-up would be, is there a way to get that granular fairly easily in our town that excludes the sort of UMass colleges? I don't know whether it's by pipe size or whatever because we get that increase in bill quoted to us a lot. And if that's really far off of what our actual Amherst residents are paying, it really does distort what these increases do. Yeah, we have to report that on an annual basis actually to the state because part of our permit is based on meeting that 65 gallons per person per day or being below it. And so it does fluctuate. And so I think that's partly why we don't stick with the actual number from the previous year because it is gonna go up and down a little bit, but certainly we can provide, maybe a five-year average or something like that if people think that that's more meaningful to you guys to look at. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, that would be helpful. And then knowing whether it's a median or a mean, because we do have some users that are probably skewing you know, I'm mean. Just so you know, 120 hundred cubic feet of water is roughly 90,000 gallons a year. Being Joe, I think those are excellent questions. And when we're with the finance committee discussion, maybe we can tease out some ways to make this reflective more like we do, for instance, tax rates. For price of household or something like that, but anything else? Nope, that was it. Thank you. Alyssa. Kathy and Mandy, Joe, I asked some of my questions already, which is awesome. So I wanted to put in a plug for I appreciate the statement that it says utilizing the most recent comparative water and sewer rate survey from 2017, then that still doesn't really tell us what years those were. And it doesn't tell us how different it might be for different communities on there. And I believe I heard, you know, some are more recent than others. So I'm not really sure the chart has much of any value if some of the rates are from 2012 and some of them are for 2017 and some are for 2021. So I just would like staff to think about how to, without doing a huge amount of work and having to call each town individually and say, what did you set last year? Something that feels more comparative. And of course that could also be influenced by these other questions that Mandy, Joe and Kathy asked in terms of how we collect that data. I do worry that it's not exactly telling the story that is fully accurate in terms of our user's experience. The other thing is in terms of the different variations on how we might do this, while obviously I appreciate that we've been in a global pandemic, the discussion we've had at town council is not the first discussion we've had at town council. It wasn't the first town council discussion we had about it. We have been asking for a different look at rate schemes for a really long time. And so please tell us realistically in August, right? If that's still realistic because you're still gonna be coming out of the pandemic because we keep hoping we'll have it for the following year and we keep not getting that information. So maybe give us like a preliminary report on and I'm directing this to Paul that says, well, it's gonna be this much more work to try and figure this kind out versus this kind. Which direction do you want us to go in? Maybe something that's more intermediate would be helpful so that we don't feel like we end up in the same place every year where we say, well, we're gonna do some more research. And literally that's been going on for a long time. And so particularly since we now have this disagreement on what exactly we asked for. So maybe just update us. Like I said, in the summer, when you have a little more breathing room as to what you feel like is actually realistic to get to us before the next time we have to do this. Ms. Paul Bachman, please respond. So yeah, I appreciate that. Alyson, I think the finance committee has delegated Bernie Kubiak and Kathy Shane to headline this basically for the finance committee. And I think with that cooperation with the staff, we wanted to say August because we felt that was the time to do it for a number of reasons, both staff time but also data analysis because we have this new system that Sean mentioned in order to have Apple try to collect the data and have it in usable format. And August is also a good time because we don't really start talking about rates until the fall. So there's plenty of time to sort of dig around with it. So that was the goal of that time. Thanks, Paul. Darcy? Yeah, I was just gonna mention that the Energy and Climate Action Committee is I'm pretty sure going to target the water treatment plant as being big energy hog in town. And I've read this up before and I'm just wondering if there are updated plans on potentially sourcing electricity from solar that's needed or somehow using the land around the water treatment plant or somehow following up on the suggestion that was made earlier about that. Any comment for that? Yes, it's still being looked at. Any, anything else? It's still being looked at. We have, as we go through the design process we still haven't finalized everything in the plant and the 100% of the design. So until we have 100% of the electric consumption and what we're gonna be at the plant we don't know what our need would be for offsite power and that's where we are right now. Thank you. Darcy and Alyssa, if you do not have any more questions please lower your hand. Thank you. Are there any other questions at this time? Kathy? Mine is just a quick comment. Anyone on the council that would like to see the memo that Bernie and I wrote that we've submitted for a possible look we'd be happy to share it just to send us a note. I think it's important that if you're going to share it you share it with the whole council. So why don't we... I will share it with the whole council. We'll make sure it's in the finest packet and I will share it with the whole council. Got it. Okay. And please lower your hand. Are there any other questions? All right. So the motion and I'll be looking for a second is to refer the town managers April 8th, 2021 recommendation to increase water rates from $4 and 20 cents per 100 cubic feet to $4 and 60 cents per 100 cubic feet and sewer rates from $4 and 60 cents to $4 and 90 cents per 100 cubic feet to the finance committee for report and recommendations to the council by May 17th, 2021. Is there a second? Yes. Is that right, Joe? Darcy can have it. Darcy. Okay, fine. All right. Any further discussion or questions? All right. Then we're going to begin with, I think Dorothy Pam. Yes. Evan Ross. Hi. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Hi. Alyssa Brewer. Sorry, you didn't hear me. Hi. Thank you. Pat DeAngelis. Hi. Darcy Dumont. Yes. Lynn Griesmer is an I. Mandy Johannake. I. Okay, and it's 12, zero, zero and one absent. The next two items are the first reading on bylaws. They have been before three of the town committees. And by my count, that means every one of us has been on a committee, at least one committee, if not two that has taken somewhat of a closer look. They will come back for the second reading on May 3rd. So the first one is the illicit discharge, detection and elimination bylaw. And I'm going to ask that Andy Steinberg, then Darcy, and then GOL, George, of provide any comments they would like to at this point. I have really, I have no additional comments other than the report you to the finance committee report that was again appended, included in the packet for this meeting, which was not a this meeting packet, but it covered these two bylaws. And they were recommended by the finance committee, but we did note some questions that needed to be addressed or at least understood regarding the finances. We felt that it was soundly reasoned. I don't know if any other members of the committee wish to add to it. Any other finance committee members wish to speak? Okay, seeing none, I'm going to move on to Darcy. Yes, T.S. will vote unanimously to recommend approval on March 11th. And we only looked at one decision point on that particular bylaw regarding the requirement for remediation. And Beth Wilson, the DPW staff person recommended or stated that it was required by most surrounding towns. And she recommended leaving it in and the committee agreed. And GOL, George. Yeah, on April 7th, with Beth Wilson present, GOL went through both bylaws very carefully to changes we were making, were strictly formal ones, nothing substantive. And we voted in both cases, five to zero, declare them clear, consistent and actionable. And I believe both of these bylaws have been thoroughly reviewed by legal town attorney. Yes, correct. Yes, that is correct. Okay, are there any questions or comments? Let's stick to the IDDE bylaw. Nandi Jow. Yeah, my questions center around the enforcement section of the bylaw and many of these questions I also have with the stormwater one, but I know we're focused on IDDE. Couple of questions, it is listed as just the superintendent of public works is the enforcer, but the data block has police officers too. So I'm wondering whether that is a problem or not. And then one of the sections has that the superintendent of public works can pursue criminal remedies. Is that by filing a complaint with the police or is there some other intention there? And next question relating to it is by not mentioning the police or quote a designee of the superintendent of public works. Does it mean, I think this is section three of that enforcement section. Does it mean that only the superintendent can enter the land to perform the duties and can enter the land to do the inspection and all of that or the superintendent send someone else. So those are the basic questions sort of how does enforcement work when it's just listed as the superintendent of public works and no other things. And I just wanna mention that we have both Gilford mooring here with us today and we have Beth Wilson with us who has been shepherding these bylaws through all the committees. Gilford or Beth? I believe that question is more towards the attorneys and that's how they worded it. It wouldn't be me doing all the enforcements and all of that. So I think that's more of a attorney question there. Should it say designee? Mandy Jo, do you wanna pursue that further? I think if Gilford doesn't intend to be the one going in and doing everything I think we need to send it back to the town attorney to ask whether some words need added. Paul, can we put that on our list so that three weeks from now when we meet on May 3rd, we have that resolved, okay? Are there other issues in that same category or another category Mandy Jo? It's basically, it was just that mainly. Are there any other questions about the IDDE bylaw? Then we're gonna go on to the storm water management. George, are you trying to hand up? I'm sorry, I have to be honest with you since we've moved to this different version it's hard to see the hands. So please draw my attention to Dorothy. Actually it was George and Pat George. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry, I was trying to find the, anyway. It would be helpful with legal review if Mandy could just spell out, not right now but at some point those places in the document where I assume it's more than one place hearing what she just said. And I considered my responsibility to communicate this to Paul clearly. Though if she would just do that at some point so I can make sure he knows what the lawyer's just supposed to look at. Okay, Paul, did you wanna speak to that? Yeah, so from my reading, understanding Mandy Jo, I think it's like where it says superintendent public works should, is that sufficient or should it say superintendent public works or designee? Is that that's basically wherever it appears, right? That in the enforcement section that's one of my main concerns. The other one is the police officers aren't listed at all but they are up in the data block for criminal enforcement and non-criminal enforcement. It's the other one and I don't know which way I fall on that one but I've got questions because they don't match. Thank you. Dorothy? So if somebody does mess this up, they have to remedy it and there's a variety of ways in which their assessor has to do it. But what if you can't find the person? What if it's illegal dumping? Or what if you make an assessment but they don't care, they don't come back? What happens next? Who pays for cleaning it up? Or does it get left uncleaned up? So if it's a house or a property that actually is discharging into the storm drainage system through the actions we can take, we can actually put a lien on the property and have a permanent lien on the property. So once the property is sold, we can recover our costs for cleanup if we have to do cleanup ourselves. If it is a dump where it's someone actually just is out driving and dumps into the system, we've had reports of some people doing that from trucks that make food going and dumping their grease vats in the storm drainage system. That we would pursue them but it would be hard to get remedy and to recover our costs if we have to clean it up and they don't clean it up. But we do have a methodology for property owners how to pursue that one. So there was an article recently about mobile homes not set up deceptic and of course if the place gets totally contaminated they can just drive off or have themselves hauled off and you're left with a big mess. Is there any state money that helps municipalities if there's been bad contamination that you can't get money from from the cause? If it's that bad, you can go and apply for a superfund site or a brownfield site with the state and get extra money that way to help you deal with the issue. The state has several grant programs that range in severity of what type of issue you're dealing with. Thank you. There are other questions on the IDDE bylaw. Dorothy, if you could please lower your hand. Thank you. All right. Again, this is just the first reading and we've already got a couple of things we need to clear up. We're going to move over to the storm water management bylaw. And again, I'm going to ask Andy, Darcy and George if you have any comments from your committee. Andy? Really would repeat the same report that I gave to the prior bylaw. So the committee supports this bylaw as the financial aspects of it were well explained and reasonable. Okay, Darcy. Yeah. TSO would unanimously to recommend this on March 11th. We were given some decision points to look at. One was section C, applicability, the size and type of project that would require a permit. And Beth Wilson recommended the list of requirements that East Hampton-Headley and Chicopee uses. And we agreed. And then on the second decision point was section D, exemptions. And again, Beth shared neighboring towns, policies and exemptions. And we, the committee was in agreement to keep the standard exemptions and all four additional exemptions that Beth Wilson had recommended. George, anything else from GOL? No, Lynn, again, five zero with Beth Wilson present, we reviewed it. And I just want to ask the clerk to the council that the appropriate committee reports for each of these bylaws be in the packet for May 3rd. So I'm sorry. Got it, they're in tonight's packet too. So when we actually look at the thing that's three weeks from now, we have the whole packet. So thank you, Athena, I knew they were in tonight's. Are there any questions? Mandy Jo, you have your hand up. Yeah, thank you. The same enforcement questions for this one because the sections are nearly identical, but I have one other one, which is actually, why did we decide to or why was the draft presented with criminal enforcement in there? I understand with the IDDE bylaw why we might want to do criminal enforcement because you're dumping potentially harmful stuff into waterways, but with stormwater management, it seems like this one's much less concerning on the criminal side versus just the non-criminal side. And so I'd like to hear why we decided to put criminal enforcement in there. Yeah, if you don't do your stormwater management plan properly, you don't maintain your stormwater parameters during construction or during your project. You can actually drop a large amount of sediments, not just releases of oils and stuff from your house or something like that, but even large sediment releases into the stormwater system can cause damage and to the environment below and the fish environment below and so forth. So that is in there the same way because it can't be just as bad and just as important as any other type of release into the stormwater system. Okay, thank you for that explanation. Thanks for the questions. Any other comments or questions? Is there anything else the council feels they need to see before we take these up again on May 3rd? Kathy. Just, I know Mandy said she had the same questions on where it says superintendent, but in this one, it happens in two places. One has the authority to make decisions, then has the authority to enforce. So it's, I think it should always be for designee. I mean, it's, I get, I don't know what the other towns say, the department of public works, but right now it's naming a person rather than an entity. That's it. So we'll flag those. And George has already taken on the responsibility in making sure there's communication with the town manager who is rapidly looking at these right now, I can see it. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments on these? Okay. Then I want to first of all recognize that not only do we have Guilford here, we have Amy with us tonight, but I especially want to thank Beth Wilson for shepherding these through our various committees and paying attention to all of our, you know, detailed questions about a topic that most of us don't know a whole lot about. It's been really terrific to have you work with us and we totally and completely appreciate your command of the subject and your willingness to tolerate our questions. Thank you. It was, it's been a pleasure. We're going to move on to E. E is the addition of town council rules or procedure 10.10 reappointment of members of the planning board, zoning board of heels and non-voting resident members of the finance committee. Although I believe we've also now had to add the people for the district being advisory board to this list. And I want to note that this is regarding related to selection criteria. So let me just mention, before people start into this, in your packet, in the motion, is the motion from last week from, yes, it was just last time flies when you're having fun. In addition to that, a couple of different counselors have submitted some amendments to that motion and in addition to that, another counselor has submitted a completely different approach to this. So I'm going to start with the motion that's in your, in the motion sheet. So that we try to keep this as clean as possible and move through it. And I always look to people like Mandy Jo and others to any advice regarding whether I stray from the rules I'm supposed to follow in all of this, okay? So the motion that's in your motion sheet is to amend town council rules of procedure section 10. Darcy, why don't you go ahead and make that motion? Okay. So I just want to explain that I, I did meet with the chair of GOL and we came up with a very few minor edits that we agreed on and- Darcy, we need to start with the motion that's on the motion sheet. Okay, well, I'm just explaining what happened since the last meeting. She doesn't have the point of order. Point of order. Point of order. She doesn't have to start with the motion that's on the motion sheet. She can make the motion she wants to make. All right. Go ahead and make the motion you want to make. Okay. 10.10, repointment of members of the planning board, zoning board of appeals and resident members of the finance committee. And I just would also like to preface it by saying that George made a proposed amendment to the motion, which as far as I'm, from my perspective as a friendly amendment that I would add it to this motion if he wanted to. So generally if a member of the planning board, zoning board of appeals or a resident member of the finance committee has completed a term, they are given preference and reappointment for up to six years to take advantage of the experience and expertise gained and to honor the voluntary time commitment of members as long as the member is an active contributing member of the board or committee. If a person has served six consecutive years or will have served more than six consecutive years if reappointed and there are other qualified applicants, preference will be given to a newcomer. In cases where special training or expertise is required longer periods of service may be appropriate. And I'm also happy to add that sentence that George suggested. Which sentence is? Someone's going to have to read it because I don't want to make it. I can read it. Yeah, please. A committee or board member is under no obligation to accept reappointment nor is the town council obligated to offer reappointment. Okay, so that's the motion. Is there a second? I second. Okay, Alyssa, you have your hand up. Yeah, I was looking for and I appreciate the point of order too. I was looking for more of an evolution here. I know part of this is really complicated because we only did it a week ago, but I was surprised when our packet first came out and it looked like absolutely nothing had changed from GOL and I was like, okay, well, I guess they didn't have a chance to talk about it this week. And so now I'm still a little confused because not all these documents have been available like all the time plus we were in training for two weeks. And I didn't see it up on the screen as I was flipping around here. So is Darcy's motion with George's friendly amendment. I see George's friendly amendment that has the yellow highlighting proposed amendment to rules procedure 10.10 Ryan. Is Darcy's motion that she just made the one that's at the top of the page that doesn't have her name on it anywhere that says 10.10 reappointment of members has some blue highlighting and then has a bunch of information using the word term limits even though this isn't a term limits provision. Whose document is that? I'm just really lost. Well, I'm going to ask the town clerk, the clerk to the council to please put Darcy's motion up in word and add to it the sentence from George. Thank you, but in the meantime, is this document that has been in the packet for some period of time that did not include last week when I was looking for it? 10.10 reappointment of members with bunch of background materials. Is that actually what Darcy moved with the addition of George's or is this yet another version? Yes. Oh, is that that's in front of us? No, this is. The one that's in the packet with the blue strike through is Darcy's. Is Darcy's the 55708E motion? Okay. And it's got a bunch of stuff from the different hand from the handbook and from the OCA process and the GOL process and the CRC process. That's her document. Yes. So in future, if people could put their names and dates, but so now I'm clear on where we're at and I understood what Lynn said about putting it up in words so we can blend it all together. All right, got it. So the motion before you is the motion that has now been made and seconded. Are there questions or comments? There are hands up. I'm sorry. Again, I can't see this yellow. Evan and then Steve. Okay, Evan. Yes. I wanted to move to amend the motion with a substitute motion and that substitute motion would read to refer to the governance organization and legislative committee development and council policy on appointments, learning board, zoning board of appeals, resident members of the finance committee and districting advisory board for recommendation to the town council with a report to the town council by July 12th, 2021. Okay. So we now have a amendment as there a second. Second. Okay, Andy. Thank you. May I speak to my motion? Please. So I wanna just first say that motion has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of the proposed rule of procedure 10.10 and nothing I'm about to say should have any bearing on my thoughts on the substance of that rule because it tracks very closely what's in the OCA process that was adopted and that was voted positively in OCA by F311 vote. I'm actually inclined to support the substance. My problem is actually with the format in two aspects of it. So one is I don't believe that this should be in our rules of procedure. To me that is not a rule and it's not appropriate for our rules of procedure. To me, this is a policy which is why my amendment asked GOL to come up with a town council policy on appointments because to me this just does not belong as a rule. It is more similar to our public ways policy than it is similar to things in our rules. And so when I'm asking is for GOL to come back with this in the proper format which would be as a town council policy that would guide how we do appointments. The second issue I have with it is that it pulls this rule pulls this one little piece of the process that was used by OCA completely out of the context of the larger process. So that language is very similar to what's in the OCA process under 4A3. And so 4A3, so it's one of three pieces of one of two subsections of one of six sections in the OCA process. And so to me it doesn't seem to pull just one little piece out of the context of the process but also out of selection guidance and plop it into our rules. 4A in the OCA process, one and two other considerations that the council should consider when making appointments or appointment recommendations. And then 4B has other selection guidance. And so to me I support the motion that was made as is one because I don't believe it should be a rule. I believe it's a policy. And two, because I think it needs to be nested within the broader context of how the town council considers appointments and to pull this out of that context I think is appropriate. So I think we will have a better discussion even as a council about how we approach appointments if we have an actual policy from GOL that places this little piece in the broader context of how we consider. And so that's why I'm making this motion. Thank you. So the motion's been made and seconded. I'm gonna ask Athena to go back to the full page and also start using the clock. Actually to, okay, that's good. Andy, no, I'm sorry, Steve Schreiber, you're next. Can I, before the clock starts, I can ask a point of order. So is Evan's motion a motion to refer or is it a motion to amend? This is a point of order or not? That's a very good question. It is a motion to amend, but it includes a referral. I am more than glad to have someone else interpret that differently. I'm not a parliamentarian, but the verbs, I mean, the action taken is not, to me, amend means something different. It doesn't mean send it back to a body. To me, this sounds like a motion to refer. Mandy Jo or Alyssa? Yeah, so the difficulty is he's not moving to refer that actual motion. He's moving to refer the creation of a full policy. So that is why it is couched as a motion to amend the full motion by essentially deleting it with a completely new motion to refer. Cause it's not just referring the motion that was made, it's referring the development of a policy. The other option would have been to table the motion, but the idea would be that you don't want the other motion hanging around, if you will, if you're going to move to a larger, to making this into a policy versus a part of our rules or procedure. So if I may, can I now speak? So whatever we do with this, I don't think it's ready for prime time. So I guess I have a couple of things to say. I don't think it's ready for prime time. However, I also think that the message has been heard. So whether or not we pass this tonight, so me as a member of the town council, I'm hearing the message that there was a great substantial number of people on the town council that think that there should be preference given to those who are already serving. So I have lots of, you know what? My problems are already that I don't think we should be, and it's actually similar to what Councillor Ross was saying, we shouldn't be cherry picking a criterion and giving that, amplifying the weight of that, we should be looking at the whole spectrum. And I think we should give points, 10 points if you're already on the committee, 12 points if you have experience. In other words, I think we should develop a score sheet if we want to go this direction. The other thing is that one person's active and contributing member is another person's inactive and not contributing, who's to make that decision? That's a very important qualification here. So I think we need some guidelines. Who's making the decision that somebody's active and contributing? Is it the current board? Is it us? Is it the particular director or the staff member? So I think there needs to be some guidance on that. So I'm for the motion, I guess, because I don't, I think that means no action tonight. Andy. Yeah, I think that considering whether this can be developed as a policy as opposed to a rule absolutely makes sense. And I think that a policy needs to consider a number of criteria, including something that we've, as a council, as counselors have been giving a lot of thought to, which is how do we make sure that we are taking appropriate action and having appropriate policies that will bring diversity when diversity is something that is possible and available to committees as well as to make sure that we understand the expertise that might be needed within the committee that's being considered. And for those reasons, I think that we are taking, with this amended motion, we'd be taking the right step to get us back to looking at this as a policy that could look at the broad criteria for all aspects that need to be considered and not give undue weight to one that might be damaging to the others, including the two that I mentioned. Listen. This is just one of those great, it's happening on the floor and it's all just rolling out in front of us kind of situations as opposed to where we were last week. So I'm still really uneasy with the Robert's rules version of this motion that amends it with replacing it with a referral, that just feels really not right, but at the same time, I guess I don't care as long as it just actually accomplishes what we need to accomplish. So, and I understand that we don't normally table things and normally you table something while you're dealing with something else and then you go back and as we said, we don't know where the thing that got tabled goes then. I had, as you all know, said if you were gonna dump the OCA process, you better have a good reason for it. And this wasn't, but it's gotten a lot better over the variations we've seen without much time to analyze them from both Darcy and George. So I appreciate the extra thought they put into these things. However, and I was like that close to almost saying, well, maybe it's better if we do it because of the timing issue, right? Because if we were talking about this six months ago, I would definitely have said policy since we're really close to the time when we're gonna start recommending people. I'm a little nervous that we're not providing more guidance, but I am now over the course of this conversation convinced that policy is definitely the way to go. No question. And timing wise, something Steve said associated with the message has come through loud and clear the way a majority of the town council is looking at this right now. I'm not convinced that when we give all this, if this passes to send it over to GOL to create a policy, it absolutely is not just the one piece like the reference was made to cherry picking. I don't know that I would be happy with to give GOL a heads up. Anything that gives a scoring rubric, this is not a bid. This is not a request for proposals. There is some art to it and you cannot just give X points for things because otherwise, as I always refer to it, having been a work study student as an undergraduate, you could just give it to a work study student to make the assignments then. There is judgment involved in recommending people. So you do not give them more points for being a professional architect who's never served on a planning board or a zoning board of appeals than you do to someone who has served on the zoning board of appeals or planning board who's not an architect by trade. I'm adamantly opposed to that concept. And I think it is okay to have things that are referenced like diversity, just like it's okay. And we've talked in the past, does Caucasian or white count as diversity? Obviously not, but we've looked at age. We've had pie charts associated with that. And so I think that we're in a place where we can turn this in, it's getting close to being a policy and that's what we should do. Okay, thank you, Dorothy. I just want people to stop for a minute and think about what this looks like to people in town who are thinking of applying for a committee. So we have these general definitions that work okay with OCA, okay with GOL. They look like common sense to me. And yes, they did involve judgment and holistic judgment, which is I think what we have to come down to. It makes a person who's thinking of serving on a committee realize that there's a minefield. They're gonna be weighed and found wanting. And it looks like this is something that really, really matters to counselors. And the question is, why does it really, really matter to counselors? So it seems that there's obviously reasons involved why some people want to have more control over appointments on committees. Whereas in the beginning we thought, we just wanna have some good people on the committees who represent the public in this town to help us make decisions. So I see that we're entering a minefield and making it much more complicated and it begins to look like there's some kind of power game going on. And if I were a citizen of this town thinking of serving on a committee, I would say, I don't need that. I don't need that. So I'm just saying you're making it into one of these things. Oh, it's a motion to do this. It's a refer. It's an amendment. So what are we talking about? So that's what I, Darcy? Yeah, I just would like to say that this motion is definitely a compromise motion. All the language in it pretty much comes directly from the town manager boards and committee handbook. The only thing that's really different is that we put in the word six years, which is what council said they wanted to have in there. There is an outgiven with the last sentence that George suggested in cases where, you know, it's clear that the person should not be reappointed. And so I guess I feel like this is time sensitive. We have planning board appointments coming up soon. If it gets referred to GLL and with a requirement that it not come back until July, that is after the reappointments. And so, you know, I think that it's hard to believe that councillors and judges should not be reappointed. Councilors in general wouldn't support this language that's really pretty neutral. In that we've all voted for it in previous committees. So I don't think we should have a scoring rubric. I do think this will allow more, more diversity of viewpoints and that that's a good goal to have. And so I would just hope that we could dispense with this issue by just voting on it tonight and because it's pretty, pretty uncontroversial at this point, yes. Kathy. I'm going to build on what Dorothy said, but try not to use the same words. I've got the, in front of me, the appointments manual. And I don't actually find anything wrong with the appointments manual. They have a few more sentences before they take into account current committee composition, qualifications, experience recommendations. This notion that how would you know whether someone is participating or not? How can we value that? If you ask the committee chair, does the person come, do they participate? Most committee chairs can tell you that. It's not very hard. I can tell you if I'm a classroom teacher, I'm not saying I love their participation or they're great, but they either come and they aren't. And I thought George had suggested wording like that. So we're not in a tenure situation. If you've done a term, you just get another term, whether you were, whether you were a body warming a seat or whether you really came and you read everything. I would certainly want this criteria applied for. People who are applying to be on the finance committee. As a resident on voting that, you know, if they've taken the time to be on the committee and they've come and they participated and they want to continue, I would want them to continue. A couple of them had said the first year they were spent learning the terms we were using. And it wasn't because they weren't financed people even. It was just everything was new if they hadn't followed this. So, and the deciding whether it is a policy or a rule. Some of our rules look a lot like policies. And if we wanted to call it a policy, I could put a new label on it and say, it's a policy. And we could give it a title and we could call it the appointment policy and we could add another sentence and cross-reference it. I don't think it's a study to go back and re-event. So I just, I think moving forward on this, I'm just remembering the long discussion when, when Oka came up with what Evan's just the long document. That wasn't a bad document. And it's trying to codify and put it into a policy world coming back with it. And I totally think this is ready to be used. If we want to do, do a longer document that says more policy words in it, that's fine with me, but have this our standard practice. We get to revisit our rules of procedure anytime we want. It seems like it's not once a year. We can do it monthly, but it's an operating guideline so that we don't disagree on what we'd like to do. So I'm strongly for moving forward on this, not just moving it in. It's, I, if you want to come back with a policy in a month, but make this the operating procedure for now. I'm going to make sure that counselors who have not spoken get to speak next. So Mandy, Joe, you're next, I believe. Thank you. I wasn't going to speak, but I do have to correct something that counselor Dumont said, not everyone on this council has voted for a language. That is close to what the original motion proposed. So to say that everyone has supported this at some point is just wrong. It was also indicated that it doesn't seem controversial. Well, if it wasn't controversial, we wouldn't have spent 40 minutes at the last meeting. We wouldn't be spending another 20 to 40 or more minutes at the last meeting. We wouldn't be spending another 20 to 40 minutes at the last meeting. We wouldn't be spending another 20 to 40 minutes at the last meeting. We wouldn't have spent over two hours talking about it. It's controversial. The other, another thing I want to point out is, I think I'm going to support the motion to refer or the motion to amend. To refer. It is becoming clear to me that this is one portion of a. Potential policy. It's not even complete. It's not complete regarding reappointment. It's not a policy. It's not a policy. It's not a policy. It's not a policy. It's not part of a criteria. If we're going to have a policy, and this is more of a policy, not a rule, or even if it's a rule, it should be complete, especially as it goes to what the criteria are. And clearly this is one criteria that needs to get into consideration. If this was adopted. And so I can't support something that. As you said, I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that's not a policy. But I'm going to say that I've acknowledged that it's not complete in order to. Try and make something happened that no one knows whether it will or won't happen. And I must take at this point. The thing I said last week, which is. I don't believe. And I can say right now, I haven't decided or even thought about at this point, really who might get appointed to planning board or ZBA. that have submitted CAFs that have been contacted by the chairs the start of the process that CRC has been adopted to see if there's still interest. There aren't applicants until statement of interests are submitted for any of those positions. And to imply that decisions are being made before we even have applicants is just wrong. And you know, I understand a desire to get something through ahead of time, but I don't think this should be rushed. CRC asked this council to deal with this last fall and this council did not at that time choose to refer to GOL to have it done in time for this, this time. And now we're trying to force it through. And I just, I can't support that force it through in a time limit saying we don't have time. We could have had time. So I'm going to support the motion to amend. That's the angels. Thank you. I'm kind of uncomfortable. Yes, this does need to become a policy, but I'm uncomfortable with the fact that a lot of this information was available when the last appointments to the planning board were made. And what we saw was a curmudgeon of a committee member who was an incredible worker and thoughtful in his interactions, although grumpy, removed for someone who has no, absolutely no experience and has spent all of their time on the committee saying and doing basic. I have a point of order. Can we please not talk about currently serving? Okay. That's not what happened when Michael was serving. There was lots of talk about Michael, but I feel like what I'm seeing is the importance of the preference being given to people who already have experience on the committee with limitation because we do need new people, but we need qualified new people. And I'm not seeing that that's what's happened on the planning board. George Ryan, I'll come back to those of you that have spoken before. Okay. Thank you, Lynn. Three quick points. One, this really should be a policy. I think that's correct. Two, I just don't see no matter what we finally come up with in terms of reappointment, how any language, whatever we adopt is going to definitively settle this issue one way or the other. I've said this before and I guess I'll say it one more time. When it finally comes for us to make up our minds, we weigh a number of factors. And the fact that it says that there's a preference for service is I have no problem with that, but there are other factors that I'm weighing. And so I don't consider preference to be definitive. And so in the end, I have no problem with any of the votes that I've taken in the past and I won't have any problem with votes that I've taken in the future, as long as I can articulate good reasons, at least to myself and hopefully to everyone present as to why I voted the way I did. So I think we're quibbling over something that in the end is really not gonna make that much difference, but that's just. And third, finally, briefly, if this does get referred to GOL, I really would help, would hope to get some help from all of you as to whether you want us to look at interview process, SOIs, how long CAF circuit be kept, and then a whole list of selection criteria along with reappointment, because it's quite a longer than it sounds like if you want us to do. I'm really not eager to do that, but I will do whatever the council wishes. This started out as simply an issue about reappointment and now it's become apparently about a whole host of things. So if it does get referred, please make clear to me or to my committee exactly what it is you want us to produce. Sarah, you've had your hand up and down. I wanna make sure that if you wanna speak, you do. Thank you, Lynn. I'm all set, but thank you for checking with me. Okay. Before I go on to people who have spoken, I wanna reflect back on something and this goes back to our very first year in the council. I have never felt comfortable with individual committees having different practices for this effort. And in addition, last week, yes, just last week, when we got into this discussion, we immediately waded into yet another area that is beyond just the paragraph that was originally offered tonight. So I feel it does need to be a policy. I think it needs to be a comprehensive policy. People keep referring to the committee handbook for the town and they keep referring to different pieces about it. And the council's gone back and forth over this thing for two and a half or two years and six, five months, I think is how long we've been in business. So at the same time, I certainly have heard the message loud and clear in the first motion that was made. But ultimately we need a policy that we can all handle and deal with. And I've been saying that from day one. So I'm not saying anything new. This has nothing to do with any votes we've taken about people or not taken about people. It has to do with codifying a policy that the council can buy into. And that we can trust and therefore when recommendations for appointments come forward, we know how we got here. So that is my only comment. Thank you. I'm gonna start back with Evan Ross. I'll try and be quick. One thing I wanted to address was timing. I think it was Councillor Dumont who said that UL won't come back with a policy until July, which I think is referencing the date of July 12th, 2021 in the motion. I just want to clarify, that was because we usually give committees 90 days to report back. We know that sometimes committees take longer. Sometimes they take a shorter amount of time. So that was just under 90 days. GOL could come back by our next meeting with a policy. So this isn't, they have to wait until July. I see George's face when I say that. They have to wait until July. It's just that they have July. But one of the things that I believe is that OCA gave the council a really fantastic policy that we spent something like eight months developing. And I would personally be a little upset if GOL dramatically changed that policy. And I'm also encouraged by the fact that three of the five members on GOL are former OCA members. And so I actually believe that GOL could dispense with this referral even faster than the 90 days because there's so much that is being provided for them. As far as what I'd like to see, at a minimum, I would like to see selection meetings be formalized into a policy, which I think is broader than just one section. But I don't think it's a bad idea for GOL to look at the other section how to deal with CAS, sufficiency of the applicant pool, and also the SOIs and have some standardization with that. So I'm actually not super concerned about the timing of this because I think that GOL can do this because OCA did so much of the leg work to develop what I think is a really strong policy. And then I think just really briefly, I can't see the time because we're sharing a screen. So I have very little amount of time. Two things really briefly to Dorothy's point of how this looks to the outside world. I actually think having a policy that's a town council policy as opposed to one little thing that's in a rule is actually better for the public. In fact, if you look at the documents that were provided for today, it includes something that OCA adopted, which was guidance for the public, which was step by step on how to apply for these positions. And so I think if we have unified policy that's broader than it's easier for the public to actually figure out what appointment looks like and how the council looks at these things. And the last thing I wanna say, I think to Kathy's point is I'm uncomfortable with the practice of this should be a policy you're right, but let's just put it in our rules for now to get it done. And then we can change that later rid of it once we have a policy. I think that we shouldn't, that I'm not comfortable with that kind of practice. We should just do what we know is best, which was have geo-developal policy. Thank you. Alyssa. Thank you. Trying not to repeat, but do you have to say that we could have kept OCA, but the majority of the town council said, no, we don't want there to be the same policy across all three, because the only reason you dump a committee that's doing it the same way for everything is because you wanna be able to do it differently than the way they did it. And so the majority of the town council disagreed with me when I wanted to keep OCA and I also wanted to keep the same policies. I will, to be fair, the committees have developed policies of their own since then, which are not radically different than what OCA did in most cases. And so we haven't had too much of a fight until we are finally getting to this point, which has Mandy Joe pointed out, we should have got too many months ago, but life happens. I can't stop saying, this is not the town manager appointed committee handbook. It's just not stop putting the wrong words on documents. It is the town's appointed committee handbook. And that is one of the reasons why we should have a policy just as OCA did and the variations of the OCA policy that the other town councils are currently making that relates to the appointed committee handbook. There's no way this town council has time to revise the appointed committee handbook before the end of this town council's term. So we need to have something that at least isn't in complete contrast to that so that people can look at that and get some sense of what they're trying to do. I agree completely that what the public perceives is what we're trying to accomplish. We're trying to be as clear as we can and as horrible as this is to fight about. We are trying to be clear about it so that people don't feel scared off because they don't understand it. When GOL does talk about this or we do to adopt it as a rule, it needs to be clear that if town counselors want term limits, again, putting the word term limits next to other words doesn't make them term limit words. I think term limits are a terrible idea. I think selection criteria is absolutely where we need to go. And so please stop referring to it as term limits because again, not the actual words just like this is not the town manager handbook and please keep the focus as we have here that these are the town council, these are the cited bodies appointed by the town council. This has nothing to do with the town council's approval or rejection of the town manager's appointments. He has his own completely separate process which may or may not be 100% in compliance with the appointed committee handbook but it's not the policy of this town council yet. To apply our philosophy to what the town manager brings to us. So thank you for being clear that it's just the town council appointments for now. Thank you. Steve Schreiber. This is really interesting. So once again, I'm going to say that I've heard the message, I get the message. I actually don't think this as a rule or a policy solves much. In fact, I'm not sure it solves anything unless we're clear about what we mean by active and contributing member of a board and committee. So basically, if we pass this as a policy we're basically kicking down the can down the street to those words as long as the member is an active contributing member of the board or committee. No, that is not an easy decision to make. In fact, that's the most difficult decision to make. And that's the source of a lot of the agony that we've been having the last two years as we go through this process. I think we need actually a much better process for determining that. And no, it cannot fall on the shoulders of the chair because the chair could be aligned with this group or that group or the chair, him or herself might be the one that's up for appointment or the next year. So we should not be putting that onto the chair. Basically the possibility of a death sentence for one of their members that they might then have to keep working with. I don't know who should make that decision but that is a really critical, that's a really critical part of this. Is that person an active and contributing member and how do we make that decision? Sarah has her hand up and is not spoken yet. So I wanna just say that the language that is in this that says active and contributing member came out of OCA and it was after the first time we tried this was planning board and ZBA. And it was George who brought this up and I think he said that himself. And what he said was, how do we recruit people or how do people feel safe when they've served for a term and it's a volunteer position and they've shown up and they've done their homework and they've been civil to people. And then you're gonna do what? Just tell them that sorry, you're not gonna come on again. That's disrespectful. So whether or not that we all agree with that point or we wanna keep that point, I just wanna say that OCA worked very, very, very hard as individuals who had really different ideas to try to balance and come to a compromise between all sides of what people said they wanted. We tried to keep a lot of the language open so that, no matter how you felt about something that people had a leg to stand on when they wanted to promote someone or argue for someone. I were hearing all these things about policy and well, we don't have this. OCA gave you a comprehensive policy. We still have it. We left it for you. It was important. Every single community has changed it. CRC is in the works of changing it the most. I guess the problem that I'm having is a lot of this seems like semantics to me and bringing this back to GOL, I'm with George. I don't want it. You're gonna ask almost a majority of OCA to do what, to do the exact same thing that we did before. What we're going to give to you is the same thing that we gave to you before that apparently no one, I don't know, I'm not gonna say that. It's gonna be the same thing that we gave to you before and I feel like this language, what we heard last time was, what are the terms, what defined terms? So Darcy said six years, contiguous, which was what Mandy Jo was getting at. George said, I think that we should really make sure that we're not locking anyone into any decisions and Darcy said, okay, and I am confused about the fact that we're saying, oh, this is policy and we don't have the rest of the policy, we do. So if people wanna do this, what I would say is, think about the rest of the document from OCA because this fits in and this is probably what GOL will hand back to you and yeah, thank you. Andy. Yeah, I'll be brief. The question that I'm trying to get at in my prior comment really was about what is our value to making efforts to get more BIPOC representation on boards and committees, especially in boards and committees where there's none and putting in words that say give preference in reappointment, what does that say to the person who might think about applying and then says, well, I'm not gonna bother to apply because there's that preference and it's gonna overwhelm me, it's gonna make it meaningless and how do we go about trying to achieve a result if there's an agreement that the result that I have put forward needs to be considered and to do it in an appropriate and lawful manner because we can't give preference where based upon criteria that I was mentioning either and I really have been looking forward to a discussion of that issue if this is a motion that's on the floor passes. Dorothy. I think I agree with Lee that the same rule should apply to all committees. I agree with Sarah that the document from OCA is a workable document. If we make it so that you're gonna be, as I said before, weighed and measured and evaluated too much and over different criteria, you will find that a lot of very good people from all different backgrounds will not apply to any committees because they'll say there's obviously something going on, there's some undertow, there's some current, I don't know what it is but I don't wanna get mixed up in it. So I suggest that we keep it very, very simple. It doesn't matter what we call it and that we just stop this effort to have different rules for different committees. Thank you. George. So maybe I'll regret this but I think I can see a path forward at least from the GOL perspective. Evan is correct, Dorothy is correct, a number of you correct, Sarah. There is a document that was produced by OCA. GOL will certainly be using that as its guide and I think that's something we can probably get at fairly quickly on the language that has been proposed. Dorothy could be integrated into that document and so I think that's the way to go forward. It would be a policy, would be my suggestion and it's something I think we can do in a timely fashion. We certainly will try with the OCA document as our template and it will be a long document, it will be a long policy but hopefully it will establish something that will guide both committees in making their recommendation to the council. So I think I can see a way forward for GOL. Thank you, George. And I really have to say, I appreciate it. I'm gonna use a moment to just say, if you came back after a good look at the OCA document and could give us something by mid-May, I would be delighted. That's just me as a single counselor because I want this thing off the table and I want something we can buy into and something that the public can look at and say, that's the policy, but earlier rather than later. So George, I appreciate your stepping up like that. Dorothy? Yeah, I guess, I don't see any reason why this would need to be a policy rather than in our rules of procedure because it just doesn't make any, it doesn't seem to be that much difference between the two. And I also just wanna point out that this is a policy that's been followed by the town for many years, the policy of giving preference on reappointment. And I know that it's a policy that the, you know, long-time members and former select board members are extremely familiar with because it's been here forever. Now, we're about to, in two weeks in the TSO, get a whole slew of reappointment proposals from the town manager for people who are getting reappointments after one term on a town board or committee. It's a very time-honored process in the town. So, and there's, as we mentioned in the last meeting, there's just a whole lot of reasons for including that preference. And I know I personally would like to pass with one piece of the procedure tonight and glad to add more to it at a later time, but I just think it's time-sensitive and I'd like to get it done. Wendy, John. A couple of things. To the comment of we've always done it and it's a long-standing policy, I want to take our whole council back to what we did this weekend and things that were said this weekend about reevaluating policies because maybe the policy we have is actually detrimental to some of the goals we want. So I just wanna have people think about that. As to, I know I sit on GOL so I will have the opportunity to say this, but OCA is not, the OCA policy has been changed by both committees that deal with appointments now in different sections, but both committees. And so it's not necessarily a matter of just taking the OCA process, turning it into a policy. There are some big things that need to be discussed regarding what both committees have done to change it and whether that leeway should still be allowed even within a policy. And so I look forward to having that discussion in GOL regarding particularly interviews and even SOIs and questions and how to do questions and all. But the other thing I wanna say is if this comes back in mid-May, CRC will have likely already been through the interviews or will have the interviews already scheduled because there are tentative dates that CRC will be setting tomorrow as the goal for dates for interviews for both CBA and planning board. And so while I appreciate the desire to have something sooner rather than later, I still maintain that the process is in the works right now and to potentially adopt something that becomes effective mid-process or certain appointments could be very detrimental to a whole host of things. And so when this committee or this council gets this taken up at a second time, I think it should really consider when that policy would be effective or should be effective given where various committees will be in their processes at that time. Thank you. Are there any other comments? So motion that's at the bottom of your screen is the one that is on the table, okay? And it is to amend the motion which is above by replacing the entire motion with the following, okay? So we're going to vote on this. If this fails, we'll go back to the original. You have to vote on this first. Is there any question? Dorothy? Lynn, I'm sorry. I was kicked off on the computer for a bit. I have no idea what the issue I would be voting on is. Is it on adopting this criteria and not adopting the criteria? I don't know anything. Okay, I'm sorry that you lost connectivity. I didn't realize you had. The motion is to amend the motion that's made, which is above by replacing the entire motion with the following. To refer to the GOL committee, development of a town council policy and appointments to the Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, non-voting members of the Finance Committee and Districting Advisory Board for recommendation to the town council with a report to the council by July 12th, 2021. And George Ryan has spoken to his commitment to try to move that much, much faster and others have spoken to concerns about already in the process. So the motion that is on the table is the one that's on the lower part of your screen. I just don't know what that means. So if we adopt this motion, the other motion above it does not come forward. If we don't adopt this motion, then the motion above it, which was the original motion made tonight, then comes forward. Is that helpful, Dorothy? I understand the words, the implications are confusing to me. So just pass me by, I'll deal with life somehow. All right, are there any other questions? Yes, Kathy. Yeah, I would interpret this since it doesn't say a policy similar to the OCA policy, a policy that would adopt some, right now there is no substance in this amended thing. It just says, gee, I will come back with something called a policy. It doesn't say, it doesn't say we all kind of like the OCA policy, take a look at it and come back with it, in which case I would be voting on something that has substance in it. Right now it is a blank slate proposal. I think I'm correct in reading this way. There have been some strong voices saying, I love the OCA policy, let's do the OCA policy. Then we've heard some, oh, I don't wanna do the OCA policy, let's have a new policy. But I think it's the rejection of making a decision on any kind of policy right now and deferring it to say, let's see what GOL can come up with without even instructions on where to look. I mean, George verbally said, he will look at the OCA policy, but this language does not say that. It just does not say that. And I wanna just note in your packet is a compilation of four documents, community resources, committee adopted process, the GOL committee adopted process, the OCA committee adopted process, and the town of Amherst appointed committee handle. So they were pulled all together because it's assumed that there is value in each of these documents that might be pulled together. So your observation is correct. Okay, so the OCA process is here somewhere? It is in a very large packet that was pulled together actually by Councillor Ross. All relevant documents for consideration. Regarding town council appointments, it's been in your packet since last week. And I know we all didn't have the kind of time over the weekend to look at stuff. George. I hear Kathy's concern. I guess I just would say to her that hopefully she can trust the word of the GOL chair that this will be the focus of our work will be starting and using that OCA document will obviously be referring to the others as well, but the OCA document will be what we'll be working with and shaping and then bringing back to the council. That's my intention. George, did you have any other comments? Okay, are there any other questions or comments from the council? Okay, so then again, the motion we're voting on is the one on the lower portion of your screen. It's now in the center of your screen. Evan Ross. Aye. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. No. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. No. Alyssa Brewer. Yes. Aye. Deanne, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, aye. Okay, Pat DeAngelis. No. Darcy DuMont. No. Lynn Griezmer is a yes. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Aye. Dorothy Pam. No. The vote is seven in favor, five opposed, no abstentions and one absent. That vote means therefore do not vote on the motion above this. Can I just ask, I can't find the OCA one. So maybe someone could just send it to me, Evan. I do see it's a long document. I just can't find it. It would be useful. Thank you. It's in your packet, but we'll make sure that everybody has it. And we will make sure that everybody is emailed the document that has all four of the different processes in it. And I also wanna urge that if you have thoughts and you're not on the GOL committee, you make sure George has those. And also George will let people know when the committee is going to meet and with this discussion item. And also if we have more than a six members, then we would consider if the chair can consider the chair as to consider whether they're willing to make it a committee of the whole. Point of order. Yes. We're not done with this item. That motion that just passed was a motion to amend the main motion. So now the motion to refer is on the table. Thank you. Thank you. So the motion on the table now is to refer. Kevin, was that your point? Yeah, that was gonna be my point. And also to Kathy, the OCO process in that long document in the packet starts on page 11. Thank you. Okay. All right. So we're now back to the motion which is to refer this to GOL. Okay. And we're beginning with George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. No. Steve Schreiber. Aye. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. No. Alyssa Brewer. Aye. At the Angeles. No. Darcy Dumont. No. Lynn Griesmer. Aye. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Stein. And Evan Ross. Aye. This time the vote is seven, five, I'm sorry, seven, four, one, one. Seven in favor. Four opposed. One abstention and one absent. Any further questions on this? We have no appointments tonight but we've been warned by the chair of TSO that we have quite a few coming up soon. The committee reports. Mandy Jo, CRC. No updates. Kathy, elementary school building. We're meeting, can everyone hear me? Yes. I got an echo of feedback. Where the OCA selection committee is, subcommittee is meeting tomorrow morning to talk about interview questions and a reference check questions. The bids are due back April 19th. So we'll know how many people are bidding on the project and then the process has a very accelerated if we're gonna still be on the June 7th panel for OPM selection. I thought you said OCA selection and I believe. OPM, OPM. Thanks. Thank you. It's a, Andy, the request for proposal is longer than the document we've been reading. Okay, finance committee, Andy. So, the finance committee did have a meeting after the last, immediately after the last meeting in which the focus was entirely on the regional school budget. A number of additional questions were asked which will be reported before this comes back before the council with a recommendation and we have not reached the recommendation stage at our next meeting on the 20th. The one thing that I wanted just to point out is that there's gonna be several good discussions on it but one that I wanted to allude to in particular is that if you're at all concerned about the other post-employment benefit obligation which is a significant future obligation, financial obligation of the town, we had originally planned a month ago to have a meeting with the actuary who calculates what the actual liability is and explains the consequences for the town financially of that obligation and that's a presentation that is on the agenda and so anyone who has an interest in that topic I just wanted to work on to it. George, DOL. Yeah, much of DOL's work has been the focus of what we did tonight, the two bylaws that we just discussed and also the proclamations but we spent a good part of our meeting on last meeting dealing with the Districting Advisory Board and we finished up the charge and we sent that out for legal review and eventually that will come to you for your approval just to give you a heads up. What we are proposing is that the members be resident only but they'll not be members of the council as residents of the DAB and that we are going to suggest that there be three non-voting members. One would be the town clerk, one would be a member of IT staff with GIS experience and one would be a member of the board of registrars. Otherwise the language was really pretty much accepted as it was given to us, there was one or two minor changes and we're just waiting for that to come back from the lawyer and at the next meeting we'll be working on the process in timeline. Kathy, I know JCPC has finished up and you've filed, you've given your recommendation to the town manager but you also had a brief report in the packet and I wondered if you want to speak to that. Sure, I'll just say a few, it is a brief report so it's just a page and a half long as reports go. That's a brief one. So I just want to start off to say that Paul and his staff did a fabulous job this year in bringing us a wealth of information right at the very beginning, starting with a five year budget that was nearly in balance but then showing us what things would be put off to out years as a list. We did get a beginning capital inventory with buildings and vehicles and that will be updated so we have a fuller thing. We also, beginning draft of a maintenance, what is the cost to maintain our buildings, how much money and what kind of utility, what are your utility bills? So this is a beginning set of documents or in capital that go well beyond just next year's capital requests. So I just, I summarize there's a cover memo but that will all be available when Paul comes with his capital improvement plan. It's a series of documents. So I think the two things I just wanted to highlight on our recommendations, one was to commend the staff and then ask for actually a doubling in creating a new sustainability fund where the recommendation was for a $50,000 fund and we came up with that it should be doubled to 100,000 and we write some rationale on why and where they could find the money for it. And we think it's a terrific idea and going forward it enables us to do a lot of things like if we're buying a van to pay the extra cost to have it be a hybrid or electric van. So it's something we can use as seed money to get grants. We also, we had a resident proposal from two high school students and a resident for a study of solar canopies that would include the high school parking lots but also town parking lots. So we endorse that with a combined with money the regional schools have put in and look for grants but then it can run the sustainability fund because if we could get the study done and solar money becomes available we would be shovel ready. So it was a nice confluence of having this fund. So you can see the rest of the report we did an executive summary this year. So if you want to read the short version it's a page and a half of the other recommendations but those were the highlights. And Paul, your staff is not just your staff but all the departments really did a nice job and the discussions we had could focus on each of the projects then. It was an exciting set of meetings and this notion of a lens of sustainability was evident people came in and talked about their projects. So thank you very much. Andy or Mandy Joe, you're the other members of that committee representing the council. Any other further comments? Andy, okay, Paul, you have your hand up. I just want to thank Kathy for that comment. Obviously it's not me doing that work. It's the staff and having Sean Mangana lead it up was totally credit to him. We have established the goal of having our material that we give to the town council and to the town at largest is being competitive for the government finance officers association standards. And that includes many of the things that the council typically has been asking for. So that's our mission is to get the award from GFOA and that's one of Sean's charges and he's taken them on and done a tremendous work with it. So just credit to the finance staff. You know, you work with them, you know how good they are. Darcy, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to say kudos to the staff and the JCPC for those really exciting sustainability recommendations. I passed them all on to the ECAC today and watching the video of your most recent meeting was just very exciting to just sense that there's a paradigm shift going on. Yay. Great. Any comments or questions of committee reports except we still have to do TSO. Anything else Darcy on TSO? We aren't doing that much. Just normally a village intersect, you are continuing to meet on that and we'll vote on that on the 22nd. Okay. And any liaison reports? Dorothy. I've attended to Council on Aging Meetings and have not made a report. They're discussing programs of how the senior central return to real life in the near future. Complicated by the fact that the center is being used for vaccinations and there are unvaccinated people there hoping to use the third floor for preregistered activities at some point soon and also consulting with people from UMass on dealing with senior anxiety about returning into real person life. Their business has been evaluating their committee structure and seeing how they're meeting the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I believe that the director is doing a racial equity audit of programs which they will be discussing. They did have a big discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of following Robert's rules, particularly when they were having discussion on whether the word racism or racial equity would be used in their committee charge. Presentation from the Highland Valley elderly services who are our gatekeepers to Commonwealth and federal programs and funds for services to the elderly and homebound in this area. And there are lots of small things to be looked at such as the lack of in-person assessments. Seniors often over-report their individual capacity when asked on the phone. And some concern as to why there seem to be so many people from Amherst being rejected for home care services. I believe Paul has discussed this at some point in the meeting. Though, and interested in more citizen involvement and participation, and so they're going forward with their work. Thank you. Any other liaison reports? Darcy, you have your hand up, yeah. Yes, I was just gonna report on tech. I will, I don't have a full report on everything that they're looking at, but I just wanted to mention that they really did an extensive report to TSO about their recommendation with regard to, and their analysis with regard to the Pomeroy Village Intersection, which I think the committee really appreciates. They went into their recommendations for either option and then they voted on it. Anyway, their extensive analysis has been to help us quite a bit in making our report. Thank you. Any other liaison reports? There are no minutes. We will be catching up on minutes after this. So I'm gonna turn to Paul, who did his abbreviated eight-page town manager report. I had to kid you about that. Well, I know it's only been a week since your last meeting, so there's not a whole lot new in there. And so I do wanna give you an update on the vaccination program, because it is something that's taking, we're devoting a lot of time and staff effort too, which we're really proud of. We have the homebound program, which is going great. We're expanding that into other parts of Hampshire County. This is utilizing CARES funds and getting reimbursements from the state to do this program. And being led by Captain Gahn of the fire department. We've been doing general public vaccination clinics throughout the, during the course of the week. And then we're able to allocate 25% of the vaccine given to us for our own use in essence. And so we, along with Northampton, have dedicated that to our educators and childcare workers, because we had prioritized that as being the most important thing to enable teachers and students to get back to school. And we'll be able to expand that out to other people as well. And what else, you know, we're talking, that's pretty much everything else is in the report. Are there any questions of the town manager? Okay. Then let me just mention two things under the president's report. One as seemed to be the wish of the council. I did speak with the chair of the planning board. I did send him the whole packet regarding associate members of the planning board and asked that the planning board come back to us to see if they have any interest in having associate members. So that was a referral. And I'm not asking people as well on this tonight, but I think from time to time, during this period, some of us may want to reflect on how we're thinking about the training that we all went through this weekend. We're a hundred percent of the council and the town manager were present. And so if any counselors would like to comment, that would be fine. But occasionally some of us may have a reflection. We'd like to share with the public about how that training has impacted our thinking. And other than that, I did not do a report because again, it's only been two weeks since I did the last one. And the other thing that I did not do, but we'll just give you a warning about now. And that is that our May 3rd agenda is going to be a big one. First of all, Paul presents his budget. The regional school budget is coming forward as well as the formula. And so I'm going to go back because we see some people's hands up. Kathy. I think you might be about to answer my question, but my question, I saw in Paul's report that he was gonna put the North Commons material, the choices up on Engage Amherst. And so my question was, do you know when that hearing will be? I've been asked by a few people on when. And I've been working on the schedule. I am thinking that it's probably going to be May 24th. Okay, that's a little bit. Yeah, and because I wanted to point people who would say what are the kinds of things we're looking at so I can point them to a thing on the Engage Amherst, but also tell them when the hearing will be. Thank you. Steve, you had your hand up, I think. I was just gonna make a comment about the training, but it may or may not be appropriate for now, yeah. No, please go ahead. Yeah, so sort of useful and exhausting and enriching all at the same time. But I think that one of the keywords that I will take away is the gateway. So who controls the gates and what are we doing about the gates? And so I actually think that that was a fascinating conversation earlier today about exactly that, a certain kind of a gate, and what are we gonna do about it? Dorothy, you have your hand up. I would like to ask about Engage Amherst. Would somebody explain it, and is there any way that you tell if you get a representative sample and how does the public, I mean, I haven't, I don't know how to use it. Does the public know how to use it? And, or is it just gonna be something that reflects the opinions of people who are really into tech? So that's my question. Yeah, Paul, go ahead. Yeah, so Engage Amherst is a website. It has two primary purposes. One is to gather information about a particular project in one location. So it's easy for people to find everything they need or be directed to the places where the information is found. The second is to provide a forum for people to have a conversation. It's not scientific. It's not supposed to be representative. We don't do polling on there necessarily. We let people weigh in on different things. We ask for ideas. It's a way to have a, when people can't attend a particular meeting for them to be engaged in a different way, it's not a substitute for anything. It's an add-on for people to be engaged. It's a asynchronous version of public comment. Yeah, in a way. And ended solicit ideas and we can analyze how many people are using it. It takes a fair amount of staff time to monitor and build the location. So we're focusing this on town-sponsored projects for the most part. And when we build it, it means there's got to be a staff person who's owning it. And that's a key component to it. But it's a way for people to contact the town staff as well to say, here, I've got some ideas, put them on the paper, and other people will say, hey, those are good ideas. I like them or no, those are miserable ideas, whatever. So if you haven't been to the site, we can walk you through it some point, Dorothy. It's a combination of what we online teachers are doing. We have forum where students engage with each other to a question. And it's also, you put the material on the Moodle page and people can access the material. Yeah. And I just want to speak up. I've gone on it on it. It's not that easy to find. Maybe it'll be easier to find, but I wanted, there were pictures of the North Amherst Library, Dorothy, on what the architect was coming up with. And you could ask questions and get responses back. So it wasn't a polling mechanism, but just where would I find it? And that's why I thought for this North Commons redesign, you can see some pictures and read a memo. So even if nothing else, it's where would I find it? And you can go and find it, it lives there rather than trying to find the packet of the town council when we discussed it and know whether it's 89D or, you know, so you can find the material. So it's a nice organizing tool for that, I think wherever it grows and evolves. Paul? Just where you find it is engageamherst.org. That's the website. And it is not a representative sample. I just want to be clear. There's no sampling technique involved. Any other questions or comments from councilor's future agenda items, Alyssa? Segwaying beautifully into future agenda items. I would like us to consider how we best put this on our agenda, but that we need something like a topic called ending structural racism because we passed a resolution back in December saying we were going to do that. And obviously we're not doing it single-handedly and we're not doing it overnight, but we didn't get a chance to put it on tonight's agenda to really have time for reflections and some of us are going to want to process more of what happened over the weekend anyway. So I appreciate you mentioning that Lynn under this section. But it doesn't necessarily have to be a big discussion every time, but I think it's an important touchstone for us to have something like a topic that, you know, I just lifted those words from the resolution itself to say, you know, as we reflect on what we did tonight, where did we take that lens? Where did we incorporate that into the conversation? Obviously we touched on it tonight associated with appointments and Oka struggled mightily with how to put that in. And so there is no perfect solution to that that Andy talked about and I don't want us to turn down our policy because we haven't come up with perfect wording for that, but it's something we just need to continually reflect back on every time we're talking about basically everything. Okay, I'm just writing myself notes. Darcy. I'd agree with Alyssa's suggestion, but I was just wondering about the comments to Mindy and Joe about the remote participation policy. I thought that was on the agenda, but then it wasn't. It was in the packet. And I'm going to ask both Mandy Joe and Alyssa to speak to it since the two of them are on the MMA policy boards that this originated out of Mandy Joe. Yeah, so I'm on a policy committee that last year before I was on it drafted some legislation regarding changing the potential potentially proposing changes to the state law that enables remote participation. Once I got on the policy committee, Alyssa contacted me with some concerns she had regarding the actual legislation that the MMA had forwarded to the general court and received some sponsors from a senator and a representative to file at the general court for this session. And so I contacted my contact at the MMA Brittany and let her know about Alyssa's concerns, which in looking at the language, I also had similar concerns and I received a response back. And then I asked Lynn and Alyssa, I think Alyssa actually asked Lynn during her monthly meeting with Senator Comaford to bring up this issue. And the recommendation was that we meet separately with Senator Comaford and Mindy Dom and Representative Dom to talk about the concerns, which we did a week ago, I think. And they had requested a memo that outlined our concerns, what the town's policies currently are and what they're based on and what we would be looking at as counselors for changes in actual language. And so the memo that was put in the packet or emailed out, I assume it's in the packet now maybe, is the results of that conversation. It is not, it is from counselors Brewer, Panicky and Greesamer, but we felt the whole town council should see some of the advocacy we were doing as individual counselors regarding that legislation. Darcy, do you have further questions? No, I just, I saw that it was from the three of you and there was at least one section that I wasn't sure that I agreed with. So I think my recourse would be contact Mindy and Joe or something. That's one option, but also there is a point where this will probably go to hearing and we may want to file written testimony from the council. And so there would be an opportunity to spend some further time on that, but would you like to speak specifically to the section you didn't agree with? Yeah, it was just the section that required the notice to the public of documents before the remote here, remote meeting and you had suggested that it be a notice to the members of the public body rather than notice to the public. And that didn't seem right. So, but I read the rationale, so I understand that you had some reasons for doing that, but I guess I just wouldn't have agreed with doing that, making that recommendation. Alyssa, would you like to speak to the memo or any other things? The only thing I wanted to add is this obviously was awkward because we don't normally just have some town counselors go and do something that's not usually a thing we do without some kind of assignment, but there was a time sensitivity to this issue in terms of when it was gonna get assigned to committee and how far it was gonna get. We don't know, as you all know, so many times the whole bunch of different versions of bills get filed. And so we don't even know which one will eventually be the one that comes forward, but since our professional organization put this together with, I point out, no notice to us as a town that they were putting this together because they often do that with legislation. They're our professional organization. They speak on our behalf, but I would argue that what they did was such a substantial change over what the current regulations are that we focused on, these are the current regulations, meaning pre-pandemic, this is why they've worked for us. These are the concerns that we have. So if you're going to make drastic changes, which is what that proposes to do, one, my feeling is you should have talked to the towns that are actually affected rather than just going ahead and saying you're doing this on behalf of the towns because they weren't certainly doing it on my behalf. And then secondly, to explain why we were coming because it's super awkward for us to be not agreeing with MMA on something. And so Mandy Jo, I was like, they never would have done this if you'd been there at the time that they did it. But again, they reach out to us all the time to tell us to vote on certain bills and to tell us to contact your senator to do this, that or the other thing. But they did not say, by the way, we're going to instill a requirement that says, as Darcy just pointed out, you have to have materials available prior to the meeting for the public when we see how often we get materials very close to the time of the meeting. And we have good internet connectivity and town devices and not everybody has that. So we just wanna make sure that as this unfolds, we get a chance to have some say in it. And certainly I think that from what you, from what we understood, Lynn, that we will get notified by our senator and representative staff when whichever version of this gets assigned to committee. And then at that time, hopefully we'll have enough notice, although there's never any guarantee with legislative hearings that it could be tomorrow at three. If we get notice, then we would certainly want, as a town council, to relook at this and see if we wanna send something as a full council. So thank you. Are there other questions? Other future agenda items. Then seeing nothing, I wanna note the time. You've done a great job. It's 8.57 and the meeting is adjourned.