 There are 248 town meeting members. 125 constitutes a quorum. The constable informs me that a quorum is present. The sixth session of the 260th annual town meeting will now come to order. At the end of tonight's session, there will be a motion to adjourn to tomorrow night, Thursday May 17th. If this motion passes, we will meet again tomorrow night. If the motion fails, there will be another motion to adjourn until next Monday, May 21st. A motion to adjourn is not debatable. When considering your vote, you must balance the difficulty of meeting three times in a week with the difficulty of achieving a quorum as we extend further into the spring. The auditorium has been reserved for five additional dates beyond May 21st. The seats on the floor of the auditorium may be occupied only by town meeting members except for the front row, which may be used by members of the press and town committees and town staff participating in the presentation or discussion of articles. Such persons must wear non-voter stickers, which are available at the check-in table. Spectators and town residents who are not town meeting members may be seated in the bleachers to the rear of the auditorium. New information for town meeting members can be found on the back table to my left. Old information can be found on the back table to my right. Amherst Media provides gavel to gavel coverage of our proceedings on Public Access Channel 17, and I'd like to thank the staff and volunteers. If you wish to speak, you must raise your hand and be recognized. You must hold up a card to indicate your position. Green indicates yes, red indicates no, and a white card indicates that you wish to speak without advocacy or ask a question. When you are called on, please first state your name and precinct. If you forget, I will interrupt and ask you to do so. If you need more than three minutes or more than five when speaking to your motion, you must request additional time before speaking and town meeting will vote on your request. Non-members who wish to speak should stand at the rear of the right-hand aisle. Any registered voter of the town of Amherst who is recognized by the moderator may speak without special permission. Others may speak with the permission of a majority. Please stand when you speak if you are physically able to do so. Also, please wait for the microphone before speaking, and when you are speaking into the microphone, hold it like this. Notice I'm holding it horizontal right up to my mouth. That's the way the sound works best. That's the way that the sound board can most easily control your volume so everybody can hear you. If you're making an amendment to a motion, the amendment must be presented in writing with four copies submitted to the following people or groups, town clerk, moderator, town manager, staff, and the chair of the finance committee or whichever board is seated to my left. Procedural motions, such as a motion to refer or a motion to dismiss, do not need to be presented in writing. If you make any motion from the floor, it must be the first thing you do after you've been recognized and have identified yourself. You cannot speak first and then make a motion. If you've not already done so, please check your cell phone and make sure it is silenced or off. If at any point in time you are confused about the proceedings, it is appropriate to call a point of order and ask for clarification. Also, it's always okay to phone me, email or see me prior to town meeting if you need an explanation of any kind. We're now going to do electronic voting test. You should all have your devices. They should all be on, so you can see your device number on the LED screen. Anybody having any issues with their electronic voting device? Everybody can see the way they voted on their screen. Yes, 102, no 148. Mr. Wald, I again totally forget which is the correct answer. No? The answer is no. The no is when. We have, I'm going to be calling first on Ms. Tillman to make a procedural motion and then I should warn everybody there's going to be some complicated procedural things happening this evening, so gird yourselves and be prepared. Ms. Tillman is going to be making a motion to hear the free cash article, article 25, at the next town meeting session at 7.05. She's not going to specify a date certain because we don't have a date certain. The next meeting might be Thursday or might be Monday. She's moving the free cash article to a future date because we may be spending more money tonight. We don't know. So Ms. Tillman, you can make a motion. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I move to hear article 25 at the next session of town meeting at 7.05. Motion has been made and seconded. You can speak to your motion if you want, but I think I already explained it. Any discussion? I see no hands. All those in favor of the motion to move article 25 to the next town meeting session at 7 o'clock, which is fine to do, please say aye. Opposed, please say no. It's been moved. So what's on our agenda for this evening? First we're going to hear article 39 because we moved it to a date time certain for tonight. Then we're going to hear article 27 because we moved that to a date time certain tonight. At that point I am going to be accepting a motion to reconsider the elementary school portion of article 8 and we will have a discussion and vote on whether or not we want to reconsider. I hear a point of order. Mr. Moderator, I assume that you would allow the motion for reconsider to go before the motion dealing with free cash. No, you missed what just happened. We just moved free cash to the next session of town meeting. Sorry, sir. So what we're looking ahead for, first we're doing article 39, then we're doing article 27. So I now call on Ms. Turner to make a motion under article 39. Molly Turner, precinct one. Get that microphone real close to your mouth if you can. Yep, Paul. Give her a hand. There we go. I think... Molly Turner, precinct one. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I move, in terms of the article, accept to replace the final paragraph with the following. And therefore, be it further resolved that upon passage, the Amish town clerk shall mail copies of the resolution in vote to President Donald Trump, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Ed Markey, Congressman Jim McGovern, Governor Charlie Baker, Speaker of the Massachusetts House, Robert DeLeo, Acting President of the Massachusetts Senate, Harriet Chandler, and Representative Solomon Goldstein-Rose. I hear the second. Your motion has been made and seconded. It's my understanding that we have three speakers who are not town meeting members who brought this petition article to town meeting and they are going to share the five minutes among them. So that's Cameron Gray-Lee and Rwanda Fowle and Tessa Kowal. You can come forward. I hear a point of order. Wait for a microphone, please. Rob Custer, precinct three. Ms. Turner, very carefully made sure she... Ah, okay, I got it. You may sit. So would you strike Senator Rosenberg from the motion because he's not in the motion? He's not the senator. Thank you. So you may speak to the motion and you have five minutes. Good evening. I'm Rwanda Fowle and here with me are Tessa Kowal and Cameron Gray-Lee. We are part of the Team Jaguar Takes on Climate Change Committee, or TJ Talk. We are seventh grade students from the Amherst Regional Middle School who are working to pass Article 39, which is a resolution in support of the Paris Climate Agreement. The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement is an official agreement between all countries in the world besides Syria and Nicaragua. Countries involved agree to keep global temperature rise under two degrees Celsius. They also agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. On June 1st, 2017, President Trump announced that the U.S. would stop all participation in the Paris Climate Agreement. Article 39 is a resolution for Amherst to stand by the Paris Climate Agreement by adapting its greenhouse gas emission reduction goal. If it passes, we are asking the Amherstown clerk to mail copies of the resolution and vote to President Donald Trump, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Ed Markey, Congressman Jim McGovern, Governor Charlie Baker, Speaker of the Massachusetts House Robert DeLeo, Acting President of the Massachusetts Senate Harriet Chandler and Representative Solomon Goldstein Rose. Many cities in the U.S. have come out to support the Paris Climate Agreement, and we think that it is time that Amherst does too. This is not a political issue, it's a universal one. Democratic and Republican towns alike are altering their ways of life to help stop climate change. In places such as Burlington, Vermont and Georgetown, Texas, people are already adjusting their lifestyles and making a big impact. There are numerous communities in Massachusetts that have decided to stand by the Paris Climate Agreement. Boston, Northampton, Holyoke, and many more Massachusetts towns and cities have agreed to support it. There's a whole range of possible next steps Amherst could take in order to meet this goal. We understand a sustainability committee is in planning stages. We urge the town to set it up by September so the committee can help with next steps toward implementing this resolution. We would also like to explore having student representation on the committee, and I'll see our committee back there. This would allow individuals to speak for the youth passion surrounding this issue. Amherst should investigate switching existing buildings to clean energy such as geothermal, wind, or solar. Our fellow students on team Lycanthrope have started to look into putting solar panels on our school. We support their goal. We could use Community Preservation Act funds to create new bike paths. We could adopt a complete streets policy like North Hampton and Springfield where every street has a bike path and sidewalk. Along with these suggestions, there are many more steps Amherst could take. We encourage you to explore every avenue because there's no one solution to climate change. Amherst is a small town, but even small towns can make a big impact. Imagine if every town in the U.S. supported the Paris Climate Agreement. We can't control every town, but we can choose for Amherst to make the right decision. Our town can inspire other communities as some towns have done for us. We are passionate about this because it is a step towards changing our world. By asking Amherst to pass this resolution and take meaningful actions, we can move towards a better future for our diverse planet. The children of the town are banding together to change this horrific problem. We deserve a future with a safe and healthy planet. We, the next generation, have powerful voices, but we need your help. Thank you for your time. Thank you. If you want, you can stay seated up here in case there are any questions, or you can go back there, whichever you want. Does the select board have a position or wish to make a statement? No. And Finance Committee, any statement or position? No. So this will require a majority vote. It is a resolution, and we are now open to discussion. Is there discussion before we come to a vote? I see no hands. We will now come to a vote. This requires a majority. All those in favor of the motion before you on the screen, please say aye. Opposed, please say no. Moderator, here's a unanimous vote. It's a unanimous vote. We do not applaud at town meeting, so we are done, you guys. We now, if I've got my numbers right, are moving on to Article 27. And I call on Mr. Slaughter to make a motion. I move in terms of the article except to replace the text that begins with the phrase, provided, however, that the town, with the following language, provided, however, that the town shall not provide a conditional commit to convey said property to the Amherst Affordable Housing Trust until the town council determines that a feasible project meeting the above objectives has been identified and shall not convey such property until financing commitments have been obtained and key permits have been secured. Motion has been made and seconded. You may speak to your motion. So the select board recommends this to you unanimously. I will state the following. This is, we're getting into those topics within the warrant that start to beg the question of some of the charter transition provisions and the select board, while considering those amongst all the articles on the warrant, have certainly taken it up in a little more detail on some articles where it says others. We felt that this article was one that was in keeping with the transition provisions within the charter and so therefore we recommend it to you. We think that the delay in not passing this or waiting till later to take up this topic of affording the Affordable Housing Trust the opportunity to convey the property would negatively impact the ability to move ahead with affordable housing goals that the town has and for those reasons the select board recommends this to you. Thank you. Now calling on Mr. Hornick for the housing trust. Yes, I do. Thank you. John Hornick, town meeting member precinct seven and chair of the Amherst Municipal Housing Trust. I request seven minutes. Mr. Hornick has requested an additional four minutes. We have a quick vote on it. All those in favor of granting the additional four minutes please say aye. Opposed please say no. You've got it. You may proceed. Thank you. Mr. Moderator and members of town meeting the housing trust seeks to encourage the development of 250 units of affordable housing in Amherst for both low income families and individuals. These are goals that were set out which only minimal progress has been made. In order to do this we expect to plan projects that will be developed by others as well as supporting projects initiated by developers that incorporate affordable housing units. One opportunity to reach our goals is to use existing town owned land. At present we are looking carefully at the east street school property. The purpose of this article is to provide the housing trust with assurance that the town will support this proposed reuse. This is a complicated project. In order to explain it I will begin with a brief history and current description of the east street school property itself and then go on to describe the steps toward development that the housing trust expects to take. If you look at the property map behind me you will see about two acres across from the east street common. The front part of the property includes the school itself the back lot is now a recreational field used by children for soccer frisbee basketball etc. The school was originally built in the 19th century but was destroyed by fire. A new school was built in its place in 1936 and served Amherst children as recently as the 1990s as overflow classroom space for Fort River. Solomon Goldstein Rose told me that his third grade class was located there. Since then the school has had various uses including a home for the Yiddish Book Center and a special high school program. The town looked carefully at renovating the school to become offices and classroom space for Amherst Leisure Services three or four years ago. However the challenges and associated costs in rehabbing the building were so high that the project was abandoned. The school has been vacant for at least five years but the town continued to maintain it at a cost of roughly 30 to 35 thousand dollars per year. So it looked to the housing trust like there is a town property that is worth investigating as a potential site for affordable housing. Still a long way from actually proceeding with the development my next task is to describe what we are doing to determine whether this is feasible or not in ten simple steps not really but. Step one talk to the select board and town manager we did that and received positive feedback we also talked briefly with the historical commission and we'll talk with the school committee in June. Step two hire a consultant to determine whether there are wetlands on the site which would make it impossible to build. We did that and we received bad news. The back part of the property which is in yellow is entirely wetlands. No one can build there. It will likely remain recreational space for the foreseeable future however the front part of the lot is on higher ground and could be used for building. I'm going to leave you without the map and go on. Step three hire consultants to do the following A. A site survey of the property B. An analysis of whether the school building can be reused for affordable house apartments and three development of options of how the property can best be used for housing. We are in the process of writing contracts to do this work. The results will determine whether and how we would go forward with this project assuming that we do decide to go forward there are of course more steps to take. Step four seek feedback from town citizens on what the trust thinks we should do. This would include a fall housing forum at which the ideas would be presented. We also expect to develop a way to communicate about this online and receive online feedback. Step five develop a request for proposals in which developers would bid on the project describing what they would do with the property and what financing support they would seek from the state the town and possibly other sources. Step five seek approval from town council for releasing the request for proposals. This is critical because the RFP would commit the town to transferring the property to the successful bidder after she or he had submitted final development plans as well as meeting all financing and licensing requirements. Step seven release the RFP evaluate the bids and contract with the successful bidder. Step eight meet with the Amherst Historical Commission again and request permission either to renovate the school building or to demolish it whichever alternative becomes most appropriate. The historical commission would almost certainly hold its own public hearing. Step nine monitor the initial development work of the contractor and formally transfer ownership of the property once all contractual requirements had been met. Step 10 a ribbon cutting ceremony and move in for the first occupants of the building. That's a bit oversimplified but I wanted to give you an overview of how this project would proceed. Almost at any point the project would be stopped if the housing trust determines that an obstacle has appeared which makes it impossible to move forward. There are three formal opportunities for public input at steps five, six, and eight in addition the monthly meetings of the housing trust are open to all. Although the approval of this body is not final it is important to the housing trust. It provides us with the authority to move forward with the steps five, six, and eight and nine. We will give perspective contractors confidence in considering whether to bid on this project. We believe that affordable housing is important to Amherst and we ask your support in developing this project. At its last meeting on May 10 the housing trust voted seven to zero to support this article with one member absent. I ask that you join us in moving forward with your partner for the finance committee. Thank you Mr. Moderator. The finance committee recommends this article. My vote is six to zero with one absent and the only thing I would add to what's been said previously is that building housing on this property could possibly generate some property tax as income for the town. Thank you. This will require two thirds because we are transferring the supervision or ownership of property from one entity to another. Is there discussion before we come to a vote? I see a hand in the back row with a red card. Mark Kosarik Precinct nine. Thank you Mr. Moderator. You might recall a few years ago the last time we had a discussion about this property manager Musanti addressed meeting to inspire us and successfully so to appropriate actually I think it was a bond bond funding for so many hundreds of thousands of dollars to rectify water damage a leaking roof and so forth and at the time he told us one of the reasons he had an appreciation of this property is because of quote the craftsmanship he had inspected it done various tours and he was very impressed with the equality I share his sentiments from grade one to four I was first exposed to the building and over the decades I've had many conversations with former teachers and staff members and students and they all told me what a special place this is. One former teacher told me she considered it to have a magical ambiance and I cannot appreciate that it was in that location that I first developed a penchant for learning and for the next 17 years I decided to do all my education and amours but it's not just my personal past that gives me reason to be concerned about this article I feel that the building still has pedagogical potential it has not too long ago been used the Fort River School annex accommodating the overflow that was in the 90s and in the early 2000s it was the alternative high school earlier it had the role of being the national Yiddish book exchange that was from 1981 to 1992 I even had an interview with the person who called in the fire alarm in early 1936 and one of the reasons he did so is because he was a student there and he definitely wanted to save it and the interior of the school was rebuilt but the exterior shell did remain and we can see it today with its beautiful Romanesque arch and the nice warm brick work I'm also concerned about propinquity or should I say proximity to the historical district nearby we find the Dickinson bags Tavern the Noah Dickinson house the JCA in its historic structure it seems to me that a continuing academic use for this building has a better congruence with the historical district I'm also worried about precedent will this be the first town-owned valuable asset that we're going to be divesting ourselves of so for those reasons I urge you to vote no thank you so much for listening thank you I see a hand in the middle Mr. Harnick you should probably just be seated so in case someone else wants to come to the podium yes I saw a hand in the third row center there Gordon Fried precinct six I think I have a couple of points my daughter spent several years there because there was mold in the Fort River school I don't think it was there because they needed the space second of all it mold was in the Fort River school and she got shunted around various places including there the other question I have is the playing fields will we be looking to transfer those playing fields to the housing authority also or the I'm sorry to the Amherst affordable housing trust and my third question was going to be and I'm not going to make this motion I can't at this point is should this decision be delayed until more information on the housing trust is known or does this just give them the opportunity to pursue the information that nobody has to respond but if somebody wants to is there for the discussion yes Ms. Townman just some information once this is deeded over to the contractor construction person and things don't go well or in time they choose to sell this property what is the role of the town in that this is a fairly valuable piece of property and it appears we're giving it to a group with a lot of provisions I understand that but I guess I'm curious as to how the town will get some revenue back from this Mr. Hornick let me respond to a few of the comments that were made first with respect to the future of the school building we are going to hire a consulting architect to take the building and to determine whether it can be reused if it is that will be part of our plan if it can't then it won't be second we really just learned last week about the wetlands and the recreational area that abuts the or is part of the larger piece of property my guess is that we would separate the two parcels so that the recreation area would not be deeded to a contractor but would stay for the town third with respect to what a contractor can do the resolution or the warrant article limits us to using the property for housing with a minimum of 25% affordable I know my own preference in the trust is to make it 100% affordable if we can do that that means that that would be a part of any contract with a developer so that the developer would not be free to take the property and use it for something else in fact formally the property doesn't get turned over until they've reached a point where the development has been completed what's important I think about this or the resolution is that at the point at which we contract with the developer we are promising that if she or he follows through in building the development that is planned in arranging for financing and in getting appropriate licensing then they get site control which is what you need in order to go to licensing authorities what you need in order to go to the state to ask for financing so the property really doesn't get turned over until the project is pretty much finished on the other hand you can't wait till then to promise the property you really have to give what's called site control over to the developer before they can proceed to meet those requirements thank you this way over in the corner there Rudy Perkins precinct 2 I was involved with the Olympia Oaks development which is on town land and that was done as a 99 year ground lease which gave the town an additional layer of control beyond the affordable housing restrictions is it my understanding let me ask the question it looks like this doesn't necessarily preclude such an arrangement and I wonder would the housing trust would also explore something like that Mr. Hurnick absolutely it isn't only a matter of would we explore it we'd really be required to do that if the developer receives funding from the department of housing community development if the developer receives funding from community preservation act funds then those would be built in requirements to return for receiving that funding so again I haven't told you everything because I limited myself to seven minutes which I didn't quite make but I did the best I could further discussion yes right here in the front second row from the front Carol Gray precinct 7 I certainly think we need more affordable housing badly but I don't it's not the right vehicle to do it with and that this is setting a precedent that is dangerous for getting the kind and quantity of affordable housing that we want what I mean by that is that the article says 25% affordable housing why not I appreciate that you're going to try for 100 but it only says 25 and it says 80% of the median well you can have three different tiers of affordable housing there's 50% the median 80% means almost almost the average people and then there's 30% the median which would be habitat houses this doesn't allow for any truly low income people to have housing also I was doing some research about affordable housing trust in other places Cambridge apparently is the state-of-the-art model they've used millions many millions of CPA funds to create huge amounts of affordable housing and their affordable housing trust only works with nonprofits they're not giving away assets to private developers who need to make profits and that's their main motivation I really worry about we've got a few lovely historic buildings that for all the reasons that were said by Mark I think that there should be studies on historic buildings before we decide to turn them over for all the reasons I just said just now I think that we need to have an affordable housing trust model like Cambridge working with nonprofits and getting affordable housing for each tier of not just the almost wealthy people who can do 80% how about the low income the 50% what about teachers could they be the 80% the median what about firefighters if we want to get working class people affordable housing we need something that's 50% the median we need some that's 30% the median and we need to work with nonprofits like Cambridge is doing otherwise we open the floodgates to losing really valuable assets is that the ringy bell hmm okay that was interesting anyway I think this is something that could easily wait a year to have more thought and to hone in on could we work I mean Rudy's group does great work if this said we're going to work with HAP I'd vote for it it doesn't say that and if it said we're going to have 75% affordable housing and 25% of it would be 50% of the median I'd vote for it it doesn't say this this is using the affordable housing label to perhaps create please don't get into motives just talk about the pros and cons of the issue I think that you cannot assume that the name affordable housing is automatically creating the best vehicle for creating affordable housing I 100% want affordable housing I can't support this Ms Kruger just a couple of things the previous speaker said if a particular nonprofit had been named to support it actually that would be a violation of public bidding laws we cannot identify I think my understanding of this article and the work that the trust is doing right now is to create a broad envelope we don't even know if it's feasible we don't know the cost every site every project is different and bears different parameters we don't know if there'd be anyone interested in being the developer at this point so it's trying to create a broad envelope and then as more details are known there's a public participation process to say hey if it's financially feasible we'd like 50% affordable or whatever and we've negotiated that quite well with some of the recent affordable housing developments that we've done so we're quite capable of negotiating for what meets the town's housing needs the best but this is creating a broad envelope because we don't really know what we'll find and how the details will shake out on this particular development yes right on the aisle there are five rows back four rows back Louis Mains of Precinct 10 a gentleman made an eloquent plea for the ghost of education that resides in this building and returning it to education does someone involved in having authority over education in Amherst can they speak to whether they would in fact like to have a shot at this building thank you yes right in the aisle there green card I'll stay seated Bruce Colton Precinct 3 all I would observe is that the motion is to move the from the control of the school committee to the select board then the town makes a decision about what happens to it earlier speakers who preferred to transferring this to developers I think cannot presume that this article will affect that thank you yeah fifth row back right there hi Lisa Barry Precinct 2 I move to call the question motion the previous question has been made and seconded if two thirds of you vote yes we will then come to an immediate vote on article 27 which in turn also requires two thirds of the previous question please say I no please say no moderate just not here two thirds we continue with the discussion yes in the third row back in the center there with the white card Jennifer Page Precinct 8 I'm confused about the sequence of events I believe Mr. Hornick said that this would be presented to or requested of the school committee in June and yet we're being asked to vote on it today I guess I don't understand if we vote to approve it and then we hear in June that the school committee actually would like to use it for educational purposes what happens then or can they even say that in June if we already approve it tonight I don't understand yes Mr. Hornick as I said there are at almost every step something could stop this project could essentially say to the housing trust no it doesn't make sense to move it ahead so you vote for it today it doesn't mean absolutely it's gonna move ahead if the school committee says we think this is a terrible idea we don't want to concede the property at this point in time that would probably stop it if we learn when we have architects come in that it's impossible to reuse the school building I won't say that will stop it but it's an issue that will have to come before the historical commission they can stop it as I said there are various opportunities for public input various places where it can get stopped and as the housing trust recognizes that's all possible nonetheless we think that there isn't a lot of property to develop in Amherst and we think if this is going to turn out to be a good opportunity and I've said we don't know then we would be foolish not to proceed with this thank you for the discussion yeah third row from the back with the green card hi Bonnie McCracken I also have a fondness of this building not just because of historic but my daughter also attended school but I'm feeling very comfortable with this project because I've seen what Sol Geron has done in several communities and they've done a wonderful job in restoring some old buildings school buildings into affordable housing for our veterans one is in Willamansett in Chicopee but the X I think that was recently opened like a year ago I encourage you to drive down there it's beautiful, has a nice park across the street easy access to 91 and then there's another one in Agawam also developed by Sol Geron and I'm not promoting Sol Geron but they do have a history of developing old schools into affordable housing so I encourage everybody that we need to move forward and getting more affordable housing in town and this is an issue I've been working on for many years thank you thank you yes, right here fourth row came in precinct four I just have a question I'm not sure anybody can answer it at this point but this is being conveyed to the select board perhaps are not taken by December 3 it's like what will be no more so there will have to be at some future time a rewording of this because who would take possession of it at that point Mr. Hornick as Mr. Slaughter mentioned in his introduction to this this is one of the issues whether some ambiguity about whether to proceed or not as I understand it and certainly as the resolution reads no final decision can be made until after town council is seated and they vote on this as I mentioned from my point of view one of the last steps is to ask town council to approve the request for proposals anticipating that there would be a contract that would promise the successful bidder that the property would be turned over to them at such time as they met all the contractual requirements so I hope that answers the question of the speaker thank you yes in the second row right there the white card Marla Jemait from precinct 7 just a question why is the minimal amount of affordable housing in this article at 25% and would it be possible to introduce an amendment tonight to raise that threshold for example to 50% given that this was a building that had a history of public use that there is a dire need for more affordable housing in Amherst given that recent developments have proceeded with no affordable units would it make sense to raise that figure and is there anything to prohibit us from doing that tonight thank you I'll answer the first part of that if there was a motion to increase that amount to a higher percentage I would rule it out of scope Mr. Harnick do you have anything to add or no I think to be honest this was drafted on our behalf by the town attorneys they argued for a kind of more conservative approach to say okay the minimum standard would be 25% affordable and that the minimum standard would be 80% of area median income for residents as Miss Kruger suggested earlier we do think we can and should do better further discussion yeah red card way in the back there Huiling greeny precinct 10 I really really appreciate the work done by Mr. Harnick and the committee for the Amherst housing trust and I really want to support affordable housing from the work that I do I know that this town is so short of housing not just housing for people who experience 80% income area median income the greatest shortage for people who are at the income level of 30% AMI 15% of AMI 7% of AMI which breaks down to about if you are getting $700 which is the average of people who receive social security disability income and in the 2013 housing production plan I recall the shortage to meet 30% AMI or lower and people who experience homelessness and have been evicted from their rental units just to meet those folks the minimum required units are 40 units per year so our goal was to produce that 40 units per year for five year period in order to reach 200 units so this idea of getting 25% to meet people who enjoy 80% AMI it's really luxury so I'm here wanting to support affordable housing but I want to stand to support affordable housing for those who have been really excluded in our usual conversation of affordable housing for those who are say for the affordable housing for the AMI 80% for one person household which is about $45,000 so I want to say that we can do better let's think about housing for those who are getting an income of $750 a month at $9,000 a year their housing needs has not been met and many of them are forced to pay almost every dime comes into their social security check to just to have a roof over their head so with such shortage of housing for folks in that income bracket I think our town will show its compassion its reverence for the idea that housing is a basic human rights not just a human needs but it's also a human rights issue here so I want to urge that we go back to the drawing board continue to strive to create housing for the public land that will benefit people in the lowest totem pole such as the people that I describe so I want to second one of the previous speakers that let's make this 100% affordable housing for people who are in the 15%, 30% AMI period thank you for the discussion yes, in the back corner there oh, Vince O'Connor precinct one so my recollection is that of the town properties that have been transferred for the purpose of affordable housing the three that I can think of and I'm making the statement as a question in effect because I think there are others but I can't recall them there were a couple of building lots at Charles Lane that the that the developer had to turn over to the town and that would they were done by Habitat the town transferred a water fund parcel on West Palma Roy Lane to Habitat for affordable housing and then the Olympia Oaks project was done on town land that I think it was a tax title purchase and my understanding is all those units are affordable at different levels so I can't recall any town property I can recall lots of projects that were various degrees of affordability I think 30% for the co-housing community at Cherry Hill which they did themselves but I can't recall any town property being used for 25% if somebody knows the one I'd be happy to hear it the other question I have is because the recreation area is not buildable how many housing units could be constructed on the front part of the parcel and therefore it might put the 25% in some context what I'm concerned about I guess being that question is that we might have a couple of low-income families and then the other units would be along with the Beacon Coles project and so forth be rented out to UMass students and I don't think that's an appropriate use for town property so I'd just like to know if there are other properties of the town that have been used for affordable housing in a different way fully affordable and what the number of units that might be constructed on this property given the unbuildability of the thing so we have some sense of what the 25% of what are we talking about Mr. Slaughter so to the last question about the number of buildable units I think that's one of those important questions and part of the due diligence that's in the immediate future for the trust and looking at this piece of property I think it's unknown at this time how many units could fit in there it depends on what kind of housing depending on size of apartments or size of units that you build are they three-bedroom only or are they two-bedroom are they one how many you can fit that's part and parcel of the continuing investigation that's going on and will be going on I think the other points about affordability it should be and how many units of affordability there should be within this are also completely under our control and therefore we'll be taking in as we get feedback from the public about how we proceed on this and so this I think these set sort of minimum standards but it also we're certainly hearing tonight from the folks as they get up and speak that they would like a greater level of affordability and a greater number of affordable units I don't think that this it's minimum standard but I think that there are opportunities for the public to engage and provide input and guidance to the trust as well as the select board and subsequently the town council about how we proceed on this project thank you the woman in the front row with a white card Denise Barber at precinct nine I had two questions but now I'm down to half a question I'd like to refer back to the previous speaker talked about in chickpea school building that I believe is now single residence occupancy 100 percent for veterans it's a beautiful building now I've watched it for the last seven years go from a boarded up very decrepit looking building to now a very vital look vibrant looking beautiful red brick building and it clearly was a school before and again it's 100 percent affordable for veterans it seems like the efforts we've been making in the past to get more affordable housing in Amherst at best have been fairly anemic so I guess my question is if chickpea can do a project like this why can't Amherst green card centered over there Jerry Weiss precinct eight I have a green card up so I'm in favor of this I just want to answer a couple of questions the select board is in charge of a lot of things that are going to be switched over the new government the charter takes care of all that anything that's not specifically named in the charter goes to the select board if we couldn't vote on anything that is assigned to the select board we'd be in trouble tonight second 80 percent of the area meeting median income is a need in this town the area meeting income is I believe 67,500 I might be off but I think that's what it is so 80 percent is basically workforce housing we need all kinds of housing 30 50 80 100 we need to I'm a little grieved to hear people arguing about who has the greatest need and this is one of them and I support any kind of affordable housing is one of them that we need in this town thank you thank you um right on the aisle here held a green bomb precinct one I moved to refer this back to the select board and the housing trust to come up with plans that are less amorphous and when they have a better proposal to bring it back to us my big issue is hang on a second is there a second okay you may now speak to your motion yes and my I think they don't have enough really solid plans in this here it's too amorphous and I think they should study it some more find out what is feasible and come back to whatever body has the power maybe it's us in the fall I would like to be able to vote for it my issue on the three or four 40 B's that I worked on the ZBA is that we're only allowed 70% is the maximum local preference you can get on the very first lottery after the first lottery any vacancies go to the next people on the waiting list to me what this turns out to be is that people who live and work and Amherst still do not have a place to live because we don't have enough units because we have to give to anybody who happens to be on the waiting list who may or may not be originally from here but would like to be from here so in the best of all possible worlds for me I'd like 100% local preference 100% affordable in perpetuity so to make a long story short come back to us with more information when you know more about what can happen to this building I think it's a tremendous idea but I'm not ready to vote for it and the reason I'm referring it back is because I don't think you have enough votes here to pass it to thirds for what's now before us is a motion to refer back to the select board and the housing of Amherst further discussion red card way there in the corner thank you Catherine this body has talked about affordable housing for a very very long time and I see this original article to as the Mr. Hornick and the select board have described as an overview and a beginning to get us to a place where we can provide more affordable housing in town and I fear that we are making perfect the enemy of the good this is a good move forward to provide Amherst with more affordable housing and I'm not sure why the argument is that it has to be perfect before this body will vote for it further discussion yes right there in the center may gauge precinct one very briefly my understanding is that we can't get some of these answers until we make this initial approval that it simply allows the housing authority to go forward and explore what some of the different options are and that to refer it isn't going to move the project forward because those questions haven't been answered and I see a green card three rows from the back right there Dorothy Pam district precinct ten I am in favor of the motion to refer it to study I think that when you use public property and public land then the goods have to go to the public completely and I think that means nonprofit all the way and I think it means making those changes that people have recommended in terms of lowering the property thank you yes against the wall over there Jim Oldham precinct five I am opposing referral and feel I can support this article we do need affordable housing I do support the many things that people have said here this is public property it should be used for public good we should not be cautious as this goes forward about who we partner with we should be very cautious about delivering the absolute greatest affordability number of units and greatest affordability looking at the SRO option should definitely be considered whether we refer this back or vote it through now those decisions that were to happen under a new regime and this body frankly is not going to get another choice at that so we can either we are having our say tonight and we can either support a first step toward affordable housing which is as I understand it simply passing it out of the school control and into the select board control and even that might slip back if the school committee were to object which I don't think they will so it's a first step I hope what has been said here tonight will be heard I hope those who want to advocate for the strongest and best affordable housing affordable use of this site will continue to speak up but I see no benefit to those no way of advancing those goals by referring this back I see the best way to advance the goals that I share for 100% affordable housing if we can make it happen or for affordable housing that digs deeper and at a lower level and for the best use of this building that has such historic value all of that should be encouraged let's put it in the hands of people or move it toward and express support for the idea that we want to see it used for affordable housing right now it's an empty school just a quick note before we go on a process thing if at some point we entertain a motion with the previous question and it passes or if there's no more discussion on the motion to refer I'm going to interpret that as we would vote and immediately vote on the main motion if the motion to refer fails so if there is a motion with the previous question I interpret it as the end of debate for the entire article not just the referral portion that's all Mr. Hornick in case anyone was curious I also opposed the motion to refer I am sympathetic to what everyone has said I would like to see 100% affordable units I would like to see not only 80% AMI which is not a luxurious level of income but 50% and 30% and possibly lower if we can afford the financing I would like to see if the school building can be reused there's any number of things that people have expressed that I think make sense and we should work on on the other hand it really makes it much more difficult for us to work on those issues to work on those problems we cannot guarantee anything at this point in time and as I've stated a number of times there are multiple future opportunities for public input with the process that I've described so I hope you will not refer this but instead support our moving forward thank you may I see a hand in the third row there Chris Riddell we're precinct too I move the previous question motion of the previous question has been made and seconded if two thirds of you agree we will come to an immediate end to discussion and an immediate vote all those in favor of the motion for the previous question please say aye opposed please say no moderator here's two thirds we are now coming to a vote on the motion to refer to a majority vote in favor then this article has been referred and we are done with it if it does not get a majority majority vote no then we will go back and be voting on the main motion under article 27 everybody with me there I hear a point of order the motion to refer requires a majority original was two thirds right but we're not there yet I didn't want to mention it confuse people in favor of the motion to refer article 27 to the select board in the housing trust please say aye opposed please say no the no's have it we are now voting on the main motion for article 27 which does require two thirds vote all those in favor I hear a point of order are we opening this back up for discussion no we are not what I explained before I entertained the previous question motion is that I would not the previous question as both referral and the main motion and I thought I said that pretty clearly and most people are kind of moving their heads that way sorry hang on your microphone is not on but that's okay okay so we are now coming to a vote on the main motion under article 27 which requires two thirds for passage all those in favor motion under article 27 please say aye opposed please say no moderator here is two thirds we will have an electronic vote the results are 145 yes 27 no and the motion has passed by two thirds yes good yeah we are hoping we are hoping to get you a seat at the table I am now calling on Carol Gray I hear a point of order please would you please remind the body that they should not be wearing political announcements on themselves on the floor of the town meeting yes if anybody is it is clearly because they accidentally forgot so yes there can be no political shirts buttons anything like that on the floor of town meeting now I call on Miss Gray to make a motion Carol Gray to make a motion on the floor of town meeting number 7 I move for reconsideration of article 8 the elementary school budget do I hear a second motion has been made and seconded for the reconsideration of the vote on article 8 elementary school you may speak to your motion I am reconsidering this budget to give us the opportunity to hear a lot of information that has been collected since the school the demand for preschool slots the possibilities for location here is the new information excuse me I hear a point of order I am not sure where it came from if you could stand up it really helps the microphone people and me Kevin Collins precinct 5 is the sponsor of the article present is that the school committee they are not the sponsor I am the one who answers that it is the finance committee who actually brings the budget articles and they are present but I don't think that would necessarily make it out of order anyway but it is the finance committee who are the formal sponsors of this article you may continue for what it is worth I did go to the school committee meeting yesterday and I gave them a 16 page memorandum with all this information that the superintendent presented and said as far as he knew the children in the existing preschool at the high school have been referred elsewhere I just made a couple calls to try to figure out well is there a demand and I had no idea that I was going to do a reconsideration I just wanted to find out more information what I found out was that the Crocker farm elementary school has 31 children on their wait list for the fall I found out that the head start program their preschool has 13 children on the wait list for the fall I found out of the school committee meeting last night that they've made a change to the Crocker farm preschool program just it's going into effect this fall and the change is to create more special ed slots which has meant that there's a decrease in the number of regular slots the decrease is from 40 to 32 there's more of a need for preschool let's not forget the huge category which is kids who don't have any money to go to preschool after the discussion of the school budget I spoke to Mr. Morris and I said how many and I was frankly shocked to hear in the enrollment working group that there were a large number of kids in our town who don't care preschool just because they're poor so I spoke to Mr. Morris I said how many kids do you estimate don't go to preschool at all in our town because they can't afford it he says 15 I said how much would it cost to get those kids into preschool he said maybe 120,000 so that got me thinking I should do more homework so since then I also talked to the assistant at the head start program and I said what do you think about the estimate of 15 kids who are low income and don't go to school she says I think it's very low she says it could I would estimate that more than half of the eligible kids in Amherst don't go to preschool because they can't afford it that's huge here's a new information so I was trying to think well okay you've got even if you've got even if we appropriate the money you got the space problem because summit academy if you recall is moving into the high school so where else could the students go so I emailed Mr. Morris I said what about other schools he said Wildwood is pretty full high school full Crocker farm full that still leaves maybe Fort River still the middle school but then I thought what about where summit academy is vacating so I made a call to the person who's the facilities person to see is there anything planned for that building as far as he knows no nothing planned for the fall he said but you don't know if the use would be the same and he says so I said so I should call the building inspector so I call the building inspector and the building inspector said as long as the kids were not younger than two years and nine months old it would be the same use educational use educational use and he also said that as long as that building is in continuous use as educational purposes then you don't it's grandfathered in so even though this building could certainly use work you could brought up to code in various ways it's been but it's been functioning as a school fine for decades you don't have to bring everything up to code unless you have a gap in use so keeping a preschool in that building this fall actually keeps the options open for our town in ways that having one gap you're worth will foreclose all options for educational use unless you think a lot of money into bringing it all up to code okay I better hurry so I already covered this preschool be the same use in fact it used to be a kindergarten it's still got little tiny toilets it's still got here's the classrooms ample classrooms nice cafeteria for 20 kids it's got a greenhouse I went there with the current preschool teacher is willing to continue with this program I talked to two of the parents they want to keep their kids in the program they said other parents in the program also want to keep their kids in the program one parent said I know 30 kids who would want to be in a program they need slots the current teacher is outstanding and right now she's still available and she went and toured this facility and said yeah that she was all excited look at the little tiny toilets look at the little tiny counters little tiny counter phone look at the green house this would be great my kids are growing chives I'm out of time please vote to reconsider please give us the chance to have the discussion with the school committee with other stakeholders vote yes and reconsideration and hear more motion to reconsider requires a majority it cannot be made by somebody who voted with the minority and Miss Gray was absent at the last vote so she therefore didn't vote with the minority therefore she meets our bylaw requirements if the motion to reconsider passes we would find ourselves exactly where we were when we just before our final vote on the elementary school budget you may not recall but we had two numbers before us we had the original finance committee number of 23 million 227,365 and we had another number based on a motion to amend by Miss Gray which was 15,000 higher than that so that's where we would be if the motion to reconsider passes any questions on process good I see a hand in the back corner there yes Catherine oppie precinct nine the speaker suggested that the fact that there are children low income children who need preschool as new information I want to remind this body that I myself spoke to this body a year ago two years ago talking about the need for preschool seats for low income children because Amherst did not have enough seats so that is certainly not new information I might also point out that the building that Miss Gray is talking about the summit building needs a new roof needs a new boiler it's got a problem with the wall there is one small toilet and I might also add that the high school preschool program currently has 12 students in it seven full time five part time the vast majority of those students are actually going to kindergarten next year so that leaves I believe four children without preschool slots but I think the key piece here is that there is not I'm sorry I have to interrupt for a point of order please stand and wait for the microphone Maria Kopicki precinct date I'm confused about procedurally are we discussing now or are we talking about whether to reconsider it's a fair question whether or not the original maker of the motion speak in favor of the motion for reconsidering by getting into specific details about preschool and the schools therefore I think it's only fair you know maybe I should have not let that but I did so I think it's only fair to keep the discussion at that level and to not restrict it more now so I consider that but I did not rule the speaker out of order and you may continue at your clock back a couple seconds thank you the only other point I wanted to make is that if you reopen the budget and if you vote to have this money potentially used for this proposal that is a one-time amount of money and so perhaps I don't actually think it would be enough to open a preschool at this site given the cost that I've described in equipment et cetera et cetera but it's also only for one year and so I think you're potentially locking a very very tight in fact both the Amherst elementary school and the regional school budgets as you well know are suffering cuts so I do so next year as well so I am not I'm not going to vote to have article 8 reconsidered and just again a reminder there is no new information thank you just one other quick process thing just a reminder that if the motion to reconsider passes and we're back in the budget town meeting is not voting a new program to the schools town meeting is voting on the bottom line budget the superintendent the school committee choose what to do with those funds town meeting can't decide what to do with the funds that it allocates yes right there second row thank you mr. moderator Christopher Hoffman precinct 7 I'm going to vote against this motion to reconsider I voted against every motion to reconsider that has come up in the decade or so that I've been in town meeting including motions where the reconsideration may have overturned a decision I disagreed with the previous moderator mr. Gregg used to have a little speech which he'd often give when a motion to reconsider came up and I don't remember the details I don't remember too much but I do remember I think he would talk about the potential for abuse and I don't want to declare the possibility that it could cause all sorts of problems if it's not used for what it had traditionally been used for in town meeting and restore meeting which is essentially emergency situations the hurricane had come since we voted so I hear a point of order so I'm interrupting the speaker yes what's your point of order there was just a reference to abuse of procedure and I think a motion for reconsideration isn't actually the standard he laid out I was listening very carefully to the speaker and I did not feel that he was referencing this particular motion to reconsider he was talking in general about something the previous moderator said that I considered repeating tonight but didn't and he was not talking about a specific motion to reconsider but generally the power and the potential abuse of any motion to reconsider the speaker was not out of order and you may continue yes I'm sorry I was hoping I would not slip and say abuse I did not want to apply that but the parliamentary problems with reconsideration for instance he pointed out that the US Congress after every vote they have a pro forma of reconsideration to ensure that an actual reconsideration will ever happen also I notice that the town meeting we're based on modified Robert's rules of orders Robert's rules of orders actually considerations for consideration can only be made by people who voted with the majority not just people who are absent as we allow an Amherst town meeting but partly I mean town meeting we only have a few more days if we're going to set a new precedent for a town meeting and interpret this it's okay I'll live with it but I do want to consider we have zoning articles coming up some of them are controversial maybe controversial there may be some close decisions do we really want to start a policy in the next few days that any decision we make might be brought up at any other time when people who may not know it be expecting it and want to talk about it who may want to vote are not here again the moderate previous moderator new information was not information that you didn't think about before the article came up research beforehand new information was not information that you are waiting to be recognized you weren't recognized and you didn't get to present when you could have done the back table you could have sent the email list new information was literally new information that could not have been known at the time we took the vote and this did not appear to be that as the previous speaker has said for all those reasons I'm encouraging people to quickly dismiss this article this motion to reconsider and let's get back to the actual articles we have not decided yet thank you yet miss tommy the finance committee voted 601 to urge you not to reconsider we believe that since the school committee did not present this in their budget that is an expansion of its academic preschool program was not presented in its budget it is not on their wish list and there is no plan for it at the present time we believe this proposal should come from the Amherst school committee and not a town meeting member thank you yeah I see a green card third from the back there Dorothy Pam precinct 10 preschool is one of the most important things in terms of dealing with income inequality I just want to remind people that it is worth everything that you spend and it makes the greatest difference in people's lives and their chance to move ahead in the society in a meaningful way yes second row there the gentleman yes John Drusso precinct 5 I think one of the things that really strikes me when we're talking about this is that we debated $180,000 on signs for the center of town essentially for students and their parents which is not really necessary and yet somehow we're sitting here talking about whether or not it's really worth it to consider preschool for children as the previous speaker said preschool is one of the most important things to determine what goes forward and how successful people are in their future education it doesn't seem that this is a huge risk for the town to consider maybe reopening this budget and reconsidering what we're really dealing with for the bottom line when the reality is that these are kids lives and this is their future that we're kind of debating and to give our schools the flexibility to go forward and reconsider maybe giving some preschool seats back it seems like a small cost honestly in hindsight when you compare things like signs in preschool so just kind of to get that perspective I hear a point of order Sharon Povinelli precinct 1 I believe the previous speaker referred to $180,000 in a budget when it was $90,000 for the wayfaring signs um that's that's not really a point when somebody says something that you think may not be true that's not a point of order you can you can raise your hand and look to rebut them but it's not a point of order plenty of people say things that aren't true all the time yes second row from the back with the red card um microphone hang on can you check it to see if it might have been turned off accidentally hold on other microphone is coming Susan Tracy precinct 6 um I wanted to remind us that we are no longer in the actual original town meeting we're actually in a transitional town meeting and um we are taking care to set up next year's budget and other institutions as thoughtfully as we can for another form of government and I think we've done a pretty good job with pretty good spirit so far I find this reconsideration mo motion completely um antithetical to that spirit and I would remind you again that Joel Bard in his April 17th letter said to us that we ask ourselves as we deliberate any matter we are considering will it take some time to accomplish leaving opportunity for the town council to weigh in at a critical juncture or is this something that requires immediate action and cannot be delayed in which case we need to act on it right away this is not one of those actions that we need to act on right away in fact it begs for additional study for additional public input for the town council to come in on it this is come and I think for that reason I would not support this motion and I urge you to join me in voting against this motion um yeah green card there second row from the back I can't enter precinct one and I believe we are in a regular town meeting I don't call this a transitional town meeting I've been a town meeting member for maybe 30 years and I don't believe there's any guidelines that make a reconsideration vote an okay vote or not an okay vote I think it's part of what we have is the power of town meeting to present things that become very important and this is something that's very important town preschool is a necessary transition into life and those of us that can afford to send our children to preschool know that and those that can afford to do also know that but they don't get the chance and this is a chance to provide more preschool for more children some of which would not have that opportunity otherwise and almost any study to look at shows the importance of preschool and having observed preschool for almost 30 years that my wife ran my late wife ran and I participated in some I have seen the immense joy the immense change the amazing coming to a transcending understanding of people and children and that can carry them through the rest of their life in terms of creating a more peaceful world because they've learned that people in the preschool may have differences maybe of a different race or a different economic place but this is a life changing experience that we need for our children and probably a lot of us here have been able to do that but a lot of people don't have that opportunity and there's plenty of people out there looking for preschool and we happen to have at least for another year somebody who's a good preschool teacher who's still available and a place that hopefully will begin to understand somehow that we need this in every one of our budgets you know just because it might be a year we need not to present a budget that doesn't have it in because it's such an important aspect of the lives of our children thank you right there in white shirt holding the red card I'm Steve Shriver Precinct 9 and I made a quip earlier that if we pass this and the next motion to the anticipated motion then we'll be well on our way to our first net zero building because I think we're talking about millions of dollars not 100,000 dollars I think the presenter was offering an opinion that are really within the scope of architecture that to my knowledge no architects have been consulted as to whether or not this project is shovel ready that can actually be moved into in other words we heard stories about bathrooms and sort of its past history but it's a change of occupancy from one use to another and I doubt very seriously that it could be simply moved into I think that if we approve this motion to reconsider and then the next motion we will be entering a rabbit hole and basically into a brand new very expensive capital project yes front corner right here thank you for letting me respond to a couple things identify yourself please Carol Gray Precinct 7 one thing I would like to point out is I shouldn't have highlighted in orange basically this shows that in the capital budget there's 30,000 designated for this building that's left over it's carried forward to this new year also if we get to reconsideration I have more information to share with you such as that this building is historic it's I found a postcard from 1910 it would certainly qualify for CPA funding East Hampton got a brand new boiler first with CPA funds the Jones Library got funding from CPA for this late roof Summit Academy has been there for I think four decades the roof does need to be worked on and the boiler does need to be replaced at some point but they're still there they're there yesterday they're there tomorrow and this school could be there the preschool could be there in the fall I actually talked to the I've talked to the teacher numerous times she's been out to look at the preschool teacher she's been out to look at this building the Summit Academy building and it's actually not most of the kids are going to kindergarten there are more kids out of 12 but she also says I keep getting more calls every day I get more calls of kids that need spots the other thing is the amount being requested even though Mr. Morris had said 120 I was actually going to come in at a lower amount I was talking to Russ Vernon Jones it's in the next presentation if you let us get to reconsideration there's a budget that lays out I think this could be 86,000 with 10 free slots and it would be completely sustainable if you get 8 kids full tuition 10,000 this can work and it can work this fall the other thing is this opens the conversation we can't mandate that the school committee do this or that the superintendent consider it but if we don't allow the money there's no chance if we allow the money there's a chance to have a conversation and a chance to explore whether we can get 10 kids who have no ability to go to preschool in that school and also could we have it be a sustainable model Mr. Morris had said part of the funding would need to be for busing 25,000 of that 86,000 would be for a little minivan I have the whole budget if you let us get to reconsideration Russ Vernon Jones who couldn't be here right now because of another meeting gave a proposed budget that he thinks can work fine it's 86,000 by the way the way finding signs were 90,000 this is 86,000 and I found in the JCPC budget there's 20,000 left over from last year for way finding signs that wasn't used in any event let's get to reconsideration because there's still more information to share and there's more people that have information but we're not at reconsideration yet I hope you'll let this information come out it's so important it's a 92 million dollar budget and this is 86,000 let's get to the next step and hear more information I hear a point of order wait for the microphone please Jennifer Page, Precinct 8 Mr. Moderator since Ms. Gray is the petitioner shouldn't she have the privilege of staying up front and not having to sit out here and raise a card if she wants to sit up front sure although she's already spoken twice so I'm not likely to call on her again just because that's what our bylaw says I'm supposed to do so that's where we're at but sure she can sit there if she wants to yes in the back corner right there yes I'm sure Precinct 1 this isn't necessarily relevant but my daughter did actually go to the preschool at the high school it was great I love it it breaks my heart to be speaking against money that may or may not go to restore it and I think that's important to stress this vote would put money back in the bottom line there is no guarantee it will go towards expanding preschool I also think that under the best of circumstances having a preschool up and running in three months with the $125,000 is unlikely not to mention a lot of other unanswered questions in a proposal that's not brought to us hang on I hear a point of order so I'm forced to interrupt you if we get to Carol Gray Precinct 7 if we get to reconsideration I'll say the amount excuse me that's great that is not a point of order if you have an argument with what somebody is saying you have to wait to be recognized a point of order is a very powerful tool that is easy to abuse because you're interrupting a speaker and interrupting their train of thought please be careful and be sure that your point of order has to do with procedure and not with the content of what somebody is saying I apologize and you may continue thank you the school committee is seated in a town-wide election they assess the budget in a months-long deliberative public process with input from school principals budget decisions are hard and funding is not infinite tough decisions need to be made losing beloved programs sucks in democracy we don't all get what we want I'm a Wildwood parent I would love for my child to be in a classroom with walls or have a building with secure entrance I wish that we had accepted 34 million dollars with the promise of expanded preschool when we were told there were kids on wait lists I hear a point of order I'm sorry I'm going to interrupt you because I heard a point of order what is your point of order sir Rob Custer precinct 3 I believe the speaker is digressing from the item by bringing up things from last year let me respond first of all I find that been insulting to me because it assumes I'm not listening I am listening and I will make the determination when somebody is digressing so that's not the kind of point of order that is I don't know never mind that you may continue again my apologies thank you this is becoming far less eloquent I'm sorry emotions are running high again it's what happens it hurts to lose things we like I think there are a lot of unanswered questions that have already been raised I was curious about who the parents and community members were that signed this memo how many were there is it 100 how much will moving the playground equipment cost the labor for prepping the building somebody brought this up already how the school will be funded in future years many of the children waitlisted for Crocker head start or other programs may have identified special needs how will this school handle that pedagogically or otherwise how does the school get staffed and the teachers get support without interns from the high school how are they getting there and how does that impact their high school schedule if they now have to we're digressing a little from the thought of whether these are questions that a deliberative body with more than three months to plan a preschool would address thank you thank you yes right there in the fourth row with a white card thank you Jane wall precinct one with some unknowns so many unknowns about program and capital costs Mr. moderator I wonder if you could clarify something you said earlier about if we were if this were to if we were to reconsider the elementary school budget we would go back to a condition where we would there were two numbers on the table right higher number a lower number a difference between them a fifteen thousand dollars at that point what would our options be would we be voting on that higher number and then the lower number or what what other actions would could be taken my expectation is that if the motion to reconsider passes somebody would be making a motion to amend the budget amount for a new higher amount because once we pass a reconsideration it's not like we have to vote again we are back in discussion of the articles that's what I expect would happen miss talman visit this is the cost of last year's preschool at the high school there were twelve children they each paid nine thousand dollars a year for hundred and eight thousand dollars and the regional schools had to come up with another twenty five thousand to support the program so the program cost a hundred and thirty three thousand for ten children okay I'd like to try and rain us in and get back to the question of whether or not to reconsider and not get too much into the details project that we can't even demand happens yes right there in the fourth row came around precinct for many people here seem to know this was going to come up for reconsideration and some people and I've already heard about plans for this preschool there's no public notice about this there was no message sent to all town meeting members so no chance for town meeting members to think about it no chance for the public to weigh in no public hearings this apparently just came up although what's the proposer and other speakers have said according to them it sounds like there's been deep thought about this some planning some research but no public input I think we should vote not to reconsider this thank you pretty soon we're going to want to come to a vote believe it or not yes along the aisle with the green card thank you Mr. moderator Morian Adams precinct 10 I urge that you vote with me for reconsideration we've been tossing around a great deal of guesswork and uncertainty that the proposer has suggested would be the next part of the discussion if we pass the vote for reconsideration and have an opportunity for a substantive discussion so number one I urge that we vote for reconsideration so that we can then have the discussion the reason that I support the idea of reconsideration is that this would maintain continuity in a very important program that already exists we've heard other speakers speak to how critical early childhood education is for all children and therefore the importance of our providing the support for those who cannot afford to do so I also remind all of us how concerned we were about the downward trajectory of school enrollment and I think that one of the ways that we support school enrollment is maintaining early childhood education so that the children who would be moving elsewhere or unprepared for school would be able to do so once they got into the upper levels of our schools I'm personally embarrassed that I didn't think to mention this when we were going through the school budget but there were many other things that we were focused on and I'm grateful for the opportunity to look at new information because I think this is one of the most important things that this body can consider and let me just conclude by saying that with the greatest respect for people who plan the budget which I certainly have done for 40 50 years and my other life I'm used to being talked back to by the legislative bodies who may indeed have thought of something that I didn't think of so I urge for reconsideration thank you if you have something new to bring to discussion keep raising your hands if you're just repeating something somebody else said not so much yes on the finance committee there Tim neal on the finance committee I first of all apologize for that but the lights are right in my eyes I'm speaking to the reconsideration question many of us have concerns about some of the previous budget votes I mean I could maintain I really would have like to have more firefighters yet there was no proposal to have that reconsidered we have a very very tight budget this year and I would echo a previous speaker on that side of the the aisle earlier that we are running into a very sticky wicket if we open up considerations that we've had a long debates on in previous previous sessions we did have a long debate on this very question and the this body voted to not approve the preschool program previously and I'm not at all because it's not a worthy program but there are budget considerations and if we open up each question that people just weren't happy with it's going to be a significant problem so I would vote and urge you all to vote against reconsideration for this particular reason yes all the way in the back with the white card Jeff Mazer precinct 3 I call the question motion of the previous question has been made and seconded we will now come to an immediate vote if two-thirds of you vote yes we will end debate and then come to a vote on the motion to reconsider the elementary school budget all those in favor of the motion of the previous question please say aye post please say no moderator here's two-thirds we now come to a vote on the motion to reconsider the elementary school portion of article 8 this requires a majority for passage all those in favor of the motion to reconsider please say aye opposed please say no moderators in doubt will have an electronic vote the vote is 76 in favor 106 against the motion to reconsider has failed we will now have a brief five-minute break which was different than a long five-minute break so come back in really five minutes I now call on Mr. Schreiber to make a motion under article 30 I move in terms of the article motion has been made and seconded you may speak to your motion Mr. Crowner will be speaking for the planning board thank you Rob Crowner planning board when we brought you the marijuana zoning article in the fall it was to establish basic zoning regulations for the retail sale of marijuana products we would definitely be coming to Amherst at the time the state's cannabis control commission had not yet promulgated general rules for marijuana businesses in Massachusetts and we knew that we would likely be coming back to you with more marijuana zoning once they did that happened earlier this year and sure enough here we are with two more articles in response to those rules articles 30 and 31 article 30 is about medical marijuana uses when medical marijuana was legalized years ago the rules were that the businesses had to be non-profit that is no longer going to be the case and so our definitions call for non-profit businesses for marijuana uses this article just removes references to non-profit and not for profit in the definitions for medical marijuana uses that's all it does thank you and Ms. Brewer for the select board the select board voted we are here with one absent on April 23 to recommend this article and the finance committee is no position it's my understanding they don't need to speak guess I'm correct about that this is a change to the zoning bylaw it will require two thirds vote is there discussion before we come to a vote I see no hands we will now come to a vote on the motion in terms of the article for article 30 all those in favor please say aye no the ayes have it unanimously we now move on to article 31 before we begin I want to point out yet another Scribner's error in the warrant article and it's a kind of a fine point but in section 3.363.2 2 or 3 in 2 there were actually no changes even though it appears in bold do I have that right because it looks like 363 is in bold that's right okay so 3.363.2 has no changes and now I call on Mr. Schreiber to make a motion I move in terms of the article motion has been made and seconded you may speak to your motion Mr. Krauner again yes Mr. Krauner Mr. Schreiber asked for 2 additional minutes Mr. Krauner has requested 2 additional minutes for a total of 7 without objection you may continue thank you this article is all about the different kinds of marijuana businesses that might spring up in the wake of legalization any new business that proposes to locate in Amherst is regulated according to its nearest fit in the zoning bylaws use chart if we do not have an explicit entry for a particular kind of marijuana we may find that it gets matched to a use we didn't intend and escapes the specific conditions we expect to adhere to marijuana businesses such as the buffer zone around certain other protected uses like residences and schools so if we want to be in control of regulating marijuana businesses in Amherst we need to make provisions for it in the zoning bylaw which is what this article does cannabis control commission defined and established regulations for 8 distinct types of marijuana related businesses including marijuana retailer which last fall's article made room for in the use chart this article adopts the state's definitions for those types of businesses and assigns them to the use chart as subheadings under the marijuana uses section marijuana cultivator and craft marijuana cooperative would be allowed in the same zones and under the same permitting as marijuana retailers that is to say by special permit in the major mixed use zones general business limited business industrial center business and commercial plus the office park and light industrial zones while marijuana transporter would also be allowed by special permit in the PRP zone independent marijuana testing laboratory and marijuana research facility would have the same permitting standards as our existing research and development and testing facility use while marijuana product manufacturer and marijuana micro business would have the same permitting standards as our existing light manufacturing use all of these would be allowed by either special permit or site plan review in all of the business zones as well as by special permit in the village center residence zone in all cases however they would be subject to the general standards and conditions adhering to all marijuana businesses including the buffer which I will get to in a minute the cannabis control commission's draft regulations included three other kinds of marijuana businesses that were not in the final version and they will not be able to receive state licenses at this time however we have decided to include these in our list of defined uses and in the use chart so that we are not caught short when the cannabis control commission does inevitably permit them they are delivery only retailer social consumption operation and social consumption operator the town's marijuana working group also identified one other marijuana business not included in the cannabis control commission's draft or final regulations that seemed prudent to include in ours the marijuana social club we're including all of these in the use chart as not allowed in any zone for now the cannabis control commission comes up with guidelines and regulations for those types of businesses you can expect the planning board to take another look at those uses and possibly recommend allowing them in one or another zone in Amherst the standards and conditions themselves which are a part of the use chart would be generalized to apply to all marijuana uses where currently there are references to either medical marijuana or marijuana retailers and otherwise cleaned up there's one fairly significant change that I want to point out which has to do with the buffer between marijuana uses and certain protected uses this is in sections 3E1A and 3E2 on page 20 of the warrant the existing language calls for a 300 foot buffer and by convention is measured essentially from building to building the cannabis control commission's regulations up to a 500 foot buffer around schools from kindergarten through high school measured from property line to property line which is a much stricter standard we have decided to adopt that standard for schools while leaving in place the 300 foot buffer for other kinds of protected uses this means that the school buffer is significantly increased from what we currently have in place and is in fact the largest buffer that the state allows you can see from the maps that the buffers severely restrict any kind of marijuana business from locating almost anywhere in Amherst these maps are not definitive and they are not regulatory they're merely an attempt to illustrate how the buffer works to guide where a marijuana business can or cannot operate any proposal to open a marijuana business in Amherst will have to include a more precise measurement of the actual boundaries of those buffers so what happens if you do not approve this article I think the major implications are these first it would not prevent one of these businesses from locating in Amherst because there is a close enough match for most of them already in the use chart next a marijuana cultivation facility could attempt to locate in an area that we don't expect or don't want we do not necessarily object to cultivation facilities on farms but we haven't come up with the right regulations to keep them out of strictly residential areas where our farms are all located we're working on that and we'll have something eventually next a marijuana social club or a marijuana delivery service currently not allowed could apply to locating in Amherst as soon as the cannabis control commission allows them but before we are ready to regulate them and there would be a smaller buffer around schools finally I should note that this article incorporates article 32 which clarifies that the number of marijuana retailers is limited to eight locations throughout town retailers the current language refers to eight marijuana retailers and could be interpreted to allow more than eight locations if a single retailer own more than one shop we will move to dismiss article 32 if article 31 passes and the planning board recommended this article 6-0 with two abstinence two abstaining and one absent thank you Ms. Brewer for the select board the select board voted 4-0 with one absent on April 23rd to recommend this article to you a couple of members of the select board several staff have been working in a marijuana internal working group for over a year we meet at least twice a month frequently more often we also attend hearings and professional development throughout the state we also have Mr. Kravitz here with us tonight who has become not what he thought he would become when he became our economic development director but now our marijuana czar and so he will be available to answer questions for you we are not talking tonight about re-litigating any of the marijuana question what we are talking about is exactly what Mr. Crowner pointed out and is on page 4 of your planning board report helpfully put in town meeting mailing number 2 this amendment gives the building commissioner and the ZBA a set of guidelines to regulate businesses that are going to be coming here so if you don't pass this zoning then you will have to leave it up to the building commissioner who you may like a lot but that is one person to figure that out not having the guidelines doesn't mean they won't come here it means that the way they operate would become the de facto standards and we certainly don't want to have to tailor regulations around existing businesses there have been questions from both ends of the spectrum on these issues questions about is this actually prohibition because we have large buffer zones the answer is no there are still plenty of places that we believe would be appropriate for these businesses but in regards to the buffer zones the regional school committee did support this article mainly because of that 500 foot buffer zone that the state suggested and that we then adopted which is in fact a larger buffer zone than had been in the work that you did on the fall on town meeting town meeting very wisely chose to establish zoning for medical marijuana way back in 2013 and for adult use recreational marijuana at special town meeting just in November we did not choose to pursue a moratorium we don't need a moratorium we are ahead of the game we are way ahead in comparison to many other communities this will set us up for success moving forward we will definitely have more discussion about agriculture we know that's a huge issue in Amherst we want to be able to have small micro grows that is exactly the sort of thing we want to have and we are just going to need a little more time to figure it out more carefully please support this article thank you finance committee had no position on this and this will require a two thirds vote it is a change to our bylaw is there discussion before we come to a vote I see it do I see a hand or not okay against the wall there Jim Oldham precinct 5 I had a couple detail questions I was curious about the decision to allow some of these uses in village center residential sort of just understand the thinking and what similar what existing uses that are allowed in that area are comparable and the other question was just I was trying to understand the map on the high school doesn't seem to show the buffer going in all directions from the high school maybe having trouble reading it on page I think nine of the handout that we had anybody care to respond I'm sorry breast drop I can respond to the second question the buffer zones that are shown around the high school are only shown in the direction of the zones in which any of these marijuana establishments could actually be located if you were to go in the other directions towards chestnut street or gray street or any of those other residential streets there would be no possibility for a marijuana establishment to be located there thank you hang on I hear a point of order is it Maria Kapiki precinct 8 a lot of folks are having trouble grabbing their maps could you please project the maps that you're talking about and just so people know we'll project it it was in I don't know if it was the first mailing or the second mailing but the front page says planning board report to town meeting article 31 and it's about six sheets stapled together it's always fun trying to get somebody to get it right side up you want to talk us through the map perhaps this is kind of hard because I wasn't expecting to do this but the map shows the high school property outlined as you can see there's a sign there that says high school embers regional high school the blue circles are measured from the property line of the high school and they go towards the center of town they are quite extensive and they go it's again it's hard to point is there a pointer here not sure if there is or not but towards Bertucci's you can see Bertucci's is that little pink dot that's yes right there that's Bertucci's so Bertucci's would not be that property which is currently vacant would not be allowed to be used for marijuana establishment because its property line is contained within the blue circle there that is the 500 foot proposed buffer all the pink circles are 300 foot buffers which would be maintained those are already in our bylaw and those are against properties where children commonly congregate like churches and libraries and they are also against residences so residences would not be allowed to have a marijuana establishment within 300 feet of a residence thank you further discussion yes on the planning board I'll answer the first part of the previous speaker's question the uses that would be allowed in village center residents are testing and research uses those testing and research uses are already allowed in village center residence uses and we didn't think that marijuana testing was any significantly different than other kinds of research and testing so we thought if they were able to be located it would be difficult in a village center residence because you'll have residential buffers anyway but if they can locate there why not have those kinds of businesses in Amherst thank you yes second row there I have a question within 300 feet of a building particularly with item 2 eyes regarding where children commonly congregate in an organization I'm going for my basis how are you going to implement that on parks for example mid river right now it doesn't have any buffer zone associated to it it has maybe one building that is the bathroom's way inside but children congregate throughout and it would affect the north village center so I was wondering how I'm going to be implementing this on parks for children congregate Ms. Brestra I'll try to answer the question I'm not sure I understood the question but you seem to be asking about north village center so I'll show a map about that no there we go so this map here that we have shows part of north Amherst village center we didn't show all the possible locations where we might possibly have marijuana establishments there are many in town and we focused on a few of them this is north Amherst village center the green areas are the areas where the zoning would allow marijuana establishments to go the pink circles are showing buffer zones so I'm not sure I understood exactly what the questioner asked but there is a buffer zone around the north Amherst school there's a buffer zone around the north Amherst library buffer zones around many of the residential uses thank you you want to follow up and maybe try and explain your question a little more wait for the microphone my question was regarding mill river for example the mill river park so on the street it's very narrow entrance but there's no building associated with mill river Ms. Brestra is not close to an area that would allow a marijuana establishment to go and perhaps Mr. Crowner would be able to answer this if he's recognized Mr. Crowner so the mill river is already buffered all the way around here you can see all of these there's no place that is within 300 feet of mill river that has not already been buffered the riverside apartments these are residential uses those would also have buffers we didn't show all the buffers again if someone proposes a use in the riverside plaza here they would have to show that it's 300 feet away from all the protected uses including all the residents uses which would also effectively buffer the mill river recreation area thank you yeah the white card right there in the center thank you Janet Keller when this article is adopted will you be mapping you stated that you haven't mapped everything yet on the buffers but will those buffer maps be available when this is adopted if and when this is adopted so what happens with any use that comes into town people come in and ask people in my department and the building commissioner's department inspection services they say I would like to establish ex use in this location and then we tell them no you can't do that because of this this and this rule and then we do it so I think that may answer your question that it occurs at the time we have great zoning maps on our website and I would be happy to answer questions that anybody has but it's usually on a case by case basis that we tell people whether they can or can't do whatever it is they're proposing thank you yeah in the second yes fourth in the back row there I hadn't thought about this a church I hadn't thought about it before I realized how extensive the zones were I don't know if there are any places that will be appropriate but my question that I had is how about the downtown where there are some areas that could be housing above like restaurants and stuff like that is that considered a residential or is that considered retail it's breast drop buildings that have mixed use on the bottom retail or commercial and residential above those are considered mixed use buildings and the buffer zones do not apply to mixed use buildings they just apply to buildings that are completely residential thank you third row over here Andrew Parker in a precinct five I'm just a little concerned that when we make it such a great changing the language as opposed to having the wording be specific to where children commonly congregate I mean I think it's implied what we're talking about here but like I mean grocery stores restaurants I mean I know you broke it there we go it's embarrassing I'm a musician as well got the mic but I just I think that we are all in the same page about the spirit of what this is going to be doing and I certainly want to take the state's recommendations but I'm just a little concerned that maybe somebody could just ease me I mean we basically just eliminated downtown by doing this which I have a problem with removing all forms of businesses from downtown but I understand that may make everyone else here more comfortable but just I mean I you identified the parcels last time I don't think any those are in jeopardy given this new law from what the information I saw this isn't affecting anything of what we saw last time in terms of the North University Drive options that were listed the ones that were listed in South Amherst I mean the same places that have been identified are going to remain I mean is this changing anything that we previously got from our last town meeting in terms of identified locations thanks yes I think so there are two I heard two questions in there one is about where children congregate the wording is where children congregate in an ongoing organized formal basis so I don't think that would cover a grocery store and as far as the places that are eligible or might be eligible for a marijuana business this this amendment would reduce the number of places the Kendrick Place and Bertucci's previously probably would have been eligible to host a place if this were adopted they would not because of the 500 foot buffer from the school property line additionally in East Amherst Village Center around Southeast Street and College Street there are some some places that might have been eligible before and now would not be eligible because of the 500 foot buffer thank you for the discussion um yeah over there the third fourth throw from the against the wall there yes Laura Quilter precinct 9 I'm looking at the buffer material e within 300 feet of a building and the previous section says within a pre-existing see where sorry I'm losing my place in which it let's see in which children commonly congregate in an organized ongoing formal basis that is not a pre that is not a K-12 school and in the prior section I believe it says pre-existing and here it doesn't say pre-existing and so now I'm pondering how do we decide and when do we decide where children are commonly congregating like how often do we check on that how do and and what if things change for instance Amherst Martial Arts is going to be closing from its downtown location because you know rents and so you know they're going to be moving how are we going to be kind of assessing this in an ongoing basis I'm assuming existing businesses are not bothered in but it's not really clear and what constitutes sort of the minimum number of children commonly congregating because there's small preschools there's small organizations of all sorts that offer services for children thank you there's the notion of coming to the nuisance so if the nuisance if you consider a marijuana establishments as such already exists then you would choose not to put your preschool right next to it perhaps or maybe you would but that would be your choice it these rules are rules that govern the marijuana uses themselves so if there is something that exists right now and a marijuana use wants to come within 300 feet of it it wouldn't be allowed to do that I think that answers the question yeah second row from the back the white card Michael Lash precinct nine in the same area e prohibitions be within 300 feet I'm just curious about the logic for the 300 feet buffer around other marijuana establishments when there be advantages to concentrating them and also you know sort of anti-competitive practices I'm just curious about the logic Ms. Brestrop I think we've heard about other cities and towns that have legalized marijuana and perhaps end up with a strip that is entirely marijuana sales I've never witnessed this but I understood that this is the case so we were trying to avoid that not to have you know every business in a strip be a marijuana establishment and therefore the 300 foot buffer yes along the aisle there Irv Rhodes precinct seven I might have missed this somewhere but could you point out to me where in the boundaries in the town of Amherst an establishment of this kind would be able to be located under the current article Ms. Brestrop I'm sorry we don't have a map that shows where all of these things would be existing we do have some illustration perhaps Mr. Craner would be better to answer this question Mr. Craner this one you can see in the green here areas that are not or that we think are not affected by a buffer so there's some in North Amherst some along University Drive in the green there some along Route 9 just west of Hawkins Meadow and maybe right up by Snell Street in the Atkins corner village center all the way around Atkins those parcels appear to be eligible up in North Amherst in the light industrial zone there's some along Russell Road or whatever that road is Meadow Street yeah and the north of the auction barn if you can access to it Ms. Brestrop if you do an exhaustive mapping exercise on this you can say that marijuana uses are already allowed in the business zones the downtown business zone the BL or limited business zone along University Drive business village center which includes the area around the intersection of southeast street and college street and other areas in town commercial district which is spotted around town office park which is on the east side of University Drive the limited industrial district which has two locations one is near the railroad tracks sort of east of where the high school is and one is in North Amherst which is what Mr. Crowner just pointed out to us so they are scattered around town in the business zones the existing uses thank you way over there second or maybe third row I can't tell white card Janet McGowan precinct 8 I know that North Hampton has allowed retail sales and medicinal sales in their commercial and business districts and it is moving its other kind of manufacturing and grows and things to their light industrial and heavy industrial area and there seems to be a sense to that where instead of sprinkling it all these businesses throughout their town you know you kind of know where everything can be and they all have sort of similar requirements and this seems like a really odd strategy depending on who opens the store when and I just wondered if you've looked at communities in California that have let in so many of these kind of businesses how did they do their zoning did they go for the North Hampton like make sure the retail and business districts but not letting these other kind of more industrial uses and confining that to an area of town that's actually zoned for industry or light industry or research did you look at those examples and think about that so the areas that have been proposed for any type of manufacturing or testing or research are areas that already allow manufacturing testing or research of other materials and this would just be allowing marijuana to also be tested or researched or manufactured in those zones in terms of retail sales we tried to follow the lead of where our medical marijuana treatment center and our offsite medical marijuana dispensary is already allowed in those zones those are the zones where retail would be allowed and the other uses such as cultivation there really aren't very many good places in Amherst for cultivation it requires a lot of building area or a new building it requires a lot of water and sewer connection and we really don't have appropriately large areas we understand that people are looking for around 50,000 square feet to cultivate unless it's a very small entity like a micro business which you do see listed here and micro businesses are limited to 5,000 square feet and I believe that one of the reasons that the state included micro businesses in the list of marijuana uses was for social justice issues that there would be certain uses that would be allowed and perhaps attainable by people who didn't have a lot of money what the state was afraid of was that large corporations from other states would come swooping in and really you know sort of take over the whole marijuana business so they wanted some businesses that would be specifically small enough that a person could afford it or a person getting together with other people could afford it so I guess the bottom line is we don't think that Amherst is really a place where people are going to want to grow on a large scale and if you wanted to know more about that the moderator might want to recognize Jeff Kravitz who knows a little more about that topic Mr. Kravitz? I think I'll just point out that I think it's also not an apples to apples comparison with California I mean we've settled 100 years earlier we've had a lot more time to develop they have a lot more open space in a lot of those places and looking for sort of large scale cultivation and manufacturing have not yet been approached by any manufacturing companies specifically business has come forward a couple cultivation people have shown interest but again not you know we don't have large warehouses that have been sitting empty and that's typically what these businesses are looking for cheap space that isn't really fit out and they can just start operations fairly quickly and easily Thank you Yes, a third in from the aisle right there Sarah Lacour, precinct 9 back to a couple of previous questions could we see the map of downtown and the question of where it might be allowed on that map there's that's our only business general zone in the town Mr. Crowner Unfortunately there really isn't many aren't many parcels available downtown there really isn't that might be a problem This is Prescrubb There are a few small places and they are marked in yellow particularly the one right in the middle of this map it is back by Boltwood Walk and there is one place there that one or more places there in a very small location that is not within 300 feet of any of the uses that we need to have a map of what we are against and there may be also places towards the south end of town but again these maps aren't exhaustive they're meant to be kind of illustrative Thank you Yes one in from the aisle, three rows back Marilyn Blaustein, precinct 6 I call the previous question Motion of the previous question has been made and seconded we will now come to an immediate vote on article 31 all those in favor of the motion for the previous question please say aye please say no moderator hears two thirds we now come to a vote on article 31 which itself requires two thirds vote for passage because there is a change to rezoning by us all those in favor of motion under article 31 please say aye pose please say no moderator hears two thirds we will have an electronic vote the result is 109 yes 17 no the article has passed we now move on to article 32 I call on Mr. Schreiber to make a motion I move in terms of the article excuse me Mr. Schreiber are you sure no that never happened I never happened I'm sorry I moved to dismiss the article do I hear a second motion is to dismiss you may speak to your motion Mr. Crowner Mr. Crowner article 32 was incorporated into article 31 it's unnecessary to pass it again and Ms. Brewer thank you the finance committee has no position this only requires a majority vote since we are dismissing it and not changing any zoning bylaw is the discussion before we come to a vote I see no hands we will now come to a vote on article 32 the motion is to dismiss all those in favor say aye opposed please say no the ayes have it unanimously and we now move on to article 33 and I call on Mr. Berkwistle to make a motion motion has been made and seconded you may speak to your motion this is unlike many zoning articles pretty simple and straightforward not to say that it's not controversial but it's easy to understand basically what we're trying to do is increase the options for a variety of housing throughout town as has been said earlier this evening in other articles there's a great need for housing for all kinds affordable market rate large small and this particular article speaks only to the the attempt to gather a little more room for small scale housing within existing neighborhoods basically what it does is raise the dimensional threshold from for a a supplemental dwelling unit from 800 square feet to 1000 square feet 900 or 1100 depending on whether it's handicap accessible it's simply one strategy to bring more diversity of housing to the downtown and to the neighborhoods and to the outlying areas in any zoning district where residential housing is allowed there are clear limits on the size of the building relative to the main structure and probably most importantly the requirement still exists that one of the two units either the main unit or the supplementary dwelling unit be occupied by the owner of the property that would continue in any case whether the property was transferred or sold or it still has to have one of the two dwellings occupied by the owner of the property this is not going to solve all the Amherst housing problems it is a step in the direction of solving one problem one aspect of the problem which is providing a little more variety and a little more flexibility for people who want to build a house on their own property the department has received many requests for permits for supplemental dwellings and not infrequently those requests end up saying well 800 square feet isn't really enough we'd like to build a slightly larger house and this will accommodate those people as I suggested before this is a modest change and I hope you will support it thank you Mr. Slaughter for the select board I move to refer to the planning board do I hear a second motion has been made and seconded you may speak to your motion are you confused we're confirming what we voted yes always a good idea that's great thank you you may speak to your motion make sure I had this right well the select board is sympathetic to the intent of this article in reviewing advice by town council relative to the transition provisions outlined in the new charter that's been adopted by the town we felt that this article was one that did not meet the criteria of being consistent with those transition provisions independent of our personal sympathies toward this particular article we didn't find that it fell into the necessary and essential category nor did it have a situation where it was not admitting of delay is the term but is of an urgency that needed action at this moment as such we offer the motion of referral to the planning board thank you so the motion on the floor now is the motion to refer which will require majority for passage if the motion to refer fails we would be back to the motion in terms of the article which requires two thirds for passage since it is the final discussion. Does the finance committee have a recommendation or wish to speak? Yes, Mr. Neal. Tim Neal from the finance committee we had a recommendation on the original motion but this new motion to refer we haven't had an opportunity to consult so I would say we do not have a recommendation on the referral question. Fair enough. The reason we were sort of consulting is I think two meetings ago a select board many weeks before decided to set this one aside and I asked that the select board reconsider this and I believe at that time two meetings ago four of us voted in favor of this article with one voting no but we have different memories of that so that's I trying to get a confirmation but so in that way I understand why the finance committee didn't get to vote on this because I think we changed it and we said we'd like to let the planning board know that we were in fact supporting it but I don't have those minutes so that kind of where we're at. Ms. Brewer. So the reason this is so confusing is because of KP law that's not entirely fair but we got guidance from them it took a long time but we got guidance from them as to what seemed given the transition that we should be acting on or not so we felt we had to carve off certain things saying these things are not time essential do not comport with their recommendations even though they gave us a fairly large amount of time to work within you will hear about later articles that we also think are not appropriate for town meeting to act on at this time this one was one that then after we found out that town meeting was in fact go and the planning board was going to in fact go ahead and move this anyway we said we're still going to move to refer because it's in this other category but if referral fails we're going to support the article so you all interpret how we interpreted how KP law interpreted the transitional provisions but we did in fact vote to support it if referral fails so you can hear that our referral is not like super enthusiastic maybe and that's the rationale and I'll call in a second I just want to point out that I got involved in the confusion as well and I made a decision that even if the main motion on one of these articles was to refer dismiss because town council's opinion was that we shouldn't be working with it my opinion was that every article has to be disposed of so if a motion to refer or dismiss fails I ruled that we would be considering the main motion and voting it up or down so that's why if the refer fails we will still come before town meeting yes over there it seems to me that since the select board is somewhat ambivalent about their position and the notion of referring to the planning board an article that the planning board has spent a year or more discussing and coming to a clear propose on is rather pointless so I would hope that you would vote against the referral of the article and then ultimately vote for the article so the motion on the floor is motion to refer which requires majority if that passes we have disposed of it if that fails we are back to the main motion which requires two thirds and yes I see a red card half way up there I just want to read to you from KP law's opinion just so everybody can have that because I don't think everybody's got the document Amherstown meeting articles 33 and 35 and the petitioned article of the amendments to existing zoning bylaws and raised similar issues articles 33 and 35 proposed to allow the town to better implement existing bylaws intended to encourage affordable housing the subject matter of these bylaws has been discussed for several years these amendments have been proposed and vetted by the planning board through work by staff in the public hearing process that will allow the town to more easily facilitate the creation of affordable housing and to enforce the existing bylaws failure to take action on these bylaws now will mean that the town will continue your microphone went off it's on failure to take action on these bylaws now will mean that the town will continue to face challenges in implementing the current bylaws and in addition to the fact that this matter can be addressed by the town council may well result in the loss of potential units in the meantime frustrating along recognized goal of the town for those reasons in my opinion Amherstown meeting articles 33 and 35 are appropriate for action by town meeting goes on to discuss 36 and 35 which I won't do now are we ready to vote on the question? Yes I see a hand there. This riddle precinct 2 I this relates to the other articles that will come before us with either a recommendation for dismissal or referral these are all articles that have been appeared on the warrant I my question is I guess this is a question that implies that I would reject the idea of dismissal of the town meeting is that what harm does it do for town meeting to deliberate and decide on these articles that have appeared on the warrant in front of us that are for our consideration if it turns out that powers that be later on disagree with our decision so be it but I would tend to suggest in all of these conditions that we just go ahead and consider all of these articles a lot of them have a lot of pros and cons that we should deliberate I would suggest that we should consider all of the articles that are on the warrant and dispense with them and then if it turns out that they are that town counts still c-o-u-n-c-i-l disagrees with our ruling well okay that's fine but I think we should consider all of these things as well thank you ready to come to a vote in the motion to refer I see it hand right in the front row here and it had a green card attached to it true enough I vote to refer but not for the reasons that were stated by the select board I'm actually voting to identify yourself please sorry Carol Gray precinct 7 I'm just trying to read it very carefully and what I see is that there's a word detached added it says the new bolded language says any supplemental detached dwelling unit so that means you can build a new unit in your backyard I guess but when I look at the definition in the zoning bylaw for example supplemental apartment it says a supplemental apartment which is located really within an existing one family detached dwelling it requires no significant external changes to the dwelling in other words it's one thing to have an apartment that's part of your own house and you want to have your grandmother come and stay in that apartment it's another thing to say that you could start constructing little dorm like buildings in your backyard that could be used by people that in other words residential neighborhoods could become more rental properties and I think we should think about it's I guess I just say it's not quite as simple as I think it was originally seemed to be like if it looks to me like the previous language was talking about all within one building and it looks like when you add in the bolded language any supplemental detached dwelling unit you also add supplemental apartment one supplemental apartment two it seems like it's doing something a little bit different and I would vote no because I think we need more discussion and this was started eight minutes before 10 and it's zoning and I'm going to vote to refer Ms. Breschkrupp there is already a supplemental detached dwelling unit section of the bylaw at section 5.0111 it describes what a supplemental detached dwelling unit is these are already allowed in the residential districts in town and they can be up to 800 square feet or up to 900 square feet if they're fully handicapped accessible so this bylaw amendment is merely allowing them to be a little bit larger thank you thank you again the back corner there Vince O'Connor precinct one I actually I considered supporting a select board motion to refer because I think this article should be referred on the other hand I really think that the statement of a previous speaker persuaded me that we should consider all the articles on the warrant and if the town wants to sue itself over what we've done then they will be entertained by their activities but so we should consider the article but I think we should defeat it and I was in town meeting and a number of people here were in town meeting when the detached supplemental apartment was brought before town meeting was passed over the objections of some of us who don't believe that there ought to be separate you two separate uses on the same parcel if you put them in the same building that's fine but to have separate houses appear in people's backyards is not a good idea one of the assurances that was made to town meeting when the detached supplemental apartment proposal was is that it would be limited in size and now not very many years later we come back with a proposal to increase the size that was that we were assured should be you know would be what it was originally and you know the neighborhood salami is being sliced and I really think that this proposal the motion to refer should be defeated and the article should be defeated because it really violates the article does violates an assurance that the town meeting was given not many years ago that this supplemental apartment thing would not grow into essentially another house and it would be a good idea to go on the motion to refer and please vote no on the article thank you yes sir we're right here Andy Churchill Precinct 3 I don't feel particularly strongly about this article but in my role as charter commission chair emeritus I feel like I should at least make people aware of a letter that I and the vice chair manager and the moderator prior to town meeting I'm expressing our concerns about articles 33 through 36 I think we're setting a precedent here that then would be extended to those other articles if I didn't mention it now so we said we write to express our opinion that articles 33 36 on the current warrant should not be brought to town meeting based on language in the new charter approved by the voters on March 27 the commission would have put in place a new system in which zoning proposals would receive thoughtful and in-depth discussion in the context of a council approved master plan prior to a vote furthermore the commission included a transition provision specifically to prevent last minute proposals that were not urgent and that might frustrate the purpose of the charter limiting town meeting actions to the commission's limiting town meeting actions to quote those matters essential and necessary to the current operations of the town unlike the marijuana articles on the spring 2018 warrant which addresses state deadline that comes before the election of the new council articles 33 through 36 are not urgent and they are not necessary to the current operations of the town given the voters have spoken and we are now in a transition period to the new government we believe it is the intent of both the charter and the voters who approved it that the remaining town meetings should be as short and as non-controversial as possible because articles 33 through 36 are not urgent and could be seen as frustrating a purpose of the charter that is thoughtful consideration of zoning proposals within the context of a council approved master plan we respectfully request that those articles be removed from the warrant prior to the spring 2018 town meeting so I understand that the select board was under the impression that they needed to approve the warrant as it was submitted to them at that time that they got the KP law advice and decided to let town meeting consider all of the articles but it's my opinion and that of my co-chair that articles 33 through 36 should not be approved because they do conflict with the provision of the charter that I just read thank you ready to come to a vote I hear a point of order precinct nine do we have a quorum here tonight are you formally requesting a quorum count yes I am I'm looking around I'm counting okay we have a quorum we will have an electronic vote everybody press either yes or no or abstain to be counted Mr. Godara Mr. Godara are you a town meeting member then would you please come down into the okay good we're gonna wait until you're down in the audience I hear a point of order I am a little concerned about doing it by clickers I noticed last time that we did this there was a member of the select board that did not vote I'm just saying maybe we need to count no I ruled that a clicker is the way we're doing it it's the equivalent of somebody walking out if they don't want to be counted I would urge everybody who's here including me the moderator to press their clicker we all have the same interest which is disposing of every article on the warrant so we can have a budget and spend money and do things like that this year I hear another point of order Maria Kapiki precinct eight are all town meeting members down front if they're not then they're choosing it's the equivalent of leaving they're choosing not to be counted are there any town meeting members who are not in the seats in the auditorium and is it because you're physically unable to sit okay please come into the auditorium sir hey nobody else can talk without recognition by the moderator please okay we are now gonna have an electronic vote to see if we have a quorum a quorum is 125 just so you know 132 we may continue is there more discussion before we come to a vote I point of order I'm hoping it's a really good one Mr. moderator Jim Oldham precinct five are we or are we not required if we want to participate in town meeting as voting members and be recognized to stay in this section throughout back before we had clickers we wouldn't be recognized for a vote if we weren't in this section now we're doing electronic votes and it seems that people think maybe they can vote from the whole way question is heard and yes town meeting members are required to be in the main section of the auditorium obviously people need to go to the bathroom sometimes so we're not gonna have armed guards keeping them from wandering out but I ask town meeting members to stay in excuse me question has been asked and answered I ask and request the town meeting members stay in the auditorium is there still a point of order okay wait for my microphone and identify yourself they are just gave a very foul symbol to town meeting well that's very unfortunate and all I can say is that person is immature and we need to all ignore that person okay are we ready to come to a vote on the motion to refer is there a point of order then let's have a microphone please mr. Oldham has another point of order apparently he called his first is it or is it not acceptable to be sitting up there with a clicker prepared to vote on the motion that you're trying to get us to vote on I am requesting I am requesting all town meeting members who want to vote or discuss on articles to come down into the house if you're a town meeting member and you're up in the balcony you shouldn't be voting you should come down to the house mr. Godara is that you up there are you a town meeting member are you a town meeting member sir I am requesting mr. Godara could you come down here and talk to me please could you come down here and talk to me please if everybody could just be patient excuse me you cannot speak mr. Godara could you please come up here mr. Godara could you please come up here or leave the auditorium what I tell my middle school kids all the time is that if somebody does something mean or rotten or nasty to you you do not do something mean or rotten or nasty back to them that should apply to adults as well as to children and I expect it to apply to everyone in town meeting is that understood are you ready to come to a vote on the motion to refer I see a white card in the front there yes John Fox precinct 10 mr. moderator I wonder if you could clarify for us about the importance of the legal opinion that the select board got with respect to the articles that were just addressed by a prior speaker and the relevance of members of the charter commission who object to the consideration of these articles giving a different legal interpretation to the charter itself so I assume that we turn to legal counsel for an opinion that would be the most important opinion for us to consider and not weigh the opinion of a member of the charter commission that conflicts with that can you please advise us on that yes so first of all that word opinion is the really important one so it's the opinion of town council that certain articles should be considered by town meeting others should not it's the opinion of some members of the charter commission which may or may not still exist I can't plan it I don't know and he says no it's the opinion of some other people in town meeting that they shouldn't be other things should be considered everybody has their opinions and are entitled to them in terms of what town meeting considers and what towning votes on my opinion counts more than other people's opinion and I listened carefully and talked with council I read very carefully the letter Mr. Churchill sent which is a very respectful letter there was nothing in it that upset me particularly my opinion is still that if something is on the warrant it must be disposed of and by definition if it's not disposed of by referral or dismissal then we're back to a main motion or I'll request that some other motion be made that town meeting rules on so that's my opinion that town meeting must dispose of every article and if you don't dispose of it by referral or dismissal then there has to be a main positive motion that we dispose on so also my opinion that voting to refer versus voting against the main motion while symbolic have no actual different effect from each other I'm answering that now in case somebody asks we're now back to the question on whether or not it's a discussion on the motion to refer this article and yes I see a card right there third in Amanda Robertson precinct 5 I need to call the question motion of the previous questions been made and seconded if two thirds of you vote we will then immediately come to a vote on the motion for referral all those in favor of the motion of the previous question please say aye opposed please say no moderate here's two thirds we now come to immediate vote on the motion to refer and if a majority vote yes then the motion is referred and the article I mean the article is referred and disposed of all those in favor this is article 33 I almost forgot so maybe others did all those in favor of the motion to refer article 33 back to the planning board please say aye opposed no the no's have it we now have the main motion on the floor I'd appreciate that we end debate soon because I think we've said lots of stuff about it but if there's more discussion we will entertain it so yes I see it actually a hand there instead somebody I haven't heard from I don't think Alex LaFave precinct 10 so we were actually one of the first people to go through the special permitting process with the detached housing for our house we have a house in town and we have a carriage house behind our house we're a multi-generational family and redoing our carriage house our actual space was larger than 800 square feet it was probably about a thousand square feet so we wound up only doing 800 square feet of our carriage house which my in-laws now live in so I'm going to support this article because I think people are concerned about student housing but for us we live downtown it's a multi-generational house and it allowed us to have our in-laws move into an existing space and renovate that space and so for that reason I'm in favor of this article so other people can take advantage of the same thing we did thank you okay Tim Neil finance committee for the record for this article the finance committee voted 6 to 0 in favor in part because we felt this small change might induce some small increase in property value and thus some more income potentially to the town thank you I see a hand kind of towards the back there that's you yes Dorothy Pam precinct 10 when I go out my back door I live between Lincoln and Sunset it's 10 to 20 degrees cooler in my backyard than in the front we voted to support trying to do something to prevent more climate change of the negative type 800 feet is still a big enough place I think if we fill in all the backyards and cut down more trees the temperature of the town of Amherst and I think that what happens in somebody else's backyard does in fact affect all of us in terms of trees and the workings of them to bring a better climate yes right there in the front row microphone John Hornick precinct 7 also speaking in favor on behalf of the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust which voted 7 to 0 with one person absent meeting last Thursday to support this warrant article basically we're in agreement with the reasons that the planning board has stated for this article while there is clearly no requirement that these be affordable because of their size they are frankly more likely to be so they likely will add to the stock of affordable housing in town we can also ask whether or not there be poor design because they are very small houses I want to point out that if anybody looks online for small houses or tiny houses you can see a plethora designs that are available to people who want to take this step a lot of them are quite interesting in fact the city of north hampton in collaboration with the pioneer valley habitat western mass architects association I think it was and one other organization I'm forgetting recently held a competition in which 16 architects or architectural practices submitted designs for tiny houses online you can find all this by googling camp in competition so basically what I say is there's been a lot of work not only in this area but around the country around good design for tiny houses and I think the trust supports this that we really do need to encourage this kind of development in Amherst so I would urge you also to support this article thank you well no you can't answer vocally yes yeah if you're raised your hand if you're not intending to call the previous question I mean if keep your keep your card up in that case now everybody can raise their cards again so I just I didn't want to call yeah fourth in from the hour right there hi I I'm Lisa very precinct too I just had a couple questions number one who ensures the that the owners are still living on the property years after these things are built and also how does this play out in the historical district of town the building commissioners ultimately responsible for whether or not someone is complying with a special permit these units all require special permit from the zoning board of appeals normally when there's a transition from an owner occupancy to a non owner occupancy neighbors will notify us immediately but there are also inspectors who drive around and figure things out too thank you and up against the wall way over there she bold and precinct five I want to support this I support the vision behind this I support the goal of having more small housing I'm comfortable with the infill with the affordability of this and so on but I think the last speaker hit with her question hit precisely my big concern and I think that what we have seen in practice we have times where duplexes are also require owner occupancy and what we've been seeing in town is our zoning board of appeals removing that owner occupancy requirement so that we have it we think it's our protection and it doesn't really work and I think it's a real struggle for me to know what the solution is because you build buildings that's zoning is about buildings zoning is about land and buildings it's about structures and it's really hard to have a zoning bylaw that says owner occupancy and I don't think it works so I would love to hear people from the planning board or anyone else speak to how we can do this because we live in a town where non-owner occupancy of dense multi-unit buildings in residential neighbourhoods means overcrowded unregulated rental housing and that can be a real problem. So in this case the supplemental dwelling unit has a condition that is in the zoning bylaw that doesn't have an option for being modified and it says one of the dwelling units on the property shall be occupied by the owner of the principal one family residence which requirement shall be made a condition of any special permit issued under this section so it's both in the bylaw and it would also be a condition of the special permit. So in the bylaw and does not have an opportunity to be waived or modified means that it's a real condition. Ready to come to a vote. Yes, second from the back on the aisle there. Herb Rhodes, Pruise, Seven although I think I'm going to vote in favour of this article I am terrified of it because I think of certain sections of the downtown that have very modest houses on them with very large lots we could see the doubling of the density in that a particular area. I have no idea how this is going to be controlled and where all of a sudden single family houses on very large lots construct a thousand foot and renting them out and all of a sudden on these particular streets we see the density increased dramatically. Yes, back of the aisle there. Aaron Hayden, precinct eight, formerly a member of the planning board and I believe while I was on the select board actually that I just want to remind everybody that we put into place a rental inspection program the concern that has been expressed about policing the home ownership has been something that we've been working with for a while and that was the one thing that we've tried I wish Mr. Morrow were here to tell us exactly how well that program is going to maybe assure us so we don't needn't be so frightened of this rather beneficial amendment. Thank you. If Mr. Morrow would like to be recognized I'll recognize him. Looks like he's coming forward. Rob Moore, building commissioner point about the rental registration program we do spend some time periodically looking over the transfers and that's generally how we become aware of owner occupied properties at least appearing that they become non owner occupied and that causes us to reach out to the property owner and find out exactly what the status is at that point otherwise we do rely a lot on complaints we certainly do not have staff out patrolling looking for this exact situation the owner occupancy conditions that are placed by the zoning board of appeals on the special permits or documents that are recorded at the registry of deeds connected to the title during the transfers we often hear from land use attorneys trying to understand exactly what those conditions are so we deal with this quite regularly and feel like we do make an effort to try to identify those properties. Thank you. Third row back on the aisle there. I call the previous question. Most of the previous question has been made and seconded by the motion under article 33 under article 33 which is in terms of the article and it requires a two-thirds vote for passage all those in favor of the motion under article 33 please say I oppose please say no moderator here is two-thirds we now come to a vote on the main motion under article 33 which is in terms of the article and it requires a two-thirds vote for passage I oppose please say no moderators in doubt we'll have an electronic vote the vote is yes 63 no 56 so article 33 has not passed I hear a point of order well it's too late to have a quorum on that vote and I believe the next motion is going to be a motion to adjourn which you can have even if you don't have a quorum so I don't think a quorum count is necessary I hear a point of order we weren't even close to two-thirds so you can come up to the clerk and let her know yeah okay if any other people have issues you can come up and report to the clerk before I call on Mr. Slaughter I want to remind people things his first motion is going to be to adjourn to tomorrow if that fails next Monday but even more important turn off and return your electronic voting devices clean up your trash and be here on time for the next meeting Mr. Slaughter I move to adjourn until Thursday May 17th at 7 p.m. motions are made and seconded to adjourn to tomorrow night this is not debatable all those in favor say aye opposed say no the no's have it Mr. Slaughter try again I move to adjourn until Monday May 21st at 7 p.m. that's been made and seconded all those in favor adjourning to next Monday May 21st please say aye opposed please say no we are adjourned