 And I'll make you host so and we're recording so you're all set. Okay, great. So seeing a presence of a quorum of the town council committee on town services and outreach, I am calling the meeting to order at 531pm. I'm going to start by just checking in with my colleagues on the committee to make sure that we can hear you and that you can hear me. So George. I'm present. All right, and Andy. I'm present. Okay, we have one member who we know won't be here today. That's going to do a lot. And Councillor Brewer. We expect, but we are going to get started. I. Here's a text from councilor Brewer. Hold on. Her zoom is updating. So she will be here as soon as her zoom finishes updating. We have traditionally done two. Periods of public comment, one at the beginning, one at the end. The agenda shows it at the end right now, but I am going to move that up. Since I do see we have some public present who might want to comment on a specific issue and I don't want them to have to wait until the very end of the meeting. So at this point, if you would like to make a public comment on an issue under the jurisdiction of the town services and outreach committee, please raise your hand. Okay. So we have one. So. Public comments on matters around matters of the jurisdiction of the TSO committee. I'm sorry. Welcome to express their views for one to three minutes. The TSO will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment. So at this point, I am going to bring in Joanne Griswald. I think actually Athena, you have to do that since. Oh wait, I am post. All right. Joanne, can you hear us? Can we hear you? I have to unmute. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes. Go ahead. I live at 48 Kendrick place. I've been here. My husband and I bought the house in. 1979. And we've seen a lot of changes as far as people owning and others buying and renting. The houses. And time seems to me that it is a forgotten street. I've been here for 25 to 30 years ago. I was speaking with the then chief of police. And I had spoken with a town manager. There were problems with parking on this street, particularly when there were events going on at Amherst college. Of course, they have taken care of that now. And that's not a problem except on moving in days or possibly weekends when someone does not want to park in a distant. Parking lot. The parking is on both sides of the street is abysmal. That's an abysmal. Allowance. There is not room for two cars on the park on each side of the street. To allow. Some traffic through as well as certainly emergency vehicles, utility vehicles, such as recycling and garbage pickup trucks. A week ago, Monday. The recycling truck could not get through because. The parking on the street was very heavy. I wish to add that to do not need to have parking all the way up the street on both sides. In order to prohibit someone from getting through. Later on that same week, three days later. A different recycling truck. Trying to get to an apartment house, I believe. Could not get through because one car. At 50. I believe it was 50 Kendrick was parked right across the street from. The house opposite. The recycling truck could not get through. He sat there and blew his horn. And I believe at that hour of the morning awakened a number of people on the street who possibly had later classes or. Work had worked all night. Finally, somebody exited from one of the buildings and moved his car into his driveway. Usually it isn't caused by people who live here. Normally it is. People who are looking for a place to park. And they certainly have a right to park here. It's unrestricted. A policeman told me one day when I could not get through to my own house. This was a number of years ago. When my husband was ill, I was anxious to get home. I could not make it down the street because the. Marijuana extravaganza was going on. And the cars. Other traffic was taking the shortcut down through Steinbeck's. Business. Cars coming down the road. We just lined up bumper to bumper. Could not back up. There were three of us trying to get down the street. We could not move. This was something that should not happen. I asked a policeman who happened to be there. If something could be done about this. And he said, no, the parking is not restricted. The only thing that we can do is park a car going in the wrong direction. I think that. We ought to take care of this before there's a tragedy. It's a rather forgotten street. We had to wait two years for a massive pothole to be filled. This was a few years ago. I, you know, I think we're all paying our taxes. Even the people who are renting. Houses out to others are paying their taxes. I think we deserve more. I think there needs to be attention to this street. I think there needs to be parking on one side of the street only. That might avert a tragedy. Thank you. Thank you, Joanne. Are there any other members of the public would make it like to make a public comment. You can raise your hand now. Okay. So seeing none. We're going to return to our agenda. We're going to start with town manager appointments filed with the town clerk and we will start with the. Recreation director. So at this point, I'd like to give the town manager an opportunity to introduce his appointment. To lead Amherst recreation. Thank you, Evan. And thanks for having me tonight. So I'm really pleased that I have forwarded the name of Ray harp. And I'd like to thank you for being here today. And thank you to the town council for its review as the town's new director of recreation director. Ray has been a fixture in the city of North Hampton, both as a social studies teacher and as a coach of their basketball team. And also their girls lacrosse team and girls field hockey team. He's beloved and. Has established quite a. In addition, he has run the western mass basketball camp. And Amherst under. The name with coach Hixon of Amherst college. And so has a broad range of experience. In various aspects. We were pleased that he was interested in this position. He's looking for a career change. He's looking for a career change in terms of looking at the next phase of his life and looking at what he would like to work on and accomplish. And this seemed to be a good fit for him. We conducted a pretty thorough. Recruitment effort to ensure we had the broadest. Largest number of people brought us. Array of people that we could interview. And we had really strong candidates throughout the process. Ray is a graduate of Amherst college. He's a graduate of the national basketball team. He was a graduate of the national basketball team at. The University. So. And you have the, the appointment memo with details with it, which was revised later in this afternoon. In recognition of the comments that councilor Brewer made, which I neglected to include, which I have included. And then ultimately. Thanks to. I'm just going to make sure that the personal information was redacted. So. There are questions. I'm ready to answer them. Yeah, are there any questions from members of the committee? Okay. I'm not seeing any questions. So if there are no questions. Or comments comments. All right. Then we can just move to a motion. So I will move that we recommend the town council approve the appointment of Ray Hark as recreation director. Second motion. Okay. We have a second. From, I think George got there first. We also had it from Andy. Any further discussion. I'm going to call the question and start with Alyssa. Just double checking. It's effective immediately. As soon as the town council acts. Yes. Yes. We anticipate his first day would be September 22nd. Which would be, he would need to give. Yes. Any further discussion. Okay. I'm going to call the question. We'll start with Alyssa. I. I vote I, George. Hi. All right. Okay. That is unanimous. Our next. Appointment is for. I believe it's six individuals. To the African heritage reparations assembly. So again, I'll ask the town manager to introduce. These appointments then I'll ask the committee for comments and questions. Thank you. So I have put forward six names. One is according to the charge to be a representative from the reparations for Amherst and Michelle Miller. Is that designee. And then there's six. There are five other people who've been put forth. Jamela Jemison. Heather Lord. Alexis Reed. Irvin Rhodes and Amalkar Shabazz. And there's one vacancy that. We're going to continue to recruit for, for that last seat. The requirement for under the charge is that. Five of the black of the six. Black residents and all. Five of these. Nominies or appointments. Self-identify. And I put in exactly how they self-identified in their community activity form in the, in the memo. So you could see how they self-identified. This is an important committee. And it's, and so. One of the things that's different about this is that. That was led by Kisha Dennis of the. Residence advisory committee who has interviewed many people. Along with Barbara Love and Sid Ferrara to conduct the interviews. And this, this is. And I had conversations with them after their interview process. And these are the names I'm putting forward. Thank you. Are there questions or comments from the committee? Andy. Yeah, I mean, the only question I have is just thinking ahead of a possibility. One of the candidates is. Also somebody who is running for town council. And we just had this discussion regarding ECAC. As to whether it's appropriate to have counselors. To serve as members of active committees. And so I. Makes me. List to ask the question as to whether there was any discussion with that candidate. As to the possibility that. The choice would have to be made if she. Is elected and whether. Is a committee have any comments about. That general issue. I think there may be actually two candidates. In this group. Do you have any response? I'll go to Alyssa. Oh, that was, that was not an explicit part of the conversation. I think it's a really good point. Okay. Alyssa. So I have many thoughts about this and I won't belabor it all night because I imagine it'll come up again at town council. But I think it's a really good point. I think it's a really good point. I actually consider this to be completely different than the ECAC conversation. And completely different than the ESB, the elementary school building committee conversation. And it's for this reason. When we created. ECAC, we thought in our wisdom as brand new counselors that we wanted to put counselors on it. We stuck with that. We've even stuck with that through January, despite the fact that the majority of the council thought it was a completely different situation. We thought it was a completely different situation. We thought it was a completely different situation. We thought it was not to change horses midstream, et cetera. And then the charge has changed. To say there won't be, it doesn't say counselors anymore. This is a completely different situation. And I will explain to you why. It is completely different because one, none of these people have been elected yet. Secondly, this charge specifically. Specifically calls out. People of African heritage who are currently. Or formerly elected at large officials. That means that if we currently had a town council member of African heritage, which we do not. But that if we did that person could absolutely have been appointed to this committee. And that would not have been a bad thing. Now, maybe if we had an African heritage person on the town council right now. Counselors would not have agreed. To have that specification about two of the members, but that's neither here nor there. So either your problem is with the charge that you approved. Under the circumstances that you approved it, and you wish to change the charge. In January, not now for January, which you know, I objected to vociferously over. Or you don't have a problem with it. It is a completely different scenario. It would be. Shall I say ludicrous to say that given that Michelle Miller. Has been. And Matthew, of course, as well, have been the two prominent members. Pulling us along with reparations to say, oh, but, but we can't actually have a counselor assuming. We can't do that. We can't do that. We can't do that. Because of an e-cat conversation we had. That makes no sense at all. If people are elected and as was indicated, one of the other members that's listed here as a former elected official, maybe a new elected official. And another one in fact will be a new elected official. Almost certainly. We aren't going to say, oh, well, it's okay for school committee members to serve that are currently elected. We're not going to say that it's okay for school committee members to serve. I'm sorry. The logic just doesn't compute across those conversations. So I understand that it came up recently, but it's clearly a different situation. It is clearly different. And the idea that you would in any way expect someone to step aside now, either from elected office or from this appointed committee. Who I might point out, I don't think it's going to be the same. I don't think it's going to be the same. I don't think it's going to be the same. I haven't even staffed it yet. It being September and they have a deadline of October 31st. That's actually going to have to change. Just. It's a non-starter. The charge was written this way for a reason. If you have a problem with the charge, then you have a problem with the charge. You should not have a problem with the people who have been put forward here. And I appreciate. Also the comment Paul made while I have the floor here. I just wanted to make sure that I had the floor. I wanted to make sure that I had the floor here. I wanted to make sure that I had the floor here. I wanted to make sure that I had the floor here. I wanted to make sure that I had the floor in candidates. That was really helpful. So thank you. Other comments or questions about these appointments. Just to add. My thoughts on, on that question. Because I at first had a similar question to. Andy. But one of the things that I saw was my understanding is that this is a. Temporary committee. Whose job is to develop a plan. So I think that's a good point. Just making sure that I understand that. It's a council. It's a council created committee. So. But that is our understanding of this committee. Right. And so I view this in the same way that I viewed the. Percent for art. At hot committee that had a combination of counselors, but also members of the community. And I think that's where we're going to be. And that's where we're going to be. And so I think that. Where's EECAC is a standing committee that will exist in perpetuity. And so that is where I sort of drew the line as well. Seeing no other hands. I will. Make a motion. Which is to. So. Jim Miller. Jemison, Heather Lord, Alexis Reed. Orvin Rhodes. Amal Karshabaz and Michelle Miller. To the African heritage reparations assembly. For a term expiring. At the completion of the work of the assembly. Is there a second. Okay, we'll give that one to. We'll give that one to Andy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any further comments. Okay. Then I will. Alyssa. I could have said this just as easily after the boat. Thank you. Is that I hope that the town may, I know it's really difficult when we're already staffing so many committees. As you pointed out, we just had seven committees basically running at the same time the other night. So I understand how complex that is. But I'm hoping that given that you are still recruiting a member and I'm sure they will be very welcoming in the next person. And hopefully it won't take too long to work through the next person, but I hope that they can get started again. Obviously the October 31st deadline isn't going to work. But given that, you know, people have known about this since June. I'm sure that there's some pent up energy with people wanting to get started. So I hope that they'll get started soon rather than waiting for their final member. Yeah. So I think we were looking at the last week of September, looking at my calendar as, as trying to pull together a meeting. We talked with Jen moisture about that this today. And the other just so you know that my last conversation with Barbara Love, it was a, and she and. Sid and Kisha were going to be recruiting people that they felt would be a good match for this as well. To get additional people in. Thank you. So for that, I'll call the question. I vote, I George Ryan. Hi, Andy. All right. And Alyssa. Hi. That is unanimous. So we will move on to the appointments to the community preservation act committee. Once again, I'll ask the time manager to introduce the appointments. I only have two appointments and these are designees from the historical commission, heady startup and the recreation commission, Sarah Marshall. For to fill those one year terms. The. Planning board, I think a bunch of my men, no, they were supposed to vote on September one, but they didn't. So now it's on their agenda for September 14th. And I think I didn't get a firm date, but I think it's the September 22nd. So I expect to be back to the, to the TSO committee prior to your next meeting. And we have one. Additional seat and we have some applicants now that will have interviewed before that as well. Okay, we'll open the floor to questions and comments. Alyssa. It was about the last topic. I'll come back to it. I'm fine with these and I really appreciate the timing that Paul outlined for us. Okay. Any other comments or questions. Seeing none. I will make the motion to recommend the town council, approve the town manager appointments. Just to make sure that we have a group of legislators. And we have a group of representatives of Hedy startup and Sarah Marshall to the community preservation act committee with terms expiring June 30th, 2022. Second. Thank you, George. Any further discussion? And I will call the question. We start with George. Hi. Andy. Hi. Alyssa. And I have a lie. So that is also unanimous. appointments were unanimous. Thanks Evan. Thank you Athena. Alyssa. So I just wanted to ask although I fear it's volunteering myself for something but I just want to ask and ensure that the TSO report does address the question that Andy brought up and that I obviously vociferously spoke to. So because surely other counselors will have the same question because that's a fresh conversation we've had. I'm sure you'll do an excellent job of capturing that in the report. I am making a note of that now but the only things I have which is the sharpie and a prescription. So hopefully I remember to find this later. Okay so with that we are going to move on to our next agenda item which is the public way request on Amherst College Wayfinding Signs and so this was the sole topic of our I believe the sole topic of our last meeting on August 26th. At that point we had an update in the presentation from Amherst College on their wayfinding signs. We also heard some commentary from planning staff on the signs. At that point it became clear there was still ongoing conversation between Amherst College and planning staff and it didn't necessarily make sense for us to deliberate on the individual signs or locations at that point because they seem to still be in flux. However at that point Andy brought up the idea that we should at least agree upon how we are evaluating these signs, what our criteria and priorities are for when we get to that discussion and so I wanted to have an opportunity for us to talk about that today. And so first I just want to hear an update from the town manager about where we are with those signs, what conversations have happened since that last meeting between planning and whether he believes that planning will be ready with a recommendation and that we will have a final list of signs by September 23rd and then we will have a committee discussion about how we're going to approach that. So I'll start with the town manager. Thank you Evan. So yeah the signs that have been proposed by Amherst College fall into basically three buckets. One are signs are on their private property that are owned by Amherst College and they are located in the general residential zoning district and it's a couple and are some other zoning districts. So these signs fall either they either need either meet the zoning requirements or that they need a waiver under the zoning bylaw for height size number of signs on a single property things like that. So those are going through the normal process. The second category are signs are in the ED zoning district which are on the Amherst College campus. The Amherst College presented the general overview of the sign system to the planning board on September 1st according to the zoning bylaw and on that date the planning board approved the ones that were included in the special permit application. There are two others that need a new special permit application since they were not included in the first batch so that those are neither of those groups concern the town council. The third bucket is towns are in the right of way which includes the town common and on town streets and these are the ones that you are being reviewed that you are reviewing. Some have been been reviewed by the design review board and the historical commission and the historical commission DRB has submitted their comments to the committee and it's a overall they hit for the historical commission their review and recommendations were positive. They made a few recommendations on individual signs. The disability access advisory committee will review the signs at its meeting on September 14th. The town staff the planning department has been meeting with Amherst College and one of our goals has been to distill down exactly what needs action by the town council and coming up with that defined list in a way that is identifiable and actionable by the council. I know there's a meeting on Monday with Amherst College as well with the planning staff to make sure that we get that list comprehensive so we don't have to come back to you. One of the things that's important to the college for instance is not only finding the locations and putting those locations and making sure our staff understands how they interact with our way finding science system and other signs in the public way but one of the things the college has identified and this is an accurate thing is that you know the wording on the sign may change over time you know if they relocate a facility or a building or something or want to change if they change the name of a building they'd like the signs to be approved by the council but not the actual words on the signs necessarily. So I think you know you asked will we have a list and will it be ready for September 23rd? I can say yes we should have everything approved, reviewed by the appropriate committees and a package delivered to you by the planning director by September 23rd. Thank you. Are there any questions for the town manager about those conversations about the process or where we're at with those signs? Alyssa? Since I haven't actually watched the video and I'm just going to like ask you guys to just catch me all up like in the next sentence no I'm not going to ask you to do that but I do want to know if based on what you learned last time there were any if we were making a decision tonight were there any particular takeaways that I need to be thinking of again as I'm watching that video before our meeting on the 23rd was there anything that really struck any of you as being challenging? Is that a question for the committee or for the manager? You're muted but I think you're saying both. Alyssa you're muted. Whatever concerns remain from last time so if staff expressed some concerns that you guys were thought that you asked them to follow up on or if you guys that met when I couldn't be here on the 26th express concerns that you know I should still be looking to be addressed by the 23rd that would be super helpful. Okay. All right George? Andy mentioned something last time in response to something I said and I thought about it more and I think he may speak to it as well and perhaps better than I can but I guess the thing that came away that I came away from the discussion last time was the notion that at least one of these signs is going on the town of common and it's a permanent alteration to the town of common so I guess that's something I'd like to hear more especially from from the two members of our committee who've been around a lot longer in these affairs. I was somewhat dismissive of that and I think Andy caught me up rightly and saying you know that actually is something we really need to think hard about. As far as all the rest of it it seems we have a planning board, we have a design review board, I would be interested in reading the reports from DAAC and from who else we're getting from a DRB but I'm not sure there's any value added from us with most of these signs but the placement of one on the common is something I'd like to discuss a little bit and get some sense from the rest of you what you think. So that was my takeaway. Thank you George. Andy? So excuse me, that is the reason that I raised by hand was the same issue and it is a delicate and long-standing problem that we as town and Amherst College as a separate entity have never really come to a full understanding about as far as I'm aware and that is that there's a huge section of what is referred to as the South Common which is part of the Common that has kind of been for all practical purposes absorbed into the campus because it is on that side of College Street and the College has been pretty much I think both taking care of it and acting for control purposes as if it's part of the campus. For the most part that has not been an issue but there have been times before this that it has been and they are talking in this situation about putting a fairly substantial sign that is more than just something hanging on a post. It's really probably the most prominent of the signs of all of them and it is part of the public way. So I didn't dismiss it entirely as a non-issue because I didn't think it was an issue and I made a reference last time the meeting that was unfortunately I couldn't be in the U.S. and they didn't attend about the bike share program because there became somewhat of a misunderstanding amongst the College and our town staff that was working on the bike share program about the wisdom of putting a bike share location on the South Common on that side of College Street and then when it became questioned for the College it was dropped and moved entirely to a new location. So it's sort of like this ongoing problem that's been around for a long time and I don't know if Paul has any comments about it or Alyssa because of her experience but I was just feeling like maybe this is a time that we should be thinking about coming to some better understanding amongst ourselves and with the College about that particular issue and possibly some other issues that are part of our relationship where this is an opportunity to have a significant conversation and I'll just conclude it with an example of a possibility not anything that's I think been talked about in great length but that is make whether college parking spots at non working hours can be made available for any town related purposes where we have such an issue at those same times that they're not using the lots but people looking for parking so that was the one issue that I think was kind of hanging there. Paul. So yeah I think that that's probably Alyssa the biggest issue I mean I think there's general agreement that the signs are very attractive and well designed. There's there's general agreement that you know so currently there are these white wooden signs that demarcate the college campus one on the octagon and one near at the other end of the common. I think there's some education and learning for members of the council and it may happen at the full council meeting as well that oh that's the common most people have no clue but that that that exists but you do and that that's a people just assume that it's property of the college the college does maintain it there have been agreements in the past apparently where there have been some things but this is the one if we are going to demarcate the college campus starting at College Street and South Pleasant Street that that's a significant change and what implications that has either for ownership of the common use of the common I mean if the council ever said we want to put the farmers market on that part of the common would that be something that you want to entertain and Andy brought up a real real life example of the of the bike share and buses going through there and things like that you know that's an for PVTA they are able to go through there as as part of the you know as a public way so you know Amherst College has been a really good partner throughout this they are engaged in the conversation more than willing to continue it it's also an opportunity perhaps to clarify what is that relationship that has built up over time that you know probably centuries in this way at this point in time so it's but I think it's an important consideration for the council to make to make its decision and had what do you want this to look like George just a very small example and a really small one but during the height of COVID my wife was out walking with a friend and when they parted ways the friend wanted to walk diagonally across the South Common and she was approached by an Amherst College police officer told her she couldn't walk across the Common because that was a campus territory and the campus was closed to everyone except the students and faculty so just a very small anecdotal evidence that I'm not the only person who doesn't have a full grasp of the history and the actual reality of the South Common. Thank you George. Alyssa. I was waiting for you Evan to say what your concerns were. Would you like me to go first? Yes. So I think that building on what everyone else said that was probably my biggest concern as well is that idea I was I think I was in Georgia's camp whereas when I first saw that I went well that looks nice and then as I started thinking about it it does feel sort of a more permanent branding of of town land and I think I would want to understand what control we are we we maintain over that property and making sure that it's clear that that is town land. My other concern to add something new to the conversation and Paul sort of mentioned this in our August 26 meeting is making sure that we're not cluttering certain areas with signs. We have townway finding signs that are going up there's a whole bunch of other navigational signs from the state since that's part state highway and then of course now we have Amherst College signs it sounds like Amherst College not it sounds like it was clear from our last meeting that Amherst College did move one of their signs to be farther away from town signs and looking at the map in the most recent presentation that they had given us at that last meeting it doesn't look to me like there there are really any places where you have a town sign and Amherst College sign next to each other or really close to each other but I and this is relying on me reading that map and so I would just want to understand from planning or from Paul whether there's anywhere where they feel like the Amherst College signs and the townway finding signs are too close or in conflict or whether there's anywhere where we feel like there are just so many signs already and we don't want to add another one so those would be my two primary concerns. Alyssa would you like to go now? Yes if I might thank you so much. One small thing about the parking situation and I think it would be great to have an agreement with them about that I think that that feeds back to all our conversations we've had about you know what really is our parking situation in the town and who could we talk to about possibly using their lot at different times but of course we're also sensitive to the fact that that lot in particular for example is quite close to the recital hall and so when I've gone to events at the recital hall on Amherst College's property I expect to be able to park there because it's Amherst College's property on not on the common part but on the parking part rather than saying oh but because the fair is running right now on the Amherst common towns people should just park there it's like hey I want to go to the recital that's at Amherst College so I think it would be useful to outline that not just to assume that because it's after five o'clock they don't use those parking lots because in some cases they do although it's certainly not as much as we'd want to use them and we should be able to find a relationship there so I think that's one part is that relationship and then the other part is I don't see how and I really appreciate the thought you guys have already put into this I don't see how we can possibly agree to let them put a sign on that common that portion of the common without a legal agreement and that doesn't mean a vote at the town council that means a legal agreement that both our sets of attorneys have looked at an MOU that says this is what this can be used for this is who takes care of it this is who cuts the grass and if and then we can say if you want to put that sign in theoretically and say if you want to put that sign in that's great but if we tell you we want it gone you have to take it out because it's not your property and so if we don't do that if we just say well you know it's been this weird test of agreement we've had for a long time and they always mow the lawn and so I'm sure it's fine to put a sign there like no that puts us in a really awkward space for if they decide one day to start putting something up there because they don't know like their policeman obviously didn't know it wasn't their property although they're not likely to get out of backhoe and try and build anything just like they wouldn't appreciate it if we just went ahead and put a sign there what if we put a sign there that said the farmers market's over there they wouldn't like that and so I think we need an actual binding legal agreement whether we call it an MOU or like we have with the Jones library trustees or if we call it something else I don't see how we can authorize them to build what's clearly not just you know a pole in the ground with some concrete at the bottom that they could yank out it's not just that simple in the common that belongs to the town of Amherst without some sort of legal agreement that's clearly specifies who can do what when and then we have the conversation about whether or not this particular sign is a good use of that but just going ahead and deciding that the signs okay are not okay in the absence of that legal agreement just doesn't make any sense to me in terms of our responsibility as a government thank you Alyssa George so I'm just thinking out loud which is a very dangerous thing to do but I'm going to enter into the spirit of it I'm seeing sort of three options presenting themselves Alyssa is making I think a very strong point that whatever happens with this at least particular piece of land we really should come to some kind of legal agreement that clearly states what what's what and what what the responsibilities are for the two parties and that I guess is assuming that the common stays under it stays with us and always will and so that was my second sort of strand of thinking which is maybe that's just another possibility is I mean if you put a permanent sign there such as they're proposing and it certainly makes sense given the geography of the campus and so on but you're basically we're basically making it clear to everybody that this is you've reached Amherst college even though according to it isn't so is this something that can be I guess the term is alienated can we can we sell it is that even permitted so that's a second question just thinking off the top of my head may we go to them and say okay if you're going to put a sign there a permanent sign of one that's going to basically identify this is Amherst college land you're going to have to buy that piece of land and we're not going to sell the cheap that's a second thought and the third is just a bargaining chip kind of along the lines that look you want something we want something so I still like I think that goes along with the legal agreement that some kind of something should be put in writing no matter what and so a third option is okay we're going to have to get a legal agreement here and try to clarify a few things that we can but we also expect something back because we're giving you something really really significant you want this badly we understand that it makes sense but this is our land and so we expect something in return not just a you know a smile and handshake so I guess there are three things in my mind at the moment they're not necessarily mutually exclusive though I assume if we alienated it or if we sold it that would be a whole nother question but at least a legal agreement of some kind seems appropriate and the thought that we should if we're giving up something substantial like this we should get something in return thank you George uh and Andy you had your hand up and then went down to is there something I was just trying to decide because the George is really covering a lot of what I was thinking about saying too we've had discussions with the college of times about various pieces of land that they own for we're seeking to purchase that were not necessarily contiguous to their current campus and we've never really found a good way to have that conversation because they've not been willing to have that conversation and so I it sort of felt like maybe this is an opportunity to establish some sort of understanding about how those conversations take place and the other is I don't know if either Paula or Alyssa is town manager or former chair of the select board uh respectively who were in their positions at the time that bike share was first established have a better memory of the details of what happened with the desire that we had to place a bike share location on the south common and the opposition that arose from the college to have the bike share location actually not exist on what was our property George again just briefly what about a land swap and as opposed to simply selling it I just throwing these ideas out here I don't know but if we have a piece of land that really would be valuable to us could we swap it for this piece of land could we say okay you now we'll have this piece of the south common but now we want something else so that's another option that thought okay uh I'm gonna ask if the town manager has anything further he wants to add on this topic uh not particularly I think you've identified a lot of issues and then some um for us to continue the conversation with the college okay Alyssa so then what I'm gonna ask for if TSO agrees with me because obviously I as one individual do not direct the town manager and do anything um if we as a TSO would agree that in addition to all the other work staff is doing to prepare for September 23rd what it would look like for the town council to take a position that encompasses some of the things we've been saying here about to direct the town manager to work with Amherst College to you know come up with some sort of legal agreement to come up with an MOU to come up with a land swap I mean something that would give right these directions but would you know have a big envelope that they could work within um to have that conversation because it's certainly possible I mean I don't want to craft that on the floor when we get to town council and it's certainly possible that I could be the lone voice that's concerned about it when we get to town council and then you know you didn't waste any time creating a motion but uh I'd probably try and create it on the floor at the time because I'm not seeing a way that I can justify the town just agreeing to do this without any sort of legal agreement and without any of that more complex discussion but yet I don't of course expect you know someone to have all the list of all the properties sit down at the table work out a land swap in the next two weeks like I'm not picturing that's going to happen either but I also know that this is important to Amherst College to get going on this so I guess what I'm asking for is in time for our meeting on the 23rd that the town manager has had some time to think about if you're going to give me a direction to work with Amherst College on that this here's what the direction needs to look like for me to be able to do that. Any further comments from members of the committee? George? Again just my my sense here is it's really this this particular sign in this particular parcel of land that's of concern to this committee um and the rest of it is not something that that we have any strong feelings or views about we we're confident in what our plant town staff is doing we're confident in the planning board etc but this particular issue that I think Andy put his finger on last time is really something that we are concerned about and we would like to have some further discussion and some ideas presented to us is what I'm hearing. Yeah so I think you know to summarize this it sounds like that is the one sign and that is the one issue that this committee has concerns about. I did bring up the issue of sign too many signs in a location and that when we had our conversation on August 26th the planning department went through and gave comment on pretty much every sign whether they had issues with it or not and I think what my what my my request would be for our next conversation is if there are particular signs that at the end of conversations with Amherst College planning department staff still have concerns or issues about to highlight those concerns about those individual signs I would like to hear if they have any concerns about any locations in particular with regard to sign clutter or interference with Town Way finding signs but barring either of those to focus that discussion on this one town comment side I don't I don't personally think I need to hear from staff if they are okay with a sign I will assume they're okay with a sign unless we hear otherwise and that will allow us to focus our September 23rd discussion pretty much exclusively barring other issues on on this on this one sign and this one concern that we've seen to coalesce around Paul. So that's really good summary the there are a couple places where there was sign clutter as you said and in fact in the conversations it might come to where the town with the planning department and Amherst College say well actually the town sign ought to move it's already been approved by the council but it's in everybody's best interest for us to move the sign so we would come back to the council asking to move our way finding sign because if the the designers all say no it the college should be first and whatever it is just to make it work so you know that's one of the things that are on the table as well maybe we look at we look at where we put our way finding signs and to accommodate this okay thank you George I'm just noticing that we have Seth Wilschutz and Tom Davies in the audience and at least one of them at earlier I think two of them at their hands up do you want to bring them into the meeting and have a conversation with them what's what are your thoughts on that I am open to hear from the committee my intention of this discussion was for it to be a committee discussion for us to identify what our concerns are and what we will be looking for in the September 23rd meeting where I will ask and I believe they expect to be present as panelists in that meeting and we also expect the planning staff to be there I would be happy for them to give comments as members of the public at the end of the meeting during our public comment period but I did not intend to bring anyone outside of this committee in but if committee members would like to hear from others I'm also open to that well we've had them present in the past I don't personally have a problem with it but I'd be curious what Alyssa and Andy think Alyssa Andy you have thoughts Alyssa I know you have opinions how would you know that I appreciate the way you delineated it and that you intended this to be you know in a TSO discussion obviously held in public and didn't want to force Amherst College and planning department to come back to this conversation right that was part of the point is to not ask people to come back over and over and over again to hear every pearl of wisdom that drops from our lips but in live time but given given that they're here given that we would you would add a public comment period at the end what else did you want us to discuss tonight in terms of how long do we want to make them wait and because I'm guessing there's no reason to say they can't talk so if they feel like they want to talk what's a good time given our schedule tonight I think that's a good point I had intended to just have one more public comment period at the end but perhaps we don't want to make them sit through our conversation of a residential parking policy as exciting as I do anticipate that will be and perhaps they'll stick around for it anyway um but hearing what I'm hearing from Melissa and from George uh I will hold a second now public comment period uh and so if you would are in the audience and would like to give public comment please raise your hand and I'm going to recognize Seth Seth you should be able to speak if you unmute uh I'm unmuted can you hear me yep I actually I'm going to defer to Tom if that's okay I apologize I was going to lower my hand but I didn't get it down in time no worries you should be ready Tom you should be able to talk great uh thank you uh I appreciate you uh making that is available at this point as exciting as your next topic sounds uh I probably won't join you um but uh all I was going to say is that um we do have quite a bit of history I just heard various members you know kind of wondering about history of uh bike share of land offerings and different things like that I think it probably doesn't make sense to talk to that um but um we can document those pieces of information and um send that over to whoever whoever I don't know if that flows through Paul however you want that um and I think that that might help to clarify some of the pieces that you are um you know trying to trying to remember or or you know that might be relevant that's all um beyond that uh you know we'll we'll continue to work with all the various committees and and staff members um as we have been great thank you Tom and Seth you're you're still able to talk if you wanted to add anything uh no I think um am I sorry no I think uh Tom covered it I think the you know I think we're uh are addressing the clutter um comments uh with town staff I I think Paul Paul staff would agree with that I don't think I'm out of line saying that um and so I think we have another meeting with town staff as Paul noted Monday afternoon and then we have one more meeting um with the DAAC on Tuesday I don't know what time that is um and then I you know I think we will have met with kind of everyone and we will have I know there's been some concern that there wasn't a consolidated list for you that list exists I just wanted to get through all of these um meetings so that any uh revisions that come from the meetings are all packaged and it's one final quote unquote list with the map and so we'll get that to you well ahead of the 23rd um you know probably sometime kind of middle to late next week that's all I wanted that great thank you uh so at this point my sense is that the committee has at least um a focal point for this just for this next discussion we know what we're looking for Paul you know what we're looking for and what we're expecting for the next meeting from you and staff um are there any final comments on this conversation before we move to our next agenda item George so we have no further bodies that we want information from we are um I believe we have DAAC that we'll have a memo from them or have already and we'll have DRB um and that's sufficient there's no other entity or body that this committee needs to hear from there's a question I think my answer is I'm okay I can't think of any so I'm assuming no one else can either I'm going to take the lack of hands as we are at so by the 23rd we will have recommendations right from the DAAC from the historical commission and from the designer review board and from planning staff so are there other places from which we want feedback or recommendations Andy? Yeah just to throw one question in that is whether there's any need to at least check with the Commonwealth DOT regarding their plans for Route 9 and whether there's anything that they have a concern about that they would like to express to the town is that question being asked to them? Paul? Yes the college has been in touch with the with the Department of Transportation on that project. Thank you. Alyssa? Yeah just to clarify I don't think there are additional committees I really appreciate Andy bringing that up because that is incredibly important we all know what it's like when DOT just takes it into their head to just go do something without any discussion with anybody ahead of time is we haven't actually gotten the DRB comments yet because I don't remember seeing them but I just want to make sure I didn't overlook something. I'll let me double check but I believe we had them in our august 26th packet planning staff had given them both and they had created a document for each sign where they provide a comment from historical and DRB. Yes. Okay seeing no further comments I'm going to close this discussion and I think we know what we're looking for for our next meeting and at that point we'll expect to have planning staff and also Amherst College staff for a broader conversation and potentially a vote and recommendation for the council. So with that I want to move on to our next agenda item which is the townwide residential parking policy and this is the the baby of of Councillor Ryan here and so I want to hand the floor over to him just to sort of introduce or re-introduce we've seen this before right but it's been a or some version of we've seen some version of this it's been a while. It's my prodigal son. It's much too old now to be called a baby. It's been around for a while to say the least. It's ready to go off to college I think at this point. I appreciate you taking it up or putting it on the agenda. Part of it was to give a nudge to Guilford and see if we have a chance to look at it and have some thoughts. We all just got a memo from and we just heard actually this evening from a resident of Kendrick Place that gives us another example of the kind of parking issues that do occasionally bubble to the surface and do come to us as keepers of the public way and so originally this began with Lincoln Avenue and then the request was made by a number of counselors to really craft something townwide not just to be responding to one particular problem and so that's what Guilford and I worked on and we basically he presented a piece and I took a piece and I kind of put it all together and what you have in your packet is that a draft it's just a draft at the moment but the idea is that given having something like this if we could come to an agreement and the council would agree to it you know when these kinds of issues do arise take the example of this evening there would be a policy that would guide us and guide the public as to how we would go about dealing with it. The other thought I had was and this is made it going beyond a little bit of what we want to talk about tonight is that of course this process of parking and so on keepers of the public way requires a public hearing and in the past we felt like that has to be the town council and I think many of us feel that that why does that be the town council it could be TSO TSO could easily hold that public hearing and so that's something else I'd like you to keep in the back of your minds so the policy is there you've had a chance maybe to look at it maybe not I would like to hear if possible from I don't want to put him on the spot but if Guilford's got some thoughts if he's had a chance to look at it at all it would now is a chance for him to speak and then of course they'd like to hear from my colleagues what their thoughts are but I have tried to respond to the request of a long while back to produce a policy document that if adopted would then guide us in the council with these kinds of requests like Lincoln and Kendrick Place and so on and so forth so those are my thoughts at the moment. Thanks George. Guilford do you did you have anything you wanted to add about this? Not very much I mean we did work on this together and I actually there's a couple things I got there's a couple things that are a little different which is fine with me but if you actually if this was the policy and Kendrick Place came to us and wanted to know could they have parking or no parking on the street Kendrick Place is only 21 feet wide so if we applied the criteria to it we would have no parking on Kendrick Place because there's not enough room for parking unless we added extra space for the parking so that'd be a kind of a cut and dry easy first look at it saying hey no there shouldn't be any parking on the street at all because it roads too narrow it's only 21 feet wide so you can't you can't have parking you definitely can't have parking on both sides and two travel lanes in the middle just not enough room there so it's a good way to flush things out I know there'll be exceptions there's always exceptions there's always constituent circumstances that work into things but it's a good way to start and to face your your primary and your actually your preliminary recommendation on it so I like it and I I think it would help us a lot. Okay so I want to open up to questions and comments from the committee before we do that so my read of this policy you have several sections of it that are labeled with permanent numerals and it seems that sections one through three are about criteria that we would use to evaluate any parking change request whereas sections four and five are about the role of the TSO and the role of the Transportation Advisory Committee which so those are separate sort of very separate things right one is criteria and one's about the role and so I think that it's useful for us to have a discussion about both the policy and the criteria that we'd be using to apply but also what we see as the role of this committee and the council in that process because those might end up being two very different conversations so I'll open the floor and call on Alyssa. So here's my problem this product is not in the public packet it's only in the SharePoint and I don't use the SharePoint except on a temporary basis while I'm waiting for it you know because sometimes because we can put stuff in SharePoint so we can do that at midnight and then when staff comes in they can put it in the public packet it's not in the public packet I'm back digging around in SharePoint to remind myself oh yeah that thing you looked at in SharePoint isn't in the public packet so I don't like talking about documents at meetings that haven't actually been in the public packet that just are internal documents that yeah so I'm going to leave it at that okay that that it George well that's a real problem I agree Alyssa's right I didn't think to check I use SharePoint all the time of course I always had this document vetted for like six months or whatever so but I agree it really has to be in the public domain when we're going to talk about so I guess that's a real problem. I will take some responsibility for that I asked George to give it to me he put it in the SharePoint packet but I'm realizing now that I never said to Athena hey this has been added to SharePoint can you add it to the public packet because usually it works the other way around Andy. Yes I agree with the point of stress but I also don't think that it would be inappropriate to go ahead at least to have some discussion I certainly would not feel comfortable taking action however tonight because it's not in the public packet and it's not therefore been available to the public for discussion there have been several different things that came up and you know the distinction between the role of the committee and the policies that was made I think is important that we address both eventually I don't think that we necessarily need to do so tonight I felt like as a memo it was very well done I appreciate it greatly but it did have a little bit of a lack of clarity between whether it was an internal memo as opposed to a standalone proposed policy for adoption because there was pieces in there that talk about sort of things that the committee and the council need to consider and that's not what a policy ultimately ought to look like so I wouldn't want this document to become the policy that we end up with presenting for adoption because I don't think it reads that way I did have some small comments about policy that I'm not going to bother with because it still wasn't disagreement with policy it's just I think clarity of language and I could come back to that in some other format so I'm going to therefore be left with a couple of other issues one is that I think that the Transportation Advisory Committee was dismissed too wholly from this document I think the TAC is a very thoughtful hardworking group and I would rather have TAC at least have an opportunity to come to future TSOs and offer their input because they come at it with different expertise different views and I don't think that it's ultimately a TAC decision but I do think that it's important that we hear from the Transportation Advisory Committee and the other thing that I was so uncomfortable with is that it was treating parking on residential streets separate from the issues that we've been talking about fairly significantly in this community and that is parking generally and availability and whether there's an ample supply of parking and it becomes important because on a lot of residential streets that happens to also be streets that have been used for permit parking and so that the relationship between this policy and the parking discussion in general and the use of permits the amount of permits we're going to issue and where they best located for the purpose for which they're being issued end up really needing to come together if you're going to be thinking about parking in a holistic way and so I was uncomfortable in the end with that but that not having been touched on in the proposed policy that we were looking at. George. This is helpful I think first of all you're right that in a sense it's all been put into one big package but eventually this is going to be separated out and if we do come to a vote at some point which I hope we will about a policy some of this will not be in here but it's here for I guess it was put in here simply for everyone to think about and for instance the question of which we could talk for a few minutes today if we wanted is I think it's appropriate for this committee to be the agent through whom public hearings are held. I don't think that it's a good use of council time to have an entire town council convene a public hearing on a parking issue. I think just as it's been done with other matters through CRC and with TSO itself that this would be an appropriate place for those hearings to be held and then we report back to the council. Councils are obviously welcome to come to a public hearing and participate but we take a burden off the council and put it I think in a place where it could be handled I think fairly well. So I think that would be something that I would include I think would be appropriate in the policy and that's why it's there for us just to think about but other pieces need to come out I agree. The role of TAC, Andy I completely agree that that it would be wholly inappropriate for us to deal with a parking question and not hear from TAC and not have a report from them. So this maybe I didn't make it clear enough but my point simply was at least in what I was trying to say was that they should not have any formal role they don't vote they don't make a decision but at the same time we as TSO would make them a very important part of our process of referral and we would expect and ask for a report from them and maybe even invite them to participate in the discussion but so I agree with you on the role of TAC in that sense I was simply trying to say that wherever this finally settles it should settle with elected officials and most likely on a council committee not with with TAC for instance so I agree with you wholeheartedly that they should be involved it's just that ultimately decision should be up to this committee up to elected officials. I'm a little maybe you can talk some more about the permitting this is really meant to be focused on not solving the larger parking issue in Amherst but just as Guilford mentioned just dealing with the sorts of issues that come up like Kendrick Place or Lincoln Avenue I think Andy you have a thought that you mentioned to me the other day in terms of one way streets and so on this would be the place where that would come and then it could be presented by staff it could be something that a councilor brings could be something a resident brings eventually but it's here where that discussion eventually takes place and we make a recommendation but it's really about the issue of parking and everything else I guess I don't you could add to the criteria of that something like you know presence of permit parking in that area or something like that it certainly should be taken into consideration but I don't see any way that this policy document could address you know where it should be or how what extent it should be or that sort of issue that seems totally out of what this policy is trying to address so I don't have any problem with it as being a criteria to be considered when dealing with a specific parking request but I don't see how it could go into this as a policy document where we make statements policy statements about what we think about town-wide parking as to do with permits or the downtown things like that so maybe you could help me clear get clarity on that because I don't see a place for that in the policy as I've envisioned it though I do see a place for it as a criteria to be considered along with you know like parking demand is what it says on the on the in the policy document resident input availability of off-street parking these are criteria and that would I think also include you know the existence of permit parking and what role that might play Andy? Yeah actually what I'm saying is I was thinking of saying it's directly responsive to the point George was asking about some of the streets that I think are problems as far as applying when you look at this policy and whether there's enough room in the streets or whether or not are streets that have permit parking as part of the usage of parking on that street and I think therefore we can't ignore the fact that as we apply this policy and I'm not saying that we shouldn't because there's been lots of fraud and lots of good reasons including one stated earlier today during public comment just to find this kind of policy is needed that it may reduce the number of permit parking spaces in town and if that would be a result I think it is the responsibility of the council and the committee to be thinking about what does that mean? Does that mean that we can't have as many permits or that we need to find more permit parking elsewhere is replacement but we're going to change the criteria on permits in order to reduce the number of permits issued there are consequences and to ignore the consequences of this policy doesn't make me feel comfortable. George. So Andy would adding a criteria such as you know consider in addition to X Y and Z consider also the effect on the availability of permit parking something to that effect put into this as one of the criteria that we've considered when dealing with any specific request would that go some way to addressing your concern or are you asking for some kind of substantive statement in this policy document that's where I just you know I'm suggesting maybe adding something like that as a criteria to address your concerns so that would be considered as part of as the process as we go through well what effect does this propose change so take Kendrick place Gufford says look there really shouldn't be parking on that street at all so if we had no parking on that street how many permit places would be lost I don't know maybe none maybe 10 but anyway that would be something we'd look at and then we'd have to make a judgment as to whether that is something that you know merits I mean anyway that's what I'm suggesting. Yeah I'm not sure that Kendrick place has any. I don't think it does but I don't know. I think it does either and so it sort of makes an independent decision and I don't think Lincoln does either no at this point because I think that the last permit places are on parallel streets like that or on the North Prospect but as you're dealing with various streets and going around the other side towards Amherst College and some of the streets that are back in that section I can't even remember all the names of Dickinson Sealy whatever they were they do have permit parking and I think that there are with issues that could be legitimately discussed and should be discussed but when you if you start doing that you then are reducing the number of permit parking and that to recognize in the policy that consideration is being given is to what the effect is going to be over on the whole parking system and changes that might be necessary in the parking system might be an appropriate thing to do as a solution because in the end I think there's a lot of what concern to all of us is that if emergency vehicles can get to the properties where they need to provide services the best problem and not an acceptable situation and so I think we do have to deal with it. George. So I just want to read the very last statement of the criterion section which says that these factors the ones that are listed above and imagine adding to that something like the effect of availability on permit parking imagine added that but anyway these factors that have just been listed above should be considered evaluating any proposed residential parking request it should be the totality of factors and not one single factor that should be decisive and then in recommendation or final council decision they should be referenced and in making the case. So in the case the Guilford mentioned this evening maybe we could argue that even though by the strict definition of 21 feet or whatever it shouldn't have parking at all given the fact that it's basically a dead end street that has a number of residential buildings on it you could as long as you could get safety you know public safety vehicles and delivery vehicles and so on you we might say parking on one side is permitted so it this this is not meant to be rigid it's meant to allow flexibility and to take into multitude of factors obviously the width of streets is important and but and Guilford can weigh in here he might say no you know that it's just if it's not 21 feet you can't have any you know can't have one side parking but the way I envision this policy in the way it's written at the moment is it gives a fair amount of flexibility but references specific criteria that should be used including street width and so in the case of Kendrick Place I could imagine if that came before us and we had a public hearing and we discussed it we might might possibly come to the decision that you could we would recommend putting parking on one side of the street even though according to the strict definition it's not allowed and then we make the case for why we would say why we think this should be the case or we could say you know Guilford's made it clear that 21 feet is the limit and that just can't be done so no parking at all other comments just go for please I'm sorry yeah I say I think actually taking into account the the permit parking is quite doable I'm if you've watched my head I've got my chart over here on my right side I've been going through figuring things out there's really only maybe three streets that actually have an issue with this requirement and you'd have an issue with the permit two of those streets are actually residential parking not downtown center parking and residential parking was put in place for another reason it wasn't put in place to actually provide parking spaces for people downtown so it's actually doable with some just it's doable to make it work within this and within the criteria so I don't really see a real big problem with that George so if I were to remove sections four and five and add the suggestion of the effect of availability the effect on the availability of permit parking could this then come back would the committee be willing to have this come back to them sooner rather than later because it's really it's been almost three months now and and then people it would be in the packet where it's supposed to be and people who have a chance to look at it because I'm what I'm hearing from Guilford is that it looks like something that he could work with I mean Paul may want to weigh in at some point maybe not this evening but he may have concerns but I'm just thinking practically we have a resident to come to us this evening and is written to the council and you know they couldn't get there you know the trash truck couldn't get through so what happens it seems like that's a place where we should act but we need a policy first that was the request and I understand that so we have a policy I'd like us to move on it fairly quickly I'm willing to to tidy this up a bit and remove the sections that that are not really related to a specific policy and maybe put in a separate document and I would like the committee to consider whether they'd like added to this the recommendation that public hearings be held by TSO with these matters that they not be held by the town council Alyssa I have to go back and check my notes from our last town council but I believe that certainly I was talking then about the idea of these kind of hearings being held at TSO like you said just like CRC and I thought maybe GOL was going to be addressing that as saying yes it's fine for TSO to have the hearings for things that the town council needs to have that are in this area just like it's fine for CRC to have things in this area so great on that I really appreciate all the comments everybody's made and I think it's been synthesized pretty well as to where we're at I do want to just extend absolutely we need to say something about as Andy indicated something about the effect on the parking system in general in terms of the inventory and then as an example permit parking right because that might not be an example people think of um whereas they often just think of either parking is there or it's not there but they forget about the park the permit parking part of it I and something that's in there that indicates the flexibility right so like you said you don't just say oh your street is x-wide read this document forget it you're done like that's the end of the conversation there needs to be a way that they can say yes I know that's the way it's written but what else can we do it sounds like and and I appreciate the way you tried to describe this at the end of the report that you're taking that we've given up on the idea of residents going to tack that even though yes that was my long ago select board hat that thought that's what I wanted tack one of the things I wanted to do was to field all these questions you're saying based on your description here that they're not an elected body this should be something we should be responsive to so we'll ask for their advice and we will definitely always ask for their advice but we will not send people to them first that part of their they need to we need to fix their charge they don't get to fix their own charge we need to fix their charge that indicates that's no longer a thing that they're going to try and develop a responsive system for this kind of thing that you're saying it needs to come to the town council which then leads us to the question of the concern that was brought to us in public comment tonight and I know we don't respond to public comments but then we talk later about whether or not we need to address it in some fashion that email came to the full town council it was talked about tonight at TSO are we expecting that that individual has to now go to town council public comment ask for of course we can't respond at town council but then the town council has to later in the meeting say yes we want the TSO to work on that or can the TSO just say hey we're going to work on this as an example as we work through this policy because in theory committees are supposed to be able to do things that are within their purview even if the even if the town council hasn't told them to do it so from a practical standpoint I want to know how we're going to address this Griswold's concern because this is not the first time it's come up about Kendrick place it came up well before the town council obviously you know the if we're going to cut out TAC which is in terms of gatekeepers right they're not going to be gatekeepers already went to DPW DPW didn't say oh yes I can just solve this boom or I will bring this proposal to town council so we have to do something with to address that concern because it's been brought to us as a public safety concern not just a not just an inconvenience so that's part of this and then in terms of the broader picture again to circle back to that is we don't have very many policies the ones that we do have aren't particularly well written and it's one of the wonderful things with committees and we have to decide what does a policy look like and I really glanted onto something you said near the end George where you were talking about if there's a separate document because to me a policy we all have different views but to me this policy is too long and too detailed about you know either it fits this or it doesn't either it fits this or it doesn't or maybe there's some looser thing maybe our policy part is shorter and the idea is that it's an appendix right and then that might the appendix part might change over time and that's something like the TSOs involved in bringing that appendix back to the town council when it needs to change rather than having this big long policy that every time TSO realizes it's not working we have to take it back to the town council to change the overall policy maybe there's a way to make the policy part shorter town council approved and the rest of it's TSO with town council understanding this is why TSOs bring stuff to town council because they follow TSOs followed this plan I hope that makes some sense yeah if I may respond Evan thank you there is a rule of ROP change is being proposed it's in your packet you may not have had a chance to even look at it yet and all it does is it just says the council has the authority to assign public hearings to whatever council committee it wishes so the council can write it go ahead and just do that this sort of you know what happens when a citizen comes it could be automatic referral the council president could simply it's a parking request parking change just gets automatically referred to TSO just like go well get stuff constantly from Lynn relating to proclamations and resolutions she doesn't bring to the council just once the council has made the decision these kinds of things go to TSO even right now given TSOs charge I think she could probably go ahead and do it anyway automatic referral to us and then we do what we're supposed to do the larger question of whether we can make this shorter I'm gonna have to really think hard about that I hear you but there's a lot of stuff in this that that it's important well yeah I have to think hard about it because it's just things in here that I think people really need to know that this is sort of the policy we follow on the one hand it's it lives in TSO so maybe it just is a TSO thing and the council policy is just saying something like these kinds of issues go to TSO and TSO deals with them and they hold the public hearings so let me think about that maybe that's all the policy statement we need from the council and the rest of this is an internal document thank you Georgia I think that's a that's an interesting point in many ways it it feels as though well not to bring this up because it was controversial but how OKA had its internal process of evaluating things and now obviously that's become a council wide thing but this is different we did I just just want to throw out so we did as a council vote to designate TSO to hold those public hearings already I believe yes um so I was a little confused by that question because that's already been done so is there something additional you're referring to I think I'm just not go ahead I'm sorry I think that was just one of I mean like George said he's been working on this for a long time and I think that's just a portion he didn't get a chance to update because like why bother but but in addition to what George said right we did vote that as I thought I remember but it's going to be added to the rules procedure in a more generic way and so we can just you know reference some place in here that we're already doing it because yes you're right George just as you wrote it's a good idea the town council it's a good idea but yeah that that separation it may be that we're better off having a short policy but then this is as a town council policy but this is TSO's procedure and you know that can always be questioned right what's TSO's procedure but having all this written down in a procedure is incredibly important so I'm not I don't want you to lose any of it I'm just talking about putting it in different buckets so yeah maybe does become an internal document for this committee and I'll discuss with Lynn but maybe the it's already been done maybe we really don't need anything more than what has been done the real question is for us as a committee how we want to now handle this and that's what this document is about right so I so the there's a couple logistical questions that come up here so if it's a policy of the council obviously needs to be voted on by the full council have two discussions and all of that if it's an internal document then it's an internal document although we would still want to make sure the council is well aware of what we're doing to me you know as I said at the beginning of this conversation this this document is really two different things right it's evaluation criteria and guidance on how to make a decision but then it's also the process and I'm I'm pretty comfortable with the criteria part and I was curious to hear if Guilford had any concerns and it sounds like he does not and I'm sure if he thinks of some he'll let us know and so that part I'm pretty comfortable with I'm still not completely clear on the process part of things so it and that's where I think some guidance on the council policy will will be useful because I think the council will want to know if someone emails and says I'm having parking issues on my street is TSO just going to take that up and make a recommendation or does the council want to discuss whether or not to refer to TSO I think that's an important point I think deciding whether what triggers our review is also an important point if we get one email from one person who says there's too many cars on my street do we go through this process that you know how does that happen those are actually the things I'm more concerned about and so I would I agree with George I'd like to see us move somewhat quickly on this because this has been sitting out George has been having this sit with him for quite a long time but as he noted this all started with the Lincoln Ave parking request that was I don't even know what that happened we were meeting in person so it must have been a long time ago um and so at we decided about a year ago to table the discussion around the specific Lincoln Ave parking request so that we could pursue a town-wide residential parking policy and one of the ways in which we justified that was that we were going into fall 2020 where we knew classes would be primarily remote we knew the campus would be at reduced capacity the campus is now reopened and so I expect that the residents of Lincoln Ave are now wondering again what's happening with that and so it seems to me that a good use of our time would be to try to um since it doesn't sound like there's a whole lot more work to do on the policy part of it although perhaps a little bit more in the process part of it but we do technically have an outstanding referral about Lincoln Ave that we haven't fully dealt with we just tabled it seems to make sense to me for us to and I'm happy to hear your comments on this for us to work on finalizing this policy figure out whose policy it is and then test it perhaps on that Lincoln Ave referral and also on Kendrick Place since we've heard um the concern in email and in public comment today and because this has been a long-standing um concern and so to me the next step would be for George to bring back a revised version um that looks a little bit more like a policy and it separates out the process from the criteria um for us to have that discussion but also figure out and this can also be a conversation as George said with with the president about whether we want to bring this to the council or not but whether or not this is a council policy or TSO policy is that okay is that where we're all at George that's certainly where I'm at and I'm very much leaning toward the idea that this is an internal policy document that we perfectly happy to share with the council but we created because we're given the job of dealing with it then we report back to the council and then they make their decision they have the final say we're just crafting a policy that will govern how we review these sorts of things we already have been given the authority by the previous vote of the council so I will check this with Lynn but I think what I will bring back to you unless I hear otherwise from the rest of you is really a document is an internal document about how we would deal with this and I will clarify with Lynn whether she feels there's anything more needed from the council officially other than just a report from TSO at some point that notifies the council that you know we now have created our internal policy and we're happy to share it with you and we're open for business. Melissa. Couldn't unmute trying to do too many documents at the same time so there's that separate document TSO public way review process that's got eight steps so it feels like that's a shorter version of a portion of this policy not sure how else George might be seeing that so I think that we probably do have something that we need to take back to the town council at some point although it may not be immediately that addresses the question that I think we've each touched on in one way or another about when we already said oh we can use this for Lincoln we could use this for Kendrick Place but when we get the next request right and is it a single email are we are we please tell me we are not having people sign petitions please tell me we are not doing that um that all their neighbors are telling us to do something a certain way I think the town council probably does need to have something that says you know when a question about a public way comes up either the town council needs to informally agree that that's just automatically going to go to TSO and TSO will wrestle with hey do we think this is one person do we think this is a whole street do we think this actually impacts three streets that are really close together and then we tell the council or something but I think that somehow the bottom one of the bottom lines we need to address here is still the fact that when somebody comes to public comment or writes us an email as town councilors right rather than as TSO we don't know what to do with it and so if it comes back to like George said very clearly with uh proclamations and resolutions right Lynn just automatically says off you go off to go out if it's the same for these things and we say we say off you go then I think we'll just need to add more information at some point not necessarily this revision about how we as a TSO decide how many how much effort we're going to put into any individual request like that right like how soon we'll do it if we'll table it if we'll say it's regarding something else whatever but we just need to be clear with the council what's going to happen and so if Lynn just says as president just says to George yeah if that's what you want to do yet I'll just send every public way request over to you just like I do with resolutions and proclamations do you have fine done we don't have to write anything down I guess that's okay unless it feels like it needs to be in a rule of procedure any further uh Andy yeah I mean this is tough fun because we really are touching on something that means a lot to a lot of people for good reason when you have a short street like Kendrick one homeowner is a significant percentage of the people living on the street and but also going to have a significant percentage of the problems that exist on that street so hearing from the one person in and of itself a significant and it's sort of hard to come up with policy is that therefore applies to all streets the other thing that's been in the last time is there was a little bit going beyond just parking is you know are we talking about all traffic issues and all and other kinds of concerns because they arise all the time and uh I give you as an example I think Alyssa was there too at the district five meeting the other day there was substantial discussion about both middle street and the area around the that is the south common the south amherst common or whatever you want to call it and so those were issues that were beyond part of that weren't parking but they were still getting back into this whole thing of traffic related issues that come before the council used to come across left forward George so this is about parking that's it what evolves in the future I don't know but this is just about parking and that's all I really want to to tackle at this point the other thing is that Alyssa mentioned the process that I outlined and put in I don't know maybe it made it into the the official packet tonight I know I put it on SharePoint at one point or I shared it somewhere but it's eight steps that kind of I'm just an I sort of a notion of how we actually go about a process and the key point is the public hearing and the question will always be no matter what we're dealing with so with Kendrick place if we actually take it on we will have to have a public hearing if we take on Lincoln again we will have to have a public hearing and the decision that will be made by whatever whoever's on TSO at that point is is this rise to the level of we want to have a public hearing and we may decide it doesn't and that's where it dies now citizens or residents may be unhappy but now they know who to be unhappy with it's those five SOB's on TSO it's not Guilford it's not Paul we are the ones that were elected we're responsible for the public way and if we decide in our infinite wisdom that this just doesn't rise to the level of requiring a public hearing and us taking it seriously we have to live with the heat so that would be kind of my argument for this that's why we're elected it's our job Alyssa I'm not thrilled with that additional acronym that I hope you're not adding to our definition section there George but other than that yeah I think I think you're right I mean we've moved past my long ago idea of this going to tack because of their expertise so they're not the gatekeepers DPW is not going to drop everything every time one who may be a very large percentage of the of the group or you know a whole street every single person signs or whatever that's not necessarily going to make sense for DPW to drop everything and say oh well let's come up with a plan to take the town council I think it does make sense that rather than going directly to town council that it goes to TSO and we wrestle with it and if people are unhappy with what we we decide then they go back to the town council and they say those guys are idiots I can't believe they won't take me seriously and then we have a different conversation right but this way people know where there is to go they'll see all this criteria when we say internal document just you know we're not scaring anybody here like there is no such thing as an internal document it's all public it's all going to be available to people everybody's going to see it it's just not something that we're going to every time we want to change a sentence or a comma we have to get it re-approved by the town council and so that that's sounding very sensible to me okay so I think we're nearing the the end of this conversation so I'm looking at our calendar and my thought on this is uh we're not going to be able to take this up at our next meeting I don't believe our next meeting we're going to devote time to the Amherst College Wayfinding and trying to get to a recommendation on that which has the potential to take up some time and we're also going to start having the conversation about the McClellan Street North Pleasant Street proposal on that public way so my my thought on this is that this will be an agenda item at the september 30th TSO meeting I'm going to assume unless he tells me otherwise that that is a sufficient amount of time for George to make the the edits that he sees fit to make and I will make sure it is in both the SharePoint but also the public packet for the public to look at so we'll plan a returning to this for a larger conversation on September 30th my thought on that is that we will then be able to possibly not take action on that but have it included as part of our report to the town council for the town council's October 4th meeting so that they have an opportunity to see what we're doing and they don't feel surprised that we've adopted a internal policy TSO policy on parking and then we can adopt that on October 7th and start planning out how we're going to apply it with some of the streets including Lincoln and Kendrick Place where we have heard complaints does that sound like a good pathway forward? okay seeing nods so we will plan on that so then I'm going to close that conversation and move along on our agenda we have to do our minutes we have August 5th and August 9th minutes that I know are in both the public packet and the SharePoint I'm not sure about the August 26th minutes so I am going to just stick to those two did anyone have any changes to the August 5th or August 9th minutes okay then I am going to move that we approve sorry I'm sorry I was got too slow on getting to back to my unmute button I have to make sure I get the right there's some small points in one of the minutes that I noticed as I was reading through in almost to the point where they're not substantive they're more in the nature of what you'd call Scrivener type errors changes and I don't know if we want to deal with that level of changes during this discussion or how you would like to handle that I'm looking for them now I would say if they're not substantive if they're Scriveners I'm comfortable approving the minutes and then if you could just send me what you I read through the minutes I'll be it quickly and so I clearly missed them but if you would just send them to me then we can make those changes but since they're not substantive I'm comfortable with us not having to have that as a compensation unless others want to that's fine with me they're really just like one word things okay that are grammatical not substantive okay so if you could just send those to me and I'll make sure those are fixed before they get uploaded okay then I am going to move that we approve the TSO minutes of August 5th and August 9th 2021 I second okay any further discussion okay I'll call the question we'll start with Andy yes Alyssa abstain I'm an I George I okay so that's three in favor with one abstention and one absent as far as there are no items not anticipated by the chair 40 hours in advance looking at future agenda items so I gave you a little bit of an idea of where we're going September 23rd again we'll be returning to Amherst College Wayfinding and looking at the North Pleasant Street Kendrick Park proposed improvements September 30th the plan is to return to the townwide residential parking policy and also to take a look at the North North Pleasant Street improvements that are in North Amherst and then October 7th we will return to the the townwide residential parking policy and start talking about perhaps adoption and what the path forward would be our next meeting we also are going to have to figure out when we want to set the public hearing for the McLean Street North Pleasant Street proposal since that does involve changes to parking and so over the next several months townwide parking policy and those two proposals are going to be our primary focus Alyssa I'm just a little confused because I'm looking at a document in SharePoint in this case the tentative TSO agenda items which still refers to some of our dates as possible which and we know has been updated but we already decided we're having the hearing on the 14th of October okay so that's a done deal so working backwards from there right George figured out already that we had to decide on the 23rd what it was the hearing notice was going to say I believe okay how George managed that yes we just need we need that document to be updated to be clear around that I can I can do that sorry part of part of this is the fact that I always had missed those meetings and so I'm going on the document conversations George that was we did not vote on it so I created it as a timeline for people to consider we certainly are free to change those dates I thought I was thinking about their 14 day time limits and so on those dates made sense to me but they're not something we voted on so Evan you can change them Alyssa could change them or you could propose to change them but that document does lay out a kind of timeline that when I created it made sense but it's not something we officially approved so I hope we keep to it but it's something we can easily change because we never really voted on it and you are the chair now act and so as you know you may look at it and go I want to change these dates and then just tell us but I believe you have it I can certainly send it to you if you don't it's been it's in SharePoint that's was created just to guide us and be altered if you want thank you George also quickly on September 30th Guilford knows this I think it's a staff presentation so on September 30 he will be presenting to us and to us on North Pleasant Street improvements and then our task is having heard that is then you know to make a decision about you know what's next for us you know create what I call a decision points document and also think well who do we also do we want to hear from that's what September 30th is and Guilford should be I assume will be or somebody from his department will make a presentation on the 30th thank you George Andy Yes when we have the discussion about North Pleasant Street section along Kendrick Park for reasons I can explain in detail but will not try to because it would be awkward to do so I would see if Paul can ask through Guilford that Alan Snow be available to the committee as the tree warden because an alert member of our committee has made us aware of the public shade tree committee discussion on this and it seemed that some of what was presented is contrary to what I heard in a conversation with Mr. Snow thank you Andy Alyssa thanks for your patience I was just going to clarify that it's the the schedule that George referred to that he's of course saying of course you can change it because that's George but he made a point we we picked those dates for a reason and so we have to make sure that we can get the legal notices in right by those points and if we're going to change them then that's going to change the point we have to get the legal notices in so George counted for that when he came up with that schedule and that schedule is in fact in the SharePoint for tonight and it was in the 26th public packet the same version so it's been out there it's just a matter of ensuring that we are really sure that we can get staff to put the public hearing notice into the Gazette in the timeline that the Gazette demands for us to be able to do that if we're going to make that October date still work okay thank you I appreciate all of these comments as I'm trying to navigate acting chair position after having been absent for some time um okay George you still have a hand up just quickly the public statutory committee should be one of the committees that we routinely refer to from now on or seek out along with TAC and along with DAAC that's something perhaps we'll talk about at a future meeting but I think we're getting to the point where we're realizing that there's certain bodies that just as a matter of course we would reach out to um with these kinds of requests and say here's what we got um if you have anything you want to let us know please let us know and give them a date that's what I did with public shade that's what I did with TAC that's what I did with DAAC and so I'm not sure I think Andy's point was that this should be something we always do pretty much with almost anything it might make sense to have Alan present for other reasons which is great but we should always be reaching out to them I think for most of these issues as a matter of course just if I may Evan please um there was there was something that Mr. Snell said to me in a conversation at the Kendrick Park dedication ribbon cutting that seemed to be contrary to a recommendation that was in what was presented presented to us as minutes of the committee I think that it's really a factual question so that I think we need to come to an understanding of what it is that's possible to do and I don't want to get into it further um with it because it's not on the agenda okay thank you Andy all right so we have a lot of work ahead of us um but that's good so uh if there is no further conversation around future agenda items um then I uh the one thing I will say is I want to I want to thank everyone for humoring me about meeting at 5 30 um today um given that we do expect Councillor Dumont to return at the end of September and given that she does have a conflict um with a 5 30 meeting I do expect us to return to our 6 30 pm meeting time um so just a heads up about that and go ahead George next meeting though do you want to make it 5 30 I don't see a reason why we can't I mean it's a small nod to staff it's a little bit easy I mean the 30th you're right we're gonna have to go back to 6 30 but the 23rd I don't see why we can't meet at 5 30 is that an issue for anybody Darcy's not going to be here and she won't be here yeah so unless she suddenly announces she wants to be here um I think we could go ahead and meet at 5 30 at least one more time um if that doesn't create too much confusion and then after that I think we'll probably have to go back to 6 30 right if people are okay with 5 34 September 23rd I'm okay with that yes okay I definitely I know I prefer that and I I know that probably staff appreciates being able here be here a little early we will have quite a few people here for our September 23rd meeting okay then with that I am adjourning us at 7 35 pm all right thank you thank you all thank you Paul