 not yet okay all right you're all set right good evening I'm calling the July 23rd 2020 meeting of the Town Service and Outreach Committee to order at 630 March 12th 2020 orders and decisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the town committee I will now call on each committee member by name to confirm you can hear me and we can hear you yes I can hear you and I can see you you just can't see me sorry Darcy Dumont yes Dorothy Pam yes Evan Ross yes George Ryan yes those assisting the meeting will be monitoring committee member connections and if necessary will pause the meeting until we're reconnected we request that everyone be patient with the process it does not appear that we have anyone for public comment because there are only eight participants and that's the eight of us we have another public comment possibility at the end so if someone shows up we can ask okay so we don't have any action items no appointments tonight nothing we have devoted this entire meeting to finalizing our review process and if there's time starting discussion about adopting a process to guide TSO in reaching out to stakeholders to review just very briefly because we've done this quite a few times now the background on this TSO started looking at a draft review process that was based on one initially referred by the town meeting advisory committee that documents in our packet so that was that was referred to the town council which recommended setting up a resident town council advisory committee to look at the pros and cons of proposed measures that's what that proposal was proposing that proposal was referred to the community resources committee which modified it to omit the part about creating an independent advisory committee but kept the guidance on readiness for review and outreach to stakeholders the CRC does use that process now some form or another and also referred it to us the town services committee upon our creation so we're going to look at that hopefully to try to finalize it tonight I'm going to try the meeting is scheduled to be over at 8 30 I'm going to try to stop at 8 o'clock to do a time check please somebody please remind me if I get off track I want to be able to go over the draft revised work plan before we leave today so that's kind of part of what we're doing and before we look at the I took the the review process that we looked at at the last meeting tried to make the changes that we agreed on but before we look at that I would like it if we could just pull up the town council rules of procedure so because they're very much related to what we're doing if we could just look at rule 8.1 and so under non-emergency measures is basically what we're talking about in our process proposed 8.1 a non-emergency measures proposed bylaws and other measures that these are the the requirements for bringing a proposed bylaw and other measures needs to be introduced in writing to be limited to one subject which shall be stated clearly stated in the title three bear the name of the sponsor for being the form necessary for adoption so a proposal to adopt amend or repeal a town bylaw shall set out and full the portion to be so adopted amended or repealed with additions indicated in bold and or underline and deletions indicated by striking through any council action that provides for the imposition of a finer penalty shall be in the form of a proposed bylaw each proposed bylaw shall include a statement of authority for the council to act with appropriate section of the charter or mass general laws clearly cited and proposed resolutions proclamations commemorations or citations shall be introduced either by a council's councilor sponsor or by a group petition or by initiative as described in charter section 8 to be 8.3 and 8.5 so I am not going to read the part about emergency measures but I did want to go over 8.1 a and so 8.2 has to do with referral of measures which is relevant to us because we get the majority of what we do is referred to us by the council so 8.2 a says the council may refer any measure to a council committee to a council committee that should be singular I believe the town manager or town multiple member bodies which shall constitute a request for a report on such matters the council shall specify a time period for a committee to report back so that's based that's a lot of what we do we get things referred to us by the council and the council committee shall report back on any measure referred to it under section CD or below within 45 days of referral so that is sort of the default 45 days so and then it talks about financial measures under C which we don't get because we are not the finance committee town manager appointments we do get bylaws estates all measures proposing bylaw changes shall be automatically referred to the GLL committee the measure proposing a bylaw change is referred to another committee in addition to the GLL committee the time for the GLL committee to report back to the council should not begin until the other committee has completed its review and made a recommendation on the measure and the president will notify the council of the referral at the next regular council meeting so I'm not going to talk about F because that is not something that we normally do and then G says the president may refer a measure to the appropriate council committees upon receipt if that measure is deemed to contain a minor request for action or as time limited a minor request for action includes but it's not limited to revisions that do not change policy a time limited measure shall be a measure that requires the council to act within a period of time which if referral waits until the next regular council meeting could endanger the appropriate consideration of the measure and committee or the presidential notify the council of all referrals at the next regular council meeting a council committee may choose to take up a matter brought to the council's attention and within its jurisdiction without formal referral from the council if it notifies the council at the next regular council meeting after it takes up the matter so this all pertains to the town services and outreach committee I don't think we need to look at eight point three and I think we can actually pull up our proposed review process which is like I said it's just a new draft of what we came up with at the last meeting oh I'm bringing that up for me I am I am pulling up a word doc so that I this is a plan is that I'm going to be able to work on it if necessary so can we see it okay alright so the document is color coded and the coding indicate is indicated by green is the part that I thought we had a general consensus on in the last meeting yellow is just a little bit of new language and red are areas that we talked about at the last meeting but I don't think we agreed on so I thought maybe we could start with the green and if you have it if you have the document that you can pull up on your own that would be good too if I thought that maybe the first thing we could do is look at the green and see if if you all agree that this is language that we had consensus on Evan do you have a comment sorry my share point has like not been really working the past week so that's good so why don't we take Lynn could you could you scroll up just so that we make sure that we have the title to and one thing that that I would comment about is that the title refers to the definition of measure in the charter and I don't know if any of you looked that up but that is a pretty darn incomprehensible definition in the charter and so I'm not sure we want to refer to it because it doesn't even track the list of items that were listing here it did occur to me that we could say proposed process for review of non-emergency measures in parentheses except town manager appointments or something like that so that it would be everything except emergency measures and town manager appointments but that I don't think it makes sense for us to to even mention the the definition in the charter it doesn't track what we're saying and I can read it to people if they want to hear it it's it is the word measure shall mean any bylaw order resolution or other vote or proceeding adopted or that the town council might adopt so any thoughts on that and if anybody if there's someone who would like to be in charge of watching for hands that would be good Alyssa yeah I mean I I understand because I just really have a hard time with that term measure because it's never been meaningful in Amherst before and it hasn't suddenly developed and so I wonder if one way around it to is also to just say like right at even though it's so beautifully laid out and I hate to mess with the structure but to just say kind of at the beginning no this does not apply to town manager appointments and it did you say not emergency measures because I nobody's reading the title honestly in terms of like what all the thousands of things are that are in there and so avoiding using the term measure whenever possible I think is good and mentioning right at the beginning of the document that this does not cover town manager appointments because at this point it doesn't I think that would be just really useful so people know oh that's not this but I mean we're not going to get a resolution sent to us so it doesn't matter that the concept of measure includes the word resolutions right so if you have a specific suggestion mine was say note this does not apply to and town manager appointments and whatever however else you want to categorize the things it doesn't apply to where would that go listen like I said I hate to mess with the with the way it's set up but it feels like it should be near the beginning maybe it's a subheading I'm not I don't know the heading is super long so I don't know what's the right answer may oh let's see should it be down should it be before people get very far right because they shouldn't be looking in here to see if this is how we talk about town manager appointments now why it am I sharing my screen I'm seeing the green no this is Lynn screen I am I don't think this is a word document so I can't do can I could you allow me to share my screen I thought I was doing that but that's there we go okay so well I just want to make a comment here Darcy for me the most important thing is that you said draft revised and the date because I have put all my papers in front of me and I don't know when they for first presented and which draft or which version it is and it's just they all are about the same thing but this one I could tell what it was because it had exact date of when it was last touched and dealt with so I think that's good I just some way to make sure that we know what document we're talking about because the green helps on this one too um are we are we okay with the title do we want to it's it struck me that if we if we keep in the part about is this a public health or safety emergency the only reason to ask that question is if this process won't apply to that right or not it's useful to have it there because if it is then we say well that's not what we're doing here isn't that right you said that this method is not to be used for public emergency things yeah so asking is an emergency is a way of keeping us on target okay maybe we should go back to the title after we do the body because that will what we what we determine about the body may affect the title so if we look at this why don't we look at this section preamble down through number two here and does anybody have any any do you disagree that we had consent census on that or are we okay with it that sounds like I don't hear anyone objecting to anything there okay so moving down to just just looking at the green part I am getting a really good feeling about this okay so I'm I'm hearing or not hearing anything so I'm hearing that we do have consensus on the green part okay so let's go back and just look at the red parts one at a time and see if what people think because there was some discussion and we'll go we'll do the title last after we've done everything else so there was a question I think George brought up at the last meeting as to whether we should be asked why we would be asking is this a public health or safety emergency so any comments about that whether and I'm going to assume that if there are no comments that we should leave it in I guess if I can just speak up I I guess I just need some help as to okay let's say the answer is yes or no or whatever I mean so the answer is yes so what is it what does that mean and what does the answer mean you go to policy I'm sorry because this policy she said though we haven't you know put it near the top that it was for non-emergency measures I that's I'm kind of assuming that but that's up to this committee that would be a reason why like we'd have some kind of accelerated process we might not have to have a preliminary presentation we might be able to you know we do the same things but faster okay and that's why it's here under timing issue right but so but like I said it's not it doesn't really make sense to have this question unless somewhere we say that this process doesn't apply to non-emergency measure or to emergency measures right I see no problem with redundancy but you know I don't write this kind of stuff okay so this is not my natural area but redundancy often keeps people from making mistakes there are hands up Darcy oh sorry okay yeah so I think maybe some of us are viewing this in different ways I I never anticipated we would have one process for non-emergency and one process for emergency I my understanding which I think is what Darcy just articulated was if we get something that we determine is a public health or safety emergency then that influences the timing of the measure right and so for instance for the surveillance by-law we sort of got kind of preliminary presentation but said well this isn't an emergency necessarily so we can hold off on on getting this the full presentation later where if it was an emergency we'd say maybe we even need to schedule a sooner meeting so my understanding is all of number two is timing and part of that is how quickly do we need to act and a about when do we need to act to comply with the charter or the referral vote but C is also when do we need to act based on how pressing the issue it so maybe that's a different way to phrase it if we're getting hung up on the word emergency is you know pressing issue I don't know I don't really know but that's how I viewed it and then just while I have the floor I would be curious to know why three a is under three and not two because that also seems like a timing issue because to me too is all about what's our time determining as a committee the timeline well before we get to that is there a consensus that we should leave in is this a public health and safety emergency yes yeah are we okay with that George okay yeah let's see if I can figure out how to where are the colors do we know where they are Evan do you know the answer to that they're under home okay that changes the color of the words changes the color of the highlights okay wait a minute here this is this is clearly going to be all right this is going to be a different color green we're going to be able to tolerate that okay all right let's go ahead while I'm trying to do that to the next one what need the proposed measure addresses have to hit escape to get that little pen to go away okay thank you Alyssa put this in what need the proposed measure addresses George doubted that and I'll have to say that I went back and forth myself about that and I have kind of come down on George's side of thinking that at a preliminary presentation we shouldn't really be getting into the substance of the matter so I guess I would and I'm leaning in that direction myself Alyssa has her hand up yes Alyssa so I think we're gonna end up torturing each other a lot about what language means and so to me if you can't say what need this bylaw for example does as part of your preliminary presentation then you don't belong talking to us at all I'm not talking about like a four-page need of you know research paper I'm talking about we need to do this because XYZ is happening in our town this year last week next month or because I saw it someplace else or because we know that in a year we're going to be looking at surveillance purchases or something there should be a basically one sentence why do you want us to do this and then all the other things because honestly everybody gives us things with like paragraphs of reasons and you have to get down to like page three till you find out what is the need that needs to be done via this method right versus going and getting a resolution or going through a different process so I'm just asking for a one-sense what's the need that you're trying to fulfill here what's your purpose that that is absolutely critical at the very beginning it shouldn't get past the very you can't and so I think we're just talking about language differently because you can call it something else if you want but if you can't tell me why you're bringing this to me without giving me a three-page research paper on wage theft then I don't know why we're doing this it's a sound bite that says why we're doing why this needs to be done why we're doing it now. Yeah I guess I guess I probably lean towards Alyssa's position in this one and I guess one of the things that as a council we've never actually grappled with is you know how do we bring every measure and every bylaw that comes to us to a full council vote and so far we have right but to some extent if to me if someone can't demonstrate the need for a particular proposal I would question why we would then go through the trouble of organizing a formal presentation and using our valuable committee time to fully vet it if we can't even see sort of a need for it and so it would be a courtesy but we're not really here to do curses right and so I guess that that's where I kind of fall on it is I kind of want to know from the outset why is this thing being proposed what's what's it trying to do that that's necessary before I can see committing our committee's schedule and time to a particular proposal so I would lean on the side of keeping it how how would in what form do you think that since the sponsors are not present at the preliminary presentation how how is it going to be demonstrated well if that if that's towards me I would just say I would expect that any proposal would come much like the ones we got from surveillance and from wage theft not just with the actual language of the bylaw but with also with a brief memo and for both of those they did that right both surveillance and wage theft were accompanied by a memo that very clearly articulated what the need was for that I would imagine I would hope that anyone who wanted to see their measure passed would accompany the actual language with some form of a memo describing that and if they didn't I would probably say I send it back and say you we need something from you we can't just have raw language Alyssa yeah I mean that's what I was thinking of too I mean I get now that it makes more sense if you think about well what's the practical application of this so you could do it a bunch of different ways one is that you as chair could say oh you want you're gonna bring something to us cuz right they're not just gonna show up randomly at a meeting so you want to bring us something here's here's a form here's our process here's a form we use that says you know tell us a couple sentences about why this needs to be done now because it might very well be that somebody's so early in the process that they just want to tell us why something so important and if we say yeah you're right that's important then they'll go back and flesh it out and so and it doesn't have to be a two-page memo you know it was much more organized with both wage theft and surveillance it doesn't have to be that detailed it can be more basic than that that's why it's at the very introductory stage to say what need are you trying to fulfill and if somebody brings us we can all think of some things we get emails about that we haven't really put on an agenda yet at the town council level is if they put that on the form then we can say you know that doesn't really fit in our committee or you know actually so-and-so is already working on something like that but the way they find that out is they're contacting you they're not just showing up randomly you're sending them this process and you could also we could have a form that basically says tell us in a couple of words or you could just say that in an email tell us in a couple of words and then it gets developed as you say at a later proposal like I'm saying they don't have to have their entire by-law written before they come to us they can just tell us what the need is that they're trying to fix and then we move on from there um Dorothy I have a question I guess I'd assumed that when something comes up that we talk about it we have a discussion and that part of that discussion is what we feel and think about things and we might decide that something that has come to us is frivolous and that we don't see the point of going into it much further are we allowed to do that you're yes I would hope so but I hope Evan's right yeah now I think that that's that's part of the question of we're asked what we're asking right now George um I thought earlier we had simply addressed the question of how this fits within the charge of the committee and maybe that's dropped out or maybe I mean I've got so many documents in front of me now there's so many colors I'm getting to lose it but I thought earlier we had raised the question or maybe this is this is now the new version of it which is simply you know how does this relate to our charge why is it for us in that very simple way the need part I mean I'm not going to go to you know go to the mat on this but you know I could easily imagine a long debate between us about whether this is necessary or not imagine somebody's bringing some kind of you know proposed changes to how we do policing and you know maybe I think that you know there's no need for this at all but lots of other people think there is so that seems that comes later in our discussion right now I just we just want to know how does this fit you know why is it in front of us not what you know whether I agree with it or like it or anything else but just why is it in front of us why is here yeah and you show how does it fit within our charge I might personally think this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen and I hope it dies in early and painful death but but that is you know comes later when we talk about I take it it's content I thought here right now we're just trying to set the stage but maybe I'm maybe as Alyssa said this is just you know different ways of interpreting the language maybe she also agrees with me that at this point it's not really about whether you think this thing makes any sense or not it's just about whether it belongs in front of us given that we're the TSO blah blah blah but those seem to be very different questions and I am a little wary of a question here that seems to raise the issue of do you like this or not and I just not sure I want to talk about that yet in the preliminary but maybe we do so I'm it's a question I don't but maybe the majority here thinks yeah let's have a debate about what we think about this right in the preliminary session where I'm just trying to figure out why sit here you know what's the timeline what do we know about you know what's the information and then we throw in and what do you think about it by the way you think it's a good idea well I could maybe spend four hours and why I think it's a horrible idea but that seems like a different issue yeah I would agree with George Alyssa I agree with George too I mean again I'm just saying tell us what the basic point of this is the conversation that Dorothy's talking about some of what George is talking about that's as the whole thing unfolds but when they first come to us and we say you know actually that is a dog park situation and you want to go talk to so-and-so about the dog park and they go oh okay well thanks anyway and moving on or you may not realize that as chair but as we talk about it as a group just to figure out does this fit within our purview then we find a better a better way of solving their problem for them by sending them off to the right people but it is not it absolutely is true that we are not going to make judgments at that initial point based on those two or three sentences they put together whether or not this is a valuable thing to do or whether we're ever gonna support it we're just asking what need are you trying to fix I'm trying to avoid people bringing us draft bylaws that are draft bylaws without covers I know that we haven't that didn't happen here yet it will happen in the future if we don't make it clear that we're just looking for some basic preliminary information as to why this is the place to deal with it and if it's not we'll help them find the right place it's not about whether or not we like it so why is that not covered by the question why the measure is within the TSO charge it is because people don't have any idea what's in the TSO charge and what we think it means versus what each of the five of us thinks it means what all the counselors think it means and what the public thinks it means are completely different things we have to decide if it's inside our charge or not it's not up to the to the other counselors to decide that it's not up to the public to decide that we'll have to decide that but in terms of like understanding what they're even trying to do that's how we find out if it's inside our charge if we don't have any idea what they're trying to accomplish we don't even know if it's inside our charge yeah I I'll have to say that I it occurs to me that that these initially come to us we we for example the surveillance technology by law we all voted to refer that to us and so I'm wondering if there should be something earlier before the referral to make sure that it's going to the right place but anyway I think we should probably try to figure out what we're going to do on this we might need a vote because it doesn't look like we have consensus so I it makes me nervous because it feels like we it could be easily misinterpreted to mean that we're looking at content and making judgment at this time so I would I would move that we take out 3b is there a second right so I guess we're gonna leave it in then George oh I'm sorry George sorry George it's hard to do four things at once I agree I would suggest changing the language but I guess I said I'm not gonna die over this but I do agree with Darcy that the way it's written is ambiguous and could easily lead to in some future iteration of this committee or even you know next month and I'm this committee so long and horrid debate about why this thing makes sense or doesn't make sense and do I like it or don't I like it and even though somebody says that's really not what we're supposed to be talking about the way this is written seems perfectly reasonable to raise that issue seems to me the question simply is given our charge why is this in front of us and it should have a simple answer and if we can't come up with an answer then it clearly doesn't belong in front of us and we should send it somewhere else or whatever and our I think there are some things that refer to us by the council but there are things that have come to us that you know come from different sources and I think as Mandy's memo that I was reading the other day suggested there's some things we have to deal with whether we like them or not so it's not as if we you know there may be times we're gonna have something in front of us that we all think is really you know why are we doing this but the the charter requires us to do it and so again I just think of this at this stage that for instance a should be moved up to two because it's a simple timing question and B should be something to the effect of this question you know you know given our charge you know how does this apply how does this fit within our charge and that should have a simple answer and it shouldn't be a big long debate but you know majority rules and if majority of you want to leave it this way with the understanding that that's what the question means though we all agree that it's ambiguous fine but I would prefer just having something referring to the charge for B which I would suggest would then become a that's my thought so but we already have the question George about the charge why the measure is within the TS exactly so your thought is it's already there thank you that's right in front of me and so it should just be taken out and a should I think be moved up to two and the next question would be something about existing bylaws or whatever and so I guess the those of you who feel it needs to be stay here well make the case made it so do I do I hear wait a minute a lot of other comments here Dorothy I think that both George and Alyssa have said something that's important yes you want to know why the measure is when was it within the TS so charge but as Alyssa says not everybody knows what that is so I would say why is the measure isn't why is the measure okay rid of that is within the TS so charge semicolon what is the need for the measure because everybody doesn't know whether it's within the charge you're asking this is the sheet you're gonna give or some version of this is the sheet you're gonna give to somebody who says oh I've got something I want to bring before you and you want them to at least respond to some of these questions but whether it is within the TS so charge it's not something that is necessarily easily understood or common knowledge amongst a lot of people so we do want to know that but we're gonna be the ones who determine it I say say that and then semicolon say what is the need so at least the person who's presenting has some idea of putting down something and then we'll deal with it I'm having trouble editing here so Alyssa so I'm I'm feeling a little poked at there George because I did make a case and you're saying well I've made my case I'm starting to feel like this is really frustrating and we're like on paragraph one so I want two separate questions I don't care what order they appear in we as Dorothy just said have to determine if it's within our charge nobody off the street can determine if it's within our charge we might not even agree among the five of us if it's within our charge much less with the other counselors who are bringing something to us that is completely separate from what the need it is that is trying to fulfill if it's about traffic calming it's within our charge probably does that make it not I'm not time up whether or not it's a good idea I'm talking about isn't an idea we can act on so if someone says I want speed bumps on every single residential street we aren't going to say go away but it is within our charge we want them to put together a couple sentences of why speed bumps on every residential street is something the TSO should be looking at right now yes it's absolutely going to be within our charge but that doesn't mean that it's filling a need that we agree with which we will decide later in the process the only way we can decide that at any point in the process is if the people tell us why this matters that's all I'm asking for why do you want to do this what is the purpose of doing this I want to make it easier for kids to walk to school that is a perfectly good purpose is it related to something so say with traffic sidewalk speed bumps then yes it's within the TSO charge but that's not up to them to figure out if it's not something I I just don't understand why we're arguing over the fact that we can't work it's somehow rendering judgment to expect someone to be able to explain in one sentence why it is they feel the need to bring something forward I just why is that judgy or unreasonable on our part we're not going to argue with them we just want to know why they're doing it but you're you're suggesting that we might decide not to act on us based on what their answer is it might need to go someplace else they might be asking them they might see here's the thing if you put it in semicolons then what matters is that it's within the TSO charge to me what matters is that we help people find the right place for the thing they want to do so if they bring us something that they think belongs to us because obviously they wouldn't call you if they didn't think it brought into us and they bring us something they make a couple sentences and you bring it to us and you're like I don't know they said they want to do this it sounds kind of like it's in our charge is this the right place oh as it turns out something's being worked on over here by staff already on that have they talked to those people yet no well they might want to talk to them as they're continuing to develop this that's all I'm talking about I'm not saying is it a good idea is it a bad idea I'm saying simply I think it was half an hour ago Evan said define what the problem is that you're trying to solve with this whether George and I and Dorothy and Evan and you all think it's a good solution is not relevant we're just trying to see if this is the right venue for developing the solution or if we can help them find some other spot for it we're not sending them away we're not prejudging we're just trying to help them help themselves by get it moving along okay I don't know how much more time we want to spend on this but so if we could keep it brief that would be good Evan yeah so to me I agree with a lot of Alyssa although we might not be on exactly the same page but to me this is like the whole point of three is what's our starting information right what's our starting point and what we have about this so that we can move on to step four which is what do we feel like we need and to me what's now 3b is like basic information that you would want at the outset so I almost would maybe edit it because Alyssa said something which was what does this hope to accomplish I would almost say what's the need and what does it hope to accomplish because to me that's like just basic information it's weird for me to be told what existing bylaws exist what are the best practices from other communities without first being told what this is even trying to do and why it's trying to do it to me that's just basic starting information and not for us to render judgment but just to say this is the starting point if the wage that bylaw came to us and said this is within the charge because it has to do with procurement we need to talk to Anthony Delaney and it sort of relates to a responsible employer in TIFS and it's based on Lowell and Northampton but they never actually told me why they were proposing it and what it hopes to accomplish that's how am I supposed to understand any of that information and so that that's why I think it's important and I would actually add maybe that what does it hope to accomplish or something like that and again like Alyssa said one or two sentences is sufficient so George so I hear it I think you're making both Evan and Alyssa making excellent points is it's would it be solve the problem by simply moving be in roughly the language it has up to simply number one because it's sort of like the most basic starting question why is this in front of us given the TSO charge and what specific need is it trying to address what community need or just you just say what need is it addressing and that would be number one and then number two is timing and number three is information that we need from the sponsor or information we need to gather would that solve the problem I guess I'm hearing Alyssa's point and I'm hearing Evan's point and I think I think we all agree that at some level we need to understand why this thing is in front of us in terms of what it hopes to accomplish should that be part of number one just you know and just in a certain and those are the two questions or do people feel know it really belongs under three and if it's three then we'll leave it where it is but I'm thinking why not just at one these two questions need to be answered right out of the gate so put it up with one but we still want to know what why the measure is within the TSO charge right then combined right which is what one says as you pointed out to me quite correctly it's right there in number one and now we have something else in 3B and I think we're all agreed as to what we think 3B is trying to get at I think Alyssa's right I think Evan's right but why not just put it up with number one just why well how would you edit it and what I would say specific need does the proposed measure address I would support that sure I don't see why that's better but Darcy Dorothy has a hand up Dorothy can't get the damn thing okay I think we have enough information here for the for the revision I don't think we need to sit and go through each word at this moment I agree it is the first question I mean it made me think of you know the first question at Passover why is this night different from all other nights I mean that's the first question so let's put a good first question because I think why is a measure within the TSO charge I think that is for us that aside I think it's off-putting for people from who are coming to us I think we've got a lot of great words you're the version that you bring to us the next meeting may have a few extra phrases and we can say two or three although three are good enough we don't need all three you know but I really think that trying to do it together on anything is is very hard and I think we've got an understanding a clear understanding it is the first question why this why now okay so do you all agree with number one now I don't like it but if you all agree then we can move on Dorothy I agree you okay and so I moved when is the sponsor hoping to present to TSO up to the timing and so we just have a question of do we want to this the next red section was me just trying to make things a little less complicated and less wordy so that's just that's all that is about I mean it's not it wouldn't it wouldn't hurt me horribly to leave it in but I just don't really think it's necessary any so you're talking about the only other the red section here and they need to be altered if this proposed measure is adopted I think it does imagine an alternative that is possible that is different from the other two so it doesn't strike me as as redundant it is wordy I agree but I think it could be left the way it is I don't know how others feel is that Evan is that agree with George again all of this could be more concise but this is you know five people copy editing but yeah I think it's fine it's not a pretty sight what's not a pretty sight I people copy editing my color coding I like the color coding color coding is beautiful Darcy we all liked it it wasn't too bright but it was clear that's good I'm just having oak of flashbacks I don't know about Evan and Alyssa and we survived in fact often we went through this and it was painful but good things came out of it so I agree time is important or these right we need to get through this there is a there is a we do get some good it even though it's painful times okay so I added in unsee the words have or because obviously we could already have information as we did in our practice preliminary presentation if I already have information then I will present it and so I'm gonna assume that no one is objecting to that okay and then hand up and maybe it's residual Evan no it's current I have no issue with the word have been in there actually I think we need to take the word need out because three is all about what and it's information already gathered so this is the collection of information we have so see and D both have the word need but it but from this is already it's current information that is true all right so four is about additional information that we need so it's just the same categories from staff from stakeholders best practices any any well I guess we can look at everything not just the yellow we can just look at that for a through D and C there's anything you want to change sorry Dorothy okay I'm gonna just go back a second under number three the word need is used many many times because we're using it as a noun and then when you use it as a verb it's just one too many needs so I'm gonna suggest that on number C change it to have and may have to be altered because there's just too many needs like there's one two three four there's five needs in this particular paragraph but they're not all the same part of speech I mean all right I'm getting nitpicking but do you know what I'm talking about what do you think by-law's policy plans or goals addresses this need or fail to address it and may need to be altered I think let's get rid of that may need to be altered we're using it now as a verb and just say and have to and they have to be altered so that's a time was gonna use the word need also just it could also just be and may be altered and may be altered that's better yeah right just too many needs there too needy you asked if we had any questions with four I don't have any does anyone else have a question problem with four you know as I look at three and realize what Evan suggested 3C we should probably take out and at what point in the TSO recommendation process do we need it yeah in 3C and D actually right I'm taking out or need there okay an additional information okay so I try to change that to green for I'm gonna do it unless somebody tells me not to change it all right now the next paragraph that I crossed out because it was redundant with step 2 basically says the same things that's step 2 says so that's why that's crossed out so this is all you know number 3 and 4 are all happening during the preliminary presentation and then the TSO may also offer some initial questions or suggestions for the sponsor to consider and then the next step is the preparation all the things you know the chair the chairs designee has to go out and do these different things and then I put the language about the TSO expects to receive the answers to the questions in the information requested prior to the formal presentation because that was that appeared in both all of Alyssa Evan and George's language that they were putting forward yeah so so I can see the I can see how it's it's repetitive so I understand that I want to reduce that there is one pretty big difference between the striked out language and step 2 which is step 2 it says it shall be the responsibility of the chair chair designee to assist in preparing the measure by communicating with sponsors reaching out to the town manager reaching out to relevant town stakeholders and seeking input and best practices so that puts all of the research and communication and outreach responsibility on the chair chairs designee whereas the paragraph that's been struck says TSO expects that the sponsor will provide answers to the questions and the information requested and so who bears responsibility for providing that information is pretty dramatically different between what's in step 2 and the struck language right and I think that's going to be an important thing for us to clarify is if I'm the chairs designee is it my responsibility to reach out to the town manager and staff is it my responsibility to connect with community stakeholders is it my responsibility to the research on best practices or is it the sponsors responsibility because that's very different between the struck language and the action the language and to yeah I know that that that is a point of difference maybe in this committee and I think you all saw the the email from Mandy Joe with her her points that she was making about why why the sponsor will be coming up with a very large portion of the information but may not either be able to or have the responsibility to come up with everything so George yeah I'm just looking at the wording of the end of step one what apparently still been left after everything else was struck which is TSO might also offer some initial questions or suggestions for the sponsors to consider and I think that language needs either to be just taken out or revised and but it does get to the question you're raising which is I mean exactly what are we asking them to do and if they don't do it what are we going to do so maybe maybe should just come out completely or it should say something quite emphatic like TSO I don't know if TSO has questions then it's the then go back to the language at the bottom of step two it expects to have the answers to these questions and information requested prior to the form of presentation we provide we ask them questions and then we don't have a we don't have the next presentation until they're ready with the answers but it raises Mandy's question which maybe we'll have to come to next which is you know what if they're not able or what if they just refuse which is also Evan's question which is how much work are we getting ourselves into here why should we have to do all the hard work for somebody else's proposal obviously if it's our proposal you know whatever but this is somebody comes to us with some something and we have a series of questions that we've presented them and request for information and they just look at us and say you know you guys do it you're the legislators so what do we do about that and I think we're saying that we get we ask we can ask them to answer our questions they will be required to answer them we I meet with the town manager before every one of our meetings so I just as a matter of course talk to him about the upcoming agenda items and what staff input is needed so I don't think that is you know that's just happens anyway it and I guess I don't see it as a big problem and that as Mandy Joe said in her email to the and that's in the packet that people can see if they're watching that sponsors if sponsors are responsible for for talking to all the potential staff people or stakeholders they we aren't going to hear directly from them ourselves and I actually personally think that it's our responsibility to hear directly from stakeholders so do we want to just hear it second hand from the from the counselor sponsors with their interpretation of what the stakeholder said or what the staff said I'm not sure I'm not sure Dorothy I said this before at a previous meeting we don't have staff we are legislators but we don't have staff and I think this is taking on much too much as I read it over again it is too much now the one area where the chair or the chairs designee does have to do is probably reaching out to the town manager because we don't we were told that our own access to town workers is limited and we don't want the public feeling oh I was told I have to do this that means I can go call up anybody I want in the town and get them to do some research for me so I think that's one of the things that that has to be done by the chair the chairs designee but I think this is this is this is written as if there's a whole research staff I don't have one and so this would mean that I would say well I guess I won't be the chairs designee because it sounds like this is you know as much work as taking a college course or designing one so I think it's too much of step just indulge me here of step to ABC and D what what looks like too much work for us to do there well first of all seeking input on best practices from other towns that's that's research I certainly can see that a chair or the chairs designee gives the people who've come before you some help let them know what the process is help them make contact with the town manager and this and this relevant staff but I think it's up to them to do it now if this is something coming from us in the committee I mean George and I are gonna have to do a lot of work on preparing the Lincoln Avenue in the parking thing and George I don't know if you got my voicemail saying that we need to set up some meetings to get started on that that's something that I'm going to do all right I will do whatever work is necessary on that but I can't say I'm going to do whatever work is necessary on 25 other proposals that come in from other groups I think it's up to that the responsibility is on them Alyssa I agree with Dorothy and I don't I would prefer that you not oversell your meetings with the town manager because your meetings with the town manager are not just about I mean obviously they're so that you can help organize the work of the committee but you cannot communicate to the town manager what questions the committee has about a proposal if we've never seen the proposal and you would not be making a decision with the town manager to have Anthony come in and talk about Pro Kierman when we've never even seen the proposal that would be something you would have at a later meeting with him so I think that we can't just depend on on that contact as being which I felt like that was what we were being told that that's what that meeting served as that purpose and in fact we didn't have any procurement information given to us as a committee and it all worked out and it's all going to get solved in the end but the rest of it is I agree with Dorothy George was that I'm thinking I'm taking my hand down let's let's see we're gonna resolve this I I still feel that that sentence matters can weigh in at the end of step one I find difficult to really understand what it's saying and maybe it's just me I think what it's trying to say is that we may have some initial questions for the sponsor or need for information from the sponsor and we would like or we would expect we would require that these questions be answered information provided prior to the formal presentation that would seem to be a sentence that would make sense that could go up at the end of step one or we just strike that whole thing including the sense it's still there and just go to step two the issue of what we're responsible for and what we're not is a much larger question right now I'm just focused on that sentence at the end of step one and I'm just struggling with why it's there and maybe it's just me I just find it to be not very helpful or you know should we tighten it up or should happy people happy women leave it as it is I think it's there because of it's part of what would happen during the preliminary presentation so it's a time thing you know it's like everything under the preliminary presentation so during the preliminary presentation part as part of the discussion we would either come up with questions then or decide how we're going to gather our questions for the sponsors to consider or to we don't have to say consider we could say to answer consider sounds a little weak but I guess I I would just like to say that I feel like our rules of procedure set out the way in which counselors and others can submit bylaw proposals and that I actually think that our committee does not have the ability to constrict that and make it any more rigorous than what is provided in our town council rules so I am very strongly opposed to saying that counselors have to do more than what the rules say they have to do to submit a bylaw proposal. Evan. So I'll address George's thing and then two I think I was the one who suggested putting in that may also offer some initial questions and I think my thought was if we just had some real easy almost clarifying questions that we that we thought of during the preliminary presentation that we'd want to send off to them before they came into the formal presentation we would do that I'm not actually sold on it now I worry that we would get too much the whole point of the preliminary is not for us to deliberate necessarily the content and the merits but just to see do we have the requisite content we need to move forward and so I would actually maybe be even though it was my suggestion amenable to striking that sentence just because I don't want us to lead us into deliberation over over content and sending those questions before the sponsors have ever come to us. With regard to two I'll admit that I do feel some conflict over this and one reason is if you're the sponsor of the measure your goal is to get that measure passed and to bring forth the evidence and arguments that you have to support passing that measure if you go to a town staff member and they hate the idea of it and their responses this is awful and I would never support it. Why would I as the sponsor ever want to bring that forward to the committee right and it really shouldn't be in my opinion incumbent on me to bring information and arguments against what I'm proposing to this committee and so that's where it can get a little bit tricky is what Darcy said about you know if we put the responsibility on a sponsor and it gets filtered through them well if I was a sponsor I would be inclined to filter out some stuff that might be negative right but that's stuff we'd want to hear. On the other hand I agree with Dorothy that this is incredibly time consuming we have a lot of work to do and you know what if you have a good idea and you want it to get passed you should do the work to get it passed to me it's not on me to get to get all the information that people need in order to consider your measure and so I'm feeling a little bit torn here I guess where I stand right now is using the wage theft example whereas I think it's actually probably the responsibility of this committee to invite staff to come because the primary reason this committee exists is to hear from staff from departments that have to implement these things so I think we didn't do it but I think it was our job to invite Anthony Delaney or Procurement in and get their opinion. I do think reaching out to relevant community stakeholders though I'm not 100% sure if that's our job and thinking back to the wage theft by-law I was and I have great respect for the three counselors who brought that forward but I was for lack of a better word flabbergasted that they would bring forward a proposal that mandated inclusion on a committee by the Amherst Chamber of Commerce without ever once having talked to the Amherst Chamber of Commerce that to me was insane and so to me it would be weird for us to invite the Chamber of Commerce to our committee or seek input from them on a measure without them having first communicated with the sponsors and so I kind of think it's on the sponsors to connect with important stakeholders so I think you know if we're going down this list B I think we should do C I think the sponsors probably should do but I could see an argument either way especially if the chamber would have hated the wage theft by-law that's tricky. D I think is 100% on the sponsors if we want more information on best practices or how it's worked I think it's on the sponsors to bring that forward so again feeling conflicted um but that's sort of where I'm standing right now so we're um do uh okay George uh you're muted George I'm sorry thank you um I would suggest we strike um the entire paragraph so I agree with Evan that sentence I would like to see that sentence come out and that whole so everything is stricken um so starting TSO may also offer some da da da da da I'd like it just taken out and then down below it does you know point out that if we need information um we'll communicate to the sponsors about it so and then we tell tell them that you know we expect to have it before the formal presentation I just like to take that sentence out and is there and can you explain that George um part of it I just don't like I mean not to insult Evan Evan is a very very fine master of language so um he won't take this personally I'm sure but um we may also offer some initial questions um you know I just either reword the darn thing or just get it out of there um yeah I'd like to give it out is everybody okay with my taking that whole paragraph out that was easy we don't need it because if we have a question we'll ask it well it's in the next section anyway so um okay do we um have any we're just looking at step two now so um Evan suggested that he's okay with a b and c is that correct Evan I'm okay with a and I think b I think that c and d I need to hear a little bit more about whose responsibility it is to bring that to reach out and to bring that information forward I can I think d is the sponsor I think c I could argue in both ways well um a of course could be interpreted to mean I mean if if if the committee felt that sponsors needed to reach out or to needed to do any of this stuff whatever information they that we think they need to get we could include that in a correct um so that's you know would be I personally would like to leave this somewhat loose and flexible so you know that we can interpret it the way we want to um so and I agree that um best practices are usually you know like 95 percent of the time are going to be what the sponsors are going to be wanting to put forward um but I could see where we might want to you know we might say some other town that we know is doing something similar and we want to look into what they're doing um so I just think that it would be good and that's why I put in some cases so it's not anything that we are required to do we could just you know it's just optional so um is there there a hand up yeah hand up oh I'm sorry I'm sorry Dorothy I don't like the words it shall be the responsibility of the chair or the chair's designee that's pretty strong statement of who's in charge and who has to do it so I don't want to leave it as it is I have to agree with Dorothy and Evan I'm just going to step in here with my hand up um A and B do seem to me to be clearly the responsibility of the chair or the chair's designee now maybe Dorothy doesn't agree but I I think Evan's saying A and B are things that um the chair or chair's designee is responsible for attending to um but C and D are really problematic with C also there's the issue of who gets to decide who the stakeholders are right now apparently it's the chair or the chair's designee but shouldn't the committee have a say in this shouldn't the committee and it's you know say well we should also consider x y and z and then it's the responsibility of the chair or the chair's designee to go off and and reach out to x y and z are we just leaving that on the chair or the chair's designee's shoulders so um this we is being somewhat loose the Dorothy's correct this is very specific chair or chair's designee must do A must do B if they're doing C do we have a say in this as a committee or we just leave it up to them or do we even want them to do C and D as well well D's we're not the issue of deciding who's the stakeholder and who isn't but the question then is do we want them to have to go off and do research and I'm somewhat concerned about the workload and da da da da da so what about C and D I would just say that we have incorporated this in the preliminary presentation so what is being done in step two is just a follow-up from what we just talked about in the preliminary presentation so we went through all these things and um and so we're having this discussion on number number step one number four additional information needed so the whole committee together is deciding okay so what additional information do we need from town staff and what additional community stakeholder input might we need and then then after we have that whole discussion of all the different things you know is there a need to learn any more best practices than the sponsors already you're telling us about well maybe not we're perfectly happy with finding out about these two towns that are in the in the you know fact sheet that we got from the sponsors that's adequate we're not we don't need to look any further so then step two is just the whoever is taking responsibility just takes all that information from the preliminary presentation that the committee already directed them to do um and takes does you know next steps um I think it's you know it's pretty straightforward um and um does that make sense uh George I think you make an excellent point Darcy that that step two as it is written is based on what transpired in step one so what is happening in CND is informed by what we the committee have done in step one so you know and so your point to me is that you know this is not saying we could make it a little bit clearer but you make an excellent point that step one is taking place now step two is based on what happened in step one so it's not the chair chairs designee going off and now sitting in a corner somewhere and pondering who are the relevant stakeholders here your point is that that's all been hopefully discussed by the committee and based on that discussion they now have clear sense of where they're supposed to go if anywhere and the same with D if the committee in its first step finds that we really should consider best practices blah blah blah then the chair chairs designee has their assignment but if not then basically they're just doing A and B right um yeah yes so step two is just following from the preliminary presentation Dorothy has her hand up oh sorry Dorothy they're all important things to be done i'm quibbling with the phrase it shall be the responsibility of the chair the chairs designee so um we all agree these steps need to be taken but as to who does what when the committee the sponsor or whatever each case may be different i just think it's too rigid so that's why i'm protesting about it at length i okay that's it what what is the alternative Dorothy uh perhaps saying following following up on what has been done in step one these items will be looked into something very vague in general that gives us a lot of leeway every case is different every group is different but if you say the chair and the chairs designee will do all of these things you know why make it so complex and state every step you know first you put your foot in the floor then you lift up the other foot and do it i mean just say these are things that that are part of step two i i guess i sort of feel like someone does have to be responsible for because i i don't know how else we would do it um if i may um i agree with Darcy that um we have to have a clear sense of what comes next and what she at least my understanding what she just said for me is that whoever this this poor soul is in step two whoever the chairs designee turns out to be should have a very clear sense based on step one as to what they knew need to do for a b c and d and and if they don't they should speak up and get clarification from their colleagues and it shouldn't be a major research undertaking it's just we need somebody to prepare this for a formal presentation it shouldn't always be the chair um and whoever it is they should attend a b c and d if they have a question about c and d they need to raise it at at the point that we're at and say okay what do you guys mean by community we know what do you know if they don't understand or maybe they should just state okay these are the stakeholders that i'm going to reach out to um but i agree we have to have somebody responsible and they need to know exactly what they're responsible for if you all feel that this is asking way too much of an individual then i guess we need to have that further discussion it is asking something for sure but it does seem to me it's defined clearly by what we've done step one and shaped by that so it's not a morpheus it's not like okay george go out and you know you you know reach out to the community stakeholders that you think are relevant and then get back to us it's based on what we've just been talking about you you have to go reach out to a b and c or nobody and if i'm unclear about that i'll ask you i'll say is this the consensus you want me to reach out to a b and c and if they say yes then that's my job if they say no then good c's out i have to worry about it and d the same thing you know if it's clear from the discussion that there's a sense of the committee that we really need to look at best practices from other towns then i i'm gonna have to do something about that um and so i i agree with darsie that we need to be clear on what we're asking people to do and it's it's it's shaped i hope by step one and if it's not that person should be asking a lot of questions before they leave the meeting and it should be clear to everybody what we're expecting that person to do otherwise it is just you know it's amorphous and who knows what'll happen next unless we're trying to avoid we want to have a clear sense of what's going to you know we want the formal presentation to be effective and not to be a waste of our time um and somebody's got to do it okay thank you george why don't we take one more comment from elissa and then decide what we're going to do with step two um and then it's going to be eight o'clock fyi um elissa so i'm following more the discussion than the words on the page and so maybe someone can simplify this for us based on the words on the page but i feel like i'm hearing darsie say it's really obvious that it's going to be what's within the set the previous section and it's not going to be a dumping ground i'm hearing dorthy's concerns loud and clear because i share them completely that we don't have a research staff so maybe the way of splitting the difference is to somehow make reference to the fact that it is as directed something along the lines of as directed by just by the committee because what i don't want there to be any possible confusion about is like george just said well we'll decide before we leave the meeting it's like yes sure george we'll do that yeah we've had great experiences with that in real life that happens a lot that people leave meetings and don't know what their responsibilities are so we're trying to do better and better all the time and i also don't want it to be the chair has assigned someone to do things and they feel like they have to do them because the chair assigned them to if we're making if we're saying it's supposed to be clear that it's what the committee wants right that the committee said reach out to these three groups and the and you said back to them are you serious i don't have a research staff and they're like now man all you have to do is talk to these two people and then you say okay this is based on direction of the committee it's not just there's an assignment and you're responsible for everything it's again so much of this is based on what the committee has directed the members to say they're not just getting assigned by one person or by magically just guessing what they're supposed to do so it's not amorphous so is there just some way to make that connection to the previous you know as discussed by the committee at the meeting or something along those lines what we don't want for example is we don't want somebody getting emailed a week after the meeting saying i thought you were doing these six steps and them saying uh wait i don't remember that conversation so right we're trying to get clarity so can we add some clarity about how it's connected and how it was based on the work of the committee yeah i mean you so you could strike it shall be the responsibility of the chair and replace it with at the direction of the committee following the preliminary presentation comma the chair or chair's designate something like that to perfect yeah i i balk at the word at the direction of um no i would say no to that but based on what how about just based on the two of us just said it's a good idea why would you immediately balk at something that two people just said was a good idea um the issue with the word at the at the the phrase at the direction of i'm trying to understand uh i think that would not why don't we just say we had already actually discussed earlier saying based on the based on the the preliminary presentation discussion or something like that but that's still can you articulate what your your column is with at the direction of i'm just trying to understand that uh it's too too directive too directive i mean it's it's directive enough that that um it says it shall be the responsibility of the chair but um so yeah well let me let me pose a question then if i can to the committee because i think that the direction of it narrows what the chair and chairs designate should do and maybe that's what you're having an issue with but i guess i'm curious if if the committee decides in the preliminary presentation the stakeholders that we think we should hear from are the chamber of commerce the bid and antonio's pizza should the chair or chair designee feel the freedom to also talk to miss seigon and pita pocket or really should they only be talking to the three people because that that would differentiate the direction of versus based on is we're directing you to talk to these people and that's who we expect you to talk to whereas other language could imply that they could say and go you know who else i should probably talk to or you know who would be a good person to get their opinion now mandy joe uh addressed us did you see that in her letter yeah i i did she addressed this issue and said that um uh individual counselors may you know want to opt to to she gave the example of contacting you mass about the wild animal bylaw so um i uh i guess i would you know we're going to be talking about the stakeholder outreach separately from this so it's this is kind of part of that conversation um but uh i obviously every counselor has the freedom to reach out in their individual and counselor context to anyone they want to um so i'm not expecting i'm not planning or expecting to do that but i think that um that to be suggesting that the committee is wants to restrict the counselors on the committee from contacting whoever they want to is not you know doesn't make sense to me um but uh but i do think that it makes sense to talk about the preliminary presentation the agreement that we came up with at that uh you know during the preliminary presentation because that's sort of like our group agreement of what we're going to do that's sort of like the baseline and that is what what if i'm if i'm responsible i have to do that why are you shaking your head george well i have my hand up and if i may we work by consensus and i i really feel strongly that um you can talk to everyone but um this is a committee it's not and and we're trying to put together a presentation that we all have input in and it seems to me that um that whoever gets to do a i mean a and b depend on somebody else it's c and d and i am uncomfortable with the thought that you know whoever this person is can just go off and talk to whoever they want to um and and somehow they get to define who the community stakeholders are i mean they can talk to whoever they want but as far as the informal presentation goes um they should be guided by the consensus or by the by the committee as a whole um not just told okay go off and you know you know talk to whoever you feel like you want to and then bring them back um and the same with best practices um i do feel that this should be i like the suggestion of adding um the phrase now is out of my head whatever it was initially at the direction of the committee it shall be the responsibility of the chair the chairs does it need to do the following now a and b are straightforward i think c and d or not and i think that at the direction of the committee makes it clear to whoever that person is they can't just go off and do whatever they darn well please um you know as far as what we expect in the formal presentation so if all of a sudden a bunch of stakeholders appear that we've never had any discussion or talking about i would have a real problem with that um it's based as you said i thought quite appropriately and step one all that should come out i think in step one and uh in step two then uh it should be very clear where you're going and to whom you're going um and if you want to talk to other people about it fine but in the formal presentation um this is what we're expecting and it's at you know the guidance or discretion of the committee not at that individual's own sort of you know well gee this is what i want to do it's not a committee of one Evan yeah so i agree actually with everything george said and as we're having i offered the at the direction of sort of haphazardly but now that we're having a discussion about it i actually think it's important for that reason every counselor has the freedom to talk to and get feedback from an input from whoever they want but in terms of actually soliciting feedback that then becomes part of the formal presentation part of the package of information um it doesn't seem like the chair chair's designation be able to just talk to whoever they want to it seems like there's value in us as a committee as a group of five people talking about who we think it's important to hear from and having a list that we then say okay now get this information but to say here's the people we want to hear from but get information from whoever you want i think is could actually be really problematic i mean especially and i'm thinking in terms of let's say i'm really opposed to a bylaw i might just go out and and talk to stakeholders who i know will be super and individuals who i know will be super opposed to it so that i could stack the deck with input from oppositional stakeholders right i mean there's it seems like the benefit of having a committee is the idea of getting multiple people's perspectives and building some consensus so um that i'm actually more supportive of that language and if we feel like we need to vote on it we can do that because i know it's getting late so um i i think that it would be i think that it it really really doesn't feel good to add that language um and i would ask that we it's fine with me to put in something like um based on the the um based on the preliminary presentation discussion so that that would that would include uh what the committee agreed on and the preliminary discussion um right but i'm looking to actually restrict what the information we get from the committee from the designee to only what the committee tells them they want to get why uh because i think that's important i think it's important that we as a committee come to an agreement as the body that's deliberating this as to whom we want to hear from um and and not necessarily just be surprised when the packet's posted about who we got input from i think that's important that i i find it i know i find it to be a very uh you know very unfriendly and i would request that you not put that language in and just put some some more more um flexible and more um trusting collegial language in uh not directing your chair to do something um or the chairs designee uh i would request that and so um no it's not i you know i this meeting was going along so well um i'm sorry do i say this you know as it's on the nature of this business is that you know you have to listen to other people i would like to make a motion can i make a motion three hands up right yeah um my hand first george you want to make a motion well i i yield to dorthy but my hand was actually at first i think but and i would like to make a motion but perhaps we should let others speak first i yield to dorthy i was just going to say that i was fine with the idea that uh the committee would decide what stakeholders or what people should be consulted but i don't want to limit to say only these people um but i do think that so much of what needs to be done is that a committee as a group of different people from with different points of view gets together we pool what we know what we don't know and out of that comes something which is so much better than having just one person be in charge so um i don't i don't like things that limit i want to keep the situation more flexible and um that's really that's really what i want to do okay and um george well my motion would be very simple to insert the phrase at the direction of the committee at the beginning of that first sentence and that's how i move george read the sentence the sentence would read at the direction of the committee it shall be the responsibility the chair or chairs does it need to assist in preparing the measure for formal presentation by and an abc indeed i say could i comment on that or do we is this a formal i need a second first of all because it could die and if it dies then go back i second okay discussion okay i i wanted to say that i had not liked the sentence it should be the responsibility the chair the chairs designee we're keeping that in and adding at the direction of the committee the chair the chairs designee so i think the original problem that i brought up is still there so i i would like to um simplify it not make it so rigid in a hierarchy of who does this and who does that i don't want the chair of the chairs designee to have to do it all and i don't want the committee to tell them exactly what to do so i don't know the language except that i would just say cut the sentence completely and just say these are some of the issues that must be dealt with for the second first step two or preparation for the formal presentation will follow up on the initial preliminary presentation and will include and whether we do some of this or the sponsor does some of this or the chair or the chairs designee does some of this i think every situation might be different um so are you just like okay i'm getting this model u n feeling i did not like being part of the model u n we spent a lot of work and we didn't accomplish anything i just feel we're getting very rigid here and so flexibility amen dorothy are you moving to no i am i'm i don't i'm inviting someone else to do so may i ask for clarification from dorothy um because i am really struggling with her problem um and i'm just maybe a totally different perspective on what she and i think the point of this whole process is i want as much clarity and specificity as possible because this is a basically step one step two step three step four and if in step two basically what it says is and then some stuff happens well okay i need to know who is going to do what and if we don't want to do it then we just throw the whole thing out but i'll just say the committee the committee will make sure that these issues are covered every issue is different george i understand for one item we will say who's going to look at this sometimes it'll be the sponsors have already done it some will say yeah but i want to look at a few other stakeholders i just see i think it's impossible to write it down exactly the roadmap so and i'm saying that that the way it's written i wouldn't want to be the chair's designee would you i mean we are on something it's very big but a we are we have volunteered to do that i know but it tells us exactly what we're supposed to do and it also says that it's at the direction of the committee so at some point in the process we are going to be told or through discussion you need to reach out to x y and z so it's not like we have to sit down and ponder it well i have no problem with at the direction of the committee okay i just i can withdraw my objection but i'm just saying i'm feeling it's getting kind of rigid and hierarchical and we can just and i see that as counterproductive okay but yes i think the committee will discuss it and we'll make sure that it gets done but i think each case might be different so um i asked earthy a question again what i'm hearing is that she's she's worried about the workload is what i'm hearing is that what is that essence okay fair enough and i share that but i don't know about it okay i'm worried about the workload and i'm worried about some of the things that people have mentioned that there's going to be some power plays i don't like being in a committee with power plays i i would like it to be that these are good things to look into and we will put our heads together and we'll decide who should do it and how we would do it i brought up by a couple of people that they're afraid that a sponsor who could be somebody from the outside might come in with a biased set of evidence which we would not really like very much then there's been some concern expressed that some of us might in fact try to load the deck i would like to take out the suspicious aspects of the whole thing so that i'm and to leave it a little bit looser but maybe it's not possible i i understand george's point he wants to make sure that it gets done and he doesn't want it to be wishy-washy i do understand that but um i think we're fighting over who's who's who's who's running things and i hope it's the committee is running things that's really what i'm saying um evan yeah so and to do with his point i i share her concern about workload and i think that's why um step one four is actually really beneficial because what will happen is the committee will decide what's the information we need and then if i'm the the chair's designee i could say oh hold on guys that's a lot of information you want i don't have the capacity to do that and then i think someone else can volunteer or i always you know we can't form subcommittee well we can but then we have to post them but i have the ability to reach out to other people but at least then i know going into it here's the workload and if i feel uncomfortable with that workload i think i should be free to say yeah i can't do all that i need help or it's just can we do we really need to hear from all those people and so i think one four really helps me feel a little bit more comfortable with the workload because i have i you know work a full-time job on top of this and so you know i'm with dorthy here on that concern um i do think that i i understand not wanting limits i do think that they can be useful when you're sending someone off to do something because what you don't want as a committee is surprises and like i said i i really don't want to be surprised when i go to open the packet before the formal presentation about who we got feedback from who we got input from i want to know in advance who that person's going and i also the oca which experimented with several processes tried really hard to to put those limits on and i think it gave um the other committee members some confidence in what was happening because we can't see what the the del uh designee is doing but if we know that we sort of said here's what you're going to do and only that we have confidence in what each other's doing because we know exactly what each other's doing we're not wondering i wonder who dorthy's talking to we told her definitely talk to the chamber but who else do you think she's we know right and so i think it actually limits sound bad it sounds rigid but i think it helps give a level of comfort and confidence in the remaining members of the committee about what those designees are doing when they're off between the preliminary and the formal i would just say that um it is um it you know i am very very uncomfortable with that language i feel like it is a direct um statement about the committee's lack of confidence in me and i feel that if you if you don't have confidence in your chair that you should offer to nominate someone else to be chair because it's i i feel like this is a direct uh statement that the committee doesn't trust me so i invite you to nominate someone else's chair not necessarily at this meeting but uh i am extremely uh you know i this is the way i interpret that language so uh unless there are other um elissa that that's not why i'm using that language i'm using that language because i want our workload to be predictable and just i think haven't explained it really well in terms of also appealing to what dorthy said if it turns out it's too much work we can split it up you know it's one of those things where we don't say designee means and only that person right it's that that person is responsible but there could be other people that said oh actually i can do this piece of it because i know this other part but i'll coordinate with you because you know we have to do this presentation it is not in fact appropriate to have individual town counselors from our committee going off to wherever they might imagine would be a good place until after we have fulfilled the expectations of the committee itself this is not a constraint it's actually a comfort level that everyone knows that we're working from the same page if we find this is unworkable if it turns out that it actually does feel confining to people then we can fix it but what we're trying to make clear here is that we're working under direction of the committee as a whole the committee as a whole has to agree to something before we leave the room we know who's going to do what and what we can expect to see the next time that has nothing to do with our confidence in you and chair darcy as chair darcy has nothing but that's not why i'm talking about it all i'm talking about it simply as a way of cutting down on confusion so please don't take it that way from me dorothy that was the furthest thing from my mind in fact if we keep that language in with chair and chairs designee you will guarantee that no one will ever be volunteer to be chair of this committee so that's what i'm saying it is too much so i i just think that this you're reacting to something that's not there this is not what we're discussing we're trying to find a way to talk about how the committee works how the work gets done and how we feel about it it is not to do with challenging the chair george so darcy imagine that you you hand something off to me and as evan suggested in his scenario i go off and and bring a whole bunch of you know community stakeholders that clearly are all you know stacked in a certain way and and and you know nothing about this until the formal presentation you come to the formal presentation and and you know you trust that i'm going to you know you just gave it up to me to decide how who's the relevant stakeholders and and who should be invited and then you show up at the formal presentation and you're just beside yourself i mean it's clearly just it's ridiculous but what can you do because the way has been set up you've you've basically said to this individual you know you go out and decide who you want to stay cold who you think is relevant and you arrange for them to be before us in a formal presentation i think you would agree that that's outrageous and so the purpose of this is not to hamstring the chair but it is to make sure that we are on the same page for the formal presentation then we moved to deliberation and if during deliberation based on the formal presentation that hopefully you all had input into and we're all satisfied that that basically that's the way it was supposed to go then we could you during deliberation it seems to be perfectly appropriate for someone to say i think that we still need to hear from x y or z and and that's certainly possible it seems to me given this process but we're talking about step two leading to step three and that formal presentation should be something that that everybody knows what's coming i pity the poor person who's invited to come to our formal presentation when another counselor just lays into them um because basically they've been ambushed um that and they're they're being ambushed because the counselor is is has been ambushed um we're trying to avoid that we're trying to make sure that we work by consensus and that at least for the formal presentation um we know what's coming and and after that then we deliberate and and there it seems anything could happen and maybe we'd have to have more maybe we'd have somebody come back and talk some more but the presentation the formal presentation should be shaped by um by the committee and its discussion so that's the purpose of this this we not did we not already say that um we would be agreeing at the preliminary presentation about the the baseline of what we're going to have and that that is that's what's going to happen in step two so uh paul has a comment to me i just have um i have to excuse myself if there's anything that i do have questions for me um but otherwise i'll be leaving the meeting oh okay thank you uh does anyone have a question for paul i have my daughter waiting for me outside so oh okay great that's a good thing to be he's had a very very long day please thank you yes thank you paul um yeah we're we're supposed to be done ourselves well does paul have two cents to put in here or does he not dare don't put him on that spot that is i just have to agree that everybody's really hard to edit things as a group it's it's i just it's as hard it always is no matter what so yeah don't get discouraged all right thanks paul um okay so we have a motion on the table and it doesn't look like we have any more discussion i've lost the ability to raise my hand to turn my voice on did you have another comment Dorothy i i just have the word zoom in front of me i've lost the the apparatus disappeared um i need a bathroom break oh two hours that's i you know that's my limit so um well we have to vote on this first Dorothy um so uh uh all those can we just clarify the motion is only to is to add to the beginning of the sentence at the direction of the committee not striking the words it shall be the responsibility of is that correct george try that is the motion if it insert the phrase at the direction of the committee that's it and then everything else stays the same all those are i guess we have to have a roll call um elissa i uh darsie no dorsy i evan i george i are we okay with the rest of it yes i fyi i i'm going to get an opinion from kp law whether the committee can do this what do you mean i mean i'm going to ask for an opinion from kp law as to whether the committee can restrict the the chair in this manner it's not that it's the chair who says igni you're making this about you but it's about whoever's responsible for the this particular measure no i'm saying i would like to have an opinion a legal opinion about whether a committee can restrict the chair's ability to do stuff so um and i'm just telling you that that i'm going to do it so are we all okay with the rest of step two and i think that's all we can probably do today is a handout um yes elissa i'm gonna try really hard to say this calmly but when you say that you feel like you're being undercut to the point that you are going to go off and ask kp law for their opinion for something which all of us counselors do not have the ability to go to kp law to do that you go to the town manager and talk to them about that as to whether or not you're going to kp law you don't just have 13 town counselors asking to go to kp law about whatever occurs to them and while you're asking that that's going to be dependent on how you ask the question is is the answer that you get i don't understand why if the town council doesn't have a question or the committee doesn't have a question that you would feel it was appropriate to use town council in that way and then bludgeon us with the answer so i'm sorry you feel unsupported darcy but we really tried hard to explain that we're not trying to limit you we're just trying to be clear on who's doing what and any given moment so um i think that we don't want to do the rest of this today um so i guess we can put it on our agenda for the next time do we want to look at the work plan or do we want to uh to not do that okay i'd like to ask a question here um george you this is can you hear me because i i don't have any apparatus anymore yes we can hear you okay so i i think that george and i will meet and we'll talk about what we think that we need to do um do we have to talk to the committee this is the lincoln avenue and parking thing do we then talk do george and i then come to the committee and say these are the some of the things we thought about we want to do and get your input before we go and do it or do we start talking to some of the town people um on the topic you know like um gilbert and whatever so i really need it because we've got a huge problem project to do and i will work on it i will do whatever we have to do but i want to get started well one thing that i would um i don't think i mentioned this before is that kathy shane is interested in the um the speed limit issue and um it's possible that right now in the work plan we have the lincoln av coming up before the speed limit issue and it's possible that she might be able to get it ready faster so i guess my question is now i don't think that they're going to want to i think what george george and i were told at previous meetings that we can't just talk lincoln avenue we have to talk about the whole traffic plan in that area so to me anything to do a speed limit would have to come either as part of that or after that because you if you change the speed limit now before we've done the study that we have to do with the town staff it doesn't make sense i don't george what do you think about that my point is just that she it's possible that she'll be ready before you guys are but it doesn't matter to me um george okay she might be ready but i don't think the town would want to do that that's all but but i don't know that's just a thought believe actually elissa had her hand up first sorry elissa just quickly um i don't think it matters who's ready first in the larger scheme of things i think it matters what our committee decides our priorities are in terms of what we're ready to do and i appreciate the the frustration and the push pull as to which thing should cut chicken egg and all that but the other thing is it we are in an awkward spot right georgy and george because we haven't had that conversation yet as a committee so i think that as a committee looking for direction this would have been an ideal time to say we were thinking of doing x y z we haven't even had the very first you know step of this yet but before we spend a huge amount more work did you have any suggestions for us because that is in fact exactly what we were just talking about right right so i would like this to happen as soon as possible but so george do you think that you and i have a discussion then we come to the committee to get their input before we proceed dorthy we certainly can do this but this is why processes are important and while it is painful and difficult and it puts all of us in sometimes awkward positions process really does matter i've learned this myself with oca and with jol and we're struggling with process right now i think we're almost there but we need to finally settle this okay obviously not tonight you and i can certainly talk we have i think an idea of how things are going to look but we finally have to vote on this and say this is what our process is i think we have a clear sense of what it's going to look like um but we haven't decided yet and i i don't want to get we have a problem with i don't know how us to say it um the chair is is clearly upset and um in spite of the attempts by four members to try and and articulate the position she seems unwilling to accept that and now she's going off to the attorney to find out if she can reclaim her power when it's not about her power i know so i'm not ready to go anywhere with anything until we settle this damn process okay i'm sorry for the french but um until we settle it this committee is just going to sit here uh and you know just rowing into where it's going nowhere um and i think we really know anyway you and i can talk individually but we haven't even had a preliminary we haven't done step one yet yeah you're right totally right it seems like i mean we sort of set out what is going to be in the preliminary presentation so that would be the first thing right just try to gather that information but um uh i if anybody else has ideas or other issues that you're thinking of bringing up for our agenda that are not referrals from the town council this would also be a time that you could i know dorothy's brought a few things up with me you know off off the agenda but um we haven't had anything that it hasn't been referred by the council so and i don't i haven't heard from anybody about any such thing so but i just thought some of you might a lot of other things that you either wanted to be have investigated or you know new ideas alissa has a hand up yes alissa i was just going to say thank you for including that at the end of the meeting i know it's always hard to do that because we're so exhausted by the end of the meeting that it's like oh we're going to talk about more work so thank you for giving us that opportunity i don't know anything today but i did want to mention we appreciate that you got so much material to us ahead of time because i know i have complained about that repeatedly in the past and continue to complain about it at town council and so you did a great job of getting this stuff way ahead of time your color coding was beautiful and come on everybody compliment her on the bike rack that was a brilliant substitute for putting a pin in it or putting it in the parking lot it's the bike rack okay okay sustainable i have a question i can't see any of you anymore do you see me yes okay so i'll use the word zoom and i don't i'm afraid that if i start messing with it i'll lose you totally um i'd like to add something here well yes i do agree that i thought the meeting was at 9 30 so i was getting really pissed off that all this new stuff was coming but when i couldn't find zoom link at 9 30 and found out oh my god the meeting's really at 6 30 it was very nice to be able to go over and read all the stuff and some of the stuff we've had two or three times so it was it was a good presentation i do want to tell people that at the beginning of the meeting before it started i was so happy because i came up with an item that i thought was suited us and it was that was in our purview and that was a mask of ordinance of some kind and we found out that the department of health is presenting one tomorrow i guess or is it tomorrow with Darcy was that the right date i believe it's monday where health meets so but anyway when i was talking to Darcy outside the meeting i said i don't quite know what our committee is going to do but i know it's very important and we're going to have important things come our way so that when i thought of the mask thing i said yes that is something that kind of thing you know it'll be done much better of course by the department of health rather than being originated here but we have important business to do and i would like us to do it and i hope that Darcy does not feel that this was a rebellion against her because it wasn't it wasn't it was to get a clear idea of how to proceed and that the best way is if we do a lot of working and sharing with the committee and i think and what Evan said hey at some point i don't want to i'm interested i will do my job on this issue but this is too much work can we share it yes i think that we can share work and the people will volunteer for the part that they think is really more important i also agree that we have to get put our heads together to think about who do we really want to have to speak to on this issue so i think we said a lot of really interesting things and good things and i think that we're almost done and i i hope that we can continue forward under Darcy's chairmanship i really do so i do have a question for the committee and that is we have two things that are coming up um the the long-term public way policy Lynn asked to put off until the 20th of august and uh of course we have we've heard you know we brought up the surveillance technology by law a few times now um neither one of them has had a an actual you know formal preliminary presentation if you aren't counting the last preliminary presentation for the surveillance technology by law so the question is um do we want to on our work plan do we want to put a preliminary presentation for both of those things for their their next upcoming or do we want to just like one off and have uh you know our first our first uh well actually second of formal presentation of those two things um so what do you think because we can you know whatever you decide we can just put that on the agenda well my hand is up so i'm going to speak first if i step on anybody's toes but um we haven't had any formal presentations or anything else because we don't have a process so we have to adopt a process we're not ready to vote on it tonight unfortunately but we have to adopt a process otherwise it seems to me everything we're doing is pointless so we haven't had any formal presentations because we don't have a process we haven't had any preliminary presentations because we don't have a process we need to agree and i think we're close i think we're very close i think we have to still look briefly at the uh the rubrics and we i think there's no desire to do that tonight i understand and other than that i think we're fairly close but ideally we could do it tonight we could just vote on the darn thing and then Darcy you can start planning an agenda with preliminary presentations etc but i don't see the point of planning an agenda for a preliminary presentation on a process we have not agreed to we just agreed to everything up through step two we have to vote on this okay this is not something we just kind of do have i mean there's a process we're supposed to follow we have to vote we just had to vote on some language that was changed and eventually the whole thing needs to be presented and we need to vote on it right as far as starting you know having a preliminary presentation we now know what a preliminary presentation is that we've agreed on and i'm saying no until we have to vote on this that's not true i agree with you in in reality we're probably very not going to change it but until we have a vote um it there's not it's just it's just a piece of paper well yeah i would disagree with that um that we we have to like completely stop our forward progress and not look at anything whatsoever until we've finished because there's no reason why we can't do an hour of completing our process and um darcy i you know i i'm a looser person but i understand that when somebody who really believes in it says we have to finish the process i will have to agree because um i know from my experience in many many other places that when people really believe there it has to be tied down then it does so i think we could do it tonight i have one question about red you put plans and goals in the first paragraph and on the last page um step six under one and um i i guess i don't see how it exactly fits there so i'm just going to make a suggestion that we talk about plans and goals later but that we delete the plans and goals in red in the two places where it is and then put this up for a vote and vote finish vote the process in today when you meet every two weeks you just don't get anything done i mean i just it's true i've just come off the finance committee where we we met twice a week for for forever but we did get something done uh we've got a lot to do and um i don't want to start picking this up and talking about it again in two weeks i so i'd like to finish it tonight um i don't think we're going to do that unless if the will of the people says we could do it there are hands up i think that we actually finished with that discussion a while back and now we're talking about the work plan so um any other comments about the work plan um there's no no there are no and there's no public here i think that um we're actually going to take this up at our next meeting on august 6th evan yeah no all i was going to say is is one that i that i agree we should finalize the process but also that i think that what i'm looking at it right now because we have steps uh three four five and six which should go critical but we also um have the we have the cbid stakeholder listed i mean i think there's there's actually more for us to go through than a lot of us are thinking about which is why i definitely don't want to do it tonight um so i think it's worthwhile carving out the entire august 6th agenda to just as much as i don't want to spend an entire another entire meeting on process and august 6th may or may not be my birthday um i do think it's worthwhile to just mail down the process and then on august 20th we can ever start putting a preliminary presentation on the first issue where we try out the process okay um so any other comments all right where are we on our agenda all right is we still here adopting the minutes here you're talking the minutes okay um uh the minutes were uh amended i don't know if you looked at the minutes but there was some amending of the minutes to add some language etc so do we do we need time to look at them do we does anyone want to make a motion i would make a motion to approve the minutes of june 29th 2020 and there's june 15th also okay and june 15th there's very little in those minutes yeah here a second you've learned from pullback uh good did any people want to see the minutes i'll second because i don't think anyone did yet okay good um any uh discussion so and there and that is a motion to approve them as amended dorothy yes it is okay um alissa abstain dorsi yes dorothy yes evin yes dorsch abstain okay that's three votes in favor um there isn't any public here to give public comment is there any other then there's nothing else that i know of nothing new that came up in the last 48 hours so um let's finish this in the next meeting seems like were you know i have to say that it's seems like a lot of time spent on a process that was given handed to us by crc that was just adopted but um i had a process and then we spent five months on the new one yeah yeah yeah no i think that um there's some very basic problem here but um i won't go on about it right now so okay um we um i want to when i say if i raise my hand because i don't have i can't do it i want to make a little comment when i did my doctorate my chairman made me do my outline and this went on forever and i kept amending and changing it and i said this is ridiculous this is on and on he said once you have your outline approved writing the dissertation the 250 pages is a cinch as long as you don't go back in the library again and he was correct okay so i i just kind of chafe a little bit at the time it's taking to get our process done but when i think of it as the outline for a major work that you have to get it done and it has to be you know solid um then our work will be fast we will actually become very productive and if we need to make some adjustments to our procedure we will do it as a result of our having used it in doing good things so um just want to leave in a positive note you're here here i i declare this meeting adjourned at 8 52 see you guys later bye bye