 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. 30A paragraph 20 allows us to hold this virtual town meeting. I'll call upon each counselor by name and please make sure at that point you unmute your mic but then mute it after you say you are present. This will indicate that we can hear you and you can hear us. This is also how we will deal with counselor comments throughout the agenda. Please use the raise hand function. So I'm going to start with the roll call. And I'm going to start with Shalini Balmilne. Present. Alyssa Brewer. Present. Pat DeAngeles. Present. Darcy Dumont. Present. Lynn Griesmer. Present. Kathy. Present. Dorothy Pam. Present. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Present. Steve Schreiber. Present. Andy Steinberg. Present. Sarah Schwartz. Present. Okay. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I call the August 31st. 2020 meeting of the council to order at 6. Oh, 6 32. Just two seconds. I need to. All right. The meeting includes audio video and is available live on Amherst media. It also is being recorded. There is no chat room for this meeting. If there are technical issues, please let Serge or Athena know. Or make, let me know to make a comment or ask a question. Please use the raised hand button. And if we have to pause the meeting because of technical difficulties, we will make a note of that in the minutes. But then and surge will be monitoring councilor connections. And that's how we will proceed with the meeting. I want to just quickly ask that we put the announcements up. I just want to start by announcing this is actually not a special meeting of the town council, but a regular meeting of the town council. It really makes no difference since we're planning to have public comment anyway. I want to call attention to the two items up here. The first one. Is the new COVID concerns hotline. And also the fact that you can email town government with the concerns. In addition to that, the UMass is holding a public or community forum. On this Thursday at September 3rd at 530. And the information about that is on the front page of the town, of the town's website. Let me move quickly to the order of the agenda. There is only one period for public comment. We're not to that yet, sir. So please take it down. Take the whole thing down. Thank you. There's only one period for public comment. It will be at the beginning of the meeting. There are two items listed under topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair. 48 hours in advance of the meeting and they are listed as 14. A and 14 B. One 14 A is regarding planning board and 14 B is. A reconsideration of the zoning bylaw 11.2. Five zero. We will start with items eight A and B after public comment. Then move to seven A and B. And then we will take a break and I will assess where we are with the agenda and decide whether or not there are items. That will be moved to September 14th. And also the placement of the executive session. So with that. I would like to. Ask anybody who would like to make public comment. Please raise your hand. Let me just say. You're welcome to express your views for up to. I'm going to say three. Well, I need to see who all wants to speak. Is that all the people who would like to speak tonight? Okay. I'd like you to keep your comments to two minutes of practice. If at all possible. We'll start with Zoe Crabtree. Please come in. State your name. And if you would like to. Take your screen shot off. You can. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Zoe. Hi, my name is Zoe Crabtree. I'm in district five. And I'm just calling. Today to. Speak out in favor of the proposed. Recommendations and edits to the goal goals for the town manager. That the racial activity task force put together. I believe that you've received them. Over email. They were also talked about in the Amherst. And the general overview, if you haven't read them yet, is that it is important to weave racial equity goals. Throughout each of the town's goals. As opposed to having a separate one. And also that if there are. Goals about racial equity that they need to be attached to things that are. Specific and measurable. Which I think is really important. As well. So that's why I wanted to say tonight. Thank you. Thank you just for your information. The piece of information that was provided by us, but by the racial equity task force. I believe is in our packet. Gabrielle. Hi. I am introducing the racial equity task force of Amherst's response to the council's goals for the town manager. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And go ahead. And this is a response to the council's goals for the town manager fiscal year 21. The town manager goals for fiscal year 21 document list policy goals and management goals. Rather than relegating race and equity to one issue area. Weaving the lens of racial equity and social justice into every policy and management goal. Provide a starting point for a substantive inclusion of BIPOC residents. As well as those of other marginalized groups into the town This entails asking how the climate action, community health and safety, economic vitality, major capital investments, housing affordability, and racial equity and social justice goals are informed by what the data, both qualitative and quantitative, in addition to resident testimony about their experiences, about the experiences, assets, and needs of BIPOC and vulnerable residents of Amherst for every goal area. Such a revision could begin by using existing sources, both individual and institutional. People in regional agencies have already concluded, have already conducted interviews with Amherst residents as well as documented some of our experiences, assets, and needs. At this stage, committing in writing to an inclusion of qualitative and quantitative data about BIPOC residents and seeking to answer the question of how each policy area will address these findings would suffice. Let's not allow perfectionism to become the enemy of progress. If it were possible for Dimitri Shabazz to follow me with the second section, we would really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. We can do that. Dimitri. Hello. Hi. Yeah. Thank you. Again, I'm going to sum up the specifics of the racial equity and social justice goals that we included. It includes the formation of a council of BIPOC residents with the budget and authority to hold public meetings and invite the participation of BIPOC residents from all walks of life in a format that includes people of all socioeconomic educational strata and of all abilities, language interpretation, needs for transportation, and childcare. Also the participation of council members and the town manager is required to have anti-bias and anti-racism training provided by a third party. And we would like to include that a majority of council of BIPOC residents that would be on a contract review committee to be a part of this. Then thirdly, we want that the council members and the town manager in meetings with the council of BIPOC residents with the goal of examining racial inequities and injustices via both qualitative and quantitative data and through facilitated dialogue and testimony. We also would like that the council of BIPOC residents oversee funding for youth programming in the short term and planning for a cultural center in the long term. We also would like to see the council of BIPOC residents pursue other specific programming ideas that we've proposed through conversations, but we'd like to get them formally written. The goal of community health and safety should be expanded to include reshaping the culture of policing and a commitment to shifting funding from the town budget away from policing in a manner that not only addresses social issues, but that ensures anti-racism training and community dialogues and that they continue, including the creation of a civilian review board and the ability to highlight instances of differential treatment and enforcement. If now I could call on Isolde, we'll continue with the document. Is that a topic? I will recognize Isolde. Good evening. Thank you so much. The town manager goals for FY 21 document also lists management goals. These are especially critical goals in which to weave in racial equity and social justice. They involve the day to day business of governance and create institutional barriers for the participation of BIPOC and other vulnerable residents. For example, the goal area of administration leadership and personnel management includes, quote, retaining, recruiting and developing a highly qualified, diverse and effective staff, but does not include numerical goals. There's not a way to measure the outcome without a baseline and a goal. And we also notice that there is not a reference to multilingual, bilingual, bicultural staff who would also receive training. The long term vision management goal does not include racial equity and social justice. And so we don't think that it can see results of expanded participation in civic life and an enriched and just community life without that lens. Moving on the community engagement goal, if it weaved in racial equity and social justice, we would ask questions such as, how are BIPOC people, speakers of languages other than English, people with various disabilities, financial insecurity, varied documentation status, formerly incarcerated people, people suffering housing and security, LGBTQ people and other vulnerable communities, empowered and supported in community participation and leadership. There's also an interesting goal around the relationship between the town council and many residents. We could say that that relationship is at a crossroads. On the one hand, there's been real damage done in recent weeks. On the other hand, communication has greatly increased. How does the town manager contribute to expanding rather than contracting local democracy and community participation would be a question for that goal. Ultimately, in order to strategically elevate racial equity and social justice and the town governance and administration to advance on agenda and distribute the work of the town manager, capacity could be expanded. And we would recommend hiring a chief diversity equity and inclusion officer. However, despite the media's emphasis today on this one bullet out of two pages, clearly what we're talking about here is a paradigm. We're talking about a lens and a way of looking at all policy areas through the lens of racial equity and social justice, which are not solely dependent on one position, though such a position would be an ultimate goal. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. Thank you for your comment. Harry Mullen. Hi. My name is Harry Mullen. I live in district four. I'm also speaking on behalf in support of the racial equity task force demands and what to add to the town councilor's goals and how to weave in racial equity work at every level of the goals. I also would really like to see more clear ways to gather data and work at clear goals to gather such data. It seems like just doing some basic Google searches that there are packets from the National League of Cities on how to collect data. There's three colleges in town, all with math and statistics departments who I'm sure would be willing to talk to you about how to collect data. Appropriately, UMass has even more resources in terms of social justice, data collection or social data collection, I should say rather. Hopefully you would use it for justice. I think you can. Those are just some suggestions of places to look on how to collect this data. I know it's a big job, but I really think this town is well equipped to do it, especially with all the movement that we've seen in the past couple of weeks. Thank you for respecting the racial equity task force effort to speak in succession. That was really nice. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Harry. Anita Sorrow. Anita, can you unmute and make sure that you state your name and where you live? Can you hear me now? Yes, you can. Thank you. I'm new to this and I don't have prepared comments, but I did want to speak up in support of the recommendations from the racial equity task force. And I think I speak as an ally of the BIPOC community. I think that the goals or the recommendations that they've made are very coherent, very important, and I hope you accept them all. And I hope that this is the beginning of a process. I think we all learned, especially from the most recent issues, especially the consolidation, the proposal for consolidation of voting sites, that everything that comes before you, every decision that is made, can have ramifications that are unexpected or unnoticed when they're first talking about it. So I would just ask that you consider these recommendations as the beginning. I hope you adopt them. But as the beginning of a process, then I would ask you to consider that every decision and every project and every matter that affect the town should be put through that lens that Isolde was mentioning about, you know, how does this decision have the effect on BIPOC citizens, on people made vulnerable and marginalized by any disability, mental illness, lack of adequate housing, all of those. I would suggest that you think almost in terms of just as environmental impact statements are considered before any projects that this kind of lens can be used for everything that you do. So I just wanted to voice my strong support of this measure, and I hope it's the beginning of some fundamental and long overdue changes in our town. Thank you. Thank you, Leah. Kathleen Traphegan. Hi, thanks for letting me speak. And thanks for all the work that you do every day. And thanks to the members of the Racial Equity Task Force for all the work that they have done to put together a super comprehensive set of recommendations that we I think from the white ally community are learning from them every day. That's really graciousness on their part to continue to teach us what we need to know in order to move forward to advance racial equity in this town. And I definitely want to second what the last commenter just said about adopting the package of recommendations that they have put before you in whole because they are well put together. They are comprehensive and they each one of them means something all together. So thanks again for your time and thank you again to the Racial Equity Task Force. There's somebody with the name of MFAIA faculty. Would you please come in and state your name and where you live. Hi, I'm sorry. My name is Zhu Pong Lin. I apparently have entered the meeting with my work Zoom account. I live in Amherst. I'm a fairly new member of the Amherst community, although I think I've been living here for three years, but I think that's still considered fairly new. I'm a naturalized citizen born in Taiwan and my first language was Hoken. And so I just wanted to say that as part of my context and really appreciate the oldest comments about wanting to see a more multilingual, multicultural staff at work in Amherst, a town that prides itself in being welcoming to a diverse population. I can't say that that's been my experience, that it's been welcoming to a diverse population. I rarely see Asians in leadership roles in the town. And I know myself I've avoided involvement in this level of government because I haven't felt represented or that I have a voice. But I have been involved, beginning to be involved with the Amherst racial equity task force. And I want to really thank them and all the people that have been involved in putting forward this proposal. And I want to voice my strong support of their work. I think that the town council, when I look on the screen and see who is representing all of us citizens of Amherst, you have some work to do. This is not a very diverse group. I fully support directing greater resources to supporting Black, Indigenous, and people of color, disabled people, the homeless community, and other marginalized and vulnerable communities. And I also want to add that I'm a member of the Board of the Startup Food Co-op, the Common Share Food Co-op. And I strongly believe that food justice is a public health issue. It's a public health emergency. It's an eco justice concern. And I find it unacceptable that parts of Amherst are defined by the EPA as food deserts. And I put that in quotes. I have some critique or issues with the term food desert. But it's a useful term to note that there are places in Amherst where people don't have access to healthy food. And people who don't have access to cars, it takes a long time. It sometimes can take a whole day to get to a grocery store. So I want to call on the Town Council to support the food co-op, the mobile market, and other projects that are working towards food sovereignty. Because I think that's a big issue that is a barrier to you know, really supporting a thriving community in Amherst. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Wayling Greeney. Hi. Good evening. My name is Wayling Greeney and I live on 76 McClellan Street. And tonight I want to bring your attention to the appointment process for planning board members. I have attended Town meetings in 1995 and was a select board from 2005 to 2008. And in my tenure participating in town government, planning happened to be one of my interests. And the reason I'm interested in that is because that I work with people who are homeless struggling with housing. So the lack of affordable housing is very apparent. And I'm sure that every one of you is very aware and supportive of affordable housing. However, when it comes to the reality, we all have our pet peeves. So some of you might like me, I have my favorite child of the four children. And you have your favorite positions that you take. And when you appoint members, you might appoint people that you feel you have some similarity. So therefore you would advocate for a certain member being appointed. And that comes to the territory as a human being. And I want to recognize that. However, in my participation of town government, I realize there are instances where when the town manager used to be the appointing body for a planning board. And then over the years, when I witness the town itself have the preference for a certain interpretation of the town bylaw, such that the downtown development is in favor of developers. To the extent I also witness, there are planning board members who are not appointed because of the position they have in terms of development or not in favor of huge development. So all that preference is expressed in my participation. I really want to come up this time to say to you. We have our preferences when it comes to a child, but we all know we represent all of them, that we love all of them. So I want to urge you when you discuss tonight about the planning board appointment discussion, please realizing that you represent all of us. Some of us prefer big development because that might help us lessen our tax burden as homeowners. But some of us, we prefer small meaningful development because we want to make housing affordable in that we feel a small desegregated development is more likely to bring forth affordable housing. So therefore, that I as the spouse of one of the candidates who apply for the planning board member three times for seven positions, and I am not going to be bashful to say that my husband, Bob Greeny, has been very dutifully working hard to prepare the statements and express in action for participating in town government elections and for thinking about how the planning can be done to preserve the tax base to preserve affordable housing and to preserve the small town charm, the small town charm. However, because of his standing in favor of meaningful small development, in my mind, has contributed to his applying three times and not being appointed. And that really bring out my bad memory of one of our old planning board members. She was not appointed because she was deemed as not able to work with others. So for this, I want to ask you to please in your discussion tonight to think about that you as a parent representing all of us, you have your favorite child, but you are here to love all your children and to provide the best for them. Thank you very much for your attention. And I look forward to your discussion in 14A and 14B. Robert Greeny, please. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. I'm going to read a prepared statement. I feel compelled to say I did not know Wayling was going to talk. Anyway, I have some prepared comments. Tonight the town council will consider the recommendation of the CRC for the appointment of three new planning board members. Our current planning, one current planning board member who applied for reappointment is not included in the recommendations. I urge the town council not to approve those recommendations. Since the new town council began, there have been two previous instances of town council approval of planning board appointments. Tonight is the third time in 15 months that the council will consider a list of recommended candidates. I am familiar with the process in all three cases because in all three cases I was among the candidates interviewed and considered for appointment. Much detail that time does not permit, but the most striking feature to be considered in your deliberations is the following. In the first instance, May 2019, the four recommendations put before the council included three current members for reappointment and one new member, Janet McGowan. You may recall the long debate followed a motion to not approve the four recommendations. The main point of contention was whether or not the fourth person should be Greg Stutzman, the current, the then current chair who had served the recommended limit of two terms. This motion was not approved and a second motion approved was made and passed. It is striking and demands explanation that at that time many councilors thought reappointment so important that out of four openings, not a single one be a new member. In stark contrast, tonight you will be asked to approve three new members who have not previously applied for planning board positions instead of the normally automatic reappointment of a current member of one term and myself who has applied on all three previously mentioned occasions. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. There is one other hand and I'm only going to recognize that and then we're going to move on with our meeting. Janet, we're not, I just want to be very clear. I'm going to recognize Janet Keller and then that's the public comment for tonight. Thank you. I am reading also from part of the email that I sent the council earlier today and thank you for this opportunity to speak. As I said then, I am asking the council in the strongest way I know how to not appoint three new members who have no planning board experience but instead to reappoint Michael Burtwistle as a planning board member for a three-year term and I do so in light of the fact that there are three vacancies on the board and the remaining four planning board members have a relatively short tenure. Mr. Burtwistle has served as a valued member of the planning board but not only of the planning board but as Liaison from the planning board to the design review board and the community preservation act committee and has received praise from members of both the planning board and the community preservation act committee. I'm not aware of, I assume the same is true of the design review board. Mr. Burtwistle is the only one of the five candidates with experience serving on any planning board and I think if the town council wishes to consider some of the new recommended appointees that there will be an opportunity to do that next year when two more vacancies will open up. I would like to point out that Mr. Burtwistle meets more than meets the criteria of the CRC's outreach communication and appointment committee to be part of a strong base of seasoned members and I stress season. He also meets the guidelines that Christine Gray-Mullen who was an outgoing planning board chair gave to Mandy Joe Hanneke in an email listing the skills and characteristics that she thought a successful planning board member should have. It's a long list and it includes knowing community issues and the master plan, the zoning bylaw, and related ordinances and understanding the regulatory function of the board. An ability to communicate clearly and concisely and an analytic ability for decision making, understanding design and construction drawings and being available five to 12 hours a week on the weeks every two times a month for when the planning board is in session. Janet please wrap up. Thank you. So I would like to say that the but the CRC recommended three other candidates with no planning board experience and as you've heard did not recommend Mr. Greening. I urge you to reappoint Michael Burtwistle at a time when the the experience that he brings is crucially needed. Thank you. Thank you for your you're now going to move on to the rest of the agenda and we're starting with two items that have been delayed quite a lengthy period of time and I'm sorry we do I'm we now do consent agenda. Thank you. So let me just mention that we're showing the consent agenda up here the motion and I will make it as follows. The following items are selected because they are were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy to remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion later in the meeting asked that it be removed when the president lists the consent agenda item the request to remove an item from the consent agenda does not require a second. So the motion is to move the following items and the printed motions there under and approve those items as single unit. Referral HC referral of capital inventory criteria to finance committee 11a to d approval of minutes I want to note that one of these minutes has been since corrected with changes that were made by an earlier comment July 14 2020 joint town council and finance committee meeting minutes July 15 2020 joint town council and finance committee meeting minutes July 28 2020 joint town council and school committee cracker farm expansion presentation minutes and August 3 2020 town council meeting minutes is there anything that anybody wants removed please I have to get to the screen please raise your hand seeing nobody is there a second panicky seconds okay any further discussion at this time and I will do a roll call vote you can take the screen down surge thank you um brewer abstain d angeles yes come on abstain resmer yes panicky yes ham yes ross yes ryan yes chain yes driver yes sidenberg yes warts hi and bomb elm yes vote is 11 yes no no no no people against it and two abstentions and nobody absent moving on the next item now we get to the items that we have delayed for several times the next item is the valley cdc project at 132 north hampton road the local option and uh we need to pull the letter up and let me just say that if you have other edits to the letter i've already caught one thanks to uh councilor bringing it to my attention but the real discussion and christine breast strip is here if we have additional questions real discussion is on two items the one is whether or not all of the items under the paragraph that begins in our recommendation the local residents according to local preference is an applicant that one lives in the community two is a municipal employee three works at a business in the community community and or four has children in the schools of the community that's one of our discussion items the second is two paragraphs down and says furthermore we recommend that the zba local preference not exceed and the decision is at what percent and we can go no higher than 70 percent i'd like to have a very brief discussion and then a motion are there comments at this time um i just want to make sure that i um i understand the way this will work as i understood because i did listen to the recent hearing this local preference would be in the very first round um of the lottery does it then apply as spaces open up or is it just the first time um the building and apartments open up it's a question is is it is the first round is christine gray mullen in the audience i mean i'm sorry is christine yes sure face is on the screen okay christine am i correct that it is only in the first round that is correct okay thank you are there other questions from the council um there's no hit raise hand here um down at the bottom but pat is next and then i will call on you dorthy okay i was having some trouble with uh going to the maximum 70 local preference um but as i um investigated some of this it's clear that a local preference pool and uh the developer needs to determine the number of local resident minority households there are in the municipality and the percentage of minorities in the local preference pool and if the percentage of minority local resident households in the local preference pool is less than the percentage of minorities in the surrounding hud defined area the developer must adjust the local preference pool to reflect the regional percentage i do not know what the percentage of minority folks are here in amherst but i support now the 70 percent because it would include people from springfield and holy oak and other towns that some of the butters have been rather clear that they didn't want to have in our community so i am hoping that everyone will support the 70 percent okay um dorthy you had your hand up or tried to have your hand up there is no there is no symbol at the base of my screen for hand up for some reason but uh oh i see it over there i do okay great i just wanted to comment on the fourth one have children in the school system since these are single room occupancy and no couples it that seems a little bit strange to have because they wouldn't be allowed to have if their child overnight let's say they had a joint custody system set up so that one seems to be not relevant for this particular apartment unit um i'm going to just take a moment and speak to that because i feel strongly this needs to be left in there may be situations where people have children they may have visitation rights they may not be able to have them overnight but that still allows them to be local and be able to be near their child so i don't see that as an issue personally and it's something i feel quite strongly about george i'd like just to um express my support for the 70 percent and for the local preference um i think i've spoken about this before but so i'll be briefed that the town has made a major financial commitment to this project i think that this is part of my reasoning and i agree with pat this is a regional issue it's not just a local issue but i think there are safeguards in place and um so i would hope that my colleagues would would support the local preference again the decision is ultimately by the zba this is simply a recommendation by this body it's not binding um so i would encourage you to support it at the full 70 percent thank you uh and thanks for the reminder that this is not our decision this is just a recommendation mandy joe hannacky yes thank you um i've struggled with this one because our financial commitment is only 10 percent of the total estimated cost of this project yet we're asking to potentially require 70 percent of the first round residents first round residents of the building and project to be from amherst um that seems a bit out of sink to me um yet i did some research and our housing from our housing trust or our housing thing we have a whole lot of and i was reading the sro the valley cdc things amherst itself has a whole lot of people on waiting lists for one bedrooms throughout um the affordable housing units we have in town so if we didn't give a local preference it would likely be that a number of people would still qualify from the locality my biggest concern though is since covid um i had less of a concern about a local preference when we didn't have high unemployment but now we have huge amounts of unemployment umas just laid off 450 low income low income workers and another furloughed another 800 and some those are individuals who likely would have qualified under a local preference to rent and and apply for this building um under the works in amherst section of this local preference item yet now because they are furloughed or they have lost their job they would not qualify if they don't currently live in amherst because they no longer have a job in amherst even though they did and um i'm having real difficulty saying that those individuals who lost their job through no fault of their own because of a global pandemic and a university's decision to um furlough them and fire them because they don't have students on campus can no longer apply to live in this project under the local preference and get preference for that first round draft um so i don't know what the solution to that is but i have real concerns saying 70 percent um must be local of the first round must be local when we have such a high unemployment here that will prevent a number of people who would have qualified to be in that first round pool with local preference who will now no longer qualify to be in that first round pool i'm going to ask counselors not to just to hold off for a moment leave your hand up if you'd like to speak to the four criteria i'll call on you later i'm not i'm not taking you off the list i just want to see if we can get a piece of the letter settled shallony yeah i'm feeling conflicted about this because on the one hand we know that this is a regional issue and we want to work with our neighbors around this and at the same time i obviously want to give preference to our own people but i'm also hearing mandy joe say that they were employed here but now they're not there so are there any norms or when other similar projects were built in other places what what is generally the norm when we're working with regional issues like this christine do you have any additional information to add to that question and i just want to say shallony i'd ask that we stick to the issue of the four items yeah it's the four it's the 70 percent one right that's fine go ahead christine oh i just wanted to say that most of the time that we have affordable units in town we do we do recommend that the zoning board of appeals require that 70 of them be for local preference and i am not aware of any time that they have not done that so in my experience um this is very typical that the first round is um 70 local preference are there any comments about the four items four criteria not the percentage not the percentage Dorothy i'm not sure if in fact that many of those workers who are furloughed would be included as not working for the town of Amherst they still from what i read they will still be receiving help benefits and it's they have not been fired some will be but a large number are furloughed which means that they have certain rights to that job to return to it so i think that they would in fact be counted as having as working in Amherst can i just add to that Lynn because i looked it up a furloughed person is still employed is in employment law employer guidelines there is still an employee relationship um it's very different than being fired um even if you were laid off temporarily you have it so that concern we would under when you said the specifics if they have been employed in town and are now furloughed they would count under what i understand our criteria to be elissa you have to unmute okay now all of a sudden there's no hands up okay is there anybody else who would like to speak to the four criteria not the percentage the four criteria elissa yes i believe the four criteria which have now disappeared from my screen thanks to unmuting um are actually accurate for the reasons that were just stated because again it's not you that you have to meet all four of those and we are still i believe we still have plenty of municipal employees plenty of current town residents and plenty of furloughed people again all of which would have to be looking for a single occupancy place whereas many many many of the furloughed workers and laid off workers have families that couldn't possibly live there anyway so given those four separate criteria and that they're not additive that they're separate i feel very fine with having those be the four criteria are there any now we'll go to the issue of the percentage are there additional comments regarding the percentage sarah schwarz so yes i hope this is okay and you tell shut me up if it's not but i want to say that i i am not supporting um the percentage or the the four criteria and i will tell you it's because i have a sister that um is on disability and it's had section eight for probably 20 years now and her life would be greatly improved and her health if she were able to move from where she is in western massachusetts to amherst and she has told me repeatedly for the last 10 years that there is absolutely no way she will ever be able to get affordable housing in amherst because quote unquote we are not friendly there's almost no way to get affordable housing here if you are not from this community so because i am touched by this personally i just wanted to i don't know if anybody else has this experience or has had it i just wanted to to bring that up comments sarah are there additional people who would like to speak to the percentage are there people in general are we ready for a motion i'm going to try a motion then the motion is to authorize president greece marches sign the letter to the zoning board of appeals regarding the implementation of local preference titled draft letter regarding local preference at 132 milkhampton road at as of 7 27 2020 obviously we'll change that date recommending that the zoning board of appeals seek approval from the subsidizing agency to implement a local selection preference with the allowable category categories of current resident municipal employees employees of local businesses for the initial lottery or has children in the local schools and lease of 70 percent of the units at 132 north hampton road is there a second kathy you have your hand up i second i just wanted to make sure you're going to fill in the blank that we saw in the page originally so that's you put 70 percent but i second is there any further discussion dorthy you have your hand up uh seeing no further comments we'll move to a roll call vote kathy angeles yes dorthy yes then greece mersey yes mandy joe hannacky no dorthy pamm yes evan ross no george ryan yes kathy shane yes yes yves reiber yes andy steinberg yes sara schwarz no shallony ball moon no elissa brewer yes nine four four against and no abstentions the motion passes um and i will change the letter date accordingly the next section the next item at one point was on the consent agenda we removed it because somebody wanted to remove then so we bothered not to put it back on um this is an item regarding the master plan update request and with regard to that i'm going to first call on uh christine gray mullin and christine breasta and um the motion for are the um you will the motion and that was voted on by the landing board is on the screen in front of you so uh christine gray mullen uh yes um hello i'm actually going to pass the mic over to christine bestrup who has a prepared statement at this time but i am here if anyone has needs information about the planning board thank you thank you shall i speak yes please um so last winter the town council requested that the planning board and the planning department undertake an update of the master plan and the update was to consider the necessary and obvious changes to the master plan including things like changing reference to the select board and town meeting to town manager and town council the update was to occur prior to town council adopting the master plan in accordance with article nine point eight of the charter and following the update of the master plan the planning board and the planning department were to undertake a rewrite of the zoning bylaw in keeping with the goals of the master plan so we began to work on the master plan update in february and were prepared to present a first chapter to the planning board on march 18th when the governor declared a lockdown due to covet 19 the march 18th meeting was canceled and the planning board didn't get back to the issue of the master plan until may 20th updating the master plan can be challenging in this time of covet 19 when we really can't hold public forums and we need to rely on zoom meetings once we began working on the master plan update it became clear that the master plan is it basically a good document but it needs implementing other than some small changes the writing that we did was mostly reporting on how the master plan had already been implemented and what was still left to do working on the land use chapter which is chapter three we did not find many revisions that urgently needed to be made the master plan can't contains an implementation matrix which is several pages long and lists many strategies that are still pertinent and timely and just need to be implemented those that are interested in the master plan may wish to focus on the implementation matrix and work on zoning amendments and other actions that still need to be accomplished when covet 19 intervened the town's priorities shifted to the health and safety of its residents as well as the recovery for the town's economy and the planning board and the planning department spent a lot of time during the spring and early summer preparing a temporary zoning amendment to allow restaurants retail and personal care establishments to operate outdoors this effort has led to some success but it really took away time that we might have otherwise spent on the master plan since then the planning board and the planning department have sensed a shift in the focus on the part of many residents and some council members who are eager to see changes to the zoning bylaw the rewrite of the zoning bylaw seems to be more of a priority right now the planning board discussed changing its priority to focus on the zoning bylaw at its july 1st meeting the board voted seven to zero to recommend to town council that town council consider adopting the approved master plan as it is for now and focus the town's attention and resources on the zoning bylaw changes including establishing establishing design guidelines and revisit the issue of the master plan at a later date we know that development is coming to our downtown and village centers and we want to be in a better position to shape that development and this is only possible with an updated zoning bylaw with regard to climate change and resiliency issues we know that ecac is working on a climate action and resiliency plan which is due to be completed by the end of the year when it's complete a decision can be made about how to incorporate its findings and goals into the master plan either chapter by chapter or incorporated by reference as a whole plan similarly to the way that the transportation plan was incorporated this seems like a good time to pause on the update of the master plan and to shift the town's focus to the rewrite of the zoning bylaw thank you christine is there any additional comment from christine gray mullen on the planning board i'll um i agree with everything that chris bestrip just stated um and i just want to encourage the town council to really think about prioritization and the best use of our town staff resources and they are limited and the planning department is already so full with so much uh we were just really uh as a board we were unanimous uh which is a big deal all of us were in agreement that we would like to see chris bestrip be able to focus more on updating the zoning bylaws thank you mandate all the community resources committee comments from your report yes um i just want to mention that we heard a similar report from the christine gray mullen and chris bestrip on july 21st and took the unanimous planning board recommendation to heart and therefore unanimously with one absent recommends that the council adopt the master plan as is based on that um obviously the motion tonight is not to adopt the master plan as is it's to stop the update process but um that was the vote in crc was to essentially adopt the master plan as is which would have the effect of stopping the update process um so we'll move to councilor clements kathy shaney of your handa uh yes i am in favor of this i think it's wise given that the examination said we have a pretty good master plan they're just large amounts of it that haven't been implemented or different pieces so i mainly have a question as the shift is on zoning um there is a matrix on implementation and chris bestrip you came to one earlier crc meeting i think it was a year ago where you started to look through that matrix um i think it may be helpful to at least you know yellow highlight priorities of things that haven't been you know to somehow say we've done these things we've done these we've done these you know tick them off and say here are some areas that we want to should be focused on and i don't know whether all of those linked to zoning or not so that's it's it's a combination of uh you know that that matrix and if almost all of them are in some way linked to zoning then the shift to zoning makes total sense but i just was thinking of a mix between what what if what things haven't been implemented that maybe we could implement without revising our our zoning law in a major way so it's it's sort of a question on the undone things on implementation i'm going to call on christine bestrip but before i do while you're answering that question christine would you just elaborate on the comment that you made about incorporating climate change and resilience once we have their plan in a manner similar to the way i believe you said transportation was done and could you just explain to the council how that happened because i think that's one of the outstanding questions for some people so the way that happened was that the planning board took a vote after the transportation plan was finished and the vote was to incorporate the transportation plan by reference into the master plan and they've done that with other plans i think they did that with the housing production plan and the market the housing market study and the open space and recreation plan so over time they've incorporated many of these plans that are sort of peripheral to the master plan into the master plan and we can come up with a list of those if you'd like right the other thing i want to mention but i also want you to answer kathy's question or comment and explain the comment on that maybe at the point at which and it will be sometime either in september or october aside on the date but we are required by the charter to have a public forum once a year on the master plan and so that may be a very good time to do some of this discussion if you will and and questions and comments i just want to point that out we originally had thought we'd have it on the uh 28th of september but that is the breakfast of yam kippur and that does not work so uh dorthy you have your hand up did you want me to answer um kathy's question yes we um some only some of the items in the implementation matrix of the master plan are related to zoning those mostly have to do with land use there are other um sections of the zoning bylaw or excuse me the master plan that have to do with open space and recreation education town services transportation and various other things and those have items on the implementation matrix that can also be worked on but they're not necessarily related to zoning thank you thank you dorthy you have a question um yes and again i want christine to respond to this there were changes that have been talked about for over a year that were small changes and they didn't get done and now this is going to put them off even further and that has me very upset one of them is the um inclusionary zoning of 10 percent the way the the zoning law is being interpreted is that this is not triggered in in in many many developments only if there's i think it's a change of use request and so we've had a lot of housing built without a single affordable apartment um the other thing that was mentioned was not a very difficult one which having was clarifying a little bit from setback um not just from the sidewalk of a certain width perhaps of 10 or 15 feet and these are things that were talked about in the zoning subcommittee and um i mean i was in part of conversations listening to conversations on these topics for a long time so if we put it off once again and don't do these very simple things buildings will be built once again without these qualities which are considered to be pretty essential but i may have it wrong so i want christine to comment on that are these master plan or are they zoning bylaws the issues that darthy was just mentioning were zoning bylaws and so those things would be considered to be the priorities while the master plan would be um kind of put aside for a while and those don't include um making change i mean they're referenced in the master plan they're not the actual action the action would come when the town council approves a zoning bylaw amendment to the effect of 10 inclusionary zoning or changing a setback so those issues are not related to the delay of the master plan that's right okay good thank you the clarification darcy yeah um the motion that i see is to rescind uh a vote that we took on february 10th and at that time we decided not to vote to adopt the master plan um because people felt like um it's we shouldn't adopt it if it hasn't been updated so um i why is it different why is the situation different now why you know my my feeling is the same way that it was on february 10th in that i wouldn't want to adopt a master plan that isn't up to date and doesn't have those um uh climate actions i don't want them just add in an addendum saying the the climate action plan was passed and and this is an addendum to our master plan they the climate action plan should be interwoven into all the different parts of the master plan just like those other plans should be also so anyway is there someone who can answer that question about why would we need to do this now um why i have no inclination to adopt a master plan that's way out of date christine gray mullen you have your hand up i believe christ best up can probably better answer this um but i and i wanted to bring up one other point but this is about town resources and just time so we i'm just saying as the planning board we heard what your vote was the last time and we did our darndest and really looked into it and christ best drove deep and the general consensus on the planning board was we have a pretty darn good master plan it's a framework it's not a directive and you have to remember that and i was a part of the transportation plan that got accepted as an addendum so it becomes part of the framework it's not you know bullet items this is what happens so part of it is the master plan as chris best have said it's not great timing right now with the pandemic going on and the communication the way it is um and that very important environmental climate report will not be done it earliest you know the end of this year so as chris was saying let's relook at this next year and and maybe priorities will shift again but right now what really needs to be done you know to double on what dorothy was pointing out those issues are what are really need to happen and bylaw changes and they're very complicated especially inclusionary zoning there are no easy answers but chris bestrip and her team and if they need other you know resources that's what they're going to work on mr morrow um so chris may have more to add but i just want to remind everyone when you're looking at that um that matrix one of the key critical parts to it is the mpic the master plan implementation committee that was never formed we could go back on a long story there and you know many but we are here now and that maybe is the most important thing that in the next year would be created and moved on for the master plan because they will be critical in collecting data so that we can properly do a proper master plan update and as chris was saying not just sort of like a report card of what's been happening and what didn't happen we really want to you know do it right so i just want to remind everyone when you do have that meeting that's really to me the first starting point you got to look at the mpic thanks chris pristine bestrip did you have any additional comments in that my only comment is that i understood that your motion tonight was not to adopt the master plan the way it is but rather to rescind your request to the planning board to um work on the master plan as a priority at this time that is that that is the essence of the motion mandy joe your hand up yeah i was just going to actually make the motion so it's on the table so i moved to rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote on we need to suspend rules of procedure 8.4 oh sorry i missed that one on there i moved to suspend town council rules of procedure 8.4 for the current agenda item is there a second ryan second okay any for the discussion on the suspension of the rules which allows us to act on this motion tonight this is comments on the suspension of the rules mandy joe you still have your hand up oh no i don't sorry your comment on the suspension of the rules garcy is your comment on the suspension of no okay then i'm going to move to a vote on this um humant no brismar is a yes anarchy yes ham abstain ross yes ryan yes jane yes striber yes seinberg yes port yes bow mill yes and brewer yes and the angeles yes so the vote is 11 for one against and one abstention so we are going to move on to the main motion now mandy joe thank you i moved to rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote on agenda item 7 i that adopted the process for updating and adopting the master plan as set forth in the document titled crc proposed master plan process 2020 2004 as recommended by the community resources committee as presented and accept the july 20 the july 1 2020 planning board recommendation but the town council consider adopting the mass the approved master plan as is for now and focus the town's attention and resources on the zoning by law changes including establishing design guidelines and revisit the issue of the master plan at a later date is there a second second discussion did you call on me lin yes i did um yeah i the language of that motion is uh i'm not sure what we're being asked to do that that we're being asked to consider adopting or we're not we're not being asked to adopt we're asked to that doesn't make sense to me that we're being as to accept the july 1 2020 planning board recommendation that the town council consider adopting not that we adopt but consider adopting the approved master plan as is for now and focus the town's attention and resources on the zoning bylaw changes what does that mean that we if we voted on this motion we're voting to consider adopting the master plan all it says is we are voting to consider adopting it does not mean we're adopting when i like to please mandy joe please so this motion rescinds our vote that we took on february 10 that adopted a process for updating and adopting a master plan it had a flow chart and all it would rescind that vote and this motion also accepts the planning board recommendation that planning board recommendation was that we move towards adopting the approved master plan as is for now we move towards that goal and we ask the town and we ask that the focus of the town's attention and resources is on zoning bylaw changes that include design guidelines and and then that we would revisit the issue of the master plan at a later date so it's a motion to rescind the vote that we took that adopted a process to update the master plan and it's to accept the july 1 planning board recommendation i'm sorry thank you um so i want everybody to write down that i'm going to say here that darcy's right that this that this motion is too convoluted i understand the words that that mandy joe is saying i understand the crc's idea here this motion needed to end at the point of saying 2020-0204 as recommended by the by the community resources committee as presented period the you do not it is not a sensible legislative decision to accept versus to reject a recommendation that tells you to think about something that's that's background that's useful that's understanding where we're going next and i appreciate that but if you're not going to say we're going to adopt the master plan as is now which you all remember from february i'm sure very well which is what i said we should do if you're not going to recommend that now if we're going to dither around some more and decide in a couple of months if maybe we're going to do that or maybe we're not going to do that that doesn't need to be in this motion all that needs to be in this motion is that we're rescinding that previous process because we did send people down a road right we asked crc to go ahead i didn't but we did as a council ask crc staff planning board to go down a certain road now we're telling them don't go down that road i believe we have a shared understanding of what's happening next which is that we're focusing on the bylaw changes that make sense to all of us that's why mani joe has solicited our comments that's why the planning board continues to talk about priorities but i i totally object to the idea of a motion including accepting a recommendation that we think about doing something that just doesn't make any sense to me so if we cut the last part off i think we'd be in good shape and we get back to it when we get back to it i would love to make a motion to amend to remove starting with after this quotation mark on presented so it's like uh halfway through and it says and accept the july 120 i would just remove that section from the motion i think it's important that it be in the minutes absolutely but i don't think it belongs in the motion second i second it your hand yes okay you said second is there any further discussion about the amendment to the motion could you explain the amendment again the amendment to the motion means the motion would now read as follows to rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote on agenda item seven i that adopted the process for updating and adopting the master plan as set forth in the document titled crc proposed master plan process 2020-02-04 as recommended by the community resources committee as presented period and has nothing about the planning board about the master plan and their recommendation to adopt it stops at the word presented that is the motion that's been made and seconded is there further comment on the motion that's been made and seconded cathy of your hand up uh yes i i want to say to follow up on elissa i originally put my hand up to say almost what what she said but she said it much better than i did i thought it combined two thoughts and if we just stopped with the first thought um what we're trying to do is the planning board gets off the hook it doesn't have to spend all this time updating the master plan it can go on to other business that's what that first part does and at some point we'll come back to looking at the master plan but we're not putting a date certain right in now and it's much cleaner that way not to have several actions embedded so i strongly support the um the amendment darcy do you have your hand up i just want to make sure that the i that the convoluted wording which said consider adopting the approved master plan that made me very suspicious of everything the master plan has not been approved so what's that mean that has been eliminated in the amendment i know but i want to comment i bet it was actually there but no no no we're voting on the amendment the amendment removes that the fact that the planning board made that recommendation is something we can't change but we can take it out of this motion okay is that is that clear cabinet darcy so that word was put there by the planning board you're saying that word was put there by the planning board motion yes okay so the master plan has been approved by the planning board okay but not by the town or the public or the town council or the town meeting by the council but the planning board's approval is a force of law well then what are we asking what do we what do we care then okay this question yeah i i support elissa and kathie and what they're doing i just have a question or concern i want to make sure i think elissa suggested that as long as in the minutes it's adequate but i just want to make sure that um the message that we want the planning board to focus its attention resources on the zoning bylaw is something that it sounds like we all or most of us share and is being communicated to them now if they read the minutes it's there i don't know that we need another motion but i'm just a little worried about that being lost in this i agree it needs to be taken out for the reasons that have been stated but i guess my question to elissa and to kathie or to anyone really is what happens to that second message is it sufficient that it's in the minutes or do we need to do something a little bit more formal where we actually vote and say and we would like you to do this is that that's my question okay um so there's a motion on the table it's been made and seconded there's an amendment to the motion and now with george has asked the question whether the phrase and focus the town's attention and resources on the zoning bylaw changes should remain or if not how could it doesn't need to be expressed in some kind of formal way or um i think it's an important message that i'd like to send um and i don't think it belongs in this motion i think that elissa has made that point very clearly but is it going to get lost in the shuffle i wouldn't i'd like it not to be lost maybe something we'll deal with later okay we can go back and add it and make an additional motion or we can just rest on the fact that it's in minutes and like the congressional record it becomes part of what the town council has said haven't you not spoken yet i was just going to say our our planning director is in this meeting she's heard it she heard it from the planning board i don't think it needs to be formalized in a vote i think that the message has been sent you have your hand up yeah i was simply going to say what evan said unless they felt like they needed us to write it down in which case we could just ask mandi joe to update them on what we did tonight so i'm going to call the question on the amendment okay and that is to rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote on agenda item seven i that adopted the process for updating and adopting the master plan as set forward in the document titled c rc proposed master plan process 2020-02-04 as recommended by the community resources committee as presented lin i just want to voting to amend that motion yeah the vote the first vote is to remove the phrase and accept the july 1 2020 planning board recommendation from the motion so that it would read if that motion passes it would read as you just read it thank you so the motion is to remove the second half and ask it now reads the way i just read it yes okay any questions all right then moving on uh see uh greece mersey yes anarchy yes ham yes bros yes ryan yes yes shane yes driver yes danberg yes shorts yes ball millen yes brewer yes de angelis yes jamon yes it passes 13 to zero no extensions and nobody absent we did the next item and we have to now vote the actual motion that just approved the amendment okay so now the rid thank you the original motion is the motion that has now been amended is to rescind the february 10 2020 town council vote and i agenda item seven i that adopted the process for updating and adopting the master plan as set forward in the document titled c rc proposed master plan process 2020-20 02-04 as recommended by the community resources committee as presented that is the motion we are now voting on evan do you have a question yeah actually i so to be honest i was surprised when i saw the motion on the motion sheet um because the vote in crc the recommendation from crc was not that motion the recommendation from crc which was a 401 uh was that the council adopt the master plan as is the planning board recommended that we consider adopting the master plan as is and so i'm still not clear why we're rescinding our our directive to the planning department to update the master plan but not including but saying we're going to put off to later actually adopting the master plan when it the committee that advises on planning has recommended for zero to adopt the planning board which as mandy said has already approved the master plan ask that we consider adopting as is why are why are we putting it off why don't we just do it right now if we're already saying we're going to stop the update we know we're going to be starting up a whole new master plan process probably in the next few years why i don't understand this this hesitation or this whole line just adopting it as is tonight mandy jude you have your hand up yes so um when i brought the crc recommendation to the president we discussed a process you'll remember that this was up for it was originally on the agenda back in early august um at a time when we were dealing with a whole bunch of other things section 9.8 of the charter requires a public hearing be held prior to actual voting on the master plan to adopt it so the thought was let's get the message across to the town's uh staff that they should stop working on the master plan while we work towards trying to figure out when to schedule a hearing on the master plan in order to be able to act in accordance with how section 9.8 of the charter requires us to act in order to act on the crc recommendation that was made can i um i just want to intervene at this point okay the motion that's been made second to the amendment means that all we're doing tonight is stopping the process on working on the master plan in order for us to go forward with a discussion about whether or not we're going to adopt the master plan i think deserves its own agenda item i think we need to have the hearing we need to have a public forum and i think if we spend any more time tonight debating those issues we're wasting everyone's time anybody like to speak let's move forward the next item on the agenda we still have to vote okay thank you haven't actually voted the motion yet all right so we're voting the motion i'm going to start with uh hannoky yes ma'am yes ross yes ryan yes shane yes briber i steinberg yes fort yes all millen yes brewer yes the angeles yes iman yes and as a yes so the motion passes 13-0 with no absence or abstention okay okay now we can move on right okay we are now going back to items 7a and 7b i promise you a break at the end of these two and just want to make sure dorthy heard me on that one okay okay um so paul you're going to give us a brief presentation our statements are just an update on the community safety discussions yeah so um i want to you have received the um for the goals discussion a statement from the racial equity task force um i want to give you an update on where we were on this conversation so i have had a pretty extensive conversation with tisha buzz from that group um but also had a extensive conversation with members from the defund 413 folks on thursday night uh where they were primarily interested in learning more about the budget process and how to involve themselves in the budget process earlier in the system in the in the year um so that was a very good session with them um as we move forward we will be reaching out to multiple other members of the bipod community and attempt to um develop a better presentation for you at the next meeting so that's that's for the that that presentation were any questions of the town manager at this time on this clearly it will be coming back at a future meeting pat de angeles i'm sorry um i am interested in finding out where we are with the establishment of a committee um to overlook um the policing we froze two positions in the budget so that we would move forward and there's that group is supposed to report at least preliminary report by january 31st and i feel like it's in limbo and that's making me very uncomfortable i hear you on that pat um and know that the clock is ticking and we have to get something to you and that that's our highest level as highest urgency level but want to make sure that we are involving a broad set of members of the community in that in that so it's not just me appointing groups of people you know um so i i totally feel that ticking in my heart as well could i add um thank you and that is that is very good um i am i lost my point um but i'll have to come back and i'll email it to you paul i apologize for being 74 going on 75 it's hard that no age is no excuse okay COVID-19 update paul so if we put the slides up um search so i will be um presenting this tonight this is a update you'll see some of the familiar size but the slides but there's new information i want to make sure that you see so the next slide first a quick status report next slide so this is as of uh this morning uh the the town has 16 current cases so in the past we've been reporting on all the total cases so far since we've been counting there's been 137 cases in Amherst and they're currently 16 active cases are being monitored the other information is is all on the state's website um which you can link to from that from that link so next slide again we are in a good such good place we are you know the the indicators we are um if you can go to the next slide you'll see the color actually we are green which is the the status is there's there's four statuses gray green yellow red we are green and but what is likely to happen is you we expect to see a change in status at some point because the the status report the indicators that the state uses is retro looks back on a two-week time frame and we have been doing extensive testing in the town so as we move forward you will see that um you may see our status change and we'll keep you updated as that happens next slide so I want to talk about how we're monitoring or how the public can monitor our three institutional partners so each of them has set up a dashboard of sorts UMass has a very sophisticated dashboard um and they have identified nine positive cases it's it's just lists their total test completed and the nine positive cases um Amherst has as of as of this morning had tested 8,683 people with three positives uh Amherst Hampshire College as of last week when the last their last report was 821 tests uh was zero positive so I want to show you if you go to the next slide what their websites look like so this is the UMass dashboard and it doesn't just tell you the cumulative tests and the positive cases that it also is looking at a much more sophisticated level of the cumulative positivity rate which is very important because they are testing all um people you know asymptomatic and symptomatic and so that they are really monitoring everybody so the cumulative positivity rate is likely is the is sort of the key metric there um and then they look at it over time because it's another key metric and there's a lot more information on their website the next slide please uh Amherst College is very similar they are listing as much information as they can they're they're breaking it down by student faculty and staff uh by by week they're reflecting what they are finding out uh by week um and again this is something that they are updating pretty much every day I think it's maybe six days a week that they're actually updating it uh Hampshire doesn't have anything as nearly as sophisticated on it on this but they are reporting their numbers on their website which is I have that link on there for you so next slide so um uh before we leave that just I want to mention that the state when it makes the state does the color thing with the gray green yellow red it's a kind of a blunt tool that they're using they're just looking at positive rates the increase in positive um cases over the past two weeks so we you know we anticipate that we might go up on that and we might we'll go down on it so there'll be some sort of up going up and down what's important is that is to monitor what happens in the next few weeks because right now there's there are an enormous you saw the number of tests that are being done by the university in the colleges and which is creating a new benchmark basically what what is the state of everybody who's come into town um on continuity of operations everything is in really good shape the one thing that's different on this is that we uh our health director Julie Federman has retired as of tomorrow and we have I have appointed Jennifer Brown as the acting health director Jennifer Brown has been our public health nurse and working very closely with Julie for for many years she's very excited about taking on this role she is not a candidate to be the permanent health director but she has been working very closely with Julie and with our institutional partners and she's the one responsible for all the contact tracing in the town so she's very up to speed on it to support her for the administrative things that come up Dave Zomac will be taking on responsibilities to for anything that is the more bureaucratic administrative things where Jen Brown needs support on and I've also I'm also contracting with a neighboring health director for a few hours a week or as many hours as we actually need to support Jen on the bigger picture things this is a person who will be on all the same calls that Jen is on at the state level but when there's um you know the state comes out with very detailed directives of say what how should lacrosse be implemented or you know some details on some other things this is a person who's going to be learning it and internalizing it for their own community and once and then can help inform us and is willing to meet with us on a regular basis as well so that additional level of support for Jen Brown will give us I think that everyone's feels feeling real comfortable that we have the technical expertise we have Jen who's really rock solid in her own right and then we have this sort of administrative support as well next slide so in terms of outreach we continue all the normal things we are there is the community forum that the president referenced earlier today that is this Thursday at 5 30 um you can purchase anybody can participate via zoom uh or you can just watch it through live stream and I put the live stream link here on the website um we are um reviewing our call-in events we've been doing that ever on Thursdays we're rethinking about how that could be better um we are doing um continue with the cup of joe and the other thing that we are looking at during September is to physically go out into the community um and be at locations that make us more accessible to people with proper social distancing with with you know not having that many people around um so we're looking at places that people are not as usually involved like uh on food one of the food pickup days at at um survival center um or the um you know mobile market at at south point in different locations at Fort River so we I want to get out into the more into the neighbors into the community uh after labor day so you'll there um the cpo's are setting up those kinds of uh opportunities to be able to interact with people and hear what the concerns are especially with what's the economic uh situation that's happening so next slide so updates on this next slide so we have our call-in number um this is our new call-in number four one three two five nine two four two five it's monitored seven days a week it's answered during business hours um but we are you know if you leave a voicemail or if you write an email to that um to that email address which is a little funky looking there um you'll get a response uh we have our staff coming in on Saturdays and Sundays to listen to voicemail messages or to respond in real time um you know we've this has been up for almost a week now um we announced it on Wednesday um and we've gotten about 14 or 15 calls um and then the um people who handle those calls can can sort of deal deal them it responds to everybody and then um sort of fields them and gives them to the appropriate staff if it's um a police matter if it's a um inspection services matter or wherever it goes and some of it comes to me so they are monitoring these things and making sure they're getting into the right hand so people get a response what we have found is that many people are are pleased to have this number they don't feel like they want to take up the time of the police department with a call but they do feel they need to register their concerns some people also appreciate the ability to communicate with us on the voicemail so that they don't have to give their names because uh they are they might be talking about a neighbor or um you know someone who lives in the same building as they do and so they're they feel more comfortable um calling just sort of somewhat anonymously and we can follow up with them on those on those calls in that email um so next slide we also are have ambassadors coming and this is this is the this this picture in the one on the previous slide are the t-shirts that our ambassadors will be wearing um so they I think we have 10 who have been hired to date uh we're processing them all through our HR process it takes a little bit of time we do have a supervisor of all the ambassadors they will be out on the streets and they will be working in teams they the the lead person also works she she works part-time for us and works part-time for the university and has very close contacts with the university um off student housing um office um again our is our main directive to the the ambassadors is to educate offer masks and the downtown area and other areas of town wherever we are getting uh come wherever we get comments from the public um again we will use the calls and the emails that come into our COVID hotline as sort of information for where our these folks can go um and then if they and the idea is to not be confrontational to walk away if there is confrontation they will be trained in de-escalation techniques um but really it's it's not to get into situations uh and in the beginning we will have staff available to them you know while they're on the streets we'll have additional professional town staff available to them to help them go through these the situations that they're going through and we're going to learn a lot after the the next you know week and we'll we're you know be monitoring this on a daily basis um Bill Laramie from the police department is in Casey Nagel our community community officer of the two that are most directly working with with this group um so so in terms of where we're headed um so you know these are things that we looked at before I'll talk more later um right about the elections it's really not COVID related it is but it isn't um but the things I wanted to really focus on is the next slide and this is the last slide for you um what I've been messaging to our town staff and to others is that um I anticipate that we will be in the same this same situation a year from now and we should be planning along along those those lines I don't see anything happening this fall and I don't see even if there is a um vaccine it will take a long time to roll out so all of our planning all of our messaging to staff and in terms of how we're operating is that we are looking at this at least for the next year so we should be making those decisions and making those kinds of accommodations for the public now so that we are doing the best job with that we can um I expect our status you know I mentioned earlier our status to change as we are doing additional testing for asymptomatic individuals through the colleges and the university and then we'll just be continuing to to manage adjust review implement just as we have all along so I know you probably have lots of questions so I don't want to be too long-winded on this thanks Serge for taking the slide down uh questions from the council Melanie do you have your hand up yes thank you Paul I really love the ambassadors program and I think it's such a great initiative I do feel you know this is in response to a lot we've been hearing from people and it's a first step so that's amazing love the t-shirts the questions are along what we've been hearing is are we making an effort to appoint BIPOC folks as ambassadors what is and then in terms of the training itself you know like what's other than de-escalation training we need empathy training or just an understanding of the racial issues and equity issues so it's that included in the training and then the call-in number is well similar questions about are there bilingual people answering the calls and what's the training is being provided because I think there is a lot of stress right now and people calling in are probably angry and whatnot and I understand that the staff is overstretched so also just reminding the staff please please be kind and and of course this is to the public as well please be kind to the staff because everyone is so exhausted and overwhelmed last thing is about the testing do people know if there is and where is the free testing options available okay so I'll go back reverse so I don't know if people know where the free testing is you know in fact I don't know if that's on our website or not there is a test center in holy oak we continue to advocate to have one in Hampshire county but I can that's actually probably information people would really be interested to know and we should put that on our website in terms of the phone calls at the beginning of this we have I've assigned our community participation officers to be the ones fielding the calls they're used to handling every call you can imagine coming into the town manager's office and they're very experienced and they're and you know it's mainly Jennifer and Angela and they we have language ability for Spanish and English not and we could get we can get any other language but those are the two that are readily available when we have the call or to return calls so we have Spanish and English availability and also you know what we've said is we're going to monitor this for a couple weeks see what kinds of calls see what the volume is um see see what the types of topics that people are coming in with um you know you know again Angela and Jennifer handle everything that you could possibly imagine comes through the door so totally confident in their ability to manage through this um and they know how to you know have a good conversation with someone so they people know that they're been heard and um and they follow up too if they need to um in terms of the training so these are part-time people who will be on the streets uh and pretty much sort of um excuse me you don't have a mask on here's a mask would you like it type thing there's not we see don't see a lot of um uh they will get a basic de-escalation um training from two state certified de-escalation experts um but um but there won't be a lot of um I don't anticipate um we're hoping that they're not going to find themselves in confrontational situations and if they if they do we we the answer is walk away it's nothing is worth it it's just walk away you know that's the most the best de-escalation technique uh in terms of outreach um you know I don't know exactly what we've done we've been trying to run as fast as we can to get people in those t-shirts basically if we've I'm not sure if we've made a special um outreach effort but we're open we'd love to have as many people um that represent the town and represent the broader community as possible the initiative on this really was driven towards um what we anticipated to be students coming back to town and and that's where most of the calls have come from so far is is being having a sort of a peer-to-peer relationship with students versus having a police officer interact and that's that's why we're moving in this direction that's why we really focused on teaming up with the university in terms of working together in terms of the staffing of this I hope that answers all your questions I'm actually going to add one item on the outreach because um Bill Laramie and um the rent rented inspector John Thompson uh even Captain Ting was at a meeting just today that was in a neighborhood outreach on this along with UMass people they have also been walking the streets with UMass people in neighborhoods around UMass so there is a concerted effort on behalf of the joint effort if you will our um of town employees and the university employees reaching out into the neighborhoods where there's a lot of students present can I just clarify one point about the testing center at Holyoke is it true that the Kooli Dickinson is providing free transportation to people they I think they have the ability to do that as well yes but I can look at that that would be great for people to know who don't have transportation and if they have COVID that Kooli Dickinson is providing the transportation got it good point thank you yes so three questions related to COVID um the first one is what is our funding for COVID looking like I know we had COVID specific funds from the federal government and all where does that stand in terms of how much has been spent do we think we're going to have enough in terms of to cover all of our expenses related to COVID a daytime shelter in cold weather we're coming up on cold weather what is being thought of and will COVID funds cover that and then the third one is your comment on if we're in this for a year and town buildings still aren't open the library is still not open for browsing books but shopping is open gyms are open we're in phase three when are buildings going to open in town to for those short term type of interactions to add internet uh connectivity to people computer access to people we've shown over the course of the last number of months that those types of buildings being open have not raised our positivity rate and can be done safely so when is that going to happen here so the funding there's ample funding that we have and we were had allocated some funds actually for a food program that the school was running that but that has now been extended by federal government to December 31 so that's really good news that's money we don't have to allocate for that program but we have ample funds to do the things that we need to do so I don't know the exact number but we're we're not concerned about that um the oh the shelter so these there's some things out I'm happy to talk about now as opposed to waiting to the town managers report yes there's a number of things in the shelter that are I reported on in the town manager report that one is the what's going to happen with the shelter it's we're eight weeks away from when that should be opening uh craig stores is looking at different options they are still in conversations with the church and looking at some other options that they they have available so we're hoping that that that will move forward in a very positive way with better sheltering for our unhoused individuals in terms of the daytime shelter clearly that's something that we're going we are actively having conversations about where is an appropriate location for us to that to do that we did do the pop-up tent cooling center which you know I was down there a few times and talked to some of the guests and they really appreciated it in an odd way because they felt they could walk in and walk out not have to be tested if they were walking in or walking out if they wanted to smoke a cigarette they could just step outside the tent and they they they were they felt was very comfortable it was much cooler than outside so that was nice to hear that they they were they were pleased with that and they didn't like the idea of being inside but when the cold weather comes it changes and we don't have the places that people normally are able to stay to get warm and we know we have to find something along those lines you know we're looking at town buildings we're looking at other locations the same issues that we have for anybody we would have to make sure that there was proper social spacing that there's adequate ventilation and that the HVAC system is up to grade to be able to process the air so once we get past our elections our facilities folks are going to reposition on this this will be a high priority for us you know the library is looking to put up a tent in front of the library to provide internet access to people and so I think that they're still moving in that direction and they have a pretty pretty robust plan to provide access but again and I'm not sure if they're thinking about heating for that as well in terms of opening I think East Hampton just announced that all of their buildings are going to be closed through the end of the calendar year our my focus and I won't speak for the library is my focus is on maintaining the health of our staff and if you know if someone comes into the building that is turns out to be COVID then we have to empty out the building so we're really diligent about having people being able to work here and do their jobs we I recognize that if we are thinking about this long term we have to start getting ways for the people to interact with our staff in a face-to-face manner which is certainly possible and we're looking at a couple of different ways to do that so everybody can maintain safety and still have access to the services that they need so working on that in terms of whether we actually open the building to let people walk around the building we're really I'm really hesitant to do that and it's really we found that it's really not necessary to have the public available to walk in through the building I don't think that we will be having in-person meetings for for quite a long time it's the worst situation if you are saying we know that the way the virus spreads is by people being in this being together in the same space for more than 15 minutes of dwell time and that's what meetings are defined as and so we don't want to go down that route of holding public meetings and quite frankly we find that the zoom meetings are some ways more available and once you open up and you have unlimited capacity out of the zoom meeting whereas if you had you know I think the town room allows 18 people to be in the room so we would be telling a lot of people that they can't come into the to the room when they wanted to so and the senior center for sure will not open in the near future and I think that's pretty much that's pretty common throughout the state. Alyssa you have your hand up. Thank you for your patience while I find my little mouse. Yeah I appreciate the focus on staff safety I really do I I know this is going to sound a little awkward but Town Hall and the Jones Library are not supposed to be open in order to provide day shelter for populations that are currently homeless that's not what the job of the library or Town Hall is and so one of the things I did ask the town manager about in all his spare time is to report to us on progress for providing day services for people because that's something we've been wanting to do since the day we started a warming shelter before it even became an overnight shelter we just kind of expected more agencies to come forward and say oh you do the nighttime thing we'll do the daytime thing and it just hasn't really happened now everyone's under this immense amount of pressure and so I'm hoping there might be some opportunities there as he mentioned Craig Stores is looking at various things they can do because they'll have to de-densify the existing shelter because that's just the reality you can't have as many people there we had gone up to 28 beds and now we can't do that so I I appreciate the focus on safety and the way to do things differently just like many of us are having doctors appointments you know via video now maybe using more and more of that technology I realize that doesn't take care of people who aren't housed so that's why I want to make sure we're continuing to find ways to partner with agencies that we can find a way to address that keeping all the way back to the new hotline on the phone I just want to make sure that we are in fact and I did hear the town manager indicate that there were going to be themes that were thought about you know what are people calling about what are the kinds of things but I want to make sure that we're tracking that in some fashion because what I don't want to have happen is two months from now to hear a nice little report of a text a little text paragraph that says everybody pulled together and did a great job answering 2,500 phone calls like I want to know these were the kinds of calls people had this is who we sent them to this group was responsive this group wasn't responsive and I because I think again this is a long-term situation and so I want to know that we're not just like taking that pink message slip oh I sent it along to somebody else crumple throw away we are actually keeping track of those themes I know that takes more effort I know everybody has more work than everything else but I think it's important to focus on some themes that include things like interaction with local businesses because we know originally some businesses were having trouble with people who didn't want to wear masks and they didn't you know nobody wants to escalate a situation like that people who do currently identify as homeless and anything we can do to help in any way and also for example groups of people who are not respecting the rules at puffers pond we're hearing some mixed messaging about that like it's fine and other people are freaking out because it's nowhere like it was associated with the hula hoops where people were keeping their nice distancing and so I think just eventually starting to hear some feedback as to what kinds of calls people made whether it's to the hotline to the email or some people are just going to call the police anyway or they're going to call their favorite staff member anyway and report it to them if that could be you know just kind of an ongoing tally here's where the focus is when we talked to UMass they took care of it as Lynn was reporting associated with the neighborhood walkarounds but I think it's important that we're actually gathering data associated with that because we deserve that we made the effort we're putting staff resources behind this and we should go ahead and reinforce that by showing that we're keeping track of what we're doing and then be able to figure out what we can do better as this does continue to drag on for a long time so thank you so thank you respond to it so yes we are doing that we have a google sheet that all the people are have access to and and then that gets shared out we we we I don't our talented staff you know they pick the pieces and say this is yours less you know and so they document when it came in and we're we're on track when the calls come into you know you know do they stop coming in a certain hour because it might mean that we want to start staffing live the the calls at different hours of the day so this this first couple weeks are going to be sort of a trial for us to see what's the volume coming in so thank you for that Dorothy you have your hand up I have two points one I really do think we should get town testing and ideally of one for the virus and one for the antibodies but and that would be you know a major setup and I think that the reason that would be good is that the most of the people in the town of Amherst have not been tested do not know how to get tested but it would also be training for setting up for the vaccination when it should come which will be everybody's going to want it all at once and perhaps even some help with the flu shots since they have been required for all children and seniors are waiting for the super senior flu shot so that's a suggestion that not only is it something we want but it would be helping you prepare for the final the big setup but the other point is when I brought up a number of times and I'm getting increasingly concerned with it as you know I teach at Holyoke Community College and I've been spending most of the summer um banging my head against the wall learning how to do moodle and zoom and to do best practices in online education and it is very complicated and I'm starting to be able to get my pages designed I'm now thinking about my students how will they know how to log on where will they get their help and then I'm thinking of our public school students um and I am a grandmother of two children a sixth grader and a seventh grader who have had to suffer through sudden online teaching and I know all the problems with it and the biggest problem that I can see in Amherst is lack of wireless in huge sections of the town so my thought is if we have COVID money we should be using it to help people students children and their parents who have to help them with this be able to take advantage of what I hope will be improved online education in the schools um we can't just and have rely on a few parking lots where people go and get some wireless and even that should be organized because those who can should do that I just see this cutting off of people and in addition I don't want volunteer money to buy hotspots for students I want Wi-Fi for students and I don't want volunteer money to be to provide um little iPads and wireless for seniors a senior without access to steady reliable Wi-Fi and computer some kind of computer um machine is an absolutely isolated senior many people have do not leave their homes barely go outside and this is going on we were six months into it and I'm a pretty strict person myself so I just think Wi-Fi available to all people in this town those who don't have access now is one of our most fundamental things that we can do at this time in in COVID particularly since I agree with you we're in it for the long haul we're in it for at least another year so on the testing um so the town has we have a couple we were advocating for testing um early in the spring and we have a plan laid out to be able to do mobile testing at um a couple different locations so if that were to come to fruition we're we know exactly what it would take and what the capacity is and the number of people that we would need it's already been done um you know we depending on when they do it it depends on what what spaces i.e parking lots are available to us but we know we know what the what the requirements are for such a thing um what the what the atypical um you know we worked with uh Cooley Dickinson Hospital on this previous you know money months ago so we're we're if we are that's why we continue to advocate so aggressively to have a testing site in the town of Amherst uh we I think it's really important um we do have um you know the interesting thing is that we have a lot of students who are being tested and coming out negative and so they feel they've got their green check of uh courage um so uh that will be something that we will also be noting as well in terms of Wi-Fi access I think the the school department early on did a really really good job of ensuring that no student was not did not have access and um and was able to learn remotely I think that was a very very high priority for the district and they put a lot of money into making sure that that happened I don't know if it's you know the downside of hot spots or if they were I know they were using utilizing hot spots they looked at a couple different techniques for how to do that but I think hot spots were the tool that they used because it was easily implemented and given to everybody individually um so I think they really went through student by student said how are you accessing education through us so at the student level that's the case now the point with your point about seniors is a really good point because that's you know something that uh allows you just don't have access to and it is super isolating it's been a real concern of the director of senior services um you know so I um I'll have to think about a little bit about how we um if we start paying for things um how we would do something like that okay thank you um George you have your hand up well just a quick question about that the raw numbers when you say uh 16 current cases in Amherst that that doesn't include the nine at the college or at the university and three at Amherst college right those are separate four it does so that the total 16 total and so 12 of those are at the campuses and the rest are in the town at large that's it's an aggregate number you can't exactly do that though um because the university may have nine cases but three of them may live in Sunderland right so the I know people we know this when they when they started putting up their dashboards we talked with the university in the college and they said well one of them lives in Amherst but two but they want to show their community and so they're doing their their their dashboards for their purposes um the university and the town are very closely um linked and they everybody sees the same database so they know what they're looking at it's the maven system um the and so the if you are diagnosed and you live in another community it will go to that community but for the university our our our public health nurse Jen Brown can see that information as well and what what kind of contact tracing is being done and who's picked it up as soon as the call as soon as a positive case comes in they're in communication they say who's who's got this one who's working it and they are really tight on that communication but let me let me correct my thing what I do know is that if a person is tested at the university and they give a local you Amherst address their number is part of Amherst it's not a separate number I think that's many people feel like somehow or another the student number is on top of whatever is going on in Amherst but it's not yeah and just the university does try to get them to give a local address too I mean you may live in Reading or you know Salem but they're really trying to say what's your local address where are you locally because a lot of people just give their home address as a matter of course so they're really trying to track where are you so right Kathy Shane you have your hand up yeah I thought Sarah was before me but Lynn you're you're seeing the order yeah okay I just had a question on the the university side Paul and it's partly so people who are listening we've had people contacting us saying you know how tough will the university be in helping us enforce certain kinds of things their code of contact of the agreement students have signed doesn't happen and I I just can you quickly say that and I you know I know you've agreed to do a district one meeting but that's a question that I've had from some people up here and for some groups and they've noticed our ambassador people love the way the contact and I know some of what the university is doing but just they've said are they going to do what Syracuse does are they going to do what you know in terms of how tough will they be so we've certainly even as of today talked to them about how you know Holy Cross Northeastern BU Syracuse a number of Vanderbilt different places have have addressed it they see this as a very much an internal decision making process to their dean of student affairs we think that you know we're working very hard to walk arm and arm with them so that we're we're complimenting each other with an E not an I in compliment and and but we're we're not always on the same page quite frankly and I think you'll you might hear a little bit about this Thursday night as well because I think that'll be a question that will come in on that on that call you know I think they they feel very strongly because they have a long history with dealing with the events in was it 2013 14 and how they responded and how what worked and what didn't work and they feel like they have a lot of institutional knowledge about leading with education and interacting in a really positive way to create this culture of compliance and you know they do a lot they put a lot of effort into meeting with individuals so when it when something happens over the weekend the people are out there in their at their houses and one of the good things that I noted was that with COVID almost everybody's home so you go and literally knock on their door someone answers the door and they said we had you know and this happened through our COVID hotline you know someone said I live in a building with someone who's who's I don't think is a group a party and we'll go out and say talk with them we'll have someone go to their door so we're hoping that that is the we're not hoping we know that that does work but in terms of the additional steps the university can take the academic things that's a thing that they hold very tightly honestly um I'm going to intervene and just say we have consistently and persistently asked the university to do off-campus testing as a requirement and thus far it has not been except for when a student arrives and it has not been continual after that and in addition to that they have not been willing to use the issue of enrollment as any kind of stick if it if they don't obey and in many cases this is the difference between public and private institutions and so it's a very tough line to walk and I compliment Paul and his patients and his um his diplomacy um and sometimes I have to be that I get to be nasty so um it's really not acceptable that they are not testing all their students all the time and just but just a side note on that they did send they did they are asking all off-campus students to come in for a second test uh something went out today to all their off-campus students saying time to come to get your second test because they are doing the first arrival second test which is a really good thing um and one other thing um that our the the health folks are noticing is that sometimes the tests are surfacing people who had COVID up to three months ago and so the tests are still coming back positive so you know just as our as Julie Fetterman will always say a test is not a test it's not a test there there's significant differences in the type of test and how they're managed um results are not the same you know a result is not a result is not a result because you you may show show positive for COVID but that was because you had it two months ago and so but you're not you may still have it as it might show as a positive on the test so I'm getting above my head on the technology uh technical technicalities of it but there are uh it's there's some you know epidemiologists and public health people can talk much more uh jointly about this. Sarah you have your hand up. Yeah so I just wanted to I had had a text conversation with Paul about this um I think about a week ago I have had constituents um the I think the for during the heatwave when the students first came back I had 10 people that I have not met personally contact me um about concerns and um what I'm wondering if we could have on the website somewhere that's easily found and also distributed to town counselors in some sort of way that we can post it on our facebook page is we could send it out to people if they needed it and they could print it themselves um some of the things that I would say are the what if questions so a lot of people are very confused um so what if they see a really large party where people are not social distancing and um they don't have masks on like a very large gathering um and so what if so I mean I think we I think people need to see if it's on you know private property call whoever and here's the number um if uh your groups at public places like Puffer's pond or at a park um if there's a very large group and they're not wearing masks there's not social distancing what do people do um do they call the department of public health what's that number people are concerned that they don't know who the director is anymore I think all that information you gave to us is fantastic and I think that the coordinated efforts and who's who is um heading up the board of health should be something that people can find easily um what if there's a lot of people in in my district that are nervous when students moved in they've got a smallish house and they're seeing consistently 10 to 12 cars there and so then there's this this thing where people are like well you know should we call the town and make sure that they're not you know people that aren't related I think that the the more information that we can give people about um who to contact what we're doing um if there's enforcement or not um is really helpful to people because if you don't know something or you don't know how to contact someone you feel really scared and panicked and when you feel really scared and panicked you're not it makes you feel unreasonable because you're scared um so those are things that I'm wondering I think that everybody should have counselors should have access to should be clear on the website and that when we send things out to our constituents we can say hey so here here it is here's who to contact in case of what and if you're good with your you know phone put it on take a screenshot put it on your reminders if you have no idea what I'm talking about then print it or have someone print it and print a couple so that if your friend says I don't have any idea what to do and you can I don't know if we're close enough to hand those to people or we could leave it in your mailbox we can't do that because that's against the law we could leave it under a rock uh in your front yard those those things I think are are really helpful as far as far as helping people in the community feel really heard and um and calming them them down um and I want to point out that I'm not just talking about students I've had students say I've seen a bunch of okay I'm going to say old people because I qualify I'm 50 old people that are just they're reckless they've had a huge party there's all these old people next door to me and they're not social distancing so it just I think it gives people a way to feel heard and then if we respond to them hey we looked into it um I think it's yeah so really good points uh and so the answer to all of them is yes yes yes yes yes and the answer is covid concerns at amherstma.gov or 259-2425 uh those are the numbers we don't want calling the health director or the board of health isn't going to get anything done um the health director um isn't going to have time to respond to all those things but when if it comes to our number if it is something that involves the health director she she will get it um and a lot of times it's usually it's almost always not the health director it's inspection services or it's conservation or it's lsse or somebody else um that and we want these things coming in because we're able to track it we can start to you know like elissa said we're tracking them and we're we're going to group them and say hey here's what's happening these are the times of day they're coming in we do have um someone hired who's going to be going to parks from 12 to 8 during the day to just sort of again be an ambassador talk about social distancing in our parks at you know mill river and at koana's park all the different parks um you know grove park things like that so people are are aware that there's someone there who can help and be a resource because a lot of people don't want to take the time to complain but if they see someone with an official looking shirt on they'll say you know i've got a problem over here and they'll mention it and they'll feel better about it um we want people to call we don't want people to intervene uh i think that's a recipe for disaster and um you know it's not and it's in fact in the board of health uh regulation that the people are told not to try to confront people i've had many people tell me that they've stopped people on the street and told them to wear a mask and it's just you shouldn't be doing that um so um you know again all those things are really people are anxious and they're nervous um and there are some times when people can social distance and not wear a mask and that's something that julie has mentioned a lot is that you can be on a beach or going in for a swim and not have to have a mask on you can you know be outside walking down a road without a mask on as long as you've got one on with you so you can put it on um when you get near someone um because outdoors it's much easier it's the when you get inside that it really becomes an issue so again the the number and we can we should actually it's a good point we should get that out to you guys because you you have much broader connections and you can we should get something that's really easy for people to post and share social media that that's a really good thing and grab it right off the top of the agenda tonight thank you any other questions from the council okay we're going to take a five minute break and when we come back i'm going to um describe some changes in our approach to the agenda tonight okay with regard to the agenda um well checked with people we are going to delay the amendment to bylaw 3.28 the single-use plastic bag prohibition to the 14th of september thank you darsie and to go well um and while we will have a brief conversation about the performance goals we are not going to try to complete them tonight and pass them but to rather have a conversation about okay any other suggestions or questions evan yeah so i'm glad that we're pushing off the amendment to the plastic plastic bag ban bylaw that alliteration is gonna kill me um i'd like to make a request along with that i found it very frustrating trying to navigate that there were several documents in the packet it was really difficult for me to understand which is the version we're actually voting on there was a clean version there were several track change versions that were not the same as the clean version there was also no memo um describing what the changes were and why they were being made um with respect to my good friend george ryan i found the g ol's report on that to be incredibly unhelpful in and understanding what the recommendation is and why it also looked to me like perhaps there were fairly substantive changes being made and maybe i'm wrong but it looked like perhaps the deferment was getting nixed um and if so that seemed to be more substantive than just g ol and so my my request is when it gets back on the 14th if we could have um an amped up version of geol's report in an actual memo from the sponsor thank you i agree with all of that any other comments at this time any other suggestions all right then the next item on our agenda is the town manager's performance evaluation memo and um several people have sent me some individual comments so what i am going to ask surge is that i instead of you doing this that i actually bring up my version okay so i don't want to get into um i only am doing this so that we can look at the substantial suggestions the first one is the following further working with the cat with the joint capital planning committee you revise the capital spending budget for f y 21 to i think it should be just with a creative approach to the significant to the to significantly diminish resources available something like that uh and give gay priority on maintaining operating budgets that support services it's a comment that would be under fiscal and uh it is an addition right there let me just go back and just point out a few things that i changed okay in each of these steve and others felt that it would be good to be able this is the wrong version okay you you made a grammatical you made something that was grammatically incorrect correct you made it incorrect when you took off the ed off of diminished thank you okay i added in the number of counselors thank you there thank you i added in the number of counselors to the memo i also have suggested that i will attach all of the individual uh responses directly to the memo as well as the town manager's self-evaluation they are not attached here uh and then i went through and did a variety of changes that you saw in the updated version one of the changes that i want to discuss is several counselors noted that the town will need to reassess what is affordable given the changed economic reality which likely will mean a less optimistic view of what will be possible over the next years several years given town and resident budget constraints andy would you please speak to this one since this is a comment you made yeah let me uh so there were a couple of reasons that i raised questions about it one was the question that i think had come up in discussion at the last time we talked about the evaluation memo the term several counselors and at what point does something that is said by one or two counselors become a policy or a finding that is reportable and i tried to go back and look as best i could and i certainly wasn't finding that there was anything that would give me a feeling that there was a consensus on this and the other concern that i had was that it is partly about the evaluation but it's mostly about what needs to come ahead it belongs in goals for the next year not evaluations of the year that was just behind us it was not about activity related to the year behind us so the recommendation is that based on that this be deleted yes since right now i am doing this as a tracking i'm just rarely delete that okay um then we go down to the next one which is also a comment here andy that you made i think that it was just a matter of trying to reword this so that it would be a positive statement about what was happening as opposed in the way in what the town manager did so when i was uh when i came up with with was after recognizing the public concern about what's been happening nationally there was public demand for a local response the council appreciates your work with us to craft a resolution that enabled us to approve the proposed budget i think that if we're evaluating the town manager that was the action that we would be evaluating and that's why that was proposing to include okay let me go on to a couple others this is one that elissa worked on adding mostly further explaining kinds of phrases and then also additional to the golf course lin we aren't having time to read these as you're paging through and we haven't seen them before right all right so we'll start from the beginning okay now i'm not this is starting from the clean copy that i sent in your packet okay it's not do you want me to go all the way back to the original one indy joe no i'm just talking about the ones you've been pointing out have not been on the screen long enough for us to actually read let me just ask them a show of hands i'm trying to get to my thing i can't see how i can see hands athena are there any hands up yes darcy has a hand up Darcy yeah i just wanted to make the comment that when we talked about this at our last meeting um there was some considerable concern about including a sentence that said one counselor said this or that so now andy is objecting to a sentence that says several counselors said this or that um so what what is our policy going to be in this cover letter are we are we going to let one counselor um make a complaint about a sentence and it will be removed about comments that were made by several counselors i think what i'm just gonna i'm going to say what i believe andy said and that is he went back to the reading of the comments and there weren't several counselors that's correct really more of an individual counselor comment or two so you you had you had compiled them remove those let me try let me do this i'm gonna stop sharing um i'm gonna go back to surge why don't you put up the original document where i made all the changes okay so this is the document in which i made all of the changes and it's in your packet and it's something i sent to you i believe by thursday of last week okay are there any yes margin oh thank you yes please enlarge it so one of the major changes i did was add in the actual count of counselors and in many instances i had to clarify that count because the way the survey was set up it didn't have a forced choice and therefore some counselors actually would hit two responses and in other instances a counselor would not respond and so but i stuck with the same general guidelines of the 30 percent are for counselors throughout okay and then i explained the issue of needing more evidence which is something darcy you had brought up uh and just said the counselors require evidence and or more information about an issue and this is probably a communication issue okay moving on i should be able to pull up my thing now to make sure if there's questions yes okay surge can you scroll down okay and then i uh that's too far way too far yeah and then i added and scroll down and then i said that i would add these documents as attachments when we do the final one okay and so here's an example of you had 67 percent or eight counselors 33 or four our four counselors zero needs improvement zero unsatisfactory zero unable to judge but no one counselor did not respond and so that explains why you have different percentages and stuff like that okay now we go on to the text and this is right here is something that somebody suggested a couple different people suggested that we be very clear that the whole issue of policing was a national issue that also affected us people also asked that we be very clear that the agreements be with the other colleges and name them and not necessarily refer to one other institution we might check um this is actually the statement that andy right here the several counselors this is the one that andy is taking issue with and i believe that andy has now read this much more carefully and gone back over the comments and so that's the one that i was going to suggest we take out again several counselors noted that the town will need to reassess and andy's point was that he did not see evidence of several counselors but the other point he made is that this is really a suggestion for next year's goals not this year's goals okay um any questions here yes andy yeah so i think that uh it really breaks into two questions two parts and one is the the point that um darcy made a moment ago and if there are several counselors who believe that they set in their evaluation that the town needs to reassess what is affordable given the changed economic reality um or something that had that meaning um then i stand corrected apologize and would um treat that separately and i think that it should be included and you can almost ask people to raise their hands and a few people say uh raise their hands saying that um they think they said something close to that or that had that intent that's fine this the part after the hyphen is a little bit different because which likely will mean a less optimistic view of what will be possible over the next several years and i'm going through the end of that sentence that is a speculative question and i don't think that it was something that was discussed at all other than the suggestion to add by one counselor and i respect that counselor's opinion but i don't think that that makes it a um policy statement that we ought to adopt into an evaluation so i would break um suggest breaking the question into two parts as i've just described so the first part is whether or not counselors agree with the following statement and he has suggested you raise your hand mandy joe is that legal i mean depends on whether you're just taking a sense of the counselor or whether there's a motion to remove it's a sense of the council okay this i'd like to know from the council whether there is a sense that several counselors voted noted i'm sorry noted that the town will need to reassess what is affordable given the change change economic reality please raise your hand that he raised your hand i do have three i see three all right so maybe we want to modify it by just say a few counselors okay but lin is are we are you asking do you believe that or does that belong here i thought andy pointed out this belongs in next year's goals no he's saying the second half belongs in next year's goals where do you start then several counselors noted several councils noted that the town will need to reassess what yeah or given the change that's for next year isn't it no at that point in the sentence if you stop and put a period about given the chain economic reality period the rest of it is looking at next year and that should be taken out and he's right about that right so the question is do people agree leaving in something that says a few counselors noted that the town will need to reassess what is affordable given the change economic reality period and take the rest out this is the town managers goals or no his evaluation talking about what he did this is in the future tense are you right so i'm confused yep you're right so you're right it's really all in the future tense yeah okay i mean i agree with the statement but i don't think it belongs here all right several counselors would have noted yeah i think we just take it out yeah it's in next year's goals anyway yeah hands down please and i just want to say as a person who contributed to that sentence i'm fine with removing it okay thank you and we go on to the next one where we have a lot of bread which is down below and this is the statement about national attention on the murder of black men and women and children by police in other states etc several of you gave me different um ways of stating this i chose one is there any further comment on that pat or kathy i don't think you want your hands up at this point pat you want your hand up all right then we go on and uh we're all the way into the next goal which is the climate action and there was a suggestion under climate action please scroll on down that after listing all of the various things all of these represent your efforts to implement projects or initiatives that the town council identified as actionable in the short term including building regional alliances and securing grants all that does is is tie this back up to the goal sounds good to me um rest is and this and then there was the statement on the system to track energy savings and it should continue as a goal for the coming year problem with that all right then we'll move on to the next one which is long-term planning elissa this is the one where you gave me various comments i had showed earlier we didn't pause on it but all of them basically made the second paragraph that despite the pandemic gave it more clarity it's not shown here however i didn't none of it was changing anything substantial well mendigo yeah i i guess my question is is there an intention to change whatever elissa provided and if so i think we need to have a chance to actually read it i'm gonna be expecting on this document today okay we can come back to that then okay let's i don't want to switch back and forth with documents okay so then uh the other change on the next paragraph again was just clarifying i just added the words golf course property because who's going to remember five years from now what hickory ridge is so yeah hickory ridge golf course was added in there um then going on to other substantial changes the next ones really come in the area under expanded community engagement which is roman numeral five you keep going and you start to see some of them right here those were mostly minor but on the next page is where you start to see this is where we got into the issue of one counselor and i did try to eliminate a lot of that i'm looking for comments on how this was edited elissa so i just want to clarify because this is so hard for you to keep switching documents around like you said you already gave us what we're seeing on the screen right now so if we had an objection to what we're screening on the screen right now we should have told you already because you gave us that opportunity so the more difficult part is because we later gave comments after we saw this version after we saw the clean version what andy wrote what i wrote what other people wrote isn't on here and so i appreciate that you're not switching back and forth documents but i'm not sure why we need to go through this document that you already gave us that we all had the opportunity to respond to i'm just making sure that we're clear and we're fine on what i did do already and then i'll go to the next round okay all right then moving on the next one is in the area of economic development and there was that paragraph and then there was a lot of additional paragraphs at the end a lot in the paragraph at the end that really started into one counselor etc okay so those are the major changes before of what those are the major changes of what went into your packet okay are there any questions on those changes before we take this version down so surgeon i'm going to have you take this version down and then we're going to go to this version okay this is the cleaned up version this one was in your packet and since then i have received some additional comments first one we've already discussed which was taking this comment out entirely thena you're gonna have to tell me if people have their hands raised i'll listen maddie i'm hands up um didn't we agree to take it out yes we did that's i just want to make sure no more discussion on that okay then andy had also made this my handbook um i'm sorry mandy john page has changes on it that i'd like to actually see that those this change was suggested by kathy in the red writing right i said find to take it out yeah no i i i just hadn't had a chance to read it so i wanted to be able to read it um the word committee is spelled wrong so that should be corrected but um okay we're just making changes as she was reading it and then we never had a chance to actually read it i'm sorry yes it's capital committee yeah no i wrote it too fast i'm good with it now that i've had a chance to actually read it okay are there any other comments please a thing to let me know if there are not at this point okay then we go to the one that we already agreed on here and now we're down to this one good and i'll just give you time to read it was andy wanting to say something in a slightly more positive way it sounds good any other comments etina out of this point okay then the the next one this is the paragraph i'll give you quite a bit of time to read it that elissa edited no hands any further comments okay this is the place where elissa put the golf course property pretty straightforward and here is where we said in the area of economic development marks were considerably mixed with mixed ratings in the subcategories maybe that's awkward well you would need an e that fixes it okay any questions on that kathy you added this yeah i i mainly flagged this because when you go back to the very beginning of the memo um on positive ratings it didn't know and then later on this mixed rating i was just struck by in one place said it's mixed and i realized the mix is in these subcategories that's what you were referring to you know it's the overall rating is positive but then you go into each category and there's a lot of variation so i thought this sentence was an accurate sentence it's just did you want to when you i mean paul is listening to all of this so you know did you you want to just send a signal on the very first part where we said great ratings in this whole category to say although there was a mix in the subcategories so it was just trying to be consistent when in the body of the memo with the summary that could see the precise okay so then there is little indication of any activity or progress that was a sentence that wasn't complete it's complete because it completes the non the beginning of the parenthetical but in most of the subcategories there's little indication of any activity or progress so you're saying leave this in yeah okay and then at the very end elissa provided an explanation as to why we don't have any of these and that past practice combined this feedback with comments from the public okay it's just an explanation so let me just explain that in what does anybody want to go back to another part of the memo i'm going to stop sharing and let me just say that what happened in the past was i took this i did one more run through for grammar or anything else and i put the final one in your packet but we voted this tonight so the motion is to adopt the town the fy 20 town manager performance evaluation as amended is there a second anarchy seconds any further discussion okay then we start with ham dorthy gift unmute dorthy you have to unmute all right i lost the screen for a moment okay yes evan ross yes you're trying yes kathy yes Steve yes dine uh andy yes sarah yes galony yes elissa yes pat yes dorthy yes bruce verse yes hanakie yes and i'm last i'm going to take the time to say thank you paul for pivoting so well and dealing with covet so well a good year so i think what we haven't done exactly what mandy joe has said and uh we can spend a little time saying some thanks to paul and why don't we all do that because this has been an amazing year and um having to judge you on goals that we wrote before covid many of us would have liked to have thrown those goals out and started over and so it made it a very difficult thing but you've done an amazing job so other comments people would like to make at this time i just i i just want to echo that but i'll also paul whatever level of stress you're feeling you always look like ah things are going smoothly and and i really appreciate how much credit you give to the staff that's that's sitting there um working to do a plan and then undo the whole plan and come up with a new plan um as in the budget thing and they too didn't come in you know like they had just been thrown against the wall and were dead they came in ready to have a conversation about it so it's really a tribute to your leadership but also the people you have working with you so thank you there are other comments sarah so one of the things that we were asked to comment on was um if we're trying to get ahold of paul what is our success rate and i just want to say that um every time i reached out to paul um he's always gotten back to me right away and has been very compassionate and has followed up on the things that i have asked him about including sometimes um having to text him on weekends about things during covid and i really appreciate that very very very very much and he never makes me feel like i'm a pain which is fabulous so thank you there are times when i wonder why paul really wants this job and even going through this whole process of us judging him and writing a report card and how he's put up with these difficult times but then i've already known that i get a glimpse of what does turn him on and that is he gets very excited when things are very bad i i read ablatedly um something you sent about the storm we had a couple of weeks ago and it was just filled with life talking about the police where where the power line was down and they're guarding this and the dispatchers are doing a great job and i had this idea of you kind of running around the whole town checking everybody out and i said well that's a happy man today so i guess you're the right man for the right time because we've got a lot of disasters right now so thank you but we have an opportunity because we're gonna go into executive session to continue that and but paul did you want to say something now or later yeah i just want to thank you i know you put an enormous amount of work into this uh evaluation process and i really appreciate how seriously you take it you're absolutely right that it's a team effort and this reflects on the entire team um and um you know i i i always appreciate the good graces everyone brings um to the to the endeavor that we're involved in um and it's really working with people that makes the job worthwhile so um and even when it's when we're in disagreement you know it's okay to be expressing those things so um i do just you know i appreciate the um level of detail you've given because i'm always looking for good information and if there's anything that didn't fit into these boxes of the performance thing that you said to send me an email i really do look for that kind of feedback so i can serve the town better basically so i appreciate it and this means awfully long so i'm there all right so we're gonna have a brief discussion about the goals uh and i think at this point what we're gonna do is fall on um george because this comes out of crc and the other crc members who may want to speak to them uh and so uh surge would you put the latest draft of the goals and enlarge them thank you okay george you're muted george george you were muted a great explanation but we didn't hear any of it now you're muted again no how's that that's good sorry um this is the sixth version and um i'm proud of it i think we've we've done a really good job trying to craft six very explicit policy goals that i hope give paul a very clear sense of what we think he should be focusing on for this coming year climate action community health and safety economic vitality the four capital projects housing racial equity and social justice and within each one we've tried to pick out specific items that we would like him in particular to focus on and we tried to in most cases connected to a specific council action that we've taken as a body and then the second half of the document has not changed as much really um but they are management goals and again focusing on administration leadership and personnel and then finance long-term vision community engagement and relationship with the town council um so i think this is a a very fine document that will give paul a clear sense of what we what our priorities are um for the coming year and so i think it's probably most valuable to hear what the rest of you think and so that's what i have to say okay comments please kathy then i you said earlier um when you introduced all of this that we weren't going to have a longer discussion a short discussion on this tonight on the goals um one of the comments i made that i sent today you know in attract change is does reflect the comment we just took out of the evaluation of the past year that um on the particularly on when we're talking about the four building projects i think we need to put yes we did vote a year ago um with a let's move forward but we're in a very different time period now and i think we're going to need to reassess um and so i i provided some language on that so that we can be talking about you know what we have what we think we're going to have in a um and and the staff it's it's one of the things the staff is going to have to give us best thinking and we're heading toward that already on the amount of money we're going to have available as we think about the coming year fy 22 in the next three years so that we go back and look at timelines with the modeling and i i gave some language on that but the way it's worded right now sounds like all all engines are still on full throttle forward um because we said go go forward with with go forward with god last year you know like we we can do this and i think we're in a different situation so i wanted to tone that down or put it into it in part so that paul as manager um he doesn't have to be completely positive if we have very difficult decisions tough decisions on tradeoffs so that kind of um you know what can we afford what can the residents afford you know so we're also talking about taxes so i wanted to just be careful on that wording um and i provided some industry wording but that is just they're trying to change the tone a little bit to since everyone is talking about that people don't have money necessarily even to pay their current taxes but they don't know where a paycheck is going to come from and we belt tighten this year on capital and we might have to next year too and if we keep doing that it becomes every let every more difficult to maintain buildings maintain roads so it's the tone of that so i've forwarded your comments to george's chair of gl and this is on the agenda for gl on wednesday right george yes thank you okay darcy i would endorse kathy's suggestion that she just made and also um and in light of the uh proposal proposals that the racial equity task force has made um i i would support the proposal to um not only have the separate equity racial equity goal but to weave racial equity into um the specifics and um i'd like this level of specific goals and objectives to be included um for climate action too um we uh last year looked at whether or not we should have a separate goal or weave it into the different goals and we decided for climate action to make just the one goal and we didn't really mention it much in the other goals so it obviously if we have a if we have a major commitment that we're making to racial equity and to climate action it does make sense to mention it throughout the document in the different goal areas and right now the the new goals are not really the format is really not set up to include that degree of specificity um and this is why i actually really like the way it was written for this fiscal year including much more many more of the lower level objectives and more specificity so um i really feel like um we need to um have a separate main goal and evidence throughout the document um that each of these both racial equity and climate action and our other big priorities are being dealt with in hiring and policy making and within all the departments across the board on every level on a day-to-day basis so that's what i would suggest more specificity and more more objectives included George i just want to remind my colleagues that this is a document that reflects the views supposedly of 13 people and so i think there has to be a certain amount of what do you want to call it breathing space sort of room um because not all of us are going to agree about this specificity and we can spend the next many meetings discussing very specific action items i think this document tries to articulate six very important goals that i do think we share and tries to give paul some clear sense of priority along these six items and some idea of where we'd like to see him go but i think if we get into a certain level of specificity the whole thing falls apart um at least i think it would so i think we have to do at least from my perspective a balancing act between coming up with goals we all agree on and a level of specificity that doesn't go beyond what in fact the 13 of us can tolerate okay pat you have your hand up on when gl worked on the when gl worked on this we felt like the policies filtered down throughout the management goals and we were trying to keep it as open as possible but i really feel right now that i would like to see the specificity that the racial equity task force is offering um filtered through the document um and but i think that we have to have discussions about which aspects of that document are we accepting and which ones we are might not uh i it does make me uh concerned and i said immediately to when i was talking to someone today well if we do this we do it for environmental issues too um and i think while i like the clean document i think that this is a time where we have to let go of the frame that we made and open it more uh to what the community seems to want and if we do it for racial equity we do it for community health and safety then i believe we have to open it up um for the environmental issues as well i let me just say we're not going to resolve this tonight because these are all suggestions to go back to gl okay alissa so i want to say this really carefully i don't think any of our committees is up to doing that task right now so i agree with doing the things we're talking about doing that pat's talking about doing that jarcy's talking about doing i agree completely about interweaving things about both climate action and community safety and policing and social justice throughout this i just don't see how we're going to accomplish that at this point through the committee process because y'all is going to meet again this week and they're going to take another crack at it and then we're going to say it's not good enough again so i'm trying to get to a point where i'm wondering if we can figure out a way to approve a basic set of these broader goals and commit to revising it at the next meeting or two meetings from now because if we just keep reopening the whole thing before we ever have a set of goals i appreciate that you know we want to get it done we want to get it over with but i also like the goals as a living document and so as we hear more things we already have one document that we haven't had a chance to incorporate and as pat said i don't want to mischaracterize what she said but we don't necessarily all 13 of us is reflecting what george said going to agree with every single thing the racial equity task force asked for and so how do we get g ol to somehow magically know what the 13 of us think about that before our next meeting i'm and so i'm really struggling with how do we approach this and that's why i keep coming back to this idea of trying to do a base set of these more broad generic goals and then say and we commit to we are all going to feed information to so and so and on the side they're going to work on x for the next meeting and see if that one gets us closer to where we want to go because we're coming at this from capital we're coming at this from community safety we're coming at this from climate and i think we could spend an eight-hour retreat on this and i just don't know that we can do it through the committee process and still be satisfied next time and not have g ol just bang in their head on the desk saying okay now what do you want bandit job i second what george and eliso said um and one thing that hasn't been mentioned there are i believe six policy goals listed that we as a council have deemed equally important and so if we start weaving one or two of them into all of the management goals i would argue we need to weave all six into the management goals housing and affordable housing economic vitality one of the things we are saying is vitally important in this town for this next year if we want to be able to deal with affordable housing and you know the four major capital projects and frankly racial equity and climate action we need some businesses in town to be able to have tax dollars to be able to do some of the things that are being asked of us um i think we also have to remember that the manager is the chief executive officer we are not executive we are legislative so we my belief is that we should not be micro managing how he does his job and the more we put more specificity we put into goals whether they be management or policy the more micro managed he becomes and that's i think somewhere where we're also struggling with as a 13 member committee to determine what the appropriate level of that is and we have widely different views on that level um so that's why i second what george said um i don't think we should go along a path where we don't pass a single document until january that's not fair to our manager um the sooner i think we we're already two months into the fiscal year and he doesn't have goals yet um we can't keep pushing this on so that we're three four five months in without goals i think we need to consider adopting a more general policy and then doing potentially what elissa did but again every time we every meeting we spend on goals we either add to the length of our meetings or we do less legislative work and we are the legislature andy so it's actually good to follow up on me andy's comment but she said some of what i was going to say which helps me a lot um when we talked about it at gl one of the things we were recognizing is that we do hire a professional with um expectation of a large number of skills in order to know how to do things and that what our goal our role rather should be in establishing goals is to set the priorities but not to micromanage what how they are accomplished and that was the sort of the philosophy with which gl was approaching this drafting and in conversations with paul participating uh what he was really looking for most strongly um if i've just stated he can speak for himself but i don't think he's going to need to it was that he wanted to know what are the key policies that the council was looking for him to accomplish and to address during the next year and the the first set of goals was intended to address that question and the last comment i'll make because it's getting late is on the racial equity task force as an example i think that we can at gl work on a way to incorporate a reference to the document uh but we don't have to incorporate every piece of it to accomplish the result felony please unmute yes okay so um i'm sorry i didn't send my comments earlier i was waiting for comments from some other biboc residents that i sent out the documents to and what i heard back from um some of the people um biboc people was that that um i think i mean they kind of supported my idea which came independently from them was that having a committee formed that's going to do this work of reaching out two different community groups and then based on the information we receive that needs to lead us in the direction of what actions we're going to take with policing rather than going in with the idea of we're going to defund maybe that will be the recommendation but we want to lead from um from that that to be an output and not an input so that was one feedback i got um there does seem to be like if we are in agreement that this is an important goal that we hire a diversity officer and who can really help us do this in the right way and that's something we need to figure out when and how we can afford that but i mean i think it's important to have a discussion about whether it's part time or be kind of full time but that's a discussion um along with that is maybe if if you do want to i think it's an important goal to weave in because and just even if you're asking the questions so for example how we might be able to weave in the question of equity let's say an economic vitality i was thinking uh just the way we have a sentence which says to ensure the present and future economic health and well-being of the town working closely with local institutions and business entities including the bed and chamber of commerce maybe here is where we could add um like just like he would be uh paul would be working with the bed and chamber once there is this future committee that would also be part of the discussion in terms of how we can support people of color who might be trying to start businesses or youth environment or so forth so i feel there is a way to weave in and be specific enough but not dictating to the extent that we already have specificity right now there is a way to weave in some of these because i think these are very important questions and if you don't ask them we may not go towards finding um solutions for that and um my other comment was around management and personnel management where we have certain goals for diversity but making them more could we have more specific and i think that's something i learned from paul with smart goals around like could we have measurable goals and if you don't have them right now maybe just even outline having the goal of outlining a process for finding what is our baseline and what are some goals we have and my last point is about the economic development director again i know it's we are trying to meet to george shallony will you be sending those to george yes i can yeah i'll definitely send those thank you um dorsey well i think one of the i i do i do see both sides of the argument and i do see the reason to use the simplified goals that are more general in the categories now that i i do agree that at some point we're not ready now we should be weaving the racial justice and the climate goals into each goal but one reason we cannot do that now is although we've had particularly at the beginning of the council which seems like a long time ago many discussions on the climate goals we reached some agreement we have not had a discussion on the racial equity task force and we haven't just where we have to determine um what we think is desirable and what we think is possible um perhaps at this time or some future time and it's a discussion that i do think we need to have i certainly don't want to outsource that i mean these are our goals that we are creating for our town manager um so that's the discussion that we haven't had so i guess that although i do agree these two strands should be woven into each goal i can agree with passing the them as they are now because it's important to have the goals near the beginning of the year but understand that we have a discussion that we have not had where we're going to talk about what we think is possible and desirable from the racial equity task force evan yeah so i just wanted to speak to two things i appreciated that go well did two things with these goals one is i appreciate that they tied each one to council action but the other thing is that they did keep them broad when we were doing this eight or nine months ago with the fy 20 goals i argued for much more specifics and today i want to do the exact opposite and i appreciate the broadness and i don't want specifics and i think the reason for that comes from my experience doing the town manager evaluation uh earlier this month and what i found was um i i gave the town manager very high marks under economic development because i think he did a lot of things um that really showed leadership and boldness and innovation in economic development and yet if you looked at the actual goals that we had set out the very specific goals which were actually less specific than i argued for but were still very specific he failed miserably right because because things changed and all of a sudden those goals that we had come up with just didn't matter anymore but everything else he did that actually mattered quite a bit and what it taught me was especially in this uncertain environment especially given the fact that we don't know what's going to happen with covid um what that taught me is it's better to keep these as broad priorities and objectives and goals because then when we review the town manager a year from now we have the ability to sort of interpret and apply those and not say well he didn't do these specific things we asked for and so we have to give him bad marks even though he did all of these other great things so i want to lobby for keeping the goals as it is right now um keeping them broad keep them tied to specific things the council has passed um and and sort of endorsing elizabeth's position of coming in with specifics later down after we've had more thorough discussions but that not aren't necessarily part of our initial goals that he takes on board yeah okay um thank you i we're going to take this we're not going to vote on the goals tonight we are we have to vote on them when we meet on the 14th i think gol can take one more look at them when some of these thoughts i am going to add my own thought and that is the following goals should never be looked at as individual it is a matrix so when you say you want to integrate this with that with this with that what you should look at is say these are our six goals that are policy goals and these are our five management goals and then you should look at them as if they're a matrix against each other and all of them integrate if you try to write everything into each goal you end up with something that is absolutely and completely not understandable i could write a goal about the four major capital buildings and i could talk about how we have to have racial and equity justice and how we have to have climate action and how we have to do this and the next thing and by the time we get done the building would look like junk so what i'm saying is you can't look at a goal independent of all of the other goals and so gujiro is going to go back to this george one last comment and then we're going to move on thank you lin and i i realize it's late and i appreciate you letting me say one last thing i feel like i have six goals here that i can take to my constituents and argue for passionately and strongly as goals that this council wants to accomplish the specifics we're going to figure it out but these are six things that i think we as a group believe in and i've seen my own self change to some degree over the last couple weeks and so i'm proud of these and i can i can go out and argue for them but if we get to a level of specificity things are going to come much more complicated so i think we should keep them broad and they should reflect i hope what is the consensus of the group and um go forward with it okay okay we're going to move on the next item is the appointments of the town manager uh darsie these both of these came to tso the first one is the elementary school building committee and would you please report on tso and make the motion yes i have the motion sheet in front of me um yeah the the the first was the elementary school building committee yeah and just one second i can read it if you want i have it here i know that's okay um uh so uh we we had a discussion of the the three candidates um and i don't i submitted a report on that deliberation um there were um some concerns um about still looking for it here um wait a minute there were there were just some concerns about um dwayne chamble uh who works for the school district um there were concerns uh that the majority of the people that are on the elementary school building committee are employees of the district um the vast majority of them are men and we pointed out that a number of of um qualified women had applied um and the other issue was that um there was concern that there was nobody on the committee who um was uh an expert in zero energy building even though at least one person had applied so um dorothy and i ended up abstaining and the other three members voted four so um actually elissa is going to make the motion here okay elissa i moved to approve the following town manager appointments under charter section two point one one b to the elementary school building committee as recommended by the town services and outreach committee dwayne chamble bb mariam and jonathan salvin is there a second second dross okay and elissa do you want to speak to the motion i just want to mention that you notice it doesn't have an end date but that's because this is that very funny committee that's going to last forever and so there didn't seem to be any point in putting an end date on it it's done when it's done and the other thing i wanted to clarify is with the uh tso report it doesn't really represent all of the discussion and that there was some pushback on some of those comments but i also do want to clarify that when it is stated publicly that women or people of certain abilities or characteristics or skills applied this is all private through the town managers so the only way that anybody knows that is if some individual told them i applied for that and he didn't recommend me so i just don't want anyone in the public to think that the tso or the full town council has any idea who applied for these positions because we don't know that except individuals may have approached individuals to share that information it's just one of the little quirky parts of our process maybe joe yeah i wanted to express some concern about the report this was a unanimous vote in tso because abstentions are not knows abstentions are a choice to choose not to vote you are saying i don't want to vote on this when you abstain yet the report only discussed reasons kind of for voting no but there were no no votes and the report did not at all discuss reasons for voting in favor which was the actual unanimous decision of the tso so i just wanted to express my concern about how this report was written that it failed to include any reasons for why the three members who voted unanimously to support these recommendations actually made that vote um and all so that's all there any other comments at this time hey the motion's been made and seconded i'm going to do the roll call uh i believe this time i start with evan ross yes george ryan yes yes kathy shane abstain steve schreiber yes gandhi steinberg yes sarah schwarz yes yes chalene ball milne yes i'm sorry yes grower yes pat de angeles yes darcy demont abstain lin greece mersey yes mandy johannicky yes and dorthy pamm abstain so the motion passes ten four none against three abstentions no napson okay moving on to the human rights commission yes um the um the town manager put forward the um uh recommendations to fill positions in this human rights commission um uh he was uh away for the time period of our meeting and jennifer moisten came and um and uh put in a pitch for the different nominees which was great because she's the staff to the committee um and she's one of the community participation officers um we heard we uh heard only good things about all the applicants um and ended up unanimously recommending them for reappointment or for one of them for reappointment the rest for appointment to um to the to the recommended to the council to reappoint them and appoint them do one shall I go ahead and make the motion darcy i can make that so the motion is to approve the following town manager appointments under charter section 211 b to the human rights commission is recommended by the town services and outreach committee for a term to expire june 30th 2022 said for rara a reappointment for terms to expire june 30th 2023 cedric gonett alizabeth hey good and erica loper is there a second i second thank you any further discussion at this time okay we begin with george ryan yes kathy shane yes steve schreiber yes andy steinberg yes sarah schwartz yes calinny balmille yes elisabar yes pat de angeles yes dressy demont yes yes then greece mersey yes nandy joe hannagy yes northy pamm yes evan ross yes passes unanimously 13-4 none against none abstain none absent okay we are now going to go into executive session and so let me don't anybody do anything yet okay this tape will keep running and it will have a sign on it that says the council is in executive session and after executive session we will all have to log back in and come in back into this meeting but meantime you have to log out of this meeting and surge has sent you an individual invitation to a different zoom login okay and so you need to go from that this zoom login the other zoom log in and then when we come back out of executive session we will come back into this zoom login so make sure that somewhere in your calendar although i'm sure athena will be glad to send it to us all again so we know which to log back into so i will see you in the other zoom no no no oh wait a minute we need to vote in to go into executive session before we vote on the executive session we were working on appointments why are we not finishing that process because we're going to go on to the next appointments after we come back out because we didn't want to be so late in the meeting going into executive session we have to be late either way because there is a real discussion that has to happen around the appointments it feels like a manipulation now it was not meant as a manipulation believe me um yeah we probably have a lot of people waiting attendees okay i wish somebody had told me they didn't agree with this when i sent you this the revised schedule which i did earlier today um and the town manager appointments are all together on the agenda the town manager appointments are finished and the and then in the agenda it goes to the town council appointments to planning board but in the order of the agenda that i sent to you with the timing which we're way off i always are the order different fine we'll go to the town council appointments planning board community resources committee mandy johannicky so community resources committee met on august 26th in two separate meetings um one meeting to hold interviews and one meeting to make those discussions the interviews were held with five individuals and lasted approximately an hour after interviews that meeting was adjourned and a new meeting was called to order to have a discussion about recommendations per the process that crc has adopted those that discussion is put forth in the memo that was dated august 27th at the end of the discussion crc voted three to one with one absent to recommend the town council appoint to the planning board effective immediately for terms expiring june 30th 2023 johanna newman tom long and andrew mcdougal um you can read the report um i don't think i need to go into any more detail unless people ask about that report it includes both the reasons for the three votes in favor of this uh recommendation and the one vote dissenting from the recommendation so at this time i'm going to make the motion to appoint the following individuals to the planning board per charter section 2.9c effective immediately as recommended by the community resources committee for terms expiring june 30th 2023 johanna newman tom long and andrew mcdougal is there a second ryan second did we separate those motions out and how i don't think we should separate them out so what darcy did was just move to divide if that gets a second then there needs to be a motion then that needs to be voted on and receive a majority of votes to actually divide um i lin i'm just not sure how to do this i want to make a motion to postpone this discussion for consideration after another item that i want to bring um and i understand that i it's a consideration for time certain as opposed to post just a motion to postpone um and this was something not anticipated in 48 hours in advance so i wanted to have another discussion before we get into the discussion of these of the actual appointments okay um kathy did inform me of these and i did send them to you um so your your motion kathy which i need to put before the council is to what okay so according to the language that was sent to me because i'm not good on this uh these motions in terms of the wording it's moved to postpone item nine b to a time certain for consideration after 14 a non-anticipated 48 hours in advance is there a second i second it okay um the motion's been made and seconded is there further discussion uh shallony my hand was up for the earlier ones so we're discussing right now kathy's motion yes okay i think that uh regarding that my perspective is that we proposed that last year and we didn't go ahead with it the motion that we're doing wait let me just read okay i'm going to put my hand down and read this again hold on the motion we're discussing is the motion to postpone item nine b to a time certain for consideration after item 14 a not anticipated 48 hours in advance evan so i had some i had my hand raised for something different as a crc member i wanted to add on to what mandy said before we started this kangaroo process of people just yelling out what motions they want to make um but i am i am 14 b seems to be reconsideration of what we did last week and i heard no rationale as to why we should postpone an appointment until after we 14 a 14 okay that's where i got confused um okay i'll okay darcy i don't have my hand up okay then take your hand down okay so the motion on the table is to move to postpone item nine b to a time certain for consideration after item 14 a not anticipated 48 hours in advance is there any further discussion this is a this is a vote on the motion to postpone okay all it is darcy i need i need um let me just see yeah i need this put into common sense english please um i don't really know what it says and or what it means so i mean i have an idea but when i hear the language i just you know it's hard to know what we're talking about mandy joe do you want to explain a vote yes on the motion on the table to postpone means that we would discuss kathy's well the proposed motion under item 14 a on associate members to the planning board prior to discussing appointments to the planning board a vote no would mean we go ahead and discuss planning board appointments now and take up item 14 a in the regular course of the agenda oh i see okay i i get this so 14 a is planning board hyphen associate members right that's correct so i guess i would agree that i would like to have that discussion before we have um the other discussion okay so uh george and i think that we shouldn't vote in favor of this motion and that um this discussion is something that should be taken up at some other time and now is not the time um we have a crc recommendation and i think we should address it and decide on it one way or the other and i think this is so i'm basically asking people to vote no on this so we can get back to the main issue at hand northease your hand up still oh no i'm gonna yeah please take your hands down yeah thank you uh garcy yeah i guess i would just um uh vote in favor of this because uh i don't think it would take very long for kathy to explain to us what it is that she is suggesting and it might influence uh how we all feel about the upcoming vote um so uh i i'd like to hear what her idea is steve schreiber i'm gonna um plus one to what my colleague council ryan said that and actually for the reason many of you want to hear this right now is because there are people waiting and the 48 hours item is a new item that will very doubtfully reach closure tonight so i urge us to take action on this now while the night is still young for the fairness of those people who are candidates that are are watching this listen i'll just say that i'm going to be voting against this motion i think the associates idea is great i don't think it is appropriately in the spirit of something that's unanticipated within 48 hours i think we could have known weeks ago that we might want to consider associate members just like we toyed with the idea over a year ago and i understand it as a possible solution to a problem and i think it can be addressed if the motion for the crc recommendation fails i don't think it needed to be done as a 48 hour item and i'm uncomfortable with the way that it is being done that way but i think we can still get to it another way so the motion on the floor that's been made in second is to move to postpone item nine b to a time certain for consideration after item 14 a not anticipated 48 hours in advance is there any other discussion shallony yeah i i also agree with ryan and steve that and alissa that that if this is something we want to consider we should do it as a separate thing this is not how we advertised the position this is not what the people came in interviewing for and now to throw that just because we want to resolve a difficult situation doesn't feel fair to the people but i am very interested in this um possibility as i was last year and and i think it should be done in a separate discussion any other comments okay then we're going to take the vote on this and we begin with kathy shane yes steve schreiber um so vote yes means that we would delay that we postpone yes let's go no andy steinberg no no sarah schwarz yes shallony ball mill no alissa brewer no pat de angeles yes garcy dumont yes yes lin greasmer's no bandy joe hannacky no pam garcy pam yes devin ross no and george ryan no okay the motion is defeated it is five four five four it and eight no and no extensions okay so that we are back to the original motion and the original motion that's on the table is to appoint the following individuals to the planning board per charter section 2.9c effective immediately as recommended by the community resources committee for terms expiring june 30th 2023 yohana newman tom long andrew mcdougal so any further discussion evan so this was the comment i wanted to make earlier um which is just adding on to mandy's report um as a crc member just to say um as a former as the former oca chair that's having run through crc for the first time i just want to say that crc followed oca's process almost identically the conversation looked very similar to the conversation oca had about zba and so the process was the scene that was used for zba and oca and for planning board and i was happy to see as former oca chaired the oca process carried forward and implemented again with one slight change which was the utilization of the statements of interest um which i think that crc members can agree were incredibly useful valuable and provided us far more information than the calf so before we get into what might be a contentious conversation i wanted to recognize that the oca process once again has worked has been fruitful and that the so i think was a really good decision i want to thank the council for having supported that when it was brought forward as an oca recommendation okay so first i just want to apologize for not making it to this very important meeting to do a conflict that i could not avoid um so i wanted to make my statement here and spend several hours going through all the interviews and the statements of interest and and beyond um and you know just based on the feedback we've been getting and what the discussion itself i mean it is contentious and we all uh different people have different points of view so i just want to invite everyone to pause and and consider what might be the reasons why other people have these different perspectives before we jump to any kind of assumptions about why we think certain people are voting in a certain way we can just really take this time to understand and each other's perspective and why we are making the choices we're making and maybe in this process we might shift our views so i wanted to run by you what my thought process was the question that i kept holding as i went through all the different pros and cons of the different candidates was the question what is the best for all of amherst given our town goals and not just for the people who are attending these meetings not just the people who wrote to us but also let's keep in mind all the residents who are affected by our decisions so when i hold that question my first question was what are our town goals and what are the current skill sets that we have so we have with us in the planning board an architect a campus planner and slash architect a hydrology scientist and a lawyer and what we lost last year with greg stutzman was we lost a business perspective and we know that we are in an economic crisis i mean i was always in favor of economic vitality and by that let me clarify i do not mean development as in because every time we talk about economic vitality it seems there is a sense in among some residents and maybe some counselors as well we're talking about the six and seven or five whatever story buildings that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about the economic vitality that is needed which supports the restaurants that immigrants own the BIPOC people own downtown i'm talking about the doctors who are complaining i've spoken to several doctors and entrepreneurs and spinoffs out of UMass who have complained to me over and over again that the zoning bylaws make it so hard for them and expensive because every time they have to come to the planning board and they send back again and because it's a goofiness of our zoning bylaws they need to get an architect they need to get um lawyers and that's costing them thousands of dollars and i have a doctor who's told me she is telling all her doctor friends do not open any clinic in Amherst because of that anyway that is one person's perspective and again i don't want to make that's everyone's but i have spoken with other entrepreneurs who have had feeling so it is really important as far as i'm concerned um to have that perspective which we do not have when we talk about diversity of perspective on our boards that is a perspective we do not have right now and which i did feel that Andrew McDougall brought to the board and when i went ahead and read his um description um he also talked about the other goals that we have of social justice in fact he was one of the few people who brought that up um and in terms of very specific expertise that he brings he talked about extensive experience identifying cost saving revenue growth opportunities within retail distribution so anyway he has a lot of amazing expertise having worked with federal and local governments and planning boards which i think would be amazing for us to have in our thing the other thing that i thought very interesting about tom was he's mentioning the humans human centered design that perspective that he brings and you have heard me say that before we are in a very interesting time and very crazy time and interesting time and we need skill sets that are going to engage the community in a way like we've never done before and we need new and innovative ways of thinking that i thought that tom brings with the human centered approach in creating spaces so when we're looking at downtowns or how can we make them walkable how do we make them safe and engaging i think we're going to use both of these skill sets that these people bring um when i talk when we think about experience because that's another thing that's been talked a lot is that uh we will be losing experience of mr bird whistle and i agree that that is uh that is of course true that he has been there for three years and he brings that experience but that to me also is experience that can be gained and learned i mean we saw that with janet mcgovern who joined and in one year she has been an amazing participant so it's not it's not so much about experience because the same people who are saying this year they want experience where last year willing to let go of experience and the people who said they wanted experience last year are letting go of experience so it's not about experience really the way we're thinking it's it's about skill sets that are relevant right now um in terms of experience itself what i'm seeing the three candidates proposed by steercy the kind of experience they are bringing cannot be gained by sitting on a planning board for two years or three years or ten years what we're hearing is these people are bringing an organizational skills work skills working with planning boards working with uh different innovative ways of thinking that that are very unique and i would love to see them on our board right now the third thing i want to say i know this is going on and on but i just want to make up for the time not having been there at the steercy meeting um i think one thing that we also have to realize is that um there are huge challenges coming up with affordable housing with economic crisis and in addition to climate change so i don't think status quo is what we're looking for we do need i really do believe that we want skill sets that are innovator that are going to be able to think out of the box that are going to be able to engage the communities and work and in building coalitions um one thing that i struggled the most with was does this feel like we're insulting uh an existing board member who is committed who's shown up who's worked hard and by not re-appointing them and so i turned that question to myself that if i was in in his position how would i feel and i feel very strongly that yeah we're going to be up for voting uh next year and just because i showed up because i worked hard there is no guarantee that people are going to vote for me again and so just because people have shown up and done their hard work and and truly i know it is amazing sacrifices that everyone who's volunteering is making and i'm so grateful for everyone who is volunteering so this is not meant to be disrespectful to anyone who i am not suggesting be re-appointed but it goes with the terrain that when we volunteer there's a possibility that there will be people who will come up with the relevant skill sets and and it's not a guarantee that we will be re-appointed again or re-voted in again so i'm hoping that this is my my vote is not seen as disrespect to people who have shown up but i just think that the situation demands that we look at the kind of skill sets we need to build collaboration to build coalition to engage the community and to bring in perspectives that we don't currently have so with that i would render my support to the existing people suggested by the CRC. Kathy? You know i appreciate Melanie your walking through your thinking and i just want to go back to a process that we've set up and i would like to honor the process we set up we set up a criteria that we were going to be looking at we actually said i think when uh oka uh was ended that we would abide by guidelines not just the way they were doing things and the guidelines had were as of may when we and other things was to give a preference to someone who's committed to one full term for a second term unless there was a really strong reason not to and so i just want to speak for the candidate where the applicant that we're not talking about who's michael burk whistle we received over 25 emails from people and these were from people that had worked with him on the planning board that had worked with him as he's been the planning board representative on community preservation at committee and on the design review board strongly positive to the fact that he does think out of the box this is not a just think about one thing he comes to every meeting and i've been the liaison to cpa he comes to every meeting incredibly prepared having really fought through and in that their people are applying for a money um with a very strong commitment to affordable housing um and well articulated he's always prepared and the kinds of comments we got about him go with what the past the outgoing chair said she was advising the council to adhere to which was the same criteria we adhered to the last two times we've done um either zoning board or planning board under ocha and it um she talked about knowledge of the community issues knowledge of the master pan zoning bylaws understanding of the regulatory function of the board what is the planning board understanding the way they go about the work and how a seasoned person an experienced person keeping a mix and so i want to remind everyone we're not talking about putting three people who have all been on the board for four or five years we're talking about re-appointing one person potentially and putting two brand new people and i'd like lin i sent um a power point chart that i want to show we have right now a quite inexperienced board um there are two people with four years of service um so they will their terms expire at very times there's one person that has far less than a year it was just appointed um at the end of may or june and one person who's just at a year and so we're we're talking about adding one re-appointment to the mix of the four that now exist and two brand new that in the interviews and i sat through it in real time um we have three people they came up through crc as being recommended but if they are all committed and we put two of them on this board then they will be here next year i mean we're starting to get a healthy mix of people out there this doesn't go away we have two appointments opening up potentially next year and the year after um and attending board meetings we've had people drop off because of the um extent of which the hours have been required and i just want to read because when i said we had 25 comments um i'm just going to read a couple excerpts from people i'm attending this is someone who's an observer of the planning board i've attended physically attended the planning board meetings before covid by the past 18 month and have been impressed with michael's thoroughness in preparing a conch in preparing a conscientious question he often brings up points no one else has thought of and has led in a way to be questioning with the foundation of the master plan which he knows very well he's also representative of the planning board of cpa design review board he attends those meetings religiously and reports on them to the rest of the board he's the only one who is a liaison to two committees there's rarely a site visit that he has missed in fact i found him to be one of the hardest workers on the planning board another colleague who worked with him on cpa wrote i worked with michael for two years on the cpa committee which i chaired he was a diligent committee member who rarely missed a meeting was always prepared easily engaged in thoughtful discussion and rarely had comments that weren't important to hear he was a vigorous defender of taxpayer dollars and equally enthusiastic about the mission of cpa michael is blunt and intangibly irascible but he was never bullheaded or stubborn in our deliberations he was comfortable acknowledging when admits to conversation or presentation he had changed his mind this combination of forcefulness with flexibility was refreshing and i think his style encouraged other members to articulate their own concerns about a project even when they felt their opinions were going against perceived consensus and then the last one i didn't want to do are these ones that we all received yes so the last one i just want to point out was from a colleague on the planning board who said in effect he's done nothing that we wouldn't expect of a planning board and by not reappointing him we could be considered to be firing him and he hasn't done anything that would lead to that conclusion and it's a scary thing because future applicants might think if or board members might think if they speak up if they have a different point of view they too will be terminated i don't think we want to be sending that signal so i strongly urge people to consider michael burt whistle as one of the three and to appoint two new people so we will have two new people along with existing people on the board kathy are you making a motion um i i think i am lind so i would make a motion that we appoint michael burt whistle to a three-year term and i don't know how to do that in the context of another motion that has three other names it would need to be a motion to amend that removes one name and replaces it with his exactly and let me just ask darcy asked do we have to do it as a group because i i would prefer your discussion on each of the other three um i'm i did attend the meeting and i did listen to what shallony just said um so if we're talking about michael burt whistle plus two other people i would like to hear some discussion on who the other two should be what is the right compliment rather than me picking two i could pick two i have the ability to do that you know i'm comfortable with the other three um you know as shallony listed they are different um i'm comfortable with a conversation about each of the other two people but i really want to bring michael burt whistle in as one of the names to be considered for a three-year term i think the only way to proceed is that there be an amendment to the motion all right well i can make one kind of amendment which would be i i amend the motion and i make a motion to appoint michael burt with a three-year term to be affected immediately and that's my initial amendment so if you want me to that's like dividing the motion you can no because even if the motion's divided there's still three names and one of them needs deleted in order to replace it with michael burt whistle good right all right so if you're going to make me make a choice and i listened to shallony then i would pick delete um tom long because we have two architects already on the board and i'm hoping that he will apply should one of them leave or we can reconsider next year and to leave andrew mcdougal and johanna on as the other two who would be new to the board so it would be michael burt whistle andrew and johanna i second that all right so in effect the motion is to amend the original motion by removing the name of tom long and replacing it with the name of michael burt whistle is that it is because i am being put into the box of having to have three as i said i would prefer to go right into michael burt whistle but yes i am comfortable with that group of three people sarah your comment so i don't want to take up a lot of time and i wanted people to respect okas process and as part of crc i want to be respectful to crc um i wanted to make the point that i'm not flopping on anything that i said when we first tried to make these appointments a year ago i introduced one new person out of seven it was there was it was green but it wasn't it this the planning board was not as green as it is right now i have not i have not changed my thinking i also want to say that in soul searching this um for me i found that this is not about a person or a bias for me this is about how i feel about process and how i feel about equity versus political thinking um and in that i'm going to say i'm a terrible politician found that out but process is important to me because i believe it does create equity in government planning board is not elected it's appointed and that's a really big difference and for me i feel like when we're looking for people to serve and we're trying to get people to come and serve i think that they need to have a feeling that that they will be judged on the same rules as another person meaning there are hard and fast rules that people need to reach in order to get elected or to get class see to get appointed or to get reappointed to that and i one big difference in the process was that um the thing that the thing that okah spent the longest amount of time on which was term limits was changed and i was not there for that discussion um so but term limits are something that we we argued about and i said every single thing that shalini did on my i write on because that's everything that i said and when i said that george said to me if you have hard and fast term limits it would make our lives much easier oh two terms you're done next and that and that may be what the committee decides to do but the the very way that this has been phrased right now um and in keeping uh with it um we do not have hard term limits it makes our job harder for perhaps more realistic maybe i'm the only one who feels like we are dancing around the simple fact that there is an undeniable political element to these two bodies planning board and zoning board of appeals and if you are not happy with planning and zoning for whatever reason then you are probably eager to see some kind of changes and you are going to be looking for fresh faces or or people whose views are closer to what you imagine they would be but would be the right views and that seems to be a fact uh of of these two boards that doesn't bother me that it's political what does bother me is the idea that we are going to have hard term limits so that we will not regularly have these discussions and what i realize is is i don't think it's political and i don't think it's about a person uh one particular person i think that we need to one of the things that we didn't do um in CRC when we went through this process was that we did not talk about why somebody would or would not be reappointed in ocho we started to we said they were someone who showed up they were someone that the that the um met the criteria of the um the the chairman and that they needed to be prepared all the time we did not have that discussion at all and so for me i think it comes down to the fact that i don't want us to flip flop on our decisions every single time we can only do that so much before it's very obvious why we're flip flopping and i i don't mean this as um a condemnation of anyone because you know perhaps the way i'm looking at this is very naive and perhaps it would be better if more effective as a politician if i supported someone who always supported my views um so again i'm going to say the same thing that i said the last time we were here which for me this is not political thank you garcy um yeah i would always uh agree with sara on that um that the my main concern is that the the selection criteria that was used by crc um that effectively excluded or fired michael burt whistle um from the planning board was um um was changed it was changed from the selection criteria that oka had passed to it and from the selection criteria the term limit selection criteria that that has been used historically in town and so the rule that has historically been used gives preference to members who are in good standing to serve for a second full term for up to six years that's what the oka rule said um and that rule balances the reason for it for giving the preference after the first term for reappointment is that it balances it it balances the need for experience on a committee um with um the opportunity to appoint appoint new members so after the first term the preference is for the experience after six years two two three year terms or six years then the preference shifts to looking for new fresh faces which wasn't michael burt whistle had not um come up to that point of where we would be looking for new faces to replace him his experience is is what is valuable um so um after six years it's assumed that new folks should be preferred um at least if they're available so this is a rule the towns has had in its committee handbook and that as I said oka passed on to the crc and as rob crowner who um is someone who wrote an email to the town council in the last day uh said it it honors the town's custom of allowing board members in good standing to serve for two full terms to grow into and confidently exercise the skills and knowledge gained during the first term and to take a formal or informal leadership or mentoring role during the second term um and he went on to say has that not been the rule in amherst up to now isn't that the rule that was also carried on by oka and passed to the crc um and isn't that the rule that has also been used in town committees so I I served on oka um and we put a lot of time into developing that selection criteria that we passed to the crc um and um the term limit piece was the only thing that's the crc changed um which seemed like a political move um because of their awareness of that michael vert whistle was the only member of the planning board who was up for reappointment um so anyway I urge the council not to feel bound by a recommendation that was made using that selection criteria um because our our real selection criteria in amherst is time honored um and I hope that you will vote for reappointment and michael vert whistle based on that experience has given the chance to have that additional term um so that he can use the experience he's so committed he's knowledgeable and has a broad understanding of planning and zoning so I hope that you will look to that amherst tradition and follow it driver yeah so um I think you all know that I'm a member of the crc that voted I was part of the group that voted three to one I think you also all know that I was 10 years on the planning board including my last I think it was two or three years as chair and I also served with one of the candidates for two and a half years on the planning board so I just want to be clear that the way that I'm approaching this is that I believe it's our ethical obligation to field the best possible team so our job and it's an incredibly important job that we have we we staff the the planning board and we staff the zoning board of appeals we do the evaluation of the town manager those are the personnel issues that we get involved with so the selection of the planning board is something that we should be is one of the most important decisions that we make and I strongly believe that just like fielding a baseball team that we it's our obligation to field that planning board with the basically to curate the best possible board at that particular moment so this happens to be a moment in which we had a number of good applicants including the incumbent and I I feel you know I feel strongly that the three that we chose as the top are the most appropriate for this moment I also believe that these are three newcomers to the Amherst town politics I don't believe that any one of them has ever served in town government before and I think it's incredibly exciting that we were able to recruit them to apply grow through this grueling process and be candidates in this so we should be you know we should be very excited about that honestly I dismiss all of the letters that have been written to us because I find that letter writing to be exceptionally unfair to all of the other candidates especially the ones that are the front runners they had no idea that they were supposed to be soliciting friends to writing testimonials about them so the fact that they don't have testimonials and that another candidate does have testimonials I give no weight to so and I don't believe that any of us should give weight to you know to those letters because we were not asking for letters of reference everyone keeps saying wait till next year so you know one of the three candidates can wait till next year that same message can be given to the other candidates whoever does not prevail tonight that's exact same message wait till next year so we all know about a zba candidate that was taken off applied again the next year was put back on actually in the pool of six that we originally were considering was a former planning board member who had more experience so he had taken time off from the planning board it was basically applying it again so there's also been a discussion about the service of um Mike Burt whistle to other committees so those other committees he is the planning board liaison to that and I I don't have the planning board rules in front of me the planning board liaisons are not always sitting members of the planning board I believe that the drb is oftentimes a past planning board member I have no idea how this vote will shake out tonight but however this decision happens tonight does does not and should not be considered also a vote for the drb and for the community the cpa committee so that's what I have to say I believe that the crc worked in due diligence on this it was incredibly grueling decision because there are sort of the known quantities and the not known quantities the known quantities generated a lot of letter writing and testimonials tonight the not known quantities generated zero but I that's a factor of the fact that they don't understand this process and it should not be seen as whatsoever as a any kind of evidence that they also don't have that kind of support or much more so I urge you to vote no on the motion on the table and I urge you to welcome three new faces to town government at d angeles thank you um hopefully i'm going to be a little shorter than some of my colleagues if i dance back to what chalene talked about when she talked about expertise uh and the specific um credentials of tom and andrew uh she omitted johanna and i'm going to um and and I would I would omit johanna as well she brings um great work in terms of environmental issues um but she has no experience as an architect as a designer as a landscape architect she um brings very little experience um to the planning board she would have the most to learn uh and I feel like let's get honest if you want experience then you have that and michael bertwistle who I support um in her place and I'm going to read a very short section of a letter we all received uh from Nate buddington um and and I asked his permission and because what he's speaking to is a little different than pro professional expertise uh and the importance of a variety of opinions and people and a diversity of people he he says many things but one of the things he says is I acknowledge there is a growing interest in populating town boards with people who possess a specific professional expertise that's a good thing but there needs to be room for knowledgeable amateurs who have good judgment quick minds intellectual flexibility and a collaborative approach to their work there also should be space for devoted contrarians who use their original thinking to make committee deliberations more thoughtful and expansive michael is modestly contrarian in my opinion but I learned from his ability to think originally and from his overall collegial demeanor so I'm going to throw another thing into the mix I think that we should vote down all three candidates and then vote for them one at a time and vote for michael burt whistle and two other people I think it's I think that we're sort of playing here and I don't think that that's anybody's intention um but I think it's very interesting that you can dismiss letters uh from people it's interesting to me that you can say we need professional expertise and then choose someone who doesn't have it it's interesting that the criteria for from both the planning board and from crc had to do with experience and it's ongoingly um important to me that we have trouble with appointments and I see that trouble and as now that I'm a liaison to the disability access um advisory committee that appointments are handled very strangely and at the whim of and paul I don't mean this in completely negatively at the whim of the town manager in that case and the whim of a group of people who aren't looking at I think the real intricacy of collaboration and the intricacy of establishing and building community trust and I feel like well that's enough anyway I I I guess I I don't know whether I'm proposing a motion I robert's rules of order or whatever but I very much feel like we either need to vote for each of these people individually and that includes michael burt whistle um or we need to reject the whole slate and then decide who we do want are you calling the question I guess so am I Mandy joe other people I'm sorry what Alyssa what if you call the question no though nobody else can talk no if she wants to end debate and go to a vote on the motion she calls the question and it requires two-thirds of the council to vote in favor of ending debate for it to pass uh I need directly to a vote on the motion to amend Alyssa what should I do I'm really asking people have their hands raised yeah yeah let's go ahead I won't call the question yet Dorothy okay um those letters were not testimonials those letters were protest letters they were letters of dissent with the decision that they saw as being egregiously wrong they thought the decision was one that would um stifle people from volunteering for committees if they thought they could be thrown out like an old shoe for the new flavor of the month now when I'm feeling generous I can say perhaps the committee was very excited because there were some really good interesting candidates old as well as new and it's exciting to to see different people but the idea that you would think that you don't need Michael Burt whistle on that board I find absolutely ridiculous when the former chair was not reappointed after a much longer term there was all the argument that you needed experience and then during your discussion which I did listen to completely um it was like oh well maybe experience we we said that but you know it really ran well yes it ran well because it had Michael Burt whistle on it who has great experience who is very intelligent who's an original thinker did his work and it helped do it so now if you remove Michael Burt whistle who has all the most experience even though you put these wonderfully talented new people who I am very excited about I liked all of them and I also like the old person Bob Greeny all qualified people um it doesn't mean that it will run as well without that experience so um Shalini talked about the importance of showing up and doing your work but that's not what I'm talking about okay I'm talking about intelligence I'm talking about independence I'm talking about integrity those are the qualities that make a candidate very exciting and integral and necessary but now if I put my cynical hat on it I will say I knew he wasn't going to be reappointed before I even heard a single one of the new candidates now how can I know that because it's been in the air and we all knew it so so the planning board is very important we have a very fine candidate who should be reappointed and we have some wonderful other candidates I think we should be excited about that and instead of creating a situation which makes people lose faith in the planning board in the town council in the appointment process in giving your all to a committee and then being just treated very rudely I think we should include Michael Burtwistle as to as a candidate to be voted onto the planning board and to choose two of the other two the one and it you know they're all talented they're all people who'd be very good but we have new openings coming up but Michael Burtwistle will not apply for that again in the future after being treated this way and I think you know that so the new people who I'm very excited about will have plenty of chance to add their voices to making Amherst a wonderful town bringing their views and sharing their views but I feel that without Michael Burtwistle on the on the planning board you have really weakened it and weakened its independence and created a situation where people lose trust in us the town council as well as the planning board. Andy? So there's several things one is that one of the letter writers and one other commentator used the term firing and I don't and Shalini responded to that earlier and I don't want to spend much time on it because of the hour but it was it's about not reappointing because of the reasons that a committee is already stated but it isn't that the term firing is really not what this is about there's been comparisons to the situation last year with Greg Stutzman and having been one who argued very strongly for Greg I want to point out that the reason that I did that last year was because as a member of CRC last year I was not reappointed to CRC so I'm not on the current committee that made this recommendation we tried to learn as much as we could about zoning and the master plan and the one person from the planning board who continuously came to our meetings took the time in the olden days when we actually met in the town room and people had to physically come and was there and explained with clarity what the history of the master plan what the history of zoning was and how they related and answered our questions in tremendous detail with and had a tremendous amount of preparation to it was Greg and that it made me really appreciate an exceptional amount of experience as somebody who has been on it and was chair for a very short period of time then and I with all respect for Michael I don't think that they're comparable and the last thing I want to say is that we just talked about some the goals for the town and goals for the council and the town manager and climate action community health and safety economic vitality major capital investments housing affordability racial equity and social justice and additionally talked about wanting a well managed town the well managed town provides municipal school and library services we value some of these goals cannot be achieved without a master plan and zoning bylaw that is consistent with them all of the goals require resources we all know the proposition to Lewis growth and property tax revenue which is our largest source of stable funds without an override or new growth and we're just able to maintain current services with the revenue available without an override that leaves nothing for new initiatives and even current services are at risk when an increase in inflation or an unforeseen crisis such as we're facing now comes along and regular responsible growth is therefore essential I really commend the CRC for an interview process that elicited views of candidates that demonstrate their imagination and their experience to develop an employment zoning and advanced council goal the advanced council goals the CRC analysis then identified three candidates who are best prepared to meet that challenge that I appreciate their approach and their recommendation filming yes so I would really appreciate it if people did not say that we did this or choose that or I wasn't even there but the reason we're doing this is for political reasons because I'm hoping that having worked together for a year and a half we've all voted all over the place and I'm hoping that each of us can see that in each other that we really bring in our own thinking and perspective here so let's and in fact the political thing for me might be to actually vote yes for my call that would be the easier thing to do but the harder thing is to actually reflect and go in and do something that aligns with my integrity and ethics which I am looking at is what are the skill sets that will and that was my position last time to what will make the planning board skill sets the strongest and again when we look at these very specific skill sets of these are the things we've been talking about in the last month where for example with the multidisciplinary practices are highly focused on human-centered design placing the lived experience of community members at the center of the design practice I'm talking about Tom and he's worked with many city and public approval processes for public projects gaining insight into the goals priorities and collaborative processes that towns and cities use so he has not been on a planning board but he's worked with planning boards and he's worked in amazing projects at international levels like he was a designer and collaborator and completed the memorial for the abolition of slavery in France I mean this is the caliber of skill sets we have the chance to bring to our council and we're saying oh no let him apply next year do you think he will apply has anyone ever who's been rejected applied I mean somewhat people who are so busy and we don't know whether they're gonna apply or not and so is this a skill set we want to lose and then in response to Pat's question about Johanna and what is she praying let's look at her her work experience and she's been an organizing advocate around environmental and public interest issues climate change is one of the most important goals we have over here and she's trained and experienced in facilitation of groups strategic planning coalition building community outreach communication and more and we know that she brings in the environmental and we need the coalition building we need the community outreach as we consider zoning by us we want to make that process as transparent and engage the community at every level and she's going to bring in those skill sets of how do we organize the the meetings and community and these are skill sets that we cannot ignore and really just think about this forget about the personalities forget about the people think about just the skill sets of the people and see how hard it is so at least give us credit that we're not doing it for political reasons I I didn't even have the forget about the idea that we planned the whole change in the CRC because Michael was I mean I didn't even know Michael was going I mean I was so clueless that I even missed the CRC meeting so to think that I was planning so much ahead that I changed the whole CRC process to make that happen is really very disrespectful to the fellow counselors we're working pretty hard to be fair about this Alyssa exhausting we'll try and talk fast so many of the people writing to us despite their experience in town government seemed to have forgotten a couple of things that is until we had a town council there was zero I repeat zero transparency around who had applied for appointments to volunteer positions whether they were appointed directly by the select board directly by the town manager or confirmed by the select board and yet despite decades of having always done it that way we all agreed as a town council we wanted much more transparency in our appointments and that leaves us in a mess that's just the case it's been stated over and over again that it would alienate people who applied and were turned down who were rejected who were fired as well as people who wouldn't even bother to apply because they fear that risk we've been told repeatedly there are people who don't want to risk their professional reputation by applying for something and being turned down yet we decided we wanted a more transparent process for our appointments so as awkward as this is and this is a really grueling conversation that is taking a huge amount of time we should actually pat ourselves on the back for doing what we said we thought was really important the other thing that many of our writers forget is that there was in fact no automatic reappointment after one three-year term not when it was made by the elected select board not when it was made by the elected town council although it's true it's often been the position of the appointed town manager who in fact generally does not evaluate what you or I might consider good standing in the same way that our elected bodies have been doing as Darcy said there's still an appointed committee handbook that says a preference is for a second term it's true CRC changed the language that Oka used and you might all remember me saying hey if you guys are going to change anything you better have a really good reason for it I'm not sure this needed to be changed but I would argue that they really only modified it slightly because they still use the definition of a healthy body being a mix of people speaking of the CRC process I'm not fond of the idea of the idea that CRC didn't find it valuable as part of their process to ascertain whether any of the applicants being recommended indicated they in fact had any familiarity with the actual work of the Amherst planning board by having watched or analyzed any of their meetings versus just having really interesting ideas and skills but that's an argument I had at Oka and I lost it there too so I'm not surprised that CRC didn't ask that question or tried and listed it in a statement of interest I hope we'll consider doing that in the future I think we all have very different perspectives on what happened last year my perspective is that last year's challenge was over at whether it made sense to appoint someone beyond six years as well as balancing that with the most needed set of skills at that particular moment some of us were swayed one way some of us were swayed the other Michael of course has not served six years I don't know why we'd put him in for three years when he's already served four years I would have assumed two would make sense if that is the case that we would move toward because I do not see why we would make it seven something I said is an Oka member all these book meetings we all go to is that it's awkward to say but applying over and over just like running for office over and over doesn't mean you get to get appointed or elected even if you run for two elected offices at the very same time it still doesn't mean that despite all your efforts that you're going to win at some point I mentioned at town council more than once that the approach you know was long thought out at Oka we did an amazing report thanks largely to Evan of trying to capture like every conversation we had at Oka so that you all would have that one of the ways that our extensive written documentation let's see rc down was in how to approach deliberation I watched the meeting I have offended someone already by saying I feel like it went off the rails pretty early on because it was really awkward when they said let's start deliberation okay nobody wants to talk because it's incredibly awkward to talk about individuals but almost immediately it was glommed on to two seats here's one seat we're going to put it aside here's the other seat we're going to put it aside now we've got everybody else competing for one seat left I just felt like that was really not the approach that was helpful in terms of looking at the whole committee and how everybody fits together right because you're looking at the people who are still saying and the people who you're considering coming in I understand the purpose of trying to come to consensus and a straw vote early on Oka did some of that too but fairly rapidly two seats were set aside thus leaving the rest to compete for one seat that felt really especially inappropriate to me given that the reappointment hadn't been discussed reflecting back to like an hour ago when people were talking about the actual reappointment it was mentioned very early but then you know the conversation went a different direction with all good intentions and it never came back to hey wait what did we decide was going to be our criteria for whether or not someone was going to get reappointed that to me felt like it needed to happen much earlier in the conversation I would argue that there with those who have said there's no reason not to reappoint Michael beyond you know the reasonable service he's attended regularly he's done his work he's offered his insights and I will say I watched a recent planning board meeting that was extremely fraught and extremely unpleasant during the section that I watched before we got some emails about that and he was very calm and logical during that particular meeting so I have no fault with his service I do understand I really do the perspective on how do we balance theoretical term limits right theoretical preference for one or the other which CRC softened a little bit but I would argue they left in the healthy mix concept versus the idea of really capturing that new and exciting energy even if they know nothing about our particular planning board so I'm going to just go ahead and say this because we have different opinions on what political means in my world after serving an elected office for almost 20 years the message that it sends when you say we have the votes then it doesn't that's saying it doesn't matter what message you send to the people who don't have the votes it's really important to understand that yes there are majority votes on this council and other places but we have to think about the message we're sending to future applicants and to people who are currently serving whether we think we can muscle a vote through or not I understand that no one sitting here thinks they muscle to vote through I'm telling you there are people in the community not just the people who wrote to us who feel like that's what's happening so good luck explaining that that's not what's happening because that's the perception out there and it doesn't matter if that's not why you're doing it it matters that the perception is there so I just ask us to try and calm down with the it's political it's not political I'm a politician I'm not a politician it doesn't matter what you label yourselves the perceptions are out there George I think to follow up on what Alyssa just said that the message that I think I'm trying to send is to steal from Steve that we're trying to feel what we think is the best team I'm appreciative of what CRC did because they really forced me to think hard about what actually are the criteria that we use for putting people on these very important bodies and while certainly service is important and Mr. Burt Whistle has done fine service also occurs to me that that's exactly what he's supposed to do he's supposed to come to meetings he's supposed to show up he's supposed to do his homework right that's that's what he's supposed to do so is that enough and I in some cases that might be enough but this year it seems to me that by itself is not necessarily enough first of all I assume that's what everybody does so that's there's nothing heroic about that that's what he's asked to do um so for me what really boils down to is what are the best candidates for the planning board right now and what excited me about what CRC did is they took a real chance they knew this was going to be very very unpopular they knew people were going to see it in a certain way but they finally came around and I was impressed by the collaboration I didn't have the same reaction unless it did she's right it is very difficult um and it's it's awkward and it's slow and it's cumbersome but they worked their way through it and they came to the conclusion that these were the three best candidates um and that's what to me I'm appreciative of what they did because it forced me to think is it ultimately just a matter of looking it's okay so-and-so served for for three years and came to the meetings and did his homework you know and as a reasonable person good enough he gets the night he gets automatically reappointed and I think the message that we're trying to send is that's not the way we're thinking about it that when you ask for reappointment we put you in the home mix and we look at the field and we make a decision we make a decision ultimately I hope on what we think is best for the the board as a whole and for the community as a whole going back to a challenge started with the very beginning of our discussion so I'm grateful to CRC for what they did I think they took a real chance and I think we have an extraordinary opportunity here to do something really important and also to make a point to people out there in the public that when on these two bodies at least when you ask for reappointment we certainly take your service in consideration but it is not the only thing we're going to look at nothing um I just I just want to correct something that may have been a misperception on the notion that Michael has shown up and that's of course we expect them he's done so much more if you really watch the tapes of the planning board meetings he's questioning he has read he's bringing up topics there's often really engaged conversations this I watched the same thing happen on the community participation at committee and where it wasn't digging your heels in they were very constructive probing questions that led to conversations in a very collegial way um that uh was so refreshing to see someone thinking outside the box and when others have said well the the master plan the plant zoning being able to explain it when you watch the interview he was the one who said what we just heard earlier tonight that the master plan conceptually is pretty good framework where we have work to do is on implementation and that appendix is really pretty interesting there's a lot of pieces that we should be thinking of so he's been thinking about where are the nuances where there are shades of gray where we're not clear and how does that interact so it's a very creative mind um that I was watching it wasn't just that someone is coming and showing up and I just want to say that if I watch across all committees this is not true of every committee member there are some committee members that don't often speak up um they may speak up on narrow things um and and it depends a lot on how well the meeting is chaired in terms of how people participate but this is not a person who just shows up it's it's so much more and I I just was um really but totally impressed on the grasp of a broad range of issues the things we're talking about all these different goals I mean he really has embraced those um on a internal level not just because he's been on these boards on talking about climate change space walkable livable communities the the built space jolly and you're talking about that what does it feel like to live there what what does he walked our new playground land to think of where does in terms of Kendrick Park where does it slant where does it not slant and where do the walkway very thoughtful way of going on a site visit so I don't think we should at all be saying it's just because he's already served this amount of time he's an extraordinarily valuable member of the planning board in the in what he contributes Steve so we don't know so again my concern about the fact that one person has got no bunch of letters and we've been zero letters because that's not part of the process for the other candidates we have absolutely no idea if those qualities are true or not true of the other the three leading candidates I would imagine I'm guessing that they are also whatever committees organizations that they've been part of they've been active engaged participants and those I'm sure that they could get letters written about them let's say something very similar but I am really deeply concerned about this idea that we're willing to jettison one of three people that probably most of us really don't know because they have not been involved they weren't part of town meeting they weren't part they haven't been part of the the scene we're willing to throw one of them off the bus because of somebody that is known and somebody that's generated a bunch of letters from people that we also know that to me seems exceptionally unwelcoming and exceptionally not progressive this happened to be a year that there are really great candidates for the planning board and kudos to this town and kudos to those that stepped up for these three slots it's um and if there were if there were fewer candidates then obviously our vote would be different but this happens to be a very competitive year next year might not be a competitive year we struggled to come up with this while it might have seemed easy it might have seemed awkward I think we really struggled to you know come to this particular decision I hope that we stay with it and again really the reason I want to speak up this time is kind of the willingness to toss off a lesser known person who has doesn't have a bunch of letters written about them simply because we don't know much about them and we don't think that the political pushback will be much if they happen to be tossed off the bus. Dorothy. Well I don't want to talk well I don't want to talk about tossing off the bus because that's where we started and you had I had an interesting conversation with you in which you explained to me that there were many different kinds of architects and I think that was some very valid points there but we do know that we have openings coming up in the year and I don't think someone who didn't make it in this rather competitive round who actually listened to this discussion is going to feel tossed off the bus so I just want to say one little thing if diversity of opinion is not allowed we will never get diversity of any other kind and I think that's what the issue has been is that Mr. Burt whistle has not always agreed in discussion but as he makes very clear once a vote is taken and hit the other side has one he then joins in and supports that vote okay so he is an independent mind but he is a team player and he's a man of great experience and wisdom and I don't personally know him the one time I spoke to him personally he disagreed with me so I'm speaking purely out of the many many many planning board meetings that I went to over the last two years and I went to almost all of them and he was somebody who was of great talent so I don't want us to lose out on having him on our planning board and I hope that we will be able to utilize the talents of these other new people because I agree we're very lucky and we have the planning board is a very key group and we have a lot of major decisions that have to be made but I think it would run better with if we keep the voice of the greatest experience on the board that will be really a great mix of people few points backgrounds and experience we'd have a good strong planning board. Evan well unless Mandy has something she really wants to say I was going to call the question or ask that be or ask that the president call the question. The question's been called requires two-thirds vote that's nine people the this comes to an immediate vote and it is a vote on whether or not to debate and go on to the actual motions okay hold on hold on hold on hold on um Lynn at this point we have the motion I if you could repeat the motion I would appreciate that. The motion that's on the floor right now is calling the question which means we end to debate then I'll get to what the motions are okay okay um Schreiber. This is to call the question aye. Steinberg. Aye. Ford's. Yes. No yes or no. To call the question yes right. Shalini. Yes. Brewer. Yes. Yandros. Yes. Jamont. Yes. Griezmerzy. Yes. Hanneke. Yes. Ross. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Dane. Yes. Okay we've come to a vote on the present amended motion and the amendment is to remove the name of Tom Long and replace it with the name of Michael Burtwistle. Therefore the full motion would read to appoint the following individuals to the planning board for charter section 2.9c effective immediately for terms expiring June 30th 2023. Michael Burtwistle Johanna Newman, Andrew McDougall. The first person to vote this time is Schreiber. I vote no. Steinberg. No. Schwartz. Yes. Paul Milne. No. Brewer. Yes. Beangeles. No. Jamont. Yes. Griezmer. Stains. Hanneke. No. Pam. Yes. Ross. No. Ryan. No. Shane. Yes. I have seven no's. I have five in favor seven against and one abstention. Thank you. Okay. So that motion dies. We're back to the original motion. The original motion is town council appointments planning board to appoint the following individuals to the planning board per charter section 2.9c effective immediately as recommended by the community resources committee. For terms expiring June 30th 2023 Johanna Newman, Tom Long, Andrew McDougall. And we begin with the second rank. It was seconded. Yes. So if you're voting for this one it's for the slate that is Johanna Newman, Tom Long, and Andrew McDougall. I move to postpone. Mind you, Joe, that does not require a second. Correct. Hands on whether it's a motion or her charter right to postpone. Charter. I would just note that that leaves the planning board without enough members to meet for anything regarding a special permit. Made to postpone and it's not debatable. Chin. Excuse me, Dorothy. Yes. I have a question. Does that mean that Michael Burt whistle is not still on the committee? His term has been kicked off is what you're saying. Okay. All right. Michael's term expires at the end of August as does everybody else who was extended to the end of August. There were three people extended to the end of August. He was one of three. Dorothy, did you have a further question? I can't hear you. I just wanted that clarified because sometimes committee people stay on until their replacements are there. But in this case you're saying because the terms were extended to August that they can't be extended again and there would be nobody on the planning board almost. Is that right? There's four people. Okay. People left on the planning board. Okay. Piper, put your hand up. Can we look at the charter before we go down this path? Because I thought there was something about unless there's an emergency situation or so can we look at the charter before we all agree that this is a correct procedure? Andy, Joe. We can line it up. Yeah. I have it up. It just has to be in a non-emergency measure, which this wouldn't be considered an emergency measure. And it has to be prior to or at the call by the presiding officer. So it would meet both of those standards. Pat, give your hand up. Yes, thank you. I think that Darcy, your action was not helpful and shouldn't have happened. If anything, we should have tried to defeat the three candidates. So I would like you to withdraw the postponement. I don't see the point of it. I really don't. And I think it's a mistake. Steve Schreiber. Yeah. So the planning board this week has on the docket a temporary shelter at the survival center. And it has on the docket tents for the public schools. So if we do not vote tonight, the planning board will have four members, which because we passed this other bylaw, these are special site plan reviews, because we passed this other bylaw, they do have a quorum if everybody shows up. But the fact that you're putting a survival center project and a public school project at risk, I find to be disgraceful. And I really, I don't believe that we'll have any more information regarding this. And the next time we vote, and I am with Pat on this, that I think we should just vote this up or down. No new information will come in the next two weeks. The statement by the counselor has been made and it's not debatable. The jury shall disregard my comments. Don't disregard mine. So Lynn. Yes. I do want to point out that the charter says to the next meeting. And so it is possible if desired to schedule another meeting, it does not have to wait till our next scheduled meeting. It could be a new scheduled meeting. But I would recommend that be discussed with the council. Right. Let's have that discussion. Next Monday night is Labor Day. And so we would normally not meet on Labor Day. We could meet on any time so that I have 40 hours to post notice, which means I'd have to, the earliest we could meet would be Thursday. And we could meet Thursday, we could meet Friday, we could meet Tuesday. Alyssa. I recommend that we meet Thursday at five o'clock. We have the 530 meeting already. I cannot be at 530. Well, I mean, I'm saying we have the 530 already. So we do this at five because we are ready. I know you are part of the 530 event. But we do a meeting just from 5 to 530 with this being the only topic. Or 430 or whatever. I mean, it's all going to be inconvenient for you and Paul. No question. But it is the earliest possible time. And that way, in case something goes wrong with the planning board meeting this week, they can reschedule for something for next week potentially. I just don't want them to have to wait very long to reschedule if they end up having to reschedule because they don't have a quorum because anything can happen. And we're all planning to be part of this 530 thing on Thursday, right? And TSO was already going to meet at seven o'clock. So that's some of us right there. All right. I would suggest we meet at 430. I'm going to pass. Everyone can make that. So I will ask each of you, can you make a meeting at 430 on Thursday, the 3rd of September? I will go through the roll call. Sarah? I am so sorry, but I cannot and I apologize for making this a lot harder. I'm really sorry. I would suggest if the majority and I'm okay with that because it's my fault that I can't change my plans. So I don't want to make this hard. Felony? Yeah, I can make it. Alyssa? Yes. Pat? Yes. Darcy? ECAC has a task group meeting from four to six, but if everyone else can make this, then I will try to make it and not go to that meeting, I guess. Rhysmer, I will not go to my other meeting and yes, I'll be there. Hannake? I can make it. Pam? I have a meeting I'm supposed to be at. It's in preparation for classes opening the next Tuesday. Ross? I can make it, yes. Brian? I can make it. Shane? It would be difficult for me to make it. Is that a yes or a no? I can make it, but I, yeah. Schreiber? Yes. And Steinberg? Yes. So we've got 10 people who definitely can, one for whom it's difficult and two there are no. I think that I will withdraw the motion then. All right. Thank you. Thank you. We're going back to the vote. The motion that's on the table is to appoint the following individuals to the planning board per charter section 2.9c effective immediately as recommended by the community resources committee for terms expiring June 30th, 2023. Johanna Newman, Pam Long, Andrew McDougal. We start this vote with Sarah Schwartz, I think. Sarah? No. Kalani? Yes. Brewer? No. D'Angelois? No. Goumont? No. Griezmer is still abstaining. Panicky? Yes. Pam? No. Ross? Yes. Brian? Yes. Shane? No. Schreiber? Yes. Steinberg? Yes. I have 6-6 with one abstention. You know, I'm tired of getting put in this situation. I'm changing my vote to vote yes and I'm going to just tell you, I thought this was the most terrible conversation. This council has had in our tenure. We have besmirched people's reputations. I mean, I had many things I could say about a number of these candidates, at least two that I know. But I'm not going to sit here and say that. I think we really need to stand back and we need to look at our process. And I want to make a statement I made many, many, many months ago. A committee's process has to be fully and completely understood by the full council so that there's no questions after the fact. I'm sorry. Let's proceed with the meeting. We're not going to go into executive session until we finish the other items, because when we come back out, we're lucky if it's two o'clock in the morning. So are there any committee reports? Finance committee? Andy? No, there's no report. We're meeting tomorrow at 2.30. GOL, George, any report? Briefly, we're meeting Wednesday at 10.30. We'll be meeting with KP Law to discuss their memo on the wage theft bylaw. Right. Kathy, JCPC? JCPC is meeting this week, but the following week at 5.30, and before I say the wrong date, let me make sure I have the right date. Andy will know. On the ninth, yeah. I was going to say Wednesday, but I wanted to give the ninth. Okay. Thank you. Sound services and outreach committee, Darcy? Yeah. The committee is meeting on Thursday. We moved our meeting back from 6.30 to 7 because of the UMass forum, and we'll be devoting the most of the meeting to the surveillance technology bylaw proposal. Okay. Lynn, you skipped CRC. May I say a few quick things? I'm sorry, I did. I was on the earlier page. Andy, Joe? Just two things. Tomorrow, we are discussing the beginnings of goals to put forth in a potential comprehensive housing policy. So if you're into housing and you have time and are awake and like to attend a two o'clock meeting tomorrow, we will be discussing preliminary potential goals for a policy. We're in the very early stages of trying to draft a comprehensive housing policy. On September 15th at 2 p.m., CRC will have Christine Breastrup and Rob Mora at the meeting to discuss priorities for zoning bylaw changes. This is the very first meeting. They will be discussing and presenting the bylaw changes that they believe are priorities. They will be able to, I believe, be a presentation on planning board discussions on what planning board believes are zoning priority changes, and I have asked council members to get to me their thoughts on zoning priority changes by, I think I said, yes, no, by next week, by the 8th, so that I can include them. Enough counselors have indicated that they are interested in this September 15th meeting that I will be working with the president to call it as a full council meeting so that everyone can be involved in the discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Did I miss any other committees? Liaison reports. Any liaison reports? Well, the only report I have is that CPA will be having its first meeting of the year, of the new season on Thursday the 10th at 6 p.m., and that's when they will be reviewing the amount of money they expect to have for the year and starting to issue proposals. And I want to just point out that this CPA is moving their entire process earlier in the year, so that is something that we should make as widely known as possible for people to get their applications in. It's a much different cycle, right? And they have had a subcommittee, I'm just not sure where they are on it, so I'll learn more at the next meeting, talking about how to do better outreach to let people know how to apply if they have an idea, you know, if they, including smaller as well as bigger, you know, to get more proposals to come into them. So, there has been a committee forum, but how could you know about doing that? And so, at some point, I can be reporting on that. Okay. Thank you. Any other committees? Okay. We've already done the minutes. Time managers report? Um, just that the polling locations will open in seven, a little bit less than seven hours, so I'm sure you've all voted early, but that's all I had for this time. I report. Thank you. We look forward to finding out how it all goes. And thank you for your report, Paul. Are there any other town councilor comments at this time? Okay. Then under topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair, 48 hours in advance, there is a motion to reconsider zoning bylaw 11.250. Kathy Shane? Given that it's midnight or after midnight, I don't think I should keep everyone here, but I did want to make sure that people have the graphic that I prepared, Lynn, that the vote we took last time, as a member of the minority, you can bring a proposal to reconsider. And there was new information. We voted on something that wasn't the same as what was in Northampton and Springfield. There's a clause that ours has that says abstaining votes don't count. And I checked Northampton and Springfield. I didn't check many others. They don't have that, and it makes a difference for the way you count. So my understanding, Lynn, is if we don't do anything tonight, the thing we voted on two weeks ago goes into effect. And I couldn't bring it last week because it can only be brought at a regular meeting. So that's why it's tagged on to this. Okay. So, yes, it does go into effect. This is the 14 days of post-it notice. So that is, and that's the opportunity to bring it forward. So, yes. Okay. So, can I, what I would request is, since I couldn't send things to people in advance, I produced a graphic that just shows the impact of what we voted on. And I would like to get it in the packet. Maybe we can get it in the packet for next time. So the public also understands that the implication of the change we made, as well as all of us understand it. So that's it. I didn't know the right way to go about doing that. I have a point of order, Lynn. More of a clarification for Kathy. Do you intend to bring a motion to reconsider on this bylaw at our next meeting? Okay. Or are you not intending to bring a motion to reconsider at all? I think, let me tell you why I ask. Our rules of procedure only allow you to bring it at the next regular council meeting. That is this one. So if you're, I just want to let, I just want to make sure you understand that if it is not brought tonight and you're hoping to bring it the next time, you'd have to also get a vote on suspending the rules too. I just wanted to make sure you understood all of that before you decide not to make that motion tonight if you intended to make it at the next meeting. Well, I guess I was understanding from Lynn is that it's already done and there's nothing to reconsider if I don't do it tonight, that the clock has run out. I mean, so I'm just conscious. I wasn't trying to torture anybody with this. I was trying to make sure people understood what it was they voted on and made it clear because both that it was not the same and it wasn't identical. It had an additional clause and it makes a difference. And I did ask people whether at the CRC level it was explained to be the same. And a lot of public I talked to didn't even understand what the implication was. So I just would like it as part of the public record and I can write something up if someone tells me how I can make it part of one of our packets without being outside the law. So the answer at this point, Mandy Jo, is no, she does not. Okay, Shalini, you have a question. Do you want me to comment because I did look up and I didn't see that it was different in the way I understood. I went to the Northampton and the way they defined majority vote in their charter is identical. It doesn't have the clause as staining votes don't count. It says when you use the connection of the meeting shall mean a majority of those present and voting unless another person vote. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. I believe that what you're the confusion is the following. It's voting is present and voting and if you abstain you are not voting. Shalini, a majority of those present and voting. So it says those present and voting. So that does not include abstain people. Don't have that clause only is a clarification. It doesn't mean that they count abstaining or we count or anybody else does and voting. When when I asked for clarification, Mandy said I was correct that if we had four people in the room two said yes one said no and one abstain two is the majority and that and because we're not we're not it's not a majority of four it's a majority of the uh so it's because we're not we're not counting the abstaining vote at all. It's a majority of the present and actually voting yeah four people present at the meeting only three vote if two vote in favor it means it passes. But all four voted just one voted abstain and we abstain is not a vote. This is a whole new flavor because we we keep counting we count 13 of us every time as whether we abstained or voted one way or the other I think it we report that we abstain we don't count that we abstain. So in our charter let me explain some of that there are a number of references in our charter that refer to a majority of the full town council and it's that phrase full town council in our charter that requires seven yes votes no matter what because that is a majority of the full town council if it's a simple majority or a majority of those present in voting abstains do not count because an abstain is not a vote but when you reference to majority of the full body or however in our charter it's full town council an abstain essentially counts as a no vote because you still need seven yes votes or nine yes votes because of how that is worded in the charter and for the charter commission they did that specifically for a number of things but a majority vote when it's not of the full body abstains or not a vote in that case. Well I will say that you can explain that and just did it now but that is now how people generally understand it a lot of people think four is the majority from what we voted on so I think we've just made it clear at 17 minutes after midnight that we voted something that went from five votes required to not four votes required but as few as two is enough that's what we have in fact done okay okay so we are going to move into executive session for the purposes of discussing the compensation of the town manager we will not be returning to regular session so that we will decide tonight and then we will actually vote on the 14th I just feel like I can't put you all through that however we need to have a roll call vote to go into executive session. Do you want me to make the motion? Yeah could we actually make the motion please? I moved to meet an executive session pursuant to MGL chapter 30a section 21a2 to conduct a strategy session in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel town manager Paul Backelman and to also conduct negotiations with non-union personnel town manager Paul Backelman and that the council will not reconvene in open session following the executive session. I second that. Okay and we start with Shalini. Yes. Alyssa. Yes. Pat. Yes. Garcy. Yes. Griezmer. Yes. Hannake. Yes. Pam. Yes. Evan. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Yes. Did I miss anybody? Thank you no. I said yes too. So we are going off of this and will not be reconvening. Paul at some point I may contact you to join the meeting. Okay and you need to look at an email you got from Serge in order to join the executive session. Okay.