 All right, we're recording. Okay. Good evening. Seeing that there's a quorum and attendance. I'm calling the. What is the date, January 28th. Meeting of the town service and outreach committee to order. At 632. And this is also. A meeting of the whole, which will be called to order in a minute by council president. Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting laws allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the town services and outreach committee. I'm going to call on each committee member by name to confirm that you can hear me and we can hear you. And then we'll do it. I'm going to call on each committee member by name. I'm going to hear from the full council. Alyssa Brewer. Present. Darcy do my present. Dorothy Pam. Present. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. Okay. Would you like to call to order them? Sure. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, we have a quorum of the council to order at 633. January 28th, 2021. I'm also going to ask those people who are not on TSO, but are here from the council to respond when I call your name. And let me start with. I'm not going to do this in sequence in alphabetical or in the way I see you on the screen. So Andy Steinberg. Present. George Ryan. Present. Oops, you're on TSO also. Sorry. Lynn Griezmer is present. Kathy Shane. Yes, here. Steve Schreiber. Here. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Present. And did I get everybody? I believe so. All right, Dorothy, why don't you proceed? If you want, I'll pull up the agenda. Okay, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm insisting the meeting will be monitoring committee member connections. And if necessary, we'll pause the meeting until. They are reconnected. We requested everybody be patient with the process and the student meeting. We'll be posted on the town of Amherst YouTube channel. After the meeting. So here's our agenda. Now at public comment. And let me just see. There are some public here. I see. And so if. The public may provide public comment at this time on matters within the jurisdiction of the town services and outreach committee. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. Counselors will not respond to questions or engage in a dialogue during public comment. To participate in public comment, see the instructions at the bottom of the agenda. And if you join the council meeting via zoom teleconferencing to indicate you wish to make a comment, click on participants and then raise hand. Does not look like. We're getting any raised hands. I think we can move right along. We decided to. Have the presentation about the North common first. Because of the presence of the rest of the council. So that we don't waste their time. So. This is the main agenda item for the evening. I, we do have other agenda items. I was. You know, thinking that this might not last longer than an hour, but we'll see it may last more than an hour. And this is the subject. The format that I'm suggesting. And if people have. Suggestions about that. You're welcome to express them now. I'm just, I'm just going to go back to the meeting. Okay. So this is just the updated presentation. And that will include whatever responses. The. Town staff to have, to the written councilor comments that were submitted. Only five people submitted comments. And three of those people were on this committee. So. questions and comments from TSO counselors and then take comments and questions from the full council, and then restate what the decision points are. And presumably have a discussion about whether or not we want to have it, whether we're ready to have a vote tonight. And involved in that decision is sort of like, whether we think there needs to be more outreach. And if so, does that need to be in TSO or does, is that, can that come at a later time. So, take it away. Dave, I guess, is it Dave that's taking it away. I think one of us needs to share our screen Dave, and is that going to be you. If you would like, I can do that or I can give you permission to share screen. That would be great whoever has the PowerPoint I'm afraid I thought that was already done for us. So I have it, I have it, but I'm a neophyte at sharing my screen but I will do it. If you'd like Christine, I have it ready to pull up. That's probably the best idea. Right. And you see that. Yes. I think if you make that a full slide show and do it from the space. It's slide show. From the beginning. And then from the beginning over on the left. Yeah. Right. Well, good. Thank you very much for having us tonight. I'm joined tonight by, by Chris Brestrup, our planning director in Guilford mooring our superintendent of public works. And, you know, we're, we're, we're glad to be here tonight. Our hope is to take you through some of the new ideas that that we've come up with with regard to the North Common. And as we go back in time, I think we're all well aware that of the, the previous plans and, and the, the many meetings and discussions we've had about the North Common. But our hope tonight is to move the conversation forward, and I'll start off by doing, going through a couple of quick slides and then I'll turn it over to Chris. And Guilford is here for technical and engineering input and questions. And what we, what we, our goal tonight was, was to respond to as many through the slide presentation was to respond to as many questions as we could that have come from the council and, and the community regarding ideas and concepts for the North Common. And again, we are, we are more than happy to hear from you later on in this, in this evening. Thank you all. Before I start, I also wanted to acknowledge two of our staff, Paul deaf ear and Jason skills from the DPW engineering staff have worked very hard, perhaps there's others at DPW in addition to Guilford but those two folks, we work closely with a town hall and they've done a terrific job to, to really respond to some of the comments and concerns and questions and, and give us some, some exciting things to think about so thank you to Jason and Paul. I think we're all familiar with the project area. We don't need to spend much time on that. Tonight we'd like to present one concept that you've already seen and a few new concepts and I think, once we get into the details of those you'll see we've really given quite a bit of thought to the balance of the place, the balancing act of how much parking. Do we need creative options for where parking can go safely, and kudos to the DPW team for doing that. We also have a summary slide that we'd like to share with you about the different scenarios and the number of parking spaces that can be retained or would be lost in the various scenarios. I note that we will be posting this slide presentation after the meeting working with Athena and NRIT staff. We have made some minor edits to the plans that you saw that Paul sent to you. They're not real substantive on the, on the concepts. They just illustrate a few points that we'd like to make in the, in the presentation here tonight. So very quickly, just for those who might be new to joining us tonight on the Zoom. Our goals here have been consistent throughout. We'd like to create an attractive dynamic signature space in the heart of our downtown. I think everybody would agree that the North Common has been and continues to be in rather difficult shape. And it's not a place that we're proud of or can utilize to its full extent. And I think all of us on the staff and, and in addition, the bid and the chamber have made it abundantly clear that we'd all like a place that we can tell people go have a sandwich, go meditate, go through a Frisbee and not worry about roots and erosion, etc. So we want to make it fully accessible. We want to activate the space with a creative design for walking, seating areas, gathering spaces and public art. Next slide. So, you know, earlier slide deck we we use some of the, the images that were created by Western and Samson and this is one that I'm particularly fond of showing a central seating area so really if we could just imagine for a minute a beautiful place with with green grass where you can have a picnic and tables and chairs where you can sit with friends and family and read a book or have a have a meal. You know, do do research on your computer. This is kind of the vision of what we hope will be the central feature of our downtown. Next slide. Again, looking from west to east. This is just again a concept that was created by Western and Samson, giving a sense of, of, you know, really how we can raise the, the profile of the town hall and really be an inviting space for people to utilize all times of the year, whether it's during the summer fall or even in the winter for things like the merry maple and other other events. I think the key point for us to is that we want to position ourselves as a downtown as a community to come out of the pandemic as strong and as vibrantly as we can. So that we're positioned for recovery. And our feeling is if we can launch one of the concepts get that into a final design and bid it out that we can be ready for our downtown to fully recover and have the success that we know it can. We see this as an iterative process. This has been going on. We've been talking about the North Common for many years, most intensively over the last couple with with lots of input from the community, the business community, the restaurants, the bid the chamber. We want to acknowledge the input and and honestly some of the concerns from Grace Church our neighbors to the to the south. And we want that iterative process to include feedback and input from all the stakeholders in the North Common. So parking the direction of streets whether boatwood becomes one way whether it stays two way where parking is located all of these are issues that we've tried to address and in the various concepts. So I think at this point I'll turn it over to Chris Brestrup and she's going to take us through what we call revised plan to three, three a and three B. Thanks Chris. So I just wanted to make a few opening remarks. The last time we met was on December 17 2020 and we presented a little bit of history about this project. We presented several plans, including the Western and Samsung plan and two revisions to that plan that were prepared by the DPW that we call plan two and plan three. And at that time TSO members appeared to favor plan three, which did not include parking on the North Common. TSO asked us to come back with further revisions to plan three. Since then we've been asked to include plan two in our presentation tonight so that's what we've done. So we're presenting plan two and we can have the next slide please. This is plan two, which includes a parking lot on the north end of the North Common, along with. Yep. Yeah. So all of the plans that we'll show you tonight include a graceful circulation pattern of walkways, crisscrossing the site, and they all include a generous seating area in the center of the Common. That includes a parking space in the northwest corner where the Peace Fidgel happens on Sundays and various other civic gatherings. So this is plan two and plan two we showed you last time. It, it retains the bump out on South Pleasant Street, which some town council members subjected to, and that also involves the loss of two parking spaces in that area. This is parallel parking on Boltwood Avenue, similar to the way it is now, and includes a parking lot with 22 spaces. This plan contains a total of 31 spaces. The next slide please is plan three. And this slide we did show you on December 17th. It eliminates the parking at the north end of the North Common and provides a large grassy area and a plaza in front of Town Hall. It eliminates the bump out on South Pleasant Street, thereby retaining the two parking spaces there. And it includes seven nose in parking spaces on Main Street, and 12 nose in parking spaces on Boltwood Avenue. Boltwood Avenue remains two way in this plan. And there's a loss of a seven foot strip on the east side of the North Common to accommodate this parking and two way traffic. And this plan contains a total of 24 spaces. May I have the next slide please. The next slide is a revision of plan three and we're calling it plan three a. This plan also eliminates parking at the north end of the North Common. It eliminates the bump out on South Pleasant Street retaining those two spaces there. It includes back in parking on Main Street and nose in parking on Boltwood Avenue. This plan has Boltwood Avenue as being one way south bound, and there's a row of parallel parking spaces along the west side of Boltwood, and a loss of an eight foot strip of land on the east side of the North Common. This plan contains 30 spaces. May I have the next slide please. This is what we call plan 3B. And this plan also eliminates the bump out and retains the two spaces on South Pleasant Street. It also includes back in spaces on Main Street. But what makes this plan different is that it includes parallel parking spaces along both sides of Boltwood Avenue. And there's no loss of land on the east side of the North Common. This plan contains 27 spaces. May I have the next slide please. The next slide shows a comparison chart regarding parking spaces. Please note that the existing parking lot is striped for 34 spaces. However, the town engineer has informed us that if this lot were to be properly striped and renovated it would contain only 29 spaces in order to meet the standards for parking that we use today. So the number of existing parking spaces overall is actually 43 rather than 48, due to the number of spaces in the existing lot that would be lost due to re-striping. When you compare the four DPW plans, plan 2, plan 3, 3A, and 3B, you can see that there's very little difference between plans 2 and 3A. So plan 2 is the plan that includes the parking lot at the north end of the Common. Plan 3A has parking around the North Common. It contains 30 parking spaces and plan 2 contains 31 parking spaces. May I have the next slide please. We were asked to look at the annual maintenance costs for the North Common. And Guilford Mooring Superintendent of Public Works estimates that the maintenance would be around $10,000, including repair and replacement of site furnishings, care for plantings, etc. However, that number of maintenance depends on the final design and the choice of materials on the Common. If we choose more expensive, more durable materials, we're likely to have less need to repair and replace them. Next slide please. The next slide shows the budget that we showed you back in December. If we have $500,000 of CPA funds approved that were requested for FY22, we'll have about $1.4 million. We're continuing to seek other funding sources. Once the Town Council has decided on a plan, we can prepare a more accurate cost estimate. And the final cost estimate will depend on the design and the materials that are chosen. As we've said previously, this part of the Common can be the crown jewel in our plans for rehabilitating and improving downtown Amherst, and recovering from the economic disaster that was caused by COVID-19. So we'd like to hear from you as to which design you think we should should be developed further. That would be the next slide, please. Which design should be developed further. And the next slide please. Thank you. And we welcome your questions and comments. Okay, I'm wondering if you have any specific responses to the written counselor questions and comments that were submitted to the town manager. I think for the most part, we addressed many of those comments in in our changes to the plans. The questions seem to revolve around the budget, and whether I know Ms. Pam asked questions about whether this money would be borrowed or whether it would be appropriated. But there really were more comments than there were questions. There were questions about the number of parking spaces, but I think we've addressed that. I'm not, I'm not sure that there are questions and comments that have not already been addressed. Okay. So I'll take the comments and questions from the TSO members first. Evan. Thank you. So, before I go into my comments and questions, I just wanted to really thank staff for this and for the work. I think when we had the last TSO meeting it seemed like, you know, the majority of folks were in favor of removing parking from the park. But then there were concerns about parking, both the number of spaces and also the distribution. There were a lot of concerns about wanting to make sure folks still could park close to town hall who might have mobility issues or children to access the town hall. And you all put in a lot of work to, to sort of address the parking concerns while preserving I think what I would say is a majority opinion to take parking off the common. And so, thank you for all of the work you all put into these different designs and being so incredibly responsive to the comments of the last meeting, because it's clear you did a lot. I had a couple just just, I mean, they're just small questions that things that didn't really make sense to me. So one was that it looks like in plan three. There was a sidewalk along the common on boltwood that not in the others and so I was curious if there was a plan for a sidewalk in just plan three, or if it was in all of them. I was a little bit curious about the nose in versus back in parking on Main Street why that changes between designs. And then the last thing which is really minor but the boltwood parking is ankle parking and both three and three a but it's a different number of spaces I think it's seven and three and eight and three a and I was just sort of curious about that so pretty small comments but just clarifications about those things. I guess Gilbert could answer those the sidewalk might be the sidewalk in one scenarios the first question. Thank you for other questions. The sidewalk is in some of them but not another's based on how much you want to take the of the east side of the common for parking and three a if you want to have it. Two way traffic we have to move the parking the parallel parking into the common. If you make it one way on boltwood, you can have the parallel parking and a sidewalk, but you can't have two way traffic. So there's some mixing and matching that can go on here and sort of like when you go the ice cream parlor you can have sprinkles and Jimmy's or just Jimmy's or Oreo pieces. You can kind of you can mix and match a little bit. The back end parking on Main Street. We, that can be back in or it can be angled in. We chose to show you the back end. So you can think about the possibility if of trying this. If you're coming around to pull into the space, and it's nose in parking, you pull into the space and when you back out you back out into traffic. Back into the space, you do the same thing as you parallel park, you pull up past the space signal back into your space. Same as parallel parking except you're not parallel parking, you're doing a little easier move adjust angle parking. Back end parking is being used in other places in the country and it is it is working. It also gives you the benefit that when you pull out of the space. You're not backing in the traffic from the driver side you can look directly at the traffic coming at you. You don't have to turn around look behind you or anything like that you're looking at the traffic that's coming at you. That's just something to think about for the back end. And the third one was the space numbers on boltwood between three a and three B. I think it's three and three a they're both angled parking on boltwood but it one has eight spaces one seven and I wasn't sure when was nine one was eight yeah. I think the reason is a different angle to the parking if you do a steeper angle nose and we actually got a little more spaces and the shower you went in with the angle. So if you do like 60 degree parking. It's more spaces and you do 30 degree parking and it was less spaces, and it depends on whether it's one way or two way road is which what the angle we chose. So that's another thing you can think about as you go along. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I appreciate that we weren't covering old ground and that you did this so succinctly and so responsibly to the things we talked about. I do have a concern though about process from the standpoint that I had mentioned of course a previous meetings that I was concerned about 13 separate counselors sending in comments and the reams of paper you might have to use to fill up the responses to that unfortunately that 13 town counselors didn't respond to that recall for questions, but, and I appreciate that you didn't in fact write a written report because I was concerned about the use of those resources, and that instead it's reflected in here as I understood it, you did not write a report and I find with that because I think that's a very appropriate use of resources. What I'm struggling with is I don't have any idea what those questions were. Because I don't see that document in our packet and so I'm wondering if that could be added to our packet what what was forwarded by tea by the TSO chair who accumulated all those questions because it's, it's great to say we've answered the questions but I don't know where the questions are. I remember the ones that were raised but I don't necessarily know the ones that were raised after the meeting, but we're forwarded to staff. Yeah, that is a question for me, and I had intended to put it in the packet during the meeting. But then I realized that Athena is no longer here. I can still do it. But I'm not sure how. Could you just email it to us for now and then. Yeah, so I know that. Yes, I can say 100% everything people talked about has been addressed. Yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm not sure that is, you know, copacetic with the open meeting law. I'm sorry, Darcy, I'm Darcy. You want, you could show it now, and then have it added to the packet afterwards. But you can add it to the packet. Now, we are in a public meeting. Now, the public doesn't have to have access to our packet. The part of not sending it ahead of time is so that you're not communicating to a quorum of the counselor outside council outside a meeting, you're not outside a meeting, you're inside a meeting. That's why you can email it to us now if you don't have access to the packet. Right, I can try to do that. I just want to underline the fact that three of the five counselors that responded are in on the TSO. You know, you, you are hearing their opinions right now. So, I can try to do that. So, do you have other comments Alyssa about the plans. I'm just wondering about the connect between the questions that were raised and the answers that have been provided. Thank you. Okay. George. Yeah, thank you Darcy. I think the first question I have is just about safety on Main Street. I'm intrigued by this idea of back in parking. I like that idea a lot. I certainly coming out of that space, those seven spaces on Main Street would be much better be able to see where you're headed. But I'm wondering just in general, even getting into those spaces, given the amount of traffic on main, and it's coming from many different directions. I obviously don't like losing those seven spaces that that would be a great location proximity to town hall, but I have a concern about just safety and getting in and out. Though the back end would address one aspect of it. I'm just wondering about backing myself into those spaces, given all the traffic that you're going to be dealing with on Main Street. So it's a safety issue or safety concern. I'm not sure that it can be answered but if anybody has any thoughts on that. I appreciate it. The second has to do with just on bolt would you have, I like the idea of one way. I like, so I'm kind of leaning at the moment towards plan 3b for a couple of reasons, but I'm wondering that will always be open. In other words, there won't be a way to close that off most of the time and then open it up only at certain times. It's essentially going to be an open through way. It's going to turn on to bolt would drive in front of town hall. And that's always going to be the case, or is it designed in such a way that you could actually close it off on a regular basis or occasionally. I think I know the answer to that but I just I'm just wondering about access down that street is it basically a street and every so often you can close it off for like a festive event, or will it be closed off most of the time. So I could take that one. Yes, I'm George. So, so the idea is in front of town hall you see that the different color the tan color that would be again, not designed but yet with some sort of raised, raised area that would be of a different color that could be that area could be locked off for for instance, the merry maple celebration or another town event of the many that we have throughout the year, but it would still remain a street a one way street but would would still be a one way street in, in one of these scenarios, and we could close it off for various events, working with of course our public safety folks, prior to those events to make sure that the time of day, the time of year and and and all the logistics were worked out. Thank you. Thank you. Could somebody say something about safety though I'm just looking at this you got bike lane, you've got two way traffic, you've got buses, and now you're going to have people backing in and parking. Just the whole thing makes me very nervous, I, in a way I'd like to see it all go away, but I understand this pressure for parking spaces, any thoughts on just the safety of that, given all that's going on and that, and that street. You're talking about main street. Yes, I'm talking about main and the current seven spaces, whether they're back in or nose in, given that you've got bike lanes and two way traffic and pedestrians and you've got buses. I think that went over to Guilford but I'm reminded to that on North Pleasant and South Pleasant, it is parallel parking so one does have to pull up in front of the space there is a bike lane as well, and then back up to go in but Guilford. Do you want to say more about that. Yes, we were concerned as well. It's actually very wide in this section of main street because when there's actually a travel lane and there's actually now a loading zone and the facto loading zone and bus stop that runs all along the length of that. So you have seven to eight feet already there that's used as the loading zone and bus stop. So as you move the bus stop away, and you take some of that space and make it a bike lane, you're actually still having a little more space and it's a little wider. You can still get two vehicles to pass. If you pull forward to back in and someone's right behind you, they can still go around and not have to cross, really cross the WL line there. So we think it's either way if it's angle in or pull in, we think that works well for people who need to go around the car if they're too close. So we really think backing in gives you the benefit of when you leave the space, you're not trying to negotiate a backup into traffic that's moving. That makes a lot of sense to me. Good. I, I like the 3B plan. I like the idea of parallel parking in front of the church. So that would address some of the church's concerns. I like the fact that you wouldn't lose some green space, there still would be so I think it's the one plan that you don't lose like five feet, five feet of green space on the east side of the common. And I like parallel parking is in general rather than nose in. But that's just my personal preference. But thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, George. Dorothy. I have a question about the raised area is, is 3B the only plan that has that kind of like outdoor stage in front of town hall. My understanding is they all would have that Dorothy, but Kilford, could you just confirm that for me. I think there are all the, all the plans to have a raised area in front of town hall that can be used for special events and to be different so it ties town hall to the green space and not separated by a black paved road. Okay, so I think that's really a great idea. So I wasn't. I like the idea of not giving up green, but I don't really understand what you mean by bump out space on South pleasant, and why you have would have to take property on the east side. I agree with George, I'd rather not take property away, but why, why would you or have you been doing that in other plans. I'll continue with that one sorry. In the original plan we showed you three actually showed a bump out on South pleasant street which was recommended by the tree warden to give some more space to the beach tree on the common. And it was the comments were pretty much universal that let's not, let's not bump the road out and get rid of the spaces. So we took that bump out away. It's not there and plan. It's not there in the current plans. Good. To I'm sorry. And then, if we want to have two way traffic, we need to take a little bit of the East, East side of the common of the North Common, so that we can have the parking on both sides of the road. We have one way traffic and angle in parking only on boat would we do not need to take any of the East side of the common. If you want angled in parking and parallel parking on the East side of the common on the boat would then you have to have part of the East Common for parking as well. So that's options. So my last question is the space that's in front of the brown raised area. What is the, is that grass, or is it something that's kind of between grass and something else. Because you say that there's going to be a space where events could take place is some of it on stones when you say plaza do you mean stones or concrete, or do you mean open space which is grass. So in front of town hall, we leave town hall and you walk down the steps, you walk across the paver area or whatever we choose for this area here which is going to be a paver in front of town hall. And as you proceed towards South Pleasant Street, you'll have a big grass area that's open field and open grass and then you'll come to South Pleasant Street which will have a some sidewalk areas and some elevation changes in there. Okay, it's because you can't color it green because the trees are green. Yes, we didn't kind of like because the trees are green. Yeah, but but but I'll have to imagine it green which is very nice. Thank you. Okay, so as far as TSO members, I guess the only one left is me. And I'm just wondering whether there's a possibility of doing. If we decide on one of these plans. Is there a possibility that we can just keep it within the amount that's already been funded. That's one question and the other question is if because the, the park area will need maintenance on a regular basis. Do you foresee what percentage of a staff person will be needed or a full staff person to to maintain the grounds. Thank you for maybe, I think I can answer the first question having worked through these plans with Guilford and Chris and Paul. Buckleman over the last many months is I, I'm quite confident that we cannot do these plans for what is already budgeted or, you know, for roughly a million or, or less dollars. We do need, you know, our budget is about 1.4. But again, we haven't fine tuned that because we don't know which plan you would like us to perfect to move toward further design. But I think we're pretty, we're pretty firm and confident, you know that we're in the 1.5 1.4 1.5 million dollar range and not having that additional half a million dollars from CPAC that is a request that we made this year, we would have to significantly scale any of these plans back and go for the question about staffing staff person percentage. The number, the 10,000 number was the number we thought we think we'll need for actually materials to maintain it. Until we kind of figure out everything that's going into the common we haven't come up and revised and finalize the number on staffing hours that might be needed to maintain it. Some things aren't changing the bus stop is still there. The bike, the bike share can be put into the next to the green area behind the bus stop we didn't show it here because it can slide up and down there anywhere you want anywhere it needs to go in there makes sense. The flag poles are still there, lighting is still there. So some of that stuff is already exist. And it's just changing a little bit. So we haven't fully nailed down what the number for staff time will be to maintain this. It doesn't get mowed now it doesn't get mowed currently so that mowing it will be a new, a new task we have to do here and a little more if we go with planting such as flowering plants and a lot of shrubbery will have more gardening, weeding and maintaining of that type as well. I also have a question is that is, is, if we're, we're having plantings of perennials and shrubbery that isn't done and any. I don't think we have that in our other parks is that true or not I well that's a question. Is that different from our other jewels and our emerald necklace here. Is this, you know, what kind of maintenance does it require to make sure that it's, you know, up to snuff if we want it to be this signature park. It doesn't require like regular maintenance by landscaping people, you know, DPW landscapers. Can I just comment before you go for it so having been around the North Common Table and planning for for these many years. We've never talked about perennials on this site, to be honest, we have always tried to come up with a design that is, you know, kind of respectful of limited budgets within DPW and within the town, and our goal would be to have a design and this is, this is a conceptual design it is not a final design but to select trees additional trees, and perhaps shrubs, but we had never envisioned large gardens or plantings or perennials. Right, right on that there would be more grass to mo. There would be fewer wood chips to, to, to move around that's for sure. But we always in the early meetings we had on the North Common we wanted to try to make a plan that was sustainable for the town and didn't, you know, add exorbitant amounts of money or or time to the to limited town budget so we did not in any way envision elaborate gardens out here or perennials or annuals. I think we're going to leave that to other entities within the town and we have the wonderful planters on the on the light post and we have some waste planters that the bid in the chamber and other other groups like the garden club maintained so I don't know go for it if you want to say more about that. We do have we added some more plantings to graph park that require more maintenance than normal that the graph park. In the area we have added some plantings like that in the town. We do have volunteers such as the garden club and so forth who have maintained plantings at some of the parks and, and they've maintained them for a few years and then they stop and then they come back. So there are other people who do maintain some of the plantings in town, the bid does maintain plantings. So we do have some planter boxes and so forth downtown as well and they have agreements with other people. So we just need to kind of figure out what we have available for planting spaces and what spaces might be open for planting. And then we can talk to the people we normally interact with and say hey, are you interested what would you like could you do would you be willing to do it. It may change from time to time that some one group may do it for a while and another group may take it over, and the plantings may change a little bit. That's kind of what I envisioned happening here. Yeah I guess I would just before I go on to the other counselors. I just, you know, I, I just have concerns about our putting additional town funds and to this I, I think, you know I really really think it's time and effort and it looks like an incredibly beautiful park. But to the extent that it could be done within the amount of funding that we already have. I think that's essential because, you know, I really feel like we shouldn't be at each thing separately as it comes up in silos, we should be looking at the whole picture of, you know, what are our capital priorities and. But if we can get it done within the amount of money that's already been funded. I just would like to not spend more than that and to the extent. I mean I also obviously wanted to be done in the most sustainable way possible which I haven't heard that much about using sustainable materials and and if you have anything to say about that I like the idea I think Dave was kind of suggesting that, you know, using using materials that would last a long time like stone or what I don't know, I don't know about would, but obviously is, you know, desirable. And yeah I just, I have concerns both about spending more than what is already budgeted and also just, you know, our priorities in general. Anyway, I want to move on to Alyssa did you have more to say. I can wait till the other counselors go they may cover it. Okay, why don't we go to the other counselors. Mandy Joe, just a just a couple of things. And it goes in some sense it relates to Georgia's questions about safety but I'm looking at safety is regard to the plaza area. I'm not going to be raised so I'm wondering if it's going to be at the same level of the curbing in front of town hall and if so, what kind of safety measures are we going to be able to or you know you don't have to answer the question but I want to. I want you to think about and concern about the safety measures for people crossing because I'm assuming it wouldn't be hatched like a crosswalk. So if cars are coming down and there's no curb cut people just walk by without, you know, looking is a concern and so I think that just needs taken into consideration I do like plan 3b with the one way. And then the other thing about cars on that one way with all of these plazas is what type of barrier or markings could we use to make sure the cars don't turn into the flagpole. I doubt they would but the way I'm looking at this these plans is there's that that plaza area would be accessible to cars because it would be the roadway but so would the flagpole and bench area. And so another thing to think about as you're looking at these plans is how to sort of demarcate that from the traveling of that part of the plaza. You know, and, you know, in terms of cost I just since since counselor do not just spoke of that. I know when I put in my comments I said I don't know about cost, but I would rather see a spend on sustainable and longer lasting materials even if it adds to the cost a little bit because in the long run it may lower the maintenance costs so so that's sort of where I am on costs just just to consider. Thank you. Kathy. I'm going to be a different voice. I'd like to compare first stand 3B for now but I want to compare both the safety and the parking between plan to and 3B and a couple things I did read up on on these nosing in versus backing in. I certainly recommended safety wise to have the backing in, but it's not done very well by older folks, or anyone who's handicapped or has trouble turning their heads and, and then coming back out and I believe, even though you said, the road is wider there. I don't think we're as wide as North Hampton, which has angled parking, and it's not even great North Hampton but it's two ways in each is separate separated by an island. So you're not having to have the traffic from the other direction having to negotiate so I think it's actually pretty dangerous the seven spots up at the north end. So I just with that said, I'd like to go back to the plan to because I'm concerned about the parking safety in 3B. I do like what's happening along the road. So in plan to clearly you don't have to do the bump out so that could be removed because you've already designed that. So you had a long bolt would the same thing as you've got in 3B where you've got my just counted it up seven spaces along one side and eight on the other, by turning bolt would into one way. So you get that kind of 15 along this boat would, in addition to the 22 so you get more like 37 spaces if you did both you know if you did an Apple to Apple comparison along the boat would way where you turn it into one way you have parking parallel parking on both sides. So I think you could get that and you wouldn't have to have angle parking. The question is about the parking lot on the 22 spaces that as I see that is when there aren't cars there that could be performance space. And the same way you've done that brown area in front of town hall you have a area that you could shut off quite easily and you could have band setting up there you could have dance space on it, it's easier to dance on something flat that's not grass. So it doesn't have to be thought of as only a parking lot, it can be seen as a festival space that it could have tables on it if you wanted to have a big outdoor dinner. So not all of us are looking just at North Commons right now, we have a giant beautiful comments just south of here main comments so it's not that we don't have green in town. And we have sweets or park over on the other side. So, so my question is about parking safety, and I guess it would be a call plan to be, which would redo the bolt would and remove that bump out that nobody likes and plan to that goes over into the downtown to just make it a little bit more similar. And then my, my last, I'm not sure where we go after this committee meeting that are we going to knock on the door of all the small businesses downtown to ask them about this and stress. Again, that's why I wanted to get plan to more to be nearer to 3B. So it's more similar to their impression because my sense is we desperately need downtown parking everyone is trying to remove it. I love the fact that we might build a garage, but I'd want to after we build the garage come back to talking about losing some parking. I can't tell you the hours I've spent looking for parking, or people who are handicapped talking about coming downtown to pay a bill at the Count Hall parking briefly here picking up a sandwich and leaving. I'm using it as a transitory zone. It's harder for some of that group to parallel park to back in to negotiate with Main Street so to looks like a safer safer traffic wise and safer pedestrian wise, and I could see where the bikes could be done safely as well. So I do agree with the sell. So I didn't want to just reject plan to I too heard that in our last meeting there were strong voices for get rid of all that parking lot. Nobody wants to parking lot. I have not heard that both from residents who I've talked to who come downtown who want to park near to Town Hall that it's more an experience of there's no place to park and having to park on multiple streets over is difficult and I think knows in so George's first question was about the safety. I don't think we've got enough street with to make angled parking on the north end really safe without and I'm worried about traffic congestion there as people try to do one or the other. I mean I've watched the difficulty people have even parallel parking, but two way traffic backing in on an angle coming back out with buses and it doesn't look very safe to me and again I'm just looking at North Hampton, which has much wider road they do have angle they have big wide sidewalks. And you never have to cross over to another lane that's going in the other direction because you've got that median where the pedestrians can hang out until the traffic disappears and they don't have to negotiate with the cars. So, I like to see a plan to be with boat with design the way 3b does and get rid of the bump out just. And so, are we going to have a public hearing on this do we get a broader group than just counselors. So that was my, how are we going to get people to. I think we need to get down to to not for and get some reactions to this. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Steve. Here we are. Yeah, so thank you so much. I still muted can you hear me. Oh, we can hear you. Yeah, so thank you so much for the various options on three. So just regarding to, I'm not sure it's clear to everyone but there's significant grading involved in putting that parking lot there. It's like the parking lot is going to simply be resurfaced is actually going to be torn out and regraded. So that's a significant additional disturbance to the town common. So, it and it, we don't have the cross sections through that but that is you can see where the contours are moving in the previous drawing. I have a question about all the threes what are the two straight lines that go east to west down. You're right there. I can't read the. That's visual. It's a vestigial. Okay. Yeah. So here's what I think that I, you know, honestly, I think that three a B and C no no three regular three a and three B are fine I angled in parallel. I think that there are huge improvements over the two. The parking nose and parking that can go either way. I was just in Somerville at Union Square which has back in parking, which seemed complicated to me but I think the second time that I used it it would be very easy to use. I'm agnostic about that. So here's what I think is that the decision really for me is about how to deal with parking. And for me actually that is how to deal with parking off the common. So here's what I think that we need to do. So here's what I think that we need to do. So here's what I think that we need to do. Three three a three B. But I think that the work of a common itself still needs some work. Because in a way what happened is once you take the parking off the common, then we have that new zone that we've not had in a very long time as part of the common. So in other words, maybe that new parcel of land that's been captured should also have trees on it. So that it is not just a field of grass but it's more like the rest of that part of the common. So this becomes the North Common becomes the tree part of the common. And then the South Common becomes the area with more open space to it. I also still think that the path network is still very complicated. And I don't know if that would be a savings at all but I think that the common can be more common can be less designed, but and especially if the big decision to take parking off of it. Then it can become, you know, less designer Lee I guess would be the word that I'm thinking of. So I'm agnostic about one way two way nose in, not nose in, but I'm not agnostic at all about whether or not there should be parking on the common. I think there should not be I think to should be off the table. I think that was my three minutes. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to come back to the TSO members. Alyssa. So as Steve and I have known for years well before town council we don't agree on the North Common at all. But one thing we do agree on, I believe based on what he just said, is that I can't promote one of these three options with nothing in that space. So I need that to be re envisioned and with all the different ideas that people have had, you know, as Steve said is that the place with trees now is that still a flat space that we're just going to turn in, because if we're just going to turn it into a grassy field, that I'm going to put cars on it, because that doesn't make sense to me. I know that might make sense to some people but it doesn't make sense to me. One of the things I wanted to mention. One was completely based on the comments that people wrote, and based on the timeliness of an email we just received. Has there been any thought about maybe this being the spot that we put the Civil War tablets thank you for that great idea Dorothy because I had not thought of that particular installation here, and given the way we do commemorations in this town on the ground with women with flag raising, etc. It seems like a perfect fit from that standpoint. And I realized we didn't ask you that ahead of time except Dorothy asked about that in her questions. And then the other comment is in regards to, you know what happens after this meeting and, you know, beyond the fact that some of us are have very diverse, very different views of how this should work. I think that the best thing that we can come out of this meeting and next meeting with maybe, you know, a little bit more on that section that now just looks blank, it doesn't look fully actualized as to what it might be. I would like to compare and contrast as I believe Kathy indicated a revision of plan to along the lines of what she said, and I'd like to be able to show both of them and I'd like to continue to show both of them to people, because I think that the people who disagree with me, meaning the people who want to remove all the parking from the common might actually win the day, but I think they need to show both options. I think it's hard for people to understand why they would want to give that up, unless they compare them side by side and I think it's entirely possible that once you compare a revised plan to to a revised variation of the plan, that shows some actualization of that space that people will say, you know, it's worth it. I see what we'd be giving up. It's worth it to me to give it up so I might lose in terms of what I believe the community wants. I could be outvoted and the community could tell me I'm wrong. But if we don't show them one with parking on there any good one with parking on there. I think that we're doing a disservice to people's choice. And hopefully when I say choice I mean, not just to the town council to decide to pick one, but that there will be some additional outreach at minimum to get people to a hearing to a big H or little H associated with the town council meeting preferably something more personalized in addition to that before the town council decides on one so I think the TSO should be recommending two options and I think I just outlined those options. I think that the public heard wants to respond I think. Yes, if you don't mind the, we left the old parking area is just green open space because you can do a lot in there you can do a lot of different things. So what we're having and what we need to know an answer to is what do you want the outside of the park to look like and that's why we've been kind of concentrating on the parking around it. We can give you a few options inside but until we know for sure if it's going to be one way two way traffic on boltwood parking on both sides of boltwood that actually affects part of the inside of the common and starts for us if we're not going to have angle parking on main street. That affects what we do in that little space to so we've kind of we kind of took the incentive to ask the outside concept needs to be solidified and then we can actually do more with talking about what that inside that space could be. It's just harder to do both at the same time right now. Thank you. Evan. Evan, I'm sorry, I think we should hear from Dave he's been waiting to respond. Just one second. Go ahead Dave. I'll go over real quickly. I completely appreciate the comments about that space, maybe if we could jump to plan three or three a or three B. There's a space that that appears to not be programmed completely or well as as Guilford indicated. That actually carries back to, you know, many of the meetings that we had with Western and Samson back in 2018 and 2019, where we had dozens and dozens of people in the town room pre pandemic where we were meeting in person. And there was a real interest in having some large green space for picnics for gatherings. And I want to make a point to about accessibility that we all often think about the green space to the south on the main common. But it is there, it is difficult, if not impossible for people, many people with disabilities to access any of that green space because of the sidewalk configuration and the slopes and the roots. So this was the idea behind this large unprogrammed space was that it could be flexible that you could have a small concert there you could have a small gathering there or you could have the merry maple there with people who perhaps couldn't be on the grass, at least having access to the near space on the ADA walkway so we certainly could add some programming there. We also talked about adding artwork sculptures and things of that sort so we clearly can do more programming but to make a point, our focus was really on the, on the outside elements how much space do we have to work with. Do we want parking on the main common or do you want us to get created and look at parking off the common. I did hear one or two comments about the Civil War tablets, and I'm working with with Paul and some staff and a small working group on the Civil War tablets. I want to put it out there in a cautionary way that most of our research that we've done on our Civil War tablets, and what other communities have done with their Civil War tablets across New England is that outdoor external displays of such tablets, given the kind of stone tablets that we have is, if not very difficult, unadvisable, due to the, the elements and controlling moisture, heat and cold, and that most of the advice that we're getting from from experts in that field are that those tablets are such important and precious artifacts of the town that they shouldn't be displayed inside it's not an absolute at this point but I, I don't want to go too far down that path, because all of the input we've gotten from experts is, they really should be inside them to last as you know forever as, as these priceless records of the Civil War soldiers, both who served and who died in the Civil War so we're working on that. We have a small working group doing some of that that that could work right now. So anyway, those were my quick comments. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Evan. So I am going to respectfully disagree with my friends Alyssa and Steve on this. At this point, I feel like we have a decision to make about the overall concept. Do we want parking on the common. Do we not. Do we like the angled parking. Do we want to preserve more of the space on that east side of the common. I'm uninterested in getting into the details about the particular route that the path is going to take, especially as that might change once they start construction and realize, you know, hey this might not work. I'm not particularly interested in the details of landscaping and I'm really worried about a process in which we tell staff, okay now show us what a different version of two looks like and also show us what it looks like if that wasn't green space and then they come back and we say okay now we like that, and we keep going back and forth I think staff has done an incredible amount of work to be responsive. And what they're asking for from us is of the concepts you have we have here, which one is the preference of the TSO and of the Council so we can further develop it and I feel like getting into these details about paths or what goes in that open space is an unnecessary level of detail when we are still at a more conceptual level that we're looking for to give to provide them direction so I mean I don't, I personally don't understand why we need to go down that landscaping route right. And what I'd like to see come out of this TSO meeting and this one I think because you know we've been debating this for a long time now as a town is to be able to give staff a sense of the what four options that are before us. What is the consensus of this committee about which one we would like them to move forward with without getting into is that grass or we're going to put a tree there. Thank you. Thank you. I want to join in thanking Guilford and staff for providing us with these plans. I my opinion is that we have to remind yourself what are we trying to do. And I think the first thing is to restore the North Common to what it was to the idea of a simple New England common which is not too busy, which does not have parking in front We had a parking consultant and he talked about things that we could do and we haven't done, we haven't looked into any of them. One of them was for local businesses to make arrangements with many of these small private parking places so that their staff parking would be there and their staff would never be taking the really important spaces in front of businesses. That was presented at two meetings I went to, but I don't think anything has happened with it. We don't want parking in front of Town Hall. There is parking in back of Town Hall, there is parking. 10 feet to the left inside of the, the big parking area. There is parking downtown that is very easy, close and convenient. We want to restore nature, the center, the green heart of a New England town. And, you know, I was just reading an article by Rebecca Mead recently about how in England, everybody has a garden, how gardening became even the bigger bigger during COVID because people felt green spaces were healing. I think we need to do that and so many of these plants are in fact restoring green places to us. I agree with Evan that I don't want to sit and negotiate parking because the answer I heard from Gopher today about one kind versus another. He speaks with much more authority and knowledge than I have on parking and different experience in different places. But I do think that I do agree with Steve that it would be good to demark the large open area with some trees that separate the green from the street from the traffic. And if the bike racks are going to still be in that area to have them on the other side of the trees so that we would, it would be clear this is a tree green space. I had an idea when we were talking about upkeep. Let's pretend that we're all that government in the United States is going to change. We're going to go back to some good plans and policies. Let's pretend that we're going to have job course again, summer programs for youth, and that we could have an incredible program where youth young people would be led in a paid summer program by experts which we have so many of in this area on plantings and as Darcy says, sustainable planting. Many of my students at ACC, that's their new major sustainability. So that's just I'm just throwing it out there something that we could do because so many of our volunteer gardeners are older. So let's help train some youth to do that. And it would be, I think a very wonderful thing to do. I do agree with Alyssa that I'd love to see the Civil War plaques here, but only if they're housed and I imagined a small kind of rotunda that would be enclosed that might not have some of the climate controls that Dave Zomac is mentioning, in which case that wouldn't work. I think perhaps we could have one and a very tastefully designed sign next to it saying where the others are because if they're going to end up in the basement of the library. People aren't going to know that when they come to town they're going to go to the town green they're going to come to the North Common, and they can be then directed to the other high points of our town. Thank you Dorothy George. Yeah, thank you Darcy. I had this in our 15 minutes, but I just want to make a suggestion and see what the chair thinks and see what my colleagues think on the committee. I don't think we're going to reach consensus on a particular plan. I think what I'm hearing and it may be I'm not hearing it right is that the three of us would very much like to get the parking lot the common, and two of us are not comfortable with that. That's what we could consider is sending to the council to alternatives, potentially majority suggested three of us and then a minority. And it sounds to me, it might be something like plan to slightly revised as Kathy suggested, and then a three, one of the three plans obviously preferred 3b but maybe we could decide that, and, and then we'd have to write it up. The chair could do that or the chair could have someone who favors the parking plan to write that part I don't know but I think we need to just move ahead. And I don't agree to get consensus about the parking it's split here. So perhaps what we'll do is we'll send the council, you know, a vote. That there will be a minority report. And then the council is going to have to make up its mind. And I think that will be an interesting discussion, and much of what we're saying here will be played out again. And I think the public is welcome to come. I'm not really sure that given all the years that has been spent on this, and all the awareness that's that's out there certainly amongst the business community that we need to yet have more public hearings. It will certainly go before the council. Perhaps there could be a period aside period set aside for public comment before that, but I think we need to move this along, both as a committee, and then hopefully to the council one way or the other. I would just respond to that. I'm not opposed to that but I would want, I do want some discussion about among TSO anyway about outreach, and when that should happen, you know, I remember in the last meeting we talked about how the bid was going to talk to all the different butters. And I haven't heard any more about that. And just wondering whether we still need to hear from any different community members. And if so, one that would happen, whether that would happen later. I mean if we had a vote tonight. Is that that's something that's going to happen later or what do people think about that. Dave. You mentioned that Gabrielle from the bid has your hand up. Oh, let me let's hear from Dave first. Very quickly. Because we're, you know, I had two or three of these plans are brand new to TSO and to the greater community. I would just ask, you know, in particular thinking about conversations with with the leadership at Grace Church. I appreciate some some additional time to really, you know, do some outreach and have some discussions with with Grace Church because they have not had the time to really process these and I'd like, like to have that time so that was just my quick comment Thank you. Okay, do you, does that just, does it make sense to have that time within the period of time that it's in the TSO or does that matter or I would leave that up to you and TSO I I don't have a strong feeling on that. Okay. Any, any other, I, yeah, if we're just going to interrupt for one second to hear from from. So, is anybody. Lynn, can you bring her in. Gabrielle. There you are. Hi. Hi everyone, thank you so much. I just, I'll start with that last comment from Darcy. We will be coming. Our intention is to come to the council meeting when this is on your, your regular council meeting docket with comments from all of budding businesses to the North Commons. So we are definitely doing that. I just want to reiterate that we cross multiple times a day. Our offices are right on South pleasant and we look at the North Common and, you know, as it has been discussed over and over again, it's, it's, it's sad. It is unattractive and it has beaten down a couple of things I wanted to just touch on is that space in the middle that's been brought up a couple of times. Yes, our Civil War monument if available, or if the right place for them and Lord knows there's got to be amazing for something like that. We discussed a sculpture, all of the ducks in Boston of the very hungry caterpillar and what could we do if we have kind of space to do something like that where people would come and they could get dressed up for all the different seasons and really be a part of tying the Carl into our downtown and how beautiful that could be performance based absolutely anything that we could invigorate and and live in because right now we have nothing that we can really do a lot on. We filmed the merry maple there this winter as a virtual due to COVID and those of you counselors who are there. We were tripping. It was dirty. It was unattractive. It was filled with garbage. It's never nice. And I just want to keep reiterating that. I also want to make it very clear that the bid and the downtown Amherst Foundation are committed to helping with the maintenance and the upkeep of this. And by the conversation that we are want to be part of with Gilbert with Dave and the second floor and how we do that. And the question is what does that look like financially but we are committed to being a part of that, and to helping it be maintained and to helping it be beautiful. And that can be as simple as planters or flowers or systems with landscaping, or even starting a fund that is there to help it as it goes forward. Every town in America is going through a crisis COVID-19 has hit us in ways that we have not even truly begun to see. I think we have a year to a year and a half of confidence building consumer confidence building, bringing people back into hearts and into spaces, literally into indoor spaces. This is going to take a while to recreate. So during that time, while we rebuild and beautify the center of our town, the heart, the gem, however you want to call it, that's the time to start having a very, very serious conversation about a garage and looking at the changing of the zoning behind the CVS, which if the council changes the zoning, we could look at a P3 with the town where the bid would be the managing partners of building a garage. And you know that if you all change the zoning on that, you still own it. Nobody can come in and develop it without your permission. And I think that that's a great next step. But it really does come down to this more common getting done now. Moving forward in a post COVID world, the towns that are progressing, the towns that are looking for future, the towns that are rebuilding and making things beautiful and experience driven nostalgia driven. Those are the towns that are going to succeed and we really need to move forward with that. Thank you so much everybody for your time and I just want to shout out those all the different plans that have gone on have been really amazing. And one quick last thing, I cannot remember I cannot stress enough that the consultants that were hired to discuss parking lighting and signage. Those were two things that they drove home several times in their report and that those are things that we still haven't done. So there is parking behind the town hall. But the signage and the lighting to it are not great. And I think that that's something that's an easy fix that we could create to help disperse this person being concerned. Thank you. Thank you, Gabrielle. Okay. Dave, do you still have another comment. Okay, Kathy. Just a very quick one. I like George's proposal very much, you know, putting forth a thing where we get down to two with a to be. And we have had discussions about this before but I don't believe we've ever shown a picture to the broader town of no parking. We had all the original ones and it was a discussion of how many spaces we would use. So I just think it's important what Alyssa said to it may go the way of a 3B, but we ought to show people that we've got two choices here. So I'm going to bring it back to the full council or when the Hampshire Gazette shows two pictures and get them at least similar along the boltwood avenue so it's not that boltwood suddenly magically produces 15 on one and only has seven on the other so just get them nearer to similar. So that was my only comment that that there has been a quite a bit of discussion but what I remember is when it was in front of the select board. The issue was how many spaces would be lost they weren't all gone at that point this is a this is coming out with a pretty significant change that I think at least people should be aware that it's on the possible choice list. That's it. Thank you Kathy, Andy. I've been listening very carefully and I agree with a lot of the comments that have been recently made about trying to reduce the number of options, and then making very clear to the community, what the options each entail. My tendency is to say that not a good use of space that we would never have a conversation about turning it into a parking lot. And so I think we have to imagine it very well as what it would be and that so that needs to be very clear to the public and who's coming on to TSO after February 1. I look forward to continuing the conversation about how we can perfect a couple of options and really get them presented to the community in a logical fashion. As far as a couple of detail points. I think we just need to get the expert advice on it and not dwell on it amongst ourselves. You know, when you get into all of these variations of three, it's about what are the options for parking and we really have experts in town who are traffic engineers and parking and really deal with this professionally. We need their advice and we need to follow their advice in the end, because I think that we at times get lost by trying to create our own expertise where we really don't necessarily have it. And the same thing is true of the Civil War tablets. If we can't display them in a way that is safe and preserves the tablets. I think we need to make sure that we get the right professional advice on that. So, briefly my comments. Okay, thank you, Andy. So, George, do you have a thought about a motion. I think I want to first just get a sense that that people are comfortable. What I would suggest is that, and maybe I can talk myself into emotion here. So we, Guilford and Dave, I think very much want a clear sense from us of where to go next. They want to leave this evening appropriately. And so we need to give that to them. And so we can't say, well, you know, there are three plans here, three AB, whatever, we need to pick one and say, and then we need to take two. I think we spelled out a kind of a slight modification of two, which I think was fairly clear and certainly Dave or Guilford could speak up if they weren't clear, but a modification of two, which does allow for substantial parking in front of town hall. And then I, again, I'm pushing 3B, but I'm happy to hear from my colleagues who are on my side in a sense that don't want to see parking in front of town hall. Anyway, it's not no parking, but it's putting parking in different places. But I so I would say 3B and a slightly revised to that we could perhaps amongst us we agree to that. I don't know, does it need to come back to us. I would just say, you know, do it up. And, and these are the two proposals that we, we're not, we don't have a consensus, but one faction definitely does not want parking in front of town hall, and 3B perhaps captures that appropriately. And another group was is not does not is not keen on that and so to slightly revised, and then the council will have to hash it out. I don't have a motion, I know, but I need to hear from my colleagues is if that's what they, that's what I would suggest sending two different proposals to the council with two. I mean, it could be written by the chair or written by the chair and someone else to present the arguments for a 3B or some version thereof and two, and then the council would have to decide. And in between that, Dave could do his outreach. And maybe there will be some opportunity for further outreach but let you know this was on the doorstep of the select board, and they were about to make a decision and they passed it to us. So, I mean Alyssa can speak to this but I have to believe that there was a fair amount of outreach and so forth, but fair enough that will be opportunity for people to see these two plans, the council will discuss them, and then we'll have to make a decision. So, I would say that the alternative is that Dave has expressed, you know, a desire to talk to the folks at Grace Church, and Gabrielle said that she was in the process of outweaching to all the butters which I'm assuming that we're going to hear about. And so, I mean, an alternative is simply waiting until the next meeting so that we can receive that outreach. We can hear the results of. I think the decision is ours Darcy. I mean, we're being asked to make a decision as a committee, which do we prefer. We haven't heard from the Grace Church and we haven't heard from the butters. Grace Church is expressed it's clear concern about about there being no parking but the plan 3B puts parking right in front of the church parallel parking fairly similar to what they have right now. I'm just going to lose some of the spaces in front of town hall, but so my thought is Dave could take 3B, and it could take two, and to them, and that's also what we'd send to the council. So it just gives some focus to this otherwise we're still just spinning our wheels we're just going to have right so let's choose two plans, and then he can take the both of them grace you can take any anybody you want, and they can tell you which is what they think. But let's have to to clear options. Yeah, we could do that either now, or we could do it. I would I would just to do it now. I don't know how to put that into a motion because it's a somewhat complicated, but basically what I'm suggesting is that we are not with consensus. And so we're going to have to make to, we have two plans that the committee feels are worth considering. And we're not going to come to an agreement on that. So we're going to send them both to the council. And at the same time, you know, anyone who wants can take them around and show them whoever they want, and they can talk about it. Yeah, and Dave and Paul do you think that it makes sense if we did make that motion tonight that we would be able to get that feedback the outreach from grace church and from the bridge before the the next meeting with the council. And we can include that in a report. All do you want me to take that one. I know that pastor Tom sign in is on. He is a participant and attendee I'm sorry, an attendee on this meeting and I, I don't want to put him on the spot but he has been listening and he and I have chatted briefly but as my opening remarks indicated. The grace church has, you know, been around the table on this for a couple of years but these particularly plan 3b is new and I just like to respect any input that they might want to provide and likewise I think Gabrielle said that the bid in the chamber needed a little focus to take these out so I take these out to the business community so I, I do support I like George's idea that if there are different opinions on TSO and but you would like us to focus on plan 3, 3b and plan two, then we could package those in the chamber if you will, and and allow some time for Gabrielle and Claudia to do their work and allow our staff to do a little work with grace church and any other stakeholders who might be interested in in where you're going. I guess I'm a little reluctant until talking with with Paul and Gilford and Chris about whether we could move that forward for the February 8 meeting. I think it's a little bit soon to me. With everything that's on our collective plates so I'd like to, if I could work with Lynn on that. It would work that out. It's either come to the eighth or the 22nd. The reason why you feel the eighth is I mean I wasn't pushing for you know getting to the council right away. I just don't think it needs to come back to us. Okay, and there's two I mean unless my colleagues disagree about 3b and that's fine, but we have two very different visions. So we've done our job. And now outreach is definitely appropriate, but it goes to the council and it gets on the council agenda when it gets on the council agenda. I hopefully sooner rather than later but I don't think it has to be February 8 February 22 is fine. And that's certainly sample time for to do outreach it seems to me. I guess it's the bid that is taking the responsibility for doing the outreach to the butters but how, how will we be able to make sure that that gets done. I would offer that, you know, Paul and myself care for Chris we have a very strong relationship with the bid in the chamber. I have confidence they that they will do that and and I think they will bring the results of that to the council meeting, and they're very well maybe in a collective sense they will bring those results but they're very well to the individual businesses or property owners who may want to express themselves when this comes to the council in their own voices so you know I have confidence in the bid in the chamber that they will, they will gather that information based on if you go forward and say here are the two plans please respond to, you know your, your feedback we want your feedback on plan to and 3b. So we want to plan for it to come to the council no sooner than the next meeting after February the eighth. We do need a reasonable amount of time and I think, you know again I would work with Lynn and Paul on that, and I would defer to them on when it when it gets on the council agenda but I think the eighth is too soon. I think it might be possible and again that would give us, you know, a month or so to do some, some outreach and get some feedback. Okay. That sounds sounds good. Anybody. For the motion. I'm not even sure what you're talking about George. I'm asking you to write a report that describes the fact that the that the committee does not have a single recommendation to make to the council. It is split. As I'm sure the council will be split. But so I don't see any reason for it to come back to us anymore. Simply send it on to the council. Give Dave and go for the sense that these are the two plans that they should focus on. And then it goes to Lynn and she will put it on the agenda when appropriate. And in the meantime outreach will be done. Do you want this to come back to us again. What's the point. I see both Alyssa Evan and Dorothy have their hands up. Perhaps one of them is prepared to shape a motion. I'm sorry about that Evan. That wasn't my plan now. Thanks Lynn. I was first going to say that I, I, I agree that I think that TSO probably has done with it. This what it can, and it's time to move it to the council, especially because both TSO meetings we've had have also been called as committees of the whole, and we've had 10 to 11 counselors total at each of these. So they've almost been like mini council meetings. So let's just send it to the council. But I guess I am, you know, curious, it sounds like one of the options we'd look at is to, and then there's these three versions of three. George, George has made it clear he likes 3B. I'm sort of okay with any of the three options. I think I prefer 3B, but I guess I, I guess there's a part of me and anyone can shoot this down that wonders. Since we do have 10 of the 13 counselors here, if it's worthwhile just taking like a straw poll of which option people are leaning towards now, which could maybe hopefully narrow us down to the specific to I think that's a good idea. The president does not look so comfortable. I mean, I believe, I believe that TSO needs to make a recommendation to the council. The recommendation is to forward a plan to plans, then the council will come up with our plan for how we do any further outreach. And we take a vote of the council there. I might want to take a straw poll of just TSO. Just to make sure what people feel because I'm not sure that we're exactly, you know, of the opinion that George is saying, Dorothy. I want to say that maybe we are not finished with TSO. I know that we can have more of us can come to support the no parking on the green. And I just want to say to you now is the time before they tear up the pavement, they got money that was appropriated to replace the pavement. So you want them to tear it up and then put more pavement down, or isn't that the time to say, no, we're not going to put pavement down. It's going to be green. I want you to say, let's think about the past. Let's think about the future. Let's have some vision and what we've been shown and why the town have been working so hard and go for its people and we're working so hard with all of these options. Is because this is a really crucial decision. It's not just a work a day thing about how to make this place go there. It's about vision. It's about the center of the town of Amherst. And I'm just hoping that we as a TSO committee can come together around this a little bit more firmly before we go to the town council. Well, that's not going to happen. Because I'm simply not going to ever at the TSO level agree to no parking. So maybe you can change it to a four one vote but you won't get it. It won't be a five oh vote, because I believe it makes sense, like I talked about earlier, put forward the two options the two that we're talking the item to that we're talking about is the one with Kathy's variations. It's not the two that's printed there. It's the one with Kathy's variations, whichever three you decide on based on the straw poll tonight which I think is a lovely idea. But then we send those two off to the town council. Those aren't going to be on the February 8 town council they're going to be on the February 20 whatever town council. We as TSO do not need to know what the bid outreach result was. We TSO do not need to know what their outcome was with grace. That will be ready, prepared prior to that town council meeting will not be dumped on the town council the night of the meeting it will be provided to the town council a couple days ahead of time. So the town council can say oh TSO had all this conversation. They came up with these two plans they said, we want to hear about the bid and the church outreach at the town council meeting, right they don't have to come but that we'd have that conversation. And then the town council can say oh well that's really interesting. I want to hear more from XYZ population, or not, right and Lynn mentioned additional outreach earlier, but I don't think it belong I agree with George and the trajectory we're on in terms of I think TSO is done with it I think we've gotten as far as we can. And I'm fine with the fact that I will lose the vote or maybe even change it to taking all the parking off the council but that's going to happen at the town council level. It's not going to happen at the TSO level, because I don't believe that our current community has had enough experience of looking at the two side by side and going, you know what, let's just ditch the parking. So that they feel that that's cool and then I can happily support doing that. I don't think they've been given that opportunity, but I'm more than happy to have the two things move along. The questions I have right now are one that we ensure that staff understands what the caveats were that Kathy gave about option two, and they can do that offline. And the other is, if you do the straw poll on which three, because I don't care. And then pick a three and send those two forward saying to the town council, this is going to be on a meeting near the end of February, you'll be getting additional information. And then if they want to send it back to TSO they can as a council, but I think we're up to the point of the town council, doing the next set of decisions. George. So let me try my hand at emotion I move that we forward to the town council plan three be and plan to as revised, according to Kathy's points. And that the chair be instructed to provide a rationale for both as I know she would in the report to the council. So that's a horrible motion but maybe somebody can refine it but essentially I wanted to move that we forward these two plans to the council. Okay, so we, we did not take a straw poll. FYI. Um, I'll second George's motion. Okay, discussion. I would just say that, you know, I, I'm probably going to just abstain from this but because of the comments that I made earlier in the meeting about how I feel like we need to look at all of this in the context of all of our capital projects and I want to make sure that if we do this it's within our budget. So, Okay, any other discussion. Can I just, can I just say that you can certainly make those points at the council. So I'm in order just for us to I mean I guess the question I would have for you and for all of us is do are we ready to move ahead. I think we are. We're not making any final decisions tonight, but we're at least moving the ball down the field a little bit, and we're giving clear instruction to to go for the day that these are the two plans that we'd like to them to focus on, both in preparing and also an action plan. So I vote for this without feeling like, you know, somehow you're, you're letting go of some other issues that you're concerned about those will still come back, but they'll come back at the council level. Right, I guess I feel like that. It's just crazy to me to some extent to for us to be making a decision when we don't know about the outreach. You know, we don't know, you know what the feedback is from outreach, and I think ideally, our function is to hear the outreach and then make a recommendation. But it, you know, if we want to get the outreach later this and this particular situation. I'll be it. I just don't think that's generally what we should be doing. We should be getting the outreach and making our recommendation based in part on the outreach. So, any other comments. I can raise that I don't know if she that's residual. Yeah, just super quick. I hear what you're saying about the outreach Darcy and I just think it's not going to be the same on every single process I and I totally hear what you're saying and I just think that in this case we can move it to the town council because honestly, the outreach and the church outreach is not going to be enough for me, and I'm going to say that at the town council level, but I wouldn't want to stop it at the TSO process because so alternatively one could say oh well we can't do any we can't send it out of TSO until we hear from the church in the bid and I'd say, Well, that's still not an answer for me because I want the town council to be having a conversation about who else do they think they want to hear from. I appreciate the outreach point but I think that we will cover it at the town council level. And then the other part is I think it's totally fine to do a quick straw poll on the threes because there is no reason to get to town council, and have everybody say well you know now that thought about I really wanted to see instead of be let's not have that argument. Somebody wants to just pipe up that no they're totally fine with be then that's great. Christine. I just wanted to offer this that I think there's going to be an opportunity at town council to do some mixing and matching, which is what we talked about when we were describing the three, or how many plans there were of plan three. You know, when if you take plan three be to town council, the town council can start to say well, you know we're not that fond of this part but we do like that part so let's change it a bit it doesn't have to be cast in stone as three be exactly like that. There's an opportunity to evolve that plan. Thank you. Other comments. All right, so we're going to have a roll call vote of TSO. Alyssa. Hi. Darcy abstain. Dorothy. Yes. Evan. Hi. George. Yes. Okay, so that passes. Okay. Any other comments or. Well, may I just add my very brief gratitude. Thanks to the hard work that the staff has done. I'm really excited by these plans. I'm really excited to be here. I'm really excited to be here where I stand, but all the plans are exciting. And I think this really is a moment where we as a community need to think forward. This is a chance to really make a difference coming out of COVID. Say, do something positive, something exciting. I hope we'll do that, but I'm very grateful to the hard work that staff has done and their patients dealing with us, which I'm sure it can be, can be trying at times, but I want to just say thank you. No, thank you. We appreciate that. I know, you know, the engineering staff really went, went above and beyond on this one. So thank you. I like it. No, I'm very impressed with the, with the different, the different variations and the skill level of our staff that's, that's very, very impressive. Thank you. And if the, if the other counselors want to leave now, you're welcome to go. Okay, I want to ditto what Georgia said, and the council itself is adjourned while TSO will continue. Thank you. Darcy, you're now in charge. And