 Are we now on. Okay. Hi everybody, welcome to the launch of this season to tonight's public hearing. The time is now 702 and seen as a form of committee members as an attendance actually everybody, this public hearing is being called to order. Welcome everybody to the August 31st 2022 public hearing of the Amherst community development block grant advisory committee pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by the state legislature on July 16 of 2022. This meeting is being conducted virtually using the zoom platform. The meeting is being recorded and minutes are being taken as usual. I'm going to take a roll call and then we'll go over what this, what the evening is going to look like in terms of the agenda. So why don't we also sort of doing this roll call use this as an opportunity to introduce them. So I will start my name is Becky Michaels I've been on the committee for. It's been two years this is I'm going into my second cycle, and I've taken over the big shoes of gal landscape to chair the committee. And I'm thrilled to be doing that this is my first meeting that I'm chairing so be patient with me. And I will just move along on the top of my screen and people can just do the same. I will turn to you and you're on mute. Hi, my name is Lucas Hanscom. I have also been on the committee for about two years and this is my second cycle as well. Hi Suzanne Schilling I have been on the committee since May. So this is my first cycle. And Greg. Yes. I'm Greg Baskham. This is also my first cycle. And I'm looking forward to this coming year. Matt. Matt Larson and I've always been thinking of myself as a newer member but now as I look around I realize I'm the longest tenured person on the committee. I've been around a few cycles. But glad to be here. And Rika. I'm Rika Clements and I think I've been on the committee for a couple of years maybe three but I've never been on it. I was not on a program. So I've never done anything but virtual meetings. And Ben, do you want to introduce yourself and explain your role? Thank you. My name is Ben Dregger. I'm a planner for the town and the staff liaison to the community development block grant advisory committee. Great. So tonight the, I welcome everybody who's in the, all the attendees who we can't see on screen yet. One of the exciting things that we are hoping is going to work tonight is that we have figured out how to have the speakers during the hearing portion actually come into the room and join us and be able to see their faces while they're talking to us. So Ben is going to be working on that tricky zoom technology while we're going and hopefully that will be a great sort of slight modification but it'll be great to see people's faces. I don't want to say if people who are speaking don't want to be seen. That's absolutely your, your choice but it is an option for tonight. So just, you know, have your, your video on if you want. We are going to start off the meeting with the public hearing, where we'll look forward to hearing people's comments about the community priorities for the 2022 and 2023 application process. The other areas that we are looking forward to hearing from you on include social services, non social services such as housing in the public infrastructure, target areas, which areas we should be targeting as a committee where non social services can take place. And then finally, reviewing our community development strategy, which is a event and then correct me if I'm describing this incorrectly but it is a document that every couple of years we're required to create and turn in I think with our, with the applications that is a pretty in depth statement of the, what our priorities are, and the kinds of things that we have funded in the past, and I guess broken out by, by all of the different kinds of priorities that we'll be looking at. Is that about right Ben. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great. So how we're going to structure tonight is that during the public hearing we're going to give every organization anybody who's here representing an organization will give every organization, a five minute period to speak if you're here on behalf of just yourself and just to speak you also have five minutes. I would ask for anybody who is here, who's planning to speak about an organization in particular if you can just identify when you first come on, who else will be speaking and that way then can ensure to bring in those people also so we can do each organization at once. And if you have any questions about that raise your hand and we can, we can go and answer those as we move along. So with that I will open the public hearing. And it looks like Hilda Greenbaum has a question. Yeah, hello Hilda Greenbaum 298 Montague Road, and I read the article in the newspaper and called a couple people up here in North Amherst but I don't know if anybody else is on. I noticed on the website and then the, I guess mostly on the website that you're only targeting downtown. One other place was at East Amherst I don't remember. But anyway, I did want to ask the question of why is North Amherst never on this list for CDBG money because, first of all, we're our gateway into the town which looks pretty disgusting at this point we need beautification terribly. I would like to find out if it's possible for us to get money for something like a mini park up here that might screen the Potters garage from the new library that's going in and maybe a little mini market park or some shade trees up here on North Amherst is that something that's on your possibilities on the ground it is public infrastructure on a way. But but I mean North Amherst desperately as a gateway to the town desperately needs help. And I'm working on that. Great. He'll do what I hear you, you both asking a question and also advocating for North Amherst to be one of the target areas. I don't know whether that's possible that's why I'm asking a question because I didn't know whether you were locked into what was on the map on the website or, or whether there's a way for North Amherst to participate in the program. Yes, we've never, never been part of it and all the many years I was on town meeting. It's always gone sidewalks to Fort River or something on the other end of town. It is possible. It is possible. And North Amherst is certainly an area that we can look at for target areas. Then do you want to explain maybe how it is that we end up giving money that it's that we don't get to choose the projects we are that are created but the projects come to us. Exactly so the advisory committee only reviews projects that are proposed as a, whereas they're not the one proposing the projects in particular so the advisory committee committee does, you know, make recommendations of projects that come in and also makes recommendations on the target areas. So those can be changed year to year. So right now it's the said downtown East Amherst and Pomeroy Village Center. I do believe North Amherst has been a target area in the past. Anyway, yeah, but certainly appreciate the comment and I think once we get to that discussion. Well, who decides if you don't decide who does who plans out the money. So we decide which the what are the target areas but we don't get to decide who's going to apply to us for money. So if nobody, if the town doesn't come to us with a proposal for, for example, putting sidewalks in a North Amherst, we can't give to a project like that the project has to exist and be a project that somebody in that the town is planning to do, and then they come to us so we, we can't just create the project. But I mean, if we're not in a target area. Yeah, or how do we, how do we find out if if North Amherst can be a target area and whether we should talk to Ben about applying. Yeah, well, North Amherst can definitely be a target area. I think that's just, it's part of a broader discussion of using the resources wisely and targeting the areas most in need and I think there's definitely a strong case to be made for North Amherst. And I would, you know, I would encourage you to email, whether it's BTW or other town staff to advocate for, you know, proposing funding sidewalk project in North Amherst and then, you know, if there's strong enough demand for those, then we can, you know, then we can kind of then add North Amherst as a target area seeing that there's been something like a many park appropriate. Yeah, there's, so, yeah, there's, there's, you know, certain stipulations in terms of, you know, being in a census block of majority low moderate income and you know, serving local residents as opposed to like more like a regional park but it's a small pocket park that's designed for residents in a appropriate census block and yes I think something like that would be eligible. Thank you very much. With that I think I may hang up. Okay, thanks for joining. And you just automatically bring in the next person. Sure. So, I think we're inviting public comment now about social service projects. So I'm going to bring in Robert. Hi. Glad to be here and I want to thank the town for the funding that we have we receive funding for this year that we're currently in. And we're very grateful. We will be running three levels of classes and so we are basic literacy project. I'm the executive director Judith Roberts and the literacy project is an adult education program that helps folks to get their high school equivalency degree and used to be called the GED. Now the test in Massachusetts we use is called the high set high school equivalency test. And the literacy project recognizes that the high school equivalency diploma is just a stepping stone, and that folks really need to go on to community college job training programs and better jobs so in addition to our levels of classes we have one level that goes all the way from a grade level equivalency of like a first or second grade reading through eighth grade. And then we have that's broken into two sections. And then fifth and then fifth through eighth, and then we have high school level nine through 12th grade equivalency. And we have also in addition to college readiness class. So in Amherst we have very vibrant program and students go on from the college res readiness class to Holyoke Community College Greenfield Community College. We have five colleges, potentially in our region, and what we're really focusing on is we're an education program but it's for adults, and we're focusing on economic sustainability. So we we know that people without a high school diploma are not going to be able to earn a family supporting wage. And so we welcome adults to come into our program and move on, obviously to higher education and better jobs. I requested one of our students attend tonight and speak on behalf but I can't see if she's here or not. Surely the chances to truly the chances attend. Yes, Becky, you're not. Great. So surely is one of our graduates who's now attending Greenfield Community College and she was going to read a short statement. Hi everyone. Hey, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm a current graduate of the literacy, literacy project. My name is surely the chances I held from Brooklyn, New York. I came to Massachusetts in 1994, and I have been here since I have been working as a CNA until 2015. This is when I got her. This is when I got her. Fortunately or unfortunately it gave me an opportunity, an opportunity to seek my high set. I am happy. It worked out. Now, a graduate of 2021 of the literacy project of Amherst. In 2022 we had finally gotten a graduation because of the pandemic. During that time I had enrolled in Greenfield Community College. I now pass my first semester, and I'm now a junior studying business management. Much thanks and appreciation to the literacy project of Amherst for never giving up on me. Not only did they give me a chance, they encouraged to further my education and my future goals. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing that. Thanks, Shirley. Shirley is also an Amherst resident, so I thought I didn't say that, but that's an important part of our program. So thank you. And does anyone have questions for me? Anyone? I don't know where we're at on time. You're perfect. You have 14 seconds. Oh, perfect. Okay. Well, thank you again. And thank you to Shirley for coming. Take care. So welcome. Just like David Ross has a hand up. I don't know if that's to ask a question or to speak. Great. Yeah, I'll bring Mr. Ross in. You. All right. I see my name. Can you hear me as well? We can. Okay. Oh, there I am. Right. Well, I, I had the pleasure of being on Taylor street today. And I was so excited to see the work has begun that you helped pay for to replace the sidewalks on that street. So my very brief comment today is you've started a project that I hope you complete. If you extend the Taylor street sidewalk to high street, and they've already put in the curb cut on high street sidewalk. Then the people in that neighborhood, and it's a very diverse neighborhood will be able to walk on that sidewalk on high street Taylor street and make use of both. And then when they get to Kellogg street, if we make a sidewalk on the hill, you'll be able to get to town safely. I have to tell you, my wife and I have been walking in the street on high street because the sidewalk is so dangerous. She actually broke her ankle because it got caught in one of the sewer rates. It's a very dangerous situation. And the tree boots have really made a mess of it, and it needs some repair. So I'm hoping that you'll target the area again by completing the project which will make a safe route from that neighborhood, all the way into town. And that's really all I have to say. Thank you again for doing Taylor street. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions. I actually don't believe that funding for Taylor street came from block grant funds. I think that came from just the general town sidewalk funds. I might be mistaken, but I don't recall. I don't deny, but I thought it had through this committee before we're right. Yeah, it was the town related. It's related because the block grant committee did fun. I mean, I look on Kellogg gas last year, and that that's going to be under construction probably this fall. So I mean there's a case to be made for tying it all in. The concern about Kellogg is that I believe it's in front of the and wailing apartments that you're doing the work, but when you go to the hill. There's a sidewalk that drops off precipitously to the street, and then no sidewalk on the hill itself, leading down to the apartments. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. That's a very dangerous situation in that particular area because of the hill and the curve. Okay, thank you. Thanks to address. Thank you. Hi, Francine. Oh, you're on mute. I was like, I don't even see what we can hear me. Thank you. I was having an issue. We've been logging on today for some weird reason, but I'm here. So thank you for having me. And we were funded and I want to thank of course the committee for funding us for a couple years now on a housing. Housing retention and housing advocacy program we have a community housing support program. Can you tell us what organization you're from just for new people. Sure. Oh yes, absolutely I'm sorry, I'm from the Center for human development. It's family outreach of Amherst, which is a small division of CHD. CHD is a pretty large organization but we're just a small division here in Amherst that works with low income families and children. And the program that we have been funded for and hoping to get funded for again is in regards to housing for people in Amherst. I know everyone is aware that you know there's a major crisis in the state of Massachusetts. It's a fact that kind of let stayed with me that I wanted to share with the committee which is, there was a national housing coalition came out with a fact of the week that in the state of Massachusetts in order to afford a two bedroom apartment and spend the income on shelter, a full time worker must earn $37 and 97 cents per hour. Now we know that's really unrealistic. The annual household income needed to afford a two bedroom rental at HUD's their market rent is $78,984. I don't know a lot of people that make that much money, especially families that we work with even individuals and seniors that we're seeing. And that's just in the state altogether Amherst rentals are exceeding HUD's fair market rental rates, I mean, I'd say they're tripling probably HUD's fair market rental rate. I've been inundated with folks calling to apply for the new resident assistance program that the town has created with our funding to help folks with rental arrears. And I had no idea of the amount of people because you know we have our clientele we work with the majority of low income families, but this is open to everyone in town and the, the amount of calls that are coming in is extreme. I mean, if all people are soft struggling with rents right now we're talking seniors, you know singles families. And so the need is extremely high. And people are feeling like they're getting pushed out of Amherst unfortunately because the rental rates are so high. I mean I've even talked to students who say they can't afford the rents in Amherst off campus. So I mean it clearly is a major issue that we're facing and you know the families feel like they have to make a choice to leave Amherst because they can't afford the rents. And even if they're doubled or tripled up there it's just too much. And so the concern, you know just showing how the need is so high in Amherst is, you know, some families, not everybody works for family outreach of Amherst clearly. And so last week there was a family who the sheriff came and posted a eviction notice on their door they had to be out by Friday. Luckily, a neighbor of theirs that does know about family outreach of Amherst connected them to us. So we were immediately able to, you know advocate for them and tell them what they needed to do to stop this eviction. So they had to, you know, get to Springfield that day to ask for a new court date to stop this eviction. So now we're working with them. You know, to apply for raft funds and also unemployment for the dad who got sick and lost his job, and also help him find new employment eventually. But that's just one family that if some community person hadn't connected them to us they would have been homeless it's a mom and dad with three children, born on English speaking so they didn't even understand the notices they were getting they knew they didn't find and read but they didn't understand the severity of what what it was leading to. So I'm grateful for this community person that did connect them to us seeing a lot of seniors as well really struggling. I've met with two seniors so far for this program, and you know they have mortgages and they're just not able to even keep up with the mortgages. A lot of folks are struggling just of course with the economy. You know, food prices are up gas prices are up. And people are just not be able to make ends meet, even folks that we've helped catch up are still really struggling to sustain which I'm very concerned about. You know, because if you don't have a subsidy in Amherst, it's really difficult to live in Amherst. I'm two parent working households. I mean, you just don't make enough money to pay the rents that that are being asked for folks in Amherst. So. Okay, thank you. So I just want to say that I, you know I feel that this is a program that's really really needed in Amherst and I think we're being highly affected by, you know, retaining rents and helping people catch up with rental arrears and getting them the resources they want to stay in town and stay housed. So thank you. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions for Francine? Okay, great. Thanks for coming tonight. Thank you for your work. Hi everyone, and this is exciting. It looks like a promoted to a panelist. It looks like so. That feels really, that feels really like, like being in the big time. So let me just see if I can turn my video on. So, thanks for, for welcoming us and we were Center for New Americans, which I'm the director of was not funded this year. I've been funded in the past. So I was looking at the website to see if I could just get a sense of where the committee is headed and, you know, I really appreciated seeing that it looks like the strategy is to find a balanced approach to all of the needs. So that's, you know, on the CDBG website. And I was also reading what the purpose of the community development block grants are as authorized by Congress. And so one of the things that it says is to develop viable urban communities by providing housing suitable living environment and expanding economic opportunities. So I feel like the expanding economic opportunities is what we work on like what Judith Roberts was referring to with a literacy project. You know, given that one of the social service priorities is economic self-sufficiency. That's the template that we fit into. So at Center for New Americans, we offer free classes in English for speakers of other languages. And we feel that these services are really relevant in Amherst given that 26% of the public school children this past year have come from families where English is not the first language. And that's a lot higher than the state percentage, which is about 20%. So clearly Amherst has achieved its goal of being a diverse community and given another goal of honoring DEI objectives, which means providing access. A program like ours, I think, which, which provides free English instruction for the parents of all of these children is what unlocks the door for them and gives them access. So in addition to teaching English, we offer childcare for the very young children of our students. We connect people to community resources like family outreach of Amherst, like the survival center. And then we help place people in jobs like at Amherst College and UMass Amherst and the Center for Extended Care where our graduates go. And we also refer people to Greenfield Community College. So we feel like we are a pathway to economic self-sufficiency and given those broad goals that you have, we hope that you will consider us as a possible grantee in future years. And I can answer any questions if you have them. Does anybody have any questions for Lori? Lori, can I have had one question that the statistic you just gave that 26% of public school children are from families where English is not the first language is that I know you said that's high for in the state is that higher than it has been in the past for Amherst. Yes, I mean Amherst is always. Yes, I mean Amherst in the master plan, the original master plan, Amherst prioritized diversity and said that it wanted to be a diverse community and acknowledged that to be successful at that. They had to provide social services to support that that's actually spelled out. And so I think Amherst has opened its doors. And yes, it's higher than North Hampton and the surrounding communities. It's an intentional approach. Great. Thank you. Anyone else. Okay, great. Thanks Lori. Thank you. Susan from Big Brothers. Thank you so much. Hello everyone. Hi Susan. Great to see you all and my name is Susan the Castro and I'm the director of Big Brothers Six sisters of Hampshire County. And I just wanted to share how grateful we are for the continuing support that we've received from this funding and just to emphasize that mentoring is more important than ever now we have a growing waiting list of children. We have mentors and you know we are very well aware of the positive impact that mentoring has on children, children on positive youth development, being, you know, the focus of what we do through quality providing high quality one to one mentoring relationships and most of the things that we serve are Amherst children and most of the children we serve are some of the most vulnerable children in Amherst in terms of income level and challenges that children's families are facing. We've been providing mentoring here in Hampshire County for over 47 years and the funding and support that has been provided through for us has just been extremely critical to us being able to continue to to provide the service that we do and yeah I would just hope that the committee will consider continuing to support our efforts to provide high quality mentoring to children in Amherst. Yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions that that anyone has and again just can say enough how grateful we are for the continued support that we've received and for all of your efforts that you know make this support possible and you know make our work continue to thrive and so we're looking forward to continuing to do what we do and we couldn't do it without this without funders who provide the support that you do. So thank you, thank you. Thanks for coming. Yeah, questions for Susan. Great. All right, thanks Susan. Thank you so much. Take care. Appreciate it. You too. Great. All right, it's really embarrassing when at this point you forget to turn off your mute. Thanks so much for having me and really appreciate all the folks for your participation in the CDBG process. If it's okay, I'd like to actually just ask a clarifying question before I start. Is the intent of our remarks today supposed to be more around the larger issues of priorities or the specific projects that we anticipate and organizations that we anticipate applying for priorities. Okay, great. Okay, thank you. That was, yes, forgive me, I just wanted to speak to that but I wanted to make sure if I needed to also speak to the specifics of our project that I did. So as I shared when we met several months ago, that when I think about priorities, it's really coming from my vantage point of working with roughly 7,000 people annually at the MR survival center. And from that, I think that the priorities that come through just incredibly clear is the emphasis around foundational basic needs supports across our region. So I feel very strongly about temporary housing and shelter and supports for people experiencing homelessness. I think we also really see tremendous need for case management, family support, working alongside individuals and families to access resources to set goals to navigate challenges. See a lot of really critical need there specifically for support and staying in housing and I think that's one of the pieces that Francine was talking about that we need to make sure that people who are currently housed are able to stay so safe and solid living conditions. There are also some cases there that are really connected to some of the components that Lori was speaking to in terms of the ways that Center for New Americans for example wraps around their students they're providing education but all those other links in and not surprisingly I also want to voice my really strong opinion that food and nutrition absolutely needs to be a top priority for the upcoming CDB application process. And I think it's possible for the committee to really approach all of these priorities with a focus on accessibility, equity, and really making sure that there's that emphasis on quality and measurable impact throughout throughout the projects. And the committee met a few months ago, my understanding was that you had conducted a survey about priorities to supplement or further guide me on these hearings. And I was excited to hear about that effort to gather broader input, but was concerned when I learned, or at least my understanding was that the survey had received a pretty limited response and almost entirely from one distribution source. And so, well, of course, those responses are that are valid and valuable and important to consider. It didn't seem like they represented a breadth of issues. And I think seeing that things like food and nutrition and housing, and those types of resources that I just mentioned is really top critical priorities weren't represented in the top was just indicative to me that there was a large population of this community that hadn't been reached by that survey so I just want to really think about sort of who that ended up being representative of or not. And the piece that I want to share specifically about food insecurity at this time is that actually, I think that there was almost a little bit of a comment and just when we knew we had to do the second public hearing of, okay, well we'll see and it's been several months and we'll talk about if the priorities have changed but there tends to be a lot of continuity and the things that are going on even from year to year, much less a couple of months, months past. In this situation, I can say from my vantage point that actually the priority around food and nutrition has shifted the situation has gotten much more dire. The last five months have each been record breaking in the number of people that we're seeing at the MR survival center. We're certainly not the only organization that is serving people experiencing food insecurity and and that is an experience across the board around the region. But we are currently every single one of these months has exceeded our highest pandemic surges. We're seeing a 20% increase in our in our food pantry just versus earlier this year, which was already busier than all of last year, etc. We had a more than 30% increase in the number of people coming every day for produce and bread and really exceeding that we'd had at any time throughout the pandemic and similar trends with people coming for meals and that's a combination of it certainly includes people who have utilized services like the MR survival center for a period of time and are coming more frequently, but the big change right now is that we are seeing lots of new faces every day. I'm sorry. Great. So, I just want to really emphasize this component of these basic needs priorities that we're really at a, I think at an inflection point and unfortunately what I'm hearing from other folks in the field around is we're expecting this trend to continue for a significant period of time which we think makes it much more important to consider this as a critical need for this to your cycle upcoming because I think we're looking at a really critical couple of years in our community. So, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for coming. Does anybody have any questions for us. Yeah, Matt. In your message I was kind of surprised to learn that the numbers are even greater than they were at the peak of the pandemic. Do you have any sense of you know what is causing that is a inflation a part of it or other other other factors. Yeah, absolutely. So, our, my understanding is that inflation is absolutely the driving force. And I think the way that I frame that as I think most of us can experience having some sticker shock at the grocery store, or feeling this sense of oh goodness okay I'm making different choices if I can't get this or I can do this. And for any family for whom they were already struggling to make ends meet or that already wasn't enough. These prices on the all of the most basic essentials right we're seeing it on utilities we're seeing it on gas we're seeing it on you know at the grocery store have been just paralyzing debilitating you know you know I don't know really incredibly detrimental. There is also a level I think of kind of a snowball. So it's been quite a while and eight months now since the end of the child tax credit. But certainly that was something that had enormous economic impact. We've also are definitely aware of more people where essentially the bands on evictions kind of coming off of our time or getting far enough out even once they were no longer included in whatever category but it taking however long for sort of landlords to catch up. So I think we're just seeing this snowballing snowballing effect, but it definitely is is a really significant uptech. coming and giving all that information. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Thanks for your work. Yeah, at this point, the agenda we're still focused on any social services that would like to speak so if there's any other social service agencies that or anyone who'd like to speak on behalf of the social services feel free to raise your hand otherwise we can move on to the next agenda item which is about non-circle services. All right, so I'll bring in Sarah Sargent. I believe that was coming to that the non-circle services. Hi everyone. Sarah Sargent with Valley Community Development. Thank you for all the work that you do and then I know I'm not in social services, but I just want to say thanks to all the social service agencies because our clients too see the impact that all of you have had. As the Small Business Program Manager for Valley, we continue to focus a lot on economic development that's happening across the region, but specifically in Amherst. Since January of 2022 through the end of July over 70 businesses registered with the, or with the town of Amherst, which is great. We primarily focus on working with those in the low to moderate income or underserved populations. We are continuing to see an uptick in people starting sole proprietors or doing business as simply due to lost jobs and creating their own jobs for themselves and seeing the opportunity to once they get themselves going trying to add on additional jobs for other people, which is a win-win for everybody. In many ways, some of this, like having our small business consulting is an extension of some of the social services that are happening because we are trying to also create more jobs and employment for people in Amherst. We continue to work with a lot of clients that we worked with through the COVID grant program that we help facilitate for Amherst. We are hoping that we can continue our work that we're doing now through the CDBG program and offering continuing job for more services. We are seeing also an increase in refugee and immigrant individuals who are those who are refugees and immigrants that are looking to open businesses, which is very exciting. A lot of them are actually coming to us through places like Center for New Americans, the International Language Institute, those that are offering English classes. So we just, again, that's where the extension happens here from social services to non, but I just wanted to kind of give you a little bit of an update on where things have been since the beginning of this year. And we hope that you guys will consider this as a priority to try and keep creating more jobs where people can continue to live affordably in the Amherst area. So thanks again for your time. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions for Sarah? I wanted to just clarify one thing Sarah, did you say 70 businesses registered in since last July? No, since January of this year. Since January. Wow. January through July. So when we talk about businesses that have registered with the town, you're actually not required as an LLC or an escort viewer only required viewer do one of those entities doing business as or assault proprietor. So that does not even include the number of businesses that have started as LLCs or escorts. So there's a significant, there's more than that. But this is a single data point that the city tracks currently. Great. Thank you. Thank you Sarah. If there's anyone else who'd like to make comments about the non-servical services, different priorities for the town has been include micro-enterprise assistance, infrastructure, sidewalks, affordable housing development, things of that life. Feel free to raise your hand. Seeing none. Thank you so much. Moving on to target areas. Yeah, the target areas. We had, we heard one comment about this earlier, but the target areas are areas where the town or the advisory committee will kind of hear proposals for those specific areas. State DHCD requires the town to focus block grant activities into these target areas. We have, we're allowed a maximum of three. So I know that the target areas I can show them on my map in the screen here. The current target areas, these are from 2021. And include in red, we see kind of an area around downtown Amherst, in Orange, this is the East Amherst area around like Cumberland Farms and Fort River, going down to Colonial Village over here. And then in this, in particular, we see the Commonwealth Village Center with community along East Abbey Road, the Hickory Ridge area, or for Valley neighborhood. So this is where, unless anything changes as of now, we'll kind of focus our non-social service activities in these areas. I had a quick question about that. But the green areas are where CDBG funds can be spent, right? Yeah, yeah, so the targeting the areas that you're mentioning, but you can spend money in the other green areas, right? Yeah, it can be incorporated into a target area. Okay, so you, so we're only allowed to consider projects in the target areas, even though the other areas are eligible. Yeah, and the target areas need to be composed of these green areas for the eligible blockers. So it has to be an overlap of the green area and the target area? Yeah, yeah. So it can change the target area as long as it overlaps with the green area, correct? Correct, yeah, yeah. The target areas can change the, what you see in green is from the census, so that, you know, that there's an income eligibility for those census blocks. So, like, for example, we couldn't just say, oh, let's do like Bay Road area down here, because none of that is income eligible. We're either in the target area or a green area, but the, but we're as a group were sort of limited by the town to the target areas. We're limited by the grant requirements to the green areas, but we could, if my understanding, Ben correct me if I'm wrong is that if. But if it's in like an area that is in green, but it's in the red area, then you could, you could still fund it. Correct. Yeah, so, like, yeah. So if it's in, if it's in the target area that that's fine. So, you know, this area, I don't know what is that near you Matt, I guess that that would still be eligible, because it's in the target area, even though it's not in income. And those are assigned by the town, we don't actually redraw those right. So the, the advisory committee can make recommendations on change. Right. But then the town says, okay. Just curious. Yeah, I was, I was like, I looked up this map when the woman was talking about North Amherst and I'd sell it down at the bottom that all the green areas were eligible so I was like, huh, that's. Yeah, so North Amherst could become a target area if you kind of encompass these areas of green here. Seeing no comments about the target areas. I'll move on to the next agenda item which is a focus on the community development strategy. And I think Becky alluded to this earlier the community development strategy is something that the town has to develop roughly every three years for our inclusion in the community development block grant program from the state. And the purpose of the community development strategy is to basically synthesize a few things that synthesizes all the comments that we've heard over the past. So three years in terms of one of the social service and non-social service priorities. And then it also synthesizes many or almost all of the existing plans that exist out there so you know the town produces a number of plans, whether it's our master plan, housing production plan sustainability plan. And efforts for racial justice and an equity transportation plan so basically the community development strategy that synthesis of all all the input we've heard and in the guiding document for the town and the advisory committee to help basically provide some evidence if you will or support for various initiatives that come in so functionally any activity that's recommended for funding by the advisory committee needs to be supported by the community development strategy so I worked on it the past few months and then you know try to incorporate everything we've heard and different projects that have been funded over the years with anticipating kind of some similar projects going forward, but also keeping it as accessible to allow for new and innovative projects that might come forward as well so it's been on the town's website for some time now on the CDBG website I'll share it on my screen now it's obviously a bit wordy so I'm not going to read it all right now but I would encourage everyone if you're interested again it's on the town's website you can email me with any comments you might have or if anyone has had a chance to read it feel free to raise your hand now to provide some comments but essentially it goes through and provide an introduction about how the block grant process is administered you know recognizing that the town does have the CDBG advisory committee which many times do not I will share so we are allowing for you know community engagement through just having an advisory committee and then goes to the need for housing documenting what we've you know how we how we have accomplished housing goals and what remains to be done talks about community services which is really just the social services and you know talks about you know maintaining a balanced approach amongst these different goals which is a number of the extra projects that we've funded over the past decades really since the program started land use, economic development, cultural and national resources, open space and recreation, you know a block grant can help you know for example with the committee funded trails and it's better accessibility at the Hickory Ridge golf course last year which is a project that's underway so it can support open space and recreation access in low and moderate income areas, reliable public transportation, sustainability work on summarizing the climate action adaptation resiliency plan to talk about the number of different goals that are included in there. And then finally the town's efforts to increase diversity equity and inclusion across the board. There are different goals in that area outlined by the community safety and social justice committee and our efforts with the press program as well and the new department. Here we talk about the target areas. Lastly, one thing that's required as part of the community development strategies to create a matrix that outlines different activities that the town would, or the town would look to support in the next, you know, one to three or one to five years, and then talk about what are the different funding sources for that. So I kind of went through and did the different categories here and then different projects or activities that would fall under that as well. So, I encourage folks to look at that more closely if you have time, and to provide a little comment that you might have at the end. And one question. One comment one question what comment is like this is really, really well done. This looks like a lot of work that you put in. There's a lot of different stuff going on here I was really impressed how you synthesize all these different areas of the town is working on and focused on my question is the matrix at the end. The priority ranking where where does that come from and what does that mean the ranking one through eight. So that that's been developed. Over the past few years, I would say I think it extends from, you know, as high as the town council and how managers office kind of what are their priorities. They're really what one thing it comes from is the town council priorities for the town manager, which then kind of circulate the way it's way through every level of the town. So certainly housing and social services are top of the list for that some of the goals. But other than that I think I said these are you know, I would say they're all kind of high priority. And one thing that I was asked to put a time frame on here that was a little bit more specific and just ongoing, because, you know, for it's hard to say some of these things are Oh, these are here I said it's a three to five year goal, I guess but for the most part I think these are all kind of ongoing and high priority projects. It's pretty hard to provide a rank important to them. So I don't, I don't want anyone to confuse these with the kind of priorities that the advisory committee is putting together. These are more just specific projects that might come in, for example, you know, creating affordable for housing options and supporting social service programs. Whereas the priorities that we're going to heard about tonight are more specific to just the social services for example like, you know, supporting food and access, affordable housing, food stabilization that that kind of stuff so I would say yeah the ratings kind of stem from the town council schools but also just what we've heard over the past, you know, decade of block grant hearing. I had a question to under your funding sources I noticed some of the ones at the bottom natural and cultural resources open, open spaces economic development the last economic we've got to economic bullets. Yeah, I see one is more specific to, I guess the colleges and one is small businesses and you don't have see dbg on the bottom three does that mean those are ineligible or they just haven't had it in the past or what what does that mean. Yeah, I would say that would indicate that they're generally not eligible for block grant, but it's still they are still kind of what we would consider community development activities if that makes sense, but it is a little confusing but yeah so like preserving scenic and historic landmark is not necessarily a block grant activity. You know, I guess that the trail one we did do some trails that's why I was a little confused. Right. Yeah. Yeah, no I think I may have ran out of room there and just CDBG in the state and federal grants. Okay. And then, yeah, certainly this economic development goal with the colleges, not necessarily block grant eligible. Okay, thank you. Yeah, good clarification. So then just on a practical matter and see we're having conversations amongst ourselves and asking questions ourselves. I'm wondering if we determine that there are no further comments from the public do we transition from a public hearing into a meeting. Yeah, so I do agree I think public hearing is wrapping up so we could just ask for any last comments from any members of the public in attendance. And then move into a public meeting portion where there won't be necessarily any public comment. So feel free to raise your hand if there's anybody else who wants to speak and otherwise we will still look exactly like what we're doing exactly right now but it'll be different. Okay. So, so the public hearing and I don't know if it matters but it's 804 and move into the public meeting. I see that Sarah is still in our solar panelist I don't know if it matters that. So, I think the agenda. Yeah, I think the first item is announcements. I don't think I have any announcements. Anything else in the chair. All right. So, why don't we discuss and review comments from public hearing and just, I guess to sort of remind everybody where we're headed with coming out of the public hearing and then our next step is to finalize the RFP, which we hope to send out and our timeline is to send it out in very early October that right then. We'll leave September 30, September 30. Okay, so the idea then is that between now and really end of September. We will finalize what the priorities are on there, whether there's anything new we want to add whether there's anything you want to take off of it. And that would be guided by obviously the comments that we heard tonight. It can be guided by the survey that we sent out. Any other thoughts people have. And one of the things that we can also talk about is whether what we want to do is go sort of deep into the RFP tonight or what we want to do is talk sort of more generally and then have another meeting between now and maybe like September, whatever works for bands of September 26 or seven or something and finalize the RFP that would then go out on September 30. And that's what I would. My recommendation, or I guess what I one thought would be that we would just sort of talk more generally tonight and then maybe between, you know, in the next brief period, then concerned out the RFP as it looks right now and we can all just put our thoughts in and maybe send them to Ben who can create a master version of everybody's comments that we could then review at the next public meeting. Does that make sense. I think that sounds good. I'm fine with that would you, would that include public comment or that just us. I think that is just a just us, because we'll just be going over. We'll be using people can hear what we're saying yeah. So I think that is that right then. It's a little bit distracted just taking a minute. It's whether Lucas was asking whether, when we meet to finalize the RFP whether that's a hearing or a meeting. And I was saying I think it's a meeting because the hearing tonight. Yeah, yeah, that would be a public meeting. As always, they're open to the public so anyone can attend. And it's up to the chairs discretion whether to take public comment. So Ben if you want to propose a date by which you would need everybody's comments. If we want to work backwards when you wouldn't I guess what what date would be the most manageable for you for us to have the public meeting at which we finalize the RFP, and then we can do work dates backwards. Yeah, so what is that. We can go into discussing what we just listened to it the public comment. Yeah, um, I think if we if I had the week of September 26 to put everything together so I would have like five days to finalize it and put it out on the Friday, September 30. I would be fine. So if we wanted to meet, maybe the week of the 2019. How does, does Wednesday the 21st work for people. Or any other night that we that works for me. That works for me. Yeah, I think that's good. Greg is that for you. Yeah, that'll work for me. Okay, great. So why don't we plan that on that Wednesday the 21st for the public meeting and then so continuing to work backwards. Then if what we want to review at that meeting is or the comments that we have on the RFP then is it help would it be more of a pain for us to send all of our individual thoughts to you and you put them all into one document for us to review. So then do you if we got that to you so that you could give it to us to review if we got our comments to you by like the 14th or 15th. And then you would have Yeah. Okay. So we do the 14th, we get our comments to you. When are we receiving it. We're working backwards. We're getting to that. Okay, I was gonna say because maybe we could get them from you. I mean any, you probably just you could just send us last year's in the next couple. Yeah, I'll take last year. The very least update the dates. And then there's nothing else about the two year grant. Has the state and the state has finalized the dates. Yeah, so the grant. Yeah, so all the dates are now finalized. The grant is due to the state on March 3. And kind of working backwards from there you know it takes. All the applications to come in. It can even take a month or two to even just for staff to put it all together and everything and and the states also asking that we have a list of all the activities that we're going to fund in December. It's ridiculous. It's like, we might as well submit the application then but the due dates not till March. So we're kind of that's that was one checkpoint I made sure to include in the timeline where basically we have the application you know, I think it's an early November, and then there's a chance to collect comments and all that and so have a better sense of what the activities will be in December. And we're doing two years and there's only five that we can find right. So, yeah, yeah, we're still unfortunately limited to the five services and three non social services. It's twice as much money. The town will be receiving 1.65 million. That's great. Yeah. So then the in the draft that you send around. Yeah, you'll already incorporate these kind of two year aspect of it. So okay. Yeah. So with building costs up like they are you're basically getting one year of brick and mortar funding. Probably. Yeah, I'll know I will say the, or the Mill Lane project that was the continuation of the multi use path that actually came in under budget for once I don't know. I think it was a very, you know, they kind of the budget to make sure it would come in, even with inflation and we did that. I guess me and my friends with that. Good for them. That's awesome. All right, so why don't we go unless anybody has more thoughts on me on that we'll move into discussing and reviewing comments from the public hearing going to be an even more difficult year. You know, I just feel like the need has gotten greater on in every way for people. Yeah. It's nice we have more money but we still have the limits of five and three. Yeah. I don't remember in mind I guess because we have Suzanne and Gregor news of the process. So, the, what we heard tonight was kind of the general just the, you know, opportunities that members of the public to share what they think are the, you know, priorities for the foundation funding. We don't necessarily need to, you know, limit the priorities, you know, we, you know, I think in the previous years we've said we only want to fund projects that are x, y or z. Where but in other years it's more just, you know, I think I'm looking at the RFC for 2020. I think he just froze. Yeah, so it's just thinking he froze right not just studying the document. But I think well one of the things I'm not sure if this is what he was going to say but I know that we've talked about before is that you know what, and I guess what some towns do is that they select sort of one area that they're going to give money to that year and so they say okay this year we're only doing food and nutrition. You know and then next year we're not going to do any food and nutrition we're only going to do something else. And I feel like we talk about that every now and then here and we all decide we could never decide what that one thing would be, and especially in the two year cycle that feels even more true, but it's certainly something that we could talk about. Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be. I can't decide if that would make it harder. I mean, harder or easier I guess it moves moves the hard decision kind of maybe earlier in the process. But if we said we're only doing food and nutrition. I mean I don't know I don't know what that would do the applications but I imagine what they would obviously shift them tremendously but right. I don't know I just feel like we've heard so much about housing, you know, all of these things seem so tremendous. It's hard to imagine crossing them out so early in the process. I think that that struck me is that, even though, you know, we're past the pandemic and, you know, the worst is over but but that doesn't really seem to be the case. And so, even though we're in a two year cycle not a one year cycle I guess it's hard for me to imagine that the conditions that we're seeing now are going to improve a lot or you know get a lot better in two years and so I think that you know that we can probably expect that it's going to continue and that the needs we see now will continue so I guess in that sense. The two year aspect is not going to be that difficult right. Well one years already past isn't. So we're doing two years but we're sort of retrofunding my understanding because we didn't really do anything last year. Right. Is that right I thought it went. Oh, Ben's back. Like on my phone now I don't know. We tried to guess what you were maybe talking about and thought maybe it had to do with selecting, you know that that we had the opportunity to either narrow or expand the kinds of priority areas and so we were just having a discussion about. If we were interested in doing that I don't think and narrowing that the priority areas for the grant or for the in the RFP, but Lucas was just asking and it made me think maybe I don't know. The right answer is that it's two years but he was saying that his understanding is that it's retroactive back because we didn't fund. Last year, last year. So, so the, the funding will start on July 1 of 20, a gap in funding for just your connection is not good then. So the funding you said the funding will start in July 1 of what year. 2023. Right. Okay. Right so the funding is for fiscal years 2023 and 2024. No, 2324 2425. If the fiscal year. Right, right. Right so that's another part of sort of what we have this year now that we don't. I think we might want to check on this because my, we did. I joined in the end of 2019 and we did that funding, the funding that spring. And then we didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. I can't imagine that we're going to do funding. The spring and then there's not going to be anything for two years. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. That's double the money. Yeah, but that's because we missed a year. It was, it was delayed, but there was still funding. That we're just getting grants started from, from last year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You maybe don't know, are they going to shift to this two year cycle? No, I think they'll shift to, to after this two year cycle, they'll, they'll get back to one year. Yeah. I think my internet's back. So I'm going to rejoin. Yeah. But to, to speak to the other issue of doing everything, you know, full on one. Nothing anybody else. Yeah. I see the CDBG committee as sort of a, a piece of a larger pie. Of funding. And I think to sort of counterweight. Just to one person and not it seems. Maybe so that other people do it in their situation, but I did, it doesn't seem like the way that this is both built the systems built to sort of piecemeal it all out. Yeah. Yeah, I think we're probably all, are we all in agreement that we're not going to want to do that? And then we can put that whole idea to the side. Yeah, particularly if there's going to be any laps, then we wouldn't want to fully fund something and then have them have a lot of funding. Right. Right. It's been coming back in. There he is. Raising his hand asking to be allowed to talk. Yeah. I'm on the other side of things. You should be able to go to my name and say promote the panelists. There we are. It says I failed to change role to panelists. It's great. This is how I feel. I've been doing this for so long and I still don't have it down. It's not letting me. It's not letting me. It's not letting me. It gives me the option, but then when I try, it says failed to change role to panelists. Okay. Not sure what that's about. We have your sort of. Yeah. No, that's fine. I, I, I, before the meeting started, I made. You a co-host. Yeah, no, no, it gives me the option, but then when I click on promote to panelists. Wait, maybe it's letting me do it now. No, then I get a error message. I'm trying to log in back into your. All right, we'll, we'll. In terms of just so we hit all the agenda. Next is. Unless anybody has any other comments from the public hearing. Discussing the review criteria. So this is the, what we look at to review in the RFP, and I think it might be an area that we want to sort of table this discussion for after we really. Look at the RFP. On our own and determine, I know last year we made a couple of additions to the things that we. Areas that we would look at for review. But unless anybody wants to talk about that now, we might just hold off on that conversation. I guess I just have a question. So as part of the RFP that we'll be looking at and reviewing, does that identify this strategy and these priorities? Like these eight priorities. Is that's part of that process? Okay. Thank you. Yes. So it has the priority areas like housing. Yeah. You know, case management. And then there are the criteria that we look at to review. Yes. And then there it would be about, you know. Breath of service or. I'm like, you know what they are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like high functioning board and. Right. Financial. You know, capability and that kind of thing. Okay. Thank you. So then the next item is to discuss target areas. And so one thing that, that Ben had mentioned to me yesterday when we were talking. Was that we. And then obviously correct me if I misunderstood this, but I'm not sure if that was correct. I'm not sure if that was correct. But can sort of reassess what our target areas. Could would be based on. The applications we get. For different projects in the town. And so we don't necessarily have to select those upfront. I mean that we're limited in town to what. The target areas are. Like those green areas, but we don't have to necessarily eliminate any upfront. That's correct. But that, but if. Excuse me to Hilda's point, if we don't. Add them, we wouldn't get applications for those. Areas, would we? I mean. If people feel like they have to be in the target area. To apply. It feels like. Yeah. It's kind of a chicken or egg kind of thing because. The truth of it is that, you know, I guess. It's really the. The town is the one that's in the position to. Propose most of these non-social service projects. I mean the. We were careful to make sure that many of the Amherst housing authority complexes are within these target areas. I don't know. I can't think of one in North Amherst per se. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like, you know, we want to make sure that many of the Amherst housing authority. Neighborhoods are included in these target areas that they can. You know, freely, you know, propose projects based on, you know, just their need and not necessarily be. And fine to one of these target areas. And then, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have a physical impact on the land. So it's not really it doesn't adhere to the same target areas, but. You know, I think. If you are speaking out as a town staff person now, like if we hear from the public, a big demand for projects in North Amherst. Then we can then say, oh, North Amherst is in the target area now, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have a project up there. So. It kind of depends on. What we're hearing and kind of what, you know, working with our DBW to figure out where the biggest needs in town. As well. And, and, you know, we can move things around. Okay. Thank you. So with that said. It might make sense not to necessarily limit the target areas now that we're talking about. Okay. And now we move to public comments. I guess I'm just more general areas then. That just wouldn't have been. Part of the hearing. Yeah. Just if there's any other. Additional comments. So if anybody who's here wants to make a comment, feel free to raise your hand and move, bring you in. And are there any. Items not anticipated within the last 48 hours. No, I guess just. The next meeting date. So we'll. It sounds like it will be needed. Just for me to probably brief meetings. To finalize the RFP. At the end of September. And then I'll. Send out. As soon as I have it ready, like the draft of the. RFT and. I think, you know, I think the. Area of interest will be kind of what we're saying are the, are their priorities. So there's just a paragraph on this at the page. So I'll keep that. I won't change that much from, from 2021. And then kind of have folks. Focus on that for. For discussion later in the month. So Ben, do you think you can get those to us by September 7th? And then we'll get them back to you by September 14th. And then we'll have our meeting on September 21st. Yeah. Yeah. Great. All right. Terrific. Well, if anybody has any other comments. Now. All right, then. Do I have to do anything in particular or close out of a meeting on September 1st? Yeah. Yeah. It's eight 29. You can entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. Okay. With that, then we are adjourned. Thank you. Nice job, Becky. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.