 Let's say welcome. It's great to have you on board. We're looking forward to having a lot of hard work and some fun to do with you in the coming weeks, months and years, maybe we hope. So it's nice to have you. And does anybody else have any reports or comments? Besides that, and then let me just continue on to introducing our new human resources director. Melissa and I am in a quandary about how you pronounce the, your last name. So can you just tell us that and then we'll learn a little more about you. Yes, I'm going to tell you that and then also if I can find the chat option, put in the phonetics spelling. I'm so sorry. Go ahead, Paul. We don't have a chat function that's not allowed under our open meeting law. Okay, so it's low yo DJ Walker. Once again, that's low yo DJ. All right, low yo DJ. And you can call me Walker if that's easier. But in Italian, the, it's L O and the I O says yo, so it's low yo and the D I is D, and the C is a chair. So it's a low yo DJ. But I just wanted to say that I am really pleased to be in this role and I'm having a really great first week everybody has been extremely welcoming I've been meeting with department heads each day to kind of find out about their responsibility and their needs in regards to HR. I hope to do the same with being leaders in the upcoming weeks, kind of an introductory meeting. I've been able to take a lot of time to meet as many people as I can employees, council and committee members, volunteers, some seniors, and through these conversations I feel like I'm really getting a sense of my to do list for the new year. And so I just like to say I really look forward to working with and partnering with all of you and thanks for having me. Well, it's great to have you. Can you tell us a little bit about your, your background, you know what it's a little bit. Yeah. So, where do I start I went to UMass. So I'll start by saying that my mother went to UMass, and when she did I moved out to Amherst in middle school so I was here for fifth and sixth grade over at Wildwood and formative years so I really, really enjoyed the place I was. I didn't really want to move to Amherst I remember but once I did I didn't want to move back. So unfortunately I did but I ended up coming back for college at UMass and and stayed for 11 years and raised my son here and I went to graduate school I lived in Amherst while I went to graduate school in Springfield. I left about I don't know I, it's hard to say the years have been going by so quickly, maybe eight years ago. I left and went back to the Berkshires. Before I went to the Berkshires I earned my law degree and became barred in Massachusetts and I also earned my master's of social work. And I had a law practice in Amherst, starting in 2005. I practiced law until about 2019. Well I still kind of, I was practicing on the site but I practiced law as a primary career until about 2017-ish when I took a job as a director of operations at a nonprofit and then kind of morphed into the HR world. I took a job at Berkshire Community College where I was previously before coming to the town. As a lawyer I did a lot of contracts and labor and employment stuff. A lot of real estate but I worked with a lot of businesses, small businesses to help them through their HR and personnel problems and so there was a lot of transferable skills that I learned and that really transferred very seamlessly into the HR world and I've been enjoying it. And I'm just really excited to come to Amherst. I was in academia, it's a little bit of a different world and I enjoy that because I want to expand my experience and learn things because that's what I like to do. So I'm just really excited. Well, we are too. That was a lot. And welcome aboard. Thank you. And I actually want to go back to opening remarks and just say something. I had the pleasure of attending the State of the Town Council meeting on Monday evening, where we heard reports from different people including the town manager about the condition of the town and what's been happening and what might be happening. But the thing that I just thought was super wonderful was all those new staffers being sworn in on the fire department and the police department. And I just thought that was a great day for the town. I just was so proud to be there and see these new folks and then all the folks that have been making the town work so well all these years anyway. But that was a banner day. And I bet I bet Paul, you were pretty proud as well to look at. Yeah, I really was. We're happy to be able to do that. We haven't done it since COVID actually, you know, we used to bring, especially public safety officers, we would bring them in for a ceremonial swearing and each of the departments does their own true swearing in when they take actually take office in their own building typically. But we like the community and the council to meet the people who are on the front lines like that. And so we would typically bring them in and they would bring their families in and things like that. We haven't been able, been able to do that. So, we decided, you know, we needed to do that and we sort of scooped up everybody who was who was hired this year or at least in smart or something like that to do that and, you know, we had to limit the number of people because the room still has capacity limits. So, you know, but there were a lot of colleagues of theirs from the police and fire department and all the press responders were there as well. So we had a press officer sworn in as well. So that was a banner day was really is thrilling. And, you know, we had the largest turnout of counselors. I think we had 11 of the counselors present. Typically we have about five or six most of them are doing remote. So that was like, they, they valued it as well. So I appreciate it this so much. I actually thought it was interesting Paul that one of the counselors was present for the swearing in part. And then she left and she came back for the official town meeting. Yes, yes. She I think she was saying well this is pretty important. And I want to be there so good job. I don't know if you're any I know this is like, it's just the way my brain goes is that like Tony. Let's write up a little thing for the paper just a little editorial thing that's just like what a great day for the town couldn't be prouder love volunteering on the personnel board I mean we're the volunteers we were town people. And we have an insider's look and we get to see this and, you know, if, if, if we don't celebrate it publicly in our local, like who's doing it so anyway. Okay, I wasn't there but if you drafted something up, I would be happy to edit. Okay, I am. I made a note of that. It could crack out at that. Yeah, I mean, that's a cool thing to do. Yeah. Yeah, I think it and I was thinking that might be something we might. We might be doing regularly but you know, like that could be part of what we do celebrate recognize, because we have a position where we can see things and speak and communicate back toward the town, not just in. Yeah, good suggestion and I'll do my best to follow up on it. Yeah. Okay. Meanwhile, back to the second bullet point under new business which is discussion of personnel procedures manual committee reconvening in 2023, and I confess I have no idea where that is. Before maybe Melissa's benefit the last time the personnel procedures manual, which I assume you've read and memorize and taken an oath to abide by was updated I don't know, at least eight years ago maybe 10 years ago, but it appears that it's time to look at it because some things have been changed and they've sort of been mandated into it. And the last time it was revised. My memory tells me that a small little task force of employees guided by the then HR director met almost weekly I think, but over an extended period of time and they, they kind of went through section by section line by line. And I need to update this at that time there were some some language that needed modernizing. In those days, all people were men and so pronouns were mostly ease. And so some language was was updated but some important policies were as well and I think some of them have been tweaked now. I don't know if a decision is made if Kay thought about this but the fact that it says a committee meeting reconvening sounds like the thinking is do that again because it seemed to work. Pretty well Paul I see you not. Yeah, there's lots of lots on Melissa's plate when she is able to get through the sort of orientation period, but that is one of them and doing it I think we really like the process that was conducted last time which the HR director at the time led with a group of employees. And you're right they were it was pretty intense process and that they took a section by section week by week. Some of the employees are still here so they would they may want to continue to participate. This is for the, you know, regulate sort of HR behavior for non union employees and parts of the, and if a union contract is silent we refer to the to the personnel, the HR handbook. So that's one on Melissa plate as is the compensation study, which is also on her plate. So just to stick with the with the revision of the ppm. I thought one of the benefits of that there was sort of a side benefit to that the main was what we got a new updated document. I thought it turned out to be a pretty good almost team building exercise, those who are working so hard on it just a process of spending some time together, discussing debating I think maybe a little bit of arguing now and then to flesh things out just my my memory was those folks felt really good about the document and pretty darn good about each other. So putting that together. So, if we can, another flavor I'll just add to that because I think I was there for that. Is it really been eight years. Oh Lord, it can't be eight years. It just can't be a year is five or six yeah five or six okay because I'm like, hmm. But whenever it was all just to piggyback on what you're saying Tony it was also a really good process for the personnel board, we went through. Yes, big sections of that manual and we had like a philosophical shift in what professional development meant, I remember spending a lot of time in the sections about what does it mean for manager to supervise can't just be this once a year to fill out a form maybe. So it was about reciprocity and professional development holistic professional development, the teaming structure so I know for our group we also. We were bringing modernizing it in other ways, in addition to language to stress the collaborative nature of work and so forth. And then there was like a back and forth between the employees they would bring you know it came to our table then we'd look at and go well how about this we think we think these things and then I want to go back and so it was sort of like we were all looking at the same thing together, we brought out our shared vision, our shared mission, and the policies and practices to bring those a lot. Yep. Yep, so. Big item on your plate, Melissa, to try to make that happen. It's obviously very important. Yeah, I think no one is expecting that to be done in a couple of months, but it would be nice to have it done, you know, this year. So with this, the task committee be comprised of mostly non unit non union employees and be vetted also simultaneously or after through this personnel board or how do we envision. Yeah, yeah, I think we would maybe participate that sometimes a question or two would come to us was was was working on it. And then I think when it's all done we have to officially as a board, bless it. And after that, because that was when we were still under the town meeting governance structure. I think that the board to select them have to. That or yeah, I think they did yeah. Yeah, so I don't know whether the town council has to do that because the structures and what has to be approved by whom is somewhat different from from them but it's, it's a it's a big job. And I think it's closer to eight years. Whatever. I just, I was just reflecting I didn't think I had been here eight years but if it's been eight years then I've been here eight years oh my. Well, yeah. One thing I was thinking about it and maybe this is what Melissa is going to focus on is if there are certain areas that really need special attention since the last go round, maybe those are things that we, I don't know whether we can talk about them, but you may pick up on some of the areas where certain sections need for various reasons need particular special attention, so maybe Paul already knows some. Well and for sure Kay would know. What areas need particular attention I don't know how much he was involved when the document was revised and indeterminate number of years ago but Well the person the director was the woman who retired. Bradley. Yeah, she and I don't want her. So whatever she, I don't know whether this put her into retirement or not. She really, really, really was involved in that in a huge way. Well, in eight years channels of communication and document sharing and such have also changed. Yeah, I know that I'm just thinking about this go around. If I were to be looking at a document or we were I would like to just go to a drive and have the place where I go and then I can put suggestions there and not email and which version are we in or if we could really. Yeah, centralized and. We, yeah we tend on the web. Yeah we tend to use one driver something like that Microsoft. Yeah, you know, and if it could have links in the agenda so we just always would know where to go and that'd be great. Now, Paul also mentioned for Melissa, the compensation study is that what you called it. paying paying classification, and we're going to hire an outside company to help with us is that correct that's the plan with funding for this we do have funding we do have funding we did we have to the RFP process. So that has to be developed and then go out to bed and so is there a timetable for that. We have we have not. I mean this is Melissa's third day we have not gone through this. But we did talk about it yesterday and and she has experienced doing this from the university setting and her. I mean she can speak for herself but her point was that there's basically one company that does it for a lot of universities and that that company is slammed and they so we have to be alert that she was asking me questions about how many companies are out there that do this kind of work and things like that. So is this a study to compare. This is focusing on town administrative and employees or is this in general of non union employees on union. Okay, okay. So it's like the one that was rather recently done for a part timers, which was itself like the one that had been done a few years earlier, or full timers, right. So, there are, well, there's at least one company out there that does this and knows our system pretty well and I don't know how many others will be interested in. In doing it I think this is a significantly bigger project than the one that was recently completed for the part timers just in terms of the scope of who's going to be affected by it, which is practically, I mean, it isn't. You know, the main domain is the non union as employees because the ones in unions have another set of conditions and rules to abide by but the personnel procedures. The manual is nonetheless pretty darn important and has in it some procedures that basically everybody has to abide by. So it's a it's a major piece of work. And we'll keep folks busy and Melissa busy for a while, along with all the other things that you must have a really long to do list already. Yes, but I'm not feeling the pressure yet. So it's been great to start the holiday season, people are, you know, low key just gathering the information, and we'll prioritize it. All right. Now, continuing on with our agenda. The next bullet point is all business staffing report. This was sent out a few days ago, listing as our practices, the new hires and the departures, starting basically at the beginning of this fiscal year and then we update what's happened most recently, and a lot has happened today that you wouldn't you wouldn't think much has happened, but that this is. These are now actions that have indeed happened. For example, there's this person who just got hired. Two days ago with a very hard to pronounce last name. I happen to know is loyal DC Walker, whose first name. So, along with another new person for the press team. And so that's a relatively low number of new hires, but absolutely important new people. And I am very embarrassed as particularly to be on the personnel board to have to ask this question in the race column. What does T mean we've got B for blacks, I guess, and W for whites. Two or more races, two or more races. Okay. All right. I'm happy to learn that and I'll try to make sure that I don't forget it. And then in the folks who have left. Most recently, there are two people have resigned and one who have retired. I don't know if anybody knows sometimes we ask, well, why does why did this people, why do these people resign and one. Kate Shapiro, she was a temp in the first place. It looks like. Yeah, and then she got a job running a program a permanent job morning, a similar program called the dark program for the city of Northampton. Yeah, yeah. And then I, as Rebecca noticed last time I do look at these with some care. And does anybody know what's the story with the division water director who it seems retired after only three months with us as the higher date, the higher dates wrong he's been with us for about 25 years. So I was just curious. That's going to be a typo. Yeah, I know we do weird things now and then but man that's a pretty. He had his retirement party yesterday actually. Oh great. Yeah. All right. And it looks like Marine Pollock she went on to something bigger and better somewhere else is. Yeah, so we had her farewell party yesterday too and most of us. We just went into nothing but parties lately because we had the food first floor had their food day on Monday. Then yesterday we had a farewell party for Maureen Maureen's got this great new job as a planning director for the city, the town of Montague. And she was really, you know, torn we made a pretty strong run to keep her but you know she's sees herself as a Franklin County person and it really and her one of our best friends is her husband is the assistant town manager up there. There's connections. Anyway, that's a big loss and that and that builds on losing Ben Brigger who was our other planner so the planning department's really struggling right now as they are, they've lost half their staff and so we're recruiting for that pretty aggressively. Okay. Next I am on our business is approving the minutes of. It's actually November 16. My no matter how many times you look at the stuff always miss things because a copy of the agenda agenda I'm looking at says we need to review and approve the September 28 2022 minutes we already did that in November what we need to approve are the minutes for November the 16 which I assume those were sent out correctly. And the and I've looked at him fairly carefully and I don't know if it's anybody have any comments or questions. One thing I noticed that I wanted to correct but now based on what Catherine was saying at the beginning of the meeting. I wanted to correct the spelling of her name, because the minutes. Call me anything I'll answer. And Rebecca. You got anything to add. Correct or minutes of our November meeting. Oh, looks great. I'll entertain a motion to approve. I make a motion to approve the minutes. There a second. Second, I'll second it and I guess. Any further discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. Opposed. Okay, so the minutes are approved. We have set the next personnel board meeting. Or Wednesday, January the 18th as far as everyone knows who's here and that's going to be okay. For you, I think that may be a little later than we sometimes we're supposed to be the second Wednesday of the second. Yeah. Yeah. But I think we pushed that back because today's meeting was pushed back and I thought, well, not a lot. Not a heck of a lot is going to happen in the next three weeks because of the holidays and stuff. So it'll be Wednesday, January the 18th. Okay. Anything else for the good of the order here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Could we just. Melissa, do you know how. You're interacting with this board and do we know how we're interacting with you just. I don't know. I'm not quite clear on it. I've, I've read a little bit. But I think that you are advisory to us and you also, I think have responsibility to review certain things such as compensation studies. But I really don't have the details as to that. So any. Clarification. I don't think I do either. Let's figure out how we want to like hang out together. So that's something to figure out. Yeah, I would like that. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Because I don't know if sometimes the. Agendas are put together jointly or. I don't know. I'm a little. Tony's Tony's. Is usually it comes from the HR director or that, or that office comes to me. And I look at that and I usually say great. Or once in a while, I'll say, well, let's do this or do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll figure out the same as the minutes. I get a draft copy of the minutes beforehand and then send them back. So. The. We work actually, the board works pretty closely with the HR director. And, you know, we collaborate a lot. The, the HR department sort of. We work with the HR board in terms of. Getting agendas out. And keeping the minutes. And there certainly has been. Time in the past when. Sort of between meetings. Something that. Makes good sense for me to talk directly with the HR director about. And so. And I also serve once in a while when the HR director has something on her mind. We'll have a conversation. Along those lines. So. But from my perspective, it's been a very good relationship. And we, we work together. We are not. Supervising one another we. No, it's a, it's a collaboration. That I think works out pretty well for the town and the town's employees. So that's my sense, but. Feel free. Catherine and Rebecca to add or subtract or say, well, why don't we start doing this or. Stop. I just want to say Tony's awesome. He's been our chair for a while. Catherine. I. Are both like, no, you do it. Or, you know, And so I just want to express again, deep and profound appreciation for Tony's leadership skills. His warm, caring nature is complete. Conf competence. So I just, that's one of the reasons why it works so well. I think obviously the board works well together, but the board works well with the human resource director. So I would just second what Tony's saying in that. You know, sometimes leadership positions in the town can be lonely jobs because it's kind of. And we are your team. That's how I think of it. I'm like, I want you to have a home team. Of equals of people who are here to consult, be critical friends, offer feedback, all that. That's how I see our role. And I want to play that role. Yeah, I agree. I totally agree. I agree with that. Melissa, you should feel comforted because you do have. This personnel board. Yeah. And a lot of other. Leaders. Don't have anything like this. So. Yeah. And I certainly did owe everything about Tony's leadership in this. It's just, yeah. It's a pleasure to be associated with this. Yes. Total. Yes. Yeah. I'm happy for those kind words. It's a team effort. Just together. No team. I got a new team member named Melissa. Loyal D. Walker. Oh, yeah. You want to do my zoom. Hey. I am comforted and thankful and I, I definitely am happy to have a partner in you guys. Yeah. You'll like us. Catherine, don't over promise. Okay. Okay. Let you find out. Get the heck back to work, everybody. All right. Thank you everybody. Good holiday.