 and know we will all be understanding. The second piece is to really make every effort to avoid jargon or technical terms and to make sure that we are checking in frequently for understanding. When you speak, we're gonna ask you to raise your hand first. This is gonna help us keep us low and thoughtful pace and also, when you're speaking especially if we end up having the translation, it's not just that we'll be taking turns but that you wanna think about having one short idea spoken at a time because the person translating has to remember everything that you've said and then translate it. So trying to speak in short bursts would be really helpful. The next one is to, if you tend to be a quieter person, we would like to make space for you to share more and if you're a person who tends to talk a lot, to encourage you to do some more listening today so that everyone can participate and to allow for silence when possible because sometimes in that silence, someone who might not share might feel more comfortable jumping in. The next one is to keep things private and don't push for more personal information or details or ask someone to prove a need that they've shared. The last one is to really make an effort to learn about personal and cultural values. One of the ways that we're going to do that is when you first speak, please introduce yourself with your pronouns. We're going to encourage you to stick to talking about your own experiences and to remember that ideas about right and wrong are usually more cultural values than anything else and they may be different between different individuals in the room. So be open to learning by asking lots of questions. So is there anything that anyone would like to add to that or questions or adjustments? And I think that in another meeting, Jim had just shared that everyone be assured that no matter what is shared or how much it is responded to in the meeting, each share is being carefully recorded and we're going to hold everyone's input as very important. And the other piece of that is just to remember that this is being recorded and will be made public. So if there's something that you don't want to share publicly, you're welcome to reach out to myself or Stephanie to share something that you'd like to just have be more anonymous. And we are currently recording and you can find that recording on YouTube. It's, if you went to YouTube, you could just look search for ECAC land use task group and it should show up and you may even get the other task group recorded sessions, which you're welcome to listen to and hear what they're doing as well. Okay, great. So, Caitlin, did you happen to hear anything back from Rosanna? No? All right, so we are gonna go over the homework responses that many of you all sent in. If you did not get a chance to send in a homework response yet, you're still welcome to do so. You can just feel free to send that to me anytime and all of them will be added together. But some of the highlights for those who did respond, just as a reminder, our questions were, where do you get your vegetables? Are you able to grow food where you live? What would make this better or easier? And how does local produce come into your life or not? There was a resounding support for the mobile market which we're gonna get to hear about more today. A lot of people are getting their produce and specifically their local fruits and vegetables from the mobile market. Many of the people who responded do not have the ability to grow food where they live and there was consistent feedback that that would be really helpful to have access to a place to grow food, whether that be at your home or a community garden. And many people mentioned that they also go to Stop and Shop and that they did not find a lot of local produce options at Stop and Shop. And then some people did respond that they are homeowners and that they are able to grow their own produce and that a few of the people who have the option don't actually use it right now, but they felt like if they had a community garden, they might be more interested in growing in that setting. So those were the responses that I had heard back. Is there anybody who didn't get your responses in or want to add to that presentation? So I didn't get my responses in because what I've been remiss in doing for a really long time is sending out the report from our Amherst Food Justice Planning process and a lot of the questions that you asked are answered in there. And I would say with that group, which I did ask those questions of repeatedly, it was kind of like a resounding, no, we don't have the space to grow our own food. And yes, it would be helpful to have the space to grow our own food. But yeah, I do, it's still on my to-do list to send that report. It's like ready to go. I just need to send it out to all the key stakeholders. So I'll have a lot more info for you coming up. Awesome, thanks, Caitlin. Romy, did you want to share those thoughts with the group or no pressure, if not, but? No, sure, I actually just emailed you, but all of my responses are pretty much exactly the same. I would love to get more local fruits and vegetables, but they are sold not in the normal like chore stores. So it is more of a headache, more of a hassle. And I would love to grow my own, but I also am a renter and that's not a possibility for me. And I was thinking not only would a community garden be great, but I think that those plots should be made available free of the charge that is offered at the local community gardens to renters, to entice them to be used. They should be subsidized. And I, you know, it's also, it's sort of a guilt thing, I think for a lot of us when we can't buy our local fruits and vegetables, you know, in a good way, in a bad way, but those are my responses. Marita, thanks, Romy. I think one of the things that I also noticed after I turned in my responses is that some people are mentioning that they would want to have more education about how to grow a garden. And there's some people who they do have the spaces don't really know how to do it. So doing some type of like community education for those people would be very helpful for them. And you could be the one to do that. Yeah. I love that. So I neglected to introduce myself. I'm Jim Newman. I prefer he, him and his pronouns. And so first, thanks everybody to come. That's great. Awesome to move into this next step in our meeting process. We have, so, I think what we'll do here is, Caitlin, I think what I'll do is I'll just talk briefly about the principles that we generated last time and then hand it to you, if you're up for it, but we can figure out what we want to do about talking about the mobile market. Is that, seem okay? Good. Sounds great. So in our conversation last time, we had generated some principles for to sort of guide us to how we want to work to go after the things we're trying to do. Today, we're probably gonna talk more about what things we actually want to do. But last time we used the time to really develop some strong ideas about how we do things. And so there, we listed four principles in the notes that we pulled together that really rose to the top. The first of those principles was to to foster stronger connections to nature for all residents and visitors through our local land, especially for use of color. And to some extent, this is, you know, Merida is just now again, to understand how to garden and to have that connection. The second is to prioritize equitable and convenient access to green and open spaces where people already live, work and play. In other words, to work to dismantle the barriers to access for access and use of natural lands. This was, there was quite a lot of discussion about this in the last meeting, which was really fantastic. And that was a very strong principle that came forward. The third is to use incentives to strategically encourage the things we want and to discourage the things we don't want. I love this, it's so clean and obvious. And that's part of what we're trying to figure out today is what do we want? What do we not want? And the fourth is to encourage responsible stewardship of our natural areas and systems, especially our farms, rivers and wetlands, which carry sort of enhanced importance in many ways to our natural systems. So before we get into the discussion of sort of the, we're gonna frame this discussion today as starting with a couple of what we're calling big moves, big moves, the things that we think are really important, make a big statement or we'll have a big effect. And we'll start with a couple so that we can kind of work through what effects do we think they have. But before we get to that, I am going to hand this to Kate a little bit to talk about the mode market. You can tell me, we can wait and do this in a little bit if your honey and Rosanna show up, but I'm nervous that they may have gotten way late doing something. Yeah, I'm thinking a little bit because we did have like a plan about how we were gonna talk about it. Well, we can just wait if you want. Yeah, maybe if we could, if there's sort of another place that might fit into the agenda, we could just wait and see a little bit, that would be great. Totally, totally works. Yeah, I don't, we have agendas to help us. Right, right. Because they're not helping us, hey. That sounds great. So maybe what we'll do is move to frame the big moves that we started to develop out of this conversation last time. And so the idea of big moves is that there are gonna be a couple of things that have to do with land use and natural systems that are important, big. Play a big role. They may encompass a number of different actions, but we can think of them as a one big thing. The first of those big moves was sort of the responsible renewable energy siting. And so there was a discussion about, forests and the importance of forests and not cutting down trees to put solar panels up and where might we site how do we meet our principles in doing this and yet increase the amount of solar energy to drive down our carbon emissions from our energy use. And then maybe there's some other characteristics like creating places where we can think about sort of community-based solar. The second is to increase the use of town, open space and green space for recreation. That a big item that came forward was that the sort of understanding, the knowledge, the process of using town, open space was not as widespread as we had thought and that there were a lot of barriers to that. And so how do we increase those barriers which has a lot of great secondary characteristics or important characteristics of, A, making people healthier, making them feel better but also increasing connection to the natural world which helps to make the natural systems more important and gain more importance within our decision-making process. So I know that Steve has something to say about the siting the renewable energy items. So Steve, would you like to jump into this right now? Yes, thank you. I'm Steve Roof. He, him pronouns. As I mentioned last time, I'm a professor at Hampshire College of Earth and Environmental Science and I've lived in Amherstow for decades, I think. So we've talked a lot about the values of open space the ECAC has also made a commitment and the town has agreed to the commitment and the town council passed the commitment and bring up my notes here. We are intending to reduce townwide greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2025, that's four or five years from now, 50% by 2030, so within 10 years and 100% no later than 2050. Those are big goals. We don't know exactly how we're gonna get there but they're big goals. So I propose, it's a big idea, it's a controversial idea, I suspect that we build enough solar powered fields, PV arrays inside Amherst boundaries to generate 100% of the town's townwide electricity use. Generate electricity for everybody in town, university, town, residents, so on. Are we willing to do that? If I did some calculations this afternoon, I'm pretty sure these are about right. To do that, we would need to use about 500 acres of land. That's based on typical PV production per acre. 500 acres is about three quarters of a mile. Hampshire College property is about 800 acres so it would be two thirds of the area of Hampshire College pretty big patch of land. If we look at it in terms of the percent of conservation land in Amherst, it would be 10 to 11% of preserved conservation land that's open space plus protected forests like on the flanks of the Holyoke Range. So would we be willing as a community to commit to developing that much land in order to generate all of our own electricity locally in town? So great, great question. Does anybody have questions about sort of what Steve is talking about or thinking about, Bernard? Not so much a question but an initial response is yes, of course, we should do that. But the way I get there is to think about what would the alternative be? And all the negative impacts that implies. I'm already doing that on my farm because that's what I have control of. It makes sense financially, et cetera. So often as a general rule, thinking about many proposals as, well, what are the other conceivable alternatives? It doesn't make sense not to deal with climate change. The conceivable alternatives are so bad. So instead of it in a bubble, let's compare it to something. And I end up with several steps down the line. Yes, of course we should do that. Thanks Bernard, appreciate it. Romy or Merida, do you have any questions or thoughts that this sort of leads you to? Not questions but I thought about this actually for a while, I don't understand why we, I mean, legally, town by law wise, I understand why it is harder to do multiple use of certain land systems. But I think it might be beneficial to consider using the already developed roads and create solar panel coverage over roads. It would reduce need for snow plows, reduce potholes and road maintenance, reduce heating in places that have multiple roads or are parking lot areas, and would create a sort of kind of tourist attraction, you know, the solar tunnel streets. I love it, that's awesome. Merida, any questions or thoughts? No, I think that I agree with Bernard, I mean, with all the ideas, I agree with Bernard also, like seeing if there is another alternative way to before we go that route. And I think that's an interesting thought for the road coverings too, I never thought about that as well. Cool. So there's an interesting thing that Steve has sort of set up here, which is we're talking about sort of what are some of the big ideas around how we use land. Remember, this is the land use and natural systems group. And so how do we use land? And clearly thinking about solar production as one thing in one place, it's like a big thing the size of Hampshire College. Is probably now sort of the right thought. I think Romy's thought of like, okay, well, let's put it along sort of along streets and sort of around, it probably makes more sense as to how would it actually happen? But are there other ways that it might, that we might be able to think about this in terms of what we can do, say through zoning incentives or maybe, and when I say zoning incentives, what I mean is that in places, if things are being changed and land is being used differently, say there's a forest that's gonna about to be turned into some housing or there's a formerly a formal mall that's about to be turned into something else, that that action there's zoning that starts to govern those things. And so maybe there's a question that we can answer related to our principles around say, how do we strategically encourage the things we want and discourage the things we don't want? Are there ways to do that? Or maybe how do we encourage responsible stewardship of our natural areas and systems? And what does responsible mean in terms of those natural systems and those natural areas? And I'll offer some suggestions, but they're really only suggestions. Is responsible, making sure things are undisturbed or is responsible making sure that open areas are used as encouraged in open areas. What does responsibility really mean for us in this group relative to the sort of land that might be used in a large scale solar deployment as it were putting solar in a lot of places in town. So I have one thought about that. So for me, I just think there is a really important trade-off like, I hate seeing solar raise on large tracks of arable land. So to me responsible land stewardship and solar means putting solar in places where other uses aren't as possible for the land. So for example, brown fields or over parking lots or things like that. So something there about responsibility being about preserving some lands that have higher and better uses in a sense for the community and re and double using or triple using lands that are already disturbed. Gazikaya? Yeah, so I was just going to ask like, what are the downsides to, and it sounds like Caitlin was, I wondered Caitlin, if you could expand on what you mean by you hate to see them on something kind of land. I didn't catch the word you said. And then also I'm wondering, do we know of the specific ways in which like low income and community of color spaces are like negatively impacted by putting. Solar arrays or if that's, what questions should we be asking when we hear the idea of putting all these solar panels in? Caitlin, you wanna? Yeah, sorry. Respond to that first part of it. Yeah, so what I said, Gazikaya was, I hate to see solar arrays on arable land. So as in land that could be used for agriculture. I mean, I guess I would also say like land that could be used for outdoor recreation. And I think Jim put it really well when he said, if there's a higher and better use for the land, it feels like sort of stealing it away from that higher and better use to put a large solar array on it. Yeah, Marita? Yeah, I guess in response to what Gazikaya said, also for like, I feel like in lower income areas, there's a lot, what I was thinking of is like places for children to play. Like in areas where there's like she was saying about recreational areas. Cause I feel like that could be an issue for children in lower income areas. Like not having space to explore it and play. So I think that's a great, yeah, go ahead, Romy. Thanks, Marita. Sorry, no, please respond to what Marita just said. Nope, go ahead. You're on. Um, I was just going to say that, um, I mean, it sounds like the kind of debate here is happening around, you know, this zoning question of what is and isn't allowable because, you know, the solar panels fields have been found to actually increase biodiversity in an area because they protect, create shaded spaces, cooler spaces and spaces for animals to rest. So in a way, you know, those areas, if they're allowed to be multiple use can provide multiple uses, you know. So that's just a thought I had. I also agree that there are places that, you know, they make more sense, like Caitlin was saying, that where they can be more obviously sort of effective, but the idea that they ruin a nature scape is not scientifically, you know, I think aesthetically, yes, but scientifically is not 100% accurate. That's great. I'd be interested in Bernard's perspective on this because clearly you've done some of this work yourself on your farm. I'm gonna put you on the spot. Sorry, I'm mute on, but, um, yeah. Well, I put it on top of existing roofs, which, you know, nobody would argue is a terrible idea. I will bring up that UMass has been doing experiments with disperse arrays. The idea being you don't have total coverage of the land, you have them up on stilts and you can still grow things underneath. Now the results from a farmer's point of view are mixed. It's not as high production, but it does get at the idea of mixed use. In general, this kind of technology, I think it's best used or distributed and independent. So above roads and on every roof, it probably makes more sense than literally covering the Hampshire campus. But again, I don't know, the devil's in the details, but I think the goal is laudable and better than alternatives that we might end up with. So I'm already like, well, let's figure out how to get it done appropriately. I'm past arguing about whether we should get it done. Whether we should do it. Yeah. But on the farm, it's up. You did mention, and I'll just jump in with zoning kinds of things. For better or worse, we're in a capitalistic, whatever, putting dollar values gets things done. So for a developer that wants to put in a new building, it's very cheap and inexpensive for us to say, if you do it net carbon neutral or zero or net producer will let you go a story higher, will advance your permitting a year instead of waiting to go all through the deals of things that cost the town nothing, but our huge incentives. I haven't gotten to specific ideas of how does that apply to larger land uses? But in general, tying money to it, and I'll jump in with maybe we'll get to this, but a price on carbon is essential whether we impose it or somebody else. So we will tax penalize those producing more than X and we should be paying those that are saving or farmers land use specifically sequestering measurable amounts would really change the dynamic very effectively using our existing financial system. I'll be quiet and listen. Well, that was great. Thank you for, again, you know, I know that you have some experience both as a farmer and as a very nice team and doing some solar development and trying to figure out how these things work together in different ways. And those are in many ways the details that are what we're talking about. It's like, how does it work? I think the question of how, what effects solar development might have in rental communities or lower income communities? What do we wanna take care of? What do we wanna steward versus what do we, what can we potentially get? What are the benefits that are potentially available to lower income or rental renters within a setting like that? Now that this is a topic that comes up in the renewables group talking about community solar but I think we need to think about it in terms of how places are used and what we encourage to happen in places. And, you know, this is, you know, I think that that's the sort of the question that we're after is like, how do we best make these encouragements? Yeah, go ahead. I had one more thing just because I've done it at my farm is solar hot water. So if we talk about solar as PV, we can reduce the amount of electricity needed if we heat water directly, it's much cheaper but it has to be essentially on the buildings it's being used. It's currently nicely incentivized. So maybe just telling everybody that in my case it's a year payback, it's particularly good, but even several years it, I think it takes six or eight times the area of PV that you would need for solar thermal to heat the same amount of water and it's much cheaper. So thing, this is one big thing if it's done a lot that could reduce the total amount of electricity that's needed and therefore the acreage of PV that would be needed. I think it's worth going back to simpler 1970s tech to get the right job done for, let's say heating water. Thanks. Great, yeah, Kazikaya. I apologize, I just stepped away for a moment to call Rossani and Yohani and they're on their way. I'm glad we waited. Perfect, good. And I missed a few minutes there so I apologize if I'm repeating something but I was curious, someone mentioned putting them on roofs. Do we have enough roofs to get that square mileage if we could convince all the landlords and so forth? That's a really good question and I have not tried to calculate how much roof area is in, within the town of Amherst that might be suitable. I did have my students do this for activity at Hampshire College and we quickly discovered that not a lot of roofs of the buildings at Hampshire College were suitable. They didn't face the right direction, they were broken up or on some of the bigger buildings, the flat roofs, there's already a bunch of stuff up there, the heating and cooling equipment is mounted on the roofs. So we were surprised that there wasn't that much roof. Now, if we had really big malls like Hadley, that would be a really good location. But I think the good point is that in terms of encouraging and incentivizing, incentivize those roofs, barns can be good roofs, other warehouses could be good roofs. So that would definitely go with that first before covering more land, but be prepared that it's only gonna get us part way there. Stephanie, you need to turn up, sorry. Sorry, sorry about that. One of the challenges we've had with the towns rooftops is the age of the building and that roofs are of an age where they maybe need to be replaced before you can install solar, which is an additional expense, which isn't to say maybe that's something that can be incentivized as providing funding for people to restore their roofs or to update their roofs. There's that piece. And then the other piece I wanted to say is, I really think there's a real opportunity for parking lots in town. We have a lot of parking areas. Sorry, can you hear me? All of a sudden I... Okay. So I would say there's a lot of parking areas in town that really could be utilized for solar. I know that it's a little bit more expensive, but again, it just seems like that's an opportunity. I'm not in favor, as Caitlin said, I'm personally not in favor of using agricultural lands for solar. Stephanie, do you know if the proposal by the Sunrise Movement has made any progress that they proposed at least a study to put parking lot PV on some of the school grounds? If I remember correctly, is that? That's going through a process. I think that there may have been a meeting of the finance committee, I think, this week and I believe they were looking at that proposal, but I'm not sure how far it's gotten through the gauntlet yet. So unfortunately, I don't have an update. So perhaps there's a whole sort of... Action here, which is... And I'm trying to think. I know another community has done this really specifically. I know that Cambridge has done some, hey, fantastic. And to do, Johanny, lovely to see you. So maybe we pause for one moment and let Rosanna come in so that she can hear what to translate or if there we go. Thanks, Jim. Hola, Johanny. Hola, Rosanna. Y Rosanna, dinos cuando tú tienes todo la... Okay. Están por teléfono. Está bien. Ustedes están en mudo, los dos. Okay, ahora sí. Ahora sí. Okay. Hasta la que tú están en mudo también. Hi, hi to all. Sorry, I have another schedule in my mind at 6.30. Sorry for that. Thank you. Okay, so Jim, maybe if you want to give a little brief catch them up to what we're talking about and then we can go from there. Great. So I'm gonna catch up Rosanna and Johanny to our conversation right now, which is about putting solar panels in different places around town. Okay, you can go ahead, Jim. Just sort of built a kind of a vision and idea of how we decide where is the best place to put solar panels and where we need to not put solar panels to protect the land for what it is or what is happening there. So I would ask one question of Johanny and Rosanna about that, which is the places that you know or live in or near that are open spaces and you might be able to put solar panels there. Where would be good? Where would be bad? Yeah, Johanny said she didn't know about big spaces. And for me, I think is the best place. Well, is there farmers next to the... Is Hadley Road, I think is. I saw some solar panels in that place and I didn't saw other places. Okay, Johanny, she remembered now after I saw those panels. She remembered too about that. And other areas, big areas where big spaces, I think is the project that you have in mind, yes, in the Gulf area. Could be. Yeah, Johanny said that she's thinking in the Gulf area also, but she's worried that if people put solar panels, the community will not have enough space for creation areas. So she's thinking on that. I just have a question. Does anyone know what's happening with that Gulf course that I heard is closing in South Amherst? I figured that'd be like a great space. Let those guys catch up. Stephanie? So, yeah, Stephanie, you wanna answer that? Sure. There you are. So there's a separate company that's proposing the solar development, but that's only for a portion of the Gulf course. So there'll be more opportunity to do other things. And right now there's no real solid plan yet, but I know some of the things that were talked about were community gardens because we thought that would be something that would really be great and close by to the housing complexes. How's that? Great. So that's the perfect segue to, for us to take a little break and have a conversation about the mobile market. Ashwin, did you wanna tee that up? Sorry, wrong thing. Can I jump in one second? Yeah, please. Sorry. I just wanted to, Dave Zomek apologizes that he can't make the meeting because as I said, he was helping out with the elections and there's a lot happening regarding that this week. So he was unable to join us this evening, but he did want you all to know that he's sorry he couldn't make it. Great, thank you. Okay. So, Caitlin, Johani, Rosana, we're gonna turn over the meeting to you to tell us some stories about the mobile market. Yohani, queremos escuchar su voz, si está hablando en español no importa, queremos escuchar su voz. Sí, por favor. Rosana, so Rosana and Yohani and I talked about a little bit over email was, I thought I would give some context for sort of how this conversation got started and then Rosana would fill in a little bit about her connections and the role that she played in it and then Yohani can update us on what's going on with the mobile market now because she's definitely the closest to it. And actually I'm realizing I said that the wrong way around. We talked about you going first, Rosana. Yes, I'm going first. Thank you. For quite some time I could observe that the Latino community was an invisible population in the town. This population is characterized by being a working population with many hours of work during the day with many family responsibilities and with many needs to solve. Especially about food, transportation, language, health, et cetera. At the same time, the population prefer to remain also silent, anonymous. And this started when with Amherst family outreach we began to make community lunches after coordination or we decided to be partners because I was interested for people to be there, Latino people to be there and to share with other people. Because I was already working with community for years, I would accompany Latino families to these lunches so they can meet all the members of the community. And here, where we organize meetings to dialogue and also to make presentations on topics of interest or for us it is always a priority to maintain the confidentiality of people because they also ask for it. And that was one of the reasons that the people are trying to be sometimes invisible, yes. But then with Francine we talk over from her college and that was when we started having the community lunch together. When I started my work with healthy ham chair, this was a great opportunity to speak about all the needs, all of the community and the risk of food insecurity that many goes through and the great needs to empower the community so that it can find its own voice that we wanted and talk about what else then, for example, propose solutions and demand actions too after they are empowered. It is truly satisfying to work alongside the community and within it, it's empowerment. In this case, healthy ham chair is giving all its experience and resources so that this path continues to be built. That's it. So Kayleen has a lot of things to say on your honey too. Did you want to translate or summarize and translation what you just said for your honey? Yes. Okay, great. So for healthy ham chair's part, we had just finished doing this big food access planning process looking at the entire county and we collected a lot of data during that process. And the data definitely showed us that there were some significant challenges and amourst both related to healthy food not being available and accessible in the town of Amherst but also relating to people not being able to get to it. So transportation came up as a big challenge as well. But not due to anyone's particular fault, we tried to get folks from Amherst involved in the planning process and it didn't pan out. We didn't have any voices of Amherst residents involved in that initial food access planning process. And so basically we knew we had this data telling us there were challenges and we wanted to talk to people on the ground about that data and find out a little bit more about those challenges and how to address them. So I think someone at CES where Rosanna and I work said, Rosanna Salazar, she works so much with the Amherst community. You should really talk to her about how to get more Amherst residents involved in this conversation. So that's how Rosanna and I found this really awesome opportunity for collaboration in terms of being able to use the community lunch as a space to talk about issues related to food insecurity. And so from there, we got a bunch of information but we wanted to bring more of like the stakeholders and people who sort of pull the bigger levers around food systems into the conversation as well. So we did this Amherst food justice planning process where we, in addition to the folks we were speaking to at the community lunch, we also brought in professionals like Stephanie and others to participate in the conversation. And so we of course confirmed that a lot of what we were seeing was true about folks having trouble with accessing healthy food, there being transportation gaps. And we also learned about a lot of sort of intersecting factors such as structural racism and like fear and these other sort of economic instability and lack of access to jobs and things like that that were really compounding, I mean not compounding challenges around healthy food access. So the group came up with mobile farmers markets as one of the solutions or supported mobile farmers markets as one of the solutions they'd like to address these challenges and Healthy Hampshire had the experience of helping to launch mobile farmers markets and other communities. And so we were able to essentially get funding and start the conversation to make a mobile farmers market happen. So we continued to engage a lot of the folks we'd been talking to, we brought in some new partners to plan specifically for the mobile market. And one of the things, one of the goals that we heard loud and clear was that people wanted the mobile market to be an employment opportunity for folks in their communities. So we had the money and we had a lot of good input from people about what they wanted to see in the mobile market and we used that to develop a request for proposals to find someone to operate the Antlers mobile market. So we had three applicants to the request for proposals and the applicant that the group loved by far was Ryan Carb from Many Hands Farm Core who was really on board with the idea of using the mobile market, not only as an employment opportunity for the residents who have been involved in our conversations but also as a means to really shift some of the power that we were holding down and out to the community. And so Yohani got hired on as a mobile market manager which is why she's the person in this room who knows the most about the, how the mobile market's going now, so I will turn it over to her. As you said, continuing with Kelly Rosana, this project, this link with Kelly Rosana has given a lot of fruit to the mobile market. So it's a great project because the community is very grateful. We are also very grateful as a community to collaborate and also because of the work we can do in the same community, working with the community and at the same time also having a job. So it's an excellent project because the person didn't have access to fresh food, to be healthy and the best that is so close to their community where the person could, for example, they can walk, the person who is in our complex, the person here, for example, there are five complexes, the five complexes come to the same place to buy. We are located in two more complexes, also in Olympia, Adrai, in Bahrain and in Fort River. So all the people are very grateful to the community. I mean, it has expressed to us, the management, that it is something that they have not seen. I mean, it is something new, an excellent project that they want to continue and that in the next few years it is still better. I mean, that we continue to understand the same vegetables that the community and the people continue to collaborate so that that project continues to grow and apart from the mobile market we have more activities for the community. And that is a project that has been excellent. I mean, I can say that it has been excellent. Okay, gracias, Johanny. Well, para Johanny, esta ha sido una gran oportunidad y... Thank you. Todavía está hablando en español. Okay. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Well, for Johanny, this was a great opportunity and she feels that Kailin and Rosanna are doing a great job. They, the people are very grateful for this opportunity to have this opportunity and for this, this is an excellent project. They didn't have the communities or the people, they didn't have the fresh products around then. So many times the people has to walk to have these products available. And now they have four places in the community with the mobile market and this is, for her, this is amazing. These people are very enthusiastic that we could have these mobile markets the next year and the other years too. So she's very grateful for this opportunity because they have also jobs here. Okay, thanks. Yeah, that's it unless there's anything else you want us to hit upon. Jess, that Kailin, would you please take over all of Amherst and just help us coordinate it to have these projects in every way? It's not all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes it's, you know, it's great. Sometimes it's really challenging but I think it's, you know, on the whole it's been a really, really awesome project to be involved in. Does anybody have questions or thoughts? One sec, Rosanna's translating. I did, actually I'll just jump in really quick because I'm reminded that Stephanie asked me today for some data on the mobile market which meant I kind of pulled it quickly but I'll give some sort of like quick stats. So 172 people have signed up for farm shares and this is as of week seven and as of that week, a total of about 3,700 additional produce items have been sold through all the cart sales in addition to what was given out in the farm, in the farm shares. And I will also say we did some qualitative surveys and the demographics of the mobile market you heavily toward communities of color and toward lower and moderate income communities than that population of Amherst overall. I think we now have a bunch of people raising their hands. So I'm not sure Marita, had you raised your hand and then Stephanie, it looks like Ashwin and Bernard. So I'm not sure what order we want to go in but. I think Bernard was in early. I thought this might be an appropriate time to add a brief perspective from the production side of the mobile market. The successful RSP went to many hands farm core that's the CSA on my farm. From a land use perspective, we could easily double quadruple even next year production. Probably do that a few years. It would take labor and community connections which are being done. I just heard about some of those. We would love to see those be iterated and expanded. But all of this is based on grant funding through Hampshire, healthy Hampshire, which is terrific, but it's fragile. If that goes away, these connections go away. So it also suggests the solution of finding sustainable funding sources to bridge the community needs and the production land use needs. I'm so sorry, I have to go and do dinner with Kitto. I'm so sorry to hop out late everyone, thank you. Thanks Bernard, that was great. Stephanie? I have to make sure this is okay and that it'll be funded, but through Caitlin, I just wanted to double check. But it sounds like Ryan has requested extending the season into October. And the town manager has given his approval. So it sounds like that will be extended and also Ryan was already wanting to know about next year. And I think the town manager is very supportive and thinks this is important and basically just asked him what days of the week he'd be wanting to do it next year. So it's really looking good for next year also. That's definitely a good opportunity for a shout out to the landholders who are making this mobile market possible, which include the town of Amherst, Amherst Regional Public Schools and the Wayfinders Community, I think they're a community development corporation, affordable housing developer. Ashwin, you wanna jump in? Yeah, I just had a question. Where can we find more information about the mobile market and especially where do we go to share information? So the best place is definitely Facebook. The Amherst mobile market has its own Facebook page. There is a page on the Money Hands Farm Corps website, but many hands web platform is a little more limited than what we're able to do with Facebook. So Facebook's the best. I just wanted to give Marita a chance to jump in. It sounds like you're having some phone difficulties. So if there's anything you wanna add before that. Yeah, I'm saying my phone isn't charging that well so I might cut out, but I'm not trying to leave abruptly. But no, I noticed that, because I live in South Amherst, I noticed that a lot of the community members that I talk to, they're very excited about the mobile food bank and it's been like a great, I think it's been a very great addition to the community and like getting people even out to talk to each other and like meet, even meet new people and like talk about different things that are going on in the community as well. So I think it's great that they're extending it and they're gonna have it next year as well. I really agree that the secondary like social and community aspect of it has probably meant the most to me. Like I see so many of my neighbors walking out and we can say hi and we can have a nice moment together and then talk about what we've picked up or what we're enjoying and it's just really felt like a nice community way to be together. I actually had another question. One of my neighbors asked, can anyone go or is it specifically for like lower income or is it for everybody in Amherst? Anybody can shop there. And... Please can you repeat? Oh yeah, anyone can shop at the mobile market and the staff speak English, Spanish and Korean. So say hablas, Daniel. Are we ready to go? Sorry, I'm okay. So again, this brings up the question of how we use land and what gets done in land in different settings. The question about the golf course came up and there are some questions about food production there, some questions about solar production and there might be some other things that could potentially happen in that area that is in pretty close to some important places. Ashwin, did you... This I believe was the topic that you were interested in talking about. I got it wrong earlier. Yeah, so what I was going to do is speak a little bit more about or speak briefly about the other kind of big move that we were contemplating. Oh, sorry, Rosanna, are you translating still? Or... Ashwin, you can translate yourself. Okay, yeah, fine. Okay, great. Great, so I saw that you were talking, so I wasn't sure. Okay, so Steve presented earlier one kind of big move that's likely to make it into the plan, which is to move towards having enough solar electricity production to generate all of our electricity in Amherst and we had a nice discussion about where that might be cited. The other kind of big move that came out of some of our previous discussions with some of you all was how to make sure that we have more and more accessible green space and open space for recreation. And so what I wanna do right now is open up a conversation about how we can get more green space, more open space, where we can have those things and how to deal with some of the barriers that people face to accessing those spaces. Some of those barriers are to do with transportation, being able to move around easily, some have to do with information, knowing where to go, others have to do with resources, having access to time, money, et cetera. And then there's other issues around feeling welcome, which of course are racialized in our society and indeed in our community. So I would love to hear and we would all love to hear any ideas that people have about how to think about this. And a big piece of it for me too is as the Energy and Climate Action Committee, we're interested in thinking about how to connect people with environmental issues, how to connect people with our goal of making a difference on climate change. But I think it's really important also to have people connected to land and have people with, give people many opportunities to connect to green and open spaces because that's how you get people involved in the process and how we can all feel like this space is ours together and that stewarding it well is something that we can do as a community. Okay, entonces en español. Mientras anteriormente Steve presentó el primer movimiento grande, el big move que estamos contemplando, yo no tengo nada tan concreto como él, pero la otra cosa aparte de lo que presentó él sobre la energía solar y como podemos avanzar hacia una sistema en que tenemos 100% de nuestra generación eléctrica hecho de una manera local. La otra cosa, el otro tema que salió de nuestras discusiones anteriores fue el tema de tener más espacio abierto, espacios verdes y más espacios verdes accesibles a todos los miembros de la comunidad. Entonces queremos invitar una discusión una conversación abierta sobre este tema y anteriormente identificamos varias barreras en cuanto al acceso, barreras diferentes y algunos tienen que ver con la transportación las maneras en que se puede movilizarse en nuestra comunidad y que pues se complica a muchas personas moverse dentro de la comunidad. Otras barreras también incluyen acceso a la información, simplemente saber o sabiendo pues dónde ir, dónde se puede ir para recrear, para disfrutar la naturaleza. No se sabe en muchas instancias y qué se puede hacer para superar esa barrera. También hay accesos a barreras en cuanto al acceso a recursos, dinero, tiempo y simplemente que no todos siempre se sienten bienvenidos incluidos en todos los espacios verdes. Muchas veces los espacios verdes son blanqueados, construidos, hablados de una manera que es para gente rico, rica o para gente blanca y no todos las comunidades de color, comunidades más pobres, se sienten bienvenidos incluidos en esos espacios. Entonces es importante conversar sobre las maneras que tenemos y las herramientas que podríamos utilizar para superar todas esas barreras. Y como comité de energía y acción climática, es súper importante para nosotros no solamente pensar en cuestiones de energía y el cambio climático, sino conectar esos temas al tema de tierra y asegurar que estamos todos pensando de una manera junta sobre nuestra conexión a la tierra, la manera en que estamos cuidando la tierra y el espacio. Y entonces queríamos abrir un poco la conversación para pensar en estos temas de una manera conjunta. Creo que eso es todo y lo voy a dejar ahí. I think that's it, I'll leave it there. Thanks. Thanks a ton. So let's ask the question, what should we do to make better, new, more accessible recreation space, green space within the town? Cozija. Something that I think we just bump up against in every single group is around transportation and our ability to influence transportation. I think that is a huge factor in accessing recreational space in our town, the lack of public transportation. I was gonna try to keep quiet and hear what other. Hold on a sec, Steve, just a sec. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. I was gonna try to keep quiet and hear more what community members had to say, but I see Ashwin's question as two issues. One is, do we desire more public land, publicly accessible and or preserved land? And that's one question. And the separate question is the accessibility of that land. And I totally agree with what I'm gonna say. Kaya just said that transportation is a problem. Yet I think, I'm not sure, but I think there's a lot of land available that's close by that maybe people aren't aware of. So perhaps one strategy would be to help people become more aware of those parcels that are located within the town and within walking distance of the population centers. Before you jump in, Bernard, I just wanted to give us all a pause so that Rosana can process and think if she has anything to share herself other than just translating what we're all saying. Did you want to share anything, Rosana? Quere decir algo, Rosana? I think Ashwin, we're talking about many things and also about the barriers that is very important to overcome so people could have access to all of these resources that we have around the land. So how to do that? I think the plan, of course, the plan has to be in place. And also, the community has to participate all the communities around the town because every person, every family, every community has their own needs and we'll be great that we could write that and be aware that, oh, okay, this, so we have a lot of needs in place, so now we have to work how to give environments that these different communities needs to flourish together. Together, yes. Bernard? It just occurred to me that we might usefully parse Steve's distinction of questions further. The issue of transportation access, the question, do we want more public lands? I want to point out that publicly accessible lands need not be publicly owned lands, particularly for larger tract owners. And to make that happen, I think you need liability protection and perhaps funding, grant funding for installing trails, signage, a play structure for those interested in building those community connections. Great comments, Bernard. And especially from a landowner's perspective, working lands. Are there, anyone else have comments and thoughts about access, land type, land use in terms of getting people closer to the natural system, the nature in the town as well as bringing them together or strengthening the town as well, which has kind of been the theme to have seen. Are you good, Rosana, can I go? Okay. So, Healthy Hampshire and namely my colleague, Sarah has done some work around studying disability access of public open spaces and green spaces in Northampton. So, you know, that's Northampton. But one of the things she found in that project that I thought was really interesting was a lot of concern from folks who have low mobility or just sort of having like beautiful neighborhoods. So, you know, having a lot of trees and like being able to look out their window and see beautiful natural landscapes and things like that. So, I do think from an access perspective a lot of the time it is very, it's a matter of really like micro environment. Thank you, Lauren. Hold on, just a sec. Right, thanks. Hold on. Yep. Okay. Can I? Oh, yeah. Speak. Okay. There are, well, there are something very important around us that is the pandemic. So we can avoid that. So that change is changing our life. And also at this time in Amherst, there are people, the essential workers that we have in the town, they are suffering for this pandemic. They are sick and they are in quarantine in their homes. They are not working at this time. So, also, I don't know if, how we could introduce these topics in the plan or how to, through this plan also could help these people or to give some relief, some things that they need to be, I don't know, but I don't know if we could introduce these topics in the plan this is things that we have to think because now we have to incorporate this pandemic in all our plans and unfortunately, but how we could live with this or I don't know, at least for some time, hopefully. But these are changing many things around, yes? So there are restrictions for us to breathe. Yeah, there are many things. So it's only to think how we could help also through this plan around this situation. Okay, yeah, they will. Lauren? Sure, thanks everyone. I know we're getting done on time now, so I'll keep it short, but I just wanted to connect a few dots related to things that Ashwin brought up, things that Marita had brought up, who I know we lost a little early, and then what Rosana had just said, especially with so many parents at home with kids right now and having to figure out childcare in the context of the pandemic, having spaces where kids can play and it feels more important than ever and where they can be connected to nature as well, which can help keep us healthy at this time. So I wanted to make the connection between those things and what Ashwin was talking about earlier around how welcome people feel in spaces and to what Rosana was saying about how involving the community in planning processes can help to connect the needs of the community to how that open space ends up being used. So I didn't really have a specific takeaway, but just that these things are so interconnected and I really appreciated Rosana's final comment there around tying into the pandemic and thinking about how our open spaces can serve us well in this time as well. Yo, honey, you have any comments or thoughts about this? You've been listening a lot. Yo, honey, I said that, well, it's moving away I mean, I have two daughters, for me, if they are more grateful, for me it would be frustrating. But for a person who has a small child, it would be something bigger, where they don't have any help to solve that problem in five months. Yohani said that, well, it's very frustrated for families that are at home right now, especially with little children. There are families that have five, six people at home with two rooms only. So this is something that we can imagine, but it's very frustrated for people. And she has two daughters and she can imagine that if she's happening, for them that will be frustrated because they have to be inside the house without the possibility to go outside. So, yeah, she wanted to express these things. Apart from that, the economic level also affects a lot, because sometimes what they bring to the house, whether it's the mother or the father, whether it's the two of us who are infected, so you don't have to worry about them staying without their expenses and work. They don't know how to pay their billing, how to pay their house. So, on top of that, they also have to worry about being isolated and not being with their children. So, yeah, it's also the financial aspect is affecting all these families. People are desperate because they are at home with resources. They don't know how to pay the rent because they don't have jobs, because if they are living together, it's a family, both the parents are not able to work. So, this is a very difficult situation that people are living right now. And, yeah, also, there are times that they are in different rooms in quarantine and the kids are in the living room because they need to be separated. So, this is a lot of issues, a lot of things that involve these situations. Yeah, those, thank you, Johanny and Rosana, that the issues around what's happening right now and how hard it is to make ends meet, but also to just live is palpable. So, I know that we have to finish up and I just wanted to really appreciate Rosana for all the translation work and for everyone for sharing so honestly, I think, you know, while the committee has these really important goals around climate change, I hope that it will be that the committee will be able to really hold also that so many families are in desperation about tomorrow. And that even though, yes, climate change is coming very quickly, tomorrow is coming much quicker. Thank you. I think it's time for us to go ahead and wrap up this conversation. I would like to thank your honey and Rosanna and Caitlin for putting together a lovely description really valuable description of the mobile market the process and the reality. I'd like to thank Stephen Ashwin for putting together some of the big moves for the thoughts today. And we will schedule another meeting the next the last meeting in about a month. We'll let everybody know as soon as we get it all figured out where we will talk more about how we're going to do the things that we're talking about doing. And what the pathways are to do those any final thoughts. I have one. I just want to say how much I appreciate you Jim and guys and Stephanie and Ashwin I just think you're doing and Lauren I know you're taking notes I think you're doing a really awesome job facilitating this group and I appreciate how much thought and planning and care is going into these meetings. Thank you everybody. I think we'll say good afternoon and we'll talk to you in a month. Thank you.