 Like I licked on the link I went on the link and it said must update. Yeah. Thank you, Amber. I'm gonna I gotta transfer everything over to you too. So just give me a few minutes. I'll put myself on mute because much like Christine. I am also sitting in my car in a parking lot waiting for kids stuff. Back of all shocks. Yeah, summer is long but short summers. So yeah, so I guess I'll wait a few minutes. I heard from well I heard from Marcus that he's away and I heard from Tate that he's away. So I'm not sure either of them are gonna log in. But we have one, two, we have three members and we're technically supposed to have four for quorum. But if we want to ask anybody else and I was just trying to remember if anybody else said they weren't available or who said they weren't available. It's hard in the summer. Yeah, especially mid-August. It's just a tough time. And even you know even go for it is out today. So let's see. I mean I guess I can check so I can I mean I can see if anybody else is coming. Are we able to meet? So I mean we're able to meet and I mean we can talk to I mean I think if we don't have a quorum we just can't make decisions. Yeah, which would be unfortunate. Oh, see Joe's here. Thank you, Joe. Hi. How's your summer? Okay. Good, good. We just came back from California. Nice, nice. From Chicago and Sierra Nevada. Real super nice. Back to the community. Oh yeah, great. Yeah, so Tate and Marcus are both away and I know Chris has to leave. So Jess is here just sliding from mass bike and I want to give her the floor but just because we have a quorum now and I don't know if we will later. One question that came up is about the street lights policy and that so when it went to the council last week it was referred back to TSO. And can we make sure to if we have any no, we don't have any attendees. I know that you vocal was talking about coming to the meeting but so it was referred to TSO and to GOL to look at again there had been significant changes since an earlier version and it was also referred to the finance committee and people from TSO including the chair reach out to me and invited tack to participate when TSO is having discussions about it. So I mean just a question for the committee I can also ask some of our other members who aren't here but if we feel like we would like all of tack to come to the TSO meeting and talk about it. Oh and here Kim is here too yeah. So Kim I was just talking about the street lights policy and I know that Chris has to run so just while we have the most members here. Marcus and Tate are both away. I was asking just about what so with the street lights policy that's you know gone through a lot of iterations but in the last time I went to the council the counselors had a long discussion about it I think about two hours and it was referred back to TSO and to GOL as well as finance. So the question to second committee I'm sorry I don't know the answer. Okay so TSO is town services and outreach they're the one to deal with the public way. GOL is governance organization and legislation and they don't look so much at the details about you know whether they support what's in legislation or not. It's more about like for changing bylaws and things it's more about is what's being proposed like understandable actionable like doesn't make sense. Okay so they don't they don't critique it they just I mean from that perspective they just want it to be. The TSO that reached out to us. Right and then right and Evo Gullhead like sent some extensive comments and I had sent comments as well and so the question is with tack is whether we would like to have like some tack numbers go to a TSO meeting and represent tack there or whether we would want to whether all of tack should discuss it you know before TSO discuss it and do we want to make anything official or do we just want to make our next meeting the same as the TSO meeting? Can you further define the questions like it was just rant like sort of generally referred to TSO? Well there were concerns about there were concerns about safety elements of it so Evo Gull who was formerly on tack right she's written some extensive columns for the indie about it and about how the proponents of the dark size policy that they were advised in the policy by James Lowenthal who's an astronomy professor at Smith College and he's also a big dark skies proponent and he tends to think that less light at night is better even for bicyclists and pedestrians and so the streetlights policy was written with a focus on that lens in my opinion and it did not from the time it first came before the council a year ago I didn't think that it was adequately paying it was paying adequate attention to safety and so Eve has brought up some questions about extensively why it was sent back to TSO yeah so Eve is actually now in the waiting room I think if we want to let her in yeah well so haven't haven't we already added our comments to this and which essentially they ignored so we added comments but the thing is that like Eve's columns and also she proposes ways in which the what's being proposed in the policy could be tweaked to both have safety and more dark skies um and so the council is interested in that and um and the sponsors who had brought it this council sponsors are interested in looking at that more too so and I had suggested some of the same I mean Eve and I and Eve is now here as an attendee but um some of what we she and I had both suggested is looking you know at the functionality of different types of roadways you know in terms of like you have arterial roadways and you have like neighborhood roadways and that you can have different lighting standards for like your bigger roadways where cars are going faster and where there's more fatal crashes and there just is a lot more nighttime traffic and that you can continue to have in neighborhoods you could continue to have like less lighting and or focus on the darkness yeah I guess um just based on I think I sort of I'm kind of in Kim's corner okay sure in Patiss's we already commented we did it's true but that said I what hasn't been discussed is the common ground or the ways in which they these two sides don't have to be diametrically opposed to one another so you know right um Eve and what she has tweaked and to kind of come out with ways to think about this so that all parties can be satisfied but there's got to be I mean we're definitely not the first community who's ever looked at this and I think it's kind of odd that it's like so like that the debate is so not common ground focused and so for me that would be the new elements to add where the where um you know you know goals can be achieved together and so I would like just I would want to act to be playing that role and I don't necessarily care if it means we do that work separately and then one person goes or if we all participate at TSO my sense is that all of us participating at TSO might be problematic yeah so right yeah so let's have a we could do like a working group that takes a look at ways to make it um able to satisfy yeah no I think and some of the counselors are really interested in that too right that I mean they're like the the title of Eve's columns and I know Eve has her hand raised but the title of her columns first about how like safety and dark skies don't have to be like a pose that you can find the common ground and you can find things that work and so I've been told by TSO that it will be it's probably going to be on their agenda on September 14th so if and the and the the counselors who created it um have not yet sent me like a copy of it because I think they're still making some tweaks based on the last round of public comments so if we wanted to commit to having a meeting on the 7th we could talk about it then September 7th and then like one or two of us could go to the meeting on the 14th would be the idea so I'm fine with that I mean I do think that you know TSO has five members and I mean so you know if you get too many people yeah I know that's so and I would like to particularly once the counselors um share their latest version that hopefully is more oriented towards some of the common ground that um I would look you know look forward to tech commenting on that so but Eve do you have any comments can yeah and I don't know why um my video wasn't showing but there's no place that I can um enable my video but um so I would um I would really love to actually do a presentation for you guys um in your meeting and hold on a sec I'm promoting you to panelist okay good are you a panelist yeah yeah thanks I'm sorry about that um so um yeah I literally spent five weeks like researching and putting together diagrams on this issue like I spent a crap load of time because I think it's actually really really important um and um I could I think I could spend less time than that to like explain what I what I found and what I put together um for you guys um as far I remember being in one of the two meetings where you talked about this policy and and my recollection is that you were a little bit reticent on your comments like you sort of made comments about specific like tweaks but didn't kind of have big broad overall comments and um that's really what I ended up advancing I really think the way that they had it written um it was very one sided and rigidly so and would have um threatened uh the safety of bicyclists and and pedestrians in many parts of town which is why I spent all of that time one one month out of my sabbatical doing just three lights not what I planned um but anyway so I would be delighted to be able to like just sort of kind of synthesize and I made a bunch of diagrams so I think I could use those to kind of summarize some of what I found and then um yeah to give you a little context Tracy for the dates you were saying um after Tracy and I reached out to different council members it clearly really made an impact and um the one of the proponents Mandy Jo Hanneke reached out to me the next day and she and I are going to meet on September 1st to try to sort of come up with a policy proposal that would do the both and and so if I were going to do a presentation to you at the next meeting um and and that were after September 1st and I could sort of summarize you know what was what of the ideas that that I had analyzed got put into that and and and sort of what I see that that is has changed and and what I think about that yeah well that sounds good I mean so um I mean that sounds good to me and it sounds like if people are available to meet on the 7th that we could have attack meeting on the 7th and that will be after Eve and Mandy Jo Hanneke have met and so hopefully they'll have the updated version and then TSO as I said TSO had reached out to me and said they were planning to have it on their agenda on the 14th so and so just to be clear if we set the meeting for the 7th to do it and the Mandy Jo sort of revision Eve conversation revision isn't quite ready we could is there still going to be something that we could work off of I think so I think we would have those updates and yeah and I think too they could turn around at least like a draft version or something Eve thank you for spending so much time on that I just I just was really I don't really I read the indie every now and again I you know kind of read the Hampshire Gazette every morning and I was just like this is just so weak like I just felt like the debate was very odd um because there was no no recognition of all the common ground that everybody's trying to achieve it's very strange no and counselors many counselors appreciated Eve's work and I mean so I had um you know I had done a lot of research too just to point out like the resources and where you can find common ground like in terms of best practices for policies like this is all these issues have been discussed for a long time right and a lot of the transportation professionals have been concerned about safety at night for a long time yeah there are so many fatalities including pedestrian fatalities at night so um I had done a lot of research but then Eve you know and we're very grateful like she took it to the next level instead of just telling them that they should be looking at these resources and studies she actually said this is what you could do instead so yeah nice but it's true like Tracy was the one that fed me the crucial I mean sources that I then built from until you said stop sending me studies I don't want to read anymore but I now have read hundreds of studies and we have probably a 530 as well at the same time yeah we'll do a 530 so if you haven't if you haven't read the indie series that I put together they're long and overwhelming but I will just tell you briefly that the first one is on what their policy says and why it's potentially dangerous and I have a lot of statistics about past crashes and accidents in Amherst that Tracy helped point me to that have happened at night and then the second one is on what those sources say pedestrians and bicyclists need in terms of lighting to be safe and then the third one I put it together and say okay how could we sort of best practice kind of start to do both right so if you don't want to read all 10,000 words of these well you could start with the third one because the third one sums it up nicely and I know some people were getting a little overwhelmed by all of them um Joe I just had a question I was reading over the policy and illumination the illumination section A and B is that the IES 8 is that like the latest printed standards I just wanted to confirm that if anybody knows I think those are the latest standards um I think one challenge and he points us out in some of her comments is like that the guide to some of them are like not really available and it's like a hundred you know like hundreds of dollars to access like their home annual but those are considered the best you know some of the best standards because that's what I was curious about because it looks like the council gets a lot of leeway so I'm just curious about what they would be using as their their scientific right and that was one of my comments to them is like I thought you know they had things in there like the DPW will decide you know when to dim lights and how much to dim lights and and then the council has the ability to dim lights additionally and in my comments to the council were like that you should set up like kind of guidelines for that and I mean I don't think that most people in the councils are experts on this and so I would like it all to be like in a bigger framework you know for the future and that the policy now could say we will create a framework and then make decisions about lighting like based on the framework just like Northampton has a framework for its decisions like if you ask for lights to be removed or new lights to be installed you know there's like different forms for each of those requests and they sort of they lay out like how close are you to your neighbors you know what like all the different kind of criteria that go into those decisions so and that's the sort of approach that I was hoping for so because I mean that one of the things is the council said they want it to be based on like you know science and things and not just based on people making requests but it seems like if you leave a lot of it up to the council's discretion that that could actually make it more political and not less political so yeah but we do have Jess here so I'd love to like move on and let Jess talk and Jess is a resident of Northampton so she might know she could also comment about Northampton street lights if she wants so can you unmute oh great yeah I can um awesome hi everyone hi I'm Jess Slavin uh yeah as Tracy said I live in Northampton um I'm mass bikes communications coordinators so I work on our statewide work um if you're unfamiliar with mass bike we are the nonprofit that works on a better bicycling advocacy across Massachusetts um and so I was I'm just here to give a little kind of like intro to us and a little update and then I have um some ways that we're trying to help municipalities um because while we do do kind of like that upper tier work we're always looking for how we can support folks like you all who are working at that local level which is where we see like the most critical um battles to be fought really on in terms of safer roadways you know um a lot of stuff happens at that local level that's really gonna transform the way our our streets and trails are better serving bicyclists and pedestrians and everyone else um so yeah as I said mass bike um works on kind of that upper policy level um we were really excited to have some legislative wins this past year um I know Tracy talked about an act to reduce traffic fatalities um but that's something that we're really trying to push the communications on especially the fact that motorists need to give four feet for all vulnerable road users now um I just saw Pete Sutton who's the statewide bike ped coordinator last week in Holyoke and he was saying that municipalities who requested signs should be getting them in the next couple months soonish um that's what he was saying a couple months ago though so hopefully by the end of the year um municipality and I know that like Jason Jason is here from the DPW right uh Amherst requested some signs yeah yes and we're still we're still waiting but I don't know yeah we're by the end of the year they say Pete's saying soon so hopefully he meant it um but yeah what are the signs what do they look like um so they have a bicycle on them and then they say motorists must give four feet ah cool I haven't seen them yeah they're and I know that I had asked at one of one of Pete's um like advisory meetings he has a statewide you know bike ped advisory board about um about if they would have different signs with like pedestrians and stuff too I don't I don't know if they've expanded it beyond just bicycles they they were gonna just keep the bicycles for now they there was requests for wheelchairs and and I think for now they're just gonna sort of standardize with the bicycle um but try to make somehow make it indicate obvious yeah users all vulnerable road users all road users yeah yeah okay and that vulnerable road user definition that got passed and introduced traffic fatalities as everyone saying was pretty broad it was basically everyone who is not inside of a motor vehicle so basically pedestrians roadside workers equestrians farm tractor vehicles um all of those are like encompassed um and that's something even though I'm a bike we're like advocating for bicycles we're trying to make sure that that is very well known um and that vulnerable road user definition encompasses a large amount of people who are walking and rolling and on our roadways um and and I think it's amazing like mass bike I have shared the link to like the webinar that was done by mass bike and you're like the only organization that's done like a public webinar for everybody on the to my knowledge on the law so thank you yeah you're welcome I will definitely tell my boss Galen he was really excited to do that webinar with senator brownsburger um getting that law passed um so yeah so four feet uh I I did give Tracy some stickers but if any of you want some four-foot passing stickers my little ones actually look like what the signs are going to look like so um they have the little bike and the four-foot passing stuff and then I have some like bumper stickers too um and I can I was on that email third I could throw my email in the chat if people want um some stickers um and I know I think chris reached out to you to get more stickers for like events later but we are going to be giving out the stickers at the back to school event that the amherst schools are having on Tuesday August 29th that's so awesome yeah um and I I also give you I know you all know or Tracy and chris will know about our lights brigade um but part of the law was also that bicyclists now need front and rear lights when riding at night um one of mass bikes programs is we give out free lights to anyone who needs them um you can request them for events like safe routes to schools but we also like to have people um do lights handouts as it's getting darker and just hand them to people who are biking and it might be getting dark um to brighten them up as they go um and we have lots of lights you just need to request them through the website um you can shoot me an email I can send you the link to the form um if any of you wanted to do your own lights brigade um outside of the safe routes to schools um but that's something that we're really dedicated and making sure people have lights because sometimes that can be a financial barrier to folks or people just don't realize how important it is to to be bright when they're riding around um a couple other things that I I personally like to highlight in the activity staff traffic fatalities that passed is the fact that the state will be coming out with a public facing crash portal for bicyclists and pedestrians um the law that passed said they need to have it up and running by April 2024 um and I know that they're working on it so hopefully we'll be hearing something by the end of the year about when time on and when that might be available um what's great about this is uh police departments are going to be getting a standardized crash reporting form right now um mass bike tracks um bicyclists fatalities and crashes and walk massachusetts does a lot with the pedestrian crashes and fatalities um but the data is kind of muddled right now sometimes you can't tell if it's a bicyclist or a pedestrian so we're really looking forward to being able to have this cleaner data um so that we can better advocate for the areas where there are dangerous situations for vulnerable users um so that's um something that we're really looking forward to and are glad that passed um and I told Tracy this when we chatted but uh the bike league is coming out with um bike ability audit so if you're familiar with a or p's like walk audit toolkit um the bike league's going to be coming up with like a bike audit toolkit so that's something that you could potentially implement in your community if there is an area where you have concerns about bicyclists and pedestrian um safety um and it's one of those things where you'd ride with a group and kind of like mark down in the different like uh bike ability aspects and um the bike league showed me like a kind of a prelim uh preliminary version of it back in March at the bike summit in DC um so I'm hopeful that that will be coming down the pipe soon and I can share that with you all when it does if that is something you're interested in implementing at all um in your community um and then the other part of an activity is traffic fatalities that I'm um looking forward to is that trucks who that are state contracted are required to have additional safety devices um backup cameras, side guards, extra mirrors um and then uh because the state can only do it on the state contracted trucks something that Musbeck is telling communities is that that's something that you could potentially also implement on like a city or town level so Cambridge and Boston are both um have their own policies where they require trucks that are contracted by their cities to have like additional safety um gear on them um so um we're excited that that it's happening at the state level and we're also um when we were down at the bike summit in DC talked about it on the federal level too there's some federal side guard legislation um that they're currently working on so we're hoping that large trucks will need to have side guards on a federal level soon which means even more of those large trucks that are driving through our communities yes what are side guards yeah so side guards are um they go along the bottom edge of the truck and they're like hard so basically what they do is they prevent people or cars from getting like pulled under a truck so one of them more fatal crash types that we see um for not only bicyclists and pedestrians but also cars sometimes too is like a right hook um and so the side guards prevent um people from being like seriously injured by getting like you can't go underneath the truck so you could still hit it but you wouldn't like go underneath yes you would you would still impact the truck but you would not be pulled under which is the dangerous part um in the Volpe Center in Cambridge has been doing a lot of um work around side guards um and have shown that they dramatically reduce fatality rates if you were to get into a right hook incident and their side guards on the truck um which is why we're really excited that state contracted trucks are all like the very large ones are all going to be getting um side guards yeah some of that Volpe research some of the research team members are people who still are affiliated or you know graduated from UMass Amherst so I might have copies of that paper if anybody wants it but yeah they're they're doing a lot of really good research um on the side guard front um and I know um so Mass Bike is part of the Vision Zero Coalition so we're part of a coalition of non-profits and advocacy organizations that um support the idea of having zero traffic fatalities on our roadways and we as the coalition did submit a letter of support um to the federal um side guard work that's going on so um not sure what will happen with that but we're we're hopeful for some federal regulations so then more trucks must use it beyond just the state contracted ones um can have increased safety devices and make sure all those memorable users um aren't as impacted by large vehicles on our roadways potentially um so that's not huge traffic fatalities um and some of the like key highlights um and then the only other last thing about that is the 25 mile per hour speed limit it just like had a technical fix to make it easier for cities and towns if they wanted to lower their speed limit on thickly settled to 25 miles per hour just kind of like clarified um that they had like the ability to do so because I guess before it was a little little wonky um so I know other um municipalities have been working on lowering their speed limits and think they settled there is to 25 miles per hour um which slower speeds or something mass bike also fully supports in terms of increasing safety on our roadways for vulnerable users um something else mass bike work done um and is continuing to work on is e-bike let it like defining them in state law so that regulations around them can be more defined because up until last year they had no state definition which left them kind of in this very odd gray area and people weren't sure if they counted as a moped if they counted as a bike like what was going on um so as of 2022 um class one into e-bikes which are the lower speed ones are treated as bicycles with a caveat that they cannot be ridden on sidewalks and that they are allowed on bike paths unless some municipality goes through or whoever oversees the bike path goes through a public process to restrict them um and they are not allowed on most natural service trails except if the landowner decides to allow them um I know that's a little confusing so if you have questions about that yes what are the lower speed like what's the maximum speed it's 20 miles per hour okay the um it cuts out at 20 miles per hour and it's a 750 watt most e-bikes in bike shops like reputable bike shops are class one and two class one doesn't have a throttle it's all pedalysis class two can have a throttle but it also has pedalysis and class three we have not gone defined um in mass state law um that's something we're working on and we're still trying to figure out where what are what's the speed of a class three 28 okay what's over 20 anything over 20 is yeah so it's specifically 28 it's a little confusing because these are so these are the classes that um align with federal standards right now and what the class system that many other states have adopted um the problem being there are bikes that don't quite fit into those classes that do kind of like scooch into that like more like mopedi uh category but look a little closer to a bike so it's this thing that we're definitely working on and working with stakeholders to kind of figure out the best way um because we do see e-bikes as a really good transportation option for folks um and we definitely want people to be able to ride them um and also increasing education around how to ride them safely and how to be respectful of all road users and pathway users um is something that that math spike we're definitely thinking a lot about we're currently running a pilot program in Worcester where we're distributing e-bikes to low income individuals and tracking their mileage and tracking their usage and like providing with a lot of education around how to ride and how to ride safely um so we're kind of piloting that right now and the League of American Bicyclists is also coming out with a full e-bike rider curriculum um so that's something that we will have in our toolkit down the road as well um do you guys do anything with um particularly with the e-bikes it could seem to go you know 20 20 miles per hour is really fast i mean i'm i'm a competitive cyclist i have been and 20 is really fast it's not what most cyclists do right and if you're on a street and someone's going 20 miles an hour as a cyclist that's super fast um is there um uh additional legislation about or are you thinking about um helmet 20 is the max speed most of them aren't it's like actually hard to get the like pedal assist ones up to 20 like consistently right but i'm just wondering about like commensurate like um helmet whatever oh yeah because because to me there are lots especially here where e-bikes are kind of like new and students are really into them which is cool and they're using them but nobody seems to ever wear a helmet and these are all new users and they're using them at night they're using them on the roads like i'm just i i think really we need we need to advocate for that as well because because because otherwise there's going to be more accidents just because these are new users yeah so class one and two did not come with any additional helmet requirements um but that's one of the things we're considering in class three since that one is even faster is having a like helmet requirement with that one for sure is one of the things on the table um so yeah i agree more education on helmets and trying to make sure that e-bikers and everyone is well versed on helmet usage and how to wear it properly and why they need to wear them i think is really important but i think it's also challenged like with some of like some you know bike sharing systems like in dc and valley bikes and things right they don't provide helmets and so i have been in a few places like where as part of the rental a helmet is included um though i've mentioned that to people here and they thought that was like discussing or something but like for people who don't have a helmet and um it just you know i don't know if you'd want to legislate it but just to like encourage or have programs where you give out helmets or something because there are you know with the bike share programs there just are so many people who might not have biked very much and when valley bikes was active i mean around umass right there's a lot of students who are riding they may not be bicyclists usually they're just doing these short trips but as kim was saying they're on the road and a lot of the lights aren't very bright i don't think they probably even had like both front and rear lights because it was you know before the legislation and and it just always made me feel like really nervous i mean i feel the same about like people being on the road with like scooters and different types of fast or moving alternative modes that um then people without helmets but um yeah i mean there aren't really programs to give out helmets like for adults or are there definitely in gaps we've seen as well um i know there are a variety of like public health departments have taken that on as initiatives um so yeah that's definitely something on our radar as well as safe rest of school does a pretty okay job of trying to get helmets to kids across the state but there's definitely a gap when it comes to adult riders and um as you all like very appropriately point out a lot of you bike riders are people who don't always have the cycling skills that um other other riders might have our education or especially um people who came from like a more um a racing background or a background where like you learn a lot of those like handling skills um over no so does your do these pilot programs like the Worcester one do they include like helmets and things yeah those if they need them yeah so our pilot program we gave everyone helmets uh locks covers for their bicycles and lights um and also uh we gave them reflective vests um and a lot of them we gave them gloves in the winter that was like a special request thing trying to make sure that they had the gear to ride all year round and again the population we're giving them to were low income environmental justice community folks who needed these for transportation um so yeah we made sure that they had all of the safety yeah you were saying when we were talking right that you were tracking them like tracking their mileage and people are using them year round which is great yes yep they were using them all year round and um massbike.org backslash e-bike Worcester I have a link to a public facing spreadsheet with all of the stats for miles and trips um we get it's self-reported data but it's we get miles trips and trip types so you know what kind of trips they're doing um it was cool something we noticed was the people who got e-bikes they started with recreational trips and then started using it more for transportation as they got more comfortable after they used it for more recreational purposes for a month or so um so I think that's really interesting data and yeah it's been really cool project to to watch and see these riders. That's great thank you and you said I think when we talked right you said that um the Pond and Valley Planning Commission is doing something similar yeah in Holyoke is that right or Holyoke in Springfield okay um they're actually distributing some e-bikes this weekend out of Rad Springfield um and I know that Alex who is our Worcester program manager is going to be down there on Sunday with them to help them out um since she's done 98 distributions to people so far for our program she's just gonna help share some best practices that we learned to make sure those riders are ready to roll in Springfield and I'm I'm not sure what how they're setting it up but I think they did model it after how we did our distributions so I'm going to assume that they're also getting the similar safety and like on bike training so yeah that's gonna be really exciting um so hopefully we see more from that program soon and both of those projects were funded through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Centers Act for All grant um and they were one of a handful of programs um so uh there are a couple other programs who were um piloting other types of e-bike incentives so on the cape they did like a straight voucher program um and the state on a state level so mass bike advocated for um e-bike rebates which is something that did get passed last year but it didn't get budgeted for this year and the Healy administration is saying that they're potentially hopefully going to be funding it next year um and those e-bike rebates um would hopefully be point of sale so it would be like the money off like at the register and available local bike shops so like a place like Northampton Bicycle would be able to offer um the amount off like right at the register um but right now the Department of Energy Resources evaluating how to roll up that program and we're hoping for funding next year um to be able to get that because there is a couple of their states who have done the e-bike rebates and it's been super successful and like over-enrolled and like so yes oh all right um I'm curious uh how much has been promoted about scooters and e-scooters um not that I think that they're not going to be a problem because um I think everyone's a little terrified of what they're going to do to traffic but realistically in terms of affordability and convenience and the ability to go from walking to bus to you know I just think I honestly think scooters are the way of the future for a lot of people and so I'm just curious um I mean I think of you math students you know like anyway um I'm curious sort of if mass bike has has been in on some conversations or if you know of incentive programs or people trying to think ahead rather than just reactively you know about how to do a scooter roll out that's going to be safe you know all those things. Yeah so we haven't been in a ton of talks about micromobility um e-scooter beyond um discussions we've had a couple of combos with like super pedestrian but like not really thinking about that full roll out um I do know that like Pittsfield has scooters um but I'm not sure like what the uptick has been um in terms of a rebate I haven't heard much since the price point for them tends to be a little bit lower like quite a bit than e-bikes obviously um I feel like some people do end up tending to go the e-scooter route and as you said they are a little more uh mobile uh you can some of them full you can full them up you know go with them um but yeah I will definitely check in with my boss to see if he's had any more heard anything else um he's kind of our legislative fleet so if there's anything happening state house wide um he would know but I haven't heard anything trickle down to me yet in terms of that um but we're hoping that with our vulnerable user definition that we can kind of kind of make sure that anytime we're using that definition moving forward to increase safety on the roadways that we can kind of scoop everyone into it that way I'll just also briefly report um for I guess maybe none of you know other than Tracy that I've been working to try to organize at UMass an event that would happen in the first week of um school where we would hand out lights and reflectors and educate people about um alternative transportation I just couldn't get enough people to work with me on it and I gave up I wrote about streetlights I didn't organize this event in September but I think organizing an event like that in the fall I mean it's always just been really a bit of a um a bummer to me that math that bike week is in May because I think around here if it were in September it would be great you know because we have all these suburban kids who come to UMass and they last a bike to when they were 10 years old and there really would be an opportunity to teach them how to do it and to do it well and then they would go back to their own home communities you know with that knowledge anyway I think it's just a super missed opportunity and and it could happen at the town level but even more important is in the three colleges and especially UMass just because of the numbers yeah but I I gave up I couldn't do it on my own I agree um I know that the UMass bike co-op has some momentum and I know Amherst College their bike co-op um is kind of getting off the ground um so that might be I know the students rotate so quick so it can't you can't always well I know yeah UMass I mean this is a while ago but like my office that we had conversations with the UMass police about like promoting like safety right at the beginning of school and incoming students go through like all these different orientation programs and it was like questions and there was a lot of you know distracted biking and distracted walking and um distracted driving sometimes on campus and just how to make everybody safer and we didn't unfortunately we didn't manage to you know end up with a slot per se like in the orientation curriculums which are already like pretty extensive but if there were to be events you know such as the one that Eve was proposing um like early in the school year that would be a good opportunity just to really promote safety and I mean some of the UMass students right are coming from out of state or um or even out of the country and so you know giving letting people know about the rules here in the you know the act to reduce traffic fatalities and things like that and I mean there's some there's a great opportunity there if if we have the resources to do that yeah yeah and something I shared with Tracey when we met um last week was when I was in grad school um so I went to the University of Nebraska Lincoln for grad school um and they had a really robust outdoor adventures program and they would host bike fest twice a year so they're they had an on-campus bike shop so they would do tune-ups the PD would come but then also my favorite part was the bus people would come with the bus the practice bike rack um and we would show all the students how to use the bike rack um and that was really successful um but yeah it takes a bit to organize and it was always us trying to like um since outdoor adventures paid their staff they were able to like can pay some students to stop it so yeah it's always a challenge there for sure that was so such an amazing idea the idea I have never used a bus after a bike because I have no idea how to use those bike rack things they're really intimidating if you haven't used them yeah and I'm like an experienced cyclist and I have I would never do that I love that idea that is so brilliant thank you or maybe you know even if we didn't do a whole event you know maybe we could get I mean UMass Transit has a new you know director now I mean they could even just put a bike near the student center or something maybe they could if they had the person now they could just with the bus they don't have to have a big event they could just have a bus and just like let people try it no I love that try this at the block party September oh yeah I love it get PBTA to park a bus somewhere on the closed street everybody just putting bikes on and then you can do other like distributions or anything like that like get on get on board with the bid and the block party they're happy to have additional participants okay yeah just can we get you with a table at the block party yeah send me the date and I'll check my calendar yeah it's uh it's a 21st item that's right I'm not going to have a lot of availability then but I will come I love this idea we used to get a bus when we used to do the bike commute breakfast right first we used to get a bus there with the bike rack on it so people could try it yeah trying my to fit my big dummy on it but it was too long you know I love that the extended bike didn't fit the bike rack I just want someone I can contact it UMass that might that that we do you think it's easier to get it through UMass or to get it through like yeah right yeah who is it who is it remember her name um the new director yes Connie Engler thank you yes she used to work for her because I worked at PBTA how do you spell her last their last name uh okay I'll figure it out well and she came on board when Glenn retired right so she's right like a year yeah okay Glenn's gone so what what is in what day is a block party so the block party is the 21st it's five to nine yeah it's always on a Thursday to bring students downtown and it's um it's five to nine five to nine yeah I mean they they're really they try to attract a lot of students downtown so okay I love this idea because I will actually do that same thing because maybe then I can convince myself and or my children to actually use the bus after the bike yeah and we can ask just for more license and stuff so yeah I love that few lines I have some handouts and stuff yeah happy I just put out my calendar so consider me in too okay great I just I just wanted to have a moment that um when I first learned to um put a bike on a bus rack was in Portland Oregon in like 1991 and at that time you actually had to get a permit that you paid five dollars for in order to put your bike on the bus in downtown where you had to like show that you could do it before you got your permit ah interesting yeah well that that's a distance center but I mean the other thing that happens in Amherst actually is that most of the buses only will take two bikes and they fill up yeah and in fact when I was meeting with Jess I was also saying you know when the semester starts and some students have chosen to live not that close to Amherst you know in Sunderland or Belchertown or whatever even the buses fill up I mean Stefan would know better than I but I've heard people complaining about you know that they thought that they could just hop on the bus and get to class and by the time the bus gets to their apartment complex the bus is not taking any more people Stefan has his hand up yeah oh sorry no I put it down from earlier oh but everything says right so I mean so Stefan do you know anything I mean I know you're not with UMass transit anymore but in terms of like the labor because I I was listening in on a western mass transportation advocacy group meeting last week and they were saying that there's a shortage of drivers across CBTA but also even at UMass transit yeah yeah so I'm definitely still on payroll there I'm still eligible to drive and actually if I want to stay on there I have to drive like once every three months or something so you could drive the bus to our event yes that's absolutely correct there's a shortage obviously UMass transit is unique because it has turnover every year because of the seat graduating seniors so I would say we definitely lose more than we gain at least initially I mean you have a big drop off people because you have a bunch of people graduating and leaving some obviously stay and are looking for jobs some are still trying to figure it out but some people do some people don't find jobs right away and still elect to move back to their hometowns for whatever reason and the last thing you can work is graduation day you cannot work that if you don't commit to staying on for a bit of time so you do have that and recruitments are pretty difficult I think you know there's parts that people say UMass isn't as much of a working school as it used to be so people don't maybe feel as need you know I don't know how true that is but that's something that I've just heard and another one's also the drug testing policy because it falls under the FTA requirements it's not legalized under a federal guideline so we still do randomly drug test pre-employment and randomly throughout your career there so I think there's a bit of that but it is you know they're good jobs I think they're good jobs they pay I mean I think they cap out at for a student job it's good I think cap's like 23.75 an hour and you get paid for the training you get paid for the conversion of your license from a D to a B so you really nothing comes out of your pocket if anything everything goes into your pocket and I really like working there and I you know I have a lot of contacts there and people go on and find careers in transit elsewhere that run our RTAs and other transportation authorities so yeah anyway but yeah staffing is definitely an issue and yeah I mean but Connie's good the new director she's only been there since last summer and she's good so if you want to reach out to her I think your best bet is to go through not PBTA in Springfield but UMass transit and though I'd be very surprised if they didn't let you borrow a some kind of bus sure okay like 40 buses and they'll have bike racks so one we can talk to the bid too about like the space of it because I know they fill up the space but yeah right yeah yeah that's probably yeah probably better to do that first because of the positioning of where you wanted all that right okay but yeah well thank you that's helpful so I know Chris was going to leave Chris your hand is still up are you still there yeah can you hear me yeah we can hear you oh yeah um I would love to help out on the 21st and the other thing Eve is maybe we could just figure out a way to do um like a little event at Worcester Dining Common before the block party or something just to pass out lights and you know just generally start some kind of education piece but um I do need to go um Tracy I think you kind of know yeah the basics of safe routes to school and then just so you just FYI Debbie Westmoreland and I are both attending the signs and lines webinar oh good yeah I'm gonna sign up for two yeah okay all right bye guys okay thank you bye Christine okay thanks and I had one other thing for Jess if anybody else does and then we can let her go just done with her presentation are you done with your presentation yeah I'm pretty much done I think the other two things I just wanted to note was um Massmake now has a municipal advocacy associate who's working on a project to kind of um increase communication with groups like yours there are groups in municipalities all across the Commonwealth working on very similar things as tack here and we're trying to create first step is we're going to create a database of all of these groups that are working um to make our our cities and towns better places to bike and walk and um so that's step one and she's actually out here in East Hampton so another local person working on some great municipal advocacy work um so hopefully I can have more info on that as she like decides where her project goes in terms of like resources and if you have any ideas on resources that may be helpful to you on the municipal level um definitely let me know um and then I guess the only other thing is if you ever like are there's um like I guess individually not a stack but like have a uh action alert like you have something going on that you want people to know about uh for better biking or whatever mass bike is always happy to do like dedicated emails um to help spread the word about things if you're doing events like this block party I could send out an email to everyone who lives in Amherst on the mass bike list and tell them that um so that's something that I'm really happy to help help do for you all yeah we'll see where that goes so I just I did have one question in it um I did and it came up last at our last meeting the last tack meeting in July and Joe had brought it up but just about in terms of like helping people who have young kids about you know what are the best ways to transport kids um and and even I think you know even like offering information about you know what are the options I mean there's tons of different options but but also maybe even like some instruction if needed or whatever are you talking about bike bike options for parents with yeah parents with kids on a bike on a yeah about like so like because like some parents might feel like oh it's too hard to get my kid on a you know a tag a lot whatever it is um do you do any kind of outreach or do you have you know materials that are put together about how easy it is to bike with kids or we currently don't but that's definitely something that would be great for us to put together um I know that in some there's uh there's a group in Cambridge like does these really cool like basically like try it days where they'll host events where everyone who brings they'll bring their like cargo bikes and their tag alongs to like a park and let other parents like try them out um so that's something I've seen work really well on a local level um if you have parents in your community who are already um using bikes to leave their kiddos around um but at mass bike level we don't have anything like that and that's definitely something to put on the list of resources that could be created um yeah yeah cool well it can be a little intimidating as a while you're brainstorming um one thing they did in Portland was they took elderly people out on adult trikes um I thought that was really cool too yeah and we had we had someone who went along Lincoln a lot um yeah Lincoln a lot on it was an elderly woman and I saw her all the time on her trike on Lincoln and I was like why don't more people it's just good exercise if nothing else a lot of adventures here in Northampton does a lot that's what I was gonna say a lot of events that are open um to the community to help older adults um with trikes and other other types of adaptive bicycles um and mass bike has piloted some older adult programming with AARP um it's not something we've like done statewide yet but we've done some pilots in Worcester and Cambridge um uh trying to figure out how to support older adults to either haven't biked in a while or never really biked a lot and figuring out how to um encourage them and make them feel comfortable and safe when they're when they're riding so well and that's also a target market like for some of the e-bikes I think because I've seen research about how you know people who are ready to stop biking like if they have the e-bike and the assist you know particularly on hills and things that that will extend their riding life so yes it could be very effective yeah yeah I've seen so many people when I'm out biking and it's older people and they're passing me and whether it's okay honey I'm on an e-bike you know thank you well especially right I live off of Amity like a huge hill and you just see the valley bikes just zoom right up there okay it's great I want one of those yeah so all right well thank you Jess this has been really helpful thank you and it's great to hear about like advocate you know mass bike staff who are out in western mass too so yeah I'll throw my email in the chat if anyone wants to follow up with me about anything yeah so I I did um so see you on the email I don't think the way Amherst has this stuff set up is you can do a chat well never mind well I'm on the email just Jess Jess and massbike.org thank you and we'll reach out to you when we need more like supplies and things is it is it best to contact you directly or to do it through the form on the website so for the lights through the form because I just don't have all of them here most of them are at our Boston office okay um but I have a lot of stickers and stuff so yeah um for all other stuff just reach out to me and I can coordinate but yeah I threw the block party date on my calendar so it's blocked off I can awesome okay thank you and help yeah all right thank you bye cool cool okay well that was exciting I hadn't even thought about the block party but that's a great idea yeah I mean that's the perfect venue I mean right a lot of students a lot of residents a lot you know it's a good everybody it's old yeah yeah it always wants extra activities you know they want everybody to set up a table they invite every bank in western but no but I also really like the idea of having a bus at like a UMass like as you know as Chris said like a dining common but or like near the campus center because I've seen I've seen demos there too of stuff like we've been driving everyone would try on the street everyone would try to put the bike on the rack if you put it on the on the at the the block party that is well and one thing I am gonna do it's safe routes the safe I mean the the back to school event is I'm gonna have I'm gonna have the cool noodle with the four feet too I love it to show that so if somebody wanted to do that at the block party we could do that too I've seen a few people with the noodles off yeah well that's what you want to demo it right so yeah so yeah we should have maybe the signs off the noodles so so people everyone reads that reads it you know you know people understand why there's people riding on their bikes yeah when I see it I recognize that I'm like oh they're practicing the four foot rule but other people are like what are they where are they going we can you know if we wanted to do you know we could get some media if we wanted if we wanted to do a little bike ride I know that there was one down in Springfield they did a four foot you know pool noodle ride or something we should totally do that so yeah we could do it we'd have to pick a very like and then we just you know we ask the republican and the gazette and the india or something to promote it and things because I did contact so I did notice that the town of Amherst they did do some social media on the act to reduce traffic fatalities but I think they only put it on their like Brianna only put it on the instagram account or something and I said well if once you have the infographic can you just like post it on like every other type of feed too that was and um and I think I even asked it on the instagram post and then she didn't um I never saw it anywhere else but just not everybody's on instagram so but I think it could also be really effective I don't know Kim what do you say like some you know Friday rush hour or something we could or even just just through UMass you know we just have yeah I would I would have no critical mass of yeah we'll have to find a bunch of pool noodles but I think we can but and we I think I think we could get some media coverage so that would be good yeah all right we can plan it at our next meeting so okay so moving along um what else do we have so oh the other thing with the safe reach to school and Chris has been in touch with parents from all the schools and also with teachers so one of the things that the safe reach school program is doing now is they do have that second and third grade curriculum you know to teach people about like safer walking and things and they and the part of what safe reach to school is doing because they don't have a lot of staff themselves like we do have one coordinator for the four western mass counties is that they're also training the trainer so there's been some interest from PE teachers and others at the schools to maybe do that and then they could help perpetuate it like with each each year with like the second or third grade which is really exciting yeah that is great and the safe reach to school program they're also having a big event on Wednesday October 4th they do these like events quarterly that are like bike walk you know bike walk rule to school days so October 4th and Chris has um some parents at each of the elementary schools and at the middle school who said they could help on events so that's still being organized and okay so the other I mean I put it on the agenda just informational about the idea of the transportation commission which is something that the town manager had first suggested you know well over a year ago about tack the potential of like instead of having tack having an actual transportation commission northampton for example they do have a transportation and parking commission they are mainly advisory but they also you know have more power than tack has so that when he presented it to the council there were a lot of questions and some concerns about that and so he's revising some of it is going to come back to them and he hasn't invited tack to like participate yeah so um I mean we've talked about this in the past and parking seems much more like a political issue as well as like a very area specific issue so obviously it's important to our downtown and certain places and and it's not I would be happy I mean there there had been a parking commission and then they got merged with the the pedestrian and yeah I was on it for a while yeah and um and I think that really you know the parking thing is more of a central Amherst issue rather than a north or south Amherst issue and it also isn't really toward the spirit of our current committee like so in our current chart about not we're not necessarily about the public way per se we're more about increasing biking and and and efficient transportation through the town which does not include parking which feels like a much more political issue that's all I'm saying and we've I felt like we've we've gone through this before and it's not really what we do do parking now we have been asked like TSO has asked us to weigh in on some parking stuff because right in specific parking issues especially parking on the streets right our oh yeah no this is like parking on the street yeah I don't know it's also it's about parking in general parking is about parking it's about where to put your freaking car which really is not I feel like what we do and it's it's very personal as well right yeah I mean I was happy that we were part of the conversation about like Kendrick park and things yes and that was also very different in the sense that's that's an area specific issue and it has to do with like safety of pedestrian I think I mean I do feel like that's one thing that we that we contribute to like discussions about parking right like I've always been concerned about the back in the back in parking but I don't know maybe Eve remembers many many years ago there were several people who are on our pedestrian transportation committee specifically because they were very interested in parking these were downtown business owners and someone who only I don't know another person who was only really a driver and was very interested in parking for whatever reason they were participating in the public good and and I feel like the issues are very and and both of those members ended up leaving our committee because our committee isn't really about parking or maybe it's even prioritizing parking Eve you remember those who you might be talking about but I'm not sure but I would just say no but those people participated it's just like they eventually fled away because our committee wasn't really about like parking yeah I just wanted to say I would I would just caution you not to say that you don't do parking because parking has so like it's fine to say that that's not central to what we do and someone else should be in charge of it but I would absolutely retain the right of task to comment and inform on any parking anywhere one because you know it changes the flow of traffic whether their cars parked on the street or not another because if their cars parked on the side of the street it can make the bike lanes next to them much more dangerous and it matters like which side you put the bike lanes on and third if we're prioritizing parking in the town that's sort of the opposite of prioritizing a mode shift towards non-car transportation so I would just say don't say don't say we wash our hands of this issue you know what I mean and just make it make it clear that that the tack has things to say and we're way in it even if you don't want to be in charge of it I guess I guess I'm what I'm ultimately against is just being a transportation and parking like I don't want it I I feel like that could easily overwhelm all of us all the time and that's not what we're here to do we're here to make like a vision for what should happen to help prioritize what what we feel are the priorities in the town and not to make the minutiae of parking decisions which oh yeah but I mean if you look at the ones that we have been involved with right they are about safety and things too right Jason wanted to say something I just wanted to say don't dismiss parking because yeah I mean generate revenue and revenue can be used for a lot of things if you can get your finger in the revenue pie you can afford to widen the road for bike lanes that's true I just want to say don't dismiss that completely but I feel like that should be more like a public works you know we can help you help decide the issues and the street issues but that should not be the sun I don't want to get stuck at doing that because that is not why I'm here because I'm like some of the policies though right it's about like right we wrote a memo to the town manager with the intent that it would go to the council about not allowing parking I mean this is something DPW brought to us but not having parking on our chair and collector roads right and when we weigh in on Kendrick Park or we weigh in on Lincoln or things right we're thinking about safety so I do feel I mean that's some of the main work that we've done that's actually gone through the town so I do see no one else wants to deal with it because it's so political but I also feel like it's um I mean I don't know to me that's part of it like about planning like planning transportation and making decisions like parking is part of that equation and do we want to be involved street design I mean and do we do we want to be involved with the minutiae about fees and like some of that no we do not want to be involved with that but we definitely I mean I feel like I have things to say about parking yes but do we want all the parking to come to us oh no I don't think that's what it was right no that's not how that works I can still go to the parking administrator they can handle but some of the bigger questions about this for a while I just wanted to say I think you're right Kim I don't think you want it to be a transportation and parking and I think you're absolutely right it would be taken over by members who are trying to make decisions that they want you know and there's at least one rumor that the reason people want a transportation commission is so that they can get the parking garage approved so I think it's a wise idea to be considered yes but but again I would not totally wash your hands of parking and so we could call ourselves a transportation committee and it could be it could also be some elements of parking I understand your point okay but I don't think parking should go to you and ask your advice but you should not be the parking committee yeah yeah that's that's I guess that was my worry because I'm happy to be the transport help help at transportation advising but I don't want to be in charge of parking because it's too no we will not be in charge of parking yeah and and it would overtake our committee I think our committee I want our committee to continue to be like broad thinking and help like town-wide and prioritizing needs of everyone and not being a political thing which I think a lot of parking is very region-specific oh well I mean I think to me I support the idea of a transportation commission in general like I like the idea like if you look at the transportation commissions that have been created in other communities right a lot of times they include like DPW and planning and you know sometimes like safety people like all the all the kind of like key players are in the room together and because you know with TAC I mean one thing we've heard about TAC sometimes is one there was there was an idea of getting rid of TAC because we were redundant you know but but also I mean that you know functionally like sometimes we're not meeting that often because we really don't have that much to do because we are waiting to get referrals from TSO or something because they can't handle because they don't have the expertise they're the bandwidth because they're dealing with all the other town-wide issues no for sure right so I mean they should give it so to me it's a way of like having a committee I mean a commission that has a bunch of departments in it and it can be like sort of like one-stop shopping on some of this like where that where we wouldn't be like sitting waiting for somebody to ask us for right that's what we heard before it's just like oh wait we can't handle all this because we don't have the expertise or the bandwidth so but then there were questions too about just because the council are the keepers of the public way right and so most decisions about the public way are under their domain and and right in TSO is part of the council I mean some counselors were concerned about like giving some of that up for things but I mean I guess we could see well then they can do it themselves I mean if they're concerned about giving it up but it's a balance I mean so the town manager was working on it he said he would contact us so you know as it gets for the long it will go back to the council yeah the council asked right back by October the end of October I'm not sure that time frame will stay so you just as an opportunity to wield all the political power in town yeah very powerful yeah no yeah you don't see us running for council right so never okay um or planning board wow yeah not your family okay um all right and did we have anything else so I did oh so Amber has now given us five sets of minutes well we know it's no we have four of us Stefan are you here he's here I think so so we had issues last time because sorry I'm back we didn't have working on minutes I'm gonna run away yeah thank you okay I y'all I think we should get started on the minutes because we have not done a very good job of keeping up with amber and that and that was why when I I sent out those ones the earlier ones again March April and May so we can at least get those older ones I'm pulling them up right now I can share my screen the problem is I don't know what the rules are because only you and I were there for them oh yeah I think that's one reason we didn't do them should we just like at the next meeting should we just include like should we have them up front yeah say we're gonna move through all the minutes and then Marcus is here and Chris is here we have the majority of us we could do it that way we couldn't do the last one yeah we can't do any of these because we only have three I think hang on I think if you have a quorum okay people that weren't there can abstain okay okay and that can pass thank you I'm not a great public meeting no I bet I bet you're right absolutely okay all right so I I can share the March one hold on no I mean we all got it oh we wrote it okay yes and Jason was here then too so the the mark right now is just you and I Tracy and then all right so she so amber spelled Andy Steinberg's name wrong but well okay correct and I feel like we add these up we did and then we just didn't do them right yeah so I'm I'm happy with passing these yeah so this was about the street lights policy and the bike ped map which we're still working on and okay yeah well that was a favor all right leave on favor him and Tracy all right would be Joe and Stefan all right so here all right so we just voted those and I'll just tell amber to fix Andy's name so March 23rd minutes are passed and next we have April 27th and Joe you are at this one as well um Stefan was absent so um previously and all right so as ECAC you met with us about the plan and the street lights policy and the act to reduce traffic fatalities and yeah you presented that one so I guess the other thing was do we I don't understand this part of the minutes at the end Kim about it says um other matters to the bike ped plan subcommittee we haven't met yet still want to do that but um potentially have a special meeting once the new school referendum passes yeah yeah yeah what is that about about um that was about about um increasing the awareness about the biking walking around the new school which we haven't done yet but we didn't need to have a meeting for that right oh but it was about organizing oh so not attack meeting it was about like a stuff related to safety school all right so I can ask her to like clarify that one okay because I'm I'm even confused but so this is item six six b i i for for um right so Chris so Chris Lindstrom and I had met you know with Debbie Westmoreland and and then a couple different times and that the idea was to like do that again because we did stuff like and there's also the new safe reach to school coordinator who her name is Tori for the four counties and um so I'm just I'll just so we can improve those I'll just um send amber like a small update to those so amber yeah um Tracy will send amber and update on that amber and update on those portions but otherwise but otherwise it was all fine right so all those in favor okay all right including Tracy kim and joe joe yeah and all those abstaining um includes um stuff on okay thank you um I with um item six alterations um and then um we have our may 18th meeting um Tracy kim and joe again um yeah I guess I'm with absence although I'm not sure maybe you weren't maybe you were just silent stuff on maybe not absent oh this is my next meeting who just rang the bell okay oh no you have back to back meetings yeah um so um so should yeah sorry I'll be right there okay um I guess we can Kim do you want to just do it next time yeah maybe we should yeah okay so we'll just tell her we got through the two yeah okay thank you all right thank you all right thank you thank you Jason thanks thank you I hope everyone will be abstaining in the voting no that sounds right to me all right have a good night everyone okay thanks bye bye