 There's the agenda. Great. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Great. Thank you. So we're recording. So I'm ready to call this meeting of GOL to order. And if we could put, yeah, if we could put the agenda back up for a moment so I can read the governor's announcement, which I think I'm not at home. So a lot of my cheat sheets are not available to me. But I'm ready to call this meeting of GOL to order. It's 10 31, according to my watch. And pursuant to governor Baker's March 12th orders, suspending certain provisions of opening law. This meeting of GOL is being conducted by a remote participation. And we are being recorded by Amherst media. And the first thing I want to do is make sure that everyone can be heard and be seen. So I'm going to start with Mandy Joe. I'm here. And with Pat. I'm here. Great. Andy. I'm here. Great. Andy and Lynn. Here. Good. So everyone is present and accounted for. And we have the agenda up on the screen. We're going to follow it pretty much in order for a change. I hope. And. So I'm going to start with Mandy Joe. I'm here. I'm here. Great. Andy. I'm here. Great. Andy and Lynn. And so the first item of business that I have is a KP law response to wage theft bylaw. And in your packet is the. Series of communications between. KP law and Paul, which he then forwarded to me. And I then put in the packet. Paul wanted a decision or asked for a decision from me. And I felt that I needed to get the committee's. I didn't feel like to make the decision all by myself. So that's why it's on the agenda today. And that's why it's in your packet. Again, Mandy, I don't know if you're able or Lynn to put that up on the screen so people can see it. There's some details in it. I actually have it on my screen too. So someone. No, I actually don't. I have two other things, but I don't have that. So this is somewhat lengthy documents. The series of back and forward documents. The guts of it are in the, you know. In the two statements from the attorneys of KP law. And in essence, what they're saying to us, if I can paraphrase it is that they would advise. terms aspirational, I think they meant aspirational, and not legally binding. And their argument was that it exposes the town to potential legal liability because some, believe it or not specify which, some of the provisions of the bylaw, bylaws are go beyond state statute. So they didn't perform a line by line review as we asked them. What they did instead was offer us their unsolicited advice policy, acknowledging that, of course, it's ultimately our decision, and then saying that they felt that this could potentially pose a legal liability to the town. And so they sent it back to Paul without basically having looked at it in any particular detail other than having read it overall. And Paul then came to me and said, how do you want to proceed? So that's why it's in the packet, and that's why I came to you because I didn't feel I could make that decision myself. So people hopefully have had a chance to look at it and hopefully have some thoughts about this. So I'm going to let you all speak first. So I need to open up my participants' window. And I can see hands, and I also can see hands on the screen. So does anyone want to start this discussion? I suggest what they think we should do. I think we should hear from the two people who are on the committee who are sponsors. OK, so we'll stand on sponsors. OK, I'm going to be happy to go. I'm completely ready to ignore what the KP law is saying. Because if you look through, I'm going to read some stuff. That'll be there. They make a statement in the second email, I believe it is, about possible inconsistencies with statutory procurement requirements. And I've asked a few people, it's kind of a screwy way of saying these bylaws create new laws. And they do create new procurement requirements. And this is the whole purpose of them. They are known to what has been previously required of contractors. So in that regard, they are inconsistent with previous requirements. But the way counsel worded it makes it seem like they are in conflict with current state law. These bylaws are not different from ones passed in other municipalities across the state, none of which have ever been challenged to be in conflict with state procurement law. The state has put diversity goals in place, the same numbers as Amherst has and East Hampton has, and I believe North Hampton. And so they are clearly not in conflict with state procurement law. In terms of barring certain contractors from doing this work because of previously engaged wage theft, towns have had a huge amount of legal discretion around who is a responsible bidder. And these bylaws add to what a municipality decides to determine on who is a responsible bidder. And matters in terms of a contract and violation for contract violations, fines, et cetera, are a standard part of what municipalities can do. And I have an attachment from that Lisa sent me, which I don't need to go into right now, but it's from their lawyer from Springfield who was writing on the legality of TIF conditions, which might be helpful. Anyway, that's I feel like we have worked very hard as a committee in moving away from aspirational bylaws. I mean, that's something we bring up with ECAC and frequently. And I do not believe a law should be aspirational and a town has the ability and the right to extend the terms of a law. And I think the state accepts that. So that's I'm going to shut up for a bit. Thank you, Pat. Mandy or anyone else who would like to speak to this issue? I mean, what Pat said is my first thing. I have been conflicted with this because, yes, what Pat said, but I am quite unhappy with how long we waited for this, how little it was provided. So that that's the only conflict I have is I don't think they did what we asked them to do and kind of want them to do what they asked them to do. But at the same time, I don't because what Pat said. I have one more thing I would like to say is which I think I was speaking to a friend of mine, Anita Sorrow, who has done a lot of law work. And one of the things that I am going to be asking from the town manager and I would love your support is I want to see what KP law is charging us, what they've charged us for the last five years and also what they've provided, what kinds of time frames and things like that they've provided. Because they're generally speaking, the information we get from them is inadequate and the frequently delayed. And I think we need to look at them as whether we're going to continue with them as our law firm. So I'll just put that out there. Good. Andy, you have your hand raised. Please speak. Yeah, there's a lot that has not come forward in the conversation. So I'm going to try and sort it out into the buckets. As far as the wage left bylaw, which is where I think where he really needs to be to start, since that's what the agenda item is about. When I looked at that and what we got from KP law, I certainly was not interested in having them do a big write-up of what could be a revised bylaw. And I absolutely agree with Pat that the idea of aspirational bylaws doesn't make sense to me. I think that it's either you do a bylaw or you don't do a resolution. But it doesn't make sense to do a bylaw if it isn't going to actually do anything. The point that they were making, however, was not totally something that we should ignore, but something that we should understand. And if there is a conflict with bidding, state bidding requirements between the local and the state, and it turns out that state law, if it ever was litigated, would be ruled to be the dominant force in the decision-making. That would be something that would be worth knowing. If this is, and as Pat points out, has been enacted in a number of other municipalities and there has been no challenge in any of those other municipalities over the course of time that it is there, then get to the question, is the risk, in fact, pretty low? And if the risk is low, then that would be worth knowing also. So that they're just, it raised a lot of questions, didn't provide, it provided sort of this one issue, but it didn't give us enough information in which to really assess the level, whether there is a real risk and what the level of that risk is and what the cost would be if we were challenged at any point in a bidding process. I did wonder if anybody has had a conversation with Anthony Delaney, who's our town expert on state bidding requirements and bidding processes as to whether he has any insights into this issue. So I didn't know if Mandy or you or Pat had ever talked to Anthony about the question, not in particular about this, what KP Law said, because that's fairly new. So that is sort of what my thoughts were when I read what KP Law said, it just didn't seem like it was a lot. If we were going to do anything at all, it wouldn't be to have them do any other write-up at this point. It would be to take the offer of having Mark Bright attend our next meeting so that we can have this conversation with him. But I wouldn't want them to do any other work on it. Turning to the last question that Pat was asking, I have had that conversation a little bit with Paul. I think that ultimately, it is probably a town manager decision as to how to do this under, to get legal opinion. The Northampton model is to have a city solicitor and to actually hire an attorney who works full time for the city. And that would be the logical alternative to having a firm like KP Law. This is probably under our arrangement with KP Law as a retainer. And then if we have exceeded the amount or involved in litigation, then you pay, then the payment is through additional provision because you're hiring additional services. So if this is covered by the retainer, then this whole cost issue is not really what the issue is all about. And that's a decision that has to be made, I think, by the town manager. We can have that discussion with them at some point. I'm not sure in what it belongs. Certainly raised from a finance side as to whether it'd be more economical to follow the city's route. And so I'll leave that, that one alone because I just not sure that it's within the focus of what we're trying to do today. So I'll leave it with back to where I started, which is that if we do anything, it would be to have further conversation with them at a subsequent meeting. But I, I'll leave it at that for now. Lynn. So first and foremost, I'm appalled by how long it took, and I'm appalled by the lack of response. And I have placed that to fall. The issue of whether this is the right way for us to get legal services, I need, I think needs to be a separate agenda item. And I'm not sure that by whom. But more importantly, if we're going to ask Mark Reich to join us, then I would also suggest that. Pat and Mandy Joe asked the people who have come to us initially to also be part of that conversation because they have been steeped in this issue. And I think that the extent to which they could add anything, maybe, maybe Pat and Mandy Joe don't think they need to. I know Kathy's another sponsor. But if we want to have another conversation, I want to make sure that it's not just the legal side, but the experience side of the other towns and the people who have worked for those other towns. Can I briefly say one thing? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Earlier on when we were meeting with staff and Mandy Joe and Kathy and I did meet with Anthony Delaney, the procurement officer. And Mandy Joe, you can fill in probably better than I can, but I don't remember his being concerned about any of the issues that KP law is concerned with. And I also agree that putting off the KP law discussion is a good one because we need to really think about that. I don't think it's a decision only for the finance. I mean, the town manager, I apologize. So I won't bring that up again. But I'm very concerned that I would like to see these bylaws go forward. They are instituted in towns around here. I don't have direct knowledge when we presented, when we present to the council, it seems to me of the other people, Lisa and. The Pioneer Valley worker center, people who have been involved should certainly be there. I do not want to call anybody from KP law to come to any meetings because I don't. I just don't see that as a value. So we're in a situation where we have waited a long time for a product. I think taking seriously, I think we take seriously the idea of an objective review from a purely legal point of view in terms of exposure and risk that we can't do. We're not qualified to do. And we assume KP laws qualified to do. We assume they're on retainer to do. And what we've gotten back is not at all what we expected. It's basically, you know, a kind of a shrug and an offer to have more conversation if you'd like. Though there is also on the table, the offer of them going through it. A red line version of line by line. I assume identifying all the places where this, these bylaws are in conflict with state law where there would be a potential difference or there's a difference in a potential liability and some level of risk. We didn't get any of that. And so now what we're faced with is do we go back to them and say, would you please do what you're supposed to have done in the first place? And that could take weeks or more given their past record. Or do we simply say enough is enough and go ahead with the bylaw, even though it's not really gotten any kind of review of any serious kind. And just hope for the best. What the lawyers do tell us is that. That normally if we were a town and Mandy, I think has helped me with this. If we were a town. And we did this, the attorney general would review it. And they would, I assume, do their job. And they would tell the town where they were exposed and where there were problems, blah, blah, blah. But because we're a city now, it's up to us to do the due diligence, which means it's up to KB law or whoever we choose. You know, wherever we hire and they haven't done it. And again, that's a separate issue or unhappiness with them. But I really still am struggling with what we should do here. And I think it's important that we basically say, okay, enough is enough. We're going to just take the risk and see what happens. Or do we go back to them and say, no, please do what we asked you to do. And please do it in a timely fashion. Yes, that's what's before us. The other option, of course, is we could invite them to have more conversation. A couple of you have spoken, at least at that possibility, one of you has said that you're not open to it. Those seem to three options. And just, you know, hope for the best, send it back and have them actually do the job that they were supposed to do in the first place. Assuming that we do wish to know what our level of exposure is, where we are in fact in conflict with state law or not a conflict, but where we go beyond what state law requires. And some measure of the level of risk. Right. Or do we invite them in for a conversation? They seem like the three options. You know, I don't want to prolong this either, but. Is standing back. If somebody says what we've done. I don't care what it is, whether it's this, whether it's. You know, I recently had a conversation with Paul about the whole limiting of the size of gatherings. And the reality is that if we limit, if we take a limit that's lower than the governor, then if somebody's not happy and they challenge us, we're on our own. Whereas if we're consistent with the governor, then the state is there to defend. So a part of me does think it's important to make sure we have done risk assessment. Whether it's this or any other bylaw. So I'm, I'm really caught. I want this to move forward on the other. I would like to have much more specificity about where the risk is. And I'd like to understand from the people who have implemented it. Whether they've had and how long they've had the bylaw and whether they've come up against any of those risks. I would say the same thing when you came to me. With a bylaw for garbage collection. I, I, it has nothing to do with the content of the bylaw. It has everything to do with risk assessment. Mandy. Your hand is up. Yeah. This is where I am. I'm conflicted. So. We're not going to finish this. I think this is where I'm leaning. We're not going to finish this bylaw and get it out with a vote for clear, consistent and action ability today. That was never the plan. So I would really like to see us work towards a vote at our next meeting on September 2nd so that this can be for a first reading. At the September 15th council meeting. I think. I want to know how likely the bylaw is. And how likely has Andy Morrison and the Pioneer value worker center to try and get some of that information about potential risk because KP law did not provide us anything other than well, you can be sued. Um, but yeah, as Andy says, How likely and what would the defense be? And would we be likely to win? Like none of that was provided. Um, I guess where I'm starting to lean is since, you know, we're not going to get to a vote today, if Mark can come to the September 2nd, GOL meeting along with Lisa Clausen and all of them, we can ask him directly what that risk likely might be. And we can hear directly from Lisa and the Pioneer Valley Worker Center and all of them what they believe the risk is and that might allow us to get to a vote for clear, consistent and actionability that day that also allows us when the rest of the council sees this opinion, which I'm sure they'll ask, allows us to respond to them and say, hey, we did our due diligence, we had him in, we had the worker center in, this is what we heard and this is why this is the vote that way. Because here's what I fear, if we would vote that even today based on this opinion, we get counselors that read this opinion and go, well, what did you base your vote on? And I don't want to hold it up once it gets to the council either, this is why I've been so conflicted because as a sponsor, I just wanted it to council. But as a GOL member, this does not allow us to defend a vote on clear, consistent and mainly actionable. Andy. Yeah, I mean, I think that in the end, it's exactly where Mandy was just saying and built on what I said and Lynn said. It's risk assessment. The alternative to the process that is just laid out would be for us to say that we would designate Mandy as a representative of this committee and as one of the original co-sponsors to have a conversation with Mark directly, just the two of them and raise the questions that we have with him. And that might allow her to have a more dynamic conversation where it's not taking place in a public setting and then report back to us. And I would be satisfied with that as an alternative approach too. I think we need to do something else besides what we've done so far, but I think we need to move it quickly and that might be a way to move it quickly too. Pat. One, I agree with Mandy in terms of the course that we should take for the second of September. It is the prudent course. And so I support that. However, I am opposed to what Andy just suggested that it only be a conversation with Mandy as representative of GOL and a sponsor since I am also of those things. And I don't think I should be excluded from that conversation with Mark Bright. Andy, oh, I'm sorry, my hands are down. George. I have my hand back. Yeah, I'm sorry, Lynn. Go ahead. First of all, I would agree with Pat and having had one of those conversations recently where I was trying to figure out how to more completely protect staff responses to the town manager's evaluation. So because we were trying to get a better response than we did and we came up with whatever. However, I always think it's best to have two people listening to anything. And I think Pat as a GOL member and as a sponsor should also have that opportunity. And if it's just the two of them, then we're not breaking any open meeting law, are we? That, I don't know. I don't know either. I think too, sometimes creates issues. As the person that Andy recommended, I would be totally uncomfortable with doing a single person talking to the, I would much rather have them come to a meeting. Much rather have them come to a meeting. Let me offer a thought, a suggestion. And it may be, it's just unrealistic and we'll just dismiss it. But it seems to me, my feeling is that we should have them do the damn job, okay? They have two weeks to produce for us. A document that we've asked for now for months and just tell us that basically what they should have done the first time out. And they have two weeks to do it. And it has to be in our hands before September 2nd or by September 2nd, because I'm sorry, whatever the date of our next GOL meeting is, maybe that screws up other plans we have. But it seems to me, we actually, as was mentioned earlier, counselors will look at us and say, well, what is your base, your decision of actionability and so forth on? And we'll say, well, we had a conversation or we have this memo that basically doesn't tell us anything except that we can get sued. And that's just not satisfactory. What is satisfactory is that they actually do what they're supposed to do. And that's produce a written document that they get paid for that lays out the level of risk and shows us where there are differences between, right? And now if this had been done elsewhere by the attorney general, we'd have something we could at least turn to and say, okay, here's a document that we could turn to, but apparently it hasn't. The fact that it hasn't, no one's been sued yet. You know, well, I'm not sure that really addresses the issue because there's always the first time. So my feeling is they should do what they're supposed to do and they should get it to us in time for our next meeting. But perhaps the rest of you feel that given their track record, that's just not gonna happen. I don't know what else we can do. I mean, a conversation is nice, but are all five of us gonna be there? Yes. And that could take up, you know, and knowing, I mean, I'm assuming that an attorney is gonna be very reluctant to offer an opinion of any substance in a conversation. They're gonna say, well, I'm gonna have to look at that. And we can see that. I would rely more heavily on getting information from Lisa about other municipalities. I'd be willing to call Owen Zerrit and East Hampton to find out if they've had any issues. We can contact the attorney general's office and say, yes, we are a city, but we're wondering if you would look at this. I don't know. Going through KP law, having them do another document that doesn't really say anything. It feels like an incredible waste of time and a potential conversation seems like we can maybe get some direct answers to our questions. And that conversation would be recorded. So it could be transcribed and shared with the council. Lynn. Andy has his hand up, but I think we should just invite him and have the conversation. Andy, I'm sorry. I don't think that the doing a markup of the bylaw does anything for us because not about the wording of the bylaw that we're having this conversation about, we're having conversation about the question that they raised is risk. We all know that just about anything you do has a risk of getting through. It's a question of what is the level of the risk and that's really the issue that they put on the table and I think that we need to do diligence, explore it with them and get a little bit more specificity. Have you had any experience where there has been any threat of litigation with this kind of a provision? What do you think is going to be our exposure, if any, and how expensive would it be? What is going to be the cost to us if we have to respond to it? I think those are the kinds of questions that you'd be having a conversation with them about and I think lawyers are asked those kinds of questions all the time and they need to be prepared and I think we'll be prepared to answer those questions to do it in the public setting where others are there. If that's our decision, that's our decision to go forward but we need to do something that gets closer to it and this seems to be the process that would do it. Okay, well I'm gonna then ask some very specific questions and try to bring this to a close. I'm not necessarily saying that this is what we're gonna do but let's assume for a moment we're going to have the next step is a conversation at our next meeting. Who specifically are we inviting? We are definitely inviting Mark Reich. Anyone else? I believe we should invite the people from the law, the worker center that have helped bring this to our attention. And Lisa Clausen, we've been working with George. Okay, I have a concern. I'm interested in what the lawyers have to say. I wanna hear what they have to say and we've been frustrated they haven't said anything. So I wanna hear what they have to say. We've heard from the sponsors and from those that are in support of this bylaw and I really just wanna hear what the attorneys have to say and maybe so let's hold, I mean for a moment what I'm hearing is that maybe the majority of you maybe all of you feel that we should not only invite the lawyer but we should invite at least some of the members, some of those who have been sponsoring the bylaw. Any other lawyers who want presence? Anyone besides so Reich? Oh Reich, I don't recognize his name. Anyone else? I think it's whoever KP Law thinks is the right person. The right person, okay fine. The other thing I wanna say is I could eliminate Rose Bookbinder or Margaret or anybody but Lisa Clausen has been dealing with this on a legal level for many years. She's experienced and she has information about other law firms reaction to bylaws. So to exclude her and rely only on lawyer is a mistake. I would also ask that Kathy be invited. How's that for the sponsor? Kathy, Shane. Yeah. All right, well, again, all right. So I like the idea, if we're going to invite the spot, it would be one person. Lisa, it sounds like the right person. The lawyer from KP Law and counselor Shane would be the three individuals that you think should be present. What are the questions we're asking KP Law? What I have in my notes here at the moment is we'd like some sense of the level of risk. We'd like some sense of our exposure, which maybe is in some sense asking the same question. And what would be potential cost to us? Are there three things I've heard so far? Can we shape it? Yeah, go ahead. I think we need to get much more specific about in what ways do we have risk? I mean, is it, people have mentioned, it may discourage people from bidding. Others have mentioned, well, what happens if somebody with a bad situation in the past, but they've cleaned up their act, those kinds of things. And from the standpoint of other towns that have adopted this, how long have they had the bylaw? How many times has it been used in the bidding process and has there any been any repercussions? And that's something that Lisa might be able to answer. I think Lisa could answer that. I don't know the attorney could answer that, but yes. I guess I'm really looking for what we want to, I'm sending a message to Paul, perhaps later today, maybe tomorrow, just to give my sense of vacation that's left, but soon, obviously, I would be saying to him, this is what we've decided. And I would like to write down or tell him specifically what we're asking the lawyers to be prepared to speak on. So level of risk, I mean, just help me here, level of risk, exposure, and I can word it very generally and maybe that's sufficient because we'll ask him very specific questions, but level of risk, our exposure and potential cost to the town. Are those the three things that you want to say? They're never going to be able to answer, George. Okay, that's good. Take that out. The issue is a counselor that I want to know. And I've dealt with safe bidding laws for years. Okay, level of risk and in what ways? Is it because somebody is going to suggest that we're creating unfair practices that don't allow for equal bidding opportunity? Is it because now we have a criteria that we're using in eliminating that doesn't stand up to the law? I want to know level of risk and in what ways? Yeah, so I think what Lynn's asking is what would they sue us on? Simply beyond that or because of those things? Like what would the actual cause of action be? Okay, and again, this is just to give them some idea though I'm sure they're probably a very clear idea of the kinds of things to be asking them, but just so that I can say to Paul, this is what we're going to be asking them about. And then obviously you all will have your questions and then the lawyer will respond. We'll have Lisa present to address some other kinds of questions, particularly the experience of other towns and other possible places we're live. I don't think there has been any legal action really regarding this, but maybe what other towns have done. Someone mentioned these Tampton, but that's maybe for another, okay. So what I'm hearing is that I'm going to reach out to Paul. I'm going to tell him that what we've decided as a committee is that we'd like to invite an attorney from KP Law, their choice, though I would mention Reich to come and we have some questions regarding our liability in terms of level of risk and in what ways and in essence what we can be sued about. And we will also be inviting Lisa Clausen and one other council. And then the hope I think hearing from Mandy is the hope that at that meeting, having had that conversation, we would be hopefully in a position to actually then move forward and to vote. Is that a fair summary of what you all have agreed to do or want me to do? Okay, all right. Yeah, and I just have one more request. You make sure that in our packet for the next meeting we have the most current drafts of the bylaws of the brief, there's no confusion that we're looking at the most current draft. Okay, good. And of everything, not just because there's two or three pieces to this bylaw. I will work with Mandy to make sure that everything that's needed will be in the packet for the next time. Okay. All right, next item on the agenda is time manager goals. And I have a few things I want to use my position as chair. I've used my position as chair briefly and then get us right into it because we have I think a fair amount to do. First of all, just a summary of where we're at both for ourselves for me and for hopefully the rest of you and also for anyone who's watching or anyone who's listening. We essentially have produced a now a second draft of the time manager goals assessment materials for fiscal year 21 courtesy or thanks to Mandy's hard work. And then at the most recent council meeting councilors over an hour offered oral comments on which all of us I think took notes. I have extensive notes and we'll be using some of those I think into this discussion. So that draft has been presented to the council for their review and comments. We also solicited written responses from counselors. And I'm here to tell you that we have received a grand total of one and that is in your packet. So the one counselor who did take time to send us written comments, we will review that as well. So we have our notes and recollections from the council meeting of Monday. We have one set of written comments in the packet. And my intention is for us to go over the document. I will see pretty much section by section by section integrating to the degree that we can the comments that we've heard and also the written comment comments that we have in our packet today. And hopefully by consensus make changes we feel are appropriate to this draft document and then submit what I believe is draft number three if I've got the right number to the council for August 31st. And at that meeting the council will, my assumption is we'll make any final changes and that will be voted on. Is that a fair summary of where we're at and where we're headed? Please correct me or Pat has her hand up. I just wanna say I have to go down and get my notes I'm in a different space than I usually am. So I'm making for a second. Okay, all right. I think that's a fair summary George of where we are. Okay, so for the public. When did you add to the packet the item that was from the other? People were given until 9.30 and today. Yeah, so unfortunately, therefore I didn't get a chance to see it. I understand that, but that was what the deadline was. So I waited until 9.30 and I had just one and I put it in. I perhaps I should have put it in. I had that one earlier actually, but not that much earlier, but earlier late last night actually. So this is packet and we will put it up on the screen and it's not that elaborate. It won't be difficult. We've done this on OCA and other committees where we just take the council comment, we go through it carefully. It's in front of us and then we talk about it and if we can integrate it, we do. So and I- George, you froze. I have froze. Lynn, you're the one that's froze. Maybe I froze. No, now you're unfrozen. I think Andy might be frozen. Who knows? But no, I was able to download the one councilor comment. So I have that on an ability. I can't find it. It is now in the packet. I just went. You might have to refresh the- I see. Okay. It really was recent because I was waiting until 9.30. Assuming at least one other councilor would had something to submit, but I just got the one late last night. So, and it's not that long and we will be able to go through it, I think, without too much difficulty. But I'm sorry that you didn't get it sooner. I just want to say something very briefly before we begin about the spirit in which we do what we do here, at least in this committee, as far as I'm concerned as chair. And I hope that none of you will be intimidated by anyone or anything in saying what you think and raising questions, concerns, ambivalences, whatever you want to call it, that you will speak freely because I think it's only in that spirit that we can actually make progress. I find that I often change my mind, largely due to the kinds of contributions and thoughtful comments made by my colleagues. I have my own views and I have my own perspective. I think we all do. But I think I open enough and open-minded enough to listen and to hear what people have to say. So I hope that I think it's true in this committee that people feel comfortable saying what they think. And if they have questions, concerns, doubts, they should be able to express them. And I know that at least in this body, and I think it's true of the council as a whole, we all assume that we have the interest of the town at heart that we're all working to a common goal and we treat each other with respect. What we're doing is really difficult. This is not an easy thing to do. We all know this. I have a personal view about this that part of the problem, the challenge is that we really don't have a chance as a body to sit down and talk about these things. Last Monday night was an example of, actually we did have finally have a chance, but it's in the midst of a meeting that was focused on other things. So to the degree that it's possible going forward, at some point, I think maybe GOL or maybe some other body will think about how we can for, not only for our own sake, because we'll do this, I think at least one more time, but for the sake of future councils that we hash out a viable, doable process and instrument for town manager evaluation. And coming up with goals we've discovered is not easy. 13 people do not agree. We have 13 different visions and trying to craft document that captures, what? All 13 of us, a consensus. This is not an easy task. And I think it's to our credit that we do it as well as we do. But I think we all agree that once this is over, we really, I think GOL, but some ones need to think hard about how we can finally figure out a process that we can hand on to our successors and say, this is what we think works best. Lynn? George, I just wanna emphasize what you're saying and appreciate what you're saying. I also wanna say that it is GOL that has been charged with looking at the evaluation process. And I got done with Monday night and I got to the point, I just wanted to say, listen, just rate things and don't even write comments because the moment we try to summarize comments is when we start getting in trouble. And that's not where I wanna go. It's not what I think makes for a useful evaluation, but this whole issue of, everybody's opinion should be in the memo and did you overstate something here and so forth? I have to the point I wanted to just say, hey, just rate it all. 99 questions. It's easier just to say, here's the rating. Read into it, whatever you want. Because it was so apparent to me after Monday night's meeting that you just cannot please everybody. And I'm still sitting here trying to figure out how to revise that town manager memo which is directly off of the goals. The goals is where it starts and it ends up in the memo. And I'm like, last year, when we had so many questions and they were so duplicative partially because some of them were select board and some of them were John council and some of them were for both. In many ways, it made writing the memo pure because you just said, here's these. Here's what they said. Here's a few councilor comments. Boom, we had nowhere near the extent of conflict over the memo last year as we did this year. And from a person who spent part of my career doing evaluations in general and then a lot of evaluations of people, I much prefer a written evaluation versus just a rating evaluation. I think it has much more substance. I think it allows one to look to the future. But when I started looking at how do you put together 13 people's opinions and present them, I'm ready to just throw my hands up. And that's as honest as I can be. I think that it's a conversation we're going to have as a committee going forward as at the end of today's meeting, we may discuss whether we wanna put it on a future agenda and how soon. What we face today is just the challenge of crafting or given the comments we've gotten, producing a third draft of the performance goals for the town manager. And so my thought is that if Manny could put the current draft up on the screen. Mandy, Joe, you have the word version, right? Nope. Yeah. And so we have the document in front of us. And if you could enlarge it, if that's possible. Working on it. Thank you. That's great. That's perfect. Tell me what we wanna see. We're gonna start at the top and we're gonna work our way through section by section. And I'm gonna count on you individually to bring up any from your notes and your recollections of Monday's meeting. I have extensive notes of my own. And also we will at some point when we get to actually the very first item, we do have a written counselor comment that we should look at first before we begin discussing that. So I wanna begin with the premise. I actually wanna begin with just a brief summary of the policy goals, just for my sake. And if you could scroll with me slowly. Mandy, basically what this first section is saying to the manager is that we want him to prioritize the area of climate action. That's still an important and serious goal for this council for fiscal year 21. We'll get it into this specific moment but climate action is important. Item number two, what we right now call community safety. We're gonna discuss whether that should be renamed but essentially this council, I think it's fair to say by consensus, by agreement feels that this is an area that the town council should focus, excuse me, the town manager should focus his energies in terms of at least two issues. And they're spelled out here but I think there are a number of comments that we got on Monday night to suggest that this could be reworded and perhaps even a new section added. But there's just to be general consensus that this issue of community health safety what we'll talk about the wording is again a priority for this town council. And that also raises the issue which I think we're gonna talk about soon about racial equity. The third is that we're telling the town council, the town manager that we want him to focus his energies also or high priority for us is economic, what we call right now economic vitality. And again, we'll look at that particular language but particularly it seems to me a concern with the crisis that we're facing right now and the concern of what impact that we'll have on our business community. And there are also a number of other items here. So economic vitality, the fourth is the four major capital projects. Again, it seems to me that this council still feels that these four capital projects are key elements and that the town manager over the coming fiscal year should be focusing his energies on pushing all four of them forward and working with us to help make them become a reality. And then the final is housing affordability. Again, we'll discuss this in more detail but it seems to me that this council as a group still feels that this is an issue that needs to be at the forefront. So these five areas that we're gonna go over in just a few moments are key priorities that we're telling the town manager in this coming year. These are where we want you to focus your energies and the energies of the staff. Then we move to management goals. We'll talk about this in the second part of our discussion and the tension between policy versus management. But here I think the question I have, we'll come to it later, is to what degree do what we write here, does it give him any clear sense of what he should do in terms of priority? This second part, the management goals is a beautiful, wonderful description of what his job is and would be something he would definitely take into a, give to someone who says, I'm thinking of being your town manager. We'd say, well, here is a perfect description of what we expect you to do as a town manager. But again, I think we wanna read this second half and we'll get to it in terms of what does it tell Paul about what he should specifically be doing or in terms of priorities, not specifics but priorities. So that's my sense of, I'm thinking of thinking about the policy goals. Is there something here that's missing? Something that we would want to add. That's the first question. The climate action, community safety, we're gonna talk about that in more detail in a moment that's gonna include, I assume racial equity, it's going to include police, but we may retitle it differently. Economic vitality, the capital projects and housing. I'm basically saying to Paul, these are the areas we want you really to focus on over the next year. Lynn. I think the big question is whether or not community safety gets split into two goals and there's a separate goal around equity and racial equity. Equity and racial equity, racial equity and justice. I think the biggest question, it's what most of the discussion Monday night was about and the issue that I think is gonna be tough for us is the response to this area is in evolution. There's no council action and the town manager has not with a recommended path forward, but we clearly have heard that we need to do something. That's the only comment I have. Okay, any other hand up? Yeah, just the overview you were giving to it. The second section that does deals with management questions. Yep. It is important if what this document leads to is the actual instrument that we use for the evaluation because we do need to evaluate the manager on the management of the town and the management pieces therefore become essential. And I think that that's why we continue to maintain them and it's important that they be there. I think that I really am happy with how it was divided out in the end to have whether we need that level of specificity becomes the question that I think we should talk about when we get to that section. But I agree that we need to start with the first. With that, I'm gonna step away for just a minute but I will be right back. Okay. Well, Andy's away. Lynn, go ahead. Yeah, I think, I don't feel like we had people questioning what was here. I think what we had was people questioning what wasn't. And so I, we can do whatever tweaking or additions or whatever to the various other goals. I think our challenge is to figure out how to address this evolutionary process. And I'm just gonna tell you, even yesterday, there was a back and forth exchange with a community member as to whether or not they had actually been contacted by the town manager and turns out they were. So he is literally in process of talking to various representatives of groups that represent the BIPOC community. So how do we craft a goal that leaves, that creates that step, that creates that pathway forward, understanding that, yes, one group has been very clear. They now state we want to commission. Other groups may not be that clear. So that, I think that's our real dilemma here. Okay. Mandy? You're muted. I'm getting there, too many buttons to click. Looking at the comments that I took notes on, the management goals had no comments from the council. So I would almost argue even if we're not fully happy with them and we think they could be modified or shortened or anything, the council seemed just fine with them. And so I wouldn't spend any time today on those. I would just send them back as is because it looks like, I feel like we need to, where the council focused was the actual policy goals. And I have comments for every single one of the policy goals we put forth and requested changes for every single one. So I think that's where we need to focus and leave the management goals as is. It's an evolving document next year. Maybe we can tighten those up a little bit on the management side, but the council seemed totally fine with them on Monday night. So I would just spend our time on the policy goals. After what I heard Monday night, I think we need to split out a racial justice goal from a community safety goal and make it similar to what a climate action goal is. You know, climate action goal is sort of the, we've reworded it, but it was use climate action. Look at all decisions with a consideration to climate action. And the community safety goal right now is a specific action. Whereas what I heard on Monday night in terms of racial equity and social justice and all is more of a holistic thinking for all decisions in town. So I think I'm to the conclusion that given what I heard Monday night, I don't know what it would look like, but I think it's two separate goals. Cause I think they operate differently. Okay, I hear you about management. And so what I'm gonna suggest is we start at the top and work our way through this. I think we're gonna spend the bulk of our time, maybe almost all our time on section two, but I would like to begin at the very beginning and move quickly. So if we could just for a moment, I do have a question about the very first introductory paragraph or preamble. If we could just scroll up for a second to the top. I think this is excellent, but I do have a question about the first sentence of the second paragraph. And I just need some clarification. The sentence reads, the core purpose of municipal government is to provide quality services to the town's residents and management to the town's employees. And I have a problem with the second half of that sentence and it may just be me, but I need, and this is the only concern I have about this first paragraph, which otherwise I think is fine. It has been slightly altered or changed with people's comments inserted. And I think it's excellent. This first sentence still troubles me. And I'll just briefly say why. I don't think the core purpose of government is to manage employees. The core purpose of government is to promote, provide quality services to the town's residents. And I would say something like ensure the health and wellbeing of its residents. Something like that, or just end with, but the reason is this, the town manager's job is to manage the town employees and our job is to oversee him, but neither he nor we are actually municipal government. A municipal government is a combination of both of us. And our task I take it is to provide quality services to the town's residents. And I would suggest to ensure the health and welfare of its residents. Those are the primary core functions I understand in the town government. But so that was one suggestion I wanted to put out there. Otherwise I think this is excellent. And just need your input. And am I missing something here? Or is it, I think here the sentence kind of combines two things, which is what the manager's responsible for and what town government is supposed, municipal government's supposed to do. And he's an agent of the municipal government. But so, without a thought. Input here. Pat has your hand. Pat. Yeah, I agree with you, George. And I didn't even think about that sentence before you said anything. I would like it to say your amendment to read something on ensure the health, welfare and safety of its residents. Okay. Good. What do people think? Is this too much? Is this like obvious and doesn't need to be stated? Is it important to state it? I do think that management of town's employees should be stricken. That belongs elsewhere. It's something else. It's not really a primary function of. But my only hesitation is that I feel like in many ways the council is as equally responsible for the second part of that sentence. But the town manager is the council's employee. So maybe that is sufficient. But I like the addition. Any other thoughts, Andy? Mandy, I mean, Mandy, this is your work and it's excellent work. I don't know what you feel about this, but I think it's, it's okay. Yup. Okay. You know, I'm fine with the changes proposed. Okay. Any other thoughts about the preamble? Okay. So policy goals. And we're going to start with climate action. We're going to do them in order. I think we are agreed that we're going to do these in alphabetical order. I think that's probably the simplest and most elegant solution. Cause each one of us probably would number these differently. And so we never reach consensus, let alone between the five of us, let alone 13. So I think the alphabetical orders probably is perfectly fine. Which means climate action appears in the number one position. We do have the one councilor comment does have something to say about climate action. So at this point, I think we should, if we could, that's possible. And I maybe I can also do it, but if we could put up on our screen for a moment, the councilor's written comment. Give me a minute and I can get them both up at the same time. Thank you, Mandy. No, you could do two documents at the same time. Well, I'm just going to call screen. So you're just going to have to give me a second here. It's all right, take your time. I'm sorry I can't do this, but your chair is just too old. It is too set in his ways. Great, that's beautiful. So the comments who were submitted were by one councilor and one dealt with climate action. The other dealt with the later item we're going to deal with. She titled it racial equity, but let's look at climate action and what the suggestions made are in bold to the tax that we already have. So I don't know if we can enlarge, and that may be asking too much to enlarge the climate good, but yeah, maybe dip right, it's hard. Good, I can, can everybody read that? I can read that. So what the councilor's suggesting is that under the item number one, implementing community choice aggregation and municipal vulnerability preparedness program slash energy and climate action, community climate action and resilience plan is the suggestion that that be added? So, yeah. I would, it's not going to be the ECAC climate action and resilience plan. You know, what I think a councilor said was that the municipal vulnerability preparedness program over the next year is creating a climate action and resilience plan. Most of it is being done through ECAC. So, you know, I would almost argue, I think my wording would be implementing community choice aggregation and the creation of a climate action and resilience plan. That's good. Yeah. Agree. Good. So if you can toggle back and forth, Mandy, thank you. So based on the suggestion, we would introduce the notion of a climate action plan but not make it specific to ECAC. And are you getting rid of your municipal vulnerability preparedness programs? We could, I did it this way or we could just go like that. I think that's cleaner. And the argument being that this, the municipal vulnerability preparedness program is part of the larger climate action resilience plan. Good. Fair enough. Good. And that's a period. I can't see. It looks like it, oh, it is a comment. Thank you. I can't think about you losing all of that too. I understand. No, it's fine. I can make it out. That's fine, Mandy. Thank you. Then the no change was suggested to two but three and four are new. So we need to look at three and four in this document. I'm going to read them. So I need three ensuring that town committees and staff are aware of the town's climate goals and are working toward incorporating those goals into their work and charge comma and four, ensuring that the FY 21 operating and capital budgets incorporate our ability to meet our climate goals and use life cycle costing to determine impacts of energy use and savings to the overall financial health of our town period. So this is a somewhat lengthier addition to items. Thoughts. Okay, so let me handle them separately real quick. Three is an expansion of what was already three because the three was about educating. And so instead it's adding to education, actually doing something with the education by incorporating, making sure that something is done to incorporate those goals into the work of the committees through their work and their charge. The fourth one is the budget one. And that is something that is new. And I have to react to that initially right now because it's not something that I'd seen or thought about beforehand, I think that it gets into an issue that the budget process is sort of a separate entity unto itself, but also needs to incorporate the goals and how we interlock the goals and the budget process is a difficult issue. But in the end, budget is a subject that the council, the finance committee and the manager have to ultimately grapple with the amount of resources that are available and everything is a matter of competing resources. I see this as an attempt to increase the importance of climate action in the budget to the point where it could be competing with other budget needs. And I'm not sure that this is the point in the process of a development of a budget where that decision ought to be made. And that's what's troubling me. All their thoughts, go ahead, Lynn. Yeah, my thought is two and four are very similar in a sense because two is ensuring that purchasing, construction, hiring, other decisions involve the considerations of climate action to move us towards those climate action goals. If we wanted to add budgeting into that, we could put purchasing, budgeting, purchasing, construction, that, but beyond that, I think I agree with Andy that an overall goal is not a place to be making budgeting decisions per se, but I'd be happy with adding budgeting into number two, but I'm not sure four should be set out separately. George? Yeah, go ahead. I feel that four should not be set out separately. I'm fine with putting budgeting in two, but you could have this same kind of statement at the end of every goal as you have it for. And there's no sense having it. We all have our priorities. We all wanna see the budget spend money on our priority. Now it does mention the term life cycle costing. Is that something that, I don't think the council has talked about this at any length. I think part of the problem is this is not something that the council has really had much of a discussion about is coming from other committees and other groups that are working on this issue and how you incorporate their work into council goals is a challenge we've been facing all along. Is that a phrase that belongs in this document somewhere or is it something that really is appropriate to another body's work and advice to the council eventually? Sounds like the latter as I speak, as I think of what I'm saying. There is a goal this year or a sub goal this year that talks about some kind of system for tracking. My guess is that some of this is kind of picking up on that, and I don't know what the word would be, but if we added into to ensure the tracking, budgeting, purchasing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah for this, I feel like we addressed it, but otherwise this gets way too specific. Okay, so Mandy's making some changes slightly to the item two, basically inserting the word budgeting, purchasing, blah, blah, blah, blah, involve considerations of energy, sustainability, resilience in order to move Amherst forward and towards meetings, climate action goals, and three, educating town, multiple member bodies and staff on climate action goals. Is there any sense of trying to incorporate language that's in item three? In terms of incorporating these goals into their work and charge. Can I also say you could add that to every one of these goals? Every charge should have racial equity, every charge should have social justice, every charge should have health and safety. I, you can't do that. Okay, other thoughts from other members? Yep, Mandy. I would say it's almost stated up here in these, these policy goals should guide decision-making at all levels of government and its provision of core municipal services and used to set priorities, direct work activities and allocate staffing and financial resources. We kind of covered it in the preamble. Yep. I think is it, again, I'm just making sort of the devil's argument here, devil's case advocate. You know, the level of specificity, lifecycle costing seems like an appropriate budgeting tool. Is that correct? For this sort of long range goal and to what degree the council wants the town manager to start pushing for that or incorporating that. I can understand someone wanting to get something a little bit more concrete into this. I also can understand that it's not a discussion that apparently we've had as a council in any great detail. So perhaps doesn't belong here. I think that what Mandy Joe's added where it says determine impacts of energy use gets at the issue of tracking and gets at the issue of lifecycle. I mean, having spent some time on net zero Andy did as well, all kinds of charts and so forth that people see here's how long it will take to pay it off, et cetera. That's determining impacts. Okay, fair enough. Any other comments about either the councilor's suggestions and what we have done to this section called climate action. All right, I'm ready to move on to section two. And this one I think is gonna create a number of challenges for us. First of all, to what degree, well, let's actually look at the councilor's suggestion. Yeah, go ahead. I wonder if we can do all the others first and then come back. Come back, okay. Fair enough. We can finish the other ones. Okay. I don't know why other people agree, but. I'm finding that I feel like the discussion on racial equity and public safety is gonna be the most. Okay. All right. Well, we have about. It's gonna be the longest and therefore I'd like to get the other stuff done so that we can really focus just on that. That was my thinking. Yeah. And Mandy's made the point that I think is a good one that at least in terms of the written comments that we received, namely the one councilor, and in terms of the oral comments we received Monday night, my recollection and certainly her recollection is that really there was almost nothing said, certainly on the management part. So her suggestion was that should be left as it stands and not touched. Now I have a comment about that but I'm gonna save it for a little bit later, but that's, I get the feeling that's a sense of the committee that we are, the council had no problem with it. We looked at it last time. We had no problem. I mean, there's a larger question. I mean, I'll put my question as simply as I can. When Paul reads the management goals section, he just goes through it and reads it. What new is he learning? When he reads the policy goals, he's learning some new stuff or he's going, okay, good, they're saying I should continue to do what I started to do or they're saying I should focus here or focus there. That's news to him in a sense and it certainly gives him a sense of direction. In the second part, as I read it, and again, we're not gonna go through it today and it's maybe for a future time, but as I read it, I feel like most of it, not all of it, but most of it is like Paul's just gonna go, yeah, right? In other words, do your job. And what he's looking for in even, I think even in the second section are specific things we'd like him to do or focus on, areas we'd like him to focus on, whatever, in this particular larger category. And the answer may be right now, he's doing such a great job, we really don't have anything. Or the answer may be if we look at each item, particularly there are some occasionally specific elements mentioned, but anyway, when I read the management part, I feel like most of it is a job description and there's not anything that Paul's learning from this that's going to assist him in carrying out his day-to-day duties because it basically tells him, this is what a good manager should do, so please do it. That's a valuable thing to have, but so that's my comment on management, but I think Mandy's point is well taken unless you disagree, we're gonna leave it and we'll deal with it some other day. Lynn, anybody? Yeah, I just wanna say a goals document is not just for the town manager. It's for other people to understand the goals, it's for the town council to be able to speak to the achievement on the goals. Agreed, yeah. To me, the management section, yeah, I think to Paul, this is a yeah, but to the outside world, it's, oh, that's what his job is. I actually... Good, this document is public facing, that's right. You make a good point then, at this facet, multiple... I'm very sorry that we did not get councilor comments from a particular councilor who I expected them from on economic vitality. Yeah. I think they just, you know, the turnaround was so fast. Agreed, well, they have one more go at us. Mandy, Joe's raised your hand. Mandy, please, go ahead. Yeah, on economic vitality, assuming we're moving to that, the one comment we got was this new growth in downtown and village centers to more, instead of that we hadn't decided on new growth that we decided more on diversity of, you know, so I'm not sure how to reword that, but that was really the one comment we got was just that wording of new growth. And I think we could, you know, affordable housing and diversity and vitality maybe, diversity and vitality in, you know, downtown and village centers, something like that. There's a mark I remember with about strong neighborhoods. Right. And diversity. And I don't see that here at all. So, oh, there it is up there, right? Yeah. The councilor objected to strong neighborhoods. Diverse neighborhoods. Yeah, I would not want to take out new growth personally. That, again, this is the challenge of 13 people, right? Or five people for that matter. But the comment by the councilor was diversity, diverse neighborhoods. Again, you know, what does that mean? But that's, you know... I think if you took out new growth, you might just say, and vital downtown and village centers. And it leaves it broad as to what that means. At this point, frankly, that's fine. At this point, it means, can we get rid of all the vacant storefronts we're gonna have? I guess I have a very different view on that. And I don't want to take out new growth. Yeah, I don't mean... This gets back to what state law is on where we can raise taxes without actually having to go for an override. You get there either the only other way you can raise, that you can increase your local taxation aside from an override is with new growth. And the master plan picks up on that very well and talks about new growth in downtown and village centers as being important because at once that's where the master plan finds that the greatest value is and the greatest balance between what the healthy neighborhoods for people to live in and village centers that will have the economic ability to support what we have. So I think new growth is a key term getting back into both the master plan and state law. I do not want to take it out. Pat? Yeah, I agree with Andy on that. And I also want to somehow in here talk about economic recovery from the impacts of COVID. I'm not sure where it fits in here, but I think that it needs to be addressed. I think it's this highlighted one. Yes, yes, I think it's important. I got to move. Right. Okay. Oh, I missed it. I'm sorry, I apologize. Well, I like the phrase economic recovery. I like the phrase economic recovery. Hard version, so apologize. It's okay. Are people, I mean, economic recovery is that a phrase that people would like to, I mean, I think this is good, what we have, provide all possible support and assistance. That's fine, how it is. Okay. Okay, I like that phrase, Pat, but. By the way, I'm fine with leaving the new growth in. I'm just trying to find a compromise term. No, it might have been that I wrote the new growth section instead of the strong neighborhoods that needed to be changed. So I could. There's a lot going on. I like diverse very much. I think that's an excellent, and strong is meaningless, I agree. But diverse, I mean, I'm thinking 132 Northampton Road. That's a classic example of what I think this stands for. And the council, I think, has clearly shown its support for that. And so that's why this word belongs here. It's a tricky thing because using 132 Northampton Road is a continued example. You didn't, you don't wanna build anything, a 132 Northampton Road or anything else, if you really are concerned that it will cause deterioration for the life quality in the neighborhoods that surround it. So if that's what was meant by strong, then we still have to think about it. Can you repeat that, Andy? I'm sorry. I don't think that we, what we're maybe talking about is you don't want any kind of development to happen that will affect the quality of life for the people living in neighborhoods surrounding. And therefore, is it healthy neighborhoods or whatever? Maybe healthy is better than strong. But I think that that's what it was trying to get at. Well, okay. Manager. I don't agree. The quality of life is a relative term that people in current neighborhoods use to prohibit diversity of income, diversity of businesses from coming near their neighborhood. So I think diverse is the right word. Pat? I agree with that, particularly around 132 Northampton Road and developments like that. We've seen intense opposition by neighbors because they're trying to protect their neighborhood and keep it healthy. But the other thing is that when we're talking about development in neighborhoods, we're talking about bringing the eruptor lab into North Amherst. And I think that's an incredibly positive thing for the town on so many levels. And that too receives opposition based on not in my backyard kind of stuff. I don't wanna see something change. And change is particularly difficult in neighborhoods that have more money. And we've seen consistent opposition to anyone who might be different than that in those neighborhoods. And I just don't wanna promote it. I don't want, so having diverse instead of strong feels very important to me as well. I'm gonna echo the sentiments of Pat and Mandy. I think diverse is the right word here. And I think we can point to it in a number of different contexts. I'm fine. Okay, that's all right. I just, and I think I agree with Andy that new growth needs to stay in for the very reasons that he stated. So I think if we're okay, then the one change we're gonna do is change strong to diverse. The four cap, again, just speak up or just yell out or raise your hand or whatever. But I'm gonna move on to four major capital projects. I don't have any issues with this. Anyone, Andy, please. I was just gonna change the title to Capital Investments because that's how we normally refer to it. Okay, thanks. That's how we were referring to it. So I thought maybe we should be consistent that way. There was one comment from a counselor that said this objective should recognize the changes in COVID that might do this. I think this plan, you know, we're asking to create a plan to address them in some fashion. I think that will automatically have to take into effect into account COVID. So- These capital projects, if they ever see the light of day, are gonna be with us for many, many, many years. COVID, I think it's fair to say, and as difficult as it is right now, will not be with us for many, many years. We will get through this, and we'll come out the other side. So, yeah. Lynn? Yeah, I wanna leave it the way it is. I don't wanna couch it in, you know, trying to estimate now what may or may not be able to get done to be blunt, depending on how the election goes nationally and the continued efforts at the state level. We may see enormous amounts of infrastructure projects that could actually even help us build fire stations and DPWs just to get people work. So, leave it the way it is. Okay, any other thoughts? I see Pat's hand raised, Pat. Yeah, I have been thinking an enormous amount about our constantly labeling four major capital projects. And I feel like the Crocker Farm Feasibility Study and the expansion and what's needed there is an equal capital project. So, and I don't think we can just put that in because it involves the whole council, but leaving that school out of, so for me, there are five major capital investments or projects because what needs to happen at Crocker Farm is really affected by the building elsewhere and the decisions that are going to be made. I don't have a lot more to say about it, but I want us to open up our thinking a little bit about how many capital projects we're really looking at. George, and we have a whole number of counselors who would add streets and roads and blocks. So, I think this point. But those are ongoing. They're not the kind of similar investment projects to the library. And I'm not disagreeing with you, Pat. It's just that this is the way it's been voted. And the reality is that whatever is finally decided on the schools is going to trigger whatever is going to get done at capital at Crocker Farm, it may also trigger some renovations at the middle school. So, we don't have full picture. Okay, okay. And the final item five, if we can move to that quickly, housing affordability, any changes, suggestions, alterations? I didn't hear any at the meeting. I didn't either. I think someday if we ever do, again, this is an aside, but if we ever have this, my dream of a, we called it a retreat once upon a time, but we never had time for it, where we can sit down and just talk about long range goals, including housing. We've never really had this conversation. I have some thoughts on it that are probably outside the norm, but they're not appropriate for here. But I think at the moment, given where we're at, this is a statement I can live with. And I guess the rest of the council can too. Okay, so let's go back up to item two. And do you want to start with title? Do you want to begin with general observations and comments? We certainly had an enormous number of comments from councilors, and we do, maybe we should begin with the written comment that was submitted by the one councilor, which addresses item two, which includes both a suggested title change and also some slight suggested language change. So if we could put that up for a moment and just doing our own due diligence so that we look at what one council took the time to write up for us, then we have lots and lots of oral comments and we'll go to those in a moment. I don't see it, so. Mandy's working on it. Oh, I'm sorry, sorry. All right, it's just good. So the council's suggestion was to change the title. They changed the title to racial equity. And I believe otherwise simply made one, two changes in language to the last sentence. Further, to explore recommended implement policies and procedures across all town departments that will address racial equity and social justice and ensure all community members who treat equally and are safe and amorous. So these are their suggested changes. Title change and then two changes of wording. We don't have to decide on this right this moment, but everyone should at least be aware that these are the suggestions one councilor has made. There were many, many other changes or suggestions made during the meeting. So I'm gonna start with this. I'm gonna start with the title. Lynn? I wanna support having two goals. That there is a community safety goal or whatever else we might call it. And then very much like Mandy Joe was suggesting earlier, there's a goal around racial justice and our social justice and racial equity, however we wanna call it. And it talks about how it permeates across everything we do, just like climate action. So this is what you've written, Mandy Joe. I feel... I'll be the community safety down so we can work on two at the same time. I feel like there's one broad category of racial equity and the decision around the policing and our vote is part of racial equity. Well, I'm seeing them, I'm seeing that being subsumed, but listed clearly in the racial equity goal. And I haven't thought about writing this and then I apologize. But the other piece for me is within a racial equity goal we need to really make a statement about the inclusion of diverse people. I did have it written somewhere about that but I can't find it right now. Just in terms of that, what the work that we're doing for racial equity really has to incorporate significant black, indigenous and people of color in its work. And I'm not sure if our policy is to engage people and to engage the community, the BIPOC community and the white community to create a town that is racially equitable. And I'm gonna ramble here, I'm gonna stop for a few minutes because I'm lost, but somehow we're... Yeah, your thoughts, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, sorry. It's okay. And more work than I've done. I haven't, I'm gonna give some pushback on this. I like, I still have some sympathy for the view of a single category that includes race equity or racial equity as a component rather than singling it out. Now one counselor in oral comments suggested community health, safety and social justice. And then within that, a series of items which would include an item dealing with the issue of racial equity. Now I understand that a number of you feel that it should be a separate goal and in the end that may be the decision that we as a committee come to. But I'd like to give at least a little pushback on that and suggest that it should be part of a larger message to the town manager that we want him to be focused on, first of all, community health. It seems to me, again, maybe this doesn't need to be stated, but we're in the midst of a pandemic and the manager has been very aggressive and proactive. And I don't know necessarily we need to state that he should continue to be so, but it wouldn't seem to me to be inappropriate for us to reinforce first and number one the health of the community and that he should continue to do the kinds of things he's been doing to ensure that the community stay healthy and safe during a pandemic. Now, again, we could separate these out and maybe it doesn't belong. Maybe it's so obvious that we just don't even need to state it, but it seems to me that along with addressing the economic recovery of our businesses, which we do earlier, we also should say something about community health and reinforce, agree that needs reinforcing, our support for all of the town manager has done and will continue to do to ensure that the community stay healthy. Then secondly, would be community safety, which broadly speaking could be what we have here in terms of the council's agreement to its vote to explore alternate ways of doing policing. That seems clearly that stays, whether it's a separate goal or part of a larger goal. And then the idea of social justice, which is a broader category, which certainly includes racial equity. So I personally prefer a kind of broader category that breaks out some specific items that we, the council have either voted on or apparently come to some or have in fact come to some consensus on. So that's just my case for what one councilor suggested, titling it, community health, how did I put it again? Community health, safety and social justice. Now, if we were to divide them into two, you could have community health and safety and then you could have racial equity. So again, I mean, I can live with that, but I have some, right, enough. So my husband's mowing the lawn. So I sometimes have been on mute when he got really close. I could see taking goal to community health and safety and adding in something with regard to essentially public health of the community in crisis. But I also feel, again, separately, there's the racial equity goal. And George, I agree with you. I mean, a lot of what we've been talking about with issues like masks and should we expand the mask areas and should we reduce the numbers in gatherings and so forth, that's really all about community health. And then what Mandy Joe's been doing down below is just try to give us a goal that we can still drive through as we figure out, I mean, maybe it's involving BIPOC residents in committees or I don't know, again, I'm foreshadowing what I think, where I think we may end up, where I'm hearing some parts of the community are already there and yet the council has not voted. And maybe we won't ever vote per se. We may just appoint somebody to a committee Paul creates. That's got to end up wrong. Andy, what's next, I think? Andy, go ahead, please. I'm sorry. Yeah. I think this was makes this particularly difficult to figure out is that the council did take very specific vote on July 27th. And so we wanted to include that in the goals for this year to make sure that it's evident to Paul and evident to the entire community that it wasn't just a way of disposing of an issue having to do with the budget, but was a real vote that we wanted to see happen. And the rest of, and so this is a very specific and immediate FY21 goal, where some of these other things are goals that probably aren't going to go away after FY21 because it's, they're underlying important values that we hope will be incorporated in an annual basis. I think that's where I'm struggling a little bit on how to deal with this. Well, Andy, would you be open to having a separate goal distinct from what right now looks like community health and safety, or maybe just community safety? I'd like to have something about health in there and that would be a whole new sentence or phrase and maybe that's just not appropriate, but there seems to be some sense that we should have separate goals. One deals with community health slash safety and the other deals with racial equity slash social justice. And it could be titled just racial equity. It could be titled racial equity and social justice. Are you open to having two separate goals or would you like to have one single goal? Or do you have a, maybe you don't have a view at all on that, so that's fine. I haven't, you know, I think I will reserve in the answer to that until we see how this flows. Andy, Joe, I suggested you might create a page break above two so that we can see it all in one page. Okay, I'm, go ahead. I'm sitting here and thinking about categories and I hear what you're saying about public health and community health, George. I'm not ready to go there but I am ready to have us think about racial equity and social justice as a category and still within that have the policing decision that we made. I think that we're, the reason I'm saying racial, I'm sorry. It's all right. Hang on, I'm just turning it off. The reason I'm saying that is because racial equity is something that includes reparations. It includes an enormous amount of things for us to think about. And I'm not sure yet how to put all that in to this. Social justice also involves me as a queer lady. How am I gonna be protected and stuff and those two categories overlap. I feel like community safety and health are embedded, it can be embedded in those in the combined category. So that's kind of what I'm thinking right now, which is. Okay. Mandy, this language that you are creating here, this comes from where? Under racial equity. Number one and two right now are modified from the resolution we adopted in the aftermath of the death of Mr. George Floyd from the whereas clauses in there. So that's what I like. What I like is that this is tying into a counselor action. Right, I agree, I agree. And it's specific to the issue of race. Yeah. And that's fair enough. I'm struggling with this as indicated in the, because we didn't indicate when you read the resolution, it's just we stand in solidarity sort of. So I don't know how to incorporate it, but I think we should mention the resolution. It's really good. The dress racial equity and social justice could have as expressed or as referenced, I don't know. Why not just consistent with? The town council resolution. Yeah. In the aftermath of the death of Mr. George Floyd adopted on June 1. And then through ensuring all community members feel and are part of Amherst and feel up protected, listened to and served by the public servants, fostering a community of free of fear, intimidation for islands, a community in which people are targeted or hurt unnecessarily by law enforcement. Again, I personally have trouble with two because I, you know, but that's just me. And maybe that's because I'm, you know, just they're blind, but the language is very specific and suggests that we have a history of, you know, and again, maybe this is just my limited vision, but I do have difficulty with two. I don't have difficulty with one and I have no difficulty with three. I don't know what others feel. I know some people feel that too is true of Amherst. I don't actually agree. But I could, you know, I maybe have more listening to do, maybe, but that's part of this process, but I have trouble with two. George. Yep. And Andy, Pat. Well, Andy was up before me, so. All right, so Andy goes first. So do I take more of my hand. Okay, Andy's hand is down. So, Mandy. Pat can go before me. All right, Pat, please. I hear what you're saying about that violence isn't, overt violence, aggression isn't happening in our community. Microaggressions happen in our community all the time, but when we speak about fostering a community free of fear, intimidation and violence, we're talking about what can we create between the BIPAC community, the white community and the police community that allows them to all see each other as full human beings. So to me, it's not pointing my finger at the town of Amherst and going, you bad, bad, bad police department. It's going, how can we create a collaborative, safe community? Historically, people of color have been attacked by the police. And it doesn't, it gets into in a certain kind of way into your DNA. It gets, that kind of trauma gets passed on. We heard Georgia Malcolm talk about her son being afraid to get out of the car, to talk to two police officers, to ask for help. When she got there, she went over to the police officers and spoke to them and they came out, and everything was fine. And she felt like they understood what was happening. So she was saying, good, that they were there. Now I've got to show my son that Amherst police aren't gonna attack him. Pat, I agree with you 100%, I agree with you 100%. And we don't see the positive or the flip side of this statement. So. I just feel that that second clause, a community in which people are not targeted or hurt unnecessarily by law enforcement, is not simply a neutral statement. It seems to imply pretty clearly that this is a community where people are targeted and unnecessarily hurt by law enforcement. And so that's where I have a problem with that particular statement. Not with anything that you just said, I don't have a problem with it at all. And I think you and I agree very much in the desire to create more dialogue and to listen 100% with you. But I really have a problem with that phrase. I just need to hear from others. Maybe you don't, I mean, this is a committee. It's just, that's my personal opinion. And I just need to hear from others. Do they want to leave it in? Do they want to take it out? Do they want to rephrase it? Men. This week ends it, but you could say continue to foster a community. No, I think we need to take fostering a community. So I'm leaning towards taking the highlighted phrase out, not because I have a problem with hurt unnecessarily by law enforcement, but it doesn't encompass everything. We have heard and what happens is people, residents are targeted by clerks, by business owners, by others. It's not just, and then that snowballs into law enforcement being called, not because law enforcement at that point is racially biased in its patrols, say, but they receive a call from someone who acted in a racially biased manner. And so this phrase to me actually doesn't encompass the whole issue in town by only mentioning law enforcement. And I'm not sure we could expand it to encompass the whole issue, but we clearly have a community that a number of residents live in fear and intimidation and this violence and this bias. And it's sometimes put on them by law enforcement, but sometimes it's put on them by other members of the community. So we have to foster the full community. And so I think that's the reason I'm leaning towards taking out the highlighted phrase, just leaving it with fostering a community free of fear, intimidation and violence. I agree with that. Yeah, I did too. I agree. And actually when you think about what happened to George Floyd, that a shop owner who called the police on what was a questionable reason to make that call to begin with that led to the whole incident. And I think that that's what we may be particularly concerned about is that people in the community at large, including people in business need to take responsibilities also for assuring that we're a community that's free of fear, intimidation and violence. And that applies. We were talking about 132 Northampton Road. That comment fostering a community free of fear, intimidation and violence certainly applies to everything we heard regarding 132 Northampton Road and the concerns around that, fear of others. Right, right, right. Can I? Yeah, go ahead, Pat. About section three of this, it says involving BIPAC residents end in. I was wondering what. This is the one, Pat, you had started talking about in your free form flowing thoughts. The need to ensure that in this decision makings in these recommendations, in all of this, we need people at the table. And I. Significant. Black. I don't know how to word it. A little color and it's in advising. And it can say significant BIPAC residents because that's what BIPAC stands for. In all aspects of decision making, I'm not sure that that doesn't quite work for me. In helping shape policies and procedures. I know there's, to explore, recommend and implement policies and procedures. So essentially what we're looking for is input, involvement of the BIPAC community in helping the town manager and ultimately the council or just the council in shaping policies and procedures that address racial equity and social justice. So we're really looking for their involvement. And we're encouraging the town manager to do everything he can to seek significant involvement of BIPAC residents. And you might say in shaping these, Paul, I don't know. Shaping town policies and procedures or. Well, it's referring back to the first sentence or the first clause. So you could just say these policies and procedures, maybe that's too ambiguous. But essentially trying to connect the first sentence or the first clause with the involvement of the BIPAC community. Okay, so what I'm seeing here is a, again, speak up if you have concerns, reservations. What was my phrase last? Anyway, ambivalences. But what I'm hearing is a desire to create a separate category. Currently the category is titled Racial Equity and Social Justice. And this is the wording that we have at the moment which I think reflects some of the comments that we heard, many of the comments we heard at the council meeting. Are we missing anything that people heard? I mean, I have extensive comments. Myself notes, but is there anything that people see that is missing from this statement at least related to the question of racial equity and social justice from what people said? I just wanna be on the record that we heard that there should be a commission, but that was based on one group's request. And there's been no action yet to create that. So what I'm hoping that this goal includes is all of those options. Create a commission to do training to all of the things that people have talked about. It's supportive of all of that. I felt that a counselor had a good comment that we shouldn't lead with a solution. We should allow for the process. And I think also another counselor actually was present here today was stressing the importance of a process that we are encouraging the town manager to develop and pursue a process that will then eventually result, we hope in an outcome that will come back to us for further action, but we shouldn't be dictating the outcome of the process at this stage. That's what I heard from a number of counselors and I obviously personally agree with this one repeating it, but I'm not sure everyone agrees with that, but that would be, I think a reason not to have something as that specific at this point. Right, okay. I have another kind of bugly question. We've been using alphabetical order and now I'm feeling kind of weird about where racial equity and social justice is being placed. And I'm wondering in turn, I know I'm sorry. Welcome to the club, Pat. I'm just, but also in terms of community safety, they're so combined for me, but and that's fine. I don't need them to be combined here, but I'm just wondering about how, I don't know, so I'm having a little trouble with alphabetizing right now. Well, so right now I put it here so that we could look at the two together. That's all I understand. On the alphabetizing, I would actually move it down to the end if we're alphabetizing. Right, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm on, you know. Okay. But that's, you know, I just don't see how we're gonna do it. Out there, I'm not saying that we have to change, but it's making me uncomfortable. We still have the issue of, if we go back for a moment, let's leave what is now numbered as Roman numeral four and go up to Roman numeral, what is it? Oops. I keep rubbing my screen. We don't have a two right now for some weird. So community safety. I'm not sure why. Now, if you look at this, first of all, Abby's Pat has some thoughts that maybe this should be incorporated under racial equity and social justice. And that may be what we decide to do. But when you look at it, it deals with, okay. Keep changing. It deals with mental health, homelessness, right? It deals with a number of areas that really about community health and safety. And so I think it isn't just police in the sense of their interactions with say the BIPOC community, it's the police and interactions with a whole range of people in our community that might be better served, might be better served by other interventions. And I think the council is very open to exploring that. And we've made that commitment very clear and it's stated very clearly. I kind of like it under a category such as community health and safety. Or just community, yeah. I can't really support that, George. Yeah, me too. So I would put in health and this certainly fits that bill. And we could just leave it like this and we can then adjourn because we are now past our normal time and I think we also, but do you feel that we need to say anything about the larger public health issue that this community faces? And should that be here as a separate clause or should we just leave it? I mean, I imagine historians coming back assuming that they do and looking at some of these documents and saying, well, this is the year in which they face this incredible worldwide pandemic. And there's nothing in here that actually says anything to the town manager about continuing to attend to the health of the community. Now, maybe you all feel that's just so obvious it doesn't need to be stated. Now, I actually agree with you, George and I agree with you on the following issues. If you look at our town council meetings where we've spent our time, if you look at Paul and where he has been spending his time trying to get UMass to behave right, et cetera. I think it has to be in here. What it says I haven't come up with but I think it has to be in here. Well, I think Mandy's, we could leave it to Mandy. I mean, what I have at the moment is something like during the pandemic or during this period of, I don't know, during this pandemic period continue to take all steps necessary to ensure the health of the community. Now, it's a very broad and sort of, you know, the statement, but it simply makes the statement that we support and encourage the manager to continue to do what he's doing. Now, Mandy perhaps could find a better way and a more emphatic way of saying that and we could rely on her to do that for the final draft. But I would suggest under community health and safety, there are basically two items. The first deals with the larger threat to the community health that the, as Lynn just pointed out, the town manager's doing an excellent job and we want him to continue to do that. And secondly, the one related to public safety and to the council's vote of 27, 27, Andy. Just as an observation, we haven't done it, but there's no reason that you can't have two objectives under one category. Exactly, no, right. That's what I'm suggesting. Actually, we want him to- No, it could be written as objective and then the second objective, getting back to the July 27 vote. The other thing I was just going to remind you before we adjourn is that we haven't done anything to see if there's any public comment to the office. Yes, I agree, thank you. Can I- We do have two attendees, so we will come to that in a moment, yes, please. There are two attendees, and yes, there are two attendees. I just have a couple of questions. Yep. The first is, I just added this sentence in for community health and safety, but I really need to know what we're doing with the alphabetizing. Sorry. I think we have no choice. I don't think we have a choice. I don't see how we can resolve this because we're all going to have different views about what's first, what's second, what's third. That's fine. I just don't see it. I mean, unless you want to get all 13 of us here and have us have a straw poll, I think we're just going to have to leave it the way it is. These are the five or however many we have six core objectives and they're not ranked. They're simply stated as these are the six, I believe it's now six areas that we want the town manager to focus on and they don't reflect any priority within the priorities. These are the main things to do. And they're an alphabetical order because that's the simplest way we can do it. It's fine. It's fine. Is that okay? Are people happy with having two objectives under community health and safety? Are they happy with that title? I'm fine. Anyone else any thoughts on that? Mandy Jo. No, oh, sorry. That's all right. Okay. So, and I would number them, Mandy. So one would be continue to take all steps necessary to ensure the health of the community in the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic and then just continue right on. Two, further and according to the council's vote, explore options, providing services, that's what I would suggest as Andy pointed out. I think that makes sense. And we do have that. If you look at climate action, we have the same thing. We have three. Right? In every other one, it's just one sentence that has some some things. We could make it two separate paragraphs. Whatever you work, yeah. I prefer it not, but whatever works, Mandy is fine. I have one. Yeah, Lynn. In sentence and then have it be one and two under that. You're fine. Say that again, Lynn. Have a lead in sentence, a lead in paragraph like you do with all the others. Right. Right, Mandy could construct to ensure the health and safety of the community, right? Of all members of the community? Of all members of the community, I like that. All the residents of Amherst by one, continuing to take all steps necessary. Good, I think, if only for the historians of the future. We're all gonna, it's all gonna be gone, George, don't even think about it. No, no, no, no. I'm a very optimistic, deep down optimistic. Can we ask for public comment? Yes, we can. Why don't we do that? Are people willing with that? We're gonna run over. I'm sorry, I don't know what else to do, but we do need to go to public comment. We'll deal with minutes some other day and I do have one or two things quickly. I want to say about future agendas, but so at this point, we're going to open it up to public comment. We have two members of the public present and so we have both, we have the council president, Andy, who's quite talented at doing this. I'm a rookie, but if you wish to speak to the committee, please signify by raising your hand. And I'll give you a moment in case there's a problem with the technology because from our experience, there has been. And I just want to emphasize that if you would like to send us written public comment, please do so. Okay, that's another option. I see no hands raised at this point. So I'm going to go back to the agenda. And as Lynn just said, if you wish you may also send us written public comments. All right, so I'm going to leave minutes for another meeting, if that's all right. And I just want to mention briefly that the wild animal bylaw did come back from KP law with a similar- Faster than wage theft. Oh, and with a similar in-depth and detailed commentary, which essentially said, and I quote, it's fine. So you can take that for whatever you wish, but we got nothing in any concrete detail. They said it's fine. So we are ready to proceed with that given the legal review that it's just undergone. It's undergone legal review, I got it back. And so I'm prepared to put that on the agenda for next time. On the agenda for next time is clearly the most important item at the moment at least is our discussion with KP law. And it's the job of your chair to communicate that to Paul and to ensure that at least the KP law individual be present at that meeting and be invited. And who is going to reach out to Laura Clausen? I could do that, but there might be, is there someone who could do that in my stead or would you like me to do that? I can do that. Yeah, and I will double back to you, Pat, but if you could reach out to her and say, okay, here's where we're now at. And would you please one more time if you're willing to come and- And we're talking about the second- What is the date? Yeah, it isn't the second, is that correct? It's on the agenda. If somebody has the agenda in front of them, the next meeting date is on there. I also want to point out that we may hopefully get the goals passed at the next council meeting, but there's more comment. It could come back to us, yeah. So with the goals, Mandy is going to produce yet one more version of this and hopefully it's probably pretty much hopefully done. And then that will be presented to the council at the next meeting for their final, hopefully final comments. Maybe we can do some work. If it has to be done, maybe it can be done at the meeting. If not, it'll come back to us. The other thought was whether we, and maybe we'll think about this for the future, we want to set as an agenda item, the beginnings of a discussion for GOL in terms of for the future. This whole process of town manager evaluation and so forth, I think is, we certainly can't do it at the next meeting. I don't think we're gonna have any work at the time, but soon I would like to put that on the agenda for us to begin that process. Because I think one gift we could give to our successors, whoever they may be, would be a, through the council's approval, would be a more streamlined and more thought through process. And so that's something I'd like to put on an agenda soon and hopefully word it over more clearly. Okay. Anything else? So while animal act will be up on the agenda, main issue will be keeping law in right. Lynn, you had mentioned at one point, a desire for us to review chair duties, the duties of a chair. I'm not ready yet to put that on the agenda, but that's something you'd still like us to put on the agenda at some point. I think, yeah. I think it's around rules or procedure. Yeah, exactly. ROP, okay. Not urgent, but you would still like that to be considered at some point. Okay. Anything else for future agendas? All right. I have no business in the last 48 hours. I've just been trying to enjoy myself. Real quick on future agendas, I just wanted to confirm because I wasn't on the committee, maybe at the time, but I has this committee determined that the percent for art proposed by law is clear, consistent and actionable. We have. Okay. So, but, and Mandy, you usually know this far better than anyone. Where is that at the moment? It's sitting waiting to come forward to the council. Okay. Okay. I'm just delaying it because it didn't seem pressing, but we'll figure it out. We have been meeting on agenda setting at two o'clock. I have nothing more. I don't see any hands raised. I don't see any, I see faces of people who'd like to go about the rest of their day. So, thank you all very much. I'm going to call this meeting of GOL to its conclusion. We adjourned at unfortunately 12.47. 12.48, 5.48. Okay. The rest of your day, George. I'm going to try. I'm going to really try. I'm really going to try. Andy, be good. Linda, thank you all. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.