 Do you want to start looking at the list and letting folks in that you. Yeah. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the district one, the very first of this new year Michelle's first and my first in the way we're going to do it today. This is the district one meeting. And we apologize we was a little bit of delay as we got the snafus out. I'm going to ask everyone who I see as an attendee, if you would like to be brought in to be part of the panel, you know, so in other words, you would get to see each other. And if you would like to, if you can raise your hand. Michelle and I will bring you in rather than having you out in the public. And I'm going to bring in everyone that I see that I know. And what I'm seeing right now is of the hands that have gone up. I know everybody. So we're basically going to bring in everyone unless you don't want to be brought in. And this will enable you. We have a, as you saw the posted agenda, we're hoping that we have plenty of time for discussion for ideas from you. And I see two people did not raise their hand. If you don't want to, and you want to participate up. Now I see another hand up. And one more person who I know, and she hasn't raised her hand. So I'll let her decide, but Michelle, do you want to go ahead and start bringing people in? Yeah, just to clarify, do we promote them to panelists or allow to talk? If you promote them to panelists, they will be here where we can see each other. And it's not just a temporary allowed to talk. Excellent. Okay. So we're going to do that. So right now there are 10 people. And so Michelle is bringing you each in. And, you know, the protection, the town is set up. So I'll explain on this, the way they've done the zoom webinars is to stop for, stop the chance of zoom bombing. So both Michelle and I have a zoom account and we're considering whether we'll just run it on ours. And then we might have people registered in advance just so we know when we're bringing people in. But we're going to bring everyone in who said they wanted to be brought in, which as far as I can see is everyone. So I'll just wait a few minutes till people come in. And I know just in past district one meetings, when we've done them on zoom, there's been a request that we do this, but so people know who else is there. And so what I'm going to ask you to do is we have some initial remarks we want to make. And I'll show the agenda up on the screen. And then after some initial remarks, we want to turn it into a broader discussion. So when I, um, yeah, I'm just, everyone's coming in. So I'll keep chit chatting along Michelle as we maybe just announce again for some new folks that just joined to raise their hand if they would in fact like to be brought in. Okay. So we're, we're trying to do this in a new way on zoom. If you would like to be brought in so you can see each other know who you're here, just raise your hand. And, and Michelle is promoting you and that will, I request that you keep your mics on mute and then do the hand raise when you want to talk. But this will enable everyone. So I'm seeing there's three more people one just joined one, one clearly would rather be in the audience, which is fine. You do not have to come in. If you, okay. So. We're just going to hold this, just like the call is raising his hand. So if, if you would rather stay out in the public, you can raise a hand at any time and we will allow you to talk and participate. So you won't be excluded. Okay. Let's see. Cloud is. What's happening here? Okay. That should have worked. If you would like to be brought into the room, please raise your hand, as Kathy said, and we will gladly bring you in. And you don't, you don't have to do it right now. Okay, Lisa is raising her hand. You know, you don't have to do it right now if later on you want to talk, just raise your hand this just, this was a request so we're going to try it out and we have a manageable number of people. While I'm chatting away, I'm going to try to share my screen just to remind you what we're doing today from the beginning. So I'm hoping everyone can see, see my screen. This is the agenda that we posted for the meeting. And as you're hearing, I'm Kathy Shane for anyone who I haven't met, and Michelle Miller is my co counselor delight, delighted to have her at her fist, first district one meeting as a counselor. And I put up on the screen, the committees that we're currently on and we're not going to say much about the committee work specifically today. And I can share this list later for any of you who are interested in it but throughout the year because we're on these committees will be able to alert you to upcoming events that are coming on or to the extent you want to request a presentation, we will. I'm just, I'm just going to leave that list up there I'm on the elementary school building committee I'm the chair of that I'm on finance, and I'm on joint capital planning committee. Michelle is on finance with me, and I see that Andy Steinberg whose chair of finance has joined us he's from, he's our outlarge console. I'm on governance organization and legislation, which basically reviews our bylaw make sure we're doing things well does proclamations, and she is Michelle you still chair or co chair of the African heritage reparation assembly. Yes, I am chair of GL and the African heritage reparation assembly. The agenda is, as you see it here and I'm going to take the screen back down so the first thing we're going to talk about is some upcoming events and dates, and try to be pretty efficient on this with me. Coming second and talking about the elementary school building committee what it is and where we're going. And the two of us will do a really short report on some work we've started doing at the request of some residents in district one, talking about off campus student housing and some issues related to that. Then we're moving to a totally open discussion where we hope that you will suggest ideas for future agendas bring up any issues now. And finally, whether how often you'd like to have these meetings. So that, that is what we're going to do today, and we're promised that we will end sharply at five up on the screen, and it was in the zoom invites as well. So our emails, our town emails and our phone numbers and both of us are totally willing and encourage you to contact us, even if it's small or large, including agenda items but we would we would like to be accessible. So Michelle before I take the stand do you want to say anything about my brief. This is what we're doing today. Hello, just welcome to everyone and thank you for coming on the Sunday afternoon and it's nice to see you all I'm glad we're able to bring folks in. And just one more reminder if you're in the attendees. There are some new folks who joined. If you would like to come in and be in the meeting just go ahead and raise your hand and we'll bring you in. I also see that Claude has a hand up so I just want to check to make sure there aren't any technical issues or Claude would, would you like to say something. I think maybe his hand. There's a, there's a lower hand button if you look down at the bottom so if your hand was up to come into the room then can lower it. So two participants still have their hand up Michelle. I just moved Mary and I only see Mary. Is there another participant with a hand up here that you see that wants to come in. No I only see Mary, no one else has raised your hand so that. So again, if you're, if you're joining late. If you would like to be one of the faces on the screen and you can always hide your video. We can bring you in if you would like at any time if you want to join the discussion just raise your hand and we'll promote you to be able to talk. So the one other thing about our using the town zoom that we just discovered when we talked about it this morning is we don't have a chat room. So if we, I think if we use our personal zooms will be able to have that so as we go through we may have to just give you information verbally we won't be able to put it into a chat, but we'd be happy to, if you want us to send it back out to you later, we can. We'll come off with you, Michelle. Yeah, we're going to start with some, some upcoming events and dates in the next four to five weeks here before we'll meet again. So on and just to preface this. Matthew will talk about the school building project separately after I finish with these other dates in terms of dates there. So February 1 at 6pm black history month flag raising is happening on the front steps of the town hall and everyone is welcome to join. On February 12, we will be having a council retreat, and this will be open to the public. It's a special meeting so there will be no public comment per se. However, if you have anything you would like to share will be working on our priorities during that meeting, please do feel free to email Kathy and myself, and, and we'll make sure to read those. So email the full council there's a link on the town council website that you can email the full town council. And I'd like to say in terms of the African heritage reparation assembly, we meet every other Thursday at 630 of course that's open to the public, I encourage you to come and check it out and our meeting in right now we're going to be meeting next this coming Thursday, February 3 at 630. So that's all I have right now for announcements and I'll hand it over to you Kathy unless Michelle I'm thinking that you might. I think most people know what the African heritage is but you might want to say what you're, what you're doing right now for, to extent they want to come to the meeting so. Yeah, so the African heritage reparation assembly is a committee that has been set up to study and make recommendations to the town council with respect to reparations for African heritage residents and Amherst, and I am the chair of that committee. So right now we're working on a phase one of a three phased process and it will mostly entail community engagement and education. So this is where we'll really hope to engage with individual residents with some of our anchor institutions and organizations. We're going to speak in some education throughout the community. And I really encourage you, whether you have a strong interest or no interest to please come to our website take a look at our resources. On March 7, I will be presenting at the town council meeting and starting that educational process for our for my fellow counselors. So, I think that's it. Yep, that's great. And we're just going to go through these pretty quickly so we can then open it up and I'm going to share my screen again for the. Let me just make sure. Can everyone see my screen. All right. I'm chair of the elementary school building project and you might have seen there was an article this past week, both in the Gazette and the, and the Amherst bulletin outlining the target dates that are coming up. What you're about is talking about a new or remodeled renovated and expanded elementary school. There's been no decision about which site it will go on yet this is either wall at wall, Wildwood or Fort River upcoming, you can hear more about this at a community forum that's coming up on February 3, and these are wide open to the community. I've also put the project website where any event that's coming up is up on the website and frequently asked questions and answers are finally up, we were being asked. We asked questions there were no questions and there were no answers but we did manage to get questions and answers up, but I'm, I'm the chair of this and I'd be happy to hear from anyone. The third educational visioning workshop is coming up in two weeks and what this is doing is hearing from both staff who work at the school's teachers and there've been several separate meetings with the teaching staff to what's the education is it relates to the building, you know, at the building design what do we want to see happening inside so not everything we do with education affects the building, but we have to have an education program to go to the next step for the granting which is the Massachusetts School Building Authority which will, if we'll, if we go through the whole process will be financing a substantial share of the total cost. There has to be an education program submitted to that. And right now our target date is March, and that preliminary design program will just have a range of options no decisions. It'll say we could do this we could do that and it'll lay them out with some preliminary cost estimates, then between March and June we have to go from many options down to one, and we have to make a decision, and the we is the town of and so it's the committee, but there'll be a lot of work done between these with many more community forums so that people can track this as we go along, we're going to be hopefully taking some staff and teachers out to visit some schools that have been the visit built recently. So people can see elementary schools as they're being built for the next century not just the last century. So this will be the first building in Amherst, that's a public building that will have to be built to comply with our net zero bylaw which is the school will be all electric and we'll use renewables to for its energy sources so that is going to be part of the design and will be also part of the cost. So again we got moved from the preliminary design program which is lots of options to an option. Then after we select an option that's when the actual school gets designed, this is still at an early stage in June, and at that point we're saying, what does it look like, and we have to come up with a concrete cost estimate, and our target is the end of this year. This is a pretty rapid schedule. So I'm going to take this down, but I'd be happy to send this out to anyone who wants this chart, the to the community forum on February 3 will explain more about what this first phase is, and the design that is our design team on this is going to be doing breakout rooms so you can have small group discussions and questions. So I think if there aren't any questions I'm going to take my screen down, Michelle, and we move forward. Sounds great. I just want to say just one more thing that as this moves. If it's a high interest, I think we're going to be going out to the districts. So this won't be the first time you hear about the school project. We'll bring this back out to the district, because we really want all districts. I'm hoping to go be a guest speaker at other districts because we really would like people not to say four months from now I didn't know what was happening when could I have participated we're working really hard to make sure people can participate. Hilda has a hand up. I forget, because there's so many details that you guys have to follow. Has the state committed itself to a specific budget specific some. But what happens Hilda is, we go through this initial where we've got lots of options, then we get to preferred, and then we actually do a enough of a design of a building we can come up with a cost estimate. That's when the state says what their share will be. And it depends on, it depends on whether we've done all new building whether it's a renovation you get points. The building gets more space for special needs populations, you know they realize that that takes more space so there's no advanced commitment to it, they wait to see what we've come up with, and you get bonus points if you have some things in your design. So no, there, there is no, there's no commitment at the beginning. Yeah, that sounds good given the inflation of the moment. I don't see any other hands here. So, the next item on our agenda before we open up to a discussion here is just to give you a little bit of an update about some work that we're doing as Kathy said, with neighbors with respect to student residents in Amherst. Last fall, a group of neighbors met with town officials and reps from the public safety Amherst public safety to discuss ongoing concerns they were having with a fraternity on North Pleasant Street and two houses south of Old Town Road. And this initial organizing meeting led to a neighborhood group organizing. And we have I think one of our participants here Becky Miller is part of that group. And so, Kathy and I are working with that group to listen and and learn about the concerns and I think Kathy's going to talk a little bit more now about what the next steps for that maybe. And I just want to say this was a neighborhood that basically raised their hand said we need help because of an incident that had happened in one of the members houses, but Sarah and I met a couple years ago with how people on Harris street and and around that neighborhood with concerns. Part of it was, what rights do we have as people who live here who do we call when this happens. How do we get a better relationship. So I think what's starting to come out is this is around town and other districts it's a concern it's a district one concern. And several counselors are looking at or starting to think about let's look at our current permanent permitting laws let's look at our the way we do inspections now around health and safety. And so we're we're gathering information and ideas from people on do we need something stronger on the books than we currently have. So, right. I think most people know you can, you can call the police that there's a party going on at late at night, you can, I mean, oh Nancy sardin some was readily saying their large parties, no one has mass on isn't anyone enforcing what people can call. And what started this latest group of meeting was in the middle of the night someone looking for a party was in their house. I'm asking for directions to the party, you know so it was a, you know, couldn't find it. And they said well it's not here we're asleep but and you know a high level of alarm. And we've heard from a couple other neighborhoods. And I think this is just a beginning where we're trying to also let other groups. No, Jennifer top and district near to campus has been active with multiple neighbors there around these issues, and we've had town staff we just had a town staff person come out and talk to us on how do you do inspections who do you call. What can you do, and we're trying to also think of ways of getting you mass to do stronger enforcement. So I think this is more of an announcement then a discussion right now but this would be a topic if people want to engage in it more we could make it a district topic and bring more information to you later. Michelle, do you think that's a good summary of where we are. Thank you. I'll just I'll add in addition to the some of the policy work that we're looking at. We're also looking potentially to formalize an informal counselor lays on to the campus and community coalition group, which is made up of different high level administrators and other stakeholders. And so I think that if we do move forward with formalizing that that will also be helpful in dealing with some of these issues but other than that I think you covered it Kathy. This is this is more than in the tone of an announcement of an emerging set of issues that we're working on and I didn't invite I sent out some last minute invitations. There were 15 people at the that earlier meeting that Sarah and I had so one of the things we thought is we would link people up with each other so that they would know not everyone's in there. Others are working on this or interested in whatever people come up with, and there's, there's a whole group over in Grantwood and grist district to that has been quite active working with a community liaison police officers so this is pockets of town around town and moving south as houses convert from being single family houses to student houses. So, yes, yeah. I think there's also a carrot side of the stick carrot stick that there are a lot of students in our neighborhoods who are fantastic, and also don't like those parties, and we could do a better job of bringing them into these conversations and inviting them to our backyard parties and knowing what these parties are and things like that. As a way of creating allies in this challenge that we've been that this part of living here. I don't think it's going to go away but we've, we've made allies enough of the many many students who we see out on the trails and running and skiing and skating on the streets so who don't like this behavior any more than we do. And you know one of the things that the bill there are many who's going out to communities is he's he starts introducing people to each other Meg too so when you, you know your neighbors, you, you're more likely to treat them as neighbors and be part of a part you know there's a carrot side of familiarity and, you know, the houses turn over you have to do it each year, you know go ahead and introduce yourself but the Harris neighborhood when I went back and knocked on doors to say how it was going for this last election, they said much better, you know that they, you know, what you were just saying we have, we have really good houses right now very respectful of the rest of us, at least, you know, as of October. So, a lot of them are trying to be grown ups. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a really great recommendation Meg just to sort of capture the folks and the students that are that are in the same boat with us and hoping to keep the neighborhood safe and. So, I just want to make one more announcement to some folks who just entered. If you would like to be brought into the room please raise your hand. I would also like to recognize rep Mindy Dom who I'm going to bring in right now as being here. Let's see here. Great. Thanks Michelle. Thanks Mindy. Thanks for being here. Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for including making this an inclusive meeting so that I can drop in I'm sorry I was late. Well, well thank you for everything you do for us and including show up on a Sunday afternoon to district meeting. Thank you. So I think he'll that has a question. Oh, he'll he'll tell you that you're missing the biggest part of the student problem. It's not a student problem. It's not a UMass problem. It's a management problem. And I know this situation pretty well I haven't had problems and 45 years or more. I don't understand tenants know what the expectations are. You have to get contact with all of these newbies who decided a good way to invest their money is on Amherst housing. And they're the ones that need to be educated, and they're the ones that need to crack down on their tenants, make the expectations very clear. Before you get anywhere and he is showing an apartment signing a lease talk on on the phone, you tell them that cockroaches famous favorite food is beer, you can't leave empty beer kids I tell them that. And they weed themselves out. If they don't want to live my my rules they don't live in my apartment. They, they choose to go somewhere else where the landlord don't care. So I mean that's the population you guys need to look at there are so many new people. And I know this from being assessor I know this from being on the zoning board, people management that they don't know what they're doing. They think they can just collect a rent and ignore the tenant it don't work. So, you need to look at that population, they we had an organization two years ago, but they've been very quiet. They haven't done anything about it lately, but, but those are the people you need to reach out to first, don't blame the kids. What they do what they get away with. They don't know it's a problem they're not told it's a problem, and they don't know what they're going to take it seriously. So that's the end of my lecture. Thank you. I see another hand Lisa. You were unmuted, but I think you muted yourself. I'm sorry about that. I just want to say it's both the students and some absentee or irresponsible landlords being a landlord myself. You know I only have so much control over my tenants, and there's not always the enforcement not that I've had the problems but I don't think that the behavior of some of the tenants should always be put on the landlord. I am seeing plenty of situations as I'm screening perspective tenants that are coming from properties that are not properly managed not registered. You know looking at property cards that for unregistered properties where it's under a trust, and it's saying owner occupied and the tenants are paying rent to somebody in New Jersey they don't even know the last name of. My feeling is that there needs to be enforcement of the policies we have with the property owners that are not properly managing their property. At the same point. I feel like, you know, there does need to be help managing the younger population everywhere. Thank you. Thank you Lisa and you know the pandemic has really brought this whole other layered things. And so, yeah, there's, there's a lot on both sides. And just to broadly announce Kathy. So this is the portion of our agenda where we are opening it up. discussion about any matter. So, if you would like to raise your hand please I think we I think Mary. And Becky has her hand up just her actual hand hand as opposed to the cute little icon. I can't find the icon. I don't know if you have to go to read it. Okay. So let's go, Mary and then Becky. And Lisa, if you could take your hand down after just so we know whether you put it up again. That'd be great. Thanks. Hi, can you hear me it's Mary Sarah on Pine Street. One thing that wasn't on the agenda and I think it's kind of not as the North Amherst Library Edition, and I'm really frustrated there's a lot of people that are really frustrated about this. And it keeps sliding off the radar of everybody because there's a lot of other things but this is a project that's what a small addition to a town building. It's four and a half years in the process the town has the money. The town has done the architects the town has gone through the planning board and public meetings. We still have not had this glad to bid and every time I call the town. The response has been oh yeah we're really excited about this project. And we just have to get the bid documents together and then blah blah blah blah blah. I don't think putting bid documents together should take three months which so far it has. And if we don't get the bid documents out to the contractors with the next few weeks. They're going to be too busy. They're busy now looking at bid propositions from other people. And I would hate the town to come back to me and say oh gee. We're hoping to do it this spring, but the contractors were busy so maybe next fall we could see to it. I really feel I'm being fobbed off by the town. We, it's unbelievable that we have a donor that's willing to do this for North Amherst, and it feels disrespectful the town that it seems to go way down on the list. So I'm hoping that you guys can talk to Sean and Paul and Guilford or whoever needs to be talked to and get the ball rolling so that these documents are out within the next couple weeks. Any questions. I asked I asked that question at the end of a long meeting on Monday night and Paul said just a few more things needed to be done but I totally agree and I think Michelle and I can do it in a united way and I've got Andy on the screen and there's a lot of people that use this North Amherst library and not only do we not want to be too late but to the extent that donor has put up their money and the stock market is oscillating around it's not. And we, and you know we've got prices going up rapidly on things. So I'm afraid Paul's going to fob you off to it sounds like his response to be to you was exactly the response to me which is what we just have a few more things to do and then we'll be ready to go in November so something. Exactly. I know they needed a legal thing about the exit so they've gotten that. But that was a month ago. Okay, so we will, we can both do it together as an email and if we need to we can raise it again in a public meeting. You know to stay on it. So, thank you for raising it. Okay, thanks. Thank you, Mary. Becky. Right. Hi. So we are jumping around a little bit here, because I want to go back to the question about the student rentals in our neighborhoods. As much as I love the North Amherst library so I'm right with you there. You know, a number of us on this committee that has basically been put together. I'd say over the last three months, feel strongly that UMass has a housing problem. They, they have too many students they cannot house them. And their problem becomes our problem. This is historic. This is hardly the first time. Somebody mentioned this is a problem based on, you know, the fact that we live in a college town. So clearly the answers are not going to be easier necessarily even forthcoming but the issue is we see it a lot of people on this committee see it is that UMass has a housing problem that they're not really addressing satisfactorily for lots of reasons. Lots of examples of that and they are unresponsive when we approach them and say, you know, your problem cannot be put on our backs. We live here we pay our taxes. We live with the, the people, the students who break into our houses, who are drunk, who urinate publicly who know through a trash round who make unbelievable amounts of noise. I mean it's become a really big issue. And the people who make those decisions that UMass do not live in these neighborhoods. They don't have to live with this. So one of our main aims is to ask the town to help us leverage the town and our interest with UMass to bring UMass into a more generative role in solving this problem. Because right now it's this kind of neoliberal thing like okay here's a problem, you know, go make cookies go make nice with your neighbors. You know of course it's nice to introduce ourselves systems but you know, we're not, you know we're busy people and we can't necessarily do that all the time. And, um, frankly, a lot of people in our neighborhood don't really want to do that sounds kind of mean but you know, we shouldn't necessarily be the police. That's that's what we're asking the town to do that's why we have come to you to ask us to help involve UMass in this issue, because right now they are so far away from it. Thank you. So any, you know, we don't have to, you know, we, we scheduled the first meeting with a broad wide open rather than trying to take time with things we thought you might want to hear about but we would be happy to hear future issues to put on an agenda for topics that you wish we'd been talking about before what things you would like to be regularly updated on. I'm just throwing out a broad range you know what you see the committees were on that means because we're on finance. We will know when the budget is moving what decisions have been made about the budget. The, the joint capital planning committee is where the decisions get made about with the large backlog that we have of roads sidewalks equipment. What can we afford to buy each year. So, but we would be happy to schedule meetings to address topics and I'm just, I'm looking at Ruth's face. Ruth because I can see you, and you know, several years ago we talked about we are North Hammers is the proud home of lots of farms. You know we benefit a lot from the Amherst history with farms. We're actually focused on the farm district or farm issues. So I'm just kind of throwing out kinds of topics that fit district one mega spend doing a lot of work on envisioning North Amherst as with john Gerber and others. We could also bring that work in and feature it at a district meeting. So this is just what we're open to a broad range of topics and particularly anything with council action would help. Or could strengthen it. And to add to that. Becky sort of to follow up with what you were talking about. We can have special guests or presenters at these district one meetings. So if trying to bring somebody into the room to have a discussion about a particular topic seems like it would be helpful we can certainly arrange for that. So, maybe we want to think about with respect to our student residents and the problems that concerns that we're having around that who we might want to bring into or invite to a district one meeting. To sort of specifically talk about that. I also wanted to say that we were hoping, although I don't think we asked Megan advance, but if Meg would take a couple minutes to talk a little bit about donor. I know about the district one neighborhood association, you should. And so maybe if Meg would just take a couple minutes at some point in this discussion to tell folks about donor what they're involved with and, and how you can engage more with District one initiatives. If I could do that now, I was planning to, but I'm happy to, I'll make, I'll keep it brief. So the district one neighborhood association or donor is. And here. Speak a little louder Meg. Oh, sorry. Other people I wonder what's up. The district one neighborhood association or donor is an organization of people residents who live in district one who come together to address issues of safety and concern to help people participate in town matters that affect them help people know how to participate and that means letting them know when things are coming up and also to build community. So before COVID we had potlucks and big discussion groups about issues that were happening and now we're doing that more on zoom and also in committees. We're now forming a reforming a planning committee that's going to look at the town master plan and figure out how that what that means for district one and really for all of North Amherst, in terms of safe streets, transportation, development that meets the needs of residents, and so on so people are interested in participating in that. Let us know. John Gerber, who's in my screen right in the middle is creating a nature trail that will go from the Renaissance Center and explore a whole bunch of wonderful things about district one it'll go through the university agricultural center. You could describe it. Center UMass, a little private land. Simple gifts. Miller River out to Cushman. And we're waiting on Dave Zomek offered to get the town attorney to craft a release statement basically we can protect private land owners from any kind of liability. And we're waiting on that. Most everyone's agreed to it we just got to get the documents in place and then we'll go public with it. We're also see the Community Preservation Act has given us a small grant to begin developing the history trail along the mill river that'll go from the river recreation area all the way to the Cushman Common, which is where there were over the years, dozens and dozens of mills that have some of them have cellar holes and remnants. In 1775 there were six mills along the river already. We're going to create a right to go the trail already exists a history trail that will be interpretive will have a website and a QR codes on the signs that will link to the website. So people will be able to see a lot of pictures and read history and learn about the people who live there and we're working with Amherst media to do a parallel video series. I'm working for a host of that. I just taped the first one with Pete Kosolowskas who's a 98 year old man who lives on Summer Street, he's lived there all since 1936, and worked in the sawmill that was where Mill Hollow apartments is now and he remembers Puffers pond, the ice business where they harvested ice off Puffers pond this time of year and used in the summer. So we have them and Barbara Puffer garnered together the two of them interviewed it was really amazing because her father, Steve Puffer was the person who hired Pete Kosolowskas to do all sorts of things including drive a school bus and Barbara sat as the first grader in the seat right behind Pete because she loved to sit there with him anyway this is a video that we did and we're going to do a bunch of videos of people who have memories of the area. On the other side we're looking for a charismatic person with a mollifluous voice to be the host of it. So, there are several other things we're planning but if you would like to be on our mailing list we have a website. You can find it by going searching for district. District one. Oh, we're so lucky that our district starts with a vowel, because our acronym is something you can say. Number this starts with a vowel so don a and you can get on our mailing list we don't use it very much and we. It's a small list because and we don't give it to anybody we don't use it for anything other than matters that affect district one like this meeting for example we used our email list. I could go on but I want to keep it short. I do. And also recognizing Jessica mix barrington who is now in the room who is also part of the steering committee for donor or okay. Mary Sarah also is here. Excellent. We're looking for more people to get active if you'd like to be this be part of what we're trying to do. Let us know or worse or steering committee is actually fun. And as we are waiting for any other suggestions people might have one of the people I see who is joined joined us as Brianna Owen, and I don't know whether people know Brianna but she was one of the leaders that has helped brought in an alternative to the police that we are just starting to talk about how we implemented. And so that would be, there have been a couple forms that have talked about the implementation plan. When Michelle said we can bring people to a district meeting is that gets further along. We could bring in spokespeople to say how is this actually going to work. Would this be is there a phone number I would call in the following situation, you know, as we work this out. Because it went from an idea to becoming a reality really fast. I mean we haven't hired people yet but it's, it's something that will be putting Amherst on the map with a handful of other communities, saying we don't have to. It's all for help it's not always an often not a response of someone with a gun. It's a different kind of crisis response team that we're bringing in. So I'm just, Ruth has raised her hand and Nancy, it looks like I've talked long enough to spark some ideas here. So, I'll stop. I don't know whose hand went up first maybe Nancy and then Ruth. Yeah, Nancy's been up quite a while. I noticed yeah. Okay. First of all, I just want to give a shout out to you Kathy. I've been watching and I don't know that I've ever seen as much social media and out there stuff as you have done with the elementary program and building program and I just want to give a shout out to how wonderful that is to see. It's a tremendous amount of work, but I'm very impressed with the work that you guys have done. And secondly, this is just a comment of, as we're talking about students and I know in the students when you talked to people who live in district one or North Amherst, you know we're preaching to the choir about students but I just want to remind people that there are amongst students, women students, issues of sexual assault that are taking place on town property. Because it's our issue. They've made it our issue. And that's a deep concern to me. That's not a university issue. That's a town issue. It's taking place on town property. And I just have not been particularly thrilled with what I've seen in terms of the town's response. And I do think we have a responsibility for that. My real question. Actually, I'm really glad Mindy's here. And also you, Michelle, I went to the statewide reparation meeting week or so ago and and our shabazz was talking about you're not being able to spend town money until something happens at the state. And he was going to, and I haven't been able to figure out what this is. I talked to Joe Comerford she has no idea. She didn't really know what this was about and, and I'm just kind of, as long as I got the two of you here I think Mindy your name was mentioned. And also somebody who was doing something about it, but it appears that it might not be an issue. I don't know. I appreciate an answer. Yeah, Mindy I don't know if you I would love to answer directly about that meeting because I was there and I so I could speak directly to what Dr. Shabazz was talking about. So I think there was some there was some confusion in what Dr. Shabazz was presenting at the meeting. And so that we've talked since then. I think what he was saying is the town received a legal opinion that gave us three pathways for distributing reparations funds. And one of the pathways was to create a homeral petition or special legislation that would define reparations as a public purpose and give some detail to how reparations should or could be distributed. And that would be a process that the town council so we would we would create the special legislation or the homo petition and the town council would have to approve it, and then it would go over to Mindy and Mindy would would take it through the process there. And it's important to know that that was only one of the three recommendations or potential pathways for distributing so the way that I sort of read what Dr. Shabazz was saying was that that was the only way, and I want to clarify that that is not the only way. Although the town lawyer does feel it will be the most efficient and effective and clean way of doing it. Because as we're seeing already in Evanston with their distribution of reparations funds they're facing legal challenges. So and then if Mindy if you have something to add to that. Thank you, Michelle. First of all, I just really want to shout out Michelle's work on this. I mean she's an example, you know, I know she's going to be a terrific town counselor but she's been a terrific community activists and volunteer in this role and I know as a resident of Amherst I feel really indebted to her for her presentation skills, as well as her commitment and her understanding of the issue I really, and is also someone who supports reparations I'm glad that she's at the helm and that she's continuing to play that role. Moving forward. So I think that first of all, I want to say a couple of things and the town counselors will have to correct me if I'm wrong. I do think that the town manager has already put aside some town funds for reparations. He and the counselor able to do that without legislation just to be clear. I think we're talking about if there's a bigger program that the town envisions that requires more resources than what do you do. I also think there's other town pockets of money that can be used to support different activities related to reparations, and that might be things like the local cultural council which gets money from the state but it's decisions based are local, or, you know, other kinds of funds that maybe our state funds that come through the town that can be used for very specific activities. And as someone who used to write grants for nonprofits and nonprofit services. I'm really aware that sometimes a program. I'm not saying reparations needs this but just generally programs are like a patchwork of grant sources where you look at what a program is, and you say okay so what are all the potential sources of funding that could be devoted to it and I can see already that in Amherst we're doing that with reparations where, you know, we want to do this kind of program well we have this pocket of money that funds this kind of program maybe we can access it there. And I think the more we tap into those kinds of sources. The more inclusive we are of different communities, quite frankly in Amherst who may or may not be aware of reparations and it's good way to build support for reparations across the community so I'm looking forward to doing that and I of course will take any baton that the council passes to me for a home rule. Home rules are generally led to some of you may know this I didn't know this before I got to the state house. There's a lot of things that towns need permission from the state to do. Whether it's a particular liquor license exemption, a sick leave bank for a state agency, a way to create a transfer fee or different taxes there's like lots of different reasons why towns may need home rules we have a home rule in Amherst right now that's sitting in the elections committee to move us forward on ranked choice voting for example. And I am more than happy as the rep I see it as my job to pick up whatever the council gives me as a home rule and to advocate it for it and to shepherd it, along with Senator Cumberford. A lot of home rules start in the house which is why they come to me because sometimes they include money. They don't have to start in the house if they don't, but I, Senator Cumberford and I see it as our basic responsibility in terms of advocating for municipalities is to, if you pass a home rule is to give it to us and for us to champion it at the state house and to try to get it passed. So I think that's my explanation I hope that was clear. Thank you Michelle. Thank you. Thank you again for all your work. So yeah. And so thank you Mindy before we take any more questions I just would like to ask Rob Kuzner I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing that incorrectly, has a hand up, and I'm wondering if, if you'd like to be brought in please keep your hand up for a moment and I will bring you in. If not just lower it for the moment and I'll know. I can also just say one other thing while you're bringing someone in and that's Michelle and I, and the other members of the reparations committee I just want to really be clear that we have been in conversation about this at their initiative and a credit to their initiative and I look forward to those continued conversations. Thanks Mindy. Thank you so much Mindy. So Michelle I see both Ruth and Jessica had their hand up to talk. You go ahead and facilitate that while I try to get Rob in here. Ruth, you're on. Thank you. I, I wanted to say I'm glad to hear that I like the idea of having some some more information about the Community Safety Committee is at the right name of it. And the process of that I think that's a really good thing for all of us to know more about and I really support it. So the more we know about it the better we can support it. So really, I'm interested in, like, I appreciate so much the outreach that you're doing just to do this meeting and I would love to see more people know about it and more people come. So I'm thinking that that's something we could all work together to support you and making that happen. And if you, you know, if you have ideas about that, it would be, you know, let's try to build the community that is actively connecting with you. Because it's really wonderful to do this. This is what we want, right. So, I guess, I had a little invitation there from Kathy to bring up questions about about farming and and food. And what's interesting and discouraging is that we do have an agricultural commission, which was formed by town meeting. In line with guidance from the state about agricultural commissions but it's, it's faltering from lack of interest in participating in it. So, I'm wondering if we, if it would be useful to look at the charge of that commission to talk to the people who have been on it to talk to the farmer, you know, somehow engage with farmers. I think it was initially charged with being a voice for farmers for people who earn their livelihood through farming. I do have a lot of those people in this town. So I, I'm a little bit concerned that there's a disconnect between this body that could speak for them and the people who it's charged with speaking for so that that's one issue but one of the things I'm wondering about, because there are other kinds of issues around the food system that are being addressed somewhat. By, you know, by things like the mobile market under the auspices of healthy Hampshire. And there's growing interest in, you know, reviving community gardens in the town and making them more accessible. So this is a newly forming food, Hampshire County food policy council which is going to be working with some of these issues around food access and food equity. It seems like there are, you know, potentially a lot of parts and pieces there's also the question of our all of our conservation lands that are owned by the town, some of that land is suitable for agriculture. How is that being managed is that being adequately invested in in terms of preserving public land for the purpose of producing food in a time when we may we should be thinking about long term resilience so I, I kind of wonder if there, I don't know if you hear any energy around, you know, are concerned about the lot the fact that the ad commission doesn't have enough people to even have a quorum at a meeting. And I'm thinking that, you know, it's not just that me why are people not interested in it, I'm thinking that maybe it needs to be looked at in a different way, and perhaps broaden I don't, I don't really know but there's also people looking for ways to get the town involved in in broader food system issues. So I just think that some conversations about those issues would be really useful and I've mentioned them to various people, I guess I'll keep mentioning them. I think, you know, just in response, you know, I mentioned briefly to Michelle we'd had this conversation, maybe we can talk later on how we would explore the two things that you've raised you know why is the interest died out is there's something with the charge, or there are other issues. And we can just do something behind the scenes. The issue of community lands and I'm Mindy Mindy over at the survival center and her successor have been amazing with food supply. But I think we could schedule a district meeting where we could get Dave Zomac or someone from conservation to say what might be possible. What is possible. You know what are they doing so we would, we would know. There's something we need to do again, we need to do at a council level to make something happen. We don't write charges of standing committees, but we do periodically, or have asked periodically, wonder why committees that don't seem very active. Do we still need that committee does its mission need to change and that's a different. That's actually right over in GOL with you Michelle I think, you know so we. Let's get back to you just on whether we can bring this back in some way on the two issues you brought up. So we bought a piece of land with CPA money just off 116. And it, it, it unites two pieces of land we already owned it was part of a prior former farm. And when CPA voted for it. I was talking about community forms on that parcel is potential. But to my knowledge that hasn't happened, and I heard one paper person say they wasn't sure there was any water on the property which would make it difficult. But because it's just off the highway but but let's get just get back to you I think it's a great topic if we can figure out how to do bring it back. It looks like maybe wrapped up hand up that in relation to this. Yeah, I'm, I'm sorry I just want to say if I can want to offer my assistance to Ruth as well as to the council people in pulling people together on this. My office has sort of had a food security meeting in Granby during coven like every four to six weeks to sort of touch base on the intersection of not only the food pantries in the area but the farms. And I'm more than happy to play a role if I can and supporting this kind of convening of a food systems sort of discussion for Amherst. It's really interesting because we do we have a lot of conservation land which may parts of it may be able to be used for community farms we have a new community farm. That's actually going up in south Amherst we have a lot of regular farms not community we have a CISA related farms, a sustainable agriculture, and we are a leader in a lot of these efforts. So it's an interesting idea is to pull it together and try to re energize it with I love that idea. So I just want to say I'm available to help in any way, if my office can be helpful in convening people, bringing other experts in maybe from mdar, or DC or if we want to look at what can be done. I don't know. I think Dave Zomek is the local expert so, but if there's a need to bring in the state to sort of provide us with an understanding what other towns do I'm happy to. I would love to be part of that. Thank you for bringing it up. Thank you. Jessica. Hi, I have two things. You probably can't read this it's Amherst to donor dot, which is the email. It's the website address amherst to donor dot org, and our email address is contact us all one word at amherst donor dot org. I suggest for a future meeting that we talk about transportation in North Amherst, and perhaps have a visioning session where people who live on our streets can say what they are seeing and say how our streets could be better configured to help them do what they want to do. So that's my suggestion. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Rob, it's nice segue probably to Rob Rob closer. Sorry, I mean a cloud here but I hope you'll forgive me. Jessica thanks for that suggestion that yet at some point I, I hope the town in a broader way will come back to a public forum on transportation and transit, etc. And I hope that the meeting Jessica suggesting since North Amherst is closely connected to one of the destinations, namely the university I hope that will invite lots of people throughout the town to that to our meeting. I want to come back actually to Ruth's comment. I had a few other things but we're getting late here and I was late to join. In the last decade, I believe the conservation department sent out RFPs for interested. Let's call the people farmers but agricultural interest in renting land for a year or several years and I'd like to know actually if anyone maybe Ruth knows or anyone else maybe john knows whether any of those proposals. Any of those calls for proposals ever received applications because I, I do a lot of hiking and biking around town there, many places near old farm road near. I guess it's near the Fort River which Cambodian farmers used to use, they now have some private land that they're using off Stanley Street. I'm just wondering whether those RFPs were, you know, whether the, the proposed rental fee was too high to attract farmers, you know whatever, whatever knowledge anyone here has or might take back to Dave Zomek or discuss at the meeting that Ruth is proposing. I hope that will be a useful starting point because there have been efforts relatively recently to have some of the farmland in the town be actively farmed. Thanks Rob. Meg. I'm thinking that's the next hand I see is that right. Michelle, Meg. Yeah. I'm just quickly some other this is wonderful. Thank you. Topics for future discussions for District one. There's a lot happening around zoning and the focus and the discussion in the paper and so on it sounds like it's mostly about downtown, but I know that it's not some of the zoning applies to everywhere would be really helpful to have a kind of discussion on what the zoning discussions are when they're being made and what impact there would have on District one, particularly our Village Center, but also that's all connected the students housing transportation it's all of a piece. The second thing that would be just to put up a little heads up. I'm very, very casually with the Mill District about a plan for Cherry Hill year round the golf course and raising money to make it a winterized venue where we might have evening events maybe have a bar, maybe have. This is going to really sound crazy but snow making equipment so we can have all the time skiing and so on but it's just something that is a resource for District one that we aren't using fully because it's not winterized and it's, it's a house that we're building and the town owns it. On the farming thing. I'm totally straight that's come up such robust way at this meeting. Some of us have been trying to figure out a way of buying, of the Mitchell property that's where the eruptor was going to be that would keep it as farmland in some way. There are a lot of different ideas and there's quite a bit of funding available around state money for this board, but we need a plan. I'm not going to go into what some of the ideas are, but it's really, it's farmland. It's one of the best farmland around. So that's another topic. And I just thank Kathy for your leadership on the school building project. We really, this school building is so crucial. We need to have it, and your leadership, your transparency, the energy with which that you've brought to it is fantastic. And I just hope everybody's going to get behind you and it, and we're going to have a school in a few years. And thanks to Michelle for so enthusiastically jumping into leading our district. Thank you. And I really appreciate Mindy. You're just awesome showing up on a Sunday afternoon and knowing what's going on about so many things. And we're so lucky to have you and Joe and Kathy and Michelle as our elected leaders. We're really, you know, we're really lucky in district one and an Amherst. Thanks. Thanks, Meg. I just, I want to, Mindy's hand is up and I want to make sure we leave a few minutes just to ask about how frequently, frequency, times a day, days of the week for future meetings. So I, and just if an idea comes to you, please just send it to us too. This is not, it was the only time you can talk. So, Andy. Yes, hi. First of all, thank you for including me in the meeting. And I try and attend district meetings for all of the districts when I have the opportunity because as a counselor at large, I'm elected townwide and I really therefore position of wanting to know what are the issues that are concerned to every district and I really appreciate it just listening today. The one thing I wanted to mention because it didn't come up on, I'm on the town services and outreach committee and there was a matter that pertains to North Amherst that was referred to that committee and it was not dealt with within the last council that was held over and will be dealt with probably within the next six months or so. And that is the design of the sidewalk along North Pleasant Street and there will be public forum. There has to be a public forum at some point regarding that. And I will keep make sure that Kathy and Michelle are informed of what TSO is doing with that so that the design option that has been put forward by the Department of Public Works is available for people who are interested. It's a rather complex document to look at that it is available and that we can get input in it. So that was the only thing I wanted to add. Thank you. Thank you. And Kathy I just want to make you aware there is somebody in the attendees, Mary Lynn Buskarden that has had a hand up for quite a while. So I also see we have Hilda and Rob and let's see and Mary as well. So if Mary Lynn's hand has been up for a while I'm going to just allow her to talk. Mary Lynn you are now part of us for talking if you want to unmute you can talk. Hi. Hi there. I actually unmuted. So actually Andy provides a really great segue for my comment and it is kind of a follow-up to your last town council meeting and that's on utility services to the town and there was an interesting article in the news gazette that some of you may have seen I think it was yesterday or Friday on the power pole placement and what we had and it also kind of pertain my thoughts also kind of pertain to some of the other town issues. What we have going on on Rolling Ridge right now is we have a neighbor who would like to keep who has to upgrade their power and it was one of those older homes on Rolling Ridge that started out with one power level and now has to go up to 220 or whatever the number is and all the utilities to the houses on Rolling Ridge are underground and that's really from the pole to the house that's the homeowner's responsibility and we had talked to Eversource because it has to go from the pole across the road to the homeowner's property and which is unfortunate but hopefully there's a conduit under there which we don't know and I thought that was kind of interesting when we talked to the power company because you might just be able to pull the line through the conduit but so we're hoping we can you know when utilities are already underground and as was pointed out in the newspaper article it's also an issue of avoiding power outages if the if we can keep the wires underground because there are quite a few trees about because what Eversource wants to do is rather than running the wire above underground they want to run it and they want to put in another pole and which are cluttered the road and run the wire above ground which there's trees that would potentially knock the power out to our neighbors so but the larger issue that struck me and also in some of these conversations is policy development for the town because sometimes I think these issues come up like the one Andy just brought up about the sidewalks you know where we I think the and I said on town meeting for many years is that we end up doing some of these things ad hoc on a policy on an issue by issue basis rather than having a strong you know either town planning policies in place or zoning policies in place so we don't have to go through the these same conversations over and over again I know there's nuances to each conversation I'm not naive about that but it would still be nice to have policies that guide like outside utility companies like Eversource that can come in like the 10 ton gorilla and say oh we're going to do it this way well Eversource is resolution one so yeah you can run it underground from a pole to the house and under the road but it's going to be at the homeowner's expense and I'm going wait a minute where's Eversource's responsibility in this and that's not in common for power companies to do that they've done this in other towns as well so um anyway that that was the one thought I really wanted to share is I would encourage you know if we could do any I would encourage Kathy you're doing a great job I've been really totally impressed with your representation Michelle I look forward to your contributions and I just hope you know we can move forward and develop help the town develop policies so we can do things in more planful ways so it doesn't end up looking like a campus town and then it looks like a coordinated um integrated town that integrates all the different populations within Amherst and can bring everybody together as a community so thank you thanks Mary Lynn so I just want to do a time check we have three more hands up um and um I would like to stop at five because we said we were going to stop at five if we don't get to discussion of future meeting things if everyone who's here can just send us thoughts um you know is there a preference for a sunday afternoon would you like monthly we looked at our schedules and Tuesday and Wednesday nights are okay um so if we could send us thoughts we won't have a discussion about that and I see the three people Michelle I'm looking at you too should we just three more people and then we'll close it down so each of you be as short as possible because we're we only have a few minutes till five o'clock so Rob I think your hand went back up and then I see Mary and Hilda I'll do it in 30 seconds uh first Kathy thanks for you and Allison sharing the school building committee please bring some of the thoughts there on site which site to choose to the tack because I think transportation to the availability of public transportation to whatever new school site is essential so I hope that'll be one place and I actually reviewed the plans of the sidewalk multi-use path whatever that Andy was referring to just informally with the chair of the tack last fall I think there's still a lot of work to do on that and again I hope the tack will also this is the transportation advisory committee I guess that's what tack is we'll have a chance to look at it more because I think there's a lot of a lot of moving parts there having spent nearly a decade getting the Norwatic rail trail redesigned and rebuilt back in the 2006 to 2016 era there are a lot of details we should try to get right on North Pleasant Street a lot of folks there walk a lot of folks bicycle a lot of folks ride buses there it's a really multi-use corridor and it's become more important with all the new housing up up at the old mill so all right thanks thank you Mary can you hear me yes yeah I wanted to also address the the the sidewalk issue in the sense that if you live in North Amherst I think we really would like to see sort of I don't know where the seminal plans so that there actually can be a discussion rather than a kind of here's what we're going to do do you have any comments on it because I think there can be a feeling in in North Amherst it's about the intersection also that there's sort of a presentation of plans and it's almost gone too far to really you know because then the answer is oh well we'd have to reconfigure everything if you want a four-foot wide sidewalk so I just want to make sure that we're in on it early enough so those comments I I saw those plans I don't know I can't remember it was in the autumn but they weren't well publicized my guess is that most people in North Amherst don't know that this is going to happen so I really encourage the counselors to get those plans out there at an early enough stage so you can have real real input into it thank you thank you Mary Hilda are you calling on me yes yes well put my foot in it I have to respond this whole issue of North Amherst sidewalks we have been waiting for fire stations since 1976 town can't seem to manage to get that people on East Pleasant's 1976 was when the North Amherst fire station opened and we started talking about a South Amherst fire station there's no fire station no place to put it I mean after all these years people on East Pleasant street have no sidewalks at all and they've been nagging and nagging to do something about because of all the kids that walk there including now with the affordable apartments and stuff a lot of kids walk and there are bus stops there why are we going off on another project to build more sidewalks where there already are sidewalks on both sides of the street on North Pleasant Street I just don't get it there doesn't seem to be any priorities it doesn't seem like anything can get done it looks like the people they're hiring in town hall don't know what they're doing and all the old people who have been there and are retiring because they're being overworked and things just don't seem to be happening and and so my my big question I guess at the end of that rant is why are we looking at rebuilding North Pleasant Street when East Pleasant Street hasn't been done yet and they need it so um I think um I wrote that down um for those of you who haven't been at earlier meetings there actually was a resident proposal that was approved in 2018 for the and so it was approved Andy was on the JCPC when it was approved and it never got implemented but I heard that it is going to be implemented so I think it's something that we can bring Hilda so just I think we can bring it to tack Andy to have this question on why does one set of plans come and why don't we progress on the other so we've been asking for a while the town council more generally for a set of plans from DPW not not for the finished set of plans but what's the plan um so I think we can push harder on that because it goes with which roads are going to be repaired next um it's a similar issue so so Hilda I'm just going to ask you because I have it as 459 um so five seconds to tell you that the traffic here in North Amherst even at 10 in the morning 1030 is backed up on both 116 and Sunderland road and waiting to get through that light and I've never seen traffic like that before COVID so there's more people using that intersection you can check the data on the lights but that's a high priority to get that fixed before you build sidewalks thank you I think there's probably no one in this room that would disagree disagree with that intersection that's been hanging on for years and years and years and years and that doesn't happen so I'm I think for us at least my I've loved this meeting and I hope people like to be brought into the room um and yes I'm gonna you're gonna need to mute Hilda so Michelle and I can say goodbye to everybody um and Michelle I just want to turn it over to you this was Michelle was the inspiration let's get early let's get out in January um and and and she and I are making commitment to do this as often as people keep coming I guess um you know rather than and we have a a good list of ideas right now so Michelle I'm just going to open it to you to close actually yeah thank you everyone for being here this was a really rich conversation and so great to see everybody's faces and hear voices and and just be together um so yes we will continue these meetings I have a long list here of suggestions for future meetings and so thank you thank you all for being here and please do reach out to us by by email or phone or um yeah either of those ways since we're not really getting together in person right now um and hopefully in the spring we'll be able to do that is to get together in person so thank you so I want to thank everyone for coming um and uh we will be back in touch with you with possible future dates please send us any thoughts on a Sunday afternoon versus uh Tuesday or Wednesday just uh you don't care or you have preference whatever that would it would be useful to know thank you thank you so so I'm going to end the meeting and then I think stop we have to stop recording right yes then we have to stop the recording right bye everyone