 for recording. Hello, everyone. Welcome to TSO on this Thursday evening for a regularly scheduled meeting. We are recording. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. Because we do have such a full agenda tonight, I just want to give a quick overview for everyone. We are going to begin with public comment. You can comment, of course, on whatever you like, but please know that we will, after we discuss the waste color bylaw, we will have a special public comment period. So we will start our meeting with public comment, then we will move over onto street lights, and then we will go into refuse and recyclable, which we will have that special public comment period after that. And that will be before moving on to North Pleasant Street upgrades. So our agenda needless to say is very ambitious. So without further ado, if there's anyone with us who would like to make a public comment at this time, please raise your hand. We will bring you in. And you may do so for up to three minutes. I see Darcy Dumas, and I do. Yeah, Darcy Dumas. Hello, Darcy. Please go ahead with your comment. Hi, thank you. My name is Darcy Dumas, and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of Zero Waste Amherst regarding the Waste Hauler Bylaw Proposal Agenda Item in TSO today. We're gratified that at least from what we can tell, at least two haulers have responded to the town's request for information, maybe more, but we know that Republic and Cassella have responded. We urge the town and sponsors now to take the time needed to evaluate all the responses, which will provide valuable information about our prospects for reforming our waste hauler system so that it will significantly reduce waste. And as a community sponsor of the proposal, we, meaning Zero Waste Amherst, respectfully request to be able to view the responses so that we can take a look at them too. We request that the committee not make any recommendation back to the council pending that analysis, unless it's to just carry it over, meaning continue evaluating all the elements of the August 2022 Waste Hauler Bylaw Proposal, starting with analysis of the RFI responses and any documentation that we might have gotten from them. And to add to the 2024 town manager goals the reestablishment of a waste reduction committee, seeking a grant to fund a waste reduction coordinator, and provision of line staff to complete the cost analysis for implementing the elements of the August 2022 Waste Hauler proposal, including the estimated cost of the hauler contract and the cost of providing billing using a pay-as-you-throw fee structure and providing contract compliance. This is one thing that we've been looking for for a really long time, and we have not yet been able to get that cost analysis, so we need staff assigned to do it. We think it's premature to consider implementing a ban on organics in the waste stream before knowing the cost of doing so with or without a hauler contract. Thank you. Thank you, Darcy, do you want anything if we have anyone else at this moment? It looks like that is it for public comment at the moment. So I will hand over the floor to Anna and Mandy and welcome you back again, each of you, with a Street Lights proposal. Thank you. Thanks for joining us, Mandy. Thank you. Yeah. So Mandy, do you want to kick us off, or do you want me to try to jump in? You can kick us off. All right. So in your packet, you had a pretty robust memo from Mandy and I, and what we were trying to outline to you was the process that has been happening. And I first want to recognize that Mandy has absolutely done the bulk of this. I've been kind of bitten recently by that whole job thing. And so I want to just express some public gratitude for Mandy for really shouldering a lot of this burden and still managing to include me in it. So public kudos, recorded kudos to Mandy. Thank you very, very much. And what Mandy and I and mostly Mandy have been doing is really trying to work with members of the public who have expressed concern with prior proposals and have sent suggestions in as well as suggestions coming from counselors. And trying to figure out where this compromise is. And I think that there were a lot of conversations, a lot of back and forth, a lot of revised policy. And where we came to is that there are some things that Mandy and I believe we should shift now and that these are important changes to make to our lighting policy that has not been updated in an incredibly long time and that there's further work that needs to be done. And it seems clear that this isn't necessarily that the depth of the work that continues to need to be done requires a committee to get it done. And so what we are proposing is a committee to really look at some specific elements of street lighting and Amherst and bring it more into alignment with some of the other work we're trying to do, such as shifting how people are able to get around and ensuring that our community is safe for pedestrian, cyclists, and non-vehicle travel. So in your packet, you've got the updated policy and that memo that outlines what we are bringing forward. And Mandy, anything that you'd like to, that was my 3,000 foot overview of what we've been working on. Yeah, I would just, a few things. I don't think we could go through the policy right now, but we tried to outline what the difference is between what was in the August Council packet and the current proposed policy are. So I'm going to trust that people have read that at this point and can go through more specifics and answer questions when we get there. But one thing I really want to say is I want to thank both Tracy Zafian and Eve Vogel, and Eve and I spent many hours sitting around her table talking through some stuff and trying to reach some agreements. And this is the result of that. And as we said in our memo and as you saw from emails today from Tracy that included some comments from Eve, we didn't get to a complete agreement. But we got closer and narrowed our differences. And I think that's really important to mention, but also to thank even Tracy for all of their work in bringing us research when we asked questions, when we said, where is the showing of what you're saying will happen and things like that. That they did a huge amount of work behind the scenes to give that information to us for some of the things they were advocating. And as Anna said, we just haven't been able to fully agree. And that's OK. That is OK that we're not in full agreement. At the same time, it would be wonderful if we were in full agreement. But sometimes you just can't get there. But I do want to acknowledge the amount of work that they've put in to looking at our proposals and reviewing them and making the comments that they have on this. And we can respond to questions from you. Anika, I think you get to call on yourself. Or do you want us to call on people? I have handed the floor over to you. All right. Anika. Don't call on her. I have to do that shot. OK, so my first was going to be, is it possible that we, the images that you all included as well were really helpful? And I think is it possible that we show those images for maybe anyone on the committee who hasn't seen them and anyone in the audience who might be watching just to be able to, if you all could go through those images? Yeah, I think that would be great. Armand, do you want to share it? Do you want me to share it? I can share it because I've got it up. Yeah, I need to. Awesome, thank you. Give me a second to get to the right ones and make them bigger. So yeah, I will go through these to explain a little bit more about what they're showing. So on this screen on the left, hopefully it's on your left, too, is bright white LEDs in two circumstances, one on a street and one on a building that have huge glare issues and are the sort of daylight bulbs similar to the daylight bulbs that we have in our street lights. And in the top picture on the street, you can see there's some areas that are, it's almost, I call it a zebra striping effect. It's probably not the technical term for it, but there's really dark, really light, really dark, really light. And so there's a lot of areas where it's just dark and hard to see. And on the right for that one, the lighting is dimmed to a, it's not dimmed, but it's changed from that daylight white to a warm white light. The glare has been eliminated. And the visibility with that is much, much better. You can see things at the end, it's just, you can see trees clearer, cars and driveways and all a little bit clearer, fences a little bit clearer. And on the bottom picture, you've got 80 watt daylight on the left, unshielded again, massive glare. And on the right, you've shielded those wall sconces. You've changed them to 32 watts and you've made them warm white 3000 Kelvin sconces. And you can actually see the building and between the buildings. And doors that are very hard to see in the left are easy to see in the right. And same with air conditioning units and structural sort of HVAC type systems on the side of the wall. And so the visibility getting rid of the glare and changing to a warmer white light has really improved visibility in them. And then this third one here is showing you what happens when there's glare. The person is standing in both pictures. It's just when the glare is facing you in the face, it's really hard to see that person in the dark. You block the glare, we fix the glare in our street lights and you've got a massively easier time of seeing that person because your eye is not being sort of light blinded. So those are what are original, what we're trying to do with lighting is make it good lighting so that you don't have the glare, that you have a warmer light, and things like that. So those are the three pictures. I'll stop there for them. I think those are the most visible pictures of what we're trying to do. I guess I'll go to Andy. So I have a number of things that I've thought about since our last discussion of this and probably going to not make many friends tonight in what I'm going to say. And the comments generally apply to a lot of things that we are considering. So when we get back to one that I'm a co-sponsor of, which is the refugees collection, some of these principles apply there too. But I think that the major thing that I start with is what is the role of the council and what is the role of our staff and what is policy and what is implementation? And doesn't the policy belong to the council and the implementation detail belong to the staff? And I say that for several reasons. One is time of the council. Second is expertise of the council. And I appreciate how much Mandy has worked on this, but I don't think that most councillors are going to be able to do the level of research and reading that I assume that Mandy has done. And it puts us in a very peculiar position when we're voting on something that we really don't understand the technical aspects of what we're doing. And therefore, I really am wondering whether we should be thinking in terms of a policy that sets policy and regulations that either are approved by the staff and come from the executive branch or at least are proposed by the executive. And I will give the two examples of when you're dealing with the state and federal government, most of the time regulations come from the administrative branch, the executive, and they are approved by the executive. And the more that Congress gets involved with setting, going into the weeds, the more likely there are to be problems coming down the line that is going to lead to unhappiness and litigation. And the other example that I wanted to point out is the water and sewer regulations, where we really relied on Amy Ursecki and her expertise. And even with that, there was quite a bit of work that went into it and quite a bit of work that went into it from the council. But we have Amy, who is really the expert. And I'm wondering whether we really need to be thinking about that divide. So in the last thing I'll say on the general topic is that I think that when you look at future councils and there's a lot of work that's being thrown in responsibility that's being thrown in future councils, we are committing their time and trusting their expertise to do things. And I think we should be very thoughtful about that, both as to what we're handing off to future councils and whether our expectations of whether future councils are going to be in a position to get into the details. So it's a general matter. And I think about this for a lot of different things, but I'm only pointing out the two that we're considering tonight. I think that as a council, we really ought to be talking about this issue more. So just a couple of things on the bylaw as proposed. I therefore like the purpose section a whole lot, because the purpose really is what I think the council's role is. What is it that we're seeking to accomplish? When we start getting into B, the definitions, and some of the other things that follow, we get into real questions of what is the level of council understanding and council expertise that we should expect for this and future councils. And just to point out a couple other things just to finish it out, when we get into the questions of luminaire mounting height, there's this section in there that essentially goes on to say that if there's an expectation of a maximum height and suggesting that we have additional poles installed for streetlights, if we can't get streetlights at an ideal height, that will be a cost issue that the finance committee is going to be talking about. But it also gets into an issue that councilors have raised, including one of our own committee members has raised about at what point are there too many poles in town? And are we adding more poles? At least we ought to think about that. I don't say that lightly because I was actually, when I was out doing my campaign side of life this week, I ran into a friend on Lincoln Avenue and he was pointing out the pole across the street from his house and how brightly it lights his bedroom at the night and how happy he is about that. And his point when he said it to me, not knowing about the proposed bylaw, by the way, our proposed policy was that he felt that there needed to be a greater effort to downward focus the light. And I had to assure him that the council was considering the exact point that he was raising and thanked him for sharing the observation with me. And I looked at the pole that he was pointing to and it was the utility pole and the lights along Lincoln are quite high. So I wanted to point that out. And the last thing that I'll just point out is getting onto section F. There were just a whole lot of things about upon receipt of a request for the new light, the council shall and is in B. There's a whole lot of expectations there. I think that there's a question that we should be exploring about what is the best use of council time, whatever you say the council shall and then it involves a whole lot of statements about what you do afterwards. I think that it's something that really ought to be thought about. And I think I had several other sections that I pointed out but I think I'm gonna leave it at that. Andy, thank you for taking such careful consideration of our proposal. I take issue with the idea that counselors should not engage in policies in which they are not subject matter experts. And the reason is that, while I know that you were talking about technical policy, any single policy that we pass as a council has very real implications on humans in this town and on our neighbors and on our environment and everything. I think saying that we have no, I think this is maybe exaggerating what you're saying a bit, but saying that we shouldn't engage in things that we don't have either professional expertise in or whatever, I think one limits this council to a very particular set of skills that I don't know where it would go. But I'm looking at this room, I think we all have really different areas of expertise but two, I think it minimizes some of the other work we do and the impact of that work. And I think it's really important to call out that every single policy we pass has direct implications just because it's not a set of regulations doesn't mean that I'm thinking about, for example, policies creating the Crest Department or what we did, every action that we do has the potential to truly impact people and has the potential to create staff work, right? So I don't know that we can really parse out one more than the other when it comes to where we should or shouldn't have expertise there. And so I think we needed streetlights to come forward and it hadn't, right? There were other things that came forward and that's fine, but Mandy and I took initiative on this because we felt it needed to move forward and we were willing to do that work and provide the council with the resources to know what we were talking about. And that's been something that we've tried to do really clearly through those memos is to articulate, here's what you need to know in order to understand this policy. We're not asking people to become lighting engineers and I don't think that's necessary to understand this policy. You can reference back to the memo and how we define things but similar to any other regulation we pass this is our job is to learn it enough to be able to understand what we're talking about and that's what we're doing here. I do think that this larger discussion is something I don't know if it's something that's of the purview of the charter review committee if you're saying that you would wanna propose any departmental regulation be removed from the council's purview. I think that's something that's not up to TSO, right? Right now this is under the ability of counselors to bring forward. And I think Mandy and I are within our right to do that. And then I think to your last two questions I definitely have thoughts but Mandy do you have any the last questions about the polls and council role if you have any or anything, any other thoughts but I just wanna recognize I know I'm not answering this. So I'll start with section F which was one of the things about requests to install, remove or modify street lights. It is, I will, I agree it's got a lot of requirements in it because we were asked to put all those requirements in actually we were asked to ensure that any time there's a street light request that's outside of any policy we adopt that it gets seen by TAC that it gets seen by the staff that it gets seen by that that the council just does not make its decision without all of that. And so that was one of the things that was requested we put in all of that consultation to other committees recommendations from other committees, things like that was asked for us to be in there public hearings was asked to be in there. There were individuals who thought very strongly that the council should not act on any particular waiver request type request or to add or subtract lights even within the confines of the policy without holding a public hearing. We don't hold them now for street lights because the current select board policy that was adopted as keeper of the public way doesn't require it. But we do hold public hearings for parking requests and many people likened a street light addition or removal or modification request to a parking request and that things like that should be treated very similarly. That is certainly within the purview of TSO to discuss how extensive any policy should be on what to do when someone wants a street light removed that removal would be in conformance with the policy. But much of what's in here is because it was requested to be in here for those types of requests. For policies in general. So we are the keeper of the public way. This is not a bylaw. This is not a regulation per se. It is a policy adopted as keeper of the public way in the exact same instance that the select board as keeper of the public way adopted a policy, the current one. And so I think that's what we need to keep in mind when we're talking about this street light policy that it is in our role as keeper of the public way, not as legislative body, just like it was done by the select board in their role as keeper of the public way. I would also keep in mind that this policy sets forth parameters. There's a lot of leeway within the policy to comply with the policy. It gives the department, particularly the department of public works, but whoever's going to be installing the street lights under the policy, a lot of leeway. It has maximums for correlated color temperature. It has maximum heights. It doesn't have minimum heights in sense. It doesn't talk about spacing. It talks about some limits on light trespass so that Andy, you're not alone. I talked to two people today that would love to see a street light removed on their own street because it's shining in the way and they see no rational purpose for that street light being on the street at all. And this policy sets those parameters to say, hey, when it's shining in my home, you need to find a way to meet the policy. When it's shining light across 60 feet of my yard, you need to find a way to make that light fit within the parameters of the policy. It does not dictate necessarily how that is done. It can be done with full out shielding. It can be done with lowering the amount of wattage in the light. It can be done with lowering the height of a light potentially, but we're not setting forth, we're setting forth sort of outside parameters. And I do think it's within this keeper of the public ways authority to set forth those outside parameters of which afterwards, more interpretation and application would be used by the people who are actually putting together and enforcing that policy and implementing that policy. So Dorothy, you're muted. Okay, I completely agree with Andy. I think he has put it very well. I think that it's an absolute, I think it's a ridiculous idea of what a counselor is. This is not what people run on. This is not what people vote for us for. And I think it shows a disregard for our staff. I think goals are very important. And sometimes the problems that you pose are really, I think kind of simplistic. Light in your window, there are shades and curtains. I've spent a year trying to keep a street light for somebody who has been actually for 20 years paying privately for a street light that was going to be cut back in some budget thing from years past that she needed to feel safe as a widow to walk her dog at night. We finally gave up, okay? So I think that goals and are very fine, but I do not think that it is the role of a counselor to be into this kind of detail. And it's just, we don't have staff. I think it puts us, makes us, I think it makes us open to being a laughing stock because this is complicated. And there are people who spend their lives working on such things. That is not who a town counselor is. We are not experts in this area, but we suggest things that we think, I think some of the things that you brought up had felt that very easy acceptance on a general basis in this committee. And that was to do with color and to do with shading and down casting. We did, as Andy mentioned, run into some problems with the poles because street lights are often put in poles that are put there for other reasons. And sometimes the lights cannot be put at the height that we would like unless we put in a whole new set of poles which we think is not that likely. The more I read the street light thing, the more I feel we are not in the right place. Some of the major goals that you have put into this and I know you've put in a lot of work in it are things that I think that you can get agreement for from this committee and from the council. But when it becomes like we're the keeper of the street lights, no, we are not the keeper of the street lights. Keeper of the public way means that we wanna make sure that our DPW is functioning and that we have an open door that we can have things explained to us. I mean, for example, why is it in those pictures, which are very nice, does this light create glare and the other light not create glare? I don't know and I bet there's no way that you're gonna be able to explain it to me so I'm gonna understand why that would be so. But I expect that perhaps an expert might. So when it comes to this, I think they're going too far. A policy that was like two pages long that stated some goals, I would say let's go with that. There's some aims here that are good. How can we live better in a world which includes many things besides human beings but does include human beings in a way that can be safer for them and still safe for us? That's a complicated goal. But I just don't think we should be placing lights, lowering lights and telling DPW how to do things. If we feel that DPW cannot do it, then we would be, something that would be, I think a town councilor's job would be to try to get a budget increase for DPW so they could do it. But that's, it's their job to do this kind of work. Our job to try to make sure that things that need to be done get done but not exactly how they do it. Maddie, I will turn most of this over to you but Dorothy the things that you mentioned are what are in the policy, the color, the shielding, all of that. And hang on, please, hear me out here. The reason why we have to be specific is because there's so many options for it. And so we get into that specificity because if we don't, there's too many ways that it could deviate. And so I know that it looks technical but the reason for the technical language is because we're trying to get at those simple things without creating 17,000 other directions that it could accidentally go. So just to be clear why that language is so technical, but it is like to be very clear that the changes that we're proposing are about glare, temperature, downlighting, spread like all of those things that you just said, that's what this policy is. And so we included the pictures to try to show another way of trying to explain that. And I'm sorry that that's still not clear and I'm happy to try again. I don't think that you'll find, I'm gonna be honest with you, having Maddie and I have talked to a lot of experts. I think that we explain it in a way that's a little more understandable to a lay person than experts do because experts could even more technical. And so I think that we've taken a lot of that and distilled it into this policy and into the memo and included photos and included, try to the definitions to get at all of those things that you're saying. Maddie, do you have anything to add? I'll try to explain glare. So Dorothy, if you've ever looked at a naked light bulb directly at the bulb that's lit, it hurts your eyes. That's glare. You put a cover over it so you can't see the naked light bulb that you've got a cover. That is what shields you from the glare. And now you can look right at that lamp, that luminaire because it's shielded and it does not hurt your eyes. That is glare and the fixing of glare. To go on to your trust DPW and DPW needs to do this, what a policy does is set the outside parameters because DPW, yes, they're gonna install the lights when we're not saying the council's going to be the ones installing the lights here. But we are asking the council as keepers of the public way to say when you install the light it should meet these guidelines. Many of those guidelines are actually for our policy, the guidelines in RP8, the IES standards, the illuminating engineering society standards, lighting expert standards and their research were relying on the experts and saying meet their standards for how high or how this, but we really want you to try to keep it below 25 feet or below 10 feet or 15 in certain areas because that's more welcoming for commercial activity say, or it keeps it out of the bedrooms of many buildings if it's below this, things like that. So what we're trying to do is give them some guidelines as to where we want our lighting in town because without those guidelines we can end up with luminaires that have glare. Right, but you were also talking about removing lighting on residential streets. That part is the task force, Dorothy. Right now that is task force to decide what goes on and where not this policy. This policy assigns the locations to the same locations the select board chose 20 years ago. And the task force that we've proposed would be the ones looking at all of that with consultation with DPW, with planning staff, with others. Andy. Well, the select board policy that the existing policy really dates back as you just noted and it was created because of budget cutting at the time and because of financial crisis the town was in and so that was the entire purpose of it. I don't think that the, you know, it's as useful for guiding what we're doing as the street numbering was to adapt the street numbering by law, you know, it's just different times and we just have to recognize that. I think some of the questions that we're talking about and I was glad you mentioned the idea of creating the task force because I think that it is important to be thinking about this and this gets back to, I also thought about Paul's recommendations several months ago to the council about whether thoughts should be given to the creation of a traffic commission or something of that nature so that some of the decisions get removed away from the council. Doesn't mean that the council wouldn't set policy as I think we can do for anything that the licensing commission is doing too but the day to day work of trying to implement and make decisions does fall into a different body and you're beginning to get there but there's a little bit of disconnect between how the policy is now written and the creation of the task force so that needs some work in order to see what it is that we're gonna assign or whether it should go to TAC whether TAC would be the better or whether a commission would be the better so there are a whole bunch of things that are in there. A mention was made about Crest and I actually was glad you brought up Crest because we didn't get into the details of how Crest would be run but we said to how manager was we wanted to create a program that would be a responder program that would not rely on police department would work with the police department and we were giving discretion to how to do so when it came to setting up the details of how it was established and even still now is we're hoping that we can get it into what goes from dispatch to Crest to police to fire or to some combination I think it's the next step but it isn't our step to take it's the executive branch's step to take so I don't think we overstepped with Crest and didn't get into the details of how a program is run and the last thing that I'm gonna just say and then turn it over to the two people raised their hands is that there's a lot of technology in here but I think we all know that technology changes all the time and so we're setting up a policy that goes into current technology to a great degree beyond just establishing policy and gets into more specification referring to those technical specifications but we have no idea whether there's gonna be change to those kinds of standards or what's available or how things are priced or anything else over time. So yeah, Andy, I think as Mandy has previously said we are still giving leeway with this policy or with the document that you've got I keep saying the wrong word Mandy so I'm just gonna say the document I keep saying policy the regulations and anyway, regardless the streetlight policy it does give leeway, right? We set bounds because those are upper limits and lower limits and I'm not gonna get into a discussion on Crest because obviously that wasn't on the agenda and that's not the point. I think the point here in my mind is that we are not experts on everything that we create policy in and we need to do our homework enough to be able to create bounds and create expectations that are clear. I think from my perspective that's not issue specific I think that that's generally true. In this case, I don't think it is enough to say we want and we couldn't have said we want the most efficient bulbs because the most efficient bulbs might be too dark for our town, right? We needed to be specific to try to hit those intersections of the things that we were hearing people want and then yes, there will be technical changes. This is an area that has technical specifications just like sewer rags did, right? Because there was a lack of technical specificity I think is one of the reasons why this policy hadn't been looked at in so long. We need to include technical specificity in areas that demand it and those policies should be revisited and updated with more regularity than we've been doing. We can't give 20 years to policies anymore. That's just, it doesn't work. Stuff changes way too fast for that. And so I want the technical specificity in there because I also want this to be updated and I trust future councils to do that work just like we will with other policies too. We can't wait 20 years anymore on these things. Mandy, I'm sorry. I'm gonna let you go first for the next couple because I- Anna said it. We need to recognize that things get updated and should be updated in every couple of years that we don't adopt a policy and never look at it again. And that's kind of what happened with the select board policy 20 years. As long as a master plan goes between updating is what the streetlight policy has been. More than that now. We're at 22 years at this point. And so we have to start recognizing that policies and bylaws and all should be looked at every five or six years to see whether they need updated, whether they're still relevant or not and what to do with them. So yeah, Shalini. Yeah, thank you. So I appreciate Mandy Jo spending a lot of time with Eve and Tracy. Could you tell us why TAC did not get that was sort of what we were expecting that TAC is gonna be able to discuss this and send us there because yes, as you will see in the waste hauler, I was in a similar position where I did a lot of the back end work. And hopefully you'll see that my perspective is consistent towards that and this, that while I think individual counselors can take the initiative to do the bulk of the research and so forth. And we also need to hear from other experts and stakeholders. So that is one of the big concerns I have is that we have not heard from TAC. And then the second concern is we've heard about random residents who don't want street lights but we haven't heard from residents who actually walk the streets or use a bike or, so we haven't really had a public forum or public listening session, whatever we wanna call it, to get feedback. So it seems like two key aspects of the process have not been undertaken. Shawnee. Sorry, this is a little frustrating. We've been talking about this for over a year. We've had public comment at every single one of these meetings. This has been in the paper, this has been in the blogs. We've had so many opportunities for people to come discuss this policy. This is not to say that we haven't heard from the public is not to say that there has not been an opportunity. So I actually really reject that statement. We've been talking about this for so long and we have heard from the public. And I also think it's unfair to make assumptions that the people saying they want fewer street lights are not walking and biking and using public transportation. So I really gotta put you back on that one. Cause that's challenging to me. So the other reason I will all take responsibility for the reason why TAC got this so late was because I wasn't able to look at it until later. I also will point out that TAC had previously voted on an early proposal. And so this is something that we are, TAC is not a co-sponsor of this. We are seeking tax input actively and that has been something that we've done. But it's a bit different. They're not a community co-sponsor. They're not their committee that we've sought feedback from on this proposal. And the reason why I take full responsibility for that because I was not able to look at the edits on the proposal until later than was the ideal. And I will summarize the TAC meeting. I was at TAC last week. So TAC spent from their meeting started at 5.30 and they had a conversation. I was there at 5.30 because CRC ended slightly early and between when CRC ended and TAC started is when I was able to get that email out because I was chairing a meeting before that starting at four. And so TAC spent an hour talking about it. I went through the changes with the memo. I talked about all the major changes with TAC. I went through the lighting pictures that went through. Then Eve Vogel presented her own presentation with some of also the differences. And I went over the differences between Anna and I's proposal and where Tracy and Eve where we weren't able to come to sort of a compromise agreement. And so there were all that they asked questions. They asked questions about the use of the RP-8 as the standard. They asked questions about thinking about timeframes of when lights will be replaced. And as Andy said, the TAC differences, things like that. They stated things, the members stated things like that they thanked us for doing it. They feel like we've really found a common ground in certain areas. They liked the idea of a task force. They asked whether other types of lightings fell under the policy. One member said it was a great starting point and another member said it wouldn't like the idea of the committee or task force to go into the details. A third member liked the idea of the task force and thought it was a great compromise. Things like that were all there. And then moving forward at the end of the discussion, the chair Tracy Zafian asked, does TAC want to make specific comments or provide feedback to TSO? And they said at that point, they hadn't had enough time to review it. And so they ended the meeting with the TAC members could send to the chair comments after reading the materials, comments to the chair by I think Monday evening of this week so that the chair could forward those comments to TSO by today's meeting. You all received an email from the chair of TSO today as well as the rest of the council about TAC having seen it. Presumably since no comments were forwarded other than the chair's comments that the chair received no other comments from TAC members. But in general, and the chair also summarized this, that they heard generally that TAC members supported the work that's been done and the idea of the task force. So yeah, so again, responding on into your thing, I think there's a fundamental difference in our understanding of public engagement. Yes, we have public opportunities for public to speak and that is a given. However, when we are making substantial changes that are gonna impact the quality of life or safety and these things were particularly raised by members and experts like Eve Vogel that this is gonna impact the safety. And that is why we need a community engagement plan that we hopefully will get to at some point where just the regular opportunity for public to speak does not count because as hopefully you have seen in the two years you've been in council that it's the same three to five people who come unless like we did in the CRC and we had a very rigorous and systematic, not rigorousness, but a systematic process of all the councillors sending out emails to their residents through district councillor emails or having advertised on a town website. I'm not seeing the newspaper that costs money as he pointed out. But unless without that and having calling it a listening session we haven't heard from people. And so yes, we have a fundamental difference then in what public engagement means. Secondly, with respect to TAG, I don't know, like I'm glad we're having this conversation but I would really appreciate if we could have time for the TAG to give us a formal report because I'm still seeing some areas where you're saying you can, you know, there are differences and that's okay to have differences but when the differences impact, have an impact on the safety of people, again, I think we need to be err on the side of being cautious than being fast. So I know it's taken a year and I understand this frustration. Trust me, I am in the same boat working on the waste hauler but I think we do have to me doing it right. Right as it not perfect but finding the areas where there's safety and just making sure that we've addressed there, like why is it not 4,000 as being recommended versus what's being proposed right now? And so specifically, like I haven't delved into the specifics as much as you have but just reading the reports from Tracy or Eve, like some of the things that are fundamental can you provide a reason why those are not being adopted? Or at least let's wait for the TAC report. So we did provide a reason regarding the color, the correlating color temperature, 2,700, 3,000 and 4,000. We provided our reasonings in our memo, specifically relating to the difference between the 4,000 that has been requested for many arterials in town. And Tracy's memo today said 40 miles per hour plus and there's some other changes. Milder changes than the last time we had talked to and proposed this. So there have been differences there but we provided that information. We've provided, it's just a disagreement between co-sponsors and Tracy and Eve at this time as to whether the safety actually, whether there actually is a on the ground accident reduction issue. There is no dispute that the research at the Federal Highway Administration has shown that at 55 miles per hour, the 4,000 Kelvin color temperature permits higher detection distances. What that means is someone can be seen, an object can be seen from farther away using if there is a 4,000 Kelvin distance, Kelvin bulb in place instead of a 3,000 at 55 miles per hour. At 35 miles per hour, those detection distances are the same for 3,000 and 4,000 Kelvin according to the Federal Highway Administration. And so our proposal was for a 45, essentially greater than 40, so meet in the middle and say at 45 miles per hour roads, the higher speed roads that are arterials, go up to 4,000 if that's what the guidance is. We've put the statements into our memo as to why that's where we are and even Tracy have put the statements into their memo as to why they want it in a different one. We can talk in more detail about that if you would like even more detail, but that's why we drafted and submitted the extensive memo we did to try and highlight those differences with citations as to where we were getting them. I find it interesting that flagstaffs crash differences at crash rates and crash data are decreasing and flagstaff uses about 2,000 Kelvin bulbs, 2,200 somewhere in there. And their pedestrian and bicycle crash rates are actually decreasing at 2,000 Kelvin. I know we wanna move to Anika and Dorothy and I know we've got plenty else on the agenda. I think Shalini, I don't think that we have a fundamental disagreement about what community engagement means. I actually, I looked at your plan and looked at the list of things to do. I think that there's a bigger question. And when the community engagement plan is back on the TSO agenda, I look forward to discussing it because I think there's a bigger question about what is and isn't in sponsor control in terms of what we can, we can't force counselors to send emails to their email list. We can't request everything, go on Amherst Engage. And so I think that, but I don't think that's a question that's about streetlight specifically because I think that we need a standard that we can hold every single thing that comes to TSO and to other committees too. And so I don't think that we can, we can pick and choose which one those apply to. And so I'm looking forward to that conversation. Anika. Okay, thank you. So as we wrap this part of our agenda for the night, I just wanted to first, wanted to just make an acknowledgement, a couple of comments. I mean, first, I really want to thank the sponsors for their work here. I am someone who relies on streetlights for a necessity, not just for leisure purposes. And I want to really acknowledge, especially how this, this proposal has moved myself when I first heard about it and heard about lights going down, all my antennas came up and I was freaked out. And while I recognized that in some of the pictures that were clearly shown to show what this looks like. And I think, you know, those were really, really helpful. Is that you can see how it actually is, it speaks to safety, being able to see both sides of the street, both sides of the sidewalk is really important, right in front of you. So I really appreciate how this policy has moved and where I know we have a lot that we can and we cannot control. I wanted to focus on our controllables. Andy brought forward some really thoughtful comments through about this whole proposal, which really showed that you've seen it. We've heard others who are saying, making comments and questions that are in this proposal. Like there is, you know, it's clear that there is a suggestion for a committee or a task force to look at some of the questions that, you know, some of us are suggesting we're left out or removed. This isn't there. So I'd also like to call attention to the remaining meetings that we have left and what we do have on our agenda and what we're responsible for. So where I know we have to take the time, we have to look at everything as carefully as possible, us being as prepared as possible. So at least the one thing we can control is being on the same page about what we're looking at. Whether we agree or not is a different story, but this is, you know, clearly, there's a good amount of disconnect here that is within the materials that we've had for some time. I mean, Tracy Zafin has been consulted with this. It made it very clear that some of the information that she received late, we received some of her responses because of that late as well. So at this point, I'm ready to suggest again that us looking at what we have for the remainder of our time here and also realizing that we have a great responsibility to look at things clearly. So we are either packaging up what we have left as thoroughly for the next council and TSO committee and being able to really look at what we have in front of us and what we'll be able to do. And it doesn't seem like we will get there tonight because I don't know that we'll get to that agenda item. So I would really encourage everyone, that grid is in the packet and please when you have a chance, like let's all just please at least agree to look at that and to at least be clear with every agenda item that we have in front of us. So when we come back to our next meeting, we are at least have an understanding of what these policies are so many and proposals that so many are working so hard on that we at least understand. And I think, we deserve the public deserves that and in our fellow councils, we all deserve that, at the very least. So that's my suggestion that we again move this on but please everyone look at our very packed grid because this is serious and I know that we do need, I'm gonna really thank Anna and Mandy at this point unless there's any objection to this. Dorothy, I know that your hand is up but I think after that, we do need to go on to the holler. Is everyone in agreement? Are there any objections to that? I was gonna ask Dorothy, would you be able to email us your comments? It sounds like, because I wanna also respect that we've got folks here for Wasteholler. If that's possible, that would be great. But if you, I mean, if you must say it now, that's obviously. I can be very brief. Let's just say I haven't been on the same page because I did not think this was ready to take to the public. No, I did not email all my people to come into it. In terms of what Shalini said, I totally agree with Shalini. We have not said, hey, public, come in. This is a policy that's ready to go and we wanna get your input. I thought this was going through and I saw arguments. I saw different sides and I thought it was a lot more was gonna be going on before it was ready to present to have people come to a public hearing. So maybe we will do this as a topic for our next district meeting. We had to do something else planned, but now we're thinking maybe we'll do this because we feel that we would like to see the public weigh in on it and hadn't thought it was time to do that yet because there were so many, there was a great distance between positions. So I do not feel we've had sufficient public engagement. I totally agree with Shalini and I think that we need that. Things will take the time that they take. Yeah, I guess, Dorothy, please reach out to your people because the folks that have been giving us feedback on this have been doing so as residents. And I think even Tracy have been engaging with us as residents, not speaking on behalf of tech, he's not on tech, but not speaking on behalf of tech. And when resident engagement is helpful is when we're shaping this, not once it's already been polished up. And so I think please, please reach out to your people. We want that engagement. And I hope that that's true for other policies as well. That- I thought it was gonna be mute. I thought it was gonna be changed before you were ready for the public. It has been changed based on- The policy was gonna move further towards another direction. So that's what probably the problem is. I didn't think it was ready. So that's, I mean, that's your call. I think- It's my call. It's been moved based on public opinion as how it's been moving. Right. So that's, if we're not engaging the public as we're crafting it, then it's not gonna move in the direction that the public, right? So I guess not- I thought you weren't ready. So I'm sorry. No, it's not. It's okay. I'm glad we could clarify. I think this would be the past year would be the time to do it. We want that input as we're crafting it. I was giving it to you as a counselor, but I didn't think you wanted to have all the people doing it, but we'll do it. We'll do it. Always, always. Okay. Mandy, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, Mandy. If I could just ask Andy, it sounded like he had more, if he could send us up nice so we could see that his more specific comments would be great to see. Thank you, Mandy. Yeah. Thank you, Mandy. Thank you, Mandy. Thank you. And I'll just say last, I would recommend everyone take a second look at that committee suggestion. Okay. So we are going to move on to Shaolinik and we are going to be led through this discussion and presentation. Thank you. All right. Thank you, everyone. I think I want to first pass it back to Paul to see if he can provide an update on the RFIs that we've received. And then I'm happy to lead the conversation based on what we hear. Thank you. Thank you. Guilford, do you want to weigh on that? You have the, we've received three responses, which is excellent from our point of view. Do you want to talk about it, Guilford? Yes. So we did receive three responses. We received them from Kasella, Republic and from USA Waste. I've kind of opened them up and started reading them, but I haven't started pulling things together so I can compare and pull numbers together. Hopefully I can wrap something up in a week or two as just start having some rough numbers. And I think what, you know, we met, Susan Wade is in the audience. We talked with Susan and one of the things that I felt like that's really, the fact that we got three companies interested is a very good sign. That means there's competition there, which is really important to us. But, you know, we need to look at what's in them and then start moving forward on the types of services that we're gonna try to put together. Thank you. That is indeed very encouraging news. So could I also invite Susan to be with us because she is the mass DEP Mac expert that was hired to support us and has been guiding us in this process. Jennifer Kyle will share as well. And Jennifer Dobb, yes. Thank you. Again, I just wanna thank everyone for your time and to pursue this, I wanna thank Susan specially for all the work that she has been doing to gather the best practices for us to have a conversation and share her expertise with us. And we can continue to call upon her for any clarifications. And of course I've been diving in really deep and feel like a real expert now kind of on this issue. And hopefully one of the goals of having this conversation today is to assess where we are in the process. And before the end of the year, what are the recommendations in terms of the report that we send to the town council as TSO? So what can we recommend at the end of the year to the town council which hopefully can get behind it. And then that is able to pass on to the next council a very clear plan that includes all the research and work that has been done for two years. I wanna thank Zero Waste Amherst for all the resources they've been collecting and their advocacy shaking us out of our complacency to really do something about this very important issue and so hopefully that report will have a summary of all the research we've done to date and some very tangible steps that the next council can start take instead of starting from ground zero. So with that in mind, I just made a very quick just the talking point. So I made a quick PowerPoint to lead us through where we are and what we know about this in some discussion points. So that's okay, I'll share my screen. Hopefully I can, oh yeah, I can share my screen, that's awesome, okay. Well, I'm pulling this up if you wanna take a deep breath. I sure need it, I'm already in the morning here. Presentation and just kind of pull this together last minute, so I'm sorry for it. So everything that's in the slide is based on the report. So there's no new information per se, but I just thought it'll be easier if I put it out in a slide. Okay, share screen, there we go. Okay, can everyone see it? See the slides? Yes. Oh my, it's doing some fancy things, didn't mean to. Okay, so again, thanking my co-sponsors, Andy, Jennifer and Alicia and then the community sponsors Zero Waste Amherst sorry, Amherst is missing. And so why is this important? There's some talk about does this really impact climate change? And then we have these huge goals around climate change, how important is this? So I think the first point that's really important is that we're running out of space to throw trash, right? And then it is one of the key solutions to climate change and the food waste impacts economy, the environment and its huge impacts. So all of this is in the report, but I just wanna highlight one of the things that 30% of mass trash is currently exported to out of state facilities and within the next decade, there will only be one landfill left. So just think about that. We enjoy all this amazing space that we have in nature and once these landfills are exhausted and where is that waste gonna go? So we are not there yet, but if we start thinking about it today, if as a community, as Amherst, we all start contemplating about our consumption, our waste, our reuse, recycle, all of these aspects of waste reduction, then by the time this time comes where we run out of landfills, we will have already pivoted and change our own habits individually as residents and have policies and waste hauler by-laws to support that change. The second thing that we keep hearing is that this is not really important for climate change, but according to Project Drawdown, one of the world's leading resources for climate reaction, they have a really cool actually table and it shows that reducing food waste is actually one of the top four solutions to combat climate change, along with wind turbines, turbines, it's solar and plant-rich. So that's another one we could, if people are not excited about waste hauler, we can get on to how about reducing, going, moving towards plant-rich diets, okay. So what are the goals of the proposed amendments? Well, one, we significantly want to reduce, refuse, and greenhouse gas emissions. Number two, reduce the need for landfills and incinerators. Number three, support the production of an accessible to local natural soil amendment to promote resilient crops and reduce dependence on fertilizers. Number four, to help the longevity of the non-renewable natural resources. Number five, to provide consistent, convenient, and transparent refuse. So these are some of the main goals, the broad goals for the changes that we are proposing. So the initial by-law that was proposed last year, it basically had these four components to it. Number one, there was a recommendation for universal composting. Number two, it talked about an effective, pay as you through a model. Number three, the proposal talked about phasing it out from starting with single families, moving on to multiple families. And the fourth proposal aspect of the proposal was that a town contracted hollow by-law is what's going to get us over there. So all of these four suggestions have to be investigated. They have to, we have to look at the best practices. We have to look at what is the impact gonna be and what are other towns doing? What can be transferred easily and make it work in our town? We have to hear from residents and all the different stakeholders, right? So what I tried to do was take each of those questions or recommendations for change and see what are some of the questions that we need to answer. And the goal would be hopefully that with the remaining time that we have and in today's TSO conversation. So as we go through these points, just keep that in mind that given the time we have in TSO, what are some of the changes that you feel that we feel that can be recommended maybe this year? I mean, for adoption this year, I mean, for approval and adoption, which seems a little unlikely given the short time we have, but just look at what are the different proposals? What are the different options over there? And we can start having that conversation. If possible, we can include the residents in a public dialogue session, invite residents and stakeholders and community members to get some feedback. And then all of that, once we have this different perspectives on this, we can then create a report at the end of the year making recommendations to town council for how we'd like to see this move forward in the next town council. So the first recommendation was for universal curbside pick up trash recyclable and composable materials. So some of the questions around that for universal curbside composing is do we want this to become required by all just like we have recycling, right? Like we got used to that new habit of everyone has to recycle. So should we leave this optional or should we make it mandatory? And then if you made it mandatory, they need to be, I mean, there would be exemptions like people maybe who are doing backyard composting, should that be an exemption? Or that, you know, and there are like very different, there are specific points and best practices that go into each of these that we can discuss when we get to it. Right now I'm just giving you the overall sort of questions to think about with respect to each of these changes, right? And how to make it easy to get exempts like if you did get exemptions, how do we monitor them? So is the pace of this okay or would you like to go through all of them and then we can decide as to how to move forward with this? Like we can take, I can go over all of them and then we can decide that would we like to start the conversation about each of these questions and if Susan wants to weigh in or if councillors want to weigh in, should I just keep going for now? Yes. Okay. So the second change that was recommended was a more effective pay as you throw fee structure. And so one of the changes that is very simple and that could be, oh, and here from Guilford as well, of course. So one of the very basic changes is in holler requirement that they provide an annual report to the town with respect to how much trash recyclable and compostable is being collected. So this is a best practice that is proposed by MassDEP and it's not being done right now. So this is a very simple change. And so the questions related to that is that should that be in the bylaw or should that be in the regulations? And so one way to think about it is that we can just require hollers to provide annual report as a bylaw, but then the regulation can get more specific as to what should go in specifically what are we asking for, right? And do we have the technology for hollers to provide information? Do we have the technology for? Okay, basically that meant like do we have, I believe the town has a software that allows them to capture this information. So that's one question for the staff. How will that information be stored and used? What kind of information are hollers able to provide? So hopefully the RFI answers some of these questions. But this is like one of those recommendations that is a bare minimum that we can start implementing and asking for it could be a simple change in the regulations to start getting hollers to do that. Okay, the second aspect of the pay is you throw free structure. Now this gets a little more technical is what is the best paid model that would incentivize residents to reduce their waste? So the way it is right now, the USA only gives a $5 discount if you move to a smaller trash can. And that's not enough of an incentive. If you look at it per gallon, it's basically incentivizing people to actually supersize their trash. The more trash you throw, you actually per unit you're paying less. So it's the opposite of, it's not incentivizing people to reduce waste. So there were other towns and cities that I looked at, including Boulder, Loveland, San Francisco. So all of them actually didn't have town contracted systems and yet they were able to put in very effective pay as you throw models that ended up actually having an effect of reducing waste. So there are models out there we can look at. And so again, what would go into the bylaw and what would go into the regulations? So that would be a discussion point. And then the last part is about compostable. Like right now, again, the cost of composting. So I just subscribed with USA to compost. It's $15 per month, which is really, really expensive. So we're already paying 500 and something and then adding another $180 to that makes it really prohibitive for residents to be able to, many of residents to afford composting if they are not able to do it in their backyard or use the transfer station. So looking at some of the other towns, like in Colorado they basically have prescribed that they have gone towards universal composting, which means more households are signing up for composting, but they put a limit on haulers, which again, these are just best practices to get us started with a discussion. We don't know if this can be transferred within Amherst but this is just to give you an idea of what other towns are doing, like saying that composting rate cannot be more than 75% of what they charge for trash. And the last thing is that last change that was part of the initial by-law is it needs to be, not last story, this is the third one it needs to be phased in over a period of three years. And what I'm seeing in other towns is like the year of adoption of the by-law can state that it's gonna be implemented because we need the town maybe to pivot and get the required staff and systems in place or it may require the haulers to pivot and change or it might require the residents to change and adopt this new habit of composting. So we can adopt a by-law but it can be implemented in a future date that we can decide and then the enforcement is when the town actually starts monitoring. So each of these dates can be different and that's again a question for TSO to discuss. With respect to enforcement, it was really interesting to see like how do you enforce this? Like if you do have universal composting in some towns they sued, the residents sued the town because when the town was trying to monitor if you try to look into the garbage or people to see if they're throwing organic waste in trash they're not allowed to do that because that's a privacy invasion. So how can you monitor and enforce that was kind of an interesting question and we can get to that when we get to that but these are some of the interesting points that we need to discuss and who will enforce this when it comes to that. And then the last one which I had not included in the packet yet it was in the original by-law was the request for town contracted but we had not heard from RFIs till yesterday or today. So I did not but given that we do have the RFIs now this is the other fourth question a town shall provide directly through a contract with. So with respect to that we need to find out what is it gonna cost residents if the town contracts with waste haulers who will do the billing? Who will manage the complaints? How much staff do we need? What is it gonna cost? What addition to the budget? And then the town council has to make those recommendations what is the timeline from the staff in terms of if we do find that this is a model that will bring down the cost for residents after including the cost of additional hire and additional staff and all of that taking all the cost into account if it does indeed bring down the cost for residents how much time does the town staff need or to get the budget in place to kind of create a timeline for that. So those would be all the questions we need with respect to a town contracted system. Other recommendations that came through looking at other towns where that this you can have the best universal composting you're gonna have a town contracted so you can do whatever but without education people are still showing throwing even boots into the composting. So that's what's happening in Burlington because they pushed universal composting without the education maybe or whatever. So it didn't really work because the people are not reducing their waste if they're not getting conscious about that it's not gonna really work and the last suggestion was that again there needs to be a formation of a committee for food and food waste. So, okay, I'll end here for a moment because there's some questions. Yeah, Dorothy. This maybe for you, it may be for Paul when you put out the RFIs you must have I'm assuming that a list of questions such of these must have been part of it. So in a way, I think, isn't that where we start now what we gave them? I mean, this has been very interesting Shalini I must admit but I assume that something like this has already been put together and sent out to the companies. So I'd love to hear from Paul on that. Yeah, so we're sort of comporting what we want with what the market is interested in providing and that's these types of questions were posed to the contractors who might be bidding on this and we say, well, how do you, and we gave them options of things would you provide this service? Would you provide that service and some frameworks for how they would respond to that? So that's the type of information because it's great to sort of suggest we wanna do these things if there aren't people out there to do those services it's sort of ridiculous to offer it. So we wanna merge what we want with what the haulers are willing to provide. Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. And I think there were some specific things that I was able to look at with Susan was also the different types of pay as you throw models like some of them limit that they say that the per unit cost needs to actually go down when you reduce waste and right now it's the opposite but then sometimes say that, okay, there's a fixed cost to hauling like the trucks that go out the haulers have to spend that money whether people are throwing less or more. So in Europe, one of the best practices is that they assume that 40% of the waste haulers collection cost is variable. Sorry. So maybe just 40% needs to be based on how much we throw but 60% can be fixed. So these are against specifics that I just put into our report to give an idea that there are actually specific ways that other cities and countries are using. So when we enter into an agreement with the waste haul or whatever, having this knowledge of what is an effective paid model will be really helpful. Anna. Thank you. So I first want to apologize. I didn't get through all of the content. I think I got through the important there were 128 pages of waste hauler stuff in our packet. So I didn't get through all of it. I think I got through like 50 though. So the report, I'm on the report to explain that proposed pages. I think my biggest question and what I've been trying to figure out is where's the cart and where's the horse, right? And how do we ensure that we're not doing one in front of the other? So all of this is contingent on having a contracted waste hauler service. Is that correct? No. So if not, then my questions are how, and again, I don't know that this is opposed to you, Shalini, I think it's just, I'm just gonna put it out there. How are some of these enforceable if they're not, if it's not a town contracted service? And I'm uncomfortable making things mandatory without knowing where that RFI stands. That makes me really nervous. So my first post it, that's point one, a point two. And then the, if we are not contracted, how do we mandate reporting to the town? And how do we make sure, if USA, do we know like USA is who I use for trash pickup, right? So do we know that they're only picking up Amherst? I live right near Belcher Town. Are they also hitting Belcher Town at the same time? So how do we mandate those reporting questions? And I guess that's like, I don't know who answers that one. And then at a couple kind of specific questions, if that's okay. And we can, if it's not okay. I'll answer these, because I'll forget. Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Okay, so with respect to how is it enforceable without contracts? So all that, I try to get cities like Boulder and Loveland. And of course, it's not Apple to Apple, they're different cities, different number of households, but you can enforce them by including them in your bylaw. So that's how you, like, I mean, it becomes enforceable, sorry, by including these things. And like the year and annual reporting, that is a mass DEP that Susan actually sent me the, which is included in the thing, is that that's a best practice, that if we are trying to reduce our waste, we need to measure what's happening in our towns. And so that is a very simple change that requires, and speaking with Kasella at the mass conference that we went to, I think Jennifer was also there. And they said, like, yeah, we do offer reports of how much waste and how much recycling. So that's a very basic change that we should be asking all haulers to do without a contract. Is that cost additional money to the consumer? No. Okay. I don't know, Guilford raised his hand, so I won't keep it. Yeah, Guilford. Yeah, yeah, Guilford. I just want to jump in here and say, our regulations for waste haulers now require all licensed haulers to report everything and we receive zero reports. And when we talk to them about it, there's zero response. So if you don't have someone who's actually enforcing and someone who says, yes, you're not getting your license again next year because you didn't do this, it's kind of a mute point to put it in the regulation or the bylaw if you don't have teeth to it. We have no teeth right now in our rules. And many of the things, I mean, we already require recycling. You're required to provide recycling. That's in the regulation. So whatever you do, you just have to remember that if you really want the response, you have to put the resource behind it to make the enforcement work or else they're going to ignore you, which if you don't have a contract, that's what's going to happen. Guilford, does that mean staffing on it? Is that what you're saying? Yes. The few times we actually got reports from the waste haulers was when we had a recycling coordinator who was actually in this Zoom meeting and she actually would call them up and beret them. And can you imagine watching Susan beat up on some waste hauler, but that's what she had to do. And she would get some reports. They weren't always the best because the other issue is, yes, the haulers at the time, a hauler may pick up Hadley and then go into Amherst or they may do Belcher Town and then go into Amherst. And that was a problem too, but that's kind of how it's been in the past. Susan, thank you, Guilford. I just wanted to clarify the waste hauler regulations right now say, unless it's changed, and I don't think it has, it says that they are required to supply the reports upon request. And so the first thing we need to do would be to get them to sign the waste hauler agreement at time of licensure, and that hasn't been happening. And then the second thing we would need to do is either change that waste hauler agreement and say that they must supply them annually, even without requesting, right? Or we need to request them. So whatever's in the hauler, whatever, the importance of the waste hauler regs is that it's really the only, if you're a subscription service community, it's really the only leverage that you have against on the haulers. When you license them, that's when they're willing to make concessions and to please you, right? And so by having them agree to, to these are the rules of operating in Amherst, I agree to this and they sign it, they're promising to perform in certain ways. And that's something that hasn't been happening. I don't know for how long. I suspect that, yeah, I don't know for how long. So I just wanted to explain that a little bit more. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that's helpful. So the next question I have was, when I'm looking at the option one with fully variable costing, I think obviously this is a place where, you know, clear community engagement will be, will be really crucial. You know, I think looking at like a 32 gallon bin of compost that's only picked up twice a month, I think I get worried about that as someone who lives like in a very woodsy area with lots of critters who like to already knock over my trash cans and I use a compost. And so I think I'd love to hear about, you know, right now we get our trash picked up once a week and folks who are composting at home, compost at home, and I'm assuming some folks who don't food scraps go on the trash. And so, you know, figuring out how that trash can get pretty stinky, even if it's only been a week. And so I think it'll be really important to do some, I'd love to see the community engagement plan around the timing of it and where the variability of that can come in because I think that'll be really important, especially for folks who live in areas where there's a lot of compost bins out on the curb and sitting there for a couple of weeks. And then I think I was thrown in my initial reading of this in the exemptions category, I actually had marked it and then I went back again and tried to read it a little more cautiously. I would love to take a closer, or suggest maybe a gentler touch on the exemptions category because the way that it reads right now, upon first glance, it reads as if it's discouraging at home composting and that could just be me reading it and seeing it that way. But when I read this, I was like, are they not allowing people to compost at home anymore? And I think that what it is saying is that you're asking people to just compost the pizza boxes and bones. But I think that might, if there can be some clarity there, I think that would be really helpful. And then I just, I really worry about, this is a huge change for people. Like this is, it sounds simple enough, but it's such a huge shift. And so that timeline feels so tight to me. And I think that we're asking people to do something that's really about a huge behavior change and shifting the way that they've acted for generations in some cases. And so I do worry about the timeline, but ultimately my biggest concern is how I worry about committing to elements of this before we know the cost. That's really, that's my biggest concern. Absolutely. And I think there wouldn't be a commitment without doing the analysis and working out with the haulers. And put in place that even once we, I mean, maybe now that we have that, like now we have more information. All of this was done before we knew, like it took us nine months to get an RFI and ship out. So I wasn't sure by when we are gonna get the feedback back and when we'll do the analysis. And meanwhile, I'm like, we're continuing to throw waste. We're continuing to not do anything. So the idea was start looking at what other towns are doing, even without. So all of these things can be put in place. Yes, it would be way more effective once we have a contracted system. However, like asking as Susan said, there are specific ways we can ask them, get them to provide the annual reporting. There are actually ways in which paid model could work, but it does require conversation with the waste haulers. We can't just create bylaws in a vacuum. So all of this, these recommendations are with the built in process that there will be a community engagement with the waste haulers assessing the costs and then listening in from consumers, residents. And all of these questions, those are excellent questions like frequency of composting. And so it gets into what are best practices and what is the education piece required in that? Like there was a learning curve from me because I get it picked up every two weeks and it does think, especially if you go out on vacation. And so there is all of that, but there are again, you know, best practices. I don't know, Susan, if you wanna speak to that at this point. Yeah, there are some educational, I mean, I don't know, two weeks is a long time for a compost pickup, but there are some things that can be done. The schools had problems with flies. I think that there were some mag, oh my God, there's a maggot issue once. There's things that you can do, like for instance, you can just get lime that you can purchase very inexpensively at a hardware store. If you cover the top of your compost container, cover, put a layer of lime, it keeps flies away, right? You can put sawdust, you know, to prevent the flies from accessing it. There are lots of tips and tricks that you can do. Animals are a bigger challenge, but again, if the state, if everybody, if the state of Vermont can require every resident in the state to compost, there are ways we can figure this out. It's not necessarily gonna be easy, but there are ways to figure it out. We are not as rural as some communities that have composting, so we can figure it out. And maybe those people in super rural areas are part of the ones that need to be exempted, if it comes to that. I just encourage people to be creative. We can do some creative problem solving and find ways around most of these issues. And even if it was not in compost, we still have food in our garbage. So if there are animals issues, then that would be true even in the trash when we throw up garbage, you know, and if you're pulling all of your food waste out and keeping it in one place, that's gonna be much less interesting. Your trash is gonna be much less interesting to all the animals. So it's not in that respect, Shalini's right. It's really not that much different from what we have right now, which is trashed with food in it. Right, and you had a question about the exemptions and honestly, I had the same question and that changed because I had an exemption that if you're composting at home, I thought that was an exemption. But what I learned from Zero Waste and I think I ran that by Susan as well, that what I learned was that a big part of the composting is the pizza boxes, food, soiled paper utensils and all of these things which are not, or even meat and bones and all of those that are not composted in the backyard. And that gets, and that's a big chunk of, so if you're thinking of reducing waste from the landfills, then that's a big chunk of it. And so that was, and I can definitely agree with that maybe the length, but that's again a discussion point in terms of what should be allowed as an exemption. Because I was like, we should be incentivizing people. Thank you, you've already been doing that, yay you. So we shouldn't be penalizing them. You keep doing that and you need to. So that's again, I think a question that we can dive into deeper, it's a decision point. These are great questions. And the timeline, were you seeing the three year timeline? Sorry, did you wanna respond to that? I had a follow up point if that's okay. I think, yeah, Susan, those are great tips and tricks. And I think what I would love to see from the sponsors is what are ways that we can support folks who don't automatically have access to those things, so how do we make, is there a way to do a municipal solution where we are offering people lime or sawdust? So that's just, I'm just kind of jumping on that example of not necessarily relying on people to say, okay, my compost has flies. I'm gonna go to the town to, or I'm gonna Google the solution and go to Home Depot and get lime or whatever it is. How do we make sure that we're setting up those solutions proactively would be really important to me in this proposal. And then I actually, I think my concern is less with the rural areas. Bears get in my trash all the time. I'm used to that, that's fine. Well, I mean, it's not my ideal, but it happens. I'm actually more interested in the examples from urban areas. I think that that for me is more the concern is if during bear season, during early spring, I will keep my trash inside and then pull it out of my shed on pick update to keep the bears out. Like we create these solutions. If we're waiting for two weeks, I don't want that inside. So I think like those are the things that I kind of would love to see some proactive solutions on. And I think, Shalani, something that you keep saying is giving me a little bit of pause because I'm thinking about this committee's time and where we are, how we're spending our time. And I think a lot of this, I'm gonna, I'll speak for myself only. And if TSO votes against me, that's totally fine. I'd rather see come from the sponsors. We only have five meetings left. And I don't think we have enough time on our plates to be crafting this policy. So I think I'll just name that what I'd love to see from the sponsors is that craft the answers to those questions. I think we can give the feedback and seeking community feedback will be important. But I'm concerned that we're being asked to draft something in committee. And I don't think that we have the time to do that. So that's, I just wanted to name that. No, thank you for that. And I think that's what this TSO meeting is because we're ready to offer, you know, what we can pass on as best practices, our recommendations that can, and as much as we can do community engagement, we'll try to do this time in a good way. And then whatever it cannot be done, we will send those best, those recommendations that can be then pursued by the next council. So we're happy to do that, but we just wanted to make sure that we provide that opportunity to councillors if they would like to, but it's good to get that clear direction from TSO that you would like us to draft that. Thank you. Can I just ask about the timeline being tied? Were you saying the changing for the residents universal composting was going to be enforced in three years? So were you saying the three years is a too short a time period for residents to change? I'm looking at the imposition of penalties will commence for single family homeowners in 2026 and multiple family homeowners after 2028. 2026 is really soon. And by the time this- Me too. Yeah, so it would be three years basically from whichever, like it was assuming that if it was 2023 then 2020, but if it's not going to be, then maybe it's like three years from when this bylaw is adopted. I think I feel comfortable knowing the three years if I saw like an education plan. I guess that would make me feel better. I think saying three years is fine, but if we don't know what's going to happen to shift behavior in three years, I struggle with that. Thank you. That's really helpful. Three years of education. Okay. Thank you, Anna. Yeah, Jennifer. Thank you. Yeah, I did want to ask with the RFP because that seems like the next thing we're going to be focused on and staff certainly is synthesizing and analyzing and just looking at what's in the RFI responses. Is, will that, can that be shared with the sponsors and TSO? I mean, can we see what was received? In the RFI? Yeah, the RFI responses that came from the three companies. Yeah, so we'll share the information out. I don't, I haven't seen them myself. So, I mean, and Gilbert just said that he hasn't, he's just glanced at them. So we will put that together and so you can see what's the information is. Yeah, that's totally something we can share. Okay. That'd be really helpful. And so just thinking of, you know, Sean, he's done an incredible amount of work, but I don't know, you know, in terms of really putting together best practices and looking at all of that, that the sponsors are going to be able to do that before the end of the calendar year. Is this something that could go to the food waste committee? I mean, it seems like that is that something that could be the committee that you suggest to be formed? Could such a committee, and were you thinking that would be residents, not counselors? This is asking Shalini. I mean, is that could, could a committee be formed probably of residents? Cause I think the council's plate is full to start, you know, looking at all this. Right. It would, that was the, the idea initially was that it would be a residence committee and spoke with Mindy Dam at the farm and we happened to have a content. She said, yeah, there's actually a caucus and the state level for food systems because this is kind of a comprehensive. It's not just about composting. Encompassing is one aspect of reducing waste that includes, you know, how much we consume or shifting the extra food to people who need it. So it includes elements of food insecurity. It includes consumption, disposal, all of these things. So that, you know, so we could, the sponsors could come up with a more concrete proposal of and working with Susan, what she has seen would be because most of the other cities do have a committee that is overseeing and supporting this ongoing and they could be charged with the ongoing education piece as well for the residents. So we can include that in the proposal to the town council. Yes. I wouldn't imagine ever, I don't think the sponsors ever thought this would be put on TSO. That's, you have very full agenda. But I did want to ask, you know, if we go for it or Paul, do you have a sense? So now the RFI responses are in Susan too, I guess what would need to happen to get us to the point that we would be issuing a request for proposal. Well, you have to decide what you're requesting and we haven't even gotten there yet. That's a way far away from that. I mean, you have to decide what you, in a request for a proposal, you say, here's what we want you to provide. And you just had a long conversation about all the things that you're possibly, is it weekly, bi-weekly, all those types of decisions have to be made before you do an RFP. And will the RFI responses, I guess you have a look to know how much closer they will get us to that point. They will just say, we asked them a series of questions, like would you do weekly, would you do bi-weekly, things like that. And they're just saying, yes, yes, no, no, we can do both whatever, you know, again, we haven't seen what the responses are really. So we can't really comment on them. But it's just information on the types of questions that you are discussing tonight. Are you willing and able to provide that service or not? And how would you see as we start to work towards the, because I mean really just the mechanics of it, would it be the sponsors working with staff, or would we, I know we don't have Susan forever, you know, how would it get from where we are now to actually crafting it? No, I think that's exactly where, I think that's, if I'm reading this right, I think that's where Shalini wants to get to this year, like what is the path forward so that it doesn't get lost. And so I think that if that's, if we achieve that this calendar year before this council dissolves, then we've, I think you would have achieved what you want and then lays out a roadmap for what has to happen going forward. Right. I think if I'm reading that right, Shalini, I think that's how you're looking at it, yeah. Absolutely. I was writing down the words, yes, roadmap, that's what path forward, yes. Yes, so Paul, would you, you don't have to answer now, but would you provide us a timeline for the RFI analysis that you can share with us? And then because then I can include that in, you know, crafting that roadmap. Yeah, so we should talk about the roadmap and what can be achieved in a reasonable timeframe, you know, and who gets involved. And then we can talk about staff allocation, other people's allocations, council. And then it'll ultimately, if their councillors involved, they'll be up to who the councillors are next year to make a decision if this is how they want to move forward. My understanding is that once the TSO votes on, hopefully you can vote on a set of recommendations as to a path forward, then the town council has to vote if they want to ask the next council to put that on. And so that sort of makes it a higher probability that the next council will take it on rather than just leaving it open-ended. Yeah, thank you. And Dorothy? I'm a little bit confused in this area because we've talked about all the things that are possible and we know that they relate to cost. And the question is, who is putting together the RFP? I guess I don't think it should be TSO. I think it should be, you know, maybe TSO input with the town. But I think Paul kind of said something like that, but it was awfully vague. I wasn't quite sure. Well, yeah, there's no decision about that, but it's, I think putting together, typically the town does, the town staff do RFPs and things like that. We have a procurement officer who makes sure we put everything, you know, it's very technical details oftentimes and there's bylaws and state laws that we have to comply with. So ultimately when we get to that, that's almost the final product, basically. That's at the end of the process, not at the beginning of the process. Right, but on the other hand, the TSO committee could put together a document of what they want without having that expertise and not having cost. And that would turn out to be a totally unrealistic document. So that's, you know, kind of where worried about. And that's why we did the RFI to gauge what the market looks like. And hopefully Dorothy, there'll be contracts. We had asked at least in the RFI the contracts with other towns where they have contracted with towns. So hopefully that will give us a glimpse if they did share those, what the costs are. So in the next council, that will be part of the pathways to assess what is going to be the cost to the residents with the different options and then choose what is the preferred option. And then the RFP, the staff will create the RFP based on the TSOs and town council's recommendation of the adopted after the whole process. I do see Susan's hand up. Yeah, Susan. Yeah, I have to apologize. I am in Pittsfield right now and just finished a presentation to a public health group. And I'm in the Pittsfield country club. They've allowed me to be in a room but they are shutting down and starting to clean up and stuff. So I just wanted to get a sense of how much longer we're gonna be here tonight talking about this and see if I need to figure out a plan B. I might have to join you via my phone. We're actually going to head towards wrapping this up and just ensure that we're able to get in, if we have any other public comment because we have made that promise. We will be coming to an end. Can I just again publicly thank Susan for, she's out in Pittsfield using her dedication to this goal is just very inspiring and has kept me on, keep going no matter what. And she's been, she stayed up at 12 at night. I've seen her send me emails, checking my stuff. And so again, thank you so much. Very grateful. Public comment, yes. But I just before a couple of the commenters, thank you again. Thank you and thank you for all the sponsors. And I just wanted to chime in with what I hear when I'm speaking to people about this and to be clear, the majority of people that I talked to they're not aware of this. So I'm really excited for, to see what's going to come with that education plan to get that out. The second question is usually what is the cost? What is, what will that be? So I'm really excited for us to be able to get to a point seeing as, this is a town manager goal at the moment. And there is so much interest. I think there hasn't been one person who does who already, when I talked to them and I'm able to share just as much as I know and what has been shared with us doesn't really appreciate the idea of moving towards it. But I think it will be nice when we have more information. So we are all able to speak and have language with this that we're really able to really communicate with the community and bring people on board going from that, that slowest pace. So I'm really looking forward for that additional information. And so all right, if anyone with us, first of all, thank you all for being so patient. If anyone would like to come in and make public comment please raise your hand now. Anyone? I'm just gonna double check. I don't see anyone with their hand up. Okay, so thank you so much, Susan and Gilhert as always for being here with us. You're welcome to stay. I'm sure you want to go. Sorry. I wish you a good night. And Jennifer, thank you. Thank you for joining us as well. Thank you for letting me be a panelist. You can, yeah. Zoom me out. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Can I just put a, like just in terms of the expectations for next, like can I just put a closure to that? Like what is expected from the sponsors? Yeah. Yeah, from my perspective. No, no, no. I was saying like, can I, from what I'm hearing from TSO tonight is that you would like the sponsors to provide a very concrete roadmap for what the TSO can vote, discuss and vote on for the next council. Yes. Yeah. And that would include answering some of these questions, the RFI information, it would incorporate the RFI information and based on all of that, we would put forward a set of, because I don't think we're at a place where we can talk about accepting by-law changes, but what we're talking about is a roadmap and a path forward. I would agree. I think, and Paula, you know, this is your territory certainly, but I would just think that as many questions that we can get answers to be clear because if we were just leaving the next council and committee with a bunch of questions, you know, we're really, you know, passing on a lot of work. So I would think as much clarity and provide would be helpful. Yeah, I'm happy to work with the sponsors on that memo. And I think the only thing, if I can, sorry, I broke the rule. Yeah, I know. It's that when you write the, because I know sometimes when we vote on things as future, like we're going to continue this, it feels like we're voting to commit to everything that's outlined in it. And so I would just ask to like work with Athena or Paula, whoever to make sure that what we're voting on isn't saying like we are going to do all of these. It's like I don't want to accidentally commit us to something that we're not ready to commit to. Yes. Thanks. It'll definitely be vetted by Athena for sure. And Susan, of course, if she's still willing to go for it. Dorothy, do you have a final comment? Well, I just want to say that I know you just had some public comment that Tracy Zafian had been on earlier. And had had her hand raised. And she had thought she was going to be made a panelist on that discussion, but she didn't stay to the very end. So she didn't have a chance to speak. So I just thought I would mention that. No, I actually talked with Tracy. She asked to just make an extended public comment, which I told her absolutely. And I looked for her comment and I didn't see her hand up. So I do apologize, but she was offered to be a panelist and she declined that. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, she needed that time. Thank you. All right, so, okay. Clearly we're not well, maybe so. So we have here at North Pleasant Street update. Paul, do you want to go ahead with that or would it make more sense to move it to the next meeting? Yeah, I guess more of a Guilford. That's the overview of the entire project, you know. Okay, I do see Athena's hand up with that. I guess we will go to our, okay. I'm sorry, Athena, please go ahead. Just very quickly. Last time the committee had talked about the North Pleasant Street project, there was a little bit of pressure because there was some proposals to put in duplexes, but those proposals have been withdrawn. So I just wanted to give you an update that that's no longer on the table at this point. Thank you so much. So that definitely blossoms the urgency. Okay, do you, Andy? Yeah, I just follow up with Athena just said, I assume that that means that our discussion of the last time about moving the bus stop discussion as a higher priority, the bus stop question is not as much of an issue now. It's really, yeah. Right. And the other thing, well, I have a board so I can be efficient. All right, under an unanticipated business because we only heard about it this morning and not 48 hours in advance, should we be considering the town manager appointment of an additional member to the elementary school building committee? Hey, Annie, you read my mind. Yeah. Just, Athena, can we do that? Is that, can we go ahead with it? No, we needed to put the name on the agenda. We had planned to bring that to the council with a waiver of the rules who committee voted past the deadline to post this meeting. So we said, let's just bring it to the council with a waiver. Okay, thank you so much. All right, so does anyone have, I'll just ask, does anyone have any announcements that they would like to make? Okay, I will wish you all sweet dreams. Good night. Good night. All right, everyone. Thank you so much.