 Hi, good afternoon everyone. My name is Angela Mills, and I work for the Town Manager here in the Town of Amherst. This is a meeting of the Amherst Cultural Council, and we are meeting remotely due to suspension of open meeting laws, which have been continued by our wonderful governor. At this time, I'd like to recognize the co-chairs Matt Holloway and Julian Applegate, and we have pressed record. This meeting is being recorded and will be uploaded to the Town of Amherst website soon, and our YouTube channel as well. Take it away, co-chairs. Thank you, Angela. Okay, so that means we're off the hook. We no longer have to read the statement because Angela covered that. Thank you. So I guess we can do our roll call. Matt. Here. Thank you. Christy. Here. Thank you. Cody. I can't hear you. I guess you got to unmute. Here. Thank you. And Rachel. I'm here. Hello. Excellent. Thank you. Matt, would you like to take it from here since you put the agenda together? Sure. Yeah, I'm happy to and glad we have a quorum tonight. I do have something to tell everybody tonight I have decided to step down as a co-chair on the Cultural Council. This is really just a question of my own time and what I'm able to, you know, reasonably do from day to day. And it's also, I think, just something that I've been mulling over for a while based on meeting facilitation. I think, you know, for me, I'd be happy to sort of vote for Julianne or whomever, you know, gets nominated to be the chair. But I'm not going to be supporting co-chairs as a model. And of course, that's just one vote. So, you know, we could still elect co-chairs and that's fine with me, but I don't think that for me, public meetings run smoothly with two co-chairs. So I think I would like to see ACC go back to a single chair person. And I would not take a nomination for that just to be, just to be clear. But I think that would benefit us as a facilitation move since we are a public body. And, you know, we have public meetings. And so I think those go smoothly when there's a chair who can recognize the speaker. And so for those reasons, and just I think for personal reasons, I'm going to, you know, immediately step down as co-chair and sort of, I think, turn it over to the group to take the next step. Thank you for all of your service, Matt. You know, it's, as we've said before, the sheer volume of what we do here in Amherst is a lot more than cultural councils typically do. And it's been, you know, instrumental to the entire group and certainly to me to have had you co-chair along the way. So thank you for your service. I'm going to open it up to any discussion. I see the amount of work that goes into this, you know, off-med even so. My only concern is the work, you know, seeing that we all volunteers will not pay so. You know, I'm for it, but just, you know, being a chair myself is certainly easy to have two people right in the show. You know, it certainly has been helpful and, you know, it's, I'm not stepping down, you know, I'm not going to, you know, and we're at a time right now where, you know, we are somewhat in between, you know, grant cycles. So for the immediate, you know, few months, I think it's manageable. Angela's actually been helping me out quite a bit with some of the admin paperwork that said Matt and I were elected as co-chairs. So with Matt stepping down, you know, we can reevaluate the whole thing if someone else would like to be chair, I'd be happy to support you. However, you know, it would probably be helpful to recognize if we don't have others who'd like to consider being chair or co-chair. Is there anyone who'd like to be chair or co-chair? Is there anyone who'd like to nominate one of your peers here for this exciting role? That's fine as well. I guess, you know, if, yes, Rachel. Hi, I'm not nominating myself or anybody else here. Careful for putting your hands up, right? Right. So first of all, I just wanted to thank you, Julianne and Matt, for having done all this work. I know it's a huge amount of effort on your part. And I guess my question is really just about procedure because I guess this means automatically that Julianne is now acting chair. Is that correct? And as well as treasurer. And how many vacancies do we have right now on the council? We have one official vacancy right now. And I've asked Angela, you know, to provide us with the candidates that we could possibly consider. There's one person in particular that I had asked to apply who is a wonderful community member, lives in Amherst and is not from our country. You know, it just would be a great addition and an accountant. So pretty high level accountant. That's just one person, you know, we have to look at the whole list. But I would actively like to do that, Angela, when we can make the time that we can start seeing who else we can bring in. And then it's kind of a rolling basis at all times as far as people rolling on and off. So it is something that we really do need to actively be inviting people to join us and actively reviewing candidates that are that are that have put in paperwork to be considered. Angela, you might be in the middle of dinner, but I think I think that's correct for where we are right this minute. I think it's Leia's position that's officially open. That's correct. Yeah, we have one vacancy and I know that you have more than one person that's applied since 2024 has started. Excellent. Glad to hear that. Yeah, so I'm happy to run you that list. I'm sorry it's taken so long. Okay. Did that answer your question, Rachel? And as you know, I'd be glad to help help folks ease on into working as treasurer and really frankly believe I believe it or not me as a fashion designer. This is not my strength, but I'm pretty sure I'm leaving it in better condition certainly than when when I joined several treasurers back. Yes, Matt. I just want to point out that we do have one member who has not been to a meeting in about almost a year now, Kimberly, and then Sylvie has not been in several months as well. So Angela, as you're sort of doing getting lists together, it might be wise to reach out to those two individuals and see if they want to continue on their terms, or if they want to give over their seats to somebody who's able to attend more meetings. Yeah, and just for clarification, this is Angela speaking. So neither one has both have missed three consecutive meetings or more. Okay, perfect. Yeah, I can address that with them and CC Julian on those emails just to see where they are with their membership. That'd be great. Angela, do you happen to know off the top of your head or is anybody hearing how many vacancies we're going to have this year? So some terms expire at the end of June. I would have to look at the list to see which of you expire at the end of June. And we usually ask the chairs to reach out to their membership at the end of April to see what they know about open vacancies and people who are not wanting to be reappointed. Thank you. I could just look on the website too. Yeah, thank you. Sure. And just for others who aren't kind of in our email chains, we have heard from Eleanor. Eleanor is studying abroad and she did very kindly reach out to say that she could do the night shift along with Christie if we absolutely had to have her for a forum. So thank you again, Christie, for joining us after hours here and certainly not our intent to keep you up all night. You look very relaxed. It must be going well. I'm just really tired. Okay, so long a long work day. So, okay, so relaxed is more like on the verge of sleep. Okay. Is there anyone who has anything else that they'd like to comment on and Angela, are we required to to take a vote or just recognize that we're moving from a co-chair to a chair organization as one. Yeah, so you opened it up for nominations to replace the vacancy and co-chair that Matt has vacated. I mean, if there's, if you want to have, and I think you opened it up for conversation or comment about this process. But if no one wants to serve as co-chair and no one has spoken against the idea of having a single, having you as the chair, then I feel comfortable moving forward with this format until there's a significant shakeup of the membership, which might happen at the end of June. Yeah. Yeah. So, if I mean, you can open it up again and ask for commentary or ask people to, you know, comment and take kind of like an informal straw poll vote, or if you would feel more comfortable, Julia, and you're totally within your rights to call for a vote of confidence, like a vote of confirmation of US chair. Okay. Well, as Angela said, I'll open it up. Is there any further conversation? Comments? Yes, Cody. Yeah. I was confused at first. I didn't know we opened it up for co-chair just sessions. That being said, I would be interested, but if we think a single chair is more right, the way we want to go, I'm all for that. It's certainly something I'm willing to try and, you know, I'm pretty transparent and open. So, you know, as far as probably the most immediate thing, I can just take care of that for the time being. And, you know, I certainly don't want to be wonderful to serve with you, Cody, and yet wouldn't want to have to drop things on you in the middle of the semester and all that. So, do appreciate it. So it would be appropriate for me to make a motion to for a vote of confidence for Julianne as acting chair until we as a group decide how to move forward. Is that an appropriate motion? Sure. Rachel, to bring this. You have another comment, Cody. No, I second the motion. Okay. I'll take a roll call of the vote. Christy. I support continuing on with Julianne. I think that would be great. Thank you. And Matt. Yes. Thank you. And yes, I will vote to continue on rather than. Yeah, thank you. Okay, so then, thank you all. And please, you know, reach out to me directly anytime or feel free to to speak out as to the effectiveness of our approach as we go along. Okay. As far as the agenda. We need to approve the minutes from the prior meeting. Well, it's part of the transparency. I honestly, I myself haven't read them. Did we, we didn't post minutes for the last session. Because we didn't have a quorum, right? Matt, do you happen to know if there are minutes that are still outstanding for approval? So the secretary takes the minutes and then they get circulated out to the chairs who then circulate them to the group and then we vote on the minutes after the secretary takes them. So no, Eleanor is our secretary and she hasn't been in attendance for quite a while. Okay. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm just trying to think of the last time that we even had minutes to approve. If there's anything that's outstanding there. All right. Suffice it to say, none of us have looked at something for approval so we will table any approvals I'll have to look into that as to I just have a comment. Like, I understand every noise. Like, I could never clear our queue up. And just, my brain's well if minutes are required shooting. That would be doubtless in the time being. No, no fall of Eleanor is just, to me that's precision. So correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure I quite followed all of that but I do agree, could he that it is, you know, it's an important procedural piece. And I believe one of the things we assured Eleanor, when she took on the role of secretary is that all of us are pretty capable of taking the You know, in the event that the the treasure, I'm sorry, the secretary can't be there and then the alternative is to have that person take those minutes from watching the recording afterwards. And, frankly, I haven't looked into it or thought about what our status is right this minute. But definitely it's something as a housekeeping thing that that needs to be attended to meeting to meeting. Just to make sure procedurally that we're doing that. That said, because we do have the recording, you know, of each meeting. There is that record of it, but it is nice for the public to have the bullet points. Did I miss anything from what you said. Oh, that's not me. That was helpful. Yes, Matt. I just want to clarify, I'm probably 99% sure that we are required by overmeeting law to to take and post minutes like written. Absolutely. Yes, we can just finish that's part of I wanted to just kind of have a process where, you know, individuals could speak and not and not have that level of, you know, kind of speaking over. So I would say we do need to, you know, if the secretary is not in attendance at a meeting. It's pretty standard practice to ask somebody else to take minutes during that meeting so that we have that. So, you know, somebody is fulfilling that that requirement. Thanks. That does certainly seem to be a good housekeeping practice. Thank you both. Okay, anything further on meetings, we will endeavor to do better or both meetings and minutes. Okay. We are now go ahead, Angela. Yes, Angela. Sorry, so it can be, it can be a summary of topics discussed and then a reporting of the roll call votes that would be sufficient for open meeting law. It doesn't have to be verbatim kind of replay of what was said by each member but just it's, it's really simple to go back to the recordings and just look at the agenda and change the header to minutes and then figure out who is present and just fill in the votes that were taken under each topic. And if things get moved to old business or postponed to a future meeting date. Then that should be noted as part of the minutes but it's just who's present the topics discussed and then the terrific job that you guys have always done with roll call votes so that would be sufficient. Thanks. Thanks a bunch. Anyone who would be able to kind of take care of that for us tonight. That would be super helpful. Not not you Christie. Not asking at this hour. Okay, I know and I have got to go to I'm going to give about 10 more minutes and then I've got you. Okay, I'll move along to sleep. And this to public comment I see that we do have James Patterson attending with us this evening if James would you like me to unmute you so that you can make a comment or you just observing this evening. I don't know how Angela I would find out. So James could raise his hand I think if you want to speak and be moved over the panelists. So I'll I'll move you over to a panelist James you can join. Hello James and welcome you are on you there. Yeah, I wanted to. I'm just here observing I just wanted that you guys know that is for a class I'm sorry. That's, that's wonderful. We used to have students drop in all the time when we were meeting in the library and with the renovations everything we lost our place so thank you so much for joining. Yeah, no problem at all glad to be here. Great. Thanks. Okay, other topics are. We already really covered the membership update I don't think we need to go back to that grant updates. We have almost all of the 2024 grants are about to be turned over so that they can the grant funding will be dispersed. Angela thank you for your help with all of that to organize that that hand over. It has been a lot an electronic process but there's there's still a couple of pieces for the way that the that Holly as the comptroller in her department appreciate receiving it. Okay, and moving on. Is there anything anyone would like to ask about the grants update. Okay. And is there any any business anybody would like to bring forward that we did not have posted prior to this meeting. Yes, Rachel. This is not a business for this meeting. Excuse me, but I think maybe for a future at our next meeting it might be helpful just to give everybody a an overview and update of where things stand and what kind of our, I guess, governance model is and what we as a council might need to sort out in terms of how we operate going forward. So, kind of. Exactly or what I just said. Not not entirely as far as I don't completely understand. What the major shift is I mean we definitely need to have our, our official offices, filled chair, treasurer, secretary and treasure being opens kind of a major item there but I'm not quite sure what you'd like to explore. Oh, I guess I guess it's just basically with that stepping down as co chair and you effectively are the chair plus treasurer at this point. So I think it's the kind of functions of, you know, because what you just said about everything having gone digital, and that seems to be a relatively new thing right that has happened so I guess no it's. I answer my own question. Sorry. Now that I've asked it. Okay. Feel free to reach out to me one on one. Happy to talk anytime. Just, yeah, because I think for example with the memberships, I guess, like so Sylvie Eleanor and Kimberly they're all full members right because they're, they're adults as opposed to high school students we had in the past. So they're just okay. Yeah, thank you. And yeah. Is there anything else anyone would like to to bring forward. We, we did have a topic that came up that from a procedural point of view, I'd like to just bring forward and perhaps bring to a quick vote. And the situation was that one particular grantee had decided to decline and pass on on getting their fiscal year 2024 grant for organizational reasons. And asked us to return that to the grant pool, which is, you know, exactly what we do. And sometime later that grantee came back and asked if they could have it for a segment of the grant that they applied for but not the actual grant that that was application that was submitted. And what I'd like to bring to a vote procedurally is. Are we in agreement that procedurally that does not match how we fun grantees that the grantees need to go through the grant process with all of the other grantees and and go through the same approval and acceptance process of all of them and that we are not able to to kind of modify on the on the fly was you know kind of how it seemed to me in an email. Is there anybody who'd like to discuss that briefly again Christie needs to hop off so I think we need to do this quickly. I mean, I think I think that's a good thing to reiterate going forward, just because it clarifies and gives us our boundaries. And it makes our job easier and more transparent that we don't change our operating system. I mean, we could, we could have a discussion and change that I wouldn't be in favor of that I think we have procedures, and we should stick to those procedures. And the sentence. So I think that that would be a good thing to get into the record that that is how we operate. Yeah, I support that. And, and I do have to say that, you know, when I when I joined the council when Gigi was was chair, you know, things really work quite a bit more rigid and and then when we had the pandemic. Everything changed for everybody all at once and the MCC, you know, changed some of some of the commonwealth wide rules practices, for instance, simple modifications can happen for a date or a venue it doesn't have to come, you know, have us gather a quorum and vote. And that's something that I can do as chair with any one of you we just need to council members to agree to some simple changes when bought forth and that was to impede the possibility of having art and culture in the community right because so many things were changing at once but I think, you know, from my perspective is very important that anything that's a, you know, major modification. And once someone's accepted the grants, those go through, you know, a, a, an amendment request by form and then we would bring those for a vote to to the all of you, right so that we can make sure that it's still matches the the intent with which we granted the funds to begin with if someone declines the funds you know they're certainly welcome to apply again the next year and you know keep in mind anything from July to December. For a fiscal year 2025 grant. People can can still get funds for 2024 events as long as they're happening in the second half of the year. So, any other any other comments on this. Um, might be unpopular, but if they do apply next year, you know, see I'm torn because of, to me it shows that they're unpredictable. Um, they go home and we says well if they apply next year, we could definitely try to get them some money but is a what if they do this again, you know, at some point all they prohibit is from applying because they do take a raise from some other great projects. That's an excellent point and yet that goes back to what Christie's saying as far as procedure right. If we follow the procedure. Now we can't we don't actually prevent anyone from applying anyone can apply, but once they come through then they're going through the proper vetting and deliberation process and that is where, you know, and we've had this happen with grantees in the past where, you know, they either accepted the funds and didn't do their event or never never even managed to accept their funds and asked for extensions and but from a procedural point of view. That's a good place for us to be because it's all of us together having that discussion around a grant application that's binding. Right. That's in process with all of the other grant applications and it is absolutely up to us to weigh the merits of past track record of actually bringing projects to fruition. But, you know, those funds, you know, would, if they were provided to other grantees, you know, that's that's all of the work that this body does. So I think just, you know, really staying within, you know, the process is certainly supports all of this. And I'm happy to have you all with me on these decisions because we all have big hearts but the biggest heart has to be for, you know, the the public benefit to to the community as as a whole. And we do that best together. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, so I'd like to make a motion just to recognize that who within the group supports in the process that we've been using is grants during the grant cycle. The grants are either rejected and they're given a chance to appeal, or granted, and then grants are accepted contractually, or we're declined and then the funds would go back to the pool. So, is there anyone who would second taking a motion of supporting that process. Thank you. So we'll take a roll call the vote, Christie. Yes. Thank you. Support. Thank you. Matt. Would you just say the motion again, what are what action are we proposing here. It's probably not an action in the way that folks who are following Robert's rules of order would put it out there, but I'm, I am restating do you support following the process that we have in place to have grants during a grant cycle, and that we meet and deliberate that some of those grants are rejected, there's appeal, some of the rest that are approved or granted and that grantees and either accept or decline those those funds but that we that that once that is done that is our process. Do you support that. I'm not sure why you mentioned Robert's rules of order, but I know I don't I don't think I'm going to support that I don't see I don't hear any like, I don't hear any action there so I'm going to I'm going to decline no. Thank you, Rachel. I'll support the motion. Thank you and Cody, thank you for seconding it. Okay. Thank you for that, everyone. And if there's nothing else I think we can reasonably adjourn the meeting is there any further topics any further discussion. Thank you all James thanks for joining us. Angela, thanks to you as well. And take care everyone. Thanks everyone. Thanks all in the recording or just maybe Angela.