 Okay, you're all good. All right. Welcome to the planning Amherst planning board meeting of August, uh, excuse me, September 16th. Um, Yes, September 16, 2020, based on a governor bakers executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, glc 30 a section 20 and sign Thursday, March 24 12 2020, this planning board meeting is being held virtually using the zoom platform. My name is Jack jumps like and I will be the acting chair with this planning board meeting. I'm calling this meeting to order at 633pm. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst media live stream minutes are being taken as normal. I will now take a roll call. Uh, board members, when you hear your name called a mute yourself, answer affirmatively and, and please place yourself back on mute. So Maria chow. Here. And Tom long. Here. Andrew McDougal. Here. And dig Marshall. hasn't. Janet McGowan here. And Johanna Newman. Okay. She's not here. Um, so if technical difficulties arise, we need to pause to burly to rectify the problem, then continue the meeting. If you do not have technical issues, please let Sean or Pam know. The discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed in the minutes will note if a disconnect has occurred. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see you raised hand and call you upon to speak after speaking remember to remit yourself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general general public comment period, and at other appropriate times during the meeting, please be aware. Please be aware. The board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. If you wish to make a comment during a public comment period, you must join the meeting via the zoom telephone teleconference. Teleconferencing link, which I'm not going to read, but you can throw that up there. There's a link. And it's listed on the meeting agenda, which can be found on the town website through the calendar listing for this meeting. Or you can go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent recent agenda which lists a zoom link at the top of the page. And again, this is kind of this stage is for those that might be viewing it on TV and want to make a call in to participate. So we will leave this up for, you know, a few seconds. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raised hand button when public comment is solicited if you have joined the zoom meeting using a telephone. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing start nine on your telephone. When called on, please identify yourself by standing your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. The participants are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. And at the discretion of the planning board chair, if a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their a lot of time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting, moving on the slide bull now show the meeting agenda. With regard to the minutes, I would because there's discussion about what the minutes should be. And, and we're looking at these minutes and I'm wondering if we can just push the minutes to further down the line. Because I feel like the board needs to discuss what these minutes should entail. And I'm going to leave a few comments on on the minutes that have been produced by, by the planning department. So, do I need a vote to do that because I think that we did we need to discuss again how we want to review our minutes should entail because this this is a bit of an issue I think right now because it's been a huge burden to go kind of on the route that I see that we're taking in terms of the transcript route and I know it's taking a lot of time on the planning department. And, and I know, you know, it's time on my end that that to read, you know, 16, you know, plus pages of minutes. And so I'd like for us as a planning board to review how we want to address this in the future. And if we can put that as new business and, and with the minutes for the two minutes that we have proposed which are what the August 5th. August 5th, and September 2nd. Yes, I had those. All right. So, So we can just move to public comment period. And do you see any hands raised haven't really. I see no raised hands. Okay. So, let us move into the site plan review. And I have to pull up the introduction to that bear with me. Okay, so it is a 640. We can proceed with this. And in accordance with the provisions of MGL chapter 40 a this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice there are there have has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for citizens to be heard regarding SPR of 2021-03 Jones Library, 43 Amity Street. And they request the site plan review approval to erect a temporary tent that is 12 foot by 40 foot and dimensions on the front lawn for the purpose of providing library services, including outside computer access services. And the BG zoning district. They're in map 40 14 a parcel 36. Are there any board member disclosures. Very good. And we have the applicant presenting the project. Okay, I'd be sharing cherry. Hi everybody, thank you for having us. I'm actually here just to answer questions. If you need me but actually George hex our facility supervisor he's going to present the whole plan. Very good. Thank you, George. Hi everybody. So for those of you who don't know me my name is George hex I am the facility supervisor for the Jones. So yeah, we are looking to install a tent on the front lawn so that we can provide both computer access services and potentially use it for other programming. I want to make right off the bat. The tent is listed as a 12 foot by 40 foot. We are looking to bump that out to a 14 foot by 40 foot. So we are going to feet wider than what the original paperwork says. The tent itself is a frame tent versus a pole tent. The tent was specified out in discussions with both fire department and with the Amherst town facilities manager. Jeremiah the plants. The company that we're looking to purchase it from is a company that somebody else in town had already purchased a tent from. So the tent itself, both sides would be closed, but the short ends would be open both sides for proper airflow. There would be an egress and a way out of the tent. A tent of that size will allow us to have 10 workstations for the public and a place for a staff number and still be able to maintain social distancing. One of the biggest issues was trying to figure out how we could see as many people as possible, yet still have them be six feet apart. Unlike the restaurants and other businesses that are working outside. We kind of have different sets of limitations so we have to go with those. The tent of that size it's going to be right up against the front. Garden area, and the plan is to use barrels on the Amity street side, as far as waiting it down. Being a frame tent it doesn't really need that but we're going to have that in place anyways, just to be have an extra measure of safety. Putting the tent in that area will put it right up against the front entrance sidewalk on one end. The other end will go most of the way to where the bike racks are. It's really the only spot on the library property that is flat enough and large enough to handle this. We considered other options like maybe putting it in the driveway but we didn't want to do that because we have deliveries and we also don't want to eliminate any handicap parking spaces downtown. So this is really the only spot we would be able to do this. It will involve temporary removal of the Jones library lawn sign. This sign is not an original sign to the building anyways so there's no concern about historic preservation restriction violating that. And it's also a good opportunity when we take it down it really needs to be restored anyway so it will involve that. We've also looked into what the electrical plan will need to be and our electrician has reviewed that over the phone with the town electrical inspector. So if we go forward with that that shouldn't be too much of an issue. I don't think I'm forgetting anything but I'm happy to answer any questions anybody may have about the time we are looking this is only a temporary measure. Once it gets too cold to do this outside the temple have to come down right now we're just trying to give as many services as we can during this time period I mean we don't know how long this is all going to last but we want to be able to have this now and do it as long as we can. Thank you George. We can provide the site visit report at this time I know that Janet and Tom and Andrew and Johanna were there. Um, does anyone want to and I myself. Does anyone want to speak to that. I can if you want. Okay. So there wasn't that much to really observed it was, we looked at the front lawn of the library to the right of the door as you're facing it. And that was a flat spot. It was, we, you know, we looked at the site and what picture what was five feet from the sidewalk. The tent would wind up in that kind of falling apart sign but we knew that was going to be removed. We heard that was going to be removed. And I don't know if there's that much more to add it wasn't, we, there wasn't like a formal presentation but we could see that I thought the dimension was going to be 14 feet. I mean, I thought it, and then it would be 40 feet long. We were told that the openings were going to be on both sides for airflow and that the flaps on the, each, the long sides what we're going to be you know, white plastic. And so, and then it was temporary just for the, for the, whatever we consider warm in New England. Am I missing something? Is there any other detail? Well, I was wondering, and you actually brought this up. Why, why is the planning board reviewing this, Chris? That was my question. Yeah. Yeah. So the planning board is being asked to review this because it's, it's a structure that's being placed on the Jones library property that's bigger than 200 square feet. And this brings up the point of the little blue tent that is also on the property. And little blue tent is smaller than 200 square feet. So it doesn't need a building permit. And this tent, this one that's currently being proposed does need a building permit. And it is being placed on the property. And so it needs site plan review. In certain instances, the building commissioner has waived site plan review for tents on some of the school properties. Although that's usually when they are right budding up against existing walkways. And if there's any need to add some sort of path to get to the tent, then he brings it to the planning board. I think the other issue is that this is a very visible site. So he wanted to give the opportunity to the public to see this project and be able to comment on it if they wanted to. Let me see one more thing. Yes. So the other thing is that the building commissioner and others are looking at a material to lay down on the ground, because knowing that the lawn is a little bumpy, they're looking at some kind of material like plastic sheeting or something that's rigid that would allow wheelchairs to over it so that someone could get from the walkway that goes up to the little side door into the tent because I understand from hearing from Mr. Hicks previously that the tent will be one way in one way out. So you need a way to get in and a way to get out and the two ways to enter and exit if they are on grass will have some sort of rigid covering and you may want to ask Mr. Hicks about whether that rigid covering would go through the tent or not. And so that's that's all I have to say right now. Thank you. George, do you have comment to that. As far as the flooring flooring goes. I really can't comment too much on that because you know just about as much as I do. I had discussed it preliminarily with Jeremiah and I raised the concern that flooring was never used in any of the tents for you know on the town common for the fairs or farmers market or anything like that and I was just questioning whether or not it was necessary. And whether or not it was an expense that we had to go through in order to do this on a temporary basis so I can't speak to like if it's supposed to cover the entire base of the tent, or if it's just supposed to be a walkway or what. Okay. Yeah, may I follow up. Yes, Chris. So you could say that that will be covered during the building commissioners review when he reviews this for granting a building permit. If that's suitable for you. That sounds reasonable. So, and then any questions from the board. I see none. And public comments. There are some hands up Jack. Maria Andrew. I was looking at the wrong screens. Apologize. Andrew. Thanks. And thanks for the presentation George. One thing. Actually, Janet you mentioned the, the, the, the panels. And I wasn't sure actually whether that was the case or not so they're going to be opaque panels. The side panels will not be opaque. They'll be, they'll be white. So the long, so the long pant, the long ends, the 40 foot lengths will be, will be solid. The smaller ends will just be completely open. Okay. All right. So it's, it's, it's, you will not be able to see through. Correct. Okay. Correct. All right. And then you mentioned the barrels. There's no need for guy wires or anything like that with his installation. Correct. All right. And then I guess the only other thing I had was just, I do need to mention the computer equipment coming in overnight. Is there anything that's going to stay in the tent overnight, or will it be a completely stripped. All of the, yeah, all of the computer equipment, the tables, the chairs, they will all be coming into the building when the tent is not in use. The only thing they'll be out there is, you know, the electrical, it's going to be on a post. So, but the electrical will be turned off. Okay. So yeah, you'll still run a new circuit to have like a permanent electric installation to tap. Correct. Okay. Correct. Those are my questions. Very good. And Doug. Two questions. First, do you have any management plan for whether how you will address the probable interest of the homeless in taking shelter in this tent? I don't want to add anything to this, but we did discuss with the police chief that we were looking into doing this. It's something that we've asked them to do is step up their patrols of the area when we install the small tents that we use for the holds right now the one that's a 10 by 15 or 10 by 20. We asked them to step up the patrols just because we knew it would potentially create an attractive environment for that. Okay. So we reviewed a couple of tents last time and ended up giving approving those and saying they could, they could be in place for up to 18 months before the applicant needed to come back. Would the time frame be adequate from your point of view, or would you imagine this could possibly go longer? I really hope it doesn't have to go 18 months. My counter question to that would be, if we take it down during the winter months and put it back up in the spring, will that trigger having to re-review this or would that 18 month time period just carry on until the 18 months is over? The intent was the latter, that it can be up or down and up and down as much as you want to take it up and down over 18 months. I don't want to. But it comes down at the end of 18 months, if not sooner. I would really like to think that 18 months would be sufficient. Do you agree, Sharon? And during that time, or after that time, you can come back and we'll talk about it again. Okay. That way you don't have to spend a lot of time with us. And you can do what you need to do. I like you all, but I appreciate that. I see Janet. What's the plan for high winds or bad weather at night or on weekends? Will someone come and remove the tent? The tent was specified that it would be able to handle harsh weather. I mean, if we get something considerable, like a hurricane or something like that, I would assume that we would take it down. But the tent should be able to handle, because it's a commercial tent, it should be able to handle most of the typical weather we receive. When it does start snowing, the tent will come down and it just won't go back up. Okay. Okay. So I don't see any other. Hands raised from the board. And then from the public. I don't see any other hands as well. Mr. Marshall has re raised his hand, Jack. Okay. Yeah, given that it seems like we're out of comments, I was going to move that we close the hearing and that we approve the applicants application for up to 18 months at which point the applicant could return for another hearing. Chris. Can I, can I ask a question first? Okay, wait a minute. Yes, Andrew. Yeah, sorry for the last minute interruption, but just Chris's comment relative to the making sure that it's got appropriate handicapped accessibility, that's going to be managed through the building commissioner. Is that right? That's not something we need to worry about as part of this approval. Great. Okay. That's my only question. Okay. And Chris, did you have anything to add to the, in terms of the technicality of Doug's motion? You're muted, Chris. Sorry. People are cooking here and I wanted to keep the noise down for you. Anyway, so the 18 months. When the applicant reappears after 18 months, they're going to be able to get a public meeting. And there wouldn't be a hearing. Is that Mr. Marshall's intention. That it would be a public meeting. Because a public hearing entails. Legal ads and notification of a butters. Yes. That's fine. I will amend my motion to replace the word. Hearing with me. Meeting with hearing or hearing with meeting. And may I suggest two other additions? One being. To approve the conditions as. Discussed. And also to say that this meets any relevant criteria of section 11. 24 of the bylaw. Sounds good. So Doug has. Made a motion and second. Okay. Okay. And a second. And so we can do a roll call. Oh, excuse me. Discussion. Pam. Oh, wait. Oh, Yohana disappeared. Oh, Yohana's being listed as Tom long. On my screen. Let me see if I can fix that. No. Yeah. I mean, it's probably on Pam's end. She should be able to do it too. I got it. Sorry. I had it on my calendar for seven p.m. and I'm really sorry. It used to be seven p.m. My problem. Anyway, again, all apologies. Very good. And so. Who seconded. Janet. Yes. Thank you. And okay. So. All right. So I think we can take this to vote with. Not seeing any other, any other. Hands. Correct. Pam. I do not see any hands. Okay. So we can do a roll call. Tom. Approved. Yes. Andrew. Approved. Janet. Yes. And Doug. Hi. And. And Maria. Yes. And Johanna, I'm not, I'm not sure where you stand on this. I'm an abstain because I wasn't. Okay. Very good. So I approve. So that's a six. Approve one abstain. And thank you very much. Thank you. Sharon and George. Appreciate all you do. And hope this works out for you. Thank you. Thanks. And okay. So I'm going to the agenda here. All right. So election of officers and planning board reorganization. So, I know at this time we have three new. You know, board members. We had Christine. We had Dave Levenstein, you know, Step down. I was the vice chair. And. Maria was the clerk. And. Hmm. What else there, but. And then also we had, we had Dave Levenstein, you know, step down and then. You know, we had Robert whistle was a former member. But again. Highly qualified, but we got three highly qualified. New members. And, you know, I personally thrilled. To have, you know, Tom and Andrew and Johanna. On the board. And so, so we need to reorganize. So we haven't had a vote because. Of the way things have lagged. So, and. I have spoken to some of you, you know, with regard to that. So, um, Chris, how, how should this unfold? I'm unmuted. Yeah. So one of you needs to, um, or. One or more of you need to, um, nominate someone for chair. And then you have a second and then a vote. And then one or more needs to nominate someone or others for vice chair. And then you have a second and a vote. And then you nominate someone for a clerk. And then you have a second to vote. So someone needs to. Make that nomination. Okay. So. I nominate Jack for chair. Oh, okay. And is there a second. Maria. Okay. So let's, let's, um, Take that to vote. And again, you know, they're, they're, they're. It's a little bit complicated. And I, I have spoken, you know, with, with Doug. You know, a couple of meetings, you know, past I am willing to, to take this on. I was a little bit intimidated and it really was, because Christine Gray Mullen was doing such an amazing job. That I thought I could never, um, And I will not be able to do as good as job as what she has been doing. And, but I, I realized maybe it doesn't take. Quite the level of effort that she was doing. And, and, and so. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm good with, uh, Being in this position. So, um, we can do any, any discussion. Okay. So we can do, um, A vote, uh, Tom. I approve. I agree. Thank you. Uh, Andrew. Approve. Janet. Approve. Thank you, Doug. Hi. And Johanna. Hi. And Maria. Right. All right. So, uh, we also have the vice chair and the clerk to fill. The vice chair. Um, We need to nominate someone, Maria. Nominate Doug Marshall. Okay. Do we have a second for that? I'll second that. All right, Tom. Thank you. Any discussion. I think, I think Doug is, uh, You know, fantastic. And he's, he's, he, he's been, he's been, uh, with us. Has it been a year yet, Doug? No. Okay. But anyway, um, If there's no other further comment, um, We can do a vote for that. And, uh, I will ask, uh, Tom. Hi. And Andrew. And Janet. And I. And Doug. Hi. And Johanna. Hi. Maria. Yes. And myself. Uh, yes. And we also had the position of clerk, which Maria has been serving. And I understand that she would be willing to continue in that position. Um, but we would need someone to move. Uh, for that. So Doug. Sure. I'm happy to nominate Maria as clerk. And can we have a second on that? I'll second. Okay. All right. I think I heard Janet. Yeah. Okay. And any discussion. Okay. So let's do a roll call. Tom. Hi. Andrew. Move. Janet. Yes. Doug. Hi. Johanna. Hi. And Maria. Yes. Very good. Thank you. And. Mr. Jim sick. Oh, I approve. Yes. And we also have some spots on our committees. Chris, can you help me out here? I'd, is this. Under this spot or. Chris. Chris, are you frozen? Chris. Yes. Someone's using the microwave here. So I wanted to say that the, the most crucial position to nominate someone for is the. See, a CPAC. Community preservation. Committee. Community preservation act committee. And they need a Thursday evenings at six PM. During their busy season, but the rest of the year they don't really need. And planning board rep is a voting member and nominated by the planning board to represent planning board and report to planning board. And then appointed by the town manager. So the CPAC is about to start meeting. In fact, I think they might have met once already. And the town manager is very eager to appoint the planning board chair. So he's asked me to encourage you to. Nominate your representative at this meeting tonight. Okay. So if we kind of flip to, you know, section. If you have the agenda. Section 10 there. We have. The vacancies, but I think we can let. Things kind of. You know, let, let the new members kind of get acclimated. You know, learn a little bit more about these other different positions. But. I will. Suggest we just do the community for preservation act. Committee. You know, voting. Today. Because of the, you know, more urgency as, as Chris Brestrup has mentioned. So, you know, this one looks like to be a fall intensive. Sort of. Effort on the board member with, with weekly meetings through a period of months. Is that, is that correct, Chris? I think they do meet just about weekly. For the rest of September. And October. And then once they've made their recommendation to town council, then they can stop meeting unless they have to make a presentation to town council. Okay. So, you know, so there's a lot going on this fall. And it probably ease. Going into the, the spring, summer. I think they do meet just about weekly for the rest of September and October. And then once they've made their recommendation to town council, they can stop meeting. And. And I am, you know, open to. Anyone that, that wants to take this on. It's a very critical position, you know, obviously within, within the town. A lot of funding that, that goes through this committee. Those great things. And. Chris, do you have your end up? Yeah, would anyone like an explanation of what CPAC is? I don't know if everybody would know. It's a state law. Although I know a little bit, but I, I'd love to hear from you. So the state laws, the community preservation act, and it was passed. Back in the early 2000s, like before 2003. And it allows cities and towns to set aside part of their taxes for certain uses. And those uses are historic preservation, affordable housing, open space and recreation. And there are various requirements for how much of a percentage of the amount of money you need to set aside for each of those, those areas. Usually Amherst has somewhere in excess of a million dollars a year to allocate for these various uses. And the CPAC community preservation act committee. Here's proposals by various groups in town, and they can be private groups that can be public entities. They can be historical commission or leisure services. Sometimes things come from the conservation department. They can be things like, you know, purchase of property to, to add to our open space. They can be things like fixing the steeple on the Jewish community center where that beautiful acorn is at Southeast street. So various things like that. Some of the money's been used to fix the roof on town hall because it's a historic building. So CPAC has a lot of, a lot of power because they have that amount of money and then they can, you know, dole it out as they see fit. So, you know, it's a lot of money. So, you know, the town council needs to approve the CPAC recommendations, but I would say generally speaking, town council usually approve CPAC recommendations. So that's kind of it in a nutshell. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Chris. Chris, I have a question. Who are the other members on. That committee. Someone wanted to check the internet. Check the town website. Yeah. You want to know? Yes. Sarah Marshall is a vice chair. Fletcher Clark. Sarah Eisner. Robin Fordham. Sam McLeod. Uh, Dan Estine and David Williams. And various associations. Many of them are at large. At large. So, so they're not affiliated with other. Town. Boards or committee type representative. As if the, the planning board representative is. Okay. I'm just curious from historical commission and David Williams is from housing authority, but three of them are at large and the planning board slot is open. Right. Thank you, Tom. So, Janet. I haven't been part of this process before. So I was wondering, do people just say, I'm interested and talk about it a little bit or just, or are the people nominated? I mean, I just, I'm kind of curious like who's interested in things like that. So I've never gone through this before. Yeah. I mean, I, I think it's kind of, I think it's kind of open. So if you, if are you interested, Janet? I love that committee, but not particularly. So I was just wondering if like two other people were interested in sort of talk that thread. It's a little awkward, I suppose. Yeah. And I also know that you're also involved with the zoning subcommittee, although it's not active right now. So it's an easy committee to be on right now. Yeah. So, and then, all right. Thank you, Janet and Doug. I was just going to say, my wife is the Sarah Marshall who's on that committee. So from a household management point of view, I'm going to remove myself from consideration for that. I will also say she's the representative from LSSE. Okay. I didn't make the connection there. So, Maria? I think in the past, people just, you know, if you're interested, just say, I volunteer for it. Like when we had an opening in the ad commission, I remember a party just spoke up, you know? So, yeah, anyone who's interested just speak up. I think that's a good time because I don't think anyone has been, I mean, I try to reach out to all of you, but I don't know that I've, you know, we haven't really, to me, I'm not recommending anyone because I haven't really got a sense of what people are feeling. So if anyone wants to volunteer, again, it is a time intensive effort, especially in the fall. I know a lot of you have families. I know, I know I can't do it personally. But it's a very important thing for the town. So, Doug? Oh, your hand, okay. Andrew? Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say, just Chris, thanks for explaining a little bit more about the busy season. That's something that was kind of throwing me for a whack of what the overall time commitment is. Does anybody, Doug, maybe you know, based on when your wife is available on Thursdays, but how long do those meetings typically run? My impression is that they run from sort of 6.30 until eight. And they're not, she told me that there's a couple of upcoming weeks when they're not gonna be meeting. They've got the RFP out at the moment. They're waiting for submissions to come in. So I don't think they're meeting next week, but they're hoping to get started kind of the week after. And it does seem to be mostly the months of September, October, and early November. And then it's basically done for the year. So, you know, it's an easy one if you can make the time during this period and then you've got nothing really to do the rest of the year. All right, so then the other question I had is, is this something that we would typically do? Would we look to reappoint this on an annual basis? Is that the typical or does a position stay filled until that representative opts out or terms off the board? The website says three year appointments. Okay, that's what I, all right. Okay, so I was just gonna say, I have an interest. The time commitment was my largest concern. I do travel for work whenever that happens again. But just, we'll put it out there that I do have an interest. I might not be able to make all the meetings. That would be my caveat. Okay, so I suggest someone, and I'll move that Andrew would be our representative. Sorry to speak, I don't speak out of order here, but Jenna, were you also, were you indicating interest in actually serving on it? No, I wasn't, but I was just wondering about how we have the planning board decide who goes on. But I'm happy to nominate you for the CPAC, Andrew. Great, is there a second? I'll second, this is Johanna. All right, Johanna. All right, any discussion? I was just gonna add that again, should my travel requirements or work requirements, like I assume that we would have some sort of backup member who would fill in on those situations either on like a week by, whether that's a week by week or whether that's like a next year we reevaluate, but I just, I wanna be, I wanna just be clear that I will juggle my time commitments as best as possible, but. And then I wanted to, first of all, Andrew, thank you just like for your candor. I'm totally interested in this position. I, it is also right now the time commitment. This fall, I already feel over committed and I don't think I could, I can't do it this year, but I like the idea of revisiting this a year from now and just seeing how it's working because even though the terms are three years, it's not, like I can imagine there's a learning curve and so there's value in actually going through the RFP process numerous times and developing leadership internally in the committee, but I would all, you know, I think the dust will have settled a little bit a year from now and I would be open to revisiting it at that point too. So Andrew, you would not be like, you know, committed to multiple years here. So it sounds like there, if you can, you know, see it through this fall, it doesn't sound like it's a position that can be where we can have a backup necessarily because of the type of information that flows through it, but are you good with personally stepping up and accepting that nomination? Yeah, I think, you know, for this calendar year, I feel comfortable about that. I would like the opportunity for us to revisit this next year, depending on how schedules look. Absolutely. Okay, so any other comments? No, I have a quick comment that I think you're a great fit for this, Andrew. So with your experience, so I'm excited that you're in that role. Great. Good. So I think we're good to take a roll call on this, Chris. Yep. First up, okay. So, Tom. Hi. All right. Andrew. Hi. And Janet. Hi. Dog. Hi. Johanna. Hi. And Maria. Yep. And myself is an I. So that's seven zero. And at this point, again, the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, I'm on that. We will need an alternate, but I don't know that we need to go into that, but we could. The alternate has sometimes been a planning department person. Um, the alternate, I'm the commissioner right now. Well, I guess I would, I guess, do I need to be re-upped for the position I have, Chris? I don't know when the last time that was voted. That was voted in the spring. So you're freshly in as the planning board rep. And as Emerson's rep, I could even tell you, I mean, I can't tell you tonight, but I could tell you the exact meeting that happened. So, you know what, and then this summer I was asked to be on the executive committee on the Pioneer Valley Commission, which again was like giving me some pause with regard to taking on more responsibilities, but that has been fine. There, there are monthly, you know, meetings associated with the executive committee on that. I'm very interested in the regional planning aspects that it provides, you know, Amherst with regard to, you know, Western mass because I think we need to look beyond just, you know, what we're doing here. So I'm very intrigued by that and we'd like to continue with that, but the alternate is in the, in the chance. I can't, I guess the, the regular commissioners are meeting on a quarterly basis. And there's not a meeting that's coming up. That's imminent is my understanding. And then the agricultural commission, boy might as well discuss this as well. Right now we have, we have a light agenda tonight. So Chris, can you tell us something about that? The agricultural commission is made up of farmers and people who are interested in farming. I think Ryan Carb is currently the chairperson. He is the operator of many hands farm on Pelham Road and he's been active in farming, you know, for a number of years. He, he trains young farmers in, in the ways of farming and, you know, tries to get them started. So other farmers in town have been members of the agricultural commission from time to time, but others have as well. I think Rebecca Frick Fricka was a member of the ag commission for a long time. Ag commission tends to, for various reasons, and it could have to do with farmers schedules, have a hard time meeting. It has a hard time reaching a quorum. So often, you know, the representative of the ag, or the representative to the ag com will come and report to the planning board that, oh, the ag com hasn't met in a long time. Anyway, it's, I don't think it's a burdensome, excuse me, I have a dog right next to me. I'm trying to shoot the dog away. So it's not a burdensome responsibility, but it may actually, well, I hope that it will be fulfilling for whoever takes the role. And you may find out more about farming in Amherst. And that's required that a planning board representative is on that commission. Yes, but it's a non-voting rep. It's a liaison. So it's not actually a member. It's a person who goes to the meetings and listens to what they say and then reports to the planning board. Because we used to have, you know, we used to have like a two or three additional liaison kind of appointments that have dropped off some of them and what the attack transportation advisory committee is no longer there and a couple other. So, and then the design review board, again. You want me to talk about that? We have time, yes. So the design review board has five members. There's a representative from the historical commission and a representative from the planning board. The members are appointed by the plant town manager, but they are nominated by their committee. They're required to have an architect. They're required to have a downtown business person. And I forget what the other thing is, but there are three things that are required, three people who are required. Maybe the third one is the planning board rep. Anyway, they meet as needed. They tend to meet on either Tuesday or a Monday or Tuesday night, usually for an hour and a half or two hours. And they review a lot of different things. Primarily in the past, they've reviewed signs and things that are changes, visual changes in the downtown area. Their area of jurisdiction is the downtown business general district and the surrounding limited business district. So it's really, you know, from a little bit north of Triangle Street to somewhere down around the town common and then going east to west, it's probably over to South Prospect Street and then over to probably, I don't even know if it goes as far as Churchill, but it's, you know, it's contained in the downtown. But then they also review any project of the town. So we just went to them last week, the town planning department had to go to them to have wayfinding signs reviewed. We're planning a series of wayfinding signs in the area around the downtown. So anything that the town does, even if we make like a new shed in the DPW landfill, we're supposed to go to the design review board and get it reviewed, which is good because it makes things that the town does have to step up to the same standards as we expect others. And the other thing is anything within 150 feet of the town common is reviewed by the design review board. So that includes even paint colors. So when the rectory building that's next to the Grace church was painted a number of years ago, they had to go to the design review board to get their paint colors approved as did Hastings. So those kinds of things. So people who are interested in design might be, might like that. And there is at least one architect on the design review board now, but I'm sure they would welcome others. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I mean personally, you know, someone like, you know, I again, haven't had to any discussions, but Tom seems like they are a best candidate, but I don't want to push anyone toward that. And, you know, we can let it, we can let it, you know, slide to the next, you know, meeting and let it think about it. But Tom, I don't know if you, Andrew has this. Okay. Got a lot of hands, Jack. Okay. All right, Tom. So I'm willing to serve on that committee. Now, it would be one that I would be interested in, everything from wayfinding to the architecture downtown. Super. Super interested. So I'd be willing to serve on that. And I know a couple of the people on the committee now. So if anyone's interested, I have the list up here. Great. Andrew? Yeah, so actually the first thing I was going to say was for the ad commission, just look at our Zoom backgrounds. I mean, Doug, it looks like you're calling for the ad commission, right? And then I think Tom makes sense too, but it occurs to me, like I know more about Tom and Johar because we've gone through the interview process together. I don't really know the backgrounds of, you know, the other four of you. And so, you know, it certainly would make sense given Tom's background as an architect and his interest, but I don't know if we have other architects or, you know, if there are other folks who feel like they're qualified or interested. Absent anybody, I would absolutely support Tom though. Okay. So that brings to mind where we had a brief introduction for Tom and Andrew that were new to the board and maybe, oh my gosh, should we have like, you know, a brief introduction again with Johanna coming on board so we don't know who each other are and just go through the whole board. I'm sorry about that. I kind of, that was a oversight on my board, but, or in my thought, my bad, but I can start it off. And we just go, you know, wrap around of all the members now. So I'm an environmental consultant. I'm a hydrogeologist. I've been a consultant for, you know, 30 years, got a doctorate from my team, what's whole oceanographic have served on professional boards, some local boards and that and, and again, I think I get landed on the planning board because I interviewed for a committee back. There were a lot of people volunteering and the temporary town manager said there, would you consider the planning board? So that's how I'm on the planning board right now, basically, but I feel like, you know, it's a good thing to give back to the community. And that's where I'm at right now. You know, I have a couple of kids that have gone through the school system, lived here 20 years. And so I think that's, you know, basically, you know, my background and we'll go in with regard to experience on the board, there'd be Maria next. Let's see. That's great. I learned some new stuff about you, Jack. Let's see. I'm an architect, I've been working since 1999. Various places started out in Charlottesville, Virginia and moved here. I was an adjunct at UMass and that's how I connected with Steve Shriver, who was actually the person who brought me on to the planning board back when he was chair. Yeah, I'm just a local architect. I've been focusing on off-grid and net zero sustainable homes with a sort of modern twist on the New England sort of traditional homes. And actually the planning board is the first sort of volunteer committee I've been on. I haven't done any other stuff locally. So it's been a fun experience, right? Eye-opening, I sort of staggered, straddled the town meeting and town council. So I kind of saw both worlds and so I am really excited for this new group to do good work moving forward. Thank you, Maria. Janet? So it's funny to say this because I always learned about people's backgrounds even after working with them for a while. I went, I'm a graduate of Antioch College and Harvard Law School. I did litigation mostly for about 10 years. I worked at Conservation Law Foundation and then wound up my legal career at Cultural Survival which works with different sort of groups of anthropologists and different indigenous peoples around the world. And I had some projects with them. I've done a little bit of family law, business law. I've been, I've mediated for a couple of years like four or five years. When I lived in Sarerville, I was on the conservation commission. And then when I came to Amherst, I did everything from coaching basketball teams to being active on neighborhood issues. I was a town meeting member. I've been basically home with my kids for 20 years and then they grew up. So now I'm on the planning board. Thank you. And also just a little fact is I grew up in Stony Brook. So I grew up in a college town that did the opposite of Amherst which basically protected nothing. And so pretty much every field and farm that I grew up in was filled up with something. And so Amherst is kind of the cure for that for me. Thank you, and Doug, a little background. Yeah, I've been on the planning board since I think last February. So it hasn't been a year. This is my first town committee or volunteer position at all. My day job, I work at UMass in the campus planning group. I've been in that position for about 10 years. Moved here to Amherst 10 years ago. I'm an architect by training. I spent 20 years in Boston in several large architectural firms before coming here. Thank you. And then I know Tom and Andrew gave a little spiel but for the benefit of all of us, you can just give us a little bit again, thank you. So I'm trained as an architect, practice as an architect in Boston and New York. Also I've become a graphic designer. So I have a practice in that and I teach architecture and design in the five colleges right now at Hampshire College. I've been there for a long time. Hampshire College, I've been there for about 15 years and this is my first public appointment. And I'm excited to participate and work with you all. Thank you. Andrew? Yeah, so I do market planning for Capital One Bank. I've been working with banks for the last 20 years to help them determine the optimal geographic real estate distribution of their networks. So I'm getting out across the U.S., major metro areas, suburban areas, rural areas, just kind of looking at how people are kind of working through space and using space. This is my first volunteer work that I've done with the town. I was a longtime volunteer for the UMass Alumni Association on the board of directors and the president and the board for a while and currently the president and the board for Amherst Youth Lacrosse and a coach for them as well. And it would just say I've met Christine through that. She and I started the girls programs in AYL and then Doug, our daughters connected in cross country. So it's kind of nice putting some names to faces and so forth, but anyhow, very happy to be here. And I guess the other thing I should say, I work from home. So when I'm not traveling, I'm in the bunker in the basement here so. A basement office. I like it, it sounds familiar. Johanna please. Great. So I grew up in Germany. I lived there until I was seven, both my parents are German and then emigrated to the States when I was, I guess, yeah, seven years old in 1986 after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. And I think that kind of got me pointed into the direction of environmental advocacy and organizing and I've been walking that line ever since. So that's what I do professionally. Right now I run the energy program for Environment America, which is a kind of national federation of state-based groups. Our Massachusetts chapter is called Environment Massachusetts. And we've lived in, my husband grew up in Leverett. We moved back here after he finished his doctorate and he's now faculty at UMass in the School of Public Health. So let's see, we have two school-aged kids. My youngest, Moritz, is in second grade at Fort River and my oldest son is in fifth grade at Fort River. And I've been, this is my first kind of official board capacity, I've worked on a couple of kind of political campaigns in Amherst but this is my first kind of within town government appointment. Thank you. And then I have a monthly column in the Gazette. So if there are ever fun issues that we wanna get the light of day, we can use that as a lever. No, I definitely, you know, I was saying, I know you're from some of that stuff. So I was thrilled to have you on my board. So being an environmental consultant myself. So, oh, Maria, yes. I forgot to mention I have kids. Yes. I have a senior in high school and a freshman in high school and they just started school today online and I'm very excited about that. And yeah, I forgot to mention I have kids. It seems like we all have kids and then, but Janet and I have more like empty nest scenarios except we, I know I don't anymore because of COVID and online learning and things like that. It was empty until six months ago. Yeah. And Andrew, did you? Yeah, yeah, just because my family would kill me if I didn't say it since this is, you know, public. I also have kids. Three of them, high school, middle school and elementary school. I think all of them have interacted, Jack, with your wife at Crocker. Brew, yes, and Maria. Yes. Challenging times like COVID, but you know, you see all this testing going on, but not, you know, it's a little frustrating and I hope everything works out because we're limited, limited budgets and things like that, but it's happening. I guess maybe the first day was today. Oh, yes. Yeah, so. Some of us know that very well, yes. Yeah. It was a complicated morning. It was a complicated morning. And my daughter is in the same grade as Johannes's son at Fort River. So that's my youngest. My oldest is in middle school. Well, I think we're all in then and making sure that Amherst is doing our best. So, because we all have kids. So, thank you so much. So I'm relocating downstairs. Oh, okay. But I appreciate everyone for that short, you know, synopsis of everyone's background. And, you know, it's, again, going Zoom versus, you know, in-person meetings in the town hall. It's good that we do this. So welcome, you know, Tom, Andrew, Johanna. And Doug, do you got a hand up? Yeah, I was just gonna say I have a daughter. It sounds like she knows Andrew's daughter. So I'll find out about that when I finish this meeting. And Andrew, you're perceptive because I actually was interested in the Ag Commission. And the background was not intentional. Subtle, subtle hints. Good. Well, okay. Well, perhaps we take care of the agricultural commission. If someone wants to do a nomination there, Tom? Sure, I'll nominate Doug. Okay. The Ag Committee. Do we have a second? I'll second. Andrew, okay. Any discussion? All right, let's roll call Tom. Aye. And Andrew? I changed my mind. Just kidding. Janet? Yes. Doug? Yeah, sure. Yes. All right, Maria? Yes. Johanna? Aye. And myself, yes. Okay. And then the other, I mean, the zoning subcommittee is a little bit in a, and we'll talk about that, but Maria and Janet are on that right now. I mean, we could have more people on that. But it's a little bit in a state of flux with regard to the CRC and Town Council. But that's good. I think with regard to, you know, the planning board reorganization, I think we did a lot this evening. Chris, do you have any comment on that? I was wondering if you wanted to go back to DRB because Tom said that he was interested in serving on DRB. Oh, I know, I was wondering if we did that or not. All right. I apologize. So I guess we got sidetracked. Okay, that's right. I went to where we wanted to talk about our backgrounds and things like that. I'm sorry, let's circle back. I do apologize. I personally would nominate, you know, Tom for the design review board, Leah's on, or representative. Not sure what the title would be, but. And Doug? Second. And Andrew, you had your hand up, but okay. Are any discussion on Tom's nomination? I was only going to ask whether Maria's another architect, whether you had interests. No. Yeah. Okay. I know, yeah. I mean, she's with the designer with the zoning subcommittee. I know she has her, your hands full, although there's been a hiatus, hiatus. So we can do a roll call. I believe there's no other discussion. Okay. So Tom? Yes. Andrew? Approve. Janet? Yes. Doug? Hi. Maria? Yes. Johanna? Hi. And I am also a yes. Wow. So I didn't think we'd get through all this, but that's great. Thank you all. And so I'm flipping back to old business. And we have the Amherst Hill subdivision, which I do have to thank Janet for bringing this up in terms of like, oh yeah, where are they at? And so we had some interesting emails and Chris can report on that. So just to let the other new members know what's going on, the Amherst Hill subdivision has been a subdivision that's been under construction and under development since the early nineties. And it's been kind of a rocky road for a number of reasons. We had the downturn in the economy in 2008. And then the main person who was developing the subdivision, Doug Cole, who was very well known and well liked in the area, passed away. And so his business to Fino Associates and Coal Construction was kind of taken over by, you know, people who initially kind of struggled with all of this. And so, you know, they've pulled out of their difficulties, but now they're faced with the fact that the much of the roadway was built a number of years ago and over time, it's deteriorated. And the town has had a policy that the roadways that are going to be accepted by the town need not have their top course put on prior to most of the houses being built. And the reason for that is that we don't want heavy equipment traveling over the top course for a roadway that the town is going to be taking. And Amherst Hills roadways are roadways that the town will be taking. The board knows that there are other subdivisions in town that have roadways that are going to remain private, which doesn't diminish the playing words interest in those roads, but it's not as serious as it is for Amherst Hills. So anyway, last fall, the fall of 2019, residents of the Amherst Hills subdivision came to the town. They came to the town manager. They came to the town engineer. They came to the planning board pleading with the town to try to get their roadway complete because the town DPW was threatening not to plow the road last winter. So the planning board stepped in and the planning board, I would say reluctantly stepped in and the planning board issued a letter to the building commissioner asking that certain lots in the subdivision which had been released previously be more or less held and not have building permits issued on them until some action was taken on the roadway. So anyway, we're sort of in a, I would, how could I characterize this? Hiatus or a waiting period. Last winter, Tofino, who is the developer, went to the conservation commission requesting permission to build houses on seven lots. And the conservation commission wasn't willing to grant them permission to do that because they became aware that there was a potential vernal pool in the vicinity of these seven lots. So the conservation commission wasn't willing to make any kind of decision about this because it was winter. And they said, well, we need to wait till spring to see exactly where the island is, where the vernal pool is, et cetera. Well, long came last spring and they did make some progress. They went out and visited the site and they think they know where physically where the vernal pool is and where the wetland edges are, but they asked Tofino to bring more information back to them and Tofino has been, they've missed a couple of meetings. They haven't shown up a couple of times. So anyway, to bring the story to a close, the conservation commission is expecting Tofino to come to their meeting next Wednesday to try to work this out. I think the conservation commission would like to be able to reach some sort of an agreement with Tofino to allow construction on some of those lots and not allow construction on others of the lots. And the way this relates to what the planning board is facing is that Tofino apparently doesn't have a lot of money to fix the roadway and in order to get enough money to fix the roadway, they say that they need to be able to sell these lots. So we're sort of caught in a little bit of a, I don't know, difficult situation. We're waiting for the concom to act to see if the lots can be built on. Meanwhile, it is a very long story. Meanwhile, Tofino can't sell the lots on which the planning board has placed this hold because the building commissioner won't grant a release. Meanwhile, there's a lawsuit by Tofino against the residents of Emerson Hills. And I don't really understand that lawsuit at all, but that's kind of keeping people from being able to sell their houses, which is really unfortunate. So it's a little bit of a mess. We have a cost estimate from our town engineer, based on mass highway prices, which everybody knows are very high. Cost estimate is about $930,000 to finish the roadway. I think everybody feels that the actual price, if the work were done by a private contractor would be more in the vicinity of six or 700,000. But anyway, the planning board has been watching this case because they've been trying to figure out if they should take their request to the building commissioner off and allow lots to be released, or what should the planning board do? What I think the planning board should do is just wait and see. Wait and see what happens with the conservation commission. Wait and see if Tofino actually does any work on the road. We have a punch list for the roads. We know what work needs to be done. And let's see. I did email Michael Pill, who represents Tofino, and he said Tofino is talking to contractors about scheduling work to finish the road. As we all know, the time for working on roadways is coming to a close, probably sometime late October, early November, but we'll see how far they can get. They did do enough work on the roadway last winter to allow the roadway to be plowed. So that was a good thing. So they made that progress. And the other thing I can report is that I reached out to the town engineer about this, and he said he hasn't heard from Tofino in a couple of months. So that is what I know about this case right now. But if we want to know more, we can tune into the conservation commission meeting next week and find out what they're gonna do about these seven lots. So I could add some comment there, but Janet has a hand up. Maybe she'll speak to what I will say. Chris, I just have a question. So did the conservation commission ask for like a wetlands delineation and a vernal pool delineation? I assume they would hire someone to do that. Is that what they were, has that been done? Conservation commission has asked for a lot of information. I didn't get a complete list of what they asked for, but they did ask for enough information to figure out where the vernal pools are, where the vernal pool is, where the wetlands are, and to figure out if there's some way of saying that some of these lots can be developed in a way that's sensitive to the wetlands and others may not be able to be developed at all, but they don't have that information yet. So supposedly the developer is going to come to the conservation commission next week with this information. If he doesn't come with the information next week, what I understand is that the conservation commission is likely to then sort of restart the process and require that a legal ad be filed in the Dilly Hampshire Gazette and a butters notices be sent out so that the residents who are waiting for something to happen will know that there's a public hearing coming up because they've continued this public hearing so many times that people have sort of lost track of the fact that public hearing is coming up. So anyway, they're giving the developer one last chance to come to the meeting and show what he has to show. And then if he doesn't show up then they are going to essentially restart the public hearing process. And then just to remind me, there's a performance bond of like, was it 265 or I can't remember the number. I didn't look at my file, my large file. 288,000, I believe, so they have that performance bond which isn't nearly enough to finish the road. But in 2013, the state of the road was better and that's where that number came from. That number was developed in 2013 by the town engineer. Okay, thank you. So, my perspective is that this is the furthest east portion of Amherst. It's up up a hill and go down Station Road. It's the last left and part of the development is in Belcher Town, part is in Amherst. But this is where planning board, we need to be diligent in reviewing and checking things because they did come before us for the extension or the release of lots. And those are times where we really need to review the entirety of the project. And later it was found out that the road had actually degraded more than we knew. And then the entire subdivision there, property owners within the subdivision were attending meetings saying that this is an issue because we've got bad roads and then Jason Schiels gave us a lesson on how quickly pavement can kind of like just fall off cliff. It can be fine for some years and when it goes, it goes quick. And that's what happened to Amherst Hills because of the bump in the road due to the 2008, no recession and, you know, just the bump. Anyway, lesson learned for me personally on this. So we definitely want to keep an eye on this and make sure things are done according to plan. Janet, yeah, okay. So I'm sorry to check my file before this, but I thought they were promising to finish the road this year when they were talking to us. Is that right? That is right. Yep. We were talking about like, you know, I remember Christine Gray Mullins talking about like what that construction time is and it was until about November unless it's like a really warm November. So I had the impression it would be done like in July or so. So it seems like there's no movement on that. They had been replacing stormwater things that weren't working and things like that. But so that hasn't happened. Okay. But, you know, I, Chris can speak to this too, but I know like before the snow fly, there's still plenty of time, but not a whole lot of time. They need to be doing things, you know, soon in October before the paving season and it's Chris. Well, that's right. The planning board asked them to do this work by this summer, by summer of 2020, they said, Tafina said that they would do it by the end of the year. And that of course means the end of the paving season. But I think they ran into this issue of not having enough money to do the work as a result of the tie up that they've had with the conservation commission. So it's kind of a stalemate. So hopefully there will be some action next week. The conservation commission will either, they could deny the requests outright. They could give Tafino another chance to come back and give the information and continue the public hearing again. So we may learn something next week, but it is true that they had said that they would finish this work by the end of the year and the planning board had asked them to finish it by I think the end of July of 2020. Very good. Any other, oh, Andrew. Yeah, I was just so Chris, you'd mentioned probably makes sense for us to wait. And I think that does make sense for the conservation commission to win. Is there, that said, is there any, I guess what would you think the likely outcomes might be that we would need to decision? I'm just, I'm trying to figure out if there's like some homework that we can do. So knowing timing is tight, like we can be fully prepared to address any likely action items brought to us in that meeting. I haven't heard from the residents recently and that is possibly related to the lawsuit that the developer has put against the residents. So I don't know anything about their negotiations. I think there was some talk and it's part of this lawsuit about the residents contributing to a fund to repair the road. So that's all going on in the background. And I'm not privy to that conversation. If they're making progress there, maybe the developer will have enough money to finish the road this year without selling a lot. So there are unknowns here that I don't know. Okay. If nothing else changed, is that would the town be plough and like you said, the road seems like it's ploughable the town would still plough through this winter season. I have not heard that the town won't plough it. That has not come so. Thanks. Okay. Any other discussion on that? Okay. So status of the zoning subcommittee. I know that Chris Bessler and myself were on this joint CRC committee town council meeting yesterday afternoon and we presented our broad points which were three bullets and it was interesting discussion. There's lots to be done with regard to how planning board is going to interface with the CRC of the town council because they have elected, I think to take the lead on this and have pulled Chris Brestrup into that role that limits her involvement that she had previously with the zoning subcommittee. But I do feel that the planning board is going to have a very important role with the zoning bylaw update. So and that remains to be seen. We sent a memo out. I know one board member had a concern that the memo wasn't factual, but again, we presented the three bullets and then some other topics that were discussed, that were discussed enough times that it merited just to be listed as sub-bullets, so to speak, but we did not vote on those. And that was very clear within the memo. And I hope everybody understands that. And I think Chris would agree with that. Did everyone get that memo? And does anyone have any questions on that, that what we presented to the CRC in that memo? I mean, it was a little naked with the three bullets, but we had to get them something. And so they want more. I think my takeaway from that is that the planning board has a lot of expertise that the town council does not have on these matters. And then we have the planning department. And I think we also have the avenue of outside consultants because I think my perception was the town council members all have their own sort of perceptions of what the goal should be for the town. But just observing the meeting that we had yesterday, it seems like there's a lot more in common than is different from what people want. But it seems like the differences end up being larger and kind of disrupting what might move amours forward in these respects. But I was kind of encouraged that we're gonna get something done, but it's a big lift to rewrite the zoning bylaws. The zoning subcommittee was doing that piecemeal when we had town meeting. And now it's a whole different thing. We got, we have the zoning bylaws that really have been reformatted already by, is it Ben? Ben, that's right. Ben Bregger. Ben McGregor. Bregger, B-R-E-G-E-R. Bregger, Ben Bregger. So, you know, so it's mismoving. And I know I will be an advocate for the planning board, you know, providing our input because I do feel like our collective talents are essential to that. But again, the town council is a legislative body. They are, they would, they set the goals. You know, they are representative of the town in that respect. But I, I think we're a little bit in a holding pattern. The zoning subcommittee being on, you know, say hiatus as we kind of figure things out. And then, you know, so there's a process, I think that we will figure things out and whether that resuscitates the zoning subcommittee, whatever, but anything, any real activity we take on now is just going to be counterproductive. This is not going to be worth anyone's, you know, time and energy because town council and the CRC have to figure out how they want to proceed. And they have jurisdiction, you know, on this matter clearly. And I don't know if Chris, if you want to add to that, but that was my takeaway. Well, I could just say that I think that the town, the CRC has made it clear that they do want to work with the planning board and I don't see any reason to doubt that. I think a lot of the work is going to be done by staff, a lot of the actual writing and it's going to be presented to the planning board and to the CRC. The planning board had talked a few weeks ago about having sitting aside some time on their agenda to discuss zoning issues, which I think is a really good idea. They had actually done that in the past when this zoning subcommittee was active. So I think that, you know, having that section in the planning board's agenda to discuss zoning issues is really good and I hope that will go in that direction. So there's more to come on that. I don't know if anyone has, Maria. Yeah, I read the memo and I thought it was very clear on how it divided, you know, what the planning board discussed and those three points were what we voted on and that all the other bits were from months and months of discussion where Christine Gray-Mullen was trying to pull from us what our priorities were. And so those were recurring items. We definitely talked about, but, you know, we didn't vote on them as far as like what we agreed were our priorities. And I think that, yeah, the planning board has a lot to offer. And in particularly with the planning staff, Chris and Pam being on board with us, they're the ones who every day work with the issues that come toward them where there's issues with the zoning bylaw that are just not working for people who are trying to use it. So I feel like the more we can have staff involved in those discussions with us, the more effective will be. And so I think, yeah, if we can set aside time during the planning board to bridge between the CRC and us to get into the issues with Chris and Pam, and that would be the most effective use of time right now as far as the various hands that are in the sort of zoning bylaw revision work. So yeah, I mean, I think I've had enough feedback that we don't need to keep putting in status of zoning subcommittee on the agendas that we're not dissolving it, we're just putting on hiatus and I don't know that we need to keep discussing that, I don't know. Yeah, but yeah. Probably in a month, maybe in a month or two, things might kind of clear up and, but I agree. So any other comment on the zoning subcommittee or interfacing with the CRC, which is again, what's the acronym, Chris? Community Resources Committee Committee. Community Resources Committee. So it's, again, I'm impressed by what they've done this far but I just feel like they're just kind of getting started although they've been around for six months but it just does take time and so anything else on that? Okay, so moving on, this is kind of old business, but the minutes, I wanted to address that and I know I have a viewpoint of what our minutes should be. I've done some research, I can pull some things up but I feel like with our meetings being videotaped, that is accessible to all and I feel like we should link the Amherst media recording of our sessions. The minutes should never approach sort of a transcript sort of version of what we do and I feel like when I see 16 pages of notes that our staff at the planning department are spending time on something that they probably could be spending on more important things. That's just my opinion, but I think that's a good point. I wanted to have a discussion with the board in terms of how we deal with minutes moving forward because they have expanded and to the point where our minutes are not timely anymore. I think we have minutes out from July, we're looking at what August 5th, we have September 2nd minutes, but we have minutes missing from July but anyway, with COVID, with the changing government, with Chris Brestrup now being pulled into the CRC role more than, or in addition to her role with the planning board. I just want to let's get some efficiency here, let's get some understanding, let's get a consensus, so excuse me, of what we want the minutes to be moving forward. So, I mean, I pulled some stuff from the internet that was not distributed to all of you, but my understanding is minutes should be, summaries, they should not be word-for-word sort of things, they should not call out people saying certain things, it should be more focused on the decisions and the votes and the topics, and so I want to bring that to the board so we can move forward and hopefully help our planning department. Do more important things, because again, if anybody wants to see what we do during our planning board meetings, Amherst Media has it, they can get it word-for-word. So, Jana? So, I'm not an advocate of long minutes, and I think there's a couple of things that are sort of at work here, one of them is that our meetings we're getting so close to the end of the year, our meetings we're getting so long, and so when you're talking for four hours, it's like two meetings worth of minutes in a way, and so I'm appreciating that we're having shorter meetings, and I think our minutes would be shorter. I think for me, the concern with minutes is sort of broken down, and I have like two different views in minutes, like one of them is that when we have a public hearing on a permit, I think it's important for the minutes to reflect the discussion. So, we have a presentation by the project proponent, and then the board asks questions, and in my view, a lot of times our decisions, the written decisions are very wrote where we say the requirements of section 11.02 were met, and my concern for those is I think they'd be very easy for a legal challenge saying, well, the board didn't really discuss this or talk about it or analyze the information, you don't know what is the decision resting on, and so particularly in Amherst media, that was one of my concerns, and so part I've seen, I think in the last year, an improvement in that and sort of saying, yeah, the setbacks were, it's shorter, but it also matches the other things of the streets. The more of that kind of meat and potatoes that goes into the decision, I think the stronger the decision is against a legal challenge, and so the kind of back and forth during the hearing, I think is a way of sort of inoculating, sort of supporting our decisions that are a little thin on actual reasoning or supporting facts in there, so I think that discussion is important to put in the minutes, so anybody, so even if we just made a cursory kind of like, yeah, you met this requirement, you can go back in the minutes and say, here's the discussion of that, so those minutes, I think, should be kind of detailed and I appreciate that, it also helps me remember. For the rest of the things that we discussed, I'm really happy with summaries and so, and I could see, like he said, she said, they said, whatever, and there's a lot of repetition, and so, but I do really wanna hear what different members said in their thoughts summarized and so a question I have for Pam and Chris, since we don't have transcript technology or whatever, community technology, is that easier for you to do to listen to the tape or your notes and summarize what each person said fully or is it easier for you just to kind of type out what everybody said as they said it? Because sometimes boiling things down takes more time, but also my final point after that question is, the AG has said that the minutes should be complete enough that someone who was not at the meeting understood the discussion, so, but is it, my question for Pam and Chris is like, what's, is it harder to summarize or is it harder to write out what was said? Whoop, let me get my proper screen up here. Chris, I'll let you. I think it's harder to summarize because you have to really think about what was said. When you're just essentially kind of repeating what was said, it's easier because you just either listen to it or you look at your notes and you type it up, so it does take more thought to summarize things, but I think that we could try to reach a happy medium where we don't actually write down verbatim what people are saying, but we, if there's some particular statement that they make that's very important, we can try to capture that, but try to do a better job at summarizing. And I have the same, as far as content, I have the same concerns that Janet has about appeals and I know that during appeals, the lawyers do look at the minutes. And so, I try to capture as much of the discussion in the minutes as I can about why did we, why did the board make a certain decision? On the other hand, I do think that we probably go overboard in writing too much. So Pam and I are gonna try really hard to make the minutes shorter, but try to capture the essential statements that are made and try to not have them be 16 pages long. Maybe they won't be four pages long, but they'll be somewhere in the middle. And for decisions, in the past, we've taken the minutes and we've incorporated them into the decisions and we're probably gonna have to rethink that too because that makes the decisions really long. In fact, for the Amherst media decision, if we took the minutes from July 1st, July 15th and August 5th and put them all together, we'd probably end up with a 30 page decision. So we have to try to be a little more realistic. So Pam and I are gonna work on that and we will also try to make sure that we get the essential facts incorporated. So how's that? Andrew? Thanks, Jack. Yeah, I had some thoughts or questions, I guess. I'll just sort of skew them out. Is what is the minimum legal requirement that we need to solve for? If such a thing exists and would a video transcripts fulfill that, right? I see the lawyer nodding. So I always know to look for the lawyers first. I mean, do we use the Zoom transcript capabilities? Cause I mean, I hope you're not typing things down verbatim or going to the video afterwards to do that because I know that is a capability that they provide. If there's a need to have a verbatim type of session that you could refer to that. And then also I just want to acknowledge that there's like few things I hate more than taking minutes. It's like an incredibly hard thing to do and just really appreciate even the thought of reworking this and knowing that it's gonna require extra effort on your time is really appreciated. Cause having that aggregated view but also from like a professional's perspective is super helpful for volunteers. So thanks. So a funny story that Pam and I had because they said, Pam, I did minutes for the Dog Park Task Force meeting and I had them within five minutes at the conclusion of the meeting. And I said to them, I don't know. Jim Pistrang is the chairman of that. I'm not sure what he did with him, but he said, wow. But so, I feel like everything is there because of our technology with the video. And I would just really like to say, we took votes on this. We, versus she said that, he said that and that sort of thing. There's no way that needs to end up in the minutes. And I feel like once you get down, again, Chris said, it's harder to summarize but if you don't even have to summarize but you just said, we address these topics. These votes were taken. These motions were made and keep it at a high level. Again, I've just Googled what should be in the minutes and it's very clear that it's our decision what should be there. But when I know that we have each and every meeting videotaped, what is the point of Pam spending 16 hours, whatever it is of her time that is valuable that could be helping Chris Brestrup with much more important things than it really bothers me and Maria. I'm sorry, could I add one more thing? Sorry, Maria, was just the only other thing I was gonna say is as a potential solution to or ideas, could the minutes just like refer to timestamps of the video transcript as well? No, all right, I should just talk to Janet. All right, I'm done. Sorry for the... Interesting. However, Janet has an opinion and I understand, she's an attorney and that but if we need to go to legal counsel, then that's fine but I just feel like we're out of control. And the whole point is that we're trying to, we have such a heavy lift in terms of the planning department and I would just like us not to worry about minutes when anybody that wants detail can go and watch the video. And I am pretty sure that this day and age that that is fine is that these things are linked to our video and that our minutes are just abbreviated about the topics and the votes and things like that. So it just makes us, if I'm wrong, but I would request Chris that you seek legal counsel with regard to what we need to produce in our minutes at a minimum. And let's do that because there's video of each and every meeting that we have. And it just, it just, it's just a real sticking point for me. Does that mean it's reserved on the town website kind of in perpetuity? I would hope so. That's the only issue, but that's what we need but I would think it would be downloaded and linked and never lost. I mean, that's our technology. I don't have any paper documents anymore. All mine are electronic documents for my work, you know, and that's what I realized. I don't, this is different. I feel like we need to do somewhat sort of a, you know, evolution, revolution, whatever, and not be worried about the written word when you have so much other more important things to be doing at this critical time, you know, for Amherst. So Tom. Can I talk? Oh, well, I'm sorry, Maria. I just wanted to say that when I first became, when I was first on the ZSC and we rotated taking minutes, I asked Chris Brestrup, like, what do minutes usually entail when asked the previous ZSC members who are on the ZSC, you know, what do you guys usually put in the minutes? And it's exactly what you said, Jack. It's literally the decisions made, any major points that were made, and a very short summary of next steps. And that's a ZSC. That's not the planning board. True. But that's sort of the gist of what minutes are. And it was helpful for me because I'm, you know, volunteer. I've never been on boards and committees. And then it wasn't until maybe a year or two ago where our minutes suddenly became this very contentious thing. It used to just be, you know, we would each look at what we said and we were fine with it. As far as decisions made or what we, you know, we looked at our own sort of words and it was fine. But then suddenly it became this thing where there were visions to minutes and revisions and revisions. And we're not only having the staff spend time revising them. We as a planning board, we're all spending time looking at the minutes and revising them. And it was, it was really frustrating because exactly, Jack, we have so much more bigger issues to deal with than minutes. In particular, since if it ever came to an appeal or a lawsuit, there's a video to refer to that is literally exactly what happened. So I just, yeah, I agree. I completely agree that something else needs to happen. And I would hate to have Pam and Chris have to rethink everything and change the way they do things. But at the same time, I wonder if there's a way to bullet point it or something. So that. It's no longer something that you guys have to spend, you know, hours doing like, um, I, in fact, when I became chair of the AC, I was so glad because the chair never has to take minutes because I just absolutely. And it's, it's, it's something that, um, I don't know if council needs to be advised. I just wonder if we can just have it be, um, I don't know if this, uh, let's see, you know, the most recent minutes had, um, what is it called the, um, development sort of application pieces in it, which is fine because then it's easier for them to just copy, paste that into the development application. So, I mean, and since we reviewed it at the plan board, I mean, it's not like I'm rereading those, but I do read like what people said. And it's a lot of stuff that's not even like actual. Yeah. Decisions. It's a lot of just. People's discussion. I don't feel like that's something that people can't gather from the videos. Um, So I agree. I would hate to have staff do more thinking about this. Than just simply, um, collecting the sentient points made and decisions made. Um, yeah. I think I looked at a town council, uh, meeting that was five hours. And it was, you know, 11 pages. Um, and then in the Pioneer Valley planning commission. Minutes are. You know, they're, they're, they're fairly, you know, one or two hour meetings. But, um, you know, a couple of pages. But, but anyway, I think it's really important. Because of what's going on. With what's on Amherst, town of Amherst. The government's plate. That we don't get. Go down this road of where we are looking. At on the transcript sort of level. Yeah. For this. So I mean, I was just going to mention that, you know, And I'm just reviewing these minutes from the last few. And I wasn't at the meetings and I don't know what meetings, what the content is of all of our meetings, but it seems as though, you know, from Janet's perspective and possibly Chris's, that there are some things that, um, Could potentially wind up in litigation or appeals, right? And so what are those things? That we need to consider. And do we need specific minutes for those that might be different from the next two thirds of our meeting, which is, you know, internal discussion or debates or, um, you know, review of something, all their updates, that kind of stuff. Maybe we can summarize. Maybe there's a reason for certain things. Where we're making decisions that people might call us on. Um, that we're going to do. We want those things documented in more detail. So it might, you know, that might be the kind of the sort of middle ground is to consider that first, you know, Approvals part of our meeting is something that gets more detail versus the rest of the meeting. So just something to keep in mind. Okay. Um, Janet. Oh, I never un-meated. So, um, I don't know. We could go to the town of Turner. And ask an opinion, but this is what the AG is for. And so they have written extensively about open meeting law and what the requirements are minutes. And I actually, I was just, I've read their old handbook quite a few times and I see they have a new one and I haven't had a chance to look at that. And so I do have that same division. I do think that our questions and our mulling and our, you know, considering of the evidence in front of us is really important to a permit decision. And particularly with Amherst media, it was just like how many lawyers were there, you know, in suits that were being filed left and right. And all I could think of was whatever we decide needs to be very tight and ironclad. And I think that the minutes of that, those three different hearings would really. The detail that is going to help support that decision. I've been in committees where we didn't like in a general discussion, we never identified the speaker and we were just would summarize the discussion. And so it wouldn't be like, you know, you know, Andrew said this and I said that that does feel kind of like a little bit of a tennis ball or debate and kind of a little, maybe more personal, but actually, you know, you were just bringing up the points that people made and not attaching to them. And I do think the summarizing is harder, but I kind of leave it to Pam and Chris to figure out, but I think if we look at the attorney general's guidance on minutes, which are part of open meeting law, I don't think saying to someone, Oh, go watch that meeting. That's what we said. Is going to satisfy open meeting law or the requirements for minutes. Um, I think that's a good point. I think it's reasonable to expect, you know, somebody who's interested in what the planning board talked about to have them go through a four hour transcript, but I really hope we don't have any more four hour meetings too. So I think that shorter meetings will solve this problem. But I think the agency's office is the reason why we're doing this. And I think that's an important point that we should be able to, you know, think about it and think about it and see what the planning board talked about to have them go through a four hour transcript. But I really hope we don't have any more four hour meetings too. So I think that shorter meetings will solve this problem. But I think the agency's office is the resource. Well, I would ask, uh, Janet, that you, um, if you have references that you provide that. Uh, to Chris Breastrup. you know, for the sake of efficiency going to be, you know, a benefit to the planning department and to the planning board that we get this down how we're going to proceed with a minute. So if you could provide what you're referencing to Chris Preston, I would appreciate it. Chris? So I wanted to answer Johanna's question about whether the transcripts are or they not the transcripts, but the videos are on the Amherst town website and I think the Amherst, the town of Amherst has a YouTube channel and I've never delved into it but I understand that our meeting recordings are on the YouTube channel and they're also on the Amherst media channel but I'm not aware of them being on the town website. I just wanted to clarify that. And you know, Chris, they should be on our website downloaded and preserved forever. I mean, what an easy thing to do. So and that I guess- Gotta work with IT. My point is that it would be, we would have a downloaded version of the video and that would be there for all. And for perpetuity, is that the word? Thank you. Johanna? Thank you. Do we need a motion on this? Because it seems to me like we're interested in shorter, more succinct minutes that still have enough detail that they stand up to legal appeal. So we kind of want staff to thread that needle but mostly free up staff time so that they can focus on the important work rather than, I don't know, spending hours going over minute reviews. I don't know if we need a motion or if we just need kind of a gentle direction but that- Well, it's an ask and I think that we are in general agreement. I don't think it needs a vote. I may just see heads kind of shaking. Let's dive into this further and get more information and just understand what we really need for these things. So, with that said, we do have minutes to approve. Doug? Well, I was going to- I wasn't going to say anything but I think I need to. I spent a lot of time doing minutes when I started out as an architect doing weekly construction meetings and our- we were required to get minutes out within 24 hours of the completion of the meeting and when you give yourself a deadline, your minutes get very short and very succinct. So, you know, frankly, during the time I've been on the board the thing that's irritated me the most about the minutes is the long delay with being issued. So, I feel like if we were more insistent on the minutes coming out before the next meeting so that we could review them and vote on them while we still remembered what the meeting was about, that might help shorten the minutes. And then you brought up that we've got a couple to approve and I- I guess I was wondering whether you're looking for a motion to approve or you want to have some conversation first. Well, we'd have to take them piece by piece. The August 5th and September 6th are- have been drafted. The July have not been drafted yet because those are tied into the Amherst media project. Is that correct, Res? July 15th have been drafted and approved. But July 1st has not been- not been sent to you yet. So, you still have July 1st. July 1st. Yeah. What was that one about? That was the beginning of the Amherst media. In the end of the common school. So, we did half of it because we had to get the common school decision out and now we're working on the other half having to do with Amherst media. So, that'll be your next meeting. Okay. So, I'm just bringing up the minutes on my- on my end here for August- August 5th. There was an August 5th minutes that we wrote and then there were comments that Janet McGowan sent us which we incorporated into another document that Pam has and Jack may have it as well. Okay. So, I did have objection to the- to the August 5th comments. I am not in agreement with Janet's modifications to these minutes. Is a look down- Page 13 of 15. Okay. Yeah. So, 13. I don't know how to put this but okay. So, Janet has- has said something even wants to add something here that- that she said on page 13 and then page 15 but what is on page 15 bothers me more. I guess I just- I think there's- there's- there's some discussion that happens within the planning board and I don't know that that detail needs to end up in the minutes. And, you know, when someone says- someone said something I don't- I just- I don't really want- I don't- I don't think we need to go into that level of detail. I'm a little upset about the changes that- that was proposed on- on particularly page 15 with regard to someone violating open meeting law. I think I don't think we need to- to have that- that presented within our minutes. I think that is not- not appropriate and that really brings me a little bit of concern about, you know, the detailed minutes. I mean, let's discuss amongst ourselves but calling out someone, you know, violating something- I don't think that needs to end up there. I mean, it may happen but I don't- I don't want to make a- a written record of- of what someone, you know, said in that- in that fashion. It just doesn't set well with me. So I would, with regard to these August 5th minutes, I would, you know, move that we approve the- the original minutes without Janet's changes based on reeling back the level of detail that we're putting in there and also we're a team. You know, we work as a board together and we need to be, you know, respectful of each other and I don't think this level of detail helps the board, the- the town of Amherst and I just- I just- I'm not comfortable with those changes. So that's- that's my opinion on that. So, Jack, I sent these changes to you and Pam and Janet and so the other board members haven't necessarily seen these changes because we're- we couldn't get it posted in time so- I see. So I don't know if you want to go back and show people what was written on page 13 and what was written on page 13. Okay, so page 13 was added. Okay, can you put that in one page view? Yes. And then- Can you see it okay? Zoom in more. I mean we could zoom on our end too but there we go. Okay. So, I mean someone- stating that someone was confused just, you know, that does not belong in minutes. I'm- I'm sorry. It's just- it just doesn't fit and I know that Pam and Chris put a lot of time into making something that is consistent with, you know, the- the- the many, many years that they have produced planning board minutes in the past. So, I- I like to take personal sort of innuendos out of the minutes and I think that is not consistent and then on page 15 is- is- I'm really uncomfortable with because it's calling out a former, you know, board Madame Chair Christine Gray-Mullen and- and I just- I don't- it just doesn't- it doesn't sit well with me whatsoever. So, I trust the- the tenor that- that was produced by the planning department that- on these minutes is sufficient to approve. Jack Maria has her hand up and Doug. I'm sorry. I'm looking at so many different things here. I don't know who is first. Doug? Yeah. You made a motion and I wanted to second it. Okay. Any discussion? I'll have Maria. I was going to make discussion but I'm fine just moving to approve the meeting minutes as written and not accept Ms. McGowan's revisions. So, I guess I'm seconding- seconding Doug's motion. Okay. Any further discussion, Janet? So, I would love to put the August 5th meeting into the history books because, from my point of view, the whole discussion about the zoning subcommittee and appointing Doug as temporary or permanent chair- I think it was permanent chair came completely out of the blue and I found it really disturbing that all these, you know, everybody's- so many people on the board seem to have been talking about these things and it wasn't in the agenda and I thought that- that the fact that we were talking about an item- these two items of great importance without posting it and doing- following the open meeting law was very disturbing to me. So, I would love to put that in the past. I'd like to pretend it didn't happen but it did happen and so those are important issues to me. I- I don't know what we're calling out, it's just- it just happened and I, you know, two media outlets covered this, people called me and said they thought this was an open meeting law violation. You know, it doesn't look pretty, it wasn't pretty at the time, but it actually happened that way and these are the things that I did say. So, you know, if you want to vote that- to take out that part, you know, I can't- I can't just, you know, I can't change that vote but, you know, it's hard to sit in a position often a minority view and read minutes where what you've said isn't in there and other people's points are laid out sort of carefully and so what I'm doing often in the minutes is putting in something that I said, something Michael Burtwistle said and I think it's worth to be in there and if you're uncomfortable with what happened at that meeting it shouldn't be because I'm talking about it and writing about it later but what actually happened at the meeting which was actually quite disturbing to me and I hope we never do that again. Thank you. I have nothing else to say. Maria? Um, I just- since we're on this page, that red paragraph, um, let's see, I think the last half of the paragraph did not happen at the meeting so I agree with that some of this doesn't seem like it's about representing what happened at the meeting but an opinion or bringing up something that's not an actual meeting occurrence. The sentence that starts with later Ms. Cowan said that Chris Dean Gray Mullen had presented the end of the ZSC as a done deal to her. That maybe happened, it didn't happen at the planning board meeting so I feel like there is something else here that should not be here. Um, yeah, exactly, you're right Janet that it wasn't on agenda so we didn't do the things that were not on agenda that evening and that actually happened so the things you're bringing up are correct in that we didn't make Mr. Marshall chair and we didn't dissolve the ZSC because we realized oh okay yeah right we should have put it on the agenda so for you know you're raising these points and that's exactly what happened it's just there's these other layers to it that I agree with Jack I don't think are right to be in the meeting minutes and and and our minutes never were this way in the past they were never um subjective opinions throwing it it was it used to be just bullet point sort of here was a decision here was a summary or here was a um a point may that you know got folded into the development application but all this extra stuff did not used to be in the minutes and I I agree I I don't agree with adding this other extra layer into our minutes and and I I guess I stand behind the motion the second to Doug's motion I feel like we're doing exactly what we said we shouldn't be doing which is spend all this time on minutes but here we are so okay I don't see any other hands raised and uh I guess we can um Jack can I ask a question yes so I thought you made that motion the Maria I did and then it got so and Doug seconded it and I thought I seconded it next second and then and then uh yes okay got it um and I think it's okay that the chair makes or vice chair whatever I am um this time but uh to make a motion correct Chris yeah um so without further discussion the august 5th uh minutes as originally presented uh by Chris Brestrup uh need to be approved and that is the the vote so without any edits so um roll call Tom uh do I abstain from this because I was not at that meeting actually I saw where you don't need to but it it Chris maybe probably a good idea to abstain okay okay I'm staying okay Andrew I also abstain okay Janet no uh Doug yes Janet excuse me uh I'm sorry Rhea yes all right and Johanna I'm staying and myself yes so that's three one to approve the august 5th minutes and the september 2nd minutes again I I apologize this the whole minutes thing but it is it's a process thing that I hope we all appreciate that we we kind of understanding get on the same page um I'm just looking for oh okay okay September 2nd ones weren't any recommended changes that we know about but there might be some offered tonight yeah so for the September 2nd minutes anyone want to make a motion to approve any discussion first I seen none oh Andrew not she may have just gonna say absent any discussion I'll make a motion to approve okay and Doug second okay so roll call um Tom hi Andrew proof jenna Doug approve Maria approve Johanna abstain and myself approve if I can start it in drug check but just like reading those detailed minutes is like a walk down memory lane I remember like where I was and you know oh that's when I went to get a drink so like it's it's sort of interesting um yeah I mean my how two weeks fly by uh uh okay so um I've really messed with the agenda here so new business do we have new business other than what we talked about with regard to minutes no in the business okay uh form in our subdivision applications yes we have one and Pam's going to show it to us this is I'll explain it um this is a property that's come before you in the past um it's jack brown on Bay Road and you saw jack um when he was requesting some approval of his driveway and he had a very long driveway with a place in it that was steep so you had to grant him a special permit to allow him to build that long driveway he owns this piece of property in yellow that's outlined in yellow and um this map is let's see um north is to the right so um it's on the south side of Bay Road um his house is as shown it's that little pink um rectangle and many of you will remember the site visit that we took and explained at that time uh how he was going to subdivide the property into um essentially two flaglots right now his lot outlined in yellow is not really a flaglot because it has enough frontage on Bay Road but he's going to he's proposing to um divide it and the red line uh Pam drew on this map to show approximately where the new property line would be for the new uh property and now we can go and look at the um so here we have Bay Road is still on the right so north is still to the right and the new lot is um lot two which is way to the left and the new lot doesn't have the usual building circle drawn on it but we know that the building circle can fit there the building circle needs to be 200 feet in diameter um and the far um west uh excuse me far left which would be southern property line is over 200 feet so we know that there that a circle of 200 feet in diameter can fit in that location so when um jack comes to the what's he going to be doing comes to the special permit um process with the zoning board of appeals which he actually might have already done I don't really remember but anyway um at that time they would determine where the house is going to go and where the building circle is going to go so I think um everything considered this plan does what it's supposed to do it's got enough lot area for in the rld zoning district you have to have um four acres for a um a flag lot and this has over four acres it's got 7.3 acres and the um access strip is over is 40 feet wide which is fine and it's got um over 40 feet of frontage so and and we have this reviewed by jason skills the town engineer so we don't see any problems with the planning board authorizing um jack as their new chair to sign this a and r plan and for those of you who haven't been on the planning board before an a and r plan is really an acknowledgement by the planning board that this particular um subdivision of lots does not have to go through the subdivision approval process subdivision approval process is reserved for first before delineation of lots that includes a roadway and in this case there's no roadway there is a common driveway but there's no roadway so um I'm sure that you'll see a subdivision eventually but for now this is approval not required if that means there's no subdivision approval required here so you're just acknowledging that doesn't need to go through the subdivision approval process so there's really no vote that needs to be taken it's just the planning board needs to kind of by consensus agree that jack can sign this plan as an approval not required any questions uh janet hi um did we is this the lot that we went and visited and did a site visit for yeah okay and then did you say that the seven acre plot is going to be turned into a subdivision no or oh you just said that there'll be a subdivision later no there's not going to be a subdivision later there's actually going to be a special permit with the zoning board of appeals but they may have gone through that process already um they can choose to go through the a and r process and then go through special permit or they can do the opposite they can go through special permit and then a and r so they i think they might have gone through that this this time they might have done special permit and then a and r and so this is the property we saw with bucky sparkle and the habitat for the the turtle right okay thank you um dog uh chris had mentioned that the driveway had had a waiver on it um will we be asked to do another waiver on the new lot or are they sharing the same driveway they actually it's all coming back to me now they actually showed you a driveway and you gave them a special permit on a driveway yeah it's the existing driveway which you see on this property with the new lot so you have actually approved the new driveway layout and the new driveway grading as a special permit and i think i don't know when that was done but something tells me it was done in january um i i do vaguely remember it so it was a little later than that oh so it was after Doug joined yep so that new driveway doesn't show up on this plan so why if we did the special permit six months ago why wouldn't we have done the a and r at the same time um that's a good question um it's not really required to do it at the same time and it may just be that um that the applicant wasn't ready for whatever reason maybe he just hadn't decided to sell the lot and now he's decided to sell it so he needs to carve it off in order to sell it um so i i don't really know what his what his thought process was well then i'll ask one more question which is if this came up as a special permit several months ago are those of us who were not on the board at the time allowed to vote on this or is this a completely separate process and we can all vote on it it's a completely separate process and you don't need to vote on it but if you want to vote on it you can you can just kind of nod your heads um by consensus which is what you do when you're in the town room usually i i i stay to the board are you in agreement that the chair can sign this plan and the board members nod their heads every once in a while a vote is taken but um it's up to you whether you want to take a vote on this or not i see no other hands so without any objection i'll sign this okay okay all right um upcoming zba applications i'm not aware of any new ones they still are working on the comp permit for 138 northampton road primarily chris okay did you add small new ones but i don't think there's anything that the planning board would particularly care to look at um yeah okay upcoming spp sprs ub applications yes there are and one i just brought it up let's see if i can get it back so there is a an application by the kestrel trust and i may have mentioned this to you last time for 37 bay road it's land that um actually you saw the a and r plan for this don allison who's an attorney in town owns property um actually yes off bay road and is that what i'm talking about no that's not what i'm talking about never mind that's another kestrel trust project um this project has to do with the epstein's sai and um his wife whose first name i can't remember um the epstein's own property in um amherst owned property in amherst and it has a pond on it and it's got a beautiful um mid-century modern house and kestrel trust is acquiring the property and they're going to turn the house into an office for their for the kestrel trust and so that's going to be brought to you as a site plan of view and i think that's coming on october 7th and the other one that we have coming up is the town has um been made aware that they have money as a result of the cares act which is related to covid 19 and it's money from the federal government which from the state and as a result of having this money they want to purchase something for the decided or they they they think that they may have decided although they're not there yet to purchase comfort stations and these comfort stations are um kind of prefabricated and they're for them and uh when i know exactly where they're going to be located i'll tell you that but that would have to come before the planning board i mean it would probably have to go to the designer view board too um so they're just little comfort stations i think they just have like one stall you know one female and one male but um we certainly need public restrooms in town and so that's the provide that um and the town wouldn't have to pay for it so the town manager and james zomek and the building commissioner are working on this project together let's see any other plan that i know that's going to be coming to you thank you um jack jenna has her hand hi jenna is a comfort station of port alive it's it sounds a comfort station sounds lovely but i'm not quite sure what you mean is it a portal lab it's a little building that's permanently installed um it's not portable it's um actually if you've been to the west and you know gone to the national parks sort of reminiscent of what you might see in a national park in fact the one the one that i saw had like stone around the bottom and board and baton siding and a roof that looks like it's made out of cedar shingles or something there are different designs that you can get and you can get a design with horizontal clad horizontal clad boards and the metal roof so we're looking at different styles so hopefully you know if we put one in or near the downtown it's not going to look like one's in a national park so we're trying to work on on those issues um but anyway that that may be coming to you if the town manager decides that he wants to spend the money in that way thanks chris um so we're moving on to planning board committee and uh liaison reports pioneer valley planning commission uh i have nothing uh to report and i think these other positions we don't have we can just pass over um we have discussed them we have filled some vacancies thank you um um for the the cpa committee uh dog for the ad commission oh excuse me um mad andrew for the for the cpa committee um and dug for the ag commission and tom for the design review board and the zoning subcommittee with maria and jan is is solid and and with the regard the pioneer valley planning commission we'll get an alternate at a later date uh report the chair i think we're we're good we took on you know some a lot of you know peripheral sort of topics you know process type uh uh topics and and i thank you all for kind of working with us on that um chris before to stay out well i wanted to say two things um for the people who are newly nominated for these positions i need to transmit that information to the town manager so he can appoint you um so if you wanted to go to one of their meetings um you would need to wait until you were actually appointed in order to vote but i'll try to get my part of this done as quickly as possible um so and the other thing is jac asked me last time he said that um a lot of cities and towns are getting all this money and he wondered is amherst applying for any money and and we have been um working on trying to get some money to help us out with covet 19 um and other things and um so i just wanted to give you a little bit of a rundown and what we've done so far we did get um 200 000 from the housing trust and they've set up a rental assistance program and that's being run by community action um and they're uh you know trying to get help out to people who are um threatened with well they're not currently threatened with eviction but they might be threatened with eviction once the eviction moratorium is lifted but anyway people who can't pay their rent essentially um the other thing is we have applied for um cares act funding which is associated with the community development block grant and i'll write this down and and send it to jack um but uh we applied for 400 000 um what we actually were awarded was about i think 321 000 and it's going to go for a number of different good causes one is that um we're going to be offering micro grants to micro businesses and micro businesses are businesses that are have five or fewer um employees including the owner and whose owner is um become eligible so we have a certain amount of money for that we have some money for the survival center um i believe we have money for family outreach for them to hire somebody to help them with their caseload these days and we have some money for craig's doors so all together um 321 000 is going to be distributed among distributed among those groups um back at the beginning of the summer we applied to the laurence and lili and solemn foundation and we've got ten thousand dollars that um the money went to the bid and the bid um helped the the restaurants in town to set up outdoor dining so um many of the umbrellas that you see are from this grant um plantings and other amenities that that help the um restaurants make the outdoor dining more uh enjoyable and then the other thing we've been working on and so far we have not been successful but we continue to work on it is um mass dot department of transportation has a shared streets and spaces grant program and um you may have heard about this if you read the gazette um north hampton did get a grant from mass dot and they um reconfigured their street and they actually weren't uh that project was recently removed because it had various problems but anyway east hampton has also gotten some money from mass dot to do various um realignments of their roadway and bike path and you might have seen that in the gazette this morning so we're applying for some money to do some work in our downtown um which may include lights and umbrellas and planters and different things we're trying to extend the um dining season as far into the fall as we can I think part of that might be that we're going to try to get some heaters um for the restaurant so that we can have you know extended outdoor dining but anyway we're probably going to be applying for about my guess is you know 150,000 something like that we've already applied twice and haven't been accepted but um we're going to try one more time and so that's uh you know a lot of what the planning department has been doing over the summer over the course of the late spring and summer is applying for these grants and trying to get money to help people in town who are suffering as a result of COVID-19 suffering economically so that's my report thank you i'm uh chris i'm wondering if if we shouldn't have a line item in our agenda with regard to those sorts of efforts just that uh you know very i'm not even sure what it be because you touched upon so many different funding sorts you know the community and development block you know grant is you know unique from everything else but i'm wondering isn't that appropriate for discussion within you know for the planning board um at least to report to you on these things yeah because it's worth or maybe we have something to offer you know uh along those lines but you know they're they're big initiatives important to the town you know from a funding you know perspective that perhaps you know we can help in some fashion but uh it'd be nice to be linked into that yep definitely okay yeah do that uh yohana forgive me if this is off topic but i know that four it has to do with the shared streets and spaces grants program like um obviously downtown dining is important i don't know how many bites at the apple we have but um i've been thinking a lot about just school transportation and the sheer number of kids that actually live within kind of a reasonable walkable and bikeable distance to school and especially as we're trying to do social distancing on school buses and transportation being a key factor in terms of when kids actually go back to school whether there's any kind of potential there i think east hampton that was kind of their primary driver for their um their grant and i you know i don't know whether there's potential for that in amherst we'll think about that we're working towards getting this grant application in by the end of the week so we're kind of under a lot of time pressure but i'll mention that because we're going to have a meeting about it tomorrow thanks chris okay so i think we can uh without any other um hands raised and i think we're gonna adjourn and uh yeah less than a three hour meeting which is a really good thing for us i thank you all and you know welcome yohana again you know tom and andrew um appreciated we we did a lot of uh housekeeping type items you know this evening and um look forward to our new our new group our new team so hope you all have whatever it means if you're thank you excellent it's great to meet you thank you bye bye wait a minute i gotta stop recording do you want to stop recording