 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. Virtual Town Council meeting. This is our second Town Council meeting using Zoom. Our fourth virtual meeting and the second virtual Town Council meeting where we have provided for public comment. I will call upon each Councilor by name. At that time they should unmute their mic and say present. This will indicate that they can hear me and we can hear them. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. This is also how we will conduct Councilor comment throughout the agenda. You'll actually raise your hand and I will tell you to unmute your mic, make your comment and mute your mic back again. This meeting includes audio, video and is available live on Amherst Media. It is also being recorded. Councilors, there is no chat room for this meeting, visible to anybody. There isn't a chat room. If you have technical issues, please let Sean and Athena know. To make a comment, to ask a question, please click raise hand button. If technical difficulties rise as a result of using remote participation, I will decide how to address the situation. Discussion may be suspended while we address technical issues and the minutes will note if a disconnection occurs. And Athena and Sean will be monitoring Councilor connections and if necessary, we will pause the meeting until you are reconnected. The town has developed a two minute video for people to help them connect the town Council meetings through the town website. We'll demonstrate or show that video at some point in the video. We won't show the video, we'll show you the link. So let's move the slides to the agenda. We have a town council meeting coming up on Monday the 13th. We will be skipping Monday, April 20th, which is Patriots Day. And we will meet again on April 27. We also have upcoming committee meetings on April 7th tomorrow. There will be a C.R.C. meeting at 8.30. There will not be a governance organization and legislative committee meeting on April 8th. We're trying to space our meetings out. Joint meetings of the town council and the school committee to fill the school committee vacancy. We'll be happening on the 14th. We have four applicants. They are Gaston, DeLarais, Jr. of 45 Canton Avenue. We have four applicants. They are Gaston, DeLarais, Jr. of 45 Canton Avenue. We have four applicants. They are Gaston, DeLarais, Jr. of 45 Canton Avenue. Ryan P. Driscoll of 384 Henry Street. Katie Lasendowski of 20 Overlook Drive. And Heather A. Lord of 70 F. River Glade Drive. The candidates will be interviewed and the council and the school committee will make the decision on the 14th. If there are technical difficulties, we have reserved the 16 in order to recognize written material and make the decision. I'd like you to put up the slide regarding the flyer for the parent guardian organization. That'd be up in just a second. Thanks, Sean. I just want to call attention to the fact that the parent guardian organization for all five Amherst schools have been working together. We have the superintendent Morris to create a fundraiser aimed at the frame costs of supplying Wi-Fi hotspots to students and families identifies as not having access to the internet at home. You can see on this flyer, which is in our packet, the GoFundMe page that you go to if you would like to contribute to this. I recognize and particularly congratulate these people who are making education access available to all. I understand their campaign campaign is going quite successfully. We are now going to move to public comment. Let me just state that we will conclude public comment on or before 715. Students are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discussion of the Council President based upon the number of people who wish to speak. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment. To participate in public comment, the instructions are now on your screen. If you joined the Council Zoom teleconference by Zoom, then you need to raise your hand. If you joined by phone, you need to click star nine. That will allow us to know who would like to be make a public comment. Is there any public comment at this time. And Sean and Athena, I just want to tell you, I don't see. I can see the attendees, but I can't see any hands or any mics. That's correct. Nobody has their hand up right now. Okay. Then in that case, we will continue on. I do have a comment to share with people when we get to the housing proclamation from John Hornick. In fact, our next item is proclamations and commemorations. And could you put the slide up of the resolution? That'll be up in just a second. We're on to number five a. First of all, is there a community resources report that would be me and Joe. Yes, there is. Community resources committee is sponsoring this resolution to be an interim housing, affordable housing policy to recognize the fact that it could take a while to get to a comprehensive housing policy as the council referred to the community resources committee voted four to one with councilor D'Angelo's. We know to recommend that the council adopt this resolution. And the no vote was because the councilor did not believe this resolution went far enough for adopting an interim housing policy that. That councilor would have preferred that the resolution. Adopt the Amherst municipal affordable housing trusts draft affordable housing priorities policy as our interim policy. So that was the no vote. That's my report. Okay. So Mr. Hornick, who's chair of the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust has written the following statement that will be added to the packet. This is a brief note to indicate my support for the interim affordable housing policy. I am disappointed that the CRC was unwilling to take on the task of revising the draft policy. Submitted by the. I'm pleased that the statement includes language such as Amherst town council determines the current efforts to preserve existing affordable housing and add new affordable housing must be redoubled. I believe that the task of developing a more general housing policy will be challenging particularly in the current context in the interim. I anticipate that the AMHT in collaboration with the community preservation act committee will submit a request to town council to approve the use of CPA funds to support an emergency rental assistance program. I hope the town council can expedite its review once the proposal is ready. Thank you for your consideration. So at this time I'd like to. Call for a motion. I need a second. The motion is to adopt the resolution. Adopting an interim affordable housing policy. As presented. Is there a second? Second. It's a Shawnee. Okay. Dorothy, you also have your hand up. Dorothy, you had your hand up with that. That was the second. That was the second. Okay. So we have a second from. Shawnee. Please make sure you use your raised hand. Is there any further discussion on this motion at this time? Okay. Hearing none. Then I'm going to call the vote, which also allows us to make sure everybody can hear. Shawnee. Yes. And say aye. Aye. Brewer. Aye. Thank you. D'Angelo's. Aye. Dumont. Yes. I. Brees Murray's. Yes. Hannah key. I. Pam. Aye. Ross. Aye. Ryan. George, I can see that you're with us. Yes, go ahead. Can you unmute and say aye or nay? Aye. Thank you. Uh, shown. Yes. Driver. Aye. Steinberg. hi it's unanimous and we actually can hear all counselors and they can hear us we are now going to move on to the presentations of for the evening and we're going to call first on tom paul bachemann who is going to introduce lev benesra from the emmerced survival center thank you um lin and uh we i think lev has a slideshow that we're going to post up there or i'm not sure if she's been doing it herself or if sean's been doing it um so lin lev is the uh executive director of the emmerced survival center and um has been really taking on a very difficult task the last few weeks and has taken it on with with great gumption and a lot of leadership and i just want to mention that um at the at the precise time when we need the emmerced survival center the most is when they are are struggling the most because they're they're in great need for volunteers and fun so i think lev is going to give a little context to about food security and emmerced and as she's she's the one closest to it of anybody in town so lev thanks everyone so much for having me lev you need to increase the volume on your mic not much uh i apologize give me one second to fuss with my audio levels testing testing not really did you do your mic at the bottom right of your overall computer a lot better much better okay um i apologize there may be a little bit of background noise now i'm just off my headset and my family is having dinner in the next room um so thanks so much for having me happy to have a couple of minutes to talk about uh the community needs that we're seeing and specifically how the emmerced survival center is responding and what may be needed moving forward um so you can go ahead to the next slide so we are definitely seeing food insecurity increasing this is not a surprise as folks are out of work and just and kids are home from school most significantly we've seen a full 50 increase in the number of people who are coming daily for hot lunch um for a two-week span kind of immediately following the launch of our new operations we had a four-time increase in the number of new families who are registering for the households and a really significant four more time increase in the number of people who are coming back for a mid-month emergency box we also see a really significant need for expanded delivery and safe pickup options and are still working on those um and i will also just note that the tone has shifted kind of the the level of urgency and people's need as they're coming to access food is definitely significant and the combination of really needing this most essential basic need while also being in this in the space that i think all of us can relate to of having so much fear and uncertainty in the world at large you can go ahead to the next slide and i think as we think about this need and where it's going to continue to grow it's really key to think that just a few months ago when the economy was theoretically thriving the emmerced survival center was serving six thousand people a year and these were the folks who are facing food insecurity before COVID-19 now we're also seeing the people who are here after missing one or two paychecks and what and that loss of income is enough that they're now experiencing food insecurity and soon we'll be seeing folks who are experiencing food insecurity after four paychecks or as they're trying to live on unemployment or as other unexpected expenses arise we're also definitely seeing a reality that people are trying to navigate their needs with various services other services that are closed are offered in very different ways and just figuring all these things out stressful for anyone and really hard for someone who's so connected with so many services where everything is changing all at once you can go ahead to the next slide so our response so far has been to really focus on safety first and foremost and to focus on our food and nutrition programs so we are providing lunch along with snacks as well as produce and bread that's all pre-packaged and to go and that's happening in our parking lot that was the first picture that you saw volunteers under tents in the lot passing out those folks line up at cones that are space six feet apart outside so they're social distancing in effect as they're waiting we are also still offering the food pantry however our small food pantry where folks would go through and choose items off the shelf like a little grocery store was too small to have any effective social distancing so we're now giving out the full grocery shop in the form of pre-packaged boxes so folks don't get selection but they're actually getting more food every allocation has at least 25 percent more food than it did previously and that's now in our large dining room in the background of this picture you can see chairs that are six feet apart in the outside so folks are waiting outside to come into the building just one or two at a time they check in at an intake desk and then sit on the edge of the room while a volunteer just picks up those pre-packaged boxes we do still have our laundry facilities and lockers and showers that are available for folks who are experiencing homelessness this is an incredibly vulnerable population who right now has really lost so many other connections that they would otherwise have the businesses where they might have spent time during the day outside of the immerse survival center or use a restroom or closed we're also not providing that community center space for folks to be our community store the community programs our health clinic our dining area and our resource center are all temporarily closed you can go ahead to the next slide so our response as far as our operations we have almost kept the same hours we're still open four days a week Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday but we have eliminated the Thursday evening hours temporarily so we're Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday from 11 to 3 and really in the span of three weeks but it was kind of that first week between March 16th and then again on March 19th we fully revamped our operations twice essentially trying some things and then doing a switch with dramatically increased sanitizing and hygiene practices social distancing in effect I'll notice the two people or I will note the two people in the foreground of this picture are living the same household that's really nice when family units come to volunteer together because I don't have to stay six feet apart um we have this week and sorry last week instituted face coverings for all volunteers and staff while we're game and have really had to adapt to have new volunteers I think probably guys I don't have a statistic off the top of my head but I think it's probably about 90 of our volunteers were no longer present we have many many seniors we had a huge large body of students who volunteered with us and so we've really had to adapt to make roles that are more suited to bringing in new volunteers and relying on folks who now are home and have time when they might not have otherwise and our volunteers have been absolutely incredible we also have a skeleton crew of staff that's rotating both to minimize exposure for the staff and to make sure that our operations are sustainable if and when some of our staff are either sick or need to be quarantined or wherever else and aren't able to report to the center so it's really this ultimate focus on efficiency how can with the fewest people in the building and the fewest people in any given space can we make more food instead of feeding 100 people for lunch with six people in the kitchen we're needing to prepare and prepackage 150 lunches with a maximum of three people in that space you can go ahead to the next slide a really critical component of this response has been the partnerships the Amherst and Beltertown senior centers Pellum fire department the VA service net and chd have all helped have all stepped up to help with delivery either to area seniors or to clients or participants in VA service net or chd programs who weren't able to get to the center we are really pleased to have secured when we knew we needed to close our health center temporarily we wanted to make sure that those folks had a place to go for health services and the community health center of franklin county was able to work out a very streamlined referral process that ensured prompt access to care and regardless of what the person's insurance status was at the time of going in and we're using our clinic funds to pay for a taxi or an uber to get someone up there for an appointment so we're really pleased about that collaboration and then again the community health center of franklin county dial self americorps member and very hopefully staffers and community action have also been able to help with staffing we found that with our increased utilization of new volunteers we just need more people who are there consistently folks who can learn something on monday and then be able to do it again on tuesday and thursday and friday um and those organizations were partnering with them so if they have staff who are furloughed who would otherwise be furloughed or who don't have work they can do remotely they can come and work for us on our site stay on payroll at the organization and we've worked out various cost-sharing agreements with the organization so that's been really wonderful um and we would really like to do more of that it's something that we need more of um we have a agreement in the works with uh coal construction and the coals family to borrow a tractor trailer and a place to park it to have increased storage um and food service and restaurant organizations who have donated food wonderful partnership with some area donors who have given us funds to be able to buy food from restaurants to help support local restaurants and also reducing our cooking burden so there have been some really wonderful partnerships that have emerged in the response to this process thanks next slide so i have been at the emmer survival center for a little over a year and i think this is really this moment we we're an essential service every day and right now as we are so focused on the food security the emergency food system portion of our mission it is just so critical how essential we are um on friday 157 people stood in line outside to get hot meals that we were serving and it was kind of cold and it was raining and what that indicates to me is one that i think we're making great food and we're giving out a really powerful abundance of produce and i'm really really thrilled for the staff and volunteers who are making that happen and two that i see every day at the center how essential this is so that really to me means that we have to think really critically about what are the risks that could present themselves in the next couple weeks and how do we move forward to ensure that these services continue to be available next slide so the thing that i see that we really need moving forward is community investment it's really clear i think the entire team of the emmer survival center is doing a phenomenal job um i am completely blown away by the staff and volunteers who have been there every day and what they've been able to accomplish and it's also clear to me that right now when we have such a small and lean organization so few staff so few so few people who kind of hold that background operations that these services are so critical that we we need a broader community investment in ensuring that these services continue to exist with what may come over the next several weeks or months and the core ways that we're really looking to do that are as i mentioned before with those staffing partnerships we're really looking to bring other people in to help folks who can commit to at least two full days a week so that we're sharing the leadership and kind of the core knowledge of uh program or task areas among a broader number of people so that knowledge isn't quite so centralized in case the person who had it needed to be out we are also really calling on the entire community to support the organization financially we are seeing uh dramatically increased costs at this time at the same time as we have canceled a number of our fundraising events that would just have helped us to meet our basic operating budget for the year and now are seeing dramatically increased expenses additional food that we're buying staff time for a variety of needs additional custodial time for cleaning the building cleaning supplies bandanas because we're to make additional face coverings etc all these different supplies that are coming up in this process as well as the food and the capacity to keep it going and then these kinds of creative partnerships that I outlined it has been really wonderful to pass off chunks of the delivery to our local seniors to the emmer senior center and have them take on not just the actual functional delivery of it but a section of ownership around contacting seniors and figuring it out and finding volunteers to actually instead of just it going to a senior center going to seniors doors so those kinds of partnerships have been incredible to see them coming forward and we we will continue to need uh additional support in that regard next slide uh so just my contact information thanks again so much for giving me an opportunity to speak with you all my email is lev at emmersurvival.org and I'm happy to answer any questions and then I want to direct folks we have a um our website is emmer survival.org and emmersurvival.org slash COVID-19 is an up-to-date list of all of our services and safety protocols etc that are in place any changes to anything that we're offering will be made there um and our donate page which is emmersurvival.org slash donate is directing specifically into our COVID-19 hunger response fund at this time and are looking for community support for that as well thank you so much I'm going to ask us that we leave this last slide up while we ask counselors if they have any questions and while you're contemplating that I have to do a full disclosure and that is that I've had a long involvement with the emmer survival center and I'm still a member of their board of directors are there questions from the council yes Dorothy please I'm yeah there you go Dorothy did it work I did okay um this is a question for Lev um I know my son-in-law just organized his uh staff into pods where there was no overlapping skill set so that because if somebody gets sick in a in a group then the whole team has to shut down I was wondering if you were able to do that in um your setup so we have a modified version of that um so starting on Thursday March 19th was when we put this into effect that uh roughly we have a couple of staff who are working fully remotely um and then the remaining staff who are taking care of the day-to-day operational and the floor duties are broken and roughly into two teams um I would not there is not no overlap there definitely is some overlap the intent there of the two teams based on the public health folks that I spoke with was to reduce the staff members exposure and reduce the likelihood that multiple staff members would get sick at once um the intent is that because we're being uh very conscious of social distancing within the center and are wearing face coverings that just because one person got sick doesn't necessarily mean that every single person like who had been at the center would um need to be quarantined but the part about the uh diffusing knowledge and sharing that among many people and making sure that there are many people who hold the systems um are basically our organizational plan is now on flip charts on the wall of the center Kathy Shane you have a question yes I do thanks Lev um for reaching out to us and for what you're doing in the community I had two questions if you could be a little bit more specific on kinds of um help that you need because we have we have a neighborhood association and we can put out a list to them so in terms of people will you take people over over 65 is there anything they can do or is it mainly you're trying to keep them out of the workforce um in terms of food and food donations do you mainly want um canned goods or canned and fresh so those are my two money I can understand money is money but yeah types of people and types of food yeah thank you at this time we are not actively seeking food donations um it takes actually an enormous amount of people power um and capacity to receive those weigh them sort them shelve them and then distribute lots of sort of dissimilar items um which normally we absolutely prioritize because it adds a tremendous amount of variety to the food pantry and what folks can shop for but at this point again we have really had to optimize for efficiency and so are not for both that reason and for the potential of contagion and needing to leave things to the side before we sort them and use them um are not actively seeking food donations at this time we haven't shut them down and certainly restaurants or food services or farms are bringing us food so there are some that are coming in but that's not something that we're actively seeking because there's a lot of process there as far as people we are we have not set in place a specific restriction around an age marker or we don't ask for people's medical histories in terms of free existing conditions or anything like that we trust that adults are making choices that are right for them about whether what amount of exposure or not feels appropriate and are doing that in accordance with whoever they need to speak with that so we do not have any hard line around that um we are definitely accepting volunteers who can do a shift or two each week if they can commit to doing that each week and kind of further prioritizing people who can do multiple shifts in a week um but we're the thing that i guess i'm most actively appealing for right now is that we're interested in other partnerships whether it's with the town or with other organizations or businesses where someone might be out of work um or have a significant amount of time i would we would love to have three or four or five more people who are there between two and four days a week for full days like really uh taking on leadership over an area again in that effort to further diffuse knowledge and make sure that we're more resilient um in the event that some staff needed to be out for a period of time thank you are there other questions from the council yes dorthy i'd be interested in hearing some more details about how restaurants whether open or closed are contributing to your food service great um well the first is and i'm not going to name specific restaurants because i won't get them all um but they will we've had a wonderful run on our facebook feed of thanking various restaurants so one of the pieces that happened was when restaurants made the choice to close their doors they contacted us and it was so touching we have these local restaurants who are at you know small family businesses or larger businesses but folks who are at this really critical point um in their business and as they were closing for a period of time reaching out to us to say we have all of this food and whether it was produced or stuff that they hadn't cooked to give us to that so that was one of the pieces that happened really beautiful um the other thing that we have been able to partner with local restaurants around is that we've had um a couple of individual donors or a large group through umas five uh credit union and through the jca who uh made a substantial donation with the specific goal that it be designated to purchase food from local restaurants who are doing takeout service and so what that provided um umas five donated a cooked lunch they were pot pies that were already prepared from the delaney house um the jca's with we would use that money and then go and spend it at when osano and get a bunch of burritos and so it creates an opportunity for there to be a day where we don't have to cook folks get delicious food that's a break from what we've been making um with our three people in the kitchen for 150 um and then we're also supporting a local restaurant in the process so that's been something that we're doing with donations that are designated specifically to meet that dual purpose that's certainly not how we're providing lunch on most days thank you are there other questions from the council so lev thank you for being uh there um i was actually chaired the committee that recruited lev and we could not be more proud of her she is putting a stalwart in this uh perfect storm so we thank you and lev we look forward to um hearing more about you and the progress of the survival center over time you're doing a great service to our community thank you it's really my honor and i think all of us there feel that um in a time of such uncertainty it's uh it's a gift to be able to do something concrete and helpful so thank you to any to all of you who are or want to be a part of it thanks so we're going to go back on to paul you're next thank you lin so there is a slide deck with this shan um perfect um so this is uh go to the next slide we're going to we've already done the third bullet so we don't need to um do that so i'm going to give you a quick status report and this will be a shorter presentation in the past but julie fetterman our health director is here so there are opportunities for if you anybody has questions you'll be able to ask for specific questions so the next slide shows um the where we were yesterday and so to update these numbers every year every week i have to update them because the new numbers come out at noon on the day of so instead of 12,500 cases we have now have 13,803 i'm starting again 13,837 cases instead of 231 deaths we're up to 260 deaths um and what we will be showing uh beginning uh today is the number of cases in amherst and we're at i believe 10 cases as of today in amherst and that will show on the covid amherstcovid19.org website every day that'll be updated um the um um so the the numbers that we're starting to see now is based on the action or inaction from two weeks ago it takes about two weeks for the social distancing um measures to take effect so as everyone has mentioned the the governor and everyone down the road the next seven to 21 days are crucial uh we expect there to be a significant uptick in our um in the cases throughout the commonwealth and it'll become especially apparent in our hospitals and that's the thing to monitor in terms of the number of emergency room visits the icu uh entrances and the number of ventilators quite honestly and we're at from talking to medical officials we're at a crisis point so everything that we can do we must be doing to bend that curve and to flatten the curve so that's where our job comes in um and um so we can go to the next slide so you you notice you know we recognize that a lot every every week more things are being implemented so the governor has extended the non-essential business closures and the um prohibitions of gatherings by 10 or more people until may fourth that may fourth seems to be the new date that's the school uh date and it's the new date that we're all sort of measuring ourselves to unlikely that anything that we'll be doing anything significantly different on may fourth it's just our date it's a it's a it's our it's our milestone and we're going to probably continue all these actions beyond that so next slide the new things that we we have done is we uh continue to encourage our employees to work from home we don't want them if they're able to work from home we they don't have to be on site we encourage them to do that we we're working with the school department we placed our playground equipment off limits both the school equipment and the town's equipment we have a closed puffers pond and basketball and other courts as of friday uh you're allowed to walk through you can do individual fishing but we will um ask people who are gathering small groups to move on we are trying to do everything we can to minimize social gatherings and i it's i know it's really hard for everyone because we're all cooped up you'll get a beautiful day like today and everybody wants to be out and go visit puffers pond you can walk we encourage you to maintain social distance when you are walking you will we will not allow you to stop and put down a blank and hang out there even if you're the only one there we can keep you moving um and also just to make it formal that we are not enforcing metered parking uh um with parking tickets that just for the last few weeks we won't be doing that for the time being so next slide so i want to talk a little bit about time operations which is the next slide um so again this is the team the team our core team or COVID response team that we've been working with and one of the things that um you know rama manual said was that uh personnel is policy and that has never been more important than it is today and never more evident than it is in the town of amherst uh because you have incredibly experienced people who have been here for decades who have seen a lot of things no one has seen what we're seeing today but they're drawing on their years of experience to bring to help make decisions every decision is a day of the day of uh decision that day you know um so and i think you know even though i have many years of experience in municipal sector i'm the baby of the group in terms of uh experience in the town of amherst so we're just really blessed to have highly experienced highly skilled people in these important positions they they are alive working on this program that everybody's really inspired to be working for the town at this moment they we recognize the challenges that we have um and they're not flummoxed by the challenges that people are pretty even keeled and i think that's the kind of message that we want to be sending to the public that that it's hard but we feel like we're making decisions every day and we trust each other so next slide so we want to talk a little bit of we always i always talk about the continuity of operations i feel it's important for me to let you know where we are and we're actually in really good shape right now you know knock on wood this may change overnight we just don't know um two of our firefighters who had been quarantine came off of quarantine uh today we have five firefighters who we brought up from the student force who were activated today so we should have an adequate force of firefighters because we anticipate there might be more exposures at that level um our police department and dispatch units are all healthy and and filling their shifts as as we as we need the wastewater treatment plant and water treatment um operators are all healthy and you know there's some issues with some you know family things where where we have to adjust schedules but that was in our best interest to do that anyway our other departments finance health and it human resources all doing really well next slide so uh last thursday we did a um two one hour live calling events uh with superintendent schools and uh julie fetterman and those were really really popular actually uh we had 64 people in the first hour we had 46 in the second so 110 people participated and we each made like five or 10 minute comments and then just fielded questions from the public and it worked worked very well um we're doing uh my normal cup of joe which will be virtual on friday from eight to nine thirty um and so i encourage people to have their coffee ready and we'll be sipping coffee together and we'll be answering as many questions as we can during that time period and then i also want to really recognize um briana for putting together the our amherstcovid19.org um web webpage which will website which will be the repository for a lot of information on from everything from what you what you need and what you can give to um you know just the operations of the town and where we stand it's updated daily with the linked statistics next slide so what's ahead we're about to enter you know four six you know the next two weeks especially are going to be pretty intense you know everybody's anticipated this is going to get kind of gruesome you know in new york they're talking about using a public park for a mass burial it's really going to be difficult for people and it's i hope it rings true to everybody that is the weather warms up we need to be even more intense about staying home um and we're going to be monitoring our public trails to see about if there's too many people on them we might take the extraordinary step step of needing to close those but at this point we're not doing that um in terms of outreach i'll continue to do a weekly updates to the council and whenever the council meets i appreciate the council given the opportunity and dedicated the time for this type of thing for the public a couple of joe on friday and then the new website we're working with the bid and the chamber to talk about the impact on local businesses both the sort of resources that are available to businesses the impact on them but then looking down the road in terms of recovery and being a resilient amour and so all three of those conversations are happening simultaneously and a little bit later you'll hear us talking about the financial implications of this pandemic on our finances and on the state's finances next slide so we just already talked about this so now i'd like to just open it up to anybody who has questions and i mentioned julie is here and maybe i'll see if any questions are out there for folks if that's okay lindy i'm going to suggest that you start with julie and answer the question around face masks okay julie we can we can take the slide down sean if you want julie are you there yes sorry forgot i muted myself so um face masks yes so we've all seen that um cdc has come to the conclusion that wearing face masks homemade face masks is a good idea for the general public so i want to reiterate that surgical masks are really for healthcare providers no one needs to be wearing those but homemade cloth masks are or or face coverings are what people should be wearing and there's all kinds of um directions online for how to make those masks uh people are doing a lot of research about what type of masks are best um i think a couple of the things that i'll mention if you're making your own is that you are using a scarf that you have you really want to use a tightly woven cotton fabric so not everyone is a sewer but a tightly woven cotton fabric are often those um thin quilting fabrics that are that you often see in fabric stores and that if you know a sewer probably has a nice stash of them um a two layered homemade mask with one layer being flannel and one layer being that that tightly woven cotton fabric is one of the ones that they feel is capturing things well there's a lot of experimentation around then putting a type of insert in there made out of of maybe coffee filters or a folded paper towel or part of a vacuum cleaner bag so lots of research being done on all of those types of materials and i would encourage you to until some specific guidance comes out about that um look around on the internet and see what you find about that because it's pretty interesting not all fabrics and materials are the same so a lot of us have woolen scarves or loosely knitted scarves even if they're wrapped around a few times those aren't really doing well because they're porous they're little holes all over the place the the purpose of having something really tightly woven like a high quality sheet a piece of a pillowcase um an old flannel shirt those things are really stopping the little tiny microns that can be getting through so people are urged when they're out and about to wear a face covering but the purpose is really to protect yourself in case you are coming within less than six feet of another person so really what you want to be doing is social distancing you want to be six feet or more apart but because when you're going to a grocery store or even just getting out of your car in the parking lot the possibility that then you would be coming in more close contact with someone could happen just even for a fairly short period of time the mask adds that barrier that is protecting you that you might not need if you're just walking through a field by yourself so it's not that all the air around you has particles in it it's when you're close up with um alongside other people so along with that I also just want to mention um we do really want to see people outside but it's very concerning already yesterday lots of people were seen outside without masks on and coming up close to each other because now that we all want to be outside it's it's just human nature to want to say hello to your neighbor and to be coming up close to someone or if you're walking on a trail to be too close together so again that's why we're going to be kind of monitoring what's happening in the community because we want people to be outside but this is this is really a very critical moment when we have the capability to stop the transmission of the disease and I think that well it's hard to be keeping this up and sometimes it's even hard to do it for ourselves we have to think about that we're doing it also for someone else and we don't know who that person is we don't know who that person is who has an underlying health care condition and then we also don't know all the people in the hospital who are being exposed by all of these patients we're actually protecting them the less people who get sick if I can just follow up on that when you wear a face mask julie and then you come home do you just put that in your pocket or what are you supposed to do with it because assuming that that's protecting you was yes thank you for the prompt yes when you come home you want to wash that face mask and you don't have to put it in the washing machine necessarily you know a couple little face masks is you know going to get lost at the bottom of the machine you can rinse those out in your bathroom sink using just a little bit of detergent of some kind in there and some really warm water swish it around there's no special laundering directions even when someone actively has disease and is washing their laundry it's just regular washing with warm water and some type of detergent so having two of them might not be a bad idea you have one when you go out you wash it you hang it up to dry then you have another for when while that one is drying and also getting back to the different types of masks so again if you have an n95 it's a great thing to donate because really the surgical masks and the n95s are still in short supply and you know all of us who are going to the store going out for a walk or going to the pharmacy we don't need that kind of face covering it's really when people are interfacing with people who are sick or are potentially sick who need those types of masks okay are there questions from either Paul for either Paul or for Julie from the council Steve you are have your hand up so the New York Times had a map of the United States by county and it had the areas that were growing the most quickly and the areas that were growing the most slowly and Hampshire County was in the I think the highest category where the number of cases were doubling every three days so is that what your is that accurate or is it I know we're talking about very small numbers yeah well thank you for the question I I think something that's really important to realize is that different states are in different places around the spectrum of getting their testing up to speed so Massachusetts right now we have we have greatly increased our pot our capability to test and then process those tests so when we're looking at the numbers we're looking at the people who've gotten tested so first of all because we don't have widespread testing in Massachusetts or across the country we're not getting really the entire picture of the burden of disease in our communities so now that we're seeing more testing happening it makes total sense that we're seeing more cases reported that's probably information that's kind of just behind the times the disease the disease has been in Hampshire County and we just haven't had a way to quantify it so sometimes when we're comparing between states while some of the overall trends are of course useful as we see things going down in New York City the the the current rise in cases in Hampshire County is probably due to the increase in testing I see I believe you're next thank you Lynn um Paul this question's for you and it's actually one I sent in because a resident asked it if you see a group of students or young people meeting having a party 10 more than 10 um what do you do can you call the police if you call the police will the police come and do something so how do you um if and it's not and the person who contacted me it wasn't a noise issue it was a concern that was uh a larger than what you would want gathering um and you can see it out on the paths also but it doesn't tend to be 10 but it's five people clustered together but this was more on a residential street um so what is what can the resident do and what will be the police or where do they call and what would be the response yeah I appreciate that because this is one of those things where our thinking has changed over time just like with masks we start to get new information we start to change our thinking and be more aggressive on some of the enforcement so yes if you see a group of people 10 or more gathered call the police you can call 911 they will send a cruiser up and educate the people there about proper social distancing um and and so that that is the police chief and the dispatch units are prepared for that um you know in any kind we're mostly about education and trying to help people understand what the dangers are because most people who aren't several some people aren't really recognizing that they've been told early on that you're young you're invulnerable it's not true um and so helping to people recognize the danger they're putting like other people and like Julie said is really important so the question is yes if you see a group call 911 uh if they're not responding to some other domestic violence issue or something like that they will send a cruiser up and and talk to folks and see what's going on saying hey could you break it up a little bit so thank you next yes thank you uh i have two questions uh which are for paul although one comment just based on that last question is uh i have seen people who are young and people who are older in gatherings of more than 10 so i hope that we can refrain from doing things like immediately assuming it would be students or young people in such a situation um my questions are one it wasn't that long ago that there was a conversation about not announcing or releasing numbers of cases in amherst uh clearly that's also a decision that has changed over time uh so i'd be curious just to know um what led to that that shift um why we're releasing numbers but the value isn't that um but also to hear um you and perhaps also julie talk a little bit about how we're protecting the privacy of individuals um who test positive and then the second thing was with regard to the announcement that uh we're suspending parking enforcement um and just curious about our parking enforcement personnel if they've been sent home if they've if they've been sort of reassigned to other tasks um what's happening there thank you i'll do the second one first just because it's quick yes they they are still working they're still employed um they have they are still enforcing uh parking where people park in a handicap zone or at a loading zone those those um laws have not gone away if you're too close to the um intersection so they're still actively doing that uh they we've also employed them to do other um duties as as a as required and so they've helped us on a number of different issues so we have them actively working on different things uh as to the first one you know that we initially did not want to release numbers because it was i and julie can speak to this more more about about privacy for the individuals um and then because a lot of other communities are releasing individual numbers it became it made me worried that the credibility of the town was uh people might start to question why are you not releasing the numbers and at a certain point we're going to be at such a number that um you know it's going to be like okay we're we're ticking up we didn't um so we didn't think that there was much harm in releasing the number um and and there and it would quash a little bit of the sort of skepticism we thought would be a benefit julie do i add anything to that yeah thanks paul you said that well um in general when we have communicable diseases one of the ways that we protect people's privacy is by not really talking about how many of them there are any um demographics about those folks um the department of public health was really content was encouraging and well they didn't write a formal order they really were discouraging towns from releasing those numbers when they were small um but as more cases started appearing in more towns there was a lot of pressure from residents around the commonwealth feeling like they wanted to know that information um and so we decided to do that because we don't want people to feel like somehow there's information that's being held from them i think one of the one of the problems is that for example our case count today is 10 and um there's much more disease burden than than that floating in this community and all around hampshire county so it it can also when the numbers are low and testing hasn't completely ramped up it can give kind of a false impression and while this is the time when we really want people to take those measures to social distance um we don't want people to um sort of take heart that we only have 10 tested and confirmed cases because um really the virus is in western messachusetts and we all have to protect ourselves um we do everything that we can to protect people's privacy um and the concept was that when you have smaller numbers that um you know in a town this isn't a big city this is a town and um that people might be trying to put together various pieces of information from people they knew um might incorrectly assume that this person was the person who had covid or um that there could be some um rumors going around or that kind of thing and um because people this is a time when people are really frightened and um sometimes that can um be something that's detrimental to the folks who are sick and we have heard from heard from from cases that they're really hoping that everything is being done in complete confidentiality which it is so i hope that answers your question shallony uh thank you um so when i just want to say thank you for the great website that's created and i wonder if it'd be helpful to have crosslinks because we have on our town website the covid alerts and if when you click on that but we could give a link to the new website there and then on the new website give a link back the other thing i was wondering is if you could get an update on spaces created for the homeless population if there's any progress with respect to that we heard what's happening in our town that if there's anything in any update with respect to amherst and also do we know about the local and regional hospitals with respect to space and equipment are they geared for increased numbers and so forth and lastly about groceries because i think that's another question people have like the masks like how to what extent do we how do we handle the groceries that we're getting home thank you Julie shall I take all of this oh you take what you want i'll take up the else okay uh i'll start with the shorter one which is the groceries um so we've our grocery stores are doing a great job social distancing people um some stores are letting only a certain amount of people in at a time some stores are wiping down your cart for you others are providing wipes for you to wipe down your cart so one thing is sadly we don't want you to use your reusable bags we want you to go in and use the bags that they are that they're giving you so you want to wipe down your cart and get your items and then when you go home the suggestion is to put them in your garage or outside or in some unused spot and you can let them sit there for a while because um the virus will die for instance on cardboard so you could let them sit there for 24 hours of course you've got items that need to come in right away and so if you wipe those down with a chlorox bleach solution or what works best is um a wipe because otherwise it's awfully wet i've done that myself and it's messy so if you wipe them down with lysol or a bleach wipe let them sit for 10 minutes because you want to have that contact on the item and then you can put it away things like onions fresh vegetables you could just put them in the sink and wash them with soap and water it's a lot of work if so then let them dry then put them in the fridge or wherever you're going to store them um and then those shopping bags that you brought home um you can either keep them in the garage for 24 hours or you could just spray that if they're plastic bags again you could just spray them down with something let them dry and then they've been disinfected and you could use them again um let's see so then i'll go back to hospitals so we've been in close contact with Cooley Dickinson and with base state um both hospitals are doing a lot and have been even before this happened but of course as soon as it did happen to create more spaces in their hospitals to come up with more equipment Cooley Dickinson is our i think the hospital though a lot of us think of it as our community hospital we're in close close contact with them they've been able to rearrange their units so that they have much more space for bringing in more patients who will have COVID they also are there's a regional system for requesting the equipment that they need but like everyone it's possible that in this area once the surge comes they'll be more of a demand for things like ventilators and N95s and other medical equipment and that's another reason why um even simple masks and N95s we want to make sure those are really reserved for the healthcare workers your first question about um our homeless folks so we work on this every day coming up with what will be the best scenario for how we care for folks um in the shelter in Amherst and also some of the folks that are on our streets in Amherst also so we have about three weeks ago now we implemented having healthcare workers screen all the guests who come to Craig's doors so when someone arrives there they get a temperature check they get questions asked of them about how they're feeling um anyone who seems to not be feeling that well because their lungs listen to and then these same same healthcare providers have been helping the shelter staff to really set up the shelter in a way that maximizes social distancing so that the cuts are as far away from each other as possible for when people sleep dinner is now served on individual little trays so that people have more distance from each other and happy to report that at this point no one has had to be brought to the hospital because they were exhibiting signs of of the illness so um feeling really good about what they're doing at the shelter to really talk with guests promote social distancing disinfect surfaces all the time and then most critically assess the health of the guests coming there um we do know that the time will come when we will have um a person experiencing homelessness who's positive for COVID-19 and so we have developed another site for isolating those those individuals we have set up rooms for them we have um and I don't know Paul if you want to say a little bit about this about where this is happening or yeah I don't think we're quite ready for that yet okay the hope hasn't allowed us for that yes so we have um we have everything in place for when we get that first case we are um looking for health staff and um really we're working on this one seven days a week so that as as much of the country is because this is a population who is the most vulnerable and is also at very high risk for severe disease so by getting these baseline of some um physical assessments also of people it means that for so many of our guests who come back to the shelter night after night um folks have sort of an understanding of their respiratory status and have developed a relationship with them which is really helpful in helping people feel some trust in being able to talk about how they're really feeling so I just like to jump on that as well um so we have been in uh close contact with City of Northampton talking with the mayor I talked with him regularly this morning over the weekend uh Julie talked with their health director every day multiple times a day probably um comparing notes and working together on trying to address this issue um it's it really speaks to the lack of a statewide policy on addressing the needs of people who are experiencing homelessness but that doesn't solve our problem now we are looking at it from these two communities working together to try and figure out the best solution the um one of the limiting factors um is about having qualified staff who are able to staff a a place for people to go that is the key limiting factor for us we um you know I was on a call on sunday with the person who was in king county in washington states where seattle is and they're really ahead of the curve but they they from what they're talking about what they have implemented they're about a week or 10 days ahead of where we are in terms of what they're implementing and they talked about how they were just making decisions on the fly and trying to make things work we're learning from them we're trying to do the best that we can uh the issue is you've got two relatively small communities working just to address it because we're doing that because no one else is at this moment in time we really need the state to be taking a more proactive role the state has done focused its energies on certain things like mass mutual uh dcu center and in boston um but we still have a large community of people who um are homeless and we need to help them and and it's it's an important thing because it's not just for the individuals which it really is the most important thing but also for the community at large because um again every the reasons we put in these restrictions about social distancing with people who are partying or or who are playing basketball or something like that is to is to limit the amount of community spread of the disease so everything we can do to help people create distance between where they where they live and where they're hanging out is really important um as julie said it's something we um work on multiple every day it's taking and we devote a lot of time to it because it's so important we find it it's really important to our community andy you're next uh just first of all thank you to paul and julie and the rest of the leadership team for the great work that they're doing i think the whole community appreciates it um just a really quick um observation on the hiking trails um you having used uh hiking trail a little bit today we really need the opportunity to get outside and get some exercise and walking is one of the things we can do but to educate people if they're going to stop and stop with their kids on the side of the trail they got to be six feet off the edge of the trail and people need to take responsibility for that we need to encourage it and make that part of our education because when they stop within six feet of the trail that's when the problems occur and just as a side note to that we're we will um at this point we aren't putting trash cans out in those areas because we want people to pack their own trash in and pack it out uh we don't want to put our workers at risk by handling other people's trash so we're asking the public to be responsible and if they if they have trash that they take it home with them and dispose of it properly at home alissa you're next thank you um everything has been really great and incredibly informative and i just want to ask that we remind ourselves occasionally and i know that julie knows this and i know the public health people know this but i want the public to know that we know this too not everyone has a garage to keep their stuff in and if they do it might not be dry or mouse-free just like not everyone has a second refrigerator or freezer to keep food stuffs in just like not everyone has the ability to even obtain things like lysol wipes to wipe down every piece of grocery which is in fact a new recommendation that we've not heard before tonight so on the one hand it's like we are constantly trying to figure out how to you know make more progress on this and at the same time we are not necessarily having realistic expectations of our fellow human beings i myself have been to the grocery had someone in the family go to the grocery store three times a week haven't had antibacterial gel in the house for over a month don't have any lysol or are you know sanitizing wipes unless we keep going back to the store we're not all necessarily going to have those things so i i appreciate the recommendation and the fact that it's new but i just want to caution people to not say well if i can't do that i might as well not do any thank you alissa um yes first of all it doesn't have to be in a garage it can be in just a spot that's out of the way that um doesn't have traffic and if that's not possible um the other thing is that if people have bleach in the house and i know that's a really hard thing to get to but the best thing if is if people can get their hands on bleach because you only have to take three teaspoons of bleach and mix it in a cup of water and cut a paper towel roll perhaps like in a third and then soak that third of a paper towel roll in that solution of bleach and water and you've got a bleach wipe um so really just being able to wipe something down with um not never straight bleach bleach should always be diluted um it's it's a nine parts water to one part bleach and again three teaspoons in a cup of water and that gives you a very inexpensive disinfectant um so and then if if no one has bleach in the home it's also things can just be washed with soap and water for a little bit of time 20 you know your happy birthday you're 20 seconds and then allowed to dry um that's hard to do with frozen foods which is why having something to wipe them down is easier but it can still be done with a frozen food also or i think you are next okay um a comment and a question um i just want to say that i am confident that we in Amherst are doing as best as we can um that if there's something practical and rational and to do that it's being done so that's for me some pretty high praise um the other question is um to julie um do we have any stats or information on good recoveries after people have been on ventilators uh the recent article in the new york times suggested that the ventilator frenzy perhaps was an illusion that the majority of people coming off the ventilator do not return to a quality of life and my friends are in active discussion about changing their um their wills and their proxies their health care proxies at this moment and considering putting in do not put me on a ventilator so i'd be interested to know if you have information on this well thank you Dorothy um i think that's something that i can't area can't answer that's not an area of expertise for me um i think it's really something that people need to talk over with their own personal health care provider um yeah darcy i'm sorry darcy you're next um but um i just wanted to ask a question about the homeless shelter um the i am really happy to hear that there is something that looks like it's in the works for people who test positive if if the shelter needs will the shelter need to close down and then also need to have a second location for the rest of the population in the shelter if someone tests positive thank you that's a good question so i've been focusing on isolation because that's our first step is to make sure that a person who is sick immediately has a place to go um the second piece of that is evaluating who has come in contact with that person um have they been at the shelter before when were they there who were they in contact with and those folks would then need to be in quarantine and that is also something that we're planning for and there's something in the works for that yes yay that's great all right i want to thank all for the update julie for ongoing updates you've been giving us uh this has been informative and let's just know how amherst is moving through all of this we are going to move on to the rest of the council's agenda at this point and that if you can scroll up scroll up to the town financial discussion paul i believe this is you and sonja uh that's right so thank you julie for being there and just as a sort of closing statement i do i want to echo what louis had said earlier which um it sounds odd but it's privileged to be serving amherst at this time and um feeling that we get the support from the council and the members of the community and the trust it's a really hard issue but i feel really buoyed by the confidence that you put in us so um so if we can go to the slide son um slide back i believe so this is a update on where we are on our finances given the uncertainties in today's markets and their finances and the you know the spoiler is like we don't know and i think nobody knows but we're going to talk a little bit about what we don't know tonight so here's the next slide um so the things that we want to talk about we want i want to make a few announcements we want to tell you what we don't what we know and what we don't know and then talk a little bit about taiwanese next slide so first thing um effective today that the state legislature passed uh some some uh a law on last week and so the executive which is town manager can make these statements we are our original due date for fourth quarter real estate bills have now been moved to june 1st our fourth quarter bills for personal property which we're originally doing may first are now june 1st the next slide so in any um bill issued with the due date of march 10th or later because a new due date of june 1st june 1st is the magic date for almost all the bills that you will owe again the same with one or sewer bills if they were issued prior to march 10th and then the applications for any kind of personal exemption or tax referrals which was normally made April 1 that due date is also june 1st so june 1st when it comes to taxes to the town or fees to the town that's the new the new um end date next slide so in addition to that uh all interest payments and other penalties if you are paying late our way so there'll be no interest or penalties for any kind of late payment and um so in essence what that allows you is that you can actually have until june 30th to pay your bills without any penalties uh in addition there will be no termination of any kind of services uh for the only services that we really provide that under this term would be uh water and sewer so those um are exempt as well so next so those are the announcements the next slide so what we know we we will have our revenues in and in our expenditures as of june as of march 31st which which ended last week uh we that takes about two weeks for everything to get processed in and then we'll have some numbers for the end of march one of the things I was cautioned is that those numbers could be good because um and under the state um trying to get my numbers here um their revenues were up for the quarter ending march 30 for the month ending march 31st they were up by three percent it's a little misleading because we knew we know the bottom fell out in the um in this during march um the tomorrow at uh 10 am maybe it's 9 30 am I think actually um there is a there's a link there I think it starts at 9 30 um there is a there will be a economic ground table with the senate and house chairs of ways and means and the secretary of administration of finance and that's the first time we'll really hear from the state directly about what they're projecting for revenues um the independent think tanks at tufts and at at the mess text fairs foundation uh believe that this will be a dramatic collapse in revenues and what the saying goes is when the state types of the cold uh cities and towns get pneumonia that will probably be the case for us and that's a really um scary thing for us if we go forward in our budgeting also because we are delaying uh the taxes that are collected and that the income taxes are delayed till July 15 this fiscal year's collection will be pretty weak so we're anticipating that the next two to three months are going to be especially uh dismal um economically from the from the tax point of view for the commonwealth and that plate that flows directly to the town of amherst so i want to talk about we can go to the next slide so things that we don't know is we don't know really what our expenditures are going to be for the current year we are expending or buying any kind of ppd that we can we're doing whatever all the activities that we need to to be doing right now to address this pandemic are what we don't know is we don't know the revenue forecast for fy 21 um sonny and i talk about this pretty much daily and there is really no roadmap for what this is going to look like and i think we will um rely on our past experience that some counselors have experienced in terms of what it was like the last time uh the state had a collapse of their revenue sources i think this is going to be much more dramatically this is going to be dramatically different and then the other things that we really don't know much about is the budget for fy 21 so while we appreciated that the council had delayed the requirement for submitting a budget i'm not really confident we're going to know a whole lot coming into may june much more than we know right now it's going to be a moving target and the thing about this is that every city in town is going to be in the same boat so the state will be addressing helping to address these things they already have last friday by passing this legislation uh so it will um it will be focused on this um so next slide so when we start to think about this and i think we're not i'm not we're not putting numbers up up there we will start to talk a little bit more with this with the finance committee at speeding tomorrow um so these are sort of the categories of things and you can see the property taxes even though they're delayed should be coming in uh but the local receipts that are really dependent on economic economic vitality like hotels and meals taxes um people purchasing new automobiles people putting on additions to their houses and things like that those have just collapsed and so that whole revenue stream will be gone from the town's budget uh state aid we have no idea what is going to happen with that because they don't know what they're doing either and enterprise funds enterprise funds are our parking revenues for our transportation fund for water and sewer fees from and those are all based on usage um and so those things are dropped hip dropped off dramatically as well main for the water sewer mainly because we have all the college students are not in in town anymore so that all that usage is is not it is gone um so our revenues from all those various um revenue streams will just not be there we're going to have to manage that as well next slide so what we have been trying to maintain is our operating budgets and the the state law allows us to over expand certain you know line items if we need to we hope we won't need to utilize that um if you know a little bit about budget there is a provision in the law that if there if you over expend your snow and ice budget you can put that on the next year's tax rate we're going to be working very hard with our department heads to make sure that we aren't overexpending any line items and that we're able to adjust our budgets and our expenditures accordingly um there are certain things that we will have to pay and that's our debt service and there may be some basic things that we need to do on capital but that's something that we'll want to discuss with the finance community with jcpc there are certain assessments that we will have to meet for our retirement the opeb obligation is a choice that we make we think that's important for the town's finances but this might be one of those times when that's the type of thing we need for our our capital or our operations next slide so we talked about deadlines that are coming up there it is so the council's already addressed the changing from may 1st from april 1st to may 1st for the school department and library trustees to submit their budgets um the you gave me allowance to go to june 1st from may 1st for the town manager budget and tonight you'll have the capital improvement program i think that's tonight or maybe already did that um as well and we still have the charter requirement of the town council adoption of a budget there is a provision in the state in the state law that allows the town to adopt a 112th budget meaning that we would take it a month at a time for up to three months there's some turn timeframes that we would have to work out to do that and we will sort of be monitoring this to see where we want to go and be in you know direct conversation with the council to see which is the best path forward uh next slide so next when we finance committee meeting tomorrow i'll be calling a meeting of the budget coordinating group the budget coordinating group is set up just for this kind of eventuality it has represented us from the school committee the library trustees and town council and they meet as a group to talk about our revenue forecast which we had done back in november i believe it was or october and um these are those those revenue forecast have changed dramatically so we are going to be pulling that group together so we can all be on the same page when we start looking at what the current and f y 21 budgets look like we'll be revising and updating all of our revenue projections based on experience and based on forecasts coming out of the state we will develop multiple budget scenarios because there'll be a lot of very difficult decisions to make for the town manager and for the town council in terms of where you want to spend the precious dollars that we have are we going to keep them in capital are we going to keep them in operating all those different things and then we will have to talk about all the capital improvement plan scenarios and that's something we can make sort of a short term decision and bring things back to you uh at a later date one thing i do want to emphasize is that we are continuing to send out bills on their regular schedule so even though the deadline might be delayed to june 1st uh we are still sending out bills and they'll have the proper due date on the bills when we send them um so just so people say hey i think you're gonna bill at home you say hey i thought i was supposed to get a bill you will get a bill if the due date is what's changed and that's you leave that slide up and i don't know if sonia would be like to add anything to any of that sort ran through that quickly because i know the council's got a lot on their agenda tonight no you did a great job you got pretty much everything that we talked about this morning i do want to say that the tax bills are already out there that are due may 1st so you're not going to see a new tax bill with a new due date it just known that you're not paying it until june 1st and i'm can you hear me yeah okay and i'm glad you brought up the um third quarter is really not going to tell us anything because the third quarter revenues that have come in are pretty much right on target we're not going to really know anything until the next quarter are there questions from is that all paul yes thank you okay are there questions from the council at this time recognizing that this is a moving target and any question you asked now the answer will probably be we just don't know any questions at this time kathy um it when you talk about as we start to know more so when we get to may and june um is there a point where we have to make a yes we're going to go one month at a time that one month at a time option or can we do that right down to the wire or i guess the other thing is we don't know yet because this is a new a new world that we're living in so it's a really good question uh it's a question i actually had a conversation with uh our county attorney today about um and her advice was the deadlines in our charter are are directive which means if you don't meet them there's no one's going to bring you to court to say you you screwed it up and under these circumstances everybody's going to be trying to do the best and so there's going to be a lot of leeway and trying to do the thing that's in the best interest of the town i think the important thing is for the town manager the town council to be in very close communication and that we're having these discussions in public so the public understands what we're doing i think you know it's just about having that conversation out loud in front of people so there so that there's as much transparency as we possibly can have for it um so i think you know we're going to take it a month you know a month at a time and i think there might be some dates where we say we have to act by this date uh based on state law but even then the town attorney feels like there may be corrective action that the legislature might pass because every city is in the same boat and if we're not we're in as good a shape as any city except cambridge in the commonwealth and so if we're going to have struggle with it every other city is going to be asking the exact same question so i think we're going to be in company in terms of if there's uncertainty at a certain point we're going to be going to the legislature say we need more relief on this or or some some more direction from the bureau of accounts northy you have a question okay i i just wanted to say that um i appreciate very much the strong budgeting um powers that have been shown that we are in a strong state um i'm very so i'm very thankful to you paul and sonia and to all the people who have uh worked to have amherst in a strong position um i know the challenges are going to be very big and the choices are going to be hard but at least we're starting from a good place i agree andy just sit down you have to unmute andy so i wanted to um thank paul for the report that he gave i've been doing a lot of work on this and consulting with several other people and including paul and sonia to make sure that the finance committee um is in synchronization with everybody else and we're all working as a team to get to where we have to be an orderly process which gets um to kathy's question i read the statute as being very permissive for cities and giving us a lot of discretion and i had the feeling that that was what paul is hearing also from um lauren when he was talking to her because um it starts out with the words notwithstanding any provisions of this section to the contrary and then it goes on that's a pretty broad exception statement and i was not included in that little piece that was in the prior slide uh we're going to be talking about it tomorrow at the finance committee meeting um it is going to be um broadcast live we want to try and use the opportunity to start making sure that the community is aware of the depth of the problem but uh we're just going to have to do the best we can to work together um and work this out and uh it's uh it's uh reported to the council previously uh it's deeper than we've been but it's not unprecedented that we've had critical years and uh we had that experience to fall back on and just hope that even though it is a deeper set of problems than we've had before that we have the guidance to go forward and I think we have the backup from the legislature to do that too thank you are there any other questions from the council at this time okay then i'd like to move on to the action items on our agenda the very first action item on the agenda is the um consent agenda the following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy to remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion later at the meeting asked that if we remove when the president lists the consent agenda items the request to remove an item from a consent agenda does not require a second so the items on the consent agenda are in fact referral of bylaw banning use of wild and exotic animals through the community resources committee and automatic referral through the governance organization and legislation committee just let me pause for a moment this is a bylaw that's been proposed by a citizens it's sponsored by uh shallony and uh this is at the very beginning of the discussion and there's much more opportunity to actually have a discussion in the committee level and then at the council there is one change to what you've seen and it actually is the removal of the line that deals with museums the second item on the agenda is acknowledgement of first discussion of amendment the town council rules for procedure rule 10.8k this rule particularly deals with liaisons and the specific mention of it is that um i'm sorry is that we would basically every year list those committees for which there would be liaisons and then the third item on the consent agenda is approval of the march 30 2020 special town council meeting minutes as presented is there anybody who would like any of these items removed uh darcy please tell me darcy has has uh lincoln avenue um item been removed already i've already taken off for the consent agenda for discussion later okay that's all is there anybody else who wants to remove this then i'm going to read it and i'll meet a second the motion is to move the following items and printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit referral of bylaw banning use of wild and exotic animals to community resources committee and an automatic referral to governance organization and legislation committee 7d acknowledgement of first discussion of amendment to towns council rules of procedure rule 10.8k and 10 a is approval of minutes of march 2020 march 30 2020 special town council minutes as presented is there a second second de angeles that that was pat de angeles and any further discussion then i will do a roll call vote and this time i will start with alissa please unmute and i okay thank you uh de angeles i yamaha i greece merz and i panicky hi ham hi ross hi ryan hi chain hi schreiber hi steinberg hi forts hi bell mill hi the motion passes 13 zero zero and no absence okay we are going to go on to the proposed parking regulation changes to linkin avenue let me just introduce this by saying we went through a fairly extensive hearing um and that particular hearing focused on linkin avenue at the time we then split the request into two things one was a an issue about setbacks from intersections and that's what we're going to deal with tonight in fact this is a second reading and what we asked for for the second reading was a better set of maps and we also asked for resolution of particularly a couple intersections where things weren't as consistent with one intersection as they were with another all of those have been done and the maps are in your folder we can show them on the screen the second issue was a much larger issue of whether or not additional areas of linkin avenue would have banned parking and that issue has actually been referred to the town services and outreach committee which met for the first time today so it's really the two different issues they've gone two different ways the one we're talking about tonight is not the broader issue of no parking it is the issue of setbacks so that there's greater visibility at the intersections Sean could we please show the maps there are six total is this what you were looking for the no i'm sorry these are not what i was looking for the three individual ones these are the three individual ones that just show the setbacks okay hold on i'll pull those up but i'll take a moment thank you just waiting for the correct maps regarding the setbacks to be brought up let me just say that one of the confusions about the setbacks was some were some were 30 and some were 60 uh except for where they exceed that amount we have now changed them all to 60 and so that it's a very consistent motion the motion that's in your packet actually asks that we repeal existing restrictions and then enact additional restrictions again though it's around parking it is all around setbacks so if you go to the top of the map here you'll see mclellan street and you'll see that there's no parking within 60 feet of the intersection at mclellan and then you come down and on the when you look at elm street there's no parking there anyway and then when you come down to the intersection of amity street and lincoln you have part no parking within 200 feet of the intersection next slide these slides by the way are public and in the packet for the town council tonight so they're available to the public and also to the council and so here here's where you start on to um fearing street and then you get to mclellan though there's no parking on the fearing street side but at mclellan again we've put both of those at 60 feet within the intersection and so will we keep on going please there's one final map okay and this is the part that's south of amity that was not really part of the original discussion but while we were at it we wanted to make sure we looked at it and we again look at the south of amity is 120 feet at gay lord it's 60 feet with no parking on either side and then also at no parking within the intersection 120 feet between north hampton road and the um and lincoln avenue are there questions from the council before we move to the motion pat you need done mute pat pat you need done mute trying okay there it is i kept hitting it but it didn't work um i'm curious you talked about consistency um you have a 200 foot setback on lincoln and amity i'm assuming because that's a particularly difficult intersection but when we the map before this when fearing and lincoln meet there's no setback on um the corner of lincoln and fearing on one side and i on the map um so i won't i could you please find that yeah so i'm assuming there would be a setback there yeah see what i mean okay you look at the bottom where mclellan and lincoln you can see the setback on both sides of the intersection but here at fearing you can only see a setback on one side of the intersection right i see what you're saying so are you suggesting that you would like to see a setback well i'm trying to understand why that one is different and if it was just overlooked or is there particular reason very good question paul do you want to speak to that question um i would like to but i don't know the answer off the top of my head okay um let's if we don't have sufficient information we'll bring this back to the next week's council so what i'd like to do is see what other questions we have so this question specifically focused on fearing where we see the yellow and therefore there's parking prohibited monday through feiding but there's no restriction from within the intersection of either 20 either 60 or 200 feet kathy do you have a question yes i do on gaylord if you go to the gaylord map and i'm looking at our motion um as opposed to just the map the motion has the number 30 and the number 60 are we say and i believe that gaylord right now is 30 and we were going to go to this go to 60 but the motion literally says 30 and then paren 60 with um so it's a question of what it is that's being proposed for gaylord 60 would make it consistent with all the others and 30 would be consistent with what it is now so the motion is written both ways is what i'm saying i've got both numbers in it and so the recommendation is to go to 60 so that it's consistent all the way through then the motion then i think the motion needs to be edited because it says change it in the following way and then the bullet literally has for a distance of 30 paren 60 feet north and south so it's it's got a little 60 stuff in there do you see what i'm seeing yes i do thank you are there other questions dorothy hello um when i do this i can't see the maps underneath it but so that's 200 feet on um amity but it's 120 feet to north hampton is that correct that is what the map says yes i guess i'm um i know amity is a very bad intersection but we heard that it was a difficult intersection from north hampton road which is a very highly traveled road so i was wondering why that was 120 i'll add that to the questions and shallony or mandy joe you're next so i will try to answer the pat's question um since i drafted the motion based on what we had referred to tso and what wasn't referred to tso and all of the um fearing street and mclellan two fearing street parking restrictions were referred to tso and one of them was the 30 foot setback right now it's already got it looks like on the map it doesn't have any setback but it has the no parking eight to five or nine to five monday to friday anyway that would not be repealed in this motion so that would remain in effect even if we passed the motion tonight um and i think the setback portion of that change was referred to tso okay shallony um could someone just summarize what the final loss will be of the parking and how it's how it's affecting the other neighborhoods i'm so sorry we've already been through this but i really cannot remember all right the effects are let me try to do that you know more broadway the issue of adding any more significant no parking zones on either either side of this street has been referred to tso when tso looks at that they certainly have the option in fact it was discussed today about the possibility that they should look at surrounding neighborhoods of the university in general not just link and app um the only thing we're dealing with tonight is setbacks that means setbacks from intersections some of those exist some of those would be um added and some of those would be lengthen elissa i was just going to say that i know we we went around quite a bit as to how comprehensive our first action would be associated with this project and i'm feeling comfortable as was developed this afternoon thanks to mani joe pulling that together that this is the safety issue and so to me it doesn't really matter how many spaces we're losing in terms of me voting for this safety issue but i would like someone to be keeping track of that number as we're having the rest of the conversation okay dorthy i agree totally with elissa the complaints that first came in were about being unable to make a turn from fearing from mclellan on to lincoln without good pulling into the deep deep into the intersection blind so safety is what's going on here the other issue i imagine we'll talk about it in great detail and we'll deal with that later but i i do think this is the way to deal with it breaking it into the two issues thank you um we have two options one is to refer this back and get more information one would be about the issue regarding fearing street where there's restricted parking by a certain hour but then there's no setback the second is why not 200 feet off of northampton road and the third when we already did resolve which was the 30 versus 60 um if there is an interest in moving forward and leaving those others issues uh then i would ask for a motion and i'm going to ask somebody else to read the motion um and joe perhaps you might read the motion i was just going to raise my hand to do so thank you so i moved to do the following repealed a following existing parking restrictions Excellent, no problem, yes, thanks, thank you so much, so anyway we'll get to the next question is talking about this particular portion, to areas of park Um I do know to do this work we've got one of these ways in regards to park section Cleanly, ParkquLY council MP Coming in, want to turn on your conference and parking prohibited is a tow zone on the east side of Lincoln Avenue 30 feet south of McClellan Street and repeal the following additional parking restrictions the parking prohibited is a tow zone on the west side of Lincoln Avenue from Elm Street to Fearing Street and enact the following parking restrictions parking prohibited as a tow zone on the east and west side of Lincoln Avenue for a distance of 120 feet north of the intersection of Northampton Road parking prohibited as a tow zone on the east and west side of Lincoln Avenue for a distance of 60 feet north and south of Gaylord Street parking prohibited as a tow zone on the east and west side of Lincoln Avenue for a distance of 200 feet north and 120 feet south of Amity Street parking prohibited as a tow zone on the west side of Lincoln Avenue beginning 200 feet north of Amity Street to North Hadley Road and parking prohibited as a tow zone on the east side of Lincoln Avenue for a distance of 60 feet north and south of McClellan Street. Is there a second? Second. Brian? Thank you. Is there further discussion? George? That was my second. I'm sorry. Okay. Darcy? Mandy, Joe, maybe could you just explain, and maybe this has already been explained, but what is the reason for different lengths of setbacks? You mean 30 versus 60 or 200 versus 120. Yes. That would have to come from Paul as it's his departments that recommended those different feats. Okay. Okay. Let me look up the memo that was submitted a month or two ago to the council. Meantime, Dorothy Pam? Okay. I strongly support the motion, and I hope that it passes. The difference of footage was done by the Transportation Department based on, I think, usage and their experience. Okay. Are there other questions at this time? Paul, you don't want to try to find that tonight, do you? Yeah, I don't see an obvious answer to that question. I think basically it's our traffic engineers making the judgment call. That would be my recollection based on the memo. Is there any further discussion? Dorothy, do you still have your hand up or are you waiting to talk now? I have to lower the hand. Thank you. Okay. There you go. All right. Any further discussion at this time? Hearing none, then I'll do a roll call vote. This time I will begin with D'Angeles. Pat? Yes. DuMont? Yes. Reese Merz, yes. Hanneke? Yes. Pam? Yes. Ross? Yes. Ryan? Yes. Shown? Yes. Treiber? Yes. Steinberg? Yes. Schwartz? Yes. Balmille? Yes. Brewer. Alyssa? Yes. I'm sorry, it wasn't registered. Not to worry. Okay. I believe that was 13-0-0 and none absent. We're moving on in our agenda then to committee reports and some of the committees are meeting soon but others have submitted reports and one committee met today. Mandy Jo, CRC? I submitted a written report. That's all we've got for now and we will meet on Wednesday morning and elections will be held to elect chair vice chair and we'll be discussing some zoning process issues and be presenting the first very rough draft of a land use section of the master plan. Okay. Thank you. Finance committee, Andy? Nothing additional. Okay. Governance Organization and Legislation Committee, George? Our report is in the packet for people to read. We did not, we will not be meeting this week as it probably was announced at the top of the meeting. The next scheduled meeting would be April 22nd. Okay. JCPC, Kathy? Kathy, you're on mute. Okay. Thank you. We sent out a notice this week that JCPC won't be meeting till at least the week of April 20th which the normal meeting is a Wednesday so that would be the 22nd and if you put in the context of polls what we don't know about the revenues and expenditures of the town and then say and the capital is a share of that, what percentage, what will be available, it's equally or even more uncertain. So we are going to probably try to meet that week to just share what we know at that point but I'm really urging everyone to stay tuned on what the finance committee will be hearing because it's going to be very much driving what JCPC, whether we have any decisions. For those who have been following JCPC we did start to hear departments so we had the library and the schools come in and we had one resident capital request but I'm assuming everything is on hold till we have more information. Thank you. Outreach communications and appointments ad hoc committee, Evan? Yep so the only announcement is that we will be holding interviews for candidates to fill some of the vacancies on the ZBA the evening of April 16th that meeting is scheduled for April 16th at 7 30 p.m. So if we do have to hold the second night of the school committee deliberation this meeting would occur after that with the goal of having a recommendation to the council for the council's April 27th meeting. Okay and town services and outreach committee Darcy was elected chair of that committee today Darcy. Darcy you have to unmute. Oh I am unmuted. Okay thank you. We started out today starting to get our bearings as a committee we elected chair and vice chair Evan was elected vice chair and we looked at the list of items that has been sent over by the community resources committee and we're going to try to figure out a method for prioritizing them and looking at different means of revealing and making recommendations that was also suggested by the community resource committee. We had one action item that we didn't actually have to act on today and that was the recommendation of appointment of a finance director which we hope to get from the town manager so that we can act on it next Monday we set out our next meeting for Monday at 11 30. So Monday the 13th at 11 30. Right. Okay are there any questions from the any of the committees Kathy you have your hand up. Yes I just I had a question Evan you said you're when you're meeting you're going to be interviewing and filling some of the positions do you have a sense at this point on how many slots you're trying to fill. I do not that will depend on the feeling of the committee based on the interviews. Okay thank you. Any other questions of the 10 of the committee chairs. All right then moving on we've approved the minutes. Paul Bachman your town manager's report. Thank you. I submitted a pretty detailed town manager's report so I hope you take a time to read it there so because the hour is getting longer on these types of things I think longer and then mentioned four things one is the census is up and running our complete count committee is still active it's under all new rules as we obviously know our response rate is at 48.4 percent we need to get that much better much much higher so we're working with the university and the colleges I think we'll be okay on those fronts they've all been super cooperative but you know just putting low competition out there for our counselors to see that that North Amherst is doing you know need to pick up the game there because we want to make sure we get everybody counted it's really important. The second item is the I want to note that the supportive housing at 132 North Hampton Road had received its project eligibility letter that gives them the opportunities to submit an application to the zoning board of appeals for a comprehensive permit they indicated that that would happen at the end of April which starts the clock ticking that the ZBA would want to have a hearing within 30 days of that not clear exactly how all the land use tolling of clocks will play into that but we'll be working with them to make sure the neighborhoods are the neighbors are fully engaged in the community is fully engaged. The one of the things that we're dealing with on the COVID-19 front is the farmers market which is scheduled to open soon we're working with them because to create more social distance because having access to fresh food is really important but having having protections in place to make sure people can access the farmers market it doesn't become a social gathering place is important. We sort of liken it to having a grocery store people go to the grocery store and buy vegetables and so we're looking at different ways that we can manage this properly there have been several articles and a lot of work on had done on this already in different communities and the State Department of Agriculture has given us some guidance on the types of things so we will have a plan from the farmers market in terms of how they would implement proper social distancing how they would enforce it we will be monitoring it to make sure that it's in compliance and the last thing is you know I often will thank our employees and what a great job there are but we also still have a lot of volunteers who are working especially with the senior center on the meals on meals program and so it's really brave to be for people to be step continuing to step up and I want to thank all the volunteers who are out there doing this on a day-to-day basis there's always room for more volunteers the senior center if you read the report they're making over a thousand phone calls to people to make sure they're doing okay they have a friendly visitor virtually programs so that people stay engaged so just a note that the senior center is looking for people to help out and a thank you to all the volunteers and that's oh one last thing we are working on a new website for the Kendrick Park playground because that we haven't that's continued to be worked under people working remotely and this is one of the things that they can actually do is build the website and so that will be announced pretty soon so that concludes my report okay Dorothy you have a question yeah yes the question is the date of the TSO meeting I had put down that it was going to be the 13th of April and not the 27th so I just wanted to clarify the date of that meeting it is on the 13th at 11 30 okay okay Mandy Joe yes um question on the census that 48 percent response rate do we know whether that includes all the students living on campus or whether those numbers have not yet been submitted and counted into that percentage because if it does include that we got a ways to go if it doesn't we might be doing better than we think it does not include them okay all right we're looking for a great update in the future but counselors let's get out to our constituents especially those district one people Alyssa yes I had two things please one was a comment on 130 32 North Hampton Road it's so nice that that's moving a pace it's just so frustrating given where we are and as you indicated I just wanted to emphasize that I believe that what we'll be doing based on what you've said is that you'll be working with the applicant to say you know if you file by the end of April according to what's happened at the state level as you mentioned the tolling according to the way I who am not an attorney read the KP law guidance all those deadlines are going to be pushed way out in terms of like time after the emergency so I understand that they may feel like they need to get started I realize we have other hearings that are happening right where they're calling the ZBA to order and then they're continuing the hearing but you know I'm hoping they're thinking through whether or not they actually need to do that in order to meet with their end of the processes so there's not to just increase the amount of trouble it is for staff to do this for the ZBA to call the order and then just to go ahead and move on etc if they can just wait but if their funding requires them to like get their get this stake in the ground now I understand that too I just hope that people aren't feeling pressured because as you said we want to make sure the neighbors are clearly addressed here and I don't think we're prepared to do that in the normal timeframe the other one completely different topic on the farmers market as much as I support the farmers market both with my dollars and with the work I used to do on the select board I'm really concerned that the farmers market is going to have to look radically different if they think they're going to function because there's literally no way social distancing works in any kind of setup like we've ever had and I would also as of course all of you know because you go there all the time too the products in April are not fresh food products as much as I love the premade products and I know that it's going to impact those farmers greatly we don't be needing to go outside to get prepackaged products so I'm just really nervous about what we're trying to accommodate there and how realistic that really is so I look forward to your updates as that continues to be worked through there any other questions Dorothy yes I think that for the farmers market there can get plenty of guidance from the union square farmers market in New York City there have been some major articles written recently about how the farmers market is more important than ever of course it will have to be redone but one of the things is that the customers will not be touching any of the food there's a whole protocol that has been developed and you know there's a lot of people to learn from so I hope that we do see the farmers market in a new safer format soon okay shall we please unmute sorry about that I just want to echo what Dorothy was saying about the farmers market and we've seen amazing changes in our grocery stores the local ones and the national ones and I believe that we can put in place those very strict and I think all the residents are really aware and following these rules so if we have all the protocol in place we could be thoughtful and put something in place but keep keep that farmers market going thank you okay any other questions yes Steve yes I want to echo what Dorothy and Shalini were saying that now more than ever we need to support the local farms through the farmers market and through you know the various farm stands but there's a great story and I think it's today's globe about how how important the local farms are to the Metro Boston area so I'm sure that we can figure out how to how to make it work particularly because the parking load is less now now that the hotels are you know essentially closed etc etc so Paul I believe that the proposal from the farmers market because its long-term use of public way has to come to the council am I correct on that I think that may have already been done I can't I have to look back on whether that's already been approved it might require additional what our expectation would be they would seek additional use of public way in order to create the social distancing so it's basically we've asked them to come up with a social distancing plan for us that we would review with our health agents and there you know and I think you know there's a lot of discussion about this out there in the department again the Department of Agriculture has very strict guidelines about how you handle money and things like that some farmers markets have admission they only let a certain number of people in so it's not just an open thing there are like gateways you have to walk through and they monitor the number of people let me see what it requires if it has to come back to the council in terms of if they are asking for additional parking lots or parking on the streets I will double check on that thank you are there any other questions Mandy Joe I don't think we've dealt with the farmers market at all this year for this farmers market season I heard any public way requests so we should I think it would be required for us to deal with even the 20 some weeks that they normally request Dorothy I just wanted to remind the council that if people with ebt cards with food stamps or snap benefits you get get food from the farmers market they get a bonus of dollars until that money state money runs out so it is an added way of getting food to people who need it okay any other questions of Paul at this time then let me just mention a couple things mostly for counselors but also for the public and that is first of all I really want to thank you for your patience in scheduling of the various committee meetings we're trying to space them out we're trying to make sure that we have people properly trained on zoom to the point that over time of people who are chairing committees and the people who are on the committees may be able to be much more in charge of the production of them as well and this brings me to the reason that we're so far we really have not been scheduling committees of the town um because again it takes so much just to get to the point you can produce a meeting that is public that allows for public comment and also is can be available to the public then in a recorded way as all of our town committees of the town need to be so we've um are getting better we're getting there and we are putting out guidelines and Athena and Brianna and Angela have been working closely with the it people to get there as fast as we possibly can but putting on a meeting like this takes a lot more work than putting on a meeting in the town room so I just want to thank you for your patience and ask you for your continued patience and all of that we will be meeting on the 13th and unless there is an emergency we will not be meeting on April 20th are there any councilor comments at this time okay seeing none then I am going to no topics not reasonably anticipated um and I'm going to adjourn the town council meeting at this time