 I want to remind everybody that in order to participate, please raise your hand from Zoom or press star nine. You can also use the Q&A function at the bottom of your Zoom screen to put your questions in. So I want to welcome Amherstown clerk, Shavina Martin to our chat today, as well as your town manager, Paul Bachman. Shavina is in the Throws of Election, but also is the co-chair for the Amherst Complete Count Committee with myself and doing a lot of work around that. So before we launch into Q&A, I'm going to give Paul the chance to offer any updates he might have. Sure. Thanks, Brianna. So there are two things that we're really focused on this week. One is the FY21 budget, which is going through the finance committee at this point. The finance committee will have about three times on the budget this week alone. Their goal is to make a recommendation to the town council so the town council can consider the budget on Monday, July 20th. A lot of interest in this budget more than I've ever seen and a lot of comments and public comments, which has been very engaging. And so it's really presented a lot of food for thought for the council as they start to consider it. So, and then the second thing has been the welcoming back the students from the university and the colleges. And I just was on a call with representatives from all five colleges as they start to work through their plans and trying to make sure that everybody is coordinated and that the five colleges are communicating together, which they always do. And talking about the impacts on the town, both through the business community and through the general public and the public health for the town. So those are the big focuses that we've been spending a lot of time on the last week since we since we last talked. All right, thanks for the update Paul, I am going to give Shavina a quick chance to just give an update with all of the things happening in her department right now and then we're going to launch into Q&A so take it away Shavina. Good afternoon, everyone. So here in the town clerk's office have a lot of new and exciting things to report to everyone. As of July 1, we were able to launch our payments. So now you're able to request the vital records, which are birth, death and marriage certificates right online pay form and then it'll come to us electronically and we'll mail it out to you the next day. And also you can now renew your dog license right online as well. Same process, you can go right up to the details right from the town page. And so we're excited about that many residents have already been utilizing it so I'd like to encourage everyone to continue that. And then we are moving into our election season. And without holding up a lot of time. I just want to notify everyone that as of yesterday the Secretary of State began, well, they began mailing out 2020 vote by mail applications. So anyone who would like to vote by mail can do so. No reason is required. And all you have to do is fill out the application and send it back. It's pre-postage to be addressed right here at the town hall. And then if you have any questions surrounding it, you can always do a call with me here Monday through Friday. Okay. Thank you, Shavina. So we've got some questions here that we have on deck that involve just town clerk operations, election information, as well as census. And just want to remind everybody who's joining us live to use the Q&A function to put your question to the room. Although we would prefer if you raise your hand and came into the room and asked your question live, we'd love to hear from you. So that's always an option as well. So the first question I have kind of relates to some of the things Shavina just said. We've gotten this question a couple times a week. I can attest to. I want to get married. How do I get that done now with town hall closed? So right now with town hall being closed, completing a marriage intention is a multi step process. It requires both parties to be present. And there's a lot of documents that you have to fill out. And so right now we are not processing marriage intentions. And the reason we're not doing it is just to minimize the exposure to possible contaminants of the virus. And the thing to know that I would like everyone to know is that in the state of Massachusetts, you can complete the marriage intention with any community because you're getting married in the state. So you don't have to file your intention in the town where you're going to have your marriage ceremony. I didn't know that. My marriage license from the town of Amherst. So I have fond memories of that. Now we've a question from the room. Sarah asks, you may receive thousands of ballots by mail. Will you need additional volunteers to handle these? That's an awesome question. We will. And we do have, we've always had our, our election worker job hosting up on the town's website. Anyone who is interested and anyone who is healthy. I am encouraging to go on and fill out the application and then those get sent right over to me and we will begin reviewing all of those. We've had about eight people already apply and the Secretary of State is also doing. So if you are interested, please apply. It is that application on our career portal. It is. Okay. And that web addresses Amherst MA dot gov slash jobs where you can find that and all of our other current job postings as well. I have a question here. Is it too late to answer my census? The, the quick and easy answer, I guess I'll take, I'll take that one is no, it's not too late. You can still answer online by mail or by phone, several different options there. It's not too late. However, for those who have not responded, there will be census workers and new graders coming out in the community, following safety protocols with masks and whatnot starting August 11th. So if you'd prefer not to have a visitor at your door. So all they are going to be practicing safe protocols. It's probably a good, good time to answer if you haven't yet so that you can not show up on that list of non response. And that's going to start here in August 11th. So, so you'll start seeing people with identification, they will have census badges. They will not ask to enter your home, they will not ask any of those types of questions about social security numbers or anything like that they're going to be simply asking the questions that are on the questionnaire. So, please don't give out any of that information if you have concerns about that you can you can definitely let us know. And we have another question that kind of was a follow up to that. And this has been a big, a big topic of conversation for us. I'm a student and got sent home due to COVID. Where do I count do my parents count me. That's a question we get we get a lot. Parents should not count you if you live in Amherst for the majority of the year. And if you split your time equally it's where you live on April 1. However, this year that's a little different and the census clarified that you should be counted where you live when you're at school. And for those students who lived on campus, you have been counted by your university. And for those who lived, who live or lived off campus or coming back into off campus housing, you should be counted where you live. When you live at school, if that's Amherst, then you would get counted here in Amherst. Alright, so I've got another question. If we served as election workers in the past, do we need to reapply for this fall. Yeah, we will begin. The everyone here in the office we're going to start reviewing all of our election workers next week. Many have already notified us if they are available if they're unavailable, but if you worked last year, or if you worked for the March 3 presidential primary, then you're already considered on our activists, and so you'll get a notification. Alright, thank you. I've got this question to hear that I have probably gotten at least 20 times since the building's been closed to the public. So this person needs to get something notarized, but everywhere seems closed. Does the clerk's office do this during this time or is there a recommendation of where they can get this done. I've been performing our notary service, and I do know that the banks have been doing it. So any of our community banks in the area in town have been doing them and some attorneys offices have been doing them as well. We get that question a lot as well because anyone who has to remove their business certificate this year, it requires a notary seal. Okay, thank you. This question kind of references the mailing that you mentioned a little bit earlier. Is everyone getting mailed a ballot now? Do I still need to ask for an absentee ballot separately? So just to clarify, it's not a ballot that everyone is going to receive. It's a request for an absentee or early voting ballot that every registered voter in the state will receive, and so you won't get a ballot unless you return that form requesting a ballot. And you can fill that form out for the whole year, or if you want just the ballot for the September vote primary, you can indicate that on the form. If you want one just for the November 3rd election, you can indicate that as well. Also, if you are an independent or what we call in the state of Massachusetts an unenrolled voter, there will be directions on how to choose which ballot you want because you have to choose it. Hey, Shavina, what's the difference between early voting and absentee voting? And how would I know which one I want to use? Well, okay, so that's a great question. So historically, an absentee ballot is a ballot that you cast because you're not going to be your requested because you're not going to be available on election day, whether it's your way. And you don't, you're not required to give a reason you can, or if you're just not coming around. Early voting just allows you the ability to catch your vote in advance of election day. This year when the legislation that Governor Baker passed and signed on July 6th, you need no reason. And the ballot actually says both. So the ballot says absentee and early voting. So this year, it's kind of the same. Typically, you would need a reason. In the past, if someone was admitted in the hospital, right before I think 48 hours or 75 days before the election, we could have a relative bring a ballot to the hospital if they're admitted. And those laws have been relaxed this year. And these are temporary changes, sorry. So, so if I wanted, if I get this thing in the mail, and I want to vote and not have to go to the polls. I just say, yes, give me something, give me either one. It doesn't really matter and you'll send them the same. It'll be whether I asked for absentee or early voting, I'll get the same packet from you. Yes. So how you'll do it's going to be, it'll be pre populated. The application is going to be pre populated with your name, your address. And if you have a mailing address. If it's us, then you're mailing address and you can indicate where you'd like to have your ballot and mail. And then it'll have your birth date. I mean, you're you, not your birth date, but just your, your birth on there. So, like, for me, it'll have 1979 and then you just sign it and mail it back. So, then the, and can at the same time, I think you said that maybe I wasn't listening clearly. Clearly, I can ask for both the September primary and the November general election at the same time. I'm not going to get a second mailing. Great. That's correct. Good. It's really important to clarify those things. I think there's been a lot of confusion and in the media and even locally that people would be just automatically getting getting a ballot. So, right. It's not ballot you're getting an invitation to ask for a ballot. Correct. That's good to understand that. All right, now I've got a, another question coming in, I'm moving to Amherst in two weeks. How do I update my voting address do I have to come into town hall. Well, there's a number of ways you can do it. You can do it right online on the second case website and that comes over to us electronically, or you can contact our office and we can mail you out a hard copy form in order for there to be any changes to anyone's voter profile your signature. And what's the deadline for the next election in order to be registered to vote or to update your registration. The legislation changed that. So originally it was going to be August, which is why we were going to collaborate and do a big thing with census, which, you know, we know since this day with the August 11, that's now been moved to August 22nd, which is a stat. August 22nd to two, so he said. Mm hmm. Okay. Yep. So 82 to 2020. For to read last day to register to vote for the primary. Yep, September 1. Okay. Another, another census question here is that that's a Saturday right. It is a Saturday. That's also the first day of early voting in person. Oh my gosh. Town clerk's office never sleeps. Oh my God, you guys. It's going to be a long time. Send them lots of love and coffee. I'm going to pivot real quick to another census question and I've actually got this a bunch of times and I just got clarification on this. From them a couple of days ago so someone asks, I made a mistake and I didn't count my youngest child on my census what do I do. And that's a really good question. So I did get clarity on that at least for a solution for people who respond online was to go right back into the the 2020 whoops this way 2020 census. And start another questionnaire with your with your address and your information and they will knock out your other response and take the newer response. So if you failed to count a newborn, for example, or one of your younger children, which actually happens. Quite frequently it's a huge concern nationally but also an Amherst has been designated as being at a high to very high risk for under counting our youngest children. So, if you did answer and you forgot, you can go back in. If you haven't answered yet be sure to count everybody in your household even if it's. If you're not the parent of the child but they're living there predominantly with you, they still count. They're doing a lot of programming as the complete count committee targeting families with young children starting Friday and for the rest of the summer the Amherst Complete Count Committee is sponsoring additional meals on Fridays through the schools in collaboration with the school's meal distribution. So they'll be getting additional meals to go home for over the weekend and the meals will have stickers and information similar to what you can see behind my head. In different languages and those will be affixed to the meals to just prompt and remind and give the web address for people to answer. And we have other programming also coming out tailored at families with young children and hopefully off campus students as well. I have looks like I have another question here in the room. Another voting question so if there is in per if there is in person early voting, where will that happen. That information will be revealed in the week. And for working on that. We will have that pretty prominently on our homepage. Also, there's a voting page Amherst m a dot gov slash vote where we'll have everything that you do need to know we'll put that out there once we have the details. And then in context I think it's a complex question that has been managing with our talking to public health public safety folks in terms of whether it can be inside has whether it's going to be intense outside. Where's a good location to manage traffic so multiple locations are being examined but we will be settling on that pretty soon. And the people who might have just joined us. Please feel free to put your questions in the q amp a raise your hand via zoom or star nine for those of you who are calling in. We'd love to hear your voice. I'm tired of hearing my voice so please pop in. Otherwise, while we wait for another question to come in. I've got some more here. I'm kind of hopefully we've touched on but I'm living in another state now but I need access to my birth records how can I do this. Okay, so you can do it a number of ways you can use our e pay online when people are out of when you're an out of state resident I always ask you to call us first just to ensure we have your record. You can use our online and you just request it and you pay for it. It's a multi step process to refund your money if we don't have your record so give us a call first, so we can locate your record. And then you can request it either by mail or through the e pay system. And the same goes for death records and copies of marriage certificates as well as should be all by the word. We have the all up there and online. slash payments or if you hit our homepage there's a big button that says e payments. And we've been steadily adding different categories to that with more to come. So, feel free to check that out. And that's been a really great initiative that Brianna really led and and with the pandemic actually drove us say we got to move on this right now and make it easier for people to access our services electronically. So great work on that. Absolutely and I think that one of the first times I met Sheveena and we talked she said let's get all this stuff online. And of course things take a little longer and I'm glad we got it done but she came in with wanting that to be to improve her services for the community so I have to have to say that. Okay I've got a question here that's directed towards Paul. Paul does the university seem responsive to the concerns you outlined in your letter. I've not heard a response back from the university at this point in time. I think they this the concerns that were expressed in that letter shared by lots of people in the community. And they take them very seriously I know, and I think they're trying to figure out how to address them. I think that they're talking about that the, you know, thousands of students in terms of testing and protocols is is pretty gigantic, but they have a lot of resources at their disposal as well so I expect that they will be addressing them at some point in the future. And will when when they do get addressed is that something that we will make available. It depends how they want it you know they, you know, we've asked for a number of things actions on their part and even just a meeting basically and. And so it's at a fairly high level. And so that's what we're waiting to do to hear from. And you mentioned this but I will echo the fact that there has been a lot of activity and conversation through our multiple different channels from the community members expressing opinions and concerns about that so we hope to keep everybody. So I think that's in mind and to keep the information flowing but feel free to reach out to us if there's anything. One thing we should all expect is with when when the university in the college is open that there will be an increase in COVID-19 cases because they will be doing a lot of testing they really I think their intent, at least for on campus students is to test twice a week. So we'll be doing a lot of testing we know a lot of young people are asymptomatic, and those cases will be recorded so people should expect to see an increase in cases in Amherst. We need to sort of gauge what should what's the expected increase what that should look like, so we can inform the public to say, Yeah, this has been within the norms of what we expect. The other thing we have that's really good is that are their public health officials and in a lot of ways UMass is its own entity in terms of handling cases they they manage their cases cases on campus are managed by the university. And then the cases in Amherst are managed by the Amherst public health department. So but there's a lot of communication between the two healthy health department so that's a really good thing for us. Absolutely. I'm going to ask one more census question that I've gotten. I can't even count how many times but basically is my data safe are my responses safe. And I think we come at this from a couple of different lenses in our community primarily have a mistrust of government or the administration and don't feel comfortable sharing their information or are concerned about an immigration or a citizenship status. On the other hand that we have many off campus students who may have more than four people living in a unit so there's concern about that. So in law the Census Bureau cannot release any of identifiable information about you your home your business, even even to law enforcement agencies. They certainly can't release that to the to the town, and we wouldn't be looking for that so in the case for students living off campus, they should feel confident to answer. We are five people living in your unit, even though that is not technically allowed in our town, due to due to zoning information, we will not be seeking that information we will not get that information so we encourage people to answer as accurately as possible and make sure everybody is counted. And that that's protected under title 13 in federal law so it's not something we're seeking to do and even if we were we wouldn't be able to access that. That might not alleviate everybody's concerns about privacy and data but it is certainly something to mention that it's very protected information. It helps some people feel better about answering and we've spoken a lot about, you know, we want to get a complete count and we need we need this but it's really we didn't talk so much about why we need it and I'll just say quickly, as far as Amherst is concerned. We're talking about representation in our in our House of Representatives making sure we're adequately represented we did lose a seat in Massachusetts, based off of the census response in 2010. So we don't want that to happen of course, and it really is about funding for almost everything in our community schools roads. For programs, federal funding it's, it's going to impact us for the next 10 years and we will we will feel it if we're, we're under counted. So that's my spiel on that one. We are coming up close to our time so I'm going to say one more time to the room to please pop in if you have a question or a comment. You can use q amp a raise your hand or start nine from the phone. We'll give people another chance. Are there any things should be enough that you wanted to share that you didn't get asked directly today. There will be, we will be putting out a lot of information that'll be forthcoming and the weeks to come surrounding election so I just like to encourage everyone to, you know, stay tuned. We're going to, we're going to put it in all the news media outlets up on our website and things like that. And it's one of my desires is to keep all of our residents well informed. And that way you all can have confident conversations and be well informed and make good decisions. And I'll mention to that we just put up on our social media channels on Facebook and Twitter and we'll add it to our YouTube channel but Shavina did a great informational video about voting in the 2020 election with Dr. Demetria Shabazz. So that video is out there so feel free to check that out if you wanted to get some additional info and resources. I don't see any other questions from the room. Paul, did you have any last pieces you wanted to share before we close up. I think we're good to go on this. Thank you. All right, thank you everybody. We'll see you next week. And if you have follow up questions, please email us at info at Amherst MA dot gov and we will get you the information that you need. Thank you, Shavina. Yeah, thanks. Bye guys. Thank you.