 All right, thank you. Welcome everybody to the March 18th rec commission of March 18th, 2024 recognition. I know we had to move this date around. Thanks everybody for your patience. My schedule has been kind of nuts. Ray was, was Hounding Jean and I incessantly and it just had to get around to get the date. So anyway, happy to see everybody we've got the agenda was sent out by Ray and then. Matt actually boarded the meeting minutes back in January. So. Um, you find my agenda, so we're going to start with the approval. So those are the minutes from January 18th. Does anybody have any comments for Matt on the. On the meeting minutes, all right, then can I just get a motion to approve? Motion to prove, all right, and a second second, all in favor. I guess I can't raise my hand. I all right, I think, Jean, you're good. All right, so 5, 5, nothing minutes. All right, next up public comment. Is there anybody in attendance from the public? We do not have anybody in attendance right now. Okay, well, then we can move into the planned agenda. So we've got 4 items. Ray's got 3 of them. Amy has 1. I guess we'll keep it. I'm sorry. Ray, were you saying that Amy was that? Amy is not here yet. Okay, we'll just, so we'll just look for her and meanwhile, we'll, we'll close yours. I will keep an eye. As a matter of fact, let me just make sure that she has the invite. If not, she may be coming in as me. Awesome. Oh, you know what? What if Jeremy can't get in because I'm in? I sent him a link, but it may have been my links. Oh, no, because Jean is here and she had been on mine. Okay. So, um, yeah, no, Jeremy didn't. Let me, everybody's just maybe check their emails, see if you were sent anything because he did say that he was going to be able to make it. I don't see anything in my email from him. So, all right, let's, let's just move onward and upward here. So Ray, the floor is yours. I'm going to actually go and turn video for a second so I can wolf down some food, but I'm looking for the shared screen for the fitness campaign. Oh, you know, I believe. Yes. So I shared with you all going in the, the, the natural fitness campaign, a couple of attachments around the sport court. And I believe that. Matt may be the only one here that was with us when we first looked at this, when we first introduced this to the commission, maybe a year and a half ago. What it is, I'm going to share the screen, not that I have it. Uh, so what it is is a, it's a national campaign. It's a, it's an outstanding opportunity that we have been presented with. We were presented with a couple of years ago to look at creating funding for an outdoor sport court. That court is basically a, it's a, it's a locked in training cycle. It's, it's like an outdoor room with workout equipment with stations, station, stationary workout equipment that is there for drop in fitness activity, drop in use for community use. We were trying to find basically a 3 step process to introducing that to the town of Amherst. The 1st 1 was in sort of presenting it as an opportunity to, to engage Amherst wellness to engage the wellness of the community to engage public health. It, it meets a lot of different types of people and their interest in working out. It's, you know, it certainly is, is, it speaks to the interest in public health. The, the heavy part was then to move into the site selection myself and some members of town hall started to think critically about where the best place to put it would be. We thought about when it was in the beginning stages, I don't say beginning stages, beginning stages of my, my introduction to the track project over the high school. We started thinking about using it as a, as a way of bringing people in a central space downtown that was going to be. Accessible by, by the, by, by the downtown community, by, by young adults, by older adults, and it was the central location of the high school. And certainly with the energy around that transformation of the high school, it made sense to try and do it there because it also would be able to be moved into that. That reimagining of the, of the. War Memorial space over at the over community field. The, as we are looking at trying to transform the War Memorial pool and the pool house there. We started thinking about ways to use this as a convenient attraction in that, in that transition process. We looked at some other sites. They're awesome, but that step 2 was the, there was an active space to try and find a place that was visible that had heavy traffic that had a connection to people by car, by trail, by, by, by walking paths. We wanted to try and find a space that made sense. We have settled on, I guess I can stop and ask if there are any questions about the, those 1st couple stages there. Yeah, I think the motivation for this was, I think, because we were going to likely get a grant to really help support it. Step 3 of the 3 step process was to try and find the grants that would that would support this. And the reason why it came back to us is because Angela Mills was has been in constant. Has been in relatively constant contact with the, with the national fitness campaign and the folks that we entered into the conversation with in the beginning. And we have continually been applying for, for grants that would help make that work. And we found a pretty. A pretty favorable opportunity that we're that we're looking at trying to jump in on now. The reason why I bring it to you all in the commission is because citing it on the, on the property over community field, war memorial in that area. So, you know, in time with property, we need to basically ask the commission to vote for approval of that process. And so, in order to move forward with the grants, in order to move forward in that grant process, we're looking for a commission approval. So, so real quick, right? Sorry. So, there is a potential like this is coming back now because Angela has found that they're a grant that might accommodate us. We got stalled from what I believe that I'm on a public meeting here. So I should probably be careful about, don't quote me, but the, the main reasons why we why we got derailed before, why it got tabled before was because of the. Timing with the transformation over at the field. It wasn't, we weren't yet underway in the process with war memorial and those transformations. The track project had taken some of that also, but the other reason was for funding and and to try and get ourselves locked into the grant. It's going to be partially grant funded. It's going to be partially private sponsorship. We're going to try and find some private donations that we're going to, they're going to help us there because the, the opportunity for the grant has reemerged here because we now have the timing and the opportunity to jump in. We think the, the, the grant looks favorable here right now. There was the issue about, do we want to try and put, there was the matching the offers that there was a $20,000 for a slab and a $25,000 installation. We, we wound up seeing a ticket that was going up and up and we had not yet secured the grant funding. We're in the process of trying to, trying to secure that now. And we think that the, we're hopeful that that would fully funded this project or I can't tell you fully funding. I can tell you that the, that the piece that we were looking for was, was, was covered in the grant. What I can tell you is this, if we, if we were to, I'll continue answering any questions that may, that I may be able to answer here today. But if we were to, if we were to put forward to a vote, the opportunity to pursue in the spaces that, that have been targeted as possibilities. The, if we're to give consent, give commission consent to apply for grants to make this work. I think that would be the, the, the, the information that the commission would need to give to. Taut Hall. I have a question, but is Jonas. I'm sorry, Jonas. Jean, did you have one before? I have a question after you, Andy. It's fine. I'm good. I was just wondering about the engagement part, like how to get people interested in, into this area. You know, you talked about that as the first step in the process, like, has that been done or like. It hasn't the first, the first step will be, I scroll down to some of the, some of the. Sort of advertising pieces of it. The first step of, of trying to attach into public wellness and public. I think that would have to go simultaneously. I think that's something that we would have to push simultaneously as we're trying to look to, to. To cite the, the fitness center to cite the, the sport court here. We would like to be able to build up the interest in it. You know, the community access about trying to build a community about trying to make a make a. To provide public fitness as a way of building community. I think that's, that is a central piece. But no, we don't have to do that. And we don't have to do that and get people to say, yeah, if we're applying for the grants, I think part of that was 2 years ago, trying to convince. Tell planners to bring to the commission as I did to bring to the commission the opportunity to bring the idea to make sure that people understood that this was a possibility for. For Amherst. Jonas. Yeah, so I'm obviously coming to this. Late because it sounds a lot of groundwork was built. This doesn't crowd out or kind of. Remove the possibility of other. Because I think I'll just give you my kind of personal thing. I don't know if it's warranted here, but. And I maybe I'm not the one to speak because I don't go in for like pro like fitness programming like this. I think I'm just, I just run my bike. And I'm just wondering, and I've seen a lot of these kind of structures. This is, I think the way slicker. Example of, but you see those kind of like passive structures and parks with like, you know, pull up bars and. And my experience is that they're not being used. And I just wonder if in and this is even in like very warm climates. And so I imagine this would not be obviously very practical in the winter. And these, these look great. And you know, the marketing looks great. And I'm just playing devil's advocate here and wondering, I guess kind of Jean already spoke to it. Is there a, you know, a demand for this? And then. If you build it, will it will they come? Yeah. And then I guess like, obviously it's different than it's a different proposition to pickleball, but it's, it seems to me as a shame that. And pickleball is a whole other animal and the noise, but that's like something that people. I think would really use and it'd be shame if we built this and then it didn't get used. So. Yeah, Ray, any thoughts on that before we go to Chris? I believe, I believe that the, the sport courts are relatively popular when they get installed. I don't know. I can't speak to the long term use there. I, I, I, if you're suggesting that we, that we assure ourselves before investing that money that there is that interest. That speaks to Jean's question. If you're, if you're suggesting that we do assure ourselves that there is that public interest that sustainable public interest in a college area. And a college area with a pretty strong sense of outdoor. Activity, then I can certainly bring that to our team, our team downtown. If I could just quickly follow up and kind of maybe contradict myself a little bit. I'm wondering maybe if. If there is like. Actually scheduled like maybe yoga. And it's encouraged then I could see it maybe really getting traction versus just it's this thing is sitting there and. You know, I mean, so that's, that was, that was 1 of the reasons to respond to that. That was 1 of the reasons why the school was particularly youth because there was some sense of, of. Our ability to attach it to the high school and give high school access basically be like, like a rec space that the schools use for school programming for health and wellness courses over there. It would be something that potentially because of its proximity to the senior center, the senior center could also use. We could certainly rec. I can speak for rec directly that we could do yoga classes there. We could do fitness classes there do some training courses there that don't involve us using school space. To, to, to engage. There are, there is, there is a utility there that involves class and programming, much like, I viewed it somewhat like, like. You mentioned pickleball or basketball courts or tennis courts. I view it as sort of a specific, but versatile and specific. Public space where you can, we could have people drop in and show up, but then you can also use that space to schedule. Small events or training events or classes or what have you. It's not just a drop in the middle of the field and say, I hope people come and use it, but we can actually engage that and make that. Make that possible. That's great. Just real quick. I'm seeing on your screen. You are in practice sessions at your screen or my screen. And are we actually live? Oh, no, we're not in. I thought I heard the announcement that we were, but I just heard the announcement that we were recording. It's just been saying that for my screen all the time. Okay, so I did just hit that. I'm not sure it says webinar has started. I don't know. It says recording at the top left. It has been recording all the time. It has definitely been recording the whole time, but I don't know what's that webinar. I don't know what that means. Okay. I sort of started to derail. So, Jonas, that. How does that sound? That sheds a whole new light on it. I mean, it puts it in a whole different light. So, especially the high school aspect of it. That sounds wonderful. Yeah, the proximity. So while I am doing that, I'm also, I do want to just announce before we get to Chris's question. I do have, I'm elevating them right now to the panel. I have Amy Rusecki and Dave Zomek are here. Dave was particularly involved in the sighting of the sport court. I'm looking to see if that has worked yet. Dave, Amy, are you in? No, not yet. No, all you did was allow me to unmute. Okay, so I just, and I saw that and I changed you to a panelist. I'm going to try that again. So I think I made you, it allows you to speak. Are you a panelist now? It looks like you are. Yes. And Dave Zomek is here. Awesome. So I'm promoted both of them to panel. Dave, are you here? Can you hear me right? I can hear you, Dave. Okay. And so I did see them. I have them up here as the attendees. Amy's coming in for the next day for the next step anyways. But we are in the middle right now. I don't know if you were with us for that part of the presentation, but I introduced the sport court. I reintroduced the sport court to commission of which one of the members here was here when we introduced it a year and a half ago. But I did introduce the process, the siting plan, and also encouraged them to be able to move to vote and affirm the town's pursuit of this grant to make that work. I would, I will. Yeah, while we go to Chris, he said for a while, I wonder actually even maybe Chris, Matt, if we all just heard of comment and then Amy and Dave, maybe you could just provide some reaction to all those comments. Chris, mine was a question, mine was a question because on the last meeting, I think we discussed that redoing of the pool house with some funds. Is that kind of like two projects go together or are you moving the pool house or conveniently that is the next thing that we are going to be talking about Amy is here to give us an update on the war memorial. And my question can we're good. We'll hold that then Matt. In the fitness court materials there's two models. There's the, the one with just the workout area and then there's the one fitness court studio which has the, the group area as you can see on race screen. So are you proposing the group one, the one that the fitness court studio that include includes the group area. I believe it includes both the size of it is roughly Dave, do you know the space that we're looking at right now is, I don't think it's as I don't think I think that's a fraction of the space that is laid out on the sport court. Yeah, I could, I could jump in here Ray I didn't hear the beginning of the meeting I'm actually kind of doing double duty. I'm going to be at the town council meeting in a little bit but you know I think, you know Angela Mills in the town manager's office has been, you know, instrumental in keeping this alive as well working with Ray working with myself. I think the idea is, you know, to seek to seek as much funding as possible to try to keep this idea live as Ray has probably told you there's some grant funding available. So, Amy is going to tell us more about the work to vision a new pool house and the area around the pool house including the war memorial area in that area. So, we haven't locked in a site for the sport court. The idea is, perhaps it could go near the war memorial pool but I think the idea is that that work is ongoing right now and Amy's going to give us an update. I understand there's been some good progress there. But again, you know we're kind of planning for the future I think the sport court is some sometime in the future this is not going to happen during 24 or really looking at probably 2526 to install this so we have a little time to figure that out and whether it's around the area of war memorial I think that is yet to be determined but it seems like a good idea with with support from a lot of people. I was shared with the commission, the tentative target sites that was shared with us and coming back and those were cited around the war memorial. Thank you, David. That's not it's not to say those are those are the sites that we have to choose from is not doesn't have to be one of those three places. Those are the three that we were moving towards when we last sat down as a group and really, really worked on it, but a lot of that does depend on those other projects that are going on here around the town. Right. I think we're have a couple of questions here. I'm sorry. It's just so the grant that we're, we have our eye on is it specific to this project, or is this is that grant money that could go elsewhere. Right. You are you talking about the grant money for the sport core. Yes. Yeah, I'm trying to understand sort of the funding mechanism and basically like, is it sort of grant money for this specific project in which case, hey, that sounds great. If it's if it's grant money towards anything. You know that's related to fitness. I don't really know much about this program. I don't know. Yeah, Ray, Ray could speak to the details or bring those back to you, but the funding that is available through private sources and through the company that makes these is actually specific to this, this product. It's not a choice of doing a basketball court or a sport court. And I know there's also a shortfall, you know, we don't have all the funding, even if we get the grants, we don't have all the funding. And again, Ray may know those numbers better than I do. Okay. Right now. Yeah, I mean, I'd be curious and may while you're looking, the things that sort of pop in my other things that pop in my mind. I don't want to derail because if this is an opportunity to add an asset, that's great. But like, do we have a target audience has anyone like has anyone ever been to one of these installations and map shows like they're all over the place and has anyone seen one or anybody talk to a community that has one to see whether it's actually being used because, you know, we talked, you know, school, lots of synergies, but maybe the school won't use it at all or, you know, are there some other again, based on other people have used this program, does it resonate certain well what they certain group or not, which could help with with some exciting ideas. I'm not sure what other research has been done on this group in this initiative. So, you know, anybody can share stuff. I'd love to hear. I'll say first of all anecdotally, I've seen at least some version of this down in Tampa, Florida, and it was used. It was, it was a site at an open park down there. I've seen, I've seen this type of court situated and used. I don't know that that doesn't necessarily say anything about what it means right here. I haven't, I haven't done that research here in terms of what sort of demand is on the space here. I think the question about if we build it. Will they come? I think that's a reasonable question for us to be asking here. Yeah. I'm sorry to catch up. The worst scenario is we build it in a, in a spot that's kind of fundamental system to some larger things we're trying to do. And then it sits unused. The, the other thing that I wanted to add in here as I'm looking through some of my information right now is that we are, we are seeking some of that in terms of funding this. We are looking for strategic cooperation from, from Amherst College was not in the, was not in the conversation with us at the very beginning when we talked about this a year and a half ago. You know, when we started looking at this a couple of years ago, we are looking to try and get community partners to come aboard with us. The colleges are particularly are particularly interesting for us as potential funding sources. But we are basically the $50,000 grant that we were looking for before is now is now it's it's rolled over and we're trying to put that to use and match it with this outside funding with with private and sponsored funding. And I see Matt's hand is up and is on mute. Andy, you're on mute. Matt, would you like to jump in? Yeah, thank you. Sorry about that. I'm just wondering, I'd like to hear from Amy, because so far I'm struggling with like what question you're even asking. I just need some more specifics about which model of fitness court, like, where, where does it fit into the War Memorial pool? What sort of funding structure because right now there's I don't even know what question you're asking. Maybe Amy can give more detail. Amy probably will not. Yeah, I mean, what I can offer, I don't know. I mean, frankly, I think I heard first about this proposal like a week ago. So, so unfortunately, I haven't been part and I don't think DPW really has been part of the conversation on this. I'll say anecdotally, like, I think something like this sounds really cool, right? But it is all about the sighting. Part of, you know, what I'm here to talk about specifically on the next item is that we're just now kind of embarking on that kind of redesign of how to use the War Memorial pool area. And so I think to buy this with the specific purpose of putting it at War Memorial pool in that area, that'd be putting the cart before the horse in a way because we haven't even started to have the conversations about what the best uses of the sites are. And so I guess that's that's the only thing I would recommend about this right now is just, you know, it might it might be worth it to be open minded about the sighting of it. It's a grand contingent on having a site selected. No, it is not. I can and hearing Matt's question, I think what I'm asking for here is simply because we're looking at the opportunity to drop this sport court into the design which Amy's here to speak about the design for War Memorial. If we're going to include this in that design project and take something that's outside of the original, the original planning for War Memorial. We're going to take something like this and put that in to the thought process for the War Memorial space, the pool area. So the question is, would the rec commission support support our, our looking at this sport court as part of that design process. And that's actually with Amy here that actually is something that she can take back to the project designers that she can bring back to them. If the commission supports our, our wanting to involve this sport court as a as an idea as a concept, can we can we look to try and include this, this, this push as part of that, of that design project. And so I think what what town hall is looking for is they're looking for a rec commission support to you to have the sport court in mind as they build the plans for War Memorial. Matt, do you have a follow up on that? Well, if it's just a question of whether this would should be considered as an option in the planning, then I think the obvious answer to that for me is yes, because I thought the whole point of the War Memorial visioning was to was to explore a lot of different options. But at this point, I'm not ready to say it should be included, but I'm, because, because it's, it's a little to me that's a little bit car for all the horse but yes it should be considered as an option. Dave, do you want to jump in? I know you're double duty here. Yeah, thanks. You know, I've been listening carefully and I think I again I didn't hear the beginning of this meeting or this conversation but I think that's all where we're really looking for staff is really looking forward to, or excuse me, looking for, you know, your, your kind of enthusiasm for including this as part of the discussion around the War Memorial pool in that area, but also just general enthusiasm for the idea we are keeping the grant opportunity alive. We've submitted a grant we have no idea whether we're going to get it. There are private funds that, as Ray said may be available and there are private funds from, from various other sources so, and again, you know, we're a couple of years off in both the planning for the War Memorial area as well as this grant so it's really just your understanding and us exploring this idea, would it fit in the master plan, conceptual plan around the pool and, and new bath house? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. If it doesn't, then we may look at other recreation areas in town and I think I've heard a couple of questions from Matt and others, you know, getting input from, and I'm not sure if Ray has yet but Victoria Shaw and, and some of the coaches at Amherst High School and Amherst Middle School, you know, getting input from various sports organizations like Amherst Baseball slash softball, would they use it for training or, you know, stretching, you know, whatever exercise as part of their, their program so that's, I think that's all we're looking for at this point. Is this even a motion then? I mean, it's kind of a non binding thing is this just okay to just say, hey, we, you know, we support you continuing to research new ways to be able to use that space because I would also be fine saying that. As far as I'm concerned, I don't, I don't think it needs to be a formal motion. Ray, I don't want to contradict where you are. Again, I missed early discussion here. I don't, I, I don't think we need to have a formal motion for, for, for action. I'm looking over this right now and I think it is more of a, of a. Take that temperature of the commission here than it is the actual authority because it isn't the site isn't founded. If you all said, leave out of the pool. We don't want we want the pool to be. You know, we're in a different direction. The pool. We don't want it. Then I think that we would just be looking at trying to find that trying to site in another space anyways. And so that piece of it, I don't think we're at that stage yet. So, let me ask you all if the, if the court looks like something that you would want to support as an idea as a, as a possibility in that space. Just can ask 1 question 1st though is the questionnaire that went out to the public. Was there kind of anything that you heard back that suggested that there is a need for this. Not directly, there is there, there were, there were some feedback on our department survey. There definitely was some feedback about about. Outdoor, outdoor fitness, outdoor recreation, but not specifically. Gear towards sport court. Okay. All right, Jonas. Do you want to, let's do last questions here and then just give a thumbs up for them. So, I think Chris had a question too. Um, so. Other sites are not really on the table right now. So. Because one of the things that seemed like the brochure said, even though already mentioned there wouldn't be any requirement for us to tell them where we're going to put it before we get funding. It seems like one of the requirements was foot traffic, general, you know, it's going to be a busy area. And to me, I have, I've isolated between, you know, you mentioned, okay, the high school might use it. I'm just thinking. Typical high schoolers. I don't see them out there unless it's an organized gym class. I just, to me, I don't see it being used a lot. And it seems to me it doesn't feel Amherst to me. I don't know, but I'm not obviously so that's my temperature. I'm not going to prevent obviously us from considering it. That's just 1 person's 1 Amherst persons. Thank you. That is helpful for me. Christie, is that a legacy hand or are you. No, it's a lazy hand. I can't get, I can't get my picture of them. I can't get my hand down. Thank you. I gene. Why don't you go and then let's go around. Okay. I'm just going to say I counter what Jonas said, but when I think if it is there, people will use it. I mean, I know the kids, they go, they pick up, they play soccer over at Amherst College. They go, they place, pick up soccer and, you know, other things that another field in other areas. So I think that it would be used, honestly. And if it's not there, they're not going to use it, obviously, but if it is there, I think there's much more of a possibility. I think that they would be, they would be creative. I do think it would be used. All right. I believe it's typically much more of an adult use as much than it is casual drop in teenagers. But I don't, I haven't done that demographic research. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, for the spirit of moving things along here. I guess folks in favor of continuing to research this. Just give me a verbal yes. Sorry. We got Matt. Yes. I took Chris. You said yes. Yes. Jonas. All right. And I'll say yes. So we got, you got, you got some direction, Ray. Very useful. Thank you. Okay. Amy. You are up next. Hi guys. Nice to see you guys again. Yeah. So I thank you Ray for having me on the agenda. You guys, I, as you guys know, I'm going to say some stuff that you guys already know, but, you know, we are working, you know, starting to work through the process of the war memorial pool house area. And kind of redesigning that whole thing. The big focus of that is the bath house, but also understanding the needs around it that informs, you know, what we need for a bath house and that sort of thing. So we're starting in on that process. Partly why I asked to be on the agenda is, you know, I've heard that it makes a stronger park application if you can show that you're on public meetings and you're taking public comments and that sort of thing. So I'm going to be kind of a standing, you know, update you guys in all of your meetings to keep you guys informed, but also to give a venue for the public. We will also have right now we're kind of the, we have a design engineer on board. They've done the survey, and they're just kind of reviewing all the existing information. So the Weston and Sampson study, kind of all the existing documents and putting that in to just kind of understand all of the past. They're just finishing that up now. And we're now entering the phase where we're going to be having some public meetings. We've also got a meeting with internal staff to try and just understand what we think we want for, you know, needs or potential uses around the bath house and, you know, having that inform, you know, the bath house but also kind of conceptually the area, and then we'll be looking to also have public meetings with members of the public like you guys to have that conversation as well. I don't have that in the process, but I'm, I'm happy to take any input or questions or conversation on the project in general. Thanks, Amy Matt. You're a mute. I'm just wondering who you surveyed and who you're going to invite to the public meetings like you're going to, for example, invite everyone who had a pool membership or something like that. Oh, so when I said we surveyed the area I mean that was like, Land Survey. That was completed. Sorry. Yeah, there's there's two different ways to think about that. So, yeah, so we did land survey but when it comes to the public meetings will want those to be public forums and so that'll be something that's, you know, announced to the public but I'll make sure that Ray certainly gets it out to all of you but it would be, you know, anybody from the public that wants to come and give input on the area. Okay, but I think I think it's one thing to just put it on the town website and that qualifies as being advertising but actually getting people to hear about it and get excited about it and like, you might have to actually invite people specifically that are interested. Understood. I mean, certainly, I will be hopeful that members of this commission will it would be key people that come to that because you got I mean that's part of why you're on the commission is to have that but if you have ideas of other users, you know, I heard, I just said, you know, users of the pool. Yes. So that's a great idea. But if you I don't if you have other ideas certainly we'd love to hear that as well of like specific groups to reach out to to try to get a good representative voice. We will be because throughout the summer we have access to a lot of obviously users of the pools. It is our intention to try and streamline some of their voices into the process as they come to us this summer so I know for people who are there and want to be involved will have will have direction for them to say, look, you know, we have a vision here of this space becoming something different. Would you like to have some some. Yeah, I think having posters that both of the town pools about this process would be very helpful. That's great. I agree. That's great. Yeah, I think go through the PGOs as well probably to reach kind of school age audience through just three points of contact. Love it. Any, any other feedback we can give you Amy or anything else you're looking for. So what is the sort of the timing of this process. So we are hopeful to, we're going through this, I'm trying to think how to put it, basically we want to set ourselves up so that we can apply for a park grant this year and that grant goes in in early July. And in order to submit for a park grant you need to at least have kind of conceptual designs of the area and so these meetings are going to be over the next month or so. And then have the public forums that we have both an internal kind of staff key stakeholders meeting, and then have the, and that's just going to be to kind of maybe whittle out a couple of the crazy ideas and get us kind of focused on what we think. And then have the public forums as well so those will be pretty soon so then they can take it and use that to really develop the design before that kind of early February, early July date. Right. So that's, you would have to email last year's pool users because the pools might be open. Yep. Just for the bathhouse or is this like a bigger bigger picture. It's bigger picture the the the more immediate focus is the bathhouse but it would be short sighted to simply replace the bathhouse as is without thinking about the uses and so we're at least going to have, you know, a conceptual design of what the uses are so we know how many fixtures we need to have. You know how big the bath you know the bathhouse is or some of the stuff like if we decide to have a spray pad, or a waiting pool added. Those would be potential uses of the space but that would mean we need to have kind of a filter room added to the bathhouse. So some of those things are going to impact like decisions on if we think some of those things are going to be there. So that would impact the design of the bathhouse because we don't have room in the current filter room to support additional filtration for like say a splash pad or a waiting pool there. So, yeah, yeah, they're all kind of interconnected even if the bathhouse is kind of the first thing that we're hoping to move forward, we have to kind of understand the rest of the potential for future needs. Yeah, in terms of in terms of the needs that the uses and needs aspect, I sort of see there's like two different directions we could go in we could think of this as sort of a recreational facility. Like where people come to recreate and relax and have fun, or we can look at this as more of a fitness act location where people come to work out and go through do their work out. And I guess it's in the end of the day at some combination of those. But my understanding probably not maybe not accurately is a lot of people who are coming to the who have been coming to the Walmart or Paula there to do laps and work out. But maybe I'm not accurate about that. And in that sense the fitness court could like fit into that kind of a little better. Maybe if you think of it as a fitness facility. The just to challenge a little bit of the impression of war war is also used by our kids is heavily used by our summer camps as a relationship between the kids that come to our summer camps in that pool also so a lot of the sort of casual play that happens over there. Recreation, you know, they go over to recreate our kids go over to use the space to they walk over their base on field trips, getting ready to go in the pool and after they're done at the pool, they come out and they play on the outside. One of the reasons why a redesign is so important over there is because, you know, quite frankly, there's a bunch of equipment over there that's dangerous. We'd like to make that a place where our camps and other people who do go there. One of the reasons why there's not that much recreation over there is because there's not much recreational opportunity there other than having space. Basketball court is run down the swing sets and the playground equipment are are in bad shape. And so, and so that's why looking outside of that was as Amy said it would be. We'd be a little bit short sighted to just look at doing the pool house if we don't use this opportunity to transform the Western Samson plan was to transform that entire area and to rebuild. And so you're right that is that in terms of our between war and mill mill has so much stuff around it that recreation feels much more natural there. Mill has stuff to go over and do while your kids swim or to do after your family goes to swim or to just hang out of it mill has a lot of stuff over there. It's attractive to to to families to kids that have a young, you know, your adolescence that are they're trying to go and just sort of hang out. There's a lot of stuff over there to to look at recreationally that war doesn't necessarily have. And so this process of of reimagining the war memorial pool basically gives it an opportunity sport court, basketball courts, tetherball, whatever, finding something over there finding a. A menu of different opportunities for people to go over there and hang out to work out to do more stuff, but that's that's what that that process is all about. And yes, we need more voices in it. We need users voices in it, which we will certainly get ourselves to streamline. Yeah, I find it if I could just kind of add my two cents I find it really interesting Matt that like you think of that as like a place that people would come to work out because in my mind I've always kind of envisioned it as like you've got the pool but then beyond that a lot of the people use that space when say their kid is playing soccer and they have the you know the trailing kid that they need to entertain for a few hours during a soccer game and they bring them over to play at a playground or, you know, kind of do those other things and so I guess my point is it's really interesting to hear different people's ideas and visions for those spaces because we all kind of have these different pictures in our head, but it's important to hear all the different voices so we can make the right decision to really maximize that space. There's a lot you can do but really only so much you can do in that space so it's really great to hear what we can do and what people's ideas are. All right. I guess if no one else has any comments for Amy. Thanks for the update and you know we always save a spot for you in the meeting here. Thanks guys. All right. All right. Rates back to you. Okay, for the a little bit of brevity sake. We've, we talked about that OSRP survey you guys gave some really valuable feedback I know that the OSRP committee was was grateful for the input that came from this and other public forums for that for that survey. The survey right now in its final form is up on engage Amherst share screen. Do my quick commercial for for where we are with it right now. It is up. It is up right now and engage Amherst. And prominently here in the space we're trying to get as many people to participate in this open space recreation survey. What we're looking for right now is to get some more eyes there. I was in the process of participating leading up to the release of the survey. I wasn't aware of how of how. How immediately overlapping how how potentially. How potentially annoying of an overlap it might be for us to do this right in the heels of our departmental survey. Because there is some there is some overlap in the sense of what people are being asked to put in for. We are going to be sending people we we will be sending people through the schools that aren't necessarily our folks we're going to try and get more more eyes to this open space recreation survey. Doubling up on the same people who did our recreation surveys proven to be a little bit of a of a minor speed bump for us. But we are still looking to try and try and get more eyes on to engage Amherst and onto this open space recreation survey because that information does feed our finalizing that. That that that updated open space recreation plan. You all remember what the survey was was looking at survey is. I have the form here. You remember what the survey was looking at the final form is here on engage Amherst if you want to take a look at it, but it's certainly if you can get any of your of of your general circles in this direction in terms of your your contact circles in terms of parents that you that you speak to in terms of in terms of in terms of kids that you that that you have access to in terms of Amherst Amherst interested you adults. We're looking at trying to get as many eyes over here and participation as we can. How much longer is the survey open for right. Great question. Let me see if I have that. You're still here and you know the answer you can certainly answer. I'm looking to try and find it. Exactly how long we're on. I don't see how long I can get that I can get that information. I believe if I remember right we were we're going to be going through the start of April. That's I'm looking at the calendar now so that gives us a couple weeks I think I think the. The survey was going out through March and so any traffic that you can get us to that site we appreciate. It's nothing else it's it's a useful thing to send people towards engage we want to try and get as many people eyes on engage Amherst if maybe they don't know that it exists or don't know what it what it is then. It may just be helpful to get people into a valuable community resource. Very good is OSR P. All right. Any questions folks on that. All right. Arpa. And Arpa. So we made a pitch. The one thing I'll say about Arpa is that. For a couple years we've been. We have been basically nurturing a $200,000 grant from Arpa. To try and enhance our recreation departments. Activities particularly around the wrong issues of equity or given a $200,000 grant to to to basically improve our programming improve our. Engagement particularly as it revolves around the interest of diverse populations and. And people who maybe haven't used our services as much as we would like them to to try to try and extend and basically outreach of the program into the entire Amherst community. And so in terms of building equity in our in our. Expans and in our outreach that $200,000 grant was 1st we 1st really tapped into it to use it last just just going into this school year to bring in the Monday morning. I mean, sorry, the the the. MMMP said Monday morning is not Monday. The MMMP the pre. Before school middle school. Act active engagement with students 7th and 8th graders that that extend their days beforehand. We did this to try and to try and help the family center and a really strong pilot program at the schools. Introduce Becky came in and spoke to to the commission a couple months ago about this. This process we were we're happy to use our grant to provide busing for that. Arps program and then to bring in a facilitator that could then expand the scope of that of that. Program and so a part of that funding was already invested into our relationship with the schools and making a really, really strong program even stronger and have more reach because we provided buses and expansive programming. And so now as that grant was set to expire. We were tasked with spending the rest of that money to spend the rest of that. Essentially, we're trying to spend $130,000. 130,000 after a couple of other things with the grant that basically spend that money to continue that work in other spaces. And so Becky Demling who this is her life force and did an outstanding job of building a shopping list inside that and looking at a bunch of different programs that we could use that money to go to try and support. We came up with a series of where we are. We came up with a series of different of different programs and that we could spend some of that money on one of them. And this I'll have Becky come back to us for our next meeting to go over sort of where we are on some of the some of the intentions on these. One of them is a it's not a sister program of MMMP, but but it is in somewhat like a model that we're trying to take some of the same students from the students around the wait list of that of that school program and MMMP. And we are going to take them for the for the for eight weeks in the spring. And we're doing a community workshop, a community building and identity workshop with with students from the middle schools and the police department and crests. And we're trying to build on some of those. It's we're moving out of the school department now and into other active parts of parts of the kids moving through the town here. It's building bridges through basketball. And so that is bringing them in for the purpose of engaging them through what they do and also having them again. Following up on some of the some of the conversations we started and some of the self reflective getting ready to go to the high school and more importantly, or as importantly, introducing them to some of the people in our community that we think are going to be helpful for them, some of the relationships that we think are going to be helpful for them. And, and, you know, becoming young adults inside of Amherst building bridges and basketball. We are going to extend again, we're going to spend some more time building MMMP the morning movement and mentoring programs. I just remembered them's the morning movement and mentoring program. We're doing more to try and try and invest in that program for next year as some of the budgets shifts around for us. We're trying to get ourselves into a space where we can use that money to support the future of that program in places that are much more familiar to all of you all here. And we're, we're trying to do to take our, our, our goal of making sure that everybody in Amherst learns or knows how to swim. We are providing free access swimming in the summertime and sort of building a free swimming program for lessons for for a series of lessons and using some of that ARPA funds to to support that process of. We're going to do some outreach and try and make sure that people know that we're we're offering that for people who are who would otherwise qualify for fee subsidy for swim lessons. We're going to try and move them towards lessons where we can give them free access to the pools in summertime free access class at the end of that because it's not just about teaching teaching swim lessons. We also are looking to try to try to get them to then use those skills. We're going to give them basically punch cards to come in and use the, use the pools after they've completed their swim lessons, their, their swim course. Two weeks lessons condensed in plus plus access afterwards to go and basically use the use the pools to play. We have a pop up in the park, which I think is a fantastic idea and this is, this is a large amount of Becky's energy on this, but, but we're going to the question that came up heavily in our recreation survey is about engagement at the parks about wreck engagement at the parks and in the space where people are using we're we're we accepted the challenge and the encouragement from our feedback there to to build a program where we're going to have a warehouse of games and crafts where we can go and meet families at the parks and meet them at graph meet them at middle meet them at Kendrick meet them in public spaces and engage kids young kids older kids if we can basically have have a wreck programming in the parks. Essentially once twice a week. We have to do that and between Becky and some staffing that we're getting through the through the through the funding also we're going to have some engagement with kids in that space. We talked about equity and and the pools in particular, we're using some of that money to to move our pools into full compliance where we've only been partially compliant in a couple of cases. We're using that money to to to gain full compliance and then in all of our access and the aspects of access for the pools. We're getting some some water stairs. We're putting in some some aquatic stairs for actually don't have to use the lift so we're providing more access and updating the the possibilities that everybody can go in and use the space comfortably. And and last we also are looking at a not lastly but especially we also have a equipment lending library. We're building up a warehouse. For Andy and Google's here and Andy and and ever so cross have always been really good for basically setting up a lending library for people lacrosse is one of those things we want to try and build as many people get as many people in the fun as we can teaching the sport teaching to love the sport inside of Amherst sports. We look we want to try and build libraries like that for many of our sports, especially those like lacrosse where kids may need to invest some to get started. You know everybody does if I have to make a decision do I want to try it out and invest in all of that to just put my foot in the door. Then that's a hard thing to get people to commit to do. But if you have a warehouse of of like Amherst lacrosse or Amherst football has typically done that for us where they've had loner equipment or loner pads or things that people can use until they decide they want to use their own To build a library there that we can then supplement what we get from from lacrosse or football and and supply for those other sports which might be looking for the same things. We're looking to build libraries to build a loner library and the structure to be able to introduce more people without them having to feel like I need to already have this. We talked about doing some of it eventually with we don't have a hockey program here, but to be able to to be able to put together like a a lonely library for something like hockey where people may also be interested in going out participating in sports. That's not part of this phase of it, but we're looking to try and find ways to reduce the cost that that might obstruct people from making those first steps to being introduced into the sports that we want them to get into. So Jose really took took that on in in our sports in our in our sports programming. He took that on to try and build a bunch of of but an inventory of loner equipment, loner items, the pools to try and get basically subsidized. Some of the some of the continuing continuing on with some of the sensory stuff we're talking about to build a library of of of materials that people could use. Nobody's going to nobody's going to borrow a pair of nose plugs or earplugs or whatever but we're trying to basically introducing the heavily subsidized we can basically give those out and subsidize those those. sensory aware accommodations for people. And so we're transforming the way using this money to try and transform the way that we are are trying to get people in the door and then also build access build equity and access. They're in to try and keep them in with us. And so, so this is a. Becky is a is a force for us and she sort of spear this whole process to it'd be one thing if we were looking at one thing with one price tag but but in terms of comparative shopping and building up an entire inventory and then submitting that to our, our grant advisors. She's she has definitely built some value into our and sort of $200,000 grant that she already was building value into with morning movement. Alright, maybe just positive for a second see Matt's hand up Matt you want to jump in here. So, I guess it sounds like you've found enough projects to spend all the money. That is that I think that is the nutshell. Yes, we found a bunch of projects there. Then I have my comment is sort of from listening to a lot of things you said, it sort of reminds me of the whole discussion in the town about a youth center. It seems to be a sort of a similar similar goal as what the youth center goal was, but maybe maybe we can think of the youth center, not so much as specifically a physical space, but we can have some kind of other umbrella under which we can put this youth center concept. So that, you know, people can find it because if all these things are in all different places that people are not going to be able to find them very easily. But if we can somehow create this sort of concept that everything sits underneath and then people will find out about it and be able to use all of the different parts of it. Now having it go through the schools that's always helpful because you know a lot of people go to the schools, but that's sort of my comment. Here's why I appreciate that comment because saying that to look at looking at the youth center, the youth empowerment center as an idea and not being being confined to it as a space in a building and breaking ground is my last that was my last major participation in that conversation when we first introduced it. That was, that's where we were. I know there are people in the town that need to hear that are in that same space and saying that we need to think of this right now because of the logistics of building a community center and building the structure and the physical structure and the and the you know, and just the systems that would take to make that work. We have we have the ability to look at some of this. I've committed myself while we're in the process while the town is in process of figuring out what they want to do with that youth center with that youth empowerment center. I have from from the beginning of that process committed myself to looking at some of the things that I think a youth empowerment center does trying to make sure that the idea of the youth empowerment center is in place and what we do here. Becky was Becky. We hired Becky for a lot of reasons, but Becky shares that vision and when she takes that that this when she takes this mission of spending that money. She's spending that money in youth empowerment. She's spending that money in in our version of youth empowerment. And so we're trying to find ways to do what. You know, in the meantime, we're trying to find ways to do what we what we want to be doing inside of that youth empowerment center. So, so in your mind is this really inside of recreation this youth empowerment concept. I don't think it's inside of recreation. I think it's recreation adjacent. The vision for it, like if I said it's inside of recreation, then that would that would. I guess what I'm saying is what I'm saying is, you know, the nice thing about a physical space is everyone can say that's where it is. If it's if it's not a physical space, it still has to have like some kind of center, you know, some kind of place that is the center of it. Without wanting to get overly bogged down and going back into that conversation. I will tell you that the youth empowerment center places a lot of things at its at its focus. Recreation is a major part of it recreational interests are major part of it. We aren't what you didn't hear me saying in this are things like like career counseling. You didn't hear me saying things like like career counseling about about college prep. You didn't hear me doing things that are co-curricular that way. You didn't you didn't hear me say say things that are also at that center. And so there are things that go outside of recreation. I was pulled into that process. I was pulled into the youth empowerment process because so much of it feels and looks recreation adjacent, but but it's not all underneath recreation. There's stuff that I think we could pull into our sphere, but I do think that a lot of it we can contribute to. Yeah. Yeah, probably the schools has some part of it. Crest might be involved in some part of it, you know, but if you wanted to actually coalesce, there has to be some kind of forced, you know, some kind of energy to make it. This grant itself was not youth empowerment. As a matter of fact, one of two major grants we had. But there's a separate there was a separate grant for the youth empowerment center, which is now it's in some version of of a pause and await. That was taken off of my plate at some point because it got more complicated, partially because of what you just introduced there because some of it doesn't fall underneath us. Some of it is outside of us. And I think there was some sense that that this was not the appropriate place for it. Right or wrong that this was not the appropriate place for it to be determined. And so, so the town has been trying to figure out how to start that we have been trying to figure out how to reintroduce that and to make that make that grant. Or something in the meantime, my in the meantime, in the meantime, this $200,000 grant, this other grant that was put in place. A fraternal grant of a grant that came at the same time from some of the same pushes at this are the same energy was to say we want to try and build equity to protect our kids to advance our kids to move our kids forward and we want to try and use this. Slightly smaller grant, but a substantial amount of money to try and to try and give recreation opportunity to do that. That was that that is our intention to try and uphold those same interests and to do it within our recreation department in a way that feels the most appropriate for us to do. I would love to I would love to be just in charge of the whole thing. And for everybody to just say, yes, for everything that I suggested, I would love for that to be. I think I need one and the other and not or the other. I would love to be in charge of that whole process. I'd love to have everybody say, we're just going to follow you and take whatever it is that you want to do with that. But I mean, there's there's other there's other recreation activities that dovetail with other parts of the town. I mean, obviously, you guys run the after school program, which is in the schools. You know, that's it. That's one like really clear example. But so, so. I hear you. Yes, you're correct. You're absolutely correct. And and that what I'm saying is just because it's not entirely within recreation doesn't mean it can't be centered in recreation. I agree with you. Okay. My my public and on the record comment is I agree with you. Okay. That's $500,000 sitting out there waiting to be someone to come up with a plan for heard and noted. When you mentioned the funds expire. When do they expire? When do they expire? End of the calendar year. That's for the one 30. That's remaining. Yes. Does that also impact the empowerment center? The actual center? No, this is separate from the department center. The $500,000 for the department center, I believe probably is the same time, but I can certainly get back to you. I can make a note for myself to give you an update on that. I think that's a really, really reasonable. Follow up for me to give you all is what we're doing with the $500,000 that was originally put in. In my purview and then taken out of that purview and was removed from my purview. I can certainly give you some follow up on that. That'd be great. All right. And you mentioned some 130 won't be a problem to have that spent by the end of the year based on the list of eight or nine things you want. I am at the office right now and I'm sure if you wait five minutes, there's going to be somebody knock at the door and just drop off another box. We're spinning something already. All right. All right. Any other questions or comments for Ray on our. Okay, then all business, new business. Ray, anything on your side. Just as a, I guess as an update, you guys have heard way too much from me. I'm going to, I'm never going to come without staff again. We have started the process of planning for summer camp. Chris has helped us out by getting our, our CITs connecting Becky with with former CITs. CIT program along with our staffing has, has, has basically taken off now where we're in go time with, with camp. Our, our budget, which I told you was going to determine what we, what I say about the, the Cherry Hill project. We got postponed a week last week. So we have our budget hearing tomorrow. I'm going to go home and get some, get a good night's sleep here. That got postponed until tomorrow. So I can give you a follow up on where we are for our next meeting. I think that I will be asking the chairs to put Cherry Hill or, or some update on Cherry Hill on that agenda for us. Sounds good. That's good. All right. Then for the chairs, Jean, anything from you? No, do we have any update Ray? Like, if we can do an in person meeting. Sorry, I meant to share that with you directly because I know you've asked me about it. The answer is hybrid is almost impossible. Okay. Not impossible. Hybrid is discouraged because the amount of it's heavily discouraged because the amount of IT coordination that would have to go into it because of, because they're, they're encouraging all departments to choose to be in person or, or online. I can certainly, it's your commission. I can certainly ask you all if you want to revisit your own conversation about doing it in person. We talked. I think at the end of last spring, I think we, we talked going into the summer about, about the advantages and disadvantages of both sides. But hybrid would be very difficult to pull off. Okay. Maybe we could add that to the agenda for next time to discuss it. Jonas's hand. Is that was the question, Jean, that we do this meeting regularly in person or was it this let we get together once in a while in person? No, to like, how our regular meetings hybrid or in person or via zoom or, you know, but the hybrid was an option. We wanted to see first before we. It was a discussion. Yeah, we can, we can go around the horn next go around and just kind of. I think Jonas to point, you know, plan B. We want to do in person. It's just maybe it's a period and once a quarter once every six months or something like that. But it would be nice to get some in person time with folks on the commission. The committee. All right. And nothing for me. Report of staff, right? Anything else to add? That's all. All right. Well, again, thanks everybody for your flexibility. We've got, you know, we'll have an April meeting after we've got April. It's written on the agenda. I still need to look to my own calendar to confirm. I can make that so we'll send out a official date with some more notice. Once we nail that down, but thanks all for the time and enjoy the rest of your evening. I appreciate it. Thanks everybody. Thanks everyone to you.