 I'm going to step out here a little after 730 so would it be okay if I give you and Anna host and co-host? Yes please. Okay great thank you you're all set. Thank you Athena. Good evening everyone welcome it is March 2nd welcome to our regularly scheduled TSO meeting. We are recording pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapters 22 and 107 of the acts of 2022 this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. So with that I will call the meeting to order at 7.02 p.m. and make sure everyone can be heard. Anna. Yeah hi I'm already unmuted. All right Andy. I'm here. Doracy. Hello how are you? Hi Doracy and Shalini. I am here and Paul I know you're there and we can hear you. Hello and hello and Kelly. Kelly Miller can you hear us all? I sure can thanks for checking. Thank you thank you for being with us again and Athena I know we can hear you. I'm here thanks. Okay so we do not have a town manager appointments this evening so we will move on I'm sorry excuse me we're actually going to begin with public comment so if we have any members with us in the audience now who would like to make a comment please raise your hand now and you will have the floor for up to three minutes. I'm not seeing any so we will move on to approval of minutes from the February 9th meeting. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes? Okay I move we approve the minutes of the February 9th meeting. That's second. Okay wonderful. Without further ado Shalini. Yes Doracy. Yes Andy. Yes Anna. Yep yes and I am a yes all right thank you and so now we'll move to uh Andy did you have an update that you wanted to to give in regards to the proposed water and sewer regulations? Well the reason I put it on is if necessary is so we didn't know what the discussion was going to be like on Monday and I think that where we kind of left it was you know I was happy with it but it has a big piece and the big that is left open and I think that the big piece is something that this committee might want to take the lead on and that is that it was agreed on what was going to be written in the regulation but there was a also reference made at the council meeting that there would be a motion that would go with the regulation with the proposed regulations that might address some of the concerns that were expressed in the discussions that happened in this committee and in the finance committee and I think that most of the discussions now because of the vote that was taken by the council are in the interest of this committee and that is to try and make sure that we craft the motion that provides for what our expectations are that is going to happen in two years and what information we think that we would suggest staff develop for us over that next couple of years so that we make sure that we are ready to return to the discussion fully informed which was I think part of the finance committee concern and Anna and I have had a little bit of an opportunity because of the fact that we are the two who are in the unique position having been on both committees and still being on both committees to think about that so I know that Anna has thoughts whether she wants to share them I don't know but her hand is up. Andy have you ever not wanted to share my thoughts? Yes so Andy and I were able to connect really briefly on this today. I'm going to work on emotion we have a little bit of time because we want to see what Amy brings back to the council first but probably for our next TSO meeting I will have a motion to bring forward and that gives me time to also work with Athena to make sure it makes sense as a motion and then what I'll do in the meantime is ask finance if they have anything that they would like to see specifically included in a study and what information they would want to see so I'll include that as well but ultimately Andy and I talked that landed on the agreement that the motion should come from TSO more so than finance so that said the same offer well we will discuss it at TSO that same offer applies if there are things you'd specifically want to see looked at in the next two years regarding water and sewer line ownership please make sure that you tell them to me I will do my best to capture what we've discussed but if there are specific things please email that to me so I can try to include it in in a motion. Andy did I miss anything? Yeah I know you did not but let me just give one example and that might be helpful to stimulate everyone's thinking about this we had that correspondence from the one person who lives in the hollows which is a private road that is off of old farm road but I don't think it's directly even off of old farm roads I think that it's off of a road that's off of our old farm road and all of the roads that are back there are not public roads but the and so the question is how do you handle that and what are the costs now and what are the costs in the future and how many sections of town have similar situations and when I asked Amy that question unfortunately you know within a few days before the council meeting Amy was kind of I guess to say those are good questions but and I can get the answers for you do you need me to do it and I kind of said yes but I don't see how it's reasonable for you to spend the time on it before Monday because it's not going to help that much in the discussion on Monday and it seems like a lot of work so that's an example of the kind of thing that I had thought about among some others and it you know I don't know if you have any other examples but that's what I was the kind of thing that I was thinking of so I think it's a collective enterprise and Sean had some very definite things in mind when he made the recommendation to delay the implementation of this until 25 we should make sure we understand what it is he was envisioning that we would know and make sure that that's explored so those are the kinds of examples I was thinking of and I am going to ask people just so that I can keep everything straight I'm happy to hear them now but please also email them to me so that I have them in text in one place thank you Dorothy hand us up yes probably Paul can answer this the question of private roads I don't really know what that means I assume that if you buy a house or build a house on a private road you know it's a private road so that's not going to be a surprise I don't know what it means to do that it's something I never have done I don't think it follows automatically that we assume to do this or that because there must be some practice about private roads so like what does the town services does a town normally provide people on a private road except that they don't pave it they don't pave the road isn't that what it means yeah yeah so it's there's no the town is supposed to be responsible just for public ways over time there and there are a lot of private roads in town roads that you may be surprised for private roads just because everybody drives on them the over time the town has started to plow some private roads and now we're sort of pulling back from that that was something we should not be doing we don't have you know we I think the private road owners don't want us to damage their roads if we damage it we're responsible things like that so we're starting to do that we didn't we're not doing that all once we're sort of doing it sort of you know as we get through you know sort of give people ample notice that the town will stop plowing this private road at this point so it's not it's not clean clear cut like that but ultimately a private road is a private road and where the public way is very defined and and I think that that's where if you're going to go to a bylaw that separates between whatever's under your property you're responsible for then that's actually a fairly easy thing so but you mean that that that if it's a private road that is deemed the responsibility it's owned by the person who lives there right okay that seems easy to me actually it's not that easy because I guess what I've learned in the finance committee discussions about kester lane and the the adjoining hop brook those were built according to the standards that require that are required for a private road to be accepted once the subdivision is completely built as a public road I think where show any lives is the same thing that they were built by the builder to town specifications so that they could be converted over as I understand it if I understood Yilford correctly and I think I had it all then we're still plowing those roads that were built the standard and the intent is that they would eventually become public ways but those are the only private roads that were plowing that's where we're that's where we're going to go but we are we had been plowing other roads as well and that's where we're getting out of that business and I guess that the other thing that I would just point out is is that the point that that one person who wrote to the council who I've actually had some direct communications with was making is that if something happens to her water line from her house in which she has to be responsible all the way out to old farm road that that's a tremendous cost and she was suggesting that the regulation ought to provide your house to the point of the nearest public way and to so that becomes a problem so she wants to have it moved to property line and that's not something that either committee thought about we had our previous discussions so it's sort of this hanging piece and I think that that's what my discussion with Amy or Seckey was about was that when it came down to it we hadn't thought about it I'm not sure that she's fully had fully exploited either and now there's a scramble to figure out something that wasn't in the bylaws it was developed. Thank you. Thanks Anna for doing this because I was I didn't want us to leave a dangling as you pointed out if you don't have a clear motion that requires the town manager to look into this so I'm glad you're doing this. My clarification question was Paul about what Guilford had said about UMass and the big build apartment buildings and he said that was private and I didn't understand does that mean that if you were to move towards the town taking over the cost of repair for anything that's on public road but belongs to the property owner the town will be responsible so for UMass and the big apartment buildings who will be responsible for the repair on public path. So again the cleanest line is if it's in the public way or not and you know so those apartment buildings all maintain their own water lines and sewer lines and and so you know like Hampshire College has a very long driveway that's all their property people drive through there all the time but it's still their property UMass is a little bit different because it is a government agency you know it's a government but we don't take responsibility for the material for their for their property so just to be clear that even if we changed to the town taking over any breakage or repairs happening on public part of the public path roads then we would not be responsible for those apartment buildings or UMass. Correct as long as we said we're taking responsibility for what's in the town public way once we expand beyond that to go on private ways like on what Andy was talking about then it opens up a big lots of different questions but if we're from what is envisioned at this moment is that we state that it's being written that we will take it over or I assume we'll be taking it over just the public way part of it okay but even if we take so right now the way it is if a breakage happens in the public way that belongs to UMass no that's still UMass it would be UMass and apartment buildings still the private property owner yeah so that would change then right if we did no but you think if it's public way then right now if their pipe is going into public way they are still responsible the way it is right now correct but if we changed it then if their pipe went into public way then the town would be would have to fix it just for the part that would be in the public way yeah yeah yeah yeah it could be 10 feet right yeah yeah just for the part that's in the public way but still what I mean is we're taking over the big buildings break it if it's in the public way or are you saying it will never be in the public way and so it's not a problem one of the things we should recognize and I just from my distance all the work I've done over the years a lot of those roads through UMass that people think are public actually belong to the university they don't belong to the town okay North Pleasant Street Eastman Lane for example part of Peering Street I think could part of University Drive as you approach university and I don't know where the lines are exactly but I know that a lot of those roads are actually university owned maintained roads not town owned maintained roads but can we just please clarify again so right now are there any pipes of the apartment buildings that go into the public way or do they end in their own property when you say apartment buildings what do you mean yeah the bigger apartment buildings downtown that are rented or any such as downtown like South Amherst at anywhere where they're sadly road yeah so yeah so right now everybody's responsible up to the main line whoever whoever's pipe that is is responsible up to the main line and I think what the council is contemplating is or it is that we would be responsible the town would take responsibility from the main line to the end of the public way and then from the public way to the property you know that would then it turns into private property and then it goes to their building whatever it is so for instance the boulders that's all private land back there it stops at East Hadley Road all those roads through those apartment complexes are private that helpful or not I guess I'm not okay so there's a main to to the public way you know and then on to the public way is that how it works so there's the main in the prop on their property and then the pipe goes in their own private land and then we are saying we want to take over any pipeline that goes beyond into public way right and right now is it are we is the town right now the way it is is the town responsible for any breakage that happens in the public way for those apartment buildings no it isn't right and we want to change that to the town taking over and that's my concern that the town will have to take over the built apartments repairs of lines in the public way no can I say a lot of kind of honor goes to clarify yes we're not talking about this anymore because we already sorry that's not shutting you down but like we aren't making we already made the decision of what the regs are going to be and so like we decided not to change that on Monday that was the vote Monday so nothing is changing about the ownership of the lines at this point nothing it's staying the way that it currently is no but the questions we are asking is to make that decision in the future so we have to ask the questions accordingly so that the reason we didn't make it now is not because we're not interested in making the change the reason we didn't make it is because we don't have enough information in order to make that change in two years let me finish my paragraph really quickly so what I'm saying is that I don't actually think it's helpful for us to kind of debate what was going to be that in in the regs right because we discussed that like back in I don't remember what month it was I think and and because I know that we want to get to universal composting and everything today so what I want to maybe kind of bring us back to is what what questions you want to ask and and whether and what you were talking about might be that question right of saying that you you're want clarity on exactly where ownership changes but the the I guess I'm not sure that it's it's helpful right now to totally rehash what the changes were going to be because what what we might come up with or whatever the council in two years might come up with might look totally different so I think that it's helpful not to go into it maybe with an entire plan in mind and instead think about what you'd need to know if you were going to change ownership right regardless of where that ownership change happened it kind of what information would you need because I think the problem that Andy was referring to is saying that we didn't have all of the information so I kind of want to move us back even a step to think about what is the information that we'd want to have in order to better understand that decision okay just to clarify I wasn't trying to rehash what that discussion but I'm trying to understand what the situation is so I can articulate the question but I can do it offline I don't need to spend time right now okay thank you Charlotte Dorsey you hand us up well I do think that we we do need to clarify something we have to know where we've been before we know where we're going to go and my understanding is and this is where Charlie's having a problem my understanding is that our proposal as it was written did not have any change contemplated for town taking over piping of of UMass or private parking apartment complexes so just checking with Paul on that that so that worry that Charlie had was not in the original proposal is that correct yeah and so there and there is no change of ownership under the new wrecks because the council voted that on Monday there's not going to be any change every status quo on ownership right so we're going to build the regulations around that right UMass or apartment buildings special privilege they are not townland so they would not get covered because it's not townland we would only deal with whatever is buried on townland good okay any other questions on this topic all right so we are going to move on to the proposed amendments to bylaw 3.33 refuse collection and recyclable materials as we all know this is a multi-layered one here so we have a three part we will open with a an update from Paul we will have following that we will have a an additional public comment if we have anyone at that moment who would at that time rather who would like to make a comment and then we will be passing the floor to council sponsor lead shall need for a committee discussion and questions I believe we will have in the audience expert Susan wait and we will have advocates from zero waste at least I know that Darcy Dumont I'm not sure if others are in the audience or are coming in welcome if you are so with that I want to hand the floor over to Paul great thank you so Guilford and uh Susan wait and I met and we sort of laid out a plan of action for her time you as you know we have a grant of 80 hours of her time she had expressed interest in attending tonight I don't see her in the audience but she's welcome I told her she's welcome to attend and be our as our as our government expert um what her with the plan of act well the goal is to issue a request for information to the haulers who might potentially bid on the town of Amherst services and collect information about what kind of services they provide we want to get a picture of the universe of haulers and the services that they provide so that as the council starts to talk about this the services it wants we can sort of overlay the two things like is that even a possibility well there is there someone out there who will provide that service or not if we would go for one bidder so that's sort of the mission on this Susan is going to her she's got a sort of a 15 week um schedule for moving this forward she's going to draft the potential RFI request for information questions she's going to um then Guilford will review and edit the RFI questions uh Susan is also going to be trying to identify all the potential vendors out there who could be interested in you know and we want to pass this as wide a net as possible so we can send this this questionnaire basically is what it is out to lots of vendors within three weeks she thinks that she can finalize and issue the RFI one other task in there is for me to double check all the procurement laws and make sure that we're not violating any procurement laws blah blah blah the the we are allowing three to four weeks for the vendors to respond to these questions she felt felt that that was a reasonable amount of time it should not be a complicated thing but since it's not actual business they're bidding on they may not prioritize it because we're just collecting information there would be a an opportunity I'm not sure exactly how this fits in with the procurement laws so we need to check it we'd like to bring in anybody who's interested to come to a meeting where they can where people can ask questions or they can ask questions of us what are we seeking so they can fully inform their responses um Susan will then review analyze and you know develop a report on the responses um and then meet with the TSO committee to start talking about here's the information we have what are the next steps in the development of of this proposal we assume that that includes some community engagement sessions and and whether if we can I would love to be able to use her time efficiently so she can participate in those with us because I think she would be invaluable in being part of that community engagement process um so that's sort of how we've laid it out she hit she has cautioned us several times about she has other things on her plate she's got vacations planned during the course of these next three months so she's we're sort of mapping all those things through so that when she goes on vacation the stuff is out into the vendor's hands may have time to get and also trying to manage everything um so that we're not eating up all her time on things that she doesn't need to be paying attention to so um and then and then that so come June it's likely when it will come to the back to TSO in terms of sharing the information that's been collected and then talking about how where you want to go with this information and how it matches what you're talking about later on tonight does that make sense thank you are there questions for Paul Anna and then um oh Shawnee's a sponsor she can go wasn't Shawnee go for okay I I don't know if it's for Paul or for the sponsor so I'm going to kind of just put it out there so in in doing my homework on this um one of the things I was reading was talking about best practices for municipal curbside pickup and all of that and a lot of the really important elements of this are in the contract with the hauler and not necessarily in the regulations and so I'm curious and that's not something to my understanding that council would be drawing up I don't think that we are in the practice nor should we be of doing down contracts but so I'm curious things like pay structure or things like um pricing schedules and um you know how to navigate unexpected events I was reading articles about you know when when haulers went on strike and how to navigate things like that so I'm curious about when might be a good point for us to give input on things that we would like to see in a possible contract and if that might impact the RFI um at all not obviously not having a contract that we're you're going out with but saying you know we would want to have input or we would want certain things um to be in that contract so I think that you're right that that can I respond to that please please so so that level of detail would be in an RFP and that's where the contracts are and that's where there's a bevy of information out there because lots of the communities have these contracts with with haulers and that's where that level of detail comes in the RFP process not the RFI process um and that will you know we will put in a when we do an RFP we put an actual contract in the say here's a contract we expect you to sign and that so everybody's way way in advance of the bidding they know exactly what we're talking about and and we would try to find the best you know do the best practice on that the RFI is mostly to say um do you do curbside recycling right is it single stream or dual stream do you need to use toad or toaders or not you know like what what are your expectations and and then give them some flexibility like can you do it or is that your preferred preferred way to do it and try to just collect information from all the different haulers because we want a lot of them have just standard business practices they're not going to adjust just because we put out an RFP so we want to see what the what the actual market is like and try to keep that as as open as possible so we we every we want to it's in our best interest to have a lot of people bid on this because that will drive the price thanks thank you thank you Paul Salome um so yeah so thank you Paul for the up to that's really really super helpful to get a lay down of the schedule um the question I had was in terms of the staff person who'll be eating this is that Guilford you mentioned at this moment still is Guilford we've talked about having another person do it and um Steve Toliga who runs the transfer station Guilford's having that conversation you know Susan works with Steve as well they you know so we did in terms of who that person is we haven't really settled on that at this point okay and then um in terms of the RFI would I'm hoping we'll also get get a sense of the cost like and maybe at different levels like if they're composting yard waste this might be the cost or if they're going to just you know so we have all these different come because that's the huge big question is what is it going to cost yeah so we don't we didn't think that they would actually tell us what they think they wouldn't tell us what they would bid so we asked them we're going to ask them what communities they already service what is the cost of the services they provide in that service um there's some Susan was wondering if they would even share that level of information but if we have the communities that they already serve yeah how my households are in that community that community our um profile of households is different than a lot of communities and so Guilford has actually broken it down into for his team I think Susan actually worked on this project when she first started here like how many single families how many double two families because it's not we have lots of large apartment complexes doesn't exactly match up with what people expect and the more information we give to haulers the better they're going to be at pricing all right Andy I don't actually just had her hand up longer so I've already talked if you want to go ahead Andy well both have I mean okay um Anika is it okay if I go go right ahead you two decide so I was looking it's because we were matching outfits today that's what it is um so the one of the steps in the action plan talked about um benchmarking against other communities and I'm curious I understand that the haulers won't give you a price that are you going to be reaching out or are the sponsors going to be reaching out to other communities in the area to learn more about their costs and I I'm sure we all read or if we haven't I recommend it the article and the Gazette last week or two weeks ago about South Hadley and their trash hauler contract um and you know how much the costs have gone up and the way that they run it and it was I mean they they dug on Amherst a little bit which I didn't love and that was not cool but other than that it was really interesting uh the the way that they actually really broke down the fees and so I'm curious what in addition to reaching out to the haulers what questions we are asking of other towns and if that outreach has happened and who is doing it and if there's an opportunity for us to input on what questions are asked I don't necessarily have any on top of mind but maybe we can come up some interesting ones so we we have not done the if Susan has Susan knows a lot of the the environment that she is the regional rep she collects all the contracts I think she is really our subject matter expert on this we all can reach out and talk to individuals but I think relying on her as our person which is another reason to try to be efficient with her time um and and that's that's information we can use as a town we can easily collect from from their DPWs or whoever is in charge of it thank you Lana you covered some of my questions as as well and thank you oh and if you have questions you think should be asked for sure please send them to me you know it's very early in the process right Andy there's several levels that we've talked about because we talked about what's in the bylaw talked about what's in the RFP that will be issued by staff level and then there's a question that we haven't really talked about as to what goes in the regulations and who's responsible for the regulations and in fact it might be I think we did an investigation as Paul knows the answer for sure it may be required that it be the Board of Health and that may be a state statute and so as a consequence you know I think that we need to think about that and going back to just our general experience and other discussions and that you don't want to put more in the bylaw than you have to because it's such a difficult process to amend bylaws and why council engage in that time over things that need to be changed on a more frequent basis so part of our structuring of this whole enterprise both as practical and as a legal matter is you know what goes into each of those three buckets thank you Andy Shownie your yeah your hand is up Shownie thank you yeah I think we're naturally going into the next part of the conversation which is the purpose of today's meeting was to collect all of these questions and so that we can send it to Paul and then he can distribute it to staff or other committees or Board of Health and Susan so that it might help Susan in crafting the RFI and the other part is I see this as a two-step process where we are first looking at mainly getting the RFI done or Susan getting it done so that TSO and finance committee has more information to really dive into the issues that are going to impact residents and and and that's going to help us craft the bylaw and then the second phase is the writing of the regulations which again the Board of Health I believe has made it clear they don't have the bandwidth to write the regulations so that is something that Paul you might have to guide us you know do you need yeah a separate committee working with Susan with the staff is it going to be town staff and Susan and TSO like yeah so that's that's a question out there that's going to be sent to you Andy yeah this is just a follow-up on what you just said Shalini I might as well just say it since it's out there anyway my wife was chair of the Board of Health for a number of years and so some of my knowledge about what I said on regulations came out of just us talking about it and what she recollects from her time on the Board of Health was that staff would come in with recommendations and then they would just be reviewed and adopted by the board that the board did not write regulations that staff Henry were very involved in writing the regulations and I would think that that's likely and I can understand the board current board's hesitation about being put in a position of writing regulations I think that it would really require that kind of staff assistance again Shalini and Paul Paul would like to respond all right so I think I think all those statements are correct at the time this came to the Board of Health I think it was in November December something like that they were like they were just had so many things on their plate they were like we can't take this on but if we're looking at something more spaced out over the year I can help talk with the health director and if there's staff support that is needed we can certainly supply that but that is typically the process is staff draft stuff something reviews it with the Board of Health and typically I think these regulations would live with the Board of Health so I don't think that you should take that response from December whenever they were working on it as forever thank you Paul Shalini yeah I just wanted to acknowledge that Susan Wade is in the audience and I don't know if we'd like to invite her Paul and her as a panelist yes absolutely and while we're waiting for Susan to join us I think I just wanted to go over what with Andy is the other sponsor and you know we had we already had a very in-depth conversation early on where we created that very detailed chart that broke down questions under three broad categories the first one being moving to a town contracted hauling system what are the questions I'm sorry I'm sorry to interrupt Shalini just right before we pass the floor over to you hello Susan welcome we did promise that there would be one other public comment so I just want to offer that even though we don't have it and then sure the floor over to you so if there is any other public comment would you please raise your hand all right I do not see anyone all right so Shalini the floor is yours all right thank you welcome Susan thank you for being with us so just to go over what our goal was for today that we've had one extensive a couple of extensive conversations earlier on where we divided what's before us into three broad buckets and we looked at questions under all of those the three broad categories where we're moving towards a town contracted hauling system secondly we want a goal is to reduce trash using a paid model pay as you throw model so what are the questions within that and the third was around universal composting to include you know what are the questions related to universal composting so that was one way we collected and thought about the questions we need to answer and within those questions most of them Susan are going to be directed towards you and the staff um and the goal is to collect those questions and send it to you and the staff to see how and that can help you shape the RFI and and with your knowledge if you can answer some of the questions independent of the RFI so that's one thing the second thing that I was proposing is that those questions are so extensive and Paul did you want to say something before I go on no when you're finished I just want to orient Susan to where we are yeah okay and so the second way of approaching the questions was to say that okay if we had a certain bylaw language this is not the final bylaw language however to bring that lens to look at the questions and decision points before us as TSO so that was the purpose of looking at the bylaw and seeing what are the decision points and what questions are coming up through that lens and you know having a discussion around that and then collecting those questions and sending it to Paul and Susan so that's where we are and Paul did you want to yeah so Susan just so you know we we've had a somewhat of a discussion already about who reviewed with them the time frame and the sort of process for the RFI and the the timing of that over the next 15 weeks or whatever it is that we laid out and what you will be bringing back to the TSO at you know at the conclusion of that process that we are open to hearing any questions that counselors would like to include on an RFI as you start to build that and just so so I think everybody's sort of squared away with what was going to happen with the RFI portion of this conversation just so you know we've had that conversation and they're aware of what you the timing that you sort of laid out for everybody great thank you Paul and Susan if you have any questions for us as a TSO or anything that would be helpful to you along the way to create the RFI and do this project just feel free to raise your hand and ask us those questions with that I would like to open up to the TSO members if you had a chance to look at the bylaw and through that lens or any other lens have any questions we already started putting some questions forward which I've recorded but please also send them to me and then I can collect all of these questions including our initial set of questions and then compile them and send them to Susan and plus I'll also send it include that copy in our own TSO so we know what questions have been sent out but for now if anyone has additional questions in addition to what has already been raised Susan do you want to go first? Sure hi everybody I just want to be clear when you were when you're talking about questions and generating questions from the group and the public are these questions about the concept in general or are they questions for the potential vendors in the RFI? Yeah so the questions are around three main buckets which are related like we're going to send them to you and then you can see which ones are related to the RFI because some things like some things will be questions like what goes into composting you know and so what is the definition of composting and what will be allowed and is it going to include lawn waste or whatever lawn stuff? Narred waste, yes or is it just food waste and so in my mind I'm imagining getting a response for different categories and different costs and being able to offer that but I don't know so anyway so those are the kind of and many many such questions some of them will be going towards creating maybe crafting the RFI that's up to you and some will go into other committees like who is going to write the regulations how are they going to be enforced things like that. Okay thank you and Anna you had the hand up. Yeah so my questions I had one simple one that you might be able to answer right now looking at the non-criminal disposition at the top what does responsible personnel mean is that your intended staff person or is there someone else I just wasn't clear on who that was? That can be a question to Paul. Oh I thought you had put it in there it was an it was an edit in red so I wasn't sure who put it in and what the intention was. Okay so this by-law is written as a sort of a model for what it could look like and what are the kind of things that go into it but none of it is set and those are the questions we need answered in order to finalize who is going to be that person. Okay so my question is who's enforcing? That's easy enough. I'm not going to answer you were collecting questions I'm sorry. If you have an answer I'd love to hear it I think that I was just confused because I didn't know what that meant when I was reading through and I didn't quite understand how the um I think I yeah okay um and then my other I mean I think for me really the questions it's hard to differentiate which questions are about bylaw and which questions about regs and which questions about contracts right and so I think ultimately for me what this comes down to is the the the cost of it right and how that um how that impacts the decision and and it's hard because you know you can't do an RFP if unless we've really started moving forward on all the other elements and it's really hard to commit to moving forward on the other other elements without knowing how much it costs and so I feel like you know I know that I'm not alone and feeling stuck in a little bit of this laundry machine here but um I'm really excited about this and I'm I would really love to see for me the the part I'm really looking forward to seeing is the benchmarking from other towns as well as the results of that RFI in terms of what's available and cost and then my last question is again not necessarily in in the bylaw but I'd really like to know um where the waste would go and what level of control we would have as a town over where that would both compost waste and recycling and trash um where those those three would end up um and what is the sphere of control the town has over that for example I saw a sample bylaw from another town that if the refuse was not brought to the agreed upon location there was a two dollar per pound fee fine to the to the hauler and so I think that you know those are those are questions that I'd like to ask last one and I know I'm getting picky and I know that this is part of the contract stuff um I want to you know one of the main there are many reasons to do this um and one of them is to improve uh is to to work towards our climate action goals and I'd like to know what we can put into the um I guess again I'm talking about the contract I think I might be going down the wrong avenue constantly here Paul sorry but uh with the contract I'd like to know what we can do to ensure that we are um contracting with someone who's really hitting best practices with regards to sustainability um in terms of their vehicles in terms of their practices in terms of all of that so those those are vague and broad and I can try to be more specific and I will stop talking for a little bit and come up with 10 more for you now I think those are right on and because one of the goals of moving to this is not just universal composting but also reduction of waste and bringing more transparency and control uh vis-a-vis the haulers and when we spoke with some of the haulers at the MMA they were very clear that it's not just about who's going to which hauler is going to charge the lowest price but it is about what information and data they're going to provide to you and that's what we are and I don't know if that's a question for you all so and if we can write that into the RFI like what sort of information are they going to provide to us because this one particular haulers like we are able to tell this town this is how much waste we were able to take away from the landfills and that's very good in motivating information I think for the public to know that this is worth something it is making a difference when we get that kind of data and Ana did you have a follow-up question I'm going to have a lot more please run through okay so are you going to put your hand down and then I think after that was maybe Andy I can't see the order I'm just trying to remember but Andy let's let's not go back to the sponsors right away so go to Dorothy and okay and yeah sure so Dorothy perhaps because I've been attending a lot of zoning meetings lately but I'm feeling in a very practical mood and rather than us writing the absolute perfect piece of legislation or at least giving guidelines for it I would like to see some actual contracts that exist in town that are still saying it's okay because I think that we're going to be trading off some services and price at various times I think we want to we want to be in the real world this is what a company is actually doing now in a town and that they say that they're more or less doing what they say they're supposed to be doing and then we'll have to make some choices I don't think we can get everything we want and I guess I'm feeling I really like the idea of staff writing the writing the proposal for example I don't think that we counselors should be doing minutiae of technical contracts my husband used to write contracts for the board of estimate that was that's what he did okay he didn't do all the other stuff that we do it's very technical and it requires a lot of expertise and practical and talking to people with practical real-world knowledge so I'd love to see that and I don't know Paul is that something that you might do actually look to see what kind of contracts exist out there um what I think yeah I think Susan has a whole room full of contracts wonderful yeah thank you and just to clarify Dorothy I think the the by-law that we're proposing is definitely not in any way suggesting that this is what we're starting with it is just to provide a lens and like we had all those set of questions earlier but when I put in the lens of a by-law before me there were additional questions that came up which we hadn't thought through when we were just generally exploring so it's just like looking at this issue in different ways and then once we get the information we're going to probably end up writing it from scratch and it'll be a completely different by-law so yes uh Anika well I was about to lower my hand because most of my questions that I had from this evening have been raised and I did submit the rest but I'm not sure what I submitted if I had asked about different models that um and specifically that maybe the zero waste of the town had looked at and if um the name I can't remember but a this has probably been shared with everyone in Chalene you probably remember the name there's a group out of Greenfield um that deals with recycling wasting and how and and just what I what I thought was interesting was who they employ they give those second chances and even somehow work into you know helping folks with with housing and I just thought that was a fascinating idea and and aligned with many of the goals that we you know have as a as a town and council so I'd wanted to know um like were there different models being looked at in terms of how this is playing out and to just build on what Anika was saying this is the Greenfield Cooperative they might have a different name but they we can use their hair uh incarcerated people people who just come out of uh jail I don't know how to say it but anyways so it's a very interesting model for compost pickup however they then at least from the website what it looks like is they then you utilize other uh composting uh places like martins and all of those to do it but they do the pickup so but I really appreciate your question that you know how can just to keep a lookout for all the different models out there for composting oh sorry and did you want to go and then I can come back to Anna I can uh I just was going to go through real quickly what the questions were that the sponsors had identified some months ago and uh just to put them out on the table and then uh I think we need to still be talking about them the first two I'm not even going to spend time on because they were kind of the if this system doesn't work what's the alternative and how is the alternative really workable because we don't think it's working now so we we ask uh what better regulations that hollers to the current system might achieve any of the other goals well yeah we think we're trying we're we're starting from the presumption that that's not the best way the best approach to take the other ones were and when I get beyond those two what additional town staff would be needed for the to implement the system and how would those individuals be funded who would sign up households who would do the billing and accounting who would handle complaints that the holler doesn't resolve and that sort of creates an assumption that um our subscribers are who are going through the town system would first try and solve problems with the holler who in the uh but we don't really know that there's a town regulate materials to be recycled and I was uh going to be enforced which was kind of alluded to earlier today how do we monitor compliance of customer so customers participate in either holler contract or use the transfer station because we don't want to have I presume anybody who's not doing one of the two what if there's no acceptable bids what are we going to do you know if you set up a statute you've got to be thinking about that possibility what is the role of transfer station and having to be sure that it's sustainable to keep it running so those were the kinds of the questions that we had thought about with the structure then once getting to the easy throw thing we thought about um and I don't even sure we want to call it pay-as-you-throw but it's certainly paying by the amount of waste you you dispose of through um anything other than recycling what are the different ways to implement the system and what are the pros and cons of each um and you know sort of raised the question of selling bags or pricing by size of container or both um the option for um what happens in uh if somebody has additional trash in a week then they pay for if you're not going to do in his bags um understand the cost to service routes and so you know just getting an understanding of the system I think is what because we really are not experts in um choosing um the what I know it's talking about choosing where the trash goes and how does that but I think we really have an interest in at least understanding it should there be a provision for bulky objects we know that students at the end of the year have lots of furniture they get rid of and there's been a lot of complaints that it's not really a very good system now and it ends up getting dumped into all sorts of odd places and then our DPW is picking it up now and not knowing even who's has to bear the costs of the tenants up bearing the cost of doing that so is there anything that we want to do to address that problem in just knowing how the whole system is being monitored and um I think the other thing I thought about most in our list is that in addition to enforcement there's education because you have to tell people you have to make sure you're educating people and then there's that whole series which I'm not going to go into there are about half a dozen questions on composting I think they've been largely alluded to already this evening so there's a you know there there already was in that document that I sent out and added this afternoon when you look at that last column you see the questions which is why I didn't feel I needed to read them all but that those are the kinds of things uh system that I think that we've been thinking about and um we don't know if the answers are going to come through the RFU process that we're talking about but you know the answers to some of the questions or can guide us to where we can get it or you can just tell us so you don't need to know this because I guess that's uh I'll leave it at that thank you Andy um and Susan just so you know that we are going to send you this whole list of questions so please don't feel like you might miss something uh did you want to say something before I go to Anna or sure I just wanted to say that in terms of comparison with other communities um Paul as Paul indicated uh we have I have access to quite a few contracts we have access to tons and tons and tons of data so if you want to know what the cost per household is for a curbside system in in you know 15 different communities we can figure that out and we can figure it out over the course of you know the last 10 years or more so there's lots of data that's out there to to help compare ourselves or to estimate approximately how much it would be per household um with certain services I mean you know it's it's not going to be an apple to an apple but it's going to be there's lots of approximation information so I also want to just quickly say that in terms of where your where your trash goes um we're we're really limited by choices right now so we're not necessarily going to have um lots of options so it would but that being that being said we have the right to know where our trash is going and if we have preferences about how it's handled you know that would be certainly something to put in an rfq rfp I'm sorry thank you Susan that's really helpful um and it really helps us to think about like once you're we'll send you the questions and hopefully they help you craft the rfi and and then once that is crafted and sent then we can maybe while we're waiting for the haulers then we can work with you and looking at other contracts or other data to start doing some of the discussion and so forth uh Anna thank you um I also want to give Shalini a shout out because I believe you had CRC right before this so you're on hour like seven of meetings um so anyway thank you uh really two things really quickly one you know I think that for me I I'm very clear that we are not the ones writing the actual contract I think the questions that I'm posing here are more of what I'd like to see us consider as we as we move forward I don't know specifics of what should be said about it but um and Susan I really appreciate that insight about that being less applicable in our area about the locations being less applicable in our area that's really that's really helpful um the other thing I would add to the list is um hauling from different types of buildings and that's not the right way to phrase that but as we talked about before we in Amherst are not only we have a large uh segments of our town that might have private hauler contracts already um and so figuring out um if those buildings wanted to switch to a town pay-as-you-throw is that possible is that uh how would that work if large apartment complexes would wanted to do that um but also making sure that this does kind of layer nicely with our zoning um so thinking through single family multifamily uh apartment buildings regardless of what that is um and it might be a moot point if larger complexes are going to stay with their own private haulers but just ensuring that we have the flexibility to be able to serve all of the different types of locations that have refuse in our town. Thank you Anna Paul. Yes I think this is a really helpful conversation I think the reason the RFI is important is it might reveal things that just aren't question aren't options for us so I talked to one hauler who said we're not doing bags anymore the industry is not you know if you don't use toters we're not bidding you know because it's too much personnel on we need two people on a truck instead of one with a automated you know if you we're going to require any new business to have toters so we might have a big conversation about pay-as-you-throw bags versus toters and it might not even be relevant in terms of there's no bidders out there for bags and so I think the RFI will reveal some of that information for us so that's just one example so this is really excellent for us thank you. Thank you Paul and thank you Anna for that transitioning or what how do we include the different types of resident dwellings that we have so that's definitely an important question. If does anyone else have by the way I can read through some of the other council questions that we've received looking from the lens of the bylaw because Andy's already gone through what we already had discussed earlier so many of them have actually already been covered like the definition of compostable what should that include and then the regulations will have more specific things like invasive species like do if you're collecting yard waste do we allow invasive species to be thrown into it or not or what are the sizes of branches and whatnot so that's more of a regulations thing of course we do need to engage a little bit with board of health and we can find out in what way to do that just to keep them informed as a courtesy also that this is where we are what we're doing we already talked about who will write the regulations the starting date what should the date for start be in the bylaw or and should it be in the bylaw or in the motion like we originally we were anticipating 2024 but realistically once we have Paul is like no yeah so that's fine that was just we had to throw a date in so we were just trying to be cool but I think once we have more information and we have a plan laid out at some point we will have to come up with some sort of a plan for when this will be implemented and but at least from the sponsor side I know Andy and I've spoken before our hope really is that as a town this particular council we are able to at least do the whole process very thoughtfully engage the public get the information and have the bylaw piece of it at least finalized and then the regulations can follow Paul I'm sorry shook my head but the reason I did was that and again talking to hollers and this where an RFI would come into play they would say oh there's 18 months wait for trucks we cannot possibly so that would be a piece of information that would inform the bylaw itself or wherever you put that date so exactly yeah yeah thank you yeah that's interesting that we might be ready but hollers are not ready to start so that's that's another part then a transfer station what is going to be their role is it sustainable to have what role will they play and it seems like a lot of people do use the transfer station because it's a cheaper option but we're hoping that the new townwide contracted system is going to bring down prices and more people will opt into this new system but we don't know that so that's another question out there what role will the transfer station play do we provide make a composting mandatory or do we leave it optional and of course I have my preference and but that's a discussion again that needs to happen um Juriette did you want to add something oh I just reminded me um one reason we use the compost uh we use the transfer station is that my husband likes to do that but the reason I like him to do it is not about money although it's I guess we're saving some is that I don't like to have buckets in front of my house and some of the houses around me have them there and they sit there a long time and so I find it unsightly so I am all for this this program because I know most people get their waste hauled and they're going to have buckets in front of their house anyway but what the buckets look like and how quickly they're picked up is of interest to me because I don't I think it looks sloppy to have garbage pales in the front of your house all day long well I wonder if you can throw in some aesthetics around that I know Paul sent me a picture of Texas Austin those look pretty attractive those colors with Paul in my previous community the service included going into your backyard pulling the bucket the toasters out and loading them and then taking them back to your backyard but they had to cut that back because it was so expensive wow level you can pay for that it's a service you can pay for right it's what we we have to make it affordable and accessible to everyone so okay and then what is the order condos owner associations how do we bring in more people all of that that question uh what would it work out to have haul yeah okay and then billing and those sort of questions the complaints which Andy already covered uh Anika did I cover all the questions I think I did I think you did including what has been discussed but if you're going to if you're going to follow with an email just to make just to be sure mm-hmm that would be helpful absolutely and please can you all send me your questions as well by in a week's time is that good enough for everyone to send me and then I can compile all the questions and then send you all a copy and just don't reply all and and then I'll send a copy to Paul to share with Susan and staff and Anna did you have a question it's half answered in my own head because it feels obvious um just because of our conversation earlier just ensuring that private roads would be included in this or making sure that that's part of it or not I mean but that that's the question right mm I think that's a question I mean it feels like they obviously would be because they're still residents but it's not the it's not maintaining the public way which is like streetlights and plowing would be but just to confirm that in private rooms all right uh Anika oh this this is for Paul this might be a bit off topic but you've got you intrigued me when you said that we would be surprised at some of the private roads could you just throw one out that you think people might be we would be most surprised to know it was a private road um like Charles Lane off of Amity street um there's a I don't remember the name right next to the high school uh people used to use as a cut-through break the name of that street and and and people in the is a private road and they started putting up barriers so people wouldn't use it as a cut-through it meant you know that type of thing the only street on the university campus at the town really owns this north pleasant street uh massachusetts avenue all the all the you know that part of university drive governor's way those are all university roads obviously it's mostly smaller streets thank you i've been curious since you said that thank you so just last thing to wrap up like i will collect send me the questions in a week i collect them send them and i also want to just share that the zero waste amherst had done that townwide survey of residents which we they were i think in march end of march they said they will be compiling they had about 500 responses so that's a good response straight knowing counselors we know how hard engagement is so they will come to and make a presentation to tso and they'll obviously send a copy they will be sending a copy to susan with the results for their findings so that's on the agenda down the road and um anything else otherwise i'm ready to transfer it back to anika anything else you would like to see happen in this conversation we will obviously have public um you know hearings and things like that to include the public at the right time but right now there is not enough to share so thank you thank you shawnee and thank you susan for spending a good amount of your thursday evening with us okay so we are there any announcements i actually do not have any today are there any announcements that anyone would like to share we can allow susan to leave if she unless you want to say any last words to words of wisdom to us um you know i just thought of something a few minutes ago and it left my head um no nothing's coming to mind i wish i had some kind of beautiful statement to impress you all but it's not going to happen we are so impressed by you already you've already said more than i expected actually there were a couple of things that you're like oh really so yeah well and i you i just i want to say that um i have not i have while i've worked for the town of amherst i have not been involved with the governance part and the more i learn about the work that you all do and the passion and dedication that you do it with the more impressed that i am and so thank all of you for the work that you do thank you susan thank you enjoy the rest of your evening and susan is speaking as a town resident as well yeah that's something nice thank you okay so we do have so some of our we have a meeting next week next thursday and some of the uh the future agenda items will be the surveillance use policy and then back to streetlights and with that if there are no other comments or questions we are adjourned good night everyone thank you everyone good night