 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs, and generous donations from viewers like you. Okay, seeing that a quorum of the finance committee is pressed, I'm calling the finance committee meeting for March 2, 2021 to order, pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order, which I noticed almost one year ago now, this order suspends certain provisions of the open meeting law, general law, chapter 30A, section 18, this meeting of the finance committee is being conducted by a remote participation and has a requirement for remote participation. I need to check that each member of the committee can hear what was being said and we can hear them. So please just say something to acknowledge your presence as I call each of your names. So I'll go through the committee, Lynn Grusmer. Present. Bob Higner. I'm here. Kathy Shane. Here. Bernie Kubiak. Present. Dorothy Pam. Present. And Pat DeAngelis. Present. So I note that all members of the committee have answered in the affirmative so that we can proceed. We do have some other guests for our first two agenda items of today. And just so that we're all in the public are aware of the order that we're gonna take the agenda. We are gonna start with the financial implications of the stormwater and IDDE bylaws and I'm gonna, then we'll go to the Community Preservation Act and we'll go to the library financial orders, public comment after it. And finally the scheduling afterwards, but the first two items are gonna be the stormwater and the CPA as indicated in the order that's in the published agenda, which is currently on your screens. So with that information being said, I'm gonna ask Sean, who's done some initial work with Guilford and Beth to research some of the issues we talked about about other communities and alternatives for how these bylaws, what they're gonna cost and how the costs are being supported. So can I ask Sean to start with the presentation? Yeah, thanks, Andy. So we don't have much of a presentation. We more wanted to share what we've learned since our last meeting. We've met with Northampton and we learned a lot of valuable information from the process they went through. We also want to maybe to clarify some points related to these bylaws and then see if there's any additional information that the finance committee needs in order to consider a recommendation on the bylaws. So the first piece I was thinking is maybe, I'm joined by Guilford, who's the superintendent of the Department of Public Works and Beth Wilson, who's the environmental scientist for the Public Works Department. And I was thinking, Beth, maybe you could just do a really quick overview again of what each bylaw covers just to refresh everybody's memory. Hi, yeah, we have two bylaws. The IDDE bylaw really involves releases to our stormwater system, either some kind of dumping a release into a catch basin or illegal connections to our system, which can be a piping coming from a building, which if it's contributing any kind of a contaminant, it becomes an illicit discharge. We have some that obviously over time, DPW has allowed people to connect, but as we investigate anything that we find that's actually contributing contamination to our system, the IDDE bylaw gives the town, especially DPW, the authority to investigate a situation like that and to enforce it. That's really what the IDDE bylaw is about. And the stormwater management bylaw gets into stormwater permitting for new and redevelopment projects and really looking at the designs of proposed stormwater systems for new projects and it involves developers to submit applications so there'll be a permitting system is part of that bylaw. It gives the town, the authority to write regulations that would include a process for a new permitting system for new and redevelopment projects where an application would be submitted and there would be fees involved. Developers would be basically providing a package to the town proposing what their stormwater design is and this bylaw gives the town the authority to ask for that and also to apply a fee to it, I guess it's the financial side of it and then also to do enforcement in case say somebody doesn't get the permit that they need or they don't follow the requirements of the permit, the bylaw gives the town the authority to do enforcement in that kind of a situation. I think that covers it for the financial parts of those two bylaws. Yeah, that's perfect, Beth. Just to reiterate that both bylaws established the penalties for on the enforcement side and then one of them authorizes the creation of a permitting fee and so we don't know what that permitting fee will be yet. We believe like all other fees it sort of falls under the town manager to set and we will share some information that was in the packet in a minute that gives you an idea of what fees look like in some other communities around here but the fee itself has not been set yet. So the sort of three points we wanted to touch upon based on what we heard last time was talk a little bit more about the operating cost question. There was a lot of requests for what are the future operating costs gonna look like of this program and we can give a little bit of perspective on that. However, I'll let Guilford weigh in a second that some of that's really down the road or the next phase after this when we start talking about what do we need to do to improve our stormwater system which is really after these bylaws. The other peaceful share is again information on the fees and then we'll give you a little bit of the insights we learned from Northampton when we talked with them. So on the operating cost front, it's important to note we're doing a lot now there's a lot of activities performed by the DPW street sweeping, cleaning of catch basins, drainage work that the town is already doing. So when we're thinking about costs in the future it's really about again what are we doing what are those improvements or things we have to do beyond what we're already doing and quantifying those costs. And there was a lot of discussion around the enterprise fund which for good reason, we understand that sort of a big question. The stormwater bylaw mentions the stormwater or the stormwater enterprise fund potentially but it's not creating the enterprise fund. It's just saying that there's gonna be future costs most likely from improving the stormwater system and there's different ways you can handle those costs one of which could be an enterprise fund. So again, we'll talk about that more but we're trying to decouple what an enterprise fund would do, what it would look like the cost of an enterprise fund from this bylaw discussion because the bylaws are really required no matter what we do to manage the stormwater improvement costs in the future. And that'll really probably be its own big agenda item in the future for finance committee as to what vehicle do we use to manage these costs in the future. So with that, Guilford do you wanna just weigh in a little bit on the timeline of where we are with the permit process now and when we would start getting better sense of those future costs of improving the stormwater system? You're muted still. Well, we can't hear you. Can you hear me now? Yes, yes. Can you hear me now? Yes, yes, we can. Okay, so these two pieces you're looking at these two bylaws are part of a larger system or a larger permitting and overall stormwater management system that was being asked of us by the federal government. So that's the biggest thing to keep in mind. There's a lot more to the overall permit we have with the federal government to manage our stormwater system. These are just two small pieces and the costs to implement both these are relatively small. There will be almost no immediate cost to either one to the town to either one of these bylaws because there's a year of creating regulations and implementing regulations in the bylaws if you look at it. So once the council approves the bylaws we have a year for regulation and then during that making of regulations we'll have permit fees in those discussions. As we move through the rest of the overall permitting the federal permit for stormwater we'll start to see some type of implementation costs come in over the next three to five years. And then during those three to five years we'll see costs for doing water testing, tracing outfalls, sampling outfalls and then starting to develop what our problem areas are and our approaches to the problem areas. We probably won't have a big stormwater project that's related to this permit until sometime five years down the road when we have a good handle on what our problems are and where we need to go to tackle those problems. So overall that's the whole program in a nutshell. If you want the detailed version Beth can show you a two-page or three-page spreadsheet that has all the pieces on it but it's quite boring. And these two bylaws are only two pieces and that whole big three-page spreadsheet we're working on right now. Yeah, and just to add to what Gilbert said I think we did share the timeline. So if anybody wanted to go back and look at the timeline I think there was one in the memo as well as the PowerPoint that was in the packet from a few meetings ago. You can kind of see where we fall into that process which it's pretty early on. So I guess, Andy, if you're okay with it I was gonna see if there are any operating cost questions now before I go to the next section which was gonna be looking at the different fee structures that some other towns use for their permits. Just want to clarify one thing with to make sure that we all understood correctly there's no capital, significant capital expenditure required for the first five years from what I understood you to say, Guilford. There is no significant other than what has already been put in the capital plan. There's an item in the capital plan right now for a street sweeper, that's maintenance we do now. That's something that this permit does require us to continue doing. So that cost is already in the capital plan. There are no other expenses beyond that right now for the next probably five years. And again, just to add to that there is another recurring line item in the capital plan that's been there for several years for I forget if it's $50 or $100,000, Guilford you may remember the number that is associated with this program and that's been there for quite a while and that's gonna continue for the next few years. Yes, and we use that $50,000 to do small little things with the program. We did some stormwater plan for some of our facilities and we've done a couple of other things and that's basically what we use that small amount of money for is just to do a couple of small items in our overall permit. Okay, let's see Lynn's hand up and pass to Lynn. So you said that you don't see any big implementation costs or I got the impression or that this will actually be ready to be implemented for three to five years, meaning there will be no subdivisions or divisions of buildings coming up that it would apply to between now and then. Would you just clarify that a little more? So there will be no cost increase in implementing the stormwater bylaw at least for a year because we have to make the regulations. Once we start implementing the stormwater bylaw, there'll be minor costs for overseeing the program but we already do allow the project review now and site plan review for planning department. So a lot of what we already do for planning departments permitting review processes, we will be doing again for stormwater but with a different emphasis on stormwater than we have now. So there's not much change in actually implementing the stormwater bylaw and the IDDE bylaw, we do this now but we don't do it to the extent we have to do it in the future. And there's probably a year of setting our program up for that too. And then we can start doing more IDDE type things. The overall stormwater permit, we're not gonna see major expenses probably until five years from now. And what kind of expenses would we see then? So when we get to finding what our problems are then you'll start seeing where you need to start changing some of our piping systems that are in the ground. We may have to change some of our sanitary sewer piping systems so they don't conflict or they're not in areas that we think may be contributing to some of our stormwater issues. And you may need to see us actually designing and implementing some treatment systems where we actually have to install treatment devices on our pipes before they discharge into wetlands or into their discharge areas. And that I'm fine for the moment, thanks. Pat, you've done good though. There we go. I'm sorry. One of the things that I'm concerned with, I hear how there's this five year process and I need to know really and truly when we're gonna get specifics because we got walloped with Centennial. And we should have had that information earlier. So I am concerned about how we get this information and when we get this information about the costs. And I understand that there are some ifs because you're not sure of all the problem areas. But I think there needs to be periodic check-ins as you identify an area and then you identify the costs. Otherwise, we're gonna be in sad shape if it ends up being as expensive and as unprepared as we were for Centennial. Can you comment on how you'll do that? So we're happy to provide regular updates or check back in, especially the finance committee. I can work with Guilford on when the appropriate timing is of that, when the regulations are more developed and we start getting in that process to identify the improvement starts. We're gonna again need to do that anyway to decide how we're gonna fund these in the future. So I can work with Guilford and the chair to figure out what's the right timing to come back with an update so that you have that information well in advance. Thank you very much, Shawn. Dorothy. My questions are, what happens if we don't do this? These are some new rules by the federal government. And how strict is their enforcement that we do the work to find out how our system is working and then build the new entities if we need to do so and does the government supply any money for this? Thank you. So we could be a trailblazer and not doing this, I think. I don't think any community has not done it. If we want to choose not to do it, the EPA, not DEP, but federal EPA does have the ability to issue a notice of non-compliance to us and those non-compliance would come with a fine, daily fine, if we don't pay the daily fine or still stumb our nose to us to them, they can take us to court and enter into some type of court order and makes us do this and holds our feet to the fire. It's not very, it's not, it's been done in other areas where EPAs had rules and people have said they didn't want to do it, it's been done there. I really don't think anybody has done it in stormwater but EPA does have the ability to find us on a daily fine. And I think if they use the Massachusetts DEP standard, it'd be about $12,000 a day is what their fine is. I think that's what it is, I'm not really sure. It's a nice number. And then your second question, your last question was? Is there any government money to help communities do this? There are programs, grant programs that happen throughout the year that help you do certain things. And as we get going more and more into the stormwater rule, the state has says they will provide more and more programs as well. Cathy. I'm actually building on Dorothy's last point, Guilford, you did answer it. But I think the other thing I think, I don't know how we monitor it, but we have a new administration at the federal level and clean air, clean water, our green is high priority. So to extent to our delegation can be pressing, this is just Paul at our Mindy Joe level that if we really wanna implement this and do it right, if there are capital expenditures, get some support for doing that piece of it. And I think that goes with Pat's, a lot of advanced warning that sooner we can do a guesstimate of that, the more we can raise the issue at the next level up the state level. So it's not just wait till 4.5 years from now when we're closer to it. So it just, it seems like there is a larger social movement around water. And there was just something recently on water scarcity, water purification, that stopping us from being at risk. So it's just a embellishing on what Dorothy asked about grants, not to say there might be some, but let's try to actually pave that way. That was my comment. Bob. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of build on what Pat said. And just to ask Guilford and everyone involved in this to make sure there's communication around whatever kinds of different things we have to do in order to comply. Like if we need to replace a municipal parking lot, do we have to use pervious concrete or have a pervious parking lot? Would there be coordination needed with the zoning board in order to make sure that any of those kinds of requirements get built into the zoning? I just, I know that that's sort of premature right now, but I think it would be helpful so that we're thinking down the road in terms of what we have to plan for. That's all. Bergen? Yeah, just as an aside, these are new regulations. These are old regulations that haven't been enforced in the last four years. My, get off my soapbox now. Guilford, as we're looking at, as we're rolling out these regulations, do you see any state or private commercial development or changes that it might be on in the near future that would impact on our water issues here? And is there, do you have any notion about if there's any private development that might be used to kind of promote improvements in the public infrastructure? Well, with the bigger projects we have going on, we've been, the projects have been going on for many years. We've actually been getting improvements to stormwater, some to water, some of the sewer infrastructure as well as road infrastructure. So for larger projects, that has been going on a great deal. As we now use the stormwater regulations, we're now able to go down to the much smaller projects. And actually in those cases, we can actually start to put some implementation in and to get some type of public benefit to those developments now as well. So this actually just allows us to go a little bit lower down in something we've already been doing for quite a while now. Thanks. So just, Kathy, your hand is still up. Is that from? That's before, sorry. I didn't undo my. So I just, so I guess at some point, and I'm not saying that it has to be today because I think that what we're going to do is report to the council, but the bylaws are something that's going forward. The substance of the bylaws will be reviewed also in two other committees. It'll be dealing with the actual wording and the need of it in a lot more of everyone's TSO and the others, TOL. As far as the financial, I think that we're all concerned about what eventual capital expenses and operating expense information that we're going to need to know about. And for those two categories, whether they are expenses that we would have incurred anyway, as was mentioned, for example, street sweeping, or whether it knew, and then to the extent that they've existed before, are we able to consider transferring those expenses to a special account if we set up a special account? So I think that's information that we probably want to see developed over time, but I'm not sure unless somebody tells me otherwise that we need to do it before adapting the bylaw. Sean. Okay, do you want me to wrap up quickly? Yeah, I won't pull up the permitting fee table, but it was in the packet, so everyone has a chance to look at it. And you can see North Hamptons is probably the one that might be most comparable, but they also have a little bit of a, they have some things in their stormwater system that are different than what we have to deal with here because of the river being so close to where they are. But you can take a look at that. And I guess the last piece I'll just touch on is we did Beth and Amy Rosecki from the DPW. We had a really good conversation with North Hamptons DPW director and their finance director about some of the things they learned as they implemented the stormwater program and things to be aware of it. And a lot of those are more specific to if we go down the utility route in the future. So those are things we can share with the group if that's the route we go. Again, that's not anything that's gonna happen anytime soon. We can share some of the lessons learned from that discussion. There's just a lot that goes into it in terms of things we'd have to add to our property cards around as we've heard in permeable surfaces, all new billing and collection procedures and it's a really big challenge if that was gonna be the direction we go. So that will really, that'll have to be its own discussion in the future. And I guess the last thing, Andy, is if there are any other pieces of information that anybody wants in order to consider a recommendation then to let us know what that is. Lynn? Yeah, I just wanna make sure I understand correctly. If there is a fee or a fund, the payment of that fee, that permit fee or whatever or that fund goes to the developer not to individual households. So Guilford can correct me if I'm wrong. As it relates to these, to this bylaw, the fees we're talking about are fees that the developer would pay. Is that correct, Guilford? That's correct. But remember, anytime you charge a fee to development or a fee for anything in town, it does get passed eventually to the end user. So there is. Not that. Right. People are extremely focused right now on increased fees of any kind. And I just wanna make sure we understand where this fee gets levied and how it impacts the individual taxpayer. Now, the one thing I'll just add real quickly if we do go down the utility route in the future, those fees, you know, there's different ways to structure them, but those fees would be levied on the owner of the parcel based on whatever metric the town decided, which in Northampton, it's a, there's different levels and it's based on the either square footage or percentage of impermeable surface. So again, these bylaws don't levy the fee don't levy the fee in that manner, but just so we're all clear if we go down the utility route in the future, that's a different story. But it would be on new development. So the stormwater fees that are based that are part of the stormwater bylaw, if we charge it, we're gonna charge a fee for reviewing the permits, those fees are accessed to the developer as any other fee, the water connection fee, the sewer connection fee, the building permit fee, the ZBA fee, they have to go to ZBA, the DAAC fee, going to the DAAC, the DRB fee, the all the other fees that are part of developing a project in Amherst, that yes, this fee will be going to that developer who's making this project. And then those fees, like everything else, get divided up and what they sell or what they need to make for their project being successful. So this is something that does go to the developer, but it does get passed on somehow to the people either buying the houses or coming into the store and using the store. It does get passed on a little bit, but that's... I understand passed on, but if I buy a new home developed with these kinds of regulations and the permitting, am I going to have an ongoing fee that I have to pay every year? Based on approving this bylaw, no. Thank you, that was the question. The only thing that I recall from our last discussion of it was that if there is a renovation that somebody's doing to their house that is turning part of their permeable land into impermeable, that there may be a fee that they would have to pay. But not on a reoccurring... Not on a reoccurring basis. They redo their property and trigger the storm order bylaw. They pay for the permit review only. That's it. They're not assessed the next year because they changed their driveway last year. And you'll see in the fee structure that there's a breakdown between residential and commercial for that, for what you just discussed. Right. Okay. I'm going to keep this moving, but because I want to get onto CPI, but Kathy. Okay. I realize I'm trying to beat this into the ground, but Gelford, you're choosing your words, I think very carefully said, not based on these bylaws. So you're not... Bylaws don't currently have fees in them. So my question is six or seven years from now, I'm in a house that I do nothing to. Okay. I didn't change my driveway. And the assessor comes along and says, I have an impermeable whatever driveway or I have a great driveway because the water goes through it. Will I ever pay a fee if I don't change it? If all you do today or tomorrow is approve this stormwater bylaw, you will never pay a fee on stormwater. But some towns, I think what you've said have set up a utility that ends at some future point charges fees, correct? Right now I understand what we're approving doesn't do this. What I'm asking is in the future, could this be a possibility? In the future, the town council has the priority to set up that type of mechanism to fund projects in the town. Okay. Thank you. Bernie? I think the point's been made that if a utility is set up and the town council has to do that, then the utility may assess an ongoing fee. That was one of the big arguments they had in North Hampton before certain areas in town where there'd be a stormwater utility. I don't think this is gonna be an issue anywhere in town for residential areas. I think there's certain areas in town where we meet that urban standard that if a utility was put in place, there would be fees. But there's no utility now, not contemplated by these bylaws. Right, I did understand that but it's just the potential is there. So it's a decision in the future. Got it. Okay. Sean, one thing you've mentioned several times about information that's been provided on fees and things that you've learned from North Hampton, could you make sure that that gets put into the packet for today's meeting? Yep. And so then any members of the committee who are not sure they have it, they can look back to the packet and find it. So... I just wanna remind us that this, I believe, has to come to the council and passed by July one. Am I correct about that? Yes. So it also needs to be in front of the other committees. And the question I guess before the finance committee is, do we need to have a comeback to us again and why? What I was thinking of and I was gonna conclude with this and then go on is that is the next step and it doesn't have to be for the next meeting but I'd like to get it done before we get into the budget review meetings. And that is to do a draft report on what we've learned and want the council to understand about the financial. Have that reviewed by all of the staff who are present who've been working on it to make sure that they're comfortable with what we're proposing to say and see if the committee is comfortable with it. And then we would make that our report to the council on the financial, what we've learned about the financial implications of the bylaws. And I don't think that we need to make a recommendation because quite frankly, the council has no choice but to enact bylaws if it wants to avoid fines. And we can say that, but I don't think we have to make it into a recommendation then. So if that sounds like an acceptable conclusion we can go on to the Community Preservation Act. Anything else? I'll, Bernice, your hand is still up but I assume that's from before. And so if I don't say anybody else raising hands I'm going to assume that there's agreement to what I proposed as a process. And we'll go on to the CPA proposals and Sarah Marshall who's the chair of the CPA committee is here, Anthony Delaney who's worked with the CPA committee and Sonja Aldrich who also has worked with the CPA committee all year. And so that the, they, and we, the council had a presentation of the Community Preservation Act proposals, so I, and I don't know if the three resident members have any initial questions that they want to ask, otherwise I'll just see if there are questions about the recommendations. And the one thing I want to remind you of is that I don't know if there are any questions about the recommendations. And the one thing I want to remind you of is that the one that we're not talking about today because it's sort of in a separate package and they'll be dealt with in a separate vote from the others is the library proposal. So, Bernie. I don't know if this is the appropriate time that we're going to launch into a discussion. I just wanted some clarification on the community housing, the Amherst Community Connection Housing. How many people are being served by that? Because the red up says six people at 950 a month's maximum for a year, that's way less than $226,000. It's up to six people for up to three years. So that's, yeah, so that's the maximum cost. Okay, so how many people? Three years. So there, how many people are being supported by that now? How many now in the part I'm not sure that I'm not sure if that project has finished, but it's fewer people, I believe. Because one of their reasons for now proposing or requesting six vouchers is their success with running a smaller program and they've built up the experience. Okay, so they've been transitioning people, they support people for a year and they're transitioning them over. Okay, and is there overhead money in there operating money for Amherst Community Connections? There is an administrative fee of $60 per month per voucher and I sent a memo specifically about that fee to Andy a while ago. I don't know if it was distributed to the rest of the finance committee, but they follow the HUD guidelines for what is appropriate administrative charges for a program like this. Okay, well, thanks for the clarification. Sure. Okay, I have some questions on that particular proposals and observations, but I wanted to wait to see if there are others we can stick with community housing for the moment, which is the one single proposal. So I guess the questions that I have, and this isn't unique to this proposal, but it actually touches on any of the CPA proposals but it would be useful to hear how we are monitoring compliance with grant conditions and what evaluation process is going on to determine the success of the project and meeting its goals. I don't know if Sarah or any of our staff present have a response to that question. You want me to take this? Oh, Anthony, yes, please. Can speak about the billing or anything. So for each project, recipients submit invoices to the town for reimbursement. They're not given the money all at once, but they have to get reimbursed. The invoices come, they're reviewed by a relevant staff person. So a historical preservation gets reviewed by a staff person in the planning department. They review it to make sure it's in compliance with their original proposal. It's sent to myself or Holly Bowser. We review it and make sure it's not seeking funding for something that the CPA Act doesn't allow. And so it goes through two layers of approval before it hits the accounts payable clerk. And does anybody doing a actual evaluation of the process of grant monitoring type of process to see that it's meeting its goals and making it into a value? Yeah, well, we've never done kind of site visit things if that's what you're thinking of. As I mentioned it during the presentation, we have or we are starting to require grant recipients to report back to the committee or at least to the finance department, finance department, which will then copy the committee on progress reports either. I don't remember if we decided every six months or 12 months but to tell us how they are doing. Are they spending the money? Are they accomplishing what they set up to accomplish? But there's never been a sort of concluding report that I know of the, and I think Alyssa had asked about this at the meeting. There's no kind of completing the circle with the CPA committee about the success of the project. In this case, because ACC has received money in the past, they're able to talk about their experience running this and similar programs. And we can ask questions of them at the time. So did you have something else to add? Yeah, we've never really had a formal process in the past, we're trying to put that in place for now, but usually the committees that recommend these projects will review that and the people would report back to them. Also, it depends on the project. Like for buying a piece of land, Dave, it's really good about coming back and saying how all that went and everything. It depends on the complexity of that. So there is a process that we've gone through, but it's just never been formalized and we're working on formalizing that for each area because they're so different. Dorothy, two questions. Yes, it seems to me that what would be good would be a performance audit. And I'm pretty sure that they would be quite pleased to do that because in a performance audit, when first of all, you state what your goals are and then what progress, how it has gone, that could review other structures that would need to be worked on that don't exist. I mean, some of what they're doing is, you could call it transitional housing, trying to stabilize people. Does that, how well is it working or is there a very important step that needs to be provided by some other entity perhaps that's not there? Yeah, I understand that. But yeah, this would be new for CPA, you know? It's just really has been grant making. It's not like the United Way of Hampshire County that does site visits of the projects that they've been funding. Can I always respond to that? Yeah, I don't know, Sonia. It's not really new to CPA. I mean, in the past, the proposers that came every year, they would give an update on the project that they just got approved. Like I said, there was just never a formal process or a written report required before. So those things have been in place. They just part of the, should be part of the minutes or something, just getting a written report out. So now I have a question for Sonia. Do you mean grant recipients who weren't, who were not applying for more funding? They would just come back and give an update to the committee? No, no, the people that were coming back every year, I said. And a lot of that is in the questions that the CPA committee submits every year. You know, how is, where are you with this project? Who was it successful in the past? So like I said, we just need to put it into a more formal process. Yeah, I'm gonna just conclude with a, make an observation and then I'd know if there are two other hands up. This is a difficult one because it is a very different kind of proposal. But if we're talking about how many, how much money we're spending to house one individual or one family unit, and we compare it to two other proposals that we considered which actually, which involve are providing initial funds that were then are being used presumably to match other funds coming from the state to actually build something that has a long-term piece to it. The cost per year per unit is substantially higher when you're paying rental on an ongoing basis than construction, and I mean substantially higher because if I look at 226,700 dollars to acquire six units of housing for three years, it's like close to the $30,000. $38,000 a year per unit for Belcher Town Road, which we just invested $825,000. If I just, these are actually ownership. So there's no year limit if I just calculated it as 30 years and 40 units. We're talking about an investment of $700 per unit in Northampton Road, $750,000 and that includes the CDBG and CPA money that's been allocated with 28 units. And again, arbitrarily just capping it at 30 years, we're talking about $900 per unit roughly. There's a substantial, substantially greater cost. And I think that the question that the CPA committee we hope grappled with, and that I think the council needs to grapple with is, is this money, this substantial additional cost, an appropriate allocation of CPA money of this size for a three-year project or should it be held for the next major project like Belcher Town Road or Northampton Road? And I don't think that that's a finance committee decision in the end. I think that's a council decision in the end, but I sort of couldn't help but think about that. So I just wanna put that on as to why I think that evaluation is something to talk about because this isn't more of a program than just renting a house in some ways, but I think we ought to understand that. Lynn, your hand is up. Yeah, and I'm still on the same project because, yes, and I think some of my question may eke over into something that goes beyond finance, but at this point, no other committee is reviewing these. And if we just need to make sure that we've raised those issues. So, if this is something to help people get on their feet and so the evaluation, and so one question is, will CPA monies at the state level given to the towns or will the regulations for CPA, I'm sorry, because it's our money, will they in fact allow us to do an evaluation? Are we allowed to evaluate using our CPA money? And that's only one question, my brothers. I'm not sure what you mean by using money to do an evaluation. Well, I mean, staff time too. Will it, you know, our third party, will can CPA money be used to contract for a third party evaluation or for staff time to do an evaluation? And it really gets down to whether or not the goals of this project are actually achieving what the project says the goals are. And the only way you're gonna do that is really look at the individual cases and determine whether or not we're meeting those goals. But CPAs only funding the housing aspect of the larger program. So I don't know that it's CPAs. I mean, we certainly hope that all the social service support that CPA is not paying for is successful and enabling the clients to stabilize their lives and employment as well as their housing situation. But we only fund that, you know, the rental. And, you know, and if people, and if they don't place people in apartments then they don't bill CPA. So, I mean, I think I would say that, yes, the CPA purpose is fulfilled. Okay, but then how do they differentiate, for instance, if a person applies for these monies, why wouldn't they apply for section eight? And how do other parts of the safety net funding out there fit into this money? It's my understanding that ACC tries to pull on all the sources of support for their clients. And this is one of them. I'm, you know, you, as I believe we all know the wait for section eight, the public housing vouchers is very long. So, you know, even if they're successful that leaves a lot of people without such housing. And then another question that really is financial nature and that is that when a organization submits their application, do they have to submit their annual auditable statements? No, that is not a requirement, but I have been thinking about that. I mean, usually we, usually of course their town projects, but we do, you know, as in this case and others have non-profits applying. I don't know that there's any reason we can't request that or maybe Sonya can speak if there's any sort of, I don't know, review of the organization. I don't know. Okay, that's, yeah. I mean, your hand is... Oops, go ahead. Go ahead. We haven't done that in the past, but I think it's great suggestion and we can add that to the process for the year. But I also wanted to go back to Andy's point that he was making earlier. I don't know if you were part of the committee way back when this first came out with the first grant to this organization. That was, they had a hard time deciding whether to do this or not because the CPA committee's goal at the time was for more bricks and mortar type housing than it was for services like this. So I don't know if you're getting that from a past CPA committee, but they've come back for more money and the committee's recommended it. So, but that was the intent. It was supposed to be for just one year because they didn't have a brick and mortar project, but they wanted to do more bricks and mortar in the future. Yeah, I mean, to be to answer your question, must explosively. I would select boardly assigned to the CPA committee at that time. And it certainly was something that I recall. Kathy? I'm gonna, I'll just both ask a question and make a suggestion. I think with projects like this one, I'm not saying this is the only one, but what we did when I worked for a private grant giving foundation is in the award letter, we had a one page final report, closing report required for the grant that was that asked a couple and the staff just wrote it on the goals of the project were the following. They copied from something and they just had, they requested that the recipient fill it out and withheld the last 5% or some small percent of the award before the final report came in. And it was a way of filling a file cabinet. You know, not a lot. You know, I'm sort of facetious, but it was a way if anyone say whatever happened to that project, you could actually say it was a total failure. And here are the 14 reasons why it just didn't work the way we thought. But it was safeguarding the fiduciary side of the foundation for due diligence and giving out the money. And it put all the burden of the reporting on the recipient, you know, and made it simple. You know, I mean, this was a form that was tailor made to the project rather than a boilerplate. Everyone had to do an essay. So that's just one thought that it could be in the future, you know, letting people know that you might want to do that. And then I just on this one, I don't really have a question on this one as much as when Bernie flagged the math, I multiplied through by the six people, 950, 12 months, another 60, I don't quite get to the total, but I think the way you do this, this is a question, the way you do the payment is they bill you for it as the expenses incur, correct? You know, so if they managed to get a place for 800 bucks, you don't get billed for 950. So this is a constant, we might get more than six people a year if they can do it cheaper or whatever. Is that correct, Sonia? So, you know, if they don't quite place everyone they think or they can place more, you get a billable either monthly or quarterly from them. Sorry. All right, I was finding my mute button. Anthony, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we pay the landlords directly for those? And then whatever administrative costs is... Okay. And I don't think they could do more than six, not at once. I think if they're successful in, let's say somebody gets an apartment and then eight months later moves into, gets a public housing voucher, then they can try to put somebody else, another client. So it may be more than six people, but I don't think it'll be more than six rental units. Right? That actually answers it. If we're paying the landlord, that answers my question on how we track the money. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Pat. Thank you, Andy. I think we're weighing apples and oranges here and saying they're the same fruit. The CPA grant is going out now to people who are in need. Affordable housing like Belcher Town Road or 132 North Hampton Road are incredible projects, but they're off in the future. They're not offsetting need now. And I think I really feel very strongly that the CPA is directing funds to what's needed now and to in any way interfere with that would be problematic for me. I do agree that there needs to be some way of evaluating this program or any program, but it started to sound like, oh, well, we're doing affordable housing so we don't need ACC. And I think that's a mistake. Housing is a multi-dimensional problem and this is one aspect of the community that needs support. So we advocate for it. Thank you, Sarah. I'll just kind of see if I can clarify what I said because I wasn't trying to mix apples and oranges, but I'm glad you brought that up. What I was trying to say. I think it was the one who mixed it. The council could make an evaluative decision as to whether it wants to hold funds for the next major project for housing or do this proposal because it is unique for what it has to offer. That's a choice to be made. I think that was the only point that I was trying to make because if you're saying let's hold more money aside for the next Belchertown Road or Northampton Road that comes along because it's so much more cost effective to use the term. I mean, it's a valid decision for the council to make, but that was the only point. Doesn't mean it's a good thing. Yeah, I wasn't saying that, I was just pointing it out. I know, Andy, I'm sorry. I'm the old human services guy here. And my concern always with stuff like the housing piece, the supportive housing is I don't want anyone put in jeopardy because of the inadequacies of an organization that's getting the money and doing the support. Now, we're paying, if I'm doing the sort of back of the envelope calculation, there's about $21,000 that's going to Amherst Community Connections for their, to cover their expenses. But regardless of it's ACC or anyone, anyone who gets this money should be a going concern, should be a legal entity and a going concern that we can hold accountable if something goes wrong or if they want to come back in, in terms of each and every one of these projects, there should be an outcome measure and a final report. Even if it's the town who's building a new pavilion at Groth Park, we want to know that it got built, that it got built in a timely fashion and then it's functional. And if there's any money left over, it's coming back to the CPA. So it, you know, and I think this is all well within what the CPA can do. It's all within the well, within the administrative expenses that you can charge having managed the CPA in a couple of communities. I feel comfortable saying that. So I think that for the future, these need to be incorporated into the grant process. You know, I'd hate to see, you know, Jimmy Joe's pretty good baseball team get a grant to improve a field of West Palmer Royer. Something not that the field of West Palmer Royer doesn't need improvement, but that the whosoever getting the money is illegal and today, that's a going concern. Sarah, do your hands is still up? I don't know if that was for the floor. No, I just to circle back, just to note that the emergency housing, the emergency rental housing program that the affordable housing trust is running uses CPA money. So this is not the only time CPA funds have been put towards rent. That program, of course, it's more limited, but I just wanted to note that. How do I put my hand down? Oh, okay. And Kathy, did you have anything for her? Kathy, your hand was still up. I just wanted to make sure. Kathy froze. All right, I'm trying to take it down, but he doesn't appear anymore. So I am take, it's down. Okay. Okay, it's still up in my screen, but that's okay. So we're going, I think we should go on to see if there are any other proposals so that people want to have questions about. And Lynn, do you want to put up a list of programs? So is a spreadsheet that Sonia provided or? Just give me a moment now. If you can find it or I can. Okay. You know, I just want to make sure that if there are questions about any of the other proposals that we have an opportunity to hear from them. And we'll go through them quickly by category. And well, she's looking, Sarah, the historic preservation. I know the one was the Goodwin Church. And it was. Town hall step. And then the side, the Jones Lotery was. Here we come. Andy's frozen for, for I was, like. Yes. Notice that Sarah's frozen on mine. Is this the report you meant, Andy? Okay. That'll do. So are they, let's just go through the list and see if there are any other questions that people want to ask about any of the proposals as we go through, because we want to make sure that it's their questions. This is the time to ask. So continue moving down. Can I say that they're all listed on the council order? Go to the pride. You don't want this. Okay. The council order is better than this, but I have one question on that document, Lynn, when we get to it. Okay. So that's the Jones library list. Categories. Yeah. This is Bob, the council order, the numbers are different and some of the projects are different than what's in this report. So I assume that's just a matter of time, timing issue. You know, I'm sorry, but I don't think I have the council order in my thing. I'll have to go get it. Hold on. Okay. Andy, would you like me just to slowly mention each project and see if anybody wants, has a question? I'm going to share my screen and see if I can get it up in the council order. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask Kathy to keep an eye on the hand raised function in case I don't see it as I do this. But... Oh, there. So the one we've talked about is the top line, the community housing. Your screen. The historic preservation. We have a start with, is that showing it? Yeah, it is. I don't see Andy's screen. Oh, there it is. So are you seeing the, because I can't tell it's on your screen, I can only tell it's on my own. Do you see the list for the next, the group that is historic preservation, which is Goodwin Church, North Library will all repair the town hall, front, and set steps through restoration. Whoops. I guess the question is whether... You're breaking up a little bit, Andy. Any of those proposals? You just unshared. Yeah, I don't think you have the bandwidth to share your screen and talk, Councilor Steinberg. Okay. Can I just show, I can show it, but this looks like last year's. No, this is it. Yep, that's it. That's it. All right. Is Andy still on? I'm on. Okay. All right, Andy, I'm sharing now, so you don't have to. Okay, yeah. No, I don't think I'm sharing anymore. No, you are. So, Kathy, do you have questions on any of these? No, I have a comment to respond to Bob's comment on the memo, not exactly matching. And I think it's because the memo shows the total amount spent in some of these categories, including debt services, and you don't see the actual new projects until you get to the spreadsheet. Because I had, I kept thinking the debt service was in addition to the grants, but it's included, that 338 is included. Okay. So, if you go to the line items, I think they match up, Bob, when you get to the spreadsheet with new projects. The Jones Library isn't in there. So. No, that is correct. It is not, because that will be voted on separately. Understood. Understood. That's the borrowing authorization, so it's a separate council order. But this also doesn't include debt, because debt on CPA is a funding source when you vote the operating budget. So the number for CPA is in debt and you'll see it as a funding source. For that. It's already been approved. Right. Yeah. It hasn't been voted by council yet, but you won't see it on this list. So you're gonna, you have to take the whole picture in there to match the report. Andy, then I do have one question on the overall list. When we look at this, Sonia, this is all non-debt, correct? So like North Common Project, that is an appropriation without any debt. Everything on here is cash. Okay. Barrowing. Okay. And no debt. No, no. Service either. I'm asking if there are any questions on any of the other projects that are there on our list. I think that they were well explained at the council meeting and in the order that we've got focused on one because of its size and sort of uniqueness. North Common Project, we were aware of its size, but that's really one that we're dealing with also through other processes in the council, but certainly if there are any recommendations, this is the additional money that's being requested to add for this year to come. That's in the calculation that TSO is working with. Dorothy? I just have a question about the mill river pool. I'm just having a feeling of deja vu. I'm kind of interested. Is the pool solid? I mean, I think it's been repaired at various times and it needs like every two or three years, this kind of big resurfacing or does it need to be dug out and redone or was that done? Or was that the war memorial pool that was done? Just kind of wanting to know where the pool is in the cycle of needing just regular maintenance and needing to be repaired or replaced. I believe it as a part of the annual maintenance has been recoding with this epoxy, waterproofer at the end of the season, but it is no longer holding basically because the concrete surface is just peeling off. So that's one issue. And then the cracks, some of which are quite deep and I gather have not been repaired. I mean, I haven't been on the committee for very long. I know that the filter or the pump, some of the mechanical parts of the mill river pool were replaced some years ago. I have not heard of CPA funds being spent on the structure. So I just, I like the mill river pool and I just wanna make sure it's gonna stay strong and be looked at appropriately, that's all. Well, it's an old pool. That's the major one that I really involved with the other one, Moore Memorial. That was when I first came to town, I think, the early, that was being a process. So I just kind of like people saying, let's have notice. I guess I would be interested in an idea when we need to do something really big on that pool, which I know is out of your area, Sarah. To the mill river pool. I mean, some further work, like, yeah, I don't know. That would be a question for DPW, I guess. We could ask, I don't think we can do it for this round, but it's a reasonable question to ask whether there is a list of recreational facilities that need significant work. I know we've talked a little bit about basketball courts. I think that Dave Zomac responded to that. There was money set aside for it already. And the question is, what's happening with that money? There's other things that are coming up. Certainly the community fields discussion is going on. Excuse me, Andy, Dave Zomac is in... We can ask the question. Excuse me, Andy, it's Paul. Dave Zomac's in the audience and he has his hand raised. Okay, I want to bring... Lynn. I'm bringing him in. Are you running or is Athena? Athena. Hi, Andy. Can you all hear me? Yes. Yes. Yeah, I just, if I had a moment, I just wanted to respond to Dorothy's questions to give a little more background from Sarah's answer. So yeah, we've made great strides at both of the pools, War Memorial and Mill River over the past 10 years or so. War Memorial is a 1950s pool. We did a major overhaul of the pool some eight years ago, eight, nine years ago, spending a couple of hundred thousand dollars there on getting grant money to do that. But again, War Memorial, the bath house is original. We didn't get to all the issues there, but we made a great progress. On Mill River, Sarah was correct. We did use CPA money to completely replace the original 19, I believe in 1971, 72 pump and filtration system for the entire pool. And DPW oversaw that work during 2020. And as Sarah indicated, there is a pretty major leak in Mill River pool. So that's what some of this new money will be used for. But again, these things, what we're trying to do is do incremental improvements to them to make sure that they stay up to date, that they're meeting all the standards and requirements for pool water and that we don't waste water. I mean, we pay for all the water because that's an enterprise fund. So we certainly don't want water going down between the cracks and between the pumping and filtration system. So these older pool facilities do take a significant amount of TLC and over time we do need to invest in them. But I think once we get this pulse of work done, both of the pools should be in reasonably good shape. I think the next thing to consider would be where, if and when we replace the bath house at War Memorial. Regarding recreation projects overall, I think staff and I, Guilford myself and some of the planning staff have certainly developed an inventory, a list of logical recreation projects that will need capital investment, CPA investment over time. We did spend a lot of time on the community field and high school project. And we'd love to revisit that at the appropriate time based on other capital needs like the four major capital projects. So happy to answer questions now. We'll see who are in the future as time permits. Thank you. Thanks Dave. Are there any questions of Dave? From the subject that we were just talking about. So are there any questions on any of the other projects? I have a question, but I can't figure out how to raise my hand since I'm sharing the screen. Okay, just go ahead. David, am I? Thank you. David, am I correct when you say that we queued up the fields? Is there a plan developed for what we need to do to those fields? And Sean Mangano and I were recently talking about this even in the last, I think 24 hours. So we do have a master plan for the community field and high school and middle school fields that was developed about two years ago by Weston and Samson. That process was driven, I think, by the urgency created by the state of the track and the field within the track at the high school, the regional high school. I think Sean and I would kind of both agree that we came up with a range for replacing a project that ranged some millions of dollars in the 3.5 to $6 million range for a new track, a new turf field and a modest, not stadium, but a modest area for people to view those facilities, community members and parents and whatnot to view those facilities. But we never took it to the next level. I think what we need to do is work with Mike Morris and Doug over at the school to really take that to the next level to kind of drill down and see where exactly that number would be in that range of say 3.5 to $6 million for that facility. What we, one of the conclusions, Lynn, was that we really should be investing in the fields, that community field, the high school and the middle school. Those are our strongest assets, their core to our community, they're geographically well situated and we really, we don't need more fields. We need to invest in the fields we have and explore the possibility that one turf field might be a way to really help us provide more playing time, more practice time and more rest time for the fields that we have. So that was kind of in a nutshell. And we could, that study is available. Sean could get it for everyone on the call. And I'm assuming that that would only come forward at the point in time where the regional school district is ready to have it do so. Sarah has her hand up. Those counting. Yes, the region came to CPA last year for funding and we did, and council did approve an initial brand. I may be imagining $125,000, I don't recall, but they were also asking the member towns for smaller amounts. And having heard nothing back, I don't know if they were successful in getting CPA grants from Leverett-Schutzberry and Pelham. So it's quite possible the project is stalled and they certainly have a lot else to be working on right now. So they did try to take an initial step towards further refining the plan that Dave mentioned. Kathy. You know, when Doug Slaughter came and proposed that, Sarah, I happened to be there too. And he actually withdrew it, I think, because they weren't ready to proceed in doing something. But he was talking about the number you just said, but said that would only finance about half of what they needed to really redo a plan they could afford. And Dave, I just, you know, I wanna make a comment on the big picture plan that Western and Samson did. I don't know whether we gave them a cap to what we could spend but a variety of people who do turf, who do track repairs, who do fields at UMass and engineers were starting to price it out and wondering how we could possibly spend that much. So I think there was a reaction that that price tag was way high and there's gotta be something that can do the type of investment that you're talking about that we all think we need to do that isn't in that range. And I know Sean, I asked you, I saw Sunderland had put in a new piece and you told me that their track didn't have the same drainage and siding kinds of issues that we did. But I just like to get some comparables before we start talking about magnitudes that will mean that we never do the project because it costs too much. It's not on the list of capital projects. So a plea to start out with, if we could only spend this much, what could we get kind of request when we go out to Western and Samson types who may be planning for much fancier bleachers than we need to have in the town of Amherst. So it's just a request for the future because that money's already been spent. Andy, can I just follow up on one quick point? Yeah, go ahead. And then Sonya and I can confirm, Kathy, I do believe the CPA allocation for the region was ultimately approved. I think you were right that at the like the last meeting where it was discussed, I believe the region had said, you know, we're hitting some, you know, we're not going to be able to do anything with this this upcoming year. So if you don't approve it, it's okay. But I think ultimately it was approved. So it is there. You're saying it's sitting on the books now? Yeah, I think it'll be a project that was approved last year that we can, or camera was last year, the year before, but we'll double check and just see if that's where that's at. And Dave and I do check in with Doug and Dr. Morris from time to time to just see where we're at with the status of these projects. Because it's a sort of a team effort because the border between those fields is right at the top of where that track field is, where it separates between region-owned land and town of Amherstown land. And so it's really got to be a joint effort as we move forward. Dave, did you have anything else to add on this? Yeah, I just wanted a quick follow-up on Kathy. Kathy, you're absolutely right. I think it's important to note that the work that we hired Weston and Samson to do was not to dive into the exact figures or numbers, cost estimates for turf fields or other improvements. Their work was to document the current status of our fields throughout town, which they found by and large to be in very poor shape. And the other piece, the other conclusion of their work, and again, it was a broad base, was really to say, do we need more fields? If so, how many? And the conclusion was, no, we don't. We have plenty of fields. It's just the condition that is the issue. And then they were to look at what could we do with the regional land and community field for the long-term, maybe a 20-year plan for how we could restore and better use those fields. What they found is that our use of those fields, the way they're configured is not optimal. For instance, the soccer field is both situated in the wrong location from a drainage standpoint, but also it is situated in the wrong direction east-west. And most fields of that sort would be north-south like the football field is. They also just suggested us consolidating field use, varsity field use onto a turf field, which could be used 12 months a year for practices and games and the community, and get away from having multiple, multiple natural turf fields which are very costly to maintain and also aren't available as many months a year for practice and for games. So that was the purpose. And I think the money that Doug sought and any other further money would really get into what you talked about, Kathy, which is let's get some realistic numbers if we wanna go with the turf field with the track. Let's really zero in on what that would cost so that the community has apples to apples choices to make. So thanks. Okay, Dorothy. Well, I'm just gonna make a statement that this is a great opportunity for cooperation between the town of Amherst and University of Massachusetts. I know they did a huge overhaul of their fields. And remember when I heard the price, I was quite shocked. So obviously this is a complex thing. They know how to do it though, because they just did it. And I know that there have been times when they have used our fields and when we have used their fields. I just think this is a very major expense, but it's the one place where there is some cooperation. And if there's any way that we can get cooperation, expertise and money from UMass on this, I think it would be a great thing to do. So I'm just kind of trying to put a bug in your ear. Thank you. Okay, so I think that what we need to do, I'm gonna ask one question of the public that is in attendance. We're gonna come back to public comment a second time on other issues, but I wanted to know if there's any public comment specifically about Community Preservation Act proposals that are under consideration for this year. So I'm looking to see if there's any raised hands that come from the attendees list for public comment on this on the Community Preservation Act. So seeing none, are we in a position at this point to consider a motion to recommend appropriation and transfer order FY-2207, which would fund the projects that are listed in the order that is presented to us and is on your screen. I believe we are. And if so, then the discussion that we had about specific proposals can be incorporated in a report to go with the motion. So I'll treat it as a motion. Is there a second? I'll second it. Okay. So I'm gonna ask one more question of the public comment for the second. I'll second it. Two seconds. Okay. Not the second for the second of the minutes. So we have a motion on the table and the second that the committee is recommending this appropriation and transfer order. And I will go through the committee and get the votes of the entire committee. And I'm gonna ask the three resident members if they have any further comments or recommendations as we go through with the vote. So let me start with that. Bob Hegner, do you have anything else to add? No. And are you recommending that I agree with the motion? Yes, I would recommend it. And Bernie? I would recommend a, you know, we kicked it around fairly well and I would recommend the passage. Jane? Yeah, I agree. Okay. So going to the council members is to vote because our rules have the council members of the ones who are voting and I'll start with Dorothy Pam. Yes. Lynn Grismer. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Pat D'Angeles. Aye. And I'm voting yes, so it's five to zero. And we will note that there was a support of the three members of the committee. So I wanna thank Sarah and Anthony and Sonia for all of their report. You're all, of course, welcome to remain as we go into the next subjects because we are going to now get into a discussion of library issues, financial issues and what we're trying to do today, recognizing the limitation on time that we have and what our goal was. We said that today we would try and identify the issues that are for, that we need to consider and what additional reports we might need to ask of staff as we develop our recommendation at future meeting. So that this is about identification of issues. It's not about substantive discussion of the issues. And with that, I'm gonna ask Lynn to go back to screen sharing, she's looking, I'm sure, for the document that we were going to put on the screen but we have obtained from members of the council and from the public a series of questions and what we tried to do was to identify, to put them into categories so that we could all see what the categories were for the questions and then also divide the category list so that it would have the asterisks indicating ones where in our initial discussion, we felt that there was financial consideration. It's worth recalling that the referral to this committee was not about the proposal as a whole, it was about the financial implications and financial issues related to the proposal that will be for the council in April. So what I'm looking for right now is comments about the category of questions that have been identified and about the, if there are any thoughts about specific things that we might wanna ask of our staff or others to help us to analyze those issues. So with that context, I'll recognize that. Thank you, Andy. And I hope it's in that context, it is number one, the total costs. I'm concerned, I'd like to get real cost construction estimates because the estimates we've been working with are from 2019 as a start date. And so I guess I really like to know what is the estimated cost increase for starting the library project in 2022. And that's basically, and including escalations, what the escalation amount is and what the total costs would be. We don't have those figures to work with. Okay, is somebody making a record of these comments on this one? I certainly am. Okay, thank you. Because we all know that I have my limitations right now, ability to do that. Kathy? I'm gonna build on what Pat did, but I also sent a very detailed list of questions, which I think Lynn's categories capture everything I sent in. So I don't know whether you want me to repeat them all now. But, and so I know Lynn already has them, but on the total cost, when the documents that we received on Monday night in the Cune Riddle document that had to repair and make accessible options, also on page 72 and 73, had the numbers Pat just referenced. And that's the, and what I notice is they're exactly the same as what went in with the grant proposal in 2017. So that's what she's referencing. So it's a question of why it's two the last dollar in it. It's not just rounding era. And I know we got on Monday night, an estimate that added the sustainability and the new material that I'm talking about the base. So just to underscore, there is a specific document. And I just want to know if there is no escalation, why have found a different way of doing this that can be cheaper? And what happens if it's higher is my question, Ken, or is there some wiggle room in this that the town could be assured that it would be no more than that amount. So it's not just what the total cost is, but how do we have a risk guarantee on it? And did you want me to go just on number two? While I'm here? Yeah, I do. I'm sorry. On the cash flow financing, this is more for Sean and staff that did the, you know, what if we went out with debt and such and such a year and how much would we have to pay over a 20 year, 30 year period? I would like to have those come back to us with consistency. The option to unrepair was not done at all. We just didn't have it. I mean, he may have done it, but if they were started in the same year, there was some quite, I would call it optimistic, but I'm willing to buy that we could get it for, for the expansion and renovate. There was an assumption that we could go out and get a long-term bond at 2.8%. And as far as I can see, it was at a premium. So what we're paying back is just 15 million rather than 15.751. So there's another 751. I want that confirmed and could, what would option two look like with that same financing? And I just want consistency, you know? So it applied to the same because option two could be done in the same time period with a start date. And I just want to note, I did have a question on the CPA flow. Sonya got back to me, but when we price out long-term debt for CPA, we're not using the same interest rates that we use when we did the Jones expansion. So I would just like to know, you know, what's the upside of what if it's not 2.8? What's it three? So that's purely a tell me about the cash flow and do it in a consistent way. Can we get there for a moment and just see if others have... I just stop at those two points. I have all your questions, Kathy, okay? And I have extensive questions from other people. So I think the issue is, are these the right categories and are there broad issues? Like, you know, Pat raised up front, you seconded and that is, you know, what is the cost now? And how do we know there's not going to be overrun? And then you've also asked for the consistency of the cash flow. If we're going to do every one of these, then I didn't prepare for that. No, I won't go to the others, but Lynn, there was one I thought of this morning that I'd like to just add to the list as a category. When, if we went forward with this, the library would be closed for two years or almost two years somewhere in that neighborhood. And I noticed in the grant, there is an allocation to pay rent. I just wanted to, do we have a, is it going to, who's the rent being paid to? Is that a hard number? And the operating costs of the library for those two years, those two, could we be thinking of it being considerably lower than it has been because there won't be any utility costs. There won't be any maintenance costs. I assume we're not going to be buying books while the library is closed. So could we, that might give us some relief on the other side of the modeling that Sean is doing on what happens to operating costs if library for two years was a lower. And I didn't know whether we were planning on paying everyone. And I wasn't sure how many people will be working during those two years. So it's a, what happens doing that two years while the building is being built? That's my question to the operating budget and to where are we going to look, what, where are we paying rent to? And are, is that some opportunity that we could save money? That's that one. And of course the operating budget is under number 10. Right Andy, but I, the other operating budget is, what do we think? Yeah, I just was pointing it out, I was just arguing with you, I just pointing it out. Well I'm just doing closure years because I want to make sure it's the endowment, is the endowment sufficient to support the operating budget in the future is another set of questions. This is, I just realized it's going to be closed. The official thing will be closed and it's going to be operating on some level during the time it's closed. So, Andy. Yeah, no, I think that that, yes, go ahead. I was just going to say the other one that I think is being added is the question is whether operating budget will be affected during the period of construction. And actually there's going to be a period that the library is closed regardless whether we end up going forward with the grant or doing the repairs. Yeah, I realize that and both all the options had a $500,000 allocation to pay rent and relocation and storage costs. So it is, it applies to all of them and it's just some, it's closed longer than others. So that was my, what happens in that time period. Okay. Looking for, going back to the hands, then Bernie. There's some good questions. This one is probably, I'm not sure where this fits, but I think it's simpler. One of the options that Sean talked about in the proposal that was done for the council was to, in sequencing this, was to borrow the town's share of the project first and then invest the grant money. I know on federal money, if you invest it, if you earn any interest on it, it comes off the grant. I'm not sure that's true with the state. So I'd really like to have that investigated. And I'm just curious as to whether or not that option of borrow first, use the grant later, how viable that is? Because right now, interest rates are incredibly good. So if we move forward with this, if we can borrow early and lock those rates in, that would be a real savings. Okay. Andy, I just wanted to build on that, because I had that very same question about whether you can truly take the MVLC money and invest it and how is the money earned from that investment? So, well, I'll bring back more details on that, but just so everyone is aware. So one other town has done that. And we spoke with the MVLC about that very thing. And they said it was an option for us to consider. So we spoke with them at length about whether, because I agree with you, Bernie, like that's unusual that you can earn interest on something like that. And, but there was another town that they cited was very successful at doing that. But that was at a time when the interest rates that you would earn on the money while it was in the bank were a little bit better than they are now. However, we can borrow for less if we lock it in sooner. So, but we'll come back with more information just so to put your mind at ease. There's additive power in small numbers. So, I mean, even if we're getting four tons of a percent on the grant money that's four tons of a percent we wouldn't have had otherwise. So that's good. Thank you. Yeah, I just, I had a couple of questions. The first is really about the under the sustainability and in the presentation, they talked about achieving an EUI of 29 and how it was kind of difficult to get there. And it seems to me that yes, we need to make sure that if we go forward with the new library that it be net zero ready but doesn't have to get the EUI 29 in order to meet that standard and what would the cost benefit be of some other EUI that meets the standard, but isn't quite as expensive. Obviously it means you spend more on utilities but it would be helpful to have some idea of what does it cost to get to EUI 29 versus what it would cost to get to EUI 35 or something like that. And then the other question really maybe gets under, I don't know cash flow financing or timing is is there any option to phase a new construction in any way? Whether that means we don't build out a floor for right away or I don't know what is feasible but is it necessary that we do it all once or can we phase it in some way that might be more beneficial in terms of cash flow? That was that. Okay, Dorothy. Well, my question has been and I don't know if we're gonna talk about it today but it was whether the community preservation funds count towards the townshare or the library share of the fundraising. So that has been a serious concern of mine. That's a council decision. And it is when there's two decisions regarding that money. One is, are we going to approve CPA money for the library renovation expansion project? That's one. And the question is, which column does it go into? Okay, so, and I don't believe this committee is, should be, I think that's a broader council discussion. On a lot of this, our goal is to make sure that we on behalf of the council are investigating and reporting on these issues but that doesn't mean we're making recommendations on the issues because this is a big enough issue that the council is gonna have to make the decision. It's not gonna be bound by a committee decision anyway. It's really gonna be the council itself that's gonna make it. Our goal is to make sure that we are providing as much of the financial information to the council as possible. Kathy, I, your hand is up. I don't know if it's before. No, it is, I just, you know, sticking with just finances, Lynn and I agree, that's a later discussion on the cash flow financing. My request of Sean is to show us the library pieces 15.751 million. What if it was 14.751? I'd just like to see what that is in terms of over the 20 years. What if, because CPA is also financing over a 20 year period. So there's debt on both sides, but just what does that do? Whether that influences our decision or not, Lynn? I wanted to see what it does off the general fund if it's a million less because we're counting CPA toward it. Pure modeling question. So, I'm gonna throw in one of my own and that is that we've been hearing some questions from members of the community who are concerned about their ability to support an override, not in the question of voting it, just paying for it and additional taxation. And the question of, if we go forward with the library under what was presented to us by Sean, our previous meeting was a model that had us using, going for the one override for the schools. And the question that was sort of being raised was whether the decision on the library might free us up from requiring an override to do the schools and still be able to address all four buildings. And I think that the only way we can get to that is development of a more complete model for what the financing and cash flow will be under the scenario of not, having not using the MVLC money, but doing the renovation according to the Coon Riddle Estimates. So that was at least another piece that I sort of saw as needing to do it in order to be responsive to questions that have been raised of the council through community comment. Andy, I have a question that builds on that, but raises the issue because, and I know some people are critical of the fact that, gee, the numbers for repairs seem to come very close to what the town would have. Okay, you don't get the same building, I'm just gonna be very clear about that. But the reality is that either way, the town is gonna have to come up with somewhere around, you know, 15 to $16 million. So whether we do it because we're taking the grant, or we do it because we're just doing repairs of the existing structure, it's still a debt. So I don't, I've never seen what the question is. I mean, unless we just say, well, we're just not gonna do the repairs like that. And I'm not clear if that's an option because of the way they were presenting. Yeah, I just, in terms of the Coon-Riddle estimate, I'm, and maybe it could be my fault for just not being as attentive as I should have been. I'm concerned that estimate may not show all the costs associated with implementing the architectural access boards rules. I have a note to myself that didn't look at all the accessibility issues, the Coon-Riddle piece. I mean, we're gonna, the amount of renovations we're gonna end up doing to library, if we don't build a new one, you're gonna trigger the access board rules. And, you know, so I don't know how far Coon-Riddle got into that because that will be a, that will be a definite cost driver and it will affect the functionality of the library because of the changes in space requirements. Bernie, they actually refer to the study as an accessibility study. Okay. And so it actually was done with the fact that it does trigger all of the accessibility rules. Okay, so the Coon-Riddle numbers are meeting the access boards required. Yeah. Thank you. And the document is really long because they cite the code and then they show you what they have to do to meet the code for a bathroom, for a stack, for a whole, you know, they really went walking around the building saying doesn't, doesn't, what do we have to do? It was quite thorough. Well, I need to do more homework then. Thank you. Okay. Are there other questions? I have one all issue. And I, and what I'd like to propose, Andy, is that between now and the next meeting, we work with Paul and to identify how we can help people understand public bidding and construction. So because the, it's different than when you build your own home. I'm just gonna say it's very different. And I feel like many of the questions that we've received come from a background of not understanding public construction and how it happens, okay? So I'd like the finance committee to have a better understanding of that. Okay. Well, you're the keeper of the questions. Got it. So let's see if we can find somebody who has done project management either in the Amherst or another community who can sort of be available to speak to that issue. Yeah. Kathy. I agree with you, Lynn. And, you know, I went back to the grant proposal, which itemizes, you know, how much is the OPM? How much is the architectural fee, the engineering fee? Cause way at the bottom of the 36 million is 24,000 for the building, you know? So you can see this layering on and then the rent. So one of my questions, and then I just wanna go to another one is, do we have, is there any flexibility in that when they go back to relook at the numbers when we actually go out to bid and get construction? You know, if we wanna bring it down to no more than that number. So my bigger question is got just one more meeting scheduled on this, Andy, two weeks from now. And there were detailed questions. If we wanna get answers back and then write a report that's just about the answers that we received, you know, not a judgment at all. We're gonna have to get information. And the question is, do we have enough time? Should we tentatively, cause it's scheduled to go back to the council on April 5th? Could we either move the council date off by two weeks, Lynn, and give finance one more go at it? Or do, could we schedule another finance meeting? There is one more Tuesday before that, that would be two weeks, just because there are a lot of, there's a first, a third and a whatever. I don't know how we're gonna be doing that. So my question is, we need answers to questions that we're sending and not just categories to write a report that says we looked at these things and here's what we found. If we get all of those next two weeks from now, that would be great. And then we'll have enough for a report, but should we pencil in a possible other date? If we, if some of the answers can't, it would take more time to generate the answers. That's my question, just allowing us time. I definitely support the idea of having another meeting. So I think what you're suggesting is that we would do, we would have a meeting on March 30th. Yes, yeah, that's the two, that's the other Tuesday, that if we're not meeting again until the 16th, that we have a meeting, at least tentatively scheduled for the 30th, which leaves a few days to write up the report for the council and still have the council meeting on the fifth. But it means that if there are unanswered questions or if the answer to a question generates another question, we can do a better job at reporting back. Frank, I definitely would like to see us seriously consider them. And if we go with the 30th, that means we're not conflicting with CRC. Dorothy is shaking her hands. So can, are there any members of the committee who would not be available for an additional meeting on the 30th if we schedule it? Not hearing anybody speaking up and I only see Kathy's hand is up, which I think is because she is, when it was raising the question. So I'll just ask everybody on the committee and our staff who's working with the committee to hold the 30th available on your calendar for an additional finance committee meeting in case we need two meetings beyond today. And what I was going to suggest is that we see how we can do this. Maybe Lynn, since she's the keeper of the questions, we'll send it back to me. And after the two of us work them, we can send them to the committee rather but you cannot comment to each other. There's no comment to all allowed because of open meeting law. But at least you'll have a chance to see it and we'll be able to get comments back to the two of us who were actively working on trying to put together the questions. We'll try and do that as a quick turnaround so that we can get staff to try and work with us. And to the extent that we need to reach out to the library, trustees and staff to assist us with any answers we'll have opportunity to do that too. So that sounds like a reasonable process. Yes. Okay. And some of the questions I think can only be answered by the library. Others can be answered by staff, you know. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah, the staff, I mean, there's two ways to get to the library. The get help from the library. One is for the staff tasks library and the others to library. It's the questions that seem better to have the library just come back to the finance committee. And that's a judgment call. It has to be made along the way. What I would like to propose is, because I'm very sensitive to public comment. And I said I would come back to public comment again. Is to allow us to do public comment before we complete the library discussion. And see if there's any members of the, the public who would like to comment recognizing that. This is the time, a good time to do it. So I'll pause to see if we have any hands that come up. I see. And for those on the phone, if for those on the phone to, to raise your hand, you dial star nine. There is one person who's in the. On the phone. So I'm going to go ahead and recognize Tim Neil and ask that he come into the room for the purpose. And then I'll keep an eye on the. Attendees list for a little bit longer to see if there are other requests. Hi, Tim. Hi, how are you guys? I was not able to scroll down. I was not able to scroll down. I was not able to scroll down. I was not able to scroll down. I was not able to scroll down. I was not able to scroll down Lynn's complete list of the major categories, but one category I was, I think is important is to understand the financial benefit. renovate slash expand option. And what I mean by that is increased library visits, thus increased citizens downtown or visitors downtown and increased use of shops and economic commerce versus an assumption that that won't be necessarily the same if we simply repair the library. Now, I don't know how one really gets into the weeds of that economic analysis, but I think that's important when one considers this project. So that my category would be look at the, not only just the cost side, but the revenue slash benefit side of things. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question. I don't know how we can prepare to do it, but we can ask several people both within the bit in the chamber and within the library whether any work has ever been done on this question. Okay. Well, that will be good. I mean, that would be my, I think that should be looked at. Okay, thank you. So I'm still got to have an eye on the list. I'm not seeing any other requests for public comment. So. Awesome. I think we'll declare the public comment period completed and get back to the process that we're in. So is there agreement that what we talked about before adding the one question that came from public comment to the list that we will try and formulate the questions Lynn and I and see if there's any comments and get our staff working on it and we are scheduling two meetings. Potentially to get the reports back and respond. And if there's agreement on that, there seems to be, I don't think we need to vote. I don't think this is a motion because we're not taking any action. It's more of a process question. Then I think we can go on. Before we do that, may I mention the format that we have set up for the public forums on the library. One of which is tomorrow night and the second of which is Saturday at two is that Sharon Sherry has been able to line up a couple of their different expert consultancy, their architects, person who knows historic tax credits, historic tax credits, the OPM, they can't all be there for all the meetings and they can't be there for the full two hours. And so what we're going to be doing is asking people, and remember this is for the public, is asking people for clarifying questions that might be best answered by some of the consultants. And then at some point, some of the questions we have for the finance committee may also require that Sharon asks them to come with her to a finance committee meeting. And then the second half or the second portion of the public forums will be people just expressing their opinion or whatever else they wanna say. But we wanted to give the public an opportunity to ask the kinds of questions that the council had the opportunity to do last Monday and that the finance committee will have to do coming up. Okay, I just wanna mention that. Okay, you know, that's very helpful. And to the extent that questions come up that are exactly in line with what we get onto our list and they're responded to in the public forum by the people at the library have invited to come in. We will try and note that so that those of you who aren't able to sit through the public forum will be able to go back and know that it's there to look at. Great, thanks. So I think that that concludes our discussion on the library. And I would ask that we turn to these so that we can conclude our work for the day. We have two financial orders that are fairly routine of the kinds of things that used to come before town meeting all of the time. They're just in things that needed to do to manage the finances of the town. So, Lynn, could you- You have a hand in the attendees list. I don't know if you wanna take it now but I just wanna let you know that there is a hand raised. Yes, okay, why don't we run to introduce yourself and what part of town you live in and give your comment or question. My name is David Lithko. I live in the Cushman area north Amherst. I apologize for the late question and I apologize for my amateur ability to phrase it but I took a cursory look at the February 16th report projecting the costs in the future and a question arose that in my mind, it would be very helpful. I'm not sure I know how you would do this but it would be very helpful if in addition to seeing those projections as absolute numbers, they could also be expressed as a percentage of the towns anticipated GDP using conservative assumptions for the economic growth of the town over the 20 and 30 year period that we're looking at. I don't know if that's feasible but I know it'd be very helpful for me personally to see those projections as a percentage of GDP rather than in addition to just seeing the absolute projections if that question makes sense. I'm gonna ask Sean or Sonia if they have any follow up they wanna ask. Yeah, I don't know if and maybe the commenter can respond to this. I don't know if GDP would be the right metric to compare to. I don't know if there is a Amherst GDP metric I'd have to look at that but maybe the metric that's sort of similar to that would be the EQV or the property tax which measures growth in town and the financing ability of the town is tied to the taxable property values. So that to me would be the number that would be more I think might make more sense than GDP in this particular circumstance but I could be missing maybe I'm not aware of that metric for Amherst. Were you looking for a response from me? Yeah, I mean, does that sound okay? What I, how I described it or are you aware of a GDP figure for Amherst? No, I'm not aware. It only occurred to me as I was listening to the discussion and listening to Tim Neal's comment. I'm just trying to, in thinking out loud trying to place those projected costs in the future into a broader more comprehensive meaningful context because the absolute number of 20 years from now don't mean much in the economy of 20 years from now. Well, it's not that they don't mean much but they take on a very different meaning in the context of the inflated economy of 20 years from now and the reason I bring this up is that if the town continues to be a vibrant, attractive growing community, the town's economy will grow faster than the general economy of the surrounding towns and states and the town will thrive and those costs will be relatively lower. If the town does not make, you know, certain investments then of course there's a very different scenario if the town's economy doesn't grow then those costs become much larger in relative terms. And so when the town council is considering these very substantial financial commitments the town council has to look at them in the context of investments in a town that's growing or a town that's withering under various projections if all that makes sense. I'm just thinking a lot. I don't mean to throw a lot of mud into the discussion I'm just trying to think of all of this within the larger context of the town's future. Yeah, no we can absolutely think about that and the model, the current model does to an extent and that we do consider the growth in town on the property tax side but Sonya and I can give some more thought to if there's other metrics that might align with what you described. Thank you. Thank you for the comment, that was very helpful. I think when we look at property tax of course we're looking at ability to pay back bonds and there's also the question that Tim raised and that you've added to about whether things we do might generate other revenues or for the town or other things that promote the health of the town and so we'll give that some thought. So thank you for the comment. So going back to where I was because I'm really trying to get us concluded Lynn, do you want to share screen or on the two orders or do you want me to try and do it? No, I can do it, oops, I can do it. Okay, well there were two orders. One was having to do with property tax and one was having to do about portion of debt that we no longer are required to use. We just want to be able to make a recommendation to the council on those two orders and see if either Sean or Sonia have any responses to questions that may arise? I have a question. It's a transfer, a freecast, a stabilization fund not property tax. Right. Okay, scared me for a minute. And I've been a long day on the agenda. So we see the financial order before us and Sonia had provided us with a separate memorandum that explained this in a little bit more complete language than is in the order. Are there any questions from the committee about this particular order? Do you want me to explain this at all? I'm seeing if there's no questions, I'm going to assume that your memorandum because I found it very complete. Thank you. Yep. I appreciated it very much, it was very helpful. So if there are no questions, I would just see if there's a motion to recommend appropriation and transfer order FY2112 to the council. So moved. Second. So this motion is second. So I will go through the same process that we went for through before and ask the resident members if they have any recommendations for the committee and then go for ask for a committee about on the motion on the floor. So, Bernie, any... This is fine, this is fine. Jane. I'm in favor, I'm good. And Bob. Yeah, I agree, it makes sense. Okay, so then let's just do votes and I'm going to do it in order that they're showing up on my panelists list just to get through. Kathy. Yes. Dorothy. Yes. Pat. Yes. Lynn. I... Yeah, I mean, yes, so it was five to zero. So we should switch to the other order. Yep. I think I have ready to pull up. Second. Yes. Okay. So I'm going to pause just for a second. So this motion is to rescind access and unnecessary borrowing capacity that the previous voted explained in the memorandum that was provided again by Sonya Aldrich and so this is the second one that we need to consider. So I'm going to go back to looking at the participant list and see if there are any questions. So I'll look for raised hands and see if there are any questions about this particular order. Seeing no questions. Is there a motion to recommend order FY 2113 to the council? Don't move the Angelus. So Pat has made a motion to recommend. Is there a second? Grace Moore. Second. So motion has been made and seconded. And again, same question. I'll Bob Hegner, is there any comments or recommendations you have to the... No comment. I hope this makes sense. And Bernie. Fine. Jane. I'm good. Okay, so go through and I'll Lynn. Hi. I'm going to start the voting. Yeah, fine. And Dorothy. Yes. Pat. Hi. Kathy. Yes. And I'm a yes. So again, it's five to zero. So that brings us then to the final issue of the day other than if we have any other business that I'm not aware of any other business. Is the... And that is the question of what we're going to do about additional days for May. How many additional days? And Sean, I don't know. Have you gone over the list and thought about how many days you feel we're going to need? So today we had a department head meeting and I asked department heads to let me know what Tuesdays and Thursdays between two and four they would not be available. So nothing yet, but I expect in the next couple of days we'll hear back if there are any conflicts and that'll help sort of guide where we slot people. I think last time around we met twice a week for felt like at least three or four weeks to get through all of it. So I would expect we would need roughly the same this year. And we did it. And we also mentioned having a conversation at some point about how do we structure the department presentations to make them as efficient as possible. I believe that didn't we meet on Wednesday, no Tuesdays and Thursdays last year? Yep. Yes. Okay, and we moved our meetings. Yeah, I think we're going to have a problem this year because of... We have a problem with CRC. CRC meets on the... We can meet every Tuesday, the problem. Yeah, the problem is the CRC. Yeah, the CRC meets on the 11th and the 25th. And so the meetings that we would have available are Tuesday the 4th, Thursday the 6th, Thursday the 13th, Tuesday the 18th, Thursday the 20th, and Thursday the 27th, unless we add in another day of the week. That gives us six times to meet. So then the question was whether Sean can slot everyone in six times, right? Yeah. Yeah, and I had sent you the list of what happened last time. And I think we had eight meetings last time. We did. And that included two meetings, which were to review drafts and one to review a draft of the report and the other to approve draft of the report. So we could make them, I mean, I don't know if this works for everybody, we could make them three-hour meetings as opposed to two-hour meetings. And that might give us the extra hours we need so we don't have to schedule any additional meetings. For me. That works for me. That works for me. So I'll try to, I'll take a first pass at Andy, looking at it from a three-meeting standpoint and send it to you guys to take a look at. Three-hour meeting. Okay, and did you get the dates down that Lynn wrote off? I'll probably need to get those. Can you say them one more time, Lynn? Or do you want me to just connect you after? I can just give you the dates and not get into the day of the week. May 4th, May 6th, May 13th, May 18th, May 20th, and May 27th. Okay. And I'm assuming we'd begin at two o'clock at each of those or earlier? Two to four. I mean, two to five. Is there anybody who cannot, I think that doesn't work for. Andy, does the two to five interrupt your, and maybe it's over by that point. The, was it, what was the one meeting we moved for JCPC? Yeah, the TSI was the one meeting that I'll need to check on and I'll get back to you on that. And we might be done, I think we're gonna be done with JCPC by May, so then theoretically TSO can go back to its old time slot. Its old time slot is in, starts in the late afternoon at five or 30. Does the committee want to meet at one o'clock during May? Can we do that? I can do that. I don't know. I can do it. I can. Perfect. Dorothy, you're the one who has, I'm not hearing you because you're- Yes, yes, I can. I teach an eight o'clock class. So I can, starting earlier, it is not a problem. Jane, Andy, would you check with Jane? So we're talking one to four. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Yes, those- Right, TSO started for 30 on some Thursdays. That's good, yeah. So the early meetings would be on just days that conflict with TSO meetings. We don't have to do it on other days. We'll send you out a complete schedule. Send me a schedule. Very quickly. So Andy, I just want to confirm, at this point we're holding March 30th, but we also meet on April 6th and April 20th. And those would be at two o'clock? Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. And if you have a variable on the Thursdays, you're just going to send us a list. We'll put it down. Yeah, we'll send the list with the times. Yeah, good. So is there, I have no other business that was not considered as anybody has have other business that they want the committee to consider. And this is a question for both staff and for committee members, things that were not anticipated. Seeing none, I think we can consider the meeting adjourned at 4.35. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody.