 Are they identified? It's Lev from the Surveillance Center. Okay. I know a few other people asked about it. So I'm anticipating some more would. We'll join. Okay. Not right now. I'm going to share the, uh, share the agenda. I can find it. Yeah. Um, The comments from the public hearing where they sent out. Uh, no, no, I didn't type up the minutes yet. I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. No, I mean, just, I think everyone was here for most of it. Um, you know, we had that survey results that I sent out. And, um, Is the problem with the hyperlink that there's just not a space after the two and before and. Um, I inserted a space before I cut. Yeah. Where did you put the space. Before the two. A lot of times word will automatically recognize it. If you, I was taking it from the heading. I don't know. I just think I, my 29 year old is at home to help me. I'm not sure what, yeah. Sorry, I apologize. I was, I was on the markets. 57, but didn't get there. Um, so are we ready? I think so. Yeah. I think that was, um, She was on the last call, but, um, maybe quickly, we can just go around and introduce ourselves for anybody else that may have hopped on at the last moment. So go ahead, Nathaniel. Hi, I'm Nate Malloy, a planner with the town. Um, Gail Lansky. I have this committee. Lucas. Uh, yes, Lucas Hanscom. Um, and I got cut off last week. Sorry about that. I didn't think to call back in until around nine 15. Then I realized I could probably have used my phone, but by that point it was, I think it was too late. So sorry about that. Becky. Hi, I'm Becky Michaels. Also a new member. Right. Not. All cool. Hi, I'm Matt. I'm Matt Larson as indicated on my zoom profile. And this is my second year going through this process. I'm just going down the, down what's on my screen. Rika. Oh, you're silenced. I think. Rika Clement. Um, maybe soon to be a member. Welcome. Andrew. Andrew grand Thomas. I guess that makes me a middle age member. And we have Ben, Ben. Yep. Ben Bregger. I'm a planner with the town. Okay. So, um, we're going to just jump in and review the comments from the public hearing. And, uh, there were additional comments. Added to the online survey. Quite a number of them, uh, many with comments. And so we can take some time. To discuss the additional comments on this survey. Okay. I, anybody wants, I have a lot to say, but I'll let other people go first. So, uh, comments from the last meeting. Hearing. Okay. Yeah, actually, if you don't mind, um, the, I was when I was watching it there, you guys talked a little bit about the formation of a ranking system. And I just, I wanted to just say that I think that would be just a can of worms for people to come back and, you know, sort of try to say that we did or did not do the right thing because of the math as opposed to just letting it play out. Do you mean a ranking system for as we create the priorities? Right. The weight, like the waiting for the rankings and all that. I like math and I like using it in a, in a use, and it could be useful, but I just, I, when I've, whenever you assign numbers from our end to things, I think it gets, it gets problematic. Cause then people expect everything else to follow. Thank you. Does anybody else want to add anything to Lucas's comment about, um, ranking the activities as we touched upon a little bit at the last meeting. The only, um, I'll just offer a little, uh, description of the way we've used the numbers, Lucas, um, and others, other newbies, um, um, broadly speaking, I think what we've done is to use the numbers, uh, and our rankings, the committee members rankings to determine essentially the ones that are clearly ranked very high. Hold on. Hold on. I think, I think Lucas is talking about the priorities, not the score sheet. Is that right? Lucas, about the priorities that. Yeah. I was talking about our own priorities as far as like our, our rankings for things. Like you, it's just like, I think things are more important for, for this where it says, you know, um, And not, not for the, uh, Not for this, Not for the matrix. Yeah. Not for the matrix. I didn't need to cut you off, Andrew. Sorry. Right. I'm just going to, it says types of activity. Yeah, I can share that when we get there. So. Okay. I can do a new share. The, um, So for, you know, Right now for usually have, you know, the social service priorities. And so in years past, we have had, you know, six or so. So last year it was. Here it is household. These few right here. And so we were able to build family individual stabilization support services for those experiencing homelessness. Youth development and on and on. So we were had brushed upon the possibility of ranking those. And Lucas is saying he doesn't think it was a good idea. Nate has ever, have we ever done a prior to my time on the, on committee? Have they been ranked? No, not that I'm aware of. I think, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, maybe some difficulty for instance, if we have one or two as the most important, you know, how, you know, do we. We have to come up with that. How would we factor that into a score when we do a proposal review? And maybe we could. It's just. You know, are we saying that we, you know, as a committee that if we had two priorities, you know, like I said, if we had five activities that met those two priorities would be only fund those five activities or will be the same. So. Go ahead. I was going to say, I just have such a newbie question, which has probably been answered in one of my other sessions. The types of activities where that, does that list come from? Where does that list come from? The activity is like the project or the program. That is doing. So let's say the survival centers. Let's say food pantry. So that's the type of activity. So that's the type of activity that we have here. And then we have to have additional funding to open longer hours on Saturday. That would be the activity. Right. But my question is where. So that type of active. I mean, there are obviously other types of activities that organizations do. So that would maybe go under other, but the list that we have here is that one that's provided to us. By something that we've developed. As what we see needing, you know, as priorities in the community. Okay. The resolution is basically what we're doing. We're doing the DECD. So, you know, they fit nicely into the categories that DECD. Has. So, you know, if there's some, some other one, if there's an other, then that usually means, you know, if we recommend it, I'd have to just run it by. You know, the program reps to see if it actually. Is something that's eligible. You know, so I've been talking to staff. For instance, they've been talking about, like, Oh, could, But it's a little difficult. You know, so for instance, like that, you know, that could be something that. You know, if that was recommended proposal we received it would be under other and then I'd have to make sure that it's actually an eligible activity depending on how they describe it. Thanks on this also is a really newbie question I, I thought the community was giving us their input on what they thought the priorities should be. Well, they are that's what that survey online. So what are we talking about doing setting separate we kind of go off of the prior year. And then we either, you know, adapt them to according to what people have suggested like we've never this is the first year we've done this survey. So we're gathering information now to see if we want to take the priorities that we've listed our years would be added to or edited according to what has come in on this story like for example, somebody in the new, the additional entries that came in and somebody listed that we should help fund the common share food co-op in town but I immediately I thought well that's for everybody that's not necessarily for low and moderate income people so how would that work so how would you list that, where would that come under I guess food and nutrition but anyway, so we, we take what these activities that are here we I guess we're using the word activity and they're, we're using it as activity and we're also calling it priorities and I think maybe that's where the confusion is. Right, I think it's both and some of it is DHTD, you know, for a social service we only find an activity so an organization may have many activities right they may do a few different things but they can only apply for one specific activity. They couldn't do, you know, health care and then also job training. That's actually two activities we could take up two of the five. You know, recommended proposals so yeah I mean we're taking what we hear from individuals what you know the community and then you know distilling it and you know putting it into what we think our priorities and then those become the activities so I think you know last year we had the most you've ever had. Sometimes we have fewer. So we could add I mean so for example next year we could add in mental health services or racial justice work or some I mean there there's, I guess I'm sort of right. That's what I was trying to figure out is, I mean, I, when we put in the types of activities we're suggesting to the community, what we think their priorities would be. Well, and will be right and will be and based on your from knowledge from the year before and right what they will be going forward. So, people have to come up on their own. If they have an idea of something else that would be there that have to come up with it on their own. One person had social you know send social workers with police. So, right, they came up with that on their own but that's not going to end up being sort of fitting into necessarily one of the things that we've suggested as a priority. Right and we can extrapolate that and say you know is right social service support or something you know is that part of a bigger priority right so, and we could put that as a you know an activity of priority here so you know if there's other developments about, you know that type of social service support it's not necessarily keeping people in housing but it's a different type of either mental health or response to a need we could, we could put that here as a priority it may be that then no one actually submits an active you know submit a proposal for it but we've identified it and so, you know even here we have more than five so we you know it's difficult. And last year what we did though was, you know if there's a range of proposals that may help to say okay well, you know, are we spreading the funding to the different priorities you know or are we really putting them all in one one category so it does help sometimes just you know in terms of that review. And like for example this year there have been a few requests for transportation, or people that living in low income housing there you know it's a mile to the grocery store, and there's nothing really here. That would fit under that request so you know should we consider, I know I'm jumping ahead to number two but should we consider maybe adding transportation for low and moderate income families. And that that that would be an additional activity that we could we could consider so. We have another question I do we only look at the social service applications because I mean that's right that's 20% of the grant we get right and then the rest is infrastructure. So, we also look at the capital projects so you know social services are usually just more competitive and so we start with this and then there's a non social service request for proposal that has priorities in it to and we you know. I mean, that's pretty, you know usually it's just stays the same in terms of you know public infrastructure housing there could be, you know, last year and then this year there is some more for like you know business support or you know technical support for businesses so that could become a priority. Transportation fall under that or no. No, because it's not a you know it's, that's more of a service as you know if you're providing transportation. You know rise of people that's a me that's more of a service it's not a you know capital project. Okay. And those, those numbers aren't are non fudgeable they're not decided by us. The non social services versus social service funding. The percentage of the grant you mean yeah, you know that's a those are the maximum so okay, you know we don't have to recommend any social services. It could be all a capital but we can recommend up to five activities or 20% of the grant amount. Okay, there is a cap. And I'm glad that everybody's asking so many questions because it is it is confusing at first it really is when you know if it just takes one round to kind of get it under your belt. So we've kind of jumped over one noted comments from the public hearing and online survey and are now. I say so, like the transportation some of these things overlap. So like this survival center might do a proposal that includes transportation. I mean that that's, you know, possibility depends on who's writing, you know which proposal and if they feel it fits in. It would be under other at this if we look at last year's priorities that are up on the screen because we don't have necessarily have anything there that would apply for to transportation. Well what I'm saying is, is that it might be a component to the foods proposal to provide food for people. I mean, there could be like right an ancillary piece of that is transportation but when I hear, say for instance, and what some of the comments in the survey if I hear transportation services I'm actually thinking like a van service, you know, or some service that is specifically bringing people to whether it's, you know, to the store to medical appointment so it's not necessarily providing food to them, it's, you know, providing them transportation to and from places. Some transportation could be part of, you know, built into some of these other activities support for senior services for seniors, for example. Right. There's a lot of the, a lot of the transportation, you know, commercial transportation services in the area been cut back or stopped completely. So that that's why it's becoming a bigger issue. So we're sort of, it seems like we kind of said wait right into two without saying are we all through with number one which nobody had any additional no comments about the additional responses to the survey that came in anybody want to discuss it. I had a quick comment and it's I guess it probably then segues directly into number two anyway, which is that we, where do we think we're going to be in a year for now. I mean, I know that this is a really good snapshot the, you know, the, the reviews, the comments from the public of what what's necessary right now and from them, my take is that food stability is there is the main hands down winner with shelter sort of being a secondary one. But it seems like that the food stuff is particularly on the rise but do we have any kind of consensus as to where we think we're going to be any year from now. You talk, be more specific. Well, because I mean this is, this is a kind of an unusual year. Last year, we would never have anticipated where we are now, you know, basically waiting with baited breath for for a vaccine. Whereas a year from now, you know, like you mentioned in the meeting last time, we might be getting a vaccine in July for a broad distribution that could change the entire picture of where things are I mean I still think food stability is probably a very large it's still very highly ranked, but perhaps shelter might not be as much, you know, or maybe it will be more or maybe youth development will be more important next year because every all these kids have been locked inside for a year and a half. I mean, kind of moving ball. I just wanted to see if anybody had any ideas about where we think we're going to be. Yeah, I would say, I would say it's hard to know but the reality is that will be for that the proposals will come in in December. Right, and then we'll make our decisions in January. Right. So, in a sense, we won't really. I think the conditions under which we'll review and make those decisions. The conditions won't really be very different from where we are today. And we're sort of limited by what proposals come in so we'll just have to make a decision at that point. And if we look at the proposals that come in and, you know, based on those we think that there will be things that will be more or less important in, you know, six months from that point we can. I think address that at that point, but, but, you know, the reality is we don't have that much control over what proposals come in. Yeah. Yeah, and we do want some continuity so that these all the programs don't just, you know, have to fluctuate wildly but their budgets right. Right. All right, good discussion. Thank you for all your contributions so let's continue the discussion on priorities. Nothing you'll put everything up on the screen so you can see where we were for 2020. And so let's talk about what we feel might be edits or additions for 21. Going forward. So one thing I wonder and this is more a question it really goes back to Lucas's question which I misunderstood it. Sorry about that Lucas, but I didn't fully understand what was going on anyway. It was good to be clarified. I'm in that club to. But this question of Professor Lucas understood your point, you know that essentially it's not the cons outweigh the pros of declaring our own priorities. Right is what you were suggesting and in a somewhat similar way and this is a thing that, you know, in different ways the committee has gone around on I think the last time or two but this question of how do we want, how do we weigh the community's priorities right in our own deliberations. Right so yeah we have some very clear and it's sort of related to the, even this issue of right how do we think to what extent do we essentially substitute our judgment about what will be happening 60 in six months or a year. Right for what the community names as a priority now. And here and again we don't, we really have been around this in different ways the committee so I'm not suggesting we necessarily go down the rabbit hole but, especially with new members. It does get into, I think the question that the very practical question it raises is, is each of us making our own judgment about how to weigh that. Right in generating our own recommendations, or do we want to have some sort of something closer to consensus on how much we weigh those priorities especially since, thanks to that Matt's good work. It suggests that right there's some pretty, pretty clear ones. And again just picking up your point Lucas I mean, right to the extent that we depart and diverge in some way from what you know especially those survey results showed. Are we somehow doing a disservice to the process right or are we inviting people like why would we ask people to share their priorities. Have some pretty, you know pretty clear hierarchy with some gaps again as nets sort of analysis suggests and depart from that. Can I ask a question related to that. I'm curious about how many people the survey represents I mean I know there's a lot of rows, but I don't understand if that each row is a different person. If one person can weigh in more than once I like, I agree the priority seem quite clear from that, but I don't have a sense of how many people are what percentage of our population are weighing in on that. So there's no right yeah we right so someone could submit multiple surveys or you know they could let all their friends know or submit multiple survey so you know it is a you know it's a pretty good response but it is a small sample and it could be that, you know if certain people got the word out then you know some people may not have heard about it or right yeah I but um, you know what Andrew was saying the committees talk about you know previously you know do you know is there a rank order or the priorities or do we just have them be weighted equally so when reviewing a proposal something for support services for homelessness is the same as youth development. And you know we're not internal internally saying okay well when I'm reading these I think youth development is more important so I'm going to give it higher scores really then every every proposal we're doing is then essentially considered important and it's really just those review you know that review matrix we're using and it's a comparative review across proposals. You know if we do think that one or two or three. You know, priorities are the highest you know do we then automatically give those a higher score in a category. And that may may factor into how the committee reviews them. I mean I think that's really the ultimate decision is how you know how you want to set that is there a way to set that up. If we want to do that. Yes, I need to Andrew's comment that are we are we individually using our own judgment of our priorities, or are we accepting the communities. That's what I understood that's what I thought he was asking accepting the communities ranking and I don't have a sense of how broad the community is represented in the data. Yeah, I don't think that community I wouldn't guess that the community is very broadly represented but I would say that the people who are actually paying attention to this are the people who probably know fair bit about it and they're probably the ones weighing in as well. And it does seem to match what the people said, you know the survival center lady said that they're seeing, they're expecting from feeding America says their food security will rise by 56%. And they're seeing those numbers actually fleshing out and food security seems to be the highest priority. So I mean, it does match up a little bit. So I think you should we should rely on it to some extent but it's also I think I'm a newbie. I do think it's coming upon us to sort of try to try to look down the down the hallway a little ways and see, you know, try to balance some of the other forces that might be, you know, coming down the pike that is, you know, I mean that's great. As far as. I was going to ask you before you jump in if you mean you did a summer a summer of a summary of the data from last week at the meeting, and I'm not sure if Lucas was on the call when you shared it so if you want to give a review a quick thumbnail of what you, the data that you gathered that might be instructive. Basically, I just tried to take each individual response. And because some people were all like ones and twos and others might be all threes and fours it was hard to just take a simple average. And so I tried to take how each individual ranked each item higher or lower than their own average, and then aggregated that and then expanded it to a no one to five scale. And so on that basis, you know, and I actually updated it a little bit with the latest numbers that Nate shared. You can see, but basically, it's the yeah, no food was still, you know, much, much higher than anything else. And there were some, you know, minor changes, but I think, you know, Lucas's main takeaway was correct that that's what the community came back with on this survey. And I guess my, my experience on this committee is that, you know, we don't make the final decisions right the town manager makes the final decisions. So we in a sense, are providing feedback or, you know, kind of the community view to the town manager. And then these types of surveys or the other emails and so forth, the other input that Nate solicits, you know, helps us, you know, and inform our views. And I guess I don't see that because of limitations and how the survey is conducted, I don't see our role as, you know, simply, you know, kind of copying and pasting what the, you know, what the survey has shown. This is the first year we've done that. I think it's really helpful. But I don't think that's the, you know, the end of our inquiry. And I will say too that the state is not asking necessarily communities to do this. It's something, you know, we do locally to help with the project review. It's not, you know, some communities might say they only have one priority. And it's like really direct like a food pantry or the senior, you know, council on aging and senior center and it's like, okay, can't really vary from that much. You know, these priorities are somewhat broad, but they also fit into, you know, projects that DCD would recommend in that, you know, inherently serve lower modern income individuals and household so, you know, I think like for instance transportation is one that you know, is it has it been mentioned enough that it would be a priority that we put on here to encourage that type of proposal. You know are the rest of the ones that are on here are they still a priority. I don't, you know, I think I want to make sure we don't you know I'd like to finish this tonight. Finish this tonight, because I want to get the RFPs ready by the end of the week to give people time to, you know, submit application so unless, you know, it's really the committee's decision but I want to make sure we're not a laboring it because if you know we could we could take a straw poll do we want to wait them and say okay we're going to put one or two up top, are we going to keep them all equal weight. And then while we review proposals we're not going to individually say okay well I think this type of activities more important the other, essentially then that we're just saying that they're all equal, equal in terms of their, you know, their category. Again I think it was a good question that that Andrew raised and I think, you know my perspective on that is in January when we actually read the proposals and we know rank each of them. You know that the first one on the list is consistency with community priorities. And so, you know we might have different views on that, you know and frankly, even if there's something that's about food and nutrition. And that particular, you know, activity that someone is proposing isn't maybe exactly what we think is the most relevant, you know, to addressing that issue. So we might say well even though it isn't the, you know, food nutrition category, I wouldn't rate that very highly on the community priorities list, or someone else might rate it more highly so I think we do end up with individual variation how we view it. And that comes in the, after we read the proposals, and we start ranking them. Right, or, you know, I think to Andrew's point that like some people might say okay well food is really high so then they give the relative scores for every review criteria higher because they think food security is more important but I think, what I find it is, you know, your score would just be for that criteria would be higher, compared to others, and the rest of just you know it's a comparative review so then, you know the other review criteria would just be looked at. You know committee members would review those, you know, if for instance is the finance and budget, you know, good it's not necessarily you make it give it a higher score because it's a better you know it's for food. You would review the budget, you know across the, what we're expecting to be submitted for that. Let me offer just one more thought. We suggest that, yeah, the way we actually have done in the past that it's, we're fine. Which is this and this actually goes back to the mistaken explanation I was going to offer you Lucas about the process which is, you know, we, we the committee members rank order them. Then, you know, there are a few that cluster as being highly ranked across members. There are few typically that cluster is being relatively lowly ranked, and that allows us to concentrate the conversation on the ones in the middle. Typically, I think draw the one right to find the middle pretty widely. And then all of these sorts of considerations and the differences and you know how we prioritize not issues but criteria, you know and how we read different that all comes out. So it ends up being a pretty robust discussion, where again all of these different ways of thinking about things. Get out there in the middle of the table and we hash it out. And that's probably inevitable. Probably, and I think probably more worthwhile use of time in the end, then really trying to, you know, detail how or get on the exact same page about about how we arrive at our judgments. Now ahead of ahead of the factory. But really good point, Andrew. So, given everybody's input, and we have up on the screen on the types of activities that were priorities for last year. Do we want to keep again with this now this discussion has felt pretty thorough. Is there anything that we would like to change, which we just go through them. Starting with household family and individual stabilization. I'm sorry just to be clear when you say change, what we're really talking as would we take them off the list or right or add the past in the past we've sort of rephrased them a little bit to be more clear. Last year we added the health services insurance navigation based on comments from the senior center I think we did not get any proposals about that but we added that as a, you know, mental activity, and support services for seniors as well, I think was new last year. So those were too new to additional. I think that's, yes, Becky, to add or change. So, anybody want to throw out anything that they would like to, let's, let's leave it as it is for now, and talk about any additional activities that we would like to add. So I think we had time to think about this discussion and review the survey, which I thought the survey was a great idea. So I think that transportation came up a few times in the survey. And Nat, do you have any summary on your on the on the math that you did about transportation before I pushed my point. No, just because that wasn't something that, you know, everyone responded to. Those are just kind of additional comments so there were some things that came in. You know it's additional interpretation or mental health or I saw you know kind of career employment help some of those things were, were thrown out there, as well as, as well as in various forms, kind of a, you know racial equity. You know, those sorts of things were, were comments but it was hard to, at least for me to quantify those in any, any real way. Does anybody else feel about that transportation is something that would be worthy of listing, it would be exceedingly beneficial for those who need it but then somebody would have to come forth with a with you know a nonprofit would have to come forth with a program slash activity for it. Could be added in. I mean I know the transportation is a really big issue around people getting their food. And the creepy added like next to other in parentheses. Next we have adult education next to economic itself sufficiency and includes, but it's somewhere in a parentheses or with an aspect of explaining it because a lot of the issues that people have maintained their home. You know, employment does have a relationship to their ability to get where they need to get. Yeah, I'm just going to clarify that adult education I just want to. I mean I think it's more than that. You know for economic self sufficiency. I do think transportation though Paul like I mentioned earlier I think it's different than just for food I think it could be, you know, rides to medical appointments rides to just, you know, not just get food but go to other errands or different travels so. You know I know that the senior center has, you know, is, you know, they, you know, Mary Beth has mentioned as a priority and I know others have said it as a priority. Maybe as you said because other ride sharing services are not in service right now so in the last six months the, you know, the resources that are a lot fewer. If I may just putting it in parentheses, thanks to other little explanation. But then anybody that has something that doesn't fit into any of these would, would they still be able to check other if we have transportation one parentheses next to other or do we just add it and just say transportation. But another question about it philosophically adding activities seems to me to encourage people to think about this issue and see if they want to tackle it so I don't see, unless we are bound to not have a lot why wouldn't we add transportation I mean it's okay if we don't get an application for it, but if it's recognized as a possible. Why not add it to the list I don't quite understand if we're feeling like no no we don't want the list to get too long or what what what that's about. I think it's a really good point Rika that it creates awareness of the need in the community. I think it's a good point to advocate for adding transportation. I don't know if we have to be more specific than that. Transportation services. You know, I guess that's up to the committee. Are people on board with that. No objection. Andrew. Yeah, that's fine. I'm fine. Thank you, Paul. Thank you. I also did think that that it did seem like the focus was on transportation to get food I mean I agree there's lots of needs for other kinds of transportation but I did I was just reviewing the survey to try to remind myself, and also partly I think from the, the presentation from the from the Amherst mobile market, which really is almost a form of transportation bringing food to neighborhoods. You know, we don't need to specify it unless we would say transportation services including, like it almost feels like transportation should be also included in food and you know food and nutrition, including transportation, specifically to get food. What if you need transportation to get to a job interview. Yeah, but that's a different thing that I think there was a lot of sort of specifics around right transportation food and maybe somebody can apply. But I think, but I think to me that's food and nutrition is the major part of that activity. So, you know, if they can't, you know they have to there's some delivery mechanism there right whether it's the mobile market or having a van that has a drop offs or other things so to me it's still really a food and nutrition activity, and part of the delivery of it is transportation. And so, but I would say the venue is not the delivery that people need to get to pick up like at the bus and to me that's not. I guess the difference is I wouldn't, I wouldn't expect the survival center to then run a van service, necessarily for people to get to them unless they want to but there could be a transportation service available that does all types of transportation that could do that. And so I, you know I think it's a little bit different. It's bringing for deliver food. What's this. I think it's going to do just a proposal around transportation. We don't know. We don't know they could. Who could do. I don't know. That's not for us to worry about. What if for instance PVTA wants to, what if they are say okay well we can, you know, repurpose paratransit and use a van service in Amherst for 20,000 a year and they're going to run a pilot, and they're going to see what kind of rides they get. I mean we I don't, right I mean I don't know, either necessarily but or what if one of the existing agencies decided that they wanted to do a transportation proposal, right because they self select and they could go into a new area if they wanted if that was seen as and we saw that as an issue for the community. It could be something like family outreach if they have families going to housing court and they have families going to other to guidance counselor appointments when the world I'm saying like when the world opens up again, it could be. I don't know, theoretically it could be something that they do so I don't want to wordsmith it too much, but we're good with transportation services just. That's it two words transportation services. Are we all in nod your head. Yes, I don't erase this one other one. You know, I won't advocate for it too strongly not least because I don't know what, you know, the sort of facts on the ground are here in Amherst specifically but one person mentioned childcare specifically in the context of you know low income families. And if I remember right there was a second person who mentioned something that sounded like it could be a reference to childcare in the survey I'm not sure I can look it up. That's certainly you know we know I assume that was true across the country is true in Amherst as well which is there is a significant need for childcare especially again for low income families. So again, I don't, I don't have the data we don't have the data to, and it clearly wasn't named by many people again I remember one specifically but I'll throw it out there as a possibility. I mean do we nuance or change youth development to include childcare I mean as youth is youth development really mean what you know is it. I guess if I read that I think of like enrichment programs or things that are maybe different than childcare but could they be kind of the same. How do you say youth development, including childcare or youth youth and your youth or childcare support. Maybe a youth services including childcare. I like that. There's actually one person who said that they thought there should be more in youth development but didn't really know what we meant by that so they were worried about putting it as a priority so it probably would be helpful to flush out what we mean by it. Right. Maybe we could keep this same format. I think youth services including childcare is fits. For those of the others that have been on the committee. It's typically big brothers big sisters and the boys and girls club that apply for youth development so it would still. I think services and develop services still encapsulates what those organizations the activities of those organizations do so I don't think they would be questioning like oh my goodness what happened to youth development. I think youth services would still be there is that Nate went away and on that. No I agree. I agree I don't, you know, you know if they're confused by they can always ask but I think, you know, if someone checked other and then explain what they're doing I mean we can do the committee can say actually I think this is a youth service activity even if they describe it and they thought it was something else I mean I'm, you know, we're not. We're not going to do these activities to help sort out proposals but I'm not you know someone. You know if we think it's something else the committee can change it I'm not, you know, not that rigid about it. Actually I just found the comment where it was somebody said youth development is the number one priority but I did not select it because I'm concerned on how the town will develop youth and who will benefit from these programs. It's different than not knowing what it is but the you know childcare is interesting we have funded childcare and after school programs. Before, and it's just it hasn't happened. In a few years but that for a while it had been, you know, a regular activity that was being proposed. So instead of development we describe it as you know childcare after school teen support. That's really what we're talking about a routine support. That's my dad. That describes what we've done in the past I think. I like that also because it really runs the from the, you know smallest child all the way through. That was totally intentional. But in the right order, they're just growing through that can you say it again, what you just repeat yourself. Oh, it just the way it's the way it is right now is what I was describing. But the phrase again just what you had just said about childcare and I think I changed the document right here. Oh okay I have it really minimize because I'd rather see your faces then see the print. I like it now so you know I'm just doing it live so it's easy just as we speak. You're smaller but okay. I have a really big computer monitor. Lucky you. All right, use services childcare after school teen support. I think that's really work that's workable. Yeah I think Rika when you said you know why not have more activities to me. It's more than five priorities will call them. It's a reason then not to wait them because what we're really doing is trying to encourage different proposals and then as Andrew and that have said the way we use review criteria it's going to kind of play out there. And so it's nice, you know, to have, you know, we can only fund five services or five activities, you know, to me it's like then we shouldn't have more than five priorities. You know, I think it would be hard because we're going to have a score the ranked score would be would be hard to use there but I think having. I like the idea of having these be almost like an awareness piece to like, can someone come up with a creative idea and if not this year then maybe it's next year but it's up on that because when we're evaluating the proposals, we're not evaluating the youth services only against the youth services we're evaluating them all against all of them against each other. Yes. Okay. I mean there's the there is the piece with like the mental health services I don't know if it's the same as racial equity or other comments in the survey and so you know are those other priorities or activities we want to list I'm just looking at the list. You know like health services and insurance navigation is somewhat different it's just you know, do we add one or two more priorities to this, or is that are we getting kind of long winded here but does mental health come under health services slash insurance navigation if somebody really pushed it. That's what I was thinking but I don't you know, I guess it, you know, I guess like I was saying if someone wasn't sure and they put other and they described it. I mean I feel like that's fine right we have the other category in case we don't really we can't capture it. Right. I think, I mean I think the, I probably inclined to leave it as is the, I mean I think what we have down here is clearly include enough and a wide enough range that I think was sent the signal that we're pretty inclusive. Right. In what we would consider and obviously you have the other as well. Yeah. Are we all fine with this. Nice work everybody. Right. You want to talk about target areas, we don't. I can fold the map that that'll lead us to the capital project review. So, you know, looking at the map here, the, I don't know how, how visible it is but the green areas are income eligible block groups that you know it's already been determined to have a majority lower income households or working age population and then the outlines and red, orange and I guess we can call that purple are the target areas and so. Oh Ben you're being pet that's so nice reassuring hand. Nice every so often. It's a reverse of having a cat in your lap. You know so DHCD really wants the community to have like two target areas we stretch it with three, and we can always change this so one of the reasons we have a public hearing when we discuss proposal recommendations could be what if we get a lot of interest in North Amherst or something and you know North Amherst is in a priority right now but you know what if the town and the housing authority and some of them else says wow we really want to do work around. North Amherst library and that you know Sunderland road area, and then we can say okay well we missed it but you know we're required to target our capital projects so most capital projects have to be in a target area. And if they're not then you know we can tweak the boundaries a bit but really they have to be, you know, in these areas also because it serves low and moderate income individuals and households so. In North Amherst for instance it's hard to say that a sidewalk up there is going to serve lower moderate income individuals when it's not necessarily income eligible area. The library like just off the line. The, the, what library North Amherst. Yeah, if you would see my mic the cursor it's you know right here right there. So it's like right on the line practice please. You know bathroom, which has a pretty good impact. But that you know the library serves such a range of people we can't say that it serves a majority lower moderate population would be really difficult to. And there's plans to possibly have an addition to the library with a bathroom. Oh, okay. So we'll think of these target areas I mean they're somewhat, you know, somewhat odd in their shape. I just have a question. So, on the intersection of Pomeroy Lane and on those apartments that are kind of behind what used to be Cumberland's I'm not sure what it is anymore. The co op. The Pomeroy co op. Yeah, is that in here. It's the right here. Okay. Yeah, I mean, this is East Howley road right here, this boundary and then, you know, these are, you know, these are the, you know, the boulders and South Point here this is Hickory Ridge. And then, you know, this is the intersection. Okay. The town, you know, has applied for a big grant to improve this intersection we've applied a few times and we're still hoping to get different, you know, investments in this area or, you know, purchasing Hickory Ridge will be an outreach process that happens to, you know, possibly for more housing or other services down here. So, you know, for the town, this is a target area where we're putting other investment in addition to block grant. It feels like we don't have a lot of sway with target areas, you know, No, but if you know, I think, you know, for instance, we do think if we think that some of them, you know, it could be fine for now and we could wait to see what proposals come in. So, you know, would be, you know, are we, we really think that some parts of town are, you know, we need to adjust this radically. I'm fine with it how it is anybody else want to weigh in. I think it's a practical matter. You know, it's really the town that's come up with proposals for infrastructure. And so unless, you know, Nate you're hearing something from the town that, you know, people want to do something outside of these areas. They seem like they work well in the past. You know, I mean the town, you know, we applied for a few grants for downtown to for sidewalk improvements and we're still looking at, you know, making more accessibility improvements downtown in the village center so it makes sense from a few standpoints I you know, in terms of what what proposals will get from outside organizations or the town I'm not aware right now. So should we leave them as is and see what comes in. Sure. Yeah. We all good with that. Not your head. Okay. All right, check out for the non social service proposal. Where am I. You share. Too many documents opens that the, you know, what we said before as the priority is to meet the goals of the communities master plan by focusing focusing efforts in the target areas. And so, you know, we don't really specify, you know, specific activities in part because there's not a lot that people can propose that are block grant eligible. And the good news now is that the council has actually approved the master plan. Right. Yep. Good news. And do we on meet on the types of activities on the non social service do we have to weigh in on those or is that those pretty much preset. Yeah, we can look at those I guess we can discuss those as well. Those are. Those are categories from the state. And so, you know, they, for instance, like a housing one, you know, they might be considered a rehabilitation, you know, so, for instance, the housing authority proposes, you know, block grant money or ask for a block grant money to fix up some of their properties that would just be under rehabilitation. You know, it's not, you know, there's no category for the state just affordable housing it's, you know, you have to. So these categories are what, what we have to apply under. It's really not a lot mean under other for instance, you know, Valley CDC apply for Mike or for business assistance last year, and it was an other and it's not, you know, it's in, you know, DC allows it but it's not one of their typical projects and so, you know, someone could come in with something that really isn't a social service and put it as other and then we could just review it. So what we do is call this non social service, it's not capital, it's just non social service so it's basically, there's a range of activities that could happen under here. And then we try to they try to squeeze them into these is like six categories. Obviously there's other to accommodate anybody, anything that doesn't fit into what's listed here. So, so, so I guess, are we okay with the non social service activity priorities. Everybody. Not your head. Well in the past. Don't fix it. Great. All right, and moving on. So you all received the RP that went out for last year. It's been tweaked over several years to make it a little shorter for us, the readers. The questions that are there, most of them are, we can't really. The questions are necessary, but we did change the page limit and some of the supporting attachments the limit to the amount of supporting attachment so if you want to start with talking about. Anybody have any edits or suggestions or anything with the social service RFP. Those of you who've done it before did the page lengths feel correct last year. Did you feel like you had enough information from the proposals that came in. I thought last year worked pretty well as a, you know, by limiting it. I think it was helpful to, you know, get rid of a lot of duplication but having said that there was still a lot of repetition, but, you know, I. But I think it worked well enough. I didn't feel like I wasted too much time. I will say to that, you know, the state has a page limit when we apply the town applies so for, you know, so even if an agency submitted a 40 page proposal these cities only going to want to read like 10 pages right I mean they might say three pages in a project description and then some supporting documentation so some of it is, you know, our request for proposals trying to mirror what we then asked an agency to we will we then take from them and submit to the state as part of our application so, you know, to me it would be unfair if we say you can have a six page project description and the state only asked for three or four pages, and then you know after the fact I'd have to get back to the agency and say okay, can you cut it, or I cut it or I added it myself, you know, so, you know I think. The page limits are helpful. Some of it would be you know are the questions we're asking are they clear enough for instance you know is it, do we think an agency would understand what we're asking for in the budget description. You know, or, you know, how could we ask for more detail and you know the programmatic description, I think. Yeah what happened with the page limits we've always had some type of page limit but then what would happen is someone would put in like 10 appendices. You know to supplement their product description and really it then it becomes a 30 page product description, and that's just it's too much to, you know, if you can describe a project in a few pages, you know, it's a single space to it's not like we're asking for, you know, I don't know whatever we say but you know me hoping people can. So why don't we just do the same page number that the state the same page limit that the state. Yeah I think last year was worked out fine in that respect. We allowed people to submit additional material but we limited the total, you know application packet. 15. You said that the state only allowed 10. Was that just an example. It was just an example. One very minor suggestion I was reading this again and the first bullet point 15 page limit for required answers and documents by budget organization flow chart. We say and five pages for supporting attachments. Maybe that might seem like we're really looking for five pages. But if we say, and an optional five pages for any supporting attachments that would tell people that we don't really need the attachments but if they want supporting documents limited to five pages. Yeah, or up to five pages. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's a great suggestion. Now. Okay yeah. Let's go. Gail, a Lev had her hand raised if you want it. I don't have that open. Sure. I've unmuted you. I love. It's still muted. Sorry, can you hear me now. I apologize. Thanks so much to the committee for your thoughtful deliberation on all of this. I have some appreciation of how hard it is to write a really good RFD so I appreciate the effort you're putting in. I just wanted to, as you're discussing page limits this is just a kind of a silly comment but from the perspective of someone who has responded to it is that the there's a bunch of initial questions that are asked and then there's the project description and there are separate page limits for both of those. I think that might be where some of the duplication is caused in the information that you're receiving is trying to fit one set of answers into one page limit and then therefore trying to have information that doesn't fit there, like, go into those other answers so I don't want to bring you all to have an overall page limit for the total application or to modify that I think in the, in the project description there were a lot of sub questions that did make it somewhat challenging to answer all of those in the three page limit of the project or so whatever page limit it was in the product description. So I just wanted to offer that as you're grappling with this I totally. Not at all opposed to it being shorter. I think that my organization might be the culprit of the many appendices and I'm happy to provide you with fewer of those. I just wanted to mention that from the perspective of someone completing the application that there were a lot of sub questions which made it somewhat challenging to fit all of those into that page limit, amidst the overall page limit, if that makes any sense. I'll just respond quickly lab thanks the difficulty is those are what questions that DCD looks at when they review the proposals and so they, they want all those types of questions, some questions answered in those page limits so like I said I would feel, I would feel bad if we extended the page limit and then, and then you know when after proposals recommended by the committee in the town then I'd have to go back and then really try to tweak that basically just by editing it you know by cutting out and so got it. Yeah I mean if the state was more generous. I'd say, you know we could be too but they're, they've actually I think just because their staff has been reduced in recent years they're getting stricter about page limits. Got it. That's really fun and again I'm not offering any specific suggestion to the committee it just sounded like there was some back and forth trying to grapple with what was the appropriate numbers and reducing duplication so I just wanted to offer the perspective from someone who's completed it whatever page limits you set forth, that's fine and we'll you know are happy to adhere to them. In what you're saying yeah there's some questions that don't have page limits and then some some part of the responses do and so then it's like you know where do you put your, where do you put your writing right like where do you can just move stuff around to fit, you know the total page limit. Are we done with that I wanted to offer one thought. Not not on that issue. If anyone wants to offer a final thought on that issue. One thought I wanted to offer was you know what we did. Last time we introduced this possibility of right we get the proposals, we read the proposal then we submit to Nate, any questions that we have, which he then forwards to the proposal writer to the to the agencies. So they can answer those and then we write come together and hash it all out on the bottom of page three. I think that first bullet at the bottom, the committee will provide applicants. So I think there may be a syntax problem there but it's a little bit. I think we probably need to clarify the process of error because I don't think you read that and understand necessarily what what happens there. I'm really confused by that here this bullet right here. Yeah, I don't know we're not going to provide applicant questions before the proposals are reviewed. So I was thinking how do I know my questions if I haven't reviewed the proposal. Exactly. Yeah, so we write so to be clear we read them, you know, individually submit the questions and but before we get together and talk it through. So just we just need to I think a little different language to clarify that there. Good point. Good point, Andrew. I'm just going to highlight this just so we don't have to, you know, I'll work on I can share this with Gail this week but I think that's a good point to I and I thought that that was a strong part of the review last year was having the ability to ask questions and then get those answers back. In the review it, you know, it, it precluded a lot of questions during the review when the committee's you know really trying to then, you know, make recommendations and not, you know, and asking well what does this mean we can get all that out of the way. So, yeah, it was really helpful. It was. And is that are those answers to the questions then. There, they're just additional information, not incorporated back into the proposal. Right, so I mean we I think last year. You know, depending on how many questions were asked of each proposal we said you know like, you know, two to three pages. You know, can you, you know, can an applicant respond. And so the way it works this year, you know would be that proposals are due in mid December, you know the committee has to whatever it is two weeks to review those and then by some date, you provide me all your questions by four of those to the applicants and then they have a week to answer. And then I get them back to you a few days before the meeting when we reviewed them. And so it's just additional information clarifying information. So do you want to meet you and I'll work on that wording or do we do that now. I think, I think just we can work on I can work on that tomorrow Gail you know I can just, you know, see, I think it's, I agree that that's not a It's confusing. That's confusing. Yeah, so. Okay. That was a great point Andrew. And well, well much appreciated. All right. Are we with our agenda. So we are still looking at the RFP and any other thoughts as to, I don't know page format for questions. Any other additional information. We, we got way more specific if you look above. I don't think Nate has it up yet, but the proposal items in in years past we've really tweaked the language about budgets. organizational budget versus project budget and made that very clear so that's something that's been improved on in the past just to bring that up. Yeah, I mean you. Yeah. Going through. I have a question on the national objective description. Are the national objectives the same as the type of activity, or that's a different thing. It's a different thing. So, you know what we're saying here, the way to ensure that it serves low and moderate income individuals you know you could have a client tell that as majority lower modern income. And then there's other ways to do it if it's an area basis or, or others so what we're asking an agency to do is to say okay, if they think they serve a majority lower modern income individuals how do they document it so how you know how are they, telling us that they, they need that objective. So, you know, you know we can work with an agency I mean they might not know all the technical ways or terms but you know if they say oh well we, you know we do an intake form and, you know we collect, you know information and we could, you know, if they're recommended we I would work with them to develop an intake form that has you know required stuff that's needed for participants to sign or to complete. I also wondered about that because I, it says describing detail how it meets a national objective and how it will be documented so to me they were two different things and I was curious. How do we know what the national objectives are. On the page before and is it the people who are applying will understand what that means. Is that the assumption. Right or they ask, right. The national objectives are the type of activity. No, below number six on page five says national objective. Right so this is a national objective is your first threshold to be funded by block grant and that's serving a majority lower modern income individual so obviously, you know, or up above in the proposal we just have, you know, we have as an attachment what eligible activities are, and then what, you know what the block grant does and there's income guidelines so. I mean maybe we have to explain that some more but I think most agencies understand what the national objective is. That's good because it's still eluding me. As long as I understand. It's good to have some fresh eyes so let me actually just. So the way I understood that is that's kind of what you do Nate because on page nine where it says proposal review it's a town staff will first screen each proposal to ensure that meets the quality requirements that you find below. So as long as Nate you know what the national area are and are able to, you know, do that proper screening. I think that's. Yeah, and I think some of the I guess some of this is, um, you know we, some of this language comes from DCB but I think in that I could say I mean I think. The next thing is, you know what is the national objective, and then how will an agency meet it and I think we, I could have a better description in here, you know could just be another sentence. And then maybe somewhere in the proposal so I think I'm highlighting it just as something that could be tweaked. You know, for instance, I've had a few people in the last two weeks, email asking about the block grant process and if, if what they think could be an eligible activity and so you know I've been going back and forth with some individuals about whether or not it could actually meet a national objective so usually if an agency or someone isn't sure they reach out to staff which is what we encourage but you know if someone applied for instance and they hadn't and they said okay well I think I'm just going to have people. You know as a player or something. You know as a committee at first what I would do is I want to make sure that they're serving you know HUD presumed certain populations to be low mod, and then you know certain activities may may meet that so you know I would write before the committee even gets to reviewing it I would just, you know I would reach out to them and I would you know probably reach out to my program rep and just make sure it is eligible, you know, on a basic level. I would just work with it once it actually gets funded but yeah I think I can. I'll see if I can just make this a little clearer for someone who is just you know fresh eyes looking at it says okay well what are you talking about here. And I just have a quick question so I'm looking at a proposal from last year. Big brothers big sisters where they have answered project project description and project need and I feel like there's a lot of overlap because obviously when you write the project description you're going to describe the need in it. Do those in fact need to be according to DHCD to separate questions. Could couldn't you say project description and need or in community need. Yeah I think for social services now it's somewhat combined for capital projects it needs to be different. So, I think for for a social service activity. We could combine the two. There has to be some repetition when you're describing when you when you describe the project, you include the need and then the next question is project need. Right. Okay. I mean, I guess that's a question for the committee if we think that, you know, Andrew and that you've read others if we feel like that there is a lot of redundancy between those two answers. Andrew. I think that that what I remember is that there often is. But certainly not always right it's just about how careful people are in trying to speak to one or the other. But I seem to think that is one of the places where you can quickly get repetition. And I think the big description right now is outside the four pages and so someone could spend you know a few pages talking about their project and you know separate the real the big description of the need, but Well what if you said project description and need and then just put the second bullet from project need as the last bullet for the whole section, because it seems like the two bullets. Right, project need are basically the same. I think for the as per product description. Right, like change that to project description, you could even do project description slash need or you could say, right, right. And then just take that second bullet that's under project need and add it to the list. So there's four bullets under that. Right heading. All right, you know you and I can work on that how does that sound we can. Good. Okay. Okay, so I think for non social service, we really need to have a separate need da city likes to see for whatever reason they want to have it described, separated from the product description but for this, for the other one I can we can change that. I don't object to making that change I just will point out though that when we do our evaluation. We can choose, you know, D E F G and H so we will rank each one on description need community involvement, feasibility and impact, at least where we have had it set up in the past. I think we could have it. Read product description and project need. And then, you know, we still could have them be two separate review criteria, right. And then we would just. Yeah, I don't object. I like having a two separate review criteria, because they might be very different. I mean a great description but the need is not really there. But I don't object to, you know, combining that, you know, the D and E here. Okay. I think we need to change this to so all right. Thank you for pointing to that. Yeah, what did you say, I said to not thank you for pointing out that on the matrix it's separate it separated out but on the RFP we're going to combine it. Is there anything else we think that is could be updated or changed. Everybody good. One last one is just the. Yeah, it's the review criteria which you know and that just mentioned and I think you make that bigger, Nate. Yeah, maybe too big. You know what you know we try to keep the same order as the request for proposals so you know consistency with community priorities, agency board information project budget project description project need community involvement and support product feasibility and then product impact and so you know it follows the same sequence of answers or questions in the proposal. And so what we've done in the past is you know a one to four score. You know we'd ask committee members to, you know, put a score and essentially for each, under each proposal for each, each of these categories and then you know you can. You can aggregate those total those at the bottom but you send those to me individually and then I create an aggregate score for the whole committee so it's really not. It's not the committees, you know it's the committee's recommendations it's not individual committees, members score that really becomes the talking point it's okay. As a committee, you know it looks like as Andrew said you know maybe these are the stronger proposals. These are the weaker ones and here's you know the middle ground and you know and then it helps the committee just start the conversation of recommending proposals but people have been through this if we like this system you know if we find that it you know I think some people. You know one to four is not a big range at one point we had a wider score range and we found that right people may score their little. They're more forgiving and so they all score higher and then some people score lower so in the end, the, the range is so great that you know an average is really meaningless because of how that the, you know, how they score. Well we had changed that right, Nate. So one to four and then, you know I think, I think that becomes the discussion point right I mean I think last year, what we did was. Once we have the scores and we discussed them we did look at you know was there a range, you know like for instance did people score certain proposals, much higher, you know in general. I said, but we had decided to handle that problem that we would actually send you a rank ordering. Right, that's right. Sorry, if we had eight proposals we sent them to you rank order one through eight. That's not the rank ordering because at the end of the day that's actually what matters, and it avoids or gets around the problem of you know some people clustering. Spreading out so that way yeah it's that way I don't even see the scores, you just send me the rank order. That's right so just rank order and then just the other thing I wanted to note on the, you know these individual criteria, you know project description project need and so on that. To me anyway it's, these are helpful as a way of sort of disciplining myself to look at all to consider each of these things. Whereas right it's very tempting or you read a proposal you really like it you really don't like it for whatever reason. Here, you know, this again disciplines me to look at each of these things at least to consider them before I come up with a final rank ordering, but another issue that's come up with that's come up is right not most of us don't weigh these equally. Right so we can put in numbers for each of these criteria on a given proposal, but typically we don't then write our subjective evaluation isn't arrived at by adding them and dividing by the number of categories right. So, I guess what in the end at the end of the day what I'm suggesting is that we use again use them to discipline ourselves to consider each of these things but then at the end. Right you assign a score that isn't necessarily tightly related to each of the the different criteria rankings, and the most important thing right is to come up with some relative assessment right. You think this one is strongest you think this one is next strongest all things considered and so on down the line. Yeah, I had a quick question that I think might relate a little bit to this which is, is there some place where we can get an objective analysis of what the need would be the need for certain things like I mean I know that the community came back with like the, you know, like what is the literacy rate, you know I mean I guess you could look that up right if there's a for a literacy project but you know, you know for the project need is there's some way that we can actually look at what the real need is like if you know I mean I don't know, you know I mean we can look I look at you know the food stability stuff that was, you know told to us and you know you can probably look up some of the statistics I mean, I think a lot, a lot of Let me see. Yeah, I'm on. So a lot of the need is to find in the proposals, because a lot of the people that are applying have applied over years so that the, for instance, the some of the homeless shelters will will give us statistically how many people have come in in the past, that sort of thing and the survival center will tell us how many people come into lunch, how many people have been how many families how many different families. So I mean I think that's big brother big sister would talk about how many people kids they have and how long their waiting list has been. So I think that's where we get it I mean I think we'll that's more local and I think it's usually pretty accurate. Yeah, I would. I agree with Paul and I think that it's up to the committees to explain the need and Lucas to your point there isn't really like a townwide report that has all the these types of things and what the need are so you know like, you know, if, you know someone come in on the applicant to make a compelling project, they don't really know what their needs need right so if, if someone comes and says oh yeah we really need some money to do this and then nowhere in the proposal are their metrics right they don't really quantify things or it's just, you know, that could be your question when you're reading the proposal you might ask well I don't see any. You might say I don't see the project need to describe very well, and that's one of your questions you send to me, and then we can ask the applicant can you actually provide us a little bit more quantitative measures of need. I think that is right there isn't. I agree like it'd be interesting like do is like a baseline documentation of need for some of this and there really isn't. So, you know I'm, I'm, we're hoping that the applicant would provide some of that but yeah sorry I had my first time through the process I now I realize that it's probably just fleshed out as the process goes forward. No I think it's a good question, someone else had asked that too and I was like, well we don't. And then more recently people have been asking like what the census has in the census actually has become more limited and so it is interesting. I'm just asking certain questions about just different demographics in town and we don't have that information available you know I've talked to pdpc and others and it's just interesting. You know like you think you might have say racial breakdown of certain things and we don't, or you might have like educational attainment for certain categories and we don't and so it's a, you know if the census doesn't collect it and the state and the Department doesn't collect it locally Amherst doesn't you know we don't have some of we don't you know we do an annual survey of residents but we don't ask all these detailed questions so. We're hoping these agencies have a way to document their need whether it's just even like simple waiting lists or you know. And we've learned how inaccurate polling is these days. These are all really good questions I know it, it helps us expand our thinking, the people that have been on the committee helps expand our thinking as well so thank you, Lucas. For that question. Yeah and Andrew back to your point I do like right so I think Andrew was right I think don't send me your score send me your rank order and that way it eliminates it actually that order. Incorporates your personal biases but it plays out in a way that the numbers aren't weighted in a way that right if people very scores widely and they're you know they're used to scoring things and some people aren't so. The rank order is what you know that I can create a chart and that's what right that's that's the way to do it so thanks Andrew I forgot that that was a right. I think that helps. And having nine people in the committee now that that will help that process because will give us better range more more opinions, basically more numbers. So I would think it'll work better this way. Only seven. So I'm saying nine. Yeah, so I don't know what that is. Oh yeah that's better than I will be able to put our opinions, you know, I'm gonna vote three times. I knew there was a problem in that. It looks like Hollywood squares but not all the squares. Somebody have a joke. And so do we and so in terms of the review criteria I mean they follows the proposal and so the, are there any questions about that or any changes you want to see or we think it's. Like one to four is sort of limiting like I think one to five feels a little, you can get a middle with one to five as opposed to one to four that's going to throw out there. You could do whatever you want right because nobody's seeing your number so you could do one to 10. No I mean if we say one to four I really want to keep individuals as your committee members are reviewing it to do one to four and use whole numbers please don't do like two and a half. But I thought you were just getting. But internally as individually as you rate them I want we want you to use a one to four score. Because you can't you can't Becky for instance you mean for you to be doing one to 10 and then Andrew is doing one to four to me, I think then that could. It doesn't necessarily but I think that range you could then have a different order of proposals I'd rather, you know we think one to five is better individually we could do that but I'd want everyone to kind of keep to that score, which of course is you to say okay if one's the best fives the least where do proposals fit in, or does each criteria fit in. Also in terms of discussion in the past, you know, that might come up in the discussion so some will say well on this proposal, I thought that the description was great but the need, you know I only gave them a two or something. Right and then it provides a common basis for discussion. Do we want to do one. As opposed to an even number right. Yeah, good Rika point of the one to four was that we would have to actually choose, and because other I mean I, I feel like I know myself and I would gravitate to the middle, and I actually like the idea of being forced into a four point scale. Anybody else. I agree that it should be a small number whether it's four or five doesn't matter but it keeps you from getting to do five and six for everything. Matt and Andrew what do we think from prior years one to four works for you. I'm fine either way. I didn't have a problem with one to four. Okay, all right, leave it one to four I'm fine. Let's work for me. I guess some comfortable music when you're doing it so you know if you if you are trying to go to that middle ground. Okay, well done. I can say we used to do one to 10 and we realized quickly that some committee members were always getting one twos and threes and then some are like in the eight nines and you know that range. It's not necessarily telling of the proposal I mean is there you know is it is are they were some really that good and some really that bad or is it just that's how people their preference of how they use a score and so I think that's when the rank order is good so what happens during the review then there could be a discussion because maybe, you know, as committee members ask questions then we get those back and then there's this order. It could be that you know a number of proposals are somewhat tied or you know they're all lumped together and then that really becomes part of the committee's discussion. So how do we choose five, if you know seven are tied. And then like Matt said that's where you might go back to your own review and say well actually I think this, this budget was weaker and then that becomes a talking point during the meeting. You know, you have to somehow make those decision points. Incidentally just just on this very briefly I want to again give Matt some explicit love for that translation work on the survey, not because you know, somewhat analogously to what we're talking about. Really, I mean if you look at the way people ranked, they clearly approach this in a whole range of different ways. That actually would, it would be hard to make what what you did not is much more helpful than actually the raw scores, given the range of ways in which people responded to that survey. Well, I did this based on the insight that you provided to the committee over the last year so. Oh, stop it. It's a thing to keep in mind though because I mean these again if people are responding what just really extending on what we're saying about our own rate ratings right and the different ways that we might be inclined. If you look down to those things very differently, it can really make a hash of, you know what we take away and the kind of translation that did or, you know, offering rank orderings, which is essentially what you did that is actually very very useful, even necessary to really make good use of these things so that's a thing to keep in mind certainly if you want to go back to the survey in the future which I think is helpful in the comments and all of that. And I think I use Microsoft forms just because it was convenient to use on our website but you know we do have the town has survey monkey and there's a few other platforms we could use that might do some more statistical analysis on the data on the responses and so which you know the software use didn't and so I agree it is interesting if we're doing this and we start getting, you know, we expect, you know, a few hundred responses I think we have to have. Maybe I would come up with a different way. If the questions are the same a different way to analyze the results. You know, and maybe that's a different software, just because you know there was a range, and then there was a lot of comments too and so thanks that for doing that I didn't know. I was, I'll say I was pleasantly surprised at how many responses we had. Yeah, amazing. Okay, so we've discussed the proposal review criteria. And we were going to keep the non social service the same. We don't have as we have. And anything else we need to discuss other items not anticipated within 48 hours. Anything else I was going to try to pull up the agenda quickly. So we look at their priorities and their requests for proposals. I think we've covered everything. And it's only 839. So just, just to hopefully everyone's on board Lucas and Rika with the schedule but does it make sense to just review the timeline again. And Becky too, right. So, we have November 20 that the RFP is going out so that's on Nate. The committee's webpage I think I have it. Okay. I can read it to yes so we have. At the end of the week, the proposals can be, you know, email to different agencies and you put on the website and all Scott mirrors back and try to get all that out there. They're due on December 18, which, you know, I don't even know what day that is. Friday. It's Friday up. And then I'm asking, we get them that day or do you, it takes some time to pull things together. No, I try to do. I'll ask, especially this year, because I'm not in the office, I could be. You have to come in that day usually I try to get them all out that day. So, you know, I'll just work that afternoon and get them out, at least electronically, you know, by five or something and then if people. Right, so committee members on paper copies, we can also do that. So, you know, I think I've already had two requests for paper copies. You can see them. You can either deliver them to your home or you can pick them up, but usually try to get them all out and online and try to get it all on the website that day. So anyone can see them. Is there any possibility you could just request electronic copies from people or is that just my everything up. The difficulty is the way we ask for different pieces of information. You know, usually I would take a paper copy and then collate it to what how we needed to be read right so their budget may not be in the same format, you know, might be in a different software than their, their narrative and then they're, you know, so usually, you know, I'm, I could we could ask I can ask people to email me everything. Maybe that they, you know, they can't they might, you know, some agencies might not have the ability to scan everything or but I'll ask for it. I think that's. I mean this year in particular that I might be reasonable for right. And if we want a paper copy, can we get that career. Yeah, so okay. Yeah, just ask me, and we can do that, or Ben and I can get that ready. If we what what what exactly are we getting electronically is it through box is it is a PDFs what what does it look like. Usually I try to scan it all as a PDF. So you know be the, you know, everything would be bundled as one PDF and be you know the narrative description the budget, the board. You know if they have like a chart, you know any letters of support any attachments would all be scanned in as one PDF. So then I'd ask that you know by January 3. Ish, you'd send me any questions you'd have. And then. And then I get those to the applicants and they have a week to respond. You know, and then the committee meets on January 14 to do the review of the proposal so. You know, if we can't do it in one evening on the 14th, then, you know, I'd want to schedule a meeting, you know, shortly after, you know. And then, you know, we'd have a public hearing in late January, or it could be early February depending on the schedule but at the public hearing. The recommendations would have been reviewed by the town manager, and those, you know, essentially we'd be unveiling what, you know, what recommendations are going to be included in the town's application and asking for public comment on that, which is a requirement by by the state that the public gets to comment on what the town's applying for. And does the public comment at the January 14 meeting, like do the people who submitted the proposals or is that really more like what we have tonight. It's more like what we have tonight so the public's, you know, encouraged to attend a public meeting but we're not necessarily asking for public testimony and so the committee review of the proposal is based on what's submitted and the questions and answers you know that are the follow up. And, you know, if an agency is attending the public meeting and there's another question we could ask of them but we're not asking, you know, people to come and present their proposals to the committee at the meeting, which we've done in the past we had used to ask agencies to make a presentation. And, you know, I guess there's been discussion back and forth about, you know, the, how that plays into the process, you know, is it. Is it beneficial, could someone make a good presentation but not at all really speak to the proposal they submitted. You know, so we haven't, you know, we don't include that. I guess we could go back to it, you know, we'd have to. I feel like this year we're not, you know, it don't add an extra meeting. We're not really equipped right now, but I also think that the meeting we had a week and a half ago whatever it was on the 10th. That's when everybody got their chance to kind of well they were advocating for priorities but they're also advocating for themselves as well. And does this work I mean are we, you know, not advocating for another meeting that wasn't clear. I think, you know, at, you know, January 14, you know, that's, you know, that we could, you know, I think everyone said they're available I mean through zoom I'd hate to have you phone in if you're on vacation but I think it's generally good for people. Right, that's a Thursday, and then the 28th is a Thursday so we could just, you know, if you know if if, you know, when time nears if the 14th doesn't work and we need to move it a few days or earlier the next week and then we shift everything a little bit we have that flexibility. I'm hoping DHCD I think the applications will be due. The end of February so we have you know we have a little wiggle room not a lot but a little. Any other questions about the schedule going forward. All right, and anybody else is there anybody else out there, Nate that's waiting. I'm still here and I think Ted. I think he's been here but if I guess we have any public comment if there's any but they've been the only attendees. They want to weigh in with anything. And we put them to sleep. It's so scintillating are you kidding. I love your loves raise your hand. I love. I have to acknowledge that you called no thank you all so much to the committee for your careful deliberation I don't need any further for their comment but I just wanted to. Yeah, appreciate all of your, your service on the separate. Thanks you're not asleep. I am not asleep I am here I am listening. I did just serve myself a bowl of ice cream. I'm listening to meetings at during dinner and my kids now call it dinner theater so it's kind of nice about zoom you can you know meet yourself and don't have to share your video so it's at least once a week we have dinner theater at our house. Great. All right, anything else. Are we all set to adjourn do we need a motion to adjourn or no because this isn't a pub. I mean I guess if people want to say you adjourn it's anybody want to make a motion to adjourn. Got it. All right well thank you so much this was really a very fruitful discussion and I think a lot came out of it and every year we refine these proposals a little bit more and a little bit more. I think we need to make all of our work a little bit easier when we get to read how many pros proposals I don't know come December 18th. It'll be really smooth sailing this year. And if we want to pick up proposals we just like meet you in the back of town hall and have a hand off. Yeah, you know the back door. It sounds so shady there's a narrow dark alley and then we can we can you know either you can come to town hall or we could have a meeting, you know, a meeting spot or something. We can figure it out. I'd like hard copies as well please. Okay, I think I said so before if I'm not on your list I would like to help. I could become a mail carrier and just bring them around town. I'd like hard copies please. Maybe holiday cookies to Ben. Yeah. No food sharing during. Yeah, it's true. So we can plan on that if. Yeah, hopefully if they get in by noon by the end of the day we can have you know hard copies ready to so everyone can get them at that day. All right, thank you committee for all your hard work this is really terrific really really well done and it's 849 we can all.