 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, your time, your time, your time, your time, your time, your time, your time. I think that's awesome for, Yeah. So for this where it says, you know, Yeah. And not, not for the, uh, Not for this. Not for the matrix. Yeah. Not for the matrix. I didn't need to, I didn't need to cut you off Andrew. Sorry. Right. I'm just going to, it says type of activity. I can share that when we get there. So. Okay. I can do a new share the, um, So for, you know, We 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. We had a lot of, you know, household family individual stabilization support services for those experiencing homelessness, youth development and on and on. So we were 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, I'm aware of that. I'm aware of that. I'm aware of that. I'm aware of that. And so 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 we only fund those five activities or will be fund other. Um, I'm just 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 does that list come from? Where does that list come from? The activity is like the project or the program. That's what the nonprofit is doing. So let's say. The survival centers. Let's say food pantry. They want additional funding to open longer hours on Saturday. That would be the activity. Right. So, you know, hours on Saturday that would be the activity. Right but my question is where so the type of activity 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 and then they also are um you know verified by DHCD so you know they fit nicely into the categories that DHCD 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 and you know for instance they've been talking about like oh could could like a taxi service for low-income individuals or seniors be eligible and maybe but it's a little difficult um you know so for instance like that you know that could be something that you know if that was recommended or a 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. I thought and 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 with that survey online. So what are we talking about doing setting separate priorities? 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 out to see if we want to take the priorities that we've listed in the prior years would be um added to or edited according to what has come in on this survey like for example somebody in the new um the additional entries that came in said somebody listed that we should um help fund the common share food co-op in town but 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 these activities that are here we I guess we're using the word activity in there 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 DHCD you know for a social service we only fund 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 of the community and then you know distilling it and you know putting it into what we think are priorities and then they those become the activities so um I think you know last year we had the most you've ever had um sometimes we have fewer so 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 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 they'd have to come up with it on their own and then 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 could 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 comments about um you know that type of social service um 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 activity you know submits 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 you know I think last year what we did though was you know if there's a range of proposals it may help to say okay well you know are we um um spreading the 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 um we have another question I do we only look at the social service applications because I I mean that's right that's 20 of the grant we get right and then the rest is infrastructure right now we also 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 too and we you know I mean that's pretty you know usually it 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 right wouldn't 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 um you know rise of people that's a I mean that's more of a service it's not a you know capital project okay and those those numbers aren't they're non-fuggable they're not decided by us what numbers the the non-social services versus social service funding the the percentage of the grant you mean yeah you know that's uh 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 percent of the grant amount uh huh okay there is a cap there's a cap yeah and I'm glad that everybody's asking so many questions because it's it is it is confusing at first it really is when you know it it just takes one round to kind of get it under your belt so we kind of um jumped over one um noted comments from the public hearing and online survey and or now can I say something yeah so like the transportation some of these things overlap so like the 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 and 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 uh food um 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 in 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 appointments so it's not necessarily providing food to them it's you know providing them transportation to and from places but I agree that some transportation could be part of you know built into some of these other activities the board for senior services for seniors for example right right there's a lot of the a lot of the transportation uh you know commercial transportation services in the area been cut back or stopped completely um so that that's why it's becoming a bigger issue all right 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 um responses to the survey that came in anybody want to discuss well I I had a quick comment I and I guess it probably then um segway is directly into number two anyway which is um that like do we where do we think we're going to be in a year for now I mean I 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 um hands down winner with shelter sort of being a secondary one um 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 bated 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 um 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 a moving ball I just wanted to see if anybody had any ideas about where where do we think we're going to be wish I knew yeah I would say I would say it's hard to know but the reality is that will be or 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 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 um 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 uh all the programs don't just you know have to fluctuate wildly but their budgets right right right all right good discussion um thank you for all your contributions so um let's continue the discussion on priorities um and um nothing you'll put everything up on the screen so you can see where we were for 2020 uh and so let's talk about what we feel might be edits or additions for 2021 going forward well one thing I wonder and this is more a question it really goes back to Lucas's question which I misunderstood sorry about that Lucas but um I didn't fully understand what was going on anyway it was good to be clarified I'm in that club too um so but this question of Professor Lucas I 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 community 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 in six months or a year right for what the community names of the 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 a consensus on how much we weigh those priorities especially since thanks to Matt's good work it suggests that right there's some pretty clear ones and again just picking up your point Lucas I mean right to the extent that we depart it 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 Matt's 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 seemed 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 no yeah 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 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 I yeah I but um you know what Andrew was saying the committees talked about you know previously you know do you know is there a rank order or a weight to 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 reviewing 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 um you know if we do think that one or two or three um you know priorities are the highest you know do we then automatically give those a higher score in a category and then that fact may may factor into how the committee reviews them I mean I think that's really the ultimate decision is how you know how do you want to set that is there a way to set that up if we want to do that I guess I need to Andrew's comment that are we are we individually using our own judgment about priorities or are we accepting the communities maybe I misunderstood 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 I don't think the 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 a fair bit about it and they're probably the ones weighing in as well you know 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 it 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 you know I 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 now I was just 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 yeah well 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 you know 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 as you can see but basically it's the yeah you know 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 um 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 but I guess I don't see that you know because of limitations in 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 because this is the first year we've done that and I think it's really helpful but I don't think that's the you know the end of our inquiry thanks thanks now 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 um 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 and you know these priorities are somewhat broad but they also fit into you know projects that DHCD would recommend in that you know inherently serve lower moderate income individuals and households 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 because I want to get the RFPs ready by the end of the week to give people time to you know submit applications so unless you know it's really the committee's decision but I want to make sure we're not belaboring it because if you know we could we could take a straw poll do we want to weight them and say okay we're going to put one or two up top and 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 activity is 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 um yeah 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 you 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 and frankly even if there's something that's about food and nutrition maybe that particular um 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 is in 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 um and that comes in the you know 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 the relative scores for every review criteria higher because they think food security is more important but I think now the way you explained it is you know your score would just be for that criteria would be higher compared to others and the rest would just you know it's a comparative review so then you know the other review criteria would just be looked at um you know committee members would review those uh 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 a food category 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 um would suggest that yeah the way we actually have done in the past uh that it's we're fine and which is this and this actually goes back to the mistaken explanation that I was going to offer you Lucas about the process which is you know we we the committee members rank order them then um you know there are a few that cluster as being highly ranked across members there are a few typically that cluster as being relatively lowly ranked and that allows us to concentrate the conversation on the ones in the middle and we 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 um so it ends up being a pretty robust discussion where again all of these different ways of thinking about things uh get get out there in the middle of the table and and we hash it out and that's probably inevitable and probably and I think probably more worthwhile use of time in the end than 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 good point really good point Andrew so given everybody's input and we have up on the screen the types of activities that were priorities uh for last year um do we want to keep again with this now this discussion has felt pretty thorough is there anything that we would like to change and should we just go through them starting with household family and individual stabilization and 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 in 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 didn't get any we did not get any proposals about that but we added that as a you know potential activity and support services for seniors as well I think was new last year so those were too new too additional so 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 um activities that we would like to add after having had time to think about this discussion and review the 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 um summary on your on the on the math that you did about transportation before I pushed my point uh no just because that wasn't something that you know everyone responded to so those were just kind of additional comments so there were some things that came in um you know it's additional adaptation or mental health or I saw you know kind of career employment help some of those things were um were thrown out there as well as as well as in various forms kind of a you know racial equity um concept 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 uh with you know a non-profit would have to come forth with a program slash activity for it would be added in I mean I know the transportation is a really big issue around uh people getting their food and the uh could be added like next to other in parentheses because we have adult education next to economic self-sufficiency I think we put it somewhere in a parentheses with an asterisk explaining it because um a lot of the issues that people have maintained their home employment you know food 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 um 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 um travel so you know I know that the senior center has you know is 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 are a lot fewer that's why I thought maybe just putting it in parentheses thanks to other you know a 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 if transportation when parentheses next to other or do we just add it and just say transportation I have 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 issue 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 so I advocate for adding transportation I don't know if we have to be more specific than that need transportation services you know I guess that's up to the committee all right are people on board with that I have no objection Andrew yeah that's fine yeah I'm fine thank you Paul no definitely on board with that 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 so I don't know that we 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 comma including transportation specifically to get food we don't need to be that specific what if you need transportation to get to a job interview right that's a different thing but I think there was a lot of sort of specifics around right transportation around 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 is some delivery mechanism there right whether it's the mobile market or having a van that does 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 that Nathaniel is not the delivery of the food but the people need to get to pick up food like at the survival center and the bus and to me that's not I guess the difference is I wouldn't I'm not 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 what's this I don't think anybody's going to do just a proposal around transportation we don't know we don't know they could who could go I don't know that's not for us to worry about I think it's well 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 right like something like family outreach if they have families growing a housing court and they have families going to other to guidance council appointments when the world I'm saying like when the world opens up again it could be I don't know a 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 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 child care 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 child care in the survey I'm not sure I can look it up but certainly you know we know I assume that was true across the countries true in Amherst as well which is there is a significant need for child care especially again for low-income families so again I we 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 child care I mean is youth is youth development really I mean what you know is it I guess if I read out I think of like enrichment programs or things that are maybe different than child care but could they be kind of the same could you say youth development including child care or youth youth and your youth or child care support maybe a youth services including child care I like that there was 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 that youth services including child care is fits for those of the others that have been on the committee it's typically big brothers big sisters in 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 youth services would still be there is that Nate went away in on that no I agree I agree I don't I mean I don't you know if they're confused by it they can always ask but I think you know if someone checked other and then explained what they're doing I mean we can do the committee could 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 I mean we like to have 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 um 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 a little different than not knowing what it is but the you know childcare is interesting we have funded childcare and after-school programs um before and it's just it hasn't happened um in a few years but that for a while it had been um 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 are we teen support that's my dad that describes what we've funded 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 you even have it 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 uh the phrase again just what you had just said about childcare and I think I again I changed the document right here oh okay I haven't really minimized because I'd rather see your faces than see the print oh I like it now because you know I'm just doing it live so it's easy just as we speak I I heard you're smaller but okay um I have a really big computer monitor so lucky you all right use services childcare after-school teen support I think that's really work that's workable right yeah I think Rico when you said you know why not have more activities to me because we have more than five priorities we'll call them it's a reason then not to weight them because what we're really doing is trying to encourage different proposals and then as Andrew and Nat have said the the way we use review criteria it's going to kind of um play out there and so it's nice you know to have I mean you know if 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 unless unless we want you know I think it would be hard because we're going to have a the score the ranked score would be would be hard to to use there but I think having I like the idea of having these be almost like an awareness piece too like can someone come up with a creative idea and if not this year then maybe it's next year but it's yeah just follow 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 right okay I mean there is the there is the piece with like the mental health services I don't know if it's the same as like racial equity or you know there's a few other comments in the survey and so you know are those other priorities or activities you 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 would mental health come under health services slash insurance navigation if somebody really pushed up that's what I was thinking but I don't you know I guess 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 all right I think I mean I think the I probably inclined to leave it as is I mean I think what we've done here is clearly include enough in a wide enough range that I think was sent the signal that we're pretty inclusive right in what we would consider and and obviously you have the other as well yeah are we all fine with this nice work everybody all right you want to talk about target areas we don't I can fault the map 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 has already been determined to have a majority lower moderate income households or working age population and then the outlines in 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 yeah it's nice every so often it's a reverse of having a cat in your lap yeah 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 um 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 um you know the North Amherst library and that you know Sunderland road area and then we could say okay well we missed it but um 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 you know 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 isn't the library like just off the uh line the the uh what library North Amherst yeah if you would see my the cursor it's you know right here yeah right there so it's like right on the line practically because they have no 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 it'd be really difficult to and there's plans to possibly have an addition to the library with a bathroom oh okay so I don't know what people think of these target areas I mean they're somewhat you know somewhat odd in their shape um I just have a question so on the intersection of Pomeroy Lane and um those apartments that are kind of behind what used to be Cumberland's I'm not sure what it is anymore it's the co-op the Pomeroy co-op yeah is that in here it's the right here oh okay yeah I mean this is East Howley Road right here this boundary and then you know these are these are the um you know like 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 uh investments in this area we're you know purchasing Hickory Ridge it'll be an outreach process if 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 um some of the you know it could be fine for now and we could wait to see what proposals come in I mean someone would be you know are we do we really think that some parts of town are you know we need to adjust this radically um 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 too for sidewalk improvements and we're still looking at you know making more accessibility improvements downtown and in the village center so it makes sense from a few standpoints I you know in terms of what what proposals we'll get from outside organizations of 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 that's good nod your head okay all right check out for the non-social service um proposal where am I uh let me do that new share I have too many documents opens up with that the uh you know what we said before as the priority is to um you know meet the goals of the community's master plan by focusing efforts in the target areas and so you know we don't really specify um 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 yeah good news and do we on meet on the 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 um those are uh those are um categories from uh 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 so there's really not a lot I mean under other for instance um you know Valley CDC applied for my or for uh business assistance last year and it was an other and it's not you know it's and you know um 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 you know review it I mean DC does 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 it's like six categories but obviously there's other to accommodate anybody anything that doesn't fit into what's listed here so so um so I guess are we okay with the non-social service activity priorities everybody not your head work well in the past they broke don't fix it great all right and moving on um so you all received um the RLP that went out for last year um it's been tweaked over several years to make it a little shorter for us the readers um and with questions that are they are most of them are we can't really or the questions are necessary but um 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 um anybody have any edits or suggestions or anything with the social service RFP for 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 it was 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 yeah I will say too that you know the state has a page limit when we apply the town applies so for um 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 ask an agency to will 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 edit it myself you know so um you know I think uh 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 could we ask for more detail and you know the programmatic description I think um 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 and it's a single space too it's not like we're asking for you know I don't know whatever we say but you know I mean we're hoping people can so why don't we just do the same page number that the the state the same page limit that the state is yeah I think last year was worked out fine in that respect you know we allowed people to submit additional material but we limited the total you know application packet of 15 so one you said that the state only allowed 10 was that just an example it was just an example right I don't know yeah 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 and 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 yeah I think that's a great suggestion um no okay yeah Gail uh a Lev had her hand raised if you want it I can't I don't have that open sure I've unmuted you if you go ahead Lev it's still muted yeah sorry can you hear me now yeah I apologize um thanks so much to the committee for your thoughtful deliberation on all of this um I have some appreciation of how hard it is to write a really good rfd so I appreciate the effort you're putting in um I just wanted to as you're discussing page limits this is just a kind of a 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 um and 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 know if it works for you all to have an overall page limit for the total application or um to modify that I think in the in the project description there were a lot of sub questions um 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 I'm not at all opposed to it being shorter um I think that my organization might be the culprit of the many appendices and I'm happy to provide you with fewer of those um 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 it does 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 there are some questions answered in those page limits so um you know like I said 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 um 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 totally fine 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 I whatever page limits you set forth that's fine and well you know are happy to adhere to them you know 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 um to fit you know the total page limit wanted to are we done with that I wanted to offer one thought not not on that issue um if anyone wants to offer a final thought on that issue um the 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 today to the agencies so they can answer those and then we right come together and hash it all out on the bottom of page three 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 um 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 yeah I was certainly confused by that here this bullet right here yeah I don't 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 right so to be clear we we read them you know individually submit the questions and but before we get together and talk it through right so just we just need to I think a little different language to clarify what happens 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 too 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 as part of 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 they're they're just additional information not incorporated back into the proposal right 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 two or whatever it is two weeks to review those and then by some date you provide me all your questions I forward 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 and I can just you know see I think it's yeah I agree that that's not a it's confusing that's confusing yeah so okay all right that was a great point Andrew and um well well much appreciated all right um where are we with our agenda so we are um still looking at the RFP and um any other thoughts as to I don't know page format for questions uh any other additional information we uh we got way more specific if you look above um 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 uh been improved on in the past just to bring that up yeah I mean we do yeah anything else 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 um you know you can serve a clientele that is majority low or moderate income and then there's other ways to do it if it's an area basis or or others so um what we're asking an agency to do is to say okay if they think they serve a majority low or moderate income individuals how do they document it so how you know how are they telling us that they they need that objective and so you know um 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 to sign or to complete. I also wondered about that because I it says describe in 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. I just found them on the page before and is it the people who are applying will understand what that means is that the assumption on page right or they ask right wait a minute so 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 moderate income individual so previously 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 yeah no it's good to have some fresh eyes so let me actually just um 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's the national criteria 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 uh some of this language comes from DHCB but I think in that I could say I mean I think what Rico's asking 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 it 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 yeah I mean so you know for instance I've had a few people in the last um 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 self-declare or something um you know as a committee at first what I would do is I want to make sure that they're serving you know HUD presumes certain populations to be low mod and then you know certain activities may may um 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 on a basic level and you know we can always 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 clear for someone who is just you know fresh eyes looking at it and says okay well what are you talking about here and I just have a quick question so um 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 because couldn't you say project description and need or 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 um for a social service activity we could combine the two because 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 um Andrew sorry about that what I remember is that there often is um 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 I think so it is a product 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 um 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 you're saying for the um as per product description right like change that to project description you could even do project description slash need or you could see 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 gail you and I can work on that how does that sound we can that's good okay okay yeah like I said 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 uh for the other one I can we can change that but I don't I don't object to making that change I just will point out though that when we do our evaluation um it actually follows you know def g and h so we will rank each one on description need community involvement feasibility and impact at least where we you know have had it set up in the past I think we could have it um 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 mean I like having a two separate review criteria because they might be very different I mean a great description but you know the need is not really there um but I don't object to you know combining that you know the D and E here okay yeah may need to change this too so all right thank you for pointing that out yeah what did you say I said to Nat thank you for pointing out that on the matrix it's separated separated out but on the RFP we're going to combine it yeah is there anything else we think that is could be updated or changed I think everybody good all right and then just for one last one is just the um yeah it's the review criteria which um you know and Nat just mentioned and I think can you make that bigger Nate yeah that might be too big you know so 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 in essentially for each uh under each proposal for each um each of these categories then you know you can um 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 you know it's not the committee's um 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 so I don't know people have been through this if we like this system you know if we find that it you know I think some people um 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 might score they're a 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 um well we had changed that right Nate I feel like with the one to four and then um you know I think I think that becomes the discussion point right I mean I think last year what we did was um once we had 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 you know but we had 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 so not real scores but 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 then we were 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 the 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 um 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 um whereas right it's very tempting right you read a proposal you really like it you really don't like it for whatever reason but 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 um 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 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 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 what 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 some way that we can actually look at what the real need is like if you know I mean I I don't know you know I mean we can look I look at you know the the food stability stuff that was you know told to us and you know you could probably look up some of the statistic stuff but I mean I think a lot a lot of to 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 in for lunch how many people have been how many families how many different families so I mean I think that's a big brother big sister would talk about how many kids they have and how long their waiting list has been so I think that's where we get it I mean I think that's more local and I think it's usually pretty accurate yeah I would 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 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 case that there is 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 there many 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 described 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 the difficulty 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 we're hoping that the applicant would provide some of that but but yeah 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 you know people have been asking certain questions about just different demographics in town and we don't have that information available you know I've talked to pvpc 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 you know if the census doesn't collect it and the state and the department of education doesn't collect it locally amorous doesn't you know we don't have somewhat 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 yeah 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 you know 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 score as widely and they're you know they're used to scoring things and some people aren't and 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 it will give us a better range more more opinions based on more numbers so I would think it'll work better this way or only a seven so I'm saying nine yeah so I don't know what that is oh yeah that's bad and I but we don't put our opinions you know I'm getting old I was 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 it follows the proposal and so the are there any questions about that or any changes you want to see or do you think it's I always feel like one to four is sort of limiting like I think one to five feels a little you can get a middle of with one to five as opposed to one to four that's I'm gonna throw out there and you could do whatever you want right because nobody's seeing your number so you could do one to ten 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 wait but I thought you were just getting the no I think but internally as individually as you rank them I want we want you to use a one to four score five because you can't you can't Becky for instance you I mean for you to be doing one to ten and then Andrew's 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 if we think one to five is better individually we could do that but I'd want everyone to kind of keep to that score it forces you to say okay if one's the best five's the least where do proposals fit in where 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 two or something right and then it provides a common basis for discussion do we want to do one of you one of you is opposed to an even number right yeah good Rika the 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 but okay all right leave it one to four I'm fine let's work for neat just play 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 yeah we did have we I think like I said we used to do one to ten and we realized quickly that some committee members were always giving one twos and threes and 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 are they with 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 okay well 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 and we 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 approached this in a whole range of different ways that actually would it would be hard to make what what you did Matt 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 we do respond 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 Matt 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 you know it is 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 as SurveyMonkey 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 um which you know the software I used didn't and so I I agree it is interesting if we're doing this and we start getting you know if we expect you know a few hundred responses I think we have to have you know I think next year I would come up with a different way uh if the questions are the same a different way to analyze the results um you know and maybe that's a different software just because um you know there was a range and then there was a lot of comments too and so so thanks Nat for doing that I didn't I was I'll say I was pleasantly surprised at how many responses we had yeah amazing okay um so we've discussed the proposal review criteria um and we we're going to keep the non-social service the same we don't we as we have and uh anything else we need to discuss other items not anticipated within 48 hours yeah is there anything else I was just going to try to bulk the agenda quickly um so we look at the priorities and the requests for um proposals I think we've covered everything and it's only eight thirty nine so just just to um hopefully everyone's on board Lucas and Rika with the schedule but does it make sense to just review the timeline again oh yeah and Becky too right right Becky yeah sorry so we have November 20th that the RFP is going out so that's on Nate yeah I was going to call up the committee's webpage I think I have it um okay let's see if we can I can read it too yeah so we have um hopefully by the end of the week the proposals can be um you know emailed to different agencies and you put on the website and oh Scott mirrors back and you know try to get all that out there they're due on December 18th which um you know I don't even know what day that is um Friday it's Friday yeah and then I'm asking do we get them that day or do you it takes some time to pull things together no I try to um I'll ask especially this year because I'm not in the office I could be um you know I 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 want paper copies we can also do that so um you know I think I've already had two requests for paper copies um and then we just can leave them you can either deliver them to your home or you can pick them up but you should try to get them all out and online I 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 meh meh 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 how we need it 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 their you know so usually you know I'm I could we could ask I can ask people to email me everything but you know 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 right and if we want a paper copy can we get that from you yeah so okay yeah yeah just ask me and we can do that her Ben and I can get that ready and if we what what what exactly are we getting electronically is it through box is it is it 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 it'd be you know the narrative description the budget the board you know if they have like a a chart you know any letters of support any attachments would all be scanned in as one PDF so then so then I'd ask that you know by January 3rd 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 14th to do the review of the proposals so uh you know if we can't do it in one evening on the 14th then you know I'd want a schedule 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 you know your 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 14th 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 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 in 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 you know 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 I you know it don't it 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 was just clear so I think you know you know January 14th 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 I mean 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 um 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 any 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 I guess we gotta have any public comment if there is any but they've been the only attendees they want to weigh in with anything maybe we put them to sleep this is so scintillating are you kidding I hold on your limbs raise your hand I love I just feel like 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 this effort 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 you know I listen to meetings at during dinner and my kids now call a dinner theater so it's kind of nice about zoom you can you you know meet yourself and you don't have to share your video so it's at least once a week we have dinner theater at our house really great fun 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 I'll second it 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 and it helps to make all of our work a little bit easier when we get to read how many proposals I don't know come December 18th oh we really smooth sailing this year all right 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 I you know the back door it's 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 heart copies as well please okay I think I said so before if I'm not on your list I would like to help yeah I could I could become a mail carrier and just bring them around town I'd like heart copies please maybe holiday cookies to Ben yeah no food sharing during yeah it's true so we can plan on that if um yeah hopefully if they get in by noon by the end of the day we can have you know heart copies ready too so everyone can get them at that day great 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