 Alright, Darcy, I've made you host and we're recording. Have a great night everyone. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Athena. Good evening. Seeing as there is a form and attendance. I'm calling the December 3rd, 2020 meeting of the town service and outreach committee to order. At 631. Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the town services and outreach committee. This meeting is being recorded and will be shown on the town of Amherst YouTube channel. I'm now going to call on each member by name confirm they can hear me and we can hear you. Melissa Brewer. Present. Darcy, do not present Dorothy Pam. Present. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. Present. Those assisting the meeting will be monitoring committee member connections. Does that even make sense here? I don't think it really. I don't think it's necessary. I think it's necessary to be monitoring it other than us, right? And if necessary, we'll pause the meeting until we are reconnected. We request that everyone be patient with the process. Okay. One attendee. I'm going to call on the agenda and the public may provide public comment at this time and manners within the jurisdiction of the TSO. And if they so choose, they can raise their hand, which it doesn't look like they are going to do. So moving on to action items. We don't have any town manager appointments tonight. Are we going to have appointments at the next meeting? On the 17th. I anticipate so we're interviewing next Friday. So it would be in time for your meeting on the 17th, I believe. So it could get something to you and it's the, I think we're interviewing for agricultural commission, disability commission. Maybe community safety working group. There might be one other. All right, so we don't have a lot on our agenda tonight. So I did add in the agenda item that we've had a couple of times, which is just town manager report update and counselor questions just in case. And the most recent town manager report is in the packet. So just in case any of us had any. Any questions for the town manager, or if the town manager has any updates he wants to give us. So, um, I have a hand raised. Have your hand up. I'm glad I can always count on you, Dorothy. Yes. Let's see. Okay, Dorothy. Okay, Paul, we have the opening for a new town clerk. And I know a lot of the things that go into making an appointment, but I just wanted to ask about hiring from within and how you do that. And again, I do not know, I have not talked to the acting town clerk. I know her personally just think she did a great job on the election and wanted to know how you were planning to deal people who work already for the town in this process. So under the charter, the position is we will be advertised and posted on the bulletin board and anybody within the town or outside the town can apply for it and. I think you're right. I think the acting kind of took a terrific job with the most recent election. And I think the primary went well as well, which was under the direction of the Shavina Martin. Okay. Any other questions. I did have one quick question and that is, if you have any, any update on Hickory Ridge. So yeah, that's, I was just talking to Dave Zomek about it. It's a, he said it's the most complicated transaction that he's worked on, because there's so many moving parts to it. He's still confident that we will move towards closure. Because there's solar that are on the in the project and so that means there's more moving parts to this than just the land transaction there's also the solar deal. There's lots of complications. So he's still working it is it's it's going he's being with lawyers tomorrow on it actually. So it's not dormant it's still actively managed. There's some things that are outside of our control like the decision by ever sourced to accept the, the solar that the power and also where they are in terms of the trunch in terms of what kind of revenue they're going to get depending on how they fall in the state system so all those things are variables that are influencing the deal apparently. Is there some reason why ever source would not accept the solar. Well you know there's there's a long line there's a lot of it solar being put into the system and ever source has a long as you know they have to do the interconnection agreement and stuff I'm not I don't know the details of it, but there's always issues with the utility with any solar project. I just my understanding. All right. Thank you, Alyssa. Sorry, my question was back about the town clerk do we have a time frame on that I realized it's the holiday season it's like probably the worst time to really be looking for somebody for a job but it has the posting gone up yet and do you have just any I don't think it has but do you have a sense of internally what your goal is beyond you know, sure ideally as soon as possible. Yeah, so we are new HR director is taking this on this will be her first search. And so we will be putting pulling together a search and interview team, and she's been asked I told her to look at what we did last time and just sort of pull it out and let's look at it and hopefully get that out next week. Yeah, I think we need to move on quickly. And, you know, I'm hoping January will get something to the council. And look, we won't get it for the January 4 meeting so I'm looking at your January 28 I think it is meeting. Okay. Anything else. All right, so we're moving on. We took the surveillance, we were planning on looking at surveillance surveillance technology bylaw tonight. But we the sponsors wanted to have more time to respond to the to the feedback memo that the time manager sent out on Friday. They suggested that they might be ready by the end of January so maybe for our January 28 meeting that's what I'm thinking. So we have much less on our agenda than we thought Dorothy. Just a quick question. I read in the paper that some bills that were passed by I think both houses of the Boston legislature. Not signed by the governor yet, and there was a facial recognition was one of the words mentioned so I just thought I'd be interested to know how that meshed with what we were trying to do, whether in fact means that we don't have to do anything. I just thought it was an interesting thing to follow up on. Yeah, yeah, that's a good question that that I could forward to the sponsors to see if they have an answer to that. With regard to the surveillance technology piece of it. I can do that. Paul looked like he had some information. Nothing more than what you said I agree I noticed the same thing I've shared that with with the sponsors as well. And, and, and GOL because it's in their court I think right now, right. That and that piece of legislation hasn't been signed by the governor yet. So, let's just press our fingers on that one. I think the attorney general had some concerns about the facial recognition portion of it and she weighed in on that as well. So, yeah, we, we only really need to have them answer the question, if it actually is enacted. So, going on to the public way policy revision. I elicit you still have a question. I do. I'm a little confused about where we are as TSO in terms of facial recognition and surveillance both. And if you could just remind me of if we're done with our pieces or if anything's still coming back to us, especially based on the report that the town manager provided the day before Thanksgiving that had a lot of information in it. So where do you, where is TSO at, as opposed to the full town council. Well, TSO is not getting facial recognition back to my knowledge. That's what I thought. But we are obviously getting the surveillance technology part back. And you think we're going to do that. You said the 28th of, or was that town council. I'm confused. That's our meeting, the 28th. December 28. No, no, January 28. Our TSO meeting on January 28. As opposed to the town council meeting near the end of January. You're forcing me to get my list. Sorry, I'm just getting a little confused. I'm not. I'm always confused. January 7th and January 28th, and they suggested to me the end of January. So that seems to me to be January. So our work plan will reflect that super. Thanks so much. Yes, it doesn't yet. So the public way policy revision. I'm just going to, I'm just going to go back to the, I wrote the first part of the report that's going to the town council, indicating that we already approved section four of the, of the town managers proposed. Public way policy revisions. And we're supposed to look at the rest of the remaining provisions. Proposal proposed revisions tonight. I am kind of hoping that someone else can pull it up on the screen. But if we're desperate, I will do it. Is there anyone available to do that? If I, do I, do I need to share the posting or something like that? Anyone. Okay. Darcy, I'm working on two different computers, which is convenient for me, but not for you. So I can't help you right now. If I have advanced notice, I can arrange it so that I'm on just one. Yeah, I should. Maybe the future. I'll just, I'll do that. But at the moment I'm working. I have one in front of me, but that doesn't help the rest of you. So I'm like, I can't do it right now because I'm on two different computers. Yeah. You just, you just want to have the public ways memo up on the screen. Yeah. Yes. I can do that. All right. Are we all able to share? I believe so. Let me just give me just one second. Are you going to be able to pull yours up, George, when we get to it? I think I'm going to ask Evan to do the same. If you can. All right. I think that we should probably just go paragraph by paragraph. The underlying parts are the proposed revisions. So if you look at the first paragraph. Maybe Paul, you can do a quick explanation of each one. That'd be nice. Yeah. Yeah. So the general purpose of this is to begin the conversation about what the council wants to. Public ways is a big piece of the council's business and you're starting to grapple with lots of different things. You, you've heard the Sufa signs. You have the parking. You've had the little libraries. You've had a lot of different things. And one of the things that I've been to end in, including some of these signs that were, that had been put up. If someone wants to put a bench in or something like that. What you already addressed is the temporary stuff that's connected with the outdoor dining and all that kind of stuff. And that's, that's a pretty, that's a transitory issue. The bigger issue is how does the council want to manage its business as a keeper of the public way? And one of the big questions is, you know, do you want to do it as a council? Do you want to delegate that authority to a committee attack or whatever? Or do you want to delegate some of it to the town manager, which you've already done on some things or not. And that's totally within your discretion to decide how to do it. And you can change that at any moment. That's the beauty of a policy that you adopt is that it's your policy. It's a policy that you own it and you can say, take this piece and do it. So we don't have to look at it. So it's really sort of, you know, you're, you're, it's a, it's a beginning of a council. You're going to start to play with which, what works best for you as a council. And what you wanted, what you think it rises to the level of the council in which, what doesn't. So this, these changes in the first three sections of this memo are designed to say, you know, you know, you can think of delegating these things to the town manager, which really are, you know, look that through the lens of the public works, fire and police department and planning department as well. So that's, that's, that's the context that we're looking at this in. So the first paragraph talks about delegating a portion of its authority to the town manager and certain other departments under the jurisdiction of the town manager. So there might be things that it might be, you know, you know, you know, you know, you could find up or something that might really live with this superintendent of public works or a, something like that. So it just broadens who, who it, who it goes to. You could reserve that for the town manager. So the town manager is perfectly accountable, but that's the concept of that. The reservation of the public ways for the town common was. More address to the maintenance repairs conducted in the normal way. So that's the one D that your, your cursor is on. And so, and if there are things that are being done on the common, that might, we want to make sure that that's not the North common. We're talking about, that's a major thing that would be, I'm sure you will be spending a lot of time thinking about, but it's anything else that might come, come to play on the common. So that's the concept of whether a tree needs to be moved or things like that. So that's the concept of that. And it's again, maintenance repairs. So it does, it's not like new things or anything like that. The next section is on the next page. Under two. Two C1. I want it has the, and. So that includes hold a public hearing on the request. And refers to the appropriate committee. Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. It's not one or the other. And that's just a clarification. Under three, these are more things that are in the public way. That means sidewalks and in the roads. And this is signage and seating. And so, you know, you saw those sort of speed limit signs that have been put on Amity street and a few other streets. And the DPW sort of got those. That's actually COVID money that went into that. And they put them up and it made us think, well, wait a minute, should that have gone to the council or not? There were some, you know, there's some where we're trying to be responsive to people who are requesting it, but this. And I think if you had said, wait a minute, that's our jurisdiction. We should come to us for all those speed limit signs or yield signs and things like that. What we're trying to do is say, what are the things that are. That are regulatory that we have to put up versus things that. That might not. So the question is like, if we need to replace it, we, you know, there's a place in front of the post office that has a place that we could easily put a park bench. The bus shelters come to mind. And we sort of have a program with PBTA to start to install as many bus shelters as we can. Do you want to look at the location of every bus shelter or not? And that's just your choice, right? So under three reservation public ways, it includes road and sidewalk closures, but signage and seating. And if you go down to 3D, it talks a little bit more about what, what that includes. And so you would be delegating out anything that control, that relates to the control of the public way, like crosswalk signs, speed limits, yield stops, things like that. We often get requests for, you know, crosswalks at certain areas. Everything that we do has to comply with the uniform code of transit, transit, whatever it is. There's a big book that the DPW, the town engineer uses to say what kind of sign goes where. And it's just so there's uniformity throughout the country on how signs are placed. You can't just make up signs as you go along. And so, so these are things that are outside the general bylaw where the general bylaw addresses some of those sandwich boards and things like that. And then, and so in terms of putting in public seating, if someone wants to put a bench in or something, and we think that's a good location. I actually would have a proposal, I've been working on to put benches along, along the past. So people, there's some other, another community where my past community put in a thing called a legacy bench project where they wanted to encourage people walking in a loop, but recognize that people sometimes need to sit as they're walking and like every half mile putting benches to allow people to rest as they're taking a walk. For instance, that's still in formation, but that's the type of thing. So it's, it's those things. That you would say, yes, we don't need to see those things. And, and then down, then on under three E, it's, so not detailed above. That actually means. It's like it just means excluding. Oh yeah, yeah. Sidewalk signs by shoulders, et cetera. And then the other. So, so, yeah. So this just sort of says, well, I took a stab at, like what should be included and maybe there's more you want to do. Maybe you don't want to do any, it's just want to start the conversation. Okay. We have a couple of counselor questions. Alyssa. So. It's rare that I would use this phrase. now I say that now and I'll probably end up using it all week is this feels a little bit like a solution in search of a problem to me. I'm very comfortable with the changes we've made associated with the pandemic. I'm very unclear as to what kinds of things I understand what these words say. I also was a keeper of the public way for many years prior to being on town council and I can tell you that the vast majority of things that are on this list as possibilities are things that never came to us because they never happened. We didn't replace speed limit signs. We're not talking here about delegating authority for changing speed limits. That's that whole other issue right that we're trying to decide if that's a TSO attack or where we're going to talk about that issue associated with townwide speed limits. There were a couple of times when stop signs got added to neighborhoods but this is talking about things that don't actually generally happen. Benches don't generally get added. Sufa signs don't generally get added. Maintenance generally doesn't get performed and certainly the town council and the previous keepers of the public way were not preventing. I'm really kind of miffed about that maintenance statement because we certainly didn't prevent any maintenance from happening either on the North Amherst Common or anywhere else downtown. There are metal railings directly across from there for example near Russell's liquor store that have been in decay for decades that haven't been worked on but they never got brought to the select board for approval. They just never got done and so I'm trying to understand if this is because we now have a new focus on doing some of these things and therefore we want to keep them moving along on a pace and I know like the Sufa thing came up because right we had grant money basically and we had a cool new idea and so I can put that to one side like does the town council want to be involved in things like Sufa signs because that's the thing that's just come up but most of the other things described here are things that were that just never came up during years of the public way being described unless it was a new project so like when we redid Pine Street then obviously we had to talk about where would the signs all be and honestly some of that got kind of boring and I might have referred it to TAC given the option or certainly to TSO but I'm not clear on why town staff should be deciding where we need bus shelters just themselves or where we need benches just by themselves. I'm not sure why the town council needs to be cut out of that decision-making process and I say cut out because once the bench is installed you know a month getting a monthly report doesn't really change that any so I'm just not really if I felt like we were holding things up then I might be much more interested in this but I'm not seeing what problem we're trying to solve here and it feels like it's taking away any influence on our built environment that the town council currently has associated with the public way. Thank you, Dorothy. Well I'll follow up with I began to have some concern when we were looking at the Sufa signs and I looked at some of the pictures and I saw a bus stop sign, I saw speed signs, I saw the shelter, I saw newspaper stands then I saw where the new information gas would be and I saw that the edges of the North Common were going to be blocked by rows of different items and it crossed my mind that some thought had to be taken to I mean some things have to be done in a certain way but thought should be taken as how best to do that without ruining the aesthetics of the view of looking into the park because we don't want to have to have all those things there. So as Alyssa was talking I was thinking you know Central Park has a Central Park Conservancy of course and they raise money so I'm not suggesting that we do that but perhaps there are a lot of details there are things that are happening now that I guess weren't happening in the past with these we're going to be doing more things in the green the common dimensions that maybe a committee or a subcommittee maybe of TSO I'm not sure some group should try to look at the whole so that each different department well we need to do that there and then we get a random kind of unorganized assortment of things there so I would like to have some town council input on that but does that mean the whole committee the whole council or does it mean a committee that concentrates on we're losing you Dorothy Dorothy okay we're going to move to George I would just suggest that we work our way through this document as you originally had suggested just section by section starting at the very top as far as just there's a suggested changes here and let's go through them and decide if we want to keep them or what questions we have that unless anyone else has any more general comments I just wanted to mention that I guess this made me wonder why you are asking for this call and you know that the charter is pretty clear that that the town council gets this responsibility and it feels a little bit like as Alyssa said that's being carved into and I'm not clear on why so if you could if you could explain that a little more Paul so I think this is a you've already taken some of the responsibility for the public way and delegated that out that's what's already in the document that's what's not being changed I think you know as we work through this and we start looking at additional things coming up and for instance you know and it's not to imply that the town council isn't doesn't have good judgment or or does and it slows down the process or anything like that that's not the intent of this it was more does the council want to handle this level of detail on things and if it says yes that's fine we will whatever path you want to lay out we will work with I mean specifically came into my mind when we that those you know the signs that say you're going too fast we got those through COVID and those were installed it's like well that did not go to the council and should it have gone to the council or not and and so it made me think does the council want that type of thing in front of it or not and at what level of detail does the council want and so this is things like that that came to mind from my perspective so it was more to lessen the load of the council than it is to and to look at things that are more maintenancey and sort of ongoing work versus the council's job as being more higher level you know future of the town type things that's how I feel it at least hey let's why don't we go the first paragraph I'm not completely sure this is a good way to do it George um because these things are interrelated um why don't we why don't we start with um because I'm a little confused about the first one um why don't we go to maintenance and repairs and see Alyssa already um already made a comment about that does anybody else have um I'm a little confused about why this is under reservation of public ways the town commons just because it addresses the town common in particular well I'll add a small thing that the capi has been reminding us of in the finance committee that every time we do anything new that we must include in the budget some maintenance money um and we're doing we're going to be doing a lot of wonderful new things on the north common so just to be sure that like I hadn't really noticed that there was some metal pipe that was corroded but if I noticed it I would not have been happy that the benches be maintained and that that we don't forget to include money in the budget to do the upkeep on the new things but beyond that I would assume that if we do that that maintenance would happen in an appropriate manner done by the town without having to come to us every time um Evan yeah I don't have an issue with this one uh sorry I'm scrolling all the time forgetting that I'm sharing my screen um um so my first thought on this was that it was unnecessary because one c um says exempting maintenance and repairs um and then as I thought about that I thought so one c exempts maintenance and repairs but then it it never usually if there's an exemption I guess you I'm not sure what you would assume right so if if you just saw that maintenance and repairs were exempted from one c you don't necessarily know if your assumption is then the town council is to keep her republic way in that case or if it's delegated to the town manager it just says that maintenance and repairs are exempted from this section and so I do sort of feel as though if we're going to call out that we're exempting maintenance and repairs from other alterations changes and uses um then it needs to be clear what the default is under that exemption and so I think that this just clarifies something that's already there so I don't you know my assumption and I was on gel when this was written but I don't have that good of memory to remember what the discussion was around this but my assumption is that because we put in the language but exempting maintenance and repairs that we did not intend for maintenance and repairs to be um the uh to have to see council approval otherwise we wouldn't have put that clause in there and so I think that this just this doesn't change anything substantively it just clarifies something that's already in there that right now I think is working on assumption and this makes it work on uh explicit statement um elissa so Evan maybe you could find a way to reward that or somebody from gel could because these words don't actually make sense you talk about reservations of public ways and then you talk about maintenance and repairs you're not reserving the common for maintenance and repairs so under sea you could be like there could have been some problem that needed that was literally not an event event but like a sinkhole opened up in the common and so it needed to be fixed that's not an event but you had to close the common for x period of time you don't want to come to the town council and say god close the common there's a sinkhole like you just close the common that part I get I and I understand what you said about you know if you exempt it here you need to talk about it somewhere else but I just don't maybe the problem is the title of reservation of public ways because nobody reserves the public way to do maintenance like that doesn't really make sense so maybe it's just a matter of refining a way to rephrase where maintenance repairs belong because it doesn't belong under reservation of the public way public works is not filling out a form that says there's a sinkhole in the common which of course there is not but there's a sinkhole in the common so we need to reserve it like that what there there's electrical cord sticking up out of the bark mulch so we need to reserve the common that that's not true but I understand that staff doesn't want to feel like they shut down the common to do a maintenance thing and then town council says well hey how come you did that you didn't ask for our approval and they say well it's maintenance like I get the part about the maintenance but first of all this implies that we've been withholding maintenance which we haven't been and secondly it also is talking about a reservation when it's not a reservation so maybe it's just a matter of it belongs somewhere else in this document to make exactly what you talked about clear that makes sense to me I would go along with it if it seems like it should be like roman added to roman numeral C1 to say accept for maintenance and repairs which is delegated to the town manager or designee or something like that anyway I think you get what you probably get what we're saying here Paul um I don't have any problem with the delegating that to the town manager of maintenance and repairs but it would be good to make it to make sense in the context of this section um Paul what if I just what if we just took out the word that under one reservation public ways and just had town commons because we're talking about geographical areas not and then you're talking about then you talk about the short-term use long-term use alterations which is a permanent change and then maintenance repairs and you're not so you just take away the reservation public ways section George Paul took the words right out of my mouth this is it's designed geographically so you want to keep maintenance here but you just change the title and the simplest would be just say town commons and then you have your four sub categories and Evan I think very nicely answered my other question which is why is this necessary and he showed me why it's necessary so I now agree that it is needed because of what's in C and it does belong under one and we just need to change the title of one and maybe the simplest as Paul suggested is just say one town commons two parking and three over three day road sidewalks etc assuming we right so um Alyssa do you still have another comment yeah and I think and it's just it's just a clarification under maintenance so once we take off that so it just says town commons right because that's what we're focusing on right now is the town commons so one of the things that I know there was some town council discussion around is how much time did we really need to devote talking about electrical connections and electrical boxes on the town common and that's not that's not clearly covered by this because that's not just maintenance changing a box and so I'd actually like to see that in here like I don't care about that I would totally expect public works and planning to figure out the best way to put in big new electrical box if at all possible so either this needs to clearly specify that that concept which is one of the very few things that's actually been brought to us associated with the common is ours or not because I can't read this in in the current way to understand if we would get that or not based on the description that we have and like I said I don't want it if we can give it away I'm more than happy to but it needs to be clear here because if that's the whole goal is to say oh I don't want the town council to feel like they should have been doing something that they thought they hadn't delegated that's actually a thing that we had to do that was really boring so um our Evan do you have another comment yeah uh I first of all I agree with Alyssa on that um but I guess this is actually just a process um question uh so this has been referred to TSO this is sort of a document that's rightly in the jurisdiction of TSO is the assumption then that we're going to be making the revisions that are being suggested my my assumption of what's happening that I want to clarify is that someone likely Darcy as chair is going to make the revisions we're talking about now and bring back a revised copy to a future meeting or are we thinking that we're gonna vote on this tonight I was assuming that um we were going to vote on it tonight um but um uh I'm perfectly fine with making revisions um yeah I can make revisions and come back on November 17th that would be fine um if we agree on what they are um I can I can propose what I think we've said here which is basically just change the title of number one to town commons is that correct so far that's been what suggested strike reservation of public ways and the dash okay well depending on how complicated this all is if it's if the types of changes we're making are the symbol we simple we might be able to vote on it today but let's just see how it goes um if they're not then we I can come back with a revision um so are we okay to move on to the next proposed revision we know the answer to the question about the electrical box and if there's a way we can just tack that in there as being a role of maintenance or something because it at this point you can't you don't know reading this if that would have fallen under that or not repairs of an electrical box or placement placement um if I may interject I like my concern is more anything any sizable addition any if you put something I mean we had something the utility company came right and I wanted to put a huge six foot or whatever it was uh object uh plop it down on the common as I recall anyway objections were raised I think rightly so it's that's my concern but if if DPW has to swap out an electrical connection um you know replace one box with another um I consider that routine maintenance and repair but if they're going to install a with a concrete pad or you know make some kind of visible and subs you know barely substantive change to the physical appearance of the common I think probably we'd like to be notified of that so I don't know that's what Alyssa's thinking of or if she that's what I'm thinking of it I'm just not sure where it falls in the words that exist right now okay yeah I mean I would look at that I agree with you that that's something you should definitely be looking at and I would say that's a construction of a structure I mean that's something that's above ground that's physical that's going to be there forever um that would not be delegated at all so you'd see that that fits under see where it says construction of structure or other uses that are intended to be permanent in place three months or longer and you would not consider it maintenance and repairs so I could complain if I didn't get to talk about the exciting new box on a new pad because DPW just said sure ever source go ahead and do that well I guess the question would be suppose they say oh this one's outmoded there's one there now we've got we've got upgraded to our standard blah blah blah right is that maintenance yeah yeah question that's what I'm confused by so this does not appear to require any change um so shall we move on uh Paul you have another comment oh I'm sorry okay um um okay the and seems fairly self-explanatory no problem for me okay all right moving on uh all right so sidewalk and seating signage and seating um and then that's in the title and then the um George I'm just guessing here but I'm imagining that part of this might have been motivated by you know the recent changes we've been making allowing outdoor dining etc but you know somebody wants to put it just a simple sign on the sidewalk you know messaging you know where to pick up food or whatever surely we don't want this sort of thing coming to us so those kinds of temporary signages movable signs on public sidewalks advertising of a business not covered by the general or zoning bylaw I certainly have no interest in in and having to see every single one of those being sent to us um and maybe that's part of what motivated this I don't know I do have a concern obviously about permanent structures like bus shelters um bus stops um you know benches these are things that you know at least some folks get really agitated about and probably is wise that that we at least weigh in on it so people have a chance to to to to address it but so maybe we can divide this up a bit but I guess in my mind there's a distinction between you know permanent changes that are quite visible um and then the kinds of temporary things that you know I don't think we need to be dealing with so but this is kind of a mix of both it seems to me um is my initial thought um other comments alissa yeah in terms of george's theory of splitting this up which is going to turn into one of these fun editing on the fly things but if we split this up into some subsections underneath placement of rodents sidewalk instead of having it be a paragraph with one thing under it maybe just split it up in a couple of different ways so that because you know I agree with george completely on things like anything that's associated with temporary stuff one of those sandwich boards that's outside of the bylaw which already controls some of that stuff movable signs sure I mean do that stuff but but to clarify but a bench you know that's screwed down that's different and also it needs to be the signs this sign thing I don't know what the what the deal is here but the crosswalk speed limit yield stop signs uh nobody's brought any of those to us in decades except for like two that I can think of in decades so nobody's being held up doing these things now they're just getting done by dpw already so I think what it needs to be clarified here is that it's replacement of signs or like to comply with state standards as opposed to you're going to change the speed limit from 55 to 25 or you're going to have a crosswalk where you didn't use to have a crosswalk right it's it's more of that maintenance aspect of things like I don't need to know you're putting a stop sign back where somebody pulled one out just like you haven't been telling me that for 20 years you don't need to start telling me now but you can't suddenly just put in or can you then the question is then that to me is separate from we're going to add some new stop signs we're going to add some new crosswalks and staff's just going to do that based on their best knowledge versus talking to the town council about it okay um Evan yeah so again just organization wise I guess so three even if we take out reservation the public ways I think we agree to do with all of them we this we're still titled road or sidewalk closures um and then we said signage and seating and then and it wasn't completely road or sidewalk closures because then we had this what I guess was formally D I assume permanent changes to the road or sidewalk I'm just thinking you know GOL did a really great job with this you know a year and a half ago but as we're taking this closer look at it I think there's some organizational challenges and so you know to some extent road and sidewalk closures are a very unique thing and I don't know that we want to even even if we divide this into sections I don't think it belongs in three at all um and I'm not even sure if he belongs in three so I guess I'm wondering actually if maybe five miscellaneous is a place that we actually expand and add this because it does it doesn't seem to pair with closures to me and then I agree is separating it out because a bus shelter versus a crosswalk sign they're just so different it feels like a kitchen sink to like anything that we could think of we just drew into this section um and I actually agree with all of that I would like to delegate all of these I don't want to see any of these as part of the town council um I you know which I think puts me a little bit in disagreement with George and Alyssa about some of these things I don't I don't I don't please don't ever ask me if we should put a bench on a particular part of sidewalk I don't care if if if planning and everyone and dpw thinks that we should have a bench somewhere put the damn bench there don't ask me my opinion on the location of a bench right but I you know if George wants to have a public hearing about it then that's his right but but I think that we should divide this up and I think it maybe should be part of section five okay um George uh the hand should be down Evan makes very good points that we do need to separate this out and Alyssa makes an excellent point we're not going to do it on the fly which is not pleasant but that's what we have to do or come back to it okay so do we have agreement that it shouldn't be in three and that it should be uh perhaps put in five I would suggest to separate you just a four and just a sort four and make four or five but give it a title if we can if we can't then I guess it goes in miscellaneous okay um Paul yeah so I just want to uh a couple notes one is the the the bus shelters I guess it's a philosophy the bus shelters would go and approve bus stops already it wouldn't create any new bus stops and the question is do you want bus shelters at every bus stop or do you want to or do you want to say we want to look at every possible bus shelter and bus stop and you know there there's logic on both sides so that was just putting that out there in terms of traffic control I think you know if it's required by law that I think the town has been doing it but when we raise the issue of these sort of optional slow down signs the question came up from DPW is do I should I bring all these signs the speed limit signs on Lincoln all these things should we bring those all those questions on where they are posted to the town council or should we abide by what is required under the uniform manual of traffic controls um and so there's a question to you is do you want to I don't think the select board had looked at these before but I'm raising it to say legitimately these are in the public way they should you should say I want to look at it or I don't want to look at it just ask you to make an affirmative decision about it um and we're again okay with whichever you decide on that um you know so um it's the and these are the manage the the signs that are required if you put in a crosswalk then you need the sign in advance saying there shall be a you know crosswalk ahead all those types of things that come ahead that come with you um slow children signs are discretionary so that might be something that you want to hold on to because everybody wants to have a turtle crossing or a salamander crossing or slow you know children signs if they have slow children I guess um so um so we were looking at the things that are required by the uniform manual of traffic controls as being something that you would say yes if you if we agree on if there's a stop sign and you're and you're supposed to have a stop ahead sign 50 feet ahead of it you should just put it and don't come to us with that kind of discussion um okay George is that a continuing comment and um uh Dorothy I think that when it comes to safety and rules and state rule books that those items should be handled by the town staff and that they should not come to the um town council and it's given how difficult it seems to be to change anything on the streetscapes through the town council that that could be if it has to do with a safety issue that could be very bad so that's something that I think that we should delegate and keep delegated to the town because they have to do with regulations and state things um and they know what the rules are and they know what the sign should look like okay I am hearing from some people that if we divided this up that perhaps the town council would keep um installation of bus shelters um at approved bus stops and placement of seating on public sidewalks um am I hearing that correctly um that's sort of where I am falling on it yeah and that the other issues of crosswalks speed limits and stop placements of movable signs on public sidewalks um could be delegated Alyssa I think that's a really excellent division there Darcy that bus shelters um even though they're already approved bus stops and seating because actually bus shelters sometimes include seating and sometimes not and I think the town council might have an opinion on that and I'm going to say very clearly that I am not saying that our town staff would do this but I think we are all aware of other communities where well-meaning professionally trained staff installed benches that prevented homeless people from sleeping on them we would not want that to happen more than likely so having the town council have that authority over anything that's seating that's permanent not not temporary but that's permanent I think makes sense to prevent that kind of worry from the public etc but that's just bus stops because they could include seating benches that include seating and then if you just throw in some phrasing Paul about that uniform traffic controls whatever that right term is I think that will that makes it clear oh obviously right that's the stuff you should absolutely do um okay uh so that's this is going to move and it's going to be subdivided into those parts and Alyssa you just were speaking as if Paul was going to make those revisions um I'm happy to work with you Darcy on this if you'd like you can give you the language so that you're not trying to find out what Guilford's book is called or whatever it is yeah yeah okay um and all right so do we have anything else here oh not not detailed above that this also seems like I'll fix mandatory anybody have any issues with that um so uh why don't we go back to the top because we have the first paragraph yeah I just I did have a question about that very first item and maybe Paul can just clarify why it's needed as opposed to just saying the town manager and assuming that in the end the bus stops with him um so maybe he has a good argument I'm sure he does why he thinks that phrase is needed yeah I think the only um I think that that's in reference to three a II where it talks about um delegation to the fire department police chief fire chief I think that and there's some some other in I did some delegation to other department heads that wasn't captured previously so I think that's just a cleanup thing so that seems I don't like it um Alyssa I'm sorry I don't like it I I I'm fine with what it already says about police and fire chief I think that adding that in there implies that there are times when the people that work for the town that he can't delegate things and I don't know why we'd want to I mean to me that's the converse of that right if you put that in there that means there might be circumstances under which he's not allowed to delegate to his department heads and like what that's not a thing so I would just leave that line out there out of there I I just find it makes me question more than anything would I assume that the town manager is going to let the police chief do police chief things what do other people feel about that um I don't care one bit I'll have to say that because I think they either way the meaning is the same so does anyone have any strong feelings other than Alyssa on this um yeah I think you may be a minority of one Alyssa how does it feel I can vote against it it's no problem um so uh all right so uh I think unless anyone else has any other comments about this document maybe I can just work with Paul to make those revisions bring them back at another meeting it's not it doesn't need to be back until the meeting on the 25th of January so I'm sorry Darcy my understanding is this also then has to go to GOL is that right where did I go um oh there I am okay okay but I just I'm just for clear I believe it does go well as to look at it as well once we're done with it okay well let's assume we're going to be done with it on the 17th of November um hopefully the revisions will be simple um Alyssa could I just say one more thing about that first sentence so re-reading that that says that we're delegating public way authority that the town council has not to the town manager we're delegating it directly to department heads under the authority of the town manager I don't know why we would do that because that implies that Guilford can go and do something because we've delegated it and he doesn't have to tell Paul about it that's what I'm saying this wording is not helpful it still needs to go through Paul Paul can tell Guilford that Guilford can do whatever he wants but the town council can't tell Guilford that Guilford can do whatever he wants that just doesn't make sense to me yeah I think it's just supposed to reference this part that I highlighted it doesn't do that because those people still work for the town manager and they're still going to have a communication associated with that they're not going to go off and do this on their own without talking to him well says with notice to the town manager Dorothy um when it sounded like you were through the document and we didn't discuss D or did I just miss that I thought we were going to discuss D one D no 3D as I it sounded like you were saying this whole document had was going to have some revisions and we look at it again later and I'm thinking but we didn't talk about 3D yes we did we then okay no this this is the we were going to subdivide um Paul and I are going to work together we're going to move it to be a section of its own and we are going to carve out um bus shelters installation of a placement of permanent seating so we're not going to do do what D little I is which town council delegates the review and authority the town manager I thought we had talked about it informally but I thought I didn't think we had totally tied that down so that's if that's clear to everybody time um yeah I think that we were agreeing that we would delegate to the town manager of the other items listed other than bus shelters and placement of seating on public sidewalks that means you're you're not the so we're not going to have anything to do with where the Sufa signs go I thought the Sufa signs were big enough to be kind of something we might want to have so there's not just a random assortment of things that there's that that I felt that the picture lacked organization and aesthetic some of the pictures we were given and now that may be one bridge too far uh but um I guess maybe I thought the Sufa sign should go in that be included in that the question is um are they permanent or are they not permanent I think they're kind of quasi permanent they're they're kind of in a category of their own which I'm not sure how we would I I can see what you're saying Dorothy because it did seem perfectly you know appropriate for us to be looking at the Sufa sign issue so if you can think of if people agree on that and we can figure out what to call that category of sign we could add that in well first of all we said that when it came to safety and to state regulations we weren't getting into it so speed limit or a sign saying bus stop or whatever we can't get too far into that um but other things we could right well traffic signs are different from Sufa signs so how do we categorize them but and there was also there were some pictures there were some bus stop shelters that had benches seating and some that did not and it seemed to me taking up an all lot of space to have a bus stop shelter with no seating and then to have a public bench next to it and it just looks so busy and I and it was kind of you can't see the grass you can't see the trees you're just seeing all of this kind of urban um stuff each of it has a function like a wastebasket has a function but there were just so many of them that um some kind of organization or coordination I thought would be a good idea and we haven't really talked about whether we wanted bus stop shelters to include seating or not to include sitting because we were shown lots of pictures some with and some without right well this but this isn't about the substance of those requests this is about you know what we are going to delegate to the town manager or keep um so uh Evan so I think I think Dorothy brings up some interesting points that got me thinking you know that we're opening up sort of a bit of a Pandora's box here because we could go down a whole bunch of different rabbit holes with this and so signs can so we have here um signs relating to the control of the public control of the public way so we're thinking about traffic stuff we have placement of movable signs and then and then um signs on public sidewalks advertising businesses and so in theory the Sufa signs would fall into the advertising signs because they're going to have that advertising but if they didn't have that then they wouldn't fall into any of these three and so they would sort of slip through this crack and so the next thing I'm thinking of is wayfinding signs right if if the town wanted to put up a wayfinding sign um that wouldn't be advertising of businesses it wouldn't be movable it'd be it'd be permanent and it wouldn't be control of the public way I have no interest in wayfinding signs coming to the council but I would hate for them to have to come to the council because they slip through this little crack then the other thing that Dorothy said that was interesting as she mentioned waste baskets and I thought well what about permanent trash cans on the sidewalks that's not covered by this and so my worry we could go on for this forever right and so at some point and maybe this is we need to you know maybe come back to that maybe Darcy can can ruminate on this and bring forth a draft but you know we need something that gives people some clarity so that if the playing department has a sign they don't have to sit here and go well it's not movable and it doesn't have advertising so I guess this sign has to go to the council but hey you know what if we slap a bueno isano sticker on it then maybe we can call it advertising and we don't have to go to the council right I mean there has to be clarity here and I and I worry with how D is written there just isn't but I also if we remove D there also just isn't it would just all fall into them that the everything else right and so but I also don't want us to have to go through this process where we have to think of every conceivable thing that could ever be placed on a sidewalk like waste but but Doris he said waste baskets I thought Jesus those aren't in here right so what do they have to come if they want to put a new recycling bin do they have to come to the council I really hope now but you could argue under what we have here they would because it would fall under this miscellaneous any request not specifically falling under any section of this policy and so I think we need some clarity here and I think it's going to need some time to think about what what do we as a council really want to see and why and maybe articulating what we want to see I don't know but it's clear as we're talking that this needs some work because right now there's a lot of holes okay George can't hear you take my hand down okay Alyssa so before Evan brought up waste receptacles which is so important it was actually the first question I asked as a new town meeting member why do our waste receptacles cost $10,000 each and that was back in 1999 so um so thank you for bringing that up because then we could certainly argue every time one came to us which one hasn't but every time one came to us and said but did you put a recycle bin next to it how many recycle bins did you put next to it right and so because there's only limited space we did it fact at one point that big belly thing that crushes things that we did have to approve and so I agree that the real goal here one of one of one of the most important goals here is for staff to be able to look at this as Paul referred to many hours ago and say does this fall under it or doesn't and I think the Sufa signs are still a problem a challenge that way in terms of figuring that out because I know there were concerns raised on the one hand I'm like adds wayfinding who cares but if it had been you know a two foot Walmart advertisement next to the wayfinding then maybe I'd have a problem with it so I don't know how to fix that but I think we should add on waste baskets and what my original idea was going to be is does it help at all under item D as we break up this long nice long paragraph into things does it help at all to remove the word all does it just say placement of signs that do this that do that that do something else yeah okay right take the word all out good and so that nobody's trying to cram it into one of those categories and then maybe what actually makes the most sense is for Paul to take this new description that he and Darcy work out and show it to staff and say this cover all the stuff you would think about that sounds good so I'm kind of hearing that that what we want to delegate to the town of all the list of all the things that we mentioned are traffic signs and movable temporary signs on public sidewalks advertising businesses but that we want to retain everything else except possibly not waste baskets waste baskets should be coordinated with bus stops and benches okay that's where people sit there with a cup of coffee or something if you don't have them in the right places you get trash right so I have I have on my list permanent non-traffic related signage um bus bus stops seeding shelters bus shelters feeding electric boxes charging cores waste baskets super signs those are permanent non-traffic signage okay or structures or structures um so anyway I can I can elicit do you have I have I do have a question quick so two things actually one is the super sign so which what does it count as now what did we decide is it in or out in I mean that is staying with the town council days with the town council because of the advertising component I think it's the permanent aspect yes it is permanent okay and then even though it's also arguably wayfinding which if it just said Amherst cultural district we'd be fine with it right so wayfinding that doesn't include advertising somehow like the bueno thing yes okay and then the other question was you mentioned electric boxes and charging because of course that was also our recent conversation so what about um the electric car chargers yeah we've had we've had to do those in the past so are we keeping those or are we giving the are we living those with staff up to now we haven't had any say about it is that correct yes no actually we have we've had to do it in the past we've done it as part of the public way when I was on the select board we did have some say over it and then it seemed like we didn't suddenly have any say over a more recent one so it's been done both ways yeah I think we've been informed um the town has figured out the sites we have been informed and we have not had any objections to their proposed sites that's not a fact in terms of what happened prior to the town council that's right I'm talking town and so I just want to have what I'm asking for here is that there be clarity that it be shown that the car charging stations are either in or out and they're not like trash receptacles they're not currently on the list so put them in or put them out I honestly don't care which but specify them because they don't count as one of these other things and we may as well address them because there's something we actually have had before previous public way authorities okay that sounds good um Paul yeah and then put in that same loop the same is the bike share locations which have to be public way totally totally yeah okay what a great list we have now um all right so um I think we've covered all the parts of this um and I will work with Paul to come up with a revised version for the 17th how's that everybody good with that uh Paul yeah so one last thing in that so you're going you will continue to have the poll permits you know like that from the telephone you know utilities coming into you you've had several of those so far those will continue to have public hearings just as they're required to now so that's um that's by state law so just be aware that that's not being added yeah yeah is that you can delegate that to under state law is it always whoever's into it do you want the question would be do you want to delegate it or yes that would be the first thing we would delegate is those bloody poll where we can't read the maps anyway yeah I mean if there's where does it fall under the policy it's not it doesn't it's not mentioned so you there's but there's mass general law around I have to look into that yep if you would that'd be an awesome thing to get rid of do other people agree with that because it should be covered in this policy it should be mentioned as an aside then on this policy like you know if it isn't something we can delegate then it should be mentioned that still has to be done this other way because you might think of it as falling under this policy and yet it doesn't it isn't called out okay I'm trying to remember spring street I think maybe it was the planning board that was involved but there was some changing around of electrical poles or there was something to do with polls but I think the planning board dealt with it in its site plan review does that strike a bell with anybody it did but the council still had to approve the location of the polls in the ground we did have some reason and I think I think that we did not accept without alteration what was put forward I mean so that there was some feedback from the body I don't remember the details but yeah and um Paul are you you're suggesting that there is nothing preventing us from delegating that authority to the town manager I don't know the answer to that question so I'm going to find that out okay okay I hope I will be able to read my notes here right so moving on somebody else has anything else to say um all right we have um a presentation from uh from Dorothy and George about the townwide residential parking policy which they provided a document about so Evan if you would be kind enough to pull that up that would be nice um and what time is it very low tech here um I'm just wondering it's already almost eight um I don't think we're going to have enough time to have a very thorough conversation but I guess we can just get it started um I don't really want to go past like 815 if that's good with people and then we could pick it up at another time is that okay George and Dorothy it's fine by me I I envision 10 minutes and mostly just because you have a written document and if people haven't had a chance to really read it carefully we could always do it next time yeah but it's mostly just to get a sense from the rest of the committee based on this document whether they think we're headed in the right direction or if they have concerns or questions or whether they think we need to go back and start over but this is kind of where we're at that's and I think this document hopefully spells it out pretty clearly um so we're kind of looking for feedback and if people aren't ready to give it tonight we can wait that's absolutely true um or we can talk about it um so it's really in the hands of the rest of you based on what we have here and if you haven't had a chance to look at it or you don't have any thoughts on it now um we can come back to it at some future date we're going to continue in this direction I guess our fear is that we're going to continue in this direction and then someday we're going to come to a meeting and find out that that the three of you think we're we're just headed in the wrong direction and so we don't want to do that if we can avoid it so we're just trying to get a sense of where your concerns are and I don't need to go through this I think item by item so how would you want to proceed but I mean one question is whether people are comfortable with some of this coming to this committee and if the answer is no then that's an important thing for us to know um Paul has mentioned that other towns and cities in the Commonwealth create a separate body the town of Northampton has a separate body that deals with some of these things that's certainly an option um another option is that it takes off a piece of it and says bring it to us we will conduct the conversation discussion whatever you want to call it relevant parties and then we will make or not make a recommendation to the council and the council will decide um we focused here exclusively on parking in basically residential parking issues but relevant to some of the things we've been talking to about tonight perhaps some other things could be added to that list uh or perhaps not that you may all feel that no that's you don't want any of it or parking is enough but there are other issues that residents do occasionally raise and it doesn't strike me as completely crazy to imagine that there is a town council body filled with elected representatives you know who are ultimately responsible to the constituents that is a place where they can go and and express their you know desires concerns wishes complaints and then we um can choose to act or not act so there are a number of questions here in other branches that you know depending on what the decision is can go in different directions the first one simply is whether this body would be comfortable having residential parking issues brought to it um and discussing them and then after applying a certain set of criteria um making a recommendation to the council as keepers of the public way that you should do x y or z um remember we started with Lincoln as the uh you know the that's what we started with and the recommendation to time from the committee was go back and think about this from a bigger you know big big picture perspective we had the conversation with Guilford he expressed an interest in in in pursuing some kind of town-wide uniform policy for residential area only so parking in residential areas not downtown not village centers um and he thought that this you know could be helpful um we're still waiting to get something back from him um but some of what you have here in this document um reflects our conversation with him so I know there were some of the criteria that might be employed either by this body TSO or by some other body um a third option is don't do anything I mean yeah it's not perfect but it's not terrible either so just let things kind of just go the way they are um so we presented three possible options we did not at least and Dorothy can weigh in on this but we did not recommend using tack for any kind of formal process so any kind of you know process that would involve making a decision finally about what should or should not be done should probably fall on the elected representatives not a group of volunteers serving on tack um so we you know we're not saying you know we have no position on what tax order shouldn't do but we didn't feel was appropriate for this kind of problem but again people could disagree so there are a number of things in here the numbered tried to highlight the basic questions perhaps the best thing is to come back to it some other evening when people have a chance to look at it but we're happy to respond to questions and or comments now right and and just to follow up on a few things so it wasn't that we were saying because once some of the questions have been does tack commit continue as a committee and what does it do we were not having a position on tack continuing or not continuing as a committee but on the issue of residential parking I think George is a very important part a point that if a decision is to be made on that it's better it be done by elected representatives than by an all citizen committee or volunteer committee and we know that tack has been working on complete streets biking and and pedestrian has it has an agenda already what I would like to follow up now was that in what George and I had a useful and long discussion on this a few days ago and he mentioned that Paul had mentioned that such a committee existed in Northampton and when George gave me the facts of it my first response was oh I don't think Paul would like that because it included it included two counselors it included some regular members of the public about four and it included a number of town staff and I thought maybe he didn't want to have that so what I would like to hear now since Paul is here and we're not particularly rushed is what are his thoughts about a permanent committee which included citizens counselors and town staff that would be involved with a wide variety of topics only one of which is parking but would include this parking well um so I think my first criteria is when residents have a request that they get to that they don't be given what's felt what they feel like is a run around that they don't go to a committee that's advisory and then goes to somebody else who makes the decision then goes to the full counseling and they have to go like three times I think just in terms of good public in good customer service you want to get them to the decision makers as quickly as possible with as much information as possible Northampton is one model we've been collecting information on how cities handle this and there's lots of different models for how cities do this and I can share we can finish that up and get that out to you so you can sort of see look at how other cities have done it and it's sort of across the board some will have a you know the the police chief fire chief and superintendent public works and planning director making the decision some will have a separately appointed commission that makes the decision that the council really delegates the authority to a different body like you'd like the licensing commission um some of it some have council committees that do it exclusively so there and then then there the hybrid committees like Northampton has so there's lots of different models out there that we I can summarize for you and send it out to you if you'd like that um so I think I think you were wise to say let's let's look at residential parking because otherwise it gets too complicated too quickly um so in terms of having the right people on committee I think you want to have the right people on the committee whether they're voting members decision makers um or not is a question for the council I mean that in that's the case of um of the um you know police chief fire chief dpw superintendent and possibly the planning director um you know I I do find uh that you should either be a council committee or not a council committee I think hybrid committees become really difficult um just for lots of different reasons I don't need to hear Evan yeah so um I would be interested in seeing some models from some other cities um to see how they do it my my initial reaction to this which I think is what George and Dorothy are sort of looking for um you won't be surprised to hear that I do not want us to create another committee um I've been pretty sure I would like this council not to create any more committees at all for this town I think we have enough um I don't want the town manager have to spend more of his time trying to recruit and interview for and appoint other committees however don't necessarily you know I I love how this is written because it shows its hand a little bit with we could do nothing we should keep just muddling along um which doesn't necessarily inspire confidence in how how we feel like we've been doing things and I think that's true I think when we had the Lincoln Ave hearing there were a lot of people with members of the public and also counselors who said why Lincoln Ave why has Lincoln Ave come to us is it because they're the loudest voices in the room versus the most pressing concern right and we had you know certainly um people people who have reached out about parking concerns on their streets that have not been shown um the same privilege as Lincoln Ave and I think that there might be valid reasons for that but it still doesn't stop people from wondering why so I don't necessarily know um that the current process is working I don't necessarily know what the answer is which is why I want to see some models my concern with even having it be a TSA responsibility and I'm open to this but my concern is and this was my concern back when GOO was first debating the the um formation of TSO is we don't want TSO to just turn into the complaint committee right um I and and will it just be parking or will we then become the place for people to come who say uh concerns about the condition of their sidewalks and and condition of the roads and pop also want a speed bump how do you just limit it to parking once you open that idea of because there's multiple public ways things that technically fall under our jurisdiction and so how do you have sort of an orderly process in which folks would be able to come to TSO um and give their claim and feel like they're being heard and I think Paul Paul had a really good point with that is you want people to feel like they're not just being pushed off or given the run around you want to feel like they're being heard um but how do we how could TSO if we do go that route how could TSO provide that service without us ending up becoming a committee that spends a lot of its time just sort of hearing public way complaints from residents because we do have a lot of other things on our play I mean we've been a fairly busy committee um in just the past eight months or so that we've existed so that's why I think I would be really interested to see models from other cities but I I'm really hesitant to create any more committees in this town what I wanted to hear oh excuse me more from Paul because I could think oh that committee is a great idea but if it involves town staff I really do want to know because I thought you were in Evans camp we have enough committees let's let's stop uh proliferating the work um so I so we don't just choose a beautiful model but it's not one that you want to do because it's not practical is that addressed to Paul it's to Paul yeah because I didn't I don't feel he really answered me fully on that so I guess I don't what is your question it's precisely no so what if we you showed us a lot of these models and we said oh this is this committee sounds really great and involved a number of town staff would you say that's great this is a good logical thing or would you say my staff is overwhelmed and they have too much to do and I didn't want us to do another committee I'm in favor of not creating so towns tend to have lots of committees cities tend to have fewer committees that's just the nature of the beast it's towns grow up with lots of committees you go to a city they don't have nearly the number of committees that we have because just for lots of different reasons um so so I think that I'm all in favor of not creating more committees um and if there are committees that don't need to exist they should be sunsetted um that but I think that having the on this particular these types of questions which may not be policy questions but may be technical questions um you may you may want to have I mean you can't make a decision about parking only can have without knowing the the fire chief police chief and DPW director's concerns so whether they have to be a member of the committee or not they're going to weigh in one way or the other so their commitment of time is there so it's not an added commitment it's just whether you want them in a decision making role or an advisory role okay so I just found a sentence I really like which is let's make a distinction between policy questions and technical questions that helps clarify things in my mind um so that might help us go forward George the town services committee don't want to forget outreach but the town services committee is the town complaint committee right that's kind of right it's um town services are things that people have complaints about and a lot of them are not necessarily legitimate but they need to have their voice heard and I know Paul deals with this all the time people come to him all the time they come to Guilford I'm sure all the time with complaints and we are elected to represent the people those with complaints and without so I guess I kind of thought that was part of the job is dealing with people's complaints you know people and the complaints are you know like crosswalk it you know amity and and and Lincoln or you know or or a sidewalk that's it's you know looks like came out of world war two I mean it these are complaints and um we're supposed to be the committee that deals with town services so a lot of what we're going to deal with are things people are unhappy about and our job is to try and listen first of all give them a sense that they're being heard and then do whatever we can which maybe isn't much to try and help address that um and so you know I that doesn't bother me I you know it's what we're supposed to do so this is something that people complain about they complain about parking and they complain in all different parts of town and you know it turned out that Lincoln complained really loudly and they had two really hardworking dedicated counselors went and pursued it but the question is a fair one which is what's the townwide policy what how are we going to deal with this and so um I I certainly do not I agree with Evan we do not want to create a new body but if if the four of you decide or the majority of you decide that's what we want to do then we will go and do that or at least we'll see what we can find out I would prefer to work with what we have um assuming that there is an issue here that we should address as the elected representatives of the town where people have issues about parking and perhaps a couple of other things as well but we're starting with parking and you know the folks on Lincoln complain at least they feel like they've been heard they may never get what they want first of all who's they right I mean not everybody agrees but maybe a majority of them want X but at least they've been heard and so the point of the issue I think is can we create a simple policy and a procedure that everybody knows as Paul said it's what's important is people know where to go and and know that these are you know decision makers or the next step to the decision and they know who to you know go go after when they don't get what they want and that's part of our job um so this is a suggestion as to the issue of residential parking with TSO at the center of the you know we're the target but if you want to create a new body and we're not a city okay I mean in reality we're a town so I don't think we need a huge you know multi-member multimodal we just need a procedure and a process that we can write down black and white and say to people this is what you do and somebody has to you know run the show somebody has to be a group you have to go to and that's what I think TSO is part of what TSO is supposed to be it's town services where the citizen interacts with the town we're supposed to have some role in that and let me see how do I make this thing go okay I'm raising my hand here I'm sorry is it Dorothy or Alyssa Alyssa has her hand up actually yeah if I may great so um I too would like to see models since you've already gathered the data since we're not sending you out to gather data I would like to see that but I would like to also point out that what other cities do is what they've always done almost nobody sits down and has a retreat and says should we really have our committee set up this way mostly they just say oh you got elected now you're on such and such committee because that's the committee that exists and that's just how it is so bravo to us for trying to figure this out but we should definitely we should look at other people's models but understand they may not really be their preferred models either it's just what they've lived with for 20 or 30 years in terms of whether or not we have enough committees normally I would agree with Evan on this but in this case we don't have enough committees because we aren't doing what Paul just talked about and what George just talked about we are giving people the run around there is no clear path to get people's needs addressed that has been true for decades and I know tack loves to talk about their work on the bike trail and the bike not the bike trail but on the bike path and on complete streets but tack was given a very clear charge by a previous government before the charter change that said you need to develop a process so that people don't get the run around on these kinds of requests and they refused to do that part of their charge they just didn't do it and we have no ability with committees to say oh well you didn't do one of the 12 things we asked you to do so you're fired they're doing great work in other areas but we knew this was a problem that is why we assigned it to tack and tack chose not to pursue it so we are still in a position in 2020 of having no way of consistently addressing people's concerns and that does in fact actually extend to sidewalk condition and it does extend to potholes because before we started doing the Amherst connect stuff and even when we first started doing that that was all dependent on staff processes that were completely opaque to the public and completely opaque to elected officials so having a thing like George says where it's like if you have this problem you go here if you have this problem you turn in a form that does X and I know tack finally developed a form at one point but again it doesn't go anywhere so I think that is incredibly helpful and I think that does put TSO in the position of being that committee simply you know kind of due to process of elimination that's where we are tax not going to do it and there are there are reasons even though they are not making the decisions they could have developed it because of all the other work they were doing it kind we thought it had a nice synergy well it didn't work out so maybe they might still have some advice based on what they did do as to how we can develop this over here in TSO I think that it may turn out that eventually some things could be passed off to another group just as you know obviously we're going to look to expert opinions when we have no specific parking width and height and all that jazz but there may eventually be kinds of things that we say you know what when it comes to that kind of thing this group is actually a better place to talk about that but until we start doing it I don't think we're going to be able to develop that sense so I do think it is us I'm not looking forward to these conversations about stop signs and parking in front of people's houses I've done this before it's not the funnest part of the job but it is in fact something that I do think elected officials have a responsibility toward I totally agree with George on that and I do think that since we haven't come up with some other solution after decades of trying I think we should definitely try having TSO serve in this function now unfortunately you know I'm hoping not a lot of people are watching this and decide they need to open the floodgates and start sending us all their concerns because I don't know at this point how we're going to prioritize those right because that's been our conversation all along the other part of it that I think is important for us to remember is that if something just comes to town council like we've been getting some emails that I think we can safely assume we're going to be showing up at public comment at town council on many that we literally have no idea how to deal with that are that are concerns about something that's not happening in town that we can't control like it's not a policy it's a it's a thing to do that a staff member needs to do is that so when that person comes because it's public comment right we don't respond but as a town council we later in the meeting may well say oh well we're gonna ask the town manager to look at that or oh we're gonna refer such and such matter to a committee to look at and who would the town council refer a parking thing to other than TSO like there isn't anybody else and I don't think it makes sense to try and create a new thing when literally we tried that it didn't work and so having TSO do it I think would be really helpful the one other direction I'm taking this though that I hope that Dorothy and George can talk to us about next time is I don't have any understanding whatsoever as to why we would take out downtown and village center parking I think that absolutely belongs to elected officials that does not belong to the downtown parking working group and it hasn't for years it was supposed to move over to TAC when downtown parking working group was done and it didn't it is not supposed to be in my opinion a private committee that only advises the town manager which we did three town managers ago it is something elected officials are absolutely responsible for being responsive about is village center and downtown parking but that doesn't mean that's the first thing we're gonna work on right like TSO could say sorry man we're we're focused on neighborhood parking right now we're not doing downtown parking we can't do everything but I think I don't know why we would cut that out of up here because it it isn't anywhere it literally doesn't exist anywhere else either thanks uh Dorothy and then I'm gonna okay so I don't believe that George meant we weren't going to do downtown parking what we said was now we're trying to do something which we've agreed with Guilford that Guilford is interested in which is an offshoot of our work on Lincoln Avenue we're going to look at residential neighborhood parking because it needs to get done I think later when that is hopefully arranged and organized in a way that makes sense so people do know how to proceed and that we have clear understandings then I do agree I think we are the committee that will be dealing I'm not sure in what way and you know we'll be enlightened by Paul and other people at some point but I think we are the ones that will deal with the downtown parking but not at the same time that we're dealing with this we want to do a limited thing Guilford was very open to it with the neighborhood residential parking and kind of gets that problem that's been bugging them for a long long time get it kind of taken care of so that we have a clear structure and then we can move forward on a different problem now George have I said anything that you don't agree with no you haven't I think in each of the time I and we still I think I'm seeing Evan is his hand up as well so but I'm just trying to get down in my own mind what you all would like us to do and what I'm hearing is you certainly would like us to come back with some other models aside from the Northampton model which we did provide to you you'd like some other models of how other cities or towns deal with this and I'm getting I may be wrong here but I'm also getting the sense that when we come back to you what or at least what I think we'd come back to you with would be a very specific proposal based on our conversations with Guilford as to how TSO we would suggest TSO would deal with residential parking issues that specifically without you know for judging other things that we might eventually take on so I guess two things one you want more models and B do you I guess I'm asking do you also want from us then a specific concrete proposal as to how TSO could in theory deal with residential parking issues that's the sense I'm getting okay I I want to weigh in but I want to hear from Evan first so I can be really quick one to answer George's question for me at least is yes I think from what I've heard and where I'm leaning it sounds like this will likely end up as a Tia you know in the options you gave option to give to TSO and so I'd like to start thinking about what that actually looks like right what it actually looks like for TSO to have a process to deal with these and evaluate and prioritize and the second thing I wanted to say I guess it's slight disagreement with the list is at this time I think I would prefer to keep this to just residential parking and the reason for that is that when we're talking about residential parking we're talking about parking that is completely on the public way which is within our charge when you get into downtown I worry it becomes more complex if we're thinking about the downtown parking working group part of that was parking on the public way but they also talked about perhaps a private parking garage they also talked about parking agreements on private lots which are technically out of the scope of TSO you might also start talking about the downtown parking district which is really a zoning thing which is part of CRC and so I just think once we get into downtown parking it starts to get a little bit more complicated and is going to require us to think a little bit more closely about where the boundaries are between TSO and CRC responsibilities and so just to simplify things I think starting with just residential parking I think it is an easier place to start because I think that the downtown parking is really going to have to have a conversation between TSO and CRC to figure out where the boundaries are given that they're sort of split response split jurisdictions really helping yeah I would just I guess I was under the impression that we were going to try to come up with a policy as opposed to being you know receiving individual resident complaints and I personally think that we that it's you know there's much more to receiving complaints than just parking it's you know as far as traffic and parking there's the whole gamut of you know people wanting speed bumps people wanting their sidewalk fix people wanting the speed limit you know uh I have you know 10 pending issues right now in South Amherst of people that have you know pretty important issues that aren't related to parking and so I thought we were just looking to come up with a policy based on those criteria that you have listed in your memo there about how to deal with parking issues across the board so that it's easier to deal with them so that's one thing and secondly you know before I came to the meeting tonight I attended an hour of the TAC meeting because I'm delayed and I can tell you that actually every time I attend a TAC meeting I am pretty much totally silent because I don't know anything compared to the depths of knowledge of the people on that committee I mean there are a lot of experts and I'll have to hand it to you Paul for appointing this crew of people on the committee they know everything about every street I mean they know where uh uh you know tonight they were talking about bike lane so they knew where every single bike lane was and anyway stuff that I have no idea about and you know I I I don't think that this committee I mean maybe Alyssa has the expertise but I don't think um I mean the amount of depth of expertise that they have on TAC is pretty amazing and I I'm interested to know like I know Alyssa brought up the issue of you know wanting to have them come up with a way to prioritize these complaints and hear them and deal with them as they come in and um I'm just wondering how how that was conveyed to TAC that they were supposed to do that and what the current status is because I don't I I'm not clear on um you know what has been expressed to them that they're that that is the expectation and whether whether I I guess I feel like in somewhere or another we need to figure out how to to use TAC because they're a great resource and but I don't you know I don't know what would be the best way to use TAC um and so maybe we can come up with some way to do it I do I feel very strongly that residents need to participate in in town government and you know like I was reminded about the you know the the Charter Commission final report about how you know talks about the five key strengths of the new Charter you know resident boards and committees and how people can participate and how we have all these wonderful boards and committees and that's the one of the big ways that you know they sold the Charter residents can serve on boards and committees well we want to be able to encourage them to actually do so and to if they have all this expertise figure out how we can use it in the best possible way and you know we don't expect them to be making decisions but they can they could advise us they could do research they could do a lot of stuff anyway I I hope that we can figure out a really good way to use TAC in this whole process and I would I would like Dorothy and George to to look at that you know figure out talk talk to Erin and figure out what you know what might be some possibilities um so anyway uh yeah are you clear Dorothy and I I'm not completely sure when we'll have time again because we have the North Common and the next agenda we also said we're going to bring back the the public way policy so I don't think we're waiting on Guilford he was very interested in the town-wide residential parking as an issue and he's been working on it so George and I are waiting on what he says and when you were talking about TAC I was agreeing with you and I was agreeing with George which was elected officials should make decisions so I see you actually agree with that statement but your statement is how can we use make use of the expertise and I think that's a very good question so when George and I talked one of our issues was where and how does TAC fit in so if I were to I will put where I think we are and then George and others can comment we're waiting to have our meeting with Guilford we're hoping to come together with some kind of a policy on what should the status be or the issues be or the guidelines as George put down in residential parking then Paul is going to give us some models of other committees we will have that to look at and in all of our discussion George and I knew that we had to come to some understanding whether whether it's us or the you know the the town council and or Paul what is the role of TAC and that's not something that we can decide that's something that we need input and you gave some input we need input from Paul also because to be honest there's been a strong feeling that there was a some some some one or more groups or people in Town Hall weren't sure whether TAC you should continue as a committee and I don't you know I'm not in that I don't know the answers to that I do know there is expertise but we wanted to come up with something that was simple I think that that everybody Evan and Alyssa that you have enumerated we must have a simple and Paul certainly did a simple understanding that we could put in language that people can understand what do you do if you have a complaint where do you go what is the process and how can we simplify that and make the combination of okay citizen committee elected town council members and staff coordinate in some kind of way to deal with these problems because these are the things this is bread and butter government okay this is what makes people really interested and concerned and it's serious it's serious stuff that's but George have I have I gone astray on this or do you agree with me no I agree with you completely and I again just want to be absolutely clear and people should speak up if we're mistaken that the deliverable that you expect from us at some point in the future is some kind of process that involves TSO and residential parking period that's it for the moment what goes beyond that who knows but that's what you want to see a description of what do we mean for TSO to deal with resident parking complaints oh that's not what I want but we need to be because I'm not going to spend the next couple of weeks or months producing something that you don't want so somebody needs to clear that's my understanding well we think policy the word policy and process first there was going to be a policy of of a street had to do with street width type of road volume of traffic accidents that we how do you evaluate how do you evaluate requests what criteria do you use right I'm going to get help with go for that but we gave you so that would be part of it that would be the policy and then the process process people would yeah they would go through right we had given three options and the committee yet hasn't really given sufficient feedback one one pop one process would be they come to TSO and this is how they would do it another process would be they come to this committee that does not exist no we can't produce something no so so you're okay so that's I just want to be clear that that's what we're going to go off and do and if you don't want us to do it we won't do it okay back to you and tell you this is what would happen here's what we think it should look like if a citizen has a residential parking complaint and and TSO has to deal with it okay so it'd be a policy and process to do it TSO and right and it would certainly involve you know what would be the role for TAC what would be the role for department heads and so on you know in terms of you know what it would look like I don't think it's all that complicated they but point is we would produce that and you'd look at it and say what you think or do you want something else do you want you know a list of models that you can all read through and say oh I like this one I like that one um right what do you want okay so George and I know what we're talking about now it's up to you to ask questions or comment Alyssa so you asked the question Darcy how does TAC know that how was it conveyed to TAC that they were to know to do this it's stated directly in their charge with the town manager or designated staff the TAC will develop comprehensive clear and consistent procedures for residents to request transportation improvements or regulatory changes these procedures shall establish a single point of communication between residents and the town relating to all transportation blah blah blah blah all transportation matters and to establish a single process by which requests are evaluated and prioritized so it's probably worth putting the TAC charge back in our fought back in our packet on a regular basis because we're picking some of this stuff up as TSO right so and that's fine and I will point out that I said at our September meeting that I'm continually impressed by the level of expertise TAC brings to the table in all the areas that they do work on I'm just disappointed that they didn't do one of the things they were directed to do I was on the select board we appointed the TAC we know we created the TAC we appointed the members some of what you're still serving I'm well aware of the expertise we accumulated there and I want to use that I always feel bad when I say use them but I want to use them for everything that we possibly can't at the same time I think what Dorothy and George are doing right now if I'm understanding it correctly is they're not saying TSO will never talk about these other things what they're saying is TSO will develop basically this process I just described associated with residential parking and once we once we develop that because they're getting help from girlfriend and everything once we develop that I think that will give us a better sense of okay here's one thing we developed the process for now what's our overall policy for what are the other things that we will develop processes for but here's a process we can actually develop and use for this kind of thing and then probably there will be more parts and there will eventually be an umbrella policy over all of that that then shows which committees do the process but I think it's okay that they're jumping right to the process associated with residential parking because that's what we're focused on right now yeah and George and Dorothy could you make sure that you ask Aaron Hayden if TAC already has a written process because I think they might um George you have an answer for this I know that Tracy's apian is is I met with Tracy recently but I think George reminded me at our meeting that we in TSO when the TAC came before us asked maybe it was Alyssa asked them to write out to fix their charge and to write out to clarify what it was they were doing so we don't have that yet um I don't know if they were supposed to get back to us or somebody but over the years and one of the things I'm pretty sure they did is come up with this process or something like what you're talking about it might be general it might not be focused on residential parking um but just ask them just just I think they may have background on it I think you're right Darcy that they talked about it they created a form at some point there's zero process and there's no means for the public to actually use any process that they might have developed but because they already worked on it some it's certainly worth learning what they learned from that I think the process is more around and Tracy will probably talk about this but around a criteria that they use to prioritize complaints um but anyway so all right uh I think we're set and um I you know we can we can we know that you're probably not going to come up at the next meeting um you can just you know tell me when you have had luck getting uh information from Guilford right and I don't feel that we're pursuing Guilford on this because he said he showed a willingness he was actually interested in doing this so um it's just that he said they're still working and pulling information together so we will definitely do that and we'll get back to you um good um all right can we move on yes um all right so we have um we would like to adopt except the minutes of 11 19 if anybody had a chance to look at them they're a little they're a meant amended slightly I did not have any chance to look at them yet Alyssa is at hand current um are you looking at them now or are people ready to vote on them I've looked at them I'm ready to vote on them want to move it I move we accept the minutes from November 19 as apparently as amended or as amended right I second that um all right we have a vote um Alyssa stain Darcy yes Dorothy I have to stain uh oh uh Evan yes George yes okay we're good um all right so um I have our calendar and our work plan on the agenda um we don't have to go into them much because we're this late um we are going to do the north common you know the rest of the counselors have a deadline of uh the Friday before our our meeting to try to get their comments and nobody put any comments in about today's FYI um and uh but I have gotten a few comments about north common already um and uh so we'll also look at the the public way revisions we are going to get those a couple of bylaw referrals we thought we were going to get them on Monday but they're going to be at the following meeting so you won't have to worry about them quite yet so and then surveillance technology end of January so um our calendar is um is in the package and it's a proposed calendar there's a couple of dates in there that say this date and then in parentheses they say or this date um and just assume it's the one that's not in parentheses unless we end up deciding that's the other one um but uh the non parentheses rules um but uh think about it whether there's a reason to to go one way or the other we don't have to decide that right now and there's a couple of dates that say optional and that's because um there the town council has um has two meetings in a three week period and I just put one meeting in and an optional date that corresponds with the town council meeting but you know if if we can get away with having one instead of two we will um in those two uh situations so we have one that's elective if we have a lot of work to do at that we can we can meet on that elective day so any questions about either of those things the work plan or the calendar I have a question about the work plan okay I just have a quick it's actually not about the work plan per se it's about something you just said about getting a couple of bylaw referrals I know I was pretty uh surprised shall we say by the number of referrals we got at the last town council meeting that all had short turnarounds and I know there were a variety of reasons for that but it was kind of like hey TSO is just like getting the load and luckily Evan thought of something we could go ahead and do right away and we didn't have quite as many referrals but when you say we're going to be getting bylaw referrals do we have any idea what those bylaw referrals are I think we should have some sense of that ahead of time if we know yeah they're on the work plan there okay that's what you mean the ones that are on the work plan right yes just sit around the work plan are the only ones okay not something new thank you yeah um so um anything else one uh um we um Athena has you you got the communication from Athena about how she's going to try to uh sort of upgrade all the web pages and make them uniform of all the committees and so she did upgrade ours quite a bit she she added a link to the um to the review process and most of what's in our share point is on the on the web page now so that's that's helpful um oh do I see yes what what I like is um because my town computers and I can't get it's not working for me is that I can go to committee's meeting go down to the audit and I can see the TSO committee meeting and then I I think you put in something right there on with the meeting notes where it says materials are here and there's the link you click that takes you directly to the packet yep I like I like that a lot um I did that Athena that's a that's a new feature that's great yeah um so okay um and I think we may have public comment um let's see if Tracy is Tracy has her hand up okay so uh Tracy how can I move her in here here we go we may be seeing her okay Tracy um do you have some public comment yeah thank you um so I had so as Darcy was saying we had a tac meeting earlier this evening and we really appreciated Darcy being able to join us until the TSO meeting um you know in terms of I guess you know hearing the discussion tonight about the tac the tac charge and so on I mean the things that Alyssa were referring to I wasn't a member of the tac then I mean the tac the tac the current tac charge was the tac charge under the select board right and of course so the tac was told earlier this fall to work on revising it we have done a few drafts of it internally I know that the tac chair Erin Hayden and the town manager are in touch on this and the town manager will be giving us feedback on the charge I mean some of the aspects of the prime the former charge you know in terms of developing a comprehensive system of keeping track of all requests and monitoring all the work programs they really do seem to be outside of the scope of a voluntary committee in addition we don't really we don't directly connect with staff and you know for example sidewalks pot like a lot of the minor repair requests like those aren't things that I think were I don't know if they were ever intended to come to tac it hasn't been our practice to look at those very much there is on the tac website right now there is a citizen request form I don't know how much people use it it's a pdf form I think it probably does date back to the select board days of the tac it is not an interactive pdf it's like a pdf that you have to download print out fill out send in right that's very old school and there is like a you know there is the c-click fix system and you're looking at the today there are a lot of requests that come in there I know that the town manager gets requests I know that the director of public works gets requests a lot of those requests they don't come to tac you know we didn't meet you know I was appointed to the committee in the fall of 2019 and we met until March and then we didn't meet again for eight months so obviously there were requests for repairs and things from that time and we weren't involved with any of that we do meet with Guilford you know regularly Guilford comes to the tac meetings there is a priority list of projects both in terms of big projects in terms of like reconstructions of intersections and then also smaller projects he does keep a running list of all of the requests that come in from residents and we review those regularly at the tac meetings and discuss about like potential priorities you know based on town plans and the other priorities that have been expressed to us by the approved documents um so I mean I did have some specific comments related to parking and potential parking criteria um but I think that I mean the reason you know one reason when I looked at the town parking policy approach and saying the tac didn't need to be formally involved I mean I do think it makes sense for tac you know given our expertise I mean that we do know we do know a lot about the town we know a lot about transportation and how the different systems connect um that again we aren't staffed so it makes sense for us not to be involved at that level and like the details of what I can see TSO doing and we are not decision makers you know we are just providing advice based on our expertise and it's still up to decision makers to make decisions who and the decision makers are elected bodies and town staff um but I mean I do think about you know one of the things with the parking policy just thinking about things from a policy perspective you know we're thinking about like people mentioned the idea of speed bumps and parking and like there's a lot of things in how they all interface together and like what are we if if you look at each if you look at each request individually like in the end what kind of system do you set end up with right so one of the things we're doing with the prioritization plan is looking at you know based on the criteria that are used for prioritizing projects you know in five ten fifteen years like what does transportation and the network both the public way aspects and the other aspects look like in town so um I mean anything like speed bumps or roundabouts and things they all you know have bigger ramifications um and so I mean I can speak briefly about some of the criteria that I thought could might be helpful to add to the parking policy but if it's going to be read done I don't need to add those um so maybe you could send your your comments to us it would be helpful yeah yeah um I mean so I mean just you know some of the main ones were just you know like I I know that one of the things that happened with the Lincoln complaints right where the people were concerned about the sight lines when there was so much parking on street and so just making sure there's clear sight lines with the intersections and sidewalks and also they just the idea again how these systems interface like if you're gonna have one consideration with on street parking was do you have sidewalks on those streets currently right or are the people who are walking going to be walking next to parking and you know just some of those bigger picture things um so I think I mean we didn't talk about it attacked tonight the parking policy um we did talk briefly about the charge and we are also working on finalizing um finalizing to bring to your review um the TSO review or the council review and I know Erin wants to follow up with you Darcy on this about PVPC had prepared a pedestrian bicycle network plan and we just received this fall um we only had the text but we also received a map that would identify like the the priority areas like the priority parts of the network um the areas with the most issues and so on and the TAC is reviewing that currently and then we would bring the plan you know to the TSO council for approval and then move for you know and then that could be used as one of the documents that goes into decision making based on all the work that went into that so right thank you yeah thank you very much Tracy you know it's very helpful um Tracy okay so um items not anticipated uh so I think we're done well let me ask one quick question just to make this do okay we've talked about this area that we are not working on yet that we TSO are not working on yet which is the downtown parking plan um I could see TSO playing a role not TSO TAC TAC playing a role in looking at that policy and then sharing their thoughts with TSO is that make does that seem reasonable say that again Darcy I'm sorry downtown parking policy I went to a couple of the meetings of it it's very big it's complex some things were looked at some things were just brushed aside and not given I don't think the consideration that they deserved when we get to the downtown parking policy I would think that TAC could play a useful role in looking at the systems how they how they interact with each other and then I assume it will have to come to TSO at some point too but maybe I'm wrong um but I was just thinking that's that's an area because they do the interfacing of systems and certainly the downtown parking thing is very complex I was just wondering if we could you think that TAC would play a good role in that who are you asking Paul I'm asking Paul I'm asking anybody on this I mean this that you all have points of view which are valuable and relevant yes I see yes I think we're part of what the perceived conflict and and I'm hearing I'm hearing I'm hearing some frustration from TAC and they're hearing for some frustration for me and I understand that some of that frustration is over not getting to meet for many months and I understand that some of that frustration is over them believing that perhaps a volunteer committee shouldn't do the things that they were charged to do but the people who were on that committee before the current person we just talked to who I appreciate very much for being willing to come forward and say these things as she did in September because I do really appreciate her expertise and the other members but TAC never came to the select board and said we can't do this right we just kept waiting for them to do it and they kept not doing it so this is not a problem of well you shouldn't have asked us to do it previous people well then they shouldn't they should have not been appointed to the committee they should not have agreed to serve because they weren't doing what they were asked to do which is a much bigger question right in terms of what committees are charged to do so I think it's terrific that now that the town council is not the appointing authority that now that the town managers the appointing authority for TAC it makes total sense that they are working together to figure out what's a sensible charge for them to have but they had a sensible charge and it wasn't what they actually did I think them having a sensible charge now is going to be different because a lot of things are different now and they they did although they were never they never did become the downtown parking working group which was also in their charge to do that which is not anybody's fault per se it just never happened is that I'll bet they do have some good ideas like Dorothy said because of all the other things they've talked about because of all the synergy because of a rallying for bike paths and just how did the back paths line up just like with our new temporary stuff with the bike path so I think that will be really useful but let's remember there isn't anybody working on downtown parking right now other than staff there isn't a committee for that that's not a thing right now and so when we get to it we absolutely should be looking to whatever they recall from their conversations about it and how they interface together because I do think they've worked on a lot of different issues even if they haven't formally done x y z parts of the charge right um we need to remember that there are you know a lot of a lot of the members of tech are are new at least half of them you know don't have that history going back to the select board you know they're they're relatively new but the charge is the charge until the charge changes it isn't doesn't matter who's on the committee the charge exists so but that's also a function of our committee system yes our committee system doesn't say look at the charge to see what you're supposed to be doing then we have a problem with our committee system I think we're done um um anything else all right uh I declare us adjourned at 855 you tried and I failed all right I feel it was a good meeting okay I feel it was it was