 We're recording. You want to start recording? We are recording. Thank you. Good evening. It's September 18th, and this is a special meeting of the town council. Our purpose of our special meeting tonight is something we call a primer regarding the master plan. And so we're going to begin with that. We do presently do not have a quorum of the council present. We however can still hold this meeting. But as soon as we have a quorum of the council present, I will have to pause the meeting and call the meeting to order. But this we are allowed to do meetings virtually. You can either be in the room or you can be on zoom or you can watch us on TV. And if there's any technical difficulties, we may have to stop the meeting, but generally that's not been the case. At this point, with regard to the special town council meeting, there is no change in the agenda. So with that, I'm going to greet Chris Brestra, who is our director of planning for the town. And she is going to give us an update, if you will, or an overview, I think is a better way of saying it, of the master plan. Good evening, my name is Chris Brestra. Am I invisible and people can hear me? Yes. So I'm here to give you a short presentation about the Amherst master plan. And then during the public forum to hear questions and concerns from the public about the master plan. But first, I'd just like to say a few words in general. A master plan is a dynamic long term planning document that provides a conceptual framework to guide future growth and development. It's not the same as zoning and it doesn't deal with streetscapes and how wide the sidewalk should be over at a plant trees. And it doesn't tell us what style of architecture we should have. And it doesn't talk about parking spaces, how many we need. It's much more general than that. To accompany our master plan and to support its goals and objectives, we have a series of other plans that map out details for us, including our zoning bylaw. And since the master plan was completed in 2010, we've made many other plans, which can be incorporated into the master plan by a vote. And to list a few of them are the sewer extension plan, housing production plan, housing market study, the transportation plan, the open space and recreation plan, which is going to be updated pretty soon, the bicycle and pedestrian network plan, community field master plan, and the climate action adaptation and resiliency plan. We've also made changes to our zoning bylaw since the adoption of the master plan, including in 2021. I need to ask you to pause for a moment. We now have a quorum of the council. Okay, so given that we have a quorum of the council, I'm going to call the town council to order on September 18th at 5.34. And I'm going to quickly make sure that people can hear us and we can hear them. Shalini Balmilne is not present yet. Pat D'Angelo's. Present. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Mandy Johanicki is not present yet. Anika Lopes is not present yet. Michelle Miller is not present yet. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney. Here. Kathy Shane is not present yet. Andy Steinberg. Present. And Jennifer Tav. Present. Kassie Walker is not present yet. One, two, three, four. There are seven of us present. Please. Thanks, Chris. Certainly. So anyway, I was saying we've made changes to our zoning bylaw since the adoption of the master plan. And in 2021, we made seven changes to our zoning bylaw. That was quite a record. We've recently adopted zoning amendments to make it easier to build an accessory dwelling unit on your residential property and also easier to open a restaurant. We've adopted a new set of flood maps and a zoning bylaw to accompany them. And we're currently working on a solar bylaw that will become part of our zoning bylaw. It will regulate how large-scale solar installations are permitted. So the master plan that we'll talk about tonight was created over a period of 12 years from 1998 to 2010. And since we had not previously had a master plan, it took a long time to develop one. The town should start the process to have a new master plan around 2025 with a goal of having a master plan adopted by town council in 2030. And we hope it won't take 12 years this time. We don't have a 12 years between now and 2030. Meanwhile, we should continue working on implementing the master plan. And we'll talk about that later, including continuing to create new plans to accompany the master plan to address issues that are important to the town. So now let's talk about the master plan. And if Athena would bring the PowerPoint presentation up, I'd appreciate that. Thank you. OK, so I've given this presentation a few times. It's changed a little over the years. But here we are, Amherst master plan, planning Amherst together, 2006 to 2010. And we're now on September 18th of 2023. So the master plan has served us well over the last 13 years. Next slide, please. So what's in a master plan? A master plan is a community's general long term blueprint for its future. It's a dynamic document, the beginning, not the end of a process. Next slide, please. A master plan is required by Mass General Law Chapter 41, Section 81D. And our master plan, in accordance with state law, was adopted by the planning board in February of 2010. And in accordance with the charter, it was adopted by town council in November of 2020. The Amherst home rule charter requires the adoption of a new master plan by town council every 20 years. So as I stated previously, 2030 would be our target date for a new master plan. So it's worthwhile to consider beginning that process in 2025. Next slide, please. This master plan was the first in Amherst for nearly 40 years. And it was based on extensive public input. You can see the picture of people gathered at the high school cafeteria, all giving their input to the consultants on the master plan. In addition to public input, the master plan was also based on research, on the community's existing conditions and anticipated trends for the future. Of course, the existing conditions have changed a little since the master plan was created. So this master plan represents Amherst's best effort to balance competing interests of a diverse population. And our population is quite diverse in terms of age, in terms of income, education, race, many things. Next slide, please. The master plan really began, or the effort towards the master plan really began in 1971 when UMass was growing very rapidly and there was a lot of development in town and people thought that there was a need for some sort of comprehensive planning. So the select committee on goals was established and they produced a report which includes this conceptual plan over to the right here in gray and white. And it shows really the kind of the same plan that we have on paper for the master plan that we currently have. So it shows the downtown area and the rectangle in the middle of this town. And it shows two circles to the north. One is the North Amherst Village Center and the other one is Cushman Village. Obviously Cushman Village is not as big and as developed as the North Amherst Village Center. Then down to the south, there are again two circles. One is the one to the left is the Pomeroy Village Center. The one to the right is the South Amherst institutional village center or village with the church, the school and the library. And then up to the east, there's a little circle that was the Gatehouse Road Village Center which hasn't really developed very much. There is a lot of housing there and there are some offices but initially it had a little store and I think there were plans for it to develop into more of a village center. But it hasn't yet done that. And then in the south is the Atkins Corner Village Center where Applewood is located, Hampshire College and of course Atkins Farm Market. So in 1997, the town and the Comprehensive Planning Committee hired Walt Kudnachowski's consulting firm. He is a landscape architect who started the Conway School of Landscape Architecture and the town worked with him and his company for about a year and developed the Amherst Visions. And again, Amherst Visions document is available on the town website along with the SCOG report. The Comprehensive Planning Committee started meeting regularly around the time that the Amherst Visions process was completed. And they met for a period of six years to work on how to plan to proceed with the process of planning Amherst together. And planning Amherst together was the title given to the master plan process. There was substantial participation from the colleges and the university and $20,000 was appropriated in 2004 to hire a consultant to establish a scope of work and a cost estimate for the work of the planning Amherst together group. Many community members were involved including Bruce Coldham who is currently on the planning board. He was on the planning board back then. John Kuhn who's a retired architect in town but he's still doing some work. Cheryl Zoll who was the Amherst Survival Center director. Alyssa Brewer who was very prominent. She was a town meeting member, a select board member and then a town council member. And Aaron Hayden who was the chair of the planning board and also he was on the select board. Eric Nakajima was the chair of the Comprehensive Planning Committee and Jim Wald and many others. Some of you may have participated in that effort. In 2005, town meeting voted $65,000 for the master plan. Next slide please. So in 2006, Amherst planning Amherst together hired a consultant ACP who was based in Ohio and New York and with engagement and support of the Comprehensive Planning Committee they proceeded to do their work. And town meeting voted an additional $135,000. So we had a total of $200,000 for this effort. Data was gathered and planning Amherst together held public idea gatherings and group workshops and a community survey was sent out to over 600 households. And I think my husband received one and answered it. I didn't have any part in that and that's supposed to have part in it. Anyway, then we produced the first draft to the master plan. In 2008, 2010, the master plan subcommittee of the planning board edited the draft. And then finally in 2010, they held a public forum and voted to adopt the master plan in February of 2010. Then 10 years later, after the adoption of the charter the town council also voted to adopt the master plan. Next slide please. So the master plan contains chapters on the following topics that are required by mass general law. The first one being goals and policies, then land use, demographics and housing, economic development, natural and cultural resources, open space and recreation, services and facilities, transportation and circulation and implementation. Next slide please. So the master plan is organized in the beginning, there's a statement of key directions for the community. And some of those key directions are to maintain Amherst's existing community character, to provide housing that meets the needs of all residents while minimizing impacts on the environment. And this is a tough one that we've really been wrestling with. To diversify and expand the economic base and to promote an ethic of sustainable environmental energy practices in all town activities. And we did have the CARP report that was produced by ECAC, Energy and Climate Action Committee, I think is what their actual name is. And we now have a planning, a director of sustainability, Stephanie Ciccarello. And we're very glad to welcome her as a departmental director and to help her to support her work on sustainability. Next slide please. In terms of some of the chapters in the master plan, land use is of course my favorite one. And we have many objectives under land use, but these are some of the objectives that we have to direct future development to existing built up areas. And that's something that we've really been pretty successful in doing. So the village centers and the downtown have absorbed much of our recent development. Preserve key undeveloped lands and we do have a lot of land that is under conservation restrictions, both some privately owned land that has conservation restrictions and some publicly owned land. Protect key farmland and farming and we take great effort to do this. We have a lot of land that has agricultural preservation restrictions on it and much of it is in the northeast street and southeast street corridor. And if you look towards the east, you can see quite a bit of preserved land. There is some on the west as well. Guide new housing growth while minimizing impact on open space. So we do have a cluster zoning amendment or zoning bylaw that encourages the use of the cluster zoning development method which means that you put your infrastructure and your houses in a smaller location and you get some dimensional waivers as a result and then you preserve a larger piece of land. An example of this would be the Vista Terrace development in South Amherst which is 11 acres of land, four of which were developed for housing and seven of which are preserved. And I believe that the developer has even either given it to the town already or has the intention of giving it to the town. And then another objective is to honor historic and cultural character and beauty of the neighborhoods. So we have a historical commission and a local historic district commission and both of them work on this objective. We have three local historic districts that are preserved and the local historic district commission takes its work very seriously and reviewing changes that are occurring there. And I believe that that commission is also investigating the possibility of creating another district. So next slide, please. Next slide, please. There we go. Demographics in housing. So the objectives here are encourage a greater mix of housing types, sizes and prices serving a wider range of income levels. This is something that is very challenging to do because as you know, land prices in Amherst are high and developers have an incentive to build expensive houses as a result so that they can get their payback from buying the expensive land. But we do have this as kind of a front and center issue that we are working on on a daily basis. Preserve and expand the number of affordable and moderately priced rental units and housing stock. And this is something that we've been successful in regard to affordable housing, not as successful with regard to moderately priced housing. So that's something that we really need to put an effort into going forward. Encourage production of housing in an environmentally sound manner. And we do have the stretch code that we adopted as part of our building code. So the stretch code does, you know, promote that housing be built in an environmentally sound manner. But we also have some of these newer buildings that are going up are very environmentally sound that they really have a lot of insulation and they're all electric. And so they're actually, if not lead certified they could be lead certified. I think most, if not all of them. And then improve housing and services for people who are homeless. So we've done a lot of work with Craig's doors to address this issue. We also recently purchased the VFW site which we're hoping to create a shelter for homeless people as well as potentially some affordable housing there. Next slide, please. Chris, I'm just gonna ask you to pause for one minute. We're having a problem with the projector in here and I need to reboot. So we're gonna lose your audio for just a moment. Please bear with me. That's right. Please go ahead, Chris, that didn't seem to resolve it. It didn't resolve? No, but we can still see you on our individual monitors. It's just the display in the town room isn't working at the moment. I see. We'll try and resolve that in between the next meeting. So anyway, the master plan has a lot to say with regard to natural and cultural resources. And I realized last time I gave this presentation I really didn't have much in the way of cultural resources on display here. So I included the Emily Dickinson house. So some of the objectives are promote the preservation, appreciation and sustainable use of our historical and cultural resources. And we do have a lot of really beautiful old historic buildings. The Emily Dickinson homestead is probably the most prominent. And we Amherst College were fortunate that Amherst College owns the building and takes it seriously to preserve it. They've also done a lot of restoration on it recently and it really is quite, quite beautiful. In terms of cultural resources we also had the Amherst cultural district. So that also is helpful in preserving and promoting our other culture resources and applying principles of environmental sustainability town-wide. Well, on the left here we see the Holyoke range which is in a large part preserved by the DCR Mass Department of Conservation and Recreation. Also I think here in the foreground if I'm not mistaken this is Amherst College land but I may be mistaken about that and Dave Zoma could correct me. But it is very important to the town to preserve this kind of land and landscape. And then on the right hand side you see the Kern Center at Hampshire College which is a living building challenge building. And it is for the most part if not entirely self-sustaining with regard to heating and water and lights and all of that. Next slide please. In terms of transportation and circulation the master plan asks us to actively promote alternative modes of transportation. So we do have a very great bike share program which unfortunately this year wasn't able to operate due to problems with the company that operated it. But we're working with the other towns and cities around us to reactivate that for next year. But in terms of other things we also have a determined effort to include multi-use paths as well as bike lanes when we do roadway work. And the DPW is very good at that. Right now we have worked with the Mass DOT to redesign the area between the center of town and University Drive and that is just being completed and that will include a multi-use path and I believe it will include bike lanes as well. So that's a good way of promoting alternative modes of transportation. Implementation, providing sufficient resources to implement a master plan. Well, the select board had an intention to establish an implementation committee. It was, it did have a, what do you call it? A charge that was created and approved by the select board but then the committee was never populated. So we have been implementing the master plan all along. Doug Marshall, who is the chair of the planning board and I took quite a while to go through the implementation matrix that's included in the master plan and we did note all of the things that we have had accomplished as of 2020 and made notes about who was responsible for those. So if anybody wants to see that matrix, I'd be happy to share it. But I just wanted to say that we are, you know, we have an ongoing effort to implement the master plan and then require concurrence with the master plan. And whenever we adopt a new zoning amendment we stayed at the end that it concurs with the master plan. Next slide please. I guess I better talk fast, we only have five minutes. So what have we accomplished and talk about implementing the master plans, objectives and strategies. Next slide please. So in terms of affordable housing we have several things that have been completed including Olympia Oaks and North Amherst, Main Street housing in the center part of Amherst and then the Valley CDC is just now applying for a comprehensive permit to develop 30 units of affordable home ownership in the Ball Lane and Pulpett Hill neighborhood in North Amherst and we're very excited about that. Next slide please. So how do we get affordable housing? We preserve existing units as we did at Rolling Green where the town contributed $1.2 million to preserving those units in a joint effort with Beacon communities. We have developer driven affordable housing. Beacon communities has developed the North Square at the Mill District, Habitat for Humanity developed small sites around town. Valley CDC has recently completed the work at North Hampton Road and they're starting their Ball Lane project. The town also has in the last several years made improvements to the inclusionary zoning section of the bylaw which have encouraged private developers to include affordable units in their developments. So the town role is really multifaceted. It's working on the zoning bylaw to encourage affordable housing, to act as a facilitator with developers and the state and consultants to put together projects that could be approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals. Funding through the CPA Community Preservation Act funds and tax incentives and helping developers define grants where those are appropriate, permitting and land. We also purchase land and then offer it to developers to develop affordable housing which we're doing now with Belcher Town Road and East Street School sites. And also eventually we'll probably do something similar with the VFW site. Next slide please. Here are some examples of recently completed projects. North Square at the Mill District, Aspen Heights, One University Drive and East Gables which is just now going online and that's the project on North Hampton Road that we've all been watching go up over the past year or two. Next slide please. We work closely with the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust and we've been very grateful to the chairs of the trust recently and also to John Hornick who worked very closely and very forcefully to promote affordable housing over the last several years. Next slide please. We're continuing to work on things that are addressed in the master plan to address homelessness and the need for more affordable housing. I've mentioned these two projects, repair aging infrastructure by repairing roads, bridges and sidewalks, constructing new sidewalks. We have a new sidewalk on East Hadley Road on Mill Lane and recently the DPW completed a sidewalk along Amity Street which is really quite nice. Refining a plan to address our four large capital projects. We're moving ahead quite well with the library and the school. We need to put some attention to the fire station and DPW. So those are all challenges. Updating the zoning and general bylaw which we have done recently through the preservation of historically significant buildings, ADUs and the flood mapping bylaw and then applying the principles of environmental sustainability townwide which include the stretch building code, net zero for municipal buildings and the solar bylaw working group. Next slide please. Oh, we're at the end. So I made it in a half hour. Thank you. Excellent timing. Thank you. So that concludes our quote primer and we are going to go immediately because it is six o'clock into our public forum. The charter requires that we do a public forum every year on the master plan. This is an opportunity for residents to make comments, to ask questions and we try to be a little more informal during this time period. We're not going to do the presentation again because just about everybody who is presently in the audience was here for most of that and so there's no reason to do it again. I do want to however officially call the September 18th, 2023 special meeting of the town council for the purposes of public forum to address the master plan. And I mentioned earlier open meeting law allows us to meet both remotely and in person. And this meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom, by phone and as live broadcast on Amherst media channel nine and on their live stream. We have a quorum of the council president. I've already checked with all of the counselors who have been here, but I'm not going to now check to make sure that Mandy Johanna Geek can hear us and we can hear her. Present. Thank you. With that, Oh, I'm sorry. Anika, can you hear us? I can hear you. Thank you. And is there anybody else I missed? Okay. Other counselors will be joining us at a later time. So what I'd like to do at this point is just point out this is the second meeting we're using Zoom link for all of the meetings. There's no change. This is in fact a required public forum. Let me just state, public forums are an opportunity for the public to give us feedback for us to be alert to what the public is thinking about and upcoming issues and to collect feedback from the public. And Chris mentioned earlier that their recommendation is that in 2025, we begin the process of updating or redoing or doing a new, our master plan. And because we have to, as required by the state, have a master plan in place by 2030. So if you're physically in the room, I want to make sure that you have signed in with Athena, if you would like to make public comment. And if you are in the audience, I just want to mention there are eight people on the Zoom audience, I'm sure there's others as well. If you are in the audience and you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand. Meantime, I'm going to ask Shalini Balmilne if she can hear us and we can hear her. President, yes, I can. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for being alert to that. So we have three people in the audience that have their hands raised at this point and one person in the room. So with that, I'm going to ask Athena to start with Meg Gage. Meg, please come to the microphone and state your name and address before you make your comment. And make sure that the button is on. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Hello, everybody. I'm Meg Gage. I live at 208 Montague Road and I really appreciate this chance to talk with you about the master plan, which I totally support and encourage all of us together to figure out ways to implement it. Planning is one of those things that happens and sometimes then gets put on the shelf like Tick, we did it. And then you go ahead and problem solve without applying some of the master plan goals to how you define problems and how you approach them. The North Amherst District One Neighborhood Association or DONA convened a master plan study group a year ago in order to take the excellent master plan and figure out how could it best be applied to district one? And we actually expanded it to think of North Amherst. Our district, the way that we go into Cushman sort of, but not the store. So we took an approach of the whole of North Amherst. The project was led by one of our, by Michelle Miller, one of our two spectacular district one counselors. And she did a really terrific job of leadership and pulling people together. 15 people participated in about 10 hours of meetings. And I have copies for everybody. You received this last year, but it's funny we say we wanna send things electronically so we don't have all that paper, but we have so much electronically that we don't actually read that much of it. So we'll put it by your bed. And I won't go through the details of it now, but I find the master, we found the master plan was a good participatory tool in order for us to think about North Amherst, particularly the village center concept and how to make the village centers, which is so much a heart of what the plan is about, more vibrant, more alive and how to take some of the goals of the plan and apply them district wide. So for example, one of the things we suggest is having a participatory process for each of the village centers to design village, village design guidelines for each specific village center. I think there's six and they're really different from each other. So they would have different goals, different design features. And this could be participatory so that neighborhoods could do this and think about things like bike paths and housing and so on. There's so much more to say about it, but I'm trying not to talk. Is it three minutes, right? Did I just do the three minutes? You're fine. Okay. Do you even have another 25? No, there's seconds. Oh, seconds. There's another plan. Again, remind you something. You know, these are plans for which people have spent hundreds of hours and they are approved. So let's use these as a way of bringing people together to identify where we need to work together, what our goals are. And it also is a way of problem identification. Sometimes I think we're disagreeing because we haven't agreed on what the problems are. Okay, so now my time is really up. And the other, just one last sentence. The other plan that's been approved, it's fantastic. Nobody even talks about it. It's the Amherst Bicycle and Pedestrian Network Plan. It blends with the master plan really well. And I hope people will become familiar with both of these plans. Thank you very much. I appreciate the public comment. I'm gonna give you a chance to have one. Thanks for joining us and for coming actually to the town row. Carol Lewis, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Oh, I am in the room. What do you know? Can you hear me? We can. Carol Lewis, I live at 21 Ward Street. I just have a question of curiosity more than anything else actually. I noticed that Chris said that she and Doug have worked on this a whole lot, but the implementation of the plan called for kind of an implementation committee or something or other, and that was never populated. And I was just wondering about the story sort of of why that happened or whatever. And the only other thing I'd say is I really thought all this stuff Meg just said was great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Chris, did you want to speak to that? Yes, there didn't seem to be any questions. Yes, there didn't seem to be interest on the part of the planning board members to populate it and the select board, I don't know what happened on their end about recruiting people to be on the committee. So we did present it to the planning board as something that they could do to participate in the town government and they were not, none of them volunteered to be on that. And it could be that they were already on subcommittees and they just couldn't handle anymore. And then the select board didn't seem to move forward with it either. So I don't really know more than that. Thank you. Janet Keller, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. So can you hear me? We can. Yay, okay. Janet Keller and I live at 120 Coulthard Hill Road in beautiful North Amherst. So I want to say how wonderful I think the master plan is and that it reflects the quality of the input from the public as well as elected and appointed officials that participated in it. It's a terrific plan. And I especially would like to see going forward that zoning specifically refer to the wonderful maps that we have that show what the land is doing and is underneath where development will go. And be very mindful and strategic in directing it to places that are already designated as village centers and some places like the university drive that are not designated as village centers, but more recently we've said that's a good place for development to go. I think that is really important because it can direct development to places where it will function best and avoid places where it will incur expenses for new roads, water and sewer lines and outlying areas. And maybe intrude on farms and forests that we want to and need to preserve or places like wetlands and flood plains. And that's all I have to say about that. Thanks. Thank you for joining us, Janet. Carol, K-A-I-R-O, please enter the room, state your full name and where you live. Hi, my name is Cairo Serna. I live at 160 Clark Hill Road here in Amherst. I'm here as a member of the Democratic State Committee. And I also have a question about the master plan specifically about housing. I was just wondering, is there anything in the plan that would help deal with or prevent prices from increasing in the existing privatized housing? Because we do know that private entities are buying up housing for the purpose of renting to students. And this is a threat both to Amherst residents who will be pushed out and struggle to navigate the market and also to students who will be at risk of predatory pricing due to a lack of options. So we do need some sort of measures to prevent this exploitation of Amherst's housing. And even if we build more housing, not only is this going to take time to mitigate these issues, but it's not going to entirely prevent Amherst from slowly becoming more hostile to the people who live here. And I was just wondering, is there anything in the master plan that is like intending to deal with that? Chris? I would say that the master plan doesn't really deal with that, but the CRC has been working very closely with the building commissioner on establishing a new rental registration bylaw that does deal with some of those issues. It helps to regulate rental properties and inspect rental properties to the extent that developers are really held, or not developers, but landowners, landlords are held to a higher standard than they have maybe been in the past. So I think that this will help. But the master plan doesn't really have detailed details addressing your issue. Are there other people who would like to make public comment? Janet, you still have your hand up. I don't know whether, okay, thank you. I'm going to leave the forum open for a little bit, although we have met the requirement of a 50% of the time being available for the public to speak. That's a requirement in our charter. And that's one of the reasons we do the primer as a separate meeting. So if there's anybody else in the audience who would like to make a comment, please raise your hand. Athena, I think it would be useful to prepare a slide that says the special meeting of the town council and school committee will convene at 6.30 on the Zoom link. And that may give you time to see if you can reboot the screens in the room. So I'm seeing Martha Hanner's hand up, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Martha Hanner, I live at 18 Elysem Drive in South Amherst. I just wanted to say that I remember back when the master plan was being debated and participating in public discussions. And I really thought that that was an excellent process of involving the public. And so I would hope that going forward when we have other subjects for public involvement that people will remember that extensive process and really make good efforts to involve the public participation in some of our future discussions of issues here. Thank you. Thanks for joining us, Martha. Are there any other comments that people would like to make with regard to the master plan? Questions, comments. Dorothy, you have your hand up. Are we allowed to speak? Please. I really enjoyed the report, but I noticed that there is nothing that has been made recently or in the works that when my husband and I were young, living on 7,000 a year and had two and a half children get on the way to three, but would not qualify for the official affordable, okay? There is no modestly priced housing for families anywhere that's being built. And I think that is really a very serious lack. And I don't know how to do it, but I'm just saying that I think that's the big gap that we have now. And not just for young families, but for people who work at the universities, people who don't qualify for the government subsidized affordable housing, but cannot pay the prices that are being charged now. That's it. Thank you. Kathy, I want to make sure that you can hear us and we can hear you and note that you joined us for this part of the meeting. I am here. Thanks. Thank you. Jennifer Taub? Yes, if it's okay. I did want to respond to something that was said. Sure. Regarding, we're seeing kind of a proliferation of investors purchasing homes and renting them out at very high prices. And I just wanted to respond that, I'm a member of CRC and I think we did a terrific job of updating and revising the residential rental property bylaw, but we did not address and it does need to be addressed that concern that a member of the public brought about seeing, you know, losing homes that were starter homes and homes for families and other households. We're losing that to investors and that is not addressed. It just wasn't part of the purview of the residential rental property bylaw revisions, but it's something that should definitely be on our list of items to address. Count, Kathy Shane? Just weigh in on the same thread. For those who've been reading the Gazette, you'll see this is a regional issue, not just a unanimous issue. One, our existing housing stock is being driven up in price as investors buy it and the cost of building a new house has escalated. I thought I found it interesting. It might have been this weekend's paper, The New York Times, said this is increasingly a national issue, particularly around any university town because investors have discovered that housing is terrific new place to speculate. So they're snapping up houses often before they go on the market for cash, which outcompetes someone who needs to get a mortgage. They just bypass it. So I think it is a really big issue and it may require us to think regionally and statewide, not just at the local level. Thank you. Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to make a comment? Julian Hines, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Chris, I'll come back. Hi, can you all hear me? We can. Thank you. My name is Julian Hines. I live at 41 Pine Grove here in Amherst and I was sort of wondering, expanding on what's been said about the master plan, rightfully points out about moderately priced homes, homes for people who might make too much to qualify for capital A affordable housing, but not enough to afford some of the median home prices here that are around half a million. So I think what I'm wondering of both the council and the planning department is what are we doing to do our part in addressing the national issue of investors and other corporate entities outpricing families who are looking to buy here, contribute to the tax base, have their kids in the schools, et cetera. And in addition to that, I'm sort of wondering how we could get ahead of the curve in our region currently, our neighbors who are experiencing similar issues in Pelham and Belcher town have implemented a first time home buyer subsidies and grants, which Amherst, I don't believe has any at this point. And I'm thinking that that might be an area the council can explore and it might allow average families to be more competitive in the market compared to investment firms. And my other question is I'd like us to look at maybe exploring, creating certain areas of town where these investment firms are not allowed to purchase homes and that it is reserved for single families and families who can't afford to compete with these investment firms talking about people who work at the universities, people who work for the town, people who work in the schools, et cetera. So yeah, thank you for hearing my concerns today. William, thanks for joining us. Chris, you had your hand up earlier and perhaps you wanna fold into this response to the most recent comment. Yes, I wanted to say that the town planning department and others in town, including town council members have been attending the international town gown association meetings which are focused on this particular problem, particularly for university towns and college towns. And we are also doing our own research on this problem. It's a difficult problem and there don't seem to be any clear, perfectly fine ways of coping with it but we will continue to explore the issues and the planning board is meeting the 27th of September and the 25th of October and possibly at the end of November to discuss how to create more housing opportunities in Amherst and so it's certainly a topic that is being explored. The other thing I wanted to say was, I believe in regard to the first time home buyer program, I think that Valley CDC does have a first time home buyer program and frequently you'll see flyers around town hall advertising it and I think there are grants or subsidies up to $50,000 for first time home buyers. I don't know the details about that but I believe that Valley CDC would have those details. Thank you. Are there any final comments before we close the forum? Seeing none, then I'm going to adjourn the forum. The council meeting will resume at 6.30 which is what time it's posted for. Meantime, don't be alarmed because Athena is trying to get the screens in our room to work and that takes a reboot. So for counselors, you have a break until 6.30. Please unmute your mics, also put your picture on in other words, don't show your video and please be back for 6.30. Thank you. Thank you. Let's begin to reassemble please. Athena, I think we'll go ahead and take the screen down so I can see who's connected. We're waiting for people to reassemble and then I will call the special meeting of the town council and the remaining school committee members to order. Athena, I think the audience is already open and so could we please begin recording? We're recording. Thank you. Good evening. It is September 18th, 2023. This is a special meeting of the town council and the remaining members of the Amherst school committee. The open meeting law has been extended. It allows us to continue to meet in a hybrid format while several of us are in the room. In fact, we have eight counselors in the room tonight and others on Zoom and we are being joined by two members of the school committee. The meeting is accessible in real time via Zoom, by phone and as a live broadcast on Amherst media channel nine and live stream. Given that we have a quorum of the council present I am calling the September 18th, 2023 town council meeting to order at 631 p.m. I'll call upon each counselor to make sure they can hear us and we can hear them. And then go on to the school committee. Please indicate that by answering yes. Shalini Balmilne. Present. At the antelos. Present. Donna Devlin-Goth here. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Mandy Jo Hanicky. Present. Anika Lopes. Present. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney. Here. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taub. Here. And Alicia Walker has told me she will be here but maybe not for this meeting. Okay. At this time we would also like to again welcome the two remaining Amherst School Committee members to the meeting and make sure that they can hear us and we can hear them. Irv Rhodes. Irv Rhodes here. Jennifer Schall. Present. There's no chat room for this meeting and if you have technical issues please let myself and Athena know and we will figure out what to do at that point. There is no change in the order of this agenda as posted. I just wanna mention a few things and the way of announcements. This is the third of our fourth meetings tonight, four meetings tonight. We're using the same Zoom link for all of them. On Tuesday, September 26th at six o'clock there will be a special meeting of the town council with remaining school committee members to interview candidates to fill the three presently vacant Amherst School Committee seats. We will determine at that meeting whether the interviews and or decision will be made at a special meeting of the town council that night or at a special meeting on October 2nd. Please note, candidate's statements of interest are due to the clerk of the town council by Wednesday, that's this Wednesday, September 20th at four o'clock p.m. If you are interested there is information on the town's website about your statement of interest and how to submit it. We have added to this meeting tonight for this particular meeting, a public comment period. Encourage anyone who wishes to speak to make comments about desired questions we might include in our interview of candidates to fill the three present vacancies in the Amherst School Committee. There are no people in the room and so I'm going to ask people in the Zoom audience who would like to make any comments at this time to please raise your hand. I see one hand and so I'm going to ask and state that residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. The committee will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment. Martha, please enter the room, state your full name and where you live. You need to unmute. There you go. My name is Martha Toro and I live and put in Englandale Road. I wanted to know if by putting my letter of intention to cover one of the positions, how would that affect if I am also interested in being a candidate for the school committee? Because it wasn't kind of clear to me and I wanted to hear directly from all of you or you. How would that affect? We will answer that question as we go through our discussion later, okay? I want to make sure that, so your question was if you put your name in for the interim or the three month period. Yes. And also are running for office, is that the question? Yes. Okay, thank you. I wanted to make sure we heard it. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other comments or questions? Megan St. Marie, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Megan. Megan, we can hear you. Would you like to go ahead with your comment? Oh, you can hear me? Oh, good. Okay, I wasn't sure if I was in the room. Thank you very much. I'm also, I just got COVID yesterday and so I'm a little bit under the weather. I wrote a longer public comment that I submitted to the committee and I'm not gonna read the whole thing out loud but I hope that you'll read it. And the question that I was trying to address is one that I saw come up in the paper recently which was a proposed question that you were going to ask as to whether, sorry, what people thought the school committee members could do in terms of placing a superintendent on administrative leave. This was a very contentious question throughout the very difficult months that we've all been through. And I've seen lots of contradictory reports in the news and Irv Rhodes is my neighbor as well as being a school committee member and he gave me information or opinion he might have framed it as that the school committee was empowered to do such a thing. So I hope that that will not be a question posed to potential appointees because I think it is a settled matter of state law and I encourage you to read my full public comment which again, I can't read out loud right now but it is all there with both the misinformation that I've seen in the news and Irv Rhodes clarification. I wanna thank Irv Rhodes and I also wanna thank Jennifer Shau for their continued service on the Emmer School Committee during this very difficult time and also for their consistent dedication to transparency. And that is a question that I hope you will pose to potential attendees is what is their commitment to transparency and to communication with the public. I hope that we will have new school committee members who are very much dedicated to civic engagement and to encouraging it. And I also think the town, this is not a question you can pose to potential attendees but the town is really crying out for a stronger mechanism to enable that sort of civic engagement. And there's been some conversation in the press and also just taken walks in my neighborhood about the need for perhaps an ombudsperson or some other way of dealing with contentious matters. Again, I realize it's not a question you can pose necessarily to potential attendees but it's something that I just wanted to state for the record because we've had such a breakdown in communication which I believe has allowed and enabled the very difficult circumstances that we've had throughout these months to fester. And I hope that we can pull ourselves out of this in a way that's truly healing for all involved. Thank you. Megan, thank you for joining us. Are there any other questions or I mean any other public comments this time? Then we are going to end public comment and at this point we are going to go on to the questions and let me just say we have two goals tonight. And if people want to ask any other clarifying questions about the process we'll also have time for that. The first is to finalize the interview questions and the second is to come back to remaining issue from our August 28th meeting as to whether we will have any form of public comment and what that form might be like when we hold the interviews and vote our decision regarding three people to complete the terms of the present school committee. And as I just mentioned, we'll also have any opportunity for any other questions regarding the process. So let me just mention that I really appreciate the fact that a couple of people, one counselor and actually two counting myself and also one school committee member did send me some thoughts about the questions both in terms of the questions and in terms of the order of the questions. Based on that, you have a memo from me that is in the packet for the public as well that includes a total of nine questions. As we did last time, I'm going to go through by section but I want to call attention to the fact that I provided three options for question four because that seemed to be a question for which we had not been settled. So the first thing we're going to do is focus on the section called role of the school committee and see if there are any questions or comments at this time. And then I want to specially focus on option four. So let's just focus on one through three first. Okay, Jennifer? Sorry, I was raising my hand about four. Okay, great. Michelle? I just would like to make a general comment. It's something that I feel is important to put out there in our meeting tonight and on the record. Last week in our discussion of the questions there was a comment made by a counselor in relation to the question that we were debating on anti-racist practices. And the comment was something to the effect of it's a bit like saying stop beating your husband or stop beating your wife. And I want to say that I believe that was a violation of rule six of our rules of procedure. And I would ask that we as a counsel refrain from making comments like that, that could evoke strong feelings in some members of the counsel and or the public. Thank you. Mandy Jo, questions one through three. Thank you. My comment relates to question number three. And as I stated last week, I'm still struggling with this question. And I guess I don't know who drafted it. I don't know where it is, but I'm looking at what we're looking for in a response in terms of is a person supposed to respond to this as to how if the school committee or the individual school committee is criticized how will the individual respond during a meeting to that criticism or are they supposed to be responding as to how the school committee as a body will be responding to criticism received against the school committee as a body. I think those are two very different questions to be asked. And I just want to be more clear as to what this question is getting at. Let me take a few more comments of people who have their hands up about this question perhaps. And if they do, we'll come back to it and see if we can seek clarification on that. Anna? Yeah, I think Andy's raising a good point about question three. I also, I think that there are, it should be up to the individual in terms of how and when they respond to criticism publicly, especially if it's directed at them as a school committee member versus at the body. And I think for the committee as a whole, I would say that wouldn't it be up to the committee to discuss how they would respond to criticism as a committee. So I'm struggling a bit with this because it's going under the assumption that a committee member is expected to respond publicly to critiques of their work or of themselves. When I don't know that that's always needs to be an obligation for a role. I think sometimes internal reflection and behavior change is more impactful than public response. Well, public acknowledgement can be important. So I'm also, I am struggling with this question. I'm not offering any changes right now, but I'm struggling with this question. Thanks. Okay. Jennifer? So I think, oh, sorry. I think this is a rewording of a question I originally submitted. I would be okay with removing publicly. Just please share how you would respond to criticism or please share how you respond to criticism. I think the question is pretty clear that it says school committee members and then please share how you would respond. I think the question is pretty clear. It doesn't refer to the committee. I'm going to be completely frank and say that the reason I suggested a question like this is because I want to hear from people who when they're criticized, they don't quit. Yeah. That's what I was looking for. That's the answer or that's the category of answer that I'm looking for. Thank you. Dorothy? Well, I want to say that I don't like question number three, because there's really only one answer. I would listen. I would see if any of it was true. I would check to see my behavior, blah, blah, blah. I mean, what are you going to say? I'm going to yell and scream and quit and carry on. No, you're not going to say that. So I think it's kind of, it's not going to get what you want because you're not going to get individual answers, I don't think. Or if you do, the person's really at risk. That's it. Irv? The context of this question is really important in terms of three, number three. We just had three, and this is why we're here. We had three school committee members resign and to a person, they all indicated it was because of public feedback that was negative. I mean, all of you can read all of that, see it's been in the newspaper, it's on the blog, et cetera. Some of them resigned because they thought they were bullied. Some of them couldn't take the continued, what they consider to be incredible negative feedback and criticism of them as individuals. So this is a critical question for me. If you are a member of a public body and a controversy erupts and you are a center of it in one way or another or it's attributed to you, how do you respond when you're in a situation? Do you resign? Do you quit? Do you leave the body? How would you respond? Would you respond in terms of how it makes you feel what your thoughts are, your counter to what the criticism is? That is important. For me, it's sort of like you are in the public arena. You are going to be criticized in any number of ways. How are you going to respond to that? If you really want, for me, at this point in time, I feel like at some level that when you are elected, you are not elected because to serve your term, unless you're criticized, you're elected to serve your term. So I really feel like individuals who come into this position come into it to serve their term and we need to know from their perspective, how they respond to being attacked publicly. Let me try the following. Focusing on not the committee being criticized but the individual. The school committee members can receive. School committee members actually should say may receive criticism. Please share how you would respond to criticism, period. I'm not suggesting that's where we're going. I'm just asking, I'm just making a suggestion. Anna, you've already spoken. I'm going to go to Pam. Thank you, because that helps clarify. I was going to say, please share how you would respond to criticism made in public or how would you respond to criticism in the public? Heading it off at the word criticism is probably the easiest way to do it. Yeah, okay. Pat, you have your hand up. I'm sort of struggling here. I don't, I think that people want to hear one answer to this question and that bothers me. That's a very odd kind of limitation. The reasons that the three people resigned weren't just because they were personally criticized. And I know specifically by both the public and other members of the school committee and that person wants to leave Amherst. So this question I agree, if I can't believe it, but I agree with Dorothy Pam, they're going to answer it as one way. And I don't see the purpose of it, except to give, possibly give, permission to continuation of verbal bullying, which I think we need to address as a community. Michelle, you've not spoken to this question. I'll take you and then go back to Anna. Okay. I'm wondering, so school committee members sort of like personalizes it, it seems in a way that perhaps saying, elected officials can receive criticism. To me sort of, I don't know, it just pulls back a little bit from the personalization or the current circumstances, even though I understand that that is sort of the origin story for where the question comes in. I'm not sure how to deal with the second part of the question yet. So I'm curious what others think about that, but I think maybe making that change to elected officials could help. Okay, I'm going to go back to Anna. Oh, actually, Andy, I haven't heard from you yet. And then I'm going to go back to Anna. I promise. I'm trying to give everybody their thing. I'll be quick so that Anna can get onto her comment too. I appreciate the question. I appreciate the various reasons that have been put forward. I do urge us to think about the fact that we're choosing somebody who's serving a very limited term of two to three months. And this would be a much more relevant question to ask during the women voters public forum where you're as a public electing somebody who's saying they're going to serve for three years than it is for us who's going to be choosing somebody who's serving a very limited period. Okay, Anna. All right, I think Andy's point is really well taken and I appreciate that messaging that this is remembering that this is a really limited term. I do think that when we ask questions like this, there are answers that are objectively not what people think anyone's going to want to hear even if it's their reality, right? So if someone is going in knowing that they receive criticism and then has a, I don't know how to frame that, but doesn't have a response that might be broadly encouraged by our world, yes. I think they're not gonna say the quote unquote wrong answer. So I would rather ask, if we want to ask this question, if we wanna get at this question, I'd rather ask either tell us about a time where you received criticism and how you handled it or please share how you'd respond to criticism and give an example of how you've done that in the past. We need to know how they've done it, not just aspirationally, if that's a question that folks need to stay in here. Otherwise there's, I think it's clear that there's answers that folks want to hear to this and so it's easy to say that and I would rather hear how people have done it as well as how they hope to do it in the future. So I think those two things blended would make this a stronger question and I agree with Andy's point that is this the avenue considering this is a few months of a role? Thanks, Anne, because we're limited on time. Thank you, Irv. And I really, really agree with you on what you just said but not to belabor the point. If this were a different situation where people are getting ready to be elected, it would be a really incredible germane question and but not to belabor the point. It is one of those questions that is significant given the time and situation in the environment we find ourselves here in Amherst and also because the reason we're dealing with this is because three members resigned citing public criticism, bullying, et cetera. So it's a really important question. However, in terms of what you said, Andy, hey, these are gonna be three months, four months and you're done, so it's not as germane. So I agree with you. Anika. Yeah, so I'm wondering, I do agree with Dorothy Pam and also Andy's points and I also, I like Michelle's idea of putting in just speaking to elected officials in general but I'm wondering if there is a way if the point of this question is to know and get to the fact that when someone quit or would they be pushed to their limits or what their non-negotiables are, is there a possibility of just being more direct with that? Because I don't necessarily know that this comes from the question unless you're really thinking along the lines of we had people who have resigned and then they all have the same reason which I don't believe is the case even though I think everyone had mentioned similarity. So maybe just being a little bit more clear and direct if you're talking about, if the question is what would push you to your limit or something around to that effect? I don't have the exact language for it but if you wanna know more about like what experience has someone had that maybe took them to the brink of whether they didn't know whether they could carry on or thought about quitting, something like that that would just be more clear. I do agree that with this question you're probably gonna have people just saying whatever we think that they want to hear including like I would stick through until the very end no matter what, you know? That's it. All right, Shalini. Yeah, I support what Anna said making this about an experience where you've received criticism or been in a situation of conflict and also want to just take an opportunity to say that what I'm hearing some of our expectations in the responses it's losing, it's sort of setting a tone of either or and not allowing for different people to have had their own experiences and different reasons for what and suggest that expectation that they are gonna answer oh, I'm gonna stick it out is almost suggesting that other people who have quit were, I don't know, it's just pushing us to create to think about this situation where we're losing out the complexity and compassion for everyone involved. So I would rather that we made it more about a situation of, from the personal experience of conflict and criticism and how would you respond to that? Because there is no way of anticipating what any individual is gonna go through in the future and the combination and expecting them to respond in a way that would be desirable to us. Thank you. One option is to just say, please share how you would respond or how you have responded to criticism in the past. Irv? This question is complex in a lot of different ways and there's no simple answer to it. And what we're trying to get at is how a person responds to adversity in one form or the other. However, I really agree again with Andy that this question because of the short-term nature of the position is one that should not be asked. Okay. I'm gonna suggest that for the moment we leave this question and come back to it and go on to question four. A and B were submitted by different members of the body here and C is somewhat of a statement similar to the one that Irv actually offered last week. I personally liked it, but that's my own opinion. So I'm waiting for hands. Irv? My hand was still up, but you know, I really resonate with B and the reason I resonate with B is because that is the very definition of anti-racism and it makes it personal because it says how will you as a school committee member ensure the current efforts to end policies, rules, behaviors and beliefs that result in a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race are continued and sustained. And to me, that is a very definition of racism, I mean, of anti-racism. That's what that is. That statement is directly related to and correlated with what anti-racism is. Okay, Jennifer? So my preference is what is item A, that option A. Again, I was the one who first suggested this question and I was specific when I said the school committee's practices, processes and decisions being anti-racist. I'm okay with the other descriptors that were added in option A because I wasn't really talking about school policies being anti-racist, although that is a good topic as well. I was talking about the way the committee operates, the way that we make decisions, the way that our meetings are held, the way that the practices that we have, these are things that individual members can impact. Item B, policies, rules, behaviors and beliefs, I don't know that a school committee member has much impact on behaviors and beliefs, behaviors and beliefs of who. And so my objective with this question was not to end having an unfair advantage based on race, but my original intention was the way the committee operates. There can be, how can we bring forth anti-racist practice and the ways that the committee operates? So I'm in favor of option A. Dorothy? I agree with Irv that there is a very big difference between B and C. B is to look at, evaluate and perhaps stop or change practices that may have been there a long time, that you may be fond of, that the community may like and be used to, whereas C is much easier, it's adding nice new things. And if you want to dismantle unfair practices and racism, then B I think really fits the bill better. It is harder, it is more challenging, but it requires a much stronger, more careful look at things. Thank you. Mandy Jo? So I support Jennifer's in favoring option A here. I would add, I would do some, a little bit of Scrivener welcome, the part that says welcome, diverse comma ethnic perspectives, I would, diverse gender comma ethnic perspectives, I would add the word and between gender and ethnic, but I think it gets much more to the original purpose of the question while expanding it in light of the most recent issues that the school community has been facing. And question B to me, is kind of confusing, but it also in my mind assumes, or assumes that candidates have an extensive knowledge of what the current efforts to end policies, rules, behaviors and beliefs are, where the school committee might not even be involved in those efforts, as Jennifer indicated, not all rules, not all the efforts going on in the school district come from the school committee. And so I would prefer option A. Okay. I'm going to go to Patty Angeliston and back to Irv. Thank you. I prefer A as well. It includes me. I'm a queer woman. B does not include me. And the issue that we're facing in school not only is ongoing racism in our school, but ongoing gender discrimination particularly, in many forms, just plain male-female, but also in terms of young people who are trans, who are really already can be in an emotionally rocky place. Question A addresses that in some way. Question B does not. Shalini. I think we could add gender ethnic perspectives to be and make it applicable to the different differences and being more inclusive, but I do like be more just because I think our behaviors and our beliefs are important in terms of how we're showing up and creating those spaces. And just very quickly as an example for our town council, when we had the discussion, should we give three minutes for, there was a time we were trying to make our meetings more efficient and we talked about, should it be three minutes or one minute and I had raised a point that people with different neural diversity and how they think and need more time or people where English as a second language sometimes need more time to process. So it was that understanding and that there can be differences allowed us to change that policy and adapt to making it three minutes. We can have policies of requiring all leaders to go through anti-racism training and gender sensitivity and all of these sort of training. So I think being more specific and highlighting, I think it's not that we, they will, it's only for three months. So that's the other point is that do we want this question here or I think having it here just sets the tone even if the people are not gonna be ending up crafting these policies, but it's just signaling that how each of us is showing up is always with that awareness that I am bringing a particular lens and I'm making room, and am I making room to hear other people who might have different ways of thinking. So. Irv, I'm gonna come back to you and then go on to Dorothy and Michelle and back to Pam. I mean to Pat. Irv. Well, this is rather interesting. This question all came up only because of anti-racist. There was nothing, it was the question specifically when we started out, if you go back to the original question, it was anti-racist. And this is what the whole discussion is about. Now it is morphed into not only anti-racist, but also in terms of diverse gender ethnic perspectives. So what I would like to focus back on, while all of those issues in relationship to diverse gender ethnic and perspectives are really, really important, that's not where this discussion started off in. It started off in relationship to anti-racist. All right, I just wanna refocus back on that. If we want to expand that beyond anti-racist, that is our choice. But that's not why this discussion is happening. It's because the original question was around anti-racist. Having said that, when the question that I raised last weekend and I said, what is the meaning of anti-racist? What does it mean to be anti-racist? Everyone mouths that, says that like everyone knows. Well, if everyone knows what anti-racist is, then you would say, I'm really anti-racist? Then you would be for B, because that's the very definition of anti-racist. And you can look it up in any of the definitions of anti-racist, and you will see that that is exactly what it is. Pat, thank you. I see value in combining A and B, and the way that I see it in my head right now is how we as a school committee member ensure the current efforts and policies, rules, behaviors, and beliefs that result in a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race, gender identification, or social and economic background, because those are the other things that are also issues we need to address. And I think that exploring the anti-racist question has led us to look at this in a broader way, which I think is good. Thank you. Dorothy. There are two issues. They can be combined or they can both be included, but I don't see the point of having one without the other. So I think that combining is good, but if Irv feels that people will respond better if they have to think of one thing at a time, fine. But I also agree with Pat that we do have to have the statement about gender diversity. They're different. Racism has been here a long, long time and we aren't even aware of some practices that sustain racist behavior because we're just so used to them. The gender diversity one in terms of schools and public places is one which is requiring a lot of new thinking and adaptability and new solutions. So I would say both or combine, but don't just have one or the other. Thank you. Michelle. I wanna support others who have said that this is sort of like a values document in some sense in terms of the questions that we're posing, even if it's just a three month period that we're talking about. But I was thinking about how I would answer any one of the three and really just like read the question and then thought about how I would answer it. And the language that we're using right now like insure or make sure, it seems really like that's a very complex and challenging question to answer. How would you make sure or insure? Because I think we all know that we can play a role and we can take steps to support those things but we can't insure or make sure necessarily. So I'm just wondering if we might consider language that considers like what role can you play in? So that it sort of gives a little bit more agency to the person answering the question to actually think through how they're engaged in this very important topic as opposed to like how they can solve it which we know no one individual can and we'll all make mistakes as we try. Anika? Yeah, so I just wanted to appreciate for a moment and bring the definition forward. I think that if anything that it does show that even at first we're kind of debating that when what that question is when that is in fact the definition. So it's also like being mindful in our role that we are not just repeating things. But then there was also, it was also brought up in the last meeting having appreciation for the question is being broad and hearing what that means to the individual whomever is answering the question. But I also do see that with just again with a timeframe that we have on that A is inclusive of more of what we are actually just dealing with in this district putting them all together. But I think just going forward, we have to be mindful of who is answering and what it is like Mrs. Pan, you just said that racism has been around for so long like we are not aware of what sustains it. I mean, some of us are not, but some of us here in the council are born into it, live it every single day and are aware every single day of how it always has been and certainly is. So with that, I think that just as it pertains to whomever is getting into and that lens, I do think that A does include, it is more inclusive if it allows what was the original intent, if I'm correct in what Jennifer Shouse said that the original intent for her in asking the question was to know, was being curious as to what that means to whomever is answering the question. Mindy Jo. I wanna, but I support what Michelle, her proposed potential rewrite of, I guess, the sort of first part of the questions. I think that's a good suggestion. On question B, Jennifer mentioned something that is also what bothers me about this question. Jennifer, in her first statement when we were discussing this, talked about whose behaviors and beliefs in a community that welcomes people from all around the world and the way this question is worded, it doesn't indicate whose behaviors and beliefs the current efforts are aiming to end. And that to me is problematic because the school committee needs to be focused on policies and rules and procedures and processes, but we have sat in a town that condemns indoctrination in other parts of this country. And this question could be implying for some people who read it that certain beliefs are unwelcome completely 100% stop in this town. And we have a duty, I believe, to talk about what we morally believe is our own beliefs. And we have a duty to have conversation when we disagree with other people's beliefs. But I think this question is problematic in implying that we need to end other people's beliefs sometimes instead of conversing with them about their beliefs. Irv? So, when I look at this question, it's sort of like one of those things where certain parties within the community would like those who have a certain mind to be able to fight with each other. I.e. those who wanna only focus on that, which is racist in our society or within our town. And that racism is one of those things that clouds the judgment of a lot of people that clouds our ability to treat one another as equals, that clouds our ability to be able to have kinds of institutions that allow for the kinds of diversity and thought, opinion, et cetera, as it relates to race. And that we don't separate people out via race or judge them only on whether of their race. But we take that, we do not even take that in consideration. Race is not a factor. Racism says that it is a factor. Racism specifically says that you're judging a person solely on the basis of the race. That's what racism is. On the other hand, to include others in this particular statement, such as gender, equity, et cetera, that is all well and good. But for a lot of people, we need to make sure that those things that belong to those areas that are called racist, be called out. And those things that are dealing with equity and relationship to gender, et cetera, be called out also, but do not conflate it too. Pam? A little bit off of Mandy Jo's comment about B and incorporating what I heard from the other one, which is what role can you play rather than saying, how can you ensure? So what role can you play so that policies, rules, and behaviors that result in continued unfair advantage, et cetera, take out the word beliefs because I think it's still, all of these actions should not contribute to continued unfair advantage. But as we understand, beliefs may be held, but they may not be acted on. So continuing that sentence so that these policies, rules, and behaviors that result in our, that's what I'm looking for. Are discontinued or are stopped? So if we begin with a sentence that says, what role can you as a school committee member play so that policies, rules, and behaviors that result in advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment to others based on race, gender identification, social and ethnic background, social and economic background. I don't know how to end the sentence, but I understand the desire to not mix race in with the others, but I also wanna be realistic about how much time we have to interview people who are going to serve for three months. So if Pam, you seem to have a sense of how you wanna work on that question. Why don't you continue to do that? And I'm gonna go back and say the same thing. Anna, you seem to have a sense of how you wanted to work on question three. Right now I have something like, please share how you have responded to criticism in the past. I'm fine to draft a text for that, if that's the direction that other folks wanna go to. I don't wanna just say, just because I wanted to do something, we should change the question. I'm trying to go with what I'm hearing as some level of consensus. Okay. And I'm hearing some level of consensus on three, as I just mentioned, and I'm hearing some level of consensus of trying to incorporate some of the aspects of A into B, but making it more of a, what role can you play as a school committee member? Which is what Michelle was suggesting. Shalini. I actually wanna insist on putting beliefs because it's really important for us to question our assumptions and beliefs. And if you don't put that we're not signaling to people, everyone, including the school committee members that we all have beliefs and that's fine. It's because of our conditioning and how we grew up. And yet we can continue to question our beliefs that are causing harm, albeit unintentionally. However, I think it's really important. It's not just because a lot of our actions are done because to look politically correct, but without ever stepping back to question our beliefs. I would like to keep that. Dorothy. Yeah, I mean, I agree with Shalini and not to have beliefs in her. Beliefs are the foundation for a lot of behavior of human beings. One, a human being, a person, often acts on their beliefs in terms of that was they believe in. And if those beliefs go unquestioned, it perpetuates the kind of racism that has been present in the society for a long time. Unquestioned allegiance to one beliefs is, gives one the opportunity to continue the kinds of behavior that have perpetuated the kinds of issues that continues to plague us today. So beliefs are important to me because I can confront a person's thoughts and behaviors. Talk to them on an intellectual basis about those. But if I do not confront their beliefs and understand what their beliefs say, what I'm leaving on the floor and what I'm leaving unsaid are all those things that are gonna continue to affect their behavior. Dorothy, I had called on you, please go ahead. I understand what people are saying about beliefs, but I believe that there's a very important point to be made that we have many kinds of beliefs and we have communities with very strong religious beliefs. We can control people's behavior. If we try to control their beliefs, we're getting into brainwashing. Obviously, we want to encourage good democratic beliefs of the type that make for a strong country. But some of the things that went wrong at the school were done in the name of somebody's beliefs and they were strongly held. So I understand the importance of beliefs, but if you're talking about actions and behaviors, you have to stick with that and hope that belief follows. And we have some evidence that if you change the way people act, you can actually, at some point, help change to the way they believe. Otherwise, we are getting into, I think, a very difficult area. That's it. Michelle? I was just trying to think of some language. I mean, I'm not sure that we need even all of that language in the question. Like, it seems like we're asking about harm. And so what role can you play to ensure efforts to end harmful treatment of others based on their identity? You know, like, I don't understand why we have to include all of the other policies, beliefs, you know, it just, we're saying what role do you play in supporting the work that we as a community are doing to end the harmful treatment of people in the community based on their identity, whatever their identity, and some people have multiple identities. So to me, that just seems like it cleans it up and gets to the point a little more succinctly. Jennifer? Hi, so I'm in the car now. So, because I have to go pick up my daughter, but I'm trying to still participate. I, you know, I was intentional in saying practices, processes and decisions of the committee because those are specific things the committee can impact and that individual members have an impact on. I kind of feel strongly that those three things be included. I don't feel strongly about including beliefs. I actually, sorry, I think we should remove beliefs because you know what? Your beliefs are not as important to me as your vote. Like you can believe what you want. I might not even know what you believe, what your beliefs are, but I'll know how you vote and I'll know what your decisions are, how you contribute to the decisions of the committee. So sure, people should question their beliefs, but like, I don't, I care less about your beliefs. I care more about your actions and your vote and how you contribute to a school committee processes and meetings that are anti-racist. And, you know, Shalini gave a great example of the discussion you all had about public comment and that shortening the number of minutes for public comment could be like, or rather believing in that three minutes was an anti-racist move. I applaud you for doing that. That wasn't about a specific individual. It wasn't like judging a specific individual because of their race, but like that decision was an anti-racist decision. Thank you for doing that. So those are the kinds of things I was trying to get at with my original intention behind this question. Thank you. Pam, you have your hand up and I didn't know if we were ready to come back to you. No, okay. Mandy Jo, I'm gonna skip because some other people have spoken. We haven't heard from you lately. Yes. Jennifer's comment made me, gave me more clarity that these two questions are asking completely different things. The first one is asking about a person's work on, if we take the town council, making sure when the town council acts or discusses or makes a decision, that decision is equitable and welcomes diverse gender and ethnic perspectives and is anti-racist. But I'm using the town council as an example, but how it works in a meeting or how it accepts public comment or how it disseminates public comment, how it is transparent, all of those things. Question B, even with the rewrite, which of all of the options that we've discussed, I like Michelle's rewrite, is talking about things outside of the committee's action within meetings and processes. It's talking about the community and the school community as a whole. And so I think maybe that's why we're struggling as a body to figure out which one is better because they're actually asking two different things now that Jennifer's been very clear and all of that. I think that question A is the pertinent question for a three month office that we're appointing more than option B, even though option B is a very important thing to be asking. Jennifer, you still have your hand up. Did I hear you say you have to leave and you're in the car? Thank you, I didn't just in here. Sorry, I can't take my hand down, thank you. Yep, I totally understand. Irv. What's remarkable about this conversation is, it starts back where I said last week where the definition of anti-racism or being anti-racist was so generalized and so prevalent in one's vocabulary that it lost all meaning. So when you put the very definition of anti-racist into what we are talking about in terms of B, which is the very definition of anti-racist, then people keep using the term anti-racist without wanting to define what anti-racist is and anti-racist is what B is. So if you're going to say, talk about anti-racism and anti-racist behavior, then you come back to B. If you want to eliminate B, what are you going to substitute for that in terms of anti-racist? Or are you saying that you just want to continue to use anti-racist without definition? And if you want to use it without definition, then why are we having this discussion when the definition is obvious and has been presented to us? So if people do not wish it, if people want to use the word anti-racist, please include what it is. And don't skirt around what it is. Talk about it, discuss it, embrace it, et cetera. That is what anti-racist means. So if you want to use anti-racist, say we're doing anti-racist behavior and we are against anti-racist, anti-racism and Amherst and anti-racist racism is what B is all about. Thank you, Melanie. Yeah, I would second Irv that just the fact that many people may not know what it entails to be an anti-racist is all the more reason we need to actually list out all the different aspects of what it takes to be an anti-racist. And in terms of we can't control people's beliefs and it's the actions that are more important. Yes, in some cases it's how we're voting and our actions that will be of importance. And in other cases, it's our beliefs as leaders, as gatekeepers that is gonna dictate what motions, what biolas, what policies we're presenting. And so you can't really separate the beliefs from, in some cases you can, but I think it's very important to put it out there that it is our job and an ongoing basis as leaders to continue to question our beliefs and assumptions and help each other do that. And a big part of an anti-racism training when we did it together as a council was about getting us to step back and question our beliefs. And so if you don't have that as part of the conversation even, even though it's messy. So I can see that there's an inclination let's make it neat and clean. But this is a messy thing. And one of the things we have to be able to do is lean into the discomfort of what this entangles. And to be very clear, we're not talking about continuing belief, diversity of beliefs. We are talking specifically about beliefs, ending beliefs that result in continued unfair advantage to people based on their race, gender and so forth. So I don't think we're saying that, oh, it's ending all kinds of beliefs and ending diversity in that time. No, we are collectively hoping to do that by being very clear in our definition of what anti-racist and anti-all of those other isms is. Jennifer. I realized that we, you know, excuse me, our time is somewhat of the essence in the number of questions that we ask, but there seems to be an agreement that A and B are different questions and there are, you know, kind of passionately held feelings about both and the importance of asking each one, could we ask both? We may want to, you know, slightly change some of the wording of A and B, but would that be an option to have both since they really do appear to be different questions? I think that may be the way we're gonna have to resolve this. Jennifer. Okay, four things. First, Lynn, if you can make sure you're clear which Jennifer you're calling on, that would be really helpful. Thank you. I appreciate that. First, thank you, thank you, sure. Thank you to Mandy Jo for saying that the two, the A and B are very different because that is where I was going and I thank you for pointing that out. Two, the inclusion of the word beliefs and B, I agree with Shalini that questioning your own beliefs is really important and is a sign, I think, of someone who can engage in critical thinking, but including beliefs in that question, I don't think gets at that. I think, because it says, I'm sorry, I don't have it in front of me, it says like, how will you ensure, I know we're gonna redo the wording, but it doesn't say whose beliefs you're trying to help make sure don't result in unfair advantage. If we wanted to ask a question like, how do you question your own beliefs or what's the process by which you question your own beliefs, that would be great. But I don't think like questioning your beliefs is being spelled out in option B. And my third thing is that I also disagree that the quote definition of anti-racism in B is a complete and comprehensive definition of anti-racism. I think it's one element of anti-racism, but I think anti-racism is much bigger than that. I don't think we need to or even should define anti-racism in this process because I wanna hear how the person answers and how the person interprets what we mean when we say anti-racism. I would be fine with asking a question like, what does anti-racism mean to you? I don't think we need to define it. Dorothy. Okay, first of all, there are more than one definitions of anti-racist. But first I'll say the question was not about the beliefs of the person who wants to be on the school committee. It was about what are you going to do? What actions are you gonna take? Now I've just looked up anti-racism in Wikipedia and it's all action. Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions that are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate actions, which are intended to provide equal opportunities for all people on both an individual and systemic level. And so it goes on there. So this is not the only way you define anti-racism. And it's not, we got really sidetracked with, I have to say with Shalini, with about the beliefs of the person who is applying, this is what are you going to do if you're on the school committee? What kind of actions will you take? And I agree with having this as a question, just I just want to admit the word beliefs because that gets to an area that I think is beyond what we need to do. I mean, we're talking about how you're going to try to set the school up or to get the school to work or the faculty or whatever, to have actions which are fair and anti-racist. Thank you. I'm going to suggest that we leave this one for the moment. I want to get through the others and then we're going to take a break and we're going to, I'm going to try to figure out what to do because we don't have any more meetings. We have to finish this tonight. Okay. I mean, we're done. Strength of areas or strength of an areas for improvement in Amherst public schools, number five, are there any comments? Okay. I'm going to go on to current and upcoming issues facing the school committee, six through nine. Let's focus on six and seven and then maybe go on to eight and nine. Mandy Jo. So after question six, that's asking about the skills, knowledge and experience you bring to the school committee that would help the committee address both setting up a search for a superintendent and beginning the budget process. It seems kind of redundant to then ask, have you ever been involved in a search process for that period where the answer could literally be yes or no and not expound at all? So I would delete the question, number seven. Okay. Okay. Jennifer? Yeah. I agree with Mandy Jo. And I actually think six, seven, eight, sorry, I don't have it in front of me but I think that six, seven, eight and nine are four questions about two topics. And I think we can boil the four down to two questions. One about budget and one about the superintendent search. So I think it was eight and nine that I liked or maybe the, how would you approach the budget is or however that one's worded, I like. And then the one about how will you contribute to a superintendent search, et cetera? Not the one that's a yes, no question but the other one are the two that I think we should keep out of these four. One about the budget and one about superintendent. Okay. Okay. Anna? I agree. I think that we can narrow this down to two. I think nine is getting at, nine is the one about the budget process that's getting at something different. I do think that six and eight are the same question framed slightly differently but six is a little bit more broad. And well, I'm sorry, I'm rereading and I clearly skimmed. Six is trying to get at both of them. Eight and nine differentiate them into two. And so I do think that keeping eight and nine and the first sentence of six, so it would be the school committee over the next three months will need to set up a search for superintendent and begin the budget process as the intro. Then it will say, how will you help ensure that the superintendent search is set up to identify, recruit and hire a high quality candidate who understands the needs of our districts and then second one about the budget. I do like the addition of what skills, knowledge and experience will you bring. And if that could be worked in, I think that would be great. Instead of how will you help ensure what skills, knowledge and experience do you bring to help ensure? I think it's a little bit more specific in terms of what we're asking them to provide us with. But I think, yeah, narrow it down to eight and nine. Okay. Irv. Just to be real here, these three new members may not have any role in relationship to the search for a superintendent at all. That's the reality because the superintendent search is one in which involves union 26. Union 26 consists of three members from Pelham and one from Amherst. And then the others are not from Amherst. And also by the time these particular people come on board, the various subcommittees and groups operating will already be in force. It's not, it's sort of like, yeah, it's a great question to ask, but by the time they get there, it's already done. Irv, would you please repeat for me the makeup of union 26 school committee? Yeah, it consists of the officers of the Amherst Amherst school committee, which is the chair, vice chair and secretary. And then the same for the Pelham school committee. So there's three from Amherst and three from Pelham. Correct. Thank you. Jennifer? Yeah, Irv actually responded to part of my question, which was, well, how much would they be involved and like our search for a new police chief, I don't know if there's a consultant involved. I was concerned that the question really may not allow people that haven't had very specific experience to feel, you know, to qualify for the position that it was a little exclusive. I mean, there's not that many people that have been involved in recruiting, identifying and setting up a search process for school superintendent. So it seems restrictive to me. And I also wondered whether, you know, how much of a role an individual school member over the next three months would play in that process. Not very much. Jennifer? I disagree with Irv that the three people who fill the vacancy are not gonna be involved in the superintendent search, given that there are three members from Amherst on Union 26 and given that only Irv and I are left, then one of these three is definitely gonna be on Union 26. They're gonna be seated by October 1st and we're gonna be working on the superintendent search on setting up what the search is gonna look like in that before this calendar year is over, which is when these people are gonna serve. So absolutely they're gonna be involved. And also as members of the regional school committee, they will be involved even if they're not on Union 26 and even if they're not specifically involved on whatever subcommittee that is put together. But I, so they may not be involved when the final selection is made, but they're definitely gonna be involved in setting up the search and in what the search and in talking about and thinking about and deciding what the search is gonna look like. I wanted to ask if Athena or someone could share the question so that I can see them on my phone. Share in the Zoom. We will do that, Jennifer. Thank you. Kathy, well maybe Mandy Jo's next, huh? Okay, Kathy. Mandy suggested getting rid of seven, which I totally agree with. If we structured six, instead of having the school committee over the next three months be part of the question if we just made it a statement. And then the question was what skills, knowledge. So if six started with what skills, then we frame it. I think that's pretty clean to first ask them, you know, whatever experience they might have that they're bringing to bear. So you see what I'm taking is that first sentence, I'm just moving it over and saying, as a state. And then it would say, what skills, knowledge and experience will you bring? Cause we've eliminated at the last time any kind of statement of a past experience. So this is where they could bring anything they've ever done to bear on either of these two issues. And then if seven is gone, we've got one question about the superintendent search and one question about the budget. And Mandy was the one who suggested the rewarding of the budget one last time. And I just captured it when I sent this in. So I think it's important to ask about both. And my understanding, Irv and Jennifer, is they may not, the three people will not, may not be there when we're picking the superintendent. They may be there. They're more likely just there at the beginning of it and talking about what kind of process you're gonna use. So it, and they'll have some input. So I think eight is worded generally enough to not be that you're on the search committee. You're just helping set it up. So that's just my, if we get rid of seven, we only have three questions then with six moving that statement out. Mandy Jo. So this doesn't, my comment doesn't relate to any specific question, but it kind of relates to this part of the conversation. We don't know how many candidates there are going to be. And we don't know, because of that, we don't know how long the interviews will take next Tuesday night. And so we're trying to obviously select a set of questions that we think is manageable for a certain number of people that we have no idea what it will be. So if we have 10 questions and we end up with 10 candidates and two minutes each, we're in interviews for about three hours and 20 minutes. I did the calculations. So I was wondering if, so one of the things I'm proposing is if we, before we leave tonight, say, if we have up to a certain number of candidates, we ask all the questions, but once we exceed a certain number of candidates, we eliminate certain questions. And one thing I would do in supporting questions six, eight and nine and staying, because I actually think six is slightly different than eight and nine, and eight and nine get a little more specific would say, well, if we have, if we exceed X number of candidates, we don't ask questions eight and nine, we only ask questions six, say, or something like that. There's a couple of others. Maybe we could, you know, not ask if we have a large number of candidates, but sort of pick a number in there that says, we'll ask all. Right now we're looking at with opening and closing statements. I think we're at either 10 or 11 questions, nine or eight questions with an opening and a closing statement for 10 or 11, two minute responses per candidate. And so maybe at a certain number of candidates, we want to figure out a way to only ask six or seven. Maybe that's not include closing statements, for example, things like that. So it's a proposal I wanted to put out there. Okay. Irv. Just a reality check here. On September the 19th, there's a region school committee meeting which we will be dealing with the search and the search process. The next meeting after that is October 3rd, in which a member from the Massachusetts, Massachusetts Association for School Committees will be appearing in relationship to the search. So if and by the way, on September 19th, we will be setting out the process and procedures and selecting a subcommittee to form the search committee. On October 3rd, we will be finalizing that. So those dates are important in relationship to these questions. I have no idea when this process is going and when these particular three people, when they will be seated. But those two dates need to be kept in mind in relationship to these particular questions. Jennifer. Jennifer Schau, I'm sorry. Thanks. Thank you. I'm fairly certain that the timeline says that these three people, the three chosen will be seated by October 1st. So they would miss the September 19th meeting, which is tomorrow, but they I think would be seated in time for October 3rd. So in the interest of cutting down the number of questions, I really feel like we can strike six and seven and just keep eight and nine because six is really two questions. Six is really what skills, knowledge and experience will you bring to help address the budget? What skills, knowledge and experience will you bring to help address the superintendent search? So it's really two questions in one and both of those things, if people have skills, knowledge and experience, they're gonna include that in their answers to eight and nine. So if they've had experience with the superintendent search, they're gonna mention that when they answer eight. If they have experience with the budget, they're gonna mention that when they answer question nine. So I think we can strike six and seven and save ourselves two more questions. Okay, Mandy, Joe. I would support that. To go to what I mentioned in my last comment, given Irv's recitations of the date of a joint, well, I don't know whether it's joint, but a regional school committee meeting and potentially joint with the union 26 on October 3rd. It might be vitally important that we finish this process next Tuesday because I don't know the school committee members can better answer, but I believe they'll need to have a reorganization of their committee. Do they need to have one before any members we appoint can sit on the region? I know they need to before any members we appoint can fill out the union, which right now only has one Amherst School Committee member on it. And so it might be important for them to have a meeting next week after our Tuesday meeting to be able to reorganize their committee to ensure that that October 2nd meeting has full representation of the entire five if we've appointed. And if we appoint and wait until October 1, that might not be possible. And therefore it might be important for us to potentially want to decide to eliminate some questions so that we're not running into one or two in the morning to get it done on Tuesday of next week. I mean, Joe, I think you make a very good point. I also want to add to that having been involved in more searches than I care to admit, searches don't begin and end in two meetings. They start and they continue. And so I, these people will still be involved as community outreach happens, et cetera. And so I am not in favor of suggesting that these people will not be involved in the search committee. I also do want to urge, and I guess it's Irv, you would be the one to work with the interim superintendent of schools to call a meeting of the Amherst School Committee sometime after the 26th, but before October 1st. Then that is, wow, that is going to be challenging because originally September 26 was going to be the Amherst School Committee meeting, which we're obviously not going to have. So then trying to call one, an Amherst School Committee meeting before October the 3rd. And that assumes that we here in this group have finished our work. It's going to be rather challenging. And I'm only saying it because of the 48 hour rule that we have to consider. The meeting could be posted even now for after the 26th. And if for some reason we don't complete on the 26th, you would just cancel the meeting, but you can go straight in. Yeah, I'm just trying to, I don't have my calendar in terms of looking at the date September 26th and October the 3rd, what is the date that's available between those two dates? This is not something we're going to resolve in this committee. We're just trying to get. Just understand, there are some logistical issues that I want everyone to understand and you to understand Lynn, that the Amherst School Committee is going to have to deal with once. And hopefully we complete this by the 26th of September. Right, that is our goal. Andy? Yeah, it's been worked with the regional agreement many times over a long period of time. I'm pretty confident in IRF and then for my know, whether I'm correct, but I'm pretty sure that I am. All five members are automatically members of the regional school committee. The regional agreement provides that the regional committee is five members of the Amherst School Committee, two members of Pelham and one each of the other two towns. So that they're, I think that it's automatic and but that can be confirmed. The question of the union 26 however, does require action of appointing the members by appointing the officers. I know this is a little unusual, but I feel like the best thing at this point is to take about a 20 minute break and come back, at which point I hope to be able to propose some next round of questions. Lynn, quick question. There is a member from the audience who has a hand up. Do you want to? We have already taken public comments. Yeah, just to let everyone know. I was not going to do public comment again. No, I know, I know, but just let them know that you've had. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Lynn, I like that idea. And just hearing if we're going to try to make a decision, get a way through it. If we can cut the number of questions down. Mandy's observation is correct. We have nine questions and an opening statement and a closing statement. So if we can get rid of three or four, it would make the night possible because we will have the statements of interest. So we won't have complete and unknown. So I like your idea of trying to reach closure tonight on the questions. Thank you. And Lynn, maybe 15 or 10, just in case it doesn't take a full 20. For sure. The other thing, we are going to have public comment at the beginning of the regular town council. That is correct. Yeah, because people are I think waiting for other issues. Yes. Thank you, Pat. Thank you, Pat. All right. We are in recess for the moment. So 815. We can't sit here and debate again. What? We can't sit here and debate without being in public meeting. Okay. Well, can we all head to your meeting? Yeah. We will go ahead and have a meeting. We'll have a meeting. First, there's a letter. That would be great. I'm aware of that. It's very well-intended. Yeah, actually, somebody just mentioned they were going for a boat ride Wednesday. Oh, wait, no, yeah. Saturday night. But Thursday was sky-high. A week from? No. Okay. Yeah, that was nice. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. I put my two different things on. And it's only been, I never know how long I've been here. I was like, I've been on an hour in my 10-minute thing. And I was like, I'm good. I just wanted to figure out, okay, what else are you going to do? Just give me a lot of public comment to a lot of people in one person to speak. Yeah. And I was like, okay, I guess we're done. Yeah. So I just want to try to do that. Yeah. And then with the black eyes. Right. I think we're done. We're going to start up there. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would be fun. Maybe on my calendar. Maybe I just like dumped an hour. Without looking. I was wondering how you get going. Oh, but that's why I started, like my calendar says fifth or so, but I thought it would start at the sixth or or something. So I thought I could end debate, We'll see if we have, if we wanted to be able to make that construction fun. So, we'll move that up so that we can do it. And we'll put that on. Yeah, I mean, that's all we need to do. That's all on that, Sam. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I mean, on the flip, there's some. Yeah, I mean, on the flip, there's some. Great, you got it. No. Yeah, we are ready to reconvene. Okay, I just need to make sure everybody is back. I'm here. Dorothy. Jennifer. You're here. Anna. You're here. Alicia. Can you hear us? Yes. Thank you, Lynn. Thanks. I'm glad you could join us. Michelle, are you back? How about Jennifer? Shall, are you back? Yes. Yes, I'm back. Thank you. I remembered to do the last name. All right. This is never perfect. It's never going to be perfect. Athena. So this is the marked up copy. Obviously there's this extra space there. And on question four. I made one of them basically. About. Equity. Diverse gender identity and ethnic backgrounds. It needs an and in there. And it needs. A comma after equitable and get rid of and. No. Yeah. It needs an and there and then get rid of the other and. Okay. And be. Yes. So on four B. It says what role to ensure that the efforts current efforts to end. Policies. Are continued. Are not. Yeah. Yes. So get rid of the word. Not. Okay. And in that case. I'm going to go through them all. And then I'm going to come back to questions. Okay. Go on to the next strengths. An area of improvement. We really left that one alone so we can go on to the next. This is a lead in the sentence. With. No, that's not. I don't think you need the what you don't need that what. Yeah. Yeah. Just there. That will was an extra will though. Yeah. Okay. And obviously I. I think you had it right the first time. Let's go back up to the top. And actually we actually have four A and B, but that I'll be renumbering those. Are there any questions on one. Two or three. Anna. Irv. One, two or three. Only one. Okay. Two or three. Anna. Irv. One, two or three only. Yes. And then and forgive me if I say. Here is. When I look at this. My perspective is. Look. These people are going to be coming up with three months. At best. And we are saying, well, are they going to be involved in this? Are they going to be involved in this superintendent search? Are they going to be involved in the budget search? To me it says. Whether they're involved or not involved. They may or may not be. Around. At the end of December. And so whatever participation they have. Will disappear. And that is the dilemma that we have to deal with. As a reality. We just don't know. And so when they're put on a subcommittee to for a search committee. We do not know. Whether they will be there at the end of January. We put them on the budget committee. We do not know. Whether they're going to be there at the end of January. The budget season goes on. Starting now. All the way up through April. May. So we don't know. So what in my mind, when I think about this. Is. What role can these particular people play. In relationship to a superintendent search. And into the budget search. That will. Will enhance. That which will. Be ongoing. Okay. We're going to get to that question right now. I just want you to look at one, two and three. That's all we're looking at right now. Okay. So. Anna, you still have your hand up now. Dorothy. I'm waiting for four. Okay. One, two or three. No more comments. Now we're going to look at four. Let's raise it up on the screen. I've created two questions. I tried to separate. Keep one as totally. I think I missed. I didn't use the word. Racism. I, and I need to. I think that needs to be integrated, but. Anna. Yeah, I think that was my comment on for a was including the word racial. Diverse gender identity. Racial and ethnic backgrounds. I mean, I think. Yeah, I guess I prefer. Be for what that's worth. Yeah. My goal was to make the top one. Be about equity, diversity. And ethnic and to have the bottom one be. Be about racism. But I didn't get the word racism in it. I'm going to need to think on that. Sorry. I didn't pick up on that intention. So give me a minute. You can go to other people. Mandy job. So my comment on for a, um, it eliminated the, and our anti racist. That, that, um, phrase that was at the end that I don't think during our conversations earlier tonight, anyone was suggesting we should eliminate in that question. Um, so it was, you know. Um, Welcoming to people of diverse gender identities. I think identity need to be pluralized identities and ethnic backgrounds. And our anti racist. Or it could be decisions are equitable. Anti racist and welcoming to people of diverse gender identities and ethnic backgrounds might make a little bit more. Clear. After the word equitable, but equitable. Anti racist. And. Our welcoming. No, I think just welcoming. And welcoming to people of diverse. Gender identities and ethnic backgrounds. Okay. Um, On the second one. I did, I did include the word race. Okay. Um, Dorothy in number and a you've watered down. Ethnic identities by adding too many things. So I don't like it. And in B by not having the word racist, we could get to such issues as privilege of athletes or beautiful cheerleaders or whatever. I mean, it's got to be very clearly about racism. So I would like a to be about gender identities and B to be about racism. Um, I like a with anti racist added in where it is. I'm good with a B. I'm trying to wrap my head around being. Um, it seems like over the break, you changed it to our school's current efforts as opposed to the committee's current efforts. Cause. School committee members can't do as much as people think we do. We, we don't, we don't, you know, we don't want to change that. Um, so I would want to change that too. The committee's current efforts. Okay. But, but I'm not sure the, like, the, is the committee, does the committee have current efforts to change, behaviors and beliefs? I just, I'm struggling with that one. Yeah. I would agree with you. Yeah. Resulting an advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race. I, I might even, you know, if we're just trying to simplify it, I might even just. You know, I know it's saying some people benefit and some people are harmed, but really like beliefs resulting in harm. Is, is really what we're talking about. Advantage to some people. I feel like I know, I know, I know, I know what this question is trying to do, but I feel like we could just remove advantage to some people and just say beliefs resulting in. Unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race. Or continue just to clarify. Sorry. Give me that again. Beliefs resulting in. Unfair or harmful treatment. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. That's, that's my, those are my thoughts on that question. What role can you play to help ensure that the committees. Maybe we don't need the word current efforts. Maybe we should, should just say committees. Policies, rules and behaviors and beliefs. What role can you play? Then it would be are not. Anna. Are not need to add the knot back in. Yeah. And sorry, could committees be as apostrophe. It's it's plural committees. Thank you. What role can you play to help ensure that the committee's policies, rules, behaviors. And beliefs resulting in unfair or harmful treatment of others. Based on race are not continued. Okay. This is getting really awkward. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know I'm jumping the gun here, but like I was in the middle of trying to think it. This is the sound, the question sounds weird now. It might, might be, we can change it to. Oh gosh. Policies, rules, behaviors and beliefs. Beliefs, which may result in. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. Because otherwise it's saying. That we do have these things that resulted, but which may result in. Thank you. Michelle. I'm going to go. I've been the honest. I'm going to go to Michelle. I thought about this. I sort of took the second question in a bit of a different direction. I was thinking about the first question. I was thinking about the first one is a question. That sort of regards the collective role of the school committee. And it's like internal. Practices and, and, and what it does in that respect. And then the second question to me was more focused on the individual role of the school committee member. So in that case, I had just worded like. What role can you play to uphold these commitments? To me, that sort of points to what we have already. Committed to both through the town council's resolution and. The school's own mission statement. And then asks how. That individual might uphold those commitments that have been made. Athena, what I'd like you to do is don't eliminate B, but under it. Right. An alternative. I can email that over to, I mean, email it to you, Lim, but I can email. Yes. But why don't you state it out loud? That's really much more in keeping with transparency. Great. Do you want me to say it out loud right now? Okay. So B, A looks great. B was the schools and the town have stated commitments to end structural racism and achieve equity for all students. What role can you play to uphold these commitments? And it's achieve equity for all students. And then it should be a period after that and started. Yeah. That's right. Okay. That's an alternative. Yes. I would, I would like for everyone. No, no news who are on the school committee, but also those who are members of town council to go back and review the DEI statements. For the town and also those statements that this, the council has made, have made in relationship. To racism and structural racism. To inform yourselves about the things that we're, the very things that we're talking about right now. The school committee. And the schools have made those, made certain similar statements. I'm really, when I look at B and C. I'm really, I think, Hey, those two things get at what I am most concerned about. But what I am concerned about is that we, as I said before last week, and I'll say right now, we use terms as if everyone knows. We say structural racism. We say racism, but we don't want to define it. We keep trying not to define it. When we have the opportunity to define it, define it. We argue about what that definition is. B gets at what racism is all about. And I, and I like that because it's, it's just sort of like a compromise between what we started out with and where we ended up with. And C gets at what I am saying in relationship to, Hey, these are the kinds of things we need to define. We talk about structural racism. Go back to what the DEI in the town has said about this issue and how they have defined it and how they have looked at dealing with it. Because when you look at this alternative, that's what it says. So if we in B said, what role can you individually play to help ensure that the DEI in the town has said about this issue and how they have defined it. I think it's important to make sure that the committee's policies, rules, behaviors and beliefs, which may result in unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race are not continued. I like that. Mandy Joe. I like Michelle's new alternative over option B. I would eliminate B and go with the alternative. Admittedly, I am not up on school committee. I don't know what rules and all, but does the school committee itself have a statement of beliefs? Because question B implies that the school committee has a statement of beliefs that they have collectively adopted. Yes. And go back to our policies and the board docs and you will see it. Okay. Jennifer. I lost my train of thought. Come back to me, please. Okay. And I meant Jennifer Shal. Okay. Anna. So I'm really trying to differentiate between the three questions and ensure that I'm understanding the nuances and why we have multiples at this point. I think that initially my understanding was that we wanted one really honing in on anti-racism and the work of anti-racism within the school committee and then one that was more broad. I think that what we've ended up with is three questions that are really saying pretty darn close to the same thing. I also prefer C. I think that my, my initial comment when I first raised my hand was in A, changing welcoming to being affirming. I think those are two different things and I think we want to be affirming, not just welcoming. That's, but that's my opinion. And then the other thing was thinking about with, with C, if Michelle is amenable to this, then I'm a member of the school committee. And I'm not sure that I would agree with that. I'm just wondering like formal amendments, but I'm curious about adding something along the lines of what role can you play as a school committee member or what role would you want to play as a school committee member. Again, bringing in that part that I think is really strong in A and B about policies, rules or policy. Sorry, I actually like a practices, processes and decisions. play to uphold these commitments through the practices, processes, or decisions or something like that. I don't know. I think getting it that we're asking them about it within their role within the capacity of their role as a school committee member, if that makes sense. But I think that we've wordsmithed this now to the point where we've got three really, really similar questions. So we would probably either be shifting one back to be being solely focused on racism or eliminating two, in my opinion. Thanks. I heard, I know there's some people who want to make sure that we focus on racism, but I've also heard strong support for making sure that we include diversity in other ways. So I'm very reluctant to say it's one or the other. And if it means you have to have two questions, fine. But let's, you know, Irv. Well, you know, as far as I'm concerned, and I don't want to belabor this point anymore. If you want anti-racism, racism to go undefined, then any one of these will do. If you want it to find, then you have to go to B. But if you don't want it to find, then knock out B and then go for A and C. Jennifer. Yes. And I will repeat that. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. I will repeat that I would like them. I'm fine with not defining them because I want to see how people respond and how people answer. So I was looking at A and B, or these two options as one is about how the school committee operates, the operations of the school committee as a body. And the second one was about the decision, the policies and the work that the school committee does. And that's how I differentiated the two things we're now trying to get at in question four. I feel like A and B are too similar, are like worded so similarly that I think it will be confusing to people. It's clear to me that once about school committee operations and meetings and practices, and one is about the decisions that the school committee makes about policies. So I like C because it gets at something similar, but it's worded very differently from B. And if or if others are uncomfortable that we haven't defined structural racism, we could say something like, what role can you play to uphold these commitments, whatever those mean to you, or something like that. Or you can say, structural racism, whatever those mean to you, what role can you play to uphold this? I don't know, if we wanted to make sure people understand that we aren't defining it on purpose. Okay, Michelle. Yeah, just to your concern, the reality is that folks who are applying for these positions will have seen these questions in advance. And so the hope is they see the questions, and if they have some confusion about a particular term or what something might mean, they will have the opportunity to do a little research and for themselves define what anti-racism means. So I feel, I think that if we were in the position of giving them these questions without having had that, I would be worried about accessibility in terms of the language we're using. But because they have some time to do some research, I am less worried about not defining it. I'm going to suggest that we use C as the question for four. Are there strong objections to that, Jennifer? Yes, I would like to use A and C. A and C. All right. So A, four A becomes four and four C becomes five. There's some hands up. Yes, Dorothy. I just wanted to agree that we needed to do what you're doing. We needed A and C. Thank you, Irv. I mean, again, people are fine without defining racism or structural racism and having people have those definitions in their mind and throwing those terms around without definition or structure. I'm fine with that. I mean, it doesn't mean that it's satisfying, but hey, people seem to be saying that we would rather have this to be informed in relationship to what something means, whether it's structural racism or anti-racism, etc. That is not important. It's more important that we use the term rather than what it means. Okay. So Athena, that becomes four. That becomes five. And now we go down. Six is fine. There was no changes there. Okay. And then this is a sentence that leads in, or this is a statement that leads into the next two. And identify, recruit, and identify, the process is, you set up a process that you hope will identify, recruit, and hire a high quality candidate even if you're not there for the actual hiring. That's my, yeah. So I think in adding an opening statement, there should be a period at the end of that opening statement. And then number seven should just be the original number eight. How will you help? Well, I think we had some other wordings, but that one was how will you help ensure that the superintendent's search is set up to identify, recruit, all of that. And then the other one was... You can just go back to the existing thing. We can get it. So in other words... Superintendent's search is set up two. And then number eight would just be, how would you approach the upcoming budget cycle? Right. Okay. The upcoming, the upcoming budget cycle. Irv, you have your hand up. Irv, you're muted. All right. So when I look at this, I said, how will you approach the upcoming budget cycle? I didn't hear that, Irv. I'm sorry. All right. Did you hear what I'm saying when I see number eight? How will you approach the upcoming budget cycle? It's not... It is so generalized and so without meaning that I... If people want to keep it in there, it's something that I would even think about because it's not a serious question. Okay. Jennifer Schell. Athena, can you scroll up a bit so I can see the top of this opening statement? Yeah. I like... Sorry. You can scroll back down again now. I like seven and eight without the opening statement. I don't think we need the opening statement. And I guess specifically, I'm thinking that it's asking what skills, knowledge, and experience will you bring? But like having skills... I mean, having experience with a superintendent's search or a budget cycle is not a requirement. And not everyone has had experience with a superintendent's, with this type of search or with that type of budget process. And that doesn't mean they wouldn't do a good job. I feel like we... I mean, I want answers to seven and eight, but I don't think we need the opening... I don't think we need the opening statement. Athena, would you just hold on a minute, Jennifer. Would you go and make... Put that statement all on one page. Put a... Thank you. Great. And take away the period. You're right. And I agree that eight is very broad, but I think that's okay, because as Michelle said, people will have the questions ahead of time. And if they... And they can answer that however they choose. They can make that... They can make their time answering that question, whatever they want it to be. I think it's okay that it's vague. About number eight. Okay. Anna. Yeah. I think it's really important to keep the skills, knowledge, and experiences in there, because we don't mean... Well, I guess when I pitch putting experience in, and we can add a word to clarify this, it doesn't mean direct exact experience hiring a superintendent. It means what experiences do you bring that help you in this process, right? It might mean anything. And it allows people to share experiences that may not be automatically assumed to be direct by the folks interviewing them, but to explain how those are helpful, right? So it allows us to actually broaden our understanding of what beneficial experiences might be, even if they aren't a direct one in their candidate statement. So I think maybe if we could say... Or transferrable experience, or something like that to clarify. But I think that if we don't ask people to share the situations or the experiences that they've had, we might just get idealistic answers. And I think it's really important to hear how folks have navigated situations that they feel would be helpful to them in this scenario. So it doesn't mean exact experience in a superintendent search, but what are some relevant things? And that allows us to expand our own thinking about what transferrable skills and experiences there are. So I do stand by that, because I think it's really important so that we also are checking our own assumptions about what is relevant and in different scenarios. Ana, would you accept the fact that we say instead of include what skills include relevant skills? Sorry, what? Can you say that again? As you respond to the next two questions, please include relevant skills, knowledge, and experience you will bring to the school committee that will help the committee. Yep, that's fine. I think I just want to keep that skills knowledge experience in there. So we're going to change the word what to relevant. Jennifer Chow. Thank you, Ana. And I've just realized that this says please include, not just what. So I'm fine with it. Thank you. Thank you. That's why I wanted to make sure that you could see it all together, because I was trying to avoid what you were concerned about. Irv? I guess when I look at these questions, I'm thinking in terms of practicality. And you know, Jennifer, Ana, etc., all of them make really good points. But, you know, when I look at the reality of what we face, all I really want to hear from them is from these candidates is some reasonable grasp on reality in terms of what the school committee is facing and how they are going to be helping. So however we structure these questions, whether Jennifer or Ana or anyone else, it doesn't really matter to me because the reality is going to determine what it's going to end up being. So what I guess what I'm saying is, look, let's get to the meat of all of this, agree on the wording, etc., so we can make sure that we are going to be on track to meet our schedule to get these members on board as soon as possible. Right. So I'm going to, at this point, say we've got Michelle. This is really minor. In the beginning paragraph, I maybe to say in that second sentence to the school committee that will help the committee in this process or, you know, with this process because you start by saying that it's with these processes. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to, these are the questions. Okay. The packet that I first introduced to everybody on the, oh God, when was it, the 28th of August, I guess, included the process. The process basically is that I will ask the questions. I will ask them by starting, if we say we have five people, I'll start with the first opening sentence. You start with person one through five. The first question, you start with person two through five and then come back and do one. So you just keep rotating so that the same person doesn't always go first. Okay. I would expect that each of you will have your own set of notes that you want to have. If we use rating sheets, those now become public record. So I don't believe we used rating sheets in the past. And after we get done, there is a period where we take a break. The 15 of us discuss the candidates and then we actually do the voting. And I believe we already discussed that we would vote for three. Athena? In the past, we had talked about counselors and the school committee members indicating there are three preferred candidates and then we would tally those and see how many, and then once that tally process is done, then there's a motion and vote to elect those three candidates, the three winning candidates. As long as they have a majority vote. The way we've done it in the past is to do this kind of tally process and then there's the formal vote and then the formal vote in the past has been, I think, usually unanimous. Yes, but the person, not that it has to be, but that's been our practice. So a person who moves forward has to have eight votes if there's 15 of us here. I have to check. I think that's correct. I think it's in the charter that way. Yeah, I think the charter has it. It's a majority of those voting, so it could be less if there are abstentions. Okay. All right. Or someone's absent. All right, we're now talking about the process. We're no longer talking about the questions. You can take the questions down. I just wanted to be sure. Irv had his hand up before we started talking about the process, so I wanted to make sure that. Okay. Irv? Yeah, I said this before and I want to say this to you, Landon, and the rest of you. I, and I think the school committee, Amherst School Committee, really has to know when this process is going to be completed. Are we still targeting September 26th for the final vote? Okay. My goal, and I think other people share it, is that we will finish this on the 26th of September, unless it's midnight and we're still going, and then it will be the 27th of September. But we will finish that night. Okay. Mandy Jo? Two things. CRC has generally, when we've done the rotation, not rotated in the same order, because sometimes it's found that if you're always following the same person, it's not necessarily, fair isn't the right word, but it's nicer if you get to follow different people every time. It's harder for the person determining how the questions and orders are going to be answered, but it's nicer to not always follow the same one. So I would request maybe we do that if everyone's in board with that. I'm fine with that. In terms of timing, I'm going to go back to my suggestion. I don't know whether people liked it or not, but if we get over a certain number of candidates, maybe we consider eliminating certain questions or options. I would probably propose not asking questions three or six and the closing statement to get us down to seven. Quick calculations, if we use 10 questions, and I'm including the closing and opening statements and those question numbers, 10 candidates is three hours and 20 minutes. Seven questions for 10 candidates is two hours and 20 minutes. So eliminating at that point is eliminating a whole hour of questions. And your recommendation was to eliminate, I think it's going to have to put the back up the criticism question, the one on the the one important strength strength and weakness. Okay. And then the closing statement. Okay. But that's just a proposal. I don't know whether where people stand. Okay. Okay. I'm looking for other comments. Dorothy. Have we had a discussion about people who are running for school committee would not be eligible for temporary positions? Are we going to have that discussion yet? But we will. Okay. Thank you. Jennifer Shau. Okay. So first, I don't think we should eliminate questions depending on the number of people who submit a letter of interest, based on the number of candidates we have for this position. I think that would involve a discussion of this group prioritizing the questions and I think that we would be here for a very long time. And I think we have already prioritized the questions that are important to us and we have already eliminated questions. So I don't think we should eliminate questions based on how many candidates there are. And I also don't think we should or that we can prohibit people from being considered for this role if they're running in the election. The charter states any registered voter can put their name forward. I think that would be very anti-democratic to limit someone who would be otherwise eligible from putting their name forward for this position. And let me just comment on that piece and then please go on. I totally agree with you. We cannot say just because you're running, you can't apply. That's your personal decision. And then lastly, I want to advocate to have a public comment period at the beginning of this meeting the way the town council does for almost all of your meetings. I realize this is a special meeting. The September 26 is going to be a special meeting, not a regular town council meeting, but I want to advocate for a period of public comment at the beginning of the September 26 meeting as you do for almost all of your meetings for people to express their opinions for us to hear from the public. I don't think it should be like in the middle of the process or like after the questions but before we vote, but just like at the beginning, like you always do for your standard practice, have a period of public comment. Thank you. Irv, you have your hand up. Yes. Definitely having a period of public comment is definitely something that we should do. And more importantly, everyone who applies for this, whether they're going to be running for or standing for an election, have a right to be a part of this process, to eliminate them would not be democratic at all. Okay, Jennifer Tubb. Well, I just want to say, I agree with that we should have a period of public comment, but my question was, for the three candidates that were each going to put as our top three choices, do we write that down on a piece of paper? I know it's public and submit it or we verbally state it. Okay, thank you. Pam Rooney. Yeah, I've been thinking about the opportunity for people to serve in this interim position. And I had come to the conclusion that I'm pretty clear that I would rather not have people who are running for the position as a bonafide elected official, simply because it feels that they will have their opportunity in November to express themselves. And maybe this is just then simply the way I vote. But it feels that we need a transition team and a group of folks who bring experience, hopefully all kinds of experience to the table to help us through this period. And I had thought that perhaps we would have a conversation about this and to be a little more clear about our expectations for filling these spots. Would other people like to comment on that issue? Yeah, I can see there are pros and cons to both allowing people to do that. And then there's some continuity and they can just, they get a head start. But I can also see that it's good to just have a different set of people. And I don't know if I'm open to both. And I wonder if you need to hear the pros and cons. But I had a question about the public comment. Should I wait for that one? Let's first just deal with this question. I think with public comment, I'm all about wanting to hear people's lived experiences, their perspectives. In this particular case, we are having a meeting for a very specific purpose for which we're creating all these criteria and questions that we're going to ask. And then based on that, we are as a committee going to come to some, you know, consensus or not, but we'll make decisions. And I'm just curious what are people who are proposing for a public comment? What would be the what are your intentions for having that public comment? Especially given that we're having it up front without having heard what the responses are from people. So is it people coming in, bringing in their relatives and friends to advocate for them? Is that in giving people an opportunity to do that or advocate for their friends? And because we haven't yet heard what the responses are and the public hasn't really heard what the responses are of all the different candidates. So what I'm just I would love to hear what people's intentions were for having a public comment here. Okay. So we're sticking to two issues right now. One is the issue of public comment at the meeting at the beginning. The second is the issue of whether or not we have it's whether or not you personally feel that people who are presently or as of tomorrow will be officially running for office should be considered. I am going to address the second one. I don't believe that there is any way you can legally prohibit a person from submitting their name if they're running for office. And so I if you per if you believe that that's not the best candidate, that's your decision. That's my personal opinion. Um, but I don't think we can say we got seven applications and four of them are running for office. And so therefore we're only only going to interview three. So Jennifer, you already weighed in on this, I think. No, go ahead. Jennifer, I'm sorry. So I, I don't know that anyone was suggesting that we not accept statements of interest or interview candidates. It would more be if we had a conversation and there was sort of an agreement on a policy that, you know, we would not want the council to kind of put our thumb on the scale by selecting candidates who are also running. Maybe that's an individual decision we make. Um, I, it feels like maybe we can't have, we, we don't know who submitted it. We don't know how many statements of interest we've received. So what if we only have statements of interest from candidates for the school committee? So that I think it's maybe a little early to have that conversation. Although, so I don't know if this would be a conversation we'd have after the interviews. You know, are we going to, so after the interviews, are we going to have a, we're going to have a discussion? Yes, we are. Right. So maybe that is the time to have that conversation. Um, I mean, because again, we don't know how many statements of interest are even going to be received right now. No idea. But I have, you know, my, my personal feeling is that if we have good candidates that are not and school committee candidates, that it would help to depoliticize the process to select interim members who will only be interim members that are not also declared candidates. That's my personal opinion. Lynn, if, Lynn, if I may, I'm going to strongly advise that the council exercise caution when having this discussion about limiting the eligible applicants. I think the law is fairly clear about who's eligible and all you have to do is be a voter and Amherst. So whether you call it a policy or what have you, I think that should be left to the council deliberation following the interviews. To set criteria. Thank you, Andy. Yeah, I'm the first issue and we're just discussing. I agree with everything that Jennifer said, so I don't have to repeat it. And as far as Jennifer who just spoke, the second question, however, on the public comment, I am very uncomfortable. This is a special meeting. Council rules are clear that we do not commit to having any public comment at special meetings. And I think that we're all having trouble with the first question because we realize that it has a, there's an interrelationship between two issues running for the November election for school committee and applying for this position. And it's mixing those two things and having public comment is inviting electioneering is during public comment. And I just don't feel comfortable with that. Randy Joe. So I'm uncomfortable with the location or the way this conversation is, deliberation is going. Our agenda has two specific things on here for school committee vacancies discussion of the interview questions and of the election process, not of any criteria or anything. It is clear that the charter allows anyone who is a registered voter to apply. And I believe it improper to discuss any criteria tonight that any of us might be considering or not considering until we are in the deliberation phase after the interviews. I, I, Mandy Joe, I totally agree with you. I think that is also what Athena has been suggesting to all of us so that I think that the discussion as to whether or not you are a candidate for office for school committee or any other candidate for that matter. And you apply, it's not an issue we will continue discussing. So we're now back to the, the discussion about public comment. And Jennifer. So someone asked why, why, what the objective of public comment would be at the September 26 meeting. And I wanted to say the objective is the same reason you have public comment for all your meetings is that you want to hear from members of the public about a decision you're going to be making. Often those public comments happen at the beginning of a meeting before you've discussed whatever it is you're going to be discussing. And I, and I don't think this should be any different. The members of the public have a right to communicate to the public as well as to the council, how they think we should vote, you know, we being the council on the school committee. I've now been part of two special meetings when you have had public comment. So it doesn't seem to be a rule that you have to follow that special meetings don't have public comment. So because we want to hear, as elected officials, we want to hear from the public and we want the public to be able to say publicly because that's what public comment is all about, what, how they think we should vote. As for it being electioneering, I mean, it's only electioneering if it could only fall into the category of electioneering if the person being talked about is on the ballot. But we don't know who's going to be submitting their name for these vacancies. So to say now, we're going to prove we're going to not have public comment because it might be electioneering. What if everyone who submits a letter of interest is not a candidate, then it won't be electioneering. And then but then we will have decided now to not allow public comment. So I see no reason not to have public comment. We should we should all want to hear from the public about how they think we should vote. That is the public's right. Erv. Erv, we can't hear you. Hello. Now we can. Lynn, you might have been overlooking my hand. She's been up and you've gone around a number of times. I'm not sure what you're seeing in my hand or not. But in in relationship to what Jennifer was saying, you know, there is no way that we should present public comment just because of the fear that there might be electioneering. We should not let the fear of something happening determine what we consider to be right and just here. And something that is right for me is that on that night when we have our we're going to be deliberating candidates, it's going to be public. The people know this is going to be public. That to say we're not going to take public comment before this would not seem to be a correct kind of decision to make. Michelle. I support a public comment. But I have a question about timing. Is it possible at this stage to begin the meeting at, say, 5 30? So that we would, I'm not saying we would limit it to a half an hour, but so that we would add a half an hour cushion in the front end. Or do folks think that that's, you know, I think our meeting tonight might have started at 5 30. I don't know how well attended it was, but I just am thinking about if we have to get it done at that meeting, if we could add more time, it might be helpful. I'll speak to that in a moment. Let me take other comments. Bandy Joe. I'm struggling with the benefit of a public comment period at the location in the meeting that has been proposed, which is before interviews. Because there will be nothing new for people to comment on other than what was published in the packet, but anyone who would like to comment on something published in the packet may be able make can file a written comment that gets published in our packets that everyone can have access to before the meeting. And so I, I'm not sure that a public comment period before interviews take place adds any benefit to the meeting that is not already there for us as counselors and school committee members from what we will have received prior to the meeting in written form. I could see a benefit to a public comment period after interviews when there is more information that everyone has received because of the interviews. I don't know whether I would support that or not. I don't know where I stand, but if we were to do a public comment period in either location in the meeting, given that the meeting is to determine and decide and vote on who to appoint to the school committee, it seems to me that public comments could be completed in one minute that people would not need three minutes to advocate for who they may want us to appoint. And that limiting would serve a couple of purposes. It would allow more people to make public comment if we allow a public comment period, but it would also serve to hopefully get us to a resolution of what our goal is for that evening at a more reasonable time when people might be able to stay and watch and be here if they come in person. It is a meeting of high interest that I don't think we really want to be making decisions at midnight for because that's not accessible to the public. And so if we do do public comment in the meeting, I think this would be a time to shorten the length of each public comment, ensure that each public commenter can only speak once, and make sure that we're getting to the appointment part and deliberation and voting part at a reasonable time in the meeting. We've received as counselors comments in the past that our meetings go too late, and once they hit a certain time they become basically inaccessible to a large number of people. Thank you. Jennifer. So I want to point out that written public comments that are submitted to the town council are not as far as I can tell part of the meeting packet. They are posted on the town council website, but in a separate location from the agenda and the meeting packet. I was informed of this and they're posted in a PDF in two week chunks. I was informed of this a while ago, but I had forgotten about it. And today when people mentioned that they had submitted written public comment for this meeting, I hadn't seen it because I looked at the packet, but I didn't go look at the town council comments section, which is a different part of your website, which is not part of the packet. And I wasn't even informed that that was a thing as a member. I was one of the two remaining members of the Amherst School Committee. So there's that. There's that like people don't necessarily know where to go look for public comments. And public comments are not just for the town council. They are also for the public. Also, I think it's just a good practice to allow people several ways of submitting a comment, both written and oral and verbally in person, to say we don't need to have in-person live public comment because people can just email us. Well, people have different ways that they prefer to communicate. And I think offering different venues is smart, is smart and accessible. As for the timing, I mean, again, my suggestion is to have a public comment period at the beginning because that's when public comment usually is for your meetings and for school committee meetings. The public knows that we're going to be making a decision that night and they want to give us their input on that decision before we make it. Does it make more sense to have that after the interviews and after the candidates have spoken? Well, I kind of feel like it doesn't even really make sense. I don't think it's any better than because it's like we will all have just heard the same things that people have said. And then we want to hear from the public to comment on what we all just heard, but we all just heard like as opposed to if people want to advocate for a certain person to be selected by us, or if they want to suggest to us that we keep in mind certain things as we're listening to the candidates, that can and should happen at the beginning of a meeting the way that is your past practice of having public comment at the beginning of a meeting before you make a decision. Thank you. Athena, I need to ask a question. We have posted pretty publicly in many places that this meeting begins at 6 o'clock. Can we post the meeting at 5.30 at this point and have public comment for the first half hour? The notice on the bulletin board says the meeting starts at 6. You could do a special meeting earlier at 5 or 5.30 if you wanted just for public comment, I suppose. But the notice says the meeting begins at 6. So I'm hearing various things, but if we're going to have public comment it's at the beginning. It has been suggested that perhaps we meet a little earlier like 5.30. I know that that is difficult for some people because of work and because of family. Excuse me. And I'm having now been here since 5.30. I'm beginning to feel aware and tear. Okay. Shalini? So I completely agree when we have public comment to offer as many different channels for that. I'm still trying to understand, sincerely understand that if we have for example 100 people asking before we even heard the candidates and we have 100 people saying we should vote for XYZ and then we actually hear the candidates and there is a person who is new to the political arena but is bringing in their skill sets and so forth and offering and so would that imply that because 50 people have asked us 100 people asked for that one person that we don't and there are three other candidates who are bringing in really good skill sets for this and those people did not hear these candidates because they are only speaking out of their experience and knowledge of the candidates they're advocating but they haven't had a chance to listen because they spoke before so they haven't had a chance to listen to all the other candidates so it feels like that's advocacy versus really looking at what is best for the school committee for our students for our teachers all of that and so it's I feel like I'm being put in a situation that's I don't understand what would be the it's like it's like letting people down and creating a process that's gonna that could let people down that we asked you to come and share what you want to say and then we're going to go ahead and vote in a completely different direction because we heard this and I think it does a disservice to people who might be new to this process but are willing to now step into this role and may not have as many advocates for them but they are putting themselves out there and so and and so I'm still not hearing like what am I so if I hear 100 yeah I'm still struggling with what what am I so when we hear when we do have public meetings and we invite public comment it's to hear people's lived experiences and when we do appointments like we do in CRC we don't have I don't think we have a public comment to get people's feedback on who we should appoint so that's where I think it's a little different okay thank you Dorothy I I feel like I'm in a strange universe I have I truthfully have never heard of having public comment before a deliberation where we're going to be choosing people it sounds like some kind of political rally taking place beforehand and I'm thinking of the candidates this could be creating a very charged atmosphere which will influence how they behave and how they feel the public will have a chance to have their say they are electing a new school committee in November this is an interim appointment process and I don't all the appointments that have been made since the and the five years have been on the council I'm not aware that there were public comment periods beforehand so I I think it's a terrible idea I think it's an absolutely terrible idea and we'll be make it make it so people really don't want to show up for an interview because it's hard enough to come to an interview but then if you know that you're going to be have this people kind of agitating and we don't know what for we do not know who or what and they will not be able to prepare themselves for this so I really hope we don't do it thank you okay thank you Anika um yes I think you know Dorothy Dorothy Pan was raised a point that is I think will will happen and we're walking into also for what others have said we don't know who exactly will submit if we have a comment public comment beforehand I mean we've seen this before this it will not be our first rodeo when the public gathers and comes