 Good evening. I'd like to call the Amherst Select Board meeting of November 20, 2017 to order at 6.32 to be precise. This evening we have a couple of scheduled items on our agenda that were noticed in the paper. But we will not get to those until 7 o'clock. And so we are going to start with our usual. But we'll start first with the announcements or agenda review. Does anyone have anything they need to announce or make note of relative to our agenda? Not that we're aware of. All right. So we'll start with public comment. As is usual with public comment, we generally live with people to about three minutes. We won't generally react or ask questions of the persons that are speaking to public comment. But we do welcome you to come and speak to us about things. So do we have anyone here for public comment? Seems as though we do not. So we'll get right into our agenda. Like I said, it's something at 7 o'clock. So we'll start with our action discussion items. I think the first thing we have on there is our fiscal year 2019 budget policy guidelines. You would have received on your desk tonight a copy. But also, hopefully, you emailed from me yesterday late afternoon or late evening. So hopefully everyone's had a chance to review it. And if I can find my copy. So I'm suggesting that if anyone has any comments or edits that they would like to offer, I will make note of those. And we could potentially, yes. You're literally jumping right into this. Absolutely. Which is what we talked about. But that was when I thought I was going to look at it earlier than Sunday evening. So could you give us a sense of, because there's always a variety of ways to do these things, what you changed? Because this isn't a track changes version? Yes. This is not a track change version. So I will tell you that there was, in section 1, on overall philosophy and key concerns, there was an item that was removed that was, now I can't recall what it was about, but it was removed because it's not relevant so much anymore. It was very specific and no longer necessary, I don't think. And then we added at the end. Which section? The very first section. It was like, I was last year's. OK. So we took out. Thank you. There was a whole section on the seasonal shelter. Which was? Continuation of seasonal shelter problems in visuals and important community need. And we anticipate it continues to have support, even though we no longer provide direct financial assistance to that operating budget. So that was item I. That was item I previously. Which took it out altogether. And it got pulled out altogether because I think since it's no longer in the budget, we can add it back if people feel the need to. And then we added. So everything after that got moved up one. And then a new M, as in mouse, got added that has to do with if the charter question passes and a new government has formed what we need to do in regard to that. So that was the significant change there. And I think outside of that, anything else was really quite minor. I kind of think if there was any other significant change that I'm trying to recall. So that was the primary one. And I did get a couple of edits from Mr. Seinberg before the meeting, which I will share with people if they would like or if they need a few minutes to read through. Well, for me, by the time this came electronically, I was done looking at my package. I was not able to give it as much attention as I might. I'm just jotting down notes of the things that occurred to me. But it would have been good to have the version where I could see what's that change. Because I didn't know. I mean, what you mentioned just now isn't big. But I had no idea what was not here. Added or taken away. So what I can do is if I feel like they need to review it a bit more, I fully intended to get it to you a full day ahead of what I did. So we're under no tremendous pressure to necessarily approve this this evening. We can wait a week or so. Yes. With that understanding, I think we probably all do still have some comments. Whether or not I, for example, had been keeping some lists of comments. I'm not sure where they fit. So I can't say this is new item K. But we can at least get that to you as you said, Mr. Steinberg already got you some edits. And we could give you some more now. Right. Oh, absolutely. I'm not suggesting we not have a conversation about it. I'm just saying we don't have to vote for tonight. We need to sort of vote these guys. Yeah. No, no, no, absolutely. Absolutely. So why don't I start with Mr. Steinberg, since he had a couple of things he wanted to offer. So I'll let him sort of explain what he had as far as changes and see if that meshes with other things that people have noted or not yet noted. OK. They're all minor edit type of things. So I'm going to be relatively quick about them because I don't think substantive. But in the new section, in section M, I was wondering about including the words along with prioritized recommendations for service adjustments. I guess that I would prefer not to assume that if we get to the situation where the charter passes and we're scheduling an election, that it's necessarily going to require a service adjustment. And I think that that's implicit in any budget change anyway. So I would have tended to not include that. On the second, on section four, other new revenue, were in B, I would say, especially about the creation of housing and commerce. The reason I put that in there is because the UTEC is, when they're going through those projects, is not just looking at housing but at other kinds of development. So I'm not sure it's perfect wording, but I felt it needed to say more than end housing. Under F, I'm not sure that I see any need for the words that follow the mandated costs. The rest of that seems to me could be deleted. And under capital, which is I think the last thing I said, it's just the introductory sentence under capital. Slickboard recognizes the perils of inadequate investment in maintaining our physical assets and in improvements. And then I would do a period and start a new sentence. We remain committed and then go from there. But I wanted to make sure that capital is not just about building, but it's also maintaining physical assets. Did you say that one again? It's in the intro to five? The intro to five. The select board recognized the perils of inadequate investment in maintaining our physical assets and in capital improvements. And then I would put a period. We remain committed and then finish it totally. It's just breaking into two sentences. So once I added to that, it seemed awfully run on and long. Sorry, I thought you raised your hand. No, I will, but I think, Mr. Wilders. Oh, this is just a general item for thought. Since we're talking about the knowns and the known unknowns and unknown unknowns and all that, given that this zero energy requirement has been imposed upon us now, that may have serious budgetary consequences. And it may also force us to make choices and give up other things. So maybe just a reminder to the effect that we should keep our eye on that as we go forward. She's reminding us. So I had a few in it. In fact, that was one of mine also, is to have a place that talks about the impacts of the net zero energy law and also maybe it goes under capital. But I may go somewhere else. Looking at new long range capital projects. So H under one concerns H is debt repayment. Major capital projects are listed now considering elementary school, Johns Library, South Fire Station, and public works facility. I wanted something that captured things that were even further out. So we talked about this, getting them on the horizon. That might be a community slash senior center. It might be a private public partnership and a parking garage, whatever they are to start finding a way to identify them. And similarly, where do we stick the North Amherst library in here so that it's called out in some way? Then I looked at L about the institutions of higher education and strategic partnership. And I was wondering if there was a way to make that more robust. And something maybe about funding for social services and how we had made it kind of a project to be identifying that in our budgetary discussions. And then some place, and maybe it's the capital, about the JCPC process, about looking at and reviewing that process to make sure there's adequate opportunities for input to the capital planning process. And I can go on, I think you all know what I mean. It's kind of a shorthand, but I won't go into it now. But I just wanted, these are sort of markers that I thought we might want to get in here. Sure. When you're done writing. Since you're the one who's incorporating all this, I don't want to cut you off while you're still working on that. So many of mine are similar to the others. And so without, again, we haven't all handed you sentences associated with that. And I don't have any intention of doing so. I just want to correct it next time you write it. But along those lines, I'm guessing at this point, just in terms of the way we have this structured, that most of those might end up as Ns, Os, and Ps in the first section as being key concerns, as opposed to necessarily fitting into expense reduction, economic development, other new revenue, capital, and reserves, they might not fit in there. Although, if the town manager looks at it with you and says, oh, actually, this fits here, then that would be fine, too. So I'll make, hopefully, a couple of brief points. So under item one, the overall philosophy and key concerns, under item H, Ms. Krueger mentioned things on the horizon that we keep hearing about, like the community center, senior center, parking, North Amherst Library, even. I want to make sure that H remains separate, because those are the four projects we've been talking about for years. And then some other statement that says, along the lines of, for example, we need to ensure that the other things people are talking about are visible someplace that they can see them. And so I'm not sure. But to make another, it's its own phrase. I mean, we got all the way from N to Z here, so we got lots of options. 20 letters left. We can just double them up. A bunch of letters. I just don't want it to be mixed into the same thing. And then the North Amherst Library, I think, is yet another separate thing. And I don't know where that fits, but that is a separate item also. So when I see this, again, I'm hoping that those will both be separate issues that are listed in here. Just as we've talked about now repeatedly, the JCPC process, which, again, is still separate from the North Amherst Library issue, completely separate, in fact, as was just experienced, but that there is a way of addressing the process, even though I know these are budget policy guidelines, in order to get out what we want from the capital plan, we're going to need to have addressed that. So I guess it fits in the overall thing, rather than necessarily the capital section, because it's more of a shift in focus in how we do some of the physical things. Because we have a great process, but we need to figure out a way to let more people into it and when that would work and when it would make sense. So I think that's really helpful. And I'd like to emphasize maintenance a lot more than I really appreciate what Mr. Steinberg added. But there needs to be a whole separate section about maintenance, because we're not doing it. And whether it turns out that because the way town manager writes the budgets, it makes more sense for some kinds of maintenance to be in operating versus capital, because it's small amounts for this, that, or the other thing, I think that's fine. But I think we need to be able to point to things and say, this is where we're doing maintenance of playgrounds. This is where we're doing maintenance of downtown crosswalks. This is where we do maintenance of this. And maybe some of it needs a big slug of money from JCPC, and maybe it doesn't. But we are hearing more and more from people about they can't find any place in the budget that we're doing it, and that's because we all know we're not able to do as much as we'd like associated with that. But where's a place they could look for it? And then I think we need a separate. I'd made a note before about community choices aggregation. Under Article 16, we need to put a comprehensive energy plan into this somewhere because of the item. So maybe that's another beginning thing. Somewhere in there, we need to add the comprehensive energy plan to the shear's guidelines that we'll need to see some progress. It doesn't mean everything gets done, and it's over. But that that needs to be in there someplace. And I know it would have been anyway at JCPC, but I think it's important that we recognize it up front here. And along those lines, is there any place in here that we talk about that would make sense, even though it's capital? What we've learned so far about the firefighter study, is there any way we mention that in context of something else? Because we didn't really have those answers when we wrote the evaluation. I don't know where else we're going to put it if we don't talk about here. I mean, I know we talk a lot about capital here. We talk more about things. But in terms of people, like we've talked about the homeless shelter before. We've talked about the pool before. Some place in here, how do we recognize that works? We'll expect to see something related to the results of the firefighter study and the next steps associated with that in the budget that comes out. It surely was going to have some text about that someplace in addition to possible. It's important that people have been all waiting for that and wondering where that fits. So it's more about it's not implementing the study. It's not like that. But it's finding a way to provide context for next steps of what that's going to look like if nothing else. In some ways, it's about in that one in particular. But I think there are some others that are in the same boat that, like with the energy planning as well, those are both things that are in that sort of introductory letter in the budget, where it usually is several pages. And most of it's about the specifics of the coming fiscal year. But there are also generally some remarks regarding trajectory of certain kinds of things. Pressure is on the budget over a long period of time. That sort of thing. And that would probably be also where some of this could be folded into that cover memory that goes with the budget. But there may actually be, you may have more sort of meat on the bones as it were relative to these things if you know sort of what your expectations are in future years around those things. But yes. No, it went on so long. I thought of one more. I mean, some of this is this sort of overarching philosophy. And some of this is kind of our list of things don't fall off and we're keeping track of things. But we've heard a couple times from the manager about the Health Care Trust Fund and looking at that and coming up with solutions. And we may want to similarly to some of these other things noted in here so that it acts as a reminder in a tracking. Because it probably goes under expense reduction. But I will leave that to the writers. OK. Yeah, there is aggressive cost comparison in reducing waste and seeking greater efficiency is kind of broadly a category of descriptors that fit that. And then also the next one, which is negotiation of fair labor contracts. Because that's certainly an intimate part of those negotiations and the cost. So that's under expense reduction. But it's certainly worth calling out specifically since we know of it. Yes. So I guess I'm trying to, as we talk, get more detail on this. These are supposed to be budget policy guidelines. And it seems like it's becoming a list of, don't forget to mention, when you say the FHIRS fighter study or the, I understand I need to address those things. That's already on my list. But if you have guidelines for what you'd like to see accomplished, that would be useful. If you have ideas on what you want to see addressed, I'm trying to distill what this document is designed to do. Well, I think part of the challenge there is that we don't have any other place to give you a list, whether or not you've had a list or not. We don't have another place to give you a list of specific things. Then go home. But those, we tend to try and split off the budgetary things into this document so that they're not completely repetitive of one another. So there's more art to this than science, absolutely. And there are also absolutely conversations that the select board had in the past prior to your tenure that didn't end up mentioned one way or another in the budget at all that we thought were continuing ongoing issues. So in hindsight, if we could have captured more of these in the performance goals, and that would have made more sense to you to put them in there, to show, again, we try not to micromanage the how, but the what thing we want at the end, I can appreciate that these are titled guidelines. But if we didn't get them in the performance goals and we don't put them in the guidelines, then they aren't any place. You could amend the performance. If they better the performance, we can amend the performance. Right, and so if that's more appealing, we could do that. But I can't see not mentioning it. And I think one of the things that we could talk about at length, some other time, not tonight, is more what some of these things mean to us. And so some of these things we might phrase, and to some extent, they already fit, like you said, under here in terms of health care cost containment, it kind of already fits, so why call it out? Well, it's a special year, that's why, because you're going out, which is not something we do every year. You're going out to find out what the other costs are, and we continue to have amazing work with our insurance advisory committee, which we want to make sure is clear to everybody that's been terrific, and that's part of the whole negotiation process. But there's also the thing we could talk, an example of something we could talk about at more length is maintenance. We have struggled with this, the whole entire time I've been on the slack board. And the best we usually are able to come up with is there are a lot of unmet needs and maintenance, and that's where it sits. So that's not really what I'm looking for at this time. And so I understand we have budget constraints, and we know that, we saw the finance committee's guidelines, but people don't understand why we're not maintaining things better. So I'm trying to reflect to that in terms of saying if everything is just a generic guideline, then to me it almost, there isn't a point to it because it isn't specific. It's like, make sure you have good contracts. Well sure, obviously. I mean, who wouldn't do that? And so that's why I think it's important that we're able to say some specific things all the way, where they fit, and how they come out. And maybe it's a conversation, the two of you need to have more about what will it look like if this, because no one says, we do say when we do your evaluation, this is one of the documents we look at. It isn't just the other document. It isn't just the performance guidance. We look at this one too. But it doesn't say you'll have built a new fire station. I mean, that's not the guideline. It's making progress. So I don't know if there's another way to approach that we just haven't thought of yet, that maybe you can think of. Other comments? So what I think I will do is I'll take the feedback you gave tonight, which I'm glad we had, because I was not recalling some of these we've mentioned before, just didn't get them incorporated, but others, there's some more specifics that have surfaced a little bit, and I think that can be useful. And so what I will endeavor to do is to take these comments and fold them in. And if there's something that starts to sort of clearly break to where it's like, you know, this really probably ought to go in goals, and maybe we'll revisit that as well as an option to sort of modify the goal list. But there's some of these that I think are sufficiently less specific to remain in a budget policy guideline. So I think I'll try to strike the nuance of those things and yet incorporate the sort of intent of your comments and get those folded into the document. And so the good news is that, this being a vacation week, there's potentially more time when I'm not doing other things. Feel free to give up more family time. Should be okay. But the goal will be for me is to get these back to everybody in advance of the 12-4 meeting so that they can- And when everyone else is watching the game after Thanksgiving dinner, you'll be doing this? That won't be on Thanksgiving Day. That much I do know. Perhaps the Friday is gonna be otherwise occupied. Is there anything else anyone wanted to mention? And if you think of something later, feel free to send it along to me individually. And I'll seek to incorporate that into this as well. So I think that, I mean, there's lots of this in which it hasn't changed. And so it's still providing guidance to Mr. Bachman, even though we're getting into the middle of the year and close to your deadline for creating a budget. So you're well in the mix, but hopefully it'll still provide you some guidance in time for- Not like he forgot any of the things we listed, but we might forget them. Right, exactly. So with that, I think we'll almost seven o'clock. And so let me look at my list of things here. Do you think we can get the winner parking update in the three minutes till seven o'clock? We could do the Consent Calendar. We could do Appointments Appointments, yeah. So we could do the appointment under number five if Mr. Steinberg would be so kind, since he maybe found the language for the appointment. Yes, it was gonna be three years. Okay, I move to appoint Paul Galston to the CDBG Advisory Committee through June 30, 2020. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? This was on the agenda, but for some reason didn't make it onto our motion sheet, but this was the motion that we intended for a three-year term on CDBG advisory. And we interviewed Mr. Galston. We still have openings on that committee. If other people are interested, please complete this as an activity form, because this just gives them quorum, and they're about to head into their busy season. So if other people are interested in serving on that committee, it's a little tricky because it's one of the committees that if you're interested in this sort of thing, you tend to be on a board of some sort of social service agency already, which makes for a conflict, so. But we appreciate Mr. Galston's application. I think we should move forward with it, and I want to just remind people that if being their busy season, they are looking for more members as well. All right. Any other comment? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? It's unanimous. And so I believe we're close enough to seven o'clock to start our public hearing on the property tax classification. So I probably have to formally open this hearing. What a motion of such. Yeah, there's a motion on the motion sheet, I believe. It was. We have it on the previous version. Yeah, the ad. It just has the time, right date, no, it's at 7 p.m. Does this help? Oh, we have the ad. Yeah, if you read it, that'll help. All right. So there was a public notice regarding this hearing, which I will read, the Amherst Select Board, which is us, will hold a public hearing on Monday, November 28th at 7 p.m. in town room Amherst town hall for the purpose of determining this current year's tax allocation between the five classes of taxable property, residential, open space, commercial, industrial, and personal property. And then there's a, you can call the Board of Assessors if you need more information, or we're gonna find that out right now. So I'm gonna call the hearing to order. We're gonna take a boat to go into that. Okay. I appreciate that. At 7 o'clock. And so Mr. Burgess, thank you for joining us. Anything, thank you for inviting us again. Before I start, I'd just like to tell you that we now have a full board for the first time in a little while, and two of my members are behind me, Mr. Morris, who's the chairman, and Mr. Hargreaves, who's been freshly appointed today. He was sworn in. And this seems to be becoming a habit, becoming a habit that our new appointees are gonna show up with the classification hearing. This is the second year in a row. So we are very happy we've got a full board. Mr. Hargreaves is holding out the term since Jeffery Morgan until June 30th of 2018. The other thing I'd like to say before we start is that this was recertification year. So kind of good news, bad news. The tax rate's going down, your value's going up. So that said, the purpose tonight is, as you said, to vote on the, whether you're gonna adopt a residential factor of one or some other factor, whether you're gonna adopt an open-state space tax rate which we don't have any open space so that won't happen. And if you're gonna vote a commercial exemption or a residential exemption. The tax rate, if we leave it at 100%, as a single factor of one, will be $21.14 going forward for 2018. If you chose to shift the burden by 50% onto the commercial properties, you could do that. And at this time I'm going to own up to a type of one on page two. Now at the top of the page, in the first table, that should be 1985 and 3171. Where are you, what are you changing? Top of page two, on the first table. The residential tax rate on the bottom column should be 1985. I'm sorry, instead of what are we on page two? Top table. Top table. Which line? Third line. Third line, instead of. 1982, should be 1985. Ooh, okay, thank you, got it. 3171 instead of 3167. 3171, got it, thank you. That'll change everything. Everything. Now, if we go forward with the single property tax rate, the average single family value will raise from $334,600 to $353,000 this year. That will mean there will be $159 change in the tax rate, or sorry, in the taxes for that property, or about 2.17% increase over last year. For the commercials, the commercial will be 400, go from $433,700 to $484,000. And their tax value on that property will go up by $776, or about 8.1%. Reason for that is that the commercials took a larger increase in valuation this year than residential over single families did. Residential single families went up about 5% to 6%, commercial went up about 11%. If you choose to shift the burden, and adopt full 50% increase on the commercial tax, that gives a tax rate of $19.85 on the residential, and $31.71 on the commercial, which would lower the residential from 7,462 to 7,007. But at the same time, it would raise the commercial valuation tax from 10,244 to 15,367. So that is a large increase for a very small saving on the residential property. So that is one of the points you have to weigh tonight. As I said, you could select a discount for open space. As I say, every year, we do not have an open space class of property. The valuations are on the large areas of land are either covered under chapter land 61, 61A or 61B, or because it's unbuildable, we already discounted very heavily to very low rates, so there's no point in having an open space. You have two more options. You could grant the residential exemption, which would mean for owner-occupied properties, you could adopt an amount of an average out of $68,981 if you took a full allowance of 20% and take that off the tax rate, and that would lower the value on those properties, but at the same time, it would raise the tax rate inside the residential class. We have never done that, but that is an option you have. If you did the, sorry, if you did the maximum shift, the tax rate would go to $24.55 on the residential properties, properties such as apartment complexes would not get the benefit of the exemption, but they would have to pay on the $24.55 instead of $21.14. The small commercial exemption is an exemption of up to 10% of the property valuation, which can be granted to commercial, but not industrial properties that meet the requirements set a fourth under the law. I'm gonna have to read this because I don't really know it that well. To qualify eligible businesses must have occupied the property as of January 1st, 2017, and must have had no more than 10 employees as certified by the Department of Employment and Training during the previous calendar year, and the building must have evaluation of less than a million dollars. We do not have any properties to meet that guideline. Most of our commercial properties are occupied by businesses, by a business other than the owner, so they wouldn't qualify. And those are your options for this year. If you have any questions, I'll try and answer them. Mr. Steinberg. I don't think I'm going to recommend the residential exemption, but I did have a couple of questions just so that their information is out there before. I finally conclude that if it is adopted and the rate goes to $24.55, is a policy matter that also pushes us close to $25? Can I address that one first? Yes. No, it does not push us close to $25. The $25 is based on what the average, what the signal tax rate would be at 100%. So it would be the 2114 that you start from. It would be the base to compare to $25, not the 2445. It would be the overall allowable tax rate, not any tax rate that's subject to adjustment. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful to know. That wouldn't of itself been a showstopper probably, but it then gets to the second. I was trying to sort of put my head around what the policy reasons would be for doing this and why it has been done in those small number of communities you cited. And I just wonder if you had any comments on that. I have a, yeah. The largest community that adopts the residential exemption is Boston. Boston also adopts a split rate at a high rate. I think there are 175%. They have a special legislation. So therefore when you do the residential exemption it has very little impact on the residential tax rate because the tax rate has already been lowered. And the other communities along the Cape communities that have it, they have a large number out of town owners. So, and they, because their values are so high they have taken the prime properties. They pick up the burden for the smaller properties on the town. So they're eventually, essentially, hacks on the out of towners more than the other local people. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Questions? Just to say that I appreciate that you go over that with us every year because people, you know, when they just glance at it they do think, well, why don't we do that? And that's exactly why. And that the landlords situation that we have our second home situation tend to be people here in town. So we can't just soak the out of town people. Figured out a way to do that yet. And also in those communities they may not have as many rental properties as we have with people with lower incomes. And if we put a higher tax on the commercial properties than our residential apartment complexes I somehow or other think it'll get passed along. Right. Other questions or comments? Suppose we need to close the hearing in order to take the motions. Is that correct? It's the same public comment. Are there any public comment or questions regarding this? Very none. I move to close the public hearing. Second. All at time. 7-11. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. So we've closed the hearing at 7-11. And so there are a series of motions that we should take action on if we so choose. Would someone care to offer those? Screw you. I move to adopt a minimum residential factor of one, equal tax rate for all classes of properties for fiscal year 2018 and that no open space discount be granted. Second. And there's a second. Is there further discussion? Just in case someone's watching and is confused even though Mr. Burgess says it doesn't mean we don't have open space in town. And it's treated differently. We just don't have that as one of our tax categories. And that's why we're taking it out. But it can be really confusing to a lay person. Why are we doing that? It's not within our system. It doesn't mean we don't recognize open space and we deal with its value differently within the system that we have. Thank you. So I'm going to add that. For the discussion. Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? So that's unanimous. I guess I'm a little bit. Yes. I move to not adopt a residential exemption for fiscal year 2018. Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Since we just had this moment ago, I think we're. All right. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? None. So that's unanimous as well and we have one more. Third one. I move to not adopt a small commercial exemption for fiscal year 2018. And there's a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous as well. Thank you very much. That's a good question. Yes. So which I am quite confident you covered at the beginning while I was looking up something else, not going to lie. So our report says 2114. That's our new rate. When you talked to us back in September, you were said it was going to be 21. You were guessing. You know, it wasn't done yet. It was 2103 because we're at 2183 now, right? And it was going to be 2103 probably. And it's 2114. Is there anything to be said for that? Yeah, there's two things to be said for that. We actually raised a little bit more in new growth than we thought we were going to have at that time. I was expecting about 700,000. We ended up with about 760,000. So that gives a little bit more taxable space. And we used that. And I did change some valuations during the informal period that they had. So that lowered the values. And as you know, it's just a mathematics. I mean, it's really close. That's what you get for giving us a preview, right? So yeah. OK. We'll say Mr. Backelman has a form for you to sign. And I'll take care of that in the morning so we can get this done. Yes. Thank you very much. We do have the forms in our signature folder for tonight. So before we leave, we'll sign off on that and a few other things. Thank you very much. And thank you to everyone who worked on this. And thank you to the members of the board there that came in this evening. I appreciate you spending the time to come by and support Mr. Burgess and ourselves as we make our choices. All right, so that takes care of it. So now, should we get into winter parking? Our winter parking is fine. Sure. Why don't we do the winter parking update, which I don't think will take too, too long. OK. But we're going to start with winter parking update, which begins. So into next week. Yes, December 1. You have a memo in your packet that summarizes where we are. I would guess that the thing that you're most concerned about is how are we going to let people know about the new winter parking ban. As you recall, last year we used a modified version of this this year, I think we're going with the event-based winter parking ban. Lights, we have the lights. We have everything for the lights to be installed, the flashing blue lights that are pretty common, becoming more and more common in cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth. Except we don't have the brackets. The company that sends us this is in Texas. And I guess they had a hurricane or something down there. And there's a lot of demand for this. So we have backup plans in case the brackets don't come in in time. We have everything else we need except for these brackets. The lights are available. Everything else is available. So come to December 1, we anticipate we should be OK. But we have a backup plan in case it doesn't arrive in time. We will put we will try to have these flashing lights at pivotal points in the towns. The main one will be at the center of town. There will also be, if all the logistics work out, at various locations at the entrances to town. For instance, at Atkins, at Pomeroy, at the bottom of Amity and University Drive, on College Street, at Gatehouse Lane, on Main Street at Southeast Street, up by Cushman, and in the Pine Meadow intersection. Those are the spaces, those are spots that we have identified, where we control the light so we can install it and take the electricity. The one where we don't have access is on Route 9 near University Drive. We don't own that traffic signal. So we won't be able to put one there. We'll put one up closer to Amherst College. In terms of rolling out the PR, we're going to do similar to what we did with the downtown parking notification. We'll do a lot of PR. We'll ask Gazette to put something in, not this week, but next week. We'll send out an email to people who already hold permits, because they're the ones who are probably going to be most affected. And then right after December 1, we're going to have people drive around on cold nights at 4 AM or something and put notices on cars that are parked on the street and say, if there had been a snowstorm, you would have been told not. This would have been a violation. So just sort of a courtesy notice to people who are habitually parked on the street, so they get the message early on without repercussions. And there'll be a phone number people can call and all that kind of stuff. And on every flashing light, there'll be a phone number. And so that's sort of the rollout plan. So we're going to be doing it through regular media, through social media, through our website, and then through email and mail to people who are already received permits. And then we're going to be sort of affirmatively going out and putting caution notices on people's cars at night early on in the process. Questions for Mr. Bachmann regarding this? Yes. So we originally, we talked about this before we had a downtown parking working group. But then we talked about it again when we had a downtown parking working group. So what's their role here? Have they seen this material associated with the implementation? Do they continue to give us, I mean, will they hear, because they have business owners, for example, they'll continue to have feedback. Will they pass that along to you? Or how do you see their role associated with this particular piece? So it's my job to implement the policies of the select board. And that's how, I mean, downtown parking working group. They've already recommended previously last year and they've already recommended something. And then you voted, I think you voted this one is, you recommended this one as well, so. So should we just copy them on it after we say we got it and we understand it? And then that's the right time to tell them, rather than that we're looking for feedback from them before it came to us. Because like you said, we're at the implementation phase. Yeah, you've already voted to do this. So now it's just a matter of doing it. And you had mentioned, if I could follow up. So you had mentioned at our previous meeting when we were talking about the rollout, which you had given us the materials for, which I think, which I appreciated, associated with all the other parking changes we're doing. We're doing a lot of changes. And you had indicated that you'd gotten emails about that. So I guess I'm wondering if it's been made clear, and I know downtown parking working groups had some changeover with its membership, et cetera. And we're looking for additional business owners, et cetera, to serve on that. But if it could be clear to them, since they are a fairly new committee, if they get feedback, it should go to you. Not that it should come necessarily back to here, per se, or sit with them in some fashion, but it should go to you just like those people who are already writing to you individually. Sure, sure. And maybe we should tell them that at some point in the process. Just so it's clear what their role is. Yeah, I would suggest it's likely they might, if people know members of the working group, they're likely to give them feedback relative to the change in the winter parking. So not a problem. Yeah, so then they make sure they know that you're welcome. You need more email. Any other questions or comments or yes? Well, just, this is sort of a communication thing. The downtown parking working group, Matt, as recently as Friday morning, and the last three agendas we've asked for an update on the status of the winter parking ban program and nothing was available or known or have anything. So I was really pleased to see this in my packet this weekend, but I haven't done it yet, but I wanted to go and find the electronic version of this and as a courtesy send it to the downtown parking working group members because they have not had this information and they have been wanting it. Just, even though it's implementation, they're quite curious about where we are and the process and what's happening. Yeah, they never asked me. Yeah, we've been asking just the disconnect between some of the staff and we didn't know that, yeah. So it's good. I think they'll be happy to see there is an update because they were like, and I showed this to our staff person, Mr. Malloy today. So I was like, oh, great. So I'll get the word out on my end. Right, so I think the one thing I'll mention just to sort of put a frame around this is that in the past our parking policy during the winter months was to not allow over not parking at all. And now we allow it unless we have an emergency. So it's a much more flexible policy in a lot of ways, but people need to be aware that there'll be times when we have a snow emergency as it were and we try to notify as best we can the public about that emergency and then they try not to park on the streets so that the blouse can do their work, but it does afford a greater flexibility for folks to park during winter, much like they do the other months of the year. So I just want to make sure. But someone's going to come in town one day and go, why is that blue light flashing? Right. There'll be a phone number. I don't like to get called. Right, right. Hopefully they'll get that answer. Ms. Berger, do you have another thing you want to add? Just, I think what I said earlier and then combined with what Ms. Greer said, I just said that that's why it's a good idea to let downtown parking working group know where they stand in this process is that now they pass information to you and that rather than asking their staff support for a report that was never going to come to them, that they make a recommendation, select board decides and then they move on to the next thing as opposed to unless we ask them to gather more data with staff. We're done with the blue light thing, I am. All right. Anything else on the winter parking? Nope. Okay, fantastic. So next on our agenda is the Cultural District signage update, which I think is into Ms. LaCour as well. But if you want to sort of introduce this to us. Yes. So the town adopted, or Ms. LaCour can do this, but adopted a cultural district. And we're pleased to have that. You can give it all to Mr. Steinberg. You can give them all to him. We can give him all to pass them around. And one of the requirements under the regulations of the law from the state is that we install four very specific cultural district signs that have been purchased and have been sitting in the basement of the bid. And finding locations for them has been a challenge. And Ms. LaCour can talk about the locations. They've done a really good job of trying to find locations that are significant at the entrances to the district but are not sort of in your face. Great. Thank you, Mr. Bauchmann. So my apologies for the late notice on this map. As you're aware, I had a lot of things on your agenda tonight. But this is the locations that we have more or less settled on. They're proposed because we now still have to go through various permitting processes for them. And I also, I brought just to sort of orient you the map of our cultural district a little bigger so you could get a little better handle. The red boundary is our Amherst Center Cultural District. So what we are trying to do is more or less get these at key entry points into the district. These are not directional, but they're informational. So sort of let you know you've arrived at an area. As Mr. Bauchmann said, I meant to bring you the mock up of the sign as well. But all the state signs are exactly the same. You've probably seen them in numerous towns. Yeah, that's it, exactly. So three of the locations are private property. One is public property. That's the one on the north end that we are proposing for realignment park. So that's that northernmost entry point, if you will, to the cultural district. So we have all the applications required. It's five different bodies that we need to go to. So we're going to work our way through that in the next few months. And this one that I did give you the image for would be the one that would ultimately come back to you because it is in the public way. But my understanding is that this little realignment park is also under the jurisdiction of public art commission. So we will go to them for that one. And then all the other bodies and try to get all our ducks in a row and come back to you. So that's where our cultural district signs stand. So I'm happy to answer any questions or provide more information if I can. I've lived here 20 years. I've never heard anyone call it the Brody block. I know, so you're going to have to help us out there. Collective copies. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Never going to, it's Brody block. Sorry. No one looks up anymore. Steve Brody helped me. Assuming it's. That's even assuming it's in the front of the building. Some are and some are. No, it would literally be. I'm saying the name Brody. Oh, you know what? I don't even think it's on. I don't know if it says Brody up there, but I'm sorry, that's what I've always known it as. I should have said the collective copies building. Then we all wouldn't know what you meant, so. Exactly. Sorry. And you're saying it would be on the south side. It's going to be on that south side. So that's the only one. So, you know, as you're driving north, you will see it off to your left. So it's a little awkward. All the others, you know, we tried to be on the sidelines, but the, our only other option along there was the town common. And so we were trying to not do that, but that would be our other option in that location. Great. Thank you for that. I don't think we have any other section we need to take at this point, right? Yeah, I mean, before she goes to all these five, four different other boards, are you okay with these general locations for her to move forward? Or if there's objections to identity. Yeah, so certainly get back in touch with us, but we're going to start filing our paperwork. Yeah. So just to follow up a little since we don't have, like, anything in our packet on this, right? These, these, there's a picture. Yeah, there's one. There it is. I knew it was in here someplace. This is a pretty picture. It is. It doesn't have a little. With the memo. It was on the back of one of. So the front side is part one. It's on the back there. Got it. It was on the back of the MGF. So this is, they're pretty big. Yes, yes. And that was my question. And so, but just in terms of where they are, realignment park made the most sense to people. That's, I mean, that's the only one I find slightly questionable. So originally we had been thinking up in Kendrick Park, farther up, but that's when we defined our boundaries through the mass cultural commission. They pushed us back to the southern end of Kendrick Park. So officially the cultural district doesn't start up there. So this is, was our next best. We really wanted folks to sort of know that they've gotten to the boundary. So that was our, our thought and trying to orient it. And we'll work with DPW and folks to, this is our best guess at this point, but we'll go out and have people hold it up. But this seems to be the best location for most people seeing it as they're entering. That's cool. Go ahead. So, looking in more detail at the one we have, and that's the only one we really have jurisdiction anyway, but because they are so big, I kind of get it. It has to be up high because you don't want to block sight lines. But this picture, this sort of mock up has the, trees with leaves down. And I'm just wondering when it leafs out, if it will still be visible. And it's hard to know, because sometimes that weighs the tree down more. I don't know if you would consider that. You probably have looked at this spot since it was a while. Not as much because we, this was a spot that we were refining, but it's not our question. It will drop a little bit, but those trees tend to have a higher arching. Yeah. It's hard to tell. Yeah, it's hard to tell because that's what we took to my apologies. So it shows that it's seven feet, but it may come down a little, but then. Yeah, so some of that we may get too low. There are signage requirements for all of that. As I said, we haven't filed all the paperwork yet, but that's the ballpark. And we will come back to you when we've gotten all the, you'll see the final version that's six feet and a half. You're just wondering, yeah. It's three feet by two feet across. The sign, the sign size is not changing. We literally own them and the state gives you, but the height may vary. Yep. Mr. Seinberg. So I have a question, I don't know if it's for you, Ms. LeCour, or if it goes to Mr. Wald, who's my expert on the subject, but one of the proposed locations is the new location proposed for Amherst Media. And that is a part of the Dickinson Historic District. And does this require approval of the local Historic District Commission? Yes, that's one of the commissions we'll be seeing. And we did all these property owners, we have permission, we have received permission. So we've gone to Amherst Media, they are thrilled with the idea. It's not clear yet. At this point, it will be on a post when they start building their building, it may be incorporated to the side of the building like the others, that's still not clear yet, but that's one of the commissions we would go in front of. Yep. So it's historic district commission, planning board, design review, and... That one is historic district commission, design review, ZBA. They all require a special permit from ZBA. Yep. Because they're non-conforming. Do you, graphic, whatever, 8.4.1? And then the others are design review. Well, realignment park is you guys, public art. The others are ZBA and design review. Thank you. So since you're here, swap which presentation materials you're bringing forward. So this is kind of an FYI for now. For now, I believe so, yes, yes. And I do have an issue bringing up now, well, and it sounded like if we had a grave issue with it then what, from what Mr. Brackman indicated, then tell her now before they go before all those bodies. But those general things are... And my habit typically is to come to you, make sure you're okay with the direction and then hold off on your decision until all the other boards have acted so you're aware of what the final decision is. That makes sense. So next on our agenda is the several topics under the business improvement district. And so it looks like you have a few handouts for us. We had a few things in our packet under some of these things. But I failed to ask you to identify yourself with microphones. So if you'd be so kind as to do that this time and also your colleague as well. Sarah Lacour, resident of Amherst and executive director of the Amherst Business Improvement District. Also president of the Amherst Center Cultural District regarding that last item. Are there two handouts, Ms. Lacour? There's two. Yes, there's a typed packet and then also one with a photograph on top. And apologies for the... Your packet would have been, you know, ream sick. There's a moment too. Well, it all needs to be uploaded too for the public to see. So give us a minute to get these passed around. I'm John Kuhn, Kuhn Notal Architects and also a member of the... Thank you. So Mr. Brackman, do you want to introduce this at all or do you want to just let them go? All right. So if you'd be so kind as to take us through some of what you're here for. Sure. The bid has been working for a few months to a year on a proposed capital project that we would really like to provide to the community. One of the things that comes up frequently in our discussions and with others is performance venue and so amongst ourselves internally we started talking about an outdoor three and a half season performance venue. We started looking at some historic precedents for this and that's the materials that I just gave you that you do not need to read that entire packet but it's for your information. But we came across drawings and references to Frederick Law Olmsted who was the father of landscape architecture and he did a plan for our town common in 1874 where he actually, you'll see in the second packet that Mr. Cune has provided Frederick Law Olmsted's original drawing for the town common and the plan drawing, excuse me, and then a sketch showing the proposed bandstand along the east side of about midway down on the east side of the common. So the business improvement district when we got thinking about this wanted to, we thought that location was ideal. The land form is perfect for it. Frederick Law Olmsted knew what he was doing and so we just wanted to provide you this background material tonight with some of that historical precedent and then I'd like to give it to Mr. Cune to present to you where we got to with that. Thanks, Sarah. When we started talking about this has to be a year ago, we had a charrette at our office. I, Alyssa may have been there. I know Jim's been to them before. We do these, we call them charrettes. We take a problem that might be out there and we either divide up in teams or individually in the office. We spend a couple of hours coming up with ideas and then at four o'clock or so we break and we invite people from whoever might be interested in this particular project to come in and have a little wine and cheese and we put everything up on the board and talk about them. And so we did that with the band shell. With the notion that it would be in the location where Olmstead had originally located it. And we had a really good turnout that day and I think we must have had about a dozen different ideas pinned up and a lot of different participation from different parts of the town. And from that charrette we began to develop an idea. We kind of heard what people said and we took that to heart and then I think the one thing that we felt was important here is that the band shell shouldn't be an historic looking structure. It shouldn't try to look like it was built at the same time as the Lord Jeff or Grace Church or any of the other buildings along that side of the common. And in fact that it should probably be a fairly contemporary structure so that it stands in contrast to the historic structures that sit behind it. So that was really sort of the impetus for our design. It's an open structure. Probably the biggest challenge there is the fact that this kind of structure is gonna be exposed to a lot of wind and so it structurally has to be a very strong. It has to be strong structurally but it also has to be very open. So the idea that I think you have in your packet that should look like this, right, you have that, right? Was to create a base that's about 18 by 24. Essentially a roof with two stanchions on either side and a base. And it's built out of reinforced concrete and steel. For the reason that I mentioned it's gotta be structurally very rigid. At the same time we didn't want it to be too hard edge so we introduced a sort of soft curve on the bottom side of it. The top of it would be a metal roof, a stainless steel metal roof. It would just shed water very easily. The sloping ceiling projects the sound out towards the common. And the stanchions that you see there are brick so they would blend in some with the brick structures that are to the east side of the common. There would be some built in lighting. It would be handicapped accessible. We do that mainly with grating not with adding a ramp but actually regrating that section of the common so that you could walk to the rear without having any steps. So our goal was to create something very simple, very contemporary. It does, it is in a spot in the common that would require rearranging some of the events that happen there because the taste and the fare are used to having the music up in the northwest corner and this would require some rearrangement of the traffic flow and the way those events are held. But we feel like it would be an addition to the town that would be well used and very appropriate. We have done some estimating on the cost of this structure. We had a local contractor, a diagonal construction, take a look at it and the estimate was about $200,000. So before we really get down to trying to raise the money for it and going through the approval process which would be similar to I think the cultural district, there's three or four boards that we would have to meet with, we thought it appropriate to visit with you first and show you what we're up to and see what your thoughts were. Thank you. Questions or comments at this point? Since I got called out by name, I thought I would make it clear that I didn't choose this one. And there were a lot of really interesting ideas for a whole variety of reasons. I mean, there was really creative stuff going on with different types of fabric, different types of structure, how big of a structure, how adaptable of a structure in terms of all the different uses people could think of for it, would it be multi-level, would it be single-level? I mean, it was a lot to sort through for you guys to come to this point. I will go ahead and say it looks similar to the one that I identified as a circa 1970 bus stop on the UMass campus. And I know you remember me saying that, so your feelings are not hurt. But I kind of appreciate the simplicity of it and what you're trying to accomplish there, to not, and as you said, both at the shred and here, not trying to make it look in some historic gazebo sort of thing that somehow magically transports people back to whenever. But something that's more current and yet, in some ways, doesn't really stand out, which is an interesting approach to take to it rather than saying, oh look, there's that structure over there. It's really, in many ways, more subtle than that. So thank you for that. And then there's a sidewalk that connects because there is no sidewalk on that side of the common. And so the sidewalk just basically takes people out to the road is the idea so that when they were moving equipment in, they would have a hard surface to move it in and the main traffic to it could come from behind. I'm just trying to understand that little piece of it. Yeah, so when you roll all your little amps or whatever along there. Just to add the location here, there is a power. There's a utility box near here and also a curb cut. So we have talked with DPW and that power, that utility box would be incorporated into this structure. So there would be no need for that freestanding utility box that would be put into this. So we would work with DPW on that as well. And then that curb cut again would be the access in to that. Mr. Sander. Several questions in the drawing that looks like this. There's a series of circular things. I don't know else to call them because that's the problem I'm having is what are they? I think those are trees. Trees and shrubs and that's not set in stone. One of the things we've gone back and forth on and this may come through if we get to design a review and some of the boards is, is it open in the back? So you can see through it or is there some kind of vegetation backdrop? That's just sort of a thought for some trees and shrubs but that's something that we're still sort of fine tuning. But that's come up here. Would it be nice to have Nazi through it or would it be nice for people at the Lord, Jeff and whatnot to see into it? I think that was a proposal for trees but that's not set in stone. So the second question that I have, thank you, is what was the reason for the amount of distance between Bultwood Avenue and the bandstand? It's not, could have been put right on very, are very close to Bultwood but it's really being pushed into the common some. I'm sorry, we were trying to get past the tree line out into the common from the tree line. If it's back against the road, you wouldn't see it from the existing tree row? Unless you had moved, if you moved it a little bit further north given the existing tree line, there'd be some ability to press it in a little bit closer without affecting its utility for its intended purpose. What are the pros and cons of getting it closer and taking up less space into the common versus getting that historic location? I think what Sarah mentioned is that it's in line with the trees and we felt that was the right spot that gave us enough room between the curb line and the backside to do whatever grading is necessary for accessibility. And we felt it would have more of a presence in the common if it was pushed back too much further. I think it would start to feel separated from the common and it would start to fall behind that line of trees. I would say that one approach here and it's often helpful when you're looking at something like this is to, at some point put stakes in the ground out there and have everybody take a look and say, hey, let's move it three feet to the north. And it's flexible at this point, relatively speaking. It doesn't have to be in that exact location, but there was a reason for why we showed it. I'm thinking of some of the common events that occur on the common, the Rotary Town Fair, the Taste of Amherst, the Big Brothers, Big Sisters Art Fair. Have you given thought to whether the location impinges upon their use or enhances their use for those events? We have talked to those organizations and I think the common idea is that it enhances. And yes, it's a change in some of their, as Mr. Key and previous circulation patterns, but it actually opens up the length of the common for your activity a little bit better. The taste where they put their stage sort of blocks that event from the rest of downtown, you can't actually see what's happening. And this way it sort of opens it up lengthwise. So our feeling is that, yes, it will be a change and they'll have to work around it. If you notice, one of the pieces in the package, the 1991 package is a drawing, the Rotary Club, I believe in 1991, proposed Bansett in this general vicinity as well. So our feeling is that it would actually really improve some of these events, but it'll have to be worked around in the first year or so. Okay, I guess I have just two more in there because they're all fairly quick. It's fairly close, you know, so it's along the tree line, but it looks fairly close to the tree as it's drawn, one tree is as drawn. And have you or do you intend to talk to the tree ward in an appropriate point in time for input about that? Yes, yes we will. And we have talked down, I believe we're already proposing to put in other trees. So we'll be working with them on where, what the trees are doing. I think you're also seeing some shadows from the way the aerial photography was taken. So it's not quite as close to that tree as it might appear. Yeah, no, I'm sort of gathering that, but I don't know how close and the interference of the construction with trees and like we have Mr. Snow for a purpose and so that's why I said. And so the last thing I just as general comment and I'm not gonna try and render my own opinion on it. You know, this whole thing about having a very modern look versus having an historic look is something that will have some discussion in town. People who have been unhappy with some of the new construction that they feel is not maintained aside from size, just in physical appearance, the historic appearance of our town, our common is the one place that really has probably the most historic tradition to it. And I'll be very curious to hear how the design review board deals with that issue and what kinds of comments come before them. Mr. Wall. Yeah, those are just one tiny question. I guess my recollection or assumption from some of the conversations was also that by pulling it forward and putting a sidewalk, you'd allow people who are performing to access the site effectively. Otherwise, they'd be walking off the curb onto there and there's, you know, they're not gonna walk in the front of the stage when things are going on. Is that more or less correct? Yes, it gives us a lot more flexibility for that for different types of events to happen. Like you could do theater or music or- Right, and the way Mr. Kuhn has designed it. If you look in the front, there's also possibilities to add additional staging to create like a bigger sort of theater stage. So I'll let him speak to it, but- No, you cover it. Would you have another one? Oh, yeah, I mean, just, you know, in general, I guess we don't wanna get too far into the weeds here because, you know, everyone in Emerson likes to be a designer and architect and environmental engineer and a planner and we're not trying to second guess you here. I think we're just supposed to give you conceptual approval for the siting as you go forward with the process. As far as the questions about the modernity of the design, I was happy to see a modern design chosen myself because I know there are several that were a little more historicizing, but, you know, we don't want Disneyland and I think in, you know, one of the points of this, Ms. Krueger and I were laughing because we've seen this thing before, you know, one of the first things I learned when I joined the Historical Commission is that comma's not a park. It was used for all sorts of things and it's in some sense a victim or a product of different mentalities. So it was this thing that was used for malicious and typhoid filled ponds and hay scales and auctions and everything else and then it became more park-like in the late 19th century when Austin Dickinson and company tried to spruce it up and make it and gentrify it. But I mean, that itself is a historical intervention, but it's been changed heavily over the years so there's no reason it shouldn't change anymore. You know, my experience on the design review board too is that the design review, as Ms. Laker knows and Mr. Kuhn knows well is that they're not looking for things that match historically in the sense of similarity. They're looking for things that fit in terms of messing or spirit or materials and so forth. And so I wouldn't imagine that a modern designer such would have any problem for them and those who actually understand these things. Let's go. So I'm gonna make a couple comments on the site plan and the design and I guess I'll exercise my privileges as a planner and amateur artist. I'm gonna start with what I like and I like where it's located. I like the site plan. I know it's gonna change a little bit but I thought with the circular sidewalk and I really like it moving to this location which yeah, it's the historic location but probably for a reason because it probably works well there. So that's good. I like taking the utility box and moving it into the building so whoever's using this or using the nearby utilities and the electricity will be incorporated into this and gets rid of one of the boxes. I really like that it's open and I think that's important. I think it's visually important to see through it but I also think we don't wanna create a closed structure where people are gonna end up sleeping there overnight. I'm not gonna go into more detail but I think it has to have a transparency to it. So I like that it's open. I very much like that it's contemporary. So what I don't like, I would like it to be contemporary. I care very much about how the lighting works and then it'd be easy to maintain over time because we do a bad job with that. So it's to be really simple, easy to get to. This particular design, it doesn't do it for me in what I don't like or those squared columns. There's a heaviness, it's sort of like a brutalism. So in that way, not because it's contemporary but I don't have that lifting feeling or lightness that I would like to see go with the transparency and the openness. I'm not sure about the roof. I get the acoustic slant and I know nothing about acoustic design but it has a little bit of a flying none kind of look to me and I think going with some of the basic concepts but maybe reworking it so it has more of a lightness but clearly as Mr. Kuhn said, it has to be durable, has to withstand weather, maybe less graffiti inviting than those little flats. So there are probably different materials and different ways to work with that. So I also am gonna be curious about design review board because they might have some comments. One question about the standing seam metal roof, am I right that that's the material? That can be really loud and obviously if it's pouring rain, you're not gonna have a performance but you're gonna have something all of a sudden banging. I've lived in houses with standing seam roofs. I don't know if that works with what's around it in terms of reflecting some of the other materials and it has its own kind of a look, a feel, kind of industrial look to it and it's loud. So that's just my own personal reactions I'm just telling you but I think there's a lot of things going forward and concept and I'm sure other people are gonna take their shots at it and it'll get massaged. So we look forward to it coming back again. So, go ahead. I could just respond to a couple of those things. Your comments about the vertical posts there are, at one point that was a solid pier and we felt that was too massive and so what you see here is sort of an attempt to sort of lighten that up by, it's almost like a table with four legs now. You know, we looked at maybe doing it with steel or something like that. The concern there was that it might look a little top heavy, that that roof might start to look like it was just too big to be held up even by fairly large steel beams but it is something that we could consider. The roof itself, the sides and the sort of that border that you see on the bottom of the ceiling is also metal. So the idea was that the metal would wrap around onto the roof so if the roof was a different material it might start to get too many materials I'm afraid. Anyway, that was the thinking behind it. First reactions. So it's my turn I guess. So a couple of questions. So one is I was noticing that you indicated a little bit of electrical in those columns. And I was just wondering if you consulted with the DPW about how much would be necessary because if that, and it may be that what is being sort of sketched here as the initial sort of location of those is comparable to what already exists on the common or whether or not we should have something more substantial. In other words, if there are non-bandstand uses but needs for power can it accommodate that? So I'm sort of curious and wanting you to sort of check with the DPW about those kinds of things that they've experienced over time. The second thing would be there's a soon to be started process for the north section of the common and sort of as it goes through its design phases, you know, I presume there's going to be some interaction with regard to that and how its change will impact potentially some choices relative to this structure. And I think the third thing I've mentioned is that I am a little concerned it is essentially an upside down airplane wing. And so it will have at times essentially downward lift instead of upward lift, because it's the upside it's, so it will not be sort of, it's not a thing where it would rip itself apart, but it's more likely to create downward pressure on the design of that. So I just, you know, I assume it'll get engineered appropriately, but nonetheless it looks as though it will catch some air and push down upon those columns. You know, speaking of the columns, I was thinking in terms of, you know, again there's a bit of red brick in that part of town. So perhaps red brick instead of the beige would be sort of matching in some respects without being too much so. That's just a particular comment, but to that point that what's immediately behind it is Lord Jeff free emers in, have you talked to emers college or Lord Jeff about their thoughts and their concerns at all and what you heard from them around that point. Sure, electrically yes we will consult with the appropriate people to make sure that we have probably some kind of sub panel there that would be appropriate for the lighting that would be integral to this, to the band shell, but also any power needed for band equipment and that type of thing. The upside down airplane, yes. We have consulted with a structural engineer and the interior of those brick piers is solid concrete. I mean this, and it's tied into the base is also a big concrete base. So you're right that the wind is really the thing that we have to be most concerned with here. And this should be red brick. It's just not reading very well. We tried white brick actually at one point, but that seemed like it was trying too hard to be the backdrop or tied into the Lord Jeff. So I think the appropriate brick color would be more of the brick that you see at emers college. And speaking of emers college we did, we have spoken with them not on a formal basis but through members of the facilities and they love the idea and Lord Jeff as well. They really like the concept. So we have tried, and the utilities I have spoken with Guilford about, as I said, moving them into the box and we agreed that as we got further down the road we would talk about the needs. And regarding North Common, we plan to be as involved as possible in that process. And at this point it's our understanding that things happening at North Common would be more plaza-like and gathering but on a small scale, on a much more intimate scale. And so our feeling is that it won't necessarily, that these will enhance each other and be part of one sort of overall scheme for the Common. So we look forward to seeing how that project moves forward but certainly we don't see these as, we see it as more complimentary. So going around again, because not only do we love to design things ourselves here, but we are gonna get a lot of flack for putting anything on the Common. I mean, that's just gonna happen. Some people are gonna love it. Some people are gonna think, oh, how dare you? And so we'd like to talk through a little bit before it actually happens. And to just add a couple of points to things everybody else has said, it would be important, I think, for the town manager to communicate that in the meantime we can't plant any trees there because trees have gone up other places that surprised me because that's not my job. I'm not the tree warden, but let's not fill that spot until we find this out for sure if that's actually gonna happen. In terms of where it is, we've been around in circles a little bit on this and it's not 100% clear from the one photo but looking at this lovely old drawing from the historic, I believe if it's where Olmsted was it's in front of what is now a dormitory was then a fraternity. It's not directly in front of the Lord Jeff. You can't necessarily tell that from the photo unless you're way better at interpreting photos than I am but you might wanna find a picture that's like your beautiful picture here that shows what's up here. So people can see what it's directly in front of that it's in front of the dorm which doesn't care and as opposed to that it's in front of some aspect of the Lord Jeff. So just as you're making your rounds talking to people I think that would be helpful to them. I did notice in the report also that I've noticed before that just in case people didn't think this was such a good idea. Back in 1903 they pointed out that open air concerts on summer evenings are a potent attraction. So hey, that was before the internet and we still do thanks to the bid have wonderful open air concerts. I think it would be nice to be able to tell people that whatever these columns are that they're going to be easy to clean of graffiti because we expect some, not because we hope not but we expect some. I also expect there'll be some climbing on this item and obviously you've taken that into account. And I wonder because of this weird circumstance of putting something on the common if it would make sense for the select board to have a brief letter that they can take around with them to these other bodies that say we didn't say this is the thing exactly this space right here rather than leaving them to have to characterize it at each of the places. I wonder if we could sit down in a couple of sentences that we know we're gonna be the ones at the end of the process. We've had beginning talks about it. We have not said yay or nay to these things. We brought a bunch of concerns which we sure are sure the other people are going to. Here's what I fear. So I fear that one people are going to make assumptions not these two people but other people are gonna make assumptions about what happened here tonight. And then nobody's gonna come to design review board and nobody's gonna come to ZBA and then it's gonna come back here and then it's gonna get approved and everybody's gonna say I have no idea what happened. So just to give it a little more visibility I wonder if it's worth just putting a few sentences out there that says this is where we are on the process and it's still got these other things to go through and we're not telling any of those other boards what to do. We're just saying we talked about a bunch of stuff. We could elaborate that or not but to say that it's not a done deal from our standpoint because we know that they might need to make adjustments before it comes back to us. I think that's called minutes. I mean the simplest thing rather than making new work the simplest thing is we put it in the minutes and have that recorded officially and of course we have the press here too and I assume the press report accurately and in great detail and it's exciting. You don't seriously believe other bodies read our minutes do you? No but we can, I mean we can take the copy of minutes and forward to people rather than drafting a special proclamation or something. Along those lines I maybe we could I mean we gave feedback from the minute to the large. Could we tonight would we be willing to say as a board we approve having a built bandstand on the town common and we generally approve the location or this part of the common being used and we might move forward or backward or over that we approve this general location. We approve the, I'm not approving voting but we are positive about having a built structure here and that we really look forward and encourage the other bodies who have specific roles to play in this approval to make suggestions and recommendations to us as this moves through all those other bodies that we welcome their input and feedback but to let them know we're not divided, we might be but we're not divided about whether this should happen or not. It's just the details, all kinds of hands went up. So in essence you are the client for this architectural design and so I think that having something in writing that says that as they go forward who is the client in this case and you're going to design review in all these different places. The bid is gonna be busy raising the money so they're a pivotal piece to this because they have to say yes also because otherwise why would they raise any money if they don't like it. So I think it's a partnership but I think going out there so that when they go to the various boards they say select board's gonna be okay with something. We don't know exactly if it's but we need to get your input as we move through the process. Well I was just gonna suggest that following my idea about using the minutes the motion might be appropriate then because that way it's official we're not writing a separate document as recorded there and then it's on the record so to the effect of what Ms. Curbier was proposing. But we might have an objection. Yeah I mean I guess that I'll just throw out the other side of it and that is that a lot of members of the public have not heard about this yet and I very much appreciative of the bid and what you've done to create this concept and to bring it to us and to bring it to the community and to offer to play the additional role you've played which is just invaluable. But for us to take that bold a step is to say we approve of a construction of this nature at that location and we generally like the design. Seems to me that it has robbed the public in general of an opportunity to provide us input and I'm uncomfortable with that. So the board could adopt a process that you wanted to have a public hearing or whatever you wanted to do if you chose to get more public input. There will be all these other public meetings when people will have input. But I think this is new terrain for us in some way. So how you wanna manage that I think it's an important conversation for you to have. Ms. Burke. Reflecting back to my why I wanna document not just the minutes is to try and soften that a little because for those very reasons and for what Mr. Steinberg said because I don't wanna have a hearing at this point. I don't wanna to him invited everyone to come talk about this because there are some technical things that are gonna happen other places that I can't control and the select board can't control. And so if design review board says this or that or the other thing then I wanna know that I appreciate that on the one hand you don't wanna go to them in the first place if you don't have a general consensus but I wanna know what they've said back before I asked the public. I'm not gonna bother the public with dragging them out to this if it's gonna turn out that some little tweaks are gonna be done that then we're arguing about nothing because that part's not actually getting and that's gonna get addressed a different way. So although it could be possible that it goes through exactly as you proposed things don't they have a little tweaks done to them. So I would potentially like to see a public specific come tell us what you think of this but I'd like to feel more solid on what this is before we did that rather than doing it now before they shop it out to those other groups that have different technical things they're concerned with. Trying to be helpful on this point. I'm wondering if we might whoever wants to work on this and Mr. Bachman come up with such a very simple statement document and not decide tonight to take that up at maybe the meeting of the fourth or whatever where we can actually see that language I wouldn't wanna impede your progress as you go off to these other boards but we're in this void week of the holiday and whatever and I think our next meeting is the fourth. That with an article in the Gazette and whatever other kind of messaging it does alert the public that we're talking about it. We haven't said we've approved something we said that for this board we're not objecting but we're also wanting to hear from people especially on the other relevant boards and committees so we can postpone by two weeks so they kind of see, I think the craft that statement on the fly here might be a little awkward to see that statement and then we can see and some of us may not be comfortable going that far and some of us might but I'd like to suggest we go as far as at our next meeting reviewing a couple of sentences reflecting or discussion that can be, it's like your letter of reference that you take around as you go to the other boards or we send to the other boards about this issue. A willingness to entertain the idea of pursuing this a bit further than as opposed to a letter saying we absolutely hate the idea, we don't wanna, I don't think where any of us are at this point. I think we're just, we're curious about exploring it further so I'm certainly willing to work on something brief if that's, and then we can bring it back to have it, we'll wordsmith it, that's meeting the board. I was hoping the town manager would like to do that based on the minutes that he's writing for us. That would be really helpful and the other question I just wanted to ask you then in terms of practically speaking are you on anybody else's agenda in the very near future that we're gonna be slowing you down? We are not, we came to you first. It would be my understanding is technically it's design review and the historical commission is what we would be required to do. So we wanted to just stop here first and then move forward with. But you're not scheduled there. We are not scheduled, no, and with the holidays. If we're not handing you up, that's what we wanted to know. Okay, fantastic. So I think that resolved item number one of your three. So next, I think the next two are actually kind of related. What's that? But he means under D there's three. Yes, under the Business Improvement District there are three items and that's one of those three. So the next two have to do with Triangle Street roundabout and so if you would like to take us through that a little bit. Okay, so the grounds maintenance. We, the bid has as you probably wear a beautification component of what we do for downtown. And that includes Marcus and our little golf cart and flower plant plantings and our pots and baskets and tree lighting and whatnot. And with the new roundabout that's gone in we saw an opportunity to provide additional aesthetic touches, plant material touches to downtown. The mums that were put in there recently were the bid. We paid for and installed those. And that got us thinking about welcome signs that we, I know that's next on the agenda, but it got us thinking that perhaps it would be easiest for us to just sort of adopt the care and maintenance of that circle. So that's sort of what led to that. I would give the caveat just to be fully transparent. The bid actually has to renew in a year. So this would be for a year. So just to be fully transparent. So just for agenda circumstances, the first thing we're talking about is the adoption of the roundabout grounds maintenance by the bid. And then the second piece is an approval of wayfinding signs, but we'll talk about that in a moment. We do have a motion on our motion sheet. They're both labeled 4D-3. The first one of those threes should be a two actually, because that's the one that adopts the fourths in the adoption process for doing the grounds maintenance. So I could make that motion because I'd like to add the acronym right after business improvement district. So since I apparently, some people believe the only person who ever Googles things, I'm not. And so I'd like it to also say bid after business improvement district. Yeah, not a bid, that's not, no. So move to grant the town manager authority to enter into an agreement with the Amherst Business Improvement District in parentheses, BID, for maintenance of the Triangle Street roundabout grounds. Is there a second? Second. Is there further discussion? Yes, so just a question of Ms. LeCour having now heard the motion that was offered, would it be more comfortable for you as executive director of the bid to have a timeframe stated so that this covers only a period in which you're able to guarantee? I think what the town manager, and I have talked about with other things, including amendments to our current MOU, that it's, I forget the exact language, but it's good until such time as the bid does not exist or some language. It'd be coterminous. Like that, yes. So if per chance, we don't expect it, but if the bid does not continue to exist, then grounds maintenance would revert back to the town, but not a certain time. Okay, that's probably not necessary in the motion. So that answers the question. Thank you. And I appreciate very much the bid taking this on and it already looks much nicer because of the plant things you did and so recognize that. Yes, thank you. Any, yes? Well, I just wanted to add that the planting work that the bid has been doing across from the, over by the Amity Street parking lot, the planters throughout the town, the hanging ones, the sidewalk ones, and now this have really, really added to the positive appearance of downtown. So I have a lot of confidence in the bid in being able to keep this up and keeping it looking spiffy and keeping it watered and I'm glad you're taking it on because probably the best entity to do this for the town. Ms. Brewer. Along those lines, it was mentioned at agenda setting that we don't actually have a process for doing this. We have a couple of other places where people have adopted. We've gone down at the, sometimes referred to as the dog bone, the double roundabout down by Atkins. We had an organization come in that volunteered to work on that. We have a little strip of land not on the property of the North Amherst Library but across the street from that that has had a mixed sort of effect in terms of how that's actually being maintained. And so I appreciate what you said about that we have every confidence that the bid is going to be able to do a great job with this and it also reminds us that we don't really have a process for doing this other times but it works out really well to have it be in a relationship we already have with the bid, so. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous. All right, so then next is the discussion about the approval of Triangle Street roundabout wayfinding sign locations. So you wanted to introduce that to us as well. Now that you've graciously agreed to let us have access to the circle, we've already have a proposal for you. We have been working with the town on the signage and wayfinding. John is on the bid board but he's also chair of our beautification and planning committee and has been the entire duration of the bid. So he's all very directly involved in all these pieces. We are proposing these Amherst downtown signs in as part of a landscape improvement to the circle within the roundabout. At this point these welcome signs are part of the theme, the system, the family. We've called it numerous things that the town and the working group got to with the most recent graphic designer, Seth Gregory. And so he's been working with us to refine this for this location. And then our proposal is this low stone retaining wall, or not retaining wall so much, but low stone wall and then the signs would be two signs both on the Triangle Street access to and from the university pretty much. One of the things we've learned through meeting with families at the university is their GPS, if they're coming from the east, shoot some straight up triangle and they don't know they were a quarter of a mile from downtown Amherst. So we'd like to catch them now as they're going round the roundabout. And so the proposal is for these two signs and this landscape work. So just to be clear, that's essentially sort of a bit of a V shape, sort of. If you were on East Pleasant you'd see essentially the back of a V or sort of more a lot of them. No, you'd only see the one, well from East Pleasant you'd actually probably not see them much at all. Right. So you'd see the back of them and they'd be almost in a sort of chivalron shape? Two separate, no, two separate signs. Separate, sort of almost back to back. Oh, okay. So if you were coming up East Pleasant at the Kendrick Place on your right, you'd just be seeing the sides of them. You wouldn't see much at all. If I could just add one more thought. About four years ago, I think, and not long after the bid was formed, we came up with the idea of adding welcome to downtown Amherst signs in four locations. This somewhere in the Kendrick Park area was one down by the south end of the Common on route nine was a second near the Perry House was a third and then one out. Down the Amherst media. Right. We had a design for that but we also knew that the town had been working on signage. What made more sense was for us to slow the process down and therefore work with the town, which both Sarah and I said on the committee that worked with Seth Gregory on the development of this. So we hope that there will be three more signs eventually but this was the first one and seeing that the roundabout was put in and kind of a new place, it seems like this was the best place to start. Eventually the whole sign program, I think will come to the town and it will be more than just welcome signs, there'll be kiosks around. I don't know if you've been part of that process, I think you have. Just to follow up on that, we are looking at that. That's something we would add to our capital improvement plan in terms of when we can fund it but we're getting quotes on that and moving that forward as well. And this would be the kind of first one of that family of signs, it's kind of exciting to get like prototype up and then of course then there will be a human cry to do the rest. I wanted to ask you on the sort of mock-up of the stone planter wall, is that gonna be dry-laid fieldstone or cement with some kind of veneer facing? In other words, is it gonna be real stone or is it gonna be some other facsimile? What are we looking at? Our plan is real stone and probably more like a dry-laid fieldstone. The theory was to have it look a little bit sort of old mill wall because this sign has a very industrial feel. So that sort of captures the essence of the town, old mill walls. So this mock-up might be a little more formal than what we might go for but that's the look we're going, the feel we're going for. Real stone material laid up by a wall builder. And we have not consented this out. Looking like, but something else. Okay, great. Yeah, I was waiting for you to say it was those four pieces of the circle that you go by at one of the big box stores. Boom, boom, boom. It's a kid, yeah. It's the Jersey Barrier Stone Wall. It'll be a little edgies. We already have granite curbing so it kind of matches with that too. I appreciate that in addition to making jokes, I did have an actual comment which was I appreciate that Mr. Moren from the DPW agreed that yes, he'd discussed this with everybody and we knew and we had that memo in our packet. That's really important because we sometimes aren't clear on that even though people tell us they've gone and talked to people it's good to have that in our packet. So that's great. The other thing I just hope can somehow be reflected in these magical minutes that Mr. Bachman always writes for us is that these are very specifically, I almost wanted to capitalize wayfinding. The wayfinding signs that we've all agreed to as opposed to some generic kind of wayfinding signs like the ones we could relocate from sitting outside the corner near the high horse. We're not doing that, okay? These are very specific kinds of signs that we all agreed to as opposed to some other crazy idea. They're part of the approved wayfinding system. Exactly. But they're the ones we've all agreed are the ones. We would look like this because we had the presentation or something like this. Wait, that color isn't exactly the pan-tones, Ron. So when I look at the drawings, the signs look rather large so I was wondering if you could tell us first of all, what is the actual size and height that you would propose? And second of all, what are the pros and cons that you see of placing it in the middle of the roundabout where it sort of interferes with the views of the flowers as opposed to putting it before the roundabout but visible to drivers as they come towards the roundabout like on the side of the road? I think our feeling was that they have more impact as for directional wayfinding in the roundabout and also they are a little bit more like public art as well. So it's enhancing the roundabout. The plan was the flowers are supposed to be sort of tangent to the sign and the wall. You're supposed to just sort of see them around the base of the sign and the wall. We did not really look at spots, besides way back when we were looking, as Mr. Kim mentioned on our welcome signs, but we really saw this as an opportunity to create sort of a landscaped visual area in that circle. The first part of the question. The size. Oh, the size, excuse me. There's six feet, approximately six feet wide, again as designed by the sign designer as part of the family and about just under three feet tall. And then we're still, you know, we would look at that height. I think the wall was about 18 to 20 inches and then the sign would come up above that. And we also, there's a tree proposed in the center. We're working with DBW. There was a tree. The tree will be removed because it's dead. And then, so we're, it was gone. So we're working with them on perhaps another tree, but that would be up higher and above. Well, I had one comment and that is that it might make sense to actually do a mockup of this sign, just even a piece of plywood that we could put up on a couple of two by fours out there to see scale. It's always helpful to do that. The drawings are helpful, but seeing it actually out there would probably be something we'd, I was doing. And again, we came to you first with this primarily because until a few minutes ago it was your, we didn't have jurisdiction on the, we, we still, again, like the previous project need to go to the various permitting bodies and whoever. So we have not, that's why these are not formal dimensional drawings. We were just trying to, you know, get an idea from you about the concept and where to go. Mr. Bachman, if you could confirm, I believe you've spoken to the DPW director, I'm superintendent regarding signage in, in the Rotary being actually preferred because it prevents people from advancing across in ways that aren't helpful for their negotiation of the roundabout. Correct. So there's no requirement to see through the roundabouts and actually there's some beneficial aspect that you don't see through that you just start looking to the left instead of worrying about traffic coming towards you. Mr. Wall. I mean, actually the mock-up idea is very good. I know we had a case when there was a sign going up for First Church in the Dickinson district and putting up an actual piece of physical material to help people to visualize what it'd be. Much better than say with, you know, cell towers and a balloon and a string, which looks nothing like what actually goes up in place. But also I just want to underscore, you know, Ms. Kruger and I were part of this process that was involved in the designing of the Wayfinding signs and some of us have been involved for years one way or another. But just with reference to the earlier idea that we have to have a plebiscite about everything that goes up in the public way, you know, this was a legitimate process. We did have a public hearing, the town is not voting on this, it's going up because the town established a newly appointed body. It studied, it brought in experts, it had a process. We voted on it. So, you know, this has legitimacy too. I'm sure people won't like these signs or like the location, but at some point we have to own our own authority. Ms. Brewer. I just want to clarify a little that although you, the bid is now, once you come up with the agreement with the town manager responsible for maintenance of the roundabout grounds, you don't actually own the ability to do something with the signage. So, if you decide next week, you don't like those signs anymore and you want to yank them out, you got to talk to the town manager about that. So, just that's why we broke it into separate motions to make it clear that they're separate processes associated with separate things. Even though you have been absolutely involved in every step of this set of wayfinding signs. I just thought of this, I'm sure you've talked about it, but is this sign going to be lit at night, you know, with the underneath projecting up? Because I could see some value to that. You know, it's dark at like from four o'clock until eight in the morning. And I know I have trouble, you know, when it's dark out, figuring out where I am and maybe this suggests some underneath lights or even solar powered lights. It's usually, those batteries usually fade out by midnight and so I have a small lit solar powered sign light. But looking at this, it's all very bright and easy to see. I like that it's big because you can see it from far away. Trying to imagine it with snow, there aren't going to be any flowers half the year. There's going to be nothing and then it's, most of this well is going to disappear under a big amount of snow. So I want something that you can see and I just wonder if you talked about lighting at all. We did. We have not planned on it at this time, but we've been going back and forth on it also in the way finding group, as we've talked about all the signs that there's been discussions of lighting. We were not planning to do that at this time, but that doesn't mean it can't happen later. I guess the other thing that follows on that is if they aren't lit, would the lighter colors be reflective? As, you know, headlights come onto them, would they be potentially a little reflective, be a little more visible at that point? I mean, if you're not going to light it. Yeah, we're working with DPW on that. But it might be easier to do it as one package that's all, to the adding it. Further comment? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion relative to this. I move to approve installation of two wayfinding signs in the Triangle Street, roundabout the location of which to be approved by the town manager. Is there a second? I don't know if there was. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate all your help with everything tonight. We'll take a quick recess, Mr. Slaughter. We have to set the computer. Yes, we will take a short recess while we get some technology in place. We're all back, so if we will reconvene ourselves. Next on our agenda is the regional school assessment method, an update, and this is in preparation of, we have a four towns meeting, I believe on the 2nd of December, where these assessment methods will be sort of front and center, I guess, as it were. So unless Mr. Bachman or Mr. Seiber has any introductory remarks, I'll... I don't know where it might be. For years. For ever. Ever. Well, I think that most of you know the context to this. And there is another meeting before, and that is a final meeting of the working group that has been the four town working group. And so feedback from boards and committees and the four communities is being sought in advance for that meeting, which is scheduled, I believe, for the 28th. I've reported on this previously. It has been a really tremendous process. And I think we really owe Mr. Rangano a big thank you for having sort of been the leader of that process in the way that he has put the meetings together, put the agendas together, and immediately put out the minutes and been in contact with all interested parties all throughout. It is a very difficult topic. And therefore, part of the plan from the very first meetings was to use a consultant. And so we're now getting to the end of the consultant process and getting feedback on that to see if we are at a point where we can come up with a methodology that will have some lasting, that will last as opposed to one that we have to redo every year, which is getting to be both time consuming, tiring, whatever. And so I think that's the basic introduction. Thank you. And I was remiss in mentioning this and I'm gonna put Ms. Brewer on the spot because she's actually as vice chair this month getting to chair the meeting because I am an employee of the schools and therefore I'm going to recuse myself from participating in this part of our meeting tonight. So Ms. Brewer will sort of be in charge of pointing fingers at who gets to talk next as it were. Okay. So. Ah! Thank you. So she's pointing at you. So I'm gonna do a condensed version of the presentation that the consultant made to the working group on November 7th. Quick overview. The working group has sort of narrowed it down to only statutory methods. So quick refresher, there's two types of assessment methods districts can use that's statutory, which means the assessment starts with a minimum contribution that is calculated by the state or alternative, which means you allocate it based on some other agreement that all four towns agree to. So right now we are only looking at statutory methods and there's a numbering system. It'll be S1 through S10. We've narrowed it down to three but S just stands for statutory. At one time we had 10 options but we've eliminated some in between. So essentially the first step that the consultant did most recently was to do a evaluation of the seven or eight methods that we had left at the time. He did that by using these criteria above which are predictability, volatility, recurring, timely, wealth, understandable, and I think independence is the one that's cut off. So we didn't wait, the consultant didn't wait any of these criteria. Basically we just did a one through 10 ranking of each one to see how they related to each other relatively. So this narrowed it down to three options. These are the charts that we looked at. It shows each criteria and how each method you can see. I think there's actually 10 up there, how they did. So the overall, based on this evaluation, was that S4, S1, and S10 are the final three assessment methods that he narrowed it down to. A quick overview of each S4 is our current statutory method. If you were gonna use statutory and use our current regional agreement to do with the statutory method, that's what S4 would be. S1, and a real quick overview of that, so S4 would be, you do the minimum contribution, everything above that is allocated by a five year rolling average of enrollment with a small percentage allocated by EQV and that small percentage is capital. S1 is the same as S4, except for you also break out transportation separately in S1, so you would break out a separate line in them for transportation and allocate that by transportation miles which would be a change from our current practice. And then S10 is a little different. You start with your minimum contribution, the whole excess above and beyond your minimum contribution is allocated based on a 50-50 composite of a five year rolling average of enrollment and median aggregate income. So one thing the group did early on was try to brainstorm new variables to potentially incorporate into the regional assessment method and median aggregate income was one of the variables that most members really liked. The reason being is that it sort of accounted for some really high income earners in a town skewing the income upwards, this sort of looks at the middle. So ultimately that got it down to three and then the consultant did a sort of a deeper financial analysis of these three to get to his recommendation. So this is just a quick overview of how each method allocates the assessment, how it scored on the criteria and then he picked the three up there. So the first analysis that the consultant looked at from the financial perspective was a look back. So he looked at FY14 through FY17, so a span covering four years. And he looked at if we were on the given an assessment method for those four years, what would the change have been for each town? So the takeaway that we had from this analysis is that under each of these three methods, the direction was the same, the scale was a little bit different, but essentially there wasn't a significant difference in these methods in terms of under this method, this town's assessment goes up and under this method it goes down. You can see for Amherst under all three methods went up anywhere between 9.8 and 10.6 between the three methods over the four years. Pellum went down between 24.2 and 29.5. Lever went down between 1.6 and 4.7 and Shootsbury went up between 15.8 and 18.5. So essentially the direction was the same looking back. Madam Chair. Yes, please. So could you explain why some would go up and some would go down, why when you look back what would be the things that were moving? So a few things. So when we're on the statutory method, about 60-ish percent of the assessment is calculated by the minimum contribution, which is influenced by a lot of factors like income and EQV. So if there was a major increase in EQV during that time span, that could increase your relative percentage or your relative assessment to the other three towns if they stayed relatively flat. And probably the biggest component of this is enrollment. So for example, Pellum, which you see going down under all these methods, the main reason is that the enrollment's dropped off at the secondary level and enrollment's probably the biggest factor in all three of these. Even under the statutory, the minimum contribution enrollment component. So those are probably the main ones. So the next thing we did is plot out all the methods, you know, on a line graph. I've grayed out all the ones, except for the three that were the finalists. So the green one is S4, which, this is just a chart of Amherst and this shows the assessment over from FY14 to FY20. FY14 through FY18 would be sort of actuals because we didn't have the actual data for that time span. FY19, FY20 would be based on assumptions. The red line is S1 and the dotted pink line, which is a little hard to see up there, is S10. So we have these for each of the four towns as representative of all four towns from the region. When I looked at this analysis, my perspective was what's in the middle for all four towns, because it seemed to me that would represent the best compromise as opposed to if something's on the top end for one town, it means it's probably on the bottom end for another town. So S10 you can see here is in the middle. So is S1 to some extent. This is Pelham, same thing, you can see S10 is in the middle and S1 is sort of in the middle, but near the bottom. Here for Leverett, S10 is in the middle and for Schutesbury, S10 is in the middle. So long story short, the recommendation was S10. We did one more financial analysis, which I'll show you, but based on this, it sort of represented the best compromise for all four towns. So this last analysis looks at the FY18 actual assessment and then plugs in the projected assessments under each method for 19 and 20. The blue section shows the dollar change and the green section shows the percentage change. So S1 is at the top, Amherst you can see would go up 3.23% in that first year, which is a little problematic because the guidance is usually 2.5, so it's over that. But also concerning is that Schutesbury would go up under this method and sort of what prompted a lot of this conversation is Schutesbury feeling like they're paying more relative to their wealth than they should be. And so this probably wouldn't pass Muster in Schutesbury. S4, which is the next one, is really problematic for Amherst. You can see it goes up 5.25% and about $814,000, so way over guidance. And again, this is the method that is in our current regional agreement and sort of what we've been saying historically has not worked well for the district. And then the last one is S10. In the first year for Amherst it goes up 2.49%, which is within guidance. The worst town hit here would be Pellum, which has a 3.36% increase. Lever goes up 0.35, and Schutesbury goes down 1.72%. And then if you go over one more year and look, Amherst goes up 2.41%, which is hopefully within guidance. We don't know yet. Pellum goes down 0.89%, Lever goes down 0.91, and Schutesbury goes up 2.52. So of the three methods, this one seemed to be the most viable just from this perspective and that all four towns could afford it. So, again, S10 was the recommendation based on sort of all those factors. It was not the number one ranked from the criteria, but it was in the top three. And I think some of the working group members appreciated that it wasn't the number one, that we didn't just use sort of the waiting system or not the waiting system, but the evaluation system to do it, but we looked at all the factors. General sense from the working group, I would say Pellum, Amherst, and Schutesbury all seemed to express some interest in pursuing S10 further. I think Leverett needed more time to look at it and go back to their boards and talk about it a little bit more prior to the meeting we had to do this. Leverett had, select board, I believe, had taken a vote to support S4. Again, that was prior to the recommendation, so they didn't have all the information at the time. So they did say at the last meeting that they would go back and talk about it more and come back to us on the 28th and see if they could support S10 as well. Any questions? I guess I should, if I may, put in some supplemental information. Just one is that it did start out because Leverett had taken that vote before they realized that they were jumping the gun by taking that vote. It focused some discussion on S4. And one of the things we need to recognize with S4 is that if you compare it for FY19, the amount that is projected there against the amount that is in the Finance Committee guidelines, which is based upon the presentation the town manager made at the four boards meeting, it is $450,000 more for the Amherst assessment. And I think that there's a general understanding amongst the communities that they appreciate that that is gonna present a real crisis for us that they don't wanna put us in, but then the only way to deal with S4 as a methodology is to substantially reduce the regional school budget, which then has an effect on trying to maintain the stability and quality of our regional schools. So that's one thing to know about S4. Another thing about S4 that I just wanted to point out is that this is the method that would have been the statutory method if there had been a failure to agree to a alternative method in any previous year. And one of the things that goes on with any statutory method is that there is some lack of predictability, I think was the term that we were using in this. And as a result, and I can explain a little bit of why that is, but the consequence was that over the past few years, we've sort of looked at it and said, well, it would be to shoots berries advantage if you're going to just measure it against what we've otherwise agreed to in these intervening years to have gone to the, what would be the straight statutory method without making any amendment. This year it's actually, it would change by 19 and Leverett would be the town that would be in that position, not shoots berry, but it sort of emphasizes the point that these things shift and that if you look historically back, Amherst would have had a lower assessment with the statutory method at one point than with the straight five year rolling average of an enrollment. This is not something that has been in any way a constant and there's therefore reason to believe that over time it will shift again no matter what it is that we do. And that is one of the hard aspects of that because it's not so much whether there'll be a shift with the size of the shift that we would need to be thinking about. And the, I think that some of the problem is that there are factors that get thrown into that calculation. One is what is known as EQV, which is essentially the property values, total property values, it's not quite that simple but that's basically what it is. And the other is the average income and because they are computed in the legislature and creating that formula to put wealth factors into and therefore what they saw as ability to pay into the formula but those are not factors that amongst four communities have a static. They tend to be shifting in relatively amongst the four communities, which is why this has been so historically complicated. And I think that my conclusion has been for the reasons that Mr. Rangano stated that S10 seems to work out the best for all four communities both looking backwards for a period of four years and looking ahead for a period of two years, which is as far as you can project. And no matter which method we end up with, there's no assurance of where it's gonna be five years from now or more. So I think that those were the additional comments I wanna add. I'm looking to see if other people have comments. Ms. Krueger in reviewing the materials over the weekend. I did look at the graphs, which were easier to see. It's hard to see it in the PowerPoint, which you acknowledged. And it did look pretty consistent that, like these are the little rabbits running in their race or whatever that S10 was kind of plop in the middle of the graph for each community, I mean. And so sometimes in order to get something to work it's not just the formula, there's a political calculus as well. And it seems like the group understands that and going for that middle line. And it seems like a case could be made to each of these communities, although in the short term it's gonna be more beneficial and more detrimental. The different communities try to adjust that factor of plus and minus as much as possible by trying to pick the best rabbit in the race. So I thought it was a thoughtful and hopefully successful attempt, because I totally get why I want something you don't have to redo every year. Got to be part of that committee like I think one year or maybe two. And that was enough for me and did my time. But it's important to all the communities that we get this to work. And it's not easy to figure out. And I appreciate you working on it. And Mr. Steinberg has put up with it for many, many years and dreams about it sometimes. I don't know what to dream about. But I'm hoping, hopefully having the consultant helped some of the log jam with some of this. I hope we get there this year really do. Thank you. I just think you made a good point and that I just want to clarify again is that S10 is not the best method for any town. Of all the methods we looked at, we looked at 10 methods. It's not even the second best. It's in the middle of all the methods we looked at. So I think that's important to note that it's not favoring one town over another. Serengan, I'm gonna ask you to back to the beginning. And that is when we're looking at the chart with the white, blue and green. So I think based on my years ago that I've repressed, associated with the assessment method, that I understand the differences between one, four and 10, but I'm not understanding the differences between what we're doing right now and one and four and 10. So what we're doing right now is... So, good question. What we're doing right now is an alternative method. Right. Okay, so without, you don't have to give me the whole explanation. What we're doing right now is not reflected here. Nope. Because we know that's not gonna happen. Right, that was a one year. And what we did two years ago was also gonna happen. Right. Because it was a one year method. So the thing that I think it's important to not bother showing that since on the one hand we know it's never gonna happen anyway, but it still is a little hard to compare three theoreticals versus, yeah. And so you're saying S4 is, as Mr. Steinberg pointed out, the thing that we would be stuck with if we could not come to an agreement that, say, for example, S10 is the way to go. That's in our current regional agreement. S1 or S10 would require an amendment to the regional agreement, which we've done in each of the last two years to do sort of those temporary one year methods. But S1 or S10, if we were gonna switch them permanently or, you know, semi-permanently, would require an amendment to the regional agreement. So, I'm sorry, I'm still confused. So S10, assuming everybody thinks S10 is swell, for all the reasons we've talked about, we would agree to that this year, but it would only be a one year thing unless we agreed. To permanently amend the regional agreement. Right, it would be all four towns agreed to amend the regional agreement. In the past, these past two years, we've said for FY17 only or for FY18 only when we've amended the regional agreement, we wouldn't do that. We would just change it to this new assessment method. And then going forward, you wouldn't need to do the four town vote every year. It would just be three out of four for the budget. But just to elaborate, it's not like we've only been doing this for two years. We've been doing this for years that we've been having to change it on a year by year basis. So while it's, you know, there are these sets of time in terms of the kinds of things we've been doing in those sets of years, we have for several years been having to do something different. And what we're trying to look for now is something I'm trying to understand, not only to get us through this next year, like we have been doing off and on for several years, not just two years, it's that we are also planning that if everyone agrees to this, we are also going to amend the regional agreement to reflect this so that we don't have to keep doing this over and over. Now we would use this for five to seven years would be our aspirations. Because it really doesn't matter, again, thinking back to my old way of looking at this, it really doesn't matter what the regional agreement says because the regional agreement is no longer something anyone's gonna agree on. And so, and we don't like statutory. And so therefore we have to come up with not only another one year solution, but also hopefully a permanent solution that will then be in the regional agreement and then we'll count. It would essentially be a new statutory from what our current statutory method, it would be a new statutory method. But why is it then, I'm confused because why is it then that we have had, in the years that we chose to do what our regional agreement said back before this became so contentious through this last series of times, before your time. When we agreed to do what the regional agreement said, we didn't have to keep voting that the regional agreement was different than the statutory method. Then we had to start saying, okay, we understand the thing we're doing isn't what our regional agreement is and it's not what the statutory method is. So I've lost track of how many different things we have to vote on. We've had to do a lot of unanimous votes. Prior to FY17, the unanimous vote was to use the method in your regional agreement to allocate your entire assessment. If you don't use the statutory method and you use your regional agreement for all of your assessment, you still need four towns to approve that every year. And then for 17 and 18, the four-town vote was to actually amend the regional agreement. So it was a little bit different of a four-town vote. So even if we changed the regional agreement, will we not in fact have to continue to vote every year to do what the regional agreement says we're gonna do? So this is like sort of the confusing piece of all this. Thank you. What we're proposing is going to a statutory method and so the, I ever do a great job using my hands to explain this, but I'll try. So the statutory method, all that means is that you start with a minimum contribution and that you use your regional agreement to allocate everything else above and beyond that. So of our total assessment that goes to the four towns, about 60% of that is calculated by the minimum contributions. And then everything else is by a regional agreement. So if we change the regional agreement to this other, to what's an S10, which would make the excess allocated by a 50-50 of aggregate median income and enrollment, then that would be on our regional agreement going forward and we would be on a statutory method because that would show us how to allocate the excess. Okay. It would mean that because our regional agreement right now is too simple to be considered a statutory method. No, so really the regional agreement doesn't have anything to do with the statutory. The only piece that the regional agreement does is it tells you how to allocate the excess if you're on the statutory method. So that's confusing, so let me say it again. Yeah, maybe Mr. Steinberg thinks it's funny to me. I still don't get why what we're going to do to change the regional agreement matters going forward. When the regional agreement was first passed, it was before there was the statute that is now the basis of these new calculations. And so at that point in history, which back into the early 1950s, when the five-year rolling average of enrollment was created, you would put that in your regional agreement and then the regional agreement would be how you would allocate your assessments. That worked up until the time of ED reform, which I think was when Weld was governor. 1993-ish. So, and at that point in time, the legal landscape changed. And what actually happened initially under ED reform is that we were required to use the regional or the statutory method. And so there wasn't any mystery about it. We were just required to do it, but it is as has been explained already that you had a portion that is the minimum contribution from each town and then the excess was whatever was in your regional agreement, but that was what it was. Then when the statute was changed to allow towns to do something different if they would unanimously by all members agree to it, we started getting into alternatives at various points in time. Actually, we went back to the five-year rolling average of enrollment, but we did it not instantly. There were a couple of years where we had interim steps so that we could ease the transition amongst the towns that then took us to using the five-year rolling average, which was done then as an alternative to the statutory method and had to be approved by all four towns until more recently, Schuetsbury said, hey, wait a minute, and let's think about this. And that's what has then created this process that seems like it's been going on forever, but if you could go, depends upon what you define as forever. So that is the sequence of what has occurred here. And does that make it better? Yeah, it does because that helps explain why having it in the regional agreement, which at one point was not really enough to make it be the thing that will happen. If we change the regional agreement now to a method like this, that will be enough. And the way we will do that is at annual town meeting. Yeah, so the working group will make a recommendation to the school committee and the school committee would have to vote that first and that the school committee votes it, then it would go to each town meeting. But we would plan that this would be annual town meeting, 2018. This spring. Thank you. Other questions, comments? I know this is so fascinating. Mr. Steinberg and I used to talk about it before. I know your eyes just glazed over. But any other comments from Mr. Bachmann? Okay, so we are understanding moving into the four towns meeting. What that Mr. Steinberg can say. Yep. Well, let me do a couple of things. One is that at one point in time, I had a proposal out there that we try and come up with a methodology that would get us to a point in that we agree amongst the four communities to an equal percentage increase each year to give predictability to all four communities and to the region itself because it would probably be based upon two and a half percent and it would give everybody something that they could really work with going forward for planning purposes. I think that the, you know, that's, I've brought that to the working group on several occasions and it was hard to conceptually get to it because you needed to know where you would start first. I've not really been pursuing that very strongly since then because the longer you do that, the farther away you get from your original base point and then eventually you're gonna get to needing to re-examine yet again. So the upside is you get a period of total predictability, the downside is that eventually you're gonna get to a point where we're back where we are now and I think that given how torturous it has been that's where we are. There is a motion on your revised motion sheet that gives the three different versions. The benefit of passing a motion such as this, tonight is that when we go to the November 28th meeting of the working group then I am able to report that I have come to the select board and the select board has passed this motion and I can make a clear statement. Otherwise I'm sort of in a difficult position as to what to do when it comes to the meeting on the 28th and we haven't taken a position that affects what gets reported to the four towns meeting. I also understand but don't know for sure that the finance committee intends to also vote on a motion but I don't, at least that was their intent when I talked to them last. The Amherst finance committee? Yes. I don't know. Do they have another meeting between now and the 28th? I don't know. I think there were a strong sentiment, but. Please go to the room. I'm allegedly calling on people. You're not in the room, I'm not in the room. I am ready to make a motion if for the reason stated but I have a sort of just a syntax question on E on our revised motion sheet it says moved that and all of other other motions say move to or move that move to recommend. So this one says moved comma. Yeah, we don't usually say the select board does something within our own motion because that's why we're the body moving it. So it's moved. I mean, I don't mind reading it as written but is it correct? I think it's just move to recommend. Okay. Or I moved to recommend method s 10 to the regional assessment method working group as the assessment method that will best meet the needs of the regional schools, the four towns that are members of the region and that is acceptable to Amherst. Further discussion. Does that sound like it reads okay Mr. Ringo? The purposes that you can take it to the group. Any further discussion? Then all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And is that four unit four yes and one absent so to speak. Okay. Thank you for explaining all of that. Thank you for bringing that to us Mr. Magano. Thank you Mr. Magano. We'll give Mr. Bachman a moment to deal with the technology. Great. I believe on our agenda, the next item which is perfect for art by law, it references annual town meeting article 281 and I know the meeting is long but I don't think it's that long. I think it's either 28 or 21 but not 281 because that's so. Article 28. 28. Yeah. Not sure which article it was. But I don't think 281 is correct. I can almost guarantee that so. But nonetheless, I'll look before we get to the motion if I can. Okay, that would be great. So Mr. Bachman wants to, well first he wants to shut down the computer. All right, down a little bit. On the right hand column, last thing. That one right there. There we go. Success. It logged you off. Click on the bottom right, actually. Just click and then it should give you an icon on the lower right. Just anywhere in the screen there. It has to X that box up. It may have to. That's all. Actually, control all. I'll do it at the board. That's all right. Super secret. Anyway, so would you like to introduce the percent for art by law special legislation update for us? Yes. So Town Council, or not Town Council. Legislative, the House Legislative Council had some comments and some questions for the board. We sent those along to Town Council. Town Council, which I sent to you and should be on your desk tonight had some comments. There were specifically two questions or three questions that were posed by House Council and the answers or recommended answers by Town Council are attached. And Town Council had no other agreed with all the other changes that were made by the House Reported Council. It is article 28, by the way. 28, okay. Let's take off the one. Okay. In our agenda, it says 281. It's felt like that. The town meeting's long, but it's not that long. This spring maybe, but it was just 28. So, I mean, I can go through each one if you'd like me to. So the first, so in the marked up version that came back from the House of Representatives lawyer, they had asked three specific questions. One is, does the town wanna borrow for the art for a longer period of time or confirm that the towns would be for the same period of time as the building and it's a policy question for you, but Town Council recommends that it be the same term as the borrowing for whatever, for what's already permitted. The second question was if the, when you borrow money, there's some interest that can be accrued and should that go into the account and typically that's what we do. So Town Council recommends that we continue with that policy now. And then it appears that the town is contemplating the money and the fund rolling over and the fund from year to year, is that correct? And that was the question is yes, that it is because what the bylaw allows is for us to put money into an account as opposed to putting it on a building if it's a secondary building or a building that is not available to the public. We still comply with the bylaw, but the money would be set aside for a different installation someplace else. So the question I have is just given the, in the marked up version of the act, the legislature would act on, it includes those three changes as written or does it need additional wording to, like the borrowing I'm not seeing as being specifically identified as to match the time limit, but maybe that's implied. So I was just curious if those suggested, if those questions that they posed need to be incorporated into the text of this or where they are heading because the borrowing doesn't look to be the others do. Yeah, the way it was written was that these were, when you do red line copy, there were quite their questions on the side and that's what those were the questions that were posed on the markup copy. Here we go. Mr. Sloan, just to clarify. So this is what the actual information, the percent for our bylaw was super long, but this was the part for the special that we actually spent for the special legislation based on what town council said. You passed this article, therefore this is what you are sending in for special legislation. It's just this little tiny section right here. And that's what we sent in because town council told us to. And then house council said, oh, let's make it way longer and put all these blue words in, in addition to asking these questions, but all these blue words are now also part of the special legislation. Am I understanding this correctly? So it went from huge to small to medium size. Okay. Goldilocks version. All right. Ms. Krueger. So two things, one's a question and one's a comment. So if we were to alter the language, can we do that or does that mean going back to town meeting and a kind of housekeeping? If we, not just interpretation, but if we decided we need to change the language, would we go back? So it's a question and then I'd comment. That was a question that town council addressed in the section two that the town meeting approved that says the general court may make clerical or editorial changes of form only to this bill unless the select board approves amendments to the bill before enactment by the general court. So whichever way you look at it, if you approve these changes, they're either editorial by the house council or they're approved by you. You're the only one to approve changes. Absolutely. And then my other one is more totally not related to that but the option that we would have to decide about the interest and you explain that it's been our practice to let the interest stay with the fund. So if we, you know, in one of the enterprise funds and there's, so I can't remember does the percent for art provide any administrative fee back to the town for managing it or other, you know, incidentals that go with this? I don't believe it does. So I am tempted to say in this case that the interest goes back to the general fund for managing this fund. It may be different than what we've done before but I, you know, I don't know how other people feel but I think I'm thinking of doing that. Mr. Wall, I have to go back to the text. You mean there, I mean there was provision for maintaining the art. That's not what you're talking about. I think that administrative fee for, you know, the auditing, the bookkeeping, the answering these kind of questions going, running to town council and we need to, all the things that we provide for free. I had a discussion about the details. Mr. Steinberg's looking at it. Maybe Mr. Wall's looking at it at the same time. We'll wait. Exactly. The other ones, I could go with council recommendation but that one, I think it's worth talking about a little bit. Because we don't have anything, I'm sorry. Go ahead. We don't have anything else that's like this. I mean we could say there's similarities to other things but it's not the same as CPA and it's not the same. Sort of fund. An enterprise fund. Enterprise fund's weird. Enterprise fund's definitely a different thing. CPA money, if it earns interest, it stays there but that's a whole different statute that's a different thing and they can spend money on administrative work even though they often have not in the past. Other than it being the more common approach as town council mentions, do you have feelings about this? We have language for either way. I don't think it's gonna be that much money to begin with because anything, any large project will go into the billing itself. So. All right. I want to think that the question this begs though is the fact that if you have a particular, so one of the components of the art fund is to maintain the art over time and if we don't maintain a certain balance through whatever mechanism we want, we could appropriate money to it, quite frankly. If we don't, we could essentially buy a bunch of art and never fund the maintenance, which is problematic and so one argument could be that at least occurring the interest for that, those time periods when we haven't exhausted the fund helps to maintain the art as well but at the same time I fully appreciate there's some administrative work that goes on that's associated with this, that this is a way to recoup a bit of that. So. I think I remember that we said we would get into the sort of more fine-grained protocol for managing this, that supplements the more big picture special act and the article and it could be then in that more fine-grained you say if you have 100,000 then you only spend 75,000 on the piece itself because you have to dedicate X amount for the maintenance and we're just not there. We said we'd get to that, we don't have that yet. Right. Did you find something? Tell us something. I don't know, go ahead Eddie. No, on the definitive question of whether there was a bill provided for a management fee. I don't see anything to give us instruction on that. The, is a provision that says of course that anybody's appropriated to the public art fund for a particular municipal art project which have not been spent within three years of the appropriation or which or upon special approval by the select board within five years should then become available for the purpose of the general public art needs of the town as recommended by the public art commission. So that would come out of the general fund? This sets up a special fund for this money to live in. Right now we don't have a place to put this money other than the general fund. Right. So this would allow there to be funds for that. That's where the public art fund is called. And I think, and I guess the other thing to note is that it says when it gets to the very specific thing that we're in there and to authorize the general court to make clerical or editorial changes of form only to the bill unless select board approves amendments to the bill before enactment by the general court and authorize the select board to approve amendments which shall be within the scope of the general public objective of the petition. That's just state law, but I mean, the, yeah. I'm looking at it, I mean, it's ambiguous I suppose, but if you look at one Roman one point of five, it talks about the public art commissioning establishing budgets for all something, something, something operating in maintenance and offenses in other recently contemplated items of expense in the acquisition, development, creation, implementation and radical ongoing maintenance of such projects doesn't have my separate fund that again refers to maintenance. And then Roman number two, this is maybe, I don't know if it's relevant, town staff shall provide administrative and technical support through various departments including but limited to finance, public works and planning. So those are the two things I'm seeing that are closest to but not talking about a separate fund as such. Was the town meeting article that did authorize creation of a special fund? I mean, it's a separate maintenance. Yes. Yeah, there isn't a separate. So the question is really, do you want the interest to accrue to the fund or not? And we have language for either way, it's really a judgment call for the select board. If we decided in what we're doing tonight or soon that the interest would go in the general fund, could there be a time in the future when you could appropriate from the general fund to the art fund? So you could change, would that require town meeting to make that change? Like, you know, we've been tracking this and we have $15,000 in interest over the last X number of years and decided we wanted to allocate it back to the arts commission. So in a way it's reversible but it's a town meeting vote. Correct, you have to require town meeting action. Okay, so I guess for me, I would like to recognize the amount of cost, ongoing cost to the town and sort of my fiduciary role here to say that I would like the interest to go into the general fund. Matt's not a motion, I'm just saying that. We'd need to make sure I would read the right part of the language for the motion. How would you recommend doing that? Please substitute the following language. So we just say, this isn't exactly as amended. Well why don't we talk about how other people feel so that we can decide if we're gonna have to struggle with rewriting them, because I might be the only one. Mr. Wall, I mean it would be useful to think about sort of the other direction that we produce, but we talk about maintenance, right? It's about the interest when, yeah. Right, and the proposal would be to use that for maintenance. You could use it for whatever. No, we don't want to make any assumptions. It's not tied to maintenance, it's administrative. Yeah, I mean, sorry, I meant administrative, not maintenance. Yeah, so I think the concept would be that since it went to the general fund, it could support the other infrastructure that the town is providing the treasure collector's time, whatever, and be available for appropriation by telling to any account, not just as opposed to going strictly to public arts fund. Is there kind of a, I mean, because it's mentioned by town council that the practice is normally to keep these things together. Typically, yeah. Is there other cases where we don't do that, or rationales for not doing it? Well, I talked to the treasure collector, and she said, generally, it just sort of flows this way. You can put the money in account, the amount, the funds stay with the account. But again, it's discretionary. You can make a decision not to do that. It would be accounted for differently then. Because I mean, if putting it in the general fund is intended to make up for the costs that accrue to the town by supporting these things well, then by supporting them directly, you're covering them too, so I don't know if that's a major difference. So again, I mean, we're talking about not real money yet at this point, and so that makes it all kind of awkward. But knowing that town meeting can take money from the general fund and could say, like they can for anything, and could say this represents the money, the interest that's accrued. It isn't needed over here anymore. We could put it into that art fund, and we town meeting believe that's the critically important thing to do. I guess I like the sort of hands-on nature of that, of town meeting saying, yes, we're making a concrete decision to do that, rather than just the percent for art money kind of just being over here, and it not supporting any of the infrastructure needs that are needed to make it actually work. And well, that's just all their money. It's like, well, lots of things go to the general fund as we talked about with trees and all other kinds of things. The money generally goes to the general fund. So although it's true that for a special thing like this, it often stays together, the vast majority of things that we get for fines, that we do for trees, whatever, all goes to the general fund, and then we parse it out. And sometimes the budget book we'll talk about, well, because this money was collected for these purposes, I tend to think of it as belonging over here, but that's fungible so that you can make rational decisions. I mean, it might be $15 for a little while, in which case it's not really paying for anything, but if town meeting wants to make the statement that it needs to be in the art fund, then they can choose to do that. At this point, there isn't any money there to do that with, and it may be that they decide in the future, no, it makes sense to justify it's actually taking this much time for these people to do this stuff, which is just why we charge money to the CDBG block grant we're allowed to, because it costs money to run that process. So I think I feel comfortable with that because town meeting can always decide to move the money if they choose to. To Walter, Mr. Steinberg, anything else? I was just exploring the possibilities, because I want to get a sense of what practice is, and I'm not sure it's quite analogous, but I understand why you make the analogy, and certainly town meeting has been fairly free in appropriating money, it thinks for what it thinks is the word of the purpose. I don't think they would deny public art funding that was needed to cover those costs if it came up at some point in the future. So I'm looking at the, I guess it would be blue line version of what they sent us, and I still have a bit of an open question about their first question regarding the line that's in there is for the cost for public art projects funded by the public art fund shall be eligible for borrowing, they ask the question whether it's in there just to confirm that it's eligible? That's, they put in assuming. That's our sentence, we gave them that sentence. So that's why that one's not blue, that's one of the few black ones. Right. So then the second, but the question that the question that the KP law wrote back about was providing longer term for borrowing. So that's one of the things that, yeah, actually that's in their question is, in providing longer term for borrowing or is the town simply confirming that these will be eligible for borrowing. So I think that's the piece that's not explicit in the language that they've got, that we originally proposed was whether it was or was not for the same term. And that's what we may need to add to emotion is to make that explicitly the same time. I think you wanna answer all three questions in your motion. I think you're right on that. Right, and then we could exclude the interest accrued. So the next sentence in that paragraph is any interest accrued shall be credited to and become part of the fund. We could exclude that. Well, it says to substitute. Interest earned on the fund shall be treated as general fund revenue of the town. Right. That's a substitute language for that. So I think it's going to be an interesting motion. What's on our motion sheet? She doesn't like that at all. Which gets to the question that I have. What is the procedural reason with the legislature, which is now in a series where they're not in formal session anymore, of feeling that we need to rush this to the point of doing it tonight as opposed to allowing some time to craft the right motion for our next, the first meeting in December. That's easy to do. Right, so I think that my inclination would be not to try and craft the motion tonight because this is far too important and far too complex. The second thing I'll share with all of you is that if it goes to the, if the money goes to the general fund with the thought that then money could be appropriated by town meeting to the art fund, does it create a precedent of then making appropriations which could become subject to either other requests or requests to increase the amount since money from the general fund, once it's in the general fund, you're sort of creating a precedent in the process that's gonna do something that make, get some unwanted consequences. So in my vision, that wouldn't really happen all the time. I'm just saying that is a possibility, but I'm more kind of creating a precedent that where there's separate funds to be administered for special purposes, there's an administrative cost and this is an opportunity to offset that to a very small degree. If at some point down the road, for whatever reason out of, there's still an opportunity to appropriate back, could be out of tax money, whatever. So I'm just, I just wanted to be clear that there was a mechanism. I'm not suggesting that every year you're gonna take the interest and appropriate it back. I'm more concerned that I think the town's administrative cost should be offset. It's gonna be a very small amount of money, I realize. Hopefully it's a small amount of work for the staff, but don't know about that. The hour, already hours in, lost. So I wonder if we could, well, a couple of things. One is, if we don't have yet consensus that the money, the interest should go, the interest, the little teeny interest should go in the general fund, then we're gonna need two versions of this. But it looks like the other two issues we will address the same way. So rather than tossing this all together, it appears that what we need is a new sheet that says, here are the exact words you are approving and then our motion will not say, based on an email of 11 or 7 a.m. Because that doesn't work just because of the length and the complexity of this. It was a good way to reference it, but for right now, to reference a new thing that you create that town council perhaps has looked at again that said, these are the words I'm gonna give them. And this set or this set, when it comes to the interest, going to the general fund, and these are our two choices. So the way I'm reading the board is that it's yes to questions one and three and then give you options for question two. Yes, we could think about it and debate it. When does the legislature go back in session or will they not go back in session till after the new year? If they're informal session, sometimes these things just flow through on during informal sessions as long as no one objects. So this is a home rule petition. I'm not sure, and it depends on the clout that your representative has usually. Right, I just didn't know whether or not. I mean, I know we're not in a tremendous amount of pressure to do this, but at the same time, we don't wanna let it languish too long either and or also get into a place where it will be six more months before they can even take it out. But I'm not as familiar with the legislative process, so. I mean, it sounds like, I mean, it's not my workload, but it sounds like it's gonna be pretty straightforward for you to throw this together. It's just substituting your words. Yeah, you'll have it on your December 4th agenda, sure. And then the other thing I'd like is the actual motion, no matter how it references, go look at that document dated such and such, that it also includes the annual town meeting article. So like maybe where it says, AKA a percent for art bylaw, annual town meeting for 26, 17. Again, just we connected the dots on the agenda, but we didn't do it in the motion itself. And I think that's important. And I think out of despite what frustration it may cause us, I think that we should copy the petitioners on the fact that we're planning to do this. Yes. This is section of the art commissioners and petitioners. Right. The art commission itself. So, yes. Well, they are the petitioners. Mr. Brody and Mr. Tabarge, Renee, they were aware of this. But just to let them know, to look at the language on the 4th. Understood. Not that we're expecting them to come, but that they should know what it is. Right. Thank you. That was complicated. Right. Well, and I was, I wasn't sure whether or not we'd be able to get through that or not with, given the subtlety of, yeah, you know, on real petitions and whatnot. So next, I'm almost thinking we should skip the degree for a moment and do, we have an easement. Yes. And a consent calendar, which will take probably about two minutes total. And then if you come back to that. So if, if, if you guys, if the board would feel obliged to that, we could take up those two topics, I think fairly quickly, and then we can have a more expansive thing and not be sort of trying to remember to pack that in at the end. So I would be inclined to look at the easement to Verizon, some Porty Belcher down road. So if Mr. Bachman, you want to frame this in any way. So this is for the cell tower on the landfill. And you had previously given an easement or the town meeting had voted and you executed an easement to Eversource. And this allows, this is a compatible document for Verizon that didn't get picked up. It should have done at the same time, but it didn't, we didn't. So I move pursuant to the vote taken under article 31 of the April 28th annual town meeting as can April 28th or April, yes. Good year. She meant, wait, because that's, our town meeting was April 26th this past year. It wasn't this past year, which is why I was wondering if we wanted to put the year in. A year would be useful, yes. A year would be useful. Oh, details, details. 2016? 2017, she says, but. That's not right. That's not right. And one of the dates is wrong. Yeah. Because I thought we started on the 26th. Yeah. This goes back a bit because we originally authorized the manager, previous to you being hired and to go into a long-term agreement. So can someone look at annual town meeting 2016? We think it's 2016. Article 31. See if it's article 31. Why don't you do the consent calendar motion? Well, we're raised. And I'll try and do that, right? So let's do that. It seems so simple a moment ago, right? All right. So first off on the two things. 2014. Oh, okay. That's what I was gonna say. I was thinking a little bit. Well, that explains a lot. So I move pursuant to the vote taken under article 31 of the April 28th, 2014 annual town meeting has continued to grant to Verizon New England, incorporated an electric and communications easement in on and under a 15-foot wide portion of the town-known property located at 740 Belcher Town Road for the purpose of serving the telecommunications tower and related equipment installed on a portion of the property by Verizon New England, incorporated pursuant to a lease agreement with the town. Zero second. Second. Is there further discussion? Where did you find that? Because I'm not understanding why it wasn't in this, because it says right on the front. As a certified copy of which is attached. So it must be here. Not in this one. Yeah, not in this one. It's probably something I have. You have the special copy. Because yes, we do often see that with Ms. Burge's signature at the bottom. So now we know for sure. That's what it is. That's why we're so confused. Okay. When something says it's attached and it isn't, it's not? Yeah, I don't think it got attached to this version yet. Unless it's in the back. Nope, it's not. So yes, our version did not. Okay. Any further discussion? I think there'd be many for cleaning that up. Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, that's unanimous. And now the consent calendar. We can move to approve the items listed on the consent calendar for the November 20, 2017 agenda as presented. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Is everyone aware that we added a select part via the consent calendar? Oh, did we? Oh. Three. Surprise. Three. That's actually worth, that's worth mentioning. As the agenda for consent, and it's not on the agenda, so did we really add it or not? A select board meeting is not something we have to carry on our agenda. No, I know, but we didn't really add it because it says consent calendar on the agenda, and it's not part of the agenda's consent calendar, so even though it's on the motion, it doesn't really add it. You can take that topic up later. Why don't we just take it out? We'll take that topic up later, since it's not on the agenda. I think that's a good point, because it never got added. Yeah, it never really did. So I will delete three. I propose to change my motion if the seconder agrees to delete three and present it and to make it as amended. All right, with the seconder, it is. Further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous. All right, we'll come back to the topic of December 11th later, I think. But at this point, I think what we will do is ask Mr. Bachmann, although it has my name attached to it. Yeah. Talking about post-town meeting, debrief. Sure, so I'll give you a more formal memo next time. Generally what happened based on town meeting, we have four general bylaws, five general bylaws that were passed, and two zoning bylaws that were passed. The town clerk puts those actions together into a packet. She needs a report from the planning board before she submits them all at once to the attorney general's office, and the attorney general has 60 days to approve them. So the language will all be, I don't think they've gone out yet. She tends to wait for the planning board to submit their report, their final report, and that sometimes takes a little bit of time, but we have 30 days to execute this. So those are all the bylaw changes. There were two marijuana, and the general bylaws, there were two marijuana, the limitation in the use of marijuana in the public way is the shade tree bylaw, the town meeting, advisory committee bylaw, and then the zero energy for public buildings bylaw. And in the zoning, there was the recreational marijuana and the footnotes that were both passed by town meeting. On top of that, we had the bylaw, or the action by town meeting to establish the regional school committee, which is in the hands of the town moderator to a point. The charter school language that we have to send off, the 100% renewable petition that we'll send off and the petition for end of life that we haven't sent off yet. And then there's the North Amherst Library, and we had a meeting today on that among staff to try and figure out exactly how we can sort of move that forward. Our shared procurement officer is working on a procedure for moving that, because when you use chapter seven of the general laws, which is what's required and which was included in the motion, there are certain steps you have to take and he was already preparing this in anticipation of a different library project, so he will have those to me by Wednesday and there are certain steps you have to take in terms of, I didn't bring my notes on that, unfortunately, in terms of setting up the RFP for the services, you have to decide if you're gonna have an OPM for this project or not. If you're gonna do it, you need to decide early, so there's lots of different things. We had extensive discussion about if this project would be under a potential, assuming that the Attorney General passes or approves of the zero energy for public buildings bylaw, if this would qualify or not, because the bylaw is written in such a way as to say any project over a million dollars, there's some debate about, and when you look at the totality of the project that was required by Tommy, it clearly will be over a million dollars. If you look at this bylaw and say, oh, it's just for the new footprint, then it might not be over a million dollars and how we look at that because the bylaw states total project cost. There are some broad implications on how we interpret this, so we have to have some dialogue on it because however we make decisions now will apply to future projects down the road and for instance, in my mind, I'm thinking, well, suppose the DPW stays where it is and they do a renovation, they demolish everything except the four walls, does that suddenly mean a renovation? So there's just sort of a thing to think about and I think this will also inform if the board would like to entertain the dialogue with the people who were the proponents of the zero energy, some ideas for adjusting that bylaw to make it more workable because now that we're sort of using it, we're actually looking at it and saying, well, how does it apply to this or not does it or not? There are some really clear problems with it and it's actually interesting that we talked about the public art bylaw because that came back a couple of times and there was a lot of work on it and we struggled with some of these words and consulted with council about, well, when do we say art's gonna be in, who makes that call exactly when? And there were some real back and forth with the board and with members of the committee who understood the issue, the challenge on like who makes the call if it's gonna be over a million dollars or not? It's a, you know, you have to know that in advance when you're going out to bed. So there's lots of things that we're working on on this but I want to lead you to know that that's not just, we're not, it's just not lying there doing nothing. We are taking action on it, trying to figure out how we move forward. What we will probably do in this case is say, just alert the bidders that there are two potential bylaws that might apply to this project. We don't know the public art and the zero energy and just leave it out there, just put people on notice and see what comes back on this project, on this project in particular, I didn't know it actually. So, so there's, when you go through, I do have my notes I realized, they're formal procedures, you have to take steps to include the, ensure supplier diversity. You choose three finalists based on qualities and then you open up the, you can negotiate the fees. If the project is over $1.5 million and owner's project manager is required, if you're gonna use the owner project manager it has to be done at designer selection. We anticipate that it will be about three to four weeks for advertising and then get responses back and given that where we are in this timeframe. I just asked, you know, from our shared procurement officer, I said, well, give me your best guess on when we would be choosing a designer and he thought mid-February, given the time where we are with the holidays and everything like that. And then the question was if we, if it's gonna be over 1.5 million, we have to use an OPM. There's a separate process for choosing that. What does $50,000 buy us? The sense was feasibility and design, maybe some rough schematics. You're not gonna get anything that you could really bid from. Probably if the, you know, board or petitioners or somebody wanted to move this forward, you could be looking for design money. We would put this into the JCPC process along with everything else. And we'd ask the JCPC Joint Capital Planning Committee to decide in terms of do you want to take, put more money into the project for design or not. And that would be the next steps. But he's gonna write up something for me by Wednesday. I can share that out with folks. So you can, it's not easy, it's not simple, but thank God we have somebody who has done this before and has worked for the state and doing it and knows what the rules are. So that's on the North Amherst Library and all the other ones as well. See my puzzled face over here. And so that's important. So I'm, I just wanna be a little clearer on some of the language. And I think that, and so I'd like the memo to try and do this, that he's writing to you that you will then share with us, which will become a public document at some point potentially, which is that when you, I'm not trying to catch you out, I'm trying to understand. When you talk about mid-February to choose a designer, you're talking about, I'm confused, because we're talking at this point about putting something out through all this lengthy process to do something for $50,000 and we'll get those responses back. And when you say choose a designer, you're saying, choosing, you're calling the person who's gonna do the work for $50,000 a designer, or is that the next stage? No, that's this stage. So you're calling the person who's gonna do $50,000 worth of work, which as you indicated is lucky. If it includes rough schematics, given what we're asking for, is what we would call a designer. And so if that happens in February to do the actual, this is assuming we get any bits and you never know how things are gonna go and then we get adequate ones based on the criteria that we've provided and then we would choose the designer to do that $50,000 worth of work. What is, given February is kind of a long way from here, I'm trying to understand how we'll be able, I know about the JCPC process for the long-term amount, but in terms of being able to inform annual town meeting, which I think was made pretty clear at fall town meeting, that they're gonna wanna be able to compare this in their heads, at least if not on the JCPC report as to how this fits in with everything else. I mean, I know we're gonna spend the 50 because that's what they told us to do, but knowing what that 50's gonna, if we don't know what that 50 buys until May, then we're all out of sequence again, which I grant you, we're out of sequence because the petitioners chose to be out of sequence. But I also thought I heard town meeting state pretty clearly that they wanna be able to make a judgment about where going beyond the 50,000, which would be its space somewhere on JCPC, falls in comparison to all the other things that are on the JCPC plan. If we don't get something back for our 50,000, if we don't get the 50,000 product before town meeting starts, they won't be able to make that kind of judgment. So I'm confused. I'll offer a little suggestion here. What's likely to happen, and we do this with other things. I mean, dredging of Puffer's Pond is a perfect example. 12.5 million for a fire station. That was a number that got generated relatively reasonably, but it's set there for eight years or whatever, and it was no longer a reasonable number, and yet that's the number that was in the JCPC report. So what's likely to happen is that staff will, ballpark it as best they can, given what they know now, and it will be wildly inaccurate, but it will be of an order of magnitude that will be sufficient for JCPC discussions, would be, I guess, the best way to characterize it, is that it's of the right size to have the conversation in broad terms, which is all that can happen at this point until we get more, and then potentially, if the designer comes back in May, then JCPC could potentially sort of refine their statement on the floor of town meeting, perhaps, but maybe not, depending. So can I follow up? So I'm confused because we can make that number up today. We could have made that number up two weeks ago and put it in the JCPC report. It's got zero to do with the $50,000 when it comes right down to it. It has to do with the scope of what they're talking about doing, and we can put some figure on that. We can pop that into a JCPC report right now. We're saying that we're gonna do that and we're not actually gonna have any results of the $50,000 work until town meeting's already started based on the wet, what I'm trying to understand is based on time line. It's their time line. That's a long time. I'm trying to understand this from the standpoint of, I'm not arguing, okay, we could stop arguing about this. I'm trying to understand how quickly we can turn this around so that town meeting, okay, let's be blunt, doesn't accuse us of stalling because that's what they're going to accuse us of. I can tell you that right now. So how do we explain this to them? Mr. Steinberg. We need to explain early on, we need to get an answer as early as we can, but we need to explain to them as quickly as we easily can that there is an uncertainty because of two different by-law of a by-law and an appropriation passed at the same town meeting that if one triggers the other, then there's an additional factor in doing the design and calculation of costs that is just not within our experience because it's two new things happening at the same time. And I don't know what else to say. Well, I would suggest that just separate from that, which I think is also a complicating factor, but I think separate from that, just the general process that we go through will be such that it won't happen any faster than that. So independent of whether we apply or don't apply zero energy or not, I think just the general timeline of going through the due diligence that we have to by statute is likely to extend us well into the new year. I mean, you may have a different opinion about that, but given that you're saying that just pick designers mid-February, gotta give the person time to do the work. That's really fast. I don't think we can even do it that fast. So again, it's a week from town meeting. We're assembling our RFP material. We'll go out as quickly as we can as soon as I get familiar with what the design requirements are. There's some decisions that you will have to make or we'll have to make along the ways. Do you want to have a designer selection committee? I mean, what I've said, instructed people is tell me how we've done things in the past and let's get moving on it. There are certain advertising requirements for a project of this size. You have to put it in the central register. It has to be there for 20 days or something like that before people can respond. You have to give people an adequate amount of time to respond and then January is pretty much spent looking at proposals that have come in. There's some question whether it's wise to put something out and try to get it moving before the holidays. It's just, you know, we're managing this. We, when we just did it, mapped out the actual timeframe. It was like the end of January if we did everything like boom, boom, boom. I'm saying mid-February for the selection. So you've had a group of people analyze the results, negotiate the fee, selected a designer. And then that designer has to say, how quickly can you start? They don't, sometimes they consider, I'm coming in tomorrow, but sometimes they put it on their work plan. They're not sure if they're gonna get this project or not. So there are, you know, I think anybody would recognize that there are times and it's public bidding. We also have to comply with the law on that. So a couple things. I think it's great that, you know, staff is taking it seriously and getting things moving, but there's a lot of moving parts to this. And, you know, we didn't set this ball in motion and we're doing it partly by a prescribed legal process that's gonna take an amount of time. I see that 50,000 is getting us to go. It's design development. It's not designing anything, really. It's having those conversations about programming. It's talking to people who worked on this, who have a vision. It's all of that in getting a program together and then creating some options and maybe having a squishy cost estimate at the end of that. And in my own experience, these things take time. I'm not worried about, maybe I should be, town meeting criticizing us for not having this all done by spring town meeting it to me, that's totally unrealistic. To do this right is gonna take longer. And it's just gonna get us to go. What I'm more concerned about is having an inclusive process as we select a designer and we make those choices and that the people who wanted this feel like they've had some input. And that also takes time because that means figuring out who's gonna be part of that, what the representation is, a series of meetings that are open meetings. And if we just go ahead for the sake of getting it as fast as absolutely possible and we just do it as an administrative decision, I think we'll pay more political consequence for that than having to go to town meeting and say the process is underway, we don't have all the answers yet. When we do, we'll be back with more hard facts or more hard dollar requests. I'm less worried at this point, I think the detail about which of those new bylaws applies isn't really the point. I think it's understanding how.