 Okay, I'm going to call the 1pm meeting of the finance committee of May 27, 2021 to order. Just for those who are watching. There are actually two finance committee meetings posted today. There's a second meeting posted for 530pm, which is going to focus on the social services part of the budget. And it has to do with community responder program that is a separate meeting and separate agenda. This meeting is being held by remote participation pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law general law chapter 30 a section 18. So, I want to start by just making sure that each member of the finance committee can hear and be heard for so that we can establish for the record that all members of the committee can participate. So, starting with Lynn present. Pat. President. President. Kathy. Here. Bernie. I'm here. Dorothy. I can hear you. Okay, we can hear you. Thank you. So I think that we have counted for all members of the committee. So, just to review the agenda really quickly and then tell you what I'm proposing to do with the consent of the committee is that we will begin with budget review of four sections of the budget that are listed on the agenda including inspections, conservation and public health. And I am proposing that vice chair that section of this meeting so that I can get a little bit of relief and not have to chair. Meetings in their entire. And I had spoken to Kathy this morning and she's agreeable to doing that so if there's no objection I will go forward with that plan afterwards. And I'm going to ask Kathy to make sure to see if there's any public comment regarding that portion of the budget. Then we will get into a discussion of a separate matter that was referred to the committee. And that's the reparations discussion. And I think that some of the presenters of the reparations request will be joining the meeting later. And I believe that the plan is that they will bring them into the meeting when we reach that portion of budget and that they're going to initially join the meeting as attendees and then be brought in to the meeting. So that is the schedule of the agenda. The one other thing that I hope we get just a couple minutes to talk about before we adjourn the this session of the meeting is just make sure that we have we all understand what the plan is to complete our work as a committee and making recommendations to the council. I will be asking for public comment again about the reparations section but I will ask that that be held as separate section of public comment as we sometimes do at various committee and council meetings. So, with that, and there's no objection I am turning the meeting over to Kathy. All right. Here I am I am now you're acting. I'm acting chair for the first part of this. And I just shown do you did did you already have the lineup is it what Andy said planning that inspections and conservation and public health. What is which order. Yes, yes planning or sorry it's conservation planning and then inspection services but Dave may want to switch that up. Good Kathy, I think, I think we were going to go with the, I think it was the original which was planning inspection services and then conservation. Yes. Yeah, and if I could Kathy when you're ready I just like to make a just a brief introductory statement. Absolutely you're on. Good. Well, great. Thank you all for having us this afternoon. I'm happy to be here with with our building commissioner Rob more and our planning director Christine Breastrup. As always, we're, we're happy to be here to talk about the programs that we oversee the committees we work with and the community projects that we're undertaking now and and hope to undertake in the next fiscal year. As always, you know, our goal is our goals are many, but our goals are to support the town managers goals that the council has given Paul, and you know, there are many goals and and we are excited to be part of, of so many community projects that make hammers to better place for people to work, live and visit. As we look at the various departments we're going to talk about this morning, this afternoon, you know, clearly there are some major categories and I think Rob and Christine and I will try to zero in on those in our brief comments but one of the major features of the next fiscal year and work we're doing this fiscal year as well as is zoning reform. As most of you know we are working very hard with the planning board and the CRC, and, and of course the council on improving our fiscal year by law, and that will continue to be a focus in FY 22. As, as Paul's budget indicated, you know, a major focus of the FY 22 will be assisting the community to recover from the impacts of the pandemic, and that will take many forms and it is across the organization. And the work that we do in our functional area will focus on things like increasing the stock of affordable housing. You know about the East Street School and the Belcher Town Road project. We'll be working with the colleges and the university to help them recover and help them as they are an integral part of our, our community and our recovery is dependent on their recovery. We're working closely with the bid in the chamber on many initiatives downtown and throughout the community, trying to make the business community and the, the, the climate for restaurants and small businesses to thrive. So that'll be a major focus in FY 22. We're working on community development in general, community projects like North Common Armory Village Center. We've got tremendous momentum. We certainly during the pandemic year. We have been very busy and we want to take advantage of that all the projects that we have in the pipeline. There'll be many grant opportunities both at the state and federal level, and we are poised to take advantage of those, those opportunities as they're presented to us. And then finally an overarching theme is really sustainability and resiliency. We will be working, you know, very closely and awaiting all the, the good work of the ECAC through the Climate Action Plan, and all of our work will encompass sustainability and resiliency throughout the work we do. So with that, I think I will turn it over to Christine to talk about planning initiatives and, and what's, what's, what's to come. Thank you. Thank you, Christine. Yes. Are you ready for me? Oh, I am. Absolutely. I'm, I'm happy to have this just flow. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Christine Brester, Planning Director. And I'd like to tell you about the work of and the budget of the planning department and what we've been doing and what we're planning to do in the future. We have five staff members, including a senior planner who is 50% funded by the community development block grant. We have two staff planners, an administrative assistant and myself, the planning director. We share a permanent administrator with the inspection services department. In 2020 we hired a planner to replace an employee who an employee who had left in 2019. And our new planner is a big boon to our staff. He has a master's degree in regional planning. He's smart, energetic, technically proficient and an excellent creative and productive member of our team. Currently, we've been working on zoning amendments as Dave mentioned, and we've been working with the CRC and the planning board. In January, we were given a list of priorities that the town council felt needed to be worked on. And since then we've been diligently working away at them. Planning department staff has been drafting amendments and presenting them to the planning board and the CRC. And we're in the process of bringing these zoning amendments to town council and scheduling public hearings with the planning board and the CRC. At the end of 2020 we completed an ADA transition plan Americans with Disabilities Act transition plan with the help of consultants, looking at how to make buildings and facilities in Amherst more accessible to people with disabilities. And we're now working with the facilities department and DPW to figure out how to make improvements that are called for in the plan. We're also working with Sean Mangano on that. We're continuing to plan for downtown Amherst and we hope that our request for money to hire a planning consultant will be granted to help us in that regard. We've been working on the North Common Project as you well know and on a way finding signage project, and we hope to be working with the bid on their initiatives such as a parking structure and a performing arts show. We're working to complete the Kendrick Park playground and the dog park project. In addition, we've worked with the Department of Public Works to apply for and receive a $1.5 million grant from the state to rebuild the Palmer Lane intersection. We've also applied for and received grants from Mass DOT to aid the town in recovery from the pandemic, including two grants that were used to support outdoor dining and improvements to the area around the bank center, including a new ramp going down from the parking lot, down to the Muse Anti-Health Center. Coming out of the COVID pandemic, we're seeing an uptick in activity related to permitting of new projects and we'll be working with the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals to review these projects. So there's a lot going on here and I'd be happy to answer your questions or fill in any information that I didn't manage to get in that little presentation. Dave, if it's all right with you, will we do questions after each of these? So questions first of Chris? Yes. That's fine. And just so everyone, it's easier for me to look at the screen with faces so I can see if you do this with your hand then to pull up the hands. I know, Bernie, you had prepared some questions that I think had been sent in advance. So I didn't know whether you'd like to lead off with questions you had. But we, for those who are listening, we finance, everyone in finance took some sections of the budget to particularly focus on. So this was Bernie, right? Yeah, did the folks get copies of this? Yes, and I can bring them up on the screen if you want. That's fine because I think, you know, Chris began to address some of what, you know, some of the questions that I raised. But there's a couple of things that are happening that are a little less enter one of them being the flood insurance maps. Chris and I was just wondering where is that project is how close that project is to completion and whether those maps are going to exceed the FEMA requirements. Those maps are well on their way to being completed. We recently ran into a little glitch on the part of the map that causes one quadrant of the town to need to be looked at more carefully. So we had predicted that we would be bringing the maps to the town council sometime this summer. It looks like it's going to be a little bit later than that, but it's just that one map that's a little bit that needs a little bit more work. And I'm hoping that within the next nine months to a year we will have a set of completed maps. And what was the second part of the question? Well, in terms of are these going to, are these, I'm hoping these will exceed what FEMA usually does. They are what FEMA requires because our consultant has been working closely with FEMA. Okay. Okay, I can see the raise hands for Bob if you raise your hand because Dorothy had hers up also so I just. I don't want to interrupt. So do we want to, does anyone have a follow up on that? My question was specific to the maps. Okay. So the question I have is, are you going to limit yourself to the 100 year floodplain or are you going to go higher than that? The reason I ask is I've done a lot of work in hurricane recovery and most recently the storms that have hit the United States have been more rainfall events than windy events and a lot of 500 year floodplains have been realized. So I'm just wondering what where you're going to sort of draw the line. Well, our maps do show the 100 year floodplain and the 500 year floodplain. And that's what's required by FEMA. And these are really flood insurance rate maps. So they're geared towards defining the 100 year floodplain so people know whether they need to buy flood insurance or not. So we pretty much have to live within their guidelines. Okay, thank you. Does anyone else have any follow up on the issue of the floodplains? Not seeing any. Dude, Bernie, you had a whole long series, but you want me to make Dorothy's right now. I did we can mix this up and some of these. You can just go by the board. Okay, Dorothy. This is in reference to the parking structure. I was misquoted in the paper today. I said, a butters will be part of the process. I'm sure I said, a butters should be or I hope they will be. And I realized that I don't and I've gotten some letters emails as of yesterday on this topic. I don't know what the process is. In terms of. Will the butters be notified? Do they have any role that kind of thing, because it's part of a whole, you know, plan of taking parking from one place, hoping to create parking in another, which we want to go through smoothly if we can. You want me to answer that. So, Notifying a butters for a map change in the zoning bylaw is not strictly required by state law, nor is it required by town law or regulations. However, we have had the practice of when there is a zoning change to a map, a specific area of a map. We do notify butters within 300 feet of the property that's being rezoned because we think it's to their interest to know about this, but this is really kind of a courtesy on the part of the planning department to do this, but I think it is a good idea. And there was concern that since it would be change going from an RG to a BG, that the town could decide to build apartment buildings or something else there but I don't know if you have anything to say how the limitation if that thing passes. If it goes from RG to BG, then whatever is allowed in the BG zoning district would be allowed on that property and there wouldn't be any limitations. Thank you. So other questions of Chris. Okay. Chris Dave mentioned in his introduction mentioned the Belcher Town Road and East Street School. Can you talk a little bit about what other efforts might be underway to help produce either so called affordable housing, which the definition which escapes many of us or workforce housing in the community. We always have our feelers out for properties that might be appropriate for the town to acquire for affordable housing. I don't, I'm not aware of any immediately coming before us right now but you know they kind of, they kind of pop up just like the Belcher Town Road project did. And we are making a very strong effort to have a new inclusionary zoning bylaw approved. We have the bylaw that's been brought before the planning board and the CRC and the planning board has made a recommendation to the Belcher Town Council that it adopt this new inclusionary zoning bylaw and what it means is that pretty much any project that has over 10 residential units would be required to have a certain percentage of affordable units. There are some exclusions like standard subdivisions and cluster subdivisions and institutional buildings and things like that, but for the most part, any multifamily dwelling over 10 units would need to include affordable units. So we think that's a big, a big improvement in our prospects for providing more affordable units. Okay, great. We, we one of one of Paul's goals, I think is to make the town age friendly. And certainly the accessibility work will go to help that. The other question around the unrelated question around that in terms of collaborating with other departments is in terms of parking standards and fees. Will the planning board be involved in looking at our revision of parking standards. It doesn't usually get involved in determining fees for parking. They, the planning board is more likely to get involved in design of parking spaces. Requirements for parking spaces. There's a section of the zoning bylaw which spells out exactly how parking spaces need to be designed and what kind of surface they are put on and that type of thing. Other than that the plan and requiring parking spaces for projects but other than that the planning board doesn't get involved in, you know, particularly municipal parking which might be on, on a street that's in a public right of way that they don't have jurisdiction over. Okay. Yeah, I asked that because the American Planning Association just did a started off a whole series on the billion dollar curbside. So I was wondering at how parking is used and making some suggestions. I was wondering if that worked its way out to to us. Planning department will have some influence on parking. The planning department is working with Sean mangano, Nate Malloy who worked with the downtown parking working group is working with Sean mangano and I've been to a meeting about parking there's an effort to look at parking overall so it's really not the planning board it's the planning department that would be helping in that regard. Okay, thanks. Thanks for that. In the last. The last question is really in terms of professional advancement opportunities for for you and your staff in terms of training and skill acquisition I just wondered how you, how you've been planning for that in this budget. We do have about $3,400 in the budget for professional development and we make that available to people who want to go to conferences or what some of us used it to go to the MMA conference in early 2000. So, and, and recently members of our staff have used it to to train for and also to take a planning exam, the American Institute of. They're certified or city planners I'm sorry I'm a member of the American Society of landscape architects so I'm not as familiar with the planning. But anyway it's a ICP test and so they've used that professional development money to train for and take that test, and I'm hoping that they pass with flying colors. We do use it to go to conferences and during the past year, we've used it for webinars on on the internet. Any other questions of Chris because I have a couple I'm just looking first to see if there's anyone else. I don't see any hands I actually figured out on my screen how I can look at both so I'm good at raised hands. So I have to Chris I saw among the other projects that you listed in the budget book was a thing that North Amherst knows about called the potential new facility and I think this is a joint question with you of you and Chris of Dave also there in the process as I understand it is looking at whether the land and where they want to build and water issues are there do you get involved right at that very beginning before a project comes to say, what's the traffic going to look like what's the entrance and exit for the building. So before, before it comes as a proposed project. What kinds of thinking as a planner and or conservation is put into. So you're not doing it after the fact it's a question I don't know how that works. So normally when a developer is considering developing a piece of land they do come to us and they talk to us about what it is they're proposing to use to do they describe the use. They describe the size of the thing that they're proposing to build and roughly how many people would be working there and where they're expecting to get access. They describe these things to us they don't give us any plans in advance but they might show us a plan. And we then consider and advise them about. Yes there's water up there. Maybe there's sewer up there. Where are you going to have your main access drive. You know you have to be concerned about the wetlands which you know we look at a GIS plan with them and say there are probably wetlands here but you need to get them flagged by, you know a competent wetland expert. You know so all of those things are things that we talk about with a potential developer. They often don't give us anything in advance because as soon as they give it to us it becomes a public, you know public record. So but they do talk to us about these things where there are specific things that you were interested in. Well, I'm not right now I mean we, we've actually, they've been briefing the some council members particularly up here and local. So it is, it's sort of wrapped up with you got the Pomeroy grant. So this is an intersection in part because you were talking about what might be coming. So this seems like if it really looks like it is coming. The one thing it's clear is there is this intersection is a terrible intersection as it is, and even trucks coming in and out to build this. So all of those are not necessarily the project but our commute as a community impact that can be anticipated and to the extent I've been really impressed my, my other related questions it seems like you've been bringing in a lot of grants which is great. But you know trying to think of here is an opportunity and pitching it in a very different way as potentially disrupting what already exists. So it's both promoting economic development but it also could really put a halt on some things if suddenly other things are going on so it's, it's that kind of advanced planning that I was. I think you've answered that but I think it there's, that's a growing awareness, even there was a discussion the other day of turning off of 116. If you're going north is a sharp right hand turn truck we, the big trucks that would build something can't make that and that's a state road. So, and there's private land there, you know, making the turn so it occurred to me it's a large planning project. Okay, so I add a little. Yeah, Kathy. Yeah, so great series of questions they're all all kind of linked and related. And I think Chris covered, you know, the fact that we do, you know whether you're starting a new restaurant or a hair salon or you're proposing to build a building or demolish a building or create any new business venture in town. One of the things we do and I think we do quite well is we encourage and we support creative ventures in town and developers and individuals and families to come in and talk with us. Some years ago you may recall we advocated for and created the the position of permit administrator within the conservation and development suite functional area and Jennifer Mullen, who is that permit administrator that is part of her role is when when developer or individual why wants to build a new house or a new building or bring in a new restaurant. The goal is to have that person get as much support early and often as possible. And this is long before a permit is a permit is applied for or an application is made to concom or planning board or ZBA. So we do this routinely we do multiple you know during the pandemic I mean this is, it's actually zoom has been very effective in helping us bring together teams. We do this with the colleges as well when Amherst colleges proposing something or Hampshire colleges proposing something. They often come to us and we encourage them to come to us early and and say we're thinking of doing this. Could you give us some feedback. And we try to answer as many questions as we can. And then to your question kind of moving up to North Amherst I think yes, you know we've been very successful over the last 1415 months in terms of getting grant funding we hope to continue that momentum as I mentioned in my opening remarks. But yeah now we believe now is the time to start looking again at North Amherst. And Chris and I, we never really. We never really left North Amherst we simply we made some very, very organized and spirited applications to the state and we just couldn't get them to bite on the intersection of 63 and Thunderland Road. But we will be back at that very soon as we look at the at the eruptor project and anything else that might be proposed in the in the North Square. The challenge always with with the state is how do we meet their, their criteria how do we meet the requirements of the grant, and particularly with mass works one of the challenges there is that, in short, the reason they use is it needs to unlock development and in other words, is something with our infrastructure, holding back some development that the community wants. And so we need to always put it through that lens of, if we propose something to the state at least through the mass works program, does it unlock development that we want housing development mixed use development, etc. And that will be the lens again by which we look at North Amherst and the intersection, sure at Sunderland Road and 63 and the four corners, but we'll also look at the surrounding intersections like you mentioned that at Meadow Street and Sunderland Road is an odd, odd intersection where Sunderland Road meets 116 so it's all part of that, that looking at that comprehensively. Thank you. I don't want to take any more of people's times. So I do want to thank you Chris, I saw the meeting schedule up through FY 20. And I can only imagine what FY this current fiscal year has looked like with with the number I alone have attended and I'm not going to all of your so thank you and all your team, very much. Thank you. So I think if there aren't any more for Chris we move to the next on the list, which is inspections, correct. Yes, that was you said that was the order. And that I believe is Rob. Rob, do you want to say something for start to start us off. Yes. Hi, Rob more building commissioner. I'm going to talk a little bit about inspection services. We are a staff of 10 full time employees. We also have to part time inspectors that is our plumbing and gas and electrical inspectors. We also are responsible for weights and measures, which is contracted with the city of North Hampton for those services but that's the program that'll look at fuel pumps and scales for accuracy throughout the town. And included in our staff is a position called the licensing coordinator. You're probably aware that a couple of years ago, when the Board of License Commissioners was created, all the licensing was transferred from the manager's office to inspection services so we, we now, you know, coordinate process licensing and support the Board of License Commissioners both in their license application review and assist with adoption of new regulations or policies. And they've been a very active group over the last couple of years with new regulation and looking even currently in future at adopting additional regulations and updating policies. A couple of things that have happened recently that have been really helpful for the department include a new online permitting program. We've talked about this for for many years. We had a program that was lacking in its capabilities and not able to create us the efficiency that we really need. And all that is changing so we have launched the program that handles the rental permit the residential rental permitting and the licensing that I just spoke about a few minutes ago, including the health department licensing and that already this year has has made a big difference to the way the department functions. And we are very close to launching the part of the program that will allow building electrical and plumbing permits to be issued and reviewed through that that new program so that's that's great not only for us for efficiency and reporting and holding permanently the record for those properties and projects, but it'll be a great enhancement to the public with access to permits notifications of status of their their their project or application status and just the ability to make those applications online. To mention a couple of things, you know that are noteworthy from this past year, you know we were very proud of our work with the response to the pandemic having to do with expediting permitting, responding to applications under the article 14 which is our temporary applying for administrative approval, which by the way is getting you know the most action right now. So now we are we are actively working on several applications. So it's a good sign, seeing things happening, either new or you know improvements or alterations to existing establishments. So we're seeing, finally, some consistent numbers for our permitting. So April does bring us back in line with prior years, excluding of course 2020 with both number of permits and value of construction. The projects that are of interest right now that are completing or in process include Aspen Heights that's the 88 Union apart unit apartment building at the old Amherst Motel site. We are weeks away from certificate of occupancy there they're really down to the punch list items. And that project has gone along nicely. And we are also working on a tenant fit up for certain parts of the North Square retail portions of the building. As mentioned earlier, we're very much involved with the zoning bylaw member process. I in particular work pretty closely with Chris and her staff, and attend many of those meetings to help with that effort. And that I'd be happy to answer any questions. Take questions I know Bernie you had worked up some if you wanted to start off. Sure. The question I had is about the septic system permits do we have a, and I should know this but does the town have a required maintenance program for septic systems. Is that tracked. I saw that question and we do not have a maintenance program, necessarily we we of course have a health inspector that is responsible for septic system upgrades new new septic systems and title five inspection monitoring but there's no specific program for maintenance. It's becoming, you know, it's become an issue for me at least, in terms of the costs we've incurred in replacing septic systems with sore lines. And we seem that an inspection program ongoing pumping and maintenance program would be helpful but that's my, my personal opinion. The other, the other question I had read because I think you've, you've touched on a little bit with the board of licensed commissioner and getting them going the other question I want to ask you is what now that the pandemic is restrictions are being lifted and we're going back to some, some semblance of normal. What are some of the surprises and challenges that you're, you're expecting as we move back to whatever the new normal is. I think from, you know, inspection services related to building fire electrical plumbing inspections. We're just, we're trying to be prepared to be open to whatever the need may be. So, you know, we had a mix of virtual inspections we had a, you know, some in person inspection so we had a bit different ways over the past year so we want to maintain that flexibility. As we expect people's comfort with allowing, you know, even us into their homes may, you know, maybe different from, from place to place as we go so we want to be prepared for that. The board of licensed commissioners. I expect their work will continue, you know, they'll probably be more permanent requests for outdoor dining and expansion of alcohol service so we, you know, again we expect to continue our work to help people through that process as efficiently as possible. Okay. Thank you. Other questions from the committee. Not seeing a Bob and after Bob Lynn. Let's see order I showed the hands go up. Yeah, I just have a question about fines. Does, does the, does your department issue any fines and what's the magnitude of the, the, the annual fines, I don't see it anywhere. It may be buried somewhere. Yeah, we stopped reporting that in the, in the budget report. We don't issue a lot of fines. We tend to work really hard try to get compliance and other ways. It's always, you know, written into our enforcement orders and a last resort. So, you know, for the years collected fines, they're usually fairly small amounts if, if there's a fine assessed it's, it's, you know, each individual fine is $100 or so for extreme cases, they add up because it's a daily fine. And we'll, you know, file for the collection of those fines and district court and appear in front of the magistrate. In some cases we've agreed to reduce those fines or eliminate them entirely. So we don't, we don't put a lot of effort into collecting money that way, but achieve compliance. And I think we, you know, our record of the, you know, generally on a normal year three to 400 complaint responses that are done by the code enforcement officer, very few of those result in any formal action that includes a fine. Okay, thank you. Lynn. Yeah, my question is about permitting and when people suspend or take a break from their permit, and what is involved then when they decide to become active again. Adding to that, have we had many of those during this COVID period. Yes, we have had some during the COVID period. We have a little direction from the governor's act that, you know, basically tolls the, the, the period that the permit was in effect for so that the expiration doesn't occur like it normally would under, you know, whatever the, the, the life of the regular permit is. So we weren't, we weren't expiring permits but there are other situations where work is abandoned and not perhaps closed down in a proper way. And, you know, we will work on those and have worked on those situations. We have situations where contractors have left the job and do not intend to complete the job or continue with the, the owner or the developer of the property. So what happens in those situations is there's a basically a freeze on that permit until such time, everything gets back put in order. We have cases where some of the projects require structural analysis to confirm the condition of the materials that have been left exposed. So there are situations where the contractor has to be their licensing and insurances have to be checked out and ensure that they're ready to take over the job or a job in Massachusetts. So there's a variety and we're, I'd say there were projects we knew about clearly that were very obvious and then there's some that we will continue to learn about as we come out of this and start to see the construction activity pick up again. Do you have a follow up on that. Yeah, I do. So in other words, you do whatever you can within our rights to ensure that a pause in a building does not lead to an inferior bill that could ultimately lead to, you know, a safety problem down the road. I think that's accurate. Yes, and we, you know, we do have cases where structural analysis has occurred by the an independent engineer and in fact, you know, I just gave notice to a developer, just the other day that that analysis that a couple months ago will need to take place again because there's been another three or four months of exposure to weather. So that that is, that is priority before authorizing the construction to proceed is to really stable get we're understanding where we are and start from a good place before that moves forward. A place if a project is completely abandoned at some point. Is there any provision that whatever was done is undone and the and the location is returned to its previous state or something like that. Unfortunately that doesn't happen too often but there are ways to deal with that. And, and I think we're, we're dealing with a completely unusual time so the normal response may not be what we're looking at at the moment, but a abandoned project. We don't typically hold a bond or have any financial access to finances to to do what needs to be done for the project life safety matters. There's a number of things, you know, a couple ways to go about that I can approach the I'll ask for funding under order of the building commissioner to go into the property and do certain work. And we would in that case ask for the court support and that just to back it up before we were to do something like that. Or we would order the owner of the property to do something undo something return it to its state. There's a determination that the project's been abandoned. And if we didn't get cooperation to do that then we would have to go into court and seek a court order to do that to have that completed. And as we incur expenses during all of that, are they charged back to the project or do we see we have to legal compensation. So we do initiate collection of those those fees, depending on what they are if they're associated with an order that's been placed on the property we would ask the court to reimburse those fees. That's pretty normal in an enforcement action say if we had, you know, service fees to this for the sheriff or mailing and administrative fees we would, we would tally those up and ask the court to provide that and that's usually above and beyond if there's a statute or regulation, a daily fine. So it is, it is handled differently but we would have to we would have to seek the collection of those in some manner. So this may, my next question, which relates to all of this may require Paul or someone else to chime in but you know, if a project needs a approval on a change to the right way, then it actually comes to the Council. And you know we've done some of those in the last two and a half years, and yet in one instance particularly the right nothing has happened at all on that project. The point at which the right of way needs to be reviewed again of because the project is not gone forward. So, I'll then feel free to add to this Paul if you want but you know one thing I point out is that when we do permit and it's fairly new I think you know we've the last couple of years projects have included work in the public way or public areas in a way about way under a design, which is great for the project and enhancement, but we do need to be, you know, careful about how and when those faces are accessed and we have in the past couple of examples, accepted a design for the value of that work. And, you know, in a situation like you're describing it would probably be either Paul or the Council to make the decision to say it's been long enough I want to see the sidewalk put back together so that we're no longer on this construction site anymore. And, you know, we would start by demanding that the property owner do that either a temporary or permanent solution depending on what the situation is, and, or ultimately we would call the bond and perform the work on our own. Thank you. And I also want to just add my thanks to the planning department, you Rob, for everything you've been doing on all of the zoning bylaws and with it's just been a tremendous amount of work and something that the Council really truly appreciate. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for others with questions because I have a follow up I think on lens, but then I have a separate one so before I jump in. I don't think I see anyone so there is a specific building downtown where we granted up to January, a right of way to block the sidewalk to be building. And clearly we're not in January anymore and there's some reasons that building was delayed. Is that extension justice that just automatically come from you that was a specific by the Council where there's a date that we put in so are you authorized Rob to just say well there are reasons why it's still occupying that space. I don't think I'm authorized to do that. Maybe it'd be Paul or maybe the Council would take action on that. As far as what the governor did, you know that was really specific to any permit that was issued. So we've, we've applied that rule of the tolling to all permits and I'm not hearing Rob. Is that just me. No, I'm sorry. Here I'm either. Okay. So I'll start, yep, I'll start with that again. So we, we have. I would suggest that I would not have the authority to extend that and that would either have to come from the town manager or the Council to extend that agreement for the use of the, the public way. We have followed the governor's guidance on all permits that the town issues and I don't think that's a permit. And the permits again, they get told for this period so they pick up at the end of the state of emergency on June 16, where they were on March 10, so they don't lose the time in between. Maybe the Council or Paul could just, you know, by their own policy decide that the same thing, you know, would happen, or something else I would be a decision by, by one of the two of those groups. Paul it looked like you were going to jump in where. Okay, so this is something we can just, I can, we can ask about it later it's, you know, it's a document. So the other one I had, I had two that are in two different topics, one on rental inspections. We, we now do. We don't regularly inspect you go in if someone alerts you to a problem. I saw one town had done a differentiated kind of inspection process they had labeled properties as either quality of life nuisance that frequent phone calls coming in and or that in the past there had been some structural thing. And those places were on an annual inspection, not, not volunteer but had to be until they had a five year clean record. So I didn't wait, and they had an inspection fee that people had to pay so it wasn't. So do you have any reaction, any thinking of whether that is a good bad or you'd have to think about that idea a lot more before you did it because it when it struck me it also a house, a place that was free didn't get you know they had a five year six year they they had much more about sort of clean bill of health on it. So yeah, yes, I have thought about that. We actually do a small part of that informally now so that the regulations do not build in that part of the program. Specifically, you know, intentionally at the time when we were adopting the regulations inspection was supposed to be the next phase that we never, you know, moved on to discuss. But what happens in, in, you know, the course of the daily work is that we run across properties that need that kind of oversight. And we will use other laws that we have to require periodic inspection and follow up, and usually set out a schedule from the beginning on how long that will last it could be a year or two years, or the and lay out the frequency of inspection. And in some cases we will charge, depending on which regulation if it's related to a health law, the health codes allow us to charge an inspection fee for each visit and we will do that. And what we have done recently over the last couple months has started working with the Board of License Commissioners to amend the rental regulations to include the ability for us to to deem a property, one that needs this type of oversight, whether it be a repeat offense or so many complaints within a period of time, we're still working out the exact details of that and how far it will go. But we're trying to come up with something that will work with the process we've established already and be able to be handled by the staff that we have to see that through because as you can imagine when you get on these routine inspections on even a couple of properties it's very time consuming for an inspector. So we want to really look out for the properties at this moment that are in the most need. My sense in this other, I mean if you I can send it to you it was that they were trying to do the target that you're talking about but then have the fee that was charged, even pay for that because it was, it was the safety of the tenants it wasn't just, you know, the external conditions of the community. Thank you, I'm glad you're thinking about that and my other, as I said is totally in another direction. Do you do you with health inspections. If there's a worried about a property has a brownfield, and there's going to be construction on it that there's because of not necessarily even the current but over the years there's toxic substance in the soil. I've come to you. I got called by a resident who lives next to one and said, does the town even know about it and so I know it's known because it came up in the Historic Commission as a demolition. But do we, does the town get involved in some way in moderating that is that EPA is, you know, where do we, where do we play in that kind of an issue. So I usually insert myself into almost anything. But, you know, in that particular case and I know exactly the one you're talking about because I had to make a decision on that one, a few hours ago. And what was decided was that we would allow the permit for the demolition of the building to occur but not the concrete slab that the building sits on until we get a more clear guidance from DEP who would be the kind of the state regulating authority there and ensure that the owner the property engages the proper soils engineer licensed soils professional to oversee that portion of the demolition. In this particular case we feel like the structure is enough of a hazard that we should take it down. But if we could do that without disturbing the potentially the areas that are suspect to be contaminated. And when we talked to DEP and got some feedback there, we feel like we can do that so we will condition a permit for something like you know that to occur in that way and everyone would be just a little bit different. In some cases we're not aware of it where we come become aware of it during the demolition and would ask for, you know, something to happen and typically it'd be the owner engaging the proper service or professional to oversee and document what it hers there. And is there any just since you probably you do know the property the concern is a plume and something being released to the air and is there. Is there a way of telling a butters the people who are right next door that this is being seen to you will be protected in, you know, a public health kind of measure. Yeah, so we don't have any notice ability you know we don't require notice or have any way to notice property owners that it's going on the, the owner of the property has to notify us 48 hours before the demolition, but that's really where it ends. So notice in a case that we know is sensitive will have us go out to the site and make a visit where we normally may not have on a typical demolition we would, we would likely wait for the project to end and, you know, unless we heard something during it we'd go go visit the site afterwards but in this case, I would probably select, you know, Ed Smith our health inspector soils expert training to be a sanitarian we'd probably send him by to just have eyes on what's going on out there and if there was need to to ask for something more we would. Okay, thank you. I don't want to and I see Dorothy's hand is up that's very helpful. Dorothy. Yeah, this is a question, I guess, mostly for Chris. It's about timing. Whatever plans are made for things when there's coordinated building and projects. They get delayed and certainly that's happened so that we're kind of our timing of a lot of things is off. So I got a call today from a former UMass grad who's thinking of moving into Amherst wanted to talk about parking. And the question was, when the parking spots, when the work starts on North Common, which is in the future I'm not quite sure how far in the future. And what state could it be, or is it likely that there'll be a loss of a certain number of parking places, and then it'll be a much longer time before the parking garage is completed? And the thought is, would there be any short term solution if there is a time gap between these two activities? Are there any short term solutions for additional parking? Chris. Yeah, so Dave Zomek may be able to answer this question better than I, but I do know that the Department of Public Works is constantly sort of, you know, looking around town to find new parking spaces and a few years on Spring Street, and they also built some on Spring Street. You may be familiar with that. So I think that's kind of an ongoing project that they have. When the North Common project moves ahead, you know, that's going to be on one timeline, and then if a project moves ahead to build a parking garage, that's going to be on another timeline. So I can't predict how those two timelines are going to intersect, but my guess is that the North Common parking is going to be probably, you know, is probably going to be impacted prior to the parking garage. But we are bringing more parking in along the edges of the street, Main Street and Boltwood Avenue. The DPW is always looking around town to figure out how they can make some of the parking shorter so they can fit in more spaces. So, you know, that's an ongoing process. Great. Thank you. Perhaps I could just add, Kathy, to Dorothy's question. I think, you know, our target timeline for the North Common would be sometime in the spring of 22. So, and I think it's a little early to even speculate on the parking garage because of course there's just been an information brought to the council and it was referred to the CRC. So we'll have to see how that all plays out and where that goes from there. There's a lot of work to be done if we're headed in that direction, if that's something the council supports, but I think in general, Dorothy, your timeline, your broad timeline was accurate, which is the North Common project would get underway or there would be a gap between when the North Common project is completed and potentially if the town moves forward on a parking garage when something like that would happen. But as Chris said, we're going to be looking constantly. I know we're working with Sean on improvements to parking in downtown. So I think you're going to see a lot of creative new options and just more focused work on parking in the next, you know, eight months. So I'm kind of optimistic about that piece of it. Kathy, can I add one thing to what. Yeah, and one of the other things that was in the consultant's report that we've identified a couple targets that we might reach out to and we have more to kind of look through is to look at some of the private parking lots that are in downtown that we might be able to develop a partnership with to use those lots during certain, maybe on weekends or certain times of the day, where, you know, you'll see lots of some of these lots just be completely vacant for certain parts of the day. So we're going to be looking into some of those partnerships that might be available as well. That could provide parking in the short term. Thank you. That's, that's what we need. Anything else before we move, I think to conservation. And I, you know, Dave, you have a better sense of Chris and Rob's time on whether they, if we don't have direct Bernie's hand is up so if we don't have direct questions of them you can also signal if they can leave but Bernie is your hand up on the top of we're already speaking about Yeah, just a real quick, just a real quick thank you to Chris for all of the work that she does in her department I really very much appreciate it. And I have some, some notion of both Chris and Rob of what they're up against. I really want to express my admiration to Rob as well for the job that he's been doing in terms of inspections and wish him luck, getting whoever owns that, that demo project to do soil tests under the under the slab. So usually requires extra explanation you have to do something like that. So thank you both. Definitely. Thank you. You're all set. Yep. So I think we're all set and we moved to conservation which was the next on the list correct. Great, yes. And I will try to be brief and yeah it's kind of interesting just listening to all the, the, the myriad of questions you have had for Rob and Chris and it's kind of one of the things that makes my job so interesting is is there's no two days alike and you know I can't emphasize enough that really conservation and development, you know, including of course planning inspection services, zoning sustainability that this is really these are integrated departments they appear in your book, you know and they kind of stand alone in the budget book and the budget budget presentation but they really are integrated we work so closely together on so many things and, and every project has elements of almost every discipline and conservation and development so it's really, you know, and I echo the sentiments to the work that Rob and Chris have done over the last year and, and many years because it's a pleasure kind of working with them and their staffs, staffs every day. So conservation I'll be very brief from very, you know, it's a fairly small staff we have to two folks who work in the field a land manager and assistant land manager. We have of course Stephanie Chickarello, who I've asked to be on this call if there are specific questions that come up related to sustainability Stephanie is in the attendees and we could easily bring her her on for any of your specific questions there. So I'm a Maryland's administrator Aaron jock who recently joined us in the field, you know, and I think to summarize, you know the last year, as I said in my opening remarks. It has not been a year of rest it has not been a year of, of kind of just dealing with pandemic related issue issues. It's been a year of planning it's been a year of going after grants it's been a year of trying to move things forward, despite the pandemic. And as I say, out in the field, there were more people using Amherst conservation land in 2020 than I've ever seen before in my lifetime and I've lived most of my life in Amherst. It was extraordinary the number of people out on the trails at Puffers Bond, etc. The work that Stephanie was doing and continues to do with the ECAC is really groundbreaking stuff. We want to be a leader and I think we're, we're, we're moving in that direction on so many fronts with sustainability. I want to emphasize the integrated nature of Stephanie's Stephanie's work that, you know, she is involved with the conservation department with the planning department with the inspection services department. With facilities you heard from Jeremiah LaPlante I believe last week on a number of projects and Stephanie is right there in the mix. She's also in the conversations about new buildings in town from new school library. And then the large capital projects so it's she is everywhere we need her to be on the wetlands side. You know we have a robust wetlands program and wetlands protection program. I will say that 2020 was a year of people reinvesting in their properties. We had more submittals more notice of notices of intent. We actually had a number of a large number of enforcement orders as well. People were so busy at home that sometimes they got a little over over excited and over involved in their properties and maybe went a little too far and expanding that deck or that garage so Aaron was right there out in the field trying to coax them back into compliance with our local and state wetlands bylaw. In the field also I earlier there was reference to some of the flashy storms we're getting. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that our two field staff. The amount of management concerns and management issues that they address in the field. You know in a given year now we're seeing pick a number 125 150 trees go down every year across trails. These flashy storms that come through the valley. All times of the year sometimes you know used to be kind of a summer summer occurrence but now we get a we get a strange windstorm in January and 35 trees go down over trails. Those trees need to be cleared their safety issues, their accessibility issues we need to move them so all of those things happen within conservation in an integrated way with, as well as with DPW there's a lot of collaboration that goes on with with DPW. I think the themes moving forward next year and in the years ahead, as people have heard me say that I think we're moving, we're moving gradually toward a management approach in the conservation department. For many years we did acquire a number of different properties. I think the only acquisition that is still pending right now is Hickory Ridge and I'll talk about that in a minute. It's not to say that we, we won't the conservation commission and and residents may may may not put bring forth another acquisition in the years ahead. But I think I've really tried to emphasize priorities what are the priorities for acquisition. We're we're we're we use very specific criteria. What are the reasons for acquiring new conservation land we want to make sure that we can take care of what we have and balance development and village centers, as well as connecting our open spaces and our agricultural lands. Other themes that are talked about in the budget presentation are access. We want to do additional work on our ADA trails making our trails more accessible for those people with disabilities. We want to improve access with regard to parking and making sure that people have adequate places to to park when they come to a conservation area. When the pandemic hit we were seeing kind of access areas along various trailheads just kind of busting at the seams with with people wanting to use them and I think we have some interesting and exciting projects planned for for the coming year, in particular of note, we'll be redoing the parking area at Stanley Street the acts one of the access ways to Wentworth farm conservation area. And then we'll be adding some parking down on Bay Road access to the Mount Holyoke range the 5000 acres of the Mount Holyoke range is a major need out there, identified working with the state and with our partners at the Kestrel we'll be doing a new parking area, perhaps even to off of Bay Road to allow more access to the easier access to the Mount Holyoke range. Let me see I know that Bernie and others submitted a few questions my apologies I did not get these these responses to you and writing in advance of the meeting, but I'd be happy to talk about those. If, if the time is right, Kathy. So why don't we start with burn was mainly, mainly Bernie and Bernie maybe start with whatever your top priority is because you had a pretty long list. Okay, well I that list can get shorter because I think Dave's spoken to some of those already. I do want to mention that the trust for public land, as I said in the questions the trust public land gives us a 65% park score to Amherst, which means 65% of our residents are with a 10 minute walk to a park or conservation area. And the data that the TPL compiled shows that that access is very equal in terms of age income. Really, really, a nice score. I should also mention that our good friends in North Hampton got a 48 and the national average is 55 so we're, we can give ourselves some give Dave and his crew some points on that. I think you've already addressed that you say you're really not looking yet that much at further acquisition. You're really moving towards managing what we have now so I think you're pretty I think to that point I want to make sure that, you know, if, if we do find a year from now three years from now that somebody doesn't say well back in 2021 you said you weren't going to, you know, go for any other acquisition. And I think it is possible that we will there's still a few hundred acres I'm going to say probably 400 acres of unprotected four to 500 acres of unprotected farmland, remaining in the town of Amherst and its priority farmland and it's prime soils, and these are even lands that are not part of college campuses so there's land that should should in all likelihood be be preserved. What I'd like to do is look creatively at some things like limited development. We have some properties that we've identified that would be excellent candidates for limited development, ie working closely with the housing trust, we could acquire property X, and both conserve the, the land that is ecologically in the back along the along a river quarter along a wetland quarter, and then add affordable housing on the frontage. And we've got a short list of those probably five to seven properties where that would be appropriate. And I've had good conversations with John Hornick about these possibilities so we're always trying to cultivate those, those, those relationships with those owners who haven't quite decided what they want to do with their land. With regard to the TPL green print. I think it's something we need to actually look a little harder at Bernie because we do have, you know, that score of 65 is is certainly higher than average. You know what, and I give a lot of credit to Pete Westover who was our conservation director for 30 years and really was the architect of the, for instance, the trail system and the network of conservation land that we have. And it's no accident that these trails connect village centers to schools to to farmland and the list goes on and on. When you look at it with different layers of the GIS, you will see that, you know, Crocker farm connects to, you know, can connect to East Adley Road which connects to and the list goes on what we're trying to do now is we're trying to make those connections solid and improve them a great example I think was, you know, when planning staff and I got together with DPW input and said, how can we provide better access to the park and green space for those residents of town living off of East Adley Road in the neighborhoods there. And so what did we say we said well, one thing would be to have safer wider sidewalks on East Adley Road, better crossings at Route 116, an improved destination. We pulled together the CPA funds and the state funds and did the wonderful spray park new playground at at groth park. We now have additional funds in other grant monies, going toward improvements to the sidewalk along Mill Lane. We already completed the work along East Abbey Road. And to compliment that, we are moving forward with the acquisition of Hickory Ridge golf course. Yeah, I mean, right there are TPL score might go up to an 80. When I hear a 65 I think boy, you know, we're, we're not doing that well. We I'd rather be up in the 85 range so the other the other town we get compared to all type of Cambridge is a 98 so there's some there's some room to stretch and personal note thank you for all the work along East Adley Road my grandkids really appreciate it. We're doing all kinds of things we're doing all the time and I think that will speak to that green print that TPL uses. That's true. I had a question about you mentioned trail maintenance I had a question this actually section came up on the other committee I'm on just transportation advisory committee about the mapping of those trails, and how adequate is that mapping how accurate is it in the descriptions of the trails, the trail use. So if you could just speak to that for a little bit we'll let the other questions go. Yeah, it's a great question Bernie and I can, I can, I can wrap a couple of things into it. We're not satisfied with the current mapping that we have. So we want to improve the mapping, the map that we currently use their their their accurate, but they're not as functional as we would like them to be in this time period we're living in. So we've had some really fruitful discussions with Mike Warner and Aaron jock who is the newest member of the conservation team. He's a science administrator but also has a master's degree in GIS so she and Mike. Talk the same talk walk the same walk. So we're planning some pretty major revisions to our trail system maps in the next year, and you'll see those coming online I would imagine in the spring of 22. We're also looking at revising our sign system. The conservation sign system is a wonderful kind of throwback to the 1970s, but it really doesn't brand our conservation areas well. There's been brand confusion out there kind of who owns what. There's a lot of confusion on people that they don't understand what are the rules and regulations what can they do when they're out on the conservation land. And we want to really bring that all into consistent spaces both on the land at kiosks, but also using our online tools to communicate that to the public. So that you'll see a lot of changes coming I think out there in the next year year and a half on both those front signs, and then also new maps. So I'll stop there. Thank you. Dorothy is your hand up. Yeah. So that ties beautifully into my question. You're right, I never walked on any of the trails until this year. And this is the first time I did it. But I'm a very novice person so I have a friend Barbara Pearson who seems to know all the trails, and sometimes she takes us on walks. And on my own I would never be able to do it because it feels you can't tell what's private property, what's where you're allowed to be sometimes when you're not allowed to be. And there are all kinds of strange and interesting shortcuts that I would not have imagined. And I'm just wondering if you could do this perhaps as youth employment, more organized advertised trail walks. You know, at set times where you would be somebody guided trail walks. And you could hire train hire and train young people to do it. That's my idea is that at all possible. See Paul smiling, I think I know where he's going but there's not enough of me to go around or my staff. Let me just jump in there. So, I've, for, since I started here I've asked David to start a company called Z tours, where he would Zomac tours because he knows so much about so many things and he would be he's wonderful to take a tour with so. Yeah, all wants me to lead the historic tours of old mill sites. I love it. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's something I think, you know, I think it's something we would need to partner with to be honest, Dorothy to partner with the high school to partner with. It's a good thing to partner maybe with the Hitchcock Center the Castro trust because we are really, we're not set up a staff staffing wise and resource wise to have those kinds of hours we really to manage and maintain over 2000 acres of land. We think about wherever we live, you know whether you have a little plot of land that you plant vegetables in or or you have an acre or you have whatever it 2000 plus acres is a lot to manage and we get all sorts of requests so I think it would need to be in partnership with with the educator the conversations that do education in our, our area Hitchcock is a great example, and they're actually doing it they are. They just were before the conservation Commission, and they are doing outreach to their walk, they're offering free free conservation walks near village center, excuse me village park I'm sorry, I have village centers on the brain village park and one other apartment complex and Amherst, and they're going to be using a new qr codes out on the trails. So that links to the background education information to whatever you're seeing out there birds animals mammals and etc etc. So. Thank you. You want to work with the high school cross country teams, they know they run all over the place. Nice. And lastly, if I could just say Hickory Ridge acquisition is it was asked by a couple of counselors. We are, we are on point. Our goal is to close this this summer we have a date in August to close I know that is moved a couple of times no real fault of the town. We are prepared and preparing continuing to prepare to close. It really is all linked to the solar program in Massachusetts the solar tax credit program in particular for for the company that is going to build the solar out on Hickory Ridge. And that is something that is kind of separate parallel but related to our closing so we are, we are working with our town attorney, and we are ready to close we are simply waiting for the state to make ready the, the, all of the, the goals related to this company doing 26 acres of solar out on the golf course. Our goal would be to be an off taker for some of that solar so that we could expand our green, our green purchasing of power, and also reduce our costs by a percentage by by going green with with our power. So I would look for something in August early September in terms of a closing. I see Bob Bob is your hand up. Yeah. Yeah, could you give us an update on the solar rain on the Northland so please. Sure. In brief, that is a project that Stephanie has been working extremely hard on for a number of years. We are putting the final touches the company has been out doing all their final preparation work. They recently mode that this is the Northland Phil so the project will be solar on the Northland Phil. For those listening that is the landfill where the transfer station is in parallel to that will be, we are being required by the state to put a conservation restriction on the Southland Phil or the larger newer younger landfill off of old, old belcher town road. And our, our, our timeline right now is to break ground again later this summer. I think an August, early September groundbreaking there is is quite possible. So we're kind of dotting the eyes and crossing the tease on the final legal documents, and I think we'll see shovels in the ground late summer early fall. Thank you. I have a question to see if I have a couple on questions I'll start with Hickory Ridge. The David, if it is moving and does move at some point, what did the larger discussion had been what to do with the six to seven developer acres that are there that wouldn't be kept as open space and surveying of it. I have a timeline in mind for say, date finally approved and happens to within six months of that we will have done the following so that's a question of a framework because I'm actually, I've gotten some questions on dpw fire station. Fire station on that piece of land and I'm sure Lynn will jump in and tell me why but it's, you know, people are thinking of there is that piece of land. And what might it be. And so the number of discussions where people start to have it a year and a half ago. So just some time estimate and then I have one other question that's not related. I really address some other capital projects so the short answer is that neither one of the other buildings would would be an appropriate use of that space dpw. For a couple of reasons one is there's not nearly enough buildable land off of a marae lane for a dpw to to site there. It is also one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the town of Amherst and one of the only reasons we're able to acquire is because of all the restrictions that will come on the rest of the land. Just to give people an idea of the solar company will be developing 26 acres of solar, and they are required to mitigate almost acre for acre. So they have to restore almost one for one, every acre that they put in solar, they have to restore to a more natural state than a golf course, about 20 acres of adjacent land. That means replanting that means basically turning the clock back to pre pre agricultural days. So it's a very limited site and many restrictions but there are some buildable acres on the on the frontage where the current clubhouse is in terms of fire. We did look at that site and we had conversations with Paul and Chief Nelson and others and, and I think Lynn and those members of the committee that studied fire throughout the town would agree that the site is far too far too far south and too far west. In terms of response times to be appropriate for a fire station. We looked at it. But clearly the current DPW site is far and away a much superior site in terms of response time south but also response times to get back into town, in the case of a major fire in town. Sorry, I didn't mean that you had to, I'm just saying people are speculating about this, you know, I wanted people to know we looked at, we looked at the site for both. And then in terms of timeline I mean, it's been a major, a major initiative to get to closing so we're going to get to closing. We're going to take a little breather here. And I know that everybody hasn't been a part of all the work up to get to this point, but I think once we own it, we need to take a step back take a take a deep breath and say, let's pull together a process a master planning process for the site. And we will utilize all the tools available to us, like engage Amherst. And we will do all of the outreach to the communities around in Orchard Valley off of East Hadley Road, and others, other constituent groups who want to be part of a master planning process. And I think we're going to take eight months, eight to nine months to do a master planning process for the land. We're going to need to look at the ecological attributes of the land the developer acreage of the land. I have been bombarded with people interested in everything from disc golf to dog parks to community gardens to to cell phone towers to the list goes on, I must have had 20 to 30 inquiries. Somebody inquired about putting a putting a, a practice course there for mountain biking I mean the list goes on and on. So I think we need to bring together all of those parties in a master planning process. I think diversity has reached out as as the Conway School of Design and they would love to help us by bringing students volunteers to help us with that process. And again it'll be an interdisciplinary process that the planning department, and the conservation department and other departments in town will all be a part of. I am not, we're not going to rush to this is what this should be. We need to take some time to, to really involve as many people as possible. Thank you I don't. I'm seeing that Emma has joined us and we do a public health on so I'm, I see Dorothy's hand is up and I'm my other question was about volunteers but I can talk to you. I just a sense of the volunteer squad that you have Dave. At some point it would be good for us to hear it because even on trail walks, I think you already have a lot of trail management that's volunteer it's not just your team, which is, which is great, I think more is better actually my way. We don't have as much as you think. Okay, because I think there's an, I think there's an opportunity for more, I guess, I agree with you. I wonder if we can get moving along and hold questions like that out because they're not directly financial so we can get to reparations. Yes, that's what I'm taking that off the list and Dorothy, if you can wait because we still have the public health before we get to reparations. Can yours wait. Will Dave Zomek still be here. No, so go ahead. Very quickly. You've ruled out some different things for the piece of land that's buildable on Hickory Ridge. Is there anything that rules out housing. Actually, you might have misunderstood Dorothy I haven't ruled out anything. Really, I think fire and DPW. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, we assess the land for those I'm sorry yes you are correct and we looked at what what was needed for both of those facilities and that piece of property does not fit either one of those. But beyond that we really haven't ruled out anything and housing is certainly affordable housing mixed use housing is certainly in the in the mix. Good. Thank you. So are we ready to move to Emma dragon and then that is that will finish this piece and then we convert go over to reparations. Is that okay with everyone. It looks like yes. So Emma, you're on. Welcome. Well, thank you so this is my first time presenting here for the finance committee so I do remember I spoke to Sean and in preparation for this just because a little bit of like new person worry and I'm not going to restate in in the report and really try to focus on on caveats of great things that we've done in the department so in terms of an organizational structure for permanent staff it is myself as a one FTE and Jen Brown. So the time of coven we have expanded our staff under coven care funds. We currently have two and 2.5 FTEs of administrative support, we have for homebound per diem nurses, as well as our remote contact tracing support, our lane read which is another nurse. Also, earlier in the pandemic we were engaging the school department nurses that were willing to assist us with contact tracing, and they also assisted us with clinic with clinics which was really wonderful to see. So we've really grown into this temporary robust staff to make all the programs viable that we've been doing. So in terms of things that we've done we have done the clinics, we have done mobile vaccinations, we have done the clinics at the school systems just incredible work. We have been in communications with trying to expand our vaccines to work with equity issues vulnerable populations to meet those where they're at like mobile market or the survival center. And certainly our drive with that continues to grow as Amherst has a large, the highest percentage of an environmental justice population and all have Hampshire County, and certainly the many social determinants of health with those that are the 35.7 that live below the poverty level here in Amherst and also that have English is not their primary language. In terms of resources I think not having continual permanent health staff is challenging to make programming successful with our long range objectives. And we certainly understand the current climate of finances in the town, and are continuing to try and access grant funding and other avenues to make priorities possible. The other thing that we were able to accomplish are actually two things so far are is the Board of Health adopted and approved tapestries harm reduction program to run a mobile program here in Amherst. Also, I know, Lynn I can look at you with the Pioneer Valley mosquito control district and the opt out those are pretty the two recent big things I can think of but what an energizing time of work to be here in the health department it feels like we've done years of work in the six months that I've been here since November. And I don't whirlwind so I'm not sure what else I should be adding. Sean and Paul. I think I think that's good. And you address I think the some of the questions already a little bit, but we did get a few questions from Mr Steinberg. Yeah, about the department if you want us to go through those Kathy. So Andy, would you do you want to raise the questions that you sent in. I think this morning. I can let Sean do it because he has the questions and he might have the answers to go with them. Yeah, so the first question was how have any of the cannabis community impact fees been used for some education on marijuana and vaping. And so the response that is we haven't used any impact fees yet from marijuana that that is one of the anticipated uses will be education. When those funds are allocated out but we haven't used any of the impact fees yet. The second question this one is more for Emma and that is, there is also mention of the town veterinarian. Is there a budget associated with that position. So, we do, I'm not sure if Dr cats is contracted or what the employment status is but that's a long term established past practice relationship that town has had with Dr cats to assist and aid with processing samples that from animal control that would have to be shipped to Boston for rabies testing in a stairway so that line item has been part of the budget for some time here in the health department. Emma isn't joking. Really, the name is Dr cats for our vet so I thought she was fooling me the first time. You have not been an Amherst long enough to understand. Mike is a, he's part of the Amherst. And then the third question was how we use cares and FEMA funds to support public health work in the current fiscal year and plans for the American Recovery Act. So we've used I'm a talked about some of the additional support staffing that have already been hired for just administrative functions and also for contact tracing. We also the ambassador program we view that as sort of an extension of the health department and in terms of enforcing the protocols throughout town. I'm sure there are other smaller things but those are the big ones that come to mind. And then plans for the American rescue plan. We're still sort of so we've worked on a process for how those funds will be potentially allocated and and so nothing's really been decided for how those funds will be used. But I could envision some of those funds being used for Board of Health public health type things going forward that's one of the eligible uses is that anything that was eligible for cares theoretically could be eligible for these funds as well. Are there other questions of Emma. Pat. I don't have a question so I'm breaking when I just asked for a moment ago but I just have such grateful. I'm really grateful for the work that you have done in this town in the short time you've been here. You're an impressive powerful and thoughtful woman and we're very lucky to have you. So, thanks. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. Actually, Emma shared something with me in a meeting earlier today that I would like it to be more known and that is percentage for Amherst for vaccination is not great. And so we all have a lot of work to do. And I want us to figure out how we can support Emma and others in getting that vaccination rate up higher. We are not even at 50%. Can I just build on that, you know, a couple of people I know volunteer, they're retired physicians who are with you, giving shots. And they said people still are not aware that it really is walk in appointments, and it really is free they found people saying are you sure. Is there a way she was wondering of having it appear in the Amherst Bulletin regularly and having, you know, even when we get emergency storm warnings on our phone where we just get Robo called to say alert, because she felt that people didn't know, you know that she's, she says, Oh, where you can come, you know, when she was encountering people and she's been drumming trying to draw this as a she has been trying to drum up business. So, so I didn't know, and it's not an answerable now but she she felt that that word wasn't broadly out that there's not cues that aren't lines, you know, you can get vaccinated. So, that's a great suggestion. I'll bring it back. Yeah. Dorothy. I was listening on the news today to programs around the country, which are using lotteries and scholarships. And we certainly should look into that. So we have to use every way possible because I want everybody vaccinated. I don't, I don't want them, you know, causing havoc. So, if there's some kind of way we can do it, you know, maybe, and we can come up with it. But I passed for the pool for the summer. So, so I think I'm ignore my phone so Emma I think everyone is giving you a big thanks for mobilizing forces and the people I know said these clinics have been amazing they really work well so they're well organized thank you very much. Our over 150 we've had over 150 volunteers since everything started since January 11 our first first responder clinic, just really tremendous amazing group of people that have come together and made it possible without all of them and and us. I don't think that a robust vaccine program would have come here in Amherst and I'm just really proud of the work that we've all done together. So, so thank you. And I think this is a transition of chairness to Andy, as we move to the next part of the program as if it was a program announcement. Is that correct Andy. Yes. That was really I really appreciate it and thank you Emma for all who have been here to meet with us. Do I go now. It's the reparations time right. Yes, it is. Right. We didn't want you to feel like you were. We totally appreciated your time. Thank you. Absolutely. I get it. Thank you for your time. Have a good afternoon. So, we are in a transition point and I do need to keep an eye on the time because we said we were going to limit this meeting. So we can get on to the next Michelle Miller is now with us. I think, you know, it's also going to bring in Matthew Andrews and her roads, because the three of them have been involved in the reparations discussion. I want to get this off. I want to go back to the motion that was made in the council meeting on May 17. That is the reason that we are having this agenda item today. The motion was removed seconded by the Angelus to refer. See. I'm going to go ahead and cut to the but for recommendation of the town council on a revenue stream for reparations fund in the FY 22 budget. So the key part is the last piece that I read, which is, it's being referred to us for a recommendation to the town council on a revenue stream for a reparation fund in the FY 22 budget. So I'm going to start the discussion by asking town manager, if he has any introductory comments that he would like to make on the subject. Thank you Andy I actually don't. I think the reparations for Amherst group has really put together a pretty strong proposal that they have presented to you and this is your opportunity to ask some questions. Thank you. So, I guess I'm going to go to Michelle and Matthew who are the two who are the presenters through most of the council meetings. And I really has been involved I understand but I did not have any communication with him about it for a while. Actually, just double check when did you have anything you wanted to say at the beginning since your hand was. No, I'm sorry I misinterpreted. Okay, so let me turn it over to ask Michelle and Matthew if they have any introductory presentation that they would like to make. Yeah, thank you so much for having us and I hope this is an enjoyable part of the program as you called it. And excuse me for having to read from a statement. I get a little nervous so this is helpful for me it's not very long. So this week, a joint meeting was held between the Amherst African heritage residents for reparations, which includes Dr Barbara Love, Kathleen Anderson, how Lord, or roads, Dr a male car Shabazz and Ben Harrington, all current or former elected residents and reparations for Amherst. It was unanimously agreed upon to suggest to this committee that it recommend allocating 100% of the FY 22 cannabis revenue to a reparations fund. The budgeted amount is 190,000 though it is our understanding this could be a conservative estimate. Future year fiscal recommendations will be part of the work of the newly formed reparations committee. There are poetic and practical reasons to do this. Since the 1970s enforcement of marijuana possession laws has been carried out with staggering racial bias. According to a 2013 report published by the American Civil Liberties Union, nearly half of all drug arrests made in 2010 were for marijuana possession. Although marijuana use was roughly the same among blacks and whites blacks were nearly four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession. See marijuana and racism bearing the blunt of the problem which I can share in an email to this group. Practically speaking, the cannabis control commission in its guidance on equitable cannabis policies for municipalities recommends the same. This is a quote from their guidance document. A municipality may adopt a tax of up to 3% on adult use cannabis retail sales by a vote of its legislative body. In many state and local jurisdictions, Massachusetts included a portion of cannabis tax revenue is earmarked for restorative justice, jail diversion workforce development, industry industry specific technical assistance and mentoring services. Equity goals may similarly be supported by designating part of the local tax or community impact fee, if adopted as part of the host community agreement for similar local programs. This is likely why other communities like Evanston and Portland have directed their cannabis revenue toward reparative justice initiatives. And Matthew is going to follow up now. Yeah, thanks Michelle and thanks everyone for for inviting us here. I just want to acknowledge that while we do recommend cannabis as you know for looking at revenue streams. It's not the only revenue stream that's possible and you all the finance committee in particular are the experts on the budget. And would have a better understanding of what will work best and Amherst. And other municipalities use cannabis for reparations but Amherst is a unique place with a unique situation unique fiscal situation. And you all would know best how to create a reparations fund, or at least what we're really talking about is making a visible substantive commitment to reparations right now, you know when we're looking at the fiscal year 22 budget and of course this is a complicated question because, you know, the town council has asked the finance committee to come up with a revenue stream when the budget is essentially baked. And so we understand that that's not a simple matter if there's no easy money just laying around. It comes down to a question of will and whether the, you know, the, the moment this kind of historic collective awakening of compassion that's going on around the country and that's going on here as well, whether there's enough will to make a statement right now and to put money behind it. And I'll just add that there's been a lot of complicated situations arising recently in relation to BIPOC, the BIPOC community, if we can call it that and some, you know, and a lack of trust with the town. There's a lot of racial equity issues and initiatives that the town is working on that are valuable and important. But if we don't start with reparations if we don't first show and demonstrate that this town is committed to a reparative process. Those other initiatives become much more complicated because we haven't done the atonement acknowledgement and commitment to repair that needs to come before we can hash out all the details and of course even right now we're not talking about solving reparations with a fiscal year 22 allocation we're talking about a substantive significant commitment that's a starting point for the reparative process and so we're grateful to be here and to collaborate with you all on that effort. And I think, or did you want to share something as well. We can hear you. I guess, first, I, I want to make sure I'm standing on the right ground here. Andy, I would like for you to to reiterate the charge that the council gave to you in terms of this matter. Okay, that's going to take just a moment to get back to that page but fortunately I also have the train running outside my window. And the question again the part of the motion was request that the finance committee make a recommendation to the town council on the revenue stream for reparations funds in the F522 budget. All right. Lynn, is that your, your understanding. Yes. Because I had thought that they had said possible was in there. You're are correct. We did say possible. That got added in. But it got added in at right before we passed the motion. And the reason that's important because if we go down this road and in terms of the recommendation, then I want to be clear. I wanted to be clear what we were talking about. So, given that right the African heritage coalition which includes the former and present elected representatives, and will will expand once this goes forward. And the council, you know, we are as of right now we're an informal group. We have been working with reparations for Amherst as this thing moves forward. We, like everyone else thinks of in terms of what reparation and restorative actions will consist of. And those things will be developed in the very near future. However, the anchor all of that is the revenue, the revenue to support those decisions. So we have zeroed in on one of many possibilities. And that's the cannabis revenue stream that we would like to go forward with as soon as possible for this year it is upcoming upcoming physical year 22. So we will be focusing up on really, really in an intense manner. Again, this is only one possible one. There are other possibilities, but this would be a meaningful beginning to go forward with and to communicate back to our communities that Matthew just mentioned that there is a willingness to go forward with a restorative and reparations for Amherst. And so I believe that it would be who the council to move with this with all deliberate speed. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm going to turn to Sean in a second, because the budget, as was indicated is something that is really were sort of at the end of the budget review process and the budget is was prepared and presented to us so the work that was done earlier in the year and presented to us on May 3. But I think that Sean might be able to give us information about the two aspects of cannabis revenue to come in the community impact be what it's permitted to be used for and the exercise tax, which is a has a broader definition. It isn't as limited as community impact fees are by statute for what it can be used for. So that's one aspect of the problem. And then for the revenue tax. That was assumed as a revenue stream into the budget as part of the revenue that was then being allocated in the proposed budget. So then the question arises, if the budget were now to be changed by the council. In some fashion, really the only thing you could do is to reduce parts of the proposed expenditures for the current year in order to make to free funds that have the work cannabis tax money that we're already assumed into the budget as revenue as I understand it but shots are expert and pause the one who's responsible for the budget so I really need to turn it over to them for a response on that. Sure, I can give just sort of a general outline of how it's in the current budget, what's in the current budget and what's not in the current budget. So the tax revenue. Not the impact money but the tax revenue, we budgeted 190,000 of that as sort of a general fund revenue that supports all of the town departments. That's a conservative estimate we brought in I think about 206,000 a year before, but like many of our revenues we're not sure we weren't sure how COVID was going to impact sales in the future. And we also, whether that number will grow so we've got some additional dispensaries that have been added since the 206 number that I talked about, since that number came to be. So we don't know if that number is going to grow in the future, or if it's just going to spread out, you know, it could theoretically become a grow as more dispensaries come online. But that's another reason why we went with a conservative number for what we budgeted the impact monies we haven't budgeted any of that. And that is essentially equivalent to the tax money so we brought in about 206,000 of that last year, and that goes into our free cash and our reserves but that money we have to track because it's restricted in its use. You know our understanding is that it has to be used on the impacts of marijuana or the dispensaries. However, we are trying to get legal guidance whether that's the only way it can be used. So we have to keep track of this as well. Those funds we have to keep track of so we have money in our reserves and we've been having a counting of what we've received in prior years I think we received a little bit in FY 19. So I'm an FY 20 and then obviously this year we've received some. And so we're keeping track of that but none of that money has been used it's not budgeted for where you know we're thinking about a plan for what it could go towards like education or mental health needs in the community. But to date none of that has been spent yet. I think that's about it I'm not answering questions about those sources of funds. Sean. Yes, Mr roads, the impact money. Is that impact money coming directly from cannabis sales. Yeah so that money comes directly to the town from the dispensaries they pay it directly to us. And as one second you said tax revenue of $190,000 that as a result of taxing on cannabis sales. Yeah so they're both. I could pretty sure they are both roughly 3% of sales, but the tax revenue goes to the state and then comes to us on a quarterly basis. Whereas the impact money comes directly to us from the dispensaries. So you're looking at about $396,000 total in relationship to cannabis. Yeah, that would be again an FY 20 I think we received about a little over 400,000 so that's that's in the right ballpark. And the impact money $206,000. Has that been allocated yet through the budget process, not the impact money no not and we've had preliminary discussions about possible uses but we haven't used any of it to date. Again and that's the money that has some restrictions or at least what we understand our restrictions is that it has to be used on the impacts of has to be used on things that are related to marijuana or the dispensaries. But again we're trying to get more information on if there's a broader use that we can, we can put that towards I know there are some communities that are looking to use that money in different ways, more along the lines of what we're talking about today. We haven't heard if it's been deemed allowable yet. Alright, so that's that hasn't that hasn't what you're hearing you correctly. The use of the impact fees of $206,000 or whatever that hasn't been decided by the state as to exactly what that can be used for other than the impacts of the possibility of the sighting of the cannabis sales. We don't have anything we've got what it's supposed to be used for we haven't heard of if you use it for something else, you know, where are you going to get, you know, are we going to get in trouble for user for something else I think is the piece that we haven't have definitive guidance on. So, just to be clear, what is it supposed to be used for. So it's supposed to be used for the, the impacts that the community feels related to the dispensaries or the selling of recreational or medical marijuana. And some of the listed uses or examples that they throw out there are mental health programs or drug education and things like that in the schools. And so those are some of the topics that we've talked about some places use it for like infrastructure if it you know if the dispensary creates traffic issues around where the dispensary goes they've used it for infrastructure needs. All right, last question the sort of 206,000 hasn't been allocated to anything but 190,000 has. Yeah, so the 190 has been treated like a general fund revenue so we have, as you mentioned we have lots of revenue streams. And so that's been treated like a general fund revenue like our meals tax or hotel motel excise tax. Thank you. General comment for somebody who's worked with budgets for quite a long period of time and herbs was on the finance committee with me so you've lived with me on some of those years. It's always a question as to how we are going to fund the increases to come for year to year and fund new initiatives that the town wants. And that's always the struggle because we know that existing revenue is kept for the most part by political realities of what the state is willing to give us in state aid. And proposition two and a half which limits our increase to two and a half percent unless voters approve an override which of itself is a difficult ask to make in any community. But that puts a problem out there because just to maintain level services, there's always going to be some increase as costs rise and so generally we're finding that the natural growth that comes in budgets is usually two and a half or 3% a year. And it puts pressure on us just to maintain the funding for what we have. Of course that's why we keep talking about new growth, and we keep getting now, or at least now we're getting a lot of pushback from community that says, I don't like new growth. And so it's always this pressure point that comes out there and I think that's what we're after. Another thing that Michelle and Matthew and I had a conversation sort of in preparation for this meeting. And what I was pointing out is I have a lot of appreciation and jealousy in some ways for what Evanston, Illinois has done. And they were able to just say okay we'll take our revenue from excise from the tax on sale of marijuana and use it for this very specific purpose, but Evanston is not comparable to Amherst in many, many ways. It's a ring suburb and a wealthy ring suburb just throughout the Boston. It has a population that's about twice the size of Amherst, but a budget that's probably three and a half times as big as our budget. And their budget doesn't include education because it's a separate school taxing school district, which is typical in the Midwest, whereas we have to fund education out of our budget. So when you put all of those factors together. We're just wish we were in a position that Evanston was in, but we have to be realistic and it's just sort of a reality that our committee has to deal with. One of the things that, you know, when I when I listened to what you just said, Amherst is Amherst. Amherst will always be Amherst and we cannot compare ourselves to any other town or municipality. So we have to decide up on what roads we wish to take and walk. And it seems to me that where we are right now, that we can do what we need to do in terms of restorative justice in this town, and that there are really concrete revenue streams that can be applied to this. And the question is, what does the finance committee and the council want to do the streams income streams are there. They are there. Well, we'll, we'll, that's what we want to do today is explored. When you have your hand up. Yeah. I'm going to just say there are other people here who understand municipal finance more than better than I do. And even though I've spent the last two and a half years making sure I understand it. I want to ask a couple of questions and her and Michelle and my Matthew, just be patient with me because I'm trying to get where you're trying to get. Okay. Your goal is to have a committee that will identify the path or the paths. Amherst as a town should take could take in your field of reparations. Hold on one second. Sorry, we're, we have a little transition on Thursdays in our house. And I'm concerned about the marijuana money for two reasons one is we recently seen our town two towns over that gets a lot more marijuana money than we did. And that we do are probably ever will basically is just said we're no longer going to charge that extra 3% and you know as we often see then there's movements that happen. And so that leaves us with this other 3% and it leaves us with a budget at this point. That's, I don't want to say cooked, but it's close to cook. Okay. So how can we get to the point that sometime between now and, you know, early fall. We put on the table. The equivalent of $206,000. Okay. We do that. And Sonya actually came up with the suggestion in a meeting earlier about this. Okay, and that is at the end of each year. We usually have, we usually have some unspent money. That goes through a process, and we have to vote it as a stabilization fund. Now, we could vote $206,000 into a stabilization fund for reparations. That would happen sometime. Am I correct, September, October, Sonya. Yes. And at that point, the committee will have met and you'll have started to get some sense of what it is. This is going to do. We've already been upfront and said out of this year's unspent money. This amount would go there. Now, some of that on spent money is bluntly spoken for, because that's what is our reserves to do, build new libraries, new schools, new fire stations, and new DPWs, and whatever is going on in this. So we can't give it all to this. But I think I feel very strongly that we need to have something coming out of this year's budget that puts something on the table in the next 12, next four months, if you will. And that would be my suggestion. And I think this is, I think from, I want to thank Sonya for coming. To clarify, that would have to be a vote from free cash for our existing stabilization fund, because that's where the X flows to our reserves. Thank you. And it would have to be a vote of the council just like any other financial vote of the council. The two thirds vote from the council to take it out of one stabilization fund and a majority vote to another. And it would be a two thirds vote to spend any money from it. So you would have to come up with an appropriation, bring it to council, and there would be a two thirds vote. And that's going to be true with any fund we have. We can't just say here's a fund go spend it. Thank you very much. There's got there's a process and of all the people on working on this, which I am delighted that you are doing that. I have to just lean on the fact that you understand how town finances work, so that you understand that this is based on something that happens through a process that we go through every year. I do understand that and Sonya I really must applaud you that's a brilliant idea. Well, I want to, first of all, state that really Sean was trying to come up with an idea to do this and it came. He came up with the main idea I just helped him to understand how it flow through the accounting. The only the only caveat for us would would be our rate. If it's $206,000. Is there going to be any bleed from that by the time we get to September of the two from reserves now there's 200. No, no blame. Thank you. One question for Sonya then. If you did something like that. Can the council vote in an amount for actual expenditure that is outside of the budget is it have to then fold back into the budget process under the rules that we're currently operating under. It would be a vote from reserves. The budget process is always, you're voting a budget on estimated revenues this would not be estimated revenues it would be certified reserve. So be a supplement, but it would still be a supplemental appropriation. Yes, which could happen at any point in time. Correct. By rule in the charter that's that's so. Um, Just clarification. I thought that there were two fees on marijuana, one that we would get all the time, and that I thought the impact fee was a limited was a time limited fee, or maybe three years, maybe five years. So, you know, I'm just going to make sure that people understand that we don't get both of them forever it's just one of them is forever. And I had a thought maybe nowhere near as good as what you've come up with but I had the thought of saying, Okay, we can donate the impact fee, as long as we get it so that might be, you know, the full amount for three years or four years. Because the kind of thing truthfully, I, you know, I had been hoping that we could come up with some opportunity to help home ownership. Even though I know that's a complicated topic. But anyway, that's my suggestion. Yeah, at one, at one point, I really would like to sit down with you in terms that I'd affordable home ownership, because that is an area that is a great interest to me. And one of the things that I have always, and I've always talked about with some intensity is that I really do not like the notion of always coming up with affordable housing but we equate it. To apartment rental. Right. You're not a quater to home ownership. Right. All wealth. We look at the wealth of any neighborhood, any, any, any area in the United States, calculated into that is home ownership. Because you got the disparities I know I'm probably speaking to the choir here but it is something that we in Amherst have to start doing, and there are pathways to do that. And there are definitely a lot of pathways to do that and so I really want to put that on the table. I'd certainly love to have more discussion with you and to learn from you. So thank you. Thank you I don't have a lot to add because of Mr Rhodes statements but I want to say no to the impact fees because it's a limited revenue stream. And we're talking about creating an ongoing revenue stream. If you're interested in either affordable housing or more importantly, home ownership. This is something that the black community could decide to do with this money, separate from us. And that's what's really important that this is separate from the council separate from the white space that we are, and it becomes the it sits on the creativity of the community who has been harmed. And I think that it's critical that we move forward with this. I know that there's, there's a balancing act going on in terms of the crest program and other needs of the our community, all of us. And, but I really think that this is one of the ways that we can. We can repair, we can heal because it's white people need to heal. We've caused this and we also suffer from it. And I think that that's often not acknowledged. I want to hand money over. But the other piece for me is in terms of what mental health and education as being permitted uses as someone who does as part of a alternative to violence program in the prison. I have many friends now in my life and they are real friends who are incarcerated for existing as black people in white spaces. And it seems it seems to me that addressing issues of disproportionate incarceration for the same marijuana crimes needs to be addressed and could be addressed by this. I mean, I'm repeating what's already been said much better by Mr Rhodes and Miss Miller and Mr Andrew so I'm going to stop, but we need to do this. Well, you know, Pat I agree with you but what is really important is that using the impact fees and going through the process that has just been explained is that's a meaningful beginning. And while that is limited to maybe two or three years, but within that timeframe. The African Heritage Committee will have developed other possibilities by working in concert with the finance committee and the town council. So this is a meaningful beginning and three years of $206,000 is really very meaningful and will go a long way. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to try to build on the conversation. Because I too have been thinking since I early spoke to Michelle and listen to the presentations but also yours on sources of revenue the impact fee and I just pulled up the code. Maybe too restricted for what you want in terms of grabbing it, but that does not mean the solution of pulling something out of our reserves is not a possibility so. So this notion of can be anchored just to that so looking forward I think that's a discussion we're just going to have to have because it's got it. So I will closely link to the community be able to use it directly to things related to marijuana. So if you talked about home ownership and some of the other possible uses you want to be at the fee that we collect from marijuana can be used in which it's just been allocated in FY 22 so beyond the coming year. If you want to look at FY 23 and the future years before we've allocated that fee is, is, is just money, you know, so it can be a tapped in stream so I just think that beyond the discussion that we're going to be mourning this afternoon we need clarity on how restricted the thing called impact fee is, but we've got a lot of money. If we wanted to bring it out of reserves for a specific new use of it that is available so that doesn't mean that that this other route is is negated. 100,000 could be a target amount so I just want to make sure we're on firm ground, not here in the committee, or I'm just saying that it's, it's got this list of what it can be used for and it has to be very direct. So, for the kinds of things you're likely to come up, you'll say well, there's so little of this that we could fit into this little tiny piece. But the amount of money is something we're thinking about as a starting point so I'm just differentiating it on the impact fiendess of it, it's got you can use it for track Vic intersection, you can do it. Cultivation of marijuana you can do it, substance abuse prevention program so it, you know it just, it has it so tightly linked to marijuana, not to broader issues, even of mental health. So, so I just think it's important and we can get you that documentation so I'm not saying that it's not possible to have to money in FY 22 but I think what Lin was describing and Sonya and Sean was is a potential potential alternative way of that same amount of money. I don't understand it. And then, by the future years, the revenue flow and I think that's what ever since the revenue flow from sales tax on marijuana that becomes something to look at that we could, we could, it's well within no state. There's no state provision that stops us as a town from saying how we want to use that money. So, I just wanted to distinguish between the two of them. Can I just add to that real quick. We still have to make sure it's an allowable public purpose or allowable use of public funds which is the, what we're waiting for a legal opinion on what are those allowable uses so I just want to be clear that it's, it's not quite as open as the way you described it but I'm not sure it restricts what we're talking about here today either. I mean, you know, it wasn't like we can, we can use it all to go go take trips somewhere if we wanted to but yes, but it's, it's much less restricted I guess that's the best. Yes, that's restricted. It's, it's, it's, it's a revenue flow that the town has and will continue into the future. Right. Yeah, but there is a problem that's additional, which is the anti aid amendment. And we really, it depends upon what we're doing in the way of reparations, and how it's how it would be structured if we were to do reparations from town funds but we can't lose sight of the fact that once we got the concept. We have to run that concept by town attorney to make sure that we're not violating the anti aid amendment by what we're doing. And that's a subject that we could be talking about for hours and I don't want to do that. Some other realities that we have to get to one is, is the son use are the started out with the discussion of exit of unspent revenue from one year being used to create a fund. We've been successful in building reserves when urban I work together on the old finance committee. The reserves were probably about 8% of the taxation and now we're over 15%, which is what our goal was was to be. But we got there because we did a concerted effort, which was any excess revenues above projections and reduced expenditures. If we were below projections for any given year, we knew it would end up in the reserves and we deliberately wanted to build the reserves up to that maximum goal level because of the need that we saw coming down the line for the major building projects. And that's just reality point one that we have to be bearing in mind and remind account and explain to the council was they consider all actions options. And the last thing that I want to point out before going back to the other people is that we're going to be hearing this evening about community services working group recommendations. We have a lot of other demands upon our what town resources that are above and beyond what the town resources are. And it's just another thing that at least needs to be born in mind as we go through this. So I'm going to go back in order to where hands are up taken in order when you're next. The goal in this case of the suggestion that came from Sonia with Sean's health was to come up with an amount equivalent, but not hide with all of the restraints of the marijuana money. So it's a way of using a financial marker, but not having the financial constraints. Now, all of that. Also, there are issues like the anti aid amendment and stuff like that that need to be worked out but this committee hasn't even been formed yet. And so as it's formed and as it comes up with its ideas parallel to that fall and his staff can be working on making sure that whatever we're doing we're doing legally, and so forth. But I feel it's so important for us to make this statement to make it in an amount equal to what people have been talking about. We cannot do it in a way that ties their hands with Oh, maybe we can do this but we can't do this. That's not the way we want to start this conversation and Amherst. It's the way we want to, we want to proceed with a open book that says, we could do this, or we could do that, or with private money match. This could happen. This could be restricted money. That's all. Thank you. Okay. Athena, could you bring Alyssa Brewer into the meeting. I can recognize her in a few minutes. Thank you. But, Matthew, you're something you wanted to. I just want to first presence the fact that the fact that this conversation is happening with such sincerity and a desire to make something happen is historic and heartening. And I also, when I made the presentation to the town council last Monday, one of the things I mentioned was the fact that one of the primary harms of the past few hundred years. Well, the past hundred years, let's say, against black people has been opportunity theft and specifically the opportunity to build intergenerational wealth and in some ways, you could see the town reserves as the town's accumulated wealth. And to begin, you know, to have the, the initial contribution, the starting point for a process of repair be linked to that, I think is appropriate. And, you know, and the scale of opportunity theft that black people have suffered is so massive that this will, you know, this will have to be a starting point as far as, you know, a process, but it sounds like everybody's on the same page about that. And yeah, I just wanted to, you know, acknowledge that alignment with Lynn's suggestion. Okay, well thank you. Thank you. I want to make sure that I get to Bernie could be at this member of the committee and Alyssa Brewer who had asked to make a comment, but you would. Yeah, just to say I think we have somebody that wanted to speak in public comment and Claire should be there in public comment and so I just, I didn't know if there was a separate space for that but I know she's been waiting so. I will come back to public comment in a minute. Excellent. Thank you. So, I want to recognize Bernie and then ask, recognize Alyssa because she didn't ask to be recognized earlier. Bernie. Yeah, thanks Andy. Just to, I guess I'm looking at maybe the same document. I think Kathy was looking at I would just echo that we should forget about the impact fee as a route for this is just much too specific. And it's likely disposable as you know as competition increases is going to be increasing pressure it's already. It's already been attacked in some communities. So that's the idea of using some of the tailings from the current fiscal year, setting those aside. Those would make their appearance probably in the early fall, if I'm when our pre cash is certified, if I'm correct. So that's putting a marker down and giving this committee and manager the opportunity to come up with a permanent source of revenue for this. I'd also like the, I like the idea that my, my former boss, Mr Rhodes is thinking in terms of housing, maybe soft seconds or some other program like that. He would really help people build wealth, and would encourage him to, and as his colleagues to look at ways that we might do things in a non financial way as well, in terms of reparations so we have a broad range of choices for people. So that's it. Okay. Thank you very well so did you want to speak or to view withdrawn that request. If I could very briefly that would be wonderful. Please. So obviously, this is not. Thank you so much. Obviously, this is not deliberation I know you guys have a ton to do. I just want to reiterate I guess where we're at now is reiterating what Bernie said, which is, I want to be perfectly clear with Pat and Dorothy who of course I understand haven't been working on legalized marijuana impact fees and every the bylaws that were developed the regs that were developed the way I have from the beginning in Amherst, and the impact fees are off the table. It's completely irrelevant to this conversation, not usable for the things that you're talking about using. So I and when we talk about this as a couple of other people have since said the amount of money that you're talking about is the equivalent to the excise tax. It's not the amount of money that's equivalent, which so happens to be equivalent to the impact fee. So if you go around telling people that we are going to be able to use the impact fee, we are going to get in trouble. So that's not how the impact fee works, I guarantee that it's not a maybe we can. It doesn't. And so I just appreciate you letting me say that. And just in terms of, again, people managing people's expectations and explaining things clearly it just so happens the two numbers are equivalent. It's not that impact fee is accessible by reparations or community safety working group or literally anything else, except for the very few things that are on that document. Well, thank you. And just so that everybody knows listen I of course served on the select board together back when this whole marijuana law was passed and the discussion started and Alyssa really was a select board expert and point person on. The development of an understanding about what the marijuana policies and rules and laws were and to guide us as a select board in working with the town manager to develop the initial plans, including the agreements with the sales sponsors to bring in community impact fees so I very much appreciate that. Paul, you had something. Yeah I just want to be clear about the process so. And I think, you know, this is right you don't want to be talking about community impact fee. What you would be doing and Sonia and Sean can correct me, you would create a stabilization fund for reparations. Every year or whenever you want you can allocate funds when free cash is certified from your reserves based on some policy that the council adopts, you would vote to put those funds into the stabilization fund and then they would live, they'd be separately accounted for in that stabilization fund. And then, when there's a project or some proposal that comes, it would be presented to say we want to take some money from that stabilization fund and spend it on for this purpose and it has to be a legal person, we have to follow procurement do all the things that we have to do it's still public money. So, but there's a process where you set up the stabilization fund, you, the council can have a policy to appropriate funds into that separate fund that, and then you would have a process to take money out of that for whatever purposes. Is it Sonya is that sorry capture it. Yes. I like the legal has to be legal and allow them. Well, you know, one of the one of the things that I'm quite sure of is that we can put together a process of procedures in a program to be able to utilize the funds that Sean and Sonya have identified on a yearly basis. I don't know that there are other possibilities. And now that I know that we have such incredibly creative financial minds here. I look forward to working with Sean and Sonya as this process goes forward. I just kind of say one thing. Mr Rhodes was the school committee chair. The first year I started here. You probably don't remember me Mr Rhodes but I was a budget analyst that year and so you was 12 years old then. You gave me an intro to town politics at that time. And I just want to clarify that Sean's the creative one I just make sure he does it right. So we have a couple of people who have their hands raised on public comment. So I want to make sure that we get the public comment fairly quickly. So one of them is a list of side and I'll listen if you meant to leave your hand up or not in any event. We have one other person who could bring in. Say one short thing I have a very hard stop at four o'clock because I have a sixth grader coming to the resolution for council. And I need to do that so I am going to go out at four exactly. Yeah no I was going to try and see if we can wrap up at four because we need to break before. I have a really quick question and this is for the future for the team is presenting. If we have a stabilization fund earmarked for this with this title, and private and grant money becomes available from foundations, can it be added to that fund can it be. Yes, so so this. I mean it's a there would, I'm not saying you could just do it but so this could be broader than just the town if there were ways of doing that is, is that true. Yeah, I mean we'd have to work out the logistics but we could the town can accept donations for specific purposes. I'm not sure if we can make a deposit directly into the stabilization fund or not Sony do you have thoughts on that would have to be voted into it, right. Grants, grants probably not grants have to stay within the grant from there so I don't, I don't foresee being able to put any grant money in there but donations, you can. Okay, so thank you. That was my question. Okay. I'm just waiting to let us hear from Claire Bertrand. Absolutely. Okay, Claire you've had read us said we would want public comment and you're the one person who's asked to be recognized if there's others I should raise a hand to Claire. Thank you. Thank you. Can you hear me. Yes. So I would just like to encourage the town to be bold to answer this clarion call and to fund reparations. I appreciate so much hearing all of you and the creative work you are doing to try to fund it. I serve on the Amherst a better chance ABC board. We bring young men of color to live here and attend our excellent high school. For 50 years Amherst has shown its commitment to this program. Many of you perhaps have served on the board as well I know her has. Her values are that we lift up these young men of color. It's a long standing commitment this community has and 50 years ago, I can imagine I was very young, but I can imagine that the ABC program as presented was a leap of faith in our community. And I think that's where we are now. We are involved. We are understanding the need for atonement. The BIPOC community deserves our respect. Reparations is one step in that direction. So let us not waiver. Thank you. Thank you Claire. Yes, I have a very simple request and that is that when we start our meeting on the, I guess it's the first when we actually make our recommendations to the council. That we ask our finance and our town manager to make sure that we have properly worded emotion. That captures the spirit of this discussion, so that none of us that are not financial out wizards out there. We ask our financial wizards to help us repair the right motion. That's all. Thank you. Actually, that's a good segue into the final agenda item unless there's more to be said right now on the subject of finding funding stream for reparations. Yeah, I just wanted to put a thought out there and that is the development on Belcher town road might be an opportunity to change the model from rental to home ownership. And that might be something the committee would like to should consider. Interesting suggestion. I think that's probably going to be one of the needs of thought, but thank you for raising the issue. Dorothy. I just want to back up that with total support. I had asked that question earlier. I know the answer and it may be very complicated, but instead of only building rental affordable housing. That's a nice piece of land we could possibly do home ownership as an opportunity there. And again, I can't comment. I think that's a good advice. Place today. So when I was to finish out of them, what I was saying, because it's the last agenda item was sort of the process going forward for the finance committee on all of our issues. I'm struggling on the on that finance committee report appreciate all that we have received so far from those of you Dorothy and library. Kathy was going to do some possible revisions. I think on the one that she had done police department. I think that's a great pedestal on fire. And several on community services functions that we had heard about previous to today's. So, they are working progress when it comes to the discussion that we're going to have on the first. What we want to do is go through each section of the budget and just make sure that there's anybody who is making any motion to reduce a portion of the proposed budget. Either in total or in part. Because we have to remember what the charter allows us to do and what state law allows us to do. And that will allow us to then reach a conclusion and compass final motion. And that motion that Luna was referring to, and that is going to be subject that her suggestion was that possible staff come up with some sort of proposed motion for the committee to consider at the meeting on the first that addresses the issue that we started with those that was charged to us by the council at the May 17 meeting regarding reparations. And the process that I envision, I don't know if there's any comments from anyone who's participating in this meeting presently about that is process to move forward with some on the first. And the other thing that we would do. That goes to the second meeting for the second of June, which is the day after the meeting on the first. Not that we think that we need it, but in case we need it, because we're charged with making a recommendation on the budget within 30 days of referral 30 days of referral is the second. So, I think we need to have voted by the second and at least send some sort of report by email to the council on the evening of the second after if we have to have that additional meeting so we posted an additional meeting, but I hoping that we actually complete business on the first and don't need to have that additional meeting. So, Sean you have anything to say. Yeah I just wanted to clarify expectations around the reparations piece so what I'm thinking is the motion for that would be to create the stabilization fund. The memo that goes along with it will lay out sort of what we talked about because the motion to appropriate funds won't come until pre cash is certified in the fall. But we could potentially bring forward the motion to create the fund, and then explain sort of what we discussed and what the plan is for that fund. Does that sounds consistent with what we talked about. Yes. Okay, I think it does, but others will respond as they have their hands up. Kathy. Yeah, Andy. I'm comfortable with what you laid out and I'm just trying to do my 30 day count so if we have a long meeting tonight. If out of that comes. I don't know what is going to come out of that. But if we have a longish section that has to be written to explain what we're thinking. Maybe how you will have written that by Tuesday, but maybe you will perform wonders when we can get you our amended sections. So, when you said, we could get something specific back to the council that's on recommendations, but not necessarily a report, and or maybe the report will be done that's, I'm just looking at counting do we. Do we want to move the third to the second on a tentative, maybe we need to meet. Or do you think we really can get everything done on the first because it sounds like we can't be reviewing a report and wording on the third, in terms of your timeline. Actually, what I, what I think that we can do in the theme is our arbiter as far as what what we have to do to fly with the charter. And report back in a brief report that even one that's sent by email only saying what it is that our bottom line recommendations are explanations to follow so that we have reported to the council on our recommendations. That's a 30 day period, and then we can take a little bit of extra time. If we need to to actually write a report to go along with the recommendations. So that was Sonya. I just want to throw a little something in here. The setting up the stabilization fund and appropriating any money into it does not have to happen for this budget season for the budget the main budget that can be separate and I can wait a couple of weeks. So, you can get your schedule a little clear that can happen at any point in time it does not have to happen before June 1. I realize that it's not a part of the budget. I think and I have to go back, but maybe little remember that there was a time deadline on the motion that Alyssa made and was seconded and passed by the council. I think what it is it's part of the spirit of the budget and so we want some motion that is done at the same time we passed the budget, so that it is the marker is there. The only other thing I would besides the fact that you would set up that stabilization fund would be language that says something that with the intent that, you know, a amount equivalent to that piece of the marijuana money would be positive in that fund at the time we do our stabilization overall budget somehow not that we can work on it so many. Well, I suggest that we create, if you want to do something for the budget time that we create the stabilization fund so that it's there. And I think, I think we should take a little time to figure out exactly what the funding source will be for that, or what we're doing. I think that's a good suggestion it just feels like we need to work out the logistics. I don't know what do you think Paul. Yeah, I mean I think I think we're hearing the intent. I think, you know, we will once we develop the stabilization fund I think you we want to have a policy of the town council to say this is how we're going to fund it. This is the source of revenues that we're looking at we're going to take percentage based on the revenues so I do think you want to spend some time and thinking about this because we want this to be going forward as a policy of the of the council, basically. I do think we also have to remember that each deposit has to be separately voted by a majority of the council at the time that it's made so, you know, two years from now three years from now whoever's on the council always have to that council will always have to spend a lot of money to add money to a stabilization fund, and it requires two thirds of the council to withdraw money from a stabilization fund. So when a proposal is made by whatever mechanism is established. That two thirds vote of the council to allocate money from the stabilization fund for the purpose just feels like a time crunch that's all. Yeah. Sorry about that. And it was related to the whole other piece of our final business and that is, I thought we had agreed to meet on the first and if necessary the second that we're not meeting on the third. That's what I thought. Yeah, I think that's right. And that's why I phrase that if we need a separate meeting on the second that's something we can decide I just wanted to remind to tell people that we posted a meeting. Remember, we're going into a holiday weekend so the posting is actually a little bit more complicated because you can't count Monday is part of the 48 hours for posting notice. I think to post the Athena, I think Athena did post the second already posted the first and second. Okay, great. Thank you. We've already got over the agendas, and they're, they're good for what we want. So they, they did get posted today. So, Dorothy, you had something. Two comments. The first is, the fund is not really a pass through fund where we get money we put it in and that's the only money you take out is that you get money you put it in one pocket. And you remember how much it was but you could take it out of another pocket to pay it. Is that correct Sonia. No, no, the money goes into the fund and it gets, and then it gets transferred to an account to spend it from. So we don't, we're not concerned about any restrictions on the, the tax. I thought I thought there was some concern, even about the general marijuana. It's not linked that way. We're not using any that's fine that I just want to make sure that's clear. Okay, using an amount equivalent to right that's that's what I meant I was, I was, I explained my metaphor is not a good one but I wanted to establish that it was separate. Okay, I just, I wanted to say thank you to Michelle and to Matthew for their presentations and their thoughtful and creative ways of discussing things with us. So, I hope that we can continue to work together. Thank you. Thank Michelle and Matthew Andrew for having been with us today. And for the chemistry received. I just want to add her because her has such a long history that having someone come in who's actually been part of these finance discussions plus as a leader in the community is terrific. Thank you. Thanks for coming out of retirement. Yeah, thank you. Okay, so we need to adjourn so that we can reconvene at 530 and have some time in between. Thank you everyone. Thank you. In any event, if any other final business on this first part of the meeting, if not, I will declare this meeting adjourned and we will reconvene with our second meeting at 530. See you later. Thank you.