 have a quorum. Athena, yes? Yes. Good evening. It's September 19th, 2022, on July 16th of this same year, an act was signed into law which extends the suspension of certain provisions of the open meeting law. This allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present at a meeting location, while providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting. This meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom, by phone, and as of last week, people are actually allowed to attend in the room up to a limited capacity. It's also available on Amherst media. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the September 19, 2022, primer on the master plan meeting of the town council to order at 531. This is the first of three meetings with all being accessible on the same Zoom link. I will call on each council by name. At that time, you should unmute your mic and say present. This will indicate that you can hear us and we can hear you. I'm going to begin with Shalini Balmell. I'm here. Pat DeAngeles. Present. Anna Devlin-Goth here. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Mandy Jo Hanicky is not present yet. Anika Lopes. Present. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney is not present at this point. There she is. Pam Rooney, can you indicate that you are present? Pam, can you indicate you're present? We can't hear you, Pam. I'm going to skip Pam for a moment while she works with that. Kathy Shane is not showing on the screen yet. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Tob. Present. Alicia Walker is not showing on the screen. And Pam, have you been able to figure out your voice? Can you hear us? Please not. But we can't hear you. We cannot hear you. If you're wearing earphones, you probably need to do something on the audio part down below that allows you to use headset. Athena, someone else have better instructions, please offer them. No, we cannot hear you. We cannot hear you. Jennifer. I think Alicia's in the audience. Thank you. Please bring Alicia in. Hi, Alicia. Can you hear us? Yes. Hello, everyone. Hi, and we can hear you. Thank you. Pam Rooney is present. She can't hear. I mean, she can hear us, but we can't hear her and she's working on that. We are going to continue. There is no chat. And if there's technical issues, given that we're expecting a thunderstorm, we want to make sure that you let us know if you lose connectivity, please use the raise hand function if you have any questions. As I mentioned earlier, this is the first of three meetings tonight, all using the same zoom link. My phone. We're going to wait for announcements until we get to the regular meeting, which is we'll start at approximately 6 30 or later. So let me begin by introducing the public, the primer. Each year is required by Charter section 2.13. We have to hold a public forum on the master plan. Starting in 2019, we have provided a separate session prior to the public forum called primer on the master plan. Fortunately, this has been continually provided by planning director Chris Breastrup, and it allows us to either learn or refresh our knowledge of the master plan and updates regarding actions related to the master plan. The plan was developed. Okay, I need somebody to. Okay. The plan was developed through a comprehensive process involving over 1000 Amherst residents. It was formally adopted by the planning board in 2010, and by the town council on November 9 2020. At the conclusion of the presentation on the primer, we will adjourn this meeting and move immediately to the public forum at 6 30 or at six o'clock or later. That will be the meeting in which we encourage the public to make comments and engage in dialogue. So Chris, thanks again for being with us this evening for the presentation and the updates and for all the work you do for the town. Go ahead. Good evening. My name is Chris Breastrup. I'm the planning director for the town of Amherst, and I'm here to give you a short presentation tonight about the master plan. And then during the public forum to hear comments and concerns from the public about the master plan. First, I'd like to say a few general words about the master plan. The master plan is a dynamic long term planning document that provides I don't I don't really well I it's fine to leave this what do you call it? Starting slide cover slide up while I'm talking now. So anyway, a master plan is a dynamic long term planning document that provides a conceptual layout guide for future to guide future growth and development. It's not the same as zoning. It doesn't tell us how wide the sidewalk should be or how high the building should be. It doesn't tell us what style of architecture should prevail in the town or what the streetscape should look like. And it doesn't tell us how many parking spaces there should be for each type of project. It's much more general than that. So getting down to specifics. We have a series of other plans that map out details for us, including our zoning bylaw. Since the master plan was completed in 2010, we've made many other plans, at least one of which has been incorporated into the master plan by reference. And these other plans include the sewer extension plan, the housing production plan, the housing market study, the transportation plan, open space and recreation plan, bicycle and pedestrian network plan, community field master plan, and the climate action and adaptation and resiliency plan. And there may be other plans too that I have not listed here. We've also made many changes to our zoning bylaw since the adoption of the master plan. And we're currently working with the CRC and the planning board on a number of other zoning changes, including a zoning amendment on flood mapping. Another one on making Article 14, which was temporary zoning, allowing restaurants to operate during COVID, making that a permanent feature of the zoning bylaw. And we're also working not quite in public yet, but sort of behind the scenes on a certain development zoning amendment that would allow more types of housing development. So the master plan that we'll talk to you about tonight was created over a period of 12 years from 1998 to 2010. And since we had not previously had a master plan, it took a long time to develop the one we have. The town should start the process for an updated master plan around 2025 with the goal of having an updated master plan by 2030. And this time, I hope it won't take 12 years to adopt a master plan since much of the groundwork has already been laid. Meanwhile, we should work on implementing the master plan that we have, including continuing to create new plans to address issues that are important to the town, including changes to our zoning bylaw. So now let's talk about the master plan. And I'm going to ask Athena to scroll through this with me. So this is the 2022 version of the master plan primer. Next slide please. The one previous to this. That's the one. Yeah. So what is a master plan? It's a community's general long term blueprint for the future. It's a dynamic document the beginning and not the end of a process. Next slide please. So what does the law say about a master plan? Master plan is required by mass general law chapter 41, section 81 D. Our master plan was adopted by the planning board in February of 2010 and adopted by the town council in accordance with the charter on November in November of 2020. The Amherst home rule charter requires the adoption of a new master plan every 20 years. So by my reckoning, I think we should look towards a target date of 2030 for a new master plan, which means that we should begin planning for a new master plan around 2025. Next slide please. So what does the law say about a master plan? Oh, I've already talked about that. Next slide please. This master plan was the first in Amherst for nearly 40 years and was based on an extensive public input. In addition to public input, the master plan was also based on research on the community's existing conditions and anticipated trends for the future. And you can see some of that documentation. If you go to the master plan web page of the town's web page, there are appendices which talk a lot about the existing conditions. Of course, those conditions existed in 2010 and not 2022, but it will give you a sense of the types of information that master plan was based on. This master plan represents Amherst's best effort to balance competing interests of a diverse population. And of course, not everybody got everything they wanted, but we hope that most people got most of what they wanted. Next slide please. So the master plan really began, if you want to look back into ancient history in about 1971, when the university was expanding quite a bit, and there was a lot of development in town. And the town established a group called SCOG, which is kind of a terrible name, but it was a very good group, the Select Committee on Goals, which worked from 1971 to 1973, and developed a report that is on our website. And the plan, the conceptual plan from that report is seen on the right hand side of your slide here, with the rectangle in the middle representing downtown, and the circles around the outside representing village centers and villages, North Amherst Village Center, Cushman, two village centers, one commercial and one institutional in South Amherst. On the right hand side, you can see Gatehouse Road, which hasn't quite developed into a village center. And then at the very south part of the slide is or a south part of the map is the South Amherst Village Center at Atkins Corner, where Atkins Farm Market is. After the Select Committee on Goals, while it really went more than 20 years later, Amherst hired Walt Kudnowski's consulting firm to do a visioning process for the town. And that lasted from 1997 to 1998. And the Comprehensive Planning Committee worked with Walt Kudnowski's company to develop this visioning process. Then the Comprehensive Planning Committee met, and they met regularly over a period of six years to work on how to proceed with this project that we were starting planning Amherst together, which is the title of the master plan process. We had substantive participation from Hampshire College, Amherst College and UMass, and $20,000 was appropriated by town meeting in 2004 to hire a consultant to establish a scope of work and a cost estimate for the work of planning Amherst together. And many community members were involved, including people who are still involved in our town government, Bruce Coldom, John Kuhn, Cheryl Zall, who was the director of the Survival Center, Alyssa Brewer, who was a longtime town meeting member and select board member, Aaron Hayden, Eric Nakajima, Jim Wald, and many others. In 2005, the town meeting voted an additional $65,000 to develop a master plan. Next slides, please. Then in 2006, planning Amherst together really began in earnest and a consultant was chosen, ACP was their name. And they worked with the engagement and support of the Comprehensive Planning Committee. And the town voted an additional $135,000. So we had $200,000 to work on our master plan, and data was gathered. And you can see over on the right hand side of your slide here that, you know, we really did gather a lot of people together to work on this master plan. In 2007, there were public idea gatherings, group workshops, and a community survey was sent out to about, I think it was over 600 randomly selected households to answer questions about what people wanted to see for the future of Amherst. And the first draft of the master plan was prepared. And then from 2008 to 2010, the master plan subcommittee of the planning board edited that draft. And finally, in 2010, in January, they held a public forum on the draft master plan. And then in February, the planning board voted to adopt the master plan. And then 10 years later, after we adopted the charter, the town council also voted to adopt the master plan. Next slide please. So what's in the master plan? The master plan contains chapters that are required by mass general law, and they are as follows. There's the first section on goals and policies. And next section on land use, which is the one that's most near and dear to the planning department's part. That's the one we work on the most. The next one is demographics and housing. And of course, we work on housing to economic development, natural and cultural resources, open space and recreation, services and facilities, which would include things like schools and fire department and police department etc. transportation and circulation. And then the last one is implementation. Next slide please. So how's the master plan organized? It begins with a statement of key directions. And some of them are maintain Amherst's existing community character. And I think that's a really important direction that we all share. Provide housing that meets the needs of all residents while minimizing impacts on the environment. And that means all residents, all different ethnic groups, all different income levels, etc. And that's that is a challenging thing to do, especially not to have an impact on the environment. diversify and expand the economic base. And that's another one that's challenging. And it's hard to, to entice companies to come to come to Amherst sometimes, but we have many people in town who are working on that. And promote an ethic of sustainable environmental energy practices and all town activities. And I think we try really hard on that goal as well. So next slide, please. The one right before this, did we already go through that? Anyway, okay, so land use land, I said land use was near and dear to my heart. And these are some of the objectives under the land use section of the master plan, preferentially direct future development to existing built up areas. So what that means is that we try to preserve as much of the outlying areas of town as we can and to direct development to those places that were shown on that, that original gray and black plan that I showed you that showed the downtown and showed village centers. So those are the places that we try to direct development to. And since that map was developed, we also have the development along university drive, which is another built up area that we try to direct development to preserve key and developed lands. So this is something that Amherst has done a lot of and we have many properties in town that have conservation restrictions on them. And those are both purchased conservation restrictions, as well as donated conservation restrictions. And we the town also owns a lot of land that is is conserved. And the next goal is to protect key farmland and farming. And we've done a really good job of this. We have a lot of agricultural preservation restrictions. And you can see along Northeast Street and Southeast Street, some of the fruits of the labor is there where we have, you know, vast swaths of farmland that have been protected guide new housing growth while minimizing impact on open space and small town rural character. And one of the ways we do that is that we have a cluster subdivision zoning bylaw, which promotes the idea of having subdivisions that use a minimal amount of land to provide housing and also preserve open space. So an example of this is the Vista Terrace Development, which is in South Amherst across from Atkins Farms. And that was 11. I think it was 11 acres altogether, four of which were developed for housing, and seven of which are being given to the town as open space. So we're very excited about that. The last one here is on our historic and cultural character and beauty of neighborhoods. And so we've established three local historic districts, and we work very hard to preserve historic buildings in town, as you will note that the Historical Commission and the Local Historic District Commission both work very, very hard on that. Next slide, please. Demographics and housing. So we try to encourage a greater mix of housing types, sizes and prices serving a wider range of income levels. And this is really challenging because the price of land is so expensive in Amherst that developers are encouraged by the price of the land to develop large expensive houses. So we see a lot of that happening in our subdivisions. At the same time, we get we are able to get subsidies from various sources, state sources as well as community preservation grants and and other grants to develop low income housing, but there's nothing really that's helping us to develop moderate income housing. And that's something that we have to work on. The next one is preserve and expanding expand the number of affordable and moderately priced rental units and housing stock. So again, I think, you know, we have a pretty good handle on affordable below a certain level, but it's the moderately priced that really gives us a challenge. Encourage the production of housing in an environmentally sound manner. And I think we try very hard to do that we've established the stretch building code as one of our guides to developing housing. And some of the new buildings in town are actually quite environmentally sound, even though they take their large buildings, but they're built in a way that really preserves the environment. And then improve housing and services for people who are homeless. And the town has worked very hard on this, they worked with Craig's doors to house homeless people, particularly in the cold months, but we're also working on a way to permanently house people who are homeless. And we have a project actually a project on North Pleasant, North Hampton Road, rather, 132 North Hampton Road that is being developed. And some of the people who are going to live in that housing are people who are homeless or have been homeless. Next slide, please. Then another goal is to under natural and cultural resources to promote the preservation appreciation and sustainable use of our historical and cultural resources. So, you know, as part of it is the landscape part of it is the beautiful old buildings that we have. And we also have cultural resources that we try to protect, but also to promote. And one of the ways we promote them is through the Amherst Cultural District, which was formed about five or six years ago. And we also tried to apply principles of environmental sustainability townwide. And the picture on the right is a picture of the current center at Hampshire College, which is one of two living building challenge buildings in town that we're very proud of buildings that can kind of survive by themselves off the grid in terms of eventually water, sewer, electricity and everything. I'm not exactly sure what the status of this one is, but it's primarily self-sustaining. Next slide, please. The next objective is to do something about transportation and circulation, and to actively promote alternative modes of transportation. And I'm sure you all have noticed that we have a good bike share system going on here now. We started off with a limited number of bike stations, but over time, the town has worked with other cities and towns in the area to develop a more robust system of bike share. And we've been adding little by little to our bike share stations, and they're quite heavily used, provide adequate public parking to support existing and desired new development in downtown and elsewhere. And this is something that we struggle with. We've had a number of conversations about where we can possibly put public parking, and that's an ongoing conversation. And pursue funding strategies for achieving transportation goals. And this is something that's always on our minds, and we're constantly looking for money from the state and other sources to achieve our transportation goals. And recently, we've had some success with getting a MassWorks grant to build the roundabout at Pomeray Village. But we also worked with the state to redesign the section of route nine from the center of town down to University Drive. And although we didn't receive money for that, we did work with the state very closely on the design of that section of route nine. So we're looking forward to seeing that construction come to an end. Next slide, please. And implementation is the last chapter of the master plan. Initially, a master plan implementation committee was to be formed. And the select board did develop a charge for that committee, but the committee was never really populated. And even so, we are still working on implementing the master plan. A lot of the different things that the town works on are part of the master plan implementation grid. Doug Marshall, who is the chair of the planning board now. And I spent considerable time in the fall of 2020, looking at that implementation grid and kind of filling in information about what had and hadn't been done and who had done it and when it was done and who's responsible and all of that. So we do have a draft of that available, if anyone wants to see that. But as I said, we continue to implement the master plan, even though it's not in a what should I say, organized concerted effort as as was initially proposed. And we do involve a wide variety of stakeholders in the implementation, even though the implementation tends to be kind of piecemeal, instead of you know, an ongoing, organized project. And we do require concurrence with the master plan. So whenever we do a zoning amendment, we have to make a statement that the zoning amendment is in concurrence with the master plan. Next slide please. Have the next Oh, yeah, thanks. So what have we accomplished since adopting the master plan? And how have we implemented the master plans objectives and strategies? Next slide please. One of the things we've done a pretty good job on as I was saying earlier, is affordable housing. We have a lot of affordable housing in town. I think we have over 12% something like 12.75% of our housing units are quote affordable according to the state's definition. So on the left here, you see Olympia Oaks, which was developed a number of years ago, that provides 44 units of affordable housing to people making 80% or less of area median income. And it's really a beautiful community. I drove through it about a month ago, and it's very well laid out. And the buildings are well maintained. And it looks like a great place to live. And then there's Main Street housing on the on the right here. And that was an endeavor by the Emerson Housing Authority. So even there, they're, they're not part of the town government, they are kind of part of our community. And they've developed 11 units of affordable housing here. And they're really beautiful, well maintained units. Next slide please. So how do we get affordable housing? There are a number of different strategies that we use. One of them is to preserve existing units. And we've done that at rolling green where there are about 200 units altogether. And the town worked with beacon communities to encourage beacon to purchase the rolling green property when it was about to go off the rolls, if you will, of affordable housing and become all market rate housing in the town contributed. I believe it was $1.2 million to that effort and beacon did purchase that property and has managed to maintain 40 units of affordable housing at rolling green. Other projects are developer driven. Some of them are examples would be North Square at the Mill District, which was also developed by beacon communities. And that's the area up by Cole's Lumber. You may be familiar with the provision store up there, and other commercial things that are starting up. But that has 130 units of housing altogether and 26 of them are affordable. Habitat for humanity takes advantage of small sites. And the picture over here on the right is a picture of a development that they built in on East Pleasant Street, where there are two units of affordable housing, both occupied by families. And then Valley CDC, Valley Community Development Corporation, as I mentioned earlier, is developing and building at 132 North Hampton Road that will house people. Some of whom make 80% or less of area median income. But there are also units set aside for those making 50% or less or 30% or less. And a few units set aside for people who have come out of the mental health community who are trying to make make a way for themselves on their own. We also have inclusionary zoning, which we've improved a couple of times in the last few years. And rep reap the benefits of that. Presidential Apartments is one where we they added 54 units. And we got I think we got six affordable units out of that 70 University Drive, where we got four affordable units out of a 36 unit building, Aspen Heights, which is a big new building on Route nine, and 88 units altogether, there are 11 of them that are affordable. And University Drive South, this is something that's just being completed right now as we speak. And that is a nice looking new building at the entrance to Amherst with 45 apartments altogether, five of which are affordable. And a new one that was just, just permitted at 446 Main Street near the railroad tracks. And that's going to have 23 units of housing, three of which are affordable. So incrementally, we're adding affordable units all over town, which is really the right way to do it, not to have them all clustered in one location. So the town's role in developing affordable housing is multifaceted. There's we work on the zoning bylaw to try to make it as, you know, encouraging of affordable housing as we can. The town acts as a facilitator, where we get a developer and the state and consultants together to work on projects. So the town had a role in getting the actors at the North Square at the mill district together to develop that project. We also provide funding. And the funding can be in various sources. Community Preservation Act funds are often used by these developers to develop their affordable housing. We provide a tax incentive, which actually to date has only been used by the beacon communities, but that was a good tax incentive for them to help them with North Square. And then there are other types of grants that we can make available to developers to provide affordable housing. We help developers through the permitting process, the 40 B, you might have heard of that, which is daunting process, but we're committed to developing affordable housing. So developers who are using that mechanism for getting permits for their projects, we try to help them with that. And the town also purchases land or owns land and then donates it or sells it for a very nominal price to developers of affordable housing. And we're currently working with a developer on Belcher Town Road and the East Street School, where the town owned the land and is going to be turning it over to the developer to build to build affordable housing there. Next slide, please. So here are some pictures of the projects that I've been talking about North Square, the Mill District is in the upper left. And that's where provisions is. And Cine Jones is developing some stores on the ground floor, but there are 130 units here, 26 of which are affordable. And they're really beautiful units. Aspen Heights is down below on the left hand side. And that's the building along route nine and then one university drives south is the building that's just under construction. That's going to have five affordable units. It's a mixed use building and it will also have the high physicians of Northampton, prominently located in the front part of the building. Next slide, please. Emerson Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, I couldn't not mention them. They're part of local government. They get their powers from the state law and local regulations. They have a high priority on creating affordable housing and they bring people together and talk and advocate for affordable housing. They also can provide funding for affordable housing developments and act as a facilitator for those types of projects. And John Hornick has been very instrumental in their very energetic promotion of affordable housing. Next slide, please. That's going backwards. Okay, so what are we continuing to work on? That's part of the master plan. Again, adequately addressing homelessness and the need for more affordable housing. I talked about Belcher Town Road in the East Street School, repairing aging infrastructure, roads, bridges and sidewalks. And often we have to reach out to the state to get grants to do that. Constructing new sidewalks on Mill Lane, we used some of our community development block grant funds to connect the sidewalks and develop the housing on East Hadley Road with Graf Park. So this is a really great new way of getting people to Graf Park. Now this is a challenging one, refining a plan to address our four large capital projects in a time of rising costs. That would be the library, the school of fire station and the Department of Public Works building, updating the zoning and general bylaws. We've had some recent successes here. We updated the zoning bylaw to make it easier to build accessory dwelling units without having to go through a laborious permitting process. And we moved our preservation of historic buildings from the zoning bylaw to the general bylaw, making it more clear about how we're going to be preserving historic buildings. And we also apply the principles of environmental sustainability townwide. As I mentioned before, we have the stretch building code, which is part of the building code. We have net zero for municipal buildings. And we're going to be dealing with that as we move ahead with some of our projects. And we also have recently created the solar bylaw working group, the town manager established that working group to work on a solar zoning bylaw as well as a site assessment for where would it be most appropriate to put solar installations. Next slide, please. So this comes to the end of my presentation and if there's time and Lynn is agreeable, well, there isn't time because it's five after six. So thank you very much for listening and I hope that people have some good questions and comments during the public forum. Chris, thank you very much. I'm going to now adjourn this meeting and immediately move to calling the next meeting to order. The next meeting is actually the public forum required by the charter to address the master plan. And again, we've already talked about the open meeting law and I'm but I am going to now begin to call the quorum of the council, given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the September 19 2022 special town council meeting public forum to address the master plan to order at 608. This is the second of three meetings, all of which are on the same zoom link. I have checked with many counselors, but others have joined us. And I need to check with manager Haneke your presence. Yep. And Pam, Rooney, can you hear us? And would you see if we can hear you? Come back to Pam. Kathy Shane, can you hear? Yes, I can hear up. I'm here. Can hear you. Great. Thanks. So I'm waiting for Pam Rooney to indicate that she can hear us and we can hear her. Are there any counselors? This is Pam. This is Pam. Great. I can hear I can hear you beautifully. Can you hear me? We can. Thank you. Okay. So we've worked out all the technological problems. Please let me know if there are any other counselors who cannot hear us. All right. So I've already mentioned that this is a formal process. Pam, you have your hand up. Can I double check one more time that this works? It does. We hear you and you can hear us. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much, Pam. As I mentioned earlier, this is a requirement of the charter and we started back in 2019 to hold the primer, which we've just had. But this is really the time for residents to comment. And so I'm going to just ask for anybody who is on Zoom and there is nobody in the room. If you would please raise your hand if you would like to make a public comment. I just want to note that there are 19 people in the audience. At this point, I'm only seeing four hands. I have the feeling I'll see more. And the public comment at this time is only on the issue of the master plan. When we go to the regular council meeting, there will be another general public comment period. If you have public comments that do not relate to the master plan, that is the time to make those comments. Okay. If you're joining by Zoom, you're going to raise your hand. If you're joining by phone, you use star nine. And let me also mention at the conclusion of the public forum, and no earlier than 6.30, we will go back. We will move on to the regular town council meeting. So I'm going to begin by calling on Steve Dunn. Please enter the room and state your name and where you live. Athena is bringing people into the room. Thank you. And am I in the room? You are in the room. Great. I don't see myself. So well, thank you. I am part of the North Amherst master plan study group. There's 15 of us that with a handful of others who couldn't participate every week, but we met for five weeks, and we each got our own copy of the master plan. And we covered chapters every week. And because we are a North Amherst group, much of our focus was on North Amherst, but truly everything that we covered could be expanded out to the town pretty correctly. We were a pretty diverse group, and our discussions were wide ranging. We can't pretend to speak for everyone in North Amherst, but we were a fairly diverse set of viewpoints. And I would say that the report that you received from us, I believe you all received a packet of our report. It covers all of the discussions pretty well. Now, it's eight pages long. And I understand being a counselor has to be time consuming. But I do hope that you would all take the time to read this report. It covers quite a lot. And North Amherst is a pretty good macrocosm for Amherst as a whole. So as I already said, some of our concerns are pretty well focused on North Amherst, but many apply broadly across the whole town. On the second page of our report, in the second half of that page, we have a set of bullet points. And I just want to touch on some of those very briefly, because they are kind of highlighted points. First of all, when we had our discussions, we found that our thinking was really hindered by a lack of information, up to date information in the master plan. So we would really love to see an inventory taken that would help us in thinking about land use and economic development, as it pertains to zoning issues in particular. We would really like to see a village design guideline, something that would apply probably to all the village centers, but particularly form based zoning and something I just learned about, which is transfer development rights. These are things that would help us a great deal in thinking about how to implement the master plan in our own neighborhoods. There's a lot of other things in here. Things like taxable student housing and more venues for neighborhoods, how to deal with e-commerce, which is taking over our businesses. And there's a lot in here. So thank you for your time. I do hope that you'll find the time to read through our report. Thank you. Steve, thank you very much. And we did receive that report during the day and it has been added to the packet. However, it was not listed as an agenda item at this time. Okay. The I know there was a second person who was going to speak to that report. Michelle, can you tell me who that is? I think both Cinda and Eve and Janet all probably would like to speak to it. I'm that's all I would that I can see on the attendees. Thank you. The next person in line, however, is Kathy Axelson-Berry. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, Kitty Axelson-Berry. I live in Echo Hill South, which is district two. So I've noticed I've observed that what for one thing, there's no implementation committee as as Christine Brestra mentioned. But in addition to that, there has been it seems a lot of cherry picking of the master plan, kind of ignoring the points about preserving an honoring small town character, and honoring the character of neighborhoods. So I have two questions. Wouldn't it be helpful to have an actual implementation committee, rather than have things done piecemeal? And I know that the planning department has plenty to do without figuring all of this out itself. And this relates to what Jennifer Taub calls the the need for a year round population for a year round economy. And I'm wondering if that appears anywhere in the in the master plan, because we have we seem to be having a real imbalance at this point with an overload of undergraduate students and maybe even a loss of population of year round residents. That is my comment. Hitti, thank you for joining us. The next person with their hand up is Cindy Jones. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi there. My name is Cindy Jones. And I live at 232 Amity Street. And Meg Gage invited me to be part of the North Amherst Group, because I'm a stakeholder there as a vision area of the Mill District. She asked me to speak tonight about our master plan input. But I'm going to spin that a bit. Instead of repeating what we wrote in the report, I wanted to thank the District One Neighborhood Association because of their inclusivity and leadership. And I'd like to suggest that every district consider undertaking the charrette that Meg and Michelle led in District One. We did a SWOT analysis and we considered what a very diversely interested group of people thought were North Amherst strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And then we were able to review the master plan chapter by chapter with objectivity and commonality. And we determined what we thought communally was best for our part of town. Pam Rooney used to live on Sunderland Road. So she joined us for a couple of the meetings and she added great perspective because she misses all that North Amherst has to offer. And I hope that she and Jennifer Todd and Dorothy Pam will gather the same sort of diverse group of stakeholders in my district where I live and plan a united path forward because there's an opportunity to instead of be opposed to different people's progress to determine what we share in interest and work together toward common goals. If what that SWOT analysis I gave to Beacon and when they do their next phase, they're going to know the easy way to get something approved with community support. And if every district could tell people what they want to see in their neighborhoods like Dona is enabling a North Amherst, then this town would have clear progress and neighbors would be happier with the results. But just imagine the number of residents who would feel heard. And I thank you for listening to me. Good night. Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you. Eve Vogel, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, can you all hear me? We can. Excellent. So I'm Eve Vogel. I live on Harlow Drive, which is in precinct, the former precinct three, District one, sort of halfway between East Pleasant and North Pleasant and Eastman and Pine sort of in the middle of that quadrangle. I participated in the North Amherst group and I'm going to build on what Cindy just said, which is that I actually think that the way this group worked and the kind of dialogue that Meg and Michelle and Kathy before and other folks have really created a kind of openness of dialogue and real problem solving, you know, just practical problem solving that I think is actually a pretty good model for the town. And it would be good to look at the report and also just talk about how they did it. I'm going to just briefly talk about why I think North Amherst is a microcosm for the town and the kind of issues that we got to, didn't resolve all of them, but I think you'll see in our report that we at least got to some ideas about sort of where to look. It is relevant to the rest of the town. So North Amherst has two village centers. So one of them is quite developed in North Amherst. There's also Cushman. North Amherst, as you know, has a significant commercial and also really dense residential populations right there. There are historic landscapes throughout North Amherst that include neighborhoods, conservation lands, farms, and also an old industrial district. And so recognizing that industry is really a part of Amherst's history in our place seemed really relevant to thinking about how to build a kind of integrated vision for the town. Oh my gosh, I talked to you slow. Nonetheless, there's overall separation of those low income communities that are really concentrated in dense neighborhoods and separated from the neighborhoods. And often when we talk about the cultural landscape of the town and what the town's character is, we're not including those communities. And the people from those communities were also not part of our group. So I think we collectively need to make a big effort to make sure they are included both in terms of representation, but also in consideration as a part of what this town is about. Yeah, I'll second what Kitty said, there's a concern about increasing unaffordability, developer interest in student housing instead of family housing. We do have a multi-use development in North Amherst that does offer a potential good model. It's facing some challenges. It needs to have better transportation connections that don't rely on cars. So there's lots that can be done, but it has a potential to build on. I'm running out of time and I'm guessing I'm not going to get an extra minute. So I'll just say the report is worth looking at. North Amherst is appreciative of the District 1 Neighborhood Association. Thank you. Eve, thanks for joining us and for your comments. Janet Keller, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. You need to unmute. There. Yeah, you got it. All right. I too want to urge other groups to meet together in I die. We weren't as diverse as we want it to be, but it was nonetheless, it did bring some diversity of approach and experience and it was first of all a lot of fun. And to get to know one another and to hear the insights from different life experiences and the different suggestions. And so I want to give recognition to pulling the group together to Michelle and to Meg for doing that and for the folks who came to our group. And I especially want to hone in on the need for more net zero. I heard Chris say that commercial private development is not held to net zero. Now the way the town is and I hope we are going to move with enthusiasm toward that because it is now extremely affordable. I've been dragging my own heels and on getting solar up on my roof. Well, my house is well insulated, but if I do that, I'm going to be way ahead of the game financially. And that's with the recent rise in energy prices, which have been huge . That's an opportunity that I really hope that the leaders of the town take on enthusiastically because it can change things for the environment and for the economy. And I think that's all I want to say right now , but I do hope we look into it and see how economically beneficial it is and adopt net zero with enthusiasm. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Laura Drucker, you have your hand up. Please enter the room. State your name and where you live. Hi, Laura Drucker. I'm in district one now. I think although I've been in district two until recently, I actually wasn't going to talk during this section, but because I live in North Amherst and this is the first I'm hearing of this group, I just want to offer a different perspective, which is that I don't think you're reaching out to everyone. I look forward to reading this master plan, but it's a little disconcerting that we're talking, spending the entire time we're supposed to be talking about this town master plan, talking about one particular area in town. When I look at the list of the people that worked on this report, these are wonderful people who are very involved in things in the town all the time. And it seems like I just, I know other folks have said this, but it seems like we haven't gotten the full breadth of input from everybody that lives in North Amherst. Laura, thank you for your comment. Is there anyone else who would like to make public comment at this time? Hilda Greenebaum, I see your hand, please enter the room, state your name, and this is public comment in relationship to the master plan only. Yes, I understand that. Hilda Greene, 298 Montague Road, and there's one thing that I wanted to point out about North Amherst, which makes us rather unique among the other four districts. And that's that back in with the 2010 census. And foreign base codes was on the agenda. I did a class correlation of who owned the homes with the census with the property records. And I counted back then. And that's before the military housing and other housing up here. We were only like 12% owner occupied, which meant we had in many ways a more transient population on other parts of town, which meant there was less of a stakeholders. And at that point, not very many people were voting, maybe a hundred now, about 330 in the last election, a couple of weeks ago. But it's rather difficult in that we, we really need more middle income home owners for stability in our neighborhood. And I'm pushing owner occupied, because when people own their homes, they seem to have more of a stake in what's going on. And that's basically what I was saying that we may be one of the lowest home, middle income home owners, districts of all of them. And that needs to be looked at carefully in future planning. Hilda, thank you for joining us tonight. Are there any other people who would like to make public comment may gauge please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi everyone, I'm made gauge I live at 208 Montague road very briefly. There's a draft transportation plan. And I encourage us to make it a permanent transportation plan. I also want to note that there are implications of all of these recommendations on the planning staff. And we know they're really stretched. We appreciate all they do. And hope that we might be creative and finding other ways of achieving some of these goals that don't put more pressure on our staff. Thank you everybody. Meg, thanks for joining us. Are there any other comments with regard to the master plan? And this is the short coming to the end of the master plan forum. Seeing no other comments and it is 630 I'm going to adjourn the meeting that includes the master plan public forum. And immediately move into the regular town council meeting. Since we've had a variety of people join us. We're going to begin this meeting as if we were starting a little over. Okay. So it's September 19th, 2022. Based on a July 2022 act signed into law by the legislature. Proved by the governor. It extended the provisions of open meeting law. That allows us to continue to meet in the manner that we are. However, I do want to mention that we have also now voted to include access to the town room for the public up to a limited number of people. Given that we have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the September 19. 19 2022. Town council meeting. To order at 631. This is the third meeting of the evening. And with all being accessible in the same zoom link. We're going to call on each councilor, make sure that they can hear us and we can hear them. Shalini Balmell. I'm here. Happy Angeles. Present. On a Devon got here. Present. Lynn Greece. Present. Mandy Joe Hanneke. Present. Anika Lopes. Present. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taub. Present. Alicia Walker. Present. As stated before, there's no chat room. And if you have technical issues, please let me know. Briefly, we're going to go to the announcements. And I want to just make note of one announcement and that is this Friday. We're going to have a meeting on October 23rd at 10 o'clock in front of the town hall. We will do a Puerto Rican heritage day celebration. Otherwise, the council will not meet again until October 3rd. And committee meetings are as shown. We're going to move on to our next agenda item. This is a hearing with regard to an ever source petition. We are going to hear from the petitioner and also the public. We have a hearing on the ground ever sourced poll on homeroid lane between two existing polls. Austin Harpen has enjoyed, has joined us this evening. And then your packet is also a recommendation from the Department of Public Works. Public hearings are an opportunity for us to hear from the petitioner and also. To. presentation by the petitioner and show you the map for the placement of the polls. Austin, are there things that you would like to say at this time? Hi, good evening. This is Austin and I'll be representing Eversource. So I am proposing to install mid-stamp poll between poll 110 over 18 and 110 over 17 to provide 157 pomeroid lane with power. Ken, one of the questions that is regularly asked by the council is, is there any way to not put in an additional poll since you have two other polls in close proximity? And then I'm going to move to other councilor questions. So the reason we're installing or proposing to install a new poll is because poll 110 over 18 has a primary riser on it that feeds pomeroid core. So I need to install a transformer. And with those two, there's not enough room on the poll. And then 110 over 17 would be too far from where the house is going to be built. So voltage drop becomes an issue. For 157 pomeroid lane, the house is set back pretty far. It's going to be over 400 feet from the roadway. So I really want to install the transformer as close as possible there. So that would be the reason for installing the new poll. Thank you. Are there any questions from councilors? Manage your hand, okay. One comment and a couple of questions. I think you just answered one of them, which is I was unclear, is this house just doesn't have power now? That must be a new build. And that's why we need to do this. The poll petition itself indicated that we would be, if we did the order that we would be allowing Eversource to do underground utilities too, or running of cables underground. And so would that require cutting into the road? And if so, does the order need a requirement to return the road to similar condition? And then the order doesn't include the police and fire crossarm allowance that the request original, the first page of the request said that there would be an allowance for. So do we need to put that allowance in the order? Austin, would you like to address those questions? So everything's gonna be overhead to feed this house. So it'll be overhead wires going across the road. So there'll be no need for a road cut. And then to address the second question, I'll have to get back to you on that one. Then in that case, we'll have to leave the hearing open. Correct. Mind you, John. Or just not vote though. Or just not vote tonight. Until the order is fixed. Okay. Are there any other questions from counselors? Are there any people who would like to make public comment or ask a question with regard to this specific poll? I am not seeing any. I'm going to come back and just ask if there's any other counsel questions. Shalini? Yeah. This is already stated in the DBW's letter about minimum impact to the trees in the area. But I just wanted to make sure that that is stated and that we have a confirmation from every source and maybe an understanding of how you will move forward without impacting the trees there. Austin? So this poll set wouldn't require any tree removal or tree trimming. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from counselors? Then I'm going to close the hearing, but when we get to this item, we're actually not going to vote tonight. So we will be pulling it from the consent agenda until we get additional information. Mandy Jo? I'll just amend it once it's off consent. Okay. Would you mind repeating the question that I need to get back to you on? Mandy Jo? Sure. On our packet, page one is the letter that ever sort of sent the town council. Page two, I think is the backside of that letter. Page three says petition for pole and wire locations. There is a, the last paragraph says, your petitioners agree to reserve space for one cross arm at a suitable point on each of said polls for the fire and police telephone signal wires belonging to the municipality and used by it exclusively for municipal purposes. But two pages later, the order for pole locations does not include that paragraph. So when we get to that item, first of all, I was wondering why it doesn't include that paragraph. And when we get to the item, I believe we just have to add that paragraph into the order and then vote the order with the paragraph added. Okay, so add that paragraph to page three. Yes. From page three to page five. It's not included in the page five to six order. Thank you. All right. Thank you. We, with that, I'm going to close the hearing. Do we have to vote on that? I know it's not on the motion sheet. We normally don't. It's not on the motion sheet. Do we have to vote to close the hearing? All right. I move to close the hearing. Is there a second? And with, since we have a mixture of remote and in-person, I'm going to quickly take a vote. And that is I'm going to begin with Pat DeAngelis. This is a vote to close the hearing. Aye. Anna Devon-Goth here. Aye. Anne Grieshmer is an aye. Mandy Johannike is? Aye. Annika Lopes? Aye. Michelle Miller? Aye. Dorothy Pam? Yes. Pam Rooney? Aye. Kathy Shane? Yes. Thank you. Andy Steinberg? Aye. Jennifer Taube? Aye. Lisa Walker? Aye. Shalani Balmillan? Yes. It's unanimous. We've now closed the hearing and we are going to move on to our next item. The next item on our agenda tonight is general public comment. Residents are welcome to express their views for as many minutes as I tell you once I ask, please raise your hand if you would like to make general public comment. Are there any other people who would like to make general public comment? So far I'm seeing two hands. I'd like anybody else who would like to make general public comment to raise their hand. Okay, we're going to begin right now. There are three. Bob Pam, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. I believe this is the only time for comments on the agenda for tonight. That's correct. Okay. Okay. My name is Bob Pam. I live on Amity Street. I am a Jones Library trustee but I am speaking for myself. I believe the risks to the Jones Library based on current facts makes stopping the project the prudent choice. I understand that others may come to a different conclusion. The library board and other project supporters argue that the financial risk will look very different in 16 months. Affordable bids will come in and new funding sources will materialize for this construction project. The proposal that will come before you says that if you decide when the bids are opened that it is beyond our means and that the project shouldn't continue then either the town or the library will pay roughly $2.2 million of our own funds for the planning work done up to that point. Ending it now, we would pay about $400,000. So the immediate question is a $1.8 million bet and on a year and a half without upgrading anything at the library on the hope that it will all work out. I also hope that proponents of advancing to that step will agree to having some or all of their contributions applied toward these costs if it comes to that. As an individual resident of Amherst I have been a pretty close observer of the project's design evolution. The design incorporates spaces for all the requested functions but other decisions are in my opinion problematic practically and aesthetically. Floor to ceiling windows with their required framing seems illogical and expensive because library patrons will want to sit in front of them and block their lower third and the heat loss from these large north facing windows will be maximized. In addition to reduce costs the sawtooth structures on the roof will be eliminated while the enormous flat skylight will remain bringing possible leakage issues into our future again. The value engineering exercise is leading toward acoustical ceiling tiles and exposed roof trusses and pipes like a partially finished loft. To bring down costs further the current plan does not finance some or all of the computers, furniture, solar panels and landscaping that I thought were included. Maybe the next round of fundraising would cover their costs but I think it likely that some will appear in a future town budget. I supported the project last year and I contribute to it. And I wish I could continue to do so but I don't. Thank you. Thank you for joining us, trustee Pam. Ken Rosenthal, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Thank you, my name is Ken Rosenthal. I live at 53 Sunset Avenue. Bob Pam and I did not plan to speak together. You're gonna hear from me a response in effect to something that he has just said. He's told you based upon his understanding and he is the chief financial officer of the library based on the professional advice from the library's paid planners that the project cannot continue forward as planned. You are gonna be considering tonight whether to spend about a million $800,000 to have the plans developed so that they can go to bid. I propose another alternative for you to take that money that you are gonna spend on developing the current plans to go to bid and use the same planners, the people who know the library very well to plan for you a renovated library on the same footprint that the library now exists. I submit to you that there may be as much as $30 million available for this kind of a project because you're planning to already, you've already committed $15.8 million in town borrowing plus a million dollars from the Community Preservation Act committee. The library itself has already raised a couple of million dollars with some commitments that they claim will be received. They project that they can raise another $11 million, a total of $14 million with another $11 million that they can still raise. I don't believe they can, but they raise a good part of that. That will help. I think also you can go back to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners together with the legislators in Boston to ask them to change the way they handle their grants. So that libraries, including Amherst but other than Amherst as well can make changes in their plans and still qualify for some portion of grants. And if you do that, I think that you will find that you will be able to have a renovated library environmentally sound one that we can all use that meets the current conditions that have evolved over the time of pandemic. So I urge you to spend the money now not to continue to plan the library as originally planned but as renovated on the current footprint. And I hope you will listen to the treasurer, budget chair, Pam as he raises his concerns because they are serious concerns and I think they tell you what you need to know. Thank you for listening to me. Ken, thanks for joining us tonight. Laura Drucker, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, this is Laura Drucker. I live in Amherst, District One. First, I wanted to respond directly to the comments that Ira Brick submitted to the council and posted on the ND on the 18th where he said that you should quote, inform yourself more by reading coverage in the Amherst ND written by many intelligent Amherst neighbors. Not only is this completely patronizing and condescending to you all but it is saying the quiet part out loud that he feels that the 18 or so people who according to their website regularly contribute to the ND are more intelligent and their voice should matter more than the 3,231 people who in town who voted yes for the library last November, 64% of all ballots cast. Those 3,231 people did not vote yes because they saw the dollar amount listed on the ballot and thought it was something they could live with. They voted yes because they saw the opportunity for the town to get matching state funds to repair a failing building, get it off fossil fuels and provide better services for our community. I am so disappointed that at the first sign of an obstacle, those who have been against this project from the start saw yet another opportunity to try and kill it. Instead, wouldn't it be great if Amherst came together and saw this obstacle as an opportunity to fight for more of what we need? An opportunity to fight for the state government to not allow towns to bear the brunt of record high inflation and supply chain shortages driving costs sky high. Why are we responsible for all of that increase? Let's push for Mandy and Joe, Mindy, excuse me, and Joe to fight for us together with the other towns who I know are in the same situation. Let's take this opportunity with the historic federal climate legislation and the passage of the Massachusetts climate plan to get all the funding we deserve to turn our library into a healthy fossil fuel free building. I know there are people in town who would love to help ensure the town gets all the funding it is due for this and the other three projects, not to mention all the other work needed to meet our climate goals. We can't let all this funding go to Eastern Massachusetts. As I understand it, the council can continue forward with the project as planned, which will allow us to understand the final cost numbers and make a final decision next year. We will likely spend $1.5 to $2 million in the next year to move this forward, or we can pull the plug now and sink all the costs we have already spent. I implore you not to listen to a vocal minority and continue with the project. Let's take the time to look into these alternative funding opportunities. Let's take the time to push the state for more money. Let's see what happens with the inflation numbers. This seems like a small price to pay. And in fact, I can think of many examples where the town has approved funding of studies, fundings of groups to appease a vocal minority and that money went nowhere. I'd be happy to come up with $2 million worth. So I just think we should stand, I know this, I'm not trying not to be naive. I know this might not pencil out in the end, but let's not give up now. Thank you. Thank you for joining us, Laura. I'm seeing no other hands at this time, and so we're going to continue on with the rest of our agenda. We are moving to the consent agenda and it's on your screen. The following items were selected because they considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy. I'm going to make the motion after I do that if you would like to remove an item, please raise your hand and just ask that it be removed. Do not speak to why. And in addition, it does not require a second. So the motion is as follows. To move the following items in the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. Waiver of the town council rules of procedure 8.6 for agenda items 6A, 2022 national suicide prevention week proclamation, 6A adoption of 2022 national suicide prevention week proclamation, 8D adoption of proposed amendments to general bylaw, 3.36 soliciting, 8A approval of ever source petition to install one fully owned ever source poll on Pomeray lane between two existing polls. 9A, one to eight approval of the following town manager appointments, Community Preservation Act committee, conservation commission, council on aging, local historic district commission, public art commission, public shade tree committee, recreation commission, resident advisory committee. 11A to D approval of the following town council meeting minutes, July 18, 2022, special town council meeting minutes, public form on community preservation act borrowing for ARHS track and field, July 18, 2022, regular town council meeting minutes, August 15, 2022, regular town council meeting minutes, September 12, 2022, regular town council meeting minutes. Mandy Jo. I'm removing 8A, the ever source petition. Okay. When I make the motion there, I'll make an amended motion. Thank you. Are there any other comments or questions? Yes. I know that there've been several versions of the suicide prevention week proclamation. Does the motion sheet adequately cover the amended petition that was set later in the day? It does. Thank you. Okay. Seeing no other comments, I'm going to move to the vote. I'll second the motion. Oh, thank you. Good idea. Anna Devlin-Goth here. Hi. Lynn Griesper is an I, Mandy Jo Hanneke. I. Anika Lopes. I. Michelle Miller. I. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. I. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. I. Jennifer Taub. I. Alicia Walker. I. Melanie Balmillan. Yes. Pat DeAngelis. I. It's unanimous. We're moving to item six, which is in fact the suicide prevention week proclamation. And I've asked counselor Miller to read the last few paragraphs. Sure. Now therefore be it resolved that the Amherstown council hereby proclaimed September national suicide prevention awareness month and states that it is committed to raising awareness about suicide prevention and will work with local public health and safety officials to ensure the community has access to adequate mental health resources. Be it further resolved that the Amherstown council supports Bill S250 in act adding a suicide prevention hotline number on student identification cards proposed by Senator Joanne Comerford and H2081 an act to better coordinate suicide prevention services, behavioral health crisis care and emergency services through 988 implementation and urges its legislative delegation to continue to propose and support legislation that raises awareness about suicide prevention intervention and training. Be it further resolved that the clerk of the Amherstown council shall cause a copy of this proclamation to be sent into President Joe Biden, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, Representative Jim McGovern, Governor Charlie Baker, State Senator Jo Comerford and State Representative Middie Dunn. Thank you. We are now going to move to, there are no presentations and discussions tonight. We're going to move to action items. And Mandy Jo, I'm going to call on you to make the motion with regard to the ever source petition as you would like to based on what we just heard. Okay. So to approve the order for poll location on Pomeroy Lane titled quote, order for poll locations, quote, dated July 19, 2022 at the points indicated on the plan marked, at the points indicated on the plan marked 80175930 and with the addition of the paragraph, quote, ever source agrees to reserve space for one crossarm at a suitable point on each of said polls for the fire and police telephone signal wires belonging to the municipality and used by it exclusively for municipal purposes to the order. I second. Are there any questions, comments? Going once. Okay. We're going to move to the vote. Lynn Griesmer vote to aye. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Aye. Nika Lopes. Aye. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Jennifer Todd. Aye. Alicia Walker. Aye. Shannon E. Bell-Millen. Yes. Patty Angeles. Aye. It's unanimous. Wait. Did you call that? We are moving on to- Anna says she didn't- I didn't get to call that. Oh, I'm sorry. Anna Devlin-Garner. I was very excited to vote aye on that one. Thank you. That was an aye. Yeah. Thank you. Rotation doesn't always work for me. Thank you so much. It is unanimous. Thanks. We are moving on to agenda item 7B, authorization for the town manager to enter into a memorandum of understanding between the town of Amherst and the Jones Library Incorporated. I'm going to begin this with a motion and then I'm going to move on for the finance committee report. The motion is to reauthorize the town manager to enter into a memorandum of understanding between the town of Amherst and the Jones Library Incorporated acting by and for its board of trustees with an addendum slash amendment that includes a bridging agreement for the time period prior to moving to construction. Is there a second? Second. And Andy, since this was the subject of the entire finance committee meeting this past Tuesday, I'm going to go ahead and ask for you to speak about that. And then I'm going to call on Councillor Boone. I'm not going to repeat what is in the report, rather I will respond to questions if they come up during the discussion about what is stated in the report. But I think that what I wanted to do instead is to state on what the principles were that were part of the discussion and say a little bit about the process. There were several principles we were applying. One is that we wanted to make sure that we understood the timeline of the process when the critical decisions have to be made. Second, we wanted to consider the financial needs of renovation and expansion proposal and repair alternatives as they are separate but they both involve substantial cost. Third, we wanted to respect the elected board of library trustees. We wanted to also respect our voters. And I'll pause for a second to just comment as an individual, not as chair, that it's rare that we have the opportunity to have a vote of voters expressing their perspective and as previously noted, there was a substantial 65% that were voting to proceed with the plan as it is been proposed. And basically for the financial obligation of the town it's not changing at this point. So the next two are we don't recommend decisions now that can be made later with more information. We suggest postponing decisions until there is adequate information. And we want to assure clarity for the town about the effect of immediate expenditures made during the interim period before financial decisions must be made. And applying those principles, we had a very robust discussion after receiving responses to questions and the tremendous amount of information that was provided by the trustees, library staff and by our town staff. So based upon that, we have made the motion that is before you tonight. And I think that that's, oh, the last thing that I wanted to say is that just to comment on the process because this was not obvious from the way the finance committee report is written. There was a motion made and passed and it was passed on a divided vote, three to two amongst the voting members. Another, one of the members who voted in the majority raised the question, can we find a mechanism that or a motion that would not have a divided vote? And based upon that, since it was somebody who was in a position to do so, she made a motion to reconsider and the motion prevailed. We then returned to the motion and there was an amended motion that real address some of the concerns of all of the members of the committee and we were able to have a unanimous vote. So the vote that is being presented to you tonight is with unanimous recommendation of the finance committee. Thank you. I also wanna just note that there aren't many items in your packet, all of which were presented to the finance committee, except for one that Shawn Manganu has been able to get an update as of today and that was regarding borrowing. I'm going to open the floor for questions from counselors or comments. Kathy, you had your hand up. Pam, you had your hand up before her. Go to Kathy. Okay, Kathy, you need to unmute. Am I unmuted? Yes. Okay. I actually wrote out my comments, which is some of you know is unusual for me. I've been actually losing sleep over this and when I go back to a year ago, I abstained on the project because I was worried that costs were underestimated and we were putting the town at financial risk. At that time, Lynn pledged, the project would not get a dollar more than the 15.75 million general fund and one million CPA for the taxpayer share and the trustees were committed to raising $5.7 million, not covered by the grant. With escalation in costs, we're now seeing I am no longer worried, I'm terrified. Last week on the finance committee, I voted to recommend the addendum that Andy just described that would continue design to enable construction bids, assuming intensified fundraising effort. The estimated cost of this, as you heard from Bob Pam would be 1.8 million. In the event we decide 15 months from now not to proceed, we will need to refund 2.2 million to the MBLC. The trustees have pledged, they will reimburse the town for such costs or contribute to an equivalent amount and repair costs. The trustees remain optimistic that by some miracle, they will be able to secure 10 million more than their 5.7 million target or 16 plus million dollars. We might decide not to proceed if costs turn out to be high and the fundraising doesn't reach aspiration. The implicit goal is not to cost taxpayers more. Over the weekend, I realized that some valued features are being cut to reduce the project costs, as Bob Pam described. Notably, this kind of cutting happened in 1992 and contributed to the flawed 1993 addition to the Jones Library. This is no longer likely to be the project all those voters saw a year ago in design plans when they were assured it was affordable without jeopardizing other pressing needs. Trained as an economist, I poured over the cost analysis in light of the challenges I know we face as a town. After reviewing documents more thoroughly, I can no longer support the proposed motion that I voted on last week. Here are my main reasons. We would be putting the town at risk. Our town operating budget and capital budgets are already stretched with the need to finance a new elementary school, DPW and fire station. When I ran for council, I placed a priority on getting a new elementary school. This is now scheduled for a funding decision next spring. We need to protect our ability to support the school and we need to protect funds to maintain other buildings and to invest in much needed road repairs. Second, we will be putting the library at risk. If the hope for fundraising does not materialize and we decide not to proceed, we will have lost 15 months and wasted 1.8 million of town or trustee funds. And we will be left without a concrete plan to replace the failed HVAC system, HRIM roof or renovate. Third and finally, the trustee funds will be depleted. While I welcome the trustee's pledge to reimburse the town, this will hurt the endowment or donations raised to support the project. We need these refunds to repair and renovate the library. During the past several weeks, I've walked the library several times, looked through the windows of all the rooms. We have a large library, but it's clearly a need of repair and renovation. And it is at times underused. We can't afford to wait another 15 months if we don't believe we can really triple the fundraising goals. We will have lost time. Thus, I cannot support the motion to move forward. The risks are too high given the alarming $10 million or more gap in funding. I know this is unlike it to be a popular view, but I ran for council with a pledge to be a careful analyst, fiscally responsible, honest, and willing to make hard choices. As I said at the beginning, I've lost a lot of sleep over this choice, but I will be voting no. And I really hope that the trustees will return to the council with a plan to repair and renovate and move forward on a new path that will serve the town well and be affordable. Thank you very much. If the motion does pass, I'm going to make a motion to that follow-up motion. Thank you. I just want to note that we did not start the clock at exactly when Kathy started speaking. So she went beyond three minutes. I ask other counselors to now stick to the three-minute comment period. Pam Rooney. Thank you. Kathy made a lot of very good points. I too would like to see a plan be developed, but I think I would like to be, I would like to offer a friendly amendment to the motion that was put forward. I don't know the exact time when that wants to be discussed, but in general, I would like to explain why we might want to put some caveats on the MOA for the town manager. I think there's some caveats that are needed to build on what the trustees put in their motion that was pretty appropriate, that what I'm looking for with my alternative or amendment is to have an earlier check-in point. So that the town manager brings to the table or asks to have brought to the table at the end of design development rather than waiting until the end of construction documents to have and request a cost estimate at that time. So that would be in May. I think fundraising should have proceeded by then. It could be stated that if the project is still too expensive for our ability to pay that at that time at the end of design development that we can then transition into the development of a plan B. I think it doesn't save a lot of time, but it's clearly a good half year earlier that we would come to that decision point. So that's just the gist of it. And I look to Lynn to say when we want to discuss the actual wording of an amendment. Okay, thank you for introducing the idea. First of all, I want to apologize, but I do want to note that Austin Surrett, the chair of the library trustees is with us as Alex Lefebvre is also a member of the library trustees. There are several other library trustees in the audience and Sharon Sherry, who's the director of the library is also with us. And Mindy Dam is listening. So with that, I want to go back to councilor comments. Scott DeAngeles. Thank you. I mostly have a question. I think I know the answer, but I really need a clarification when I read James Longren's letter to the town about delaying the second payment until the town signs a contract with a general contractor or a building permit. That seems to me to be beyond what the MOU, Bridging MOU is saying, which I, this is where the clarification comes in, where we were saying till it goes out to bid. But here we're being told we have to have a building permit. And so I would like a clarification. I also want to say this is probably one of the most difficult decisions I have been thinking about because I keep moving from place to place on it. And I, so if someone could help me with understanding that a little bit more with more clarity, I'd appreciate it. Yeah, I want to note that Sean Mangano, finance director has also joined us here this evening. And I'm going to ask him to speak to the letter and the issue. Yeah, so they're sort of unrelated. So the letter is just speaking to the timing of the MDLC payments. Normally we would get one during, at the end of construction documents, but not at the opening of construction bids. Based on the latest schedule we've seen from the OPM, those are both slated to take place in FY24. We were hoping one of those would take place in FY23, which would get us an MDLC payment this fiscal year, but the latest schedule, they're both in FY24. So the letter does mean that that second grant payment from the state will be a little later than we were expecting, but it's not pushing it into a different fiscal year than what we would otherwise would have received it. So that's just related to the timing of the MDLC grant payments. The MOU timing is sort of up to the town where you want to set it. We set it at construction bids because that's when we'll know the exact price. That's when we'll actually receive bids from general contractors and know the exact amount for construction. So sort of unrelated, but around the same time. Pat, does that answer your question? Thank you. Dorothy Pam? I would like to say that when I voted and the people I know voted for the library, we were aware of the cost items in the wording of the thing we voted on. We were not asked to give an emoji, a little heart emoji. We were told a certain process and an amount. But I want to say that I've been thinking of stories of my youth in this discussion. And I see that right now we're in the little engine that could and Dumbo's magic feather, which is if I want something, if I really, really, really want it, it can happen. I can make it happen. But I remember then the years I spent during the Vietnam era where we were told, we can't pull out. We've already cost us so much. We can't, even though everybody knew we were an absolute disaster and we had to stop. We didn't do it because of what we put into it already. That war was based on some false premises such as the domino theory and the strength of the allies. So the number is, the library plan is based on some false premises too. That is not the accurate number of people who live in this town, of the people who use the library. It is an inflated, not accurate number. So right now the next story that I'm thinking of that just came to me yesterday was the O-rings. When you think of the Challenger and then we're gonna do a rocket launch and we're gonna put a school teacher in there. We're gonna have all the kids of America watch that rocket and where it's gonna be on a certain date and everybody wanted it, it was so exciting. And they didn't listen to the engineers. I mean, some people did and they kept saying, you know, there's a problem with the O-rings. Nobody wanted to listen to the engineers because they weren't the big bosses. They weren't the people who were being colorful. They wanted that political moment. They wanted to do it. And we all, unless you're very young, sat there and saw that thing blow up and the teacher being incinerated with the rest of the crew. So now we know that we have things that are being taken away. We're doing the value engineering so that I don't know what's gonna be left. What Ed Kirk can help me vote? I voted yes, reluctantly. I voted yes because I like the sawtooth design. I like the light coming in. I like the solar panels. I like the room for the Civil War stones but we're now losing the sawtooth windows and the solar panels. And I bet you we're gonna find we're gonna lose that Civil War room and go back to your library's original plan which was put some of the stones in the hall. The plan is a bad plan. It has inflated the size of the library. There's no green space around it. There's no outdoor learning space. And it really kind of looks like an inflated bouncy house in the pictures that are sent to me to make me love it. So I tell you, my last story is the one that I feel has been very central to my life. And that is the one that meant so much to me as a kid about the child that saw the emperor walking naked down the street. Everybody else is saying, oh, what pretty lovely clothes you have. But the child looked at it and said, mother, the emperor has no clothes. And I feel that that's true about this library plan. And if we keep going down the path of all of these things, we will be reliving many, many things that we have done in America. We'll be reliving things that may have been done in this town, but I think it's a waste and it's gonna end up not with the library that we need, not with the library that we want and certainly not with a library that we can afford. Manage, Joe. Wow. Our Jones library is more than a library. It's a concert hall. It's a cultural center. It's a youth center and a children's center, an art museum, a community center. It's a place where people go to get warm in the winter, especially when their power goes out for a little bit. It's a place where people go to get cool in the summer, especially if they don't have air conditioning in their house. I have done it myself, both for warming and cooling. It is a place to go to get more than books. It is a place to rent a musical instrument, to rent a wifi hotspot, if you don't have a large data plan on your cell phone or don't have high speed internet at your house. It is a place to rent a tulip or bulb planter if you just wanna do a little bit of gardening and don't have money to buy gardening tools or space to store gardening tools. It's a place to get movies instead of paying for Netflix or Red Box or renting them from some other place. It is more than just a place to store books. Yet I think we seem to be forgetting that in this debate. We need this building and we need it for our community. It is disingenuous for people to say, well, let's just go back to the repair design because it'll be cheaper. But we know with the cost effects that we've seen rising from this plan and this proposal that those repair costs that we're going to be nearly identical will now be higher and there will not be MVLC money for that. We also know that that path forward then is likely not more fiscally responsible than the current plan of expansion and using the MVLC grant. Those repairs would not include climate sustainability improvements. And those improvements, if we wanted to include them that would cost even more money than what the repair costs plus inflation would be. We need to be partners with our trustees. They were elected to determine what is best for the library. We were elected to determine whether there's money for it. They have said that they are willing to pick up the costs of the 2.2 million and maybe some of that will come from donations. And so it might not affect the endowment. We're the ones that need to say, yes, that's doable, let's go forward. We can't forget that a library is more than just a library in this. And if we don't expand this library and if we go just to a repair plan, we won't have a youth center. We won't really have a children's center because there's not really one now. That cultural center with the Civil War tablets won't be there. The art museum will kind of be there. The community center will kind of be there, but we'll lose a lot if we don't expand. And a lot of stuff that we say we value in this town now is not the time to stop this project. Now is the time to join with our trustees and say, let's move forward to get this project done. At this point, there is very little risk to the town. I'm gonna proudly support a continued MOU and the continuation of this project. Thank you, Jennifer. Yes, I wasn't sure if I was gonna speak, but I feel, I wanna say I agree with what Kathy said, and I also agree with everything Mandy said about what a library is to the town. The one thing we all agree on is we love the Jones Library. We may have different visions for how we think what we think that library needs to meet the needs of the town, but the library is to all those things that Mandy, Councilor Haneke just articulated. But I think that we can, that library can be everything it needs to be in its current square footage. It definitely, it needs work. It's need work for years. It needs to be maintained. It needs new carpet. It needs many things, but it doesn't need a larger square footage. At 60,000 square feet, that would be the ninth largest public library in Massachusetts. At 40,000 residents, we would be, we are the 48th largest town in the state, but our university and college students don't use the library. So for the purposes of the library, we have 19,000 card holders. I don't know where that puts us in state rankings at 19,000, but probably around 200. So I don't, I've never quite understood why we need to have the ninth largest public library to meet the needs of our community. What I am struggling with is the trust fees were initially committed when the voters went to vote and when the last town council voted in April of 2021, that they were gonna raise $6 million. And that's a heavy, I thought that was a heavy lift, but I think the community thought it was doable. It doesn't feel right actually to put $15 million or more to expect that because the trustees could raise $6 million, they could raise $15 million. And in, there was a chart that in the responses to Lynn Gricemer's September 8th questions to the trustees, one of the responses, I think it was on page 15, there was a chart that the library provided. And if I'm remembering correctly, the low cost estimate of like $46.9 million was gonna require the trustees to raise $17.2 million. The high estimate, which was if the library came in at like $53.3 million was gonna require the trustees to raise I think $23.6 billion. I think that's not fair to ask of the trustees. And I think there's no world in which that is realistic. And I know, as Councilor Hannity said, we should follow the advice of our trustees. And with all due respect, the treasure of the trustees is cautioning us, not to keep going down this path. When we have, we know that the library, it's very unlikely that when the bids come in, they will be less than $15 million more than what was before the voters and it could well be higher than that. Thank you. Anika. Yes, I just, I wanna speak in regards to the Civil War tablets that I hope will not be politicized as they are probably one of the first true diverse acts that the town would do. If included in the library, they would be the first time that within any town building, the true history of Amherst has been inclusive. Meaning that you have over 300 names of Amherst area of residence who were innovative and believed in pushing freedom forward, taking the steps towards equality for all, but you also do have the Black and the Afro-Indigenous families. And this would be the first time within the walls of the Jones Library or any other town building that that true fabric of Amherst history is inclusive. And as this is the first and hasn't been done, the potential funding around that is unknown. Will that solve the problem? I can't say that, but I just think that we should as well give some trust and support behind the trustees and look, there may be other avenues that haven't been looked at for their duality or potential value as they could support the project and while protecting our taxpayers. Thank you, Anika. Austin, you have your hand up. And even though you're not a counselor, you are the chair of the trustees. So please go ahead. Thank you, Lynn. I really appreciate the care with which the council is engaged in this conversation. I think there's some things though that need to be said. The library has no chief financial officer. All the trustees have a fiduciary responsibility. We all invest in trying to understand the finances of the library. I respect all of the trustees, but I don't think we should imagine that this is kind of a cooperation with the chief financial officer and the rest of us know nothing about the finances. That's the first thing. The second thing is whatever it is that you decide and however we construct the vote of the citizens of Amherst, I think one thing was clear from that vote. And that is that the citizens of Amherst endorsed the vision of the library. What was the vision of the library? The vision of the library was that after a very long process of careful study, the board of trustees of the library a long time ago, examined what could be done within the existing footprint. And the trustees along with the staff determined that in order to meet the needs of the residents of Amherst for generations to come, the existing footprint did not provide enough space. What does that mean? That means within the existing footprint, we have a children's room on three levels. It would be nice to have a children's room on one level. That means within the existing footprint, English as a second language cannot be accommodated except by spreading it all over the library. That means there is no teen space. That means there's not adequate space for people to come into the library and use computers. That means there's not an adequate reading room. So I don't think we can say that we can satisfy the needs of the residents of Amherst within the existing footprint. If we could, we wouldn't be doing this. Why else might the citizens of Amherst have voted for this? They might have voted for it not because of the sawtooth roof design. And by the way, the nostalgia for that sawtooth roof design is really kind of wonderful for me to hear because it was criticized, of course, when it was first advanced. But again, I've read books about memory as well. What else can't be done in the existing library? The existing library cannot be made environmentally sustainable without, in essence, kind of tearing it down and going back to ground zero. The citizens of Amherst, I hope voted for historic preservation. The citizens of Amherst voted for the construction of a library facility that would belong to all the residents of Amherst. That wouldn't be just comfortable for people who are used to coming into a library where there are eight staircases. Many of them lead to nowhere. Now, this is not a wish and a prayer. This is not the triumph of hope over experience. This is actually the triumph of experience. We've looked at what's happened to libraries elsewhere. We see what happens when libraries are renovated and expanded and how it enlivens the town. What we're asking the town council to do is to go forward with planning. We've looked at whether or not we think that makes sense to go forward with the planning. We've been told by the OPM, who works for the town, that given the uncertainties which are faced by all construction projects right now, that it makes sense to go to bid and to see where we are then. Lastly, the trustees are a very prudent bunch. The image that we're just going to go to our endowment and write a check out of our endowment to the town and therefore not be able to operate the library I think is the wrong image to have. We will and we have begun to put together a careful plan for how if we have to pay for this design and construction documents without compromising the operating expenses of the library. Thanks for your attention. Thank you, Austin. And I just want to mention that I know Austin has a class he needs to get to. So if he disappears, it's not for lack of his interest in the topic. It is because he has responsibilities as a professor. Anna. Thank you. I apologize. I have one hand wrangling a dog who barks at thunder. So sorry if y'all hear that in the background. So I was not alive for the Vietnam war, nor was I alive for the Challenger Explosion. Sorry about that. And I believe the emperor's name closes fiction from my understanding. But and also illegal, I think, based on our bylaws. But what I do know and what I did do is I borrowed books about those from the Jones library. I borrowed Nova episodes when I was a kid and loved and still do love PBS from the Jones library. I would go to do my homework there after high school, waiting for my mom to finish work and pick me up. I finished my master's thesis in the basement of the Jones library. This is TMI and I apologize. I was on a date with a graduate of UMass, who put her keys on my counter and I saw a Jones library tag on those keys. And I asked her, because we're in the middle of this, I said, you had a Jones library card when you were at UMass. And she said, Oh yeah, it was where I could go that wasn't school. It was where I could go to borrow books that I wanted to read on my own time. The library in its current state shows up for so many people in so many ways. And yet because of its deteriorating condition, because of its lack of accessibility, because of the way that you can barely have a conversation in the Woodbury room, because that bang blower is so loud. It is not showing up the way we need it to. It is not showing up for every member of our community as much as it could. We keep finding ourselves in this trap of the grass being greener. The repair option is not greener grass. The grass is not greener. People will say that the services could be split up and move to school buildings that have yet to be vacated that are not in suitable shape without consideration for costs of doing that, nor consideration for the folks who engage with these programs who have identified that they don't want them in a school. This is a rough spot. And no one is denying that the grass is not greener. And the trustees have shown their plan. They have shown that they don't want to have to go to school buildings. And that is the advice of our trustees. And with all due respect, the treasurer is not the only person with financial acumen and awareness that's in that group. The library trustees who are voted by our community have themselves voted on this issue. We are not placing an irresponsible ask on the trustees. They have asked for it themselves. We need to trust them to know and do their jobs. So I hope my fellow counselors will join me in voting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your work in reducing fossil fuel emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels. In not waiting around for costs to continue to rise. And in trusting the very group of people that we have elected to guide the library. And in trusting our community. Please vote yes. Thank you. Jennifer, I'm going to skip over you since you've spoken over it and go to Shalini. Yeah, I just wanted to speak to three. I'm going to start with you. I'm going to focus on the risk. The word miracles in the library vision. And the risk factor is huge. We all know that. And as I stated last time. That is what the Mbal C process. Any state process is. So by. Backing away at this point, what we're sign signaling to. apply, we win the grants, and then we back away. We'd never ever give it a shot of working through or getting to the point where we can make a more informed decision. So maybe we should as a council discuss that and not apply for state grants, because that's just how the state grants are going to work, that they will always be a gap. So that's one thing. The second thing is the risk of postponing till we have a better plan. Again, we can learn from the schools, which are paying now $35 million more. The town, that's the whole, that could have been the whole cost of the library, which we said no to and we're losing that. We lost that because we walked away from it. The cost of repairs, we have to bring that into the conversations when we're talking about the risk right now. The cost of repairs have also gone up. And I want all the councillor to speak to that who, how are you factoring that in to your decision? So I haven't heard people talking about that. The same thing that I want to talk about with the library vision. So there are elected trustees who are elected to create the vision based on the needs assessments. There is a process, the MBLC process factors in the students year round and the seasonal population. That's all factored in when they arrive at what is a square footage? And so it's not something that trustees came up with, but it's based on a formula. And so they did the work, they've been working hard at it for several years, whether we agree or disagree at this point. Yes, there was a disagreement. It went to the residents. So 65% of the voters have also supported that vision. So when we talk about me personally may have different visions, but our job is to respect the work and the vision of the people who are responsible for guiding us in this, which is the library trustees and also the 65% of the residents. The third thing is I've heard the word miracles. That word miracles basically is a job of people called fundraising. What when we have not done fundraising, it does sound like a miracle. How are we going to raise that much money? But they're actually people who have that experience. That's their job is to find the money in the right places. Just like we heard the epsilon group has raised $17 million in federal historic preservation tax. And that's the group that's working with us. We have state rep supporting us. Yes. And so what I'm saying is yes, it's hard, but we have a group of specialized people to get institutional ARPA money grants and to let's give it a full shot and let's all work together collaborate and that's going to make our town stronger because we've been through this challenge together. Thank you. So I'm going to use my privilege as an individual counselor and make my own statement. We are at the beginning and I do mean the beginning of a tough capital process. We have four buildings that we have ignored actually five buildings and we're going to combine one of them into two or two of them into one school. And so I look at this and I say, Oh, does this mean every time we approach some bumps in the road, we're going to start backing off? Or do we do what I was taught to do? And that is when the when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And that's what I've been doing for the last several weeks since this number first came out. I'm willing to stand up to the state and say, Oh, remember that COVID incident we had that set our economy on its tail. I'm willing to go out and talk to other towns that are having the same problem. What I'm not willing to do is give up some level of vision for our town and our future for our downtown and our future. And so as much as I am a fiscal conservative and a fiscal realist, I am also an optimist. My mother used to call me an optimist and say something that I won't even repeat in this meeting. But you have to be tough and you have to be realistic. Thanks, Andy. You said a little bit of what I was going to say to I think that the voters understood what they were voting for. They understood that they were voting for essentially a repair of the building that exists now on the footprint. It is and might be able to get a little bit of more space, but it's not going to be more efficient. It's not going to be any more user friendly. It's not going to have all sorts of little hidden places that make some people feel uncomfortable. That it's sort of a war on as it is now or that they could have a really brand new state of the art library that served the 21st century and beyond. I think that they made a choice. I'm optimistic that it can succeed, but I don't know that it can succeed. But I also recognize that the other side of it, the flip side is that if we decide not to go forward, there will be no second chance that we're not going to be back in the MVLC line. We will have spent our money on repairs to the building without any new program possibilities with that have been adequately described already about state of the art children's room, state of the art team room, space for ES, ESL programs. All of those things will will not be there and there will be no second chance to come back. We will have spent our money. We will have spent our good will with MVLC and we will not have changed MVLCs policies that have affected choices that we've had to make. But I think we've made them our trustees and made them and I really respect that they've made them wisely. So I don't I think that the choice at this point is to respect our voters and try and make it succeed. If it doesn't, it won't be for the lack of trying. I've been excited about some of the things that have been happening, but they're not. I don't have time to go into all of it right now. There's been good participation from our legislators. There's been good participation from very many parties in our community parties and partners. So just don't think that there's a second chance. Pam, do you want to go ahead and make your substitute motion or you're trying to amend? It's I think I'm trying to add to I don't know if mine is complete motion in its in its own right, but I would like to proceed with that. I think the conversation tonight has has indicated there's a clear will on many people's part to proceed and I'm saying if we are to proceed, can we please put in a few more checkpoints to get that feedback to get a better financial picture than going the full 13 to 15 months down the road before we get an answer to some of these questions. Do you have it available to put on the screen or shall I just read it? Why don't you read? I mean, you did send me a motion. I gave you some suggestions, but it's not my motion. So you have to decide and and I did not get your suggestions. I apologize. So my motion is motion that the town council authorized the town manager to amend the memorandum of agreement voted on April 5, 2021 by and between the town of Amherst and the Jones library, incorporated acting by and through its trustees whereby the emitted MOU serves to address and assign responsibility for the renovation expansion projects cost through the completion of design development. And that's the change documents at which time an updated cost estimate and risk analysis is presented to town council for consideration. And in the event a decision is made not to proceed with a project when the design development cost estimate is presented, the trustees will reimburse the town for its share of the cost incurred in design development and pledge to invest whatever funds were raised and pledged for the renovation expansion project be assigned to continue the preparation of construction documents and bidding for a plan B reuse and repair project. And in that event that the project does not proceed at that time a plan B alternative for a design that reuses repairs and renovates to a modest degree, the existing library structure to meet ADA requirements and improved energy efficiencies is initiated at that time to develop a schematic design and cost estimates for plan B and that this agreement will specify the time period for the completion of any payment to the town investment by the library and capital improvements or other means to ensure that the that the costs are otherwise covered. And if I could just speak to that for a moment. No, we need a second before you can speak to it. This is not this is not the same motion that we had. So I Latina should be considered as a substitute motion. It sounds like Councilor Councilor Rooney is looking to amend the motion by replacing it in its entirety. Okay, thank you. And so we will now look for a second. Jennifer, you have your hand up. Second. Okay, now we're going to go back to pan to speak to the motion. As I said earlier, the the MOU that was developed by the trustees is very much in the same vein. I am simply asking that in order to proceed, which many people clearly want to be doing tonight, that we put in a an additional checkpoint and that being at the end of design development. So in construction document preparation or in the in the design process, we go through schematic design, which has just been completed. We then go to design development and from there it is approved and we go into construction documents. So I'm saying we stop and we ask for a cost estimate at that time of design development. The OPM works for the town. The OPM can request that cost that cost estimate at that point where and again, we're now in May at that point, we will have a much better handle on fundraising success. We'll have a better sense of of grants and other funding in hand. And I would just offer that this is an opportunity to proceed but with caution. Thank you. Mindy Joe and there's a couple of facts in here that I want to check, but I'm going to go over to council comments. So I have some questions and some comments. So I don't think this is simply a check or a check on the process or a new check is the wording that Pam used is blanking in my mind right now, an additional stop. And here's why and this is where I want some questions answered. I believe cost estimates cost every time we do them and I'm not sure the design development stages when we do an additional cost estimate. I'd like confirmation as to when a second another cost estimate would be done, whether that is normally done after design development and before construction documents or not because I believe every time we do one of them, we add money to our costs in terms of project costs. But then the continued paragraph is having telling the trustees that they will pledge to invest whatever funds were raised and pledged for the renovation expansion project to be assigned to continue the preparation and bidding for a plan B reuse and repair project. It is my understanding that the pledges and funds that have been donated have been donated solely for the MBLC project. And if that project does not go forward, each individual donor is able to decide whether to request a refund of their pledge and gift or allow it to stay with the trustees so that the trustees cannot pledge to invest whatever funds were raised for the renovation expansion to a plan B reuse and repair. And so I have, that's why I say this is not just a motion to have a checkpoint at design development because it's asking for things that I do not believe can we can legally tell the trustees to do right now. You know, that those are some of my initial thoughts that I'd like confirmation or or discussion on. And thank you. I'm going to ask Sean. Meganna, you've asked some of the questions. I was Sean, when will the next estimate be available? And what is the what point in the project is that? So let's take let's take this down for the moment please. Yeah, so I'll have to confirm with the OPM. My understanding was it was at 75% of construction documents and Sharon, I don't know if you have talked and spoken more with the OPM, but in looking back at looking back at the solicitation we did for cost estimating services, it does we should actually have one during design development. I don't know if it's at the end of design development or where where in that phase it comes into because it was before the before we've redesigned the schedule a little bit. So I'd have to talk to the OPM more to find out the timing of where that comes in and design development. Okay, and my other question is I can actually answer and that is made to Joe. You were absolutely correct. People gave for the purposes of the plan as it was put forward and should that plan not go forward it would it is behoving upon the library trustees and to go back and say do you want to be refunded or continue your pledge or not and under with the understanding that we are not going to give you what we promised when we raise that money. So the council cannot. Legislate what happens to those pledges. Pam, I'm going to go to when Nika and then to Jennifer and then I was just going to respond to that particular point. Oh, please go ahead. Okay. Thank you, Sean for the for the design development. I mean that is that is often a at the end of D.D. is often a very key spot. I worked in construction management for about 30 years. So it is it is a key point where you double check your numbers and you proceed with caution. The the wording about putting putting money back into the repairs. If the project is voted to not go forward, I think came from some of the trustees language itself, which is why I borrowed it. Thank you. I didn't they didn't specifically say to plan B, but they just did say that it would go back into the repairs and work in the building. In the solicitation for the cost estimate, it does say the end of design development. Great. Anika. Oh, please. Some of the majority of my comments have been asked or answered and so I do appreciate Pam, you know, your efforts would be protective. But my question is if we're seeing as we're advised by the OPM to go forward to the big process, what consequence or expense expenses would we occur by having another check in and would we have any additional information at that point? Because with my understanding, we will not. Sean, can you answer that question? So we'll have another cost estimate, which will tell us if it, you know, if the range of range of figures have changed. So if it's changed wildly, that would that would be something to influence the decision making. We'll have another. I think the end of design development looking at the schedule here is around April of 2023. So we'll have seven or eight months more of possible fundraising. Initiatives to see how that's doing. So I don't think there's going to be a tremendous amount of new information, but there will likely be some. Jennifer. Yes, my two questions. So is it possible? I guess the way I read the wording in Pam's amendment was like the current motion that the finance committee voted on, which is just that if at the next, if at whatever point a decision might be made not to go forward, that that is when what the library would reimburse for not necessarily from charitable donations. So it would just mean that if a decision was made at the end of design development that and there was a decision not to go forward, that would just be a smaller amount of money that the library would be reimbursing the town for or I guess the way the motion reads from the finance committee or apply that amount towards repair and renovation. So I'm wondering if the language doesn't read that way now in the amendment, could it? The other question I had was I thought I had seen some place that there was going to that there would be two cost estimates presented at the end of each phase. So wouldn't there be cost estimates done at the end of design development? Yes, that's a question to Sean. Yeah, no, there is. There's a cost estimate at the end of design. There may, the way it was with schematic designers, there's one by the owner's cost estimator and there's one by the designer's cost estimator and then they, they choose, they come to a sort of midpoint between those two cost estimates and there will be one at the end of design development and there will be one at 75% of construction documents, the following phase, right? It would add more, right? It's already part of the plan. So that seems simple. And I just wanted, I don't want, just because I just want to correct it. I wasn't, in my remarks before, I wasn't saying that the footprint shouldn't be changed to the library. My concern is just so much additional square footage, not the footprint. Thank you. Alex, you have your hand up and so I'm going to call on you because I think you may have some answers to some questions. Yeah, I mean, thank you. So Sean's answered a couple of them. So yes, at the end of each phase, we get two cost estimates, one from the OPM, well, one from Fine Gold, one from the designer's cost estimator and one from the town's. So what we just got now will happen again at the end of design development, then again at construction documents and then the other thing, which I believe maybe Joe and Lynn both clarified is, so we, yes, we can't pledge money that's been raised because it's been raised to a purpose. Whether people do that, that would be great. But again, we can't put that in the commitment. What the library trustees voted on was specifically to take to the bidding process. So from, for us, every time we stop the process like we have done now, we are escalating costs, which we are taking on in terms of fundraising. So to create another stopping point after design development, then again starts the escalation again and again and again. And the reason to get to bid is that once the numbers have been bid, then those numbers are locked in and then we can then have a conversation about. So then going back to town council and having that conversation about what's additional funding, does it make sense? We're no longer escalating our cost. So every stopping point is really making it harder and it's making the probability of this less. So every week we delay, every time we stop the process is essentially making it more difficult for us both in terms of people giving money to a project that they don't know whether it's going to go forward or not in terms of us applying for state and federal grants in which there might be certain things that we have to meet or timelines that we have to apply by or we don't even know if we can keep the money. So it just it adds additional roadblocks into the process for us. The other thing. So for us, I mean, I speak our language says to bid it doesn't say to design development. So we would have to go back and we would have to vote on that if we do something differently. The other thing, we're sort of litigating the size of the library, which, you know, I that was litigated through town, right? We know we need a bigger library, right? We all talk about experts. All of our librarians, all of our head librarians have masters in library science degrees. This is what they do for a living. So I as a trustee have to defer somewhat to my staff and to my library director who are all professionals in the field when they say that they are unable to accommodate the needs of our public based on our current square footage. My responsibility as a trustee is to listen to the professionals who are doing their jobs. And they're the ones on the front lines who actually watch people come in. They know who gets turned away. They know who they're not able to take care of. So I hope that we can not focus the conversation on do we need a bigger library or don't we need a bigger library because I think that decision has already been voted on by the town. The real conversation here needs to be how do we move forward? How do we roll up our sleeves? How do we work together? We have state legislators. We have federal legislators. The difference with the fundraising and I'm not going to lie to you. I first saw that number and it was two weeks of me not sleeping. I mean, I in no way did I go, oh, that's fine. We'll do that. I was very freaked out, but we have professionals who fundraise for a living. Who are helping us with this? We've got all of our legislators helping us with this and we keep finding money, right? We keep finding money because we are in a point in our country where you've got COVID, you've got infrastructure bills, you've got sustainable money. So there are dollars that will go to a renovation expansion that we're never going to see in a repair. So when people say that we can just take the money that we're raising and put it into a repair, I would urge you to really, really be cognizant that we can't just roll out a repair and find dollars for it. I feel much more confident that we can raise $10 to $15 million for a renovation expansion than I feel like you raise $5 million for a repair and I really want you to hold that differential in your mind because it's really different what we can do for one versus the other and I will be quiet now because I'm not supposed to be speaking anyway. So I apologize. Thank you. Amanda Jo, if it's okay, I'm going to go to Michelle. I think she's not spoken on this. Michelle. Thanks. Yeah, I, this is a really tough decision I think for all of us and it's very complicated in some ways and I really appreciate Pam's efforts to bring something forward that potentially could, for me, I am a yes on this. I am a hundred percent a yes and so whatever we need to do in my mind to get us over the hump here as a council, I'm willing to stay up all night and figure out a way to do that. I know Lynn probably doesn't want that idea, but you know, in, in, I'm very motivated normally by emotional commentary. I'm normally the one that's making it and Mandy's comments, you know, and others who have made emotional arguments have been very good. But in this case, to me, it's really about principle and this process, it's not just in my mind to stop this process right now. There are so many people that have put so much work into this and the community that has spoken really clearly about this. And so whether I think that will be successful or not or will raise enough money or not, or whether the libraries is, you know, a place for all of the residents, you know, all of that in my mind, I'm sort of having to push that out and just really focus on the fact that this is a process and to pause the process right now before we even know what the cost of the library is going to be does not feel just or fair to me. And I don't think we have a lot to lose in allowing the process to continue and I worry about the precedent that we will set for the other projects that we're going to have to roll up our sleeves and work really hard to get through. If every, you know, time where this is, this is going to be our reality. We're going to hear cost increases. We're going to hear unpredictable markets. We're going to hear all of these things and we have to get used to that reality. And so I don't know if this project will ultimately go forward in the way. Michelle just froze out. Okay. Sorry, am I still frozen? But no, you're fine. Thanks. Okay. I'm unstable according to my, according to my computer, but I just, I feel like it, we really have to allow the process to go forward and, and play out and get to the point where we can then really make a sound decision about whether this envisioned plan is, is going to be feasible for us. So thanks. Mindy Joe, I'm going to go ahead and have you speak and then I want to go back and just review where we are and the process. I'm just going to build on what Michelle said. So I believe Pam Rooney's motion is a motion to amend the original motion. And so if that is the case, I will be voting against Pam Rooney's motion and in favor of the original motion. And I'm always hesitant to dictate terms, exact terms to our town manager who we've hired to administer this town. And so the, the motion that's in front of us to amend includes a whole lot of language that gets really specific that I just don't, that I'm, first of all, some of it just can't work and others of it, I think is just too specific and much of it could be incorporated. It is not precluded from being incorporated into the original motion into into the MOU if the original motion passes. What Michelle said about limping forward stage by stage, you know, the original motion would get us through to construction documents. Counselor Rooney's motion would only get us one stage further and then we'd be back here talking again, pausing the project, still not creating certainty for the fundraisers who have a whole lot and a large job to do. And if they can only go and say, well, in six months we'll be asked to get the council might kill it again or might talk about it again versus if they can say we will know in one year and give them a full year to come up with the money to come up with those funds. Having that certainty that they've got a year versus five or six months can be huge in a fundraising manner. And so I don't support limping along stage by stage, you know, we're going to go the second, the first motion, the original motion gets us two stages in advance. And I think it's much better to do that and sets, if you're going to talk about setting precedent sets a much better precedent than if we continually as a council vote at the funding stage and then vote at the schematic design and then vote at design development and vote at construction documents. Imagine what that means for a school. You know, and trying to get a school that's estimated at this point probably over a hundred million dollars to construction on time. It will be extremely difficult. And so I think we have to say, you know, let's step back. Let the people do their job and let's see this again at construction firm serious conversation. We'll see the numbers at design development from what Sean said. If things go wildly out of control between now and then this first motion doesn't stop us from seeing that and doesn't stop us from relooking at it, but it doesn't require us to if things are looking better. And so I'm I can't support Pam or any motion, but I will support the original. Okay, Dorothy, you have your hand up. Yes, I just want to mention something that caught my eye and I did not like it. We're just discussing a decision that the town manager is going to make and at the same time we also oh, we're going to look over the town manager goals. I felt that that was in the fact some kind of pressuring of him. I want to trust that the town manager can make this decision with all of his intelligence and knowledge of the world and government and systems and not have to be thinking about the town council saying oh, we're going to do your goals because you know, we hire you. Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. Alicia, you have your hand up. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts around this topic, which I know is very challenging and originally during the finance committee, I did not support the first proposed motion because I didn't feel like it had enough safeguards for the town, which we are in a very tight financial spot trying to accomplish all of our capital projects. And so I thought that the amendment that Kathy offered provided more safeguards to as to what we had before. I however believe that Pam's motion has brought that even a step further providing us more safeguards in terms of our financial situation. And so I also respect the comments about pausing and the process and how long some of these things take and I know that makes this even more difficult when we think about how long we've already been working on this project. But I think we also need to think about the urgency of the repairs, which is something that we also talk about and how detrimental it would be to the library ultimately to wait a significant amount of time and then decide that the bids were too high and not have an alternative plan. And I think that is far more risky than just moving forward, seeing what can happen. And then if we were to get to that point in 16 months and then say we're too high, we don't have a plan B, we have to start over. That would be far more risky than if we had a plan B already in formulation at the time. And so I do support the forming of a plan B of a backup plan because I mean, we're already talking about the numbers and about being worried about the numbers. And so if we're in a place where the only change we're expecting to see is an escalation, I think it only makes sense to have another alternative option so that we're not saying it's either this or nothing. We do this or our library falls apart. Like I think we need to still have some protection not only for our time, our town finances, but for the library itself. And so I think that this provides that protection without stopping the project, which is how we find the happy medium here because like other counselors have said, there is overwhelming support for this project on the council and a lot of people don't want it to stop. But we have to we have to be cautious of our financial position as a town. We have to be cautious as to how this library project needs to fit kind of like a puzzle piece into the other capital projects, which we also have yet to have the numbers for. So not only are we waiting for the numbers for the library project itself, but we have a number of other projects which we have no cost estimates for yet either. And so for locking in such a huge decision without any safeguards or any plan B that if this doesn't work out, we have something that will still bring our library up to the spot where it can meet the needs of our community. I think I think that is financially irresponsible again, because like we said, not only will the cost of construction escalate, but so might the cost of repair and so why wait to have that backup plan because then we are then dragging that out as well if we get to the point where that needs to be the option. Leisha, you need to. Yes, thank you. Did you have any last comment you wanted to make Alicia? Well, I had a couple of more, but since I'm already over, I can just end it there because I will talk for like three more minutes. If you let me keep going. So okay, let's go on to Andy. Yeah, we already do have a plan B with the work that Western builders and Coon Riddle have already done. It may not be exactly what happens, but it's certainly the put the direction to go forward in because we know what work has to be done. It's been identified a long time ago by Western builders and studied by Coon Riddle, costed by Coon Riddle. Coon Riddle has come through with a couple of plans of how we could proceed to handle it in a the most cost effective manager from a firm that manages projects all of the time. That's what they do as a business. So I think that we have the plan B. I think that what scares me about this whole discussion is that the reason I was so enthusiastic about the result that came out of the finance committee meeting was that the library trustees had put forth a vision of what we could accomplish. If we all work together and we did the work of fundraising, we did the work of a thoughtful continuation of the design process. We looked at how we could make value engineering decisions in the design process and how we can work with the legislature and both federal and state to get more support. And all of those things were going to be able to come together at the end of the process that was envisioned as a single piece of time and we'd be able to make a decision. It's scary because the decision at that time might be we can't afford to go through with it. But on the other hand, the optimistic side is it will be possible to go through with this and I'd like to believe that the second is possible and is in fact more than just a pipe dream that there's a real possibility and of it happening. So I guess that my concern about the motion that's on the table to substitute is going to create a process that is so long and so delayed that we can't possibly succeed and will be forced to go to that plan B, which isn't the plan we want. It's the plan we have as a backup if the real plan, the plan the voters supported fails. So my comment at this point is as a counselor, I do not support the substitute motion and the reason I don't support the substitute motion and support the original one is because I believe in order for us to truly have a grasp on what the possibilities are between now and next summer fall. First of all, we need to get through the supplemental cycle with the legislature. There's at least one of those. It's active right now. Second of all, we need to get through the federal budget, which doesn't conclude if we're lucky. It concludes at the end of September unless we go into continuing resolution because there's money that Jim McGovern has been working on. Congressman McGovern that in addition to that a six month or seven month fundraising period with a hatchet hanging over your head doesn't do anything for fundraising. I've done fundraising in this town as have several other people on this committee. It doesn't help. What we really need is to get behind the fundraising. We need to wait to see if we are successful with the legislature and the state government and the various other pieces as well. So the timing of trying to make this as an incremental decision every time there's a new estimate is bad policy. And it's going to do nothing more than add increased costs and furthermore erode any trust. M.B.L.C. has in us at this point and erode the trust of our population. Michelle, I do want to say we have a motion on the table. We now have a substitute motion on the table. We have to vote on the substitute motion. If the substitute motion fails, we go back to the original motion. If the substitute motion passes, then we do not go back to the original motion point of order. Yes, it's not a substitute motion. It's a motion to amend motion to amend. Thank you. So if the motion to amend fails, the original motion is on the table. If the emotion amend passes, you still have to revoke again on the motion. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Mindy Joe. The other thing that I also want to mention and I appreciate Dorothy's comments this. The goal was to give the town manager who we pay full time to negotiate all kinds of contracts. That's part of his job. It's part of the Charter's description of what he does. And he needs to be the person that we trust to go forward to negotiate an agreement with the library trustees. When we start putting in details about who's going to pay what to whom and when they're going to do it. That means we don't trust him to, in fact, negotiated an agreement. And yet he signs many contracts all the time. Michelle. I'm wondering if Pam may be satisfied with an alternate plan for having sort of getting the security that you're looking for. So for example, would some internal like council work like having this on the agenda once a month to sorry, Lynn, hold on, just bear with me a second. But just having some other checkpoints within the council that don't slow the process of the trustees and the work, but that give us an opportunity to check in or is there any, maybe that's not the right solution, but is there another solution that would get you more to where you would like to be and allow you to confidently vote to move forward with the original motion and maybe there's not, but I'm just posing it as a question. And I'm just going to say right now, the moment you put something on the agenda once a month, everybody thinks you're going to have action. And it means that it's micromanaging and I'm just going to say to Kathy to Alicia who are very central to our school committee. Is this the way you want us to do the school building once a month? We have to discuss the costs. Well, I'm not suggesting once a month that we suggest the costs. I'm just simply suggesting is there something else that might help Pam to feel more confident that we're going to be evaluating this, not waiting for a whole year. You know, I just want to say there is a building committee and there are trustees. I mean, that's that Pam, maybe you have some comment you'd like to say to that, but there's two other committees that are watching this thing as part of their regular assignments. Pam, I'm just going to go out of order for the moment. I think I think I'm just ready to proceed and have people, you know, respond to this. I think it was an attempt to work with the trustee's motion and to simply give the town manager a little more. I'm not backbone, but just a reason to ask for some additional information and to be a little more forthcoming with what the option might be should the cost still be so extraordinarily out of whack in seven months time. So it was not meant as a crippled or a shackle or anything to slow the town manager down. It was simply to give him more rational to proceed. Are you calling the question? Let's call the question. Okay. The question's been called. Let's just do it. Questions been called. That does not require a second. You know, need to bring it to an immediate vote. I'm sorry. Yes, it does. Is there a second for calling the question? The answer was second. Thank you. And now we need to vote on whether or not we're going to call the question in the words and debate. Okay. It requires nine votes to end debate. Thank you. All right. If you vote yes, you're saying and debate. If you vote no, you're saying you want to continue debate. I begin with Lynn Griezmer and I am a yes to call the question. Mandy Joe. Yes. Anika Lopes. Yes. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Tob. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Shelley Balmille. Yes. Pat DeAngeles. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gotham. Aye. Okay. We move immediately to the. Motion to amend. The motion to amend. Would you please put the motion to amend up on the screen? Okay. So this time if you vote yes, you are voting for this motion to amend. If you vote no, you are not supporting this motion to amend. Okay. We begin with Mandy Joe. No. Anika Lopes. No. Michelle Miller. No. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. No. Kathy Shane. I meant yes. I'm sorry. Pam Rooney, you said what? I meant yes. I do support my amendment. I was wasn't going to question you. Kathy Shane. Abstain. Andy Steinberg. No. Jennifer Todd. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Shalini Bowmilne. No. Pat DeAngeles. No. Anna Devlin-Goth here. No. Lynn Griezmer is a no. I have eight. Eight against. Four in favor and one abstention. Now we go back to the original motion. So please take this motion down. And the original motion is to authorize the town manager to enter into a memorandum of understanding between the town of Amherst and the Jones Library Incorporated acting by and for its board of trustees within a dendym slash amendment that includes a bridging agreement for the time period prior to moving to construction. Their motion has been made and seconded. Are there any other comments at this time? Then let's move to the vote. I'm going to start with Anika Lokes. Yes. Michelle Miller. Yes. I. Dorothy Pam. No. Pam Rooney. No. Kathy Shane. No. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Todd. No. Alicia Walker. No. Shawnee Balmille. Yes. Pat DeAngelis. I. Anna Devlin-Goth here. I. Lynn Griesmer is an I, Mandy Johanicki. I. It is. Eight in favor. And five. Opposed and no abstentions. So that motion carries it only needed a majority. We're going to move on. No, we're going to take a break. We're going to take a 10 minute break and return back. At 8 38. Please unmute. Please mute your mic and take your picture down and put them back up when you come back. Thank you. I hate to do this to you again, but it's time to come back. Yeah, I know, but. When you return, please turn your video on and Athena is going to take the. Screen down so that I can see if you're back. So I'm looking for there's a Nika Pat Dorothy. Michelle. And Alicia, can you just let me know that you're back? I'm back. Yes, I am. Thank you, Lynn. Great. Thanks, Alicia. Michelle. Okay. We're going to pick up with our action items at 8 C. I noticed there's a hand in the audience. We've already had public comment and there are no public other public comment tonight. So 8 C is acceptance of a gift of open space on Beast of Terrace and I'm going to turn over to assistant town manager Dave Zomac, who is here tonight as the acting town manager. Thank you get to make all the big decisions tonight. Thank you, Lynn. I'll try to be brief. I trust that everyone saw my memo in the packet. This is a yeah, this is a nice little project. It's it's been around a long time in short. This was an effort that we worked with a local developer Paul Cole on hold on one second before my computer dies here. And the result of the project was that we are getting a gift of land 5.39 acres and in the process through the planning board site plan review cluster development process. Mr. Cole developed seven new houses right off of 116 in this new development called Vista Terrace. The project for us really allows for a new access point to town conservation land, but also to the Mount Hoyok range. Mr. Cole as part of the development actually put in a small parking area there, which we will activate as soon as we permit a trail up to the trails that lead up to the Mount Hoyok range State Park. So I think I'll stop there. Take any questions from the council. Questions maybe Joe. So one comment and one question, the deed that we were was included in that just had a misspelling. It said podway instead of roadway right after sort of halfway down. Thank you very much. But my question was the deed right now as presented has an easement over the road only for those conservation access purposes, which means it foresees the road staying a private way. And so my question is, is there an intention by the developer at some point to ask that that road become a public way? And if so, when might that happen? My understanding is that there isn't an intention from the developer to have it become a public way. And hence we develop the easement agreement simply for the public to pass and we pass up to that point of the new parking area. Okay. So I have a question. What are we giving up in taxes? We are not giving up anything in taxes because that land could not be developed as part of the cluster that was required of the cluster development. What often happens in these clusters is the land remains as subdivision open space and is part of an HOA. In this case, we saw a strategic opportunity to add parking for the Mount Hoyok range and for town conservation land, which is in high demand. As many of you know, when you go up on the Mount Hoyok range to the state park parking up on 116 before you go over the notch, it's often very crowded. We did build a new parking area off of Bay Road for the Sweet Alice conservation area, which is also extensively used. This will be a much smaller parking lot. It's probably only fold six, seven cars, but anything we can do to increase access there is a plus. Okay. Thank you. Dorothy, you have your hand up. Just a quick question. How close is the parking spaces to the private houses? I don't know off the top of my head how many feet they are from them, but you can see in the maps that I included that the parcel is fairly large. It's about, as I said, 5.39 acres. I've met with the residents of Vista Terrace and they're very much in favor of this happening. In fact, they don't have official access to the trails off of the Mount Hoyok range. This will provide a brand new trail once it's permitted. So I've had two meetings and then some informal meetings out there with the residents and they're very much in favor of the project. Thank you. Thank you. Are there other questions? I'm going to place the motion on the table and look for a second to approve the Conservation Commission's acceptance of a deed from Apple Brook West LLC to property located on Vista Terrace for open space and passive recreation purposes pursuant to the provisions of general laws chapter 40. Section 8c. Second. Is there any other question or comment? Seeing none, we're going to move to a vote. Michelle Miller. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alicia Walker. Alicia. I'll come back for Alicia. Shalini Balmille. Yes. Pat DeAngelis. Hi. Alana Devlin-Gothier. Hi. Lynn Griesperson. Hi. Mandy Johanicki. Hi. Anneka Lopes. Hi. Alicia, can you hear me? All right. The vote at this point is 12 in favor. No, zero, no abstentions and one kind of missing inaction. She'll be marked absent for the vote. I'm sorry. She'll be marked absent for the vote. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're moving on to the next one. This is a first reading. It's a general bylaw with regard to street numbering and I'm going to call on Michelle for GOL. Sure. Thanks. I just wanted to pull up my report. So yes, this is a bylaw that was very short and non-specific. It was also limited to houses only. So we felt that we wanted to add some more specific criteria and also broaden the bylaw to include all buildings. We drafted some language and we consulted with the fire chief who supported the language and then we brought it back to GOL and voted unanimously to adopt the new language. Let me note this is a first reading. So there is no motion on the floor. Is there a question? Dorothy Dorothy. You need to log you were reading this. I began to think about people who say that they can't they can't get the mail delivered because the numbers are weird. I was thinking about our accessory dwellings. Do they get separate numbers because many of them might be in the back. I just think it might be an interesting. I think it's important with all the package delivering that we have that maybe if we do have an accessory dwelling in the back that there be a sign which gives the number and points to them or whatever. Just just Michelle are you aware of the. Yeah, we did speak about this. I have an accessory dwelling and it is numbered and it's numbered a to my house is a the accessory dwelling is B but that is interesting to think about in terms of I also have a long driveway for example and I have a sign down by a tree for 374 a but not B so it takes the delivery people a little time to figure that out but I think when we were we're drafting the language and thinking about this we were considering that all buildings whether it's an accessory dwelling a single family home and apartment building a commercial building all of them are going to need to meet these requirements other members of GOL agree with that. Or want to add to that. Okay. Anika and Pat and they go in thumbs up patch shoker head Mandy Joe you want to weigh in. Okay, are there any other questions? All right, this will come back on October 3rd for the second reading and the motion and vote. We're then going on to the proposed amendments to council committee charges and Michelle I'm going to look for you again. Sure. So in the beginning of our term as a GOL we agreed that we wanted to to create an equity lens review process to make as a recommendation to the town council and we consulted with the DI director and assistant director and upon that consultation realized that they were also working on something similar and they were also developing a strategic plan. So we wanted to sort of work out a work plan with them but that also honored and gave time for them to work through their process. In the meantime, I wanted to make a change to the GOL charge that would somehow bring awareness to equity as we were reviewing the various measures that come through the committee and so we put our heads together and Councillor Hennike suggested that we consider adding some language to the end of the purpose statement for each of the town committees, the council committees not all of the town committees and then we pulled from our vision statements and also from our structural racism resolution to draft that language and then we unanimously adopted the language to be included for each as I said of the council committees at the end of the purpose. But then I'm going to make the motion. It's to amend the purpose statement of the community resources, finance, governance organization, legislation and legislation and town services and outreach committees charges by adding to the end of them the phrase in quotes giving attention to meeting the council statements of values, particularly those of diversity, equity and inclusion, environmental sustainability and fiscal responsibility as well as ensuring that measures foster an unbiased and inclusive environment that is free of discrimination, harassment and negative stereotyping toward any person or group. Is there a second to the motion? Second. Okay. Are there any other comments or questions? Shalini. Yes, thank you for bringing this forward. I really appreciate this. It's something that we were already doing in CRC. We're bringing these three lenses, but I like that it's being formalized and one question I had was I think these three lenses we've definitely been bringing, but sometimes I'm just thinking of the other values and even if you speak to this, how are we operationalizing them or how are we making sure in some sense these three lenses are more concrete to me and we are already incorporating, but I sometimes struggle with the other values that we've stated are important to us, but then we are sometimes showing up in ways that may be contradicting. So I'm just wondering how can we in our council in our committee meetings and we even console meetings bring them up like actually use them, especially when we're at crossroads or how do we actually use them as an inner compass for the council. And yeah, it doesn't have to be answered if it's not readily available, but I just wanted to put that that's a question I've been contemplating. Are there any other comments? Seeing none. We're going to move to a vote. I believe we are for Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Todd. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Shalini Balmillan. Yes. Pat DeAngelis. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Grishmers and I. Mandy Johanicki. Aye. Anika Lopes. Aye. And Michelle Miller. Aye. It's unanimous. We dealt with appointments through the consent agenda and I just I'm going to call on people for committee and liaison reports, but want to note that we just did these last week as well. So Mandy Johan. We didn't have a meeting so nothing to report. Okay. Kathy, elementary school building. I am at the our next meeting I plan on doing a longer written report, but we are starting to really look at designs of the building form. And we had an in-person meeting of a subcommittee where the designers came out and they did actually we could 3D and circulate them. So what I have to find out is whether we can post that because they're doing it and we have some extremely exciting choices. So the other thing is I don't know whether I mentioned that the ever source has put up much higher incentives for bringing in ground source heat pumps. And the result of that is it will lower the cost of the building by about 1.2 million dollars. And these are actually at the construction site and there are incentives in the new federal act. What we're not quite sure of is when those will be available and what the regs will be, but if we if they look like what they are is we could get as much of a third of as a third of the cost of the solar panels with direct reimbursement to the town. So this is stuff for the future, but right now we are moving forward, hopefully to be on the agenda that Lynn has shown that the town would the council will be start discussing what we're coming up with in December. Okay. Um, finance committee Andy. We are kind of in a planning phase right now. So we don't have another meeting immediately scheduled. I have been working with our finance director to study that long list of things that has been referred to us and as part of our normal course of business then sorted out and then we want to get it to the committee and schedule a committee meeting sort of to some group thinking on how to proceed. We're also waiting for a couple of other committees to give us direction because there were a couple of referrals that were contingent that were to follow action and other committees. Okay, thank you. G.O.L. Michelle. I think we've reported basically on everything. Jones library and Nica anything else to be said tonight? Well, I think that we, you know, we're up to date with all things Jones as well. But I would I would encourage those two, you know, as someone who serves on the Jones library building committee, which is a group of people who have different opinions about multiple things to really, you know, check in with those meetings. If not, there is a thorough comprehensive newsletter that comes out weekly that could keep people up to date. And I also just wanted to share just briefly that I know that this, you know, this vote was difficult for many and many of us are not certain. But, you know, in observation that I had made, I came back to the area shortly before coming to Town Council and coming on to Town Council rather and being involved with community. And I was introduced to a lot of people based on were they for against the library? Did they speak to each other or not? And wild assumptions made about people based on their stances as if there is no substance beyond that. And so I hope that we as a council continue to really, you know, work together to support, understand each other and as well have that influence on to the community. Should I go into TSO? One moment. I'm going to go to TSO. But first of all, I again, I want to thank Dorothy for her services chair of TSO for the last eight months and she remains on TSO as she was very quick to remind people that her District 3 meeting the other day, which I was able to attend for part of it with Jennifer and Dorothy and Andy was there. But I also want to congratulate Anika who is now chair of TSO and thank Shelleney for her service as vice chair. And she has chosen not to continue as vice chair, but remains on the committee be very clear and Anna is now the vice chair of that committee. So with that Anika report about TSO. Okay. Well, the bulk of the meeting did revolve around setting up the schedule and hearings. We did finally update our schedule and scheduled hearings for the parking for both Hope church and Lincoln Avenue and those are scheduled for October 13th. We also the remainder we had quite a thorough presentation on water regulations, which were voted unanimously on to be referred to the council and GLL that both Anna and super intendant DPW super intendant Amy gave quite a thorough presentation. That was really the bulk of it and we're you know, excited to move forward. Great. Thank you. Any liaison reports? I'm sorry, Dorothy, you have your hand up. Yes, it's at the same district 3 meeting. I think we discovered that there may have been a misunderstanding about the wording for the hearing. I want to know if that has been resolved. Because the TSO had voted to adopt the wording of the TAC proposal, which included sunset in Elm. So have we had time to include those streets on the ball? Yes, I've communicated with Athena and she is in the process of making sure we know what the TSO, the committee that advised you to include Elm and sunset. And so Athena, do you see any reason why we can't post the hearing for all three streets? TSO voted to hold the hearing on all the streets in the TAC recommendation. So that's what I'm planning on noticing. Okay, so it's been resolved. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, Ana. It's just a quick one. I wanted to commend the members of ECAC for being out and visible at the downtown block party. They did a great job doing some engagement work around what folks would like to see in terms of climate action work in our community. And so it was really exciting to first off meet some of them in person for the first time, but also to get to see them doing their thing. So, kudos to them. Any other liaison reports? It's hardly a time to have meetings. All right, we improved the minutes. There is no new town managers report. David, is there anything you'd like to say is the acting town manager? I thought if you don't mind, Lynn, I might do a couple of quick updates on projects that are in my purview. Please do so. Sure. And I'm sure Paul, when he gets back from ICMA, we'll have many more updates, but just moving around town very quickly, I'm sure council members in the public have visited the dog park. It seems to be going extremely well. Every time I go by there, it is active. We have a very enthusiastic friends group beginning there. They are taking taking the lead with working with Alan Snow and the DPW to really take over a lot of the maintenance of the park as well. They'll be mowing lawns. They'll be weed whacking, mulching, et cetera, and they'll also be raising more funds for the park. So that's exciting. I so I hope some of the council members and and public will join us tomorrow at 4 p.m. at the Fort River Farm Conservation Area. We have a ribbon cutting for the new community gardens there. We also are going to be celebrating the completion of the fairingbrook restoration project, which is on the same site. I know Lynn will be there and I hope that some of the council members will be there. We'll have a short informal program and then tours of the restoration project as well as the community gardens. Members of the garden committee, the garden circle committee will be there as well as healthy Hampshire representatives from DEP EPA and the state will be there as well. So that should be fun and should all be wrapped up in an hour. We're going to try to do it whether whether regardless of whether I hope if even if it's sprinkling, we'll probably do it. Let's see on on October 15th at 10 a.m. We are going to be rededicating the Emily Dickinson Trail. We've been working with a group the Fort River Watershed Committee or Association that got a grant or work on the on the Emily Dickinson. This is the trail that begins at Groff Park and ends at the rail trail near Southeast Street. And so on October 15th at 10 a.m. Again, we'll have a short program and then tours of that new kiosks and QR codes along the trail. And then I'm working with our new sustainability director as Paul announced to you. I think a week or so ago, Stephanie Ciccarello on the ribbon cutting for the solar project at the landfill. We are very close to ready to go. We're working with ever source and our vendor on on the final details on that project. So we're hoping to get that ribbon cutting in before the snow flies. And then finally, Hickory Ridge, we put in some additional grant proposals for Hickory Ridge. We are planning to bring the comprehensive plan that I promised to the council in January, which will include opportunities, possibilities for reuse of the area that includes the clubhouse and the main parking area on Pomeroy Lane. It'll include restoration areas, trail programs, things of that sort. The solar on Hickory has been somewhat delayed. I'm not sure if you followed that through the ZBA and conservation commission project, but due to global changes in market availability of solar panels and the elements that make up solar panels, there is some delay on that front. So we're not sure if they're going to get started. Their hope is to do some of the pre construction and construction this fall and actually install the solar in the spring of 23. But regardless, our project continues. And then I think in the coming days, we do have a number of grants out out there applications in the works. I know we've gotten some positive word on at least one of those, but I can't quite share all the details yet, but we'll have some exciting news in the days to come on on some grants. I'm sure so either Paul or I will announce those to you when he returns on later this week. So lots of things happening, trying to get things wrapped up in town before the snow flies. Any questions? Thanks, David. Do you have a competition going with other departments to see who gets the most grants? I probably shouldn't answer that. Yeah. Yeah, right. Do you have a, I would say we've always had a healthy competition with Northampton. We like, you know, there's a little given date there. They're very successful. We'd like to think we are successful as well. So it's all good for Hampshire County. Dorothy, you have your hand up. I just wanted to stay in terms of burnishing Amherst image. The dog park is a success. I do not have a dog, but I went to HCC and the administrative person that basically runs most of the humanities departments said Amherst, Amherst. Oh my goodness. You have such a wonderful dog park and you know, so far and wide people know and they love it. And I'm very excited to hear about the friends group taking on responsibility for maintaining it to a level that they would really like. So thank you. Thanks, Anna. I just don't have unfettered access to a microphone like I normally do when I'm in the room. So I was just going to say if we could give gold star stickers or something out for departments who get the most grants, I'm happy to incentivize this little competition. Great. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, we are on terms of town council comments under president's report. I sent you an email earlier today to tell you that I'm sorry, Pat, your hand is up. I can wait for. No, no, please go ahead. Okay. Thank you. I have a thank you a public. Thank you that I want to make. I wish I had made it last Monday, but I was still recovering in many ways from what was happening. Two Saturdays ago, a young friend of mine, a fairly vulnerable person showed up at my home quite late. And Carol and I brought him in and it became clear. I'll try to do a short version of the story became clear that he was delusional. And it was clear that we needed help and talking with him, he agreed to let me call dispatch to see if I could get Cress responders to come to the house. So with his permission, I called Cress, I called dispatch and it was late enough that Cress was not on duty yet because they don't have night shifts yet. The dispatcher was very thoughtful and he asked me to recontact him at some point. So he would know that things were okay. I then went back to my friend and started talking to him about bringing him to the hospital or finding or finding a place to stay. I did not want him to stay in my home. And all of a sudden there was a knock on the door and I went to the door and it was the police. I went back in and I told my friend that the police were there, but that I was going to talk with them on the on the porch. Two officers came and they were very thoughtful, very kind, dispatch had said something about possibly sending an ambulance and the officers said that the ambulance couldn't come out without them checking the situation. And how could they help? Did I want them to help? I went back in and talked to my friend and he said that the officers could come in, but he was also curled up on the kitchen floor crying because he's afraid of the police. But he said yes. So I opened the door. One of the officers came in and she did a beautiful job of coming in where he could see her, but where she was not in the same room with him. She was very thoughtful and how she engaged with him. And I'll roll the story along. My friend would not go with the police to the hospital and I asked the police to leave, which they did quite quietly and respectfully. And then I went back in and we were able, Carol and I to eventually get our friend to a hotel and for a few nights. And the thank you goes to the two officers who came into my home and dealt so carefully with this young man and apparently they knew him because of other situations that he was in with them and in town. And so they wanted to check that Carol and I were all right, but they really wanted to check whether he was all right. On that Monday, I had a meeting with the town manager and Earl Miller came in just to say hi and we started talking about this and he said, oh, I know this person. He can become violent. He's on our radar. And what really is critical and important is nobody told me that my friend could be violent. No, the police did not try to scare me. They didn't get aggressive with him in any way. They remained soft, open and relational. Earl's knowledge was helpful, but it came from his collaboration and relationship with the police department and with this young man. And so while I didn't have crests available, I had it available in terms what the police and crests had already done, the work they had already done. Some of the anger that we see at our police is not always justified. And it seems to me that we can as a community drive away this relationship between crests and police if we're not careful. If we create situations that over and over again threaten the people who make people afraid that I'm getting too long-winded. So to shorten this, I am very grateful to our police department for coming in and caring for my friend and caring for Carol and I. So I just needed to make that public. Thank you. Pat, thank you for sharing that story because I think too often we forget and don't realize the extent to which our police have been extremely well trained on any number of de-escalation tactics on dealing with all kinds of difficult problems and we have invested heavily in our police, our fire and EMS and in our crests program. And together they complement each other in making us have a safe community. And although we're just beginning to see crests emerge what we don't often stop to realize is that our police and fire and EMS have been handling these problems and these issues for us in our town. Every once in a while for those of you that went on the tour of the fire of the police station and saw the evidence room. I still have nightmares about that evidence room because it makes me realize the depth of the issues that we have in Amherst and the extent to which we can rely on our police every day to help us address those many, many issues. David, you had a comment. I just wanted to thank that for sharing that and I hope that although you shared it with the town manager, I hope that you also share it with Chief Livingstone because I'm sure that he would appreciate hearing that, you know, positive words about his staff. So thank you. I do want to go back and we'll come back to Councillor Comments on the President's report. I did send an email to you earlier today. We're on track. We have sent out the staff questionnaires. We've sent out the committee boards and commissions email and we have also placed things on engage Amherst and send out a press release regarding the town manager evaluation. Is there any questions about the town manager evaluation piece, Anna? Yeah, so thank you. As I was reading through this, I was just curious at some point if it's possible to engage TSO from that outreach end. I know that we've been doing a lot of work on specifically Shawnee's been doing a lot of work on what outreach might look like and might have some great, there might be some really great things to tap in around the town manager evaluation specifically on the outreach component. So I think sometimes the President's reports, they're always very helpful, very thorough. You're doing a lot and if there are things that are down the pike that we might be able to contribute beforehand to say, Hey, it can help on this. That might be a helpful component of the reports. If you know, things are coming down the road. Okay. Well, that brings me to the second thing. But before I go there, so I did do a makeup President's report. I didn't do one in August. Shame on me. I did do one September that covered two months. Are there any questions about the President's report? Okay. Then let's move on to future agenda items, which is a way of saying what's coming up. And let me just preface this by saying I've already received comments from two counselors with regard to one or two little additions. One wasn't so small. And I'm already making those changes and we'll do an amendment, but are there other changes or things you need to add? Dorothy. I admit I they're on my desk, but I can't find them right now. So something that came up to Jennifer and me and I saw Alicia commenting on it in an email. She sent to the town. It has to do with town gown relationships with UMass. UMass set up some community meetings with students in certain neighborhoods, but didn't get together with the neighborhoods. And, you know, I would not dare go onto UMass campus and set up any kind of event or party or something without talking to them. It was kind of like we've talked about how some students seem to think that, you know, my neighborhood is part of the campus and it's not. And then if they set up a party and don't even tell us until after it's been set up, the date, the time everything, then this is not helping town gown relationships and it's encouraging students to think that that we don't, you know, live in these neighborhoods. And there are a lot of things that we have to say that we would like to, you know, input on how we can live together better. And one that we've mentioned many times before would, could there be signs at the edge of, but where campus ends and to Amherst neighborhood begins, which I understand the students really can't tell where it is. They'd say, um, welcome to our, you know, residential neighborhood or something of that nature. So they would know, but, um, you know, it's, and Alicia took offense at that. And I certainly understand her feelings because it was like, how can we do some work together when we aren't even informed when they're putting the plans together? So that's it. The, the dates for those meetings did appear in the town manager's report last week, but I don't think we emphasize them enough, but I agree. I have, we have one coming up in district two toward the end of next week. So, and it's particularly around particularly the Grantwood neighborhood. Um, Andy Joe, we're on the future agenda items. I, I sent this to you, but I wanted to put it out in the meeting too. In case anyone looks at that document, the community forum for the rental residential rental program is not going to be on the 27th. It is on the 24th of Monday that we do not have a council meeting. Um, I haven't set a start time probably seven p.m. Like the last one, but it will not be Thursday. It will be Monday, the 24th. Thank you. And you've also mentioned that we once again have to look at article 14 and do a referral of article 14 and Michelle, you sent me, uh, two items and I've added those in handwriting to my list. Andy. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. And the, um, brought up the question of the public forum on the rental, um, registration by law visions. I guess that I was not quite understanding the vision of having that before there's at least a presentation to the council about what has been the tremendous amount of work that the committee has been doing because it was a topic that I think a lot of us were interested in, but we realized that, uh, we can't have a majority of the council working on an issue even though we all care about it. And so I'm, um, like to know a little bit more of the vision. And how that is all in vision. Okay. I'm going to call on Mandy Joe, but also please note that on October 3rd, I've added under discussions, uh, rental fee schedule structure. This is where Mandy Joe had suggested that CRC TSO and finance all meet together. And if people are in agreement, I'll leave it as a item for the council to discuss on October 3rd. If not, then we have to search for a date. And then on October 17th, we do have a public dialogue that that is us. That's not us. That's the council having a dialogue in front of the public about the rental bylaw. Okay. Mandy Joe. Yeah, I think, um, Lynn fairly well answered that. So yeah, on the third, um, there's going to be a discussion at the council meeting on three discrete topics, um, that CRC has needed help with and, and was told to seek input on, at least one of them, the fee structure, um, before proposing a fee structure from TSO and finance. Um, but there have been some other questions that we've wanted specific, um, input from other committees on and because those committees in between CRC and those committees include at least a majority of the council. It's better to just do it at council. It's just easier, um, because you can't have two committees meeting together without calling a committee of the whole. And then on the 17th is a council dialogue, a council discussion specifically on the rest of the proposed bylaw, um, that bylaw will be out there. There's drafts throughout CRC meetings, but, um, the one that will be discussed will probably be released after the 29th, when CRC has its next meeting, um, and that will be for the council to discuss all of the other aspects of the bylaw and give input in that. And then the week after is when the public can discuss that draft of the bylaw, um, and give input in that, and then it will go back to CRC for sort of final discussions on those sections as well as, um, discussions on proposed regulations that go along with the bylaw and all of that. Um, I hope to have a set of regulations drafted, even if it has not been discussed at CRC so that people can see the potential direction of potential regulations as it would potentially look, um, there will be a memo that accompanies both of those items for the council. So it won't just be me spouting off about what we need help with. I'm going to actually write memos for October 3rd and 17th to help guide those discussions. Andy, does an answer part of your question? Yes, it does. I, uh, want to thank, uh, both of you, uh, just putting down October 27th CRC public meeting on rental bylaws. It's kind of an incomplete explanation. So I appreciate the more complete explanation. And it's October 24th. I realize that it's changed, but I'm looking at what was in the packet. A little typo there. Uh, are there any other comments or questions about future agenda items? Are there any other councilor comments? Michelle. Just a reminder that Kathy and I are having a district one meeting on Sunday, um, from three to four 30 and it will be at the Pioneer Valley co-housing, which is at 120 pulpit Hill road. We hope everybody will join us and we want to invite, uh, our counselors at large. If you are able to join us, that would be wonderful. Thanks. Okay. Thank you, Kathy. I just adding to what Michelle said, this will be in person and because it's in person and not in the town room, we don't have any ability for a dual zoom meeting. So this one would, um, is the first, I think we've had, that's an in person district one meeting, um, and because people want to get together. Yeah. District three had an in person, uh, meeting as well recently in person only and no zoom. So any other comments or questions from counselors? Again, Pat, thank you for sharing your very, very heartfelt story and for your assistance as well. And yours and Carol's, um, in that whole situation. Uh, there are no other items and we are finished. So the meeting is adjourned and it's 925. Thank you. Bye.