 We're recording. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. It's April 8th, the day of the eclipse. This is a regular meeting of the town council. The open meeting allows us to continue holding these meetings remotely without the form of the council physically present in the room, while providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting. This meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom, by phone, and as a live broadcast on Amherst Media and live streaming. Just to be clear, however, there are eight counselors in the town room, and at least three others at this point online, and there'll probably be others. Given that we have a quorum at the council present, I'm calling the April 8th regular town council meeting to order at 631. I'll call upon each counselor by name. They have indicated they would like to be addressed. At that time, please unmute your mic and say present, and then make sure you mute it again. We'll begin with Pat D'Angeles. Present. Anna Devon-Goth here. Present. Councillor Ete. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Councillor Hanakie. I know you're there because I can see the phone. Councillor Hanakie, can you unmute? Thank you. We're working on it. Gotcha. Bob Hagner. Present. Councillor Lord. Pam is not here yet. Pam Rooney. Here. Thank you. Councillor Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taub. Present. And Councillor Walker is not here yet. So we'll keep an eye out for them. Hold on. OK. There's no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena and me know. To make a comment, please use the raised hand button. And if technical difficulties arise as a result of utilizing remote participation, we'll decide what to do at that time. If we have to disrupt the meeting or just take a recess. There will be a general public comment period at this meeting immediately following the announcements. The order of, I'm sorry, at this meeting immediately following the announcements. The order of the agenda is the same as posted, except we've eliminated one item from the posted agenda. And that is the proposed amendment to bylaw 3.26 nuisance property, first reading. That has not come out of committee yet, so we're not ready at this time to have the council deal with it, OK? With that, just very quickly, I want to make a couple announcements and then actually call on somebody to make one announcement, OK? First of all, we do have an April 25 public hearing scheduled on the regional school budget. That meeting will be at five o'clock. It will be virtual. It is a meeting of the finance committee. However, town counselors are also able to attend. We will post it as a committee of the whole. And if we have a quorum of the council, we will call the council to order as well. On April 29th, we will have a special meeting of the town council. We only are calling it special because by that point we'll have had three meetings this month and we only required one. And in the process of that, we have a variety of agenda items. We're still trying to catch up. I want to just mention a couple other quick meetings and then we'll have one other announcement. And that is there is a four towns meeting on April 20th at 9.30 AM. It is in the middle school library at this point. That's the way it's scheduled. We have absolutely requested that it be available for virtual attendance by both counselors and audience. I've not gotten a response on that. The North Amherst Library ribbon cutting is tentatively scheduled for May 2nd at 3.30. That will be confirmed. And the Jewish American Heritage Month proclamation reading is scheduled for May 7th at 4.30 at Sweetser Park, which is right across the street. I'd like to now call on Kiko Malin, our public health director to come forward. She'd like to tell us a little bit about the kindness campaign. Please use the mic and make sure the button's on. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for allowing me to be here. I just want to make a few comments about the kindness campaign. My name is Kiko Malin. I am the public health director. On February 29th, which was deemed Leap of Kindness Day, the town of Amherst Recreation and Public Health Department launched a kindness campaign. The campaign slogan is, be kind. It's good for your mind. We launched this kindness campaign to foster a culture of compassion, generosity, and goodwill throughout the community. I'd like to encourage all members of the Amherst community to learn more about the campaign and to join us in committing to practice kindness in all aspects of our lives. As the public health director, I also want to underscore the scientific evidence behind the notion that being kind is actually good for us. Studies show that exhibiting kindness and helping others can reduce stress. There's a strong body of evidence showing that stress has a negative impact on mental and physical health. Being kind can also boost our mood, increase self-esteem, promote happiness, and even help us live longer. There is so much happening in the world that we do not have control over, but we can control how we are with each other and how we approach each day and each human interaction. Kindness is something that can be built into business decisions, government policy, and other official systems in a way that supports everyone's mental health and also reduces discrimination and inequality. I've been thinking a lot lately about how we could initiate a discussion in the town about how we can have productive and respectful dialogue about nuanced and controversial issues. I'm aware of a recent talk given by Elana Redstone in which she spoke about the concept of social trust. Without social trust, we will continue to see events through the lens of our own social identity and personal experience, disregarding or demonizing those who see things differently. I would propose that one way to rebuild social trust is to express genuine kindness towards each other and to take a minute to truly think about what it might be like to be in another person's shoes. The Kindness Campaign aims to achieve this kind of change if we all make small adjustments in how we treat each other, we will be able to experience the power of collective action and responsibility. In addition to providing an opportunity for people to share what they're doing to spread kindness in their community by uploading examples to the campaign's interactive website, the campaign has also featured a free mental wellness speaker series on topics such as how to build mindfulness skills or how to support someone who is struggling. The series continues this month. There's information on the website about these mental wellness workshops. We are also hosting a food and diaper drive benefiting the Amherst Survival Center and the Early Education Center across the park. We are accepting donations of non-perishable food items, toiletries, and diapers to support individuals and families in need. Donation boxes are at the Amherst Area Chamber Office, the Town Hall Mezzanine, the Amherst Recreation Office and the Banks Community Center. The Kindness Campaign will culminate with a community cleanup day on April 27th, Saturday. There are also Kindness Campaign buttons. I'm wearing one of them right now which can be picked up at the recreation department, the Banks Community Center, the Town Mezzanine and also the Chamber of Commerce. The campaign officially ends this month, but we are continuing to plan activities to keep the spirit of the campaign going well past its end date. We hope the Amherst Community will join us. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. We're going to move on to public comment. Anyone wishing to speak who is in the town room, make sure you have signed up with Athena over here. If you are on Zoom and you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand. Bob, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that on the Finance Committee hearing, on April 16th or meeting, we will be discussing the regional school budget. I know that people have in the past or last meeting have described that they didn't understand or that we would be talking about the regional school committee, the regional school budget at that time. So I just want to mention publicly that we will be discussing it on the 16th. And that is in addition to the hearing on the 25th at five. Okay, thank you. If you are in the audience and you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time. Athena, how many people have signed up? I have two. Did you say two? Two. Two. Seeing one person in the audience will begin with the room and you want to call the first person, please Athena. Thomas Crossman, before we start though, let me just say, public comment is on the matters within the jurisdiction of the town council. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment. Public comments are not reflective of the opinion of the town council. In addition to that, I have now added this to my standard statement and that is the First Amendment broadly protects the individual rights to address the government, to speak and to express themselves, including their right to say hateful and offensive things. I am generally unable to shut those commenters down under the First Amendment to the US Constitution unless their level of speech falls within an exception articulated by the courts, such as fighting words, true threats to a particular individual, harassment of a particular individual or incitement of imminent lawless activity. If a question exists as to whether a particular speaker is engaging, is in unprotected speech, I must defer to the principles of freedom of speech. We'll begin by recognizing our first speaker in the audience. Can we confirm that Alicia? Okay. Alicia, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you, Lynn and Athena. Thank you. Thomas Crossman, please come on up. State your name and where you live before you make your comment, please. Good evening, Thomas Crossman. I work and own property in Amherst. I wanna start by iterating that although we may disagree on things, every town council member is loved and cared for. Tonight, I'm missing pickleball for this. Pickleball is important to my physical health, my mental health and my general well-being. But this amendment to the existing by-law will impact my livelihood. As I mull over the amendment, there are many points that I can try to iterate to drive the point that changing the by-law in this manner is more destructive than it is constructive. The thing that I keep returning to is how expensive this will be. At first glance, someone might say that this is only a few extra dollars per month over the course of the year. I challenge you with this question. What is the most expensive commodity in the world? It is not lumber, it is not copper, it is not silver or gold. The most expensive commodity in the world is time because we cannot afford to buy any more of it. The property managers and landlords of this community sit here and try to express the cost that this amendment will impose on our operations. It has to be understood that we have to take into account all of the costs when weighing and determining rent levels to charge our residents. We have to weigh the costs of taxes, insurance, water, sewer and building materials. We have to weigh the costs of laborers, including landscapers, handy people, electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, to name a few. We have to set the rent prices in anticipation of the cost to develop these properties to maintain them and to replace the building materials since they have a lifeline and continue to break down over time. With this by-law, we have to increase the cost of administration to take the time to coordinate these additional appointments to make sure we have the appropriate staff on site to meet the inspector and inspect. We will be pulling our most talented repair people away from work to walk through the property to make sure everything is in good working order. We have to account for the cost of that person's time as they have to make it a living as well. We can't expect someone to do this for free. The pool of candidates that we can select from that are knowledgeable enough to understand enough that the building science is limited and now we are gonna pull them away from their most productive use of their time for them to walk through an apartment. Doesn't seem to be a good use of their time. That comes with the cost of doing business. The revenue to operate a productive and efficient business is collected through rents. There are no grants to support the cost of time for these inspections. There are no hidden revenue coming from somewhere else. It is literally the rent that is collected is what will cover the cost of the administrator and the handy person, whether there is something to address or not. From what we have heard from the surveys and feedback from the town, it sounds like there are between a dozen to two dozen units that are in dire circumstances that need immediate attention. So why are we looking to implement a program that is going to be inefficient, is going to be an inefficient use of our talent and only increase the cost to our residents, which includes the most vulnerable populations in our community. Please understand that I am only scratching the surface on one problem with this amendment and I can imagine my colleagues will cover more issues, but I'm trying to drive home a critical, unintended consequence that this program will have. It is not a good use of our most valuable resource, which is our time. Please vote no for this amendment to the existing bylaw. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I'm sorry, you had a miss pickleball. It's a good sport. We're going to go to Zoom and... Arash Hashami. Arash Hashami, please enter the room, state your name and generally where you live in town. Hi, good evening Arash Hashami, South Amherst. I appreciate everyone on the town council and the work that you guys are doing, but I'm curious if anyone in this council believes that the state of our roads is actually acceptable. Two years ago, the town paid for a study that showed two thirds of our roads are either at fair or poor condition. And I can only assume that that figure has only gotten worse. And I suspect that figure is closer to three quarters. So the first question I think we need to ask ourselves is that figure acceptable? And are we doing enough about that? Now, hot topic has been brought up today in over the recent course of the last few months about the inspection of rental properties. And I'm curious to also know just why we believe the town is the authority to provide others with recommendations and corrective actions when its own behavior in managing an area that is most fundamental to its citizen and the most basic area of responsibility has been neglected for years. Two years ago, the town was provided a report card that we wouldn't accept or tolerate in any area of our town. Yet we continue to be distracted by vanity projects and projects that are only gonna score political points. You know, the most basic fundamental one-on-one in economics dictates where things will go if this actually gets adopted. And this isn't a conversation about inspection of rental properties, but I did wanna drive that parallel here. We're wasting our time, resources and energy on things that are nice to have, but that are not critical. Someone's gonna get hurt on these roads. There are craters scattered throughout town and we are collectively gonna be responsible. There are reports that have formalized and documented that the town knew about this and didn't do anything. There are multiple cases of multiple citizens raising this time and again and the town isn't doing enough about it. That's the definition of negligence. When someone eventually gets hurt because their town roads look like a war zone or an obstacle course and people are constantly swerving traffic to get into oncoming lanes, pedestrians, cyclists, that's an accident waiting to happen. So we need to stop getting distracted by these endeavors that are beyond our reach, that are only gonna strengthen the hands of Hadley, South Hadley, Belcher Town and continue to deteriorate the economic standing of Amherst. These roads are a safety hazard and I'm not sure what else we can do. Thank you for your comments. So, and I know this is in a dialogue but we need to have a meeting about this. Thank you. Vincent O'Connor? Vincent O'Connor, 175 Summer Street. I thank the chair of the finance committee for his statement. It was very unfortunate that the similar thing was not made last Monday. And I do support Mr. Crossman who I see on monthly basis in his comments about the inspection thing which I put in writing regarding housing. I wanna say a couple of things about the handling of the regional school budget. First time, again, thankful for the chair's comments. But I think it was equally unfortunate that prior to a public hearing, members of the council who sit on the finance committee felt so free to express their opinions about a subject which in my opinion, the council knows very little. And I was also quite disappointed that a senior member, both of the council and of the finance committee made reference to a town program which as far as I know has never been discussed as a matter essentially saying how much the program costs and essentially maybe threatening members, those who support the regional school program that it's either your budget or this program. I think that's a very unfortunate comment. If the school committee member had made reference to the athletic program of the regional schools, I think it would have been equally unfortunate and they would have been rebuked by their own colleagues. Finally, as I read the story of what happened at the finance committee meeting, I was very distressed by the fact that a person who is not a lawyer was allowed to make a decision for the committee as to who could speak as a member of the regional school committee. I believe that the opinion that was rendered was inaccurate, very unfortunate and that if in the future, I think you need to get an opinion of a partner in the law firm that represents this city to make sure that non-lawyers are not essentially shutting off elected officials who are attempting to speak on behalf of a regional budget, not an elementary school budget. I think that was unfortunate and the way to solve the problem is to get an opinion from a law partner in the firm that represents this city. Thank you. Thank you. Back to the audience. That's the end of the register. That's the end of public comment. We're going to move on. I just want to note that Councillor Hannity appears to have lost connection somewhere around 645 and not been reconnected. I believe she might have been in a place where she just couldn't be connected, okay? We are now going to go to the consent agenda. The consent agenda is on the screen and the reason it is on the screen is because it is different than what was posted. There are only two items on the consent agenda. Hi, there are more seats over there. Okay. Thank you. And the, so the consent agenda basically is the two proclamations. There are no minutes on the consent agenda. So to move, I'm moving the following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. 6A adoption of the children's mental health acceptance week proclamation. 6B adoption of the Jewish American heritage month proclamation. Is there anybody who would like either of those items removed? Seeing no hands or no comments, I'm going to ask for a second. Second, Shane. Thank you. All we're going to move to a vote. Anna, you're first. Aye. Thank you. Councillor Ate. Aye. Lynn Griezmer is an aye. Mandy Jo Hanneke is absent for the moment. Bob Hegner. Aye. Councillor Lorde is absent. Pam Rooney. Yes. Councillor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Andy Steinberg. You're muted, Andy. Yes. Thank you. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Councillor Walker. Yes. Pat D'Angelo. It passes unanimously with two absent. We're going to move on to a presentation. I'm sorry. We have two resolutions. Andy Steinberg, would you please read the last portion of the resolution on children's mental health acceptance week? Yes. And just second, I have a problem with my computer and so I have to get the document on my screen if I can. And the last paragraph is now there for the Amherstown Council, hereby proclaims May 5 to 11, 2024 is children's mental health acceptance week to help cultivate awareness for all residents of Amherst and urges residents and organizations to work toward meeting the mental health needs of every child in Amherst and to promote acceptance of children with mental health issues and their families. Thank you. And Jennifer Taub, would you please read the last one, last portion on the Jewish American Heritage Month? Yes. Thank you. Now therefore, we, the Amherstown Council, do hereby proclaim the month of May to be Jewish American Heritage Month in the town of Amherst and encourage all to celebrate the history and contributions of Jewish Americans to our culture and society. Thank you. We're going to move on to presentations and discussions. Assistant Town Manager David Zomak is going to update us on the Hickory Ridge property. Thank you very much, Lynn. Appreciate you having me here tonight. And what I'd like to do is, with Athena's help, run through a set of slides. It's been a while since I've addressed the Council on Hickory Ridge, and we've been very busy out there and wanted to take the opportunity to show you around a little bit and tell you what we've been up to. Right out of the gate, I wanted to thank a few staff members who have been instrumental in moving us forward on the project. Erin Jock from the Conservation Department, Nate Malloy from Planning, Rob Mora, our Building Commissioner, and Bob Parent, who's our special capital projects employee for a number of projects that many of you are familiar with. And I want to assure the Council that this is the first of many updates. So please, these slides are going to elicit a number of questions. We may have time for all of them, but if you come up with questions, please get to me by email, and I promise we will be back with updates as things progress out at Hickory Ridge. So for those Councilors who are new, really a quick summary, Hickory Ridge, we purchased the property a few years ago. It is a former golf course, 150 acres. It is a stunning property with kind of deep ecological significance in town. The Fort River runs through the property. It is, on one hand, an ecological gem with rare species, wetlands, vernal pools, other tributaries of the Fort River. But those ecological resources can create challenges for us for other uses of the property. The goals of the property going in, the goals of the acquisition. First and foremost, we pre-acquired the property with solar already planned on the land, and I'll talk about that in a minute. But the other major goal was connectivity to connect residents, thousands of residents who live north of the property and south of the property to this incredibly beautiful piece of land, formerly called the Hickory Ridge Golf Course. So starting off with one of those beautiful slides and then jumping right into solar. So as I said, solar was part of the project that we basically inherited from the previous owner. There will be about a 20, 25-acre solar array on the property. It's already under construction as we speak. It is being permitted through various town boards and committees. And currently, if you go by the property, you will see some of that work underway. That project will include battery storage. It will also include a required emergency access for the property given flooding that we're seeing happen more consistently with the Fort River overtopping its banks. This solar project, which is being built by pure sky energy, will bring in approximately $80,000 a year in a pilot, a payment in lieu of taxes every year once it is completed. I expect the project to be fully completed and operational with all, with any luck by the end of this year. So we are permitting this. We are overseeing the project. Staff are out there on a weekly basis. And while it's being built, we're also trying to safeguard those natural resources. David, I just want to pause to note that Councilor Haneke has been able to rejoin the meeting. Thank you. Next slide, please. As I said, and I'm gonna go through these pretty quickly. I apologize because I know you have a full agenda. There will be more time. I will come back anytime you or the town manager requests. I love talking about this project. It's a pretty stunning project. So trails, trails will be an integral part of the project. As you can see in blue on this image, blue and pink are what we call the connecting trail north south. In the lower center part of the slide are the kind of that dark color clubhouse. And then right to the right of it is the existing parking lot. The clubhouse will eventually be demolished. It was a kind of a non-starter for us. It was in terrible condition when we acquired it. So we knew that. And then to the left of that or to the west is the purple trail and the purple loop trail. All of these trails that you see here on this figure will be fully accessible, six feet wide. They'll include informational and educational kiosks, resting areas, benches, very similar to the Conti Trail, if you will, over in Hadley on Moody Bridge Road. So it'll be a wonderful resource for local people for visitors, et cetera. The trail will also connect via the, I guess it's a gold and blue trail over to the right-hand side of this image over to West Street. So residents of any of the neighborhoods to the north of East Hadley Road will be able to get over to West Street and get something to eat or pick up some groceries or take a walk down to the Village Center and vice versa. You'll also be able to walk all the way to Groff Park through these trails. So next slide. As I said, the property is a very special ecological parcel and pure sky as well as the town is being closely monitored by a number of state agencies whose job it is to safeguard those resources. So this gives you an idea just in charcoal, the darker charcoal and gray, those are the two solar arrays, the central and western solar array, about 20, 25 acres. And then as part of that project, pure sky has to do ecological restoration on 17 acres in the yellow part of the slide all along the Fort River. So again, we're monitoring that, we're working with them, that is all part of the requirement of their project. And if you will, the town of Amherst as the owner of the property. Next slide. So I'm not gonna go through all of these in detail, but I did say at the outset that we've been very busy. We've completed a number of studies of the property. We've mapped all of the wetlands, all of the vernal pools, all of the resource areas. We've created an ecological restoration plan for the property. We've designed the multi-purpose accessible trails. We've also designed secondary trails, which will be for things like cross country skiing, running. I've already had inquiries from various college cross country teams, even the high school cross country folks. We've also developed a land stewardship plan and we've made partnerships with local organizations and the federal government. We've also looked at possible sites. Of course, there will be a solar array, but in a few minutes I'll show you a couple of the slides that we developed as we've done assessments for a possible South Amherst fire station, affordable housing and municipal buildings. I will say that one of our challenges here is the, as although 150 acres sounds like a large property, when you actually begin to take out those areas that can't be developed, you're really down to the frontage around the clubhouse in the parking lot on West Pomeroy Lane. And in total, that's probably five, six acres. We don't know yet because there are no proposals, but in the future we'll be working toward that. As I said, solar is underway, construction and the multi-use paths will begin. Actually, our local contractor, Taylor Davis, was a successful bidder, so we're excited to be working with a local contractor and they'll begin building the multi-use paths in the next couple of weeks. They were out there today, getting started. Restoration will include removing culverts, trying to address some of the damage that was done through armoring banks of the river. We'll also be removing the extensive irrigation system that was there to support the golf course. Luckily, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the state of Massachusetts teamed up with us and they were able to get a $3.5 million grant for a couple of sites, restoration sites in Western Mass and ours was selected to be part of that. So those part of the funding in that $3.5 million grant will be coming to Hickory Ridge to remove old piping and restore some of the damage along the Fort River. Over on the right are some of the grants that we've received working through our CDBG program, Park Grant, US Fish and Wildlife Service and we just put in a trails grant for another 110,000. So we're doing everything we can to seek funding outside of the town to make this a special place. As I said, multi-purpose paths, accessible trails, will be part of the future there. Again, I wanna make it clear, we've designed the trail so that what happens on the frontage is flexible in the future. Nothing we're doing on the land in any way negatively impacts the potential for something happening on the frontage. Mind you, I will say the solar is a 20 year lease and that was locked in four or five years ago. So that 20 acres is locked in for solar when that lease comes up. Folks in leadership 20 years from now will determine whether that is something we want to continue with. Next slide, please. I mentioned other opportunities there. This is an image of potentially an amphitheater there for community presentations, performance space. We've already kind of mapped out a site where this could work. You may recall a few years ago working with Brianna Sunred. We did an Engage Amherst page where we came up with dozens and dozens of ideas the community did. And this was one of them. Could we develop an informal, inexpensive amphitheater? The possibility exists to do that out there. Next slide, please. Community gardens came up as a very strong component of Hickory Ridge. We have a tentative site picked out on the north side of the Fort River. Again, out of resource area, out of wetland area, and closest to some of the apartment complexes on the north side. We're currently having dialogues with those apartment complexes about what their residents might want in community gardens or small playgrounds, something like that. Next slide, ecological restoration. I found this kind of an interesting slide that we worked with one of our consultants on. Succession is taking over out at Hickory Ridge and it's a little hard for golfers to watch succession nature take over. But this kind of gives you an idea of what Hickory Ridge might, it looks like now, five years from now and maybe 20 years from now as the floodplain forest and the ecology there restore to something a little bit more natural. Again, I wanna make a point of saying we are going to keep some of the land in, we plan to keep some of the land in early successional habitat, open field habitat for those species and people who like to go birding, go hiking, go running and look out over pastoral settings. So those are part of the restoration. Next slide. Again, I think I've covered most of this but this is a nice drone shot showing the area of the clubhouse and the parking lot, the existing parking lot to the left and a small outbuilding over to the right but that is really the developable land. It's right on West Pomeroy Lane. I'm sure you've gone by it in your travels. But again, what we're dealing with is these layers of regulation and to some degree limitations on what we can do with the whole property and trying to zero in on those pieces of the property that we think have potential and making sure that the uses are compatible. Next slide. So we had our consultants look at some different things and this is one image that they came up with. This is approximately where the clubhouse and parking lot are now and the town manager asked us to look at the feasibility of a South Amherst fire station. So I know you've heard that from me and from Mr. Backelman and we'll continue. I know I was part of your retreat and in your goals for the town manager and his staff clearly finalizing a site for DPW and fire our high priorities. So we know we have a site here. We believe it'll fit quite nicely and we'll I believe be back to you in the months ahead with some more detail on that. So fire station. We also looked at co-locating something there. Could there be a fire station and a community building X, whatever that might be. We didn't put a name to it because we don't know but we do know that there is likely depending on the square footage of a South Amherst fire station and the square footage of a community building to be determined. We could do something like that and co-locate them on the frontage. Again, it's a long narrow strip on West Pomeroy Lane. So we can't go too deep into the property because of the floodplain. I'm sure you've been by it in the last couple of months and seen the flooding and it is real and it is probably not gonna go away given climate change. So we looked at a co-location of a fire station and a community center. We also looked at housing and we know that some housing will again fit on the frontage. And again, we're kind of looking more deeply at some of these options and we'll pivot based on the community's needs. So if it is determined that a fire station should go on the property, then we'll really get more into the weeds into the details on that. These are just kind of conceptual drawings to say, well, based on the available square footage, the topography, the zoning, et cetera, what could go there? And I should mention zoning is a challenge. So zoning is, I believe, outlying residential. So that mainly calls for single family homes. So that's a challenge we'll face in the future is how do we work through that? But some of these options can fit. Next slide, please. Site complexity, I won't go into the detail on this, but these are kind of some of the layers that my staff and I have been working with and things like estimated and priority habitat for rare species, wetlands, lead plain, the topography out there, the flooding. And as we overlayer those down, we come to some conclusions about what is compatible and what is not. And that's why we've tried to kind of focus our efforts on West Pomeroy Lane. And then as you're going away from West Pomeroy Lane, what is the experience of the user? If you're taking your bicycle, you could bike on these trails. You could take a stroller with your young children or family, you'll be able to take a wheelchair if we do have visitors with wheelchairs or mobility challenges. And we wanna be able to get people from where they live to where they might wanna go. One is to enjoy this beautiful property, to go bird watching, to do yoga, to go fishing. But it also means getting people from Orchard Valley, if you wanna take a half day hike, you'll be able to get all the way to the spray park at Groll Park for the most part without going on a road with you and your children, which will be pretty cool. And likewise, if you live north up on East Hadley Road and you wanna walk down and get a meal at Mission Cantina or El Comalito, you could do that. So all off road and not go on for safety's sake. So here's our part of our map. We have many more, I won't bore you with them, but it's complex and we're working through it. For a little background, again, not gonna go into this, but this slide will be in your packet, it is in your packet. And this gives you a little background on some of the grants that we've received, some of the in-kind, significant in-kind resources we're going to get from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Mass Fish and Game. They will be saving us tens of thousands of dollars by removing these massive old, failing culverts, some of them 48 inches in diameter. These are huge, huge infrastructure that'll be removed. And then finally, I think that's it, thank you. I know I've gone quickly, but I wanted to stay within your time limits and take questions if there are any. Thank you. Thanks, David. And thank you to the many staff that have worked on this. We'll take questions from the council or comments at this time. And I'd like to limit the period of time to probably 10 to 15 minutes, Kathy. Thanks, Dave. That was a tour de force. Thanks very much for the beautiful pictures. As always, I want to focus on the money side of this a little bit, because from the first day we did the purchase when we were on the finance committee, we were asking about not just the initial investment but the additional money that the town would be putting in and to what extent part of the property would eventually be paying property tax, be paying something back to the town so that front strip was looked at initially. But I have a question and you don't need to answer it right now on how much money we have put into it. So you showed an impressive list of grants and I could go back with the initial purchase. I know before the joint capital planning committee, there's 150,000 to take down the clubhouse. And then some of the park grants that you got, you were able to get it because you got additional money from the Community Preservation Act to seed money and matching money. So I'd just like to have an accounting, not right now on how much we've invested over time. And then my question on the frontage is the clubhouse had water. I don't know whether it had sewer, but is there a lot of infrastructure that would have to be put in to have a fire station or a community or housing, any of the above? I mean, is it on sewer, was it on septic? Is it already got electrical wiring? So how much of it is kind of ready should we decide what we wanna do with that fundage? So that's my main question. On the design, I can send some of my questions on the design, but the fire station on the square footage of its footprint on how much of the acreage it would take if it's got the fire engines and the ambulances just on terms of how deep it has to be and whether some of it could be two-story for the upstairs to limit the amount of footage. So I don't need to know that now, but just thinking in terms of the use of the land because with all the water on it, you probably wanna avoid covering it as much as possible to allow permeable, because you're gonna have to have a driveway and parking lot too. So my first is our investment in it. And with that, the Civil Conti Trail gives us a sense of what is, since it's been up and running and it's wonderful, how much does it cost to maintain the kind of trail system you're talking about? It's gorgeous. And Civil Conti, someone's been out there making sure it doesn't revert to nature the way the golf course has on the trail system when it first comes in five years from now, 10 years from now. So just a sense of where would that money, how would the town budget for it? And right now I don't need an answer, but I'm just thinking in terms of sometimes when we take on a project, we don't get a sense of the total potential costs and the cost of operating it over time or maintaining it. So thank you very much. David, are there a couple of those you wanna provide some quick answers to? Sure, I'd like to get back to Lynn and the council on what we've invested to date. I think it depends on the category what you consider, I mean, very little capital money, I will say that, very little operating money. But yes, we have committed CDBG funds through the federal government and CPA funds to some of the, particularly the matching. Without that, we would not be able to leverage some of those large grants. The park grant, for instance, of about $280,000, we put in another 30%. So I can get the figures for you on that. Infrastructure, I will take that one on. So the building, the former clubhouse and area around the clubhouse does have water, sewer and full electrical service. I believe someone on the council that asked me, well, when we take the building down, will all of that be maintained? Absolutely, we're not going to, the most complicated thing there, I think is electrical service in terms of maintaining that. So in terms of paying for it, right? There's nothing necessarily free with those connections. But water and sewer is there. When we take the building down and we regrade that area, we will make sure we don't limit ourselves in any way in that area. I will say the parking lot is just a really large parking lot over a hundred spaces. And I neglected to say that when I was talking about kind of compatible uses, we will make sure that there is, whatever the town does there, or future infrastructure, we do want there to be a compatible parking area as well, because this will be the main parking lot for Hickory Ridge. We have not designed, nor do we plan to design, parking areas to the north, to the east or to the west. They're just too complex with a rare species habitat and wetlands and whatnot. So this will be the main entrance to Hickory Ridge. Abby asked an interesting question about the comparison with Conti. And I think we'll look at some of those expenses. What are those upcoming expenses gonna be over time? I will say with crushed stone, mostly crushed stone, it is much less expensive than some of our other trails that have, there'll be a few small bridges on this one, but by and large, we'll be in pretty good shape. Pure Sky is actually going to rehab one of the main bridges on the property. And then through one of the grants, we're actually planning to take out one or two of the bridges simply because it makes sense ecologically, but frankly, it's two less bridges we have to maintain over time. I think the Conti numbers, if I'm not mistaking annual visitation to Conti over at Moody Bridge Road in Hadley, is somewhere in the order of 35,000 people a year. Now again, they may be obviously there, lots of people go over there on a regular basis. So those are not unique visitors, but that's a pretty good number. So we anticipate that this will be kind of a real attraction regionally to common experience at Hickory Ridge. And I can get back to the council with the other questions. Pat DeAngels. Thank you. I am blown away by the quality of work that has gone into this, thinking about this project, the potential designs for housing or fire station, the all of the work that the conservation department has done. So please hear any other things with a real recognition of how beautiful and this whole project could be. I am, I just as a liaison to DACA, Disability Access Advisory Committee, I have to ask the question about the accessible trails. Are they going to be contacted so they can have some involvement in the decisions about those trails? Because often decisions are made without quite fully understanding the impact on somebody who has mobility issues. And I hear that you wanna have accessible trails so I think they need to be reached out to. I have my hand down. I think, it fell, it's not on, it's yeah. Is that better? So much, thank you. Can I jump in there? And then I have just a couple other things. So actually we've been to all the permitting and other boards in committees in town. We've been to the DAC, we've been to the DRB, the Planning Board, the Conservation Commission. I'm racking my brain, but I think we've been to all of them. We've gotten comments, we've gotten direction, guidance, input. So yes, we have taken all of that into consideration as we've designed this trail, the seating, the kiosks, the parking. It's going to take us a little time to get all of that in place because at the same time we're managing a 65 year old building that's still there. It's an eyesore, we all get that. I live in South Amherst, I drive by there many, many times a week. Despite my wife saying, could we take a different route? I still want to go by Hickory. But anyway, so yes, we have been to all of those boards and committees, including the DAC and gotten their feedback. That's thank you for doing that. My next issue that I want to hear a little bit more about is the solar. You've said it was locked in and I know that because one of the first things we did on the original council in executive session was to support the purchase of Hickory Ridge which included the development of solar. And so I stand by that decision. It was an excellent decision. However, battery storage was not included into that lock-in. And I'm very concerned with Pure Skies' willingness to continue to use batteries that have caught fire mostly because of water damage and have caused horrendous impacts on the areas where solar panels were, where there were large-scale ground mounted photo takes. So I'm not feeling yet like I'm really hearing anything. You said, oh, well, we're gonna talk to the fire department. The area floods repeatedly and that's what's triggering the battery storage fire. So why are we fighting to have battery storage there? Happy to answer that. So I guess first off, we the town are not fighting to have battery storage there. The zoning board of appeals and the conservation commission through their processes did allow Pure Sky to consider adding battery storage. You are correct. The original project did not have battery storage. We are now in a very thorough and complex process with Pure Sky to do two things. One, we're working very closely with the fire department. They have the authority to approve or not of what batteries are used on the project. There are many batteries out there in the solar world that have not experienced the problem with fires that a certain kind of battery has had. So the fire department, I am in constant contact with them. We are having multiple meetings on that. They have made it crystal clear that they want to see all the evidence, all the data when Pure Sky proposes what they want to do out on the site. So that is still very much in process and we are not there. Part of that was emergency access if the main access to the solar array pads floods. And we know it floods from West Bomoroy Lane. The main flooding is on the south side of the Fort River. There's some flooding on the north side. I want to assure though the council that the batteries and the arrays themselves are quite a bit higher in elevation topographically than the rest of the site. So we have been through rigorous analysis of that and I think we're confident that where the batteries are and where the solar arrays are is out of the flood zone. But we have to, there will be no approval. There'll be no building permits. There'll be no fire permits. There will be a final sign off by the conservation commission until Pure Sky completes an emergency access to the north and which is the way we've all determined it should be. And they also present a battery option that is acceptable to the fire department. So that's where we are. That is some months of work we have ahead of us to get to that point. Thank you. Pat, anything else? Okay, George, let's go with one final question. And then I just want to say the door is always open for additional questions and we want to make sure that we have that opportunity. George. Again, just I can say the residents of District 3 are very excited about this and I'm looking forward to it very much. I want to just echo Kathy's question about the cost of maintenance and upkeep. And at some point, if you can get back to us on that, it sounds like it may not be that serious an issue, but I'd like to hear your answer to that. And then I'm just wondering long term if there's ever, if there's any model or any path for community involvement, volunteer involvement and the upkeep and maintenance of trails. This is something that touches at least three large neighborhoods. And I'm wondering as I do outreach, district meetings, whether you think, we could talk about this another time, but is there any kind of place for community involvement and the maintenance and upkeep of a system like this? Just a question. So I think the answer to that is yes, there is. The challenge I think we always face at the town level is that time and energy and resources it takes to cultivate and recruit and cultivate volunteers. And there are times when, you know, the conservation department gets a lot of inquiries about trail maintenance and similar work. And the challenge always is I feel like once we bring volunteers in, can we support them? I'm challenged by that. We're challenged by that because of just staff time. And sometimes I hate to say, but it is easier to push forward and get something done and we don't have that time to put together a work party, et cetera, not to say that we don't do it. But I think, you know, in conclusion on that, I think there's no question that we want to include the butters to the south and to the north. When we did the engage Amherst, we got a lot of people. I think we had over 250 people come to the two open houses we did at Hickory. And I think as we get done with some of the quote, real construction with big equipment and whatnot, once that is done, I think there's a real opportunity to get volunteers with rolling up their sleeves and work gloves and get out there and help us because there's many more trails that we are proposing to create out there that don't require construction to put together. These will be single track trails like many of our conservation trails. They'll just be as through the woods or through the field. So I think that's an opportunity. And then maintaining things like making sure the educational information is up to date. Doing like a trail adopters out there, I think would be great. I think residents to the north and residents to the south would adopt Hickory Ridge. I know they would because I've talked to many. So I'm optimistic about that. I'm just a little hesitant at this stage to get a lot of people out there because there's a lot of moving vehicles right now on the site. So anyway, I guess the final thing I'd say is in certain parts of the country, golf courses are not doing well and they're going out of business. And we're kind of on the forefront of restoring a former golf course to a more natural habitat while at the same time adding some other, checking some other things off with our municipal needs, whether it's a fire station, whether it's housing, but it is trails connecting people that historically have, let's be honest, there was a fence in the north, all along the northern section of this golf course. And that didn't really invite people living in Mill Valley and the boulders, et cetera to enjoy the property. It said, stay out of the property. That fence, most of it is coming down and now we're going to invite folks from those communities down to enjoy this beautiful land. So thanks. Thank you, David. That was useful and always insightful and exciting. So with that, and again, if counselors have additional questions, please make sure that you send them either to Athena, myself or to David, who is at this point acting town manager. The action item that we're going to go on to at this point is the bylaw 3.50 residential rental, bylaw regulations and fee schedule. There are actually three motions required with this. I believe we mentioned when we discussed this last week that this is, I believe the third time that this has come to the council and it has gone back to CRC for additional work. This time as it comes to the council, not only it does come back from CRC with additional changes that were discussed last week, but it had also gone through GOL and legal review. So I'm going to place the first motion on the table and it's a rescind and replace. It's to rescind general bylaw 3.50 residential rental property and replace it with general bylaw 3.50 residential rental property dated 2024-03-12 as shown on page 11 to 19 of the motion sheet. Is there a second? Second, DeAngels. Thank you. Are there questions or comments? Point of order, it begins on page 10. I'm sorry. What did I say? You said 11. Okay, I'm sorry. Page 10 to 19. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Any other questions? Any other corrections? Andy, you have your hand up. Yes. So I have one question that I've tried to get an answer to various members of the committee and I really appreciate all of the work that has been done and I appreciate the addition of a section after we discussed it some months ago and talked about making sure that the rights of a resident, if they object to having their unit inspected while they're tenants and there's no other problem that is evident that that has been recognized. What I had been wondering about is there seems to be, from what I can tell, a lack of clarity about if a tenant has, if a property has not been inspected, whether we can have a requirement included in the bylaw that during the point of vacancy between tenants it must be inspected and that there's a responsibility of the management to notify the town that the vacancy has occurred so that it can be scheduled during that vacancy period. And I can't find that there's anything along those lines in the proposed replacement and I was wondering if I'm wrong on that and if I'm not wrong on that, whether it doesn't have to hold up passage today if that's the will of the council but can an amendment be offered later to adopt such a provision? I'm going to just mention that Pam Rooney who is chair of CRC and has been a part of CRC during this entire deliberation is here as well as David Zomek and also Rob Mora. So Pam, you have your hand up. I'm going to call on you because perhaps you're wanting to answer that question. Yeah, thank you. In response to, and I would also encourage Rob Mora to speak up as well. In response to Andy's question, it would be ideal to schedule inspections of units during the vacancy period and the turnover time. It's quite likely that given the huge numbers of these units and the turnover all happening relatively in the same time period, I suspect that the town would not be able to have staff to take advantage of that full period of time. And I'd like, I think Rob can probably speak to that better. Rob. Thank you. I would agree with that. Not knowing the amount of requests that we would receive might make that number really very difficult to schedule in any particular month or month. So I think the standard thought would be that if we were attempting to inspect the unit that couldn't be replaced by inspecting another unit on site, if it's a smaller property where the goal is to inspect the unit, we could look at, you know, not only that year during changeover or tenancy but future years and be able to schedule that and maintain that outside of the bylaw requirement just so it's more manageable for us going forward into the future years. Andy, did you have a follow up question? Yes. And that is, I would encourage us to check with other communities that have similar bylaws as to what their practice is. And I say that because just a couple of days ago where I am right now out of town, I saw an old friend who was very engaged in community government in several different communities including Lawrence, Kansas, some of the University of Kansas. And I used the opportunity to ask him several questions including this one. And he said that that is their policy and practice. So it seems that it's doable, but we just need to, at least before we answer that question of certainty, make sure that we have consulted other communities with similar bylaws, but it is a concern because I think that there's a question of whether certain, if a landlord and I'm not saying that there is one, but if there were a landlord who is trying to discourage tenants from allowing inspections, we're escaping our ability to get in there if they aren't notifying us at the time of a turnover in a unit and we're not taking advantage of it. I'll leave it there. Bob Hagner. I know a lot of work has been done on this bylaw and I appreciate everyone's efforts. I can't support it, however. I think it's just overkill for a problem that to my knowledge has not really been defined. We don't know how many rental properties really are problems and we don't know where they are. And until we know that, it's very difficult for me to support a program that's basically built on raising rents on tenants. So I realize I'm in the minority on this, but I just can't support it. Jennifer. Kathy. You're not in a minority meaning only one person. I'm also there. I have been from the beginning asking whether we can't have a much more targeted approach and I had hoped that the nuisance bylaw would be before the council, before this or simultaneously because I think we could with the nuisance bylaw, if properties have trash, have cars on the front lawn, have noise in any kind of repetition, it could trigger an inspection, a porch falling off the front. I can show you some in the area. And that way we'd have a much more focused and my understanding is the inspectors do have the right to go in if there's a concern about what they've seen, but particularly with the nuisance bylaw if it triggered an inspection, I think we would get a sense of how much of this is going on as opposed to building up what I see as a mini bureaucracy of inspectors to be inspecting places that right now we don't have any major concerns. And I understand that we don't have a list of problem properties, but I'm talking about building one. And I am sure many of us could walk around certain neighborhoods and create a potential list. I also think it's really important that we have a tracking system that when a home goes owner occupied and the sale is to an LLC that we pay attention to who is buying it and what their history is because just get it right away on the radar screen including do they take out a permit? So I'll stop there because I do think and I appreciate all the work that's going into it and the committee members on fees and other things where I've been looking at can I lower the cost? Can I decrease the number of inspections? Can I get the staffing down? I think a lot of work has been done to address all of those. So it's much improved from when we first saw it. And I will repeat what I've said from the beginning. I see no reason we should even have the potential of inspecting places that are already being inspected by the federal government or the state government. I would just make them exempt. And I understand the reasons given why not, but I would just take it off might at the discretion. I would just move them on and the towns I've seen that have inspections almost all of them put them on the exemption list. So I will stop with those comments. Again, I wish we were doing nuisance first and doing it with let it ride for a few years a much tougher nuisance law triggering inspections and see how much we start to address the problem. Thank you. George. So this is an issue of public health and safety. It's an issue of quality of life. Certainly in my conversations with inspectors and in my listening to the work of this committee over the last two years and more, there's a definite need to address this issue. It's sort of a catch 22. You say, well, we don't know that there are any problem properties and you can't find out where the problem properties are unless you can inspect them. And the only way we can inspect them is if there's a complaint. So I think that there's a need for this by law. The main concern I have and a question I have has to do with the fact that the cost is clearly going to be passed on to the renter. And I'm just curious what the committee says in response to that concern. Or was there any attempt to try and calculate what that cost might be? That might be very difficult to do but I would think that's something that and perhaps you did do that. And I missed it. And just in general, what do you say to people who say, look, it's not the landlord who's gonna pay for this, it's the renter? Either Pam Bruni or Jennifer Pam, go ahead please. Sure, I'd like to adjust the cost. And I recognize that in fact, there will be a fee. However, we've been requiring a fee for the last 10 years. And the fee was about $100 a year per property. So a property could be puffed in village with let's say 400 units. A property could be a duplex with two units. But the fee was associated just with the A property. So the fees actually were adjusted for many things around town in 2023. And they have for this proposal settled back from the high fee that was suggested in 2023, to $150 per year per parcel. So again, it could be a whole variety of numbers of units. The inspection fee would be new and that is $150 every five years. So the ability to set aside $30 a year knowing that a fee would be charged when that inspection occurred, I think is probably, should not be passed on to the tenant. So long story short, they're already required to pay a fee for this. We did put into the wording that if a property is already subject to inspections that the need to inspect may be waived. It may be waived. If they can provide evidence of the inspections being done by other entities. So it's clearly acceptable, could very likely be that they don't need inspection. But it's an opportunity, especially if it seems that there is a need for a little bit closer scrutiny. Thank you. Jennifer. Thank you. And I think that Rob Mora might also wanna weigh in on the relationship between inspections and a nuisance property. Because I think for the most part a nuisance property doesn't trigger an internal inspection. And Rob has addressed that we really, and I guess Kathy acknowledged it too, we, I think somebody mentioned that this is all to address a dozen or two dozen dwellings in town, but we have, I think the building commissioner's office really doesn't know how many units are not code compliant and meet our health and safety standards because they've never been inside. And a nuisance, I'm not aware in most instances that a nuisance house call, you're calling because there's a party or other nuisance issue that would trigger a call from a butters that that would result in an inspection inside the property. And I did just wanna add, I know you all know this, but this is in many cities and towns in Massachusetts, inspections are just a normal part of what happens to rental units. It's seen the same as inspecting kitchens and restaurants. I mean in Salem, which has a state university, inspections are every three years. In Lowell, it's every three years and then it can be every five years if no problem is found during the three-year inspection. Boston also has an inspection every five years and every time there's a vacancy, the units are inspected. So this is something that is kind of routine in a lot of cities and towns, both in our state and as Andy said, speaking to someone in Lawrence, Kansas where there's the university, that this is not unusual or an overreach or even results in a particular bureaucracy. And I did wanna add that at the university, at UMass, they do regularly have workshops or seminars for students in how to advocate for themselves as tenants. So I think they've seen that there's enough instances that it's actually something that Dean of, I don't know if it's the Dean of Students Office, but the campus regularly addresses and hears from students who are living in conditions that are really not up to anything that we would consider health and acceptable health and safety standards. Thank you. Rob, you have your hand up. I assume you wanted to address something that was raised. Thank you. Just the relationship between nuisance calls and response by inspection services. There's a couple of different types of nuisance calls. It could be something that APD is responding to that's noise related gathering. And that may be something that we would never even respond to, although we get weekly reports of the activity and communicate regularly with APD. There wouldn't be necessarily any reason for us to respond unless an officer was in the building and saw something concerning that they wanted to report to us. Then there might be a nuisance call from a neighbor that would be related to trash or cars parked on the lawn or something on the exterior. And although we're responding to that, we don't in fact have the right to inspect the interior of the unit. Our current by-law does not authorize us to do that. And we would have really no reason to. We could ask if there's a reason, there's a deck that has some visible issue that we wanna look into further. We could ask for an interior inspection, but we don't necessarily have the right to that. Thank you. Alicia, I'm sorry, Councilor Walker. Thank you. I think George said almost everything that I had wanted to say. So I'll try to keep it a little bit brief, but I did just wanna offer some, just things to think about in terms of perspective. So just as someone who is a renter and who has also been a college student, I think that like a lot of things can be true at one time. And so something that I did experience more so as a college student amongst myself and my friends was that rentals are in poor shape. Like it is hard as a college student to find a rental that is in good shape or that they do regular maintenance on. That is a huge issue that I experienced in college and a lot of my friends and people not in college experience it cause it's just, it's in the town of Amherst. Also I think, you know, while I again think this is important, I understand what we're trying to address with this. I also still have the challenge of being okay with something that will pass on an additional cost to renters as someone who is a renter. I know that any additional fee or anything that comes up for my landlord is passed on to me because I live here. And that will just happen. It's gonna happen. And as a body of majority homeowners, I think it's important to understand the impact that that has on the people who will be most affected by this change. And that like I personally wouldn't be able to support anything that would further increase rent other than what has to be already increased. Like we already have taxes that will continue to drive up rent. We already have water and sewer rates that will continue to drive up rent. Like rent is going to continue to go up and up and up. And I think landlords do take into consideration what additional fees there are. And so I'm not saying that like this is not something that other places do. Other places might do this regularly. We might have already had a fee associated with this but an increase is an increase. And so that's already asking people to pay more than they already pay. And we're already seeing people really, really strained and struggling to meet their rent and their basic needs as is today without any additional increases. And so that is something that is like very concerning to me. And I know that they're in this town particular, there are, I know there are a lot of landlords who just own like one unit, but we also do have a lot of landlords who own multiple different properties. And so thinking about the impact on those landlords and how they might take that into consideration and how much they need to increase rent in order to make up for those things, I think is really important. And so I think something I'm wondering, cause I know we can't do rent control, but I'm like, what can we do to ensure that this is not going to be passed down to renters is something that needs to be a little bit more seriously considered. And I saw a comment come into the council email asking about like what happens if we just do this when someone is like moving in or moving out? Is that something we've thought about? And then also, yeah, also we had, I think Pam touched on this really quickly about other properties doing inspections about outside people. And I'm wondering if that still applies to properties that inspect themselves. Cause I know a lot of landlords do annual property inspections just already. And so can they submit those things if it's not an outside person? Like if it's just Caymans inspecting Caymans, like can that be submitted? Because I know that they do that. Thank you. Are there any comments to that? Pam. Yes, I appreciate those comments. Actually, let's let Rob Moore go first and then I'll follow up. Okay. Rob? Okay. A couple of those one way to kind of, I guess be understanding of the landlord or property owner that has multiple properties that have already considered is that we will pay attention to how we schedule those over the five year period. So, you know, the goal to make sure that we don't have one property owner that owns five properties, having those all inspected in the same year, we can slip those up intentionally to make sure that that happens that way. I think the move in, move out inspection that we see in a lot of communities just won't work here. The numbers are too big. We'd have to have too many inspectors and probably bring in outside services to even attempt to accomplish that. And just as a reminder, the inspection is probably the easy part. It's the follow up. It's the ongoing months of working out a plan and developing a way to improve the properties that need improvement and seeing that through. And that's what really takes the time. The self, the landlords inspecting themselves, that's what is called the self-certification process in our current bylaw. And unfortunately, although I think when we started the program 10 years ago, there was a great deal of effort by property owners to take that seriously, look at their properties, understand the laws, but the properties that we go into have proven otherwise. You know, when we are inspecting, we're finding that self-certifications were just recently submitted and very obvious things that show that it wasn't a failure that just happened. It's something that's been going on for a long time. So, you know, enough years of that experience that brought us to the point to be able to say the self-certification isn't really enough. And the outside, the idea of an outside inspector can work for some things. The housing authorities use section eight program, through the section eight program uses inspectors for their properties. There are other services out there, but they are not certified to be building officials, to be health officials, and would only be able to cover a certain set of the inspection checklist requirements. And we'd still need our town inspectors to take over at a certain point. So that seems a little inefficient with the numbers that we're talking about and why we stayed with the idea of if there is gonna be an inspection program that we really do need to staff it internally. Pam, did you have anything to add? Over there, thank you. Okay, Anna? I've got three post-its in front of me with lots of wavy lines trying to draw my thoughts together, so apologies if this feels a bit scattered. It's frustrating to me. I'm not gonna get on a soapbox about capitalism. This is not the time or place, but I get frustrated when there are so many reasons why landlords can increase rent, and ultimately this is a for-profit industry, right? That's not to say that they, all landlords are evil humans, right? But it's a for-profit industry. And so I get frustrated when there are legitimate reasons why we may need to impose a fee, and that is something that would drive up rents because this is a market where folks are already charging what they can charge for units, right? That's how capitalism works. I'm not an economics professor. Please don't quote me on that being how capitalism works, but I get frustrated when we need to do something, whether it be a debt exclusion vote for our schools, whether it be this and that, and suddenly the town is the reason why rents are going up, and the reality is that there are so many other reasons rents are going up, and I want us as a council to also be thinking about to Alicia's point. I recognize the limitations on doing anything around rent control, but I'd like us to think about what are other ways that we can advocate for tenants in our community because it's not just us that is driving up rents. We're also going to see increased pressure on our community. We've seen tuition and fees go up at the university in the past two weeks to the point where this is, it's so expensive to live on campus if you can get on campus, which is also incredibly challenging. So this pressure is going to continue. And for me, this bylaw and the work that has gone into it has highlighted that we need to get out of this sort of catch-22 chicken and egg situation that George referenced. We need a more rigorous system, and this bylaws is doing that. So we don't know where those challenging properties are because not to what Rob said earlier, many of the things that are dangerous aren't visible from the street. We need to be able to know that we're providing safe housing for folks in our community. And the, hang on, post at number two. Right, so many of those problems identified that have been identified by folks as why this bylaw is challenging to implement right now are exactly why we need this bylaw. We don't know how many properties might fall, might be something might come up during that inspection, right? Once we have this more locked in, no bylaw is carved into stone. Future councils can adjust this or adapt this as we learn, but we need something to start us off and to get that baseline that is reasonable and doable for our community. We can't do it on turnaround because we would need every inspector working all summer and then doing something else for the rest of the year, right, it's not feasible. We hear that from our staff. So I think this bylaw is a step that is not to say it cannot be revisited once we learn, but we need to start somewhere and this is a great start. Thank you. Are there any other comments? Okay, the motion's been made and seconded, seeing no other hands. I'm going to move to a vote. We begin this vote and this is the actual bylaw. It's a rescind and replace. Councillor Ate. No. Lynn Griezmer is an aye. Councillor Hannacky. Aye. Bob Hegner. No. Councillor Lorde is absent. Pam Rooney. Aye. Councillor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. No. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Councillor Walker. No. Pat DeAngelis. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothian. Aye. The vote is eight in favor, four opposed and one absent. The vote requires a majority. Thank you. We're moving on to the next vote. It's to adopt regulations for general bylaw 3.50, residential rental property dated 2024-03-12, as shown on page 20 to 23 of the motion sheet. Is there a second? Seconded, DeAngelis. Thank you. Are there any questions at this time? This is the regulations that go with the bylaw. Kathy? I believe this, the regulations are the ones where it says may inspect properties that are already inspected rather than exempt. So I'm just pointing that out to people. I believe that's in the regulations as opposed to the bylaw we just did. Is there any clarification on that without my trying to search for it? Pam or Rob or Jennifer? I believe it is in the regulations, but I have to be honest and say I haven't memorized them. Okay, are there any other questions? George? Just a reminder to me, these regulations once they're put in place can be revisited by the Board of Licensing Commissioners. So there's a great deal of flexibility over time. So what we agreed to tonight is not set in stone. That is correct. Thank you. Okay, any other questions or comments? Then I'm moving to a vote. We begin in this case with Lynn Griezmer. I'm an aye. Councillor Hannake? Aye. Bob Hegner? No. Councillor Lorde is absent. Pam Rooney? Yes. Councillor Ryan? Aye. Kathy Shane? No. Andy Steinberg? Yes. Jennifer Taub? Yes. Councillor Walker? No. Pat D'Angeloz? Aye. Anna Devon-Gothier? Aye. Councillor Ate? No. The vote is eight in favor for opposed, one absent. The final motion is to adopt the fees for general bylaw, 3.5 residential rental property dated 2024-02-27 as shown on page 24 of the motion sheet. Is there a second? Ryan, second. George, you have a question. Thank you. Are there any other, are there any questions from the council? Then I'm moving to a vote and begin with Councillor Hannake. I'm sorry, Kathy. Aye. I'm sorry, Mandy, there was a hand. Hold on. Kathy? Okay. For some reason, my little hand symbol doesn't work. I have to do something different, but I raised my hand. I do think these fees are better than the first fees I saw, but just so people know what they're voting on. The first unit, so if I'm talking about a place with three apartments, the first year, the increase is $300. It's 150 for the rental permit, and it's another 150 for the inspection. So yes, that 150 might not happen again for five years, but in year one, that's the increase. In the second unit, the increase is 250 because the permit fee is just 100. So it's 100 for that. The big places, the 20, 40, 100, it is capped. So that can be spread more easily across the buildings with 30 or 40. So it's capped on total rental permit fees and there is a sampling. So my main point is this is real money, so I'll stop there. So when people look at the fees, just be thinking about what they are. Thank you. Jennifer? Correct me if this is not right, but the inspections will happen, the first inspection's over a six-year period, so you may well not have an inspection during the first year and incur that $150 cost. So it could potentially be just if it's the first unit, 150 or just 100. So I do think this is a much better fee schedule than when we first saw it, but at some point that's the increase. And so Pam made the point that you can kind of bank these, but if it's up to snuff place, it's only gonna happen once every five years. So it could be spread. It's better than our current one, which is 250 for the parcel for the small places because that was invariant to, if you just had two units or you had 20. So it's a somewhat fairer fee schedule. And my only other point about the fee schedule is we can't do much about it if we put the bylaw in place because this is designed to pay for the inspectors. So we can't make these, a lot of places the inspection fee is $50, not 150, but that wouldn't pay for the volume that were at least what I was told it wouldn't pay for the volume of inspections. Okay, are there any other comments? Motion's been made and seconded. We'll begin with Bob Hegner. No. Councilor Lord is absent. Pam, Ernie. Yes. Did you say no? No, I said yes. Yes, thank you. I didn't think so, but I wasn't hearing properly. Councilor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. No. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Tav. Yes. Councilor Walker. No. Patty Angelos. Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Councilor Ate. No. Lynn Griezmer is an aye. Councilor Hanna-Key. Aye. The motion passes eight in favor of four opposed, one absent. We're going to take a 10-minute break and reconvene at 8.20. Please turn off your mics and your picture and turn them back on when you return. I will pick you up at 9.00. I did this because my sister started technically. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. I'm going to try to write. There we go. Got it. Thanks. Anytime. Yeah, that's that's that. We didn't know to get this question. I think it's. I need an education on school. And it's, and I'll tell you, I'm probably just. Seventy five percent. You can believe it. Sorry, but. I do, but I. Oh, is that? Yeah. I didn't know that. I'm like, I'm like. I like you. I didn't know. You're in the. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. In other areas. You're doing well. I'm still. You know, I was curious. In Brooklyn. They were doing. So it was. Yeah. They're already. I think. I mean, you're doing about the time. Well, I think. And the inability to be part of the treatment. That's going to be great. So we went behind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We continue. Yeah. We need to get receded and convened. Thank you. We're going as soon as you're back, please turn your video on so I know you're here. David. Okay. Um, thank you. Uh, we are going to move on to the next. I'm going to read the motion. Seek a second. And then Stephanie chickarello. Uh, who is here, along with Dave Zomac are going to be providing us with some information about the valley bike ship. Okay. The motion is to authorize the town manager to re enter the town of Amherst into an inter municipal governmental agreement in accordance with mass general law chapter 40 section for a. Give the municipalities of Chica be East Hampton Holy Oak North Hampton Springfield South Hadley West Springfield. And such other municipalities that joined later. And the Pioneer Valley planning commission and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Is there a second second. Thank you. So Stephanie, I'm calling on you and David and whomever else, but I think it's David, you want to introduce it. Thank you. Thank you very much. I am going to turn it over promptly to Stephanie, but I think I want to call your attention to the memo that Stephanie and I put together, which was in your packet. I think it clearly outlines the history of the this program. It's been a very successful program since 2018. As you know, there were some bumps in the road shall we say with the program and we no longer have the valley bikes on on the streets of Amherst, which is a huge loss for commuters for students for for everyone in our community and I think Stephanie has worked extremely hard with our town manager to try to come up with a solution with the other communities that we're working with and that solution in this multi-year plan and agreement is outlined in the memo. Stephanie and I have worked with with Mr. Bachman on on this and encourage you to consider everything Stephanie is going to say and we're here to answer your questions tonight so I'll turn it over to our sustainability director who has worked very, very closely on bike share from from its inception. Thank you. Thank you. Stephanie, you need to unmute. There you go. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. And my apologies for doing this from the road. Well, as you know, we have had a very successful program with bike share. And at this point now we have a new vendor that we are trying to create a contract with the town of city of North Hampton is the lead community in this effort. And in order to execute the contract, the other communities that are all the participating valley bike communities need to sign the memorandum of understanding before the contract with the vendor can be signed that contract is under negotiation now but is close to being completed. The first is the only community that hasn't signed other than Springfield and the city of Springfield. It's just our two communities out of eight, I believe, and also the University of Massachusetts has also signed. I think there's a lot of information in the packet and I'm willing to, and here to answer questions if you have any. I will say that the fight, you know, the valley bike share program was successful. I just want to be clear about that the devices of program was not really the program itself. It was the vendor that we were using who had networks worldwide and systems worldwide that went bankrupt. The new vendor has a different business model and we think that we will have much more success with the new vendor. So I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. George. I'm struggling to think of any reason why we wouldn't do this. But my question, I guess, is just we sort of come to be close to last in actually signing this. Is there any particular reason why that is other than just bandwidth and staff time? Have there been concerns or issues that you'd like to tell us about? Or is it just we just happen to be a little slower off the block? That's my only question is why we're, I guess there's only one of the community that has not signed this. And so I just wonder why it's taken us so long and otherwise I can't think of a single reason why we shouldn't just go ahead and say yes. Stephanie, I will just say. Go ahead. We got it on the agenda as fast as we could. How's that for you? I think that's a very good answer. Also, I think because this had to come to the council, I think that might have been one of the issues in terms of timing. You know, mayors for other communities, municipalities that have been able to sign directly. So I think that was part of part of the delay on our part, but also we really didn't get the final draft until mid-March. So we're not really that behind. I think others reviewed an earlier draft and we really wanted to make sure that the draft we were looking at and proposed to sign was going to be the complete draft. Thank you. Andy, you have your hand up. Yes, take two things one is I very much want to get this done. For the same reason that George does I want to say that I worked with Stephanie at the very beginning when I was on the select board, and we were creating this program. And there was one of the things that I was most proud of in our accomplishments and while I was in the select board was our ability to get this program created and going. And I worked with Stephanie on the creation of the first memorandum of understanding, but exercising due diligence, which is also a responsibility of a counselor. I have a question for Stephanie or Dave and that is that there was reference to sustainability funds in as the source of the money that would pay the share of our financial responsibility during the next years. And so I was curious about a couple of things. One is what is that sustainability funds just part of the budget for the work in sustainability that Stephanie is otherwise engaged in and from some grant sources, this money that's included within the town budget for conservation and development. And then the second part of that question is, what other uses of the money would we be otherwise using funds for that we should know what the effect might be of making this allocation. And I'm happy. Go ahead, Stephanie. I'd be happy to address this because I think first off, there were multiple layers to the question. So if I can break it down a little bit, I will say that when we when we mentioned in reference sustainability funds, yes, we're talking about funds that have been allocated to the sustainability projects. And in my mind, transportation, legal purchases, those things to me, and I think the way that we've been addressing the sustainability funds are the projects that we most often allocate the funds for so any kind of building renovation that has to do with efficiency or for efficient equipment or weatherization or studies, those have been the things that we've been using the sustainability funding for but also we've been using it for vehicles such as the ambulance that we that is now a hybrid ambulance and we use it to purchase technology that would make that possible. So we do use these funds for other things than just the building. So in my mind, and I've been advocating for using funds for bike share for a while because I think it's just in my mind, it's an opportunity that we don't often get to address transportation needs. And especially as this is an alternative emissions free option. This is a very rare opportunity to use those funds so that that is the advocacy for using sustainability funds for that purpose and I think it, and in my mind, this is just as important as any other any other reason would use the funds. But I do want to also say that the 82,000 that's referenced for operations for years two and three to 25 and 26 is very, very likely to be much less than that because it doesn't include any of the revenues from memberships or sponsorships, which we are very likely to secure so and advertising as well. So there's no offset for that at this time because we just don't know what that will be like, but we definitely anticipate that it will be a much reduced operation cost. So I just wanted to say that as well. Pam Rooney. Thank you. And thank you Stephanie that answered actually most of my question. Is there is, and I'm looking forward to program reestablish. Is there a sense though that the town will need money to keep it rolling off that by user. But and to maybe enter what amount deep like we might be asked to put money in and along. So I'm sorry you were breaking up a little bit, but I think the question was, do we foresee that those funds might be anticipated in the long term? Yes. Is that the question? Okay. Yes, I do believe at this point we feel that operations will require some form of commitment from the municipalities. We are also working with our state reps and legislation legislators to see if we can perhaps access some state funds transportation funds. For this network, our network is growing. As we all know, we don't have the MBTA out here in western Massachusetts. So we really feel that for this part of the state to have something that is a transportation, a valid transportation necessity really for a lot of our community members without an MBTA system, we feel that we should be somehow being able to benefit from state offers as well for transportation issues. So we are hoping to be able to use, you know, use the state or ask the state legislators to use some of the funds to support this effort as well, which again, we hope will either cover or reduce that long term commitment. And the other thing is if we miraculously get an entire network sponsor similar to what Boston has with Blue Bike where they have Blue Cross Blue Shield sponsoring the whole system, they cover the operations costs completely. So in that scenario, we wouldn't really have to provide anything. So that would be, you know, the gift that would keep on giving that we would love to have happen. I noticed that Councillor Lord has joined the meeting. I want to make sure that you can hear us and we can hear you. Great. Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Thank you. Yes. Lynn, could I jump in? Please. One second. I think the spirit of the questions I've been hearing, you know, in general, I think it sounds like the council overall is supportive of the program. Stephanie and others have done a wonderful job over the years. And again, we did hit this bump as she described with the previous vendor. I guess you would characterize it as getting overextended. And here we are trying to jumpstart the program again. We have talked to Paul and to the finance team, including Sandy Pooler. And as has been identified tonight, the challenge will be year two and three and then beyond. This is just a three-year agreement. I don't want to sugarcoat this. This will potentially be challenging for us as Stephanie has outlined between essentially sustainability, which are capital funds that are coming through the council through the budget to sustainability weekend. We believe sustainability funds and or a combination of sustainability funds and transportation funding from, excuse me, transportation fund dollars can cover year two and three. Stephanie has outlined the hope is that through sponsorship and other means that number can come down. But I think it will be incumbent upon the town manager to update you, Stephanie, over the next 18 to, you know, 24, 36 months to tell you how it's going. But I think we all believe in the program. It was very popular and we'd like to have it on our streets again. Thank you. Kathy, starting where Dave just said, I totally support this program. And I think the ridership numbers are really impressive for Amherst when you look at it. So in addition to if the state would step in, that's great. I'm wondering whether some of the large properties in town that of that 40,000 ridership, I would bet a lot of them are UMass students that if UMass could participate or some of the large apartment buildings. So I'm not, I have no problem with the MOU as it's sitting, but really to start seeing or some support for the program. And I know a year or so ago, Stephanie will remember this week in North Amherst, there was an offer to actually pay for an additional station up near the district apartments because bikes were coming up there and being left on the lawn. And then they had to figure out how to get them back to where they were supposed to be or that there wasn't any station. So it's like you put your bottle down wherever. So trying to think of ideal places and we'll have this condo development coming in where where support because putting a new station is expensive too, but we're supported to install a new one. So I think we could, as councillors, we could help. It shouldn't be just Stephanie's job to be trying to think of how to sustain this program over time. Thanks. Answer at time. I believe this question is just for my education and it is that according to the document UMass is already a party to the memorandum. And I'm wondering is does the town liaise with UMass on this program or are these independent so we don't really have any discussion with them about it. David or Stephanie. Thank you. Well, I'll jump in on that one. So we have an advisory group that meets monthly and UMass is part of that group. And even though. And the municipality that well. UMass and the municipality handle our stations and our financial obligations separately. Any of the decisions that are made about the system is really made collectively as a group. And I do actually speak quite frequently to as a small who is my counterpart at UMass representing the program for the University of Massachusetts. Thank you. I have one question. When will it start? Excitingly. The hope is to start this this season that spring. So once the MOU is fully executed and the contract with the vendor is executed. We will be launching almost initially. We won't be we don't anticipate starting with all of the bikes. It'll be a smaller smaller system initially because we're trying to work with the equipment that we already have. And some of those bikes may not be in great shape because they've been in storage for a little bit. So the first objective of the new vendor is to come in and do an assessment of all of the equipment that we have to see and see if it's feasible to use and what isn't. So, but it will launch in the spring. Great. Thank you, George. Just a quick follow up to Stephanie's answer to Councilor Ette. I understand you that you liaise with UMass on sustainability matters across the board, one of which is this bike share program. Is that on a monthly basis? Is that roughly what you were saying? Our conversations about sustainability issues are not the bike share meetings occur once a month. They're monthly. They're specifically about Valley Bike. Ezra and I will sometimes discuss other programs or opportunities, but we don't specifically coordinate on everything that we are doing. But we do try to collaborate when there's an opportunity that makes sense for both the community and the university. Thank you. Thank you, George. Okay. Any other questions? See none. I'm going to move to the vote. I believe we're at starting with Councilor Lord. And the vote is yes in favor. Yes. Lord I. Cameron. Yeah. Councilor Ryan. Kathy Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Councilor Walker. Yes. Pat D'Angelo. Aye. Councilor Ette. Aye. Lynn Griesmer is an aye. Councilor Hannake. Aye. Bob Hagner. Yes. It's unanimous. Our next, thank you for joining us, Stephanie, and for getting this program back up and running. Great work. The next motion. Thanks. We're dealing with the North Pleasant Street pedestrian improvements between Pine Street and Eastman Lane. I noticed that Gephard mooring has joined us. Gephard, we keep putting you on the light shift. I'm sometime I'll reverse that. So I'm going to make the motion seek a second and then move to the discussion to approve the conceptual plan titled North Pleasant Street pedestrian improvements. Day to day for one 2021 and consisting of four pages showing improvements to the sidewalks, crosswalks and bus stops along North Pleasant Street from Pine Street to Eastman Lane. Is there a second. Ryan second. Thank you. Gephard or. I guess we'll start with you, David, David, you want to start with Gephard or you. I think I'm going to hunt this one to go for it. There you go. Go for it. It's yours. Well, thank you. Everyone's seen the, everyone's seen the plans. I understand his questions to keep this short. We'll just start with questions. If you don't mind. Okay. Floor is open for questions. Pam Renee. I did not actually see the drawings. I looked in my packet and, and even at the time of the meeting, I have not yet seen it, whether I somehow am being blocked from our packet. Then I'm going to ask the Athena to now put it up. Thank you. These are the same plans that were presented back in. February or early March. They were in a different packet, but thank you for asking. Would anybody like. I'll go for it to go through the plan to refresh our memories. Kathy, is that why your hand is up? No, I know the plan actually quite well. I'm called. I have questions and concerns about it. So. But I'm not sure everybody else who anyone who wasn't on TSO probably hasn't been walked through it, walked through it. I'm going to suggest that you, we just quickly do a quick orientation. If we could enlarge it, that would be helpful. And go for just a quick reorientation since it's been a while. Okay. So the plan actually goes all the way from Eastman Lane, all the way to Pine Street and Meadow Street on North Pleasant Street. We've done a section of the project. We did a little section from Pine and Meadow back to. There's a little brook. It's kind of. It's a brook. We call it Mary's Allah's house. We went to Mary's Allah's house. It's not Mary's Allah's house anymore. But it's right next to Puffton property line. We did that little section, actually Fisher Street is better from Fisher Street to Pine has been done with the exception of one piece of sidewalk. The concept here is to put a multi multi use path along North Pleasant Street where you can have enough room for bicycles and walkers at the same time, and to rehabilitate the other sidewalk. So the multi use path, if you're starting at UMass will be on the east side of the road, and it will go to the Crestview apartments and Crestview apartments they'll turn crossover to the road. And the multi use pass will go continue north on the west side. And then, as I said, the other sidewalk will be repaired. It would go from a three foot sidewalk to a five foot sidewalk or the five foot sidewalk and the multi use pass will be an eight foot sidewalk. This came out of a project which is decades old, which was to put a multi use path from the campus all the way to North Amherst. That didn't work out very well to be an off road path. So we've moved it on road at this time. We're adding some crosswalks. We're adding some, we're making some better improvements to some bus pull offs. And I think there is an option in the plans and put a roundabout at Crestview. But that we're really not pushing that issue right now. We just want the concept approved for the sidewalks and the crosswalks. Okay, Kathy. Thank you. Let me just stay on this diagram. A bit to point out, there is a, the memo didn't put it out, but you're moving a bus stop and you're where you're moving it to will change the driveway access from North Pleasant to exit on Old Town Road. And this had been questioned by some of the people living around there because of what Old Town Road was. And I thought there'd been an agreement, or at least it had been acknowledged that it didn't have to be there. It could be. And I can't point on the screen to you, but it's up there. You can see the word bus stop and it can be moved slightly further north to allow that driveway to come out. So, so one of my concerns about the conceptual plan is by approving it. I think we are in fact, say we like all the pieces of it to say we have problems with some of the pieces of it. How do we raise them? So I'll start with just the bus stop. The multi-lane multi-use path, I went out and took pictures of what exists now. And one of the things that's been going on is there's been very little maintenance of the existing side work, particularly on the east side. Some plants have grown over it, some grass has grown over it, and I've got some pictures I can show you. But it's not in terrible shape and it's not eight feet wide, it's five feet wide. The stretch that is designated on the west side, there's a CDBG grant proposal for a quarter of a mile, $542,000, a half a million dollars for a quarter of a mile. So I think we're buying into an extremely expensive project that sounds good without a funding source. So the CDBG proposal, I think, got accepted. And when I raised this concern, the people who were on that committee said this was the only town proposal. They couldn't question whether there's a better use. So I'd like to just show a couple of pictures, Lynn, if I can. I have to send them to Zena. I sent them to you today. Thank you. Thank you. So this first picture is the quarter of a mile that's $542,000. And the picture on the left is the existing sidewalk, which is actually in pretty good shape as sidewalk goes. My assumption on why it's so expensive to make it instead of five feet wide, eight feet wide, is you have to move all the telephone poles. You have to move all the electrical walls. When puffed in village, you can see that stone wall. That's the entrance to puffed in village. You have to move it back. Otherwise, you can't get the full amount. So you're changing entrances. And this is just for that quarter of a mile. So when it crosses over and has to go all the way down to UMass. And I don't understand why this is a major priority for the town, as opposed to potentially UMass. Because this sidewalks in pretty good shape. Now go down one more set. Would you like me to address some of those before you want to do all years and then let me answer. Okay, so the second set is what I mentioned on the other side of the road and along some of it. The five foot wide path is actually not five foot wide because there's grass. There's trees. There's progress. I walk on this and I ride my bike. If we would clean this up. This is not in terrible shape. So next picture. In contrast, if you get just north of the light. This on the left is the sidewalk that people have to go down to get to the North Amherst library. It actually is dangerous and I've walked a mother with her child with a bike. Try to figure out how to do this. You have to go through this to get to the crosswalk. And it gives you a pretty good sense of what it looks like on the other side. Next slide. And then on the other side of the street by the Zion church. This is what the sidewalk looks like both in front of the church and going to the church. It is a mess and actually needs to be repaired. So I'm just questioning if we say yes to all of this. Does that prioritize it because I totally agree with the crosswalks the signal lies. I think all of that's excellent, but it's like we're buying the whole plan. And I'm worried that we should prioritize what things actually need repair. I think these need repairs and not call a repair. They're taking a existing sidewalk and making it wider and I'll stop there. And it's the expense that I'm worried about. It's not that maybe multi use would be great. Most of the people I watched today get on the bus with their bicycle and they go down. They don't ride their bike all the way down. So there's a lot of people waiting at the bus stop. So, so I'm just concerned and this got flagged for me when I saw the 542,000 for one quarter of a mile. Just to give you a sense of how expensive that was. I'm going to go to George and then to go for George. Okay. We've had a fatality at this on this stretch of road. This area serves a large number of students. Pedestrians bikes buses. I'm sorry about your sidewalk up at the corner there. I can get pictures of my district of also appalling looking sidewalks. But this has been on the books for a long time. There is a real need we just built the university has just expanded and built its new graduate housing in this area. You have Hobart lane. You have very dense student population and was back and forth on a regular basis often at night. We need to address this stretch of road. We can't do everything. I'd like to go out there and fix that sidewalk right now. But the issue I think is with the large number of students traveling back and forth to the university on that part in that part of town. And the fact, at least in my mind, we've already had one fatality. That's one too many. So this is an attempt at long overdue to address that issue. Guilford can address the cost. I can't speak to the cost. What I've been told is that everything costs when it comes to road sidewalks, etc. It's expensive. And that's just what it is. But I'd like Guilford to address the issue of cost. I would like to focus on the desperate need to address this area sooner rather than later. For just the issue of safety, student safety. And George, I totally agree on the crosswalks on the better lighting and cleaning up the sidewalks. I'm just saying that that should be a priority, not necessarily the really expensive fix because there are sidewalks on both sides of the road. If we clean them up, they are passable. The problem is they're dark. There's no lighting. You can't see. And when the student was crossing it, this car was speeding. And yes, we need much better crosswalks with this ability with flashing lights. That part, I think is a no brainer. Guilford. So first, let me talk about the fatality. The fatality, the car that hit the student was not speeding. The car did stay and stayed with the accident didn't leave the accident. So it was not a speeding issue. The person who was struck did not cross at the crosswalk and was also not dressed appropriately for walking at night. So as we talk about improving this area, everything we may do with crosswalks and lighting may not prevent that type of accident from happening again. But the goal is to try to prevent accidents. The cost. You're going to see this is the cost. You're when we come and start talking about making changes at the intersections at Fort River School. You're going to think I'm building a DPW building there probably that the costs are going through the roof. There is no utility relocation on this project. The polls will stay where they are. There is no change into any of the driveways. We do have to move some walls back, but the property owner is actually in agreement and we can do it. And he's helping with that a little bit with some other things. We will have to take more property as the project goes along and most people it'll be an easement we probably asked for to put the sidewalk on their property. So as we move along, the concept is to put these things in. If you are, if you want to put some language in that they can be adjusted, that's fine. The bus stop that was brought up, we have agreed with the property owner that we can slide it back so their driveway doesn't have to move. So that has been already addressed. We just don't have time to make all the adjustments to the plans every time someone wants to take a change of the plan. So the concept is kind of the concept. There'd be a bus stop in that area and we can slide it back. The crosswalks are pretty much there where they're going to go at intersections predominantly. And then the sidewalk, the five foot versus the eight foot clearing sidewalks is a bylaw. It's actually a zoning issue and is enforceable not by the DPW. We used to be able to talk to people and we got lots of pushback, but the town council has reinforced their view on sidewalk obstructions and has made that clear to the residents. And yes, that's something we should probably as a town be pushing up to talk to the residents about you need to not block and have growth in your sidewalks. And so that's just that one. The issue about the northern end of pine and meadow, that's another project plus it's a little more difficult to meet the grades and ADA requirements we have to do there. So we haven't started, we've started but we haven't finalized how we would do that and that's also tied into what type of intersection you put there. Those sidewalks are right up to that intersection. If you do a roundabout it would change how the sidewalks are placed if you do a conventional intersection. They would stay where they are, but then we'd have to work on the actual grading which would is doable, but it's a lot of grading and action will take that work down farther north than what you would think, just because of the grading. So, if you have any other questions, go ahead. Andy, I want to recognize the TSO has actually discussed this project and recommended it to the council so I want to ask Andy, I don't know if that's why you have your hand up. Okay, good. It responds a little bit to some of the things that were raised, but not all the things that were raised. In your packet is the TSO report and it is labeled still draft and that was an error that was made was the draft was supposed to be removed and it was not. I apologize that but it is a final report and you know the question earlier about the, a lot of the drawings and things I've, you know, we just made a point of steering people to the TSO packet for the meeting where it was discussed. And I made that point. And I may have even provided a link in the report to make it easy to find the drawings but everything that was there. And our conclusion came through several meetings because in between, we asked the attack the Transportation Advisory Committee that has significant expertise on the issue, and to review it make a recommendation. And they strongly recommended going forward and there were a couple of issues that they raised and we pointed them out in our report, but did not in the end decide that those things were stopping us one was the question of the crosswalks in relation to bus stops and the plan that had to us and he can explain it if anybody at once an explanation is consistent with what PVTA recommends. And the other issue that came up, whether I think was a funding issue, and that was additional lighting above the lighting that was otherwise envisioned. And those were, I think the two things that tack had recommended, but we concluded as a committee in a for nothing with one member absent vote that this was a plan that addressed a longstanding issue that has been before the Council for many years. It is. This is actually goes back probably to the first Council and that it was time to move it along. And I think that the lesson that was raised was about UMass participating in funding and, you know, go for it again might respond to that a little bit more completely than I can, but he has pointed out that UMass has been a partner in funding and these projects that has been involved in the planning and these projects so I wanted to just give a brief report and just to assure you that the item marked draft was in fact not a draft. Thank you. Thank you Andy. David you have your hand up, please. Sure Lynn, if I could really briefly. And I have been involved quite a bit with with Guilford and his team and the planning staff on this on this plan and I think a number of issues have been raised here. And I just want to point out a couple of them just for context. I think Guilford said moments ago that, you know, sidewalks are expensive. I think we're all having a little sticker shock on what some of these things cost. I would just want to point out to the Council that it's my understanding that this is you're being asked to approve a design. We know as staff that full well that the funding for the full plan is not before you tonight we don't have the funding to make all of this happen. I'll circle back around to the CDBG funding, but sidewalks are expensive. The infrastructure is expensive. This is part as Guilford mentioned of about a 10 or 12 year effort to try to connect the university with North Amherst. We tried very, very hard to do this off road. We tried to partner as you may recall with the university on their land and private land behind presidential and Brandywine and often. And after a long many attempts at doing that, we determined that wasn't going to work and we needed to go for plan B and that's when Guilford and his team began to design something on North Pleasant Street. But it is very popular, very well used. It's the most outside of Southwest as I understand it is the most densely populated part of our town, given all the apartment complexes that we have there. So lots of users. I think what's come together here is is a little bit of a by coincidence. This is before you and then the CDBG process is ongoing in a parallel track and I wanted to just talk about that. The key with why we chose this section. There's a couple of elements there. One is that this is in a target area for CDBG. There are only a few of those in town. And so when Guilford, his team and my team and planning get together, we look at those target areas and we say, what projects can we apply for CDBG funding in those target areas. So this one stood out to us. So it's eligible for CDBG funds. It was, and to be perfectly honest, it was already well underway with design and here you have it tonight. And the third factor and we said this to Paul is from a bandwidth standpoint, we chose it because it was in a target area. We had talked about improving these sidewalks for 10 years or more. And we already had it designed and between Guilford staff and mine, we didn't have time to meet the CDBG deadline and design and plan for something else. So this was ready made it was ready to go. It wasn't shovel ready, but it was as close as it can be without being shovel ready. And here we are tonight. So it's a way to to chip away at a larger plan to make North Amherst more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. Yes, 500 and some odd thousand dollars of CDBG funds is a lot of money for a fairly short section of sidewalk. But as Guilford has outlined, there aren't a lot of bells and whistles. We're not moving utility lines. And that's what that distance of sidewalk now cost. So it's our goal to chip away at this over time. I can't say I don't think Guilford can say whether whether we'll be back to you saying this is the highest priority for the available capital money in roads and sidewalks. I think, as has been pointed out here, there are other priorities for those we can use capital money more freely on those other parts of sidewalks throughout town. We can only use the CDBG funds in those target areas. So that's why we chose this section to do it was ready to go. It did not tax our staffs even more. We're managing between Guilford staff and mine. I would hazard we are probably managing 20 plus grants. That's a lot we just couldn't do one more we couldn't seek other funding. And we had to go for something we knew was was achievable. So I think we're going to be able to do things are coming together at the same time. George. Just want to echo what Mr. Zomek just said. This is one of the densest places in our town. Guess who lives there. 60% of our population are students. How often do we hear from them or see them or even think of them. This directly impacts them. Are there any other questions or comments at this time. The motion's been made and seconded we'll move to a vote. And Pam Rooney you're first. Yeah. Councilor Ryan. Hi. Kathy Shane. Upstate. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer top. Yes. Councilor Walker. Yes. Patangeles. Hi. On a depth in Gothwim. Hi. Councilor Rete. Hi. Lynn Grieshmer's and I counselor Hanneke. She's left the meeting. Thank you. I'm Bop, Hedner. Hi. Not sir Lord. Lord, I. It is 11 in favor one abstain and one absent. and one absent. We're moving on to the first reading of the proposed surplus property disposition policy. This is in your packet. This policy has been discussed extensively by the finance committee on at least two or three occasions, as I recall. And so, Bob, I'm calling on you for a report. I think the report is in people's packets from a couple of meetings ago. Basically, we worked with David Zomac and Athena to revise the policy. The policy really was just needed to be updated primarily because of the change of government, and it referred back to the select board and all that stuff. So we had to bring it up to speed with our current form of government. We had a lot of discussion as to whether or not, when this policy comes into play, and it really doesn't come into play until the town manager has declared that we no longer need a building for town purposes. It is truly surplus or some other piece of property. And, you know, we would otherwise dispose of it. We could sell it. We could do whatever, whatever. But it's not something that the town can reuse productively. So once we agreed that that was the case, it took some conversations. We then looked at the final version of it, which is before you. And we had some discussion about item number six in the list of information, which is basically analysis of alternative uses of the property. And the discussion was basically this could be a very complex analysis if it's a big building or a complex piece of property. And we were assured that if we had such a complex building or piece of property, the town manager would create a committee to study this and to make recommendations. So we, we believe that the, the reasoning behind this is sound and we approved it. Okay. This is a first reading, so there's no motion tonight, but it's the opportunity to really ask questions. Pat, you have your hand up? Yeah, I guess one of the things I would like to get clarified for myself, it's naive question, but a public purpose. I'm assuming a school is a public purpose. So, or can you clarify what public purpose means? Yeah, it'll be any real purpose to where the town would want to keep ownership of the property. So would, would, if we got rid of a school building like we did with the East streets, would we use it for affordable housing? Would that keep it from being just simply? Well, it, there would, again, there would be a committee who would look into this and make a recommendation before a decision is made. And the decision would still have to be made by the council in order to, you know, whatever future use was, was envisioned for it. So. Pam Rooney. Thank you. Having a committee is a, is a good thing. I understand that. What struck me is that this very much follow, I looked at most of the links to the mass general laws and this very much follows the procedures that are outlined in state law. So I was actually more interested in what is the procedure or the process of establishing a property to become surplus or to become considered surplus. The question I had is that necessary for the town council to actually authorize the town manager to go and explore the potential of a, of a particular property before this step of naming it surplus happens. So is it, do we, do we have to initiate and authorize him to move ahead in this process? As part of this, I think it would be really beneficial to all of us since we're establishing policy to get a complete list of the town facilities, the town facilities that, that aren't being used so that we can all kind of weigh in on potential uses and or space need assessments that ought to happen. Thank you. David, did you want to respond to that? There's no reason we certainly can have a list by the time we do the second reading. Yes, that is very possible. I may defer to Athena on the first question, but my, what I wanted to say was that I think, you know, the town manager has the authority, he oversees, he or she oversees all of the town's property. So I think the decision to move toward surplusing, which is when the town does not need or deems that it is a property that we no longer need for another public purpose, that would be, you know, part of that calling, part of that reviewing would happen at his or her level, depending on the town manager, and, and then it would, you know, they would seek input from staff, and then it would either go toward another municipal use, i.e. affordable housing, i.e. whatever it might be, pickleball courts, whatever was deemed needed at that time, community center, whatever, or for instance, you know, I am well aware there are pieces of property that are probably unbuildable that really probably don't have another municipal use, and those could be surplused, and somebody who lives near those unbuildable lots may want to add them to their property simply to have a bigger backyard or more room to spread their wings or something. So I would add, if Athena wants to jump in. Athena, I just want to recognize that both David and Athena worked hard on this process policy. So, Athena? Thank you. I want to clarify that the town's not proposing to surplus or request the town council surplus any properties at this time. So there have been conversations about particular properties, especially the school property, but there's no proposal to ask the council to surplus that. The discussions that we had at finance committee were that if there were a property identified, such as the school, and there was an interest in the town and using it for affordable housing or something like that, if we were to do a process like we have with the Belcher Town Road property that's a long-term lease, so it's like a hundred-year lease, that wouldn't go through this surplus property process because the town isn't selling the property. So, and then what we had talked about as well is that if the town manager felt that a property didn't have a municipal use, that he would very likely establish a committee and that could be either advisory to the town manager, which wouldn't be subject to the open meeting law or a public body that would have public input and so on to advise the town manager about a use for that property. They might recommend that the council declare the property surplus or they might recommend that the town explore other uses for the property. Kathy? Athena just said what I was going to say, but I'll just build on it a little bit because we did press the issue on when is it surplus in terms of it's going out for sale and the issue of wildwood came up as the key thing people were talking about and so there was a discussion because there have been other towns recently that had schools as a matter of fact that they said are there alternative uses of these and they set up a committee to think of what those might be before they went through the surplus discussion that was a lot of involvement of the town beyond just the council or town staff so they had some counselors so the town manager did through Athena say in terms of a major one where we're really talking about what are the possible uses well before anything was declared surplus we'd have that kind of conversation so then the small things you know so I became convinced that this was the right way to go because the small things we might have you know a tiny acreage that can't use be used for something the more recent one with even the Fort River we declared surplus in that we have no use for it some telephone some lighting poles some playground equipment so the construction contractor is taking those away from us but we first went through it was the school went through we don't have a use for it so the big properties would be coming through but Bob pointed out is there's a clause in there that's pretty interesting because it's before anything major should be declared surplus we've got to do all sorts of thinking in an analysis so it wasn't sure who would be doing that but it would be anything major would go through quite a bit of internal thinking with a justification before it came to the council if we're really going for sale as opposed to reuse Jennifer just had a quick question if there is a committee that's working with the town manager to look at what would be surplus or what has other uses does that the structure of that committee have to be in this policy no no because this is more that last step where you've set something out East Hampton was interesting because they worked on something for two years you know knowing at some point the building would be vacant you know what are we going to do with it so it wasn't we know what we're going to do with it let's think of what but they I think they finally did declare them surplus for a particular RFP and they actually got state money to structure it but but it was a long process that was set up that wasn't defined by this process the short answer is no they don't policy does not Lynn may I may I add something yes Kathy just referred to surfacing like playground equipment small things like that wouldn't go through this policy if we had a truck we wanted to get rid of it wouldn't go through this policy that's a little bit different for so this is specific to town property and then one other thing I think Dave may have just promised that we'll have a list of all town property before the council votes on this policy and I think I don't want to speak for you but we might not have that by the time the council votes on this policy there's actually it may not be updated but there's been one done and it's on the town website I can find it and there might be one or two missing properties but it's actually a very decent assessment we we can find that for the next meeting but I'm not sure that we'll we're not planning on updating that any further before the next meeting and I think I know that's something that'll be sufficient probably plan on in the future but not not as quickly at the next meeting it was that that report of surplus property that I was thinking we would make available nothing more just to make sure that it's no bigger expectation David you're looking at me a little well leery you just confused me Lynn because yes there is a list of property but then you said the list of surplus property sorry no I I didn't know there are there are a list of properties right the town wants to clarify there is a there is no list of surplus property or property to be surplus right in fact I will find it and I will ask the town the clerk to the town council to add to this packet tomorrow and I don't sit here often so Athena is kicking me under the table here saying don't over promise so I'm going yeah we can kind of call it reasonable expectations with what I whispered to David yeah there we go now I think you know we want a full report yeah I just want to add something I I slightly misspoke in that I said that the finance committee approved this policy we just recommended that the council approved this policy thank you uh George you have your hand up yeah just to clarify um while it is the town manager's job to go through our properties and he could declare something surplus as I read this in the end we decide yay or nay if we're not satisfied with his argument we could say no that is correct thank whatever it wouldn't be the town manager that declares the property surplus he would request the council declare the property surplus and he would be providing the council with all of the materials listed in the policy along with that request so we have the final say the count if it's the council's authority to declare the property surplus and then if you wanted to place other requirements on disposing of the policy property just to complicate things we don't own school buildings they have to be given back to us first okay all right are there any other questions on this particular thing then we're moving on the next motion is regarding a letter on behalf of the council supporting a senate 1836 and a house 2963 uh of relative act relative to payment and move taxation for organizations exempt from property tax the motion I'm seeking second for is to authorize the council president to sign a letter on behalf of the council in support of s 1836 h 2963 an act relative to payments and rule taxation by organizations exempt from property taxes their second change seconds thank you I have sent a let me just this is the second time actually something like this is coming for this council we continue to want to support legislation that would benefit us with regard to pilots I've remained in touch with a group that's predominantly eastern boston based or eastern mass based and they alerted me to the fact recently that this legislation is has been left open and still made something may happen with it I doubt it but I hope between now and the end of April and so I crafted a memo and a letter and since then have given to Athena another version which only has some edits in it based on some feedback I've received from counselors I had I had already made some changes so you might want to show that on the screen one was from a counselor who pointed out correctly that Amherst college does pay taxes on boat the end of boatwood and they pay taxes on the houses that they own and so in the letter I nuanced the issue of that so I believe the changes from this the last draft that were posted are shown in purple here that's correct and then there were some other changes that I also received from another counselor that basically helps with the grammar George so if by some legislative miracle this actually were to be passed it would not apply to UMass is that correct that is correct that is a different payment in lieu of taxes that I've also been following that's the one that Joe Comerford Senator Joe Comerford has weighed in on but largely with regard to the amount of acreage and we've had more than one discussion about the fact that you can talk about acreage but I want to talk about what's built on it and how many people come to it and that one doesn't appear to be going anywhere except that last year when it did come up they put more money into it at least that's a good thing but anyway that's been part of it and Anna you've been following some of these as well so please jump in thank you George any other question no Jennifer I just want to say thank you for writing it okay all right if there's any other changes I do want to get it off tomorrow and but we need to vote that I'm allowed to do this so we'll begin with I think we're up to counselor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer top yes Councillor Walker yes Pat d'Angelo's hi Anna Devin Gotham hi Councillor Ate hi Lynn Griesma is an eye Councillor Hanna key is now absent uh Bob Hegner yes Councillor Lord Lord I 12 in favor with one absent oh sir did you call in really me I'm sorry thank you did I miss somebody I'm so sorry oh I'm sorry Pam Rooney was an eye thank you how did I miss that oh I see okay all right that's getting late that's the last motion oh no it's not no it's not we are now moving on to appointments and I'm going to call on CRC chair we have appointments for the ZBA and so Pam do you want to speak to do you want to place it in motion or would you like me to place it in motion I'd like you to place the motion because you have it written in front of you I'm sure great zoning this is regarding zoning board of appeals appointments and the motion is to appoint the following residents to the zoning board of appeals full member effective July 1 2024 for a three-year term expiring on June 30th 20 27 Craig Meadows full member effective immediately for a term expiring on June 30th 2025 David Sloveter associate member effective immediately for a term expiring on June 30th 2024 David Alfeld Alfeld and John Barner associate members effective July 1 2024 for a one-year term expiring on January the June 30th 2025 David Alfeld John Barner held a greener bomb and Rizwan.com is there a second second Ryan thank you Pam would you like to speak to the motion yes it sounded complicated but it is simply because there are several existing vacancies and as well as one person who moved from being an associate member to a full member leaving another associate spot that we felt we could fill immediately so it's a little bit convoluted but I would appreciate support for these fine candidates who are willing to contribute to the town serving on the ZBA thank you are there any questions or comments seeing none we're going to move to a vote uh we are going to start with Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer top yes Councillor Walker yes Pat DeAndreyes aye Anna Devin got here aye Councillor Ette aye Lynn Griezmer is an aye Councillor Hannake is absent Bob Hagner aye Councillor Lord Lord aye Pam Rooney yes Councillor Ryan aye did I get everybody this time thank you it's unanimous with one absent uh we are now going to move to non-voting liaisons Anna this is wild um all right so in your packet from last week there was a list of um liaison appointment recommendations based on feedback that folks had sent in so as a reminder GOL had put forward one two three four five six I think one two three four five six seven ten am I counting right yeah ten committees that um had requested liaisons as priority to be approved for liaison I then sought feedback from the council on what you might want to liaise who you might want to liaise for um and so there are a couple areas that you'll see um have multiple people that expressed interest um I tried to stay if folks did say you know if someone else is interested I don't need to need to do this one I tried not to make judgments based on what you said in an email and you can say that again now and we can take your name off but uh I thought that I wanted to make sure everybody was was on the list I didn't want to accidentally interpret something incorrectly so um everyone is is on there with what you indicated interest in um and then I I figured in this meeting you can say oh I see someone else is into that I will take my name off which is likely why hands are going up um I think that's about it please remind please refresh yourself on the role of liaisons I have linked it in past memos and I'm happy to email it to anyone who's who's interested but it's in our roles procedure and I'll take questions and also please note there's three committees we're still looking for liaisons correct okay I'll start I'll take my name off Jennifer top yes so George and I conferred and um George we agreed if everyone agrees that George would be the liaison to the transportation advisory committee and also make sense he's a member of the of TSO and then it would just leave me for council on aging okay resolve that one just to confirm because I'm keeping notes here so you said George would be transportation advisory and you would be council on aging okay thank you okay um Kathy I have I have a question it's why my hand is up no one said they want community preservation at committee that's correct and I just want to speak to I think it needs someone and I'm trying to figure out whether I'm going to volunteer but you get to see the proposals when they come in and you can make comments and get questions answered as a liaison you don't have an official role so it's a really early look where hopefully most years they have more proposals than they can fund and they spend about two million dollars a year so I'll wait as people sort out all the other committees but I think it would be I I did it for two years in a row which is why I didn't put my name on it yeah Pat T. Angeles yes I am I think you lost your mic I thank you my finger was not in the right place I would like to stay as the liaison to the disability access advisory committee I've been serving on it for several years and established some really good relationships if Hala would uh once it very badly I would step aside but I would like to keep it the other thing is I did not put my name down for community preservation conservation or energy climate action because I can't attend the meetings and I know we don't have to that we can watch the videos but I find that it's very beneficial to be sitting in the audience and attending the meetings when possible if no one else signs up for conservation commission I would be willing to do that even though I can't make the meetings okay are you um one of you is keeping track of this got it I've got it yeah and I think Athena does uh Andy oh I'm sorry pardon me would you please call on counselor lord because um counselor D'Angelo has just suggested that they swap it might be nice to tidy that up sure counselor lord um yes part of what I was going to say was please take me off of that I'm happy to and then I was going to remove myself from the HRC since there were multiple names and one of my committees only had my name on it so I'm happy to so we have you both on pssjc and HRC correct and we're saying do we serve on one should you take me off the HRC if you want to serve on two that's great okay I'll hold that thought well Andy uh who there was somebody else for HRC Andy who hand us up okay Andy yeah I thought I was removing my name from that one uh because I said either that or board of health but not both so take me off I think of the the one sorry just stay with board of health okay Andy's going with board of health and then that means that Hala would go to human rights commission yeah we're gonna need some clarity because I think everyone has just taken themselves off of human rights commission I'm still there I'm still there you are still there sorry to speak out of turn right okay uh so that we have affordable housing trust uh dpac uh conservation commission um I had a question yes George did you want to stay on the affordable housing trust as well as the okay thank you okay the answer is uh freka you have your hand up so I'm gonna go to you for a moment how do I miss Jennifer now you go I I've been a guy frek I'm sorry counselor at the I think the energy is that still up energy and climate action committee yes I would express interest for that great it's a really good one Anna has served in that role okay uh so we uh Jennifer so I want to ask for the CPA committee does that only meet a few times a year meets it meets it meets just in the fall so they get that you know okay all right Jennifer job for CPA and then that leaves us with conservation commission okay fine I'll do it yep okay you were like you were like doing this to me like Anna yes I will do conservation commission she's going back home Anna used to serve on the conservation commission before she came on the council can I confirm the finalist I think Athena has it up on the board as well but I just want to read through it if that's okay okay why don't you do it as a motion please all right I who appoint the following council I understand I moved to appoint the following counselors to the following committees as uh council liaisons for 2024 to the affordable to the Amherst affordable housing trust did I mess it up you're looking at me to the Amherst affordable housing trust George Ryan to the board of health Andy Steinberg to the community safety and social justice committee hollow lord to the council on aging Jennifer Taub to the disability access advisory committee pat de Angelis to the human rights commission hollow lord to the transportation advisory committee George Ryan to the community preservation act committee Jennifer Taub to the conservation commission Anna Devlin got there and to the energy and climate action committee freka ate second may I make a slight change in the motion and it would be for the remainder of the council's term so we would do this for this year and next year okay is that acceptable to you as the person who made the motion yes okay it's acceptable to me as the person who cited just sorry just as a note though our rules of procedure do say that they indicate the liaison preferences annually so that's why I said for 2024 um so we have to overwrite our rules first can I suggest that we keep it for 2024 and in this 2024 and then you're you're right correct thank you I have my moments every okay once so the motion's been made and seconded are there any questions comments okay um Kathy Shane now did I start with you before they what yeah did I start with you before you you did start with me before you you could start with me again if you'd like I'm up to Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer Taub yes Councillor Walker yes pat de Angelis I Anna Devlin got your eye Councillor Ate aye Lynn Griesma is an aye Councillor Hanna is absent Bob Hegner aye Councillor Lord aye Anne Burnie yes Councillor Ryan aye Kathy Shane yes it's 12 in favor and one absent thank you Anna for finally getting us through that one we've had to delay it so often all right um we're approaching the witching uh Councillor uh committee and liaison reports and let me just say that uh before we start this this is the point in time where we will also now include the committees that we have liaisons to you don't have to report every week or every time we meet but if you have something you need to bring up please make that's the time you bring it up okay uh CRC Pam Rooney Jennifer Taub thank you yeah I'm opening my I'm slowly I think you've heard enough from us tonight um appreciated the vote to finalize the vote on rental registration um but we did especially want to say thank you for the vote tonight on ZBA members we met in a special session on April 2 to uh interview and and then put forward our recommendation um so that really was the gist of it uh and then just to remind people that the town manager did have the nuisance by law reviewed by KP law and that is sitting with GLL which they may report on we don't know but they will not be discussing it until April 18 thank you Jennifer thank you Pam the only thing I'd add is tomorrow we have we will be discussing at our meeting um planning board applications and vacancies there will be two so just if people want to we're low on caps right now so if people want to start getting the word out that would be appreciated um elementary school building committee uh our next meeting is April 26 we're only meeting once a month uh but the design team is uh actively working on the 90 percent cost estimates um so we are moving along and the plan is still to put this out to bid um by June so with the town manager opting to put additional solar they're also doing some additional design work on that so we can get a cost estimate and have some idea how much solar we can put on I think that's the main thing it's a pretty exciting time so um when the cost estimates come in at 90 percent the let I think everyone knows the early site past which came in well underneath what we had estimated and our estimates have been holding which means we've got a really big cushion of contingency money which is very I think excellent news for the taxpayers great elementary um I'm sorry framing this committee Bob uh yeah we um we had a meeting last week uh to just do initial discussions of the regional school budget and the town audit we want to wrap up our discussion of the town audit uh at our meeting next week and we have prepared some questions to the superintendent schools uh on the school budget regional school budget that we'll discuss uh at our next meeting next week and then there's the public hearing which is later on Thursday of next of next week okay um GL Anna so as mentioned before GL currently has in front of it the nuisance bylaw I think there were more comments coming back from legal than GL anticipated we were hoping to get it through it in one meeting but there was there was more there so um we will be continuing to to address that at our coming meeting next week uh right yeah next week um we are waiting on the ahra report folks have been asking some questions on that there is no delay in acting on it we just don't have it yet so soon as we have it we'll be able to slot that in um we did our our attempt to get more caps for the charter review committee by talking about it a lot at a council meeting was helpful because we did get a few more um caps in after that meeting and we were able to vote the charter um the charter review committee pool sufficient at our last meeting so we'll be moving ahead with that process in um making recommendations to the council we do however still as Jennifer mentioned um first uh did you mention this who mentioned about caps two seconds ago yeah thank you okay for planning board um we also need caps for finding an ants committee um for the resident non-voting member um so if you are thinking about your ways you might get engaged that's a really good one as well as planning board um and then the other thing that GL is working on right now is our examination of the town manager evaluation process so GLL members are looking at other towns and their processes and bringing those back to discuss with the committee to see what merit we might pull um forward and and how we do our own process here GLL meets again next week on thursday uh john's library Pam Rooney oh i'm sorry george you had your hand up just a small note on um the charter review we have 16 um current caps so and that we still can take more so please don't stop in an effort you're making to encourage people to apply thank you jennifer you had your hand up is this a time to ask a question about um so the jones library building committee should i wait till uh i was going to ask whether there's any update from pam shaking her head no the report that there has been no meeting um and what we were told by paul bachelman last last meeting is that they have signed a contract with 101 university drive for a new a new active library site for the interim uh during construction and that they were out to bid for um transportation of books to the to the new site and that that that's actually what i read in the paper so the committee itself has not met jennifer so i had a question maybe it's directed to dave um it we're supposed the bids for construction are supposed to be back by june we're supposed to have select the town is supposed to have selected a contractor by june 30th is that part of the massachusetts board of library commissioners requirement i don't think i'm going to wait into that one tonight i'm just not prepared with those dates or that product i'm happy to get those answers from maybe at the next yeah meeting thank you um tso and yes tso um i mentioned earlier that the uh report that is in the packet today's meeting should not be drafted should be considered the final report and uh we've already discussed one major item out of it and acted on it which was the uh north plizzen street um proposal the other one where there is an actual recommendation that's been made by tso which we will have to come back to as a prior meeting was the emerson college sign and i think that the report is complete there's not much i can add to the report right now um but um i want to point to to acknowledge that we were asked to review that we did we spent some time on it and uh we consulted the consultation and it's all reported that the other thing is that at the last meeting there were four road projects that were referred to us um belchertown road heather stone um being the first two that we dealt with and then the section of pomer lane and the the proposal to have a roundabout at the corner of amity and university drive those two uh we did not give the priority to because the belchertown road proposal is funded by a very generous mass works grant and that needs action um in um may uh in order to have the contrary the work done um during the summer season and both the town manager and the dpw superintendent made a very strong point of that um on that one and heather stone road the decision of the committee was is that we really needed to have the advice of two committees of the disability access advisory committee and the transportation advisory committee regarding those two because the question of pedestrian and bike safety um was um an issue in both and um we felt that it was important that we hear from the committees that um really think deeply on those issues of bicycle and traffic safety and safety of pedestrians uh which is very much of always a daac concern um the last thing that i'm saying and want to say is about heather stone road that we had something that i think is extraordinary in all of my years in tso and that is a tremendous turnout of residents of an area where something we were considering was being discussed and not only was it a large number people um who were addressing a large number of issues but quite frankly i found that they weren't always in agreement with each other but they all spoke very passionately about what their concerns were for a roadway that is very essential to uh either the street they live on if they live on heather stone or to their neighborhood and as a consequence um there was also pointed out that we had not um had scheduled our meeting at a time that was accessible to all um of the residents of the neighborhood or the street because we meet during the day there were a lot of people who work in the evening and are very concerned about um the same set of issues so that our conclusion was given what we know to be a large community input that we want to schedule a listening session in which we can hear from people on heather stone and in the neighborhood echo hill about um the same set of issues or other issues that they might raise so that we are fully informed in addition to getting da c and tack input on um the project and uh it will and i talked to lin about this i've not had a chance to talk with pat because it is their district and um they will have a strong presumably a strong interest in it and might be very helpful in outreach um to neighbors that we might not otherwise reach in telling that we want to hold this listening session is a consequence of the five members of our committee and two district counselors we already have a quorum of the council president so it may be that we have to request that this um meeting also be scheduled as a council meeting um because of the fact that we could have the quorum of the council present anyway so i just wanted to emphasize those points i think uh that in the written report conclude the report for tonight kathy and he largely answered the question i was going to ask on heather stone there is i assume you know there is an association um yes and and i know lin and pat know but it's a very active association so i was struck when i saw that proposal that the there was going to be a reaction and i didn't know what the reaction would be and i didn't know whether they'd been informed so it sounds like you're going a terrific route to uh find out what the people who live on the road think that's great yeah there there's been lots of conversations with people on heather stone um are there any other questions counselors on their committee reports we have no minutes did any special words i'm very pat um lid i just have one um there's a committee that's not normally on which i think is fine but jcpc the joint capital planning committee so it we're finishing our work this thursday um i'm assuming we're finishing our work because we have to finish our work and so this is a committee that reviews capital projects within the budget that the town has and then we make a recommendation to the town manager but the council will get a copy of that as it's going forward so it's the early look at the capital plan and um we have a very tight budget that we were working within so you'll be able to see we had to move some things around and the staff was fantastic um including athena who uh got us organized against all odds so thank you athena let me also just mention that is not the large capital projects it's the small capital project yeah it's it's building repairs roads sidewalks buying uh new stuff like it and playgrounds yeah so the the big projects are one of the reasons we have a tight budget david lin very quickly um and i'm sure paul will have more updates when he returns but it is april it is it is time to get going full bore on construction projects um i'm sure the council is well aware of the north common underway um we are very pleased with the progress to date that has a june 30th deadline so our contractor caracas construction is moving daily out there it's kind of interesting to see their progress and um i know gilford mooring and his team are out there every day managing the project and hopefully you know we'll we'll have a ribbon cutting scheduled at some point down the down the road apiece we will also have a ribbon cutting at the trails at hickory at the appropriate time those are a little bit farther out one should be done by the end of june and i would imagine the other trail will be done september october and then i did want to let the council know and paul will have more information on this you know in four to five weeks but um from time to time the council does hear about the condition of the dam and dyke at puffers pond and i just wanted to let the council know that we are aggressively seeking funds for to address some of the issues up there we just submitted a $250,000 design assessment and design grant for the dyke and dam at puffers pond which will really help us look at the condition of both those structures the dyke is in poor condition the dam is in fair condition almost every dam in massachusetts gets a fair very few get better than that um we're more concerned actually about the dyke and so this will allow us to hire uh engineers dam engineers who specialize in this uh if we're successful to come in and um assess the dams and then propose uh fixes for both the dam and the dyke and i do have some capital money we have some capital money that we set aside and i've asked for more in the capital budget for fy 25 so i'm hopeful about that because we will need construction funds obviously in the future if we get the design done so just wanted to let you know we are beginning to address those issues and we should know more in four to five months once the grant comes back and then we get some engineers on the ground so we'll keep our fingers crossed on that okay andy i think you're going to ask the question i am but go ahead uh well my question is uh you didn't say anything about dredging the pound yes so um in light of all the earlier conversation about um what things cost so uh this grant will get us a little more than just design it will also get us bathymetry of the pond in other words how deep is the water it will also get us the depth of sediment in the pond it will also get if we're successful it will pay for um sediment cores to take a look at what is in the sediment in puffer's pond it will also get us some some um way forward with regard to um uh surveying up at the pond so it does move it does move the needle um andy on dredging from that information we should be able to extrapolate the volume of sediment that needs to be removed from the pond and then that will be another choice that the town has to make do we want to dredge the pond we we must do the repairs to the dyke and dam honestly choosing whether to dredge the pond will be a community decision that will come through the council um via a funding request again we'll go out and do the very best we can if we get to that point and try to leverage local funds into state and federal funds but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it so yes we are thinking about dredging finally and we will get some relative cost estimates out of this work thank you andy you saved me from asking the question are there any other comments um our questions of dave uh then uh let me just mention ana and i both agreed that we would do our uh presidents and vice presidents report for the 29th and uh on the future agenda items i just want to mention on the 29th this is what we know is on the agenda the first reading is for the surplus property the amherst college sign the planning board report for him amherst hills um the potentially the nuisance bylaw and uh we hope belcher town road okay uh are there any council comments or requests is there a i'm making a motion to adjourn is there a second quickly we got to go through it uh i don't care pat yes hi ana hi eti councillor eti hi lindy greaseman is an i andy johannity sapson bob hegner hi councillor hi ham rooney yes councillor ryan hi gathie shane yes andy steinberg yes jennifer tov yes councillor walker yes we're joined adjourned at 9 59 that's why i was doing