 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law general law chapter 30a section 18 this meeting of the resident advisory committee is being conducted via remote participation. Everybody should wave to confirm that they can hear me. Yay. Good. This meeting is being recorded to the web and could be shown in Amherst media and broadcast on that cameras town YouTube channel. And this meeting is called to order. Cool. Our first agenda item is to approve minutes from our previous meeting on January 14. Does anybody have any comments corrections anything to the January 14 minutes. All those in favor of approving the January 14 minutes just raise your hand it's easy when there's three of us and it is unanimous the minutes of January 14 are approved. Next on the agenda is a review of past interviews, and I'll go first, I had what I think might be a record setting 25 interviews since January 14. You know, hopefully Angela is keeping her head above water with filling spots. And nothing too exciting to report at this time, other than that later in the meeting under other items I want to bring up one interesting issue that came up during a couple of my interviews. But meanwhile, Keisha, what do you have to report. I had eight interviews since then. What does that count because you've been doing some for the, a couple of other groups also. Yeah, so those were all for community safety and social justice. And Nicola, what do you have to report. To be honest, I don't have my rack notebook with me. So, I can't remember exactly I feel like I did at least 10 for the library, we have a whirlwind of back to back library and then I did one shade tree, and there was something else in there now I can't remember. I couldn't do any of the CDBG ones because of my conflict. And the one I did that wasn't shade tree and wasn't library. Maybe it was to shade tree. I know what it was it was transportation. Transportation advisory that was interesting we had. We had a really solid candidate. And there was some concern about time commitment because they're a graduate student. They're finishing up their program. Yeah, I was sort of a whirlwind and now it's been a bit of a low. Yeah, low is good. Okay, nothing much else to report on past. What do we, what do we got looking ahead, Angela. I think we should go through the list and before we go through all of the committees and how many vacancies everyone has, I think we should start with the most important committee which is the residents advisory committee. So, all three of you have terms ending at the end of June, and it's time to face the music. Who's staying. Not all at once. I can say, I can do another round. Thank you. I don't need to stay to. I don't mind. I prefer not to. All right. All right, I have those notes so. Okay. Keyshye will follow up with you separately. And we have, we are posting or we will ask for people to apply for one vacancy on the affordable housing trust. And then we will send this aggregate like vacancy list to you. And this includes kind of the reappointment cycle. So, as we head into the end, everything terms ends the end of people who are terming awful term off at the end of June. So I'm expecting three vacancies that we'll have to fill on the cultural council. And one or two vacancies for the board of assessors, one vacancy on the board of health. And maybe maybe not one vacancy on the board of licensed commissioners. One vacancy on CDBG. Two vacancies on CPAC. There is still one vacancy on community safety social justice committee, but I think they're discussing whether or not they want that to be like a high school student. I, we might have a vacancy maybe one on conservation commission. Council on aging is a question mark I haven't had a chance to meet with Haley Bolton who's the new senior services director but I am anticipating one vacancy on council on aging. Two vacancies to fill on the design review board. One vacancy for disability access advisory committee. Question marks about who's coming or who's staying on energy and climate action committee. And then maybe one vacancy on the historical commission. We currently have three vacancies on the human rights commission. One question mark about how many people will need to appoint to the local historic district commission, which is an interesting one because you actually have to live within a certain part of the historic district to be appointed to that one. Definitely one vacancy on the Munson Memorial building trustees. And two vacancies on the public art commission that need to be filled. Perhaps one vacancy on public shade tree committee. And two vacancies on the recreation commission. And there's a vacancy on the registrar of voters. And now there's a vacancy on the residence advisory committee. And I think that is it because everyone wants to be reappointed to transportation advisory so lots of upcoming interviews for us to do. Yeah, before the end of June. Which kind of segues into in person versus zoom into zoom interviews. And, you know, certainly for we talked about this at the last meeting also certainly for convenience sake of fitting them all in zoom really is so much more conducive to that because you can have the less time it takes to get places. So are you Angela you and Paul thinking of keeping all of these zoom. We are, especially since the governor has extended the ability to do so through the 15th of July. I think we'd like to, we'd like to keep it via zoom. I think allowances right like we had that individual who showed up for an interview, because he thought that you know the zoom link I sent him was ineffective or perhaps a joke so he showed up to the office and I let him use my workspace and we went on with the zoom interview. Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting time we live in but it works. We figured it out. Yeah. Well, that you know that certainly works for me I don't know if either of you have any other opinion on that or fine. Yeah, I do too I think keeping it zoom is ideal. For the most part, when we can. I had an interesting thing come up actually in two different committees two different interviews that just curious to hear what other people think I had two different instances of former town counselors. I'm feeling out a calf to be on the committee that they had been on as the town council representative. And I'm curious to know and there's, there's pros to that and there's cons to that. And I'm curious to hear what you guys think what you think the pros and the cons are of them. And that is interesting I think, you know, for the pros have first I mean getting people involved period is challenging so, you know it's hard to turn away, willing, arguably knowledgeable committee members and you know there's some value in the institutional knowledge on the one hand but on the other hand, you know they served on the role, they served in the role. They were essentially elected the first time so it seems like a little bit of a cheat not a cheat but I wonder if you know there should be. I mean there's nothing in the charter to me it sounds like something that ideally would have a policy around it that like you need to not be like serve for a year and then come back or it would be ideal if there were some sort of more formal rules around it. Just because of that elected piece, otherwise you know like you know like the survival center for instance our terms are three years, and you can serve up to three consecutive terms. But again we're not publicly elected so it's a little bit different. Yeah, I don't know and it depends. Then it's like is it or is it people that weren't reelected or didn't run, you know, like it's not. Maybe that shouldn't be considered but it's hard to not think about that. You know, similarly a pro is that you know they have some familiarity with it but that's also a con right because you want people who can look at what's in front of them and make a decision and not only because not only basing their decision on what happened before. Yeah, you both pretty much expressed everything I was thinking at the time to, and you know that you can't underplay the institutional knowledge you know different committees are different but with some committees there is a huge advantage to really really being aware and detail of what's happened before. But, you know, offsetting against that, you know, there's an argument for wanting new people to get involved and new fresh blood to get involved and not have people continuing who may already have agendas or decided on things. You know, it was interesting. I'm trying to think now, I think in both cases, my inclination was not to recommend those people, you know, which is tough because they're, you know, in both cases they were certainly qualified. And you know they knew the committee they knew what it was doing, but I guess for me in those cases, having the fresh faces felt more important. I'm not, I'm not convinced there should be a policy or a rule on it. I think it's okay to take it as it comes. But really it just sort of struck me as this strange new thing that we'd never experienced before in a way that I suppose it's probably happened with select board as well in the old town system where you'd have people who had been on the select board and had been the select board representative to a committee, and then wanted to be a committee member in fact now that I think about it, it had happened before. So, it was interesting. I don't have that much more to say on it. Anybody else have anything that's come up in your interviews interesting to talk about. I had one where Paul had to leave or couldn't be there or something so I got to be the person to say okay it's time to stop talking now we'll make a decision. That was exciting. Should we at some point discuss the script for these interviews are we feeling okay with the script do we feel like that needs to be revamped or looked at yearly. Could that be a topic for our next meeting. Yeah, that could be good to have a topic for our next meeting. Personally, you know I use the script more as a reminder than anything else it doesn't and, you know, often the thing that I'm going to ask somebody else asks right before me so I don't do it. But I look at it kind of as a checklist to make sure that we're covering all the bases and the things that we really want to get across come across. So, I don't have any issues with it but I think it would be fine to discuss it. One more meeting before June to make key should come to another meeting. The other thing I was going to ask was during like what I'm realizing as I'm getting more involved with with all of the boards and committees is every group. They're always immersed creates their own kind of infrastructure for how meetings are run. And sometimes it works great and then when you have lots of turnover, there isn't that institutional knowledge that comes with a new group, and sometimes it doesn't mesh with the news new group so do we want to think about hosting any practices for boards committees and commissions or ways to make your committee meeting run smoothly and be inclusive question mark, like, is that something that this group feels like they can lend a hand on or is this something that is more from just the town side, as it like an administrative policy piece, because we do send home that packet, which were in the process of revamping for people who are appointed to multi member bodies. But how are, how are you feeling about that as a committee, do you feel like that's within your purview or not so much. It's peripherally in our purview but not directly kind of. It's interesting you know I have, I've been on a bunch of committees and been chair of a bunch of committees and I certainly have opinions on best practices for chairs and best practices for how to run meetings. But I don't really know that I'm qualified to lead a seminar on it or anything like that, either. Keisha you might have been about to say something I'm not sure. I was just going to say that I think it should probably come from the town. Yeah, it's, you know, it's an interesting thing because there's nobody kind of watching the different meetings with that within mind you know the questions of is this effective are all the committee members being heard as the public being heard. You know presumably that's a function of the chair to be doing that. But we don't know that all chairs are doing that. And would you have a sense that there are issues with some committees or problems or. No, I mean, it's I think it's growing pains, and people have experimented with things like having non voting members who are who are junior high and high school students and I was, yeah, no, I just thought it was something that it might be time to ask because we are asking people to give up their free time and so we want it to be a positive experience and you know. And so you can't promise people that it's going to be fun every time they show up to a meeting but it is something that you want them to look forward to since they are giving up their free time and their energy and they're and for many people it's a passion project. So, it just, I wonder if there could be like a much like we have that checklist for rack interviews I wonder if there could be a checklist for best practices for board and committee and commission members that's kind of like you know make sure that you monitor your airtime and make sure that you. I mean I don't know like a lot of it sounds like bumper sticker stuff but treat others the way you want to be treated and you can disagree but you don't have to be disagreeable right like. I feel like I'm writing the rules for dinner at my house but. But it's, it's kind of those simple things like if you get to a point of contentiousness like maybe it's time for the group to decide on meeting norms that are read at the beginning and at the end of every meeting. There are groups that deal with really weighty things. Right. And there are groups that are having growing pains so. It's just something to ponder, like as we, as we invite people in to become part of lots of different and new committees. How best do we help shape the process or do we stand back and kind of let it happen and then respond. I mean question, question mark. Yeah. I mean, I think a little time and effort spent into shaping it is a worthwhile endeavor. It's, you know, it depends. There's a whole piece of it that has to do with the personality of the committee members the personality of the chair. So you can sort of have a bunch of guidelines but it depends on the personalities whether they'll be followed or not or listened to or not in a way. But it's still and, and you know so many of the guidelines are common sense things that you sometimes wondering you really need to tell chairs to make sure everybody has heard from, but maybe you do I don't know. Yeah, and so they're like, when Julie Fetterman used to run the board of health meetings like they have a timed agenda and things stick to the time to gender. And, and I always found that fascinating, because there isn't another group that kind of functions like that the council sometimes does like a timing of the agenda items but it's all kind of malleable. And they're, it's just interesting to look at the different ways that different groups organize their meetings. So, and there are things that the home charter requires right like when you post a meeting that requires that you have public comment, it requires that you have items not anticipated. But other than that it's kind of a free for all. Yeah. And that's interesting that that only one committee does that I feel very strongly about timed agendas. And sticking to those times like I you know I chair of the governance committee of the survival center board. And I think it's actually a big like diversity, equity and inclusion issue like meetings should start and end when we say they're going to start and end. And obviously, you know the count we have a lot of meetings that go way over. That's, I think that's a really big issue. Um, but yeah, there, I do think if there is going to be something for best practices because I think chairs and whoever's leading the meeting are in a challenging position to get because sometimes I've also been a plenty of meetings that have times, and then people just talk way over the like if you're going to have the times they have to mean something, and the role of a chair is largely timekeeping, which is hard obviously to do because you feel like you're interrupting people and personalities come out but I do think, generally speaking, we need to we need to tighten things up. You know, one thing we could consider doing is putting something out to chairs of committees asking them to submit to us, what they feel are best practices for the workings of their committee and maybe compile some kind of list of that to then distribute out to the committee is just to give people ideas of what works and what doesn't work. So, maybe, yeah. That's a good idea. And I think in addition, like the basics of timekeeping and and the things you were talking about Angela like being respectful is also like there being. I know I was talking to somebody who said, you know, our meetings you used to have like a mission on the agenda as a reminder because like whatever you're charged with so if you're a committee and you're charged with making sure the organization is sticking to a mission and then that constant reminder so that maybe having like the charge of the committee like sometimes you just need to bring people back to this is what we're being tasked with. This is what we're being asked you know what whatever it might be, because I think people, you know, we have a lot of passionate people in the community. But then we get into like very philosophical broad based discussions that tend to get away from like the task at hand. So some sort of, you know, whether that's having it on the agenda or just doing a reminder at the beginning of the meeting but being really clear, especially when it comes to votes. So where should we take this from here. We could try and separately come up with sort of questions that we might want to ask chairs and come up with a small list that we discuss at the, our next meeting and then send something out to try and compile this best practices thing. In the process, in addition to the first kind of submission I sent out the chairs, I'm in the process of reaching out to all the chairs to ask them to get the people who want to be reappointed to send me their short bios for Paul to write the memos for their reappointments. So in that same missive in the second round call of hey if these people want to get reappointed I can say to them, the members of rack would like to put together a best practices cheat sheet. So please send us your ideas and let us know what has been working best for you. And also let us know maybe if you feel like you need some more direction. Question. Yeah. Okay. So, are we thinking of asking anybody who has any committee to talk about best practices or just asking the chairs to talk about best practices, what do you think they're thinking for you to decide as a rack membership. I think it might be. I know it'll be a lot of work but it might be good to ask everyone just because from the chair's perspective something can be working but from everyone else's perspective, maybe not working for well. That's exactly what I was thinking. So if you send that out, we can, you can maybe then before our next meeting whenever that is distribute answers to us and we can kind of see what themes we see and what, you know what pops out those things that a lot of people are talking about and thinking about. You know, we have this script that you put together for our interviews. Is there, there's probably not, there's not really an applicable, you know, the scripts for committee meetings or the agenda is basically so there's not anything more than that that's applicable for that. So yeah I'd say go ahead and see what you can get from people. Okay. So, other than adding complications to Keisha's life is there a reason to have another meeting before all the June interviews or should we just wait till we're done with them what do people think about that. So in order to get people reappointed or appointed in time we have to have those interviews in the next five weeks. Right because everyone has to go through TSO and then gets approved by the council. So we're going to post them before the end of business hopefully on Wednesday or Thursday to all of the notify me stuff. And then I'll start getting on the phone and calling all the people who have applied. And then new, the new committee that needs two members as a solar bylaw working group. I forgot to mention that one. They have, they have two vacancies because the other five members will be appointed by other groups like conservation commission, ECAC, like other groups will feed into them a lot like what happens with CPAC, where other groups send reps to be on the board, but Paul gets to pick two. Right now so what I was talking about is do we want or need when do we want to have our next rack meeting is my question. Do we want to do it at the end of May beginning of June. I'm recap all the next round of interviews. That's probably reasonable and make Keisha come to one more meeting. Do we want to pick a pick a day right now. Either the first or second week in June. So I'm thinking about taking the second week in June because it's my baby's graduation from high school. So I'm thinking about just crying from the six to the 10th. Not crying cry tears tears of joy is graduates graduation the weekend of the 10th 11th or the one. Or back at UMass for graduation. And where's the senior party these days. How you know I'm afraid to ask. I did. I was one year I was head of security. This was back when the senior party was at. The college in the field there so I hung out with the police and search people's backpacks that was fun. The other year I figured out the other is transportation driving home kids. Because they weren't allowed to drive so that was pretty horrible those just I just coordinated it I didn't do much with the driving myself. It was pretty hilarious because at the end we had this whole pile of contraband stuff, and I said to the policeman who was there said you know, you'll take this right and he said, no way I can't take this stuff because if I take it I have to like, you know, there's paperwork I can't just so. Took it home and flushed everything down like a good little citizen. Yeah, what about the week of the 13th will you be recovered enough to have a meeting. I will be recovered enough and rolling right into Juneteenth celebration that next weekend. So yes, the 14th maybe or the 13th if you want to stick with a Monday. I'm totally flexible. What works better for you. Either one's fine for me. Okay. So for June orientation for UMass so for those days. I'm not free 10 to 12 Monday Tuesday. I'm busy 10 to 12 one to three. Basically, before 10 at noon or after three. What about. Sorry, go ahead. I just say what about later in that week. Is it just Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Are the days I have that schedule but I could do. Yeah, so I would have to do morning lunch or after three, unless we did Thursday or Friday, then I have more flexibility. Thursday at 11 maybe. Yeah, Thursday the 16th. Okay. I'm going to do that. Well, Actually, you know what, let me double check and make sure that Thursday the 16th. Right. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Cool. Anything else we want to talk about before adjourning. Okay. Thanks everyone. Thanks everyone. Actually, I'm all in favor of adjourning raise your hand. Looks like we're adjourning. So this meeting is adjourned. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you. And June, if not sooner. Bye bye. See you.