 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you. Good evening. It's Monday, November 16th, 2020. By virtue of the Governor Baker's March 12th order, we are allowed to meet virtually. I'm going to call on each counselor, make sure that they can hear me and we all can hear them. And then we'll call the Council to order. So beginning with Shalini Balmille. Yeah. Where's the brewer? Present. Dr. Angeles. Present. Darcy Demont. Here. Lynn Griezmer's here. Andy Johanicki. Present. Dorothy Pam. Present. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. Steve Schrupp. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. And Sarah Schwartz. Present. Given that we have a quorum of the Council present, I am calling the meeting to order at 634. This meeting includes audio, video, and is available live on Amherst Media. It is also being recorded. There is no chat room. If anybody has any difficulties with their video or audio, please contact Athena O'Keefe, clerk of the Council. We are also again continuing to try closed caption. And so the town of Amherst Information Technology Department is piloting this. Please keep in mind that an automated transcript service and occasional typos are possible. If you are wanting to do this, please make sure that you are joined via Zoom as a desktop client or mobile app. When closed captioning begins, you will see a notification above closed caption in the meeting control. And then you click on that and you start viewing using closed caption. Town council and town committee meetings recordings are available online with closed caption provided by YouTube. Tonight we are starting with a special meeting of the town council. It is a public forum. Public forum is for the purpose of reviewing an order appropriating funds for the town of Amherst as a capital expenditure for the purchase of a new ambulance vehicle. Sean, would you please provide us with a brief presentation? Lynn, do you want me to call the finance committee to order? Sure. I'm sorry. Andy, go ahead. Yes, this has also been posted as a meeting of the finance committee. Andy, excuse me. It's going to be after the public forum that you'll call them to order. Okay. Okay. All right. Should I proceed? Yes, please. Okay. Mr. Hannon, can you pull up the memo? Yep. In just a second. So again, this will be very brief. So the public forum tonight is in response to an off cycle request to purchase a replacement ambulance. The total ambulance costs is anticipated to be $300,000. The base price of the ambulance is 275,000. And we've opted to go with a hybrid option, which has an additional $25,000. So the total is 300,000. The base is 275 with the $25,000 additional costs for a hybrid. The hybrid option on the ambulance is relatively new technology, but it has been around a couple years. This particular option is called a zero. Which means that the engine of the ambulance actually turns off when the ambulance is idling. And ambulance is idle quite a bit, whether at a scene or at the hospital. So it makes a pretty big difference. The technology is powered by batteries. And the benefits of this technology include reduced emissions, lower fuel fuel consumption and lower operating costs. And in the operating costs, obviously the lower fuel costs are part of it, but it also puts less stress on the engine, which should help the engine last longer over time. We'll be able to try this out hopefully and you know, see whether that is true or not. The need for the replacement ambulance arose when the oldest ambulance failed inspection. And when they looked at it closer, they found that it had oil leaks in its engine and that the cost to replace the ambulance would be over $30,000. And at that time we determined that that was not a good use of money to put it into that ambulance when we were planning to replace that ambulance. Actually during last year's capital plan we were planning to replace that. So we opted to move forward with a request to replace it now. The funds to replace this ambulance would come from the ambulance receipts fund, which generates its revenue from ambulance calls, the insurance money that we get back when we bill for ambulance calls. The comptroller and I have reviewed the balance in the ambulance receipts fund because that fund also supports the operating budget each year. And we are confident that the ambulance receipts fund can continue to support the operating budget and also pay for this ambulance this year. And as I mentioned, there's a hybrid option we anticipate having a grant to help pay for that hybrid option. We were approved for a green communities grant, which can put $25,000 to help reduce the price. So the order in front of you is for the full amount of the ambulance, but we would offset that amount with any grant funds that we have. And as I mentioned, because we have the green communities grant, we would be able to offset it by $25,000. And that is it. If you take the screen down please. This forum. And anybody who would like to speak needs to raise their hand. We will be having a public forum for at least five minutes. Because that's what the charter requires. I was going to say I didn't go five minutes but I just confirmed. I didn't go five minutes. Are there any comments from the public at this time? I know it's strange for us to sit here like this, but I'm going to keep asking. Are there any comments from the public at this time. We're waiting. Sean, would you also move. Rich Morse to the audience. Yes. Thank you. This is the public forum. This is the public forum regarding the ambulance and I'm looking for any comments. We were going to include the public form in about two minutes. Are there any comments from the audience of so please raise your hand. This is a public forum regarding the purchase of a new ambulance. At the conclusion of the public forum, we are going to stay on the same zoom link. In addition to that, we, Andy Steinberg will be offering the finance committee an opportunity to quickly meet prior to us going into a full council meeting. This is your last chance for public comment on the purchase of a ambulance. Seeing that we have no public comment at this time, I'm going to adjourn the public forum on the ambulance. And Andy, I'm going to turn it over to you. As noted today is also posted as a finance committee meeting. As indicated in the finance committee report that was sent to the council. It was to give the committee a chance if there was anyone from the public to see if they wanted to revisit the recommendation that was reported. There are two members of the finance committee who are not counselors and have not indicated the can here and be heard. So I'm going to ask them to unmute their mics and just confirm that they could Bob Hagner that you can be here and Yes, I can. And Bernie can be heard. Yes. Thank you. Okay. So this will be real quick question. Since we didn't hear from the public. There was no comments offered. Does anybody from the finance committee wish to suggest that we reconsider the Motion that was passed at the last finance committee meeting to recommend this purchase? And if there's not, then I would since there's no motion and offered. If one of the members of the finance committee from the council wants to move to adjourn. I'll move. I second. Okay. So real quickly. I'll just go through the members of the finance committee to see if the motion. Actually, we do adjourn it without going through a vote. So. I'll do it quickly. Lynn. Do you agree to adjourn? Yes. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pat d'Angeles. Yes. And Shane. Sorry, Kathy, and I agree. So we are adjourned. All right. Thank you. Since we've already checked video and audio with everyone and the same rules apply with regard to the regular meeting of the town council, given that we have a quorum of the council present. I'm calling the November 16th, 2020 regular meeting of the town council to order at 646. You can view this on. Video on it. It's available and is live on Amherst media. And it's available through closed captioning. With that, we are now going to move to a public hearing. And in this case, the public hearing is regarding tax classification. Public Assessor Elizabeth Duffy and Board of Assessors member Ken Hargraves are here with us this evening. Richard Morse, who is chair, the Board of Assessors and Lee Hines, who is a member of the Board of Assessors are in the audience. And the reason they were moved to the audience was so that they did not have a quorum of the Board of Assessors in the meeting. They would have had to call and post a meeting. David Burgess, Retired Principal Assessor continues to advise the town. This hearing is in advance of asking the council to adopt the tax classifications for fiscal year 2021. It was posted in the Hampshire Gazette on November 9th, 2020. The format for the hearing is similar to any other hearing. The meeting is in the recommendation form. When it is time for residents to speak in favor or in opposition to the recommendation, please limit your comments to two to three minutes and use the raise hand function or press pound nine on star nine, I'm sorry, star nine on your phone. Please note the comments during this period of the meeting are only in relationship to the recommended tax classifications. We'll begin with a presentation, then there'll be an opportunity for the town council to answer questions. We'll then have an opportunity for residents to speak in favor and also an opportunity for residents to speak in opposition. After final comments, we will close the hearing. So please take this down and put the presentation up. And we are now, we'll hear from Principal Assessor Elizabeth Duffy. Good evening, members of the council and to the residents of Amherst. I'm your new principal assessor. I've been here since January. I don't know the hours of your transfer station, but I do know a lot about assessment and evaluation. This is a new vibrant community for me, but I've been doing this for an awful long time. And I'm doing my very best to catch up to my predecessor, David Burgess in his skill and his knowledge of this community. He's been your assessor and has continued to assist me since 1991. And that's a lot of know-how about this community. I'm grateful to have his aid and his continued guidance to help us with this transition. My esteemed colleagues, the members of the Board of Assessors, Richard Morris as our chairman, Ken Hargraves, Lee Hines are with us tonight. Ken Hargraves is on the panel and Mr. Morris and Mr. Hines are in the audience, I believe. They will be assisting tonight's presentation. And thank you gentlemen for your warm welcome to Amherst and your dedication to this field of assessment. And it is very complicated and it's not the easiest one to get volunteers to dedicate themselves to this. Thank you. And I believe your constituency should be grateful to your dedication to it. You have to show up once a month to listen to all of these assets that we have to consider and what we should do with them. Thank you again. The department also processes claims for tax exempt organizations, the elderly, the blind, the disabled and disabled veterans. Next slide, please. These are the tax policy options. Like last year, the town council is being asked to vote on several things. Determine if Amherst remains a single tax rate. You may vote to shift the tax burden from the residential to the commercial industrial and business personal property. You may adopt three local exemptions first. Amherst has no designation for open space and you may ask, how can that be? Because I hike, I bike, the open space is all around me and this is a beautiful place. However, we classify it differently in Amherst. We classify it under a section of a law called chapter 61, 61A and 61B. It's classified as farm, forest, recreation land or permanent conservation land and the open space is incorporated in that classification. So therefore, even though we're putting that local exemption up, there really isn't anything to vote on. The second exemption is to determine whether Amherst will adopt a residential exemption if that's right for Amherst. The third decision is to decide if a small commercial property exemption is appropriate. On the surface, a split tax and these exemptions, they're appealing, but they're not for every community. So you must think very deeply about these. The board of assessors and the town manager and I recommend adopting a single rate for tax for fiscal year 2021 and not to adopt the residential or small commercial exemption. Next slide, please. This is the process overview. The town council is required to hold a public hearing, which you know, to decide the rate and adopt the local option tax tax policies. The state law regulates the process and what we can adopt or not adopt within a range and local over that in this presentation. Next slide, please. This is the law that governs this area. The local tax levy percentages for the property address tonight. I want to provide the actual text so that you have it to read should you need to. Next slide, please. Tax classification public hearing. This is the community's 42nd classification hearing. There are four classes to consider residential, commercial, industrial and business personal property. Next slide, please. These are the definitions of these classifications and it's important to note that first of all, the residential includes apartments. You know, when you when you look at appraisal and you think assessment, you think they're the same and they're not in the field of appraisal apartments are commercial. But the state of Massachusetts had said that anything with a residential habitation. If you live there, it has to be considered residential. So the apartments are put into the residential classification. The other thing to note is chapter 61 land that's your farm forest open space and permanent conservation land is considered commercial. So when you're thinking about commercial that is also effective. Now, I think we can go to the next slide. fiscal 21 distribution of property classification classification, you know how say pictures say a thousand words. Well, this looks like it's missing a few of them. I don't know if anybody else is seeing what I'm saying but the tags have kind of gone off of us. I don't know what happened to them. They were here for initial dry run, but they're not here right now. In essence, this is a nutshell that you can see on the on the slide the dark maroon represents our residential that's 88.93% commercial is 7.39 industrial. I should say the commercial I believe is the next largest, by the way, the industrial is not even a percent. And it's point one eight personal property that's the business assets are 3.49%. The combined commercial industrial personal property and that's what we're talking about here tonight is shifting from the residential to the commercial industrial and personal property is a combined total of 11.7%, I'm sorry 0.07%. And of course, the major factor that we have in this community is that we have 28.76% of our property is exempt. And that has an impact on us. Next slide please single versus split tax and that's why we're here to talk about it tonight. The split rate doesn't raise more and more revenue. It shifts the tax burden among the classes and all classes at this time pay a single rate and all the same rate. Next slide please. This slide compares us to our neighbors. As you can see immerse is at 21.32 for our residential. And over to the right hand hand chart you can see that we have the same tax rate for our commercial. Next slide please. The minimal residential factor for Amherst is 93.78. This is the maximum shift determined by the state. The residential property must pay at least 65% of the value share of the levy. So there are parameters that we cannot exceed or go below. And this shows you the residential impact. The commercial impact. And it gives you an idea of the average home value. What a single rate would be. What a split rate would be. What the potential decrease would be. And the increase it would bring over to the commercial industrial and business personal profit. Next slide please. Single versus split tax rate. The majority of the commonwealth enjoy a single tax rate. Communities that choose a split rate usually have a 70-30 split while Amherst has an 89-11 split. Which means that the split tax provides a very modest benefit to the community. So the residential property owner I should be specific. But a substantial impact to the commercial industrial and business personal property. Or I should say in this particular case because we're talking about the split rate. So it does. It affects everything in the commercial and industrial land. The split rate will make Amherst a less competitive community to attract business investment. If you have a higher tax rate for commercial industrial and business personal property. Next slide please. Other exemptions allowed state law permits to shift the residential tax burden to higher valued and non-resident property owners. The residential class includes single, two, three family, condominium apartments, vacant land. And the residential portion of mixed-juice property. Just to clarify what mixed-juice property is it's like you have apartments above and you have a retail store below it. That's an example of a mixed-juice property. It will raise the residential tax rate proportionally to the shift up to 35%. That is the maximum shift. Next slide please. Other exemptions continued. The small commercial exemption allows the business with 10 or less employees. Oops. This ended up being the residential property types. Can we go back one slide please? Should be one for other exempt. There we go. But I was off. Other exempt continued. Small commercial exemptions. I feel for our businesses there is only 11% for commercial industrial and personal property in our community. But this exemption is not appropriate for this business community. It only allows you 10, less than 10 employees. And you have to be less than a million dollars in value. The majority of our businesses are tenants and don't meet these requirements. Next slide please. Residential property types. This is the breakup. What is the taxable residential class? One apartment tax increase could impact many low and moderate income families. Standard cost increases such as utilities, taxes, water. There are usually clauses within the rental agreements that pass that on to the tenant should those things happen. Whether it's commercial or residential. This gives you an idea of how we're made up. Single family, we have 4100. Condominiums, 1130. Two families, 337. Three families, almost 80. Multi families, almost 40. And four units and up 100. That's a lot for apartments. This is our raw land. There's 450 counts. That's really good actually. Mixed use. There are 72 accounts and this is a growing area. This is a growing area for developing development. The total is 6300 taxable accounts. Next slide please. Single family home values predominantly rest between the $300,000 and $400,000 range. This graph shows you how they are. This is based on the value of the homes. This is based on sales. Although our values are based on sales. Our last revaluation was 2018. Next slide please. Presidential exemption pros and cons. It will be a benefit that's distributed to most residential homeowners. It will help new homeowners starting out. Cons are those ineligible pay much more. Including those apartments that may have low income. And you will have to increase the over life. And reduce the commercial industrial and personal property. Next slide please. Calculations. Amherst has 6,280 taxable residents. The current eligibility that could qualify for this residential exemption is about 4,300. Or about 69% of the community. The break even point is the rate at which the tax stays the same. Or the benefit is outpaced and you end up paying more. And hopefully the next slide will be an example of that. Next slide please. This is an example of what it would be if we gave a residential exemption of approximately 20%. This slide shows the break even point. And you can see around 500,000 I believe. It shows that there's no benefit whatsoever. Now that's not to say that this particular property didn't receive the benefit. But the increase in the actual tax rate makes it null. Next slide please. This is the recommendations of the town manager myself and the board of assessors. We do recommend a single rate. As we have had in the past. We do not recommend adopting the residential or small commercial exemption. Next slide please. This will show what the single rate would do. 21.82 is the middle rate if we do adopt a single rate. Next slide please. At this time we're going to entertain questions. And hopefully we can provide answers between myself and the board of assessors. Is there any questions? I'm sorry. I cannot hear you. You're muted. Thank you. I'm going to now ask if the council has questions. Dorothy Pam, please state your question or your comment. First, just for convenience, how does this rate compare to surrounding towns? And secondly, I was reading over the residential exemption and I could see positive goods that could come from that. Taxes being lower for a house that is a home or that has a resident if it's a multifamily in it and higher if the house is a business. So just wanted to know since we've got the expert on the stand, some thoughts on that? To be honest with you, it's very difficult to become to be a competitive community when you don't have a highway next to you. And you don't have a lot to draw the commercial industrial investors. I've just come from the town of Windsor locks that had an airport. And this was an area that we concentrated a lot of effort because of the generous amount of tax monies that we brought in from the commercial industrial area. We're able to offset the residential taxes and it's much more effective than trying to institute an artificial tax shift. And that's what this says. This is an artificial tax shift. And it's not going to pan out. Your residential, your commercial industrial is suffering at this point. There's still not out of the woods. It's been a bad couple of years for business. And I don't think it's going to help them by shifting the tax burden to them. I had not meant shifting to commercial. I understand why we don't do that. I must say when the residential exemption for a house that is used as a business rented out completely or a house where the owner is occupying it, whether it's a one, two or three family house, that was the commercial when I realized that we don't have that. The reason that I wouldn't support a residential exemption. First of all, we don't really have a great inventory of how many people of that are residents are in our apartments. I know from my own experience and from folks that I've met since I've been been in the area, which has been quite a while actually, that a lot of families and a lot of income limited seniors are living in your apartments here because they can't afford a house. So when you increase the taxes for an apartment which falls into that residential habitation, those folks get a pass through on their rent. So the other one is also your open space, your farm, your forest, your open space, and your permanent residential conserved property is also going to be hit with that increase because they're considered commercial. I think one thing we had on our recommendation, the last recommendation was to find out more information, do a survey. That's exactly right. That was the next portion of what I was going to explain. We have done a survey, but it's 10 years old. We have maintained that information to the best of my ability, but my staff has one full-time person. And she has done that remarkably well. Teresa has looked at the residential exemption claims that come through every time someone buys a home. And she tries to update that survey as best we can. It does not, though, address those holes. And it is not conclusive because things change over 10 years. We're only addressing the new property owners that are coming in. You know yourself with the community around you, things can change in just a couple of years as far as owners and occupancy. The two questions we'd like to have more information. And the survey will help, but other sources too would first, who qualifies for the exemption? And that's where Elizabeth was saying, you know, we do have a lot of data now, but we need more information to know which ones are owner-occupied and which ones are not owner-occupied. And then the second question is, for those that do not qualify for the exemption because they're not owner-occupied or they're above the break-even, or they run an apartment, who are these people? Are they low-income, elderly people? We need to understand better. We think we can get a better handle on that so we know what effect those people would have if we did this. Darcy, do you want your hand up? Yeah. Can you hear me? I can hear Darcy. I remember when we had this discussion last year, although Elizabeth, you weren't here. Welcome. Thank you. And I'm, we did, I think we did give the assignment of researching this issue in particular. And one of the things I believe we asked for was to look at best practices in other communities that have adopted this residential exemption and, you know, like how many have done it, what, how do they handle the problem of landlords passing on the rent increase to tenants? Because clearly, you know, some communities are doing this. How, how have they done it? And how, you know, what process have they gone through to decide this? It just seems like, you know, giving this kind of benefit to people who own houses that are assessed at under $500,000, that's a pretty massive benefit to those taxpayers. And it seems like, especially nowadays when people are hurting so much financially, that it makes sense to look at it more closely about like how other, how do other towns do it? Well, I'd love to let one of my board members handle this question, but I'm not going to do that to them. So I did some research and I have done some preliminary research to some of the communities such as Somerville, Cambridge because it was a college community. I think I did. Ashefield, Waltham, a couple of them. There isn't a lot that have it. And I was trying to stay away from Cape Cod and places that they really established this for initially. But we do need more research. And unfortunately, I got here the end of January. I hope that I would have come sooner to address this kind of situation, but I really couldn't come to you sooner. And it worked out. So unfortunately, right after I got here, I went right to school in February to refresh my course 101 and COVID hit. So I am so sorry because in my interviews, they did say that this was a concern. And this was an area that I would be asked to look into. And I do remember that and I do keep it in my head at all times. However, I just don't have the resources to do that at this time. Maybe Joe, you have your hand up. Yes. Thank you. To continue on the question with the residential exemption, how often is that determined if we were to enact a residential exemption? For example, you know, we are obviously a college community and many families live in their homes until there's a sabbatical. And then for a year, they might go to Europe or go somewhere else while the professor in the family is on that sabbatical year. For that year, would that family then be incurring that additional, the non-owner occupied rate, if we adopt this or would they still be the owner occupied rate? Because most of the time they run out their house if they do own it. So do you figure it out every year? And if they're not living in it that year, the taxes go up $2,000. And if they are living in it, they come down $2,000. How does that work? That is an excellent question. And I'm glad you asked it because I actually forgot about that part. I'm not a college professor and I don't have any family that went on sabbatical. But they would not be eligible. And I'll tell you why. Because we do look at the application annually and you have to show your federal income tax to show that your residency is still here. And if you're not in the house for a year and you're renting it out, you are not eligible. And that's part of the question here. Thank you. Steve Schreiber. Yeah, so hi. And I'm going to stay on the same topic. So we moved here from Florida. So Florida has the homestead exemption. So if you file that homestead exemption form. And another form, then you get $50,000 knocked off the assessed value of your property. So for the purpose of property taxes. And actually to tag onto Mandy, it also came with a property tax cap. So then your property tax couldn't, it could be increased by $50,000. And once you file that, the property tax could never be increased more than, I think it was 2.5% or whatever. So. It just seems, I wonder if we're overcomplicating this because we in Massachusetts also have homestead exemption forms that can go on file. And I don't understand why that can't simply be the. Can't do it. I see, I see Alyssa saying you can't do it. Anyway, I'm still going to ask that question. The other thing that needs to be. Take into account is what you can deduct from your state and federal taxes. So it's, I haven't rented a long time, but the last time I did, you could rent, you can deduct your rent from your state income taxes in Massachusetts. So that seems to me that that other kinds of deductions should be also part of this formula as to who will be, you know, hurt if we were to go through this. And then finally, I think that it's common wisdom that landlords will pass taxes on directly to their tenants. But on the other hand, there's a number of that 10 landlords have to hit or they won't be able to rent their properties. So I'm not sure that it will necessarily be passed on directly to tenants, but I definitely heard that common wisdom. And I think that that needs to be questioned. Thank you so much. You posed some great questions, Steven. I have a sister that's living down in Florida right now. My niece just moved down there with her husband after their kids went off to college. A lot of folks do it. They have a really different demographic than we have. Their whole tax structure is very different in Florida. You really would find it hard to compare the two. Like you said, you do put a residential plane when you file your deed. However, those that we've surveyed for the last 10 years ago, have surely changed in the 10 years that we last surveyed them. It's not so much the people that are coming in right now. The people that have recently purchased a home are saying to us, this is my contract to you that says I'm a resident of this home as I purchase it. It's a matter of what happens after they purchase it for a period of time. And that does change. They don't come in and tell us, hey, I'm not a resident anymore. Nobody would do that. This does have to be your principal home too. Right. Did I answer that completely? I think you had a second half for that. Oh, it was very lengthy. And, um, and you know, I don't remember we lived there for a number of years and we filed the homestead exemption once. So I don't know what happened in the intervening years, but there were all kinds of advisories that if you, if you did, but Mandy. Joe was suggesting that if you rented your house for more than a day, then you could lose your homestead exemption. So, right. And actually prevented your houses for being converted to Airbnb is, you know, all kinds of things like that. In particular, prevented houses for being rented for a super goal, which was actually a big money maker for a lot of people. Wow. I'm going to take a moment and we're going to move to a public comment. But I just want to recognize Richard Morse who is in the audience. Yes. That is hand up of Sean. Would you please bring him into the room so that he could at least ask him to make his public comment. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Well, I just want to make sure that it doesn't get lost in the discussion and they're made. I know there are, um, um, town council members who know this, but the residential tax exemption involves shifting the burden of of taxes within the resident within those who pay taxes on residential properties. So there is no the tax break is for some, but not for others. And one of the problems that we've had over the years is trying to figure out who would pay more, whether through their rents or whether they are people of limited means who are who have highly assessed properties. So Mr Steinberg last year made some remarks at the forum that we had last year and he used the word disruption. And I think one of the things that we're wary about is the disruption that would be caused by implementing a residential tax exemption. And I think it's because we have to borrow a phrase from somebody from the past. We have quite a few known unknowns. We have things that we simply we know we don't know about about Amherst property. And so we're we need information and we don't have it at this point. And so it's important to point out that the total amount of revenue that would be that would be taken from the residential taxpayers would be the same under a residential tax exemption. So the money, the burden would get spread around. And so it's hard to say that it's going to get spread. It's the exemption is going to be precise and spreading it to people who can afford to pay more. And so that's the thing that I think that has always come up every year is is knowing exactly how how big an exemption we could grant and then where the burden would get shifted. So I simply want to point out that there is quite a bit of uncertainty and there's yes the the operative word is disruption. If you were to. Implemented a residential tax exemption. There undoubtedly would be some disruption. And it's trying to figure out where it would be. That is the difficulty that we have at the present time. Thank you. So Andy, I'm going to go ahead and have you make your comment and then we're going to move to see if there is our public to speak in favor or not. Position of the recommendation. Andy. Thank you. It's just. Topic of discussion. Please. Whoever needs to mute. Thank you. Let's look it to the question that. Elizabeth may need to help with. Elizabeth. We've been formally met yet. And welcome to Amherst. The. Other part of the disruption. Is that. There's a cost of administration that becomes involved. Because. When you are making this kind of a massive shift. If you were to make that decision. You would have to. Cost of setting up the administrative structure and running the administrative structure. That would go with it. And. You would also have to. Increase what's known as the overlay surplus. In order to be able to. Have money to pay what would. Has been the experience in other communities that have the kind of. Have taken this option. Which is a large number of people. Who want to appeal. And if they win their appeals. You have to have the overlays. Account in order to. Payback the appeal so that there are tremendous costs. The other thing is. To just remember is that. The council. The council. Will have this opportunity. To revisit this question every year. You voted one year at a time. And if you don't intend to stay with something. It's. That really causes. People's property taxes. All across the board. To vary greatly from year to year. Which causes a hardship for planning. I guess the question that I would have. Then is a conclusion to the comment. Is back to Elizabeth. Have you done any. Research as to whether. Your staff as currently structured would have the capacity. To manage this if it was done. And if not. What kind of additional staffing you would need. Because that becomes a budget question. The town will. Be able to. Accommodate. I have looked into it and. Talking to other assessors. We've needed at least another full-time person. Right now we have a 1.4 on our staff. And we are. Busy 24. The time we come in the time we go home. The time we come in. The time we go home. The time we come in. The time we come in. The time we come in. The time we carry. The time we come in the time we go home. Adding this. To our our. Case load if you will. We definitely require another full-time person. And speaking to other assessors. There are quite a few challenges that come with this. We recommend doubling the. Overlay. So that it's. Short up. and talking to other assessors. It's kind of easy to get into this, but not so easy to ever change it. So whatever shakes out, after you adopt something like this, it's very difficult to reverse the process. There's actually an article that was well written on the city of Worcester, and it is on the web. I encourage everybody to read it. It was a case for residential exemption, I think it was, is the name of that. And it's really very well written. I encourage anybody that's interested in this subject to read into that. And I can certainly email it to anybody that wishes. We're available at Assessors, I'm sorry, Assessors at AmherstMA.gov. So if there's any question we haven't answered for you tonight, you want more information or you want more information about the services we provide, don't hesitate to reach out. Our website has just been updated by Stephen Casey. He's a new member. He's my point for, and he's doing a wonderful job for the tax office and the assessor's office. And Teresa Barthela Sarda, she's my assistant. And I'll tell you, these two really do a lot for me. I'm certain that my staff and I can help anybody that may have any questions. Given that this is a hearing, we are going to now ask if there is anybody in the audience, a resident who would like to speak in favor of the recommendation. Please raise your hand. And if you're calling press star nine. I'm not seeing any indication of people. Is there anybody who would like to take the opportunity to speak in opposition of the recommendation? I am not seeing any there. Let me just say that again, we will be voting on this this evening. It is part of the consent agenda unless it is removed by request of a counselor. And are there any final comments as we close the hearing? Melissa. Thank you. I just wanted to point out to the audience, mainly I think the town council is aware of this, that the personal exemption section of the website is a useful thing for people to look at. Obviously it doesn't solve everybody's problem, but it is a small amount that does affect the elderly in various other categories. And just because of our habits here in town, those two things are handled at completely separate times. The personal exemptions are voted on at one point in the year. The tax rates voted at another point in the year. One used to be town meeting. One used to be select board. They like have nothing to do with each other except they do because they actually impact how much people pay. And so perhaps as we talk about what this project that we thought that we were magically gonna have Dave Burgess work on after he retired to find this information out that Elizabeth's working on. I think that's part of the appendix to that study is if there's any more room, I believe normally Amherst maxes out what you're allowed to do under state law. And that's in addition to the people who join the tax work off, right? It's just the actual amount that's exempt to be able to get that out in front of people. So they realize, because I know that's certainly one of the main concerns when we talk about this every time, is somebody who is older, no longer working, is now on a fixed income, but is in a relatively highly assessed house. And so this helps some of those folks and that plays into that. And I'm not sure the audience recognizes that. So thank you. Mr. Rathman, you have your hand up. Yeah, thank you. I know we're running up against our time. So I wanna thank Liz for the presentation, but I also wanna recognize the work of the Board of Assessors. This is not just a board where you raise your hand and you get appointed. You have to go to school to learn about assessing. There's a very rigorous program you have to go through in order to become an assessor and be able to serve in this capacity. And I also wanna recognize Dave Burgess who is here tonight in the audience who has been loyal and reliable and helping Liz get her feet on the ground. So he's been just terrific in terms of his guidance over the years and continuing on. So I just wanna recognize David is being here as well. I'll just go on my thank you. So let me just reiterate all those thank yous. And with that, we're going to close the hearing. Next item on our agenda is general public comment. And I am going to ask for people to raise their hand if they're interested in making general public comment. And then I will tell you whether we're going to limit it from two to three minutes or what. Please raise your hand if you are interested in making general public comment. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the president of the council. And based on the number who would like to speak I am going to go with the three minutes. Please, when you are called upon, you will unmute. We will bring you into the room. And if you want, you can show your picture. At this point, that's how we manage our public comment. So the first one is Christina's Garenge. And I'm going to apologize for mispronouncing your name. Please say your name and where you live. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. And thanks to the council. My name is Christina Garenge for Animal Defenders International and our many Massachusetts supporters and colleagues including Western mass animal rights and Berkshire voters for animals in support of the bylaw to ban wild and exotic animals and traveling shows and circuses. Last week, certain questions arose. The first asked whether the list of applicable species in the bill was open or closed ended. It is indeed a finite list of the taxa noted. The notations in the parentheticals were not exhaustive but only illustrate, excuse me, those taxa listed. The list of taxa is itself finite and birds of prey are not included. Another positive that the town, excuse me, another positive that the town has no likely venues for such events. However, these exhibitors can and do often set up shop in parking lots, malls or vacant lots. They don't need a convention center or fairgrounds. They can and will set up wherever they can. Another asked why such action is even necessary calling it symbolic. Yet wildlife exploitation and trade is globally recognized as a primary driver of the three great crises of our time. The climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis and pandemics. In recent months, the World Economic Forum, the UN, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystems, the World Bank, FAO and others have documented these connections to call for urgently needed transformational change and the way humans relate to, consume and too often destroy nature. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it's that we cannot avoid the challenges before us. The economics now tell us that such change costs far less and promises far greater opportunity than in action. As the WEF said, there is no future for business as usual. To successfully address these challenges will require tackling the drivers of nature loss, including trade, production and consumption and the values and behaviors of society. The shows this bylaw seeks to address our part of this trade chain that fueled the challenges before us, demanding action not just globally and nationally, but also locally and individually. This bylaw presents Amherst, its first opportunity to demonstrate whether it's newly passed climate commitments mean something. Please vote yes to the bylaw. Thank you and have a good evening. Next speaker is Shreela Leslie Rapino. Please state your name and where you live. Hi, Leslie Rapino. I live in Pittsfield, Mass, and I'm with Berkshire Voters for Animals. And just basically briefly, just wanna ask for you to vote yes for this bylaw that would ban exotic and wild animals using entertainment. And just back in 2016, we proposed a similar ordinance to do exactly this. And like Amherst, we didn't have an animal circus within our city limits. They'd had it in the past, but not in recent years. So our effort was to do this to be proactive, to make sure that no circuses could ever come because you don't wanna wait for something to happen before we enact laws. And in addition, what's important too, is it really shows that we need local support to get state legislation for this because these circus acts are continued to go around the state. So it's really important that Amherst and other towns show their support by passing this important bylaw. So thank you for considering and supporting this bylaw. Thank you for your comment. Laura Hagan, please state your name and where you live. Hi, my name is Laura Hagan. I'm the Massachusetts State Director for the Humane Society of the United States. I live in Salem, Massachusetts. I'm here to speak in support tonight of the Wild Animal Act bylaw and wanted to thank the town council first for considering this bylaw and Councillor Balmin and Ms. Schwartz for bringing this forward. As many of you have heard from me and Ms. Schwartz last weekend in prior testimony, circuses present nothing short of a life of deprivation and misery for the animals that they hold captive. And here in Massachusetts particularly, most if not all of the wild animal exhibitors that tour here have histories of poor animal care and violations of federal law. These violations include failing to provide animals with the most basic things such as veterinary care, proper food and even adequate shelter and failing to handle animals safely, thereby endangering both the public and the captive wildlife. Circuses that tour here in Massachusetts end in towns near Amherst. Tour with animals that have attacked the public and have attacked their trainers. These are outcomes that result from a life defined by a verse of training methods near constant travel and the inability for them to express even the most basic of natural behaviors. Operators of circuses that come to the Commonwealth have been convicted of wildlife trafficking, have lost control of elephants in arena parking lots and suburban neighborhoods, have been fined by federal officials for, in just one example, letting a leopard loose in a gift shop that later attacked a toddler and have been filmed beating elephants with bull hooks here in Massachusetts, abusing them with electric prods and teaching other trainers that the only way to keep a performing elephant in line is to hurt them so much that you have to quote make them scream. These are the circuses that come here to Massachusetts and Amherst has a unique role to play in addressing this problem. There is no state law prohibiting these outfits from coming here and this provides a wonderful opportunity for localities to lead on this issue. There are enough circus outlets coming to Massachusetts that it is worth closing every door we can to these exhibitors and local action can push them to convert to a humane business model. Even if circuses have not come to Amherst in recent years with wild animal acts, passage of this bylaw ensures that they will never use Amherst to advertise and profit from cruelty. And it will also make it harder and less worthwhile for them to continue to come to Massachusetts as a whole. As more localities tell circuses they are not welcome, their opportunities to profit from cruelty are diminished and the commonwealth becomes a less and less appealing place for them to operate and therefore a more humane and safe place for wildlife and for people. I urge the town council to take the important step voting yes to ensure Amherst never welcomes these cruel acts. Thank you all so much for your time and your work on this issue. Thank you for your comment. Cheryl Becker, please state your name and where you live. Hi, can you hear me? Okay, my name is Cheryl Becker and I am president of Western Mass Animal Rights Advocates and I live in Aguam. Thank you for letting me testify tonight. I strongly urge you to support, to approve the Wild Animal Act bylaw. I've been protesting circuses and petting zoos with wild animals for 25 years or so and have seen the filthy, crammed conditions in which they are forced to live. I have also seen the lack of veterinary care and lack of enforcement of regulations. A perfect example of that is corpula, the elephant that died at the big E in September 2019 after being on exhibit. Despite a serious illness, according to the necropsy, she died there of septicemia due to a uterine infection. This tragedy proved the pathetically weak government standards for wild animals and traveling exhibits and their lack of enforcement. Cumberford Zoo knew that Bula, they owned Bula. They knew that Bula had a deadly infection when they chose to transport her to be exhibited for 17 days. Septicemia is extremely painful for any species and it was quite clear looking at Bula on day one that she was ill. It is even more unconscionable that no authority stepped in when they received pictures and complaints of her looking sickly the first two days and unable to stand on day two. This tragedy symbolizes all that is wrong with the use of wild animals in entertainment. Instead of a life in their natural habitats, these incredible animals are being carted around the country, confined in cramped often filthy spaces and forced to perform or be on exhibit for long periods of time. It is essential that Massachusetts towns help put an end to such cruelty by banning traveling exhibits and acts with wild animals. Especially now that a statewide ban will likely not be passed for a while, thanks to the virus. 12 other mass towns have passed such a ban and nearly 150 localities and 37 other US states have passed legislation addressing the abuse of wild or exotic animals in circuses. There are many other opportunities to teach our children about wild animals that are humane. I won't get into that, but there's even the Springfield Science Museum. And there's absolutely no educational value in seeing a wild animal forced to do unnatural things in an unnatural environment. Cumberford Petting Zoo has been cited by the USDA more than 50 times for violations of the animal welfare act standards. They have had five dangerous incidents for which we're due to an elephant being spooked while giving rides to children causing injuries requiring hospitalization. And there is also the risk of dangerous E. coli TB and other diseases which are easily contracted at petting zoos, even those with no violations. Another example, I'll try and make this quick, of how we can unenforce- Please conclude your comment. Excuse me? Please conclude your comment. Thank you. Of how weak and unenforced government regulations are for traveling animal shows, was at the 2018 biggie, an attendee took a picture of Minnie, now Cumberford's sole surviving elephant, looking sickly while giving rides and limping, which went viral and sparked outrage. Shortly after a video of a Cumberford camel being abused there went viral too, but no actions were taken. And Minnie was forced to give rides the following year despite documented incidents, which I can send you if you'd like. Actually, I think I put in the hyperlinks in my email to you, but I can send them as well if anyone didn't get those. We need you to conclude your comment. Okay. In which Minnie attacked her handlers and members of the public. The regulations are clearly not being properly enforced and no agency monitors training sessions where the most violent abuses occur. So basically, I'll make it quick, I'm sorry, but I really strongly urge you to support the bylaw and be a role model for other towns in Massachusetts because we desperately need more towns to step up to the plate and help us pass a statewide ban and prevent future tragedies. So thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. Seeing no other public comment at this time, we're going to return to the meeting with the consent agenda. Thank you. The consent agenda is as follows. The following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy. To remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion later in the meeting, ask that it be removed when I list the consent agenda, which is on your screen. The request to remove an item from the consent agenda does not require a second. The motion is as follow, to move the following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. The first is to suspend suspension of town council rules of procedure rule point 8.4 for agenda items 8C and 8G. That would allow us to act on these tonight. The second is 8B adoption of council order F21-05B. The next is 8C to adopt a minimum residential factor of one, equal tax rate for all classes and properties for fiscal year 2021 and that no open space discount be granted. 8C to not adopt a residential exemption for fiscal year 2021. 8C to not adopt a small commercial exemption for fiscal year 2021. 8E to amend a zoning article 14 temporary zoning. 8G adoption of the, excuse me, of the 2021 town council meeting schedule. 9A approval of town manager appointments to the following boards and committees. 9A1, which is the community safety working group. And 9B1 is the approval of town council appointment of four towns meetings representative. Are there any, we just need to reduce this so I can see if there are hands up. Yes, Darcy. You're muted. Darcy. I'm unmuting. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you. Suspension of town council rules of procedure rule 8.4 for agenda item 8C and 8C. Just to not adopt residential exemption for fiscal year 2021. Okay. Are you suggesting you also don't want us to act on that tonight? Yes. So that would not come back till council meeting until December 7th. Is there a problem with that? I need to ask the town manager that question. And the only one you identified under 8C was to not adopt a residential exemption for fiscal year 2021. Right. Okay. But then 8C would stay in place for all of the others. Right. I mean, I'm sorry. Suspension would stay in place for all of the others. Manager Joe Haneke. If we don't suspend the rules for the whole 8C then we can't put on consent the other two 8C items. Thank you. Because we have to vote to suspend the rules for each individual motion then. Okay. I also think they're linked, Lynn. I don't think we can. Right. I think we can, I can't, don't think we can vote yes on some of them and wait on another one. I think the whole package is linked. So we will, when we actually come to that item we will bring up for vote whether or not we're going to suspend the rules and we will bring up for vote all three of the items. Okay. Are there any other requests? Okay. So then the motion is to move the following items and the printed motions there under and approve those items as a single unit. Suspension of town council rules of procedure for agenda item 8G, 8B adoption of council order FY21-05B, 8E to amend zoning article 14, temporary zoning. 8G adoption of 2021 town council meeting schedule. 9A, approval of town manager appointments to the following boards and committees. 9A1, community safety working group. And 9B1 approval of town council appointment of four towns meeting representative. Is there a second? Handicke seconds. Thank you. Any further discussion? Please take the screen down. You will, Sean. And we will begin the vote with Alyssa Brewer. Aye. Yes. Pat DeAndralis? Yes. Darcy Dumont? Yes. Grace Merzy? Yes. Hanakie? Yes. Earthie Pam? Yes. Kevin Ross? Yes. George Ryan? Yes. Kathy Shane? Yes. Steve Schreiber? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Yes. Sarah Schwartz? Yes. And Shalini Balmille? Yes. It's passed unanimously, 13 in favor, none opposed, none abstaining, and none absent. Okay. We are going to move on in our agenda. Actually, we're going to not have any resolutions and proclamations, and given that is 7.52, we are going to take a quick five minute break, convene at three minutes before eight. Okay, we're going to just check to make sure that everybody can be heard, et cetera. Pat DeAndralis? Yes. Thank you, Pat. Darcy Dumont? She says yes, but I can't hear her. I have no hands. Right. Lynn Griesmer? Yes. Yes, I'm here. Earthie Pam? Yes, I'm here. Evan Ross? Yes, I'm here. George Ryan? I'm here. Kathy Shane? Yes. Steve Schreiber? I'm here. Andy Steinberg? Yes. Sarah Schwartz? Yes. Charlie Balmille? Oh, yes. Alyssa Brewer? All right. Present. Thank you. Did I miss anybody? Okay. Our next agenda item is a COVID update. It will be done by the town manager, Paul Backelman, and our new health director, Emma Dragon. Thank you, Lynn. I'm going to show the slides, Sean, thank you. So this is our first opportunity, your first opportunity to the public to see Emma Dragon, who is our new health director, who started a couple of weeks ago, but jumped in with both feet. So, and she's been working with the community of unhoused folks, looking at number of issues that have been popping up, and it's really busy starting off right away. I do want to mention before we get started, that I want to thank Jennifer Brown, who was the acting health director, who led with a steady hand. I had incredible knowledge about the town, and she and Emma are making a great team, and it just is very fortuitous to timing because things are starting to get really cranking now, and we need Jen doing the contact tracing that she's so good at. Somehow she managed to do two jobs at once, and it's been, I just want to thank her publicly for all the work that she's done during this interim period. Emma has a very strong background, and I'm going to just ask her to introduce herself to you, and then we'll go through our slide deck. We have a fair amount to share with you tonight, but we'll try to be efficient for you. So Emma. Paul, thank you so much for that warm welcome, as well as everyone here on this Cat Town Council meeting. I also want to echo what Paul said about Jennifer Brown, and the health department team, as well as the town of Amherst team, and the overwhelming amount of knowledge and support that they've had during this flurry of rapid onboarding that I've had here coming into my role. So my experience is I'm from Hadley. I am a nurse by background with emergency and behavioral health and case management experience. I also have my graduate degree in emergency and disaster management, and have been on several departments as an inter, deployments, excuse me, as an intermittent federal employee to congressional events, as well as numerous disasters or hurricanes. And I had also had experience on local public health by serving as a board of health member for the town of Hadley, and have also had the recent appointments to the local regional public health advisory committee for the state of Massachusetts, which I'm really looking forward to being able to be a spokesperson for us here in Western Mass and our special names for public health measures. Back to you, Paul. Thank you guys, keep going. Next slide, Sean, please. So here with the status of how the town of Amherst is doing in response to COVID and the state of Massachusetts as a whole, Massachusetts did just turn over to about 122, 182,000 cases, 1,730 of them being in Hampshire County and a cumulative amount of 419 cases in the town of Amherst. And currently in Amherst, we have a total of 87 active cases, which is up from 22 cases about two weeks ago. And what I like to highlight when we think about how COVID is really expanding and transmission is happening in our community is people to reflect on basically what happened about a week or two weeks prior to when numbers kind of inflate. And when I think about what recently happened about two weeks ago was Halloween and all of the activity around that as well as election day was within the last two weeks. So that's what the public health experts are correlating that with. I do also want to have acknowledged the weight of Massachusetts passing 10,000 deaths and lives lost since the beginning of the pandemic this year and just thinking about all of those families and the different people that definitely affects. But I also want to note the enormous amount of testing that we're doing. Next slide. Here we can see the cases over the last two months and how they're evolving here in Amherst up to the number from this morning, which was 87 active cases. Next slide. One of the things that we are seeing with our numbers and one of the things I think all of us can reflect on our present partners within our community are our institutions, our colleges and the University of Massachusetts. So here are some numbers that are associated with their communities, which they've had over the last few months since the pandemic began. Next slide. And here we can really see all of the extremely hard work that our institutional partners are doing here is some great slides showing the amount of testing that's being performed by the University of Massachusetts. It also shows the total daily cases. But I really do want to highlight their numbers. Next slide. With the amount of work that they're trying to do to suppress the transmission of this virus here. I like to think of things in visuals. And here we can say, where are we seeing the cases, the numbers for our community? The general population is defined in this pie graph as a individuals that are not included in our college community, which is that 9% right there. Next slide. And then I know a question that we've had is what are the town metrics, which were updated last Friday by the state? And I think this is really confusing. So I made a cheat sheet, what I call a cheat sheet, which is our next slide, which will really help define what are the metrics that we're looking for at the town of Amherst, which we can see currently we are in the yellow, which would be more than 4.05 average daily cases or community positivity rate of over 5% or equal to that. Next slide. This is a great visual, because it shows us that Amherst, while the Amherst average daily incidence rate currently, or last reported on November 11th in the weekly data was 14.4, but our community positivity rate or percent positivity rate was 0.34%. Next slide. Where is all the transmission happening? The data is showing in the recent questioning that is done during contact tracing, that the majority of transmission is happening in household settings, meaning that it's occurring in homes, that can be your traditional family home that we think of, multi-generational families living together, and certainly even roommates that are living in an apartment or a shared whole house together. Next slide. If you still wanna cover color map published by the state, this is what we're gonna get, and it shows the percent positivity. If we look at the, where Amherst is, we can see that light, light blue color, barely anything at all with a very low community spread. Next slide. So what has happened lately? We've had recently new governor's orders, and we'll talk about those in just a second. Next slide. The stay at home advisory. So Governor Baker made a revised, stay at home advisory to ensure that residents are avoiding any unnecessary activities and mainly staying home. Next slide. One of the things that with the stay at home advisory is piggybacked with encouraging people to be home during nighttime, is the early closure of businesses and activities that would encourage gathering and unnecessary transmission, which they found apparently during all the data analysis that most of those times were happening in the nighttime when people become a little bit leather guards down and aren't thinking quite so clearly. Next slide. This is a great, give some understanding in terms of what is affected by the mandatory closing period. One thing that is really important is that while these businesses have to be closed to the public, and that people cannot be admitted, that employees are permitted to stay on site. Next slide. So what does it mean for restaurants? It means that beverages and service can occur after 9.30, that one must be served their food by 9.30. If it's not served, then it must be takeout, that everyone must leave no later than 10 p.m. and that all performances, events, and other activities must also be included by 9.30. Next slide. And face coverings. So an increase in the amount of face coverings, wearing a face mask is a great tool that all of us can use, whether it's a cloth homemade mask or one that you buy at the store. That this face covering now has to be in all indoor and outdoor public places. And whether you are gonna be able to be six feet away from others or not, that you have to wear them all the time. Next slide. And gatherings. And this is a really hard thing, I think for a lot of us to talk about, because gatherings are something that we are traditionally used to having during the holidays and the holidays are coming. The part of being personally responsible and socially responsible as well as being committed to all public health is limiting the amount of gatherings that we're having and the sizes of those gatherings. Next slide. So here are the numbers for those. And Amherst is in step one of, sorry, step two of phase three for those, if anyone's wondering. Next slide. And contact tracing. How is it helpful? And how can businesses and our local economy help, public health, but also help keep its economy active? Contact tracing is a huge way to do that. Businesses must comply with the local board of health on instructions and communicate with the local board of health as soon as notified about a case of a staff worker or attendee. Next slide. Do you fall? The next slide, Sean, please. So we always bring you up to date on our force protection, our continuity of operations. One change on this slide is that we do have our new health director on board, which I'm really happy to report to you. And she did a terrific job tonight. There are two things that we are concerned about in this one is with family gatherings. We know Thanksgiving everybody's supposed to not be gathering, but we know that we'll be gathering. We worry about members of our staff gathering together with family members. And that's where the slide Emma showed you. So that's where the concentration of risk is at this moment in time. We're worried about that coming back into our workforce. So trying to make sure everybody's being safe in their social lives at home during Thanksgiving and then being concerned about that when we come back in after Thanksgiving. And the second thing is that we have cushioned our staff, we have the five firefighters on duty. We have additional temporary workers at the DPW and we have the ambassadors. And that's all being paid for out of CARES funds. And that CARES funds at this moment in time expires on December 30th. So that cushion we're fearful is going to disappear. So that's our biggest worry. Those are there are two biggest worries right now. Next slide. When I mentioned, Emma was on our calling show last Thursday. This Thursday we'll have another calling show. It will feature Dave Zomek, the assistant town manager and planning director, Chris Brestoff. And we will be talking about the presentation they're going to give next on the North Common. We are also doing a cup of Joe with Paul on Friday and we'll have Sonia Aldridge and Sean Mingano part of that. And that will be in response to the public forum on the budget that we will have on Thursday and the financial indicators presentation we made last week. If there are people who just want to have random questions that they want to bring to our attention, it's a great time to do that. All the other information is pretty much the same. We will continue our community conversations on Thursday except for Thanksgiving, of course. Next slide. Next slide. So the casting of first responders again want to recognize the university for offering that service to our first responders and inspectors and people like that. And we appreciate it very much. The employee is appreciated. Even if they're not taking advantage of it, they feel comfort that knowing that it's there that the town was looking out for their best interests. So we again appreciate the university doing that. The third bullet is the end of the semester that happens on Friday. That will be a big relief I think in a lot of ways because we feel like there will be a little bit of a lull in the community like there is always at the end of a semester. We don't know what to expect. How many students will come back after Thanksgiving to live in the houses that they may have here. But we anticipate that there'll be a little bit fewer, there'll be fewer people around. And that's always a good thing for our community. Next slide. Did you want to take this one, Ella? I would love to. So I just want to acknowledge that fatigue is real. I think we're all feeling it as winter felt like it was coming on across last night. And that everyone can really have a part of trying to stay mindful and alert as we spend more time inside and inherently around more people densely. But the best thing that we can do right now is stay at home as much as possible. Wear a mask anytime you are out or around others from outside of your home or may have been exposed for our health. Wash your hands and let me gather in sizes. Just like Paul was describing, really think about the best choice for your family and the safest choice in terms of Thanksgiving and other small gatherings of students returned to their homes. And that we are seeing an increased number of cases, seeing trends nationwide and reviewing the steps to maintain those low case numbers in Amherst and region. Part of that, like Paul described, is force protection. And it's really thinking about our staff at the time of Amherst, how we can keep everyone safe and healthy and the operations of the talent of Amherst moving smoothly. And also doing the best public health work that we can for our community. Thanks. You can take the slides down now, Sean. Are there questions from the council? Yes, I believe you indicated, Paul, and thank you for reminding us that testing of first responders has been made available by UMass that we would pay for via CARES funding. But I believe you indicated that not all first responders are getting tested. It's not like we have a plan that says X number, we'll get tested X number of times like students and people who are on campus. And so could you give us a sense of if people, you know, what percentage of our folks have been getting tested and are they feeling, when you say that they feel comfortable knowing it is available, are they comfortable feeling like they can spend the money, even though it's the town's money to go do that? Well, I don't think there's any barrier to them getting a test based on finances. We don't require employees to be tested. We make it an option for them. And the ones who care about it, the, you know, who want that security go and get tested. I don't know the exact percentage. We have not seen the statistics on that. I'd have to talk with the police chief and fire chief about that. But I know some are, but it's not everyone for sure. Also mentioned that inspection services are part of those people that are going for testing as well. Andy, you have your hand up. Please unmute. Andy, please unmute. Sorry, I thought I had unmuted. I'm going to welcome to town and welcome to Amherst. And while you're here, I wanted to ask a question of your professional expertise. There's been some use of tents in order to create outdoor environments. And it's certainly part of what we're thinking about for the future. I have read some things that cause concern about tents that they are not always adequately ventilated. And they are just as bad as being indoors in a building. And I was wondering if you have any experience with standards that have been applied and whether we have any mechanism to implement any standards. Thank you so much for your question, Andrew. So in response to your question, yes, tents that have all four walls down, that inhibit airflow can be just as restrictive, if not more. And in the current climate with COVID, are not something that are really long-term a good solution in terms of what's been found with the data right now? Certainly that continues to evolve as we learn more. So a tent with four walls has to follow the indoor dining guidelines currently. But I know that trying to strategize in terms of different ways to keep our restaurants and other community stores and retail open are something that we're trying to all problem solve, but do safely as well. So I know that there's concerns and, sorry, that we work with the alongside the fire department because there's concern with the heaters and also with the building department with Laura, the commissioner, about tent safety because also not all tents are rated to hold snow or other kind of weather. So those are all, there's multiple things that are thought about to make those tents implementing. Thank you. Garcy, Pam, you have your hand up. I have a question and a comment. So all gyms and fitness centers, we are not supposed to go into them as of this week? Is that correct? No, I'm so sorry. If there's flexible barriers. I missed what you said, Dorothy. I'm so sorry. Okay. I was surprised to see that we were, as of the sixth, not to enter a fitness center or a gym. And my question is, even if they have plexiglass barriers. So that's a great question. And I think that might have been part of where I stumbled over my words, maybe. So fitness centers are part of the mandatory closures that they are closed during nighttime, during those evening hours of the 9 30 to five. Okay. There are numerous safeguards that have been implemented for fitness centers. However, the safest way for people to exercise right now is still in the open air. Okay. And so my comment, I just dug this out of my closet. This is my light box, which I haven't used in a couple of years. And I realized that as we, with the time change, that it's feeling very dreary and dark out there for so much of the day. So I'm going to be using my light box to try to keep myself from going under in this next four months. So I'm just reminding you, if you have one, go look for it and find it and see if that might help. Thank you so much for that. Melanie, you have your hand up. Yeah, I really appreciated the presentation, Emma. And my question was about the 9% family or families in Emma's that have contracted COVID. Do they include people who work in UMass? Or would that people who work in UMass be considered as part of the UMass population? So that's a great question. So they are encompassed in the UMass numbers. However, when we break down the part where we can see how the age spread is found, only I would have to go back on my slide, but I believe that's it was seven or 9% of the population was outside of the age bracket, meaning we have some child cases and older adult cases. But the huge majority of our cases are between 18 and 23. Because 84% are at the 18 to 23 range. Thank you, Paul. Thanks, George. That was somewhat related to my question. I just tried to connect the, I mean, I don't know how concerning it is that the total number of positive cases now is the highest it's ever been. So maybe if someone could speak to that, maybe it's not really a great concern at the moment. If so, why, if it is, I'd like to hear. But when I'm looking at, if you have 87 positive cases and I took your graph, that would mean that 73, I mean, just would be college age. And 77 would have some connection with UMass. It was my sort of primitive reading of those numbers now. So as you said, the large numbers, college age, and most of them seem to be connected to UMass. And the question I guess is how concerning should we be with this number that is now the highest it's ever been? I think that's a good question, George. And certainly something that's coming up in regular frequent discussions. And I know I'm thinking about all the time and connecting with our other public health partners to try and set up Amherst and other, our local regional communities as well for United States, the best that we can. We are actively working with UMass and other colleges in terms of trying to understand where the spread is happening and how we can try to mitigate that and keep our community safe. I think that as numbers come up, that individual numbers can be alarming, but I just want to also reframe it and think about, look at that percent positivity of our overall community of over 40,000 in Amherst and how small of a number comparison to 40,000 it is. So I think our community as a whole is doing great work. I think the college students are trying to. I just think that they're a little young and certainly have different priorities, but I know I feel great confidence in that I think everyone's really trying their best right now with the resources that they have. So thank you so much. Let me jump in on that too. I think there's two things. One is, Emma mentioned the election and the Halloween as being something that was a contributor probably. Also we're seeing in general an uptick throughout the Commonwealth and throughout the country is happening everywhere. So we're not immune to that. So we are experiencing both of those things. I think we see a large number of UMass connections because they're testing a whole lot more. I know that that's just the fact that we're not testing the entire population. We are really the university has stepped up really strongly to test their community. And so hopefully they are finding everybody who is to stop the disease. So I think all those things come into play for a small community like us. It's kind of hard to sort of make a judgment without looking at the state and the region as a whole. And that's why we look at Hampshire County statistics as well. Dorothy, your hand is up. Is it up from before? No, it was just a quick question about the number of dead. I am not an expert in statistics. And so I'm wanting to know because I suspect that Emma is. There's kind of some kind of estimate of the number of deaths you expect. And then there's adjustments for flu seasons. Is this number attributed to COVID? 10,000 more than would be expected in this time frame? I think that's a good question. I don't have the answer to that right now, but I could look into that because I think it's a very interesting question. Thank you. Matthew Shane, you have your hand up. Yeah. Do we have any knowledge from places outside of an Amherst in a college town, whether what's happening on campuses affects what's happening in our local public schools at all? How much crossover do we have a population? So in terms of the risks with elementary schools, and so how are other places that are seeing an uptick where it's concentrated in a college, how are they responding in the public school domains? Yeah. I think that's a good focus too. I think it is also, we've had a limited availability of that data because of the timing of this year, right? It's only November into the school year, but the overall observations that have been found is that there's very, very low transmission in schools, in elementary and in our schooling systems, and that if people are not gathering and social distancing appropriately, that the amount of positivity will not occur. So in direct response to your question, Kathy, while the information is limited right now, they're not seeing the transmission across the different population groups like you're describing. So overall, our concerns for college transmission directly affecting school age population is low. Felony, you have your hand up. Yes. I had a question about, there was some concern about families living in South Amherst who don't speak English, and when they were contracting COVID and regarding access to testing, transportation, and food, and is there any updates on that, how that is moving forward? I know Angela Mills has been working hard on being a community partner for that, and working with our health department and all of our other community stakeholders to try and facilitate and coordinate those services for those families with language barriers. So let me jump in. So we did contract this family outreach with Amherst to hire a Spanish-speaking social worker specifically for this type of thing, when an extended family especially has COVID come into the home, there are an incredible number of needs, and we experienced this early on, and Angela and Jen Moison and Mary Beth all love it, everybody jumped in on it, but it was really an example to us that we need someone specifically designed, designated to work on this. So we contract with family outreach of Amherst who had already started the hiring process, so they were able to get someone dedicated to this right now, who is on staff able to respond, and that information is going up through the school district and through the broader community as well. Great, thank you. Thanks Paul. Mandy Jo. Yeah, thank you and welcome Emma. Going back to the testing rate that is quite low in Amherst, I have found in looking at the state data, it's very helpful because they've started reporting a full testing percentage positivity rate at two point whatever, but then they're starting to pop it out between university and other sort of places testing really frequently, and sort of general population testing. Are we doing that in Amherst? And if so, what is our general population testing rate? Because I know with the colleges and universities testing their employees and students three, four times a week, that's bringing it down, but what is, could we get a number for the general population positivity rate? Because we have no idea outside of students who's actually getting tested in town and how many of those tests are coming back positive? I think I love your question because I'm intrigued by those thoughts too, and constantly thinking about those kind of things. I actually, we have an inquiry out for data analysis with the academic volunteer corps to kind of look at that and really do a data dive to see how COVID is affecting our families, our community, where it's more densely being experienced. So I look forward to getting back to your question because I already, last week, I was like, I want to know, we need to know. Great, thank you. Evan, Ross. Yeah, actually, I almost took my hand down because Mandy sort of asked what I was going to ask. And part of that is, you know, I think Paul made a good point, which is the UMass percentage of that pie chart is excessively large in part because UMass is doing so much testing. And what I know they're finding is a lot of their positive tests are people who are asymptomatic. I know I personally know students who have tested positive and I know students who members of their household have. I've only had one who has told me that they had symptoms when they tested positive. They're all asymptomatic. And I guess what makes me nervous about that is, you know, the students are getting tested twice a week. Faculty, you know, I'm going in once a week as faculty just to get tested because it's available to me. But for the rest of the population who isn't getting tested, we don't know. People are probably only getting tested when they're symptomatic. And so I guess my concern, and I'm wondering if this concern is warranted, is it likely that we have actually a much larger number of cases in Amherst in the general population? It's just that they are asymptomatic. And so they're not being tested. And so I guess I'm wondering if our numbers, even though, you know, George is concerned that they're the highest they've ever been right now. But if that's likely an unknown, because what we're seeing is a lot of asymptomatic positive tests at UMass, would we expect that same asymptomatic rate to also be occurring in the community as well? So I am not an epidemiologist. I trade my backgrounds in emergency medicine and public health recently in the last several years. Your question is certainly valid. I think that's something that's being looked into. And certainly is possible. Anytime that you have more testing, we're going to have more data and more results. So I think that people need to be cautious and really maintain all of the good social practices to mitigate spread, to keep everyone healthy. Because the very there is a very high probability that our community and not just Amherst, I think across the United States that there's a lot of transmission. But I do know that I look forward to possibly increase testing. I know that that's something that's being worked on very hard, because we don't have a huge amount of testing out here in Western Mass to be able to improve kind of our understanding in terms of how it's affecting us here. And I'm just going to ask Paul to estimate how many times you've asked for a state testing site in Hampshire County, and we have not gotten it. Right. And it's important. And I think what's interesting about society is that we've dedicated an enormous amount of resources to higher education because that was a big industry for us to make sure it was actively being managed. So we are testing higher education in a big way, but we aren't testing other aspects of our society. So that was going to a state decision about where to allocate limited resources. And that's why we've been advocating to get a testing site, the closest one is in Holyoke, and we have sent people down there. Because we get that, where do I get tested? The other thing that's happening is that with people traveling, a lot of folks want to have a test before they leave. The university is encouraging all of their students or anybody on their staff who's traveling to get a test in advance before they leave. So at least that they have the information before they arrive at their new location. But the bottom line is we do not have adequate publicly available testing in Hampshire County. Right. Or anywhere in the state. Right. The state runs. We cannot state that enough. Are there any other questions at this time? If not, Emma, welcome. Thank you. It was, I had an opportunity to talk with Emma today. We do our little rehearsal at two o'clock on before council meetings. And Emma has provided us with an outstanding presentation. So thank you both, Paul and Emma. We're going to move on to the North Common presentation. This is Assistant Town Manager Dave Zomac, Superintendent of Public Works, Guilford Mooring, and Planning Director Chris Breistrup. And we have the slides that you have sent us and we'll put those up. Would you like me to start? Is David with us? David is with us. Oh, whoever. I assumed you all had worked out who was going to do what when. So I need to make a presentation and David and Guilford are here to answer questions and also make statements if they see fit. Okay. Then let's have the slides. So we can rest on this slide for a few minutes. Good evening. I'm Christine Breistrup, Planning Director. And I'm here with Dave Zomac, the Assistant Town Manager, as well as Guilford Mooring, Superintendent of Public Works. And we're going to talk to and give you a first look at the North Common project. We'd also like to seek your support for funding from the Community Preservation Act funds in the categories of historical preservation and recreation. Some of you have seen this project before either as select board members or planning board members. And some of you have attended public meetings and public forums that we held during the last few years. And some of you may be new to this project. We began working on this project in 2013 when we held the first of three public forums. And we wanted to gain input from people throughout Amherst about what residents wanted to see in a rehabilitated North Common. In addition to public input, the North Common and Main Street parking lot project was guided by a working group that was made up of citizens who were members of the Historical Commission and the LSSE Commission, as well as staff people from the Department of Public Works, Planning Department, Conservation and the Assistant Town Manager, and the Economic Development Director. So the North Common project is part of the Destination Amherst initiative that the Town Manager recently presented to strengthen downtown with public and private investment in public infrastructure and key projects, including Kendrick Park Playground, the Banshell on the Common, improvements to downtown crosswalks, sidewalks and streetscape, and a possible parking garage. I'd like to tell you a little about the history of the North Common and show you where it is in relation to other things in the downtown and then talk to you about the design process and show you some plans. So I'm going to start with the slides. In this first slide here, if we can go back to the first slide, the North Common is this little green space that's surrounded by Grace Church Town Hall and then some commercial buildings along South Pleasant Street and Main Street. It also has the North Main Street parking lot to the north and to the south it has the Spring Street parking lot. Next slide please. The Town Common is as old as Amherst. It's actually part of a road right-of-way and it's not a piece of property. The Town Council has jurisdiction over the Town Common since it's part of the right-of-way, but many boards and committees are also involved with maintenance and planning of the Common. It's an original historic Common and not a park and it's used for civic events, communal uses, and gatherings. And the Town Common has been continually redesigned over the years to accommodate changing public needs. Next slide please. This is a map from 1740 and it's the original layout of the Town Common. There were two 40-rod wide highways that ran through Amherst from the mountains in South Amherst all the way up to the Mill River. So the one on the left is essentially South Pleasant Street, North Pleasant Street running through the town, and the green dot in the middle is approximately where the North Common is located. The 40-rod wide highway on the right is essentially Southeast Street and Northeast Street. And the dot in the middle is the East Common, which is less well known. It's really where the East Street School is and it kind of starts up near Bags Tavern and runs down to College Street. And then the green dot below is the South Amherst Common where the Munson Library is located. Next slide please. So this is a picture of a map from about 1860 and the rectangle in the middle is essentially the Town Common. You can see that it protrudes slightly south from the intersection of North Hampton Road and South Pleasant Street and that portion is overlapping into the Amherst College campus. The north part of the North Common is Border's Main Street, and then you can see there's kind of a racetrack shaped shape in the middle, and it's surrounded by trees. So if you go to the next slide, this shows the North Common from, or it shows the Common, it shows the whole Common, from a period of around somewhere between 1868 and 1888 because the Grace Church is visible in this picture, and that was built in 1868, and the Town Hall is not visible. That was finished in, I think, 1889. So that's the era of this picture here. So that you can see it's kind of a racetrack-shaped common, and it's surrounded by a fence, got trees all around it, but most of it is open in the middle, and there are kind of serpentine paths going through it. And if you look on the west side, some people say they can see some things that might be grazing there like sheep or something like that. So next slide please. This is a plan from 1874 when Frederick Law Olmsted designed a plan for the Common. You can see it's kind of serpentine pathways also with hemispherical lines, and there's a bandstand proposed for the east side of the Common. The area within the red square is actually the area that we're focusing on tonight. That's the North Common, and you can see Town Hall and the little yellow rectangle. Next slide please. So I'm going to show you a series of colored photographs from early, I think these are from the early part of the 1900s. You can see the Hastings building across the Common there, and the Common at this point was cut through by pathways and streets, and it had, there were a lot of trees in it, and of course there's a flagpole, but that's not in the same place as our flagpole is today. Next slide please. Here is a picture of the Common showing beautiful elm trees, which have since gone by the board because of Dutch elm disease, but it gives you a sense that this is a much different picture from the picture that we saw when we looked at that racetrack shape that was all open in the middle. On the left you can see the Grace Church and the Grace Church parsonage. Okay, next slide please. And here we have the Common, the north end of the Common from, I'm guessing this is probably the 50s or 60s, we could probably tell definitively if we really examined the look of the cars, probably around 1960. There's McClellands, which I understand was kind of a dry good store. I don't think it was here when I was here, but anyway the Common is starting to be used as a parking lot. And on the left hand side of this picture you can see the old Women's Christian Temperance Union fountain, which is still there, but it's gone into disrepair. Okay, next slide. Okay, so the Common is a critically important space for Town Center. The North Common is central to downtown. It's an important open space and it's used for weekly and monthly special occasions. It's surrounded by local businesses and it's key to revitalizing downtown. It's critical for our economic development and crucial to rebuilding downtown post COVID. Next slide please. Some issues that need to be resolved are the current conditions of the Common, which are, it is a historic site and we want to preserve the historic nature of the site while making it suitable for activities of the 21st century. It contains the WCTU fountain. There are areas of poor drainage and there's really not much turf, excuse me. The Common lacks accessibility and it has limited pedestrian paths, seating, lighting, and gathering spaces. Next slide please. So this is an example of some of the issues that we're talking about. Even the path that's there that crosses through the Common is in very poor condition. It's very narrow and it's bumpy and the pavement is cracked and the sidewalk along the west side. We can say the same thing about that. Next slide please. This is a good example of what happens when it rains since there's not much turf there. We do the town, DPW tries very hard to keep the soil intact, but they do put mulch down from time to time, but it's very difficult to keep the soil from eroding and keep the drainage from really being a problem. Next slide. And this is a picture of some of the site amenities. I understand that this tree box was installed sometime in the 1960s, so I don't really feel like it's been repaired or that much as much has happened to it since then, and there really aren't very many site amenities other than this and perhaps one or two benches. So I think we can stop there. Between 2016 and 18 we developed a concept plan with the help of the DPW and we applied twice for CPAC funding in 2016 and 18. Excuse me. Both times we received approval for funds from historical preservation and recreation portions of the CPAC funds. The total amount of the funds was about $550,000. So during 2018 we worked with Weston and Samson, a landscape architectural firm from Boston, to develop a plan for the North Common. I'm sorry. I don't think I have COVID-19, I'm just talking too much all day. During our work on the concept plan we were made aware of the DPW's plans to redo the parking lot to the north of the North Common. So we incorporated the two projects into one and we went to town meeting in the spring of 2018 and received approval for the town to borrow up to $450,000, $400,000 of which was earmarked for the Main Street parking lot to help with the project. So now we had $950,000 and as we moved through the design process, members of the public as well as the working group became convinced that the area in front of Town Hall should be used for more than just parking and we began to incorporate an idea to create a plaza in front of Town Hall that could be used for parking and public events such as concerts, gatherings, readings, speeches, and performances. So in the spring of 2018, Weston and Samson completed their work and made a presentation of the preferred plan which is shown on I think the next slide. Next slide please. Not quite. Keep going and we'll get to that. I think I've taught you. There it is. All right. So this is the plan that Weston and Samson, the landscape architects, prepared. And as you can see there's a very gracious entry way on the Northwest corner that leads you down a path through the North Common, through a space in the middle that could be used for gathering or picnicking or just meeting a friend or having a cup of coffee and then the path ends up down near Grace Church. There's another path that comes down from Town Hall and goes off in the direction of Hastings from the northeast to the southwest. The parking lot has been slightly diminished. I think we lost about 11 parking spaces altogether in this plan. But the parking lot is created into a type of plaza that could be used for various uses other than just parking when parking isn't when there aren't any cars there. So we think this is a really gracious plan and the area in front of Town Hall has been improved in this plan. It's more than just a set of stairs coming down to a concrete sidewalk. There's actually kind of a plaza down at the bottom of the stairs, a landing spot. And we think this would be a really gracious friend entry to the Town Hall. Next slide, please. So we worked with the Department of Public Works to see if we could save a few more trees. And this is the plan that we came up with and I wanted to talk to you about that a little bit. So this project would be the crown jewel in our plans for rehabilitating and improving downtown and rebuilding Main Street, the Main Street parking lot and repaving and designing a Bultwood Avenue and the sidewalk along Bultwood Avenue and the creation of a plaza in front of Town Hall. It all ties together as a beautiful package, but we need more money to build it. The estimation for the western and Sampson plan is about $1.9 million. And as I said before, we only have about $800, I think we have about $900,000. So I wanted to talk to you a little about money. And if you would go to the next slide, please, Athena. The project is currently funded with money from CPAC, Community Preservation Act funds for $550,000. And by a town meeting appropriation, which will be reimbursed by the Transportation Fund for a total of about $400,000. So that means we had about $950,000. Western and Sampson did a very good job for us, so we had to pay them some money. We paid them $64,000. Next slide, please. So in this slide, you can see that the total amount available on the blue line is about $886,000. In order to reach the amount that the western and Sampson plan and cost estimate have indicated, $1.9 million roughly, we need about $500,000 from CPAC funds, which is the bold line towards the bottom of this sheet. And then we're also contemplating applying for a park grant from the state next summer. And there may also need to be some private fundraising. However, if you could go back, I think three slides, that one's very, or not that one, but the next one, that one, that's the one that we are working on with the Department of Public Works to try to see if we can reduce the cost by a few hundred thousand dollars. This plan also saves more trees than the western and Sampson plan does, but we think that it does many of the other really good things that the western and Sampson plan does. And as you see, the parking lot here is really, it looks more like a parking lot, but it could in fact be paved with concrete pavers like the western and Sampson plan is proposing. So we'd like to ask the Town Council to support this project. We think it's a really important project for coming out of the COVID pandemic. The Historical Commission and the LSDC Commission are supportive of the project. And we look forward to working with you to make this happen. So thank you. Okay. Could you please take the slides down? Great. So let's start with questions. Pat, please start. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. The western and Sampson plan made Boatwood one way, which I know the church there was very concerned with. And it looks like the DPW plan, it remains to way, is that correct? I think the DPW plan shows Boatwood Avenue one way going south. Okay. And the church was very concerned about that because it affected their ability to gather cars, et cetera, for funerals and weddings. So, and I don't think that that was, doesn't look like that was addressed. So that's one concern I have. The other concern I have, I really would like to see a lot of this plan implemented. I remember falling in love with the first time we saw it in council. However, I'm very concerned about finances and I'm trying to understand what, how would the plan be diminished or what would we lose if we kept the budget at 900,000 that we have instead of expanding it to 1.9 million? Good. Lynn, could I chime in here? Please. Thank you. Thanks very much, Pat. And I know Guilford is on this call as well. So I think between the three of us will do the best we can. And I really appreciate the council setting aside some time tonight. I do want to recognize that we're approaching this from a staff standpoint as kind of a first look for you. And Lynn asked us to do a brief presentation and then have some time for questions. We understand that this may be referred to one of your committees. So there certainly will be more time. So if we can't answer all of your questions tonight, we'll take them under advisement and then come back to you. I must say listening to Chris's presentation, which was wonderful and kind of takes you through this chronology, I am struck a little bit by how condensed we need to be about this, that this has really been about a 10-year project to work on the North Common. And I can remember so many meetings. I mean, we had probably four or five public meetings on this where I'm going to say there were more than 150 to 165 people that participated in those in those meetings. And many of the most creative ideas honestly came from the community members that Weston and Samson incorporated into that original plan. And we're fortunate that DPW was able to look at that with us from a practical standpoint and say, well, honestly, we may not be able to afford a $1.9 million project. So to your question, Pat, we've been looking at it as how can we pair back the plan from the $1.9 million Weston and Samson plan? And we believe that through cost saving and other design changes that Guilford's team has put together, we can probably realistically get this down in the 1.5, 1.6 range. But to be perfectly honest, we don't think we can do the project for $900,000. When you take a look at the grading, the drainage, lighting, the parking lot, ADA, all of those things. And let's be honest, even the Weston and Samson plan, it's not a very complex plan. It is not a Ferrari. It is a pretty basic plan. But all of those elements of infrastructure really are going to be very costly. There's about a 12 to 14 foot grade change from the northwest corner of this property to the southeast corner of the property. And we need to account for all of the drainage, the walkways, ADA, even the parking lot. I'm sure many of you, all of us have parked in that parking lot and experienced when you get out of your car, your door goes and hits the car next to you. That's because of the grade difference there. So all of that needs to be corrected. And from an ADA standpoint, we need to provide better accessibility for everybody using that lot. So we are challenged to keep this project under a million dollars. We really think to do it right. It needs to be closer to 1.5 million dollars. Okay. I also want to just reiterate something that David has pointed out. And that is our motion tonight is a referral motion. So this is just the beginning of a conversation. Steve Schreiber. Yeah. So thank you very much for the history of the common book. I'm sorry. Guilford, you had your hand up. Yeah. Thank you. We had a short meeting today, the three of us, to talk about the project. And after we were done, I actually was talking to two of my staff members. And they reminded me that the easiest way to do this project, if you want the price lower, is to cut all the trees down and have a bare slate and start all over again. So by taking a lot of the costs we have and while we can't get much lower is working around the existing trees and trying to save the existing trees. And we worked really hard to take Western Sampson's plan which cut down about half the trees on the common. And we're only cutting down three. There's only three trees we're losing. One small tree, a larger tree and a medium size tree. So we took it to heart that we as a community want to keep the trees. And we put a lot of effort into keeping those trees. And to get much lower, you really have to start thinking about sacrificing some of the trees that are on the common to be able to do the grade changes that Dave talked about earlier. So we have taken into account. And the next step, if you want to go there, is talk about taking out some trees. Thank you for that. Steve, Schreiber. Yeah. So thank you so much for that. So the history of the common is fascinating. I love the aerial photos and the historic photos. So one of the aerial photos shows sort of the tragedy of this part of the common where we've lost a big chunk of it for the Spring Street cut through with parking on both sides. And then we've lost another big chunk of it for the parking lot. And I understand more the history of how that parking lot came to be. So from some of the photos I was looking at, it looked like it might have been a turnaround for a trolley or that arc might have been something like that. But I'm very concerned that we're going to end up, especially if we value engineer this, with a parking lot very similar to the one we have now, but newly paved. So the Western Samson one, maybe it was through the sleight of hand of a rendering, made it look more like a plaza. But I'm very concerned and the DPW one, which wasn't rendered in the same one, started to look like a parking lot again. So we went from plaza to parking lot and it also looked bigger. And it wasn't really possible for me to compare the two of them, but it seemed to be encroaching more to pretty much what we have there. So I personally feel it would be a tragedy to end up with kind of a parking lot there again, because I thought we were moving in a direction of no longer having parking there. So I'm a big fan of on-street parking, and I think that if that's what it, if it takes making boltwood into one way in order to get parking on both sides, which I think was the intent, it wasn't clear from the DPW plan if that was the intent. But that's a great way to get more parking in the vicinity of Town Hall without encroaching on our front lawn. The other thing is, so my other thing is I'm always been bothered by where that PVTA bus stop is, because that's the only PVTA bus stop that isn't paired with another one on the other direction. So that PVTA bus stop's twin is much further down. It's by the statue of, it's by the Emily Dickinson house. So I have been curious and have made the suggestion about why don't we move the PVTA bus stop down there so it's paired with the other one and then use that space along the edge of the common for parking, which is for parallel parking, which it seemed to be used in one of those historic photos that you showed us. So that's my, that's what I have to say about this, and I look, and I completely understand how difficult it is to design a project with 40,000 people wanting to weigh in. Dorothy, it's your turn. Well, Steve, those are good ideas. I like them. My question is one that I've brought up before, that I want, as I'm sure many of you do, as much green space as possible on this common, but that I also would want another historic part of the town, perhaps here, or maybe at Switzer Park, but it never gets mentioned officially, which is the Civil War tablets in an appropriate small structure. And I'm just wondering if that was considered in the DPW rendering? You're going to answer this, Guilford? I can say that if you'd like. So thank you very much, Dorothy, for that question. And Chris and I in particular have been involved in the efforts to find a permanent home for the Civil War tablets for quite some time. And in recent months, that effort has really stepped up quite dramatically. So we are in the process of considering where we should store the tablets temporarily to be further assessment of them. Some years ago, when we really had a concerted effort around the Civil War tablets, I made a few presentations actually to the Jones Library trustees. And in fact, in 2015, I believe it was, the Jones Library trustees took a vote that supported them hosting a place in their renovated building for the Civil War tablets. So we looked high and low inside, outside for the most logical place for those tablets to live. It has not been decided that they should be there, but it is certainly a strong contender to look toward that building. Outside locations, as we did the research and we called the folks in the field who do this, outside locations are very, very challenging for tablets that are made of the soft stone that those are made of. When you're talking about heat, light, UV, vandalism, climate control, very hard to do outside displays of those. In many cases, what happens is you actually make towns, cities, we'll make duplicates of them and put the duplicates outside and find an indoor, safe location that you can control all those elements of moisture, heat, freezing, cold, etc. By having a duplicate outside available all year round and then some safe location inside, like a school or a library. So we're certainly willing to engage with the Jones Library if they're still willing to consider having the tablets there. Thank you very much. Evan, use your hand up. Yeah, thank you. So the first thing I wanted to say, which I meant to actually bring up last week during the town manager report, is that when I found myself with a lot of other people in town on November 7th, which was the day the election was called, it was when I first noticed all of the new tables that were in the North Common, Sweetser Park and Kendrick Park. Every one of which had people at them who were all enjoying takeout from the local restaurants. And, you know, I've been in Amherst for nine years. And I think since the first day I moved here, I've complained to whoever would listen, which was not many people, but whoever would listen about the fact that I couldn't get a Bueno Isano burrito and eat it at a table on the Common, and I did that. And it felt so good to be able to do that. And I think what that really struck is, you know, excuse me, we received a letter from the Chamber of Commerce today talking about how this the reactivation of the North Common could be an economic driver. And I think on November 7th, watching all of those tables filled with people eating takeout from the local restaurants really highlighted how important this project could be if we can reactivate this space. So I'm excited for this project and I'm supportive of it. That said, I share Steve's concern about essentially recreating the parking lot. You know, I think I really enjoyed Chris's presentation because I enjoy all those old photos. And I think it was really symbolic that the photo from the sixties was the one that first showed the parking lot there, right? Because that was sort of when our nation began to really engage in suburban sprawl and become automobile centric. And I think, you know, we're going on almost one year since we passed our climate action goals. And as we're looking at those and we're looking at moving towards higher density, walkable neighborhoods and multimodal transit, the symbolism of taking a parking lot off of our historic green common would actually be a really powerful statement. And so I'm as much as I appreciate the project, I am still hesitant about having to recreate that parking lot. And I would love to see us remove that parking lot completely, not just reduce the amount of spaces, but remove it and try to make up that parking elsewhere. Like Steve said, with perhaps street parking, perhaps restriping for angled parking along Boltwood, if it's possible. So my question, this isn't just an Amhersting where I'm doing a comment instead of a question. My question is actually how much of the total cost of that project is actually repaving and reconstructing that parking lot. And if we are concerned about the total cost, could there be savings in removing the parking there and having to and being able to forego that those parking costs, I mean, those payment costs? Yes, Christine. Well, some of this money that we have comes from the Transportation Fund. And the reason the town meeting approved it was with the understanding that we would renovate and rehabilitate that parking lot. So I would be a little concerned about not having any parking there and then what happens to that $400,000 that was earmarked by town meeting to improve that parking lot. And Guilford may have more to say about that. Guilford or Dave? Well, the only thing I would say is we don't have a lot of cool little tools and toys that the consultants have. So when we draw a parking lot, it's really time intensive to draw out the pavers and everything and lay that out to make it look like it's pavers. So even though you may see it and look at it like it's a regular parking lot, right now the amount of money there is it can be pavers or it can be whatever you want. Or if you want to take it out, you can take it out. But that's just what's drawn on there just shows you the area that Western and Samson's kind of set out as a plaza in front of Town Hall. And yes, it can be pavers if you want to have them pavers. We can do some angled parking farther down on Boltwood. It would be on the section between Spring Street and College Street. But then that would kind of easiest way to do that without encroaching into the South Common would be to make the road one way all the way from Main Street to College. So those are things to think about as you contemplate this. Lynn, could I pick up on one thing? I appreciate Steve's comments and Evan's comments. And for those of you who might have participated in the public process, the long and quite engaging public process that we had and meetings of over 50 people in the Town Room, very spirited meetings, I would say that the overarching sentiment in those meetings was that we should eliminate the parking on the common. There certainly were voices that were saying save some of the parking, save all of the parking. And we heard from the business community, we heard from certain leaders in our business community. But the plan you saw from Western Samson was definitely a compromise plan that a lot of people were very disappointed with. Just so everyone gets the numbers and Guilford or Chris can help me out if I get these wrong. But my understanding is that the Western and Samson plan would be a net reduction in spaces of 12. So Guilford, is it 30? Hold on, I have that right here. There's 32 existing spaces with two handicap spaces. And we would go to 20 spaces with two handicap spaces. Thank you. So to Steve's point and Evan's point, it was definitely a compromise. We heard from lots of people that they would love to do something bold and a real statement. And we asked Western and Samson to go in that direction. And then we also heard from those people who were concerned about the loss of that convenient parking for downtown restaurants and retail and Town Hall and other businesses. So it was definitely a compromise plan. And we lost 12 spaces. And that's where it stopped before our change in government. And we presented that plan to the select board. And they said we'd like the council to hear about this and make decisions. Mandy Joe Hanneke, you have your hand up. Yeah, thank you. I'm gonna echo Evan and Steve with the parking issue. The original presentations back in 2018, 2017, I was one of the ones that said, I don't want parking on the common, that we can get rid of it. We can find a way. We've heard on the council even that some of our parallel parking spots, street parking spots are much longer than they need to be. And that's how you can recover some of that parking. And if you make boltwood one way, you can recover some of the parking that way too. But I'm wondering if we make a plaza there, whether it has parking on it or not, can it be made large enough along with that part of boltwood between spring and main that the farmer's market would no longer have to take up the Spring Street lot so that we would gain that parking on Saturdays that is currently lost to two. I mean, not currently during COVID, but in normal years, that whole lot is used on Saturdays for farmer's market. If we're gonna have a plaza, I'd want it to be used for the farmer's market and for other types of events like that and the other gatherings that we're talking about so that we're not using parking for a weekly farmer's market. I love the tables. I echo Evan. Since I've gotten here, I've been frustrated that there's no outdoor tables to sit at to take out at Antonio's or Bueno. And so COVID has alleviated that problem. And I want to see it stay that we keep more tables and all I'm curious, you know, looking between the Western and Samson and the DPW plan, I had two, two questions about some of other than I think the more tables, the better. One is, it looks like the DPW plan actually puts a sidewalk on the, I guess it's the west side of Boltwood between Spring and Maine. And the Western and Samson plan does not. I am in favor of a sidewalk on the west side, not having to make people cross to the east side to walk up Boltwood. I'm not sure why Western and Samson didn't just put a sidewalk there. So I if the DPW plan added one, yay. But at the same time, the DPW plan from the southeast corner of this concept, the DPW plan got rid of the southeast corner entrance to cross the common and put it in the middle of Spring Street instead of the southeast corner. And I'm curious why that was done was that tree savings because I don't see people were walking halfway up Spring Street to get to that sidewalk. I think they just cut through the grass. And then the next question I had was about the trees that Giltford mentioned that the DPW plan tries to save a whole lot of trees and that that is part of why while it might reduce some cost, you can only reduce so much while keeping the trees. Do we know from our tree warden what the life anticipated lifespan of most of these trees are? I ask because if we're spending a couple hundred thousand dollars to keep trees on a plan that we hope the last 50, 60 years and the lifespan of these trees is only a decade, I think we need, I know I'm going to be sacrilegious here potentially, but I think we need to consider whether that's worth it. And so if we could get lifespan analyses of what these trees might last at this time given diseases and everything that's going on in their condition to determine whether it is actually worth saving the ones that are the difference between the plans, I think that would be good too. I'm going to encourage that to the extent that some of these are quick responses that we do them and that others just need to rest there as we look forward to more conversations about all of this in a committee of the council. But David or Christine or Guilford? I think Guilford could answer the tree questions. You're absolutely right, Mandy, about the sidewalk. I think staff really favor that sidewalk on the east side of the of the North Common. I think Guilford was shaking his head as the DPW plan did not have a pathway going from the northwest corner to the southeast corner for the very fact that we would have to dig up so many roots and Alan Snow has been a part of all of these plans. And when you dig up roots and you disturb that tree so much the likelihood that it will die increases dramatically. So that's why the the the pathway was about halfway up the Spring Street lot. But Guilford, you know more you've talked to Alan extensively. Yes, the tree warden Alan Snow has been very involved in this. The three trees we were taking out are the least healthy of the trees now. There's a lot of factors affecting trees in our community. Most of it's most of it's climate related. As the climate changes, some of these trees aren't aren't taking the stress very well. Like a lot of people aren't taking the stress very well. But we we the three trees that are going are probably the three that actually have the worst chance of surviving all the construction we're going to do. And most of the trees we're leaving have a better chance of surviving the construction as long as we take care of them during the construction, which means we don't run a sidewalk from the southeast corner across one of the healthier tree root zones and we moved it up to avoid that. So Alan Snow has been very involved and we've been working really hard to kind of keep the canopy. Not take down it has made not take down that many trees. Kathy. Okay, you requested we try to stay short, Lynn, and I have a list that I can send to the committee that's going to be talking about it. But going going back to the total costs of it, there are two things. If CPA can find its way to do another $500,000. So that's an if because there's more requests than they have money, and this would be taking on debt. You have going back to a second try getting a park grant, you got turned down for a park grant, and then trying to raise another couple hundred thousand. And I did hear you say that maybe you could bring this price tag down to 1.6 or 1.5, which makes some of this easier. So my questions are about the likelihood of getting it on and the reasons why we were turned down last time, aren't they still true? And also a concern that I think some of this work really needs to be done. And we could start in spring and well, and then finish in the in the summer. And you can't even apply for the park grant until next July. So it does that delay the whole project. And what happens if we don't get the park grant, which is part of the stall on this happened when you didn't get the park grant the first time around, because that was also part of the original. Where was the money going to come from? So I worry that that piece of the financing could fall apart and a couple hundred thousand dollars in donations from the affluence of Amherst when if we do the library, they're also asking for it. I think it's to peg it around there. So I don't know whether some of this and then so those are my two big questions about the other big holes. And then I will save my comments about parking for later because we heard a huge outcry about the loss of parking. So I need to be convinced that we can rejigger in something that the parking is important for the downtown businesses for people to let people come down. So that then just the other I'd like you were to address when you get to TSO maintenance costs. I mean, Chris showed us some pictures of things that tree base the walls that she says hasn't been touched since 1960, a wood sitting area. If we don't touch this again, it's going to look horrible in 10 years. If we have eroding pathways and if we can fix the grade, you still need to worry about maintaining the paths. The water fountain that doesn't work anymore. If we get it working, will it stop working again because we maintain it? So do we have an estimate since I was there at one of the public meetings where someone said, what's the maintenance costs of Western and Samson? They said, well, I can guarantee you it's more than you spend now because I don't think you spend anything. So going from zero to something, but do we have a piece of money? If we put concrete slabs on or whatever the pavers to make that parking area more like a grandstand area, do they wear and tear even faster and then replacing them like those brick sidewalks or brick crosswalks that started to fall apart right away? I'd like to have an estimate of the project with what will it cost to maintain it over several years. So this was a theme that's come up on other things. So are there things we're doing that increase the maintenance costs or the things we're doing that could decrease the maintenance costs? So those are my three biggies. Not having the $600,000 is it 400 plus 200? What does that do? Does that torpedo the whole project and then the maintenance costs? And I don't need, I don't think those all have to be answered now. So just that can be taken up with the committee too because these aren't. Let me, if I could, I think we hold on the maintenance costs because I don't think we have that answer, but those are excellent questions. I just wanted to comment a little bit about the overall budget. So I will call to your attention and again, we won't go into detail tonight, perhaps when this is referred. We certainly will go into more detail, but the Western and Samson plan also had significant amount of work along Boltwood and in front of Town Hall and one way to make a much more significant plaza and welcoming area wider out in front of Town Hall. So right now we're looking at a budget of about 1.5 without the park grant and without private fundraising. So we are not counting on either of those two sources, Kathy. If either one of those were to come through, then we could start adding back some of the niceties of the of the Western and Samson plan. Again, we don't think they were over the top or frivolous or anything like that, but we, when we pare it down to 1.5, 1.55, we're getting all the work for the most part on the common and the parking lot. I do think Evan, going back to Evan and Mandy's and Steve's comments about the parking lot, honestly, it's been a long time since we looked at what would be the cost if we got rid of that parking lot or simply made it a instead of making it something that cars could be on, could simply be a plaza where vendors where an art show or a craft show or a farmer's market could take place. It has been probably a couple of years since we even looked at that. So we could certainly relook at that and see if there's a cost savings, i.e., what's the difference between making a full-blown parking lot for 20-some-odd parking for cars and handicapped spaces versus simply a plaza? So we could look at that. But going back, Kathy, to your question, we are going to have a conversation with the park grant administrator on Monday, a week from today, and get a sense from her what the state is looking for in the next round of park grants. And yeah, I think we're all realists. We cannot count on that money. That money, if we were successful, would be above and beyond. My last point, and I think Gilbert would echo this, is in all honesty, we want to do this all at once. It will be a significant disruption to our downtown. So from Main Street to Spring Street, a lot of things happen there with buses, with drop-offs and deliveries for businesses, with the town hall, front steps, with access to the farmer's market. So we don't want to phase this over three years. It would be a nightmare for downtown businesses. The ideal scenario would be to start it in May and have it done by the time the students come back in early September. In the retreat, we had talked about starting off with limits. I'm not saying we should do it with this project because it's too late. That's something that should be done in the beginning of a project. But I just wanted to ask, is that a possibility that we can start off with saying that this is one million or 900,000 is what we want to and can we get people to design within that? So is that something we can look at in the future? That's one question. The second thing I was thinking, I was reflecting on with parking, is we don't want to think of this project in isolation, which I don't think we are. But just if we're looking at the bigger long-term vision for downtown and hoping that there will be a garage down the road, then making use of this space more for a plaza and a gathering space would be a better use. And even though it feels like in the short run, businesses are going to lose some parking, but can we find parking somewhere else? But also, just based on other downtowns that are thriving, making gathering spaces, making the downtown walkable, bikeable is what brings more people and not more parking spaces. Even that seems counterintuitive. But yeah. And the third thing is I was looking at comparables. It does sound like a really huge figure for a small space. And I came across the Northampton's Pulaski Park. And I don't know if people are familiar with the renovation there. And it's a very similar area. It's a one-acre plot that was recently renovated. And they paid in two phases. The first phase, they paid $1,450,000 and that they got from CPAC along with $400,000 from Park Grant. And then the phase two, they spent, they just passed another $965,000 for that project. So it looks like these kind of projects do cost that much. Okay. Alyssa. So I wanted to wait because this is a hard situation in terms of us saying this is a first look and it's going to get referred to a council meeting. And then we're hearing staff saying, yeah, we'll talk about that at the council committee level. But in fact, this is one of the things I've reflected on at our town council meetings before. We can't expect all of the town councilors to show up at all those council committee meetings. So it really was important that we get a lot of these questions out today. I appreciate that some people have saved some of them and will pass them along to the committee that this gets referred to. But we really did need to talk about this in this level of detail because otherwise how on earth would TSO know what were the questions that you needed to have answered in order for us to make on TSO to make a reasonable recommendation? I will mention that I was really hoping Pulaski Park would not be invoked as a comparison here because it was invoked over and over again in the public meetings. And Pulaski Park is way nicer than this is going to be. And that's just a fact. It's going to have way more, it has way more amenities and is way different than what we're able to do here. We're not making Pulaski Park. And we won't have the amenities that Pulaski Park has. I appreciated that Kathy pointed out the deteriorating site amenities because this is a perfect example of our lack of maintenance. It is so frustrating to me that we say, oh, this is the jewel of Amherst. Oh, this is so amazing. And we have literally ignored it for decades in terms of maintenance. I've been on those walks. I've talked to the staff. And so I will hope that now that we said that two years ago and that we said it again tonight that when it does get to the committee level that we will actually see a maintenance budget associated with the amenities that this does have, right? Which, you know, is some because we have to make sure like electrical cords aren't sticking up out of the ground when it rains like they were here a couple of years ago. So I think that's really important. I think it was a really frustrating to me choice tonight to not give us the numbers ahead of time on this current iterations parking spaces. There was literally no reason not to do that except to get us to all fall in love again with the historic pictures. I do agree. We absolutely need to do something here. But we also just need to make clear about again managing expectations for our community, what it is that they'll be giving up because it'll be such a wonderful thing to do this. But I also want to push back a little bit on the people who are still saying, well, let's just scrap the parking there altogether. Let's remember that we already have parking on both sides for most of Bultwood for the entire length of the south part of the common. So we can't add a lot, but certainly it would be great to see what we could add. This project has come a very long way in terms of adjustments and I appreciate all the work DPW and planning staff and everybody has tried to, you know, take the best of what we can do and think what we can do with it because I'm really frustrated that we spent $64,000 with Weston and Samson and they at one point had the traffic running behind Town Hall through that parking lot behind Town Hall. So we have really come a long way in doing this. But also remember that when people said, well, I wish there really wasn't any parking there in front. A number of people at those meetings also said, I really wish there wasn't that parking at all, at all on any of the common where the Spring Street lot is now where we specifically paved it so that the farmers market could pull their trucks up onto it. And yes, I know there are farmers markets where they don't have their vehicles parked right there, but we specifically did that because our farmers said they wanted that. So as long as all those issues can be addressed, then, you know, I think we can move forward. But I want to remember that there were reasons that we had those conversations over the past several years and that those reasons still exist. And so unless the farmers market has decided they don't need to pull their vehicles up anymore, then that they're going to continue to need to use the way we redesigned the Spring Street lot for them several years ago. Thank you. Prior to calling on Dorothy, I'd like to get out of my role as president and make my own observations and questions. One, however, is his president. And that is that TSL always has the right to approach me or their members or the president at the time and say we'd like to have a more public conversation and we can figure that out. So I don't think all of this needs to take place in the confines of a five-member committee. And I just want to make sure that people think broadly about how that conversation can take place. Second of all, this is an eyesore. I drive through towns of New England and I love their town commons. Just the other day, my husband and I drove out Route 9 to the snow farm and through beautiful town commons. And I look at this town common and I go, oh my God, it is ugly. I won't walk on it. It's rough to walk on. The mud is all over the place and we need to do something about it. So I hope whatever we end up deciding, whatever we see with parking, whatever we do with picnic tables and so forth, we end up with something that in fact is a center of our town and that it is part of a broad plan that helps our town feel proud and reinvigorate our downtown in a way we are going to need to invest as we come out of COVID. And so I loved Evan's analogy or discussing what downtown looked like on the announcement of the presidential election and just other things that I think we've all learned out of this. So that's just, I'm all for figuring this one out. I don't want to break the bank but let's get it done. Dorothy? Building on the beauty of New England commons and greens, I think that's what we need and what we want in the park, the commons. So I think that we have to remember it's not one park or green or common to meet all the needs. We have Kendrick Park being developed as a more active park, although it will have beautiful areas of green. And we have Groff Park with some wonderful new interactive things. I do not like Pulaski Park. I made a big point a few months ago of walking through it very carefully and deliberately and thinking, is this what we want in our downtown? And I came away saying, too much paving, not enough trees. It's a very interesting student playground, children's playground, which I could see in our Kendrick Park. It was very urban and it didn't keep that sense of the calm center where people can gather. And I grew up in Windsor, Connecticut and when I drove by there recently, I said, my God, they haven't changed the common. And it was still there like three different sections like ours is in several sections. It was still there and it looked pretty much the same. And it was just a wonderful feeling. Other buildings have changed here and there. But I think we want that sense of green and grass and paths that people can walk on something that's more accessible that just represents a calm green spirit in the center of our town. And I hope that we can do that. Steven? Yeah, so if we were starting from scratch, which is one way to look at this, and even if we had 21 spaces or whatever the number is, as part of the portfolio of things that had to be accommodated, there's no chance that we would say that the most logical place to put those 21 spaces, whatever the number is on the common, it just, we would be run out of town. So because there is a parking lot there now, doesn't mean that we should continue doing the parking lots there forever. But the impact of doing even a tiny parking space is extraordinary because like if we were to do just two spaces on the common, you still need a drive aisle, you need a place for those people that park in those spaces to back up. So it's a really inefficient way of, particularly an inefficient way of handling small parking lots is to you know, really basically to do what's being proposed. It's much more efficient to use existing infrastructure. Basically, that's why on-street parking is always the best option for parking because you already have a road there and you're not creating new asphalt somewhere else. Okay, I'm going to make the motion and I'm going to look for a second. And that is to refer the Planning Director Memo of 111320 regarding the North Common and Main Street Parking Lot project. A first look to the town services and outreach committee for review and recommendation to the town council within 90 days. We're off second. Is there any comment? Can we just call it the North Common project and not the North Parking Lot project? That was a title of the memo. If the group comes back. I'll move. Well, I'd like to propose a many no. Well, I'd like to propose a many in the motions just to call the North Common because if you call the North Common and North Parking Lot, it sounds it in a different direction. Is there a second to that motion Dorothy? Seconded. Okay, so here's a problem is that's not the way the memo is titled. No. And money is coming from the Transportation Department Fund. So to pretend that it doesn't involve parking or parking lots is kind of silly. I think if the committee comes back and says we don't want that, then it's a different, but the way the memo is written that is in your packet, I believe at least, is a memo regarding the North Common and Main Street Parking Lot project. Hard to retitle a memo. That's my comment is the way the memo is titled does not dictate the outcome. I'll withdraw my motion or I don't even try to make it as a motion. Dorothy, are you willing to withdraw? Okay. Thank you. So the motion has been made and seconded. This is the original motion. Is there any further comment? Kathy. Yeah, I just have a quick comment to build on Alyssa's point. I completely support the motion and I would like the committee chair to reach out to us to have us submit any questions that we might have so we can get a fuller list and then potentially call a meeting of the whole if there's enough interest in it. Because I think there are tail questions and there's more things the town staff can tell us. So many of us thought long and hard about this. So you can just get the benefit of our questions. Any other comments at this time? All right. And I'm going to start with Darcy, no, Patty Angelis. Yes. Darcy DeMonte. Yes. Reese Merz, yes. Mandy Joe Hanneke. Yes. Berthie Pam. Yes. Evan Ross. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Candy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Yes. Do you all need a balloon? Yes. Melissa Bloor. Yes. It passes unanimously 13-0-0-0. We are going to move on to my agenda. Tax classification. This was taken off the consent agenda and so we the motions that we will deal with include the suspension of 8.4 and then the other motions. However, Darcy, you particularly asked that this be taken off the consent agenda. Could you briefly speak to your rationale? Yeah, I just think it's an important issue that's probably really important to a certain sector of town residents that probably don't know that we're talking about it tonight. And if more than half of the owners of the residential taxpayers would be benefited by changing the formula, I think that they would want to weigh in if they knew about it. So that's why it doesn't make sense to me to vote on it tonight. So there should be two, so that you know there'll probably be some kind of news item about this and then if anybody wants to weigh in on about it, they can come and give public comment at the next next meeting. Melissa. Yeah, I got a wholeheartedly disagree. This is exactly the same recommendation we've been getting for decades. The entire town knows that we do this every November slash December to do this and this is not news. It was not news when it was discussed last year and just because a newspaper writes an article about it doesn't mean more people are going to be paying attention to it. We had the information out more than 48 hours ahead. We are not going to get additional valuable information and all we're going to do is push staff out further in terms of getting things continued on with the process. I completely disagree with delaying. This is not about the public didn't know. Of course, the public knew and they are not going to know anymore because the Gazette may or may not publish an article that may or may not have any additional information beyond what was already made available 48 hours ahead. Mandy Jo, I thought you had your hand up next and then you might have taken it down and put it back up. Mandy Jo. Yeah, no, I'm just going to make the motion and then I can speak to it if there's a second to suspend Council Rules of Procedure 8.4, Rule 8.4 for the current agenda item. There's a second. A second. Okay. That's a second. I made the argument Darcy that you're making this year last year and the reason I support suspending this year is because in between those two meetings last year we heard not one thing and so that I think supports Alyssa's contention and everything she just said that the people that are concerned already know about it and all, so. Pat and Shane, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just wanted we don't have an alternative and so I do think it's important if we think we want to see when Darcy, you made a statement that maybe half could benefit. We don't we don't even know that in terms of homeowners, not homeowners and the way this plays out. So I don't think we can make another decision right now other than to go with what we've had because we would need to know a lot more to make a change and we're not going to have that information in a week. We may not have it in a year given the amount of work it would take to get us alternative what what would happen. So it's a clear shift within a category. So I think we don't really have options here. So people can't even know whether they personally would benefit or not. It really depends and so I think there are strong arguments why we stay with this and then the other thing it wasn't stressed enough this time but last time and it was in the slide just because someone has a high valued house does not mean they have a high income. So this is a very clumsy way to try to target lower income people that might be hurting and that's we really don't have information about the distribution of income that goes with properties because some people have a property that's just gone up in value and they don't have a lot of money and there are other people that are vice versa so it's it's a blunt tool. So we don't really have an option of not moving forward and we're certainly not going to know anything more in two weeks from now. So that's why I would support the motion to waive the rule so we can vote on this tonight. Darcy give me a hand up. Yeah I would just say that there's a reason why we we have a rule that we look at something twice and this is the type of thing that that really makes sense to look at twice because it has to do with our our residents taxes and I guess I just feel like I learned quite a bit from the slide deck this time around it was it was updated and there were figures on there that were were new to me and I I guess I you know I live in a moderately priced neighborhood and I feel like everybody in my neighborhood would benefit from that change everyone and so I guess I just feel like we are not looking at it from the perspective of those people that all that are the ones on the lower end that would benefit so all all this is about whether or not we would hear it twice. Andy, hand up. Well uh to what Darcy just said I'm not entirely convinced that you can make that conclusion because you have to remember that there's a breakeven point above which people would actually pay more taxes not less taxes and it's a house that's approximately $500,000 in value so it's a pretty complicated question you'd really have to go and look at the value the the assessed value of each house by tract and I think that would be a fairly complex thing to do I think that the other thing and I have to ask staff Paul or Sean or Sean if she's still at the meeting to respond to this but there's a process that follows once we take this vote and that is that a form is filed with the Department of Revenue the Department of Revenue then certifies the tax rate and that enables us to then go ahead and bill for our taxes for the remainder of the fiscal year and it would be very helpful if one of the professionals who works with this can tell us what the delay what the consequence of the delay would be Paul do you want to speak to that? Sure so the concern we have on the staff level and speaking for Sonia and Sean on this is that we we need the vote of the council in order to get to submit the information to the Department of Revenue if we wait till December 7th which is your next meeting then a lot of communities are all piled into the Department of Revenue at the same time trying to get their tax rates certified and then that just delays us in our ability to get the tax bills out on time which have to be out people like to get them out before the end of December so they can deduct the taxes on this on their tax bills so the sooner we can get the information into the Department of Revenue the sooner we can get our tax rates certified by the Department of Revenue the sooner we can move the process forward of course from the staff point of view and I'd like to comment I heard two things tonight that convince me that we are not in any position to change the direction that we presently have on our tax rate one is we have not done a survey in 10 years and we need to have very current and very up-to-date data and the second is there is impact on the town from a staffing standpoint that has budgetary implications that need to be taken into consideration as well we are not going to have either of those pieces of information particularly a survey that replaces something that's now 10 years old that would allow us to actually look at this with an educated eye and so I don't support delaying so are there any other comments all right there's been a motion on the floor the motion is to suspend town council rules the procedure rule 8.4 for the current agenda item it's been made and seconded we start with Darcy Dumont no Reese Mirzi yes to Hanakie yes Sam yes Ross yes Ryan yes Jane yes driver yes Steinberg yes Schwartz yes Balmain yes Brewer yes yes the angeles yes the motion passes 12 100 the next motion is to adopt a minimum residential factor of one equal tax rate for all classes of properties for a fiscal year 2021 and that no open space discount be granted is there a second second Hanakie thank you any conversation or question all right we begin this time with grease burn it's a yes Hanakie yes Sam yes Ross yes Brian yes saying yes driver yes Steinberg yes Schwartz yes Balmain yes Brewer yes the angeles yes no okay it's 12 100 the next one is to not adopt a residential exempt exemption for fiscal year 2021 is there a second second the angeles thank you this time we start with is there any further discussion we start with Hanakie yes Sam yes Ross yes Ryan yes Spain yes driver yes Steinberg yes Fort yes Balmain yes Brewer yes the angeles yes Cremont no Reese Mirzi yes it passes 12 100 and we have one final one and that is to not adopt a small commercial exemption for fiscal year 2021 is there a second Steinberg second Steinberg seconds it any further discussion we start with Dorothy Pam yes Evan Ross yes Brian yes name yes driver yes Steinberg yes Schwartz yes Balmain yes Brewer yes the angeles yes Cremont yes Reese Mirzi yes Hanakie yes passes unanimously 12 100 okay we are moving on to item F prohibiting the use of wild exotic animals and traveling chosen circuses by this was reviewed and discussed in extensively last week since then Sarah Schwartz one of the non-council sponsors has provided us with an email addressing several of the questions and issues and response to one of the issues and I'm sorry I'm sorry Lynn I think we're doing public ways first I'm sorry we have a couple staff folks waiting to present and I'm so sorry about that use of public ways first discussion Brianna and who's our communication manager and Ben please proceed would you like your memo up there oh I have Lynn I have slides that I will pull up in just a moment good evening counselors and thank you in advance for your time and attention as Lynn mentioned my name is Brianna Sunrid communications manager for the town working out of both the town manager's office in the IT department I'll try to keep my presentation efficient and respectful of your time this project I'm working in conjunction with the department of public works and with guidance from the planning and inspections departments I am here on behalf of the town to propose to you our pilot project for three solar powered information and communication signs as well as three solar powered charging stations into request permission for use of the public way for the duration of the pilot project in downtown Amherst so if you'll bear with me one second I'm in charge of my own slide so I'm just going to pull up that screen okay so as I mentioned I'm here to give you a preview of our one-year proposed pilot program for the solar information communication signs and charging stations I will give a quick overview about what the sign component of the pilot project is these signs would serve as a trusted source of information for residents to receive information on upcoming events ways to get engaged public works in general or emergency town updates they allow us to offer instant and flexible messaging to push out important PSAs updates especially critical during times of emergency or COVID-19 related updates the company that we are working with on this pilot project is called SUFA and they are a Massachusetts-based company that is female-owned and led other cities mostly in the eastern part of the state such as Boston, Maldon, Somerville, Everett and more currently have these signs in place Brookline is the newest one to join that list with over 24 signs in their downtown area SUFA signs are also coming to other locations in our region I can't say what those are at this moment because I don't think it's official but they are in discussions with other communities nearby the signs themselves are a 30-minute four-bolt installation no wires no excavation and the sites that we've chosen have minimal site or prep work prep work that would be done by the Department of Public Works the signs themselves are managed and maintained entirely by SUFA who come out weekly to maintain the physical structure of the signs I'm going to move to a quick example for everyone can see this okay there's four side-by-side examples of of these signs in Massachusetts cities and towns you can see on the far right I believe it's Revere using the custom back side of the sign to share some critical public health information I'm going to show you next just a mock-up of signs in Amherst obviously not to scale and not in that location this mock-up was recently done for the design review board who reviewed this project last week and they had asked to see the signs in in line with current wayfinding designs that are coming to town in spring of 2021 on the left hand side is the e-ink screen again this is just a mock-up the e-ink screen is similar to if some of you have a Kindle that type of screen technology the the important thing about this is that we are able to push real-time information to the sign if there is an emergency or there is a a change in protocol due to due to COVID we could have that post to the sign instantaneously as well as being able to display other applets in terms of weather we could have the PVTA bus schedule display on these signs as well as link up our social media and be able to pull community members and visitors at the signs themselves I'll talk a little bit more about this in the next slide or two but I want to call your attention to the bottom left square which is reserved for advertising by local business and right now that would be a free tool to our local businesses during COVID-19 on the right hand side of the sign this is again just a sample mock-up these have not been finalized at all but you see a map in line with designs from our public writer's walk and we can have a custom custom design placed on the back of these signs it's a vinyl printing that they do at the facility and they're laid overlaid on top of the signs so that can be something that we change every couple of months or seasonally and is very flexible here is just a view of the structural plans which the design review board was very interested in seeing it's also included in your packet so hopefully if you have questions on that we can look at that in more detail later so I think something that I think is an important question hopefully we have some good answers or why are these signs right for Amherst right now so is a new sustainable technology that provides flexible instantaneous and widespread updates to our community members on what whether that's on public health guidelines general town information transportation updates and more we ensure information absorption absorption by visitors those do not have access to devices or internet or those not connected to our other official town communication channels as I mentioned in a previous slide the signs will also assist our local business community and economy deal with the impacts of COVID-19 by offering free advertising for local business in a dedicated small portion of the e-ink screen that I had pointed out earlier this is a one-year pilot program to see if this is the right fit for our community so I want to emphasize that this is a very flexible project we would we would sign on for this for these signs for a year and we would be able to change that agreement at any point within the year because it is a licensed agreement the the project is CARES Act funded so it will not impact will not impact the town's budget if if the project is completed or purchased before the end of December and I mentioned this in the last slide that the custom back design can match our wayfinding we can use it for public health reminders or any number of different uses I talked a little bit about flexibility earlier in the project also I'll reiterate again the one-year pilot license agreement to test out the signs in the technology the easy installation we can relocate or remove the signs if needed we can change the designs of the signs as needed we've also discussed doing a staggered installation option which allows for us to fine-tune the locations and the design of the sign for example in future slides I'm going to tell you a little bit about the solar power charging stations that are another component of this project we are proposing the chargers be installed first and then the signs in the spring the solar charging cores are ours to keep as part of this project which means if we decide not to keep the signs they're not working for us we can keep the solar part power charging stations without any issue and these are also easy to remove in place in different areas based on demand or need in future slides I will show you the proposed locations of both the signs and the cores a little bit about the solar charging core these are these solar charging cores which we're proposing to install three in the downtown area will offer our community members access to charging ports to charge their devices and stay connected to important information and online resources this is especially important with public buildings being closed to the public due to COVID-19 we also aim to bridge the digital divide and provide equitable access to power sources here you'll see just an actual photo of the sign the bench and the kids will not be included just the actual charging cores here on top you can see the solar panel and here are the USB charging point ports the potential sign locations we're proposing three in the downtown Amherst area as well as three cores we've been mindful of existing signage infrastructure ADA and other standards working closely with the planning department public works and the inspections department and we're planning around and with the upcoming wayfinding signs making sure the saturation of signage doesn't impact where we place the signs and as well as incorporating the designs of the wayfinding signs that are coming online in spring I'm going to skip to this next map because it's a little bit bigger and I apologize for the the busyness of the the forks and the other icons but if I can call your attention to the red stars as where we're proposing the charging core locations the first charging core location we are proposing right outside of st. Bridget's where the current transit a high traffic transit stop is the second location is outside of what used to be Barts and we chose this location for its proximity to the uu church which as you all know has come online as a shelter for this season the third charging core location is going to be outside of the Jones library on the bench by the crosswalk or at least that's where we're proposing and speaking with the library director she mentioned you know how how their building being closed has impacted folks who were relying on that site to charge their devices and use internet the next three locations that I'm going to bring call to your attention are the three proposed sign locations and those are identified by the blue question marks the first one is outside of what used to be Starbucks and right now it's it stands at the crosswalk there is a concrete post and a metal pole sticking out of it with no signs so it's our intention if if all works out according to plan is to remove that concrete post and concrete and metal posting to place one of our signs the second location would be at the amity street and south pleasant north or north pleasant and amity street corner and the last location would be by the pvta bus shelter transit stop by the spring street parking lot and again those are because of the flexibility of the signs and there there's no wiring components or excavation needed those are flexible but that is what we're proposing so the potential core locations we just reviewed on on the map we tried to be mindful to be in proximity to transit stops or other high pedestrian traffic areas and again like with the signs it's an easy four bolt installation we can move they can be moved quickly without with relatively low impact to new locations if the need arises I do want to make sure that the council is aware that the design review board did make their recommendation last week with their decision drb f y 2021 dash o four devoted four to zero to positively recommend the proposed locations and designs of the three signs and three charging cores they would like to review the final design prior to installation of signs in spring 2021 and after one year of installation they would like us to return to the drb to review and approve before the town considers extending their contract with the company they also would like to review the success rate of each respective sign and charging core regarding its location displayed information and design layout so with that being said I would love to allow for questions or comments from the the council members thank you first of all Brianna I can't tell you how good it is to just see your face even if it's virtual really good likewise I'm curious if we were to I think this is wonderful and I'm curious about what we go through the one year what would the cost be approximately if we were to just maintain these three these three cores and three signs or if we you know I'm assuming if they work we would expand it to the village centers but what would the cost be so for the charging cores thank you for your question councillor de agilis the charging cores as part of the initial purchase and contract will be ours to keep in perpetuity so there will not be any ongoing costs associated with those unless there were we needed to remove and do any fixing of a site that had the bolts installed and I can't say what that cost would be but the it's a one-time cost for the the charging cores how it works with the the next year we would evaluate as the end of our license agreement came up typically these signs go into communities and after the first year there's little to no cost to the communities as I mentioned in earlier slides there is an advertising component of this where local businesses would use this as an advertising option right now that's free for local businesses the idea would be at some point post-covid-19 recovery when when and when we get there hopefully that that would be a paid service and would pay for the the ongoing maintenance of the signs so that is something we would evaluate once we got to the end of our license agreement whether or not it was something that we would be able to continue doing and what that cost would be so that's a lot of words for saying I don't have the definite year two costs in front of me at this moment but it's something that as we got close to the end of our license agreement we would be able to evaluate that okay have to show you have your hand up yeah beyond I might have missed it you have what the year one cost would be what you know what does it cost to do the licensing agreement and the initial installation of chargers so that's question number one and then I saw the design rebroad you board said come back to them with an assessment of the use how popular they were whatever how exactly would they have get any information um you know it's yeah are these things if I step stop by this sign and look at it as it's changing is it taking my picture so they you know is it you know so so how do we know whether anyone found it useful um how many people actually stopped to get the information there charging stations I can imagine a different way of collecting information but it's doing that so that's second second question then third is on the advertisements um you know do we have any way of guarding against this being a kiosk you know people you know walking around town and just seeing advertisements you know come eat here come eat there and and a queuing up of if it in fact pulls you into my place versus your place um vying for the spot because we're we're only talking about starting with three um um so just how do you think of being fair in terms of a a space that would bring people or encourage people to use your service thank you for your questions counselor so if I um I'll start with the the assessment how we're going to assess the success of the signs um when I was speaking with the design review board we discussed a couple of different options um about whether we found the signs to be successful um whether that was polling community members and also working with the chamber in the bid to see you know the from the business side of things if they were perceiving that as a success there's also a feedback mechanism that's built into the signs where we could pull community members and users or visitors by a you know a text in response option I don't think I had a visual of one of those but it would be um one of the squares that you see here um we could use as a polling feature and so we would be able to gather feedback directly from users of the signs um and they also another um another thing that we would use as a measure um would be the fact that they have um pedestrian sensors now you mentioned you know is it going to take a picture of you um no it is not able to capture any identifying information there's no cameras um but they they do have pedestrian sensors in them and I could get a little bit more information about that technology but they are able to basically tell how many people are walking close by to the signs um but that that process does not involve any um identifying information collection or storage yep and I'm going to move on to your your question about advertising um so the first year again would be um or or during this time of COVID-19 there would be no charge to the local businesses in order to utilize the advertising space um and so SUFA works very closely with in every community that they go into with the the area's chamber of commerce um in some area in some cases the bid if they have those in the other communities um to to promote this as a service especially now um as a resource during COVID-19 to ensure that all businesses in town who wanted to use it could be able to access it um and then when that goes into a paid model that of course changes and I can get more details about what that looks like um but since there we don't have an end date to to what we're going on what's going on with the pandemic we don't have specifics on that at the moment thank you thank you for your questions uh Darcy I'm just trying to envision what these would look like you know in a two or three years and um so talk to me about vandalism Brianna what what do you what do you uh what have you heard about how you would deal with that we've had to deal with that somewhat with our light our electric light boxes absolutely and that's a great question thank you councillor so the the signs themselves are maintained weekly um by SUFA and their um you know contracted service for maintenance the the vinyl designs themselves um can be reapplied or changed out as as necessary especially in the case of vandalism and so all of the maintenance and um you know if there was any issue with vandalism we would work closely with SUFA's team to have that um sign maintained taken off taken offline or replaced with a different sign um if there was substantial damage done to it that would just be until the end of our initial contract though right so um they're the maintenance of the signs themselves go hand in hand um you know if we were to continue the pilot project into another year or sign on for more signs SUFA continues to maintain um the design of the signs in terms of replacing the vinyls or updating the vinyls which we can do you know several times a year just because we wanted to but especially in the case of uh damage or um or vandalism they would still be the it would still they they would still be the responsibility of um of SUFA so that would be a contract with them uh in the first year it's part of the pilot in this after that then we would have an ongoing contract with them correct uh we would need to you know as we get through the pilot and get closer to you know whether or not our decision is to keep the signs uh remove the signs expand the signs that would all have to be part of a renegotiated process and contract okay um I just another question so at this point this is a referral to TSO um if you can take down the presentation yes so the motion is to refer the permanent use of public ways request for public information and emergency communication science to the town services and outreach committee for a report and recommendation to the council by December 21st 2020 is their second Brian second uh for their comment and do you have your hand up yes um I guess that I should have asked these questions before but is pertinent to the motion to whether there's a time limit if we are using the remainder of our funds from the CARES Act whether it's a decision that we have to have a contract in place by December 31st and whether there's uh what kind of pressure that's placing on us if so and then the other is whether in this is so partly a question for some members of the chair of TSO is to whether the finance committee um looking into just the financial implications of the proposal um is uh something that they would seek um all raps and Brianna give an answer to that question the last part of the question I it went the audio went out for me um I so I don't know if you could repeat just the last part Councillor Steinberg yeah the question was actually geared towards more of the TSO committee whether the TSO committee it's uh the chair of the TSO committee would feel that they would want finance committee's assistance to look just at the financial aspects of the arrangement not to look at the um um town services aspects which is not our role so it's really not a question to you question to you is whether or to all or uh one of the finance people is what's the deadline what's the deadline by which the decision has to be made so the motion is by December 21st although you know if you could do it sooner the better off we are um there's a lot of communities all doing the exact same thing let's do it at the same time um since this is a pilot for one year um and again I think Brianna said four volts a lot of times um I think it's a low low threshold to get to yes on it so uh Andy one of the questions that Andy's asking or whether or not this should also come to the finance committee and um Andy do you want to make that as a amendment to the motion no I was not actually um unless uh uh TSO was feeling that they would wanted made to the motion TSO also can ask us for assistance but they need to do it fairly quickly yeah I mean there's no problem with that or having a joint meeting with the finance committee um but yeah either way next um thank you uh Alyson you have your hand up yeah I'm wants to comment in terms of the DRB part of this and so the DRB um actually obviously only met last few days ago for their second meeting but their previous meeting was weeks ago and I don't know why we only got their material today at 430 so that's a comment to the town manager that we can't be getting stuff an hour and a half before our meetings we we need more time to process information even though this is getting referred it's very frustrating to have that happen and we're still in the season of recruiting other people to serve on town committees and in town office and telling them they have to read things when they're trying to make dinners making things much more complicated the other part of it is in terms of that deadline so I I just heard that definitely this has to be done the contract has to be signed by the end of December we're hearing about it for the first time here at this meeting we have to have the contract signed by the end of December no later than the 21st for town council but be even better if it was a prior town council meeting but the 21st I mean I can't speak for TSO and I'm not the chair but we may well be able to get it done we have three meetings between now and then so we may be able to get it done sooner than that if that's really helpful I think being really clear on that is is helpful to TSO in terms of managing our workload that knowing it before the 21st just to give yourselves a little extra wiggle room in terms of the mad rush at the end of the year. That was going to be my exact question and hearing what Paul said and all I'm going to move to amend the motion to change December 21st to December 7th. Makes sense. If there are a second to that amendment. Dr. DeAngelis. There are discussions. Alyssa you still have your hand up. Darcy DuMont you have your hand up. Yeah I just wanted to clarify we're saying that it needs to be back. It needs to be back by December 7th. The council meeting is on December 7th so it needs to be done at a meeting the week before. Okay so let me just get my list. We have two TSO meetings between now and then. Right November 19th and December 3rd. Yeah so we can squeak it in. Okay so that's enough time we might even be able to start it this Thursday. Okay right now we're voting on an amendment to the original motion and the amendment is to change the date of from December 21st through December 7th. There and that motion has been made in second to that. I want to go back and make sure that we have voted on that piece of it. We start with Dorothy Pam. No actually we start with Evan Ross. We're voting on the amendment. Yep yes. George Ryan. Yes. Fang. Yes. Dribber. Yes. Steinberg. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Schwartz. Yes. Paul Mill. Yes. Drawer. Yes. DeAngelis. Say it again. Pat DeAngelis. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Griezmann. Yes. Hanna Key. Yes. Pam. Yes. All right so that now the motion reads through for the permanent use of public way request for public information and emergency communication signs to the town services and outreach committee for report and recommendation to the council by December 7th 2020. Motion has been made and seconded. So let's go to Ryan. Yes. Shane. Yes. Dribber. Yes. Steinberg. Yes. Schwartz. Yes. Paul Mill. Yes. Dribber. Yes. DeAngelis. Yes. Mont. Yes. Griezmann. Yes. Hanna Key. Yes. Pam. Yes. Ross. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. We're going to move on to the next item under this which I believe is regarding the bus stops. Lynn could I just ask a quick question? How do we see this timing wise happening? If we have two meetings we want to get input from the finance committee. Do we also want to get questions from counselors before all of this happens and so I guess I just want a little guidance on this. All right. I would solicit questions from the counselors immediately tomorrow morning and with regard to the finance committee meeting I would work out a schedule with Andy to either invite the finance committee to one of your meetings. It won't be able to be the one we'll know it could be the one that you have this week because you still have time to post it but it has to be posted by a joint meeting has to be posted by four o'clock tomorrow or 30 tomorrow. Yes. Am I correct on that? Yes. Okay. All right. Is that sufficient, Darcy? Yes. Okay. I mean the other option is to invite the finance committee to the one in December. Yeah. I'll figure that out. All right. We're moving on to the bus PBTA bus stops. Yes. Thank you all for having me. My name is Ben Breger. I'm a planner with the town and I'm going to share my screen. I have a presentation. I will move through this quick. I know you all have had a long meeting. So a little bit of background, the town received a grant, $130,000 grant from Mass DOT for our shared streets project. Part of this grant is for new bus shelters for the downtown. And so I've been working with PBTA, the DPW, certainly the planning department and the town manager to figure out some of the details about the bus shelters, what they should look like, who's going to manage them, who's going to own them. And then I also presented to the DRB kind of the same timeline as Breonna we presented. Or Breonna had to come back a second time, but I got my approval two weeks ago from the DRB and have incorporated their suggestions into the bus shelter proposal. Also similar to Breonna, this has a December 31st deadline to spend the money. Otherwise DOT will take it back. Preferably also similar to Breonna, preferably its contract is well underway before December 31st, just in case there's any issues. So I'm going to, this is kind of the presentation I gave the DRB where I walked through the different design options. But just so you know, these are the kind of the work going with the existing kind of Victorian shelter that DOTs are downtown, the black Victorian shelter, and there's some variations to that shelter. So this is the one across from the commons, also the Peter Pan stop. This one is in front of the post office downtown and has kind of like the metal grill work on the bottom. You know, this is down near north part of downtown. This is just an example, has solar panel near Crocker Farm. And then this is the apparently at least 25 years old, the main street shelter in front of town hall. So those are kind of the existing, you know, language of design language of shelters downtown. And so the proposal for the grant, this is what we put in the grant, we're for the new shelters downtown. The locations are, we chose high ridership, high ridership bus stops that currently don't have shelters as our priorities. And then the third one is the town hall stop, which is an old shelter that could be updated to look more in line with the rest of the shelters downtown and could also be incorporated into the North Commons redesign once that comes underway. And so I worked with DPW as well with PBTA to kind of find and then got approval from DRB to actually, you know, figure out where exactly these things, the new shelters would go at the proposed bus stop at the bus stops. Also, you know, working with Maureen Pollock, our fellow planner who focuses on ADA issues. So we wanted to make sure we're in line with ADA concerns and and so for, this is in front of St. Pregards Church just to orient you, you know, UMass is to the north and then towards town is the south. And so the shelter width is standard 11 feet long by five feet deep. And then there has to be a loading area to get people from the front of the bus to and from the sidewalk. And so this was really the only place you could fit the bus shelter. There's a existing light pole here. And so here's just a quick rendering of what that might look like. I did this quick in PowerPoint, but the DRB supported the idea of having like the Victorian shelter with the metal grill work on the bottom because that matches the one at the post office, which is right across the street from here. So there would be some, they would match well. You know, talk to DPW, they're perfectly willing to relocate this bike rack and move the recycling over. There's plenty of room for that. And so this is where the bus stop would go. This is, I think the St. Pregards Church is, this is our busiest bus stop because it's not only all of the local UMass stops, but it's the B43 to North Hampton, the R29 to Holyoke. And pretty much every single local bus stops here. And there's, these benches are usually full. And so, you know, actually while I was out there just talking with taking measurements and whatnot, I spoke with a lot of bus riders. And a lot of them were saying how, you know, whenever it's raining, they actually run across the street to the post office bus stop because they have to wait there to get out of the elements. And they would really wish that there was a stop here. So, or a bus shelter here. So that's the proposal for this location. And then the second location is at the corner of Spring Street and South Pleasant Street. This is, you know, the Spring Street lot is right here. This is the corner of the Town Commons. And so there's a, this is actually for, this is where the yellow kind of information booth used to be many, many years ago. Similar, I think, yeah, pretty much the same location. And this is also, this is the Peter Pan inbound stop. So a lot of people get off here. This is what they, what they arrived to when they come to town. And so, and this is also a B43 stop and a lot of the local stops here. The, here's what there is now. There's kind of a hodgepodge of different, say, furniture. There's a bench, the newspaper boxes, trash can, transformer boxes back here and the fire hydrant over here. And so, you know, this is what the, oh yeah, and I should know, you know, coordinated this with Brianna, because I was helping her with that project as well. The Sufa sign could be incorporated into this new stop as well. There need to be a new concrete pad laid, or, you know, if there's some rearranging to do, possibly move these newspaper boxes and expand on this existing concrete pad could be an option. And here's just kind of another, oh right, yeah, I incorporated the new color for the Sufa sign as well. And so the, this shelter would, the DRB recommended matching the one that's across the street that has kind of like patterned glass and, but no Victorian, sorry, no metal grill on the bottom. So that's where that came from. And I've worked with, you know, other fire people to make sure that we're far enough from the fire hydrant and there's this transformer box that has some clearance around it. So we're all good there. You know, the DRB did recommend, you know, just minimizing the amount of furniture here. Like, if we have the bus stop, do we still need the bench? And how often are these newspaper boxes really used? So that's kind of some of the questions I'm looking to figure out right now, working with DPW on that. So yeah, that's kind of the basic overview. Again, these are the two existing shelters that we would match that are across the street from the two locations. And the, sorry, I'm just going to go back. This is the one in front of Town Hall. I didn't do a rendering for this one, but this would be replaced by a updated Victorian shelter to match the rest of downtown. And same, it's same footprint. So it would just pop this out and put a new one there. So yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions and appreciate you giving me the time to present. Um, Andy, do you have your hand up? Yes. Thank you. You answered my question about the bike racks in front of St. Bridget. So I'm glad to hear that they will stay because I had to put it right in front of on the bike racks. Yeah. My question is about the one in where there's already a shelter. Do we have plans to move that shelter somewhere else in town to another look? Like, is that shelter reusable to a place that may not be downtown? Maybe by the, I think we've got some new places by apartment complexes that might not actually have shelters. I'm thinking, you know, East Hadley Road, where things just got redesigned and all. Is it possible to be able to use that shelter somewhere else where shelters are needed? Either on 116 South, I've heard near not Pomeroy, but the apartments down there or, you know, the East Hadley Road apartments. Yeah. I think that's certainly possible. In my conversations with PBTA, they gave me a long list of priority stops that don't have shelters for Amherst, you know, even outside, certainly outside of downtown as well. So yeah, we could certainly look to do that. Are there other questions? I want to clarify something before we start and that is this also cares money or did I hear it is a separate grant? Yeah. Yeah. This is a separate grant, but it fully funds the cost of the shelters and any labor for installation and concrete pads. It's from the Mass DOT shared streets grant that we got mid-October or so. And what is the timing sensitivity with regard to the grant? Yeah. So Mass DOT, they've said they want all the money spent by the December 31st or they will, you know, they're going to take it from us. Of course, there's some issues with that because, you know, even if we get a contract underway by mid-December, we might not actually pay that in full until the shelters are delivered. And so they've been a little bit flexible for some other things. I think if we if we had some shelters under contract for delivery, you know, in January or February and, you know, paid, you know, X percent of that, they would let us hang on to that money after the 31st. But I think it's imperative that we get a contract underway, you know, early to mid-December so that, you know, I can have time to work to just kind of explain that all the DOT. So and, yeah, for what it's worth, like, I've been, you know, soliciting quotes for the shelters and I feel pretty comfortable that as soon as this is all approved, I can place an order immediately. Okay. Evan, you have your hand up. Yeah, this wasn't actually, this wasn't a question about the project, but a question of process, although now that I see other hands going up, what I say might be moot, but I was going to say that given that they didn't seem to be a whole lot of questions about it and given that this is a much simpler proposal than what we just saw with the SUFA signs, I know the intent was a motion to refer to TSO and I guess I'm wondering if we feel that that's necessary. We've certainly not referred to TSO public ways request that we didn't feel that TSO would necessarily be needed on and I guess as a TSO member, I'm not quite sure what added value we could provide here. So I'd be curious to hear from my other TSO members, but I know that I would be willing to not refer this and just have it come up on the 7th or even vote tonight, although we don't have a motion crafted for it. So I'd be curious to hear if the council feels that this needs to go to TSO and if so, what what value they would like TSO to add to this on discussion. I'm looking at hands and with regard to other members of TSO and that's me trying to do this one. Could you please take this the presentation down? Yes, your RC. Yeah, I would just definitely agree with Evan on that, that if the council just decides to vote on it tonight, I know unless you have some questions that you want to refer. Okay. Mind you have your hand up. Yeah, mine was actually on process two on the motion itself. Even the referral motion was missing one of the shelters because I didn't realize there were three not two. Substitute motion. Okay. Okay. Steve Schreiber. Yeah, so this is a relatively important decision, right? Because these are very prominent spots and we're kind of setting a branding. So you sort of talked about all the different, almost the chaotic different kinds of shelters there are. So there's a honing in a particular style for Amherst and I know that it's the DRB has been consulted, but I'm wondering if this takes more time actually to think about this because I'm not completely convinced, not that I have to be, that the Victorian is the branding. I'm not sure exactly how we got there other than the fact that we already had some Victorian bus shelters. And I mentioned this in part because if you go down South Pleasant Street towards West Street, there's a really beautiful modern, actually the next bus stop down near the Amherst Golf Club is this beautiful modern bus shelter. And I've always wondered how that appeared in the portfolio of bus shelters, but I don't know. I mean, I'll, I'm just one voice here, but I just think about how much discussion we had about a transformer box on the common in that same area that there's a bus shelter and the idea that we might then approve two bus shelters on the common, you know, in a very short order, that have more of an impact. To me that needs a little bit more pondering. Um, Pat DeAngelis? I don't, I would like us to vote that tonight I think matching the shelters that are there makes sense. I don't feel like taking the time to find a nicer design and then having to replace everything around town seems unimportant to me. And you know, um, because the shelter is a shelter, it's pretty straightforward. I'd like us to vote tonight. Darcy DeMont. Okay, Alyssa Brewer. I don't feel like TSO can address the issue. Steve is bringing up and not in the time frame that we've got. So, um, the most the previous item that TSO is working on has the added complexity of advertising and a little bit more twist to it. And I do actually not think that this has more impact than the transformer box did in all reality. So I'm good with going ahead and town council voting it tonight because I'm just not sure what TSO could add to it. Okay. Um, I'm still seeing hands up. Can you put your hand down if you've already spoken? Dorothy Pam, I think your hand is new. I think Steve raises some very important issues about the bus shelters around the North Common. And I think we should take some time to think about it or to look at other possible designs. Can I ask a point of clarification that if we look at other designs, then this has to go back again through design review board? Is that correct? Um, yeah, they approved the Victorian shelters and gave me a recommendation for, you know, matching the ones across the street. Okay. Steve Schreiber used to have your hand up. You could also we consider placing them in those places. You could not change the design but change the placement. Shalini, you have your hand up. Yeah, could we also get a confirmation that the extra bus shelters can be put in South Amherst and other places that just get an assurance that they will be put because I know a lot of people in South Amherst have been without a bus shelter for a very long time. Are you asking? We confirm that there will be that done and your vote is contingent on that? No, it's just a friendly assurance. Thank you. Okay. Sarah, you have your hand up. Yeah, I was just going to say that we're going to miss out on having any of these things if we stop and look at our delicate aesthetics. So I just wanted to weigh the fact that we're doing a lot of things that we are hoping will help our downtown after or during COVID-19. And I think that this is one of the cases where functionality for me is more important. Okay. I'm going to make start with a motion. Oh, we'll see you have your hand up. I was just going to ask you if we needed a motion to suspend rule 8.4. You do. And so the first motion. And I would consider it moved if I could say that. Please. Do suspend town council rule to procedure 8.4 for the current agenda item? Is there a second? Second, Ryan. Thank you. Any further discussion on that? All right. Then we're going to vote on that one. And we're going to start with Ryan. Yes. Shane. Yes. Driver. So. Steinberg. Yes. Schwartz. Yes. Balmille. Yes. Brewer. Yes. The Angeles. Yes. Vermont. Yes. Greece. Mersey. Yes. Hanakie. Yes. Pam. No. Ross. Yes. So the vote on this is 11 in favor to oppose no abstentions and no one absent. And so we're going to now move to an item. This is breaking the fourth wall a little more than normal. Okay. To approve the following PBTA bus stops to approve the improvements to the following PBTA bus stops located at one new bus shelter at the intersection of North Pleasant Street and Culls Lane in front of St. Bridget's Parish. One new bus shelter at the intersection of South Pleasant Street and Spring Street in front of the town common. And one replacement bus shelter on the southbound side of Main Street adjacent to the town common. Is there a second? Second. Brian. Okay. Any further discussion? Alyssa you have your hand up. Then seeing no other discussion we are going to move to a vote. We're starting with Kathy Shane. Yes. Driver. No. Steinberg. Yes. Sports. Yes. Ball Mellon. Yes. Brewer. Yes. Deantalus. Yes. Mont. Yes. Yeah. There's a yes and a yes. Pam. No. Ross. Yes. And Ryan. Yes. The votes 11 in favor to oppose no abstentions no absence. We are have one more item under this and this is regarding. You're a fucking channel, Brian. Please be at your. Thank you. The town manager memo 111220 revisions to policy regarding the control and regulation of the public way to the town services outreach committee and to the governance organization and legislation committee for review and recommendation to the town council by December 7th 2020. Is there a second? Second. Hanneke. Thank you. Who would like to speak to the motion? So this this is all so this is a recommend this is a referral to the TSO to look at extending the current authority that you have granted to the town manager in conjunction with article 14, which you had approved previously to bring it in compliance and alignment with how that works. In addition, it starts to address and have the conversation about how you want to start handling other types of things that are in the public way. And that's what there. So there's a two prong thing with this with this memo that we are asking the TSO to engage with. Are there comments? Yeah, I just have a question about why what is the time urgency on this one? You know, I don't think it's as urgent as the previous two items that you had actually. I mean, it's I don't think there'll be anything that comes into play between now. If you want to put it off to December 21, that's certainly feasible. That's pushing it to have so many of them that are that need to be back so quickly. I wasn't going to accept that as a friendly amendment to go to the 21st. Mandy, Joe, you made you seconded. Is that an acceptable view? Actually, it's not for me. The current public waste policy that deals with article 14 is allows the town manager to deal with them only for article 14 requests for 100 and for approvals not to extend 180 days past the effective date of the zoning bylaw, which ends December 14th. And so, you know, we're already on a tight deadline to get this change done before the current delegation we've given to Paul ends. Two readings, even starting December 7th, would put us to December 21st, which is past the 180 days that we granted him the approval for all of these. And beyond that, he has been operating on good faith with what the intention of that public ways requests public ways delegation was, and I'm not questioning that at all. But many of what we heard recently about what we thought would be covered under article 14 has actually been covered under a governor's emergency order. And that's technically not covered under this public ways policy. And so I think the sooner we can get this amended to bring what our intention for delegation was into what our policy actually states the better. Listen. Whereas I'm just confused by the memo itself, not all of it, but the whole section and that screen is gone now about the 3D, I believe it is. That's the whole new section. That's about signage and bus stops. So is that, am I to understand that that would be the same as what we've just been talking about in terms of signage and bus stops? And that would be permanent because I'm not seeing any time limit on that. So I'm just wondering if I'm just tired and confused like when I read it the first time or what that section actually means. Item G, placement of road and sidewalk signs, bus shelters and sidewalk seating. This is an entirely new section and it is giving away a significant amount of delegation authority, which if people are bored of the conversations we just had about signs and bus shelters, I guess that's a good thing. But if they aren't, then I'm not sure why we would permanently be giving this away, which is what I, the way I think this reads and I'm hoping Mandy, Joe and Paul can help me understand that. Paul. Yeah, that's accurate. So it actually accomplishes two things. One is to extend the temporary nature related to zoning bylaw 14. And the second is to actually increase on a long term basis the actual capabilities of the town manager to do things such as we just voted on. Mandy, Joe, comment. Yeah, it's one of the reasons it needs referred to for policy discussion at TSO and GOL. 3D, I think it is, placements of movable signs. It depends on what you consider movable signs. I believe when it was drafted, it depends on who you talk to. It could contain the SUFA signs that we were just talking about. It could just be sidewalk signs and stuff like that that are much more temporary basis. But that language can certainly be looked at in committee for things. But bus shelters and all those things would be permanent installation, approval, placement of seating on public sidewalks. That is written as a permanent, as a permanent changes to the public way that would be delegated to the manager. So it definitely needs looked at. I guess one of my questions is if there's a seven day lapse between the 14th of December and the 21st of December that is related to the zoning bylaw and the emergency act, is there anything we see happening in that time period that isn't covered some other way? The requests would just have to come to the council for approval in that seven day period because the manager would no longer have the authority to approve them on a temporary basis. And so we would have to deal with it for that time. And it wouldn't necessarily be just seven days, depending on what language comes back from the referrals that the 21st, if we delay the report back to the 21st, that's the first reading. And it might not be final language at that time and it might go into the new year. Whereas if we have a report back on the seventh, there's a possibility that we could have a second reading on the 21st with amended language, depending on what the council discusses on the seventh. Well, any further comment on that? No. Darcy? I think that's asking a lot of TSO to have a fully fleshed out discussion and get an answer back within two meetings when we're also being asked to, you know, we have several other issues that we need to deal with. So yes, I think that we should say something like within 90 days. And I get, I understand what you're saying, but I think that we're just going to have to deal with that, you know, or 60 days. I'm going to suggest the following, that in on the 7th of December, we bring before the council a motion that deals with the emergency nature of what we need to get approved. And that have a second motion that is much more about the extensive nature of this giving people time. Does that work for you, Paul? Yeah. Mandy, Joe? If the report back on the 7th is only to dealing with, I think it's now the new section four. I just closed my public ways policy for my file, the one that deals with the revisions to the COVID-19 section. I think that that would be fine with me. But it could read initial report back by December 7th. Right. So at this point, no motion at all? On the table to refer. Oh, okay. So the motion that's on the table is to refer the town manager memo 111220 revisions to policies regarding with control and regulation public way, the town service and the outreach midi and to the governance organization legislation committee for review and recommendation to the town council by December 7th, 2020. But that makes it the entire document. So this, tell me which section of this document by December 7th. And is that assuming that on December 7th, we would suspend rule 8.4 because otherwise it would be expired before the 21st? Yes, it does. Okay. But I need just need to know which section of the memo. What's the next section four? Yeah. Okay. So the motion will now read to refer the town manager memo 11 dash 1220 revisions to the policy regarding the control and regulation of the public ways to the town services and outreach committee and to the organization governance organization and legislation committee for review and recommendation regarding section four of the memo to the town council by December 7th, 2020. That would be the new motion. We still need to, I would rephrase it as I was the second regarding section four for review and recommendation regarding section four to the town council by December 7th, 2020. And the remaining sections, section four of the policy by December 7th, 2020 and the remaining sections by January, I don't know, when's our January meetings? January 4th or 25th? Probably the 25th. Okay. So I'm going to withdraw the original motion. Mandy Jo, you seconded the original motion. Great. That's fine. Do you want me to make a new one? Please, that would be terrific. Thank you. To refer the town manager memo 11 1220 revisions to policy regarding the control and regulation of the public ways to the town services and outreach committee and to the governance organization and legislation committee for review and recommendation regarding section four of the public ways policy to the town council by December 7th, 2020 and remaining sections of the public ways policy by January 25th, 2021. Is there a second? Brian, second. Thank you. Any further comment? Alyssa, you have your hand up? Yeah, the only thing I was going to add is that I think it's reasonable to give town council the heads up that I as a TSO member, I'm certainly going to ask that in section four, we take out the reference to the brand new section 3D. And that still enables us to do this motion, but the recommendation might say that item for the way it's written here, except for the and 3D part, because GOL is going to be working on this. TSO is going to be working on this. And it's possible we'll all come to a meeting of the minds prior to December 7th, but if we don't, we can just take out the words and 3D. Okay. Darcy? That's fine. Okay. Motion made and seconded. Is there any further discussion? I would just say if we're not acting on the rest of the revisions, 3D has to come out because it won't, well, a different 3D would exist when we vote. That could be part of our recommendation on the 7th. I mean, the bottom line is by the time you come back, you'll have a revised policy. Okay. Steve Schreiber. Hi. Angie Steinberg. Yes. Barry Schwartz. Shirley Dealer. Yes. Yeah. Melanie Balmarone. Yes. Lisa Brewer. Yes. Matthew Andrews. Yes. Darcy Demont. Yes. Ruth Mersias. Hanneke. Yes. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Kevin S. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. I am going to make a decision, given the lateness of the hour, to defer the voting on the prohibition prohibiting the use of wild and exotic animals in traveling shows until December 7th. Next, I object to that. We've had people waiting for four hours now. Oh, I'm sorry. They're still waiting? Yes. Okay. All right. Then let's move on. We're going to go to F, prohibiting the use of wild and exotic animals in traveling shows and circus by-law. I mentioned earlier, directing myself, Rebecca Schwartz, one of the non-council sponsors of the proposed by-law sent us an extensive email. In addition to that, and that email is in your packet, responds to a question that was raised. I asked, and David Zomac did confer with Carol Hepburn, the animal control person, and her comments are as follows. She's been in her role for close to 20 years as the animal worker all through. In that time, she has rarely, if ever, encountered any issues in Amherst related to captive wild and or exotic animals. With that said, she is supportive of any measure that protects the health and well-being of all animals, and she supports the by-law. Are there other questions? George Ryan. Not a question, but just a brief comment. I appreciate the fact that you reached out to Carol, and I appreciate the response of Rebecca Schwartz. Her email was very informative, and certainly answered some of my concerns and reservations. Just an expression of thanks for people taking that extra effort. Shalini. Yeah, I just also wanted to add two things. One, that Carol also reached out to me, the animal welfare officer. She reached out to me, and I spoke with her. One thing she said that really helped me also think about this issue is that she said that in Amherst, she said that in Amherst, we tend to believe that nothing bad is going to happen, and then we don't plan for it. From her point of view, it would be really helpful from her perspective as an animal welfare officer to have a plan if this did happen. She did say that it hasn't happened so far, but that doesn't mean it's not going to happen in the future. If it did, it would be great to have this by law in place. The second thing, I think I just wanted to emphasize, like you already spoke about the human aspect, human aspect, and also public safety. I also wanted to bring out some points about wildlife protection and climate change and maintaining a biodiversity. So, for example, humans represent just 0.01% of all living things, and according to this study, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of the plants. So, scientists consider this the sixth mass extinction of life, and we've lost since 1970, 68% of animal population. So, this is resulting in biological annihilation and leading to serious ecological, economic, and social consequences. One of the strategies that's proposed to promote coexistence of people and wildlife is public policy and having bylaws, and since the state level has not been enacting any of this, it's important for local governments to enforce these bylaws. So, as a town that supports climate change, I think this is just a no-brainer that we should be supporting these bylaws to protect the biodiversity and our interdependence. So, I hope you all will pass this bylaw. Are there any other comments? So, I'm going to make the motion and then look to Shalini for a second, and it's to adopt the prohibiting the use of wild and exotic animals and traveling shows and circuses bylaw as a general bylaw as presented. Is there a second? Second, Shalini. What was I proposing, the motion? Second. Further comment. Okay, then we start with Wendy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Yes. Shalini. Yes. Alyssa. Yes. Pat. Yes. Yes. Darcy. Yes. Chris Murphy. Yes. Mandy Jeff. Yes. Darcy Pam. Yes. Evan. Yes. George. Yes. Kathy. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. The unanimous. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you for all that has taken place going into that bylaw. We did the schedule by consent. We did the appointments by consent. So, we're to liaison reports. Mandy Jo. Nothing to update. We have a meeting tomorrow. We'll be continuing to discuss zoning, including the 40R consultant report that was presented at a forum a couple weeks ago. Andy, finance committee. Yes. I submitted a written report, which you have, but we had one item that came up after the report was written. Sharon Povanelli, one of the resident members of the committee, has resigned for personal reasons that she stated in her letter of resignation. She's in a term that ends on July, our June 30th of 2021. I have consulted with the chair of GOL and I would, since GOL is the committee that deals with it, I believe turning it over to George and just wanted to report that to you. GOL, George. Well, we now have something else to do, but we've not had a meeting since the last report, so there's nothing to report. Okay. Matthew, we know JCPC is not meeting yet. Darcy. Yes, sir. Yeah. We just had a brief meeting last week and came up with the recommendation for the seventh member of the community safety committee that we approved by our consent agenda tonight. And I'm fairly overwhelmed by the number of referrals that we got tonight after not getting any referrals literally for months. But so that's exciting. That's exciting. So yeah, we are going to look at the surveillance technology bylaw on Thursday and look at town-wide residential parking policy. So please let me know where you stand on the surveillance bylaw as to whether or not it will be coming to the council and when. Okay. Yes. Any liaison reports? Matthew. Just briefly that the Community Preservation Act is now, group is now at the point of ranking and thinking of all the proposals that are before them to come up with some ranking. They started that discussion last week and will be continued. They're on a fast track to try to come up with the final slate. So one of the things they're grappling with is this year, there's some large requests that have all requested to be debt finance, bond finance. So to the extent they do that, it means there's less money in future years. So trying to think of the multiple year impact on it. So for any of you are trying to follow the individual proposals, they are now at the point of looking at which you're going to be voted out. Are there any questions of any of the committees or the reasons? Yes, Alyssa. I was just going to say that since TSOs would need to, we talked earlier tonight, feels like hours ago, about the signage issue, right? And the possible finance committee opinion on that. If we're going to do that in a timely fashion at TSO, that it feels to me like we need to have that on our agenda for Thursday, which as you indicated earlier tonight, we can do that by updating our posting tomorrow and that finance committee needs to come to that discussion, not just say, well, maybe finance committee will come because otherwise we're not going to make people come twice. We're not going to make staff come twice to listen to that conversation. So either finance committee comes at that time or finance committee can talk about it separately because I don't really think TSO and finance committees parts have to be together, even though in an ideal world they would be. I'm going to leave that to the chair of the two committees to sort out whether or not it's a joint agenda items or agenda items at separate meetings. Okay. Anything else? No minutes to approve? Paul, town manager's report. That looks like I have five things I want to mention. One is we had a great, just want to congratulate and thank my colleagues, fellow town employees who on Veterans Day delivered 65 gift bags to our veterans because we couldn't bring them together for the breakfast at Mary Beth O'Gilovitz had organized in the past. She conspired to make this happen. Town employees came out with their families, little kids and dogs. And it's a really fun thing to do. Second is the town clerk report that this afternoon, they completed the count and certified the count, which was submitted for the election. And I'll send the results to you. It's not different than what it's already been posted on our website. So it's all official. Now it's completed. Want to mention that I've appointed a group to support me on the North Amherst library group of five members, two members from the community, the representative of the library trustees, the library director and DPW superintendent to move this project forward, starting and help to get the reaching out to the public going forward on that. And I'll just drop one out. One last thing. Today we handed over the keys to a facility in downtown Amherst that has five showers plus restrooms to Craig's doors. Congratulations to Rob Mora and Dave Zomack for securing this location. Again, supporting this through the first few months of operations. This is where we have the money to do that. And so it's really great. Very beautiful facility. So very close proximity to the Unitarian Universalist Church. That was the big problem with that location. They didn't have showers available. Now we do have showers available and hopefully Craig's doors will be able to manage that successfully. So Thank you. Any questions of the town manager? You may have seen none. I just want to mention that I have referred Dorothy has her hand up. Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. I didn't see that Dorothy. Darcy take the call to get the hand up. Just a suggestion on something I mentioned earlier tonight on your project update. Why not include the Civil War Stones in that project update so that we don't have to ask about it every time? Any further questions or comments? Okay. So under my report, I referred the resolution affirming the town of Amherst's commitment to end structural racism and achieve racial equity for Black residents to GOL. And that is a joint sponsorship of Hap-D'Angeles, Chalene Balmille, and Elisa Brewer. I get that right. And then also regarding the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, alternate. There has in the past been an opportunity for in in the long pass of the select board to have somebody being the alternate to Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. This is a town manager appointment. So consistent with past practice, I will send an email out to the full council, ask who else might be interested in being an alternate to Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. And we'll come back to the council and then we will vote on recommending someone to the town manager. Mandy Jeff, you have your hand up. I vaguely remember from past discussions that the alternate under state law is the town manager and that it's an executive position. So I'm not sure why we have anything to say about it or why it would be one of us. Paul. So it is a town manager appointment. And right now the chair of the planning board serves as the representatives, but we also can have alternate positions as well, who can who can participate in lieu of that can have a vote in lieu of the appointee. And we've always had that. In the past, you know, it's been a member of the planning board. It's been a member. It's been the planning director. It's been a member of the select board. So I can appoint if I and if if there's a person from the council who wants to do it, it's it'd be the process the council has is to pull its members see who wants to be the member, then that name comes to me for review. Are there just questions? I don't understand that either. So before we get this poll asking us for our opinion, I'd like to see the the regulation and the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission's bylaw that says this is what we're supposed to be doing because that's not how I remember it from the last time either. Okay, we'll check on that before we do anything. Okay. Any further discussion on that or questions? Any future agenda items or councilor comments? Then we have no topics not anticipated. We have no executive session. And I'm going to call the meeting adjourned at 11 30.