 I now see that we have a quorum of Town Council members present, and I call the first meeting of the Town Council to order at 8 p.m. Amherst Media, are you ready? Thank you. Welcome all. This meeting is being broadcast live and being recorded by Amherst Media. Copies of the agenda are in the back of the room. This is a special moment as we cast off from the shore and launch our new Amherst Town Council, replacing Amherst's venerable town meeting led by its capable select board. I am grateful that the trip will not be so perilous as that of the Puritans and pioneers who first settled Massachusetts, my ancestors among them. We are lucky to have in place a seasoned town manager and a dedicated crew of professional staff who keep the town running despite changing tides as this Town Council charts its course as the town of Amherst's new legislative body. I would like to recognize all of the professional staff for their hard work and expertise. I would also like to welcome all former town meeting members, concerned citizens, campaign volunteers, and council members' families who are here on this special occasion. Our first order of business is council comments. This is an opportunity for each counselor to say a few words if you so choose. It is not required, of course. I ask that you keep your remarks to under three minutes each, or two minutes each. Do you want to stand when you're ready to speak, or shall I call the roll? Call the roll. Okay. Mandy Johanke at large. I'm going to pass and not make any comments tonight. Okay. Andrew J. Steinberg at large. Thank you. It's an honor to serve as a member of the Town Council with 12 other members who took the oath of office yesterday. Individually, we have a variety of experienced skills and knowledge. Together, we have a lot to offer to each other and to the town as we together guide our government and make important decisions on behalf of the people we serve. We were elected at the conclusion of a campaign that allowed us to convey our vision for Amherst to our community and to hear about their priorities, hopes, and fears. I'm confident that we share our commitment to our town and to the people who honored us by entrusting the 13 of us to serve as this council. At times, the campaign, unfortunately, was difficult. Assumptions were made about candidates, and there were misunderstandings, mischaracterizations and hurt feelings. All 26 candidates in the November election were invited to a unity breakfast following the election and most attended. I look forward to that spirit of unity remaining with us. There will be our agreements and votes that will not be unanimous. We need to commit ourselves to respecting each other afterwards as we and a promise that I make to all of you. Thank you. Alyssa V. Brewer, at large. Thank you. I'm going to jump right in. We need to take our time, though, because other communities do things the way they've always been done. The previous town government act was also a framework just like our new charter and much of what you saw happening day to day was not written down anywhere but based on continuously improving best practices. Our appointed town manager is now the sole chief executive officer, an unprecedented level of power in the history of the city known as the town of Amherst. We don't know the best way, the Amherst way, to do a town council town manager form of government. I ran for this position because I've been in townwide elected office for 16 years, and I know a lot about how we've actually done things in the past 20 years, and I fully expect you to listen to me when I describe those things, especially if I do it concisely. So I also fully expect to listen carefully to all of you as you each bring forward your experiences, your hopes, and plans of how we can do better. Everything we've done in town government up until now is actually, believe it or not, for a thoroughly considered reason, but I hope you will challenge those reasons. Amherst's legislative body has never been subject to open meeting law or conflict of interest laws before. There are many things we're going to do as a legislative body that have never been done in Amherst before, and each time we do them we set a tone as well as a precedent for future action. So I ask that as we undertake every action we ask ourselves, are we doing this because we can or because we should? Are we acting from a position of power or from a position of leadership? Our upcoming election for president and vice president is going to be awkward because transparent democracy is awkward. There were always quite a few town meeting members who didn't want their votes recorded, there have always been elected officials who didn't want meetings televised, and there have always been those who want to just dive into a discussion sparked by a single public comment at the beginning of an evening despite the larger community meaning the vast majority of residents who will never attend a town council meeting, having no anticipation of such a discussion. I don't believe the charter empowers the president of the town council to treat the vice president as part of an executive team. I do not believe the two of them should participate in every agenda setting as a duo, but rather with the charter states that the president should prepare the agenda with advice from all members of the town council. No matter how much we personally admire the skills of two individuals excluding 11 of 13 is not a good way to start. We're going to be continuously building and rebuilding coalitions with a variety of people around different issues, including people who disagree with both the means and the ends. And that's just at this table in addition to our work with all our constituents. We can govern ourselves in a way that's more accountable to all members of our community. And I look forward to this journey with all of you. Kathy Shane, district one. Hi, good evening. I am honored to be here and thrilled to be here having knocked on as many doors as I could find people behind in district one. I also had the pleasure of meeting and listening. And I want to keep what I heard from voices where people were identifying issues of concern to them long-term and short-term at the forefront of what the council is considering. I also made a commitment and we've been working in district one to keep this commitment alive of trying to bring issues out early for discussion before decisions are made. And we're hoping with the formation of a neighborhood association, both at large council members as well as district council and others can come out and hear discussion early on before we have to make a decision at the council. So as I said at the outset, I'm honored to be here. And I agree with Alyssa. We are at a very new beginning. And I hope we pave the way for a solid foundation for the future. Thank you. Thank you. And Sarah Schwartz, district one. I am going to not use the microphone correctly the first time. Yeah, yeah. I am going to echo the sentiments of other people here saying that I'm very honored to be here. And then I was chosen by precinct one to represent them. I am determined that I will be able to keep in touch with my constituents and to bring their voice forward here. And I very much look forward to all of the diversity of ideas that shall also be presented to me here. Thank you. Lynn Gracemer. District. No, I've got this wrong here. District two. I'm going to pass at the moment. Patricia C. DeAngeles. Where? Oh, I have to hold it. I come tonight filled with gratitude for everyone who helped me get here. And I could list countless people, and some of them are here. But I also really want to thank the town staff in every way from the town manager to the maintenance people, people who have been giving and supporting us in many, many ways. I really want everyone to know that I still need your help. And please, please continue to challenge me with your concerns and your ideas. We'll hear a lot tonight about unity. And I know that everyone has one goal, to create a vibrant, diverse, just, and sustainable amour. But each of us may mean something very different by those words. I think it will be through our exploring our different meanings with productive, respectful, and honest dialogue, not only with each other, but also with all of the people of Amherst that we will achieve the best results for our town. We won't all agree. Let our unity be one of collaborative exploration and respectful consolidation. To do this, we need our voices. We need your voices. And we need all voices to create meanings that carry us beyond one single idea or image of who we are, who we might become. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the council and all of the people of Amherst. Thank you. Thank you. And now, Dorothy Pam from District 3. First, let me thank my family, friends, neighbors, and dedicated volunteers for supporting my candidacy for town council. Not only will I do my best to represent the interests of our district and the council, but I will work hard with the other counselors for the greater good of the whole town. I am dedicated to staying true to the roots of New England's gift to the nation of direct citizen democracy, the town meeting. As we move into our new council form of government, we must continue to let the voice of the people be heard so that the residents of Amherst keep the sense of ownership and responsibility that are the hallmarks of the New England town meeting. The sense that the town is more than the sum of all of its parts, that individual gain often chooses to take a back seat to the greater good. We must preserve our visible history, the physical aspects of the town, the simple pure lines of its neighborhoods, its woods, fields, and shared natural spaces that represent the transcendental spiritual and democratic aspirations of its residents. Amherst's proud history is one of love of learning, literature, farming, and wisdom, both practical and otherwise. Its spirit of independence in a communal setting is coupled with self-sufficiency and sustainability. We must build on that foundation. Amherst should not become just another town somewhere in the US, but retain its unique character. After all, our own town poetess Emily Dickinson is exemplar of idiosyncratic poetry. This is not a time to stifle independent voices, nor to follow the winner-take-all partisanship that we now see in our nation's capital, but to continue to be a representative, participatory, and balanced government as reflected in its elected officers. The people want deeds, not just words, write action and justice, not just fine speeches. So I'm hoping today that we will see a true reaching of hands across the aisle and a fusion government. This would be in the best interest of our home. And now, George Ryan, District 3. I'd like to begin by actually making a request to all of you here this evening and those watching at home. Give us a little time. Give us a bit of room to breathe and help us get our feet under us. I was going to say, let us get our feet wet, but I was thinking of Dorothy's metaphor. I think I will leave that aside. This is largely uncharted territory. What we're undertaking is something new, at least for Amherst. Give us a chance to get our act together before you judge us, either individually or collectively, before you attach labels to us, either individually or collectively. Let us get a chance to know each other a bit. Let us figure out how we can organize ourselves to do our work. Let us figure out how we're going to manage our business. I've had an opportunity to speak to every one of my colleagues over the last few weeks, in some cases, for the very first time. These conversations have been cordial and they've been frank. And one thing I can personally attest to is that every one of the people sitting in front of you this evening cares deeply about this town and wants to do the best for it. So I'm asking you, please, cut us a little slack, especially in these first few weeks and months as we work together to get our act together. Originally, I was going to say the first three years, but I don't know. And trust the process as imperfect as I'm sure it will be. The time for criticism will come as it must and it should soon enough, but for the moment, give us a chance. Thank you. Evan Ross, District 4. So earlier today, this afternoon, I was in Boston at a 100% renewable energy millennial leadership summit. I think I got all those words right, with municipal leaders and elected officials from across the Commonwealth. And at one point in a group with many of them, including state representatives and city planners from all over, they looked at me and my compatriot, John Page, who was also there and said, what is Amherst doing? And I said, OK, well, give me a moment. And I talked to them about our resolution towards 100% renewable energy. I talked to them about our net zero energy buildings bylaw. And they were enthusiastic and excited about it. And it showed that they were realizing what I think everyone at this table and in this room has realized, which is that Amherst can be and often is a leader on issues, and a leader in putting its ideals into action. But then, as they asked more pressing questions about, well, how are these buildings going to work, we realized, well, we haven't built them yet. We don't know. And I think that really highlighted that we've done a lot already. We've made a name for ourselves as leaders, but there's a lot more work to do. There's a lot to do to realize some of these ideals and to realize these intentions. And that is what we're here to do over the next several months, years, and as long as we serve, is to continue the tradition of leadership in Amherst and to continue to ensure that those ideals that we hold take place, that we see them actualized. And I am honored to be able to take part of that process and to serve alongside the other 12 people at this table to start to make some of those changes and to see some of those visions actualized. Thank you. Steven D. Schreiber, District 4. Thank you. I first wanted to thank the citizens of Amherst for really selecting such an interesting first-town council. So it's been amazing to get to know 12 people over the last, since the election, through various team-building efforts that I really didn't know before. So I'm super excited about this unknown journey that we're going on with 12 new teammates and our player manager, Paul Backelman, and his amazing staff. So I wanted to give a particular shout out. So my gateway to town government was through the planning board. So what's bittersweet is that yesterday, I was my last day on the planning board. Today's my first day on town council. But I really wanted to give a shout out to the amazing planning staff and planning board members that I've served with for almost 10 years, some of whom are here. Chris Prestrup, our planning director, and I can't see others. But so I'm really looking forward to this journey ahead. Thank you. Chalene Bellmille, District 5. So thank you all for being here and thank you for those of you watching at home, for taking the time to be with us here in this very first town council meeting. I'm so honored to have your trust as district counselor for District 5. And I promise to do my best to represent each one of you, even those who are not in this room are watching. I hope to find ways to reach out and meet with you and continue to meet with you. So I did meet many people during the campaign and knocked on many doors and heard from many of you the issues we are encountering in our district and in Amherst at large. And since then, I've had the chance to meet with all our district counselors here. And one thing I feel very confident today after having met and spoken with each one of you is that we are going to do good work here. We bring in different perspectives, overlapping perspectives. We bring in different skill sets, experiences. And I think all of that is gonna be really good to solve the problems, to really utilize the opportunities we have in this town. So I'm really excited to work with our first town council to create the processes and procedures to create an inclusive government that really engages and invites and creates opportunities for everyone to participate in some way, to have their voices heard. And I look forward to working with Darcy within our District 5 to find ways and maybe even learn from our other district counselors how they are reaching out and creating neighborhood communities and networks so we can continue to have this engagement with all of you to continue learning and listening and working with all of you to create the government we want to create a thriving community for every person in Amherst. So thank you. Thank you. And Darcy A. Dumont, District 5 is our last council speaker. Thank you. I'm also very honored to be here as a new town counselor today and want to thank all of my supporters, many of whom are here. The day after the election, I realized that it seemed like everyone who had been elected supports the idea of a sustainable Amherst. And I'm really happy to hear Evan, that Evan has attended his forum in Boston and is making progress there. Both the most recent report of the UN international panel on climate change and the recent national climate change assessment as you all know, made dire predictions about climate impacts happening much sooner than had been expected. And on behalf of our children and posterity, bold action moving us toward a clean energy economy is really essential. And there's much we can do on a town level. I'm very excited to be able also to be, to witness the building of our, whatever is going to be our first new zero energy building. And looking forward to the creation of a new energy and sustainability committee, which could help establish climate action goals and benchmarks and provide an entry ramp for our sustainability initiatives. One of the most important goals of this council really is to heal the town. And I'm optimistic that we can do that. We've been very divided and many here today are still hurting and distrustful of the new council. I believe that one indication of whether we can heal the town will be how we choose our leadership today. We can show unity and bipartisanship by choosing someone from each camp for the president and vice president positions. That would convey to the public that we're united will be able to work together and that members are able to vote independently. It would instill trust and confidence in the new council. The president would still be able to work with any member of the council she chooses to. And if we don't do that, if we choose two slate candidates, distrust and division is likely to continue. Let's instead, as counselors, do everything we can today and from here on in to heal the town. Thank you. Our next item on the agenda is public comment. This is our time for us to listen to you and for you to speak directly to the town council. Our town charter requires a public comment period at every public meeting. There will also be a public comment period toward the end of this meeting if you prefer to save your comments for later. May I see a show of hands of people who would like to be recognized to speak? Okay. Good. I see about, I think, three or four hands. I will recognize each of you and I will ask you to keep your remarks to no more than three minutes. You do need to ask me to come and sit. Oh, you have to come and sit at the mic at the desk there. I guess, Andra, you were the first hand up. To push. Okay. I said I like the new digs. So thank you to all of our new counselors. It's a very exciting moment and I commend you and thank you very much for running and serving for all of us. I'm Andra Rose, district three. I'm a straggler on issues in Amherst. I have, I voted for the schools. I voted for the charter and I spoke to both sides about the ranker and the character attacks. And I also voted for candidates who were on the Amherst forward slate and candidates who weren't. And it's very important to me that everyone in town be represented well. I spoke to many of you yesterday at the reception after a wonderful ceremony and about the importance of your choice of leadership today in order to show your determination to work together as a team and not in factions. And I feel like this is really going to be able to happen. And that everyone wants their independent voice to be recognized. Several of you said that you didn't know exactly what the vice president role would be. And I encourage you to think in terms of what it should be. You're the boss now. And if you're not sure, then you should probably talk about it together before you vote because if it's going to influence how you vote, then figure it out. It's Alyssa and many others said the rules are to be figured out and not in a rush. So those of you who shaped the charter and served on the select board are going to be great resources. Thank you for running. But you must know that you're seen as the powers that be. And so it would be much better if we had fresh faces in the leadership. So thank you. Thank you. And our next speaker, please stand up and come to the table and state your name. We're having a little technical difficulty up here. Oh. And then a little light will go on. Okay. Kitty Axelson Berry from district two. I want to agree with what Andrew Rose said and with what Darcy said about the importance of having people getting along unity, but also recognizing that there is a pack in town. There was a slate. There was a position statement that some people signed. Other people stayed independent. And I think it's really important for the town's divisiveness to be overcome by having both independent people and pack people being able to speak. The president prepares the council meeting agendas with advice from members and the manager presides at all council meetings, regulates its proceedings, decides all questions of order, appoints and oversees all members of all council committees, has full voting rights and performs ceremonial functions. The vice president presides in the absence of the president. So the president is a very, very important role and the vice and presumably the president won't always be at every single meeting. So the vice president is also a very important role. So I do hope that it is not only filled by people endorsed by Amherst-Boward, but also by independents. I also want to add the importance of having minutes accurate and put forth to the public in a timely manner. That's all. Thank you very much. And our next public speaker, come up please. And is the little light on? Okay, and please give us your name. Oh, hold it, okay. My name's Julianne. I'm not a voter yet, but I will be in a few years. I'm just wondering, is there a possible clarification of who or is it all of you who are running for president and vice president? That will be determined when we have nominations in a few minutes. Okay. Okay, and then we will find out because I don't think anyone really, really knows completely right now. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Do we have another speaker? Yes, please, come on up. Hi, I'm Nancy Baer. I live in North Amherst and have for 24 years and have never been involved in town government. And this charter council and change caused me to decide that I should. And so I am part of the planning group for the district one neighborhood association. And I've been excited by it, but also a little heart sick at some of the divisions that I've seen. And I just didn't think that that would be Amherst somehow, my hometown. So I'm really hoping that that can fade away and that something more of a higher road can take its place. And I plan to do my best to keep things objective and fair and affirmative. Thanks for your work. Thank you very much. And I see another hand. Hi, I'm Jeff Lausdine from district two. I just want to paraphrase something that Justice Roberts recently said in response to a divisive comment by the president, which is that all Supreme Court justices are, they're not Obama Supreme Court justices. They're not Bush Supreme Court justices. I want to get past this. Some of you, people's belief that some of you are beholden to a PAC and some of you are quote, independent. You're each elected by this town, not by a PAC. And I think you all know that. I don't think everybody in the audience knows that. I just want us to this town to move on beyond thinking of PACs and independence. That's not who you are anymore. And I know you all know that. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have anybody else from the public? Okay, then we will move on. The next item on our agenda is the election of officers. The charter calls for the town council to elect a president and a vice president each for a term of one year. I would like to explain the process that we will follow. I will ask for nominations. Nominations do not need to be seconded. Counselors are allowed to nominate themselves. After each nomination, I will ask the counselor nominated if he or she accepts the nomination to which they can answer yes or no. When I determine that there are no other nominations, I will close nominations. I will then ask each counselor who is nominated if they would like to make a brief statement on their nomination. And I would ask that you keep these remarks to no more than three minutes. At the conclusion of these statements, I will ask the town clerk to call the role of the council. When the town clerk calls your name, please state the name of the person you would like to serve as president of the town council or state that you choose not to vote. The clerk will call the role of the entire town council. At the conclusion of the roll call vote, the town clerk will announce the results. If one counselor has received a majority of votes, then that person will then have been deemed elected and will serve as president. If no one reaches the majority threshold, I will repeat the process again, beginning with requesting nominations for serving as president of the town council. We will repeat this process until we elect a president. Once the president is elected, that person will take over chairing this meeting and I will go sit in their seat. Are there any questions? Okay. Are the counselors ready to begin this process? Okay. Good. I will now open the floor for nominations to be president of the Amherst town council for one year term. Yes. I nominate Lynn Greesimer for president. Okay. I hear the nomination of Lynn Greesimer to be president of the town council. Counselor Greesimer, do you accept this nomination? I do, yes. Are there other nominations to be president of the Amherst town council for one year term? Seeing that there are no other nominations, I will declare that nominations are closed. Okay. So I invite each of the nominees to make a brief statement. I invite the nominee to make a brief statement on her candidacy to be president. Let me begin by saying it's an honor to be nominated for this historic moment in our town. There has been much talk about the future and I keep reminding myself that rarely are any of us given a chance for such a fresh start. It's a strange feeling in many ways and very scary, but also exhilarating. When I decided to run for town council, which seems like years ago, I was very curious about who my fellow pioneers would be. The group that emerged was to me fascinating and wonderful. Some I have known for years and others I have never met until after or during the election. After months of campaigning, 13 of us have now seen quite a bit of each other, not as much as we need to, but quite a bit. And to me, it is still wonderful. We've gotten to know it or we're starting to get to know each other much better, but here as we officially start, I want to mention one thing that really struck me. In my observation, you see before, you 13 very, very independent people, all committed to moving Amherst forward. That was the line that came to me at 12.30 last night when I spoke up and never got back to sleep. I use those terms intentionally because during the campaign, it was sometimes suggested that these two ideas, independent thinking and Amherst forward progress, were somehow in opposition and reflected sides in a struggle. But I don't see the inevitability of that struggle. Now I'm a realist, very much of a realist. I've been involved in a lot of political campaigns over the years. Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. And then temptation to go tribal can therefore be very strong and universal. But campaigns are occasional punctuation marks in a much longer story of governing. I don't think any of us would like our governing at any level to be constrained to a narrow box that campaigns can put us in. For me, our aspirations should be bigger. We should try to get out of the box as fast as we can. And I know we can. Like many of you, I have been and remain deeply agitated by what passes for governing at the national level. It seems as if tribalism and manufactured divisions are all that matter. Our highest elected official is still trapped and tries to trap us with him in a box that should be closed more than two years ago. He wants to vanquish his opponent again and again. He can't see the future because he is blinded by the past. It's maddening and it is terrible for our country. But what can we do about it? Well, one thing we can do is model good behavior. We may be part-time leaders in a small community in the place most people don't think about, but we are part of the answer to what democracy means. We can choose to burden our governing with notions of tribes and sides from campaigns past, or we can take advantage of our fresh start and celebrate the idea that we are 13 independent thinkers whose ideas and alliances will surely shift and evolve as together we try to move Amherst forward. That is what I am willing to work for and I hope that all of you will join me in that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. It is now time to vote. I'll remind you that you will be voting for the person by name. You would like to have serve as president of the town council for a term of one year. Are the councilors ready to vote? Okay. So I will ask the town clerk to call the roll. The town clerk will call the roll alphabetically and each member shall name the person that he or she would like to see serve as president. Ms. Ball-Mill. Lynn Griesmer. Ms. Brewer. Lynn Griesmer. Ms. D'Angeles. Lynn Griesmer. Ms. Dumont. Lynn Griesmer. Ms. Griesmer. Lynn Griesmer. I was told to vote for myself back in elementary school. Ms. Hanakie. Lynn Griesmer. Ms. Pam. I choose not to vote as presiding president of the selection. Mr. Ross. Lynn Griesmer. Mr. Ryan. Lynn Griesmer. Ms. Schoen. Lynn Griesmer. Mr. Schreiber. Lynn Griesmer. Mr. Steinberg. Lynn Griesmer. Ms. Schwartz. Lynn Griesmer. Having achieved a total of 12 votes, Councillor Griesmer has achieved a majority vote from the town council to serve as president of the Amherstown Council for a one-year term. Councillor Griesmer. Councillor Griesmer, please come to the center of the council table. Would you please point, is that right here? Okay. And have the town clerk square you in as president. And now, I'm going to hand over the gavel and change seats with council, with president of the Amherstown Council, Lynn Griesmer. Thank you, Ms. Pam. Put your stuff down. Thank you. There is a replacement gavel in the works. Aging, beautiful wood. This is the temporary symbol of office. You may. So as promised yesterday at our transition events, I'm presenting to you the gavel from the moderator and Amherstown meeting as a legislative body. This is the appropriate gavel for now. So congratulations and thank you very much. First of all, let me start by thanking Dorothy for her terrific job as president pro tem. She has now convened us at three different times, led us through two training sessions and opened this meeting tonight with all of the same fear and intrepidation I feel, I'm sure. And I want to just appreciate her putting herself forward as our senior member. She relieved me of being that and a couple others and you've done a marvelous job. Thank you so much, Dorothy. We have other things we'd like to do, but we do need to proceed to the election of a vice president. And before we do that, let me just go back to something that is a point I was trying to make in my remarks and that is there are 13 people in this council. Each of us needs to carry our weight and I know we can and I know we will. And so vice president is an important position. Occasionally my husband and I do take vacation and I don't necessarily even wanna call in, frankly. I might like to look at the ocean and enjoy some time off. So in the absence of a president, in fact, the vice president does need to be able to conduct meetings and manage the agenda, et cetera. At the same time, there's also many, many talents on this council. I've stopped even trying to count the degrees that people have, law degrees, doctorates, expertise in architecture, you name it. And if we don't have it, those of you in the audience and those of you listening and those of you not able to listen tonight do have it. This is a town of many, many talents and no one has a right to take that away from us. So I would like to proceed and ask for nominations for vice president. We will follow the same procedure that the president pro tem did follow. And so we will start with nominations. I nominate Sarah Schwartz and I wanna point out that one of her many attributes is if we look at the symbol of Amherst up on the wall, we could have a book and a plow leading us and with Sarah's long experience with farms. Thank you. Okay. Yes, Evan. I would like to nominate Mandy Jo Hanneke. In this moment, as we approach our first time council, I think we need someone who can comfortably and confidently and competently take over Shudlin, the unavailable on vacation. So we need someone who can step in at a moment's notice to take over the running of meetings. Mandy Jo has shown this through her work on the Charter Commission. She is adept at process. She has a focus on inclusiveness of all voices and she has demonstrated her understanding of the movements and deliberations of a body. And these are the skills that we need in a vice president. Should she need to fill in for the president if the president is unavailable? And I believe that that is the most important criteria we should be using to evaluate the vice presidency. Is there organizational skills and their ability to take over the role of the president and their understanding of process? And so I enthusiastically nominate Mandy Jo Hanneke for that role. So let me pause for a moment and ask Councilor Schwartz, are you willing to be nominated? Yes. And let me ask Councilor Hanneke, are you willing to be nominated? Yes. Okay. So I think it would be appropriate if each of you would like to say something no more than three minutes. Yes. You still need to keep nominations open. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Patience please, patience. Are there any other nominations? Then I move that nominations be closed. And am I doing this right? Okay, thanks. Looking at our town council right up here. And the people sitting behind him who also know these rules. So shall we start first of all alphabetically? Mandy Jo? So I am honored to be nominated to be the vice president. I, if elected, I would hope to serve you well as my nominator indicated. I am ready to and able to step in and chair meetings whenever possible. Many of you know of my service on the Charter Commission as vice chair where I was able to do that. But many of you may not know that I spent three years as president of the Pioneer Valley Symphony where I chaired meetings for an entire three years. I ran the board meetings. I was able to navigate those board meetings through very tough and intense discussions on a very wide variety of sensitive matters with a fairness and grace and in a way that ensured all the viewpoints that were being dealt with and all the personnel that were being dealt with were heard in a meaningful manner. I would, if had to chair, would operate in the same sense if I had to take over as president. I guided the organization through the creation of a new performing group, a youth orchestra. And I also just this past year chaired the music director search committee. So I have chaired many meetings. I am completely capable of doing that and comfortable doing that. And in that music director search committee I ensured that both the committee members and the musicians had a large role in choosing their new music director. As vice chair, I worked to keep the commission on time through its 18 month schedule. I would aim as vice president to work with anyone and to be an ally to make sure their voices were heard on agendas, get things on an agenda, do any of that necessary. I also served with Meg Gage and Julia Rishmeyer on a working group and with members of the community to put together a plan for community engagement and then executed it. I would operate in the same way as vice president if I am elected. So I would hope that my nomination and hopefully gain your support because per the charter the one thing that is set forth is running meetings in the absence of the president. And I am well experienced in that but I am also experienced in bringing people together in collaboration and making effectively collaborating with others, keeping things on schedule, putting an emphasis on community participation and working hard to make sure all viewpoints on a committee are heard and valued. So thank you. Councilor Schwartz. I too am honored to be nominated for vice president. I believe that I see all of us here as a team. I think that's a message that I have carried throughout my entire candidacy is that I like diversity of opinion. I don't really see sides and I think it's very healthy to hear different opinions because it gives you something else to think about and then maybe you end up in the middle somewhere you never thought you would be. I am going to talk to you a lot about reliability. And because of that something came to my attention this evening when I was talking about what I believed vice president would bring to the council is that some of the counselors had had a concern about a misconception about my reliability. So I would as a matter of housekeeping just like to bring this up just to clear the air. So there is a, I'm gonna call it a rumor that I quit finance committee. I'd like to clear that up. I had been appointed to finance committee for a year being asked to finish someone else's term. At the end of that year I was asked if I would serve finance committee in a term that was my own. At that time an unexpected family emergency arose. My son was fighting for his life. I chose to pass up the opportunity to serve on finance committee in order to care for my son. I informed the town manager of my decision leaving plenty of time to fill the position. I am not a quitter. I make decisions best. I make decisions based on the best for an overall outcome. So now, why I feel that I am qualified for this position? I've lived in Amherst for 28 years. I served for many, many terms on town meeting. I served several terms on the agricultural commission and I was vice chair. But the only qualification I believe that I need for vice president is that of reliability. For I believe that the charter calls for the vice president to only stand in for the president if the president is absent. The president has 12 equal capable counselors to help her with whatever she asks for. A vice president that is anything more than someone who stands in for the president when she is absent creates an imbalance of power, robs other counselors of learning experiences and creates the impression that the vice president role is a place where the new president is prepared. I don't think that's how the charter reads. So I'm committed to just staying firm on that and taking the space to only fill in for the president when the president is absent. And I think the person who nominated me, thank you, it's now time to vote. I'll remind you that you will be voting for a person by name. You would have to serve, you would like to have serve as vice president of the town council for a term of one year. Steve. Just a point of order. Would you want to see if there's any discussion? Oh, sure. Is there further discussion? Yes, Dorsey. I'm sorry, councilor Dumont. I would just like to repeat the point that the charter states pretty clearly that the, in one sentence, the role of the vice president is just to take the place of the president when absent. And I'm a little concerned about the fact that the council hasn't had a full discussion of what the role of the vice president is. And so we've heard various ideas about what the role could be, ranging from what Sarah described to a much more involvement in working with the president, much more involvement with setting agendas, with planning, helping with appointments, committee appointments, and so on. So I'm interested in knowing maybe from the president what your view is on the role of the vice president. Let me address a couple of points you've made. First and foremost, the charter is very clear. The vice president acts when, in place of the president, whenever the president is not able to be at the meetings. In actually talking about committees, it is not my intention to have one person be consulting on that, but actually consult with all of you about who you feel would be good people to be on various committees. Yourselves and other people you know in the town. So I don't see the vice president as being kind of in charge of or the other voice on setting committees. It really depends on who a vice president is and who other people are as to what kind of other roles they might take. Various people have like yourself legal background. So when it comes to an issue where maybe it would be useful to have somebody look at something with the kind of experience you bring, and we are going to have an example of that a little later tonight. I would hope that whoever is vice president and whoever on the council, besides the vice president, would serve in those kinds of capacities. So I don't see it as a special position per se, but as somebody who in fact does have the capability of stepping up when the president is not there. Does that answer your questions to the best of my ability at this point? You have to hold it down. I have to hold it down. Okay. I would strongly urge that we think not only of reality, and we also think of perception, we think of what symbol we are presenting the town in terms of how this town is going to work together. And so I suggest that it would be a very good idea to support a vice president according to the charter, someone who would back up the president and not think of it as a super ruling team of two. I can see that as being a very attractive thing, but I think that we're very aware that we want power sharing, and that means we want all of the counselors to feel wanted and needed, and a very important part of this process. So I would vote for the vice president to be someone who is not part of a special leadership team, but is just there to back up the president. Other comments from the counselors? Counselor. Yes. Andy. This is the only other analogy that I can come to as I've thought about this, and I've looked at our charters back to where we've been in several points of discussion this evening, and that's our federal government. We have vice president of the United States, which has a very limited description in the constitution, essentially to be there in case the president dies or there's a tie in the Senate. There isn't any other role other than what the president delegates to the vice president, and I think that as we've looked at it over, of course, of our experience, and those of us who've read history, what's been in the past, and it's varied tremendously, and it depends upon the president and the vice president. I think going forward, starting today, and for as long as this town is operating under this charter, as it's currently worded, it's gonna be up to the president and the vice president at each juncture as to exactly what that role may be. And therefore, I very much appreciate Councilor DeMond having asked the question and our president having responded to it about her perception of the role. Councilor Schreiber. So is it too late to change the charter? But I think what others have said is absolutely critical that we not read any more into this position than what's exactly stated in the charter, which is that the vice president steps in only when the president is not available, that the vice president not, that this not be an executive team, that this not be a president in training. I think all 12 other people here can and should be equally trained to be the possible next president. So if we want to sort of revisit an ad hoc executive, whatever task force of a smaller group of us that are sort of a leadership team, then we should do that. But right now I think that it's critical that we read it at absolute face value. The vice president, as you mentioned in the United States does have this extra authority in the Senate. And we don't haven't given that authority in this particular case. Yes. Councilor Ryan. As I understand it, I'm being asked to choose not about a symbol, but about a person. I'm being asked to choose between two very fine candidates, not between two symbols. I don't know how to judge between symbols, but I think I have some idea of how to judge as difficult as it is between two candidates. And so that's the basis upon which I will make my independent decision on the basis of what I received to be the qualifications of two candidates. Other comments? Yes. Councilor Gingels. I feel strongly that we need someone who is not an expert, but someone who is willing to learn and is expert in other areas in terms of the town of Amherst. I feel strongly that there's a sense that for some people that being vice president gives an extra cache to what they do. And I think that's not true. I think that what we need is someone who's solid and reliable and present with the president. Additional comments? Councilor Jamal. The only, the charter says that the only qualification needed to be an officer is to have been elected to the town council. Other comments? Are you ready to vote? Okay. Seeing so, I will ask the town clerk to call the roll. The town clerk will call the roll alphabetically, but starting with the second person down on the alphabet. And each member shall name the person they would like to serve as vice president. After that, the town clerk will announce the results of the voting stating, councilor whoever has received a majority vote for the town council to serve as vice president for the Amherst town council. Councilor Balmille. I'm sorry, councilor Brewer. I cast my vote for Sarah Swartz. Councilor D'Angeles. Councilor Dumond. Councilor Grisimer. I'm abstaining. Councilor Hanakie. I'm gonna cast it for myself. Councilor Mandi, Joe Hanakie. Councilor Pan. Councilor Ross. Mandi, Joe Hanakie. Councilor Ryan. Mandi, Joe Hanakie. Councilor Shane. Sarah Schwartz. Councilor Schreiber. Mandi, Joe Hanakie. Councilor Steinberg. Mandi, Joe Hanakie. Councilor Schwartz. Myself, Sarah Schwartz. You didn't do bone. Councilor Balmille. Mandi, Joe Hanakie. Okay, I have a vote. I have a tie vote, six to six. With one abstention. Further comments? Can we have two vice presidents? Yes. It's just a thought. There are 13 councilors. One is president, 12 or not. And they're 12 months in the year. I actually am somewhat serious, but at least the thought to think about, but it would require each of us once a month at least to very seriously pay attention to the business of the council and be prepared to step in if we were called upon. It's an idea I mentioned to a few people before, including my wife. Anyway, it's just a thought. Am I correct, Councilor Brewer, that this is something that the Select Board has done? Yes. So yes, the Select Board has been doing this for several years. It will be harder, easier to keep track of 12 rotating people than it was to keep track of four rotating people. So in some ways, perhaps easier. It is an interesting proposition that I had kind of dismissed as being the old way of doing things, but where I do see some benefit to it is just as we've talked about leadership development amongst all of us, rather than it being a pair of people who are at least perceived to be controlling the agenda, even if that was not their intention to be perceived as. So I'm interested. May I confer with town council? No, I'm sorry, with the town councilor, attorney, town attorney, town attorney. After conferring with the town attorney, excuse me, the town attorney, the charter is very explicit that the vice president is a term of one year and cannot be distributed on a rotating 12 month, one month basis. So that option is no longer an option. That leaves us with two options. One is further discussion and another one is around a voting. And so, is there any further discussion from the council? So I did think about one other alternative and there's been no discussion to get to agree about this for, but what it is, is that it does provide in the charter that the council can reorganize at any time. So while it's a one year term, the ability to reorganize does exist. And we would have the option of deciding to have a person serve for six months with sort of an understanding amongst ourselves, though it would take a majority at the end of six months to agree to vote to reorganize and choose the other person. We cannot, I don't think, set that up in any other way. At this time, we cannot make the vote that it would switch at the end of six months. Councilor Schreiber. So we're in this for a three year run. So we have a luxury of being at the Greenlight Center. Okay, I maybe have to actually talk into it. I thought if the Greenlight was on, so we're in this for three years. So we have a luxury of that no other council will have that we'll be together for three years and those years are gonna go by quickly. So maybe reorganizing after six months makes sense, but maybe we're gonna, we know that we have to reorganize three times. So we have a rotation already set up of three times. Councilor D'Angelo. Is it possible for us council, the attorney, to reorganize now, to make a decision to reorganize? Madam Chair, I'm Joel Bard, town attorney, and I'm afraid I didn't quite understand the question. Yeah, well, we have the right as a council to reorganize. And I was wondering, and my esteemed colleague was talking about reorganizing in six months for a year. So I'm wondering what would keep us from reorganizing, making a decision to reorganize now? To reorganize right now? Yep. So if I understand correctly, so far you've elected the president only. Maybe the shortest term of any president. No, no, no, no, no, no. Trump's should have been short, but sorry. The charter says only, as I recall, and you have to take a quick look, but it simply says that the council has the right to vote to reorganize. So the answer to your question would be anytime a majority of the council votes to reorganize, it can reorganize. So what, we've had several possibilities here. Is it right if I keep talking? Please, yes. Sure. I was wondering if we had this six month idea, what if we have two really qualified people, both of whom I respect, why cannot we not reorganize and either have them alternate months or each do a turn of, okay, but hang on. Or each do a turn of six months in this first year. So that we have one vice president who serves for six months. And then with the guarantee that the other person would be then vice president. Madam President, please. So first let me read the sentence on reorganization. It says simply the town council may reorganize at any time at its discretion. So in my opinion, the one option available to the council now, well let me say this. It's my opinion that the council could not now, if you will, set out a schedule for when different people may be vice chair. So in my opinion, the alternative available is that the council have discussion and perhaps vote to commit to reorganize. So it wouldn't be a binding vote, but it would be a commitment to let's say in six months to reorganize the position of vice chair, for example. That would be consistent with the charter. Yes. Councilor Pan. Okay, pushing the button. A script for the election of the president said that if we did not achieve a majority, then we would start the process again, starting with new nominations and a vote until we got a president. We could then follow that same procedure for vice president, which means we would then start the election for vice president over with new nominations. So if we come up with no other course of action, I recommend we do that. Okay. Other comments? Yes. I think that we didn't really resolve the issue of the role of the vice president. And one option would be to table the vice president vote until we have had time for the council to have a discussion of what the role should be or whether the council can formulate the role of the vice president or whether that's completely up to the president. Councilor Brewer. Following up on that, and perhaps this is another question for the town attorney because having discussed this with a number of people over the course of the campaign, I feel as you obviously all heard very strongly about the role that is here. I have had other people say, and it's been said here tonight that the president gets to decide the role of the vice president, and I see no reason why that would be true. And so I do not like that idea and that idea has been told to me that it's up to the president to decide that and I disagree. And so I don't know how we come to a conclusion around that whether it's whether, as Ms. Dumont says, we have a longer discussion that it's up to the council to decide by majority what the clearer role of the vice president is or if the president just believes that they have that choice. Other comments on this issue? Should we try another vote? Are there any other nominations and the two people that have been nominated? Councilor Schwartz, yes? Councilor Hannake? Yes. Okay. We have another roll call vote. This time we're starting the third person down, right? Councilor D'Angeles? Sarah Schwartz? Councilor Dumont? Sarah Schwartz? Councilor Grisimer? Upstain? Councilor Hannake? For myself, Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Pam? Sarah Schwartz? Councilor Ross? Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Ryan? Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Shane? Sarah Schwartz? Councilor Schreiber? Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Steinberg? Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Schwartz? Myself, Sarah Schwartz? Councilor Balmille? Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Brewer? Sarah Schwartz? The vote is six to six with one abstention. Councilor Schreiber? Do we have to make this decision tonight? Can we table this to another night? No. I just, this afternoon, I spent some more time with Roberts Rules online. And I went to the question of can a president vote during an election when they're presiding? And what I read, and this is online, of course, was that generally the president, if it's a secret ballot, a hyperballot, the president can vote because no one will see what their vote is. If it's a roll call vote, the president would most likely not vote unless their voting would change things. In which case, Roberts Rules suggests that the president should not abstain in such a case and should vote. I was following your lead. You abstained. Oh, true. True. Yes, Evan? This council has a lot to do over the next three years and a whole lot to do over the next month. And I would be incredibly hesitant to table this discussion. I would rather we set leadership tonight and we can move on to discussing the issues that matter to the people who elected us. If I may, I'm sorry, but I do believe this matters to the people who elected us. And I would not want anyone to assume that we don't believe that. I think that while we have many things we need to be working on tonight, I think we have a fundamental disagreement about the role of the vice president. I don't think it's just about a symbol. I don't think it's just about a person. I think we have a fundamental disagreement about the role of the vice president. If you believe that it's up to the president to decide what the vice president does, you're voting based on that. If you believe it's the role that it says in the charter, you're voting that. I just don't know how we resolve this. Is a motion in order? Yes. I move we table the vote for the vice president so that we can have time to discuss the role of the vice president. Motion's been made. Is there a second? I'll second. Motion's been made in second discussion. I think it's very clear in the charter. It says, and a vice president who will serve a term of one year. Period. So I don't think it's a question of clarifying what the role of the vice president is. I think it's that some people feel that a proposal put forward, but not necessarily publicly, that the president and the vice president work together as an executive team is a position that some people agree with and some do not. And I don't think a committee is gonna resolve that issue. So I think we should look at our consciences and I think that we should vote once again. There's a motion and seconded on the table. Are there other comments? Councilor Schoen. Okay, I've been quiet on this. I think the proposal that we have a discussion is an important one and I think that's what we're gonna be asked to be a vote for because we could say, and I think what Alyssa has been warning us, that a role that is just stepping in when someone is absent will leave the other 12 people in an agenda setting role, whether it's rotating or not. As soon, if there is a possibility that there's a vision, that there's more of a partnership, it creates two people that are more likely to be agenda setting in a differential way that we're not an equal group of 13. So I think that's a discussion. Whether we can reach an agreement that we wanna limit the role or we're willing it to be broader would be put up to vote and then whomever is elected to be vice president would have to honor that. I don't know whether we can do that. So that's, I don't know whether we can make that kind of decision, but I think that's what the discussion is about because either person could clearly say, I'm willing to play that role or this role. If we said we're going to make it more limited. Okay. Other comments? Yes. Councilor Schoen? Balm know. So I think a question we can ask ourselves is, is that discussion going to change our voting in any way? And is the discussion on the role of the vice president going to change our vote? Because everyone is here and waiting and is that a discussion we need to have, you know, in the next meeting and we can clarify that. And in the second decision is voting and how do we resolve the voting of the vice president? Two different things. Are there any other comments? So there's a motion on the floor. It's been seconded that we table this till next council meeting and have an opportunity to discuss that, the role of the vice president. That's the motion that's on the floor. No further discussion? Call the question. All those in favor, raise your hand. Are we raising our hand to table? If you support the motion that we will, in fact, not elect a vice president tonight, but we'll go back and just have a conversation about what the vice president does. Okay. There's three, four. All those opposed? Nine opposed. Okay. So we're back to voting again. Okay. Sarah, yes? Yes. Mind you. Yes. All right. We're, this time we're starting with the fourth name down. Councillor Dumont. Sarah Schwartz. Councillor Griezmer. Upstate. Upstate. Councillor Hannake. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councillor Pam. Sarah Schwartz. Councillor Ross. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councillor Ryan. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councillor Shane. Sarah Schwartz. Councillor Schreiber. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councillor Steinberg. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councillor Schwartz. Myself, Sarah Schwartz. Councillor Baumele. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councillor Brewer. Sarah Schwartz. Councillor D'Angeles. Sarah Schwartz. Sarah Schwartz. Six to six. Yes, Councillor D'Angeles. Symbols are important. They represent, symbols are important. They represent ideas and ideals. And I feel strongly that we need to move forward on this issue and move forward in a way that allows what has been perceived by town members and people in this room as sides and have a representative from each side so we can begin to build some kind of bridge across those sides. Because it's a waste of energy and it's a waste of time to be fighting that battle in that way. So I think it is a time for a symbolic movement right now. Councillor Baumele. I think it is important to have this discussion, of course. And when we talk about symbols, we also need to remember that different groups had different symbols involved and there were different things that were symbolic. And so how do we choose which groups, symbols need to be more respected. And maybe it's time to move forward beyond what was dividing us at that point. And the people have voted for us and we've met and we've spoken to each other and we've connected. We're working on issues across the board. There are people, you know, we've already started those discussions and maybe this is a time to, for us to step in as a town council behind the people, individuals and not the symbols. Because again, the symbols are, they're different. Different things have different meanings for the different groups. So I really invite us to look at, maybe the discussion could be of who is the, who are the candidates, who are gonna bridge and bring us together, who are gonna support the president in bridging this divide. And from what I can see that has happened, Mandi Jo did get the most number of votes in the town of Amherst at large. And she does have the mandate of people across the board. She's a single person who has the most number of votes and that's why I am, but I'm happy to have a, you know, more of an exploration or discussion here around that. What can, can we think in a newer way as a town council to break through that idea of symbols that small groups of people have had in this town? Other comments? Yes. Councilor Ross. Thank you. With all due respect to Councilor DeAngeles, my opinion on this matter is that this is not a moment to take a symbolic vote. This is a leadership position. This is a role outlined in the charter as someone who should the president be unable to fulfill her duties as she's expressed will happen when she needs to be on the beach on occasion. We need someone who is able to run the meetings. And I think tonight has shown that those meetings will not always run smoothly, that they will not always run as expected, that it is going to be messy. And I think we need someone who we have confidence in navigating that messiness, navigating that process. And so I do not think that this is time for a gesture or time for symbolism. I think this is time for us to vote for the person who we think is most qualified and competent to fill in for the president. I have faith that both candidates could do the job. My personal belief is that Mandy Jo Hanneke brings a great deal of experience in running committees in organizational work. And that should be the biggest criteria, not a symbol or not an endorsement or non endorsement that occurred during the election. So I would urge my fellow counselors to make a decision based on qualifications and not based on a symbolic gesture alone. Councilor Schoen. Hi, when I nominated Sarah, I didn't speak strongly enough about why I think she is qualified for this position. I mainly looked at the plow up on the wall. But I've gotten to know Sarah as we've been campaigning and watching her work with people, work with groups and be able to cross over to all sides and listen closely. She has a long experience in our town participating in town meeting, participating on the agricultural commission, some experience on the finance committee. So she's bringing in to us some of our past when we're looking forward. That's why I think she can and will be able to step in if in the absence of Lynn, we need someone to chair and listen. I also know she doesn't, because we've had long discussions about this, she's not looking this as a career move onward to presidency. She really wants it to be the person who steps in and then moves backwards to her regular counselor role rather than setting agendas. So I think we should recognize that it's not just symbolic. We are talking about the role that the person wants to play and what their future aspirations are, a year from now, two years from now. Other comments from the council? Yes, Andy. This has actually been very difficult, almost torturous for me. I've known Sarah for a long, long time and she was served on the finance committee with me. I have a lot of confidence in her. I have a lot of confidence in Mandy Jo because I've worked with her through kind of a role that I've played in trying to be helpful to the Charter Commission and in many other things that we've done together in town. So I've had an opportunity to observe both. In the end, we couldn't come to any kind of agreement, I don't think, on what the role of the vice president is going to be because the Charter says what the Charter says and it is what I said before, it's going to flow and I think that the intent in not being specific in certain things in the Charter so that this council and future councils can interpret things and reinterpret things to make them work as they will best. So it would not be advisable for us to set out a detailed, committed description for what the role of the vice president is because I don't know that we want to even try to make that kind of commitment for future councils, future presidents, future vice presidents. In the end, I had to make my difficult choice and I did it based upon an assessment of where I felt having known two wonderful people for a long time, having observed them and the work that they do and it was tough but I did make that decision and that's why. I'm sorry? Yes, Councillor Gingeles. Many of us, of the 13 of us have a facilitation experience. We've run organizations, we've done all of that and so there are many people here of the 13 that could take on the role of vice president. The reason I support Sarah is the quality of her clear thinking, her ability to articulate issues and her ability to not take sides but deeply listen to the people that she's involved with and I have learned from her. I have been supported by her and I think she would make a wonderful vice president. Additional comments? Call for another round of voting. Mandy Jo? Yes. Yes. A little more enthusiasm. I would like to just say that that was a very confident and assured yes. Okay. All right. Councillor Grisimer. I'm abstaining. Councillor Hanakie. Mandy Jo Hanakie. Councillor Pam. Councillor Ross. Mandy Jo Hanakie. Councillor Ryan. Councillor Ryan. Mandy Jo Hanakie. Councillor Shane. Sarah Schwartz. Councillor Schreiber. Mandy Jo Hanakie. Councillor Steinberg. Mandy Jo Hanakie. Councillor Schwartz. Sarah Schwartz. Councillor Baumele. Mandy Jo Hanakie. Councillor Brewer. Sarah Schwartz. Councillor D'Angeles. Sarah Schwartz. Councillor Dumont. Sarah Schwartz. The vote is six to six with one abstention. We could open the nominations again and see if we get some new different nominations. We have a motion to open nominations again. Is there a second? So we have nominations again. We'll start with nominations for Vice President. Yes. Are both Sarah and I already considered nominated or are they back to a blank slate? They should be re-nominated. Yes. Yes. Thank you. The floor is open for nominations. Councillor Ross. I nominate Mandy Jo Hanakie for the Office of Vice President. I nominate Sarah Schwartz for Vice President. Are there additional nominations? This is getting us nowhere. Excuse me, I shouldn't have said that. Are there additional nominations? Councillor Hanakie, yes. Brewer. Okay. Oh, you don't even need a second, but that's okay. All right, we have three people who've been nominated. Mandy, excuse me, Councillor Hanakie, do you accept the nomination? Yes. Councillor Brewer, do you accept the nomination? Yes. Councillor Schwartz, do you accept the nomination? Yes. Are there any other nominations? Can I ask a point of clarification? Does it have to be a majority vote? Yes, it does. Okay. All right. Roll call. Closing nominations? Are there additional nominations? Yes. I'm sorry, I thought perhaps we were at the point of statements. Oh, I'm, excuse me, yes. I wasn't clear on if they were closed. We certainly should. Would you like to start, Councillor Brewer? Thank you. I'm not trying to prolong this. I think every, I like to think I've been clear in my concerns, I have a problem with the president deciding if the vice president is at every agenda setting, meaning or not. It's really that simple. If we leave it, we have opinions here that clearly it should be up to the president. There are other opinions that it should not. We could keep having discussions all day, but even if the majority of people said president shouldn't get to decide, I'm not really sure the president's compelled to follow that majority opinion. So we are in an incredibly awkward position where no one is going to be happy. And were I to serve as vice president, I can guarantee you I'm not going to agenda setting meanings, but that was not really what I would like to look at this role as being. I wish we could have done this another way and I will be not in the least offended if I don't get a single vote. I am very frustrated that we can't seem to come to a decision when it seems as though we could come to a decision that said the role of the vice president is limited. It is not up to the president to change it. If we wish to discuss it further at a future date, what additional duties they might take on like breaking ties in the Senate, that would be fine. But since we have not yet come to that conclusion, I don't see how I can change my vote from this sorts. Okay. Councilor Hannity. Well, this is awkward. No, I already stated what my qualifications were. I don't have much to add to that in terms of the fact that in the charter it does say the vice president will assume the duties of the president shall the president not be able to serve. And I believe I have those qualifications tremendously for that having run meetings in very sensitive instances. As president of the Pioneer Valley Symphony, I've run meetings as the vice chair and all of that. I appreciate Sarah, Councilor Swartz and even Councilor Brewer for stepping up. It's a very tough decision. I would serve as vice president how this council wants a vice president to serve. That's what's in the charter and anything else the council seeks. Councilor Schwartz. So I would like to make it very clear that one of the things that I'm offering to the council is that one of the vice president is only to take on responsibilities if the president is at the beach or at a romantic dinner or whatever, she's absent. I feel that I'm not just a symbol. When I was asked to run, I had to really think for myself, if I'm running for this, my feeling of ethics is that I would be able to stand up and say yes, I am qualified, I believe that I can do this job well, that I can serve the town well and that even though someone who was also running has some pretty big chops, did I feel like I could stand up and say, also I think I can stand with that particular person? So I had to think about that in my heart and my answer was yes. The other thing that someone posted to me is are you willing to lose? And you know what, I said I probably one of the best people in that role because I wouldn't be angry at the council if they decided that someone else had more merit than I did. We're a team, we're gonna work as a team. I don't want anyone to see me as just a symbol. I want people to vote for me for my merit. And if I did not win, I very much respect Councilor Hunky and I, that's where I'm at. So yes, voting for merit and I think that's where we're at. Good discussion. Is there anything else? Anybody, any other nominations, any other statements? Then we'll take a vote. I wanted to add a comment. Yes. Okay, I'm just gonna say that I think that Sarah would make a great addition as the vice president and she brings representing a very important sector of Amherst. She's a farmer, she's a business woman. She's on a farm which has been in I guess, your family or your husband's family for 100 years. Okay, so it's kind of like she's really the roots of Amherst. I find her a very open, honest, convincing and sincere person at all times and I think that we can have absolute trust that she would do whatever she's required to do but would not overstep. So I support Sarah Schwartz. Are there other comments? I support Sarah. But I also feel like that it's time for you, Madam President, to step out of the role of neutrality. I think you have very strong opinions about who you want to have in that role and I think that you need to step up to that. Okay. Other comments? Then we'll move to election. Voting? Reading? Councilor Hannake. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Pam. Sarah Schwartz. Councilor Ross. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Ryan. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Shane. Sarah Schwartz. Councilor Schreiber. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Steinberg. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Swartz. Sarah Swartz. Councilor Baumill. Mandy Jo Hannake. Councilor Brewer. Sarah Swartz. Councilor DeAngeles. Sarah Swartz. Councilor Dumont. Sarah Swartz. Councilor Griezmer. I'm going to vote for Mandy Jo Hannake. Mandy Jo Hannake receives a majority of the votes of the town council. Okay. We need to congratulate the vice president and have her sworn in. We're going to make it take a 10 minute bathroom break. So. We'll be reconvening at 10.15. We're going to move on to the appointment of the clerk of the council. Do I hear a nomination? Councilor Steinberg. I nominate Margaret Nutterwitz to be clerk for the council. Is there a second? Thank you. Any further discussion? Yes. Councilor Brewer. Could there please be a brief explanation? I mean, I know we're all familiar with the charter and we know what the town manager has stated on a couple of separate occasions, but it's never been discussed at this body. So, okay. In the charter, I have to find my charter. There is a section that talks about what the council needs to do. And one of them is to appoint a clerk. The clerk is the person who does work with the council, make sure that their minutes, et cetera, are in order and make sure that they are, does any other duties as we reasonably assign. I don't think the charter says reasonable, but we will be reasonable. So the clerk is a town employee in this case. And is there any further conversation about that, Councilor Brewer, that you would like? Yes. Simply that it seemed to me, from a conversation I had with the town manager, but again, I don't think this body has ever had. There's never been a presentation to this body that explained that, of course, Ms. Nardovitz is incredibly well qualified, and of course we already have her, and if we can take a piece of her to do this, in addition to the full-time job that she was hired for, that would be great, whereas the charter actually does allow for the fact that we could in fact hire a separate clerk of the council, but why would we do that, given the alternative we have, but that may not have been obvious to everyone. Okay. Further conversation on that? Would the town manager like to speak to this? No, this is strictly a council appointment. You can choose whoever you'd like to service your clerk. It's in the charter. Okay, thank you. Any further conversation on the nomination? The nomination is to have Margaret Nardovitz as the clerk to the council. It's been made and seconded. No further conversation. All those in favor? Raise your hand. I believe that that's unanimous. Thank you very much, and I believe you now need to be sworn in. I need to swear you in. Oh, you believe. I'm just seeing today. Do you swear or affirm to faith, belief, and impartiality to form all duties in order to apply your appointment to the town council? The next item on the agenda is a resolution and proclamation. This is regarding past contributions of members of the town of Amherst. We'll place, I will read the proclamation and ask for a second, okay? The Amherst town council expresses our deep gratitude to all current and past Amherst town meeting members, town moderators, and members of town meeting committees, et cetera, to all current and past members of the Amherst Select Board, and to all of town of Amherst, many committee members for their excellent and dedicated service to the town of Amherst. We recognize and deeply appreciate the many decades, years, and hours you've spent guiding our town through the challenges and triumphs that have brought Amherst to where we are today. And we keenly recognize the very significant responsibility that we have assumed to build on that remarkable foundation and pass on an even stronger community to the next generation. We also, that's not the one I was supposed to read. No, sorry. Yeah, let me take your copy. Thank you. Thank you for your service. We hope that you and all residents will continue to participate in the many ways that are available. Do I have a second? Any further conversation? All those in favor? Raise your right hand. Aye. Oh, I'm sorry, you had conversation. I know that this was mentioned at a previously posted meeting, but just for the sake of future reference, we would normally get something like this and writing on our desks tonight in a different circumstance. Thank you. That wasn't a very special circumstance like this one is, which I would argue this is an isolated case. Thank you for that point of view. Is there any other comment? Any motions been made and seconded? All those in favor? It's unanimous. Thank you. All right. We actually have a couple action and discussion items. The first is the bylaw review committee report. And this is according to the Amherst Home Rule Charter section, 10.7U. And under that is both adoption of rules of procedure and the repeal and replacement of existing general bylaws. We want a presentation at this point or do we want to go to the first item? Okay, the first item is the adoption of rules of procedure. For the purpose of discussion, I'm going to place the rules that we have been provided as a draft and I'm going to not nominate that we accept them. Is there a second to the motion? This is for the purpose of discussion. I just need clarification. If we want to amend them rather than just accept them, how do we do that? Okay, the first of all, they have to be put into motion as we made and seconded before we can do anything else. Yes. Thank you, Madam President. I just want to make sure that the council members are all looking at the version that was in your yellow folder at your desk which says revised and red on it, which has some late additions. I think that the Bylaw Review Committee had recommended and maybe the Bylaw Review Committee could outline what those changes are. Okay. Thank you. You have to hold this. My name is Barbara Chee. I'm chair of the Bylaw Review Committee and next to me is Bernie Kubiak who's also a member of the committee. And he carried the heavy buckets of water on the procedures. We were collaboratively on the bylaws, but looking first at the rules of procedures, there was a point raised with respect to the committee and the committee's decision. And I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. With respect to the quantum of vote and the draft that preceded this revised document indicated that the votes would be a number of those present and voting. But when we compared what we had drafted with the actual language of the charter, it was the majority of the full council and not just the majority of those present and voting. So there was just a technical change to conform the revised proposed procedures to the language of the charter. And just to clarify, there are 13 of us, a majority that is always seven, regardless of how many of us are present. Matters that are referred to as measures require a majority of the full council. Non-measure matters and votes would be merely satisfied by a majority of a quorum. So a majority of a quorum could be a majority of seven persons. So a majority of a quorum could be four. But that would not be those present. Are there questions on this specific item from the council? I did not understand that last bit about four. Let's try that again. If you look on, I think it's page three of the revised draft on the voting requirements, you will see, I think it's a red line strikeout version, and you will see actions taken for the council requiring a vote on any measure shall be by a majority of council is present. And that is the language of the charter. If it were as we had originally drafted it, it would be a majority, a simple majority of those present and voting, which could be a lesser number. And that would be inconsistent with the language of the charter. So we conformed the language of the proposed rules and regulations to the language of the charter in that respect. So a quorum is seven. If seven people are present in order to pass something in this case, it would be four votes. It would be four votes. The charter is actually somewhat imprecise about what constitutes a measure. It seems to be very broadly defined. But it is foreseeable that some votes would be of such relatively minor consequence that a simple majority of those present and voting will carry. Let's say it's the voting to approve the minutes. Is that a measure? Probably not. And we don't have a confident yardstick to hold up to the vote. Is it a vote on a measure? Or is it a vote on a non-measure matter? And that is where the point of ambiguity arises. Are there other questions on that? Are there questions about the rules and procedures? Alyssa, excuse me. Councilman Brewer. We'll probably put that in our procedures. How we refer to each other. We will. Thank you. Having seen a brief presentation at a previous post of workshop associated with the rules that were going to be presented to us today in which we did receive a new copy of tonight. And also that we saw for largely, except for those of us who like to hang out on the town website for the first time last Thursday. And it was a fairly busy weekend as hopefully most people attended. I realize that it would be a good idea to have rules. Town meeting had rules. And as a legislative body, we should have rules. However, I am extremely uncomfortable with the fact that the rules that have been presented to us are incredibly unclear in numerous paragraphs as to what is the opinion of best practice versus what is in the charter. That is not specified throughout the entire document. There are sections that talk about not charter related. There are other sections that reference the charter but in such a way that it implies that the charter talks about, for example, public comment not being related to an agenda item. That's not in our charter. That's a practice that's being recommended to us. There are other practices being recommended to us like abstentions, counting as no's. That's not in our charter. And so I need a much better understanding of why these rules are being presented this way versus the way some other town or other town or other town does it. How much of it simply Robert's rules that's being transferred over, etc. Because I cannot vote to accept something that it's not clear to me what the prominence of many of the issues are. And especially given that we say things like public comment during a regular meeting, not a hearing, but a regular meeting could have up to 20 people signing up at a regular meeting which I just can't even fathom as being appropriate for a regular council meeting. So I think this needs some work before we move forward. Are there other comments? Yes. Councillor Haneke. I like Councillor Brower have some concerns about some of the stuff that has been presented. So I wonder if, you know, a number of the things that have been presented in these rules are dictated by the charter. So whether or not we adopt those portions of the rules doesn't really matter at this point because the charter specifies that we have to act that way. So I wonder if and I think maybe a better option right now given the time of night and the length of the proposed rules is that we choose a few that maybe we need to continue operating efficiently and successfully. Things like adopting Robert's rules as parliamentary procedure, maybe some portion of public comment or debate decorum or things like that that would help us conduct the meetings appropriately until we can maybe get a committee together to talk about what's been presented as a maybe and then propose a modified interim section before we have I think it's two months to adopt permanent rules 60 days or is it six months? So maybe we could get some more extensive interim rules adopted before the six months deadline permanent rules nearer the six months but between before we can get to that interim adopt a few that would allow us to run meetings effectively. Okay. So that's a comment at this point not a motion. Okay. Yes. I want to build on that comment with a there are pieces of this as Mandy just said that are clearly we would do that whether or not we had this in front of us because the charter already says it. So picking pieces that are real skeleton that we wouldn't have discussion about and then forming a committee tonight that would take up this document and have more discussion about it so that the interim document could be brought back to the full council with more information about why this is in why this is out. What else we might want to put in that's missing so we could get interim rules we can live with discussion. Okay. Other comment. So there's a motion on the floor that's been seconded. It's to adopt the rules as they've been presented and now there's this other discussion. So if we want to do something different I need an amendment. Thank you. I guess I'll move to amend that motion to adopt only the parliamentary procedure section. The conduct of meeting is in order and appeals from decision of the president and public comment sections on page five. I'm going to suggest the hearing section on page six, the debate decorum section on page six and the spectator decorum section on page seven. For the purposes of discussion I'll take a second. Would you like to have the motion read? Margaret, can you repeat that? Thank you. The motion to amend was to include parliamentary procedure on page one. Conductive meetings preservation of order and appeals from decision of the president on page three. Public comments from page five. Debate decorum on page six and hearings on page six and spectator decorum on page seven. There's been a motion made. Do I have a second? We have a motion made in second to adopt those sections of the rules and procedures as identified before we vote. We'll have them read again. Is there conversation? Discussion? I would just say that if we adopt those sections, we don't like we, of course, have every right to change them so we're not committing ourselves to anything very heavy. It gives us time to look at the other issues. Other conversation about this. We have a motion that's been made and seconded. The motion is to adopt portions of the rules and procedures. Those portions are parliamentary procedure on page one. We have a motion to adopt the legislation of order and appeals for decision by the President, page two, three. Public comment, page five. Hearings, page six. Debate decorum, page six. And spectator decorum, page seven. This is an amendment? Yes. I have a couple of edits that perhaps would be willing to be entertained before I could accept this. On page six under hearings, under item three, public hearing format after petitioner's presentation, I have seen in another document that was, in fact, provided to us on Thursday the recommendation that in addition for the public hearing format after petitioner's presentation, it says public speaking in favor, public questions from counselors. There is the possibility of inserting in their public asking questions because we have seen at town meeting what happens when you try and force people to say yes or no on something. When sometimes they just have a question. So that is one section I have a question about and then I also actually would like to delete the first two statements under public comment on page five. So this is an amendment to the amendment? A smaller portion of the hearing. And that would be under hearings item three. There would be a D. Am I correct? Actually, I guess there would be an A that says public asking questions just before public speaking in favor and public speaking in opposite. Okay. And the other one was on on page five public comments. If we keep one in there, the charter reference is misplaced. The statement regardless of whether the matter was listed on the council agenda has nothing to do with what the charter says and has certainly not been our process here locally. So I would prefer to remove that parent that last part after where it just says within the jurisdiction of the council we should decide what we want to do with that and maybe we just throw it out for now. The other part is in regards to the 20 persons signing up for public comment . I don't know if that makes sense to me. That's why I'm offering this. Okay. So this is editing for meaning. And that would be to remove the phrase within the jurisdiction under public comment number one within the jurisdiction of the council. No. I'm sorry I made that confusing. Normally what we do in public comment number one is that public comment has traditionally been on items of course within the jurisdiction of the council. I would certainly hope they would not be outside our jurisdiction. But not regardless of whether the matter was listed on the council agenda. The reason being that if you encourage people to make comments on agenda items before you get to them if you happen to have public comment it sets a very different tone for the agenda item. So what I would prefer to do tonight is to either take out regardless of whether the matter was listed on the council agenda and assume that the president will give that instruction to people or simply take the whole thing out. But I agree that the first part is just as Ms. indicated earlier regular meetings of public comment because the charter says we do that's not just a nice to do it's required. The part about whether or not it's listed on the council agenda was an opinion that was offered to us that I do not feel comports with Amherst style of doing things. So this motion to amend the amendment is to remove the phrase regardless of whether the matter was listed on the council agenda. Yes, thank you. And in item two when it I think it works fine until you get to the second last sentence where it says when more than 20 persons have registered for public comment comment time shall be limited to two minutes and then there's just the random phrase tacked on the end comments offered shall be in a respectful manner. Which is I suppose perhaps feeling disrespectful at this point but when more than 20 persons have registered for public comment that is not feasible process. What happens is just as tonight when Ms. Pam had to recognize public comment and there were three which kind of turned into four which kind of turned into five people if 20 people raised their hands that needs to be managed on the fly this idea of trying to set up a structure for it I think is a mistake. And I also don't want to encourage 20 persons to ever come to public comment they should be at a hearing we should then be holding a hearing to strike the sentence that begins where more than 20 persons have registered for public comment comment time shall be limited to two minutes comments offered shall be in be a respectful manner. We could just cross that off too since it kind of needs some wordsmithing. That's not what I'm complaining about. So could I have the clerk read that back to us? Thank you. The motion to amend the amendment is to under public comments on page five under public comments item one strike the words regardless of whether the matter was listed on the council agenda and under item two strike where more than 20 persons have registered for public comment comment time shall be limited to two minutes comments offered shall be a respectful manner. That motion has been made. Do I have a second? Okay. Any further conversation on or discussion of that amendment to the amendment? I would just say I would want to keep in the conflict of interest statement on page seven. Okay. That's part of the original amendment. That's part of the original motion was to which item is to keep in? Okay. Let's deal with the motion that's on the floor of the amendment. Okay. Yes. I believe there was another part to that amendment as well on page six under hearings. Item three add letter A to add public questions. Item three add letter A to B public speaking in favor change B to C public speaking in opposition and change C to D questions from councillors. Right. So this is an amendment of the amendment that the clerk has now read both parts of that. Are there questions on that? And it was on the amendment. Let's call a question on the amendment to the amendment. All those in favor? 11 votes opposed? Two. Okay. Motion passes to amend the amendment. Now we're back to the original amendment which in this case was to accept only certain parts of this and if the clerk would read those parts again. Page one accept parliamentary amendment. Page three accept conductive meetings, preservation of order and appeals from decision of the president. Page five public comments with the amendments. Page six hearings with the amendments. And debate decorum. And on page seven spectator decorum. Okay. And that was seconded. I wanted to add to keep in conflicts of interest. The amendment to the amendment is to keep conflict of interest. Okay. Second. Any conversation or discussion of that? All those in favor of adding that into those sections that we will be retaining. Steve, are you? Yes. Okay. Okay. Page one. Against post? One. Thank you. I'm getting there. All right. So we're back to the original and all those in favor of adopting. Yes. Did we have a discussion? Oh, I'm sorry. Please go ahead and discuss if you would like. That I'm going to vote for this mainly because it's going to be referred to a committee to make these rules into our own rules. I feel I have felt a little bit uncomfortable about the fact that the bylaw review committee gave us these rules. Because I feel like this is something that we can do on our own. I appreciate all the work that the bylaw review committee has done on the bylaw reviews, but I have felt uncomfortable about this. And also about the fact that the public didn't get noticed until Saturday of the documents of the rules. So I just wanted to make a comment for the public and we want to make sure that the public is able to see what we're doing and that there's transparency. So I just wanted to make that comment. I'm going to vote for it because we're going to make them our own. Okay. Are there any other comments? Yes. Councillor Ryan. Thank you. I have a comment that what we've just created is sufficient for us to do our business. We have a set of rules in front of us that we are going to look at and revise. This is simply provisional. We've now constructed a new document ad hoc in the last 10, 15 minutes. And I get the feeling that you're all confident that that new set of rules that we constructed out of this is sufficient for us to do our business. So if you can speak to that and assure me that what we've just manufactured is somehow better than what we have here. I understand that these are provisional and I actually respect the fact that we've been given them to help us over the first few weeks. Now we have some new document or some new set of rules that we've put together and I just don't have any confidence that they're sufficient for us to do our work. So if someone could speak to that, I think that would be great. Thank you. Building off of that, I'm sure Councillor Haneke put some thought into what sections to choose and what to not choose. But I am not clear on the rationale behind that. And so if she's willing, I would be interested in hearing an explanation for why those six would remain and the others would be put off. So I'm going to ask Councillor Pan to discuss the one that you've added in. Okay. Councillor Haneke. So I'll try. The authority section is taken right from the charter. So it's already been adopted by the town's residents. The regular meetings, I think at some point we probably do need to adopt it but we haven't actually talked about when it was adopted. So I think that one needs to put off until agenda item 7C maybe? Or that. So the quorum is from the charter, most of it is. So the charter defines quorum. Public notice is a state open meeting law. So we have to comply with open meeting law anyway. Agenda is from the charter. Minutes are from the charter. The president's powers and duties are from the charter by and large on this one. The election of officers was from the charter. The committees, most of it was taken from the charter along with the planning board, zoning board liaisons to committees, those sections were taken from the charter. Committee meetings, we don't have committees yet. So that one seems as important tonight to pass to me. Same with committee reports since we don't really have committees yet. Conductive meeting. Through the president, that one's not from the charter. I myself wasn't sure what it truly meant. The president may speak and vote. I think even though it doesn't have a charter reference, has something in the charter about that. I don't think it's wrong. The recess again didn't seem truly important to be running a meeting when you've already said the president conducts the meeting. Same with points of orders if you've adopted Robert's rules. That's in point of order. Robert's rules covers points of orders. Method of voting. Much of that, I mean it's not listed as part of the charter. But it's a number of metrics that talks about a method of voting and how to record votes. So the charter covers some of it. Voting requirements are all either taken from the charter or from mass general law other than numbers seven and eight, I believe. The bylaws and other measures is pulled directly out of the charter. And then there's a non-charter provisions. And that one again didn't seem to need, adopted immediately versus maybe a committee can bring something back quickly. Public comment. I included. Motions talk about Robert's rules. So on order, business and agenda, the charter talks about the president setting the agenda. And I didn't think it necessary in the rules at this point to adopt that. So I didn't include that in my motion. That's why I didn't include it. Motions for reconsideration. Again there's a Robert's rules on how to do motions for reconsideration. So we could change Robert's rules at some point. But it would be covered by adopting the Robert's rules. Open meeting law is covered by mass general law. And I don't think it should be adopted. The remote participation agreement, though. I know the town the select board did. So that in theory comes over with the charter and the transition provisions. So it has already been adopted. That means in, I believe technically that we would already be able to conduct a meeting under remote participation with the policies that the select board adopted. But I don't think it's necessary to me didn't seem necessary for tonight's meeting. And Councillor Pam, you wanted to maintain conflict of interest. And that's now in the motion as it reads. I would ask Councillor Hanakie if there was a reason that you felt it wasn't necessary to include that now. It's part of mass general law. That was the only reason I didn't include it. So I don't need to add it. I just wanted to make sure that in the interim period when we're revising and looking, the committee is revising and looking at these rules that we were covered, but if we're covered by the law then we don't need to hold it out. Okay. Yes. Kathy. I just want to offer a comment that I had gone through this separately and flagged the things I thought we really needed to operate to George's concern. And then some of what she didn't take were decisions that were made that should be our decisions to make. When are we meeting? How do we choose a chair of a committee? So it went beyond what we need to operate. And we can make those decisions that we need. So the motion as it now reads includes conflicts of interest. Is there any reason that we feel strongly one way or the other to withdraw that? Okay. So then let's go to the motion as we now have it. To include parliamentary procedure from page one. We will move on to the motion. To include public comments item one amended to strike out the text regardless of whether the matter was listed on the council agenda. And item two to strike the language where more than 20 persons have registered for public comment time shall be limited to two minutes. Comments offered shall be a public comment. We will now move on to the hearing on page six. And under item three of that section add item A. Add public questions. Change A to B. Change B to C. Change C to D. Include debate decorum on page six. Include conflicts of interest on page seven. And spectator decorum on page eight. And discussion. Call the question. All those in favor? I. I can't count this. 11. Nay. And one abstention. One nay, one abstention. All right. So the motion has passed. And we will operate with those items that we have now checked. Meantime, there has been discussion about the immediate, if you will, appointment of a committee to basically do the rules and procedures for the council. I would like to see if there are volunteers for that. I'd volunteer. Kathy. Councillor Dumont. Councillor Haneky. And Councillor Brewer. Is there anybody else? Yes. Shouldn't there be a motion by the council to create a committee? Thank you. You are the person that appoints people to the committee. And then the council should decide who will chair that committee. Or you could let the members decide who will chair that committee. Do I hear a motion to create a committee of the council on rules and procedures? I so move. We have a motion and a second. All right. Any further discussion about that? Yes, Steve. So this is a standing committee? No. The charge I would like this committee to have is to come back to us with no less than two months. No more. I want you to come back before two months is up. With at least temporary rules for us. And then the charter requires that we have permanent rules by six months. So wouldn't it be more appropriate to call it a task force? I'm open to opinion on that. Is there a wording ad hoc committee that makes it feel temporary? An ad hoc committee. So we're amending the motion to say it's a friendly amendment in this case. So we have a motion made and seconded. Any further discussion? It's to create an ad hoc committee on rules and procedures. All those in favor? That's unanimous. I think. Okay. Thank you. And then the next thing is I am as president of the council, I would like to know who would like to serve on that committee. And I see four people. So I as president appoint Councillor Dumont, Councillor Brewer, Councillor Schoen and Councillor Bernanke. That's a good question. Councillor Brewer. I believe that until we until either the president decides on their own power that they get to appoint who the chair is, the charter doesn't say that and that was actually one of the problems we had with these rules of procedure is that it recommended that. So I think we're kind of an uncharted issue. I think it does that at this point. So you could just leave it up to the floor or if it was important to you as president. I don't think anybody can really take it from you because it's not in our rules yet. I don't have to slide. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. I just want to point out that this is a committee. It is subject to the open meeting law. Any meeting of the committee will allow you to schedule it whenever you'd like to. Thank you very much. All right. I'm going to let the committee talk among themselves and if they would like to come back to me and ask me to appoint somebody, I'm more than glad to. So I want to be very clear about the charge and that is we would like to see in no more than two months a set of temporary rules and consistent with the charter that we have permanent rules that are brought forth for us and with opportunity to discuss so that we can adopt within the six month period. All right. We are now moving on to the repeal and replace existing general bylaws. Mr. Richard. The charge to the committee was pretty broad and in summer when we first convened I asked myself the same question that where is that within the charge to come up with procedures. In our conversations with the town manager, the idea of having this group that got together come up with at least a set of provisions that may help jump start the council in dealing with precisely the issues that you're dealing with tonight. I'm old enough to remember getting water from a pump and what we approached our task was priming that pump with something that gives you something to think about. And with respect to these rules and procedures it was intended to be precisely what it turned out to be that is to say a checklist to shoot down, add to its plate for you to mold and I think the process that the council has a time to reflect on what it wants to do in governing itself. So we did spend a good deal of time on these procedures and largely by virtue of the fact that although I lived in an ivory tower, Mr. Kubiak did not. He lived in the real world of local governments and so we did craft language that we thought would be helpful to you. And most of our time on taking the bylaws of the town as we found them, looked at them critically and read what we were supposed to do with them and basically allow them to be morphed into our new form of government. What must we do to take them and make them work given our new charter and the new way we do things. So our goal was not to do at least initially anything other than what was absolutely mandated by necessity and by the child of itself. References to select board had to be removed and replaced with either the council or the manager or the licensing commission. We had choices of that sort. Some of those choices were easy and some of them were difficult. The difficult ones we identified what we thought was the case and in comments to the draft that we had offered some suggestions that you might want to think about as you deliberate. We're giving you a text to play with. It's intract changes format and it was meant to be clay for you to model. So some things we knew had to come out. For example things having to do with town meeting procedures. That clearly had to go. Other things were comprehensively dealt with by the charter such as the budget considerations. So best left in the charter rather than replicating them to our peril in the bylaws. And so the next thing we did is to look at the framework of the existing bylaws both general and zoning and say are they adequate? Well with regard to the framework the zoning bylaws were actually adequate. They were the structure of them. The framework of them was well done. It has a consistent alphanumeric way of identifying its ingredients. On the other hand the general bylaws were not. They were collections of actions by town meetings that go back into the twilight of the town's history. And they were not organized in accordance with any particular framework. Much of who's left to the discretion and the wisdom of the town clerk over the years. Bylaws were collected each drafted in somewhat different ways not necessarily consistent with each other. And they were added sequentially. And there was no pattern or organization to them. So given the opportunity in fact the duty to map and migrate the old laws into a new structure the committee thought about a new framework a new alphanumeric framework which would basically allow us to take what was in the existing code of general laws and moving them over whole and entire. Just lift them up and drop them. My finger is actually getting numb from pressing on this button. Is there any way to keep that on? I have my thumb on it now. So the opportunity presented itself to take these laws and say what else needs to be done with them. And so in our report and I think I don't want to belabor you with reading it but you see it we thought we would take the opportunity of making consistent references to things. If Tom Manager was capitalized in one place and not another. Let's sum one thing and have it be consistent. So throughout the code things that were referring to the same thing was said in the same way. The next thing we said let's take the he she out of it and make things gender neutral. So you see that gender neutrality was introduced in the migration from the existing code over to the new one. We took great care to retain substantive equivalence. That is to say the goal was not to change what the law was but to move it in such a way that it moved into its new home with some of these adjustments to the way things were said. Not what they meant but how they were expressed. For example there are no Romans living in Amherst so we deleted Roman numerals and used numerals throughout that kind of thing. We have a consistent method of capitalizing public officials and boards. And that was another level at which we altered the text of the source and it appeared in the new framework with those changes reflected. The next thing we noticed is that the bylaws inconsistently got into the matter of fines and fees and penalties in quite different ways among the bylaws. So we thought it might serve utility and efficiency and transparency and clarity for everyone. To take all of that stuff and pull it out of the dense text of the bylaw itself and relocate it to the beginning of the bylaw. So that anybody that looks through the bylaw will always see at the beginning of every bylaw any fees, penalties and fines associated with the fees of the violations. The next thing we noticed is that we do live in the 21st century and the capability of generating web-based documents with hyperlinks gave us an opportunity to take a a list of in the table of contents and cast it internally into a table of contents that's indexed to the bylaw itself. So in the draft you will see not only a table of contents that conform to the new framework but you will see a second table of contents with the same stuff but organized in an alphabet array and adjacent to it you will see the bylaw to which it relates and a hyperlink to it so that anyone who is interested in the document online will quickly be able to find the topic they want and jump to the bylaw in question. In some cases we took long phrases that found themselves repeated endlessly and we said it's unnecessary to repeat those phrases. Let's introduce them once and then say what we mean by a word that represents them. What we made and our goal in all instances was to preserve as much consistency with the way it is now and only making those changes that were absolutely necessitated. Some changes was necessitated by the virtue of the fact that the state statutes had changed and we rendered them conforming to the statutory changes. We also made the bylaw many, many times iteratively and each time we read a bylaw we asked ourselves the question is this fundamentally okay? Is this fundamentally questionable? Or is it just something that we need to think more about? In many cases we found there was nothing wrong with the bylaw as written and so we shaded that bylaw blue and that meant that this is what was drafted. There were other sections of the bylaw that we were highly suspicious of and thought that we don't want to indulge the inclusion of that and migrate it to the new framework without having a good hard look by town attorney. So we coded it orange. So we have a version of the bylaws that have color coded in all provisions. And so the town attorney will advise us on many of these bylaws that we had questions about. When we were through this process and every section was either blue or orange we decided that some things were so certain that we just made them green and set those aside because we didn't think there would be any question about them. So we tried to preserve, so that anybody that had a question about how did it go from point A to point Z can go back and see the steps that we took when we made these changes. And that is in our archive. We have all that information. Lastly, I may say this and I think Councilor Brewer has made me sensitive to this and I think also Councilor Steinberg as well. The timetable and Councilor Ryan pointed this out earlier, give us time. We optimistically felt that there would be no harm done making these changes, wholesale substitution right away at the get-go. I now see that that was sort of a aspirational inclusion of our recommendation. It just shouldn't be done that fast. There is some need to address this sooner rather than later. It is also desirable not to be doing it piecemeal. It would be a preference to, as we suggested, bring it over and do a wholesale replacement, repeal it and adopt. On the theory that you will have 61 days to think about what you just did and either change it back to its original form or leave it or modify it. The alternative is not to do that, but to wait until you had something that is shaped up to be ready to do a wholesale migration. That would be good too. What wouldn't be good is if you had mixed in matches, if you had some bylaws that are the law of the town by virtue of the charter provision that says that until they are repealed or replaced they remain the law of the town. So we don't want to have a code that has some laws that were adopted by our legislators and some that are adopted by yourselves as the current legislators. We're always asking the question when was this law adopted? I would like to have a firm level set on the date that you adopt the bylaws of the town and that is the date the bylaws go into effect. They are a seamless migration of what was there before so there's no substantive change. But we do resolve the tone of ambiguity by having laws that have different start dates from different legislatures in the town's history. So I think that the feedback that I've got from the councillors I've spoken with suggests that we should retreat from the immediate repeal and adopt to something that is more humane and more consistent with the need for time that Councillor Ryan points out that we need. So in a nutshell that's what brought us to the point that we gave you the report. I just would like to ask a question or two and there might be other councillors that would like to ask a question but let me preface that by saying your committee has done amazing work. This is just an outstanding task that you've taken on and I know that the select board that has now gone out of business if you will asked you to do this as they were tasked to do by the charter and we want to thank you for that amazing work that you've done to get us to this point. Is there anything in these bylaws at this point that need to happen because it prevents the town from doing its regular business? I think the thing that most immediately needs to be done is what the committee first did. That is to say read it with one goal in mind and that's not to address what is being said but who does it? And the careful attention to substitution of from select board to X is that X the time manager is it the council? Is it the licensing commission? Is it something else? That would be the first cut and I think that should be done quickly. If you didn't do that the dam doesn't break the world doesn't come to an end. When instances arise that need some interpretation and the town attorney will advise you if a task was assigned and continues to be in the bylaws assigned to the select board. It will be assigned to someone else but it would not be clear it would be a decision that would have to be based upon the best judgment of the town manager and the town attorney. It would be best to clarify that right away. So I would say that as a candidate for the immediate changes that would be the one I would suggest first. Just to follow up on that I guess my question is is there any risk in what you just described of somebody litigating against the town because of lack of clarity of the responsibility and contesting whether the person who is temporarily assigned because we did not act tonight did so. Well of course if you have Joe here to answer that question for you I don't think so. I mean in my prior life when I looked at recodifications of towns wholesale replacements old codes with new codes was almost a daily event on my desk and this happens in places where a town has chosen to recodify its laws and the question arises how do you do that? More often than not as a wholesale replacement. If it would be a refined section by section word by word it would be so complicated that it would become error prone by the magnitude of the task of making surgical replacements of parts. It's like putting a new engine in a car. You want to bring a new engine or an old engine but you don't want a new engine with all parts. So it may not answer your question and I do not believe given the language of the charter that anyone that was previously assigned a task that doesn't exist is it a legislative assignment? Is it an executive assignment? Frankly that's going to take care of almost all cases. If something was previously assigned as the responsibility of the select board it would now fall to the council. If it was a legislative function that would go to the council. In some instances it falls in a gray area. Those are the things that really need to be thought about. You ask is there any liability? Probably not and if there is it's relatively low but I would depend upon the opinion of council on that one. Do you have an opinion on that? Madam President, yes. The attorney Richie I think addressed it in the latter part of his comment. In other words I do agree that the risk of liability is low. I also agree that in most instances we're essentially going to be asked to put the round peg in the round hole let's call that executive and the square peg in the square hole let's call that legislative. Essentially would be a judgment call and I do think it will be low and so I do think that there's essentially what's the risk of delaying and I would say it's fairly low. Are there right now all we're doing is having a discussion. There's no motion on the floor or anything else. Other questions, comments? Yes, Councillor Schoen. I think what I'm hearing is that we've removed the notion that this is an emergency and we have to do something right this minute which I really like because I think it behooves us all to read through what you've done. I got through draft 4 and was moving my way up to draft 6 and went back to what I thought were minor wording changes and I checked on a legal thing that must and shall actually mean something different and I think the legislation has never removed must if you had must and we've exchanged it for shall in an early draft and it's been a change in legal opinions that Supreme Court and a few other more reasons than saying they're equivalent. So I just think we need a close read and I think what we've just been offered is buy some time because the charter is pretty clear on where it's legislative and then we can go back and really say how much of this is just fine and where we have questions. I think that was what your suggestion was you know whether I'm not talking about time for the next 20 years but a short period of time. Is there other comments, discussions, questions? Yes, councillor Ryan. Is this something then that we're going to do individually as an entity or are there people reading this or is this something that we're going to submit again as we've done earlier to a subcommittee or some kind of committee? Who does this intensive and a very laborious labor? I just wonder who. Is that appropriate at this point but I'm just curious who's going to is this everybody? Cally's obviously been hard at work already. Are we all expected and I have no problem with that. Is there something we're going to assign to some committee to do and then report back to us? I'm looking at the clerk because she has something to say. Page 35 of the Charter item V. It does state that upon assumption of the office, the town council shall be responsible for the continuation of the review of town by-laws and shall appoint a committee to review the town by-laws for the purpose of bringing them into conformity with the provisions of the Charter. So the question I have is is that a committee of the council or is that a committee that we appoint such as the committee we've had? I believe the two operative provisions are section 10, 7, U and V. Subsection U of 10, 7 is how we came into existence. Right. We could theoretically be twilighted by the council's appointment of a successor board. But if you do that that you would be operating under subsection U, which is the continuation of the process that we've started. Is it appropriate for us to have a motion to ask you to continue your work? Is that? Yes. And then, yes. I'm just wondering if we would like to extend the committee and add a couple of counselors on that committee who might be interested in doing that, working with the by-law review committee that currently exists. Okay. That's certainly an option. Let me first let's have a motion first. Yes. And then, we have a motion to gratefully request, yes. Go. We could use the word in here. I moved to appoint a committee to review the town by-laws for the purpose of preparing such revisions. We could just read that section, but it says once you do that then the one that the select board previously is over. And then we can add people to it. It's just that it ends the previous part and then it gives them a year. Hmm. And I might point out without changing compensation. This has to be a labor of love. So perhaps the motion could be to appoint a committee in accordance with and then just reference 10.7 v. So I hear a motion from Councillor Brewer to appoint a committee in accordance with section 10.7 v. Is there a second? I second that if that includes the idea that some members of the council will be added to the committee. Yes. Yes. That was a second? Yes. Okay. So that's what Councillor Pam did. Should our motion include a size of the committee? How many members would be on it? And is it a committee of the council such that it's the president appointing the committee or is this what our motion sort of indicate who the appointing authority is to along with a size? I believe when the select board appointed under 10.7 u, your charge indicated a size and who would do the appointment? If I could follow up. U says the select board shall so we had to do it and so we were the appointing authority and we even had to replace a member who moved out of town. It is interesting given that we have said throughout the discussion tonight that the president is responsible for appointments, it says here upon assumption of the office the town council shall be responsible for the continuation of the review of town bylaws and shall appoint a committee. So it's a little loose. But I would be totally amenable too. If everybody want, we can say either that's just the first part of the motion and then there's a second motion that's the number and the extra people or however somebody wants to combine we have a clerk who's perfectly willing to read things back to us and numerous iterations and now we understand why we have a clerk. Thank heavens. Okay. We have a motion that's been made and seconded to have a bylaw review committee of the council and the only other question on the floor then is adding to that committee actual council members and the question is how many and so forth. Yes. Mr. Backelman. Thank you Madam President. So perhaps a task maybe you're already to do this but maybe the thing would be to bring back the charge and put that in your packet for your next time and make some changes, make some recommended changes to it. The other thing the council should do is consult with the existing committee. If they want to continue serving they may feel their term is finished their work is finished or may not want to work in this new configuration whatever it is. But maybe if you establish the committee with that instruction we can bring back a charge that you can then adapt based on the select board's charge. So we're going to establish the motions on the floor to establish the committee. Yes. We would come back with a charge having also checked with the existing members of the bylaw review group. Yeah. So I just want to point out that we should be clear on whether the establishment of the committee terminates the current bylaw review committee or whether it's the actual appointment of new members. The charter itself says upon the appointment of such committee the committee established shall be terminated. Now I don't know how you want to interpret it so I think I wonder what town attorney would say whether that means it's upon establishment of a new one or upon the actual appointment of new committee members because that might affect how we decide whether to vote tonight Madam President, I think the word appointment speaks for itself so I think when you appoint the members then when you appoint the members to the new committee then the old committee disappears is disbanded. So in other words you could establish I think we go with just the normal understanding and meaning of the words so I think establishing the committee tonight and then appoint later and the appointment would be the way to establish these fellows here put on new hats. So the motion on the floor is to establish a bylaw review committee of the council and we will come and that motion was made and seconded and we will then come back in a future meeting to actually appoint that committee at which point we hope we get to see some of you again. Is there any further discussion about the establishment of the bylaw review committee? Seeing none, let's have a vote. All those in favor? Opposed? It's unanimous and that was just the general bylaws zoning we are not even dealing with tonight. So under our items of discussion is a memo that came from the select board on multiple member bodies. It is a significant document. It seems to me that it's something we should defer discussion to another time and what we need to deal with now is our next meeting date and time and I want to point out that we already do have or there will be posted a meeting on Saturday December 8th at 9 o'clock at the Amherst Regional Middle School. It is the official meeting of the four towns. It is my understanding that that group meets twice a year and we will post a meeting so that if there are seven or more of us there we can legitimately be there as a meeting. So that is one date which is the December 8th, Saturday December 8th at the Regional Middle School at 9 o'clock in the morning. My understanding is the meeting takes place for much of the morning. I think it's in the middle school. Thank you. Councilor Brewer. Thank you, Madam President. I wanted to ask about the fact that because of the transitions that have been taking place and obviously the other three communities have a school committee, a finance committee and a select board and we don't have that anymore. Given that Mr. Steinberg has frequently spoken on our behalf I wonder if we could just be clear as a body that whoever happens to speak on our behalf that if Amherst is put on the spot in a question that feels that Mr. Backemin might feel he wanted to toss to an elected official that that would be Mr. Steinberg's role at that meeting even though of course you are the president I didn't know if you were attending but given his history with the assessment questions. I do plan to attend but I plan to attend because of the nuances of the four town meetings and has represented us quite well in the past. I'll make it as a motion or I'll second your motion that Mr. Steinberg represent us so the motion has been made and I've seconded. Is there any further discussion? That doesn't mean you aren't going to be there it doesn't mean that you can't funnel questions through Councilor Steinberg who's already vested in one of our Council members. I appreciate the confidence that's been shown I want to emphasize that this meeting will have actually several parts to it and the major pieces really will be the superintendent will give a review of the operations of the regional schools during the past year and projections for the year ahead and goals for the year ahead and then translate that into budget goals. Those kinds of issues are different and may be things that if others on the Council have legitimate questions we want to make sure get and so I wanted to sort of alert you to that is different from if questions come up about a town other than us proposing something having to do with the assessment methodology which is how the money is divided amongst the four towns which involves a lot of complex legal and political layers to it. That's the trickier part and that may or may not happen we don't know because it would take another counterace that issue it has happened at these meetings it doesn't always happen at these meetings. So if a counselor has a question how would you advise that we handle it? To the extent that we're all sitting together somebody may be whispering to me anyway saying that they're interested in coming to say go ask it. You know if it's about a proposal and I can't tell you what it would be for sure but if it's about some kind of change in the educational program you know I think that's not the same as the kind of political legal issues that I was referring to in the other part so I'm a little bit less concerned about if somebody's away from me and they ask a question, they ask a question it would be good if we could try and sit as much together and avoid that if we can. Other discussion or questions about this and the motion? We have a motion before us that Councillor Steinberg represent speak on our behalf excuse me I believe that's the right words. At the four towns meeting on December 8th at 9 o'clock the middle school. Any further conversation? If not all those in favor? Opposed? It's unanimous. We now need to move on to setting the next meeting date. There has been discussion and in fact I understand that Councillor Pam has done a little calendar review and she actually I think was recommending it turns out six of one and half a dozen of the other. If you do first and third there's two conflicts of Mondays Labor Day and if you do second and fourth you have three conflicts of Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Veterans Day. So excuse me Indigenous people stay in the town of Emerson. The question before us is whether or not we go with the first and third Monday of the month or the second and fourth. Do we have a motion that it be the first and third? I'll second that now let's have a discussion. Yes. I support doing the first and the third but I also feel like I would like to see us meet next Monday the 10th. I think it's the 10th. I feel like we have so much to do to begin this and I know my esteemed colleague can't be here until eight but I feel like we should and have her join us and we can certainly support her by filling her in on anything that is transpired but I think there's just so much to do to get started. I'd like to see us meet on the 10th and the 17th. Is there so right now it's the first and the third there's discussion about also including at least for this month the 10th. Councillor Hannake. Are we discussing just dates or dates and times? Did the motion include the first and third? Let's stick with dates and the motion is about our regular meeting on being on the first and third Mondays. Yes. I just have a question having looked at a few other towns I'm not sure what Select Board does but does that continue through July and August and I'm planning on just marking my calendar so we're going to do first and third all summer also. I think we put it on our calendar and we cancel if we feel we don't need it or we feel we want to take a break. The charter requires that we meet once a month I think we all realize that we have a lot of work ahead of us. I just was marking on it. Thank you. The motion right now is for our regular meeting time being the first and third Mondays of the month unless it falls at which point we will schedule alternative date. That was a friendly amendment. Yes Stephen. But always on Monday. Always on Monday. So it might be the following Monday whatever okay. Unless obviously there's an emergency or something that we just can't wait. Alright the motion has been made and seconded for the regular meeting dates if you will of the first and third Monday of the month. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Okay now let's talk about meeting. I'm sorry. I have a reason for abstaining but I'll abstain. Oh okay. You sure? Yeah. Okay. Would you like to talk about it? No I just I don't really want to have this affected decision at this late in our meeting. I have a personal conflict with a date that comes up as a result but that could happen to any of us and I don't think it's fair that one individual member should affect the outcome so that's why I abstained. It was just the easiest course. Thank you. Time. We'll get back to the issue of the 10th in a moment. Okay. I'm open to suggestions. Motions. I'd like to suggest 7 o'clock as opposed to 6.30. Steven? I think we have big agendas and it takes us a while to get warmed up and we have to I think somewhere there was a principle that we should be done by 10. I don't think it's humane to go past 10 actually. I mean it's not fair to I'd rather at least at the beginning have as big a chunk of time as possible. So are you suggesting 7 or are you suggesting 6.30? Other conversation about time? Manage you. So I kind of like Dorothy comes with Pam's. Suggestion of 7. I recognize we have a lot of work to do and 7 might seem a little late. 3 hours is still a long meeting if we go and 3 and a half is even longer. 7 is a little more humane for people who want to eat dinner with their families. I feel like then 6.30 where to get here and be ready to start at 6.30 or 6 or 5.30 and if we move earlier means it's really hard to convene with your families in the evening. And a 7 o'clock is a little more helpful to that sort of thing happening. It was about child care that I was thinking. Yeah. Okay. The thought I just wanted to add to that is so I've been associated with meetings since 6.15, 6.30, 7 o'clock, 7.30, 7.30 is way too late. Appreciating that we changed town meeting from 7.30 back to 7 that caused some people problems, made other people happier because there is no perfect time. I think we can all agree. And giving up family time is what you all signed up for. But I would really love it if people would occasionally get to have meals with their family. So the caveat I would give is I know we don't yet have rules on when public comment would be but if you hadn't already heard this from me I'm adamant that public comment be at the end of meetings not at the beginning. If we start a 7 o'clock meeting with public comment we are starting off really at a difficult thing when we may not even get to start our business until 7.30 at that point. So if we're going to go to 7 I hope that even more so supports the idea of doing public comment at the end of the meeting which is hopefully well before 10 o'clock. Mr. Schreiber agreed. So it seems to me we need a mo- Yes, I'm sorry. George. We're setting the start time for that. We cannot do that or we shouldn't even think about it at this time. Maybe we just leave it for another day. Maybe we want to have a goal of ending by 10. People say 10 o'clock but is that just like a wish or can we simply say a meeting starts at 7 and is it 10 and a story? Maybe that's just not possible. Councillor Ross. The draft rules that were provided although not one of the sections we recommended did have something in there to do with the date of the meeting unless the council otherwise determines. So it's something that we could work into future rules to make it clear that past 10 would be only under perhaps extraordinary circumstances. Councillor Steinberg. That's essentially my point that this could be referred to the committee we previously established. Yeah. Do I hear a motion that we meet at 7 o'clock or later than 10? Motion. Made. Seconded. Any for the discussion? All of those in favour? We have a unanimous vote on that one. We are now to the point of our second round of public comment. Was that yes? I believe I think it was Councillor Jermont or was it Councillor D'Angelo asked whether we could meet on the 10th and that would be at 7 and going no later than 10. Is there further discussion about that? I would say we have a lot to do when it makes sense. Yes. Councillor Jermont. I would say since we will only have two meetings in December that I know of. Are we going to meet at all? I know the other two Mondays are holidays at the end of the month. So seems like it would be a good idea to meet the 10th and the 17th. Yes. I am simply going to ask and I know this may seem premature but what are we going to do on the 10th and the 17th? And so while I think we can all appreciate that we have a ton of work to do what is something that can be prepared for us to act on the 10th given that it is not quite the 4th of December yet but we are getting close because that puts pressure on staff and our president. If there is a specific thing we know we want to work on next week terrific otherwise I am wondering if we want to wait until the 17th and the 18th and the 17th and the 18th and what are the things prepared for us? I think that there is some serious merit to that comment. Yes. Councillor? There are a couple more committees that the Charter says we have to appoint within six months. We could maybe start that process next week including the ranked committee. There is also its budget season and the Charter talks about a finance committee so maybe we could talk about potentially committees of the council that the council might want to create and then potentially adopt some of those or for the meeting afterward that is a potential for a potential agenda item. So the proposal is the agenda item is to discuss the committees of the council and the committees that we appoint. Is that your proposal? And that would take place on the 10th? And we have when we just created now where we gave a charge to do bylaws, we wouldn't say how many people so we could just quickly do something that had the charge how many people so we could start that it wouldn't have to do more a long discussion on it. Yes. Do you think we could postpone the discussion of the select board memorandum on committees? Yes, we did. All right. So the motion or the plan then would be to also meet on the 10th at 7 o'clock no later than 10. And that our primary conversation will be around committees building off of both the Charter Board memorandum that was provided to us by the select board with all the other committees. Yes. Any other conversation? Yes. I know this is a lot of work for staff. I'm wondering when we could expect to get our agendas for those meetings since we don't have any, you know, we haven't set times for when that's going to happen. So the president sets the agenda for the council meeting consultation with the manager. I'm here all the time. I know the president is traveling this week so we may do it by telephone or something like that. But we can set the agenda and try to prepare as much information as we can in the next couple of days. Information typically for a Monday meeting would go out on Friday so you would get it for the weekend. I'm actually back in town Wednesday afternoon. It's just one of those odd, weird weeks for me, yes. If I could quickly follow up on that. One of the advantages to the items that have been chosen for the 10th is we actually have most of them. Inside the select board memo packet is the actual bylaw review committee's charge and since it really is just verbatim out of the charter from a different section it's not going to be that difficult to put together ranked choice voting and finance committee in particular could be somewhat more challenging in terms of really thinking about best practices for that. I will say despite my great respect for staff that it is absolutely unacceptable that we receive materials on Friday for a Monday meeting. That is far too short of a time period with the expectation that everyone has time in their weekend to do everything that goes to being able to spread it out over the course of a week. I realize we are starting fresh and hopefully more things can get pushed to us electronically but the Friday Monday thing is really, really intolerable for a lot of people's schedules and I would hope that we would work toward it being in this particular case we really actually have most of the stuff because we have the charter, we have the charge but for future reference the last minute needs to be a sooner last minute than Friday. Will you allow for the Friday this time? Thank you. But knowing that we in fact have the major documents are to look at is the memo from the select board and the charter. So we will form an agenda that will be our topic of discussion unless another item comes up as necessary. Thank you Madam President. So the expectation especially since we don't have to produce paper, which is what we had to do with the select board, is that we will transmit it to you electronically and post it online so you will all get it at the exact same time and that does help and it takes a major step of production out of our system. And I have to say that there was a test on email today and at least mine came through. I hope all of you have checked yours out. Yeah, check and make sure there was a test done on email, our town email today. What grade did you get? I got an A. Lynn? I just want to ask a question. This is for town manager Backelman. I have to admit I am used to an academic calendar. December 17 is really getting into no man's land and we just don't have a lot of time. I don't know if that doesn't go on at that point. I wanted to know in terms of town hall is there going to be a hardship for the workers for us to have a meeting on the 17th? Our staff will work at your convenience, whatever the council chooses to do we will meet your needs. Thank you for that considerate comment. Any other business? Do we still have public comment? Any people would like to comment? One, two. Could you please identify yourselves and make your comment no more than three minutes if possible? And I will ask our council will just be very willing to listen and we're glad to have you here this evening. Thank you. I just was alarmed when I heard that public comment would be only at the end of meetings and especially when I'm seeing this end of meeting. I can also see that if you have a deadline of 10 o'clock that you're going to bump up against it and squeeze public comment and I think one of the big charges for the council is to hear from the public. So I really consider that you may want to have the first five in or something but I know as a public I would much prefer to address if I had something really important I would much prefer to address the council before they've deliberated and so they can decide whether they're going to care about it or not. Thank you. And could you please identify yourself? Mr. Thank you. There was another person with public comment? You have to press that. All right. It's Christa Osterling-Rising and I wanted to address the vote for Vice President which was obviously a contentious vote. It took five votes to finally get it done and I also want to discuss the talk about improved representation on the charter once the charter was that was one of the ways in which the charter was advocated by people like Mandy for example that it would have better representation and the talk after the election about healing divisions and unity obviously there was great unity on the vote for president and that was nice I liked seeing that but the Vice President vote was a difficult vote and the elephant in the room was that question of healing divisions and unity and Councillor Darcy Dumont expressed it pretty well when she said that the important goal was to heal the town that that was an important goal of this council and how the council chose its leadership today was going to be an important factor in that and if you had a president from one camp and a Vice President from the other camp then that would go a long way to heal some of that division that had been the case before and still after the election and I just wanted to express my personal disappointment because six people voted for one candidate and it wasn't based on qualifications because both of candidates and Vice President were very qualified six voted for the other the problem is that the real choice wasn't which candidate was more qualified the real choice was are we going to have representation from the two different camps you know prior to the election and after the election are we going to really prioritize healing the divisions or are we going to prioritize having our favorite candidate and what was happening finally was that the favorite candidate was prioritized over healing the divisions and I personally as a resident and a voter in town felt that healing the division should have been a higher priority it should have been more important to have a representative a Vice President from one camp and a president from the other camp than to have your favorite candidate were very qualified and I was very disappointed that that was the priority for seven people that it was more important to have your favorite candidate than it was to heal those divisions and really address the issue of unity and bringing the child back together so much talk had been put into that and when it came right down to it in this vote it fell away it wasn't important it was more important for people to get their favorite candidate and frankly it's upsetting to me and it makes me angry because it says that all this talk about better representation with a charter better representation with the town council really doesn't matter and it's about politics is about having your favorite candidate and it's not really about caring about the voters of Amherst which is what you all talked about so much before the vote I think six people were really committed to doing that and one person really tried to abstain to stay out of it and I admire that too but in the end the choice was made to choose the favored candidate rather than to choose healing the divisions in Amherst and I think that should have been the priority tonight this is the first meeting it was the first test of whether you can really overcome these divisions in Amherst and frankly you failed so sorry I know that's a nasty way to end the meeting but I've been sitting through this entire meeting very upset about it and I want to let you guys know that I know that some people made a genuine effort and one person was Alyssa Brewer I think that she really tried to to we asked that you not get into person numbers but I think that she really tried to heal those divisions and I like that I admire it I only said it because it was a positive thing but yeah usually I wouldn't use names I'm upset about the decision that was made because I think it was against that goal that was stated about healing divisions and creating unity so that's how I feel and I think that quite a few other people are going to feel the same way that's all I have to say thank you for your comment is there any other comment do I hear a motion to adjourn second