 Welcome everyone to this meeting of the Community Preservation Act Committee on Thursday, December 7th, 2023. I'm calling the meeting to order at 6.03 pm. This evening's meeting also functions as a public hearing on our proposals. The meeting is being recorded via Zoom, which will appear on the town website at a later point in time. And it's done via Zoom by authorization from the town of Amherst as well as the state. Bob has volunteered to take care of minutes for this meeting. So that item is set to go. I want to call on members to make sure that you can hear. And that we can hear you. So I'm assuming you can hear me. Tim. Present. Matt. Present. Bob. Present. Michelle. Present. Katie. Present. Good to see you. Robin. Present. David. Present. And Doug Marshall had communicated to me. Earlier in the week that he's unable to attend this evening's meetings. So we have all our members here. Our agenda is as listed on the town. Website under the calendar. We did receive some additional information from the public over the last. 48, 45 hours. And they were emailed to all of our committee members. But in addition, I just wanted to make folks aware that the. Information documents that we received are also in packet to. On the town website. So. Whether they could have been reviewed at this point in time or not, they still exist there for others. We received comments. From a few organizations related to. Pickleball courts. One was a. Meeting that referenced. The. Comments. From the. District one neighborhood association. And another was from the misdi meadows property owners association. I do see that. Dave Zomac is in the audience as well. Who had. I believe met today with. I believe that's the case. And I guess before we start our public hearing. I do want to indicate that I'll probably. Commence with those who wish to speak on. Projects other than the pickleball courts project to speak first. But my guess is that there'll be more. More comments related to the pickleball based on emails that we received. I did see a hand up. A moment ago from Dave Zomac. Dave, do you wish to speak? Yeah, I know you're entering your public hearing, but I just didn't know for the sake of clarity, whether it might be appropriate for me to just say one thing about pickleball, I'm not looking for any questions or comments, but would it be okay if I said that before your hearing starts? Sure, that would be fine. We can be really, I can be really quick. Just got a couple of very quick points. I know. I know you're short on time. I just wanted to make sure that the public and the CPAC know, you know, we've heard and appreciate the comments and concerns from the Stanley street neighbors. We've met with representatives from the association. We've met with the recreation commission. We've had numerous meetings. We've also had. I heard from residents elsewhere in town who support pickleball, both in East Amherst, but also in North Amherst. We've heard from residents in town who support the recreation of the original group who submitted the proposal a year and a half ago. We all want pickleball courts in Amherst. We've just kind of figure out the right place. We want to assure folks that we're listening. We're open to creative options. We're not saying Kiwanis is off the table for pickleball rather. I like to say maybe we press the pause button on Kiwanis. We want to make sure that we're open and transparent. We want to proceed with the proposal. With the proposal for more funding, but study the sighting more broadly throughout town. We have done that, but we've learned new information. We've, we've gained some partners through this process. And so I just wanted to see back to know that before you hear from everybody that we're open and we're committed to, you know, an open and transparent process. We want to proceed with the proposal, but it's not specific to Kiwanis. It's not specific to Kiwanis. It's not specific to all the input we've, we've received. So that's all I wanted to say. Thanks. Thank you, Dave. I appreciate your. Providing that update or clarity for us. And as well as all the. Work that the town staff have done in relation to the various proposals, including the pickleball proposal. I guess at this point we can proceed with our agenda. And the first item on our agenda. Is public hearing for all proposals. And again, the public hearing is. An opportunity for community members to. Comment or share thoughts on any particular proposal. And for our committee to listen. It's not a session where we have back and forth discussions. We hear. What individuals say we have as a committee received. Written information and. Including. Letters and slideshow and documentation, which I've had an opportunity to look over. And we all can look over more thoroughly later, but the public hearing is a session where we, where we, we listen and it's. In everyone's interest, I believe to hear from the public. We want to give everyone who wishes. An opportunity to speak. So. I'd like to proceed then. With the first agenda item. And to. Invite members of our attending. Community members to raise their hand. If they wish to speak first off on anyone who wishes to speak. On something different. Than the pickleball courts. I'm not sure how long the meeting would go. I'd like to deal. With the other proposals first. That's not to say I would exclude some exclude anyone. Later in the meeting, if they arrive late. From speaking on something different than pickleball, but I'd like to. I'd like to. Not delay those who. Have comments on some of the other proposals. So. Is there anyone in the audience. Who wishes to raise their hand to speak on a proposal. At this time. That is distinct from the. Pickleball. Proposal. I can see a number of attendees. I'm not sure if you're able to. Raise your hands or not. If for some reason you're unable to, you can seek to contact us via different avenues. We. Or even later in the meeting, our interest is to. Enable. Comments from the public. We welcome. Any information that's provided. So I'm not seeing. At present. Any hands up. I'll wait another. 30 seconds or so. We have in our prior meeting received lots of comments and. Letters as well, which. We do retain as a committee for everyone in the audience. We. We do retain all the documents and communications that are provided to us for our own internal. Awareness and thoughts on the projects. I do see a hand raised in the audience from. I'm not sure if you're able to hear me. We welcome you to our meeting. Thank you for joining us. We'd be glad to hear what you have to say. Hi. I know you've already heard from me because I presented. Amherst. Municipal affordable housing trusts. Proposal. And so I. Two things I would like to say. One is just as a kind of. A private citizen. It is really important to me to see this funded. I have so many neighbors and friends who have. Really don't have any more stable to live. And so the work that we can do to make there be more housing in town is very important to me. And the other thing I want to say is. I think that I may have told people who might want to comment that this started later. Than it does. I apologize for that. But I just wanted to give you a heads up that it's conceivable, not necessary, but conceivable that will be, but people will be showing up later that want to talk about housing. And I apologize for my. If I did it, getting incorrect information out. Out of curiosity. I realized I said I've been in comment. How late. Did you indicate that they might join the meeting? I thought it's too late. I thought it started at seven. I got it mixed up with our meetings, which do start at seven. I'm sorry. I just really. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry. Perhaps a quick email would be in order. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. And I didn't mean to interrupt your comment. Carol, please continue with anything you wish to say. Oh, I, am I still there? I don't know. You hear me. Okay. I don't know that I have anything more. I mean, I've, I said. So much everything. As a trust member that I wanted to say about how important. All of it is. This is just. Me as a person who knows people who can't find any place to live. I don't know. But that's affordable for them and Amherst and have to live other places, even though they maybe work here. And so it's just kind of. I'm adding my personal appeal. As a resident to whatever I already said. And so thank you. Thank you. Carol. Is there anyone else in the audience? Who would like to. Share any comments. I'm not seeing any hands. I guess I would say that. At this point in time, it's, it would be fine to comment on any of our presentations. Including pickleball courts, because I'm not seeing a. Excessive volume of individuals looking to speak at this moment. So. I do see a hand. Raised by. Richard. Bogarts, if I pronounced that correctly. And. Richard, if you can hear me, I'd like to thank you for coming to our meeting. And seeking to participate and we welcome. Your car mess and we're here to listen to you. So. Floor is yours. Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Richard Bogarts. I live a few feet away from the intersection of Willow Lane and Stanley street. That means I'm among the very closest. Of the residents. In the misdemeanor. Project to the Kiwanis fields. I'm 87. I have some health problems. I need to be able to take daily naps. And pickleball at Kiwanis. Maybe a threat to my health. I don't know that to be the case. I want to thank Ryan hard. For gathering the important information. And I would like to thank. I want to thank Ryan hard. For gathering the important information. On best practices for sound debate. I want to thank the leadership members. Of the misty meadows association. For mounting a neighborhood response. To the problems with the proposed site at Kiwanis. And special thanks to the leadership. For finding an attorney. Experienced with pickleball issues in Massachusetts. To represent the neighborhood. If the issue goes to court. I urge the community preservation act committee. To carefully consider the facts. That Ryan hard has assembled. And to reach the obvious conclusions that a. Pickleball and Amherst is something to fund. B. The Kiwanis location is the most intrusive. And is the most expensive. If done according to best practices. Or even according to reasonable sound debatement practices. And see. One of the two better locations. Ryan has found. Should be chosen. If we are to have affordable. Pickleball. Thank you. I also want to thank. Dave Zomek for his comments that he presented. At the beginning of the meeting. Thank you Richard. We appreciate hearing from you. I see another hand in the audience. And in one moment. One moment please. Pat. If you're able to. I'm sorry, I had a Brian harp up first, I believe. Well. Hello. Yes, we can hear you, Pat. Good evening. Thank you. This is Pat. From. I'm one of the. I'm also the vice president for Mr. Middle Association. Thank you for the opportunity for me to speak very briefly. First, I want to thank our town. Staff. Mr. Mr. For. Thank you so much. And I'm. I'm sorry for the. Discending because they've met with some of our. Association reps. And I'm here to say that I do support. Pickleball. To be funded, but I don't think this. Is the right year. I don't think. We are quite ready. As there is no location has been. Identify. I don't think that. I do have a family member that has autism and noise. He's very sensitive to noise. I did mention that the last time when you guys met, and I'm appealing to all of you, when you do your deliberation and make your decision to consider the health of Mr. Meadow resident, please. Let's avoid lawsuit because it's not going to do any good for anyone. Let's not drag this to lawsuit. Thank you. Thank you, Pat, for joining us, taking the time to share your comments. We appreciate hearing from you. I see, let's see, Richard's hand is still up, and Pat, your hand is still up. You might lower them if you're able. And looking in the audience, I do see a hand from a few individuals. Ryan, I'd like to, I believe you were first, I'd like to invite you to share your comments. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thank you all. Yeah, thank you all. Dave, thanks. Dave Somek, thanks for your comments at the beginning. Ray Hart, thanks for meeting with us today too, and Carolyn Maylor as well. Thank you, CPA committee, for allowing us time to do public comment and to have a democratic process like this. I know it's not very fun. I know when there's things like this and there's contention, it's uncomfortable. But I, sorry, I appreciate you all allowing this. And I just wanted to start off tonight by saying that the neighborhood where I do live, Misty Meadows, it's a really special place to me. And I've lived here in my home for more than 16 years. And during that time, I've gotten to know my neighbors. And for those of you from the neighborhood that are listening, I just wanna say that you all are really special to me. And you're important in my life. And so I think it's really rare these days for neighbors to become close with one another and to help each other out when one of us needs assistance, like a ride to the doctor's office or to help out with somebody's car or offering to pick up groceries or medicine during COVID. So Misty Meadows is to me such a special neighborhood and it has such wonderful people living here. I'm just really happy and proud to live here myself. And so when we found out that there was a big potential change being proposed like for a quiet and lovely neighborhood, it led us into this deep dive on Picklewall because the impact that it could have on different neighbors. And so, you know, what we found and I sent it to you all already. So I'm trying to make this short, but Picklewall is one of those probably single most contentious issue right now having to do with recreation across the country. And it's because it's been so successful. It's been so fast and there was this rapid buildout phase and now we're in this unintended consequence phase as I call it. And it's because Picklewall noise now finally it's come out after a few years of people kind of saying, hey, I'm hearing it. It creates a notable change in the acoustical environment of the area surrounding the courts. And in comparison to other recreational activities it's a different type of noise. It's considered an impulsive sound by acoustical engineers. And so it can make it difficult to relax, to concentrate and to sleep. And we have neighbors here in Misty Meadows. They work from home. Are they asleep at different hours because of medical conditions or the jobs they do? And some have health conditions so it would be negatively impacted by the consistent noise coming from Picklewall courts. So it kind of just leads us to this point, right? It's well, what do we do? We can say no Picklewall and be against it but I don't think that's the right solution. There's best practices that we can look to and where to build courts. The best practices being 600 feet from residential and measuring it from the edge of the Picklewall court to the edge of the property line so that people who can be in their yards aren't as impacted by it and hiring an acoustical engineer to do a noise impact assessment if it's within 600 feet. So these are best practices that Amherst can consider. And this is something too that we're not just saying don't build this at Kiwanis Park. We're just encouraging thoughtful, careful deliberation on where to put it because we've seen so many issues in other communities by doing this deep dive into the issue. And so I just want to end with we had a really good conversation today with Dave and with Ray and with Caroline and I'd say we're in a really good dialogue right now. And at the end of the day the costs for building Picklewall courts if it's located closer to residential the costs do go up because of sound debatement, right? That's the thing we're all trying to grapple with now is it's costing more. So I'd say we don't want the CPA to just kind of vote this down necessarily. Maybe some of us do, some of us don't but I think if it was voted to still fund the ask for this year that we could work with that and I'd like to volunteer to create what other communities have done which is create a Picklewall working group. I think that's what we need right now is we need to come together as a community. Like we're in this little bit of contention point but we can have friends of Picklewall group members from the Rec Recreation Commission and Recreation Department, town officials and Misty Meadows come together to just work together to select an appropriate site. And so I think that's our path forward. That's my closing thought is just if we work together on this we can do this, it might not be right away but we have all the information and by working together we can make this happen. So thank you. Thank you for allowing me a little extra time to appreciate it. Thank you, Ryan. You're quite welcome. And for those listening and Ryan included we did receive the documents, slideshow and others that were provided. It was communicated to all members, town staff and it has been added to the meeting packet. So thanks to any community members that have provided comments and information so far to our committee. I do see another individual whose hand is up and I believe the next person is Maria Kopicki. Maria, if you're hearing me thank you for joining our committee here in this meeting. And I'd like to invite you to speak if you're able to at this time. Yeah, thanks, Sam. I'm so sorry, I just got the notification somebody just pinged me that this was happening. Are you taking public comment on the CPA applications for this year? That's exactly what we're doing. We're in the public hearing portion of our meeting. Okay, great. I am calling in to speak up in loud favor of improving the softball fields. The softball fields throughout town are in very rough shape. They're actually dangerous to play on. They're undulating. The ball bounces at crazy angles. I've been injured myself because of this. People I'm amazed that nobody's broken a leg because of the humongous. It's like crater-like holes at all of the bases. So they need a lot of love. And the backstops are non-functional. They don't go down all the way. So I saw the application that went in. I am thrilled that this is happening. As you all know, soon one of the fields that is our primary field to play on Fort River is gonna be out of commission for a couple of years while yay, the school building gets done, but that's gonna take it out of commission. Groff Park, there's one field that's positively unplayable. The other one is just barely. Kiwanis is not good. The high school is not really fabulous either. So all of my softball colleagues in town, I really apologize because I told them I'd give them a heads up and I forgot to check the calendar. We would, there's a lot of people that really want this. And I think we can grow the softball program in town. It used to be a lot more teams and then COVID kind of damped it down. And the fields are a reason for it being damped down as well. This could be really game-changing, forgive the pun. So thank you very much to Amy for putting this request in and if you are still taking, I hope, written feedback, I'll have people write to you, Sam, or the committee so you can hear from more softball players about how appreciative we are. Thank you, Maria. We do have the, I believe it's Amherst CPA-C, although I'll check the email. You're welcome to email me and Holly as well and if you wanted to send a test email to confirm receipt that would be fine as well. We're, as we indicated in the public hearing portion, public comments and we commence after a few agenda items with internal discussions regarding the various proposals perhaps late of this meeting and also the subsequent week. Not sure of the duration. So thank you for taking the time to join us and to share your comments on softball. Thank you. I see William and Catherine Burtz, if I pronounced that correctly, are in the attendees list with their hand or one of their hands raised. Thank you for joining us. You are here and welcome to comment on any of the proposals that you wish. The floor is yours. Thank you very much. Can you hear us? I can hear you. Excellent. I am William Burtz. My wife is Catherine sitting next to me. We live on Stanley Street. We are the closest property to where the proposed pickleball courts would be built on Kiwanis. We are absolutely committed to making sure that pickleball gets built somewhere in Amherst. We are not happy about it being 85 feet from our property line. And we are, as I said, we're going to be working with you as best we can. We are very appreciative that Dave Zomek and Ray Harp met with us today. I think we had a very productive meeting. My wife has a statement she'd like to read. Hi, this is Kathy Burtz. I just wanted to mention that the Stanley Street Misty Meadows area is a quiet family neighborhood. We see wild animals in our yards very often. Deer, other animals. We hear bird songs. It's very rural. And Kiwanis Park sits in the middle of our neighborhood. We are not anti-sports. We, at our last neighborhood meeting, we all mentioned we enjoy hearing that school children play soccer and softball. The games last maybe an hour or two. And to us, they represent summer. Folks play Ultimate Frisbee at Kiwanis Park. Other folks drive up and let their dogs out to romp. We're not so, not against pickleball, but we're deeply concerned about the noisy pop, pop, pop of pickleball near our houses. It can be heard inside people's houses. It would make sitting on the back deck listening to bird songs very difficult. And it's not just us. It's the rest of the neighborhood. We're all together on this. We thank the town of Amherst for listening to us. And we are willing to work with the representatives to determine mutually agreed-on place to build pickleball courts. We're willing to work with the pickleball community to help find a place to site it that follows best practices for sound abatement. So please understand that we are willing to be cooperative. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, William. And thank you, Catherine. We appreciate your taking the time to join us and sharing your comments and thoughts. I see Carlos Turiago in the audience. Your hand is raised. I'd like to invite you, Carlos, to share any comments you wish with our committee. Thank you for the invitation and thank you to all members of the panel. I think that my community has made a great, great argument. I don't like the word argument, but in terms of expressing our feelings as a community, I believe in my neighborhood has two main street, Tamarack and Willow Lane. And I live on Willow Lane. I don't want to go and repeat what has been said. I just wanna say two things. First, David, I couldn't make it today. And then so disappointed because it seems to me that it went very well. The meeting with my neighbors. And I'm gonna go back to what you said, David. Let's press the pause button and wait. So what I'm gonna say to all of you, that's a great invitation to have a productive conversation. Let's be creative. Let this something together as a community. Let's work together and see where is the best location in town for the pickleball field. Everybody in town has right to play pickleball. I agree with that. But I want us to make a decision that we don't have to regret because there was a lawsuit and the town didn't win it. I don't wanna go there. The money that we're gonna spend on lawyers, let's spend it on the field. Let's come together. If we had to pitch in, let's do that. We can do that together. I was in the meeting on Tuesday and somebody was suggesting that. So we need to be creative and creativity speaks about working together. I appreciate what you do for the town, for the community. And David, thank you for your words. I really appreciate what you said tonight. So let's listen to David's invitation. Let's press that tiny button. We don't have to rush it and let's work together. Let's have a beautiful conversation and we find the best place and everybody in town is glad because we did that together as a neighbors. I don't know you that well but I feel that you're my neighbor. That's the way I see it. You are not my enemy. I don't wanna fight against you. I appreciate what you do for the town. So help us to come up with something that is beautiful, creative and original. That's my invitation to all of you. Thank you. Thank you, Carlos. We appreciate you taking the time to join us and sharing your thoughts and comments on this proposal. I'm not seeing another hand raised in the audience at the moment. I'd like to invite anyone who's attending this evening's meeting to share any comments or thoughts that they have on any of our CPA fiscal year 25 proposal applications. If there's something you would like to say, please raise your hand so that we can see it. Not seeing any hands at the moment. I just want to remind those watching and those in the attending audience that this is a public hearing on the fiscal year 2025 Community Preservation Act applications proposals. We use those words together. And it's an opportunity for those who wish to share their thoughts with our committee and with those who might watch the recordings to provide any comments, thoughts, information to us. So I'll wait a little bit here in case someone's having any issues with their computer or otherwise. So again, our committee welcomes comments from the public. We've sought to invite folks or via public notice and on the town website. We do as a committee consider any information that's provided to us as we discuss our Community Preservation Act committee proposals. I'm not seeing any hands. I don't want to rush to end the public hearing portion of our meeting. So I'm gonna wait one more minute. If anyone wishes to speak. I do see a hand raised from an individual Erica Piedade. If I said that incorrectly, forgive me. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here. I'd like to invite you to share any comments you wish with our committee. Thank you, Sam. And thank you all the members of the Community Preservation Act committee. I'm here on behalf of myself as the resident of Amherst. As you know, I am a co-chair of the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust but I'm speaking as an individual who's lived here since 1994. I've been here since 1994 and I myself have experienced how difficult it is to find affordable housing. I actually was a grad student at UMass so we have an opportunity to create affordable housing for all kinds of members who wanna stay here in the community who feel that they contribute to the community. Affordable housing is really, really critical in Amherst. Affordable rentals, affordable home ownership. What I've seen is that there are so many talented individuals either working here in Amherst who cannot afford to live in Amherst and cannot afford to raise their families in Amherst. One of the reasons we came actually lived in eastern part of Massachusetts and one of the reasons we came out here is not only to go to grad school but we also knew that the Amherst community was a wonderful place to raise a family. And I also knew that the only way I could raise my family in Amherst was by coming to grad school and living actually working at UMass while I was in grad school. I was a residence hall director. I actually was offered a job and I could not take the job because I did not wanna move my children out of the Amherst high school system. And so I refused taking the job and continued just being a grad student. I know that there's so many individuals, families who want to live in this community and want to engage with community, give to the community. This is a wonderful place to be. There are young families who wanna be here and what we're seeing is more of seniors which now I'm part of myself as well as very young people or students. And so it is just so, so important to provide support to the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust to create diverse opportunities, rentals, as well as home ownership, as well as supporting agencies that advocate for the development of affordable housing. And so I really plead to you to really think about providing support to the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust that really speaks to some extent, engages with the community, doesn't speak for all the community, but really keeps affordable housing on the radar and is a strong advocate to make sure we have a diverse, thriving community. So thank you for letting me speak as an individual who has been here since 1994. Thank you, Erica, for all the work that you do and for taking the time for your busy schedule to join us and share your thoughts. We appreciate it very much and we're here this evening to listen to you and others. Thank you very much. I'm not seeing another hand raised in the meeting, although I do see a few new individuals here. This is a public hearing related to the fiscal year 2025 CPA applications proposals for the town of Amherst. And I would like to again invite anyone who wishes to make a comment, public comment for a committee or to share their thoughts on any of the proposals to raise their hand and share your comments with us. I'll wait again for another minute here. And anyone who wishes to speak, you are quite welcome to share your thoughts with us. So I'm not seeing any hands raised. I'll give, I used to be a bartender. I'll make a final call, last call. It's 12.59, you'll have to finish it in the next 15 minutes, 30 seconds. And if many of you raise, we'll continue longer. I'm not seeing any hands raised. If I'm missing something, somebody please let me know. Well, thank you all who have spoken on behalf in favor or against any of the projects. We're glad to hear from you. I guess I will end the public hearing portion of our meeting at this time. So thank you all. We will continue with our meeting. And interestingly enough, whether we need to or not, the next item on our agenda is public comment. Public comment is a requirement for any public meeting, any town meeting. So we have it on our agenda rightfully or wrongfully. And I guess the distinguishing factor would be you can speak on anything related to CPA, not necessarily the proposals. So again, I'd like to welcome anyone who's listening to share any comments that they wish regarding CPA in Amherst or any of the proposals for that matter. Oh, wait a minute. I see a hand is raised. It was raised, it may be lowered at this point. I saw a hand raised from Richard. I'm not sure if you wish to speak or not. If you do, please raise your hand again. If not, no worries. I see the hand going up and down. So I'm gonna make the assumption that there's a desire to speak. And I will invite you if you wish, Richard, to share a comment. Yes, I do. I don't know, it was saying raised when I think you were seeing it not raised, but on my screen it was saying raised and vice versa. I just wanted to make a comment concerning the practice of showing the members of the committee, but not showing the speakers from the public. I've been on countless Zoom meetings, but practice, well, many of them were at the university, but in other contexts too. And in those meetings, the practice was to show everybody even if it took multiple screens. And I would have really enjoyed seeing the people who were speaking to the issues from the public. And I ask you to consider the possibility of elevating the speaker to visibility. Nutsull. Thank you, Richard. I was not cognizant myself that there's an inability for those speaking to be displayed. We've had many meetings where those who join us are able to be seen. I'll make the assumption that your camera is on. And if that's the case, I can't explain it. And I apologize for our committee on that behalf. We certainly welcome viewing anyone. I think it's a beneficial form of communication along with the words. I hear what you're saying and understand. Michelle, I see that your hand is raised. I assume it's in relation to this. Yeah, so Richard, I share your frustration and I've experienced it on different public meetings. So right now we can all see you and your name. We can see all of the attendees because we're all panelists, but I think that none of the attendees can see who's there and it sounds like what you're saying is that they can't see your name as you are presenting, even though we can. And I don't have a solution to it, but I agree that it could be better and that we could, as in all town meetings, find a way somehow through experiment to let the public see who's present and let who see who's speaking in terms of their name. So if anybody on the committee knows how to handle that, in general, I'd be interested, but I'm just giving you some feedback as to what we see versus what you see right now. We can look into that for subsequent meetings, I guess. I will double check on that. I'm wondering if this meeting link has been recycled meeting after meeting after meeting and there may be something in the Zoom parameters that does not allow that, but once again, we can all see each other and we have been able to see people, I believe, on occasion, maybe it's just their photos. I do apologize. It was not intentional by any means. So comment well received and we will look into that and thank you so much. And again, apologies on behalf of our committee for that inability to see your photo on screen if that's what was desired. Thank you, Richard. Any other attendees that wish to share a public comment, we'd be glad to hear from you. I'll give a 30 second warning. Our clock is set fast. There's anything you wish to say, we'd be glad to hear from you. Just raise your hand. Okay, so I'm not seeing any further desire from community members to make a public comment at this time. I'd like to thank those who have shared their thoughts with us as a committee, appreciate it very much. So the next item on our agenda this evening is to approve any outstanding minutes. I'm not aware that we have received any minutes or draft minutes in time for us to approve them this evening. We did receive some draft minutes, I believe, from Katie this afternoon, but we did not get a chance to put those in the pack at this time. We will have them available for the subsequent meeting. So that's that agenda item. The next item on our agenda is to the review the financials, excuse me for a moment. Dave, Zomac, I see that your hand is raised. Yeah, I wanted to ask Holly, do they need to take a vote to close the public hearing? Because the whole meeting is not really a public hearing. I don't know how formal you've done these in the past, but you open the public hearing, now the public hearing closes, the rest of the meeting is not a public hearing. Maybe I'm, that's typically- I'd be glad to take a vote to do so. It's just nice to wrap up the public hearing, that part of the meeting is closed and then you go into the rest of your agenda. I'm going to make a motion to close the public hearing. Second. We have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. Assuming, is there any discussion? I see no discussion. So we have a motion on the floor to close the public hearing. I'd like to proceed with a roll call vote. I will vote I, Tim. I, Matt. I. David. I. Bob. We're not able to hear you, Bob. Can you unmute your microphone? Michelle. I. Robin. I. And Bob. I'm just too busy doing minutes, you know. Yeah, I understand. And Katie. I. So the motion passes eight in favor. Zero. Against. One absent. Thank you, Dave, for that thought for us. Matt Cain. Yeah, I'm conscious that Michelle is going to leave in a few minutes. And later in the meeting, we're going to do our straw poll numbers. And I think it would be good to have her numbers in there as well. So if she could maybe send them to Holly Drake to get right in or. Michelle, I see that your hand is up. Hopefully only be away for a few minutes, 10 minutes. Oh, okay. Okay. If for some reason you miss it, of course we'll receive your information. Yeah. And you would need that in real time. We'll receive information as available. Okay. 10 minutes should not be problematic. Well, I, so I'm. I'm sorry, I'm just joining another public meeting to give public comment. And then I would hopefully be right back. And okay. So if I'm not, if for some reason that's delayed, can I give you the public comment after the meeting? That's fine. Okay. It will work either way. We'll make it work. And Doug Marsh was unable to attend this evening. He had provided his straw poll numbers, not a vote of course, just initial commentaries on our general class for discussion purposes. So we'd closed the public hearing portion. We included in that our public comment and our approval of outstanding minutes. Those have not changed. So I'll proceed to the subsequent agenda item of reviewing financials. Holly has provided us updates, including the general budget projection for fiscal year 2025, but also information relating to debt projections for future years. Very helpful information, a lot of work I'm sure has gone into creating this to assist us in our understanding of where we are. I know there are committee members who have expressed an interest in our discussing our general financial situation in advance of deliberations, which makes sense. So I guess Holly, if you're able to give a quick, not even a quick, if you're able to display your CPA budget, budget projections for our committee to review. Sorry, I was muted. Sorry, I was just trying to find the right file here. Yes. So, you know, once again, very similar to last time, although I do want to point out here that we did receive the additional funding from the state. So our FY 23 match that is received in FY 24 in this current fiscal year came out to $398,325. So this had originally been estimated at the 275. So it does give us, you know, a little bit more flexibility about another $123,000 as that has been received. So that's the only thing that has changed in the financials at this point. That is, you know, more than likely all that will change before we get to deliberations and votes. The only other thing that I still just want to point out to folks is that there was the $164,463 that was voted as a budgeted reserve, which we would either, we could either allocate to a project during this current fiscal year before June 30. After June 30, this will automatically go away and be rolled back into available funds, or we can choose at the point of our voting and our deliberations to use it now. So that's the only number that is just sort of dependent on what we choose to do with it. It will revert back in the next fiscal year. It will be used during the current fiscal year, or we can vote to, you know, basically take it away and add it to our FY25 allocations. So we use it, or we lose it, or we don't lose it. It just goes back into the pot next year. It doesn't go away. But if we choose to do nothing, it just will be added with the following fiscal year, if that makes sense to folks. So if I hear you correctly, we can use it for fiscal year 24 if we wish. We can vote it into fiscal year 25, or we do nothing. It will. It will then be available in the year 26. Right. It would roll out to in the end. Yes. That is correct. If that makes sense to folks. I see that the year end balance is listed at 1,664,240. Estimate, of course. Am I correct that that would be described. As the available funds currently, not reflective of any future debt requests. That that's the available unencumbered funds. That is correct. And that that does include the 164 or not. That that does this. 164 1.6 million does not include the one under the 64,000. So with that, we have, if we choose to use it, that's why down down here at the bottom, this is highlighted in yellow. If we choose to use it, we have $1.8 million. If we use it for another project. Oops. Oh, this is a PDF. I can't take it away. But if I, if I, if. We decided not to use it, we would just have the 1.6 million. If we decide to use it, we have the 1.8 million. Okay. That's good to know. Do any committee members have questions on the existing spreadsheet that we're looking at it? Bob, I see that your hand is raised. Yes. The extra 123. That came in from the state matches that included. In the 1.664 at the bottom. Yes, it is. It is. Okay. Yeah, I believe when we originally started, and I'm going to, as we get into our, you know, beginning with the straw pool and eventually deliberations, you'll see all of the projects here. But originally our shortfall was I think about 742. I want to say on the original set of financials that we rolled out for our first meeting. Thank you. Robin. Thank you. I was not actually related to this spreadsheet, but it occurred to me. I don't know if we've addressed this at a different meeting when I was doing my own numbers. Do we, are we required to do a minimum set aside for open space? Since we, my understanding is we don't have applications in that category. So yes, there, you are required to do the 10% minimum of what your estimated revenues are, in the three categories, open space and recreation are added together as if they were one category. And we do not need to worry about that. If we don't reach that 10% minimum or have a proposal or a appropriation of at least 137,500, we would need to reserve a category specific. If we don't reach that 10% minimum, that's not between the debt service. It pretty much covers. The 10% in most of the cases. Yeah, I didn't realize that service was factored in there. Okay. Great. Thank you. That services. Yeah. Matt, you had your hand up. Are you still seeking to comment or ask a question or anything? Oh, I already made the point I was going to make. Okay. Questions or comments on this slide. It looks like we have. Six 1,664,000 plus. readily available. 1.82 million. Plus if we are factoring in the fiscal year 24 cash reserves, which is. To be determined. Tim. Thank you for including the debt. Payment schedule that was helpful. Okay. I don't really need to refer to that. I was going to go back to the other spreadsheet. Sorry about that. My point was as we begin our discussions, obviously we are short by a little over 600,000. And then our deliberations as to which projects to approve or approve. And that obviously is going to be. Have to be taken into account. And I know some of my ratings are definitely related to the fact. Of which projects are less important. And therefore we can start to. Dip into that 600 and some and change. But one of the things about debt is we actually had before debt. 2.1 million available. And then we are already committed to spending 520 for debt. So that's roughly a quarter of that amount, about 25% or so. So just as a. My thinking and it's an editorial comment. I have some. I would like for us to can think about cautioning adding more debt because it's going to forego. And basically mortgage our ability to approve future projects as we come down the line. So I just wanted to get out, get that out there for everybody to think about as we proceed. Thank you, Tim. Holly, I think it would be helpful. Excuse me, Katie. Sorry. Sam, I appreciate Tim's comment. Just want to counter a slightly by saying. If we talk about a servicing debt. It does feel like, you know, like we're. But it is, it is really important projects. So I don't want that to go unstated that it's still CPA funded projects that are doing good things for the town. And while I do agree with Tim, I just want to say that, you know, we have to be careful that we don't. That we end up not having anything to do future projects. On the other hand. They are projects being done and being taken care of. And so I just wanted to add that in. Thank you, Katie. Holly, I think it would be helpful to show your second, second slide. With the debt projections. I certainly like to look at it. I looked at it earlier and I enlarged it like 200%. So that we can start just for committee members who might not have seen this yet. Holly, would you like to explain it? I'll try my best. So. These are our projected debt payments for FY 25. It's a little bit difficult for me to explain, but you know, when we do choose to authorize a. A borrowing on a CPA article, then it gets added to all of the other projects in town that the, the town is borrowing for. So typically it can be anywhere from three years, five years or 10 years. It sort of depends upon the amount of debt that we are going to be going out for. These the debt and the borrowing authorizations are all, you know, vetted through the Collector Treasurer's Office, the Comptroller's Office, the town manager's office. And so currently these are the projects in FY 25 that we are committed to making payments on and then sort of they'll, they'll play out for a five to 10 year period. You know, again, at this point they are projections. The interest rates do sometimes change depending on whether it's short term or long term debt. But this is currently what we have obligated out in, in projects for the next couple of fiscal years. And I am going to have to double check on this because I thought that Kendrick Park was done in FY 25, but this is showing one more payment. So I may have to double check on that. I believe that rolling green and Kendrick Park are done in 25, but there is a possibility that there's one more payment. I'll have to, I'm going to have to verify that number now that I see that. Matt. Yeah, so I sort of, I appreciate what Tim said. What jumped out at me with this debt schedule is that we have three pretty large projects that are just beginning in financial year 25 and 26 that contribute to a pretty substantial amount of payments stretching out for 10 years or so. So while I am comfortable with, I'm not uncomfortable, I should say with the 520,000 annual debt service. But if we were to put more on that, it would increase for the next 10 years, which would put us in a, in a less flexible position, maybe I should say going forward. Thank you, Matt. Comments from other committee members. Bob. Maybe just a general comment, if you did this might be a good year to be very conservative about debt in the sense that interest rates are very sketchy right now. We don't know a year from now. We could be looking at debt at 3% or we could be looking at 5%. So just delaying might be prudent. I think it would be beneficial, Holly, if you're able to give an indication of what our anticipated interest rates are for new projects. If, for example, we were to choose to fund one of these this year, do you have any guesstimate of what that rate might be just ballpark? I'm a little hesitant, but because it really all depends on the timing of the project because it, you know, once again, the way that this works is even if we were to authorize a project for FY 25, that was going to be a borrowing article that borrowing typically does not happen until the project is completed. We don't necessarily borrow money ahead of time. We borrow money when the project is done and we know exactly how much it's going to cost. So that the borrowing for that could be literally a year and a half down the road could be two and a half, three and a half, four and a half years down the road. So right now with our next round of borrowing that will happen, you know, sometime before the end of this fiscal year, likely in April or May, we're projecting approximately 4%, which is up from the, you know, two and a half, three percents that we were getting in the last few years. But I mean, I do not have a crystal ball. I can't say what they will be like a year and a half, two and a half, three and a half years from now, but we would likely project it out in the four to five percent range at minimum. Thank you. That's very useful information. I have to confess that I was not aware that the ball, the borrowing took place commenced upon completion of a project. Would I be correct in indicating that for the track and field and for the Jones library, for example, we have not yet initiated borrowing for those projects. We have not. We are anticipating, I believe we are anticipating them both to start in FY 25. Thank you for asking that question. We anticipate one to start in FY 25 and we anticipate one to start in FY 26. But again, there may be short term borrowing or a small, like if only half of the money was spent, we wouldn't necessarily borrow at all. And those are, you know, town financial policies and things is because we've, you know, if you go out and you borrow the full $700,000 and they only spend 650 of it, for example, they spend a little less or a project comes in a little less than anticipated, then we've got funds that we are, we have not used and it creates a lot of accounting issues. So typically borrowing is not done until a project is complete or at least the portion of it that's borrowed is only equal to what's been spent up to that particular point. That makes sense. So it's very hard to judge, you know, and again, estimates at this point. This is a little large to see, I think, but these are estimates at this point. The FY 25 ones are more than likely pretty darn close, but when you start getting out into 26 or 27 to 28, it's hard to judge. Great. What a new borrowing would be. Can you enlarge that lower debt schedule screen one more time? A little bit larger. And go to the bottom. What I noticed on this, aside from the commencement of the projects and the years, I noticed the total amount of debt for each fiscal year highlighted in gray at the bottom. 520,000 estimated for this year, 523 estimated for next year. And then it starts to decline a bit if we can scroll to the right. 472 estimated in fiscal year 27, 457 for 42, so it starts to decline, but it was that large number that I looked at, and I was surprised to see I hadn't looked at it in some time, that it's still 400,000 plus in later years. That does not include any, any borrowing that we might initiate at this time, but those are the numbers that I paid attention to. So thank you so much for. Right. Right. I mean, right. So these two projects up above will be, will be dropping off. And I, and again, I will double check. They'll both be dropping off in 25 or one will drop off at 25. Well, we'll drop off at 26. But then we've picked up some rather large, some of the larger ones, you know, 500,000 for the. SROs on North Hampton Road. The Belcher town. Road purchase. The Jones library collection was a million dollars. Amherst regional high school track of field 800,000. So those were rather large ones that are, that are stretched out over 10 years because of the dollar amounts. So, and then adding in the Fort River Elementary School, these are all rather large projects. So. It's nice to see them drop off. Because I love it when they drop off. Matt. Yeah. So just a small question, which probably doesn't impact the projections, but when you go out for a bond, is it typically a fixed interest rate or a variable interest rate? When it is a long term and a full on bond, it is, it is a fixed rate. When we're doing bands, which we'll sometimes just roll over for a few years until we have, until we go out for a permanent bond, then those, those are variable. Because those are only like for a one year term. And then we'll decide the next year for, if we have enough capacity to put out a large bond, we'll put everything that's going on in town together. And if we only have, you know, say a million dollars worth of stuff that we're going to be need to bond this year, we may just roll it over for a year and wait till we have four or five or six or till interest rates are where we want it, et cetera. So, okay, thank you. I think that bands variable long term is set. Short answer. Bob. Holly, thank you. You just answered the first part of my question. The second part is. How, what is there a, a dollar amount that is the lower limit. That you would finance or so another, some of the smaller projects don't really qualify for financing or is it just the larger projects that you, you finance? That's a great question, Bob. We, we don't necessarily have a. I don't, I don't think there is truly a sort of cap on that of where we would start, but it would be anticipated or it would be in. I think the town's best interest in everybody's best interest to only be bonding larger dollar amounts. I mean, do you could look at a couple of different ways if we had $500,000 projects, we could borrow all of those, or if we had one $500,000 project, we would just borrow for that one project instead of having five different projects. I don't think there's, that's really up to you folks on how you want to stretch these dollars and where you want to see these dollars go. I can tell you our, our collector treasurer would probably be pretty angry if I came to her with a $30,000 borrowing article. But if that's what the committee chose, you'd have to figure out how to make it work. Great. Thank you. I have a question for you, Holly. I seem to have lost my camera here. I'm not sure what's going on with that. Regarding the fiscal year, 2024 cash reserves, the 164,000. So hypothetically, if we were to choose to vote that into. Funds for use with our fiscal year 2025 projects. Is that something that we submit with our recommendations to town council with the purpose? In other words, is it one of the items that we include? I don't recall if we include that in our report, but it would be an entirely separate process. No, it would be in part of our regular report. So when we submit our report to town council, we have to tell them basically what our funding sources are. So our funding source in this case would be. You know, we basically have to pick a project and 164,000 of it would come from the budgeted reserve. And then the remainder of the balances would just come out of what we call our estimated receipts or our estimated revenue. So it is part of the whole package. It's just a slightly different funding source that is named in that document. Okay. Thank you. So if we had like, you know, for instance, if one year we didn't spend our 10% minimum, and we had to budget a reserve and historic preservation, we would just say that we're using the historic preservation reserve to fund one of those projects. So it's just verbiage that needs to be included to make it clear. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from any committee members? Okay. Well, this has certainly been very helpful. The next item on our agenda. Is to. I believe begin with deliberations. But before we do that, I'd like to take a couple of minute break. So folks can gather their thoughts and it's currently seven 21. So I'll. Take a break until seven 24, a three minute break. And we can commence again at that time, three minutes. I'm going to wait for a couple of folks to return. Hey, Sam, right there at the end, you asked a question that I missed. I got Holly's answer, but I didn't get your question. I believe I asked. If there was a distinct process. In terms of how, if we chose to. Vote as a committee, the cash reserves of fiscal year 24. That is to say the 164 some odd thousand. If we chose to vote that into fiscal year 25. Meaning this year's round of applications. Is there a distinct process affiliated with that other than. Submitting it with our report to the finance committee and then the town council. And she said, no, that's how it would work. We have complete flexibilities committee. During the time period to do what we wish. Thank you. Katie seems to be here. Who are we missing? Possibly David and. Holly, would you like to wait, Matt on your question until. No, this is just, this is to Bob. So I assume you were talking your, your question was related to the minutes. And just for you and for anyone else. I found it very helpful to review the YouTube video, which is basically what we see in zoom, which is available after a few days. And when I do it to check my notes, I run it at double speed. Which goes up, it goes a bit faster. Good. Thank you. That's very helpful. I'd like to take previous minute templates. It's quite helpful with the beginning of the names. And some of the general headers. And I typically will edit an existing set of minutes. That's my process again to save time. But I likely have a template that I'll have to double check on that, but I likely have a template that has sort of those major headings on it, but it sort of makes sense to use a prior one because names and stuff are already all in there. I will use all of the above. So it looks like everyone has returned. I see David is joining us now. So the next item on our agenda is a strong whole of just our initial thoughts on. Projects and for those in attendance, we. Rate projects initially. From one being low to five being high. And it's for the purposes of just seeing which areas there might. Need to be a greater level of discussion. Which projects might need greater level of discussion than others. Sometimes myself, for example, if I. Like a project, but I also have questions on the budget. I may. Lower my rating for the purposes of. Having greater discussion related to it. So this is just an initial. Process with committee members. Having the opportunity to change their ratings. We subsequently give a brief comment. On our thoughts for every project, each committee member and our committee members can be influenced. By the thoughts of others. And then there after after we've gone through the initial discussion. We'll have a brief discussion. About the ratings and comments, brief comments. Then we discuss a little bit more thoroughly. So before we commence, Holly has a very helpful. Part for us similar to what we've done in years past. Every project is listed, which category it's in. What the dollar amount requested is. We've done all of our names to provide ratings. And on the lower portion, it was quite helpful last year. The available funds and. In past years, we had cash reserves that we played around with. So the spreadsheet format is very, very helpful for. Just kind of getting a snapshot in a point in time of our committee. I do want to call attention again to committee members that we did some additional information today. We received from the historical mission. A statement in regards to the. North Zion church indicating that the. Proposal to use the asphalt. Shingles meets with lack of a better term, their approval. Robin, did I say that correctly or. Yeah, you, it means with our approval, but we also have. Our determination is that it's in line with the secretary of the interior standards for. Rehabilitation of historic structures. And that's a requirement of CPA. So it's a, it's a proposal that can. According to the historical commission meets within the. Be considered. Yeah, there's essentially no reason to question the use of the asphalt shingles for the roof in terms of the secretary of the interior standards and the proposal overall is supported by the commission. Thank you. And I would comment that Doug Marshall, who's not here today. Had asked me to inquire of the North church. They were not including their maintenance budget and any financials he was not a committee member the previous year, they had provided their estimate last year, which I sent to him. And the North church did indicate that they. Hope to respond to that inquiry. Next week. That they have some. Obligations. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if this is that they're spending their time on. I just wanted to raise those two. Items. In relation to. Our proposal. So. I think what makes sense here initially is for us to go through. Each project. Name by name. And to the end, we will enter. A dollar amount in years past. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I can't even find how to raise my hand at the moment. For efficiency's sake, I. I think I would like to try in a slightly different fashion this year. Instead. Of going. Person by person by person and then around person by person by person. I think it would be more efficient if we picked one person. Got their 10 or 12 ratings. Instead of trying to keep orders and flows going. I think it would just be a little more efficient to do it person by person. If nobody objects to that. Any, any thoughts from committee members on that. Thumb up. Thumb down. So for instance, I would pick. I would pick Robin with her thumb up and say Robin. Give me your. And just type them all in. And then those discussions. Follow. I just think it would, I think it would save us time. That's fine. We'll go through each person. Adjust numbers. And then thereafter, we can. Start to have thoughts on projects. So whoever would like to start. I'm happy to start. Okay. So, so if you can see the chart, we're going to start with number two and just go right down to 14. You can just read them off as. Basically as fast as you can read them and I'll try to get them in there. Okay. I'm hopefully I have them in the same order too. Cause I'm referring to that. Thank goodness for two screens. Am hat for 500,000. I gave a five. Amherst pre-development funds. I gave a five. East Amherst. Historical look local store district is a four. Amherst historical society. Condition study is a five. Cyan church. A five. North, south cemetery is a four. Mill River history trail of four. Home relocation house move a one. And a comment that goes along with that. Cause it's a one for. Complicated reasons. Pickle boards, pickle ball courts to a two. Mill River tennis courts of four. Softball facilities of four. War Memorial of five. And trail restoration enhancement for. Great. So Sam, now I'll. I'll let those comments. Who's not here. I'd like to. Provide his, if that works. So that's, that's great. Yep. So he has for. Affordable housing trust a three. Town of Amherst. Affordable housing pre-development a four. East Amherst historic district study committee. A three. Historical society. Accessibility and condition study of four. Zion church. A two. There are comments for these that I won't. Bring up at this point in time. Town of Amherst restoration and north cemeteries. A five. District one neighborhood association. A three. Historic house move a one. Town of Amherst neighborhood association. A three. Historic house move a one. Town of Amherst. Kiwanis pickleball courts. A three. D. P. Town of Amherst mill river tennis courts. A four. Amherst DPW. Softball. Rehabilitation a four. Town of Amherst DPW. War Memorial. Rehabilitation a four. Conservation department. Trail and restoration a two. Who wants to volunteer next. Okay. I've got it. A M A H T funding five. Affordable housing town of Amherst five. Historical study in East Amherst four. Simeon strong five. Zion church four. North South Cemetery three. Mill River history trail three root nine house. One. Pickleball. Two. I never mind. I'll get to that later in the discussion. Tennis courts for softball fields for War Memorial five. And trails three. So Sam, I guess I'll, I'll. Offer up an alternative to my, um, my method is if you want folks to make their comments after so that now Tim could speak to his numbers or if you want to do everybody at the end. I'd rather do it at the end. I'd rather have everyone to have an opportunity on a given project to speak. So we're staying on the same track. Or we could, yeah, we'll do this first. And from there we can decide. So, so who would like to go next? Yeah, I can just give you the numbers because it's the same order. That's the order there. Yeah. Three. Four. Three. Five. Three. Four. One. Three. Five. Four. Four. Four. Okay. Next. I'll go next to try to provide a little drama relative to Matt's incredibly flat affect. Four. Four. Five. Two. Four. Five. Five. One. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Which one are you pointing at right now? Amherst Historical Society accessibility conditions. Three, three, one, four, five, four, four, four. Okay, great. Michelle? Okay, four, five, four, four, five, five, three, one, two, five, five, five, five. Okay, great. David? Oh, do you hear me? Yep. So are you able to see where we're at? We're starting with the Amherst Development. Maybe we need the project title and then hit the number. Okay. So the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust? Yes. Okay. Three. So kind of Amherst Affordable Housing Development. Okay. Four. East Amherst Local Historic District. Three. Amherst Historical Society accessibility insisting conditions. Three. Amherst Zion Church. Two. A ton of Amherst North and South Cemetery Restoration. Two. Mill River History Trail. Three. The Historic House Move. Four. Kiwanis Pickleball Courts. Three. Mill River Tennis Court Rehab. Two. Rehabilitation of softball facilities. Two. Rehabilitation of War Memorial Pool Area. Three. And Town of Amherst Trail Restoration and Enhancements. Four. Okay. Great. So Katie? All right. Five, five, four. Four, five, three. Four, one, three. Four, five, five, five. Four, five, five, five. Okay. So if everybody, I don't know if you folks who are all watching as I did it, but just double check your numbers and then I think you can just go now and then start those discussions with each person about the ratings. Can you enlarge it slightly, Holly? I can try. Let's see. Can you still see it on your screen? We can. Okay. And so just before we start. Maybe you hide the columns E to I. Yeah, I can't see it. I can go. Yeah, I agree with Matt, hiding the columns E to I. So you don't want to see the dollar amounts at this point? The total. The dollar amounts are in column J. Oh, totaled. Okay. Yep. Yep. You're correct. Yep. Perfect. Then enlarge it even further. Okay. Now, anyone can of course change any of their straw poll ratings, whether it be miscommunicated to Holly or discussions. What I think, Robin, go ahead. I see your hand is up. I just wanted to make a recommendation that we discussed by project as opposed to by committee member. I wasn't sure if that was, did we decided which way we were going to go? But that would be my recommendation. The thought makes sense to go by project. And what we did last year was a quick comment on a given project, a very brief, like a one sentence comment, on a given project. And then thereafter, we can look at the individual projects in more detail. We don't have our full committee here this evening. Doug's not here. I don't anticipate that we would be voting on any specific projects at this time. But this is helpful to give us an understanding. So I share your thoughts, Robin, that if we go project by project, if a committee member wishes to share any one sentence, two-sentence comment as to why they rated as they did, that would be helpful. It could be, I have questions about the budget. I have question about this. I like this. Or just no comment. So it makes sense for us to go through project by project with a very abbreviated comment for other committee members to hear and just gain an understanding. So if that works for everyone, we could start with the first project on our list, which is number two, which is municipal affording housing trust development funds. The requested amount was $500,000. And I'll just read names going across the top one-sentence comment, if that works for everybody. Matt? Yeah. So just a general comment about my ratings. I only rated a project five if I was both strongly in favor and also very comfortable with the total amount. If I was strongly in favor of a project, but I had some question about the total amount that we would give, then I rated it at a four or three. So in the case of the first project, and my rating is very similar to the second project also, I'm strongly in favor of giving a significant amount of money to the affordable housing. I just feel that there is some wriggle room in the exact amount. Thank you, Robin. Housing is a profoundly pressing need and we're not making progress against time, so I gave it a five. Michelle? I kind of reiterate what Matt said. Sorry, nothing new down there. I gave it a three. It's an important need in town, a large budget amount with some balance influenced my rating. Who's after me? Oh, Doug. One moment, please. Let me grab Doug's spreadsheet that he provided me. Doug's comment was modestly support. Tim? I gave them fives. It's the top priority in the town. I do have a comment about my ratings. I feel that when push comes to shove, we are going to have to shave some dollars. I'm afraid we're going to have to probably shave a little dollars out of this, but I think project itself is worth a five. Bob? Tim and Matt said. Okay. David? Yes. Any comment you'd like to make in relation to your rating for the municipal affordable housing trust? No. Okay. Katie? I feel very strongly, as others have said, I feel that affordable housing is probably the most pressing issue. And I would be in favor of fully supporting one or both of these top two projects here. And I have shaved off in other areas to try to make that so, as I did my calculations. And I did my, I appreciate what Matt said at the beginning. That's a helpful framework. I didn't rate, I rated it based on the sort of priority I saw based on the amount of money we had. But in all cases, I think I have sort of a different, almost a different number for the rest of the projects. Thank you, Katie. So the next item on the list again, we're just, if there's any brief comment, sentence or two that anyone wishes to make related to their rating, it would be helpful. And if they're a general comment relating to how someone approached it, such as Matt provided, that's fine as well. The next listing of the town of Amherst affordable housing development funds, the requested application was for 275,000. Matt, do you mind if we call on you first and go just right across like we did? Or is it better to do what I did last year where I chose the next person in line sequentially? Does anyone care in that regard? I don't want to place one person with the burden of having to speak first if it's an issue. Oh, that's no burden. It's okay. Up to you. Pardon? No problem. All right. So I guess we'll do it this way for at least this round. Matt. Nothing to add. Robin. Same reasoning as the prior proposal. Michelle. I guess like thinking back, I'd probably make this a four or two for the same reasoning, but yes, affordable housing development. Would you like to change it to a four? Yeah, I think unequal standing. If you're able to do that, Holly. Thank you, Holly. I gave it a four smaller dollar amount than the AMHT and a few different projects of kick starting proposals with development funds. Doug's comment was advances towns, affordable housing objectives. Tim. Yes, I would like to, I believe we heard from the applicants of the two housing proposals about their comfortableness with their dollar requests. However, I think at this stage, maybe we could ask that if they could get back to us with what would happen if say we dropped the 500 to 400 or that we didn't approve 275 and we only approved 200. I don't feel comfortable with making that decision if the applicants feel very, very strongly that they need that. I'm kind of in Katie's camp where those are top priorities. From my perspective, I just felt there was a little wiggle room in the numbers, but I'd like to see if the applicants could come back to give us some better sense of that. So I don't make that assumption just solely on my own. Are you indicating what are the implications of a lower dollar amount? Basically, that would be what we could ask them. Yeah, because that's the discussion we're going to have and I'm making an assumption that we might be able to give them less, but I don't want to, since those are my top priorities, I really feel hesitant in doing that, but for us to meet our bottom line numbers, those are juicy targets, shall we say. So some formal question. Okay, thank you. Bob. I'm with the group on this being a top priority. I just felt like the 275 is going toward more concrete projects that are a bird in the hand, and I felt as though the development funds might be cut a little bit because they're a little bit more speculative and could be adjusted in future years. David, we're asking about the redevelopment funds housing. No, well, I see housing as a major concern and issue for Amherst. And I think the presentations that were made were very thorough and would leave mine just as I have them. Thank you. Katie. No additional comments. Okay. And I'm just going to go right through these and hopefully we can, but we'll see how we do. East Amherst local historic district, the request was $20,000. Matt. I found this a relatively small request and I like that we're kind of getting a lot of bang for the buck because we're getting a lot of volunteer work from the people, the citizens. Robin. Again, a small ask. The work will go towards local historic district, which is an excellent planning tool. And our area is under development pressure for needed housing and that planning tool will serve a useful purpose will also contribute to the historical commission being able to update its historic inventory. I consider it a very fall out small ask with great involvement of the community, a very frugal project. That's my comment. We miss Michelle. Oh, I'm sorry, Michelle. That's okay. But you guys said, and also I just want to comment that I'm, I'm reading within categories. So I don't know if everyone else is, but that's what I'm doing here too. So, okay. And sorry about that. This is probably why it's better to start with a single person each time because I had a few missed queues last time as well. Doug's comment on this and his rating was no evident hurry to do this. The next would be Tim. I do know Matt's comments. Okay. Bob. Supportive, no additional comments. David. I would like, I guess a raise a question. Can you change your number? Certainly. 204. Okay. So that was the East Amherst local so far. Okay. Katie. Yeah, ditto to whoever said Big Bang for your buck. Okay. The Amherst Historical Society Accessibility and Existing Conditions Study. The requested amount is 74,350. Matt. Yeah, I guess for me, the question was how urgent is this? That's why it's got a slightly low rating because I felt it possibly could be deferred, but I might be wrong. Robin. I felt that the applicant had a well-developed proposal. It's time sensitive due to the Jones Penning Jones Library Project and they've shown a lot of due diligence to pursue additional sources of funding which could potentially return CPA funds to the PD. Michelle. I did see a time sensitivity to this. It's a lot of money, so that support for me. I thought it's an important building for the community of thorough presentations. In the scheme of all the projects, not a huge ask and possibly the ability to parlay it into other grants. Doug's comment on this was question mark less money. I hope that I'm not reading his notes. Actually excuse me, I might have read that one wrong. It said, I've got two different sheets. This was the historical provides upkeep of existing town assets. He did not say question mark less money. He said provides upkeep of existing town assets. Sorry about that. Tim. Again, under fair disclosure, I'm a former trustee of that structure and I know it has a huge need and I thought the project was very well designed and is definitely needed. Bob. I gave it a low score because I thought I heard during the proposal that they hadn't really started to raise funds and they thought that that would be relatively easy, so that was the reason for my low score. David. No comment. Katie. I really appreciated the proposal and similar to Bob. I just make a comment based on what you just said, Bob, which is I'm not a huge fan of funding plans upon plans upon plans, but I do know that in order to do some good fundraising, you have to have that kind of level of detail. And I think they said that this would allow them to seek state and federal funding. So I appreciate the fact that this could leverage dollars from outside the community. Amherst Zion North Church is next. I'm going to proceed if everyone's okay with that. I think we can make good progress in the next half an hour and it would be beneficial, I think, if we can go through these. If folks start to get just teed, please let me know. Amherst Zion Church, Matt. Yeah, before I get to that, I'm happy to upgrade my rating for the previous project from a three to a four. Is that what you wish to do? Yes. With respect to the Amherst Zion Church, I think it's a detailed proposal. I think there are concerns that the structure is at risk because of roof leakage and that makes a certainty. I mean, it makes a urgency. I'm sure some other people are concerned about the overall sustainability long term, as am I. Michelle, excuse me, Robin. Echoing Matt, I also would note that this is a national register building. It's a very important landmark for the town and an important part of the early history of the community. And again, the applicant has been diligent to come back to us to attempt to bear a proposal in order so that this really important work can get done to prevent further deterioration. Michelle. Yep, everything that Robin and Matt said and also that this has been a multi-year effort and everything we discussed last year and I'm glad to see that still here. And I hope it goes forward. Yep. I gave it a three, although I definitely think this is an important project that I would like to see get done. My rating related to some clarity issues related to the communication during the presentation. And I just want to confirm budget and perhaps a need for contingency. I just wanted to make sure that the estimate, the assumed estimate is viable. So that can be flushed out with additional employees. Doug indicated on this one his rating would be higher if he was confident of financial resources and did not feel that the applicant would be fully reliant on the town for future building upkeep. Bob. Tim, I think Tim. Sorry about. I am a little on, I rated it a four, I think it's definitely a need. I do have some concern as to whether that's a correct number. And I do have some concern that there might be some hidden costs that we just don't know about. Yeah. Bob. I hate water damage. I think it's important to get it done. Okay. David. I need to change my number. I didn't, the church is here in North Amherst. I live in North Amherst. I pass it every day. And that need to be a five for me. Okay. Katie. Yeah. I, having similar to what Matt, Michelle and Robin have said, being on the committee for last year and seeing the church in its diligence come back over and over again, I, while I have some concern about their ability to support the building going forward, it gives me a lot of indication that they will be able to do that. And I think if we were to use the current reserves so that this work could move forward in the spring or whenever it was, you know, available to do, then the chance of the dollars going up, you know, waiting for it to be funded next summer or fall would, you know, be mitigated somewhat. Thank you. The next project is the town of Amherst restoration of the North and South cemeteries. The request was for 150,000. Matt. Yes. I live quite close to the South Amherst cemetery. And as I drive past, I notice a lot of gravestones fallen over and leaning precariously. So I do agree that this is a necessary project. My question is twofold. Does this need to be done this year or can it be deferred another year or two? And secondly, can we perhaps split this into two parts like tackling the stones separately from the fencing? Robin. I gave this a four to indicate that they're in discussion with the historical commission that there's some flexibility with the funding, certainly separating out the fence, which isn't as pressing of a deterioration issue as the gravestones. And about a high rating because the cemeteries contain important information about citizens and settlement plan patterns and town planning and landscape design. So yeah. Michelle. I'd like to change mine to four. I think it's just an important public open space criteria, but I do think that splitting the fence and the gravestone restoration could be a topic of conversation. I gave it a three. I agree regarding the South Amherst cemetery. I share Matt's thoughts on that. I have questions regarding the qualification of funding for the fences and probably would seek to consider splitting the proposal into different categories or a different dollar amount. Doug indicated provides upkeep of existing town assets and also supports historical objectives. Tim. Yes. I feel it's an important project. My rating is lower because when I went through all the projects and tried to shave out the roughly 600 and some thousand that were short, I'm finding that this one might not make the final grade. Unfortunately, I think it could maybe it's not critical for this year, I think. And with the shortage of funds, I think that might be a criteria. That's why I put it as a three. If we had enough money, I'd put it in a four or five. Thank you. Bob. I think given all those comments, I'll move my five down to a three. Okay. That was Saul from a five to a three. Right. Thank you. So I confirm David. I want to move my rating up to a five. I'm not of the opinion that I can speak for the north cemetery, which is right at the end of the street. And things are in pretty bad shape. So I would change mine to a five. Katie. I am definitely in favor of this and funding it. And similar to what others have said, I just think the urgency might be to do one cemetery this year and maybe just headstones in one cemetery in order to limit the amount of dollars. No river historic trail. The request is for forty six thousand eight hundred and seventy five dollars. Matt. Yeah. I guess I felt that we were getting a considerable amount of historical research for the dollars and that this this facility when it's when it's constructed would be a good resource for people in the town to learn about our history. Robin. Yeah. It's a rather relatively small ask. The applicant has made significant progress in the last year with their last award. And the project will provide important research that can fulfill the historic commission's obligations. Michelle. I think that the ask is relatively small, but this is a multi year ask. So I'm putting it in that context. My perspective on this is that it's on conservation land and has no conservation context currently. There has been some feedback from people about putting signage on conservation land that the signs themselves detract from sort of the natural experience of a trail and I'm cognizant of that. I think that this is a beautiful river natural landscape and that putting signs that encourages people to put out bring out their phone is maybe a detractant to the conservation goals and landscape. And that is my concern in addition to it being a historical project on conservation lands. I have great admiration for the reality of all the volunteer work and the community engagement of this project. I had some questions regarding qualifications and therefore for my own purposes I lowered it from a five to a four as I consider and read the proposal one more time, but I very much impressed with this group of applicants. Doug indicated an exciting opportunity to educate residents about a relatively invisible part of town history, some concern about town needing to take over maintenance and upkeep. Tim. No further comments to those already made. Bob, same. David. I'm going to would like to move my number to five. I think this is maybe the third request about this Mill River Historical Trail and I think the group that's been working on it has probably done a very good job based on the first proposal that was submitted about three years ago. Katie. I have no additional comments from what others have said. Okay. Historic house move. The request was for $98,000. Matt. Well, there seems to be a fair amount of agreement between the committee members on this project. I guess I felt that spending public dollars on the private house has to be a pretty high bar and I didn't think this house was historical enough to really justify moving it and Doug also pointed out that moving it might actually detract its historic value. Robin. So I gave this a one. The reason I gave it a one at this point is because we are struggling with the concept of how to address, you know, in the past we've given funds to entities who are considered giving funds to entities who were non-profits struggling with income. At the same time as I puzzled over this, my one was really representative to decline this year and asked them to consider coming back next year and for the committee to engage in a discussion about whether it would be appropriate. We brought this up at the historical commission to do a no interest loan in the form of a lien on a house. This is something that's done that was done on my work in housing rehab up in Greenfield. But I did want to emphasize that as far as the bar for significance of this house goes, it pretty much ticks all the boxes. It is a visual cue that you're moving into a historic district in the town of Amherst. It's a relatively uncommon structure in terms of its Italian form. It's on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the National Register District. And it is also representative of an underrepresented neighborhood in terms of it being more of a laborers and working people's collection of housing. So for all those reasons, I want to just stress that I really want to think about this more than maybe my 1.0 would suggest. Thank you. I'd like to ask members to try and be one, two, three sentences or so because we will be... It was a hard one. All of these further. Yeah, well, I have to digest what Robin said, I guess. But yeah, the moving back, reading more about the history and sort of the private versus public benefit was went into my reading. I gave it a 1. I have questions regarding the public benefit and I see alternative less expensive means of resolving the referenced issues. One other comment is I didn't receive back any communication regarding the willingness to accept HPR, Historic Preservation Restriction. Doug's comment on this is reluctant to be supporting a private resident on a historic, but not especially in the US. His comments. Tim. I agree with Doug. And I think maybe I see this as a precedent, although I'm not sure the history of the CPAC of funding private homes that are judged to be maybe historic in nature. And I think maybe we should have that discussion. I agree with Robin that we need much further discussion because what about all the other houses on Route 9 where other people have historic houses? I just have real concerns about CPAC using monies to help out private home owners. But I'd like to have that conversation. But for this year, I'd say one. Bob? Nothing to add. Okay. David? I would say change my number to one and the historical comments is very helpful information that I'm hearing from other members who are probably more familiar with this particular house or properties that are historical in Amherst. One. Okay. Katie? Sam, did you say in your comments that they had a conversation about historic restriction? Or that the request was made at the previous presentation of the applicant that they answer a question if they'd be willing to agree to historic preservation restriction. They were not willing or able to respond exactly at that time. They were going to reach out to town staff. We have not heard back from them. Okay. That's what I was thinking. I can just jump in because my understanding for me was that there was some communication that they would consider a preservation restriction, but that's third hand. So it's them to the town, to Nate, to me and the public. That was just my concern about that. And also I think what others have brought up, repair versus moving. There just seems to be a lot of question marks for me on this one. The next is the town of Amherst, Kiwanis, Pickleball courts. I'd like to reference Dave Zomek's comments at the beginning of the meeting where he indicated they wish to consider the full range of options. Not specifically Kiwanis, but they want Kiwanis to be a consideration along with other areas. So let's say communication from town of Amherst, I would say the applicant that individuals may not have thought of when they were coming up with their initial ratings. So the request, as it says here, is for $100,000. Matt. Yeah, as the Recreation Commission representative, I've been involved in a lot of discussions related to Pickleball courts in general and Kiwanis Park as a possible location. Just in the very recent last couple of weeks or last month, I guess, we've had a lot of feedback from the Misty Meadows. Over the past two years, we've had a lot of comments from the community, but this seems to be in a little bit of a state of flux. So I'm not confident that the $100,000 is really going to get us over the line. So that's, and there seems to be a lot of uncertainty around this. So that's why my rating is a little bit lower. Thank you. Robin. I just thought it was highly desirable, but maybe not the year given everything considering the location. Michelle. I know this was sort of presented as Pickleball, but not necessarily with the placement. But there wasn't really any compelling other place to put it and budget to put it there. So that's my too. I have strong support for Pickleball in Amherst, having heard from the community at the previous year's request at Mill River and in relation to the current request. I recognize the uncertainty of destinations. My rating is in relation to funding Pickleball in Amherst. It is not specific to Kiwanis Park at this point in time. And I'd like for the committee to have further discussions that are relating to the proposal and Pickleball in Amherst. Doug wrote one moment. I prioritize upkeep of existing facilities over the creation of new. If this were to replace an existing facility, I might value it higher. Okay. Tim. Actually, Doug's comment right there and in one of the previous meetings, I do have some concern. I'm definitely in favor of Pickleball. I'm just not sure. A, this is the year. B, with a question regarding the location, I have some concern. And C, I do favor attending to some of the existing needs like the softball fields and the tennis court rehabilitation over this project. So that's why I gave it a two. Bob, there's a lot to figure out here. And that's my main concern. Okay. David. My three should remain as it is. I'm, my concern is about the residents or identifying the Kiwanis location. I think there are some other choices and North Amherst that should be considered. Katie. Yeah, I'm, my three doesn't maybe reflect this, but I'm fully in favor of Pickleball. And I also see this as a project that has a huge potential for private donations. So, and since it's so uncertain of the location, which I fully leave to the town and to the community to make that decision, I would maybe recommend something really wild and crazy like putting $75,000 in reserves as a match for raising money once the location is determined or something like that. But I, I'm, there's too many questions at the moment. Yeah. Town of Amherst Mill River Tennis Court Rehabilitation. The request is for $60,000. Matt. Yeah. Tim made the comment about upkeeping existing facilities. And that's also something that has been discussed in the Recreation Commission. So I think that this is a focused proposal to upkeep necessary upkeep on an existing facility. Robin, that's heavily used. Yeah. I agreed. My four is just a matter of ranking among the recreation. Michelle. I agree. These are Amherst Tennis Courts. They need some upkeep. My V8.05, I see it as a huge need anytime I've seen it in the past. I say to myself, why can't this get fixed? It needs to get done. My opinion. Doug gave it a four. Provides upkeep of existing town assets. Tim. No further comments to those I've made. Bob. I'd like to move my three to a four. I think I got one sided by the fact that I can't play tennis anymore because of my knees and I'm mad about it. David. So just to confirm, that is three to a four under salt. The tennis court. Sorry. Yep. That's why I went to confirm. Same goes for pickleball though. David, we're asking about the, if you have any comments related to your rating on the town of Amherst Tennis Court Rehabilitation. The $60,000 request. I would like to change that number to a four. Katie. No further comments. Okay. The next is the rehabilitation of softball facilities. The request is $85,000. Matt. Again, I think this is an important project, especially with Fort River going offline. My only question is to whether the full project needs to get done or whether some parts can be taken out and just focus on community field. So that's open for discussion. Robin. I'm saying the same promises before. Michelle. I gave this a five because I think it's very important to revitalize the community softball fields across town and not just community fields like Kiwanis. I gave it a four. I like most all of the recreation projects. I struggle with the overall funds that are available to our committee and wonder about how we prioritize these specific projects. Doug gave it his rating and his comment on the tennis courts is provides up, provides up. Softball course. Softball, excuse me, provides upkeep of existing town assets similar to his comments on the tennis courts. Thank you, Matt. Tim. I echo Robin's comments. Bob. Way overdue. Okay. David. Yes. I'm going to change that to four. Okay. Katie. Yeah, I just echo what everyone else has said in favor of something that's long overdue. Okay. The next project is the town of Amherst revitalization of the War Memorial area. The project application requested 750,000. Matt. Yeah, I feel this is an urgent project with the state of the pool house. And we need to give some money toward this so that we can apply for grants as soon as possible. I just feel that at the end of the day when we're trying to make all our numbers add up, we might not get to the full 750. Robin. Pretty much everything Matt said. I just gave it a five because I think it's long overdue. Michelle. Yeah, what Robin and Matt said, I figured that we'd have some more detailed conversations later. So five for now. I gave it a four. I'm very much in favor of the efforts to revitalize the entire athletic and community-based recreation facilities near and around the school. I'm uncertain on our budgetary concerns, so that's why I gave it a four. Doug's comment related to this again provides upkeep of existing town assets. Tim. I gave it a five, definitely a needed project on overdue. I would like to ask the applicant, if I recall, there was a range of project cost. And then if it was a lesser project cost, that the number that the town would have to use to leverage future funding would be less. I think this 750 was based on a higher project cost. So I'm not entirely sure as to what the actual cost is going to be. If the cost is a little less, maybe the 750 can be a little less. And that's one area that I think as we try to meet our numbers here, we might be able to shave something off. But I think perhaps the town could come back to us a little bit better understanding of those points. And by the way, this is one in which I do not favor bonding or debt going into debt for this project. I think we ought to pay for the entire amount and not go into debt to meet our numbers. Thank you. Bob. So I agree with all those comments. The only thing I would add is when I look at that master plan for the athletic facilities in just decades of deferred maintenance, we're going to eat our CPAC budget alive if we keep going down this road. So I would just be cautious about that moving ahead and think about it maybe a different way. Maybe it's a big bond that funds the whole thing. Thank you. David. No comment. Katie. I agree with Tim that we I think we need more information around the matching requirements because I'm fully in favor. I think this is a great project for the town. It'd be something great for CPA money to go towards. But I got the sense in the last presentation that maybe 500,000 would work. But I could have gotten the numbers wrong. So I'd like to hear more from the town on that. Yeah. And the last proposal on the list is the town of Amherst trail restoration enhancement. The request is for $100,000. Matt. I'm a heavy trial user as many people in the town. One of our Recreation Commission members said Amherst trails are world class and the town struggles to really support that. So I think it's important to provide funding for maintaining our world class trails. But I gave it a four because I think there is some wiggle room. This is another project where there isn't a specific quote and there is some wiggle room in the total amount. Robin. Yeah. I'd echo that. Thanks. Michelle. Yeah. So the trail enhancement. A lot of that money goes to crossing wetlands and also the permitting costs of doing so, including the bog bridges. There's a constant deficit and need to keep maintaining those things. A big thing on this list is the enhancement of Puppers pond and making that swamble. And that's why I'm giving it a five because that is a town gem. It is a cooling center and it needs a lot of support. I gave it a four in recognition of the value of the trails and the volume of trails that the town works with. And I think it's important and the challenge relates as with many of these projects to our available funds and what is the most critical need. Doug made the comment on his writing. I appreciate the need for trails, but would allow some to be abandoned in light of other priorities. Tim. I gave this project a three. I would love to award 100,000. I just don't think in the final analysis we're going to be able to award 100. We'll probably have to award less, which is why I gave it a three. Bob. Nothing to add. David. I gave it a four. Am I right? Okay. Trails are very important to the town of residents of Amherst in this county. We should continue to restore and also be sure that our residents are able to enjoy that part of life of Amherst. Okay. Katie. Yeah. I just echo everything folks have said in favor of the trails, especially Michelle really appreciate your detailed comments. That was really helpful to me. I'm a five on this. Thank you. So we've gone through an initial straw hole and brief commentary on all of the projects. We're at a point where it would make sense to come back another day and have further discussions on individual projects. I think it would be beneficial, Holly, if you could scroll down and display again what the total requested amount of all the projects is, net of any debt and funding. I seem to recall that it was 24, 2.4 million. I'm wondering if I'm missing something here. Yeah, it was 2.4, but then when you added the use of the reserves, it dropped it, Sam. So can we see on this page what again or maybe the page that you had earlier what our available funds are? I believe it would be helpful in this spreadsheet as we proceed. I may have misspoken. Our proposed project is 2.447 million, correct? New projects, that is correct. And distinct from that, the debt service is included in our available balance, correct? Which is 1.82 if we include the 1.64. I guess what I'm getting at is a workable spreadsheet in the future as we make edits in our thoughts and that you probably have already done that here. Yeah, so my suggestion would be so it's 2.4 million of new projects proposed plus the 520 of debt which we are obligated to pay. So it's 2.9 all together on this sheet. But I believe it's helpful for the committee to see what our available funds are. If I understood correctly, we had about a 600,000 shortfall. Is that correct? So yes, if we choose to use the 164,000 of reserve funds, the shortfall for the new projects would be 618,000. If we did not use this or used it for something else during this fiscal year, the shortfall is 782. Do those two numbers appear on that rating spreadsheet that is to say the cash reserve set aside for 24 and the net shortfall on our ratings spreadsheet? Well, the 782 is the net shortfall if we do not use this. So I can add another line down here that puts the 164 so you have it. If we use it, if we don't use it. And then my suggestion, what I can do is I can just take this one spreadsheet and I can send it to everybody. So if they want to play with numbers sort of right on here and see other folks ratings, then that sounds helpful. For me, what's important is that as we go through our ongoing discussions, subsequent meeting that and this is what occurred last year and it looks like it can occur this year that we have the ability to factor in the implications of changes in the total request by project as well as what we choose to do or not do with the fiscal year 2024 cash reserve. So I believe that's what you indicated and that would be very helpful. I see your hand, Tim, just give me a moment. So we can all probably contemplate further on the proposals. We can reread them. We can digest what we've heard from committee members. We certainly can change our ratings again. Anyone, the purpose of the ratings is to give us a general discussion. It appears that our challenge for most of the projects is a financial challenge, meaning where do we fund and where we don't. I did hear requests from committee members to inquire of a few of the larger dollar value projects. Essentially, do you need all this money and what would happen if you don't receive the full amount? Something along those lines. I'm not looking to adjourn at this moment because I'd like four committee members here to be able to comment with their raised hands, but the thought is that the current plan is that at the next meeting we'll discuss projects again on a project by project basis and then we can play around with numbers. Tim, go ahead. Yeah, I did play around with numbers and I would find if you look at column J for the project. Let's just use the development fund, the AMHT development funds. If you total up column J, that totals to 2.4 million. We have to take out 600 and some thousand, that's the shortfall. What I did for me was looked at all these projects and said, okay, can we get to that 600 if I award 500 to the development funds? My answer was no. I dropped it to 400, so I saved 100. Then I have to come up with another 500. I would be interested just really curious as to what other people feel for each of these projects. How much money would you actually award to get up to the correct total or how much would you delete from each project to equal the 600, some thousand dollars? I don't know if that would be a helpful exercise, but that's where we're going to have to come to because except for the historic house move, which seems like a slam dunk non-approval, we're going to be debating all these projects and they all seem pretty good from everybody's perspective. The question is how much money we're going to have to be able to distribute, so maybe we can have that exercise as we discuss the value of the project. Also discuss, well, how much would we feel comfortable with awarding for each of the projects and then see how you get to the 600 and some thousand if that makes sense? I think that is the critical question and I did have a similar exercise to you in my approach to looking at the projects. A question would remain from the committee if there was a desire to fund beyond the existing available funds, similar to what we've done in past years. That's a discussion to be had, but it's certainly a useful exercise to look at the requested project totals to identify if there are areas where one might seek to reduce and the reason I was inquiring of Holly is that I think if there's a spreadsheet that allows for those variables to occur, for example, instead of column J and K, if we have another column in between that would have fluctuating dollar amounts so that as we discuss it and I suspect that's where we will be. Matt? Yeah, I actually have a few separate comments. A lot of these proposals are from the town, especially the larger ones, so I'm hoping to get a recommendation back from the town, much like we did last year, about how we might meet these budget. I have a specific question about the war memorial area number. Now, what the situation is there is where currently we haven't even started actually a schematic plan. So at the end of the schematic plan, there will be a much more, not exact, but more accurate understanding of the total budget. Would it be possible for CPA to grant some money and then once the actual budget is more established, go through the regular town capital process to make up a separate difference? That's not a question for right now. That's a question to respond to next week. And then my third point is currently given the debt schedule, I'm pretty resistant to putting any further projects under bond. Thank you. I see that Dave, you have, Dave Zomac, you have your hand up. Thanks, Sam. Yeah, I know it's getting late for everybody. You know, part of my role is to work with staff. And as Matt said, seven or eight of these are town of Amherst proposals. So I'm happy to work with staff on the questions regarding all the questions, but specifically the larger ask of war memorial pool and also the trust town of Amherst interface there. Because of course, we work, we the town and the trust are together. We're collaborators. The trust is part of the town. So I'm happy to work with Carol and Erica as the co-chairs and my staff to really dig into that 500 and 275, as well as the 750 for more memorial pool. Amy Russeki is here from DPW in the audience. If you wanted to answer that question tonight, or we're happy to dig into it between now and next Thursday, I will say the main consideration of that larger amount is that we need to have a match or a grant submittal in July, June, July of 24. So the state looks for that match already in place. So I hear what you're saying, Matt, could CPAC say, oh, give a quarter of that or whatever, you know, half of that. But the challenge is the state won't wait. The match has to be in place. But we can dig into that a little deeper because and we'll look at that. What is that? What is that exact number? Is it five or is it 750? The challenge is we don't have the project designed, so we don't know what percentage we'll need. But happy to dig into it. My specific question, my specific question, is there another capital allocation in time from the town to make up any shortfall? There's always the possibility, but there's no guarantee that the capital plan, given the four capital projects that are ahead of us, including the library, the school, the school and TBW and fire station will, whether we'll have the capacity to do a big ask is anybody's guess. But Amy is here tonight, if you wanted to ask her, or we can come back next week. We will be here next week. I'm happy to get it next week. I don't expect it tonight. So I'd like to follow up again with highlighting Tim's thoughts, which forgive me if I paraphrase that it makes sense for committee members to look at projects in terms of, I guess, prioritization in terms of which ones are more or less urgent or desirable, as well as which ones might have the capacity to have a lower amount than requested. With the thought process that we do have a large gap between the applications requested amounts and the available funds. And then associated with that would be the question, if you really wanted a particular project, would we do what we've done with a couple of other larger projects in the past? So if committee members can think about which projects they seem are most crucial in terms of timeframe, as well as dollar amount options. And then we would have a starting point for input from feedback from any from the town, as well as from our committee members of Michelle. Yeah. So just to clarify, it sounds like you're talking about sort of this gross across the board's prioritization. Would it be helpful to be able to see what the minimum allocation is per grouping? I'm sure that everybody has probably done that on our own, but I don't really have time to do it. Ten percent? Yeah, like the ten percent. It's on the financial statement that Holly provided us. Which one? The first one we got, not the debt schedule, but the what's it called, the budget projection. Holly, could you? Yeah, so the minimum is the $137.5. But if you look when you all get this spreadsheet as well, at the bottom is the total per category. So community housing, this is the problem. That may include, no, it does not. So the totals are down here. So for community housing, we have a million for historic preservation. We have 707 for recreation. Right now it's 1.2 million. So that's the totals by category, if that's what you're looking. Inclusion. Well, that's the total ask by category, right? Ask, yes. So given like the actual budget with a reserve, do we have a number that we're like potentially able to allocate per category? It's $137.500 for each category. Would you have the debt? The debt will reach that dollar amount. Yeah, the minimums are going to be covered already by the debt service. Okay, so that's really not an issue then. Okay. Okay, thank you. Robin. I was just hoping to ask the town to come back with a more specific number for the cemeteries too. And we did discuss that in the historic commission meeting on Monday, but obviously they would have a better sense of how to parse those numbers. Okay. Any comments at this moment from any additional other committee members? Tim? Yeah, I just keep that spreadsheet up. If we look at columns L, M, N where we put our ratings, if we had a spreadsheet where Matt, for example, could put, what would he award the AMHT? It's $500 ask, what would he award? What would Robin award? What would Michelle award? And so on. And then that's, I think, that's what I did in a chart for myself. And I don't know if it would be helpful for everybody to be able to fill in. It could get complicated, but that would be interesting. And if you want to fully fund a project, then it would be clear. Like, Matt might say he wants to fully fund the 20,000 historic districts or who would put 20,000 and so on. But that's just a suggestion. I think if we think about the dollar amounts and the budgets, we'll be at a good starting point for our prioritization. And I thank you again for raising or sharing your thoughts in terms of how you approached ratings, which actually had some similarities to how I did it. I think it's helpful for discussion. Robin, I believe your hand was up next. Yeah, I was just going to say, I think in previous years, what we've generally done is somebody, if there's a, there's a question to everybody, if they're comfortable with the amount, and if not, somebody puts forth their number, if we kind of go through it pretty quickly verbally, and that seems to work pretty well. Yeah, we had some straw polls and we'll have to see if we receive feedback from any potential applications for some of that differential. And there still may be a desire from some committee members to not proceed with some of the projects on this list as we go through discussions that remains to be seen. Matt. Yeah, just my response to Tim's question. I will definitely privately do my private numbers, but in terms of committee discussion, I would prefer to have the town present a straw, something that we can start discussion from. Well, great. I think this has been a productive meeting. It is getting a bit late. We've listed the meetings as from six to eight, although when we get to deliberations, as we did last year, it tends to be a three-hour meeting. And my guess is that our subsequent meeting will have a cap around a three-hour meeting as well, because there's a lot to do. The dilemma is fatigue. If the committee members become too fatigued during a meeting, we can curtail discussion. We do have, there's no required deadline for us to arrive at our conclusions. So again, I would suggest that we all review the proposals. We have to confirm if there are any that we would not want to proceed with and distinct from that what dollar amounts might we wish to rate that might be different from the requested amount with the mindset that there's currently either a 600 or a $780,000 gap depending on the fiscal year 2024. If we approach it from that, we still can consider as a committee if we wanted to bond or not. So I guess I'm being a broken record saying the same thing in different ways. I see a hand up, Katie. Sorry, Sam, just to clarify what Matt requested, it sounded like earlier that was something that we were going to move forward on, but I didn't hear you in your summary about getting the town's prioritization of the requests that they're making and potentially different dollar amounts if that made sense to them to offer us as a starting point for next year, I mean next week. There's two variables there that I heard. One is we're seeking feedback from the town related to the town applications. That is to say the specific town recreation, housing and other applications. What might they be able to consider distinct from the request? Might they be able to lower their amounts? A separate question is all 13 proposals. What is an appropriate slate? I think it makes sense to first hear from applications that we are wondering if we can get a lower dollar amount. Maybe that aligns with the straw person, the tentative slate. I guess we could approach both. It's debatable whether or not we wish to discuss the projects before we're presented with a slate or not. We may as a committee wish to remove a couple. It appears that we would want to remove the house move, and there may or may not be discussions on the others. I think the best starting point would be for us to hear back from the town related to all the town proposals, and then there can be adjustments thereafter. That makes sense, which is kind of what you're suggesting, but not having the town suggest changes to the non-town proposals. Just what they've proposed, absolutely. Matt, that's what I understood you to be asking. If I misunderstood that, that's sort of what I was hoping for, but maybe I was reading into what you were saying. I was hoping, I found it very helpful last year when the town came back with a proposed response. In this case of this year, because so much of the money and so many of the proposals from the town, I think especially those proposals I want their feedback on. The feedback will be helpful, and thank you, Matt, for raising that again at the end. I think we're winding down here in terms of concentration levels. I would ask that all committee members consider the proposals, consider the ratings and comments of other members, the implications of the dollar amounts, and we'll start again subsequent week, hopefully with another member present as well. We can focus on those projects that we believe we may not wish to include, that is to say those that are uncertain, and how we address the gap in funding and feedback from the town on town projects will be informative. So having said that, if there are no further comments, I think we're good for today. Any last comments from any members? I don't want to close off the opportunity to speak. So thank you all. It's a long meeting. I believe we're in a good place in terms of being aware of what we need to consider and how to proceed. Our next meeting will be a week from today, scheduled at six o'clock. I believe I'll put the agenda till six to nine if that's viable for town staff. Maybe it'll be six to eight thirty, I don't know, with the recognition that these discussions tend to get complicated with the number of variables involved. Thank you all for being here with us, and I'll adjourn the meeting at 8.57 p.m., and thank you for all the attendees who stayed with us. And Polly, if you can email us, that's breaching. That'd be great. Thank you.