 Okay, so. All right, you're all set. Thank you, Athena. You're welcome. It is 202, and there is Shalini right on time. It is 202, and I am calling this meeting of the Community Resources Committee on the 18th of August to order because we have a quorum, Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, MGL Chapter 30A, Section 20, allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the CRC. This meeting is being recorded for future broadcast and all votes will be by roll call. At this point, I will call upon each committee member by name so that we can confirm that you can hear us and we can hear you. And then after confirming that, please mute your mic. Shalini Balmilne. Yes. Mandy Jo Hanicky is here, Evan Ross. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Sarah Swartz. Yep. Here. Excellent. Let me look at my agenda. Our public comment for this meeting will be after our presentation and discussion items. At that time, I will go over how to indicate to your desire to make public comment. So at this time, we're going to move right on into our action items, which is planning board appointments. I had it listed as interview questions and interview timing. At the time I posted this, I'll explain the interview timing. We're not going to have to vote on that at all. You guys had all seen that I put out a survey to potentially change the interview times. I have now changed them. At one point, I was considering a split interview timing where one group would be split and start at seven and one group would start at eight for a number of reasons. And that was something I felt we as a committee would need to approve. That was not in the end necessary to do to accommodate the changing schedules. So the interviews will be all six candidates that are now posted publicly. So I can say that at 5 p.m. The one thing I do want to acknowledge is that our committee counselor, Balmilne, will not be able to join us for the interviews, but that is why that we have a large gap between the interviews and the discussion and deliberation. She will be able to join us for the deliberation at 8.30 p.m. based on the SOIs. And I think what I'm going to do is after the interviews, if the committee likes this idea when I send out the interview questions to them, I will ask that if they write their answers out if after the interviews are over, they could forward them to me so that we could forward them on to Shalini so she can see any prepared answers if they are written instead of notes or anything so that we can get her included as much as possible. So that's what I'm thinking in terms of that's why the timing was on there. But at this point, unless there's any comments to that, we will move on to the discussion of the interview questions that we started last week. And so, Shalini. Can you just explain that idea again, that you're going to ask them to write down their responses to the questions? Once we settle on the questions today, our process says that I send them out to all of the candidates so that they can prepare answers and know what's being asked and all that. And so one of the things I was thinking, and we can talk about this more maybe in terms of that process, is that some candidates, what I've heard from Evan and Sarah and all the other OCA people during these interviews is that some candidates actually write their answers out. You ask the question and they read from a sheet of paper. And so one of the things I was thinking since the questions are pre-prepared, pre-known, and so the answers might be pre-known in order to get you, Shalini, since you won't be there for the actual live interviews as much information as possible that if they have done that and are willing to share those answers, maybe we could get them after the interview. When the meeting ends, if they'd be willing to send them to me, I could then forward them on to you so you could read them for anyone who might be willing to do that, or we could maybe make that request of everyone. But I don't wanna necessarily make that request of everyone if they don't always write their answers out. It was just an idea. We can talk about it now. We could talk about it at the end after we do the questions. I'm happy to hear thoughts on that idea as a way to try and get you to get as almost as much information as we might have from those interviews because I realized people might just have a Word document that has their answers written there. So, Steve? Yeah, so I think we need to treat everyone the same. So if we ask for written answers from everyone, then we should feel free to distribute those, but I don't think we should distribute some correspondence from some and not from everyone, or at least not give everyone the opportunity. But there's, it'll be taped, right? It'll be recorded. It'll be recorded. I don't know whether Shalini will have time to view the recording before 8.30 start, whereas I thought she might have at least enough time to skim written answers potentially. We'll move the start back a little later, but which might allow us to get that recording to Shalini if we move the start back till 9. And are we free associating here? Good, good. So, yeah. So, on other searches I'm familiar with, and this isn't exactly a search that if you don't participate in critical parts of the search, you can't be part of the deliberation. So do we, are we making up rules as we go or? We didn't have any of that in our process at all. And they are separate meetings. So I think that that would not be a decision I would be willing to make on my own and all. So I don't know what other individuals belief on that issue is. Shalini. So at the outset, I trust you all to make the decision. I don't have to be part of it. And if you think it would be helpful for me to be part of it, then I can just, I obviously give it a lot of read all of them again, very thoroughly make my notes. And I wonder if there's a way to, I can't really summarize, but I guess what I could do is if I feel conflicted at any point that I'm not getting a clear, yes. Like, you know, it's because I don't have, I don't know. I could always abstain from voting if I feel that I'm not, because I mean, I'm looking at the, some of the caps and the statements of interest. And it seems like some people have a really, yeah. But then again, yeah, I'll be going based on that. Okay, I don't know. What do you all think? Evan. Yeah, I was gonna say that essentially we have two sources of information about these candidates, assuming we don't know them ahead of time, although of course, small towns, some of us do, which is the SOIs and the interviews. Shalini will only have the SOIs, but what I actually felt having read through the SOIs that they were fairly informative, certainly much more so than caps of the past. And I guess I'm thinking in terms of she has that information that can help mold her opinion. If she has questions or concerns, there's nothing stopping her during deliberation to say, you know, I was actually really curious, did this person mention anything about this, you know, and we can fill her in, but I don't think that she needs to recuse herself from the decision-making because she does have information about the candidates. My worry about having them send written answers is sort of part of what Steve said, which is if some people had written their answers down, I'm someone who doesn't usually write things down, I almost always just speak off the cuff. And so then she wouldn't have information from me. So I think then we would have to demand everyone give written answers, which some people might not have been planning to. And if we're making everyone write down answers, there's sort of the question of like, so why are we doing interviews if we're making everyone write down answers? And my other concern, which is maybe not warranted, but my other small concern would be sometimes, if you tell them at the end, oh, if you want, we want to share the, if you have written answers, we want to share with Shalini, so you can email them to her or to me. There might be some temptation of someone to be like, oh my God, I can't believe I completely forgot to say this. I'll just add that to my little written answer. And then she has information that we don't have. There's really no way of us to control for that. And maybe no one would do it, but if I was in their boat, I'd be like, oh my God, I can't believe I forgot to mention this. Well, I'm just going to add this to, so it's just a little complicated. And I think if Shalini feels comfortable basing her decision on the SOIs and our deliberation, which, and Sarah can speak to this, in OCO we usually started with, here's our selection guidance. What did we hear from candidates during the interviews that match up to that selection guidance? And so the conversation has never started with, so who do you like, right? It's always started with, what did we hear that actually reflected the selection guidance? And so she would need information that way. Steve. Yeah, so here we are in Zoomland. And I watched the Democratic National Convention last day, which I thought was really well done. And I had a hard time figuring out which one was live and which one was recorded. So we're sending, I think it's too late for what I'm going to propose, but we're sending the questions ahead of time. All the interviews will be on Zoom. You know, honestly, we're going to ask each of the candidates the exact same questions. So really all of these could be prerecorded. And so in other words, we could give them the answers and say between now and August, whatever, go give us your answer on Zoom and then we'll play those. And if we have follow-up questions, we'll ask you live. But, and then that way everyone would have access to at least that part of it. Sarah. So I have some reservations about this only because having been through OCA and the hours that we slogged through this, one of the reasons why we have interviews is people want transparency. They want as much of a playing field as possible. We went over that some people present better in writing. Some people present better in person. Some people might be masters of recording something, right? Because if your background is a certain way or your hair is a certain way or you practice how you speak, then your Zoom presentation could also give you a leg up. So I have some reservations about allowing people to not, who are not at the interviews, then be part of the deliberation only because we're not all going in with the same information. And one of the reasons why we do this is that we try to give the public and ourselves like a level playing field. And I would worry that someone would, someone from the public would then say, well, it wasn't fair that some people could do writing and some people couldn't. Or if we're asking everybody to write their answers then it becomes like this weird thing of then that's the preparation and so then we're not having the transparency of everybody being in the room at the same time. We talked about it is important to have all the interviews at the same time because somebody could be speaking, you have three people in the room and another three people talk at eight. Well, it could be really amazingly hot in the meeting at seven o'clock and there's an interruption of a bird hitting somebody's window or I don't know. And then the eight o'clock people we've got, we've adjusted like, because we're not in the same room, right? So this is Zoom land, but still there could be weird advantages or disadvantages from different time. So I would say that I think we should keep this as pure as possible and say that if you are going to be part of the deliberation you should be part of the interview but I realize I'm in the minority. I just think from how things shake out afterwards from either other council members or the public that it's just seen as sort of not as transparent and I'm not sure how everybody else feels about that. Melanie. Can you tell me a little bit? I know I feel like we're spending too much time on this and I so apologize that I can't make it but just one last question is, can you summarize the deliberation process a little bit? Like Evan was beginning to say that you're going to speak to what you heard and I'm wondering if I can assimilate from that summary and combine that with, but I'm also hearing what Sarah says and I tend to agree that if I'm not part of the earlier process I don't want the public to feel that I came in a priori with certain leanings or whatever so. So I think Sarah and Evan are the best to summarize an interview process or deliberation process there. I've only been through one at GOL for finance and we talked about we have SOIs on that one. I think we did have SOIs on that one. Yeah, we did. And so we talked about that close. It was a different question process and then we went through and just talked about who we thought was best suited given the needs of the committee. But here's what I'm hearing and I'm going to try and summarize so we can move on to the actual questions. One is do not get them to send answers. So I'm going to nix that idea completely. Obviously we have to make a decision on the deliberation part but here's my suggestion. Move the deliberation meeting to 9 p.m. instead of 8.30. My understanding is Shalini becomes available starting around 8.15. Eight. Eight ish. So that would give her an hour if we can get that I believe we'll be able to get that video since it's recorded to the cloud ready to get a link to her by about eight if we start at five and all. And then she could listen, watch that video prior to the deliberations if we start the deliberations at nine. And I see Evan like, how is that going to work when the- Yeah. Longer than an hour. She asked a big question. One and a half or two times speed? Yeah. Yeah. I do that a lot. I do one and a half stand speed. One and a half times is about as fast as I can go but that would allow her to watch the video prior to starting the meeting so that she has as much information as we do prior to deliberation. Does that sound like a solution to the issue to people? Steve. Yeah. So I appreciate the heroic measures and this is nothing about Shalini and then but the, so nine o'clock is a really late, especially in the issue of transparency that if we want others to be sort of watching how we deliver it. I think it's an affirmative action issue. In other words, I think that the interview gives so we've decided that interviews are mandatory. Yes? Yes. Interviews are mandatory. Okay. So it's not like an off shell. So we've decided that the interview itself is going to give us information that we believe is critical. So I'm really repeating what Sarah said so well. So not being part of that process gives you, if we've decided it's mandatory and essential then not being part of that essential aspect of the process I think is really difficult. And I know that other kinds of search committees require sort of full participation for all the deliberators for affirmative action reasons so that you're not coming with prior knowledge some and not the others or for better or worse. So I am really sorry that we're in a situation where we don't wish maybe meaning that we might have to deliberate with four of us. The other thing is that I have no idea how long it takes Zoom meetings to record but I had a meeting yesterday where the recording was available like five hours later. So I don't think that this, I don't know what's going on. Maybe everybody's recording right now to the cloud and the Zoom is backed up but I was surprised on how long that took. Any other thoughts? Melanie. Yeah, I think I'm feeling like it wouldn't be fair for me to be part of it without being part of the thing. I mean, I'm happy to be there and maybe ask questions but not abstain myself from voting. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just saying that if it's any help at all for me to show up at 8.30 I can be there. I don't want to compromise the process. One of the reasons I set it for 8.30 was so you could participate if the decision of the committee is that the process, the committee members need to be attending the whole process too. Then as chair I would probably move the meeting to directly after the interviews because otherwise we're facing like a two hour gap. I'm not sure any of us want. So it would be nice to know that sooner rather than later so I can re-put out the timings to everyone on that. But that's my leaning as chair is to avoid that gap for those access reasons if we as a committee are going to say deliberation should only include those that can attend interviews. Sarah. So I guess I'm gonna say that I think that it's more fair that everybody who's there participates and if you're unable to be there that you don't. I second that. So we're not getting a majority voice here but we do have the person who is affected agreeing to that opinion. I'm not sure unless someone is going to force a vote I'm not going to force a vote on this if that is the agreement of the individual who was affected. I think this problem that occurred demonstrate we need to do better at setting the interview times that we thought all of us could make when we sat. And then we didn't realize that until I put this poll out and it's a little late to change the interview dates so soon given our deadline. So I think we just need to be better next time in ensuring that all committee members are available for the interviews before we put any times out to candidates. Is that a satisfactory resolution to this issue for us to move on to interview questions for this committee? I'm not getting any big hard objections to that. So I will note that in meeting in reports too as we report out because the votes will obviously not be a full committee vote no matter what that vote is it will only show four votes. And so I'm sure the council will ask why. So we will report that out. With that I will change the deliberation meeting time from 8.30 back down to like six so that it can occur immediately after the interviews so that we don't have a long gap between them as long as no one objects to that either. Seeing only thumbs ups to that issue that will solve some issues I was having with Athena on how to deal with that gap on a one Zoom link without broadcasting the whole time. But okay let's move on to interview questions. We have a draft preliminary set of questions. Let me pull up, I have my notes on ready but let me, I wanna pull up a clean copy of this. And I will share that clean copy to the screen. Last week we set forth a whole bunch with some thoughts on what we might need to move, change, combine all of that. We now know we have six candidates for interviews. So that will help us decide how many questions we might want in terms of timing and all. So my thoughts are to again, just go straight through one through 10 right now and let's talk about each one. Evan. Just the agenda that's posted, it only shows five candidates. Does it? Yeah. So I guess I'm curious, is it actually five or is there a name missing? I thought I had all the names in there. Let me count one, two, three, four, five, six. I missed the people. There might be a name missing. I will fix that immediately. And well, I will fix that as soon as I'm off the, did I, I must have missed putting one on. It looks like McDougal. Yeah, so I will fix that with Athena as soon as this meeting is done. Thank you for pointing that out that I missed typing one. There are six and Andrew McDougal is the sixth. The SOIs are all in there though. I believe in the folder I will check. So it is just the agenda that I missed a name and typing them quickly last night. So thank you for pointing that out. Six, planning the packet has six names, agenda does not. I will fix that as soon as the meeting is over and apologize to Andrew for forgetting his name in the list. Okay, so back to, I figured we'd just go through the questions and talk about them as we go, see if there's any given we now have the SOIs that we might want to delete or add or anything but start with number one. The why are you interested in serving on the planning board? Any differences to that one? I am not seeing any. So we will move on to the second one to, whoops, I don't want that there. So the second one, so either question one or two, any requested changes to those? I'm not seeing any. We'll move on to question number three. There was the inserted, well, the indented question because we as a group thought we might be able to figure out a way to combine these two ideas into one question. Has anyone come up with potential ways to do that or suggestions that they'd like to put out there? Evan. Yeah, I think this was my suggestion to perhaps meld these two together. And I would support that still of just having it be, tell us about an experience you have had collaborating with a group that had conflicting opinions or something like that. Just because then you get the collaboration aspect, but it's collaboration in the context of difference. So one of the things I had thought of as a possibility was. Collaborating with a group, particularly where opinions conflicted or the decision, decision was controversial. Would that be an okay way to. Combine. I'd be happy with that. So we'll read that. Any other thoughts on number three? Seeing none. We will move on to number four. This is one we discussed of picking a specific goal or not or letting people pick their own goals. I do, I received a email from counselor Pam at the end of the meeting after the meeting last week. You'll remember she was attempting to make public comment. After all of this discussion and had issues with her microphone. So she sent me an email and she had a suggestion for a potential question wording for this one that I told her, I would bring up to the committee. And which it's longer. But I think it attempted to combine four and eight. Which is what do you think the planning board could do to seek to back up? The various goals of the master plan. Increased development, preservation of the quality of New England, small town life for families and individuals of various incomes and backgrounds, conservation of fields, forests and farmlands and support for strong business, educational and artistic communities. Was her suggestion based on our conversation. Thoughts on the question is worded or a potential question. That was really long. I will copy it from my version. Yeah, that would be great. Thank you. I mean, I like the idea, but I don't know. I like the idea of combining it, but I also feel like we don't want to lead them into, and that's the eighth one I did think was leading them. I think Steve said that last time. Like instead of saying, you know, what do you, what is the interconnection? We kind of leading them that there is an interconnection. So, and same thing. How do you balance this kind of leading them rather than. Having them. Like, I mean, it'll be helpful to see how they think about this. And, and so not lead them on, but get them to talk about what do you feel about these different roles. Different goals, whether they can, you know, whether they work together or competing, but I don't know how to say that without leading them on. Sarah. I think Evan was, had his hand up before me. I just was wondering, you know, So, um, I guess there's part of the language that when I first heard it, made me feel uncomfortable and I'm not sure why, but I just wanted to say that. Yeah, I think it, I think this question does feel. Leading. And I think that there are certain phrases or words. Um, Um, I don't know how to say that without leading them on. Sarah. I think Evan had his hand up before me. I just was wanting to give him a chance to. So, um, I guess there's part of the language that when I first heard it, I think that there are certain phrases or words. Um, So new England, small town life. Um, I love new England, small town life is all I've ever known, but I don't know if that is leading. And then, you know, families and individuals. I just, I don't know. To me, it almost is, is implying. Because I was an English major that families come before individuals. Um, I don't know how to say that. Um, I don't know if it implies a bias or is leading, but I, you know, it could be wrong. Um, So one of my, um, Objectives or intents behind this question was, um, for the candidates to show us that they. Have at least glanced at the master plan. And then explain how the planning board could work towards those goals. And so the reason I'm skeptical of counselor Pam's wording, is she gives them some of the goals of the master plan in the question. And I'm actually interested. I'm not interested in feeding them goals of the master plan. And I think that was an issue with the. Um, that we transformed this from the OCA asked in January, was we picked one goal and we said, talk about this goal. And then I went, there's other goals. Why'd you pick this one? Um, I like the idea of just saying goals and having them pull out what goals they think are important as opposed to feeding them the goals we want them to talk about. So what I'm hearing is. More support for the question for as originally. Um, actually, I think that's a little bit more. And I think that's generally worded than the suggestion from counselor Pam. Is that an accurate summary, Given that I up Steve. I was just going to say, and this is, um, it's not helpful to describe Amherst as a small town or not a small town. Um, first of all, we're a city, but, um, delete it. Actually, do it this way. We got our numbers back then. From it, I think what I'm hearing is, at this point, we're good with question number four, as worded. And so we will move on to question number five. What is your understanding of the role of the planning board? There are any changes to that one? I see none. We will move on to Steve. I'm sorry, it's taking me a while to process it. So that's like an existential question, right? Like, what's the role of the planning board? Period? And the operation of the town in life? So what's the answer? What are we looking for there? So what's your understanding of the mission of the planning board, maybe, or the role is kind of a funny word? I think what it was trying to get at was from the guidance that we've put on for selection guidance. From Chris, the planning board chairs email, she had one item of the regulatory function of the board as one of the characteristics of a successful member of the planning board. And so I think this was a question that was loosely designed to tease out that characteristic of a successful planning board member. But I see your point. But I think that's where it was designed for. Thoughts on this question? Any others? We will move on at this point. To question number six, then, which is one that also had an indented question as a possibility of being able to combine these. Did anyone come up with a way to combine the two? I'm not seeing any hands. I worked hard to try. I ended up with two questions instead of one. Shalini? Yeah, I think we agreed that the flexibility when considering SBIRs should be strictly interpreted is very specific. And they may not have. So yeah, so let me let me show you what I ended up with on that one. And I'm not sure I'm thrilled with it. I'm just going to tell you that right now. I could not figure out a way to combine it into number six. But I ended up with a question that that gets to what Steve was trying, which is what is your philosophy on rule and regulate ruler regulation interpretation application of a strict interpretation model that gives the rule it's exact and technical meaning or a liberal interpretation model that aims to reasonably and fairly apply a rule so as to implement the object and purpose of the document. I'm not thrilled with this question. But I went to what a definition I went to Google for definitions of strict constructionist is what Steve was talking about two weeks ago. And then what the opposite of that was and these are sort of the definitions that came out as to those two sort of competing philosophies of interpretation. And that that's the best I could do. I'm just going to put it out there right now. I like that question. Yeah, that's like, wow, although I'm curious where all of us stand on this, do you come to the interview? Like as a counsel, do we have a preference or one rare the other or like, are we individually voting based on how we yeah, our beliefs? It's interesting. It's an interesting question. Sarah. Okay, so another thing that came up in Oka a lot was that the question should not ask someone to reveal a bias. And I feel like this question is so specific. And what what are we looking for for an answer? And I feel like you're trying to get at somebody's bias in that question. Right? Because what is the what is the answer? What's the information that we're seeking? That's just my opinion. Steve. I'll tell you what the answer I'm looking for. And actually, I don't answer Shalini's question too. But that would I think it's a really important question. And but here's my here's my qualm, though, is that some of the people that are on the list are insiders. So some of them have been on the planning board before some have degrees in planning, and others don't. So we want citizen planners, you know, people that don't have a degree in the subject or citizen, anything are really important for committees. So I think my concern might be that this is slanted to the insiders to the people that have advanced knowledge of how a board works. Right? I do think it's a really important one. And luckily, we don't have to interpret laws, we just were the law, we're the legislators, we don't have to interpret our own laws usually. But but I do think it's really a critical one. And the operation of the planning board itself requires us, you know, I don't know a certain understanding or at least a great understanding of of flexibility, no matter what. Yeah, there's time. Evan. So I think this question is fascinating. And I would love to hear people in the planning department answer it. I actually love this question. I don't think we should ask it. I don't think we should ask it for the largely for the reason that Steve said that I think that it is a question that is too technical and complex for someone who doesn't have planning board service under their belt. And it's a very intimidating question to me. And I feel like if we think that to be on the planning board, you need to have a firm grasp of the zoning bylaw ahead of time, then it's a useful question. I don't think that's the case. I think that people can get on the planning board and come up to speed. And so I worry that this question only really works for people who have experience with the zoning bylaw. So what I'm potentially hearing is, in some sense, get rid of both of them and keep the regular number six. Is that an accurate summary, Steve? Your hand's still up, that's why I'm asking. I didn't just call on you. So if I did this, everyone okay? Melanie and then Evan, you're muted, Melanie. The sixth question describes the situation where you disagreed with the rule or regulation. And to me, that's like a similar sort of question. Is there was mentioning about bias? Then isn't this sort of also along with similar lines? It's kind of like that philosophy. It's your what is your philosophy with? I don't know. I mean, could someone maybe clarify what is the intention? What kind of information are we hoping to get from this question? Evan, you had your hand up, you don't necessarily have to answer Shalene as you can ask whatever you were going to say. Well, so I was first going to say that while we have deleted a potential new question, we haven't deleted any existing questions, and we're going to have to do that at some point. My feeling is, if we have six people, six questions, three minutes apiece, that's an hour and a half. And I have a trust in Mandy Jo before that I don't really, I think we should aim to not let the interviews go longer than an hour and a half. I think that is about my limit, and probably a lot of other peoples, and we're asking people to give an hour and a half of their time to come to these interviews. So I do actually think we need to cut four questions at some point. And this is one that I might consider cutting. And the reason for that I'll speak to Shalene's question, which is the intent, because this is a carryover from the ZVA interviews was for ZVA, it was a sort of a judicial in nature, right? And so we wanted people to be able to show us that even if they didn't necessarily like something, they would be willing to apply it because that was sort of their job. And this is where I and she can tell me no, but I do kind of want to put Sarah on the spot because she wasn't here last time, but she was in the ZVA interviews. Sarah, one of the things that I said in our last meeting was that I thought this was a really interesting question, but that I didn't necessarily feel like the answers I got from it helped me make my decision. And so while it was sort of interesting philosophically, I don't actually think the answers were useful. But since you were also in that ZVA interview, I'd actually really appreciate hearing your maybe that was just me. Sarah. So I would agree with Evan, and that's exactly why we had that question. So one, it doesn't necessarily apply to the planning board. So you could, you could take it out right there because it's I don't think it's as applicable. And also because people have the questions ahead of time, it did seem like it was something that everybody if you gave yourself enough time, you know, you knew the flavor of the question was that somebody wanted to know that you could, you know, you could come up with a story that would fit what you thought we were trying to get at. And I agree. I felt like the answers were somewhat canned and I don't think it got to what we were wondering about. So I wouldn't have any problem dropping it. I'm seeing Shawnee. Yeah, drop the question. We will do that for now. We're down to nine. The next one now numbered six. What else would you like us to know about that makes you a strong candidate for planning board? We would move that to the end. I just didn't reorder anything. So I know it seems weird in the middle of this question, but any changes to that one at this point, Shawnee. Would that be like an optional at the end? Maybe needed question because it feels like they're going to answer that through what would they bring that would make planning board successful? So we already asked them that. It would sort of be the wrap up question. Like, is there anything else you haven't mentioned that you want to tell us? We can talk about whether we keep it after we go through the rest. The next one is the one interconnection. Do you see between development, housing, sustainability and racial equity? I thought it needed an ask what interconnections. But we've talked a little bit about this one already today. Thoughts on it as worded. We'll get to sooner. Well, when we get through all these, we'll get to which ones we're keeping or not. But would anyone have any requested rewordings of it? Shawnee. I don't have the rewording, but I do like the question and it just feels leading at this point. So I think what would be nice is to get the perspective on how they do approach these seemingly, sometimes seemingly conflicting goals. It would be nice to get their thought process around it. So no other requests for changes to that. We will move on to, can you walk us through the process you'll use for making decisions on the planning board? I had a potential rewording for this, which was please describe the process you'll use for considering proposed revisions to the zoning bylaw. It's actually how I did it. So I moved it from just planning board to specific to revisions of the zoning bylaw. Thoughts on this question or the potential revision I just talked about or any other revisions people might have to it. Evan. So this might be, again, as we're cutting, this might be a question I suggest cutting. I haven't decided yet, but if we are going to keep it, I do prefer your, the wording you just said to the wording that's here. Reference, there's the wording I said. Any other thoughts on, I would agree we don't need both. Any other thoughts on which one is preferable if we do end up keeping this flavor of a question? Shalini. I think I would like at least one of the, the eight or nine to be there because to me that helps me see whether the person is able to see the big picture and doesn't get locked into, okay, now I'm solving a housing problem in a vacuum and now I'm solving this, but is able to look at. So the big picture thinking. And so I would like us to keep at least one of those questions in whatever format. As you said, do you have a preference between the two? I need to think about that. Let's bring my hand down. Any other member have a preference between the two, Sarah? So I prefer your wording, but I don't like the question. For now, we'll go with the wording I proposed and we'll discuss whether we keep it or not after we get through. I think we have one more to get through. And this is the one that I proposed. I have a feeling it's getting deleted no matter what. I came up with a rewording that is a long, long statement. So I'm not even sure I'm even going to read my rewording that is a big, long statement. And then a question at the end of that. Sarah, I'd like to hear from you before I even propose that. Sorry. There you go. So this wording is fine. Do you just want to hear about wording? Because I think this wording is fine. Okay. Question two, because we all have concerns about the question to begin with. I don't like the question because to me it's sort of, to me, the unspoken thing is how well will you get along with us when you have to make decisions? Which is a very interesting question. I agree. If that's one we just, everybody has a couple of drinks so we want to ask a couple of these questions on here. Great. But I don't think we should ask it again. Interesting question, but I don't think it's appropriate. You know, it's one we struggled with even putting on the list last week. So, Steve. I'm with Sarah on this one. It just seems too nuanced because, you know, again, I guess I'm getting concerned about ones that separate the people that really sort of follow town government, all of its nuances, and then those that don't. And I think either one is completely qualified, could be completely qualified. Somebody that doesn't follow us at all versus somebody that washes every meeting and they'll get a big dose if they're accepted. But I would tend to leave that one off. So, on the road to cutting four questions. Evan. Yeah, so I definitely support Sarah's proposal about having a few drinks. But I share Steve's concern. We know now the applicant's pools public. We know there's one member of the applicant pool who will have a very strong opinion on this question. And I don't know that any of the others will. And so, to some extent, it almost feels like throwing that one applicant like a question that's for them and not something that's well suited to the entire group. Because I think that this is really a nuanced. And I'm not even 100% sure how I would answer this question right now because it's evolving a lot. And so, I think it's a really interesting question. Again, I think it requires you to already have served on the planning board and to have interacted with us already for you to really be able to develop an opinion on it. We're down to eight. So I think our next decision is are there any that are missing now that we've seen the SOIs? Is there any question people would like to add? And then if that answer is no, we need to decide how many questions we should have. Given our known applicant pool size. So I will take the chance to at least move that down there. But now we can actually see it how it looks. So I'm not seeing any hands about adding questions that we're missing. So the next question becomes, we have six candidates, interviews are starting at 5 p.m. We can decide how many minutes we, I don't think we have as a committee have decided how many minutes we would allow per question. We could allow different lengths of times for different questions. We could allow the same length of time for every question. And I'm going to just do the math here. Assuming there are three minutes per question, six candidates, that means every question takes approximately 18 minutes. Eight, which means we get three an hour. If everyone takes the full eight, three minutes each. And so that would mean this is approximately two and a half hours of questions to just give, give it out there. If everyone takes three minutes. Now we can set some to one minute. We could set some to two minutes. And try and keep all eight. Or we could set everything to three and probably cut down to, you know, what would be a six or so. I don't know. Evan. So my, my, my, my thoughts to what you just said is yes to both. I personally don't want more than six questions. I just think it starts six questions by six people is just a lot of information for us to take in and retain. And so I think we should try to. Get it down to six. I do think, and having done this, and I'll be curious to hear from Sarah too, having done this. Three minutes is actually. Doesn't sound like a long time, but actually is kind of a long time. Especially for some of these answers. And, you know, I mentioned, I think too many Joe once before that. In the, Both the planning board and the ZBA interviews, there was only one candidate in each who used the entire three minutes every time, which was usually a candidate. That a few times I had to say, okay, I need you to wrap it up. And so most answers clocked in at about a minute and a half, a minute 45, because that's all you really need. So I would actually be supportive of getting it down to six, but also having a two minute instead of a three minute limit. Yeah. So I agree with Evan. Three minutes. If bring you back to high school, you had three minutes to get out of your class to your locker and to another classroom. It's actually a long time. People did not need that much time. And I don't think we, I think two minutes is fine. And off the top of my head, I think we could take out question three for the same reasons we took out another is that we get a lot of, this was really a question that I. I think that Oka kept in honestly, I think that this tended towards bias. We did keep it in to play Kate everyone, but I think it also can people have enough time to think about, you know, obviously when we want to shoot, we were looking for people who can, you know, solve conflict. And so people just came up with a solve conflict. And I, I don't know that it really got to the heart of the matter. I would like to keep three, because even when people share the stories, because we're asking them for specific experiences, I think from our experience, having been through enough conflicts by now, we can tell which stories are genuine and which are not. So that itself helps us to see who's genuinely been through and knows how to navigate, because I think one of the things that, you know, right now is our ability to sit with discomfort and to not shut down and not to be, you know, state fixated on our ideas in the middle of this conflict. So I think that's a very, very important skill for people to bring in. And I'm hoping that their experiences will show the differences. And in terms of, you know, I think the last question can be one minute because that's more like anything that you left out. So a closing statement sort of a thing. So that could be just one minute. And maybe if we have to eliminate, I would, like if I was joining a committee for the first time, I would be intimidated by that. Seventh question about what is the process you'll use. For a zone in a changing zoning by laws. So that seems too technical. So I might want to remove that one. And the sixth one, I like it. But I would like it to be rephrased. So it's not the leading question. Other thoughts. I will take my time for my thoughts. I am all in support of two minutes. If we do two minutes. A question. Each question takes about 12 minutes then. So you can get five done in an hour, which means you can get seven done in an hour and a half. You can actually get the eighth done in an hour and a half. If you have a question, you can get seven done in an hour and a half. You can actually get the eighth done in an hour and a half. If you move that eighth one to one minute answer instead of a two minute answer, then you've got exactly if everyone uses all of their time, exactly an hour and a half. I know that's something Evan wants to hear. I think given these eight, I would probably only actually delete one. Cause I like nearly all of them. I think I'd actually delete the understanding the role of the planning board. Question number five. I like seven because they have to. Consider proposed revisions to the zoning bylaw under our charter and everything. And so. Maybe we can reword it for a process, but I think. I would really as a counselor would really like to know how they'll approach. Looking at proposed revisions to zoning bylaws. And. And just, I'm not sure I can describe much more beyond that, but I'd like to hear the approaches to that. We have obviously had to approach that ourselves recently with a couple of zoning bylaw changes and other bylaw changes. And I think it would be good to hear. How planning board members would do that. So I would be against taking number seven out. I think five is very similar to. Four in a sense. Not quite, but anyway. Evan. Yeah. So thank you for the math. I think that my, I stand by my statement that it's not even about length of time per se. It's just about quantity of information that we can absorb and provide. It's interesting that we can get into that. So I think that that's why we're doing that. I do think that we have to, to understand what this is going to mean and that span of time, which is why I, I, I like the idea of six questions. It's funny when we met last time, I really didn't like. Question seven. I've come around to it and the reason is for what Mandy Joseph is from what we've heard from. Planning staff. really focus in on zoning. That seems to be where this committee lies. That's where the planning board members, current membership lies based on their unanimous vote in support of that. That's where our planning department staff lies. And so I do actually think it's important to have a question that has to do with zoning bylaws because that will likely be something thrown at them. The word that I'm struggling with is process there because I worry that they'll lean too much into like, I don't want to steer them in the direction of like a technical process. I don't want them to be like, well, I'd first hold the public hearing. It's like, yeah, we know you would. That's required by state law. I guess I'm seeing six and seven almost as similar because the zoning bylaws are meant to address some of the interconnections between these things. And so I don't have proposed wording, which I know is annoying for me to say anything without proposed wording. But I guess I'm less curious about like the process and more about like, what would they consider? Like what, again, I don't have great wording for this, but what considerations would they make or what objectives would they have in considering proposed revisions? Cause I think that can actually get to, you know, what are the things that they, they would personally prioritize as we're doing this. And I think that that could actually lead to some of the things we see in six because maybe they would prioritize housing, housing affordability or sustainability or racial equity. Like that might actually reveal some of those things. I agree that I would take out five because I think it is similar to four. And the other one I would actually maybe consider taking out even though it seems so standard is one. And the only reason for that is they all answered that in their SOI. And so I just, I'm not sure what else they add to the interview to answer that question that's not in the SOI. You could argue the same for two, but I think that I like hearing people articulate too. And I think that their interest will also come out in two because their interests might be, what they feel they bring might be an important perspective and their interest is bringing that perspective. And so, yeah, that's where I'm at. Other thoughts? So I think we have heard, I highlighted that, but I'm gonna highlight the whole thing. I think we've heard arguments for taking out one, three, five and seven, which we're probably not gonna take them all out, but I think those are the ones that have just been mentioned as potentially deletions. If we're trying to get down to six, two in theory should go. Thoughts? Just putting out there, my argument for seven also sort of included deleting six with the hope that we could word seven to get at six. Shalini. Yeah, I had one and two as one question. So because I thought they spoke to the similar idea, so I'm okay with removing one. And then I also had an earlier four and five, which was describe how the planning board can achieve the goals and what is your understanding of the role I had those two as reflecting people's understanding of the planning board. So I agree that that could be taken out. What is your understanding of the role of the planning board? So we could remove those two. Why are you interested in what is your understanding? And then we have six questions. So are we at a consensus potentially that number one can be deleted? Yes. The nods. So we're gonna delete number one. Of the rest, I have heard, I think three now, potentially deleting number, what is now number four. There are arguments for deleting any of the others besides number four, or in terms of where's people's preferences as to which one now to get rid of. And it looks like we might have to, I threw words in that Evan was mentioning that we're coming up in my mind. So we gotta come up with, if we're keeping six, we have to come up with better wording. Shall we delete number four, understanding of the role of the planning board? Or would people rather delete number two or five or six, even than Evan? So I tend to like the questions that have the word you, why are you in it? And I tend to not like the questions that don't have that. Like some of them are sort of intellectual questions and the you questions are all personal questions. Like, tell us about your experience, tell us what you would do. So like the one about the understanding of the role of the planning board is almost like an essay, but you know, it's like a question you might get on an exam. But so I would tend to remove that. And, but that's where the ones I like are all, all have the word you in it. Yeah, so I would support getting rid of four. But I, again, would also support getting rid of five. And I know I keep saying six is the magic number, but I don't think there's anything wrong with five questions either. But of what's up here right now, the one that I least interested in hearing the answer to, I guess, is probably four. Sarah, you've been quiet is deleting four, okay? So we'll delete that. Anyone got better wording for number five, the new number five. It could be, please describe how you'll approach proposed revision, how you'll approach reviewing proposed revisions to the zoning board or something like that, or please describe what considerations and objectives you'll use for considering proposed revisions to the planning, to the zoning bylaws. Shalini? I like your use of words. Each one has a specific meaning, like what are you gonna consider? What are your objectives? And I think each one of them gives us a sense of how they're gonna go about it. So I really like that question now. Getting rid of the word approach? I was okay with the approach, but I'm happy with what others think. Maybe considerations and objectives do that. That's your approach. For approaching, we have considerations in there twice now. I'm not necessarily seeing any, does that mean we're about ready for a vote? Shalini? Are we changing the interconnections, do you see between? I love that question because I love to see the interconnectedness of things, but is that how? We could add an if any. Yeah, if any is one thing that I was like, that's the simplest fakes is. It's the simplest fix. Although it's still kind of lead. Like now I don't see any interconnection. You could just say, do you see any interconnections between development, housing, sustainability, and racial equity? Please explain your answer. So that we don't just get a yes. You know? Hey. Why didn't, yeah. We don't get a no, we could have then a please explain. Mm-hmm. Could we have something maybe like, how do these different goals support each other and how do they contradict each other? Or is that too much? Mother, got a massive silence here. Evan. So my only thought, the thing I have struggled with with this question, from when we started talking about it last week is, how are we justifying picking these four things? Like why these four and why not historic character and why not forced, it just seems weird to me. And the way I kind of justify it right now actually is based on the discussion we had last night about the town manager goals, which are sort of the council's goals. The council with the town manager goals is making our goals very transparent and also saying, we would like to see the entire operation of the town work towards these objectives. And so I guess I'm wondering if instead of saying development, housing, sustainability and racial equity, if we should say, climate action, economic vitality, racial equity and housing affordability, because those line with what I assume will be the main policy goals that we're putting out as the council to the town manager. And I, because I guess otherwise it becomes a, well, where'd you get this list from? Why didn't you include this? Why didn't you include this? And I think we need to have a response to that of why we chose these things. And I think if we make it parallel to the goals that we're setting for the town manager, who sort of technically oversees the planning board via the planning department, it makes a little bit more sense. So I was actually gonna say the same thing in terms of where we got those four is they actually line up to four of the five sort of policy goals we were talking about last night. The only one that's not in here is the four major capital investments, which is less policy-ish than action-ish, I would almost say in some sense. Shalini, I think you had your hand raised and then unraised it. Okay, are we about ready for a vote? A motion and a vote? I'm not seeing any hands one way or the other. So I'm just gonna make the motion to approve the interview questions for, why do I even have 819 planning board interviews up here? The August 26th, 2020 planning board interviews as revised at the August 18th CRC meeting. Is there a second? Second, Shalini. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, we will take a vote. We start with me in alphabetical order. So I am a yes, and then we go to Evan. Yes. Steve. Yes. Sarah. Hi. And Shalini. Seems really bothering me. When do we use I and when do we use yes? Interchangeable. Okay, very interchangeable. Thank you. I was like, did I say the wrong thing? Was I supposed to say hi? So I believe that is a unanimous vote. Five to zero, they are approved. I will get that out to the candidates along with fixing the list and all. As soon as I can, I'm trying to make my notes here. That brings us to housing. Presentation and discussion items, housing. We're going to have about 20 minutes to do this before we have to take public comment and then do minutes. We might have a little more than that, but we're going to move on. We're going to do it where we obviously will not finish a discussion today on housing. So in the packet, there were a number of documents that have been adopted by our own town, various either committees or departments in town, that relate to housing, including what the council's adopted as an interim housing policy. The packet also included two summary documents that Janet McGowan, planning board member, McGowan had made for the planning board, I think, or the zoning subcommittee, one of the two portions of the planning board, sometime last year. And then I put in there, when I was doing a bunch of research, three very different, what these cities called unified plans or comprehensive housing plans. I put them in there as examples. I know they are from very large cities that do not look like us, but one thing this committee struggled with when this was first referred to us was, what does something look like? And so we didn't really have a basis to start on how to draft something because we had no idea of what an actual comprehensive housing plan might look like or include. So that's why I put that in there. So one thing I think we need to do is decide a couple of things as we begin this conversation, which is do we like any of those samples as a potential template for guiding us on how we move forward or do we not? Should we be out there looking for others in terms of, and I'm not talking about template where we just copy their language and change things to Amherst. I'm talking about things like the items they included in it, like some talked about already adopted policies, some talked about goals, some talked about actual programs, were there sections or one was only three pages long, one was hundreds of pages long, were there things we liked? I think in my reading of them, many of them had actual goals for a comprehensive housing policy. What is our housing policy goals? And then it set forth potential strategies to get there. So this has been a discussion, I've had trouble framing for a committee on how we move forward. So that's why I'm kind of giving us some potential things. I am happy to accept other ways to frame these discussions, but I don't know if anyone read any of them or has any thoughts on how we actually start moving forward to get to a comprehensive housing policy beyond sort of, at some point, someone's gonna have to draft something. And so I think we need to decide what needs to be in the thing. And at some point, we'll have to adopt potential goals. So did anyone have thoughts on the documents that were there on what a housing policy, comprehensive housing policy might need to include? Basically, I'm opening up the discussion for people to talk and bring us their thoughts. Fallenie. These are just thoughts in my idea, in my head. And I think two things that are coming up for me is one is how do we look at our overarching goals so inequities in our town. And so as we're making decisions about housing, can we incorporate some of that lens into framing? So that's one thing. And I guess it includes the other things through like economic development goals, racial equity goals. So some of the goals that we adopted and even maybe climate change action goals. So making sure that those are framing some of our policies here. The second thing is that in the Minneapolis, when I really like the way they've taken each community like homelessness, what are the goals? Seniors, what are our goals? And because I really feel we don't have in what our goals with respect to homelessness and what our goals with respect to many of these things, I think it'll be really important before we come up with the policies, what are our goals and from that speaking to the policies, strategies, policies and actionable items and so forth. Other thoughts? Yeah, so I think I've struggled with this topic in the same way that you probably have, Mandy, which is it's great to be like, we're gonna write a comprehensive housing policy and that sounds great. And when you're like, so what does that mean? And so I really appreciate the three examples you gave us, especially because they're very different and they seem to go along a spectrum. So it seems like Rochester is just, here are sort of goals within each category. Minneapolis is like, here's goals, but here's a couple policies. And then Dallas is like, here's 200 pages that's every policy we have that relates to housing. I don't wanna write a Dallas-like housing policy. I don't necessarily know that that's useful. I think that I, when I'm thinking about this, I kind of like what Rochester had. I agree with Shalini that I like how Minneapolis sort of did break it down by community. And I think Rochester did it similarly, although not with that level specifics of demographics. But I guess I'm thinking of a housing policy for the council could exist in essentially two parts. One would be, here are our goals that we wanna work towards. And I think that the housing trust started us off with that and gave us a document to work with. And then I think the second part is, here are the things that drive our decisions on housing related things, which is I think what I saw in Rochester. So crafting a housing policy doesn't require us to craft a new inclusionary zoning by-law or a new zoning by-law. But it should say, I think in it, when we're considering zoning by-laws, we should be working towards these objectives or something like that. And so I don't see it as a policy in the way that the Dallas proposal is. I see it in a policy of how the council makes decisions about items that have to do about housing. And part of that is goals, but part of it is things that we should be seeking. So like I'm looking at Minneapolis and it's like support for the owners of rental properties to be successful business owners. That's not a goal and that's not a policy, but it's something that drives decision-making. Any other thoughts? I'm seeing none right now and I know we have someone in the audience who wants to make a comment. And so I am going to actually go to that person right now. He'll have to give me a little bit of time because I'm the one that controls the mic. But this is one where we tend to in committee sometimes jump back and forth between public comment times if there's certain people that want to speak to a specific issue. So John, I'm going to work on getting you allowed to talk. And I think you now should have the control to unmute. So John, can you just state your name and your affiliation to I guess the town, I don't know what you are with the housing trust right now, but if you're still chair or not, bye. My name is John Hornick. I am a resident of Amherst and I am currently the chair of the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, which probably everybody knew. I did read all three of those documents. I won't say I read them line by line very carefully, but enough to have a sense of what the differences are. I kind of dismissed the Rochester plan entirely because it's really not a plan. There are no specific goals, all it is is a set of principles and they're all related to affordable housing. So if you wanted to adopt that, it wouldn't be bad, but it wouldn't move us anywhere beyond the draft affordable housing policy that we submitted to town council for review. I mean, you could tack on the Rochester principles, that would be fine. But like I say, it doesn't get you anywhere because there were no specific plans. The Dallas thing is overwhelming. I agree and a lot of that I'm sure was prepared by staff. Also one major difference between Dallas and Amherst is that Dallas has control of all the HUD and probably state related subsidy resources for affordable housing. And so they really have decisions about what to do with all that money. We don't. And so it's another reason why the Dallas plan isn't a good model. The Minneapolis plan is better than both of those. I will say it is focused also entirely on affordable housing. It is not a comprehensive housing policy for the city of Minneapolis. So if you really want a comprehensive housing policy, you'd have to find something else. I don't know what that would be, but Minneapolis is not it. I think it provides some reasonable description of the problems and principles as well as some limited specific goals. So if you're to look to anything as a model, that's a possibility. But again, it's a much bigger city, a much bigger land area. There are issues also with collaboration of the surrounding County, Hennepin County that are not really related to Amherst. So all in all, I don't think that any of them are great, although I appreciate Mandy's work in doing some research to try to come up with something. Thank you, John. And I will say it's hard to find something labeled comprehensive related to housing policies whether or not as you pointed out, they actually are comprehensive or whether they do just relate to affordable. And I will continue searching, but those are some I found. Any thoughts on this going forward from the committee? I mean, one thing I'm hearing from those that have spoken today is that maybe we need to set or discuss, maybe our next point of discussion is actually on broad goals for comprehensive housing. Before we get into any strategies or any specifics, we would need to potentially set some goals that we want as a town to work towards. As Evan said, but goals for housing in Amherst, whether that be, and we can go back to some that were listed in some of these other plans. I think for some it was diverse neighborhoods, sort of economically diverse neighborhoods or things like that, goals for a goal of increasing affordable housing to a certain percentage or something. But that might be our next strategy for starting on working on a housing policy. Thoughts on that, Shalini? Yeah, I think I like the idea of starting with goals. The other two things that come to mind are, one is looking at, once we have the goals, then we can look at the work that's already done in those two housing reports that we have and see what is, because they already have the research over there and see what are the strategies that they recommend, so we don't have to reinvent. And then the other thing that I think I would like to see it maybe come up with is what are the different sections we want in? So one is the goals and one might be our good housing. I'm just looking at this, I can share this later on, but it's like in nine rules for better housing policy and they have, so what are the principles that are guiding our housing policy? So for example, they have specific things that should be part of the good housing policy, for example, build safe, healthy housing. I mean, that seems obvious, but they have specific things under that, provide clear information for housing transactions, mitigate environmental impacts, reduce barriers to high opportunity neighborhoods, supplement incomes for poor families and don't favor homeowners over renters. So they're very specific policy guidelines, what makes for a good housing policy, so we could even come up with that. So goals, housing policy, what makes for that? And then what are the different sections that we want to include in our housing policy? I think if we had some consensus on that, then we can start working on specific chunks. Other thoughts? So I think what we're going to do is we have time in our agenda coming up to start digging into housing policy as one of the main things we do each meeting. So here's what I'm gonna do. For the next meeting, I want everyone to think about goals for comprehensive housing policy and come to the meeting with a list. Do your own research if you want, base it on our master plan, our market study if you want, get as involved or not as you want, but try to come to the next meeting with goals and potentially sections to include, although I think any meeting that we attempt to talk about goals is going to take, that discussion will take most of the meeting or the time we have in the meeting set aside for housing policy without even getting two sections before we start writing. Does anyone else have any other thoughts on what to bring to and discuss at the next time we discuss housing policy? Evan and then Shalini. Strictly impressive, are you thinking literally we should all write this stuff down to say it in the next meeting or is this something where we should send you and you're gonna add it to the packet or put together a document? So I am willing to compile everyone's list into one document with no names attached to post in a packet so that it goes to everyone at the same time and also out to the public at the same time. I think it would probably be easier than trying to read them out and type them and put them on a screen within the meeting itself. If people think it's more efficient, I'm certainly willing to do that. I would just ask if our meeting's on a Tuesday that anything get to me by the prior Friday so that I have time and Athena can post. I mean, Athena won't be able to post something if I don't get it by Thursday, if I get it by Thursday, she can post Friday. If I don't get it till Friday evening, she will not post till Monday morning. So maybe a Thursday deadline before the next Tuesday meeting is a better deadline so that it can be compiled into one document and posted on Friday for not just committee members to see, but the community to see where our thinking is going. Shalini. QE, does the CRC decide the goals for the housing or is it a town council? So our referral is to propose and recommend a comprehensive housing policy. So if we believe that comprehensive housing policy should include goals, we would be the one dragging that. And so one of the things when I thought about how we would go about doing something like this, and steps to get through this before it finally makes it to the council, we need to talk about sections. We need to talk about what goes in each section. People will have to draft sections. Some of that will obviously happen at meetings. Others might not. Others might, you know, there might be a section. If we decide there will be a section on all of the current documents, we don't have to talk about that in a meeting. We can just assign someone to come in with a draft of the section that lists all of our current housing plans, you know. And then we would review those sections in CRC. When they get to a point where they might be, this is my thinking right now, where they get to a point where they might be somewhat solid, where we're like, okay, we're kind of at a point where we need more input. You know, not really rough, but not final. At that point, we have to decide whether we'd send sections at a time or maybe we only wanna do it when we have more of a complete draft of a whole thing all at once. But at some point, we would make a decision to say this section or this policy or this set of drafts goes out to other committees, including the full council for comments back to us. You know, similar to what actually the housing trust did when they had that draft, they had a draft and then they're like, well, we need the input from the town council and from the planning board and from here and there. I have vision and something similar and we would figure out at that time which committees, assuming including the full council, get drafts where we'd say, hey, look at this at your next meeting and all and get back to us with your thoughts. And then it would come back and we'd do some more revising of things like that. I don't know whether it's best to do that section by section or multiple sections or full document at a time, but that's sort of the process at this point I'm envisioning in terms of getting feedback. So it is not just us alone then getting to a final, here's our final draft recommendation, you know, draft comprehensive housing policy, go council and no one's seen it before. That is not a process I would support at all because I think that's a recipe for disaster. So that's what I'm envisioning. Shelley, is your hand a legacy hand? It might be. Okay. So I think people work on potential goals, thoughts on goals, send them to me the Thursday before the meeting. If they come later, I'll work on getting amended drafts up, but the goal will be to get the packet up by Friday. So by Thursday, I'll try to send reminders of that. And then the public and us, that will be part of our next meeting conversation. Anything else for this item at this time, it will be back on the agenda next month or at our next meeting. I'm gonna hold off on John for now. I see his hand because if we don't have anything else for this committee, we're moving directly into general public comments. So I can take John's comment during general public comment, which we will accept comment for one to three minutes. So three minutes or so, we don't have too many people here. We don't have anyone joined by phone. So if you would like to make public comment, do as John just did, there's a raise hand button, click raise hand, and I will recognize you. So at this time, I'm gonna recognize John again. John, unmute and. I have a 10 to 15 second question. Sure. That is, are you inviting input of anybody aside from the CRC members with respect to goals or other things you outlined about the process of development? So I would say at this time, yes. I mean, we always like input. I don't think I'm going to send out formal requests for input unless the committee asks me to at this time. But John, if you want to send stuff to me, I will include that into the list. And if the committee has specific people, they would like me to send requests for that too. Prior to our next meeting, I will add that to the list of people to send requests to. Okay, John. That's fine. Thank you. Is there any more public comment? Shalini is not a public comment, but I'm not seeing any other public comment. So I will go back to Shalini. So because housing is such an important issue and so ideally I'm thinking that as we are crafting our goals for housing, it would be great if there was a way to engage the community and see what we, I mean, I think we already know that we don't have certain kind of housings for working families for our teachers and professionals. And so we have a certain idea, but I don't know if it would be helpful to maybe not just owning but renting or like what are some of the more tangible day-to-day gaps and inequities that exist related to housing. And if there's a way to get that information and use that for framing our goals. So we might have that information or some of that in town. Dave Zomek has left this meeting. He would more know about that. I will touch base with him on whether some of that information is there on other housing studies and outreach that has already been done to be ready for next meeting and the discussion as we move forward. Obviously we're not gonna finish the goals in one meeting. It's going to be an ongoing conversation that as we work our way through it, we'll be able to better know who we need to talk to, who we need to engage, what information we have and all of that. So I will touch base with Dave before the next meeting. And I'd seen John's hand. I was wondering if he wanted to respond to that or... I was thinking he might have been a legacy hand because I couldn't raise it. No, he has it. So hold on, let me make a note for myself. Just a quick answer to Shalini's question and that is that if you look in the appendix to the Housing Trust draft affordable town policy, you will find extensive statistical information in there. And I've also talked about anecdotal information, for example, at the housing forum that was last November. So the first thing is immediately accessible to you. The second is a little bit harder to get at but Amherst Media does have the full record of the housing forum. Yes, Shalini. Can I ask a follow-up question? Sure. John, did you say there's a link to the video of that meeting? Yes, I can find it and send it to you. Again, it includes a number of anecdotes that I talked about in that meeting. So I can find the link and try to tell you roughly where in the process you could find it, like in the 30-second minute or whatever. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no other public comment, we will move on to minutes. We have four sets of minutes that will bring us completely up to date. So that is good. I will do it in one motion, but we will talk about individual sets of minutes separately. So does anyone have any, I don't know, people may want me to bring up the minutes. Let me just do that. See if I can figure out a way to bring the meeting minutes that we have up. So this is the June 3rd minutes. These minutes look lots of changes, although I'm not showing the changes. There's a lot of deletions to these because these were taken from the planning board minutes that were approved. Let me show you so that you can see the hallmark up. These were the planning board minutes. This was a joint meeting, well, was our meeting jointly with the planning board for discussing, I think, zoning by law revisions at this point. And so the planning board had adopted minutes. I got them. I deleted all the stuff that wasn't on our named agenda, which is why there's a whole lot of stuff deleted. And therefore went, they had hearings beforehand. This is one where we didn't join the meeting until 7.45 or so after a 6.30 start. So that's why there's so many deletions to this. And then it's, we called to order at 7.47. We held the joint meeting. And then I adjourned the meeting and then I deleted all of the planning board's additional meeting that they held after our meeting. Hence all the red. But that is the only thing I did to this was sort of get rid of everything that wasn't on our agenda that happened at the planning board meeting so that they are our minutes instead of the planning board meeting minutes. Are there any other changes to these minutes? Shalini. Hi, just noticed that some places my name is spelled wrongly with an E, B-A-H-L-E, but I honestly couldn't care less. So if you just want to let it go, I'm fine. Just for future purposes, whoever's taking the notes, it's without the E. We will fix that. Any other requested changes to these? In none, I will stop that share and we will move on to the next set for review. Which are the June 17 minutes. This was another joint meeting. And so you will again see a whole lot of red because again, planning board had other business that night. And so I deleted all the other business. We were the first thing other than minutes on this evening's agenda. And so all the deleted stuff is after us, which is the review and recommendation. And so I deleted everything after we adjourned. Any other requested changes to these minutes? Seeing none, we will move on to the next set before we'd make our motion, which is the July 21st minutes, which I am working on pulling up. Okay, and that is these. Any requested changes to these? The red is when the motion that Christine Brestrup talked about that the planning board had done, our minute taker, Angela, didn't quite get the wording. So she sent them to me and said, please add the wording. So I wanted to show that that is the change that was done prior to posting them was adding the right wording to what Christine Brestrup had read was the planning board action. And then I just added that the one absent was Sarah from the vote on that. I think those are the only other changes I made to this one. Any other requested changes? Nope, so we got one more. And I'm not sure, I can't remember whether I actually looked at these yet. I might have lost my to-do list. But these are the minutes from last meeting. This is what they look like. Requested changes to that. Andy, Joe, may I speak up? Oh, sure, Lindsay. I just wanna say, I apologize to Shalini that I did not include your hyphen in these minutes. I think it just has the second part. So I apologize for that and can fix that and send them back. It really doesn't matter. So forget the hyphen for these just in the future. Yeah, don't bother. Okay, I will get it in the future. Thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, no, but really don't go over the last ones for that. We can easily do a find and replace to make sure it's fixed. I won't do it now, but with that change, any other requested changes? Seeing none, I will make the motion to approve the June 3rd, 2020 minutes as amended, the June 17th, 2020 minutes as amended, the July 21st, 2020 minutes as amended, and the August 4th, 2020 minutes as amended. Is there a second? Second, Shalini. Shalini, everyone. Sorry, I didn't put the other person. Someone's got to second it. We will do a roll call. I think this is our second vote. We start with Evan. Yes. Steve. Yes. Sarah. Hi. Shalini. Hi. And Mandy is an odd, they are all approved as amended. I will work on getting them over to Athena to post. Thank you, Lindsay, for your promptness on the last ones. We are excited to be caught up over three months worth of minutes. Took a while to get those from the planning board. But yeah, we're fully caught up now on minutes. Announcements, are there any announcements? Seeing none, next agenda preview. So, it's gonna be housing policy at this point. We have agendas that, well, our outstanding referrals are at this point, housing policy. And we have gotten through everything else. So, until we either get another referral or we get action from the council on things like zoning and all, we will be doing housing policy. I will mention that the September 15th meeting, actually let me go to my list of things. So, next meeting, which is, I think the first, I think we're set to meet on election day, September 1st, we'll be housing policy and we'll be meeting dates for the rest of the calendar year. Cause we said we would revisit that in the fall. We can't change the September 15th meeting at this point, the two to four meeting then. We are scheduled for that meeting to have zoning by-law priorities presented. I've sent the email out to the council seeking their priorities by the end of August. You guys will have that same job before the September 15th meeting. We will have Chris Brestrup and Rob Mora at that meeting. The planning board has been talking about at their meetings and we'll talk tomorrow night about those priorities. So that's the 15th, got a lot of people coming. So that one will have that meeting, but right now, September 1st, I believe will be housing and might only be housing and some dates. Cause I think we're fully caught up on everything else and going forward after the 15th, I'm not sure we'll be able to fit housing into the 15th given the presentation plans on zoning. But after that, our meetings may sort of be split 50, 50 housing zoning, housing zoning as we, in terms of general stuff until there are specific referrals for if there's particular zoning by-law changes or any other referrals from the council, any other thoughts or requests for agenda items? Seeing none, I don't have anything not anticipated 48 hours in advance. And so Evan, you're getting your wish early. No. A few minutes, so much to do with this. A few minutes. So I will adjourn the meeting at 3.57 PM. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you.