 We are recording. Welcome everyone to this meeting of the community preservation act committee on August 25th, 2002. I'm calling the meeting to order at 603 p.m. Pursuant to the decision of the town of Amherst, which is permitted by the state, we're meeting remotely. I'm the committee chair pro temporary, given the departure of Sarah Marshall, who stepped down at the end of June. I'm going to call on committee members now so that we all know that we can hear you and you can be heard. So I'm going to go in order and when I call your name, please. By speaking up. David Williams. Amherst house. Okay, we can hear you. Robin Ford. Jim Neil. Andy McGoogle. Presents. And I don't see any other members here at the moment. And I'm Sam McLeod. So we do have a quorum. We have five members. We have a number of vacancies. At present three on our committee. And hopefully. Before we start to deliberate on. Proposals. Those memberships will be filled. I've heard from town manager's office there in the process of. Setting up interviews. So this is our first meeting of the. New cycle for the new year. And we have a number of different items on the agenda. Hopefully everyone has been able to. On the committee has been able to access them. They're on the town website under packets. If you are an attending. Community member. You can go to the town website and the CPA. Committee and click on packets on the right hand side. And we have a number of different items on the agenda. And this is an. In addition to our regular order of business, we're going to provide an opportunity to. Have some information provided to. Perspective. Applicants if they have questions. But I'm going to go ahead and start the first. Topic on our agenda is to elect a chair. And a vice chair for this coming cycle. Excuse me, Sam. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We will have someone to take the minutes. We will have someone to take the minutes. Is there a volunteer? I will reluctantly do it. Thank you, Andy. I appreciate that very much. So Andy, you'll take the minutes and this is a recorded meeting. You'll be able to access. As before. Everyone who's on the. Committee. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. It worked well. First order of business is to elect a chair and a vice chair for the coming year. And I'd like to. First start with the election of a chair. Is there a nomination? I saw David Williams handle. David. Yes. I would. Second. Second from Robin. I see another hand up. Is your hand still up, Andy? Or did you withdraw it? I was just going to second. Okay. Are there any other nominations? Or chair. I don't see any. So I guess there's not a need for discussion. Unless someone wishes to raise their hand. I would call for a vote of the committee. And I'll call on you and. Please say. Your vote. David Williams. Yes. Robin Fordham. Yeah. Tim Neil. Hi. Andy McDougal. Hi. And I will vote. I as well. So that's. Five votes. In favor. And. The votes. Vice chair is. We'll need to have nominations and. I guess. I have been the sitting vice chair. I'm no longer. So it's an open position. And I guess the question is who has interest. And. Yes. I will vote. I as well. So that's five votes in favor. And. I guess anyone has a. Desire to nominate someone. I see a hand raised by. Andy. Yeah. Thanks. I don't know whether she has interest, but I would. I would nominate Robin. I am already vice chair of. The historical commission. So. I would. And I'm in my last semester. So I would nominate. The. Master's program. So I would decline that nomination. For those reasons, but I appreciate the support. Okay. So. I'll assume that nominations withdrawn. I saw your hand go up, David was that correct. Yes. I would nominate. Andrew. Right now. Vice chair. I'm going to, I'm going to take the same road as Robin as much as I hate to say it I am. I've got a busy volunteer slate coming up as well with plan. So, I would say also thank you but with respectfully decline at this time. I mean, with members not present. I mean, I certainly would nominate Katie if she were present today so is this something we should delay for next meeting. Can we do that. Do members need to be present to be nominated. I mean if she doesn't have availability might make sense to assess. If she exists for us to delay it if desired I don't think there'd be something occurring between now and then. I don't know if that's a chair decision or a committee vote. Once I opened it up. Is there a consensus among the committee in terms of how they'd like to proceed regarding that. I don't know if I'm going to be nominated among the committee but if I was going to be nominated by chair chair I'd want to be there to be able to decide whether I want to or not so. Well, as well as well to perhaps nominate themselves. Yeah, okay. There's also other members there's David and Tim, who is not present been nominated, who would also be eligible. I would be happy to nominate Tim. Yeah, I have an interest if that's okay. I have the time. I would be happy to nominate Tim, I think it'd be a good fit. I'll second them. Okay. I've heard interest, a nomination and a second. I will proceed with the vote, unless there's additional discussion. Okay. Let me call on the membership and proceed accordingly. Andy. Hi. David. Hi. Robin. Hi. Although I and Tim. I will vote. So the road is five to zero. And I guess we're set with that for now. And thank the members for their nominations and for stepping up to serve in the capacities that's referenced. We have on the agenda. Two outstanding minutes to sets of outstanding minutes to take care of their the minutes of December 9 from last year that were taken by Tim and the minutes of June 30. We're doing second to second of this last year taken by myself. I don't know if everyone's had the opportunity to review them or not. I have, but let's start with the minutes from December 9. Does anyone have. Has everyone been able to read them first off. I'll be abstaining. Tim's read them. I saw Andy's hand go up. I've read them. Andy, go ahead. I have a motion to approve with December 9. I can't remember which date you said December 9. Yes, I have a motion to approve the December 9 minutes. Prior to offering a second I did find one item that would be worth editing, even though I assume it's a type of. I should have emailed it, but I didn't review them until later this afternoon. Under the affordable housing development project. It indicated the original request was for 50,000 and I assume it was supposed to be 500,000 there was a zero missing on the end of that a minor edit but a significant digit, so to speak. Number two, it says the original press was for 500,000 so I requested we had a zero. I did not have any other edits besides that than anyone else find any. I'll second Andy's motion with that edit included. I see that Katie is here. Hello Katie. Can I just clarify a process here who's going to be editing the minutes and sending it to me so that I can post the final minutes on the website. What we've done in the past is the edits I believe have been edited by the original taker. Is that correct that what we did last year, Sonya. I believe so either that or the chair I Sarah took some on so I don't. Can you answer that. I'll allow Tim to make the edit to his minutes if that's okay Tim. Yeah, I, I can do that. It was just and I'll send that final copy to Stania. That would work. Right. Thank you. Yeah. So can we let's have a vote on the minutes of December 9 that Andy has moved and I've seconded. I'm going to be in favor of the meeting with. Yes. Tim. Yes. Andy. Yes. David. Robin. And Katie has joined us. Yes. And so that I believe is a. I think that was five and one extension. Let's go to the minutes of June. I think that was five one abstention. Right now. Andy, myself, David. Katie and Tim is. Five and one obsession. Yeah. Correction. Five folks in favor one extension. Thank you, Sonya. I'm not sure if you've had a chance to read them. Does anyone have any. Suggested edits. Sam, I just had a couple of minor things that I can send to. Were you the. I was. You can go ahead and verbally tell me that. I. I'll just send them to you because I don't have them highlighted here. Substantive. When changed anything, the nature. Okay. They were excellent. Okay. If that's the case. I suggest that we approve the minutes with the minor. Non-substantive edits. According to. Is there a second. Second. Let's vote on the minutes. I'll vote. Yes. Tim. Yes. Andy. Yes. Andy. Hi. And David, I assume you're yes there. Robin. Same. And Katie. Yes. So that would be five in favor and one extension. On the minutes of the second and I'll. Wait for your email and send them to you. Sonya probably tomorrow. Okay. Next item on the agenda is. Just a general overview of the CPA. Process. I added this to the agenda. On the chance that there were. Some potential. Applicants. Who might have questions in the past few years that has occurred. And I wanted to point out to. The community and potential applicants where information exists. Do we have the ability. Sonya to display. Documents that we attached and specifically the application and approval process. Part of the. Added items that I had sent. I don't have your packet. I don't have it. I don't have it. I don't have it. I don't have it. So. So what I'm displaying here is something that the. Members of the committee are familiar with. This is a couple of pages that reside within. The CPA plan. And the CPA plan. Is a document. It's a document. It's a document. It's a document. It's a document. It's about the wealth of information. For any potential applicant. So this is the, these are the specific pages that talk about how. As a committee. We interact with applicants. And we can verbally talk about them here, but I want to call attention to. Pages 14 and 15 of that CPA plan. And then there's a link to the CPA plan. And then there's meeting packets that you can find on the town website under the CPA committee. But there's also. A link that appears within the. Main page, not in any specific packet that references the CPA plan. And. I highly advise for anyone who has. Interest in the community. That they read that plan. It answers. A great many questions that would. Come up both in terms of what types of projects are eligible. The origins and how we go about decision making. It will save applicants. And really anyone involved a lot of. You know, you can focus their thoughts. So there's the CPA plan. That exists on the town website in the packet. And then they're within that there is this applicant. Approval process. Later today, we will show you. We will go over the specific current application. And I'll show you a sample one as well. But for now, the approval process is such. And I'll show you a sample one. This just explains what we do. Essentially, we receive. We put the. We open up the application period, which is going scheduled to occur on. September 1st. There's a form and a link that will be live at that time on the town website. And the applicants will go through and. Answer questions in terms of the project. And then we'll go over the short and timeframe before this current application. We recommend that anyone who has any interest. In. Applying for CPA or submitting proposals that they communicate with the relevant boards, the town boards that are involved in them. There's the, and we have representatives on this committee, but you can also find contact information on the town website. The relevant committees are the historical commission. Housing authority and. Or the municipal. Affordable housing trust as well as the recreation committee. Commission and planning board is a member. It can be of great help to applicants to communicate in advance in particular related to issues of eligibility. And in the historical commission qualification and process to. Go through their review process because we receive recommendations. From the various committees on applications that fall within their purview. Once the communication, once the application process has gone forward. Our committee will then meet. We receive all of the applications. And then we will review them. The town will review them a new step for any issues that they discovered before they send them to our committee. But then the committee will receive the applications and we will. Read them and come up with questions for the. Applicants. All the different members in our committee will submit our questions. We'll consolidate them and send them in one time. And then we will then respond to these questions. Committee members will read them and we'll go. To the next step, which would be a proposal time period where the applicants after asking the questions will be able to present. To the committee and fall relating to their project in a public meeting. There'll be comments that can come from the audience, as well as questions from the board committee members. There may be additional questions that come about from that. There after our committee will after. Hearing all of the different proposals will deliberate. In terms of how we. View the individual projects. And we had a process last year that. We don't vote initially the individual members will come up with their. General ratings based on a process that they use according to the eligibility requirements that exist within the CPA plan. And that's a document that if you can't find, just let us know, we'll send it to you. And then we. Deliberate one thing that occurs prior to that is that we receive the. That's eligible from the town. Financial staff, Sonia and Sean provide that to us. And then we go through an approval process. If there are further questions, we will provide the opportunity for the. Applicants to clarify. And then we will vote on recommendations. For. Funding. To the town council, the CPA committee does not grant the funds. We authorize. We approve and recommend to the town council who has the official vote to release funds. There is later on. Once projects are approved, it's based on the fiscal year cycle. They will start this current year is fiscal year 2024. So that would occur. Start the funds will become available next summer. Excuse me the summer after next. And. There's a reporting requirement as well. Once approved, you'll be notified for an annual update to be provided to the committee on page number. 15. 15 that Sean is showing right here is the approximate timeframe. But we can display the calendar later. That's a general discussion. I didn't want to go into a big slideshow because we've approved it as a committee, this plan and this timeframe. But I wanted to call attention. To it. To the potential applicants and to the community as a whole. For any questions they might have. I realized I've been. Speaking of it here. I'd like to open it up to other. If they have something to add to what I've said. At present. I see a hand from Sean. Sean, I'd like to call on you. Sam, do you want me to just share the calendar now since we went through the sort of, is it helpful to share the calendar with the actual dates for some of those. I think it would be helpful as a visual. Although later on in the agenda will be voting on it. That would be a good idea, Sean. Now. Is this the calendar that's live on the website. Sean currently, or is this one that will be. That's a good question. I don't know if it's on the website yet. It might be off the double check, but it'll go up. If it's not up there. Okay. But is it on the other dates on the CPA webpage? It's in the packet on the webpage. So this is the tentative calendar that the committee will be. Reviewing and confirming later on in this meeting, but this as Sean pointed out, gives an idea of the general steps in the process. Highlighted in red are the deadlines that we're looking at, which would be September 1st. The proposal application. It becomes live. And it closes September 30th. So there's really a 30 day. So that's a good idea. So, I'm going to go to make sure that the proposals are submitted thereafter on Friday, October 14th. Assuming we stay with that. There's a project eligibility review deadline. The staff will look them over to. And distribute. To the committee. The committee will then generate. Questions by. To be distributed to the applicants and the applicants will have a. Short time period, a little less than a week to answer. And there's usually a lot of questions from committee members. So any potential applicants should recognize that the week of October. 28th through November 4th might be a busy one. And then thereafter, we have presentations that will be scheduled. By, I guess, Sonya, do you generate the schedules? Based on how the applicants come in. That's my understanding. And that will be communicated to all the applicants. We'll hear the meetings and depending on. The number. And the time frames allotted. We have slated currently times through. December. December 22nd. December 1st. Excuse me. Four presentations, three weeks. If we have to add more, I suppose we could, but this is the current slate. We then have an annual public meeting where our committee. Public public hearing where a committee deliberates and potentially votes. Last year, what we did was deliberate thoroughly discuss each proposal prior to voting. And then the subsequent meeting we voted. We've allocated Thursday, December 8th, as well as. We also have a meeting that will be held on Thursday, December 15th for potential deliberations thereafter. Once the votes are final, we then write up a report and send it to the town council. So this calendar is another helpful resource to potential applicants. So thank you, Sean. Any. Anything to add for many committee members. I don't see anything. I do see a question in the audience. I'd like to. I don't see any public meeting. So I'd like to go to the next item on the agenda. If there are questions. Or comments, excuse me, public comment from the audience. I see one hand is up at present. This is. Thanks. I'll be in touch if I can't figure it out. Okay. That's a good comment. Thank you. Is there any, there was a question about getting the slides that were up, you know, the. Yes, I answered that. Yeah. Just to be, just to be clear. Yeah. And that was the responses. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Yeah. Sam, I had a quick question. Yeah. Is that appropriate? Yeah, certainly. Go ahead. I, first of all, thank you. This is, I, I was so appreciative of the schedule. I think it feels. And I appreciate the staff is reviewing the eligibility too. And I just wondered. If, and this probably is already in the plan, but just to confirm that those that don't meet eligibility that we would just at least see what those projects were. That were, you know, the applications. Even if we're not reviewing the applications, which I see what they were, just sort of a curiosity to see what other, what people are looking for. And if that's possible, it certainly makes sense for us to. Be aware of. What's been presented. And I think the committee needs to be informed of those. But in the past, we've had a couple of proposals recently. That we can all remember where we had a lot of discussion about eligibility. And we wound up going back to two town staff to. Provide guidance on. You know, whether they qualified, we had to interact with the town legal counsel. But Sonya. I would assume we'd be able to see applications. Even if they just what the, what the request was for. I don't necessarily need, I'm just, I'm so appreciative of the staff doing that because it is a huge help to weed out those that aren't eligible for, of course, but just knowing what people were asking for would be of interest to me. Thank you. I'll get, they'll all get posted on the website. Good point and good. Thank you for bringing that up now. We have the opportunity for comments from the audience. I also see some questions here. And I'll get to the questions in a bit. Are there any public comments from anyone. Attending in the community. And I believe raise your hands. I'm not seeing anyone. Now this is my first time reviewing them. Sonya and Sean to either of you see any. Hands raised in the audience. No. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and read questions that have come in. I see one from. Steven maybe, which is our multiple bids required for the application. We don't have a standard requirement at present. It's something that the committee is. Has discussed as a recommendation that might be a benefit, particularly to some types of projects that are. Fitting with contractors. This came up. We have not as of yet made this a requirement. Robin, I see your hand up. I assume it's in relation to this question. Is that correct? Yeah. I just had a quick comment that. I think it's. In terms of, I know in terms of historical. Preservation projects that can be sometimes difficult to get. Three. Separate bids, but that. Wondering if it's possible to just suggest. That people at least reach out. More than one. And. Report on the. The effort to get more than one estimate in the case where. I'll just add that it bids are required. We have to follow procurement laws. If the town is involved, if it's third party. Group. Then it's aren't required. Higher procurement laws. So there's the answer. The committee is. Considering adapting our letter to reference the. Benefits and interest in having multiple bids, but. We have not. Changed the process as of this moment. Another question that we have here is our cost estimates. Accompany in the application required to use prevailing wage. This came up. Last year. And I don't believe that we render an opinion on that. Is that correct? Sonia. I think it's pretty much the same answer. If it turns into a town job like the. I like the pickleball courts because the DPW will be doing it. We would have to follow all procurement laws, which would include prevailing wage. A third party. I don't believe they required to do that. Yeah. So just to confirm with Sonia said, I'm put up a chart from the CPAC website. And this is sort of a useful guide. So depending who the property owner is. And who's administering it. Let you know whether procurement and prevailing wage laws apply. If it's a public building or if the town's involved in administering it, everything applies. If it's private entity and it's being administered privately, then they don't. And can this be where can someone find this? Who wishes to read in more detail what you've just displayed, Sean. We can maybe we can kind of retroactively, I guess, add some links to the packet. So the, I guess we should just say if people are interested in looking into the details. The CPA coalition has a website that has lots of information on it. Frequently asked questions, all the, you know, it's usually where we go for clarification on issues. So we can put a, I can put a link to this in the chat. And, and then people can go and visit it. And that, that website to my understanding is www.communitypreservation.org. And that's a state run. Actually, I don't know if it's a state run, but it's not state, but it's the state works very closely with them. They work closely with this state and their charter is to assist and expand CPA. Adoption and operations throughout the state. It's extremely helpful. So I just want to underscore what Sean has said. If you could add that to the packet or and they'll put the link in the chat, it might be helpful. Andy, I see your hand is up. Yeah, I was just going to ask Sean, if you wouldn't mind at least maybe emailing me that just so I can get it in the minutes. I don't know if the chat is persistent in the video. Yeah, we'll do it right now. Okay, thanks. And then I guess the other thing I was just going to say in the bids is that, you know, we get requests for more money than we have. So, you know, if you can get multiple bids, you'll be able to have options for, you know, a lower, hopefully to be able to get the work done at a lower cost, which should make the project more likely to be approved, right? If we have, again, if we're horse racing projects against each other, you know, we're working with the money we have. So I would just continue to encourage people to do whatever they can to drive, you know, the best bid that they can get before they come to us. And I understand it's not a requirement, but I think it is important to point out that, you know, we can only, we can only use what we have. Thank you, Andy. And I'd like to add to that, that getting multiple bids is to the benefit of everyone. It's not simply for the committee's finances, but there's information gained from four applicants and four project managers, aside from the cost implications, potentially. So thank you. There's another question here, which is, will you, from Ellen Kosmar, will you consider proposals for funding if the project has already begun? That's a question related to eligibility. I'm, I'm not sure that we're able to provide funds for projects, but it's something I'd like to review with certainty. Robin, I see your hands up. Oh yeah, I was just going to comment that my understanding, and I'm sure the town kind of give us the full definition is that we certainly can't fund any work that's already been completed. And it may be, maybe the question is, can we fund work that is for a project that's started yet completed? Yeah, right, right. Not yet completed, but if it's begun currently thing, that's not the retroactive payments can't be made. Retroactive payments cannot be made in terms of the slicing of that question. I'm not sure. Although one thing to recognize is that the fiscal year for, that we're discussing is not the current calendar year. This is sometime in the future. So the odds are that a project that has begun would be delayed for the purpose of an application is something that probably doesn't make a lot of sense. So hopefully our responses provided some feedback on that. We certainly can't pay retroactive before it's already been done. I see Sean. Do you have a comment, Sean, related to this? It said, it says in the question, you'd like to answer the question live. Pardon. Sorry, I'm just saying that it was answered live. So I'm going to move it to the answer category. Yeah. So I guess those are the questions that we have heard from the audience. I give it one more opportunity for public comment from attendees. So I'm not seeing any or hearing any. So I'd like to reiterate again, because I think it's of great importance. For the town, for the committee and for the community that anyone who has interest in CPA and it's a fantastic program. Please take the time to read the CPA plan that exists on the town website in this packet and look at the details within in terms of eligibility. Look at the application process and the committee review process in that plan. But also do in advance, although the application for this cycle is going to be opening up shortly, hopefully September 1st with a 30 day cycle. There's nothing preventing potential applicants from contacting and starting on their projects well in advance and communicating with the different town committees, whether particularly of importance for historic historical commission, because there are issues related to being on the register and how the historical commission views things, but also for other projects. So we may or may not as a committee have a session and seek to provide information earlier in the cycle next year, but you can do, you can assist your process and inform yourself greatly by looking at what we have. Any other comments from the committee on this subject. See your hand is up, Robin. Is that from before or currently? That's for, sorry about that. Okay. So I guess we're all set with this agenda item and I'd like to move on to the next item, which is review financials. So I'm gonna move on to that. Now, is this something that you're. Prepared to talk about before you bring that up. Okay. So we are hoping. That this year's. Fund balance is going to close out at the 2.3 million at the top here. It's not final yet. So this could change the, both of these years 23 is still an estimate. made revenue budgets at the same time, which can get kind of crazy. So for beginning for 23, we're shutting off 2.3 million. We're estimating our assessed local tax at a million and then our state match at 350,000. And that's 35% because that's what the state guideline was for this year, that we should be getting sometime in November. That could go up, which will add more money to the bottom line, but at this point, we haven't received it yet. So what we had for 23 available is 3,666. And we appropriated the 2,346 for the fiscal year 23 process, which, and we had a budgeted reserve of 533105. We had a lot of returned appropriations this year that totaled from 158,000 dollars. So I'm estimating for fiscal year 23 and it's gonna change because more returned appropriations might happen. We might end up with more state money. A lot of things could change on that. So we're starting with a beginning balance of 1.146 for fiscal year 24. We're estimating 1.1 million. I added extra 100,000 on there because our sort of charges start to slowly grow. And we're only estimating 25% at this point for state match because this is for fiscal year 24, not the current fiscal year, which the state just gave us for 35. So we wanna stay conservative because we don't know where the economy's going at this point, which leaves us an available of 2.4 million, almost 2.5 million. From there, we have to pay our debt service. So that's a no. So what's left is 1.8 million for the fiscal year 24 budget cycle. Now, if we don't spend that 533 budgeted reserve for something between now and July, or when we decide we're gonna spend it whether we wanna add it to this, the bottom line here could grow by $500,000. But we have that budget reserve, we put that there, the committee decided that if things come up during the year, the only way we would be able to convene and fund it is through a borrowing. And unless you actually put that money aside so that you've been appropriate from it. Did I confuse everybody? Sonia, can I just also add that the debt service number in orange that includes an estimate for the regional track project that was just recently approved and also the Jones library, right? Sonia, those are both, those estimates are in there. Right. That's taken from last year's debt schedule that was in the packets. Any comments or questions from the committee? I can't see the screen at this moment one moment. I can't see if there are any hands up. Sam, I do. Actually, do you mind putting the screen share back up just so I can track the numbers? I'm embarrassed because every year I don't like forget which number we're looking at. As we think about what our committee's trying to accomplish this year, are we looking at the fiscal year 2023 or the fiscal year 2024? 24. Okay. So the 23 carries down the estimated budget. So you're looking at 1.8 million at this point in time. With a potential for an extra 533 for any year, depending on what we do with that. And then remind me if we decide, so if by the June 30th, we don't find anything, it just, where does that money end up going? It falls back to the fund balance, but the problem with June 30th is we would have already gone through the whole process for 24. So if you decide there's projects really worthy of using that money for the fiscal year 24, the committee will have to decide to let that be part of it. Okay. So as we review the projects here, we'll see what the overall ask is and then determine if we want to hit that reserve. Correct? Yes. Perfect. Thanks. No, I ask it every time. It's okay. It's confusing. Tim. Yes, Sonia, could you remind us what last year's total requests were? We finalized the 2.3, which was voted by the town council. So I was just curious what last year's total requests were. Do you remember? I didn't bring that home with me, so I don't have it, but I'll get it to you. And I think it's in the report. Is it described in the report from last year, Sonia? It should be. The recommendations. Okay. Oh, yes. Oh, I understand all that. I just don't have it. I was just trying to understand the relationship to the 1.8 that is available. If we got similar kinds of projects, they might exceed it by, I don't know, X percent or something like that. So I was just curious. Okay. There's a question from the audience, Sonia and Sean says, just curious from Carol Lewis, there is no debt service fiscal year 24, none in fiscal year 23. Question mark. I think they're asking if there's debt service in either of those years. It's all consolidated in that 2. something million. So yes, there was debt service in 23 as well. Right. It's just not broken out separately. The details in the various fundings and projects are available separate from this meeting. Everything's in the, in the CPI report that's online. Okay. I have a question for you, Sonia, related to the financials. And we were talking about the budgeted reserve, which at one point was 600,000 right now is 533105. In your time on the committee has, what's the lowest you've seen the budgeted preserve go for? Zero. Zero. Okay. And we got a comment. We haven't really, we haven't, we started doing the timing of when we do CPA now so that it times right with the JCPC process. It kind of cuts it short. We used to not do it until later in the year. So there was no money available to appropriate for CPA projects came up. The only thing we could do is, is do a borrowing authorization. And the DOR says we have to budget a reserve if we want it to be available. Even though we're using estimated revenues, we still have to budget a reserve if we want it to be available for further appropriation once the tax rate is set. Our, correct me if, tell me if I'm correct was the Kendrick Park and or the track. I thought I heard Sean said that were those both voted on using reserves or not? Kendrick Park. Kendrick Park, I recall we had a allocation in December outside of our standard. I'd have to go back and look. Okay. Okay. Any other questions on the financials from anyone? Just to clarify on those two, Sam, I think those were both debt authorizations. The track one for sure. That's right. And Kendrick Park. So you're right, they were off cycle, but they weren't from the reserve because they were debt. So that was update on prior balances and discuss any issues. No, excuse me. That was reviewed financials. The next item on the agenda is review proposal letter, dates and discuss any changes if needed. Are you able Sean to put the application on the website? So I had in the packet sent a sample application. It's redundant because I didn't realize this one was available as of yet, but this what we're looking at here, if I understand it correctly, is the tentative application that will appear on September 1st. Is that right, Sean? Yeah, yep. This is what would, the form will become available and we'll put a link on the CPA proposal project page. So many, you know, we can go sort of paragraph by paragraph and if there's any changes, we can make those edits. I can make note of it now. There were in the prior cycle, a couple of questions that came up or suggestions. One was the addition of a physical address or if applicable for projects. And the question related also associated with that is, did we want to add a field to include preferred timeframes and or contact information for any site visits? My own belief is that a physical address would be desirable. I'd like to open up to committee if they have any comments related to including address and or question related to site visits. I see a thumbs up from Andy. Is that related to both the address and site visits? Yes. Okay. And I saw Tim's hand go up. Do you have any comments or is that just also a green? Oh, no, no, no, that was a, I agree with the suggestion. Okay. Katie, I see your hand up. Yeah, Sam, I agree with adding both of those. Just maybe with an asterisk around site visit because that's maybe that's somewhere here, but I know it's not required. And so just to be clear when you said about, you know, potential timeframe, that it's not a requirement right now is my understanding. And so just so people, pardon me, Sonia. It's not a requirement. Right. And so, you know, I just don't want there to be a misunderstanding of that or it's just clarity sake. Do you have a suggested phraseology? Um, well, maybe it's, maybe it's a physical address and then we could ask, you know, if there's... We could just put a question on here, asking if the site visit is permissible. I mean, it might be someone's private home and they might not want to go around. Yeah. It's not required. It's not permissible enough. So what's the time frames? I don't know which hand came up first, Andy. I mean, I assume it was you. Yeah. Not just kind of wrestling with the thought here. Can we make it, like could we make it a requirement and be within the CPAC parameters? Cause while I understand and I'm sympathetic to not people, not perhaps wanting to welcome strangers into their homes, they are asking for, they could be asking for a fair amount of money. And I feel like for us to make an educated decision it would be important to understand as much of the context as possible. I don't have an immediate answer for that. That's a question posed for the committee. Tim? Yes. I have some concern for the applicant if each of us individually without consulting others show up for our own personal site visit. So I think we need some more clarity. Is this going to be a group site visit by the whole committee or I just want to avoid six or seven people showing up at different times and talking about this projects and having someone give a tour, et cetera, et cetera, without coordination of the entire committee. And I could see a problem with that already because if you have a quorum of the committee going to a site visit, then you're violating public. Well, I think we should check with the town council on that whether we can require it because I don't know if there's a liability issue or so I think we need to... That's a good question. We could add a question because it's possible that the project, I don't know if they have somebody on site we could ask them if maybe we do have to ask the town council. I wouldn't envision a liability issue with visiting, but that's just my opinion. We certainly, it sounds like want to add the physical address of Robin. Yeah, the historical commission just do site visits pretty regularly when we have demolition delay reviews they're usually scheduled by our staff assistant. And my understanding is that we can meet with the quorum as long as we don't deliberate while we're there. So while we're there, we don't speak of anything related to the project, but yeah. You mean not asking questions? Yeah, not asking questions. And we can ask questions of the applicant but we cannot deliberate with each other. So we don't speak to each other about the issue at hand. Andy? Yeah, I was going to just add on what Robin said. So on planning board, we can meet, we can ask questions but all that has to be then stated. We can't deliberate. And then we have a site visit report as part of a public meeting that documents what we saw. If there's a quorum. Well, no, for any site visit. So if we do, if we'll do a site visit as part of the presentation at the next board meeting folks who attend the visit will report out on what they observed and what they heard. And they are free to ask questions. It's just Robin's exactly right. We can't deliberate, but we can certainly seek information and it just has to then be shared to the public. I saw Katie withdrew from hand. Well, that could add a bit of work if there's report generation requirements. I personally see the advantage of being able to look at projects, I've gone to them and looked because I wanted to know what they were. And it's informative. And for me, an important part of any review of a process it'd be, I could see benefit in having a way for that to work. My thought and what can you talk about this? That would be that we ask them if there's a contact person and or a preferred time where individuals might be able to meet leaving it open-ended. That's just a thought. Katie? Well, I was just wondering if we, we're talking about the application, right? So we're saying we'd like the physical address. I think we're, seems like we're in agreement with that. And maybe we leave it that unless we want to deliberate right now about having a site visit as a, I would sort of propose to have if we were to do site visits that we assign them so we don't all go to all of them. First of all, that helps with the quorum with the public meeting issue, but also the amount of time and effort and energy put toward it. So if we were going to deliberate, like we should do that. And then to your point, then we could add something to the application or we could simply add the physical address and then talk about this as an option this year to kind of test out. And we could call folks or email them or contact the person if we want to do that. I'm hearing differing comments, a lack of consensus from the committee. So I'm hesitant to require it, certainly at a minimum. Yes, Tim? One suggestion might be in when the physical address is listed, perhaps having a sub comment that committee members may review the site, but if there's any discussion with an appropriate applicant that the committee will more formal committee site visit or something like that. I just wondered, for example, the last year, all of us might have driven up to the North cemetery and looked at the fence. That's technically a site visit, I guess. You drive by or you so on. I do know when I visited the playground at the elementary school, I contacted the principal's office before I snooped around just because I didn't want people wondering who this guy was looking around the property. So there's a matter of courtesy too. So that's something else to consider. Andy? Yeah, I would be in favor of actually having a more formal visit and any of the members can attend. And then that limits the visits, because I do, Tim, I think your point earlier about people just showing up random times as a really good one, is that we ask them to work with the committee. We'll schedule a 30-minute window. I think that if they're asking for money, there probably is an expectation that people will want to come and do some due diligence and try to learn about the project. So I don't think it's an unreasonable ask. And as long as we're not deliberating, we're not violating open meeting law. I think it would be useful to have that formal meeting, whoever can make it can make it. We ask questions, we share that with the... What if we, forgive me, what if we adjacent to the physical address added a comment such as Tim suggested, but in the previous one that says, committee members may contact person, committee members may have an interest in contacting the applicant regarding a site visit. In other words, not mandating it, but letting them know we might contact them and then we could, we wouldn't have to have everyone attend. We did this with the Jones Library about three years ago, I believe, where four of us attended, where three of us attended, but they offered it. But it wasn't, it was a formal offer from the applicant, but we didn't have everyone attend. And I'm trying to wonder if there's a way to let them know that we, there may be members that have an interest in visiting and who might we schedule or coordinate that with without formalizing it as a requirement. Before I respond, maybe recognize Sean as he's got his hand up. Just two things, I mean, trying to keep this as straightforward on the application as possible. I think Katie mentioned maybe just have a site visit question that says, you know, is it an option? Yes or no, and I can put a parenthesis next to it. If yes, someone will contact you or who do we contact to set that up? And I would just say think about the potential that you might have 15 applications and you know, are you going to go visit all 15 and are you going to block out a Saturday and do that? And just the logistics that go along with that because I think it, you know, it would be, there might be some fairness questions if you visit some projects and not others. So just keep that in mind. And some projects, you know, the site visit may not be appropriate, right? If it's a to fund a program as opposed to a, as opposed to a construction project or something like that. Sure. And this question is interesting one. Andy, I see your hand up. Oh yeah, legacy. I mean, I think we can, I think we sort of make very good points to pursue any one of these options. I'll just say I would be in favor of asking for a single visit any committee member who's interested in attending can attend and maybe there's some where nobody would attend. And, you know, we just, we would let the apps can know and you know, it would be, it would just be a non-event, but anyhow, like I said, I see good points on either side, but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking lots of money at play here. I think it's worth doing as much due diligence as we can. My thoughts hearing the comments are that Jason, that we leave it open for the committee to decide not necessarily on the application, but rather have the physical address along with a comment or statement that there may be interest from the committee to visit the site, who might we, who would be an appropriate contact person if different from the project person because there may be somebody submitting the project for somebody who lives there and then leave an open field for any comments. Keeping it short, but not mandated. I'm not sure what the best phraseology for that would be, but I think that would likely be the best avenue for us to proceed without having it a requirement for and see how it goes this fall. Tim. I was just gonna suggest maybe a statement saying site visits are highly recommended, but not required and who if and then put, if, which, who would be the contact person if a site visit is necessary or is recommended or something like that. Site visits, I agree with Andy's point that I think we should let the applicants know that particularly those who are requesting funds for physical structures that site visits are recommended. Recommended for the applicant or for the, for the committee. The committee feels they're highly desirable. Desirable. As opposed to mandatory, I suppose we, although I would lean towards the mandatory. I, for example, last year that project, I forget that the project request for the housing up on near the middle school, I forget the project name now, but until I drove by and looked at the condition of all the painting, I would have had a very different viewpoint in terms of whether I felt comfortable regarding the disbursement of funds. So. Any other thoughts, Sean? So if it's okay with the committee, Sonya and I could draft some language what those two questions would look like send it to you all tomorrow and just get us your feedback by Monday so that we can get it into the application. That makes sense to me. We certainly want the physical address and it sounds like we want a reference to the desirability of visiting without it being a, at least there's not consensus on that. It's not unanimous regarding the mandate for visitations. That would be my recommendation as well that we let them know we're probably gonna want to visit who would we contact, but it is taking some time so we could move on. Go ahead, Sean. Can I just add, those questions can also be asked during the presentations when the presenters are there presenting the project. I mean, we could ask about site visits then as well. Yes, yeah, we could. Although there can be some benefit from seeing the project prior to meeting them in person to ask questions. I gain benefit. I see what Tim says. So I don't think we have a meeting answer to it from consensus in the committee that I'm hearing. My thoughts are physical address for sure and reference in one way or another the desirability of a site visits and who might we contact. That would be my recommendation. Let's see what Sean, you think in terms of that and come back to us with it. But in terms of physical address, we know that we wanna feel that says please provide physical address. Other items on the application. This is longer but important discussion than anticipated. Does anyone else have other aspects of the application that they would like to reference? I have one and I don't know if we wanna include or not but I'd like to open it up for the committee to converse briefly. My comment was in the budget section. Do we wish to reference because I don't believe we'll be referencing anywhere else. The desirability or rather please include any quotation estimates you received as a part of your budgeting process, the consideration of multiple estimates is encouraged. Do we wanna have anything like that on this application or it's too much? I'm curious what if any thoughts exist with other committee members regarding that. Andy. Thanks, I liked the idea. I think Robin makes a good point where some of the work is so specialized they may not be able to have multiple quotes. So I think just some sort of documentation on the efforts that have been made would be useful. Please include any quotation estimates. Or just efforts to get multiple quotes, right? I talked to the specialist, they weren't interested but I did make efforts to do that. Seems like a reasonable request. Please include any quotation estimates or information gathered regarding estimates. Yeah, I think companies that or whatever companies that you have approached about obtaining estimates and any information shared. Please include that. Not a grammarian or word smith person but anyway, that's a general thought. Please include any quotation estimates or any content. If I could jump in, I would just say please include estimates and then put the new sentence. If you're not able to contact us but we're not able to receive estimates just for information. Sorry, I thought I could do a better job than that. I'm wrong. Tim? Can't hear you. You must be on mute. Oh no, I was, did you hear that? Did you hear my garbled attention? We heard you Robin, I called on Tim but we can't hear Tim. Still can't hear you. At least I can't hear you. Can anyone else hear Tim? Sorry, because I was muted, I apologize. OK, one question might be after we ask for the project dollar request, we might have, maybe we already do, I can't remember, right underneath it, we might, how did you arrive at this figure or a dollar request or figure, something like that, very simple. And some might say we winged it, some might say we got quotes. Without getting terribly technical, that might be one option. Sean? So we have a section near the budget says description of funding needed. And then underneath that box it says include cost estimates and other sources of funding. So we could expand on the include cost estimates and other sources of funding to say. This is the, in your packet, it's on page 14 of 15. Oh, OK. Includes cost estimates and other sources, cost estimates for expected or cost estimates that they've received from, is it redundant, I guess? Yeah, I mean, I was thinking we could add to this section include if not multiple quotes, document efforts to secure multiple quotes or something that gets to what's been described. That would work quite well, I believe. Andy? I thought Tim's language was perfect. Just please explain how you arrived at this estimate. And where would you recommend putting that? In the correct place. I would have it in front of me. I'm not sure. But wherever it would be logical. I think simple is good. People are going to take multiple paths. I think we understand that. And I think it provides some structure and flexibility. I would recommend putting it where Sean referenced under the description of funding needed, include any cost, because it currently says include cost estimates and other sources of funding, comma, any quotations received? What do you think, Tim? I was going to, if we said by original statement of how did you arrive at these figures, parentheses, quotes, others funding sources, benchmarks, et cetera, end quote, something like that. My thought, I hear what you're saying is phrased well. My thought of the amendment that may show on and or sign the suggestion, I mean, we got the general sense, but maybe they could come up with some language for that too. Yeah, I think we have the, we know what you want to do. Yeah, I think we've got it. OK, any other recommendations or thoughts regarding the application in its current form? So if I, to summarize, if I understand, we're seeking to add a physical address with a suggestive comment for a site visit. We are suggesting adding a reference to multiple estimates and quotations received in the description of funding needed or in the budget. And I believe those are the only two items that we were included in the contract. OK, any other comments on this so we can proceed? And we currently have a calendar just to bring the attention of committee again, because it relates to this application. Sean, could you put that back up again? The calendar, please. OK, so we have, Sonia has put together a schedule that works for the town and it seems to work for the committee. I just want to make the committee aware, committee members aware that we have the application opening. Goes live on the website as of September 1st and that it closes on Friday, September 30th with the new item of the town reviewing projects for issues and or eligibility. That's the interim stuff that's been added. And the question response time for applicants is six days from Friday, October 28th through Friday, November 4th. If anyone has any comments or issues related to the September 1 application deadline, now it's time to speak. But for me, it works. And that's what we have on our application. Any comments from anyone? OK, so I think we're set with the application. I think the comments made will lead to continuous improvement on that. Let me look at our agenda here. Discuss deadlines and timelines for upcoming meetings. I think we just sort of did that. Does anyone have any other comments, questions, or issues with the general schedule that's presented here? I can't think of any other topics that I did not reasonably anticipate. Yes, Sam. I just thought of the meeting question. When do you think we will meet in person as opposed to Zoom or any thoughts on that? That's a very good question. And there certainly are benefits of meeting in person from a connection issue, from an interpersonal communication relationship. I need to check with the town, but I believe it's flexible at present. Is that correct to your knowledge, Sonia? I may need to, we may need to find out if we're able to meet in person. I think we are. So right now, we're not flexible. We're doing remote. There may come a time where we could do, or may have that flexibility, but because of the technology, I think I'm pretty sure Sonia will ask you for otherwise. We're doing remote for all of our meetings. Is this a COVID issue? Is this the last time we meet? So generally, it's been either remote or hybrid. And to do hybrid requires RIT staff. So we're really only doing hybrid for the council because there's a lot that goes into doing the Zoom simultaneously with people in the room. Is that, would there be any anticipated change in that in the future? I think you might, we'll talk with the town manager to see what his timeline is, but I don't think it's changing any time in the near future. There are some benefits that members have brought up, at least my attention in terms of that. No, we could follow up with them and just I'll clarify whether there's an option. My guess is if there is an option, it's going to be all one way or the other. It's not going to want to be a hybrid option, but we'll follow up with the town manager and I can let you know that information. My guess is the community members who aren't on the board appreciate the capacity to link in remotely. But yes, Andy. Just kind of joking. You want to make those side visits mandatory now, Sam, that way we can see each other. In jest. Yes, you're all welcome to come to Cape Cod. That will work just fine. We can table that thought. So I don't see any, I don't have any other items, topics that were not reasonably anticipated. I do want to, most of us were here last year. I do want to welcome Robin back again formally for the committee. It's good to have you here. Should have done that to start. Despite your jet lag, we're glad that you're here. Our next meeting, according to the calendar, unless something changes, is currently scheduled for, it's the presentations, is it not? Application, proposal deadlines. Yeah, November 4th, maybe. It's not listed as November 3rd, maybe it's the 3rd. It's not till the 10th, OK. Am I missing something? I guess we can review this to see if we need to sneak a meeting in there. But I believe we went last year straight from the questions and answers to meetings, to presentations, excuse me. We were able to remotely gather our questions, communicate them. Yes, Tim? Yeah, just a question. So Anja, can you send out a list of the current committee members with their terms and the group that they're affiliated with and so on? I just can't seem to find that. Always find that helpful to have it right in front of me. Do you want to? We have three vacancies at the moment, so we're going to fill those. But they should be on the website. They are. All right, fine. Although the terms need to be updated, I believe. Yeah, I don't think it's fully updated yet. There's a lot of things in flux that, hopefully, by the next council meeting might be established and we'll update the list. OK. Yes, Andy. Did you raise your hand again, Andy? Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't hear. Yeah, I was going to just say on the planning board, we've got some new members and we have not yet voted on assignments, so if there's a possibility, there may be a new planning board representative. And we currently have Tim in response to your general question where there are vacancies at present or that has yet to be filled for recreation. Once Sarah stepped down, we're awaiting feedback from planning and from housing. But until any such notification or occurrence happens, the existing members continue to participate. And thank you to David and to Andy. And it would be great to see you continue, if you wish. And if your committees wish. But we also have vacancy at the conservation commission and from Anna once she left. And we have a vacancy for some Sharon Eisenhower's position. I was, as I said at the start of the meeting, contacted by the town manager's office regarding interviews. And I'm not sure which positions those were related to. I believe it's just the enlarged position currently. But the town staff is aware of vacancies, our committee and the benefits of having a full group of nine. And hopefully that will continue. So having said that, unless there's something else of urgency, we don't know that we need to have a motion to end the meeting. I believe we can just call it ended. So I will end the meeting at 7 27 PM. And everyone will be notified of our next meeting. Thank you all for attending. It's good to see you all again. And thanks, everyone, for their assistance. And hopefully we'll see what kind of slate we get coming up. Should be interesting. Hi, everybody.