 So seeing the presence of a quorum, I'm going to call this meeting of governance, organization and legislation to order. It is going to my watch, 1032. This meeting is being recorded and pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th order of 2020, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. This meeting of GOL is being conducted via remote participation. I'm going to just check and make sure everybody can be heard. And so start with Pat. Yes. And Lynn. Yes. And Mandy and Andrew. Yes. All right. So all committee members are present and can be heard. We're going to, we have three major items on our agenda today. The first is the interviews and then we plan, I believe to discuss and hopefully have a vote. I've invited Paul Bacchum and the town manager at 1145 to talk about the timeline. And if we're still engaged in our discussion, I'm going to suggest that we pause that and speak with the town manager and then go back to our discussion. And then we have two resolutions or two proclamations, excuse me, that we need to review today, hopefully. So we've got a full agenda and I'm going to start with the interviews and just to make sure everyone's okay. Last time what we did is each counselor was invited, each member of the committee was invited to ask a question. They have a follow-up if they wish. And I'm going to begin this time, I think at the back of the other bus, I'll start with Andy and then move the other way, but I try to mix it up a bit. So I'm hoping everyone has a question in mind. And once that's done, we'll move to the next interview. We have three and the first interview, E is Jane Schaeffler, whom we have interviewed once before. So Jane is our first interview, E and then Matt Holloway follows and then Joe Kim is our third. So it's in that order. And I'm hoping we can do each in about 15 minutes. So if we're okay with the procedure, I'm going to invite Jane into the meeting and we'll proceed with the interview. Good morning, Jane. Hello. Hello again. I think you've met everybody before. It's still the same old folks. And we have, for the public, we've actually interviewed Jane once before, a few months ago, and she is a candidate for this position again. And so I'm going to, without further ado, I'm going to turn to Andy and ask him if he has a question for Jane. Okay. Well, good morning, Jane. And thank you for sticking with us and coming back and showing your continuing interest. I appreciate that. I was, since I'm chair of the finance committee and it's also an opportunity to pose questions or thoughts to me. Interested to know whether you've had a chance to watch any of the finance committee meetings or look at finance committee packet material. And if there's anything that either intrigued you or gives you hesitation if you've done that. Sure. I unfortunately have not had a chance to do that. It's the last several months have been very 2020 for my family. And I'm actually currently in San Diego at my mother-in-law's house. My husband and I just had twins in September. And we came to, thank you. We came to California to have them because they were born early. And so I've been keeping up with my historical commission stuff, but I haven't really had the opportunity to delve into watching any of the other available resources that the town has. Well, George. Okay, sure. Sure. Mandy, if you would. You muted me, Andy. I totally forgot I'd actually muted myself. So welcome back and maybe someday we'll actually get to meet you in person. Right. But yeah, and congratulations on the twins. Thank you. The last time we saw you, you stated that you believed community members of the finance committee can be an additional link to the residents and give them a voice. Can you expound on that in some ways and how you would work to make that vision and that belief a reality? Sure. I think that there are people who want to participate in local government, but maybe don't know how. And so I think if you know someone who's already participating, it's sort of an easy entry level in. And I think there are certain things that you feel more comfortable like talking to your neighbor about than say putting on blast on next door. And so I think there's something nice about being a community member. And additionally, because my husband works at UMass, meeting other people who are new to the community and trying to get their voices heard too. And so mainly just thinking that not that you guys aren't approachable, but I know I would have been intimidated like 10 years ago, whereas I'm not now. And so it's just kind of just the opportunity to liaise between the community and town leadership. I think it's mainly just because, I'm sorry, I did not have as much sleep as I normally do myself when I have that in coffee. But really it's just, I think it's the approachability of like, it's a lot easier to complain about something to your neighbor than it is to be like, hey, I'm gonna go write a letter to the finance committee about this. I do think that we have people in Amherst who are very willing to have their voices heard and aren't necessarily in need of talking to their neighbor about it. But I do think it's an interesting way to get perspective. It's just talking to regular folk at the playground and hearing what they're saying. It's a little harder to do now with COVID, but thank you. Lynn, if you have a question, please. Yeah, first of all, we can all sympathize with you on maybe you're also on the other coast. So your time clock is just a little messed up for many, many reasons. Can you just talk about what you think are some of the major financial issues that the town will be faced with in the next year or two? That's a big question. I think- Just a few. I mean, I know that a lot of the businesses in the local economy are really struggling because of COVID. There's a lot of uncertainty as far as government funding and things, although I feel like given the election results, it feels a little less intimidating to think about what the budget of the greater United States looks like. But we also, because we're an older town, we've got infrastructure that needs to be taken care of. We've got, with my experience on the historical commission, I know looking at things like how do we maintain and upkeep some of our historic cemeteries without adding any damage. And so I think there's this balance of old versus new that we're sort of always walking the line up in Amherst because we've got such a rich and deep history. And so I think it's trying to navigate how we use the town finances to move the town forward. Well, we also don't lose some of these unique features that we have, what's being such a robust historical area, if that makes sense. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, Pat, do you have a question? Yeah, I'm actually gonna build a little on Mandy Jo's question about reaching out to residents. Racial equity is a critical issue here in town on so many levels. So I'm interested in how you see yourself reaching out to the BIPOC community. And how would you do that? I mean, I think it's just a matter of talking to people and not being afraid to talk to them and approaching them in areas. I mean, like I said, I have a four year old so we go to the playground. So I talk to other parents at the playground, things like that. And we're very fortunate the preschool my son goes to when it's not closed because of COVID is a very diverse, unique group of kids who come from all over and their parents are from all over. And that's been a really good way to meet and learn about other communities within Amherst. Thank you. Anyone have a follow-up question or a second question I'd like to offer Lynn, please. Yeah, actually it builds on these. And you mentioned that you are a member of the Historic Commission. Thank you for your service on that. And you also mentioned how being out in the public going to playgrounds with kids, seeing other parents. Are there other ways in which you are engaged across the town? And I don't mean just with town, not just with town government issues but anything with regard to the town. So I have a book club that I started on Meetup that has I think the last time I checked 400 members in the community area, we do go, I do have members as far out as Vermont and Connecticut. But we've got a lot of people from within Amherst, Northampton, Eastampton, that area. And that's been one way that I've really connected to people in the area. I also have a running club that has much less interest than the book club does. But I've been, because we've only lived in Amherst for about two and a half years, I tried to really hit the ground running with trying to establish a social network for myself. And so the way that I've done that is through creating these two Meetup groups. And it's been a really good way to meet other people in the area, especially in Amherst. Great, thank you. Okay. Anyone else with a follow up by Andy? You're muted, Andy. Hi. So one of the things that I thought about is you were giving prior responses is you talked about your use of playgrounds and how important they are with young children. You've talked about your service in the Star Commission. And it got me thinking, as you were saying that, I don't know, I think you may by now through the Star Club Commission work have become a little bit familiar with the Community Preservation Act. And, you know, CPA is the increment of tax funding that is a special category that has its own budget process. It's a little bit different from the regular town budget process. And there are very defined uses according to state law about how that fund can be used. And part of it is historic preservation. Part of it is open space and recreation. And some of those funds were used for Graf Park and the Graf Park work. And then some of it is used for, it can be used for housing. And so one of the things that we as a community have to do through the process that leads up to finally the council vote with the advice of the finance committee is make a decision on how to use the CPA funds most effectively to get the greatest impact for the community. You know, since you've expressed things that are touched on at least two of them, how you go about involving the community and how you go about thinking through yourself on those priorities. You know, I think this is one of the things that in the town of Amherst, we are at a good advantage with and that is you do have a very vocal populace who actively participate. That being said, I think having, because of the historic preservation piece to the CPA funding, we at the historical commission will hear proposals for CPA funds before it goes to the CPA committee or around the same time to give a recommendation on whether or not we agree that that's part of the historic preservation plan, just to sign on to it. And I think it's really interesting to see what people look at as important and how they wanna fund it. So I'm thinking about like the North Amherst library needs significant repairs and it seems like the CPA funding requests have been sort of for pieces at a time. And so I think it's looking at how can we have the greatest impact in the community, something like a library that's used by people of all ages, how do we make sure that we fund and support that without taking away from things like mixed income housing or low income housing to help diversify our community base. So I think it's a matter of looking at an understanding what the town priorities are and then trying to fund them to the best of our ability. And I do think some of that is just asking people and I feel like the town does a really good job of being transparent about what's happening with everything and not just because of the legal requirement, but I also feel like Amherst is just very open and welcoming to people discussing and providing their opinion on how they want their funding spent. I don't know if that really answers your question, I'm sorry. That's helpful, thank you. Okay. So unless there's another follow-up question I'd like to give Jane a chance to ask a question if she has one, two to this committee about FINCOM or really about anything related to this whole process. So Jane. I don't have any questions mainly because I've been through this process with you guys before and you guys have been very clear about how everything works. And like I said, I just have not had the ability to really catch up on all things finance for the town of Amherst this year. But yeah, I don't have any questions at this time. So Jane, as we did last time our hope is to after our interviews have a thorough and robust discussion and hopefully a vote. So my intention is to get back to you hopefully within 24 hours, maybe even later today but within 24 hours and let you and the other candidates know what was decided. So you should be hearing back from me fairly shortly and again, our sincerest thanks to you and the best hope you get some more sleep over there. Thank you. And congratulations again to you and your husband and thank you so much for putting yourself forward again. Absolutely, thank you so much. All right, Jane, thank you. Thank you. So as Jane is being taken out we're going to bring Matt Holloway into the meeting. Hopefully he's in the waiting room and we're going to introduce ourselves to Matt quickly. And then we will turn to our questions. And this time I'm going to begin with Mandy as soon as we get that just to give a heads up. Hello, I'm Matt. Good morning, George Ryan here. And I just want to introduce you briefly to all the other members of the committee. I don't know how they look on your screen to my right is Lynn Greesimer. Lynn is also president of the council. We have Andy Steinberg who is chair of finance and we have Mandy Johanke who is also vice president of the council and chair of community resources. And we have Pat D'Angeles who is the vice chair of this committee. So that's who is going to be talking to you today. Each one is going to ask you a question. They have a follow up if they wish. And then when we're done, I will ask if you have any questions for the committee about the process or about FinCom since we have obviously Andy present as chair of the finance committee. So our first of all, thank you very much for putting yourself forward. We're very much appreciated. And I'm going to begin the questioning with Mandy Joe. Thank you and welcome, Matt. And thank you for applying for this opening and all. I'm going to jump right in and we are Amherst as part of a regional school district. And in your statement of interest, you indicated you had some experience with Desi and just regional budgets through, I think, Templeton and your work in Templeton. So can you describe how your experiences at Desi and in those other positions might help Amherst as it struggles with working with three other towns to agree on regional school budgets and assessment methods? Good question. Yeah. Well, that is, I think, good morning. Thank you for the question, Mandy Joe. And thank you to the committee for the chance to meet with you all and to be here. It's exciting and it's a wonderful town. So in terms of regional school district work, I'm a special education director. And so that's what I do here in Narragansett Regional, which is a two-town district, Templeton and Philpston. I've also worked in a single municipality in Greenfield as a special ed director. So it is a position as this committee, no doubt, is aware where some of the largest line items in the school budget emerge from and oftentimes without a ton of advanced notice. So I've kind of been through that process from the inside out presenting special education budgets and obviously the out of district tuition budgets to school committees and then indirectly to town council in Greenfield. And here, our committee has representatives from both, as it does in Amherst Regional, has representatives from both towns. So as a municipal employee or a school district employee, we report to the district school committee. But in terms of, I think, how I'd like to be able to support the finance committee, I do think that I am able to parse out the line items of a school district budget in a very sort of concrete and pragmatic way. I tend to know what everything means in those budgets, which obviously it's sometimes it's just a matter of asking the right questions. But it'll be something that I would enjoy working on from the town perspective as a taxpayer and as a citizen and as the father of a child who's going to be engaging the public schools in the not too distant future. I have a vested interest in making sure that our schools have the resources they need to be successful and they have the right kinds of resources. I did attend or listen in on the multi-town meeting, I think it was about a week and a half ago now and our regional school district has a unique circumstance in that each town has a different approach to budgeting for its share of that school district budget. And I think the necessary on the one hand collaborative relationship that needs to be supported across multiple towns is clearly key, but also a clear picture of what our town can support within that budget. It's a balancing act. And as I said in my letter, one reason I'm particularly interested in this position as a non-voting member is that I can bring technical expertise to bear when it comes to, the desi experience is largely grant driven, but grants can make a really substantial, I'm preaching to the choir, but grants can make a very substantial difference in the financial health of a school district or municipality for that matter. But I think I would be able to bring technical expertise to the budget side of it, but there are the nuances of multi-town relationships and business relationships are subtle enough that I'd be happy to be a non-voting member and to learn from the experience that's on the FINCOM and provide my technical perspective to the community when needed. So I think that that would be the lens that I would come at this with. And I think I could be, just because this sort of work of a budget review needs to be discursive and sort of dialogue driven, I think I could be helpful in asking the right questions, particularly when it comes to school district budgets, but as a whole the municipal budget. Good, thank you, Lynn. And I'm glad you and your family were able to move to Amherst. I'd like to have you talk about what you feel are the major financial issues facing the town of Amherst the next year or two. Well, thank you for the welcome. Is it a cop-out to say COVID? I don't know. I mean, I feel like that's maybe a little too straightforward, but obviously sales tax revenues are going to take a significant hit in Amherst and across all towns. I think for our town in particular, we don't quite know yet what the impact that COVID is going to have on UMass looks like, but it's going to be very substantial. And I know that there's, again, this is another area that I'm happy to be non-voting. I know there's a very delicate dance between the town and UMass and the other schools, but I also know what a huge economic driver those schools are, particularly the university. And so I'm very worried about what COVID is going to do to, not only tax revenue and such from the university and the businesses, but employment. I think that there's a multi-wave impact on employment that is falling from this pandemic that we've certainly seen some really intense initial waves, but I think there will be repercussions coming down the line that in some ways are scarier because obviously so much of the Amherst tax base is faculty or other professional level positions at the university as the financial impact is felt across the university system. I do worry about our citizens in terms of being employees of the university. Other factors are always demographic trends around school children. I know that the town is aging. I know that the school choice numbers have not been going in the right direction. And by the way, I'll also say that the homeschool related issues are not unique to Amherst in any way, other than because we are sort of an academic educational community, we may have more families that feel confident in their ability to homeschool. But I think that is not an issue that we're alone or unique in. And I think it's something that, we have an extraordinary and from a lot of different lenses public school system in town. And I think that the strength of that system will help us rebound from the homeschool and school choice and charter movements that are currently happening and particularly homeschool being more acute during the pandemic. So I think those are some of the biggest things that I would flag. And then, obviously I would have a lot of learning because there's additional factors under the hood that I'm certainly not aware of. Thank you very much. Pat. Thank you, welcome Matt. Racial equity is something that we've embedded in the values of the town. And we're trying to honestly make that a reality across the board in all of our work. So, and you've said several things that intrigue me about collaboration. But I'm interested in how you would look, what tools would you bring to look at financial issues? Thinking about racial equity and how would you, how would that look? What would your process be to determine the impact on parts of our community also that are socioeconomically disadvantaged? And how do you see those impacting decisions you would want the finance committee to make? Thank you. Thank you for the welcome, Pat. And this is a very tough question. And like you said, it's an important one to grapple with and look to making things a reality. So at the state, at DESC, I was lucky enough to be involved in several different state and federal driven policies around trying to diversify the workforce, enhance equitable outcomes for racially diverse student groups and economically diverse as well. So I mean, this is an area that I've put a lot of time and work into from a public policy perspective and have seen how hard it is to translate policy into outcomes for human beings. I'm also, you know, this is another area where I'm interested in learning sort of the norms and the working routines of a town finance committee in so far as agenda setting versus sort of playing a legislative oversight role. You know, I've gotten to know Paul a little bit just through the, you know, being involved in a couple other town committees and such. And I, you know, I see how much of his time and effort is dedicated to, you know, trying to make a reality out of some of these racial justice priorities. And so, you know, I don't want to skirt the question by saying that the finance committee, you know, is the role is to sort of provide support and oversight to the town manager because you know, I know that we have a charter that is set up with a more, I think, more legislative power than you would find, you know, in some other towns of our size. But I also think that, you know, because the town manager is the one who proposes that initial budget and because, you know, he has clearly heard loudly that, you know, the call to promote racial equity through our budget, I think, you know, the importance of the town council and of a subcommittee really is to, you know, help sort of talk through and envision, you know, what are the, what are the odds of success for these various things that are being promoted? And obviously I know that a lot of, you know, initiatives arise out of the legislative body, but I really think for them to take shape and to take action, you know, it's a lot of a support role, support and oversight, you know, to the administrative branch. So that, you know, that being, I just, I want to say that first because I want to be, you know, cautious about that sort of legislative administrative balance that needs to be struck. But I also will say that, you know, and I thought Steve Schneider might be here, but, you know, I'm in district four and we had a presentation on the 40, the 40R overlay zone last, 40R or 40D, I'm sorry. 40R. It is R, I think. So, you know, we had a presentation on that the other day and I think, you know, some of those moves towards responsible high density housing can, but again, this is an area where policy doesn't automatically translate into outcomes, but, you know, having a thoughtfully crafted, you know, housing density zoning can, you know, promote racial equity. However, you know, it also, it doesn't have to, it doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen. And so I think a lot of the things that a legislative body can do to promote racial equity have to do with representation and, you know, prioritizing diverse members of that body. And, you know, and I've seen just sort of from the sidelines Amherst making a lot of effort towards that in terms of representation. But I think a lot of it, you know, is also in messaging and in sort of making direct outreach to the pockets where racially diverse people currently live in town and making sure that the town is a welcoming destination for families and individuals who are, you know, who are racially diverse. I mean, I think, you know, being in the Pioneer Valley and being on this pipeline with Springfield and Holyoke and Chickpea and other more diverse towns, you know, in cities nearby means that, you know, we can be a destination for, you know, families that are looking to move into, for all the various great reasons people come to Amherst. And I would love to see, you know, some of the demographic numbers on, you know, who moves here? I mean, are we seeing a racially, what is the racial makeup of the new residents of town versus sort of the historical, you know, people who've been here for a long time? And I got to be an important question to look at as well. Thank you. Thank you. Andy. Welcome. As chair of the finance committee, at some point you might have questions that you want to ask of me too. And I think that George will provide that opportunity later. I was wondering, I guess I'm going to cheat and build two questions, really make those two questions. And that is, one is whether you've had a chance to look at any of our meetings and have or materials related to the meetings and have any thoughts about how the finance committee is performing a structure, if so, what intrigues you about it? And the other piece, the other question, is one of the things, budgets ultimately are about choices. And we're constantly confronted with how much to put into capital, how much to put into operating and within each, how you weigh the various demands for public safety, public works and education libraries and what processes the finance committee can engage in to make sure that it's hearing from the public on those priorities. Yeah, thank you for the welcome. I certainly have enjoyed reviewing the materials on the finance committee and I do have a sense, I mean, I've looked at a number of the presentations that you've made to the whole council. And then just in a handful of email exchanges with George, Councilor Ryan setting up this interview got in a sense of the cadence of your meetings and how the budget site, because obviously the finance committee meetings are going to be a creature that is born of the budget cycle itself. And so getting a sense of how that works, I have not actually gone back and watched any recordings and I'd like to because that was part of the question I was gonna ask you related to sort of the sort of the mode of discourse. I mean, I've sat with enough finance committees to know that they're for the department head or whoever is sort of presenting the proposed budget. There can be anything from, I think maybe a thought partnership collaborative approach at that table to dare I say inquisitorial style and it can be an intimidating process. And I'm gonna go ahead and guess that you don't run a very intimidating and inquisitorial process, but I think in a town like ours, it's a rigor, it's clearly going to be a rigorous process and values driven. And so I am very much drawn to the finance committee in particular and it's interesting that you made reference to the choices, budgets being representative of choices because when you started that, I thought we were going towards sort of, there's a saying that budgets reflect values. And I think maybe that's maybe the next step, right? That the budget is really a sequence of choices and those choices have to be driven by values. And those values are in fact, should slash must represent the values of the committee as a whole, the community as a whole. So bringing in community voice into that thought process I think is really essential. And again, having only been a resident of the town for a little over a year, I've seen enough public comment periods at town council, at school committee to know that as the previous interview we said, I mean, we do have a very vocal and passionate, populist enamours and I know that they make their opinions and positions heard clearly. Oh, in fact, I misspoke. I actually sat in on the last finance committee meeting I forgot, I'm on a lot of zooms these days. So I did hear people coming in with the defund the police position in those meetings. And specifically, I mean, that's I think indicative of a well-educated, resourceful community where folks know that it's not enough just to put that sign out in my yard. I'm gonna find out which committee is making this decision and I'm gonna go to that committee and speak my mind at that time. So on the one hand, I think that we are sort of in the driver's seat in terms of having a very educated informed resourceful community. On the other hand, I always worry that the voices that need to be heard are not always the ones who speak up or not always the ones who step up and make sure that they're being heard. So I think that, and again, within sort of the confines of the town charter and open meeting law, I think listening sessions and going out to communities and making a proactive outreach attempt to the committees, communities that we're trying to help is essential to this kind of work. I don't actually know if that's realistic within the finance committee's charge, but I think it's important work to do and I think there's no effort is ever wasted when you're seeking community input, even if nobody shows up, you still made the effort and that still counts for the public body. So I guess those are some of my thoughts. The one thing I wanted to kind of close on that topic is I did join the cultural council last month and we've had a couple of preliminary meetings there and right now it's just an interesting time to get to know folks and applications are coming in and there's sort of just an ongoing dialogue. But one comment that was made at one of our meetings has stuck with me ever since and it has to do with sort of the values of Amherst as a community, of us being an academic and an educationally driven oriented community and how culture sometimes takes a back seat to issues of racial equity, social justice, sort of the things that you would expect out of a left-leaning community are there, but a lot of the emphasis and investment in culture is not. And I don't know, that just rung true to me, but being new enough to this community and not really, not having been here for that long, I'm interested to see how that perception, how my perception of that evolves over time but I will be very interested to see what kinds of cultural items make their way into the proposed budgets and how the finance committee treats those because it's true. I mean, if one thing gets money, that means another thing may not. This is a, this is in fact a zero sum kind of a game sometimes. Matt, I'm gonna give you a chance unless one of my colleagues has a very important follow-up question. We're a little pressed on time here. If you have a question or questions for the committee. Yeah, I mean, my question actually, which has already kind of come up, but I would be curious a little bit, just in terms of the sequence, from being part of a legislative body, the sequence of relationships or decisions, it's not so much just, I know how the decision-making authority is written, but from a non-voting member who I envision to be somebody who is a discursive, a member of a discursive process where the budgets are presented and we talk about them, to the voting members who actually would make the vote and make the recommendation to the council and then to the council as a whole. What is the most harmonious way for that sequence to function? In other words, what throws it off? Like what can happen in the finance committee, particularly with a non-voting member, what can happen to throw off the overall sort of harmonious functioning of that sequence, of getting a budget passed. Andy, I think that one is really in your court. It's gonna wait to see if Linda's council president has any thoughts about there, I don't know. Why don't you go first and I might. Yeah, you know, we're relatively new council because we just adopted charter and it's been interesting for me to watch how the function of the finance committee, resident members is working within the committee. And, you know, the charter commission as it developed the charter and put that proposal in, I'm not sure, you know, I had a vision but I'm not sure, you know, it's been a work in progress to make it happen. What we've kind of evolved to, and I think it was evident at that last meeting, if the meeting that you saw was our most recent meeting where we were reviewing the draft of the guidelines, the, you know, at this point where we are is that the resident members are really functioning fully as members of the committee when we have a discourse about the, what is gonna be recommended to the council. This is the full committee that is working together. And while the final vote by the charter has to be just the councilor members, we really make sure that we are getting the voice of all committee members and that we're respecting that the resident members come to the committee in a different way but, you know, function together as a group and try and make it be a group process. And, you know, I think we've evolved in a good way on that. Pat also has been an observer of this and this member committee and she might have some thoughts on that too. I was just gonna say something very similar. To me, there is no difference during the deliberative process and the idea of collaboration in the committee is very, the standard of collaboration is high. So I personally think they should be able to vote but it doesn't matter because their voices are really heard and they do affect different people on the council. And so I think it's a very good process, no matter what position you hold. And I only wanna say two points. First of all, Matt, thank you for telling us that you were at the last finance committee meeting. I remember seeing your name in the audience and thought to myself, who is that person? And second of all, I agree with what Pat and Andy are saying. I think one of the things that residents, non-voting members of the council who our residents bring is often a fresh perspective that is just not, not always in the council members' minds and whether they vote or don't vote. We have had a terrific experience with non-voting members of the finance committee in terms of how they have learned the process weighed in and feel very comfortable voicing where they're coming from. So if there's any disharmony, it's not necessarily among the committee members. It's more when somebody might come before the council and not be as fully prepared with all the answers that we need so that our questions end up feeling a little more like we're probing versus listening, okay? Unless there's some pressing question, either from Matt or from my colleagues, I'd like to bring this portion of the interview to a close. George, I have one just real quick thing, and that is, Matt, you probably observed that the committee is meeting in the afternoon on Tuesdays, and if that's a problem for you, certainly should let us know. Yeah, and that was one thing that I really appreciate, George, is preparing me for the council's writing, preparing me for the conversation. So we did sort of cover the logistics, both in terms of time of day and also the annual cycle. So I feel confident that I have a busy job, but I'm lucky to be able to make my own schedule more or less, the schedule is made for me, but I have enough control over it that I can block out the time that I need for this committee. I don't see any other hands up. Matt, we hope to, as a committee, after the interviews are done, have a discussion and hopefully a vote, and I'll be reaching out to each of the interviewees within the next 24 hours, perhaps even later today, but you will be hearing from me very shortly, and you're also welcome to stay in the audience and hear us do our business, but that is the plan. We also have a couple of items on our agenda, so the committee's gonna have to make some tough decisions in a few minutes, but the plan at the moment is for us to do our discussion and have our vote today, but I will get back to you one way or the other within 24 hours, and again, thank you very much for taking the time and offering yourself for this position, and we'll be in touch soon. Absolutely, thank you all very much, I appreciate it. You're welcome. So we have one more interview, Do Kim. Mr. Kim will be brought into the meeting momentarily. Again, we'll introduce ourselves, and we think this time I'm gonna begin with Lynn, if that's okay, and we'll go around, we'll go around the horn in the same order. We are obviously running a little late, so when this is over, we'll have to make some difficult decisions, but again, we'll try to keep it to 15 minutes if we can, but I wanna give everyone a chance, obviously to ask questions, and I wanna make sure that the interviewee has an opportunity to speak fully, so we're waiting for Athena to bring Mr. Kim into the meeting. I know he's an attendee, and well, his name is, well, hopefully that means he's being brought in as a panelist. Hi, Adam has a panelist, but he's not showing up yet, so. Okay, well, there he is. Thank you, Athena, thank you very much. I think, Athena, we are set, so I'm sure you have many, many other things to do today. I appreciate you hanging in here, but I believe that with Lynn as co-host, we should be covered, so as soon as he appears, and we can talk to him, I think we should be okay. Okay, Lynn, do you know how to move someone back to attendee? I did it just last week. Okay. I remember how to do it, if not, I'll be texting you. All right. Okay, sounds good, thanks, folks. Thank you very much for your help. Mr. Kim, good morning. We're running a little late, as you can see, but you are finally. Thank you for your time. You're welcome, thank you. I'm gonna introduce each member of the committee to you very quickly, and then we're gonna proceed immediately to questions. At the end of that, I'll give you an opportunity to ask a question or questions of the committee. If you can. But I'm gonna start with Lynn Breesomer, who on my screen is to my right, Lynn is the council president, and I also remember this committee. Andy Steinberg is chair of the finance committee and also a member of this committee. Mandy Johanke is vice president of the council, and she also is chair of community resources. And Pat D'Angelois is a vice chair of this committee and also serves on the finance committee. So we welcome you, and we thank you very much for taking this time. And we're gonna go right to questions. And I believe I was gonna go in, yes. You would be kind enough to begin this round of questions. Welcome, first of all, and thank you for putting your name forward and providing us with this opportunity to ask questions. As we look at the coming year or two ahead of us in Amherst, what would you consider some of our biggest financial challenges that we are going to have to consider? So far, I'm a daddy of the two students who are going to the Wildwood School and Wildwood Middle School as well. For Amherst committee, as I experienced about 20 years so far, my biggest concern is try to build a school, new school in Wildwood School. So we've been boring about twice so far, I believe. Then one, we just passed and wanna, so we're still waiting for the building and new Wildwood School for the remodeling desk. I believe that's the biggest financial committee we have faced so far. And then based on that, we tried to make some bond because of the, we made some money, we made some revenue through the generate some bond, but we've been rejected about twice. So I believe that is the biggest concern Amherst town, I believe. Are there any others that you would list on that list? So we are facing COVID-19 crisis right now. We've been, our town business is very bad. Also, UMass decided for long about, I believe about 70% of the employees is for long status right now. So based on two things, we are going to very hard time let's don't know about Amherst, also business of Amherst area so far. So we tried to get some more living use, but we need more benefit to our, let's don't know about Amherst town that we, both things we have to balance it. That is the biggest concern of our, I believe that's the financial, biggest harder in financial committee so far. Thank you. No, thank you. Mandy. Your directions, George. So can you explain to us your statement of interest indicated that you had worked in the best in accounting firm and some of that experiences with audits and all of that. But can you explain to us how that experience in that Boston form would help you in your role as a finance committee member? So after I just graduated my UMass accounting non-private organization and governmental accounting major, since then I'm going to put on my statement, I working at the non-private organization. Now I'm moving to Boston farm as a, I made some plan and conducting some auditing process for government to the institution which supervised by the governmental accounting standard as well. So that experience is gave me to familiar with some terms accounting terms of governmental accounting agents. And then that also I can apply to their town managed town financial accounting because both things is covered on, that's the only day government to accounting operation standard board that they made us some rule. So we have to follow that. So I guess I'm very familiar with those terms as well. So that's why I can familiar with both municipal audit things and also I'm very, I'll be very familiar with the financial community. That's why that will be my experience with applied to our town. Andy. I don't know if you were watching in the prior interviews you might have been because you were in the audience some and ask a very similar question pretty much the same way that I asked before. The ultimately development of budget which is a large part of the function is to sort of advise, help the council advise on priorities. And then when the town manager provides the budget to evaluate the budget that he's provided to us for council action, but budgets are about choices. And we all wish we had enough money to do everything to the greatest extent that we feel it needs to be done but we don't because our taxpayers have a limit of what they can reasonably be asked to pay. So we have to make choices between educating our children, providing libraries, providing public safety, providing other kinds of community services including recreation and senior services. How do we go about hearing from the community about what their preferences might be as to what is and how do you go about making those decisions and advise the finance committee as a resident on what we should be looking at in those priorities? Or is choice is difficult and that is very, even my family sometimes we are not very, so we have every time we have decided what's going on based on my budget that's the same thing applied. I believe that's the same thing applied to town management as well because town management is a lot of people live in on the town but making their decision based on their interest, everybody has a very different interest based on their choice, I believe, because everybody has a different situation, I wanna do this, I wanna building a more school, I wanna building more library or some people, some resident wants to, oh, I wanna more focus on safety of our community but all things are very important but we have to decide based on what is a priority, what is more benefit to our resident of our town. So because of this, we need more consensus and more opinion, we need more collective and then when we make the priority, which is best, we have to, how many, now we have to, how many resident will live in our town, how they more focus on their interest in terms of the budget. So I believe that's the hard things but we need more because our town is very small and I take it out of my experience but the budget paper, while I prepare this interview, we are very tight budget but we have to make some more collects and we need more consensus among our resident then we can choose which one is more priority and that's how we need more talk among our resident then we can choose what is the best and benefit to our resident of Emma's town then we can focus on them, that's the way we can decide. Pat. You've talked about using your financial skills and experience to analyze budget issues and your reliance on policies and values and residents consensus, those are important things. I'm wondering how you might use your, these same skills and personal values as you assess the impact of financial decisions directly on communities of color or on residents who are economically disadvantaged. So far, my experience is working at the profit company, which is found. I have to generate some money, I have to make some revenue that is more focused on, but from now on, I try to focus how to benefit to our resident of the Emma's town area. So my skill is based on the how, is based on the now working at the profit but now I try to make it more give them more benefit. So I believe that's the same thing because I try to give them more, what is priority. So my financial experience and my tools I learned so far that will be applied to the more benefit to the resident of Emma's town, that's I believe. Thank you. Thank you. So first, anyone have a follow-up question they would like to ask, then I'm going to ask Mr. Kimbeth, he has a question or questions for the committee. So the plan- Yeah, you talked about needing more consensus and gathering of more opinion. Do you have specific suggestions about how you as a resident member, non-voting member but resident of the finance committee would do that? So far, I spent about 20 years leaving Emma's town area since I was a student of the University of Massachusetts. I tried to, one thing is tried to first and try to give more gathering information as a, but I believe as a Emma's town is consists of lots of diversity because of University of Massachusetts they have a lot of international students and then also another group of coming from another town or another part of United States. So I believe we, so far town has lots of way to gathering opinion through the email and also Facebook page. But I try to, I more focus on gathering information through other social network system or more try to survey more than often than we can gathering of some specific issue before we have some both. So based try to, and also we are using, now everybody has a smartphone and then we try to using smartphone and they have made and then we can rely on them, we can gathering more information than before. Thank you. Mr. Kim, any questions you have for the committee or for Andy who is of course chair of finance about that committee or about the process? So when I, while I preparing this committee interview I have lots of budget archive and then a lot of papers you post on the Emma's Massachusetts Emma's MA.gov homepage I'm very interesting they have, you have a very hard time to decide with what priority so far. So then we have some time with based on, now we have to decide before December or when we have to this for next budget. I'm going to let one of the two members of the finance committee answer that. There's three members of the finance committee. Three members, excuse me. Yes. The budget process follows a cycle that is established by the charter and state statute which influenced how the charter is worded and developed. But in essence we have a cycle that has a fiscal year that begins on July 1st. And so generally in October, November we received initial financial projections and sort of initial thoughts from the town manager then the council through after with the recommendation from the finance committee will develop budget guidelines which is where we are right now in the process. But at that point they are guidelines. They're sort of like these are our thoughts about the budget but it is the town manager's responsibility to develop the budget and propose it to the council. And once that that happens then there's a very short period of time because that is provided the council on May 1st. And we have a month to have the finance committee review that budget and make recommendations back to the council. The council's choices are to accept the budget or to reduce a portion of the budget but it cannot increase anything in the budget. And that's how the charter and the statute is set up. So that it is a cycle. I mean, it has its pieces that work together and that's basically what we try and do so that the council and the finance committee are weighing in on several segments. And then there are other responsibilities that come along with the finance committee which is to review budget reports and to see how the budget is being managed through the year and we also service the audit committee. I would add very quickly to that and that is that we're setting up guidelines now but depending on how things unfold over the next couple of months we may have to revisit those guidelines and we did that just last year when COVID hit our community and the rest of the world. So there is an opportunity to revisit those guidelines but we like to work with in the schedule that Andy has laid out. Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right, so I'm seeing no further questions from the committee and Mr. Kim has expressed his question. I'm going to call this interview to a close, bring it to a close. Mr. Kim, our hope is to, we'll see, we've got some timing issues to work out but our hope is to have a vote today and a discussion but one way or the other, I will be back in touch with you within the next 24 hours, maybe even later today and tell you what all the committee has decided. So you'll be hearing from me very soon and again our thanks to you very much for stepping forward and I'll be in touch. I look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you for your time. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. So Lynn is going to move Mr. Kim back to the attendees category. Now I'm trying to figure out how I move. So there should be a more button on his name. Yeah, I've got that. And then you click on that and one of them should be removed from panelists or moved to attendees or moved to attendees or something. It should be one of those options. I've got remove assigned to type. It's on the panelist list. It's not on the picture. It's not on the picture on the participants window. Got it. Thank you. Okay. That should be done. Okay. It hasn't happened yet, but. Well. He's no longer moving. So it might be in transition. It's fine. We need to make a decision. The five of us, Paul has joined us, which is great. I asked him to be available as of 1145. My grand time scheme is completely in ruins. So we need to, I guess the first very practical question is who has a hard stop today? The chair does not. That's just one of five. Anyone have a hard stop? I think I have one o'clock. Okay. Well, hopefully one o'clock. Wait a minute. I have a 130 meeting. Yeah. Okay. So at least it looks like for the moment we have the possibility of going beyond our usual meeting time. My apologies to Emily. But I think that's going to be, if we have to stop, we will, but I think we can go beyond that. I think we need to decide as a committee whether we'd like to stop now. And I would prefer to engage Paul and discuss for a few minutes his thoughts about the timeline. Hopefully about 20 minutes of that. No more. I think I'll be a little bit more bold in cutting people off in this section of the meeting. I felt a little reluctant to interrupt our interviewees just in the interest of time. So I'm thinking 15 or 20 minutes at max. Everyone hopefully has had a chance to look at Paul's email response to me. So I think you have a sense of what his concern or concerns are. But I just need a sense of- Get to it. So you want to go ahead and bring Paul in and then we'll come back to this after we've had a conversation with Paul. Okay. Very good. So Paul, very good. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for joining us. As I said, I have shared the memo or the email actually that you sent to me about the timeline. I thought you made a very interesting suggestion that we may not take up today, but certainly we'll take up at some point about a two-year cycle rather than a one-year. And hopefully my other answers were clear, but the core message that I got from you is the question of whether the timeline as it currently stands would actually give you or give anyone a complete picture, give you a chance to give a complete picture of your performance over the years. So I think it's a very real concern about that. Does anyone on the committee have a question about that before, I mean, I can have Paul expound on that a bit. Maybe that's a place to begin. And where do people have a particular question they want to raise right away? I have a question as it relates to Paul. The proposal for a potential moving to two years. I guess my question is, how do you foresee that working in conjunction with the charter requirement to annually review you or review your performance? I forget how the exact wording is. If we set sort of two-year goals, how do you see that sort of interim year and interim review happening? Yeah, and I think, if I may, Mr. Chair, I think the charter is clear that needs annual review. So I think you'd have to figure out a one-year review in between. I mean, you may want to do it more frequently even than that sort of check-ins, but yeah, it's just an idea going forward of a few years from now, the council might want to think, well, we're on two-year terms, we should be looking at two-year cycles of everything, policies, budgets, all kinds of things. Sorry. I guess I had another question that related to his comment too. Go ahead. We've been passing goals in like September that you then have to report on in July, essentially. And you expressed some concern about this timeline that sort of rotates everything two months earlier. It still kind of is a 10-month cycle almost in terms of between passage of goals and then reporting on those goals. Can you explain or talk more about that concern of how that moving two months earlier with the goal was to get your goals passed by beginning a fiscal year, but how that might affect, you expect concern that that might actually be worse than passing the goals two months into a fiscal year because of when so many of those goals might need reported on. So can you talk about that a little bit more? Yeah, so I think anytime we're truncating the year either way, if it's goal setting not happening, not actually happening until after July one or the evaluation happening before the end of the fiscal year is a puts whoever's in this seat at a disadvantage in terms of trying to achieve the goals. And so I think it's all managers want to achieve the goals that are put before them. So I mean, I think that the goal of the mission of adopting goals prior to July one is a good one. I just don't see that happening on a regular basis because of all the things that council has to do during the months of May and June. So already it's a truncated year. So you're really looking at a six month timeframe. So that was the concern. It's, you know, I guess the reason, I don't really understand the reason for moving the evaluation period be earlier than July one. I'd be curious. I don't know the answer to that question. Lynn, do you want to try and tackle that in terms of the rationale for- I guess and no, I was the original developer of the calendar. But after that, all I did was bring it to GOL for discussion. And this issue itself was one of serious discussion among the committee. I don't, ultimately I think what we were trying to do was get back to unloading the month of August and July and August, but other than that and therefore trying to back our way into that. And, but the issue, Paul, issues that you're raising Paul were part of the front and center discussion from the council about how does that fit with really giving a picture of the full year. I personally am willing to revisit it. Andy has his hand up. Yes, I'm sorry. Andy, your hand has been up for a while. Go ahead, please. Yeah, that's okay. I think they're one of the problems that we've been struggling with with the calendar is all longest. There's so many different drivers to the process. You mentioned the cycle of election of council to a two year term and how that then fits in with goal setting and with evaluation. And, you know, I think the way struggling with that in our own discussion because we recognize that for counselors who get reelected, they bring history to it. But counselors who come new to the council will have a lot of energy and a lot of thoughts that come out of their campaign and what they thought that they were trying to achieve by their election to the council and their desire for voice. And the struggle of how to make it all fit together because we also recognize that new counselors have a lot of energy and a lot of ideas but don't have a lot of experience in necessarily the hard part of running a government. I think that we're all trying to figure out how that works and how it fits together. And so, I know that it's hard for us more defining a problem than, you know, we were trying to come up with solutions but I'm not sure that we came up with the right solution and that's why your comments are valuable. I appreciate it. Paul, and the best of all possible worlds, if you could just dictate this calendar, say this, just, you know, what your preference would be. I mean, I think first off to recognize that the way this community does performance review of the town manager is a very arduous time-consuming process by the town council. So it's a big ordeal. Very few, if any, communities do it as robustly as we do it. I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just saying to recognize that it's a job. So I would say if you were going to schedule it, I'm just rethinking this now. I would align it with where it fits into the council schedule best. Because if it's 12 months, it's 12 months, whatever it is, you know, and we'll get there. And I think that you should say this is a good month or whatever time allotment you have for us to take this on as a council. And I guess that's one way to look at it. When is it best for the council? Another way to look at it is to align it with the budget season. With the budget year, we know that a lot of work gets done in June as people are driving towards, you know, they got to spend the money by June 30, 30 goes away, and all the work that has to be done is aligned that way. So you could look at it on a fiscal year. And then the third way to look at it is to align it more with the electoral schedule, which is an annual or a biannual. But, you know, every, you know, every year, we're able to sort of get those goals and evaluate in December and prepare for January. I don't have a strong preference for any of those. Honestly. We can meet whatever you wish best for the council. Okay. Yeah, please. Thank you. Paul, you talked about wanting to wait until the end of the fiscal year because it would be clearer how you had met. And for me, I'm often more interested in the process that is being used to get to goals and how your process in this instance is reflective of council values and policies, et cetera. So why does it feel important to you to rest it on having completed the fiscal year? Could you build it? Thank you. So if the job is to hire an economic development director by the end of the fiscal year, that's not a good example, to do a certain project by a period of time. Typically, there's a budget for the project, and that budget expires on June 30th, say, not always, but we just know operationally that a lot of work gets done at the end of the fiscal year just like everything happens at the end of whatever the deadline is to accomplish the goals. Sometimes we should look back at what the goals are and they're probably not really tied that much to budgets. It would just have to be before I presented the budget to you for this, for this situation, which is May 1. Andy, I'm sorry. Wrong meeting. George. The, the things I find so challenging about all of this. And Paul mentioned three of them, but there's actually another one. One that Paul, the ones that Paul mentioned is, you know, when does it that's fit in our calendar, align it to the budget season, align it with electoral schedule. There's also an issue of needing to align it with the town manager's contract. I, we're not going to resolve this today. I'm just going to say upfront, I, I think it's important to have further discussion with Paul and also with the committee. And also bring in other questions or comments that were made by other counselors. Balancing those together and looking at a complete rethinking of the, maybe, maybe part of the rethinking is what is the cycle on the town manager's contract as well. But the other, the fifth one, frankly, is the election, the election cycle. And I'm, I just, you know, I just know how we struggled as a council, I don't mean struggled, I think we actually rose to the occasion. You know, it took us a while to get our act together, depending on the amount of turnover in any future council, it could take quite a while to get the act together. And I would hate to see the town manager go without any kind of long term understanding of what at least past Council Council's goals were. So I, I just throw in some additional pieces to the car fuffle here that I think have to be considered. Okay, I see no further hands up. Paul, any further thoughts or comments that you'd like to leave us with I think Lynn is correct we're not I didn't imagine we would but we're certainly not going to resolve this today. I felt it was important that you have a chance to sooner rather than later be present and and express your concerns, not just in writing as you did but also in person. And this is going to be an ongoing process. The hope is that we will resolve it sooner rather than later but clearly not before January 6 which is the next time we meet and have a chance to to discuss this. It sounds like the committee would like I'm not sure if we need Paul president on the six because we still have some work of our own to do in terms of thinking through this, but I will continue to keep Paul abreast of what we're doing, and certainly invite him back, we're giving the opportunity to come back before we present this as a as a finished product to the because I think it is important that that it be collaborative as much as it can be collaborative. There are a number of different, there are four different options we now have in front of four different forces that are working here, and they're clearly not all in sync and they're not going to be. But it's important that that that we hear from Paul and that he weigh in if he has any serious concerns, because obviously this involves him very much. So I'm going to leave it at that unless someone has any further comments Paul. I'm going to stop because now I really appreciate what your thoughts were about decoupling the schedule for the evaluation from the goal setting. It's valuable to think about. I think it is a council. It needs to continue to look at how it does evaluations because I think that we shouldn't let ourselves become the slave of a process that was created under a former form of government. And create the one that works well for this form of government. And it's hard in Massachusetts as I found when I was doing some calling around and half of the Charter Commission. Our open meeting law poses challenges that most communities around the country don't have. And, but the other thing that I think would be most helpful is to, if you have comments after having given consideration to that issue I raised earlier about how goal setting works in, if you do it on a tier cycle with in the election cycle. And that is really where it becomes most helpful and I keep thinking about that example and I won't give a name to it but suppose a bunch that several counselors ran because of a an issue. And they want to express that issue and they have high degree of energy around that issue. How does that work. And we sort of need to at least understand that and so how you might think about that is as you ponder this and be helpful to us. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Pat, I see up past hand up it's down it's up pat. Yes. Yeah, Paul, this is not a question for you. But one of the things that you said is it might be who bus to do some research about how other towns do this. And I was one and I'm perfectly willing to do that if they have a colleague on this committee also working on it. If that would be helpful. Thanks, Lynn. I would just ask if Paul has suggested towns to look at so that we don't have to find them ourselves. Right. I can find out if I have the other thing is that this is something I think we can also go to the MMA. And then give us some thoughts as well. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, very productive. Paul, I appreciate you taking the time. I think this has been very useful to the committee and we will be as we say back in touch. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Paul. I want to bring just bring to the attention of the chair there is only one of the two resolutions we have to do today unless we plan to meet between now and the fourth of January. And that's the Martin Luther King breakfast. The other one, the black history month actually can wait until January 6. Okay. That's good news from the chair's perspective. We do MLK today. I want to apologize for that now and get it out of the way, or we can do, we can turn back to the discussion of our three candidates for FNCOM any preference amongst the committee. I'd like to get the proclamation out of the way. Okay, before we turn to the other. I want to apologize to the committee because I did not other than the dates, which then I made a mistake on. I'm not review because it's an, it's an annual proclamation so I'm going to be very interested in what George and Mandy you found, because I did not look and I apologize for that. The other thing I would point out is if we're not going to do the black history month. I think the chair is in the audience and she would be available. That resolution, but she might want to go on if we're not going to do it today. She's the sponsor. No, I understand. Absolutely good point Lynn. I think given what we have on our plates. I would prefer to postpone that until the next meeting, but that's just one voice so I don't I'm willing to, I don't know what the rest of you think I also could reach out to her later with some of the concerns I have this is all just, you know, typing and mechanical stuff mostly, and she could look at that if she wanted. So what are people's thoughts. Want to proceed just with one resolution and we'll leave black history month for January 6. I would say if we can postpone black history month given the timing. Because we still have to make a decision on a recommendation for finance. Exactly. That's my thoughts so my apologies to Alyssa if that's why she I think she's also had other exciting things to so she has her hand up maybe she wants to make a comment on that. Okay, so we would letter. Okay, I think. What's up. You'll have to ask her to okay. Thank you I appreciate that you recognize me to talk when I realized your schedule has gotten very crunch today, and you knew this resolution was going to be coming before you today and so, but I appreciate that sometimes things can't get done. And as Lynn pointed out this one could wait I was concerned about it waiting very long because here's the problem. It's not going to make it's not going to make the December 21. The first town council meeting in January, it's only going to make the second town council meeting in January, which is basically a matter of 10 days before black history month starts and the February 1 flag raising. So I think that given that it was ready to go more than a month ahead of time, it seems unfortunate to push it to being less than a week ahead of time that people will actually find out about it because of various scheduling constraints. So if we think that we need to think about those things if we think proclamations matter, then we think about the timing of them, rather than just saying oh they're just a pro forma thing whatever who cares. We put them in consent and nobody worries about them if we actually think they're valuable, then getting them out there into the public's hands is important which is why I'm really glad you're going to work on the MLK. Again, make sure it gets out in public's hands although obviously the annual breakfast isn't going to be the same everything being COVID related. As to the wording in it George I'd be happy to have you tell me anything that's wrong with it but I'm not going to change anything in it because it is the same thing that's been before us for like the last year last year three years ago etc. This is not the year to fix this we have plenty of outreach planned to various segments of the community based on my work with the reparations group, and it was agreed as you know via email that I sent to you before, well in 48 hours in advance that additional change was going to happen before this possibly came to the you know council for the next annual review. This is an out of date somewhat stilted proclamation, but it is what we have and I have no intention of changing it so you can either recommend it or not recommend it but I will not be attending another GL meaning to argue about formatting associated with it. I'm not quite saying that I misspoke but I think I did. There are two proclamations on our table and it's the MLK resolution that I think has some issues of wording. There are some issues with wording of the Black History Month at all. Just the technical stuff that we could easily do today, but has nothing to do with content or wording just capitalizing, molding, punctuation that kind of petty stuff. So, no. I just looked at my track changes for the Black History Month and I agree maybe we could do it today. Mine are mainly. There's one thing that's not so. Okay, fair enough. Do you want to start with that one and just get it out of the way and then go to MLK. Sure, sure. Okay. If we can put it up on the screen if that's possible. And maybe if you want to put your version up. I have a track change as well but my computer is giving me a big problem today so I can totally put mine up. Thank you. And let's, let's move on and then we'll go to MLK. So, I mean I can start with my one question which was the quote is not cited so I didn't know where it came from and whether we should just get rid of the quotation marks, not the quote itself. Seems reasonable. But it's okay with that we could just. Yeah, sure marks. Then there's a bit of punctuation there at the end that Mandy's noted that I noted as well. And that's all minor and that's true I think we use a capital we easily capitalized the entire whereas is that true man. We've had different. We normally haven't gone through and fixed it. It's just as long as it's consistent within the proclamation itself. We've removed the quotation and Mandy's done that and and then as she points out, should be capitalized I believe. So, yeah, yes. We're referring to a group. Yes. And it's just the, the, our little rules about punctuation and the ands were missing. Right. And there's no comma, but that's it. Right. I think it's true all the way through. Yeah, the, the whereas is needed commas after him. And the and. No, it's a semi colon, isn't it. And then a comment. We do such fun work. I apologize to both to the sponsor and to the public. What we do at times. No, it's not the only thing we do, but we do do. And does not get a comma after it the whereas does. Right. And train changes. Consistency for the semi colon tracking my changes all the way. Andy has his hand up. So the only thing that I had. Is that the kind of small things. Is where we have the third whereas clause whereas the authors of these accomplishments. And I've looked at the thought about this over time. Authors seem not the right word, but I think that we're kind of stuck there, because we hadn't come up with anything better. I've thought about it so I would just pose one possibility and if nobody likes it, I'm okay with staying where it is. But, you know, most people think of the word author is somebody who's writing something. Whereas men and women who are recognized for these accomplishments in Massachusetts history include the alternative wording. Women before men. You can do that too. I don't think. But I think the point was, or recognize for these. Yeah. Coming up with something other than the authors and so whereas women and men who are recognized for these accomplishments in Massachusetts history include as an alternative. Any thought on this. I have no problem with that as Andy knows we inherited this when we're on. I mean, the select board didn't inherit we got it from one of our members when we were on the select board and we didn't fuss about the word then and I agree that the word is awkward and the longer that you do these kinds of things it becomes more obvious which things are awkward and not particularly well placed. And so I'm totally fine with the change. Pat's version or Andy's version. What we have is a Pat's version whereas the women and men recognized for as Andy's excuse me is managed is put in the document so very good. Any other changes because these changes. Many changes track mine. I have nothing as I said nothing in terms of wording or content. Just minor punctuation and consistency. Anything else. I had one at the very end this now therefore. Yep, it the last just read weird to me the whole sentence so you know beginning with a virtual flag raising ceremony on February 1 2021 with daily virtual celebrations and recognitions throughout the month. I just, I just wanted to add the words and continuing with daily virtual celebrations and recognitions throughout the month. So again a suggestion. Any thoughts from the sponsor or from the committee. I think that's a that's well placed and I also think we should take out daily virtual because I'm completely unaware of any such plans and so we don't want to oversell it. And continuing with virtual celebrations and recognitions. Yeah, I know it's awkward but it is the pandemic, you know, yeah. To make it clear to people we're not trying to put them in a room together. So we've made a path, please. No. Okay. So can I make a motion. Yes, please. I moved to declare the black history month proclamation for 2021 as clear, consistent and actionable as amended. Second. And Lynn seconds, but we have a motion been seconded. I'm going to move immediately to a vote. And I'm just going to go by my screen. Pat. Yes. Then. Yes. Mandy. Yes. Andy. Yes. And the chair is a yes so it is five zero unanimous. The proclamation is declared clear consistent and actionable. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for speaking up, Alyssa. Thanks for taking the time to make it more publicized. Thank you. So we have the MLK resolution and if we could put that up again, I'm going to, I have a track version, but again, I can't put it up because my computer will let me today. So Mandy would be kind enough to do that. Here I did have a one or two concerns with wording. I believe that the version that we were given is a somewhat older version. So I'll be curious to see what the version I'm working with is one that Mandy actually spent a fair amount of time on once upon a time. And then I think what we got with something older. So I'm going to curious to see what what we've got in front of us, which she has books like what I have. Yes, proclamation has an a that would be nice. So our Council clerk caught that. Thank goodness, when it went public that the GOL documented I have no changes and Mandy has caught the one in the third whereas there's a slight problem with punctuation she's caught that. Again, the ands do not have commas. So we're going to take that. So we take the Sorry, Mandy. I was going to say the fourth one is where I you see some things here. I tried to make it one sentence. Because that's what we try to do one sentence per whereas. That's George's idea. Yeah, and that is what had actually in I'm looking at whereas that is a single sentence and we break it. And then another whereas whereas Dr. King once said Oh, so you broke it here. That's what I did but let's look at what you have. Maybe we can leave it as a single unit. I know some people don't mind it. So that's what we have to happen is in greatness. One saying is what you suggested. Okay, that's okay. Life's most persistent urgent question is what are we doing here, which led communities across the country. I can live with that. My version I broke it up into two but I have no problem with that. This pattern sponsor. Okay, that's okay with that. Okay. And you don't have to ask about the commas and all that. I like doing that path. And so the next whereas I have no problem and nor this man. Again people just speak up here if you before missing something in the now therefore it needs to say the January 15th, January 18th is the actual holiday but they're the bell ringing is happening on the 15th. And that means the final statement the virtual bell ringing also will be on the 15th. Are we declaring the 15th the day to recognize Dr. Martin Luther King, or keeping that the 18th and doing the bell ringing on the 15th. Are they both 15. The 18th this is actual the actual holiday. And we need to leave that as a 15th this is birthday, correct. Yeah, in the 18th is the actual holiday. So, I'm really confused. He was born on January 15 and this year it coincides to the bell ring fall on his birthday, because it was because if the holiday was Monday the 15th, it would be falling on a different day. So that's on Friday is the 18th. But I guess the question is which dates do these read the bell ringing is the 18th on Monday, or is it on his bell ringing is on the 15th. On his birthday as town is closed so there's nobody to ring the bells. Okay, so that's on Friday the 15th. Yes, yes. But are we proclaiming the 18th as. The town council proclaim January 18, 2020 as the holiday recognizing. I don't like that wording. I don't know. I like as a day to recognize every, oh, I don't know. I don't like the word holiday either but I'm trying to distinguish what it is. Yeah, yeah. I mean, really, we don't want to proclaim holidays or declare holidays is I mean, at least this one because it's a federal holiday, right. What we're proclaiming is, you know, the celebrating the day recognizing remembering Dr. King so I think we keep the 18th is the day because that's the federal holiday. And the 15th is the ceremony and you can see I tried to reword it. Based on my experience with the human rights day proclamation where that committee did not want it advertised as a big gathering. And so you know this one had a please join us for it. Is it going to be a virtual bell ringing. As far as I know, what does virtual mean. We're not going on the steps of town hall. Are we actually ringing a bell. Yes, we are. So what is virtual ad. Right, it doesn't. Well, they're the serum. Yeah. I mean, I took it to me there's going to be a zoom ceremony and there's somebody's going to be on the background. But this sounds like we're actually going to apologize. I don't know. So we're not gathering on the steps of town hall. No, we're not. Oh, okay. So then I'm not sure Pat knows for sure. No, I apologize. I went with what was sent to me. It's possible or I'd lean you think it would be possible or not. I personally think it's inappropriate for us to encourage anybody to gather. Okay. Okay, so we're getting rid of that one and then we can do the please join us in a virtual ceremony. And reading of the proclamation, which will include a bell ringing or something. Well, maybe we'll just leave the bell ringing out, which will be held on that date. And if there's a bell ringing fine, if there isn't fine, but it's mainly that it's going to be a virtual event. And it will involve reading the proclamation. Please join us in a virtual Sarah ceremony and reading of the proclamation. Okay. And honor Dr. monthly King on. Friday. At 430 PM. Before you go. Getting back to that. Last whereas clause question in the 18th. And the other thing you could do is now therefore with the town council. Recognize that January 18th is a holiday. It's a national holiday to recognize and remember. We don't proclaim it, but we recognize that it is the national holiday. I think we've always proclaimed it in accordance with the national holiday. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let's leave it alone so we can vote on this. Sorry. Sorry. That's fine. This should probably read Reverend doctor. I'd like to move that we adopt the player. The proclamation regarding Martin Luther King. Day. We are consistent and actionable. Is there a second. Second. And he seconds and Lynn has made the motion. This as amended. As revised here today. If there's no further discussion. I'm going to move directly to vote and I'm going to begin this time. With Lynn. And Mandy. Hi. Andy. Hi. Chair is an eye, Patricia. Hi. I have zero unanimous. There. This proclamation, the MLK proclamation to be clear, consistent, actionable. Mandy, as you've done many, many times in the past. You will send this both through. Athena. And a copy to me. Thank you very much. All right. It is now 1223. We're clearly going to run over, I think, but I think. I'm, this is open to discussion. It's worth our commitment of time and energy now. So that we can present. A candidate to the council at the next council meeting. So I'd like to open the discussion. Of the three candidates to the committee. With the hope that we can come to a vote. Sometime in the next 30 minutes. Or maybe even less. But it depends on how the discussion goes. So that's where I'd like to go next. In terms of the agenda. Seeing no objection. That's what we're going to do. And I'm going to open the floor. To the committee and anyone who'd like to begin the discussion. Again, we've been blessed with three. Remarkable candidates and. You always wish there were three openings, but they're not. There's only one. I believe we have agreed. My understanding is we've agreed to make this a position. For one and a half years. So it would be. So it would terminate. It would be a position that would end in June. Help me here, June 20. What would it be? 2023. 22. So we're talking about. Whatever we finally decide today in terms of the individual. The term would. And in June 2022, it'd be a year and a half. Anyone like to start the discussion. I can start with a couple of just a couple of observations. First of all, I think that we do have three excellent candidates and. So I. There's nobody who I would say. Is not qualified in the group. Two of them. People who. Have a strong interest in. Represent a can stitch up. Represent residents. In a very good way and have some. Expertise the one that I find. Most interesting in some ways because of a very special. Set of expertise is Mr. Halloway. And it is because of his education background. And just recognizing that. One of the things that. Mary Lou. Bowman had brought to the committee. Was. Her understanding of the education process and her background as an educational administrator. Informer member of the school committee. And somebody who had spent a lot of time working on school budgets and. That contribution. To the committee was valuable because she had such an expect. You know, interest in backgrounds in the area. And. That's sort of the one thing we're missing by not having her. Has a member of the committee, though, I think that it was, you know, we made the right decision last time. Not going back on that, but Mr. Halloway sort of. Brings that back to the committee. If chosen. I would just follow up on that and, and concur that. You know, both that, you know, we have. Three great candidates to choose from. But given. The potential given the results or what we heard at the four towns meeting. Just a couple of weeks ago and the concerns I have about. Regional budgets this year. Regional assessment regional budgets, the negotiations that surround that declining school enrollments and how that affects budgets, both. For the schools, both, both sets of school budgets, but also that then impending potential impact on town, operating budgets and capital budgets. Mr. Halloway's. Sort of experience in schools. And even with desi, even if it's sort of in a related area. Definitely. Peaks my interest as something that might be very valuable on this committee. For particularly this budget season. I agree about the strengths of the candidates. And I think Matt Holloway seems like a very interesting potential candidate. I'm least. Encouraged by his response around racial equity and analyzing impacts. Where he's willing, it seems like he was articulate and willing to look at the impacts of other kinds of decisions. But was stepping back from that one. And that made me a little uncomfortable to be honest. I think he may be the strongest candidate. Even with that. But I'm, that's where I'm hesitating. You know, I think for me, the challenge always is balancing the very real experience background knowledge that, that individuals bring with the role or place of outreach of people having a way to have their voices heard. And I agree with the comments that Mr. Holloway has made. On such an important committee. These are non-voting members. And I guess I agree completely with the previous comments by both of my colleagues that. Mr. Holloway has extraordinary experience in background and knowledge and the schools at this time and place are a larger issue as a community in terms of making sure that everyone is heard and all voices feel like they have a way to be heard. And finances is an extremely important body. And so I'm really torn here between a candidate that I think would be an excellent choice in terms of giving voice to, or at least not opportunity for people to give voice and raise concerns on finance that I think is unique. So I'm really torn. I think, yeah, I don't know what people's thoughts are on that, but how much expertise do we need? How much, I mean, I don't know, maybe the finance, we have three members of finance here. So you certainly bring a much better sense of this. How important is it? Do you think that there be a place for a voice or voices that are not usually heard on the finance committee? George, I think you have absolutely, for me, crystallized, if you will, or captured my dilemma. My dilemma, okay? I think all of the candidates are well qualified. I think Mr. Holloway is particularly well qualified when it comes to issues as it relates to the schools. And I do know that we have, not having Mary Lou is missing a voice on the nine voting member side that particularly knows the schools. This is the classic dilemma. It is so much of an issue of, do we take someone who may have ability to relate to other parts of the population and bring them on the committee, even though they don't have the background around schools, which by the way, nobody else on the finance committee has that level of background, nobody. I mean, Andy is closest and it's because he's worked on the town council. So you just captured it. It's an issue of whether or not we break with going with frankly, the person who is probably most qualified for immediately being able to ramp up to the issues. And that is in my mind clearly, Matt Holloway versus bringing in someone who has relationships in communities that we don't necessarily have the outreach that they do. I'm torn. And in a way it also, it's deja vu all over again. This was a very similar argument that I was on the other side of last time. But now I feel that I'm leaning more towards the position that I eventually did not agree with last time that, and it's difficult and painful because the school's issue is really important. And but I do think it's really important that we show and the town makes real a place for other voices to be heard. Not, I don't wanna put that candidate on the spot either. In the end, it's a finance committee. It's not a bully pulpit. It's a place that has some very rigorous and pressing demands on it. So that's, I guess, another concern I have is that, but this is true for anybody. But just the demands that this place is on, anyone who serves on it, especially as they're coming up to speed, but even if they are up to speed, as Andy and the others of you know very well, is quite real. But it feels like the same argument we had a number of months ago, where, and I'm beginning, I feeling myself leaning towards the other way this time, that this value of expanding a bit the perspectives of the non-resident members, excuse me, non-voting members, outweighs the very real contributions that Mr. Holloway would bring right from the get-go. So it's, again, I wish there were two positions, but they're not. So that's where I'm stuck. And I'm leaning toward favoring Ms. Scheffler because of that argument. What are people's thoughts? I mean, there's arguments on both sides here. There's no right or wrong. And... So I find myself in an interesting dilemma because as with George, my initial comments today are the opposite of what I made six months ago, where I argued for and I can support either. There is something very valuable to be said, as I said six months ago for bringing in people that may not have the exact experience we're looking for but have the potential to gain that experience through service on the finance committee, but also bring something else, which is that connection to community and that real what we've seen in Ms. Scheffler indicate that real desire and excitement around getting new voices and talking to new voices about budgets and stuff. The other thing that as George was saying, hit me in terms of issue, as I'm really concerned with regarding regional budgets, regional assessments and all of that, that may be more of a political issue that we as elected officials just have to deal with. And it may not be something we would want to put on the non-political resident appointees. It might just be something that we as the elected officials have to just sort of suck up and say, this is our road, our burden to bear in terms of the potential disputes, the potential contention that may happen regarding cross purposes between the council and either regional district or the school department as it is when we deal with Paul and the town managers cross purposes with where we might be thinking. And so maybe that leans towards supporting Ms. Scheffler anyway, even though that experience would be brought from someone that might not be the position we wanna put a non-political sort of person in potentially. I mean, I noticed that both of the candidates, it seems that are sort of in a sense that the one and two position are new to town. They clearly bring a lot of energy and excitement, both of them do, both of them been engaged in other town committees or commissions. So right from the get go, they've been interested and curious about Amherst wanting to be engaged. So in that regard, that certainly stands out but they both equally represent those values which I think are extremely important. So, and I guess I, I, yeah. Yeah, I mean, if I were to hear from the members of the finance committee that given what they're facing over the next few months, given who's already serving on this body, the two other non-voting resident members that they really feel that having a third member who has this kind of background and expertise, particularly related to schools and the issues related to government in schools is absolutely essential for, really be very valuable for them. Then I could be swayed the other way but at the moment I'm feeling that the value of the community connection that, you know, I think would be, I think that just takes, at the moment that's leading the pack for me and leading the list of criteria. So I need to hear if anyone has a strong feeling about that, I'd like to hear it. I'm sorry. Pat, please go ahead, Pat. I'm not sure I want to speak but I'm sitting here wrestling. We're talking about two candidates. There were three candidates and each of them is experienced in ways. And I guess I wanna, in terms of transparency, it feels to me that I need to say that the reason that Mr. Kim is not one of the people I'm wrestling with is because I felt like it was difficult to understand some of his responses. And I just wanna be upfront about that because we're not, and that doesn't negate his experience nor does it negate his abilities but it does seem to me to be problematic at this time. And I just wanna say that and I feel, I don't know. And I apologize for not knowing exactly where I'm going with this but I think we need to say clearly why we are supporting or not supporting a particular candidate. And of the two that are Ms. Schaeffler and Mr. Holloway, I'm really not sure who I wanna support. So that's interesting to me but I just, I don't know. I'm gonna be quiet. I think that what- You can go, Andy. Thinking about what Mary Lou is doing on the committee and why she was valuable is that we get submitted to us a budget from the school committee that is a budget about educational administration. And she had experience in that and was able to ask interesting and hard questions. And I think that because none of us on the committee have been in that role before. It makes it more, we don't have anybody who has that background. I think that Holloway brings that plus he's the parent of a child who's coming into the school system. So he is an interest in it. Ms. Schaeffler I think has a lot of strengths that have been put forward very articulately too. She doesn't have that ability to ask the hard budget questions that none of us really have an equal plan on. But she certainly I think has a touch to the community in a different way and has shown an interest in becoming involved in the community. So it's a hard one. I can see both as contributors. I just wanted to, you know, Pat said, you know, in the interest of transparency, you know, while Mr. Kim is quite qualified, I wasn't convinced with the answers given that that outreach that Ms. Schaeffler talked about loving and being able to do was similar that Mr. Kim could do something similar or bring something like that to it. And similarly, you know, the experience that he provides is much different than the experience that Mr. Holloway would provide. And I just find Mr. Holloway's experience more relevant at this point in time. There is also the concern that there seemed to be a lot of concentration from Mr. Kim on building a new school and large capital projects instead of the overall sort of picture for the town. And I think I'm looking for someone on the finance committee from a resident point of view that has less one, I guess, one alley. And that just came across to me in his answers as being much more of the focus. And I'd like someone who's focused a little more broadly. I still don't know, I'm between Ms. Schaeffler and Mr. Holloway though. Lynn, please. I have to say in fairness to Ms. Schaeffler is that the fact that we interviewed her before and I have very strong and seriously good memories of her previous interview is resting in my mind. It was a much more robust interview. It was a much more, frankly, passionate interview. And I got a much greater sense of her ability to look at financial issues and tear them apart. But all of that was from her previous interview. It was not from this interview. Having said that, you can't dismiss what you've already seen in a public meeting about someone from the past. So I just, again, this is in the light of transparency. If somebody only looked at this interview, they might wonder what we saw. But in fact, I have to consider both interviews. Mandy Jo actually brought up the previous interview and something was stated during that previous interview. So I just want to, for the sake of the public discussion, recognize that there was a previous interview and there are things that at least I and I think other people on this committee saw during that previous interview. That in no way diminishes the school knowledge that Mr. Matt brings. I has a date to say this. I've never been on a school committee, but I have a doctorate in education and took a course in school finance. And if you want me to tear apart the school budget, I will. I'm hesitant to do that because we have a superintendent of schools in the school committee that comes to us. When we're ready to analyze that school budget, I'll take it on. Okay. You heard that here first, folks. So. Thanks. And it was recorded so we can play it back at some point later. That doesn't, I don't want to put up my knowledge against. No, of course. I understand. His is much more current and it's much more related to the present day school budgets in Massachusetts. But I just, I also knowing other counselors and on the finance committee and their ability to look at school budgets. I'm not as concerned about that issue, although I fully and completely appreciated what Mary Lou brought to the finance committee. So we could sit here for another 10 or 15 minutes looking at each other in Zoom space. But I think we pretty much sketched out the core argument or the issue that we're wrestling with. And I'm certainly willing to entertain any new thoughts. But my sense is that we are, and I think Lynn put something very important. It's true for me that a previous interview was also playing a role here and acknowledging that at least one of the interviewees was, it was seven and 30 in the morning. And there was also sounds in the background that might explain why she hadn't had much sleep in the last 24 hours. So it clearly was not the interview that we had before, but I think there's some very obvious reasons why that's the case. So I'm still leaning toward Ms. Schaeffler is I haven't heard anything yet that leads me away from that. Though I still wish we had two positions to fill, we don't. Shall we have a straw vote? What do people wanna do? I think we should go ahead and vote. So I'm going to make the motion that we appoint or recommend, excuse me, thank you. Watch my language. That we recommend to the town council that the town council appoints Jane Schaeffler to a period of one and a half years that will end in June 2022 as a non-voting resident member of the town council finance committee. Second. So motion has been made and seconded. Any further comment, thought? I guess I would say no matter how this vote goes, I encourage all three candidates to continue expressing their interest in town government and service and filling out activity forms for positions that they find some interested. Absolutely, I just point out for the public and anyone who might view this at some later date that their applications for FinCom will stay active for the next three years. So we will, maybe not this chair or this person, but this body, GOL, will be having further positions to fill for FinCom. And when that does happen, all these candidates will be notified again for the next three years. And we have another reappointment coming up in July. We have one coming up in July. So they will be notified whether they choose to apply again, of course, is up to them. But I hear you, Mandy, and I certainly will communicate to them our desire that they stay engaged and active. Any other thoughts? Otherwise, I'm going to move to a vote. And this time, I guess I will begin with Andy. Aye. Pat, I can come back to you, Pat, if you wish. You don't, if you want to. I'm sorry, I was muted. Nay. Nay, okay. Andy. Aye. Okay. Lynn. Aye. And the chair is an aye. So the motion is carried a four, yes, one opposed to recommend to the town council that Jane Scheffler be appointed for a term to expire in June 20, 22, June 30th, 2022 to be precise. Pat, you can reach out to me later if you wish, but you also can make it now. Is there something in particular you'd like me to say about your nay vote? Or would you like it simply to be registered and that's sufficient? I think that's sufficient. Okay, fine. At this time, I really don't think there's... I understand, that's fine. All right. I'd like to adopt the GOL calendar. You've had a chance to look at it. We talked about it last time. I haven't made any real changes. I think of one change I made was simply to suggest that the January date in 2022 is suggested. It's just as an option. And obviously we can change the calendar at any point. So I would just like to adopt it and send it on to Athena for posting as of the new year. There's no super rush, but we don't meet again until January 6th. So I'd like to have that voted on today if people are amenable. I move to adopt the proposed GOL calendar for 2021. Okay. And Pat, seconds. Okay, I'm gonna go directly to a vote. Lynn? Aye. Andy? Aye. Mandy? Aye. Yeah. And I think I heard aye and the chair is an aye. So it's five, zero unanimous. We're going to adopt that calendar. I will send it to Athena and it will get put up in January as our calendar for 2021. I'm not going to deal with update on bylaws for future consideration, but I have promised family to the town council that every single meeting that we have, it will be on the agenda and it will be meeting the agenda next time. I hope though, who knows. No items unanticipated by the chair, that he's aware of discussion of future agenda items. We still do have one attendee. I don't know if there's someone member of the public is councilor Brewer as a matter of fact, and she's already spoken, but I believe if the public has anything they'd like to say, now's your chance to speak. Nope. There's no public presence. So that settles that. No public comment today. Future agenda items. As I said, we will continue to do the update on bylaws for future consideration. We've dealt with both of the proclamations, so that will not be an issue. We'll be returning to the timeline. I don't know how people want to handle that. It seems like we just have a lot of talking to do, a lot of thinking. We have four different pressures or four different sort of masters that need to be served and it's getting challenging to see how we can concoct one. So perhaps we'll just leave that as, that will be a discussion item on the agenda is the timeline following up on our discussion today. Anything else that, Lane, do you see anything to us? Are we gonna see? There was a two things. First of all, we are, I believe, required by our own rules of procedure to review them annually. And I think we need to find time to do that before our term expires. And the second is that there was a memo from the town manager. Yep. The town council that will appear on the next town council agenda on the 21st with potential referral to GOL and it was to develop guidelines for how to do 8.1. I'm sorry to do. Manage 8.1, which is when residents would like to request a meeting with a elected body. Manager provided a recommendation to in this particular instance and it turns out that the person interested in this has gone to the school committee and asked if they are willing to go along. But I think we need to take it up in GOL as a potential for potential inclusion in our rules of procedure. Okay. It has to be referred first. Okay. Now I had tentatively put something in our packet and then I took it off the agenda. And I'm wondering just in terms of proper procedure whether I got very nervous about it for other reasons eventually I took it off because of simple time constraints. But this was your, you had asked each individual counselor to respond to you COB and I had already put it on our agenda for us to talk about as a group. And eventually got removed. So it's not an issue, it's moot but going forward I guess I was a little confused how to proceed because I really wanted to hear from my committee about this long list of like eight or 10 or 12 things that you were seeking comment back from individual counselors. But perhaps that was not appropriate that for us to talk about it as a committee while you were still soliciting individual comments COB. Any thoughts, anyone any thoughts on that? And it didn't come up today because I took it off but if this had been a normal meeting it would have been on there and I would have had all kinds of things I wanted to talk about and say and that perhaps would be completely inappropriate from an open meeting law perspective or just from general council procedure perspective but any thoughts quickly on that? George just as an aside are relevant to the memo depending on what the council does with it each of those issues would then go to the respective committees and then the respective committees can discuss them and recommend back to the council we think you should drop this item here's a review then or whatever the case may be. So in terms I'm also out of time in terms of having to give the feedback whether or not that happens today this is not the last pass. I felt premature I guess when I thought about it afterwards I thought I'm really jumping the gun I should just wait and so it got taken off anyway but I'll wait until it's referred to us and then we can take it up. That makes sense. You mentioned review of procedures Len would you just clarify for me a moment? So we're doing the timeline we're gonna do the town manager memo if it's referred to us on 8.1 and I guess what are we doing when we review I mean just going through what? Help me here. I'm in the process of trying to come up with a list of everything we need to do between now and the end of December 2021 and I believe if we check the rules and procedure we review them once a year and so that is a GOL responsibility. So our charge it's not in the rules it's in the GOL charges to annually review the town council. Thank you. Thank you. I just pulled up the charge. Right, it's in our charge. Be good for me to read that occasionally. Thank you. Okay. So that's three items right there and definitely review of the rules procedure will be on the agenda and the timeline will be on the agenda. Anything else that people would like to have on agenda or foresee coming to us on January 6th? I'm not going to invite Paul. I don't see any point at this stage. We still have some more discussing to do but at some point I would certainly invite him back just FYI and if he wants to then he'd be welcome to come. All right, that's all I have. We'll see you all Monday night. Thank you all for your hard work and I will reach out to the new ease and tell them what has been resolved and I'll prepare the report for Monday night. So the meeting is adjourned officially at. At one of three is what I have. Thanks. See ya. Bye bye.