 Governor's. Well, everyone, my name is Angela, I work for the town of Amherst. This meeting is recorded. It will be uploaded to the town of Amherst YouTube channel shortly by our wonderful IT staff. And at this time I'd like to recognize the chair of the residents advisory committee. Jim district. So hi so so first I'm going to read this script, which I think is still accurate, but I don't know because it still says pursuant to Governor Bakers March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. So I'm going to read the final chapter 38 section 18. This meeting of the resident advisory committee is being conducted via remote participation. Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me everybody. Good. Okay. Angela already told us it's being recorded so this meeting is officially called to order. Good job. And in front of me and the first thing is called to order and we've already done that so we can check that off our list. The next is approval minutes from the last meeting. I don't know if anybody took a look or more important does anybody have any comments to make on the minutes the last meeting before we vote to approve them. No, me neither. Okay. All those in favor of approving the minutes from the last meeting which was Thursday October 6 2022. Give me a thumbs up of your voting to approve the minutes. And that's unanimous. So we're good. Okay. Point of a point of, I don't remember the. Robert's to be a point to ask anything. Yeah. I understand that the Baker rules about remote participation are changing in March. I'm just curious what that is. And I know there's a worry because a number of counselors. Have difficulty attending. Because of family situations. Angela, what do you know about that, Angela? So the governor's office and the AG's office have asked for input on what. Each community needs. And desires. But we're waiting for a directive from the governor's office on the specificity of how the order will be changed. So we're not, we're kind of unclear. If it's effective. Back to everybody in person or if they have a quorum in person and then other people remote, we're waiting on the details of that. And it's that effective March 31st is, I think, March 31st. So we have a little over a month and a half. A little less than a month and a half a month. Right. So most likely we won't have another meeting before then. So we'll just have to find out what we're supposed to do. Okay. You can meet again in the basement of the town hall on that room with no windows. Yeah. Always a good place to meet. Okay. So next on our list is a discussion of the role of the residence advisory committee. I do just one thing. To mention. Paul had sent an email to all of us back in January. Commenting about that. And maybe I'll read what he wrote first and then we can, that could be sort of the foundation of our discussion. So the charge for the residence advisory committee is pretty narrow. It draws directly from the town charter section three dot three. So that can be sort of a. The charter and the charge states simply quote, the rack shall assist the town manager with evaluation and selection of candidates for appointment to more member bodies. Then Paul went on to say happy to discuss the role of the rack compared to the role of the community participation officers. Whose roles described in three dot three D of the town charter. So. The role of the residence advisory committee. I don't know if anybody wants to kick off that conversation. Sure. Meg, kick it off. So I think this, this came up because I asked a question. And I think that Paul's email answered it. It's not a role to recruit people. That said. In a future meet. So I accept, you know, I get it. I'm a. Come from a kind of community organizing perspective. So I feel that. Somebody ought to be doing, you know, thinking about leadership pipeline. But it's not us. It would, would be interesting. Just curiosity, but I'm not sure it's our role. To chat with the community outreach. I think it's a shortcoming right now. In. People and get informed about how they do it, but I'm not sure it's. It's part of our mission to be informed about that. But. I think it's a shortcoming right now. In the. The people who know about getting engaged. Know about getting engaged and if you, you know, it's. Yeah. You know, I think it's a little bit more as a struggle than a shortcoming. You know, it's just, it's always a struggle. You know, distinction without a difference maybe, but anyway. Yeah. You know, I used after, you know, years of being moderator and years before that on town meeting, I'd bump into neighbors and they'd say, you know, do we have a mayor? You know, they serve people. Yeah. It's an amazing. You know, frightening number of people who just aren't engaged. And it is a struggle to get him engaged. Yeah. You're muted. There you go. Yeah. No, I want to just say, I completely. Simplifies and understand Meg's point of view regarding, you know, wanting the wanting to, you know, find a way to encourage more engagement civic participation. And then it's something that I think any of us who have done any community organizing or political work. Or just, you know, are active in our communities as volunteers. And, you know, sort of marvel at how few people really do come forth to volunteer for different groups and participate in these kinds of activities. It does take a lot of time and effort. And, you know, having been on both sides of that equation, I completely understand that. I mean, I think that, you know, there's the capacity of the list group as, you know, as a formal body. And then there's also what we can do as individuals, right. And, you know, in community. And so I would say, you know, to anyone who's listening to this even recorded message, you're walking upwards, right? Hundreds of feet. There's nothing precluding any of us from encouraging, you know, our community members and neighbors to, to run for office, to participate in whatever way they can. I know when I, you know, I go to friends houses and, you know, I'm constantly talking about the things that are going on in town and how we encourage that. And I think it's, you know, it's clear to me that the mission of this, this particular committee is, is very, you know, clearly defined. And so that formal role does not lie with us. But in terms of what we can do as individuals, there's a lot, you know, so I just wanted to, you know, kind of record about that. But I hear what everyone is saying. Angela. So I would say that as community participation officers, our team is doing our best as we emerge from the pandemic to be more present on voting days and to meet people where they are in line at voting and to explain how they can get engaged in municipal government. And we talk about boards and committees and commissions. We also talk about opportunities to just help, like on town cleanup days. And then we talk a little bit at greater length about, you know, the process of running for town council. The other thing we're trying to do is we're trying to be more visible at community events like Juneteenth and like the block party where you get masses of people and let them know about the vacancies. And then we're also trying to plan a thank you to all the people who are currently serving on our boards and committees. And I was trying to pin that on the end of April, which is when the national day of volunteerism is observed. I think it's April 20th, but I'm looking at the week after that and to have the people who are serving, not just the people who are up for reappointment, but everyone gather and have them bring a friend or have them bring a neighbor and do something really simple, like eliminating cookies and to have the chairs speak a little bit about what each group is doing at the moment. And then for the town to give a small thank you gift and to acknowledge people for their service. Great. So, you know, one thing we could do, I mean, we could do it. Oh, I'll get to you in a second. I mean, we could do it now since Angela is here, or we could make it a more formal thing at our next meeting to have, you know, presentation from somebody who is on the community community participation group to talk about what they're doing in more detail. So if you folks are interested, we can put that on our agenda and we can, you know, lobby for who, whether it's Angela or somebody else or everybody meet together, whatever. So maybe we'll put that on the agenda for the next meeting to talk about in more detail. Okay, so Meg, yeah. I think those things that Angela mentioned sound great. In order to reach diverse people, it's often essential to engage in community groups where diverse people participate. Or in churches or. I know Alicia said she joined the safety, community safety working group because somebody went to her organization recruiter and she said she ran for this council because she learned what it was all about. And I know it was, I don't want to dig up the town meeting controversy, but I don't remember anyone who ran for the select board who didn't first join town meeting and learn how the town works, how the committees work, how the budget works and so on. And I think we need to be more, not this committee obviously, but not just the three of you either Angela, but you could, one of your strategies could tactics could be to recruit more people to help you. I'm part of a on a board of an organization that runs this pipeline for women's leadership in Boston and the women leaders that have been recently elected. I think that's where I'm going to be. I think it's a little bit more isolated. Didn't just come from nowhere. You know, they started in school committees and city councils. More Healy. Nobody is. She's her own person. But the new attorney general in the mayor of Boston. I mean, those are people who, from there was a specific pipeline. A leadership pipeline created and. And people identified at very low levels and encouraged. But I mean, that's much more ambitious than what we need to do. We just need to find people to be on these committees. And then that'll fuel people thinking, well, maybe I want to run for the council. The council's a big, especially now. The council getting somebody to run for the council is. Gargantuan request. Yeah. I mean, it's somehow they've got to make that job more doable. So somebody could actually have a, have a employment at the same time and not just be either retired or. Wealthy or. But I don't think that's the country. You know, they've got to figure that out. But that's, but just getting people to. And I'm talking about this too much, but I can't. I just, I don't think we can overstate how important it is for people to have. Competence and Amherst government. Then to create more diversity. Across the board. Yeah. I'm just, I'm talking, preaching to the, I don't know. That's free of you. You know, obviously. So I'm going to stop talking about it. I just, I think it's a great idea for us to. Have a conversation with the community. I think it's a great idea. For us to have a conversation with the community outreach. Is that with the community participation officers. And brainstorm and hear what they're doing and how we can be supportive. Individuals more than a committee. So we'll set that up for the next meeting, whether it's zoom or in person or party on the town. Common. I don't know what it'll be, but something. Fireworks. Yeah. I don't know if it'll be an evening meeting involving drinking, but I don't know if we're allowed to do that. So. Anything else. I should mention, I have another zoom meeting unrelated to this. It's three. But I don't think we're in any danger of going over three, but. Anything else, you know, I just wanted to comment, you know, I do something similar to what Anastasia said, you know, I'm often bumping into people who say, you know, are you still involved with the town? Yeah. And I always say I'm on this committee, the resident advisor committee, and I always segue into, and there's all these committees that are really fun to be involved with when you should think about it. I don't know how much that helps, but I just sort of try and segue into it. And whenever anybody asks me anything about the town. You know, the challenge. There's a challenge getting. Diversity in the committees is just a challenge, you know, building up the percentage of people in town. No matter who or what they are, whatever their demographic of getting involved, and it's a real challenge. Yeah. So one of the things I forgot to mention is, um, Brianna has been working to build a civic academy one on one, which would be kind of like a, a many week session, one night a week for a couple of hours to teach people about how our municipal government functions and great for them to get a feel for what each department does. And, and there's, you know, there's a continuum of difficulty and knowledge on all of our boards and committees, like being on ZBA and planning board is really different from serving on, let's say the recreation commission. Right. I would never say that. So, um, so there's lots for CPOs to share and there's, I think we're trying to educate, but not preach so that we keep the fun in. You know, yeah. Great. Thank you. So anything else to discuss for now on the role of the rack? Are we good with that topic? Um, public comments. Anybody out there? I don't think so. Our grandkids are here. They might want to say something. My grandkids are here too. No, that's a screaming. You might hear in the playful yelling. I don't know. I don't know. They're currently being quiet, which is good. Um, so I had two things other. Other items not anticipated by the chair. One is something that we mentioned, because I actually read the minutes of the last meeting, because I'm a good little boy. And we mentioned the thought of, I think Meg made a comment of maybe the CAF should be renamed from the community activity. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. So maybe I'll put that on the agenda for next meeting. To have that as part of the discussion pros and cons of the name of the form. And does it matter? Does it not matter? And especially if people from the. Participation team are here. They could be involved in that conversation as well. And the other thing I thought. Thank you. Thank you. I think it's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. Let's just see if maybe somebody else wants to be the chair of the committee. You know, it comes with a huge number of perks. I just can't remember any of them at the current time. And, you know, considering that Angela takes minutes and reminds people of the meetings. It's about the. Least. I don't know. Yeah. So think about that. And we'll have it be on the agenda for next meeting. Does anybody want to be chair? Anything else that somebody else didn't anticipate? Yeah, Meg. I just occurred to me. Having had been schooled in open meeting law over and over. We're a committee of three. So if Jim and I have lunch, which we can't talk about it. Can we have lunch and not talk about rack? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Or breakfast. Yes. Yeah. I haven't tried the new place up where Jake's used to be yet. So. Right. It's good. Yes. I'm going to stay. Yeah. Just for next meeting, I know that we had reviewed a list of openings. A few months ago, I want to say before the October meeting. If we could maybe get an updated list of that so that we can review sort of what other positions might be coming up this year, that would be helpful to me anyway. Yeah. So just to speak to that a little bit, we are in the process of figuring out people who have only served one term if they'd like to be reappointed. The town manager's process is very different from the town council's process. He, if he feels and he hears from the chair that people are making contributions and are showing up regularly. He just reappoints people for a second term. Most of the time, but it requires me reaching out to them by phone and by email and asking them if they would like to be reappointed. So for our next meeting, I shouldn't. I should have in addition to the vacancies list, more of a kind of current list of the first, like how many more vacancies will have at the end of June when people's terms and. That's good. Yeah. I couldn't tell from your question if you're aware of this or not, but if you go to the boards and committees page of the town website, there's a link to the vacancies as of whenever the last time somebody updated it. February. Oh, wow. That's that's what I. How often that gets. But yeah. Every time someone resigns or every time we appoint someone. That's great. So I'm just looking at it. You might put when it was updated, although if you do it all the time, no reason to do that. That dates right next to it. And it's at the bottom of the page. It says vacancies as of two 13. And then in the PDF itself that says it. Way at the bottom. Yeah. In the bottom corner. Oh yeah. She is on the case. Absolutely. And one thing we didn't do that. Somehow didn't get on the agenda. Which is, you know, what have we done in terms of interviews since the last meeting. So I'll go first on that. Which is. Not much. Our last meeting was on October 6th. And there was a flurry right after that. Towards the end of October. And I did two interviews to the transportation. And then in December, I did interviews for the water supply protection. And for recreation. I think other people did some of those as well. I did the board of health. Uh-huh. Have you done some anesthesia? Since October. Yeah. But I think. I haven't been many. One that we were supposed to do. And then it got. So that was my thought as well. On the grievance procedure. So I imagine we'll get busier in the spring and towards the end. Absolutely. Yeah. Good. It was interesting. Interview on the board of health. There was one candidate of color, which was the candidate Paul pecked. And it was, I support, you know, he's his choice, but it was. Complicated because there were. Particularly one other candidate who was. Had huge, huge public health background. But it was his commitment. I appreciated his commitment to diversity. The candidate who was pecked was very, very good. So we. Was good. And also. We discussed whether the candidate who was very, very qualified. Both everybody was, but. And encouraged that person too. That there'd be another opening in June. So I appreciated the nuanced way Paul. Uh-huh. Handled it. Which of you was on that one? I don't know. Wasn't one of you on that. On the interview. With the health department. Maybe it was just me. If it was good. There's always just one of us. Oh, okay. I was. It's typically one of us. Yeah. The chair of whatever committee or group. Staff liaison of whatever committee or group. Yeah, it was bright. So we were. I think agreed to encourage this. Other strong candidate to consider applying again at June. Yeah. I hope that we're not trying not to even use a pronoun. I hope that person does because. It's a really important committee, especially we've seen in the last three years. Yeah. It's a, it's a challenge for Angela and her group when somebody. Is not taken. To encourage them to be on something else. It's a hard thing. But in this case. That was the right committee for this person. But there's going to be an opening in June. So. Uh-huh. Might work. It'll should work out. Okay. We have anything else to discuss before we adjourn. Only that our next, the one, the next board that we'll do interviews for will be affordable housing trust. And that. Interview date is the end of March. So. If you would like to draw straws for that one. I believe there are two current vacancies. The station was in. Nice. Oh. I was going to ask you if that was the one that we would find to be scheduled from for the holidays. Yeah. And that's two. It was. Yeah. I'm happy to do matter. However. And anybody have a. Sense of. When. What timeframe. We would like to have. I mean. I was going to ask you if that was the one. That we would find to be scheduled from for the holidays. Yeah. It was. Yeah. Yeah. So. Is anybody have a sense of when. What timeframe we would like to have another. Committee. To recommend to. Yeah. I was saying. No. You should mute when you're not talking. It's really annoying in the background. You know, we could do approximately in two months or we can do more like approximately in three months. Anybody have any preference. I see you. I see a three. I'm going with Angela. Okay. Two is good. No, she said, who said two, who said three? You said two. Okay. So in a process, I've put out a doodle poll. And we'll do something in the two months timeframe. I have to look at what I'm up to where I'm going. And. Is. Early afternoon work. The people have jobs where they can't get away as early afternoon, a good time. For people in general. Yeah. As long as there's enough advance notice, I can just go on my calendar. Yeah. Same with me. Second. I'm retired, but I have a ridiculous number of meetings, but with the same thing, enough notice. Yeah. Two o'clock is a good time for me too, because ultimate season starts soon, but that's, we don't start till four. So. Okay. How did the show go? The show was great. The show was an insane amount of work and time and stuff like that. But. And the show died in the process, which is a big part of what I do in the show, because we were flying them all over the play. Seven or any of you see the show. I didn't get to see all the show. Sorry. I usually do, but. I got, it got rave reviews from the four and six year old. For whom we want tickets to go. Yes. They loved it. That's good. It was hilarious after every show, They looked amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just add encourage everybody to go to Cisco's where Jake's used to be. It's really good, and that we wanted to succeed. Yeah, I definitely do. Okay, in that case, I move to adjourn. So all those in favor of adjournment will do the thumbs up again if you're in favor of adjournment. See a thumbs up. That's unanimous. So we are adjourned. Thanks everybody. Thank you everybody. You'll be hearing from you. Thank you, Angela, especially.