 Good morning. It is February 8, 2022. And given that we have a quorum of both the finance committee and the town council present, I'm calling this meeting to order at 903. And I'm going to call people by name. And then also our resident. Non-voting members as well. So, Pat D'Angelo's present. Green Griezmer is present on a Devlin got here. As in. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney. Kathy Shane. Here. As a finance committee member, Andy Steinberg is absent. Jennifer Taub. Present. And have we seen Alicia? I don't see her now. Okay. And Bob Hagnar. Bernie Kubiak. Present. And Matt Holloway. Present. Otherwise known as Paul Backelman at this point, but, you know, That's okay. Don't worry. Good flattering. Okay. So, um, We are going to proceed as I mentioned earlier, Andy is unable to join us this morning. Um, we do, I'm going to put the agenda up. So, um, So, um, So, um, Um, No surprise. Um, And we have basically, um, Today, we're going to spend the first part of our meeting and a good part of our meeting, if you will. On the community preservation act committee recommendations. And for that reason, Sarah Marshall has graciously agreed to join us. She is the chair of the CPA committee. I'm going to bring up the second quarter financial reports. Talk about our schedule going forward after, from to the end of June. And we will spend a little time on expense. Projections we can talk a little bit about the budget coordinating group by Sean. Do you have updated figures for us. And the budget projections. Yeah, those projections will be what we shared at the BCG And then just to mention, we do have a four towns meeting coming up on Thursday night at six o'clock. So with that, I'm going, we are going to have public comment. But with that, I'm going to take this down. And I'm going to ask Sarah, if you would like us to share one of the reports, or how would you like to proceed. Thank you, Lynn. Good morning, everybody. I was not expecting to give a presentation. Last year I did that at a regular council meeting so I'm sorry if that was expected. But I can quickly run through our recommendations. I expect you've all seen the report. Be happy to take questions or just tell you what we're proposing. I'm going to quickly share the report and maybe we just go through each project and Sarah can say a little bit about each one. There's a narrative there too, but maybe Sarah can highlight. Right, I was going to suggest that either you can pull it up or I pull it up, but if you can, great. Thank you. A little larger. Okay, that's good. Why don't you start that. Oops. Can you just back up for the small page. One more. Yes, I just want to note the projected funds available for this current round, which is $2,879 or so. The final number. It doesn't come in for some years after the fact. The state's been able to increase. The budget makes conservative estimates for the amount of funding that will come in for that fiscal year. And so that is the total. We've been fortunate in the last year or so the state's been able to increase. The year goes along. We generally get more funding, not, not less. So that's wonderful. So would you go to the second page. So this table shows really what are the major categories of CPA for which CPA funds can be used. There are three programmatic categories specified in the statute, community housing projects, historical preservation projects and open space projects. Recreation projects can be counted towards the spending on open space projects. The law requires a minimum or requires that a minimum of 10% of new revenue, which, which is not it's not obvious always what new revenue amounts to, but that 10% of new revenue be either allocated to those three major programmatic categories or reserved for such future use. All right. So, I need to pause a minute and ask. Athena, are you still with us. Okay, I need to see if I can. Yeah, can you bring Alicia Alicia and bring her in real quick. Yeah, I'm not a host. So, do you mind if I bring Dave Zomek into just in case he has not at all please do. And then, Bill, I just want to make sure that you note that Alicia Walker has joined us in terms of attendance. Okay. All right. We're done with this chart are we still going. Well, I just wanted to know so we're, we are not did not receive really any significant requests for open space projects this year, as you probably remember. CPA is some sizable awards have been made in recent years to open space projects so they have not town is not submitted any more such projects in the last two years. So, one category of expenditure of CPA funds that we need that needs to be approved but we really have no choice about doing it is to pay for debt service on previously authorized CPA projects for which bonding was required. So, you can see here that $488,720 will be needed to fund fiscal year 23 debt payments on the projects that are listed in the table below that. Some of those projects will be concluded. I think one of them this year. I thought, maybe not. It looks like we're in nine of your nine of 10 for two of the project so it looks like. Caris land. Gearest. Okay, all right. Yes, most. Yeah. Okay, thank you. We'll just note that you can continue that that the Jones library special collections project since it has not begun and no funds have been borrowed. We have not started any debt payments for that. Right. Okay, so now to the categories of CPA. First, first community housing. We are recommending just count them. Five projects this year. Two of them being requests directly from the town. Well, I shouldn't say that they're all essentially for for town projects. I'm in acquisition and development of transitional housing that the town has proposed to do, I believe this effort is will be accompanied by some of the ARPA funds. If memory holds, so to find and rehabilitate or build as needed. Yeah, just add to what Sarah said, there's a million dollars earmarked of ARPA funds for issues around homelessness and housing. Right. Right. And supportive transitional housing provides services to folks who maybe have not been able to house themselves independently and gets them ready to move into, into housing, excuse me, independently. And with that, I think, and the town's larger efforts around developing housing prompted I believe by councils, new comprehensive housing policy the town wishes to hire a part time housing coordinator, non benefited and a temporary position. To $100,000 over perhaps three years. I think this, the town would work out the hours and all that but to help planning staff with the many ongoing and hopefully future efforts to develop or improve housing affordable housing in Amherst. Two proposals or recommendations come from the municipal affordable housing trust. They apply regularly for CPA funds and in fact CPA is almost the only source of funding for this trust. This year we are recommending that they be awarded $250,000 of CPA funds, which is if approved is transferred directly into their account. That's unlike all other projects which are reimbursed but the housing trust can can hold the funds directly and then use them when opportunities arrive. So this award would help build their trust account and enable them to respond quickly as projects come forward hopefully there'll be some movement on the belcher town road in East Street school projects this year. And I know they have, you know, some other ideas, perhaps they can move forward on. In connection with that they've we are recommending an award of $30,000 to support a consultant. They have used a part time consultant woman who is a long professional history of work in community housing and affordable housing, and she provides expert assistance as they work their way through all the difficulties and recommendations. And then the last project we're recommending to you from the community housing category is funds, $87,934 to help repair the building envelope at the john C nutting housing project which is at chestnut court. And you may not have observed this building it's it's not one of the brick buildings it's set in the far back in a corner and it's clabbered. I think that construction right now. So they also have matching funds from the state to put towards this project so we are would be contributing half of what is needed. I don't know who's who's sharing but do you want to allow for questions as we go along. Dorothy do you have questions on the housing ones. I have a basic question. The debt service means that sometimes money is used to do something, and then joined with borrowing the top items here look like there for staff and for people which does not involve borrowing. But when you get to the nutting building envelope. Is that the total amount of money you're going to put on it or is that going to be used to seed money to borrow other money to do that. So these need borrowing. These are all effectively cash cash reimbursement. Okay. And Dorothy just to clarify I believe Sarah that you mentioned for the john C nutting building envelope that there was a state matching grant. Yes, they've already they've already secured that. Okay, Kathy. Hi Sarah thank you for this. I have a, I, it's, it's not any concern with the grant but I just want to understand with the affordable housing trust the 250. When we voted on the East street school and we voted on the belcher town row purchasing the property did we have a sense that the trust will be coming back for additional funds for those projects. And, and I'm asking it sort of more in a forward looking way that as we first, both of those we for those who want a background on East street school we transferred a property to them that the town owned and in belcher town road we purchased a new property. And I think that this would augment those funds as I understand it, and it's just a, I'm trying to get a sense as we look down the road to the total costs of some of these that are drawing from CPA. I think it is reasonable to expect that the housing trust will apply every year for CPA funds, because this is, as I said, pretty much their only source of funds so if they want to build if they want to build if they think they need to put it, put some money into a project to leverage developers funding or other sources of support, they would have that if they need to do studies of a property first, like, see if there really is asbestos or whatever in the, in the old school building or, you know, wetlands determination they're various, they face various costs in as they're pursuing affordable housing projects. So they, they come to us for that. If they want to buy property then of course properties properties expensive. Right, so I'd like to ask either Paul or David or Sean, whether or not you have anything further to say about the expectations for additional need for CPA money for belcher town and East street school. Dave would probably be the best to speak to it because he's working on the proposals that have come in, in regards to the RFP that was issued so. Please stand up please go ahead. Sure, thank you Lynn and thanks Kathy for the question. I think it's reasonable to, to assume that we may hear either from the trust, the town, or from the selected developer for the street school belcher down road sites that one of those, one of those bodies might come back and ask for additional support for the, for the project. We're, we're in the midst of right in the middle of the review process we put out an RFP for, for those two sites, and we receive proposals and we're reviewing those now. There was a committee that that I am chairing reviewing those we're very excited about the project. We think it's going to result in a very significant number of affordable units for the town and, and we'll get that going as soon as we can but I think it's reasonable to assume that there may be an additional ask of CPA or of the trust for their, their, their existing funds that they have on hand. So I hope that answers the question. David while we're on that particular project. So you're in the process of review. And you have we received proposals did the proposals, if you can't say anything just say I can't answer that did all did a significant number a sufficient number of the proposals respond to doing both projects because I know in the past we had a problem with East Street School, maybe not an attractive project. We feel very comfortable that that we are going to move forward on both sites. We're excited about it. We, we, we have some very, very, very solid proposals and, and, and experience organizations that have submitted who want to do work in the town of Amherst. We're excited about, about the, the land that we've amassed both at, at East Street and at, and at Belcher Town Road, and the RFP spoke specifically to retaining the street school. So, as part of the, as part of the development. So, all of those elements make it for a very exciting process. Do you have an estimated timeframe when you think there might be an award made. I think it's reasonable to think by the end of this month. Okay. Great. Thank you. I'm sorry to digress but, and I want to go back Sonia you have your hand up. Yeah, I just want for clarity for the benefit of the new council members here that when we transfer money to the affordable housing trust it's still in the town's treasury. So it's just another account on our books here so all invoices all proposals all contracts and everything go through the town. And when money is transferred from CPA to the trust, they were still held to CPA regulations so I just wanted to make that clear. It's all still part of the town. Okay, Bernie and observation I think, and I want to just express my thanks to Sarah and for all the work on the CPA stuff and today for his leadership around the housing. Because I know there's a huge amount of work involved in this. My concern is is that the, where the soul means of support right now for the affordable housing trust. What we do is encourage the CBA committee, encourage those town employees who work with housing trust to press them to gain some additional outside funding. It's simply not healthy have for any not for profit organization have one funding stream. And that's a concern and I think it would be appropriate since we're also paying for their consultant to have them set a goal of some, some percentage of outside money coming into the organization. The other observation is that as we, we go through and we develop more affordable housing and traditional housing. And to press the center as a to happen on a regional basis because well I'm just making a great effort. I'm not convinced that our, our neighbors are doing so. And if we build it folks will come. I don't have a problem with providing affordable housing where it's needed. But I do think there's a some, some reason to advocate for regional equity in this getting their surrounding communities to do to make make a considerable comparable effort. Thanks. I just want to add to some information that Bernie has shared Amherst is around 12%, maybe even close to 13 were required to be a 10, or that's the goal. And our surrounding communities for instance Palom I think is just building their first affordable housing. I might be incorrect on any of that my stand to be corrected and glad to be. Matt. I'm going to go back to the hall away. Please go ahead. Morning. Yeah, I'll echo Bernie and just thank you all for this. The important work and great work and everything is very clear as a new person. I'm just going to make a clarifying question slash statement you can correct me if I'm way off and then I was curious about the, the acquisition development the first item, the 500 here and then the additional million in recovery funds. So my first quit the southeast street rock farm is a completely separate project from the southeast street school is that correct the street school. Those are two different things. Okay, I thought so I just want to make sure. And then in terms of the acquisition development of transitional housing that that 1.5. I guess I'm just curious if there is a timeline on the expenditure of those funds in that project either, you know, baked within the recovery monies or, or here and and if so or and also if there's any, you know, kind of actionable plots that we're looking at right now just sort of what the what that looks like down the road. Yeah, so I can start and then Dave maybe want to jump in so with the recovery money. We've asked departments to report to us quarterly on sort of progress with spending these funds. Dave's the lead for this particular one on homelessness because of all the issues he works with. So we've talked about timelines where if the funds aren't spent by a certain point, we have to pull those back and potentially repurpose them for other other ARPA eligible expenditures. We're not at that point, obviously yeah but but we do have sort of milestones built in to check on progress. Okay, David. That's been a great question and yeah Sean indicated the ARPA funds. Yeah, a couple of years to to spend those. I don't really have a timeline for for this half a million. I will say that we are my staff and I are investigating a number of properties right now for potential acquisition. So really quickly on the we collective we staff and then then committees and boards on the acquisition of the belch down road property that we then combined with the street school property and did this this combined RFP, which made it much more just just much more appealing to these these affordable housing development firms. So we're looking at a number of properties as you can imagine, you know that the market the real estate market in Amherst is both tight, and it's also very competitive so we're trying to look at. We probably have a list of five to seven properties we're looking at right now, and talking with some of the owners about those some of them are are on the market and some of them frankly are private conversations we're having for properties that may not be on the market, but we know the owners may be willing to at least have a discussion with us so so there's no way to really say by, you know, January of 2022 we will have 23 we will have this money spent. It's more how do we move conversations forward and my approach is kind of moving three or four or five different conversations for it at the same time, and never putting all of your efforts into one because in real estate things can just go south very quickly and owner decides. You know I don't want to sell right now or a family says you know you need three to three or four family members to make a decision and two out of three say no I just I changed my mind so what we try to do is move multiple properties forward. After doing an assessment with my staff of the characteristics of those properties. Where are they relative to the downtown a village center. Bus routes bike routes sidewalks, other other other services, etc. So our goal really is to try to look at properties for the most part in village centers or downtown. So I hope that's helpful. David, do you foresee the council needing to take any action with regard to acquisition of property with regard to either this money, or the ARPA money. Eventually yes, eventually yes if the town does decide to purchase property which I hope we will and that is the plan so yes in the next 12 to 24 months. Yes. And that would be for the homeless. So we're looking on two fronts Lynn we're looking, we're looking at, because the ARPA money comes in two buckets, one is for affordable housing, affordable housing, broadly defined and the other is for homelessness so Paul has has has charged me with looking into sites for both affordable housing and the potential for a permanent site for a shelter. Sarah you have your hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to respond to to two comments. So, going backwards, what Dave said just said, I would just remind council that I guess it was a year, a year ago, maybe two, two years ago I lose track. The town road property that the acquisition was an out of cycle CPA application to borrow funds for that purpose. So that had to go to council. I mean for two reasons, you know because it wasn't in it wasn't in that fiscal years package that were looked like we're looking at now and plus it was borrowing so maybe the town has no right now of needing to do that but I would say that's always a possibility. And then to Matt's question I think no or Bernie about whether the trust could find other funding streams certainly a very good idea. I think I remember that the first council authorized an Airbnb tax and that the money could be directed to the housing trust. It never happened maybe I miss remember but it would be good because CPA does have restrictions and the trust has been unable to do some things with that belcher town road property because CPA doesn't permit it. My recollection is that we were, we did 30% but I'm looking to Sean Paul and David. I don't believe it's we do have the tax the short term rental tax I don't believe it's going into the housing trust that I can check with Sonya on that or Sonya maybe you know the answer to that. And then some whether we're talking about the impact fee or the tax because the tax is not broken out of hotel motel. So the door doesn't break that down. We don't have that figure. It was the impact fee and I think that we had the option of going to 3% or something like that. Right. I'm not sure we went to 3% but we have not spent any of that. And I go to free cash they follow the free cash so it would have to be an appropriation out of free cash equivalent. So, I guess, as a follow up on that it would be useful for the finance committee and the council to understand what that revenue has looked like and what we did what action we did take it was a while ago. Yeah, it would be great if it could go to the trust. And then I'll add one, two more quick things. It's very, it's not a very large amount. Yeah, my recollection is it's like around $10,000 somewhere in that range that we currently get. And then the other thing I'll just mention, there is legislation currently being talked about around a real estate transfer charge that if passed would potentially produce funding for affordable housing that could go to the trust. And it's it would be a surcharge or a charge and every transfer of real estate or certain eligible transfers of real estate so I know the John Hornick and the trust are looking at that legislation and I think they're supportive of it. I'm going to call on Bernie but I also Paul you have your hand up. Yeah, just quickly, just to our approach has always been that the funds come into the town goes into the general fund and then the town council appropriates we don't dedicate streams of revenue towards specific projects. That's just not the policy that we approach with our streams of revenue. Okay, thank you. Bernie. Again, when when I said, multiple funding streams, I should clarify I mean something other than the town of Amherst, you know taxation from the town of Amherst, having some non public money to use as a lever for certain projects and Sarah referred to can be very helpful and I really do think and I'm not this shouldn't be heard as a criticism because there's a huge amount of work that's gone into this. People have done a wonderful job, but we need to diversify the funding stream for the housing trust so that means grants from charitable organizations other sources of funding other than taxation. Thanks. Okay. Are there any other questions about housing, the five housing projects. Sarah you did a phenomenal job of pulling that one together. Let's move on to historic preservation. All right. So we have we are recommending 12345 projects in this category. All of them pertaining by definition to historic structures. The first is to allocate up to $240,000 to repairs preservation efforts at on the exterior of the conky Stevens house, which is on Main Street down near the dental office. It is a privately owned building its office condos. And I'm talking about the historic building I believe there's some newer construction in the back that may be more residential but but the brick house with some ornate trim at the front. This is in significant need of exterior repairs they've already done quite a bit of work and have assessed you know an extra assessments on the owners to complete a lot of work, but they are asking for funds from CPA. And we'll say, and maybe we'll be getting into this more. The legislation, the program does permit these font public funds the CPA funds to go towards preservation of privately owned properties. The exterior work on the exterior exterior to preserve the historic view that is considered the public benefit in in that situation. The current project we're recommending is an $18,800 allocation to the Amherst historical society to do an engineering study of the Simeon strong house that's the building right next to the library, the museum, the house itself is part of the museum. I've never had a structural assessment, it's, it's old, and it probably is in need of some work, and they would very much like to do this before construction begins immediately next door. The third project is $135,000 to the Amherst women's club for repairs and painting the exterior of the Alice mod Hills house at beautiful building at the corner of triangle and main street. As you may know the club has raised and spent significant funds on interior improvements and repairs and and I think some exterior repairs over the last five years or so it's absolutely gorgeous inside. And they would like some help in repairing and improving the exterior. The fourth project is another $50,000 to the West Cemetery CPA grants of that amount. I think this would be the least the third, maybe the fourth grant to the West Cemetery. The first several grants are devoted to repairing and preserving the headstones, the markers there, which are been damaged. By time by weather by vandalism, but they also want to complete the fencing. Right now there's just a chicken wire fence along the East side and it is collapsing. So they want to make an historically appropriate fence that will match the existing fence. And they also want to make some signs some interpretive signs. The final project in this category comes from a group of residents in district one. They have the support of the conservation department for this project, and that is to do some research. Both archival and I think in on the ground on the landscape along the Mill River on conservation land, where there used to be many different mills, powering small manufacturing operations, they want to uncover that history and use the information they collect to in a future phase, develop an interpretive trail through that area. That trail does not involve creating any new footpaths purely the existing walking trail, but perhaps the hope is, but not as part of phase one, eventually to have signs along the way that tell people what used to be there and what still exists. So we're going to pause here and I'm going to call in Dorothy Pam. Okay. So I have two questions on the slate roof. Do you have somebody who does that or I used to live in a development with slate roofs and this was many years ago we had very old men who still knew how to do it. And I love slate roofs. So that's number one, do we actually have somebody that knows how to do it. And the other one is the question on the Amherst women's club. I just wanted to add that. Yes, the Amherst women's club it's raised great money and has done a wonderful job renovating the inside but it during coven has lost tremendous income because from weddings and memorial services. So, you know, just absolutely struggling to to survive. And I guess I was wondering why there was one negative vote everything else was positive all the way. And there was one negative vote in the Amherst women's club. So I was a little concerned about that. Yeah. So first about the slate roof. The Conkey Stevens house owners, they got, they got bids and submitted bids from all kinds of contractors on all the different areas of work there are a lot of slate roofs in town and in the area and there are certainly I can't remember who they talk to but this is a thing they can get done properly I'm sure. Oh, the one negative navy vote. One person felt that too much of the painting was should be considered maintenance and not be eligible for CPA funding. But that is the reason why we say funds cannot be used to paint the carriage house because there are no repairs being proposed there that that would be purely cosmetic. But the main house, all the parts to that the main house do need exterior work and there's repairs and so then there's painting. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm just unmuting. Thank you, Sarah. If you can just scroll back to the Conkey Stevens house. Sarah was very careful to point out and I called her on this that this is a privately owned house, and I looked up the property value it's, it's got about 16 different 15 different units in it, many of them are kind of an office condo, the rental, the assessed value is just shy of a million dollars. And my concern is, even though it's eligible. I'm questioning the use of CPA funds where there is really no public benefit here, other than being able to look at it. When we drive down the street. There's no public access to it, which is quite different than the Women's Club that's used often when pre COVID days that people can go in that can take tours there. You can't knock on the door here and say let me take a tour. So I'm worried that we start setting a precedent. Because if I look around Amherst, we've got a lot of gorgeous historic homes on so then, including some on the national historic register. So, this one doesn't feel like a good fit to me on compared to the other historic, even if it is eligible so I don't know whether we can think in terms of creating a policy that Amherst does, or just thinking of being much tougher on this, because it feels to me it opens up a gateway to other requests, similar to this. I'm going to go on and call on Bernie and then I also have a comment on the same one that Kathy just mentioned, Bernie. I think we're all thinking along the same lines it was wondering what preservation restrictions are being placed on the funds to the county Stephen House and the Amherst Women's Club. These are privately owned buildings. Historical preservation by the way doesn't mean you can go inside, it just means you're going to look at it from the outside. Most of the rules around historical preservation don't care what you do inside its appearances, exterior appearances, but I mean the legislation allows us to do preservation restrictions. It's very appropriate on the county Stevens House to say if the if the building sold, the town gets the money back, or it gets a portion of the money. The same thing with the with the women's club and there's there's different ways to look at this and I was wondering if town council or town attorney's been involved in discussing any kind of preservation restrictions. Michelle do you have a question on this particular area. Okay, so I'm, I want to push on exactly the same thing and Kathy I'm just going to say, unfortunately, the precedent has been set a long time ago. It involved a house on Northeast Street $200,000 was spent on it, and I have to say I gulped. At this point, excuse me, is this how I want my tax money spent. So Bernie, you raise an interesting question of whether or not at some point does this mean the town has an interest, if you will, in these in these properties that should they be sold, we should get some benefit from that and I guess we just have to turn back to all David Sonia and Sean and ask if they have any comment or whatever. Dave again might be the best person to talk about the restrictions but we cannot we can certainly come back with that information. David, do you want to speak to it now. Sure. I can add a few comments Lynn I'm not, I'm probably not the best person to, to speak to these but you know my understanding is that each of these and we've had similar discussions at the CPA meetings, you know, over in many years past. As Bernie said, and others said, you know this is, this is a very standard practice and, you know that many municipalities across the Commonwealth, do invest in these private private structures that are important to the historic character and the historic history of the town of Amherst, and I believe and Sonia could help me out here but I believe that these were recommended by the Historical Commission for support at this level. We have history. My staff does work with each of the each of the applicants on historic preservation restrictions and in both these cases. There would be a requirement for historic permanent historic preservation restriction to be placed on the exterior of the of both structures. So, I don't know I can say but Sarah, do you have more you want to add to that one. Yes, I want to say that the Historical Commission, strongly objected to or at least some members don't have a, you know, statement from from from the chair, strongly objected to or or or refusing to fund the preservation work solely because of the ownership status. And they sent me they sent me some screenshots of websites a state website that directs private homeowners to the CPA project to program if they they own an historic building and it's in need of repair. I mean it's this I do not believe this was an oversight of the legislation. Private owners of historic properties do not qualify for other kinds of grants and the one of the purposes of the CPA CPA program is my understanding is to make them eligible. To compete, you know, if the floodgates are open and the CPA Committee receives, you know, seven proposals from private homeowners. You know, not everything's going to get funded. If what I mean I think the alternate their two alternatives one is that those properties, historic properties which we value for their contribution to the historic historic character of the town get more and more dilapidated, or you're asking, or saying that they have to be owned by nonprofits and go off the tax rolls in order to CPA funding and I'm not sure either of those alternative basis. Good. So they are, they are eligible. The fact that maybe people don't know that, you know, the, if they're now taking advantage of something that's available to them I don't think we can. You might think it's just not a project worth doing but I don't think the homeownership, the status and who owns it should be a factor. And I want to stick to this issue Michelle you said this was not one of your questions. Is that correct. That is correct. Dorothy is, is your question related to this. Just a quick fact that the Amherst women's club is a 501 C three it's a nonprofit, and it gives raises money to yearly to give donations to Amherst social service agencies and scholarships for local high school students. So I just wanted to put that in there. Thank you. Thank you. On it is your question or comment related to this. Yeah, so what I wanted Sarah covered a lot of what I was going to say in my comment, which thank you. So next I was on CPA this past year and so was able to discuss this project and the historic historical commission also this was their number one ranked project when they went through them. They did recommend this one is the as their top ranked. They said, you know, supportive and high priority for the town, and that it's really important to carry out those first phases that are described in the funding so you know I do think we had a lot of really robust discussion we had similar concerns that that you are that some of the building, but as Sarah said we determined that it's eligible, and that the historic status I mean the, the view of it from the street does matter in terms of the historic preservation of this building. So that was ultimately where we came to and I know that that's can be a little bit of a hard pill to swallow because there are really deeply meaningful projects and this might be less deeply meaningful. But if you look at the requirements for CPA deeply meaningful isn't necessarily on their historic preservation is so you know I mean I think that that's it's worth noting the historical commission did very strongly recommend this project. Thank you for sharing that on a pat related to this. And just very quick what is actually what is going on in the concrete Stevens house. It sounded like it was businesses. I'm unclear that could get clarified for me. What office condos is what I've been told a small. Okay, so their office condos and they're not going to be responsible for painting. And repair of their building. They have already made a lot of repairs recently. So I think my interpretation is they feel they cannot that that that they're, they can't get more money in special assessments, you know, from the owners at this point, and some of their work is urgently they've already done a lot of urgently needed to work but there's more. So when you say condos you literally mean it is condos it's got multiple owners. It's an association that owns various. It's an association and individual businesses own parts of that. I have not checked the property card. That is my understanding. No, I checked the property cards because I was curious pat for the same thing there as I said there were, you know, I did it pretty quickly, but there were about 1615 16 and each is a specific person so when you go into those addresses, you get this unit and you get various and one is an apartment rental and it's the biggest and the property car chose the assessed value of each of them. So my I wondered why they can't get a bank loan long term take on debt for these kinds of repairs because it's it's this is assessed value it's a valuable property, you know they have collateral as a property. So that's why I raised this question I, I happened to live in an 1820 farmhouse, but it would. I'm hoping that we would never approach CPA for repair of our slate roof. I'm you know that. And if we did someone would say why don't you do it. You know, you know, you know in terms of it's, it's the house has value so it is each one of these units. And there was a pretty big variety of what, what the condo was it listed the little businesses that are in them in the offices. Thanks. Bernie. And I, I'm not objecting to the projects per se. The question was, what, what preservation restrictions have been placed on to ensure that the town's investment, if you will, is sustained. So, you know what keeps the, the country Stevens house to be sold and then at some point raised, and you know something else going up in its place. The other alternative where you do have a commercial operation like condos and great Barrington has done this you can have the opportunity to negotiate in that if the building sold or transferred that all are some of the money that the town's invested in it comes back to the town for So, that that's my questions is, you know how is the town, the town's acquired an interest in these buildings because the town has given it but given them money. So my question is how is our interest being protected. Thank you. David, did you want to speak to that. If I understand you correctly Bernie so, so the historic preservation restriction the sequence is really important because, of course, similar to an APR on a farm, a farmer or the owners of the conchie Stevens house or or the the 501 C three nonprofit the Amherst women's club would not put a restriction on it until a couple of things have happened number one that the council votes for the funding, and that the project is moving forward. So, we don't have a historic preservation restriction on the conchie Stevens house at this time, or the Amherst women's club. We would only have that in the sequence of essentially it's almost like a closing that you, if the funding is voted for and the project moves forward all the contracts are signed. We have a couple of things we have a grant agreement with every, every successful applicant for CPA dollars, and then lawyers get together on on both the town side and the applicant side, and work out a historic preservation restriction, which then gets filed with the registry of deeds, though as a permanent restriction. So that's kind of the sequence. So, our interests are protected by that historic preservation restriction is I think you alluded to earlier that restriction is typically on the external features of the building those features that can be enjoyed by the public from the public way, or visiting the building for business or, you know, an event for instance at the Amherst women's club etc etc. So, so so the restriction doesn't go on until there is a project and there is funding, and, and that is the way the town secures its interest for in exchange for the, for the CPA dollars. Does that make sense. What Bernie is wondering is whether there is a way to also be clear that if the property is sold, we would get some of the profit from the sale back as because we invested in the property. I'm not aware that that ever happens with the historic preservation restriction that the restriction is a permanent restriction that runs with the deed. This is meant to be in perpetuity just like an APR or a conservation restriction. So, it would make raising the building extremely difficult, but I'm not aware I've never been part of a conversation regarding a historic preservation restriction where there's been a clause in there about sale of the of the property and then some sort of repayment of CPA funds I'm just not familiar with that ever being part of a restriction. It's not to say, you know, it couldn't happen but I'm not familiar with that at all. I guess what people are asking is that maybe we would investigate that. Given the robust nature of this conversation. Bob is your question related to this. Yes, I just wanted to ask David. The historic preservation restriction on the deed. What happens 3040 years from now if the owner at that time comes back to the town and says we need more money to do extra extra pairs. Does that prevent the owners from doing that or are we potentially liable to keep every so many years keep, you know, restoring or, or, you know, kind of repainting or whatever the these structures. I think that's a great question I don't think there's anything that that prohibits an owner from coming back. If there are other issues that might be, you know, central to the, for instance, the structural integrity of a historic building. You know, buildings, you know, perpetuity is a very long time. So if somebody if, you know, if, if the woman's club or the Conkey Stevens house needs work in 50 years, and the CPA is still ongoing. I don't, I don't think there's anything that precludes them from coming back. It's not like one one one time and you're done one and done. So I've not, I'm not familiar with any situation where where that has happened I think in in my time with the town but but perpetuity is a long time so it's possible I suppose that a group could come back. But David doesn't obligate us to make no future either. That was my point. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead, Sarah. No, I was just going to say if, if, if a proponent came back, kind of within memory. I think the committee would look to scan. Okay, Dorothy, another comment on this. Yes, I want to say that I think the whole purpose for this historical project is that money and value are not the same thing. It's not that I live in a beautiful old house and I'm going to spend the money needed to fix it up and I'll get that back. You usually do not get the money back. That's why we need the CPA funds. You do it because it's important that that building stay and so the exterior that tells us the history of the town. So the idea that that you can fix the outside or paint it or fix it, whatever and that money will come back when you sell it. That's not how it goes. And I've lived in old houses. So the market doesn't fix everything. And I believe that this money is here in order to do things that need to be done, which in fact, don't really pay for themselves. So, thank you. Michelle, you've been enormously patient. Please go ahead. And now I do have a question on this action to a more general or a different question. So, is this property owner or owners currently bound by any design covenants, given that it's on the National Historic Register that would make it more costly for them to do the types of exterior repairs they need to do. That's because the building is in a historic district and on the register they would have to get the historical commissions approval for any exterior changes. So, yeah, they're constrained. That's, that's, yeah, kind of the, the, it's great to live and own a historical structure but then that also puts you puts obligations or limits on what you can do. Yeah, in my experience it can be really costly to meet those, those design covenants that are often in place here so. Yes, I would say slate slate is expensive. It's much cheaper to put on a, you know, asphalt shingle roof so slights beautiful and very heavy and it does degrade over time. So Michelle you had your hand up before all of this so. Yeah, so seeing the community award on here it prompts me to ask the question about reimbursement and I think Sarah that I heard you say that these projects are reimbursed so I'm wondering if there are any options for an applicant, particularly a community applicant that may not have funding to pay for a project upfront. How would they be able to sort of apply for and receive an award and be able to go through that process if they weren't able to make that upfront payment. That's where I call a friend and ask for Sean or Sonya to say what, what can be done if the group has cash flow problems that is that is some come up with some nonprofits as well. So, so you want to speak to when we've, I think we've worked with contractors directly in the past. Yeah, we've never really had this issue come up before. What we have done, though, is once the event, the vendor or the grantee gets an invoice from their contractor they can, they can submit that right away and we pay them and they didn't have the money to, to move it over to the contractor. In some cases, we've, and I thought it was. I went back and looked and I realized that we, we never, we never did pay a contractor directly. I thought we did, but we did not. So, all we can do that I'm aware of and I can do some more research on this is be timely on cutting that check to the organization so that they can turn it over to the vendor. At this point. Okay, okay, so that the, the funds can be reimbursed pretty quickly so that it gets paid in 30 or 60 or 90 days. Right. So, work with the contractors to, or they should work with the contractors to get invoicing really timely, and then get it to the second floor to be approved and it comes down here, we can, we can put a rush on it. If we need to. Excellent. Okay, thank you. That's my way to deal with it in my mind. And in addition, the contractor would be aware that there was a grant available that would give them some assurance that they would get paid. Jennifer. Thank you. Yeah, I just, you know, as another example of, you know how buildings may come to receive CPA funding grants. I recall with the Jewish Community Center a few years ago, the fire was structurally unsound it was a safety issue and it was $250,000 for some reason to repair it. And so the board of the JCA didn't have the funds, but the Historical Commission and I think rightfully so, said that building belongs really to Amherst that's an Amherst treasure. So we do not want you to take the spire down because you can't afford to repair it. So they encouraged the JCA to go to apply for CPA grant which they did receive. You know, so that's a case where a building where the town may say the building is valuable to us, and we want you to do what needs to be done to preserve it. I think that you are correct, although I think we only gave them $50,000. I think they raised the rest of the money. Right. Thank you for that. Okay, going on to open space, no categories. Rick, can I just ask a question when there's no categories? No, none in that category. Do we have to put certain amount of money aside for future in that category? We might accept in this case recreation awards are considered part of that open space meeting that open space obligation. Okay, thank you. Yep, please proceed. Okay, so we have another five proposals and the recreation category, the first of which is to give give a relatively small award to Amherst elementary schools to start designing improvements or replacement to one of their aging playgrounds. It's not, not the playground that was built or with CPA funds just like in the last 10 years, but a different playground. Right. And then we expect because they're there, their application was actually for $500,000. We were not ready to go that far this year, but we would expect that after they expend this grant, they will, they may well come back and request for their CPA funds to undertake whatever they feel is necessary. The next award is $38,000 to the town to improve the irrigation at the Plumber field. These, this Plumber fields area is very heavily used recreation area. It's also either or both wet in some areas and very dry in other areas. So there has been years ago a well installed and the underground pipes and sprinkler heads that are supposed to pop up and irrigate the field that the well no longer produces water, no longer collects water they fill in over time. I think the town is done, DPW was done what it could to try to extend the life of that well. So, so there's that problem and also these as many homeowners I think end up discovering the subsurface pipes and the sprinkler heads are problematic and they're creating problems in the field divots, or the heads are a hazard hazard to the athletes. So, they want to abandon that system, develop a new well and then use water cannons that can be can be moved to irrigate only those places which need to be. They would remove the sprinkler heads again because they're a tripping hazard. And just leave the lines in place. And as the report here states, once this work is done it'll be a lot less maintenance for DPW to try to keep the fields in good shape. And the recreation department is very keen on this improvement. For the next project, we recommend $150,000 be given to improving or developing a small, a relatively small trail, part of the ultimate trail system at Hickory Ridge, and to install some amenities like his kiosks or benches. Of course, contingent on the purchase being finalized I don't know if that's happened yet, but, but any day now. The fourth proposal is to apply $50,000 of CPA funding to repairing heavily used trails throughout the town we have quite a popular and extensive trail network, and it's been especially heavily used during the pandemic. And they're just bridges and bridges and also what he called the bog bog bridges board kind of a boardwalk thing that needs repair and many places. It's hard to it's hard to keep up. So $50,000 will just enable the town to do more. Not everything but more help them address the backlog. Finally, another community project, or rather brought brought forward by community members. This one has the very enthusiastic support of the recreation department is to develop some pickleball courts. There is quite a pickleball community in town. They either have to go to other towns that have pickleball courts or compete for use of tennis courts. Which obviously then displace tennis tennis players. So their proposal was to build some pickleball courts on the. If you go down the driveway the mill river parking recreation area. There's a parking lot, very little use immediately to the left. That's where they envision putting pickleball courts. We recommend this award, but with the understanding that the town will have to determine what is the appropriate site for courts and it might not be at mill river, maybe war memorial, maybe somewhere else. So, we haven't changed the title but it's possible pickleball courts would in fact be constructed somewhere other than mill river. Yeah, I'm interested in why the pickleball players aren't raising money to support this when people wanted a dog bark they did an incredible amount of work to fundraise for the proposal. I haven't played pickleball yet so maybe it would change my mind, but I don't understand why we want to spend $120,000 to make a pickleball court. When there are so many other things we could use that 120,000 for that would benefit a lot more people. So I'm curious about why they're not funding it themselves why why isn't that the first step. I wonder if people looks out for fundraising before they ask the town for money. Can I answer, please. I don't know if they have considered that. Two, I mean I would think one or both of these two things. One pickleball is a popular sport at all ages, and why shouldn't the town add this to its, to its recreation assets, you know, why build tennis courts why don't tennis players raise money for tennis courts. So there's that also. Maybe once there are courts. And it builds an actual Amherst community for that. Maybe then they can leverage that into fundraising, but we didn't I don't believe we addressed that. David, did you have a comment. No, I guess I would just build on what Sarah said and Pat I think it's a good question and and I'm not sure we really did explore that with them there as as Sarah said they're very passionate group they're organized. It's a great credit for doing the work they did to pull this all together. As you know they I think we might have received more letters and emails on this pickleball proposal then, and I can recall in my time with the town on any CPA proposal. So I give them great credit for organizing and to Sarah's comment. Pickleball is is is sweeping the nation really as is extremely popular sport for all ages. And I think to some degree it's, it's, you know, incumbent upon us to kind of look at it we we have tennis courts we have basketball courts. You know, we have pools we have baseball fields we have, you know, all sorts of recreational facilities and, and to create, you know, two or three courts for this, this, this new sport seems seems reasonable to me. I've talked to the DPW and to the planning staff and, and we all kind of came around to it to say yeah we should find a place for pickleball courts in Amherst and, and perhaps we could take a message back to the group from this discussion that it would be wonderful if if there were some, maybe some funds raised to help support the pickleball courts because they will need maintenance over time. Before I call on anybody I just need to disclose that my husband was one of the signatures to support this proposal. So I, it does not require me to reduce myself it just requires me to declare that Bob, you need to unmute Bob. Sorry, I didn't want to talk about pickleball in fact I had to look it up I never heard of it before. But I wanted to talk about Hickory Ridge so if other people have pickleball issues, let them go forward. Okay, Kathy. Is it a pickleball issue. Let's speak quickly to this. First of all, my understanding when I'm the liaison. This isn't one court, they can get as many as three courts into this space and the amazing thing about pickleball when it's not just cross age it's cross age and bad knees. It keeps seniors outside and little kids can pick it up so I think the notion that there should be an association raising money. We can get our kids out and playing on this. We should really bring the elementary school over there because the whole complex at Mill River allows for you to be swimming, being out on the ball fields being on the tennis courts, and it's something that many towns have only for wealthy people. And that's what you know with the pickleboards are inside someplace where you have to pay a fee. So I think that's the reason it's so popular is it's so easy to learn, and it's so easy to play for people who can barely move. You know, so it goes to the little kids but also stand there. So I was just going to say that I, I didn't know the group existed, but that Mill River recreation area if anyone hasn't been there recently, it's incredibly used by a broad group of families with people take picnic lunches there they stay all day so I think the more we can get everybody outside with making complexes like this that are public. It's, it's a real public benefit. Dorothy. That was very interesting I need just a few more things. I don't know what pickleball is. If somebody could explain even what kind of a ball and what you do with it, it would be really helpful. I will explain unless there are any actual players. I just learned it a couple years ago I'm a tennis player it's a racket that looks more like a ping pong racket. It's short. The ball doesn't bounce very much. The court is much smaller, which is why they can divide a tennis court into two pickleball courts. And, and it has the most weird rules you've ever heard on scoring. So I think it teach his people math skills in a bizarre way, because it is totally non intuitive, totally. You know, but, but, but, but I think why it's attractive is that the bull doesn't have to go very far, you know, and it's a doubles two people play against two people normally so it gets four people out in this pretty small court. Kind of like standing on a ping pong people. Hi, I've got a couple of different topics, but, but I could focus on this when I was thinking about the comment about the dog park. And I suspect that at some point there may be sort of an ongoing maintenance fund structure that that the supporters of pickleball can ship into certainly with the dog park, the town has contributed a fair amount. In addition to whatever the dog park devotees have contributed so I think in the long run. Everyone will be well served by by us supporting it. So the question that I had about the playgrounds. Are there other available funds for for the elementary school playground upgrades and that's, that's sort of a general question where do we have to rely on CPA funds for for elementary school playgrounds. Sarah. They can ask JCPC to prioritize their work. And there is a request. So there is a request to JCPC as well. They have a couple playgrounds that are in disrepair. And so there's also a request to JCP or to the really to the town manager for capital funds. Okay. Kathy you still have your hand up but Bob, are we ready to move on to a next issue, please. Bob. I just had a question about the Hickory Ridge trail improvements. I think it's a good idea. But my question is what is the total cost for the entire trails I recall discussion we had a long time ago about the purchase of Hickory Ridge. There was a discussion about we might need to build one or two bridges in there in order to have a trail that goes across the property. So can we just get a sense of what the total cost would be for what trail is envisioned. We're going to call on David who is our Hickory Ridge expert. Yeah, let me let me start by saying we are we're kind of on the one yard line on Hickory I know it's been a long road but sometimes in real estate acquisitions patients is a virtue so Paul Bachman often looks at me and says, you know comes into my office and says, so how we doing on Hickory and we are very close in fact I just got an email from our attorney so we're really on the one yard line here. Most documents have been signed closing documents and we are extremely close so I expect there to be an announcement here in the in the coming days and the not too near future that we, we do own Hickory. In terms of, of total cost of trails. It's a little, it's a little hard for me to estimate that because to some degree we we haven't permitted we haven't approached the permitting body so there may be, there may be some problems that we propose that frankly, the conservation commission will say or the state will say, sorry Amherst you can't do that. So we have a draft a draft plan of all the trails and you may recall everyone on the call here that one of the underpinnings of the project has been access to make the land accessible to those people who live around it and visitors of course, but also to create a north south access way for people who live on east Hadley Road, so that we, we connect them with the village center that of course is testing in with the mass works grant and other other road and sidewalk and other safety improvements. So that is the core trail that we want to try to improve. And by improve I mean there will be a, it'll be a mosaic of both by two minutes asphalt trails, as well as crushed stone trails with seeding with kiosks. Another component of this in terms of where the trails will go, our discussions and negotiations with the property owners who who about the property, we need to get we are we already have sought and had preliminary conversations with most of those owners. We have sought either easements or understandings with them that we can connect to Mill Valley Apartments the Brook Apartments and some of the private other private holdings in the village center. So all of that work is kind of ongoing, and that will determine ultimately how many trails we have and how much they cost. We are building on I want everybody to understand we're building on the cart pass that were there from the golf course. We are not, we are not, you know, in some cases we will create new but but the foundation of the trails is already there. We may need to improve them because, you know, even even during the golf operation they were kind of let go. So we're going to build a, a spine if you will the trail will be north south and off of that trail will be some other interesting way to make people west to a certain property in terms of the bridges, the bridges right now are in pretty good shape. And in fact, one of the negotiation pieces that we have is that the central spine trail will go over a bridge that we will actually not need to maintain that will be maintained the responsibility of the solar developer for the 26 acres of land. So I hope that gives you kind of a broad picture of how we're going but but again this 150,000 should get us a long way we also have some CDBG funding that we're going to apply to trails as well. Are there any other questions regarding this I just want to be conscious of our time and when I at least get to the financials. Is there any recreation and general reserve any questions on those. Sarah, is there anything else you need to talk about. No, well I just want to point out that the highest their regional high school did put in an application for fund is $800,000 of funding to repair the high school track. I just want to go back, because it did not comply with the, the recreation plan that had been developed. We don't know if they're going to return to us with a modified proposal or not. We just don't know. They haven't they haven't told us that they're not. But unless Sean has an update. I imagine they will. Would be my guess for this year for this year next year, I don't know. I think this year. You were not. Excuse me not quite done. I just want to say if I'm, if I'm not going to appear before you at another when you, when you, before you take a vote or however the process goes, I just want to thank publicly thank all the members of the committee. And I named them they're listed in the report but I would like to say, give my thanks to Sam McLeod on the devil and got here, Sarah Isinger, heady startup, Andrew McDougal, Tim Neil, David Williams and Katie Alan Sobel. And I thank you very much for your time. Great. I want to take a moment before we lose track of this. I want to go ahead and do public comment and then I want to come back to the committee. And ask before we adjourn the committee of the whole you are welcome to stay. And since it's committee of the whole and we're going to look at financials, please feel free to stay. There will be a point in time where we do take a vote, whether it's today or not, it'll be a vote to recommend or, however, that vote will then go to the council. There is a requirement that because that this that there will be a public forum on the CPA. And then there will be a vote of the council with regard to the CPA. And I'm looking at those dates and working through those with Paul and Sean and David and so forth, but we will make sure we keep you apprised. Before I take public comment, I do want to just say Sarah, I, I just am astounded and so thankful that you are willing to take on this job and pull together so many disparate facts for Amherst. It's very, very useful and that has brought a lot to this conversation. So with that, I'm going, we have one person in the audience they have. Now we have two people in the audience and they would like to make public comment. So we're going to ask me engaged into the room. State your name where you live and go ahead Meg. Thank you Lynn. Can you hear me. We can turn the radio down. Thank you for having public comment. I want to put a plug in for the Mill River project and express huge thanks to the CPA committee and especially Sarah who echoing Lynn, some masters and extraordinary amount of information and but everyone on the committee as well as a historic commission and the conservation and Jane Wald and Jen, especially for helping. There's the North Amherst was the height of industrialism in the early 19th century actually in 1775 there were already six mills on the Mill River between Montague Road and the Cushman Common. They had their cellar holes and remnants that are disappearing for all sorts of reasons sometimes young people try to dam up the river in order to make swimming areas where they don't exist and people are finding artifacts, Civil War coins and that are just disappearing. So that's really important to us to save this history, but it's also important as a community project and we're using an approach called community archaeology, in which the community becomes the kind of docents guardians. We know that communities are better protectors of historic treasures than government, but working together is the best plan. I'm really tempted to tell you all about the history but that's what you'll get to find out as we go forward. We've created we're creating a community committee that's going to help shepherd this process along. And we've recently decided that in addition to the industrial history. I mean it's industrial it was you know mills making pencils and lumber and so on it wasn't was all with powered by water. We're going to also look at pre colonial history and and include the, what was who were the people who were living here before colonial people were. We have also a resident who's volunteered to write proposals for us were this we originally applied for $160,000 for the whole thing, which includes a website and all sorts of things and last year that was rejected and this much more modest proposal was accepted and there was some difference of opinion about whether it qualified so thanks again to Sarah for going to the town council and getting that approval. We are seeking 501 C3 status this year and we there's a people are doing research on foundation support and there's a lot of available funding for history projects but it requires this first research so that we have something to build on. And this $12,900 is going to multiply many times with outside funding that we're confident of we can find once we get tax exempt status. I'll just give you an example while you're playing pickleball in the mill for recreation part which I hope happens that's a great idea. If you look to the north, you'll see a burn like a bank that goes all along the side of the Mill River Park. That's the remains of a canal that took water that divert if you go down into the woods you can see that remember where the dam is brought water all the way up the side of what's now Mill River Park, and then over to the Grist Mill, and then it would fall down to rejoin the river, turning the Grist Mill making flower. So it's anyway, thank you. I hope you support it. Thank you make Tony Cunningham, please enter the room state your name and where you live. Hello. Hi Tony. Hi as Tony Cunningham I live on own drive. I just wanted to flag for the finance committee at the initial square footage being proposed for the elementary school building project which is available in the packet for this evening school committee it's 114,000 square feet, which is 28,000 square feet beyond what the MSBA recommends for a school for 575 children. And what this means if my math is correct is we're proposing a approximately $100 million school project potentially $90 million which I think is at least 20 million beyond our budget. So I would encourage counselors to get involved at this point to push to have that building proposal scaled back. From my math anything beyond 90,000 square feet is going to exceed our hoped for budget. And so that means pushing the schools to carve a lot of square feet off their proposal, as it stands right now. And so I think it hasn't yet been discussed at a school building committee meeting but I expect it will be at the next one, but it is on the agenda for the school committee tonight. And the plan as far as I'm aware is to submit this to the MSBA in the next few weeks. So I think it's, it's, it's urgent that the counselors get involved at this point and push to get this building scale back or we're going to have an overly sized building proposal that's going to have a trouble passing at an override, and it's going to take money from the fire station DPW, Crocker farm and any of the other needs the town has if it ends up being $100 million instead of 70 or 75. Thank you. Thank you for your Tony. I'm going to return to the finance committee. And I'm going to suggest that we not vote today in that we want to make sure we get some other things covered is there anybody who would like to suggest that we do go ahead and vote please raise your hand. And this would be a vote of just the finance committee. Okay, I think we will plan to try to vote at our next finance committee meeting, which I just want to get right out there and say is two weeks from today I believe. No it's next week I thought. Next week the 15th I believe is our. It is the 15th. Thank you. And do I also have one on the 22nd. I think the next one after the 15th is March, whatever that first or second. Okay, thank you. All right, so the next finance committee meeting is next Tuesday at nine o'clock the 15th at nine o'clock. Sarah, thank you for joining us. I'm sorry there's a panelist that just put their hand up. And that was me I just asking you. I just want to welcome to stay but thank you so much for everything that you've done, and for bringing forward such an amazing set of proposals and the work up to get them to us so we just cannot say enough to you in the committee for all of that so Thank you for joining us today. I have the feeling we're going to need to have you come back on more than one occasion. Thanks. Before I go I just want to say, give my thanks to Sonya and Sean they, they do the financial, you know, modeling to show what we can accomplish so they get a lot of the thanks to, but I will leave you now so thanks. We would all second that thanks to them as well. Sean, I think we'd like to look at the first and second quarter Sonya are you doing that or is Sean. So Sonya is going to walk us through it if it's okay with you, we're going to focus pretty much just on the second quarter, because the first quarter is pretty early in the second quarter will capture everything that is important. Do you want to put that up. Yeah, Sonya okay if I share it and you just tell me when to scroll. Okay. And I'll just start off by explaining the timing of these quarterly reports for the courtesy to the new council members and finance committee members. The quarterly the first quarterly report is in flux for a long period of time which is why it takes so long to get it out and the reason for that is revenue side of budget is still in flux until we set the tax rate. Once the tax rate is set, then I usually start pulling together the first quarter report and right after that the second quarter report. And the reason for that is I don't want to put numbers out there, they're going to change, continue to change and confuse everybody so that's the reason the first quarter report is so late. And the second and third quarter usually takes 30 days after the quarter ends for us to pull together because funds are still getting recorded in the previous month. And the fourth quarter of course takes the longest because I'm closing out a whole year and there's a lot of other things there. I'll start off by reiterating that budgets for local receipts were significantly reduced in fiscal year 21. And we increase them a bit in 22 but they're still not at pre-pandemic levels. And this comes to some of the percentages on what's been collected. And I'll start off with Cherry Hill. We did budget some revenues for that this year but again still not up to the levels of pre-pandemic, which shows 90.5% collected. And some of that is to the budget being reduced and there was a lot more use of Cherry Hill than we expected. I guess everybody needed to get out into the fresh air during COVID. Can I add to that real quick? Can I add to that real quick? Or maybe you were about to say this but the other thing that we're still sort of adjusting for is the closure of Hickory and how that might impact usage of Cherry Hill in the future. Thanks, John. That was my next sentence. Sorry. So I'm just going to go through a few of these, the ones that stick right out. Recreation department, that's only collected at 21.7% and we're currently working with the rec department now to reconcile the revolving accounts. There's usually an admin fee that gets transferred over but we haven't had the chance to finish that yet so that'll be more accurate in the next quarterly report. The next thing is licenses and permits and this is, we've collected, sorry, right down the collection right here. We've had higher than expected permit count for electrical and buildings so far this year which is why we've collected so much of this. The land is at 87.2% collected. The landfills and there's a landfill solar project that accounts for 135,000 of it. And we also have a few more projects with large fees coming up mid-year but this could fall in either fiscal year 22 or 23 we're just, we're not sure yet. So we're looking good with licenses and permits. Point of order. Could somebody scroll this text larger so we can actually read it. Oh, sorry, Sean. Keep up. I'm at Hotel Motel now. Is that big enough, Pam? Thank you. Hotel Motel and meal stacks are coming in a bit better than expected. And also note that the budgets are reduced in this for this one so that kind of skews the percentage a little bit but they are coming in better than we expected at this time of year. Special assessments, these depend on timely information from the Pioneer Valley Transportation Association. Once we have their final numbers, we can then build massive biologists and get the revenue in and we just received those numbers so the billing will go out in a third quarter. So, Sonia, I'll just add to quick or one quick thing which is so of these revenues, probably two most important for economic indicators are the licenses and permits and the Hotel Motel meals and cannabis taxes those sort of indicate the economic activity that are going on in town. So I think that those are trending positively as a good sign. Okay, and on the expenditure side, and I don't think I said it in the beginning, but this is the general fund that I'm going through right now. So when you're looking at in the packet in the report, you have reports on revenues and where we are with expenditures at this point in time and then there's another report that shows comparative over three years. So there's a lot of detail on these back pages so I just kind of summarized it in the in the verbiage, but I encourage everybody to go in and and look at those. For expenditures, we're at 57% expended at this point but if you take out what's encumbered for contracts, we are at 55.5% so we're pretty much on target for all of that. Some of the budgets were reduced. So that's why it's a little higher than the 50% point out that the town manager's budget shows 38% expended however we are going to be moving some of the budget line there into the DEI department. So that's going to change on the third quarter you'll see a shift there. The expenditures just be starting this month actually. Employee benefits, we're moving retirement assessment and OPEB contributions to other local assessments and the reason we're doing this is with having them in the general government and employee benefits excuse the general what our general government budget balance is so we're moving it to other assessments so that we have a clearer picture and that's going to happen in a second. And it did happen in this quarter. Miscellaneous and insurance. This is shows at 173.5% expended. The reason for this is we always pay for our property and casualty insurance premiums upfront. And through the course of the year we allocate those costs out to the schools, the library, and the enterprise funds in the region. So that will normalize. If there's any responder program or crest program that has no activity in the general fund at this point I'm not sure if we spent our funds on that yet but there's been no activity in the general in the general fund. Snow and ice I have no prediction on that at this point. It looks like it's largely overspent but that's a contract for salt sand and treatment for the roads. We ended up closing out some of that. So it reduces the budget but at this point, I can't predict, and I don't dare. And then the enterprise funds sewer is at 46.6% and water is at 44.5% collected. The collection is lagging just a little bit in rates. But if you look at the comparison report, three year comparison report you'll see that we did better this year than we have in the last three years for water and sewer rates so our sewer rates calculated as a percentage of water consumption and water consumption has gone down so that's affected the water and sewer rates over the last few years but we've made quite a few adjustments to get that in line and right now we're doing pretty well with that. The expenditures were at they should be same. Same thing applies there if there's any contracts or in conferences can skews the expenditures. Solid waste fund is at 79.3% collected and revenues usually come in at the beginning and at the end of the year for this fund. So, there's no. I'm not concerned about anything at this point. The operating budget in this one is typically very tight. However, we can only a budget budget there what we would we expect in revenues. So at this point, this one has not been able to support admin fees being paid to the general fund or indirect costs. The other one is at 50.1% collection. This is good. However, the budget is reduced in the previous years. In fiscal year 21 we ended up with a $288,000 deficit. However, we used opera funds to replace that deficit. And the only and I just want to point out that the only sources of revenue for this fun are parking fees and parking fines. And I said there's a lot more detail in this report and in the continued pages. Any questions. Questions. Bob Higner. Yeah. Sonia and Sean are these just the, the, the actual Amherst budgets and they don't include the ARPA funds or are any ARPA funds included in here. No, this is general fund and enterprise funds. And then among the for the sewer and water funds. What is the experience been for UMass so far this year. Obviously was a big issue during COVID. Yeah, that's something we have looked at recently their consumption is more in line with pre pandemic it's not all the way back to our was pre pandemic. We've been trending down anyway, because they've been put into place a lot of water efficiency improvements, but the, the consumption is closer to where it was before the pandemic last year really bottomed out when they were gone for half the year. But we've been watching that closely because that's such a key driver of the revenue for enterprise funds. Right. Thanks. Michelle. I have a question about our two new departments. I don't know if this is the right time to ask that question. Please go ahead. So, I'm seeing that. I think a majority of the funding for those two new departments is coming from ARPA. And I just, I guess I have some concern about how we plan to sustain and build those departments. Given ARPA is temporary. Yeah, no, it's a great question. Let me just lay out what the plan is for both of those departments. ARPA, in terms of the Crest program is only being used for startup costs. It's not funding any operational or other than maybe vehicles like the initial vehicle purchase it's not funding any operational costs. So the budget for Crest for this year is about 200,000 and we have an earmark for additional funds. And then next year for FY23 the budget we're about to work on the plan is to implement the rest of the operating budget for the 10 responders or the 10, the 10 positions in that department, which is when we look at the projections later, if not today or at the next meeting, you'll see that's one of the reasons why we're asking for additional funds for the town budget is to fully implement Crest. The DEI, in a similar way, we're using ARPA just for this year, FY22, to fund half of the coordinator position. The director position is being funded from the Economic Development Director that is in the operating budget. The town manager repurposed those funds to fund the DEI director. So the DEI director funding is already in the operating budget. Half of the DEI coordinator because there's two positions so half of the DEI coordinator is already within the operating budget because that also was a position that was in the town manager's office. So really all we have to do for that department is phase in the other half, which we're planning to do for FY23 as well. And then any supplies, any supplies related to that program or that department. And then the other thing I'll say is we also, a year ago we added $80,000 for DEI efforts and anti-racism efforts. So there is $80,000 in the town manager's budget right now specifically for that type of work. Thank you. Alicia. Thank you, Sean. I'm just wondering in regards to you said that there are funds airmarked for specifically asking about crests for the following year. So does that mean that that amount has already been determined? Or what does it mean that the funds are airmarked? So there's an earmark in ARPA of $250,000 for startup costs. So that will stay until those startup costs are identified exactly what they are. For crests, we've projected an estimate of the cost based on what the budget that was presented to the council that they approved. We know there might be some adjustments in that once things are worked out. The position classifications and things like that are still to be finalized. But we have projected an estimate of what we think it'll cost so that we can see where we need to end up. Do we have that number? So it would be, it was based on, and I can set it out after it was based on what was presented to the town council for projected budget for crests. That would be awesome. Thank you. We'll make sure the full committee gets it. Thanks for asking those questions. Kathy. I was just going to weigh in that there's a finance committee report on this, looking at out years or projecting but at that point, Sean, we didn't put, we didn't go out very far. So it showed us internally what the whole budget could look like. And my memory is the first two years look like we figured out how we're spending it by the third, fourth and fifth year. Not so. So I'm just thinking that we might want to come back to this at the finance committee to have another look at it when you get on firmer ground. So we did, Alicia, in that report that will consent you, it shows the first couple of years and how the money works out, but it we're under a lot of pressure by year three, four and five for everything else. You know, so the school budgets, the, the rest of the town. I just want to say that it's, it's sort of balanced for a couple of years, but then not. Yeah, so, and just to speak to that so we're, we're projected out how we can add the two new departments and potentially for additional firefighters as well. So when we looked at that projection with the additional $300,000 for FY 23, we think that will get us through FY 23 and FY 24. FY 25 is when the firefighter costs would hit, and that's where we start seeing some struggles and so we're going to have to work out. You know, if our revenues increase faster, we're going to identify additional revenues, or make other operating budget adjustments in order to fund the priorities. Bernie. I have a question and a comment. The question is, is the, the economic development director position which sort of got is, is that still shifted over to ARPA funds. Yeah, we have a, we have a near mark in ARPA for the next two and a half years to fund that type of economic development director. Okay. And the comment is for the new counselors. You may be interested in note that snow and ice removal is the only thing in master and law that the town can expend in excess of appropriation. It is new England after all. So it's a tradition to to what to guesstimate your snow and ice removal funds. Bernie, thank you. Alicia. And I just had a follow up question the economic development position will though be a permanent ongoing position after the two years of the ARPA funding is out is that something we're going to continue to try to fund. So right now it's funded with temporary grant funds so as it stands now it would go away after two and a half years because the funding within the operating budget was converted to the DEI director position so right now that position. If it was to be continued, there would have to be other grant funds or it would have to be added back to the budget. So that would be a decision we'd have to make in a few years. Okay, thank you. I just want to note it is 11 o'clock or two minutes of normally this meeting would end 11 we have certainly not finished our agenda. And but I would like to see people raise their hands if they need to leave at this point. Okay, then. Andy would kill me for this but we're going to continue on. I'm sorry. Would have to have a hand. Yeah, I had my hand up I have another meeting. Okay, starting at 11 the disability access awareness committee so we still have a quorum of the full council if you need to leave Pat, thank you. Thank you. Do you still have a quorum if I also duck out or no. I'm sorry, who was that that said that it's honest. Yes, we do. It's only it's the main thing is that I need a quorum of the finance committee. That's what I figured. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yep. Three, four, five, six, seven. We still have a quorum of the council. Okay. Are there any other questions on the first or second quarter report. Okay, then let's skip. I mentioned one thing about the meeting schedule we have meetings set. I believe through the end of April. When we meet next week, I want us to be prepared to look at how we can figure out to meet up to twice a week in the month of May, because when we do the budget, it is almost critical that we do that. One of the suggestions I'm going to sit, I made already to Andy and that is that we do one daytime meeting each week and one evening meeting each week, and carefully select which items, for instance, might be more interested the general public and do those in the evening and so forth but that's a discussion for next week. Kathy. Yeah, I think that's great Lynn. I just want to register, particularly with finance committee, that the two dates that were selected in March, I can't make either of them. And I had originally done in every other week so maybe when we meet next time we can just look at those dates and whether I can make the other March states, you know if we just shift it so I just would like to review that calendar I'm fine for February. Okay, so we're going to look at calendar that's a preview of next, the next meeting. John, do you want to quickly do anything on the update for revenue and expenditure projections. Sure do you want me just to combine that real quick with CG. So we had a budget coordinating group meeting last week or the week before which is three council members to school committee members and to library trustees, and we met to review updated budget projections. We talked about the governor's budget, and what was in there. We didn't have health insurance yet so we weren't able to talk about that, and we basically just sort of shared shared what we're working on with our budget. We talked about the additional $300,000 for the town municipal budget and what the need for that. We also talked about some of their challenges and how they're balancing use of grant funds. They have grant funds just like we do related to ARPA. So it was a productive meeting I think we all walked away sort of having the same knowledge and a good spot. Then do you want me to quickly share the projections just go through it. Yeah, why don't you do that. Okay. Anyway, myself, Andy, and Mandy Joe represent the council on the BCG meeting. So, is this large enough for people to see. Yes. Okay. So the, I'll point out what's changed since when we presented this at the financial indicators meeting. So one major change is, as Sonya mentioned earlier, now we have the FY 22 recap. So our revenues are set as it relates to the budget. So you may see some of these revenue numbers changed a little bit for FY 22 and it's based on whether there are any recap adjustments that were made like new growth was finalized and things of that nature for FY 23 revenues. We updated. We updated the special assessments because we received the update for PVT. I think that's the update. I believe that's the updated PVT assessment out the double check that we get a letter every year that has the total PVT assessment. So this is the revenue. So this is the money coming into us. So this is updated for there's two sides of that there's the assessment which is down below in the next slide and there's the money that comes into us we get reimbursed from UMass and five colleges for their share of the PVT a routes. So this is updated to reflect the, the re the new reimbursement that we expect from five colleges and from UMass. So that is the updated number. The update section has been completely updated to reflect the FY 23 Governors proposal. Usually that's the, the lowest point so we hope some of these numbers will go up. But we, from a conservative perspective we usually stick with the governor's numbers. So chapter 71 up very little. Did you want to say something Leonard. Yeah, only to say that people are very disappointed that the governor's only gone to 2.7 for state aid. Yeah, so the way that works is the governor made a promise that whatever the consensus revenue numbers go up that they work out with the legislature, whatever that goes up, they'll, they'll give the same increase to cities and towns. So in some ways that's been nice. It allows you to bank a number it keeps it consistent with what they're projecting where people are really frustrated is the numbers been really low the last couple years. I think zero one year, and, and revenue came in much higher the actual revenue came in much higher I think, you know, millions in terms of surplus. So, so that's why people are hoping this number will get bumped up even beyond that commitment, which would be really beneficial for Amherst in particular. And just to mention that the governor's budget is the first the house in the Senate each have their budget, then they go to conference committee. They come up with a budget it goes back to the governor he can veto. Hopefully all of that gets done by the end of June. And, but it's during the house in the Senate process that we would hope to see this go up. Yeah, and if there's any advocacy that goes on around the budget, these are the areas that would be really important charter reimbursements another one that that money relates to how many students go to schools charter schools, and the increase each year and how many go there. And then we get reimbursed a portion so this has been updated. So all these numbers have been updated. And we also increased the ambulance fund so the way that works is when our EMS staff go out and on calls, they can build for insurance. And then we also have some agreements with other entities for providing EMS services. All that money goes into an ambulance fund, and then we appropriate a portion of it each year, and we can only appropriate money that we have, we can't do it based on anticipated revenues we have to have it in the account before it can be approved. So Sonya does a really nice job of tracking the revenues and let us know what she thinks will have by the time this is voted. So we've increased, we can see where it used to be back in the prior year. This dipped down a lot during the pandemic, especially when you mess left because calls dropped and there was fewer. Calls in general. We're seeing it start to tick back up. And the other thing we did a couple other events that affected this we obviously lost the Hadley routes a couple years ago which resulted in a drop in revenue. But shortly thereafter we increased fees ambulance billing fees that the insurers pay or anybody pays who's paying those fees directly. And so that will result in a revenue uptick, and we still haven't seen like what a normal year looks like without Hadley, and with these higher fees because it's, it's been the pandemic since that point. CPA this number should look familiar this is the debt number so comes in as a revenue and then it'll go out on the expense side. So we're going for sake of time. So these numbers haven't really changed the operating budget this is what we're proposing as the is what each department would get for their operating budgets next year. It's normal two and a half percent is sort of our normal level because that's generally what taxes are allowed to go up. And so we try to keep it at two and a half percent as a sustainable increase. So this year in particular we're proposing an extra 300,000 for the town to help implement the new departments DEI and Cress capital. This will shuffle around a lot when we work through the capital plan with JCPC so I wouldn't get too stuck on these individual numbers but the, the most the number that won't change, likely is the amount we're dedicating to capital, which is 10% of the tax levy. That number is where part of our plan for funding capital especially our plan for funding the four building projects. And so getting to 10% as a key step in that plan. You can see where we've been in past years. We dropped down really low during the pandemic. FY 22 went up really high because we took the money that we had set aside in FY 21 that we didn't touch we just set aside as a reserve. And since it wasn't used in FY 21 we were able to put it towards capital and FY 22 which is why that number jumped up higher than normal. But for FY 23 we're back on track with our plan of 10%. We have our pension assessment in there which this is the pension for all. All departments, but not the enterprise funds enterprise funds get divvied out to, to those systems to pay, but it includes the assessment for the elementary schools the librarian for the town. We're back to 500,000. The year before was originally 250, or maybe, maybe originally 300 but we brought back during the free cash transfer this past year to make up for what we had cut during the pandemic you might remember there was a request for OPEB contributions and that was to make up for the, what we had cut in prior years related to the pandemic. And we the last thing I'll point out is our state assessments we have updated this as well to reflect the governor's budget. So that's gone up 10%. The two biggest factors there are PVTA assessment went up quite a bit. That's, and that's mainly because we're part of a system, and a lot of places their bus routes dropped off a little bit during the pandemic but because we had the college, who went up a little bit. This is something we think will correct itself and talking to their finance director there she thinks this is sort of a temporary blip because of the pandemic and once bus routes get back to normal. It'll it'll hopefully drop back down or increases will be moderated in the future. And then the other reason for this increases charter so as, as we get more charter revenue it's usually related to an increase in charter tuition. We saw a bump in our charter revenue but that was driven by this by a projected chart tuition increase. And I will stop with that. Any questions. Let me also just point out that if you want, especially for new counselors, although several of you were at the financial indicators meeting that was in November. And that's where we started looking at this sheet, which is the beginning of preparing for the FY 23 budget. We also held a budget forum on November 15, and then in December, the, with the finance committees work and Andy's pen, as well as several other good suggestions from this committee. I recommend and the town council passed the financial guidelines as we go into FY 23 and so Paul and Sean and the full staff are now in, you know, full mode if you will, of preparing the FY 23 budget. And that will come to the council on May 1. And we must pass a budget by June 30. And the finance committee must report back to the town council within I think it's 30 days of receiving the budget. So that's what makes the month of May so intense. It's when we hear from the various departments, we get an opportunity to ask questions and in the past, we have also I think made several of those meetings committees of the whole so that, you know, it was nice to have several of you join us today, particularly new counselors who have not been through this process before, because it really just begins to give you a little more in depth and insight into budgets and the process and I just have to say the complicated nature is so blessed to have such terrific staff and Sean and Sonia. So, Kathy, just to build on what Lynn said about May. Not only have we been posting it that everyone can come but to the extent we, we talk about which departments we're going to be talking on at each of the meetings, and to the extent people have questions. We implemented a process where we gather them in advance so and we collect them and Sean gets them to the department so we have a focused discussion. So, so I urge you when we first get that budget to pay attention and then it's which departments you might be interested in the more extensive discussion. So the other learning curve that all of us were on and if you read the charter you saw this. The only thing we can do is cut. We can't move money. So when this budget comes to us we can question a level and potentially go lower, but we can't say we'd like to go lower here and higher there. So that is our operating charter law. So it's not something where we've done some artful things around that to to express different ways of spending but we were operating under those constraints so I just wanted to say those two things that we do know the schedule of which departments and urge people to get comments in questions in early so that we can have the department discussions focus on those. And we ask for members of the finance committee to kind of each take a section of the budget make sure you're a little more. We are a little more familiar with it and kind of lead in the questions that get asked. Are there any other questions on this issue. I know as counselors, you all know that we have a four towns meeting on Thursday night. This will probably be maybe the last meeting before we finalize before the regional school budget is. I don't want to say finalize but we have to approve the regional school budget before we even finish up our own budget because we have to do that in coordination with the other municipalities all of which have town meetings and they meet earlier than we do. And it's been a contentious issue with regional schools, and we'll see what Thursday night is like. The other thing I do want to ask is, do we want to go ahead and pass the minutes or shall I just continue that on to. Why don't I continue that on to November, I mean to February 15. But Sean, I want to just check with you, I have that we're going to come back on the calendar. I believe we're doing the audit on the. Yes, the audit is on the 15th. Tanya Campbell from Lansing Heath will be here to present the, the FY 21 audit and the financial statements. Okay, and, and just to say that we do not have a separate audit committee the finance committee is the audit committee for the town. And we're also dealing I believe with parking fees next week, because we need to provide any observations recommendations or changes that we would like to see to TSO Dorothy. I know that when TSO gets ready and then they are going to be making some changes potentially and also then holding a hearing that hearing will be a committee of the whole and Dorothy that hearing will be on what date. You have to unmute. March 10. Thank you. Okay, and so Sean, anything else on the agenda for next, next Tuesday. Okay, so the two, the transportation fund and the permits as it relates to the transportation fund, and then the audit where the two major items for next week. Okay, and then minutes. Okay, is there anything else Kathy is just really quickly for the people who are not members of the council we can send you that parking proposal that was already presented to the council. It's available to take a look at and there were to send you want to see the comments that were raised we have minutes from that section so that we discussed that a few weeks ago, but that is ready to be looked at since we only have a week till we meet next time. And I'll make sure that we get it. Sean and I will make sure we get an agenda posted with Athena and materials in the packet and sent out to you. Are there any other questions or comments from any counselors or any of the non voting resident members. And then I am going to adjourn both the town council meeting and the finance committee meeting. And thank you. This was a very productive morning and lots of good questions. Thanks. Thanks.