 Yeah, I'd like to call a finance committee meeting of Tuesday, October 4, 2022 to order at five minutes after three and pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2023, which has been extended by subsequent legislation. This meeting is being conducted by remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by zoom or by telephone. There's no in person attendance of members of the public, but every effort is being made to ensure that they, the public can adequately access the previous proceedings in real time by technological means. I'm going to now go through the members of the committee to make sure that everybody can hear me and we can hear them. And also, before doing that one to just remind everybody that this meeting is being recorded. And with that. Lynn. Christopher. Present. Bob Higner. Here. All the way. Present. Bernie Kubiak. Present. Michelle Miller. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. And we'll confirm Alicia's attendance when she's able to join us. And with that, I think the other thing they'll want to announce is that we do have an opportunity for public comment. And we will try and get to that a little bit later in the meeting so that we can have some discussion and that gives public a chance to react off of things that have been discussed also. So with that said, I think the. Preliminary questions about the agenda, should we just jump in? Do you want me to put the agenda up? I don't think that we need to. The first item is really turning over to Sean, because he's going to want to explain to us about supplemental. Appropriations. And that includes for the operating budget. Track and field and roads and sidewalks. Things that were listed. So. I'll recognize Kathy first. It may be on the agenda, but I would like to get from you a meeting schedule going through December. I heard last night at the council that there will be a meeting. Following the next council meeting, I'm probably going to miss that I'm going to be out of the country, but I just wanted to get a sense. I'm assuming we're going to be meeting at three or 330 in the afternoon. So I'm not in a rush on it. I just want to put hold, I want to put hold on my calendar. Um, what we had said, what I had proposed to an email and there was nobody who got back to me saying that they were not in agreement with this is that we would meet at 330 on the day following council meetings and that that would be our regular schedule for the remainder of the year. We can create that into a schedule, but that's that's fine with me and it's just a question I would would be be starting at three or 330 and I will just more I will work market in my calendar. We said we would start at 330 Michelle may have something more to say about that because the today's modification was something that she had worked out at my request, Michelle. Yeah, I will have a lot of trouble with, I mean, a lot of trouble but I have to pick up my son at 430 on Tuesdays. So I was hoping we would meet at three and maybe I'd have to leave a little bit early and I think Kathy had suggested a little bit of a possibility, I think, of, you know, one of us might need to come late one of us might need to leave early kind of thing, but I can talk to Alicia again and just see. So I think it was the two of us that had some limitations I don't know about anybody else but I would prefer to meet at three if possible. So I didn't want to take a lot of time with this I just was going to pencil it in. And I got the information I needed. So we are going to have to see if we can work this out on the start schedule, because there was general agreement about the afternoons and Tuesday. The reason for the day following is is that gives us the most time to turn around reports to the council and get them to the council on time. Sean, are you ready to start us off with the supplemental appropriations apply 20 supplemental appropriations. Sure. So I'm going to share my screen. Do you see the table from last night on the screen. Yes. Okay, so I'll just do a little bit of a recap and I'll just focus on the first three for now. There were three supplemental appropriations that were proposed. The first one is to increase town school and library operating budgets by a half percent, the apply 23 operating budgets by a half percent. And the cost of doing that is 351,938. So we would pay for that using the state aid that came in higher from what we budgeted and I'll pull up a budget projection worksheet from the memo that was in the packet in a second just to show what that looks like. The intent is that this would be added to the operating budgets and establish a higher base to go forward. The other two appropriations one for roads and sidewalks, which would be for a million dollars. So this is to address. We know that there's a large backlog of road and sidewalk repairs. Last year we put an extra million dollars into it this year we're trying to put in some additional funds into it. Some of this is in anticipation of when we do start having debt for the building projects we're not going to have as much money and capital to do roads and sidewalks so as much as we can sort of do some extra now will help mitigate that impact down the road. So we do have one time although again we may look to do it, you know if we do have additional funds in the future we may look to do it again next fall. And then the last one is the region track and field, which the Council has already. So this is the one that there were sort of two tiers of a project there was sort of the base tier, which would just be a replacement of the track. The council has already approved the debt authorization for that project. The regional committee regional school committee wanted to consider doing a larger version of that project which would turn the track and put an artificial or a synthetic turf surface in the middle. That's a much larger project. And so they laid out a financial plan that divvied up the cost of that to each of the number towns. So there were sort of three pieces to our contribution there was the original debt authorization. There was a CPA request, and then there was the difference of the balance left which is what's in front of you here. So the council has already proved the debt authorization they've already proved the CPA. And so this is the third and final component of that funding plan, which would get Amherst up to its share. I did check in with with Doug Slaughter from the regional schools there have been no financial commitments from the other three towns, new financial commitments from the other three towns as of today. Some did one or two did contribute some CPA funds already towards the planning, but the regional schools are planning on submitting CPA requests to each of those towns. I'm not sure how much they're going to be submitting for but one has already been submitted and the, the Doug will work with the CPA timelines with the other towns to submit requests to them as well. Anticipating those votes on this CPA would happen. They would happen that I believe their spring town meeting. I'll have to double check on the timeline but I do not think they are votes that will happen in time for to be in place before the deadline that was established. So why don't we open it up to questions on those. FY 23 appropriations Lynn. Another question that was asked last night was about fundraising, and I didn't know whether you had any update on that and then the other question that I think comes back to this group and that is do we want to recommend to extend the deadline. I think that the town meetings have happened before we make the decision one way or another. Thank you. So on the fundraising front. I've heard that there's some organizing going on but I have not heard that there's been any donations received or any, any money raised at this point. And your second point about a recommendation. I think the council approves this and Amherst has sort of funded its share. I think it makes sense to have a conversation with the region about, you know, what do you, if you don't, what are you going to do if you don't have enough money by the deadline are you going to really sort of go back to the lower tier or, you know, is there a, you know, an intermediate step you can take. I think they're self imposed deadline because they their track is in bad condition and, you know, I think it makes sense from their point of view if they need to do something they can't keep kicking the, you know, kicking it down the road. Anything else, Linda. Otherwise, Bob. I just had a question about the, the increase in the, the expenditures due to the, the sort of windfall of state aid. Is that going to raise the, the baseline for doing next year's calculation of 1.5%. And if so, does that make sense given that it was sort of a, a one time, is that a one time deal from the state. So no, that's a great question. So we do, we do plan it to be an increase in the base on an ongoing basis. It does increase our base with the state as well so that our base with the state in terms of our state aid has gone up. Basically what it was is every year we make a, you know, we project what our increase in state aid is going to be. This year was probably one of the more unusual years where there was a pretty big gap between what the governor projected for increases in unrestricted general government aid, and what the legislature was proposing. And so we went with a more conservative route when we proposed our budget. The budget was approved rather late this year by the legislature and ultimately they went with the higher number. And so that will be our number going forward. So that will reduce their state aid number sure, but it is tied to what revenues they brought in. So and during the height of the pandemic they, the worst they did was stay flat they didn't go down in their state aid so. Okay, thank you. Any other questions. Regarding the first section on FY 23 supplemental appropriations. I'm thinking of questions I'll just, I also checked in the schools just to get a little more specificity answer what these, you know, the operator operational costs that they're hoping to build into their base going forward. So again at the elementary level, we had a lot of discussion about the arts and technology positions last year that if we did stated did come in higher we would revisit that. So that's why we're having this conversation today. They are funding that I don't remember if it's fully or partially but they're funding it at least partially with us or funds so again this would help them phase off of those us or funds. And at the secondary level. They, they created two mental health positions or sort of tier two intervention is how they describe them to me. They are in response to COVID, and those are positions that are being funded with us are right now that if their base is up, they would like to keep. I thought there was a problem with us increasing our regional contribution, and that we had to give it to them and some other form like a gift or a designation. Yes. So for this. So for the region for FY 23. We certainly have two options. We can either donate it to them, which is a little bit unusual and if, if we go that route either way I think we're going to have to adjust a little bit on the. We'll have to look at the order and see if it affects how we, we word it, but the two options would be there to donate the funds to them as a gift and they would put it in their gift fund and then use it for the cost that we've talked about. Or we just put this year's amount into the track and field, because we know that they're, they're trying to raise more money for the track and field. We put it there for FY 23 only. But when we go to FY 24 to start the budget process we would start them at the higher base so that it can be part of the be built into the assessment method going forward. I, I have a question on whether. I don't know how to phrase this because I'm not suggesting we do this, but do we need to do it equally across the big bucket so, for example, with regional if we didn't do the allocation to regional seems since we seem to have to contort ourselves to a way of doing the money. I've been struck by at the town level of whether it's grant raising the, the various kinds of activities we're doing. Are there any positions that we're temporarily funding with ARPA money that we could instead hold the ARPA money for something else so you understand what I'm getting at, you know that that that are in the same kind of world that we, I think we did the two years of a, and my memory is one that would work on all the housing projects we've got but we just be. It wasn't a full time new position we were creating. So I just, I know it raised the host of problems to think of it not just being divided up. So it's that's a question and I don't have an answer for it. I'm raising it as a question. Yeah, so I think that position specifically that you mentioned is a CPA funded position a sort of housing for housing coordinator but I know but I get where your question is. Could we. Yes, I think the one of the strengths of sort of our towns budget processes that generally we have. We treat all departments equally. And when we don't, it does cause some friction and some issues with sort of just how the budget process works in general. And so we have heard a need from the regional schools, because because they are also relying on us or funds similar to the elementary schools and similar to us with with ARPA. So if they didn't have a need then I would say maybe that's something we would want to, you know, consider but because they have articulated a need around some of their positions I think it makes sense to treat everybody equally in this circumstance. And I think, Andy, when we do, you know, I'm in favor of doing this so when we do it maybe we should write a few sentences that say the various entities the department have articulated a need, you know, so that the, we're not just saying we always do it equally, but we were actually, we're doing it thoughtfully because we the question and the answers we just got on where might it go or are being explored. So that that was my only concern because it will become part of Nick, as you just said is part of next year's base then. Yeah, yeah. And the other part I just don't want to lose sight of part of the reason for doing it this year and and this is why a donation to the region may make the most sense is part of this is also just to deal with the inflation that we're dealing, you know, fuel costs are way up utility costs are way up with it, you know, are, they may stay up but they are sort of in some cases, you know, at historic and so if those come back down that'll allow them to that'll free up some funding in the future. Will it become part of the base for the region because that kind of doesn't. So, so they will. So, there's a couple things so we looked at some forecasts from the region. The, there was the regional assessment method working group. That showed some forecasts. Some of those forecasts had increases larger than two and a half percent for Amherst if you remember that. And so this potentially could allow us to be closer, at least in that first year to what they're proposing, because there'd be an extra half percentage point in addition to whatever guidance is there is for next year. So it may work to kind of smooth that out from an Amherst perspective. But as always if Amherst contributes more, the other towns are going to have to contribute more as well. They will have to come up proportionally. So the regional schools will have to, you know, when they develop their budget forecast this year and they're, you know, they look at their assessment information and project out their assessment. They're going to have to kind of work through all that for next year and we'll assume we'll find out more at the four town meeting. And the worst case scenario is they don't ask for, you know, they may come in lower than our guidance, which wouldn't be the, you know, the worst thing either. Yeah. Thank you. The other thing to notice the fall or somebody else but I want to speak to this to Paul convened a meeting of the budget coordinating group. I'm a charter and this was specifically discussed at the budget coordinating group. Needless to say it was good support from the schools and libraries for doing this because they are suffering the inflationary trends that Sean was talking about. And we did have some discussion about the regional school question there too. I don't know, I'll leave it to Paul and Sean if they want to add anything about BCG. I'll leave it at that. It was joyful. Okay, so anything else on the subject of the FY 23 supplemental appropriations. I'm holding off on proposing motions on orders to give police a little bit more time to see if she's able to make it since she frequently has problems till around 330. So what I was going to do is once we complete the discussion of these first two segments is probably when I'm going to work in the public comments so that we get public is able to comment. Prior to our taking boats on the proposed orders. So that's the next things we really want to talk about a little bit is the proposal to create a capital stabilization fund, which was also brought up last night at the council meeting, and then the proposed transfers. So Sean, I guess is back to you. Yeah, so the next chunk are these four bottom ones. I think they're both. They're both. I think it was. There are some more commissions for reparations because that's sort of separate. So the town council. I think a few months ago made a commitment to fund reparations are considered funding reparations annually. An amount equivalent to what we bring in and cannabis taxes. And so there's been an initial contribution of about 206,000 from last fall and this or maybe slightly higher. And then so this fall this the mountain proposed is 134,000 330 and again that's equivalent to what we brought in an FY 22 cannabis tax money. So that's the first transfer the funding source would be free cash. So, there will be a fourth quarter budget report presented to you all sometime, hopefully at the next meeting. And that fourth quarter report will go through FY 22 and what where we had additional funds come into free cash some on the revenue side from revenues coming in higher than what was budgeted. And so when that happens or some other adjustments but that goes into our free cash. And then the town has a policy that it will maintain a balance of 5% and free cash 5% of operating revenues. And anything above 5% it will transfer out or there's a list of options and some of some of them are what we're proposing for the supplemental appropriations. So, so reparation so the 134,000 330 is coming from the amount of free cash we have an excessive 5%. The other transfer. So then the, that's one piece the other piece we propose to create a capital stabilization fund. You can craze me stabilization funds as you want, I would say we don't want to create a bunch of them but in many towns they do have capital stabilization funds the region for example has a capital stabilization fund they're pretty common. And we view it as a helpful planning tool to staff to help us know exactly what we have to support the four building projects. And also if we have goal you know when we look at models and a meeting or so, and you'll see there's different amounts of reserves required to make a model work. It lets us set targets for what do we need to get you know what do we need to save up in this capital stabilization fund for a model to be possible. So it's helpful for us from the planning perspective I think it's also helpful for the public because right now when the public looks at our reserves, or when anyone looks at our reserves they just see a big number and it's the variation of sort of our, you know the reserves we keep for economic downturns and what we've been building up for capital and it's hard to know where that line is. And so we think by creating this fund separated them it'll make it really transparent to everybody. What do we have for general reserves and what do we have for the four building projects. And so we propose to create a capital stabilization fund and sort of a parallel policy of, we want to keep the 5% and free cash, we would keep 10% of operating revenues in our general stabilization. So that when you add those two together, you come up with a total of 15%. And then anything above and beyond that would go to reparations each year to honor the commitment made there, and then the anything above that would go towards the capital stabilization fund. And one of the reasons, you know, talking to Kathy one of the reasons why we came up with 15% for sort of the general reserves. One that has been our the town's policy for quite some time it was a five to 15%. And so this is the upper limit of 15%. I believe there was a government finance officers association sort of best practice at one point that had that five to 15% range. And then but the, the other reason is that our bond rating agencies, one of the things they look at is our budgetary flexibility, and we always score really well and budgetary flexibility. And the metric they look at to have the highest score is 15%. It's a little bit different metric but if you keep that 15% level, then we can maintain that sort of highest score in that area of our bond rating. So there's a lot of, you know, again, that's an area that could go back and forth. I'll tell you I think I've told some of you, you know, Sony wanted 20%. So I had to talk her down to get to 15%, but I know someone like even lower than that. But I think 15% is, you know, it's consistent with our policies it's, it's what people are familiar with. It's consistent with what we're trying to do on our bond rating front. And, and the amount seems like it's an adequate cushion for an economic downturn. And so these final two orders are just to wrap it up. The final two orders you see on the bottom so the 1.7 million, 1,670,120. That is what is left in free cash. That's an above 5%. After making all these other orders that we proposed here so this would be the balance that would be left to transfer and that would be 5% free cash. The bottom one is from the general stabilization fund and that's what could be transferred out and would leave 10% in stabilization and the rest would go to capital. So it's really kind of like moving your savings account and breaking it up into the, you know, into the sort of the purposes that you're planning for. Okay. One thing that I just led and then I'm going to start recognizing. Those of you who have hands up. One is, but what I was going to just point out is that way back in the dusty past when john me sandy was the town manager and sandy pooler was the finance director. There was a proposal that they made to town meeting to create a capital stabilization fund and town meeting rejected it. And then the committee and select board at the time recommended at the town meeting. Just felt that they supported all of the money being in stabilization but they didn't understand or support the creation of a separate fund and splitting it into two pieces so stayed the way it was so this is kind of coming back Bob. I just wanted to verify that these two separate stabilization funds are fungible back and forth right I mean that we're not locked into the, you know, we got to keep only capital in capital state stabilization fund we can never move it to the general stabilization fund and vice versa. So, so ultimately it's always within the council's purview through a two thirds vote to use it for an allowable expenditure. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Just add on is it's just a higher bar to take it out as the two thirds vote of the council so as Sean said, but it can be used for if it takes that comes out of capital can be used for any expenditure if needed. Kathy. Sean, I think it would be helpful. At least it's helpful to me. We are moving 3.7 million when I just added it up out of what's free cash, and that's above 5%. I know we haven't seen it yet, but you have the number so we're voting based on you saying this is above 5%. So I think it would be helpful in our finance report with, again, I'm supporting this to say free crash this year came in at x. We're talking about and leaving 5% and we're moving 3.7 just to do the math for people. And then the same. And then what I asked last night is we, we've built up 21 million or whatever the number is in our stabilization fund and we're moving seven out, you know, so the people 15% doesn't isn't as meaningful to people as knowing they still have this other amount for both everything else so as Bob was asking, it could be used for capital but it could be used for one year we got one of Dave's it's a deal that's too good to turn down that we needed some money to buy a piece of land since, you know, once in a lifetime. But anyway, we. So, I don't know where the land is capital but I just think having both of those in this will provide the context to show what we're doing, because I had one person, you know, worried about that when we do this and stabilization is all going to go for the buildings and there won't be anything left to do other things we want and I said no 15% is still a big amount amount of money. And we don't normally draw on stabilization for operating budgets we we do it in an emergent plug a hole. So, that's all I'm asking I know you have the numbers, and I just thinking for, for me to feel comfortable that sure move three financial is very specific move this million dollars move this having, knowing that we're still leaving 5% would be useful. That's it. Yeah, no, I will put together maybe a slide like this that I'll send to Andy, that you can put in the packet. Just for the record, I'll just say that our free cash was certified this year at $8207,716 in the general fund. So 5% of our current operating budget is 4,495,267. And so the difference between those two numbers is should equal the sum of the things that we're proposing, but I will sort of put that in an easy to follow chart. So that people have it. Thank you, Michelle. So one of my questions, Sean, what was the total free cash that was certified so thank you. Can you pull that chart back up or has that thank you. I'm just a little bit confused about the two capital stabilization fund lines here. Can you just explain that one more time. Yeah, so, so there'll be one capital stabilization fund, but there's money in two different places that would be going into it, which is why there's two different orders. So this first one FY 2312 a this would be the money from free cash that's in excess of 5%. And then the second one's paired up with the reparation order because they're both coming from free cash and they're both transfers to stabilization funds, but that's why this one is separate. And then the bottom one is coming from our existing stabilization fund. So it's a different source and it's the amount above 10% again trying to get to a total of 15% for general reserves. In general reserves, we view those as our free cash plus our plus our general stabilization is what make up sort of our general reserve balance. So here there's two different places where they're coming from. I see so for the one that's coming from the general. That's a one time for this year coming from okay that you're moving right to make this special savings account for capital needs. Okay. Exactly and then going forward we would again every year. The first thing we would do would be we keep free cash at 5% we keep the general stabilization at 10% again those numbers will. What 10% of the operating revenues will change a little bit every year because our brain revenues go up a little bit every year. So the first thing that will happen is those will stay at those percentages. The next thing that would happen would be making the commitment, the reparation transfer that is on that commitment. And then if there's still free cash available above and beyond the 5%. Then we would consider this transfer to capital stabilization. Okay, thank you. That's really helpful and then one other question. Paul mentioned the higher bar the two thirds vote of the town council. That's always been true for stabilization money right so there's nothing that's already in place. It's not so free cash as a majority vote. And general stabilization is a two thirds majority vote for expending. Thank you. Sean just to ask you, when we move the 7.8 into this other, is that a two thirds vote. I believe it will be because you're sort of you're appropriating out of one, you're doing an appropriation and transfer to move it from one stabilization fund to another. Taking it out of stabilization fund. The general stabilization requires two thirds, putting it into the new capital stabilization fund wouldn't require two thirds but since it's a single vote you have to go to the higher number. Sean, Alicia is in the audience. Let me just stop sharing second letter. Alicia, can you hear us. Yes, I can thank you. Okay, so just so you know welcome aboard. We have been going through the, some of the same material was presented last night but asking additional questions. I want to try and repeat them. We deliberately were waiting to take votes until you were here so that no votes have been taken. So the first section was talking about the supplemental appropriations from FY 23. And then we got into the creation of the capital stabilization funds and stabilization fund transfers that were same chart that was at last night's meeting. So that's kind of what the questions are about right now. Then I was going to go to public comment. So the, the publicly comment before we voted. And then I have a series of motions to go with each of the orders. So that's kind of where we are in process. So, Bernie. How much is left in the general elections at how much is the value of the general stabilization fund right now. Currently in our general stabilization fund before any, any transfer. I'm going to round this because the number I have is the combination of two separate numbers but we have about 16 million in the general stabilization. 7.8 sorry sorry we have we have about 16.6 million in general stabilization the reason why I have to round that is because now we have to stabilization funds we have the reparation stabilization fund and the, and the general stabilization fund and I just have the balance for the two combined. Okay, so that 7.8 is coming out of the current 16 point out of the current 16 Sean or is it coming out of a bigger number. No it's coming out of the 16. Yeah, because, because if you think about our budget just for people to have sort of the perspective our total budget is 89, roughly 90 million for FY 23 so if you think about 10% of 90 million. You know it's about 9 million, which is what would be left in stabilization. Okay, and then again there's that 510 15% hierarchy that drives what the allocation is into each of these buckets. Yeah, you know first would keep free cash at 5% than any would keep our general stabilization at 10% to make a total 15. The last question that I have this whole thing is, you get any indication that the changes the Commonwealth made in the marijuana and cannabis laws are going to impact what our cannabis revenues are. So, that's a good question. I think they, well, I think they will definitely impact. There will be impacts on the host agreement revenues that we have the community, the community impact payments. What the reparation payment is mirrored off of is the tax money. And so, you know, potentially there could, you know, so we've seen that some big fluctuations in the tax money you can a couple years ago it was $200,000 this most recent year it was 130. It's really driven by the recreational marijuana activity in town. So, I'd say it's right now we're still in the sort of unpredictable place of what will be the formula to allocate money into the reparations funds is still Yeah, it's based on the tax, not the it's maintained. It's not the changes in the host agreement will affect that. Not that I've seen no, not the tax side. Great, thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to suggest to show him that maybe we should clarify very clearly that the total town reserves are X, and we're just moving him into these different buckets, but nothing's changing. I think that's a good you know just so people aren't confused that we're taking money away from something. Right, no, I think that's right I think the only thing I will say is that you know the money we put in capital stabilization the intent is it will support the four building projects and that's and that's why we did build it whereas our general reserves we we generally don't want to touch them unless there's an economic downturn and we use that to support our budgets. But whereas the capital reserves were built up and specifically for that purpose. Right, but we we sort of had that in there in the general stabilization. It's already making explicit. I think that's fine I'm just suggesting we make sure people understand we're not really changing anything other than not changing the total, we're just moving it around into different buckets. And we, since we've now set it up so that we have essentially almost two weeks to do the next report. I will make an effort to get the draft report out and plenty of time so that I really encourage all members of the committee to read it, send me back comments to make sure that I have that clear in the committee report. Yeah, I was just underscoring what Bob just said and I thought I wasn't as clear as I should have been, but it's great to have someone saying it again, a table, Sean that shows this is what we've got. And this is what we'll have afterwards and just showing that the two add and just at the point you check your 15% if I multiply 15% times 90 million I get to a certain number. So just, just making sure that the concepts line up, and then up above it's free cash we had this much free cash, we're taking that much, you know, that much out so you know I'm, we then end up with a capital stabilization fund with 9.5 million which is a very nice I must say, you know I mean it's a good number because it, it's not tiny. And you can think of that is, that is there to really start thinking about where does that go and and how do we draw on it so I, that's why I like this idea a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to build on what people are requesting but also clarify that in fact we are going to spend some of this money by the supplemental appropriations we're making. So, there is a subtraction off the top that's not going into any reserves. So the nine and a half already accounts for those the other appropriations but you're right we could put more if we didn't do those but we felt that those other initiatives were also important to make progress on. I like the fact that we start with we had this much before and now we have this much in free cash and now we're subtracting this and we're doing this and we're doing that. That's the only thing that to make it clear to people. The other thing is that I hope we never face the situation that I'm about to describe. And, but we've never really gone back and defined fiscal health, and I hope we don't ever have to for the purposes of the cannabis funds. It's not automatic. It's based on fiscal health and, you know, we may at some point have to look at something and say, you know, we really need to do a supplemental here and it means we don't have as much for reparations I mean this is something that Michelle and I discussed to a fairly little while before we started, I'm hoping we never were in that situation but I just want to be clear that that's part of the, you know, part of what even AHRA understood. Yeah, yeah one sign I mean one easy sign that I would look to for that would be, are we able to maintain the 5% of free cash. If we're not able to maintain that year where we're not able to maintain that then that would be a sign to me that we would need to rethink kind of what contribution or transfers we're making. Right. But for this year. Nobody's raising a question that on this. That's makes it appropriate to make the transfer under the term so we talked about Michelle. Thanks Lynn for bringing that up because I do think that that's a challenge with this particular setup here. While I understand it and it was something that we all agreed to I want to make sure that we can find some way as the years go by and maybe there aren't the same people here or there's not that institutional memory of things that it gets enshrined somehow into the process and I was really pleased just to see that it already has in a way and really appreciative of that and in listening to what Sean said even about like the markers that might indicate whether or it's possible in a given year. But I do think the point about the cannabis sales tax, even though the community impact fees won't affect that. I do wonder how the recreational business is going to continue to do. So I think that's also another thing to just keep an eye on as that fluctuates. Also, the, the other thing that I wanted to just mention and then I'm going to go to the public comment to get this moving along with path we were described. The other thing that was discussed last night a little bit at the council meeting was a question of revisions to the major building plan. And clearly the capital stabilization fund plays into that they're directly linked because funds from the capital stabilization fund need to be available to make the building project plan work. And what was agreed was that the next finance committee meeting, which is two weeks from today, that that would be a focus of discussion at that time is one of the agenda items. And that was clear with the council yesterday. So because we wanted to make sure that counselors had advanced notice so that they could attend the finance committee meeting as has happened in the past, when there's been a matter of exceptional interest. I don't think there's anything more we need to say on it unless somebody else has something I want to add. If there are no further hands right now from the committee. I'm going to ask the if there's any member of the public that would like to offer public comment. I appreciate it if they would raise their hand so they know. It does not have to be on the subject so we've been discussing in the proposed orders. It can be on anything that's relevant to the committee's responsibilities as a whole. And I think I saw Tony and Tony is now with us. So, Tony coming up. Hi, thanks so much Tony Tony cutting him own drive. I think this capital stabilization account idea is a great great idea and I love seeing a significant amount being transferred in there to support the capital projects. I was wondering if it would be possible to get sort of a cost benefit analysis or a pro con on lowering the general stabilization to 10% instead of 15. I mentioned that bond rate agency score higher for having 15%. What is the impact. What does that do if our bond rating went down. And how does that compare to being able to use a greater more money to reduce for example at that exclusion override on the school. So I think we should just show us both sides like what are the pros and cons of going to 10% instead of 15%. Thank you. Thank you, Tony. I'll ask Sean second, he wants to respond, just looking to see make sure we've nobody else is raising their hands right now in public comment. Sean, do you want to respond to that or not. So, we can make some educated guesses I think it's it's hard to say exactly what the impact would be or because that your bond rating is based off a number of factors budgetary flexibility being one of them but it's not the sole factor. So if that score was not to be as strong. That would put some downward pressure on our credit rating, but it's, it's not always clear where that breaking point is where you kind of drop from where your current rating is to the next one below it. So we always try to stay away from anything that's putting downward pressure on our bond rating. We know we're going to start getting some downward pressure on our bond rating just from the debt we're going to take on from the building project so that's one area that's unavoidable. Because we've been so low we've been, you know, we've always had great scores in the debt section. But that's, you know, that doesn't last forever for any community. So, so we know there's going to be some areas where we're already getting downward pressure so we want to avoid any other areas that might do that because going from a double a plus to, let's say double a, again, it's hard to quantify exactly what the impact is on your interest rate but that's why we have bond ratings or there would be some impact on, you know, getting a higher interest rate, when we would go out for a borrowing, but it's based on the market at that time it's based on how many banks bid on the bond, you know, to quantify it is something that we can ask our financial advisor if you can weigh in on but I think it'd be hard to do. But I get the question which makes sense which is, you know, the trade off between that versus, you know, borrow less on the school project. So yeah, I just want to jump in that, you know, even a half percent or 1% increase in our bond, our borrowing rate would be significant for these large capital projects because it would last across all the capital projects. It's not just a small one time thing. And also I think bond rating agencies look at what you're doing they look at your strategy, and they look at where you've been and where you're going so we're we've always shown a pretty coherent approach to how we're financing our capital projects by building up our reserves, expanding our investment in capital and they've understood what our strategy has been, and that's work to our benefit. And so I think that we should be very cautious about moving away from that strategy. That's the other thing that I would add to that from my experience and Bernie was around for this too. We confronted the recession that started with the 2007 financial crisis and was really 2008 2009. The need for the healthy stabilization fund that could be used so that we could maintain programs during that time was particularly important because it was in addition to a loss of funds that was uncertainty about funds, and the stabilization fund provided us with certainty and it really did matter because what happens when there's a recession is that the two and a half can continue to go up the two and a half. But you put the question of what the state can give in state aid to local communities is severely affected during that period of time, and it would have caused a great problem for our budget and the need to do a lot of drastic things that I was on the finance committee now but I can speak for the former town manager and finance director they had absolutely zero desire to go in that direction because they would have had to manage those reductions and the existence of our own rainy day fund was particularly vital, you can never tell if it's going to happen again or not. So that's the other factor that's in there. So, with that said, is there any other general comments otherwise I'm going to take might get comments as we go through motions but I would go ahead and start with the motion. And look for seconds after I did, but I'm going to start with an easy one I moved to recommend to the Council adoption of approval order FY 23-15 an order creating a special purpose stabilization fund for capital projects. Okay, so we have second from Kathy. Is there any further discussion on the order that just read seeing none that I'm going to call for a vote and because of the fact that we're meeting monthly I'm going to have to go through. I have an order set up and I'm going to start just doing it alphabetically and then keep moving down one to start. So, Lynn. Hi, Bob. I support it. Matt, did Matt have to leave us. I think he did. Yeah, it's right here. Make sure that the minutes show that then, please. Is there any member absent Bernie. Support. Michelle. Yes, I. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes, and Alicia. Yes. Okay, so I have it as unanimous of voting members five yes, and to members supporting who are non voting members. And one member absent. So the second motion is moved to recommend. Hey, Andy, Matt's back. Oh, Matt. I apologize, Andy. Yeah, I do support the motion. So I am going to amend and change the absent to a support and please let the minutes reflect that accurately. I moved to recommend to the council adoption of appropriation and transfer order. To the council to senate number two fee three dash 14 C. Town of hammer stabilization fund transfer to capital stabilization fund appropriating from the general stabilization fund. To the capital stabilization fund, the sum of $7,815,456. So there's a second by Lynn. Is there any discussion on. The motion that's on the floor. Seeing no, no hands up. Moment longer. I go through as I explained before. So starting with Bob. I support it. Matt. Support. Bernie. I support. Michelle. I. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes, Michelle. Hi. And Lynn. Hi. So it's. Five to zero voting members and three. Non-voting members. Sorry, Andy. You didn't ask me to vote. You asked Michelle twice. Oh, I'm sorry. Alicia. I apologize. So yes. So it's a yes. So it's still the same boat as before, but thank you. I apologize. Bill. Give your hand up. I just. Mr. Casey. Okay. Well. I'm going to go on then to the next order. Bill, if the year they're hand up for a reason, just let us know that you are muted. So I can tell. I move to recommend to the council adoption of appropriation and transfer order. FY 23 12 a. An order appropriating from free cash. To the stabilization fund. One million six hundred seventy eight thousand one hundred. Twenty dollars to be transferred. See if I get. And 140. One hundred thirty four thousand three hundred and thirty dollars to be transferred. To the reparation stabilization fund. Hi. I got, I got that one. Let's just keep going. Any, any discussion on the motion on the floor. Seeing none. Matt. Support. Bernie. Support. Michelle. Hi. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes, Michelle. I'm a yes, I'm a yes, I'm a yes, I'm a yes, I'm a yes. You're a yes. We just did. Good. I mean, I do this twice. It's okay. Yes. I'm going to get this right. One of these days. Okay. Lynn. Support. I mean I. Support. Okay. So it's the enemies with three non-budding members supporting. I'm sorry, I was going to ask what I was trying to ask for before my microphone wasn't working. Sean could put up that document that actually had the orders on it so that it would be easier for me to get them as you go along. I am going to send you at the conclusion of the meeting. The page with all of the orders written out on them so you can just copy them over by paste. Okay, so bill they're all in the packet right now to so you know as long as you know which order that Andy is calling them out in. But this way I'll have it I haven't in order also. So, I will get them to you for the end of the day, but after we the meeting adjourns. That was part of what I was trying to do to make it easier for everybody. Next is I moved to recommend to the Council adoption of appropriation transfer order 2304 be in order appropriating a supplemental increase of $351,938 to the town of Amherst operating budget for fiscal year. So, this three is set forth for each operating budget category and the table included in the order. Second. So much has been seconded by Lynn. And again, I will pause to see if there's any discussion. So, hands up. This time, I think we're starting. Very could be a journey. Support. Michelle. I. Kathy. Yes. Yes. Alicia. Yes. Lynn. Hi, Bob. I think we have a couple more of these to go three, if I got it right. I moved to recommend to the Council adoption of capital improvement program appropriations. I moved to recommend to the Council adoption of appropriation transfer order 2305 be in order appropriating funds for a portion of the Amherst capital program right road and sidewalk compares and some of $1 million for roads and sidewalks. To meet such appropriation to transfer $1 million from pre cash. And to further authorize the application for an acceptance of any gifts requests the grants. Second. Any discussion on this, this is the $1 million. Roads. Sidewalks was discussed. Michelle. I. Kathy. Yes. Yes. Alicia. Yes. Lynn. I. Bob. Support. Matt. Support. Bernie. Support. So it's five to zero. Three non running members in support. I moved to recommend to the Council adoption of capital improvement program appropriations, trans appropriation transfer order 2305 be in order appropriating funds for a portion of the Andy I think I think that one was a duplicate. That's right. So you can skip that one. You're right. It is. I don't know why that happened. Okay, because it is the track and field is next. Yeah. I moved to recommend to the council adoption of appropriation of transfer order at 520 305 C in order appropriating funds, proportion of the town of Amherst capital program school track and field rehabilitation appropriating the sum of $900,000 for school track and field rehabilitation to meet such order transferring $900,000 from free cash for appropriation and further authorizing the application for and acceptance of any gifts, requests or grants. Second. So it's Lynn again. Yes, I have a question and he has already interrupted. Just see your hands and how it's called for discussion. So go ahead. Yeah, just a quick question. What will happen if this project doesn't move forward with this money that we're appropriating. So if the project doesn't move forward there's two things that would happen. This money would get closed out and it would go back. Either to free cash or to our sort are the account where we close out unused capital funds, it would go there and be available for appropriation so couldn't be used for anything else until you appropriate it again. So we don't if this with the track and field project doesn't move forward you don't lose this. The other thing that would happen is the CPA requests which was a debt authorization that would bring that back to be rescinded. Same thing. And there was a piece of appropriation that we made at the beginning that we've then still be used for the track. Are you talking about CPA or, or the, the initial appropriation, the initial. Yeah, so you had an initial, the two things that would still be used for the track would be there was a small CPA appropriation a couple years ago which was for design. Actually that probably would not be use them and that was specifically for the larger project. So really all you would have left to be the 1.5 million debt authorization that the region that was approved from the region this May. And that was for that that base project. I'm just following it's a terrific question Michelle I thought of it last night and then forgot. If it didn't move forward, and it's here more for I don't know what we call track repair whether that's capital. When we're in JCP C, we're looking at accounts that weren't spent and Sony has been able to because they were designated for certain kinds of uses. Would we have that flexibility where we have to put it somewhere and then move it into capital. So this would be a little bit unusual this amount, you know that's usually the project's been completed there's a little bit left over and you close it out and then we can use that to top off, or we did like a escalation reserve. This is such a large amount I think we'd have to have a discussion about whether it would go there, or would we say well this would have gone into the capital stabilization fund. Had we not have the track and field project because this would have been free cash that would have been above the 5%. We'd have to have a discussion with what makes more sense at that point put more into regular capital or should we put it into capital stabilization for the four building projects. So I like that, you know I wasn't suggesting it go but I like the fact that it would come back for discussion. Okay. Anything else is really otherwise start voting. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes, Alicia. Yes. Lynn. Yes. Bob. Support. Matt. You can literally like walk around down support. Bernie. Support. And Michelle. I. Okay, so the vote is unanimous five to zero with three non voting members in support. And I think that takes care of all of the orders. I have it correct so I think that we have completed that portion of the meeting. And I'm glad she brought. And Chris and there's one other person I need to have. Connie Kruger brought in also. If she's representing the petitioners. Okay, so the next agenda item is street acceptance hot broke road Kestrel lane. This is a major discussion and learning opportunity for the group and we're not planning to actually take action, but we do need to make sure that we understand what the request is. And that we have identified the information that we feel that we need to make this recommendation to the council. I saw the Michelle's hand those up earlier and I don't see it now. I don't know. It's just a really quick point. It can come up later. I just wanted to ask if. The orders that we just voted are going to be part of the consent agenda or are we going to at our meeting? They have just a point of education. They have to the president for that. Yeah. We have generally not put financial orders on consent. Because of the two thirds requirement for some and the majority for others. So we'll, we'll be going through the same process. All right. We need to do the public hearings on those orders as well. Before they're the council can go on. Right. So. Connie, I see your hand is up and I was actually going to start with your duty, however, so to see where. Did you ask Doug? Could you ask that? I'll be bride and as well. He's actually the president. So he's on the call too, but are on the zoom also, but he didn't bring him in. He's not on the attendee list. I was actually looking for him. What's the last name, Connie? Uh, Danelle. So, um, is there another name of an account that he could be under? Let me put it this way, Doug, if you're there under a different name, raise your hand. There's somebody raise their hands. I'll bring them in. Thank you. Okay. I assume you're under. Deborah Newbauer. Thank you, Doug. Yeah, thanks. Sorry, I forgot to change over names. Thank you. So, um, This is a question for either you or Connie. Since you're the petitioners. If either of you would like to start with just a really brief introduction of what your request is. You're welcome to do so. And then the next thing I'm going to do is ask Chris to give us some help us with some background questions. So, um, I'll start with the petitioners to see if there's any introductory comments, statements you want to make. Or Connie. I just, um, I don't know if you have any questions. I think Doug is going to give an overview of the request for road acceptance that was discussed that town council then referred to the finance committee subcommittee. So, um, Doug, I'm relying on you for the background. That's okay. Yeah. Thank you to the members of the council for hearing our situation. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good one. We are a town meeting, but, um, Just to give you a little background, we're petitioning the town to have our roads, uh, become public ways. Um, The Meadows homeless association is 28 houses, uh, in South Amherst. Uh, this development was approved. Uh, through a, uh, a budget plan that was approved in 2004, roughly. Um, at that point, there was a punch list generated to complete those final miscellaneous, um, tasks associated with the road. Uh, in order for it to be accepted by the town, but that has been the plan all along. So, um, I guess I want to emphasize that this is not like a capricious plan to. Have the town take over the road. This has been a plan that's been in place for a very long time. And for a number of reasons, uh, we've. You know, it's, it's been delayed and pushed off into the future. And now here we are in 2022, almost 20 years later, and we are making a concerted effort to come before the town to have these roads transferred to the town. And we are now, uh, owned by Tofino associates. Um, as part of that process, and as specifically relates to the money piece of it, uh, in 2001, the planning board approved. A $130,000 shirty bond. Uh, that was to be collected in the form of $10,000 per lot as each lot was released, uh, when it was completed in the subdivision, uh, for whatever reason. The cost was long ago. So no one's sure why, but for whatever reason, only 20,000 of that was collected. Two lots were collected on and the others were released without any funds. So there's the, there's an escrow account that the town holds right now for approximately $23,000, that would go towards, uh, work on the road, uh, ostensibly to finish up whatever requirements are required by the town in order to take the road. road over as a public way. There have been, the homeowners have repeatedly tried through Tafino and now over the last few years to facilitate this process, to try to educate ourselves as to how we can make this happen. And so here we are today in front of you to, I guess, discuss the financial aspects of this. And I'll turn it over to Connie. Yes, thanks for having us at your meeting. I think one of the places we have felt stuck is as we've tried to finalize the items that the town would require to be completed, we have different versions of what we're calling the punch list. One, one list that Tafino has proposed recently with about three items on it to finish up what wasn't done as part of the original subdivision. And then our Department of Public Works has had a number of lists that the town engineer Jason Skills has prepared. And there hasn't been a coming together with a final written list that we know Tafino is agreeing to and is also agreeing to pay for those improvements. So there are some items that need to be fixed. Then also the rose deteriorated in the last almost 20 years. We know not every single thing is going to get repaired. That's OK, but we want to see some movement while we're all still alive and can remember what's supposed to happen here. Because it's gone on for quite a while. And sort of a lot of distress for the owners, the 28 households in this neighborhood. So we're looking for resolution of what that punch list is and how to have the three entities, the homeowners, Tafino and the town work together to get this done. It's closer, but it's sort of like the oasis effect that keeps getting further away as it gets closer. And we just would like to resolve this. So the town council and the finance community can help with that. That would be great. So I'll let the other people who are here to speak on this issue go ahead. Oh, thank you. So I'll say to members of the committee, of course, that at any time during the discussion, you have questions, raise your hand, and I'll keep my eye out to recognize you. Chris, I was wondering if you could start by saying a little bit if you can about how the subdivision plan process works and what happens at the beginning to assure that the roads are defined and the specifications are defined as a part of the work of the planning department and the planning board in approving a subdivision. So back in the early 2000s, the planning board did review two sets of plans. One, a preliminary subdivision and the second one was the definitive subdivision and the definitive subdivision has actually been amended once at least, but the planning board has to vote to approve the definitive subdivision plan and then that gets filed with the registry. And that essentially shows the outlines of where the roadway is. In other words, the property lines that define the roadway. And then there's also a set of construction drawings that goes along with that, that shows all the details of how the road is gonna be built and exactly where the road is falling within the right of way. And usually the definitive subdivision plan also has lots, lot lines defined and this one did. I believe that the council has a copy of that definitive subdivision plan that was approved. So then the DPW works with the contractor to make sure that the roadway gets built properly. The DPW watches over the construction and the roadway gets completed and then the town engineer prepares a punch list of items that are outstanding that need to be completed. And this all happened as Connie and Doug have said back in the early 2000s. And for some reason, I think I know pretty much what the reason was. There was a downturn in the economy in 2008. Of course, that didn't affect what happened in 2004. So you can take that with a grain of salt and then Doug Cole passed away in 2010. So those are two extenuating circumstances that have caused this thing to last to be prolonged. Really what should have happened is that this should have been, the roadway should have been completed. The punch list items should have been completed back in the early 2000s. And then the town would have been asked to accept the roadways at that time. And for whatever extenuating circumstances that didn't happen. So now we have a situation where the town only has $23,000 I think, as surety to complete the roadway. I can't answer questions about how the town didn't collect the remainder of that $130,000 because I wasn't really here. I was here in 2003, but I wasn't dealing with the planning board at that time. Normally what happens is that once the roadway is completed so that half of the properties can have access and can have a construction for their properties, then the town starts collecting surety for each lot, the second half of the lots and Connie is familiar with that process because she's been in the planning department and she knows how that works. But I can't give a reason why that money wasn't taken in from Tafino. So in any case, we end up with a situation now where we have a roadway that was mostly completed, has deteriorated over time and now the town has to decide at what point will they take the roadway? Will they take the roadway in its current state and be responsible for fixing whatever needs to be fixed? Will they have a certain list of things that they want Tafino to complete before the roadway is accepted by the town? So that's really a discussion that has to be made by the town council with support from our department and from Guilford-Moring and the DPW and really what is, I would think would be most helpful would be to get a definitive list of the things that actually have to be completed. We talked about a list of three items when I met with the town council a few weeks ago, but then when Guilford met with the planning board prior to that, Guilford said that there were other things but he didn't have a list of those other things that the town engineer wanted to have completed. So we really need to put these two lists together, the three items with whatever the town engineer thinks still needs to be done. Make sure that Tafino does those things and then make the decision about accepting the road. So I think that's what I would have to say but I'm happy to answer any questions. Hey, I can come back to you because I can think of a question later. I'm trying to go chronologically through the process of developments as best I can. So Guilford, if I was wondering if there were any records within Department of Public Works regarding whether the road construction was monitored to make sure that it was being built consistent with the plans as Chris just laid out. So we did observe and there are records about how the road was built and everything was built according to standards at the time except when they finished the road construction there was a punch list and they basically break down in the three areas, storm drainage, sanitary sewer manholes and then vegetation and sidewalk issues are the three little areas. There's all the catch basins. Well, actually some of the catch basins were not the correct place when they were built and they needed to be corrected then. Others have failed and we feel like they've prematurely failed. They're sanitary sewer manholes that have some issues and we feel those were kind of, those are failed early as well. And then just the fact that before we accept it is the sidewalks, there's a couple of places that failed due to work that was done by the builders in the neighborhood and there's just vegetation needs to be cut back which we would require of a new subdivision. The road does have problems but the road was built the base was put down and the top cut was put on. The question for the council is, is it acceptable, is the deterioration like an acceptable amount of deterioration or is it excessive and it should be brought up to perfect standards before it's accepted? I personally feel that the road was put together and what we see for deterioration except around the catch basins is acceptable deterioration is what you would see. Others in my office feel that the road should be brought up to perfect standards before we accept it because once we accept it, there's usually not enough road money to maintain what we have and we shouldn't be accepting roads that aren't 100%. That's just the two camps in our office right here. So that's kind of where we are with this. The catch basin issue is a big issue. There's quite a bit, quite a few catch basins beyond what I originally thought were a problem. I think almost every catch basin in the neighborhood has an issue and has to be repaired and that actually would require some work on the road and there was road as well. Yes, thank you. Chris, use your hand up. Yeah, I wanted to put this into a broader context which is that Tofino associates is also having problems with the Emers-Tills subdivision and what Tofino told me several months ago was that they wanted to wrap up the Emers-Tills issues and then they would turn to the Meadows issues. And so that was their plan as of six months or a year ago and now we're kind of like reversing that. And so this was not something that I expected. So I guess the reason I'm saying this is because I think Tofino has done a good job in completing the work that needed to be done on the Emers-Tills project. And that is as far as I know, pretty much like 85 to 90% wrapped up. And I got a list last week from the town engineer listing some things that needed to be addressed. I think there were either three or five catch basins that were problems. One detention basin that had trees growing out of it that needed to be fixed and then one other thing. So I guess the reason I'm telling you this is because Tofino has shown that they can do this work and can complete it based on the Emers-Tills project. So whether you want them to do the same thing with the Meadows, that would be a conversation that we'd have to have with Tofino. Are they ready to do that or are they not going to do that? And so anyway, I just wanted to put that into context. Tofino is also trying to get the Emers-Tills roadways accepted and I think they have sent you a request for that and you are going to have that on an agenda upcoming. The town council will have that on an agenda either October 19th or November, not October 19th, either some meeting in October or some meeting in November that will be upcoming. So I guess in my mind, do you want to push Tofino on both things at the same time or do you want to let them get Emers-Tills wrapped up and then move on to the Meadows and are they going to be more likely to come forward and actually do something on the Meadows if they don't have Emers-Tills on their minds? So I'm just putting all this information out there and you're the ones who need to discuss this and make the decisions. Lynn? I believe, why don't you take Connie and Doug next and then I'm just trying to get to the point that I think councils have, councillors and our other members have questions. Yeah, I've been watching to see if hands go from the committee, but one of the question that was just wanted to confirm we have received a request, Lynn, or have we not regarding Emers-Tills rather? We have received one. We were actually thinking it was going to go on the meeting, yeah, last night, right now, either on November 7th, I'm sorry, October 17th or November 7th, whenever Chris indicates to the town manager that it's ready. Okay, Connie and Doug, I'll be back to you in a second but I wanted to hear from Kathy. Lynn, did you have a question before or just you were, I need to say a couple of things, but first of all, I have filed a nondisclosure statement. I am familiar with the head of Tofino because he was president of the survival center. He was also vice president of the survival center when I was president of the survival center board. I do not see this as a conflict but I just wanna be upfront and say that I do know the Ted Parker and have worked with him closely in a totally separate capacity. And I just for the sake of discussion, I know Bob Higner has a similar statement he needs to make. Yeah, I also just want to say that I, Doug Cole built my house, I knew Doug very well but I don't have any involvement with the Meadows development at all other than walking there in the mornings but I don't think I have any conflict that will prevent me from reaching objective decisions. So, councilors, who have just your hands up still, so okay, if we go back to the petitioners for a moment and let them respond and kind of use your hand up first, that's fine. Okay, I'm a little distressed that it's suggested that we wait until after Amherst Hills is resolved. Mr. Parker could have attended the town council meeting, he could have attended this meeting. We actually were working with him in our timing to submit our request. So Amherst Hills is a very, they're on their own timeline, they have litigation to resolve and maybe they've done a good job finishing that up but it's still not done. And we have had a very difficult time having Tafino be responsive to us. The planning board somewhat recently in the spring released lots at Amherst Hills which is an asset of the corporation that we're trying to deal with that are some legal disagreement. And I think Ms. Pressrop and I may disagree about this that the assets of the corporation are potentially up for grabs for our neighborhood as part of this. There are no separate limited liability corporations formed. It's been very frustrating to deal with Tafino and they committed to finishing our project, agreeing to a punch list and I don't understand why that should come after Amherst Hills. There isn't a legal reason in my mind to do that and Mr. Parker could be here representing himself right now. It's hard to channel what he would say but we submitted that road request with his approval and his blessing. So that's all I'm gonna say on that one. Okay, you're muted. You're still muted so we can't hear you. All right. I just wanna add that we have made an intentional choice to try to not be confrontational, to try to be cooperative with all various parties. We finally came before the planning board because we were just out of sheer frustration at not being able to get this process to move. Various past presidents have been working on this. I didn't go through the entire history but this has been an active issue that we've been working on for at least 10 years. We have had several meetings with all the various parties, many meetings actually over the last couple of years and the fact that we still don't even really have a resolved punch list that Tafino can wrap their mind around in terms of how much this is gonna cost and begin to schedule contractors so that it becomes real. In other words, it's been a very abstract conversation up until now. So I guess I don't know how the process works. I myself, I'm just a homeowner, I'm just trying to represent the various households on this street, but we've really lost confidence in Tafino and we're trying to find a path forward to get them to finish the road. And so that's really all I have to add. Thank you. So I'm gonna now recognize some of the counselors who've had hands up and then you've been the one who's had your hand up the longest. So I personally would like to understand why is Tafino not able to take both projects on at the same time because of the cost, because of supplies, because of whatever, that's one question. The second question is, I would prefer that the town council not be the group that has to resolve the punch list, but I'm going to be extremely clear about my bias. And that is we cannot accept any more bad roads and Amherst, we have too many already. And so I want to help these people. This has been a frustrating process. This is my district and I want to make sure that however, in the process of trying to help move this forward, we also protect the town's assets. And if you want to see some bad roads, I'll take you on a tour anytime you want to come. Come visit my house. Kathy? So I'll build on what Lynn just said. I don't understand, I mean, I heard and I tried to write down exactly what Guilford said, but it seemed to, he seemed to be saying there's not consensus at DPW. I think we need consensus from DPW and a list of what needs to be done. And then I agree with Lynn. I don't think we should accept these unless it gets done. And I don't understand what leverage we have to force that to happen. But I don't think we should, I have no ability to look at the items of three. And then Guilford said, there are more of the drain stewards that have trees in them or vegetation. But I think it needs to be a very concrete list that Topino is presented with that are DPW and or planning departments as this is the list. And if the roads have deteriorated with no maintenance on them, I don't think we should take them that way. I understand it's been a really long time and how frustrating it is. But I think to the extent that council can speak strongly and that provides leverage to get something to happen both for our staff to create the list. I don't think it's good enough to say there might be other things. I think we need a list and this is the list with some a list by ex-date that, and it shouldn't be 2026. It should be, Connie's laughing at me. But I mean, it should be soon on this is the list. And if all of this gets done, then there would be recommended. And I also think we should have a recommendation coming up from staff, not just from petitioners, then we're ready to accept. So that's where I have reread this memo a few times and you presented it to us initially. And I'm just very grateful that the road that's outside my window is a state road and they did a really good job of repairing it, really good. But for a while it was miserable, but when they did it, it was repaired. So that would be my position, but I just wanted to echo what Lynn said, but on the list, I think we as councilors should be saying town staff, and it sounds like it's DPW, reach agreement. Don't have, we have a difference of opinions, reach agreement and come up with a document by a certain date, whatever that date should be. I don't know whether we could have it in two weeks in a month, I don't know what the right is. I don't wanna put pressure, but it sounds like there are more significant problems than even if the list of three, because in each of those three, there are more elements of it. So rather than one sewer or one drainage pit, there are trees and trees growing in them. So I, yeah, and I'd be happy to walk these streets, but I am not a road engineer and can't generate the list. Thank you. I'm gonna stick with members of the committee for a couple, and then I'm gonna go to town staff so we can make sure we get all of the community questions out, Bernie. I have to admit I was puzzled when I saw this on the agenda as to why the finance committee is involved with the approval of a subdivision road seemed unusual to me. It still does seem unusual to me. I think what has to happen here, because the town owns some of this. The town is not gonna escape some of the responsibility for either failure to monitor, for frittering away the escrow account, which is our leverage in this. So the town owns some of it. So I think if you wanna get to the position of saying there's over 20 years, this is normal deterioration, and we're gonna end up accepting it, then I think we should do that. But I do agree with what Kathy was saying, that we need a definitive list. Here's what you need to fix to Fino Associates, period. We need the town council's memo was not enlightening at all as to how we go about enforcing this or provoking Fino to finish his work. That has to happen because we need to know what leverage, what leverage the town has in the situation. And I think this is really, this really comes down to managing this situation so that councilors feel appropriate in adopting and accepting the roads. I don't see why Tafino has to be given any more time on this. It's the company can walk and chew gum, I would assume. So that's my point on this. I feel badly for folks because this is clearly something that they have had no control of. It's difficult when you're living on a private way and you would watch your house expecting that it was gonna become a public way. And you're on a private way and that private way disintegrates and you've got 28 people or 28 houses that you're gonna have to get together to come up with a maintenance plan. I think that's really unfortunate. The bottom line here is Tafino needs to get a definitive list of what has to happen. The town's attorney needs to be able to tell us clearly what leverage we have in the situation and how we can force if Tafino won't come up with a reasonable timetable, how we can force Tafino into action and then get this back completed and get it back to council so council can vote on it, not the finance committee. Thanks. One thing that I can say is just that it's in the finance committee because the council voted to send it to the finance committee. And whether anybody can share why that motion was made as opposed to some other motion, I'm not the one to answer it. I just know that it was made in the past and so it's here. And Michelle. Yeah, my son's about to get in the car. So I, thanks. I just wanted to share that I feel very, very sympathetic to the petitioners here and particularly hearing that there's another neighborhood with the same developer that's coming forward with a similar request and I could just feel the frustration in my own body. So I am wondering, so I understand what the process is. If we accept the roads, does that automatically force the developer to take care of the punch list? And so I agree with what Bob said about getting some sort of legal opinion on that and what authority or agency we will have if we do accept the roads, we may never be able to get them to do the punch list. So also understanding what the cost would be, I think would be really important and having a lot of clarity as others have said about that. So that's where I'm at right now, but again, feeling very sympathetic and hoping that we can find a solution for this to happen. Yeah. Thank you. I think that the, and we'll get, Steph is going to now be able to provide some supplemental information, but it's common that the punch list is taken care of before, but it's also common that it happened on a lot faster time table than this has happened. And so we have two factors that are out there for consideration. Once we accept the road though, I think that it becomes a done deal so that if we expect things to be done before we accept the road, we have to do that because once if we do accept the road and own it, then it's ours. Guilford, your hand's been up for a while and there's been a lot of questions that have been asked about the punch list. So yes, I would first like to make one clarification. We have done a punch list every time it's been requested of us. We've made about 20 punch lists. The punch list when we first were asked to make one back in the early 2000s was relatively small and did not include repairing the road surface. As time drug on and we got asked, we'll make another punch list. We made another punch list. Make another punch list. We've made another punch list. We have made multiple punch lists. The issue is, is that the process for acceptance was never started. So there was no real deadline given to the developer. The process for accepting the road was laid out and then has been provided a couple of times. I don't know if we have a copy of it or not, but once the developer or the group of people who now own this private road asked for acceptance, the council, since we're now really a city, they have to say yes or no. They want to look at possibly doing this. Once they do that, then an actual definitive timeline starts. The planning board has so many days to remake a response. We have, as a public works, have to make a formal, this is the list, and that's a formal thing. And to tell the truth, the public works department is probably as frustrated as the neighborhood is, is that we're always being asked to make a list and not much gets done. So we would much prefer to either start the process and have a definitive timeline that says, this is what's gonna happen. And if you don't do it in that timeline, or this is the timeline, and in this timeline, the council is gonna vote and it's up or down. That's really what, one of my real reasons for wanting to move about this because we've made lists. I actually have a person who may quit if I tell him to make another list, because he's made so many lists. We just need to get this to some point where we're at a point where we're telling the developer, if you want this to be a public road, you need to do this and finish it, or it's gonna stay a private road and we're gonna stop plowing the road and we're gonna stop doing some of the things we already do on the road. Sorry. No, that's, I appreciate that. And then Chris said her hand up too and I saw it as they were in a 10 staff mode. One of the things that you remember to the council laid out the three steps. The first step is to define the layout and then the second step is acceptance. Do we know that the layout is satisfactorily described by the plan that was provided to the council and that you referred to earlier, Chris? You said, oh, that's a question for me. I do not know, but I think the town engineer would know. Do you know, Guilford, do you know? The layout, the road is in the proper layout. It's not outside what they're proposing to give to us. The road is in that layout. Is in the layout as was defined to the planning board and that we have. Yes. Okay. Chris, did you have anything else to say? I have a list of things. Yeah, I think this process was premature and I know that the residents are very eager to get the roadway accepted, but the way this was done forces the planning board to hold a meeting within 45 days. This process was referred to the planning board for a recommendation. So now the planning board is going to be put in the same position that you all are being put in right now and I'm scheduling that meeting for October 19th. And I am not comfortable making a recommendation to the planning board on accept the road or don't accept the road because I don't have a clear recommendation from DPW. Or anyone in the town structure about whether the planning board should say this road should be accepted or not. And the planning board is going to look to me for a recommendation. So I think at least town staff needs to get together and decide what is our recommendation? Are we going to recommend that the road be accepted flaws and all with some of these things fixed? Or are we going to say, no, we're not going to accept the road until this larger punch list is fixed. And so what I'm fearing right now is that I'm going to go to the planning board on October 19th and they're going to say we recommend that the town doesn't accept the road. And then what do we do? Then do we start the process all over again? I know that the planning board's recommendation is not binding, but it still will have some impact on the town council, I'm sure. So that's one thing I wanted to say. And another thing I wanted to say, just put this out there, when Tafina was pushed in the Amherst Hills situation, they actually turned around and sued all the residents in the neighborhood, more or less telling them that they owned part of this work that was to be done. So they're still in that lawsuit with the residents and the residents are, some of them are deciding to pay up and some aren't deciding to pay up and it's a mixed bag. And I don't really know much about this lawsuit, but I do know that Tafino did that when they were pushed. And so I'm just making that statement because I feel like that's something that should be out in the open. So I'm not ready to make a recommendation to the planning board about whether the roadway should be accepted or not because I feel like, you know, Guilford and the town manager and I need to come up with a joint recommendation on this. The other thing is I had a conversation with Tafino a couple of weeks ago and they told me that the work hasn't been done to complete the Amherst Hills subdivision because they can't get people to work on it because all the contractors are busy. So I'm assuming that they will say the same thing about the Meadows subdivision. So this to me is like a Mayor's Nest and I'm sorry to say that. I usually try to come to town council with a clear idea of what should be done. But in this case, I really don't have a clear idea of what should be done. Thank you. Doug. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to echo and validate what both Guilford and Chris is saying. That has been our experience specifically to the punch list as a part of doing our due diligence given that we were aware of the history that was going on at Amherst Hills, the litigation that was going on. I took Jason's punch list. He was good enough to walk the road with me and we walked it together with Warner Brothers and I got an estimate. I know how much money, I mean, this was $20, $20. So it's different now. I understand that. But I know how much this is going to cost. And it's frankly, it's not that much money to bring this road up to speed. The problem has been one of obfuscation, one of resistance, one of just procrastination and an unwillingness to communicate. And we ended up coming before the town because we ran out of options. We ran out of ability to move anything forward. So we just realized our only leverage because now we no longer even had the lots as leverage was public opinion. And I just wanna say it is a mess, but the person who should be here explaining why this situation is as it is, is not here. And I think that speaks volumes. And I don't know him, I don't have a personal score on any of this. I'm just reflecting what our experience has been as homeowners appealing to the developer to finish what should be completed. I also hope that the town will take a look at their subdivision plans. And at some point, perhaps consider putting a statute of limitations on when a developer is permitted, how much time he has or she or they have to complete a project. At this point, as far as I understand, it's completely open-ended and here we are 20 some odd years later and we have a mess. So thank you. Yeah, unfortunately we can't go back and redo it again. We are where we are, Flynn. So one of the issues that I think we're dealing here with here is this is the first time the town's been asked to accept a road. There's been other people who've said, could you accept our road? And when they look at the standards, they realized that they're not even close. So if we need to redo something at the town council in terms of how we do this, I'm more than glad to do this. If this needs to be referred to TSO because they deal with public ways, we can do that. But the bottom line for me is that we have residents who have come to us because unless they wanna put a lot of money out to sue, they run out of options. And I think the minimum we can do is give them a punch list. I've already stated my serious qualifications for that punch list. And that is the road has to be brought up to the standard of a new road. We just can't take on any more debt for roads. I have other parts of my district that are telling me they won't vote for certain things or certain people if they don't get their roads fixed. So this is not, we need more guidance. Chris, I understand where you're coming from, but these residents need a finalized punch list and move forward. And if we need to redo or think about how the council votes or doesn't vote at this point, I'm more than glad to have that come back to the council for reconsideration. Paul has his hand up. Yeah, Paul. Yeah, so much of this is regulated by state law. So there isn't a lot that the town can do in terms of the process that we need to follow to accept a public way. So that, I think I agree with what Doug and Connie says, they were frustrated. This is the way to trigger it. And I understand it didn't fit the timeline that Chris thought, but it's what they initiated the petition and it's moving forward. And that does create time constraints and that's purposeful, I think, is to create some decisions. I think Chris and Gopher and I can certainly get together and give the definitive punch list. I think that will be a large number. And I think Bernie said, why is this before the finance committee, which is a very legitimate question? I think the reason is that they're, if depending on what the council wants to do with accepting a road and depending on the condition of the road, it may be taking on a liability. So if the road isn't pristine, the council's gonna make a decision, I'm gonna accept the road as is. The council could just say, we accept it just as it is. There's no more investment that needs to be made. And then, but the council needs to be aware that there's a liability that town is accepting at that moment in time. Or the council can say, we only will accept a road that's in pristine condition and that's gonna have a dollar figure that is attached to it. So it's just trying to figure out where the standard is that the council is expecting that to be. And we have recommendations from professional engineers as to where we think it should be, but ultimately it's the council's decision. So what you just said sort of gets to the next question that I had, which is that we really have no control over when the Meadows did or Amherst Hills it makes a request to have street acceptance. Those are their decisions. And if that means that Tafino and Sosias has to walk and chew gum at the same time to use a phrase that was used before, that's not anything that we can do anything about. I think the challenge here though, Andy, is that Tafino doesn't necessarily have a vested interest in this, I think, other than to, it's the property owners who are the ones who are going to suffer if it's failed, if it doesn't get accepted by the town. Well, let me take on Bernie. Yeah, I am, like I said, I still am puzzle one. This is in front of the finance committee because clearly it's an issue that needs to be managed. And I think that Christine and Paul, Guilford, we have some real competent capable folks. I think Christine's suggestion that the three of you sit down, come up with some kind of definitive statement that can be presented to Tafino that says, this is what you need to do and that can be explained to the council, that this is what you need to do, would be really, really very helpful. I also think that the town attorney needs to be involved to see where we have, they have some leverage because Paul is correct. Tafino has, Tafino really has an enemy skin on him. He can walk away from this, or the committee can walk away from this. We wanna figure out how we can get them back into the process and catch their attention. And again, as much as I hate to disagree with Flynn, I don't think that having a pristine road is gonna be the outcome. I think there's gonna have to be some compromising here. Again, to recognize the fact that the leverage, the escrow accounts are gone. $23,000 is still, so there's nothing really here to seize, except that $23,000. But to get our team together, to get Chris, Paul and Guilford together, and Guilford, I can appreciate your level of frustration, but you have pretty good judgment and I think you can take the emptying lists you have and whittle them down into one definitive statement and then we can begin to move from there. But that's, you can sense my frustration with this. I'm sorry, I'm sort of stammering through this. I'm still jet lagging. But there will be a resolution to this, but if it's done in the wrong way, it's gonna be the homeowners who end up with a pretty sorry state. Thanks. So we are after five and we were gonna try and adjourn today at five for a variety of reasons as I previously stated. Say for some people who are observant, it's a holiday coming up, sunset, and the other is that I know that we already lost one member of the committee because she had to pick up her son. So that's why we started at three instead of 330. I don't know what else we can do though. I, Paul, do you think that we can move forward with making sure that we have a definitive punch list and if so, do we need to couple that with the commitment then to create a conversation that with Tefino so that that punch list can get presented, agreed to and moved forward? Is that really a council function or is that an executive function? So we can certainly work on getting the punch list and sharing that with the property owners and with Tefino and I think that's the first step, Andy. And then I think we can work with you in terms of the next time it would show up on the finance committee's agenda. Okay, so I'm gonna turn just to the finance committee with the observation that was referred to us. So it's whether we like it or not, it's in our daily work. I think that we have spent a lot of time today just trying to understand the issue. I think I appreciate the cooperation. Everybody who's been here to help us along with that process of learning but is there agreement that Paul take over to work with staff and to get the punch list defined and to work with Tefino into the process makes sense. Lynn. I'd like to state a date certain by when we will get information back and I don't know what's reasonable but I don't wanna be sitting here a year from now hearing about how we need yet another punch list because we did this one but nothing happened. So now that this has come out in the public I'd like to make sure that we at least are kept abreast of what's being done and frankly to keep it in the public eye. So. I don't know what a reasonable date is. I just, you know. Well, we'll have something back before you're by your next meeting for sure. Okay. I mean, even if it's just a report at least it keeps it moving. So if we get a report by the next meeting I think that would be very helpful doll and is there anybody else in the committee who would like to raise the point because I have one last thing to do so that we can complete the committee's working during for the day. There's something else then on the agenda item for street acceptance at this time. Thank you to petitioners Gilford and Chris for having helped the committee out a lot. Connie and Doug and Gilford and it's been very helpful to allow the committee to really understand the issue and begin to move forward a little bit. So thank you very much. The thing that I have left over is that we have a bunch of unapproved minutes. I want to thank Bob and Kathy for helping me in reviewing minutes. They fall into categories. There's a whole group of them but in most of them have been reviewed by at least one member of the committee. They've all been in our packets for some period of time. And some of them are just you know, it was the judgment of the reviewer that they're ready to move forward. The rest of them have very small corrections. I think that the biggest correction is actually just in one and that's it to add a sentence. And there was a May meeting in which I left to go to a MMA committee meeting and then came back and my departure was included in the minutes, but my return was not included in the minutes so it's adding a sentence that said that I'd return to the meeting and that Kathy continued to chair as absentially. So these are very minor. So with that explanation, I'm gonna make a motion which is I move to approve minutes of the following meetings as amended April 12th, 2022, April 26th, 2022, May 3rd, 2022, May 12th, 2022, May 17th, 2022, and September 6th, 2022 and approve the following minutes as submitted May 3rd, 2022, May 10th, 2022, June 21st, 2022. In July 19, 2022. Second. Okay, there's been a motion that has been made and seconded. Is there any discussion or comment on the motion otherwise some of the call for a vote? Alicia? Yes. Lynn? Aye. Bob? Support. Matt? Support. Bernie? Support. Michelle had to leave the meeting so she's absent. Kathy? Yes. And I mean, yes. So it's four to zero with one absent of voting members and support of all three members. Is there any other business that I have none to suggest anything that was unanticipated 48 hours in advance to be offered by any members of the committee? I have none in this, nothing. And I think we are adjourned and understand that two weeks from today we will meet at either three or 330 and we'll get in the exact time to you as quickly as possible. And the major purpose of the meeting will be a further presentation by Sean going more deeply into the capital plan for the major buildings and that other councilors will be invited it will be posted as the council meeting should there be enough members that it reaches a quorum of the council. So with that said, I think I can just declare the meeting adjourned and thank you very much. Thanks to the people that did the minutes. You're welcome. Thank you guys.