 All right, you're all set. Okay. I would like to call a meeting of the town council finance committee to order on July 15, 2020. It is 1.35 p.m. It was a meeting posted for 1.30 p.m. This is a meeting that pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law general law. Chapter 30 a section 18 is being conducted by a remote participation in order to satisfy the open meeting law fully. I need to confirm that members of the committee who are present and hear me and can be heard. So as I asked for you to indicate your presence by saying present, we will do that. Lynn Krismer. Present. Shane. Present. Pat Daniels. Present. Bob Hegner. Present. And Mary Lou Tomah. Present. Okay. I think that I don't have my participant list up at the moment, but I believe that you, we have no other members who joined since. And if they do, we'll note that for the minute says they arrive. Right. We now have a form of the council. Okay, then I need to pause because the president needs to call the council to order and make a similar request of council members who are not finance committee members. Seeing as we have the Amherst town council, I'm calling a council meeting jointly with the finance committee meeting together at 137. I'm now going to call upon various council members that are here that have not already been identified and make sure that you can hear us and we can hear you. Darcy Dumont. Here. George Ryan. I'm here. And that is it for now. So I leaving the agenda. Just momentarily on the screen to explain the process of today. There really are two items that we had on the original agenda that were the critical. Matters to talk about. One was to talk about what we heard in the public hearing, which we actually started to talk about it yesterday's meeting also. But I think we need to continue and try and reach some conclusion as to how we are going to report this to the council and to develop. At least make sure that we have information that we have available to us so that when we take positions on the budget tomorrow that we can do so. And then the second part of this is to discuss the whole process of developing a budget. There is, as always at council committee meetings and last post is the special meeting, which is when it's a special joint meeting, it wasn't intended to preclude any public comments. So we will allow public comment, but not until later in the meeting after we've had the general discussion. This is a working meeting and we're here to accomplish some very important business on behalf of the council in trying to get us to a final resolution so that on what we're recommending for the operating budget because that has to be adopted. And we will get to public comment later in the meeting. There is some benefit to having comment come after discussion when people have can comment on the discussion that they heard. And members of the public who just wish to make a comment always can come back and rejoin the meeting later too if they don't have the time to spend the entire afternoon with the meeting that can come back. So, if there are no questions about the screen so that we can get back to our regular. And started to talk yesterday about the comments we heard, which had, which was a significant reduction recommended by a number of members of the public who spoke at the public hearing to the public safety budget in particular in specifically to the police department budget. We've tried to develop information yesterday. In order to help us evaluate the request and the impact of the request. And I think that that's where we probably should pick up because there were no other subjects and public comment at the meeting. So what I want to start with is opening it up just general reactions to the request and whether there was information that we received that yesterday that was helpful and whether there's additional information would be helpful in order to get to a recommendation. Before I turn it open it up then to looking to see if there anybody who wants to speak on that subject and I believe they're already that Kathy does is that we asked Chief Livingstone to be available to us if any members of the committee. Feel that it would be helpful and there seems to be a committee consensus and then somebody from the staff would contact the chief and ask him to be present. We did not ask him to be present for the meeting. It's a whole because this is now needs to be our discussion. So having said that Kathy I recognize when to recognize you because you've asked to be recognized. Thank you. Thank you for opening with a focus on the police, Andy. I thought yesterday was helpful, particularly both to hear more from residents about their concerns and concepts that I think are going to take a much longer term. I thought of what do we want to do. How would we want to do it a long study period with a lot of involvement from the community for what they're asking for. But we also heard from the police chief that what my note said is there is one vacancy now and there's another one soon like within a couple weeks and then a third in September. So there are three potential vacancies that as of right now there's not been a process of earmarking that for coming up from the academy where we start spending money on them. I rather than thinking of an a massive cut in the police department, which I don't think any of us think is warranted at this point. I was going to, I wanted to open with a discussion of what if we said, price out the two, two of the vacancies with full salary and benefits and if we do a police budget without them in right now. That would be a cut, but not saying how we're planning on using the money, and then saying over the course of the next six months the next eight months. We could be talking about whether we just go back and this would be since the only thing we can do is reduce a budget. We can't suggest how one might spend that money. But looking at the total budget, it would leave the town budget below the mark that we set by guideline so we would be coming under the budget. And so the rest of the balancing would still work, but be willing to consider the recommendations coming back from staff. Once there's been a fuller community discussion on how we might fill those positions, which could be police officers, but it could be some other composition. So I wanted to get a precise number on what the salary plus benefits would be so we're not just taking averages. And I quickly sent a note to Sean, just before the meeting and he said he could provide that to us by tomorrow, Sean I think you said, or. We can give you that if Sonya do you have that together. It's between 125 and 150 depending on the education. What all between the two positions between the two positions, but I also want to point out if you cut a budget that money is gone. It's not anywhere else to be reallocated so be careful when you're suggesting cutting a budget. The Kathy's proposal and she will confirm that I'm correct is that the manager has the option, always of asking for supplemental budget, and if during the course of the year if this was voted as a reduction. There was a need to request an increase so that a position could be filled that he would have, he could make that request to the council. Yeah, that's exactly what I had in mind that I understand that it's gone from the operating budget right now but that's why I said we're, we're going to be coming in under budget. It leaves room to come back to the council to say I want to expand the budget for the following reasons, since we, we can't, my understanding is we can't designate that to just set it aside on a shelf. So we are option is to cut the budget or not. So I was trying to work within that box for, and then what I what I see this as is, if, if we were going to make a decision over when I say six month eight months 12 months however long it takes to try to think about what, what if anything can we do. You can't go from here to there quickly, and I'm sure places like Eugene Oregon that we've heard about thought long and hard about what they wanted to do and then came up with a budgeted way of doing it so I just am looking for this as an alternative to trying us some time for the kinds of discussions and deliberations that need to happen, but while while showing that we are hearing that there is broad concern, not even so much on, but we heard a mix of the way, the way we're being policed is being. We had some examples of concerns about that but there was also of what kinds of situations need police as opposed to need other kinds of people, or people with a more in depth knowledge of mental health of dispute resolution. It's like, is it possible to put that mix in the other thing I think we heard yesterday and earlier is there is a valuable grant funded position right now and by the end of September, the department will know whether that position has been funded. That was funded for two years at $400,000 if it completely goes away. If this also leaves the potential of the town manager coming back to us and say we really need that and and could come back with a supplemental talking about that kind of a person so I'm looking for a way of trying to be responsive to this notion of the police force we need in 2020 and going looking forward very different maybe then what we originally thought of, and it may be the training academies need to change substantially also but we can't do that right now so that that was my thought of what we can do in terms of make a recommendation as a finance committee. Can I clarify on the budget. So if you cut the budget right now where we are budget is based on estimated revenues. So once the tax rate is set that you no longer have that option, the only funding source you would have to go to reserves to add any more money to the budget once the tax rate is set. So I just want to be clear on that. Yeah, so I think what you're saying is Sonya said the extent. This leaves us with a cash surplus we didn't expect to have it's, it would normally go into reserves but we would have to take it back out so that we've got a piece of money so it's not just simply that the town manager has in his back pocket some money. Not money that we have in our hand that will just fall to reserves. If our revenues come in less. I mean it all it's all a matter of closing the books it's not like taking $100,000 and selling it aside. And it just automatically falls to reserve doesn't work that way. So it has to be estimated on a budget, bottom line budget. Maybe a little bit more explanation of the tax setting process would be helpful because I think they were to really trying to get at is that once the budget is developed that that then drives the amount of the tax rate that would be set for the year. The tax rate then become certified in the fall, and we can't raise the taxes so that if later in the year. If it were to increase the budget to fund the positions it would not come from taxation raised during the fiscal year it would come from, it would have to come from reserves. Thank you. Can I just ask, and we can't do, but the town manager could still modify a proposal to us I mean I understand how tight our timeline is. And so my preferred way of doing this which we can't do is the council the way this Charter set up is say, take that money and put it into an account that could then be spent on whatever's we can't say take that money and put it over here. But the town manager could propose it to us, but that's that's what I have in mind and I guess, you know, we set a budget, and we've said if there's a shortfall because of what the state does we're going into reserves. We've also we've already kind of come in with that formulation for the year with showing how much the impact could be so I'm, I'm still comfortable with the notion that we would have to dig into reserves to pull this money back and I'd need to kind of understand that to what extent that undermines our ability to set taxes, tax rate increases for the next year. It's not on our $80 million budget, it's a small amount of money so I can see that somewhere it might have an impact. Well, it does in the. And again, I tell you if I don't get this correct Sonya will immediately correct me, but the two and a half percent increases based upon what you were allowed to tax in the previous year. The tax rate is set as an amount, two and a half percent is based upon that amount. So an FY 21, once the tax rate is set the FY 22 permissible taxation is two and a half percent above what we tax during 21. Right, so we're setting a tax rate based on a budget that's voted. If that's not part of what's being voted, then it's not available it doesn't fall anywhere we didn't raise it. I there are other hands up so maybe we should get to see to get some other people involved in the conversation because we can come back to this. Paul, you had your hand up and I wanted to Thank you. So just two quick points. One is, I think that it's not just as it is our charter but it's also state law that regulates how councils appropriate. The initiation almost always comes from the executive side for budgets and that's just the way the system is set up. And then the second thing is, I think it might be worth it for the council to say what do you. If you are identifying what you're wanting. I think what, what Kathy is saying, I want to freeze. I don't want to fill these positions that are in the police department budget. Because I want to have room to be able to choose to spend that money someplace else in a different way. And this is a funding source in essence. And if you're articulating what that is and then we, you know, we can go back into our finding the talk to Sean and Sony about how do we accomplish what that goal is. If that's what you're trying to achieve. I don't think we have to solve it in this meeting, but let us think about how that if it requires a town manager action or something else. That might be the way best way to conceive, conceive what you want to accomplish, and then go from there. Mary Lou. Thank you, Paul. Mary Lou. Mary Lou, are you. Can you hear me now. I can hear you. Thank you. Okay. My question is the possibility of having the manager freeze those positions in the police department. So we keep the money. And then when you have this wide community input that the manager can then move that money to whatever department we're going to use to provide these services that we now want. Is that under the charter is that permissible that you can that the manager can move money from one department to another. If that's the case, I think that can solve the problem so long as it's clear that the council wants these two positions frozen until a decision is made. Is that possible. I think the answer to that question is yes. The budget process and is not all that different from what you're familiar with from the town meeting days. What the only difference that we have chosen to do is instead of passing five different budgets for the five areas of town government. Doing it as a single vote so that transfers can be made between public safety and other departments and other sections of the government without having to come back to the council. But otherwise it's a similar process to what was before so you have it correct. How Lou. I thought I saw you waving your hand and I wanted to make sure if you okay. I'm glad that we've had this additional education pack setting, and so forth. And given what we heard, and given the suggestion that Kathy's making, but also knowing that we're already dealing. Excuse me for saying this with a fantasy budget anyway, because we don't know what our revenues are. I would really strongly urge that we do a freeze action. We asked the town manager to freeze whatever vacancy comes up in the police department. And that gives us the time that I think we need to better hear from people and it also creates the greatest flexibility with the budget. So I'm piecing together from hearing about passing a budget setting a tax rate, not being able to go back and do that again and how do we keep money and reserve. So there. That's what I'm hearing. Bob. Kathy, thank you for that suggestion I had a similar idea myself that that these positions that the police were basically going to be vacant offer an opportunity to, I guess set money aside at this point, or freeze the positions. So one thought I had to was, you know, we heard that the staffing of the police needs to be available for weekends because of what goes on on the college campuses. But it seems like, since it's like a takes a year to kind of refill a position that goes vacant. These positions essentially going to be gone for a year anyway. So I don't think that we would be. I mean, we should probably go back to to the chief of police and find out but I, you know, it seems like we wouldn't be putting the police force at a disadvantage by just freezing two positions. But I think we probably ought to get that verification. But yeah, I think it's basically I think it's a good idea. Thanks. See George Ryan. George, did you have your hand up or not it was there pretty flake. Yes, I did Andy. I guess I just I just want to have a clear sense of what this would mean for the police department and I don't have that sense the moment the chief is not here. I was present the other day listening to the conversation. I really do want to hear clearly from him, what this actually means in terms of their ability to provide services to this town. Thank you. I'm going to ask for Pat in this in just second, as noted, if there's a consensus of the committee that someone from the staff would contact the chief. It's my understanding that he is available and has a link to join us. We just did not ask him to be at the meeting, unless requested. So put a pat. You're on. We're not hearing you because you're still muted. I thought I was unmuted. Thank you. I want to thank Kathy and Bob because we're all thinking very similar. I was working on this a while ago and had contacted the chief about the possible impact of not filling those two positions. I think this was a week or so ago and what he talked about was that he felt, and he needs to speak for himself I understand that. But what he said is the community wants more traffic officers we wouldn't be able to have. And so we need to more traffic officers. And I want to hear from the chief, but I do not think that's a substantial enough reason to not put this freeze in place. Okay. George, you had your hand up again. I apologize, and I won't do this again, but I would like to remind everyone that we are in the midst of a pandemic. We have thousands of students returning to town. I don't know who you expect to enforce on the regulations that I assume we're going to want to enforce. So this is not a normal time. And I think we need to keep that in mind. So I am very concerned about any kind of change to staffing levels in the face of this situation where we are going to that's what I'm hearing from is people concerned about students. If you're calling me or complaining to me about the police department, they are very very we have a petition online that has over 500 signatures from people in the community wanting the university to not let students come back. So what I'm hearing and sensing is a deep concern about public health in the next few months. That's my main question. And I want to hear from the chief. And I'd like you all to keep in mind that the chief enforcement officers are the police. And we face a period of the next few months, where unless I'm mistaken, this is going to be a very serious issue. Pat, again, please. I hear what George is saying and he knows I have a lot of respect for his position, but I also feel strongly that the UMass police. I think they're, I think it was said that there were 65 officers. And I understand they can't enforce bylaws and they can't arrest people, but they can do that on their campus they can control. And they can provide support to the Amherst police and it seems to me that that this is now a time when the university needs to step forward and help the town. I'm also questioning. I think there are valid concerns about returning students. I'm uncomfortable with the fact of that. I'm uncomfortable with the kind of discrimination that's happening and the equating. I can't equate death from COVID, although I don't want to experience that with death, because I'm a person of color. Because I walked in the wrong way or that I that I can be a demonstrator and be pushed to the ground by police and I'm not saying that's happening here, but people of color in our town and homeless people live with an honest fear. That is a public health crisis that affects their psyche. And we don't address that. I think that we need to address that by the kinds of actions that we do. So while I appreciate the people who signed the petition. I think they're letting fear dominate them. I'm still on and I've noticed that Shalini's hands up and I'll get to her in a second too. But I thought that you and Shalini were giving some thought to the question of how we could create a community dialogue about the kind of policing that we need in the future and if you're if that you know what I'm trying to what kind of timeframe is needed to really have a thoughtful process of that kind engage the community the way that they should and have a healthy plan that we can move forward with. Oh, goodness, Shalini and Lynn and I have been meeting and I think and and I, I think that what we have heard from the community is that they want to drive the decision making around this. My feeling is over the next month or so, or I don't take that away. I feel like the council needs to open up channels so that we can create civilian. That's not the wrong word, but a civilian review committee, not just of police actions, but of policies and procedures is sort of follow and, and I think we need, I think we need the year the rest of this budget year. And I don't, I'm going to step out and let Shalini or Lynn step up because I'm timeframe is kind of boggling me right now in terms of because I feel like we need to wait some and that's tricky. Yeah, the reason I asked the question I'm saying this and as I'm about to call on Shalini is that it would be helpful, possibly for us to know the answer to that as to whether, because the the proposal that we're talking about is to freeze positions or to ask town manager to freeze positions. And with the idea that that will allow a segue but I was trying to get make sure that we have the timeline, fitting with what we're envisioning recommending. Do you have any thoughts on this or anything else you want to contribute. Absolutely, thank you. I just want to share one idea that I just received from from Matthew Andrews yoga center Amherst business owner. And he's, this is an article I don't know if you read it's the city council in actual North Carolina and they just passed the resolution for reparations in their community for black people. What they're doing is they are investing budgetary and creating budgetary and program programmatic priorities in the community where their disparities in education healthcare services. And so that's one model that we could look at and, and basically the idea is that we're reinvesting in those specific areas where there, there are these disparities, and to do that. In North Carolina in actual what they're doing is they're creating this commit community reparations commission inviting community groups and other local governments to join. So, that's one idea thing that we can look at. And the second thing that based on what I've been hearing in our own community is, it's not so much about how our police have been doing or not doing but it's really we need a radical shift in how we even look at what does a safe community look like for all residents. And, and so I, we do need a few more meetings to hear from the committee and whether it's with co hosting those with human resources, Human Rights Commission, or just the grassroots level so it really does involve listening a little bit more. And I do feel to address the systemic issues and to invest in a thoughtful manner we need sort of a steering committee of some sorts and, and using the word reparations I think might be beneficial because it's really acknowledging that this wrong has been done. And, and now we're actually taking steps of reinvesting in a thoughtful manner. Those are some things coming up to me. Thank you. Lynn, since your word name is a third party to those discussions as to how we move forward. Right. So, let me just step back a little and say. Oh my gosh. About a month and a half almost two months ago. Shalini and Pat were invited to join a group of residents who had asked for a meeting with the police chief. If that was one of several meetings I understand that residents had asked but it's the only one I'm aware of at least counselors were asked to. So I was in touch with both of them and asked specifically that they start helping us think about how we kind of set up a process of listening and then taking action and so forth. I'm not suggesting any one action is the appropriate thing. And then we also then met, and by the way, Pat was very kind and made sure all counselors were aware of that meeting. And I believe that a form of the council was actually on the attendee side so we did not have a committee meeting but we did clearly have a great number of counselors listening. Pat and Shalini and I met with the civil with the Human Rights Commission. And they specifically took some action and said that they would do some convening of local residents around this. The only meeting that I am actually personally aware of is the one that took place last Saturday, where they brought a consultant in and it was really about systemic racism. It was an excellent workshop, particularly for people like myself who don't see it as much as maybe I as I clearly need to, but it was not a dialogue, and it could not be a dialogue because we have had this horrendous racist zoom bobbing that has now come in on at least one of our town meetings, and absolutely and completely upset people. So, what is not happened yet is that return at least to the best of my knowledge, what has happened is a group of people in our community have been very attentive to the national movement about defunding and disarming police. And they have joined together and become appropriately vocal and let us make sure we heard what they're thinking about, which we want all community people to do, but what's missing at this point is time. And what's missing at this point is a plan. And the only thing that will get us to a plan is time. And the only thing that will get us to time is to do something where we say, how could we preserve whatever money we can in this year's budget and keep it there for something down the road that is well thought out, well planned, proposed, brought back to the council, brought back to the town, to the residents at large and adopted. And I hate, I hate when people aren't willing to be patient and give people time. But I also totally understand the impatience of residents in our community. So while we are continuing to hopefully have some of that time. We also need to continue to have the conversations with the police department to take the questions that I have now collected as of Monday. And make sure that they are given to the police, which I will do when I have a moment to do it, and that we get responses to those so that we keep the dialogue going with our police department in a way that keeps them engaged and they have absolutely totally expressed their interest in being engaged. So I, we have willing parties, we need time to get a plan, and we need a plan where there's some money to fund it. Okay, so I wanted to come back to the point George made about the fear of the student returning because I had someone call me today in a panic, but what what she was asking for is it's interesting she was asking for a follow up poll actually on your statement letter to the chancellor. That let's get Tony Morales, one of our police, something involved with the university steps up to the plate and their consequences for people living off campus, not abiding by mass and social distancing. Right now, as you know I sent a couple resident concerns that there were 15 kids without masks on but they were in their backyard. And so the police have limited ability right now to go into someone's backyard, and hers were 30 or more people she said some of the rental houses people aren't living in them but they're bringing all their friends in for the weekend. And so you know you've got cars and people, and this is a person who's in the middle of chemotherapy who's in her 80s so she has zero immune defenses but hers wasn't more police and she bought in Bill Laramie, you know as from neighborhood and she said he was extremely responsive on a concern, but I started thinking of you know this notion of can we convene some people with the public health nurse she accepted the public health nurse. Can we get. Do we have emergency bylaw that we could do that allows us on to public property because it's a state of emergency and it's a health crisis but have the university back us up for for behaviors, and hopefully once that and her, you know it's that they get sent home, you know that you can't stay at the university if you're behaving this way either on or off campus. So it wasn't a call for more police, it was really a call for a different, you know, a action. I said you know they have the ability to find she said oh no I don't want to find you know I did not a dollar amount I just, I just want people to know that they can't be outside with huge numbers of people without mass. And a lot of people weren't even from our community they were bringing friends in so this notion of people coming in. So I think that is an issue but that's a different kind of issue and Paul you can step in but I had sent you one person who was saying it's 10 people now it's 15 and you asked, is it on their property or is on the street and it was on their property so we were limited and please. So she was saying can the public health nurse come in, you know, and be a health officer coming in so it's trying to think of how do we address that concern which is going to be pockets of the community. And this particular person lives next door to a house I saw it has, I don't know how many people live in the house, but it had 15 cars regularly parked in their driveway as of last year so her. And she always holds an annual party for the students coming back, I mean it's a very much a welcome to the community so it wasn't we don't want, but it was the giant festive things. So it feels like it's a separate separable issue that we're not prepared to deal well with now, even with police. So I do think, you know, this was, I was going to bring it up by email you Paul but I don't know what else can be done but she loved when I talked about what was in your letter to the chancellor about, you know, so so it is that on campus off campus fear. So I just, I thought the idea freeze was that's what I wanted to say but I didn't know whether we can freeze so you've told us a way we could get to, we've got money reserved in the budget which is what I wanted to be thinking of doing and these vacancies feel like a way to do it because it's in the police department. So a couple of things. Yeah. And going like I don't know if you've got a dozen people will downstairs from you right now in your house we're not going to go into people's houses and investigate if you've got too many people and if they're wearing masks. That's not our role private property is different. We respond to nuisance complaints based on externalities that emanate like noise that come beyond the frame. The pandemic is totally different so your, your constituent who said I used to have a big party well that you know she could still do that but we would, that would be frowned on now so it's complex. I mean I think we are, I mean my letter is pretty explicit about what we feel that economic consequences for students is not kind of likely influence behavior courts are not open that's not a real serious avenue for us. We think the university has to have academic impacts and we can't that's what we're asking them to do. If there's a if there's a consistent issue and there's a you know they're the university is used to dealing with lots of different behaviors with with students that's they're really good at that actually. We're just saying expand that to off campus as well, because we want to be in team I'm not sure if you saw the Tulane letter, very good letter very explicit I can send that to you if you didn't. It was unambiguous. Nobody could understand would misunderstand what Tulane was saying to their students often on campus. So, yes, it's in it's our public health and police and, you know, everyone, and we work really well together those folks get together every week to review things. It's a well exercise team that addresses every complaint that comes in they look at every log. So, I don't think that I think it's we've got the people in place to do that. It's about expanding our, our tool set to be able to enforce things, and to recognize that the number of complaints will increase because people will be much more sensitive to gatherings. So, and we're in educating our dispatch office dispatchers and things like that. And to Lin's point in some ways, I do appreciate what she said I think what she said is act totally spot on, you know, public safety police and public health are really eager to talk about this alternative way of interacting with people that we think is is that what the community has said and very eloquently said yesterday is that there are better ways there might be better ways to respond in the way we do it now. And everybody's like on board with that and you know we've looked at you know Denver and Albuquerque have introduced new models recently that are more aligned with the foods model and Eugene. There are a lot of communities they're having this exact same conversation. We're not alone. And so, being in touch with how people are conceiving this and saying, yeah, for all these mental health and things like that maybe a police office it fell to the police department because they were the only people there 24 hours a day. Let's staff up a different way. And so I think we're all in one I have that conversation about how we deliver that service to the public. And so I think that there's a willingness among the professional staff. And because I think that is the next phase of policing or whatever we call it, it's responding to needs of the community really it's not even policing. And maybe they're not the right people to do it or. And but the way they do it now they're really well trained we even had testimony yesterday about the community to see it training that we've received we and they appreciated that. It's just, it's very complex so, and having a social worker or somebody trained showing up the next day, probably, you know, makes a lot of sense to a lot of folks, you know, so. So again, enforcing and dealing with the pandemic, I think it's going to be highly complex. We're going to have to have a lot of willingness and education of our own police force, because they're going to be the ones who receive the call. And then also, I think the time to look at something to let you know that the staff is super willing and interested and we're going to we will have this conversation one way or the other, but giving us the tools. You know, and if you're if we're in just want to make sure that we're in alignment, which it sounds like we are with the with the council. I'm going to turn it back to George, because he started us on this path and I think it's worth trying to finish it out to see if we've got the answers that he was looking for because that I heard George he's saying right at the beginning, you want to make sure that if we freeze positions for hiring that it doesn't affect our ability as a community to keep us safe during the COVID crisis. Thank you Andy. First bill army is the police. And imagine if the chiefs as well, you know, you just froze three positions I've got to take Larry me and put him somewhere else now. We need to really know what the impact of any kind of freeze will have on our police department. That's my concern and if I can be shown that that the impact is minimal in regards to public safety which includes now the COVID crisis. I know I'm a little copacetic but right now I have no idea. So bill is the police. Secondly, the university in kind of any kind of sanction I think Paul is right finds and and you know, exposions are not on the table but the university does have mechanism to punish students and misbehave it's been used a lot or it's been used and they know how to use it. They must have a police report. You can go and talk to them as much you like as a neighbor, but that does not get to the university. So if you actually expect to have enforcement that has some teeth to it from the university side, they need police police report. So that's my deep concern. I don't. Well, the other issues are for another day, but that's my deep concern here is what impact, no matter how well intentioned. The reason our police department will have at this particular time seems to me seriously concerning. Shallow me. I just had a clarifying question from the Paul, can you tell us if, if the wearing the masks and all of that is advisory and not in order then can what role does the police even play in addressing these issues in town? Like, as we're with respect to George's question. So it depends if it's on proper private property or public property. So if it's public property, it's, it's an advisory. We are having signs put up. I'm not sure if they're in yet in key sort of denser areas downtown, mostly in other villages to be more explicit about wearing masks and things like that. But we have not. We always stayed in alignment with the governor who said it's an advisory. It's not a requirement. On private property, we go in and we try to educate and express concerns and usually people are receptive, but sometimes they are not, especially with police officers might not be. So that's why we're looking for support from the university in those types of situations. So then what role, I mean, how would that affect George's question was that by cutting out these positions we may be impacting the public safety related to coronavirus. But if they can't really enforce, there's nothing to enforce there, what role do we see them playing? I think that the council and we are getting lots of concerns from the public. And if we say there's nothing we can't show up, we always respond to something one way or the other. So if someone says I'm concerned about this household, we'll send someone there and have a conversation. Okay. Thank you. George actually made one statement and that is Bill Aramie is the police. And so it's a, it's what's called a compute community policing model. And you have examples that have worked extremely well in this community. One thing I do want to point out and the reason why I sent an email to the council earlier today, asking you to also reserve the 21st, as well as even the 28th on your calendars for council meetings should we need them is that on our Monday agenda is an item to discuss the memo to UMass, the budget and voted. The three items alone could take hours. And the public comment about any one of those could take hours. And I think our meetings have worked a whole lot better when they end by 10 o'clock for everybody involved. So, I just want to point out that leasing and public health are related and I think we need to go back to George's decision and we need to decide whether to have Scott come in and answer it now or be available to answer it Monday or whenever. But the impact of any cuts whether they be two positions are 52% need to be well understood by our community before they as we go forward with any decision. We are also in charge of public safety. And if we do things and so damage, the public safety, then it's on us. We are also in charge of the attitudes and aptitudes of the citizens are account and that's on us too. Let me just pause for a second and I'm going to give their two hands up and I'm going to call on people who of course. Is there a consensus that we should ask somebody from the staff to call the chief and see if he can join us to respond to that question. I've been raised about what the effective freezing positions is on being able to continue the community policing model and responding to COVID and other things. I'm looking for sort of either a yes or no real quick. I see one nod from. Okay, I think I think so as long as he knows what he's responding to so you know if he comes in and yeah so we have tomorrow also but if he can join us today that'd be great. He's prepared. He was given an invitation to join we just suggested that he not join unless we called all this or somebody can keep a call. Yes, I'll send him a link right now. Okay. Kathy you had your hand up so. No, I just, I just want to say that I quickly Google the Tulane letter and what Tulane has done to help their community is said groups of more than 15 if you do it. They were potentially at risk of being expelled. They weren't, they weren't light in their enforcement wording, and they did it in reaction to July for a July 4 set of weekend parties everywhere. So I think this point about can either the on campus police at UMass or UMass itself give us a tool we don't have right now of raising the stakes would be extremely important. I'm just throwing people at this if we can't go into somebody's backyard and do anything other than saying you're misbehaving. It's, you know, it, it, it feels like you drive the car over there and you say, and then the person who called me it was in a backyard it wasn't in our house so she was just looking outside. So I think we do need. That's called pulse calls it a tool I call it a hammer. It's a good tool. It's a big one. It would be great if you can move on something much stronger from the university to get us through at least the fall semester. Pat, I would wonder, Pat, particularly I'm thinking we went to a joint session, we all sat in a big circle under the pavilion over at Mill River and both Officer Laramie and Captain Ting were there. I think I had a better understanding for the first time. A better understanding I had some understanding before of what they can and what they can't do under if for our meeting on Monday it would be useful for them to talk about that as well during the co vid discussion about UMass. I think that is valuable. I also want to say in terms of that meeting, there were realtors and building managers there who were also facilitating changes in their tenants. And so that's another element that we need to think about having some, and again that was violent that's voluntary but I thought that they were really responsive. Lynn, I have to leave that to you as council president because you mentioned. Yeah, possible agenda is really fits under two of them potentially and how you organize it in which it really belongs to but the suggestion of bringing somebody in, who's property manager to talk about their challenges in addition to the police challenges. One I want to bring in is the one that I think sounds exemplary, although I've only heard one and that's the one from Vertex and follow up when they find out there's been a complete police complaint. Over the weekend on Monday morning, they're at the doorstep of the tenant's place, following up. And I'm like going. Yeah, following up and what everyone is saying it sounds like we could get in touch with major stakeholders like the university, landlords, businesses, and then find out what are the different mechanisms whether it's a hammer they can offer or whether it's education or like the business district has provided masks to all the businesses. And they're encouraging the businesses to offer. So if someone is coming in without a mask to give them a free mask and some education or. So I think not just relying on police to take care of it but involving all the key stakeholders in our town and using all the mix of all of these different tools and strategies. It will be helpful when the university gets beyond telling Paul that they're studying his letter and actually get to reply. They said they're studying. Every time I hear him talk about it, that's what they're saying. George. Be wary of how much you can expect the university to do. I'm not saying you shouldn't insist or ask or demand, but I know for a fact that they are very reluctant to use explosion. And I think they have good reasons why. So, maybe they'll yield on that but I when I've had conversations with various people, explosion is not something they take seriously they don't think it's effective. And obviously it's their state university. I believe Tulane correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Tulane is a private university believe maybe I'm wrong. But anyway, explosion is not something that they are at all eager or perhaps even willing to you. Yeah, shall we. Yeah, okay. Why are we not considering contact tracing I was in Burlington at a restaurant and where whatever services we use they had forums and where they had all people signing up and it just makes people more conscious I think and just signing that people are, you know, knowing that there is something serious going on and also it does help with the contact tracing. So is there any reason why we're not considering that and I don't. So we are, I mean if you go to a restaurant they're supposed to be, and they've done it to me when I've gone to restaurants they take your name and number, and they keep it on a list for that day. So there is contact tracing for the town hall. You have to log in if you anybody walks in the building has to be logged in for that's for contact tracing purposes. So every business under the governor's orders are supposed to maintain contact tracing. So, you know, we went to a restaurant and they asked for our phone number and name and we said well we're not looking for takeout and they said it was for contact tracing so if that's not happening should let us know we'll follow up with that. Got it. That's good to know. Yeah, I don't think the restaurant I went to offer this sign of a form but, but I can look. They don't need to have a form some people might have it but they're just taking a list. They just have to maintain a list. Okay, got it. Okay, I'll look out for that then. Thank you. That's good to know. Thank you. George. Would we consider limiting the size of public gatherings. Even even though the governor has his own number could we consider lowering it. The board of health could for for in public but again we we've tried to not create more confusion to people and so. So the chief is having a hard time cut getting in, unfortunately. But don't you have him come in as an attendee and then bring him in as a participant. He's trying to dial in. Oh, is there any way you can help on this. Do you want to share my cell with him and I can give him support. Sure. Okay. I think that where we're going towards is that we seem to want to have the section on public safety. Some ways talk about what our long term vision is. We want to have a kind of thoughtful study. We want about what public safety looks like in Amherst. That the effective way to get there is not by a percentage cut to the police department. But by a more limited freeze on positions at the present time. What we learned yesterday about the amount of staff available and the fact that they're on normal times. Order officers available. And that means if there are two emergencies that need two officers that it's the entire available force. I'm just going to go ahead and explain a little bit of the staffing and the community expectation. I think that the one point that somebody made to me afterwards was that there's a large number of ordinances that are just not going to be able to be enforced. All of the noise violations and violations. Things of that nature. It just even many traffic kinds of things. It's just going to be no response to them. Because there and there'll be no one to enforce it. So we have all of these kind of bylaws in place, but bylaws are going to be unenforceable done if somebody to enforce them. Mary Lou. Yes, I would be curious to know from the chief if reducing his ability to hire more people would result in police not getting to call for EMT. They are, I don't think people realize how helpful that is. In our situation, we use them twice last year, the ambulance, the police arrive first because they're on the road. But they're very calming and helpful presence there before the ambulance gets there. And they begin emergency care. I've thought about since this has come up, what if I had been there and I had to wait for assistance in South Hadley. I would have been there by myself with no one to support me with our medical emergency. And there are a lot of seniors in this town or even people who aren't seniors who who find the police very helpful, calming. That makes for a good situation in a bad situation. So my concern would be, would the police be able to go out and get there before the ambulance and help with that situation? And I don't know that. And it gets back to what George has been asking. So there are things that we're, I think we're not aware of that they do. And when I looked at the log for the fire department and ambulance calls, there's about 3000 of them. And I'd be curious from the chief, how many of those the police arrived before the ambulance. Yeah, we did not ask that chief Nelson yesterday, though he did speak a little bit about the importance. Hey Paul, I'm in now. Chief hi. Hi, any. So what this discussion has been about and I'll try and encapsulate it and my fellow counselors and the committee will supplement if I don't get it stated correctly. That there is a lot of interest in having the kind of discussion that we talked about before this citizen demand came to our attention about looking carefully and in a thoughtful way at your department and its policies and how it moves forward. But that a wholesale cut of any percentage is not a means to get us there. And that. So the suggestion that was put on the table at the beginning of this meeting, which is just totally now counselors and citizen members of the finance committee was about just saying, what if we freeze to positions and don't hire those two positions. So that we have some flexibility going forward. And the during that period of time we engage in what could be a year long process and move us in that direction and then if with the caveat that if the town manager recommended filling a position. That that could be considered so we hadn't we were trying to figure out the mechanics of that. But what we're also getting into more fully is what the policies are the practical side of it was, which then led into a question from counselor Ryan and he can speak for self George Ryan is also present. And George's question was recognizing how important somebody like Bill Laramie is to the department and the work that he is presently doing. If there was a freezing positions, would there be a possibility that his current assignment would have to be changed because he would be needed for another role. And so I think that that was how the conversation has been flowing and George, did I state that correctly as far as the conclusion. I think the Laramie is a good example I think overall my question simply to the chief is given potential of a freeze of two to three positions, what impact that would have on his ability to keep our community safe, particularly in the time of COVID-19. But that's that's my question. Yeah, so thanks George and I think a lot of people are very familiar with the work that Bill's done over the last several years and what we were going to do before, you know, everything that has happened with this budget process was, we're going to implement the role that not only Bill has but with other officers so we're going to move once we got fully funded to move other officers into additional roles to complement Bill's position so we're an editorial committee on this and that sort of thing. We would not be able to do that and we were specifically looking at neighbors that were less represented and accomplish what Bill has done in other neighborhoods because his most of his work has been done with the student groups. So we would not be able to do that if we're going to freeze the two positions. The position in particular would probably remain the same if we only froze two positions that we started talking about more than that then he would probably be reduced to two days of community outreach. And he would have to go back to two days of patrol so uniform service. So it would have an effect. If somebody doesn't take a vacation day so it would be very something that's very fluid, you know, it's, we have a full complement of officers you might be able to do it three days a week. If somebody's taken a vacation day it may be two days a week so that's something that would be moving continuously but if we were just really talking about not filling two positions, probably 80% of the time Bill's position, he would be able to, you know, stand pat and that what we wouldn't be able to expand that role. Does that make sense. You're getting some nods. Are you hearing me. Yeah, just, can you hear me. This is Kathy. Scott. Yes, I can. I think that came up, you know, I'm looking at the service calls that you go out on medical assists and out of the 17,000 plus you had about 780 of them, or 782 in the past year. Would you still be able to staff those with a two position freeze. Probably. Again, it's going to be a lot going to be determined by how many officers take a day off on a particular day or that sort of thing. You know, because we wouldn't be filling positions necessarily, and we would be running short on certain shifts, but if you have an officer called out sick or something like that, we may not be able to, you know, respond to what we normally would. So it's not a concrete answer about how many calls we wouldn't be able to respond to, but really goes dated day. Okay, but yes, it would be affected. The other question that came up from the discussion was, we're in the midst of COVID-19 crisis that is going to be lasting for a while. And what do we envision over the next over this fiscal year for responding and how would freezing positions affect the ability to do what is wise to do under that circumstance and recognizing that it takes time to fill positions to Yeah, exactly. And I think I explained that yesterday. The process of filling a position usually is a year long process. And that's if we have candidates available because we don't know when the Academy dates are starting and there's only one Academy in Western Massachusetts. The time frame for when we're going to have somebody in the Academy and when they're going to be graduating and then the 14 week process of training them is another non constant. So we don't always know. For instance, we have an Academy that just graduated. The next Academy isn't starting until September and that was already filled. So the next Academy after that wouldn't be until March or April of 21. So, you know, if we wanted to fill positions, it wouldn't happen immediately. Thank you. Other questions. Pat. Just a quick one. Chief, if you were hiring an officer from Hadley or something like that, an office, an experienced officer. Do they go through, they wouldn't, who's already been through Academy and has been working. Is that a, it seems like that would let take less or am I wrong. Just curious. Yeah, that's absolutely true. We've done that here and there. We've hired a couple of guys that have had training experience already. Most recently we hired a kid that we worked at Nantucket police department. And we've hired another officer that worked on the Cape as well. So if they have prior training and they meet standards that we have, you know, either military and or a college degree and then they go. They still go through the vetting process of psychological exams and interviews and that sort of thing, but they don't have to go to the Academy. I do want to say to you as an aside that Iris Cox does that the Amherst police department is exemplary in terms of how they use psychological testing. So I want to give you kudos for that. Thank you. Yeah, so I was a good guy. I've known him for a million years and certainly know him well. So just going in order George. Chief, is it fair to say that given your, your current staffing levels and your current needs that if there's a freeze on hiring of at least two positions that will definitely impact your ability to provide the services that town expects from you and your department. Totally fair to say and the biggest impact would be on our community outreach. The things that Bill Laramie does. Well, he's specifically responsible for the reduction in call volume and then work that he's done and then the follow up that the police officers do. You know, through his, you know, organization skills and stuff as far as getting people in the proper place to have officers at meetings and work that he's done with the University of Massachusetts. All of that is very, very indicative of the work he's done for call reduction and not only that arrest numbers, I think most of you know, have checked back through the years. Our call numbers are down and our arrest numbers are down from 12 or 1300 to about 750 and you know it's a lot specific to the work that Bill's done. Yeah. I, first of all, when you call somebody a kid, I just want to say at my age, you're all kids. I do the same thing and I make that mistake all the time. My wife is always telling me to stop it. But yes, I call David, he's 45 years old. So, yeah, right. Um, so earlier we also got into the conversation about hiring people for traffic cops. And I want to just, you know, when I think of a traffic cop, I think of the guy standing in the middle of the intersection that went this way that way, including his whistle, but I have a feeling we may be talking about speeding. We are when I when I speak about traffic officers. Those are the officers that are not doing traffic post of construction sites. I'm talking about officers who are specifically designated to go to streets, neighborhoods, and do speeding enforcement, stop sign enforcement. I get if I get the most emails, I get people free COVID and everything else was about speeders and traffic violations in neighborhoods. So, when I'm speaking about a traffic officer, that's what I'm speaking about is not somebody who would be independently hired by a paving company or the western mass electric people when they're, you know, moving wires that's that's an independent type thing they do off duty. But I'm speaking about traffic officers. I'm speaking about officers who are police officers work in a regular shift who so responsibility is to do traffic enforcement speeding violations, stop sign violations, you know, that sort of thing. And the reason that this comes up is because even now in this era of COVID. What we are hearing from people about speeding is your, there's a lot more people walking there's a lot more people pushing baby carriages you almost hit my, you know, somebody almost hit my five year old and me pushing the baby carriage. And so actually, I've been surprised at the amount of speeding complaints for hearing from. And there's a lot of them. And there's very specific neighborhoods like southeast Street Bay Road pine Street East Pleasant Street, and North Pleasant Street up by Pupson Village or ones that we received complaints about a lot but I think gave team brought up the other day a lot about calls we've had on wildwood lane and autumn lane and those sorts of things. So they come in at all different times of the year. And, you know, sometimes it's very specific times like during the school year, parents are concerned about speeders between the hours of seven to nine with school buses are running that sort of thing. So, it varies. Thanks for that. Thank you for clarifying traffic. I'm going to move it along challenge. Thank you. So while, while we're considering whether to hire two more police people, we're also considering hiring people or having people to address the mental health issues so if you did. Yeah, hire those people with that reduce the burden. Your police. Thanks for that. I think that's a great idea to go in that direction. But I, you know, I can also tell you that the social services agencies CSO service net based state health. We did consult health are not prepared to do that with small amounts of money that is something I think we're going to need to look at a regional approach to like, let's say, for instance, we cut. They cut 50% of my budget and $2 million went to that those agencies that really wouldn't change how they can operate. It needs to be looked at an original approach to how we do things. It's not just the town of Amherst, they're responsible for or trying to help town of Hadley, the town of North Hampton, all use the same agencies that we use. We just don't have the ability to respond to calls at any time. It's even eight to four, four to 12 or midnight. They, it just, this needs to be there needs to be a plan in place to look at how we're going to have social services networks respond to all police departments, not just Amherst. And, you know, cutting one police department's budget isn't going to solve the problem we would still be getting calls from people about mental health problems, mental health issues. No, I was just curious if there any models but that's another discussion for another time. Thank you. You're welcome. Just a quick clarification. Chief, a traffic officer, the guys dressed in brown. What kinds of enforcement powers do they have and could they replace an officer who was monitoring sign, you know, and monitoring for speeding in a neighborhood. They're dressed in brown or just parking enforcement officers. All they have the authority to do is write parking tickets. They don't have police powers. So, yes, they, they would not be able to write tickets for people over that sort of thing. Thank you. You're welcome. Mary Lou. Yes, chief. In the past, we've been told that for the size of Amherst, even including UMass and the police at Amherst College, that we're still under what has been advised for this, for this town. And my question is, is that still true today? And if it is, and then we're considering maybe cutting two more that puts you way back. Would that be correct? That would be correct. I mean, there's a national model out there that is put out by the Department of Justice and through the FBI and some agencies follow it. Most of the ones in California follow it and some other jurisdictions, but it's usually around 2.5 officers per thousand residents. It's give or take a little bit there. So no matter how you cut it, if you look at Amherst and just without the students, you know, whatever we're at at 30,000 people. And then, you know, during the daytime, I've heard the number is as high as 100,000 people who come and go or, you know, 65,000 when students are in town. We're below the level that we should be and we've been at the below the level where we should be for many years. I think it was in one of the reports I did for you. You know, we've been funded as high as 52 officers back in 2007, I think it was. And Chief Sherpa confirmed that with me, but we should, if we go by those standards, I think 55 officers is what they recommend we've never met that high. And that's from doing some of the things we'd like to do and traffic enforcement is one of them having dedicated officers assigned to traffic enforcement would be one of those, but also expanding our community outreach groups bill there. I mean, we wanted a specific team to deal with off campus issues and also with other community members who were looking for assistance from us and we've never been able to accomplish that with the staff. So, yes, Mary Lou, that's a long answer to a short question. If you remind me how many officers we now have are the total police department. So we are budgeted at 48. And right now we just had three officers graduate on July 10. So we're at 47. So we have one vacancy. We have one officer retiring next week. And we have another officer retiring September 1. And that will take you down to 45. That's correct. Okay, thank you. So I think that where we started from. The budget book says 50. So that's just what I'm wondering. It says 50 FT ease in the police department. So I'm just wondering about, are we budgeted? Yeah, that might be because we have that might be total police employees, not police officers, but we have a full time administrative assistant, a full time records clerk. And we have the budget of 28 officers. That's right. Thank you. So I think that where we started from in this was that we were trying to get an understanding if we wanted to create flexibility so that as we go through the kind of process described where we would have, you know, a community, a thoughtful community process and trying to look at how we arrange policing and want to be able to have the flexibility to move to that transition. If the transition is to take place. How do we attain that flexibility? And I think that the question came up. About freezing positions in order to allow us to have that flexibility. Kathy's. Did I state that fairly to think. Yes. Okay, so that's, that's why we're trying to, we're struggling with chief and. Yeah, I mean, I get the conversation. And I know that you guys are under a great deal of pressure as well from certain community members to make cuts. I just, you know, I don't think any cuts are reasonable because we won't be able to accomplish. What in my opinion is probably the best police department in New England. And, you know, the types of conversations we're having now or Brian is really having an effect on the younger officers, especially because they haven't been through this. So, I mean, I understand what you guys are going through as well, but I mean, the police officers read the newspapers. They hear things. There's a lot of rumors going around. So, you know, it's happened a negative effect on them as well. I appreciate that. And I feel very badly about that. I don't know that how we can run interference except continuing on and what we hope is a responsible manner as a council and giving to the right place. We're struggling with, but we really do appreciate what everyone in your department is doing. I know you're doing and I know, you know, there's a lot of support in the community. I wish more of them were vocal. I think people are. Well, there's no easy way to say it. I think people are afraid to speak up right now. I don't quite understand why, but people have told me that. So, I think there's more support out there than we realize. Oh, it's kind of the position we're in right now. Both with police agencies and I'm sure with the town council as well. If you have a few more minutes, please stay with us. I do. Yeah, I actually want to echo what you're saying. I had a resident call me today. Very much in support of the police in previous work that she's done. She's received hate mail and phone calls and stuff like that because of her work and very concerned about speaking out and being identified. Having said that, I don't think any of this dismisses nor suggests. We have a lot of work to do to look at a good model that better suits our community and continue to work on the anti racism that is clearly among us and I hope that the council does that message continues to be very clear. You know, I agree with that Lynn and I kind of look for I was hoping we were just going to, you know, pass a budget and move forward and then have the discussions about how to, you know, potentially through conversation, see where we can be as an agency with assistance from, you know, social services agencies because I can tell you that every police officer I've spoken with would be like, yeah, it would be great and we didn't have to respond to all these calls for mental health. How do we reach there? How do we get there but I don't think just cutting police positions is the best place to start and needs to start with more communications and and meetings and discussions and seeing where I mean people should be reaching out to the social service agencies to the heads of those because I can tell you right now they're nervous that the police aren't going to be there to respond to those calls that they can't respond to so. Yes, I agree. As I said yesterday having been in positions where I was working with domestic violence victims know we work very closely with safe passage to not have the police as partners and that effort to protect victims. It would have been impossible. Right. Gary Lou. You've already called on me. Thank you. I think my phone dropped. That's happened. Okay, shall we. I would agree with for the chief that, you know, we have to look at this in a bigger way this is their systemic issues here. And I would really, really hope for all the people working the police working for our town that, they're very grateful for the culture for the work they do. And, and what we really need is for us but at the same time they're what we're hearing is the systemic ways that people are getting affected they may not be too many people but the fact is there are people there who are being affected and it's not because of the police. So I really do hope that the police are not taking it personally which I'm sure they will because it's hard not to with all the thing. But at least I can speak for myself and I believe all the town counselors here feel that too that you know we really do appreciate the work of the police and we're really looking forward to working with the police and you have all the connections and in working towards in a long term way, continuing to work and find ways we can invest in our community and empower youth are close up the education gaps, see how we can support the businesses, and of minorities and so there's a lot of work to be done and I believe we have to do it together. Thank you. Thank you and I agree with you. Again just quickly, but the only proposal that I heard and I have heard that this committee seems to be wrestling with from a group of citizens is to defund the police at 52%. No other proposal that I'm aware of has been presented. That's a very, very bad idea. And so watching you struggle to figure out what to do with a bad idea just baffles me. There's a larger issue at stake here I agree. And a conversation, many conversations need to be held as a chief just pointed out, people at the table would include the social service agencies that provide these services, the police and a whole host of other people. That conversation is one we need to have. But offering to or thinking of deep of freezing positions in response to a very bad idea makes no sense to me. If there was other ideas on the table, at least I could think about oh maybe that makes some sense. The idea in front of us that was presented to us over and over and over again, almost in the same language. In my humble opinion, was a profoundly bad idea. So I don't see why you're struggling so hard to figure out what to do about a really bad idea. Now the underlying concern. I understand and I appreciate and conversation about that and figuring out how we could move forward with that makes a lot of sense to me. But freezing positions that will almost certainly hinder the ability of our police department to provide for basic public safety. That makes no sense to me as a response to a very bad idea. I, you know, just don't want to speak for, I mean, Kathy can speak for yourself in the subject, but she and I talked about it this morning. And the question of the freeze came up, not in response to the 52% proposal. Discussion came up in really the context of the original discussion that we were going to talk about how we could look at other professionals to work to take over some role in responding to mental health and other issues where it might be a more appropriate way to respond to small to a segment and whether a freeze in positions might be a helpful transition point to enable us to be able to move from where we are to what we would envision, which was really how the discussion was going with the Lynn Pat and Chelsea were having for this 52% thing came up. So I think that that you know the freeze came up in that context not in response to the. I don't think that's how it will be seen in the public but that's perhaps a different issue. Yeah, I would just say I think we have to do a good job with words, George, if you know in terms of public perception because I, I used as a, you know, a transition point I mean I would never want to cut people who are current work working on, you know, I would try to avoid that so he both the pipeline, taking a while to find the people to hire this buys us time and it's not and I, I agree with the idea that a regional approach to mental health, a long term thing we want to do but knowing how poorly mental health is funded. You know, I actually thought we may find a different kind of person we could hire, and we could call them, give them whatever name you want to give them, you know, put them in the police department the way we have parking enforcement officers now that aren't real police Academy officers. So I don't know whether they exist. But it would allow us time to make that decision leave the money and leave the money in the budget so if we come back and decide it needs to be police. In the traditional pathway. We, we could still do that so I think it's putting some flexibility, where in the current budget we have no flexibility if we could set a million dollars aside to say what else we want to do but I don't see that and I don't see it next year either. You know in terms of how tight the budget's going to be so this. This allows time to think and come back with how might this work how might this work and of course it would involve people like Chief Livingstone and Bill Laramie and people who are veterans of trying to know how they currently use their time. So it's. Yeah, so I think trying to write it in a way that it's not well someone said 52% so here's 10% or 5% you know it's not that wasn't it as much as allowing us time to think and holding the money is the way it would be thought of and we can put a time limit on. I mean Paul is still here on you know the notion of, you know it's within six months we would make a decision within you know something that would say it's not like it's for it's a forever but would come back with this is what we've looked at the community has been looking at different things. You know the larger reparation shall any you know with the bigger picture. We're going to have to get some state foundation. When you go to ash if you're in Asheville, North Carolina, I don't know whether you've been there but it is an extremely wealthy community. And I can imagine that there's some there might be some deep pockets that could be thinking that way about it so it's it's one of these gate. These, you know, big houses are behind the gates. But in any case, I just that was the sentiment it wasn't so much a bad idea came to us so now what do we do but it's been percolating along on should we be thinking, could we be thinking differently how might we think differently. Yeah, I think that the other thing the task chief is how frequently do and regularly do positions turn over in the department. And if you don't freeze positions now will six months from now there be three positions and are there always some vacancies so that a freeze at the appropriate time may be a good idea but the freeze now isn't a good idea. So chief is, is there a regular turnover in the department and predictable thing. There has been a regular turnover recently. I think I mentioned in one of my reports we got a couple of retirements the last few years we've also had a couple of officers leave for other agencies. That's less or less usual than, you know, officers retire and people don't tend to leave Amherst PD very often for other agencies. We are transitioning to a younger agency because, you know, you know, a few of the older officers have retired and will be retiring this summer, and probably next spring as well. So, you know, that's the type of turnover we usually see is from retirements, and it's not from officers leaving for another agency. But, you know, we've been pretty consistent where we're where we have been as with our numbers and the, you know, 45 to 48 officers in the last few years. And again, when somebody leaves unexpectedly we had an officer leave the state police unexpectedly in that position it took a year to fill that position so, you know, but nor under normal circumstances we don't see a lot of turnover in our agency other than for retirements. Okay, shall we. Yeah, thank you. I think addressing Kathy's point about the reparations and the kind of money that would involve. I agree. And I think it's about more than that it's about intentionality and as leaders what are our intentions, because we do have people who are wanting to step up and there are businesses local businesses. And the email that I got and I shared with everyone about the reparations comes from a business leader who wants to do something about it. So we have all these people we have the resources. And some of the things are not even about money but they might be about what we heard in the Saturday workshop was the education curriculum and the lack of history about black, black history and so forth so it's a lot it's, it's really about intentionality as leaders, and the discomfort of change it's not going to be easy and we are going to have to let go of some of the things and privileges we're used to. Like we are used to having 50 people or 48 police people and it is going to be hard to have 46 or 44 I don't know I'm just saying. So it's not going to be easy for us because we've gotten used to but we also have to think about what we're hearing now, more louder than ever and we cannot ignore it is the fact that there are people who are going to way worse stuff than us losing two police cops or having the discomfort of, you know, something that we're used to. So that is going to be part of it. And I think as counselors, we need to just decide what sort of leadership we want to how do we want to show up as leaders and how do we work it's not an either or it's not that we're citing with the people who demanded 52%. That's an idea they proposed and we heard them. And there was some value in some of the things they talked about, but we may not agree with the 52%. And it's not that we're citing with just the police, because yes we love our police and we're so proud of them. And, and yet, there is stuff that we need to do about all this. So we can come in as leaders who are looking at the bigger picture and then starting to do and create that intentionality and then we'll figure out the pieces, use up all our resources our academics, our businesses are amazing residents. And, and we find the solutions, even if it takes 10 years but we start now. Yeah, I'll just say that there's a lot of things that I probably agree with you there. It'll be re educating the, the public to, you know, it was not unusual 10 years ago for something like a noise disturbance, it would take us an hour hour and a half to respond and sometimes by the time we got there, the public was over the public was not happy with that or, you know, sometimes just certain calls would be responded to because we were backed up so much. And the public didn't like that so much or when you tell them that, you know, we can't respond to certain calls or we're cutting services. We just need to be educated about that. I'm really, really concerned about, for instance, COVID calls when the students return. There's certain things we're just not going to be able to do and the public doesn't like that. So I will need your assistance to educate the public that look, things that you've expected and appreciate in the past may not happen. It just might not be like that anymore. So I agree with you. Some people have gotten spoiled with the job that we've done as police department because I am very, very proud of what we've accomplished and what we do and maybe that is going to be the new normal that, you know, you can't call the police department when 15 kids are hanging out and enjoying a day and that's not our job anymore. Or, you know, if somebody's misbehaving, that might be the new reality, you're right, but it just will become an educational component with the townspeople will need to understand. If this is and it is an important position in the town, I think it should be established and not taken from the police department. You know, we're talking about extremely significant changes. I mean, it may seem rather simple, but I, but it isn't. Is there any reason the counselors can't go forward and develop a plan and gather, you know, information from a broader group of people in town, and you can do that through your district meetings, you could have a forum. And you can begin to plan for your guidelines for the manager for FY 22. But I think you need to not only include, you know, you're talking about the public health people and counselors and so forth, but also the people who use the other services, the business owners in town, the bid, Boys and Girls Club, the league, all of those people and more and the people who are suggesting those changes. There ought to be a forum that you can do this over a period of time as Lynn suggests, and then be ready for your guidelines to the manager for FY 22. And I guess where I stand on this is I would support the manager's budget as presented and not freeze any positions. I'm really concerned about that. We are, we don't have the full staffing in, and we never will, because we utilize our people in a lot of good ways, but that's what I'm getting out of listening to all of this. I think we have time to plan for the FY 22 budget. It gives us a lot of time to bring all these groups together and decide what the policing and Amherst will be. And if it needs support from other areas, then that's where those positions should be reflected in public health or wherever. So that's kind of where I am. I think the one thing that I should add to that and then I'm going to see if I can propose something to summer, see if we can agree that that's where we are. The discussion has also been that there are some calls that police are in a position to have to make because there is no other mechanism to do that. And I think that there's also a question in there as to whether there's a sufficient number of those calls that actually would allow for reduction in the size of the force. There's a conclusion that that's the case, but that was where we started from that there is that possibility and I think a lot of it had to do with around homeless and mental health is a population and just a status. In those circumstances that if there was the another response mechanism that might be more comfortable to the people who are responding to that we would consider it. And I think that that's why it started out with some idea that well maybe we don't need the police to do this we need somebody else and I didn't know whether that came to a funding question I think is actually a valid question and what you're raising. I think what we need to do in this gets back to this to summarizing where we're at. We're required by the Charter to have budget hearing committee convened a budget hearing. We heard from a large number of people. We presented to us a fairly uniform position that we needed to make a substantial 52% cut in the size of the department in order to achieve essentially that and a much faster goal that this committee, looking at it. We'd be looking at other models, but supports the can the continuation of services because there is no other service to replace it and that we on the other hand, also want to recognize that if we develop a new model we want to make sure that we have the ability to make that addition to that new model. And the idea of a freeze is one option that we discussed, and a freeze could be instituted immediately a priest could be instituted sometime in the future. And essentially that kind of a report with the additional information that chief is previously provided and hope you can get the written report to us and then the bottom line, exactly where Lou is saying, therefore for FY 21 support managers budget. And that would be what we would tentatively write up but not vote on today because we said we weren't going to vote today. So Kathy. I would like to vote on this and we said we weren't going to vote on it but vote on it tomorrow, if we're meeting tomorrow, because I think we have two points of views here, you hear, I, I agreed with almost all your sentences Andy and I would love to just tape them and put them down. But I think a freeze and I, you know I started with to enables a transition, if we want to make one in the next 12 months, rather than a promise of maybe someday we'll make a transition because I don't think we're going to miraculously put money in a budget that we can just add positions. And so I guess I will emphasize again, I'm not even saying they wouldn't be in the police department I can imagine hiring a different kind of a person. The police chief gave us some reasons that ride alongs don't work quite as well the other day but so I just think we should be voting on two alternatives which is one is full support of the budget as it's written with those words and we want to encourage a freeze and someone would have to tell me how to write it to make it clear that it's not that the positions therefore will be cut. It's that within X months we come back and say, what do we need to do in FY 21 or what can we do in FY 21, and at least I'm partially hearing we're not likely to fill those vacant positions in the fall of this year. Right away so we're going to be when the students come back we're going to be working short staff if we're going to be below staff so trying to write it away so I would just like to honor and I know I'm supposed to word it as a motion so I'll do it some more formally tomorrow to have a formal motion, but get a sense of the committee and if the majority goes against that I would at least like it then to be reflected in the finance committee's report that we took a vote and this is what the outcome of the vote was so that the full council can then consider this that would be my way of handling this. Certainly if that's the way. Anybody on the committee who makes a motion that has a second will have discussion of that particular motion. If that motion is rejected. There's minority if the motion is accepted but not by a full contingent of the voting members of the committee. It still is a majority and minority opinion so both are then reflected in the report and when it gets to the council. Whoever is however it comes out to minority position can make a motion at the council and it's been presented. I think that that's how the process works. And I just want to say for the rest of the budget, you know, I've, I went through all the details the rest is move forward. I had a couple questions of areas but it wasn't like a change this and I think we can flag those Bob had some nice issues for future discussion at the finance committee that it wasn't needed to be resolved now so it is this one line item in the bigger budget. Okay, one of my thoughts is that we're already almost at August one, and that if we didn't put a freeze on the next budget starts July one, and you could already be preparing for that you'd have more information about where you want to go, where you as a council want to go, and can incorporate it into the FY 22 budget, which begins July one and, and you can move along at that at during that time. So it's a matter of, okay, if we go if we accept the manager's budget as presented with some of these minor things that you're suggesting Kathy. Then we have the opportunity to put it in our plans for FY 22, which be which begins July one 2021. So I'd like that included because I think it's important to see that there's very little difference in time here. It could we could move forward and really do a good study in this period of time we have before developing the FY 22 budget, even though it may not be the time financially may not be any better. But at least, I think it shows really thoughtful planning. Yeah, I would just want to respond. You know I don't disagree Mary Lou that the new year is not that far away. I just we have this opportunity because there are vacancies we don't know if there will be vacancies so it's just happens to be if we were looking at the police force edits full that's right now. I would not be talking about this. It's more that we have them. So we, and I, you know there's this horrible we don't like to use cliche terms but necessity is the mother of invention. You find creative ways to do things when you have to do them. It's just sitting and deliberating, deliberating the, the, the, to do them so, you know, as you know I may, it may be that the sense of the committee the majority is going to want to do endorse as I said nothing else in the budget is the number. So I'm, you know that is not part of it. So I would just like to put it to a vote tomorrow is what I'm going to propose it with emotion tomorrow and put it to a vote. So I have one additional suggestion so that we can move on to see if there are other issues in the budget people want to talk about and then the report which is then completes the agenda but that is I've been listening to the entire conversation if you have any thoughts about how to assure that there is the flexibility that Kathy is concerned about that you have until tomorrow because the committee is not voting on it today to make some suggestions to respond to me now. But it's, it's, it's out there as a possibility and I think we know where we're going. So, I'll skip the thumbs up so I think we don't even need to go beyond that. Chief, I don't think that there's anything else we're going to talk about because we're going to turn to relating to please I think we're going to turn on to other things but, you know, please. I'm sure staff in the department that at least within the council that there isn't the negative negativity that they were hearing about from people who are commenting to the council and that we have a lot of appreciation for what your department and every member of it is doing every day. So thank you for being with us. Thank you for coming in and thanks for those comments and I'll make sure, you know, we communicate every day with the officers about what's going on and I don't think anyone feels it's coming from the, you know, town council so to speak. It's, you know, some of the things they're just hearing either in the newspapers or word of mouth that sort of thing or having watched some of the zoom meetings that we've had just, you know, got them a little on edge but I appreciate those words and I'll make sure that the word gets out that you guys are supporting us and we appreciate that. Thank you. All right, thank you. So, where we are at is the, I need to ask a question of the finance committee and other counselors. The president who may have contributions to make to answer to this question is, is there anything else in the budget that was proposed by the time manager that is a concern or needs are there further questions to ask. Because this is the opportunity is then we need to be thinking about what it is we're going to be voting on tomorrow in the report. I don't see any hands up right now. It doesn't appear that there are other department anything else in the budget that was. But there's, I should say, and I just see the sun is waving her hand so I think that she is something but there's one thing that has been expressed and that is that I think that a number of us haven't said it out loud but we're nervous about the precariousness of uncertainty with both revenue and expenses because of this extraordinary time that we're in. And therefore, flexibility still remains a desire and we're also very anxious about where we're going to be a year from now. Yes. I wanted to just remind everybody that I when I said that grade for the finance committee to see all the change council orders we need to do we still have the borrowing authorizations. So I'm trying to understand the process for that now because in the past for town meeting, it was always part of that town meeting warrant and we have these borrowing authorizations. The council, it kind of got a little strange on us here so Guilford's ready to move on some of these and he needs to get them voted. So I'm trying to figure out they're part of the budget does this mean it's already gone through the public hearings and all that someone these finally come to you as a change order you're all set there's not going to be all the meetings and the. I'm trying to understand the process here. Okay, let me see if I can do something and see if I can put something on the screen here is sharing. Is this document you're referring to. It was number one from yesterday yep. So if you scroll down. 2009, I believe. 2009. So there's those for our authorizations for the enterprise funds. And they are in the budget book. And it's all part of this budget. I'm not saying this has to be acted on for Monday or anything but I'm worried about having to go through a whole. It's part of the budget. How does it fit in for the public hearings and the warms. I think that anything that was in the budget book was recommended by the time managers budget was subject to the hearing factors that we only heard about. And I think one of the issues of a very long document was just the way the nature of that process goes. While you have this on the screen. Let's the ones where we have the first four lines are ones that we've already had votes on. And 21 04 B is the motion that we will be considering for the entire budget as recommended for the operating. Right. That includes within it all of the subcategories that are listed under everything that goes with the blue section. Yes. So that's a, and that's going to be as done as one order. Yes, and you have that order. Yes. So that's pretty straightforward. I think that everybody can see it and if there are any comments or questions about it. Let me. My problem is, is that I don't have the ability to see to share on the screen and the sea of participants at the same time. So, Lynn, you just have to. Andy. Yeah. I have to take dot not let your screen be full size. So push the button that says reduce, and then you can pull up to see raised hands. My hand raised my hand raised is to basically say, not only was it in the book, but we had separate hearings for the water and sewer rates where these projects were totally distaste. We had the discussion about enterprise funds during the budget process with the finance committee. We also covered that. It's in the book. We passed the budget. We passed budget. Okay. Let's go back to the orders that are at hand. 2104 B is the first. 2105. Hey, is a program. Unless you say again. That one is already voted by the council were all set. And then 2107 has been done. That's a community preservation act. Then 2108 is borrowing authorizations for community preservation act that one we postponed. Right. Actually, that one's off the table now. Yes. 2109 is the one I'm talking about. That's the one you're talking about. And that will be a separate vote. But is part of it was part of the budget book. Right. Therefore. People would have had the opportunity. We will need to discuss that and include and explain it in the report. All right. I'm not asking you to vote it for Monday night. I'm just, I just know that you've got a lot going on for Monday night, which is the regular operating budget. So I wasn't pushing that. But what I was asking about that, if, if we don't include it. Well, it's, it will be fine to not have the meetings and everything. Because we've already had those meetings. And Lynn just answered that question. I think we're ready. I mean, do you anticipate that just being on Monday night to be done with it? No, I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. Do I've got the. A draft order. I can email everybody right now. Let's do it. Because once we get past Monday night. Unless we carry over to Tuesday. Unless we have to carry over even all the way up to June 20, July 29th, then we are into town manager evaluation. And I don't even want to tell you about the agenda items that I've thrown off the July 20th agenda. And I think we're ready to go. We're ready to go. I think the committee is ready to recommend for the council to vote. On all of this. Let's clear that up on tomorrow and get it done. I was just going to. The one other one, Andy. Sonya flagged it yesterday, but it's 2,111. And we have that one. That's an easy one. I mean, we discussed it already, but. That's the optional. That's the one. That's the one. That's the one. That's the one. That's the one that's on the office. So that's flagged on this page that's on your screen. Just email that order to you. The draft. And you sent the revised version that had. The correct second page. For the 2,111. Yes, I did that yesterday. So 2,112 is not something you're expecting to happen now. That's only, that's after free cash is certified. I do this for all my financial articles so that I can track it. But only the ones that have dates on them and stuff are the ones that have been acted on. So. The transfer to stabilization to be closer to the audit. Not until free cash is certified. It's just, it's just my internal. So what we're looking at is. The operating budget. 2109, which you've just sent to us and. The optional tax exemption 2,111. So three orders. Okay. So tomorrow. When we vote. We will. See about taking positions on those three orders. Okay. And can we make sure that those three orders are in our packet and therefore we know exactly what's there and has to get them. Right. Thank you so much. Kathy, did you have any amazing work to keep us on track? No, I just didn't take, I didn't take my hand down. I'm scrolling to look at her. I've got it's up on my screen too. So I could scroll, but my hands down. So I'm going to stop sharing this point because we're done talking about that document. So I think we know what we're going to vote on tomorrow. And we've had nobody who's right, who's said that they have any other discussion items other than the one that's been already flagged about police department budget and whether to freeze some portion of it to freeze to positions unless another mechanism to achieve the same result is suggested to us by the manager. And so that gets us back to the report. And I think I appreciate all of the work that everybody's done on the report. I will do my best tonight to pull something. Now together. My vision of the report is to have it be an introduction that says something about what an extraordinary year we are under. The recognizing the process that we have gone through. And getting this very quickly to the recommendations that we had regarding the police department. I'm. Contemplating the one looking for your input as to how you feel about this. Even though I agree with all of us have been doing a lot of work on other sections of the budget to let the report focus on those things as described and just get it to a succinct piece that can get to the attention of the. Council and focus the council where it needs to be. And therefore I would have to add something about the two additional orders. So that they know exactly what they're being asked to vote on and what each of the orders is. I haven't read other people's sections, but I've. Attempted to write mine. And I find myself just basically. Going back to what's already written in the budget book. And I'm sitting there saying, why do we have to distill. The budget book down to a shorter report. Is that really. Something that the. Something that the council needs. More importantly for me is, you know, the Sean and Sonia and others have gone to great pain to answer. A ton of questions that we've thrown at them. And I would rather see us do a report. That is very much like you described, but not get into regurgitating what's in the budget book. But reflect this rich discussion. About the police and all of, I mean, I don't know how you'd ever capture it all to be honest with you. And then attach. They've responses to these questions. I mean, we have, we have enough attachments. From additional presentations that were made to us that it's as big as the budget book. So I'm trying to figure out. Do you want me to just sit there and say, the town council budget was increased because. To X amount, because it was 88% or whatever. And it's because we're actually reflecting the truth now, which is that the town clerk is in our budget. Yeah. You already said that in the bedroom book. So I'm trying to figure out what. What else am I supposed to say? Then either the questions we asked. Or that's it. And I wrote copious notes yesterday during general government. That is the, I think what the question is. With town meeting. It was different. That. Tom meeting did not get the budget book. And Tom meeting had a lot of members who would never have looked at the budget book. Sometimes I wondered if they looked at the finance committee. Report. But the idea of narrowing it down. The one exception that I have to which you say has to do with elementary schools. And that's because we had the town manager's budget. We had the library budget that talk a lot about. Program. And then relate program to goals. And goals to budget. And then we had the library budget. And then relate program to goals. And goals to budget. But yellow, but the schools didn't do that. I wonder if we should just take. When Mary Lou wrote up, which is really. More extensive. And attach it as a separate report. And just acknowledge that. Because the. Schools were. Not able to produce a budget or did not produce a budget book. A budget equivalent to the library in the town managers from municipal departments. That. We're Ted. We. One of our members has done this and. So. I think we should. Put Mary Lou's in. As a. Accompanying appended document along with the questions and answers. I'll do whatever counts the committee expects. Does anybody. Kathy. You know, I was going to build on what. I was going where you were going, Lynn. I was going to build on that. I was going to build on that. I was going to build on that. And I was willing to offer my services as I suggest this. I like the idea of putting the Mary Lou and explaining that the elementary school came to us in a different way. We also don't have the same Q and A where we sent them a lot of questions in advance and a document with them responding. We got a lot verbally from them. So I think that's another reason. I think that's why we did that. I think that's why we did that. I think that's why we did that. I think that's why we tried to distill it into other. Beyond the budget book. Other things we learned and just put it. In by departments. Cause a few times it said. Get to you later. Or, you know, More to come. So, you know, just because I thought we got some. But it wasn't distillate. In a paraphrase it. And, you know, An account. So just a slightly more polished Q and A. And Bob in my draft report, Which you haven't seen picked up on some of that. We tried to focus it. The other one that came out in DPW. Is he said. In the future, We're going to have to deal with stormwater. And then during the meeting, it's one to multiple millions. So it's some, it's an alert. It doesn't, It's not this year's budget, but I think it's important. For people not to be stunned when they go from stormwater. Maybe an expense item to it's not just a little expense item. It's a big one. So, and that's in the responses. So that's where we were picking from responses. So that would be the variance to it. So an appendix that's the education and appendix that what we learned. So that's what we're going to do. So that's where we're going to do the review that went beyond what you can find in the budget book. Let's still give them. The attached answers. Yeah. I'm just saying, you know, that it might be a little bit more polished than the way we got it, but I'll look again at it. I mean, Sean can tell me what he thought it as he was compiling it. You know, a few of them, the question is asked, and then it's not answered, but it's answered to come. It just works as the whole document. It is wind up. Yeah. Cause my other option would be to take the general government categories. I think there's eight to 10. And take the questions that I asked and the discussion. And what the budget book says and come up with it, you know, three or four pages. Basically. Saying. This is what the department head told us this book told us, and this is the additional questions we asked. And here's the answers to them. Well, I wrote up enterprise funds already. And I would say 50% of what I wrote is pure budget book. And 50% was what I heard in the committee. You know, like, you know, just better understanding of what I was seeing, including that whole discussion on the transfer station, you know, how much trouble is it in, are we, can we close it down, not close it down? Yeah. Yeah. But it was, they're not, I got all four enterprise funds land on a page and a half. You know, I didn't write very much. Yeah. So I just don't know. I think you're right. People want to read the shorter version. I have no idea. Does any, if they don't want to read it and they don't read it, then who are we writing for? You know, is the other question. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just like Sean is saying, please help us think about how to improve the budget book. I want us to think way far ahead about what it is a finance committee really needs to be able to. Write up versus assume 13 counselors got a budget book. Assume that to the extent they're going to read it, they're going to read it. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree with the finance committee report. What is, I mean, I think the richness of the discussion around police. And I totally agree on the elementary school piece. And if others have written up and I'll do it, I'll just do it. I just, but I'm sitting there just. Yeah. No, I'm not suggest, I'm not suggesting you, I didn't think we heard anything that was new insights. So I think there are whole sections that that's totally true for. The budget book. And I think that's the first question that I want to ask is, do you have any comments on that? I think we've not seen any, not at least yet on police and fire. I passed it on to Andy and was stuck with it when it came to recommendations, which I thought all revolved around staffing, et cetera. And I also feel like it was a repeat basically of what's in the budget book. So I took a good time on it. last fall where right now they're coming to us talking about staffing being in crisis partly because UMass went home you know so we had talked about the town manager updating the staffing study and it's a town manager goal so that's it's not nothing to do with the F but it was but that was in part of what I wrote for Andy and that was where I got stuck where do you go right you know yeah so it was just one other thing I think to flag so it has nothing to do with is this budget the right budget it had we still need to do that right yes there were other issues the question of what ECAC envisions and what the budget implications are for ECACs recommendations is something that we envision is an ongoing issue and we don't want to lose that and there are others that was just another example was pretty on that same list and that was why when my did my original piece I keep coming back to that list of issues because that included both the fire and the ECAC housing was in one of them making sure the continue affordable housing efforts was the third one I can't remember there are a couple others and I just want to point out Mary Lou has her hand up so the if the school committee or the central office puts out a budget as they did when Sean was there you wouldn't have what I wrote up I think I agree with all of you say this managers budget it's excellent and people should take the time to read it and and get everything out of it so why pull things and make it a shorter version they really should read it there's a lot of information so I could see why it's difficult to write up on each of these departments because the information is here and I would go along with what some of you are suggesting as as next year but I think the next year the council should have the the full school document that you get from similar to what you get from the manager and then it wouldn't have to be written up as I wrote mine up this year and you all it's a huge part of your budget you should have both the regional document and the elementary document so you can see where the money is being spent yeah agree I agree with that I just also want to just be incredibly incredibly sympathetic to the schools right now are just trying to figure out how to bring students back I mean it's their job right now is so far beyond the budget and I just want to I have to say that no but why they did what they did can you still hear me yes yeah okay but these budgets were developed before January they weren't developed just now when when we were the old finance committee had these in jet by January because it's all done by then so I know now it's hard to to do some of the things but but there was transition also I know so it it wasn't easy but hopefully actually you'll have it hopefully they're good schools are gonna be in for a tough year ahead too we hope they get there yeah okay I think that's been to that sufficient guidance I think we've probably pretty much taken care of process today I will take the time now to try and start writing the piece that I can write and see if I can get something to in advance and we'll focus on the four orders that we had recognized the need to be there and treated as a finance committee report explaining that we have that we're asking about some four orders and most of it it's gonna be disproportionately towards police but that's the way it goes because so we kind of recognize what the discussion's been about reflected anything else because there is no public who is attended today so I can have a shock I do not need to do public comment because there's no public comment thank you and thank you and thanks thank you very much everyone