 I will call the Select Board meeting of January 8th to order at 6.32 PM. Mr. Wald is not with us at this moment. May or may not join us later. We're not sure he's traveling today, and so we're not sure if he's made it back into town. So we'll continue with him without him at the moment. So we're beginning with opening remarks, announcements, and agenda review. I'll start with the agenda review piece. Is there anything on the agenda that we need to add or change in any way at this point? I know we've got some folks here for public comment. Anything? The only thing I would request is that we just have a couple of minutes fairly early on to review the motion sheet, because we did not have the motion sheet previously, and it's usually helpful to do that in advance. All right. But we could do public comment, of course. All right, so let's hear for public comment. Not related to an agenda item, I presume. You don't think so? We'll presume that's not the case. OK, but we may move you ahead, because I believe I know why you're here as well. Yes? And that's what I was going to ask you about, actually, is I know we have an item on the consent calendar that I was planning to ask to have removed from the consent calendar, but it's not a timed item or whatever. So depending on what other things you've got in the pipeline for what we need to do when, I wondered if we could move that up, since we know at least one person's here associated with that, who could answer questions for us. So what I was hoping to do with regard to that was have him be the last person to public comment, and we'd at least hear from him, and then we might take up the actual action later. But we could take it up then as well. That could work. Cool. We'll begin. Thank you. So we have just the two of you for public comment. Is that correct? So we'll begin with you. So if you'd step to the microphone, introduce yourself to us and the larger viewing audience and tell us what you need to share. One thing I will share with you is we generally just take information during public comment. We don't generally react or provide our ask questions, or that sort of thing. We just take it in, and we do want to hear from you. So I'll do it. Thank you so much. Good evening. I'm Ariela Schwell. I'm resident of Amherst and mom of two children in Crocker Farm School. I'm here to talk about an issue that has been on the minds of school staff and parents for a number of years, which is the use of three Amherst Elementary schools as voting sites and how it impacts the safety of our students. We are concerned about having the schools open to a large number of people with unfettered access to the building while school is underway. The presence of a soul's constable in the building, in our minds, is inadequate. Particularly in Crocker Farm, given the structure of the building, voters lining up outside the gym can easily see and converse with, if they choose, Crocker Farm pupils and teachers going about their business in the hallways. There is nothing to prevent a voter from leaving the queue to go further into the building. Moreover, there is no system in place that would prevent a member of the public who is not a voter in our precinct from entering the building on election day under false pretenses. With these concerns in mind, I was pleased to see that the school committee passed the next school calendar of 2018-2019 with a curriculum day for teachers on the November election day, thereby insulating students from the impact of thousands of voters descending on the Amherst schools. We feel it's an important step to ensuring safety in the building. However, it's crucial to also consider smaller local elections and how to create a permanent plan to ensure that all future election days be held without children in the building. In March of 2018, there will be a local election on a day when the students will be there. Because it's only a few months away and too late to convert into a curriculum day, we strongly urge you to coordinate with the Amherst Police Department and the school administration to provide police presence at the entrance and within the buildings at all three schools. Finally, we believe a long-term solution, ultimately removing all voting from the schools is really necessary. Even if classes are not in session when voting takes place, there are security issues to be considered. It is possible that safety hazards caused or introduced during voting hours could go unnoticed and then pose a risk to school building security and child safety the following day. Thank you so much for allowing me some time to convey our concerns. I look forward to further discussion about how we can come together as a community to create safe learning environments for our children. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, if you can forward force, please. Should we have an additional packet? I think we did receive those things. But also, I think our motion sheet has the motion with what I'm hoping is the hours you were seeing. Those were just a few minutes ago. Yes, please. My name is George. I'm the general manager of Amherst Cinema. Thank you. And so we have put forward the proposal to adjust our serving hours for beer and wine. They're currently set right now 4 to 10 PM. And we regularly have our National Theater Live and Ballet Productions, which are sometimes 12, 30. But generally, they're a little later 2 o'clock. And that audience frequently is asking for wine. And it does create some confusion to have a limited time in which we can serve for our patrons, which adds to some tension at the point of sale, in addition to some setup and procedural stuff for us internally. So we were hoping to extend those hours. We have a long and clean record of service. And generally, our clientele is not the party in crowds. So I don't think it poses any real risk. So our ask was to extend our hours. I had just said to our business hours, and that was read as 9 AM. But we don't really have a need to serve that early. I can't imagine a situation where that would be required. But I want to just present that and ask for your consideration. Great. Thank you. You may want to stay in case they have a question. This was an odd situation in that we had very little information in our Friday packet because of the weather and various other reasons. And so we didn't have very much information. We did receive a number of materials emailed to us this afternoon. But they do not include the revised state that the email did, but the paper copies do not include the revised statement that was made about the hours that were requested. So that didn't make it into the pile of photo copies. And does somebody have that relatively handy from the email earlier? The motion sheet, actually, I think has the hours listed, which is not on anything else I think. George submitted a new letter. Yeah, that was this afternoon at about 4 o'clock. Exactly. And although all the other things we got emailed. I mean, for ease, I'm comfortable with 9 to 1. We don't open our box office until usually the earliest is 10 AM on weekends. If it's just easier for that, they went with our hours of operation. But we wouldn't be serving them. But if it's convenient for you all. Yes. It's not here. And so it's in our email. It's not here, though. Just make copies of it like. But perhaps in the meantime, I guess I would ask Mr. Slaughter for some direction as to how we want to do this. Because originally, I appreciated what you did earlier in terms of making it the last public comment item. Do you want to try and now treat this as an agenda item now that we are working on as pulled out of the consent calendar? Or were there other things that we needed to do at this particular point in the evening? Because I may have more questions as the conversation unfolds. Well, I don't know that we need to take a long time with it at this moment. Maybe that we're not ready to take action is one thing that we have to determine ourselves. But also I think it's fine if we want to take this up at this moment just because we have our guests here, as well as some of the other materials here, and we're talking about it now. So it might be just deficient to talk about it at the moment and then come back to the other things fairly quickly. So maybe if I can make this statement, that'll help you decide what you're doing next. So I don't believe we should take action tonight. We had nowhere near adequate information in the packet over the weekend to think about what this means. It is entirely different to know that under mass general law service can be done between 11 AM and 11 PM. And the original application said 4 PM. And saying 9 o'clock, but probably won't serve then, is just not sensible to me in terms of how I can think things through in terms of what we do in other parts of the community. So although I certainly appreciate the service at Amherst Cinema associated with this, and I've been pleased that we've been able to do this, and I understand earlier than for because there are certainly matinees before that in addition to the events that they've mentioned. For one, I don't think we still have adequate information as to what our window or what our envelope of what we're allowed to say yes or no to is. And we don't have substantial documentation. We have a sentence from the applicant that's verbally that says it's been going well. I presume it's been going well because our chief Livingstone did not say anything when we were doing the. But I don't have the chief's opinion on this. We don't have anyone else in town who serves alcohol at 9 AM or 10 30 AM. So I'm just not ready to make a decision yet. That's fair enough. So I think there were a couple of questions that this raised for us today are not your fault. But they did bring forward some questions we have on our own as far as how we're tracking certain aspects of our licenses. And so it begged a few questions that made us dig a little deeper or start to try to dig a little deeper into what's allowable by law, what we have traditionally done as far as keeping track of things, what we probably ought to do regarding tracking things. Because we've often tied, kept track of like the common victual license. But you can have that be a much broader time frame than the actual service of alcohol. So recognizing a few gaps in our own coverage of this. But how did the other two members feel about whether we should, whether we, if we delay, would that be preferable or would you rather pick this up this evening? I'm open to, yes. I don't mind delaying. I don't know if there was a particular program coming up that it would be a hardship if we wait until our next meeting. Like sometimes you have a special program coming. And if we were aware of that, we could do something about that. But I think getting our own ducks in order makes sense, as Mr. Spearer said. And it sort of suggests to me the larger thing we've talked about from time to time about alcohol policies is needing to have a sort of our little guidebook that helps us do this. And if our tracking needs to be improved, then to wake up to do that. It's fine that you said, well, our clientele don't cause trouble or whatever that was. But I don't think we can make a decision based on that. I'd like to make decisions that are consistent across all establishments and not have to decide if I like these patrons because they're gray here like I do or these other patrons who, you know. So I think we should stay away from, well, this is a nice place so we just, whatever they want, and just do it by the book because I think then we're in solid ground. So it's likely that the next time we'd be able to take this up would be the 22nd. So. I won't be in town, but we can have it. You don't need to come back for that necessarily. If we have any questions that I think we can sort of bring those to you via email or whatever and get those answered, it'll probably be a non-event on the 22nd, but we do want to get ourselves straightened out as far as hours and stuff. And as our membership sort of looks at this a little more close and has questions, I think we'll bring those back to you. So I'm not exactly convinced of the reason that's being put forward yet now for the amended change when we were talking about the original request that was going to 9 a.m. I was raising similar questions, but the amended request is 12.30 p.m. opening Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. on Saturday and noon on Sunday. And I think that other establishments that are selling liquor are selling at those hours on those days of the week because they serve lunch crowds. And we just on Sunday, of course, been doing some modifications. So I guess looking at it in terms of the amended request, I think I wanted a little bit more explanation as to why we can't make a decision tonight. If I may add, it also would be proving a negative. There is no documentation on incidents for me to provide because there have been none. So if you were looking for that, I would come back basically with the same information for you. I don't have anything to show you. I can give you an empty incident log and I can give you a clear history with the police department. I understand that a statement from them is valuable, but to your point, there would be no additional information coming from me outside of specific requests that you made that I could answer in terms of our clientele or there being a judgment call being made. The judgment call would be based on that information, if that's helpful. The purpose of the open meeting law is multi-fold, but one is so that the public knows what we're doing. And the only thing the public had to go on based on our Friday listening session and the only thing the public had to go on based on our Friday list of topics, 48 hours ahead of time, was the idea of them opening at nine. Now the fact that we didn't hear from anyone does not mean that they don't have an opinion about opening at 12.30. I just don't see any reason why we would rush this through based on a sentence that was provided to us this afternoon when we had no information in our packet as to what our choices were. I'm still not convinced the entire select board knows what our choices are and what our alternatives are and they may well be fine with this, but not knowing what the choices, what our alternatives are, just doesn't work well for me process-wise. And I would like to hear from Chief Livingstone to see if he has any concerns, which I seriously doubt he would have given the exact circumstances Mr. Steinberg spoke to. So although we haven't taken a formal vote, it sounds as though. I'm too confused to vote. Right. I think that's the thing for us as well and I think that's partly to Ms. Brewer's point is that the details have come late to us and so as far as, you know, for notice to the public as a piece of this as well, that's part of why I'm sort of leaning toward what's weighed a little bit. The confusion stems from me using the language hours of operation because we don't have consistent opening and closing times at our box office because the length of films determines when our box office opens for the first time and when it closes. So I was referring to the hours of operation as customer facing. So when patrons would be in the lobby and buying alcohol and that was taken understandably by Deborah as our total hours of operation which includes our administrative and office staff who are there at 7, 8 in the morning. So yeah, what's listed here is much more broad but what we're asking is actually much more restrictive. So yeah, I do. So I think that's part of it on our part as far as making sure we have that right so just again notice to the public as a whole. So I think we'll, yes. Could we ask, would you just state exactly what the hours that you're seeking be very clear about that right now so we can write these down? Sure, Monday to Friday, 12.30 to, I put 1 a.m. but again it's rare we're open that late. So I came here ready to discuss and bargain basically. But 1 a.m. and a lot of this is also just coming from an operational perspective for me thinking of having our staff come in and when you open it's easier just to open everything and then when you leave to close everything as opposed to these piecemeal things. So 12.30 to 1 a.m. on weekdays and then on Saturday it would be 10.30 and Sunday, I understand it's 12. 10.30 to 1 a.m.? Yes, I'm sorry, to 1 a.m. and then Sunday noon to 1 a.m. And then if I, Mr. Chair, if there's other material I hear that we, you'd like to get something from Chief Livingstone. Is there anything else that you would need to make a decision next time if you don't, if you choose not to vote tonight? So 1, another piece to be clear, right now alcohol service is taking place between 4.00 p.m. and 10.30 p.m.? Correct, yeah. And it's just beer and wine, there isn't liquor. Well I'm aware of that. I think someone had a drink. Because we didn't give you the other kind of license. So therefore you'd best not be selling anything other than beer and wine. We haven't had anyone complain about that, no one. The other question I guess I have is this isn't a restaurant and this isn't a place that serves meals and they do have a common Vic and because we did that, we did that. But they also have a general license that doesn't require a common Vic. So it's a little bit different than a restaurant but it's not, and it's certainly not a bar but now it's approaching bar hours. And I guess I'm still not clear on why it needs to change from 10.30 to 1.00 a.m. beyond the simplicity of closing everything at one time. Sorry, actually 10.30 without, we actually close our concessions at 10.30. So that actually would be fine. That's when they stop serving food such as popcorn. But that's, I'm just saying. So I'm trying to understand. This concession stand, I mean, you have been very responsible. It is my understanding, my observation and my understanding that you are not, serving people who are wandering it off the street and unless they really want to buy the delicious popcorn. But it's that you are going to be, you already closed the concession stand at 10.30 for whatever event. So even if you have a late movie, which you don't frequently have, but sometimes you are not continuing to serve alcohol until 12.30, you're actually going to stop because the whole thing is going to be closed. So you're really going from, instead of 4 to 10.30, you're going from 12.30 to 10.30, 10.30 to 10.30 and 12 to 10.30. See, this is all becoming clear now. So that makes more sense to me in terms of what we're trying to accomplish. And so I'm feeling better about that. So I don't feel like I need like another back and forth by email associated with that. If that would be, that's at least hours I'm comfortable with, but I would just like to, I can't imagine. But we, when we extend hours, it seems appropriate to ask him. I guess just to clarify what has been already said, I'll say it again so that Mr. Myers can confirm it. And that is that people don't come in literally off the street to purchase because you have to have purchased a ticket for a performance to get to the stand or not. No, technically that's not, that doesn't happen, but that's not, there's no prohibition against someone getting to that point. People do come in actually more than you would imagine and just buy popcorn and go home. It's really good. I have done that. But we haven't had any instances of that, but it's not to say it couldn't happen. That being said, we don't have anywhere for a person without a ticket to drink. The lobby is so small, we can't accommodate people just standing at our counter and drinking. They have to have somewhere to go with it. And we actually do, when selling drinks, ask them where they're going because we have a satellite theater that's about 20 feet away from our license premise. So we make sure that those people who are purchasing aren't leaving the building because they're not allowed to leave the building with it. So we do actually engage with the customer who's coming in when they purchase. So I guess I've done one more question. What are, can you describe just for the board's benefit your procedures for making sure that you're serving to people who are legally allowed to purchase alcohol due to age or inebriation? We have currently all staff undergoes tips training, which is a certification process that walks them through both the liability from over serving and prepares them to not over serve. So everybody is trained. Everybody's over 18 and we ID everybody, which is something I'm actually trying to talk to the police about possibly changing that policy because right now if someone comes in and buys a senior ticket, which means they're over 65, we then ID them at the point of sale for beer and wine, which feels a little redundant. But currently we ID everybody and everybody who is serving is trained and certified. Thank you. You don't have a choice on that. That's an ABCC requirement. You have to card them again at the point of sale. My understanding is if you're over 35, you don't have to card someone if you appear to be over 35. Well, right. If you want the protection of saying that you checked to the ID. Right. You don't have to card anybody for that matter. We ID our executive director. You just have to hope that you guessed right on everybody's age. But right. I'm there a blessing for that because people are familiar with that experience. Right. That's like whole foods. So I guess it's still up to the board if we... Yes. So another way we could do this tonight, if other people are less confused now that we have a lot more additional information. And the hours are now, in fact, aside from one half hour on Saturday, are within master and roll law requirements anyway where we actually can't say no, is my understanding, is we could potentially go ahead and say yes with the understanding that if chief livings don't have any con... We wouldn't finish the paper. Ms. Pupple would just do the usual thing with him. Are you rehearsing your earlier? Yeah. Well, we have a lot more information now. Nine o'clock in the morning, service of beer and wine changed a lot over the course of this conversation. So... And if there's an issue with that 1030, that was... I was just thinking in terms of when people are there. We're very happy to... That's what works on Saturday. Yeah. So I would entertain a motion if you wanted to make one. So what it does... What does it say on the motion sheet? It's on the second page, number four there. Monday through Friday, 12.30 p.m. So before I make the motion, do I change it from 12.30 p.m. to 10.30 p.m.? On Monday through Friday, it's still 12.30 p.m. It's on Saturday, the 11 a.m. that's written there. Yes, I'm saying to 10.30 p.m. instead of to 1 a.m. And then eliminate end the following day. Yes. And Saturday, 10.30 a.m. to 10.30 p.m., taking out the day following. We never say contingent because that's like not really a thing. But what have we said? We've said this before about other like one days that come in quickly, et cetera. The understanding is we won't. Subjective positive report from the police chief. Subjective lack of concern. However, positive report work well enough for people. You want to wordsmith that differently? Subject to report from chief police. All right. So I move for, this is right. I move that for Amherst Cinema, I move that for Amherst Cinema, I move that for Amherst Cinema, I move that for Amherst Cinema, I move that for Amherst Cinema, I move that for Amherst Cinema, I move that for Amherst Cinema, i move that for Amherst Cinema, i move that for Amherst Cinema, winemalt liquor license whose number i would rather include in here that isn't on here. But there's someplace along here because I know we looked at it earlier today. When we got the e-mail, it's up in the corner. It is 002430's 105 this one. Lickers license 00240001105 five 28 Amity Street a change of hours of operation because it's for the liquor license from Monday through Sunday 4 p.m. to 10 30 p.m. to Monday through Friday 12 30 p.m. to 10 30 p.m. Saturday 10 30 a.m. to 10 30 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. to 10 30 p.m. subject to report from Chief of Police. Is there a second? Second. Excellent. Is there further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous. Four to zero. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Can I just say one thing for Mr. One thing that we observed in a prior incident within the community that came to the attention and required action from this board was circumstances of people who appear to be of age purchasing alcohol and then conveying it to people who are underage and not in the sort of evading the age limit. And it's obviously a very difficult issue. But as you were describing your process, I just hope that you also have at least some thought to being vigilant for that possibility and in particular looking out for people who are clearly buying more than for their own individual consumption at the stand without anyone else present. Appreciate that concern. And we don't allow third party sales. Every every drink has to go to an ID holding patron and we do exercise discretion in who can and cannot drink. We have cut off patients who we've never served and we've made a determination at a point where we've served someone and we won't serve them again. And we would certainly do that if we thought someone was serving. We had an instance where someone said that I don't have an ID and then the friend out loud said I'll buy it for you. Sorry we won't allow that. So we do make those judgment calls and our staff is trained for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is it further public comment? Please step up if there is. I really don't need to step up. I have a very good voice. I could barely hear you guys and I'm only a few feet away. It's further recording. So make sure that you have a very good voice. So make sure I mention your name for the thank you and go right ahead. Thank you. One quick little one just getting into the building. I noticed the elevator has inspection hasn't expired. Expired actually on New Year's Eve. So a little tidbit there. That's the easy one. Now for the difficult one. Presidential apartments. Five months later still nothing's happening. It's still a problem. How can this get resolved? There's been promises been made. Promises broken. Promises made again. Promises broken. Nothing's happening. And it's just been dragging on. It is extremely unprofessional. How this was handled. How it was mishandled. I mean I still have the same flyer. Says September 1st move-in date. Here we are five months later. Nobody's moved in. And there's only supposed to be six spaces. That's it. There's still nothing saying about a move-in date whatsoever. They got the the the market rate people out. The affordable housing rate people haven't gotten moved in. Still September 1st was also everybody knows in Amherst that's pretty much where your lease expires and the new lease begins. So Ben Limbaugh for five months came in. They changed the rules on you. Basically you're supposed to have the lottery. I'm sorry application in by August 4th and lottery date August 11th September 1st move-in date and one application. Then they seem to change the rules and say okay no application August 4th lottery date August 11th and that's just to spend another time for different additional application. And still no idea of why we're still waiting five months later still doing the paperwork just to get that off the ground. It's the 21st century and we're still doing still in the paperwork stage instead of the move-in stage. And there's place that they have the units available why aren't they getting people in. And you can't speak to Patrick Kamens because he's always on vacation. He's taken more vacation than the president of the country. He's on vacation all the time. There's no one to fill in for when he's on vacation and it's just extremely unprofessional and can't get a hold of him. Give him a run around etc etc etc. So I'm just wondering what can be done. I'm like thinking about going on a medication slash hunger strike again because it's just desperate times. What are you supposed to do. The offer was made to like well keep you in your place that you were at. We'll work with your previous landlord. We'll pay for moving costs. We'll put you up in a different place until the room comes available. There's nothing's been nothing. No offers come through. Period. And it's a problem. And the reputation of the town is at stake. The reputation of Kamens. The monopoly of Amherst is at stake and it's driving everybody crazy. You hear people on the streets and they're like thinking everything's all set and it's not all set. And so what can be done to speed things along. This is criminal activity. Right. So thank you for the comment. There are some things going on. I will at least offer that to you. We may get some more update on that later tonight. But we also are our regular getting updates from our building commissioner and and the manager regarding regarding the issue. So I'll leave it at that for the moment. But hopefully we can potentially reach out to you after we know more and and provides more clarity on where where the situation lies at this point. But I'm hesitant to offer much more at this point as far as we generally don't offer comments. I'm going to hold off on that. I think there are many aspects that I don't know the details of. So I don't want to offer that up. And I don't know that any of the board members want to either. But but certainly we can we can as a board sort of check on that. And it is an area of concern for us as well. As far as getting it resolved. I agree with you Mr. Slatter. However I might just say it might be helpful if if the town identified its sort of point person on this issue. It's a complicated issue and has a lot of players so that somebody like Ms. Goldman who's waiting has a place to go to get information that's not from the property owner or the rental agent and not necessarily to come here where we're not going to be able to give that information. But if we had an identified point person on this. You have anyone off the top of your head right now or do you know without talking to anybody it'd be be myself or I would guess the building commissioner or senior planner. Have to think about who is the best who's keeps most currently informed about it. But initially I would guess the town manager's office would be the easiest. So I'd say. So I'm kind of confused. So just to clarify that sounds like a very good idea because it seems like a lot of entities had their hands in the pot so to speak and doesn't seem like you know it's like he said she said kind of thing back and forth back and forth and don't seem to be getting anywhere and that nothing seems to be actually trickling down to the people that are actually involved. So when the town manager Mr. Bachman says the town manager's office as a point of contact for now that's up on the next floor up on the mezzanine level and so that gives you a place to go if you have a question because I know sometimes it's hard for us to reach you. But for now I think that gives you a place to keep track of this issue. That sounds wonderful but still again it's it's a very easily solvable issue but no one's that doesn't seem like it's moving at a very snail's pace. You don't want to be moving you know all your stuff in the middle of winter. That's the worst time to move. And this was all so preventable you know and it just seems like it's been dragging on and dragging on and dragging on. Absolutely. And it's it's just insane and like I said there needs to be a little of fire under someone's behind to get it. Appreciate the expedite things because it's unnecessarily dragging on. It's torture. So we fully appreciate the comments and I would suggest reaching out to the town manager's office tomorrow and perhaps you know his office will be able to give you a synopsis of where that process is because I think they're keeping an eye on it and and would know the details of of how far it's moved or not moved or how soon the next steps will happen. So I think that that's probably your best bet as far as your next next place to go for information on this. And we like you are wanting this to be resolved sooner than later for a lot of reasons and many of which you just stated. So I think at this point we don't have any new stuff for you to at this point but let's certainly reach out to the manager's office and and they'll connect the dots. I appreciate that. I appreciate the concern because that means a lot. Instead of being it just feels like you're left hanging you know and that's what's extremely frustrating for lack of communication. Thank you for more communication behind the closed doors and not communication for keeping our attention on the issue. Yeah that's why I wanted to do just kind of give it an update that's nothing's been happening. And also to see I also have because other entities are involved such as Representative Goldstein Rose offices also knows about the issue and then Congress Representative McGovern is also being made aware of the issue as well because it has so much many implications. And that's why I wanted to bring it to your attention but also just to see if try to find some way to just figure out if there's gotta be a better way. I don't want this to happen to anybody ever again. And it's just becoming really really extremely desperate just just trying to hold on to every day. You don't know how you're supposed to mentally deal with it. How to deal with it is so such a way that you're not going to lose your mind. It's like am I going to move today am I going to move tomorrow. It's like you don't know and and so many things are contingent upon that. There's other deadlines. Doctors appointment you can't get to other trying to get to vote to register to vote because of the new address. Things you can't do because everything's been put off for so long and and and you know you feel like you're being blamed. And it's it's become a legal issue as well. Now we're has those implications and complications as well. We're fully aware of that and so we appreciate your comment. Thank you for that. I think at this point there's not much else we can can get for you on that at the moment but and we do have some other things on our agenda we'd like to get to but I appreciate you bringing it forward to us. So thank you. Okay thank you very much. All right so next up on our agenda we'll go to action and discussion items to vote to change polling location precinct six and so Mr. Joachim do you want to say to us the principle of the Fort River School had requested that the town change the polling location from the music room which is where it is currently to the gymnasium and this the gymnasium is where the polling location is for other schools so they felt like that would work better for them and and the town clerk has looked at it the superintendent has looked at it there's a letter in your packet from the superintendent and it seems it actually would work be a better location for voters as well so we recommend that you you and it's up to you the select board to select and approve voting locations so that's why it's before you tonight. Okay are there questions from the board for the manager regarding the the change in polling location uh it happens to be in in the polling location where I vote so I'm familiar with the building and I do think the change would be beneficial if nothing else just for the space available I think it makes access control a little bit better even if as the person who came spoke earlier to us regarding safety concerns they have I think it's still uh this will still make it better than it is now so please do also my polling place too. I move to approve a change in the designated polling location for precinct six from the Fort River elementary school music room to the Fort River elementary school gymnasium in accordance with master general law chapter 54 section 24. Is there a second? Second. Is there further discussion? Hearing none all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous. Okay this update so um the in a general sense the superintendent has met with the chief of police concerning um uh safety concerns that have been raised at the school committee level and the chief of police they met on they met yesterday or last week I forget exactly when um or not with me yesterday um maybe I think it was today actually and he has assigned a lieutenant to do a threat assessment on every polling location in a school uh and come back with recommendations on them to um to uh the chief to the superintendent and what steps could be taken um if there are if there are concerns about safety for students and staff in the building. If I could go ahead and follow up on that then because I thought we talked about maybe under member reports but since you so helpfully brought it up um you know we we get this concern every couple of years and it's nothing new and it's not new to chief Livingstone it's not new superintendent Morris and it's just always been determined that between parking and accessibility that those buildings are ideal buildings beyond the whole wonderful idea of democracy being visible to students and teachers at the same time but obviously we are in a different reality than we were 20 30 years ago I really appreciate I wanted to just make sure I mentioned that because there's a real reason we use schools because parking accessibility are big issues we get plenty of complaints about some of our other polling places where people for example oh say where I vote in North Amherst where you have to unless you have a handicap sticker you need to park down a hill in order to get to the polling place so um it's only accessible to truly needing accessibility with two handicap spaces so we struggle to find the right spaces and so I appreciate all the work that's been put into figuring those out over the years um as this is I think that idea of the threat assessment I very much appreciate you bringing that up because that makes sense to me as like the next step for figuring this out because we haven't been able to really figure out how to get along with this and I know that one of the concerns that's been raised is that if we have police in the schools associated with this there's always been in Amherst a push back against having a school resource officer in the elementary or middle or high school levels and so taking this thoughtful approach of a threat assessment and I think then obviously like security plans everywhere one doesn't give out all those details then afterwards but that that can continue to be shared with PTO school councils via the principals etc so that people understand that it's not an easily solvable problem even with trying to assign curriculum days every school system struggles with this you see it across the state I'm sure it came up when you were on the school committee um it can be really difficult to make all elections curriculum days because they're chosen for other reasons so I appreciate the thoughtful approach and if you could just keep us posted I assume that there is time to not change polling places but to modify an approach or something if necessary prior to the march 27th election given the timing we're in right now yes so there's a lot of um you're trying to balance a lot of interest so you'd like to be in the neighborhoods as close to the people where they're voting you also um there's a lot of interest and if you consolidate voting locations then you can have two polling places together and then that makes everything more efficient in a lot of ways having curriculum days is a really good solution to handle that one of the challenges is also finding constables to serve at all the polling locations um you know we talked about having police officers at the polling locations that gets to be the concern you express but also gets expensive because these officers are on detail basically at getting paid at the detail rate versus a constable rate um but and there's there's um it's just trying to find the balance that meets everybody's needs is a big challenge because there just aren't many locations that are handicap accessible in the neighborhood that you need the polling locations to be that people would recognize as a voting location so that's why we have some of these oddball or not oddball locations that aren't as conducive as a as a public school and just for a record so it was on the school committee in summerville we faced the exact same thing um our situation was we were actually disrupting classes and moving people out of a classroom and moving stuff out and um became a regular issue because it was really disrupting classrooms as opposed to just losing a gym for a day um so it's a it's a we're not unique in dealing with this issue i'll just chime in briefly um i'd like the threat assessment idea because if there's solutions that meet um the the concern as expressed tonight earlier in public comment and and other parents concerns if there's a way to um mitigate the risk then um that it would be good to know and yes it is complicated but i'd have to say i would put the um safety of the children above all the other logistical complications and things um that we do and but there it doesn't necessarily mean curriculum data doesn't necessarily mean moving location whatever the mitigations are for each building as you explained in the threat assessment but i i do appreciate i thought the issue has been brought to us in a very respectful manner and it's something we'll work together with people to come up with acceptable solutions but um the times require us to think about it differently than we did as miss bruce said you know 10 20 years ago and it is the most important the children's safety is the most important feature in all of this and if we hit some of those other notes of visibility and i mean access is legal that's not that but you know kids get to see us vote and that's all great i mean those are nice extras but right safety is the primary so next on our agenda um is the fiscal year 2019 water sewer rates announcement our intention here is to surface the discussion we have a memo from mr bachmann and um mr mooring regarding water and sewer rates for the coming year um so if you want to sure walk us through that a little bit yes so in your packet is our two memos one is to talk about the f y 19 water and sewer rates the proposal is to um retain have have no increase in the water rate which is at 380 per 100 cubic feet and to have a a 15 cent increase in the sewer rate from 375 to 390 which is a 4 percent increase in the sewer rate the memo explains that and uh mr mooring and miss rusecki will be here at your next meeting when it's a more formal and conversational time for you to probe on on where we are on the water and sewer system uh in connection with that also the board had asked us to examine the idea of an agricultural water rate and there's a memo in your packet as well about consideration of an agricultural water rate which would allow agricultural uses to not have to pay the sewer rate since a lot of their water is not going back into the sewer system and the proposal is to create one of these things for bona fide agricultural uses and again we could it seems to be um would have an impact on a very limited number of people who are farms that are using water at this rate for irrigation purposes um also in your packet is a history of the water and sewer rates so you can see where it has gone for the last long time since 1977 and so I think a fuller discussion at your january 22nd meeting is what the plan is right so given our memos did anyone have any immediate questions for the manager relative to these topics so on the 22nd then are you expecting us to vote that same night typically you do but uh if you choose not to that's up to you but given that this is a different year the reason I ask that I'm sorry is because this is a different year because we do have this question about these uh we don't normally argue a lot about our water and sewer rates tell us the amount we say sure that sounds good and we advertise the fact that it's so much better than our other neighboring communities but this new piece with the agricultural I guess my question then is since they're not here tonight to answer those questions because it's an unusual year that might have been a way to approach it but it's okay that they didn't and if we have any questions we'll just forward them to you in hopes that the idea is still that any questions we have we can get answered before or that night so that we'll still be able to act that night and we'll be on our normal schedule and that would be the the agricultural use piece would be a distinct motion from the water rates correct two actions and has the um agricultural commission had a chance to see the memo we got and I would just want to be able to have um their input either ahead of time or if they're certainly welcome to come to our meeting but they don't need to if they could convey um their thoughts I I'm really looking forward to getting that in place we've talked about for quite a while and if we have something we can act on on the 22nd that's great and it's time for the growing you know people could start yeah doing the mechanisms for the next growing season right I think regarding ag commission they've not met in a little bit uh various quorum issues that they've had so I'm not sure if they're scheduled yet for January or not I know they were looking for date but I'm not sure they found one so okay so given that um that's why I already knew the answer my screws question because I knew they hadn't had a chance to meet because I'd been hearing about their quorum issues right is if we could go ahead and just send it to them it doesn't need to be on I mean they obviously can't deliberate by email but that way they can ask questions back to you and tell us the ag com had this question but they didn't actually get to talk about it at a meeting one last follow-up on that sir an outreach um I think it was Jamie Wagner who came and is she still on ag com because we want to make sure she sees us but we can make sure reach out matter of fact it's it's Ronnie Wagner right yeah it was Ronnie it was here Jamie used to be on ag com this is Ronnie they're different right but you know who came to speak to Ronnie came to speak to Ronnie um wait I was planning on reaching out yeah after this after this okay but before it's 20 seconds as long as we have space with the people who've come a couple times to talk to us right I'm gonna make a note of that right now are there any other questions as we finish up on look forward to getting to act on that so next on our agenda is the MMA annual meeting resolutions of which you had copies in your packet and I tried to find something to dislike about them because that's usually what I do but I really had a hard time on this so I don't have any objections unlike myself yeah I was uh equally looking for something that would be a red flag for people of Amherst I was you know where we as a community would would have some struggle with it but I don't think there was anything that I found either in that regard that would be causing discomfort for our our constituents yeah there's sometimes uh well there's always some sort of introduction in the actual booklet that we get when we get there but it's probably you know still being printed as we speaks for updates etc and that sometimes talks more about how they got to the point of doing that resolution but excellent work by the committee members it's basically all apple pie and kitchen sink and all those metaphors of all the things we all say we all want so there are no obvious red flags and stuff and so it doesn't matter I don't see a need for them to explain how they got from point A to point B which sometimes surprises us when we get there and reread the thing and go really because that doesn't make sense and because that's happened associated with housing where we've had some disagreement on what the logic was that fed the resolution not an issue for any of these that I can see but Mr. Steinberg may have something I didn't find anything that was in the resolution that concerned me and the flip side of what's not in the resolution is really harder to judge because I imagine that there are various discussions that take place as to what one community might want that would become controversial amongst other communities and then in the process they have to eliminate it certainly from our experience I would love to see something to urge that the Commonwealth both administratively and legislatively look at the question of regional school assessment methodology and the various statutory provisions and regulatory provisions related to it but that's the nature of something that might be reasons that someone suggested and not be there so it's sort of when I looked at it did I have any concerns about what's there absolutely not there are other things I agree there are things that aren't there that that I would also suggest we as a community would be happy to offer but nonetheless I don't want to put Mr. Bachman on the spot but as they say you know where I'm going with this so we have Mr. Moreing is on a committee that deals with or that deals with climate change and public works type issues and a variety of things and Mr. Kravitz is on a committee that deals with economic development I don't know what that falls under but what Mr. Steinberg just said in terms of which committee would consider it because there's obviously one that focuses more on schools and I think it's one of the other ones but I wonder if we could write them a note that says you know this next year will be awesome because I'll also be going to find out that we're particularly interested in this I mean there are so few regional districts that depending on who's sitting at the table even though they do talk about transportation for example they may not be thinking much about assessment method I think that there is a committee that deals with financial issues that brought that one forward and of course until he passed away Mr. Mishanti was on that committee and he would have at least been able to convey back to us a discussion that might have occurred around that sort of an issue but that is the I mean but we don't have anybody I don't think on that committee now but we could we could write them a note that said this is what we want for next time rather than just trying to remember to put it on our evaluation for our annual meeting that I think that would be yeah I think I think what's a really important thing is to talk to staff members like John Robertson the legislative director about this issue so the more people who speak to him about it that it starts to ring a bell for him like oh we do have to pay attention to it and he would get it right away you could speak it doesn't take a lot of explaining to him for him to get what the issue is and I'll do the same so uh shall I go ahead and make motions I have one other MMA conference thing to say but why don't we do the motions first okay I move the select board take a position in favor of the proposed resolution ensuring a strong and enduring fiscal partnership between cities and towns and state government in fiscal 2019 and beyond I don't know why it has 2018 and Peron so that was the one mystery the one mystery but I'll include that um at the Saturday January 2018 MMA annual business meeting is there a second second is there for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye move the select board take a position in favor of the proposed resolution to the ballot question that would reduce sales and use tax rate 2018 at the Saturday January 2018 MMA annual business meeting second is there for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye and I move that the select board take a position in favor of the proposed resolution supporting a local state federal partnership to combat the effects of climate change 2018 at the Saturday January 20 2018 MMA annual business meeting second second for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye that takes care of those and I guess the only other thing that's in this letter is that we probably should get clarification as to what actions we can appropriate legally take um on taking positions on ballot questions in advising the community if it's appropriate about the effect of ballot questions when it's closer to the election um in November of this year I mean relative to um November ballot questions remember referring to questions correct correct state state I said since I was doing a reference to what we just did I was assuming that that was understood because we just want to be clear we know there's another one out there we discussed the last meeting I believe you know to that effect would this be an appropriate time to bring up another MMA thing or do you know I think it's as good as time as any okay so just um maybe you already noticed this I noticed today because I was looking at the program online that um for the select uh men's meeting at the annual meeting um Jay Ash and Cristal Court Cristal cornigay are going to be there so it's going to have a focus on housing and other related issues and I just wanted to uh I was thinking it would be great if as many of us could go to that meeting while we're at the conference um and weigh in on um our own housing issues and our issues around mass works grant funding and use that as an opportunity and I think if we have sort of strengthened numbers um that would be great and I I believe they're going to be trying to roll out the governor's housing choice initiative but it's um a good face-to-face time with uh the secretary of housing and economic development and the uh under secretary for housing so just maybe everyone already knew that but I just want to make a plug for us going on force so are you basically saying that sometimes because some of us miss the business meeting because it's boring we shouldn't miss it this year because it's gotten so much better over the last couple years they keep trying new things so it's it's pretty early isn't it it is it's a very maybe more early than boring is the issue but I'm encouraging us although they do feed us to really rev up and I think sort of strengthen numbers and uh but to make our presence felt rather than to just attend is what you're saying just saying well I appreciate you I haven't had a chance to look closely at the at the schedule so I'm I appreciate you mentioning it to us because that is certainly going to be a topic um it's certainly a topic of interest amongst the municipal housing trust so um having information from that will be useful to to the members of the trust um the other MMA related topics we want to bring up at the moment if not then I will move on to section six of our agenda which has resolutions and proclamations and again the purpose of this it shows the Sunderland 300 anniversary and the grand b 250th anniversary both of the communities have reached out to us to see whether we want to be in their parade I think we're a little behind if we were going to be in the Sunderland parade um and I don't know that we need to take any action this evening mostly there were a couple things in our packets where they had given us the sort of particulars on how you participate in that but I didn't know if separate from being in the parade whether or not we wanted to um send some letter of congratulations or some you know proclamation of congratulations to them at some point and again we can think about it I just wanted to surface it because we've gotten a couple of these and so I didn't know if anyone had any comment or um I guess that uh I would be inclined to suggest that somebody um asked Mr. Roberts or another person who is involved with our 250th as to whether either of these communities participated in our celebration because I think that that might be something we'd want to consider and also we'd need to be thinking about what we would do and there's other reasons to contact Mr. Roberts therefore because he might be able to provide something that's unique to Amherst that could also contribute to a parade the way of his farm so um in his horses so if that would be my suggestion as we just ask him both in his role from the organizing our parade in the 250th and that question that I asked and then the other if appropriate. I read the invites and I think as Sandra Lynn I was like hey we wrote you before we haven't heard from you I mean they're lining up their people and um it just made me think we could say yes but then who you know like who would we bring I mean you know a couple select board members walking down the street is pretty boring um you know if it's the horses or kids or a club you know something that a band if we could I don't know how we do this because we don't usually deal with this if we could think of who would go to represent us that in Mr. Steinberg I appreciated your idea about talking to Mr. Roberts but it sounded a little bit like well if I got a holiday card from them then maybe I'll send them so I think we should do it but I don't know how we do it right well they're on different weekends in June so we have a little bit of time even if they are pressing us to get in line well I think one of the things with Senators they're ordering things and I think you know if you want a good spot in the parade the earlier you get your application we should say yes pending so if we're going to be that specific then I want to know if a good spot means that the people with the sirens are directly behind you because in my experience that is not a good spot to be in the parade because you want to be in front of the horses it's like we will participate pending notification replacement but I do think we should participate I think we should tell them I think that I should not do this I think that our chair should tell them with perhaps Ms. Pupple's help that we would like to participate I think that we should then copy Mr. Roberts at his usual email address saying we would like to participate but we need your help to do this because otherwise we're just going to be a little sad looking select board members carrying a banner that says town of Amherst so please help us and he then we could also ask him the question about Brandy and Sunderland on our rainy 250th parade because although I was in it I because I was in it I obviously didn't see all the units so I'm not exactly sure but I do I do think it's important that we get it in right away because it was really upsetting to the 250th committee when people would not answer the question and so they do need to feel like they have the lineup this is not like the UMass homecoming parade where you know it just kind of works it just kind of shows up and you know who shows up who shows up they it's a bit more like a wedding reception exactly it's a little tougher to plan so exactly so you would like us to say yes we will participate we just don't know how yet yes what we're saying yes so we would have to tell them we don't know yet we don't we will either have people walking or we will have Barry Robert saving us because somebody else it's possible the business improvement district or the chamber because it's the Amherst area chamber may be participating as well and so there may be some synergy there just as there has been with UMass it could be other vehicles it could be antique things it could be you want to ride in that convertible here I just want to see my way my queen so we'll reach out to both communities and let them know we'll we'll participate in some manner we just don't know what yet so we'll do that and then you'll also reach out to mr. roberts well luckily because he has the whole bit affiliation then as well he can be all those things for us we're many hats all right so next on our agenda is licenses public way and meter parking reservations is the section but we have a consent calendar with a number of items one of which we've already pulled out and and take an action on and so we could take action on the remaining items unless someone wants to pull one of those out for a particular reason at this is the point where if we could just have about one or two minutes actually read them actually read them absolutely that was that was referring to absolutely so we'll take a moment or two to read through these and then we'll reconvene in a minute once we've done our bit of speed reading close to ready all right so if there's so we have consent calendar which we pulled item four out we didn't formally do that but we informally pulled it out took the motion so it would be a and a consent calendar as amended if someone would like to make that motion or if they would prefer to pull out particular items for movement I actually if I could ask Mr. Bachman one question about the request for the winterfest and then it may be no reason to pull it out and that is I was a little bit confused by the wording of it being labeled as for the finale event but starting at 1 p.m because that really covers in the finale is that the fireworks or is that the entire final day and I just as clarification more than anything else it's a little different this year and I wasn't sure what we had done in prior years I I don't know the answer to it off the top of my head I think it's the entire day because they announced that the it's a day-long celebration that happens on Saturday February 10th if I may based on past experience which of course is not always compelling but based on past experience they do serve wine and alcohol wine and beer all afternoon basically and I believe the reason they're calling it grand finale event is because of the week yes of events so rather than just thinking of the fireworks as the grand finale like people often do it's the grand finale to an entire week of activity I do think it would be better to amend the motion however to not say anything about an extension that's just a good way of phrasing things unless there's a legal reason for that that says that says it's the hours of one to seven with a snow day of Sunday the 11th instead it won't because it won't be extended we're not we're not extending the approval we're not going to let them sell alcohol when they're closed I mean yeah it's not 20 I appreciate the attempt but I think that we just need to be clear or we tend to like to put everything in one sentence so we just maybe could break it up a little different so why don't we just get at that why don't we pluck that piece out and make that motion independent of of the others perhaps would be best so I move to approve the items listed on the consent calendar for the January 8 2018 agenda as amended to remove Amherst cinema which we already did and the Cherry Hill license second there's a motion a second is there further discussion on that for the consent calendar hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed such unanimous and so does someone have newly crafted motion language for the your fest I think what we would mean is with an alternative date of Sunday February 11 2018 in the case of inclement weather but I would to make it read more smoothly I think that I would change it a little bit more in that is so it would say on Saturday February 10th 2018 from the hours of 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. with an alternative date of Sunday February 11th 2018 in the case of inclement weather nicely done second did you get those rearrangements you did any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed so that's unanimous as well and I like the idea that it's a week long celebration you had the card there do you want to give a little sure promo for it while we're here I know it's a month away but so it's eight days and seven nights filled with family friendly fun and merriment um this is the card that's going out to everybody um and it's they are very ambitious this year I think they're they're very energized about doing this they've they've worked with the bid and with the Chamber of Commerce they want to have a lot of music downtown so it's going to be something every night during the week uh culminating with the traditional um winter fest day at Cherry Hill so they're pretty excited about it and they've got um they're going to have things at Amherst Cinema Jones Library the Hitchcock Center at Eric Carl Museum the Mullen Center downtown restaurants they have a lot of events to be done inside at the Mullen Center especially good things for kids so they're they're really excited at the LSSE and really give them commend them for taking on and making this a very event great to hear yes friends of Amherst recreation is something we don't hear about very often but they do as I understand it a substantial amount of work to make this event happen and so we appreciate we want to make sure that we do appreciate them even though they're not our usual sort of town appointed committee they're in addition to the commission they work very hard on this particular event in addition to some others we can all go to these for support that's right we encourage the community to go to them as well um so next up we have a couple of things left we have the town manager report select board member reports we also have uh a few sets of minutes and I didn't know if we wanted to take care of the minutes now if just to sort of dispense with them so we could have a more expensive conversation about the manager report or if we wanted to wait I'm open to either or go ahead and do the minutes which I'm gonna abstain from and I'll just turn it into a recess so I I will just say that uh in looking through the minutes I didn't see anything that sort of leapt out at me regarding them that I was concerned about but Mr. Steinberg did you want to give a little introduction because you tend to look at these I did I did look at all of the minutes and made the only very minor suggestions and because I was absent from one of the meetings I'm in it um if we're gonna have a problem if I don't you can you can abstain I can abstain and it would be okay because while we have four of us here we'll have a quorum of three and I maybe I've got a majority from majority of the quorum so two votes yes and one abstains okay okay for the opposite I was not here on the I was not here for the meeting on the August 21st and so I read the minutes for this um form but not for the content and I did alert Ms. Kruger that I needed somebody who had been at the meeting to read it for content also and I did do so thank you I also read through those and didn't find since I was there I found them to be okay so I was quickly just make a motion on four of them I moved to approve the minutes for August 17 September 11 December 9 and December 11 2017 has presented all right so we have a motion a second for the discussion none all those in favor please aye hi test unanimous among three of us so it's one absent and one abstaining and I can make the motion on the meeting that Mr. Stenberg wasn't able to attend so um I just had my I just had my motion I moved to approve the minutes of August 21st 2017 as written second is it for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye oops nope nope I've done too extension and abstaining so it's I think that still works I think technically you can vote for minutes that you weren't at but yeah makes us uncomfortable generally we did it that's kosher do we need a short recess for a moment just because I think we're about to come to the manager's report and we've lost someone so perhaps a short recess and why don't we do a real short recess and then that'll give you a moment to prepare and we'll get all the membership back for that so we're all back so I think we'll re-join our meeting and at this point Mr. Bachman if you'd like to take us through your report please sure thank you Mr. Chair so the topic of the day is weather everybody's suffered through this very bitter cold spell and the town has experienced issues just like a lot of people have at home we've had building issues through with multiple buildings and you know the snow removal operations we couldn't do that as quickly as we wanted to because it was just too bitterly cold so they they did the snow removal last night when it wasn't as cold so downtown looks a lot better today there but so first I want to commend all of our public safety people the DPW the police and fire who've been out 24 hours a day literally for all three departments they've been out 24 hours a day addressing anybody's needs additional staff were added for the fire and for police in anticipation of some additional calls that may have been needed DPWs out even when it wasn't snowing to address snow drifts and things like that because that kept popping up throughout the night so commendations to all those folks for really stepping up a number of calls of uh regular residents noticing water pouring out of houses the people who house a short sale people who are go away um just didn't anticipate how absolutely frigid cold this was um again DPW was able to respond fire fire police usually was the first to respond and then they would call in the DPW who would try to turn off the water at the street just to prevent any more damage that was already happening this happened multiple times unfortunately for those for those families who own the houses um in this building we had a number of issues the um heating unit in the bottom vestibule failed um and trying to maintain that overnight trying it it's a the vestibule which is the handicap access to the building has to be maintained open but trying to insulate it as best we can um there's a fire extinguisher um head right there so we can't let that get cold um lots of space heaters and nervous about leaving the space heater so people are coming in at all hours to double check um the building just to see how it was going on on sunday around 10 a.m there's a general power outage throughout the downtown area about 350 customers were affected um and included the central fire station many of the businesses included town hall um and eversource it said they would have it back up by 330 what happened at town hall is our generator kicked in but then it um shut itself down after a period of time um and there was a lot of concern about what had happened with that we had uh we had our the assistant town manager was here i was here our new facilities director was here we had um two people you know three people from um our facilities department um mary who does the clean she she was probably the hero she was happy she was worried about the building she was happened to be driving through and saw smoke coming out of the generator and so and then there were a lot of people who were going to church they're saying like what's going on here um and uh and then we also brought over we had two people from the wastewater treatment plant who are very mechanical and so they were able to come over and help diagnose all hands on deck everybody's in the fire department was here obviously when they saw a fire um they they didn't see fire they saw smoke um we were working on all kinds of contingencies the fire chief had had established contingencies in case um electricity did not get turned on in time for Ann Whalen and Clark House because those buildings were did not have heat at the time he had arranged for there to be buses and for there to be a shelter available if we needed it on just a you know very short notice with UMass um sort of activated all the existing lines so people were very active yesterday and it worked out fortunately we didn't have to utilize any of those things um we were we had arranged for a generator to be brought here for this building this building is critical to the infrastructure of the town because our internet and for the entire town internet including the police and fire department operates out of this building and in the police station fortunately the police station wasn't impacted um I think the high school was um so but the good news was it happened during the middle of the day when it was a little bit warmer um and it got resolved every source resolved everybody by by the 330 which is what they said they would and the town hall was turned on by about 1230 so all those sort of contingencies um did not have to come into play the um so credit to all the people who turned out um and helped with this situation the um two two impacts of that one is that when the power did go back on everything was fine except for one major component of the heating system for this building which they were able to figure out how to keep it operating but it needs some attention there was a contractor in there today um the um generator uh to to the very how cold it was had there were some pieces that had frozen inside it so when the generator kicked on when the power went down um it started heating overheating I'm using my language this is not exactly what happened but it's it seemed to like it overheated and then it shut itself down and it's it started like say wait a minute something's wrong here because some pieces were frozen in the exhaust or something like that so something bad happened uh the fact that uh we had the um um contractor out today and wow it's a it's a very young generator only has 37 hours worth of work on it cost us a hundred thousand dollars I think to install uh there's no permanent damage it should be operational now so having them look at it and service it today it was serviced in November so it had been paid attention to just one of the things that when this you get this bitterly cold those things happen um so that's and this is just this building um it's happened in a lot of other buildings as well so just kudos to all the people who've been out there uh equipment takes a beating in this one and especially our DPW equipment and they you know it's a lot of this stored outside so getting it started is always a challenge um and those those people were out in all hours during the blizzard and other times so just thank you to all of them while we were all home saying we're not leaving the house they're out there being called in and especially on um Christmas day they had to be called in um early in the morning to address the storm the Christmas morning storm and um you know nobody missed they all gave up their Christmas morning which is probably the most treasured day for a lot of people so just they they um are really do a great um thanks from all of us the other thing that happened was that while they were out plowing on Christmas day a lot of people from the neighborhoods came out and offered them treats saying thank you for doing this so it was kind of cool because they would go back and or people would come down to the DPW in this horrible storm and drop food off for them so it was really a sort of nice sort of reciprocity for for the people who appreciated that and I think people in town really did appreciate the work that they were doing so fantastic work there um the a couple other outreach things the the next cup of joe is going to happen on friday friday um january it's got the wrong date on january 12th yeah at the at atkins and i'll have sonia aldrich that'll be the day after we released the budget so if people have questions about the budget or anything in general that atkins is usually a nice place to go there's plenty of parking um and people are that's always been a good venue for us uh continue my um meetups with employees which is a fun thing to do for me and i appreciate that what i learned from the people um a little meetup hello my name is amherst type thing that we share with people um those things are always educational to me this is where we bring um six or five people from different departments and they tell me they they have different lengths of tenure for the town we talk about what makes why they came to the town how i can help them do their job better um what they just in general what they think can make the town better so it's a really nice thing um both ways i think um the we had a meeting with the chancellor at umass uh in december along with the assistant town manager and the economic development director and um had a nice frank exchange with the needs of the town and the goals of the university and we'll talk a little bit more about that at some point when we talk goals and things like that um the winter parking um system we have uh triggered that twice now and both times it was to um be prepared to clean up so the last time was sunday night so we would cars were removed from the street um in order to be able to clean up the downtown area and keep cars cars off the street as plowing most people aren't parking on the street during plowing so it's not people are sort of used to having no parking ever so this allows people to park we think that most of that parking is going to be happening downtown so when we do call a snow emergency there's a protocol that's been established where it gets put on the website it gets goes through social media um for sunday night if you were watching the football game was it was going through uh the tv as having a parking ban that night um yes um we send out individual we send out emails to anybody who has a parking permit so they get an email saying parking bans on and we send a and then we sort of retract all those things once we call the parking ban off so all those things are again done just in a reverse order uh the next thing we're going to be doing is on the week of january 2nd 22nd we're going to be reaching out to the university and to um the university has offered us multiple venues to be able to communicate with students especially students who live in off-campus housing because that's where a lot of times people don't understand what the rules are they we want to educate them about how they can be notified um and so we don't want to tow cars basically as we want them off the streets when it when it comes time um the last two uh incidents we've had to tow five cars one time in six cars the second time so it's there's not this massive towing thing and i think that that's sometimes people who've just gone away or just you know left their car there have received no complaints people understand that uh at least they haven't complained maybe they don't understand but they haven't complained uh as far as we know um so i think the system is working um the the um and uh we have four lights up now um lights in the center of town one at university drive at amity street one at um college and south pleasant street and one at east hadley road um once the weather breaks they'll be able to get more but it's really we tried to concentrate on the downtown area because that's where the bulk of it is uh in terms of where we need the cars off the roads because that's where we really do the snow removal and there hasn't been much other you know people you know plow drivers have not been complaining that cars are parked on the road and they can't do the plowing that they usually do so that's worked out really well and um you know we've got a nice system in place that the dpw triggers it they notify dispatch no dispatch notifies lots of different people the police and the fire everybody so it's a pretty good system um so um the uh previously i had reported to you and just for the public there is a written report in the board packet so it's all written down um this this happens on the first meeting of every month uh the the boiler at the north amherst fire station was replaced and thanks to the school um um some of the some people at the school facilities people for helping to do that um we also had to use emergency procurement procedures and that was very helpful because there's a lot of things you have to do to be able to buy something very quickly which we this was an emergency clearly an emergency but you still have to notify the state you still have to publish it in the central register things like that our procurement officer was very good at that and um you know when the state called me up to verify some of the information they said you deserve an a plus for the work that you did which was really pleased to hear the um and i talked to the fire chief today the boiler you know they're the new systems are very small we had to cut up the last one to get it out of the room because things had been put into the boiler room since then and the new one is tiny it's it's dual boilers they turn on and off they they're very efficient it's a good thing the interesting thing about that is that it was scheduled according on our facilities plan to be replaced in two years so it just didn't quite make it to the life we thought it could have had but that's pretty good at at estimating um one of the things that we've been working on pretty diligently as we've talked about the deep dive we're doing with our information technology department and that group has really come together and what has been was a challenge for them is that they had so many projects on their plate and trying to decide what is important responding to people who are who are saying we need you to do this we need you to do that and i was as guilty as anybody else of saying this is really important do this and i think uh we've really put a lot of effort into planning for them to try and identify the um top projects um they have 85 projects that are on their list of things to do um in the next three years basically um and they range very large projects to small projects and um but they've prioritized them they put a name to them we've met with it all the department heads and um everybody sort of and said look at where we have how we've prioritized your project if you like it you know if you think there should be a different priority um there's just everybody wants everything done right away it just can't be done i mean there's things that i want done right away just we've tried to prioritize some things that could be accomplished quickly were um and some things are just going to take a long time so and we have some really good experience down there for instance a permit tracking system for the community for the building department and for all that whole that whole department um we know that that's going to take a year of implementation to do to do it right and um but we can get started on it and so we have now have milestones set up and so a lot of credit to the it department for taking that on themselves um the um the fire department we continue to monitor their payroll because they've been experiencing a lot of uh they have some long term leaves they have some um a lot of illness right now for some reason i think a lot of people have been sick um and uh so they're they're trying to fill in as much as they can so working with that speaking of the fire department um Hadley as you all know had issued an RFP for ambulance services uh the town of Amherst did not respond to that RFP because there were certain conditions that we could not meet for instance one of the conditions was that you had to have an ambulance located in the town of Hadley and we were not going to place one of our ambulances in the town of Hadley 24 hours a day um the um the town of Hadley has then reached out to us and asked us to meet with their ambulance study committee which we will do at the end of this month to talk to them about um why we didn't respond what we think were the challenges uh the interesting thing was that they did have one uh valid response uh but with a charge that's substantially higher than we have been charging the town of Hadley so in a way the market has spoken as to what the value of the service is and I think that's will will inform us as we go about talking to Hadley about the kinds of services that we're able to deliver and also it's an opportunity for them to tell us if there are things that we're not doing for them that they would like us to do um a lot of different things happening there in the town of Hadley and for the town of Amherst so that's a multi variable sort of conversation that we'll be having over the course of the next few months um the chair and I met with the PV Pioneer Valley Transit Authority Executive Director a few weeks ago now and um basically I think what we came out with that is that the route changes for the B 43 don't seem to be a very high priority and we're not going to be mobilizing all kinds of people to protest it because the route changes were really uh generated by the department of the mass department of transportation mass dot not by pvta and pvta hadn't really taken their steps and the chair might comment on that um uh later uh really pleased that we've received a land lend grant from the executive office of energy and environmental affairs for the Epstein pond project for $270,000 and now we'll be requesting matching funds which were required to do through CPAC in town meeting we talked about Winterfest which is the week long activities it's going to be really exciting this year the town of Pelham has reached out to the treasure collector and to us to see if we would be willing to take on their tax collection services um and I think that's just an exploratory conversation we we do their assessing services now they have a treasure collector who's retiring they're advertising for a treasure collector um but it's something I think they want to see what what it would take for us to take on that service there aren't that many parcels we have professional staff ready to do it it would require one of our staff to be in Pelham for a day a month a day a week um which is how we do it for the assessing office um and so it's something that we are considering because if it's something that we can do within our existing staffing capacity we'd like to take it on and as a both as a service to Pelham but also um is a way to generate some funds for the town um the big projects that we have coming up this spring north common restoration and grove park are both moving forward uh with design they are um interestingly because it's horizontal design the the bidding process for hiring designers is much easier and so we're moving forward on both of those projects uh expeditiously uh because we really want to make sure that if we can get it done in this in this this summer we'd like to get it done this summer both of them um for the north common process project there are a lot of um committees and boards that are involved with it because a lot of it's a it's the most important site in town practically and everybody's going to have a care about what it looks like so the public participation process will have to be pretty um robust and so that might not get started this spring but we'll see how far we get um the uh I think we already announced the Beacon communities had received its incentive tax credits which is really important to that project and that project is now able to move forward um there's activity already they've been in talking to the building department about what they need to do to get their permits ready to go I know um there's some site activity happening up uh up there already as they are preparing to look at the barn that they will have to relocate or raise and um empty that out so there's lots of things happening on that um Craig's doors uh has received its funding from the governor the governor has has released the funds I think that this this especially cold weather really brought to the fore the challenges that a lot of people face when the weather is so cold and I think he just um it became clear that our funding and a lot of other funding for sort of things like for homeless shelters throughout the state were just a ridiculous thing to be held hostage over some budget issues that the governor had so they're very happy to to have addressed that um the town engaged in the downtown planning activity which um I'm not sure if you want to follow a conversation about that we've talked a little bit about it um there is there's a small group that's been working on planning this there are we've identified that we need to reach out in multiple ways to people to hear from them um in terms of not just continuing to do the same kind of activity it draws the same people but to try and broaden the people who could participate in what the downtown area should look like um for the dog park uh Dave Zomek's been very active in trying to identify a site for dog parks uh for dog park the the dog park committee is is very anxious to move forward on that and especially trying to get something ready for this town meeting which is the goal um I'm hoping that we don't have to take land off of the tax roll to make this happen we're looking at town-owned sites wherever we can but you'd be surprised how difficult it is to find a suitable town-owned site that's the right size and has all the amenities that you'd like that's in a location that would be agreeable to most people so um it's a puzzle but uh Dave Zomek is really good at these things um the fire fire study staff the fire staffing study which we that has concluded um we are getting started with a small targeted group which includes our co-finance directors and um the chief and assistant chief and we'll be meeting regularly in a smaller group to say to really get into the conversation about the fire department and how it delivers its services what kind of staffing uh is really needed what kind of services that we're providing uh everything you know as I've said from day one everything's on the table this will be informed somewhat by what happens with the town of Hadley if they choose to take up their their their vendor to provide their ambulance services that will impact how how we look at fire staffing as well 20 percent of our calls our medical calls go to the town of Hadley out of 5 000 calls we do annually a thousand of them roughly go to Hadley so that that's a big impact on our department um the North Amherst Library as you recall the um count meeting appropriate funds for design services and so we've sent out the RFQ there is an information meeting set up for I think two weeks for people who are interested in bidding on that and we've we're on schedule for when people need to submit their um our their responses to that um the health insurance the biggest issue I've been working on probably is the health insurance for the town that's uh uh you will hear a whole lot more about this on um Thursday when we talk about the budget because it's really driving everything for the FY 18 budget and for the FY 19 budget um our health insurance trust has uh had a balance and has been uh deteriorating primarily because a large number of large claims we have reinsurance for any claim that goes over 250 000 but um you get a few of those and suddenly it's you're talking we're talking like a million dollars or 250 000 that we have to pay first and then the clock starts ticking every July 1 because that's those those policies expire and so that we start picking up dollar one um very robust discussions with our insurance advisory committee it's a very um well informed group we had um a meeting in December in which we were hoping that they would approve another increase which this would be the third increase in insurance rates um it would be $200 per family $100 for individual of which the town pays either 75 or 80 percent of it so we feel like this third increase would stabilize the trust for FY 18 and probably for FY 19 but no guarantees about that uh the insurance advisory committee met last week uh we had another meeting scheduled for Wednesday of this week but at their meeting on the third they voted unanimously 14 to 0 to support the increase from of $200 and $100 for the for the plans and this would be applied to our retirees for employees at the Amherst regional school district for employees of the town of Pelham employees of the town of Amherst and the Amherst public schools obviously um there are about a thousand members in the in the trust and um so it's a big pool of people that were responsible for providing health insurance and I am the trust administrator and I can't let the pool um fail and so that's why we needed money to sustain the pool the pool is just that it's money that we all put in the towns and the school districts uh and the employees and then we pay our claims out of this pool we don't buy insurance policies we are self-insured um and so I think the employees have learned that it's us that are using this service this these these medical bills and we're paying them out uh we contract with Harvard Pilgrim and with Blue Cross to provide the service um with this again the same approach we we have a smaller group that has been assembled which includes um four experienced people from the insurance advisory committee and the same number of people from the town side including our our fine there you know Comptroller and uh K's Ogler who is our benefits manager and our HR manager um to sort of go through all the things that that we um provide in terms of health insurance we need to look at plan design we need to look at whether we should should stay self-insured at or not we need to look at whether why if we should continue to offer two plans both Harvard Pilgrim and Blue Cross um so there's a number of things that we are going to be we will be going out for for bids for reinsurance we'll be going out for bids for a consultant everything we're looking at every way we can save money on this trust um or whether the trust should even exist and so those are fundamental existential questions about the trust that I'm open to any of the any of the options um there's no romantic uh uh connection to the trust nor to fully insured I um so I want to have an open discussion with the folks who are um really have been part of the trust for a long time to see where we go on this um it's a very it's going to be an intense group we will be meeting weekly for about six weeks uh because we need to make decisions on what's going to happen next year by the end of February so it's going to be very concentrated work um in terms of personnel I'm really proud to have promoted uh Sergeant Brian Johnson to the rank of lieutenant um he he's filling the position that was created by the retirement of Lieutenant Jerry Millar um Brian started with the police department in 1997 and has served in numerous capacities he has promoted to the rank of sergeant in 2008 he's a graduate of UMass and has a master's degree in criminal justice from Anna Maria College um I interviewed eight uh sergeants from our department who had applied for this and any one of them could have taken this job and we would have been proud to have appointed them he he rose to the top both by by his experience and his um ability to perform um on multiple levels um but it was not an easy decision and is impressed that always impressed by the the the um leadership pipeline that's uh evident in our departments and I just think it's a real testament to our to the town the town the type of town that we've chosen to be and the type of people who chose to to work for the town um also um Jim McPherson was hired as our new facility's maintenance director he fills the position of Ron Bahanowicz who has retired um this position is shared 75 percent paid for by the school 25 percent by the town um he is a he has a bachelor's degree and a master's degree he's an engineer um with degrees from the University of Virginia and has 30 years experience working for the federal government and everything from shipyards to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the VA uh a wealth of experiences has has been around the block there's a resident of Pelham was looking to be working locally instead of traveling as as much as he was um and so we're really excited to have Jim start he his first day was January 3rd and then this weekend he was out handling a lot of issues um but uh he met with all of our staff today uh to sort of get familiar with the people who take care of the police station the Munson Library the bank center uh in this building and um so it'll it's it's we really miss Ron I don't think anybody can replace Ron but Jim is a really strong person who's going to be really good for this for the department um he he also you know we've talked a lot about the bigger picture things like the deferred maintenance um there's a lot of things at the schools that he we've already identified as deferred maintenance and I think what we're going to see and we know is um that there's just things that haven't that we have to invest in in these buildings that are existing buildings um I want to thank Rob Mora um and uh people in the building department for filling the gap when Ron wasn't after his retirement wasn't able to work here anymore and um he's uh was tremendous at um guiding getting some projects moving forward that had been uh stymied a little bit uh did tremendous work at the schools with their gym floor with the treads at the on the stairwells uh did some work in the police station um and also what's really helpful for that is that he's and it was very he represents a town at the Busani center at the bank center what's really helpful is that now we have two people who've really you know with Jim starting to learn more about our buildings and Rob already knowing a lot about the buildings there's a little bit of give and take and I've already seen them sharing information about what would you do about this or that you know um I'm thinking of going this way well we should try this thing so it's it's it's great to have two people who are going to be working very well together um Maureen Pollock has been hired as an associate planner uh and she comes to us from Greenfield and uh has and is married to another planner in Montague so um so it's a little planning uh Pinder Valley planning community there um the um tomorrow is the um we're having a solar meeting a meeting on the solar at the uh we're trying to call it the the north landfill because I get confused by the old and new landfills so now I'm trying to say well north landfill south landfill I can sort of get that so the proposal is to put solar panels on the north landfill and to um offset the loss of that um a habitat on the south landfill in which case we'd have to take some action to protect that south landfill there's an information meeting tomorrow night at 6 30 in town hall and we'll talk a little bit about what the plan looks like what the next steps are what the permitting requirements are things like that um looks like a solid plan we have a good vendor who has worked locally and has served a lot of um local communities um who's taking the lead on this project now as son Edison has gone bankrupt and so I think that these are all good outcomes and we hopefully can move forward on this the town should be having more solar on our property I think and this seems to be a really logical location I think uh people before me had really come up with a good solution to sort of address the um the need for habitat of the grasshopper sparrow but also achieve our uh energy goals um I got a call recently that senator Ed Markey was asking to have a town hall forum in Amherst and um we could not accommodate him on a town building so I connected them with the superintendent and so he will be having a forum on January 28th which is a Sunday at 5 p.m at the middle school and they anticipate about 300 people will show up and that's the day after our regional um assessment meeting with the four with the four towns so you can like mark that on your calendar I think Mike texted me this afternoon saying that he thought that was a go I'm guessing the chair might be asked to say a few words um at the beginning if you're available um and then uh they usually ask for we're trying to get a chorus from the high school or middle school or something did they have someone to do a few songs for them so uh mark your calendars for that um and last but not least I want to announce that um the assistant to the town manager Debra Pupple has announced her reach at retirement effective June 8th um this Debra's been integral to the town since she started here she was recruited to come here by Mr. Musanti and um he lured her away to come and sort of take charge of the operations for the select for the select board in the town manager and she's done a phenomenal job um and she's looking to um enjoy her her post retirement life although she's promised that she'd continue to offer um her services i.e. minutes and other things in her knowledge to help with uh transition so her retirement date is June 8th at this point um and that will come sooner than we can anticipate so that's true that's true um so uh that's a that's a very important search process it's a job that can't go unfilled um as you all know and the amount of the amount of work that Debra does just remarkable just remarkable i'm always amazed at the quantity of work that she turns through in the course of a day so uh i'll miss her personally everybody in town hall is going to miss her and uh but it's a well-deserved um next move for her and that i think summarizes my report please talk some about what happened in holyoke because that was after our last meeting and for those people who went away over the holidays we're so happy about that and they may have missed the press release yes so um we got a uh sort of cryptic uh invitation to come to holyoke city hall to for a um award ceremony and with the lieutenant governor so that usually means good news so obviously we went and by who was invited we sort of figured out what it was about that was about the beacon project in north amherst and um so uh select board member brewer and the assistant town manager and i were able to go on relatively short notice actually um and the lieutenant governor was there and uh the um announced that the beacon project had received incentive tax credits which means that that moves that project to a go which was a special funding round that that accommodated this plus about four other projects one in cambridge one in holyoke um a couple others i think and so that's a significant amount of money being put into this project um from the state that allows it to move forward in terms of uh solidifying their financing so i think that was a it was really impressive um really exciting to see and they intend to begin construction or break ground this spring so they are ready to go they have their financing set up and this is going to happen one other thing i forgot is that at the last meaning i mentioned that our economic development director had worked with our it department to come up with a sort of a two of a little handout this is not the right way i just sort of x myself one side that shows where all the restrooms are in the center of town the other side shows where all the parking is which is the most common so and these are available at the chamber did and the jones library i believe and they've distributed around we're just what we're doing is we're just doing this internally we're just copied it and put it out there so if people say hey why don't you do this why you add this to it or something we can change it on the fly so i think it makes it pretty simple in terms of um helping people understand there are lots of places to park in town uh if you're used to just driving parking in the main street parking lot and it's full there's lots of other parking spaces that you places you can find a place to park so thank you so since it's on this particular one which i asked for another copy of because i agree with mr rackland i think we saw it before but um i wanted another copy is when it's doing all their many things if one of their conversations is about our branding we have noticed well one this looks nothing like anything we've ever done before but it doesn't make it bad it's just we don't have a brand yes and we've talked you've talked about this before and the blue and the fact that not all of our business cards match and not all of our letterhead matches and obviously their potential changes afoot anyway but if any of the it's projects are working on branding one i would suggest they wait like the other things and two that they talked to some elected officials too or some appointed officials on various committees because the last time we did a revamp of the website the place to work to play work in life it's like what none of us talked about this and like we drove the situation about the wayfinding signs and stuff into the ground in terms of like the level of detail that was important to us in terms of showing what the town was and a lot of people see that website and so it's fine but just in terms of future practice it seems like just saying somebody comes up with a cool idea should not necessarily just be the way to do it i look at the midtown i was like this looks a lot like the midtown hotels well but it's actually distinctive and it catches your eye and so i'm not complaining i'm saying that as we continue thinking that through we we probably i mean i know we don't want to have four million meetings about what color it should be or something we've done that already but it's a little strange how sometimes things just happen so i mean in terms of the branding thing i think it is wise to wait until march to see which you know have the town make a decision about what it wants to look like and then that will inform if we have to change things anyway on some some issues that makes might be the time to do it but i agree with you on that there is a standard protocol for what you know what's our color that we use for everything and what's it in that type of thing just makes a big difference other questions it's nice to have this we're going to use it as a little handout for the mma parking workshop that Nate Malay and i are going to be part of along with the representative from the town of franklin and the city of melrose are there other questions for the for the manager regarding his report or so he'll talk separately about the community services thing okay should we stick with the you want to do that next because i had a question about the managers is that part of your report the services yeah is that part of your yeah well my my thing is before that just um when you talked about um is it phil mcpherson jim i'm sorry jim i was trying to remember all of my notes um as the new facilities director um certainly miss ron bahanowitz but um i'm just wondering as part of his orientation we're almost at the jcpc process and um it's it's a place where the facilities director has a really strong and important role to play and i don't know if um someone's sort of guiding him or coaching him because that's going to be an important presence to right so he's got a meeting later this week we have again 25 of his time so he has a meeting later this week with um uh claire and a few other people to sort of go through the entire um capital projects list and sort of get him ramped up on some of those things so we want him to participate uh in those those things he may not be able to contribute as much but he has he comes with a whole lot of knowledge about things so because he because that person represents the school a lot of those capital projects are the 75 percent that's the school side and then there's and the schools have already involved him a lot of their planning on about the things that they need done and they're just facing a lot of capital challenges too roofs for one boilers all kinds of things we just right into that season yeah yeah i did have to uh but if mr steinberg does i did have some other questions about the town managers report but please i'm taking all the time okay uh well be quick on the first one for sure and that is that the um early in the report you mentioned about uh the parking um in the snow emergency and one other thing that had crossed my mind is his avenue of informing the public who frequently park on streets which are tenants is the uh using the rental registration program and uh mr morah had advised uh the campus and community coalition that um if there's an appropriate thing that is educational to tenants it can go through that process to landlords and then from landlords to tenants through the registration thank you yeah and uh the other thing you know i didn't know if there was anything more to say you hadn't you written report something about what's gone on the presidential and of course we heard and you didn't say anything more than that as we were giving this report right yes so what i've been informed by the building commissioner is that um six units have been made available at presidential apartments which is what is required two of them are occupied by new tenants four uh remaining units are available as soon as qualifying tenants are identified and i think that's part of the issue is who creates who constitutes a qualifying tenant um contrary to what was said earlier today the building commissioner sense is that they're eager to rent these apartments but they're they're also a business they want someone who's going to come in with first month's rent last month's rent and security deposit and not a lot of people have that capacity to come up with all that cash even though they may have an ongoing income that supports a monthly payment and that's sort of a gap that we've seen in terms of what's needed in the community um the uh so far presidential has been fined $28,600 by the by the building commissioner and has paid $26,900 uh and they so they still owe us a little bit of money there um and then part of the agreement with presidential is that they will be actively participating with DHCD and the Amherst housing authority um to work on the contracts and the agreements that they're supposed to hold hold on to there um so in the building commissure is meets regularly with with the um uh with presidential to make sure things are moving forward so that's where we stand on that this is a a couple weeks old probably this information thank you so following up on that I think one of the things we'll want to hear about at a future meeting is particularly with beacon breaking ground and we know beacon has a completely different level of experience associated with these issues but um what we learned basically from this process this time so that it is more clear as as things go along the next time so we we have surely learned many things about processes and all the different partners because as you indicated there's a lot of different people involved and how that would be how we might look at that be really useful for us to have a sense of so that we can continue to tell people and we've learned from this and we know more about it now um a completely different note the north common restoration on page five I appreciate as you said all those different bodies are gonna need to have a say I think it would be incredibly useful to the well I know it would be incredibly useful to the public if especially since all these committees actually do have staff support associated with them which again our staff were incredibly hard working at all these different meetings in addition to all their other responsibilities if someone could come up with a list of what those meetings are and be able to put out a news and announcements that says the north common discussion is going to be leisure services commission on this date it's going to be a planning board on this day it's fine that we don't have the agendas yet but or even if at this point it's like between this period and this period so people can watch work because that way if they can't go to the leisure services meeting but they really want to go they can go to the design review board meeting and so that they because just following agendas there's just so much for people to be achieving track of and this is a big deal we have done we've been really waiting to get this done and we've had a lot of public input so far but it was a couple years ago and so I think people just to be brought up to speed I'm not saying they're going to want change anything might but the idea is to get them to understand what it is we're trying to do because rather than just waiting for them to watch for an agenda and think to show up for that particular meeting I think that would be super helpful yeah I think I think that's I don't think we're quite there yet but I think these are both high profile projects that people are going to care about and want to be involved in and public involvement is going to be obviously needed for both of them so I think once you know we have a sort of a clearinghouse website or in something where everybody can plug it in I think that would be a really good idea because we have done that before a similar project was several years ago now with Hawthorne and where it was leisure services and housing and children committee and there were different meetings taking place at different times and so Mr. Malloy put together a website that basically said here's where all the stuff is and like you said a project website that shows where all the moving and then it links out to all those other things without changing it's priorities yeah I know I'd like to have a tag on to since you raised the the north common project um I know it says in here you know we hope we can start in 2018 but it's really complicated and there's a lot of and that's all true but um I guess from where I sit on this board I think it would be um really high priority to try to get it to happen this coming I'm talking about the the north commons restoration project um it's to some degree also true of graph park but I think this is so visible people have waited for so long partly sense of momentum sense of um kind of competency to get these projects done and yeah there are a lot of boards and committees but it's starting a kind of timeline road map now I mean things will always happen that we can't totally predict but I think it's a really high priority to try to not let it get stuck in the sort of minutia and really make it important that there's any way possible yeah that's a really good move it um please please please I think it's very important to add a little bit to that with the bike share coming online this spring that's you know part and parcel because one of the locations is right there and we're talking about doing the main street law at the same time it's those all go together and I worry then we add the other you know the parking area project it makes a lot of sense to combine but then it it it also can bog it down or so I don't know how to say any more clearly I think it's really important any other questions or comments for the for the manager this report and if not then we'll move on to member reports unless you know I have more stuff oh you do have more yeah that's right sorry sorry sorry just as you were talking this is I just went this is not for I'm just gonna hand this around so you can look at those are the the it projects so you get a sense of what they're talking about this is really interesting for them to finally put everything down on paper is what they're challenged by so and then reminder that we have our budget presentation on thursday and uh at that meaning you'll hear me talk about the revenues that are coming in stronger than we anticipated primarily because of the new growth coming from one east pleasant and we we did not even factor in the new growth anticipated by the beacon which will give us substantial new growth as well those are important things and I want to sort of tie in that how that new growth helps support the town's operations why that's so important at the same time you'll hear me talk about the need to increase our budgets by more than two and a half percent because it's strictly because of the health insurance so and um and it's really important from the school's point of view because they are really experiencing very much very much tight but very tight budgets because of this and it's going to mitigate some of the reductions that they have to make and they will have to make reductions in addition will be needing probably a request from town meeting for this fiscal year previously I told you that I don't I hope that we could manage the budget changes for the current fiscal year which we would have except for this last increase and so we're going to continue to manage our budgets we don't know exactly how much that's going to be because we hope to absorb as much as we can with our existing budgets so that's a little preview on what you'll hear on thursday um the before you on I just have a quick sure so related to the insurance question yeah um one of the items I saw used the term surcharge which implies it's not permanent versus rate increase which implies it is permanent yeah um and I've seen both in both places do you know um we've never used we've people have asked about surcharge we said it's not a surcharge okay it's been there's been a surcharge in the past right and and a surcharge would come into play if there was an actual deficit at the end of the fy 18 fiscal year then we would have to charge the employees a surcharge to get rid of that deficit right all right now i'm just i'm trying to recall if it was something i saw through my other employment or through this moment about whether where it surcharge came up yeah i want to say it was through the other so it may be that that's an important distinction it is important yeah um so it may be we can't afford to do a surcharge and get the kind of revenue we need and but a lot of people are thinking maybe it should be i mean so there was a conversation within the insurance advisory committee about some people feeling like we could just put it put in some x-ray and then we can take it away and it's like we're not there we have to make fundamental changes to this trust if we're gonna it's gonna survive um so in your packet also is a memo on community services you recall town meeting appropriated 60 000 for community services and we had initially or i had initially held off on that because of two things one was i wasn't sure if we're gonna have extra needs based on the the hurricane in portorico and if we were going to experience any special needs because of that we've pretty much worked our way through that we and we think we and can see our way to what the impact is going to be on the town and i don't think there's going to be anything substantial that was going to require extra funding from the town there we have a lot of resources already in place and people have come together in a very very good way with that and the second was because there wasn't funding available for the for the craig stores because the governor had pulled that funding or held that funding and so obviously that would have been a high priority for the town to maintain its home the homeless shelter but when that money came through i was anxious to say okay it was already six months into the year i was anxious to get something out the door and so we had put together a memo for you put in your packet and now i'm asking you that this is not we're not quite ready for prime time on this i apologize that you had it in your packet the intent is still the same that we have a need we have we've identified the correct needs there are some logistical procurement issues that we've run into that makes it not ready for you to have an informed opinion on i've asked your representatives to come to a meeting on friday so we can talk about this a little bit more and talk with our procurement officials and it's it's so i think it was in my eagerness to get it moving fast so we could get the money spent this fiscal year so you could so tell me you could see that we were actually spending the money as i requested i think i've moved too hastily so this will come back to you in two weeks at your next meeting i actually wanted to thank you for having both this even though it was a more of a thought piece at this point rather than ready to go and your town managers report in our packet friday that was hugely beneficial to be able to look at it over you know people we get to a whole weekend to look at this and so it's it's much nicer than trying to do it when we're here so really appreciate i know it takes extra effort and snow days and all kinds of things easier actually we'll make sure it snows before the first of every month okay great when all the buildings are breaking down thank you so are there other questions for the manager if not then we'll move to um to member reports would anyone like to go first did ask to go first simply because there's a way i can go back to the town manager report for um on the item that he circulated for us to just be aware of which is the it work list um i'm aware that is is the liaison to committees at several committees at times have talked about wanting to upgrade their websites and that's actually because of the complexity of that list and the prioritization needs to take place won't necessarily be the thing that's highest on the list and i think that it's just important that we um be clear with um boards and committees that are trying to get their websites upgraded through the departments to which they're affiliated fully informed so that they don't have unreasonable expectations um and uh the only committee that i'll specifically uh report on i was going to report on the uh transfer station and uh recycling issues from my liaison to that committee but um there was good material within the packet that was provided that really provided um sort of the same information that miss capillan provided to that committee which led to a very healthy discussion there um and uh the last thing that i wanted to do is clarify something that came up at the last meeting and with a explanation quickly for those who weren't aware and an apology to miss brewer and the there was a change in the law and i think that what we had sort of between the two of us had kind of missed the fact that the because of statutory changes that um the um attorney general therefore revised the rule around um the um remote participation under open meeting law for disability commissions and um in trying to do the research and figure out what happened um i never had to actually make a phone call because i found the statutory revision and the provision that they were there for implementing and doing that and i think that that's what i uh wasn't aware of at the time we had the last discussion at the meeting i have um advised by email the our disability access advisory committee um where this all had arisen that um there had been a change in the statute and therefore the regulation and therefore the i gave them the correct information um so that they would have it for them i wanted to ask mr steinberg a question you had materials packet about the recycling coordinator but it's just in there and i wasn't i mean will we just talk about it is it just in fyi because who decides that we're going to particular what caught my attention who decides that there is going to be fines for the recycling and who institutes that and who's in charge of that because that was kind of a hot topic when we were looking at that position and i'm guessing it's not up to the refugee recycling committee to do that on their own no i think that that's actually a board of health regulation that um provides for the fines and the question of having an enforcement mechanism is is also covered in the board of health regulations which um itself and those are not new and those are included in the packet information um you know i thought that that was intended to be informative so that we would know what was happening with miss kaplan's position the fact that miss kaplan also went to that particular committee and gave essentially the same report and that they discussed it at the same length and had a very good exchange because they're so familiar with the issue but it was you know absolutely a hundred percent consistent with material was presented to us already so i didn't feel the need to go into it any further well um i hadn't seen all of the material that was there assembled in the way it was until we received it in the packet mr bachman you're saying her present i'm sorry her presentation was consistent with what's in our packet her presentation was consistent with what she reported in our in the memo in our packet just to be clear you're saying that the imposition of fines um that could happen after this initial education period would be under the purview of the board of health and it's not ours to comment on it's um implementing a board of health regulation that provides for the fines as kaplan said very clearly to the committee in the discussion wise is that going to fines is the absolutely is not the first it's the last thing to do the education and providing information to homeowners and to let people know where there are where she identifies problems with compliance for educational purposes is her initial goal she does not want to go to fines initially and that's what that was a discussion in the committee and i think that was fairly consistent with what she said in her her mouth so i that's what the consistency i was talking about not how i read them where did you yeah so i said we'd be done so um following up on that particular issue people familiar with our meetings are familiar with fact that i was extremely put out that this just that the decision was made to move on with this grant funded position without a check in back with the select board because we did have a number of concerns mainly located around the finding issue the board of health um does of course and has had for years now the ability to do that i think it would be useful to know now that we have this position how many of those fines have actually been imposed over the past few years and i'd like to see the difference between owner-occupied homes versus an apartment complex somebody's been working with or a restaurant or we have very little manufacturing but a business because when people see this they worry you know and she did very clearly say i'm not going to go through your trash bags but um it makes people nervous and certainly the intent we know is educational and probably i mean i wouldn't be surprised off board of health hasn't find anybody but if there's going to be a change and then i think that you know this was good that this went out because it's warning people hey here's what's really going on but also just because we've had fines and we haven't imposed them doesn't mean that we can't start imposing them now and i will point out that depending on your interpretation of page five it says any owner who violates the five percent rule can be fined a minimum of fifty dollars and not more than five hundred dollars for each week of such violation i'm quite confident the board of health would not choose to to find me five hundred dollars a week for putting too much pizza box that they think should be recycled but i don't um in the trash but it's a pretty there's a lot of leeway there and i think that given that we haven't had somebody we've had people in the past who worked on the educational standpoint we've not had someone to my knowledge working on actually imposing fines i just think we just need to be careful about how we continue to manage and this outreach letter was a good start although not everybody gets a paper water bill and not everybody reads the inserts that come with the paper water bill so um there probably needs to be additional outreach about that but i think that our experience in the past and other places has indicated that you know it's we want to make sure apartment complexes have places to recycle more so than that she's going down the street and finding one or two multi one or two student rentals that didn't get the message about this because we're not trying to penalize people per se we're trying to just get everybody to do the right thing so um i would hope that the board of health would think about how they're coming across associated with this since it is their rules that the fines could be done under having some data if we've ever actually find anybody or if we've had to over the years and then also the knowing that the person's working with the chamber in the bit because again the educational part of it so that we can say oh everybody's working together we're trying to because that's what we're trying to do we're not trying to get people in trouble we're just trying to build on that you know there's larger apartment complexes but also i think the rental registration you know one of the ways we can leverage that information is to reach out to those property owners that are on that list as well because they they have a lot of influence over their tenants and and what their tenants know or don't know or that sort of thing and you know certainly you know there are lots of uh companies that work with multiple places they may not own an apartment complex but they may have multiple homes that have multiple tenants that they could have a consistent message to all of them which would be helpful as well um anything else on that before we go to other member reports hey miss bird do you have anything i have a couple things but i just wanted to mention quickly that i asked for this stuff to be put in here because it's one of those things that i don't know how the public's supposed to know that they're allowed to have an opinion if we don't stick it in our packet but pioneer valley planning commission i know the information's been forwarded on to our pioneer valley planning commission rep which is jack gem set from planning board and also the tac has received the information about the bridge reports but it's just again just keeping information circulating so they can't say later they didn't know but i don't imagine that we have the desire to necessarily have a conversation at a select board meeting about pioneer valley planning commission's plans but if we do like now we know we could do you have something to comment on that all right so i'll just go through the couple of things i have um just to touch back on a thing that the manager mentioned he and i had gone down to um a meeting that pvta actually called with legislators uh to talk about budget concerns they have because they have some considerable budget concerns not surprisingly um but we had it we took that opportunity to take a few minutes with the with the director and their operator their new operations director to talk about the the b43 which is the bus that runs back and forth between amerson and north hampton um and you know long story short masked out was doing a planning process and kind of working independently for better or worse around the idea of moving people quickly and so they suggested things that are long way from being fully discussed i think the the pvta is a very prescriptive process they have to go through in order to to make any change to any route and so they have much more pressing immediate concerns um and you know whether or not there'll be any changes the b43 will will be coming through that process probably less so in the immediate budget constraints but certainly not uh off the agenda completely necessarily there may be some um you know as we go through that budget process with pvta um there'll be a lot of other tough decisions about all sorts of routes that will need to be made throughout the piner valley on on and not just the b43 so but people do have a lots of opportunity the process is such that people have lots of opportunity to to weigh in and express their concerns um one other thing i'll mention is the bcg is going to have its first meeting tomorrow morning um we'll all get together for the first time and uh share sort of where everyone is regarding their budget development um that's in this room at 8 30 i believe um and the third thing i'll mention is the housing trust uh the amorous municipal affordable housing trust uh has has met and we have some subcommittees there's one on policy um we are putting together um some goals uh relative to policy you know targets for housing that sort of thing and the idea is that that actually will go out to uh us the planning board uh the trust itself will you know approve them but also want the select board to approve them the planning board to approve them uh and so sooner rather than later but probably a month or so away we'll see those surface and we'll be able to read through them and provide our feedback back to the trust about what we think about them um but the goal is to have this series of goals and targets uh with a number of boards on board with that and and committing to sort of uh working toward those those goals so i just want to give you uh a little bit of awareness of that process is is moving and so there's going to be some things coming to us uh with some some uh you know concrete things we're going to try to do from a affordable housing standpoint um and i think that's it for me as far as things i wanted to mention what else is that anything else um i will mention that we are meeting on thursday at four o'clock in this room right and that our agenda for that is in our packet and unless there's something else regarding this evening yes oh thank you we did get in our on our desk this evening uh a letter from a town's person as well as from uh the the the mayor of searle i'm not sure if that's the i don't know italian so it's an italian community uh in northern italy that has reached out to us and perhaps is interested in a sister city arrangement so i think we'll have to uh to look at this a little more closely um memory serves generally town meeting or can it be either one i'm not sure so yes town meeting yes the last one we added we never managed to actually fully populate in terms of developing a quorum and the members who had asked for it to happen actually ask that it be disbanded and um you know which is not something we generally take back to town meeting in a situation like that we've taken other committees to town meeting my i mean obviously we're just reading this tonight but when i was glancing at it during the break i um believe that we should say something because obviously you know we don't want to not respond but i think it would be much better to wait until after the election i do not think we should put anything on the annual town meeting warrant because we have had we have had difficulty managing the sister city relationships we have now with wonderful intentions just not enough person time to go around to make everything happen and i'd hate to say well leola let's just do it because then we say we did it but like to actually do it adequately and fall town meeting would be perfect it seems like it's not like they have a big anniversary coming up or something that we can see here so it seems like fall town meeting would be a good time i don't disagree with what with what miss brewer said but um just process wise if we're going to talk about it we probably need to at least put it on to have the discussion and i think it maybe goes well in the context of looking at our sister cities which we've attempted many times i'm speaking now from the the point of view of a person who's worked on the committee appointment process we do have some issues in general with how we're managing those committees and so um i think we we would have to consider this in the context of that and i also agree the timing issue is sort of a cover for we can't do it's not appropriate to initiate something like that now anyway even if we were interested but i don't know how we get to talk about it at our meeting unless we put it on an agenda it's like any other piece of mail some mail we don't ever put on our agenda well but if we're making a just but we're making a decision about to do something or not just something so that's not exactly like any other piece of mail so i would what i would suggest is the following is that they can see what's likely to be on our our agenda for the 22nd it'll be pretty full so i'm not thinking this but maybe some fairly soon thereafter we can have a conversation about what response we would write back to them to to just explain the circumstance so we don't wait six months and then they've forgotten all about it so we could write a letter of of explanation like here's where we are as far as considering this you know that sort of thing but i think we can in a few weeks next time we need we might have that conversation on our agenda and so you know to shape our response to them first and then figure out after the election march and those sorts of things whether or not we'll go more deeply into it so that's what i would suggest to me maybe can approach that that way let's just make sure we don't forget it because it's easy exactly oh we've got that nice google doc now that's right yeah google sheet that's right right the box or words right that's the old term sorry right dating myself just don't call it a parking lot so barring any other topic we need to bring up i would take a motion to adjourn so moved second all those in favor please say aye aye it's at 916