 All right. As we have a quorum, thank you Jennifer for starting the recording. Welcome to the Wednesday, November 10 meeting of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly of the Town of Amherst. We are beginning at 5.32. And I will read the traditional statement pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. See instructions below. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by a technological means. We have a fairly compact and focused agenda tonight, which I hope will facilitate, you know, really focused discussion and some decision making, which is exciting. Michelle, did you have anything, any, are there any announcements from you or from Jennifer? No announcements. Just checking to see, I was just checking to see. Jennifer, have you heard from Dr. Shabazz or Yvonne? I know Alexis is going to be a little late. I have not. Okay. Okay. And then I did not know if you guys, I can send an email if you would like. We can wait a few more minutes and then I can send an email if they don't appear. If you wanted to do the roll call attendance for now. Yes, thank you. Michelle. Here. Here. Lord President. Awesome. Thank you. I love that, by the way. How do you say that? Every time, I love. I love when, thank you. I hadn't heard it before you showed that to me. Everyone looks better than me. I was very underlit. So I'm just making comment here. I have lipstick on because I'm like have a little birthday party for my daughter happening after this. So I'm a little more fancy than I might normally be. But all right. So I think we can probably move to public comment. Jen, do you know if there's nobody here in the attendees? Do we still read the disclosure? Okay. Well, I don't know about reading the disclosure because again, not all the committees necessarily do that, but you do have to make the announcement that public comment is that we're during the public comment period. Period. Okay. Great. So yes, we are now in the public comment period. And so if there is anybody who would like to make public comment, please let us know by raising your hand and we will call on you. And there is nobody in the attendees. So I think we're safe to move on. And I know that both Pat and Alyssa are unable to meet with us tonight, so they won't be coming. So before we get started, Dr. Jemison, I just wanted to briefly say that we had Monday a presentation at the town council and we're very grateful for the attendance of most council members. We're able to make it and even Alexis was there as Amherst media but was able to actually listen in. So that was great. And we want to say that we are going to designate a small period of time in our next meeting to sort of just unpack that presentation a bit and have the opportunity to talk about the presentation and councilor comments. So I'm sorry that we're sorry that that's not happening in today's meeting, but maybe because we don't have as many people here, that's a good thing anyway. So we'll have the opportunity first thing in our next meeting to do that. All right. And I'll pass it over to you, Dr. Jemison. All right. I'm just going to go ahead and screen share. This is the packet. I hope you all got to review beforehand. Michelle, did you want to, well actually I'll talk for a minute more than I was hoping Michelle that you orient us a little bit around the core elements of reparations. So we called this meeting to have a very focused meeting so that we, Michelle and I would go forth with the appropriate requests that the assembly had agreed to for the budget form for next Monday. So that is our focus. And so what we did and what we contain put here in the packet are two things. One is this document about the core elements of reparation and reparations, pardon me. And then the other one was a look at funding sources, some suggestions about exactly sort of how much money we would like to request from each of them for how long and how much and for what. It is in tabular view here. There's a little bit more detail in this sort of outline structure below. So our intention is to discuss, basically put a motion on the floor, discuss each of each of these pools of money and if we're requesting the right amounts for them and then move that to a vote so that Michelle and I can go forward with the right, asking for the right things on Monday. So however, for context, I thought that this core elements of reparations document was great and I appreciate you bringing this forward. Michelle is wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about it to contextualize the next few things we're going to do. Absolutely, yes. And I should have brought the book down with me, but this comes from a book by Cam Howard, who is the male co-chair of the National Encobra. And it's called Laying the Foundation of Local Reparations. It's an excellent little book that I recommend anybody pick up. I think you can buy it off of Amazon. I'm happy to lend mine to anybody who's interested in looking at it. I believe that Cam took most of this information from public international law and policy group, and that's another organization that you can look at. They've based these reparations, these types of reparations they've based off of sort of international law of reparations. And so you can see here they start, it starts here with, and I never can say this word right, is it cessation? Cessation? Okay, assurances and guarantees of non-repetition, restitution and repatriation, compensation, satisfaction and rehabilitation. And each of these types has, you know, you can hopefully have a chance to take a look at them. And what we've done here is to show with each of the types what Evanston and Chicago has done. And then I, we made a tab for Amherst as well. So we can start to sort of think about as this committee moves into really understanding the types of reparations that it's recommending, we can look at them in this framework, which I think is really helpful. And we can also look at our funding options within this framework as well, so that we understand whether or not a funding like for example, CPA may not hit all of these reparation types because it's more project based, whereas like the cannabis money will be able to touch all of them. So that's sort of a basic layout. If anyone has any questions on that, this would be a great time to ask. If you wanted to add, yeah. Oh no, nothing to add at this moment. I just wanted to say that we welcome to Yvonne. And Yvonne, can you respond here that you're present? Present. Awesome, thank you. It's hard to, it's hard to see when you're sharing the screen. I only see you. I don't see anybody else. That's too bad. There, now I see you. There we go. Okay. I don't know if that's good or bad. But anyway, question is, are we going to be using this as a kind of rubric in relationship to how we build or present our proposals to the town in terms of how they meet various categories that there's a rubric? Again, are we going to use this as a rubric? I think that's a great question, Irv. And I would like to just ask you a clarifying question. Are you asking if we're going to use this on Monday or if when we're further down the road and we're starting to decide on types of reparations for Amherst, are we going to use this? All right. So the first question, what do you mean on Monday? Yeah. So we're still sort of figuring out what that's going to look like. And I have a call in to Alyssa to figure out what our best way forward is. So as you heard on Monday at the presentation, we committees, town committees, and you know this probably better than anyone, town committees do not have some sort of special presentation that they can give during the budget forum. So we're sort of lumped in with anyone else that shows up and has three minutes to speak. However, I believe that we're able to, and Lynn did say this during the presentation, that we can put whatever we agree on tonight, we can put in writing and submit it to the town council and town manager. And I think that we should absolutely do that. Whatever it is that we vote on tonight, and that may or may not include this rubric, we'll submit in writing formally to the town manager and town council. All right. So you answered one question, which is in relationship to what's upcoming on Monday in terms of the budget forums. And presentation is there of. The other question then comes back to, I'm assuming that you and Dr. Jemison will be making a presentation or comments at that budget forum. Is that correct? Yes. And the second follow-up to that is if you're going to be making those, what are you going to be presenting and representing in terms of this group? We'll be representing exactly what we vote on tonight. All right. That backs up to the next question, which is a former question. Does this rubric determine what we vote on in relationship to tonight? The rubric with the various funding streams is really just, it's a proposal that Dr. Jemison and I are putting forward to the AHRA based on all the information we've taken in from members and from what we've learned over the past eight weeks. It's absolutely up for discussion and that's what we'll be doing now. So Dr. Jemison prepared some motions, one for each of the funding sources. So one for cannabis, one for ARPA, one for free cash. And so we'll go through each of them now and we'll have a chance to discuss, make changes, and then we'll vote on each of them individually. So it's not like you have to vote on the full package or nothing. Another question is, were these motions that are getting ready to be made presented to via the packet beforehand? No, they were not. And we sort of just realized at the final hour after having put this in the packet that we should probably come prepared with motions as opposed to trying to create language on the fly. So we've prepared motions, but we can certainly take, there's certainly an option not to use these motions. It's just to sort of help move us along. Yes, I really appreciate you and Dr. Jemison's, you know, wanting to be efficient. But please in the future, if you're going to present something for a motion, information around those emotions and that you're going to have a motion should be presented beforehand so that all of us could have an opportunity to think about it, contemplate it, et cetera, and then be able to make an informed decision. Absolutely. Absolutely. And thank you for, you know, we're sort of just learning the process here ourselves. And just to be clear, the motions have nothing to do with anything other than this information that was presented in the packet. So they're directly in relation. And I don't know, Dr. Jemison, if you want to add to this, but we could certainly create our motions here now if that's something that the group would like to do. So that's up to the group. Paul. I appreciate that you've made motions ahead of time. This happens in school committee sometimes and it's just, I don't think I would need to see it ahead of time because just practicing the language of making motions that I move this. I think all that we need to know is we're going to separate these funding sources into different motions. But I don't have to see your motion that we're practicing the language ahead of time. Thanks. That's just my opinion. Thank you. Yvonne? I'd like to know what the ultimate goal is for this particular meeting. I thought it was funding or talking through these fundraising issues. I, again, would like to reiterate how much I appreciate you putting this together. I honestly think that this table that you created is a wonderful rubric for us to start doing the work that we need to do. You know what I'm saying? Like last meeting I was like, well, what's the work of this committee? What are we doing? And this table shows every category that we could spend time looking at and talking about, maybe not all of them are applicable to Amherst, but I think it's a good start. I think it's something that we can't really go into tonight. I think it's a good way to look and see especially what Evanston has done and whether that some of those things can carry over into what we're putting together for our specific community. So I'm loving that. But as far as voting on specific, I would like us to, I mean, it's up, I don't know what the chairs have in mind for the agenda, but are we going to go through each funding stream individually so we can each get some information about these motions before we vote on them? Because that's, that's kind of like what I would like. Yes, that is our plan indeed. So the first portion with the types of reparations is more of an addendum. It's more of a sort of just an extra document to help us sort of frame, but the meat of tonight's meeting is to go through each of these funding sources and if possible, vote on what we would like to ask the town for for each of these. Get the party started. Let's get it started. Ready. I got dinner on the stone downstairs. Let's go. So, Michelle, I think there was one other, did you have any, we talked about if there would be a discussion of the stabilization fund itself and its structure? Yes. And I don't have solid answers. I want to ask Irv this actually. Irv, and anybody who might know the answer to this, but I know that Irv and I have had this conversation and he was also present, as was Hala when we did this kind of, when we, when this stabilization fund was created in the spring. So it's my understanding that the stabilization fund works like an endowment and that the money that can be used toward reparation activities is the interest, not the principle. And so for example, off of the 210 for this year, we were looking at like $8,000 being able to actually be able to get used. And so Dr. Jemison wasn't, when we talked about this, she was sort of I think surprised to find out that the, the interest was the only monies that we were able to pull from and that we would accrue this and hopefully get it into the millions so that the amount of interest would increase. But that the two third votes to pull money out is really only in relation to the interest. And if that is all true, does this committee find that to be, I don't want to say problematic, but potentially problematic without another type of fund that where the principle could be used? And Yvonne, yeah. I'm wondering what, I mean, I'm new to the committee. So you'll give me the history of why we were assigned the stabilization fund instead of a regular account that we could draw on. I just think that's too limiting for what we want to get done. Yeah. My understanding of it is we, when, when we asked the town last spring to create a committee and a fund, the town felt strongly that they couldn't create a committee without, without having a fund immediately created. And so the solution at that time was to create a stabilization fund, which they knew would sort of circumvent, I think, some of the legal questions that were still being answered. And so my feeling is that this is the, this is the situation right now, but it's perfectly viable that the committee would want to make a recommendation that a different sort of fund be the long, the long view game here. So, and if anyone else has further, please. I have a follow up to that, which is we're talking about transferring monies into that account. So is the conversation also about us changing the nature of that account before money gets transferred in there? Because then we don't know how we'll get the money out of that account. Can we, before we go there, can we come back? And I have my hand up. Thank you. I see everybody. I'm so sorry for the original question that you asked, Michelle. And as everyone, well, maybe everyone doesn't know, when this first was approached by Sean and Council meeting, it was to put money into a stabilization fund. But when we go back and look at that whole meeting, it was just to put money into the stabilization fund. There was talk about $200,000, et cetera. And what I'm getting at is everything is virgin territory to go forward with in terms of the stabilization fund in terms of the discussions that are going to be coming up in terms of moving that money to the stabilization fund by the council. In other words, we don't have to have a quarter of that coming out 20, a quarter of a percent or or 1% or 5% or 10% percent. We can determine that, hey, up on requests by the AHRA or it's a successor, that amounts of money can be withdrawn from that. The idea was to grow it as sort of like an endowment, but that was just an idea. And I guess the bottom line here is what I'm trying to say, not being clear is that our future in terms of this is in our hands. We need to get back to the council, and especially to Andy Steinberg and Lynn to say here is how we would like this to be read in terms of stabilization fund because the stabilization fund is the stabilization fund. There is the law does not say that you only can take a quarter percent out of it or any percent out. It says that is stabilization fund can only be a certain percent of the total budget of the time. That's it. So it's in our hands. Thank you. That's really helpful. Yeah, Jennifer. Oh, I'm not aware of all the different ways that money can be held in local government, but I know that typically most accounts that have money, anything that's not used goes into a general fund. And we would not want the money for AHRA to do that, for reparations to do that. Oh, that's right. That was another reason for this. That's right. Yep. Wait a minute. Jennifer, I'm just understanding what you're saying. Usually when any money that is appropriated to any town, organization, agency, etc., that is not expended by the end of the fiscal year goes back into the general fund. And that is correct. Yeah. That's what I just said. Yep. Yeah. But that does not relate to money that's unexpended from the stabilization fund. Right. I just thought that the question was, why are we in a stabilization fund as opposed to another fund? And that was part of the reason. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify, because I didn't want people to confuse the two things. No. It's always different with local government. So does that clarify people's questions for right now on the stabilization fund? Okay. Let's see. Just make sure. And welcome to Alexis. Thank you. Can we get some clarity, maybe a follow-up on how we, that indeed we can decide on withdrawals from the stabilization fund? Yeah, absolutely. And I actually was, I think Dr. Jemison and I were hoping to either have Sean come to a future meeting or somehow give us some clarification. We did find out, Yvonne, on Monday that the $210,000 is not being voted on until November 22nd. What I also found out, because I'm signed up for all of these various meetings that are happening, they come onto my text, there is a forum that day, a public forum that is specific to free cash. And it includes the money that is being moved into our stabilization fund. So that's nothing to be alarmed or concerned about, but just to know that there could be public input on that day. So if it's a meeting, you may be interested in attending. Okay, great. Thank you. Halla, did you have your hand raised? Okay. And, okay, so I think Dr. Jemison, we can start going through this if that works for you. All right. So I'm going to talk a little bit about this table and then we can hopefully get the voting rolling. So these first two items, free cash and cannabis, what we will be asking you is if folks would like to sort of request those annually. And we know that this year, we're getting $210,000. That's sort of what's already been decided. That is about 7.5% of the free cash that was certified, according to the document that's on the council's website. So we were going to sort of be ambitious and ask for 20% annually. And then for cannabis, and the idea is that 20% annually would go into the stabilization fund. And the reason we're trying to do that is because we are looking for a source of funds that can grow to a large size for future use. Same with the cannabis. We thought we would try to use it in the same way. One of the things we thought might be increased actually our chances of getting it is to show that we understand that there are other priorities as well. And so maybe to go third to third to third with community safety, with climate and with reparations. So ask for that annually again to go into the stabilization fund. And then the other funds, ARPA and the Community Preservation Act funding, these tend to be more project based. So these are not necessarily monies that would go into the stabilization fund. Although I don't actually know where they live when they are granted to us. So maybe they go there. We can find that out, we'll figure that out later. But these would be more project based funds. And we did think of asking about for CPA money annually, partly because of the context Michelle was presenting about the types of reparations that the sort of historic or open space use on the CPA CPA has might represent. But CPA things are like submitted annually and it's like let's submit a specific project to them. So that's that's kind of what's going on there. All right, so that said, that said, as I said, I wrote motion so that I would have the language to hand. So I'm going to read those and Jennifer also I can send them to you if they get amended here. So let me just get the right thing. So the first motion I'm going to put on the floor is for the AHRA to request future annual transfers to the designated reparations stabilization fund of 20% of the town's certified free cash. Second. Seconded. And so let's discuss questions or concerns about that plan. Dr. Jimison, I have to be really honest with you here or with everybody here because you and I talked about this together. So I actually thought when when we came up with the 20%, I thought that that was the number that represented 210 of the free cash this year, which I thought was a million. But I think what you're saying is that the free cash was actually much higher and it's okay. So let me let me just so that everybody can be on the same page. Let me show everyone the document that I'm referencing. So hold on, I need to share screen that I'm going to go someplace else first. So this is the document center for the financial indicators and budget meeting. And there's this document here, you know, fiscal year 2022, 12 a free cash to stabilization fund, which I already opened here. And it says the sum of free cash is this $2,828,079. And as you can see below 210 is what's mentioned to be transferred to the reparation stabilization fund. So I did the math quickly with a calculator. And so it's about $210,000 is about 7.5% of this 2.8 million. That is where that number comes from. So to perhaps this is I think what you may have been going on to say, Michelle, if free cash is somewhere between two and three million every year, 20% of that will be much more than $200,000, which would certainly be a boon for us. But if that is somehow feeling like the wrong size ask, I think that's definitely open for discussion. Yeah, the 20% figure I think is way more than appropriate. And that figure should stay because that's always a starting point and it certainly does not represent our bottom line. Just to reflect back what you just said, Irv, you're saying that you are comfortable with 20% of the annual free cash certification? Yes, I am. Great. It looks like the annual 20% of that is $565,000. It's more than double what we're asking for. So I think we should ask for the 565, the 20%. Is that what Irv just said too? That's what I just said. I agree. I think 210 is way too low for us to ask for. I think we should ask for more. So to clarify, 210 is what was voted on previously. But going forward, we plan to ask for 20%. So let me be clear here. We all thought that 210 was voted on. I mean, that's the assumption that I had, but then I was corrected by the chair of the finance committee. And that's neither here nor there. I just want to clarify things. That really wasn't voted on. But we have agreed to, in principle, for this particular amount, for this fiscal year of $210,000. That's what's on the table. Correct. Yes. And that's what's getting voted on on the 22nd. So what we're talking about here is what we're asking for for FY23. So for, and going forward. So the other thing is, since we made this motion and it's been seconded, I want to call the question. Irv, could we, Yvonne had her hand up and I would like to hear from Yvonne. Is it okay? Okay. Okay. And can someone help me understand really quickly what called the question? Like, so if somebody calls the question, as Irv just did, does that, Jennifer, what exactly does that mean? Go back to the vote. You go back to the motion. Go back to the motion and you come to a vote. Yeah. Let's just vote it. Right. Just do it. I'll call to question would need more discussion. And then we would vote and that would override the original vote. Got it. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. That's very helpful. Also, I don't know if I was here for the original vote. I don't know if that's an issue. There hasn't been a vote yet. It just a motion. Yeah, you're good. Yeah. Okay. So Irv has called the question or called the vote, right? Okay. Come to a meeting, have a discussion and come to a meeting or vote. Right. So Irv, are we talking about increasing the original 210 that was voted on initially? No. No. So just to be clear, Yvonne, the 210 is for FY 22. Yes. Already sort of in the works. So we're talking about asking for 20% of free cash annually beginning in FY 23. Yes. Thank you. Wait a minute. I think there's, I want to make sure we're clear here because we're using two FYs here. If we're talking about FY 22, that's now. Mm-hmm. All right. I mean, right now because we're in FY 22. Right. Oh, okay. So we're not. We're in, this is FY 22 right now. Right. If you're talking about FY 23, that's another, that's next year, which is the budget process that we're going through, which is FY 23. Exactly. Right. Jennifer, come ahead. And just for clarification, the fiscal year and begins July 1 and ends on June 30th. Thank you. Yes. So the 210 is FY 22 as written in this financial order here, which is going to go to the finance committee and then be voted on on November 22. So our motion right now for free cash is for FY 23 and beyond. Well, if we're voting on the 210, it's FY 22. No, I'm voting on the 210. We're voting on the requests that we want to make from the, at the budget forum on Monday for FY 22. Which is 20% annually? Yes. All right. As long as, yeah, I just want to make, because anyway, it's, all right, go ahead. All right. So do we need to, Dr. Jemisin, do you want to, do we need, would you? I'll read the motion again. What we're voting on is the motion for the AHRA to request future annual transfers to the designated reparations stabilization fund of 20% of the town's certified free cash. All right. Roll call vote. Just because this is how folks appear on my screen. Irv Rhodes. R. Michelle Miller. Aye. Yvonne Mendez. Aye. Alexis Reed. Aye. Hallelord. All right. Lord, aye. Jemisin, aye. unanimous. We got through one team. Yes. And I am noticing that Dr. Shabazz is in the attendees. Oh. So I'm going to see what I can do here. Jennifer, I'll actually move them. It takes a couple of times all of a sudden. So he's coming now. Okay. Is there anything, can we just ask his vote? Jennifer, is there something formal I have to do? Yes. Thank you. Dr. Shabazz, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know how much he heard. So I'm sorry. He says he's voting yes. He's voting yes. Okay. So that's all of us. So that's unanimous. Seven ayes. Zero noes. Awesome. All right. So you'll find the language for the cannabis question to be quite similar. Motion for cannabis is motion for the AHRA to request future annual transfers to the designated reparation stabilization fund of 33% of cannabis tax revenue. This one needs a second. Thank you. Thank you. And then it looks like we've already got some hands up for discussion. Yvonne, I saw your hand wrote first. Yes, I'm curious if we actually have the right to ask for money to be earmarked for other committees. I'm thinking we can only ask for money for ourselves. We're only asking for money for ourselves. We're asking for 33% for us. 33% to community safety and climate reparations. Is that specifically what we would use that money for? No. No, that was sort of just to say that we are not asking for the full cannabis and these are potential other, you know, you're right Yvonne. Yes. You're right. We don't have the right to ask and the town may tell us to go. We don't get the say on how else it's being used. It was just sort of to signal that we believe that these other items, community safety and climate are intersectional with reparation work. And so we, that's why we sort of framed it that way. But we're only asking for 33% annually of the cannabis. And that is the motion. It's not the other people, other people parts of that are not in the motion. So the 33% is because we're hoping the town will give the rest of the money to the other committees that you're saying dovetails with our mission. Yes. So my next question is, why aren't we asking for 50% like I don't understand why we're not asking for what we want? I mean, I don't think, I mean, it could be that we get 33% and the town does whatever the hell they want with the other rest of it. You know what I mean? So, I mean, maybe I'm playing devil's advocate. I'm just trying to figure out why that number was chosen. If it, if it was about, oh, let's be equitable and try and share or, or, or have some kind of, you know, idea of like, oh, these money should go to those committees. I'm not sure that that is a thing. You know, I'm saying we could think that, but the town may not think that. And then the money goes to, to somewhere else where we didn't want it to go. It doesn't help us. So, I mean, I'd like to open a conversation about what the percentage should be for us without thinking about what the other committees are. Thank you. Oh, well, interesting. Thank you. I have an unreadiness in the form of a question regarding the stabilization fund that we're still not 100% sure about. I don't know if we could eventually have the stabilization fund that we get the interest off and we might have another fund. So I don't know if we can amend the motion to make it possible that it might not go to the stabilization fund depending on what we end up learning or figuring out regarding that specific fund. Thank you. Well, the issue with that is, is that we have a motion on the floor. And I said an unreadiest. I know Roger's rules of order is quite well. So when there's a motion, you can have an unreadiness in the form of a question. So my unreadiness. I'm not arguing with you, Halla. I'm just making a point. I'm just saying, but I don't know what, okay, but the chair didn't acknowledge you yet. If you can allow me to speak, I'll be fine. Other people are speaking without raising their hand. When I raise my hand, I don't even get recognized. So I'm just talking. Let's just have like a point of order for a second. Let's make sure do we use our raise hand function. And I think if a question comes up like Halla just asked, give the chairs an opportunity to respond and then we will move to the next hand. That's that. So Dr. Jemison, did you want to respond to Halla's question or would you like me to? I can say just from a language standpoint, I am not attached to that, but from a procedure standpoint. So thank you for bringing that up, Halla. And I personally am not attached specifically to the bit where it says it goes into the stabilization fund. My intention there was to reflect the fact that these are funds that the cannabis money would be money that's going toward building sort of in an endowment as opposed to going to projects. But I understand that's not actually what it says. So something might be more appropriate. As far as the procedure portion about changing emotion that's already on the floor, I need somebody to instruct me on that. The motion that's on the floor has to be acted upon or dismissed in one way or the other. But it has to be acted upon. You can't supersede another motion with by another motion without backing up on the form of motion. Can we amend the motion? Ah, there you go. You can amend the motion if someone so desires to do that. And is it possible for us to get the language of the motion on the screen by any chance, Dr. Jemison, are you I know we're sharing this screen at the moment, but would you be able to maybe get that language up on the screen easily? Yep. And then perhaps we can, Hala, if you wanted to make an amendment or if somebody would like to make an amendment to the motion. Point of order. Go ahead, please, sir. And the point of order is almost like a point of information. If the money does not go into this, if we do not vote to go into the stabilization fund, where are we going to vote to go to? And that question gets to to the point of if it's not going to go into the stabilization fund, they were going to be putting into some kind of fund that it would have to be spent during a particular physical year. All right. So I mean, so let's let's be clear about where we are here. I think if we really just focus in on what we're trying to do at this time, which is to signal to the town council that we're asking for these monies coming from these places, I'm not even sure that we need to have language that specifies a particular fund. It's perhaps we the language we need is to say that we're asking the AHRA is requesting that 33% of cannabis funds be earmarked for the AHRA's use, period. And then the whole because right now, nothing's getting decided. There's a whole six months of budget stuff that's going to happen. There's going to be other opportunities for us to weigh in again. So really right now, what we're trying to do as a committee is ask for what or is to determine what it is we want the town to make possible for the use for of the AHRA's use. So I would be comfortable personally not even having it say, I think it's fine that we voted on the other one to say the designated reparation stabilization fund because that's the way certified free cash works. But for this, I think we could even just take that out and say for use by the AHRA. Wow. I must admit that, you know, I don't like people defining who I am. And if if you're saying we're going to let the council define and say where this money is going to go because we're not saying we're letting the council to make that decision. We're not making that decision. And we're saying it clearly. We're not making that decision. We want you to counsel and make that decision. If that's what this group is saying, then that's fine. But let's be clear that we're giving the council control over this. I think what we're saying is that we're asking in this case for the cannabis that 33% of cannabis tax revenue be earmarked for the municipal reparations plan being developed by the AHRA. I think that's very clear. I don't think that Yeah, it's clear, you know, Michelle. And my only question is, and it is a question. If we say for our use that that leaves a huge amount of runway there for our use for what I can see here council members saying this right. What are you going to use it for? Where is it going to go? Are you going to be spending it this physical year or next fiscal year? What are you wanting this money money for? I mean, we got 13 counselors. You can have 13 different questions. Sure, sure. Okay, I do see that Hala and Alexis both have their hands up. So, Hala, I think yours was up and yours is up to Yvonne. Yep. Okay. So let's start with Hala and then we'll go to Alexis and Yvonne. Thank you. I just wanted to acknowledge and do the procedure. If I would have to make a motion to amend the motion that's on the floor, it would have to be seconded. If it's not, then my move to amend the motion that's on the floor fails and then we just vote on the original amendment motion. I just wanted a point of clarity for how we do that. That's very helpful. Yeah. Okay, Alexis. I was hoping to just get some clarity on this ear marking something. When we say that, does that mean that it's absolutely guaranteed to be set aside for this thing and will not be touched no matter where it lives or is it looser than that? And that's why we need to make sure that it's in a safe location or something like that. That's a great question. My sense, and I'm not by any means an expert here, but my sense is that at this stage, if we are requesting that 33% be earmarked for the municipal reparations activities, that that is enough at this point. I think that we would be signaling something to the ultimately the council and the finance people are going to figure out how it works. So if they decide to take our recommendation of earmarking the 33%, then they're going to ultimately decide where if it's going to go in the stabilization fund or some other way that it can be used. But we're going to have more opportunities to address that as we go forward. And so, Yvonne and then Dr. Shabazz. I guess I'm also really concerned about this idea of the stabilization fund as it, you know, we're not actually really sure how we're able to access funds. So we're getting funds and putting them into an account. We're not sure how we can access the funds. I think that that is problematic. And then also, we keep talking this 33%. But I would like us to have a conversation about how we got to 33%. Like, is that like something that that you feel that the committee feels is a standard, a standard request for these monies? Because I mean, it sounds like a sort of random amount. So I would like some clarity on how that amount was determined and whether we can have a discussion about whether that amount is adequate for what we want to do. I agree with Irv that there's lots of questions. People will be like, what are you using the money for? When will you spend it in a fiscal year? I think that those things are, we need to be prepared to answer or deflect those questions when people ask them. But again, I think we need to revisit or at least I would like some clarity about how we got to 33%. So I can say that I made the recommendation of 33%. And it is completely up to this committee to decide if that's an appropriate recommendation. My thinking was we have seen that the community safety and the climate justice and the reparations are really working around the same issues. And there's a lot of intersectional points. And we've also seen where sometimes we're sort of, I don't want to use the word competing, but there's a sense where we're all wanting to get some of the money. And so this is totally philosophical that I felt like this is a way for us to potentially sort of acknowledge our support of these other areas and acknowledge that those areas being uplifted will also uplift our area. But again, this is a totally up for discussion. And if this committee feels that we should increase it or decrease it, that's what we can talk about right now. I would like to, because there's a whole question about the stabilization funds and how it can be used and when and how much can be withdrawn. I have the entire budget document with me because Sean printed it out for me. If you guys can continue discussing and give me five minutes, I will read the definition back to you of the stabilization funds, etc. That would be helpful. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. Thank you. I would like, at some point, I'm glad for more discussion to proceed, but I am inclining toward offering a friendly amendment both to the language as to say that requesting transfers. I'm open to hearing the definition of stabilization fund, but I'm also very happy to say that be directed toward the municipal reparations plan being developed by the African Heritage Reparations Assembly that's consistent with our charge that creates enough of room for further definition to be given to that process in terms of how to earmark it, where it's to be lodged. My basic understanding of stabilization funds are that they're essentially just a fancy word or another word for saying a rainy day fund. It's parking money as a kind of rainy day fund, but whatever the case may be, I think it's important that it's being set aside to provide the funds unnecessary for the municipal reparations plan that we've been charged with with developing. So I stop now to hear more discussion, but I'm interested in offering a friendly amendment both as to that language as well as to increasing from 33 to 50%, but I open for more discussion. So in the interest of taking sort of one item at a time, this has been a wonderful far-ranging conversation. I want to get to all the points, but what we started with was some interest in changing the language. So I feel like now is the time to say, is there going to be a motion to change the language or to amend the language here? Dr. Shabazz. Yes, I'd be prepared to make a motion. Okay. Can you make that motion so we can get through that procedural thing and then we can go and have robust discussions about the percentages and the stabilization fund? Okay. To this language, I would say I move that the language state that we, the African Heritage Reparation Assembly is requesting future and transfers, future transfers to a, from cannabis tax revenue in support of the municipal reparations plan being developed by the African Heritage Reparations Assembly. So I'm leaving the percentage out since we may come back to that in another, in another motion. If there's support for that, that's my motion. Lord Second. Is there a problem with annual? As I understand it, it's actually collected more than annually. I think it's the, those revenues are reported at least, I think on a quarterly basis. I may be wrong on that, or it may prove me wrong, but my, I think I've seen at one point that they actually report the receipts coming in on a more regular basis, on a quarter, I think a quarterly basis as opposed to an annual basis. So why wait, you know, and have those funds parked somewhere else if they're being collected periodically. So I just wanted to not take on annual and just say be moved, be transferred, you know, in support of the plan. So that's why my, I'm deleting annual, because I'm not sure, I think it's actually collected and reported more frequently than on an annual basis. So that's good information. The, the thinking behind annual was simply to mark recurring so that we can get this going forward. And there may still have to be a process where we sort of request it every year. But in the spirit of something that was mentioned by, I believe, Michelle Miller at a previous meeting, with the thought about like, oh, let's ask for this money until the stabilization fund is at $10 million or something like that. So that was the idea about annual. And so I, I get asking for it more often if it's dispersed more often. But I would, I would like to encourage language in here that suggests the recurring nature of the request. For me, I, I, I saw the word future that, that future transfers was, was kind of getting at that. But I do hear the point you're making it does. To, to try to emphasize that this recurring and, and it does beg the question then for, for, for how many years in perpetuity. But again, we, we may be kind of overthinking, overthinking the motion and when, of course, this has to go through their deliberations anyway. Irv, were you ready with that? I do see your hands up, but I I, did you still need a few more minutes? Okay. Did somebody, Hollis seconded the amendment? Is that true? Okay. So are you, so then, Dr. Emerson, are you creating another amendment to, to that? I can, I can, I'll be able to retype it once we've voted on the language, but we were discussing recurrent. And so if anybody else has any other thoughts? Point of order? Yeah. We never did actually discuss Alexis's suggestion about using the word earmarked instead of transferred. So I'd like that. I agree with earmarked. I agree to the language earmarked. Because if it's earmarked, it's, it's reserved for us. And then all of the other language about how it gets transferred or how often it gets transferred or is, is about policy or procedure and less about our emotion. Right. May I try to stake the language again and see where we are? Please. The AHRA calls upon the town council to earmark X percentage of cannabis tax revenue in support of the municipal reparations plan being developed by the AHRA. Any other discussion? Can we read the full motion again? So it's clear. The AA, the new language would read the AHRA calls upon the town council to earmark as yet undefined percentage of cannabis tax revenue in support of the municipal reparations plan being developed by the AHRA. I second that. Oh, we don't not yet. I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay. I think we need to vote on the amendment. So that if there's no further discussion on the amendment, Michelle, since I'm editing, can you run the vote? Absolutely. Yes. So Dr. Shabazz, how do you vote? Shabazz, yes, in favor. Okay. Yvonne, how do you vote? Yes. And Dr. Jimison, how do you vote? I'm going to sign the I. Hala, how do you vote? Lord I. Alexis, how do you vote? Read I. Miller, I and Irv, are you back? Okay. Well, well, I'm not exactly sure in this situation if we just move on because we've we and we have one missing vote or. Perhaps he can add it later. Okay. Register his vote later. It's either that or he should abstain, but not not because he is technically here. Okay. Okay. So it passes one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Is that right? Seven. Yeses. No, we're just passing the amendment, but we still have to decide on the percentage. Correct. Yes. That's next. Yeah. Okay. So did I get the numbers wrong? One, two, three, four, five. It's six yeses because Irv's not here. Thank you. Irv didn't vote. Okay. So six yeses. And I'm not sure what we're calling Irv in this case. It's the majority. So it doesn't matter. Okay. Yeah. Great. Okay. So now are we able to move back into discussion about the percentage at this point? Okay. Great. And Yvonne, do you want to kind of get us rolling with that or? I didn't have anything in mind. I mean, I would love to have a discussion. I mean, about what seems reasonable. I mean, I'm all for restorative justice around the fact that many people of color across the country have been prosecuted wrongfully sometimes because of cannabis laws and systemic issues with the justice system. So I'm really like, oh, this money belongs to us. But that's my opinion. I think there are, again, I agree with you, Michelle, that there are other committees that could lay claim to the money. And I'm surprised that other folks have not already laid claim to that moneys. So I think we should come up with a percentage that fits what we want and not necessarily what what we think other people might deserve. And I don't know what that percentage is. I think 33% is an odd percentage. I mean, I would up it a little bit if you know to 40 or 45 or 50%. I think that the number is quite arbitrary. I'm curious about what the tax revenue, how much the tax revenues are, the dollar amount like we did with the other pot of money, what's that 2 million, 3 million, whatever it is. And then we'll have a better sense of planning what our allotment would be so that we can do some programming with that money. You know what I mean? Right now it's a big question mark. We don't know what, unless Irv is able to tell us what that tax revenue is. This year it was around $200,000. Oh, $200,000. That was certified. That was the percentage of certified free cash. No, the cannabis money. The cannabis money was about 200. Right. And that's going to fluctuate on a year-to-year basis. Exactly. Yeah. I'm okay with 50%. That's what I think. So can I just, and just in terms of the stabilization fund, there is no requirement, and again, I repeat, no requirement that a set percentage is allowed to be withdrawn on any given year. There's no requirement for that. Are there any rules at all, Irv, governing like you can only take the interest or? No, there's no such thing. Okay. Perfect. That was very useful. Thank you. That's a big time. So Yvonne, did you say 50%? Sorry. I'm not adverse to 33%, but I think if it's $200,000, 50% of that is $100,000. I guess, Mike, I'm the kind of person that's like, so what is this money for? You know, are we throwing it into a pot that we're actually going to use for something? Are we just building, if we're building the pot of money? I mean, the difference is between $33,000 and $100,000, right? Like something like that, 60,000 and $100,000. So, you know, it's really what we think we should be able to have access to to throw into our pot of monies that we can use. Dr. Shabazz. Thank you. I actually would be prepared to argue for 100%. The idea being that you want to build the fund to a target amount, if we're saying $10 million, if we're saying $20 million to be even more ambitious, it's going to take time to get to that target amount. And you wouldn't be spending anything from that amount until it's until you've fully grown it and then you begin to spend what it earns. So, I would actually be prepared to argue because there are other funding streams that other programs, other legitimate racial equity concerns can draw from. We're not laying claim to all of the free cash. We were very conservative in the amount we're recommending to come out of free cash. So, with the stipulation or the understanding being that we're not necessarily trying to lay claim to this particular area of revenue forever, we're trying to lay claim to it until it generates along with these other sources, it generates the overall endowment we're trying to create. Yes, Irv? So, Amilcar, you just triggered something of me. And I don't know whether we have agreed or voted on this or not. Have we agreed or voted on or talked about or discussed that we wanted the money to go into the stabilization fund so that it created an endowment and that at some point in time, after it was large enough, we then took interest or whatever out of it? Is that what we have agreed on? We have not agreed on that and we actually amended the language so that this motion no longer makes the cannabis like says that the cannabis money is designated for the reparations fund. It's just we're asking for the town council to earmark a percentage of the cannabis tax money. What we're debating now is the percentage to be earmarked in support of our activities. All right. So, have we beat this horse to death enough? I certainly think so. So, I have heard 50% and 100%. I need somebody to step up and make a motion for it so we can decide what it is. Wait, we have a dispose of the first motion on the floor. You missed it. You missed it, yeah. We can record your vote though if you like the language. All right. That's all right. That's all right. I just want to make sure where I am. Yep. Jennifer? Oh, so can you read Michelle? I mean, no, not Michelle. Sorry. Dr. Jemisin, you just said that there were two things and I got lost. I'm sorry. And then Irv spoke and then I forgot my train of thought. Oh, dear. I have the effect on people. I'm not sure I'd be able to tell you which two things, but I think I was meant to, all of us, gosh, you're right. I said two things out of the room. You said that we're having a discussion about the percentage and one was 50% and the other was 100%. We should have a conversation about which one. Or someone needs to create a motion. Jennifer? Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Yvonne, did you suggest the 50% and then who suggested the 100%? Dr. Shabazz. Thank you. No problem. We're here for you. Michelle, sorry. Go ahead. Alexis has her hand up. Oh gosh. Sorry, Alexis. Bring it on. No, no. That's totally, I was, I was just going to go ahead and make that good old motion. Do it. Do it. For 100%. All right. Motion on the floor for 100% is the second. Second. I second. Oh, okay. All right. Too late. All right. And yes. Oh, Michelle, are you hanging out for this vote? Well, I will hang out for the vote and then I do, I'm going to get going. Fellow committee members to my daughter's birthday party, but thank you so much for, for all of this work and I'll definitely see you at the next meeting. All right. Miller, how do you vote? 100%. Okay. Yvonne. Yvonne, yes. 100%. Dr. Shabazz. 100%. Yes. This is just the order in which people are coming. Alexis. Read. Yes. Holla. Lord. I. Irv. I. Jemison. I. All right. The AHA calls upon the town council to earmark. I'm updating this right now. 100% of cannabis tax revenue. So I represent each of those. Cannabis tax revenue and support of the Punious Municipal Reparations Plan being developed by the AHA that passed unanimously. Seven eyes, zero nose. All right. So next part of money to discuss is ARPA. ARPA money is, has a timeline on it. So, you know, these are more project-based and not necessarily going to, not necessarily would be contributed to us to grow them, but for specific, for specific requests. I did actually break this down into three different requests. So we'll go through them one by one. And, well, actually I'm going to pause there. Let me start with, are there any outstanding questions about ARPA funds? And then we can talk, I can talk about these three requests individually if it would help. I think you're very clear. You're talking about three different rounds and, or two, and all rounds. And, and it's kind of project time on it. And yet this gives us something within our planning that we could, could, could, could make recommendations toward that would be for specific projects that we could invite the community to, to help you imagine. I like it. Exactly. All right. So then we'll, we'll do them one at a time and, and Erva, two of these are yours. So we'll invite you to, to add a little bit more color to them, but I'll just go sort of motion by motion. So the first one, motion for the age, our age to request 600, that should be thousand, sorry, $600,000 from the round one ARPA funds, which were already, so they've been put into categories, so earmarked for racial equity and health. And I was thinking we could just have that to fund any of the things we need to do for the next several years. So our reparation activities, which include, we've talked about needing to do a census, we need to have another body, we need to do listening sessions, we need to do community engagement. So that was, that was the intention of use there, though it is a bit general. So when we start bearer motion for the AHRA to request 600K from round one ARPA funds, earmarked for racial equity and health to fund reparation activities and projects through 2026. I second that. Awesome. Thank you. Now it is open for discussion. Thoughts, questions. God, hearing none, let's call the question. Do it. Yes. All right. So let's vote again. Keep it coming. All right. Dr. Shabazz. Shabazz, yes. Hala. Lord, yes. I mean, press I. Also present all of the things. I love it. Irv. I. Yvonne. I. Alexis. Read I. Jemisin, I. So we're down to six of us, but that is a unanimous six yeses and zero noes. All right. So I'll put the motion on the table and then we got the whole procedure. So this came to us from Irv. So I wrote it up as this motion for the AHRA to request also 600,000 dollars from round one of ARPA funds, earmarked specifically for recreation to fund a multicultural center and slash youth empowerment center for a second back in it. All right. Open for discussion. I know I had just the question that I had about this was if we if we take if we get this money, does that mean that we're the ones who have to make this recreation center happen or sorry, multicultural center happen? No, not necessarily. Not at all. And yet I think I would I would just add one thing to this and to that is that I would add we're requesting 600,000 from round one through round three. So that we could give the leeway for the town manager if he's going to make a decision on this to spread it out over three rounds. And why I'm the reason I'm saying three rounds is that the first round is now there are 12 million dollars total for first round is six, the second round is six. However, come January or maybe before then there will be other funds that will be earmarked for Amherst via the state. And we need to be ready for those. So that's why I guess I would want to say rounds one through two through three. And that then gives the town manager the leeway to allocate those funds over three rounds rather than just one. But it's up to him to do that. But we're still requesting six hundred thousand dollars. So my understanding from our previous procedure is that you need to make a motion to amend the motion. Is that correct? Correct. All right. So I'm amending the motion to read rounds one through three. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? I think that this is the one that deals with the recreation. So more information needs to be forthcoming. And just for so that people understand where this is coming from is that there are presently in motion plans to lease for either a dollar a year or some other fund amount of money. The current building that is in existence behind the Catholic Church. Those discussions will be forthcoming. And so the six hundred thousand dollars would be for that as well as to any equipment, programming, etc. That would be forthcoming. The other thing I want to say in terms of why us, why AHRA in relationship to this, this is a priority that has been set. There's no other group right now to speak for this. We need to speak for this. This is a priority for our town, for our youth, and for the community. It's not only just a community center, but it's also given the spaces. It allows for enormous amounts of activities to take place in there. So it could be a community space slash youth empowerment center, etc. Thank you. Go ahead. Sorry. And so therefore the request for this money is for that to happen. And all we're doing at this point in time is saying this is a priority. It is something that has been lacking in this town for a long point of time. Our youth and our community is involved. Although it's a community center, it will have a bipartisan focus on both levels. And at this point in time, if we do not take advantage of the money that is here now and that is to come, then I don't know where this money is going to come from to fund this particular item. Thank you, Irv. I want to finish the amendment of the motion and then we can get to actually voting on the updated motion. So there was a second and then it sounds any objection or discussion to the wording change? Okay, so Yvonne and then I thought there was, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, mine is quick. Now that we've put, we've added round one to three in the motion. Is it 600,000 for the whole round one through three? Or is it 600,000 for each round? Yes, 600,000 total. Total. So I think we want to add total, 600k total from rounds one through three. So there's, so it's more clear because it couldn't, yeah. Yeah, Yvonne, you can always proofread by material. Okay. Great. Any other, Dr. Shabazz? So thank you. That was, if that clarifies what the author of the motion intended, that does throw a couple of wrinkles. So not 600 from each round, but we're saying effectively 200 per round if it was evened out to come to a total of 600 across three rounds. That's, that does change things. I thought it was the actual way was 600 per round. But either way, I'm looking to abstain on this modification because I have questions about the larger the larger motion itself. All right. Any other not wanting to miss any conversation? Any other conversation about the motion amended motion language? No. Okay. So we can wait. Nope. Just kidding. I'm sorry. I know. I'm thinking, so, you know, Dr. Shabazz's comments make me think again, like we're undercutting our ask. Is that what you're getting at? Dr. Shabazz is that we should be asking for more. And I don't know what the full pot of money is. And, you know, similar to my question about the 33% from the other ask is, are we not asking for enough if we've added that made this be one through three? I guess that is a question for Irv to clarify. Just, just remember, there is a 2026 deadline on spending this money. Trying to see if I can find it. Wait, there's a deadline 2026 for all three rounds? For the, for the first and second round. Yes, I'm not sure about the third round. But one through two, I'm definitely sure. I'm not sure about that money being released by the state. Okay. So I guess my question is how we haven't actually talked about how we're spending this money anyway, which I brought up earlier, like we're voting on getting money, but not talking about how we're going to spend that money. And if we don't know what we're spending the money on, like we don't have programs already decided. So, I mean, so, so we're voting on money and some of the money we need to spend right away. I mean, I think certainly we can do that. I'm not saying we can't do that. I'm saying that that often it's like, Oh, we want to spend money on this particular thing. Specifically, this one is airmarked for a rec center. How do we know we'll be able to spend that money by 2026? And so the amount is somewhat arbitrary because we're going to have to spend it anyway by 2026. Yeah, everything is definitely arbitrary. But the thing is, we know that if we are successful on getting that center, we're going to have certain expenses. And those expenses, one of the expenses is going to be equipment. Another expense may be some minor renovation. And definitely a major expense is going to be around programming. So if on this particular, the motion that's on the floor reworded or not is about this proposal to spend it on this youth center. So we're asking for $600,000 for this youth center. So this particular ask for money is not general. It's for this particular activity. The other piece of information is that 7% of the $12 million was is being set aside or just I'm taking this from the actually just go ahead and keep doing this wrong share again. So there was an ARPA listening session, the folks responsible for the ARPA funds put together a presentation. This is part of their presentation. There's $700,000 that have been set aside for the youth recreation programming. And the rest of it is up. It's the nice little pie chart. That's this is round one. Sorry. Sorry. I apologize. That's actually the round one money because round one allocates these 80% grant to funds. If I'm understanding or correctly, the round two will go the other 40%. And in January, there may be more money, but it sounds like you've got a clarification. So you're correct. And if you look at that where it says the youth recreation programming, the reason that I wanted us to go this route is that there was this proposal in there to put 50 to do a RFP. And I don't have a lot of problems with that. All I want to do is to airmark this money for this recreation center, and if there's $100,000 left for other purposes for other people to deal with them, let them deal with it. But I want this off the table and that we are saying we want this recreation center to happen and we have a plan. So just so folks know where we are in the whole process, we have not yet voted on whether or not we're amending the language on the second and I see that there are two hands raised. I just want to get the language back up here. I'm ending the language for this motion. And then we can figure out the actual motion. I know that the additional discussion came because with the language, there was some concern about what we're actually voting for. So Dr. Shabazz. I have a question on that amendment. Yeah, hold on. I thought I saw two hands up. Was there someone else that I hand up? Okay. Oh, Jennifer, yes, please. You're on mute. Dr. Shabazz can ask his question first. Okay, go ahead, Dr. Shabazz. Okay, I'm glad to have yours because it might clarify. But anyway, here I'm going to jump off of the recurring over three rounds, which is really the amendment that we're trying to grapple with to the larger to the larger question I have. And that is, and this is highlighted by you're showing the graphic that is raising the youth that is already being proposed is the need for us to kind of stay really clear and consistent with our charge, which has to do with specifically African heritage culture. And if we would like to then raise if the motion could the general motion wasn't is intended to reflect not merely additional funds to what some other group has already proposed for youth for general youth recreation, if we could specifically say this is to enhance initiatives for African heritage youth within that general youth frame or multicultural frame, then I would I could see really supporting it. But as as things currently stand, whether round one or through all three rounds, it sounds as though we're being very duplicative of of this of what's already generally out there. And I hear the point that there is no active committee within the town that is necessarily recommending this. And here you see an RFP idea being thrown out to to try to find someone to be the the band leader on this. But I am really just speaking to my concern is how do we stay consistent with our charge in relation to this process of the very legitimate idea of of youth recreation empowerment programming. That's true. But how do we stay consistent with our charge to specifically be trying to look out in terms of the reparative aspect as it relates to opportunities and needs of the African heritage community. Jennifer and then for the most part that was it. And then I just wanted to clarify with or because he mentioned a plan and I'm assuming that the plan is just the funding stream, not the location of the center and any and all of that stuff like rape. Correct. Correct. Just want to make sure I didn't miss anything. Thank you. Jennifer, you're right on point. And if it's me, then Dr. Shabazz, you're absolutely correct on a large number of things. However, if we are talking about justice, if we are talking about reparations and reparative and restorative justice for our community, for the African American community, this is something that has been put on the table a number of different times. And I can assure you if we do not do this with the voice that we have now that it will not happen because no one else is proposing it. No one else is asking for these funds. There's no one else in position to do that. We are in a position to do it. All right. So I would like to clear up the motion language change so we can then go on to again even further discussion or a vote on this. So the suggested changes are to add $600,000 total from rounds one through three of these funds. And the motion was on the floor. It was seconded. So let's go ahead and vote. Dr. Shabazz? Yes, I'll go with it. Yes. Hala? Lord, aye. Yvonne? No. Okay. Alexis? Abstain. Okay. And Jemison, aye. So hold on. I think that's four guesses, one no and one abstain. So that passes. So let me update this total. Rounds one, three. Okay. So motion on the table is now motion for the AHRA to request $600,000 total from rounds one through three of ARPA funds earmarked for racial equity. Sorry, that's the wrong one. Let me update the right one. My bad. Well, it got me confused. All right. That's so similar. Yeah, well, needs must. All right. Sorry, motion for the AHRA to request $600,000 total from rounds one through three, one through three of ARPA funds earmarked for recreation to fund a multicultural center slash youth empowerment center. So that's the new motion that's on the table. We've actually already heard some of the discussion about from Dr. Shabazz about, you know, purpose and mission. We heard from Irv about when this can get done. Are there other, I'd asked about whether or not we had to be responsible for it. And it sounded like no, but if we request this money, it's coming to this body. Correct? Right. Okay. So then how can we give it to someone else? Like, how would we not be in charge of administering it or making this happen? Good question. Okay. Hold on, Jennifer. Well, I mean, again, I think it was Dr. Shabazz or Irv or maybe both that said that we're really just trying to get the funding stream going and that either the town manager can designate or the incoming successor group of the CSWG and or a combination of that can take that piece over. It doesn't mean that we have to be responsible. The charge that this AHRA has is to find funding streams for the different activities or different ways to, for reparations. Got it. Okay. All right. I'm just going to start at the top here, folks. Sorry, I can't see when they're coming in. So Irv? Yeah. Jennifer just stated very eloquently what the answer to the question other people are asking. Awesome. Dr. Shabazz? Thank you. So back to the larger one, I'm really struggling to whether to want to put our voice on this particular kind of a piece relative to the ARPA funds, which again, are very term limited. They're meant to be high impact on responding to things right now to help in recovery. But my real concern here, and I welcome discussion, especially from others here, to maybe move me a bit on this, is whether we dilute our voice by trying to weigh in on this broader question. As Jennifer was just pointed out, there are successor groups that have brought this issue up as well. They can certainly come into play. Michelle isn't here now, but Michelle will be going on to the council in a couple of months, and certainly can be there to kind of shepherd the more general concern relative to the ARPA funding. But I, you know, given that we're making one request regarding ARPA funds for the racial equity and health activities and projects that our plan will, you know, that we're looking to develop in our plan over the coming months, maybe that's the lane we ought to stay in right now, and just hope and trust that, you know, that other voices will step up out of, you know, relative to these ARPA funds or step up just out of other funding streams to fight for, you know, the youth recreation and other kinds of projects out of those ARPA funds. Anyway, that's where I'm sitting. Sitting with this right now is whether we, by going this as well under the ARPA, and then I see there's even another one after that around home ownership, whether having so many weekends actually may weaken our voice on these matters and that I stopped to hear from others. Thank you for your comments, Yvonne. Yvonne, you're on mute. Sorry. Yes, Dr. Shabazz said some of what I was thinking about how direct we want to be with our requests. I, you know, I voted no because I felt like adding in, initially I felt rounds one, two, three was appropriate, but now, you know, a part of me felt what Dr. Shabazz said, which is we're spreading it out and it could be perceived as like a dilution of what our focus is. And I agree with that. I would love to hear more about, like I see, I'm looking down at the other, the next two motions and some of them are very, are more clear about what, and it fits more within our mission of African heritage and reparations, but I do agree with Irv that if not us who and some, a part of me feels like, yes, we should move ahead because someone has to be in the charge and I will also comment and Jen can add to this in any event, even if we're the ones in charge of this multicultural center, there's going to be an RFP and somebody's going to have to be in charge of that, you know, so I feel like that by itself doesn't mean we should take, we should take this on, although I'm connected to it because, you know, it's, it's, it's what, it's the work that needs to happen and people have been talking about it a long time and nobody's sort of taken the reins on it, so I'm in the same boat with Shabazz, I feel like maybe more discussion, I'll make it so that I can feel capable of voting yes or no, right now I don't, I don't feel like I can vote yes or no on this. I love the next, you know, I wish it were clearer to me. Did you have your hand up? Yeah, I did. One of the things that is clear to me and it's clear because of prior experiences is that this is a unique moment in time for Amherst and other communities around the state because of the amount of monies that are coming down. ARPRA funds, you know, the ARPRA, the first round and the second round equal $12 million that other money that's coming will be here in January and then beyond that is the infrastructure money. These are unprecedented amounts of money that will be being distributed. If we and when I say we, African Americans, do not put our buckets out, we will not get any of that money. There are some people running around with buckets to cast this money and there are other people running around with umbrellas to deflect money into those buckets. I do not wish to be a person running around with an umbrella. I do not think that we should be in the position that we are in and not say that this is an equitable, a social justice project in relationship to recreation for our youth and our community that we are saying that we want these funds to go there and we see it as a matter of reparative justice. If we don't see it as a matter of reparative justice, then please take it off the table. If it is reparative justice, if everyone can see it as a matter of reparative justice, keep it on the table. But if not, please take it off the table. As I said before, I can assure you that if we do not do this, if we do not speak for this, given what I'm seeing out there and going to other forms, etc., this money will be piecemilled out and this won't happen. Jennifer? I don't know if this helps anybody because it's not necessarily, but I would just say that this is like any other business and any other time that you're going somewhere to ask for funds and most often people ask for more and then they get someone counter offers that. But I will say that this is a unique time where we don't necessarily receive chunks of money in this manner that has potential to be spread around. But again, I'm just going to say that think about it like a business would probably be the best way to do it because that's what the town is at the end of the day. It's a business. So Yvonne? In answer to Irv's comments, then I would have to say that we're not asking for enough money because it's for, you know, it's for a building, for rehabbing, for, you know what I'm saying? If it's, you're talking about $200 each round over, I mean, I guess I need more information about how, you know, round one is when round one is two. These are not fiscal years. These are one or two rounds a year, right? This is round one, round two are money that's available now, but also this money that's going to be appropriated for fiscal 2023. So this is by 2023? Well now remember 2023 begins June, July one. Right. And that, you know, so let me try to clarify. The ARPA money that's available for round one is available right now. It's already been, you know, the town has that money. Irv, did you have a... July 20, July 1st of 2022 begins the new fiscal year. So the $600,000 that we would get would last until July 1st of June 30th of 2024. No, well actually given the the criteria around it, the fiscal criteria around it, we would actually have up until 2026 to spend the money. Again, do you think $600,000 is enough to rehab a building and get a, get us, get some programming in that kind of way within that timeframe? And would we be, do we have the ability as a committee to do that? So I'm going to let Irv answer that question that I'd like to hear from Alexis. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Irv. You know, Yvonne, you raised an interesting point. I mean, if I look at ARPA money rounds one through two and not even think about three, all right, that if we said we wanted $600,000 from round one and $600,000 from round two, what harm would that do? Nothing. And then I go back to Jennifer. Jennifer raises a good point. Any good businessman knows and in terms of the negotiation, you never put out your bottom line. So maybe perhaps, you know, I'm suggesting we're putting out our bottom line when we should be talking about a starting point with what you're talking about, Yvonne. Thank you, Irv. Alexis. Okay, I don't think I have anything to say to anyone. Okay. All right. Dr. Shabana. Yes, thank you. I'm, where I sit right at this point hearing what I'm hearing is that we really need to be thinking more within our charge, within our specific scope of activities and thinking about how to tap the wisdom of the community more. Things I've heard from the community is forget about, you know, this wishful thinking of acquiring, you know, the building behind St. Bridgets, which, yeah, I've heard that out there, but, you know, there's no idea of if and when and whether that could even happen in the scope of the ARPA monies that are out there, you know, whereas there are existing things in our Amherst recreation facilities, how about the understanding and understanding that out of this ARPA money, African heritage people would be able to get the pavilion rip free, be able to get the, you know, be able to have funds for the old school basketball tournament at the Mill River Recreation Area, ways in which Kendrick Groff, Sweetser, Cherry Hill, and the pools could be specifically funded in ways to support activities for African heritage communities at those sites. You know, if we can get to our own planning and open our ears to the interests of the community and the desires of the community, then I think we're really moving toward that justice that Dr. Rhodes has spoken so powerfully about, but right now, I know it's about, you know, asking for monies to be earmarked and so that once we can get into our more detailed planning about these things, that our voice specifically for repair, for measures that help to repair things needed for our community can really come out. But if we don't create the context for the funds to be there, then we're, you know, it won't be there regardless of the plan we produce. But so at this point, I can go toward it. I don't, you know, the language is just kind of banal and vague with, you know, youth empowerment and multicultural. But, you know, I guess if we go ahead and push for those funds to be set aside in this youth area, then with our plan coming forward with very specific recommendations relative to African heritage people, then we can draw upon the funds that will hopefully have been earmarked. So that's kind of where I'm sitting at. We've got work to do. So let's go ahead and approve the funding, but then let's get to the work of hearing from our community, elevating our community's voice so that we can really get at the reparative measures for our community. If we're just raising money for some other folks to swoop in with their RFPs, because they've been doing, you know, some youth activities in town, and then they get all the money and they go do it in some general way that doesn't do anything to address the repair that we need, you know, then that's where I think our work will really have to be scrutinized. But for now, if it's just a matter of throwing our name and support of funds in this area, I can go for it. Thank you. Thank you. Jennifer. Yeah. And so I just wanted to say we should be careful about attaching this youth empowerment center to any place. And I've heard more than once someone referenced the building behind the church and we shouldn't, not that that's not going to happen, but I think also something that I think that Dr. Shabazz is right. Like, I mean, maybe we should ask the kids how they feel about that, you know, so it's completely different. And so I'm actually wondering if it's possible. And again, this is totally up to you. But it seems like I don't understand why we can't just ask for all the money into one big pot and say, these are the different possible, these are the different things that it could obtain to and not neglect any of them at all, right? But I think like, like the old versus young basketball has needed town support behind it for a very, very long time. People are coming out of pocket and it is something that is well celebrated in the community. And then I also, I mean, I just, I just feel like the money can go like there are parents who can't afford after school. And I know of your big on that. So all of that, and maybe that's part of something else too. But I just, I don't know if it makes it any easier if it's one bigger pot of money. And then we can say like, okay, the community is saying that they want this youth empowerment center. Let's earmark this amount for the youth empowerment center. It is also somebody else's project. And while I understand how we want to make sure there's funding for it, it's still somebody else's project. So I'm not, you know, necessarily voicing an opinion, I don't think, but I'm just giving a suggestion of how you might be able to move forward and meet the needs of everybody and kind of satisfy everybody at the same time. And then I will be right back right after that. So don't make any major votes or don't change any motions in the meantime that I'm gone. That was literally going to call to question, but I will wait, Jen. Well, Irv had something to say. So Jennifer was correct. And I was remissed. I am, and I want to make sure it's clarified. I am not advocating for any one particular site. I am saying that the money can go for a youth empowerment slash community center, wherever that may be. Yes, there are some sites that are being explored, but that does not mean it will go there. All right. And the other thing is that just remember, once money is appropriated for any specific purpose, and if that money cannot be utilized for that specific purpose, other purposes for that money can be determined. I mean, you're a critic, but that's what it is. Yes, I want to add to what Jen was saying about maybe changing the language to be more general and have it fit better within our mission. I agree with Dr. Shabazz that some of this is about finding out from the community what works for them, what is more beneficial. I do agree that a cultural center or a youth empowerment center is something I think folks will embrace. But maybe we can change the language to be more general around what those funds would be used for, including like a youth and family-centered activities that could include this multicultural or youth empowerment center. And that fits better into our plans. Again, we're asking for money and that we don't necessarily have concrete plans for. I mean, I brought it up before. We don't even know if this is enough money for us to be able to do things that we want to do. And there's a time frame where we need to spend it within a certain amount of time. So again, I'm not sure we have the ability as a committee to implement something within that time frame, even if we do get the money's airmarked for us. But I would say, yes, we could go ahead with this motion. Sorry, so Yvonne, if you want the language to change again, we need you to put a motion onto the floor and give us what the new language is. And we also want to kind of hold on that till Jennifer gets back. I'll have to document it, but she needs to do that. So we can do that, but we'll have to do that. And then we have to do that, vote on it, and then we can vote on the whole thing. Okay, Alexis. Mostly just because we're waiting for Jennifer to get back. I guess I just wanted to say that I agree with making it broader, the language broader, and that I think just with the experience that I've had with trying to work within a nonprofit and get a new building and build a new building in this town, it's very difficult and it's very expensive. And even a small building is like 1. something million dollars. And we're talking of, you know, we have to consider like, you know, the land stuff and there's historical land and, you know, there's all these like weird things. And so I agree that there's like a lot up in the air in terms of like this specific sort of project. So that was a long winded way of me just saying again that I agree that the I would make the motion that but I don't know what I don't know what language to use. But so yeah, it's okay, everybody has a couple of minutes to think about it first. Well, just let me be go back. There is a and you I think Dr. Jemison you had put up on the screen. The meeting that took place that had all these proposals. Yeah, there you go there. That is a specific proposal. All right, specific. And what I am saying and when I and maybe I wasn't being very clear is that either we can have this defined for us or we can define it for ourselves right now that is on the table. And I want to supplant that by our plan. Okay, cool. Jennifer, welcome back. You're on mute. I'm super passionate about this particular issue. So I like I'm going to try and keep it short. And I'm also remember this is when it's hard being a staff liaison versus a member. So A, I just want to put a bug in everybody's ear that at some point Amherst College just offered us more than 29 acres of land to build a DPW on it, which is in a place that conveniently could be near a bus stop, which could conveniently also be asked to take to use for multiple different things. And the 600 K is going to be able to necessarily build us anything it would be like a start to something that the base for it, right. And at the same time, I think if you kind of, I don't know, I'm back. I don't know what you guys discussed when I was gone about mending all the money's together and perhaps bulletting out these different things that the money could go to because I just want folks to remember that during the summer, when your kid turns 13, there's nothing for them to do because they are too old for summer camp and they're too young to go to work. And Upward Bound doesn't exist, which is a great place to throw some money for the Amherst kids, right, because the state won't fund it, but we could fund it. And then, which I'm a graduate of Upward Bound, so I definitely promote that and wish my kids had the opportunity to attend it. But also the camps, the basketball camp runs from nine to noon. So if you're a working parent, what do you do? How does your kid, I mean, if you don't live on a bus route, how does your kid get home from noon to whatever? So there's just all of these different things that lots of money that could be put in a big pot and could be listed out on a bullet for, you know, even to suggest how the money could go. There's just a lot. We did discuss a little bit of that, maybe not the biggest but we didn't make a motion while you were away. And it steers away from the topic of the motion, but at the same time, it's everything about it because it's what's supporting the actual motion, right? So. Absolutely. So, okay, Yvonne, did you have a comment? You were saying that I should create or make a motion to change the language to be include and what we're doing? Yes. I've tried that and I can read it. Okay. So the motion is for the AHRA to request 600K total from rounds one, two, three, one to three ARPA funds earmarked for recreation to fund. And I, my amendment is to take out that last part and say to fund youth and family centered programming to include planning for a cultural or youth empowerment center. The money that we're asking for honestly is only going to be able to fund us planning. It's not going to be able to fund anything else. It might, we might be able to use that money to do some programming, you know, like to hire some artist or hire some, you know, do some kind of programming, as Jennifer said, but it's not going to be enough to make to actually create a cultural center itself. I think it'll, it'll, it's the seed money for planning. So that's what I'm getting at with that language. Can you just repeat the motion again, please? Because I got excited. Ah, okay. So motion for the AHRA to request $600,000 total from rounds one, two, three of ARPA funds earmarked for recreation to fund youth and family centered programming to include planning for a cultural or youth empowerment center. I guess I could say programming and to include planning for a cultural or youth empowerment center. Is there a second? A second. Thank you, Alexis. Discussion? Yes. Err, please. Yvonne, I think, I mean, your motion has a lot going for it. And I guess I would agree with some of it because it does generalize some things that I was making specific. And, but one of the, I want to make sure the assumption that I was going on was not for that we were going to go out and build something. All right. I was going on something that's something that a building or buildings already exist where this could take place. Because of what I was talking about, building something there and I would say $600,000 for each round. All right. So, but your, your motion does get at some things. And Jennifer, you touched on some emotional points for me, which I have been talking about is that there are all these places out there where people fall between the cracks. And we don't fund for that. We fund for, you know, economically disadvantaged families, but we don't understand that, that, that demarcation line cuts out a lot of people. And so, we don't fund that or that we don't fund for those things that are part of our community that are outside of the kind of things that we usually fund. The youth lives, the youth, the private programs for football and basketball and all that stuff. We don't, but the thing, and this is one of my frustrations, that is not brought to for, is not brought before us so that we can say, hey, we need to fund this amount of money for these particular kind of things because they haven't been funded in the past and they're disproportionately falling on people of color. And if we don't say that, we don't get, we don't, it never happens. So yes, you know, Yvonne, yes, I think what you've just said is fine. And that'll work. And I think that as we go forward, if we say it's rounds one through two, that this will work. And we can find other monies to go into this. But one thing that's left out, and I don't know where to put this, where Jennifer, you hit on it, is how do we cover those kinds of programs that you mentioned through something like this? We did also vote to request this other $600,000 that's earmarked for racial equity and health to fund reparation activities and projects. That is very general. Yes. For which we might get dinged, but you know, the intention there was for it to be activities that this group supported. I think they could, depending on how we, the decisions that we come to, I feel like they could be used to sort of promote or create awareness or get us to the point where we could fund some of those programs. Because I would argue very firmly that things like Upward Bound and Positive Summer programs have a lot to do with health. You know, not just the physical sense of health, but mental health and the way people are able to take care of themselves the rest of their lives. So, you know, speaking to what folks have said about like, maybe we should make this all one bucket, like at this point we're kind of almost four votes down the road here, but like we did ask for some money that's more general. We're now asking for some money that is focused specifically on youth and family centered programming. That's the way we'd like to frame it. So I like to think there's an opportunity in the monies that we've asked for so far. And I think this group has proven that we're hungry, right? We're willing to go get those dollar bills for what we need. So when more opportunities come available, I think we'll be looking for them. So the point of order, where are we at in the relationship to this vote? That is an excellent question, Dr. Rhodes. We need to, if there's any further discussion on the language change here, we need to hear that. If not, then we can vote on the language change. And then if there's further discussion beyond that, we have it and then we can vote on the actual motion. That is where we are. So we need to vote on this language change. I'm seeing nobody else going, wait, I can't stand it. So let's go ahead, call the question and take this vote. So the new motion now reads, motion for the AHRA to request $600,000 total from runs one through three of ARPA funds earmarked for recreation to fund youth and family centered programming and to include planning for a cultural or youth empowerment center. Irv Rhodes, how do you vote? Aye. Yvonne. Aye. Dr. Shabazz. Yes. Alexis. Reed, aye. Paula. Lord, aye. Jemison, aye. That is a unanimous vote. Seven yeses, zero noes. All right. So I'm a little wary. Yes, Hala. Is there seven of us or six now that Michelle? Oh, sorry, there's six. Thank you so much. I fabricated Michelle. Six yeses, zero noes. Good catch. Zero noes and one absent. One absent. And Reed, sorry, I got really excited. It was like, oh, oh, we could move on. But actually, now we need to, the question, now that we voted that that's the language, is there any further discussion about what this actually is saying? Just for the record, folks, I usually give folks about seven seconds. It's just a thing. That's already passed. And I don't see any hands raised. So all right, let us now actually vote on the motion for the 600K from rounds one, two, three. Dr. Rhodes. Aye. Yvonne. Yvonne, aye. Alexis. Reed, aye. Dr. Shabazz. Yes. Hala. Lord, aye. Awesome. Jemison. Aye. Again, unanimous. Six yeses. Zero noes, one absent. Okie dokie. I will throw out, as I often do, I would like to get off this call before tomorrow. So I'm just gonna throw that out there. We got two more things to vote on. And it's 7.44, which means at this point we've been on this call for two hours and 15 minutes. So just as people think about their evenings, maybe we can try to keep our remarks snappy and brief. Would you mind Dr. Jemison defining snappy? Perhaps what I mean is not snappish, but certainly as brief as you can make them. And when I can remember, I will time people and try to ask them to wrap up at three minutes. So we've heard a lot of passion. I think the passion is important. And I know we all feel it. I think we're gonna go to another passionate topic. And can we all agree that we're passionate? Just kind of, yeah, it would be nice to, if we can keep them tight, that would be lovely. So this next motion also came from Irv. And so I do understand since I was kind of putting it together that there might be some language changes or amendments. But this is a motion for the AHRA to request $6 million total across three rounds of ARPA funds earmarked for housing for the development and building of up to 60 units of affordable home ownership condo units on the Strong Street property or similar, which is currently owned by the town. Emphasize similar or similar property owned by the town. Is there a second on this motion? Second. Thank you, Yvonne. All right, let's discuss. So I would like to speak to the motion. Evidence is quite available that African Americans and BIPOC people have suffered decades of housing discrimination in Amherst. Housing discrimination continues in Amherst through policies that encourage building a rental housing for income eligible people, which have been quite successful, but fails to provide a pathway to home ownership to this same population. This failure leads to the continuation and enlargement of a two-tiered society in Amherst, those who own and those who rent. We are seeking $46 million for condominium co-op or co-housing projects to be located on town owned land for home ownership. There is not now nor has there been a transitional housing plan for low-income people or VIPOC people who are low-income, who occupy affordable rental apartments in Amherst for income eligible individuals. This situation relegates individuals to a continuous state in which they cannot build equity, which is the number one wealth builder in the United States. Amherst owns land on which home ownership units mentioned above can be built, given ARPA funds now available and to be available, plus the massive infrastructure bill passed by Congress. Amherst can do this on its own without the need to rely on outside funding. Thank you. Thank you, Irv. Yvonne, you're on mute. I get it. So quickly, I feel the need to include, I agree. Thank you, Mr. Rhodes. Perfect. I agree with what you said. I feel like this motion doesn't reflect that this is focused on what the mission of this committee is, which is African heritage populations. I'm not sure that we can be discriminatory in that way in this language because this is for the town and Jen can correct me on that. But is there a way for us to not make it at that specific? I feel like we're limiting this just to however many units of affordable home ownership condo units on a particular property. I think I'd like to strike the specific language and have it be general, which is affordable home ownership development for African heritage populations. And I can clean that language up, but I'm wondering if that is what we can do with this motion. Perhaps you miss heard me. I did not specifically say for African heritage. I said low income BIPOC. I did hear you. That's why I'm saying shouldn't the African heritage populations and not BIPOC is what I'm saying. Well, let me go back. The reason for that language is that that will, as current legal language stands, that would pass muster. Okay. And all right. And secondly, I did not, and I was clear that it's not for a specific property is for a strong street or other properties, similar properties in town. So it's just not specific to strong street. And I can't, I want to make sure I emphasize it. This is not specific to strong street is for other properties that the town owns in town. Why is it up to 60 units? Well, it's because there are the everywhere we would go, there's certain property, it might be up to 60 units, it might be up to 100 depending upon the property. But at least I'm specifying some number, some minimum number. Alexis. Oh, man, I did have my hand up tonight. Okay. So I want to thank you for bringing that up. Dr. Mendez, that's your title, right? I'm sorry. Because I have the exact same, and I guess I'm also wondering the legal, you know, how we get around that sort of thing, because I'm also very wary of creating homes under this fund that don't end up getting occupied by the people that this fund is being created for. And I'm wondering if that is something that we have to specify or can even specify here or if that's something that goes deeper into the, you know, the people that are involved with developing that. I don't know, but I have the exact same concerns. Thank you. Hala. And not to be on three Pete, but I similarly would want not, yeah, I'm uncomfortable with including BIPOC because we know anti-blackness is in there and then how many actually black families or African heritage families would end up. So I don't see it here. So as long as it's maybe not in the motion, but, and I know there's legal ramifications, you can't just, but I'm just uncomfortable with including all BIPOC on this committee with what we're doing. Thanks. All right. It's very difficult, you know, we can, to the question of making it just only for African Americans and that we were going to do this just only for African Americans, then we would have a very, very, very steep legal hill decline. All right. I mean, that's very clear. However, if we say low income, that this would be for low income, or, you know, as we define low income, which I would want to redefine it in some ways, then you could say for low income with a focus on African Americans. You can say that. However, just remember, there are approximately around 2,400 African Americans and Amherst. Some of those 2,400 are students and we African Americans are a minority of a minority and we must be aware of that. As people have said and various communities who are taking reparations forward, we cannot do it without allies. We need allies and we do not need to put our allies on the sidelines. Jennifer? Irv, I just want to say thank you for bringing up housing and it's so important because we are pushing families out of all races because of the amount of rent, the amount that rent costs at this moment. So, but I'd, similar to what you said, I don't know if we could put in a percentage clause or as opposed to a focus clause or something like that in there, if that will work, right? So we're not being so exclusive, but also maybe open it up to like home ownership programming or something similar to that. So a couple of things, like 60 units and we say 40%, 40 of them have African Americans in them. That's a fantastic thing and it's their own little community, but that just seems like, like I'm a big fan on mixed housing, right? Like areas where people from all different economic backgrounds are spread with, all over the place. And I don't know if anybody knows of East Hampton has one tree house, which is a program that is really geared for foster families and seniors, but we could moderate that because on the outskirts, the people who live on the outskirts are kind of paid or substitute the subsidy, right? They hold that subsidy piece and this is home ownership. So it would work a little different. You'd have to kind of figure that plan out. But I just think, you know, spread across like, I think the bigger problems if we could just get the land homeowners to sell their homes a little bit more affordable so that people can actually afford to get them. That's a whole other story and I know, but like, you know, I'm, yeah, I don't know if any of that made sense, but I just, I think it's great. I'm glad that you included it and something does need to be done. Okay, so I'm going to jump in here and make some comments and then Alexis and then Irv. So one thing I want to remind folks of about like what we're doing tonight is not like voting on the exact language of the exact thing that's going to happen, right? We're really trying to liberate Michelle and I to go to the budget forum on Monday and ask for this money under the umbrella of a purpose. So I would suggest that perhaps we do not have to be super concerned about this language because what happens is we're going to ask the town is going to consider we may get some or all of what we asked for. And then, you know, we will need to use it for that purpose, but that purpose may have changed a whole lot by the time we get that money, right? So there will be time then to figure out if it's 20 units or 60 units, what we can say about the percentage of African heritage people who live there. So I just don't want to ask people maybe not get too keyed up about what this particular thing says because this is not the exact thing that we're going to get even if we asked for it very specifically. So just keep that in mind as we continue to have this discussion. And then Alexis and then Irv. Okay. So I'm just going to keep this really fast because I appreciate you saying that and keeping us on track. So I really appreciate you saying that. So I guess I just want to say that I'm always keeping in mind the fact, you know, like, if it is a legal uphill battle, you know, then it is what it is because at the end of the day, it was the law that, you know, we were, you know, illegal and I, you know, were, you know, not even considered human and human rights are completely, you know, you can't look at them objectively because at the end of the day, everything's politicized and all that. And so at the end of the day, I'm just trying to think of like housing in terms of equity and in terms of reparative justice and, you know, thinking about, you know, low income can include so many different types of people. And at the end of the day, if we're trying to keep all of this within our mission and within our, you know, if we're trying to keep everything pointed to our African heritage mission, then I feel like it's worth being that specific as far as we can legally. And if there has to be some sort of battle, then it is what it is because at the end of the day, you know, I don't expect any of this to be without resistance. That's all I'm going to say. Thank you, Irv. The reason for this is that, as I specified, but the other larger reason over arching reason for me, there are people and groups in this town who specialize in low income housing and they specialize in it for rental units. They don't really want to hear about home ownership. And I've spoken to them and tried to get them to turn themselves around to look at home ownership. And it hasn't happened. So we'll say this again. Right now, Amherst is specializing in low income rental housing, which keeps people poor. It keeps people poor. And there's a whole dedicated industry in this town for doing that from our from our housing, you know, from the housing agencies that are out there, the people of the non-proper group, the town groups, they're all specializing in rental housing, affordable rental housing. They're not specializing in how we get African Americans, BIPOC people to be home owners. There are incredible numbers of people who have been renting for years, for years. And that same income stream that they're paying for rent can go to home ownership. And I know this because I've done it. I have actually done this. I'm not talking about something I haven't done. I know that it's possible. But we haven't made the commitment into this town to do it. I am wanting the town to make that a commitment. And I'm wanting us to lead the way by putting this on the table before the town council. Thank you, Iran. I have rewritten the motion. So can I introduce the new language? Because I think that that might move us forward. If that's all right with you, do I make a motion to amend the language? I make a motion to amend the language. The new motion I can read slowly. So you hear, okay. So the motion for the AHRA to request $6 million total across three rounds of ARPA funds earmarked for housing for reparative home ownership assistance for African heritage populations to contribute to amassing wealth. Should I repeat that? So wait, no, I'm not done yet. Not done yet. Only halfway done. So home ownership assistance for African heritage populations to contribute to amassing wealth, semicolon, as well as the development and building of affordable housing units on town land. Put home ownership units in there. As well as the development and building of affordable home ownership units. Right. Home ownership units on town land. I second it. All right. We have a second. And so, Irv, how do you vote? Aye. Yvonne? Aye. Dr. Shabazz? Baz, yes. Alexis? Reed, yes. Holler? Lord, aye. Jimison, aye. So that's six, yes, zero, no, one, absent. Great. We have a new motion team. And is there discussion on the new newly worded motion? Just a point of information here. Obviously, four to six million dollars doesn't build 60 units. All right. All right. But what this does is that if you're on town on land, it would take care of most of all the cost up to an including design and also would include infrastructure, bringing water, sewer, electricity in the site. It would include permitting, etc. Everything except for the actual building of the building. The building of the buildings would be cut, would be paid for by the mortgages of those people who would be occupying those buildings. Thank you. And the reason that I said the town can do this without relying on state funding or anything else is that the town can bond that amount of money in terms of just the building cost and then have that bond paid down by the mortgages. Again, the town can control the entire project from A through Z. And people will say, well, where's the subsidy? Well, the subsidies are already there. There's no land cost. We're putting four to six million dollars in there. There will be other funds that will be available that are going to be coming up. There will be down payment assistance money that can occur. Anyway, all of this is totally in the control of the town. And I want to emphasize that this is not out of the control of the town. It's totally in the town's control. Thank you. Other comments before? I want to add that this for me personally is an important point that I hope we will come back to when we go through what the other tasks are of the committee. The things that we want to achieve. I think this is a big one. And so I'm glad that it's included in here because I feel like we need to revisit this and fill in a few of the gaps, but this is a good beginning. And do we need to do a motion to vote on it? Just call the question. Okay, great. All right. So we're now voting on the reworded motion for the AHRA to request $6 million total across three rounds of ARPA funds earmarked for housing for reparative home ownership assistance for African heritage populations to contribute to amassing wealth, as well as the development and building of affordable home ownership units on town land. Hala, how do you vote? Hala, how do you vote? Lord of Stain. All right. Er. Aye. Yvonne. Aye. Dr. Shabazz. Oh, I think on the last couple of words you had originally had town owned land, but, but yes, Shabazz, yes. Did I get that wrong, Yvonne? Yeah, it just, it just, you don't have owned on it, owned land. But was that the actual language? I thought I, is it town owned, Jennifer? Okay. Please restore that. I didn't see that. Yeah. No problem. Okay. Um, Alexis. Read, aye. Gemma's an aye. All right. So that's five. Yes. One abstain, one absent. Oakley-Dokeley. So, um, this last motion, uh, just to give a little bit of background, uh, Community Preservation Act, um, there's, there's money for that every year. In fact, a lot of it has already been earmarked, but they always save some because they're, they're processes early and they're usually projects that come later. And I hope I'm explaining this correctly. Michelle and I, she was explaining that, you know, we really have sort of been encouraged to, to go for something. That, and there, there are many things in terms of what did she say so nicely? Um, where the CPA really calls out this kind of like satisfaction area of reparations, which has a lot to do with, you know, things that are, they're culturally engaging and they have to do with actually displaying our history and, and reminding everyone how long we've actually been present here, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, that is where we were inspired to ask for some of the $500,000 that they usually set aside. And yes, we chose 175,000 and not the whole thing, just because as a start. So that's where we landed. It is arbitrary. They're always a little bit arbitrary, but, you know, we don't have a specific project. So it just seems like let's get enough for something. So this motion is for the AHRA to request $175,000 from the Community Preservation Act funds for fiscal year 2023 to fund an open space or historical preservation project as one element of African heritage reparations and Amherst. The open space or historical preservation project language is from CPAs sort of like charter, like what they're supposed to do. And I know Dr. Shabazz has mentioned a, a marker idea that he may have gone to Dr. Shabazz. Did you go to the CPA about the, with the marker project already? I haven't gone as yet. The, the thing that I have recently researched and found is because I wasn't sure if it would actually qualify reading the language, but I found out that they did fund a marker program. It's a marker program for the heritage or the history of different writers who lived, authors who lived in Amherst and about 14, 15 different authors. So I was energized by, by the fact that CPA funds funded a marker program for writers. And, and so yes, there is an effort afoot now to, to bring a very specific idea. So with the AHRA endorsing this relative to an African heritage reparations or historical preservation, community preservation, I think this will really set the stage for, for the support of, of this and other types of programs. Terrific. Thank you for that background. So I wanted Dr. Shabazz to discuss that as an example of the kind of thing that this might, might cover. And now we have some confirmation that it would indeed cover that. So this is a, this is a group with, with many thoughts, perhaps not an hour three of the meeting, but is there a discussion about this motion? Or actually, sorry, there's got to be a second first. Is there a second? I second it. Thank you. All right. Discussion. I'm trying to actually find an example to show everyone here. Yes. If I can share screen. Absolutely. Yep. Hold on. Let me stop sharing. Here we go. So here is the in at, oh, that's Jones Library, but the in at on boatwood. If you go around to the side, and of course it is a historic hotel of America with the National Trust designation, but if you go around to the side, you can see this marker. I discovered this marker one day. This is metal with a color image. Here it is. It's number nine on the Amherst Writers Walk. The Amherst Writers Walk, and it is identified as the Shirley Graham Du Bois home because Shirley Graham Du Bois lived when she was a faculty member in my department, the WB Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies. And as you can see in the upper right hand corner, it says a project of the Amherst Historical Commission funded by Community Preservation Act funds. And you can see the various other homes that are all listed there of different writers, Shirley Graham Du Bois being the only one of African descent that is acknowledged here. But once I saw that, it confirmed because I wasn't sure in the language that you can read online that this would actually be appropriate. But when I saw the Amherst Writers Walk was funded by Community Preservation Act funds, it has emboldened me to go forward. So I think with the support of this measure, it can go toward getting that. The key thing is that still remains to be done is as we get into the whole community input phase of our work, it's how to involve the African heritage community in identifying those sites of memory that should be marked. And then from there, we can go on to look at the markers themselves, how to make them, and so on. But yes, I do support this measure. And I think that's a healthy amount to form to support a marker program, as well as others that wouldn't be just exclusive. I don't think a marker program would necessarily eat up the entirety of that budget, but would even make room for some other possible projects. All right, thank you. That was awesome to have an example. Any other comments or thoughts? All right, we will call to question. So on the motion for the AHRA to request $175,000 from the Community Preservation Act fund for fiscal year 2023, Defundant Open Space or Historical Preservation Project is one element of African heritage reparations in Amherst. How do you vote? Dr. Shabazz. Shabazz, yeah. Irv. Irv, aye. Alexis. Reed, aye. Hala. Lord, aye. Yvonne. Aye. Jemez and I. All right, yay. So here we are at six yeses, zero noes, one absent. And that is actually the end of the programming for the evening. I will pop our agenda back up here. Give me two ticks. Yes, Dr. Shabazz. Yes. Thanking you for all of this. I glanced at some of the language around ARPA funding. And some of the things we have, I'm not sure how they'll square with that. Hopefully we'll see how it works out. But one thing I do note is in terms of infrastructure, broadband in particular, and I'm sure Alexis could educate us about that as well and how that could be while generic and everybody could benefit from broadband infrastructure development in Amherst, certainly the access to Wi-Fi for African heritage people would definitely be a considerable bonus within that. But just again, looking at some of the things, and I also noticed in glancing how communities, and this was a headline of just a few days ago, people are really having community input sessions. Do we know that efforts are being made to solicit community input in the form of any kind of community input sessions about what people would like? Where they might feel these funds that are designed to help rescue us from the negative impacts of COVID-19, if there are any sort of robust community input sessions? There were at least two public listening sessions, maybe three. Please go ahead, Irv. In that document that you had put up, Dr. Jamison, it also outlined all of the points in people that they counter and just the engagement process that they use. So under stakeholders consulted. So yeah, that was there. But again, one of the things that is important for all of us to know and to understand is that this process is all the robust. There are other processes that are going on as we speak and will be going on tomorrow and leading all the way up until decisions are made that are unseen. And so we need to be aware of that and to make our voices heard on all levels everywhere. Well, I can guarantee you, if we do not mobilize ourselves around this, we will not get what we're asking for. If we mobilize ourselves around what we're asking for, we will get what we're asking for. I would just like to say I wish that also essential workers, if there's been thought given to that, I think people like Jennifer Moyston and others that have worked tirelessly through the pandemic, ought to get a little something out of this, hopefully it's just dinner out somewhere when that's a little plug for us to support for our essential workers. Absolutely. And I sort of moved on from it, but I thought the broadband idea was very interesting. So I hope we'll revisit that in further discussions. So is there, I know we have several members of BAM. Would you like to make an update or add anything to today's proceedings? Not at this time for me. I don't know if others have heard. Yeah, not at this time. All right. And we routinely have a second public comment period, which I will announce. There are currently no attendees here besides us. We are already making our comments publicly, so I think we can go away from that. Our next meeting is currently scheduled for the 18th of November. Well, you skipped member reports. Oh, sorry. Are there member reports? Yes. The Black Census, I had been consulting with the Donahue Institute. They gave a first cut, which I have sent out. And now they're going to be putting in, I asked them to put in a specific proposal, which will give us where the 23 to 2,900 people who identify as African Americans, what sections of town they live in. That'll give us that information. And it will also screen out students from that. Once we have all that information from them, we can then put boots on the ground in terms of people going out to interview and define these 23 to 2,900 African Americans to complete the census. So the first cut has been done. The second cut is coming up. The third cut will be boots on the ground. That's awesome. Thank you, Irv. I'm sure we will cover that in more detail in upcoming meetings. All right. So our next upcoming meeting is currently slated for November 18th. There is also a session that night on the Community Development Block Grant, which is said to have a room for a reparations, or I'm sorry, I should get the language about this, right? Hold on a second. Must consult. Apologies. This was actually going to be a Michelle item. So I'm playing a quick catch up. It was presented as having a slightly different lens than usual, and there being more room to think about equity in that space. And I guess we sort of wanted to think about, we talked about community development block grants before. It sort of came down that they're limited to folks who are low and middle income and they usually fall into these very specific buckets of work that they have to do. And if we were going to ask for them, it would have to be very project-based, as opposed to money that we could sort of salt away. So the question is, so Michelle and I could divide and conquer, like somebody could go to that meeting and somebody else could go here, but I was just wondering if anyone on the assessment board, anyone on the assembly, particularly if you're more familiar with community development block grants, feel like this might be something that's really worth our hearing or maybe not. Just I'm saying that because this is a federally dispensed program. Yes, Jennifer, maybe you have the information we need. I mean, I most definitely don't. But I just wanted to know, what time is their meeting? Do you know? And then is their meeting being recorded? Because it's CDBG, so that we could perhaps watch it afterwards. I could ask the staff liaison to forward it to me, the link. That's awesome. And then you guys could see it that way. Thursdays are a big meeting night, so it's hard for everybody to get to all the different meetings on a Thursday. Exactly. The time on that appears to be 7 to 9 p.m. Yeah, that's smack in the middle of our show. Yeah. And we're meeting at 6.30, correct? Yep. So, yeah, I mean, we can either divide and conquer, or as you said, if we can find out if it's being recorded. So I just wanted to see if folks had strong feelings. Yes, Yvonne. I have a conflict that night, so I might not be able to make the meeting anyway. Okay. Just so you know. Good to know. Thank you. I think you'd mentioned that before, that that was a possibility. So, okay. And that has you down to six, so if like somebody else is out, and then one of our members goes to the meeting, we're going to be pushing the quorum issue. Also, very, very good point. Okay, so we'll take that into consideration. So let's actually put our priority on, not necessarily on you, Jennifer, but we'll think about, we'll ask if it's being recorded. So that we can at least, we can hear it later. So is it the, it's the town though, right? Is it a town meeting, or is it something different? CDBG advisory committee, the public hearing is what it says. So I don't know who's actually, but it's on the town calendar. That's us. Okay, I think. Got it. So it's likely to be recorded. Is that the thought? Okay, cool. Then we'll go ahead and that. Awesome. Thank you. All right. I don't have any other topics. So I think we can adjourn here. I just need a time, 8.25. Thank you for hanging in there, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Great conversations. Actually, I think it put us on the right path for our next meetings, I think. So that's great. Excellent. Looking forward to it. Thank you very much. Good night, everyone. Bye. Night.