 And I'll begin. Thank you. I'm Gail Lansky. I have been on this committee for years, I would say, at least, maybe five. And I'm heading off the committee as of June because my term is up. And it's been wonderful getting to know a lot of different people in the community by serving on this committee. Lucas? Right. My name is Lucas Hanscom. I've been on this committee for one cycle, which is actually more like a year and a half now. But we've only been through one round of it. So it's interesting. And you get to see what's going on in local politics, which is, I find, kind of interesting too. We'll start with the oldies. I mean, the current committee, I won't go to the new people. I'm Rika. Hi, I'm Rika Clement. I also have been on the committee for one cycle, maybe almost two years now, and been enjoying it. And delighted to have welcome Suzanne and Gregory. OK. Nat? Yes, hi. I'm Nat Larson. And I've been on the committee for a few years now, a few cycles. And things have changed a lot during COVID and the schedule and everything, but still great to always be learning about all the good things that are happening in the community. So welcome to Greg and also to Suzanne. And Becky? Yes. Hi, everyone. I got to spend some time with Suzanne and Greg the other night. So nice to see you both. I've been on the committee. I was glad to see that Lucas and Rika both stumbled over how long we've been on. Somewhere between 18 months and two years, but one cycle. So glad to be here tonight and starting the next cycle. Great. OK. I'm just going around the Hollywood square, sir. Welcome, Suzanne. Do you want to just do a brief introduction? Because I unfortunately could not attend any of the interviews, just to introduce yourself to the other members of the committee. And of course, the people who are out there in Zoom land. Sure. My name is Suzanne Schelling. I've lived in Amherst over 30 years, starting as a student at UMass. And I've been involved in many different things in Amherst, but mostly through the schools and my children. And I'm excited to get started on the committee. And I work at the University of Massachusetts. Great. Welcome to the welcome. Gregory, do you prefer Greg or Gregory? Either will do. Hi. My name is Gregory Baskham. And I, too, am a long-term member of the community. Been in Amherst for about 30 years. And UMass brought me here also back in the early 80s. I just look forward to the work of this committee. I've been watching and working with some folks with community-developed broad grants on the other side in the past 30 years, but nothing recently. So I'm looking forward to seeing what the changes are and working with you folks. Thanks. Can I just ask, were you on the agency side? Or were you on the committee side in your prior? Agency side. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Well, welcome. And we're so glad to have you. And I think it's just sad that we can't be together in person. But who knows? Maybe next month, if we have a meeting next month. And I'm going to hand it over to Ben to lead off on why we're meeting tonight. Great. Thanks, everyone, for the introductions and for committee members and for members of the public in attendance. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to essentially kick off the next grant cycle and to hear from the members of the public, from social service providers, about the priorities for the upcoming grant cycle to help guide the work of the committee in putting together the RFP and for evaluating proposals as they come in. So the committee is interested in hearing essentially what are the greatest needs for Amherst residents in terms of really the whole gamut, housing, food, adult education, youth development, all the priorities that can be covered as part of the block grant process. For those who are new to the block grant process, both committee members and members of the public, community development block grant funds are allocated to the town via the state, Department of Housing and Community Development. And there's definitely some complexities to the types of programs that can be funded. But essentially, it's social service type programs that directly benefit low and moderate income individuals. And if you're interested in applying or learning more, if you're a new applicant, definitely feel free to reach out to let me know if you need more information about the specifics of the grant. And so one more thing about the upcoming grant cycle just for full transparency. And so everyone's on the same page. Typically, at least last year, the grant was due in September. So it was around this time last year that we held a similar meeting to hear from the public about grant priorities. So we recently heard from the state that they are considering pushing back the grant deadline until March of 2023. And I guess that for them, that gets them on a more normalized grant cycle, which is, I think, they got out of that normal grant cycle due to the COVID pandemic and the extra round of funds that were allocated through the CARES program. And so they've recently just made that announcement. And we're not sure when they've made an announcement that they're considering moving it to March, which doesn't provide us much clarity one way or another. So I know there has been some resistance or pushback to that from other towns and from social service agencies due to concerns about gaps in funding, which is absolutely warranted. And so certainly, as soon as I hear more, we will let everyone know about the grant deadline and the timeline moving forward. But we kind of have to operate as if the grant's going to be due in the fall. Otherwise, we're going to get behind on the whole process. And so we're holding this meeting today. If the grant's due in the fall, then we'll kind of keep going really quickly. We'll have an RFP in June. And then applications due in July and questions back from the committee. And everything packaged up and ready to go to the state by whenever it is September or October. If the grant is pushed back to March, then we'll kind of have an extended period of time to prepare the applications, to prepare the RFP, to release the RFP, to hear back from applicants, to review their proposals, and hold hearings throughout that extended period of time. So we'll kind of wait and see. But I think it was important to hold this hearing now just to keep us on track for a fall deadline or for our extended period into March. So just wanted to put that out there. And certainly, again, we'll let everyone know as soon as we hear from the state about the deadlines. Ben, may I ask, did the state give any indication at all as to a date when they would make a decision as to whether it's going to be March or September? No. It was kind of, it was just, their announcement was made kind of as an aside to their training for the 2021 process. We had a whole training to start up the grant. And they were just like, oh, and by the way, we're considering making this big change for the next year. And everyone was like, oh, OK. So no, I haven't heard much about when to expect more information. So we'll keep our ears posted. It kind of has to be within the next 68, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because if they don't change it, people were, I feel like we're being smart and staying on the timeline for the fall. But other towns might get behind if they don't start that process. So and I guess one other announcement, too, for agencies who were funded as part of the 2021 grant, the state did sign our contract. So I will be getting contracts out maybe early next week for a June 1 start date. So just wanted to let folks know while you're on the Zoom poll. So yeah, I think that's all for me. And Gail, if you want to kind of introduce the public hearing. Yeah, so I guess this will start our public hearing part of this meeting. We had set our priorities according to the survey that went out and our top items were housing stabilization, mental health services, support services for youth. And I'm sorry, I don't have the rest of them in front of me. And agencies have been invited to present tonight to speak to our priorities. I don't know how many people you have that are not participants of the committee. But if people present, we're asking that no more than three representatives from each agency speak. And we're going to try to limit the speaking time to three minutes and to be mindful of that time limit. So Ben, I can't, you're the moderator, so you can see. And I know that, see who's coming next. I know that Judith from the Literacy Project needed to go first because she's bringing guests who had time constraints. Mm-hmm. Great, yeah. So there's 11 folks in attendance. And I see a few hands up. I don't see Judith's hands up. 11 in addition to the committee? Yes, yeah. OK, so then we will be pretty tight on the time limit. Yeah, all right. So I'll bring Judith Roberts into talk. Judy should be able to unmute. And thanks for joining us. Hi, can everyone hear me? Can. Yes. Thank you. So first of all, I want to thank the town for the funding, the upcoming cycle that we're about to begin in June. And these funds are very important to the Literacy Project. So I'm going to talk about the priority for adult education. And as I'm sure you all know, the book and the plow are the Amherstown seal. So I'm going to talk about the book part of the seal, although we like the farming community as well. Education, and particularly adult education that's provided by the Literacy Project, is an economic engine for the town of Amherst. We are getting students ready to take and pass what was formerly called the GED and is now called the High Set Test, High School Equivalency Test. So this past year, we had 47 adult students in the Amherst studying five subjects, reading, writing, math, science, and social studies to get ready to pass the High Set. And literacy is really the key to the future for our adult students. And when they attain their education goals, they are better able to support themselves and their families, and thus the whole Amherst, greater Amherst community benefits. So along with studying the five subjects that I mentioned to pass the test, our students also fall in love with reading and writing along the way who wouldn't. And we had a memoir writing project this year. We had some live readings online. And one student said she found her voice and she felt safe for the first time to share her memories. So the writing was really beautiful. One Amherst resident that graduated from the Literacy Project, we call it graduated when you pass your High School Equivalency. He just graduated now from Holyoke Community College with high honors, so we're very proud of him. I would like to introduce Fakira. Is she in the audience? I can't see the audience. Yes. Okay, great. So Fakira is a mother of three and Amherst resident. She is a teaching assistant, full-time worker at Crocker Farm Elementary. And she is also studying for her High Set. 50% of our adult students are working and going to school. And so she's just gonna speak a little bit about the experience that she has had at the Literacy Project. Can you introduce yourself? Probably better than I can, Fakira. Hello to all of you, everyone. I am Fakira Musawi and I'm a student of Literacy Project, Literacy Project. So Literacy Project is one of the best community that I joined it for this community. And I learned a lot of things, and so with three kids, it's not easy to find your way on goals. But Literacy Project always supports me to be strong, to reach for my goals. And then this is the beautiful and great community that I found in Amherst. So with a great community, great teachers and great all-day employee and Literacy Project are doing awesome. And I'm so appreciate what you're doing for us. Thank you so much for all of you. Thank you. Thank you, Fakira. So Judith, we gave everybody three minutes and you're at four, so I'm gonna ask you just to kind of wind it down because we've got a lot of speakers tonight. Okay, thank you, Gail. And thanks to the town. I think we've said what we wanted to say so we really appreciate the town investing in adult education. Thank you, Judith. And thank you, Fakira. It's nice to meet you. You are very welcome. Thank you for all of you. Thank you. All right, Dan. All right, thank you. I'm just gonna go in the order that the hands were raised here. So I'm gonna invite Laura Reichsman into talk. Hello. Hi, Laura. Thanks, everyone, for spending your evening doing this. I really appreciate the committee and Gail. You just got off a plane, so that's heroic. And basic needs are always going to be at the top of what I believe CDBG should be funding because if you don't have the basic needs like food and housing, you can't focus on the other things. It's heartbreaking that CDBG can only fund five because if you're in your house and you want to do better with a better job, how are you gonna do that without literacy? How are you gonna do that without some of the other things that may or may not be seen as priorities? So I would say everything you hear tonight is a priority, which does not help you at all, but I do believe that that is true. Over the course of the last year for our housing retention program, we have served 103 households that without our advocacy would probably not be living in Amherst anymore. And that's the truth of the housing situation in Amherst right now. If you lose your housing, if you're low income and you lose your housing in Amherst, you will not live in Amherst. You will have to live somewhere else. The rents have absolutely skyrocketed. If you know anybody who has looked for an apartment in Amherst or even tried to buy a house in Amherst, you know how astronomical the housing costs are. And that is true for our lowest income folks. So if your section eight is at risk, you are in big trouble because if you have to move out of an Amherst apartment, it's very hard these days if you have a section eight to stay in Amherst. All the landlords have raised their rent, so you are too low. The money that you can pay for a section eight apartment, all rents are higher than that, even South Point, which was always our go-to. And so what we find is a lot of folks who don't have section eights doubling and tripling up. So you have 10 or more folks in a two or three bedroom apartment. So it's really challenging. It's always challenging to be poor and now it's very challenging to be poor and live in Amherst. And that's I think why. That would be my case for why housing retention is just should be at the top of the list because we wanna keep folks in their homes. And the Amherst Housing Authority has really come down hard on folks lately. We have been in more hearings advocating for folks in the last couple of months than we had been in the last two years. So it's been, I don't know if it's because of COVID restrictions lifting. I can't tell you exactly why, but it's been quite extraordinary. We work very closely with community legal aid. Francine Rodriguez, who is our lead on housing retention works very closely with the staff there and we do a lot of advocacy with them. And I think that's just really important and food's really important and literacy is really important and everything you hear tonight is really important. And thank you for having to make hard choices. Laura, thank you so much. Before you sign off, can you just name your organization for the newcomers on the committee? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I just- Maybe I'll know you, but they- Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm Laura Reichsman. I'm the director of Family Outreach of Amherst, which is an agency that's been in Amherst for 32 years and we serve families in any way that they need help. We serve them. But a lot of what we've done last year has been housing retention, a lot of immigrant work. All our caseworkers speak Spanish and immigrants have been disproportionately hit by COVID. And so we've been doing a lot of immigrant services work as well. Thank you, Laura. Yeah, but can I just ask a quick question? Yeah. Laura, when you said that the Amherst Housing Authority has been coming down hard on people, can you be just a little more specific is that around eviction or around violations or living there or what exactly? Yeah, all of the above. We've had, like I said, many, many hearings where they want to take someone section eight, where we're advocating so they don't take the section eight. Here's one example is that we had a client who had did everything she was supposed to do and submitted all of her recertification paperwork in a timely manner. The Amherst Housing Authority was backed up. Our client had started earning, well, her daughter actually was part of her household and her daughter started earning more money. So a full year later, when they determined her rent, they upped her rent and they went back that whole year. And so now she owes thousands of dollars and they say, if you don't pay it, we are going to take away your section eight, even though she did everything right. And there's just case after case recently. I mean, Francine goes to one to two hearings a week these days and if these people lose their section eights, they will be in trouble. So it's been scary, it's been scary. Thank you for that. That's helpful to hear. Thank you. Anybody else have a question for Laura? Oh, thank you for being here tonight, Laura. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. So next in the order here, we have Loretto Ruiz. Hello, everybody. Thank you for having this meeting at CDBG, the CDBG meeting. I'm representing Amherst Community Connections and I've been asked to give a personal statement and I was talking to Wei Ling, who's the director of the organization and asking her, well, what can I say? And she said, bring it from a life experience point of view because I have experienced homelessness, I've experienced a lot of different things but I want to actually begin my statement this way. So I feel that homelessness is actually a misnomer. I believe it's a kind of a false judgment blanket statement for something that we actually know as displacement. And my first displacement was actually having to leave my country of Chile at the age of eight. I turned eight on the plane, fleeing the political torn climate in my country due to military industrial complex violence really, regarding issues of misunderstanding around human rights, equality, education, civil rights, freedom and the necessity for living wages. Also, the reality of appropriation of our lands and the misuse of our natural resources regardless of the consequences that human beings face with the theft of resources and that the ecosystems are facing at the end of the day. So I feel there's a fundamental misconception in the notion that only some can and should inherit the bounties of the earth. I feel that through receiving the gift of life, all learn to share equally and with greater equity. That means we have to receive. So I think that's kind of where we're all at. And the work in ACC, at ACC, one of the focuses has been how can we help service agencies that give the section eight vouchers do so more conscientiously with like a community focus because it's very easy to say, well, the lady in front of the church who's been there for the last five years has been on that list. Oh, she's just a drug addict. She just keeps denying the housing offers because she doesn't want to move away from Amherst. So the idea that there's community identity, I think is a very important concept to bring back into the idea of displaced peoples. Displacement for me is as much, it's a much more efficient and accurate term for the political and social dramas and complexities that we experience as people and people who are also rendered powerless or untouchable in these days of the COVID-19 pandemic in the face of powers that seem entrenched in a system that is making sure that resource distribution and the permanence of ignorance on all levels remain enforced like fences and walls leaving out some of the most valuable participants and figures that can actually help create the kind of world that saints and sages dream about and dare to talk about as well. So that being said, aside from the harrowing displacement of my own personal history of my homeland of Chile on the west coast of South America, I first experienced the fear of homelessness at 18 for rebelling against sort of the system. I decided to get my GED and travel across country and I ended up having to leave my house first because my parents were really upset that I wasn't going to go to college right away and that I didn't want to finish my senior year at Arlington High School. So I was very fortunate to have friends and connections who housed me. Laura, I just have to tell you about a minute left. So I ended up on the beaches of Santa Cruz and got a really massive case of poison oak which I was very lucky to be treated by the free clinics there. And I ended up actually after many years going back several times to the Southwest reservations of the Dene Nation where I got to see the suffering people there, mostly sons experiencing alcoholism and drug addiction and not to mention the poverty but one of the things I experienced was hunger. So, you know, resources is very important and I almost started smoking even though I'm allergic to tobacco because walking through Santa Cruz without a job in the summer as a young woman of 18 I was very grateful to have food stamps which I had at that time which I was actually unable to get in Boston while I was doing part-time study at UMass Boston and I'm working full-time. But I'm sorry, you need to wind it up in the next 10 seconds because we've got a lot of- Yes, yeah, thank you so much. So I've written three manuscripts, one of them in the New York Graduate School after graduating from UMass Boston and UMass Boston is not a Harvard ticket, as you know. And, you know, I believe that I haven't given up on my skills but I also understand what it's like to be a Latina woman here where everything seems to be limiting the voice of those who are really in need and why, you know, helping those in need has become a sort of criminal venture and why advocating for those in need seems to be such a horrible thing is really more where I'm coming from. I think we need to work on the language and allow the voice of the needy and the vulnerable and the broken to come through in a way that makes it so that people can be. And housing obviously is one of those things. And then the first step where that's- The housing, allow me to get to- I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm working on it. So the housing service program at Amherst Community Connections really reaches out to people like myself and others from El Salvador who are deeply, deeply broken in other ways. So I support the work that Wayling is doing at Amherst Community Connections and I support your CDBG for making your choices wisely in a time where peace is of a critical nature. Thank you so much. Great, thank you so much. Great, thank you, Loretta. My name's Loretta, by the way, Ben. It's a L-O-R-E-T-O with an O at the end. Thank you. Okay, thank you. All right, excuse me. Apologize. Okay, great. Next, we have Laurie Millman. Hey, Laurie, if you can welcome and if you can click on mute, you should be able to join us. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm wondering if I can share a screen and share a brief PowerPoint? Can I do that? Can you do it in under four minutes? Absolutely. Okay. You bet. Thanks, of course. So I mean, I just feel that I'm not able to have a student join tonight. Many of our students work at night, so I thought I would just do it briefly. And I guess what I would like to say is... It would be helpful if people would introduce themselves in addition to their organization. I'm sorry. I'm Laurie Millman. Thank you. I'm the director of Center for New Americans. And I guess what I want to start by sharing is that if you look at the Amherst Public School demographics, you'll see that they're more diverse than the state. And that the first line of the population that speaks whose first language is not English is greater than that of the state. And that English language learners are also a large percent of the population. And that gives you an idea of how diverse Amherst is. So what I want to do is speak to the economic development aspect of the board's priorities because although I agree that housing is a critical need and many of our students deal with it, I also know that organizations like the CDBG committee and the United Way often look at a spectrum of need. So the United Way, for instance, when they were doing their strategic planning, they looked at the spectrum of need from people in crisis to people who were becoming stabilized and funded programs all across that. So we teach English because without English people are locked out. And we also offer free childcare. So the children in our childcare program now are Afghan children who are learning not only English, but they're also learning how to get accustomed to American norms as they get ready to go into preschool. And we teach civics, we make it real. We invite our reps in our state center into class every year to help people understand that they do have a voice. Many of our students are Afghan evacuees living in Amherst and we're now starting to welcome Ukrainians. We're also teaching a nursery training. We do this every year in the spring and these are our students who are in the class right now. We celebrate our community's diversity and you can see that the Amherst public schools are represented every year. Many of the Amherst English language learner teachers join us because they think that this is so important and it's this Sunday. We help students get jobs. As I said, many of our students are working at Cooley Dickinson at the Musanti Health Center and also at Amherst Dining Service, Amherst College Dining Services, UMass Dining Services, we put people to work. We are in the process of distributing $46,000 from an emergency relief award that we got again from the Community Foundation and we're paying people's rent and the utilities and we're purchasing a lot of food cards. We're also dealing with a digital divide and giving out tablets and hotspots. We offer citizenship application assistance, immigration legal assistance, we help people get green cards and for the first time ever, we're also doing asylum applications for the Afghan students and we help change lives and we thank you for considering funding us. Thank you, that's it. Thank you, anybody have a question? I didn't ask anybody beforehand questions. No, okay, thanks, Lori. Thank you. Thanks, Lori, and next I'm gonna welcome Lev, Ben, as you're in to speak. No, I was very smart. I'm gonna put the Hispanics in and I'll be... Great, Lev, you should be able to join us. Great, thank you so much. Can I ask the clarifying question before I speak to priorities? Sure. Can you, with the committee, be willing to just share a little bit more about the survey that you mentioned and the priorities that were outlined in that? I just, at least in this moment, I'm not recalling knowing about that survey. So I'm just curious if you could share a little bit more about that. Ben, do you wanna talk about, I mean, you're the one that, I'm kind of the voice and Ben's kind of the one that takes the action, so back under. Yeah, thanks for the question, Lev. So the, let's see, it was probably in late April, maybe a little bit into May, the, we ran a survey through the town's online public engagement portal called Engage Amherst. And the goal of the survey was to solicit feedback from residents about the priorities for the upcoming block grant process, essentially as we're doing tonight. Through the, we did outreach to the, through the schools, through the town's communication office, and got about a hundred responses to the survey, and tabulated the results and shared them with the committee at a meeting last month, I believe. And I think the survey will compliment what's being heard tonight and other feedback we get in terms of priorities for the block grant process, so. Great, thanks so much for that explanation. Yeah, I remember a couple of CBBG meetings ago, the survey being discussed, but I wasn't aware that it had come out or was open. So, thank you for that. I just want to, I just want to interject, Ben, the results available on the Amherst town website? I've not posted them to the website yet. I think there might be a link through the Engage Amherst page, but I can make that more visible on the block grant website. That way everybody can be seen by everyone. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. So I love, go ahead. No, thank you so much. Great, well, I really appreciate all of your participation in the CBBG process. And when I am thinking about the priorities in this process and in terms of needs in Amherst, I'm of course speaking for my vantage point of working at the Amherst Survival Center, where we are connecting with and learning from about 7,000 people annually, most of whom, the vast majority of whom are living with significant economic challenges, challenges making, challenges making end-to-date for a whole variety and host of reasons. And so I really encourage the committee to consider priorities surrounding temporary housing and shelters, supports for people experiencing homelessness, case management and family support, the kind of work that we're really working alongside people, individuals and families to access resources to set goals, to navigate challenges. And I certainly would like to voice my strong opinion that food and nutrition needs to be a top priority for the upcoming CBBG application process. It is definitely concerning to me to hear that that was not identified through the survey responses received, because while I certainly recognize the kind of confirmation bias of the realm in which I work, but the number of people that we're coming in contact with on a regular basis for whom absolutely food and nutrition and their food security is a fundamental challenge and a challenge that because it is in many ways like the most basic of needs, then ripples out and impacts so many other capacities in their lives, whether that's housing stability or access to medical care or ability to maintain work, education, et cetera. I really encourage the committee to address all of the priorities that are identified with a focus on accessibility and equity for our diverse communities and with a strong priority on quality and measurable impact. Looking forward, unfortunately, we know that food insecurity is not only not returning to the already unacceptable pre-pandemic levels, but in fact is rising. I think many of us can relate to the high cost of the grocery store and the gas pump, but many of us in this room may not be familiar with the degree to which those actually render accessing one's basic needs completely inaccessible. The combination of that with the end of pandemic benefits such as the child tax credit and we are seeing record numbers of people at the center, new people registering for the first time, which is demonstrating in real time the significant need in Amherst. Feeding America estimates that last year, food insecurity was still 25% higher than 2019 in Hampshire County and 43% higher among kids. That is one in 10 county residents and more than one in nine kids. And what we know is that poverty and food insecurity are more than twice as high in Amherst than the county as a whole, potentially as high as 25 to 30%. There are more people that are struggling and the challenges they are facing are deeper. Just in the last two months, March and April of 2022, the Amherst survival center saw more people in the food pantry than we have at any other time in our history other than Thanksgiving of 2020. Over these last two months, we exceeded in both months this year's November numbers, which are always our busiest month by far. We have served more than 9,000 prepared meals each month, something that we had only done in four other months ever at various surges in the pandemic. And similarly, we've seen more than a 25% increase in the number of visits to our fresh food distribution that provides daily access to produce and bread, numbers that we haven't seen since the very early days of the pandemic. So from our road on the ground, there is enormous food insecurity need and it is rising. I have certainly mentioned in the past. I'm gonna, you're almost at time, so I'm gonna ask you to wind it down please. Great, thank you so much, my apologies. Thank you to the committee for considering this very important priority along with and throughout all priorities, the emphasis on equity and quality, accessibility for our diverse and our accessibility for our diverse communities. I really appreciate your consideration. Thank you, Lev. Anybody have a question? All right, thank you again. To confirm, I did check again, Ben, and I did find on the engageammerist.org website, there is a link to CDBG and then to the survey results. So those are available publicly. Okay, thank you, Matt, for your sleuthing. That's the convenient thing about Zoom. I can multi-task much better than if I were at, you know. All right, Ben, who's up next? Yep, thank you. Next we have Susan Nicastro from Big Brother's Big Sisters. Thanks so much. Hi, everyone, as Ben said, I'm Susan Nicastro and I'm the director of Big Brother's Big Sisters of Hampshire County. Thank you so much for all of the wonderful work that has been happening on an ongoing basis with the CDBG funding and it's been a critical source of funding for our mentoring programs. And I just wanted to speak to the ongoing importance of and the great need that's more, we see that need more than ever now, the need for our children and youth, especially at risk children and youth in Amherst to have access to high quality mentoring. And that is the focus of what we do at Big Brother's Big Sisters of Hampshire County. I think we're seeing the risk factors that have really been amplified in children and youth through the pandemic and all of the family turmoil and the increased disconnection that so many children and youth have experienced over the pandemic. And the need for mentoring is just critical and just more important than ever to promote connection and relationship with kids who are most vulnerable. And that's what we're addressing. And we're hoping that mentoring will continue to be an area of investment for CDBG. Again, the impact that we see mentoring having on so many areas and so many outcomes for children and families of the children that we serve, we're focused on mentoring, but we're also providing support and referrals to the families as well. And we know that mentoring has demonstrated to show that kids who have mentors are less likely to start using drugs and alcohol are most more likely to stay engaged in school, have an increased sense of self-esteem, a more positive view of their future and so many other benefits of mentoring. So I just urge you to continue to consider prioritizing mentoring when you're making decisions about funding priorities for CDBG. And we're incredibly grateful for the support that we've received over the years at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County. So thank you so much for everything that's been shared at this meeting tonight and really appreciate your time and your listening. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Susan. Anybody have a question for her? For Susan from Big Brothers Big Sisters, okay. Thank you. Thanks. All right, so next up, it's Amherst Community Connections. I'm guessing it's Huiling. Thank you very much. This is Huiling Guini from the Amherst Community Connections. I would like to second what my previous speakers had been asking you that all the functions mentioned in this meeting so far, whether it's supporting the youth mentoring program, Big Brothers Big Sisters, or the food function carried out so well by the Amherst Survival Center or family outreach of Amherst who help families stay housed. These are all very important functions. And I just wish that there was enough money to go around to support all the important work that we are doing. And the feeling of trying to edge others out in order to fund my agency, Amherst Community Connections, it feel terrible. And I wish we could do something to make our work visible and everybody fund it. So with that said, I do want to remind the committee members that housing is the basis of all things worthy living to develop yourself in order to exercise your potential and in order to enjoy the basic life, having food on the table, roof over your head without housing, all these things are impossible to get. So Amherst Community Connections mission is one and one and only, which is that we believe housing is the solution to homelessness. So our work focus on nothing but housing itself. So we have the good fortune this year, three people I want to use that as example to highlight why housing plays such an important part in their lives. One, the names I'm using, they are not the real names. First one, for example, is Willie. He is an African-American in his 60s. But because of a traffic violation, he was under the, he was being put in jail until he paid the bail. And because he has a part-time job to pay his rent and he is in jail, so he cannot get to work and pay the rent based on eviction. So that's one thing we realize the importance, African-Americans, people of color, their ability to pay bail is not good. So the first thing we did was we raised funds to help pay the $250 bail money to get him out of jail. So today I'm happy to report that he is able to get back to his janitorial job and make a little bit of money, pay his rent, which is coming due in two weeks. And a second example is a grandmother who is in his late 60s, a few years older than me. Let's call him Allison. She and her grandson, who is 16, will be 16 in two weeks. And the grandson has been accepted to UMass Study prestigious computer science program. But in order for her to get a job while paying 80% of her social security toward rent, she has to have a Massachusetts driver's license because she moved up here from Florida. And because she doesn't have the $115 to pay the license transfer fee, she is not able to get a job. So we help her raise the funds. And today I'm happy to report to you because of the $115 we were able to raise, she went down to the RMV office. She did her driver's license. So in 10 days, she will be able to get a real driver's license and she will be able to start working as that 68-year-old grandmother. And the third example is... Thank you, Lika. Wait a minute. Your time is nearing. And so I'm gonna ask you to come down. So I will use these two examples to demonstrate that housing is very important. And we focus on housing. Whatever is in the way of stabilizing your housing, we are here to help. And sometimes you have to be very non-conventional. You have to look at the upstream reasons that prevent one from having access to housing is because of the other obstacles. So in the work that we do, we have to be smart and we have to be efficient, but also we have to be very dedicated. So with the same heartfelt appreciation for all my fellow agencies, we are here together to knit the social fabric, safety net for all the families who are struggling. With that, I salute to you all. Thank you. Thank you, Weiling. Any questions for Weiling and the committee? Okay. All right, thank you. Next, I'm gonna invite into the meeting Sarah Sargent. Hi everyone. Thanks for all being on here late at night. Appreciate all the work you do. I'm Sarah Sargent with Valley CDC. I'm the Small Business Program Manager. And we have been a recipient of CDBG funds previously as well as we helped facilitate several of the COVID grants that the town had. We understand that as small businesses as we're coming hopefully out of this pandemic that COVID relief programs are for businesses will become less and less. So what we are still doing on a daily basis is meeting with the low to moderate income business owners, immigrant and refugee business owners to work with them to maintain their business, stabilize it or help it grow. We have a main focus on trying to help them retain the current jobs that they provide to the community as well as creating more as people start to continue spending money at this time. The other thing is that we have recently in the past here have developed a curriculum, a financial literacy curriculum that is specific to non-native English speakers that is focused on business literacy. We have done that in partnership with the International Language Institute and had over 50 students participate in January and February and we have another cohort that is running right now. We are finding that many of our immigrants and refugees that are coming here have actually owned businesses in the past and they're looking to try and determine how they're looking to learn how to do that here. And as we know, language can be quite a barrier. So between working with other agencies that are providing English language training as well as then taking another step in trying to help them with understanding business terminology. So I couldn't agree more with all of the agencies are here and that there's only so much money to go around. But we are looking again to potentially be a grantee of CDBG funds to try and continue to help those in the load of moderate income, immigrants and refugees elevate their incomes so that they are no longer needing assistance for being displaced or food stamps, et cetera. So again, thank you for your time and I just appreciate all the support you guys have given to everybody so far. Thank you, Sarah. Questions, anybody? Okay, thank you. Great, next up, it's Western Mass RC Zoom. Not sure who that is, but if you could just say your name. Hi, this is Lydia Vernon Jones. Hi. And I have a comment not about the social services, but about other parts of the funding. Is this a good time for that? Yes, yeah. Tonight's meeting is not just about social services. It's about all aspects of the grant. Thank you. All right. Excuse me, Lydia. We're just asking people to limit their comments, you know, not three to four minutes, please. Great. Okay. Yes. My name is Lydia Vernon Jones. I've lived in Amherst since 1981, raised two children here and I am currently married to one of our former elementary school principals. I retired as a social worker in the fall that Trump was elected because my concern for the wellbeing of the planet was greater than my concern for the families my agency was helping. As a social worker, I have paid attention to how CDBG funds have been spent to increase social services in Amherst and thank you for continuing to figure out how to help these programs. I am here today to say that you have a wonderful opportunity to move us forward on helping Amherst to take responsibility for Amherst's carbon footprint. Excuse me, Lydia, do you have a, is there a television or a radio? Well, there is, hang on. We're challenging to hear you clearly. Which vehicles are ready for me? At this point, we could finesse the issue by seven. Sorry. Thank you. Other people are at other meetings here. Let's see. I think you have a wonderful opportunity to move us forward on helping Amherst to take responsibility for Amherst's carbon footprint by thinking with a climate lens when thinking about every proposal that is made, whether it's a social service money or buildings or economic development. In thinking about proposals that should be, and also think about proposals that should be made that fit within the guidelines set out by the federal government. Early in 2019, the town council created an energy and climate action committee. The charge was adopted, a climate plan was written with the help of outside consultants. And this was approved, the plan was approved in June of 2021. From my point of view, things stalled there with no energy director, no concrete timelines or priorities set. As a town, we are looking at the library plan costing more, the elementary school costs rising. It's important that any funds that can be accessed from outside Amherst be used to meet the climate action goals. I do not come with a proposal, but with a few asks. I ask that you invite an experienced member or two from the ECAC committee to come to educate you about the plan. And you use them as consultants for your committee. I was involved in the creation of the zero net energy by-law. We need a by-law that requires every purchase, expenditure, rental, et cetera, in Amherst be looked at through a climate lens with a penalty for non-compliance. Until then, we need to depend on committees and departments to take on that lens. I ask that you ask hard questions about the carbon footprint of every proposal, that you look at how communities in Massachusetts that are at the forefront of climate change spend their CDBG money. Thank you. Thank you. Can you just, you mentioned Lydia, ECAC, can you just spell out? Yeah, the Energy and Climate Change Committee, which is a committee of the town council. And they have a website or they have a... Energy and Climate Change Committee? Yes. Okay, thank you. And they have, it's on the town website. Yeah, they're a committee. Great, thank you. They have plans on the website and then, yeah. Okay, thank you so much. You're welcome. Great, thank you. And so that's it for folks who put their hands raised. I guess if there's anyone further who would like to make a comment, feel free to click the raise hand button. Again, that's at the, should be at the bottom of your screen. Looks like we're good then. Again, we're also talking about not just about social service priorities, but non-social service priorities, such as housing and public infrastructure projects and also target areas for the infrastructure projects where in town are the priority areas. Then there's a map, right? That we've looked at before to select the priority areas. Is that something that you can put up and maybe we could, I mean, I know in the survey, South Amherst was sort of far away the area identified by the survey respondents. Yeah, I'm trying to find that now. Sorry, I didn't have it up. The target areas now are East Amherst, South Amherst around Palmyroy Village Center and downtown Amherst. Sorry, I can't find it quickly. I actually just reworked the website to reflect the new grant process and now I forgot where I put things. One question I have is, my memory of the map is that we had that the town is obviously divided into these regions. Is South Amherst a very specific area? Could we make South Amherst bigger? I mean, I'm not sure what, I think when people say South Amherst, I'm not always sure exactly actually what we're talking about. And I wonder, I assume that on the map, South Amherst means something very specific. Yeah, the South Amherst target area was specifically around like the, what we call the Palmyroy Village Center, so like Mission Cantina and that area then extending up to the apartment neighborhood on East Adley Road with the boulders and Mill Valley and South Point. I mean, it was interesting because looking at the survey, the two, it was pedestrian safety and South Amherst were the two highest rate debtors, but I'm not sure that those two things actually, like, you know, blend. Right. There needed to be more pedestrian safety in that particular area. So I wasn't really sure what to do about that as we think about target areas. And obviously we don't even know if there'll be a grant with pedestrian safety as it's addressing right now. Is the sidewalk project moving along and almost completed from the apartment complexes on East Adley Road to 116 and then up to Groth Park? Yep, yeah, so the sidewalk extends to 116 and then this summer the contractors will be finishing that off and putting a sidewalk along Mill Lane to bring people to Groth Park. So that's from a grant from a prior year. Yeah, exactly. And then I feel like the sidewalks that we funded, my recollection of were in the center of town, right? In the last cycle that we just did. Yeah, that was on Kellogg Avenue near the post office. That'll be happening also this summer. I mean, does that answer your question, Becky? Yeah, I mean, without looking at a map, I can't really. Yeah, sorry. I hadn't even, I hadn't thought about it before the meeting where I would have given Ben a heads up. Can I ask a question just along a different vein in that with your conversation regarding the timing for the cycle, will the amount that were typically awarded stay the same this year? Or is there any indication that it would be more or less? There's indications that could be more, funds available and that it might actually combine the 2022 and 2023 grants. So it'd be delayed to March and then combining the next two years into one grant. And I think, yeah, it would be, typically we get around 825,000 and they're talking more in the 1.35 to 1.5 range. So that's what I've heard as of now, but there's, I haven't, you know, I haven't heard anything whether that, whether we're still limited to the five agencies and three infrastructure projects or not, but so still to be determined, I guess. And if it overlaps into the next cycle, does that mean like a year gets skipped? I don't, I don't, I don't totally know what they mean by combining the 22 and 23 cycles, whether that's my sense is it means they'll just push everything back to the start to have this new March cycle. I don't know if that means they'll skip a year or whether they're just kind of combining them together. I'm not sure. Okay. It's frustrating. Yeah. Okay. So we're gonna end the community participation now and are there more things that we wanna talk about as a result of what we've heard? Well, yeah, so I had for the agenda, you know, we had the public hearing portion of the agenda and then, you know, when we're ready we can close the public hearing and then move into the more public meeting portion where we can kind of discuss and deliberate and debrief. So is there anybody else left to possibly raise their hand or everyone who's here has spoken, Ben? Yeah, everyone who's here has spoken. Okay. So I think it's safe to say we can conclude the public hearing part of this meeting and move on to the public meeting part. Yeah. A tad redundant. So, you didn't send out an agenda, so I'm not sure what else we have left. I just wanna make sure we're not gonna leave out anything. Yeah, sorry. So for the agenda, I just had can bring that up shortly. Sorry. The, I was just an announcement and then if we wanted to, here it is, sorry. I'll just share my screen here. Then we went through the public hearing, oops. And then for the agenda, I think I've made all the announcements I need to make. And then if we wanna discuss and review comments from the public hearing, criteria, target areas, and then if there's any additional public comment. So, I think it's somewhat unstructured if we just wanna talk about what was heard tonight and kind of the next steps. Okay. Do we wanna just go around and everybody does a debrief or do people just wanna participate if they, not to put people on the spot or people just wanna let us know what they think or comments on people's presentations. Should we just kind of go around? Yeah. Okay. So I'm gonna start with Gregory. Any comments, suggestions as to what you heard this evening? I have a question. The third item on the public meeting was discuss review criteria and being new first meeting and listening to folks. I was wondering what the criteria is for the review. And I was hoping that we would go through that during this part of the meeting and discuss that, because I'm not sure what criteria to be using other than what the regs say, what's eligible, what's not, et cetera. Right. Yeah. I can find what we used for criteria for previous years. And I think makes sense to kind of use that as a basis. And then, so essentially the criteria, so I guess, yeah, backing up a little bit, the committee develops an RFP and part of that RFP includes, what are the priorities that are included that are the committee is seeking to fund each year, but then also the criteria by which proposals are evaluated. And so, I guess it's a little bit, maybe getting ahead of ourselves to develop the criteria. I think the priorities are maybe the priority in this case, but the criteria will be developed, as we work on the RFP, but I think it makes sense to, we should look at those. And I'm trying to find the RFP from last year because I think that would be helpful. Greg, just to be clear, so essentially it's the, I know we talked about this the other night, it's the categories, food and security, housing, mental health services for kids, youth development, all those categories are the criteria. And so, it's our opportunity to decide whether we want to limit the kinds of programs that we wanna look at or expand or keep exactly what we've looked at in the past. And if we look at the survey that we did, whether we want to use that as a tool as we're determining what categories, and I'm not suggesting this, we're sort of noting that, for example, on the survey, economic development I think was at the very bottom of the list of people's priorities. So would we look at the survey and say, given the incredible need and the community speaking in this voice and saying economic development is not a priority right now, would we decide right now, that's just, let's just take that off the table for this round and look at housing and food and youth services or whatever we would put in instead. Well, I didn't mean to jump the gun or anything on this, but what was confusing to me is the item number two and item number three, because item number two says, discuss and review comments from the public hearing, and then it says discuss review criteria. And I thought that meant to discuss review criteria for the public hearing, not for what's eligible, so I didn't mean to jump that far ahead in the process, but to think about what do we look for other than to understand what folks see as the priority and need in the community. Is there any other criteria that we use in terms of listening to folks in the public hearing? What else are we looking for in terms of getting information? That was my question. So I think we're sort of relying on this survey to be the North Star to guide us. However, the comments tonight always are impactful and give us a more detailed insight as to what organizations needs are. So I think we consider what we've heard tonight, we look at it and reflect and then think what we've heard in relation to what the survey has established. And, you know, Lev was talking a lot about accessibility and equity, and that's something that we hadn't had in the past as our criteria. And so we're moving towards being more inclusive as to what people suggest. And I think that we are good at listening and good at responding. So I hope that answers your question. So Gail, isn't it correct? Sorry, go ahead. We had, I thought that we had equity as a, not as a priority, but it was one of the criteria that needed to be in every proposal, right? And so we talked about having it be a priority, but then determined it actually made more sense to have it just across the board that it was something that we wanted every organization to talk about. Right, and that's something new to this year that we weren't as, we hadn't been as mindful of in the past. So that's why I was kind of trying to explain that we've added that in. Yes, every grant proposal should request equity. So we were trying to factor that into the proposals to the RFP. Can I add that? Can I add that to the RFP? Oh, sorry, go ahead, Rika. We did have a really good discussion about the criteria and all of this. And I don't, I mean, I was like looking to see if I was taking notes tonight but I couldn't find notes from that meeting. Are there notes that we could reference? I don't know how that works. Yeah, there should be meeting minutes. So I guess that was probably maybe this time last year, maybe a little bit earlier than this year. Yeah. Do you mean just the meeting we just had? Rika, when we were talking about it? Not tonight's meeting, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but the one from last month, when we talked about the survey result? I felt like it was longer. I think it was longer. Yeah, that's my recollection. Yeah. Where we talked about, yeah, I mean, should, you know, diversity and equity be a priority or should it be integrated into all the proposals? I feel like that was much longer ago than last month. We had a meeting in January, and I have notes from January, that, you know, about equity and diversity and the quality of services to be talked about and that we were talked also about shifting priorities from year to year. So we did have a meeting on January 20th, and I do have some scribbled notes from them, but there would also be, it sounds like formal meeting minutes. Yeah. So that might be something just to share with everybody to refresh us. And maybe we should get those as part of the meeting package with this link and the agenda and the minutes going forward so we can kind of, because we don't meet on that regular basis and it's good for all of our memories to be refreshed before we sit down. Yeah, absolutely. Ben, but I can find those online though, the minutes. Yeah, if you go to the Block Grant website. Yeah, I just confirmed that they're there at January 20th, 2022. There's a little bit of gap, I don't know, maybe there weren't minutes being taken in 2020 or haven't uploaded them yet. Oh, no, they're at the bottom, that's just not sorted. Yeah, Nate is. Okay, yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm sure we do we sort of answer your questions. Yes, that's so cool. Thank you. Okay, Suzanne. Well, my question was if, you know, we identify priorities, but we put out an RFP and an organization applies and it doesn't meet with the priorities, but it resonates with the committee. What happens in that case? Or has that happened? Well, I think we still take it into consideration right now. I mean, we don't exactly say no to anybody. And we have a, and I don't know at your orient, you know, what you, we have a scoring system. So, and that kind of helps sort out for us on a scale, how we judge the RFPs. So the grant application. So that helps us sort things out, but I don't think that there's a category on, I can't remember if there was a category on a score sheet that addresses the priorities, but we never say no to our grant proposal. You like the mobile food market, that was new last year. And that was addressing food insecurity. And, but it wasn't, but it was it had a different format than other typical food distribution organizations. And they came in and applied. And there are also ways for organizations who apply and don't end up getting funding. They usually get a little coaching afterwards through Ben and Nate who is his predecessor to help them figure out, you know, how to make the grants more, I wouldn't say written better, but addressing the questions in a more direct manner and helping to helping these organizations who may never have applied for CDBGU funding, understand how to be more to the point in their applications and... Well, we also look at viability first off, whether what they're asking to be able to do is reasonable. But if they can actually do it. So that's the first thing. The ability to carry out the program, yeah. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I feel like a lot of this is gray for, you know, it's black and white, but there are gray areas, but we do have a structure to the whole... There's a structure and it becomes pretty obvious as you, as you wait in. That was my experience. Anybody else have comments from what we've just heard, Rika? Well, you know, I guess the main takeaway, my main takeaway from tonight is that, you know, and I'm certainly aware of this on my own as well, but the needs are increasing across the board and that it's not going, you know, it's going to continue to be a very difficult challenge to award limited funds to so many worthwhile projects. And, you know, what they were talking, sort of looking at my notes here, what they were talking about tonight. You know, they're the priorities. They're the priorities we're aware of and we know we want to fund and we'll do the best we can. So it was helpful and formative. Appreciate the commitment and the passion all of the speakers demonstrated. It'll be a tough year. I mean, it'd be nice if we did have a lot more money and maybe not quite so restricted, but time will tell. Thanks. It's great. It's all true. Nat, any comments on what we've heard? Yeah, I thought that the messages from the familiar agencies were, you know, familiar messages, but it was good to hear the updates, you know, because things do change from year to year and, you know, good to hear things like where the new immigrants are coming from, you know, what the, you know, what food insecurity or housing insecurity looks like today because it's a little bit different from, you know, what it was a year ago. So I was going to hear things like that. I think the only new perspective maybe was the, you know, the climate change perspective and that's something that I think we're all very much aware of and, but that's also a good reminder of, you know, an important issue. So I thought it was a good session with good information, very helpful. Thanks. Lucas? I don't really have much to add. Again, I, you know, it was good to hear from everybody and to get some feedback about what's going on on the ground from the people actually engaged in these activities. I thought that was very useful, but yeah. Thanks. Becky, thank you, Lucas. Thank you. Yeah, I would echo everything everybody said. And I wonder, actually, I thought that, that Lydia's suggestion that we hear from a committee member and I don't have the acronym up in front of me, but the, the committee, I thought that was an interesting idea and it made me, I think that's a good idea. I also wondered if there were other committees, I mean, given particularly if the grant timing is pushed off until March and we have some more time that we could kind of do some listening to, you know, for work that's already being done in town and certainly hear from that committee and determine whether there are any other committees that it would be helpful to hear from, you know, to just have a better sense of what's going on, you know, going forward. And I would, I didn't want to just say, I think I sensed a little bit of, I was just going to address one thing that Lev said, you know, noting I think when she looked at the survey seeing that, that food insecurity was sort of lower on the list and I wanted, because I don't think that she was at our last meeting when we were discussing that I wanted just to say to say, again, one of the topics that we discussed or ideas that we had was that it was possible that because the survival center is so present and does such an incredible job in town that people might not think of food insecurity as an area that needs to be filled, you know, that needs to be addressed because they're there doing that work and that we didn't look at the survey and necessarily look at it and say, oh, then we're not going to think about giving money to food organizations that that wasn't how we looked at that survey and I wanted to just assure her that that wasn't what we came away from the survey thinking. Great, thanks for sharing. I also can't recall any meetings going back from the time I've been on the committee and I think I'm the longest serving person on the screen right now that we've ever brought anybody in to talk about exactly what else is going on in town, what issues should be addressed within the priorities. So could we, Ben, invite someone in from the ACAC to a future meeting just to give them some airtime and tell us about what's going on and what things we might look for in grant proposals that to be addressed or maybe we add that to the RFP. So the town has a more global reach where funding money, yes, housing, yes, food insecurity, yes, youth mentoring, yes, education, literacy, but bringing in the climate considerations since that's first and foremost on everybody's minds because it'll be 93 this weekend and it's only May. I know. Is that possible to bring somebody in and do kind of an orientation so we can understand what the committee does and how it could possibly integrate in their priorities into our priorities and going forward? Yeah, I think that would be possible. I would probably talk to, the town has a sustainability coordinator, Stephanie Chicarello, who does a really wonderful job and I agree we could definitely have probably three Stephanie's and still not get all of our climate initiatives done, but I can talk to Stephanie about coordinating PCAC's work with the block grant program and trying to find overlap. I mean, as you all know, there's a lot of considerations for when you're spending block grant money in terms of directly serving low and moderate income individuals, having a program needs to be like an expansion of an existing program. I can't supplement additional existing funds. So there's kind of all these things that need to be considered that the agencies we do fund do a really good job of implementing. And so I would just, it's about finding the right fit I guess for the funds that can be used to serve a sustainability purpose. However, I mean, there are the infrastructure projects which are still need to serve low and moderate income individuals. But I think maybe that's where we could look to find a project that could have more of a climate impact. Yeah, and I thought I sort of understood what Lydia to be saying was sort of addressing those town projects more than necessarily the social service ones, but also not that it would really be necessarily about a particular project, but just how to look at all the applications that are coming in through that climate lens, sort of educating us on that. And I would also add that it might make another presentation that would probably be helpful for us would be sort of in the diversity equity area and whether another, I think there's a new diversity, a DEI person you just hired in the last couple of weeks, I think in Amherst. So I think it's a woman was gonna say that she might not be quite ready to come and present, but that might be another area where it would be great to use this time for education. Absolutely. So the other question I had was based on the uncertainty of the timetable going forward, what are we thinking about for our next meeting and kind of next steps here? It seems like we need to keep going forward assuming that there will be a fall schedule, but what would that look like, do you think? I would suggest kind of to stay on track that we have another meeting and maybe three or four weeks. At least schedule one? Yeah, at least schedule one, that would be more of a public meeting to kind of develop the kind of continued debriefing from today's hearing and to develop the RFP and consider the criteria and priorities. And if I can get it together, I could also either talk to Stephanie and sustainability coordinator, or if they feel like they're ready, like set up a meeting, have that be something of a joint meeting, yep. Yeah, just a quick question. What is the, is there a minimum timeframe for scheduling a public meeting? Like you have to give notice of some fashion, right? Oh yeah, so for public meeting is just 48 hours. Oh really? Yeah. If it's a public hearing for like a zoning matter, then it's a 14 day notice, but... Okay. I just was curious if there would be some issue with scheduling a meeting and then if we hear something from them, that we had to immediately have some lag there. Yeah, no, luckily public meetings are just 48 hours. So that makes it easier to schedule and reschedule. Well, maybe at that meeting, we could plan it to be sort of about the RFP and if we could also have a presentation or a conversation with the sustainability person and maybe the DEI person sort of planning on 20 minutes for each of those-ish and then a conversation about priorities and criteria. Does that feel like too much to do in one night? I think we do usually try to keep it to like an hour and a half at the most. Yeah. It's doable. I mean, I don't think that they need to really present even just having somebody on for five minutes and just telling us what their priorities are would be useful. You know, I don't really know how much we're going to be able to do about climate change. I mean, I guess there's food waste is a big one in that analysis, but I mean, the social services stuff doesn't seem to, that seems to be at the largest portion of our time. But the infrastructure projects, you know? Yeah, yeah, of course. I think that's a great idea, Becky. Yeah, I like the idea of having someone actually do a little presentation for us because I liked the way you were framing it as using that lens and that would be helpful to me, I know. And even actually just because since all the projects, the infrastructure projects already come from Amherst, obviously like is there to know what is the foundation, the climate principles that the bidding happens on? I mean, whatever it would just be good to know that probably. And if it turns out that they're all great and it's not something that we need to think about because they're all being done in some, in the best environmental way they can, that's great. And if it turns out they're not, that would be really useful to know. Or even a consideration of materials like when Watson farms need to be resided, like, you know, are we using sustainable materials and then residing projects for different housing developments or roofing materials? So I think that's, I think it just makes us more considerate in what we're, as we're reading, and we're asking for information. And to Ben's point, it may not impact what we're asking for from the social service organizations. It's much more about the infrastructure piece. You know, so, and it's true, we spend way more time talking about the social services than we generally do about the infrastructure. So. But the infrastructure takes up the bulk of the money. Right, exactly. So it's pretty important. Exactly. Okay. Any other comments? So Ben, are you gonna, since I'm not gonna be here in another two weeks, I'm gonna leave it in everybody's good hands to have continuity on the suggestions that are put forth tonight. Absolutely. Yeah, I've been taking notes. So this meeting will live on forever. So Ben, can I have one to ask one more question before we go? I know I've raised it before and I thought it was not possible, but we saw tonight that it was, is to have an actual person instead of a screenshot when people present. So when the woman, Fakriya, I think, from the literacy project presented, she was right there. And we didn't just have to make sure our blank screen. Is that something that we can think about or something about? Yeah, no, I wish it could be done. So with that individual, I brought her in as a panelist because I got a message saying she had an outdated version of Zoom and that she couldn't be brought in as an attendee for some reason. So the issue with bringing folks in as panelists is, there's two things. One, we've been advised from the town not to do that, just because of Zoom bombing incidents, which I've been a part of and are very, very unpleasant for everyone. And when someone's brought in as a panelist, it's a lot harder to kick them out than an attendee. So that's reason, that's kind of the main reason, I guess. So it's just, and I've been Google, I've been trying to figure out like why can't, and I've been Googling here, trying to figure out why attendees can't have their videos being shown. And I don't, it's just one of those things with Zoom. So I definitely feel bad about it because it feels impersonal, but I don't know if there's much we can do. Is it because where the format's not a Zoom meeting, but it's a webinar and then the webinar kind of divides up between panelists and attendees and what capacities they each have. So maybe if it wasn't in webinar and it was a regular Zoom meeting, but I think because of the town's requirements, we can't do that. Exactly, yeah. I know the town council is going through the same thing. Or like I think considering like petitioning Zoom or something for better abilities, because it is a shame, I think. Yeah. But when we get back to meeting in person, we won't have that issue. But on the flip side, we will have the issue where it's less accessible, right? People actually have to come in person if that's the only way. So it's hard to kind of have everything, but. Yep, okay. So my computer froze for some reason for a little bit. So I didn't hear if there was a next date on the calendar or you're waiting to hear back from the state to figure that out. I'd appreciate getting something on the calendar just so we have it. One, two. I would say they're June 9th or 16th if we want to continue with the Thursdays. Mike? I can't do either of those. June 10th is high school graduation. So that's kind of the moment first, I guess one of us. And I'm going to be away the 16th. Okay. Would a Tuesday meeting work for folks? June 7th possibly or June 14th? I could do the 7th. I couldn't do the 14th. You'll be away, yeah. I'll leave the morning at the 15th. Yeah, 7th. 23rd too late. Great for me. Great or too late, Becky? Great. Great, yeah. I think my presence might be required at a town council meeting that night. But in theory, that might be done by 530 so I could do both take the Friday off or something. That seems good. And the other thing about pushing it a month out is it might be more convenient but more conducive to bringing in a guest when they have a month's notice as opposed to three weeks. If that's the way we want to go in the next meeting to bring in Stephanie to brother. Okay. June 23rd. I don't know if my term ends June 1 or June 30. It's June 30th. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so we're on for June 23rd. Yeah. Okay. All right. And then you'll reach out to Stephanie. Yep. Okay. And then obviously if you have news from the state prior to that, it'll be part of the agenda so we have something kind of hard and fast to rely on. Yeah, exactly. As well as scheduling. Then we create a schedule going forward. Yep. Okay. Exactly, yeah. And then, okay, let's say you're at discretion because it's a public meeting but we have public comment on the agenda for the public meeting portion and there's two hands raised. Okay. Do we want to go forth if people can keep it exceedingly brief? Like I just, you know, a minute or two? Yeah. Okay, thanks. Okay. All right, sounds good. So we have, I think, yeah, it's Lydia, Brennan Jones. Okay. Yeah, thank you. I just want to say about the Zoom meetings I interviewed people in both Greenfield and Northampton. They have open Zoom meetings. Everybody sees who's at the meeting. Everybody knows who gets, you know, everything is visible and has been the whole time. Under COVID, Amherst is very unusual that we have a system. Well, I would encourage you to push against it. But I also, I just raised my hand to see how to communicate with your committee. There are things I could send you from HUD that might help you on the climate issue about how to spend the money. I would love to be able to send things. Should I send them to the chair or individuals on the committee? You can send them to me and I'll distribute them to the committee members. Thank you. Thank you, Lydia. Any other comment and the other person? And then Lydia, my email is available on the town's website or on the, you know, the meeting link for this meeting if you can't find it. Thanks. All right, I think we're good. And there's somebody else, Ben. No, it's just Lydia's hand again. All right. Before she got off, I wanted to ask when she says she's attended meetings in other towns, visit of the town council, the city council, what type of meeting. Right. That has a different zoom format than we do. I was kind of curious. Yeah. Well, I'll talk to my colleagues about that. I assume it's still a town policy. Yeah. I don't know. Okay. And any unanticipated, what's the category? Not anticipated within 48 hours. Anything else coming up? Nope. Just like usual, waiting to hear something from the state seems to be there. Okay. So on for June 23rd and we're still zoom. That's a decision that the town has made. Yeah. I mean, we can meet in person is just we have the ability to meet via zoom until July 1st, unless that is extended. So, you know, technically, you know, since it's not a public meeting or public hearing, it'll just be more internal discussion. You know, we could meet in person. I haven't heard of any committees meeting in person, but... Heard of any meeting? Not really. None of my colleagues are doing in person meetings right now. But except for town council, there's a hybrid form there. But... Could we just like play it by ear and maybe make a decision in June 1st or something? Yeah. How do people feel about it before I just have, do people, it would be really nice to meet in person. Yeah. Anybody feel that strongly when we were another? I like... It would be really nice, but I also feel like cases are going up so much. I don't know. It is very convenient to do this. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. So much of my life is on zoom. I doesn't feel that much different from meeting in person. I mean, you don't have a little side chats, you know, and that's too bad. But I also just, I can't imagine that it wouldn't, I mean, for other people who want to just come and observe the meeting or just kind of have it on. I just think zoom makes everything so much more accessible for people, but obviously if we vote to do it in person, I'll be there. Okay. Anybody else have an opinion? Suzanne Gregory? I was just gonna say, I mean, if the purpose of the meeting is to really work out the RFP and the priorities, sometimes that kind of work can be easier in person if you're, I don't know how your process has been in the past, but are you writing stuff out? Are you bulletting things? Are, you know, is it easier for people to see but this format, like others have said, it's very accessible. And this is where I live a lot of the time of the day. So it's certainly easy. Thanks, Gregory. Do you have an opinion? I don't have a preference either way, but be fine with me. Okay. Thank you. Whatever the committee wants to do. Nat? I guess my experience on the committee is that it has been good to have in-person meetings, although it's been a while, but who knows where case counts are going and if as we get closer, it doesn't seem as comfortable. Maybe that's a different situation, but at this point, I would certainly be comfortable and would be happy to have an in-person meeting. I think it would help the committee. And we can be masked, you know, we can be separated if we meet in town, upstairs in the town hall, there's plenty of room and open the windows. I mean, I think that there's definitely enough space to keep us separated. Lucas? I don't have an opinion. I'm happy to do anything. Wow. Whatever. I wish I were married to you. My life would be so much easier. All right. So can we just wait until like June 1st? I mean, that's two weeks. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Again, we don't need to, you know, I think for the benefit of members of the public, we should post the, you know, or let folks know about the meeting location, maybe a week out or something, but technically we don't need to post it until 48 hours before. But so we can, you know, definitely check in closer to the day. I'll make a note right now, a question mark in-person. Okay. I'm kind of assuming that if you hear something, we're probably going to meet relatively quickly at that point. Sorry. Yeah. If it's extended until March. Well, if it's the fall though, we're probably going to have to go. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions or comments? No? All right. Can I make a motion to adjourn the meeting? I thought this is very productive and I think it was, it's great, always great to hear from organizations about what they're doing and what their concerns are, especially with COVID and the refugee crisis and the challenges they face. So I think it's really helpful to have these meetings and especially for the newcomers. And thank you, Gregory and Susan. If you have any questions, I think you can easily reach out to any of us on the committee for clarification or points of information or just to chat. So don't be shy about that. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Subject to public meeting rules. All right, we all set then? Yep, we're all set. Okay. Thank you for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Nice to see you. Good night. Good night.