 We're recording now. So let me just check and see if people are coming in, because sometimes if there are a lot, it takes a moment to get everyone in. But we don't have any attendees, so you can go ahead. OK, 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 telephones, the 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 via technological means. And I guess we do have a quorum of the town services and outreach committee present. And we now are totally here. I see Shalini. I am calling the February 1, 2022 meeting of the committee to order at 7.01. I will call upon each committee member, counselor by name. At that time, you should unmute your mic and say present. This will indicate they can hear me and we can hear them. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Shalini Balmilne. Present. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Present. Anika Lopes. Present. Dorothy Pam, present. And Andy Steinberg. I didn't hear you, Andy. Don't hear you. Present. Great, thank you. There is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let the chair or minute-taker know. To make a comment or ask a question, please click the raise hand button. If technical difficulties arise as a result of our utilizing remote participation, the chair will decide how to address the situation and discussion may be suspended while we address the technical issues. And the minutes will note if a disconnection occurred. We will be monitoring the counselor's connections and if necessary, we will pause the meeting until they're reconnected. I believe that I have sufficiently said the legal matter. Okay, so the meeting is called to order and the first item is the proposed revisions for the parking permit system. Athena said actually before we get into that that we should address the meeting schedule, which I think we can do briefly because we have to discuss the possible timing of a public hearing. So if that's okay with everybody, you did receive a copy of the dates in the packet. Let me just see if I can find mine, here it is. Okay, and this was built upon a schedule that Mandy Jo made in order to limit the number of evening devoted to town business. We're gonna share Thursdays. And it worked out very nicely. There are a couple of times I had to make a choice and so there are a couple of choices that you have with this too. And I think the first one that I see is September 15th or it can be the 15th or the 22nd because sometimes town council meets two Mondays in a row. Sometimes CRC seems to meet two times in a row. There's vagaries in the system but she put her dates in and then I fitted ours in and that worked out quite well, I think. I have no preference for September 15th or 22nd. If anyone has any comments, this is the time. Anika has her hand up. Oh, I'm sorry, thank you. I just have trouble seeing that. Anika. If what you were asking is if we have an opinion between the 15th or 22nd, I would request the 15th. Okay. And Shalini, do you have a thought? Yeah, I was going to say either is fine and if there's a preference in the group for 15th, I'm okay with that. I was just gonna say 22nd only because of the minutes and we would get a break. If we did it on the 15th, that means we have to get the report of the TSO down for the 19th and if we had it on the 22nd, we would get a week to turn that report around. So that's the only reason I would. So that's of interest, but Anika, if you have a stronger reason, let us know. Like, you know, big, I do have another engagement, I work engagement, but I can either figure out a way if it needs to be, if it's best to be the 22nd, I can work around that and or if possible, a temperature. Okay. All right. And Andy, I see your hand up. Can't hear you. Can't hear you still. It's unmute. He's still muted. Oh, he's not able to unmute, I think. Sometimes his computer has a problem with this. Oh yeah. There you are. So I was trying to follow the preferences of the group. I would prefer to do the 15th. We may be making a trip to Colorado to visit family and friends and it would be more likely to be in the 22nd that I'd be gone, but I could participate remotely from wherever I am. So. Oh, I think that's a good reason, Andy. You know, I think that you're particularly with your other committee finance. I think that's a good reason. So I would say, can we have it keep, choose the 15th and do we vote on this? Paul. Paul, yeah. So can you look at the July, so it goes June 16th, July 30th, July 21. And I don't think July 30th is what you meant. It's June. It's June. Oh, thank you. But I think June 30th is, I don't think that's, is that a? It is. It is a Thursday. It is, yeah. Mm-hmm. Let me see, actually. I had not, yeah. Okay. Right, so it does, yes it is. It should be June 30th, right? Okay. So that's why there's three meetings in June and there's only one in July, but the June 30th is, you know, more or less in July, almost in July. That was an anomaly, right? But then I mis-put the wrong month there. Okay, so do we have to vote on the 15th or do we just? You can agree by consensus, but there are two hands up still. Okay, great. Andy. Oh, take it down. Take it down. Okay. And Anna. So this isn't about the September dates, although I would slightly lean towards the 15th, but that's possible. If there are dates that we know we will not be available, do you want us to tell you right now or would you, like, what process Dorothy would you like for us? Obviously, I mean, I can tell you now, I can email you, Athena. What do you want us to do? If it's not involved in a vote, I would say email me. Great. Okay. So we have the big problem we have is in November. CRC has taken all the spots. The only other spot is Thanksgiving and we're not going to meet on Thanksgiving. I'm not even going to put that up to a vote. So Paul, can we get by? Because there are no other Thursdays. We could make a Tuesday meeting or a Wednesday meeting in November, but there are no other Thursdays. CRC has them all. I would bet that you can get by and if you need to schedule it, we can schedule it when we get closer when we look at our agenda. But actually we can just, during the holidays, it's always hard to get extra nights in there, so. Yeah, okay. All right. And so, yes, I'm glad Paul caught the typo on June. And if there's anything else, otherwise, okay, there's a hand shallowney. Yes. Yeah, and I think it's January 12th and January 26th. Yeah. Okay. Oh, right. Maybe I was not looking in the right year. Okay. This is a 22. So that would be 23. Okay. You're right. Thank you. Great. 12th and 26. Yeah, I probably just looked up into the right 22, so 23. Okay. So that's some really good catches. So we have chosen September 15th. We have corrected June 30th, keeping September 15th, changing January 12th and January 26th, leaving the November 2nd meeting in November blank. And we'll deal with it. We get there. Shallowney, is that a new hand or old hand? Okay. So shall we take a vote on adopting this understanding that we can make changes? Do you have a set meeting time, Dorothy? It says 6 30 and seven. Oh, thank you. That is the other question. Yes. This is the floor was wide open on this one. I am more used to 6 30 meetings, but that's just habit. So I have no particular preference. So those of you. Okay. I guess I'm going to say shallowney. And Anna. I'm going to say 6 30. And actually Annika. When, if you're putting it a day of work in the daytime, does 6 30 or seven. Make a difference. Anna. Sure. I mean, I'm the earlier it is the sharper I am. So I'm going to go 6 30, but I will defer to other folks who have other responsibilities. Okay. I would go with seven with seven, but six 30 would be my preference. Okay. Okay. I would go for six 30 as well. Okay. And shall any find with you? Okay. Good. That's excellent. All right. So when we now have a meeting time. And we have clarified. Yep. And Athena is fixing that up and okay. She's making the corrections on that. That's great. Okay. So. Okay. So I'm going to make a motion to accept the town services and outreach committee meeting schedule for January 22. To. Is this, did I really make it to January 31st, 2023? Yes. No, I didn't. I didn't. I made it only through January 26. Okay. I guess, I guess you could say 31st, since we're not meeting after the 26. Okay. So we keep that true. Is anyone want to make that motion? Sure. I move we adopt the 2022 draft TSO meeting schedule as written by chair Pam. And as amended by. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. And so I'll call the question and. I'll just do it in the screen. Can I ask for a second, please? Oh, thank you. Was that shall any seconding. Anika. Anika second. Okay. Great. Okay. So then I'll do a roll call and Anika. Yes. Yes. Dorothy will be yes. Andy. Yes. Okay. And Anna. Yes. And shall any. Yes. Okay. Great. Okay. So it's approved on two. One, two, two. Great. Okay. So now we've got that done. We'll go into our presentation. And we have. I guess looking at the way it was written that Paul is part of one of the presenters with Jennifer LaFontaine. Jennifer. LaFontaine or LaFontaine, but how do you say it? It's LaFountain. LaFountain. Yes. Remember. Okay. That's okay. Okay. And that's a law as an LE, but it, I had it spelled LA. Yeah. Okay. LaFontaine. I had relatives whose name were Beauchamp who came here. When the French Huguenots came here. The name became Bushong, B U S H O N G. Okay. All right. And Sean Mangano, the finance director. So, and Jennifer is the treasurer slash collector and Sean is the finance director and Paul is the town manager. So we will look forward to your presentation. Thank you. And Sean's going to launch and Jen are going to lunch right into it. Okay. Sorry about that. I have this thing where my headset and the zoom mute sometimes work against each other, but all right, let's pull up the screen. Can everybody see that? Notting heads. Okay. So we wanted to quickly go over the existing permit system real quick and then dive into the changes we proposed and some of the rationale behind it. So this map is too small for you to see, but what this is showing you is three of the types of resident parking permits or town center parking permits that we have. The shaded green bluish area that's our resident only area one. So residents who live in the properties in that shaded area have access to that area one resident permits. The orange area is resident only area two. So if you live in those areas, you have access to those permits and then the yellow areas, everybody else, that's the larger town center. Permit for everybody else and for employees and employers who work in the downtown. The only permit type that was not shown on that map are the reserved parking spots. So those are in the lower boltwood garage. You can also see the prices here. So $25 for the resident permits and 35 if you have a second car, if you're an employer, employer. A lot of people think that's per month, but that's been the annual fee. And the reserve spaces are $1,000. And there's actually, I just wanted to clarify, we may have said this wrong at the council presentation. There's 28 of those, right, Jen? Reserve spaces in the garage. I think the memo may have said 20. Yes, 28. So the next few slides just go a little bit into more detail on each of those permit types. So the town center permit, it's September 1st through May 31st. The qualifiers are you work or live in downtown in the downtown business district. You can see the proof, the requirements that we ask in terms of documentation to buy those permits. And there's a more detailed listing of the streets. So if you want to look at a specific street, you can see it there. Same thing for resident only area one, but you can see the smaller, smaller group of streets and you have to live on one of these eligible streets to be, to qualify. And then resident only area two, or even smaller. And then for the reserved permit, for the lower Bultwood garage, one nuance that's a little different with that permit is it's a year round permit. And it's from the date that you buy it. So if you bought it midway through the year, it would go 12 months to the next halfway point. So that's a little bit different from the other permits. So all of these permit types. They don't generate a lot of revenue for the transportation fund currently, just so you have some context. In normal years before the pandemic, they generate about 5% of the total revenues for the transportation fund or about $50,000 per year between the different resident permit types. The, I think the major objective was to encourage residents and employees to park in the periphery of the downtown area to keep the on-street parking and the public lots free so that patrons could use them and support downtown businesses. So keep that in mind. Just when we talk about fee levels, that is one of the objectives is to keep those, these resident permits sort of attractive relative to the cost of feet in the meter or parking in a public lot. And I saw a hand. I don't know if before I go into the proposed changes, if there's any questions on the existing system, maybe we should stop and answer those now. Yes. I had a couple of quick questions. When you, the permit type one and two, you say that on, I think the district two is McClellan. And yet I thought I heard that I had a complaint from a person who lived on McClellan about the people who had permit parking. And I, I, I guess I didn't think he was complaining about people who lived on his street. You're saying, I think he was saying that there were people who did not live on a street, but you're saying that on the, those McClellan spots are only for people who actually live in a house that is on McClellan. Is that correct? Jen, do you want to answer that one? Sure. So for the area two permit, it's from house number 50 and higher. To the end where Lincoln Avenue is that qualifies for the area two parking. The town center permit goes from one, one to 50 or 49 on, for McClellan. Okay. Because there were some strong complaints about that. And I was just wondering if those spots had to be for town center as opposed for residents. And then there's something else that we learned recently that there's something that's not quite as formal as this, but residents of North prospect street. Can get a guest pass. That they pay for by the year so that they could have somebody park on the street. Is that still correct? We have one day visitor passes. Yeah. Any, any permit holder is eligible. They're eligible to receive up to 30 at no charge. And then the second 30 would be a dollar a piece. We try to limit that and give them out five at a time. Just to keep the parking. Down a little bit. Right. So, so a person has to have a paid parking permit. In order to get this visitor pass. Yes. Okay. And I think we were trying to figure out why on North prospect. And is it that some of the streets don't have driveways? Some of the people, some of the houses don't have a place for the car to park for the people who live there. Or. It could be. It could be that maybe they are only a lot. For two parking spaces for an apartment that houses for people. It could be something like that also. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Can I ask my question? Yes, please. Sean, do you have a, or Jennifer, do you have account on the population change of those streets in the past few years? So I was, I'm looking at the chart. Of permits. Residential non-amorous registration and employee permits reserve spots. So kind of a two-parter here is are we seeing. Are we seeing that in the future? Yeah. I think that this seems proportionate to population living downtown. Right. And so I'm curious if there's kind of, if you've got an idea of, of, um, which areas you're anticipating arise in need, if that makes sense. Second part of that question is, does that matter? Um, cause it might not matter. And that would make that null. Um, and then the other question is. And I apologize if this is in there. Are we close to capacity on, on the permits that we sell or no, like, are we, yeah, are we anywhere close to how many we could sell? So, and that's math I could have done. And I apologize for not doing it. No, no, those are, those are great questions. And that's some of the, what we're, um, I don't know if we're going to have satisfied answers today, but I think our goal is to be able to provide. Um, data on this in the future. So Jen, our current up until this point, we switched to open gov. Um, MUNIS was not able to capture this type of information in a, in a user friendly way. Correct. Correct. We just, um, kept paper copies of the eligibility and then shredded it at the end of the permit season. So yeah. So with open gov, which is what we're, um, have we are, we're moving to, which allows us to create fields, um, and track it over time and be able to pull data. Um, we'll be able to track things like registration status, um, we can put in information about location of, uh, the residents, um, to be able to determine like if there's a, a greater need in one area, things like that. So we will be able to track that data better in the future. I think it is something we would want to, um, would help us make more informed decisions about if we ever look to expand the resident parking areas in the future, if there's a, a buildup in one area of town, it might make sense to look in that area to, to expand the resident parking. Um, and we do look at the overall number as well to get a sense of, you know, are we overselling the permits? I don't think we've heard many complaints from resident, um, from permit holders that they were unable to find spots, but Jen, maybe you can speak to a few, if you've heard of any of that over the, over the years. Um, the only complaint that I, that we would hear on a semi-carbon basis would be, um, people not being able to necessarily find a parking spot that's most convenient for them. A lot of people like to park as close to where they live as they can. And that's not always an option with the permit. Right. Thank you. Jen, do you have the, the number for the number, uh, resident permits issued this year? I have, um, as of right now, I can tell you that we have somewhere around 548. Permits sold overall. I didn't actually break that out to, um, to what was town center and what was residential. But I think when we did our sample, it was somewhere around 15 or 20% residential. Did we. Yeah. And that includes. No. So, um, So that number includes employee. Permits as well. Correct. Yes. But no, but when we, what we did is we did a sample of 20 permits and we looked at how many of those were registered in Amherst and how many were not registered in Amherst. To get a sense of, um, the thing we'll talk about coming up with the proposed changes about whether people are paying excise tax that are using the, the permit system. Um, and of that sample, 75% of them were not registered in Amherst, their vehicle and 25% were so. Thank you. Yeah. Um, yeah. Oh, Shalini. Just a quick follow up. Um, the 548 number. Is that very different from what it used to be before COVID? Or were the numbers similar back then? It is. Um, in FY 19, we had just shy of a thousand permits. So overall. And FY 20. Um, before the pandemic really came into effect. We had just over 800. So it has decreased a little bit. Yeah. The transportation fund is definitely, um, one of, if not the most impacted sort of areas of our financial world. Um, from the pandemic because of the, um, depopulation at times, but also the decline in some activity downtown. Um, I raised my hands. I'm calling upon myself. Um, I can continue to get confused with the word resident. Because here you mean resident of the block, but everywhere else. It just means. Lives or works in the town of Amherst. Um, and, um, I think we have to be. Make sure that the people who live on a street are able to park their cars. Um, And, um, I understand that the United right now you can tell who's a who because of basically where the cars, registered, but once you get your new system in, and if people in fact comply, then you're not going to be able to tell that just by whether the car is registered in Amherst or not. So. Yeah. Yeah. Details. I think one thing just to, um, clarify, so they're all residents. Um, whether they're renters or they, or they own a home in the area. Um, They're still all, they're all residents. Many of them are counted in the census. Um, And so they're all, they are all residents of Amherst. Um, So again, I think this talks when we talk about resident only areas, uh, permits, you know, it's talking about a specific area of residence and specific area, but, um, Yeah, I don't think, I don't think there's a different meaning of the word resident. Um, Um, But I just want to clarify that they are residents of the town. Okay. And, uh, Anika. So I have a question to be clear. How many guest permits or guest passes rather, did you say that each permit came with? And is that number for every, any permit whatsoever or by tier? It, it really goes, um, You qualify by having the permit to be eligible, but it goes by household household or business. So, um, if you have four people renting an apartment downtown, they're eligible for up to the 30 free, and then they can buy the second 30 at a dollar a piece. So when it be $60, it's going to be $60 free. Okay. It wouldn't be Jan. Is that what you said? Right. It would not be. It would only be 60 for the, for the total unit, not for the total for each person. Okay. By the unit. Okay. All right. Do you want me to keep going? I think so. Yes. Okay. All right. So the changes. Uh, so we proposed increasing the, uh, all of the fees over three years. Um, the resident. Permits. We proposed increasing from $25. Um, we proposed breaking into two sort of pathways. So if your vehicle is registered in Amherst, and if your vehicle is not registered in Amherst. So if it is registered in Amherst, we proposed increasing it to 50, then a hundred and then 150 by FY 25. If it is not registered in Amherst, which again, based on our sample was about 75% of the permits. Um, we proposed increasing it to 150, then to 300 and then 400 employee permits. We wanted to keep low. Um, recognizing that, um, you know, there's all different levels of wage earners that work downtown. And we didn't want employment parking as it relates to employment to be a major cost. Um, so we did increase it because it hasn't been touched in 20 years, but we tried to keep that low relative to the other fees. And then reserve spot permits. We increased from 1000 up to 1100 and then 1200 and 1250. Uh, some of the rationale that went into this was we, um, the number one thing was we wanted to generate funds for capital improvements. Um, these fee levels we played around with to figure out how we could get to being able to dedicate somewhere between 10 and 15% of our revenues once we get to more of a normal activity level downtown. Um, be able to dedicate to capital improvements like lighting signage. Um, the garage has a number of, of capital needs that, um, long-term that we would want to make. Um, so that was sort of the overarching goal of how do we generate some funds that we could dedicate? And that relates to the, the recommendations from the downtown parking working group and the night NIGAR report. Uh, we wanted to do the transition over three years because we know, um, you know, what we heard from the councils, maybe these fees aren't increasing fast enough or high enough. Um, but again, like with all fees, we didn't necessarily want to go from zero, nothing changing for 20 years and then try to make up all of that in one year. Um, we wanted to reflect that these are residents that we wanted to give them time to adjust to the higher fees. And so that's why we have this transition plan over three years. Um, and then we have the separation of where the vehicle is registered. Again, that's about, uh, about where the motor vehicle excise tax goes. Hopefully you had a chance to look at that chart and the memo, um, that compared Amherst to some of the other towns and, and you could see what, what an impact that makes. Um, I talked about the employee permits. And then the other thing is, uh, so this. As a plan to get us to FY 25. Um, it doesn't mean that we can't continue to review and modify after that point. Um, so, um, I think we're going to have to do that in the next 20 years. Um, most of our fees and this will be included. We review on an annual basis to make sure they're appropriate. Um, and we make, can make more regular adjustments so that the increases aren't as large. Um, but they're more regular and reflect the needs of the, of the capital system. Here are, uh, some comparables just so you have a sense of what those few levels. Uh, these aren't like exact comparable. So just keep that in mind that these are a little bit different. Um, but there are a lot of, uh, there are a lot of parking lots or a few long-term lots near main street. Those are about $540 per year. Uh, UMass has parking lots that range from two 79. If you're a student up to 628. If you're a staff member. Um, and the staff member, it ranges based on your salary or how much you earn from UMass. So there's a lot of, uh, levels to what you might pay, uh, for those UMass slots. If you're a student of 1,000, 515, if your staff member. And then we reached out to one East pleasant, which is one of the newer developments downtown. And they have about 35 spots. And what they reported to me was that, uh, it's about $3,000 per year. If you're in one of their covered spots and $1,800 per year, if you're in an uncovered spot. Um, so that tells me there is a demand for, you know, for down that's quite a bit. Um, and they said they were, you know, looking to increase fees in the future, which again, tells me that there's demand, um, for that. So keep that in mind for the next slide. Hold, hold one second. We've got a hazard. Sorry, Sean, I'm trying to do math again. So, uh, the, can you go back up one more? Yeah. All right. So looking at this, correct me if I'm wrong here. The employee parking is doubling. The residential with their car registered in Amherst is going six times higher. The outside, uh, vehicle registered outside of Amherst that's 16 times higher. The, the reserve spot permit is like 1.14. Is that right? Percent times higher. Yeah. It's going up like 25%. Why not jump that up? So that one. That one. We used to have a wait list for Jen. Maybe you can talk to the wait list for that right now. Um, it's waned a little bit in recent years. So that is one we could look at increasing more. Um, I think again that there are some capital improvement needs related to the garage that we would want to. That we've heard reports from, um, from the bid and others that. There are things we might want to do to improve that space, but, um, we could look to increase that one more, um, especially given the, um, the cost for one East pleasant street, for example, and what those are going for. But Jen, do you want the wait list? Um, so currently we do not have a wait list. Um, in years past we had a very long wait list. Um, people have the, people that are space holders now have the option to renew at the end of the year. So I don't know if that's discouraging as far as, um, the space is not turning over frequently. Yeah. And I'm, I'm not necessarily pushing for that right now. I'm just trying to understand why. That one didn't jump nearly as much percentage wise as the other ones. And the, And the one thing I didn't put on the comparable, um, page, but the garage in North Hampton. Um, The garage in North Hampton. So if you're a lease holder, I believe it's $90 per month. And that comes out to about $1,100 per year. Um, so that was one area where we were not as far out of whack, um, with, with another branch, but you're right. That is, um, it's sort of supply and demand. There's, there's very limited spots there. So to that. Thank you. Uh, I think Anika has her hand up. Okay. I had a question about one, the garage and a lot at one East pleasant. Do you know what percent of those spots are utilized by residents of, or should I say that are not residents of one East pleasant street? Um, I don't. I, I. When I asked them, I was sort of under the impression that those it was only for residents of, um, of one East pleasant street, but I don't know that for sure. Um, but we could reach out. They, you know, they got back to me actually very quickly, um, from when I called. So. Sean, did you say 18 spaces? Um, uh, so one East pleasant street, they said they, I think they have 34 spots. Okay. Yeah. Um, and that's a mix of covered and uncovered. Um, Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. We'll go. So there were a couple other changes. Um, One of them relates to the reserve parking is, as Anna brought up. Um, the first one is more just around simplicity. Uh, right now the permit system is. Is it nine months or 10 months, Jen? It's nine months. Nine months. So one thing we thought, um, we've heard from some people is, you know, maybe making it 12 months or there's some rationale to not having it cover the summer so that anybody can park in those spots if they want. Um, but then. Again, it just makes it a little confusing when they run from September to May. So. So one thing to consider is it's not a huge thing for us, but potentially making them a year round permit. Um, the residential permits a year round permit as opposed to the residential permit. The second one. So before we, earlier in the summer, when we were working on this, we did a walk around with the parking enforcement officer and, um, Just visited all the spots to get a sense of what were their capital needs and just talk about what they've observed. And there's a number of spots that have historically been a little underutilized in town. Um, that are public lots right now. You'd, you'd pay at the capitol. Um, And so those might be good opportunities for us to expand reserve parking. And creating dedicated spaces that we could, um, get a dedicated revenue a thousand or whatever the fee ends up being for those spots. Um, And those locations are prey street. And whale and law and Olympia drive. And so prey street. That one we might want to monitor before we consider, um, adding any reserve spots there because of Kendrick playground is now there. Um, And we might want to see what that does to the demand, uh, at prey street parking lot. Um, But before that previously it was not heavily utilized. The Ann Whalen lot, which quite frankly, I had no idea existed until he walked me back there. And if you all know already know about that lot, but behind Ann Whalen against the fence, there's, uh, 10 or 15, spots, um, that are technically public, um, town parking. Anybody could park there. Um, again, not heavily utilized. There's a charging station back there, but not heavily utilized. And that's sort of. You know, close to the center of downtown where it might be. Um, a good location for a reserve spot. And then Olympia drive. Um, I believe it's metered. Jen. Is that correct? Currently. So Olympia drive has some metered spots. It's close to a UMass parking lot. And you, um, And you saw some of the rates for what UMass charges for their parking lot. Um, It's not heavily utilized metered parking. And so that also might be a good. Location. If we, if our reserve spots were a little bit less expensive than UMass is, um, to convert some of those to reserve parking as well. I'm going to call upon myself. Um, I would recommend that. No new permit spots be added until after your new signage. Campaign is done because because of this recent conversation, I discovered. I clearly, I've lived here 11 years. I did not know many of the places where there were parking lots. I did not know the ones behind, um, the try box. I just had never seen it before. Um, and. For example, Kendrick Park patrons. They need to know, Hey, there's a parking place. So after you get your signs up and people have a chance to get used to saying, Oh, hey, let's use that spot. Um, then I think you could see if someplace doesn't get used, but right now some things aren't used because people haven't connected them in their mind. Right. No, that's a good point. Okay. So that, um, just quick wrap up. So again, the goals of most of these changes are to build a self sustaining system where we can make some of these capital improvements that we've talked about. Um, Jen has a lot of experience in this and she wanted me to emphasize that simplicity is key. Um, both in administering the program and for residents to understand the program. That whatever changes we do make, making sure they're really easy to communicate and understand. Um, that if we do make any changes, um, and we wanted them to be in effect for July 1st, we have to order permits ahead of time. So just keep in mind that there's a little bit of a lead time, um, from whatever any changes are approved to, to when they would, um, go into effect. And then, uh, just to reiterate that we do review the parking permit system annually. Jen looks at it every year. We communicate the information out. Um, and I think this is an area because it hasn't been touched maybe in, um, you know, quite some time that we would look to make more regular updates going forward. Um, and not let it sit quite as long. And questions. Dorothy, you're muted, but I'm a suit. Right. I've recognized you. Yes. I was like, I think I can read your lips. Um, so I, um, uh, this came up earlier, Sean, about how we're collecting data, like usage data, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and I know this is the beginning of, I believe, this is the beginning of a continued conversation and longer. This is the big deal. Um, but I'm curious you're. If you have an answer now, fine. Or the next question, I'd love to see kind of continually worked in is what data will you be collecting? Um, what data do you need? Right? So, and how do you plan on using it? As you said, you review this annually. Um, and so what's going to be helpful and how are you going to get it? My question. Yeah. No, that's great. Um, there are, I think there's a few things we can note now, but some of it will, we'll probably uncover as we build out. Um, the forms and what we're asking for. Um, as I said, the registration status, I think is something we collect now, which is not in a format that we can easily review it and see how things change over time. Um, Areas or locations where maybe there are, um, growing increases for parking permits, especially as new developments go in town. Um, and seeing how that impacts the numbers. Um, and then one of the other things that we're going to be looking at is just over. Um, it's not necessarily on the parking permit system itself, but, um, downtown parking in general, where we look at utilization reports and Jen has done a really great job at pulling the data that she has from the different sources that we have to be able to look at demand for lots. Um, peak times and things of that nature. Um, and that comes into play because right now we have a lot of aging meters on the, on the streets. Um, and we can't get good data from those meters. They're just, they're coin operated older, older meters that are becoming harder and harder to replace. And so one question that will be coming up is what do we do with those meters? And I think from a data perspective, we're sort of interested in getting either smart meters or converting to kiosks. Um, for those locations where we can better track demand. Um, and if we had all of our, parking spots meet in our public lots and our metered spots, um, all on the same system, we could have really robust uniform reports on, on demand for parking and peak hours and things of that nature. Um, Jen and I actually met with a representative. Earlier, was it earlier this week or late last week. Um, from our kiosks or parking kiosk system where if we were, if we had our whole system on the kiosk system, um, and they would be able to do things like heat maps and be able to tell people if they, if they wanted to use their phone, they could look at a heat map and sit and see where, um, parking was most likely to be available based on the activity at that time. Um, because it's all broken out by zones. So there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of cool activities and new, um, strategies we could use to communicate parking information better to residents. Um, if we make some of these capital improvements. And so that ties back to the data. Um, that again, we want to be able to just track utilization, um, and be able to report on that better. Anna. Is that hand still up or a new question? It's a new question. So Andy can go and then I'll go. Andy, your turn. You're muted, Andy. For this purpose. You're unmuted now. And now I'm okay for a moment. It's just follow up on the quest. The last question that you answered, you were talking in terms of the kiosk holders and how does the information gathering from Parkmobile fit in with the information gathering from the, uh, kiosks. Yeah. So that, that also creates a struggle. So, um, our, our, our, um, our, our, um, the best information to the public, we would need to move towards a uniform system where the kiosks and the app were all. By the same provider. Um, so that all that data could be pulled and looked at simultaneously. Um, and so Parkmobile, um, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, his was an app that I'm trying to availability with by having it. Um, and so Parkmobile does have a solution and that was part of what we were looking at this week, just to get a sense of what it looks like. Um, and some, there they have implemented it in some larger cities. Um, Parkmobile is popular around here and there's a lot of communities use Parkmobile around here. So if you, I think North Hampton has it. So, you know, If you have the app for Amherst then you also have it for North Hampton. The solution fixes everything. So if we were to switch payment apps, you know, it would be more convenient for Amherst, but it might be less convenient if you're somebody who travels to towns around here. So you're right Andy that does that's a major consideration is that app and it does create a barrier to us, providing the best information to the public. I think you may ask this also. Yeah, they are. Okay. Okay, Anna. So, we've got six EV stations now, five of them are downtown. Is that still correct? Sounds right. She would know the most but out of 21 roughly, we'll go with roughly unless something magical has happened. So, as we think about, you know, we know or hope that more folks will be moving towards electric vehicles. Are there sufficient EV charge? I know this is like this is adjacent, right? And maybe this is a question of when we start having more money in the transportation fund, we can do things like this. But I'm curious about the possibility of making sure that we have EV charging stations where these permit parking, permit parking places, oof, exist. You know, I know that they're in the garage, the boat will garage. I know prey street has one. I think that's it for the areas that you and a once behind town hall. Yeah, Paul, help me out jump in here. So there are two, there are two, two spots outside of Johnny's. There's two at the Ann Whalen lot. There's, there's some at prey street. There's two behind town hall. And then, you know, we can, as we get funding to install these things are very expensive as we get funding, we can, we have a sort of a, you know, Stephanie is working on a grid to sort of lay out where the next ones go. Yeah, there's one at the middle school as well. Yeah, that's the one that's like not downtown. So, so my question, Sean, though, is like, as we're considering these, these permit plans, are we ensuring that folks who are getting these permits are also able to charge their cars if they need to or things like that? Like, is that grid that Stephanie is creating or hopefully will create eventually? Is that going to be overlaid to make sure that we're not Disadvantaging folks who are who are driving EVs? Yeah, I mean, I don't have a great answer but I do think Stephanie has been focusing a lot on the EV sort of roadmap and where they are. We did apply for a grant recently for a fast charging station. That's sort of like the one thing we don't have a, have is like one of those super fast charging stations. So we all jump in and probably provide more information. The one, one other thing we are looking at is there's a lot of federal funding coming out soon for this type of thing. And so we want to make sure that we're in a good position and done some of the legwork so that when that federal funding does come out that we're in a good position to apply for those funds and potentially get some of that grant funding to expand charging stations. If I can weigh in here, Dorothy. Yes. So, so the EV stations won't be in permitted areas because we want turnover. Those is important for that not someone just to park there and be there 24 seven. So we want them to be there for the time it takes to charge and then to move on to someplace else. Thank you. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And people do pay. So if you do charge your vehicle you also have to pay for the spot at the same time. I have a question. I thought I heard it some one of these meetings at some point that the kiosks were not so convenient for old people and people who are disabled. I guess because they have to walk to them or something. Have you any feedback on that or heard any of that or is that really because I understand the one system where everything matches is really important. Yeah. No, I think that we have. I think there is some general feedback about just being careful around technology and you implementing new technologies without consideration of the people that are using the technology and and making sure it's easy to use and explain and understandable so I think that's always something that we look at. And again like anything else there's trade offs, you know, so the way they do kiosks that's usually one kiosk for every 10 parking spots roughly. So if you can imagine downtown what that might look like. The nice thing of it is it would take out all those intrusions into the sidewalk where the meters are you get rid of those meters every, you know, every eight feet or so. And it would clean up the sidewalks in a lot of ways to, but it is a consideration that we have to have is making sure that everyone can use them and they're explained and their, their support there, if it's needed. All right, do we have any other questions or comments on this report. Yes, I have a question. What is the cost of a fast charging EV station, we can get that information to you because I don't have the estimate off the top of my head but we do have a somewhat recent one. Because we applied for this grant so we can I can send that out unless Anna maybe has that information but I don't know she's right because she has the answer but but we can send that out because we do have a pretty recent estimate. Thanks. There's just some just in addition to that there's some things like so whenever we put these charging stations in the park just to remember is that we have to be able to get electricity to it. And that's, you know, that's sort of like the bane of Guilford Maureen's existence is, is major that these charging stations that there's access to the electricity can get to it. In a way that doesn't create a whole bunch of additional costs. Okay, I know. So, when you're talking about the kiosks and I just I'm trying to keep everything in nice little boxes in my head. So when you talk about the kiosks, that is not relating to these permits correct because these permits are done through open gov. They go sticker pop it in the car. That's that the kiosks are really for hourly. Right. Thank you. And shall we. Sorry about that. Okay, just making sure that they'll be signage for the charging stations just as we're thinking of parking signage. Okay, yeah, I think they're, I think they're signage now but but one of the things again we're looking at is once the way finding system goes up, we're going to sort of assess what are the areas that maybe additional signage is needed to highlight something, whether it be the interest or parking lot if the EV part charging isn't really clear, things like that. I can also bring back a question that actually any guy had. Paul, did you want to respond to this first. So most of the EV stations go, you know, it's a company and we use ChargePoint, it goes on their system so when you are searching for a EV charging station. It's, you know, when you have a car it usually says where they are right knows where they are. It's not like you're driving around looking necessarily usually know exactly where you're going and you just plan your trip accordingly. My next car will be just announcing. Can I also just say that I think this was a question that Anika had raised in the council meeting when you all made the presentation I just want to make sure that we have it on record here too about any hardship provisions for permits. Yeah, so there currently isn't. I think, you know, something we can certainly give thought to it would be difficult. Maybe not difficult but we'd have to give a lot of thought to it because of the student population that might be renting these using these permits. They may not have income themselves so it's just, you know, thinking about how the permit actually ties to income and overall ability to pay is might be a little more complicated with parking permits. Hang into that for a second. Yes, Dorothy. So I think if we're if we're thinking along the same lines we're thinking about restaurant workers downtown who are the lowest paid employees. A lot of times the restaurants themselves will buy parking permits for them, and then they'll distribute it to their employees. It's $25 so like Johnny's, I'm not sure if they do this or not but Jen would know like maybe Johnny's buys five or something to give to them. I'm not sure exactly don't they do that or they pay or I think Matt's barbershop might do that. Definitely some of the downtown businesses do that they have one person that will log in and apply for all the permits, and then they bring a check over for the total for us. Yes. I wanted to add something that I learned today that you mass has a there's a car pool. It's a reduced parking permit thing I don't know the details on it, but that Tracy Zaffian says that she has used that. So that is something that would be because I know some people are concerned about students and can they afford the parking lots there. But going back to a previous point. You get your unified system in, and you will then people will be able to get a phone app for whatever your system is, and you'll be able to say Amherst parking places and they'll list the lots, or maybe show you a map or you can say charging stations and they'll list them. I have not used one of these things but tell me what a driver who comes into Amherst doesn't know Amherst, what he could find out about parking. If he has the app that will go to our new system. So again this is separate from the residential permit system, but this again that's just for downtown parking meter public parking. If we had everything on a kiosk and the app of all those were consistent with the same vendor. We'd see sort of a map of downtown with the different zones, and what he showed us are another, other vendors have this too so when I have to be with this vendor but sort of a color heat map of those different zones based on where the busiest, the most activity is so you know main street lot might be read at certain times of the day where it's really busy, and the pre street lot my show up is green as being underutilized. So what he explained to us is it's, you know it's about 90% accurate it's not going to get you to a specific spot. You know things could change in the meantime, but it'll tell you based on experience and the activity where you're most likely to find a parking spot. Because all the utilization, you know they have algorithms that can look at how many spots are in that zone, how many people have paid for parking. At that time period, and have a pretty good sense of whether there should be spots available that location. And one thing that people have asked in terms of permits. People keep discovering and then they forget it that a place it has a sign saying there's a permit that that that the general public can park there on evenings and weekends and this is something the general public keeps forgetting and then rediscovering would the app be able to tell you that. I think those spots are gender. I mean there's generally, at least when I've come into town there's spots available. I don't think you would need the app necessarily for that. Again, we don't have the, those aren't part of the kiosk area currently so they want to be attached to his own so I don't think the app would tell you that those, not unless we somehow had some sort of GPS that brought those spots in. And that's a great source of parking that people aren't using that would be certainly useful for our entertainment spots are weekend activities. If people knew that I mean it's like, you know one part of your brain but you don't remember the other part of your brain, and we can send. Without information more regularly, we talked about just communication efforts in general, we can send out those communications to, especially, you know, before the fair comes or before other large events come to remind people that those spots are available. And, you know, let them know where they are. Okay, so do we have any other questions that we have for our panelists or for Paul. Okay. I see that we have two people in the attendees. Do we have any desire anyone to raise their hand for public comment with questions and giving them a moment to find out. I guess, Anna. I'm out of my agenda so I have a redundant question and I apologize. We are going to be talking about all of the other items in our packet regarding parking like we are just closing discussion around the permits process right now. Correct. Yes. Great, thank you. We're closing discussion on the presentation that was made to us. Yeah, thank you. All right and I got my agenda back so we're good. I just don't want to miss my chance if there were other. Thank you. Okay, so I don't see any hands up from attendees. So my question practical question is kind of like what do we do now. I know that counselor Shane had a has a whole list of questions but she is not in the audience tonight for public comment. We're going to have a hearing. We've had discussion we've had no people saying, I agree or let's change that or that's too low or I don't think. Okay, because if we have specific things that we want to need to talk about more or vote on this is the time. Yes. Yeah, two things that come to mind. One is that we would need to hear at some point right from the transportation advisory committee maybe. And I know that Tracy said that she might be able to come later today and so she might speak to us but but I think we need to invite a formal written recommendation from them. Am I right fall. Great. So, so you will be having a public hearing. So you can ask the attack if you'd like their advice on this. That's up to you who you'd like to invite ask for advice from. I mean you can ask advice from the business improvement district as well and residents or property owners, whoever you want to ask advice from the finance committee is also planning to meet this upcoming meeting. Oh, so shouldn't we be quick because we don't want to barrage the same people with the same questions and maybe there needs to be more coordination between the finance committee and us, and have like a shared pool of questions because I know people are really busy when we try to reach out to the businesses or different stakeholders. So maybe, how do we coordinate that. So what's been helpful to us in the past on things like this is if everyone sends the question their questions to sort of a central person, they can kind of group duplicated so we have Kathy's questions for example. And we do have answers to them if anybody we can send those out after. And yeah so if people if we can agree on sort of a central person to receive those questions we can group them and then get the responses out to everybody. Okay Andy did you have something you wanted to say here. Actually follows up very perfectly on much challenge he was just talking about and I was just being discussed so timing is great. The finance committee has planned to talk about this on the 15th of February, and we're well aware that the next report, we were supposed to report back from both committees, just to let the council know that we're at by March, seven meeting of the council. So, we'll probably go ahead and do that after that point on, but the focus is going to be much more on the transportation fund and the financial implications for the transportation from those kinds of things because it's not about policy strictly. Kathy of course is Vice Chair finance and she may have been just assuming that she's going to hold her questions for really pressing to get answers I don't know the whether that's what you planned, but it's possibility. I've done in the past when there has been a financial implications to things before TSO is that the finance committee tries to complete its report and send it to TSO before the public hearing. So, we would need to know what the public hearing is, because, you know, it's just sort of as a natural flow that the information that's available for the public hearing, and that the actual final recommendation. The policy and it was broader than finance comes out of the TSO meeting after the forum. So, from having been previously on TSO I want to share that piece with you to. So, I could decide anything so you'll have to tell me but we do have to say, I guess when we're going to have the hearing date and this I find this kind of challenging because. Okay, you say you're going to meet on the 15th of February. Do you think you'll accomplish your task in one meeting Andy. No, it depends in part upon how press. This group is to just move forward and get to a conclusion and make recommendations of the council, which then the course requires the public hearing. As far as the public hearing I think that it would be a good idea. For us as TSO to come up with a date for public hearing fairly soon because Athena has to work from the notice end of it and there are notice requirements for any kind of public hearing and we have to make sure that she has the requisite time. I mean, when we decide to have hearing ended. Dorothy, may I make a suggestion. Yes, I was just looking at the, the, the meeting schedule that TSO adopted and thank you Andy for pointing out that we need time to publish notice of the public hearing. It's a meeting schedule that TSO adopted. It looks like we're too late to notice the hearing on February 17, but March 10 we would have time to notice a public hearing in the newspaper it needs to be published for two weeks, which is why we need a little bit more lead time, and that would give finance committee a little bit more time to complete their review as well. Right, because we would have to meet and discuss that we were we may need to do final discussion on March 24. And you want the results from TSO by April is that correct or do you think that we could have the hearing and then give you the information you need on March 10, and that would be time. The way other committees and I think TSO has done in the past is schedule a deliberation and vote on the same night as the hearing and then if they're ready to vote, then they can vote and if they're not then it would be deferred to the next meeting. Okay, but if you're asking if the town can wait for a recommendation until after March, then I think Paul and Sean would need to answer that. Right. Paul. Jen is the one who manages it so when do you need to know in terms of ordering permits Jen. There's been about an eight week lead time for between ordering and receiving shipment. So if we're going to go if we're going to change it to July 1. We would need to know by the end of April to be able to get everything in time. So it looks like we can do that. Anna. So, if we need to finish up that this conversation I'm going in a little bit of a different direction so I'm happy to pause if there's more on this. So let us say then we'll have a and I think Paul might. I didn't mean to interrupt you Paul raised his hand right as I said. Okay, I see it now. Thank you Paul. I want to make it clear what you're actually voting on. And what you're actually voting on are the regulations that were in your packet. And there's, you know, there's, there's a red line version in there. And I think that that's actually and that includes all the, what we presented is sort of a summary of the changes, but the actual changes that you will vote on are the regulations that were in the packet. And so that's how we would advertise this because it's the regulations that you're changing and that's the recommendation you'll be making to the town council. Well, I see that we could vote on one and three, but I don't think we're ready to vote on number two, which has to do with the money until after we hear from the finance committee. But, you know, maybe I'm getting it wrong, but. March 10 when you just so let's think. So you have, we've made the presentation. The finance committee will do its deliberation. You will have your public hearing on March 10 and tonight you may say hey tack we would like to hear your opinion as well. Then you have your public hearing on March 10 you take into consideration for attack has to say what the finance committee has to say, you then can act that night or the next time you meet. You may have your public hearing on how much information you have and what the public weighs in on, and then you'll be able to make your final decision but the actual motion will be about amending the parking regulations. Right, right. Yeah, but to the one two and three recommendations, right. It's, it's actually a very detailed document that's in those in your packet that's a red line version that shows it. Okay, right. Okay. Yeah, so you've seen us showing it. There's going to be more discussion on some of the the amounts and so we don't have all of it. I don't think we're ready to vote on all of this tonight is what I'm saying. Okay, so, Anna. Well okay we got to finish this up. So can we leave it that we will set the hearing date for March 10. And when we hear from finance, and we hear from the public and tack at the hearing that we will then deliberate and make a motion and a vote. And is that sufficient that would that would be voting that we would do that. Okay. All right, so I'd like to entertain a motion. There's hands up Dorothy. And she told me it was a different matter so that's why I mean we can I don't want to close anything before I get to ask the question. Okay, great, go ahead Anna. I'm sorry. It's okay and I know Shalini and Anika also, or Anika's on top but I so I have a couple things in the red line document I'm happy to save them until the hearing or but just give you and I'm sure I will have more when I give it a third but the first is looking at so looking at 4.4. Well let's just go through four. So my question is about the definition of a household so 4.6 talks about a household is defined as an individual dwelling unit or group residents regardless of the number of persons residing there in and then it says that under visitor passes, you can have no more than a maximum of 60 days worth per household. So we've got buildings downtown that hold far more than 60 people. And so I just am concerned about the, the, how that's going to how that's going to be tracked how that's going to be measured when you have the potential. Some of those buildings have their own parking areas as well but it's just ringing is as a potential issue when we've got households with that might be needing more than hypothetically might be needing more than 60 permits. And I, I know that's kind of a can of worms so I apologize for that throwing that at you but um, yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm what you're. Did I do it wrong thing. I'm not yeah I mean a household is a it can be an apartment it can be a house. Well so that's my question is it the build it because it says it says group residents and so I think clarifying that that means the apartment within the building not the building itself. I think I mean Jen can correct this but it is considered an individual household. Okay, so the reason I'm saying that is because that's the whole snafu with those tests that got sent out was because they counted apartment buildings as one household. So I do think it's, it's. Sorry, let me let me give context. When the federal government was sending out testing, there was a huge issue where people were registering by address. So I just want to make sure that doesn't happen here right so if we're counting apartments that needs to be really clear. In that. And then my other thing was I just, I want to put that bug back in your ear about those bolt with lots spots those permanence those long term spots I mean those are are only covered parking and to only raise it by 250 or 150 feels feels a little low to me and I think that's in line with North Hamptons garage. However, we have, I mean I don't know I think I'd love to see maybe a revisiting of that or at least really understanding the justification for not raising that more. And if it's a good justification, I will believe you but I'd yeah I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. Is there anyone else or do we have any comment from Shawnee. I also definitely. I'm not sure about the rates. Again, given that what we're seeing at UMass, one East Pleasant Street North Hampton. It's, it just feels really low, both of them like even, I mean not the employees I feel like employees we should not touch because yeah, for obvious reasons but other parking permits. I mean, it just seems really super low so what I don't know. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't even know how to go about having this discussion but it just what the point that just the reference points that we have are so low that I mean I so high and we're so low relative to that so I mean, did we did you all speak with other people or like how did we come up with this I understand that we're trying to be very gentle with the increases but seems too gentle somehow. Okay, and that thing is saying a lot from Shawnee who generally likes things to be gentle. So Sean, you have an answer or Jennifer who wants to answer this one. Okay, so we, so we are proposing a 1600% increase to the, to the resident permit so I get again there. I think there's two things. We can look at the rates again I think the goal here wasn't just to increase the rates for the sake of increasing rates it was to, we had a goal behind increasing the rates that was to generate funding for capital. So we can look at the rates again and and again that these aren't magic numbers were like this number is perfect so you know we're open to the feedback and it's really helpful and we can we can look at it and come back with maybe some revisions but I will say, again one of the goals aside from raising money for capital is to keep these spots attractive. So people park in them because if people stop parking in them and start using the downtown lots more and the meters then they lose sort of their effect of getting people to park on the periphery of downtown. And these spots are, you know, these aren't people who are parking right outside where they live and then it's you know it's their spot they're walking generally walking a distance to where they live so they're not. There's a convenience factor there to that might be different with like with like the one he's pleasant street spots, for example. But no we can look at those. If the feedback from the committee is that they're too low we can certainly, we can consider larger fees or higher fees we might want to do the hearing first to see, you know what we hear from the community with these fees already. Before we adjust them again. Okay, and I see an ECA. So understanding that the fees raise over a three year period. Has there been thought as to after that because I'm assuming seeing as they, you know, the increases are quite modest. So after the three years Amherst could be you know further away from say you know the pricing and other losses there would, would we be stuck rather after three years with the same increase. Can that be adjusted after that three years seeing how it goes. Yeah, no, it could be adjusted. It could be adjusted again at that time I think we want to look at it every single year and one of the reasons we want to do it over three years is to just make sure again there's no impact to demand if we start seeing demand drop for some of these spots then that might be a red flag that the price increases going up too quickly. You know, it doesn't do anybody good anybody really any good if the number of permits goes down. But we can after FY 25, or as right now the permit level would stay there but we would review it on an annual basis. And if we think that there's still steps to go we could still increase it after that. And Andy. Yeah, I guess there's a couple of things that I thought about in order that they came into my head. One is that when I was talking about the proposed regulations for in 4.6 and the devs definition of a household. We may want to consider, as we're revising this a more specific definition of a household. Because it strikes me that there are three different scenarios one is an entire building usually in the form of the house that may have been subdivided that may have more than one unit, or an apartment building, but there's a unique situation that exists. As far as we're aware that some landlords are renting specifically to multiple tenants in one apartment unit. So that it's the rental is going either by the room or by that. And it's that is true that I think that a better definition of the term household, maybe in order and we may need help from town council to think about that, because they may have experienced in other communities with how household gets defined for the businesses that we're seeking. So that was one thing which then sort of trips into the second one is that I think that we do have to recognize from having all been through a campaign recently where we're talking with lots of our residents who were considering whether to vote for us about what their concerns are. And one of the things that I have consistently heard over the past numerous elections. I've run on life four times is a question of what is happening with why, why the town is helping to solve a problem for landlords who are choosing not to include sufficient parking within their units by having a very low cost permit system. And so they're actually are probably two reasons that we should be visiting this one is the one that has been cited several times already which is the importance of generating sufficient funds in our transportation enterprise fund which also by the way, helps to pay for our PVTA expenses. But the other is the question of addressing that parking issue that we've heard about from residents who feel that the town is enabling construction that doesn't include parking that ought to be included within the plan developed. Those are my two parts. I would like to add something else in this evaluation process. I know that one topic that's been raised is looking to see that in a space, you might actually be able to fit four cars instead of three, in terms of where the lines are drawn. There's a particular, and I'm, I don't think it's going to be the only one but certainly on Amity Street, where there is parking and this permit parking, it's too close to the driveway of the existing buildings, and it's very dangerous to exit. So, in this overlooking, I just to make sure that the lines, there's sufficient sight line from the driveways because that Amity one is very, very dangerous. It's, I think in front of like, was it 175. And there are a couple of other places where you cannot see and when you come out of the marsh condos, you can't see, because the permit cars are too close to the house so it's a question of just checking the lines. And you might lose a little bit of space there, but you might be able to gain it back by making some of the spaces, a little tighter I think Gilbert has mentioned, you thought there could be a tightening up of some of those spaces. Because this is, we're not going to do this kind of overhaul that often, I don't think. Or is there a problem with that so I should ask is there a problem with doing that phone. So yeah, that's not what we're, that's not on. We can look at that, for sure. But you know that's not something that this, that this committee would be looking at that this moment you're looking at the parking permit system, not the lines on the road. Right, right. It's true, but it is related because it's the problem is created by permit parking so. Okay, Anna. Does this apply to motorcycles. These permits. Can you permit a motorcycle. And is it the same cost same location. And if it's your secondary vehicle. It does apply. I don't know where they would stick the permit, but, but yes it does apply to motorcycles. Thank you. That was that your, your quip was my kind of comment was, I don't know how many, I don't know if it's relevant but maybe worth adding a paragraph of where to put the sticker. You're talking to a motorcyclist there. You know, I feel like that was a valid question then that I wasn't silly for saying I don't know where they would put the sticker. If they have a windshield they could put it on there but other than that, I don't have any other options. Yeah, so I don't know if in the track changes I can if it's worth including that or not, but I just, I noticed that it wasn't there. Thank you. I did see there was a price for motorcycles that may have been in the boat would garage but I, in reviewing all the material for the meeting tonight. I did see a price for motorcycles, maybe like $96 or something like that. Oh, I missed that. Sorry. Yeah. If, if where, where was it. Jennifer can tell us I'm sure. I don't believe there's a different price for motorcycles. Dorothy that that might have been on the UMass. I don't know if you were looking at the UMass pricing, but they have a separate call out for motorcycles. It might have been it might have been. I thought it was on one of ours, but we can check that out later. Okay. So again, we have said that we would try to we would have a hearing. We have not had a vote on it. We need to have a vote on it. You've got your hand up. Oh, this is just continuing with when do we finish this discussion about the rates, especially after hearing what Andy's comment was that we've all heard from residents. So, in terms of again the order of things, we are going to assign somebody as a central person to send all the questions to for the different stakeholders. And then those stakeholders will be informed about the public forum. Right. And then March 10 we have the public forum and then by then we have the information from tax finance committee, the public, which hopefully includes all the residents on all the other stakeholders. And then we'll make the, we'll have a discussion and vote. So at this point, we're not discussing anymore about the points that were raised. Yes, Paul. That's precisely correct. And you will tonight you'll say, here's our schedule. Here's where we're asking for advice from my attack and you already the council has already said you want they want you to hear from finance committee. And then you have your, we will notice the public hearing, which makes it available to the public on March 10 you will conduct your public hearing. You will consider all the input you can tell tack and the finance committee you'd like their comments before March 10. You can either make that way all those things considerations. You can vote, you can change any of the things that are in front of you if you think the fees are too low, you can move to amend those fees and make it whatever wherever level you want that's up to you. And then you vote on it. And it'll be a recommendation to the full town council, which will then make the final vote. And then I'm just a clarification. Can I ask that question now? Yeah, the question you first started with is my question to who. Yeah, exactly. Oh, so I would suggest that you send them to Sean. And so he can be the, if that's okay Sean quarterback for this. Again, I have some already so I can, it'll be good. I can add them to the list. And can you also I can we just confirm who the different stakeholders are at this point and then Sean will you. I mean, I know we're going to broadcast and publish the announcement but will we also be inviting like through email and who's going to be doing that the specifics stakeholders so who are the stakeholders. Like the businesses we identified or who else like the bed or chamber or. I would guess. I mean, the permit holders are the biggest constituent group. They're the ones most impacted by it. We can talk to the bid and ask them to notify their members because it is in their jurisdiction area area. You said you wanted to hear from tack and of course the finance committee. Are there other groups that I'm not sure I think we could probably notify the permit holders I'm not sure if we have information to send them Jennifer. Is there an email list that we could send to everybody owns a permit. We do yes. Okay. And then there'll be the publication in the in the on the town bulletin board and in the newspaper. So I think the word will be out there. It's not that big a group actually going to be impacted. And Anika. I'm sorry I lowered my hand, but I was going to ask if there was a email list for the permit holders and maybe as well as their one that would be able to include all of the. I know that bid could reach out but any other town building that you know could that should be at the meeting or know about it that we could just email everyone at the same time. And Anna. So, here was my train of thought as Shawnee was saying what group should we talk to, who's thinking should we talk to the disability access advisory committee as well, which that's thing one for for TSO is, is that another group we should consider and then for Sean and I'm looking I'm literally looking at the paragraph right now so never mind I answered my own question by finding it in the document so never mind because I was going to ask what the plan was for folks who needed a handicap parking spot as well. Thank you. So my question stands for TSO though do we want to bring in the disability advice I'm messing up the acronym RTI, or do we think that it's covered in the document as it stands. Okay, Paul has his hand up. So, so this is a parking permit system. And so, for what you're looking at, it doesn't really apply to people holding a handicap placard, they can park anywhere they can park at a metered spot or non metered spot. So they and they don't have to pay. So I don't think this really applies to the DAC with you started talking about actual spaces and configuration of spaces that's a different thing but this you're just talking about the parking permit system. And my understanding is that, you know, if you have a disability placard, you can park anywhere, including overnight and all of the well unless it's a snow emergency like, like it is right. Yeah. Handicap can park in a parking is a place that is marked for a parking permit. Yes. They can park at a meter, they can park anywhere. They're not restricted to parking where it says handicap parking those are reserved for handicap, but they can park in any location. I did see something that was news to me. I'm not sure where it was that said that there were some senior citizen placards. I would like to hear a little bit more about that. The, the senior citizen placards are issued through the banks community center through the council on aging. And those permits I believe are good in the upper level of the garage Monday through Friday between I want to say like eight and five or nine and something like that. And they're intended for people to it's to encourage them to come into town and you know take classes at the bank center or whatever they are using it for. Okay, so it's very limited place, but it's very tied to the banks. Okay. Yes. That's good. Thank you. Okay, so I think that we can then we have to make a vote we've made the plans to is there a reason that we have to do a vote on this. You can agree by consensus. Okay, so I think we kind of talk this through. We've got a sense of our timeframe, and that we know that we're going to be hearing some other information. And we said that Sean is the point person. And we've identified the people who will be sending questions, and we will look forward to an interesting forum and further deliberation. So we're going to get get through with this sooner than I thought we would, because the clock is ticking for the getting the placards the other signs whatever. Okay. The next item. Let me think. Let's see. Is our, oh, I wanted to do town manager appointments. Because I don't, I think we could do them quickly before we get onto the work plan. I think the work plan might be a longer discussion. And it's 833. Are you ready to go with your appointments, Paul. So there's only one appointment and that's for the board of license commissioners and that's Doug slaughter for a reappointment. He was on the original he was as you all know, a former select board member, former finance committee member. He has been on the, he was one of the original appointees to the board of license commissioners when the counts when the charter first took effect. And I will, I've changed his term so instead of expiring in January, it will expire on June. So it's like basically a two and a half year appointment. And this will be his second appointment year. Okay, are there any questions. Okay, anyone want to make a motion that we accept the town manager's recommendation for the appointee for the board of license. I agree with that motion. Okay, good. And a second to that. Okay. Great. Okay. I will call the question. Shall any. Yes. Okay, thank you. Andy. Yes. Yes. Anika. Yes. Anna. Yes. Dorothy. Yes, so it is unanimous. Five to zero. Okay. I have a list of items that we need to talk about in terms of our work plan. But one of them we could, it's my number and the one I have listed second was the lunch cards because I believe that all we have to do is to reformally refer that to the board of license. Licensees or licensors, licensors. Is that correct, Paul? I heard that at a previous meeting that we would all we were to do was to refer it. I think, I think you mean delegate. Yeah. Okay. Okay, delegate. Fine. Okay. So I had to ask you to actually clarify the difference between refer and delegate that would be useful for me. Are you asking me or Paul, why don't you go ahead? Okay. So refer means you're going to give it to someone to make a to reference it to them so that they can make an opinion. I think what they can make a judgment. I think delegate means that instead of this being within the powers of the council, you would recommend that the council say we want to give it to the board of license commissioners. And I think that was the intent that you want to take these lunch carts away from the council and give it to the board of license commissioners. So then I then what the motion we would want is that we then suggest that the council delegated. Is that correct? Yes. Yes, that's right. Thank you, Andy. Dorothy, I think it's a little more complicated than you just making it out to be. I sent you a email after our last meeting explaining what had happened here. And probably need to just revisit it quickly for the committee as a whole. So in the last meeting, there were actually two different issues because one was the lunch cart itself, which would be a decision ultimately of the license commissioners. And the other issue was that if the goal was to park the lunch cart in the public way, then it is a separate public way issue, which has to be approved by the council through the public way policy. And which reaches the council after reviewing recommendation from TSO. So it was that second part that really the last TSO. I'm on and what happened in the final discussion was that we felt that it was important to change to do a modification of the actual policy itself in order to have a easy way of just granting the right to use a parking place. And of course there was a second issue which was payment for these parking places, if they were leaders spots, and which is particularly true around the common. I put it, I think that the after the last discussion. The TSO meeting, which was in the prior TSO, and I said to Chairman Ross that I would draft changes to the policy that would achieve the result that the committee was describing. I did so, and so to long to Evan, but we never had to back to it, because we were under a lot of pressure to get the Kendrick Park area done before the end of the time when the company's workspace ran out. So I, and that was what I sent you was my email to Evan, with my suggestion of how the policy could be changed to accommodate that. Well, I do have that in front of me and I would have to say that I think that we're going to have to discuss it because I've read it and it's not immediately clear to me that these you have short term requests and long term requests and in red. It's about what do you do when you somebody wants it longer and I wouldn't have any idea. So we obviously need to discuss that kind of detail. That is, we're trying to make a work plan in the timeline. So the question is, in what, what order we take things, and how long we think they're going to take. So, that is like it means that they're using they're on the streets right now. So is this really an item that you think is time sensitive Andy, and that we need to act on quickly. There's plenty on the streets right now. The one that we have is on the sidewalk. When it's a town that I went to the market, the farmers market. I bought something from tie what's it. I didn't realize was parked on the sidewalk saying it wasn't on the street. That may have been done through the farmers market committee as a part of its license use of the public way, which is not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is somebody bringing in the food truck, or food art, and working it on either a sidewalk, or on the street itself, and in a parking place, and how we make how those decisions get made. So we were thinking of delegating the right to have the same license. We were not giving way or. And that's what discussion is about is actually using parking places to do that. You know, this has been the issue that I probably spend more time in my life and that I ever wanted to because the select board talked about it forever. So, okay, I'm going to call on you but I'm going to say right now. What I think we're supposed to do is kind of decide some order that we take things in and some estimate of what time we might need so on. So Dorothy one quick thing I think the microphone on your computer is underneath your papers and so when you move them around it's a little hard to hear you just so you know. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, so I haven't. I don't think I've seen Andy's notes on this. Andy, are you saying that you've drafted policy revisions that we could look at and consider, or you just have you drafted kind of general outline thoughts on. So I admit I got a little jumpy when it was we just need to refer it because this seems like a really big thing to discuss and get input on from you know I think Paul mentioned local businesses have a lot of thoughts on this. I think this is when we consider time I know that a lot of work has been done but I also think that this is not a quick simple thing. And then I believe Andy what you were talking the one food truck to be specific the one food truck that I can think of is out outside of the church downtown right yeah okay. Where parts used to be so yeah so I think this is something that I'd like to see given good time into, I don't know if it needs to be like the. I don't know if I've been here long enough to estimate how long things are going to take I think that's where I'm struggling a little bit. Okay. I have a couple. I can send you what I said before but it really dealt with how decisions can be made, made regarding the use of actual parking places to park a food truck. In earlier times, there were food trucks that were interested in regularly locating in Amherst and there were various tensions that came about because, on the one hand, food trucks have become very popular around the country. And that is a way for, you know, small business people to be able to do something special and offer some kind of unique food offering to the public. And those are real desire to at least consider that possibility. As noted, the was not exactly popular with all of the restaurant owners in town and you know the, which is where the bids interest came in. So, but but I think that that's almost, you know, a different issue from the public way. That's what I was talking about. And, you know, with the chair's permission, I can do a little bit of a memo and send out that an attached that email that I sent to Evan. After our last discussion, in which which was really dealing with that public way use of parking place. So that would be very good. Andy, if you do that, and give some more detail. I have a comment but I see Paul's hand up. Yeah, just a quick. So Andy did, and other members of the select board did spend a substantial part of their youth dealing with this thing that which never really materialized there was never demand for this anyway but one more question before your committee is, do you want to consider giving this to Board of License Commissioner, you don't have to make the decisions about the substance, or do you want to spend your time in the substance of it, and keep it by the council and that's really the decision. And I think I think Andy's idea of writing a memo to the committee and saying here's what I recommend would be a smart way to go. I want to mention that I think that we should check out some surrounding towns such as East Hampton. From what I've heard the future of food is in food carts food carts are where the adventurous new food is happening and I do understand there's a conflict with people with brick and mortar, which means that there'd have to be an appreciable fee for the food cart, because the people who are in buildings are spending a lot of money in order to do it, but not to have food carts does not go with the destination Amherst that I've been hearing about. So I think see it as a really complicated issue. I'm going to interject right here and please apologize, but this specific item isn't listed on the agenda as a discussion item and so I feel like we're waiting into kind of the substance of an issue that was only listed as part of the transition memo to talk about the work plan and timeline so I just want to caution you about making sure that that that agenda item is posted before we start talking in depth about it. Great. I thank you very much Athena. So, in terms of work plan. Some of the things I think that this is I did this from notes that you already had. Anika had her hand up Dorothy to say no. I think I was going into the territory that Athena just told us to avoid but I was just wondering like, if we are to delegate on to like the license commission then when they then be able to partner you mentioned destination Amherst then with the, the bid to maybe the uniqueness of the trucks and, you know, allow them to maybe come up, come up with their own plan that could, you know, better serve or be more comfortable for existing businesses. That's certainly an interesting idea. I think right now that we have to just try to say in terms of work plan, you know, items I can list the items you send them out to you and you can prioritize them for me. But we have the parking permits. We have the lunch carts. There are some that I added from other things were said we have speed limits and safety zones. These are things that have already been referred to us. That we have spoken about. Composting trash removal and recycling. Someone said, and I don't know the details of this aligning public way policies. So I gathered there are more than one public way policies priorities and road and sidewalk repair public interface regarding pot hole repair. At a previous discussion at a different meeting. It was suggested that we add the whole topic of the municipal parking district. And we have the North Pleasant Street upgrades. I think we're done we voted on that but I'm not positive. And then in the future we have the North Amherst traffic changes. We have outreach outreach plans, senior services, service the vulnerable and underserved climate action and reviewing fees for services. So I went through the notes and the things that people had asked. Those are things that people brought up. And I had a question on one of these transportation reports in small print on the last page was something about making a capital request for engineering study for boltwood garage. And my question is, do we have to play any role in that or is that something that town hall takes care of. So those are the items that I have in terms of work plan. So, Paul and then Andy. Yeah, so on the last item about the boltwood garage that is something that would be a finance committee that the town is looking at for the capital project. So you know that you can take that off your list. Great. So that's fine. Great and Andy. Yeah. This gets back to the north pleasant street. There are really two pieces of both plus and street through being dealt with and suffered projects, the one that got done for the most part, not with its entirety but almost done is the Long Kendrick Park, Long Kendrick Park, which both had to do with changing it to one way and whether in the parking and that's been done and moved along the little piece that was in there as there's one block section that's not one way and whether that should be revisited at some point was sort of left open at the end of that last discussion within the committee. That's a small thing. The bigger project, however, is from Eastman Lane where the traffic circle is at the university near the Cambridge Research Center and Totman, all the way up to Pine Street sidewalks. And there was a fairly substantial memorandum and drawings that came out of BW from Paul and to the council probably around July, so I believe. And it was so and it was at the same time the Kendrick Park came up and the urging of Guilford was pay attention and give me some answers around Kendrick Park. But it's more vital that that be the priority of the two. So the second piece was left behind. The other thing I wanted to this is very much on score with that is that there was a district one meeting on Sunday afternoon, which I attended because I do tries counselor large to attend this as often as I can. And since that sidewalk would be within district one. There was a discussion of why it was getting priority over another one which you see Pleasant Street there was, you know, some comments about it. But it was discussed to some extent within a district meeting and so I'll leave it at that. Okay. Paul you had your hand up you have your hand up. So, so I know we only have seven minutes left. So, and I know you have to do minutes addition but maybe a path forward for for you in terms of prioritizing like let's prioritize the next couple meetings and I what I hear is that if Andy does his memo on the delegation of the food and then we are prepared to do a sort of a presentation to you on how we look at roads and what gets prioritized and that will take us probably a good hour of your time. And, you know, and sidewalks could be part of that or as a separate meeting as well. So I think those were priorities and it sort of comes at a good time in terms of where we are in terms of budget and what our staff is prepared to give you it's really it's really an interesting presentation actually. So, maybe those the what the sort of prioritize those things as sort of next and upcoming agenda items and then on that long list you had maybe the council committee members concerned to consider what are their other priorities that they want to take on during the course of the year. Okay, that sounds good and the committee members can let me know and I see Anna and I see shall need with their hands up. Sure. So, Paul that was really in line with what I was thinking. Dorothy, you listed off a big long list and I want to make sure I've got them all and I don't think I do. Are you able to send that long list. Because I think we want to make sure we're thinking strategically and I know as I was listening to you I heard some things that really should be going together. I think some of the things that are minute parts of a bigger thing that we should be, that's where we should be focusing and so yeah if you could send that list and I think maybe if we all could agree to do our own prioritization but also thinking through kind of looking at it strategically at what makes sense to group and what makes sense to zoom out on a little bit too that might be really very helpful. Yeah, this was trying to just gather the things that had been said and brought up by the committee members and adding something. Yes, shall any. Yeah, I was going to say that in terms of prioritizing just looking at projects through the environmental climate action goals lands and inviting maybe at some point easy easy to put into our committee and sharing what we work on and seeing where they can help us bring that lens because they came to our committee CRC last time and with respect to housing policy and it was really helpful to have some of the ways that we could not even think about it so I think just having them here we don't know what it is going to turn out but it'll be helpful and similarly with tack and I know that we have very little time and Tracy's Alfian the tack chair is here and we haven't done public comments so if you want to do that now and then we can complete our discussion. Okay, I will. Andy's going to send out the details on the lunch cards I will send out the list. Paul has given us a good way ahead for the near future and we know we've got the forum coming up. So, if it's okay with all of you, I will ask if someone wants to give public comment. And all you have to do is to raise your hand and I see Tracy's hand, and I guess Athena will have to let Tracy into the room. Oh, hi. Yes, so. Well, I do have a few comments. Thank you. I know it's the end of your long meeting. Unfortunately, I wasn't here earlier because I had another meeting on my own but I guess one thing was, I did touch the tail end of your discussion about the parking area. And if it is going to be referred to tack and as tack being stakeholders I guess I would ask that you provide some guidance about what aspects of the plan you would like tax input on. I know that I personally, somebody might think about parking way too much have ideas about many aspects but I don't think they're necessarily all under the tack purview. I have a related note for the North Pleasant Street permits for North Pleasant Street on the west side of Kendrick Park I did notice that in the memo that was sent to the town council last week that it does propose continuing to keep the permit parking on the west side of that section of North Pleasant Street and that is something that the town council voted in December to eliminate the permit parking on the west side of North Pleasant Street. As the angle of parking was going to be built on the east side of North Pleasant Street to accommodate parking at the park. So that's just a minor thing. I did have two other comments that are not related to tack but oh they are a little bit. But one has to do actually both have to do with sidewalks and sidewalk accessibility. So, you know one thing I care a lot about sidewalk sidewalk accessibility. I have a lot of sidewalks that are difficult to navigate, including in the snow. And so recently I had, you know been walking I walk a lot and I noticed that there were some sidewalks that weren't shoveled very well. I wasn't really sure how to ask if somebody could look into it or to follow up with the property owners on the Amherst website, the town's website, you know there is this under online services it says there's the Amherst connect to submit service requests. There's also another category noise and nuisance property complaints. And the first one the Amherst connect service request and it says you know any kind of quality life issues you can submit them here click here. So I did that it actually goes to the C click fix program. I just mentioned that I was concerned about this one icy section of sidewalk and curb cuts that weren't clear and so on and the reply I got back from that system was that the sidewalk clearing is not an enforced by the DPW it's enforced by the police department. Please contact the police department issue closed. So, I hadn't realized, you know, that only the DPW would be reviewing the C click fix requests, and I didn't know if one thing the town could look at would be to have sort of a one type of system so that people can just submit the request. After I got that response I did police website I cannot find anything. There was no removal enforcement. And there had there used to be some reporting system that had been removed. So I just, I eventually just emailed a general police email and said hey can somebody look. And I did hear back today from Captain Ting it was very he wrote me a very great response. You know he said of course that they are concerned about that. And he said that, um, that if people have any normally those sidewalk complaints about unshuffled sidewalks are dealt with by people just calling the police desk and calling dispatch. So he wrote back to me I really appreciated it, but it did sort of leave me wondering like if I hadn't been so persistent like how would that have been addressed would it have been addressed at all. And I guess I also was wondering sort of in the same vein is anybody ever actually ticketed for not shoveling this. Um, just know that in some of the towns I've worked for and with that sometimes the whole issue of snow shoveling and of sidewalks is under inspection services, sort of because it's also viewed as like a property maintenance upkeep type issue and for me personally I'm less concerned about fines for snow removal. I really just want people to understand that it's like important for accessibility and And so one just other question and comment I had was that in my neighborhood on notice like since the snowfall the other day that there have been some vehicles that have been parked blocking sidewalk. Yeah, that's it. I think that's actually parked on the sidewalk. Like parks you know along the sidewalk. I'm in the second. And so that vehicle got moved. But then today I noticed to that one issue is that in some of the red. There are a number of vehicles that have a large number of vehicles that currently because of the snow, they're mainly parking on the driveway. Working in any other blocks that they might have had off street. And that due to the snow when you have those vehicles parking on the driveways and some of those drivers are pretty short that their vehicles that back into their vehicles are actually hanging over the sidewalk. In some case like blocking the sidewalk entirely. I'm assuming that that is probably an inspection issue and I can follow up with them but I just wanted to raise that to is just as another issue related to sidewalk so thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Any other, any other public comment anyone else want to say something or ask something. All right. Do we have any final words here. Anybody. Oh, yes. We have minutes two sets of minutes. Let's see what the dates are. December 9 and January 18. I believe at the last meeting. The question was whether we wanted to delegate somebody to approve them and I think Anna said, the whole committee should do so. I know that I've read them and I'm fine with them. I know you've got your hand up. What are your thoughts on this. So many thoughts. No, my only, my only thing is, maybe for Athena, maybe I know we don't, I don't think we have a minute taker today. Devlin got here is the last name not just got here so it'd be great if that could be reflected in the minutes going forward. So small, non substantive but meaningful change. Okay, any comments about the minutes Andy. So, on the first set of minutes from December. You know it's sort of awkward because I'm the only member of the committee who was on the committee that meeting was about. But I think that doesn't matter that the entire committee can adopt them. I, I looked at those minutes I have absolutely no changes to offer for them I think that they were fair and accurate minutes. But the one thing that I found that was interesting out of the whole reading of it was that there was a provision in there. Towards the end about delegating to former chair Ross the ability to approve minutes of meetings that were left over from the last committee on behalf of the committee. That apparently didn't happen with these minutes but it's probably too late. So it could, maybe not. We could ask Evan if he wants to approve more we can just approve him tonight. I am for improving them tonight. I didn't, I don't see anything problematic and if you haven't found anything. That would be the easiest thing to do, but if anyone has contrary opinion. Now's the time to speak. All right. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes for. I guess this is December 9. I will make that motion. Okay. All right. I call from over here shall any how do you vote. I'm sorry I didn't hear what Andy said so I'm going to abstain. Okay, Anna. Yes. Anika. Yes. Andy. Yes. Okay and Dorothy. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. And then the latest set of minutes, which I can't put my hand to, but I did read them. Was. I guess January 18th. Do we have any questions about those minutes? Athena, is it a problem to change them? And do I need to reflect that in a motion? Sorry. I've already made that change. So when they're approved, they're approved as amended. Okay. I'll make sure that's that makes its way into the final portion. Okay. So I need a motion to approve as amended the meeting minutes of the meeting of January 18th to. Two, zero, two, two. Anyone want to make the motion? So moved. Okay. Okay. Any second. Okay. I'll start. Anika. Yes. Okay. And Andy. Yes. Shalini. Yes. And Anna. Yes. And Dorothy. Yes. Okay. Very good. We have approved those. I had down at the very bottom correction of the report. That I submitted on January 18th. And one was, I had. Misnamed a group. I had said cart and it's actually should have been C AARP, the climate action. And adaptation, I guess resiliency plan. Okay. So it's not cart, but it is C AARP. And also I had misattributed the question about renaming public places for Amherst African Americans was put forward by counselor ball mill. So those are two corrections to that report. Any questions or problems? Okay. Anna, you got your hand up. Anika was. I was just going to mention that it was Shalini who had brought up the suggestion about the park. Right. That's, that's the correction that it's counselor ball mill that made that correction that, that, that suggestion. Right. Okay. Anna. Just really quickly. I don't have the report up in front of me. Carp is the plan. It's not a group. It came from ECAC. Okay. Carp is like a, it's a big, big, lovely document that I highly actually extremely highly recommend everyone in this committee in particular reads. And I'm happy to send it out to folks if that's helpful, but it's the plan written by ECAC. Okay. Very good. Thank you. With Stephanie. I don't think we have anything else, but I'm going to quickly turn the page here. Any items not anticipated. Then 48 hours that anyone wants to bring up. Okay. So do I entertain a motion to adjourn? You can just declare the meeting adjourned when you're ready. Okay. Okay. All right. I see no hands. I see no, okay. Very good. Okay. It is now nine 10. Not as bad as I thought it was. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Hi everybody. Hi everybody.