 Now we're recording. Okay. Seeing that there is a quorum of counselors, I'm going to call the May 10th meeting of the governance organization and legislation committee to order at 9.32. Pursuant to state law, which extends the remote meeting provisions pertaining to the open meeting law, this meeting will be held via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by a technological means. And with that, I'm going to get a, oh, welcome, Michelle. To make sure each counselor can be seen and be heard, I'm going to call the roll. Michelle Miller. Present. Jennifer Taub. Present. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Present. Lynn Greesmer. Present. And hold on. I'm present, but I, come in, Matt. Hang on. Yeah. We're having our house done. So, okay. So sorry for that interruption. I'd like to go quickly through a couple of items. Probably first the proclamations. We have two that we're going to be looking at today, the race, amity, day proclamation and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer plus pride month proclamation. Lynn? Technically you didn't have race, amity in time to do it on this agenda. And I did mention to Ash that we might invite him to the actual meeting for the race, amity. I talk, yeah, I talk. He doesn't really need to be here. The only issue was, yeah. I'm fine. Yeah, I contacted him. The only issue is the change in sponsorship and it's not a change, but that he was unsure. The other thing is since I had it on the agenda, but we can't still go forward with it. We didn't have it to read, but. I mean, unless if you had it on the agenda, then that's fine. Okay, good. All right. So let's start with the race, amity, proclamation, are there. Do you want me to pull it up? I'm gonna put it up, Lynn, so I can see if it changes. And we're gonna go ahead with the Interfaith Opportunities Network and the Amherst League of Voters as sponsors. And those are confirmed? Yeah, he is confirming with them, but they've done it for the last five years. So he's not, yeah. And it seemed a silly reason not to include them. So does anyone have a question or comment, script nerds notes, anything like that? Mandy? It should have been sent to us with council sponsors added in. Oh, I didn't even notice. And I think I, I know I included my name, but then I asked others if they wanted it. Let me check my emails to see if I can find anything. If you could add Lynn Vanathena. Doing this right now. Jennifer, while she's doing that, Jennifer. I don't know if I responded to Lynn, but I would like to be added. Okay. So any questions now about these proclamations that two of you will answer? No. And I think if you could remove a waiting confirmation or you think... I don't have any other emails from any other counselors, but I think as many as want to be on it, I should go ahead. Yeah, well, we have two now. And what is the day that we read this and celebrate? Sunday, the 11th. Of June, okay. Of June, yeah. Okay. So we're all, anything else, Mandy? Anyone? Take the word draft off. I like it, draft T. All right. So can we use consensus to recommend this to the council as clear, consistent and actionable? Is there anyone who objects to that? Okay. So it's a unanimous decision to recommend to the council. Is that all right, Athena, to do it like that? When you're virtual, you should take a roll call vote. Okay. All right. So do I have to do the second thing and everything? Yeah. I'll second it. Okay. And Mandy, Joe, Hanneke? Aye. Jennifer, Tau? Aye. Michelle Miller? Aye. Then Griezmer? Aye. And I'm an aye. And I'll try to do it in alphabetical order next time, but probably won't. You guys picked me, it's your problem. Lesbian. We are gonna now move to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Plus Pride Proclamation. So if you can pull that up. And I know Michelle, you were interested in sponsoring that last year and we, Anna and I did not include you. Would you like to be added this year? No, thank you, Pat. I appreciate you asking though, I really do. Thank you. All right. So the one thing, the community sponsor is the Saga Group from the high school. We're trying to get them involved in the flag raising, but we haven't heard definitively back from them, but I hope they're there. And if they do come to the flag raising, we want them to hoist it. And we're also gonna ask them to co-read the proclamation with us. Well, I will not be there, but Anna and Mandy Jo will be. Okay. Any issues with any of the language or anything? I'm sorry, again, what is the day? It will be June. June 2nd is the day of the flag hoisting. Flag hoisting, okay. And there are several other events planned that weekend by the bid and different or groups. So I'll keep an eye out for that. I have that information somewhere. I can send it to folks. Okay. Full time on the second. Are we doing this? So I just wanna make sure. I think it's a, Mandy. Four. Yeah. Yeah, four. Because that's one. Yeah, we have to be after school. Yeah. Got it. And there's also a proclamation. I'm sorry, Lynn. Go ahead. Yeah, that's fine. The problem is that it's. I didn't hear what you said, Lynn. Some of us have finance from one to four that, no, we don't. We're done by then. I'm sorry. It's senior day. So we may not get any seniors to join us, but we're hoping that some of the younger members of SACA will come forward. So I would like to take a vote on where I move that we recommend to the town council, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender, queer, plus pride proclamation as clear, consistent, and actionable. Is there a second? I'll second. Well, Jen could have it. Okay. And I'll take a roll call vote. Griezmer. Councilor Griezmer. Aye. Councilor Haniky. Aye. Councilor Miller. Aye. Councilor Todd. Aye. And I'm an aye. Okay. Good. And the Juneteenth will come up at our next meeting. I have a couple of updates on the bylaws that are carried over from the bylaw review. I met with Paul Bachleman. He took down information that he's had before, but he is going to be getting back to us at our next meeting, I believe, on the 22nd. Is that the 24th? Sorry, the 24th with information on those. And then they're, at that point, I want to look at some of the bylaws that have not really had very low priority. And my suggestion is just we leave them in there because they're not hurting anything, but we can talk about that. What was the other? Oh, the other update is I've placed a bulletin board posting, it was posted on the ninth for the openings on the finance committee for resident, non-voting resident members. And I would love people to get the word out. We have two vacancies. And I'm not sure right now if I need to say more than that, one current member has responded and is reapplying, I'm waiting for the other member. But please. I think two have at this point as of this morning. One came in this morning. Oh, was that Matt Holloway? No. No, Bob Hegner, yeah. That's the one, yeah, the other. Matt has not responded. So there's still one council. Matt has, yeah, Matt sent his calf and Bob Hegner sent his calf. Okay, I didn't see Matt's, that's great. So we have two current members who are reapplying. I believe Sarah Marshall may be applying. And I'm going to be talking to a couple of people. So I will contact them and remind, well, they have their new calves in and I'll go over the list of people and at our next meeting we can move forward with a timeline of setting up interview dates and things like that. So I have that timeline written out, but I don't know. But the other thing I'd like to do quickly is to move to adopt the minutes of our April 26, 2023 meeting. And I'm going to do, could I have a second on that? Second? Or whoever. Third, yep, okay. So I'm going to do roll call vote on that. So Hanneke? Aye. Miller? Aye. Bob? Aye. Reismer? Aye. The Angelus is an aye. So we're unanimous acceptance of the minutes. So I have three other things on the agenda. One is the snow and ice obstruction by law, the flags and banners and also looking at rule six. But do we have any attendees? Okay. Yes. Yeah. We have one attendee which is generally what we have one to none. So I'm going to call a public comment period now. And if there, if anyone in who is participating as an attendee wishes to speak, please raise your hand. Seeing no one, I'm going to call the public comment period closed and let's move forward. So I guess I would like some input from you guys about which of those three things you want to look at first. Who are my notes on obstruction? I met with Paul again about the obstruction of public ways. And he feels very strongly that it should be groups that have ticketing authority and are used to doing that. And he would prefer one, but he's willing to do inspection services and the police department, meaning that the traffic folks would be, thank you, Athena. Traffic officers who give, you know, tickets and things would be available. The one of the things is that there's been this round robin of people calling DPW, et cetera. So we really need to make sure that whichever people we're saying are enforcing this are well aware that that is their responsibility and not to shift it off. Mandy. That was actually my question. Did Paul indicate in any way how he would correct this round robin if we did not put DPW on here? Cause I think that's one of the most frustrating things from the public point of view is they get the round robin and no tickets get issued. They get sent back and forth. Did he indicate how he was going to fix that? Not specifically. We talked about making sure, but he did not say how he was going to do that. The one thing that I would like to get DPW out of the loop because residents have been dependent on them. And some of that has been the DPW's own fault because they've gone ahead and cleared some streets and not others where residents are responsible. So I don't, you know, I don't think we should include them. And somehow or other, not only does Paul need to talk to those departments, but we need to get information out to the public because we're about this change in bylaw, I think, because we're adding brush and trees and things like that. The other thing, is that Mandy, is there something more specific that you would like? You know, I will talk to him though. Okay. There are, the tree warden has been looking at this and he would like to weigh in some. And in section two, he's talked about vegetative growth down here and he's defined it as grass brush from shrubs, vines, saplings and branches extending from, they would have to be private trees into the public way. If they're in the public way, that's totally the tree warden's responsibility. His concern is that 24 hours, he feels that some residents want to get rid of healthy trees that, and so they use this as a way of cutting down the tree that the town would rather not have cut down. So we might need to ex not have the 24 hour deadline on that. And add something like branches from public trees will be cared for by the tree warden. Michelle and then Lynn. Thanks Pat. I was coming back up to enforcement. I was just reading through Paul's notes that are in the packet. And so I'm a little bit confused. He's recommending that we have just the place. Yeah, and so what are we, are we recommending these additional? Yes, we were recommending them and now I'm down to police and inspectional services. Those two, and the police includes the traffic or the- Yes, because that's who they send out. Okay, perfect. When they take responsibility for, I mean that Mandy's right about there's an issue with the police department saying that's not us. And so, and maybe it should all be in inspectional services, I don't know. Is that answer or helping anything? It does, yeah, it's just, he says that clear lines of authority and responsibility should be incorporated. And I'm just wondering, is there like a process like does it start with one and then go to the other if the other doesn't respond or is it just- Yeah, well, there's only been the police department. So people have called them and they've said call DPW or they've called DPW and they say call the police. So it's not working as it is. So that's why Mandy is frustrated. Okay, all right, thank you. So we'd like to clarify that and Mandy's right. We need a real commitment to educate the two departments or one department that we use. Lynn and then Jennifer. Yeah, I just wanna mention something that I learned regarding roads. And I'm not in favor of cutting down trees that don't need to be cut down, but one of the things that has been observed to me is that, for example, Heatherstone Road, otherwise known as a third world country road has a lot of trees that arch over it. And so it never dries out. And that's part of what leads to the deterioration of roads. And so I totally get what the tree warden wants to weigh in on. And I totally get the issue because I've heard many people, particularly in one of our neighborhoods, Pat, who would love to get rid of trees on their property. But the reality is there is a conflict between trees and road maintenance. Right, but it's interesting because the sunny side of Heatherstone is in bad shape too. So I hear what you're saying, but I don't think the solution is removing trees along the public way. I don't know. I just, I don't see that. We need more money invested in roads. We need state support for that. Absolutely. And we need regular maintenance, which we haven't had. I just wanted to mention that conflict. It's kind of like if it starts on one side, then it just seeps into the other. And anyway, I don't want to get, neither you nor I are road experts, but there is that conflict. Okay. Jennifer? Yeah, I do have a question. So, Inspectional Services, is that Rob Moore's office? That people are also calling? Yeah, John Thompson and... Right. So, if Paul is saying that the public's point of contact should be the police department and then they would contact, well, they would... They would use, what they're supposed to do is use the traffic officers or police officer to go and let the people know you have a problem here. If it's not cleared in 24 hours, you will be getting fine. Okay. So what we need to do is the council is help. If that is the sole point of contact, we can get word out to our districts or how, you know... That's true. Mandy? So I think what we're looking for is the theme of the one that's going to modify this up in the block enforcement by, I think it should say police department or Inspectional Services. So it says police officers now. I think we would just want to say police department. Yeah. And... And do we want to say Inspectional Services or Traffic Enforcement Officers? Traffic Enforcement Officer is part of the police department. And so the police department gives it a wider range. And so I think you can't, Athena, you can't actually delete the police officers there because that's currently in the bylaw. And this is written to show what's in the bylaw, the other stuff. Well, no, I think, Athena, I think what you're trying to do, where it says police officers lined out, you have to leave that, but everything else that's lined out, the Building Commissioner Inspectional Services Traffic or Department of Public Works can just be deleted because that was all like, yeah, just... Why are we keeping police officers? Because we have to show that we're deleting that language from the court. Oh, yes, yes, I see, I see, yes. But the other stuff that's underlined was additions to the bylaw. And so it can just be completely... Thank you. So you want police officers and police department? No, police officers needs to be lined out, but it needs to be in black. It needs to be deleting it. No, it would be unread for track changes, but... Yeah, and then... Lined out, and then the other part that's right now underlined and striked through can just be removed completely. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, took me a minute too. Amanda, Joe, I just want to be clear. I just want to see where it says enforced by police officers. That's what the present... That's what the present bylaw says. Okay, I'm just used to seeing anything that's in the present bylaw in black, but that's okay. No, but the criminal enforcement is in the present bylaw. The present bylaw is either black, what we're keeping, or red, striked through because we're deleting it from the present bylaw. Got it, thank you for that clarification. So I guess what I'm asked... Well, we can come back to... Are we saying both police department or inspectional services? I think the idea was to have one place. Yeah, well, that's what cloth prefers. I would argue for two, but these two. And here's the reason. We've added more than just snow and ice. And so snow and ice, it makes sense maybe to just have one of the police department and then clarify who the residents call. But when we've added things like shrubs and stuff, the inspectional services department is out there for other violations potentially. And so we don't want them to have to then call the police department to come in and write a ticket for something that they physically observed. And I would suggest that we designate which we want to do what. So that the public isn't confused. I agree. I mean, I would call inspectional services. It wouldn't even occur to me to call the police. Right, and that's interesting because for Paul, it is he would prefer one or the other. So that's a decision that we can make. Jennifer, do you have more to add? No, that was pretty much it. I get that. I agree with Mandy Jo. I mean, I would personally... So I think we're gonna go with Paul. I think it's good to have one, but we would have to do a lot of education. I would never think to call the police if there was a sidewalk obstructed, whether it was snow or ice or trees. We're reading through, yeah. Michelle? Is there any reason to have like that these aren't separate bylaws? And excuse me if I missed a discussion, but why are we lumping these into one bylaw? Because they're all obstructions of the public way. Okay. What's that? Yeah, they just, they feel like maybe people would respond differently to like the trees feel different to me than the snow and ice. And in terms of who is the enforcement feels potentially different too. So Pat, where these was the trees, the trees were added to this. So we added additional obstruction of public ways. Yeah, we decided that, yeah. And in truth, the tree warden has asked if we add toters, trash toters to this, so we'll share in a little bit. I don't see, well, go ahead. Are you finished, Michelle? I would just argue that the obstruction of public ways, including the toters and the trees and all of that should be a separate bylaw from the snow and ice. I'll just put that out there. That's, my logic feels like they should be separate, but here we are. But they are both obstructions of the public way. So let's keep looking at that, Lynn. So I want to express concern about the police department showing up at the door for people's snow and ice and whether or not we've now just exacerbated how people feel about the police. And one of the reasons why I was more interested in the traffic officers is because they're not carrying guns. And I'm also, I actually, I want to go further and just say, based on other things that we're discussing around that rely on inspection services, mainly any changes or just enforcement of the existing rental bylaw, the reality is that's the burden of inspection services. So in many ways, I'm agreeing with Michelle. Maybe these should be two different bylaws because especially if you start getting into well, the obstructions in the public way could also include the trash hauling, devices, et cetera, et cetera. Now we're talking more on inspection services, but just sticking with this one, please use traffic officers and don't say police department. No, but you can't necessarily call the traffic officers. You call the police department who send the traffic officers. So I'm not, you know. But you understand- I think we find, pardon me, you understand what I'm saying. Yes, I do understand what you're saying completely, completely, but I think saying traffic officers, people are gonna, where the hell are they? What do I, you know, I don't know. Jennifer? Yeah, so I don't have, I'm okay with obstruction of the public way, including snow and ice and other obstructions, but I agree with Lynn. I know that, you know, Paul's thinking for the police department is because they issue citations. We want a citation issued, but it doesn't feel comfortable calling the police department about snow and ice or a tree. You know, I know because like on Amme Street, often there's a lot of people walk there and private bushes will be obstructing the public way. It doesn't feel comfortable calling the police to report that. Yeah, it's interesting because in the best possible world, I'll give you a chance in a second, Mandi. I'd love to see it be DPW, who then literally contacted an enforcement organization, but the system's not working in any direction, it seems. So Mandi? So one of the reasons the police officers were on a lot of these, if we look back historically and what we've been doing in the last couple of years since the council came on, is there's a criminal enforcement element. And the only people that could write a criminal citation were the police officers. This one's removing that. We're making it only non-criminal. So we're really only making it, you know, it's not a criminal ticket anymore. It's basically the equivalent of what Inspectional Services does with notices of violation for whatever building code they might see and all, you know, that's sort of where we're moving to with this. And so I think I agree with some of the others that say, why would we keep the police officers here at all? You know, if Paul really wants one, I think Inspectional Services is more appropriate than even the Traffic Enforcement Officer. The sidewalks have nothing to do with traffic enforcement, right? You know, it's not like we're saying blocking of a parking spot, right? You know, sidewalks have nothing to do with that. And so should we just be going with non-criminal disposition, Inspectional Services, and then just re-educating everyone, hey, it's Inspectional Services that you call. You call Bob's Rob's department and make your complaint. They know how to write notices of violations. They know how to write citations. They do it all the time for interior issues in residential and commercial buildings. So should that be just the way we go? Yeah, Jennifer? I agree with, I think that makes the most sense. I don't know if Rob wants that on his plate, but I also find them very responsive. So that's punishment for being so responsive as he gets more. I like the idea that we go with one. My only hesitation about Inspectional Services is it's a very small department versus, you know, the depth of the police department, which is 24 hours. And I feel like I'm arguing against my other point. So there's a point where this bylaw and whatever comes forward for rental bylaw is gonna be, needs to be looked at from a financial perspective as to whether or not we have sufficient people, Inspectional Services, to carry out all the duties that we have now added to them. So I like the idea of Inspectional Services because I don't like the idea of it being the police department. But I still have that concern. I can't go without saying how I feel. Yeah, and I have the same reservation of the two. I definitely would prefer Inspectional Services. And Paul seemed okay with that. So is- So I think what we do is we say Inspectional Services, we get rid of police department or, and- Ms. Michelle? They need to be looked at collectively with whatever comes forward for rental bylaw. Pat, I know you spoke to Paul and I agree. I would rather it not be the police department, but in his notes, he says his recommendation is that enforcement remain with police. Yes. So is it important that we would check with him to make sure that Inspectional Services has- I already have. I had a meeting with him this week where- Oh, okay. And he said that already. That's good. Okay, great. And that's why we're saying he would prefer one. Right, okay. And it'd either be the police or Inspectional Services, but not both. Just for Athena's purpose, what you just deleted police department or can be completely removed from the document? And just Inspectional Services left after police officers. Yeah. Yeah, perfect. I'm sorry, I need to raise my hand. That's okay. Pat, when I think somewhere later or wherever you want to do it, there needs to be a definition of other obstructions from- Yeah, I have that in my notes. Okay. No, but that's, we can go there. I was wondering if we wanted to have definitions here, because now there's the difference between trees. What is vegetative overgrowth? And I'm trying to think if I wanted, if there was another section. So would that be about, either that or to have separate categories under vegetative overgrowth, so that it includes shrubs, vines, saplings, and then branches extending from private trees into the public way? Go ahead, Mandi. Oh, Lynn, sorry. No, I'm sorry, I forgot to lower my hand. Okay, Mandi. You know, we have a one and we have a two right now and two is split into an A and a B, right? Number one is all sort of snow, ice, things like that. Easily defined. There's not a lot of questions there. Two is split into A and B because it's got a lot more than just snow and ice. Should we actually split two into two and three with one of them being just vegetative overgrowth and the other one being all other obstructions? In other words, three would be anything that's not dealt with in one and two, which would include things like toters or other movable obstructions or, you know, things like that, that isn't snow and ice and isn't vegetation, essentially, is people dumping random stuff for things like that, because then it would be easier to have different timings, you know, Alan talked about for vegetative overgrowth up to 10 days or something because he gives like two to 10 days or something. And so, and then we could give something other than 24 hours, right? You know, you could give like three days or something. And yeah, brush and stuff is usually fairly easy, but, you know, it's like we haul it down to the end of our property and we have a dumping area, the first stuff like that. But I hear what you're saying and I think that might be a good idea. So any debris or obstruction and perhaps we should say like, but his concern is toters, you know, they have to be there on the day of pickup. But if they're kept there for several days, that becomes problematic. So, but splitting them seems like a, yeah. Jennifer? Yeah, so we're gonna, they'll keep the word toters because I don't think people would, I think we have to be specific about that. So, we don't consider a toter an obstruction. It's just something. The point is we don't want the toters in the street for more than a day. Right. And basically what he was suggesting is toters or trash containers can only be left at the curb for the day of pickup, toters blocking the public way before after pickup day becomes the problem, you know. Right. Yeah. An obstruction. Yeah. Where does toters go? Yeah, that's what. I think in two. I don't know. Any debris or obstruction? Should debris, toter, comma, toters or other comma? I'd say garbage. I would do something that says, you know, garbage recycling totes or something like that. We could say trash containers because, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Trash containers is good. So. Or other obstruction. Trash containers are not really, I mean, they're obstructions, but I think they need different wording because if you read this, remove any debris or other obstruction that impedes the travel, you know. And so a toter, first of all, should never be put in the sidewalk, right? It should be in the apron or driveway or something that's not going to impede the sidewalk. What Alan said was they're often left in the road. And then when the tree works and people who are coming to do work, DPW or other, they're even PS, snow plows. It's in the street, yeah. Snow plows, things like that. So if they're in the street, so. But the street is we're talking about sidewalks. Sidewalks. But are there people that have no choice because they don't have sidewalks or that they would have to put it in the street? Well, my neighbor, we don't have sidewalks and her toters are right at the end of her driveway, which is right at the street, you know, it's street, but it's still lined up with her grass. But I know, yeah, one of them is out and that's because the, one of them is out in the road now, and it's because they did a pickup. The trash hauler did that, I think. I don't know, maybe we can even just forget it. I don't know. I mean, I think toters is a different. Yeah. It's not always on the sidewalks. It's more of a street thing, I think that Alan was talking about, which is not what this is talking about at all. This is really sidewalks, in some sense. Well, this is. Public ways and parking, public parking places, but we really only talk about sidewalks at all. But shouldn't then we should, the owner of real property that abuts a sidewalk, they have to do that, but shouldn't it be the owner of real property who's leaving their trash containers in, because it does say, it is about obstruction of public ways. Yeah, so look at C. So B is removing of stuff from sidewalks. B is only sidewalks. C is where we talk about public ways or public parking spots. That's the, I always took that to mean, the snow plow operator plows your driveway and dumps it all at the street across from your driveway on the street. Yeah, yeah. Like that's what I've always, from the original, because some of this is in black, so it's in the current bylaw. That's what I've always thought of it as. So that's where we bring in the public ways or parking. So adding toad or trash containers there. You could say no person shall deposit snow, ice, leaves, debris or other obstructions, toaders or other obstructions on any public way sidewalk or parking place, something like that, or trash hauling equipment or something or trash containers or waste containers. The containers go in the public way when they're waiting to be picked up. Right. So they need to be removed. Yeah, we could add maybe a second section there that says waste containers must be removed within 24 hours of being. Of pickup day or whatever. Pickup day or something, right? Like. Or on the day of pickup. I'd make it 12 hours. Or just removed on the day of pickup. Yeah. Yeah, that works on the day of pickup. An extra space there. I shouldn't say from the public way on the day of pickup. From any public way sidewalk or public parking spot, just use that same language, right? Fina, if you go back to the three we created, though it says for vegetative overgrowth, it's not a complete sentence. So I think you just have to add the first half of number two, the real property all the way to occurrence or otherwise. So we'll shall remove vegetative overgrowth that impedes. Yeah, it's like the same thing, but in degree or other obstruction, it's vegetative overgrowth. Maybe saying that a butt's a sidewalk end or road in these two or public way. Well, right, just for people that don't have sidewalks. So the question is, if the tree is hanging over the public way, we have seven feet or something, right? Which is a walking height, not a driving height. Driving heights like 15 or 16. Is it the people we want out there trimming the branches that are over the road? No, the tree warden wants to be called. And he says it's not gonna negatively, it's not gonna produce too much work for him. And it might be two to three days before he can do an evaluation. Because he wants to evaluate anything that's gonna be cut, that's a tree. It says if overgrowth is for a public shade, I guess we can't regulate private. So what is, I know that one, this comes up a lot in, I noticed in my district, because we have some major streets, is it's more the issue when bushes are overgrown and people can't walk on the sidewalk. So that's something where the, well, I shouldn't say that. I mean, some people wouldn't be able to trim them themselves, but a lot of people would, because we're not talking about a tall tree, it's really just a bush. Yeah, and you should be able to trim up to seven feet. Yeah, I can do that. So if I can do it, most people can, given my back. I think that's a lot to ask. But for me, the issue is bushes that mean when you're driving a car, you can't see unless you pull out into the road. Well, I think it's both things. Well, so Alan talked about some of that, but if it's on the private property, I don't think we can stop them from anything. It's only the public ones, right? Like... But if it's, if a private, like a bush on a private property is obstructing the sidewalk. That's right. It's obstructing the sidewalk. Yeah. But if it's just obstructing a view, but is solely on the private property, I don't think the town can do anything about it. It's amazing. I mean, because it is really a public safety hazard. Yeah, it could be. Well, I don't know. I have no idea whether we can say anything or do anything. Okay. Well, let's perhaps leave that for a moment. It does seem to me though, if there is an obstruct, my neighbor has a tree that I'll get to you in just a second, Michelle. I just noticed your hand and I apologize. My neighbor has a tree that's almost on the corner and it's very old and it's very fat. So I have to get my car in exactly the right position to see people coming from the left. Last summer, they were away for a very long time and they didn't mow their grass. So the grass got so high, literally, that I couldn't see. So I even my position in the street that I'd been using for years to get past their tree, I couldn't see. So it does seem to me that that could really be a safety hazard and maybe needs to be addressed here. Michelle? Who calls the tree warden if the overgrowth is from a public shade tree? Well, generally they already know, but I guess that would be inspectional services who we're saying would be responsible for this. We could say contacted by inspectional services for evaluation. That would be more clear. Yeah, that's great. So looking at Alan's item, he says, he's got a paragraph in here from what he submitted. The planting's blocking line of sight letter is generally only used for private trees or plantings that are blocking line of sight in an intersection. Some property owners have installed plantings without permission in the public way. The town has the authority to remove those plantings though it doesn't go over very well. This form could be used to begin the dialogue to correct the issue. So he has a private planting's blocking line of sight letter and so he already does stuff like that. It's on a private property. I don't know whether this is what should regulate that. And it sounds like he already does some of that, Lynn. But should it be mentioned in here? That's my only question. I guess I worry we're getting too far off of what the original intent of this bylaw was, which was to keep sidewalks clear so people could walk on it. But now you're starting to deal with those of us that live in places where there are no sidewalks. And the moment you deal with that, now you're dealing with property that comes right up to the road. Well, generally it doesn't. I mean, I don't have a sidewalk, but the public way is the first like five feet of my quote property from the curb five feet back onto grass is technically public way, right? And he's talking about things like that. It's just gained by me. Again, we might need a definition for what in fact is public way. That's clear. Property line, public way, all of that is clear. We've accepted the street from line to line. My property line goes to a certain line. Everything beyond that is public way. I'm just worried we're getting beyond the intent of keep sidewalks clear for walking and make sure no one dumps stuff in travel lanes. If you look at C, depositing on public ways, right? And we seem to be moving well beyond that which then requires a whole lot more thought and thinking and writing that we're not gonna be able to do in a meeting, yeah. If Mandy is calling for simplification, we better pay attention just because she loves to make things complex. Jennifer? No, I don't mean to complicate things, but I mean, technically the public way, I was on a, I don't know if anybody, in some of the older neighborhoods, like Little Page Street, I was talking to a neighbor yesterday who said I was standing in the street that actually I was on, technically on her property, that her property line is three quarters of the way across the street because the property lines existed before they put the road in. But anyway, just, it's interesting, there are actually neighborhoods where much of the road is actually within the property line of private property. And there are also private roads which we can't do anything about. I kind of agree with Mandy, like let's, I think what we have now works and it is, the one thing that I'm seeing is if the overgrowth is from a public shade tree, the tree warden shall be contacted by inspectional services for evaluation. That, why can't he be called directly as he is now? I think it's if someone complains about something and inspectional services goes out. Okay. It's a public shade tree, right? Okay. Where are people with this? Ms. Griezmer? I'm feeling like we need to stop somewhere. Maybe this is a good place to stop, but I am also still concerned about the burden on inspectional services. Michelle and then Jennifer. Is there anyone else that should look at this either now or at any point in this process? Well, it does seem like we should be sending it to inspectional, to Rob Mora and also back again to Paul. Before. Tracy, I remember Tracy Zafian was giving us a lot of feedback. Are there any other committees that maybe they've already looked at? I don't know. Does TESO need to weigh in on this? I'm wondering whether finance should. Well, I'll say more about that, Lynn. Well, the financial impact on any department is something finance periodically looks at. But right now, I think if we just rely on the town manager and Rob Mora to give that feedback, but it's again, I'm thinking down the road to the other bylaws that are being worked on that are going to add additional responsibilities or to inspection services. Jennifer. Yeah, so I guess I'll put my plug in. We hope that inspectional services will have additional inspectors. Right. Yeah. Mandy. So a couple of things. I would not favor any referral to finance for review of this. I think finance needs to stick to budgets and some other things. And then when necessary, other portions because otherwise finance would have to review every bylaw we do. And that's frankly in my mind unreasonable. It's not what they're there for. They're mainly for budgetary purposes and the operating budget and everything like that. Paul has indicated he would be okay with inspectional services. We should not be conflating the amendment of this bylaw to any other bylaws other committees are working on that may or may not add requirements or duties to the same department. We look at that one separately than this one. And trust that those committees that are looking at other bylaws that might add those duties are doing third due diligence and will make the appropriate recommendations to the appropriate committees when time comes. D, remedies. This was in the current one. It's just crossed out under section AB3 right now. Do we actually want the ability for the town to remove the obstruction and then figure out a way to charge the property owner for the cost of that removal or do we just want to keep writing the tickets? Because if we're really concerned as Lynn seems to indicate about time we should not be having our town departments do private maintenance. Maintenance that private properties are supposed to do. So I would argue that we should get rid of D completely. I don't, go ahead, Jennifer, are you done? Yeah. Jennifer? Yeah, I think that TAC and concern is that the obstruction is that the obstruction, if someone has a disability and they can't get down the street or any of us are going to fall on ice that it's not the fine that's so much important is clearing the obstruction. Right, yeah. And I totally agree with Jennifer there and I think that we do want to keep D in. Mandy? So here's what I worry about. We've already commented that DPW residents have started relying on DPW for clearing of sidewalks that DPW shouldn't be clearing and then that's actually presenting some of this problem because residents are like, oh DPW swings by now I don't have to do anything. If we start using this as a remedy instead of finding the person and it's only not to exceed 500 will anyone have any incentive to clean their sidewalk or will they just start waiting for someone to complain? The ticket won't get written with a fine they'll just ignore it. DPW will come and clean it and then the leans take court time. I don't think we can just say, oh DPW did this that's like going to court filing things that's additional expenses. It may be more than $500 to do all of that and we can only recover at most $500. If you own a property it comes with certain responsibilities. And I'm not talking about snow and ice but if we think about obstruction of vegetation if you're going to have a property that you plant vegetation close to the sidewalk your job's to keep that public way clear. And if you can't do it yourself I mean, it may sound harsh but then you should be hiring someone to do that or to remove that vegetation, remove the bush or move it back 10 feet if you really want it. I don't think it's the town's job to be cleaning up private properties and doing their yard maintenance for them simply because it overgrows the sidewalk. But I don't think that's what it's saying. I think that we have up their $50 penalty. Those are what the tickets are. And what we're talking about here is someone who's consistently been ticketed for the same issue and is not responding. So it's not like Jennifer calls up oh, I'm not going to clear my snow and ice and so I know DPW will come. I think that that's a stretch and I think that we do need this in here. So that's where I am. Jennifer. Yeah, I agree because I mean, I think there's actually a member of the disability access committee who has to get home and to get to her family has to traverse Amity. And if it's, she literally can't do it if there's snow and ice on the sidewalk. So I think that the homeowner because the responsible should be fine but we really want to get the obstruction removed if we can. So that people can walk. But I think that even, yes, that's the ultimate. That is the most important thing. But at the same time, DPW has sort of trained some people that they'll come in. And that so that we need to get this going. I agree with that. Again, special services is going to come and they're going to say, hey, Michelle, yeah, this is an obstruction. And I think you didn't realize that you need to clear it away. And Michelle is going to go, oh, and she's going to go and clean it. But when they come to me and say, you should have moved this debris and stuff, I'm going to ignore them. And they're going to come back. If it's still there, then I'll get fined the first ticket. So I don't think that they're automatically going to be just writing tickets, but engaging, contacting and saying, hey, this is a problem and here's why. And here's what you need to do about it. Michelle brought up, I believe it was Michelle, who brought up TSO. And how do people feel about sending this both back to Paul and Rob Mora, but also to TSO for feedback? Mandy? So I would again say no. We've spent a lot of time on this. It's not that TSO might not be the appropriate place for it. And frankly, it probably should have been TSO to begin with. But it's been here. We've been told we're the ones that are supposed to do the substantive review and make the recommendation. And so I guess I'm trying to find ways to be more efficient with council time. And if we've already spent four hours or more of this committee's time, what would TSO add to it that we haven't already done as a committee? And so I would say no to that. Well, while I've got the floor here, Athena in numbers B2 and 3, the cross-outs about the either A or the 4 or the 24 hours and all of that, those weren't in the original by-law so they can just disappear completely. The big cross-out that starts in addition to the remedies provided, that needs to remain crossed out, but the rest of it, thanks. Excuse me. Any other comments on this? I'm gonna move then that we recommend this by-law as clear, consistent and actionable to the town council. Is there a second? Michelle? Yeah, I'm sorry, before we vote, we were asked to do substantive changes to this so I'm just questioning what the motion needs to say. Also, if we are having inspectional services or other staff review this, is this ready for a vote? Those are my two questions. Responses to Michelle's question. I think she's got two very good points. This is more than clear, consistent and actionable and I would really like Paul and maybe he decides who else should look at it before we actually take final vote. So I will, is there any reaction to that? I don't have a problem with that at all. Mandy? Good with that. Okay, then I will send this on to Paul and then we'll bring it back with any changes or suggested changes and for a vote at our next meeting. I would love to see this be gone just cause it's been here for a long time. And for the minutes, Erica, Pat, you're withdrawing your motion, right? Yes, yeah, I'm sorry. I don't do that part of this well. Thank you, Erica. All right. Well, it's 1037. And so the other two items on the agenda would be to look at flags and banners or to look at, we begin to look at rule six from the rules of procedure, which is about conduct, rules of conduct for meetings. Pat? Yes. When we last discussed flags and banners, we suggested there might need to be some changes to our policy regarding public way. So, and Mandy, Joe, I think- Yeah, we're just gonna work on them. Yeah. I sent draft revisions of both the policy regarding the public way and rule six and five to Pat. When did you send that? I'm sorry. Last week. I have messed up. I have not, I have messed up. So I will have to go find that. I could put them up. I think I copied Athena on them. So she probably has both of them. We could probably just put them up. It'll just be a slower review since no one's seen them. Yeah. And again, to the committee, I apologize for that. And I can explain what I was doing in each of these. Okay. You wanna lead us through it then? So the policy regarding the public way, many of these don't actually relate to banners. If the council remembers, if the committee remembers three years ago, two years ago, during COVID, we added, if Athena can page down, we added a full section, section four, way down on page three. Regarding emergency provisions that allowed Paul to basically authorize the use of sidewalks and parking spots under the emergency provisions or under our temporary zoning. Well, the temporary zoning is no longer in effect and the emergency provisions have kept getting extended, blah, blah, blah, but in essence, number four is kind of out of date now. So a lot of the changes relate to keeping a lot of that authority, but doing it in not an emergency sort of measure way. So if we go back up to the front, the top, the long-term requests, that section there, I left highlighted the number of parking spots, but basically, Paul has granted the authority for all of these little parklets, the outdoor dining parklets that cover one or two spots under section four of our current policy, which kind of doesn't work much more in a way. And so this one here is an attempt to write that into the reservation, essentially saying, Paul can just reserve it for up to 180 days as it relates to sidewalk cafe, food, drink, or other retail areas. We're delegating the authority to Paul, but I thought it might be important for the council to decide how many spots we were allowing Paul to sort of take over for outdoor dining. Hence, a big XX, because I didn't know how many were used. If we don't put a number of spots in, he could take off, he could do this for every single parking spot in town. And I'm guessing we probably don't want to give him that broad of authority. And so the thought for this one was, tell him how many spots he can do on his own. Once he gets above that number of spots, it would come back to the council. And I picked 180 days because I thought that was, it sounds long, right? It's half the year, but that's basically what our parklets are doing right now. I don't know whether they're exactly 180, but they're there about six months. They went in in kind of mid-April, six months is mid-October. That's kind of the right season. So that's where I got with that one. We can either talk about that one or I can summarize the rest of the changes first. Let's stick with this. Jennifer? Yeah, my question is just, you're talking about total spaces, not number of spaces together. I was talking about total spaces. So there's like three or four in town right now. I don't know how many spaces they use, but give him the authority to use this thing for like 10 spaces or eight spaces or 20 spaces. Pick a number. I don't know the number, we have to decide. We might want to ask him how many are in use now and put that number in. I think that he could be a good reference on the number. But yeah, I was thinking about total, so he could grant like four or five requests as long as they don't go over 10 spots or eight spots or something is what I was thinking with this language. Michelle? I'm sure it's more than eight, but yeah. I'm not sure how this all fits in, but I'm thinking about over here at the Mill District and Cisco's, for example, who, well, previously when it was Jake's, they expanded to have outdoor seating. So this is for all areas of town. It would apply the same for all areas of town. For the public parking spots, yes. Right, I think those were private at Cisco. Yeah, they are. Yeah. Oh, okay, I see. That is their parking lot. Differentiation. Okay, perfect. Thank you. This is essentially the on-street parking, which could happen up in the Mill District because there is on-street parking up there. There is a bit, yeah, but I was thinking more about the private and that's a good differentiation, yep. Good point though, Michelle. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Shall we move on to the next? No, I have a question. So in other words, right now, we've delegated the things that we put out, and I think there's four now in town. That is already delegated to Paul. Under section four. Under section four. Yeah. And this basically says he could do more of that but not to exceed a total number of X parking spots. Correct. And it gives them the authority. So if you read section four and Athena, you don't have to page down, I'll read it. So it talks about notwithstanding the limitations in sections two A, B, two A, two B, three A, three B, three C. So we're looking at two B right now, not two A, but two A was short-term. Two B is long-term. So I figured I'd stick this one under long-term. All temporary parking requests, sidewalk closures, road closures or temporary uses such as display of signage requested and then here's the kicker with section four. In conjunction with requests to expand under any order of the governor in response to a declared state of emergency pursuant to chapter 639, zoning article 14 or other requests to facilitate the reopening of retail businesses in local business districts. And so the state of emergency disappears on Friday. Temporary zoning disappeared last December and facilitate reopening that really doesn't necessarily apply anymore. And so basically section four, come Friday, if you read the direct intent of it, he can't do anything with anymore. And so I'm trying to take the original intent and what we've learned from it and move it into the actual delegated authority. And I skipped short-term requests under parking because short-term's 14, you wouldn't put these things up for 14 days. So I figured it probably wasn't too necessary under section 2A, which is why I only put this one into 2B. You'll see when we get down to the next section that it's also in the short, the long-term closures in section three. Yeah, I'm trying to just imagine creative ways in which people might say, oh, I need these four spaces because I'm doing something that is seasonal. And all of a sudden we have even a worse parking situation than some people are concerned about. Yeah, well, that's why I had a total, not to exceed the use of X parking, the total approvals not to exceed X parking spots. Once it starts exceeding that number, he has to come, it's no longer called authority, it's back to the council. So he could say right now we're using, I don't know, 10 parking spots, okay? And if that number we put in there is 10, that means he can't approve anymore. Right, it would come to the council to approve. And I have now expressed a bias, okay? And that is that probably it should be the number we're presently using and not anymore. I just didn't know what that number was. Yeah, no, to me, that's the number that belongs there. I'll go out and count. My guess is it's eight, because my guess is each one of those takes up two, but I don't know. We should ask all, I did not run this by Paul at all, so we should run the whole thing by Paul. I had just forwarded it to Pat and Athena, but yeah. Okay. Shall we move on? So section three, the emergency provisions mentioned sections three, B and C, and you'll see, as it did mention sections two, A and B, and you'll see I only chose to put these under the long-term closures, the long-term reservations, not the short-term. The short-term he already gets. So in some sense, I didn't think it was necessary under the short-term, it's the long-term we've tended to keep the authority. So again, you'll see the language is nearly identical. This is sidewalk and road closures instead of parking. This is all of it, and so I don't know, I didn't know how to put in that sort of extra, that like the parking spots, you could put in total approvals not to exceed so many spots, but I didn't know how to sort of put that extra check-in with road and sidewalk closures. These are actual road and sidewalk. I don't know whether we want to allow that, I don't know whether we want to allow seasonal road and sidewalk closures at all, but I put it in here because it was part of section four. So it's essentially the same thing, but without that extra check, they would all remain there. And I think the question for us is, do we want Paul to be able to do road and sidewalk closures or not, if it relates to seasonal dining and all? I think of the ones that still have to come to the council and like the farmer's market, and to be honest, there was a screw-up with the farmer's market this year. And as I think about that, I'm concerned that we're not when it comes to 180 days, I'm concerned we're actually abandoning our responsibility. Yeah, I kind of agree with that. So I would be fine. Personally, I think I agree too, that a road and sidewalk is much different, a long-term closure of a road and sidewalk is much different than taking a parking spot for six months of a year. Let me add one other thing. From time to time, at least on two occasions, Paul and I have actually wondered whether or not, just like we have a licensing board, whether or not we would have a permanent committee about the public way. But at this point, we're not moving forward with that. But I'd really think this goes too far. So I think for Athena's purpose, that would be reject all the changes in section C. I was waiting to make sure that was okay with everybody. Yeah, there's nobody who's opposed to that. Yeah, thank you, Athena. So section E is my attempt to deal with the banner issue. Yay. Yeah, and so it gets kind of tough. This one is, I had to make some choices. As you see with the opening paragraph, I tried to state again that the placement of all of them is government speech to make that clear. These are across Pleasant Street, but then also those lamp posts in the, and I call it the business improvement district. I don't think we have lamp posts throughout the other parts of town, I don't know. But I was trying to provide the locations of what we're actually putting forth, which is, and so I don't know whether the description of those two places is accurate. So that's question number one, but now let's get into what I attempted. So there's three sections of this, little one, little two, little three. And so US, Massachusetts, Amherst, the three colleges and our regional schools, I thought we were in agreement with delegating all of those choices to the manager on when to fly them, if they're banners across, if they're like the actual UMass flag or that. So my attempt on that was the US flags on the lamp posts and stuff. So that's what I was thinking of with that one. And the next one is, so three is sort of the same thing, although it probably should be under, I should have re-numbered two and three, but three is the same way, but these are the other banners Paul has talked about when we've looked at the flag policy. This is the like, welcome back students, congrats, grads, the, it's Mary outside, I don't know what they said this year, Mary and Bright or something like that. And so I tried to describe them as you can see, congratulations, season chair, I was actually probably supposed to say seasonal cheer, but instead of season chair. And the welcoming students back, that group again, as a separate from the actual flags of the colleges and universities and town and state, it's still delegating to Paul, but keeping it as a separate category. And then it comes to everything else. Well, I guess there's a four or two or three, a three or four, so the two. Again, trying to, what can we delegate to the manager? So this is the, sometimes the plant show is advertised, sometimes, this would not cover every advertisement that goes across Pleasant Street, but I was trying to think of things that what banners get flown across Pleasant Street. And a lot of times it's for things that have reservations on the common. It doesn't cover everything. And so this is where I think we have to figure out the wording maybe, but if it's something that someone's reserved the common for, or we get the LSSE production, I don't know how to deal with that, right? The women voters book sale. Book sale, I had some problems on this one coming up with a way to, what can Paul do, that is sort of non-controversial and something we might be willing to, and how do you describe it? So I tried to take, if he's given the reservation under the public way policy, he can also grant this banner. It doesn't cover everything. I'm not sure how we cover everything, but that's the intent of number two. And then everything else I kept for the council. I hope that kind of describes it. It's not perfect, it needs work, but those were sort of what I was thinking of when I was trying to make these categories. Good job, and Lynn? Right, so I definitely would exchange small Roman numeral one and two, or whatever those are called. Two and three. Two and three, I'm sorry, yes. Definitely interchange those. I'm concerned, don't take that last one because that's where my concern is. Are we saying as a town council that we want the league to come to us to get permission to put a banner up? For their... I don't think we want to, but that's where I obviously you really struggled. And I'm even looking at the wording for what is now three and manager, I don't know what we would say, because it's not, many of those events are not on the town common, like the LSSE play. Yeah, and this year the league's book sale was at Fort River, not on the common. Right. Yeah, the other worry I have, even with the wording that it is now, is anyone can reserve the common. So if we're worried, if there was a KKK group that came and reserved the common or the Proud Boys group that wanted to reserve the common for an event, Paul would have to let them. And then under how section three is written, they would be entitled to a banner across Pleasant Street. And so this is... Why would you want to have to let them? Wait, wait, wait, Jennifer? Why would Paul have to let them reserve the common? We can't do reservations based on speech. If we, you know, we can't say you can't reserve, West or East Brookfield just had this issue with the drag show and the Pride event. You can't on the common say, well, we're not gonna let you reserve it because we don't like what you're saying, but this person over here can reserve it because they like, it's a free speech issue. The common is the common. As long as there's no other event there, anyone can reserve it for their... I didn't know that, okay. And that's a long standing. That's the purpose of the common. Well, common that it's common. Yeah. And so even the way it's written, I had my own reservations on, I just don't know how to do getting the league book sale those events off the council's plate. And this needs to be looked at in relationship to our flag policy. Yes. And the flag policy which we have looked at and is presently on hold to resolve this was developed by, I believe by Pamela in consultation with our town attorney. And so I'm wondering if we should be seeking some town attorney language for here or assume that it's going to come out of what we just went through for the flag. Athena has her hand up. Athena. Mandy, you have shall be considered government speech, the banner. So you would be delegating to the town manager approval of a banner that the council might disagree with. Is that right? Yes. Yeah, that's why I struggled with number three. I think number one and two while government speech are things that we can say we approve of that, those government speeches, they're clear enough. Three was the issue thinking about what mostly goes up there. What are you thinking? Can you say more, Athena? I'm thinking that if Paul can't say no to somebody because of the content of what they're advertising, then what they're advertising becomes government speech. And I don't know that the council would agree with anything that somebody might wanna put up there. So I have a question. If when we say the common, do you have to have a connection to Amherst? I mean, can somebody come from another state and reserve our common? Really? Okay. I think the teddy bear group might have been an example of that that goes back some years maybe before other people living here. Well, I think extravaganza some years was not a reservation by Amherst residents. I don't know who actually, it might have been a UMass group that reserved it a couple of years, but sometimes it was not, I think. So, Pat, I think you asked about legal opinion or someone did. I think it would be a good idea to send it. And I think the question is, what do we do about essentially section three, right? One and two I'm much more comfortable with, but section three, the intent about things like advertisements of the musical, the book sale, the plant sale, the farmer's market. I think sometimes graduations go up on that one. I think what we need from Paul is a list of what goes up there and how do we delegate most of that? But again, I think Athena's got a good point. If it's government speech, do we really want it government speech of saying go buy the book sale, right? Some commercial activities, yet if we don't designate it government speech, we can't stop anything. Right. I think I need to go now. Honestly? No, just saying, this, I- I agree. I think it needs to, we need some help from legal counsel. Yeah, yeah. Michelle? I'm also wondering if talking to the bid and the chamber just in terms of like how they're viewing that, particularly that banner, what do they expect? What are their expectations in terms of using that for the things that they're trying to promote? That might be worth it. Yeah. And at least with the section E2, the welcome back things, did we cover most of what they do with those banners right now, I think under the section, the flagpole, the light pole banner, whatever you want to call those. Okay, sounds good. Nothing simple. No, not anymore. And I think that was the last, four is deleted. Yeah. But we talked about why. I'm gonna ask for some hope in the sense of I completely overlooked this. So I was gonna say, Mandy, you sent it to me if I don't respond in two days, get back to me. But then I was wondering, because I seem to need that support because I'm missing certain things and I wanna just be direct. Jennifer, I was gonna ask is, if things were sent to me and Jennifer, and I don't know if that's okay, that Jennifer, even if you can't send it to both of us, it goes to me, but she gets copied. I sent this to Pat. Can you check with her in two days or something? That would be really helpful to me. I will do that. I think I could send it as if it's just a, this is what I was tasked to do. Here's the document for including the packet. No discussion of the item. Right. And does that feel comfortable to you? And I apologize, but obviously I need that. So. There's so much correspondence. Yeah. And I didn't look at the agenda or the packet till this morning. So if I looked earlier, I would have known. Yeah. Thank you both for trying to make me feel better. I'm still, I'm not the only person that messed up through my email. So I can respond to people and I'll see, oh my God, 10 days ago, I didn't respond. Yeah, that's what's, yeah. Is there, Athena, there's no reason it can't be sent both Jennifer and Pat, right? Like a proclamation or anything. Jennifer, Athena? No, I don't see why not, as long as we're not engaging in discussion and all that Jennifer would be doing is just following up with Pat. Yeah. Then that would be extremely helpful at this point. Got it. We both miss it. Then it wasn't, then we made a decision then. Right. Then you, yeah, you made the decision not to put it on the agenda. But we didn't discuss it. Okay. All right. I also want to thank Mandy Jo for taking a first stab at this latest. Yes. I think you wrote the original, right, Mandy Jo? I did. Yeah. Okay. It's really helpful to have your way in and giving us a draft to start with. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Well, I guess I think I'm going to contact Paul about getting the attorneys to look at this, these changes. And I'm trying to think if there's a permanent public way committee. I don't know if I want any more committees. And I'm just saying that there's been times we've talked about. Yeah. And I just thought this would be a good time to mention. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think we're set on that for now, yes. And what I'd like us to go to, I think we have just a little under half an hour is to begin to look at rule six, the code of conduct. And I've had an interesting conversation with a couple of different people about some of this. And we do know that we have to get rid of civility and things like that. But there's also structural things that I'd like to talk about in this. And some of the structural thing is I'd love to see 6.5 the conflict of interest in ethics be 6.1. All counselors shall, that's something that we should do. And then general rules of conduct then 6.1 becoming 6.2. Except we also have appendix A which has all our values and whether there is some value and if there is in some point to listing our values before we list these behaviors. I'll let you in in just a second, Mandy. And another thing is to move counselors conduct up above the public conduct because it's almost like this is what we are saying we need to do before we ask the public to do it. I don't know. Anyway, Mandy. Yeah. Again, I was tasked with trying to take last meeting's conversation and put it into rules. I did send that one off too. It is a mess to look at track changes. I will say it's a mess to look at track changes because things get moved all over the place. There's different colors. There's all of that. But Athena and Pat also have a copy of that. And I did not do things like move 6.3 above even though I wanted to. I was trying, I was like I wanna put counsel first and then invited speakers and then public but I was trying to keep some of those changes as minimal as, those movements as minimal as possible. Given everything, it might be wise if we're going to propose changes to rule 6 to think about essentially rewriting rule 6 completely and doing a repeal and replace or at least of the first three or something so that we don't have to track changes to it. It's easier to view for other times but I'm happy to go through my attempt at stuff if people would like that. It also had some stuff in rule 5 because we had talked about it. Right. I'd like to see what you've done but I'm wondering if a real repeal and replace wouldn't be easier. But anybody reacting to that, Michelle? Pat, you said 6.5 when you first started your comments. Yeah, I'm looking at an older copy. Like 6.5 is conflict of interest in ethics in the copy that I'm looking at. Okay. I might have a... Pat, is there on our screen anywhere or I just wanted to put my eyes on it first? No. Okay. Yeah, sorry. It should be, everybody should have copies of... Yeah, it's still 6.5 in the current rules of procedure, Michelle. Yeah, down right here. Conflict of interest in ethics. Before we think about moving things around which I think there is some value to in it and I'd love to look at but I wanna go with what people want at Mandy's. Again, something that I didn't put in the packet. I apologize. If we could look at Mandy at what you have done even if it's really messy and crazy as a starting point. Yeah, Athena, you had just had it up, I think. Yes, yeah. Before you switched back to this one when you were showing 6.5. And I think it's easiest to start with rule five although rule five has stuff that we haven't talked about and then stuff that I was trying to do. So the stuff in blue is the new stuff that was an attempt to respond to the conversation two weeks ago. The stuff in red is everything that started with months ago but I left it all in there because we've never done... Well, it came back to us, right? Some of that was but I didn't do anything with it not because I didn't know we needed to but because that was not what I was tasked with. So blue is the new stuff. And it was a lot of things to move back to the public comment period. So you'll notice I retitled the rule to make it clearer what regular meetings wasn't really clear what it was talking about. So I retitled it. I added the general public comment to be clear what that is. I added the line about special meetings don't have to but can. And then you'll see A is the changes to five one A are basically what we talked about at the last meeting to get it into this section and out of the audience participation from rule six. And I think other than that fix of the capitalization there's only one other item and that was in the new G I believe where I added the word general again to distinguish between special, you know to say we've got a general public comment period that can have these things in it but sometimes a presiding officer will add public comment periods on specific items. So that's why I added just a clarification thing there. So that's the only things I did to rule five. I'd like to stick with rule five to see if we can get and to look at the red changes as well. So, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Lynn. Go ahead. When you say the general public comment in special in A, 5.1 A while I agree that it would be best if public comment were only on matters within the jurisdiction of the council. I don't think most people could tell you whether something is or isn't. And they will come and comment on any number of things some of which is clearly not in our jurisdiction. So how do we accommodate for that? Well, it has been in the rules for years now. And I understand that I'm just saying I don't think people know how to distinguish. Jennifer? I'm sorry, I was down to 5C, 5.1 C. So I should probably wait till we get there, right? I mean, that's what I wanted to comment on not what I wasn't responding to Lynn. So should I? Right, so yeah. Okay, and Mandy, are you responding to Lynn? I was going to respond to Lynn. So it's presiding officer's duty or job if we keep this in there to stop a public comment that's not within the jurisdiction of the council or the committee, because we do it within committees too. If I'm presiding over CRC and someone starts railing on finances, I just stop them and say, hey, that's not within CRC's jurisdiction. You may go to the finance committee to make that comment or to the town council to make that comment, but we only accept public comments within our jurisdiction and finances not within our jurisdiction. I think at the last meeting we discussed whether we want this limitation or not, the issue is if we do not put a limitation like this on it means that people can come and talk to us about anything and we can't stop them. And anything means other things in the town including specific employees and their job performance whether or not we have hiring authority over them. It includes school committee or school policy that we have no jurisdiction under but it also includes things going on in California or Minnesota, that- Florida. Anything, Florida, yes, Florida. And their issue with social studies textbooks say that we have no jurisdiction over and if we don't have this, which our lawyers said we could have this one. In fact, the lawyer encouraged us to have this one. Yeah, we can't stop any of it. And so I would hesitate to removing the matters within the jurisdiction of the council. I understand, Lynn, that it's hard to stop someone in public comment but that's what our presiding officers are take on when they take on the role of presiding officer. So I think it's exciting to stop to know what's in the jurisdiction and stop when it's not and be consistent, yeah. Yeah, it's been provided. This is as advice from council, leave it in. I just want to share. It's even when somebody starts into something it's very difficult to determine whether or not it's in our jurisdiction and so forth. Yeah, I can understand that. But I think there are times where it's potentially absolutely out of our jurisdiction and if we're not consistent, I guess that's what I heard from the Lauren over and over again. Consistency is important because when you're inconsistent then there are all kinds of holes and then you have to kind of do everything. And public comment is extremely important but it also, I don't want to hear about Governor DeSantis being the God of our next generation or whatever or some bizarre thing. So I am, I really would like anyone chairing any meeting to be as consistent as possible. Jennifer? You have two questions, a comment and a question. So if someone were to comment on the school board I mean, I think there's so much you could say that almost everything in Amherst concerns the town council where I like keeping this in is if someone were to say something in support of the Ku Klux Klan you could say that is not within the scope of the council. So then you would as a presiding officer if someone wanted to comment on something that concerned the schools when we do allocate the budget you could probably use your discretion but some things are clearly not like what goes on in Florida is clearly not within the council's jurisdiction. And by the way, they could talk about the Ku Klux Klan if they come and ask it to put a banner on our across the street and be on the comments. So I'm fine, just leave it as it is. I just had to express my- Yeah, no, I think that's important. Go ahead, Jennifer. I did have a comment. So for the length of public comment period I feel really strongly that we should err on the side of being expansive. I mean, if it were me, I would, I mean, I wouldn't even be fine if it said when it's reached 90 minutes but I'm probably get pushed back on that but I don't think it rarely goes beyond, I think it rarely goes beyond 30 minutes. Sometimes it may go to 60. I don't know why we don't say 60 minutes. I think if there's a lot of people we shouldn't cut it off at 30. Right, I think that was well, when it got sent back to us, it was clear that the council, the bulk of the council did not support a time limit on public comment. But I did hear Lauren say we should just so you can. So maybe, I mean, have it be longer than it would probably ever be but it would give you, yeah. What about 60 minutes as a compromise between 30 and 90? Generally, general public comment does not take long. It is when there's some kind of special event or issue that's really there. Michelle? My sense is that any number we put in there is going to create some opposition or some disapproval from the public. So I don't see unless it becomes a problem that we have to really address and maybe change the way that we structure public comment or include additional public comments. I don't think we should have a number in there at all personally. I think it just agitates and I don't think there's a reason to do it. Jennifer? I would agree with that unless there's some really strong legal argument. I don't see why we, that would be my preference is not to have a limit. I just don't, it seems never to have been a problem ever. That's not true, but. No, no, I think that when it goes on it's because it has to and, you know, I don't think it happens that often. I know it's not a popular position and I am comfortable with removing a time limit. I just feel like when I've heard the same comments made by 15 people and then the 16th person starts saying the same thing, am I listening anymore? You know, what I try to do during public comment is to listen, really listen. And certainly I've had five speakers in there's somebody who says one thing that's slightly different and it really gets me thinking. It starts spinning things in me and I think that's the power of public comment. One of the powers of public comment. I don't know. I just, I also feel like there has been abuse of it. But anyway, Michelle, that will be put into the indie and I'll be a bad person. Let's go on. I was just gonna say that, you know, I think as a counsel we've been trying to model at least from my perspective more recently like if somebody says something then maybe even just saying I agree with Pat or not, you know, reiterating the entire thing over again. And so I think that's really good coming from us to model that. And I do think that sometimes people, especially with like not showing who's there in a meeting, I think, and I understand the reasons for doing that and holding it as a webinar, but I think people sometimes just want their voice and their self to be known to have added to the discussion. And I think there is value in that. So I can see both sides, but I just, I wanted to bring that piece up too. Okay. Mandy and Jennifer? So 30 minutes clearly caught some people by surprise and was not well received. Mark Hampton has a 90 minute timeline. I wonder if we could put 90 minutes or two hours in something that as Pat said, and I think it was Pat but maybe it was Jennifer, when our legal counsel indicated it would help us. It would give us some protections. We may not ever need those protections, but it would give us those protections. But something that's longer than we face generally right now at all. And I haven't always tracked every public comment. My guess is we haven't gone over 90 minutes yet. But if people would be more comfortable with two hours, two hours, I would say if we're putting something in, we actually, the May was there for some sort of thing of like, well, what if we only have one left and all of that? And I think the concern, and then there was this whole, my proposal had like, we do it at the end. I would actually go back to a simpler of maybe two hours and we just stop, the council, the public comment period shall not exceed two hours or each public comment period, right? Shall not exceed two hours. Sometimes we have these special ones that's in G. I do wanna point out that we have had a three-hour limit for public hearings since the beginning of the council and no one has had any problems with having a limit for public hearings in the rules or actually enforcing it. I think I've had to, I've gotten close once to total public hearing in CRC. Sometimes they can get kind of long the first ones. So we have a precedent for having a limit. I would argue three hours is too long for a public comment period within the business of the council because we're trying to get our entire meetings done in three and a half hours. So think about what else can we accomplish if a public comment period takes a full two hours or X, Y, or Z. It also allows Lynn, if we put a limit in of some sort to be able to plan agendas, especially when she knows there might be a lot of public comments to say, well, we're going to finish it after two hours, no matter what, I know I can put an hour of business in, for example, or something, because I must say in planning agendas for a two-hour committee meeting, it's hard to guess how much public comment there will be sometimes and what you can fit in an agenda. And so this gives some certainty to no matter what, you can put an hour and a half of business on a meeting, no matter whether there's a surprise and whether there's a lot of public comment or not. So I would support keeping something in. I'm okay with going long, but I think it protects the council. I think it helps plan. And it's not like we don't have precedent when you look down at our public hearing section. Jennifer and then Lynn. Yeah, and I think our public, we haven't gotten pushed back on a limit on our public hearings because it's been so generous with time. I don't think anybody really probably wants it to go beyond three hours. So I mean, I would be comfortable with the two hours. I feel like there's so much we can't do for our constituents in terms of, because of budget constraints, that this is something we can. So to be generous with this, because we can't be with everything else. So I'd say as long as we can put it, but I understand Lauren Goldberg did say there was some need. Otherwise it could, if someone it could go on all night and you would have, you would just not be able to stop it. So I think if it's expansive that there would be community receptivity to that. Thank you Jennifer. Lynn. Let me try something. And that is the length of public comment periods colon. So an S goes after period. Once the public comment period, once a public comment period has reached 120 minutes. The council may, and I really like the word may pause public comment and move to the next agenda, move to other agenda items. So in other words, a little more loose in here to other agenda items. So in other words, maybe we have a huge presentation. It's not an action. And I would actually leave that last piece so that if we want to, we can return. Now, one of the reasons I wanted to bring this up is because in the first term of the town council, we held the meeting on one, about 132 Northampton road. I believe we had not three hours, three and a half hours of public comment that night. And we just let it go, but we held a special meeting for that purpose. And so, and by the way, I'd actually amend the next sentence. I would say the council may return to public comment later in the agenda. I want to go ahead. That's all. I want to say to Athena, there needs to be a space between two and other and NC. Michelle. I don't think this is really going to ever get to the point of being a problem, but I just want to bring out two points that the may means that it's highly dependent on who's chairing the meeting. And it also means that there is a risk of perceived inconsistency. And I have concerns about how that holds our chair and our council liable to that risk. And so if we are going to put in 120 minutes, I think we should say shall pause and be really consistent about that because then it's not personal to either the chair or to the public in any way. Thank you, Michelle. Mandy and then Jennifer. Lynn, your hand is still up. I agree with Michelle. It was exactly what I was going to say. I would just add one thing to that, which is I believe our attorney also indicated that the more discretion there is, the more problematic it becomes on a liability of people perceiving it as being based on a viewpoint choice. No, the two hours was all with liking us, so we'll keep it, but the two hours, the next week meeting was all against the council, so we're cutting it off. And then it being argued that that cutoff was viewpoint-based. So I think the shall is safer than the may. Thank you, Jennifer. Yeah, as I said, the same. I think that's probably what Lauren Goldberg would advise. Yeah. Lynn? Yes, I would add one other thing that basically says shall pause public comment and unless voted by the council to continue public comment, move on to the other agenda items. So in other words, this is another, it's a double check on the president. I think that's good. It shouldn't it come shall pause public comment unless voted to. Yeah, I like the way that Athena has edited my. And I would change pause to end unless, well, I think the end is, I don't know whether end works, but pause implies we will be going back at some point, whereas end says we won't. I don't know how I'm thinking of this throughout loud. The, I think the unless voted, unless I would say unless extended by majority vote of the council, you know, and then that extension can be, I don't think we'd need the second sentence then because the extension, the vote can say, we're going to extend for 30 minutes now or we're going to end now and in an hour, come back for another 30 minutes or something. Like the vote can indicate when the public comment period will continue. Before you remove that, I believe that last sentence provides some assurance to the public. And so I, that's where I'd leave it in. Yeah. And Athena, if you could take the, in the second line, instead of shall end the public, but shall pause, I think that was a very important change just above a little bit. Well, I guess the question is if we, what's the intention at 120 minutes? Are we pausing and always coming back at a later point in the meeting? Or are we, I think that's, to me, I hear pause and I say, oh, we're going to come back at some point. Okay. Well, it's written now, is it ends at 120 minutes or the council votes to extend it or votes to come back to it? Okay. Yeah, I like that. Who just spoke? Jennifer out of, I wasn't called on. No, that's fine. No, no, I don't care about that. I just wasn't sure who, and... No, yeah. Go ahead, Jennifer. I mean, I don't, I guess personally, I guess maybe just to sort of state, I would be comfortable before where it said, we may in public comment, but don't have to, but I mean, just to be clear for the public that we are responding to our legal counsel who said we should, it should not be able to be interpreted that we're using our own independent preference for when we stop, which is why we have to have, why we're putting shall instead of may because we are following our legal counsel's advice. Michelle? I have to leave the meeting, Pat, and I would like to be part of this discussion. So I'm sorry, but I do have to leave. Yeah, and that's fine, Michelle, and we're going to pick this up. There's not going to be any decision. Thank you. Lynn? I think that's a good decision to pause it here. Yeah. So with that, unless there is something under the 48 hour rule that someone wants to bring up, I am proposing that we adjourn the meeting. We covered a lot today. I know, it's nice. Thank you. Yep. Good work. Again, thanks, Mandy, Joe. Yeah, thank you for the section. And again, apologies for not seeing. No, no, thank you. This was a good meeting. And then if you could send me the link when you get time. That'd be very helpful. All right, see everybody. Tonight. Yes, 630, right? I'm going to be virtual. Yeah. Fine. There are about five or six of us in the town room. Yeah, good.