 Okay, welcome then to the August 27th select board meeting. We are going to get started. Ms. Brewer is going to be probably about 15 minutes late According to the text message. We just got from her This is our first regular select board meeting since July 16th. So our agenda is absolutely jam-packed with things to do So we are going to get started now. This meeting is called to order at 8.33 Oh six, that would be 6.33 That's right, it's going to be a long night. I'm anticipating our late night already. Okay We're going to start with public comment And we have Ms. Stender as our first speaker here if you come forward and introduce yourself for folks at home, please Good evening. I'm Kimberly Stender I work in the office of the superintendent of the Amherst public schools And I'm here this evening on the invitation to Miss O'Keefe to speak about our first day celebration Which is this Wednesday August 29th, and if you don't mind I'd like to read just a statement I have so all the details are included for everyone to hear The office of the superintendent is once again partnering with the greater Amherst community local businesses college and service organizations to celebrate our students and staff as the new school year begins the third annual first day celebration on the Amherst town common is Scheduled for Wednesday August 29th from 5 30 to 7 p.m The sole purpose of this free event is to foster community spirit and demonstrate enthusiasm and commitment to the education of our students the first day celebration provides an opportunity for the entire Community to gather in a unified show of support for our public schools in Past years residents town officials school committee members and leaders from higher education have attended Superintendent of schools Maria Garrick will welcome everyone and students will have the opportunity to meet their school principals and teachers Families will enjoy arts and crafts sports clinics led by collegiate athletic teams and safety demonstrations by the Amherst fire and UMass and Amherst college police departments entertainment will be provided by the Amherst regional middle school eighth grade chorus under the direction of Dave reynan and Grupo folklorico traditions will perform dances from Latin America the Amherst Lions Club is providing their site mobile for free vision exams and Family outreach of Amherst in partnership with the Amherst public schools and the town of Amherst is unveiling the new community van In addition many of our community partners about 20 in total will have tables set up on the common to distribute programming and event literature Businesses experience increased foot traffic on this evening and we're proud to Tell our guests to visit local restaurants and bring a picnic dinner to enjoy on the common If it does rain, which it's not in the forecast our rain location will be at Amherst regional high school cafeteria same date and same time and We are very grateful to for the support the town of Amherst had shown us For this event and in the past when we do the first day celebration Thank you very much. Thank you for coming in to to encourage the community to be part of that It's something that many of us have attended the last couple years, and it just has a wonderful vibe There's really nothing more exciting than back to school for kids So I encourage folks to attend. It's really a lovely event. Thank you very much for coming in I look forward to seeing all of you there that evening. Great All right other folks here for public comment Mr. Alsacer My name is Bill Alsacer of the Anne Whelan I Wondered if it might be possible for Technical difficulties to be worked out prior to the ripping up of significant parking facilities in town Such as the town hall Facility downstairs, which I have been told is awaiting certain technical remediation or parts It seems to me that a venue as significant as The town hall should not go for months on end with a ripped up Parking facility. I don't know if I'm alone in that perspective, but I think it would it would behooved the town to plan more carefully in terms of performing these these projects number two my friend and former Housemate Colette Foster is terminally ill in the Fisher home And I think I think she would appreciate some recognition of her long service and presence in the town of Amherst Thank you. Thank you very much for coming in and thank you for the information about Ms. Foster We wish her the very best Just for your information, Mr. Musanti will be giving a construction update later in the meeting so they'll be talking about that parking lot and other places Anyone else for public comment? Okay, then we will get a couple of untimed items out of the way. We've got seven minutes before our Our first public hearing starts. Oh, let's see. What can we do easily? We can do the parking and street closure requests Stine would you like to make a motion? I move that the select board approve the reservation of 10 parking spaces on the west side of Boltwood Avenue beginning at the southwest corner of Spring Street beginning at 5 a.m. September 7 2012 to 4 p.m September 8th 2012 to facilitate drop-off and pickup of sale items from the Amherst Revival Center's annual trash to treasures furniture fundraiser second for the discussion All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. And that is unanimous four to zero one absent Next one. I move that the select board approve the request from the Amherst Family Center to bag 35 parking spaces between College Street and Spring Street on the west side of Boltwood Avenue and to the east side of South Pleasant Street as marked on the attached map on Friday September 28th 2012 beginning at 9 p.m. through 10 a.m. Saturday September 29th 2012 and to continue to bag up to five meters to accommodate vendors with handicap parking permits until 5 p.m. Saturday September 29th 2012 for the annual Apple Harvest Festival second for the discussion All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. And that was unanimous four to zero one absent. Let's do our taxi licenses. Okay. I move that the select board approve a new taxi chauffeur license for Benjamin Sullivan of Amherst and one for Jose Rivera of Florence on behalf of Aaron's taxi second for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. And that is unanimous four to zero. I move that the select board approve a new taxi chauffeur license for Lynette Barber Fuller of Leverett on behalf of Goda go taxi second for the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. And that is unanimous. Mr. Wolff. Are both of you. Are both of you. Because the bottom line this person looks like a Z, but the top one looks like a Barber. I think we are approving the license for Lynette Fuller and they will take it. Yes, I appreciate that. So whatever the corrected name is since we can't know for certain. Yes. Lynette Fuller as amended. All right. And we already voted on that. Okay. So that is also special licenses. Yes. Before you do, if I could just say Amherst Media, if you could possibly tweak the speakers in here so it's a little bit louder coming the audio from our mics to the speakers in the room so that people in the audience can hear us better and it helps us speak into the mics better when we get the better feedback that is telling us we're speaking into the mics. Okay. Ms. Stein, go ahead. Okay. I move that the select board approve special wine and malt licenses for each reception scheduled on the following dates and premises of the UMass Amherst campus listed below Merida Schmidt Campus Center Director. September 4, 2012, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Durfee Gardens. September 5, 2012, from 4 to 7 p.m. at Fine Arts Center Gallery. September 7, 2012, from 4 to 5.30 p.m. at Conti Building. September 7, 2012, from 3.30 to 6 p.m. at Eisenberg Atrium. October 4, 2012, from 4.30 to 6 p.m. at Du Bois Library. October 5, 2012, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Balger Auditorium. October 11, 2012, from 6.30 to 9.30 p.m. at Fine Arts Center. October 22, 2012, from 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. at Fine Arts Center. November 1, 2012, from 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. at the Fine Arts Center. November 8, 2012, from 6.30 to 9.30 p.m. at the Fine Arts Center. November 15, 2012, from 6.30 to 9.30 p.m. at Balger Auditorium. November 18, 2012, from 6 to 9.30 p.m. at Balger Auditorium. And December 1, 2012, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Balger Auditorium. And if it were up to me, I'd put it in front of all the cases where it says the Fine Arts Center. In half of them anyway. Okay, Mr. Hayden. I appreciate Scott getting all of those ready for us. Scott and Deborah. And the folks at UMass for planning ahead that way that keeps us from having, or lowers our likelihood of having to have a quick special license meeting. So that's really terrific. All right. It's been moved in second and further discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. available to folks online. So welcome Mr. Chudzik and tell us about the Chestnut Street Hall. Thank you. Okay the first request on Chestnut Street is a request by the person that lives at that residence that they were taking down a tree which we had used in the anchor guide before. So because of that now we have to put a tree to give support for the line on the south side of the street. And I understand I guess that the town manager of the highway department has already seen this site so he's in agreement with it. Yes it has full recommendations from town staff to proceed with this. Questions from select board about Mr. Hinton. To a complaint and an appreciation the appreciation first this I've never noticed that on these stub poles that you set aside spot for municipal services I don't think the fire alarm is carried on wires anymore but I appreciate that there's a spot on this pole reserved for them and the complaint. Once again I didn't have time to actually go and look at this pole which I would have had to to learn whether or not the dot that's shown near the middle of the street is in fact not. It's off the street it's near the sidewalk or whatever. I'm just going to rely on our staff for having having done that right. There are mapping services available on the town website that would make this much much more clear much clearer. Okay. And that's that's that's okay. And I won't say that the second time because it's also a problem. So it's in the right of way but I can't tell if it's on the pavement or not from this. Have you been I don't know if you've been off the justice street you can see what actually were the stakes. Not recently enough. Okay all right because the stakes are there. I didn't have I didn't get a chance. So yeah if you want like any discussion on that. So Mr. Hinn you're happy to rule on this without having that feedback location. I'm going to rely on the folks that that I often rely on for for things in the Department of Public Works so. Very good. Other questions or comments from Mr. Chudzik about the Chestnut Street poll. Anyone from the public like to comment on the Chestnut Street poll. All right then I move to close the public hearing at 647. I would move to close the hearing. All in favor closing public hearing 647 we say aye. Aye. Aye. That's unanimous. Deliberation poll Chestnut Street sounds good. Ms. Stein would like to make a motion. Sure. I move that the select board approve the joint petition of Western Massachusetts Electric Company and Verizon New England Incorporated to locate one jointly owned poll number 19 slash 2 S T 2 dash 2 on the north side of Chestnut Street approximately 285 feet easterly from the center line of East Pleasant Street in accordance with the field plan number 68220224 submitted upon petition said poll necessary to serve as a guy stub poll. Second. To allow for removal of tree guy. I have to confess my giggles are because I have no what a minimal activity involved in that motion. I would like to know before I vote. Can I ask you to define that for me before I go. Let's get the motion seconded first. Second. No. All right. Further discussion. Mr. Chudzik about the guy stub poll definition. Ms. Stein would like a definition of a guy stub poll. Guy stub poll. Okay. What it is is a poll that's used for anchoring the poll line on the opposite side of the street. The guy stub poll. Okay. Thank you. We learned something new every day here at select board. All right. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. Thank you. All right. 649. So we're going to say that is the same as 650 and we're going to move ahead to our 650 poll hearing and I will talk just until we get to 650. So the 650 poll hearing is similar. This is for a poll placement on Sunderland road. This is going to serve in particular the new survival center construction is just going along gang busters. It's quite extraordinary what's going on there and it is now 650. So we will open this public hearing. Mr. Chudzik. Okay. On someone wrote the service. We should say that our distribution line is actually on the eastern side of the street. So in order to provide the service on the west side of the street we're going to set up all feet overhead and they're going to attach with the feet on the ground toward a riser to our overhead service wires are coming over. This is basically what we're doing there. Questions or comments from select board. Welcome back Mr. Chudzik by the way. I don't know. I think we may have scared Matt away or something because he was here and hasn't been back since but any event. That's all. That's all I want to say. Just give me a hard time tonight. All right. Other questions or comments. One question I have. Okay. What is this sketch or something you want to simply have on your online system? Check out check out amherstma.gov which I do on the GS GIS information top one in that second menu and there's all kinds of wonderful stuff there. Okay. Okay. We'll put Ms. Roussell from the select board office in touch with you. Most of our most of our requests that have anything to do with parking or anything to do with the public way come in on these GIS maps and sometimes the select board office creates them and sometimes the applicant creates them. So instead of having to draw out kind of an approximation of the roadway it's extremely exact and makes your life easier too. All right. Further questions or comments from the select board? Questions or comments from the public about this under the road pole? All right. Select board Ms. Burr. I didn't say before that just again that we didn't get any comments obviously that we have these long we have these long a butter list that we always have to send things that things are sent to and once again we have not received any comment that way. And also I take this opportunity to appreciate Ms. Roussell's efforts in moving this along. This was something she kind of hand carried through the process with the utility companies to enable us to deal with this tonight. So many thanks again to Mr. Sal who makes us look good in so many ways. Yes. All right Mr. Hayden now a motion. I move to close public hearing. Public hearing and the motion is to close public hearing at 652. All in favor say hi. Hi. I am not as unanimous. Deliberation by select board. Pole pole. Sentinel and road. Sounds good. Ms. Stein would like to make a motion. I move that the select board approve the joint petition of Western Massachusetts Electric Company and Verizon New England Incorporated to locate one jointly owned pole number 12 slash 14 dash one T dash 93 dash one on the westerly side of Sunderland Road approximately 375 feet southerly of Kohl's Kohl's Road in accordance with field plan number A number 6A220494 submitted upon petition said pole necessary to provide new electric service for number 138 Sunderland Road Amherst Survival Center. Second. For the discussion. All in favor say hi. Hi. Hi. That is unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming in and Ms. Eilson by the way we did approve the parking for the trash to treasures event also earlier this evening. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming in. Thank you. Okay. We have several more minutes until we can get to our seven o'clock item. So let's see what we can do here. Seven minutes which is a long time. That's not going to take long enough. Let's start with the annual town election and annual town meeting dates and see where we get to with that. In your packets you have a calendar from Ms. Rousseau and it identifies the various weeks in April, May and June for which we need to consider to set dates for both the annual town election and the annual town meeting next spring. Let me call up my appropriate document here. And typically we hold the annual town election either the last Tuesday of March or the first Tuesday of October. Now I'm just talking right now. April. So either the last Tuesday of March or the first day of April. This year those are both rather inconvenient dates and we need four weeks between the scheduling of the annual town election to the scheduling of the annual town meeting. So I did an informal survey and I should say that the March 26th is the first day of Passover and the following Tuesday April 2nd is the last day of Passover or it ends at sundown the night before depending on on how you observe that holiday. So I did a very unscientific survey of seven Jewish people from across the spectrum of all kinds of degrees of observancy and I got six responses and all different. Now they kind of came down on on two sides one of them being that that the most it's only the most orthodox folks and the smallest number of Jewish people who would still be observing the holiday on Tuesday the second. But then other folks saying you know what it's a holiday week all before that if you can put it off it's best to put it off. And I'll say that the comment that I found most compelling and people did a wonderful job trying to educate me about the different ways that the Jewish holidays are are marked and observed. So I'm becoming an expert on Passover which is fun. One person in their reply to me noted that the state primary is being held this year on Thursday of next week as opposed to Tuesday the day right after Labor Day holiday and that they put clearly a lot of time into thinking about how you do things like that too. So it's the idea that it really isn't kind of business as usual the day before Election Day all signs point to to recommending that we hold the annual town election on April 9th. So this is for a select board consideration that would have annual town meetings starting on May 6th which is a little bit later than we like to start town meeting but you know every year is a little bit different so we're rolling with it. Okay wait a sec because this is different. Right so my recommendation is coming in late as compared to the calendar. Okay so the election annual election would be April 9th and then the first day of town meeting would be April May 6th. May 6th. Any thoughts to the contrary or otherwise? That was easy. Somebody want to make the motion. Ms. Berger do you have a comment? Just saying I mean we only lose quote unquote two days of town meeting that way at the beginning and we certainly have plenty of options for making them up later so it just does not feel like a big deal at all. It is just later than usual it'll be one of those years that we'll say yes one year out of all the many years we didn't do it the last week of March or first week of April that's just how it is. And it's funny that that comes right after this falls town meeting which is starting so late for a variety of holiday and other reasons also oh and Amherst media the mic volume and speaker volume is really excellent right now so thank you. Okay so are we good with that Mr. Hayden? It's actually been a long time since we've needed 14 sessions to get through town meetings so I think losing two to making it 11 is probably okay. Yeah I think we'll be safe. Ms. Stein would you like to make the motion? I would. I was just cleaning it up to make sure I make it right. I moved at the select board schedule the 2013 annual town election for Tuesday May 9th with polls open. Am I wrong? April 9th. April 9th sorry April 9th with of course it is with polls open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and the annual town meeting for May 6th with additional sessions reserved for May 8th, May 13th, May 15th, May 20th, May 22nd, May 29th, June 3rd, June 10th, June 17th and June 19th, 2012. Second discussion. I just want to point out that that does change the schedule for the when petition articles have to come in and everything else happens so I wish you'd let the TMCC know. So once there's a calendar for these we like to set these dates nice and early so people can plan ahead and within a few weeks. This is next year we're talking about I understand. There will be a calendar for this and they will certainly be notified and part of our scheduling of all of these things is to always make sure that we have four weeks from the for the signing of the warrant. Anyway I'll figure that out to make sure that we accommodate all the TMCC activities. So now where April gets very busy? Yes indeed. Ms. Burr. I would actually consider not just you know as as the little mechanics that I'll go on behind the scenes between TMCC and more importantly this board time manager's office is that everybody not just say oh well it's later than usual let's have everything be later than usual. It's more like let's take advantage of what time we've got and it might throw TMCC's you know precinct meetings off a little bit or that sort of thing but let's we don't have to make our deadlines the exact same amount of time we can still make them longer you know if we want to just for consistency's sake. So I would suggest that you know for staff to take upon themselves what makes sense to them and not feel obligated that they somehow have to you know it's 27 and a half days or something because the date has changed make their lives easier than possible. All right did we vote on this? No we haven't yet. All in favor say aye. Aye. Excellent those dates are set and now it is seven o'clock so we are all set 701 for our seven o'clock item is Mr. Zomek coming in for this or are you speaking to this? I'm speaking to this. Okay. Mr. Musanti, then tell us about the Olympia Oaks HAP land development. Sure. This is an amendment to the already approved land development agreement that the select board approved for between the town and HAP incorporated, the affordable housing developer of the Olympia Oaks project. The request before you is to make one amendment to that agreement that extends the deadline that was in the agreement from November of 2010 that said the various conditions needed to be satisfied by November 11, 2012. The request is to extend that deadline from November 11, 2012 to June 30, 2013. The extension will enable HAP to complete its work to obtain financing for the project and allow more time for them to finish up the other conditions. They're on a steady pace to do such that, and this will help them take this project to a successful conclusion. I recommend the board approve it. Thank you. Questions or comments from Mr. Musanti? Mr. Hayden? Just one, when I saw this, I immediately had that reaction and wondering if we should be concerned. It sounds like not. It sounds like this is just the kind of delays that are inevitable when you're trying to land grants and you're trying to land certain permits for things. I think that's exactly right. Any who would like to comment on the HAP situation? All right. Who have the questions or comments from the select board? Ms. Stein, would you like to take the motion? I move that the select board approve the extension of the deadline by which the conditions of the land development agreement between the town of Amherst and HAP, Incorporated, must be satisfied from November 11, 2012 to June 30, 2013. Second. Mr. Hayden? Do we have to stay after and sign this? We've got all kinds of things to sign tonight. All right. Further discussion? All in favor? Say aye. Aye. It's unanimous. Okay. Thank you. A couple more minutes before our 705 item. Now we could do committee appointments. I move that the select board appoint Veronica Wagner to the Agricultural Commission, Emily Jung and Liam Brodecon to the Human Rights Commission, and Olivia and Victoria, Vera Fabonio and Maria Santiago to the La Paz Centro Nicaragua Sister City Committee, all with terms to expire June 30, 2015. Second. Further discussion? Ms. Brewer? I'm not sure how many names we quite mispronounce there, which is no offense to Ms. Stein, because I do it all the time. But Liam Brodecon is a teenager I'm familiar with. I'm very proud again. And there are actually three teenagers on this list, which makes me very happy to see them now while they're still young and enthusiastic. Isn't that wonderful? Thank you for the discussion, Mr. Hayden. I want to say again, as I did last time, to offer my appreciation for these folks to step up and do the work, which is so important. Thank you very much for the discussion. All in favor? Say aye. Aye. Aye. And that's unanimous. One more. I move that the select board re-appoint Vincent O'Connor to the Niagara Sister City Committee with a term to expire June 30, 2015. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. And that's unanimous. One more. I move that the select board confirm the town manager's appointment of Julie Marcus to the Board of Health with a term to expire June 30, 2015. Second. Further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. And that is unanimous. All right. Now it's time for our 705 item. And this is Budget Matters. And we have Finance Director Sandy Poole, Comptroller Sonja Aldrich and Treasurer Collector Claire McGinnis here to talk to us about the various items here. First up we have the fourth quarter year in budget update. And again, all of these materials are in our packets and available on the select board's web packet online for folks following along at home. Welcome. Well, thank you very much. And I'm glad you noted Sonja and Claire's presence because they really and their staff are the people throughout the year who do the work to collect this revenue, to monitor the expenditures, and to make sure the numbers come out right. So I just wanted to acknowledge, as we always do, because they always do a good job. What an excellent job they've done for the town. So we have the end of the year report. We have revenues and expenditures for general fund and all the enterprise funds. And the big picture really is this year, in the general fund, we have a total surplus from unexpended funds or revenue that comes in over and above our estimates of about a million dollars. That number is consistent with the same number and percentage of budget that we've had for at least five or six years, at least going back. The composition of those numbers are a little different this year. The revenue side is much higher and the turn backs from unexpended budgets is much smaller. And we'll get into some of the detail there. But I think if there's any one take away from the beginning is that the operations in FY 12 has been consistent with how we've run the town in the past. We've had tight budgeting in terms of allocating enough money for departments to operate, but not with a heck of a lot of surplus. Might call it rubbing nickels together to make sure things happen. And then on the revenue side we have a couple of things that were favorable for us. Some of them I'd call one time and some of them are a little bit unusual. I'm going to ask you to turn first to page four. This is a summary of our budget in the general fund and I wanted to point out two things here. Usually when you see this report you would see three columns here, budget, actual, and this thing called variance favorable. And we presented the numbers in that third column variance favorable or unfavorable the same way we presented them every year. But there are two numbers in there that are quite unusual this year and sort of throw off the numbers. And so we've adjusted those in the final column to the right to reflect the fact that within general government expenditures you can see that there's a turn back of $495,000. Most of that is from the money that was voted at spring town meeting, annual town meeting to meet the cost of the October snowstorm in case our FEMA reimbursement didn't come to us on time and we made an appropriation of $426,000 to cover the October snowstorm expenses. Eventually we got notification from FEMA and from the Department of Revenue about how to deal with that FEMA notification that we didn't need that appropriation. That happened after town meeting. So there's a huge turn back of free cash in that number. You don't usually see that here and it sort of throws things off. The other number at the very bottom of there is called transfers out capital. And that's the money that was appropriated for the Puffer's Pond project. It was explicitly made contingent at last fall town meeting upon the town getting the park grant. Although we did get a park grant for the pool, we didn't get one for Puffer's Pond. And so that reverted back and it's becoming part of free cash again. Again, a somewhat unusual situation. So without those numbers it looks like we have a big $1.9 million turn back but really $800,000 of that is, or more than $800,000 of that is from those two singular events. If I haven't confused enough already, I'll go through the details. Turning to the memo then, within the general fund, if we look on page two under revenues, the town collected 101% of its budgeted revenues. There was a surplus of $1,024,199. And within this there are ups and downs. There's some places where revenue came in above expectation and some below. Which I think just goes to show that as good as we like to think we are at doing these things in any one year, you know, it's an estimate. And it's not a guarantee. And sometimes you're on the high side, sometimes you're on the low side. And I would just note that the numbers that are in this part of the memo are also the numbers that are on page nine. So there are descriptions in the memo here of the major elements and then the numbers they relate to are the ones that are on page nine for revenue. So there are a couple of areas where revenue fell somewhat short. The golf course didn't bring in all the revenue that we had budgeted. However, I think the good news is that they brought in more than they did the previous year. And when you take their expenses into consideration, they covered all of their direct costs. So overall I think it was a more positive year this year for the golf course. The next area is LSSC recreation. And that is the revolving fund that we've set up for LSSC. And it runs everything from volleyball programs to in the past, this past year included the after school programs in the summer camps and so forth and so on. And that always returns a certain amount of money to the general fund to cover administrative costs and central staff costs. That brought in return, 77% of what we projected for that. And I think frankly this is an area that we need to keep looking at and to see if we're setting the right number. And as we go forward for the FY14 budget, I'll be making some recommendations to you about what to do with that. But that, for at least for the last few years, has consistently not returned the amount that we expected it to. And so I do think it needs to be looked at. The other area where we didn't hit our revenue forecast was investment income. We only took in 72% of what we thought. And that's really because you'd probably know yourselves from your own bank accounts that the amount of interest you can get on a deposit these days is minimal. The big account where we keep a lot of our money, it's called the MMDT account. It's a money market account that the state holds for cities and towns. Right now I think the seven day yield on that is 0.26 or 0.27%. So that's why that's down. And again, going forward, I think we are going to need to adjust that number for FY14. And when we do the recap sheet this year for FY13 and send the numbers into the state, we'll adjust that. The other parts were generally very favorable. Fines and forfeitures were very strong, $87,000 over expectation. Some of that has to do with the way the court is reimbursing us for some of our overtime. And the police department is talking to them about that. So I don't know that that's going to continue in the future, but it was a good year for us then. Licenses and permits, I was very happy with, particularly since building permits had been down a little bit, but electrical permits were strong. And that's because there were two big projects at UMass. And we know there are other projects at UMass and other places in the coming years. So I think that that should be a strong area for us. I'm going to skip ahead to some of these things. Motor vehicle excise tax was $200,000 over our estimate. It really does show that with low interest rates people are starting to buy cars again. And that's reflected there. As I mentioned, there were some one-time events. When we sold our bonds last year, we got a premium on those bonds of $82,000. You'd never know when you sell a bond if that's going to come in. So we don't really budget that, but it was a positive result. And we've had very good luck in the last couple of years with our Medicaid reimbursements. These are things that mostly for kids in the schools, the schools contract with an outside agency to submit a lot of paperwork and keep track of their time and so forth for the services they provide. And they've done a good job of doing that and so we've gotten good reimbursements. I know a lot of people are always interested in what happens with the meal tax and the hotel motel tax. And certainly they have been very good for us. The meals tax, we brought in nearly $400,000 from the meals tax. And it just goes to show that there's a lot of activity in the town's restaurants and they're doing well. The hotel motel tax also brought in almost $240,000. There was a slight surplus over our projection, but we have to keep in mind that the Lord Jeffrey Inn was open for only half a year, so I think that's going to continue to look good. Other than that, the other two significant things I would just point out that property taxes came in right on schedule, our collection for the last fiscal year where we had a full year was 99% and that's a good number. It's usually 98 or 99. We like 99 a little better. So the collector is doing an excellent job. And in state aid, as you remember, last fall we had a one-time distribution of $65 million in state aid to the state. That was worth $514,000 to the town of Amherst. We appropriated $400,000 of that into the stabilization fund and we left the rest of it unspent and that will revert to free cash. On the expenditure side, spending was pretty tight. We had a total turn back, really, of about $85,000. And if you consider that 62,580 of that came from unspent reserve fund, the departments were really coming in with very tight budgets and there was a lot of work that I know particularly Sonya has done with departments to help them manage their budget and make sure that they're coming in and spending right on schedule. So within the general fund, the general government portion of that returned $6,947. I mean, it was really pretty close if you take out the reserve fund transfer. Public safety was sort of an interesting year this year. Oftentimes the police department turns back more than fire. This year it was the other way around, partly because the fire department got some grants for some equipment and they were able to display some of their general fund revenue. Public works within that department, again, you will see the detail of that on page 10. Various divisions were up, various were down. At the end of the day, they basically came in right on target and they returned about $4,000. But I think the important thing there for people who are watching is that we actually had extra money in our snow and ice account. Notwithstanding a horrific storm in October, the rest of the winter didn't go so badly. But October, we did spend a lot of money in the construction and maintenance area because their expenses there weren't so much plowing but really cleanup of all the trees and that's why it is reflected in that part of the budget. I think planning and conservation inspections, those departments win the prize for coming in with the tightest budget. They return $762. And community services came in almost exactly on budget although you have to keep in mind that we did transfer another 37, 420 into the veterans services department to make sure that they covered all their costs. Again, that money is reimbursed 75% from the state. And the school department, the elementary schools, returned $5,891 to the town that would become part of free cash. That's all the general fund. For the enterprise funds, the water sewer and solid waste funds all had operating surpluses and they are detailed in these subsequent pages here. We're used to seeing surpluses from water and sewer. That's good. Solid waste even had a surplus of $6,000 so that was very good because as we know that's been a very tight budget and so I was happy with that. The transportation fund did have a deficit and if you look at page 8, you'll see two things. One is that there was a revenue deficit of about $80,000. That was offset somewhat by reduced spending. We kept costs down there and there was a surplus there of $42,000. But it meant that overall fund balance in the transportation fund, which is sort of the free cash for transportation, went down by $38,000. And that really I think is mostly because as you know, there have been issues with implementation of the central multi-space meter and so at various times during the year, either we weren't collecting from those meters as much as we wanted to or more particularly the parking control officers were busy dealing with making sure the meters worked or fixing them and so either because they knew the meters weren't working properly, they just wouldn't stop writing tickets to be fair to the public or they were taking up some of that. We've had other discussions about that here and we know that we're working to make sure that doesn't happen again next year but that's the reason for it. There's still sufficient balance in that fund that we can take a hit to do it. But that I think those are the highlights and I'd certainly any of us be happy to answer particular questions members have. Thank you very much. This is a magnificent document. It provides so much information and so clearly and a ton of work goes into that. It's very appreciated. So thank you both very much. Once again, this document is going to be sent to town meeting members. This is something we started doing last year because it seems like really the most appropriate thing to do with town meeting is to give them the wrap up on how all of the appropriations that they had approved for that fiscal year, how those all totaled out. So that will be going out in the next week or so. Questions or comments from select board? Ms. Dine. Okay. I of course can't find the exact figures but you'll know what I'm talking about. If you take the amount of turn backs due to the fact that we didn't fund have to come up with money for the pepper's pond project and for the other project that you mentioned, the 426,000 that we appropriated for FEMA. Okay. And you add that to the million dollars or so surplus. How much does that then put into our total reserves? So if you look on page 4 at the bottom of the page there, you will see that our free cash, all of the things being equal should go up by about 1.9 million dollars. Now I'm going to qualify that statement by saying that the way that the comptroller does these numbers, which is on budget to actual basis, is different than the way the state calculates free cash. There are other factors that they put in so it's never exactly the same number. So I don't want to give you the impression that free cash is going up by that amount but that's what's going to be returned. I guess what I'm really asking is so if you take free cash and our stabilization, what's our total reserves at this point? Is that a fair question? That's a fair question. The utilization fund has about 1.8 million dollars in it. Free cash I think there is something about around 4 million dollars left in it unspent, do you remember? That's my recollection from having looked at this the other day. So it should go up from that figure by about 2 million dollars if you take these numbers into consideration. So it would be 2 plus 4? 2 plus 4 plus the 2 that's in the stabilization fund. You asked about what our total reserves for I'd count the stabilization fund. So would that be 8? The reason I'm asking is that there's some percentage we were aiming for like 15 percent of our annual budget I think? Yeah, the idea is to be somewhere between 5 and 15 percent that's the policy. Exactly. So this should make us much better than we were because we were down at sort of the 5 percent, closer to 5 percent? For the last two, three or four years that and this is in the budget report and when we do the financial indicators you'll see these numbers too but so for several years we drew down our reserves and that stopped about four or five years ago they've slowly been going up where we're not at the 15 percent target yet. I don't know yet what number we're going to be at but we're kind of on the way back up. You don't have to know tonight but sometime I'd like an idea of where we stand on that 5 to 15 percent. We will definitely report that and we will report it once we know what our free cash figure is because it's based on a certified number from the state. Thank you. The rest of this is very clear I think. Do you want to add anything? Yeah, I just wanted to add very briefly. I know last July 1 our reserves were approximately 7.5 percent of revenue. So this net of a million nine to the good that Sandy is reporting, 800,000 of that was a temporary drawdown from our reserve so part of that is a wash but we're still looking at a net additional gain to our reserves and I think it's part of a picture that we've ended this past fiscal year within budget with a small surplus again. It was a more stable year than we've had in the last couple but we're still not out of the woods and there's still more work and caution ahead but we're going on the right path. I would also just echo Sandy's kudos to the entire staff. It really is a team effort from staff Sonyan and Claire but also at the individual staff members in each of those departments to keep us on budget and report to us timely and accurately. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Brewer. Agreed to all those things and I realized we're running short on time so I'll try and talk fast. These are mostly for the town manager, not so much for you guys because your report is beautiful as always. It's more characterizations of things. Something for a future report from the town manager I think would be useful is with the LSSC Recreation Evolving Fund is to get a sense of not only what are we looking at adjusting it to just so that we're more accurate but what we're attempting to accomplish because I know that I have not been to the last several LSSC commission meetings but it's never been clear to me what role the commission might play in this discussion and beyond their being frustrated that they have expressed their frustration that they're expected to pay for more of their lives than other departments necessarily might be or that other recreation departments might be across the state. So I know that frustration exists but I'm not sure how they can channel that energy into a positive associated with this and maybe there's a way that can work together. I appreciated the comments about the Medicaid reimbursement associated with schools as a former school committee member I'm not sure about the trade-off in terms of the amount of paperwork that you have to do in order to get that money but it's a taxpayer's money. We can't make a business decision like you might if you were running a small business and say that's not worth my effort. When it's the taxpayer's money I feel like we really do have to go after it even if it does seem like a huge cumberance so thank you for acknowledging that I think that's important. I know some towns who haven't done it just because it just doesn't seem worth their while and I think it's the right choice. In terms of veteran services I know about the reimbursement and everything I'm just saying I'm just wondering if you can let us know if given what we know now given that we had to make that transfer if FY 13 is relatively on track or if we need to bump it at some point so obviously that'll come up as we continue through the year. And just one other thing I think and that is if you could plan in a future town manager report to briefly characterize under expenditures on page three where it says general government over expenditures were legal and employee benefits obviously we can't get into a lot of detail here but just to be able to give people a general sense of what that is so that they're less likely to make up their own suppositions as to what that is I think that would be useful. That's some future meeting and speaking of the future of course this is all wonderful and when people say why do you have all that extra money again it's not all that extra money and of course we do have this is where you're supposed to give the OPEB speech again about how we need to be funding that so you know it's kind of like this constant little tacked on thing to all of our good news because it is really good news but yet it is something that's out there that we need to remind everybody is why we're not doing all these marvelous other things we might think to do is because we know we have that. There are a lot of excellent points that Dooley noted and the next logical kind of check-in is right around the corner at the four boards meeting in the second week of October where we'll have our you know current year results and any current year issues I mean prior results current year issues including the ones you just mentioned and then preliminary thinking about budget planning for FY 14 and beyond and also an update on things like reserves levels Diana's question. Thank you. I just had one other thing I know that one point in the past when we started this great idea of sending this to town meeting members they were kind of confused by what they were getting so you'll make that be less confusing because you're mailing that way. There was a mailing issue last year because of multiple things that ended up in the same packet and they weren't coordinated well. Other questions or comments? All right. Again tremendous report great detail and much appreciated so thank you both very much. All right so next up we have something we've never dealt with before approval of use of funds as an alternative to short-term borrowing. Welcome. So this is an alternative that I don't think we've used before which is nice to find out there's an easier and simpler way to do something. The DOR makes this available to towns they can use their own cash on hand to advance and get started on projects that are approved to be funded by debt. It allows us to use a more predictable bonding schedule. If we plan it for March we can stick to that and use it in March. It also allows us some more flexibility in terms of costs. It's really on interest earnings that also in some ways works in our favor when we go to the market to borrow but it's never as low. It always costs more to borrow than what you can earn with your cash on hand. The fixed costs of doing a borrowing become the most important factor and the fixed costs or closing costs if you will in this case just make it much easier and much more affordable for us to use our own funds to get started. If you have any other questions before I just sort of . I guess I would ask so that money is coming from where? Is this an advance of the reserves similar to what we were just talking about? Or is it the money coming from where? Is this an advance of the reserves similar to what we were just talking about? Or analogous to what we did with Puffer's Pond or whatever but without town meeting approval needed? So it's just the accumulated cash that we have on hand at any one time when people pay their taxes, we put the money in the bank, we can draw down on that money and as long as we basically put it back by borrowing in March, we can borrow from ourselves. So it's just your operating cash . Any other questions before they get into the specifics of the project? Go right ahead. Tell us about these. She's going to explain the different borrow, the different things we're going to pay for here. Oh, okay. So there were four projects approved in March. The first one was the equipment related to trees was $612,000. A large truck for the DPW at $150,000. Repairs to the central fire station at $184,000. And communications equipment for the dispatch center and Emerson police department at $125,000. In sum, that's a million dollars in the bond market. In March, we will fund the balance of the sewer extensions, which were approved a year ago, but haven't really started yet other than a design phase as well as these four together. We'll go to the bond market in March for all of that. So otherwise you would have done a ban. So borrowing anticipation note at this point to take a look at the cost. That's great. But the project managers involved just want to get started. They don't want to wait around for the treasurer to get that done as well as the costs, like we've already said, make this more advantageous to us. Do you have any sense of how much money that saves? But closing costs would easily help. Thank you. The report approved the advance of funds totaling $1,071,000 in lieu of borrowing as presented by treasurer slash collector Claire McGinnis in her memo of August 24, 2012. For the purpose of funding capital projects, including police department communications equipment, repairs to equipment, having previously authorized debt for these purposes at annual town meeting, article 18 on May 16, 2012. Second. For the discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Not as unanimous. Thank you very much. An exciting new funding opportunity. Saving money everywhere. Thank you. I appreciate all the information. Much appreciated for all the work that went into presenting it to us and for coming in tonight. All right. 737. So our 730 item then is a public hearing to consider changes to enforcement times in Boltwood parking garage. And this is per our general laws of the town. So a couple of weeks ago or whenever we last met we talked about the fact that it had been determined that there was a discrepancy in what was going on as far as signage and expected policy in the Boltwood parking garage that previous policy had been as far as anyone knew that enforcement there was 7 days a week, but at some point and most likely coincident with the new parking machine installation, the policy changed to be 6 days a week. We talked about needing to deal with this discrepancy and that the as they had been going on in this way for months and practically a year to make the policy consistent with the facts on the ground seemed to be the most logical thing to do. So we have recommendations here from the town manager that he will speak to about the parking and traffic subcommittee and also at that meeting when we talked about the fact that we would be doing this tonight, we talked about Ms. Brewer suggested that we also consider standardizing the parking enforcement times in the garage and other areas to end at 6 o'clock like with the street meters. So more research and information has been done on all of this and it has been consideration by the bid. We have a truly excellent history of parking changes in our packet. This has never been collected before. So to have in one place instead of our all having to search through every possible set of minutes that anybody could come up with going back to time in memoriam about when parking changes were made for what we now have a really good document in regulation information with full history. So without further ado I will turn this over to Mr. Moussanti for recommendations. Sure. And I want to acknowledge the excellent work by staff Sandy Pooler, Claire McGinnis and also Gilford mooring and his staff from DPW in researching this and looking at other data analysis and other operational details. So I'm here to make a recommendation to you in my role as town manager but also acknowledging the Amherst Business Improvement District. I'm pleased to serve on their board of directors and I'm chairing now a parking and transportation subcommittee and we had an excellent discussion, a couple of discussions with them most recently on August 17th with the benefit of their input and feedback in developing this recommendation. The bottom line on my recommendation for tonight is I'm recommending that the board eliminate the 50 cents per hour parking charge at the Boltwood garage on Sundays and this is so that all public on street and parking lot spaces are free for visitors to our downtown on Sundays. Parking rules are consistent. That makes the parking rules consistent which is another objective that's been strongly suggested by the Business Improvement District folks and that would get us there. In my package to you on the cover memo I'm recommending that. The revenue loss to the town is minimal on Sundays. It's somewhere around $7500 in the most recent year and in the grand scheme of our parking system in all the ins and outs that small loss of revenue we think is much less important than the overall good that will be made by having that enforcement and parking charge on Sunday be that's the recommendation. The bid parking and transportation committee we had a very good wide ranging discussion about parking issues and I've tried to summarize those in my cover memo to you and there are a number of them that were flagged for future consideration. The nature of these are that some are more complicated than others. Some have more scary and revenue implications and they require some further exploration before I'm in a position to offer you a recommendation but you can count on those in the months ahead for future consideration. Those issues are for example the issue that Miss Brewer raised at one of your recent meetings about the fact that we charge for parking in the parking lots between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. at 6 p.m. looking at whether having those end times be more consistent than they are presently and there's a lot of revenue as well as policy and behavior modification issues at work there that will influence that discussion but that's been flagged for something we want to look at. We've also talked about and the bid expressed again in this theme of consistency in our rules does it make sense for example to have our enforcement or parking charge hours be the same for all public parking not just one set of rules for the lots and another set of rules for the parking meters. So there's again budgetary and policy considerations to be explored and I have an interest as well in exploring what has proven to be popular over in Northampton at the Thorns Market garage where there's a first hour free policy and does that sort of policy or some variation of it make any sense for the town of Amherst and I want to explore that with staff and with the bid there was an expression that the six 15-minute short term spaces serving the downtown that have been instituted in the last couple of years have proven to be quite popular and the notion that we should explore creating additional such spaces. The bid is also very much interested in creation of what they would call a campus shuttle increasing the frequency visibility of a shuttle service from the downtown area to the university campus as well as the other two college campuses to encourage more students and faculty and staff from the colleges to take advantage of all the wonderful thing and opportunities available in our community. And then a longer term looking at things like creating additional public restrooms which has come up in focus groups going back a couple of years now at least in the development of the bid proposal itself so that's been raised. So I want to flag those for you and for the wider community as policy issues and needs in our downtown that are worthy of discussion. So I'm going to go to select board questions first and then I'll open it up for public comment. I appreciate you mentioning for example that restrooms have been on the burner for years now. I would just like to make sure we're clear that at the bottom of page one of this memo it says that with the assistance of the bid parking and transportation committee which is wonderful these things were all identified before speaking to the board. So I'm going to go back to the discussion items being continuing discussion items with them they were talked about before informally a parking commission informal discussions for a long time now. While I truly appreciate not working in a vacuum I am also frustrated by the length of time it's taking us to consider some of these issues because while restrooms is a pretty big deal it's a matter of what are we trying to accomplish and that's what we see as we look through these regulations is it 11 at night or 9 at night is it keeping more students from parking here or is it encouraging people to stay longer for dinner what are we really trying to accomplish and so I think that the bid work is incredibly important now and serves an even better purpose than the previous connection you had with the chamber associated with the parking a little slow to suit me. I am concerned about trying to change anything in terms of timing and so I feel like by saying well we can wait on this a little bit longer we're going to have to wait another year because if we don't do it at the beginning of a school year it feels really awkward to try and change something so you know doesn't matter that much no not really but it is it is worth I think considering then if we're not ready to do anything other than the Sunday now to make a commitment that we will be ready to make some sort of decision which will involve another hearing I assume particularly if we're talking about taking in $20,000 in less revenue or on the other hand perhaps enforcing all the parking up until 8 p.m. I hope we would consider making a commitment to looking at this by the time of next school year so that we'd be set for September so that people were not surprised October or December or February so we might decide to choose to do this one of the two points I just want to make further about that is one is that it just feels wrong that I can get out of my car at a meter and I don't have to pay after 6 o'clock but I have to walk to some machine that I may or may not be able to figure out to 8 o'clock it's just doesn't set well with the public and so I just really like to see it's just that confusion factor that is very frustrating to me. I'm not sure if the answer is 6 or if the answer is 8 for everything but I think there probably is an answer that's more for everything associated with that simply so that people don't feel that awkwardness. The other question I think that I'm hoping will come out and I don't know how you tease this out because it isn't a discussion we've had before is what enforcement costs look like in terms of people walking around because that's certainly always a concern you know what are people doing out there are they giving me a ticket after my thing expired but it's also if there's no parking enforcement anywhere in town on Sunday does anybody work parking enforcement on Sunday or if they do what are they doing are they looking for handicapped things and so the same thing you know after 6 o'clock after 8 o'clock I think it would give people in the community as well as myself a better understanding of how we best deploy those resources because I know we don't have a lot of parking people but when we do have them how are we using them effectively so that you know we aren't we aren't setting ourselves up to make an enforcement issue that's actually costing us more to have a body out there to enforce it then we're bringing in and the goodwill that it's costing us so I know that you're considering all those things in your mind but if you could tease them out on some of the paper as we move forward with this I think that would really be helpful. Thank you Miss Stein. I have some concerns about the first hour being free in terms of the hit that our parking revenue takes. Another thought is that people's frustration very often is because a particular meter or a place where you pay it's not very clear what the limit you know does it end at 6, does it end at 8 if it just could be more clearly marked particularly in some of the meters where you can't read it very well and the last thing about the shuttle idea which I like a lot if it were something cute and red and trolley like it might attract more students to be eager to come downtown to ride that kind of vehicle so just my thought. Thank you. Questions or comments or perhaps like more Mr. Hayden. I'm going to start with the trolley idea that's fabulous other committees that I'm part of I know that that would resolve some of the issues that we have heard expressed there as far as sort of moving the traffic where it's most advantageously moved from point A to point B. I also want to comment on an unexpected benefit from these parking meters. I'm remembering the parking study about six years ago and there's a lot of sort of generalization about how parking is utilized and when and where and there were some kind of constant victory revelations that it had. I'm looking at this auto tracks thing here and this is marvelous. It's a little bit misleading there are a lot of spots that show people parking at a meter less than an hour a day on average which doesn't surprise me because there's been a dumpster there for a year in one place and the other place the pavement is all torn up and missing as Mr. Alsasa mentioned earlier but other than that there's some red spots which are very interesting to note and I think that when we begin to move everything onto the system which I imagine we will that we'll have a much a better tool for managing this which is kind of an important function of the municipality and now the BID in downtown get this parking arranged that's other stuff that's all been said so thank you. Since we're all doing this why not I want to thank Ms. Brewer for raising those issues as context because some of those things we took up as she knows in the master plan too like the question of public restrooms you know it's hard to attract people downtown to public events if they don't have restrooms because it's all sorts of combinations of revenue and welcoming atmosphere and so forth and Mr. Hayden's point about parking too the other one I want to mention even though it's a little bit off topic is that much as we want to increase parking revenue increasing parking efficiency is important because the last studies I recall showed we had enough parking and it wasn't used the right way but then there's a larger problem of not encouraging excessive vehicular traffic so if we could have more people not driving around all over downtown that would be the ideal that's a bigger picture kind of thing but just to flag that interest in reducing the personal auto. So the recommendation in front of us then is to deal with the Sunday issue make that retroactively official that there's no enforcement on Sunday and everything else the recommendation is to table that and wait for further study and recommendation by the bed. Members of the public like to speak to these issues. I think we can identify yourself with the mic. Larry Kelly south pleasant street I could be the poster boy for what Melissa was talking about because I received the ticket the night Friday night of the taste of Amherst and it was a gorgeous day actually a little nicer than today as a matter of fact and I told my wife she was working out at Hampshire Athletic Club and I said well I'll meet you at six o'clock at the taste and I had my five year old with me so I got to the center town at like five of six and I looked in the front parking lot being the eternal optimist that I am in front of town hall and of course that was packed and then being an ARA member I knew about the secret one behind town hall so I went back there and sure enough there were some parking spaces and but when I was in front of town hall I specifically looked at the huge signs near the little machines and the huge signs said it parking enforcement till 6 p.m. and I was like wow it's only five of six and I got back there and it was maybe three minutes of six and I figured wow it's a gorgeous Friday night he'll cut me three minutes worth of slack so I wandered off sure enough I get back a couple hours later and I have a ticket and I was like I can't believe it and I looked at the ticket and it was time stamped 606 and that's when I got really confused and at that point I actually walked over to the little tiny machine and it did say on the tiny machine enforcement till 8 p.m. but I don't think anybody else would do that I mean I fought the ticket I knew the town would give me a fair shake and Claire nicks the ticket but my concern would be what about somebody you know Joe Plummer who's coming to Amherst for the very first time from Westfield or Springfield or somewhere in the surrounding community and that you know in the taste of Amherst tends to attract people from all over the area so it's not beyond the realm to consider some of those people could be first timers and that's your first experience you get a ticket and then you say that's it I'm never coming back to Amherst and that's what you can't really calculate is you know what is that impact on the Amherst cinema or on all of our restaurants so I think it's a good idea to a keep it to 6 o'clock I think 7 8 o'clock is way too late and also obviously to standardize it and keep all of them at 6 o'clock thank you thank you very much okay other public comment okay I'll take your motion to close the public hearing at 7.55 I still move Aaron all in favor of closing the public hearing at 7.55 say aye is that unanimous or folks just yes public hearing is closed time first select for deliberation so I will note with appreciation the detailed memo and recommendation that we have here and how it reinforces how complicated parking issues are and how you turn one dial and it turns all the other dials and that's really why it needs to be looked at in the larger context I agree that the bid is really a terrific way to be doing that much stronger way than we've had in recent years to be doing it because you know as to Mr. Kelly's point to the points others have made the stakeholders of the businesses this is really about managing parking the maximum benefit of the businesses and all the folks who are using our downtown so that is a great group to be really looking at the pros and cons and the different tradeoffs that are all involved here and to be doing the legwork and homework on this to bring a recommendation to us so I am looking forward to the future recommendations on these great issues that have been raised and I appreciate the recommendations tonight any other comment on the recommendation as we have it okay so then we are looking to deal with the Sunday issue and I just have to say just take quibble since people are quibbling I'll quibble the thing about it represents $7,500 loss of revenue so that's $7,500 of people who have accidentally put money in the meters on Sundays in Bolwood garage to keep the policy then we would actually increase enforcement we would change the signage that would be a totally different number so that's $7,500 of just by accident I assume that that's true as opposed to this not being historical information about how much we get on Sundays from Bolwood garage prior to this change over to the Saturday policy which is to say during this time of confusion we have $100 out of them but that doesn't actually represent what the revenue would be with a different policy alright that's the end of my quibbling anybody else have questions quibbles, comments, Ms. Burr and we're sorry we're not giving it back particularly now yeah I would I'm fine with the vote on the thing I just want to ask that we this be perhaps one of our semi quarterly or whatever reports on where we are at because I do believe the timing issue is important for the beginning of the school year okay so I think nobody has more of an interest in getting this done than the bid so I'm not worried about them dilly-dallying with this I would say that I guess I'm not quite so wedded to your idea it has to start at the end of the year I think there are all kinds of transitions we could use you know whether it was January 1st voila the new parking or the beginning of summer or whatever but if we had a great policy already we would find a way to hook it to some new beginning possibly I mean but it's a but your point is a good one alright anything else Ms. Stein would like to make a motion I move that the select board approve the elimination of the 50 cents an hour fee in the Bultwood garage parking lot on Sundays effective immediately second half or so further discussion all in favor say hi hi and that is unanimous thank you very much Ms. Burr I think it is great enough this history of the parking regulations I mean magnificent I have never seen anything come before the select board before that said what we used to do so this is amazing thank you there's two of them tonight it is so good I said to Mr. Selvastow this afternoon I pointed to a couple of things that I had found that it wasn't nearly as comprehensive as this I said the problem is Alyssa is going to say this is so great we want everything to look like the full history of every decision ever made okay thank you thank you very much all folks who came in for this and prepared information for us much appreciated alright it is now 8 o'clock my god that was perfect timing our 8 o'clock issue is nope start 7.50 item never mind 7.50 item request just continuous portions of county ways Mr. Musanti this next item is a request for you to make a request to the Hampshire council of governments to conduct a public hearing process in order to discontinue a Hampshire county way which is the you know 17th or 18th century way of discontinuing a road they were originally approved through the county government process eons ago and there are two such stretches of road in Amherst that are currently county ways that need to be discontinued and they're summarized along with the apps from Mr. Moreing the first is the Atkins corner former you know route 116 north and south by Atkins market in the vicinity of the new roundabouts the old roadbed officially a county way and needs to be discontinued now that we have the roundabouts so this is a logical kind of next step legal machinations related to completing that road work with the new roundabouts that are in service so that's one the second one is along Eastman lane the entire stretch of Eastman lane from East Pleasant to North Pleasant on the UMass campus and this the road itself while it would be that original county way would be discontinued the basic road layout as you see it would remain as it is this would make Eastman lane which is within the interior of the UMass campus consistent with all of the other roads in the interior of the UMass campus that they would not be considered county ways and that gives the university same flexibility in terms of repairs and upgrades along those roads and other related future development along the edges of those roads and so that because it's a county way it requires the same process questions or comments Miss Brewer okay I'm just gonna say this doesn't really even make any sense to me because I don't understand what the county really does at this point but I really don't care I guess is what it comes down to because it just doesn't make a lot of logical sense to say it's fine for them to take this off their Eastman thing so that Eastman lane off so the university can do what they want to do but it won't change the use of Eastman it's like really I mean it's just one of those old things we just have to get out of the control of that so that people can just do what they normally do right yeah that's exactly it it's just odd that's exactly it and in my ongoing discussions with the university when we look at road related issues this is one of them that's in the this needs to be cleaned up list housekeeping of ancient history okay and I'll note that this isn't just us being really neurotic about things this is under mass general law and we have the law in our packets and the reason that this is a little bit different if you read through the law you might say did we need to call this as a public hearing we don't need to call it as a public hearing because we are not actually doing the discontinuance of the road we are requesting the discontinuance from the body the law lays out as the process the town through its you know town council or select board makes such a request to the county public hearing and a butter notifications or whatever to to to their weird part of this formal technicality of discontinuing property Miss Brewer absolutely and I was just going to ask of that the when Miss Stein makes this motion as I'm sure she will that she referenced the MGL somehow by tacking it on somehow that that's the process we're following in her wonderful word smithing way maybe I'm not quite as sanguine as Miss Brewer is about this the reason the county took these back last century was to resolve a number of land disputes that came up over property lines as the road yours or mine or you know this was the solution that the state imposed on everybody for untangling that for the Atkins corners I mean that's obvious I'm going to assume no I'm going to ask the question whether the road layout first of all you promise this is the last time we're going to look at this stuff was when we did the easements in the town meeting last fall but any event here we are again so will the layout then be changed to follow the easements that we approved in town meeting we move it away from where it was to where they are now is that part of the the plan the part of the process I believe the answer to that is yes okay and that's what I would have and I think that's what the red line on this drawing means with Eastman Lane I have a different concern I don't understand how we might lose control of that that road looks like an important safety valve on East Pleasant Street many years ago traffic was redirected down East Pleasant Street I think by accident that really ought to be there away from UMass the current traffic plan and I looked at it so long ago I really cannot recall it precisely doesn't move towards resolving that issue when and there is such a time when that begins to be worked on again Eastman Lane seems like a critical path to relieving that traffic flow are we giving it up do we give we just say okay UMass do what you will with it now I love UMass dearly but they do have a different agenda than we do over traffic and issues like this so I just want to make sure that we don't give away something accidentally I can assure you from my own direct discussions and also the master planning work from the university that Eastman Lane will remain open for a very very long time if not forever part of the master planning in terms of traffic flow etc also included the location of the UMass police department along North Pleasant with ready access to the heart of campus along Eastman Lane part of bus routes there's a commuter component there it's going to remain an important connector road but is that based on UMass's good will and their promises or is that something that is enforceable at our end both and a third question I'm sort of looking forward I know of several other of these things that are kind of not exactly nailed down in town are we going to see those and are we going to just be a little bit more strict with them I don't know are we going to start are we starting a trend here not that I'm aware of I do know there's a relative handful of other such streets and it's in the grand scheme of resolving road related issues it's well down the list but no I don't think you're going to see a flood of these requests thank you questions or comments so just to see if I'm understanding this correctly after I went and talked about the law so Mr. Hayden's question about Eastman Lane made me wonder whatever happens next so this talks about the memo from Mr. Mooring says the attached motion will allow the council governments to discontinue the county layout to the town so that the layout can be discontinued to the university does that suggest that we are going to have another hearing the town would then discontinue it to the university or that will all happen through the cog action it happens through the cog action okay so any concerns whether they're I don't want to say legitimate but the types of concerns that Mr. Hayden raised would never be considered where or when that's just through ongoing discussions with the university or that would be part of the cog's consideration be ongoing discussions between the town and the university okay so Mr. Hayden are you satisfied that your concerns are sort of addressed by some process going forward I'm satisfied but I'll keep an eye on it good enough any questions or comments about this we were just discussing the appropriate way to reference this would you say title 14 chapter 82 section 32A it'd be Mass General Law chapter 32 section 32A okay so skip the title 14 okay fine just want to make sure I do it right any other questions or comments alright Ms. Stein would you like to make the motion that's right move that the select board as described under chapter 82 section 32A request the Hampshire regional council of governments formally Hampshire county commissioners to discontinue portions of the Hampshire county ways located in Amherst and described as follows a West street by county layouts established from 1732 through 1964 has shown on sheets one through seven of plans prepared by four site land services December 2011 to be recorded in the Hampshire registry of deeds beginning at a line normal to ST a 106 plus 00 and running northerly to West Bay Road and Bay Road to a line normal to ST a 20 plus 59. 91 for a total distance of about 1460 feet B West Bay Road by county layout 1732 and following formerly known as Bay Road the Bay Road and other names from a line normal to ST a 403 plus 00 easterly into the county layout of West street described above for a distance of about 300 feet see Bay Road by said county layouts of 1732 and following from a survey point of ST a 500 plus 00 within the above described county layout of West street easterly about 200 feet to align normal to ST plus 00 being depicted on plans described above and D Eastman Lane in 1883 county layout number 92 running easterly from North Pleasant street to East Pleasant street through a width of 33.00 feet for a distance of about 3200 feet second did you want to move the legal reference oh you did at the beginning sorry lost it as it went on there moved in second for the discussion Mr. Hayden somewhere there's a survey I think he's going to be very pleased to know that his spray painted markings on the road are going to become part of the permanent record those station numbers that you read are survey marks also I guess I'm glad that some place these things are recorded interesting moment in Amherst history when that road was laid out in 1883 as well sad to lose them but that's the way it goes further discussion 32 is before we became a town officially further discussion all in favor say aye aye nice unanimous okay that's two things we've never done before that we did tonight borrowing alternative and now discontinuing roads by the county okay now we are late for our 8 o'clock item early to celebrate okay our 8 o'clock item we have a request from Mr. Kelly to reconsider the proposal to or reconsider the policy for flying commemorative flags on September 11th and Mr. Kelly if you'd like to come forward and talk to us about this and introduce yourself again Mr. Kelly South Pleasant Street Amherst of course first of all I want to thank the board for having this public hearing and whoever the select board member was who requested it to get it on the agenda I want to thank you as well about 15-16 years ago when the big Y first opened on University Drive actually before they opened they came before the select board the Amherst select board and they wished to have the town seal embossed in the floor of the big Y because as some of you know it's in Amherst but it's also in Hadley so they wanted to do yeah you probably remember this they wanted to have the town seals indicating here's Hadley, here's Amherst and here's the line between the two which is kind of cute the select board didn't like the idea at all they turned them down cold unanimous vote that select board 15-16 years ago recognized the power of a symbol it represents you, it represents me it represents everyone in this town well that symbol over there that flag represents you and me everyone in this town but everyone in this country and on 9-11 we lost 2,997 individuals in a two hour period 98% of them civilians 98% only has the flag nationwide flying at half staff for four occasions memorial day of course Pearl Harbor Peace Officers Day and now 9-11 only four days we have the flags up the commemorative flags up on six occasions I hate to use the word holiday because I think that's gotten us into trouble over the last 10 or 11 years because most people consider July 4th to be a holiday and actually if you interviewed people they would think of memorial day oh yeah that's a holiday, I don't have to work that day but it's not, I mean memorial day is remembering those who died so that I can come here and invoke my first amendment right and you as public officials who are duly elected represent the democratic process that makes this country so great and what it's all about is what that flag represents so I finally googled the word commemorative this morning and I just want to read it to you the number one return for commemorative well it's commemorate but variation of commemorative commemorate quote recall and show respect for someone or something in a ceremony to serve as a memorial to that's what commemorate means commemorative flags commemorative flags so I'm not even sure where this whole idea came up that they're festive well yeah they're up the 4th of July and that is a festive occasion let's have marching bands and apple pie and fireworks later on that night very festive occasion 9-11 one of the worst moments in American history as far from festive as you can possibly get but again let me read the word commemorative again the definition recall and show respect for someone or something in a ceremony that's what those flags are they're commemorative flags and we fly them on memorial day so why aren't we flying them on 9-11 I just do not understand it it has nothing to do with commemorative I mean it has everything to do with commemorative it has nothing to do with festive so 11 years ago I asked that select board you know we're talking 3 different select boards here the one 16 years ago the one 11 years ago and you here tonight but 11 years ago I asked that select board on September 10th 2001 12 hours before the first plane struck do you really want to be remembered as the politicians who voted against the flag well apparently they did well actually I shouldn't say that they voted to let them fly 6 times so all I'm asking is to let them fly 7 times you do let them fly on 9-11 but every 5 years so you're saying that it is okay to commemorate 9-11 but only once in 5 years or the pessimist would say you don't commemorate it 4 out of 5 times so that's my question to you do you really want to give the general public the impression that the town considers 9-11 to be commemorable 1 out of 5 times or to not commemorate it 4 out of 5 times that's a god awful message to send thank you very much okay so if I may I will kind of quickly summarize what got us here so after the year after 9-11 the flags did fly at that time and I believe they did for a couple years and at some point that stopped Mr. Kelly brought a request to the town meeting in 2007 to fly the flags every 9-11 every year and that vote failed 2-1 at that time I voted in favor of that with the minority but that vote failed 2-1 and many of my colleagues also voted for that since that time Mr. Kelly has come back and asked us again to reconsider this policy in the wake of the vote of 2007 when he came in 2008 Mr. Weiss then on the select board suggested a compromise and the compromise at that time was to fly them once every 3 years which was reflective of the town meeting support 1-3 in favor 2-3 opposing so we did that for a couple of years then in 2000 2010 came back and asked again and at that time we changed the policy to once every 5 years and that way it would make sure to note all of the milestone years the 10-year, 15-20-year anniversaries etc so at that time when the select board voted on Mr. Weiss's policy there was that was in the wake of division by town meeting which is kind of our best representative of the town's general sense and but a compromise was proposed despite the fact that town meeting had rejected it and it was a very thoughtful compromise at which time there were 4 select board members at that time because one had resigned we supported the compromise and one was absent, it was actually a 3 select board person vote that night we supported that 2 in favor of the compromise and 1 opposed so now that's 2 votes by here, very selected bodies about the flag none of which was to fly it every year when we voted on this again in 2010 and in fact I proposed the compromise for every 5 years at that time 2 of my colleagues felt that they should fly every year and 2 of my colleagues felt very strongly that that was not the appropriate way to commemorate 9-11 so we have the town meeting which is our largest representative body rejecting this entirely by a wide margin and we have the select board full of people who I have the greatest respect and admiration for who are divided, last we talked divided on this issue and so all those things point for me to the same vote that I had in 2010 to a compromise when the town has indicated through its elected representation on multiple occasions now that this is not something that everybody feels the same way you feel about it but it's not an appropriate vote now granted things change over time so it's not inappropriate to see if people's feelings are different but I just wanted to give people a little history about that and also to reposition what you're saying as the you know it's appropriate 1 year but it's not appropriate 4 years what it is is a statement of the towns and the public and the public and so on. It's not a good indication so far of not seeing eye to eye on this issue so I think it's been very fair and thoughtful and it's worth considering again so I just want to say that's where the select board was coming from with its compromise it doesn't have anything to do with rejecting the flag it can't be characterized in any other way than being a flag. So select board members how do we feel about it this time? Mr. Wilde. In general I guess I see no reason to be against flying the flag of the country we live in but you know that said also to add to the context the town does fly the flag of the United States every day in front of Town Hall and we also do commemorate September 11th as Mr. Misanti reminded us there's a ceremony and Mr. Kelly knows about it. I guess I was thinking about this historically and I'm glad Mr. Kelly mentioned things like Pearl Harbor because obviously for a certain generation that was the equivalent of this and people felt very strongly about that I'm not sure that people of the younger generation identify with Pearl Harbor it was important the small town of North Adams that came across recently in a different context every year still marks so I guess I would say that you know I understand the reasoning on both sides I have no reason to oppose flying the flag as an appropriate commemoration sensibilities change as to what holidays or what commemorative dates are most important and how we celebrate them so I'm open to the suggestion but we do also I want to make clear we do mark both we mark the date and we fly the flag for those in the audience may not have that agenda. Any other question? I will do another. Others. Mr. Hayden. I have been trying to collect my thoughts on this for well since I knew this was on the agenda and I want to appreciate Mr. Roussell's putting together I assume that Deborah has put this together this history including parallel events to what Amherst is all about discussions that were had, including the ones on the day before, I'm not going to go over the discussion that I entered into last year, last time, on appropriate commemorations that are missed, maybe, and should be higher on the list than the horrible thing. I mean, it was a terrible thing, and it's the most horrible thing that's happened in my lifetime. I grant that, but not the most horrible thing or the most commemorable thing that's happened in the United States of America in its history. I'm not going to speak to that. Rather, I want to reflect on how much I feel I'm charged, and my colleagues on the select board are charged with representing the most interesting town in Massachusetts. One of the things that's so interesting about it is that people come here from all over for all kinds of reasons with all kinds of notions about what is appropriate to celebrate, what is appropriate to speak out against, and I think that I feel on top of my other personal feelings that it really does honor their sensibility to once again vote no. Ms. Stein. As one who had family in New York on that day and understanding their feelings, and I will also vote no, because to them the appropriate ceremony is what goes on at the firehouse. It would be having the town hall flag at half-mast. It is a time of mourning. It was a time of fear. And I just, to me, flying the flags from each post just doesn't do justice to the depth of the tragedy of that day. So that's my feeling and I will vote no. Ms. Brewer, would you like to offer any comment? Sure. Since my name is in here as 2010, Alyssa said she'd put together the package Deborah just did. Yay, if you wait two years, you can always hope. I gave the speech Ms. O'Keefe gave when there was less history back in 2008. I guess the only thing that I can add that's different than anything I've said in previous years for all those in out TV land who haven't heard this over and over is I come to appreciate over time that the longer I do this the less that the way I see things is obviously the way other people see them. And so while on the one hand I've always thought if this is really important to a number of people to fly them and it doesn't really matter one way or the other to a bunch of other people then why not fly them? That's a positive. Clearly it does matter to a whole bunch of other people to not fly them. I would argue that town meeting is typically in this case I would suspect that town meeting vote in this area was perhaps stronger than it might be on a townwide vote in terms of the margin that occurs in town meeting. But again, town meeting is what we have. We don't do townwide votes on most things. And I would, the longer I look at what's commemoration, what's a holiday, what's the purpose of this, I certainly like the idea it appeals to me from an educational standpoint to say oh look the flags are flying. What does September 11th mean to us? Except we don't need to fly the flags to do that. We need to participate in the National Day of Service. We need to go to the commemoration at the firehouse. We need to look at the half mass flags in my opinion and say oh kids this is why we're talking about this. I would argue without having researched an IOTA of why we fly the flags on Labor Day I have no clue. I work for a union. I can't even fathom why we'd fly the flags. But that's just what we do because it's what we do. Well, you know, again, as I do this longer and longer maybe why we do what we do shouldn't be quite so cut and dried. Oh it's a day off work? Well then that means you fly a flag. It's not a day off work. You don't fly a flag. It's not, that's not what it should be about. And I appreciate that there are many, many nuances and probably other people who may have had families involved in New York may feel differently. They may want a whole bunch of flags to be flying to make sure it's clear that they're lost at that day. So there is no right answer. And therefore and as much as I like to imagine that I might have thought of it by now I think the compromise while it does lend itself to discussion as either it is or it isn't. Well actually it is or it isn't in Amherst. We do have it always in Amherst. And so I'm pleased to continue with a compromise rather than forcing a vote that says yes it so happens that the majority of people sitting here at this board tonight might support this because I don't want the next time this comes up a majority of the people on the board who say absolutely not, not ever, not even once on September 11th to happen because that would be easy to, that would be easy to have happen and I think would be very unfortunate. So I think by not following the spirit of compromise now we set ourselves up for that sort of thing in the future. So much as I'd like things to be a little more simple I don't think they can be and I'm fine with three or five year whatever compromise we think is currently appropriate. Thank you. I appreciate the point you made about kind of the makeup of the board. You know if you're going to kind of play the makeup of the board game that's a slippery slope and we've talked about it before and in terms of attendance you know there are certain things and certain times back when we didn't have such good attendance as we have now you could get a different outcome if you had a different vote on different nights. That's not how the select board the executive branch of government in town is supposed to work and so I think that honoring the compromise honors the spirit of that. Really we are making the decision on behalf of the town. This is the town's decision, the town's representation of the flags on that day and all of our best information at this point both historically and without our own body is that this is a point that the town is still divided on so the compromise seems to make the most sense. I understand it's not something you're divided on you only see it one way but there are anyone here tonight. There were 60 people here on September 10th, 2001 and I think it was most people agree it was slightly more in favor of flying the flags more often than less often although the select board voted differently that night but it was it was a packed room that night and if I may just for one second just to address what Miss Stein said because I mean one of the most iconic photos of that day and we know how many millions were taken that day is those two firefighters raising the flag over the burning rubble around 6 p.m. and those two firefighters had been searching all day for survivors I don't think they found any but they were also searching for their fellow firefighters because at that point CNN and Fox and everybody else was reporting possibly thousands of firefighters were dead thousands and these guys are exhausted they're dealing with molten steel and missing comrades and missing civilians and that I mean they knew what was how bad this thing was and what did they do they raised an American flag and they just happened to do it with somebody nearby who took that picture so I mean you can say yeah it's a trivial thing and 9-11 was such a horrific thing but to me it impacted no one more so than firefighters which and yeah obviously I'll be at the Amherst fire station for their service and they lost 343 you know police officers lost 40 something but as I said you know the when it first drove it home to me was pretty way before 9-11 was December of 1999 when those firefighters went into that Worcester building and didn't come out and I drove down there to see that fire chief called the building from hell and I just had to see it for myself and I drove down there about a week after the Worcester fire tragedy and I have never never seen so many American flags as I was driving to Worcester never even after 9-11 it did not compare to what I saw in Worcester so thank you I'll note that we did have two members of the public submit comment about this both of whom were arguing in favor of flying the flag every day every 9-11 and is there anyone from the public here now who would like to comment on this issue so it seems to me we don't need a vote because we're not going to where the indications seem to be that we're not looking to make a change from current policy does anybody feel differently and wants to have a vote could you just restate with the current policy so the current policy is that we fly them every 5 years to be all of the the years that mark 5 and 10 etc. at anniversaries at 5 year intervals so in keeping with that current policy the next time they would fly on 9-11 would be 2016 any other comment before we move on from this this time I just want to stay from an educational point of view that I honestly believe that a child would ask more often why the firehouse bells are ringing why people are standing there why flags are at half mass that the flags flying I don't think generate the same response because they've been so accepted thank you Mr. a comment which is maybe a step back in appreciation for Mr. Kelly's bringing up issues often to us I kind of I at first I thought no my goodness and then I realized that this is an opportunity for us to really sort of put our heads together and be thoughtful out loud about important issues clearly important issues and so I I do appreciate that opportunity and I want to echo your appreciation for my colleagues in sort of taking it in hand and not just dismissing it not just Mr. Winslow please identify yourself at the mic for Reynolds Winslow precinct one I wasn't I I have no I'm not being sure what I'm going to say but this august body might consider tabling this motion and reinventing itself for the town I'm old enough to remember Pearl Harbor my grandchildren are old enough to remember 9 11 I think this town has the opportunity to educate young people now I'm part of the Human Rights Commission had been so for a long time and I dare say that if somebody comes to my commission our commission to represent all of us and brings this topic before us we have an obligation to consider this very topic and I dare say if I encourage people to come and voice their opinion this could turn it upside down and I would hope that somebody in our town would consider this this is more than the topic is more than I have probably more than I have a right to even mention but as a citizen as an American citizen as a black American you will appreciate a different aspect of life in Amherst and being all inclusive and reaching out to a majority of people the majority of people that are affected by what happens in Amherst we are an unusual town I submit a body of thinkers and as I remember and have attended town meetings there are opinions galore so I'm requesting that you don't come to rush to a judgment of table not take not tabling this I would hope that you would table this reconsider and think very hard even prayerfully if I might add that thank you thank you very much so I don't think we need a motion to table or otherwise this is we're simply taking no action to make any changes to the current policy as always we welcome additional information on this topic and you can be sure Mr. Kelly will bring it back again next year at this time and Andy should do that as I said the information that we have to work with as far as what the town's opinion is on this is an incredibly lopsided vote at town meeting that said absolutely not and at nearly half and half divided select board on this representing the community as best we can despite Mr. Kelly bringing this to us every single year we really don't get any comment on this we don't get comment after the fact you know some people they like to kind of oversimplify this you know kind of give us little jabs or whatever in the press or pop culture but but nobody nobody really comments on this so we got two comments this year we've had one or two people come to the various hearings we've had about this in the past I think it would be a very different discussion if Mr. Kelly were to bring it back for another town meeting vote you might have a totally different result if we were to have a groundswell of people coming from Human Rights Commission or other places that were representing a different point of view we would have different information to work with but the information we have to work with now is that you know kind of the silence is speaking to the fact that that the compromise that represents the town is is the best place to be right now but thank you very much for your comments okay moving on it is 841 and our next item is 815 item proof plan and process for filling library trustee vacancy in our packets we have okay we have a document this is the same document that I provided to us last January when we were looking at filling a vacancy on the school committee this describes the process that we have used in in the past several years for how we handle the filling of a vacancy both as it relates specifically to mass general law that governs it and what we do within that law to to take the steps necessary to have an election there is a new vacancy as I mentioned at the last meeting and as folks have already in the paper there is a vacancy on the library trustees and we thank Emily Lewis for her long service an excellent service there but she has now moved away and there is a vacancy the chair of the library trustees in consultation with his colleagues has requested that we hold an election on September 24th that is two meetings from now to fill that vacancy that is is a good amount of time both being in excess of the weeks notice required by mass general law but also allowing the trustees to try and fill that vacancy kind of as soon as reasonably practical so they can have a new person on board that person would serve until the annual town election and then need to be either reelected or that seat would be up for election at that time so the recommendation to us is to fill that seat at an election here time to be determined on September 24th and to follow the process that has worked so well for us in the past several years questions or comments thoughts about the 24th are we all good with that okay Ms. Brewer sorry I didn't reread this as carefully as I should have what responsibility our level do we take on mainly because we have the excellent staff support to make it happen which you know it's kind of like a punishment to them sometimes too in terms of making sure this is widely broadcast versus it being up to the library trustees to do that versus the school committee in other year ARA etc. I mean how do you how do we envision our level of responsibility getting this out there and what that might look like so tomorrow assuming we approve this information tomorrow or Wednesday we will get on to the town website and news release that has the information about this and and really we kind of depend on the publicity that comes from this meeting and the fact that the library trustees are kind of best connected to folks who may be interested in serving on their body to be spreading the word okay if you have other recommendations and basically it basically it is the news release and then it as it says here the letters of interest come to the select board which I think is still the far more sensible thing than other things we've tried in the past and we just direct everybody toward that news release or to talk to the library trustees themselves about that sounds good correct so so the election will be held at the Monday September 24th meeting the deadline for letters of interest would be at 4pm on the Thursday prior to that meeting so that would be 20 September 20th is the deadline for letters of interest those letters of interest should be sent to the select board office either by regular mail at town hall or at the select board's e-mail which is select board at Amherst MA.gov should letters of interest trickle into the trustees instead we are good at coordinating that information and we'll make sure that both the select board members and the library trustees get all of that information as soon as it comes in and then depending on the number of candidates we have for that seat we would either go with the process exactly as as detailed here or you'll recall when we had the school committee candidates last time we had a very large number of candidates and we actually had to reduce some of the times I think it was like the opening statements were one minute instead of two minutes or whatever once we get all of the applicants in I send them an e-mail that describes the whole process so they understand what to expect on that Monday night and this has been working really pretty well for us the last couple of years so between the select board and the office we have it down pat and we bring whatever board with a vacancy along with us pretty well. Ms. Brewer. I remembered what I really wanted to ask. I knew it would take a while but I got there. So one thing we found with the school committee this last time or at least that I noticed is that one of the funny things about doing these vacancies is it actually gives someone or somebody some body the ability to define what they think the role of one of these people is whether it's a library trustee or school committee member or an ARA member because that information can be provided in the news release. That's not something that really even happens during an election there is like no definition that somebody publishes and says is this what you're going to do. So there was some confusion in a previous time as to what you know what schools were saying and what the town was saying as to what this was and so I guess I'm just asking that since it's all going through the select board office that the library trustees be directed that if there's something particular that they think is important to include because you know it is their body as to characteristics or timing or any of those things because I think we've all seen letters of interest that just say I like the library I should serve well you know that doesn't really give me anything to work with but if we don't give people anything to work with other than there's an opening and so it's that balance. I don't want to make it a lot of work but I I want it to not feel like the library trustees are going to put out one press release and we're going to put out another one. So Mr. Serret and I are coordinating tomorrow on this information and so it will be whatever we coordinate on so that will be the basics plus whatever he wants to add at the same time then you have no control over what people submit if they just say I want and then that's up to all of us to consider you know give the weight that we think is necessary along with their public interview that we do here but I think that I think that the process as we've planned it will address your concerns about the body including any information that they think is key. And I think I would just like you to add to your beautiful list here of current as of 2012 some statement to that effect that the chair will coordinate with the other chair or something like that on that because that hasn't been clear to you know non amazing chairs like you so how that might work. So just for future reference because it does seem to come up every two years. We've had a few of these lately. Okay thank you Mr. I'm enjoying the word puzzle a committee of chairs that's kind of fun. The also I want to sort of reinforce what Miss Brewer says remembering from the school committee interview if you will that one of the first things that we learned was exactly what the school committee was up to for the six months that you know what did they need to get done in those six months and that was important and it's kind of a nice idea to get ahead of that. I will note that with Mr. Sarat any other questions or comments. All right I don't think we need a formal vote on this we just agree that that will take place at our September 24th meeting and that the time of that will be as best I can coordinate with Mr. Sarat and the availability of the trustees presumably we're all already here so that won't work for us. Okay very good thank you. Moving along we have a time advantage evaluation and goal setting process. Yes it's like Groundhog Day here at the select board meeting. Okay first of all we have in our packets what I hope is the final version of the evaluation memo. I didn't get the draft of that to folks as soon last week as I'd liked it to in fact I didn't get it to you until yesterday but that was the best I could do I apologize. If there are any significant changes that you want to make to it we certainly can if there are insignificant changes then perhaps that they're not relevant but I did my best to collect all of the information that we talked about adding at our last meeting and I had highlighted those two in the draft that I sent. So first of all we'll see are we good with the final version of this or do we want to make any changes? Okay everyone's good with it unless I hear otherwise from someone. Okay in which case let's talk about it in a different way so that means that at long last we have concluded our FY 12 town manager evaluation process. Folks have already read kind of the preview of this in the paper because our discussion at the August 20th meeting did go into kind of great detail. So I'm not going to go into the guts of the evaluation if you will but the bottom line is we had another excellent year from Mr. Musanti and we thank him very much for his service. The performance in all areas was high. We identified just a couple of areas that we were looking for additional attention to in the coming year and I hope that that information is helpful to be all about is to help identify the things that we want to keep doing as well as he is doing and to try and make everything be exactly that well. So this has been a long and thoughtful process as it always is. We had public comment as well as staff comment and again I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of the folks who submitted comment from the public and others for this. This is as I said last week, this is the most important thing that the select board does. This is our opinion on the management of the town on behalf of the community. This is trying to see if the values that we hold and the ways we assess his performance are in line with the community's goals and so to the degree that we think we are doing a heck of a job. So there are other details folks want to go into about this. I should note that all of this information is on the web packet online and tomorrow all of this will be moved to the select board not move to it will stay in the packet but it will also be on the resource section at the bottom of the select board's page on the website. That resource section always is available to all of the community. It is available to all of the community. So at this point the FY 11 evaluation is up there but that will now move into the archive still accessible from that same area but not available right on that page. And be replaced with this one. So in addition to the composite of the comments and ratings from the individual select board members forms as we talked about in great detail last week that is that collects everything that was identified either in our forms or in our discussion last week of areas of broad agreement and because we have no individual authority it is only in the areas of broad agreement that we actually provide any kind of direction to the town manager so that is to that is what the memo is trying to figure out from five different evaluation forms what are they looking for from me what is the saying. However the public does have access to all five of our individual forms those are currently in the web packet and as I said will be with the evaluation material in the resource section of the page tomorrow and I think that that too is very critical information to the community about whether we individually are being responsible in what we do and whether it aligns with their thinking so I think it is all good information to have and I am so happy to be done with this for this year. Other questions or comments about the evaluation for FY 12? Woohoo thank you Mr. Rossetti really it has been a great year. I appreciate it I will just very briefly say my thanks to the board you know the effort you have made on behalf of the community and your effort in particular on this tool going back a couple of years now what can be stressful at times during the extended process is very helpful to me collectively as well as the individual feedback positive reinforcement is great but also identifying areas to pay additional attention to in the coming year is very helpful to me I just appreciate the confidence you have placed in me and through you the wider community and the confidence of the staff and just reiterating the fact that most of what you know I have been able to contribute to in terms of progress as town manager wouldn't happen without the day to day commitment and effort of each and every employee of the town of Amherst so that is very important and I am enjoying the job and I am looking forward to continuing our forward momentum in progress thank you very much following tonight's meeting we will have an executive session to talk about any contract changes for Mr. Musanti in the wake of this evaluation alright any questions or comments about this before we move on to goal setting Ms. Brewer sorry remind me when we are going to talk about process for next year we are going to be discussing our evaluation process September 10th I know it is coming out so I had sent this in an email but by all means while this is fresh in our minds if you have any thoughts about how we do this better because we are always just trying to do it better than note them down and we will talk about them at our September 10th meeting okay so now it is time for our FY 13 goals discussion because I think just like we did starting a couple years ago with the evaluation was to make it based on actual goals an evaluation that is based on nothing in particular does not have a ton of value so one of the things that we tried to do was to really identify and then formally codify our goals for the town manager we have been doing this all summer long because it does work very well in parallel with the evaluation process because we are paying attention to all those elements of performance at our previous meetings we first had a discussion about our goals from last year and whether we wanted to keep, eliminate, or revise any of them for FY 13 and the decision at that time was to keep all of them as is and we had thorough discussion about that at another meeting we talked about whether there were new goals to add to this list and at that time we determined know that this list broadly captured the things that we wanted to do we knew that we would have at least this one more goals discussion and if we need another one then we will do that to revisit both of those discussions in the wake of having finished our individual evaluations and what kinds of new thoughts that made us think or what kinds of issues that brought to mind and we do know from our discussion last week that we identified a couple of areas that would help for us to clarify them among ourselves before we can expect to evaluate Mr. Missanti on them so let's start with any additional goals because that's a little bit easier Miss Stein. Stephanie I would be I'd see these two as so linked and I would hope that we could discuss both of them on September 10th to be totally honest I only got back into town late today and I really want time to go back to my notes that I was trying to keep their little there's not much if you want to go ahead with it fine but I'm not in a position to really seriously look at these goals again the only thing that I could make right now would be again linked to the evaluation process when we have parts A, B, C and D are we supposed to address A, B, C and D or are we supposed to have sort of a composite paragraph that incorporates them because I tried to do A, B, C and D but the particles within I'm not prepared to really discuss those this evening. We've been so thorough about this so far there's no reason to rush it they are certainly broadly a continuation of the goals from the previous year so it's not like Mr. Moussanti suddenly won't know what he's doing for the next couple of weeks if we don't know if he's depending on those Lord help him so presumably no one has a problem with postponing this discussion until the September 10th meeting. I think and it's so perfectly segway because I just written myself a note. I have two things on my list for next time and the second thing was I think that in deference to the fact of your abilities as chair versus normal human beings in the future and since you've already given us to understand that you won't be here for the next 50 or 60 years is that you need to decide that issue associated with is a box not that we want to think outside the box but is a box are those little separate things that need to be rated because if you're rating them separately and I'm rating them one way and somebody's trying to turn those into numbers somehow it's going to screw everything up so it's probably just in terms of setting ourselves up for simplicity's sake and then that defines what our actual goals look like as well. Very good all part of the discussion next time then anything else we want to add to this before we... No time is growing short and we have lots and lots of stuff to do I just one very quick thing it's very gratifying that what we're talking about is whether it should be ABCD with its four boxes or one box what we're not discussing and reading the last issue about municipal governments is whether or not we got every job listed here sort of in a broad category and I think we've done a very good job on the tenth I want to talk about maybe expanding or clarifying some sections but I think that's sort of the crux of it. Okay so I would ask my colleagues to please think about this in depth ahead of time and to the degree that you can bring suggestions raising problems identifying problems that's all well and good but suggestions are what make changes so please bring suggestions and maybe for some things you won't have a suggestion and say you know I've identified this is a problem we need to think about I understand that sometimes that happens but to the degree that we can actually be working with suggestions would be very very helpful. Alright we'll discuss this more on September 10th are we done? Okay next then how many answers report? Thank you I have several items to plow through and I'll try to do those quickly first is a brief staff update I have two items one really pleased to publicly announce I've let the board know by email in the last couple of days I have hired Leslie Salisbury to a part time position 12 hours a week human rights coordinator reporting to our new human rights and human resources director Deb Radway Leslie started back with us today we're working out her hours to be some sort of flex time schedule that works for her and works for the town I know the current plan is for her to have regular hours in town hall on Mondays 9 to 1 but then other hours more flexible including hours out directly out in the community outside of this building she'll be working very closely with Deb Radway in a support role and also as a staff liaison along with Deb to the Human Rights Commission and so we're very very excited about Leslie rejoining us you know people in town know Leslie from her excellent work a couple years back now being our primary administrator on a social justice grant that was awarded to the town to our health department there was a lot of community engagement and staff engagement as part of that work she did a great job and just thrilled to have her back to her work secondly I just wanted to recognize our principal assessor David Burgess at the end of July he was recognized formally by the state wide association the mass association of assessing officers yes we have an association statewide for most every job category in town Dave was recognized for his work last year assisting the town of Munson following the tornadoes and many problems confronting the town of Munson including his colleagues in the assessing function down there just their ability to literally function so Dave spent some significant time down there helping his unselfishness so I just wanted the community and the board to be aware of that as well next in terms of updates in addition to my bulleted list that's on the agenda I want to lead off with news that is official as of this morning I have in fact signed the town's power purchase agreement with blue wave capital and smart energy capital the development partners to develop solar power install a solar array at our old landfill off of belch town road this was the project that was overwhelmingly endorsed by town meeting a year ago giving me authorization to negotiate a longer term agreement we've periodically updated the select board on its progress including a very extensive update at your july meeting today was a real milestone day we've now executed this agreement it will give us a renewable source of electricity to meet municipal and school needs over the next 25 years at a very low competitive price so there's financial savings there's a tremendous environmental benefit that is the equivalent of taking nearly 9,000 cars off of our roads the next steps are development of a detailed design and the real active engagement of people in the community including in the immediate neighborhood to come up with a final design for this that is directly sensitive to concerns such as proximity to lot lines other buffering and screening continued access to walking trails etc so we're very excited about that and that will be a precursor to the permit applications themselves to the local ZBA and the state DEP for a very rigorous environmental review so milestone day very excited about taking another step forward so in the same press release that's on the website very close to signing a letter of intent with the same development group to potentially purchase some of our electricity power from a second site located in a different town that is not yet final but it's imminent and that will be another positive step giving us flexibility on sources and also assisting us in our efforts to appropriately size the footprint of this solar ray so that in a you know as less of an impact as possible while still meeting the needs of the town and the greater community at the old landfill we expect construction would if the permit process continues on to start currently estimated third quarter of calendar 13 and that follows the state and local permit process that would precede it so I'm happy about that we also have the litigation as you know overhanging this issue that litigation is still active I have twin goals to successfully reach a design for this project that clearly safeguards any environmental concerns that people locally and people at the regulatory level have satisfactorily and meet the mitigation concerns that have been expressed and also want to be given the opportunity to prove as a town that we can pursue a solar ray at the site that is environmentally safe and fits in with the community in which it's placed Miss Brewer Thank you for that beautiful segue I know that and one of the shorthand sort of pokes that Liz O'Keeffe kind of referenced earlier associate with our flag discussion that we occasionally get out in the community is associated with meetings with neighbors in this project and my response has typically been well it's pretty hard to meet with people who are suing you and that's blunter than anything you would normally say but I appreciate that you just tried to address that because obviously you can't sit down with a neighborhood that is suing you that some portion of is suing you to have the same kinds of conversations if they weren't so this is a difficult challenge to be working on both this process and the litigation at the same time and so I just want the community to understand that in perhaps a more blunt way than the town manager would state it that it is a challenge he is rising to but it is a difficult challenge it would perhaps a somewhat different series of meetings might have taken place were it not for the litigation also being a factor would that be safe to say sure and yeah this project is hard to do but it's such a worthwhile project directly to the community and for the greater good that it's worth pursuing I've made clear and you've supported me along the way and the town along the way that we were going to make every possible effort to bring forward a project to the permitting authorities that is directly sensitive to the issues that have been raised and so the decision of the power purchase agreement with the appropriate terms and conditions and safeguards is a precursor to those in depth discussions but I'm ready able and willing to really have those very site specific discussions with all those who are willing to have them with the town I just want to emphasize that I promise Miss Antia has been willing to meet with these folks all along and even though as we were acknowledged it is challenging in these circumstances the the power purchase agreement being finalized and the stage of another potential agreement with a different town that changes everything that changes the ability to have those conversations with the neighbors and I think it's really important to emphasize that having to purchase power from an array in another town is directly in response to the fact that these neighbors have raised concerns that gives us the flexibility to potentially reduce the size of the array at our old landfill and still get our power needs met by doing that offsite so I really think that the town manager needs to get a ton of due credit there for the fact that that is directly in response to the concerns that folks have raised so I hope that folks will accept his offer to meet and that those conversations can be very fruitful because this is really the opportunity to say okay how do we make this solar array that the town, the community has expressed such overwhelming support for how do we make this work best for the neighborhood as well and so this is a really important step to be at and those will be great conversations. Thank you. Great. Next, Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative at the chair's suggestion we want to add this to be a monthly update and more frequent as needed I guess so recapping some recent developments earlier in August under my signature we sent a letter of request out to every residential property owner in Amherst asking for their help in updating property information particularly around whether the property is owner occupied and if not, if it's rented whether the number of units and the appropriate contact people for such properties. I know as of last count that I saw the other day we were well over a thousand responses thus far in the week to ten days this letter has been out on the street and so Julie Fetterman health director John Thompson code enforcement official in the inspection services department public safety staff and others are all very appreciative of this and ongoing dialogue Ms. Fetterman building commissioner Rob Mora John Thompson also were before the planning board recently and gave them an update on various initiatives the university and the other two other colleges are in the midst of their ramping up in orientation programs for the beginning of the fall semester UMass is having the entire freshman class on campus for a couple of days later this week well before the rest of the on campus student body returns as a whole orientation program that's been revised last year and this year that has as one of its fundamental planks in it town gown expectations and positive kind of what can you do to help be a most responsible member of the community and another major initiative on the part of the university I want to offer my enthusiastic support for is the hiring of six off campus student ambassadors who will be working with their peers and with neighbors in neighborhoods primarily closest to the university on day to day neighborhood issues and helping communicate back and forth and promote that dialogue between neighbors and our many young people in town so I think that's all very positive in universities to be commended for that we move on from that I'll just note that just a tiny correction it's five student life coordinators off campus it's fine and so part of the reason of having the safe and healthy neighborhoods report be a monthly update and kind of a theme that you'll see running through the chairs report that's a document that I put on your desks late tonight and isn't on the website yet but will be tomorrow is the need for both the town and the university to be better communicating all of the steps we are taking jointly and individually to deal with the very real issues of off campus behavior I gave you a couple of things in your packet I won't talk about them now but I guess I might as well just briefly touch on them there's a door hanger as well as a multicolored brochure these are being distributed by the newly formed as of last year off campus student off campus student center off campus student center there has been a complete rearrangement in the dean of students office and the vice chancellor student affairs under her responsibilities and they are just completely taking a new look at these things so the brochure and the door hangers are being distributed through a tremendous coordination with landlords that's to make sure that students are aware and to have the message constantly reinforced about campus policies town bylaws and the consequences for violating both the list of activities that the town and the university are doing in this regard both to to educate to reinforce and to hold students accountable it's a very long list it's been a great deal of work and we're clearly not doing a good enough job getting that message out there to folks I know when I spoke with Applewood last year whenever that was I was talking to them about the initiatives between the university and the town to deal with these issues and to a person they were also happy to hear this because this is a concern everybody has but they don't realize that we're working on it so the university is trying to do a better job to let people know the town we need to be doing a better job to let people know because as long as people think that this isn't an issue that we're taking seriously and that this isn't something we're addressing then they're going to perceive the problems to be even worse that not being responsive is part of the problem but in fact responsiveness is there people taking this very seriously and so you'll be hearing more about that from Mr. Mutanti's now monthly safe and healthy neighborhoods reports and other information as necessary so that's all thank you great onto easy topics like taxi regulations just coming attractions you know that taxi licenses were renewed for both drivers and companies in the current year that set an expectation that we would spend time this year thoroughly reviewing those regulations and developing recommended revisions to them for your consideration that also have an opportunity for direct feedback from those affected the taxi operators themselves and so I want to give you a rough timeline I've been working very closely with Debra Roussell and Chief Livingstone planning staff inspection services staff has needed on this we're having our next such review this Thursday our goal is to have recommendations to you and out to the taxi companies themselves the current license holders and posted on the website all that by September 14th we then intend to have one or more meetings with taxi operators to review those draft regulations and get face-to-face feedback as well as written feedback to them our goal is to bring this to you no later than your October 15th select board meeting where you'll have a review of draft won't be asking you to take any votes at that meeting but begin the select board portion formally of the review and then ideally at your November 5th meeting to take action on updated regulations giving us the last two months of the year for notification and the office staff going through our process getting applications received and processed and time for you to approve them in a timely way for January 1st implementation thank you just to clarify one particular point we are still one very specific thing that we are still planning to do is tell me the term metering because I was just reminded of that seeing that the green caps over in Northampton had been purchased by another group and they were still talking about doing zones and I was like yeah but we're not going to be doing that so we're definitely that's very much in the draft at this point next a number of public works related updates the Safe Roots to School project in and around the Wildwood School and middle school areas is essentially complete and in time for the start of school there's a number of components to this the East Pleasant Street crosswalk at the corner of Strong Street has been upgraded and the ramp on the East Pleasant Street side of the sidewalk has been brought to the appropriate ADA compliant you know pitch the sidewalk on Strong Street from East Pleasant to the entrance of Wildwood has been refurbished the sidewalk on the Wildwood driveway has been refurbished as well there's also a new bike parking area that's been created on the front of Wildwood School to the right near the corner of the side lot there and the main driveway that we think the kids will like then on the middle school half of the project the Chestnut Street crosswalks at the intersection there which is quite a thoroughfare at you know the middle of school handicapped accessible curb cuts sidewalks appropriate safe pavement markers are all complete handicapped accessible curb cuts have been refurbished on the sidewalk directly in front of the middle school and there's a new sidewalk along the far end of the parking lot at the middle school where the ball field is that is also in place so that's all good thanks little project state funded very happy about that sewer extension schedule, harkness road and wildflower drive areas there's some follow up suggestions from our last meeting so first on harkness the construction of the sewer extension is now scheduled for calendar 2013 instead of the current year the original plan a couple of reasons for that the sewer line route itself has been changed in direct response to some neighborhood feedback about the particular route that triggered some redesign work and hence the delay on construction the neighbors have been notified in their support of the redesign and the timeline wildflower drive that construction is expected to proceed in the fall of 2013 as originally scheduled so that's an update on sewers so just follow up a little bit on that so the sequence had been as such because harkness had an easier design wildflower was going to need design seasons if I recall correctly from Mr. Morenk whereas harkness was thought to be it's a smaller area simpler that the design and construction could happen in this season so now it turns out that the design is happening and will continue I don't know if the design is done the design is in progress but it's proceeding at a good pace and it's directly related to the feedback the department received when the conceptual design was shown to those affected and so wildflowers installation is not being delayed by that because it was already going to be taking the 2012 and 2013 design seasons but with installation to start in 2013 and finish in 2013 so the WPW or the contractor whoever is going to be able to install both of these sewer systems next year actually I believe it's possible that wildflower was two halves in 2013 and 2014 no no I'm told 2013 on wildflower other questions or comments about that ok thank you for the update the construction activities update the bad news is that there's some disruption that those construction projects cause the good news is that it's happening here's an update bids are now in hand for our annual paving contract I'll be signing those this week and the state completing its work on the transportation bond bill puts us in a position now to execute those contracts so that's kudos to the legislature and governor for that we have a couple of different contracts one of which will be for a company that specializes in recycling pavement and putting it back down on the street in kind of a one sequence there's not one day is reclaiming and another day is paving it's all in one one cycle and there's certain types of roads in town that lend themselves to this technology so besides being environmentally sensitive it's also cheaper per lane mile so we're trying this out this year on Sunderland Road a very long and straight and pothole ridden road that we're going to be using this technique on because the short stretch of South Pleasant directly in front of the common so you'll see that this fall Cottage Street drainage is about to commence beginning on September 4 corner of Cottage and Triangle the perennial every time we get heavy rain you see the saw horses and barrels go up we hope that becomes a not so fond memory soon so the work the drainage work will start September 4 and the paving immediately there after this fall Cherry Lane the sewer repair work is essentially complete and the just described paving contrast contract will include repaving that initial stretch of Cherry Lane from East Pleasant to approximately the same circle and Main Street a very important ambitious project the lower Main Street portion is well underway the base coat of pavement from North Whitney to Northeast Street is complete the contractor is now moving to sidewalks and bus pull off work to be determined because we're also in the midst of doing some final evaluation on phase 2 of the Main Street work which is funded by community development block grant that's the stretch from North Whitney to Triangle so those bids are currently under review we're expecting that portion of the work to start in mid-September and we're going to get a final final decisions on our preliminary description of paving and the sidewalk work etc and I'll have further updates for you and then just a reiteration at Lincoln Avenue the sewer work will be happening this fall with application of a base coat before the snow flies and then the final top coat of paving in 2013 questions or comments about paving updates I'd like to back up a little bit to save roots to school I guess that's a paving thing I just want to recall and again be appreciative of the various people whose efforts allow that to be first the citizen group to put it together and then the work of TPW to make sure that it actually got to the state so they could be funded and then their work to make sure it got done including all of the public hearings that we went to that was a great effort and I think really has a huge improvement to our neighborhoods as a result Ms. Brewer absolutely I'd ask for that update because I was down there at Wildwood school and I was like look at all this this is great a little sensitivity issue that I'm sure is obvious but I just have to say it because school starts next week high schoolers driving out of the high school we have parents, we have kids everywhere everybody has to readjust to that and we're finally doing cottage street probably not the most ideal timing in the world so I just would hope that I'm super glad we're doing it but I would just ask us to be super sensitive to the fact that kids are walking to the convenience store and parents are driving like maniacs because they're late and newly licensed drivers are going down there for the first time if we could just make sure we're thorough with our signage and walk over here don't walk over here don't squish these people the road will be local traffic it's in the notice the road will be local traffic only during the normal work day and then open through traffic after I think 6 o'clock there's just a lot of chaos there at the beginning and end of school day on a normal day and so when you add in the fact that there's any construction going on or when you add in a flood for example so this will be awesome because you won't have a flood anymore I'm not that thoughtful about that because people are going to be confused and harried anything else on construction do you know anything on Atkins that you can tell us next stages well the base code on the roundabouts are done they're in service the contractor is focusing on the multi-purpose path is the official name of it on the Hampshire College side of excuse me 116 landscaping related work we're still awaiting word on the timing of the application of the final code of pavement I don't have an update on that I don't have an answer on that yet when that exactly will occur there's also additional signage and things like that that will be helpful the other component that isn't directly related to the state funded Atkins portion of the work but Guilford we've talked about a small stretch of 116 in the vicinity of the red barn if you drive on 116 you know that the sight lines can be our poor that road will be playing down some amount to improve the sight lines there which has been a long standing concern of the college the town will be doing that work this fall thank you I'm sorry the only thing I wanted to add about the Atkins and I'm not just really sure how we do this beyond we all responding to the grocery store comments we get about it but one it would be helpful if at some point maybe when all the signage is done and so like a press release is done saying wow go look at this now it's got the final code it's got all the signage so anybody really obvious how it's going to work I think it works but you know I'm used to the one in North Amherst now is the complaints I'm hearing most and I think I've been referenced a little bit in the newspaper too are why was it designed this way when everybody knows 18 wheelers can't fit through here well obviously that's not really a factual statement but there's a lot of confusion associated with that and why things work the way they work and whether it's driver error the fact that things get clogged up because people don't know when to yield and when not to and I think signage is going to improve a lot of that and just the traffic flow in general it just might be worth making a statement at some point that how does one say yes we knew what we were doing when we designed this and we did it this way on purpose and it will work but there are people who are convinced that we just totally got it wrong and I don't know quite how to address that beyond just saying no actually we knew about those trucks and we did account for that and this is how it works. It's a state and local design process and speed and accommodation for all size vehicle including the big trucks was taken into account and that's what those aprons are on the interior of the roundabouts it's not meant for you and I to drive our regular car over but it is meant for an 18 wheeler who otherwise would not be able to negotiate the much narrower roadway itself they can go on to that apron to help navigate the corner and that was by design that's why it's not grass maybe we just say that once it's all done again that's why you'll see trucks driving over and they're supposed to be doing that and the design is meant to encourage you to slow down as you enter the roundabout and people in the roundabout like a rotary have the right of way people entering the roundabout yield to those so that's part of the basics and it'll be it's always a little bit getting used to but it sure beats what was there forever not to believe reconstruction but Mr. Alsace's question about the back park oh yes the newly signed paving contract includes a relatively small but important job to pave the driveway and refurbished parking lot that will also have better lighting in it behind town hall there was a bit of a hiccup in that project related to the gas line that runs to town hall which will also service our about to be installed new generator we were some research needed by the gas company about whether that need to be increased in size it does not so we're ready to proceed to paving and now it's a matter of scheduling with the contractor so it's coming it'll be certainly this fall I don't have a precise date yet okay next in my role is pvta advisory board chair he is coming out to me with the pvta board today the 29th and we'll be talking and he'll be giving his views and soliciting our views on transportation infrastructure and financing needs across the commonwealth the governor the legislative leaders and the governor through secretary davie is doing outreach to the different constituencies there was a meeting of municipal leaders that I attended in springfield last week he's meeting with all the regional transit agencies because funding adequate and consistent funding for regional transit in this state is also a structural problem that needs to be addressed and so we're looking forward to that discussion with secretary davie on wednesday and I'll update you on how it goes it'll be very active legislative priority in the months ahead and we'll also directly relate to the future decisions looming for the pvta board on things like fair increases that we have a one-year fix with the help of the commonwealth but we're now pushing for a permanent fix and that's what this conversation is about so I'll be updating you as we go along I'll stop there questions or comments from mr mc all right then member reports so you can talk as long as you want but just bear in mind that we have an executive session coming up and we have a light agenda for september 10th so I'm just saying all right liaison reports anyone very fast conor kasaki sister committee had a very nice event today at four o'clock in which I think her last name is young who was a fellowship winner from 2011 a graduate of emerson college went to japan to study how seniors are treated in housing and it was very interesting for example a group home has only nine seniors in it because they believe individual attention is very important for the consistency between the seniors and the staff and these are seniors with Alzheimer's so it was a very interesting talk very well illustrated by slides and very well attended thank you anyone else mr aiden just very two brief reports the tmcc has landed some new audio equipment for meeting rooms I guess they don't make meetings that are not televised more easily heard by members of the audience it's actually a very nice list of equipment I have to say also I met with the recycling and refuse mc materials committee management committee and they're getting they're really beginning to get some traction with dealing with what's going to happen when all the local landfills are closed which turns out to be closer than we had thought the recent lawsuits against the landfill in south hadley and north hampton suggest that they will not be available to us for the next five years as we had hoped but may not be available to us after next year sort of depends on how things are going so they're really anxious to begin to figure out how first to let all of us know that this is coming and managing our waste will be more expensive and then to help us figure out how to reduce the amount of waste that we have to throw out get more of it recycled and well less of it into our homes in the first place and businesses and municipal offices so watch this space can you tell us how the survey results were I don't know if that's still going on or if that ended it was presented but no I don't remember well enough there was a fairly good response I do remember that and there's some discussion about how to interpret everything but the long and short of it is that it's going to be a lot more expensive and we will have to deal with it somehow thank you Mr. Wald that was Wald and Hayden together we're often confused I'm very confused right now just briefly public art calendar, alert, biennial end of the first week in October should have great weather and great art and the historical commission just want to mention that some residents of North Amherst came before the commission to indicate their desire to look into the possibility of creating a local historic district on the model of the one that was approved for the Dickinson district in town meeting I've been talking to various people in the precinct so there are some people who are very much for it and some who are very much against it we've received some mail about that just so you know I'm trying to see what's going on, gather information whatever we can do to smooth things out the National Trust for Historic Preservation picked up the story with the basically contentless and not very helpful piece nothing they couldn't have gotten out of Scott Smirksbox, much better articles which I recommend to people instead I'm sure it'll be in the news again as the weeks come what I should say though is that as far as I can tell from town hall, Plenity Department wants to get the Dickinson district nailed down first so they're not rushing to start something new before they finish the old so it's not an urgent matter, it's just something that's coming up through the pipeline Thank you very much Anyone else, Ms. Burr briefly because what few meetings there have been in many respects I haven't gone to because I've decided to take up my time apparently with the Regional School District Planning Board work which is preceding a pace and anybody wants to ask me about it, we'll talk about that another time more specifically CDBG hearings, there was just one on reprogramming capital money, we've seen this happen before where we have these great ideas of things we're going to buy and unfortunately we people don't always want to sell them to us so then we have to reprogram the money so we don't lose them so they just had a hearing on that they are all geared up for their set of hearings associated with both social service and non-social service, i.e. capital projects so that's preceding a pace, they've issued a release saying we are soliciting proposals etc so that is all going along very smoothly and I also wanted to mention that the housing consultant that was solicited through will I'll tell my manager to speak to this better than I can clearly at this hour I'm not speaking to anything clearly but the housing and sheltering committee which as you know is a fairly new committee is going to be meeting with that consultant soon they're going to be working out of it because we decided that that made, that was the place that made sense for the public to feed into the consultant because the consultant isn't trying to make some great vision for Amherst they're mostly collecting facts but to make sure that they're collecting all the facts they're going to have them speak with a group associated with housing and so the housing and sheltering committee is doing that and any neighborhoods that have piped up and asked for concerns associated with that are being directed to work through the housing and sheltering committee and that seems to be going along just swimmingly so they've met several times this summer despite being new and are coming right along the other thing I wanted to mention associated with historical stuff is that as we have seen as select board members but the public is still in the process of soliciting applications for the Dickinson historic district commission with the various caveats knowing that various representation is expected on that but we haven't been getting like gobs of applications so if there were people out there that were interested in that they should go to the town website and that information is right there so that they can apply because they can't start doing anything until there's commission appointed and not too many people have applied for it yet but it is summer. And we also liaison Mr. Winslow. Reynolds Winslow again precinct one it's an inquiry I have to request if the select board has made a judgment on two students for the human rights commission that their credentials have been submitted but I have not been informed that they have both been approved. We approve both of those at the early part of the meeting. That happened very early. I promise them that it would happen today. Thank you very much. I'm terribly sorry you had to sit here all night waiting for that. I would have been happy to indicate that. Things and did them very fast and I'm sorry you missed it. Yeah for untimed items just so folks know we use untimed items to fill in all the gaps between our time items as necessary so untimed items don't come at the end of the meeting. They come absolutely every place we can plug them in so that we can keep to the timed items as best we can. My great apologies too. I'll just say so if they wanted to hear us mispronounce their names that would be fairly early in the meeting. Which I did as well. It's done. Okay so other liaison reports I'll just note campus and community coalitions I've already referred to and I'm going to imagine getting ready for the new school year and as part of what I was talking about earlier with safe and healthy neighborhoods trying to get the message out better about exactly what that work is I hope to present you kind of a more formal review of that at the next meeting and I think that's the only thing I have to report on. Open meeting will update. Can we wait till next time for that? And really all I can say is yes we can certainly wait on it for next meeting. Yeah it's nothing. So it's still a discussion we'll have at a future time about whether or not we're going to do remote participation but unlike occasions when they have just totally changed the way they're looking at something this is just more of the same. Did we mention this chairs report and how much we are all glad we didn't have to do this. Thank you. So that was what I was getting to was on your behalf. So there's just the regular committee stuff and various meetings that happen but some things you wouldn't know what I was doing unless I told you and because we haven't met in so long I thought it was easiest to just give you a list. As I said I'm not going to go through these things. There's a heavy theme here dealing with the university that really is kind of the thing that I spend the most time on. And I couldn't have better partners to do that. So I wanted to make sure that you all had this information to have kind of a picture of what I'm doing on your behalf. If you have any concerns you should really let me know. So I think that's it for the chairs report. You can just note that for whatever to be that is interesting. Do we have any other untimed items that we didn't get to tonight? I'm aware of. Our motions. Is that right? So the minutes that are in our packet weren't for approval those were just parts of other issues. We've approved them already. That's just boilerplate. It's always there in case we need it. So I think that we have done everything in which case it's time for the executive session motion which I will make and I will note that one element was left out of the motion. So I move to enter into executive session in accordance with Massachusetts general law chapter 30a section 21 part 2. Part 2 is missing from the motion but it is on the agenda. Which is to conduct contract negotiations with non-union personnel being time manager John P. And the select board will not reconvene an open meeting following the close of executive session. We have a full call vote to go into it. Second. And this meeting adjourns to executive session at 9.51 p.m. I repeat we are not coming back in open session and the select board will meet again here in this room on Monday September 10th. Thank you all very much and happy Labor Day and back to school.