 according now. Okay. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extended by chapter 22 of the Acts of 2022, this meeting will be conducted be a remote means. Members of the public who wish to access this meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. See instructions below. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every director will be made to, every director, every effort, I guess, will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real-time via technological means. So we are, I will call the committee to order and then I guess I will open up the public hearing. Is that correct, Athena? So I will call the roll. Anika Lopes, can you hear? And... I'm here, can I hear you? Anna Devlin-Gautier. Present. Okay, Andy Steinberg. Present. And Shalini Baumiln. Present. And Dorothy Pam here. Okay, we are here. And I'll note that we have town manager, Paul Bachleman and Superintendent Gilford Mooring and Jennifer LaFountain, actually. And Jennifer, can you give your title again? I am the treasure collector. Say that again, please. I am the treasure collector. Treasure collector, and we are talking about rates. Okay, and we have Gilford Mooring, so we're all here. And I guess I just opened the public hearing and it's, are the attendees, are there any attendees, Athena? I haven't checked out my little list. Yes, there are. Okay, all right. So public hearing is on proposed parking regulations proposed by the town as follows. To establish new parking regulations for the spaces that are created on North Pleasant Street between McClellan Street and Triangle Street. Other than designated handicapped spaces be metered and charged at the rate of 50 cents per hour from eight a.m. until eight p.m. And that these regulations take effect upon completion of construction of the parking spaces. The town council may want to consider designating some of the spaces as permit parking spaces to accommodate residents in the area. Now that is what was on the public announcement of the meeting, but a new, I guess you'd say wording has been sent to us today. Is it appropriate for that to be read aloud? Okay. Let's see if I can find it or anything. Would you like me to present it, Dorothy? Would that be easier? I'll let you present it, please. Okay, thank you. I have it marked up in my comments, okay. Whichever you prefer, I can do it or you can do it. Why don't you read it? Why don't you read it? Okay, so I'll just do a short presentation then you can open up the floor for a public comment. And so the, as you know, with the creation of Kendrick Park and making the council approve the making North Pleasant Street one way, we had to address the parking situation. So this is the recommendation on the parking. And we advertised for the most aggressive parking recommendation, which was to make everything metered. And then we did say in the notice that there might be some recommendation for making some of it resident parking only. So the, after reviewing the situation and we've sort of documented the number of spaces that are there, what we're recommending or I'm recommending is that one parking space be reserved for handicapped parking and designated designed for accommodate a van. Two parking spaces be designated for handicapped parking. And I do want to note that people who have a handicap placard can park in any parking space and they do not have to pay for it. So it doesn't require them to be in these spaces. You know, if there's five places, people with handicapped placards, they can park anywhere they want. These ones are designed and reserved at special locations just for handicapped parking. We have seven back in parking spaces that we would, that I recommend that they be for metered at 50 cents an hour with a four hour parking limit enforced from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. And that we have 20 back in parking spaces reserved for permit parking and enforced from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., which is our normal timeframe for that. And then there's three additional parallel parking spaces at the end of North Pleasant Street that I would recommend that we have them metered and available at 50 cents an hour for a four hour limit and enforced from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. And that they, none of these things go into a place, take it to effect until the parking is constructed. And I put that out there knowing that there will be some discussion and you know, Guilford and Jennifer may have different opinions on this and you may, the council members may and the public, this is really to listen to the public about it. And just for context, I think it's important to note that what's there now is there are 22 permit parking spaces and seven metered spaces. So it's basically the same number of spaces and the same distribution of spaces between metered and resident permit parking, or permit parking, I should say. Okay, so that is the presentation and this memo is in the packet if people want to look at it. And it does, I do appreciate the fact that you did include the previous configuration making it easier to see. And in fact, I guess the only thing that has changed is that there are three handicap accessible parking spaces. Otherwise it's 10 metered and 20 permit, is that correct? Yeah, okay. So have anybody, is anybody who is here from the public want to speak? And if so, please raise your hand. Okay, I see Ken Rosenthal, please state your name and address and proceed. Thank you, Dorothy. My name is Ken Rosenthal. I live at 53 Sunset Avenue. And I wanted to compliment the town on the great success of the wonderful playground at Kendrick Park. I'm a grandfather of three children, seven years old and younger. They love it there. We go there and we park illegally. And we do that because unfortunately there are so many permit parking spaces and so few other opportunities. And the times that we go there because the children always seem to go at the same time from every family, the place is full of people having a wonderful time. Now that you're going to change the road and make it, I hope, safer because it's in one direction. I think that it's very important that you have more casual parking spaces for people like us who come just for an hour or two to play there. I know that that means that there should be fewer than the present number of permit parking. And you've done that, you've reduced it by two. I think you need to reduce it by even more. I'm not sure who the permit parking people are who use that space. I suspect they may be people who live in apartment houses across the street. I say with some regret that we permitted those houses to be built without parking spaces. So the people there have moved into other places in town. But this place in particular attracts families with small children, children playing in the playground. And we need to make it easy for people like me and my family to park there with our small children and make it easy for us not to be violating the law. So thank you for listening to me. I hope you will make more of those spaces available for casual parkers like us even at the risk of taking some of those permit parking spaces away. I appreciate that very much. And I wanna make one other comment and this is a general one about vacant parking. I'm very worried about the proliferation of vacant parking spaces on roads in which there is moving traffic. Vacant parking spaces make sense where there is no through traffic like in parking lots. I think the spaces that we are placing near intersections are accidents waiting to happen because of the shape of the back in parking spaces, the cars that are backing in are farther out into traffic. I worry about that very much. Not so much at this location, but more at the beginning of Main Street and at the beginning of North Pleasant Street and a little bit here too. So I just hope you'll consider that too and think of more of parallel parking in places where there is traffic moving traffic, especially traffic that is escalating in speed as they come from a corner. Thank you again for listening. Thank you Ken. I'd like to ask him a very quick question. One of the issues that we're gonna discuss is the timing of the metered spaces. I'd heard two hours mentioned and I believe this proposal says four hours. I have not taken young children to the park. So I'm curious to know, what is in your experience with the young children, the average time your park visit would take place? Is four hours a good time or is two hours closer? In my experience with my family, two hours was perfectly adequate for these small children. Thank you. Thank you, that is something that some of us have been discussing. Okay, I see that Kimberly Tremblay has her hand up. Kimberly, please introduce yourself, give your address. Hi. Hi. My name is Kim Tremblay and I live on 32 Cosby and I am an avid cyclist and I cycle to work past on that un-north pleasant every day to UMass. And I applaud the idea of changing the parking to the opposite side. It will greatly improve the sight lines and I can tell you that parking on the housing side of that street is obscures the view of cars entering the street and also is hard for cyclists going by because you can't see who's coming out of those streets. So I think that's really great. And I concur with my neighbor on Sunset about who's parking there. And I can tell you that it's full, that the resident parking is full during the semester and particularly when UMass is in session. So I have a feeling it's mainly students who are parking there as a way to avoid parking in the lots. That's my just personal observation from riding there every single day on the weekends and on during the week. And so I would concur with my neighbor that I would skew the ratio of parking, like the permit parking to the, and also I see kids there all the time which is really lovely and it's really great. But I would skew the ratio, if it were me, I would skew the ratio of metered parking to the permit parking more toward the metered parking because those, and now I see, I regularly see as a cyclist people stopping on the park side to unload and off and take in children. So I think it's essential that we, make that parking on the park side of the street. And also to my neighbors worry about back in parking, I mean, one of the great things about back in parking on that street would be that the doors would open toward the street side. So hence, shuttling the children towards the park and not into the street. So I really like the idea of back in parking, metered parking there for that reason. Thank you. Thank you, we appreciate your observations. Is there anyone else who has here? Okay, Tracy Zafian, please introduce yourself and give your address. Tracy, are you all set to go? Yeah, no, I'm sorry, I just had to mute. I'm Tracy Zafian. I'm the chairperson of the Transportation Advisory Committee and Kim who just spoke is also on the tack. And I had a few comments on the proposal. One of the things as I noticed in the new memo that came out this week from the town manager that in the background section, it mentioned that the Transportation Advisory Committee and Disability Access Advisory Committee are providing recommendations for the council as it reviews the plans on the parking, both the concept plan from January 22nd and the more recent memos. I did want to just comment on that, that so the tack did weigh in on the initial recommendations that we made last summer and that were adopted by the council in December in terms of the overall concepts for North Cousin Street. But in terms of the more recent plans and the details on the parking, the tack has been told that until it has been referred to us that we do not have any official role or that we should not be providing feedback until it's referred to the tack. So Kim was speaking and just as I am speaking just as ourselves, even though we are on the tack, but just as people who've been thinking about this issue because the tack has not taken an official position yet. Second, I share Dorothy's comments about the idea whether it should be four hour parking or two hour parking with the meters. I mean, I noticed if I look at the current parking map that along North Cousin Street heading into town, those meters are two hour parking, not four hour parking. I do think it's helpful at the park area to have turnover of the parking, particularly at times when the park is in high use and the playground is high use. I do have a few concerns both about, I mean, this is more general, not just for this area, but just about our parking in general is like one thing with the permit parking. And I know that the council recently reviewed the parking permit regulations, but that the parking permit is only enforced from September to May and it's only Monday through Friday. So I could conceive and this would be like completely allowed if we continue to have all these parking permit spaces that those parking permit spaces could be occupied by the same vehicles all weekend long, starting at five p.m. on Friday, like through Monday. So they would not be available to the public, either public visiting the park or public visiting downtown. And I also have similar concerns about some of the muted parking, right? Because we don't enforce it on Sundays. And so because the parking officers work Monday through Saturday. So I think about it here and I also think about it for example with the Spring Street lot. And I've noticed just as somebody who walks around downtown a lot that those spaces are often full first thing on Sunday morning. So again, Sundays are a great time to visit the park but those spaces could be occupied not by people even using the park but by other people who live downtown and wanna use the spaces continually. I don't really have an answer for that particularly on the issue with Sunday but it's just a concern I'm throwing out. The other thing I wanted to just bring up is just, I mean, I really do hope and I had commented to the TSO about this previously is that even though the improvements on this section of North Pleasant Street are being delayed we don't have any funding for it. And I know that the DPWs work plan for this construction season is full. I really do hope that there's some way to start to do a little bit of traffic calming in this area. There is already a lot of use of the park and I know that at one of the council meetings where this came up that some counselors has adjusted things like even moving the parking to the other side, to the park side of the east side of North Pleasant Street just to get rid of the issues with the sight lines there that is really a safety concern and also perhaps like making it a one-way street. I'm not sure how much is possible but I would hope that we could start to sort of go in that direction. And I was in the park today and there is just so much cut through traffic going southbound and stuff and just really to convince people that this is a neighborhood street it is not a cut through street and this is where the park is and we want the traffic to be as safe as possible. I mean, I do see, I have been going on that street a lot myself just to observe what's going on and I do see a lot of times like kids crossing the street or families with small kids crossing the street and Kim had just mentioned about how sometimes families are unloading their kids on the park side just for safety and so like to the extent that anything is possible I think that would be a great idea. And just one last point on the back end parking I think this is actually a good location for back end parking overall because again, we don't want this to be a cut through street we don't want this to be a heavily traffic street we want to discourage people from coming on the street except for if you're going to the park or if you live on that on the West side. So I do see a lot of traffic calming value in that and I do share some of the concerns that were expressed about back end parking in other parts of town where there's a lot more complicated traffic and there's a lot through traffic. So thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, I see a hand from Jennifer Taub. Please introduce yourself and give your address. Jennifer Taub, 259 Lincoln Avenue and I'm speaking as a resident, you know a lot concurring with like what Ken said that Kendra Park playgrounds just a few blocks from where I live I walk by it like every day, drive by several times a day and as everyone said, it is from the day it opened it was a destination that people love going to. So it's, and I'm hoping that that will bring you know, more families downtown and then they'll go have ice cream or they'll go out to eat. So it's really, it's been wonderful for kind of the surrounding neighborhood and I really do think it's bringing families from other parts of Amherst downtown. So it's just been a wonderful addition to the town and to our immediate neighborhood. So I would just, you know, concur and then I would hope there'd be more spaces. We, you know, we could have the maximum number of spaces possible for families coming to the park. And I just wanted to say that because I've been, you know trying to pay extra attention to it, you know since this was coming on the agenda that it's mostly like small apartment buildings or houses that are, you know there's on the west side of the park, you know there's buildings and then there's little buildings behind them. There's a lot of people living there but there's a lot of parking spaces. It seems like most of the residents on the west side I don't know if they have spaces for all their guests but there's a lot of off street parking. So I do also wonder who is would be using all the permit spaces. It might be coming from the apartment buildings on the east side of the park. But I did want to, at least that's my observation that it seems like if we reduce some of the permit parking spots on the west side I'm not sure who's parking there because the residential buildings that are there seem to have adequate off street parking. So that's for my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. So if there is no one else to speak at this hearing I can call it closed. Okay. Once, twice, thrice. Okay. So the hearing is closed at this time. So I'm asking a question of do we now, are we now as a TSO committee allowed to discuss this and ask questions? Yes. I mean, sometimes you start with questions from counselors and then you have discussion and then if you can make a decision, you make a decision. Okay. All right. So do any counselors have questions for our two experts here? Jennifer LaFountain and Gilford Mooring. And I could also say if they have comments they can make comments. Okay. So I see Shalini's hand raised. Go ahead, Shalini. Yeah, could we get some sort of an idea in response to the questions that came up who is utilizing those parking spaces? Is that possible to know? And secondly, I think we need to figure out as a committee how we are working with TAC and when and how should they be informed and made part of this process? So those are the two questions for now. Yeah. Jen, do you want to talk about the parking permits and what is the parking permits and what to, I mean, maybe just throw a little background on that as well. So I hope you guys can hear me okay. I got a little scratchy throat. I'm sorry. So that section that is labeled for a town center parking permit, it's for anyone that works or lives in the downtown. And I ran some numbers and a lot of the, I'm guessing a lot of the people that are parking there would be from the mixed use buildings at one East pleasant, 57 East pleasant. And then there's some, there's also some town center resident parking for Halleck and McClellan and a little bit of triangle as well. So I think that's the majority of the people trying to fight for those limited permit spaces that are there. Okay. And Anna. So I apologize. I am feeling a little lost. And so I'm hoping one of my fellow committee members can orient me. The proposed plan still in, does that still include making it one way in order, that's the only way you're going to accommodate. Okay, great. Thank you. That's what I thought, just make sure I was looking at the right thing. Yeah. So the council already addressed that. So the question now is, now we've created this parking, how do you want to designate that parking? Just a question before the TSO committee tonight. Thank you very much. I was lost in memo hell. I'm going to lower my hand until I can't clarify further what I need to ask. Thank you. Yeah. Andy. Yeah. I think that the number of comments that were very helpful from the public during the hearing process. And so I wanted to pursue that a little bit because I think that what they were saying in essence was that the most important thing that we can do is to assure that somebody who's coming to the park is driving to that area for the purpose of using the park and using the playground has the greatest chance of having a space available for them. If that's the value that we're after and I actually believe it should be, then we would need to be thinking about issues of how many spaces need to be reserved for that use. What are the hours that people are bringing children to the park and need to have that availability in the Sunday hours? I understand to be an exceptional problem that we have to do. How long people stay at the park, what kind of turnover is needed in the spaces that are available so that we can have the best chance of assuring that there's an adequate number of spaces that are allotted for the purpose? And I don't know if there's any study that can be done. I can't imagine how it could be done. Maybe Jennifer or Guilford or Paul have an idea of how you could make that kind of estimate. And if you could, that would be great. If you can't, then the question comes to my mind depending upon, of course, costs because if we're using meters or we're gonna place a payment box in that area, which is what is a feasible thing to do for enforcement purposes, but it would seem that we might want to talk about also whether to go higher on the number of spaces. And if we go too high, you can always turn them back over to permit parking as opposed to starting the other direction. So those are the issues that I've identified and wanna just share with my colleagues on the committee. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. And Anika has her hand up. So Andy actually asked my question. And just further, we've heard, we hear a community members speak both for and against the back end parking. So I was just curious as to know how, the reason for that decision. Okay. So I guess that would be to Guilford. I've heard you on this topic. Would you like to speak to that? Why back end parking is particularly suitable to Kendrick Park? So back end parking is very suitable because of the low volume on the street. Once we make it one way, we've cut half the traffic out of the road. Originally we laid it out as. Angle in parking. But as we were talking about that with the TS, the attack and some other people, they're like, well, yeah, we like what you did on North Pleasant street. And it would be safer if you could back into the park, because as was said earlier by one of the commenters, if you're in a minivan and you back into the space, you open the back of the minivan and you're on the sidewalk. You're not in the middle of the street. And if you're under loading your stroller, you unload it. If you open your doors, the doors kind of make a barrier for the children that can't run into the street if there's cars beside you. So it actually, made a lot of sense. At first we didn't want to like. At first we didn't think too much about it, but as people started making comments like that, we realized there's really a lot of safety issues. And safety features. With back in parking. Although. Amherst is, is having a hard time adjusting to it. I'd say maybe. We still have about 10% of the population who. For having an issue on North Pleasant street, but this, this road is only one way. You can only go one direction. So it makes it much easier for the back end parking and much safer for the park is the way we saw it. And we agree with the comments we got from the tack about that. And one other thing that's been pointed out with back in parking is it's safer for bikers. When you pull out, you're seeing bankers instead of backing into the, the traveling. Okay. So that's a very important point too. I just want to add a comment to Andy's. If you're in a car with small children telling them, you're going to the park and you get there and you can't find a parking place. That is hell. Everybody starts crying. And it's really a horrible thing. So I also thought he made a good point that if we overdo it. Then we can make a change. I just have to admit, I was, I was startled to see the change because we had 10 spaces for metered parking before we had a playground. And now we have a playground and we have some additional handicap spots, which I think is good. But we still have 10 places. So that. We, I just feel that the balance is off. I am very interested in the comments about hours of usage of the park. And I think it would be good to find out more about it. I've heard that people are there even when the weather is bad, when it's cold, except I guess when it's snowing. I don't really know how late they're there. I think that would be something that we can do. I think it would be good to find out more about it. I've heard that people are there even when the weather is bad, when it's cold, except I guess when it's snowing. I think that would be something that we would need to know before we set the hours on things. Because I think it's important. If it turns out that they're there till it gets dark, then we would want to have the metered parking go later. But again, I don't know if that causes a problem in terms of enforcement. But I think the rapid turnover of parking spaces available for people coming to the park with children is the number one thing that we have to be thinking about. So that's my two cents. I see. Oh, Paul's got his hand up then go for it. Okay. Yeah. So, so the council, you mean the TSO committee can say we recommend a different mixture instead of, you know, the seven, you can say we wanted to go to 12 and that's perfectly fine. That's, that's, you should make that. And that's what the purpose of a public hearing is to listen to the public and then to bring your judgment to what is needed. And so that we welcome that. Whatever it is you decide on that. Thank you. Go for it. I just want to say two things. The first is, is there are people there using the park. All the time. We've been out plowing snow. In the evening. And there's been families on the playground. We have. We've been out and it's been drizzly and there are kids on the playground. We have families who. Talk about going to Garcia's and walking across the street after dinner to go to the playground. Yeah, even. Even when it's dark, there's enough light from the little lighting we put on the walkway. Families feel comfortable and they go there and use it. So there are. The intended users are there quite often. And they stay pretty late as long as we have seen some on the weekends who stay, you know, a nine or 10 o'clock. And then we also have the children who are not. Design for the playground who are there as well. And fortunately there's not been very many. Incidences of them damaging the playground. They've been very respectful. So. You have people there pretty much all the time, just about. The second thing I wanted to say is, is. So what, what you are going from is a space. That is. Unmarked parking for permits. So if you actually laid spaces out, you get between 17 to 20 spaces in there. That's on the west side. And what you're gaining is a total of 33 spaces. If you look at the drawing, there's 33 new spaces being put on the east side. If you count the numbers there. Three of those spaces are handicapped. And 30 are. Handicapped and regular people spaces since handicapped from park everywhere. So. You're adding about. You're adding over 10, you're adding about 10 spaces. Even though you're marking the spaces now. So. If you kind of want to reduce the number of permit spaces and have. 20. Metered spaces. That, that. That increases. That gives you a lot of flexibility. Yeah. And the way we're going with metering right now is these spaces will probably have a kiosk. Instead of individual meters. So it'll be just a kiosk type system. Okay. Good. Thank you. So it would actually. Make sense to have more metered spaces. If you're going to the expense of the kiosk. Just throwing in. Okay. Jennifer. I just want to say too, would be. Having the kiosk there. It's a lot easier to track. The usage. Of the kiosk. Where the post meters, everything gets put together. So we would be able to track more efficiently with the kiosk. Thank you. That's very interesting. Okay. Anna. If my fellow counselors or if Jennifer and Guilford have an idea of. If the general consensus seems to be to increase the number of. Permanent spaces and decrease the number of permit spaces. I'm curious to what, right? Like, and I'm trying to remember back to when we, like a couple of weeks ago had this discussion and I'm kicking myself for not having my notes in front of me for when we were just talking about parking permits, but I, I'm struggling to figure out what's the magic number. And I'm curious if other folks feel resolved on that and, and would like to share with me what they're feeling resolved on that. Could I clarify on that? I thought you were going to ask what the money difference to the town would be. No. I think that's an interesting question too. It's more about when we were talking about permit parking, you know, we talked about usage, right? And we talked about. Do we need more spots? Do we just added a couple of streets and do we, right? And so I don't want us to take away potential permit spots because we don't want to have them. We don't want to have them. We don't want to have them given that we up to the potential number of permit holders. And I am recognizing. That more than 10 spots may be beneficial. For metered parking at this location. So I'm just curious where we. Land on that. Okay. So. Guilford and Jennifer. Do you have answers to her questions? They may not. It's partly for them to answer, but it's also, you know, I think it's a little bit different. I think it's a little bit different. I think it's a little bit different as well. So it wasn't necessarily directed specifically at. You're looking for a magic number of how many permit spaces. Someone thinks we need. In my mind, it's magic, but I'm curious if my fellow counselors have a thought on this as well. That specific question. Okay. I'm with you with this one. And I'm trying to. Figure that I'm a little confused as to the number that we were looking for. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So. I agree that it seems like we should be looking at perhaps. Do we need more? But yeah. Looking for a bit more clarity myself. Okay. Well, I will raise my hand and call upon myself. Whatever the number is or is not. I don't want the park. Parking around the park, the playground. I think that's a very exciting thing. I also liked a statement that somebody said. That people from other parts of Amherst are coming. To the park. I think that's very important because I've noticed that. When we've had a lot of people come in and say, you know, you know, you know, you know, I think that's a very exciting thing. I also liked a statement that somebody said. That people from other parts of Amherst are coming. To the park. I think that's very important because I've noticed that when we've had a lot of issues with the downtown, a lot of people don't, don't come to the meetings. They don't. Because they don't care. They're really far enough away from it. That it's not part. It's not of their interest. And I think it's very important for everybody in Amherst to relate to our downtown and to our center of town. And I think if the park helps do that, that's good. So it should be a positive experience. This is what I'm saying. Yeah. Yes, I'm going to say I'm not really thinking. I can never see your hand because your background is the same color as the hand, but in Nica, I call on you and then Ana. Yeah. So thank you. I'm not really thinking about that. So I want to say, but for this question, I have to be for Paul, when you had suggested and, you know, let us know. We know that we could recommend more spaces. Are they from park or were they outside? No, they were from the park. I mean, it's just a matter of where you draw the line between permit parking and metered parking. And I think, you know, the other point that Jennifer mentioned, the kiosk parking is good because you can always, it makes it really easy to expand or contract your metered parking. It doesn't take extra, a lot of extra work to put posts in or anything like that. So it gives you some flexibility there. So it sounds like what you're saying, what the counselors are saying is that they want more metered parking than was recommended in the memo. And maybe Guilford could weigh in on looking at the map and what that magic number might be because I trust his judgment on this. Yes, that would be great. Guilford, can you answer that? I can. What I would recommend if you look at your handout and the drawing at the bottom of the handout. There's seven spaces angled back in spaces towards Triangle Street and there's three parallel spaces. I would make those 10 spaces your permit spaces because that then gives you all your other spaces centered around the playground. And that would just kind of, I think, fit the best because we are trying to, we are catering towards the playground groupies, which is good. So that's how I would lay it out. And then that also gives us a chance to see how those last spaces are being used because if we're just those, we can kind of watch them. I know this is not a topic you're talking about, but one way to get rid of the overnight parking is to put the winter parking band back into effect because then everybody has to have a parking space and they don't leave their cars parked on the streets overnight. But I know we got away from that and we probably will never go back to it. But that is one of the consequences of removing the winter parking band is that you're going to have people who are going to come when we're not enforcing and park overnight and then leave before enforcement starts the next morning, which is normal. It's a normal thing. That's a very interesting thing to be pursued because I don't know why what's bad about the parking ban and why you think it won't be brought back. I guess I'm just used to those things. I don't think it's going to be brought back, but that's. OK, so I see Anna has her hand and then Andy. OK, great. So such thing as a like springtime parking ban, right, Gilbert? So I just want to kind of cosign the the angled back in parking. Like as I look at what we're talking about, right, that angle back in parking and increasing that number, I'm fully on board with. I guess I think upping. I'm curious. I'm just going to put numbers out there like, Guilford, do you think that you're planning to up it to 15 spots that are metered? Or are you thinking of it by like to what I I apologize. I'm trying to conceptualize when you say adjust, what does that mean? Typically, when you talk about this type of decision. Well, as I said, there's like there's going to be 30 33 mark spaces here. Right. Three are handicapped. Yeah. So if seven of them are metered, you have 23. I mean, if seven of those are permit, then you have 23 meter spaces. It would be 10 permits, though, right? I thought you said it was. Yeah, it would be 10. Yes. All right. OK, OK, OK. It's been a long day. No, you're fine. That's I think I'm in the same place. And so I apologize for that. I think that that does feel reasonable to me. Yeah, that feels reasonable, reasonable to me. And I appreciate the effort to keep the metered spots closer to the playground end of things. Yeah. So thank you, Andy. Yeah, I guess a couple of things. One, I agree with the last bit of conversation that's been going on. So I don't want to spend much time at it. I would, as a general matter, always try and give priority to accommodating people using the park and expect the residents who are getting permits without guarantees of spaces if they have to walk a little farther, so be it. You know, not everybody can be right where they want to be. I think that I think the kids, people coming with kids get the priority in my mind. And the other thing is just the comment about having done away with the overnight parking. I guess I'm one of the people who is responsible for that because I was done by the select board. So I take. But I think that it was the right thing to do. We were getting a lot of concern from residents who, you know, need to park in close to where their residence is as possible. And if they were banned for substantial for months and months during the year from street parking when there was absolutely no reason to do so because there was no snow emergency requiring them to do so that it was causing them a great inconvenience that they couldn't see justified. We heard a lot of complaints. You know, this is one of those things where you hear from constituents as we all do now in the council and then you act to it. And that's what was that. That's what happened. And I think it would be unwise. I don't say unlikely because, you know, council can make a different decision than the select board made. But I would find it unwise because we do have the experience and I know it would be going back to which is banning parking for weeks and weeks when there's no snow and there's no justification to do it and inconvenience being a lot of people for taking that step. And we've now invested in the systems to enforce the new new way of doing this with the flashing lights and the notification systems. I would urge you to think about it carefully before you change that. OK, I just want to comment on one thing. Andy said, which I hadn't thought about by not having as many permit places, we're not taking away necessarily permit spots. We're just taking them from that place and they would hopefully find a permit spot somewhere else. So that was a good point to bring up. Paul. So as we're moving towards, it sounds like the committee is moving towards a decision. So it seems like what you are settling on is that the 10 spaces that are being created be reserved for permits. And those are the ones that are three parallel spaces in the seven back end spaces that are far this north. Guilford, is it on the plan? Yes, the remainder would be designated as as metered parking. So if you're on agreement on that, then the next question for you is, what is the how much do you want to charge for those and what's the time duration for them in the hours of enforcement? So maybe that's the next piece of it. So you can get to a vote on a motion. So you're saying we're talking about how much to charge at the meter at the present motion, I believe it's at 50 cents an hour. Correct. And it had a limit of four hours. And it had an end time of eight to six. Eight to eight a.m. to six p.m. Okay. Which is what most of our meters in this area are. Is that right, Chen? Okay. And 50s. I believe so, yes. Okay. So he has laid out those times. We're now going to comment on them, Anna. Yeah, I think keeping it as consistent with the surrounding area makes a lot of sense. The only change I could see is limiting it to two hours, but I don't feel strongly enough to fight for that. So for, I think for me, the biggest thing is not making it confusing, you know, so that people aren't trying to have to shift their minds about everything. I guess I thought most places were two hours. And so that's my only question mark on there. Oh, okay. So Paul. So I just want to ask Jen, I think Jenner Gilford would know why that was put in as four hours to begin with down there. Cause it's four hours now, I believe. Do you know Jenner Gilford? I'm not sure. This, sorry, Jen. No, go ahead. I'm not sure. So go ahead. A while back, I mean, back when we first talked about some parking, there was, you could park longer out here because it's farther away from the center of town. They were trying to get more turnover in the center of town. They wanted to encourage people who worked in businesses who had downtown permits to park farther away and give them longer in a park. So they didn't have to eat a meter or walk so much to move cars. So that's kind of why it was, this area was a longer stay time. Annika, I see your hand up. So, and as I know that resident Ken Rosenthal had pointed out that he usually has this two hour frame, four hours could also just encourage people if you have two hours of play, there's also time to explore, eat at the restaurants, picnics, and encourage more time for lingering right there, especially with the kids. Okay. I agree with you. You're saying four hours allows you to play and eat. Okay. Or Sean. Yeah, it allows for more, whatever it is, it just allows for a little more after the kids play. Okay. Any comments on that from anybody? I, I'm not gonna, I was for two hours, but now that we have increased the number of meters spots, it's, I think that, I think that we're gonna get a good balance. That's my feeling now. And just, you know, and I do agree that Anna has a good point about trying to keep things as consistent as possible. So it's just as to let, decrease the amount of confusion people have. Okay. Anna, your hand is up. All right. So the only other thing I will throw out maybe in support of the two hour mark is that you had said you're most likely going to be putting in a kiosk instead of literal meters in this space. And because people can adjust that with their phone and things like that, not everyone does, I know that, but it seems like it's more accessible to quote unquote feed the meter when it's a kiosk than it might be for a literal meter. So I might, I might maybe push for the two hours a little bit stronger than I had before because I think when the four hour limit was put in play or like Guilford said, it was when that part of town maybe wasn't as happening. And so now that there are things that people would like to be doing down there, does it make sense to drop it to two so that there is that turnover? And I think, you know, like the, like the residents said, they're typically there for an hour or maybe two. Yeah. So I keep saying I'm not going to fight strongly either way, but I do see the argument for two hours. Okay. Good. Thank you. Shalini. I'm just thinking this is a focal point for parents and kids and maybe senior citizens bringing their grandkids and so making it as convenient and easy for them. And I think the four hour does make it more convenient to them. So I would lean on the side of making it easier. And of course, if they do leave in two hours, it's an empty spot. Yeah, it's still empty. So it's not like it's blocked for four hours. So there will still be that space, but just let's make it easier for people who are going to be using the Kendrick Park. I mean, get Kendrick Park. So I would favor four. I think that's a good point, Shalini, that if somebody uses two hours, they use two hours, then the meter is open to other people. If, as Anika said, they want to add on a meal, they can stay for four. Yep. Okay. I also have a question. If you have some more things to say, Shalini. Yeah. Yeah, I just had a question. If we want to send it to Tak, and do we have the time? Like, I'm gonna understand from Guilford, but respect to this particular item, do we have any flexibility in time to get feedback from Tak? And then we can discuss later, perhaps. And I don't know if that needs to be an agenda item then. How we're, yeah, I think that would have to be an agenda item. If we were talking about generally, could we just standardize the process that anything that involves the roads, it automatically goes to Tak so that the TSO gets feedback from Tak and Tak always when it's issues related to or something like that. But that would be a different agenda item, I can imagine. So right now it's just for this particular item. Do we have the time? And do we, I mean, do you get feedback from them? Right. So, Guilford, that, I can ask you to answer that. And I do remember that Tracey Zaftian in the hearing said, okay, we know you can't do all these changes yet, but can you make the road one way? And can you change the parking from the west side, west side to the east side? Can that happen right away? So I guess it's what can happen now? And Sean is asking, do we have time to refer it to Tak now? The Tak's next meeting is on the 19th. So that's our next meeting. Just about everything on the plan now is based on earlier comments from the Tak and the Tak. I like calling it the Tak. That's nice. And if you want to start implementing this, it could be possible to just move the permit parking over to the east side and leave it permit parking until we make the changes. And you could make it one way relatively easily. But putting the angle parking in and requires us to take out the grass belt on the west side to make everything fit. So putting in the angle parking is part of the bigger project. Right. Okay, so I didn't totally understand part of that. So if we're not going to be able to increase the amount of metered parking right away and the permit parking is going to move over to the west side, but not the back angle and how many spaces are available for metered parking or just empty spaces for people who want to go to the playground until in this interim before we get the full project done. I think that's a really important question. So if you just use parallel parking on the whole east side of North Pleasant Street, you could probably fit 20 spaces in there. And if you don't mark those spaces, people tend to park closer together and they just like to be closer when there's no markings. So there'd be about 20 spaces. If you want to meter part of that, I guess technically we could meter part of it. You would just have to say which parts you want to meter. The problem with making the, yeah, that's the angle in parking is the only thing we can't do. There are some meters there right now though. Aren't there? Those meters are between McClellan and North Prospect, no, Halleck, between McClellan and Halleck. And we're not proposing a change there. Okay, all right. There's only seven meters there. Okay. All right, so back to you, Shalini. Yeah, I think one of the point that was raised in the public comments was around traffic calming. So that was another reason I was thinking if either Guilford, you can come up with and propose or maybe giving it to TAC, they may be able to offer some suggestions for traffic calming. They could. The issue we're facing, if we had the money now, we'd go build what you're approving now. The issue is we're not sure we have the money to put this in. It wasn't kind of programmed in any of the construction for this year. So you, TAC, yeah, as TAC will come up with all types of traffic calming, they're very good at that. They come up with some really cool stuff. The money to put it in is not, we don't know if it's there yet or not. I mean, this actually may, we're not looking to start building this this year, but it actually may get built towards the end of the construction season in October, November. If money holds out, we still have money, a little money, it seems to be floating in. So between now and October, what would the parking situation be on the park? It could stay the way it is now, or if you want to, say, temporarily move it, move the permit parking to the east side of the road, we could possibly take one of the kiosks we have from another parking lot and put out here and make a permit parking if you'd like. Now, metered parking, you mean? Yeah, metered parking, sorry. All right, so if we could get the parking on the east side and have a certain amount of metered parking, so people could use the playground in this interim period, that would be, I think, meeting some of the suggestions from the public hearing and from this committee. Andy, I see your hand is up. Yeah, I just wanted to point out that Kim Trondliffe, who's a member of TAC and testified during the public hearing, has had her hand up and I don't know how you would feel about recognizing a little bit of public comment and seeing what Kim wanted to offer. Thank you, Andy. I think that's a very good idea. I think we're having a good discussion and I think that would be helpful. So if that's all right, I would like to call upon Kimberly Trondliffe, please. Thanks so much. I really appreciate the comments and it's very thoughtful and especially to me, I live, you know, I'm a TAC member, but I also like literally bike there every day. And changing the parking to the park side is really important to me for my own safety, personally for my own safety, but also for all the people who are walking and are biking along that street because of the sight lines, the sight line issue. And secondly, if we could make that street one way earlier, I think that now, which doesn't change too much, maybe some signs, it's a lot of effort on people changing their habits, but it will make it a lot safer for the people who are at the park and yeah, so that's all I want to say and I thank you all for considering these things. Okay. Thank you. So if there's another hand that's raised, but I just want to clarify, Guilford, you're saying that even without the money to do the reconfiguring of the tree line and the back end parking, you could make the street one way and move the parking to the east and borrow a kiosk and have some kind of temporary solution until you're able to do the beautiful plan that you have. Is that correct what I've said? Yes, the most expensive part of that whole plan you just talked about is moving the kiosk. Okay, but moving the parking to the east and making it one way, that could be done. Okay. Yes, but please keep in mind you are going to get some complaints because the road will be wide because you have parallel parking. You'll have a little faster speeds still even though it's one way. You'll see she still may get some complaints about it, but it would move the parking closer to the park. Okay, okay. Right, but you know, it's easy to take complaints if you have a good answer for them. And I think we've had a lot of good answers today. So I guess we have Tracy. Can we have a brief public comment please? Hi, so I just, I really appreciate you having a public comment or discussion. I agree with the comments that Kim just made. I feel very similarly, like I do think it is a safety issue without having the parking on the west side of the park. And I think particularly, you know, in terms of the timeframe, right? I mean, once the students are leaving town and UMass commencement is next week, there is a lot less pressure to use those permit spaces. I mean, typically, I know Kim lives in the neighborhood, but I'm in that neighborhood a lot too. And we see very little use of those permit spaces when the students aren't in town. And so I think if there is a possibility of making some of these more minor traffic calming changes and safety changes by the time the students return or in the fall that that would be a huge improvement. And I don't really, I mean, I feel like tack, I mean, Kim is on tack and I'm on tack. And I don't feel like it necessarily needs to go to tack because I feel like you've already heard our comments that we've made as like private citizens. So thank you. Thank you. I always appreciate it when people say things that are common sense that have not occurred to me, such as UMass is nearly over. I mean, you know, and we could do those things and it's a calmer time. I do think that was an interesting point that Gofford made, however, that a wider street without the back end parking means that the traffic still might want to move fast. So do you have suggestions on is there signage or speed limits or maybe a sign, go slow park or children at play signs? Cause we will have children crossing the street. We could just put potholes in. I know that's your favorite suggestion. Yes. And you don't have to do much cause nature's cooperating with you. Yes. Okay. All right. But you could put a children playing sign. We could put signage. Yes. Okay. Okay. So, Shalini, your hand is raised. Yeah. Just the traffic calming we were talking in a district meeting and we said those, the thing that shows your speed, you know, the sign that says you're driving a 30 or 40 or whatever, that is generally very effective because people will feel, or at least I feel that there's a camera and I'm being watched and I should slow down when I see my speed is like 40, you know, kids area or something. And that I've heard is more when I'm getting late for meetings, but which I always am. But I think that I've heard, I think it was Gullford who said like when you have the children's signs slow down and we even have handmade signs, which are very like endearing and you know, the kids talking to you, hey, please slow it, slow down, we play here. Those apparently work initially but then people get immune to them. But the traffic sign, I mean the speed sign might be more effective if you put something like that. Response, Gullford? We can look into it. Okay, but I think those speed signs, which I also find very effective are more expensive. Yeah, yeah. It works on my block. It's not that I think some on camera is that I just needed to be reminded what speed I was going because I wasn't thinking about it at all. I was only thinking about where I was going. So I really do like them. They helped me a lot. Anna? I guess the traffic calming is stuck in my head too. And I know Shalini and I did hear a lot at our district meeting about this specific stretch of road. And I think the speed indicator signs would be great. I know that sometimes this road is a little bit tough because people would slow down to make the corner and then pick up right by the playground to like jet through. And so my concern is now if we have people stopping to then back into the spot, right? Maybe that's a natural traffic calmer in and of itself. Is that that you might have a car perpendicular to you in the road. But I guess in general, what would be helpful to know is when we ask for things like traffic calming measures, rough cost estimates would be helpful for us in terms of being reasonable with what we ask for, right? So when we just say like, oh yeah, just put a speed bump in and we have no idea how much that costs or if that's like can ever be taken out or whatever all of those things. This is more kind of a general thing, Guilford, just cause you're stuck with me for at least another year on TSO. It would be really helpful for me at least to know in order to manage my own expectations, rough cost estimates for those things and general opinion of effectiveness and that I can get from you and also tack but yeah, that would be helpful. Okay. Okay. I'm going to say that I'd like to entertain a motion is or am I out of order on that? I never know when we're supposed to make a vote. It's a good time to make the motion. You're good. Okay. And I call upon my friends on the committee to come up with a motion. I'll do it if I have to, but... You're mine. I had started, I've started working on a motion. I haven't quite finished it, but what I had started writing was I moved the TSO committee recommend to the council that interim steps be taken as soon as possible, including making North Pleasant one way, northbound from Halleck Street to Triangle Street, moving parking spaces to the east side of North Pleasant and... Andy, isn't it McClellan Street, not Halleck Street? I think that the proposal that had been before the committee and it had previously voted was from McClellan to Triangle. McClellan is McClellan. Yeah. We need to change that word from McClellan. To Triangle, okay. Yeah, you are. Parking be on the east side of the street. And that 10 spaces near the park be for metered parking. I thought we had talked about 20 spaces metered. And that is how many people remember it being 20 spaces metered. Yeah, it was the... Andy, I flipped it too in my head. It's 10 permit spaces, 20 metered spaces, made dedicated to meetered. Then with 20 spaces metered with two hour limit. And I don't know. I mean, I think we would need to have this discussion yet because I don't think it's completed, but to eight o'clock extending to eight o'clock. Though I think that I can come up with good arguments as to why it could be six o'clock too. Okay, so this is, we've got a motion and then we discussed the motion. Sorry, could we repeat the motion in full because we discussed it partway through and I got lost. And we don't have a second yet, okay. Yeah, can we repeat the motion? Thank you, Andy, for working on this. It's got some moving parts, you know. Yeah, so I think where we're at is something like a move that TSO Committee recommend to the council that interim steps be taken as soon as possible, including implementing one way northbound traffic from McClellan Street to Triangle Street, moving parking to the east side of North Pleasant. And reserving 20 spaces, I think we're at now, for metered parking. You know, is it metered? I'm gonna say right now, but this should be discussed, metered two hour parking until eight p.m. And there are two things in there, it's still two hours and until eight p.m. I think that may need discussion, but at least if the motion gets it out on the table. Okay, do we need to add the handicap accessible parking spots in that motion? I probably yes. Okay, so we'll say the two or three? 20 spaces, three handicapped. May I make a suggestion for your motion? I think maybe you could just reference the plan that already has this on it, and then you can say all the parking spaces on the plan are shown, there's two different things you're doing, one is like the permanent change when we get the money to do it. And you're saying designate the 10 spaces, the seven back in and the three parallel for resident parking, all others will be metered. And then I think the second piece that Andy was referencing was like, and let's move, let's do the interim stuff that when we, right now, as soon as we can, whenever it's feasible, because it does take some time to do and to get a kiosk and things, make it one way and just relocate parking across the street to the east side of the street. But I think it's sort of two different things. One is what is the permanent change you wanna make? Right. And one other thing if I can take, I have the mic here, it's important for us when we allocate the hours and things like that, that we try to be consistent with other areas so that our parking enforcement officers aren't running around town saying, oh, this lot is eight o'clock, and right next door it's six o'clock. So just some consistency in our parking plan. Okay, so you're saying to take the motion that we have, except we're going to swap, flip some spaces. The seven spaces, which are now in the written plan, written as metered will become permit in the permanent plan. And the 20 spaces that are listed as permit will be metered, but that we keep the other things. Then we have, you're suggesting strongly that we do not say eight PM because that would cause an inconsistency which might be difficult for the enforcement, but the plan as presented has four hour limit and Andy wants us to discuss the two hour limit. So in terms of doing that, we could, let's, let's, okay, this is, I see the moving pen. Okay, Twitter for handicapped. Seven back. Just trying to get these all into the same. That's great, that's great. So I think I have Andy's whole thing and we're changing this to six PM. And then there's also the recommendation. Does somebody have words about how to phrase this after the permanent changes are made on the other side of the street? I mean, you can just reference the plan, the North Pleasant Street on-street parking concept plan created by the DPW. One way to approach the clown street triangles of parking these sides of our pleasant and the 20 spaces near the parking meter, parking to our limit from three of those spaces. Okay, and to recommend it. Right, so we start off with the interim steps that can be taken now. And we then lay out the plan which is as to what percentage of parking is, is what kind of parking is the same in the temporary plan and the permanent plan. Well, okay, except that the back end ones that won't happen will be for permit. That's okay. Do we say where the permit parking is going to be in the temporary plan? I think it already exists, correct? Is that right, Gilford? That's right, it's maintaining the permit parking at the north end of the park. Is that, is that clear enough there? In our temporary plan and then later they will be in a different thing. Okay, so now we have a parking, is it to six, five PM or six PM? The permit parking is five PM. The permit parking is five PM. Neaters until six. I see, okay. Well, that's kind of challenging, yeah. Six is what's aligned with the rest of the town, right? Paul, because the other document said eight. I just want to take confirm. Yeah, I think it's six o'clock, isn't it, Jen? Do we need to put anything about a parking kiosk? Nope. Nope. You designate the spaces and what the conditions are. We take care of implementing it. Okay, all right. I will happily second this motion. Okay, Andy made the motion, seconded by Anna. Okay, then we have, do we have any more discussion on this motion? Oh, Shalini, your hand is there. Okay, so it is four hours then, right? I'm just, sorry, I was checking. Well, Andy had said two hours. What does it say here? Four hours? Four hours, okay. Here it says 12 hours, right here. Is it, I'm so confused. Andy's said two, but the recommendation was for four hours for the meter. I was just looking, oh, sorry. Right, right. So I was looking at the map, parking map downtown and in those areas, it seems it's four hours right now. So that would be more consistent too, right? Just keep it as four hours. I'm fine with making it four hours. What I also said was is that I thought, identified it as one of the issues that the committee needed to make sure that it was comfortable with the answer. Yeah. Okay, Shalini, do you have more comments? Your hand is still up. Okay, so again, I'm just confirming because Paul said it should be consistent with the surrounding parking. So is Gullford, do you feel comfortable with the four hour? Is that what it, at least the map shows it's four hour in that area, but is that what the surrounding area is? That's a good question. I'm comfortable with either one because we can always come back and change it if we need to. Okay, Anika. I'm just going to say that we, you know, whether it's two or four as long as, you know, there's, and it's easy to adjust by, you know, phone going forward that, you know, it could still be just as convenient as long as people do not have to come back to their space. Yeah, so you can't feed the meter. That's against the rules, right? Detectively. Yeah. I want to say that having thought through the four and two hours that I'm happy with four because somebody who's finished playing in two hours will leave and the parking, the meter space will be available for anyone coming in. You can't, I don't see four hours. It's pretty hard to totally misuse a four hours window. You can't, you have to leave after four hours unless it's, ah, unless it's near the end of the meter time. And that part I never understand where is if you park at two o'clock and the meter is over at, or three o'clock the meter is over at five and somebody could theoretically park there all night, but I guess that's just the way it goes. Ana. Only, the only reason why I'm stuck on the not doing four is these parking spots are also great places to park and then go do work at a coffee shop or something. And so that would be a potential four hour use. I think that's a perfectly valid use, but I think that these parking spots would be, they're close to share, they're close to, right? And so these parking spots could be taken by folks who are gonna go study downtown. Again, that's a totally valid use of a parking spot and I'm fine with it. However, I just wanna be realistic that I don't think that the four hour use is always just gonna only end up being two hour parking, right? So I think it's just aware that, yes, someone can leave before four hours, but someone also could park their car there for four hours and take up those spots. So just as long as we're comfortable with that, that's that's that. Well, okay, then the part I'm thinking of is I'm playing with my kids and they don't wanna go, but there's another parking place that just move where my car is or do I just go move what I tell the kiosk? I mean, I think we're a little in the weeds, right? So like, I think that at some point it is what it is. So I'm comfortable with four. It seems like the more flexible option, as long as we aren't gonna get complaints about spots never freeing up or turning over, well, I want to vote on the two and four. I really, I don't feel that we've totally gotten there. And I have, I think we should at least take a straw poll on the two hour and the four hour. There've been a lot of good arguments raised on both sides. Now, do I have to do that by keeping the motion as it is, it's written right now with two hour. It might be easier, Dorothy, if you just ask us for a general feeling on it instead of doing an actual poll. Okay, so let's do it a straw poll then. Okay, Andy. Yes, I would go with two hours is a preference, but it's not as strong when I felt I can be convinced. Okay, Shalini. Four hours also because it's consistent with the rest of the area around there is four hours and that's what the recommendation came from. Okay, Anika. I'm really fine either way. I would go for if we are already set at four hours, I would say, leave it. If we're adjusting, then we're running into problems, then too. I'm really, I'm fine either way. Okay, Ana. I'm pretty much exactly the same as Andy. I was leaning towards two just because I didn't think the playground would get usage more than two hours at a time, given kids' attention spans, but if four hours is what people would prefer to be consistent, I'm fine with that. Well, I'm gonna vote for two hours now. My question is, is it easier to change from two to four or from four to two? Or does it not matter? It doesn't matter which way you go, you just have to go through the public hearing process again. Okay, so then I would, that makes three people, we all can live with it, okay? Nobody's gonna have a fit either way, but it's now three people for the two and two people for the four. So that means the motion would stay as written with the two hour. Everybody knowing that things can be adjusted. Okay, so can I call the question? Just to be clear with Athena, the second part of the motion should be consistent then, right? Where it said four, it should be two. Okay. You got that? Yes. Got it, so the 20 back-in parking spaces for metered parking at 50 cents an hour with a two-hour parking limit, got it. Thank you. Oh, okay. All right, so that pad just ran out. Okay, I'm all set. So call the question and I will, Andy, do you approve this motion? Yes. Okay. Second. And Shalini? Do we second it? Good, earlier. Okay, all right, yes. Okay, Anna? Yes. And Anika? Yes. And Dorothy, yes, okay, great. So I think we've done a lot of good work. Okay, now we can go and deal with the sewer plan. It's actually sewer and water. Thank you, Jen. Oh, thank you, I never do that. Thank you, have a good night. Thank you. Thank you, good night. So, and Guilford's gonna stay for this. So my understanding is that we are talking about the issues that are not to do with fees, which means that we're talking about the issue of who owns the line, the waterline or the sewer line. And I thought, I think I've reread some of my minutes or maybe it was actually the official minutes that said that we were going to get some kind of information, further information on this. And is there further information that you have to offer us, Guilford? No. Okay. I don't know what other information, I thought we were just gonna continue going through. Oh, I know what it was. Lynn had asked for a array of different ways that we could have some kind of outreach public forums to get people involved on this. I remember that was what, there was a brief memo from email from Lynn, but we can handle that ourselves, okay? We also have to do the regulations themselves. And we are one of the things that Andy had mentioned and that Anna is aware of is the, some of the wording from Bob Hegner. So, Anna, you are the lead person on this issue. We could get started or can we have a five minute break? Is that a possibility? Any favorite question? Yeah, can I just raise a question and maybe we can take the break and then Guilford can maybe get some time to look up the answers if he has it. I don't think those answers can be found in five minutes. However, there were two things we had asked for. One was the insurance. If the town does the insurance, what that might cost and also what would be the cost to the, if we were to take on the cost of fixing, if the town was to pay for the meter, a pair, then how would that impact the cost? And I had wanted to ask, where our rates are lower than many of our surrounding towns. We had lists, but I can't find them now, of different towns that connected covered different parts. And so my question is, could, is it possible that some of the higher rates that some towns have are connected to the fact that they take ownership of more of the piping? Because there is a connection between how much you do and the rates you charge. Okay. Andy, you've got your hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to point out, of course, that looking at the finance committee report, which is in your packet for this meeting, does address some of the questions based upon information that Amy and Gilford provided to the finance committee. And so it's worth taking a look if we're going to take a few minute break at that. Right. Because there were definitely how much it would increase the cost. I do remember seeing that. Okay. So can we take our five minutes break now? It is eight o'clock on the dot. See you all in five minutes. Okay. Great. It's five minutes after eight and time to open up your pictures and turn and join us again. Okay. And welcome, Amy. We're getting into it now. Am I good to go? Yeah, good to go. Okay. So I wanted to be unconscious of time. We're scheduled to end at 8.30 today. And so we can do one of three, we can do maybe one of three things. So the way I see it is that we need to discuss the public engagement element. We need to, which to give context to Gilford and Amy. There have been a lot of calls to really include the public a little bit more in this discussion. I'm thinking about how to do that thoughtfully and as part of TSO. The second part is to discuss that those bigger picture questions of insurance and ownership. And the third is to really get into the regs. What I'm gonna pitch is that we start with the second thing. We start with those big picture questions. If that's something you both are prepared for today, because I know we asked you for that information last time. And then if we have time to talk about the public engagement component, that'd be great. But just don't think it's realistic to say we would get to all three and get through the regs tonight in the next 23 minutes. Does that sound, how does that sound to folks? Paul, you have something to... You're muted, Paul. So, I mean, you've asked Amy and Gilford to be here. So take advantage of their time since they've taken time out of their evening to be here. So whatever's most productive for their time, I think the public engagement is a separate topic. And I can talk, I can tell you about the insurance piece of it. So, and that's on my plate. The other things are... Oh, okay. I thought that was on their plate. So great. So then it would make most sense to dive right back into the actual regs themselves. Is that what you're saying, Paul? Well... We could talk about the cost, the impact of the service line ownership if you want to. We do get confused sometimes because we talk different things in different committees. And with the finance committee, we did prepare a memo for them that actually answered that question. If we take over ownership of the service lines, we would be shooting to go through a repair and replacement schedule of replacing those lines in the sewer and the water, 102 of them a year. So if you do 100 and you replace the water line from the road or from the water main to the property line of the road, we're averaging around 8,000, 12,000. I might not have that number right. But overall in a year doing 100 of them, it's around $220,000. Yep, I was gonna say the memo said 220,000 to 250,000 per year. That we'd add per year. And then when we do rate setting, we use for every $100,000 we add to the budget is roughly 10 cents to the rate. And that's a rather, we really haven't updated that number in a year or two. It might be a little higher now, but it's pretty good number. So you're adding, if we take over service lines from the main to the property line, we're probably adding around 20 to 25 cents per unit to the water rate. And then if we go and we do all the way from the water main to the house, we're looking at a much bigger cost. And that's around adding about $2 million to the budget every year to do 100 lines a year. So that's $2.20, we'd be adding to the rate per 100 cubic feet. Oh, you have your hand up. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll just go mention that. This is all written in the finance committee's report that you have in your packet, Neil. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Go ahead. Go ahead, Gopher. No. Okay, Dor, I think. I would like to, for the simplicity to limit this discussion to the property line and not to consider to the house because I think that is varies tremendously from how many, where the house is placed and could add just absolutely unfair distribution of costs to the town. But I understand that psychologically, feeling that the street is like not yours, even though it's your line going down to the main is very kind of hard to grasp. So I would say either we keep our policy as it is or change it to the property line. Thank you, Dorothy. I will raise my hand and say, I feel very strongly that we not keep it as it is. And I also agree with you that we not go to the house. I think going to the property line is absolutely the right move in this situation. And Guilford, I apologize if I missed this. Do you have an idea of the average increase per? I'm trying to translate rate in my head of if it changes, if it increases by 20 to 25 cents, do you have an understanding of the average increase that folks would see on their bill? Actually, Amy's better at that one. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, let's say 20 cents per unit and an average house in Amherst is anywhere from, if you're a conservative water user, you maybe use 60 units a year. And if you're a average water user, then you use about 95 to 100 units a year. So someone else can do the math, but those are the numbers. So 100 units by, or 60 units by 20 cents, 20, 25 cents per unit. If somebody doing that math there, as I'm saying it, so they can say a number. I was doing it, but I don't think I did it right. 12 dollars. Right? It's 100 units, it's 20 dollars. Yeah. So it would go up by $20 a year for the average user. Yeah. But it has the potential to save them from incidents like we've heard our residents be in where it's $18,000. And that would cover the cost on the town to do this. That's what we're estimating. When we start doing this, we'll be able to get better numbers. And hopefully also we choose the correct service lines to replace and we don't have any additional ones that pop up. I mean, we may choose one area to do all the service lines and then we get 50 breaks or we get a bunch of breaks that are someplace else. So... Yeah, thank you. Amy? I was just gonna add that, we're talking about, just to be clear, it's 20 to 25 cents on the water rate and then 25 cents on the sewer rate. So when you're talking about the increased costs, understand that... That'll it. Unless you guys decide that we wanna have ownership rules in one that don't, that aren't equal on the other. So... Double it for people who are on sewer. For people that are on sewer, yes. Paul? And then I'll get to the phone. Just a clarification, when you talk about the $18,000 repair, I don't know how much of that was in the public way and how much of that was in the private way. Yeah, I can understand, thank you. Yeah, we heard from a couple of the residents who their repairs were all in the thousands. And so I have it stuck in my head that they're not exactly cheap to do. So I apologize for using an anecdote as an example. Thank you for that. Guilford, you know that you're... Actually, yeah, I just also wanna remind you, we have different types of... We have different types of rate payers. We have single family home rate payers. We have multi-family homes. We have apartment complexes. We have businesses and we have institutions, mostly institutions of higher learning. But there are other institutions like churches and those things. So the other question, when you decide you're going to say, the town will repair the service line to the property line, does that include all those as well? And we can look at that, but I think almost all everybody, I think that would be doable with if we just go to the property line. If we don't, if we go all the way to the property, the building itself, that causes a whole bunch of other problems. But we just go to the property line or to a point where we say this is for apartments or this is for institutions that would be, we have to be set to. I just confused it and I apologize. Are you done? Shalini? Yeah, I'm just looking at the table that we were given for the water rates. And so Amherst average 92 HCF per year. I don't know what that means, but I'm just looking at the comparison of Amherst with Belcher Town and Northampton, which are the other two towns that do pay for the town pays for the water breaks. And we are way lower in these, relatively speaking to these towns. So we are like 427 and Belcher Town is 736 and Northampton is 621. Of course, I don't know what 92 HCF per year. Yeah. Amy knows. So we measure your water in units of hundreds of cubic feet. And so that's what that is, which I understand is confusing because a lot of us understand gallons a lot easier, but cubic feet is what our meters are in. Got you. And so for every hundred cubic. So it's kind of like hundred. So yeah, so we would be adding $20, let's say even, and then we still lower than the name rates. So I just wanted to share that table. Thank you, Johnny. Dorothy? One of the reasons that I want to do this is because I believe Guilford said that many of the pipes are old and there's a lot of them that gonna have to be replaced. And so that says, just suggest, oh, that's gonna cost the town a lot of money. But the fact is there's gonna be a lot of increasing numbers of people having this problem and getting extremely upset. And I think we just have to bite the bullet and say the town's gonna be responsible from the property line and we'll charge, increase its rates. And as Shalini is saying, get more in line with other places because this is gonna be something that's gonna be happening more often. I forget the name of the horrible type of pipe that was in front of my house, but it's like fiberboard or- Orangeburg. Say it again. Orangeburg? Orangeburg, yeah. It's like, what is it made of? It's made up of tar and paper, rolled together into a tight pipe and it eventually gets waterlogged and falls apart. Falls apart. And there's a lot of- That's for sewer people. You're not drinking water out of Orangeburg for once a year. Right, okay. But a lot of people have those pipes from their house. It was very popular and very cheap at some point and they're all gonna fail, okay? So there's a big job ahead and I think we might as well just do it, but not go bankrupt while doing it, okay? Thank you, Dorothy. You're welcome. Andy? So my question, because this was not one that we asked clearly during finance committee, but I understand that the pipes vary in size for larger institutions and most homeowners are of a single size of single family homes, but when you get into larger institutions, is there a bigger cost absorbing this expense for larger users? If you set the, we set the demarcation point at the property line or at a meter that we already use is the point of transfer where they have ownership past the meter and we are at the meter. We have several groups that have meter pits and that's where we set the ownership line is when the water goes into the meter pit and leaves the meter pit, it's theirs and once it, on the other side, it's ours. It wouldn't make much of a difference if that's what you keep as the rule. And actually to tell the truth, my personal view is bigger pipe is easier to work with than the small service pipes for the houses. It's just, I think it's easier to work with. The guys may differ with me on that comment, but they do it more than I do. So that might be one reason why they like it. May say that. Johnny, did you have your hand up? Yeah, I was just gonna say the one other thing that I heard from residents downtown, especially was with the trees and the roots that are there. And so those are town owned trees whose roots are then interfering with the pipes. And so it seems fair again from that point of view that the town take on the cost of these problems because some of them are being every year or every other two or three years, they do the flushing of this. And I don't know if that was sewer or that was water. I think it was the sewer, maybe. You're talking sewer, yeah. Yeah, that was sewer where they have to clean up their pipes because the roots go into them. So just so you know, if you say for sewer we're only doing to the property line, the problem you just described will not go away for them. Right, right, right. If you think about a large tree, a large tree could have a canopy, which is anywhere from 50 to 70 foot in diameter. So those roots go out that far. So if the tree is in the tree belt on the side of the road, there's probably a good 25 feet of roots going into their property. And those roots are gonna go into the old clay pipes and old Orangeburg pipes that are used for the sewer line because that's where all the good food is, the water and nutrients for the tree are in there and they're gonna want that and they'll go there. So you're only taking care of the problem for the property owner to the property line. You're still gonna have that problem. Okay, I mean, this is more for later, but I think when we do the community engagement, this is what the information we'll be sharing with people is that this is the town, if it takes on the cost, then this is the increase in the water rates. And then we haven't heard from Paul, which we can hear after later on about the insurance because those will be the different alternatives you're presenting. So, Andy, go ahead. Yeah, I guess one other thing because Shalini used the term, the town will pay. And I think that we ought to be very careful about using that terminology because it really is a question of, do we charge, does the homeowner who is the repair need pay or is it spread overall rate payers? It's the rate payers, not the town because this is the enterprise fund. Right. Yes, everyone up in High Point would not be joining you and paying for this because they have no water, they have no sewer. Thank you for that clarification, Andy. Dorothy. So just to tie into what Shalini was saying, the insurance that Paul's gonna talk about, that would cover from the persons on their own property, right? So the tree roots that we're talking about that might be breaking up the pipes that are on your property, which the town will not replace. If you had that insurance, it would cover that. Is that correct? Okay. So that would be a good package. The town will be taking up more ownership of some of the pipes, but the individual homeowner would have the opportunity of having some kind of help and protection for what they're in charge of. Okay, thank you. I'm raising my hand. So Dorothy, to clarify, you were saying, do both the town ownership to the property line and the insurance for anything on the literal property of the homeowner? Right, particularly after Guilford's comments that the tree, we want our trees, we love our trees, they have roots and they're going to spread both in the town part and in the private part. And we need protection from both. I have to think about that one. Any other questions on this specific area? So Andy, in reading through, it didn't seem, did finance come to a recommendation regarding this specific? I apologize if I missed it, but did finance come to a recommendation or a leaning on the choices between where the ownership line is? No, and I didn't press them to make a recommendation because I felt like our responsibility was to try and understand the financial consequences, but the policy questions really belonged more to TSO. That feels fair, thank you. Okay, so in terms of moving forward, I have another, I do have another question that came from a committee member on finance that I would like to pose, but before it's separate from this particular issue. And so is there anything else that folks would like to raise, not last chance, but trying to be in little boxes? Yes, Dorothy. I'm still hoping to hear Paul's report on what this insurance would be like. Okay, Paul, would you like to do that now? Sure. So this is a insurance salesperson who they offer a service, they can offer the service to our community. They have one other community in Massachusetts that they insure, and that's West Springfield. What they offer is, first off, they say that 98% of the claims that come in are under $8,500. So that's sort of, so they've established that that's how much, that's the most they will pay for a claim. And to get that coverage is that for water, you pay $5.75 a month for that insurance. And for sewer, it's $7.75 per month. There's no deductible in either of these. And they will cover up to $8,500 per incident to cover this. It's 100% voluntary. There's no minimum participation requirement. What they do is they come in, they get the information, all the customers in the town, they market to them, they send a mailer, and they say the town's offering, we're offering this through the town, and then people can sign up for the service or not. So if they have a water main break or a water break from their service or a sewer break to their service, they can do that. So if they have a sewer break to their service and they're paying this monthly fee, then they will cover that. So you said $5.75 and $7.75. $5.75 for water, $7.75 for sewer. So $69.93 per year. If you've done the math, yes. Look, I couldn't do this 25 cents, but I could do that. So any comments or questions for Paul or for the three lovely town folks about how these play together? Anika. So I'm not sure if you'd be able to answer this question. And so if you're covered, you have up to $8,500 on that. Is that for each? Like if you had water, you have $8,500 and sewer, you have another $8,500? Yes. Is there any ballpark? I'm like just kind of like average repair. Like is this $8,500 seen as like sufficient more than enough? So what they said is that 98% of the repairs come in under $8,500. You did say that. 80, 98%. Okay. Thank you. I'm struggling to see a downside to this and I naturally am really critical of insurance. And so I'm curious Paul in your mind, because it's often, because it covers a decently high amount for many people, $160 a year, what is the downside? I mean, does the town spend money? What's the cost other than to the individual? Yeah, there's no downside actually. The town could make a little bit of money off it. They pay you 50 cents for every customer who signs up. What I don't, I mean, things I don't like necessarily is using the town's sort of endorsement of a product to property owners. But if this provides, opens up a market that property owners can't access otherwise, then it's a worthwhile thing. The way they market is that they, again, they get, they have a standard mailer. They send everybody saying, you know, town of Amherst says endorse this product. Would you like to sign up for it? It's, you know, whatever the pricing is. And it's not a heavy, they don't do phone calls. They don't do heavy marketing. They don't go door to door or anything like that. It's just through mailers. And then, and they do that. I think they say they do it two or three times a year. And then a follow-up on that. You said a few other towns have been using this same company. Have you spoken to any of the folks in those towns about their experience? So only one other town in Massachusetts, and that's West Springfield. I have not connected with that person who did it for that community at this point in time. Okay. Anika. I'm assuming with, is this their basic plan? So for instance, for some of the residents that have had called in lately, such as Mrs. Federmann like that, that have these massive bills. Are there options with this company that forces is a really reasonable rate that, you know, residents, when they get all this information, do they have their plans for like much higher coverage reasonable? Would you know that? They didn't. I don't know that they didn't offer that. They just basically have the standard plan that they market to cities and towns. Okay. Do you have anything? I can ask that question though. So Ms. Federmann's bill was large because a lot of it went beyond her property line. All right, so that's number one. Number two, my cost was much big because I had a huge stretch of street. I had to go all the way down to the corner of sunset to meet the main. And that would not be, I would not have had to pay that if we had the new policy that we're talking about of having the town own the lines up to the property limit. My policy was better, but I got it when we bought the house. So when other people heard about this and tried to get a policy, they found that having already gotten their house or their mortgage, they weren't able to get it. So there are better plans that one can get if you get it when you buy your house. But an awful lot of people, that's not a possibility for them. So to me, I would say, yes, my bills are much higher, but I had to cover a much larger area. This would be, I think, a very useful plan once the town, if in fact it does take over ownership of the pipes to the property line. Some of the things that you have to do, we had to replace the whole sidewalk. But again, that was because it was a long, long line that we were in charge of. We wouldn't have to do that. I guess the town would have to replace the sidewalk under this new thing. So I would say that although there's better that some people can get under certain circumstances, this would be really helpful to a lot of people under our new policy. So I would suggest that we do it. Thank you, Dorothy. Shalani, some last comments and then we're gonna try to wrap this up for tonight. Yeah, I was just gonna ask if we need Amy and Gullford here and with respectful of them. I was thinking of the same thing. We're actually at our time as well. So what I'd like to do before Amy and Gullford leave us is just to give folks a quick outline of the plan moving forward. I don't know, Dorothy makes the agendas. I have just been given this part to run with. So what would be very helpful to my fellow committee members is if you could read through those water and sewer regs if you have any comments specifically on the regs to make them in a Word document that we are able to go through at the next time we discuss this because we do really need to go through those line by line. So if you could be prepared with those, that would be fabulous. And then in terms of our decision-making process, Paul, when we're making a recommendation regarding the ownership of the property line and as well as insurance, is that something that needs to be written? Well, part of it will be written into the regs but is that a separate kind of item or is that something that we bake into the regs and go from there? The property line is that's a key piece of your regulations. That will be in the regulations and then you want to know when that takes effect because that will impact the DPW budget and the rates that you set because you haven't set the rates yet. So that would have to be done. The insurance isn't a town council decision. We can offer that or not. And I would welcome whatever guidance you offer. I would welcome that. Okay, thank you. Okay, great. So next time we do this, please be prepared to start going through line by line. We'll start with water, we'll finish water and then go into sewer. So if you want to tackle one at a time, I try as I might, I don't think we'll get through both in one meeting. Paul, did you have something else to add? I just want to budget time for that so that I know it takes time out of people's schedules to say, if you're going to say, let's do it, whichever date, just allow an hour at least to maybe you get through as much of it as you can. I agree, that would be great. Oh, Shalani, sorry. I thought it was a lot of them. Yeah, no, no. I know. Could we also ask them to look at the comments? There's a whole list of comments from the finance committee. Yeah, so I added those in for our go through when we go, when we go, I took the, I took Rob's edits and put it in the document and with the comments. So we will be ready for those next time as well, but I can send them to folks in advance as well. That may have already been done, but I'll confirm. Guilford? Do you want us to take those comments and start going through them now and have to send you an updated draft? If that's okay, that would be great. I know I can send you my own Mandy Joes and Rob's, if that's helpful to you, unless you'd like to discuss them line by line. I think it might be helpful for you if we kind of knock out some of the ones that are easy to answer. I mean, you're reading a lot to people who live this life every day read and write and tell people and you're a group of people who read it differently and see it differently. So none of your comments are bad and some of them are very good in pointing out where we're just stuck in our hole and we need to come out and talk to other people. You can absolutely tell me if we have bad comments, but that would be incredibly helpful. I didn't think we were allowed to do that. So that would be phenomenal if it's something we can do happily. We'll send you all of our edits and comments. Okay, just to cinch that up. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna have a marked up copy with track changes on it. You're gonna send it to Guilford and Amy. They're gonna do additional mark changes on it and then send it back to you. Yeah. Good, perfect. So here's what I'll commit. So here's my I don't wanna break the law today question. Can committee members individually send me track change documents that I will compile so that we don't send Amy and Guilford five individual documents with potentially the same comments? Is that if they're individually sending them only to me and I compile them and do not reply back? That's okay, right? Yeah, that's okay. As long as you don't share them again with the committee members. Won't do that, okay. So action, new action plan, final action plan. Please go through this water regs and sewer regs. As a word document, which I believe you all have, you do not, I will send it to you and do a track changes with any comments or questions. I already do have the ones from Rob and Mandy Joe. Send them to me by next week. I will compile them. Guilford and Amy is a week long enough for you to look through them or get through what you get through in a week, is that? I think we get, we'll start with a water one. So we'll get through what we get through in a week. Theo, okay. Okay, I have to, we have our next meeting agenda. Some of it is already settled. We have the senior center services and we had invited Rosemary Koffler. We have the CPOs coming and making a presentation on outreach. We can, we have three other items we can move to another meeting, speed limits, roll of tack and town and gown relations. Those are other ones. Those can be put off. But I think we need to do the senior center and the outreach. Can you and I connect on the agenda? Cause I do want to let Amy and Guilford go. So Amy and Guilford will get you water first, then Stuart. They maybe split up. I'll combine them into one word doc with track changes and send it to you. I'd wanted some response from Guilford whether he had a timing issue. That's why I brought it up now while they're still here. Okay. So if we had our preference, we would have you go ahead and do your agenda you have set and do the water the next meeting if you don't mind. So the second of June, is that our next meeting? It would be the first meeting in June, right? Yeah. Okay. So that'd be, that's better even for us then. It gives us a little more time to get it to you. Great. So Dorothy, let's, if you and I can connect then about that and spacing it out and great. So Dorothy will confirm that, but tentatively we'll get it. We'll talk to you again in the first meeting in June. Let's then how about this? If folks can have the drafts to me by the next, ideally by before the next TSO meeting on the 19th and then it won't take me, I don't think too long to combine them. I'll get them to Amy and Guilford. They'll have two weeks. Shalini. I was just saying bye to Amy and Guilford. Okay, yeah. So if that sounds good, I wanted to confirm it with them one more time. But thank you, Shalini. So if that sounds good to everybody, Guilford and Amy, thank you so much for being here and talking about this. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Dorothy, back to you. Okay. Just taking a look at our agenda. Do we need to have- I have a comment about the last topic. Do we need to have some public comment now? Yes, I think we do. Okay, because I look- I think Shalini wanted to say something about sewer and water. Yeah. Before that. Are we doing any kind of discussion at all about the water? I mean, the community engagement piece. I think one thing that we were hearing is just for the town staff to maybe put it on the bulletin board. Like how even just these meetings are we discussing these items when they come up? Somehow is there a way to, other than us sending it in our newsletters and do we send it to all the district councilors and let them know, can you share this information that the next in June, we're going to be discussing this and or are we discussing this at all? So we could put it, we could let, sorry, I don't know if I stole the mic or not, Dorothy. Oh, you do. You could make sure that it's in the TSO report to tell the other councilors about and ask them to share out. And then I think the other discussion from my perspective, Shalini, was whether we wanted to denote a special public dialogue about water and sewer at a TSO meeting. I think that was the, for me, that was the question that we were needed to answer going beyond just a public comment. What would you follow that? It's called the public dialogue. Okay, and have we discussed it? I know what the Athena tells me that it's called something differently right now. We have rules for a public dialogue. We do. Athena, what's your take? I think the rules indicate that council committees can have a public hearings and public dialogue sessions applied to council only. So you can call it a hearing. Okay, so we could have a hearing on this. Okay. And I think it was very important. The TSO report will stress this. Okay, Shalini. I think the other thing that residents were also asking for is education of, if it just, it's a public hearing, then people are like, blah, blah. But it's like, if we break, part of this is people don't know that this is how it affects them. And if this breaks down, and so I think part of the public engagement was to educate people about that this is a thing that could affect you. And so even to get people to the public hearing, the education part is part of it. So can we share it in the bulletin board or Amazon bulletin, which is free, I believe? Sure, I mean, I think if you want to, just to say what you plan on doing, we can share that information out. I'm not really clear what you're, if you're doing a hearing or just having a discussion at your June meeting or not. So once you define what you're doing, we can help promote that. We're gonna be having a vote. TSO is gonna be voting. And we had a very clear understanding. We had a motion to vote it today about making a major change, which people would be very happy to hear about. That we had suggested to have the town-only lines up to the property line. And that the town manager had suggested that the town independently could offer an additional insurance that would go from the property line to the house. I'm not sure what decision are we asking the town to come in on. So that's, I'm not sure what additional we need, Anna. Well, I'm a little stuck on how we can call it a hearing because the hearing requires a presentation and so, I mean, we could, like if we call it a hearing, what is being presented because we are going through and messing with all these regs. And so I'm stuck on how to do, and the purposes I understand it, Shalani, from what you were saying was really to engage in conversation with folks, or maybe it's not, maybe it's just to voice opinion, but I think I wanna be aware that we're putting something in that is going to get us what we would like. And then the only other thing is Dorothy, I do think that most people on TSO are on board with that plan, but I wanna be mindful that we have not made a recommendation yet, one way or another. Oh, so another word. Tina has a hand. I thought it was, I thought that our motion included recommended town council. We haven't made a motion is what I'm saying. So like we can't say like TSO wants us to change the ownership up to the property. We haven't decided that. We did. So okay, maybe am I in another meeting? I wrote down that we had a vote and that we unanimously approve the motion. No, for sewer regs, no. For ownership, for town ownership of the line. No. No, that just came up to date, but we did adopt some water rates and stuff in a previous town council meeting. We did not vote on that. That's part of it. Not on this, yeah. Tina has a hand up though. Yeah, Tina, speak please. You don't have to call it a hearing. You could just have special comment period. You could have a regular meeting with a special comment period and ask for residents input about proposed regulations. You could talk about what the committee is considering and then just look for feedback. So you don't have to call it a hearing. I was just pointing out that that's the only kind of, one of those things that are in the rules that the committees do. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah, I would just say like one last thing about what is the purpose of this is just that people don't know that this thing can happen in their house and then they would end up paying this much money. And so what we are now considering and proposing which hopefully many people will agree that this is a much better solution but we still need to get people's feedback that the water rates will go up because we are incurring as Andy pointed out, it's not the town, it's the taxpayers that are going to be paying a higher rate. So we need to give them that information along with the possibility of insurance. So just getting different people, like just from the candid part today we heard so many different perspectives that I had no idea. So I think it's really important to let people know that this is what the impacts will be and that's the presentation. Okay, so our meeting was supposed to end 15 minutes ago and I would like to first apologize for it running over but it sounds like what we would like to do is have a special public comment period at our meeting on the second when Guilford and Amy are here where the public can weigh in and we would like it to be posted on the town bulletin board announced to counselors at our next meeting and was there something else? Could you call it a Q and A? I don't know if we can guarantee the A end of that but we could offer, I mean, I don't know if it's a question and answer as much as it's an opportunity to come speak it to engage right, Paul? So I think that's what you just said Anna, we can certainly do TSO is gonna be talking about water and sewer regulations. It's gonna be at this time on this date, special public comment period will be encouraged. The question I have for the committee is whether you're gonna be looking for a presentation of some sort to sort of kick off the discussion. I think it would be good. I mean, the presentation is the different options that are present and how it impacts people. Like right now this is how it is and this is how it's impacting you. So you're talking just about the only thing you're really talking about is where does the maintenance of the line does it go to, does a town move to the property line or to the homeowners or does it maintain current status? So that's really the thing you wanna talk about. At least from my side, that's the important thing. Bertha, is this my meeting or your meeting? Sorry, I don't know who's supposed to call in. Yeah, no, you're totally right. It's yours right now, it's still you. Okay, I need to go. So all right, so correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that in some of the, we had in the packet there was suggested comments that also pointed out how some of the language and in terms of where property line, I know that could be very specific but that it could be helpful to have a visual or some sort of diagram with that for folks and in terms of some of the language use, technical terms that everyone may not be familiar with. So that could be helpful to include with that. I know those suggestions are spelled out in detail with the packet I blew in handy. Have them out of them. Okay, Lani? Sorry, there were other request comments from the finance committee, which was pertaining to payments. Like, does it have to be quarterly and what if people can't make and they pay it monthly? So I don't know. I'm just discussing like you asked the question, what is the breadth of this discussion? And I'm just thinking maybe one way to do it is just related to the costs, the fees and then the costs of fixing things. I don't know. I don't know. The most comments we've- Is there a separate discussion? Right, that's true. So I think the most comments we were getting from people were asking about the fixing and stuff. So I think I'm happy with just keeping it focused on that, the special comment. Sounds good then. Dorothy? Yeah, I was going to say I don't, we have a lot of stuff that we have to do yet on these regulations. And I don't see them as needing to be part of a extended public process. I think that Shalini is saying that the question of the ownership, what, how far is it private? How far is it town ownership or rate payers ownership and how that relates to the rates and what the town has to do. I think that would be of interest. Okay, so how about this? That sounds good. I think we have a rough sketch of a plan. Paul, do you think that that would be something that Amy and Guilford would want to prep a presentation for or is that something that I should prep a presentation for? No, I think that would be Amy and Guilford. I think you're recommending a major policy change. And so I think that's worth having presented to the council, helping you understand it, helping the public understand it. I think that you should keep on your agenda that night, that might be a relatively short discussion actually, I mean, because I think you seem to already have consensus to keep, have some ample time. So, Amy and Guilford can go through the water regs as they hope to be able to do. So we asked them, they're here at 7 a.m. or 6 45 a.m. and then to be at a council meeting at night, I try to really try to protect them as best we can and utilize their time successfully. Absolutely. Okay, that sounds good. So Dorothy, you and I can connect on that agenda. Yes, Andy. Great. Yeah, just real quick that I wanted to point out during the discussion of the finance committee meeting when Bob Hegner summarized his comments, which were really then reflected a lot in the paragraphs that were included in the finance committee report. Amy in particular and Guilford both said that they really appreciated the comments and that they had, you know, would immediately start giving some thought to how they might propose to modify the proposed regulations to address some of the issues that he raised. Some they had thought about a little bit not dealt with and some they hadn't thought about. So, you know, I think it's worth keeping just in a flow of conversation to make sure that, you know, we're aware of what they're doing and thinking already and not confusing it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I think I've got an action plan. Is everyone clear on what we're doing? Everyone's gonna send me their marked up word. Does everyone know how to do track changes in word? Okay, good. Just confirming. If you don't call me and I'll help you. So, all right. So everyone's gonna send me their marked up water rags and sewer rags by our next TSO meeting. That's your homework. I am done Dorothy. Can we, I hope that there's not much left on this agenda. There isn't. We have to approve the minutes. Were we gonna, oh, we have another public comment time. We have some people have been waiting. So I do think we should do that. And we will do it. We will, given the hour, we will be a strict watching of the time. And Athena, can you put the clock up? No, I'm sorry. I can't. Okay, I'll take it. Great. Thank you so much. Okay, so public comment period is here. Does anyone want to speak of the few attendees who have hung in this long? This is your chance to say what you want to say. I'm not seeing the hands go up, but sometimes people have a hard time getting them for finding out where they are. Okay, going once, going twice, going three times. Okay. So our earlier public comment. The hand did come up. Oh, it's there, it just. Okay, great. I see it. I see it. Great. Okay. And the picture is here too, which other people just don't know how to do that. Okay. Elsie Federman, would you please come in and give your address, please? Elsie Federman, 148 Logtown Road. I had an idea that you could have an insert in the Amherst Bulletin, one pager that people could just check off about the option about the insurance and also if I, Gofford has, when Gofford asked about his opinion, he always said it's up to the community to make the decision. And my, I'm looking at the definition of community being more than council or the fact that I'm, that I got the Zoom and I'm on tonight is to have a questionnaire in the insert of the Amherst Bulletin. A one pager, not a big deal. I mean, I fill these out at the senior center all the time. I fill out questionnaires and surveys, a one pager. We have an option of insurance. We're discussing that right now, the policy is that you pay wherever your connection is. It makes no difference. Now, if we have a choice, then these are your options. Pay right up to your meter, pay to the property line, pay wherever your connection is. You can get insurance and whatever that insurance is, the $5 and 75 cents a month. But I'm concerned that we have ownership of people in the community. I contacted five other communities and they pay most of them pay right up to the meter. None of them even DOT. So I'm very concerned about the outreach and we take our water into it for granted. I'm very grateful for it. It's not a hot issue like the library or the school. And I think we really need, we really need to involve the community. And I think Scott could do a nice story to accompany it and a little thing about please fill out the survey. I would appreciate that. I'd feel that we are involving the community. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So we will discuss this further unless somebody wants to make a comment now, but we don't necessarily have to comment on public comment, as Lynn would say. Okay. We have the approval of the minutes of April 21st, 2022. Anyone have any corrections or additions that they found they wanted to add to the minutes? Okay, then do I have a motion to accept the minutes as written? I have to accept the minutes of 421, 2022. Second. Okay, very good. Thank you. And I'll call the question. Andy? Yes. Dorothy? Yes. Anika? Yes. Anna? Yes. And Shalini? Yes. Okay. So we have approved the minutes. Next agenda preview. We had it very briefly, but I'll just do it up to a minute on that. So the next meeting is pretty much, it's the senior center and services. It is outreach and the presentation by the CPOs and we can then take up this issue that was presented to us in public comment and talk about all the different ways of outreach and what we want to do. Do we, do you think that we would have time to discuss speed limits or the role of TAC or town and gaffers with three other topics that were kind of listed at that time? Interested and I'm going to ask Paul if he has some thoughts on that. Yeah, I think those two topics will cover that meeting. And I think when you want to talk about speed limits, you're going to want Guilford here and possibly you put it on when you're talking about water and sewer rates on that meeting in June. Great, okay. Speed with water and sewer. Okay, any other comments from anybody? Okay, so we have senior services and we have the CPOs and the whole question of outreach. And to remind you that Anna has given us a task that we have to read the sewer and water regulations, make our comments in track changes. And send them only to me at my amherstma.gov email. Right, okay. I don't have any items unanticipated. I have none. Paul, are you going to have any appointments for us for next meeting? Yes, thank you for remembering that Dorothy. Yes, I expect I have some for next meeting. But also I want to inform you that in terms of a DEI director I will have an appointment for that position but that will probably need to go straight to the council because that's remember the department heads have a very narrow 14 day response period in order to do this. And I was trying to get everything lined up for your meeting tonight, but it just didn't, we didn't finish everything that we needed to get finished with this person. So once we're nearing completion on that and as soon as I get that, so you would expect an appointment for the DEI director early next week. And then I'll ask Lynn to put that on the agenda for the May 16th council meeting directly. Thank you for explaining to us. That's helpful. Okay, does anyone have any comment or question that they want to ask or make before we adjourn? I'd like to make a motion. Certainly, I entertain a motion. All right, I moved to adjourn the TSA meeting at nine o'clock p.m. on May 15th. Oh, great, we're very proud. And a second to that one. Okay, and so we're gonna vote now, Shalini. Do we need to vote on that? Okay, yes. We need to vote on it. I asked myself that question every single time. Athena, do we need to vote on a journey of meeting? You can declare the meeting adjourned. Okay. All right, and I feel when I ask you these things, I feel like I'm saying Siri, please tell me where I am. Where am I going? Smarter, smarter. All right. Okay. Have a good night, everyone. Goodnight. Thank you, everybody. Goodnight.